Kris Longknife: Mutineer

by Mike Shepherd

  “Thank the gods for minor favors. You and he hit it off.”

  “Better than I did with some of the locals, it appears.”

  “Ensign, you will soon discover that it is a rare day when everyone is happy. You have one of those days, savor it.”

  Kris chuckled. “If I get one, sir, I’ll take your advice.”

  Colonel Hancock stayed with her as she checked in each of the convoys. He also checked out the new trucks. Local mechanics had already gone over them and pronounced them fit. Kris doubled the night shift so all the available rigs would be loaded up for tomorrow’s run. The Colonel frowned as he took in the rolling stock. “I hate to admit that I’m embarrassed by my riches. Until the Highlanders get here, I’m going to have more trucks than I’ve got troops to keep them rolling.”

  “The Highlanders are due tomorrow, aren’t they? I’ve already got four buses under contract,” Kris said.

  “I got word just before I left this morning that their transport blew two engines. They’re having to limp across the last system and down here on half power. Expect them two, maybe three days late.”

  “So we’ll have food and transport but no one to move it where it’s needed.” Kris didn’t like the taste of that in her mouth. There were an awful lot of hungry kids out there.

  “Ensign, that NGO you’re funding?”

  “I didn’t say I was funding it, sir.”

  “No, you managed to overlook that bit of information when you were briefing your superior officer. Don’t you think I can do a computer search as well as you can?”

  “No, sir, I mean yes, sir. I mean…you know what I mean, sir.”

  “I probably do. I was an only moderately subordinate second lieutenant once. Fortunately, I dodged the mutiny charge as well as I expect you will. Now, could you wrestle me up a dozen civilians who could keep any NGO gunmen in line and follow any orders they get from the likes of Owing and Pearson?”

  “Ester and Jeb are pretty levelheaded folks. I’ve met a priest, preacher, a couple of salesmen I think have the respect of the locals and could get along with any decent Navy types.”

  “l didn’t say decent, I said Owing and Pearson.”

  “Maybe Ester and Jeb should be assigned to them.”

  “Then you’ll have the base to yourself tomorrow, and I’ll have just about everything in uniform on the road.”

  A quick touch-base with Ester got Kris a list of folks who could ride herd on a batch of riflemen, as well as get along with their Navy coordinator. Jeb was out; he was a Quaker and would not carry a gun. Kris wasn’t willing to put him out there without a weapon. Instead, he volunteered to work the warehouse all night to get the rigs loaded. A good day’s work done, Kris headed back to base, Ester and two gun-toting women at her side.

  “I can take care of myself,” Kris told the older woman.

  “I know you can. I’m just enjoying a nice stroll.”

  “Ester, it hasn’t quit raining all day.”

  “I know. Maybe I’m getting used to it.” After several more sallies by Kris, just as cheerfully and absurdly parried by Ester, the women left Kris at the base gate. Kris was just in time for the last of the chow, which under Courtney’s hand was just as tasty as the first off the griddle. The Colonel came in for a cup of coffee as she settled at a table. He joined her.

  “Your quarters have been moved.”

  “Sir, don’t you think that’s taking it a bit far?”

  “Blame your friend Lien. He wanted to bunk the Highlanders in a block so their NCOs could keep them out of trouble. He had Millie roust you into new quarters.”

  “I thought the Highlanders were delayed.”

  “They are, but that boot ensign didn’t get the word.” Or was in cahoots with a certain sly colonel. “My old quarters empty tonight?”

  “And the ones all around it. Made sure the cleaning people knew you were moving, just not where.”

  Kris couldn’t argue so long as no one else would be on the receiving end of any rockets intended for her. Tommy was at the check-in desk, waiting for her when she got to the quarters. “Colonel told me what you did. Thanks.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Tom lied through a freckled grin. “Here’s your key. You’re on the second floor. Far enough up not to be easy to get at and low enough down not to give anyone in town a clear line of flight.”

