Kris Longknife: Tenacious (Kris Longknife novellas Book 12)

by Mike Shepherd

  But he was still talking. “We made a major breakthrough last year just as we were designing this class of warships. My command is coated with hundred-millimeter-thick specially doped and grown crystals. Once we go to Defensive Condition 5, our whole hull is covered with that stuff, and you can’t get a laser range finder to locate us, and not a lot of radar will bounce off us. And if one of those bastards you’ve had trouble with out here should hit us with a laser weapon, you better believe they’re going to be in for one hell of a surprise.”

  “Interesting,” Kris said, trying to stay noncommittal. “That’s wonderful, because I’m about to brief you on just how bad it is out here.”

  “Worse than us having to save your bacon from a suicide attacks before we even got to Alwa?”

  That wasn’t exactly how Kris would have put it, but she tried not to let her irritation seep into her words. “That’s just the battlefield prep.”

  The Earth admiral just kept grinning. “Well, we came out here looking for a fight. It looks like we came to the right place.”

  Kris could agree with that. “You most certainly did.”

  66

  “Atten’hut. Admiral on deck,” seemed to place a special emphasis on “Admiral.”

  This was an Officers’ Club, and as such, honors were neither required nor expected. Still, the entire room was on its feet, even the civilians.

  Kris didn’t stand them at ease, but began the long walk to the front of the room where Penny and Jack waited for her at a table below four large screens.

  It might as well have been the Forward Lounge, but the Forward Lounge gussied up to be the king’s Officers’ Club. The long bar was to Kris’s right. Paintings were on the walls, and battle flags hung from the ceiling. It was exactly the way the Forward Lounge had looked to receive the king.

  The only thing missing were pictures of King Raymond and his old commands.

  Added were two huge mother ships painted above the screens . . . with bright red slashes through them.

  Someone was keeping score.

  The place was a whole lot larger. Each of the eighty-plus frigates was represented by its captain, XO, engineering officer, skipper of the Marine detachment, and science lead. Though most of the scientists were civilians, the new arrivals from Earth all sported a uniformed lieutenant commander in that slot.

  For the fleet auxiliaries and merchant ships, there were a captain, second officer, and chief engineer. Some in Navy uniform, others in merchant marine colors. A few wore rough civilian clothes.

  Kris was halfway to the front when the applause began. Kris had no idea where it started or why some of the Navy types concluded they could clap their hands at attention. However it began, the applause filled the room.

  Maybe Kris spotted the origin of the clapping. A table close to hers held Granny Rita; Ada, the Chief of Ministries for the Alwa Colonial government; and several more humans and Alwans.

  Granny Rita tossed Kris a wink as she kept on clapping.

  Kris reached her own table. Jack greeted her with a grin and “Congratulations.” Kris threw him a smile and turned to face her new team.

  She took them in as some of them got their first solid look at that damn Longknife who now commanded them and would determine if they lived or died.

  On her dress whites, they saw not only the shoulder boards of a full admiral, but most of the highest honors their planets could bestow. No doubt they also spotted awards that no human had ever worn before.

  “As you were,” Kris said in a commanding voice that carried.

  The room fell silent, as if a switch had been turned off.

  The officers were seated at long tables, by divisions. Still, many of them had been circulating. No doubt the newcomers wanted The Word on how things were out here. No doubt battle-hardened skippers had been passing The Word of what the new arrivals would need to do to get shipshape and up to Alwa Sector battle standards.

  Some officers needed time to scurry back to their seats.

  Kris waited until the last was seated.

  “Welcome to Alwa. I’m glad you could come,” drew the usual soft chuckle.

  “The first drink is on me. No doubt you new arrivals from Earth have had a chance to taste an Alwa Special.”

  “It’s bloody undrinkable,” came from somewhere in the back of the room.

