Intrepid

11

Captain Drago would have preferred one galley and mess for the Wasp. However, Gunnery Sergeants have definite ideas about propriety. Kris did not make the mistake of disagreeing with Gunny when he said, ''This ship needs an enlisted mess.''

Having lost that argument, she was in no position to disagree when Professor mFumbo insisted his boffins needed their own lounge for professors and pub for technicians.

On the Wasp, there were plenty of places to get a hamburger.

Kris settled at an empty table in the wardroom after selecting a light lunch. It didn't stay empty for long.

Captain Drago took a seat across from her. ''What do you think is going on down there?''

Kris tested her salad. The lettuce was showing its age. She had not been willing to take anything on board from Xanadu and really was hoping to buy some fresh produce and meat here.

''I could only guess,'' Kris said. ''What say we wait for more to go on before we start shouting ‘ready, aim, fire.' ''

''That's nice to hear,'' Drago said. ''Rather startling coming from a Longknife, but nice to hear.''

''Kris, is this a ‘filibuster expedition'?'' Nelly asked.

Kris chuckled. ''I don't know what one of those things are, so how can I accuse anyone of doing one''?

''I found it in my research,'' Nelly said. ''Back in the nineteenth century on Earth, freebooters and mercenaries would put together an armed expedition in a wealthy country and go off to a poor one and take it over, loot it, and either leave it or keep running it. Could that be what Captain Thorpe and company are doing here?''

''Very good research,'' Kris said, knowing full well that her computer was going far beyond what usually passed for a computer search … and doing it after setting up the search conditions herself. Nelly was a growing girl. And a surprising one.

Did this come from teaching a twelve-year-old?

No way to tell.

''They've got an ex-Navy captain running it,'' Captain Drago said. ''And I'd bet money that tight-beamed message to the deck was to trigger pullers. Sure fits the bill.''

Kris nodded as the piece easily fit into the jigsaw puzzle Pandemonium had suddenly become. ''And no doubt Chief Beni will have a full report on the armament of Thorpe's command.''

''Yes I do,'' the chief said, setting a hugely loaded tray down at Kris's left elbow.

''He's in zero-gee orbit,'' Beni started, only after stretching his mouth around a mightily stacked hamburger. ''He's only running a trickle off his reactors. Yep, he has two reactors though he's doing his level best to hide one of ‘em.''

''And guns?'' Captain Drago and Kris asked as their patience wore out. ''Has he got anything charged?'' Kris finished.

''Full capacitors for two pulse lasers and a long popgun, size on either unknown,'' the chief said.

Drago let out a low whistle. ''Your former captain sounds like someone eager to do unto others before they do unto him.''

''Something I noticed before,'' Kris breathed softly.

''Will we have to fight our way into orbit?'' Drago asked.

''Too early to tell. Captain, please launch two probes, one for the jump to Xanadu, the other for this system's other jump.''

''Load on them a report on what we've found?'' Drago asked.

''Yes,'' Kris answered.

''But there are no buoys for them to pass a message along to on the other side,'' the chief pointed out.

''Thorpe won't know that, will he?'' Kris said.

''Sneaky, just like a Longknife,'' Drago said, then started muttering into his commlink.

''What's our sneaky Longknife up to?'' Jack asked as he joined the table, taking the space at Kris's right elbow. Their passenger, Andy Fronour, took the seat on his right.

Kris quickly brought Jack up to date on Thorpe's armament.

''So he's hot and loaded. Sure you wouldn't like to come back in a few weeks with, say, a half dozen cruisers?''

''Nelly found a word I'd never heard of,'' Kris said. ''What does filibuster mean to you?''

Jack took a bite from his club sandwich and studied the ceiling for a moment. ''In politics, that's what the minority party does to slow down your old man. Or, on old Earth, it's a bunch of jolly optimists with too much time and firepower on their hands going down and helping the poor stay poor.'' Jack swallowed his bite. ''Let me guess, the last one applies here.''

Drago shook his head. ''This Presley's Pride thing. It's off to hell and gone the other side of the Iberium Association. Are they planning on stripping this place and setting up there?''

''The pilgrims who settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, Earth, thought they were heading for Virginia,'' Nelly said.

Kris shrugged. ''Whether they rechristen Panda to Presley and say ‘oops, we took a wrong turn,' or haul everyone over there, it's not going to be very much fun for them.''

''What are you going to do?'' Fronour asked, not looking all that interested in what little food he'd put on his plate.

''That is something we'll have to think about carefully as we do this approach,'' Kris said. ''Having you here, however, gives us a lot more options when it comes to calling Thorpe's bluff. The real question is, can we do it without getting a lot of people killed in the process?''

''But if you run for help,'' Fronour said, his voice shaking, ''there may not be anyone here when you get back.''

