Redoubtable

29

“Kris , we have a problem,” the captain reported over the net to her Tac Center. “We are in the system our unknown bogey jumped to, but there’s no ship in sight.”

“Professor mFumbo,” Kris said to the head of her scientific team. He sat at the foot of the table today. “This looks like a job for your boffins.”

He grinned, pure white teeth showing against his ebony skin. “This is hardly what we brought our galactic-spanning observation systems on board for, but we are glad to be at Your Highness’s service.”

Of late, he’d been avoiding Kris’s title. Something about the way the last vote had gone in the Parliament of Wardhaven for the science budget. Apparently, Kris’s father’s latest budget had redeemed the Progressives in the professor’s eyes.

An hour later, Kris was none too sure if the boffins didn’t need redemption in her own eyes.

The science contingent was a unique part of the Wasp’s crew. At least initially, the Wasp carried a hundred contract sailors, a hundred Marines, and a hundred scientists.

After Kris’s most recent failure to be elsewhere when a bomb went off . . . made more insulting by the fact the bomb hadn’t actually been aimed at her . . . Grampa Ray, King Raymond I to most everyone else, had seen to it that the crew of the Wasp got seriously larger.

Jack’s Marine company had been reinforced up to two hundred purposeful trigger pullers. In addition to them, an MP platoon had been added with a plethora of technicians very skilled at investigating crime scenes . . . and in helping Chief Beni identify scenes well before they had a chance to become crime scenes.

The crew of sailors had more than doubled, this time with real live sailors who wore white hats and saluted officers . . . not the contract types that Admiral Crossenshield, the head of Wardhaven’s black ops, had fitted out the Wasp with initially. Since one of the new ship departments was a medical division fit for a battleship, Kris really had no complaint.

During all of this, Professor mFumbo’s boffins had gone about their business, using the Wasp’s various meanderings to do their research . . . whatever that was. Occasionally, Kris got invited to dinner in boffin country. There they would regale her with their stories of discovery and observation.

Rarely did Kris understand a word, but the boffins did set a magnificent table.

However, because of that research, the Wasp was a veritable pincushion, sprouting antennas and receiver dishes that no other self-respecting scout ship had. At the moment, they were rising from where they often hid when the Wasp masqueraded as a simple merchant ship. Today, the boffins would apply all that extra weight that Captain Drago was wont to complain about to a problem that had a real-time application.

“Give me an hour,” Professor mFumbo had told Kris.

An hour later, he was back with two associates in tow. One was as tall and thin as the other was short and round, and they didn’t bother to find a seat but floated in zero gee at Kris’s elbow, apparently quite comfortable to hang there.

“We have some good news,” the tall one started. “And some bad news,” the short one finished.

“Tell me about the good news,” Kris said.

“We were able to identify an exhaust trail of a freighter in the system,” Short said. “Unfortunately, our instrumentation was good enough to identify two exhaust trails,” the taller one added.

“Two trails,” Kris echoed,

“Two trails,” one said. “Going to two different jump points,” the other finished.

Since they hadn’t bothered to give themselves names, Kris was tempted to christen them Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Assuming she could keep straight which one she named Dee from the one she named Dum.

“So,” she said slowly, “one freighter entered this system. We know when it did and we know it wasn’t here when we arrived here. How do the two trails fit our time frame?”

“Very well,” they both said. “The Beta Point is the farthest from our location. Its thicker trail fits that of a medium-size freighter traveling at 1.25 gees and exiting the system well before we arrived,” said Shorty. “While the thinner trail would fit the same ship making .89 gees to the closer jump and passing through it just before we got here,” finished the thin one.

“That really doesn’t help us,” Jack said.

“Well, I’m sorry about that,” the thin one snipped. “I’ll have you know that no other particle observatory would have spotted either one of those trails,” the round one finished.

“Thank you. Thank you,” Professor mFumbo said, ushering his prima donnas out before any more feathers could be ruffled.

Kris let out an exasperated sigh. “Nelly, would you get Captain Drago for me, please.”

“I’ve been listening,” the captain said on net. “Nelly warned me that I might want to hear something and save you from having to listen to it twice.”

“Thank you for saving our ears from that horrible fate,” Abby said dryly.

“Can you add anything to this, Captain?” Kris asked. “Do your space legs, or the hairs on the back of your neck, or maybe your feminine intuition tell you something that the best scientific minds in human space couldn’t.” Kris did not mean that sarcastically. She didn’t doubt that the Wasp carried the best smarts money could hire. It was just that today, she really needed answers, and those smarts had not given her anything to go on. At least anything she dared to go on.

And Kris had dared a lot.

“Sorry to be of so little use,” the captain said, “but I’m just as stumped as they are. The momma that raised these pirates and slavers didn’t raise any dumb kids.”

“Don’t you just hate it when that happens,” Abby added.

“So, we’ve got two doors, both with trails leading us up to them. Behind one is a pirate lair, or at least the trail to one. Behind the other is . . . what?”

“Likely nothing,” Jack said.

“I wouldn’t be all that sure of that,” Commander Fervenspiel broke his long silence. “This system has been ripped up and taped back together. We can’t even be sure that the jumps we’re looking at are the ones the Three put here. In the few spare seconds I had before I grabbed my hat and raced to catch your fast-departing Wasp, I did glance at what we knew of this system.

“I didn’t raise the question when your very competent computer did the briefing on the system, but our charts from the time of the Three show that there were two jumps in each of the two solar systems. Now there are only three in the system they share. Something happened to the missing one.

“Now maybe it got swallowed up by one of the stars, or maybe it got hurled out into deepest space. I don’t know. But we also shouldn’t assume we know anything about where these jumps now go. It may never have happened before. At least not to any ship that was able to report back to us, but these jumps could lead you right into the heart of a star or something even worse.”

