“Kris, if you don’t mind, I’m going to get Cara back to bed,” Abby said.
The twelve-year-old’s protest of “I’m not tired” had to force its way through a huge yawn.
Kris pointed. “You, bed. That’s an order.”
“It’s not fair,” Cara mumbled, but she was already being pushed upward by Abby.
“Hurry along, little dear, before they put on power,” the maid said, almost motherly.
“Can I go to bed?” Penny asked, not even trying to suppress a yawn.
“Nope, you’re supposed to be a grown-up and an expert in intelligence. What do you know about Iteeche?”
“Not my area of specialization,” the intel officer said.
“Mine either,” Kris said, “but we had these nice seven-foot-tall folks drop in, and suddenly I’m all ears about our four-eyed friends the Iteeche.”
Captain Drago headed back to his bridge, not willing to let anyone else oversee the separation of two such dissimilar ships. Kris waited until he was past her, then turned her back on the still-undecided Iteeche, and whispered, “Captain.”
“Yes,” he said, turning back to Kris.
“Once Abby gets Cara down, tell her she has the bridge watch at my station,” Kris said softly.
For a moment there was puzzlement in the captain’s eyes, then they widened ever so slightly. Kris’s battle station was Weapons. Kris, an active Wardhaven officer, had the duty to make the final choice to fire the Wasp’s hidden lasers. Kris wanted Abby standing by to make the hard decision if it was necessary to fire on the Iteeche Death Ball.
“Tell Abby her commission is activated,” Kris added. That would eliminate any doubt about her meaning. Kris and Drago were in agreement that only someone holding an active commission would give the actual firing order. Abby’s commission was as a reserve Army lieutenant in intelligence. Still, it was a commission, and Kris had just activated it.
“I understand,” the captain said with an informal two-finger salute to Kris.
Kris was trusting . . . but only so far. Right now, she felt a budding kinship with Ron . . . son or grandson or whatever to some Iteeche war hero and all. She strongly suspected he’d grown up with all the disadvantages she’d had. Wealth. Power. Target bull’s eye painted on his rump. Yes, she kind of trusted him.
But those advisors? She was fighting an instant dislike for the green and whites. Maybe not the gray and golds, but the green and whites she wouldn’t trust out of her crosshairs. Abby was neither the confirmed coward she claimed to be nor a trigger-happy “hero.” Abby she would trust with her life. And Cara’s life. All their lives.
With a deep sigh, Kris turned back to face the Iteeche.
They were still arguing. Or going through the motions of what passed for disagreement among their kind. Or maybe their kind in the Imperial court. The body language of the green and whites was so submissive. Their knees, all twelve per person, were bent into a kind of half crouch that left Ron towering over them. Their arms were crossed over their chests. Their words were so soft.
WHAT are They SAYING, Nelly?
I’Ve Been FOLLOWING THEM while you’Ve Been HAVING your fun WITH CAPTAIN DRAGO. “You NEED Me. THAT Monkey WOMAN will wrap YOU AROUND her LITTLE TenTacles. Our years HAVE MADE us wise in The ways of TWISTY PEOPLE.YOU are so YOUNG.” STUFF like THAT. Ron hasn’T SAID More Than a few WORDS. THAT NAVY Type THAT he SEEMS To TRUST has JUST STOOD By. I’Ve MADE a NOTE of his BODY LANGUAGE. I’ll BET THAT is WHAT passes for GRAMPA TOUBLE’S DISGUSTED look.
Kris listened to Nelly, trying not to let her sudden use of contractions send the shivers that she felt down her back. Something big had happened deep down in Nelly’s insides. And, of course, it would happen when Nelly had become the only link between two sentient species. Kris was relying on Nelly to build a bridge of communications across a gulf that could easily overflow with blood and guts if things went wrong.
And Kris had no idea what was going on inside Nelly. No idea at all. All she could do was hope that Nelly’s new interest in telling jokes wouldn’t send her and Ron, humans and Iteeche, smashing into some kind of catastrophic pratfall.
Thank you, Nelly. Keep LISTENING AND LET Me know WHAT you Think.
I Think These Green AND WHITES COULD GIVE your MOTHER lessons in PASSIVE-AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR. THAT’S WHAT I Think.
No doubt, Kris thought, as she caught Ron’s eye, or rather the two left ones. Both suddenly seemed to focus on her. She gave him back a soft, knowing smile, and the flutter of colors playing on his neck softened into pastels, with more green and rose playing through them.
Kris was glad that her skin didn’t give her away like that. How many times had she retreated behind a blank mask, not so much as a muscle twitching while Mother or Father or other authority figure went on and on about what she ought to do? Maybe there was something she could teach the poor fellow.
Or maybe it was uncontrolled. What the ears took in and the brain reacted to, the old gill slits put out for all to see.
So, the Iteeche might be seven feet tall, but they did have a weakness here and there.
“How long do you think this is going to take?” Jack asked out of the corner of his mouth.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Kris answered.
“The Iteeche have a preference for consensus,” Penny put in. “They took longer to agree among their own negotiating party than it took us to agree with them. Or at least that’s what your grandfather swore.”
So, suddenly Penny was showing she knew more about the Iteeche than she’d admitted a moment before. Then again, she’d had time to consult her own computer, have it download everything stored in the Wasp’s computer, and maybe get a dump from Nelly.
Oops! That dump might or might not be tainted by Nelly’s new outlook on life. Kris had better take a moment to warn all her staff to keep an eye on Nelly.
But not here. Not in front of the Iteeche.
Lord help us. Kris sighed. All hell’s a popping, and there is no time to form a bucket brigade.
Wasn’t that the story of her life.
But back to Penny’s remark.
Colonel Cortez beat her to it. “Of course, our negotiating team included President Longknife and General Tordon.”
“You mean Trouble,” Jack put in with a wry grin.
“As he is Her Highness’s great-grandfather,” the colonel said with a slight bow, “I thought I should be more formal.”
“Grampa Trouble is Trouble to everyone,” Kris said, half sigh, half growl. “No way to sugarcoat that for me.”
“You hang around Kris,” Jack said, “and you get to know General Trouble up close and personal. I’ve learned all sorts of new cusswords for that man.”
“I see,” the colonel said, his eyes widening ever so slightly. “He’s not as retired as I had heard.”
“Not around his darling great-granddaughter,” Penny added.
“Thank you all so very much for reminding me,” Kris said. “But don’t worry too much, Colonel. At the moment, I’m not on speaking terms with either Grampa Trouble or Grampa Ray.”
“But didn’t I hear the young Iteeche say he needs to talk to King Ray of the Long-Reaching Knife?”
“Yep,” Jack said, “so Her Highness may just have to get off her high horse and go crawling back to her grampa. King to the rest of us no-accounts.”
“Okay, okay, let’s cancel this ‘pick on the princess day’ and get back to what our good military advisor said about our negotiating team including a certain Ray and Trouble.”
“Yes,” Colonel Cortez said, picking up where he left off with no more than a slight grin for the rabbit hole they’d journeyed down. “Those two were rather notorious for getting a bit in their teeth and running with it. Once they made up their minds about something, the rest of our team had to follow or have an excellent and well-ordered reason for not doing so.”