Redoubtable (12 page)

Kris’s words hung in the air for a moment.

Across from her, Lieutenant Victoria Peterwald broke eye contact with Kris, glanced away muttering, “It was the best thing you could do.”

Kris shook her head. “Yes, I did manage to kill as few innocent people as I could. But I’m getting sick and tired of choices that leave me trying to feel good about doing the lesser of two evils. I’ve had it with that.”

Kris found herself out of words again. She eyed Vicky.

Vicky said nothing. Did nothing. Answered with not even a shrug.

“Could you at least tell me how long this is going to go on?” Kris pleaded. “This, what do you call it, ballot by bullet in the back of the neck?”

“And you’d have us just put this all to a vote, huh?” Vicky snapped, her pale skin now flushed a hot pink that almost matched her red hair.

“It works for me,” Kris shot back. “Please note, it’s us ballot planets that are shipping the food in to the refugees from your bullet planets.”

“They didn’t have to run. They’re cowards. We’ve told them to stay,” Vicky said, half-out of her seat.

“Gosh, in that case, I wonder what makes them run,” Kris said, leaning back in her chair as if to think. “Oh, could it be the bodies in the street every morning? The rivers floating with corpses every night?”

“Kris, what’s got into you?” Jack snapped.

Kris opened her mouth to bite out a reply but found she didn’t have one.

Across from her, Admiral Krätz had a fatherly hand on Vicky’s elbow, pushing her back down into her chair.

“If the two of you were just college students shooting the bull at Kris’s Student Union one afternoon,” the admiral said, “this might be fun. But you are not students. You two are grown women with the responsibility of two planetary alliances on your shoulders.”

He focused his attention on Kris. “I can only imagine what it must have been like for you, stuck cleaning up the mess one of our rogue security officers made of that planet. We thank you in the name of Greenfeld for what you did, and we appreciate your coming here to involve us in the situation. Don’t we, Lieutenant?”

Vicky took a deep breath and let it out. Her color, if not back to normal, was at least no longer signaling a threatening heart attack.

“I appreciate what you’ve done,” she said formally. “I’m sorry for what it’s cost you personally, Kris. Really I am,” she ended, actually sounding like she did.

“And I’m sorry I lost it just now,” Kris said. “I didn’t intend to say anything like that. I don’t know where it came from.”

That was the truth, and it really bothered Kris.
Where did all of that come from? Am I losing it?

“Now, if we can all sit down,” the admiral said with a smile that looked more conspiratorial than forced, “I have a surprise for you. I have had a wild boar prepared according to an ancient Earth recipe. Prepare yourself for something special.”

A cook, complete in high chef’s hat, came in carrying a platter with a whole roasted pig. It even had an apple in its mouth.

For a second, Kris was none too sure how this was going to play out. Her stomach still boiled with the aftermath of her emotional onslaught. Now, facing a pig that only the garnish assured her wasn’t likely to get up and trot from the table, her stomach was even less sure of itself.

“My dad used to have these prepared at his hunting lodge,” Vicky offered. “Those were good times.”

Kris would not sully those memories, which from the sound of Vicky’s voice were few and far between, by one Wardhaven princess losing her supper before she finished it.

At the head of the table, the chef produced a gleaming sharp knife and huge fork and prepared to slice into the guest of honor.

“Excuse me,” Chief Beni said from where he stood backed into a corner, “but this room has a listening device in it.”

16

It
was Admiral Krätz’s turn to bolt half-out of his chair. “I have my quarters swept regularly. And I had them swept again just before dinner. There can’t be a live bug in here.”

“There wasn’t,” Chief Beni admitted, “until the chef brought that pig in.”

“The chef,” the admiral said, turning to face the man with the sharp, gleaming knife. The man looked shocked at becoming the center of attention so quickly. Maybe his knife was just being raised to defend himself. Maybe his arm was still involved in carving the dinner.

And maybe he was getting ready to throw the blade.