  “It’s what we’ve all been drinking, and will drink until they start harvesting the new crops next month on Alwa. Alwa needs defenders, but Alwans were on the ragged edge of survival when we got here. We’re staying one step ahead of starvation, planting crops, bringing new lands under cultivation, getting reinforcements, and plowing more land.”

  Kris paused to let that sink in. “It wasn’t what anyone expected, but it’s what we’ve got. We are making do.”

  She addressed that to the tables with the oldest hands. They rumbled their agreement back.

  “However, tonight we’re lucky. Our new allies, the Sasquans, have provided us with a delicious, or so I’m told, beer. The second drink is on the Sasquans. You may call them felines. You may call them tigers. Don’t call them kittens to their face. They have long claws.”

  The feline admiral, arms spread wide, claws extended, and her interpreter stood up and received their own round of applause. It might have been shorter than Kris’s, but it sounded much more enthusiastic.

  “I will begin our briefing tonight the way I always do. Old hands may think they can sleep through it. Don’t. Halfway through, it gets very new and horribly interesting.”

  Kris turned to the screens as they came to life, showing the huge mother ship hovering before PatRon 10’s tiny corvettes. Then the Hellburners did their work. The view did not end there, but showed the slaughter of the battleships.

  The screens quickly switched to up-front and personal shots of the two fights the Wasp had been in, first with the three, then the one. As they blinked out, the screens went dark, but quickly showed the green pips on black space as the most recent battle here in Alwa space took place in fast-forward mode. It finished with the gigantic mother ship blowing itself to dust.

  “Now we begin the new stuff,” Kris said. “Somebody wake up whoever is snoring.”

  The room enjoyed the joke.

  “This is the planet we went out to visit. The one Commander Pasley and the Endeavor found. It has been sterilized down to the microbe level,” Kris said, as a view of the ravaged planet came up. “We wondered who did it. My computer hijacked a lander and used it to study the central weight on a temporary elevator that was used to spew all this planet’s water and air into space. It didn’t originate there.”

  The scene changed. “Here is the planet it came from. Notice the battle damage,” Kris said, as rock strikes were highlighted in circles and the glass plain came in view.

  “That pyramid was made of stone from the first planet you saw. And yes, it’s large enough to stand out from space.”

  The view switched to walk them down the entrance hall of the pyramid and right into the Horrors.

  “We think that was the king of the sterilized planet. The king and his entire family.”

  There had been some scuffling, a few coughs in the room.

  Now it was dead silent.

  The camera took the viewers for a quick walk down horror lane.

  “Here are samples from every planet they sterilized. There are four hundred twelve of them. Including this one.” The view settled on the sole figure from the planet Kris had found and surveyed during the daring Voyage of Discovery.

  “In the last hundred thousand years, they plundered four hundred twelve planets. In the last two hundred, they’ve wiped out five. In one hundred thousand years, this vicious plague of space raiders has grown from one ship to at least thirty. Maybe fifty.”

  Kris paused, eyeing the screen. “So far, we’ve killed two of them.”

  Kris turned back to her officers. “In the Sasquan System, we found the survivors of the first mother ship we blew up. They w
ere licking their wounds. Rebuilding themselves, no doubt, before they set out to slaughter the felines. We blew away their attack.”

  She turned back to the screens as they showed the enemy adjusting their deployment from twenty-two in line ahead to three divisions of seven or eight.

  “To those of you who have fought them, they are becoming more tactically flexible. They learn. We must learn faster.”

  That got a rumble of agreement.

  Now came the view of dead bodies floating in the blacked-out space station.

  “Rather than surrender, they killed themselves. All except one group.”

  The view showed the old woman and the children, knives at their throats. From offstage, Kris’s voice said, “Fire,” and sleepy darts sprouted in several small arms, legs, and in the old woman’s chest.

  “We stopped them from their final act of defiance. But the woman was not grateful.”

