Furious

43

The long trip started the next day. Apparently, Honovi, member of parliament that he was, did manage to shake something loose. Possibly he went straight to Father. Whatever he did, the Mutsu suddenly had leave to leave, and did so promptly.

Which left Kris pretty much locked in a room and at risk of going stir-crazy.

As she had done so often, she turned to the Marines. A request to join the ship’s company on their daily jog was granted.

With some reservations, that is.

The next day, Kris showed up with Jack and Penny; they were ushered to the back of the formation. However, somewhere as they jogged around ship corridors, up passage ladders, and around more passageways without missing a step, the icy formality began to give way. The Gunny Sergeant made it official at the end of the five-klick run when he gave Kris a bow from the waist and invited them to join the Marines any day.

When they showed up the next morning, Kris and her team were assigned the slot right behind the company skipper and the Gunny.

With Kris running all over the ship, it seemed ridiculous that she didn’t share meals in the wardroom. Captain Miyoshi agreed, but with one requirement.

Kris must first meet with all the members of the Mutsu’s crew who had lost friends or loved ones on the Haruna or Chikuma. As Kris was well aware, Navies are close and tight-knit things. The embarrassment of someone’s grief being suddenly confronted with Kris had to be avoided.

The captain turned the arrangements over to the ship’s senior Buddhist monk. A chief pharmacist mate in sick bay most of the day, the cheery fellow presented himself to Kris in saffron robes that very afternoon and invited her to join him in the Mutsu’s chapel. Intended to meet the needs of all faiths, the small compartment tucked away next to the ship’s library showed basic Buddhist simplicity.

Mats had been strewn around the floor in an approximate circle. The monk led Kris to a mat farthest from the door, indicated she should sit, then sat himself. Quickly, he assumed a lotus posture and closed his eyes.

Kris did the same, as best she could, even to the extent of closing her own eyes. She’d heard of meditation. She’d even had friends suggest she really needed to try it.

Kris was pretty sure Longknifes did not do meditation.

Still, when in Rome, and all that.

With nothing else to do, she tried to do nothing, for at least a few seconds. She slowed her breathing, she knew at least that much, to match that of the monk beside her. In the silence, she discovered that somewhere there was a small waterfall. She could hear its gentle sounds. There was also a bamboo instrument of some sort. It would fill with water, then drop to make a hollow sound, then repeat.

The monk breathed in time with the hollow bamboo, and Kris slowly fell into the same cycle. Her heartbeat slowed, and Kris entered a state of feeling that she’d never encountered. How long it went on, she had no idea.

“My fellow shipmates,” was spoken softly by the monk, but he might as well have shouted it in Kris’s ear. Her eyes flew open; she had to blink several times. The room before her was full, and the door stood open, with more people seated in the passageway. How many, Kris could not tell.

“Many of us have felt grief at the recent events. Some very close and personal. Among us today is someone who also has been touched by that grief, and who some might feel is the cause of it. Our captain has asked her to make herself available to you, to answer any questions you may have.”

Again, the room fell surprisingly quiet. Kris wondered how it had filled without her hearing so much as a hint of sound. Either there was something to this meditation thing, or these Sailors were more quiet than mice. Maybe both.

“I dream of my brother at night,” came in a whisper. “He was on Chikuma. I dream he is alive. Could he be?”

Kris formed an answer, but before she opened her mouth, the monk beside her rested a restraining hand on her knee. Kris lapsed back into listening mode.

“My friend was on Haruna. Did he die for a good reason?”

Kris had to believe he had. She told herself that every minute of every day. The hand on her knee was more insistent in its restraint. Again, Kris stayed quiet.

“My wife was on Haruna,” was loud and bitter. “How is it that she is dead and you, her commander, still live?”

The blunt anger in those words caused a murmur. After the room returned to quiet, the monk removed his hand from Kris’s knee, and whispered softly, “May wisdom and comfort be in your words.”

