“Who says it will be empty?” Kris said.
“Right,” Father exclaimed as if a light bulb had lit up above his head. “Human food and gear one way, Iteeche raw fish and stuff the other way. Do you think we could arrange for the Emperor to foot the bill for half the shipping?”
“Do you want your diplomatic pouches traveling on an Iteeche ship?” Kris answered a question with a question.
“We’ll have to think about that. Anything else you need, you pass along to your brother, here, and we’ll make this thing fly. Yes, we will. We and the Iteeche are going to talk. If necessary, talk ourselves to death. Much better than blasting ships out of space.”
“I certainly hope so,” Kris said.
Father seemed to lose himself in his own thoughts. He often did that. Kris took it for dismissal, so she and Honovi kind of tiptoed out, careful not to disturb the Great Man of the People.
“How about I bring the kids by Saturday,” Brother suggested. “The broods can run and scream in the back garden to their hearts content and we can think about what an outpost hundreds of light years from the nearest human colony might need.”
“A medical detachment,” Kris said, suddenly. “We’ll need to be ready to handle everything from a hang nail to brain surgery.”
“And maternity,” Honovi pointed out with a grin. “If someone decides to expand your little outpost, let’s make sure it goes easier on them than it was for you out on Alwa.”
“Oh, God, yes.”
And on that happy thought, the two parted ways for the moment.
Chapter 8
Nelly had plotted almost a hundred different paths between human space and Alwa. Every convoy to Alwa took one of those routes in random rotation. The high speed convoy escorted by the Stalwart and her division of battlecruisers must have taken one of the fastest ones there and back. Two weeks after Kris dispatched her plea to Admiral Kitano for help, the Stalwart was back.
No sooner did the four battlecruisers pop into Wardhaven space than Kris found herself looking at a message flimsy.
I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I LET YOU TALK ME INTO LEAVING ALWA. I AM NOT ALONE. KUTTER AND LADUKE AS WELL AS YOUR ABBY AND HER GENERAL STEVE ARE ALSO WITH ME. HOPE YOU CAN FIND JOBS FOR ALL OF THEM.
ADMIRAL KITANO SENDS.
Kris grinned when she finished reading the flimsy. Boy, can I.
She was waiting on High Wardhaven Station when the Stalwart sealed locks and went aboard immediately. A small cluster was waiting for her just beyond the quarterdeck.
If there was anyone looking who was shocked at the sight of two full admirals hugging each other and squeeing with glee, they kept their opinion to themselves. A moment later, it was a four way as a tall, gorgeous, alabaster-skinned blonde and a dusky-skinned, black-haired beauty joined the hugging. laughing and shouting.
“Abby, you came!” Kris squealed.
“I couldn’t let no Longknife and her kids go in harm’s way without me being there to look over their shoulder or cover their backside. I heard how you almost misplaced tiny Ruthie without me to look after her.”
“Jack and I enjoyed killing those two,” Kris answered, not letting a bad memory sour this moment of joy.
The said Jack exchanged handshakes with the two other men and a platinum blonde in a Navy captain’s uniform
“I think you know everyone here,” Admiral Kitano said. “Except I’m not sure you’ve met my wife, Alice Zung. Kris, you said your chief of staff job was vacant?”
“I never filled it. All the good battlecruiser captains wanted a division of ships to call their own, and anyone without battlecruiser experience need not apply.”
“Alice has already commanded a squadron of Admiral Benson’s new construction so she’s ripe for a staff job.”
Alice quirked her lips at that, but quickly smoothed her face back to Navy bland.
Before Kris could ask further, she was interrupted by a small parade of short people in bright red ship suits. Cara, Abby’s niece, led them, and two woman Marines hurried along the last in line, a pair of toddlers, providing them a hand to hold on to.
“And who are these new recruits?” Kris asked.
Confronted by a full admiral’s attention, two of the toddlers bolted for Abby and Amanda. Abby picked hers up and soothed a pout into a smile. The other held on to Amanda’s leg and grinned up at mommy. The other four huddled close to Cara and stared at Kris.
