Kris Longknife's Bloodhound, a novella (12 page)

“Are you asking for me to argue with you in public?” came back in a dangerously even voice.

“Yes, love.”

“That . . . will be a joy,” she said, and rang off.

“Is this a good idea?” his boss asked.

“I’ll tell you in a week,” Taylor said.

They returned to the bureau headquarters.  Shortly thereafter, Taylor took public transit to the beanstalk station. 

His wife accosted him as he got out at the station.

“Where do you think you’re going?” was loaded with all sorts of prickle.

“I have a job up on the station,” he said evenly.

“You’re on vacation.”

“Right after I finish this.”

“That’s what you told me yesterday, and the day before that and . . .” the argument went on from there, getting louder and more explosive.  People took it in . . . and turned away, embarrassed for them.  No doubt certain security cameras were also taking it in and conveying it to interested parties.

Taylor did manage to get a few quiet words in.  His wife did not pause in her full harridan act, but acknowledged him with a slight widening of her eyes.

Taylor spotted Annie and a very nice looking young man.  They easily filled the all too familiar role in the station of lovers about be to parted, and very reluctant to do so. 

Taylor slipped the ring into his wife’s hands during an attempt to hold her hand and calm her.  She slapped him with one hand as she slid the ring onto the small finger of the other.

Taylor waited until the flow of the crowd forced the two couple closer together.  He stayed on the far side of his wife from Annie and her boyfriend.  His wife chose that moment to turn away from him in full huff.

And ran right into the other couple. 

The collision brought on a cascade of falling luggage and a flood of apologies, with several accusatory words and glowers aimed at Taylor for driving her into this personal accident.

Taylor did attempt to say a few words to the couple, but his wife talked over him.  When the two younger folks moved on, there was no ring on Taylor’s wife’s finger.

It was easy to tell, she was wagging one finger of that hand under his nose.  “You take your lame ass up that beanstalk and you better bring a lock pick home tonight, ‘cause I’ll have changed the lock.  And I’ll have a chain on the door anyway.”

“I have to go,” Taylor said softly.  Firmly.  Sadly.

They argued, standing there, impeding traffic, with her holding on tight to his arm and him saying he had to go until the very last warning of the ferry’s departure forced him to yank his arm away from her and flee at top speed for the boarding dock, leaving a very angry woman crying in his wake.

I wonder if she had any idea she’d be doing something like that on that long ago spring day when she said “I do”! Taylor thought as he just barely caught the departing ferry.

Taylor continued playing the senior agent for the trip up.  He encountered a full six of the Star Line merchant officers and tried desperately to suborn them.  In each case, he failed.

He followed the flow of merchant officers and sailors right up to the gate to the Nuu Yards where a grinning pair was waiting for him.

“You can’t go in,” Security Agent Cob said, putting a hand on Taylor’s chest and shoving him back with a will.

“Yep,” Security Specialist Kittikon said.  “You ruined my morning.  Now I get to ruin your day, month and year.”

“I’ll see that the Port Captain withdraws their authorization to sail,” Taylor snapped.

“You try,” both said with confident grins.

So Taylor tried.  It was amazing how much bureaucracy there was in a space stations port office.  So he pulled strings.  And found that for every string he was pulling on, there were a pair of six inch cables pulling the other way.

Taylor even resorted to trying to have the Navy defense batteries ordered to fire on the ships if they moved.  It turned out that the captain with the authority to do that was away from his desk and no one knew when he’d be back.

Clearly, a lot of Alex Longknife’s money had gone into getting those ships away from their piers.

At 12:30 local they sealed locks.  By 1:00 they were away and by 2:00 they were out of range of the defense batteries.

It was a well-played charade.  For those actually involved in it, Taylor hoped they’d live long enough to spend their bribes.  For himself, he hoped the ring and instructions worked as well as
advertised.

He was back down the elevator and at his desk when Leslie jumped out of her seat at her desk.  “M-688,” she whispered.  “They’re going to M-688.”

Taylor called Member of Parliament Honovi Longknife with that information.

“That’s a long way away from here,” the Longknife scion said.  “I’ve got a squadron of heavy cruisers getting ready to take off after them, but I’m none too sure I can catch them.”

“What about calling Kris Longknife?” Leslie put in.  “The court is deliberating her fate.  If they don’t chop off her head, she might be able to do something.”

“How?” Mahomet put in.  “Even a Longknife needs a spaceship to chase starships.”

“Maybe she has one,” Leslie shot back.  “The school kids on Musashi have been raising money to buy her a ship and go see what the situation is on the planet she tried to save.  They’re having car washes and bake sales and all sorts of stuff.”

“Yeah,” Rick said.  “That ought to buy her a row boat.”

“Actually,” her brother said, “it might get her a bit more than that.  Mitsubishi is trying something new with Smart Metal.  Let me see if Admiral Crossenshield can do something there,” the Member of Parliament and the politician who stayed home muttered, half to himself.

Taylor found himself eyeing Leslie.  The charter member of the Princess Kris Longknife fan club was grinning from ear to ear.

Taylor set about finishing up loose ends, but his boss came in, took his hat and coat from the stand and handed them to him.  “You go home to your wife.  She did a superb job today.  I hope it was acting, but I have a bad feeling about it.”

Taylor took his offered coat, put his hat on his head and took the trolley home.

The lock had not been changed.  His wife met him before he had a chance to close the door with a warm hug and an even warmer kiss.

“That was most
cathartic.  You must involve me in your work more often,” she said slyly.  “How’d the rest of your day go?”

