''That word all over the place?''
''Judge Maydell was working with me this afternoon. She says it looks like you made the hard call for the right reason, but she's wondering if it was only for the right reasons. She thinks your combat vita is way too full for someone our age.''
''She have any idea how I avoid getting shot at next time?''
Penny shook her head, and kept chewing.
Kris gazed up at the ceiling. ''If I got a sleepy dart into her cheek, would it have done the job? Or would the dart have just broken her jaw on the way into her brain? If I hit her eye, she'd be just as dead as she ended up. And if I planted a few darts in her scalp, would they have put her to sleep or just aggravated her?'' Penny nodded along.
''They were armed and dangerous. She wouldn't freeze, but went for her gun. The ones we captured said they intended to take over the Resolute. I was reading the situation correctly.''
''But,'' Penny said.
Kris tried to ignore the ''but.'' Still, it hung in the air.
''I enjoyed shooting her,'' Kris finally admitted. ''I never got a chance to blow the head off that admiral on the Revenge who gutted the 109. Was I shooting at her, or at him.'' Kris paused to let the question bounce around in her head for the forty millionth time. ''I just don't know.''
''You need a break,'' Penny said.
''I thought Training Command was supposed to be a break.''
''Maybe for me, but you ended up dodging a couple of bombs. Did you ever relax? Do you ever relax?''
''You're starting to sound like that police officer on Turantic. What did he say? ‘Each time you pull the trigger, it gets easier to pull it the next time.' ''
''And you get more and more different from the person you started out being,'' Penny added.
They both munched a few forkfuls of salad on that thought.
''And I thought I'd have dinner with you and counsel you a bit,'' Kris finally said.
''You are counseling me. You're making me feel great. I'm getting better a whole lot faster than you. I can't tell you how good that makes me feel,'' Penny said, sticking her tongue out.
Kris threw a cucumber slice at her.
''More of your aggression,'' Penny said, shaking her head in mock despair. ''You know what we need to do?''
''I can think of several hundred good ideas, but which one are you interested in particularly tonight?''
''We need to get drunk.''
''You know I can't afford that.''
''I'm sure we can get several Proud Old Vets to make sure you get to your ship on time tomorrow. They've told me enough tales of rolling buddies into the liberty launch in the nick of time. They'd cover for us if I asked.'' Penny was looking over the crowd, as if already picking out their shepherds.
''Penny, if I start drinking, there's no guarantee that I'll be sober by the time we get where we're going.''
''Were you that bad a drunk?''
Kris nodded. ''But, in college, I found I could get quite high on good friendship and a large bottle of ginger ale.''
''Well, I'll just have to provide the friendship, and, Bar-keep,'' Penny shouted. ''A bottle of your finest ginger ale.''
They polished off several bottles of ginger ale. And they didn't do it alone. Penny's new friends dropped in, to swap tales of battles lost and won, friends who survived, and those who didn't. There was no method to the stories. No moral or lesson. They were just where life had taken these people. Life that, over the years, they had learned they could live with.
This wasn't like her talking to Grampa Ray or Trouble. There, too often she sat as understudy, trying to find out how they did the family business and lived through it. How to be a Longknife and survive the experience.
Here she was listening to people whose biographies would never fill shelves in libraries. But they'd lived just as long. And maybe some of them had lived just as well or even better. Kris listened to them, and later in the evening, she learned she could cry with them. And later on, they showed they could cry with her. The place closed, and Tommy Chang joined them. His story wasn't of war, but of man's inhumanity to man. And of the rugged nature of a new planet that could snatch away the life it seemed to offer. Not all courage wore a uniform.
It was very late, or rather, early, when Penny escorted Kris to her room. ''Feel better?'' she asked.
''Are they always like that?''
''Sometimes. Usually it's not so intense. Like all things Longknife, I think you ratcheted up the demands on them. And they came through. They're beautiful, aren't they?''
''I've never felt so surrounded by friends.''
''Yes,'' Penny said.
Chapter 6
The Resolute hovered a kilometer from the gravity anomaly that loomed with the unknown. ''We ready to send a buoy through?'' Kris asked. Actually, urged.
''We've rigged it with a camera so we can see what it sees once it comes back,'' Sulwan said.
''Assuming it comes back,'' the helmsman muttered.
''Let's be optimists,'' Captain Drago said. ''We're working for one.'' He punctuated that with a glance Kris's way. Those dark eyebrows hinted at thoughts quite different from his words.
''Buoy is headed out,'' Sulwan said. ''Buoy is gone. Should be back in one minute,'' she added quickly.
It was a very long minute. Nelly counted off every second in the back of Kris's skull. If Kris herself hadn't been so antsy, she might have shushed her computer.
Nelly hit sixty and nothing happened.
The bridge stayed quiet. Very quiet. Not even the sound of someone breathing. No surprise. Kris wasn't breathing, either. She listened as Nelly counted. At sixty-three, the errant buoy reappeared and the main screen came to life.
''That's a whole different set of stars,'' Sulwan whispered.
''Can you match it to anything in our charts?'' Drago asked.
''Not enough coverage.''
''Well, Your Highness, what are your orders?'' the captain said, eyes still on the screen.
''Would you please slip your ship through this jump? We don't want to end up in Iteeche space,'' Kris said, trying to keep the proper petitioner's tone of voice that one should have when riding in another's ship. Not the flaming eager voice that was in her throat.
''Send the buoy through, then follow, Navigator, pianissimo.''
The buoy vanished. Sulwan nudged the Resolute forward.
It seemed to take forever to reach the jump point.
''I wonder if maybe the reason these jump points look so different might be ‘cause they're cargo jumps. Not meant for something alive,'' Jack said.
''Shut up,'' Kris said, along with most of the bridge crew. Not Sulwan. She had her eyes on her board.
They made the jump, shook off the effects of it, and stared at that strange star pattern they'd seen from the buoy report.
''Tell me where we are,'' Captain Drago called softly.
''Just a moment, sir,'' Sulwan said, her eyes on her board, her fingers flying over it. Then she smiled and looked up.
''We're about fifteen light-years outside human space, in unclaimed territory,'' the navigator reported. The main screen now showed a familiar star chart. A new point flashed red in an area that was dark with inaccessible stars.
''Doesn't look like much of a system,'' the helmsman reported. ''A couple of rocks close to the star. One of them huge. Several gas giants way out. Nothing in the potential zone of life.''
Kris looked over the helmsman's shoulder. A more thorough study might take a day. And likely would tell them little more.
''This a dead end?'' she asked Sulwan.
''No. There's a jump point not more than an hour away.''
''Head for it,'' Captain Drago said, too eager to ask Kris.
''Leave the buoy here,'' Kris said.
''I'm glad to see Your Highness has some sense of self-preservation,'' Jack said, leaning close to her ear.