Furious

46

Kris’s night was peaceful. Twice, unusual sounds woke her, but a glance out her window showed Marines pacing off their rounds.

Breakfast was a surprise. The kitchen staff presented Kris’s team with a standard fare of bacon, scrambled eggs, and hash browns for Jack and Cara. There was also oatmeal and muffins for Kris and Penny to chose from. Abby eyed the entire collection and followed Jack to the hot breakfast.

The chief cook smiled happily as her handiwork disappeared. Her smile widened as Mr. Kawaguchi appeared. “Have you eaten?” she demanded.

“Would I eat anywhere else if I might enjoy a sweet omelet from your kitchen?”

The cook disappeared back into her precinct with his order.

“You eat here often?” Kris asked.

“As often as I can. Fujioka-san is a good friend,” the lawyer said, settling down at the table. “We’ve had to change the venue for your press conference twice.”

“Bomb threats?” Jack asked.

“No!” the lawyer seemed surprised at the question. “Requests from more reporters to attend. We have over two hundred calls, and more are coming in.”

“Where are we going?” Kris asked.

“We will use the auditorium at Kyoto University. It seats three thousand.”

“You expect to fill it?” Penny asked.

“Ah, yes,” Tsusumu said. “The university has announced that students may attend on their lunch hour. It will be interesting to see how many come.”

“Wear your spider silks,” Jack said. “It looks like you’re going to play duck in a shooting gallery again.”

Kris just shrugged. Abby had already helped her into her under-all body armor. It was nice having Abby around again. Abby and a full dozen steamer trunks.

“Any suggestion on what I wear?” Kris asked her lawyer. “Civilian simple elegance or uniform?”

“You are being tried for what you did as a Navy officer. If it is allowed, please wear your uniform whenever you can. That white outfit you wore yesterday looked simple but powerful.”

“Undress whites it will be,” Kris said.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” a Marine announced at the door to the kitchen. “There is a man to see you. He says he goes way back with you.”

Kris glanced up. Standing behind the Imperial Marine corporal was Royal USMC Gunnery Sergeant Brown, formally of the good ship Wasp and a longtime survivor for someone who’d gotten too damn close to a Longknife.

He stood there beaming like he had good sense, his pearly white teeth gleaming against his black skin.

“Good to see you, Commander,” he said.

“Always good to see you, Gunny. Pull up a chair. You hungry?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” he said, but he took the time to lug in two large foot lockers and park them by the door before he headed for the table.

“What you got there?” Jack asked.

“Sir, a batch of Chief Beni’s gear somehow ended up in my safekeeping, God rest his soul, Skipper. I had some leave coming, and I figured it wasn’t doing anyone any good in the back of my closet, so I headed here to turn it over to the commander.”

“Something tells me we can use it,” Penny said. “But without the chief, who will make sense of it?”

“I noticed some fine-looking Marines on my way in here,” Gunny said, grinning as a plate of ham, eggs, and grits was put before him.

“Back in the day, ma’am,” Gunny said around a full fork, “I was a demolition expert. Then the fine lady of my life suggested I leave that kind of fun and games to younger folk with no kids to come home to, and I got respectable. As respectable as one of us enlisted swine can get, anyway. I spent enough time at the chief’s elbow, squiring you around. I could be wrong, but I fiddled with that stuff on the way out, and I think I can be downright helpful. At least until I get the local Marines fully up to speed.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Jack said.

“At this press conference,” Tsusumu said, pushing himself away from the table and eyeing Kris’s associates. He must have decided they were trustworthy, because he went on. “There is something I would like you to emphasize at every opportunity.”

“You have my undivided attention,” Kris said, patting her mouth with a napkin and taking a last sip of tea.

“You are a lieutenant commander, correct? Of the Royal U.S. Navy?”

“Yes, on both accounts.”

“Rear Admiral Kota outranked you and is of the Musashi Navy. As I understand it, you two do not share a chain of command.”

