“You really want someone to kick your butt?” Kris asked, trying to react in a serious and concerned way.
“Not you, kid. Ruth and Trouble. They’ve been through the mill I survived. You go out and survive your own fun.”
So much for Ray’s humanity, at least for his younger offspring.
“Is this job going to be dangerous?” Jack asked.
“Why? What do you think?” Ray said, focusing on the general.
“I expect that Kris will want it to be an accompanied tour. Will it be safe for us to take your great-great-grandkids?”
Ray leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes and let it massage him for a long minute. When he leaned forward, he was shaking his head.
“I honestly don’t know. We’ve done all we could to figure out what’s going on in the Empire. We’ve sent specialists in to help them with Smart Metal construction and our new warship lasers. They’ve helped us jack up the power plants on our ships.”
The king paused to take a deep breath. “I’ve got some folks screaming to have the Iteeche engineers come down planetside and boost our power plants down here. I’ve got other folks screaming they don’t want the Iteeche walking around our streets . . . and they don’t want three quarters or more of our power plants made superfluous. Imagine what that will do to the price of a megawatt of power, huh? Will we have riots on our hands if we do bring the Iteeche dirtside? Should I let Al get together with the Iteeche on the station and come up with a way to slap their technology into our ground plants?”
“You’ve got a lot of cat fights to referee,” Kris said.
“Yeah.”
“You haven’t answered Jack’s question. Will this be a nice, quiet diplomatic mission or not?”
The king shrugged. “Everything the Iteeche say is that it will be nice and quiet. I think we ought to take them at their word. So yes, take the kids. We’re sending them an ambassador who is a woman, a mother and a damn fine fighter. With your kids, and likely other curtain climbers in the baggage train, they’ll know we’re serious, plan on a long stay and trust them. Jack, you’ll be a military attaché with authority over the security of the embassy. Yes, you will have a Marine detachment. Say a reinforced battalion.”
Ray turned to Kris. “There are way too many unknowns about the Iteeche Empire. I hope, as ambassador you can reduce that by half or better. Okay?”
“I understand,” Kris said. Then she reflected for a moment on the job Jack had just been handed and turned to him. “Make sure you don’t get yourself made persona non grata by snooping where they don’t want you snooping.”
“I’ll do my best to use expendable junior officers,” Jack said, giving Kris one of his lop-sided grins.
The silence among the three stretched. Finally, the king broke it.
“Kris, if this invite to be an emissary to the Iteeche hadn’t come up, I would have had to figure out somewhere else to send you.”
“Why, grampa?”
“How many assassination attempts have you survived lately?”
“Too many,” Jack growled.
“Yeah,” the king said.
“I never get any answer when I ask where the assassins are coming from,” Kris said. “Do you have some sort of an answer?”
“No,” the king answered curtly, then relaxed into his chair. “We’re not even sure that all of them are real attempts at killing you.”
“That rocket yesterday sure looked for real,” Kris said. “The back window was a real bon fire. I should have brought hot dogs to roast,” she said, sarcastically.
“Did it break the window?”
“No. It’s Smart Metal and Nelly reinforced it even before the rocket hit.”
“So, I ask you again, did they really want you dead, or were they just sending you and me a message?
“Message?” Jack echoed. “I thought that was for letters, radios, that kind of stuff.”
“Some messages need a bit more oomph,” the king said. “And I need something stronger than this coffee.” He got up, went back to his wet bar and returned with a large brandy snifter half full of amber liquid and two small ice cubes.
“Kris, when they made me king, it was supposed to be for twenty-five years. I should live so long.”
“How’s your health, sir?” Jack asked.
“Probably as good as yours. But that’s not the problem. The tradeoff was supposed to be that after twenty-five years, the Longknifes would exit politics for, somewhere short of forever, but not very. You understand?”
“Yes, I read the final approved version of the Constitution when I got back from Alwa and Greenfeld. A bit less than twenty years from now, I quit being a princess and I get my life back.”
“Ha,” came out hard. “How’s that part of the Constitution working out?”
“You’re king. I’m a princess,” Kris said.
“How’s my grandson, Prince Billy, Wardhaven’s Prime Minister doing? Or my other great-grand kid, Prince Honovi, Member of Parliament?”
“If you call either one of them prince, you better be able to outrun them.”
“Exactly. Billy Longknife will not give up politics until they pry it from his cold dead fingers.”
“I don’t understand the problem, Grampa. Help me out here.”
“Billy doesn’t want to be a prince, and when it comes next to electing a king, he sure as hell doesn’t want to run for it.”
“Right. Wardhaven is his love.”
“But you’re a princess. Wouldn’t you like to run for queen?”
“No. No! Hell, no!”
“You sure?” the king, her great-grandfather, asked slyly. “When people come around to whisper into your ear. People who tell you that the United Society really needs you. You sure you’ll turn a deaf ear to them?”
Kris leaned back in her chair, dumbfounded. For a long time, she just stared off into space, not seeing anything. Then she felt a glass put in her hand. It was about a quarter full of that amber liquid and had five ice cubes.
She took a pull on her drink. Her throat became a four-alarm fire.