  So, despite herself, Kris had a good night’s sleep.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Kris felt like an unregistered voter on election day as she gulped down her breakfast at Oh Dark Early next morning. Boxed rations were handed out to all for lunch, even those not going out, which Kris discovered was less than a dozen, even counting Spens and the three still in sick bay from Kris’s first drive in the country. The Colonel was stripping the HQ for the day.

  Kris hurried off to the warehouse to resolve any last minute glitches, of which there were few, and to wave good-bye to just about everyone she knew on the planet. Even Courtney had a convoy; Tommy, with local cooks, would see to chow for tonight.

  The yard empty, Kris checked in with Jeb. Her lead foreman assured her he and his civilians would get the drop ships hauled out of the bay, their cargos transferred to the warehouses, and shipments made up for tomorrow’s deliveries. Kris glanced up into the worst rain she’d seen since landing and told him to keep his crews safe. “That’s what I got the rifle crew for.” Quaker he might be, but he was not averse to having armed men and women walking the warehouse perimeter.

  As Kris headed back to the HQ, she noted that she had a tail, the same two women who had come back with Ester last night. They didn’t follow her through the gate, which had one lone Navy guard today, but joined the half-dozen gun-toting civilians walking the HQ’s perimeter fence.

  Kris checked in at sick bay; Doc and one corpsman had the wounded well in hand. As she wandered the halls of the HQ, Kris heard the echoes of her footsteps; the place was totally closed down. At the end of the hall, radio static drew her attention. The radio section had even been drafted into the food convoys, but their gear still monitored the net. One was on the main net; she could listen to any of the convoys. That only made her feel more left behind. She had Nelly turn that one down and put a watch on alert words like Mayday, fire, and ambush.

  The other radio was monitoring civilian channels. With a flick of her wrist, Kris sent it on a scan. It went up the band, hit on a line of static, and hung there. Kris hit Scan again, and it did a long search before hitting on another band of static. Kris settled into the duty chair, put her feet up, and tapped the Scan button at regular intervals as the radio’s search hung up on something. It took a couple of minutes before she realized it was hanging on about the same frequency every time. She sat up, hit Scan, and watched as the search went up the band, hit the top, then began at the bottom before settling at the same spot.

  She did it again and got the same results.

  “Would you like me to isolate the signal from all the noise?” Nelly asked.

  “Is there a signal in that static?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do it.”

  The speakers went silent, then gave out a loud burst of static. “Sorry,” Nelly said as it cut off. Then the static came back, low this time. Kris thought she spotted words among the crackling: “Flu,” “flood,” “starvation.” Then again, floods and starvation were the expected around here. Finally Nelly hit on the right algorithm, and the message came in weak but clear:

  “You’ve got to help us. We haven’t asked for anything before, but we’re at the end of our rope. Can anyone hear us?”

  Kris grabbed the radio mike. “This is Ensign Longknife. You are coming through weak but clear,” she shouted. “Repeat your message.” She keyed off and waited. The static was there. Only static. “Nelly,” Kris demanded.

  “No signal.”

  Kris leaned back in her chair and counted slowly to ten. At ten, she changed her mind and headed for one hundred. If she talked, she’d override
an incoming message. As Kris started to despair of ever hearing from them again, the radio came to life. “Batteries are about dead, but I’m going to keep repeating this as long as I can. This is the Anderson Ranch up the north fork of the South Willie. We’ve got an outbreak of Grearson fever. Two deaths so far. A dozen or so are showing signs. We burned the bodies to keep this stuff out of the groundwater. We’re sick, we’re hungry, and now the river’s rising. We can’t make it up the canyon wall. If you know what’s good for you, you better come help us, cause if we die from this stuff and the water takes our bodies, this crud will be all over Olympia.”

  “Nelly, what’s Grearson fever?”

  “Flulike symptoms, it resides in the body like typhoid, causing the carrier no discomfort until their resistance falls below a certain level. It has a fifty percent death rate for adults who are not treated, higher for children and the elderly. First discovered on Grearson—”

  “Enough. Does our warehouse have any vaccine against it?”

  “Yes. Approximately a thousand units.”

  Kris squeezed her eyes closed. A thousand would be a drop in the bucket for Port Athens alone. “Nelly, show me where the Anderson Ranch is.” Being the north fork of a south river meant it must be way up in the hills. It was that, and then some.

