''Well, someone with six very big ships just came through Jump Point Beta and is demanding we surrender,'' Sandy said.
''Surrender,'' echoed around the circle. Kris's mind boggled at the word. Wardhaven didn't surrender! Couldn't surrender.
''And here's something interesting,'' Sandy went on. ''My XO's a history bug. He noticed something familiar about the message they're sending, so he did a search. I bet you intel folks would have spotted it real soon,'' she said, smiling, ''but the words they're broadcasting to demand our surrender are nearly the exact same words we used to demand Turantic's surrender the last time we fought them before Unity put an end to the Rim's squabbling.''
''They're taking us back to the bad old days of Rim worlds attacking Rim worlds for reparations?'' Kris said.
That was a Dark Age, when worlds fought worlds for no better reason than that they could.
''I said nearly,'' Santiago pointed out. ''The language is the same up to the point where we ordered Turantic to surrender and pay reparations. They demand we surrender, renounce all alliances, and accept occupation.''
Kris took a moment to digest that. Phil whistled. ''They want us. Lock, stock, and barrel,'' Kris concluded.
''Looks that way,'' the destroyer skipper said.
KRIS, I HAVE SOMETHING.
NOT NOW, NELLY.
''What are we going to do about it?'' Phil asked.
''What can we do?'' Sandy said. ''I'm the only warship in port. Your patrol boats, assuming you could take on a squadron of battleships, are cold steel. Even if the interim government was to order something, I don't see what they could.''
''How long to get the fleet back?'' Phil asked.
An intel type shook her head. ''Can't do it fast. The Boynton situation isn't good. If our fleet starts running for here, they risk losing one planet only to get here and find Wardhaven bombarded back to the Stone Age.''
''What can we do here?'' Kris said, her mind spinning through a hundred different options—none good.
''That empty suit.'' Her father's bellow carried across the garden. Then again, he hadn't been all that loud. Sometime during the Commander's briefing, the string quartet had fallen silent. Even Tom and Penny had abandoned their families and joined the rear of the Navy crowd around the destroyer skipper.
''That gutless collection of old women in petty coats. I always said the opposition hadn't had a new thought since their grandmothers were born, but Pandori didn't have to prove me right before the entire planet.'' Kris wondered how much of Father's yelling was for relay to his political base and how much of it was him blowing off steam. From the look of Father's rising red complexion, maybe all of it was for his own blood pressure.
Father kicked a rented chair out of his way as he returned from his walk among the flowers. Said walk apparently had done nothing to soothe him. ''Pandori just went public! Went public with an announcement that his government has no policy toward the approaching battleships. No policy for or against surrender for the moment, and he will need to meet with his cabinet immediately to establish one. The man is a rank amateur!
''Any freshman backbencher in the liberal party knows you never, ever, let the news cycle know that you don't know what you're doing. You always have a policy. The people elected you to have an answer for everything. It may take a few brief meetings to refine it to the present unique circumstances, but you always know what you're doing.'' Father pounded one fist into the other. ''He's as much as admitted he hasn't the vaguest idea what to do about those warships and their demand for surrender.''
''He can't surrender,'' Honovi said.
''Of course he can't surrender. Wardhaven never surrenders.'' Kris knew that was for party consumption. Around her father, lapel phones were aimed at him. That sound bite would be on the net in moments. Pandori might not know what his policy was, but Father certainly knew his.
Which might not be all that good. If Father wasn't careful, he'd back the Prime Minister Pro Tem into a corner, and the two would still be squabbling there when the battleships arrived overhead to smash everything Wardhaven had in orbit. Cut huge swaths through our cities. Honovi moved in close to his father, sought as much privacy as circumstances might allow. Around them, lapel cameras were covered.
''If we can't surrender, Father, how do we fight?''
''That's the problem, Son. Pandori's screwed us into a horrible quandary. Can't defend ourselves. Can't surrender either. So he wants to crawl into a nice, comfortable cabinet meeting and babble to his buddies about what a mess I made for him when he made it for himself. No, Son. We need a full session of Parliament to tackle this one.''
''An interim government has never called a session, Father.'' Honovi chewed his lower lip for a moment, then went on slowly, ''If there was a full session, could you call for a vote of confidence in Pandori's policies?''
Father chuckled. ''Now you know why the blokes who bring down a government aren't supposed to do any governing, Son. You bet if he calls a session, the first thing I'll put on the table is a vote of no confidence, and it's one he very much deserves. With the mess he's made of things, he won't last five minutes. No, Pandori's caught in a horrible box. He's got four days until those damnable ships show up in orbit. If he announces his policy now, and it's fight, he comes up a cropper with nothing to fight them with. If he raises the white flag now, he has to call the House together to sanction his decision, and he'll fall so far and so fast he'll never reach bottom for the splat.''
Father paused, eyebrows coming together thoughtfully. ''Maybe he's not so stupid after all. Maybe he's trying to hide behind no policy to avoid having to face what a policy will cost him. But damn it, his policy is going to cost Wardhaven. Dear God, is it going to cost Wardhaven.'' Still muttering to himself, Father walked off, Honovi right behind him.
''So, what do we do?'' Babs Thompson asked the circle of Naval officers.
Kris looked down at Mother's ridiculous bridesmaid's dress. ''I don't know about you, but I'm getting dressed.'' Kris twirled the train over her right arm, straightened her back, and with as much dignity as her attire allowed, quick marched for her room.
It took Kris a whole ten seconds to rip off the daisy dress; that was one outfit she'd never wear again. She didn't even want it hanging in her closet. Abby could send it off to some secondhand store. Somewhere there had to be a stripper desperate to take it off for money.
But that left the question of what to put on.
Kris stood, nearly naked, and eyed the Navy side of her closet. She was disgraced. She was relieved of her command. She was only just cleared of charges.
And on Hikila, someone had set her or King Ray up for murder just now. The fleet was at Boynton, and the PFs were cold steel and up for sale. Coincidence?
She chose undress whites.
Carefully pulling on the starched pants, the Order of the Wounded Lion in its open case on the shelf caught her eye. She'd earned it for mutiny. Should she wear it? Exactly what she would do today was still forming in the back of Kris's mind, but no doubt a lawyer at JAG would be stuck reviewing the mutiny section of the UCMJ by sunset.
''Can I help?'' Abby asked, surveying with a jaundiced eye the wreckage of the formal gown strewn about the floor. ''Add garlic, and that's one dress that ain't never gonna bother no girl again.''
''Could you put my ribbons on my whites?'' Kris said. ''And you have an eye for a fashion statement. See if you can fit the crest of the Order of the Wounded Lion somewhere on the shirt.''
Kris concentrated on dressing. Shoes. Shoes were good, and shoestrings needed tying. What was she going to do? Certainly things were a mess. Fleet gone. What was left was outgunned a jillion to one. Even the mosquito boats, assuming you bought the wildly excessive advertising that a dozen of them could take on one battleship, were outclassed. If they could get power up.