Daring (2 page)

Jenn Jackson is the best sort of agent that a writer could hope for. She's always there when I need her and kind enough to keep out of my way when I have a head of steam up and just want to run with it. Thanks to her and the Donald Maass Literary Agency, Kris's story is now being translated into Japanese and Spanish as well as available at
www.audible.com
.

The list of other folks who've been a part of bringing Kris to life for the readers goes long and includes way too many for me to name. However, I'd like to highlight the gang at the Historic Anchor Inn in Lincoln City, Oregon. I twisted my back during one of my writing weeks at the coast. For four days I was in a drug fog as my back did horrible things to the rest of me. They were the home away from home that I could only hope for, bringing food up to my room and finding ice for my back. Thank you, Kip, Candi, Misty, and all.

Special thanks go to Edee Lemonier, one of those people born with an eagle's eye for spotting typos and nits that escape me. After all, once I've written the story, I know what's supposed to be there. Seeing what's not there is a special blessing Edee gives me.

Last, but hardly least, I'd like to thank my wife, who has held my hand and encouraged me from the first day to find the writer inside me I was afraid to let loose. Thanks, Love.

1

Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife fought the shot-up controls of the Greenfeld Ground Assault Craft. It seemed bent on smashing itself into the rocky ground below. She would much rather stay in the air, putting more miles between her and the whoever it was who'd put so many holes so quickly in her borrowed air vehicle.

“Jack, get me some more controls.”

“I've already flipped on the backup stabilization and directional controls, Kris.”

“Then find the backup to the backup!”

“I don't think Greenfeld puts more than one in any craft.”

“What kind of cheapskate, death-happy crazies only put one backup system in a fighting vehicle?” cried Nelly, Kris's personal computer and no help at the moment.

“Our newest ally,” Jack muttered.

The air vehicle fought Kris, flipping right, then left, but it put more rock-strewn ground between Kris and the apparent mining concern that had been the target of what was supposed to be a quick snatch-and-grab raid.

“Where did all that firepower come from?” Kris asked no one in particular.

“I think who- or whatever we're dealing with is very, very trigger-happy. And really paranoid, to boot,” Jack answered.

“You can say that again,” Nelly said.

A flash came from behind Kris. Her air rig chose to zig at that moment, giving her a fairly good view out of the left corner of her eye at the target they were now fleeing. A laser beam winked out, to be replaced by several more.

“Oh, oh,” Kris muttered. “Admiral Krätz just got tired of messing with the problem and lased it from orbit.”

“God help us,” Jack said. And very likely meant it for a prayer. The shock waves coming off the target were only seconds away from ripping their damaged ride to pieces.

“There's a swamp up ahead,” Nelly said.

“I see it,” Kris said. “I'm aiming for it.” As much as she could aim that riddled bucket of lowest-bid bolts.

She managed to pancake the craft into what looked like the softest mud bank in sight. They bounced, settled again, slid for a bit, then slowly turned sideways.

Then the shock wave from 18-inch lasers pommeling a mine head hit them.

The Greenfeld assault boat flipped and lost its stubby wings as it rolled and started coming apart.

As the cockpit was ripped from the rest of the craft, Kris grayed out but fought not to lose consciousness. As she struggled to avoid the looming darkness, one question kept running over and over in her mind.

What am I doing here? What am
I
doing
here
?

Then she remembered.

2

“You will not,” thundered King Raymond the First, Hammerer of the Iteeche, Killer of the Tyrant Urm and Ender of the Unity War (it was in all the papers), and presently Sovereign of the 173 planets in the United Society (or Societies, depending on your political persuasion). That royal claim was circumscribed by a brand-new, if as yet not very tested, constitution.

A recognized legend for the last eighty years, what Ray Longknife bellowed, he expected to have done.

