Without missing a beat, Rear Admiral Kitano was on her feet. “Aye aye, Admiral. May I ask why you aren’t taking the fleet out, ma’am?”
“I’ve got a battle dirtside with the Alwa Association of Associations,” Kris said. “So I’ll have to let you have all the fun. By the way, I’ve got some shoulder boards you may want to borrow.”
Kris went on before Kitano could react. “I’m authorized to promote three vice admirals. Vice Admiral Kitano is the first. No doubt the rumor mill will tell you who the next two are well before I cut the orders in three days, after I get back from the fun and games on Alwa.”
Kris left them laughing.
67
Getting a meeting with the Association of Associations was never an easy process. Of late, it had gotten nearly impossible for anyone to agree on anything, even to meet.
Kris found she’d have to wait for two days for the Association to assemble.
After one day of going over food-production reports that looked good and incidents reports of Alwa-on-Alwa blood and even Alwa-on-human attacks, Kris decided she knew all she needed to know.
That evening, Jack drove her to Joe’s Paradise Cove in time for supper.
Next morning, they sat on the beach, feeling the warm sun on their bare skin, and stared at the ever-the-same, ever-changing ocean.
“So much has changed since we first came here,” Kris muttered.
Jack nodded. “We’ve lost a lot of clothes since that first time,” he said with a sort of leer.
“Do you still love me?” Kris asked.
Now Jack got serious. “You mean with you and me going about our jobs all day long and sometimes into the night, have I somehow forgotten how much love I have for you?”
Kris felt vulnerable, almost little girlish as she admitted, “Yes.”
Jack leaned over, enveloped her in his arms, and kissed her. Seriously kissed her.
One thing led to another, and a long while later, Kris found herself looking up at Jack and him looking down at her.
“Should I take that as a yes, you still love me?”
“If you have any doubt about it, let me say yes, I really do love you, and nothing is ever going to change that.”
Kris looked into his eyes and saw reflected back at her a love that was eternal.
“I promise you, Jack. Someday, we are going to have a job. Me in one office. You in the next one. We’ll have lunch together every noon and supper at night. Maybe we’ll even have a little one to feed french fries to.”
“That would be nice,” Jack admitted. “But that is not a promise I will hold you to, Kris Longknife. You and I both know we go where we are sent.”
“You will not have to hold me to that promise. I will hold myself to it. No one, not even Grampa, his royal-ass majesty, will keep me from that job.”
He kissed her, and they began to make love slowly this time.
There was nothing in the galaxy but the two of them. At least for a little while.
68
The Association of Associations was to meet at noon. Kris was there well ahead of time.
The plaza where the Alwans met was open, as was necessary to accommodate their endless shuffling about. Kris had two tables set up.
At one she held center place with Jack to her right and Granny Rita and Ada seated in comfortable chairs of Smart MetalTM to her left. The other table was shared by the two felines, with four Ostriches from the south. Again, Smart MetalTM adopted itself nicely to allow the two cats stools that let their tails twitch, as they eyed the birds not too obviously as prey. The Ostriches had a kind of nest for each of them.
They sat there as the Roosters strutted in, putting on minor displays and, in general, waiting for the acting pro tem leader. It had been years since they’d actually elected someone to call them to order. Now they passed the lead position from one to another according to some plan Granny Rita confessed she could not decipher.
Straight Tongue and his crew from the Alwa’s Sharp Eye View network arrived a bit after Kris. Their cameras today were much smaller than the one Kris had first been interviewed with. The mic the producer pinned to Kris’s shirt was downright dinky compared to what Kris had talked into a few months before.
Things were changing on Alwa. That was a problem for some and a joy for others.
Whoever the leader was, he finally crowed, and things got as quiet as a meeting of Alwan Roosters ever gets.
Behind her, Straight Tongue talked into his mic. Nelly translated.
“The heavy one, viceroy for her crowing leader, Kris Longknife, crowing leader in her own right, has petitioned to speak before the Association of Associations. We are bringing it to you live.”
MY TRANSLATOR IS WORKING FINE, KRIS. YOU TALK TO THE HUMANS. I’LL COVER THE BIRDS.
As Kris stood, two Marines ushered in a cylinder. Doc Meade in medical whites followed right behind them.
“I have shown you the battle that saved your planet,” Kris began.
A large white wall behind the speaker showed a hologram of the destruction of the first mother ship.
MY FEED OF THE BATTLE IS GOING OUT LIVE AND IN HIGH DEF THROUGH THE NETWORK, Nelly reported.
“You know that we heavy ones and many of your own fought the next alien mother ship that came to ravage your planet.”
Now the picture changed to show Ostriches manning lasers; humans, Ostriches, and Roosters working together to launch a Hellburner; and the second mother ship blowing itself up.
“I have found the aliens’ home world. I have found their holiest of holies. I have walked it with my own feet and seen what they crow about.”
The picture changed to show the contents of the pyramid.
“Here they bring one sample of the people of every planet they plunder. Here they bring a pile of heads. That is all that remains of the life on four hundred twelve planets.”
Around Kris, the Roosters came to a dead halt. Not one moved. Not one made a sound. All looked at the wall and the pictures on it.
They said they didn’t really believe what they didn’t see with their own eyes. From the looks of what Kris was seeing of them, some Alwans were making the connection.
“If the sight of what they put in their holiest of holies is not enough, I have an alien to crow to you here. Now. Dr. Meade.”
The cylinder folded back to show a bed. The gray-haired woman slept on it.
“I remind viewers,” was whispered by Straight Tongue, “that the aliens look exactly like the heavy people who have lived among us since our grandfathers’ times. However, they are very different. I am told that the two cannot mate and bear an egg.”
“Awaken her,” Kris ordered.
Doc Meade did something with her instruments, and the woman stirred. The doctor did more, and the woman rolled over and sat up on the edge of the bed.
Her eyes widened as she took in the view.
~Vermin. You are all vermin,~ she shouted.
Nelly translated for everyone present and watching over the net.
“I present you with an alliance of three sentient races,” Kris said evenly, as Nelly translated in bug-eyed monster. “They say to one and all that you will not add their heads to your house of horrors beneath that pyramid.”
~You are vermin,~ the woman spat.
KRIS, THE NETWORK IS GETTING ALL THIS. AND MY TRANSLATION.
GOOD, NELLY.
~You are all nothing but shit-eating vermin, and you will all die,~ the woman stormed on. ~The Enlightened One has sent the torch to all the ships. Together, we are more numerous than the stars. Our women are fruitful. We bear many warriors and workers. We will drown you in your own blood, and no one will ever remember your name.~