Kris repeated his words to herself; half prayer, half hope, and began to explain herself to these hurting people. First she told of the ravaged planet that she found. Its people and their world robbed, stripped, destroyed, and murdered.

“I thought I had the report I would carry back to my king. I thought my mission was done and I could go home. I was wrong.”

Quickly, Kris filled them in, as first the discovery of an alien base ship was made, then the report of a new planet and its sentient race came in. And the painful realization that the aliens had the innocent planet in their sights.

“You can imagine the argument that generated,” Kris said. “Some still wanted to go home. Still others, Admiral Kota among them, were for doing something about it if we could. That was the most urgent question. Could our small force do anything to help this new race?”

Then Kris introduced them to the neutron torpedoes: the Hellburners. Suddenly, the Fleet of Discovery had teeth big enough to take a bite out of the huge alien base ship. Could we? Should we?

“We decided, the admirals and I, that if we could prevent this crime, we should. Not everyone agreed. One of our ships suffered sabotage. I offered a free ticket back to human space for anyone who did not want to follow us in the attack on the alien base ship. About a hundred people took me up on that. Half of them were Sailors. They were quickly replaced by volunteers from the ships that had to go back. None, I think, were from Haruna or Chikuma.”

Several “Banzai!” were whispered softly but proudly.

“We all agreed on our battle plan. You are Sailors and Marines. You know every battle has its plan, but no battle goes according to plan. Our plan survived long enough for us to gut the alien base ship. The Hellburners ripped apart the aft half of that ship, roughly the size of a large moon. What we hadn’t planned on was the number of ships the base ship carried. They were huge, and there were hundreds of them.

“They did not so much shoot at us as use their thousands of lasers to sweep the space ahead of them. Even a battleship’s armor can’t handle being hit by a hundred lasers at once. Our ships blew up. Few survival pods made it away, and those that did were wiped out by the lasers still sweeping where our battle line had been.

“In the end, all any of us could do was run. Two of my ships died fighting to buy time for the Wasp and the Hornet to get away. In the end, the Hornet went one way, and the Wasp went the other, hoping that at least one of us would make it back.”

Kris paused to take a deep breath. “Not a morning passes that I don’t wake up hoping to hear that Hornet has somehow returned, or that one of the battleships has straggled in. But neither of the two battleships that I last saw running were from Musashi.”

There, Kris had said what she had to say. All she could say. She sat on the mat, exhausted, waiting for the reaction.

The monk rose gracefully from his mat and offered Kris a hand. As it turned out, her left leg had gone to sleep, and the monk had to half haul her up. He did not seem surprised. and there was no judgment in his eyes. Only a twinkle.

With them both standing, the monk turned to his congregation, or whatever Buddhists called a pack of themselves. “Those of you who wish may now say a few words personally with this afternoon’s speaker.”

Kris liked the way he deftly avoided any reference to rank or status. This afternoon, Kris was just a pilgrim with a story to tell. She liked it for a change.

One by one, men or women came forward. Many of them had a picture of the one they had lost. Some expressed pride now in what their lost one had done. Others merely expressed their loss.

Last in line was a young man. He clutched a wedding picture of himself and a lovely young woman. “I begged her to request a transfer off Haruna when the word came that they would be going along with you. I told her no good would come of following a Longknife. She laughed the way she did and asked me if I would transfer off Mutsu just before it sailed on such a mission?”

He paused, gazing longingly at the picture. “She knew I would never have abandoned my shipmates. Why did her Haruna get the orders and my Mutsu not?”

“I have no answer,” Kris said, and was rewarded by a gentle nod from the monk. “Neither do I know why the Wasp made it back and none of the others did. What I do know was that one ship had to return. Those who died deserve to have the story told of their gallantry, and courage, and commitment.”

The young man bowed, hiding the tears in his eyes, and quickly walked away.

Kris looked around at the empty room, her Gethsemane over.

Beside her, the monk bowed. “You did well, Your Highness.”

Kris bowed back. “It was you who arranged this, Venerable Sir.” Nelly got Kris the proper address for a Buddhist monk just a second before she needed it. “You did very well yourself.”