Two of the boys appeared to be identical twins about five. The other two were unmatched girls and might be three or four.
“We were kind of expecting to keep our roots in Alwa dirt, Kris,” Abby said, “and one thing led to another and boy do we have a baby boom going. Bruce and Mike, say hello to your Aunt Krissie. Those two boys showed up before that nice Genetic and Obstetrics clinic you sent us arrived.”
“Somebody was in a hurry,” Kris said, eyeing Abby and the general. Abby had refused the very thought of marriage and kids.
“The nice thing about not getting killed by bug-eyed monsters is that you can change your thinking on some things,” Abby said, not at all abashed.
“This little girl I’m holding is Topaz,” Abby said, beaming, and gently held the toddler’s hand to make it wave. The child ducked her head deeper into her mommy’s shoulder.
KRIS, TOPAZ WAS HER MOTHER’S WORKING NAME, REMEMBER?
YES, I DO, Kris answered. A lot of things must have changed for Abby to use that name.
Amanda took over the child ID. “The dainty young lady standing with Abby’s boys is Lilly, our first one. Peter Pierre is the one clutching my hand to keep himself up.” At that moment, chubby little legs gave out and the boy with the double name plopped down on his rump, but that didn’t stop his snaggletoothed grin up at his mommy.
“Courtney is our daughter,” Admiral Kitano said, lovingly, and the four-year-old girl broke out of the crowd around Cara and raced to one of her mothers, today picking Alice, who was not in such intimidating surroundings.
“Cara, what brings you here?” Kris asked. She figured her for having a pack of boys around her and set on staying where she was.
Cara scowled. “I didn’t have anything better to do.”
a boy broke her heart a week before your message for help arrived. she’s on the rebound. Abby said on Nelly net.
“Well, I’ve got plenty of things for you to do, Cara. An entire Empire to look over. But don’t worry about a date with too many grabby hands. There will be plenty of us humans around the embassy.”
“Whatever,” Cara said, making a face, but nodding agreement.
“Okay, you kids, come give your Aunt Krissie a hug,” Abby said, as only she could, then added. “You have nothing to fear. No doubt, she’s already eaten her quota of bad little boys and girls this week.”
“Auntie Abby is pulling your legs,” Cara said, disgusted at the adults as only a teen could be.
Or was she twenty? Kris thought, and made a note to ask Abby for clarification. She hardly had time to think that before she was surrounded by a mob of small people hugging her legs. Even the toddlers came forward. Bruce and Mike opened a space for them.
A chief led a team of sailors with four flatbed carts loaded down with all the worldly possessions the three families had brought from the other side of the galaxy. Navy traveled light, and, apparently so did their contractors.
The men oversaw the job of moving most of it into storage on the station. Since they’d all be shipping out soon enough, there was no need to take much down to Wardhaven. Kris offered the hospitality of Nuu house to all. For Admiral Kitano until she and her wife could find quarters and for the rest until they headed out to the unknown.
“That will also put us under your thumb,” Kitano noted. “You can grab us day or night if something strikes your fancy.”
“Good lord, am I that transparent?” Kris exclaimed in mock shock.
Kris was glad she’d ordered a limo bus; she had not expected the mob of kids, though she should have. The
long coach was waiting for them at the curb when they exited the orbital elevator station. Its cargo hold was open below the cabin and quickly filled. Peter had to be hauled out of that space twice. It looked like a fun way to travel to him. Amanda ended up holding him tight and taking him aboard the coach first.
While everyone else wrangled baggage and kids, Kris talked to Nelly.
“You better see if one of the other nannies can come in today. If they need child care, tell them to bring theirs along. The more the merrier. Also, call the agency and see if they can get two more out to us at least for this shift, and maybe more. As I see it, we’ve got eight kids. We adults have got to outnumber them at least four to one or they’ll take over the world.”
