Kris Longknife: Defender Read Online Free PDF

GOING TO DIE, Nelly reported.
    “Granny, you tell him that these are the prey we hunt. Yes, they are bigger than us, but don’t the Alwans hunt prey bigger than them?
    G RANNY JUST TOLD HIM THAT AND THAT IF HE DIDN’T GO INTO THE TANK, HE WILL BE DEAD MEAT AND DISGRACE HIS TRIBE.
    The Alwan went.
    Kris, Jack, and Penny gave the tank residents breathing masks and waited as they verified that they worked. Then they sealed them in, locked them down, and let the tanks top themselves off with water.
    There was a lot of chatter; the air masks had mikes in them. Granny Rita’s last words to Kris were, “You better get your bare ass into your egg, honey.”
    Kris raced for her quarters. Again, they were much closer. Abby was waiting, already stripped. She helped Kris skinny out of her uniform and into her egg, then, as Kris rolled out for the bridge, Abby settled into hers.
    “A third ship just joined the others,” Nelly reported. “They are starting a slow, quarter-gee approach to the wreck.”
    Kris rolled onto the new
Wasp
’s bridge. It was just like old times. Captain Drago held the command chair. Penny was at Defenses. An older Chief Beni was at Sensors, assisted now by a shy female chief from Musashi. The woman on Navigation was also Musashi Navy; Kris had not had a chance to get to know her like Sulwan Kann.
    “Warning to all hands. We are taking the ship to Condition Zed. We are going to Condition Zed on my mark.” Penny waited a few seconds in case anyone had a strong objection, then announced, “We are setting Condition Zed. Don’t expect anything you’re holding on to to be there in a second.”
    Since everyone was already in their egg, they shouldn’t be holding on to anything.
    The bridge shrank. The skipper, Kris, and Penny were almost rubbing elbows. The overhead was a good half meter closer.
    The only thing that didn’t change was the main screen.
    It was still there, showing death coming for them in living color.
    “Sensors, anything new?” Captain Drago asked.
    “Nothing, sir. They match both the visual and electromagnetic signature of the hostile raiders. Their reactors match to the third decimal. Their radar is active, and they are pinging the hulk.
    “Oh, that was rude!” the senior chief added. “They just lased a small rock.”
    “So much for drifting up behind them again,” Captain Drago said.
    That ambush had worked once. They couldn’t expect it to work forever.
    “Any suggestions, Your Highness?” the skipper asked.
    “They’re out of range of our 18-inch lasers, but they’ll have to flip ship and decelerate to match orbit with this hulk, giving us some up-the-kilt shots at their reactors. Let’s see what happens then.”
    They waited. Waited for something to happen. Waited for the enemy to make a move . . . to make a mistake.
    While doing their best not to make one themselves.
    “Edge us in closer to the wreck,” Captain Drago ordered.
    The helmsman obeyed, but it was no easy job. Even half-destroyed, the hulk was huge, with a gravity well of its own. If Kris and the skipper hadn’t decided to keep the
Wasp
on the side of the hulk away from the jump point, the natural thing would have been to go into orbit around the wreck.
    The helmsman had been working against the nature of things and the laws of physics. Now he worked against them even more. The navigation jets, never intended for this, got a workout.
    Maybe those gases showed up as a corona around the hulk. Maybe someone on the other side noticed that there were a lot more hot gases in the general vicinity of the dead wreck. For whatever reason, the three alien ships began to spread out, widening their field of view around the dead base ship.
    Hiding behind the hulk got harder.
    “That’s not good,” Captain Drago muttered.
    Kris grinned. “But we get a crack at them one at a time.”
    The skipper frowned at Kris’s optimistic assessment of the situation. “That just might work. Helms, hold steady, but get