“Yes, I will,” said Lieutenant Commander, Her Royal Highness Kristine Anne Longknife, Defender of the Peace at Paris (even if it did involve mutiny), she who commanded at Wardhaven, and presently Commander, Patrol Squadron 10. She'd had enough of her grampa Ray running her around on a short leash and was ready to take her squadron and do what
she
thought necessary to save humanity . . . this time.

The space between them and the room around them took on a noticeable chill. Those forced to witness this intrafamily squabble, which, like everything the Longknifes did, was of near-biblical proportions, did their best to gaze at the ceiling, desk, carpet . . . anywhere but at the two so committed to disagreement.

Kris locked eyes with her grampa Ray. He scowled back, a scowl he'd been practicing for a hundred years. Kris didn't try to match him, scowl for scowl, but met his gaze with a rock-solid blank stare that promised no flexibility on her part.

Neither one blinked.

It got kind of boring.

So Kris checked out General Mac McMorrison's new digs. He'd been promoted from Wardhaven Chief of Staff to Chief of the Royal U.S. General Staff. The republican blue rug and frayed blue curtains were gone, replaced by a royal red. The new curtains even had gold tassels. The couches that held Kris's staff had also been reupholstered in red and gold stripes.

Kris would never have guessed Grampa Ray was so into red.

The king himself sat in a large visitor's chair next to Mac's desk. Why did Kris suspect that chair was only brought out from against the wall when the king came to call. Mac sat at his desk. To his left, in a normal-sized visitor's chair, was Admiral Crossenshield, the head of Wardhaven Intelligence.

Or maybe U.S. Intelligence, now.

Royal Intelligence?

It was hard to tell what to call anything in this changing world.

What hadn't changed was the unholy trinity, as Kris had taken to calling them. Today, they'd hollered for backup. Kris's other legendary great-grampa leaned comfortably on a bookcase to the king's right.

Oh! Kris almost broke eye lock with her royal grampa. Atop the bookcase was a fancy something-or-other. Was that a field marshal's baton? Had Mac gotten a promotion for taking on the new royal pains of commanding 173 different planets' military as they somehow merged into a unified command?

Kris would have to ask Mac . . . but not now. Not while she and her grampa were locked in a battle to see who could avoid blinking the longest.

Retired General Tordon cleared his throat in his place by the bookcase. The king glanced his way, and so did Kris. Trouble to his enemies. Trouble to his friends. Double trouble to his superiors. Whenever one spoke of the Longknife legend, it was rare that Ray and Trouble were not mentioned in the same breath.

He was Grampa Trouble to Kris. She'd learned the hard way to expect trouble when she saw him coming.

“You know,” Trouble began almost diffidently, “it's an ancient and respected custom that when a superior expresses a preference, it's treated as an order.”

Kris greeted that gambit with thoughtfully pursed lips . . . and a glower of her own.

The retired general soldiered on in the face of Kris's rejection. “When a king gives an order to a lieutenant commander, the officer's response normally is ‘Yes, sir, Your Majesty.' ”

“Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full, sir,” Kris said under her breath, for the entire room to hear. When it was clear her message was received by all, she added, “Just like you always did, Grampa Trouble?”

Grampa's lips showed just the hint of a smile as he turned to his king and shrugged. “She's our kid, Ray.”

“She's an undisciplined brat,” came back in a royal growl that any old lion would be proud of.

Kris locked eyes with her royal grampa and prepared to renew their unblinking war. To keep from being too bored, she used her peripheral vision to check out how her own team was taking this little family unmeeting of the minds.

Abby, Kris's maid and occasional spy, seemed unbothered by it all. She studied the coffee table/comm display between their couches as if she might somehow decant whatever secret it had lately displayed.

Across from her, Lieutenant Penny Lien Pasley likewise eyed the table. She was Kris's intelligence analyst, interrogator, and, by right of her upbringing by two cops, usual contact with the police, a frequent and inevitable part of any visit Kris paid to a planet. Right now, her eyes were also fixed on the low table between the couches.

