Kris Longknife: Mutineer

by Mike Shepherd

  “God, there were a lot of them,” Kris said, eyes seeing the mud, the rain, the bodies. “How many did we kill?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Nelly, how many did we kill?”

  “I do not know, Kris. I have not analyzed the final Sky Eye take for bodies. Should I?”

  Kris took in a deep breath, stared at a paint blemish above Tommy’s head where the cleaning crew had scrubbed away paint as well as mildew. She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, does it, Tom? They’ll still be dead and I’ll still be alive and I’ll never know if they did something that deserved dead or were just poor dumb slobs who were hungry.”

  A sigh rattled out of Tommy that would make any Irish mother proud. “No, we’ll never know.”

  “I always end up alive. Someone else always ends up dead.”

  “Like Eddy,” Tom didn’t flinch as he used the banned word.

  “Like Eddy,” Kris whispered.

  “So you’re alive and wondering if you should get drunk, and they’re dead and not all the whiskey you can drink will give Eddy a moment more of life,” Tom lowered his gaze to the floor. “Won’t help one of them out there rotting in the rain either.”

  “My, aren’t you full of poetry tonight,” Kris said.

  “It’s the truth, Kris. You’re alive. I’m alive. They’re dead. It happens that way. When a shaft blows out to vacuum, it kills some, and others live. The guy who stayed home sick lives. The gal who went for a new drill bit lives. The kid who slapped his faceplate down lives. The old-timer who took his helmet off ‘cause he was sweating and knew it was safe… he dies. And there’s nothing that anyone can do about it. Maybe we raise a glass to them tonight, but we’re all glad that we’re alive. That it was them who died and not us. And if it had been the other way around, they’d be raising glasses to us.”

  Tom shrugged and looked Kris in the eye. “It’s always better to be raising a glass than not.”

  “Is it? Is it better to be alive? What makes you so sure? You ever tried dead? I think I will have that drink,” Kris said, throwing her feet over the side of the bed.

  Tom didn’t stand, but shook his head. “You’ve had enough.”

  “There’s no such thing as enough.”

  “The dead have had all they need. And the living have had enough.”

  Kris stared at him, sitting across the room from her. He didn’t tense, didn’t make any show of getting up. Still, she knew if she made for the door, he’d be there to stop her.

  For a moment, she wondered if she could take him. Would he really fight to keep her sober tonight? She sat back down. “What are you feeling, Tom?”

  “I don’t know what I’m feeling. I’m wishing I’d stayed back home on Santa Maria. I’m wishing I’d never come someplace where people shot at me and I had to shoot back. Where there were people that I really wanted to shoot back at. You Longknifes make for a very confusing world.”

  Now it was Kris’s turn to sigh. It was a genteel one. Ladylike. Mother would be proud. “I’ve read so many of the histories, so many books. They always tell of Grampa Ray and Trouble’s battles. They never tell what it felt like afterward.”

  “How did they handle it?” Tom asked.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Kris rubbed her eyes, found herself suppressing a yawn. Maybe the drink was finally kicking in. “Now, why don’t you just go away and let me sleep.”

  Without so much as a backward glance, he left her.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kris awoke to no memory of dreams and only a slightly bad taste in her mouth; there were advantages to staying sober. Showered, dressed, and feeling painfully alive, she made her way to the mess hall. Maybe it was just her, but the troops seemed to have more spring to their step. Were their heads really held a bit higher? A glance out the window showed the same gray rain; that hadn’t changed. The Colonel waved her to his table.

  “You sleep well?” he asked. Kris took inventory and nodded. The Colonel measured her nod and found it satisfactory. “I checked on your wounded. All three are doing well.”

  “I’ll drop by sick bay after breakfast,” Kris said as she found herself hungry and dug into her meal.

  The Colonel leaned back. “I hate to tell you, but I’ve got another difficult mission for you today.” So why was he smiling?

  “It can’t be harder than yesterday.”

  “Much harder, but safer.” If possible, the grin got wider.

  “Colonel, has anyone ever complimented you on your wonderful sense of humor?”

