Kris Longknife

by Mike Shepherd

  For the first time, it dawned on Megan that the general, and all the Marines around her, were wearing full play clothes. They even carried their own oxygen supply.

  Megan licked her lips and decided to push her luck. “General, this is Sak, he’s the senior surviving transportation manager in Sunset. He’s rounded up fifty or more Iteeche craftsmen or helpers to get the roads running again. You’ll note, he’s not wearing armor. None of his men are.”

  “Yes, Commander, but none of them have been shot at. A bullet to the back of the neck would have met no armor.”

  “Yes, sir, but if you’ll excuse me, I feel compelled to lead from the front. I’m in front of Iteeche who have nothing on but their shirts. I can’t look like a trembling clam.”

  “Longknife,” he muttered, but he smiled at her as he did. “Alright, carry on, Commander. We will conform to your movements.”

  “Ah, that might be a problem, sir.”

  “Oh?” sounded like she had about one minute to explain.

  “These roads normally roll. These big fellows walk on, stand, and then walk off. I’m not sure the roads can take one of our vehicles with its excessive ground pressure.”

  “Good point. Sal,” the general said to his own computer, “modify the fighting vehicles to equal the ground pressure of an Iteeche vehicle.”

  “We can increase the number of wheels and tires, sir,” a voice said from the general’s neck. Unlike Lily, there were no jewels on his, only a Marine Corps crest. “We’ll still be a bit heavy.”

  “I could use some of the extra metal,” Megan put in. “That bus is mighty thin.”

  “Do it, Sal,” the general ordered.

  Immediately, the general’s ride lengthened and sprouted two more axles. Each of the six axles soon had two tires on each side. As that hunk of heavy metal was changing, so were six others.

  Lily, not to be outdone, began to do the same to both the bus and the cook wagon.

  Even Megan found herself with her mouth hanging open for what happened next.

  The general’s rig spun out a length of line, then whipped it back and forth, as it grew longer, like some fly fisherman. Then the line snaked out to fall across the cook wagon and land on the bus. As soon as the connection was made, the line began to thicken up until it was a solid rope, pulsing with metal moving through it.

  Six other armored vehicles had tossed lines from one to the other until the farthest one was hitched to the general’s ride. Soon, they began to pass metal along, lightening themselves and giving Megan’s rigs lifesaving armor.

  All this was done in about five minutes.

  “Very good, sir. I’m going to be going up the line to where we hope to scavenge some circuit boards.”

  “Circuit boards?”

  “Yes, sir. Very old school. Could you detach a platoon to race up there and put it under guard? I would have if I’d had half a chance, but I’ve kind of been making this up as I go along.”

  “Major, send first platoon up to the last interchange. Have them secure the road, both above and below.”

  “Sak, you want to ride along and tell them what needs to be done?”

  “Thank you, very much, yes.”

  “We need to keep this location secure, sir, as well.”

  At that moment, three of the Iteeche who had led Marines and Captain Sung up to the crime scene walked back into view.

  Sak shouted at two of them to help the humans protect the intersection, they nodded and stood, waiting for further orders. Megan sent the sergeant who had been with her since she landed to coordinate with the two Iteeche and a company commander who now commanded at this location.

  They had hardly started talking when seven rigs began to roll down the road, headed north.

  Now it was time for Megan to get her own team together and moving.

  “General, I’d like at least a platoon to escort my bus north. Could you include anti-air as well as anti-surface capabilities?”

  “I think you definitely deserve some escort,” the general said, and smiled at something behind Megan.

  She turned to see Lily’s latest innovation. She’d sucked a lot of metal from the Marine rigs and she’d put it to good use. Where one blocky bus had previously stood, now four sixteen-wheeled rigs in the spitting image of the Marine armored rigs sat ready to roll.

  “Thanks, Lily. No need to have all my eggs in one basket.”

  “I thought you might prefer this, Megan.”