“Can’t argue with that idea,” Abby said, coming up to stand with Kris. “Also, I hope we can find something for Cara to do besides babysit. She was a good sport on the trip back here, considering that we spent half of it in eggs. Still, I want her to have a life of her own, not following me around like a love-sick puppy.”
“Was it a bad break up?”
“The worst. It was going great guns right up to the time when his folks asked about her folks. She did her best to pass me off, but they knew I was her aunt. What with no known father and her mother a ‘working woman,’ it went downhill fast.”
“How’d they get that idea in their heads?”
Abby snorted. “Some administrative genius shipped a complete database of all planets’ vital statistics and general information. They dug through it and found the section for New Eden.”
“Damn,” Kris said.
“Yeah. You can run all the way across the galaxy and still find some damn bigoted people.”
“Is that why you came back?”
Abby shook her head. “It’s been fun running things. I loved it, but you can only take so much of this ‘I’ll wash your hand if you’ll wash mine’ stuff. We’ve all managed to show up here with enough of that weed to make us fabulously wealthy, but Amber is ready to take up your harness and the rest of us are only too happy to chase off after you and the unknown. Thanks for the call.”
“Five years was about all I could swallow of a desk job,” Kris admitted. “I was wondering if I could get my old jobs back on Alwa when this came up. Fascinating how life twists and turns.”
“Trust me, gal, your old job ain’t what it used to be. Even the Alwans are all busy chasing after the almighty dollar. You wouldn’t recognize the place today.”
The coach was loaded. They boarded and were soon headed for home.
Chapter 9
The quiet of Nuu House was shattered by their arrival, not that it had been all that silent. Two of Harvey and Lottie’s grandkids had come over for a play date with Kris’s kids. Mai had the duty today and had brought her own tyke with her. Soon there were eleven wild pixies chasing each other through the halls, getting underfoot and enjoying themselves immensely.
Mai and Cara did their best to keep up with the kids while their parents took their baggage upstairs. Kris was busy assigning rooms. She wanted all of them right next door to her, but that was impossible. Admiral Kitano got the suite of rooms down the hall from Kris’s. That left Abby and Amanda’s families making do with the single bedrooms and baths on the next floor up. At least kids would be right next to their parents.
Kris could only imagine what tonight would be like.
Reinforcements began to arrive. Gabby Arvind, the senior nanny who had replaced the one Kris lost while resolving the Peterwald civil war, arrived first, with her ten-year-old Sushama in tow. The agency’s two additional young women were not far behind. One of them was a qualified preschool teacher and brought enough computers to get the eight older kids interested in games that had them walking politely around the house looking for clues to something or trying to capture little what’s-its.
“So long as the kids are quiet,” Amanda said, “I don’t care if there are rats the size of elephants in your basement or spiders the size of water buffalos in your attic, let them hunt.”
Kris chose not to argue the sanitation of Nuu House. It was old enough to have a ghost or two, but she hadn’t seen a rat since she was nine and brought one home in a cage. Poor thing, it died after only a month and Kris gave up on pets.
Supper that evening was a fine affair. The kids settled down to something more age appropriate in the kitchen leaving the grownups to a more leisurely meal in the dining room. In addition to the three couples, Kris saw to it that Cara got a seat at the grownup’s table and a bit of respect. Gabby was also invited to sit down; Kris needed to examine her child care options in an alien Imperial capital.
As the salad was passed around, Kris got down to business. “Gabby, are you interested in a job running a day care for an embassy all to hell and gone in Iteeche territory?”
The dusky-skinned woman studied her salad. Like O’Mally before her, she was a twenty year veteran and arms qualified. “We’d heard that you might be a tiny bit bored with your desk job. We’ve kind of been examining our hole cards for if you got itchy feet and most of us have had a go bag packed for a while. Can you find jobs for our husbands or is this going to be an unaccompanied tour?”