  He managed a bent frown for a moment. “No, don’t recall any.”

  “Something you might want to think about,” Kris paused for a protracted moment, then added the required “sir.”

  “Just for that, you get no more sympathy from me, Ensign. We’ve got a visiting do-gooder today, come a long, long way to see all the nice things we are doing with his donations. I want you to escort him around the place, show him what’s going on, while I take a nice drive in the country.”

  Sounded like a thoroughly boring way to waste a day. “Who is this old nanny?”

  “Not so old. You might find him cute. A Mr. Henry Smythe-Peterwald, the thirteenth of that name,” the Colonel said. “Bad enough to saddle a kid with the same old same old, but to make him the thirteenth.” The Colonel shook his head.

  Kris managed to swallow what was in her mouth and to smile at the Colonel’s attempted joke. Oh Mother! All my dodging of this nice young man you’re throwing at me, and now I’ve got to spend a day with him. The fact that his father was at the top of Aunt Tru’s list of people wanting Kris dead really shouldn’t complicate the relationship, should it?

  And you thought today would be safe, Colonel.

  ****

  Kris saw to the trucks’ load out, while Tom did a final check on their ready status. As the three convoys got ready to roll, she kept a smile on her face at the prospect of being chained to a desk while most of those who had been with her yesterday faced more muddy roads, swamps, and bandits. Kris stretched the laugh of offering to trade jobs with anyone about as far as the lame joke could go.

  When the trucks headed out, she turned to her office. Jeb was waiting; they quickly went over today’s schedule of drops to be unloaded, stored, and made ready for tomorrow’s road runs. Spens was at his workstation outside her office; one trip out had been enough for her accountant. As an operations specialist, he brought order out of the information flooding battle boards. He was doing the same for her. He shook his head as she walked by.

  “Something bothering you?” Kris asked.

  “It’s this junk they’re shipping us. Twenty-year-old combat meals are just a bit harder to chew. But I have half a warehouse full of medical supplies past their expiration’ date. Look at this,” he waved a printout. “Raw vaccine feed a month past its due date. Can we use that stuff?”

  “Check with the pharmacy,” Kris said, coming to look over his shoulder. Yep, half of Warehouse 3 was out-of-date junk. “Probably was expired when it was donated.”

  “By what, a week? Someone’s using us for a dump!”

  “No, someone’s using us for a tax break for their generous donation,” Kris spat.

  “My old man probably suggested the scam,” Spens growled. “And he wonders why I don’t want his job.”

  Kris scowled at the printout with its indictment of the world she’d joined the Navy to get away from.

  “Hey, look what the cat drug in,” came cheerfully from behind her.

  “I’d hoped for a somewhat better introduction than that.”

  Kris turned to see Tommy grinning and Henry Smythe-Peterwald the Thirteenth, arms folded, standing in her doorway. The finely sculptured handsomeness of him was a lot easier to take without Mother hanging on his elbow. Today he wore field dress, finely tailored and expensive. Kris remembered being similarly decked out by her mother for her hikes in the Blue Mountains back home.

  She quickly swallowed a scowl at the
memory, lest her visitor think it intended for him. “You don’t have a visitor’s badge. I’ll take you over to the HQ and get you checked in,” Kris said, falling back on standard procedures to give her brain a chance to catch up. “You’ll want to see Commander Owen. He’s in charge, since Colonel Hancock’s out on a relief run.”

  “Can’t we avoid all that? I can see paper pushing without leaving home,” he said with just a hint of a scowl.

  “What do you want to see?” Tommy asked, giving Kris a sidewise glance that yelled, Besides a certain boot ensign.

  “Anything but my old man. What are you doing out here, Kris?” Henry quickly sidestepped Tommy.

  “Whatever the Navy wants me to do, Henry. Joining the Navy looked like the best way to give Mother an early heart attack.”

  “Ah, our dedication to our parents’ coronary health.” He chuckled dryly. “So, we do have much in common. And call me Hank. Dad has a pretty solid lock on Henry.”

