''You know where we'll want you.''
''We'll be there in an hour.''
''Two more volunteers,'' Sandy said as the commlink went silent.
''But these stay way back, right?'' Kris said. So why did she have chills running up her back? With a shiver, she changed her train of thought. ''They're going to be shipping Foxers up the beanstalk. We've got a small mob of electronic countermeasures folks, and they're bound to be shipping stuff up. The beanstalk's going to get plenty busy.''
''So that's a flock of ravens on the next pier,'' Sandy said. ''Wonder what they'll come up with?''
''I think I better warn my brother that the space elevator is going to be a busy place. Where's Beni?''
''In the sack,'' the Duty Lieutenant said, but she produced a commlink from a drawer. ''The boy may be slow and lazy, but he ain't dumb. Said if you needed his phone, better it was here than under his pillow.''
''Boy is educatable,'' Sandy agreed.
Kris dialed Honovi. ''Bro, it's me. How are things?''
''We're working on it. I'm with Pop and his good buddy just now.'' Kris heard snorts in the background.
''I thought you ought to know that the beanstalk is going to be getting a workout soon. All kinds of nice stuff.''
''Hmm. I'm putting you on speaker, turnabout being fair.'' Kris did the same. Brother continued, ''We've got a bit of a problem. Among our others. Seems there are several liners in port. Due to sail yesterday, today. Booked solid. We've held them in port. Policy issues. That kind of stuff.''
Kris could imagine. Would Peterwald dare shoot up a liner registered to an Earth company or one of the hugely powerful Seven Sisters, the first planets colonized four hundred years ago? Do you hold the liners in port and challenge Peterwald to shoot up the station with them there? Not very brave, but then Pandori was grasping for anything.
''We've got folks who want to leave town, folks with non-Wardhaven passports. Even some with ours. So, we're thinking of giving in and letting the boats sail. What are your thoughts?''
Kris eyed Sandy and wished she had a whole lot more people here at the moment. Liners would mean a mob scene at the station. People with cameras. It would be much harder to keep hidden what they were doing. Or could they hide their efforts among the flow? Would refugees be interested in looking around? Would all the people fleeing be refugees?
The Duty Lieutenant tapped a workstation. One of the screens scrolled down a list of passenger ships in port. Four big ones. Six medium. Most had sailing dates past due. Yep, there'd be a lot of pressure on Pandori to let them go.
''If they sailed at the same time we did?'' Kris said. She was no expert on electromagnetic racket, but all those reactors would have to put out a whole lot of noise. All that mass in motion would play hail Columbia with detection gear. Could her tiny fleet fall out the bottom? NELLY, SHOW ME IN PURPLE THE ORBITS THESE LINERS WOULD TAKE TO GET TO JUMP POINT ALPHA. COULD THEY BE MADE TO FOLLOW THE FIRST PART OF OUR ORBIT AROUND WARDHAVEN AND OUR HEADING TO THE MOON?
The purple path appeared on the battle board. Sandy frowned and mouthed ''Nelly,'' silently at Kris. Kris nodded. Sandy eyed the plot. ''Birds on the next pier might like this idea.''
''I missed that,'' Honovi said.
''Some local discussion. Some of us up here think it would be a good idea to let the passenger ships go.''
''You're not going to use them…'' Kris recognized Pandori's deep baritone.
''No. But if they traveled the same path for a ways, it wouldn't hurt. We'd want those ships to leave—''
Sandy cut Kris off with a sharp shake of the head.
Kris backed off two hours and said, ''All the passengers would have to be aboard by, say, seven tomorrow morning.''
''Not a lot of time,'' Father said.
''There's not a lot of time before those other ships show up,'' Kris pointed out, if it needed pointing out.
''Yes.'' ''Right.'' ''Just so,'' came from the phone. Apparently it did need pointing out.
''So there will be a lot of traffic up the stalk in the next couple of hours,'' Kris said. ''Please keep it low-key.''
''We will,'' Brother promised.
''And you are going to make us legal, right?''
''We were working on that when we were interrupted by this other matter,'' Father assured her.
''See you when this is all over,'' Kris promised.
''Please, yes,'' Honovi answered as the line went silent.
''I better get back over to the yard,'' Kris said, getting up. ''Sorry about having Nelly mess with the inside of your battle board, but…''
''It seemed like a good idea at the time,'' Sandy said. ''You know, I've never once heard a Longknife admit to doing something that seemed like a bad idea at the time. Now, in hindsight…''
Kris tried to give the destroyer Captain a lighthearted shrug. She wasn't doing lighthearted all that well today. Whatever she did, it seemed to mollify Sandy.
''Still, it was good to have that plot added to my board and nice not to have it talked about on net, so, yes, Nelly, you're forgiven for messing with my ship.''
''I just asked the board to plot the course. The board did all the work,'' Nelly said. ''It did it most rapidly.''
''Nelly, are you complimenting my standard Navy-issue gear?''
''It did the job required of it.''
''I think your computer is learning tact.''
''I hope so,'' Kris said as she headed for the hatch.
''You going into that den of thieves next door?'' Jack asked.
''Looks like it.''
''I better tag along.''
''I thought you were on terminal leave.''
''Yeah, I am, ain't I. But I don't like the looks of that mob they let in. It sure would be a shame for you to get this ragtag and bobtail collection all formed up, then miss the show because someone put a bullet in your elbow. Pinked you in your little toe. You know, that kind of thing.''
''You know, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were concerned about me.''
''Nope, just worried about my professional reputation. Me being so close when you get tagged, I'd never live it down.''
''Yeah, right,'' Kris said. But it did feel good to have Jack at her side, doing that thing he did that seemed to be looking every which way at once.
On his own pier, Roy had organized chaos into groups that were examining small chunks of the problem. He circulated between them. Kris caught him in midcirculation and brought him up to date on the major ship movement about to take place.
''Crap, I was kind of hoping those love boats would stay tied up not too far from me and my docks. So they're out of here.''
''Looks that way.''
''Good Lord but that's gonna be a lot of noise, not to mention heavy metal moving around,'' he said, slowing down. ''Albert. You might want to hear this. You too, Gus.''
Two middle-aged types. Albert a tall, thin woman, Gus a short, round man, detached themselves from different groups to join Kris and Roy. As Kris repeated her situation report, several others gravitated into their circle.
''Neat,'' a young woman said. ''Plenty of mass. Plenty of magnetic excitement. Where's the sun and moon?''
''Nelly, give the woman a schematic of the system.'' And one appeared in front of Kris.
''If the whole mob pulled away at the same time, you'd have Wardhaven between the bastards and you for fifteen, twenty minutes,'' Gus said, pudgy fingers tracing Nelly's hologram.
''You could sort yourselves out, form on their reverse side, be in their shadow by the time you got out from behind Wardhaven,'' Albert said.
''They'd head for Alpha jump,'' Kris said, ''and standard battle tactics would have us head for the moon.''
''No surprise there,'' Gus said, ''but you'd have their background noise again to use to sort yourselves out, get the larger ships in front, the smaller in their shadow. We could have a whole lot of different… and extraneous … noise from several sources covering so much of your signal that…''
''Yes.'' Albert nodded. ''Those liners would add a very nice bit of cover to the symphony. If we tweaked our signals in the J band. The L and P. We could have them so confused.''