Daring (39 page)

Just the fumes left Kris wanting a drink. That was not good.

“Yes, Vicky, they're all dead,” Kris said softly. “Most likely. Some might get back.”

“Quit lying. They're all dead,” the grand duchess snapped bitterly.

A sailor hurried by, doing the weird thing that was neither a run nor a float that half a gee demanded. Clearly, this was not the kind of talk that two girls of Kris and Vicky's stature needed to have where any passing crew member could pick up this or that snatch of conversation.

“Come in, Vicky.” Kris would have loved to ask her to leave the bottle outside, saving Kris from the temptation of taking a swig. She would have loved to, but she didn't. Vicky looked more attached to that bottle at the moment than she was to life.

Kris settled on her bunk and offered Vicky her desk chair as far from Kris as she could get in the small room. Still, the compartment filled with the smell of whiskey as Vicky found her way to her seat. She was none too steady, even in half a gee. The grand duchess settled in, took another swig, and said it again. “They're all dead.”

“Yes,” Kris repeated. She'd already tried to put a hopeful spin on the thought. This time she let the ugly words lie there in all their morbid glory.

“One minute they were there,” Vicky said, and snapped her fingers. “Then they were gone. They didn't even have a chance to shoot back. That monstrous alien ship just blotted them out, and they were gone as if they'd never been. A battleship, Kris. The biggest, meanest ship in our fleet.”

“Yes, I know,” Kris said. “It happens that way in a war.” Kris didn't add that she'd faced battleships just as mean and made them disappear herself. That was for yesterday. Tonight, there was a different long list of dead to mourn.

“And you should know, Princess Kristine Longknife. You've blotted out enough in your time, haven't you?”

So, Vicky did remember. Kris let that jab fall to the deck and lie there.

Vicky waved the bottle. “And it, like, wasn't even really a war. Not yet, anyway. They hadn't said a word to us. We hadn't said anything but ‘Hi' to them. Then suddenly, every laser on their ship is spearing the
Fury
, and boom, they're all dead.”

“I took that for a declaration of war,” Kris said.

“So you could start killing them. How many do you think we killed, ten, twenty billion? You think that makes up for all my friends dying on the
Fury
?”

“Nothing makes up for the loss of friends,” Kris said softly. Not here and now. Not back then, either.

“But they weren't your friends, were they, Princess Kristine Longknife,” Vicky said, taking another long swallow of the whiskey. “They were my friends. They were the only people who ever cared about Harry Smythe-Peterwald's bratty little girl. They cared for me. They looked out for me. For the first time since I was eight, nine, I felt safe with them and their battleship wrapped around me. Do you know what that feels like? Do you know what that means?”

“Yes,” Kris said. “I think I do.”

“Yeah, you got this little tin pot to run you home as fast as they can make it. Run away. Nice way to go.”

Kris knew it was the whiskey talking. Kris knew she should just lie back and take it. That tomorrow when Vicky sobered up, she'd be all apologetic. Kris knew what she ought to do, but those were her friends and crew that Vicky was calling coward.

“You wish you'd stayed on the
Fury
? Died with them rather than being left alive to run away with me?”

As Kris expected, that brought Vicky up short. She took another long swig and seemed to think about it, as much as her alcohol-clouded brain could.

“No. Yes. I should have been there. I should have been with them, but I was afraid some damn assassin would put a bullet in my brain, so I ran away over to the nice
Wasp
full of strangers that most likely hadn't been offered a kazillion dollars to kill me. Who'd have thought something this puny would be the safe place to be in a fight with something as huge as that mother. But then, this little twirp has Kris Longknife, princess extraordinary, and she looks out for number one. Don't Longknifes always?”

Kris was getting sick and tired of being the butt of this woman's survival guilt. She had enough survival guilt of her very own, thank you all very much. And it covered a whole lot more dying than that last battle. Eddy, Tommy, all those hopeful volunteers who'd followed her into battles and died, much to their surprise.

