Kris ducked her head as she exited the shuttle, then stood tall.
Across from her stood two Navy officers, sporting four and three stripes respectively on the shoulder boards of their whites. Behind them was a squad of Marines in full battle rattle.
Kris saluted. “Permission to come aboard,” she said formally.
“Permission granted,” the captain growled through a scowl of biblical proportions as he returned her salute. “My Marines will escort you to your holding cell. Commander Morishita will see to your needs. Maybe even arrange for proper uniforms for you,” he said with a disapproving sniff in Kris’s direction.
“I myself am needed on the pier. It seems there is a Navy captain from your Royal U.S. Navy with his own Marines and his own claim on your hide. My JAG tells me that I must disappoint him. If your captains are anything like our captains, we do not take disappointment easily.”
“I think our captains are pretty much the same,” Kris said in her most helpful voice. The scowl she received in reply would have burned any proper subordinate where she stood.
Fortunately, Kris had never been a very proper subordinate.
The captain turned and marched quickly off. Commander Morishita offered a directing hand, and Kris marched off beside him, followed by Jack and Penny and a whole squad of very armed and alert Marines of a most Imperial persuasion.
“Unfortunately, our brig is full at the moment,” the commander informed Kris. “It seems the yen is strong this week, making beer ashore rather cheap. Many of our younger crew members are away from home for the first time and did not discipline themselves as well as they should have.”
“Sailors are people, too,” Kris said. “I believe chiefs were invented to look after them.”
“Chiefs were not invented, Commander, they are hatched,” Commander Morishita said with more than the hint of a smile.
Kris thanked whatever god was looking after her this morning. Apparently, she had fallen into the clutches of a Navy officer with a sense of humor. Kris didn’t risk a smile, though. There was still the matter of where they intended to put her. Battleships had a lot worse places than the brig. Or so she’d heard.
They clambered up several decks, took passageways halfway around the ship, and came to a halt before a door announcing ADMIRAL’S IN PORT CABIN.
“You will be staying here,” Commander Morishita said. “We have no flag aboard, and this seemed like the best place for you,” he said, opening the door.
Four Marines quickly took guard station on either side of the door, with a staff sergeant looking very senior.
Kris followed the commander in. The quarters were quite spacious, with the walls painted to look like wood paneling. There was a work area with a desk and commlink as well as a large table for meetings and, for less formal discussions, a corner with two comfortable sofas with several stuffed chairs.
The commander pointed out a door that led to a bedroom and facilities. There were two other doors. “One leads to the Admiral’s wardroom. The other door is to the chief of staff’s quarters. The previous admiral had it put in. Our last admiral had a lock put on it for his side, and I understand it was never unlocked. We will billet one of your people there, the other one in the next stateroom down the hall.”
Kris walked over to that door, and opened it. When she glanced inside, it showed a room not much larger than her own quarters on the old Wasp. “Jack, would you mind being in here?”
“I don’t see any problem,” Jack said, without even looking.
“I see that you came aboard with nothing but that unregulation dress. I will notify the quartermaster to have a chief check in with you. I assume you’ll need everything.”
“Pretty much,” Kris agreed. With that he left.
“Nelly, are we under surveillance?” Kris asked.
“None that I can identify,” the computer answered.
Kris developed the shakes, something she never did in public. Quickly, she found Jack’s arms around her.
“I’ll go check out my quarters,” Penny said, and left them alone.
39
Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile dictated most of his report to his computer as Agent Chu drove his team back to Bureau headquarters. It said a lot about what he’d done but very little about why or what he had actually accomplished.
He did not like that.
He left his computer putting together his report and dropped into his boss’s office. “You done?” she asked.
“Kris Longknife is no longer on Wardhaven. She was alive the last time I think I saw her, at the controls of a shuttle headed for orbit, so I guess I am done.”
“Very good, Senior Chief Agent. Why don’t you go home.”
“You’re satisfied with the outcome?”
“The Prime Minister’s daughter is alive. That’s what he wanted.”
“Have you heard from him?”
“Not so much as a peep.”
“Interesting,” Foile said, and left.
On the way out, he stopped by the team area. Agent Leslie Chu was finishing up her contributions to the team’s report. “Do you still have that media alert on the princess?” Foile asked her.
“Of course, sir.”
“Have you gotten any hits recently?”
“Not a beep this whole time, sir. The media didn’t know she was here.”
“Oh,” Foile said. “A shuttle takes off from Longknife Towers and lights up the sky, not to mention makes a roaring mess of a lot of people’s sleep. Anything about that?”
“Again, sir. Nothing. If I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d say someone told the media not to cover it.”
“But that, of course, is impossible,” he said.
The two exchanged sardonic grins.
He turned for home, then thought better of it and turned the other way. In five short minutes, he was standing at the front door to Government House. A flash of the badge and he was in. The elevator responded to his punch for the Prime Minister’s floor.
Apparently, someone had given him access and not yet taken it back. They probably would by morning. Which meant it was a good thing he hadn’t gone home.
He quickly found his way to the Prime Minister’s outer office and walked in. “Senior Chief Agent in Charge Foile to see the Prime Minister,” he said, not slowing down as he headed for the door he now knew led to the Prime Minister.
“You can’t go in there,” the secretary shouted. “You have no appointment.”
He went in.
The Prime Minister was behind his desk. He glanced up from his screen, then leaned back to give the agent his full attention. “You,” was all he said.
“Yes, sir. Me. Your daughter is safe and no longer on Wardhaven.”
“So I am told. Yet you did not apprehend her.”
“She is a rather elusive person.”
“So she is.”
“Why was she trying to see her grandfather, and why was he so intent on not seeing her that he abandoned his home and flooded a portion of it with poison gas?”
The Prime Minister stood from behind his desk. “I sent you to secure her. You don’t need to know why. Most certainly, since you failed to do what you were ordered to do. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to be about the people’s business.”
“What is going on here?” Foile demanded, but he was speaking to the Prime Minister’s back as he left his office by a back door.
Foile considered chasing after the Prime Minister, but the door behind him opened, admitting two burly security guards who, no doubt, had been instructed to pay no attention to anything so minor as a Bureau ident.
Foile went before he was forced.
This matter was not finished. He’d have to look for someplace else to find his answers. Where could Kris Longknife fly a shuttle to? She hadn’t landed on Wardhaven. That left only one other place for her to go.