“Chaser,” she pleaded.
Jack shoved her mineral water with a twist of lime in her hand and she downed about half of it in one gulp. A moment later, her husband returned with a tall glass of water, loaded with ice.
She set the water on the table beside her, but kept the glass of scotch in her hand.
Her next sip was quite a bit smaller.
“Do people really think I’d want to be queen after you?”
The King took a long pull on his drink. “I think there are quite a few important people who think that you would do a fine job as their queen. You have the most name recognition of any woman in the US. Everyone knows of and most of them like you, Kris. You have diplomatic chops, just ask the Peterwald Empire. You are a war winning battle commander and hero,” the king waved at Kris to close her open mouth. “I’ve seen you all decked out in your full dress uniform. If all that fruit salad and gewgaws don’t make you a hero, no one is. You’ve run a developing economy for Alwa and built a defense and industrial complex to beat the band. Sorry, Kris, your resume is long and it’s full of achievements. A lot of people who talk to me think you’re the one to follow in my footsteps.”
The king stared hard at Kris. She found herself retreating back into her chair.
“There are also some very important and dangerous people who very much fear that you might win an election for queen. An election they very much want to win for themselves. I can think of several men who really want to sit in my chair. None of them would do the job very well, but that doesn’t faze them from wanting it.”
“If I may point out,” Jack said softly, “the Constitution says quite clearly that no one from the bloodline of a king may succeed a king.”
“Son, people who just wrote a constitution don’t quite have the respect for those words on paper that the folks who didn’t write it may have. Or succeeding generations. The constitution also say
s that members of my bloodline aren’t supposed to hold elected public office. Ha!” was bitter and punctuated by another long sip from his glass.
Kris risked a small one from hers. Her mind was spinning in way too many directions.
“Your old man, Billy Longknife, has been campaigning to get that section taken out from day one. He’s got quite a few votes, almost enough. And he’ll get the few he needs if his people will also vote to completely strip the bloodline section from the Constitution. If your old man gets that, gets to keep his political career, you, my young mother, admiral and budding emissary, will find yourself first in line to be declared my heir apparent. Princess of Wales? Princess of Wardhaven. I don’t know what they’ll call it, but whatever it is, you’re it.”
“So, they throw rockets at me that they know won’t do more than temporarily mar the paint on my limo, huh?” Kris got out slowly.
“Yep.”
“Do you think they’ll get more serious as I get closer to the purple?”
“Nelly, can you keep Kris safe in her armored limo?” the king asked.
“Short of a banned atomic, I think I can. I study the literature on offensive weapons. I know what’s on the market as well as what is available off the market. I also keep my thumb on what is only in concept state. I think my defensive capabilities are several generations of destruction devices ahead of the what we could face. If I can spot an attack, I can kill it,” Nelly said with finality.
“Thank you, Nelly. You keep up the good work, and oh, if Crossie comes around asking you for any ideas about how to kill troublesome people, you tell him I say you are not to help him.”
“I defend Kris, sir. I am not interested in being used to assassinate anyone,” Nelly said, pointedly.
“I like you, Nelly. Stay a good friend to my gal here.”
“I will, sir. Always.”
The king raised his glass to Nelly at Kris’s collar bone, then went on. “Now, back to our problem. I can keep you here, with those who want to be king getting more and more short tempered until they take a serious go at you, and, forgive me Nelly, I prefer not to risk your life, Kris. If the Iteeche hadn’t come up with this job offer, I would have had to come up with one better. Something that would have gotten you out of the shooting gallery known as Wardhaven.”
“Pardon me, Your Majesty,” Jack said, “but I have one concern with this Iteeche job.”
“Only one?”
“Only one in the context of what we just discussed, sir.”
“Well?”
“At present, it is Kris’s battle experience and long line of victories that draw her to the attention of the masses and could be used to get them behind her and elect her queen.”
The king nodded, and took another long sip.
“Won’t sending her off to make deals with the Iteeche Emperor give her another strong set of chops? Isn’t diplomatic experience that gets people jobs another plank in Kris’s election platform?”
“Son, you’re too smart for your own good.”
“This does sounds like someone is broadening my vitae, Grampa. Couldn’t you find a nice, out of the way place for me? Say Alwa?”
The king finished off his drink. “You want to turn down the job?” the old curmudgeon shot back.
Kris took another small taste from her glass, then used a finger to swirl the ice around in it to hurry its melting. “If you really wanted to get me out of sight, out of mind and out of politics, you’d send me back to Alwa Station. The other side of the galaxy with mail packets only every six months. You can’t get more out of it than that.”
“Yeah, and maybe I would have done something like that after some serious attacks, but this Iteeche thing just dropped into our lap. They want you. It would take you off the target range for a good while. What’s not to like?”
Grampa had a good point. The Iteeche were asking for Kris by name. Who would they accept as an envoy if she didn’t go?
“Do you have any idea why they asked for me and only little old me?” she asked, really curious all of a sudden.