  “Sounds fine by me. Mother will love to hear of it.”

  “Your mom throwing you at me like my dad is throwing me?”

  “With all the force of an asteroid catapult.”

  “Then I probably owe you an apology.” Hank smiled softly.

  “Given, taken, and returned,” Kris said, offering her hand. He took it; for a moment she thought he might kiss it, but no, he just shook it firmly. No first impressions, Kris shouted to herself. She would let this man define himself, not take him on his parents’ past history, Mother’s illusions, or, for that matter, Auntie Tru’s suspicions.

  “So, what can we do for you?” Tommy said, bringing the handshake to an early halt.

  “I think the idea is for me to do something for you. At least, that was how I talked Dad out of sending me off to run a plant start-up on Grozen. ‘If we get our faces in the media for doing good, let’s do it right,’ I told him. So I have this ship full of various things we thought might come in handy.”

  “And when it’s unloaded…?” Kris asked.

  “Then I go on to Grozen.”

  “How long do you think it will take to unload?” Tommy asked.

  “How long do you think it will take me to figure out what’s aboard it that is useful here?”

  “A few hours,” Tom said as Kris answered, “A few days.” Tom threw her a quizzical glance.

  Well, no one said this young man was out to kill me. “Spens here came across some interesting stuff this morning.” Kris watched Hank’s face while her accountant filled him in on the scam of the morning. When Spens was done, the visitor tapped his commlink.

  “Ulric, we have any medical supplies in our cargo?”

  “Several tons, sir.”

  “Send the data on them down here, including expiration dates to, what’s your name?”

  “Spens, sir.”

  “I have that address, sir.”

  “Good, Ulric. Make the Smythe-Peterwalds proud.” He turned to Kris. “That should handle that.”

  Kris nodded. If there was a scam, that should put an end to it for at least today. “So, what would you like to see?”

  “What your average day is like.”

  “That could get messy,” Kris said.

  “Or dangerous,” Tom put in.

  “I heard about yesterday. A real Wild West shoot-out.”

  “Something like that,” Kris evaded.

  “Why don’t I show you where we rebuild trucks?” Tom put in.

  “Not a bad place,” Kris agreed. It would give her a chance to get her thoughts in order while Tom and Hank did that male bonding thing. More like male bashing, as Tom did his best to show the rich kid how little he knew.

  ****

  “You’ve never stripped an engine?” Tom said fifteen minutes later, wiping oil from his hands.

  “Never been close to one with its top off.”

  “Even a car engine?”

  Hank stared out the garage door at nothing. “My chauffeur took care of that. Didn’t yours, Kris?”

  Kris read the Help me, there but wasn’t about to throw Hank a line. “I helped our chauffeur change the oil, tune up the limos all the time.” Well, twice when Mother wasn’t looking.

  “It helps when you get shipped trucks just this side of the junkyard,” Tom put in.

  With a huge sigh, Hank tapped his commlink. “Ulric, what’s the usage on those trucks we have aboard?”

  “Highest is fifteen point three kilometers, sir.” Hank tapped off with a satisfied smile. “I doubt if any of the thirty trucks I’m delivering will see the inside of this shop for a while. What else is on my tour of the seamy underside of relief work?”

  Tom looked sorely distressed at being bested. His grin actually faltered for a full three seconds before it popped back to full force.

  Kris stepped in before someone got hurt. “Let me show you my ware yard.” That moved the center of attention from Tom to her and gave her a chance to show off what she’d done. As Kris walked Hank around, she found him easy to talk to. Well, it was easy talking about what she was proud of, how she’d blended the warehouse workers she’d inherited, volunteers she’d acquired, and the handful of Navy guards she used to keep the place safe. In her life, she’d straightened up plenty of other people’s campaigns or volunteer programs that one of Mother’s friends had dreamed up but couldn’t organize to save her life. This yard and the people it fed was her show.

  It also gave her plenty of chances to point things out to Hank. And while he looked, she studied him. There was a wariness about the eyes in his perfectly sculptured face, but they were wide and expectant as he took in her work.

