Kris Longknife 13 - Unrelenting

by Mike Shepherd

  “So someone walked away with a rifle,” Kris said. “How’s the search gone?”

  “Not well, Admiral. The boat was anchored off the beach a bit. Whoever was in it swam ashore. Likely, the rifle was deep-sixed while your shooter was crossing the bay. No one was seen around the harbor with a weapon.”

  “So someone, human or Alwan, used the rifle, dumped it, and walked away whistling,” Kris said.

  “Yes.”

  Kris turned to Ada. “Do Roosters swim?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Damn,” Kris said.

  Kris was mulling that brick wall over when the door opened and Dr. Meade led one pale-looking major general into the room.

  “Jack!” Kris cried and was on her feet and rushing for him.

  And came up short. His shoulder was well bandaged. His left arm was tied tight across his chest.

  “I’d hug you, but I don’t know what’s safe,” Kris said.

  Jack offered her his right hand, pinky finger out. Kris wrapped her hand around it.

  “Just a little flesh wound,” she grumbled.

  “Compared to worse wounds,” Jack said weakly in his defense.

  “He’ll mend,” Dr. Meade said. “I’d recommend light duty for a couple of weeks. Knowing you jarheads, I hope my admiral, his wife, can sit on him for at least a couple of days. I would strongly suggest no shuttle flights for three days. You pop that open, and you could bleed out before they docked on Cannopus Station, General.”

  “I hear you,” Jack grumbled.

  “Someone else is grounded with me,” Granny Rita chortled.

  “So, what’s going on here?” Jack said, moving slowly to take the seat next to Kris’s. Her team rearranged themselves; General Hayakawa dismissed himself to work. Kris quickly brought Jack up to speed on the first two of her issues. The third took a bit more time.

  “Have I got this right?” Jack said. “One nutcase takes a shot at you, and you’re ready to rework all your production priorities?”

  “Pretty much,” Kris agreed.

  “Can we have this room for a few minutes?” Jack said.

  Granny Rita was on her feet in a blink. “Let’s let these two talk a bit. Isn’t there a coffee machine somewhere? I could use a cup of bad joe.”

  Following her, the rest filed out of the room.

  “You think I’m doing this wrong?” Kris asked.

  “I’m not sure. Damn, they got painkillers in me, and my head is all full of wool. No, Kris, I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just wondering if you’re right.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “I hope not. But tell me, were you willing, before the shot, to change production?”

  Kris didn’t shoot back a quick response, but instead stood and paced back and forth behind Jack for a long minute. She was still pacing as she spoke.

  “I know I’ve been pushing hard for more ships. Hell, Jack, we lost seven ships and have two that just barely made it back. Those need to be fixed. I was also wondering if the crews of the ships we recovered might be augmented with Roosters and Ostriches. That’s how desperate I am to grow the fleet.”

  Kris came to a sudden halt. “Back on the beach, when I was worried I couldn’t be a good mother, you said I’d done good at every job I’ve done in the Navy.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can get pretty fixated on the problem at hand. I think that’s part of the Longknife thing.”

  “I think so, too,” Jack agreed. “But now you’re wearing three hats.”

  “Four,” Kris shot back, resting a hand on her stomach. “Four,” she repeated softly.

  “Is your fear for baby pushing you more to defense?”

  “I don’t know,” Kris said. “I thought I was already so prodefense that I couldn’t get any more.”

  Kris thought back over the last session she’d had with Pipra on production goals. “I wasn’t any more prodefense than usual,” she whispered half to herself.

  “But you’re rethinking this all because someone took a shot at you. Or because someone got a hit on me?” Jack asked.

  Kris reached out for Jack. He offered his little pinky finger. Kris’s caressed it softly . . . and went back to pacing.

  “I’ve known since we started that these folks are having a tough time swallowing what’s coming at them. Hell, back in human space, my father and King Ray felt they had to sugarcoat the alien space raiders and were doing a whole lot of nothing until Musashi came up with the idea of smaller, cheaper frigates rather than battleship fleets. Maybe I haven’t noticed it enough, but most people really hate wars.”

