Furious

9

Kris and Penny were just sitting down to filet mignon, baked potatoes, and mixed vegetables served by a joyfully appreciated kitchen, when Captain Luna came on the room’s speaker.

“I don’t want to worry you two, but we’ve been hailed and ordered to return to High Madigan station.”

“Why forever for?” Kris said, putting a little of Cara’s drama into a question she could not raise any surprise for.

“They ain’t telling, and I ain’t asking. I told ’em my CEO intends to use this scow for a jaunt with his board of directors. I named a few, and they said they’d get back.”

“You think you put the fear of the Almighty in them, or at least of the almighty dollar?” Penny asked.

“I would think so, but one of Kris’s mosquito boats has broken away from the incoming freighter it was escorting. It’s gone to one-and-a-half-gee deceleration and looks like as soon as it bleeds off all its velocity inward, it’s gonna start blasting for us out here. ’Course, if it don’t pump its engines any more than one and a half gees, we’ll be long gone through the jump before it gets within range of us.”

“Nelly, do you know anything about this?” Kris asked.

“Yes, but I didn’t want to disturb you and Penny at your lunch.”

“Disturb us,” Kris said, dryly.

“About thirty minutes ago, five muscle types showed up at your quarters, Kris, demanding admittance inside the house and inside your room. Abby did her best to come down with a bad case of the slows, but they busted down your door about ten minutes ago, if I’ve got my time lag right for speed-of-light communications.”

“Can’t a girl take a day of sick leave without everyone having kittens?” Kris asked the ceiling.

“Is there any chance that the skippers of those boats of yours will develop hair on their chest and take off after me seriously?” Captain Luna asked. “I dearly don’t want to have to pull up my skirts and make a run for it. Aside from flashing my well-shaped ankles for the boys, it tends to make you look guilty of something.”

“I really can’t claim any credit for the training of that splinter fleet,” Kris said. “They made it clear to me they wanted me pushing paper, not pushing gees. Unless I missed something in one of my drunken stupors, those boats have never cranked themselves up past one and a half gees, and none of them have high-gee stations. For what it’s worth, I’m not sure my XO ever read what those boats can do if you put the hammer down.”

“Or studied what you did around Wardhaven orbit?” Captain Luna added.

“Dada reports the home wreckers have departed,” Nelly reported. “They stared daggers at Cara and Abby, but didn’t say a word. Abby says they’ll likely be okay.”

“I hope so,” Kris said. Penny had shared that if things went bad, her folks would not have a body to bury. Abby had said she was threatened with death if she didn’t do exactly what was expected. Kris wondered what she would be doing now if those five toughs had put a gun to Cara’s head and told Abby to use her computer to get Kris back there, or they’d kill the kid.

Apparently, these government-sponsored terrorists hadn’t thought things through. Or they were too new at plumbing the depths of degradation to do it all that well.

Which left Kris feeling guilty that she hadn’t taken a full minute to identify just what torture would make her rethink her flight.

Rethink?

Would she have turned Luna around if they had made Cara and Abby’s life the price for her freedom?

Kris was glad she didn’t have to answer that question.

“Keep me filled in on what happens, Captain. Nelly, I want to know immediately if you receive a new message from Abby. No delay. You understand?”

“You will know the second I do, Kris,” Nelly said.

“Captain, could I have a look at your tactical plot?” Kris asked.

Across from the breakfast table, a painting in a heavy golden frame suddenly changed from a vision of a lovely riverbank where several formally dressed men were having a picnic with a handful of voluptuous nude women into a tactical display of the system, then narrowed down to the space between Madigan’s Rainbow and the jump Captain Luna had the Archimedes headed for.

“Tighten in, Nelly, on just the patrol boat and the Archie.” The screen did.

“Show me times to intercept and time to jump, assuming no changes in accelerations or decelerations.”

“We jump in an hour. That boat never gets to within two hundred thousand klicks. The 18-inch pulse lasers on those tinker toys can’t boil water much past thirty thousand klicks. They aren’t really accurate much past twenty thousand.”

Kris had bitter memories of trying to get her boats well within three thousand klicks if she wanted to do any real damage to a battleship.

“Let me know, Captain, if they call you back,” Kris said.

“I’ll let you listen in on the call,” Luna promised, and rang off.

Kris found her steak had cooled while they’d talked. The kitchen warmed it right there on the plate at the table. Kris ate with one eye on the screen.

Through the meal, the boat held to its sedate one and a half gee.

Kris found herself gnashing her teeth. “What kind of skippers did they hire for my squadron?” she grumbled.

Penny had survived plenty of radical maneuvering under Kris’s command. Hard jinxing at high gees and worse. “Just be glad they did crew those boats with those grandmothers in long skirts and bustles. Would you really want to be pursued by the likes of a Kris Longknife?”

Kris chuckled. “Good point.”

Kris and Penny did not bus their own table; the kitchen assured them it would clean up. It seemed to think it a joke that anyone in this suite would even think of it. Which left Kris wondering who had programmed that in and why.

Penny was pushing Kris back into the box for another hour’s workout when the Archie announced to all hands. “Prepare for zero gee as we approach the jump point.”

The box was giving Kris a workout, doing something like cross-country skiing, moving her arms and legs in a rhythm against resistance, when Captain Luna nudged the yacht through the jump.

“All hands, prepare for one-point-five gees. This old girl has places to go and sights to see. Let’s get a move on.”

“Nelly, did you hear anything from Abby and Cara, Mata Hari, or Dada?”

“No message traffic from them, Kris. And yes, I’m worried for them, too.”