Kris Longknife: Furious

by Mike Shepherd

  “This was what you wanted to question him about?”

  “Yes.”

  “And rather than talk to you, or tell you some lie, he ran away.”

  “Yes. Interesting reaction, no?”

  “Very interesting,” Foile said. He found he was sitting on the edge of his seat. He forced himself to settle back. Any effort to relax proved a waste.

  “You see why I was willing to risk everything to get a few words in.”

  “I do, and may I say that I’m glad that I didn’t keep you from getting as far as you got.” Foile allowed himself a chuckle. “I don’t often fail. I’m glad I picked this time to have one of my rare breaches.”

  The princess shrugged and flipped a hand at her surroundings. “I did fail. Now all I can hope for is to get my day in court and present my case to the public at large. Clearly, I will not be talking about vague rumors and innuendoes for which I can produce no basis in fact.”

  Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile nodded. “On the other hand, it is frequently my job to produce just the sort of facts you lack.”

  “Be careful,” the princess said.

  The young man ceased his pacing. “While her grampa Al might not be willing to use violence against Kris here, his subordinates, or their helpers, have been known to get very enthusiastic in their effort to get into his good graces. Remember ‘will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?’ The same could be said of a princess or a cop.”

  Foile nodded. “Minor minions are want to go off half-cocked. However, they are often the ones that crack under pressure and give us our first handle on a rope that leads up the chain of evidence.”

  Foile paused for a moment, a line of investigation cascading out before his mind’s eye. “I think I know a couple of trees to shake. I think this could be very challenging. Challenging and fun.”

  “You have a weird sense of fun, then,” the young man said.

  Foile stood. “One word, Princess. If memory serves, Musashi still has capital punishment.”

  “Your memory is correct. Nelly advised me of it before we landed on the Mutsu, but thank you for the thought. If I may add, if you insist on taking on this quest for a damsel . . . and all humanity . . . in distress, you might want to talk with my brother Honovi. He’s a member of parliament and not as blind to some things as my father. You might also want to talk to my grampa Trouble.”

  “If you mean General Tordon, I talked with him. A most reticent witness.”

  “He’ll loosen up when you get to know him. Tell him I sent you and that I dropped the Grampa Al monkey on your back.”

  “Thank you, not for the Grampa Al monkey, but for the secret handshake for General Trouble.”

  “Just remember,” the princess said. “He’s trouble for everyone, even me. Oh, another thing. I left my luggage in the Downside elevator station. Is there any chance you could send it on to the Mutsu?”

  “The police impounded it, but with no case filed, I can likely get it loose.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There is just one more matter, Princess. One of my agents, Leslie Chu is a great fan of yours. Is there any chance I might have your autograph?”

  “Is there any paper here?”

  “I can print out one of your pictures,” Nelly said, and the admiral’s desk began spitting out a print. The princess signed it with a flourish, then, with an impish grin added, “Sorry I missed you.”

  Foile gave her a bow from the waist as he took his leave. Clearly, this young woman was noble and deserving of his respect. The lieutenant was waiting for him outside the door. As Foile made his way off the ship, he began rearranging his schedule. Like so many of his kind, he had a large bank of unused leave.

  I wonder how the boss will react when I ask for a month off?

  He also wondered how much help he could get out of Leslie as the price for her princess’s autographed photo.

  42

  Matters moved slowly after that. Though the Mutsu was scheduled to sortie the next day, there was suddenly a stack of reasons the ship could not sail. Kris got to know Lieutenant Sato, the ship’s JAG officer very well as he sought first information, then advice on how to handle this blizzard of delays. Nelly was very helpful.

  Captain Miyoshi arrived with a quartermaster chief. Thanks to the uniformity imposed by the now-defunct Society of Humanity, many uniforms for Navy and Marine officers for Musashi and the Royal U.S. Navy were pretty much the same. The chief had several uniforms for Kris in different sizes: too small and way too small.

  That caused some embarrassment, but the Mutsu had its own tailor, and the chief very professionally fitted the uniforms to Kris’s nonstandard frame. Jack was saved from the same pins by the arrival of his travel bag with a note from Colonel Hancock. “You’ve got a month’s worth of leave coming. Use it well.”

  “While we have the uniforms, Commander,” Captain Miyoshi said, “we do not have the proper accouterments. We found your list of awards and decorations. The exchange on High Wardhaven provided most of them and shoulder boards. However, the Order of the Wounded Lion was not in stock.”

  “I don’t imagine it would be,” Kris said. “I can skip it. It always raises more questions than I can answer.”

  The captain shut his mouth on what likely would have been one of them. After a pause, he went on. “Trunks have arrived for you and Lieutenant Pasley. Shall I have them brought here? I’m told their contents are rather hard to inventory.”

  Kris found herself and Jack struggling to contain a laugh at the captain’s honest evaluation of the inside of one of Abby’s mysterious trunks. Which raised the matter of Abby and Cara. And other things.

  “Captain, I am grateful for the hospitality you and your ship have shown me. I do have a problem.”

  “Just one?” the captain asked.

  “Several, actually,” Kris admitted. “I am locked out of my accounts. For the first time in a long time, the world is confronted with a penniless Longknife.”