  The walk-around also gave Kris a chance to compare the two men presently in her life: one boyish in his eagerness to make sure the other was no threat, the other self-contained and seemingly oblivious to anything but Kris’s words, listening intently, never interrupting, always asking good questions that got her talking again when she ran out of things to say. A guy like this was easy to have around.

  They finished up at the seawall, watching an unmanned drop ship on final approach. It splashed down, sending froth and spray flying into the pouring rain. A tug glided away from the marine railroad as soon as the supply ship came to a bobbing rest. “That’s one of mine,” Hank pointed out, “loaded with a something called famine biscuits. Each two hundred gram bar has a day’s allotment of protein, vitamins, and minerals. Nice thing about them is that with water they expand in the stomach to make you feel like you’ve had a real meal.”

  “That will be a nice break from rice and beans,” Tom agreed.

  “What you doing with the landers when they’re empty?”

  That was a question for Kris. “We’re recycling the air jell hulls,” she pointed to where bales of the shredded stuff was stacked. “The engines we’re reducing to carbon powder. In most rescue missions they’d be recycled into the economy, but Olympia hasn’t got any economy to talk of, so I guess we’ll just leave them here until something comes up.” She shrugged.

  “But you can use my trucks?” he fixed Kris in his gaze for the first time.

  “In a flash,” Kris agreed. “Nelly, show us a map of a hundred miles around here.” A holograph appeared before them; Kris concentrating on the map to avoid the intensity of the young man’s eyes. She hadn’t heard a thing she didn’t like in the last hour. What was not to like about a generous young man who took time to come out and see what was needed? She’d joined the Navy to do just that.

  From the sounds of the business empire Hank was half bossing with his father, this was about the closest the young man could get to the real world.

  “We’ve got food going to the soup kitchens in town,” Kris said, waving at the center of the map and getting the boys’ attention, “so no one here goes hungry. It’s the hinterland that’s the problem. Even with Tom’s crews working around the clock, we only have fifteen working trucks. Two out of three are down with something wrong. Local mechanics strip one to get another working, but with the roads in
such lousy shape, one gets fixed and two get broke.” She sighed.

  “My thirty trucks should help with that,” Hank said, following Kris’s gaze to the map. “But up north is going to bring its own set of problems. Lots of hills and river valleys. I don’t see many bridges.”

  “Aren’t any,” Tom said. Kris quickly filled both of them in on what she’d learned from the Colonel about the goal of minimum government. “Unless a local farmer built a bridge, there isn’t one.” She overlaid a pre-volcano map on the present situation. There had been four bridges; they were all washed out.

  “What you need are boats or portable bridges,” Hank mused. Then his smile widened. “Let me tell you what I’ve got for you,” he said, sounding like a man ready to sell vacuum to asteroid miners. “Dad just bought out a company that’s making boats out of Smart Metal. Like the stuff your Typhoon is made from. The boats fold into a standard container-size box, a perfect load for any handy truck. Just put it in the water, select a form, and stand back. In five minutes you’ve got a boat, a barge, or a bridge, ready to load up or drive over. And the price is something you can’t beat, little lady; free for you.”

  “How much do they weigh?” Tom cut in, no smile at Hank’s snake oil routine. “Those roads are muddy. And how do you get them off the truck and into the water? They walk, too?”

  “No,” Hank sobered. “They are heavy. We usually use a crane. Metal may be smart, but no one, even on Santa Maria, has figured out how to make metal light.”

  Kris did her best to suppress a grin at this testosterone-powered battle beside her. “Any of those trucks in orbit happen to have a crane on them?” she asked.

  “Might be a few. I’m hungry. Will you have lunch with me?”

  Now Kris did laugh. “For mobile bridges, I think I can afford to sign for your meal at the mess hall. But I warn you, it’s only slightly unfrozen cold cuts. Half our personnel went with today’s convoys.”

  “I was thinking of something a bit more intimate,” Hank countered. “There’s this restaurant in town that serves the most delicious steaks.”