No one snapped an order. There was no time. But suddenly, four Marines were on him, two from each fleet. The white-clad chef went down in a tide of blue, red, green, and black.

“Where’s the bug?” Kris demanded.

“I think it’s in the apple,” Nelly said.

“I agree,” Chief Beni said.

“I don’t have anything,” one of the Greenfeld Marines said, coming away from the wall. He held his rifle, but now that Kris studied him, his pockets were bulging, and he did have a mike and eyepiece. “No device has squawked,” he insisted.

“Crew?” Kris said to everyone in particular.

“The Marine technician is correct,” the chief said, diplomatically, “the bug is silent at the moment, but it is recording. I have cataloged all the electronic devices in this room. This is a new one, and I don’t think that pig is authorized an electronic device.”

“Neither do I,” the admiral growled through grim lips. “Cook?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said, now in the grip of two hefty Marines of different uniformed persuasion.

“Technician, can you recover the bug?” the admiral asked.

The Greenfeld Marine risked a tiny shrug. “Sir, I can’t even verify the presence of the bug. My instrumentation is not able to track something as minor as power use at that level.”

“Chief, can you recover this device?” the Greenfeld admiral asked the Wardhaven CPO.

“I will need to have my computer spin off a large nano device to isolate and retrieve it.”

“Or I can do it,” Nelly put in.

“Is your chief ’s computer as good as Nelly?” Vicky asked.

“Da Vinci is my son,” Nelly said in full maternal pride.

“Nelly, I wish you hadn’t said that.”

“Why not, Kris?”

“Because I’m not sure the world is ready to know that there are eight of you.”

“Eight!” Vicky yelped.

“Ah, ladies,” Jack cut in, “could we get this bug before it starts broadcasting all this to the world.”

“Admiral,” Kris began, “none of my computers have generated any nanoscouts since we were invited aboard your battleship. It did not seem an appropriate response to your hospitality.”

“I should say not,” the admiral agreed.

“With your permission, I will generate one to capture this bug,” Kris said.

“Two nanoscouts,” Nelly interrupted. “We need two. One to find the bug we’ve found and a second to locate its repeater. This bug is extremely low-power. For any data burst it sends to get out, it will have to be repeated.”

The admiral’s lips were drawing thin and tight. “Send out your scouts. I expect you to use them for nothing more than what you’ve said.”

“You have my word on that,” Princess Kristine Longknife answered.

A few moments later, a thin filament was barely visible, floating lightly on the air from the pig’s apple.

“If your technician will delicately lift that out and deposit it on my portable work surface,” the chief said, pulling a green plastaglass sheet from one pocket.

The technician looked aghast at the idea and quickly stepped back as a young lieutenant hurried into the wardroom. “You called for me, Lieutenant Peterwald?”

Vicky quickly explained the problem. The lieutenant produced something that looked like a pair of tweezers patched together by a gear freak and did the service of removing the offending bug to the chief’s examination plate.

The chief and lieutenant donned different eye-power-enhancement devices and began oohing and aahing over their catch.

“What should we do about the other four electronic devices the cook has on him?” Nelly asked.

“He has more?” Vicky said, turning her attention back to the young man.

“Four,” Nelly repeated.

“Search him,” the admiral ordered.

The two Gunny Sergeants received the order with a mutual grin that brought horror to the object of their interest.

“I don’t have anything on me,” the chef pleaded.

He could have saved his breath. While four Marines held him down, the two Gunnies, with borrowed bayonets, proceeded to strip him down to the bare skin.

Kris turned away, unsure if they would stop the knife work at that point. Vicky didn’t.

“I’ve launched two more scouts,” Nelly said. “I think you’ll find one device on the front of his belt buckle.”

A moment later, the buckle was on the dining table, and a filament waved from it. The Greenfeld lieutenant didn’t turn from his attention to the initial bug but handed his tweezers off to the technician without even looking up.

