Intrepid (4 page)

6

A week later, the
Wasp
led the
Compton
toward the space station above Cuzco. “The stationmaster regrets that he only has two docks unoccupied,” Captain Drago reported. “One can offload containers. I told him to put the
Compton
in it. That leaves us with only one place to go.”

“Is there a problem?” Kris asked, knowing from the way Drago was drawing this out that she was asking a needless question.

“We’ll be across the way from a Greenfeld light cruiser.”

“They’ve got a Greenfeld cruiser in port.” Jack grinned. “I hope we’re not interrupting anything,” did not sound at all like the Marine meant it.

“What ship?” Kris asked.

“The light cruiser
Surprise
,” Drago said, with his own tight smile at the appropriateness of the name.

“Does Georg Krätz still command her?” Kris asked.

Sulwan looked up from her board. “Harbormaster’s records say he does.”

“Good, I’ve had several fine dances with the man,” Kris said, beaming. “He’s the father of several girls, all interested in naval careers, just like their father. I suggested that he and they would have far more successful careers in the Wardhaven Navy than they could ever hope to have in anything controlled by Greenfeld. I’m looking forward to continuing our conversations.”

Jack rolled his eyes.

Kris sniffed. “If you Marines can think of war as a continuation of politics by other means, why can’t a princess continue politics by socializing?”

Next day, Kris got her chance to socialize or politic or maybe fight a very small war.

A handsome— one might say dashing— young Greenfeld lieutenant approached the
Wasp
’s quarterdeck, offered his captain’s compliments, and asked if his captain might have the pleasure of Princess Kristine Longknife’s company at dinner that night.

Kris would have turned down an invitation to the
Surprise
’s wardroom as too risky, but Krätz was wise enough to choose the most expensive. . . and neutral. . . restaurant on the space station. After only a minor argument with Jack, Kris sent her acceptance down to the JOOD, and the deal was done.

“I’m going with you,” Jack muttered.

“I expected you to. Jack, you dance as well as he does.”

Kris politely did not hear Jack’s answer to that.

“I gonna have to gussy you up all princesslike?” was Abby’s only question.

“Nope,” Kris said. “Formal Navy dinner dress. Small medals. Skip the Wounded Lion. He’s seen my ribbons. I’ve seen his. We know who we are,” Kris said, with a smile.

“I better tell Jack to tone it down,” Abby said, and headed off to do just that. Four hours later, Kris almost regretted going Navy standard tonight. Surely, there was no uglier evening dress than what the Navy put its women in. The skirt hung like a burlap bag. The blouse was uncomfortable.

“You’re wishing you were in a nice set of petticoats and crinolines,” Jack whispered beside her.

“Security officers are not authorized to read my mind no matter what the latest new law may say,” Kris shot back, and moved forward. Jack opened the door for her, resplendent in his dress red and blues. A sword and issue sidearm hung from his belt. No such allowance was made for the women, so Kris had her automatic hidden in the usual place.

Kris was three steps into the restaurant when she spotted Captain Krätz standing up from his table. He was accompanied by a young ensign. She wore formal Greenfeld Navy evening dress that managed the impossible. She looked worse in it than Kris did in hers. Clearly the women haters in Greenfeld’s military had bested their kin on Wardhaven.

Distracted by the uniform, it took Kris an extra moment to identify the woman in it.

She almost missed a step.

Beside her, Jack’s nostrils flared, but he manfully suppressed a snort.

Kris took a quick glance around the room. It was early, still well lit, and almost empty. But around the captain’s table were four occupied ones. The men at them were in civilian clothes, but there was no mistaking the hard bodies under those clothes, the close haircuts, and the steely look to their eyes.

Were any of them hers? Kris spotted two women Marines she knew only too well from their doing bathroom guard duty for her. Four Wardhaven Marines, four others.

Krätz had observed the niceties.

Kris allowed herself one more second for a glance at the room, not to take in its expensive decor, but rather to note the right-hand corner of the room, where the few other customers were huddled over their food, meticulously not making eye contact with those on the left side.

