61
“Chief,” Kris snapped, and knew immediately that she’d made a mistake. “Nelly, where are we?”
“There’s activity in the system,” the new lieutenant announced a bit breathlessly before going on. “I think it’s ours,” he squeaked excitedly.
“Kris, we made it to Alien 1,” Nelly announced. They were in the system with the devolved aliens that Auntie Tru and Kris’s real great-aunt Alnaba were studying.
“I told you that eighteen revolutions per minute counterclockwise would give us just the right direction,” Nelly said proudly.
The computer had called it on the nose. The speed had given them the distance to jump clear across the rest of the Iteeche Empire. The rpms had pointed them in the right direction. Then again, maybe the new fuzzy jump points were a bit more controllable than the old ones.
Kris breathed a sigh of relief. She was joined in that by everyone else on the bridge and, most likely, the Wasp.
“Unknown ship in system, identify yourself,” came from the main screen. A bigger-than-life image of a quite earnest young lieutenant in U.S. Navy blues glared from that vantage point.
Captain Drago waved Kris’s way, allowing her the honors.
Kris stood and faced the screen. Her khakis were stained and rumpled from several days’ wear. She stank. The water Engineering had been able to produce still stank of ammonia and methane. What they drank was triple-treated, and still only met Cara’s “yuck” standard.
All that might be true, but she was still Princess Kristine Longknife, a lieutenant commander in her grampa’s Royal U.S. Navy, and the woman who led the great Fleet of Discovery.
And that was what Kris said to the young officer.
After which the screen went blank.
Vicky had joined Jack on the bridge. She giggled. “Do you often affect men that way?”
“I guess I should have brushed my teeth this morning,” Kris admitted.
“I don’t like the smell of this,” Jack said, “and I’m not talking about your body odor.”
“I agree, Jack, I don’t think this is some kind of joke.”
The young man reappeared on the screen; this time he looked like he was holding a dead rat at arm’s length. “You will exit this system immediately and report to Admiral Santiago on High Chance. If you deviate in any way from that direct course, I am authorized to use deadly force.”
“Hold it,” Kris said. “We’ve been struggling for the last I don’t know how long to get back to human space. We’re just looking for a dock, some food, a bit of water and reaction mass.”
“I am not to talk to you about anything other than getting you to High Chance. Can you identify the jump point out of here?”
“Mister,” Kris drawled, “we discovered the jump point into here and did the first explorations below, remember?”
The young officer showed red at the collar as he remembered the system’s recent history, but he went doggedly on. “Then you can point your ship at the jump point. My patrol craft will follow, and if you attempt to escape, I will disable your engines.”
“Kid,” Captain Drago growled, “the Wasp’s engines are damn near disabled. You throw even a hard word at them, and they’re likely to quit on us. You be careful. Relax. We will follow your directions to the letter.”
The screen went blank. The fast patrol boat fell in behind them, and they made for Jump Point Alpha. It was a slow trip because the skipper held the Wasp at .75 gee.
It gave them plenty of time to think. Jack rambled up to Kris’s Weapons station and leaned close enough to whisper. “That’s an FPB. Remember them?”
“All too well,” Kris said. She’d commanded twelve mosquito boats like that one when six huge battleships charged into the Wardhaven system and demanded its surrender. Because of several mistakes at the high command level, those twelve boats were all that stood between Wardhaven and a bombardment that would have put it back in the Stone Age.
Somehow, Kris had held them off.
“Isn’t there another system between Alien 1 and Chance?” Jack asked.
“Yes, there is,” Nelly said, while Kris was still trying to get that answer out of her own muzzy brain.
“Would you have taken one of those teacups through a jump point?”
Kris shook her head. She hadn’t taken one of them out of Wardhaven’s orbit.
“What do you think of us bugging out after we jump into the next system? Not going to Chance?”
“You don’t like the sound of our orders to High Chance?”
“Don’t like the sound, smell, sight, taste, and touch of it,” Jack said. “When some young lieutenant starts ordering around a Princess Royal and, maybe worse, a senior officer, there’s something he knows that we don’t.”
“Yes,” Kris agreed, “but what?”
Jack just shrugged.
“Any suggestion where we’d go?” Kris asked. “Although there are some six hundred planets in human space that I haven’t been banned from, I can’t think of any that would welcome me with open arms. None at least that have any decent ship-repair facilities.”
Again, all Jack could do was shrug.
Despite Jack’s carrying on their conversation at a whisper, the bridge had fallen silent enough to hear a sigh drop.
Kris glanced at Captain Drago and raised an eyebrow.
He shook his head. “I can’t recommend that the Wasp attempt any more jumps than it takes to get us somewhere where we can have some serious work done on her. I tend to agree with Jack that we are not headed into a good situation, but, like you, Your Highness, I can’t think of anything we can do but do what they want.”
He paused for a moment. “After all, what they want us to do is what I was desperately hoping we could do.”
The Wasp made the two jumps. As Kris expected, the FPB did not follow them.
However, two cruisers were waiting for them when they entered the Chance system. The Wasp immediately set a course for High Chance, and the cruisers, one in Helvitican colors, the other in U.S., followed them silently.
The lack of greeting and the total silence carried its own foreboding.
Alone, unacknowledged, the Wasp went where it was ordered.