Kris Longknife: Defender

by Mike Shepherd

  That left both Penny and Masao nodding gently. “Yes, it fits together.”

  “So we can just let the business types run off and do what they think can make them a buck this far across the galaxy, or we can make them see that their necks are on the chopping block, too, and they need to get behind a defense program.”

  “When are you going to try to do this?” Penny asked.

  “Nine tonight.”

  “You hungry?”

  “I’m getting there,” Kris admitted to her friend.

  “We’ll, we’ve found this place on B deck that serves really good Thai food. How about we discuss this more over dinner?”

  26

  Prepared as much as she felt she’d ever be, Her Royal Highness, Viceroy of Alwa as well as Commodore of Frigate Squadron 4 and Commander, Alwa Defense Sector made her way toward her office with Jack, Penny, and Masao in tow.

  On the A deck, they’d picked up Amanda and Jacques, both looking so much in love and terrified, as if some horrible beast had showed up at the wedding.

  Or maybe before the wedding.

  Kris got them all to her office a good half hour before the meeting was due to start.

  She walked in to find that Captain Drago had done his miracle. Her lovely wooden desk was there. Her sofas and chairs were there.

  Also there were fifteen entrepreneurs who fully expected to make their fortune here, on the other side of the galaxy from the rest of human capital, arranged around her table.

  One of them was already sitting in her chair. The one closest to the desk and the one with an ever so slightly higher back that helped when you’re six feet tall.

  Kris walked up to him, and said politely, “You’re in my chair.”

  “So glad you could join us,” the short man said. “I’ve been elected spokesman to bring you up to date on our plans for the development and exploitation of this system.”

  “You are in my chair,” Kris repeated. More firmly this time.

  “There’s plenty of chairs.”

  There was exactly one left. It was at the foot of the table.

  Kris had not approached this meeting with any feelings of fondness. Now, she was rapidly moving from disgust to open hostility.

  NELLY, TAKE AWAY HIS CHAIR. NO, TAKE AWAY ALL THE CHAIRS.

  Suddenly fifteen confident men and women found themselves sitting on air. They promptly landed on their rumps.

  “What was that for?” the small man grouched from where he now sat on the floor.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this is my office. I called this meeting, but you showing up thirty minutes early to take over my office is no way to start our business. Nelly, expand the table to accommodate all present. You, move. I will sit at the head of my table with my immediate staff. The rest of you can arrange yourselves as you see fit.”

  Nelly immediately lengthened the table. However, only after several suits pulled themselves up from the floor and moved down, did chairs again appear.

  Kris settled herself in her chair, with Jack at her right and Penny at her left. Masao was beside her. Amanda took the chair next to Jack . . . an interesting test for a new husband . . . but Amanda’s own new husband imposed himself between her and the business types.

  Kris hoped that didn’t mean the young anthropologist feared open violence or the throwing of poop to be a likely outcome to this meeting.

  Kris was none too sure about that.

  Either Captain Drago or Kitano had arranged for two of the screens to be moved to this office. While Kris’s screens on the Wasp ran from deck to overhead on the walls in her Tac Center, these two screen were positioned to form one long landscape.

  It fit Kris’s objective well.

  Kris began the meeting by having Nelly project the alien mother ship as it appeared just through the jump. She did it with an added roar to emphasize the huge rocket motors on the aft end of the ship shooting plasma out into space.

  The business folks jumped and, as one, focused on the screens, even if it meant swiveling in their seats. As the Hellburners began to eat into the ship, Nelly stayed with it while our rockets did their destruction, then switched to the dead, rolling hulk in space.

  A moment later the three alien ships popped out of the jump point, and, again, the Wasp quickly disposed of them.

  “They are out there. They hate our very existence. They want us dead. They failed once. They will try again. Tell me, ladies and gentlemen, what are you doing here in a beleaguered outpost and exactly how do you intend to make money?”

  The little guy who had claimed to be their appointed spokesman didn’t say a word. Neither did the other men.

  Finally, a young woman said, “We figured we could begin trading with the Alwans. Our trade goods for their raw materials.”

  “The Alwans do not want our trade goods,” Amanda said. “They see their needs as minimal above subsistence. There are gold and silver deposits that they have found on the surface. They have used them to make jewelry and trinkets. They consider a shiny glass trinket just as valuable as gold. They also do not want us mining their territory.”

  “We’ll create markets. They have TV. We can advertise,” a man put in.

  “Over half of them don’t believe what they see on TV. Even if you can create a market for your trade goods, how do you intend to have the Alwans pay for them?”

  “Money?”

  Now Jacques stepped in. “The Alwans don’t have any concept of money. They understand that you owe someone when they give you something. They have very good memories and an honor system that we humans can hardly grasp. You help plant food, you get to eat food. And, yes, they have farms. Nothing like ours. No plowing, no single crops row on row. They plant the beans and seed plants and several other things all together. They grow all together in one clump, and anyone who has a right to the food can come along, pull off supper, and eat it.”

  “And if someone doesn’t work but still wants to eat?” the short guy said, finally finding his voice.