  The Navy officer boarded the first bus. Fifteen Iteeche, their mouths still wide open, sat staring at her. She glanced around, found a hatch that was for real, and popped her head out of the rig. Behind her, Marines stood in the hatches of her other three rigs, as well as the fifteen that looked ready to roll.

  There was only one problem. They all had large helmets and she wore a yellow hard hat. Lily fixed that, even changed her ship suit from blue to regulation camouflage. It would take a very good eye, and one pretty close up, to spot the difference now.

  Megan lifted her arm. “Let’s roll,” she shouted.

  Two Marine rigs rolled out. She slipped her vehicle right behind them. The rest of her specials were merged into the Marine column. Then, they began to play games. One rig would fall back, another speed up, and soon three rigs would be rolling along side by side. Then they’d shuffle themselves and change their order as they fell back into line.

  The drivers did this the entire time they were rolling up the road at a sedate twenty klicks an hour.

  Then, life got more complicated.

  “This is Roland 1-6. We’ve arrived at the target site. Be advised, it has been booby trapped. Repeat, our bomb sniffers report explosives and we’ve spotted what looks like booby traps among the machinery.”

  Someone really didn’t want the people of Sunset City to eat dinner tomorrow.

  37

  All Megan could do was just shake her head. Someone really enjoyed messing with her day. She was rapidly getting tired of this crap. She might be a Longknife, but she really didn’t believe that she deserved any of this.

  “Have we got a bomb team down here?” she asked on net.

  It took longer than she wanted before an answer came back, and it was from the colonel commanding this rump regiment from back at the airport. “This is Stonewall. We have several technicians capable of doing some bomb work, but we have no one with a bomb suit or the necessary kit to go at this.”

  “Longknife 2, I understand. Please get what assets we have moving to the target location. Longknife 1, could you get the necessary team headed for my location?”

  “They will drop in fifteen minutes. We’re not at the right place in our orbit where we can make a drop.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Do I have permission to observe and survey the situation when I arrive?”

  “Survey and observe only, Lieutenant,” was not in Kris Longknife’s motherly tone of voice.

  “Understood. Don’t blow up what we need to salvage.”

  “What do you know, a Longknife that can learn,” was about what Megan expected from her cousin who sported five stars.

  They rolled up to the interchange. It was well posted, if thinly. Megan ordered three of the buses to slow down well away from the target, but kept hers rolling right up to where Sak stood. There, she dismounted.

  “We can get down there,” the tech told her. “However, if we try to get anywhere close to the actual road machinery, there are all sorts of booby traps.”

  Megan wondered if the Iteeche word for booby trap was anything as simple as the human word.

  IT’S SHORTER, MEGAN, AND IT HAS A HINT OF TRAITOR, Lily answered.

  “Lily, get me some nano scouts down there. Map the place and give me a look at those booby traps.”

  “Aye, aye, Commander,” her computer replied.

  Poor Sak’s eyes grew wide but he stood, steady on his four feet, beside Megan.

  Less than a minute later, a holographic image began to form in front of her. It showe
d her the support corridor under the roads. With the exception of a few of Sak’s workers and Marines in full battle rattle, the corridors had nothing in them except silent machinery painted in bright, primary colors.

  Then the imaging zoomed down on a very particular bit of gear.

  There was a small packet, well hidden behind a large pipe and stuck to a gear box. It was painted the same bright red of the machinery it was slapped on. However, even at a glance, it clearly didn’t belong there.

  Again, the image zoomed down. Now they were in the packet. There were wires, all of the same gray color. Humans always marked their wires with red, green, blue, and yellow colors. Whoever did this didn’t want anyone knowing which wire might do what.

  Megan scowled at the vision before her. “It looks like this is going to be harder than I expected,” she said on net, as she transmitted her take.

  “Crap,” came from somewhere on the net. “No colored wires. We’ll have to trace each one of these damn booby traps one at a time.”

