“Have you been listening?” she asked in a low voice.
“I have. You might have said too much.”
She ignored that concern. “Tom’s right. We could use their kind of help.”
“Him?”
“Maybe. I don’t know him very well, but if Mike called on him to go with them, he must be a good pilot. And look at Terry. He already knows how to work with the Great Cats. He’s a Protector.”
“Na. He’s too big a target.”
“He’s already fought the Chessori, and he prevailed. And Jacobs is a medic. We could all use a medic, Tarn.”
“Of course we could, but them? They look pretty rough.”
“I like them.”
“They’re Mike’s guys, Krys. We don’t have time to go back for more. Maybe we can pick some others up on Earth. I hear they’re quick learners.”
“I can’t pull rank on Mike, but I can ask him. These men are already trained. Do you think he’d let them go with us?”
“Even if he did, would it be fair to them? It’s a pretty dangerous task we have ahead of us. At the very least, you should ask them first.”
Four more men chose that moment to enter the room. They settled around Jacobs and started warming up. The room was getting crowded quickly with the ten Terrans. Why were there so many, she wondered? Were there others?
“How many of you are there?” she called to Washburn.
He had finished untangling himself from the equipment and leaned against it with his arms folded across his massive chest, looking at her intently.
“Three teams of three each, all Protectors, and a pilot. We only brought three more Great Cats, but you’ve already got three. Your new ship needs eight gunners, a gunnery control officer, and a pilot.” He looked around the room counting bodies. “Hmm, just the right number, wouldn’t you say, My Lady?”
She stood up, not certain she understood. “You call me My Lady? What are you saying? Do you know me?”
“Well, let’s see. Birth place unknown. Raised on Hespra III in an orphanage. They didn’t designate their clients with names, just numbers, so you didn’t have an official name. Your designation was 5397867B. Your twin brother was designated 5397867A. He’s out on assignment right now. I hear he’s a Knight, too. You were pulled from the orphanage at the age of sixteen, spent two years with Sir Otis and a woman named Daughter, who’s now Queen, then went to Rrestriss for seven years of schooling. I hear that’s quite a boon. You have some kind of special skills, skills to which I am not privy, that require your going out into the Empire to spread a message. Actually, I’m more interested in the recruiting and the intelligence gathering you’ve done since it might make all the difference to Earth. We were not given specifics of your mission, but I speak for everyone here when I say that your discovery of direct threats to Earth suddenly makes me more concerned with your welfare than I was. My Lady.”
She stared at him, then turned to study each of the others with a whole new intensity. Her hands went out to her sides of their own accord. “What’s going on here?” she asked softly.
The rest of her crew chose that moment to enter the room. Stven came first, his head towering over the assembly as soon as he cleared the door. M’Sada came next, his upper hands busily preening his two long antennae. Behind M’Sada came Gortlan, Gordi’i and Kali’i.
The First Knight came to the door, but he did not enter the room. He just leaned against the door frame with his arms folded across his chest.
“Some new additions to your crew, My Lady,” Captain Stven said. “If you’ll have them.”
Terry Washburn and Tom O’Brien stood beside the apparatus they’d been working out on, and everyone else had risen to their feet, including Tarn. She went to him and put her arms around him, continuing to stare at the people in the room, her eyes wide.
“You’d go with me, with us?” she asked, staring at Washburn, then O’Brien and the rest of the men.
“If you’ll have us,” Washburn answered for everyone.
She left Tarn’s side and went to each of the Protectors in turn, then O’Brien, and Washburn last. She put her arms around his sweaty torso in an embrace. It felt like she’d grabbed a rock. “I will have you. All of you,” she said, looking up into those wonderful eyes.
She looked at Mike. “This is your doing, First Knight?”
“It’s the Queen’s doing, Krys. If you’ll have them, you’re free to speak. There need be no secrets withheld from them, and as your Protectors, they’ll do a better job if there are no secrets.”
She nodded, and Mike turned to leave, then changed his mind and turned back to address everyone in the room.
“The Queen has spent the last two years just surviving and getting her fighting forces together. That part’s done now. Like the Phoenix, we’re rising from the ashes. We’re taking this war to the Chessori, and we’ll deal with whatever Rebels we encounter along the way. Your job is to keep the Queen’s forces pointed in the right direction.” He made eye contact with each person in the room, then turned and left.
Krys stared at the empty doorway, her mind reviewing what she’d heard. She turned to Stven. “What kind of a ship needs eight gunners?”
“The Queen’s ship, My Lady. She’s given you Resolve.”
Chapter Nineteen
Krys gathered her crew in a circle on the deck of the exercise room. Everyone sat. To her left was Stven. Tarn sat to her right, and next to him, Borg lay with his head resting on his hands, seemingly half asleep, but she knew her Protector was fully engaged. Not that there was any question of these men. Ellie had Tested each of them before accepting them on her behalf.
She looked to Tom O’Brien. “You really know how to fly our ships?”
Stven answered for him. “I’ve been in the net with him, My Lady. He knows. We’ll all have to get some experience with Resolve, including the gunners. He has more experience with fast ships than M’Sada and me. The first leg of our journey will be a shake-down cruise for the crew. We’ll learn to fly together and fight together.”
“But you’ll be out of the net if the Chessori show up.”
“We’ll practice all that, don’t worry, and M’Sada and I will help with tactics before any fighting gets started, though I’m told that we might learn more from him than he learns from us. Chandrajuski is highly pleased with the performance of the Terrans.”
She turned back to O’Brien. “You had to give up a squadron for this. What was your rank? Are you an admiral?”
“No, I’m a captain, one step below admiral.”
“How did you get a squadron?”
“Admiral Trexler looks only at ability, not rank, My Lady. The new rank would have been assigned soon. It won’t now.”
“Are you okay with this? You’ve given up the rank of admiral, you’ll only have one small ship, and then only if we have to fight the Chessori.”
“I wasn’t at first, but if what you say is true, that what you do directly impacts Earth’s future, then I definitely want to be a part of your operation. So that there’s no question in anyone’s mind, you should know that there is only one captain, and that’s Stven, not me. I’ll do whatever is needed, from flying the ship to cleaning toilets.”
“Thank you, Tom.”
“Big battles are brewing,” he added, “and we all expected to be a part of them. This mission takes us away from them, and quite frankly, with your being a Knight and all, I had envisioned you as older, someone born to the position, someone high in the hierarchy of the Empire, someone who would look down on us. I don’t sense that from you, but I do sense your need of us and the importance of your mission. None of us likes being pulled from the battles that are shaping up. All of us in this room were chosen because we’re as good as they get, and we’ll be missed, but from what you say, your mission will have a lot to do with the main battles. I’m with you, if you’ll have me.”
Washburn spoke up. “Actually, Tom, this assignment pulled me away from some administrative duties that I won’t miss at all. We brought some 600 Protectors from Brodor. The Queen doesn’t need that many yet. Something’s brewing for later, but it’s going to be a while. Until then, they’re in a training regimen. I won’t miss that.”