“Better than some.  Worse than others,” he answered in his usual,
noncommittal way.

And they might have made a good start on making it a very good day, but the kids chose that moment to storm in from school and the best part of the day had to be put off until later.

Much later, as Taylor held his slumbering wife, he mused on the fortune he had in his family.  He found his thoughts roving over what he had discovered of the ups and mostly downs of the Longknife family.  He shook his head and wished Kris Longknife better luck with family in the future than she seemed to have had so far in her young life.

Preview:
Kris Longknife – Defender
, by Mike Shepherd,

coming from Ace in October, 2013

Life is full of decisions.  It’s time for Kris to make some hard ones.

Chapter One

“That was what was about to attack Alwa?” Granny Rita said.  Once commodore of BatCruRon 16, she’d fought hopeless battles.  Still, her voice held dismay as she surveyed the wreckage of the alien base ship.

“It was about twice this size before we took some bites out of it,” Lieutenant Commander, Her Royal Highness, Kris Longknife said.  Herself no stranger to hopeless battles, she added.  “And we’re still quite a ways off.  It will get bigger.”

Rita Nuu Longknife Ponce, former commodore and captain of the battlecruiser
Furious
, was the recognized leader of the humans, and uniformly called Granny Rita by both the heavy ones, us humans, and the indigenous inhabitants of Alwa, who were either the People, or the Light People.

Granny Rita turned to translate to the delegation of six Alwans who had come out to see and verify for all the unbelievable story Kris had told their Associations of Associations.

Privately, Granny Rita called them the assembly the flock of flocks, but she’d warned Kris never to say that where any Alwan might overhear.

Kris listened as Granny Rita and the Alwans clicked and cooed with maybe one word in five sounding familiar to Kris.  It was a pigeon that they’d worked out over eighty years.

However, Nelly, Kris’s not-very-personable computer, was working on a translator for the two people.  Kris wondered if some of the peace that had been maintained for the last eighty years between the Alwans and the humans might have been helped by both sides’ not fully understanding what the other side said. 

When Nelly finished this effort, Kris would have to have a talk with her.

The six Alwans’ movements were quick, almost jerky, as they moved around the forward lounge.  Their arms and hands waved.  Kris had a feeling that a couple of million  years earlier, the flock would have taken flight at this news.  Now, having given up most of their feathers as well as flight, they formed and re-formed groups of two or three, talking among themselves and rarely glancing at the view screen that showed the battered alien-invasion base.

This meeting was not being held on the USS
Wasp
’s bridge. The Alwans had taken in the intensity of the bridge crew at their work and immediately expressed distress to Granny Rita.  Kris had offered the Forward Lounge with it four huge screens.  Since Kris’s staff were all equipped with Nelly or one of her children, Kris was confident they could do anything that needed doing while letting the Alwans take in the familiar activities of humans eating, drinking and, in general, enjoying themselves in the familiar surroundings of a restaurant.

And now, thanks to the magic of Katsu’s wizardry with Smart Metal
TM
, Kris was able to separate the restaurant from her transferred Tac Center with a transparent wall.  Yep, Katsu-san could make Smart Metal
TM
clear as glass!

Kris missed him already, but Katsu said he had trained the
Wasp’
s ship maintainers as well as he could.  He wanted to get back to Musashi and his job at Mitsubishi Heavy Space Industry; his head was already full of ideas for making the next class of ships even better.  Thus, buzzing with new ideas, he joined the IMS
Sakura
for the long voyage back to human space.   

Kris hated the idea that the
Wasp
was all by itself clear on the other side of the galaxy.  Still, there was no question folks back home needed to know that the sacrifice of their Fleet of Discovery had saved the world they fought for.  Even more, the strange planet they laid down their lives for had provided a home to a desperate group of humans.  Now, eighty years later, it sheltered a growing human colony. 

That colony was led by the former wife of King Raymond of United Society (or United Societies depending on how you thought the new constitution should be interpreted).  Problem was, she had buried two husbands in the last eighty years on Alwa and was now mother to seven, grandmother to thirty-four and great-grandmother to 123.  That number was subject to change . . . often.

Kris herself was included among the great-grandchildren and had spent a full week meeting a big chunk of her half uncles, aunts, and cousins.  Still to one and all of the humans on Alwa, related or not, the former commodore was Granny Rita. 

Surprises on top of surprises.  Kris could only wonder how the news the IMS
Sakura
carried would be received.

But for now, she had no time for Longknife family matters; a huge alien mother  ship loomed larger and larger on their screens.  Now the Alwans seemed mesmerized by its promise of death.  They huddled before the screen, eyes locked on it, only occasionally whispering something low.

“This isn’t good,” Granny Rita whispered to Kris.  “Once or twice, I’ve seen one group of them resort to confrontation to settle differences.  When one side is fully intimidated by the others’show of force, the weaker side would just hunkers down and surrender.  These folks don’t fight.  If you can strut yourself a good enough show, you win.”

“Can you get across to them that a couple of human ships smaller than this one chewed that monster up pretty good and only spit out this much?” Kris asked.

Granny shrugged.  “They’ve walked this ship.  They know its measure.  That . . .?”

“Maybe we should have shown them the two Hellburners we have amidships?” Jack said.  He was her chief of security, skipper of a rump battalion of Marines composed of a reinforced Wardhaven Marine company and a borrowed, and equally reinforced Musashi Marine company.

For all too brief time, they’d managed to be lovers.