Kris Longknife: Tenacious (Kris Longknife novellas Book 12) Read Free

better.
    Kris tossed the spare towel over his lap.
    “I’d rather you cover up a bit,” was his response. “No doubt, Penny has her boyfriend, Lieutenant Iizuka, with her.”
    Now Kris did glance down the beach. Yep, Penny, one of her recent Maids of Honor and her boyfriend, sidekick, and fellow intelligence officer, but from the Musashi Navy, were coming up the beach. He was well behind Penny and making a studious effort to keep his eyes anywhere but where Kris and Jack were.
    “Nelly, tell Penny to go away. I’m on my honeymoon.”
    “She says that you’ve gotten more of a honeymoon than she ever got, and you sent her off to find the alien home world and have been avoiding her ever since she got back.”
    “Ouch,” Jack said.
    Kris lost her smile. Penny did have a claim on short honeymoons. She and her bridegroom Tommy had enjoyed only one night before they’d followed Lieutenant Kris Longknife into a hopeless and desperate fight to save their home planet. They’d won through, but the last shot from a dying battleship had skewered their tiny fast attack boat. Tommy had made a heroic leap that shoved Penny to safety and left him pinned in the wreckage. Kris made one of those horrible calls you do in a fight that saved most of their lives . . . but cost Tommy his.
    That Kris had been silently in love with Tommy long before he met Penny only added to the pain.
    That, however, was an old scar. It had nothing to do with Kris’s being too busy to see Penny during the last two weeks and choosing her honeymoon over something Kris was sure could wait.
    “Is there any chance you will give me another week?” Kris asked, through Nelly.
    “Nope,” came back quickly. Down the beach, Penny didn’t even hesitate as she made her way through the soft sand toward Kris.
    Defeated by her own subordinate, Rear Admiral Kris Longknife stood to meet the lieutenant commander. She wrapped the sarong around herself several times, resulting in her almost becoming decent. Beside her, Jack did the same, his being wrapped at the waist while Kris’s started at her oh-so-small breasts that her husband seemed very satisfied with, so Kris was doing her best to be satisfied with them, too.
    Jack’s sarong failed to hide a certain bulge, so he sat back down and settled the extra towel in his lap.
    “We’re decent,” Kris grumbled in resignation.
    Penny and her fellow intelligence officer labored through the soft sand to stand before Kris. Iizuka Masao was ever the dutiful gentleman. He spread a towel, and the two of them settled their khaki-clad bodies cross-legged on the cloth.
    Without preamble, Penny said. “You sent us to find the alien home world. I think we did. You really need to see it.”

2
    Kris studied her friend. The short sleeves of her khaki uniform showed pale skin starting to burn.
    “Are you wearing any sunscreen?” Kris asked.
    “I told her she needed sunscreen,” Lieutenant Iizuka said, “but she insisted on charging out here as soon as we arrived.”
    “It can wait,” Penny snapped.
    “Let’s adjourn this meeting to the veranda of our bungalow,” Kris said, pointing to where she and Jack were staying.
    “Kris, you can’t put me off.”
    “I’m not putting you off,” Kris snapped. “I’m just moving this meeting to someplace where you won’t be laid up for a week with sunburn if it goes more than, say, fifteen minutes.”
    “Okay,” Penny said, and stomped her way through the sand toward the nearest shade. Kris followed, leaving the men to collect the blankets, towels, and computers.
    At the bungalow, Kris offered Penny a seat at their breakfast table, then excused herself to dress. Jack soon joined her. Both of them chose the most covering of the clothes provided by the inn, rather than their uniforms. For Jack, it was a pair of shorts and a three-button shirt; for Kris it was a muumuu. Both took the time to reinstall their computers. For Jack, it was just a harness that settled easily on his