  “Let us know how deep you want to go into the wiring,” Megan said.

  “Don’t get too carried away. Wait until we get there.”

  “Only too glad to wait. Lily, get more nano scouts down there. We need to map this place as finely and as far as we can until we’re sure we have all the explosives.”

  “On it, Megan,” and a lovely kind of rainbow was visibly spawned off their bus and flitted toward the entrance. The lieutenant raised an eyebrow. She could rarely see her nanos in actual flight and never had seen anything this spectacular. Lily must have millions of the tiny things headed for the underground.

  For the next five minutes, the nanos mapped the service corridor below the roads.

  Then suddenly, they didn’t.

  Megan heard the muffled explosions before she felt the ground tremble beneath her feet.

  Something was definitely wrong.

  38

  “Get out of here! Grab an Iteeche and go! Go! Go! Go!” was either a Gunny or a Marine who learned well from one and was close to the head of the line to fill one’s shoes.

  “Masks down! Masks down! Go to oxygen!” came in another commanding voice.

  In a blink, Megan lost half of her hologram. The half she still had showed jets of water shooting up from the deck below the road’s service corridor.

  Even as she watched, she lost more of her coverage. Someone had come up with a way to defeat the human nanos.

  That someone was also killing the Iteeche road techs she’d sent into harm’s way.

  “Get troopers over there to help them out of the stairs,” Megan shouted.

  Behind her, the three other buses with Iteeche techs gunned forward. Near the exit stairs, they screeched to a halt and big Iteeche poured out the doors with an agility Megan would never have expected.

  In a moment, they surrounded the stairwell. One took command and ordered two down but kept the stairs from being blocked.

  Now, Megan could hear the roar of rushing water. It was as if she stood on a rock above a long stretch of white water rapids. She stayed where she stood, letting the Iteeche take care of their own. Hopefully, in the flooding tunnel below, Marines were helping where they could.

  Megan had never been in harm’s way when water was doing its best to slam her against a wall, a pole, or a sharp bit of machinery. On net, she could hear heavy breathing, and an occasional order to get this or that Iteeche up topside. Mostly, the Marines worked silently to save those that their grandfathers had struggled to kill.

  What a change a hundred years could make.

  Now, bedraggled Iteeche began to stumble up the stairs, supported by one of their co-workers. As some came up, more were sent down.

  “This one’s not going to make it,” a Marine growled.

  “Pass him along,” another said.

  “Can we make a breather for these Iteeche?”

  “Lily?” Megan ordered.

  Smart MetalTM began to spin off the closest buses. Quickly they snaked lines into the stairwell, while other chunks formed compressors that began pumping cylinders full of atmosphere. As one was filled, it would snake its way down the line, down the stair and out to wherever it was needed.

  A moment later, “Got one, thanks,” came through. Then another thanks in a woman Marine’s voice. Megan could only hope that they’d gotten that moving fast enough.

  An Iteeche was hauled up the stairs, unconscious. One of the Marine corpsmen began pumping his chest while another held an oxygen mask over his beak and slowly pumped gas in and out of flooded lungs.

  With a cough that spewed water and that delicious meal all over the oxygen mask, the Iteeche rolled over and vomited up more water. It looked like that one would live.

  By then, there were already two other wiped out Iteeche being cared for and another was being lifted from the stairwell.

  “We’ve found three Iteeche gasping for air in a pocket,” a Marine reported on net. “We need some breathers so we can get these big guys out quick. This air won’t last long.”

  More lifesaving cylinders snaked down into the sunken depths. Megan prayed they’d get there in time.

  “It would be nice if we could do something about this rushing water,” came from below on net.

  “Lily.” Megan ordered.

  “On it,” and drones began to spawn off of the armored rigs and wind their way out in all directions, looking for stairwells so they could convert to fish and go looking for where all the water was coming from.