  “Update river information with latest photography.”

  Up north, the river grew out of its banks and close to canyon walls. “This photography is a week old. We have had continuous cloud cover since then,” Nelly told her. They’d also had continuous rain. If it was bad last week, it was worse now.

  Kris was on her feet. At the door she remembered she ought to call this in to the Colonel. But he was headed south, and the problem was up north. She pulled two blank flimsies from a stack next to the radios, scrawled a quick note telling where she was going and why, left one in the radio room and the other on the Colonel’s desk as she raced down to sick bay. “We got a breakout of Grearson fever about forty miles up the river on a place about to be flooded.” she announced.

  The doc had his feet up on his desk, reading a medical journal. “Oh shit,” he said, feet slamming to the floor. “That would be ten times worse than the typhoid last month. There hasn’t been an outbreak of Grearson in thirty years.”

  “Well, we have one now. Who’s coming with me?” Kris asked.

  “Hendrixson still might be bleeding,” the corpsman said. “I guess that means I go.” He started filling a bag.

  “If they’re coming down with Grearson, Danny, there’s going to be all kinds of opportunistic diseases,” the doc sighed and started adding to the corpsman’s load.

  “Meet me at the boat dock at the warehouse. I’ll pick up the vaccine,” Kris said as she started double-timing for the exit. “How many people live in that valley?” Kris asked Nelly.

  “Two hundred thirty-seven.”

  “We’ll take two hundred and fifty doses of vaccine. Get someone at the warehouse to start hunting for them.”

  “I have located them. I will have Jeb get them.”

  “Ensign Lien,” Kris called over the net, “what you up to?”

  “My neck in busted truck parts,” Tommy answered.

  “Meet me at the warehouse gate. We have a problem.”

  “And hadn’t I better bring my rifle?” He sighed.

  Kris picked up her armed escort as she double-timed out the gate. She ignored them as they trotted along a couple of dozen meters behind her. Jeb met her in an electric cart, three small boxes of medical supplies on its flatbed. “That’s three hundred units, but unless I’m reading it wrong, it expired last month.”

  Kris hopped on the cart. “Boat dock,” she ordered, then tapped her commlink for sick bay. “Doc, our Grearson fever vaccine expired last month. Can we use it?”

  “Damn!” was followed by a pause. “It might do. Maybe use a bit more than normal. Damn, I can’t believe I’m saying this.”

  “We have three hundred doses for two hundred and fifty people. You might want to start making some new stuff.”

  “No way we can manufacture enough if it gets in the water.”

  “Understood, Doc, we’ve got to keep it out of the river.” Now, if only the river would keep out of the ranch.

  The crane truck was gone, along with two of the boat rigs. Kris headed for the boxed boat closest to the water and tapped the small keypad awake. Instructions appeared on a tiny screen. After reading through several windows, Kris punched 6 on the controls. As promised, that produced a river dory/motorized. Ten meters long, two wide, it had a high prow, flat bottom, and a control station amidships with a wheel on one side of a square pillar, the keypad and screen on the other. Kris studied what she’d done and decided it looked good. Jeb interrupted a dozen men stacking sandbags along the seawall against the rising bay long enough for them to heave the boat into the water, just a few centimeters below the concrete wall. Jeb divided his work crew, half going back to raising the seawall, half dispatched to the warehouse for supplies.

  “Who’s going?” Jeb asked.

  “Me, a corpsman will be along in a minute, Tommy. I need some men, people who know the river.”

  “Ester said you weren’t supposed to leave town.”

  “I’m not supposed to make a truck run. This is different.”

  “Only if you’re a sprout like you, young woman. Keep this up, and you’re going to get yourself killed.”

  “Lot of people trying. So far, nobody’s succeeded.”

  “So you’re pushing your luck.”

  “Load the boat, old-timer.”

  “I’ll load the boat. Mick, you been bitching about loafing around town. You shag your freckles over to the Andrea Doria and tell Addie we want Jose. This lady’s going to ride the river, and she’s gonna need the best river runner we got.”

