''I should have thought of that,'' Phil said.
''The more heads, the better the thinking. Tell you what, I'll ask the Commodore if he'd like to hold a stand-up conference on the pier beside the Cushing this evening so we can review work on the squadron. Say sixteen hundred. Each skipper can say how things are going, good ideas they've thought up, and plan for the next day. Nothing too long. Don't have time for that.''
''Think you can get the shipyard boss to show up, tell us how things are going? I asked my yard rep, and all I get is ‘Everything is fine. Don't worry.' Just makes me worry more.''
''I'll have Roy there.''
Kris stumbled across Jack more by accident than intent. He swore a blood oath not to let her get away like that again. At the Cushing, Kris told the Commodore about her idea of afternoon and morning meetings.
''I always had those when I was in the yard. We're in such a hurry we're forgetting to do it right. You're doing a walk-around. Good Commanders always do them. Lets ‘em see what's really happening in their commands. Anyone tell you to do that?''
''No.'' Kris admitted.
The Commodore smiled. ''Should have known it wouldn't take a Longknife long to figure it out. By right of blood, by right of name. By right of title, is that what you said? Got to remember that for my memoirs. Don't hear things like that nearly enough these days. Certainly not from the likes of your old man. Anyway, yes, Your Highness, I will send runners to your fiefs and request and require that your skippers present themselves at sixteen hundred.''
''Sounds awful fancy. Sure they'll understand what you want? What's wrong with ‘The Commodore sends his compliments and calls a conference on the pier.' It always worked before.''
''Ah, yes, but this has more poetry. And shouldn't we who are about to die salute life with poetry?'' the Commodore said. And for the first time, Kris noticed that the old fellow had a twinkle in his eye.
What have I unleashed? No. What are we unleashing from ourselves?
Kris skipped the Halsey. She had no illusions that she had anything to offer Sandy, other than what time the pier-side conference was. Gate 5B was now open between the yard and the Naval Station right at pier-side. Kris crossed over quickly, but the air docks were scattered along the spacefront. She didn't know what to expect aboard the yachts. She was not surprised when she got everything from ''Princess arriving,'' aboard Grampa Al's boat to ''There's a Longknife aboard. Watch your wallets,'' as she crossed the brow to another.
The yachts had established their own command structure, electing the skipper of the General Electric yacht Archimedes as their Commodore. Elizabeth Luna, a tall drink of water with graying raven hair and a drawl almost direct from some rawboned section of old Earth, greeted Kris with a firm handshake and a complaint. ''They want to rip out my 12-inch pulse lasers. Over my dead body they get my guns.''
Kris suspected there'd be a lot of dead bodies besides Elizabeth's. ''They give a reason?'' Kris asked, buying time and checking for exits. Jack displayed noticeable disinterest in Kris's bodily safety as he studiously examined a set of crossed sabers hanging from the bridge bulkhead. Apparently, Elizabeth was fully prepared to repel boarders.
''Weight. They're welding that damn decoy to my snout, a barge off kilter between that decoy and the Archie, and slapping together some sort of false front on all this with half-inch deck plate, and they're worried about weight.''
''How could you use the lasers with all that junk out in front of you?'' Kris asked. It sounded like a good question.
''That crap ain't gonna be there when I'm shooting, honey. I plan to rig explosive charges to the struts holding on the cover and the decoy. Once you've done your part, I'm gonna cut myself lose and go gunning for any little pieces you left behind.''
Kris blinked. She considered her part in this mission just one step shy of suicide. Any reasonable person would. But intentionally going into battle in a ship speckled with explosive charges …! Planning on blowing a hole in your ship so you could get out, and then charging out shooting…?
PARDON ME, KRIS, BUT WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HER EXPLOSIVE CHARGES AND HAVING THE AGM-944'S ABOARD? Nelly asked.
THANK YOU, NELLY, YOU MAY GO BACK TO YOUR CALCULATIONS.
YES MA'AM.
''The other armed yachts plan to do the same?''
''Yep. We got it all worked out. You mind explaining it to the yard folks and your Navy friends? They seem to listen better when you do the talking.''
''Aren't the reservists normally in the decoys?'' Kris asked.
''No problems. I've moved their workstations inside. Better eats for them out of our galley, trust me. We got the staterooms all rigged as work areas for them. Even got three of them set up in the owner's hot tub. Drained it, of course. Eight redundancy lines going forward to the decoy's noisemakers and other stuff. Trust me, they're safer here than there.
''Making a real mess of the yacht.''
''Boss said to win this fight. Don't count the cost, and there's stock options in it for the crew. Not that the boss's stocks are gonna be worth all that much if we lose. But we win this one, I don't expect any of us will have to look for work the rest of our lives. Yes, Princess, we're gonna go gunning for anything you don't kill.
''And from what I hear, we aren't the only yachts that are checking out their six-shooters. Half a dozen more armed yachts are getting ready to sail with us.''
''Oh my God,'' Kris said. Maybe prayed. ''We don't need them out there ahead of us, messing up…'' Kris didn't say more.
''Messing up the fancy dance you fast boats are gonna have to do if you're gonna stay alive,'' Luna finished for her.
''Something like that,'' Kris finished. Nelly?
I TOLD YOU I WOULD TELL YOU IF SOMETHING BROKE IN THE NEWSIES. NOTHING HAS BROKEN. No HINT OF DEFENSE. THE TALKING HEADS ARE ALL POLITICAL AND ALL CONCENTRATING ON YOUR FATHER AND PANDORI. NO RETIRED GENERALS, ADMIRALS TALKING. INTERESTING, THAT. TRUST ME, KRIS, I CAN GENERATE RANDOM NUMBERS AND PAY ATTENTION TO THE NEWS. PIECE OF CAKE.
THANKS, NELLY. ''How long do you think before this leaks out?'' Kris asked the yacht skipper.
The merchant mariner shrugged. ''Most of us have orders from our owners to keep it quiet. No reason for us to blab our heads off to the newsies. We drink in a better grade of bar from them, if you ask me. Anyway, they're not snooping all that hard. Maybe someone shortened their leash. Who knows?'' There was a hint of a smile in the shrug Elisabeth gave. Had she actually just praised the bugs that everyone usually loved to hate?
Kris's next stop took her to Roy's office. A runner led her to the shop floor where the acting super huddled with a small army of engineers over a hologram of one of the armed yachts. Kris watched as it blew away its outer shell, decoy, and power barge, emerging like a butterfly from a cocoon—and was then ripped apart by the flying pieces as they bounced off of each other and into the yacht.
''That ain't gonna work,'' Roy said. ''Get another option.''
''We've already tried twelve.''
''So you shouldn't have all that much trouble coming up with another twelve. Your momma didn't raise an unimaginative engineer, did she?''
There was a general muttering about whether some managers had mothers. Roy chose to recognize Kris at that moment and by concentrating his smile on her, ignore the small mutiny among his people. ''How's it going, Your Highness?''
''Better than I might have expected. Has Captain Luna seen that little demonstration?''
''She and the other five skippers saw the first four versions. Doesn't believe a pixel of them. ‘All engineering hogwash,' I believe was their response.''