“I hear you, Abby. And let me officially go on record that this is a problem between you and Her High-Handedness here. My troops may be dumb jarheads, but we are smart enough to stay out of anything you two women got going between you.”
“Good,” Abby sniffed, and stormed out of the room.
“So,” the colonel asked, “anyone think now would be a good time for coffee? I don’t know about you youngsters, but I need to visit the gentlemen’s facilities.”
“I could use some coffee,” Jack agreed, and headed for the urn standing in the middle of the Forward Lounge’s bar.
Kris and Vicky followed him.
“You know,” Vicky said, “this has been quite an experience watching you go about planning an operation. I’m not sure how you got all these strong-willed people running along with you, but it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life. I can wrap a man or three around my little finger, but none of them would follow me into hell like these people are marching off to do.”
“I’m glad you’re learning it here. If you didn’t learn it at your father’s knee, you have to learn it somewhere,” Kris said, her mind still half on how much she did not understand her maid.
“I don’t think there was any chance of my learning this from Dad. I remember stopping in the hallway outside a meeting he had with one of his admirals. That admiral was mad. I’d never heard anyone talk like that to Dad. Not talk like that and live to tell of it, anyways.”
“An admiral was mad at your dad?” Jack said.
“Yes. I got to thinking about it as you were planning how to deploy your ships. Admiral Krätz’s Battle Squadron 12 originally had a division of cruisers and a squadron of destroyers with it, but they all were left at home. A cruise this long was considered too much for the smaller ships. But here you are, running around with corvettes thousands of light-years from any port. And you’re planning on using them in ways no battleship could possibly match.”
“And the admiral was mad how?” Jack asked. His voice was suddenly devoid of any tint of emotion.
“The admiral was shouting that six big battleships had been wiped out by a bunch of mosquito boats because Dad ignored that admiral’s professional judgment that battleships needed a decent escort.”
At Kris’s elbow, there came a shudder. Kris turned just in time to see Penny shiver and turn pale. The look she gave Vicky would have fried a more sensitive person in place.
The young lieutenant’s mouth opened, then clamped shut. Penny turned and fled the room.
“What’s wrong with her?” Vicky asked.
“I commanded those mosquito boats, Vicky, and the skipper of my flag was Penny’s husband of three, four days. He died saving her life.”
Kris paused to see if she’d gotten any reaction from the Peterwald scion. Her mouth actually did fall open, a bit. Her eyes widen, a little.
Kris went on. “Our mosquito boats were hurriedly built, using dumb metal. You know, the Smart MetalTM that can only change its shape two, maybe three times. Our fast patrol boat was venting its air to space, holed in I don’t know how many places. I ordered Nelly to seal the boat. If we’d had more time, we might have also arranged to have the metal unpin Penny’s husband, but there wasn’t any time.”
“A hard choice,” Vicky whispered.
“The kind of choices we’ll be making a lot of in the next few days.”
“You knew this, but you, your crew here, still saved my dad.”
“There was no way for us to know for sure that Peterwald was behind those battleships. And the assassins had arranged for it to look like I was involved in their plot to kill your father,” Kris said, her words flat as she spat out the story of how even the supposed powerful could find themselves trapped by duty into doing what they’d never do by choice.
“Imagine if humanity were all balled up in a vicious war,” Kris went on, “Greenfeld against Wardhaven. Nobody winning, everybody dying. And then imagine these horrors popping out of some jump point. A fine mess we’d be in.”
“Yes. I guess so. I ought to go apologize to Penny.”
“I wouldn’t do that just now,” Kris said. “Unless you know some magic words that will raise the dead and make it all better, I really don’t think there is anything you can say to Penny at the moment. Why don’t you and I go see if Cookie has any fresh-made bread? Maybe we can wheedle some old sea story out of him that will tell us who he really is.”
“You have the strangest people around you,” Vicky said.
“Yes,” Kris said, eyeing the young woman beside her, “and I’m only now learning the half of it.”
36
The old cook did indeed have some cranberry bread fresh from the oven. He even had butter, scrounged from one of the restaurants being off-loaded along with most of the boffins.
What he didn’t have was any sea stories he was willing to share with the two young women. He smiled cheerfully at their request and excused himself to watch over his dinner preparations.
The Wasp was changing around them even as they walked its passageways. The skipper was now sporting a Navy blueand-gold uniform with a lieutenant’s two stripes, but he was still the captain to everyone Kris met. Another reason not to try to change what everyone was used to.
The Wasp itself shrank as shipping containers were cut free from their hold-downs on the ship. After threatening to hurl all the finely decked-out containers that held not only quarters and restaurants but also research labs and tons of equipment into the gas giant they were orbiting, Captain Drago relented and agreed to winch the boxes over to one of the freighters.
No one was very happy about letting those running back home do it in the fine quarters they were giving up. Still, there were fond hopes that the shipping containers would be waiting for the Wasp to come home, too, load back up, and head out for exploration again.
That slim handhold on a future that was as good as the past seemed to make it easier for people to face the unknown ahead of them.
The freighter that rendezvoused with them also brought along sixteen more antimatter torpedoes, so Kris was glad of the visit at least as much as the departing hands were glad for the use of the cargo containers.
Kris and Vicky stopped by Iteeche country to bring Ron up to date on what the humans had decided to do. It turned out he was already up to speed. Whenever Kris had talked to her own captains or the admirals, Nelly opened his communications link.
“So you are going to war for these people we have never met.”
“Is that something the Iteeche would never do?” Kris asked.
“Never. I do not think anyone could get the Imperial Mind to turn that way. I do not think the Imperial counselors would ever permit such a thing to even be discussed outside of chambers. We would prepare for our first encounter with these homicidal aliens, but we would never rush out to meet them. Not like you have chosen to do.”
“So you think Kris is wrong,” Vicky said.
“My chooser taught me to think like a human, twisted though that is. Even if you are wrong, I think you are magnificent. Is that twisted?”
“No,” Kris said. “Just very human.”
“Are you committed to swim this course?” Ron asked.
“I’m still hoping we can get them talking to us,” Kris admitted.
“Hmm,” was all Ron said.
Four hours later, only two hours behind schedule, the Vulcan announced that its work there was done. The Hellburners were operational, and the squadron was good to go. The muster of personnel requesting a trip home topped out at fewer than a hundred; no ship was left in any danger of being undermanned.