“As was very strongly and insistently pointed out to me by Vice Admiral Krätz.”

“Ah, so my theory of the case is familiar to you.” And he began to explain to Kris just exactly how he intended for her to avoid the Imperial headsman.

Kris was still mulling his thoughts when they began to assemble for the trip to the university. Kris and Penny were in undress whites. Jack had chosen khaki and greens. Gunny Brown was in full-dress red and blues, with Chief Beni’s magic black box almost disappearing in his large hands, now clad in white gloves.

Her Imperial Marine escort turned out in their own dress uniform, red from top to bottom except for a white garrison hat, and belt and blue piping down the pants. They might look like toy soldiers, but their guns sparkled at the ready.

Captain Miyoshi followed the honor guard in dress blues.

“Thank you for coming, sir,” Kris said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you again.”

“The honor of Mutsu must be upheld. I was advised to stand by in case any questions arose concerning the Navy’s actions.”

“I will gladly defer to you, sir,” Kris said. Her lawyer, at her elbow, seemed less than happy to have a Navy spokesman present.

Kris hoped she would never witness a fight between her two new friends.

Two open military gun trucks, full of Marines and without the guns in evidence, led off. Kris’s borrowed limo followed them, and two more trucks fell in behind her. They did not head for the gate; a crowd was already in evidence there. Instead, they made a turn around the house and ducked out the back gate, where not so much as a photographer was in evidence.

“Score one for our side,” Captain Miyoshi said through a tight smile.

Kris considered, but then decided not to ask him the secret of his success. She was glad not to show up for her presser with egg on her car. Someone had returned it to pristine blackness, and Kris would have hated to add another wash job to the growing tab she could not pay.

Might never be able to pay if Grampa Al didn’t relent.

A block from Fujioka House, they picked up a police escort: two cars and four motorcycle cops. They led them by back roads to the university and came to a stop in the back of a large white stone building. Inspector Dogen opened the door for Kris.

“Safe and sound,” he said, as if it was an accomplishment. “I got a report from New Eden. It seems you do not always arrive at your destinations without incident.”

“But I’m still here,” Kris pointed out.

“Despite it all,” Jack grumbled.

Around Kris, Imperial Marines formed up and began to march purposefully toward the back of the theater. Gunny Brown followed them.

Right up to the time he shouted, “Halt your movement.”

“Teiryuu,” split the air, and the Imperial Marines came to a smart halt.

“What is the matter?” came immediately from their own Gunny.

“There’s a bomb inside that doorway,” Gunny Brown snapped.

The Imperial Gunny rattled off a couple of names, and a man and a woman detached themselves from the formation, produced sensors from casings on their belts, and followed cautiously as Gunny Brown led them toward the doorway.

Another shouted order, and a third Marine double-timed it for one of the gun trucks and returned with a box. In the trucks, one of the drivers began to put on padding. Clearly, the troopers might be in fancy dress, but they were well trained.

“You might want to get back in the car,” Jack said.

Kris frowned. Hiding was not her first choice, second or last choice, either.

Captain Miyoshi shouted something to the Imperial Gunny, and more Marines broke ranks to bring their guns up and began searching the surrounding roofs through powerful sights.

“Please get back in the car,” Mutsu’s skipper ordered. “I did not bring you this far to have your brains splattered over my dress blues.”

Kris got back in the car.

“How did you do that?” Penny said. “Jack’s been trying to get her to take cover for the last four or five years. She never jumped like that.”

“I have daughters,” the captain muttered.

Kris compromised. She kept her head well inside the backseat, but she rested her legs on the ground outside. The captain gave her a look that would have melted lead, but she didn’t so much as blink.

“We have disarmed the bomb. It was set for a remote detonation.”

Sirens announced the arrival of the Kyoto bomb squad. They took over the removal of the device. They did it quickly, leaving Kris a full three minutes to make her way up onto the stage from which she was to talk.

