work on tonight. He’d been following Crossie’s efforts to keep the newsies away from the meeting. Somehow, a couple of them had gotten wind of Kris’s early arrival.
The meeting had already been moved twice.
A final check before leaving showed Mac that it had been moved a third time.
He called for his car and gave the driver only general directions. It was probably unnecessary cloak-and- dagger crap, but he’d save the actual address until the last moment.
It was raining. Raining hard. The night was as black as Mac felt. He was torn. He admired and respected Ray Longknife. Hell, the man was a legend.
He was also Mac’s king.
Still, this whole thing stank to high heavens. Damn it, Kris and her tiny band of survivors deserved a parade down every Main Street in human space. If not for themselves, then for those that hadn’t made it back.
Mac shook his head. That was not going to happen.
Certainly not if Ray had any say-so in the matter.
Had the legend gotten too old and too tired to tackle a new set of problems?
Mac hated to even think that.
Still, the thought had been trying to cross his mind a lot since that first message about Kris Longknife had come in. Would the legend of old have hidden from a problem of this size?
No, that wasn’t the right question. The king was not hiding from the problem. He was tackling it just as much as he could with the resources he had on hand.
That was it. He was limiting himself to what he had on hand. Why was the man unwilling to bring more people into this? They were the ones who would be dying in industrial numbers if one of those monster ships showed up overhead.
Did the people really need to be manipulated into doing something about the danger that could even now be headed their way?
But, of course, that was the problem.
Was such a menace headed their way?
And if it didn’t show up in a week, or a month, or a year, how long could the human psyche stay on guard for something that might never show, or could show up tomorrow?
Mac had been searching his memory for any other general who’d faced a leadership challenge anywhere close to this. So far, he’d come up blank.
The driver asked for further directions, and Mac gave them to him. He couldn’t help but notice that the woman was driving a good ten klicks below the posted speed limit. Between the rain and the dark, it was that bad.
That left Mac to muse, was even nature so opposed to what they were doing that it wept?
“You’re too old to be a poet, and too stuck in your ways to change that much,” he muttered to himself. Or maybe he was just too old for this kind of shit.
But his mumbling brought a question from the young woman driving, and he had to deflect her from his ruminations.
Fortunately, they were soon there. “There” proved to be a darkly lit mansion whose edges got lost in the surrounding gloom. Fortunately for Mac, the place came with a portico that allowed him to dismount the car without getting drowned. There were Marines about, most in full battle rattle, but the one who opened the door for him was in dress blue and reds.
Just inside, a major pointed Mac upstairs to a door guarded by a pair of sergeants. Somebody was taking no chances with some kid talking. Inside, Mac found Ray and Crossie, hands behind their backs, talking among themselves as they gazed out a window into the gloom.
The room was a very tastefully done study that smelled strongly of money. Off to one side was a fireplace. On another evening, it might have been called cheery. Tonight, it struggled against the gloom… and failed miserably.
Central to the entire blend of wood paneling and thick carpet was an exquisite marble desk. The king turned away from the window, but not toward the desk. Instead, he settled into an overstuffed chair with its back to the fireplace.
There were three other similar chairs, one at his right and left, and a final one facing him. Before Crossie settled into the right-hand one, he handed Mac an envelope.
Mac started to open it, but the king put a restraining hand on his arm. “You’ll know when to open it,” he said. No better informed, Mac tried to get comfortable in the left chair.
For a moment he fidgeted, eyeing the large envelope uneasily, but no one did anything, so he settled himself down for the wait.
It wasn’t long.
Kris entered the room and, so it seemed to Mac, overpowered it.
Her and her stink.
She must not have bathed for a week. Her rank aroma advanced well ahead of her. Her undress whites were wrinkled and sweat-stained. On most subordinates, all of this would have brought a sour, disapproving scowl to Mac’s face.
But that was not his reaction to this young woman. She strode toward them with both power and purpose. Her eyes held Mac, and he found himself sitting up straighter in his chair as if he was the junior and she the senior officer present.
Damn, she’s come a long way from the mutinous ensign I first dressed down.
Kris reached the empty chair and pushed it aside with a swift shove of her hips.
The room hung on the silence. Mac took a deep breath and waited to see who would dare take the lead.
Kris eyed them. There was nothing defiant in her eyes, but nothing subservient either. Mac searched his memory for when he’d seen that stance before. Yes. Ray had looked just like that standing before a commander’s call. His glance alone had brought a crowd of headstrong officers from a hundred different worlds to expectant silence.
It was Ray who finally broke the silence. “What have you been up to?”
“Nothing you folks didn’t want me to do,” Kris shot right back.
“That’s not true,” Crossie seemed almost to whine as he contradicted her.
“Isn’t it?” Kris answered. “I wanted to take a squadron of tiny scouts out to see what lurked in the big, bad universe. Lightly armed and traveling fast, we could see what there was to see and run home quick with our report. So what do you send me out there with, Crossie? Eight battleships! Even better, you get three shills to serve up the ships. None from Wardhaven, excuse me, the United Society, or whatever you’re calling it now. Nope, we’re sending scouts. They’re the ones sending the battleships.”
Kris paused. No one dared take the floor away from her. “Of course, you’re sending out a Longknife, and everyone knows that Longknifes go loaded for a fight. That’s what the legend says, right, Grampa?”
The sarcasm was thick enough for Mac to cut with a knife. Dear God, grant me to never have a grandkid this mad at me, he prayed.
The king shook his head. “They chose what they sent. They gave them their own orders.”
“Yes they did, thank you very much,” Kris almost snarled. “Of course, Crossie here sent them out a copy of our secret meeting. He made sure they knew there was something nasty out there.”
Again, Kris paused, but neither Mac nor anyone present was about to put an oar in these trouble waters.
Kris went on. “But eight dinky battleships were hardly enough to take on those alien monsters. No sir, I may be a Longknife, but even I’m not that crazy. Or not that crazy yet. How many years, Grampa, does it take to get as crazy as the legend needs?”
“A bit longer, Kris,” her grandfather said softly. Mac measured his words for feelings and found a definite lack. Where had this man learned to deal with his own flesh and blood?
Or is there any flesh and blood in him? Mac wondered.
“So, you sent me the Hellburners.”
“Hellburners?” Mac found he’d spoken only when he heard the sound of his own voice.
“Yeah, that’s what we named the torpedoes with chunks of a neutron star in their warheads. By the way, we
