The king grinned. “Point well taken. I’ve watched you grow, kid, from a little girl in a bottle to an ensign who could stop a mutiny with one of her own. You’ve saved more planets than I care to count, and likely more than I had at your age. Yes, this is a hot potato, but Kris, you’ve got the mitts to handle it. Likely, you’re the only one of your generation who can. A hell of a lot more will have to grow mitts for this kind of stuff, but right now, you’re all I’ve got. Take care, please.”
He turned to go, then turned back to her. “I was planning on taking the Constellation back with me, but she’s one of the heavy frigates with 20-inch guns. I’ll take the Fearless instead. You don’t mind keeping Sampson, do you? I could swap her to the Fearless if you want. We’ll be taking a different path back. Every trip out will take a different route. We don’t want the bastards to notice a beaten path between here and home. It also means you won’t be sending us regular reports.”
Kris nodded. She couldn’t think of enough answers to all he’d dropped on her. It would be nice to keep the Constellation. Captain Sampson . . . not so much. Good ship. Troubling CO. But having the king make such an obvious change would not look like Kris was in command.
The idea of taking a different route here and back each time sounded reasonable. She should have thought of it herself. Still, how many permutations could Nelly come up with? With the ships coming her way, assuming they actually sailed, taking a different route, how long would that add to their voyage?
How soon before they stumbled on something that didn’t like being stumbled on?
Did anything good ever come without a downside?
The king glanced back at where he could just barely see the clump surrounding Rita. “You better go see how things are going there. Let me know, if it’s not too much trouble. Oh, and get the word out for kids that want the ride back to meet at the fleet landing.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Kris said, saluted, and left the old man staring back at the woman he had claimed for eighty years to be dead and the love of his life.
Now he knew she was alive.
Was there any love left in his life?
Kris double-timed up to the huddle around Granny Rita on the bench.
“There is nothing wrong with me that having to spend half an hour with that pigheaded, power-hungry megalomaniac didn’t cause. Just give me some air.”
The crowd stepped back, leaving room for Granny Rita to breathe, just as a doctor finished deflating a blood-pressure cuff. “Pressure is 163 over 92. A bit high, but not dangerous.”
“Good, good,” Granny Rita said, just as the opening around her let her get a look at Kris. “So, what did he have to say? Is he going to waste your time being a governor general of all Alwa?”
The look on Ada’s face told Kris that this was the first the Chief of Ministries had heard of this and what she thought of it.
“No,” Kris said. “Despite you being against it, he’s going to let me beg off. It is causing him trouble. My commission as Commander, Alwa Defense Sector, Vicereine, and Governor General will have to be rewritten. I imagine the switch to viceroy won’t be too much trouble, but he was told the lawyers may need six to eight hours or more to comb through the whole thing and eliminate the governor-general stuff.”
“Good, good. That will take him time. Anything else?”
“He wants all the kids interested in an education back home to report to the fleet landing for a ride up to the Monarch as soon as possible. The ship’s leaving in eight hours.”
“Oh, that’s even better. Surround him with a gaggle of hero-worshipping kids, and he’ll totally forget what time it is as he tells them all kinds of lies. Great. Kris, I bet your orders to take command of this sector don’t show up in the mail before the Monarch jumps out.”
“So?” Kris said.
“So, kid, I’ve done a lot of funerals since we landed, and I’ve enjoyed doing a lot of weddings, too. Still do both, even if they are trying to put me out to pasture,” she said eyeing most of those around her. Most of whom found now to be a good time to study the sway of the trees above them.
“Now, Kris, I penciled in a funeral for this afternoon. I figured Raymond was sure to pop an aneurism or have an apoplectic fit, but what don’t you know, he survived me, and I survived him. No accounting for how the universe turns, is there? Now, that leaves me with time on my calendar for something. The best use of my time that I can think of would be a wedding.”
“Wedding?” Kris echoed.
“Yes, kid. Just how gutsy are you? You’ve blown away monstrous alien ships, can you grab your chance for happiness with both hands? As I see it, right now, this young Marine captain reports to Captain Drago. You don’t report to nobody. In a few hours, that’s gonna change. Likely never unchange. You can get married to this guy in the next four to six hours or you can forget it until, well, forever. What do you say?”
Kris looked at Jack. Jack looked at her.
“Which one of us goes first?” Kris asked.
“Traditionally, it’s the guy, but you’ve got the rank. Oh, and you’re the princess. You call it.”
“Jack, if you’re going to say something, you go first.”
Jack reached for her hand and stared deep into her eyes. “Kris Longknife, will you marry me and make me the happiest man this side of the galaxy?”
Kris had forgotten to breathe. She was half-afraid he would not say a word. Now she nearly had to gasp for breath. “Yes, Juan Montoya, I will marry you, and it will make me the happiest woman in the entire galaxy.”
“Well, folks,” announced Granny Rita, “we got a wedding to put on and four hours to do it. Let’s get moving.”
20
There was a lot to get moving.
“Ada,” Granny Rita ordered, “get back to the reception and get the word circulating that anyone who wants a trip back home needs to be at the fleet landing in the next two to four hours.”
“That fast?” Ada asked.
“First, we got to get Raymond distracted. Second, we don’t want any of those leaving to know too much about the wedding.”
“Good point,” Ada said, and headed back for Government House.
“Nelly,” Kris said, “contact Captain Drago.”
“Yes, Commodore Viceroy, or whatever I should call you.”
“We’ll figure that out later. Listen, Granny Rita isn’t in quite as bad a shape as we thought. You can cancel the emergency team.”
“How not bad?”
“She’s going to be doing a wedding in four hours.”
“Oh. Anyone I know?”
“Just me and Jack.”
“Finally! You are, of course, inviting all the ship’s officers and senior chiefs and NCOs.”
“Of course, but there is this problem.”
“Isn’t there always where Longknifes are involved? What is it this time?”
“You’ve heard the king plans to make me Commander, Alwa Defense Sector?”
“Yep. It’s on all the best gossip shows.”
“Well, as soon as he does that, Jack goes back into my chain of command, and we can’t get married. We’ve got to do this before the orders are issued.”
“Smart. Very smart. I smell Granny Rita’s hand in this.”
“She’s doing the wedding,” Kris said dryly.
“So, you don’t want the Wasp’s comm center to log your orders until after the wedding.”
Kris sighed. It would be so easy to take the skipper up on the offer. “No, Captain, we are not going to do anything like that. If the orders come in before Jack and I say ‘I do,’ the whole thing is off. Bring anyone down here to the wedding that you want, but leave someone in charge of the comm center you can count on to pass those orders immediately to Nelly.”