Kris Longknife

by Mike Shepherd

  It was good to see that he had caught up.

  “So, I can keep you here and not feel guilty.”

  “Yep. We can put the old band back together and start making beautiful music again,” Amber said with a chuckle. “There are still a few rebels that need killing. Although I’m tempted to just kill the next batch and save them that apology thing we just saw.”

  “I know what you mean, but we’re in Iteeche land and we’ve got to let them do things the Iteeche way.”

  Speaking of which, Admiral Coth was making his way to her table, a beer stein in both of his right hands.

  “You know how to throw a bash,” the admiral shouted as he approached. “Is that raw sook at the bar? Do you have cold slices of foo to put them on?”

  “We have laid in the most delicious delicacies for your admirals. They deserve the best we can give them,” Kris shouted back.

  Coth eyed a female Marine in dress blue and reds, maneuvering her way through a milling crowd of Iteeche easily three feet taller than her, a plate of hors d’oeuvres expertly held aloft by one hand. She spotted his eyes on her and turned toward him.

  “Would you care for a few delicacies?” she asked the admiral.

  “Just leave the tray here, youngling. Does your chooser know you’re out of the Palace of Learning?”

  “Admiral,” Kris put in, “those two medals on her pocket show that she qualified as a sharpshooter last time she shot and that she’s also a trained sniper.”

  “You can tell that just by glancing at the youngling?”

  “I told you that there were advantages to wearing these gee-gaws to warn people not to cross you.”

  All four of Coth’s eyes grew wide. Then he turned back to the Marine. “I honor you, warrior. It is true that I have a lot to learn about you two-eyes.”

  “As we have to learn about you four-eyes,” the corporal said with a dimpled smile. She turned and headed back to the bar for another plate.

  “You require your young women warriors to serve drinks to your officers?” Coth asked.

  “Say instead that we invite Marines to volunteer for extra pay. Often times, they get tips, extra money for good service. I will see that all the servers tonight get a large tip for this party,” Kris said.

  Coth shook his head. “I would be doing good to weasel my officers and crew an extra week’s pay for surviving a fight like we just won. To be invited to share drinks with their fellow officers! To be served such rich food! Food reserved for the likes of clan leaders!”

  Again, he shook his head. “You humans have a strange way of doing things.”

  “Yes, we do. But you Iteeche have your own way of doing things. You can learn from us and we, no doubt, will learn from you.”

  “Yes,” Coth agreed. “You gave us your Smart Metal and the shape of your battlecruisers. We gave you the trick we have of getting more power out of the same reactors. Those were good trades,” the Iteeche Admiral said, then went on.

  “Still, it would be nice if you would give us the secret of this new crystal armor you sheath your ships in that makes them shine like a star instead of blowing up like one.”

  “I wish I could, Admiral, but the decision to release it must be made at the highest level of my government. Even then, it would be likely that a lot of different human alliances would want to have some say in the matter.”

  “Yes, and we will not give you the secret of our maskers,” the admiral grumped.

  “We are but servants of our political superiors,” Kris said.

  “But I sure would like to have that armor for what we must do next.”

  “Have you heard what our next assignment will be?” Kris asked.

  “Only rumors, but they are logical rumors.”

  “And?” Kris asked.

  “Have you given much thought to how you storm a jump point defended by an armed space station? One like you are building to defend the jumps into your planets?”

  “Oh, crap,” Amber said.

  Kris just managed to keep her mouth shut. What she would likely have said would have been even more unprincess-like and would certainly have gotten her a lecture from her six-year-old daughter.

  3

  Kris found herself leaving the party early, and very sober. She adjourned to her Flag Plot. It might be in her embassy castle, but she had too much ship duty in her blood to call it a conference room. Soon, much of her team was filling up a table.

  Jacques la Duke, her anthropologist on all things Iteeche, sat next to his gorgeous wife, Amanda Kutter. She was Kris’s economic genius at figuring out what made an economy tick. The two had helped Kris understand both the birds of Alwa and the cats of Susquan. They had yet to get a handle on the Iteeche Empire, but Kris was confident that they would sooner or later.

  Jack and Megan were, of course, there. Kris had called in Abby, her former maid, who now served as liaison between her support staff, assisting both the Navy and diplomatic side. She’d survived quite a few years as Kris’s maid, bodyguard, and occasional assassin. Kris treated her input like gold.

  Ambassador Tsusumu Kawaguchi from Musashi represented the diplomatic side. As a lawyer, he had saved Kris from a politically trumped-up capital charge of initiating a war with the vicious alien raiders. Kris had trusted him with her life when the Lord High Executioner was waiting in the wings, and she still did.

  It was moments like this that Kris missed Captain Penny Paisley. She had known her since Kris was a J.G. and Penny was a full lieutenant. She’d been her intelligence officer when they were just dealing with the local cops and had grown into an expert on birds, cats, and the monsters that would not seek peace.

  Penny had settled down on Alwa and was now giving Grand Admiral Santiago the benefits of her expertise.

  Today, a new captain, Quinn Sung, sat at Kris’s table. With both Jacques and Amanda, she had been studying the Iteeche. Quinn had concentrated on the military side of the Iteeche Empire. Unfortunately, just like the other two, she had little to show from her work.

