Kris Longknife's Assassin

by Mike Shepherd

  Somebody guffawed.

  “Who laughed?”

  Nobody said a word.

  “If nobody steps forward by my count of three, all of you will be doing pushups until you puke. One.”

  “I did,” Bean Pole said, stepping forward.

  Vicky was pretty sure she hadn’t so much as snickered at the joke.

  “Drop and give me twenty, ensign.”

  The young woman did, going up and down like a power hammer. In a moment she was on her feet and back in ranks.

  “You’re pretty good, dearie. Who are you and where’d you learn that?”

  “I’m Betlan Makovsky, ma’am. I’m trained as a dietician but my father was a coach at South Anhalt College and taught all us girls to handle ourselves.”

  “Well, Betlan, we may have more use for you than the rest of these blushing beauties. You,” she pointed this time at Vicky. “What are you doing in my Navy?”

  Vicky couldn’t very well say that the planet’s owner and CEO had signed her into his Navy. Vicky could see that ending in all kinds of bad.

  “My brother was killed in the Navy,” Vicky said.

  “How?”

  Vicky found herself struggling for an answer. Officially, Greenfeld had not been in a battle since the end of the Iteeche war. The fight with Kris Longknife Never Happened. She’d heard the Longknife bitch say that there had been something wrong with Hank’s survival pod. For the moment, she chose Kris Longknife’s lie for her own.

  “My brother died in a training accident.”

  “Are you a training accident waiting to happen?”

  “No, Ma’am!” Vicky answered at the top of her lungs.

  “Maybe you aren’t.” The chief said and returned to stand before them all. “Well, we might as well see if you lovely ladies can learn.” She began by teaching them to stand at attention and parade rest, do right face, left face, about face and the likes. None fell flat on their face. In a few moments, they were marching off to chow.

  “You officers will be eating in the officer’s wardroom. I will be eating in the chief’s mess, which in our training command is just a different bay in the same mess hall. Any questions?”

  By now the girls had learned to keep their mouths’ shut.

  One step into the mess hall, and they’d wished they’d asked a pack of questions. Most of the building was filled with a noisy eating mob of young men. Off to the right, however, were several old, grizzled seniors. That was the direction the chief went.

  Off to the left was a table with a linen table cloth, china plates and flatware. Men and women in blue uniforms with one or two circles around their sleeves sat there, eating their dinner.

  The five of them passed glances among themselves, then Vicky risked the ire of these gods. “Can we eat here?”

  “You better,” said a one young woman at the head of the table who wore two stripes. Vicky was having problem with the two stripe thing. Some of the second stripes were thin. Others were the same thickness as Vicky’s lone one. The woman had two of the wide stripes.

  “Since you are boot ensigns, you will, not doubt, take the foot of the table.”

  One young man got up from there and moved his plate and glass higher up. “So glad to have you,” he whispered as he passed Vicky.

  “Seat yourself,” the two striper said. “We’ll pass what’s leftover down to you. Better you show up on time for breakfast tomorrow.”

  Vicky realized she was hungry. It had been a long time since breakfast. No doubt the other girls were hungry too. Still, they did their best to split up what was left in the bottom of the bowl of Swedish Meatballs, egg noodles, corn and bread.

  Fortunately, before they had to leave the table with their stomach’s still rumbling, more food arrived and they got to eat their fill. Bean Pole Betlan, she shared that name out herself, really could put it away.

  Chief Polidarus was soon standing in the passageway, respectful in the presence of the officers, but clearly expecting the boot ensigns to hop when she said hop.

  Vicky and the rest hopped, exited the mess hall at a fast walk and formed up before the chief demanded it of them. The march to their quarters was a short one. The chief actually dismissed them but that was only to a woman with one chevron on her uniform.

  “This is my building,” she said. “You make a mess of it and I don’t care what you may think of your fine new uniforms, I’ll have you down on your knees cleaning my floors with toothbrushes. You hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” came through loud and clear.

