Kris Lpnglnife's Maid goes on Strike_Like on Alwa Station

by Mike Shepherd

  Be that as it may be, the biggest problem of them all still was that, having let the horse out of the barn, how do you get the damn critter to come back in.

  * * *

  Abby had the cabby drop her back at Government House. No surprise, the people who had been there when she left were still there when she got back. She quickly filled them in on the why and wherefore of Rita’s little power play.

  Ada frowned. “Why am I just now hearing about some honchos from Wardhaven trying to take back our fabrication plants?”

  “I’m sorry,” Abby said, speaking for her boss. “They got in and Kris Longknife had them packed off to the Wasp’s brig in just under an hour. I guess no one wanted to admit we’d dodged a bullet.”

  “So how come Granny Rita knew all about it?” Kuno asked.

  Abby shrugged. “I have no idea how she gets her information. Do you?”

  The Colonial winced.

  Ada took over the conversation. “I don’t care why or what, there is no way I want to have Rita sitting on all our eggs.”

  “I agree,” Abby said, but noted that Ada hadn’t said anything about it not being a good idea for any one particular person sitting on all the eggs. Indeed, the four Colonials were exchanging glances like a couple of teenagers who’d just come up with the idea of throwing a multi gender pajama party . . . with no pajamas in sight . . . and couldn’t wait for the adult supervision to go away.

  “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I need to be getting back,” Abby said, standing.

  “The shuttle’s not leaving until morning,” Ada pointed out. “You can stay at my place.”

  “I’d rather bunk down with the shuttle crew so I don’t miss them. Who knows, they might launch a bit early and I might be a bit late, what with you serving me one of those wonderful Colonial breakfasts.”

  “You’re really missing out on a treat,” sure sounded like a bribe being offered.

  Abby shook her head. Lago was told to get her to the shuttle hanger. Fifteen minutes later, Abby was back at the port. She waited until Lago was out of sight before rousting out the duty shuttle crew and ordering the ready longboat for an immediate launch.

  “You know, the folks around here get mighty pissed when we do a launch this late at night.”

  “If you don’t launch when I say so, there’s gonna be some people in orbit that are gonna be mightily pissed. Who do you want mad at you?”

  They launched thirty minutes later.

  * * *

  Abby spent the flight up to Canopus Station thinking. She definitely had a problem.

  Rita had recognized the basic one: how does Alwa keep the humans on the other side of the galaxy from messing in their life? Sure, they were the ones who had paid for all that nice, expensive equipment in the first place, but they’d provided it as part of a prop to cover their own ass. If the aliens conquered and plundered Alwa, they wanted the raiders to think they had beaten the system that had caused them so much grief. That way, the aliens wouldn’t go looking for the real source of the people who had refused to roll over and die.

  Of course, that entire concept was flawed. If the alien raiders had any skill with DNA, one sample of flesh from a bird and one from a human would show the two were from totally different evolutionary lines.

  Still, the blood and sweat of the fight that the people and birds of the Alwa system had put up the last couple of years was certainly fair exchange for the expensive heavy manufacturing fabs the corporations from human space had donated.

  Rita’s solution, nationalizing everything from the other side of the galaxy and reserving all its production for Alwa, was an idea that Abby expected to be acceptable to everyone.

  Except it put Granny Rita in the cat bird seat, controlling everything.

  And even if the Colonials voted her out of the Viceroy’s job, whoever got it could be just as bad. Maybe not immediately, but power corrupts and total power corrupts totally, or whatever the wise man said.

  Abby needed to come up with a way to protect the means of production here from distant finagling, while keeping some local from killing the goose that lays the golden egg.

  She was still thinking about how to square that circle as she walked into Pipra’s office.

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you until morning,” Pipra said.

  Abby filled her in on what she now knew about Granny Rita’s little plot, then added, “If I’m reading our friends in the Colonial Government right, while they don’t want Rita running the show, they ain’t at all bothered by the idea of one of them being our boss.”

  “Damn. Once something like this gets loose, it’s not going to stop and it’s not going to be pretty. It’s been kind of nice having a government and industry that were working together to save our necks. Now, I guess with Kris Longknife having killed a couple of hundred billion aliens, folks feel they got enough breathing space to go back to their usual games of grab power and run with it.”