  “Strange, that, it’s been in all the history books, or didn’t you read them?” Jack said, that grin out to play.

  “Maybe I skipped those sections,” Kris said. Maybe I did.

  “And this morning’s coitus interruptus on the beach has given you a new insight.”

  “The only thing I wanted was you,” Kris growled.

  “Don’t change the subject,” Jack growled right back.

  Kris came back to him and moved her chair so she could sit facing him. “I’ve got a problem that is so much bigger than any I’ve ever seen in my life. Any I ever thought I’d face in my life.”

  Jack nodded along as she spoke.

  “King Ray didn’t think this one through,” she said. “If the aliens take this planet and know anything about DNA, they’ll know we don’t belong here. We have no DNA roots among the plants and animals here.”

  “Yes,” Jack agreed. “Instead of us decoying the aliens into thinking they’d destroyed their problem root and stem, they’ll know we’re just a forward defense.”

  “So, how do I get the most defense out of this place, both for Alwa, and humans and Iteeche?”

  Jack shook his head. “It all depends. If they’re coming now, we need all we can patch together. If we’re in this for the long haul . . .”

  Kris let the pause grow long between them before saying, “Yeah.”

  “You got to pay your money and take your chances.”

  Kris took a deep breath. “And for that I need to talk with Pipra and maybe the shipyard superintendents.”

  “You got to go topside to wish Phil Taussig a good voyage,” Jack pointed out.

  “Or to ask him to delay so a few lucky raffle winners can ride along with him.”

  Jack raised his eyebrows at that.

  “Yes, I’m even rethinking that.”

  “Order, counterorder, disorder,” Jack offered the ancient military maxim.

  “But wrong is wrong, and being bullheaded about being wrong only makes it a whole lot worse.”

  “Talk it over with Pipra, maybe Amanda and Jacques. Get everyone you trust involved.”

  “That’s what I plan to do,” Kris said.

  29

  The shuttle ride up was lonely without Jack. Worse, Kris couldn’t use it to plan. Whatever she was about to do had to be done on the basis of what she learned in the next couple of meetings. So much depended on her getting it right.

  And there was no way she’d know if she’d gotten it right until all hell broke loose. Or the aliens proved a no-show.

  Kris examined whose input she needed now. “Nelly, tell Pipra we’ve got a full-up production review. She can bring along anyone she wants. Get ahold of Admirals Benson and Hiroshi. Throw in Amanda and Jacques.”

  Penny, Masao, and General Hayakawa were in the seats around her.

  “Oh, right. Nelly, I may not be as strong for Alwa Defense Sector as I need to be, me wearing all my hats.”

  “All four of them,” Nelly put in.

  Kris’s grimace had nothing to do with the gig’s boost. “Yes, all four. Tell Admiral Kitano I want her there, and she needs to bring anyone she thinks is strong on fleet mobilization and growth. Does she have anyone involved in integrating the Roosters and Ostriches into ship billets?”

  “Where are you going to hold this, Kris? The Forward Lounge?”

  “I do
n’t think so, Nelly. Our discussion is likely to spoil a lot of peoples’ appetites. No, use my day quarters on the Wasp. Oh, include Captain Drago. He’s been with me since the start. If anyone can call horse pucky on me, he’s the man to do it.”

  “I’ve informed him, and I’m shrinking your and Abby’s quarters down to Condition Zed size so you can have the largest possible room.”

  “Are you getting RSVPs with others attached?”

  “Yes. Several have asked me just what sort of meeting this is, and I’ve given them a brief of what you said to the colonials. There are a lot of extras.”

  “A real zoo?”

  “No, Kris. A lot of folks that know something you might need to know. Kris, there’s one person you haven’t mentioned. Admiral Furzah. She had good input into the most recent battle but also knows how to keep her mouth shut.”

  “You want to add her?”

  “Yes. I also think it would help for her to see how we make critical, maybe life-or-death decisions.”