  They drew bedding and found themselves in a huge bay with thirty bunk beds, and only the five of them.

  “You think we should sleep closer to the woman in charge?” Blush said.

  “I say we sleep closest to the bathroom, and if my nose hasn’t lost its power of smell, it’s back there.”

  They finally settled on five lower bunks in the middle of the bay.

  “Does anybody else besides me wonder why we got called in this morning?” Betlan asked. “I was scheduled for a training class in August, but suddenly there’s a car outside waiting to get me in here. Any of the rest of you have something of the same?

  Three other girls nodded.

  Vicky soon found the other four looking at her.

  “What’s your story?” Betlan asked.

  “I’m Vicky Peterwald,” Vicky said.

  “I dated a Peterwald once,” one of the girls said.

  “Was he nice?” Vicky asked.

  “He was an asshole.”

  Vicky winced. “Probably related to me.”

  Betlan eyed Vicky. “There’s a lot of Peterwalds in this town. Some that say they are. Some that actually are. I can think of only a few that would ruin my summer by getting me hauled in by the Navy to keep her company in training.”

  Vicky sighed and then kind of shrugged. “I guess I’m that one.”

  One of the other girls put it into words. “Are you Henry Peterwald, XII’s daughter?”

  Vicky didn’t say a word, just nodded.

  The bunk room got silent for a long while before Betlan said, “Did your brother really die in the Navy?”

  “Yes,” Vicky spat. “He and his cruiser squadron got in a fight with Kris Longknife. When the shooting stopped, my brother was dead.”

  “Kris Longknife is still alive, last time I heard,” Betlan said.

  Vicky made a face. “Not for my lack of trying.”

  Several pairs of eyebrows went up, but no one actually asked Vicky if she’d tried to kill Kris Longkife.

  “Well, folks,” Betlan said, “tomorrow, no doubt, will be another long day. I suggest we turn out the lights and get some sleep.”

  They quickly got out of their new officer finery, ill sizing and all. They made their beds, although Vicky needed some help in that area. Fortunately, she wasn’t the only one.

  “My college had one maid to a dorm room. I never had to make up my bed,” Blush admitted, going pink again.

  Beds made, Vicky offered to hike down to the light switch at the end of the bay. As she got back to her bunk in the dark, Betlan leaned over. “You really are Harry Peterwald’s daughter.”

  “And he really did ship me off to the Navy. There’s no signature of mine on my commissioning paperwork.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  Chapter 15

  The next morning started early and didn’t slowdown. Her computer said it was 4:30 when the lights went on. “Okay, we got some running to do, and since you didn’t get your proper PT clothes issued yesterday, you get to do two miles in your blues.”

  Vicky couldn’t remember running anywhere, but fifteen minutes later, with her bunk made with Betlan’s help, she was out front. Vicky’s height put her up front when they formed up, with Betlan beside her. Per chief’s orders, who was in shorts and a t-shirt emblazoned with, Yes, I am a Navy God on the front and her chief rank insignia on the back, they jogged off from their barracks and onto the g
ravel shoulder beside the road.

  It did not go well. Blush fell out first and after some verbal abuse, was allowed to limp back to the barracks. About that time Vicky checked with her computer and was softly told that they were jogging in a circle around their new home.

  That was confirmed when they trotted by the barracks to see Blush sitting forlornly on the steps.

  The second circuit saw one of the other girls drop out. She got the same ragging by the chief, and was allowed to walk back. The third girl dropped out shortly into the third circuit.

  Vicky was huffing. Her feet hurt, but there was no way she’d let the chief talk to her the way she’d talked to those others.

  I’m a Peterwald. Damn it, I can do this.

  But the truth was, there was no way she could keep up with Betlan. Vicky was gasping for breath, and the coach’s daughter was hardly breathing hard. By the grace of God, or the chief . . . Vicky was starting to have a hard time telling them apart . . . they turned into the barracks.

