Jack did frown at that remark. That was the second time Kris had used a marriage analogy with respect to their new . . . situation. This had to be scotched and scotched immediately.

  “Lieutenant Kris Longknife, we’ve been played. Your grampa Trouble played us, with, I strongly suspect, the full cooperation of your grampa Ray, king to the rest of us mortals, as well as your own father.”

  “Why would they do that?” Kris asked.

  “Duh,” Jack drawled. “Maybe because they don’t want you to come down with a serious case of suddenly dead. Have you ever thought of that?”

  “Navy officers don’t need nursemaids,” Kris shot back. “That’s why I joined the Navy. To get away from all the Longknife stuff.”

  “Other Navy officers aren’t dodging nearly the amount of lead that barely misses you, Kris. To keep you alive is a full-time job for a whole lot of people, not just me.”

  Kris didn’t like what he was saying, and it showed. She got up from her chair and stomped around the library for a long couple of minutes. She finished by slamming her open palm into the wall beside a portrait of Ray Longknife.

  “Feel better?” Jack asked.

  “My hand hurts.”

  “That will teach you to keep a better hold on your temper,” Jack said.

  “I thought you were supposed to protect me.”

  Jack thought for a minute, putting on his best serious-consideration face. “Nope, that was a learning experience. One should never interfere with senior officers and their critical learning experiences.”

  “You’re enjoying rubbing that senior-officer stuff in, aren’t you?” Kris said as she returned to her chair.

  “It’s the only game I’ve got at the moment.”

  “Okay, let’s review our situation like two reasonable adults. We’ve been played by two of the oldest, smartest . . .”

  “Meanest and deadliest,” Jack added.

  “SOBs that I have the misfortune to be related to,” Kris finished. “They got us into this situation with malice aforethought. The chances of us getting out are slim to none. We can throw a temper tantrum”—here Kris waved her hand to shake away some more of the pain—“or we can behave like two adults.”

  “Can’t we throw a little temper tantrum?” Jack asked.

  “I think the last five or ten minutes are all we get,” Kris said.

  Now it was Jack’s time to sigh. She certainly was acting like a grown-up, assuming this progressed uphill and not down a slippery slope. He waited to see what Kris had in mind.

  “I have a question for you, Jack,” she said.

  He hadn’t expected that. “I’m all ears.”

  “As my security chief, would you have let me out the door when I left for Turantic?”

  Ah, good. A practical examination of what he’d do when she did something. “You may recall that I did go out the door with you and violated a direct order from my boss and his boss not to accompany you. I told you you were walking into a trap, but I went when you charged out of here.”

  “And you would again?”

  Time for another sigh, this one deeper. “Yes.”

  “So, you’d let me charge into what you rightly saw was a trap, but you won’t let me visit a hospital today!”

  “You had cause for risking the trap. Saving Tommy and, as it turned out, a whole lot more. There is no benefit to your taking the minor risk you would run showing yourself at the hospital today. Yes, the risk is lower, much lower, but you have a safer option that gets you everything your low-risk options would get you. Call the damn people.”

  Kris made a face at Jack. “Nelly, call Penny and the chief and see if they can make a one-o’clock lunch here at Nuu House. Tell them I’ll cover taxi fare. Now—you happy?”

  “Yes, ma’am, Your Highness. Now, what kind of backup am I going to get when you’re off planet?”

  “We’ll discuss it over lunch,” Kris said, and marched out of the room.

  “Why do I have the feeling that this is the beginning of a horrible friendship?” Jack muttered to her back.

  Kris had Lotty put on a light lunch. Abby just happened to be passing by and invited herself in. There were salads for the girls, sandwiches for the boys. The chief put away two and asked for a third, insisting he was a growing boy.

  Over lunch, Kris outlined plans for her tour in Training Command. The fast-attack boats, as the fast patrol boats were now known to one and all, would come out of their Smart MetalTM hatchery in a standard format. Kris and her team would need to talk to users about making the mods that Squadron 8 had made in haste before the battle.