  “Add her. Sit her next to Jacques. He can answer any cultural questions.”

  “Done, Kris.”

  The admiral’s barge docked directly to Wasp. Kris walked quickly to her day quarters; Nelly had outdone herself. Kris’s space was a no-nonsense, ready-for-business conference room. How she’d stored the desk and comfortable couches and chairs away was anyone’s guess. The room was cleared of distractions . . . the screens now displayed a penthouse view of a city in late afternoon, with sunset not far off.

  “Nice, Nelly. Very nice.”

  “Thank you, Kris. Your attendees are arriving. Guests or victims?”

  “Stakeholders,” Kris said. “Folks who have a very big stake in what is about to happen. Nelly, could you get Ada on the line for this?”

  “I advised her of the meeting. She has several of her staff waiting. I can hook them into the meeting and put them on the far wall’s screen.”

  “Do it.”

  And Kris found herself looking down the table at a table with Ada at its head and most of her key staff, humans and Alwans, even Granny Rita. Thank heavens, Jack was also included.

  “Nelly, rearrange the tables. Include the colonials as equals.”

  It was quickly done. “Thank you, Viceroy,” Ada said.

  “Smart kid, even if she is one of mine,” Granny Rita mumbled.

  “We’ll know how smart I am when we’ve beaten off the next alien raiders,” Kris said.

  People began to arrive. Nelly raised name tags on the table to show those intended for the head table.

  Pipra arrived first and took the side closest to the door. She had Abby at her elbow as she began assigning her people to their seats. “Nelly, I brought a few extra. I don’t know if we’ll need their input, but I’d like to have them hear what I hear. Could you raise some chairs against the wall behind me?”

  Nelly did, and more people found seats.

  The Navy began to file in while Pipra was finishing with her mob. No, concerned parties. Not mob, because the Navy had just as many people following in the wake of Admirals Kitano, Benson, and Hiroshi.

  Nelly created seats against the other wall without being asked.

  Kris took her seat at the center of the top of what was now a U. Penny and Masao were on her right, Amanda and Jacques on her left. General Hayakawa and Captain Drago had the corner next to Masao; Admiral Furzah was at the other end next to Jacques.

  Kris cleared her throat. “As you all likely know, someone took a potshot at me this morning. We’ve known for some time that we had problems incorporating all our effort into a single initiative to save Alwa from the alien raiders. I thought I was doing a decent balancing act between guns and butter. This meeting is to examine those assumptions and see if we need to make some changes.”

  Kris paused. No one at the table or along the walls seemed surprised. No doubt, Nelly had briefed them well.

  “As Captain Drago can attest, this is not the first planet where someone has taken a shot at me.”

  “So very not the first,” the captain muttered under his breath, for all to hear.

  The tension in the room softened as they enjoyed a chuckle.

  Kris waited for the chuckle to run its course. “I have been told that you can’t get milk from a cow if you don’t feed it. I’ve also thought that it would be nice if we had more cows. Lurking in the background, of course, is a rather murderous bunch of aliens who can’t wait to serve the cow up for steaks.”

  Now Kris got her own dry chuckle from the room.

  “So, if no one has more metaphors, shall we discuss our challenges? Ada, would you like to start?”

  “You could have at least warned me I’d be first on the hot seat,” Ada said, taking a deep breath. “We’ve known for a long time that some of the older Roosters don’t like what our Viceroy is doing. We’ve put up with their obstruction, and it’s gotten worse. Was the shooter some Rooster of the old line? Possibly. Are some of the colonials worked to the bone and wishing for a day off? No question about that. Me, I’d love to let off a bit of steam. I’m really looking forward to one hell of a harvest festival with plenty of beer.”

  She paused. “But all the problems aren’t down here. That Commander Sampson managed to talk a crew into hijacking a freighter and making a run for it. I’m told that someone sabotaged your birth control. It seems to be that we’ve got a whole lot of problems. Are they each different and need to be solved differently? I don’t know. What I do know is that I’m glad you’re finally getting all this out in the open.”

