“You still expanding?” Kris asked.
“I’d imagine so. We’re not the only ones.” Andy’s finger roved over the western and southern boundaries, where fires still burned, as well as several large broom-tree areas that had been left behind bordering cleared land. “It’s fall, and that’s when we burn.”
“How long does a fire usually take, from the time you set it until it burns out?” Kris asked.
Beside her, Jack nodded as his fingers traced over the fire line, then searched the terrain features beyond it. They came to rest on a small lake several klicks north of Fronour holdings.
Andy blinked in thought, then spoke slowly. “The broom trees store a lot of water in their trunks. You light the scrub under it for ten or twenty yards wide, say a mile or two long, then see how hot the fire gets. On a normal dry day, the fire catches and spreads for forty or fifty yards before it dies down. Usually, you can get two, maybe three, strips of that before the rains start and the fire goes cold.”
“How long between lights?” Kris repeated her question in a different way.
“Three, four days,” Andy said, then finally understand what Kris was getting at. “Three or four days ago, things were normal on Pandemonium and people were going about setting fire lines.”
“So if we’d gotten here four or five days ago,” Captain Drago said slowly, “Captain Thorpe would be the one doing the approach under our guns.”
“We still wouldn’t know what he was up to,” Kris said, “and probably be even less prepared for the first broadside.”
“There is that,” Drago said.
“So what are you going to do?” Andy pleaded.
“Find out more about this picture,” Kris said, turning to the man. “If I turn my Marines loose on your planet, it will quickly become a small vestibule to hell. Let’s make sure we’re visiting Hades on the people who deserve it.”
Andy looked at Jack, then back at Kris, his face draining of color as he took in the cold heat of their meaning. “I meant for you,” he said, stumbling, “I mean, I thought you’d help us.”
“We will, Mr. Fronour,” Kris said. “But you must realize, the help we bring is never cheap.”
While the farmer gnawed on just what was coming in answer to his cry of need, Kris decided lunch was over. She folded her napkin and rose. For the questions she had now, the bridge was the place to find the answers.
12
On the bridge, Kris found a happy surprise. While they’d eaten, Sulwan had done another navigational miracle. Pandemonium had a rather large moon. With a bit of adjustment to the Wasp’s course, Sulwan sideslipped her approach to Panda so that the moon stayed between them and the bothersome Captain Thorpe.
“It will cover us right up to our final approach.”
“That’s going to limit my observations,” Chief Beni said.
So a recon bird was knocked together and launched a few hours later. It flew about a hundred kilometers off the Wasp’s port bow, reporting what it saw of the rapidly growing planet.
Thorpe was rude enough to try jamming, but that was only expected. The scout was a lot closer to the Wasp and continued to do its reporting, switching codes at irregular intervals.
Abby provided the codes with only a slight arm twist from Kris. “These are from my private supply,” the maid pointed out.
“No doubt,” Kris said. “And, what with all the codes up your sleeve, you can rotate these to the bottom of the deck and bring them out sometime when they’ll be long forgotten. Give.”
Abby gave, grumbled a bit, and said she needed to attend to Cara’s education. However, Cara was much more interested in staying underfoot, watching the goings-on of the bridge crew and the approaching moon. Neither the maid nor the twelve-year-old managed to slip out of Kris’s peripheral vision.
Soon Kris would have to make some hard decisions.
The planet stayed silent. As the occupied section slipped past evening into solid night, it stayed both radio silent and dark. Not so much as a flickering campfire lit up the bleakness!
Captain Thorpe fell into silence, too, as it became clear that Kris was not about to wear ship from her closing course. He continued steady in his low orbit. Which left Kris to wonder just why he was making no reply to her change in approach. The answer to that might be trailing him by fifty kilometers.
“It appears to be an underpowered merchant ship,” Chief Beni said, looking pained that something might actually be just what it looked to be. “Reactor isn’t good for more than .85 gees. Tanks are too small for more than a couple of jumps.”