Very likely, it would be a quiet dinner. No, very likely the fireworks would be reserved for the main table.

Secure that her back was covered, Kris focused her full attention on the main table. Krätz, despite a bit of graying around the temple. . . or maybe because of it. . . was magnificent in his formal blue and whites.

Beside him, somehow made frumpy by Greenfeld formal naval dinner dress, stood Ensign Victoria Peterwald.
Ensign!

Kris didn’t know where to start; she had so many questions.

Krätz started for her, sweeping her a full bow from the waist. When the young woman beside him balked, it took only a slight tap to her elbow to make clear that
She’s a princess, you are not, and this is Navy business, and
we
will do it
my
way
.

Vicky chipped off a quick shallow curtsy.

But her captain stayed in his full bow.

With a scowl, Vicky curtsied again. Lower. And did not recover, but went a bit lower. Then some more.

Finally, her head was even with her captain’s.

Only then did Kris smile and give them a most regal nod of the royal head. “Thank you, Captain, Ensign, but we are in Cuzco space, and I seriously doubt their government recognizes United Sentients patents of ennoblement.”

“But graciousness is recognized throughout human space,” the good captain said, rising from his bow. “Your Highness, may I present to you my new junior communications watch officer, Ensign Victoria Smythe-Peterwald.”

“I am glad that we are finally formally introduced,” Kris said, forgetting for the moment the several times they had informally tried to kill each other.

“It is good to meet you,” came from the ensign, as if each word out of her mouth was a snake or spider out of the fairy tales.

As Jack held Kris’s chair for her to sit, the captain did the same for the young woman. She seemed startled by the chivalry.

You have an awful lot to learn, Miss Vicky,
Kris thought to herself.
So do I, but at least I know I do.

Kris decided to open the conversation. “I was rather surprised to see the
Surprise
tied up along the next pier. If it isn’t a state secret, can I ask how you come to be here?”

“Some people might consider it just such a state secret,” Captain Krätz said, with a chuckle and a glance at the young woman he was escorting. “But a look at the ship you escorted in tells me that both our planets are likely concerned about the same matter. How did that freighter come to be so shot up?”

“I’m afraid that I did it,” Kris said, not quite succeeding at looking bashful. That only got her raised eyebrows from both the captain and the ensign.

“It fired on the
Wasp
while we were making like an unarmed merchant,” Kris said in formal report mode. “I was on weapons and returned the compliment. I put a twenty-four-inch pulse laser through their bridge, and that was the end of the discussion.”

“Just like you did to my brother,” Victoria Peterwald shot back.

“Ensign, we talked about that,” the captain said, giving warning.

Kris shook her head. “Excuse me, Captain, if you will,” Kris said, “Ensign Peterwald and I need to get this out in the open. She may never agree with me, but she needs to hear my side.” Kris turned her full attention to Victoria.

“You killed my brother just like you did that freighter crew,” Vicky got in first.

“I was involved in your brother’s death, but not ‘just like’ those people on the pirate’s bridge.”

Vicky’s mouth was half-open, a retort already coming, but with a glance at the glower on her captain’s face, she bit it off and shut her mouth.

“Your brother had my ship on the ropes. It was his ship and crew or mine. I fired six-inch lasers, aimed for his engines, not bridge. His evasion actions, or maybe it was just dumb luck, put his bridge where we were aiming.

“On his ship, every crewman had a survival pod. We did not find a single one on that pirate ship. When I opened up their bridge, they were all doomed. Most of their bodies were blown out into space.

“On your brother’s ship, they all activated their survival pods. With the exception of your brother’s, they all worked. His didn’t. Consider that.”

Kris paused. She studied the beautiful blue eyes across from her. Tried to measure the acceptance, the comprehension in them. It didn’t look like much, but there was some.

“There is one more thing I can add, though I doubt if anyone in my government will back me up.”

“What is that?” Captain Krätz asked.

“If it’s not a state secret, could you tell me what were the series numbers of the survival pods on the
Incredible
?”

“The
Incredible
and the
Surprise
were built at the same time. We all used 68000 series pods.”