  While Vicky stood with her hands on her knees, desperately trying not to collapse, the chief asked if any of the fine ladies had blisters from their new shoes. She had all of them sit down on the steps and actually looked at their feet.

  “Your shoes are too tight,” she told Blush. “That’s a blister forming. Have the barrack’s captain put a plaster on it.” The next girl got a different treatment. “You’re shoes are too loose. You got blisters forming, too. See the barrack’s captain. What’s the sizing on your shoes?”

  When the two pairs of shoes showed not to be a match for the other’s feet, the chief scowled and allowed that they’d have to revisit the shoe store. “It’s next to the barber shop so it will save you waiting in line.”

  They were allowed only a few minutes to shower before they were back in ranks, marching to chow. Again, they sat at the foot of the officer’s table and ate the bacon and eggs fast, lest they not finish before the chief. The bacon was burned and the eggs were runny. It was like no breakfast Vicky had ever eaten, but she wolfed it down.

  The run had left her famished.

  They moved out when the chief called them, chewing their last bite as they ran.

  As promised, a haircut was next on the list of Navy things to do. The young men ahead of them were in shorts, t-shirts and running shoes for their hair cut, or maybe shearing might be the better phrase. They went in looking as clean cut as Greenfeld expected their boys to look.

  They came out with bald scalps, not a few of them in shock as they ran hands through what had been hair a few minutes ago.

  “They wouldn’t dare do that to us?” Blush asked, then added nervously, “Would they?”

  “Check out the chief’s hair,” Betlan suggested.

  The chief’s hair was well off the shoulders but below the ear.

  Vicky steeled herself for what was coming. She was not surprised. Each girl was pointed at a chair immediately after the last boy had vacated it. The barbers changed from their sheering clippers to scissors. Snip, snip, snip and Vicky’s long tresses were on the floor.

  “You want me to take care of those roots, princess?” her barber asked.

  “If you could.” Vicky made the mistake of saying.

  “Nobody’s going to look at your hair, princess,” the barber said with a chuckle and tapped Vicky on the back to vacate his chair. The next group of boys were already standing in line.

  It was uniform issue after that. They started with underwear. All white. All so big and lacking in style that Vicky wouldn’t have been seen dead in it.

  But it was the Navy Way, as she was coming to understand.

  The undress uniforms were khaki and white . . . and didn’t fit any better than the blues. Apparently, neither 38 busts nor 36 hips were supposed to have a 28 waist between them. At least she was issued belts along with suggestions to just suck it in.

  Oh, and “embrace the suck.”

  “Suck,” was just the mildest of the words she was learning. Yes, she knew the common vocabulary. It popped out of a guard’s mouth on occasion, and all of Vicky’s girlfriends had joined in the game of discovering this unknown verbal world that adults kept them in the dark about as much as the sex thing.

  But here the words were sprinkled in every sentence. Blush stayed beet red as they went down the uniform issue line and got everything they needed described in the most distasteful manner.

  Did Daddy really want me introduced to this?

  Numbed by the language, Vicky finally decided that Daddy had never really been outside the palace and certainly had no idea how the common Sailor or Soldier talked.

  I’ll have to give Daddy a lesson next time I see him.

  They got PT uniforms this time, so they went for another run before lunch. Again, the chief had them circling the barracks. Blush tried for all her worth not to be the first to fall out, but on the third circuit she did. The other two girls fell out together half way through the fourth. Vicky made it to five. Betlan and the chief did another two and raced the last lap.

  Betlan won.

  “I must be getting old,” the chief allowed. “Get showers. The uniform for the rest of the day is khaki.”

  The barrack’s captain was standing by to take their blues as they dressed in khaki. “I’ll send them out to be dry cleaned. Put your name on the dry cleaning bill.”

  Vicky was glad to see that she wouldn’t have to wear that uniform until the sweat stains and hair clippings had been removed.

  Maybe the Navy could make sense.