Kris’s brother Honovi had asked her opinion when he got the assignment in Parliament of writing new safety regs for Wardhaven’s merchant fleet. The less ship and more cargo that a merchant hull moved, the better the profit margin. Over-powerful engines and excessive reaction mass ate into that bottom line.
Grampa Al had led the business interests that pushed for trimming the standards to allow for ships that had just enough range to make it from one port of call to another. “Stations sell mass. Why ship water from one station to another?”
“How quickly people forgot that not all planets out on the Rim have stations.” Kris had tried to make a joke of it.
Grampa Al had roared back, “Don’t tell a businessman how to run his business. Short-range ships for short runs. Long-range ships for longer runs! We’re smart enough to send what we need to earn a good return.” And he’d won the day.
Now Kris found herself looking at a short-range ship far off the beaten path. It should be Thorpe’s problem. But his problem could become hers in a hurry. Would he load it with transportees from Panda and haul them off to Presley? Or had it brought in a boatload of thugs to Panda to rechristen it Presley and remind them who now owned the sweat of their brows?
But whatever bee was in Thorpe’s bonnet, it was clear Kris would have two separate battles on her hands. One on the ground for her Marines and one in orbit for the Wasp.
Question? Which had the strongest call on a Longknife?
And where did she put several dozen scientists and one twelve-year-old girl? Kris didn’t see any easy answers, so she settled on asking questions. “Sulwan, how should we handle the final approach?”
“Interesting you should ask,” the navigator said, with a happy grin. “I’ve got a really nifty idea.”
Kris had hardly got “let’s see it,” out of her mouth before Sulwan was showing it to Kris on the main screen.
“Assuming your former captain doesn’t mess with his orbit any more than he is now, we head in past the moon about the time he heads behind Panda.” The screen showed just that.
“Now, we could keep braking like good, predictable fools and end up coming in with our tail to him his entire next time around. That’s a temptation it would take a saint to resist shooting at. Your old boss any kind of saint?”
Kris shook her head sourly.
“I kind of thought so. What do you say we go to high-gee stations, slap on 2.24 gees, and put ourselves in orbit around that large and no doubt lovely moon?” The screen showed them doing a swing around the face of the moon toward Panda and heading back on a high elliptical orbit that had the benefit of putting them behind the moon about the time Thorpe came around Panda. He might catch a glimpse, but not much before they disappeared again.
“Now this orbit is hardly one we’ll stay in,” Sulwan said. “I figure we cut it short with more high gees, and about the time he’s headed back behind Panda, we make a dash for Panda ourselves.” The screen showed them coming in high and fast, but out of sight of Thorpe before doing more hard maneuvering in orbit to settle themselves sedately down in the same orbit as the old captain, but 180 degrees away from him. As far as night and day was for the planet.
“Do we have to do it all that fast?” Captain Drago asked.
“No,” his navigator said.
“Yes,” Kris said.
“Okay.” The captain sighed. “I take it that Sulwan thinks we cou
ld do things as slow as I might want to do. You, my princess, no doubt want to go for the fast track that gives poor Captain Thorpe as little time to adjust as possible.”
“And I’d also like to suggest that some of us put our heads down for a nap,” she said, looking straight at Jack. “It’s nighttime where we’re headed on Panda.”
“We, Your Highness,” the Marine said.
“We,” Kris said.
“Oh joy,” Captain Drago breathed. “I shall have my ship all to myself this battle.”
“Oh, I’ll be looking over your shoulder,” Kris insisted. “But from the comfort of dirt under my feet.”
“Who’s going to provide you an intel feed?” Abby asked.
“I’ll take Penny dirtside with me. You stay up here and look after Cara. Make sure you and Penny coordinate.”
“And me?” Chief Beni asked.
“You stay up here. I’ll use the Marines for tech support. You coordinate with Professor mFumbo and his boffins.”
Which lost Kris at least a half hour of the nap she wanted.