  “You bet, Pops,” said a young man of maybe eighteen as he took off running.

  “I’ll throw in Olaf, that big bear of a guy over there. You’re going into canyon country, so you may need a bit of climbing before you’re done. Nabil, Akuba, I need you over here.” Two tall, thin men, one dark, the other darker, started jogging toward them.

  The corpsman arrived, along with Tommy. He looked around, as if expecting to see smoke rising through the rain. “What’s happening?” he asked Kris. She explained. For emphasis, the corpsman started giving shots to everyone tagged for the trip. “Kris, you’re supposed to stay here,” was Tom’s reaction when she finished.

  “Already told her,” Jeb drawled. “Girl don’t listen, so save your breath.” Jeb was studying the boat; it drew about ten centimeters now as boxes of food and medical supplies were loaded. “I’ll let Jose have the last say about your load. Some weight might help. Too much, and I don’t need to tell you the river is a killer these days. You ever been on water?”

  “My folks own a boat. I’ve sailed a lake on Wardhaven.”

  “This ain’t going to be anything like that.”

  “I didn’t figure it would be.”

  Jose arrived with Mick not far behind him. The brown-skinned man of maybe thirty eyed the craft, hopped aboard, studied it some more, then ordered, “Lash everything down. The river, she’s going to be a bitch, and I don’t need no more trouble than she’s gonna give me. Mick, you get me some paddles and poles.” Again, freckles was off a-running.

  The men loading the boat had brought plenty of rope; they began lashing it around the cargo liberally. Jose picked up the three small, flat boxes of vaccine. “These why we’re doing this stupid thing?”

  “Yes,” Kris said. “You understand what happens if we don’t get this vaccine upriver.”

  “People die, and when the river takes them, we all die. You think I’d be doing a thing this stupid for any other reason? Jeb, get everyone a life vest. And get three packs. We’ll have Navy here wear the medicine.”

  Kris didn’t like being reduced to a pack animal. She opened her mouth, but Jose cut her off before she got a word out. “Listen, woman, I
am the captain of this boat. If I was up there”—he pointed at the gray sky—“and wanted to stay alive in your space, maybe I’d listen to you. Maybe, if you sounded like you knew what you were doing. Down here, Jose knows everything there is to know about this river. You want to get this stuff to those people, you listen to Jose. You do what he tells you and you just may live.”

  The river man eyed the inlet in front of them with a scowl on his face. “The bay, she bad, with snags and stumps and eddies that will spin you around. The river, she going to be a whole lot worse. But I think, maybe, Jose can get you up there.”

  “Maybe,” Kris said.

  “Jose’s maybe is a lot better than the dead you’d be without me, girl.”

  “Do it his way, spacer. Otherwise, I don’t send my people out,” Jeb added.

  “I wasn’t arguing. You think it’s best we wear the medicine?” she asked Jeb.

  “You go in the water, you’ll float, and the guys will do their best to fish you out. Those boxes go in and they’ll sink. I guess we could try to do something about that, but I think Jose just did.”

  “Looks that way,” Kris had to agree.

  Ten minutes later, supplies loaded, they pulled away from the dock. “I should be back before the Colonel is, but if I’m not, tell him where I am,” Kris hollered at Jeb.

  “Why don’t you use that thing on your wrist to tell him yourself?”

  “He’s got his job cut out for him today. Why worry him?”

  “Right. What else should I expect from a Longknife?” Kris shrugged that off, then started bailing. In the time since she’d unfolded the boat, there’d been over a centimeter of rain. It now sloshed around the bottom of the boat; anyone not busy, bailed.

  “You know that luck of the little people we’ve been talking about?” Tommy said from where he bailed across from Kris. “Well, I just saw them waving from the pier. Even they don’t have enough luck for this blasted river.”

  “Tommy, we’ve got to get this upriver,” Kris said, pointing a thumb at the pack on her back.

  “Someone has to get it upriver. Nobody’s died and left you the job. Me, I’m starting to wonder how much of the Longknife stuff in the history books is there because somebody just didn’t know how to let somebody else do their job.” Kris didn’t have an answer for Tommy.