Kris nodded. “The defective pods on the battleships we fought at Wardhaven all had a 90000 series identifier. Do you know what was the number on Hank’s pod?”

Both Krätz and Vicky shook their heads in silence.

“I have a picture of his pod. I could show it to you now, but I won’t.” Hank’s body was still in the pod. That was one picture Kris did not want to show Vicky. There were still pictures from poor Eddy’s kidnapping that Kris had never seen. Would never see.

“Do you know Hank’s survival pod number?” Vicky asked.

“Ninety-seven thousand, five hundred, and twelve,” Kris said.

“Holy Mother of God,” Captain Krätz muttered.

“That’s impossible,” Vicky said.

Kris rolled her hand, palm up on the table. “My computer has all the photos taken on my space station of your brother’s pod, both before it was opened and after. Several of them clearly show the pod number. Do you know the pod number on your battle station, Ensign?” Kris asked.

The woman looked at her captain. “Yes I do.”

“I also know mine,” the captain said. “And it’s nowhere near a ninety thousand.

“Why was I never told this?” Vicky demanded.

Now it was her captain’s turn to roll his hands open, palms up.

“Do you believe her?” Vicky spat.

The captain was silent for a long minute. “There is talk, late at night, in the back rooms of private clubs,” he said slowly. “Some in the Navy wonder. Some in the Navy remember Ralf Baja and Bhutta Saris and wonder why they’re not around anymore. The Navy is not that big a place, and you can’t have the crews of six super battleships vanish without them being missed. So, yes, ma’am, if you had to pick between the words of a woman who, just as cool as could be, shot out a pirate’s bridge, and the babbling of a political officer, whom would you trust?”

A waiter appeared, kept his distance until several sets of guards waved him forward, then took orders from only those at Kris’s table. He had been well briefed and left quickly.

“I don’t believe you,” Vicky whispered, when the waiter was well gone.

“Care to tell me why?” Kris asked.

“Let’s say my dad’s Navy just tried to pound your planet into rubble. Let’s say you were decorated for stopping them. How many friends did you lose?”

“A lot,” Kris said evenly.

“And yet, you are sitting here talking to me, my captain here. Eating dinner with us. No. You’re lying.”

Kris nodded slowly. “How much history have you studied?”

“Quite a bit,” Vicky claimed.

“What happens when two evenly matched countries go to war?”

Vicky seemed to puzzle over that one for a while, then glanced at her captain.

“When two nations of nearly equal strength resort to war to resolve their differences, it is usually a disaster for both,” the Greenfeld officer said. “The war is long, bitter, and indecisive. Neither side can win, but neither side will give up. Generations may perish in the fight. Nations’ treasures may waste away, and nothing is proven. Is that what you are alluding to, Your Highness?”

“That is what the wiser heads in my father’s high command tell me when I get angry at the deaths.”

“That is what the wiser heads in our command councils say,” Captain Krätz said. “So far, they have prevailed.”

“Why are you telling her this?” Vicky asked her captain.

“You could just as easily ask her the same.”

Vicky turned to Kris, her eyes questioning.

Kris shrugged. “Two plus two is four. A war between ninety planets and a hundred will be a bleeding ulcer. Neither of these facts can be made a state secret. Only a fool would try. I’m not asking your captain how many battleships are building on Greenfeld. He’s not asking me about Wardhaven or Pitts Hope. He has his guess, I have mine. We probably aren’t off by more than two or three. But none of that really is worth the time of day. Let me ask you something I’d really like to know,” Kris said, turning to the captain.

“I have four armed security men to my back. I assume you will not ask me to commit treason within their hearing,” he said through a broad smile.

“I will assume they have no better sense of humor than my Marine escorts do,” Kris said. There were chuckles from both groups of guards.

Kris waited as the salad arrived, unfolded a napkin in defense of her disgusting evening dress, and picked up a fork. The others did likewise, but waited when Kris paused before spearing a bit of her Caesar salad.

“Why are you here?” Kris asked Vicky.

“I was drafted and ordered to the
Surprise
,” she grumbled. “Now I go where he goes,” she said, with a rueful nod to her captain.