Smart man.
After which, his screen went blank.
On the other screen, Vicky Peterwald glided onto the bridge and grabbed a handhold next to Captain Jack Montoya.
She giggled a bit as she asked Kris, “Do you often affect men like that?”
Kris shrugged, before admitting, “I guess I should have brushed my teeth this morning.”
“I don’t like the smell of this,” Jack said, “and I’m not talking about your body odor.”
Kris shrugged. “I agree, Jack. I don’t think this is some kind of joke.”
On the other screen, the young man apparently got his answer and tapped his camera to life. To Trouble, he looked like he was holding something smelly the cat dragged in.
“You will exit this system immediately and report to Admiral Santiago, ComNavDist 41 on High Chance. If you deviate in any way from that direct course, I am authorized to use deadly force.”
“Hold your fire,” 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?”
Trouble found himself chuckling at Kris’s wry remark. Crossie gave him a nasty look.
Screw yourself if you can’t take a joke, was the look Trouble gave back to the intel man.
The young officer showed red at the collar as he apparently remembered this system’s recent history, but he went on doggedly. “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.”
Kris’s screen cut off. They were treated to an outside view of the Wasp. Trouble found himself shaking his head. “That boat is in dire need of a little loving care, Ray. You sure they should be risking their life jumping in that thing? It would be a shame to lose them now that they’re back.”
“It’s too late to change things,” Field Marshal Mac put in. “With the time delay we’re dealing with, they’ve already arrived at High Chance.”
“Or went bust trying,” Trouble said. “Look at that thing. Isn’t the nose of that ship bent off at an angle different from the engines? Computer,” Trouble told his own assistant, “can you run a line through the keel of that tub?”
A line did appear. Aft, it was pretty much parallel to the ship. As you got closer to the bow, it diverged more and more.
“What’s the angle on that?” Ray asked.
Trouble’s computer projected a second line and ran a compass between the two. “Somewhere between three and four degrees,” Mac said.
“And the bow looks like it’s got a bit of a twist on it,” Trouble noted. “That ship’s not only been bent, it’s been torqued.”
“At least this one is back,” Crossie said. “Where’s the rest of the fleet?”
That brought a round of scowls of biblical proportions.
“Was that Vicky Peterwald?” Ray asked. “What she doing on the Wasp?”
No one had an answer for that question.
“Well, at least she’s back,” Ray muttered, half to himself. “I may be stuck explaining to that new Emperor bastard that my great-granddaughter misplaced one of his battle squadrons, but at least I won’t have to tell him my girl got his girl all dead.”
“He might not be all that bothered if you had,” Crossie said.
“Huh?” came from those who were dads, granddads, and more.
“Harry’s new wife is pregnant with a boy,” Crossie said as if letting them in on a big secret. “There seem to have been several attempts to clear the Grand Duchess Victoria from the line of succession.”
“Attempts?” Ray said slowly, once again needing time to get the drift of one of Crossie’s corkscrew conversations.
“There are reports that assassins have been going after Vicky Peterwald. Likely paid for by her new and loving stepmother.”
“It sounds like something out of an old fairy tale,” Trouble growled.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Ray snapped at his Chief of Intelligence.
“I did, sir. Don’t you remember?”
Ray said he didn’t, and Trouble was willing to bet good Wardhaven dollars that neither the king nor Trouble was being taken in by Crossie’s fib.
The spy was so busy spinning and twisting his tales that Trouble frequently found him coming and going at the same time. Minor things like this were just annoying. But these minor dodges left the question hanging. Was Crossie up to some major shenanigans that he had yet to be caught in?
Once again, Trouble was glad he’d lived the simple life of a fighting man in his day and didn’t have to rely on Crossie for much of anything but entertainment.
“Well, if the Wasp is back, there could be more ships following in her wake,” Mac offered, hopefully. “This whole situation is taking time to get to us. Who knows what they’ve got out there now.”
“Don’t you just hate the speed-of-light limit?” Trouble said, dryly. “Crossie, can’t some of your more slippery types come up with a way to break that law?”
“We’re working on it,” the spy said, darkly.
“We’ve been working on it for four hundred years and, other than the jump points the Three left behind for us, we aren’t any closer,” Mac growled softly.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Ray said, “enough of this philosophizing. I need to know what kind of hot potato Kris is dropping into our laps.”
Trouble frowned at the other guy who shared the honor of having Kris for a great-granddaughter. “Aren’t you being a bit of a pessimist? Can’t we just be happy Kris is back from the other side of the galaxy, that she’s survived whatever battle she fought with those damn neutron torpedoes you gave her? She’s here, and from the looks of that boat, it must have been a hell of a fight. The likes of which I haven’t seen hereabouts since you and I were a lot younger and having fun doing things we could lie and laugh about much later.”
Ray scowled at Trouble. The others kept very quiet.
“Forgive me, Trouble, but from the political side, I find it better to be a pessimist where our young Kris is concerned,” the king said. “Dollars to donut holes, and I mean the empty kind, she’s got a whole lot of problems following her home. Not cute puppies, more like big-teethed monsters with nasty dispositions.”
“Have it your own way,” Trouble said. “I prefer not to go looking for trouble. Enough will come along with my name on it faster than I care for.”
The room fell silent. The fall turned out to be quite a long one.