“You can take your survival guilt, Vicky, and shove it in that bottle, or anywhere else you care to put it, but don't you dare lay it on me. I've got plenty of my own, damn it. You're sorry you're alive, and they're all dead. Well, there are plenty of airlocks on the
Wasp
, and you can walk out any one of them if you please. I'll even modify my report to show that you died fighting with all the brave souls on the
Fury
. You want that?”

“But they didn't die fighting,” Vicky screamed. “They didn't get a shot off. They were there one minute, edging out of laser range, and the next minute what looked like all the lasers ever made were cutting them to pieces, and they just blew up!”

Vicky broke down sobbing. “They didn't even get a shot off. I watched them practice. All those sailors looked so brave and sure of themselves racing to their battle stations. They earned a fleet E for gunnery, Kris. They deserved a fight. Really, they deserved to go down fighting. Not swatted like some fly on a wall.”

Kris risked the fumes to cross the distance between her and Vicky. She knelt so she could put her arms around Vicky, hold her, and rock her gently as she sobbed.

Kris chose her words gently.

“It was just the luck of the draw, Vicky. It could have just as well have been Admiral Channing's
Triumph
there as Admiral Krätz's
Fury
. The battle squadron had marched and countermarched with first one, then the other in the lead position. I imagine Georg was tickled when the luck of the draw gave him the lead when they charged for the jump. But when they did the turn away, all the ships reversed at once, and that put the
Fury
in the trailing slot. There's a reason that position is called coffin corner, and the aliens took advantage of it.”

Kris pulled Vicky's face up to put the two eye to eye. The smell of the whiskey was overpowering and giving Kris a hunger that had claws in it. She ignored the craving in order to finish what she had to say.

“Admiral Krätz knew the chances he was taking. He took them willingly, like the fighting sailor he was. He wouldn't have had it any other way. When we get back, the story of BatRon 12 will be told, and told truly. That is the debt of honor that we owe the people who loved and protected you.”

Vicky sobbed on for a few moments longer, then wiped her nose on her sleeve, and said, “But why did we live, Kris? Why did
we
live?”

Kris shook her head. “I don't know. Yes, we were making like a bunch of rocks. But we were only ten, fifteen thousand klicks from the jump. If I was half as paranoid as those aliens seem to be, I'd have shot up anything anywhere close to my space. That's a mistake I don't think they'll make twice. At least I won't expect them to.”

It took a moment for Kris's words to pierce the whiskey fog of Vicky's thoughts. “So the luck of the draw got the
Fury
blown to bits and we got lucky and lived. It doesn't seem fair.”

“Show me on your birth certificate where it says anything about fair. I've searched mine, and I can't find that word on the front or back.”

Vicky laughed at that. A besotted thing that spewed as much phlegm and tears and used whiskey as sound.

Kris wiped her face and fought the urge to ask for a swig from Vicky's bottle, which was down to just a bit of slosh.

There was a knock at the door.

“Come in,” Kris said, and was relieved to see Doc Maggie poke her head in.

“So this is where you got to,” the good doctor said. “I thought you and I were supposed to be having a wicked game of Scrabble. That nice man, Scrounger, has promised to bring around another fellow to join us. Are you going to make me stand up the best date I've had in months?”

“No,” Vicky said, struggling to her feet and letting the bottle fall as gently to the deck as half a gee allowed. When it became clear that the grand duchess would need help negotiating her way out of Kris's cabin, Maggie came over and offered a hand.

Kris gave the doc a thankful smile. With any luck, the woman would have the two men to herself, and Vicky would spend the game sleeping her whiskey binge off. As the doc guided her patient into the passageway, Kris whispered a thankful prayer. At least one of Vicky's friends had survived the sudden death of the
Fury
.

Kris closed the door, waited a moment, and said, “Did you put out a call for her, Nelly?”