  “Boss, I got some ideas about a thing or two.”

  “Do I want to hear about them?”

  “I think you’d rather be able to say you had no idea I’d go off and do such a damn fool stunt.”

  “Suddenly, I really don’t want to know what you’re up to.”

  “Yeah, now, if you don’t mind, I got a couple of pots of stew to bring to a boil at just the right time. I’m going to pull in some IOUs so if the next lunar shuttle leaves a bit early, don’t be surprised.”

  “I don’t want to know anything,” Pipra said, and buried her nose in the nearest reader.

  Abby let herself out of the office and headed up for Canopus Station Yards. Within the hour, she was sharing some beers with a dozen or so folks. Good folks, the salt of the earth type folks. If you asked them, most would call themselves worker bees. Others among them got paid to supervise the worker bees.

  None were in management.

  They listened to what Abby had to say, then offered some suggestions of their own. The meeting broke up just short of an hour from its start. Most of them had already called some of their best friends to get together for a beer and had to hurry out.

  An hour later, Abby was sweet talking a lunar shuttle crew into giving her a fast, 2.5 gee ride to the moon. The morning shuttle left before midnight with only one passenger.

  * * *

  Abby spent most of the next morning trotting from meeting to meeting. She made use of the newly completed maglev train to get some face time before noon at the new complex at East crater. Her meeting with her friends at the North complex had to be by phone, but she got that moving.

  She held up at her favorite bar in New Town, shared beers with whoever wanted to talk to her and checked her mail regularly. There were a few disappointments, but nothing she couldn’t live with. She checked in with Pipra to see if there was any action on the Granny Rita or Colonial Government front, but Pipra knew nothing. Happy with a day well spent, even if it wasn’t in her lover’s arms, Abby went to bed early.

  She fell asleep composing her next move.

  The next day was busy. Proposals were floated, shot down, modified, reviewed and polished. Abby was pulling strings that stretched all over Alwa orbit. Because of the time delay, she wasn’t sure that the asteroid miners would make it in, but they could sign up later.

  Nine o’clock that night, Abby did one final scan down her first official transmission in her new capacity. Danged if she didn’t find a typo that had survived all those reviews. She corrected it, and hit send.

  Official machines from Government House to every yard in orbit and every plant on the moon began to spit out a message that caused consternation wherever it was read.

  LET IT BE KNOWN THAT WE, THE AMALGAMATED UNION OF CRAFTS, FABRICATION OPERATORS, SMART METALTM BUILDERS AND ASSOCIATED WORKERS AS WELL AS THE ALWA ASSOCIATION OF FIRST LINE SUPERVISORS DO HEREBY REFUSE TO HAVE OUR WORKPLACE CONFISCATED BY THE ILLEGAL AND UNPRECEDENTED ACTIONS OF THE VICEROY FOR ALWA DOWNSIDE. WE REJECT ANY EFFORTS TO DIVERT OUR WORK FROM THE PRES
ENT DRIVE TO MEET THE NEEDS OF ALL PEOPLE OF THE ALWA SYSTEM AND ASSURE THEIR COMMON DEFENSE. WE DEMAND THAT THE RELATIONSHIPS OF ALL WORKERS, MANAGERS AND GOVERNMENTS OF THE ALWA SYSTEM BE RESTORED TO THEIR PREVIOUS CONDITION OF HARMONY AND PRODUCTIVITY.

  ABSENT AN AGREEMENT WITHIN THE NEXT 48 HOURS TO RETURN TO THAT PREVIOUS STATE OF LABOR TRANQUILITY, WE HAVE UNANIMOUSLY AGREED TO DOWN TOOLS.

  WE ARE PREPARED TO STRIKE TO PRESERVE OUR SACRED RIGHTS EARNED BY THE SWEAT OF OUR OWN BROWS.

  Signed: ABIGAIL NIGHTINGALE, BUSINESS MANAGER,

  THE AMALGAMATED UNION OF CRAFTS, FABRICATION OPERATORS, SMART METALTM BUILDERS AND ASSOCIATED WORKERS AND THE ALWA ASSOCIATION OF FIRST LEVEL SUPERVISORS

  Abby was ready to get a good night sleep. No doubt, tomorrow would be a busy day, but messages started coming in from all over the place before she could lay her weary body down.

