Redoubtable

38

Kris was delighted when the word came that Cara was in safe hands. If only one thing went right today, she’d settle for it being Cara’s rescue.

Everything sure was going wrong on the station.

It hadn’t started that way. After four or five more hang-ups, the Carita character got the point that no one wanted to talk to her and quit calling.

Nelly and Chief Beni began extracting bales and bales of information from the station computer. They even succeeded in making data calls on several computers dirtside. That got harder around 1000 hours, when the folks down there changed their cipher for the day and didn’t tell the station.

Harder but not impossible. Nelly could still access the networks she’d already gotten into.

Admiral Krätz and his battle squadron docked right at noon. He asked to conduct the operation from Kris’s Tactical Center on the Wasp. She offered to do a sweep of his flagship and kill any bugs so he could stay in familiar surroundings, but he declined and announced he was headed for her work spaces.

Kris spent a moment contemplating what it must be like to not be able to trust your friends or your enemies. May that fate never come my way, she prayed.

Kris greeted the Greenfeld admiral on the Wasp’s quarterdeck. As she expected, it was hard to tell if the admiral was shadowing a certain lieutenant or if it was the other way around.

“I seem to remember that we agreed that this planet would be Greenfeld territory,” the admiral said as he crossed the brow onto the Wasp.

“It certainly is,” Kris agreed, saluting. “Do you want me to start paying docking fees?”

“No, no.” He almost chuckled. “I just didn’t want us to have a misunderstanding. I understand that is easy in alliance operations.”

“This is your planet. We’re just visiting,” Kris assured him.

He smiled and gave a nod to Commander Fervenspiel . . . who saluted and took it for a dismissal.

They had no sooner gotten to Kris’s command center than Chief Beni called with the first of the bad news.

“Somebody got a message off the station.”

“I thought you had us locked down,” Kris said.

“Nelly and I thought we were. But you know we’ve been making data calls on stuff dirtside.”

“Yes,” Kris admitted.

“Well, it looks like someone managed to piggyback a packet on one of our calls.”

“We should have caught it,” Nelly cut in, “but this is a bit of home-field advantage that neither the chief nor I took into account.”

“Don’t you hate it when the bad guys aren’t dumb,” Vicky put in.

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Kris said.

By then, the admiral, Vicky, and their entourage of officers were filing into Kris’s Tac Center. Penny stood across the table from them, looking disturbed.

KRIS, YOU NEED TO SEE THIS, she said on Nelly’s command net.

Kris found herself watching as a column of pirates from last night’s boarding party, some still in need of clothes, were marched onto the main deck of the station by Greenfeld Marines.

On Commander Fervenspiel’s orders, the pirates were backed up against a wall. A moment later, a shouted order, and the Marines gunned them all down.

THAT’S THE SECOND GROUP, KRIS. ARE YOU GOING TO LET THEM DO THAT?

Kris struggled to get her stomach under control. She’d said this station was Greenfeld territory. She’d heard a lot about Greenfeld practices. It didn’t prepare her for this.

“Your Highness, you do not look well,” Admiral Krätz said.

“I don’t feel well,” Kris admitted, trying to figure out which to respond to, the admiral’s solicitousness or the lieutenant’s, daughter of a cop, outraged sense of justice.

What had the admiral said on the quarterdeck, the challenges of alliance operations?

She’d told Jack she’d control the elephants. Just now, she felt trampled by a herd of them.

PENNY, WHERE ARE THE THREE THAT COOPERATED WITH US LAST NIGHT?

I’VE GOT THEM LOCKED AWAY IN THE WASP’S BRIG. I THINK THEY ARE SAFE.

THEN THEY MAY BE THE ONLY ONES WE CAN PROTECT, PENNY.

I THOUGHT A LONGKNIFE WOULD DO BETTER THAN THIS, Penny spat inside Kris’s skull.

FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH, I THOUGHT A LONGKNIFE COULD, BUT APPARENTLY I’M WRONG. Kris turned back to the admiral and struggled to find words that might stop the slaughter.