Grampa shook his head. “You learned about this whole thing not that much sooner than I did, honey. As for wondering why you, who can figure anything out about the working of their minds? You’ve worked with this Ron fellow twice. Maybe you’re the only human they know by name?”
“They know Ray Longknife by name,” Kris pointed out.
“Who killed a hell of a lot of Iteeche. No,” he said, shaking his head. “But you, you’re my chosen. My kid.” The king shrugged and went to refill his drink. He brought the bottle this time. One-hundred-year-old scotch!
“Crossie tells me that we’ve lost a lot of information resources in the Empire over the last three years or so,” the king said sitting back down. “Those contacts we still have aren’t giving us much of anything.”
“Doesn’t that worry you?” Jack asked.
“Of course, it worries me. Look at that desk. Everything on it worries me. It sure would be nice to know more about the Iteeche. Nice to open trade with them. Their damn power supply jump up system is a pain, but it’s sure nice. I’ve got some tech types that tell me it can be applied at the single car level. It could revolutionize transportation. Do the Iteeche use it for that? Who knows? Kris, we need this. Our two species need to blend our technologies. If one of your damn alien mother ships drops into our sky tomorrow, it will be a hell of a fight. Twenty years from now, we might be able to handle them without a lot of blood and misery if our two people are more like one.”
He took a long pull on his drink, then studied the swirl of the drink in his glass. “Hell, I know I’m preaching at you, kid. I also know this entire thing scares me. I’m scared if you go, and terrified if you don’t. There, I’ve said it. Yes, your grampa is scared to send the best girl of your generation off to stick her head into some Iteeche lion’s mouth. I sure as hell wish they’d asked for someone else, but since they have asked for you, I’ve got a couple of extra reasons for wanting you to go. Now. Will you?
How could Kris turn down her king? Even if he was her grampa. Even if the entire idea had the hackles on the back of her neck standing at attention and saluting the battalions passing in review, flags flying.
It took her a long minute to let all that he’d said run around in her brain, form rank and file, and then start its own parade. In the end, she nodded her head and sighed. “I’ll take the job.”
The king took a very long pull on his drink and settled back into his chair, letting it massage him, possible even relax him, for a long minute.
There seemed to be a million things she ought to have added to it. The last time she’d taken one of his assignments, she’d bartered it for a desk job for five years.
So, how’d that turn out, kiddo?
She’d worry about tomorrow when the damn sun was in her eyes.
“Okay, where do we go from here?” Kris asked.
When the king began to speak again, he was talking to the ceiling. Still, Kris heard him. “When Ron the Iteeche showed up, he had sixteen battlecruisers in his train. I’m sending you with thirty-two.”
“That many? What did you think of a small fleet showing up in your sky? Better yet, how do you think the Iteeche will respond to a large fleet following what’s claiming to be a friendly exchange of folks that are only supposed to talk, talk, talk?”
“You can say that I’d have that kind of an escort if I came to call and I’d expect no less to escort the Emperor should he choose to pay me a visit. I suspect the first thing you’ll negotiate is how many of them stay with you and how many go home when the first trade delegation finishes its business.”
Kris nodded. “I think I understand, Your Majesty. Can I have some say in my staff?”
“Who do you have in mind?”
“I’d like to have Admiral Kitano replace me as Commander of Battlecruiser Force. She is probably the next most combat experienced commander we’ve got. There also was an economist and a sociologist on my staf
f at Alwa. They stayed behind. I wonder if they’ll be willing to pry themselves away from documenting Alwa to try their hand at deconstructing the economy of the Iteeche Empire?”
“They’d have to be crazy not to. A convoy of ships was scheduled to leave for Alwa next week. I’ll jack up the departure date to day after tomorrow. I’ll also see that they get an extra division of battlecruisers with orders to return immediately at best speed if your friends are game for a new job.”
“Thank you, Grampa, I really appreciate this.”
“The job?”
“Hell, no. The staff,” Kris said.
“Yeah. You’ve learned to walk careful of where you step. You’ll need to again.” The king paused before changing the subject. “Will you be running away right in the middle of the budget?”
“No, Grampa. I figure it will take at least six weeks, maybe more, to put together everything I’ll need. I’ll finish what I’m doing. Though, with any luck, I’ll be gone before parliament holds hearings.”
“There’s an upside to almost everything.”
“How long do you think I’ll have this job?”
“I have no idea, kid. If you handle it with your usual aplomb, you’ll be persona non grata before the cows come home.”
“Grampa, I stayed a good two years on Alwa with only one assassination attempt and I’d be there still if you hadn’t ordered me home to pull Emperor Harry’s chestnuts out of the fire.”
The king lowered his gray eyebrows and seemed to strain to think. “You have gotten better. Two years at Alwa. Five years at Battlecruiser Force. Maybe you can stay on your good behavior for five years in the Emperor’s court.”
Five years, Kris mused.
What will the Navy look like in five years?
Hell, what will I look like in five years?
The king stood; the meeting was over. Kris and Jack stood, did a bit of a bow from the waist and turned for the door.
“Oh, about that bow,” the king said casually, “I understand the Iteeche Emperor has everyone grovel before him.”
Kris Longknife - Emissary Page 4