Beside Penny sat Colonel Cortez. As a result of having led a hostile planetary takedown that Kris had defeated, he was her prisoner. Since she'd put him on her personal payroll, he was her tactical advisor and principal ground logistician. He'd last begged to be returned to prison . . . any prison . . . rather than risk the cross fire at another Longknife family confab. Today, he calmly studied the ceiling.

Closest to Kris, and in the direct line of fire between her and her royal grampa, sat Jack. As her Secret Service agent, he'd sworn to take a bullet for her. With her spending more and more time away from home, Grampa Trouble's suggestion that she draft him into a Marine captain's uniform and head of her security had sounded like a good idea. Only after he was in uniform did Grampa Trouble let drop that, as the security chief for a serving member of the blood, Jack now had authority to countermand any order of Kris's that he considered a risk to her safety.

And Jack had a pretty broad definition of what constituted Kris's safety.

They were still working out their differences.

And Kris was now a lot more careful about any suggestion coming from Grampa Trouble.

Today, even in the holy of holies, Jack's head swiveled slowly, eyes searching for anything that might physically harm Kris.

Grampa Trouble cleared his throat again. And again, that got his king's and Kris's attention.

“You know, Commander, when one is given a mission a couple of hundred light-years out in space, normally, you don't show up at home with your whole squadron.”

Kris nodded. “You have a good point,” she admitted to Grampa Trouble, before rounding on Grampa Ray.

“I completed your mission,” she spat.

“Already?” came from the king in what sounded like a royal yelp.

“Done, completed, finished,” Kris said. “You ordered me to take care of the budding pirate problem out on the Rim of Peterwald space without getting any complaints from the newly crowned Emperor Harry.”

The newly officialized King Raymond nodded.

“I captured three pirate schooners, one freighter, and a skiff. I liberated one potential pirate refuge and took down a main base. I also put out of business fifteen thousand hectares of drug plantations and liberated twenty-five thousand slaves. Oh, and you didn't get one whimper from your new, neighboring emperor, did you?”

Kris eyed Field Marshal Mac.

“Not a word from him,” he said.

“I'm just guessing on this, but I think we'll split the two planets. Kaskatos will likely apply for membership in United Society. The Greenfeld Empire will get Port Royal, and they are welcome to it,” Kris said.

“All that in three months?” Grampa Trouble whispered. There might have even been a touch of respectful awe hidden in there.

Kris kept her eyes locked on Grampa Ray. “I'm sick and tired of draining swamps and dodging alligators. I want to get on to something important.”

“Um,” the king said. Exactly what Kris considered “important” was too classified to discuss among even this small group. From the glance around that Field Marshal Mac gave the others, even he apparently hadn't been read into this one.

Mac opened his mouth to say something, then froze.

He struggled for a long moment to keep a look of horror off his face. When he finally got words out, they were full of horror. “Two. No three. Make that four super battleships just jumped into our system, using Jump Point Gamma.”

The last time six super dreadnoughts jumped in system using that jump point, they'd threatened to blast Wardhaven down to bedrock if it didn't surrender.

“What are they squawking?” Grampa Trouble asked, standing bolt upright like an old fire horse who heard the alarm bell and couldn't stay out to pasture.

“They're Greenfeld,” Mac said.

King Ray and Grampa Trouble paled. There was much bad blood between the Longknifes and the Peterwalds. Neither one breathed, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

“Oh, good,” Kris said, clapping her hands with all the joy of any four-year-old presented with a tall stack of birthday presents. “Vicky Peterwald talked her dad into letting her come, too.”

All four of Kris's team now rolled their eyes at the ceiling.

Four sets of very senior eyes locked onto Kris as their mouths dropped open.

3

King Raymond, being the legend that he was, recovered first. He was half out of his seat as he shouted, “You told Vicky Peterwald about our meeting with the Iteeche!”

“What?” said Mac. The field marshal apparently
was
the only one in the room who didn't know about that very secret meeting.