  “Children can. The elderly can. The injured or handicapped can. If you are able-bodied and don’t do the honorable thing, sooner much more likely than later, you will be talked to by an elder. You get one talking-to. Only one. The next time, the flock gathers and runs you out of town.”

  Jacques paused to turn to Amanda, and she took over. “Life outside civilization is brutish and short. There are several animals that enjoy Alwans for dinner. Most of the time they stay away from the civilized areas. Occasionally, one of them will go rogue and invade towns. Before we came, the Alwans hunted with short bows. We introduced the more powerful longbow, and they proved very good at pulling it. Now, we’ve introduced some black-powder rifles. Our hunters are highly honored by the Alwans. I think that’s one reason they let us stay.”

  “So, to summarize,” Kris said, “you’ve come a long way to find no market for your goods. If you want to ship anything back to human space, transportation costs will eat your lunch. Worst, there’s a whole lot of aliens that don’t think we have the right to live, much less conduct business, and want to kill us.”

  “Can we go home?” the short man asked.

  “Sorry, the Monarch and the Fearless are the last two ships headed that way for a long time.”

  “I believe the word among my folks,” Jack said, “is root hog or die.”

  “Or to put it a way that Alex Longknife might understand,” Kris said, “there’s only one market for your goods, the fleet, and if you work really hard meeting the needs of that market, you just might live.”

  “None of us were told this,” the small man complained. “Management said this was a great opportunity.”

  “I’m guessing that all of you represent corporations that participated in my Grampa Alex’s scheme to ship all the best that humans had to offer out to where the aliens could capture them, murder the crew
s, then follow them back to human space.”

  “That wasn’t the way it was explained to us,” the young woman said.

  “But all your big men had their fingers in that pie, right?”

  There were nods around the table.

  “I talked with the President of New Eden a while back. He asked me to remind Grampa Al that he should keep his fingers out of the governing process of New Eden. If he didn’t, he’d find that the power to tax is indeed the power to destroy. I’m guessing that after we stopped the fleet of stupidity, a lot of your head folks got taken out to the woodshed by the likes of Ray Longknife, Billy Longknife, and other men of political power. Your men of business were told bad things would happen to them if Alwa didn’t get some industrial capacity. King Ray wanted enough people and machinery here so that if the aliens did indeed stomp Alwa into the ground, they wouldn’t be left wondering where the fleet defending Alwa came from.”

  “We’re sacrificial lambs,” the young woman said.

  “I like to think that we, my squadron and your industry, are sacrificial tigers.”

  “Tigers?” came from a ways down the table.

  “Yes. You remember that limerick about a woman who went for a ride on the back of a tiger, and the tiger returned wearing her smile? As I see it, we can run around in panic, or we can see that the next alien that tries to ride this tiger ends up inside. Call it a Longknife thing.”

  “And if we don’t want to?”

  “Well, along with the various commissions the king dropped in my lap as he was jumping out of here, there was also something I never expected to see. It seems that I am now the Chief Executive Officer of Nuu Enterprises in this system. Who here is from Grampa Al’s shop?”

  Three of the fifteen raised their hand, including the young woman who had done the best job of making sense so far.

  “Hi, folks,” Kris said with the friendliest grin she could manage. “I’m your new boss.”

  “And the rest of us?”

  “We follow the Alwa way,” Kris said simply. “You’re breathing my air, eating my food, drinking my water. To go mining, you’ll be burning my reaction mass. You can work for the privilege, and in maybe thirty years earn your ticket back with some pay, or you can be dropped down on Alwa. Most likely, the colonials won’t take you. They also have strong rules about working if you’re going to eat. And, of course, the Alwans have the same attitude. There’s plenty of food in the jungle. Just remember, there are several things with long fangs that consider you food, too.”

  Kris had never been in a meeting—Navy, government, or private—that got so quiet.

  “What do you want?” the young woman finally asked.

  “A plan from you. We need everything. Airplanes to fly scientists so they can make a planetary survey of just what we have here before aliens strip it down to bedrock. The colonials need weapons so they and aggressive Alwans can put up a fight if the aliens do land an army.”

  Kris paused. “The bastards like to drop rocks and atomics on the central urban populations, but neither the colonials or Alwans have gone in for big cities. That may help.

  “But,” Kris said, leaning on the table, “we need ships. Ships made of conventional metal that you can use to explore and mine and ship resources down to the factories on the moon. We need more factories to make just about everything. And, if possible, I’d like to see some Smart Metal, the newest kind, produced, so we can make our own frigates. And yes, I know that means reactors and huge lasers and all kinds of electronics. Call me a dreamer, but that’s the plan I want from you.”

  Kris paused to look around the table. “You say you want to make a fortune. I don’t know if I can promise you that, but I can assure you that you will have one hell of a paragraph on your résumé if we all survive this.”

  That got a chuckle from around the table.

  “When do you want this plan?” the young woman asked.

