“Your general commanding your guard, who I understand is also your mate, advised us that we should not have a banquet in your honor the day that you came to our Association Assembly,” President Almar mentioned as the meal progressed. “Something about it being a fast day for your religion.”
Kris glanced at Jack. They both managed to suppress a laugh if not a grin.
“I think that he feared that our culinary preferences might be as hard for you to take as we find your proclivity for burning good meat.”
“I think you might be right,” Kris said.
“You will forgive us,” Penny said. “Our digestion is only able to fully process meat that has been seared. It helps us digest it in ways that our stomachs can no longer do alone. We have been burning our fine meat, as you put it, for half a million years.”
“Do you have a wise saying that goes something like ‘One woman’s meat is another woman’s poison’?” the prime minister asked.
“We have one just like that,” Kris agreed.
“May I ask what you will do now?” President Almar asked.
Kris put her fork down and turned to face the two leaders. “We intend to clean up the alien holdout base on the other side of your system. We will go there, ask them to surrender and, very likely, have to fight them to their death.”
“I noticed that all of the attacking ships were destroyed,” Prime Minister Gerrot said.
“Many were disabled in the fight,” Kris said. “When they found that the battle was lost, rather than surrender, they chose to do things to their reactors that caused them to blow up their ship.”
“We are told that our nuclear reactors cannot explode,” the president said, alarm showing at her muzzle.
“I don’t believe yours can,” Kris said.
THEY CAN’T, Nelly added.
“We use thermonuclear reactors, the next step up from yours,” Kris added.
“I keep hearing that thermonuclear power is just twenty years away,” the prime minister said. “And it has been for the last forty years.”
“It is a difficult jump from fission to fusion. At least it was in our history,” Kris admitted.
“If we can make the jump to our moon, might you be willing to share with us that secret?”
“It is possible if the request comes from all of your world’s people and a means can be found to share it peacefully,” Kris said.
“If that is a deal you are offering, that is a deal we are taking,” the Prime Minister said.
“You say that the Order of the Defender of the Star is your first joint effort,” Kris said.
“The first of many,” both leaders said.
“Then let us give you a system that is all yours,” Kris said, and raised her glass of water.
Those around the table raised their own glasses. It seemed the locals did brew a most magnificent collection of beers. The mess was enjoying not only home-grown meat but also home-brewed beer.
Glasses clinked. The deal was done.
Exactly how Kris would keep her side of the deal was something only a Longknife could figure out.
And they always did what they had to do, didn’t they?
51
They were still accelerating at a comfortable one gee as they swung around the sun, headed for the gas giant on the other side of the system from the cat folks. Kris was holding her reduced squadron to normal gravity while more repairs and adjustments were made.
Officially, Captain Drago was willing to put on 2.5 gees. So were the others. Unofficially, they all asked Kris to go light on the spurs.
She intended to.
No doubt the coming battle would respect her good intentions.
In a pig’s eye.
Clear of the sun, they now got their first good view of the alien base.
“Two ships, six huge reactors each,” Chief Beni reported. “The base has five mega reactors, larger than we’d usually build for a major city.”
“Are their lasers charged?” Captain Drago asked.
“I can’t tell at this range, sir.”
“Well, tell me as soon as you can, Chief. That’s your main job for the next three days.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Kris tracked the bridge conversation from her own admiral’s bridge. Her space was now more formally a bridge. It was a fiction that impressed the visitors, and she had three of them. Two old felines, an admiral and a general, and the young translator Zarra ak Torina.
They sat at Kris’s conference table now. Seated on stools, the seniors’ tails nervously lashed back and forth.
I DON’T THINK THEY LIKE SPACE, Nelly said.
WOULD YOU WANT TO BE GOING INTO A BATTLE TOTALLY DEPENDENT FOR EVERYTHING, EVEN THE AIR YOU BREATHE, AND COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM ANY FIGHT YOU’D EVER BEEN IN?
KRIS, EVERY BATTLE WE GO INTO IS DIFFERENT FROM ANY ONE WE’VE EVER BEEN IN.
Kris almost heard a chuckle at the end of that.
“We’re still two days away from any serious fight,” Kris told the two. “Nelly, please show our visitors the likely outline of the battle.”
“Yes, Kris,” Nelly answered primly.
Nelly was no longer a secret though Kris suspected that the general considered her some magic talisman.
Nelly quickly showed the status of the gas giant and its moons ahead of them. The planet had a dozen moons, large and small, as well as a ring system.
“The two surviving alien warships are orbiting this small, planet-size moon. The reactors are also in orbit, so we assume they have built some sort of habitat in orbit rather than a ship. If they should choose to come out to fight us, as we choose to come out to fight them, they’ll have to make their decision tomorrow. Their likely course is thus,” Nelly said, and several appeared on the screen.
In one, they dived down, grazed the giant, then shot up to intercept Kris’s ships faster and farther out. In the second, they swung around the second largest moon and intercepted Kris well before she got to where their habitat orbited. In the third, they rose up from that moon’s gravity well and headed straight for Kris as she made her final approach.