“Kris, there’s a call coming in from the planet,” Chief Beni announced. “It’s Ms. Carita van da Fitz for Admiral Krätz.”

“Oh God, is that woman here?” he asked to the overhead.

“I think she’s the big woman on planet,” Kris said. “She’s been trying to get someone up here to talk to her for most of the morning. I’ve managed to dodge her, but I suspect the call that got out of the station has brought her up to speed on matters.”

Vicky shot her own scowl at the overhead.

The admiral shook his head. “This is not going to be pleasant. It may also change our plans. Vicky, call Commander Fervenspiel and have him stop the rat-eradication program.”

“Yes, Admiral,” and Vicky was quickly on her commlink.

One of the staff officers who had accompanied the admiral plugged in a box with an old-fashioned phone on it. The admiral picked up the receiver, said little, then began listening.

Kris gave Penny a shrug. LET’S SEE WHAT COMES OUT OF VICKY’S CALL. LET ME KNOW IF THE SHOOTINGS STOP.

WHY DO I NOT FIND THIS AT ALL SATISFYING?

BECAUSE WE’RE GROWN-UPS, AND IT TAKES MORE THAN CHOCOLATE COOKIES TO MAKE US HAPPY.

Kris turned back to Vicky. “Who’s this Carita person?”

“Just one of the board of directors of the N.S. Holding Group. Think Nuu Enterprises doubled, and you’ll have the part it plays in the Greenfeld economy.”

“What’s someone like that doing out here?”

Vicky turned her back on the admiral and all the other officers in the room, her voice dropped to where only Kris could hear her. “I’m sure a Longknife has heard the story that my family made its money running booze, drugs, and other illegal activities back when Earth was the only game in town.”

“I had,” Kris admitted.

“And that we recouped our fortunes some ninety years ago by using the Unity thugs to help us distribute drugs to the old Society of Humanity before the Unity War.”

“That was never proven,” Kris pointed out.

“And don’t you ever say I said it was so, because I won’t. But some folks close to my dad may have heard the story and think it is a good way to recover the corporate losses they are suffering during this present economic crisis.”

“Oh,” Kris said. “So, what’s about to happen?”

“I have no idea,” Vicky said.

“Kris, this is Jack. We’ve got Cara,” Nelly passed along to Kris out loud.

“That’s great news,” Vicky said. The admiral, still talking to Ms. van da Fitz, gave Kris the thumbs-up.

“How’s it going on your end?” Kris asked.

“Everything is under control at the Seebrook Plantation. I dropped a platoon on the farm to the east and west of here. One of them has identified a problem.”

“What kind of problem?” Kris asked. Once again today, her gut took a nosedive.

“We’re looking for merchant crew members. Pirates take merchant ships. The crews have to end up somewhere.”

“That sounds logical,” Kris said.

“I’ve been talking to the freed slaves here. All are either hijacked sailors from the Greenfeld fleet or civilian refugees from St. Pete. Mostly the last. No one here knows of any sailors.”

“That doesn’t help our case.”

“At the next farm over, Pleasant View, Lieutenant Stubben found several people who said they had six or seven slaves who claimed to be merchant sailors, taken by pirates.”

The admiral continued to listen to the voice on the other end of the phone and make placating sounds at regular intervals. But now he was very attentive to Kris and Jack’s conversation.

“Has Stubben found the sailors?” Kris didn’t really want to ask the question. Whenever Jack led her slowly to a point, she usually didn’t like what she saw when she got there.

Still, Jack led. She followed.

“We think we found five of them, Kris. I’m putting them on your view screen.”

Suddenly the wall in front of Kris was a life-size scene. It took her a moment to realize what she was looking at.

Then she had to cover her mouth.

“Dear God in heaven,” Penny whispered, and ran from the room.

There were similar mutterings from the Greenfeld staff officers. Two lost their lunches before they could make it out of the Tac Center.