  Now the view was of the old woman, strapped to a bed. The room listened as she ranted. “All the ships will come now that the torch has been sent to them. It is you that will be buried in a flood of ships. We have more ships that you can count. Our women are most fruitful. We will destroy you.”

  The room fell silent as the woman was sedated and lolled back on her pillow.

  Again, Kris turned back to her officers. “What’s the old saying? You do a good job at a tough assignment, your reward is a harder one. We’ve blown away two of them. It looks like we now get all of them.”

  Kris let her eyes sweep around the room. Here and there some blanched. One woman took a long pull on her Alwa Special.

  Not so bad when you really need a drink, huh.

  But what she saw most were eyes going hard. Lips going tight and determined. Warriors putting on their war face. These men and women had volunteered to come all the way across the galaxy to face a tough enemy. That the enemy was mad took nothing away from them, and maybe, for some, added that extra spice that humans had so often longed for.

  A fight against terrible odds for all that they loved.

  Kris forged her next words from hardened steel. “I swear that not one more head will be added to that horror show. What say you?”

  “Yes,” was a primal roar, almost enough to bowl her over. Bowl over a damn Longknife.

  “Tomorrow, at 1600 hours, the fleet will sail on its first training exercise. Those of you who are new may ask those who have fought my kind of battle what changes you will need to make to your ships between now and then. Vice Admiral Kitano, you will take the fleet out.”

  Without missing a beat, Rear Admiral Kitano was on her feet. “Aye aye, Admiral. May I ask why you aren’t taking the fleet out, ma’am?”

  “I’ve got a battle dirtside with the Alwa Association of Associations,” Kris said. “So I’ll have to let you have all the fun. By the way, I’ve got some shoulder boards you may want to borrow.”

  Kris went on before Kitano could react. “I’m authorized to promote three vice admirals. Vice Admiral Kitano is the first. No doubt the rumor mill will tell you who the next two are well before I cut the orders in three days, after I get back from the fun and games on Alwa.”

  Kris left them laughing.

  67

  Getting a meeting with the Association of Associations was never an easy process. Of late, it had gotten nearly impossible for anyone to agree on anything, even to meet.

  Kris found she’d have to wait for two days for the Association to assemble.

  After one day of going over food-production reports that looked good and incidents reports of Alwa-on-Alwa blood and even Alwa-on-human attacks, Kris decided she knew all she needed to know.

  That evening, Jack drove her to Joe’s Paradise Cove in time for supper.

  Next morning, they sat on the beach, feeling the warm sun on their bare skin, and stared at the ever-the-same, ever-changing ocean.

  “So much has changed since we first came here,” Kris muttered.

  Jack nodded. “We’ve lost a lot of clothes since that first time,” he said with a sort of leer.

  “Do you still love me?” Kris asked.

  Now Jack got serious. “You mean with you and me going about our jobs all day long and sometimes into the night, have I somehow forgotten how much love I have for you?”

  Kris felt vulnerable, almost little girlish as she admitted, “Yes.”

  Jack leaned over, enveloped her in his arms, and kissed her. Seriously kissed her.

  One thing led to another, and a long while later, Kris found herself looking up at Jack and him looking down at her.

  “Should I take that as a yes, you still love me?”

  “If you have any doubt about it, let me say yes, I really do love you, and nothing is ever going to change that.”

  Kris looked into his eyes and saw reflected back at her a love that was eternal.

  “I promise you, Jack. Someday, we are going to have a job. Me in one office. You in the next one. We’ll have lunch together every noon and supper at night. Maybe we’ll even have a little one to feed french fries to.”

  “That would be nice,” Jack admitted. “But that is not a promise I will hold you to, Kris Longknife. You and I both know we go where we are sent.”

  “You will not have to hold me to that promise. I will hold myself to it. No one, not even Grampa, his royal-ass majesty, will keep me from that job.”

  He kissed her, and they began to make love slowly this time.

  There was nothing in the galaxy but the two of them. At least for a little while.