“You can forecast your enemy’s course of action that accurately?” the admiral asked.
“Gravity defines what can be done,” Kris said. “In our ancient days, wind and currents defined what ships could do. Does your history have something like that?”
The admiral nodded. “I knew old admirals who lived by wind and waves. It has been nice to tell a helmswoman to go there, and the ship does. The next generation may look back fondly on the control my generation had.”
“But the next generation will have the stars,” Kris said.
SHE TRANSLATED THAT AS “STRIDE THE STARS” WITH A HINT OF STALKING FOR THE POUNCE IN IT. KRIS, ARE YOU SURE WE WANT TO GIVE THESE PEOPLE THE STARS?
NELLY, I’M DESCENDED FROM NATIVE AMERICAN WARRIORS WHO LIKED NOTHING BETTER THAN A LITTLE HORSE RAID. MAYBE STEAL A WIFE, TOO, WHILE HE WAS AT IT. YET, TODAY, I HATE WAR AS MUCH AS THE NEXT ONE.
BUT YOU FIGHT THEM SO VERY WELL.
ENOUGH, NELLY.
“Which of these paths will your enemy follow?” the general asked.
“I have no idea. We have a saying. ‘You can plan your battle as much as you like, but your enemy gets a vote as to how it will go down.’”
“We have a saying much like that. ‘You may hunt the long-toothed one, but she may also be hunting you.’ So, you will prepare for all three of these?” the admiral said.
“And a fourth. What if they choose to stay in orbit and not come out?”
“That might be the worst option for you,” the admiral said.
“You spotted the problem,” Kris answered.
“I watched your battle. You’re, ah . . . You call them lasers, right?”
“Yes,” Kris said.
“Light. Who would think that light could kill someone?” the general grumbled.
“It seems that we have, but didn’t know we had,” the admiral admitted
. “At least some technical students have created them in their classrooms, but they take up way too much energy and do very little harm.”
“And a baby takes a lot of work and shows nothing of the warrior skills she may have someday,” Kris pointed out.
“And the first steam boilers were hardly able to cruise around a pond,” the admiral said, nodding.
Kris was grateful. These folks shook their head when they meant to shake their head and nodded when they meant to nod. That made it easier for her.
Kris nodded back.
“Knowing how you power and arm your ships will make it easier for us to avoid a lot of wrong turns with nothing to show for them,” the admiral said.
Kris chose not to react to that.
“Yes. That may or may not be all it is cracked up to be,” the admiral said, and laughed. For the felines, a laugh was something that began deep in the throat and came out more as a loud purr than as a human laugh.
Kris expected that she could get used to it.
Phil Taussig arrived. He was supposed to take the visiting firewomen off Kris’s hands for a tour of the ship ending in the Forward Lounge. Mother MacCreedy had laid in a very large supply of beer and a single-malt that aficionados said could easily hold its own against any scotch in human space.
Kris’s opinion of scotch was that it shouldn’t be forced on anyone, in or out of human space, but she kept her opinion to herself.
Once Phil left, Kris settled herself at her desk and did admiral things. The report from Amanda and Jacques on the culture of the cats was interesting but not complete. Kris doubted it ever would be. Whatever they were at present would not be what they were ten years from now.
The synthesis of the reports on the original aliens and their home world was ongoing as well. Kris put it aside and ducked out to Captain Drago’s bridge.
Yes, the repairs and modifications were coming along. Yes, the lasers were online. Yes, the engineering spaces were being reorganized. No, there wasn’t a problem bringing in the larger reactor from the Hornet to work with the Wasp’s two smaller ones.
Not spoken, but bubbling near the surface, was a strong hint that one admiral ought to take herself somewhere else and not bother the working people.
Kris returned to her own spaces.
She used her boards to take a walk through the four ships. It did look like the problem of sorting out two damaged ships and making them into one battleworthy hull was coming along nicely. She had Nelly check the engineering reports and verify that there had been no reactor excursions or burbles in the flow of plasma to the engines during the gentle, one-gee, cruise out.
“Kris, go find something to do,” Nelly suggested. “When the fight comes, you’ll fight it. They’ll fight it. Relax. Go jump Jack’s bones or something.”
“Computer, behave yourself.”
“I’m not a computer. I’m Nelly, and I was never taught by my loving, caring semiowner to behave, so there.”
Kris went back and tried to lose herself in the reports on the original aliens.
There was nothing new. No surprises. Her team had about squeezed everything there was from the data. They were refining it, but so far had not found, or stumbled across or fell into anything that changed what Kris knew about them or had made a wild guess at.
Kris decided she should go down and spend some time with the twenty aliens she’d recruited.
Down two ladders, around three passageways, and Kris was totally lost.
“Nelly, where are they keeping the original aliens.”
“Take a left at the next cross passageway. Go down the next ladder you come to. Ask me for directions again when you get there.”
Kris did.
Or she started to.
Kris had read in the after-action report that half of a Musashi Marine platoon had been hit when an alien laser slashed through the hull. Twelve were dead and more wounded. Somewhere she’d noted that the Wasp had opened a memorial chapel to those Marines, but Kris hadn’t noticed where it was.
