Ramirez raised an eyebrow. ''You planning on demolishing my station? Don't know how Steve will take to that. I do know how I'll feel about it.''
''We have sleepy grenades, flash bangs, plenty of stuff before we have to go to fragmentation or worse,'' Kris said.
''Nice to know I'm not the only pacifist in uniform.''
''Grampa Trouble always says the fewer bodies there are to pick up, the easier it is to make friends later,'' Kris said. ''Assuming they'll be stopped by something less than lethal.''
''That's the trick, isn't it?'' Jack said.
They spent the next hour setting up their list of where to booby trap and how deadly to be. Jack dismissed himself to sleep before they finished, once he was sure that Kris was doing it to his high expectations. Kris was well along with the task when Penny came to relieve her at four a.m. The other lieutenant went over Kris's list. ''I like concentrating around the central office area and the reactor. But shouldn't we do something to make sure the Patton and Wasp—even the Resolute—aren't hit with something for the opening fire or whatever?''
''We'd like to,'' Kris said, glancing at the chief. ''But we're just flat running out of bodies to do things. I don't dare ask Ron for any more. He's got a major headache dirtside.''
''Kris, I know the folks working on the Patton. They're our kind of people. If I ask them to spend more time tomorrow patrolling Deck 1, the docks, and the facilities, they'd do it.''
''The old farts or the kids,'' Kris said, not sure which was the worst idea.
Penny chuckled and rocked her hand back and forth. ''A bit of both. Some kids for enthusiastic racing around, a few older folks for judgment. Don't know which will provide the nasty craft and guile, but it will be there.''
''I'll let you handle that show,'' Kris said, and made a note to look at it… often and carefully. ''We have to remember that Hank decides when things go wrong big time. And it may not be tomorrow. Or the next day. Hank can wait for as long as he wants and we have to stay ready.'' The others nodded agreement.
Actually, they were all wrong. Hank didn't get to decide when to kick off the revolution… a drunken sailor did.
Chapter 15
''How's it going down there?'' Kris asked at twenty-three-hundred hours next evening. She'd stayed home to mind the station. No more dancing for Kris until Hank gave up and went home.
''Pretty good,'' Ron replied. ''They've been swilling beer like they're afraid we're going dry tomorrow. If I had to make a pall, I'd say we're over the hump. They're too drunk now to walk straight, much less riot.''
Noise in the background caused Ron to turn off screen. There were shouts, then whistles, like the ones they'd issued to the armbands… and young women… that afternoon.
''Kris, I have to go. I don't know what this is. I hope it's less exciting than it sounds.'' Why did Kris think not?
She went back over what she did know from the video of the liberty launches arriving. There were five extra boats… say seven hundred and fifty sailors tonight, rather than last night's five hundred. There were also no sailors in gray whites.
''No agent provocateurs,'' Kris muttered.
''Or they're on to us being on to spider silk and dropped it,'' Jack said, fingering the neck of his own armored underwear. ''Did you notice what else was missing? No Marines. Ungood, my Princess, when they hold the trigger pullers on a short leash.''
Kris immediately did a full review of her station. With more on the ground, there were fewer being entertained up here. There were also no walkers, no one wandering outside the area dedicated to the sailors' amusement. Did that mean all the agent provocateurs were dirtside… or just holding up in the ships for a sudden sally? Kris ate supper in the Command Post. Chief Beni excused himself at quitting time for another trip down with his drinking buddies from the Resolute.
Kris studied the monitors. She'd had teams from the Patton add new cameras. Now she could look right onto the quarterdecks of Hank's ships. She eyed all six at once. All she saw were empty decks, JOODs and a few runners.
''What's happening dirtside?'' Chief Odacheke asked. ''Shouldn't we turn on the news?''
''No,'' Kris snapped. ''Ron has his teams working and doesn't need us to juggle his elbow. We've got our job. Penny, I sure could use help eyeballing these cameras.''
''I understand several of the folks working on the Patton declared a sleepover.''
''Sleepover!'' Kris said, wondering what Grampa Trouble would think of kids holding a pajama party on his old cruiser.
''Well, they want the Museum to do overnight stays for kids. They're testing it out. Anyway, let me make a call and see if I can get, oh, a dozen folks to monitor the cameras in here.''
''Good, quiet camera monitors,'' Kris pointed out.
Fifteen minutes had gone by since Ron ran to look into trouble the sailors should have been too drunk to cause, when a half dozen older teenagers in green shipsuits and an equal number of old folks in blue marched onto the bridge. Penny put three kids and three oldsters at six monitors. ''Each of these are checking a Greenfeld ship. If you see anything different, holler.'' She then took the other six and sat them at a row of stations covering the rest of the station. ''We want to know if any sailor, or, this time of night, anyone starts hanging around an elevator, stairwell. Anything!''
The new recruits went to work as silently as Kris wanted. Kris, Penny, and Chief Odacheke quit watching monitors and started monitoring the watchers. Jack stayed at his station. He had control of the whizbangs and the guns. If things got lethal, he would make the call and do the lethal.
For a long half hour, nothing happened. No one left the ships. The quarterdecks stayed empty except for a few sailors returning early from station liberty. At the restaurants, theater, game center, sailors ate, drank, and were entertained, apparently unaware of what was going on dirtside.
At eleven thirty, Chief Ramirez arrived to relieve Odacheke. ''How are things in Last Chance?'' Kris asked.
''Things were fine when I left home an hour ago. Something go wrong while I was cooped up in the shuttle?''
Kris told her what they knew. The old chief whistled.
One of the teenagers raised a hand. ''Ma'am, I'm from Last Chance. I live a few blocks from the university. Before I came up here, they reported a fire around the college, but I didn't know where? Could you see if there's anything more to find out?''
''We'll check,'' Kris said. ''Everyone stay focused on the station.'' Ramirez sat down at a work station and quickly switched it to news. She studied its feed, hitched into Pinkerton's aerial view, rationalized it to a map, and said, ''Son, what's your address?''
He gave it quickly, she typed it in. ''The fire is on the other side of the campus, five blocks from your street.''
''Thank you, ma'am. I hope nobody I know is in the mess.''
''That's what we're all hoping,'' the chief said gently.
Chief Odacheke quickly filled in Chief Ramirez on the station's condition and hurried for the shuttle to find out more about things below them. Penny stopped her circling for a moment next to Kris. ''Think you ought to call Ron?''
''If I had a mess on my hands do you think I'd want a call from out in left field? No, we have our set of problems. He'll handle his. The smaller we make ours, the better for Ron.''
They paced around the monitoring stations. At a quarter of midnight, the restaurants started to close, the last movie let out and the gaming hall quit making change. ''Think we ought to increase security around the shops?'' Jack asked.
''Pull some of the guards that are backing up a couple of the latched doors. Assign them to walking the shop beat,'' Kris agreed. They weren't trained, but they'd look good.