  “Sak, who do we talk to at the waterworks?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Longknife 2 to Longknife 1, could you get the head honcho from down here on the line and get him to cut off the flow of water to this break? We don’t know how bad it is, but all the water flowing by this junction needs to be stopped at the source.”

  “On it,” came in Kris Longknife’s decisive voice. Megan sure didn’t want to be in some boss man Iteeche’s shoes.

  Meanwhile, below, it took a few minutes, but Megan was soon watching as drones with wings formed into drones on treads and worked their way down half-flooded stairs. At a distant place in the tunnel, Smart MetalTM that had been spooled off the buses and formed into a pipe began to slip underground. There, they formed cofferdams that started to restrict the rushing water, then closed down the tunnel entirely.

  “We’re flooded down here, but at least the water isn’t moving as much,” came from below. “We’re ready to move these three Iteeche. Get ready to receive them above.”

  “We’ll be ready,” Megan said, and got three thumbs up from her three medics.

  It took a couple of minutes for the bedraggled and gasping Iteeche to start stumbling up the stairs, but they were breathing and alive.

  Sadly, not everyone who had been below had made it. “We’ve got three dead Iteeche. Is it clear to bring them up?”

  “This is Longknife 2, bring up your dead. Also, I don’t see a need for Marines down there. If you’re clear, come out as well.”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t see anything more we can do. Someone sure made a mess of this place.”

  They’d also cost Megan a lot of nanos.

  “Longknife 2 to Longknife 1. I know you don’t want to give up any armor if you can avoid it, but whatever happened down there, we’re going to need Smart Metal to set it right. At least set it right now and not in six or twelve months. You don’t replace big water pipes in an afternoon.”

  “Longknife 2, Longknife 1 here. I agree. I’ll have Admiral Coth drop a couple of thousand tons of Iteeche Smart Metal on your location. Coth, are you monitoring this?”

  “Yes, My Admiral. If you will have your Nelly send me the designs for that lander you used to drop your embassy castle from orbit, I will see that a much smaller one lands close to your cousin. Then I will dispatch a flotilla to the nearest manufacturing world to appropriate ten thousand tons of that magic metal of yours. We should have known that it would come in handy and we can’t expect you t
o expend metal from your own production.”

  “No. We try to keep different sources of the metal separated,” Kris said. “So far we’ve had no problems, but you can never tell.”

  “Yes. Coth out.”

  “Megan, does this take care of your problem?”

  “Yes, Admiral. I’ll send probes down to find the leaks and we’ll start plugging them as soon as the ‘magic metal’ arrives.”

  “Longknife 1, out.”

  “Longknife 2, out.”

  A minute later, scouts, shaped like tiny fish, were released into the dark waters. The currents were now down to just troublesome, not the twisting rapids of half an hour earlier. The fish sank deep into the tunnel and soon found smaller ladder wells that allowed access to tight spaces below.

  There, they found a conduit filled with pipes and cable runs. The local constabulary arrived, complete with someone officious, as well as a pair of more knowledgeable Iteeche who had risen through the ranks based on merit, not birth.

  “Yes, you are right,” one said as the busybody in fancy clan robes looked on, clearly upset that the human was not talking to him. However, Megan had given him the first chance to answer her questions and he’d proven totally ignorant. Now she talked to an Iteeche in plain brown jerkins and pants.

  “Below the road maintenance and access corridor is a lower access tunnel. It has water and sewage pipes and Information Transfer Assistant Director Kun’s conduits for cable runs for both voice and data.”

  Beside the speaker, another Iteeche in lighter brown togs, now identified as Kun, nodded his head.

  “Are you getting anything downstream from here?” Megan asked.

  Kun answered first. “We have lost all traffic both north from here as well as on this east-west lateral line. A good quarter of Sunset City doesn’t even know what time it is. But my problem is not half that of Assistant Director Jin.”

  So, at least on this planet, everything was networked, even the clocks. Megan shook her head. “And the water supply department?” she asked the other one.