Defender

22

As Kris slowly woke up in Jack’s arms the next morning, the question that had been raised at the meeting yesterday came up.

“So,” Jack said. “Am I Mr. Longknife, or are you Mrs. Montoya?”

Kris reached for Jack. Reached low down for Jack, found what she wanted, and began stroking it.

“Do we really have to settle this right now?” she cooed.

They decided there were other, more pressing matters at hand and spent the next half hour enjoying them.

They didn’t throw much on when they went out to the porch to find a pile of buns. Kris allotted them as a wife the same way she’d allotted them as a wild woman. The three kinds Jack liked, he got one and a half of, she got a half. Fortunately, she’d found one she liked and he didn’t, so she didn’t go hungry.

Then Joe came over, sporting two covered plates. “We don’t usually see newlyweds much at the dining room, but you two didn’t get any supper. I have here an omelet that many praise.”

He settled the plates on the table between them and stepped back to see their reaction. Kris and Jack cut off a piece, glanced at each other, and did a much better job of getting the omelet into each other’s mouths than they had with the cake.

Circumstances weren’t so biased for disaster.

“Good,” both said at the same time. “Thank you,” Kris added.

“Will you be able to stay for tonight?” Joe asked.

“No. As soon as we get a shower in, we’ll have to be on our way.”

“Yes, I understand. Ah, you were still in your wedding gown, and you were in your formal uniform. My son attended the royal reception. The king did not impress him, but he said both of you were in formal uniforms.”

Kris admitted that was so.

“Feel free to take anything in the closet if you’d like to hold off getting back in uniform for a while. You can return it later, or not at all.”

“I may borrow a muumuu,” Kris admitted.

“And if you don’t mind, I may take a pair of long shorts and a three-button shirt,” Jack said.

“What, no lava-lava?” Joe said, but he was already turning away as he laughed.

“I love these people,” Kris said, “but they are going to get me into so much trouble.”

“We agree. What happens on Alwa stays on Alwa, and what happens aboard ship is strictly by the rules.”

“Yes,” Kris said with a sad sigh.

As they finished their brunch, Nelly reported. “The Monarch and Fearless are only minutes away from their jump. For the last half hour, orders have been coming in to the Wasp. Most are what you expected. Kris, you are ComAlDefSec.”

“Notice how that rolls off the tongue.”

“And includes deaf in it,” Jack said.

“You are also viceroy pending a petition from the colonials and your election by them.”

“Didn’t the colonials pass the word that they had voted on that?” Jack asked.

“Granny Rita persuaded Ada to keep it on the QT. She didn’t want to let Ray get all puffed up. She said, ‘Let him sweat a bit.’”

Kris found herself rubbing her eyes. Both of her great-grandparents could behave like such four-year-olds. “Please promise me, Jack. We won’t ever be like that.”

“I’m sorry, Kris, but I don’t think either of those two, on their honeymoon, ever expected to be acting like that. But yes, I will always remember this and do my best to avoid whatever did this to them.”

“Good,” Kris said.

“The orders have a surprise for Jack,” Nelly said.

“Me!”

“Oh dear,” said Kris.

“You are promoted to major.”

“That’s good news. Being married, I can use the extra pay.”

“What’s the bad news?” Kris said.

“Jack is also breveted up to full colonel and made commander, Marine Expeditionary Brigade, Alwa.”

“We’ve only got at best a battalion,” Jack said.

“Yes, but you are encouraged to recruit and train local colonial forces, either as full-time or a National Guard.”

“I wonder if the colonials know?” Kris said.

“Granny Rita has copied all this traffic and says she and Ada along with the rest of the Council of Ministries would like to talk with you before you go back topside.”

“Good-bye, honeymoon, hello, impossible tasks,” Jack muttered.

The shower managed to return a bit of the honeymoon spirit, and it clearly was a lot more fun than it ever was aboard ship. Too soon, they found themselves staring at the contents of their closet.

“You think you ought to wear your blues?” Kris asked Jack.

“No. Definitely shorts. I have no idea how these folks will take to the idea of being under my command. I expect they’ll be scared stiff of me. I doubt I’ll wear a uniform dirtside again for months unless things go better than I expect.”

“A good move, I think,” Kris said.

She slipped into her sexy underwear, then pulled a muumuu, blue with yellow and green flowers, over her head.

“So, the viceroy is also keeping the bridle and bit well out of sight.”

“I’ve raised a couple of armies from people who figured a few folks with rifles could take on anything and learned the hard way that professionals are a breed apart. Let’s see how coming more gently can work.”

Jack packed up their uniforms. As he loaded them into the backseat of the car, he eyed Kris. “I’m supposed to drive you back to town knowing that under that muumuu is nothing but a couple of thin undies and a lot of naked you?”

“May I remind you, good husband, that whatever I’m wearing from now on, you know very well that under it all, there is only naked me. And under all your clothing, there is only naked you.”

Jack scratched his nose. “Hmm, there’s a downside of this wild, passionate lifestyle that I never thought of.”

“I haven’t noticed that where women were concerned,” Kris said, as Jack got the car moving, “you men do a lot of thinking.”

“Oh, we do a lot of thinking about women, my dear. Lots of thinking about women. It’s just rarely very productive thinking about women. Now, tell me true, wife to husband, is it any different with you girls?”

Kris turned the question over in her mind for a couple of miles, then said, “I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I’m good at blowing ships up, and my husband wants to stay on my good side.”

“Side, top, bottom, whatever.”

Sadly, that was about the end of the honeymoon. The rest of the drive was taken up analyzing problems they were likely to run into the second they stopped the car.

Jack was right. As they pulled to a stop at Government House, Ada and the entire Council of Ministries, both colonials and Alwans, were waiting.

They didn’t look happy.