  Lunch was another meal eaten in haste. She’d never tasted a goulash so lacking in spices, but there was plenty of it. Vicky was wolfing down the last few spoonful in her bowl as the chief came to hover in the passageway just outside officers’ country.

  Suddenly, the entire atmosphere of the wardroom room changed.

  A man walked in and stood beside the chief.

  The chief stiffened into what Vicky was learning was attention.

  The two striper commanding the officer’s dining room, shot to his feet. The other officers were hardly a heartbeat behind him.

  The officer trainees were late putting down their spoons, but with stolen glances at each other, they did their best to stand at attention, too.

  One of the other girls knocked over her chair and blushed as red as Blush.

  “As you were. As you were,” the man said.

  It took Vicky two tries to count the gold braid on his sleeve. It came up four both times. Twice as many as the man lording it over the table. More than the stripes on the man who had brought her here. Even the chief was treating him as god.

  Did gods have gods?

  The chief had stayed at attention. Now he addressed her. “Chief, I believe you have one of my junior officers in your training unit.”

  “Sir?”

  “Victoria Peterwald?”

  “Peterwald, front and center,” the chief ordered.

  Vicky knew enough that she was supposed to march up there, squaring her corners as she did. She managed to not stumble over her feet and at least one corner was close to square.

  “Sir?” she reported.

  “I guess that will do,” the man said, almost kindly. “I am Captain Krätz of the cruiser Surprise. You have been assigned to my ship. Please get your gear and report to Commander Murkoff’s office where I will be waiting. Do not keep me waiting.”

  “Yes, sir,” Vicky almost stammered.

  “Have a good day,” the captain said to the officers. None had sat and resumed eating. With a smile, more for himself than those around him, the captain left.

  “You’ve been assigned to a ship already?” Betlan asked Vicky.

  “I guess.”

  “Get your asses moving,” the chief said. “We don’t keep captains waiting. Certainly not your first skipper!”

  The chief double-timed them back to the barracks. Once there, Vicky looked at her uniforms which the chief had just instructed them in stowing in their lockers, then at the sea
bag that she’d only just been issued.

  “Oh hell, you don’t have any idea how to pack that, do you?”

  “No, Chief.”

  “Then let momma chief give all you girls a lesson on how you get all that nice gear the Navy has given you, and you officers will be paying for, into that itty bitty bag.”

  In ten minutes, the chief did have all Vicky’s gear stored. Then Vicky tried to pick it up and ended with the bag almost putting her on the ground. Or deck, as the chief insisted on calling that down there.

  “Betlan,” Vicky begged.

  “You can hardly ask the captain to help you lift that,” the chief said. “Some guys can swing it up on their shoulder, but I think you better just put that strap over your shoulder and lug it any way you can. Now, it’s been nice knowing you, ensign. God help me if our paths ever cross again. You got a Navy reader?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Yeah, that was on the afternoon’s issue. Heidi, get your reader out here,” and the captain of the barracks came running.

  “Among all that guy porn, you got the regular Navy reading list.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Give it to the ensign here. She’s sailing today.”

  “Chief, it’s got all my stuff on it.”

  “You can find it again. Give.”

  Heidi gave, and the chief passed it along to Vicky. “You might want to wipe the naked boys before some less forgiving type checks your reader out, but there’s stuff here that will help you. For God’s sake, read the section on how to wear the uniform and recognize ranks. Maybe someone on the Surprise can show you how to march. Heaven knows I haven’t. Good luck, dearie. I hear the Surprise is a good ship and assigned to pirate duty. That’s real Navy, baby cakes.”

  The chief stepped back and allowed the girls a moment to give Vicky goodbye hugs. Blush and Betlan did. “I hope to see you again,” Betlan said.

  “Me too,” Vicky agreed.

  With that the chief was walking a very overburdened Vicky down a street lined with identical barracks to the one four story building at the end of the street. The sign outside announced Intake, Processing and Training Command. Now Vicky had a much better idea of what it meant.