“One does what the universe allows. I knew from Captain Miyoshi’s request of me that he wanted this done before you dined in the wardroom. Several here were officers, including the young ensign you last talked to. However, I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to be the guest of the chief’s mess this evening. You will find our fare simpler, but we have better cooks,” he added, his eyes sparkling.

Kris thanked him but found that she was not ready to leave. She settled back onto the floor, her legs out in front of her so they would not go to sleep again, and began her own meditation. She’d spent enough time gnawing on the battle. She didn’t need to resurrect those ghosts again. No. What bothered her was the lack of knowledge that the crew and its captain had about their fellow battleship Sailors.

“Nelly, didn’t we send reports back to human space?”

“Yes, Kris. Several times.”

“And didn’t Amanda Cutter take the last ship back? Wasn’t she on a lot of talk shows, talking about what we intended to do?”

“Yes, Kris. I have the recordings.”

“So how come these people know so little about what happened?”

“Kris, I’ve done a search on all media reports in the Mutsu’s database. There’s a lot about the voyage of discovery leaving, but not a lot about it after it left.”

“How could that be, Nelly?”

“Apparently your report to Santa Maria after the first attack didn’t make it into the media at all. And while Amanda did appear on talk shows, they were usually syndicated and only had small audiences. She was on shows on Wardhaven, Santa Maria, and her own Lorna Do. But that left a lot of worlds not covered.”

Kris grimaced. “And those appearances weren’t distributed widely?”

“Apparently not, Kris. Musashi media didn’t give the fleet a lot of news coverage. Most of what these people learned about the battle they got from the Navy grapevine.”

“That’s disgusting,” Kris said.

“It gets worse.”

Kris sighed. “Tell me, Nelly.”

“Vicky Peterwald gave an interview that got very wide coverage just before the media got distracted and went off to other things. I think there was a spectacular sex affair involving four vid stars.”

Kris closed her eyes. “Nelly, what did Vicky do?”

“I will show you, Kris, but you won’t like it.”

On the mat before her, Vicky’s image appeared. “Where’d she get that dress?” Kris asked, not that it would have taken much space to pack it.

“I don’t know, Kris, but I suspect it encouraged the distribution of the interview.”

Vicky was talking. “It was horrible. The alien ships were huge and they were all over the place and we never had a chance.”

“Why did you attack them?” the newsie asked.

“I don’t know. Kris Longknife insisted we just had to attack. For some reason, she got the other admirals to go along with her. I think she had them twisted around her little finger. All but Admiral Krätz, he opposed her. He said we should come back and report what we had found.”

“Then why did he go along with the attack?”

“I think it was a matter of honor with him. The others were going to fight. How could he run away, but then, once the huge superiority of the aliens became clear, running away was all our ships could do. Kris Longknife was, of course, the first to duck out of the fight.”

“How did it happen that you survived? That you were on the U.S.S. Wasp rather than the Imperial Battleship Fury?”

“Princess Kris invited me as Grand Duchess to come over for dinner. I could hardly refuse. After that, there never seemed to be a time when she could arrange for my return. I kind of think she was holding me hostage, to keep Admiral Krätz in line. I don’t know. Maybe. Oh, I just don’t know. It was all so horrible.”

“Cut it off, Nelly.”

The computer did.

“Is there anything new in the rest of it that I should know?” Kris growled.

“No, Kris. She just goes on repeating herself. Many media outlets carried only what you just saw. Others carried more. During the rest of the interview, one breast falls out of her dress, twice.”

“That wouldn’t be hard, she wasn’t all that much in it.” Kris realized she was being catty. Her problem wasn’t that the girl she thought might become a good friend had dissed her in public.

The problem was that Kris had been walking around for several months with a knife in her back she didn’t even know was there.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do this news search earlier, Kris. There was nothing about any of this on Madigan’s Rainbow. On Eden, I did my best to tread lightly, and you know how blocked I was on Wardhaven.”

