But a week later, Judith came into her life, a woman Grampa Trouble would probably have enjoyed meeting. Judith was a psychologist.
''I don't need a shrink,'' Kris told the woman flat out.
''Why'd you throw the soccer game last month?'' Judith shot right back.
''I didn't.'' Kris mumbled.
''Your coach thinks you did. Your dad thinks so, too.''
''How would Father know?'' Kris asked with all the sarcasm a twelve-year-old could muster.
''Harvey recorded the entire game,'' Judith said.
''Oh.''
So they talked, and Kris found that Judith could be a friend. Like when Kris shared that she wanted to do more skiff racing, but Mother would have kittens at the very thought.
Instead of agreeing with Mother, Judith asked Kris why Mother shouldn't have a kitten or two? The thought of Mother with a kitten made Kris laugh, which needed an explanation, and before they were done, Kris had come to realize that what Mother wanted wasn't always the best, and that the mother of a twelve-year-old girl should have kittens occasionally. Kris went on to win Wardhaven's junior championship to the prime minister's delight and Mother's horror.
''Get out of your head,'' Kris growled in Captain Thorpe's voice and yanked tight on her restraining harness, a life affirming act that now came naturally to her.
Then Kris's stomach shot into her throat as her lander turned dervish, spinning to the right as the bottom dropped out from underneath her and the still-blasting thrusters rose above.
''What the hell?''
''Who's driving this bus?'' rattled in her ears as Kris grabbed for the wildly gyrating control stick. Aft, Corporal Li restored discipline with a ''Pipe down.''
The stick fought Kris, refusing to obey. She punched her commlink to the Typhoon. ''Tommy, what the hell is going on?'' Her words echoed empty in her helmet; her commlink was as dead as she and her crew would be if she didn't do something—fast.
Mashing the manual override, Kris took command of her craft. With hardly a thought, her hands went though the motions needed to dampen down the spin and pitch. The LAC was heavier, slower to respond than a skiff. But Kris fought it … and it obeyed.
''That's better,'' came from one of the grateful marines behind her. Unless Kris figured out fast where they were and where they were going, this momentary ''better'' just meant they'd be less shook up when they burned on reentry.
''Nelly, I need skiff navigation, and I need it now.'' In a blink, the familiar skiff routines took form on her heads-up. ''Nelly, interrogate GPS system. Where am I?'' The LAC became a dot on her heads-up, vector lines extended from it. She'd been accelerating rather than decelerating!
''Corporal, get a line-of-sight link to Gunny's LAC.''
''I've been trying, ma' am, but I don't know where he is.''
Her computer could probably tell Kris where the sergeant should be with respect to them, but Nelly was doing her best to plot a course that would win Kris another championship.
They didn't hand out skiff trophies just for hitting that dinky ground target. They expected winners to do it in style: be on the dot, use less fuel, take less time. Kris gulped as her heads-up display filled with the harsh challenge ahead. The LAC was out of position and lower on fuel than any skiff she'd ever flown in competition. It would take every ounce of skill Kris had to land her marines anywhere within a hundred kilometers of one terrified little girl.
Kris had raced for trophies. Tightening her grip on the stick, she began a race for a little girl's life.
CHAPTER TWO
Kris acted more on trained instinct than rational thought. Her right hand firmly on the stick, she first stabilized the craft. That done, she spared a second for Nelly's search to get Kris and her marines down safely. Thank God she'd kept Nelly and refused the standard-issue computer with all its Navy limits. ''Nelly, get our present coordinates from GPS. Use the hunting lodge for a target. Now, give me a low-risk flight plan.'' Nelly did it in hardly a second; it would get them down safely—but on fumes and fifty klicks past the lodge.
Even as Kris adjusted her deceleration burn to fit that trajectory, she snapped, ''Alternate flight plan. Assume I can bleed off an extra twenty percent of my energy aerodynamically. How much fuel would that leave me?'' Kris had to have a cushion. In competitions, each skiff had a two minute separation between the one ahead and the one behind. Today, Gunny's LAC was somewhere off to her right, no more than ten kilometers, probably less. That might be an acceptable safety margin if Tommy was flying both of them to their drop point, but not now, not with Kris careening all over low orbit.
''Nelly, add in the assumption that I need a hundred kilometers north separation from Gunny's LAC.'' In a blink, Nelly modified the latest flight plan, but the result flashed red. Even assuming Kris cut her orbital burn to the bone, there was no way she could aerodynamically dissipate enough energy. She'd have to overshoot the target by a good hundred klicks.
''Assume twenty kilometers displacement,'' Kris reordered; her first S-curve would have to be away from Gunny's LAC. Nelly quickly generated the requested flight plan; Kris could make it. However, a yellow button on the heads-up flashed a warning. Her fuel reserve would be below competitive standards; she would be disqualified.
With a rueful shrug for the machine's concern, Kris said, ''Do it, Nelly,'' and settled in for the ride of her life. Very early, Kris had learned that every computer-generated course could be improved upon by a human. To take home those trophies scattered around her room, she'd saved a little fuel here, a little more there, always on her own.
''Sir, I mean ma' am, I think I see the sergeant.'' Corporal Li's voice was a series of nervous squeaks and cracks.
Kris was rooted to her machine. Her hand had merged with the control stick; her rear was part of the heat shield and wing's fabric. Kris's eyes might as well have been the angle of attack, g meter, and speed gages. To break concentration now would be agony. ''Where, Corporal?''
''Off the starboard bow, two, no, two-thirty, ma'am, low one, one-thirty. I think that's him. Ma'am.''
Kris risked a glance. Yes there was an LAC, a bit ahead and below her, still breaking just as she was now. ''Try to raise Gunny,'' she ordered and went back to flying a miracle.
''What I'm getting is all broken up and crackling, ma'am.''
''Right.'' Kris kicked herself. ''His engine ionization is between us.'' A moment later it was time to terminate the burn. She rotated her craft, placing its heat-shielded nose to the atmosphere, and got ready to ride it down. Li made several more attempts to contact Gunny, but LAC Two was still breaking, pointing its ionized exhaust at them. Kris told him to stow it as the nose of her LAC began to wrap itself in dancing light.
Now came the hard part. Here a good skiff driver made up for the fuel she'd saved—if she did it right—and dropped her boat on the dot. Diving, Kris plunged her craft quickly and hot into the atmosphere. Then she put the LAC into gentle—or maybe not so gentle—S-curves to bleed off that extra energy. Kris gauged them through narrow eye slits.
She had to keep the heat shield between the searing ionized airflow and her very burnable body. Cut the curve too tight, and hot gases would take her and her marines' heads off.
Cut it too loose, and she'd overshoot by kilometers. Kris had learned these moves when it was only a game and when she flew one of the best skiffs built on Wardhaven. Now Kris honked her craft over on first one side, then the other—a craft she knew nothing about.