The technician carefully placed the new bug on the glass plate.

“If we could have his shoes,” Nelly said, and both black leather shoes were on the table a moment later.

“I think the heels come off,” said Nelly.

They didn’t budge when the technician tried gently to move them.

“Ask the man,” Nelly said.

Kris noticed that Gunny Brown took a step back as the questioning began silently and out of her view. It must have been persuasive.

“There’s a tiny ridge on the sole in front of the heel,” came in a rush. “Press it with your thumbnail.”

The technician did, and the heels popped off, revealing two small chips and a tiny power supply.

They were gently put side by side on one corner of the examination plate.

“Nelly, are you sure about that other device?” Kris asked.

“I think I’ve located it. There’s something with a power supply under the skin of the little finger on his left hand.”

“Left hand?” the Greenfeld Gunny asked.

“Yes,” Nelly said.

And a second later, there was a whimper, and a finger, wrapped in a napkin lay beside the green glass pad.

“I didn’t know about any of those. I swear to God. Somebody must have put them on me,” the naked man insisted, as four Greenfeld Marines hustled him from the room.

Kris would not want to face that man’s fate. She doubted Greenfeld interrogators would start by offering a hamburger and a brew.

The chief and the lieutenant continued to mutter to themselves about the new toys they had found. Neither the admiral nor Vicky seemed happy to be so ignored. Before they could start juggling elbows, Kris popped a question.

“Nelly, have you heard back from your scout that went after the repeater?”

“I think it just located something in the admiral’s office.”

That got both Vicky’s and Admiral Krätz’s attention. They and the technician followed Kris there. Nelly aimed them at a power socket that now had one of the thin filaments waving in the soft breeze of the ship’s blowers.

“Has it been listening to my conversations? Our conversations?” the admiral demanded with a worried glance at Vicky.

“It’s positioned to be a repeater,” the junior technician said, pulling the device out. “The lieutenant will have to examine it to know just what it can do, sir.”

“If you will allow me to send a nanoscout down your power cable, I may be able to locate where the repeater is sending its feed,” Nelly said.

“How much of my ship’s electrical cabling will you have to search?” the admiral asked.

“All of it, I think,” Nelly said.

“I cannot allow your spies the free run of my ship,” the admiral said with finality, then turned on the technician. “I was told that we had secured our ship against just such spying devices as you are now holding.”

“Yes, my admiral, I was assured that it was so.”

“We will have to talk about this,” he growled as he turned back to the wardroom.

“Ah, may I suggest,” Kris said softly, “that we continue our conversations aboard the
Wasp
.”

The admiral began to snap a quick response, then swallowed it. He glanced at Vicky. “What do you think?”

“I think the princess has a point. While I doubt she is offering it to achieve our best interests, I do think it is in our best interests.”

“Then yes, let’s keep our peace until we can talk with fewer ears listening,” the admiral muttered.

They reentered the wardroom, with its ignored roast pig, but before the admiral could issue any orders, Chief Beni turned to Kris.

“Commander, you know that jamming problem we’ve had? The one that can’t happen but just keeps on showing up?”

“All too well,” Kris said.

“Well, I think this little doodad from his left heel is just the thing that’s been causing it.”

“What are you talking about?” Vicky said.

“We’ll talk about it next door,” Kris said.

And with that, they silently wrapped things up and left.

17

As
they left the
Fury
and quick marched for the
Wasp
, Vicky leaned close to Kris.

“So, you’ve got more supersmart computers.”

“They are my children,” Nelly put in before Kris could say a word.

“Your children,” Vicky said with what sounded like a touch of feigned awe. It might fool a young computer, but it was as fake as any praise Kris ever heard in high school.

“Any chance I could have one to work with me?” Vicky said cheerfully.

“No!” Nelly said bluntly.

“Why not?” Vicky shot back.

