One body, Kris hoped he was already dead, went with the smoke.
The checkered tabletops, however, were also doing their job. Some had caught fire. But others held their circular form and rode on the blasting air currents toward the rents in the ship’s structure. On the ceiling, valves opened, releasing globs of sealant that also rode the wind torrents to help the deforming tabletops shore up the holes.
All this was done quickly enough that the other bar crew were able to keep their holds on whatever they had grabbed and avoid being sucked out into the cold vacuum.
“Pressure has been stabilized in the Forward Lounge. Make way for damage control parties. Clear the passageways for damage-control parties,” the ship’s computer repeated.
“Kris,” Jack said.
“Yes, yes,” Kris said, backing up and taking the first turn off the main passageway so that a dozen sailors in space suits carrying gear could pass her.
“Penny. Penny,” Kris called.
The cop’s daughter was at her elbow in a moment.
“That was no accident,” Kris said. “Get a forensic team together from Jack’s Marines. By breakfast tomorrow morning, I want to know what went down in there.”
“No sleep for the wicked,” Abby said with a smile for the Navy officer who’d just been ordered to do an all-nighter.
“Abby,” Kris said.
“I was just headed for bed,” her maid replied.
“You’ve been getting lazy, what with no one trying to kill me,” Kris said, reaching for her maid’s elbow. “Looks like someone just did. Or maybe they were aiming for Vicky. Or someone else. You’re the spy. You tell me what the game is this time and who’s calling the shots.”
“Aye, aye, bossy princess,” Abby said.
Which left Kris with nothing better to do than provide an unnecessary guide for Ron back to his quarters.
She paused at the hatch that led into Iteeche country.
“You want to come inside?” Ron asked her.
Kris shook her head, then she added, “No.” In crossevolutionary-track discussions, body language was more open to mistakes than a simple word.
“I’ve got some tough decisions to make, tomorrow. And they just keep getting harder.”
“I do not think that bomb will help,” Ron said.
“Not likely,” Kris agreed. “I need to do some thinking inside my own skull.”
“Then I will tell you here what I would have told you inside. I was in much trouble after my last visit to human space.”
“What kind of trouble?” Kris asked.
“Many different kinds. My Emperor was not happy that I brought back no promises of help from your people.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Kris said. “I tried.”
“I know that you did. What is written is written. However, my chooser was also very unhappy with me.”
That took Kris aback. “How come?”
“He was not happy to learn what you and I had concluded about how the war was fought.”
“Oh,” Kris said. “Neither was my grampa Ray. I don’t think any of the people who made the tough decisions were happy about us figuring out what they really did during the war.”
“No. He was most unhappy. Before he let me join you on this voyage of search and discovery, he made me swear on my hope of being a chooser myself that I would not spend much time with you.”
“It was that bad, huh,” Kris said.
“Yes. I have sworn to go with you. To see what you see and to report back to my Emperor and chooser what you find. I am afraid that our quiet times of conversation will not be a part of this trip.”
Kris nodded, risking a tight smile. Just when she thought she might be getting to know a guy, wouldn’t you know his mom would tell him she wasn’t the kind of girl a nice guy like him brought home.
“I understand,” she said.
Ron stood aside for his Army officer to open the hatch and peer inside. Once he concluded the humans had no deviltry waiting for them, he waved the Imperial Representative into his rooms. In a moment, the hatch closed and was dogged down solidly.
Jack came up beside her as the door closed. “You want to talk?”
“About what?” Kris said with a sigh. “That another boy has been told he can’t play with me or that all human existence might depend on what I do tomorrow? And at the moment, I have no idea which side I should be on when I start playing one hell of a game of Ping-Pong tomorrow.”
Jack nodded, then went on. “For what it’s worth, this mess is way too complicated for me to figure out. Whatever you decide, I’ll support you.”
“Thank you, Jack. That’s about the nicest thing I’ve heard since we set out on this cockamamie trip.”
“I wouldn’t call it cockamamie,” Jack said. He gave the matter a serious moment of consideration. “Crazy. Yes. Wild. Maybe. Possibly even unusual. But not cockamamie.”
His lopsided smile came out to play as he finished giving her his opinion.
“Thank you for your unconditional vote of support,” Kris said, with a chuckle, and headed for her quarters.
16
Kris ordered a light breakfast brought to her Tac Center and told Nelly to invite all her key staff to report there by 0730. From the way they dragged in, it didn’t look like any of them had had a good night’s sleep . . . even the ones she hadn’t ordered to pull all-nighters.
“Okay, folks,” Kris said, as they gathered around the breakfast tray or filled cups of steaming coffee from the urn, “I need answers to a few simple questions. Who, what, why, how, and, most important, was that bomb last night aimed at me or at someone else?”
“It looks like our little girl just might be growing up,” Abby drawled as she sipped her coffee. “Finally, it’s got through her pretty little head that it isn’t always about her.”
“That last bomb hit me up beside the head pretty hard,” Kris said dryly. “It would be kind of hard not to be open to the idea that the world isn’t just one big gun aimed at my own little head.”
“I noticed that our little princess was kind enough to leave out ‘when,’ ” Penny said, warming up the cup of coffee she’d carried into the meeting. “That leaves all of the rest of them in my lap, thank you oh so much.”
The Navy officer took a seat at the table, yawned, then began crisply. “The what was a bomb. It was in a glass similar to those used in the Forward Lounge but not one of ours. We’ve recovered a lot of tiny glass globules. Most came from the Forward Lounge’s stock. Some didn’t. We expect those are from the bomb. The glass was not manufactured on Wardhaven. At the moment, we are not able to identify just where it did come from.”
“That would be nice to know,” Jack said.
“Of that I am most aware,” Penny said. “Forensics is chasing that down, but don’t hold your breath. There are a lot of glassmakers in human space, and this particular glass got remade but good in the explosion.”
“The glass was disguised to look like an empty and planted in the middle of a whole slew of other empties. The detonator was hidden in something that looked like an olive. Everything was perfectly machined to fit unobserved into a bar.”
“Do we have that on camera?” Kris asked.
“Nope,” Jack said. “Forward Lounge does not have any security cameras. The operator doesn’t want them. ‘Folks are there to relax. If there’s a problem, we’ll handle it the old-fashioned way.’ Besides, we liked that there were no cameras in there, remember. The king met the Iteeche Rep in there. No record. We also did all that history review with the Iteeche in there. Again, nothing we wanted on the record.”
“Right,” Kris said. “Remind me to review our security system.”
“I already am, Kris,” Jack said. “We’d always considered the Wasp above the fray where attacks on you were concerned. It looks like we’re getting a whole new grade of visitors these days. We’re rigging the boat to meet level-one security standards.”