She took one look at the twenty rows of reporters in front of her and flinched. “How are we going to do this?” she asked Tsusumu.

“We held a lottery. Only the twenty seated in the center-front row can ask you a question. They may ask one question and a follow-up. Anyone else will be out of order and an embarrassment to their agency.”

The lawyer seemed to think that would settle the matter. Maybe here on Musashi it would. Kris strode to the podium as the auditorium slowly began to quiet. It was filled to capacity; some students stood in the back, munching food. Kris remembered such lunches from her college days.

She never expected to be the one onstage.

The Marines had formed a thin red line below the stage. Behind her, her own crew, along with her lawyer and Captain Miyoshi, took their places in chairs.

Kris took a sip from a handy glass of water, smiled, and asked, “Who has the first question?”

A young man jumped to his feet. “How do you feel after causing the death of so many men and women?”

Kris remembered her father’s advice. Always pause a moment to let people think you are thinking about the question. Never pause too long, or they’ll think you’re thinking too much about your answer.

“I sincerely regret their sacrifice. Not a day comes that I don’t wish some more survivors of the battle will straggle in. That I don’t wish there had been more of us when the time came to turn and flee.”

“Follow-on question,” the man said, still standing. “Then you regret that you ordered the attack that caused so many to die?”

“No,” Kris said, without a moment’s pause.

“How could you not?” the man snapped.

“You’ve had your two questions,” Kris said. The man scowled and sat down.

Next up was a young woman. She looked at her notebook, then frowned as she closed it. “I am sorry to press the previous matter, but how can you say you regret all the deaths but do not regret the battle?”

“Please excuse me, but that was not the question he asked,” Kris said slowly. “I believe in my heart that all of us, those who lived and those who died, would still attack the hostile alien base ship.” Not mother ship. Base ship for these civilians, Tsusumu had insisted. “The crime it was about to commit was horrible beyond words, and we were all committed to stopping it.”

“What crime?” the woman asked, interrupting Kris’s answer.

So, these folks were operating with just as little knowledge as the poor shipmates on Mutsu, Kris thought.

“Didn’t Admiral Kota’s report make it back here? Haven’t you read it?”

“What report?” came from the woman, and a murmur from the entire hall.

That was just the opening Kris wanted.

“Nelly, would you please distribute my report to King Raymond concerning the murdered planet?”

“Yes, Kris,” Nelly replied, and handhelds came out around the theater and lit up as screens captured Nelly’s transmission.

The hall had been quiet before. Now it took on the silence of a tomb.

“In rapid succession, we made the discovery of this raped planet, a huge alien base ship, and a second planet, one teeming with life and a civilization little different from our Earth’s four or five hundred years ago. The alien base ship was headed for that planet with murderous intent. We decided to do something about it.”

The woman started to open her mouth, but she paused, looked embarrassed, and glanced at the seated man next to her. As he stood up, she sat down.

“You say ‘we decided.’ Don’t you mean you decided?” the next reporter said.

Ah, just the question my lawyer wanted. Kris suppressed a smile.

“No. I am a Royal U.S. Navy officer. You will notice there are two and a half stripes on my shoulder boards,” Kris said, pointing at them. “I’m a lieutenant commander. Captain Miyoshi behind me”—here Kris glanced over her shoulder; her grinning lawyer, clearly enjoying how things were going, was seated next to a stolid-faced captain—“has four stripes on his uniform. He very much outranks me. Rear Admiral Kota outranked even him. I could no more give a rear admiral an order than I could fly around this room. Very likely, I will learn to fly long before a lieutenant commander gives orders to an admiral. Is that not so, Captain?”

Captain Miyoshi growled an assent as the room enjoyed a laugh.

“There is the second matter,” Kris went on. “I serve in King Raymond I’s Royal United Society Navy. Admiral Kota served in his Imperial Musashi Majesty’s Navy. Even if I were a full admiral, a whole lot of promotions from where I am”—which drew another laugh from the students; Kris was beginning to like them—“I could never give an order to a ship of the Musashi Navy. I might suggest something to Rear Admiral Kota. I might ask him nicely, but I could never order him.”