  At the table across from them, sat Admiral Coth with his deputy and several subordinates, all admirals of various ranks.

  “Can you share with us anything you may have picked up about potential future operations that may be headed our way?” Kris asked.

  “I hate to respond to you, My Admiral, with a question, but could you tell us what you know about the Empire? I need to know what you know so I do not bore you.”

  Coth paused to eye Kris before adding, “I also need to know what you do not know so that I may not tell you what I should not.”

  Kris suppressed a scowl, “I thank you for your honesty. It is clear that though I command the Imperial Iteeche Combined Battle Fleet, I am still a hated human and potential enemy.”

  Coth shrugged with all four of his shoulders, “There are those who are very happy that you are here, My Admiral. There are others who are not so happy. I and my admirals must navigate the troubled waters of our Empire if we are to live to old age.”

  “I understand. Nelly, display the star map that we have of the Iteeche Empire.”

  Suddenly, a hologram appeared above the table. Bright yellow stars hung in space. The capital planet showed red off to one side. Since the Human-Iteeche War, the Empire had added a thousand planets, all on the opposite side from human space.

  “We know that each of these planets is occupied,” Kris said. “We know the size of the population of each planet. We know some of the planets that have human engineers assigned to them to help with the construction of battlecruisers. We don’t know all of them because quite a few of the humans who have returned have no idea of what planet their spaceship building yards orbited. I don’t know if that is inattention on their part or good field craft and asset management by your security services. Is this enough?” Kris asked.

  Admiral Coth eyed the star map before turning to one of his subordinates.

  “Is that an accurate map?” he asked.

  The other Iteeche’s eyes
flew over the map. It was as if he had the planets of the Empire memorized. It quickly appeared that he had.

  “They are only missing two of the most recently settled planets, Honored Superior.”

  “And you say that you know the population of each planet?” Admiral Coth asked Kris.

  “Yes. Should we give you a list?” she asked.

  “Please.”

  On the wall in front of each party, a list appeared. Some three thousand planetary names seemed to float into existence on the bulkhead. Each had a number beside it with a whole lot of commas in it. One moment, the wall was bare. The next moment, Nelly had made the entire census of the Iteeche Empire appear on it.

  The vestigial gills on the admirals, long since replaced by lungs, showed yellow, a color Kris had never catalogued before.

  ANY IDEA WHAT YELLOW MEANS? Kris asked Nelly.

  SURPRISE, I WOULD GUESS. IT’S THE FIRST TIME I’VE SEEN IT AND WITH THE POLITICAL TYPES WEARING HIGH COLLARS NOW, I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO DO A LOT OF RESEARCH.

  THANKS, NELLY.

  In only a few moments, the junior admiral scanned down the twelve rows of planetary names and populations. “The numbers are low,” he said. “They appear to date back to the last general census with no updates. Someone gave them a lot of data on the Imperium. That someone needs to make a formal apology.”

  “This information was part of a mutual exchange of maps and information,” Kris said evenly. “We gave a complete map of human space for a complete map of Iteeche space.”

  “Well, the human map has not been shared with the Navy,” the admiral grumped.

  Coth let his eyes rove the list for a long couple of minutes. “Do you know what you have here?” he asked Kris.

  “A map of planets and jumps. A list of planetary populations,” Kris said. She paused before going on. “A list of just how badly overpopulated your planets are.”

  “I wonder, My Admiral, if you would trust me with an answer to my next question. Will you tell me just how much you understand? How much do you know? Do you grasp the full import of what someone has chosen to share with you?”

  Kris chose to turn silently to her economist.

  Amanda leaned forward and said, “I would have thought that you had a solid handle on how to control the growth of your populations. I thought I understood how you reproduced. Am I wrong?”

  When the Iteeche sat through her question with no response, Amanda went on. “A male is allowed to spread his sperm packets into the mating ponds. A female plucks several sperm packets while she bathes and inserts them into herself. Fertilization takes place and the eggs are expelled. Eggs hatch into tadpoles which grow into fingerlings, and in time, become smelt. That’s when they become amphibious, right?”

  Admiral Coth nodded.

  “My understanding,” Amber went on, “is that they remain amphibious while they attend the first few years of your Palace of Learning. I’m not too sure of the process of how the they become fully land-based and get chosen.”

  “You understand enough,” Admiral Coth said, cutting off his subordinate before he could answer. “What you fail to understand is the drive we have to grow our families, tribes, and clans. The need we have to have more Iteeche in our group rather than your group.”

  “So, it’s not that you can’t control births,” Kris put in, “but that social and political pressure demand you choose spawn and bring them into your association.”

  “Do you have a saying . . .” Coth began and talked long before Nelly translated it as, “God is on the side of the biggest battalion?”

  “If Nelly translated that correctly,” Kris said, “yes, we have understood it the same way. There have been times when governments felt the strongest need to encourage peasants to raise their birthrate. However, when we gained control of public health and cut the death rate, many countries took a step back. When we learned that one fully developed, educated, and healthy citizen was worth more than a dozen or more ignorant and sickly citizens, we changed our policy. Even our infantry became skilled craftsmen of death rather than cannon fodder.”

