Kris Longknife: Defender Read Free Page A

identified anything different between the right and left sides of the aft end of the hulk?”
    “That’s a negative,” came from Senior Chief Beni. He’d come out of retirement to have “a shot at them that killed my kid.” “I’m getting no radio readings from that hulk. The reactors are dead. Anywhere you look on the electromagnetic spectrum or radioactive scale, she’s as dead as Caesar’s ghost.”
    “I would most certainly agree with you, Chief,” the professor said. “It’s our optics that are giving us cause for second thoughts.”
    “Pass them through to me in the Forward Lounge,” Kris said.
    “And me on the bridge,” the skipper spoke over Kris.
    The rolling, tumbling hulk had been getting closer. Now, using the powerful optical instruments usually reserved for deep-space research, the aft end of the blasted wreck jumped into clear definition.
    Bits of hull and I-beams were twisted like a child’s strand of candy. Other thick hull strength members were nearly broken through. Some hung by a thread and did their own dance as the ship waddled through space.
    “We hit it hard,” Kris muttered.
    The Alwans had broken from their fixation on the huge ship and now were once again moving quickly among themselves, talking rapidly.
    “I think,” said Granny Rita, “they are now very impressed with what you can do.”
    That was good because the picture then changed.
    The professor took up the narration. “What you were looking at was the left end of the aft quarter, portside aft to you Sailors. What you’re now seeing is the right side, starboard aft quarter. Notice the difference.”
    There was still clear evidence of damage. But many of the beams that had looked knocked about like jackstraws on the other side, were gone. The picture zoomed in further.
    “We think someone has been cutting away at that wreckage with laser welding torches. We’ll need to get in closer. Have nanos take a good look at the cuts, but that side of the ship does not look like we left it, of that I am sure.”
    “All hands, battle stations,” Captain Drago’s voice announced on the 1MC. “All weapons, report when you are manned and ready.”

2
    Around them, all hands beat to quarters. The Forward Lounge became suddenly empty.
    And the Alwans looked ready to climb the walls.
    Granny Rita did her best to calm them, but the idea that they were about to be in a fight to the death was having a very erratic impact on their behavior. Some ran around. Others froze in place. At any particular moment, with no particular rationale, the runners would freeze, and the statues would take off running.
    They did a lot of clicking whether they were running or not.
    Jack was suddenly at Kris’s elbow, just in case any of the crazy birds failed to notice she was in the way of their mad running.
    “What do you do with them?” Kris asked Granny Rita.
    Still, without a word from Jack, she fell back to the wall, well out of the way of traffic. Jack gave her a smile that said “Thank you, love, for not making me have to fight with you.”
    Granny Rita gave the two of them a look that said . . . nothing to Kris. It did make her fidget.
    Then Granny Rita shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never seen them like this. As I said, they don’t fight among themselves. They resolve conflicts by impressive displays.”
    “How’d something like this ever rise to the top of the food chain?” Jack asked.
    “You haven’t seen them feeding,” Rita said. “I’ve seen them bite strips of meat off a living, running beast. But fight among themselves. Never.”
    “So how did you establish that the Heavy People were not prey?” Penny asked, watching the show with the native curiosity of a natural-born intelligence officer.
    “Our Marine detachment put on a very impressive display. They also killed a few prey beasts, publicly butchered them, and held a BBQ. The Alwans discovered they liked cooked meat. We did what we had to to make friends,”