“It’s okay, Nelly,” Kris said through a deep sigh. “It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway. Now, at least, I know what I’m up against.”

Kris sat there for a long while, letting it all sink in.

“Nelly, the president of New Eden complained about King Ray’s wanting a big Navy. How much did the New Eden media cover us?”

“Not a lot, Kris. A few sources did it well. A lot didn’t. Only one carried Vicky’s presser, the short version. It wasn’t shown on many markets in the U.S.”

Which media they watched might explain why Inspector Johnson had such a different attitude from Senior Chief Inspector Martinez.

“Kris?” Nelly asked in a little girl voice she used less and less these days.

“Yes.”

“Why did Vicky do that? I thought she was your friend.”

Kris shook her head, sadly. “We humans have a long history of betrayal,” she said. Then she frowned. “How many times have I said, ‘It seemed like a good idea when I did it’?”

“Lots,” Nelly said.

“I suspect, to Vicky, it looked like a good idea while she was doing it.”

“But why, Kris?”

“She talked her dad into lending her four battleships. She made it sound easy, but that might have been for my consumption. God knows I felt miserable reporting back to my king that I’d lost a squadron of corvettes. Imagine what she’s going to face having lost a squadron of battleships and all those Sailors.” Kris paused.

“I might not have cared much for my welcome, but she has to go back to that den of vipers Greenfeld calls the Imperial court. And then she has her new stepmom carrying a male heir to the throne. No, Nelly, my shoes have been no fun to walk in, but I’d much rather walk in them than Vicky’s stilettos heels.”

Kris might have stayed in that quiet corner of the great battleship longer, meditating on the human condition and all the problems it caused her, but her stomach grumbled. That was a problem she could do something about. And Kris made one of the best calls of her entire life. She headed for the chief’s mess.

She’d certainly had fancier food than she had that evening, but she’d never had it better cooked or in better company. Now that the word was out that their shipmates on the other battleships had died an honorable death, Kris was welcome company. And there wasn’t so much as a blink when Kris passed up the offered sake after one small cup.

She’d been down that rabbit hole once more. She would not go there again.

As Kris returned to her quarters, she allowed herself a smile; there were no Marine guards at her door. Then Nelly said, “There’s a message for you.”

“Who from?”

“Honovi. It’s personal, not official traffic, but he coded it.”

“Can you read it?”

“His computer and I exchanged codes many years ago. We haven’t used them in a long time. Basically, he says he took Brenda over for Grampa Al to dangle on his knee. She was smart enough not to spit up on the old boy.”

“She must save all her spit-ups for me,” Kris muttered.

“Honovi asked Al about your effort to see him. He said he didn’t want to talk about it and made sure of it by walking away. The next time Honovi managed to get a word in, he made it about the aliens you found. This time Al didn’t say a word but told them the visit was over. How very rude of your grandfather,” Nelly added.

“He’s a Longknife.”

“I’m beginning to think you use that excuse for anything you want to do that a normal person would never get away with.”

Kris thought for hardly a second. “You know, Nelly, you might be right.”

“Anyway, Honovi says he’s inclined to agree with you now. He’s met again with that certain agent and will get back to you when he can.”

“Did he say anything about my bank account?” Kris asked, thinking ahead to when she could no longer hit the Mutsu up for free room and board.

“Sorry, he says. He wasn’t able to bring it up with Al, and all his contacts at the family corporation say they must check with their supervisor.”

“And I thought government was the only place where you got the bureaucratic runaround,” Kris said with a sigh.

Jack was waiting in her quarters. She propped the door open and settled into a chair a comfortable distance from his place on the couch.

“So, honey, how’d your day go?” Jack asked.

Kris had discovered there was a lot of pleasure in having someone listen to her talk about her day. Almost as much fun as really listening to how Jack felt about his.

Admittedly, there were other things that would be even more pleasant to do, what with Jack and her no longer sharing a chain of command. But the door was open, and a trial was barreling down on them.

Shared feelings would have to do for now.