Or not.
The walls of the wardroom were decorated with Marines standing guard, Wardhaven Marines with gleaming fixed bayonets alternated with Greenfeld’s own. Chief Beni with his little potbelly and black boxes looked as out of place among the Marines as a camel at a thoroughbred show.
The fruit and appetizers were both a medley of choices that dominated the conversation as the diners tried different creations. Not until the salad did Vicky casually ask, “So, how did that thing end up with the Iteeche Death Ball. Our detached cruisers were quite excited to make the initial report. Then nothing?”
Kris should have realized the Iteeche situation had to be one of the reasons for the quick invitation. She chose her words carefully, not wanting to tell a lie she could be caught in . . . but not at all willing to tell the whole truth.
“I escorted the Iteeche back to their Imperial Space,” Kris said. “They were scouting for vacant territory. I was scouting for the same. We probably will need to have a brief get-together soon with Imperial representatives to extend the No Go Zone.”
Vicky selected a tiny tomato, speared it, and raised an eyebrow toward Kris. “I think it was two, three months before you sent the Iteeche home. What did your king have to say to him?”
“There are no reports of my king seeing any Iteeche of late,” Kris said. No official reports.
“No official reports,” Vicky said, plucking the words out of Kris’s mind. “Kris. We’re big girls. We both know that lots of things never make it into the official records. What were the Iteeche like? Come on, I’m dying to know.”
Kris pushed a piece of lettuce from one side of her salad plate to the other. It was so tempting to follow Vicky’s lead, to talk girl to girl about something both of them were really into. A temptation, but not one Kris couldn’t resist.
“When you run into one, you’ll have to tell me what an Iteeche is like,” Kris said.
Vicky scowled at the admiral. “You told me she’d be tight-lipped on this.”
He nodded. “Opening talks with our old enemy, even if it is just to draw lines that keep us apart, is not something to be done casually. With all we have on our plate, it’s something best left to others.”
Kris would have loved to tell Vicky just how wise the admiral was, but even to say that would be to say too much.
The soup arrived, a fish stew in a tomato base. Kris found herself wondering if red was the color of the meal. Kris was running out of things to talk about. Space travel really didn’t allow one to talk about the weather all that much, and it was getting more and more clear that Kris and Vicky were on opposite sides of a very thorny wall.
“Kris, why are you getting reports from a news reporter?” Vicky asked after she had finished her soup in silence. “Who is this Winston Spencer?”
Kris gave Vicky the same answer she’d given Penny. “He’s a reporter who’s done some good news articles about the Navy. Last time I visited Wardhaven, my brother, Honovi, rubbed my nose in just how out of the loop I had gotten when I was bouncing around out beyond the Rim. It seems that a Longknife princess isn’t allowed to let the rest of the worlds go away while she’s risking her neck scouting for new planets.”
“I haven’t noticed that scouting out beyond the Rim was all that dangerous. You know something I don’t?” Vicky wheedled.
Kris did know something Vicky didn’t, but she wasn’t going to mix it in with the cold soup.
“Pirates and slavers and, I hear, even some drug lords are raising hell out beyond the Rim,” Kris answered blandly. “The Rim just isn’t what it used to be.”
That drew a dry chuckle from the admiral.
Kris knew she ought to leave it at that. She even managed to close her mouth. It just wouldn’t stay shut.
“I guess it does look kind of funny from where you sit, protected by this huge battleship and all,” Kris said, the words slipping out faster and faster. “You pop a general here. Over there you line up against the wall the whole crew of a planet’s State Security force and machine-gun the lot of them. I bet you laugh at it all when you’re finished.” Kris now was almost shouting; her lungs were empty. She paused to gasp for a breath.
“Kris, this is not well said,” Jack whispered. Across from them, both Vicky and the admiral sat stark still, eyes wide in dismay.
“Right, I shouldn’t say this. I shouldn’t say that they’ve sent millions of people fleeing from the murderers they’ve let loose. I shouldn’t ask them if there’s any spare food on St. Petersburg and if any of the empty ships in orbit here could carry some of those crumbs to feed the refugees on Kaskatos. No, I can’t ask. So we end up shipping food from Wardhaven and Pitts Hope and wherever so that out beyond the Rim a kid whose ribs you can count gets at least one meal a day.”
Kris had to stop. There was a sob climbing up from her gut that she just couldn’t hold in any longer. She let it loose, then fought to keep back the tears that did their best to follow it.
“Is it that bad out there?” the admiral asked.
“It’s bad,” Jack said, buying a few seconds for Kris.
“It’s bad,” Kris repeated, locking eyes with Vicky, willing her to see what she had seen.
“I ordered a rocket-grenade salvo on a balcony a week before last. I was pretty sure your Major Jackie Jackson was on that balcony. Very likely several of her closest aides were there with her. What I do know for sure was that she had four hostages cuffed to that balcony rail. Four civilians guilty of nothing other than being too close to Jackie when I got tired of the slaughter and did what I could to cut it off at the root.”
Kris’s words hung in the air for a moment.
Across from her, Lieutenant Victoria Peterwald broke eye contact with Kris, glanced away muttering, “It was the best thing you could do.”
Kris shook her head. “Yes, I did manage to kill as few innocent people as I could. But I’m getting sick and tired of choices that leave me trying to feel good about doing the lesser of two evils. I’ve had it with that.”
Kris found herself out of words again. She eyed Vicky.
Vicky said nothing. Did nothing. Answered with not even a shrug.
“Could you at least tell me how long this is going to go on?” Kris pleaded. “This, what do you call it, ballot by bullet in the back of the neck?”
“And you’d have us just put this all to a vote, huh?” Vicky snapped, her pale skin now flushed a hot pink that almost matched her red hair.
“It works for me,” Kris shot back. “Please note, it’s us ballot planets that are shipping the food in to the refugees from your bullet planets.”
“They didn’t have to run. They’re cowards. We’ve told them to stay,” Vicky said, half-out of her seat.
“Gosh, in that case, I wonder what makes them run,” Kris said, leaning back in her chair as if to think. “Oh, could it be the bodies in the street every morning? The rivers floating with corpses every night?”
“Kris, what’s got into you?” Jack snapped.
Kris opened her mouth to bite out a reply but found she didn’t have one.
Across from her, Admiral Krätz had a fatherly hand on Vicky’s elbow, pushing her back down into her chair.
“If the two of you were just college students shooting the bull at Kris’s Student Union one afternoon,” the admiral said, “this might be fun. But you are not students. You two are grown women with the responsibility of two planetary alliances on your shoulders.”
He focused his attention on Kris. “I can only imagine what it must have been like for you, stuck cleaning up the mess one of our rogue security officers made of that planet. We thank you in the name of Greenfeld for what you did, and we appreciate your coming here to involve us in the situation. Don’t we, Lieutenant?”