6
As Kris was preparing to head up to the Forward Lounge and meet her new ship drivers, there was a knock at her door.
“Enter,” she said, hoping Pipra hadn’t stumbled onto an even better way of merging their limited, if now expanded, resources, but the two commodores who entered her day quarters were strangers to her.
“I am Commodore L’Estock of Pitt’s Hope,” one said.
“And I am Commodore Shoalter of New Eden,” the other said.
“And we have a present for you,” the first finished for them.
That told Kris that the two senior U.S. commanders most recently arrived from home were paying her a call, formal or otherwise, but not much else. L’Estock handed a small package to Kris. Not at all happy at the game they were playing, but curious still, Kris opened the box. Inside was a blue flag.
She shook it out. It had three white stars. Wrapped in it were the shoulder boards of a vice admiral. There was also a pair of papers. One was rather lovely calligraphy and signed by Grampa Ray. No, this was definitely the signature of a very kingly King Raymond I. It proclaimed to all present her right to wear the rank of a vice admiral. The other were the formal orders fleeting her up to the three-star rank, while keeping her pay grade at a lowly captain’s.
Buried in the small print was her delegation of authority to fleet up people to the rank of rear admiral and below. Fleet them up but not give them any extra pay.
The bigger surprise was that she could do this for anyone serving in her theater of operations, be they U.S. or otherwise. Apparently, at least some people were taking the need to defend against the raiders seriously enough to forget who was in whose alliance.
At least on far Alwa Station.
Kris read it all, then glanced up at the two grinning officers. “They crammed a lot into one small page. I assume you knew about this.”
“Since the king called us in for a conference before we left, most definitely yes. Copies of that are in the mail bag for all of your subordinate commanders: Musashi, Helvetican, whatever.”
“It’s nice to know we were appreciated, even if you didn’t know if we were alive or dead when the orders were written,” Jack said, reading over Kris’s shoulder.
“Yeah,” she said. “Now, thank you very much. If you’ll leave us alone for a moment, we’ll join you as quickly as we can in the Forward Lounge once we attend to some minor details.”
If anything, the two officers’ grins got bigger. They must have heard about the new fraternization policy; neither had batted an eyelash when Jack joined them from Kris’s night quarters.
Alone, Kris held the new flag and shoulder boards. Three stars, and she hadn’t even completed her sixth year in the Navy. Yes, they were only good in theater. Once she returned home, like Cinderella, she’d turn back into a captain at best, maybe even a commander. Still, even for one of those damn Longknifes, it had been quite a ride.
“You want to do the honors for me?” Kris asked.
“I think it’s often the duty and joy of the spouse to do this,” Jack admitted. It took him only a moment to remove her old boards and put on the new ones. He’d had experience getting her uniform ready for her when she was in the shower just as she had done the same for him. At least those times when they hadn’t been showering together.
“I think I got that right,” he said, and gave her a kiss. It wasn’t exactly a peck, but it wouldn’t have any flower girl suggesting they “get a room.” It seemed just right from a brevet colonel to a newly frocked vice admiral.
“Shall we go?” he asked when they broke chastely.
“No, there are a few things that need to be done. Nelly, promote Commodore Kitano immediately to rear admiral. Jack, I want you to organize all the ships’ Marine detachments and the colonials into a brigade. Which makes you a brigadier general.”
He grinned at that.
Kris hurried on. “Tomorrow, promote the other three commodores to rear admiral and restore Benson and Hiroshi to their previous ranks with seniority in theater dating from tomorrow. Is there anything else I need to think of?”
Jack said nothing. Nelly paused, then added, “I assume you’re creating four task forces with rear admirals commanding?”
“Something like that, Nelly.”
“Who gets to choose who fills in as squadron commanders behind the promoted commodores?”
“Cut a set of orders authorizing the task-force commanders to propose to Admiral Kitano the fleeting ups to commodore in my absence. We’ll let them fly while I’m gone, then I can finalize them, assuming they haven’t screwed up.”
“If you’ll have Jack pull the promotion papers out of the document generator, you’ll have something to give Admiral Kitano tonight. I didn’t quite go in for the full calligraphy like the king, but I did it up right.”
“Thank you, Nelly.”
That done, Kris adjourned for the Forward Lounge.
7
Kris had never seen the Forward Lounge so large and so full. No doubt, Penny had given up several centimeters of hull armor to stretch it out this far and provide tables and chairs.
To Kris’s right, Commodore Miyoshi, soon to be admiral, was deep in conversation with the newly arrived commodore from Yamato. Around them, ship captains, XOs, skippers of Marine detachments, and chiefs of science teams were lost in conversations that, no doubt, were mirrored in the station dives as senior chiefs and Gunnys from the old team met their counterparts from the new teams and compared notes on the lay of the local land and the recent attempt to blight it.
The Helvetican contingent had settled toward the back and was talking in hushed tones with the new arrivals from the Esperanto League and Hispania. The center of the room, stretching over to the bar, was held down by a mash-up of U.S. personnel from Wardhaven, Lorna Do, Savannah, and Pitt’s Hope. The area directly closest to the bar had been taken over by New Eden and the arrivals from the Scanda Confederacy as they all got The Word.
For a place with so many people in it, the Forward Lounge was neither hushed nor loud.
Circulating among the officers were a decent-size detail of barmaids, enlisted women earning extra money seeing that dry whistles got wet. Mother MacCreedy must have allowed a new uniform; it seemed to Kris that the skirts were at least six centimeters shorter than before.
Wonder how that’s helping with the tips, considering the swill they’re delivering?
The Word must have been passed that the Forward Lounge was an off-duty area; no one called the room to attention as Kris entered. She made her way to the foremost table. Penny and Kitano were holding it down for her.
As she settled into her seat, both young women grinned. “So it’s true,” Penny said. “You got another star.”
“It’s true,” Kris admitted as she surveyed the room. “How long has this been going on?” she asked.
“Just about everyone was here half an hour ago when I arrived,” Kitano said.
“I got here an hour ago, and the place was just starting to fill up,” Penny supplied. “I figured I better be here to see how much it needed expanding and do it myself since we’re stretching the hull. I’ve had to grow the place twice. If any more come in, I’ll have to do it again.”
A couple of dozen civilian merchant types showed up at the door and looked around, disappointed to find no room left for them. They were suitably amazed as Penny did her thing, and the room stretched farther away from the wall and another row of tables and chairs appeared as if out of nowhere.