40
The Wasp nuzzled into its usual pier at High Wardhaven station. This dock was reserved exclusively for ships involved in Admiral Crossenshield’s black ops.
Kris made a note to Nelly to remind herself to pick a fight with Crossie and make sure he understood the Wasp was not one of his black boats. The Wasp was an explorer. A scout.
Kris Longknife did not do black ops.
Usually.
There was no message traffic while they crossed the space from Jump Point Alpha to the station. Still, three Marine lieutenants were waiting on the pier. As requested, Jack was getting two more platoons for his company. The third first lieutenant would replace the slowly recuperating Lieutenant Troy. A hundred determined-looking line-beasts filed aboard with their duffels.
“Good Lord, they look so young,” Kris said softly to Jack.
“No, it’s just that we’re getting ancient. If it’s the miles, not the years, we are way overdue for retirement.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m still having fun.”
“Yeah. Right. You ready for that commander lurking on the pier?”
“What’s he doing here?” Kris asked.
“I have no idea, but I think you’ll find out soon enough.” The commander crossed the brow once the Marines had been led below. He saluted the flag and the JOOD before saying, “I’m Princess Kristine’s guide. Would you please have her report to the quarterdeck.”
“And whom should she bring with her?” Kris asked.
“No one. She’s to come alone with me.”
“Jack, get Penny and Abby up here, pronto. Ask Gunny to bring along four strapping Marines.”
“King Raymond said she was to come alone,” the commander insisted.
“All the more reason not to,” Kris shot back.
“Are you Princess Kristine?” the commander said, taking in her crutches but still not offering his name.
“I occasionally go by that name.”
“I was told you’d been injured, but that you had recovered.”
“The reports of my recovery may be a bit exaggerated.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I will call an electric station cart.”
“We would be grateful for that courtesy.”
“Your Majesty,” the guy was getting flustered, “I was instructed to make your travel as inconspicuous as possible. A batch of Marine goons and half your friends will be rather noticeable.”
“Commander, my Marines are never goons, and my staff is all of my friends who have survived the experience. Jack. Add the colonel.”
“I already did, Kris. I also told everyone to skip the uniforms. Commander, Her Highness’s security staff knows very well how to do inconspicuous even when she is damn near naked.”
“No need to bring that up, Jack,” Kris said, swallowing a grin. Clearly, the commander had been poorly briefed on her and the company she kept.
“Did Crossie give you your orders?” Kris asked.
“Admiral Crossenshield, Commander of Wardhaven Military Intelligence, did give me my orders, Your Highness,” the commander said, stiffening his spine.
“Next time you see Crossie, tell him that I do not work for him. Now, since I see that the thundering herd has arrived, and a cart as well, let’s get a move on.”
Kris took a seat in the rear, between Jack and Colonel Cortez. Penny settled into the front passenger seat. Abby expelled the driver from his station and took over his job.
That left the commander walking beside Gunny as the four Marines in neat civilian clothes failed to project any other appearance than that of four strong Marines out of uniform.
“The station trolley line,” the commander ordered, and Abby slowly rolled down the pier and took a left.
At 0200, this section of the station was quiet. The trolley was empty. At the space-elevator pier, the commander led them through a small door and to their own boarding station.
Kris had never seen this section on the ferry, and said so.
“Admiral Crossenshield added this entrance and travel cabin to the space-elevator ferries last time they were overhauled. It comes in very handy in these troubled times.”
Kris considered demanding that they join the rest of the passengers on the ferry, then reconsidered. She ought to wait until she was more recovered from the last bombing before she risked the next one.
They did have to walk the length of the ferry once it docked dirtside, but the commander had recovered. Two large black ground vehicles were waiting for them at a side entrance to the station.
“Where do we go from here?” Kris asked.
“My instructions are to take you to Nuu House to await your meetings.”
“And they are with?”
“I was not told,” the commander admitted.
“Jack, I don’t need the Marines at Nuu House. I was raised there, and if it’s not safe, we’re way past trouble. You can send Gunny and his Marines back.”
Jack did.
The heavy rig drove streets that had familiar names to Kris, but little else was the same. New buildings, taller and shinier, had sprouted where the smaller, older buildings of her youth had been. The Prime Minister was not letting the tense situation out among the stars slow down Wardhaven’s economy.
Nuu House had not changed. The vehicle came to a halt in the circular driveway. Kris and her people got out.
The commander did not. Did Kris catch him in a sigh of relief? She really couldn’t blame him. He should have been better briefed before his brush with one-of-those-damn-Longknifes.
Kris entered the familiar foyer, its unchanged spiral of black-and-white tiles still circling around to the center of the room. She and Eddy had walked those tiles, careful to stay on black, never a misstep to white.
Kris’s childhood seemed a million years ago.
For a moment, she wondered who had designed that floor. Who had ordered it built? Great-grampa Ray, the near-mythical Great-great-grampa Nuu, or maybe the forlorn Rita in the little peace she’d had before one war cascaded into another and another until it killed her . . . or sent her into a bad jump she never returned from.
“You’re late. What took you so long?” came in a gruff voice from the library off the foyer.
“We’re right on time,” Kris shot back to her grampa. “You know the beanstalk’s schedule better than I do.”
“If the king is here, and you are not, you are late.” Turning her crutches to the library, Kris made her way, one step at a time, into the room. It smelled of books and eternity. She’d loved to play hide-and-seek in here with Eddy, and after he died, she would set herself up in a corner with a good book and dream that he’d suddenly shout, “I see you. You’re it!”
Mother and Father weren’t the only members of the family locked in problem grief.
“I wasn’t told that you were still on crutches,” the king said as he pointed Kris at a chair across from him. Crossie and General Mac filled a couch at his right hand. Kris made for her chair, but first nodded her team to a long sofa across from the brass.
With poorly concealed reluctance, they went where she pointed.
“So much for a private meeting,” Crossie said.
“I don’t work for you,” Kris said. “What do I have to do to make that clear?”
“But you do work for me,” Mac said. “And your grampa, the king.”
“So I’ve been told,” Kris said, getting her legs comfortable on an ottoman that Jack brought over. He took her crutches and set them within easy reach before he took his seat on the sofa closest to her. It was kind of him to make it easy for her to stomp out if she chose to. She wouldn’t have to ask anyone to give her a hand up.