  “I knowd I was knocking over a hornet’s nest, but I figured it would take a while to hit the ground,” Abby said to herself as she pulled back on her clothes and called up the lunar to Canopus Station shuttle.

  “We already got orders to haul the ready shuttle out of the hanger and prep it for immediate launch, Abby. There’s talk of jacking it up to 3.5 gees. Don’t they know a lunar shuttle don’t do nothing above two gees.”

  “You tell them that it can’t do more than 1.5 gees, Albert. My old bones are getting tired of all this hurry up and wait.”

  “I’ll tell them that. We union workers got to stick together.”

  Abby hoped she wouldn’t live to rue this day. What did Kris Longknife say way too often? “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Coming Attractions

  In 2016 I amicably ended my twenty-year publishing relationship with Ace, part of Penguin Random House. In 2017, I have begun publishing through my own independent press, KL & MM Books.

  I have high hopes of bringing a lot of fun stories to you in 2017 and then again in 2018 and 2019.

  We have already started the year with Kris Longknife’s Replacement. It was published as an e-book January 5, 2017 at Amazon, (with a bit of a learning experience for me) B&N, D2D, Kobo and the iStore. Audible has an audio book in production. The exact date is to be announced. Later in the summer, I hope to produce a trade paperback for this novel and the next two.

  Kris Longknife’s Replacement tells the story of Grand Admiral Sandy Santiago as she does her best as a mere mortal to fill the shoes left behind on Alwa Station byKris Longknife. Sandy has problems galore: birds, cats, vicious alien raiders. Oh, and she’s got Rita Longknife as well!

  February had a novelette for you. Kris Longknife: Among the Kicking Birds was part of Kris Longknife - Unrelenting. However, it went long and these four chapters were cut to one short paragraph. I hope you enjoy the full story.

  Rita Longknife - Enemy Unknown is the first book of the long awaited Iteeche War series. It was published as a e-book March 1, 2017 from your favorite source. Audible and trade paperback will follow.

  Rita has had enough of Ray Longknife gallivanting around the universe. No sooner is little Al born, then ships start disappearing. Is it pirates or something more sinister? Rita gets herself command of a heavy cruiser, some nannies and heads out see what there is to see.

  April will have another short offering. Kris Longknife’s Bad Day. You just knew when Kris asked for a desk job that she’d have days like you have at the office. Well, here’s one that will bring you up to date on the technical developments in the Royal US Navy, as well as silly bureaucratic goings on. In the first draft of Emissary, these were the opening chapters, but I found a better opening and this got cut. Enjoy!

  Kris Longknife - Emissary begins an entirely new story arc for Kris. It will be out in e-book May 1, 2017 from all your favorite sources.

  Here is the story of what it takes to get Kris out from behind a desk. And for those of you betting in the pool, you’ll get your answer. More I cannot say.

  June will have novelette. It has Abby Nightingale’s view of things around Alwa as Kris Longknife’s Maid Goes on Strike. You knew sooner or later this was going to happen.

  July 1, 2017 will see another book set in Alwa as Kris Longknife’s Relief, Sandy Santiago, continues to battle aliens of various persuasions and not a few humans.

  September 1, 2017, Rita Longknife - Enemy in Sight will resolve the unknowns left by Enemy Unknown as humanity slips backwards into a war it does not want and may not be able to win.

  November 1, 2017, Kris Longknife - Admiral will see Kris up to her ears in warships, enemies and friendlies who may be not as friendly as she’d like, as battlecruisers square off against battlecruisers. A fight where both sides are equal is a bloody fight that often no one wins. In Admiral, that is exactly what Kris faces.

  Each month that a book isn’t published, a short story or something from the cutting room floor, a scene that had to be cut from an overly long book will be published. The price will usually be 99 cents.

  I have secured the services of Scott Grimando who did the wonderful Kris Longknife covers for Ace to provide the new covers for all the books going forward. It truly will be art to enjoy.

  Stay in touch to follow developments by following Mike Moscoe or Kris Longknife on Facebook or checking in at my website www.mikeshepherd.org.

  I hope to soon have a mailing list you can sign up for, but it’s not there yet.