NELLY, SHUT UP, Kris thought. “Because I’m not at all sure Greenfeld has the technology to support a computer of Nelly’s caliber,” Kris went on aloud, “and I’m not about to sell you any of Wardhaven’s superior tech.”

“Hey, we make our own smart metal and have some pretty good self-organizing computer matrices. I bet if you gave me Nelly’s central kernel, I could have a computer up and running in no time almost as good as Nelly. Maybe even better.”

“I will not have one of my children in your hands,” Nelly spat before Kris could even begin to organize a response.

“What does she mean?”

“Nelly is very much the mother of her offspring,” Kris said slowly. “Each of them is being allowed to develop their own personality. Usually as a reflection of the person they’re working with. But you have to understand, Nelly’s already called two of her kids back from people who weren’t suited for them, and she’s none too sure about Abby.”

“Not at all,” Nelly sniffled. “That woman is on probation. She still hasn’t named her computer, and she keeps turning her off. If she keeps this up, Kris, I’m going to have to ask you to bring her back to me.”

Kris listened to the computer at her neck and shook her head. “Vicky, you don’t strike me as someone who suffers fools gladly, or listens long to anything you don’t want to hear. I can’t believe you’re serious about wanting to put up with someone like Nelly hanging around your neck.”

“I expected that I’d be able to teach my computer to behave itself,” Vicky said.

“Right,” Nelly snapped. “Kris, you heard her. No way will I have her abusing one of my children.”

“I am ending this conversation,” Kris said, as they walked through the station’s vast main deck. “Nelly, you need to learn to converse in gentle company. People do not like talking to someone who is rude, tactless, and inflexible.”

“But my children!”

“Nelly, not another word.”

They walked on in silence for a few paces.

“Is she always like that?” Vicky asked.

“I said not another word,” Kris repeated.

Vicky eyed Kris with both eyebrows raised in surprise. Slowly it dawned on the scion of the Peterwald power base that Kris did indeed intend to apply the same rules to her as she did to her pet computer.

The eyebrows came down.

“You’re mighty quiet back there,” Jack said without looking over his shoulder.

“We ran out of things to talk about,” Vicky said.

The Marine and admiral exchanged silent glances, and the party continued on its way to the
Wasp
.

Once they crossed over to the
Wasp
’s quarterdeck, everything came to a halt as Chief Beni and the Greenfeld lieutenant did a complete wash down of the entire party for any kind of electronic device they’d picked up in transit. Though none of the sixteen Greenfeld or Wardhaven Marines were carrying anything but their standard firing computer, still, everyone and everything had to be checked.

Especially after it was found that the admiral had somehow acquired a stray nanobug on the walk back. Once Chief Beni identified it, the admiral and Vicky quit grousing about the delay and waited quietly until the chief was content.

By which time the Greenfeld lieutenant was seriously impressed. “How do we get our hands on some of the nifty stuff he’s got?” he whispered to the admiral, who made a serious effort not to hear the question.

“I’ve reserved the Forward Lounge,” Kris told them, and led the Greenfeld contingent to where Kris and her team had spent so much time with the visiting Iteeche who never were officially there.

Once at the lounge, Admiral Krätz ordered the junior technician to do a full sweep of the place. Kris gave the chief a quick nod, and he followed the other as they did a serious and thorough search . . . and found nothing.

Done, the admiral sent his Marines to wait outside with the technician. Jack had Kris’s own Marine escort keep them company. That left only six military personnel from two seriously divided camps to share one huge room.

“Now that we are truly alone,” the admiral said, taking a seat at a round table in the middle of the room, “what is it that we want to talk about?”

“Several things,” Kris said, settling into the chair across from him. Jack sat to Kris’s right, Vicky to her left. The two technical experts set themselves up at the next table over and quickly lost themselves in their own separate world.

“As I would not mention in a potentially public forum, my local network has been jammed several times of late,” Kris said.”

“Short-range local networks can’t be jammed,” Vicky said.