“Then why did he and all the other admirals, what were there, three? follow you into this disastrous battle?” the man asked.

“That’s several questions. Why don’t you sit down and let the next reporter stand up and see if she can get a question in,” Kris said. The watching students got a laugh at that. The man did sit, but only after shouting, “You owe me an answer.”

“Yes, I do,” Kris said. “Let me share with you the discussion I and the three admirals had about this leadership challenge we faced. Nelly, do you have our net meeting recorded?”

“Yes, I do,” Nelly said.

“No. Don’t distribute it,” the lawyer behind Kris shouted.

“Oops,” said Nelly. “It’s out.”

Screens lit up again. “As you can see, Admiral Kota was the first to say that he had not put on his uniform to do nothing about an atrocity like this. Still, if we only had eight battleships and my four corvettes, there would have been nothing we could do. We would have sadly returned and made our report. However, my king had shipped us a new, super weapon. A neutron torpedo. Its warhead held a tiny chip off a neutron star. Tiny,” Kris said, holding up her fingers a few millimeters apart, “but weighing fifteen thousand tons.”

That drew soft whistles.

“You wash it down with a beam of antimatter at the same time it smashes into something, and you can do a lot of damage. I had three of them. Our conclusion was that those three Hellburners just might let us take down the huge alien base ship.”

“Excuse me, Your Royal Highness,” the now-standing woman said, “but wasn’t the fact that you are a princess, great-granddaughter of King Raymond, the real reason why they all followed you? You pulled royal rank.”

The entire room took in a deep breath at the abruptness of the interruption and the effrontery of the question.

Kris smiled. “I didn’t ask to be a princess. I think it’s me working off some really bad karma.” That drew a laugh from the kids. “When the Society of Humanity broke up, some guys came along and offered my great-grampa a crown. We’d never had a king on Wardhaven. Didn’t want one, didn’t need one. But I made the mistake of talking my grampa into accepting the job. Foolish me, I never thought that having a grampa for a king meant I’d be stuck being a princess.”

Kris gave the room a resigned shrug, and the students broke up laughing.

“So there I am, a lieutenant in the Navy, and suddenly also a princess. You talk about a problem. It’s not just for me. Everyone else is trying to figure out what to do with a princess: salute her or kick her.”

Kris took another a sip of water as laughter rolled around the room.

The students were having fun. The reporters . . . not so much.

“Here on Musashi, you have had an Imperial family since, well, forever.” Kris turned back to Captain Miyoshi. “Do members of the Imperial family ever serve their nation? If they do, would a senior officer accept an order from a junior officer who was a prince or princess?”

The officer did not scowl at Kris like she expected him too. Instead, he stood, and, in a commanding voice that easily carried through the auditorium, said, “For the last two hundred years, young princes and princesses have served their planet in the Imperial Army and Navy. When I was a junior officer serving under Admiral Kota, he told me that if ever I commanded one of the Imperial family, I should cut them less slack than I did other boot ensigns. ‘They must learn faster and do better than any other officer, for more may be demanded of them in life.’ Yes, I know that Admiral Kota would never allow a princess of the Imperial family, much less an upstart princess from a place like Wardhaven, to give him any kind of command.”

With that he sat down.

Upstart princess from the backwoods. Well that puts me in my place. “Thank you, Captain,” was what Kris said.

“You’re welcome,” he said.

Kris turned back to the audience, who were thoroughly enjoying the joke at her expense. She took another sip of water while things settled down.

The standing reporter jumped in with the next question. “Still, once you and the admirals made up your mind to risk the lives of everyone on those ships, the crew didn’t have any choice but to follow you, did they?”

Kris could feel the backbones stiffen of the Marines around her and the captain behind her at this questioning of military discipline. Kris ran a hand through her hair to give her a second more to think.

