Kris was left shaking. She was shocked that she had been taken so easily. Anger and frustration filled her at what had been done to her. Barely able to stand, she stumbled down the street and into the bar that became her regular.
She found herself drinking as she thought over her problems. Then she found herself just drinking because she had problems.
In the end, she just drank.
Afternoons at the squadron had always been a blur to Kris. After a four-martini lunch, how could it be otherwise? Today, her XO brought her the usual pile of reports she said Kris needed to read. Kris had a dim recollection of losing herself in them.
Today, she read. They were long, detailed reports on ships boarded and health, safety, and drug inspections conducted by her boats. Cargo manifests were carefully reviewed and containers checked with contents verified. New passenger arrivals, their qualifications, and future jobs were all here, as well as who was vouching for them and the duration of their contracts. They were usually for thirty years plus.
Why am I reading all this junk?
Right, she was reading it because her subordinate told her she had to, and she didn’t know better. Or have anything better to do.
Kris started to throw the thick printouts across the room.
Then thought better of it.
NELLY, IS THIS ROOM BUGGED?
FOUR VISUAL, FOUR ELECTROMAGNETIC, AND EIGHT AUDIO. DON’T TALK TO ME.
Kris put a dazed look back on her face and continued slowly thumbing through the reports. On the last page of each, she scrawled her signature as illegibly as she could manage. It was all a blur, but that was how Kris thought she’d been doing it.
Fifteen minutes before quitting time, her XO came in to review Kris’s work, say some nice things, and take away the stack. It was enough to make Kris vomit without using her little bottle.
“Here’s a list of ships coming in over the next couple of days,” the XO said, slipping a flimsy onto Kris’s desk in place of the pile she removed. “There should be no problem. Our ships will intercept each one of them close to the jump point and escort them to the station.”
Kris nodded at the banality. Security was tight here, even she remembered hearing this all before. FastPatRon 127 was Coast Guard and Drug Enforcement, immigration control, and a whole lot of other stuff. What it wasn’t was a fighting unit. If anyone ever threw so much as a harsh word in FastPatRon 127’s direction, her captains wouldn’t know what to do about it.
This was all wrong . . . and it was Kris’s job to make it right . . . but no one wanted anything changed.
No wonder she was drinking again.
As her XO left, Kris put on her blues blouse and followed her. It was early, but Kris always left early. Kris gave her commanding subordinate a bleary smile and stumbled off.
“Royal Pain is gone for the day,” was the last thing Kris heard as the door closed slowly behind her. Kris wondered who the report was directed to. Nelly could probably tell her but wouldn’t. There was no need for Kris to know.
All that mattered was how good they were and if they were better than Nelly.
Kris swallowed a feral grin.
No one was better than Nelly.
At her usual place, her usual stool was empty. Her usual bottle was already open with her usual shot glass in place. Kris imagined that somewhere, someone was running a tab for her and sending a bill to Nelly to pay.
There were too many invisible fingers in this stew.
It had to change.
A silent hour later, Kris had polished off a fifth of her liter, and excused herself to the ladies’ room to get rid of it before it did too much damage to her alertness tonight.
Two hours and another pit stop later, Cara showed up. She gaily ordered a Shirley Temple “with three cherries.” While the barkeep was busy making it, Kris managed to slip a drop of her “medicine” down her throat.
As the bartender delivered Cara’s drink, Kris was explosively sick right there on the bar.
Cara said “Eew” and removed herself a few stools over to enjoy her own nonalcoholic drink. Especially the cherries. Kris made insincere apologies to the barkeep as he cleaned up her mess.
He was very likely one of her keeps. He deserved all she could do to mess with his day.
Only when Cara had most sincerely enjoyed her drink did she offer to take Kris off the bartender’s hands. He had several things to say about that, none at all nice.
Kris managed to upchuck her last drink with no help from her little vile of bile.
Cara and Kris staggered forth with only vituperations filling the air behind them.
The trip home was disappointingly dull. Still, Kris managed to spend a good half hour in the park. The stockholders had imported samples of most of the surviving songbirds of Earth. Kris was pretty sure that, if they could have managed it, they would have caged the birds for their sole pleasure. But the birds sang best when free, so as sunset came on, they sang in the park for rich and poor alike.
Kris was painfully reminded of how the world came alive again for her younger self after Grampa Trouble sobered her up.
How could she have let herself crawl back into the bottle?
Well, she’d had some serious weights dragging her down and some serious help pushing her in. If only Nelly or someone would tell her what was coming down. She hated being treated like a kid again—shuffled from here to there with no idea of why.
When Cara said it was time to go, Kris went.
Abby ordered a shower to clean Kris up, then washed her hair of the stink left behind by throwing up on the bar. A hair wash from Abby was a sensual delight, from the smell of the shampoos she used to the kneading of her hands on Kris’s scalp. Kris felt herself coming alive some more.
She still regretted the deaths of all those who’d followed her into hell and failed to come back to things like brilliant sunsets, chirping birds, and tingling shampoos.
They deserved better than they got.
But there was nothing Kris could do to make that up to them. Killing herself, or just living dead, would add or subtract nothing from their fate.
However, finding out what Grampa Al was up to might, just might, keep a whole lot more people from being added to the long list of dead that Longknifes were responsible for.
Kris went to bed with no objections. She occupied her falling asleep with memories of some of the more spectacular fights between her and Jack.
She let herself linger on those few moments when they shared that kiss, and fell asleep dreaming of more kisses to come.
5
“You afraid of the dark, claustrophobic, or would you mind suffocating to death?” Abby asked as she woke Kris up in the dark of the night.
The clock on Kris’s night table said it was 2:00 A.M.
“I was kind of hoping not to die for a long, long time,” Kris muttered.
“Right, I’ve heard the joke. In some other woman’s bed with some other woman’s husband. Quick. We don’t have much time. Get in this.”
This was one of Abby’s steamer trunks. Kris had always suspected she could fit her slim, six-foot frame into one of them. Now was her chance to find out.
Only she found herself sharing it with several canisters, cans, boxes and other stuff she couldn’t identify in the dark.
As Kris started wedging herself in she asked, “Where are you shipping me?”
“Out of system. You may be in a shipping container open to space for a while. Maybe a long while. Here are some pills. They’ll help you sleep. Try not to turn on any lights for the first twenty-four hours.”
“How will I know that?” Kris asked. It really was tight in there.
“I’ll tell you,” Nelly said. “Now hurry up. We can’t keep hiding this, and we’ve got a whole lot more invisibility spells to cast.”