“Yes, I know that, and Nelly made sure to remind me of that well-known fact every time it happened, but it just kept happening. That usually was when there was a Peterwald interest at work in my life.”

“Us?” Vicky said in such surprise that Kris doubted even a Peterwald could fake.

Or a Longknife.

“You remember the first time you tried to kill me on New Eden,” Kris said.

Vicky nodded.

“The shooters you hired were pretty lame at the assassination business, but the whole time I was running from them, something was jamming the net connection between Nelly and my automatic. In order to get a sight picture, I actually had to risk putting my eyeball behind my weapon. No remote sight picture. Quite a problem at the time.”

“I didn’t hire anyone to jam you,” Vicky said, thoughtfully. “I didn’t even think to try. Even I knew that you couldn’t jam a local net.”

“But somehow someone has been doing it,” Kris said slowly

“Admiral,” Vicky asked, “do you know of anything we’ve got that could do that?”

The Navy officer shook his head. “No, I don’t, and since tonight I’ve had my nose rubbed in Wardhaven’s electronic superiority over Greenfeld time after time, I’m kind of hard-pressed to believe that we have anything like that.” He paused for a moment, then continued. “However, I do not doubt Your Highness’s word at all. If you’ve encountered it, it is there.”

“I think we just encountered it,” Vicky said, glancing at the techs mumbling behind her.

“It seems to me,” Kris said, “that there is a cluster of excellence in electronics somewhere in Greenfeld that has not been brought to the attention of your father, Vicky. Quite probably very intentionally not brought to his attention.”

“I do not like that,” Vicky said darkly.

“But why would they do that?” Jack said. “I thought that people that won Henry Peterwald’s good attention were the ones who advanced in Greenfeld. Am I missing something?”

For a long moment, Vicky let that question hang in midair. Finally, she said, “Some people seek my father’s support and become his supporters as well. But I’ve come to realize that there are many games going on in the Palace, and many people may gain aces in one game but choose to keep them up their sleeves to play in others.”

“Wheels in wheels inside wheels,” the admiral said, “and please, Commander, you need not point out that these games are now deadly and driving people to risk their lives in flight across the stars. It is the fate of us in this time to pay the price for a foolish game that has been long in progress.”

“I’m sorry if I made it sound like we folks at Wardhaven had all our problems solved,” Kris said. “We have our own set. If we didn’t, no one would have been able to manipulate our politics to let six strange battleships almost flatten Wardhaven.”

“Thank you,” Vicky said. “For what it’s worth, I envy you your problems. I’d gladly swap with you.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Kris said dryly.

There was a brief pause before Jack leaned forward, and said, “So, what does all this tell us?”

“Someone in Greenfeld has some pretty fancy listening devices,” the admiral said. “You can spot them. We cannot. I can understand the need for you to hold certain technology close to your vest, considering the present state of affairs between our two alliances. Still, I most certainly wish that I could protect my conversations with Lieutenant Peterwald from eaves-droppers. I will leave that for you to think about, Commander. You said there were other things you wanted to talk about?”

“Yes,” Kris said. “There’s the matter of the pirates. You’re experienced enough with ship maintenance, Admiral, to know that they must have a base to outfit them and supply them.

“Apparently Major Jackson knew of such a base. At least she led a merchant officer to think that once they had a ship for him to go pirating in, she would tell him where to buy armament and sell off any cargo they didn’t want to use on Kaskatos. Unfortunately, she died without telling anyone where this base is, and her computer was reduced to even smaller pieces than her person. Rocket grenades do that to a body.”

“Yes, they do,” the admiral agreed.

“Kris, I figured that you’d want some help with the pirate problem,” Vicky said, “and they are operating on our front door, so I tried to find out something about them. Follow the money is my dad’s usual advice on problems like this. So I had my accountants do a search on money or goods going out of our exchange system. They also searched for goods suddenly showing up with little or no documentation.”