“You know, your question goes to the very heart of military discipline. I think you’ve offended a lot of the people present in uniform.”

The reporter didn’t back down but hammered the question. “Still, all those people didn’t have a choice, did they? It was obey and die or else.”

Kris kept quiet, letting the reporter dig herself in deeper. Then she snapped her trap shut. “However, in this case, they did have a choice.”

That got a lot of “What”s from the room.

“We had at least one Sailor in my squadron who did not want to go. He or she sabotaged work on the Fearless. Normally, discipline would handle this situation, but I didn’t have time. Instead, I drew the proverbial line in the sand and offered anyone who wanted one a ticket home on the transports that would not be going into battle.”

“You didn’t!” came from the Imperial Gunny.

“Damned if she didn’t,” came back from the USMC Gunny.

The standing reporter opened his mouth but settled into his seat. He whispered something to the next reporter as she jumped to her feet.

“Did anyone from our ships ask to return?” that reporter asked.

“As I’ve said before, I had no command or control over the Musashi ships. I know that fifty Sailors did ask to be relieved. I don’t know if any were from Haruna or Chikuma.”

“One young Sailor from the Haruna asked to return,” Captain Miyoshi stated from his seat, in a voice that carried through the hall. “She will be discharged as soon as she has her baby.”

The room took time to absorb that. The standing reporter peered at her notepad and seemed to be having trouble coming up with a follow-up question.

From the back of the room a student stood. “May I respectfully ask to pose a question, Your Highness?”

Kris raised an eyebrow to the standing reporter. “Just so long as you don’t count it as mine,” she said.

“Fine. You students don’t count,” Kris said with an impish grin.

It took a while for the room to settle down after that, but it did.

“Again, thank you, Your Royal Highness, for allowing this lowly student who doesn’t count to pose a question.” He paused for only a moment to let his classmates react to his humility. Some praised him. Others threw bits of rice balls.

“I have just finished scanning your report. Can you tell me if you saved the bird people and their planet?”

The room fell into a hush.

“I wish I could,” Kris said. “What I know is that we badly damaged the alien base ship. Our Hellburners smashed up all its engines even though it was about the size of a large moon. However, we underestimated the hundreds of other ships it carried. Faced with overwhelming laser fire, and after six of our battleships, including Haruna and Chikuma, were blasted out of space, we had to run. Two of my own ships fought bravely to their destruction to give the Wasp and the Hornet a chance to get back and tell the story of how they died.”

Kris paused. No one jumped in to fill the silence.

“There isn’t a day that I don’t wonder if all our fighting and dying was for something, or in vain. My ship, the Wasp, just made it back to human space. I understand that they wouldn’t even risk a final trip to the breakers for her. They’re scrapping her at the first station in human space she finally made it to.”

Kris paused again. “If I had a ship, one of the first things I would do would be to take it back to that planet. To see if they were attacked by the surviving alien ships or if the aliens moved on to some easier target.”

Kris raised her hands in a shrug. “But I have no ship, and my movements are, at the moment, restricted by the law. So, no, I don’t know if the bird people still live. I only know a lot of good men and women died to give them a better chance than they had before we fought.”

The room broke into applause. Mr. Kawaguchi came up to stand beside Kris and made a show of turning the mike down; there would be no more questions. Several of the chosen reporters began to protest. Others began to shout their own questions. In the noise, Kris and her team left the stage.

The Marines formed a square around them and saw to it that they easily made it back to the waiting transport. Kris was on her way back to Fujioka House before she knew it.

“Do we know anything about the bomb?” Kris asked.

“I asked the police to report to us,” Tsusumu said. “Maybe they will. You did very well, young lady. Very well. I begin to think that you truly are Billy Longknife’s kid.”

Kris leaned back into the seat. She was getting the postbattle shakes. As inconspicuously as possible, Jack gave her a hug.

“You are a Longknife,” he whispered.