''No question, that will hold up before any court here,'' Ron assured her. ''You'd be just as safe if you'd had them sign something like, ‘We're doing this ‘cause we want to. If we get hurt, it's our own damn-fool fault.' Kris, this isn't Wardhaven. This is the Rim. We don't let the lawyers tie us up in knots.''
''Strange.'' Kris smiled. ''I've heard the same spiel from my father. Wardhaven is the Rim, you know.''
Ron's eyes and lips were fully engaged in a smile. Or was it a budding laugh. ''Yes, but there is rim and there is the Rim. To us on the real Rim, Wardhaven is as hide-bound as Earth.''
Kris chose to dodge the barb. ''So I'm not risking the entire Wardhaven defense budget to a lawsuit. Now, can you tell me, or should I talk to Steve the Taxi Man about how someone totally redid the station. I thought with his limited crew he couldn't move the lasers.''
''He couldn't have, if it was just him and his reservists. Chief, you want to tell the tale?''
''Wouldn't miss it for the world,'' the former Personnel Chief for Naval District 41 said, coming into Ron's office. Kris had left the good chair empty, expecting this development. Jack was already holding up his wall.
''You have to realize, to you Wardhaven types, this is just Naval District 41, one of many. But to us, this is our Naval District.'' The chief leaned back, put her legs up on the desk and made herself comfortable. ''Now, it took me and my folks all of five minutes to figure out we were in trouble. Anyone with a set of plans for your standard class-A station could come along and scoop it up and we'd just be smears on the wall. Not the way I wanted this fine figure to end its days, I assure you.''
Kris nodded as the woman laughed at her own joke.
''But we were way too few to even move the machine guns. So, what do you do?''
Kris raised an eyebrow at the rhetorical question.
''Down on Chance, we had high-school kids that needed to do volunteer civic hours and had good grades in their shop and mechanics classes. We offered the best kids a chance to work on reorganizing the station's automatic defenses. They and their teachers got free rides to orbit, a real fun project and free pizza. It also looked good on their first job applications.''
''So that's how my guns and computer got moved.''
''Among other things, ma'am. Look your plans over carefully, there're lots of surprises in them.''
''And we didn't just do this for the hard science students,'' Ron said, jumping in. ''The station's walls provided all sorts of blank space for the art classes to cover.''
''So the budding artists got a ride to orbit and a chance to see their planet from a whole new perspective,'' Jack said.
''Our local galleries have some really spectacular results of those trips to space,'' Ron said proudly.
''And the entire planet views that station as our station,'' the chief finished.
''So how did the planet take to having a Longknife move into your station?'' Kris asked. The long empty pause that came told her all she needed to know. ''I begin to see the problem I am. I have. We are all in.''
''Kind of like that,'' the chief said, standing.
Ron eyed Kris. ''I note that you scheduled your trip down for late in the afternoon. May I interest you and Mr. Montoya in dinner and a play. Our Little Theater has changed its playbill.''
''You willing to be seen in public with me?'' Kris was none too sure how she felt being this close to a buddy of Hank's.
''Public opinions on you are still out. Me, I try to keep an open mind.''
''What's the new play?'' Jack asked.
''The Pirates of Penzance.'' Why was Kris not surprised.
The dinner was delicious. The dancing was equally… pleasant. Jack really knew how to maneuver a woman around the dance floor. There was no reason why the ability to maneuver a woman out of tight and dangerous places should make that skill more or less likely. Still, it was nice to find.
And Ron was not bad at all.
The play was also pleasant. When the modern Major General finished his breathless boasting, Ron nudged Kris. ''Kind of fits a modern Navy Lieutenant, don't you think. Except you'd have to add twenty or more stanzas.''
Not sure how to take it, Kris insisted, ''Thirty-seven, at least, and no one would have the breath for it.''
Kris spent much of intermission listening to couples' happy reports that ''their station'' was keeping grandma off the streets, giving a son or daughter their first real work experience.
Kris nudged Ron. ''It's still ‘our station,' not that damn Longknife's, huh?''
Ron's ''You think so'' sounded evasive.
One old gal took Kris aside to say it was good to have the kids working on a warship, ''They need to see things aren't always as nice and quiet as they have recently been around here.'' That took Kris by surprise; the woman wasn't wearing a veteran's pin.
The woman leaned closer. ''I lost my first husband in the war. He died fighting with your Great-grandfather Trouble on Muy V. Good man. Thank God I found one almost as good or I'd have gone crazy.'' Kris gave the woman the hug she seemed to want.
The ending of Pirates was just as Kris remembered it… contrived. ''Problems aren't settled that easily. Not if it's real pirates or other nasties gunning for you.''
''I won't argue, Longknife,'' Ron said. ''But that still begs the question, why would anyone bother us? It's been fourscore years since anyone tried to score. Why not fourscore more? Hank thought so.''
Kris ignored that Hank reference. ''Wardhaven wasn't scored on for years. We were fighting for our lives four months ago.''
''Point taken. Still, Lieutenant, don't you think you and your father and the rest of your family were making yourselves more of a target than little old us?'' Around them, a knot of people, more interested in the conversation than in leaving the theater, had gathered. Heads nodded at Ron's point.
Kris played her final card. ''Some folks on Wardhaven considered our planet too sacred for anyone to attack. When the attack came, we were scrambling to defend ourselves. We barely managed to lash up enough of a ragtag-and-bobtail force to hold the line. I know. I commanded. And I attended the funerals of all those men and women who stood with me, and weren't as lucky.'' Kris looked around the ring of people watching, her lips gone thin. ''When you are in desperate need, it's no time to start looking to your defense.''
There were nods for her, too. Agreement with Ron. Agreement with her. No movement to action. Kris swallowed a scream that would accomplish nothing and put her hand on Ron's offered arm.
''We should continue this thought,'' someone said in the back. Kris didn't see who. The crowd around them broke up into murmuring groups and made for the no longer crowded exits.
''Kris, you see what you're up against,'' Ron said. ''The vast majority of these folks are just starting to think about what you've been living with for what, the last two, three years. How long did it take you to switch your head out of the long peace?''
''About five seconds, listening to an old woman tell how she'd been beat and raped, her husband murdered before her eyes.''
Ron blanched… but he said nothing.
Kris sighed, remembering. ''But then my second in command didn't buy in nearly as fast. It took him until later in the day to see that we needed to get serious about shooting back.''
''What's he doing now?''
''He died at the Battle of Wardhaven.''
''I'm sorry.''
Kris let out a shudder. ''So am I. I miss him very much.''
''You want me to drop you back at your shuttle?''
''Could we stop by a grocery store on the way. Jack, do you have the list?'' Nelly, of course, did, along with several addendums, involving candy desired by some of the kids working with Beni. Or so he claimed. They were back at the station before eleven with two extra antimatter pods. There was still someone working on the Patton, or maybe that was a shift from a town on the other side of Chance. Kris went to bed.