  “They’ve just paid a pretty penny for those boats,” Penny pointed out, “and you want them to pay for extras.”

  “We needed them.”

  “Yeah, we needed them, Your Highness,” Chief Beni said between bites, “but that extra crap ain’t making it into the usual news reports.”

  “We’re the survivors. We were there. They’ve got to pay attention to us.”

  No one around the table looked persuaded, but neither did they say anything further.

  “I have a problem,” Jack said. “I can’t keep Her Highness, here, in one piece on my own. I’ll need help. Can either of you lend me a hand?”

  The two others gave the question thoughtful consideration. The chief spoke first. “Most bombs have an electronic component of some sort. I could put together some black boxes that should be able to sniff out electronics that don’t belong where she’s walking and give some warning. Some other gizmos might help for other things. I wouldn’t mind walking around with them in my pockets.”

  “That could help,” Kris said, “but what do we do when you shout ‘bomb’?”

  “My dad was a police officer,” Penny said. “As you saw on Turantic, I speak fluent Cop. I could coordinate with the local police and see if they could lend us a hand keeping Kris unperforated. I could also introduce us to the local bomb squad, get their number on speed dial. That way, when we hollered, they’d know we weren’t the type to ‘cry wolf’ and would come running.”

  “Crew, you’re making me feel like some porcelain doll,” Kris said, feeling none too happy for all the support.

  “Face it, Kris,” Penny said, “you’re a target. Keeping someone from using you as a bull’s-eye isn’t cheap or easy. Just be glad you’ve got friends willing to make the effort. As I see it, you have three choices. Go out there and get killed. Stay here and watch what passes for daytime media. Or say thank you to nice people like us and do what you want.”

  “Or what Jack will let me.”

  “You need to thank me for this delicious lunch,” Jack put in. “Kris wanted to go traipsing out there to meet all of you.”

  “I’m loving the food,” said the chief, “but that does seem extreme.”

  “Good move, Marine,” Penny said. “I’m glad you were able to knock some sense into her pretty little head.”

  “There’s nothing little about me,” Kris snapped, then tried not to turn red as Penny gave her a look. Not to her face, but to her boobs. Lack thereof.

  “All right, point taken,” Kris said. “We will all pitch in to help Jack exercise his legal protection of me.”

  “Legal?” Abby asked, the first time she had opened her mouth during lunch.

  Which gave Jack the opening he needed to tell all of them the embarrassing story of how Grampa Trouble had played both Kris and him. Many laughs were had by all.

  “Okay, okay, so you know my dirty secret. I can’t even trust my own family. Now, getting back to our Training Command gig. Anyone have a suggestion as to who else we can tap to help us?”

  “Lieutenant Taussig’s boat survived,” Penny pointed out. “I saw him visiting some of his wounded in the hospital. How about him?”

  “He’s regular Navy,” Kris said. “I figured he’d had enough of the hooligan Navy.”

  “These small boats are the coming thing,” Jack pointed out. “Command of one of the boats at the Battle of Wardhaven, a stint in training, it all might add up to his getting his own squadron.”

  “Nelly, send him a message. Ask him if he’d like to be tapped for our little training gig. If he says no, it won’t happen. If he wants it, he has it. Now, who else?”

  “It seems to me that the engines on the fast-attack boats are the heart of the boat,” Penny said. “Did your motor mech survive?”

  “Motor Mech third class Tononi did survive, Kris,” Nelly said, “as did Gunnery Mate third class Kami, the gal that handled the foxers on the boat. They are all available for reassignment.”

  “And they all need to have paperwork put in to promote them,” Kris said. “Nelly, fill out the forms for their promotions, then send them the same message you sent Phil Taussig. If they want to ship on with one of those damn Longknifes again, they’ve got a berth. Otherwise, I won’t hold it against them if they never want to see my ugly face again.”

  “Those exact words?” Nelly asked.

  “No, Nelly, nice ones. You know my meaning.”

  “Yes, ma’am, Your Highhandedness.”