  68

  The Association of Associations was to meet at noon. Kris was there well ahead of time.

  The plaza where the Alwans met was open, as was necessary to accommodate their endless shuffling about. Kris had two tables set up.

  At one she held center place with Jack to her right and Granny Rita and Ada seated in comfortable chairs of Smart MetalTM to her left. The other table was shared by the two felines, with four Ostriches from the south. Again, Smart MetalTM adopted itself nicely to allow the two cats stools that let their tails twitch, as they eyed the birds not too obviously as prey. The Ostriches had a kind of nest for each of them.

  They sat there as the Roosters strutted in, putting on minor displays and, in general, waiting for the acting pro tem leader. It had been years since they’d actually elected someone to call them to order. Now they passed the lead position from one to another according to some plan Granny Rita confessed she could not decipher.

  Straight Tongue and his crew from the Alwa’s Sharp Eye View network arrived a bit after Kris. Their cameras today were much smaller than the one Kris had first been interviewed with. The mic the producer pinned to Kris’s shirt was downright dinky compared to what Kris had talked into a few months before.

  Things were changing on Alwa. That was a problem for some and a joy for others.

  Whoever the leader was, he finally crowed, and things got as quiet as a meeting of Alwan Roosters ever gets.

  Behind her, Straight Tongue talked into his mic. Nelly translated.

  “The heavy one, viceroy for her crowing leader, Kris Longknife, crowing leader in her own right, has petitioned to speak before the Association of Associations. We are bringing it to you live.”

  MY TRANSLATOR IS WORKING FINE, KRIS. YOU TALK TO THE HUMANS. I’LL COVER THE BIRDS.

  As Kris stood, two Marines ushered in a cylinder. Doc Meade in medical whites followed right behind them.

  “I have shown you the battle that saved your planet,” Kris began.

  A large white wall behind the speaker showed a hologram of the destruction of the first mother ship.

  MY FEED OF THE BATTLE IS GOING OUT LIVE AND IN HIGH DEF THROUGH THE NETWORK, Nelly reported.

  “You know that we heavy ones and many of your own fought the next alien mother ship that came to ravage your planet.”

  Now the picture changed to show Ostriches manning lasers; humans, Ostriches, and Roosters working together to launch a Hellburner; and the se
cond mother ship blowing itself up.

  “I have found the aliens’ home world. I have found their holiest of holies. I have walked it with my own feet and seen what they crow about.”

  The picture changed to show the contents of the pyramid.

  “Here they bring one sample of the people of every planet they plunder. Here they bring a pile of heads. That is all that remains of the life on four hundred twelve planets.”

  Around Kris, the Roosters came to a dead halt. Not one moved. Not one made a sound. All looked at the wall and the pictures on it.

  They said they didn’t really believe what they didn’t see with their own eyes. From the looks of what Kris was seeing of them, some Alwans were making the connection.

  “If the sight of what they put in their holiest of holies is not enough, I have an alien to crow to you here. Now. Dr. Meade.”

  The cylinder folded back to show a bed. The gray-haired woman slept on it.

  “I remind viewers,” was whispered by Straight Tongue, “that the aliens look exactly like the heavy people who have lived among us since our grandfathers’ times. However, they are very different. I am told that the two cannot mate and bear an egg.”

  “Awaken her,” Kris ordered.

  Doc Meade did something with her instruments, and the woman stirred. The doctor did more, and the woman rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed.

  Her eyes widened as she took in the view.

  ~Vermin. You are all vermin,~ she shouted.

  Nelly translated for everyone present and watching over the net.

  “I present you with an alliance of three sentient races,” Kris said evenly, as Nelly translated in bug-eyed monster. “They say to one and all that you will not add their heads to your house of horrors beneath that pyramid.”

  ~You are vermin,~ the woman spat.

  KRIS, THE NETWORK IS GETTING ALL THIS. AND MY TRANSLATION.