“Apparently, someone shot five of the merchant sailors in the back of the head, execution style. They tried to burn their bodies, but our Marines put out the fire before it got too far. I’m not sure whether we can make ID on the corpses. I’ve ordered the forensic team down from our MP detachment. I’d like Penny to supervise the crime scene.”

“I’ll tell Penny you want her and see that she’s on the longboat with the MP team.”

“Where’s Penny?” Jack asked.

“She had to step outside for a moment.”

“Yeah, I’d like to step outside just now. Do you need anything more from me?”

“Try to find the two missing sailors. Send any spare Marines you can afford to the farms around the ones you’ve taken. Maybe you can save any sailors there before they get the same treatment. I’ll have the Marine companies from the Dauntless and Blood dropped to you as soon as I can.”

“Don’t you need them to control the station?”

“Admiral Krätz is here, and he’s taken over responsibility for matters hereabouts.”

“Will he be sending troops down here?”

“I should know in a few minutes. I’ll tell you then. Longknife out.” NELLY, TELL CAMPBELL AND KITANO THAT I WANT THEIR MARINES HEADED DIRTSIDE AS SOON AS THE ORBIT ALLOWS.

YES, KRIS.

Kris now focused her attention on Admiral Krätz. She didn’t say anything, just watched him as he watched her, holding the phone away from his ear. The high-pitched words from it seemed to dribble out of the handset and collect in a puddle on the deck.

“Ms. van da Fitz, I’ll get back to you in a moment,” he said, and hung up.

They stared at each other, Kris and the admiral. Neither blinked.

“It seems we have a bloody mess on our hands,” he finally said.

“With ‘bloody’ the operative word,” Kris said, risking a glance at the bodies on the screen beside her.

“Could you please reduce that down to a size more suffer-able,” the admiral said.

“Nelly.”

“If you say so, Kris,” Nelly said.

The screen stayed full size.

“I’m saying so, Nelly. We can’t be running out to the head to vomit every time we look at that.”

The picture shrank to something the size you might find in a history book. It also changed to black and white. THANK YOU, NELLY.

I SWEAR, KRIS, IF THESE SAILORS’ DEATHS GET SWEPT UNDER THE RUG, I’LL PUT IT BACK UP FULL SIZE AND IN BLEEDING, BLISTERED COLOR.

I HEAR YOU, NELLY. NOW LET ME WORK.

“So, Admiral, what do we do with this mess? And I hope you’ll excuse me if I push for something to be decided quickly. I fear if we blather for too long, others will make the decisions for us.”

“Vicky, will you please explain to Her Highness here that N.S. Holding Group is not someone you want to get on the wrong side of.”

“I already did, sir. I don’t think mere money and political power impress the lieutenant commander all that much.”

“How commendable,” the admiral said with a sigh. “However, us simple working folks are expected to bow and scrape and work for the likes of Ms. da Fitz,” he said.

“Even to the point of covering up murder?” Vicky asked.

“I truly hate working with idealistic young people,” the admiral grumbled. “People, I want this room. Commander, could you please have a sailor show my staff to your wardroom for a cup of coffee. I’ll call you back when I need you.”

Nelly quickly made the arrangements. Penny was just returning to the room as the last of them filed out. Colonel Cortez was at her elbow this time.

The colonel eyed the procession leaving and turned to Kris. “Should Penny and I follow their lead?”

“Please don’t,” Vicky said.

Her admiral raised an eyebrow, but Vicky stood her ground. “What’s the use of having advisors if you send them away when you need advice? I wish I had not let you talk me out of bringing Doc Maggie along from the Fury. I do not think I will back down next time.”

The admiral rolled his eyes at the overhead. “Is the girl learning or just still too headstrong and stubborn?

“Probably both,” Kris said. “Now, there are a lot of slaves down there. Do we free them or not? Oh, and there may be some distressed mariners. Do we rescue them or let them be slaughtered?”