  “We’ve got to get you back to Aunt Tru for a consult,” Kris said. Nods came from around the table.

  Nelly interrupted their contemplation of her with, “Phil Taussig says to set a plate for him. He’ll be here in ten minutes.”

  “Does that mean he’s in?” Penny asked.

  “I guess so,” Nelly said. “I told him what you wanted, just as nice as could be, and he asked where you were. I think so he could talk to you, face-to-face. When I told him you were having a late lunch at Nuu House, he said to set him a plate. He added something about his dad and granddad telling him never to pass up a chance to eat at Nuu House.”

  Abby snorted at her tea. “Something tells me that your foxy old grampa Ray has been using poor Lotty as a bribe to invite flies into the spider’s web.”

  “You go tell Lotty we’ve got a Taussig coming to lunch and see what she sets before him,” Kris said to Abby.

  “Of course, Your Princesshood, you have only to say, and I will obey,” Abby said, taking a moment to shovel in a good helping of Caesar salad before she made any move to obey.

  Lieutenant Phil Taussig arrived a minute early. He was tall, dark, handsome, and sported a bandage around his head so, though he was in uniform, he’d left his cover behind. As he settled into the chair Kris pointed him to, Lotty arrived with a Greek salad, resplendent in cucumbers, goat cheese, brown olives, and a whole lot of stuff Kris was unable to identify.

  She declined Nelly’s offer to educate her about Greek food.

  “Dad warned me that your cooking was to die for,” Phil said, settling a napkin in his lap. “He also said to eat the food but decline all offers likely to lead to the ‘die for,’” he finished, giving Kris an eye.

  “You survived my last command.”

  “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” Phil said, taking a taste. “Then, of course, if we’d missed it, we’d be missing our world, wouldn’t we?”

  The table enjoyed the chuckle at his play on words while he forked in a huge bite of his salad. With Lotty looking on, he did a magnificent imitation of a man passing through heaven’s gate into paradise.

  Lotty rewarded him with a swat from her dish towel and returned to her kitchen.

  “So,” Phil said, talking with his mouth full, “what are you up to, Kris, and what are the chances those around you will survive it?”

  “I’ve volunteered for Training Command,” Kris said.

  “That sounds safe enough.”

  “Lots of planets are ordering the new fast-attack boats, the ones spun from Smart MetalTM.”

  “That sounds smart, on both accounts,” Phil agreed. “Get the fast-attack boats and get them so you can seal as many hull breaches as you need to. Wish I’d had that kind of stuff on the old 106 boat. I wouldn’t have lost my engine-room crew.”

  “My motor mech survived, and I’m asking him to join us, but I lost most of my gun crew.”

  “I could fill in that hole,” Phil said. “You planning on having someone to cover every crew slot on a boat?”

  “If we’ve got good folks, they can teach their job to the new boat crews. Penny, you and I can handle the new skippers, as I see it.”

  Phil munched his salad for a long moment, then put down his fork. “It looks like a fun assignment. What are the odds that I’ll take the shot intended for you?”

  “It’s my job to get the shooter before they take the shot,” Jack said. “I’ll be working with Penny, who will be coordinating with the local cops and intel sources. Your job shouldn’t be any more dangerous than the average Navy lieutenant’s.”

  “Yeah, right,” Phil said. “My little sister is a big fan of yours. She’s been following you since you got that princess thing going. But she’s also found some background stories on you that are fit to make a guy’s hair stand on end.”

  “Probably all true,” Kris said, trying to sound contrite.

  “Well,” Phil said, raising his water glass in salute, “as John Paul Jones said, ‘Give me a fast ship, for I intend to go in harm’s way.’ Let’s do this thing.”

  A month later, Kris and Phil had two of Boynton’s brand-new fast-attack boats out and were putting them through their paces, slamming them through the most gentle of Nelly’s jinking patterns to show the skippers and crew how it was done.

  Kris canceled the exercise when their third crew casualty occurred.