“How’d it go?” Kris asked.

“Nothing. Not. A. Thing. Even in these troubled times, every item of production is accounted for. No money is unaccounted for. No goods for sale without full documentation to point of origin. I would have expected a few things to get lost. A few accounts not to balance. But everything is just perfect. Not so much as a hair out of place”

Kris waited as a grin spread on both her and Vicky’s faces, then said, “Too perfect,” at the exact second Vicky did.

“Just so,” Vicky said. “Now, before tonight’s demonstration of computational wizardry, I was under the impression that the computers used by my dad’s Department of Taxation were the best available. Now”—Vicky brought a thoughtful forefinger up to her lips—“I’m not so sure.”

“Interesting,” Kris said. “You think all hundred planets in your father’s alliance are linked into one big fake accounting scheme? Could anyone pull off such a huge Potemkin economy?”

The admiral scowled. “Only if everyone is helping to pull the wool over each other’s eyes. Isn’t this what I was telling you, Lieutenant?”

Now it was Vicky’s turn to sigh, like a hot-air balloon letting go of its last gasp of support.

“The admiral has pointed out to me places where warehouse inventories say there are plenty of this or that, yet when the fleet needs something, it is strangely not available or takes half of an eternity to get it, leaving a fighting ship tied up at the pier. Don’t tell your Admiral Crossenshield I said that.”

“I won’t,” Kris said . . . and meant it.

Vicky went on. “The admiral here tells me that you cannot build six super battleships in secret without causing shortages. You can’t slap a cruiser squadron together so my brother can play commodore and not pay the price somewhere. I didn’t want to see what the admiral was pointing out to me, but I’m not blind. I can’t afford to be like my brother. Or my dad.” Vicky’s voice now dripped with bitter irony.

“So, if the Navy’s supply system is a mass of lies twisted together to support things that never happened or to feed the vanity of one little boy, what else about my Greenfeld is nothing but smoke and mirrors?”

Vicky pursed her lips. “Before today, I didn’t see how it could be done. Now, I think someone is laughing at us as they make us dance to the tune their superior electronics are blasting out for us. Kris, I think I’m ready to let you and your Nelly audit Greenfeld’s economy. Would you like the chance?”

To Kris’s surprise, the admiral didn’t even bat an eye.

“It’s that bad, huh?”

“Do you think a Peterwald would turn to a Longknife if it wasn’t?” Vicky let that hang in the air for a long moment before she went on. “There is one other matter. One I would talk with you in private, please.”

So saying, Vicky made her way to the bar. Kris excused herself from the admiral, gave a worried Jack a nod to keep him in his chair, and followed Vicky.

“You have a nice collection of whiskeys,” Vicky said, eyeing the bottles behind the bar.

“This, and several of the restaurants on board are private concerns. The managers order their own stocks.”

“Private enterprise and free markets on even your warships. Wardhaven amazes me.”

“The
Wasp
is a rather unique blending of private and Navy,” Kris said.

“With a captain and part of the crew in black ops pay, I hear.”

“Something I’ve tried to change but can’t seem to. I suspect the problem goes all the way to my great-grandfather, the king.”

“Even a Longknife must find her power limited when she tries to apply it to another Longknife, huh?”

“If we’re going to talk about family, I may need a drink,” Kris quipped.

“In a way, it is family that I want to talk about. I need your help finding someone on St. Pete and bringing her safely to the
Fury
.”

Kris frowned. “Can’t you just make a phone call and send a shuttle for her?”

“If it were that easy, don’t you think I would have done it already?” Kris had never heard Vicky so frustrated.

“Sorry. What’s the problem?”

“St. Pete’s the problem. It’s a mess. People who live here and fled there. People there have had to move here or yonder. The net is down, or up, or not to be trusted. I’ve had to be careful in my search for her. So careful that I can’t find her.”

Kris found herself with too many questions to choose from. She waited to see which ones Vicky would answer on her own.