  “I can cover her expenses,” Jack quickly put in.

  “Thank you, Jack, but my bill for uniforms, mess tab, all this, is too much to ask,” Kris said, glancing around the room.

  “When I took you in,” Captain Miyoshi said, “I expected that you were bringing a whole lot of trouble with you. Please don’t think any of this is a surprise. The chief here has opened an account in your name. When all is done, my Navy will send your Navy a bill, and we can let people who love to haggle over such matters talk about it from now until the sun burns out for all I care.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Kris said. “There is one more matter. I need to send a message to my maid on Madigan’s Rainbow.”

  “Your maid?” the captain asked.

  “Abby is her maid, and a few things more,” Jack put in.

  “Oh, Abby Nightengale. She features prominently in your file.”

  So the Musashi Navy had a file on Kris. Why was she surprised? Well, she probably had surprised the poor captain, but he was clearly doing a good job of playing catch-up.

  “I left Abby rather suddenly, and I suspect she’s very worried about me. I’d like to let her know I’m safe.” Kris considered where she was headed and corrected herself. “I’ve landed on my feet.”

  “A much better choice of words,” the captain agreed.

  “Could Nelly send a message, standby priority to Madigan’s Rainbow?” There were several jump buoys between Wardhaven and there. Each of them would add to the cost of the message. Even using the lowest, standby priority, this message would cost. It would also arrive in a couple of weeks. There was not a lot of traffic out on the sector where Madigan’s Rainbow hid. That was why it had been chosen.

  “Have your computer compose your message,” the captain said. “I’m sure the Mutsu will see it on its way.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  That done, Kris found herself with time on her hands.

  She was used to having a world to save and only seconds to do it in, but th
ere was no world presently in need or willing to accept her services. It had been nice to have time alone with Jack back at the cottage and the lodge, but those carefree moments were hard to recapture.

  They were back in uniform.

  And being back in uniform raised the question of how the Navy’s fraternizing regulations applied to them as a couple. From one perspective, their situation was better. Jack was no longer under Kris’s command. However, there was the requirement to get higher-level approval for them to date. Who was an indicted war criminal’s superior? As commander of FastPatRon 127, Kris had pretty much all the delegated authority she needed for everyone under her, as well as herself. After all, she had approved her own leave request, hadn’t she?

  Could she approve her own dating request?

  Kris and Jack were enjoying the privacy of her quarters and the comfort of her couch . . . and Kris was about to write herself a letter and approve it in the same breath . . . when there was a knock at the door.

  Kris was up off the couch and plopped down on the farthest easy chair in the blink of an eye . . . carefully rearranging her undress whites, which hadn’t quite reached the state of their namesake.

  “Yes,” she called, feeling several dozen kinds of frustration and trying to get control of her emotions, needs, and attitude. I will not bite anyone’s head off. I will not. I will not.

  Which was easy not to do when her brother, Honovi, ducked his head in the door. “How you doing, Sis?” was an opener that dated back years.

  “Keeping on keeping on,” was her standard reply, and it fit the present circumstances to a “T.”

  “Did you send a strange little WBI agent over to my office?”

  “If you mean Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile, I’m guilty as charged,” Kris admitted, bouncing out of her chair to give her brother a hug. They’d hugged a lot when they were kids. Not so much lately.

  Just now, Kris needed all the hugs she could corral.

  She towed Honovi to a chair, deposited him in it, then plopped back in her own, as far from Jack as she could.

  Honovi eyed Jack. “Can we talk around him?”

  “He knows everything I’m into. He has to to keep me safe,” Kris said.

  “Yeah, I noticed that he got to stay in that meeting with the Iteeche that Grampa gave me the bum’s rush out of.”

  “That wasn’t my call, Brother. Grampa Ray does what he does and doesn’t care who gets hurt. Tell me, I know.”

  “Yeah,” Honovi said, and chewed on his lower lip for a second. “Was it as bad out there as the news says it was?”

  Kris chose to assume that the vague “out there” was the aliens she’d shot up and who’d shot up her command in return. She sobered. “It was worse, Bro. I always thought you had the hard job, working at Father’s elbow, putting up with all you have to. There were hours I would have gladly traded places with you, only I couldn’t have wished the mess I was in on anyone. Not even Father’s most obnoxious opposition leader.”

  Honovi almost smiled at Kris’s words, but instead he nodded. “I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how it was watching ships blow up and wondering if yours would be next. You’re right. I used to think you ducked out of the real work. Now, not so much. So where are you going, and why did you send me that WBI agent?”

  “I’m headed for a day in court where I hope I’ll finally get to tell my story that yes, it’s bad out there, and that bad could show up in orbit right over your mama and papa and little kids’ heads any second.”

  “I figured that was why you didn’t come in quietly. Do you think your chance to state your case is worth the risk? Musashi has the death penalty.”

  “A lot of good people died to give me the chance to tell their story, to give the warning they died for.” Kris shook her head. “I owe them that.”

  Honovi nodded. “So, what is this about Grampa Al?”

  “Have you talked with him lately?”