LIKE THE BIG UGLY THAT ATE THE ITEECHE SCOUTS, Nelly whispered softly in Kris’s skull.

“Are you always this cheerful?” Abby asked.

The commander made a shallow bow to the maid from where he sat. “I assure you, Lieutenant, this is one of my better days.”

Since Abby was still wearing the colorful skirt and off-the-shoulder top that she’d worn dirtside this morning, the commander was tipping his hand that he’d had, as he raced for the Wasp, taken time not only to glance at a map but also to see what Greenfeld intel had on the people he’d be dealing with.

“Can’t a girl keep any secrets,” Abby sniffed, pulling up her top to restrict the view to a more matronly amount of skin.

“Folks, I got a ship here,” Captain Drago said, “that’s just drifting in space. From the way the air circulation has kicked into higher gear, I suspect a lot of the crew doesn’t yet have their space legs, and more of our fine lunch is being wasted. Could we have a decision here?”

“What’s the closest jump point?” Kris asked.

“Alpha,” the captain answered. “The one with the thin trail that seems to mean that our bogey just managed to get out of here ahead of us. It wouldn’t have if I hadn’t slowed the Wasp down. I’m not sure that means anything.”

“Anyone who read any kind of file on you, Princess,” Commander Fervenspiel said, “would know that Captain Drago was hired to add a bit of caution to your inclination to go headlong into your next challenge.”

“Damn, so you guys have a file on me, too,” Captain Drago said. “That will teach a shy, retiring soul like me to get too close to one of those damn Longknifes.”

The Greenfeld commander struggled to swallow a bad case of the guffaws and succeeded.

Kris shrugged. “Let’s say there’s an equal chance that the ship headed for either jump. You say Alpha is closest.”

“Yes,” said the captain.

“So we could head over to Alpha, and if it was the wrong one, we’d have a quicker trip to Beta.”

“Yes, Your Highness, but you should realize, this jump and the two others really form an equidistant triangle. There’s really not that much to choose from.”

“So I’ll choose, and let the consequences be on my head. Go for Alpha.” Heavens knew, Kris had made enough decisions and suffered through the consequences. It really didn’t seem to matter whether she made the right decision or the wrong one, the consequences were just as often lousy as they were good.

“Would you mind turning down the lights?” Kris asked her crew. “If I’m going to suffer the consequences of whatever I just decided, I’d rather do it after a nap. Wake-up call was way too early this morning.”

“We’ll all be back here thirty minutes before we get to Jump Point Alpha,” Jack assured her.

“You do that.”

Kris was none too sure she could actually sleep. She kept seeing Cara in the hands of people who seriously didn’t deserve to have their hands on a little kid. Still, there was little Kris could do about that just now, and she didn’t want to have everyone fussing over her while they all waited out whatever would happen next.

To Kris’s surprise, she did fall asleep.

Cara didn’t know whether to be glad or scared when the elevator door in the central spindle swung open, and a bare-foot sailor pushed two buckets out along with a small crate. He looked around the room, then put on an ugly smile and headed for Cara and the young sailor cuffed with her.

“You two won’t cause me any trouble,” he said smiling through missing or yellowed teeth. He stank like no one Cara had ever met, even in Five Corners.

Anyone smelling that bad, the gangs would have thrown in the open sewer.

The sailor pointed something at Cara’s cuff and it clinked open. Then he did the same to the one on the young woman.

“You two,” the sailor ordered. “There’s water in those buckets. See that everyone gets a cup. One cup. No more. No less. Don’t you get too close to any of these big guys, you see. If they get their hands on you, don’t expect me to risk my neck saving yours.”

He turned to take in the rest of the room. “You got two buckets of water. You spill them, you go thirsty. Be nice to these girls. I plan to,” he said with an ugly chuckle.

“Hand around the water. Then see that everyone gets one ration bar. One and only one, you hear.”

Cara nodded. So did the woman.

“You be nice to me,” the sailor said, leering at the woman, “and I could arrange a nice meal for you.”

“If I get my hands on you,” began the sailor who had been holding the girl.

“But you can’t, and you won’t, so shut up,” the sailor spat.

“What do we do about the bathroom?” Cara asked.

“You got a bucket, don’t you?”

“But it’s got water in it,” Cara said.

“Now it does. Give everybody a drink, and it won’t.”

“But here, with everyone looking,” Cara said, incredulously.

“I don’t see a problem, little girl. Where you’re going, you’ll do a lot of stuff out with everyone looking . . . and you’ll be glad to do it. If you ain’t, you’ll be real sad,” he said, and turned back to the elevator.

Cara waited until the elevator had closed on him. Then she turned to the free woman. “You start with your boyfriend,” she said. “I’ll go the other way.”

Cara hated the pirate. Hated him and everything he said. Still, she was careful with the water. She stood well out of reach, making both the men and woman stretch out the chains on their cuffs before she put the full water cup in reach.

Some of the people said kind words to her, showed they understood her fear and caution. A few of the men and even two women cussed her out and threw the empty cup at her when she refused to refill it for them.

Cara said only kind words for all, but in her mind she was remembering some of the lessons she’d learned in Five Corners, lessons that had surprised even Uncle Bruce. She was also remembering the moves that he’d shown her. Moves that built on and refined the ones she’d learned on the streets.

She could use them if she had to.

She knew how to kill if she had no other choice.

Still, she hoped Uncle Bruce and Captain Jack and the rest of his Marines would come before anything really bad happened. She’d seen the shadows in Auntie Kris’s eyes when people talked of some of the things she’d done.

People died at the princess’s orders.

Cara was pretty sure she could kill if she had to. That didn’t mean she wanted to.

“Hurry up, Aunt Abby. Hurry up.”