“What do you mean, taking me and my scientists into a gunfight?” mFumbo’s deep base roared as he barged into Kris’s stateroom, not bothering to knock.
Kris had laid herself out carefully for her nap so as not to muss her undress khakis. She suspected that a part of her, the one that refused to be startled and raise the hairs on the back of her head at this noisy arrival, was expecting this.
“You didn’t complain all that much about it when we went trolling for pirates,” Kris said, doing a crunch with a twist that got her sitting in her bunk, facing the upset boffin.
“I didn’t expect a pirate to bite. None of us did. Do you know we had a pool going in science country. Only two were betting you’d get us into a fight. A fight. As in one. Now you’re gunning for a second one, and this guy is former Navy, who has lasers hidden aboard his ship.”
“Have your techs identified the guns?” Kris asked.
“No, not yet.”
“I assume you are working with Chief Beni.”
“It’s our necks, too.”
“I’m glad you see it that way,” Kris said, with as small a smile as she could manage.
“But see here, this is totally too much. We’ve hardly gotten any science done.”
“You didn’t object when Captain Drago took on cargo.”
“He promised to upgrade our quarters with some of his ill-gotten take,” mFumbo rumbled, looking for all the world like a three-year-old with his fingers caught in the cookie jar.
Kris again had to swallow a smile. She’d never have thought the imposingly tall, ebony professor could look so embarrassed. She was tempted to let this conversation go on, but she found herself stifling a yawn. She did want a nap.
“Lieutenant, I suggest you and the other technical support staff review the paperwork you filled out before boarding.” mFumbo twisted his face into something not quite ugly but nowhere near submissive. “So I’m ‘Lieutenant’ now, am I?”
“And your team are ensigns and warrant officers,” Kris pointed out, “in Wardhaven’s Naval Reserve, entitled to all the obligations, protections, and fun those papers allow. That includes facing my old captain, who loves to ride ensigns.”
The professor and, by the commission issued by the Parliament of Wardhaven, officer and gentleman, took in a huge breath and followed it with a deep sigh. “Dr. Rimlin warned me those papers were not pro forma, not with a Longknife aboard, but I ignored her. She will have a few words to say to me over dinner tonight, and I will be reduced to hanging my head and allowing that a sociologist just might be wiser than a xenobiologist. How the world has turned.”
“Now, may I take my nap?” Kris asked, carefully laying herself out on her back again.
“Yes, I will withdraw in abject defeat,” Professor mFumbo said, turning out the light and opening the door. “But I wonder how well you will sleep. That little girl certainly did not sign herself into any Navy, now, did she?”
And the door closed, leaving Kris in the dark. She was sleepy, but mFumbo’s last salvo had hit home.
The situation on the planet they were headed for was full of unknowns. And if Captain Thorpe was involved in cooking it up, it would not be an easy one to figure out or make come out any way but how Thorpe wanted it. Kris should be concentrating on how to gnaw that knot.
But that knot was not her only problem.
The list of dead at Kris’s hands was long and never seemed to stop growing. That they’d been the “bad guys” and died so that good might prevail was comfort to Kris.
The list of those who had died in Kris’s various commands was much longer than she liked and also seemed destined to grow. The only comfort Kris could take was that they had all volunteered and died so that others might live in freedom.
But Kris was risking a twelve-year-old. And twelve was too young to volunteer for anything.
13
Kris woke with none of her questions any closer to an answer, splashed some water on her face, and headed for the bridge. They were two hours away from inserting themselves into orbit around the moon, something Kris expected would be a surprise for Thorpe and knock him off his game.
Unfortunately, Kris’s game plan was not developing all that well, either. “Have we found the population?” Kris asked.
“No, Your Highness,” Chief Beni answered. When the chief took to “Your Highness-ing” her, she knew she was in trouble.
“Nothing on the people?”
“Zero, nada, zilch,” Jack said. He was standing next to the chief, hunched over the man’s sensors, along with Professor mFumbo,” who added his own conclusion.
