''Well, thank all the gods in space it was just a bit of poor maintenance,'' Jack muttered at full volume. ''You can come out, Lieutenant, Your Highness, Commandership. I hope you keep not needing the Security Chief you so eminently ignore.''
If Kris followed every instruction, order, or bit of advice Jack was authorized to give her and that she was required by regulation to obey, she'd never set foot outside her bedroom at Nuu House on Wardhaven. Some Naval career that would be.
But then, both Grampa Trouble and Grampa Ray, his Royal Kingship included, had known she'd keep right on ignoring half of Jack's orders. Only now he got to nanny her through every square centimeter of space. And she'd been gulled into drafting him into his new authority over her. Grampa Trouble, you are so trouble. And Grampa Ray, you're not much better.
Pulling herself up to a full six feet of regal majesty, automatic still at high port, and dredging the Imperial ''we'' up for impact, Kris smiled. ''We appreciate your concern and rest assured that you will continue to spare no effort for the safety of our high and august person.''
Jack snarled, teeth showing, but he limited his response to drumming his fingers on the barrel of his weapon in silent frustration. He'd been doing a lot of that lately.
''That's the door to the Command Center,'' the chief and Nelly said at close enough to the same time that only a computer could have told who spoke first. Kris was not about to ask Nelly which one had.
Computers were supposed to be scrupulously honest, but Kris wouldn't bet an Earth dollar that Nelly still qualified for that virtue. Not where the chief was concerned.
As Jack took station to the left of the not airtight door, he motioned the chief to the right. With his free hand, he waved Kris and Penny to spread out. Kris gave some thought to the two bombs in the last three months and decided standing behind Jack and his wide, armored shoulders might be a good idea. She sidestepped to there; Penny stood behind the chief.
''Open it, Chief.''
Beni screwed up his face in a ''Why me'' complaint, courage not being one of his obvious virtues, but then did it. The hinges complained but the door opened better than partway before it screeched to a stop. The room inside was dark.
Rolling his eyes to the ceiling as if he might find a reason why such valiant effort was suddenly becoming his portion in life, the electronics wizard felt around inside the door with his right hand, keeping most of his body outside. With a click, flickering illumination lit up the space
Kris edged out from behind Jack to get a better view. There wasn't much to see: silent workstations, overhead lights struggling to come on. Some succeeded. Others gave up and settled for dark.
''No boom,'' Penny said, giving voice to all their thoughts.
''Chief, put those bells and whistles of yours to use for something besides paper weights,'' Jack snapped. ''Tell me something I don't already know about that room.''
Kris might be in dress whites for the change of command ceremony that seemed to be very much delayed, but she hadn't been totally lacking in survival instincts. Rigged in her hat, indeed in every hat she now owned, were antennas that should let Nelly take the measure of every electron within several miles around her more active than those in a glass of water. Nelly, talk to me.
The only actives in there are from seventeen overhead lights. No, sixteen, formed in Kris's brain a full second faster than Chief Beni got the same words out. ''Nothing ticking. Nothing tocking, Your Marineship,'' the chief added.
Beni had never been what the Navy called ''spit and polish.'' His time in Training Command, bouncing from planet to planet with Kris and her team of hooligan Navy mosquito boats had not been a good influence on him. Clearly, Kris needed to have a counseling session with the young chief soonest. Either that or promote him to officer and have some old chief square him away.
Since the newly minted Marine officer ignored the chief's last remark and began a slow, cautious entrance into the Command Center, Kris assigned the chief's future counseling and/or promotion a low priority and returned to the problem at hand.
Where was her new command?
Jack and the chief did a quick search of the center. Kris and Penny, their automatics pointed at a nondescript overhead that didn't dare move, kept an eye on the wavering shadows in the several hallways leading off from the elevator. It was spooky, but the shadows stayed empty.
''I got something,'' the chief announced.
''What is it?'' three voices asked.
''A letter.''
''A letter?'' Kris said.
''Yeah. On flimsy.''
''Is it booby-trapped?'' Jack demanded.
''No strings attached, and nothing but the minimum static charge to keep the letters on the page, sir. It's just a memo, addressed to the next CO. And it's laid out, each page, side by side, so you don't even have to pick it up to read it.''
''What's it say?'' Kris said, ducking her head inside.
''Ma'am, I think you better read this yourself,'' the chief said, sounding, if anything, bashful.
Kris raised an eyebrow to Penny. If there was a dirty joke in human space that Beni would balk at sharing in mixed company, they hadn't heard it. What would make the young man unwilling to read them this message intended for Naval District 41's next Commanding Officer?
Kris stepped into the empty command center. Her command center. The air was stale like the rest of the station. No low hum of blowers. No human sweat. This was supposed to be the command center for several parsecs of human space. It stood vacant, defending nothing.
Maybe five years ago, when the Society of Humanity's writ still held sway in human inhabited space, a planet might take such a risk. Not now. Not in today's worlds of battleship diplomacy. Someone was taking a huge gamble with their future.
Jack wasn't gambling with Kris's personal safety. Like a good Secret Service agent, he backed into a corner that gave him a view of all three entrances to the command center. It had seemed like such a good idea when Grampa Trouble suggested maybe Kris could use a Chief of Security on her new command.
She'd readily agreed. Too readily, it seemed. Only after the paperwork was cut and a fuming Jack was decked out in dress red-and-blues and sporting a single silver bar of a first lieutenant, one very significant promotion below Kris, did he show up suddenly smiling. It seems that Grampa Trouble had taken him aside and walked him through the new regulations that came into play when a member of the royal blood was a serving member of the military.
As if there was more than one of Kris.
And suddenly Kris discovered that the chief of her security detail, no matter what his rank, could issue her orders. Tell her what she could and could not do!
It had been a rough trip out. It looked to be a rough command as well.
And that was before the skipper of the St. Pete commed Kris and told her that High Chance was only responding with automatics. No human voice. Nothing but the basics.
Beni and Nelly's scans showed only the most fundamental activity on the station. Solar cells feed battery back-ups and not much more. No reactor on-line. Just about nothing.
The skipper of the St. Pete balked at docking at High Chance under those circumstances, but Kris pointed out the contract he'd signed for her transportation. He could dock, therefore he would dock or face the legal assault an angry Longknife could throw at his company. Fuming, he brought his ship alongside the station, and, to his surprise, the automatics clicked into gear and hauled it in. The last thing Kris heard as she crossed the gangplank was that the St. Pete was even drawing reaction mass from the stations' tanks. And being charged for it. Some things were working. Some things always worked if you paid for them.
Like BuPers. Navy personnel always got assignments. Probably not the one they wanted, but, what with the fleet growing, there were always plenty of vacancies to go around. Unless your father happened to be the Prime Minister and your Great-grandfather was the king, of sorts, of the hundred-planet association that Wardhaven tried to lead.