''Yes,'' Jack whispered softly, eyeing Kris.

Kris weighed all she'd learned so far. Then added in all she'd done to complicate her former captain's own tactical situation … and decided it was still too soon to make a call.

''What does Panda look like?'' Kris asked. ''Chief, you have any good planet pictures yet?''

''We're learning more by the moment, but it's only starting to take shape. Nelly, could you show what we have?''

The computer heliographed a map onto the top of the tablecloth, but it left much to be desired. Was that a terrain feature or a drop of soup left behind by a previous diner?

Kris applied her finger to said item and found it soup. Even with that knowledge, it was none too easy to get her spinning gray matter to factor out the blob.

Captain Drago retrieved a roll of plastic flimsy from beside a stack of readers next to the wardroom couch. Unrolled, the meter-by-meter square quickly became a map of the entire planet.

''Where's the populated section?'' Kris asked.

Andy pointed, and Nelly zoomed in the map to show a bay off a large ocean in the northern temperate zone and a river running inland. Beyond that, it was hard to tell yet.

Andy began to fill them in. ''The place we settled in is covered with what we call ‘broom trees.' Tall things, fifty to a hundred meters, with thick bare trunks and all their foliage at the top. It's not much use, trunk is tougher than steel. Can't mill it. And what passes for leaves can't be eaten. We burn them out, as well as the swamp bush on the ground below, and plant it with bramble berries. Nasty stuff the local animals won't touch but the goats love. After a few years of the berries and goats, we've got the beginnings of a human-usable topsoil, and we seed it with microbes and worms and plant it in a base crop not all that different from what you saw on Xanadu.''

''Let's see what I can do with that,'' Nelly said. ''All this greenish purple sounds like your broom trees.'' A huge block of the map leading up to an inland mountain range took on a light crosshatching, and the map zoomed in closer on what was left.

Along the river leading in from the landing bay and its various tributaries, several holes in the crosshatching showed clear, with a surrounding set of short black lines.

''Those are the burned but still-standing trunks of the broom trees,'' Andy supplied. ''It must be late in the day, you can make out their shadows.''

Jack nodded, his lips getting tight. ''Not the place I'd want to set a lander down.''

''The homesteads are in the clearings,'' Andy said, fingers going over the very centers of the arrangements.

''What about towns?'' Kris asked.

''Not many. Landing hasn't grown a lot, ‘cause we're mainly moving away from it. Grampa has picked up sticks three times since we first got here, selling out to folks that had more money than patience for building a place. Most of us Fronours are out here,'' he said, pointing at one of the tributaries that wandered off to the northeast, a low ridge between it and the rest of the slowly growing population of Pandemonium. Its northernmost boundary was marked by a long line of smoke from a fire.

''You still expanding?'' Kris asked.

''I'd imagine so. We're not the only ones.'' Andy's finger roved over the western and southern boundaries, where fires still burned, as well as several large broom-tree areas that had been left behind bordering cleared land. ''It's fall, and that's when we burn.''

''How long does a fire usually take, from the time you set it until it burns out?'' Kris asked.

Beside her, Jack nodded as his fingers traced over the fire line, then searched the terrain features beyond it. They came to rest on a small lake several klicks north of Fronour holdings.

Andy blinked in thought, then spoke slowly. ''The broom trees store a lot of water in their trunks. You light the scrub under it for ten or twenty yards wide, say a mile or two long, then see how hot the fire gets. On a normal dry day, the fire catches and spreads for forty or fifty yards before it dies down. Usually, you can get two, maybe three, strips of that before the rains start and the fire goes cold.''

''How long between lights?'' Kris repeated her question in a different way.

''Three, four days,'' Andy said, then finally understand what Kris was getting at. ''Three or four days ago, things were normal on Pandemonium and people were going about setting fire lines.''

''So if we'd gotten here four or five days ago,'' Captain Drago said slowly, ''Captain Thorpe would be the one doing the approach under our guns.''

''We still wouldn't know what he was up to,'' Kris said, ''and probably be even less prepared for the first broadside.''

''There is that,'' Drago said.

''So what are you going to do?'' Andy pleaded.

''Find out more about this picture,'' Kris said, turning to the man. ''If I turn my Marines loose on your planet, it will quickly become a small vestibule to hell. Let's make sure we're visiting Hades on the people who deserve it.''

Andy looked at Jack, then back at Kris, his face draining of color as he took in the cold heat of their meaning. ''I meant for you,'' he said, stumbling, ''I mean, I thought you'd help us.''

''We will, Mr. Fronour,'' Kris said. ''But you must realize, the help we bring is never cheap.''

While the farmer gnawed on just what was coming in answer to his cry of need, Kris decided lunch was over. She folded her napkin and rose. For the questions she had now, the bridge was the place to find the answers.