  Ada leaned back in her chair, her piece said.

  “Kris, are we looking at reducing our readiness?” Admiral Kitano said, jumping in.

  “We’re examining our posture,” Kris said. “Can we maintain the present level of effort for the long haul? Could we get something better if we did something different? Is this a zero-sum game, or can we get more cows so we don’t have to demand so much from the one we have? No, Amber, I’m not saying we reduce our readiness. We have to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice. My question is this. Can we get more if we take a longer perspective? How much would a long haul cost us in the short haul?”

  “I could be wrong here,” Pipra said, “but don’t you have to quit milking a cow if you want to breed it. And while it’s got a calf, don’t you have to let it at the milk. Course, once the calf is weaned you can go back to milking the cow and then, once the calf is big enough to have a calf of her own, you got two to milk.”

  “Your point is well taken, even if that’s not how it works,” Kris said, “and no, Nelly, I don’t want to know how dairy farming works.”

  “But I could tell you,” Nelly said, with a sparkle in her nonexistent eye.

  “She has a point,” Admiral Benson said. “We could divert production from the fabricators, mills, and foundries on the moon to making more fabs, mills, and the likes. Then we’d have double the production.”

  “Assuming I could find double the workforce,” Pipra pointed out.

  “I’ve found Ostriches and Roosters who can work well in my yards,” Admiral Benson put in.

  “There are Roosters who have been with us for three generations down here,” Ada added. “They’re providing technical support to your scientists. I think a couple have qualified for copilot slots on their aircraft. They want to pitch in more. They’re the third generation working with us, and I find it hard to tell them from humans in many ways.”

  The three Roosters sitting at Ada’s tables ducked their heads. Kris wasn’t sure if that was agreement, embarrassment, or “Hell yes, we’re as good as any human.” Kris suspected it was time to find out.

  “Okay,” Pipra said. “I’ve heard this and that about this meeting, but I still don’t know why we’re here. Admiral, Viceroy, whatever, what do you want from us?”

  “Pipra, you’re a civilian, call me Kris,” Kris said, then took a deep breath. “We can argue philosophy until we’re blue in the face. What matters is what comes out of the
fabricators on the moon. I want to know what that looks like depending on which option I pick. How many guns would we get on a policy that maximizes butter? Do we have enough of a market for all that butter? What does it cost in guns and butter if we get the cow pregnant with a new fabricator? Two, three new fabricators? Do we need new reactors? The Alwans want things. What could we offer to the Sailors and Marines, fab workers and asteroid miners that would make them happier to be here and maybe more productive workers? And yes,” Kris growled, “in the end, I always come back to more production. That’s just the way it is. Okay?”

  Pipra lit up with a huge smile. “Then I think we all want to hear from Abby,” she said, and swept her hand around to the woman at her right elbow.

  30

  Kris found herself grinning as she eyed her former maid. They’d come a long way from the afternoon Kris found Abby standing on the stairs of Nuu House, newly hired by Kris’s mother. And fired by Kris three times in the first hour of their acquaintance.

  That was one of those fond moments that changed Kris’s life.

  Though it had taken a while to become apparent.

  “As some of you know,” Abby began, “I’ve spent too damn much of my life around one of those damn Longknifes.”

  That got a laugh.

  “I knew this moment was coming, knowing what I know of Kris Longknife, and I’ve been putting all my spare time, what this young woman beside me allows, on just this issue of options. I have a spectrum of options ready for your review.”

  The view of the sunset vanished, to be replaced by three sets of charts: red, yellow, and green.

  “Red maximizes defense. Yellow maximizes consumer goods. Green grows our industrial base. I think I got the color scheme easy to remember.”

  That got nods. Abby might have gotten more, but most folks were craning around to get a better view of the charts.

  “Now, before you all go yapping about all the leftovers hanging out of each of the three options, I know none of these three is the best way to go. All have a lot of unused resources hanging fire. The real issue isn’t guns, butter, or growth, but the balance between the three that uses as much as we can produce.”