Kris glanced around the table at the new arrivals from Alwa. “I’m told I could get booted out of the capital in a couple of months, or it could be a five year tour. I intend it to be accompanied unless someone objects to taking their kids deep into supposedly peaceful territory,” she said, eyeing her new arrivals.
“Hell, Kris, we’ve been living out in the bulls-eye for the alien raiders,” Abby drawled. “I figure me and mine can survive living high on the hog, or big fish, or whatever it is in Iteeche land. We’re in for the duration.”
“So are we,” Amanda said, exchanging a knowing smile with Jacques. “He’s been threatening to drag me and the kids off to the alien home world for a year of digging for artifacts. I was kind of glad to get your offer. Cracking the Iteeche enigma! How could we pass that one up?”
“You really want us to sign up for five years right off the bat?” Gabby asked.
Kris considered that for a moment, then shook her head. “No. How about a one year contract with options to mutually extend it for up to five years, at least to start with? If someone goes native, I guess we could find an ongoing job.”
“And if you get us kicked out after two or three months?” Abby hinted.
“Three months’ severance pay.”
Gabby nodded. “You’ll want the new hands arms qualified just like we are?”
“Yes. It would be nice if the husbands at least knew which end of a gun to point away from anyone they didn’t want suddenly dead.”
Gabby smiled at Kris’s joke. “Okay. That’s pretty much what I told the agency an hour ago. As soon as I’m done eating, I’ll give them a call about the length of contract.”
“Okay, with the kids in good hands, it’s one down and several to go before I can drop business and we can get down to digging the dirt. Our embassy will include at least a thousand Foreign Service types from half a dozen planets and not a few folks from outside the US. I understand one of my four Chiefs of Mission will be from Greenfeld.”
“How are things there?” Abby asked.
“Much better. I’ll tell you about Vicky’s little civil war with her stepmum when we have some time. We haven’t had an assassination attempt on my life that could be traced back to a Peterwald in, oh, forever.”
“Must be nice,” Abby said.
“Yes, now it’s admirals who are standing in line to stick a knife in my back,” Kris grumped.
“Does that bring us to me?” Admiral Kitano asked.
“I might as well. I’m hoping you and Alice will be up to riding in with me to work tomorrow. I can start showing you the ropes, where the land mines are buried, you know, the easy stuff.”
“We’ll be ready,” Amber said.
“Amanda and Jacques, I figured you’ll want to put together a team to help deconstruct the economy
and life-style of the rich and famously sorting too many arms.”
“We were making up a list on the trip here,” Amanda said. “It’s been six years since I talked with any of these people, so circumstances may have changed, but Jacques and I intend to get right on the selection process.”
“Let me warn you about one thing,” Kris said. “There are a lot of sharks circling this embassy. A whole lot of folks like my Grampa Al see money to be made. Obscene amounts of money. I need for your teams to be mine. To be looking under rocks and stuff for my purposes. I don’t want your team leaking stuff out early to just a few or them having some agenda that isn’t mine.”
“You’re blunt,” Jacques said, “but I can understand what you’re getting at. We’ll do our best to avoid anything like that, but we can’t hand out any guarantees. If you say there’s a lot of money on the table, it means there’s a lot of money to pass under the table.”
“I know,” Kris admitted. “I just want you aware of our potential problem. The Iteeche are a tough enough nut to crack without someone skewing the data to their own profit.”
“Understood, Kris,” Amanda said.
“You got any jobs for me and Steve?” Abby asked.
“Beside a thousand FSOs, we’ll have at least a battalion of embassy Marines. The plan is for Jack to be both the military attaché and my security chief. I don’t want him to have to juggle both those jobs alone. He’ll have a staff in his attaché office. A couple of dozen planets and alliances are clamoring to get someone in there. I want someone to coordinate my security under Jack. Handle the battalion, as well as liaise with what passes for the local police, palace guard, whatever. I’ve already got a good man for the police side. I’d like to have someone coordinating it all.”
“I’m your man,” the much-promoted sergeant said.
“Good. Now, Abby.”
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