Kris leaned back in her seat. She'd been so busy on the trip in, what with prisoners and debriefings that she'd had no time for news. She waved off the temptation to have Nelly give her a quick briefing. If the truth, the real truth, and what was actually happening were as confused as Harvey seemed to be, even Nelly would be hard put to separate the signal from the noise.
''I don't know,'' Kris finally said.
Harvey turned back to watching where the car was taking them. Jack gave Kris what might have been a nod of approval, but then again might have just been a bump in the road, and turned back to being a lookout.
When Kris got out in front of Main Navy, Jack joined her. ''You coming to my meeting?'' she asked.
''I understand your last cruise got a bit exciting.''
Kris smiled. ''People were pointing guns at me. You volunteering for ship duty?''
''Maybe you ought to avoid duty where I can't provide my services.''
That sounded like a line. ''And what kind of service are you providing?''
''I take your bullet,'' he said simply, eyeing the hallway ahead of them. ''Other grief you earn is your problem.''
''I'm sorry,'' Kris said and found she meant it. She'd been so concentrated on her own job, she'd forgotten the jobs others had. And after the reaming out Colonel Hancock had given her!
Jack opened the door signed OP-5.1. ''Ensign, you have your job. I understand you're getting rather good at it. I have my job. You concentrate on yours, and I'll take care of mine.''
Kris identified herself to a civilian receptionist who pointed her at a conference room. Its door was closed; a sign flashed In Use—Top Secret beside it. Jack raised an eyebrow as he settled into a chair and picked up a magazine.
Inside, Kris found the lieutenant who had been questioning her twice a day since she came aboard the Magnificent, as well as a new commander, forty-something, black hair just starting to gray. He wore neither name tag nor ribbons on his khakis. The lieutenant began with his usual questions. What was Kris's job on the Typhoon? What did she know of its voyage? What happened on the bridge that morning?
Kris gave her usual answers. That took the usual hour.
Then the commander leaned forward. ''Who helped you plan your mutiny, Ensign Longknife?''
''Huh,'' Kris bridled at this new line of questioning. ''No one.''
''How long had you been planning your mutiny?'' he shot back.
''I did not plan it.''
But the rapid-fire questions kept coming. After five minutes of who, what, when, where, and how questions all ending in that nasty word mutiny, Kris's temper snapped. ''Commander, Captain Thorpe's and Commodore Sampson's actions didn't leave me a lot of options. What was I supposed to do? Follow orders and shoot up the Earth fleet?''
''No, no, Kris,'' the lieutenant jumped in. ''Still, you must admit that the smooth way you took over the ship leaves people wondering if you hadn't planned something on your own and just got lucky when their illegal actions gave a fiction of legality to your previously planned course of action.''
''Horse shit,'' Kris spat. Then she spent the next hour explaining to the commander why armed marines chose to follow her lead rather than obey the orders of the ship's captain. That she'd been right didn't matter one bit.
Kris was drained by the time they let her go. Leaving Jack to follow in her steaming wake, Kris stomped for the nearest exit. Outside, she found a day too damn beautiful for how she felt. She spotted a small attempt at a garden. Someone had arranged three trees and a half-dozen bushes around a stone bench. She collapsed onto it.
''How'd it go?'' Jack asked, taking station behind her.
''Haven't hung me yet,'' Kris growled. She was mad; she wanted to hang a few folks herself, starting with a nameless commander. What did he expect her to do? Follow orders, slag the Earth fleet, and when the war was over, tell the newsies from the winning side, ''Well, I was just following orders''? No way!
Kris took a deep breath; it carried a faint hint of evergreens and turpentine, but the smell of rubber and concrete was not held at bay by the wilted greenery. ''Hell of an end to the rainbow,'' she muttered.
Jack kept up his quiet surveillance as Kris tried to organize herself for what was left of a miserable day. Several deep breaths brought in only the stink of warming concrete. She ought to do something. What was on the schedule? Right, a meeting with Grampas. Wouldn't that look great, they accuse me of mutiny, and I run off to tell my Grampas. Have to cancel that.
Why? They were wrong about her mutiny, and they'd be wrong about her and her Grampas. Damn it. Here I am just getting to know them, and I'll be damned if I'll let that commander stop me. Kris stood; she'd never find the end of any rainbow if she let people like the commander call her shots.
After two steps, she paused. She'd planned to include Tommy in her meeting with her Grampas, let him get a look at what ''those Longknifes'' were really like. No way was she going to change that. ''Nelly, call Tom.''
''How'd the meeting go?'' came a second later in Tom's voice.
''Not too bad,'' Kris said. ''Want to get together?''
''I'm not due for another beating by my inquisitor until 1400 hours.'' Tom laughed. ''Where you want to meet?''
''I'll have Nelly call you back in a second,'' Kris said and rang off. ''Nelly, get ahold of either Grampa Trouble or Ray.''
''How'd your meeting go?'' came back a second later in Trouble's voice.
''Nothing I couldn't survive. How's yours going?''
''I think we've done all the damage here we can,'' was followed by a laugh that from anyone else would sound evil. Grampa Trouble didn't have an evil bone in his body. Or did he?
''Where are you?'' Kris asked.
Grampa rattled off an address; Nelly brought up a map for Kris. ''You're in my old stamping ground around the university.''
''Yep, some folks thought it would be easier to dodge the newsies. Seems to have worked. Know any good place to eat?''
''There's the Scriptorum. Shouldn't be anything but students there. Nelly, flash a map to Grampa.''
''See you there as soon as we close this down, say in about fifteen minutes,'' was Trouble's closing remark.
That didn't go too badly. Kris smiled to herself. ''Nelly, tell Tom to meet me at the Scriptorum.'' Jack coughed. ''You're not warning him who he's meeting?''
''Why ruin his morning?'' Kris laughed, feeling a big chunk of the morning's misery sloughing off her.
Harvey didn't have any trouble finding a place to park.
Jack preceded Kris into the student dive. Even this early in the morning there were students here, dodging class, cramming for tests, just hanging. Jack stepped aside, giving Kris her first view of the quiet corner where she met Auntie Tru last. The woman sat there, smiling sunnily and holding down two tables.
''What are you doing here?'' Kris demanded.
''You keep asking Nelly to take updates from my Sammie, you got to expect that your old auntie can at least get a calendar out of your computer.''
''Nelly, we've got to talk,'' Kris growled through a smile.
''I don't know how she did it.'' Nelly sounded startled, with more than a tinge of hurt, if an AI was capable of such.
''What will you have?'' the student server asked, taking in Kris's undress whites without so much as a blink. Apparently the Navy wasn't unwelcome today. How things change.
''Coffee,'' Kris ordered.
''Coffee,'' the others repeated.
As the server turned for the drinks, Tommy passed him.
He slid into the chair next to Kris. ''How'd the morning go?''
Kris considered warning him of what lay ahead but decided she wanted to be able to say under oath that she had not coordinated any of her testimony with Tom.
''Worse than some, not as bad as facing Captain Thorpe.''