She walked by it.
It was open.
The tori gate had no doors. Anyone, at any time, walking by could not help but see the twelve pairs of boots, twelve rifles, and twelve pictures standing along the far wall.
In front of them was a sand garden. Somehow someone had either lifted sand up from Sasquan or programmed Smart MetalTM to create sand and rocks.
The stonework appeared ancient. Lichen and moss seemed to cover them.
Without thought or reflection, Kris found herself turning into the small memorial garden.
On the walls were simple scrolls. Kris could not translate them for herself and did not ask Nelly to do so.
There was a stone bench.
Kris settled on it. For a long while she stared, eyes hardly seeing, at this memorial to twelve who had given their lives under her command. Twelve who had died defending the feline planet in a space battle they had no real part to fight in.
Something drew Kris’s eyes around. She turned on her stone bench.
The wall beside the Tori gate was etched with the names and pictures of all 187 of those who died on the Wasp and the Hornet in this, their most recent battle under her command.
Now the sobs came.
The grief that she had refused to touch wracked her. Tears flowed as if they would never stop. She wept for those who had died, and those whose lives went on with their flesh and blood and minds slashed and scarred in obedience to her commands.
She almost wished she could think of some error on her part that she could beg their forgiveness for, but she had fought the fight as best she knew how.
The enemy had been good.
She, and those who fought with her, had been better.
Better, but not good enough to fight these bitter killers and come away unscathed.
Somewhere in her grief, Jack appeared at her side. His arms enfolded her. Ever ready, he produced a handkerchief. He held her. Just held her, and said nothing.
“Thank you,” Kris said when she found she could finally speak again.
“For what?”
“For being you. For being here. For not lying to me and saying it’s all right or some other crap like that.”
“I don’t lie,” Jack said.
“I know.”
“Don’t I get any credit for getting Jack here?” Nelly asked.
“Jack, is this on the way to the alien quarters from Admiral Country?”
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“So tell me, Nelly, who gets credit for getting me here?”
“I do, Kris. You had to do something. There’s another battle coming, and you had a burr up your ass. You’re impossible to live with.”
“Nelly, your choice of words is getting way too close to the gutter.”
“Blame Granny Rita. She would have told you that.”
“She can. Don’t you.”
“You do feel better, don’t you?”
Kris leaned against Jack and found the last of the emotions draining out of her.
“Yes, I feel better. I’m alive. Twenty-two enemy ships’ worth of bloodthirsty killers are not. They will not wreck that planet full of kitties, bloodthirsty or no.”
“How about something to eat?” Jack said. “Lately, you’ve only been picking at your food.”
Kris’s stomach picked that moment to rumble. About 6.9 on the tummy-rumbling scale. “You might have a good idea, Jack. I was headed down to pester Jacques about our newly recruited aliens, who seem to be content to eat our meat and rest in the artificial sun outside the cave we’ve made for them. There’s got to be something we can do with them.”
“See why I gave her the wrong directions?” Nelly said.
“You’re going to have to be careful, Nelly,” Jack said. “You keep messing in the affairs of us humans, and we’re going to mess back in your affairs.”
“Yes,” Nelly said, almost sounding contrite, “there is that off button, and if I send you in the wron
g direction too many times, you’ll hire one of those dumb navigation systems and start using it.”
“And you, smart girl, would be out of a job,” Kris said, taking the hand Jack offered her to help her up from her stony place. That might not be stone, but the Smart MetalTM seemed to have left her just as stiff and cold as real stone would have.
The wardroom was serving dinner. They ate in good company and retired to their quarters. Kris told Jack they’d just cuddle. That was all she wanted, and he agreed.
Whether Kris changed her mind, or Jack changed it for her, she was glad for what came her way.
She slept well that night, untroubled by ghosts.
She’d have more before she slept again.
Many more.
52
Next morning, after breakfast, Kris connected with Jacques and did make it down to where they now housed the alien natives. Their quarters were more spacious and much more to their liking.
They had what appeared to be three caves coming off a rock overhang. Below was a sandy area and what looked like a stream. When Kris crossed it, she found herself splashing.
Apparently, a certain amount of the Wasp’s reaction mass was in use as a creek for them.
They had their own fire and were roasting something that had, no doubt, until recently been alive on Sasquan. They seemed content.
~You chased off the other star walkers,~ the gray-bearded man said, no doubt in his voice.
~They will not walk among the stars again,~ Kris answered.
~Will you take more heads?~ the bald woman asked.
~We will either take their heads or they will take ours,~ Kris said.
The bald woman shook her head. Nelly reminded Kris that this meant agreement among these people.
~Why do you have to take their head? Why do they want to take your head?~ piped up a thin voice.
Kris turned to see the young fellow whose leg injury had started all this. Now he was up and hobbling toward them, a young-girl playmate following him like a shadow.
~They have land,~ the graybeard said. ~If you go in someone’s land, you either run away from them or fight them. If you win, it is your land.~
That explanation seemed to satisfy all the adults listening.
Kris Longknife: Tenacious (Kris Longknife novellas Book 12) Page 31