''The gal's an optimist,'' Mac growled.
Grampa Ray chuckled. ''All things considered, after what we put her through, what else could she be?''
''It might work,'' Crossenshield offered. ''Assuming we don't send a Longknife. There's bound to be someone on our promotion list with a reputation for negotiations and peacemaking.''
''Gosh, and I thought that was all I was doing,'' Kris said.
''Sorry, gal, that's just not our general reputation,'' King Ray said.
''I still wish she hadn't killed the Peterwald boy,'' Mac grumbled. ''There'll be hell to pay. Either of you two remember a dust-up in the Twentieth called World War I? Started when someone offed the heir apparent to one of the thrones of Europe. Pretty much wrecked the rest of that century.''
''I didn't kill him,'' Kris pointed out. Again.
''He would have lived if his survival pod had worked,'' Jack put in. ''I know. I looked it over when we got it aboard.''
''Why didn't it?'' King Ray snapped at Jack.
''We couldn't tell from the equipment we had available,'' Jack said, choosing his words carefully. ''And the folks from Greenfeld didn't give us a lot of time to examine the body and the wreckage. The flag captain said he had personally checked the pod before they sailed. It must have been sabotaged during the month or so they were bouncing around Helvetican space. But all that time the bridge was occupied by a watch crew and under observation. How it was done…?'' Jack just shrugged.
''Peterwald's security will get to the bottom of that,'' Ray mutters. ''I wouldn't want to be a survivor of that flagship.''
Suddenly, Crossenshield sat up straight. He raised a finger to his left ear, drawing Kris's attention to a small device lodged there. ''Ray, the survivors of that flagship may have bigger worries at the moment,'' he said. ''Give me a second.''
Everyone in the room watched him in silence as he listened intently, eyes locked on the ceiling. Then he began to talk in a whisper, apparently still listening. ''The ship bearing Hank's body back to Greenfeld, and the survivors of his flagship, was approaching a jump when its lateral thrusters began firing. It lost all communications and suddenly took off at a high g acceleration. It was in that configuration when it entered the jump. The ships escorting it did not find it on the other side of the jump.''
''A bad jump,'' Grampa Ray whispered.
Mac shook his head slowly. ''Harry Peterwald won't have a body to bury. He can't investigate whether this was some palace intrigue or heart-sick relative of someone that died in a survival pod in Wardhaven orbit.'' The general waved a hand. ''Yes, I know their official take is we shot the survivors but there are stories circulating on Greenfeld that the survival pods were death traps, right, Crossie?'' The intel man nodded.
''But Harry will damn well know his son died in a fight with us. And with you, young lady.''
''I didn't have much choice. Somebody hung me out there with no back up. Nothing but my own two hands and what I and a lot of good folks could come up with to resist Hank. Hank's flag captain, Slovo, kept saying things were mighty strange. He hadn't expected to find me there, had no briefing on me. But I wasn't expecting to see them either. No brief on their trip around at all. Right, Crossenshield?''
''We weren't sure he'd stop by Chance,'' the spy master said, holding his face blank and unreadable.
''We,'' Kris spat, and looked hard at Ray.
''We,'' Ray said. ''We're scrambling, Kris. After the attack on Wardhaven, everyone wants a chunk of the fleet. We sent what we could where we could. And Naval District 41 was the bottom of the barrel.''
''And I was the scrapings.'' Kris sighed. ''No back-up. Just little old me and a couple of people too dumb to run when a Longknife wanders next to them. No offense intended, crew.''
''None taken,'' Jack said. Penny just looked sad. Abby was trying to look like she wasn't there.
''But we did provide you back-up,'' Crossenshield said.
''What back-up?''
''The Resolute?'' King Ray said. ''If things got too bad, you had the Resolute to get you out of there. She could have outrun any of those cruisers. Why didn't you run?''
Jack looked at the king, then at Kris as she struggled to get out a reply. ''Excuse me for butting in, but you give this gal a ship named the Resolute and expected her to use it to run away from a fight? I was starting to think you maybe understood your great-granddaughter. I guess I was wrong.''
''Maybe we should have renamed the ship,'' Crossenshield said.
The king was looking hard at Kris. ''There are times when even a Longknife finds discretion is the better part of valor. I thought Chance might be a hard lesson for you.''
Kris snorted. ''But when you add aliens to the mix?''
''Yes,'' Ray agreed. ''We did our calculations assuming that only Chance was in the pot we were gambling for. Then you upped the stakes beyond anything imaginable.''
Kris let her eyes fall to the floor. ''And we had Hank leaving. We'd outplayed him on Chance. Until he found out the size of the pot, we'd won a bloodless victory. Then, suddenly, there was no place to run. He had two cruisers at Jump Point Alpha and Beta led to Greenfeld space.''
''I'm sorry, Kris,'' the king said. ''We thought we had it all worked out. An assignment for you that was just your size, and an out for you if it went south.''
''Only it went north, east, and west,'' Kris said.
On that thought, the meeting seemed to wind down to dusty death. After a long moment of silence, Mac looked at Ray, then at Kris. ''Consider yourself relieved of command of Naval District 41. I don't have a job for you just now, so hold yourself in readiness for orders.''
No doubt, the wait would not be short.
Back on the street, Kris let the traffic roll by for a moment, dappled by the shadows of the leaves in the early morning sun. The air here was city: ripe and full and probably poison even with her father's best efforts. Kris had nothing to do and several million things hanging fire. What she needed was a place to think.
Harvey pulled the car up; she and her team piled in. ''Where to?'' he asked. ''Home?''
''I don't know about you,'' Kris said, ''but I could use a space where I could get my head in some kind of order. Jack, where is that place you took me to awhile back?''
''The Smugglers Roost?''
''Yeah, that place. With Mac and Ray here, we shouldn't have to worry about running into them there.''
''I know the place,'' said Harvey and dialed it into the car.
The Smugglers Roost was in the sunshine this morning, the space elevator casting its shadow the other way. The beat-up industrial area still looked like a prime candidate for one of Father's urban redevelopment projects. Kris thought that would be a shame. Though some of the red bricks were crumbling, and different colored bricks showed where others had been patched, the place looked like it must be two hundred years old, one of the first permanent buildings ever put up on Wardhaven.
Kris led her three companions down the uneven stairs; Harvey had excused himself to run errands for his wife. Kris knew why the old chauffeur had fled the moment she took the last step down. The Roost was almost empty two hours before noon. Almost… but not quite. At a back table sat Grampa Trouble. He raised a beer stein in salute as Kris growled, ''You owe me.''
''And me,'' Jack added.
''So I'll stand you all for a round. Barkeep, whatever your best is for my easily bamboozled friends here. Hi, Abby, I'm glad to see you're joining us. Is your cover totally blown?''
The maid gave an off-handed shrug, that left you to draw your own conclusion. Kris stowed hers away for later review.
''You knew,'' Kris said, in full accusation.
''Of course I knew,'' the old soldier said, unrepentant… and proud of it. Then he frowned. ''I know a lot, young woman, being as old and evil as I am. But you haven't read any sort of charges against me for a plea. I can confess right now to anything and it won't hold up in any court of law.''