  “I’d like a quick cut to look at by tomorrow. A fuller plan the day after that. And there’s no need for your workers to sit idle. Those who can help in the shipyard, should. Those who can help nano mining dirtside can do that. Anyone with an idea about how to boost the production facilities the colonials have can drop down and give them a hand.

  “Oh, and that mess separating frigates and merchant ships out from the Prosperity and the Enterprise? Kick someone in the butt there and get them moving. You need those plants down on the moon and those mining ships out there mining. I need a full plan by next week.”

  “What about the Furious’s reactors?” the young woman asked.

  “The best one goes down to the colonials. The next best two go to the moon. The last one, the one that will need the most work, goes to the colonials. Oh, and anyone who can do anything to refurbish those reactors has a job on that from right now until they’re done.”

  Kris again paused to take the measurements of the people listening to her. Several, like the young woman, were already making notes on their wrist units. Some just looked dumbly at the table. There were three or four, like the small man, who Kris would bet ended up alone in the middle of some forest with nothing but the clothes on their back.

  “You came here as six different corporations with six different plans for making your fortune. Now you know, it’s not your fortune you need to make but your life you need to save. I talk for only one of you, but I’d strongly suggest that we stop looking at me and mine and start looking at us and the bastards. Any questions?”

  No one opened their mouth.

  “There’s a nice Thai food place on B deck. It has a back room that I think you would all fit into. You might want to adjourn there and get started on your plan.”

  Kris quickly found her office a lot more empty.

  “Nelly, shrink the table down to us,” Kris said, then turned to her team. “Well, I could be wrong, but that seems to have gone well.”

  “As far as it went,” Amanda said.

  “Do you know something I don’t know?” Kris asked.

  “Yes, Your Highness. I didn’t bring it up because you were using the work-to-eat thing so well, but we have a problem. A big one.”

  “You have my attention.”

  “Kris, there is no food surplus on Alwa. They’ve got just enough to feed themselves, maybe a bit more. The colonials are in worse shape. They got land, but it’s not that productive. A good quarter of their population is in agriculture. That’s where Jack should be getting his army, but if he does, they’re going to starve.”

  “No food?” Kris said. “Where does that leave us? My fleet and all these new workers? Twenty thousand more mouths to feed!”

  “I don’t know where the food will come from,” Amanda said.

  27

  Kris leaned back in her chair and tried to get her mind around another big mess she was in. “You’re telling me that when the food aboard is gone, we can’t count on getting any food from Alwa, colonial or native?”

  Amanda nodded. “Both the natives and colonials have always lived close to the bone, but the last three years’ crops have been worse than usual. They need a good year. This year the rains again came late and weren’t enough. Have you had anyone trying to sell you food? Swap you a truckload of potatoes for a fancy computer, a TV?”

  “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen a fat colonial,” Jack said. “I should have noticed. Locals are always trying to sell stuff to the fleet, but no one has shown up at the fleet landing.”

  “I didn’t think much of that,” Kris said. “I never got around to asking if there was a farmer’s market to sell us fresh vegetables and fruits, meat. Why didn’t Mother MacCreedy notice?”

  That brought shrugs.

  “What about the ocean? There must be a lot of fish in the sea?”

  “There are,” Amanda said. “But there are also things that make the sharks back on Earth look like min
nows. The first desperate years, the colonials sent out wooden fishing boats, sail rigged. Half the time they got back a load of fish. The other half, splinters and half-eaten seamen washed ashore. They catch fish in rivers, and some from the beach. But I’ve seen pictures of the things that leap out of the water and snatch their catch off their lines. They are big, toothy, and ugly.”

  “But Jack and I went swimming in the water!”

  “Let me guess, Joe’s Seaside Paradise?” Amanda asked sourly. “That was where we were when you called. Joe said we had the very bungalow you had and offered us fishing, boating, and snorkeling. I asked him about the ‘eats everythings,’ and he said they never come there. His resort is on the Sun Coast. Much of the water is quite shallow and warmed by the sun most of the year. It’s too warm for the big stuff. It’s about the only place in colonial territory where you can enjoy the ocean.”

  “And we were too dumb to ask what might nibble our toes,” Jack muttered.

  “Not your fault, Jack. None of us knew yet,” Kris said. “However, maybe I slept through my ecology class, but if we remove the hunters at the top of the food chain, shouldn’t that open up a lot of good eating from lower down for us?”

  “That’s the textbook answer, but how do you take out thirty meters of muscle with lots of teeth?”

  Kris considered that for a moment. “You start with steel ships. Say two hundred feet long. Harpoons with explosive tips. Maybe we have to use wind at first, but we can have a backup electric motor to work our way off a lee shore. We can talk more about that later. What’s this about the colonial farms just being able to sustain the population?”

  “They got the barely arable land. They worked hard to irrigate more, but it’s still poor land, and they lack fertilizer. They’re using night soil and manure from the oxen, but it’s just barely holding its own.”

  “Fish offal is good fertilizer,” Jack said.

  “Catch the big ones, then catch the better-eating ones. What we don’t eat goes into the soil to improve the crops,” Kris said.