Professor Labao cleared his throat. “I hope you can get some better food off those other ships, and maybe a few restaurateurs. There are a few more of your boffins than I think either one of you are aware of.”
“More?” Kris said, raising an eyebrow. “How could there be more scientists? We got away from High Kyoto in four hours.”
“And thirty-five minutes,” Captain Drago added.
The professor cleared his throat again. “I put out a call to Kyoto University the night before. Then, when I heard you at breakfast in the wardroom, I made a second, more hasty call. Kyoto is a very cosmopolitan university. It has researchers from all over human space as well as some of the best that Musashi and Yamato have to offer. I have two hundred and fifty researchers aboard as you slipped the bounds of that friendly port.”
“We’ve been running around with two hundred people I didn’t know about?” Captain Drago growled.
“They might have slipped aboard, but they couldn’t have brought much research gear,” Penny pointed out.
“Yes, they are aboard, dear captain, and yes, most of them are lacking essential instrumentation for their work. However, I overheard where we were going, and before the first jump, we placed orders for all the sensors and instruments we needed. There should be a merchant ship following behind your brother full of delicate scientific gear.”
“Is there a merchant ship following Honovi’s cruiser squadron?” Kris asked.
“Five,” the captain growled, still unhappy to have stowaways. “The heavy repair ship Vulcan is also along.”
“The Vulcan?” Kris said. The last time she’d seen that repair ship, it had helped outfit her corvettes with Hellburner torpedoes. “What’s it doing here?”
“Hopefully to help us fix things like your dead wall monitor,” Katsu said.
“Hopefully,” Kris agreed, but hope was not what she was feeling at the moment. They went on for another hour, covering the adminutiae of running a ship far from its base, but there were no more surprises.
Kris was getting to like no surprises. But it happened so rarely, she doubted she’d ever get used to it.
* * *
At the gas giant, the Sakura and Wasp connected and began their spin. That created a problem. Docking a longboat with a spinning target was a hard-learned skill, but it turned out that the heavy cruiser Exeter had quite a few Navy personnel from the old Wasp, including the eight bosuns who were already trained in catching the hook and being reeled into the Wasp’s spinning boat deck.
When Kris was advised that Brother and all the captains were aboard, she headed to the Forward Lounge, prepared to play the congenial, if barless, hostess.
That was just her first mistake of the evening.
Glasses were clinking happily as she entered the lounge. To her right was the bar and a very familiar sight.
“Mother MacCreedy, what are you doing here?”
Said woman stood, three beer mugs in hand, filling them in sequence with hardly a drop spilled from the tapped keg. She didn’t look up from her work but called over her shoulder, “I heard you had a ship and a thirsty crew, so of course, I dropped what I was doing and came.”
“Mother, we’re headed for the other side of the galaxy.”
“Yes, I know. I’ve been there, and folks are just as thirsty there as anywhere else. What will you have?”
“The usual,” Kris said, and turned to business, knowing that a tall soda water and lime would be showing up at her table. There were advantages to the familiar.
Brother held down the table in front, with the view. He waved, and she joined him. “Nice place you got here. I especially like the down. Down is nice. My stomach likes down. Think I could stay here tonight?”
“Just be sure to get ashore when we tell you to. Our next stop is a long way from your wife and kid.”
“Soon to be kids,” Brother interrupted.
“And as my captain likes to say, there be sea monsters where we’re going.”
“About those sea monsters,” Brother said. “I’ve brought you some gifts. Four of those transports are carrying Hellburners. A gift from Grampa Ray.”
“And what am I supposed to do with them this time?” Kris asked with a jaundiced eye. She was still wanted on 162 planets for what she’d done with the last three, and Grampa Ray, King Raymond to most, had been noticeably silent about what he’d intended her to do with those gifts.
“Maybe we should talk about this in private,” Brother started, then seemed to catch the full drift of Kris’s question. “No, I don’t care if everyone here hears this. Father was there with half his cabinet when King Ray told me you should use these where you see fit. ‘She’s going into hostile country. She needs the best we have.’”
The lounge had grown silent as Honovi talked. Half the people there were listening as Kris got her orders. Okay. Fine. Maybe.
“Four?” Captain Drago said.
“Two for the Wasp and two for the Sakura. I’m told the frigates can handle two each.” At the next table, Katsu was grinning from ear to ear and nodding.
“We are most definitely headed into ‘hostile country,’” Kris said. She’d first heard the expression “hostile country” in an ancient vid. It was 2-D no less. Then she discovered that the original words “Indian country” had been blocked out of the sound track. The blood of Apache, Sioux, Blackfoot, and Crow flowed in Longknife veins. Kris didn’t like the meaning of “Indian country” or “hostile country.”
Then she discovered the original meaning of “off the reservation.” The idea that human beings would lock other human beings up in such squalor! The more Kris studied old Earth, the less she liked it.
Kris chose to rephrase her orders, using an old sea dog for her guide. “Give me a well-armed ship, for I intend to go in harm’s way.”
“That’s my sis,” Bro said, raising his glass. Kris’s glass arrived just in time for her to share the toast. Then the work of the night began. Bro stood up, called for silence, and told the ship captains gathered there that they would be following him back the way they came.
A burly captain stood up and spoke for everyone. “I don’t take my orders from you even if you are one of those damn Longknifes.” The general rumble of the room strongly agreed with him.
Kris tugged at her brother’s arm. “Bro, let me handle this one.”
“It’s all yours,” he said, sounding relieved as he sat down.
Kris stood and eyed the standing captain. Under her glare, he sat down, and the room acquired silence. “Just for the record, would one of you mind telling me what you intended to do with all these ships loaded up with the best humanity has to offer?”
“We was going to find them aliens you pissed off,” a tall thin man said as he stood. “Show them us humans could be reasonable. That we all could benefit from trade.”
“And they would do what?” Kris asked, just as nice as a sweet princess could.
“Open trade. They’re not stupid. If we don’t go off shooting at them, they won’t go all bloody on us.”
Kris glanced back at Jack and the crew that had fought with her. As one, they shook their heads.
Kris thought for, oh, a second. She’d met a lot of folks who didn’t have a clue as to what happened out there. Maybe she could catch more flies with a little education. “Nelly, run the film of our first encounter with the small alien ship.”
The four forward screens showed the ship of connected spheres launch itself from the moon. The audio gave voice to the Wasp’s effort to establish contact.
Then the ship fired on them.
“Notice, we talked. They shot,” Kris said. In a few moments the ship exploded. “Note that my shots only damaged the ship. They blew themselves up.”