  Kris paused to hunt for a summation, “There are more ways to compete than raw numbers. Quality can yield a stronger, sharper edge than quantity.”

  Admiral Coth had been leaning forward, listening to Kris. Most of his junior admirals had been leaning back, displaying several levels of dismay. Still, there were a few that seemed eager to accept anything Kris had to say.

  Now Coth leaned back in his chair and said, “Admiral Longknife, we Iteeche do not like change. Many of us are doing the same thing our forefathers did thousands of years ago. Yet, in hardly more than a month, you have succeeded in getting brave warriors to go into battle laying on our backs. Do you know how hard it was for us to accept that change?”

  “Yes, I think that I do,” Kris said.

  “It is only because of your victory that we are willing to swallow all this change you ask of us. Victory alone has shown eager Navy officers that they want to follow in your ways. Victory alone”

  “Yes.”

  “However, getting clan overlords to believe that a hundred of your educated and healthy members could be more powerful than a thousand or ten thousand peasants is something that will be a million times more difficult. A million times more difficult to get anyone to even try. And it will be a thousand years before anyone will agree that you are right, and they are wrong.”

  Now it was Kris’s turn to lean back in her seat. She gave in to her nervous need to wipe her face with her palms and then rub her eyes. “I told one of my officers, ‘We are in Iteeche-land. Now we must do things the Iteeche way.’ I hear you telling me that this is one idea that is too close to the bone for any Iteeche to accept.”

  “That is correct.”

  Kris thought on that for a moment. “Okay, then let us go on. May I ask you a question? What are the most valuable and productive planets in the rebel camp?”

  “I doubt if there are more than fifty among the thousand,” Coth said.

  “Why is that?” Amanda asked.

  “It is that way because over nine hundred of the planets that are following the rebel clan lords can hardly feed themselves. They can barely meet the essential needs of their population. They have almost nothing left to export except what they pay to the Capital in taxes.”

  “And those other handful of planets are where the battlecruisers are spun out?” Kris asked.

  “Yes,” Coth answered.

  “Then they are the planets that we must capture,” Kris said, decisively. “Talk to me about them.”

  4

  Kris Longknife had seen star maps of the Iteeche Empire that showed which planets were in rebellion and which were loyal. It had seemed like a mash-up, with rebels and loyalists all mixed together.

  Now she discovered why that was.

  After some serious whispering among themselves, the junior admiral, whom Kris was starting to take for an intelligence officer, began to rattle off planets. At each name, Nelly would turn one of the planets listed on the bulkhead purple and would also add a star in the star map floating above Kris’s head.

  When 61 had been named and their colors changed, they formed four clusters.

  “Now the industrial planets of the Empire,” Kris said.

  That generated more whispered discussions, but in the end, the intel officer began to rattle off 116 planets which Nelly turned green.

  Suddenly, the battle lines snapped into place. Except for two outliers, all the rebel industrial base was clumped into four clusters well away from the human sphere. Again, with only four scattered planets, all of the most productive loyalist systems were in 9 clusters scattered around the capital, closer to the humans.

  The other planets merely gave one side or the other avenues for attack on those valuable planets.

  “Can the over-populated planets feed a fleet passing through?” Kris asked.

  Coth shook his head. “Not much. Not well. Every gram of food and water
taken off of the planet has to be measured against a gram of manure or urine returned to the system. Why do you think we off-ship manure?”

  “We wondered about that,” Kris said.

  “We learned the hard way to be careful to balance what we take out with what we return. Famine and cannibalism is not a pretty sight.”

  “We’ve had some close calls on those as well,” Kris admitted.

  “So, My Admiral, what can a Longknife do with a map like this?”

  Kris stood up. Her night quarters shrank as the space was added to her flag plot. The holographic map filled the plot from deck to overhead. Kris walked among the stars, examining threat axis and lines of communication where she could marshal her forces and what her avenues of attack might be. She also examined the rebels’ options to attack the loyalists.

  She quickly spotted how the rebels had been able to swoop in on the Imperial Guard System without being noticed.

  Here was a game of chess almost beyond comprehension.

  “I need to know where our battlecruiser production is located, as well as theirs. Oh, and show me how productive each planet is.” Kris asked.

  This time, the Intel officer dragged Admiral Coth out into the passageway. Kris could hear the sound of raising voices, but she told Nelly no when she offered to fill her in.

  Finally, the shame-faced junior admiral stomped in and began rattling off planet names and production numbers. He was half-shouting, but just as he finished one pair, Nelly would make a number pop up next to the planet as well as add it to the list on the wall. Then, she and the admiral would go on to the next.

  “Nelly, make the larger production planets greener or more purple. Lighten up the smaller production. I need to know how big the numbers are at a glance.”

  “Some of these planets are way above the rest. Could I make them bigger on the map? Maybe add a ring or two around the most productive?” Nelly asked.

  “Do it,” and Kris found herself looking at a picture of her problem. Each of the clusters had at least one planet that earned a circle around it. One rebel and two loyal clusters had several of the ringed planets and a few with two rings.