“We’ve totally struck out.”
“Should we launch a better sensor suite?” Kris asked.
“We did, while you were getting your beauty rest,” the chief growled. “Please, trust us, me and the prof’s crew know our way around sensors.”
“Sorry,” Kris said. She could never remember a time when the chief had been this grouchy.
“Everyone is hiding,” Jack said.
“Can you blame them?” mFumbo added.
Kris nodded as she gnawed at the problem. “They know there’s a warship in their sky loaded with sensors. Bad guys on the ground as well. They’re hiding from them. So, of course, they’re not showing off for us. Am I usually this slow?”
For a long moment, no one answered that.
“No, Your Highness,” the chief said, “you’re not usually this slow. Me and the crew are usually able to jack up the gain on things and give you more intel feed than the other guys. Only this time, I can’t do any better than they are.”
“Maybe when we get closer,” Jack offered the chief.
“And maybe not,” Penny said as she joined them on the bridge. Andy Fronour trailed only a step behind her.
“Yes, my very esteemed intelligence chief,” Kris said, “do you come bearing a rare answer?”
“Which I may keep to myself, if all I’m going to get is more maligning.”
“My, my,” mFumbo said through a shining white grin, “aren’t our warriors touchy today?”
“As they should be,” Kris said gently, “since they’re the ones who will do a drop mission from orbit right into one huge question mark. Please, Penny, what have you found out that the rest of us haven’t?”
“What’s the kind of soil down there?” Penny asked, clearly unwilling to give up her advantage yet.
“Alluvial,” Professor mFumbo said. “Our soil scientist did a full workup. Not that it told us much.”
“Oh, it told you something, you just didn’t hear it. I only found it myself while debriefing Andy here.”
“Alluvial soil,” Kris said slowly.
“Is easy to dig in,” Nelly answered from Kris’s neck.
“On hot summer days, we kids used to dig into mounds, riverbanks, whatever gave us a chance, and make our own cool forts. Grampa had his own cool storage house to keep ice in.”
“In my databases,” Nelly cut in, “there is a story about a war back in the bloody twentieth century in a place called Vietnam, where the resistance fighters dug tunnels to hide in. The soil there was alluvial.”
“So Andy’s people have literally gone to earth,” Kris said.
“That’s what I think,” Andy said.
“And the bad guys?” Jack left hanging.
“Got a hot message from my good friend Thorpe to do their own vanishing act as soon as he found out I was leading a bunch of hard cases through his very own jump hole.”
“Oh joy,” Jack grumbled, “a game of blind man’s bluff. I can’t tell you how much I love my modern instrumentation. Going blind into a battle with a bunch of thugs as smart as my Marines does not make my bunny jump.”
Kris let these answers cascade around in her brain for a moment, weighed what they told her, and found that she still didn’t know nearly as much as she wanted to before she took strong men and women into armed battle. But she’d asked for this job. And this was what she wanted to do.
“Chief, look for assault vehicles, trucks, cars. Any kind of transportation. Hunt for their tracks if you can’t find their bodies getting warm in the noonday sun. Panda’s got too much settled area for a strike team to walk very far. They had to bring or steal vehicles. Where you find them, you’ll find the guys holding the guns.”
“Doing it, Your Highness,” the chief said with a grin.
“You can dig a hole and hide on Panda. We’ve got to accept that. So we don’t look for the cat. We look for the tail on the cat that it forgot to pull into the hole. Look, boys and girls, look.”
14
The swing that put them in orbit around Panda’s one moon was done at 2.55 gees deceleration. Sulwan put pedal to the metal only after Captain Thorpe was hull down behind Panda.
Thorpe might have gotten a brief glimpse of the Wasp’s sudden change of course. If he did, it was through the haze of the planet’s atmosphere. It told him Kris was up to something, but only enough to leave him scratching his head wondering.
Kris Longknife: Intrepid Page 10