  The skipper, a captain in his midforties, twisted his back. He’d been sitting in his own seat on the small bridge when he turned to see something, Kris wasn’t sure what, and put his back out painfully. His was the second back injury. There was also a gunner’s mate with a painfully strained shoulder.

  “Thanks for calling it off,” Phil said on net. “I’ve got three crew casualties, too.”

  Kris had suspected she had a problem when she took the boats out that morning, she just hadn’t known how fast and in what way the problem would manifest itself.

  Boynton had maintained a small fleet of twelve light cruisers, all left over from the Iteeche War eighty-some years ago. The present administration had jumped at the idea of retiring the cruisers and replacing them with fast-attack boats. The bean counters were sure they’d save loads of money on maintenance and reduced crew costs since the small boats would be cheaper to run, require less upkeep, and need a crew of twenty-five rather than five hundred.

  The Navy Personnel Division, however, had run the RIF, Reduction in Force. All twelve of the cruiser captains now commanded a boat, and the youngest crew member was a thirtysomething petty officer first class.

  It was no wonder that Kris had incapacitated three of her twenty-five crew members in just ten minutes of radical maneuvering.

  “Can you explain to me why you were bouncing my ship all over the place at high-gee acceleration?” the captain of the boat growled.

  His ship, her boat. They were far from a meeting of the minds here.

  “These fast-attack boats,” Kris repeated what she’d said at least a dozen times during briefings, “have no ice armor. They can’t afford to take any hits. Their best defense is not being there when the enemy gets a firing solution and shoots. You have to be someplace other than where they expected you to be. These boats don’t sail in a straight line for more than five seconds. Three seconds is better. That’s what the jinks pattern and the high-gee accelerations and decelerations are all about. You have to be unpredictable.”

  “But these ships are all that new metal stuff. If we take a hit, we can patch it in no time.”

  “Yes, sir,” Kris agreed, and had Nelly pull up a diagram of the ship on the main screen in front of them. “But look at your boat, Captain. You take a hit in the engine room, you can patch the hull, but you’re dead in space. You take a hit among the weapons, and, real quick, you’re just out for a scenic cruise. Seventy-five percent of your hull length is mission critical. Odds are, you take one hit, and you’re out of business. You have to avoid that hit.”

  “Your jinking will put my crew out of business long before I can get in range to do anything to an enemy ship,” the captain growled.

  The trip back to the station was at a comfortable one gee, and very quiet.

  “You’ve put six of my men in sick bay, including one of my captains,” Admiral Villeneuve roared. “Two of them look to be headed for disability retirement, maybe more. You’re supposed to teach my Navy how to use those damn mosquito boats, not destroy my fleet.”

  “Sir, may I remind you that these ‘damn mosquito boats’ blew six super dreadnoughts out of space? However, these fast-attack boats are a young person’s weapon. They need a crew that is young and agile and can take the pounding a hard approach maneuver requires. You’ve given me a crew more suited for a retirement home. And sir, their age does not denote the level of experience you claimed the day I arrived. Your cruisers spent most of the last ten years tied up to the piers awaiting critical spare parts. The last time you had any of them away from the pier was for the eightieth anniversary of the ending of the Iteeche War, and even then, three of them had to serve as open-house ships because their engines couldn’t be made to work.”

  “So you would have me beach these good men and keep a bunch of insolent whelps for my fleet, young lady?”

  Kris examined her options and found only one. “Yes, sir.”

  “Not on my watch. You can take your bunch of snot-nosed kids and find another Navy to wreck.”

  “I will tell your president that,” Kris snapped. “I’ve got a meeting with him this afternoon.” The president had scheduled the meeting shortly after his office had learned of the planned exercise. Kris had hoped she’d have good news for him.

  Doubtless, he’d have all the bad news long before she got there.

  Kris was right. The president was eyeing a report as she entered his office.

  “Six injured. Four being recommended for disability retirement. Lieutenant Longknife, twelve percent casualties and not a shot fired. How many of these training exercises before I have no Navy?”

 

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