“Yes, I did, Kris. From the looks of things, there was a fifty-fifty chance that you two would soon be burning any bridges that you had so far built between your two families. It was either call for Maggie or order up some hot dogs and marshmallows to roast. Since I lack the facilities to enjoy hot dogs and marshmallows, I thought the doc was the better of the choices.”

Kris had to chuckle at Nelly's joke. “Thank you, Nelly.”

“Now, Kris, if I had hands and feet, I'd empty what's left in that bottle down your sink, but I don't. Should I call Abby to come in and do the honors?”

“No,” Kris said, with a long sigh. She paced off the distance to where the bottle lay, with more trepidation than she'd felt in any of her firefights. Holding the bottle at arm's length did not reduce any of its aroma or allure.

Kris hardly dared to breathe until the last drop had gone down her sink. “Now what do I do with the bottle?” she wondered.

“If you leave it in the trash can, it will smell up the place all night,” Nelly said. “And you don't need that.”

Kris noticed that the blower was on high, circulating the air in the compartment at an accelerated pace.

“You could leave it outside in the passageway. Some sailor on cleanup detail would take it away.”

“And what are the odds that any sailor who took it, or emptied my trash can, would pass the word that the princess is drinking again.”

“Better than fifty-fifty,” Nelly agreed.

Kris pulled on a pair of gym shorts and went looking for a public disposal to get rid of the evidence.

Sleep came slowly when at last she was able to lie down.

Kris had done as good a job of dodging that question as anyone else. She dodged it for the simple reason she had no answer for it.

People beside her took bullets and died. She took a bomb or two and kept on breathing.
Was that a blessing or a curse?

Kris had no answer. She doubted that even Grampa Trouble had a good comeback that he could share with her. Next time they met, she'd have to ask him, anyway.

The luck of the draw was a lousy answer, but it was all she had.

With that very little comfort, she drifted off to sleep.

51

The question of who would go into the reactor, or the reaction-mass plasma-mixing chamber, or whatever, came quickly to mind as the reports came in on their next jump.

The solar system was blessedly empty of life and hostilities.

It was roughly on the path Nelly said would take them back home.

The system was also very sparse. All it boasted was a small yellow sun and a few rocky planets too close to the sun to support life.

Other than that, the system was dust, some asteroids, and a few passing comets.

“There are some jumps out of here, aren't there, Chief?” Captain Drago asked as the long litany of nothing went on.

“There is one of Nelly's fuzzy jumps not too far away. It won't take us long to get there at our present speed.”

“Sulwan, set a course for it,” Captain Drago ordered. “Use as little reaction mass as you can.”

“Understood, sir. I'll use a quarter gee to aim us at that puppy, then close down the engines. The chief is right, with the speed we have on the boat, we'll be seeing what's on the other side of that jump in half a day at most.”

“And I don't want to hear any quips about a Flying Dutchman from anyone of the bridge crew, you hear me?”

“Yes, Captain,” came back from all hands.

“Good. Commodore Longknife, I'd like a word with you in my quarters. And bring that damn computer of yours as well.”

“Yes, sir,” came in two-part harmony.

NELLY, DOWN GIRL.

BUT HE ASKED FOR ME!

YES, HE DID. NOW ENJOY THE VINDICATION AND KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT UNLESS HE TALKS DIRECTLY TO YOU.

THAT'S WHAT I INTENDED TO DO, KRIS. I AM NOT AS INEXPERIENCED AT HUMAN AFFAIRS AS SAY CARA.

GOOD.

Kris and the captain stayed in their seats until Sulwan took the spin off the
Wasp
. Moving around in even a quarter gee was not to be tried when the ship was spinning like a top.

Captain Drago's in-space cabin was a tiny thing, with just enough room for a desk and a bunk. He took the desk chair, and Kris found a handhold to keep her in place as the
Wasp
settled on its course and went to free fall.

Standing there, holding on, seemed rather tiresome, so Kris pulled her legs up and sat cross-legged in midair. She smiled at the thought that she must look like some sort of genie.

Captain Drago allowed himself a dry smile. “I'm glad to see you're getting your space legs.”