“If only the question were that easy,” the admiral said.

“Tell me why it’s not,” Vicky said.

“You know why, young woman. N.S. Holdings is a major presence in the court. I fully expect that old biddy down there will be on your father, the emperor’s, first list of ennoblements. She’ll be a grand duchess, same as you.”

Vicky made an ugly face at that prospect.

“But our problem today is that she says this planet is already established and registered to N.S. Holdings. They are the law here, not us.”

“Since when does the Greenfeld flag fly over slaves,” Vicky shot back.

“Slavery is against the law, and officially, there are no slaves on Port Royal. Oh, she says that’s the planet and city’s name. In honor of your father.”

“Gee thanks,” Vicky said, dryly. “And the slaves?”

“What slaves? All these people are paid regular wages.”

“Nelly, can you verify that?” Kris asked.

“Yes, Kris, I have access to the payroll records of the entire planet,” Nelly said proudly. “And I got that access even as they were being loaded at 11:20 this morning.”

“Loaded,” the admiral said.

“At 11:20 this morning. Before that, nothing.”

“I’m sorry, Vicky, Kris,” the admiral said, shaking his head. “I believe your fine computer, Miss Nelly, but in a court of law on Greenfeld, I don’t see that standing for very much.”

Kris wondered if anything would stand for much in a Greenfeld court if it had to stand against money and power. Kris wondered, but bit her tongue and said nothing.

“Kris, Jack wants to talk to you,” Nelly announced. “Are you available?”

“Make it quick, Jack. You know those elephants we talked about this morning? Well, I’m surrounded by a herd of them. They can’t decide whether to ignore me or stomp me into the ground, but what they won’t do is what I want them to do.”

“Better you than me, Commander, but I may have something that will help you.”

“Please, make my day.”

“We found the two missing sailors.”

Around Kris, the room lit up in smiles. Even the admiral. “Talk to me, Jack.”

“When these two heard the sonic booms of our assault boats, they wisely decided to make themselves scarce. Good thing, because from where they were hiding out under crates of drugs, they saw their buddies get gunned down. They weren’t too sure how to react to our Marines, but when we announced that we were going to burn the drug barns, they figured they’d better come out.”

“Who are they?” the admiral asked.

“I’ll put them on view,” Jack said.

The screen beside Kris changed to show two scarecrows in rags, but these scarecrows were grinning from ear to ear. They were seated at a table, spooning in a thin soup as medics checked them out.

“I’m Sam Hatzo. I was wiper on the engineering crew of the Hawaiian Star out of Brenner Pass. This is my buddy Oka Akino, he was a deckhand on the same. I can’t tell you what a lovely sight your ugly jarhead mugs were to these two sailors.”

“Thank you,” Kris said. “Nelly, do we have IDs on these two?”

“Yes, Kris,” and two merchant-sailor union cards appeared beside the former slaves. The pictures didn’t look all that much like the scarecrows, but Nelly quickly ran a facial recognition program and got ninety-two percent matches. “Fingerprints also match,” the computer concluded.

“So,” said Kris, eyeing the admiral, then Vicky, then back to the admiral, “we have at least two merchant sailors who were taken by pirates and sold into service vile. We have their witness to five of their comrades being murdered. Admiral, will you release your Marines to join my Marines in sweeps of the farms below in search of slaves and distressed mariners?”

The admiral took a deep breath. “I always told the missus that someday I’d take up chicken farming and be underfoot twenty-four hours a day. She said it would never happen. She would never live so long.”

He shrugged. “So, what’s the worst that can happen? I get to raise chickens, and Vicky here has to find another old coot to educate her in the ways of the world.”

“Five will get you ten you get a citation for this,” Vicky said.

“Young woman, I have warned you against gambling on my ship.”

“It’s Kris’s ship.”

“Worse, you’re gambling before the . . . ah . . . a Longknife. Behave yourself. Nelly, would you call my staff back in. It seems we have a jump mission to plan.”