He raised two questioning eyebrows.
''I don't know what you heard about the recent disagreement on who controlled the space above Wardhaven,'' she started slowly.
''I followed it in the media. Not sure it made a lot of sense from a professional's viewpoint. I figured I'd wait until the Naval Institute published something on it.''
They walked a bit in quiet. ''We needed everything we could lay our hands on. Good people volunteered. Optimists. Clubs. Gamblers. Whole families.'' Kris remembered faces. ''And I let them. We fought. And they died. Tugs with no guns charged battlewagons and died. System runabouts were out there trying to get a hit. Not one did.'' Kris closed her eyes, willed down the tears. ''Every one of them was wiped out.''
''You had to win. And you did,'' Steve said softly.
''And I spent two weeks attending funerals,'' Kris said.
Steve attempted no answer to that.
Kris let out two deep breaths. ''The Patton is forty years obsolete and I will not allow her to get anywhere near so much as a harsh word much less a fight with that collection of old farts and kids on board. Do we understand each other, Steve?''
''Perfectly,'' the retired lieutenant said.
Kris came to a halt, looked around, and worried her lower lip. ''So how do we present a firm but friendly face to our visiting flag wavers,'' she said, eyeing the escalators down to Pier 1's landing several hundred feet below them.
''You going to park the flagship there?''
''Logical assignment if she's leading in her squadron and no commodore ever hatched has been able to skip playing boats right, boats left, follow in my wake.''
The two junior officers exchanged knowing grins.
Steve turned around. ''Well, we've got those security points.'' He pointed at four small half globes with mirror finish on the ceiling some hundred feet above them. ''Cameras and auto guns in each should be able to stop anything as gross as an armed charge.'' He led Kris a third of the way around the station's concourse to where Pier 2's landing area was. ''Four there as well. Four at Pier 3, unless they got up and walked away since I did.'' He laughed.
''Humor me,'' Kris said, and they finished their walk around Deck 1 of the station. Yep, there were four more covering Pier 3. They walked back the way they'd come, to find Pier 13, then hiked around to Piers 12 and 11. All had good auto gun coverage.
''Assuming they come up when we get power,'' Kris said.
''When we have power,'' Steve went on. ''We'll have maintenance crews crawling all over Deck 1 A, making sure everything we left is in just as good an order as we left it in.''
Kris nodded. Deck 1A was an area that didn't show up on the public schematics of the station. A work area between Deck 1 and 2, it handled the lighting, ventilation, heating, and stuff the average tourist ignored. Kris had not taken the average tour of the Turantic Station, and had made good use of those invisible decks. ''What are the access controls to Deck 1A?'' Kris asked.
Steve's smile was predatory. ''Not what the official manufacturer's specs say. Nowhere near that easy. I'll show you. Didn't I hear something about you and Turantic's Station?''
Kris drew herself up as primly as Abby and sniffed. ''Insurance claims about what happened there are still before a court, and I have been advised by counsel not to comment on every bit of media supposition that floats by,'' Kris said, then smiled Steve's way. ''However, I may have some ideas for improving security and keeping the riffraff and other undesirables away from delicate equipment they could ‘accidentally' break.''
Steve eyed her. ''Yeah, right.''
Amidships, between the third and fourth lines of piers was the service area that had given Kris her way up into the Command Center. All those shops were still boarded up. On the elevator, Steve used a key that just happened to be on his chain and the elevator admitted there were several additional floors above.
''You kept those?''
Steve glanced at them. ''For fifteen years they were a part of me. I just couldn't turn them in. I told Ramirez I lost them. She already had the papers for me to sign about losing government property.'' Kris had never been around anyone long enough to have them read her mind that well. Well, Jack did, but he wasn't reading her mind so much as figuring two steps ahead of the next trouble she'd get them into. Not the same.
Painted gray, and smelling of oil and ozone, Deck 1A's air ducts and power lines stood out in loud primary colors. The auto guns were arranged in large housings above the deck/ceiling. Steve took off the cover of one. ''The security cameras are out there to cover the station. But if things ever get terminal, the gun shield slides over all of the hole except for the gun's snout. These puppies are not going to be easy to kill.''
''And target acquisition?''
''Oh, once they shoot up the globe, we switch to the other cameras.'' Steve grinned. ''Dozens of tiny little things that you can't see from down there.''
''What if they've got spy nanos buzzing around?'' Kris said.
''Real tiny ones?''
Kris nodded.
''Something tells me we're playing in a different league from what we expected.'' Steve worried his lower lip. ''On this whole planet, I think we have only one college professor teaching nano security. Tonight I'll call him and suggest he and his class drop up here and have a talk with you and your Nelly.''
''We may need more than eight hundred workers.''
Steve laughed. ''I knew that number was just a buy in. If we get by with double that I'll consider it a win.'' He looked around. ''Want to see our Naval Defense Battery?''
''What you got?''
''Thirteen souped up 6-inchers.''
''Thirteen 6-inchers. Not 4-inchers?''
''Yeah, we added two to the bow and stern to go with the nine scattered along the outer surface of the station.''
''How'd you get different guns?''
''Interesting story, that. Surplus, brought out when ships were scrapped. Can you believe it, they did scrap some ships. Kind of amazing when you consider that they kept the Patton.''
The 6-inch was a single, with no turret protection. How long it would last in a fight was anyone's guess, but there it was, with capacitors ready to be charged and a computer ready to lay it. Steve rapped his knuckles on some metal tubs with cooling lines running off them. ''We planned to fill these with water and freeze them for gun shields. Better than nothing.''
''If you're an optimist,'' Kris said.
''A desperate optimist,'' Steve agreed.
''If you say prayers at night, I hope you include us never having to use these.''
''I'll tell my wife to expand her prayer list.''
The walk back to the elevator gave Kris time to study the layout. She didn't like what she saw. ''Anyone who opens that elevator door has access to everything up here.''
''That door only opens to a key, and only when I'm sending the right code,'' Steve said.
Kris said nothing. The silence stretched, bent, bowed.
''You are paranoid, Longknife,'' Steve finally said.
''In my family, that's a survival trait.''
''No doubt,'' Steve said. ''I'm starting to understand why folks might, kind of, occasionally, want to kill you.''
''Me,'' Kris said with her most innocent, wide-eyed face.
''No, your father.'' Steve muttered. ''Let's see. If we use twenty millimeter deck steel, we could encase this place,'' he said, turning around in front of the elevator. ''Arrange a desk there, give it a view in the elevator, and add a human eyeball to the security.''
''And put at least one human with whatever kind of weapons you have handy as a lookout from behind the wall, just in case.''
Steve was shaking his head. ''I wanted to bring this thing in at sixteen hundred live bodies. That'll drive it way high. How about all elevators to go to three and be eyeballed before they go anyplace else?'' They got off at three in the lobby leading to the Command Post. Kris made a face at the door leading directly into that holy of holies.