  “I got the annual Christmas card. It included an invite to come work with him anytime I’m ready to quit the government. Didn’t you get one?”

  “He’s given up on me. Not even a Christmas card last year,” Kris admitted. “And when I tried to talk to him last night, he took off in a helicopter and flooded his penthouse apartment with Sarin gas.”

  “Sarin gas! Where’d he get that stuff?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Brother shook his head but went on quickly, “So, Sis, what was it you wanted to talk with him about? That WBI agent hinted that it was something big, but I don’t think he much likes our family. He said I should talk to you.”

  That left Kris trying to bring her brother up to speed quickly. “Have you heard about an effort by Grampa Al to buy the recent election on New Eden?”

  “You’re kidding. Grampa hates politics.”

  “Tell me about it, but I’ve got it from the horse’s mouth that he funded a major political wave that narrowly missed getting elected to all the powerful positions on New Eden. Strange behavior, that.”

  “Very strange.”

  “Worse, there are rumors and chatter that he doesn’t much care for his father’s approach to handling the alien problem. I think he wants to send out a trade fleet to open negotiations with the aliens.”

  Having dropped that hot potato in Honovi’s lap, Kris shut up and sat back.

  Her brother blinked. Several times. He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. On the second try he said, “Are you sure?”

  “Nope. As I said, it’s rumors and chatter from this or that unreliable source. But I know the sources involved in that New Eden thing. They traced the money for that. This other thing, not so easy to trace. All I wanted to do was talk to Grampa, yet he flew away and fouled his nest. Something strange is going on.”

  Honovi looked at Kris for a long minute. “Maybe it’s time to take the baby around to see him. He hasn’t seen her yet. That would give me an excuse to talk to him.”

  “Could you tell if he was lying?”

  Brother winced. “Usually I can spot a lie, but from another Longknife, and an old and experienced one like Grampa Al?” He shrugged. “Maybe. I will give it a try.”

  “You do that. And work with Agent Foile. He’s good. Almost caught me. Grampa Al is bound to have a weak link somewhere. Back Foile to find it, then pass me what he finds. I’ll see what I can do to put a stop to it.”

  “Sis, you’re under arrest. If worlds need saving, we’ll find someone else.”

  “That would be terrible,” Kris said, trying to grin. “No one deserves the punishment my good deeds keep getting.”

  “No, Sis, you don’t deserve this. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Could you look into who put the hold on the Mutsu getting under way? I doubt if Father did it, but someone is keeping us tied up, and the ship came here to get funeral memorial packets from the crew of the battleships that sailed with me. Clippings of hair or fingernails. It’s all their loved ones will get back.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Brother promised.

  “Also, could you unfreeze my bank account? Right now, I’m so broke I’m a kept woman,” she said, glancing at Jack.

  Honovi didn’t find that funny. He eyed Jack. “You still protecting her?”

  “With my life,” Jack said, all masculine and serious.

  “She’s my little sister. You remember that.”

  “Boys, down. I’m a grown girl, and I fight my own battles. Some I even win.”

  Honovi left. Jack stayed on the couch.

  “Honey, I think we need to talk about our situation here,” he said.

  “What, no candlelight dinner?” Kris said with a sigh.

  “I’ll talk to the officers’ mess president about candles for tonight,” Jack said as he got up to pace.

  “Kris, I think I’ve been in love with you from the first time I set eyes on you. But I was a Secret Service agent, and you were my primary. Then I was your subordinate. You were untouchable. U
ntil now.”

  “And I’ve loved very much being touchable,” Kris said, fearing very much where this was headed.

  “Thank you. I have loved touching and being touched by you, Kris. But let’s face it. You’re about to be tried for your life, and most of it will take place in the court of public opinion. We—no, you—can’t afford to give away any free points. Some might think it oh so romantic for the princess to take a lover just now, but a whole lot more will look at those who died to get us back here and wonder about you and me carrying on. And wonder if you and I were carrying on back then when you needed to put everything you had into the battle. A battle that left a lot of good people dead.”

  Kris scowled. “I hate it when you’re right.”

  “But you know I am,” Jack said as he got off the couch and walked over to the door. He opened it, then found a binder full of flimsies and used it to hold the door open. He glanced out at the Marines . . . smiled at someone . . . then trotted back to the couch. “If those Marines aren’t good chaperones, I don’t know who is.”

  “It’s going to be a long trip,” Kris muttered.

  43

  The long trip started the next day. Apparently, Honovi, member of parliament that he was, did manage to shake something loose. Possibly he went straight to Father. Whatever he did, the Mutsu suddenly had leave to leave, and did so promptly.

  Which left Kris pretty much locked in a room and at risk of going stir-crazy.

  As she had done so often, she turned to the Marines. A request to join the ship’s company on their daily jog was granted.

  With some reservations, that is.

  The next day, Kris showed up with Jack and Penny; they were ushered to the back of the formation. However, somewhere as they jogged around ship corridors, up passage ladders, and around more passageways without missing a step, the icy formality began to give way. The Gunny Sergeant made it official at the end of the five-klick run when he gave Kris a bow from the waist and invited them to join the Marines any day.