Kris Longknife: Tenacious (Kris Longknife novellas Book 12) by Mike Shepherd

officers. “They crammed a lot into one small page. I assume you knew about this.”
    “Since the king called us in for a conference before we left, most definitely yes. Copies of that are in the mail bag for all of your subordinate commanders: Musashi, Helvetican, whatever.”
    “It’s nice to know we were appreciated, even if you didn’t know if we were alive or dead when the orders were written,” Jack said, reading over Kris’s shoulder.
    “Yeah,” she said. “Now, thank you very much. If you’ll leave us alone for a moment, we’ll join you as quickly as we can in the Forward Lounge once we attend to some minor details.”
    If anything, the two officers’ grins got bigger. They must have heard about the new fraternization policy; neither had batted an eyelash when Jack joined them from Kris’s night quarters.
    Alone, Kris held the new flag and shoulder boards. Three stars, and she hadn’t even completed her sixth year in the Navy. Yes, they were only good in theater. Once she returned home, like Cinderella, she’d turn back into a captain at best, maybe even a commander. Still, even for one of those damn Longknifes, it had been quite a ride.
    “You want to do the honors for me?” Kris asked.
    “I think it’s often the duty and joy of the spouse to do this,” Jack admitted. It took him only a moment to remove her old boards and put on the new ones. He’d had experience getting her uniform ready for her when she was in the shower just as she had done the same for him. At least those times when they hadn’t been showering together.
    “I think I got that right,” he said, and gave her a kiss. It wasn’t exactly a peck, but it wouldn’t have any flower girl suggesting they “get a room.” It seemed just right from a brevet colonel to a newly frocked vice admiral.
    “Shall we go?” he asked when they broke chastely.
    “No, there are a few things that need to be done. Nelly, promote Commodore Kitano immediately to rear admiral. Jack, I want you to organize all the ships’ Marine detachments and the colonials into a brigade. Which makes you a brigadier general.”
    He grinned at that.
    Kris hurried on. “Tomorrow, promote the other three commodores to rear admiral and restore Benson and Hiroshi to their previous ranks with seniority in theater dating from tomorrow. Is there anything else I need to think of?”
    Jack said nothing. Nelly paused, then added, “I assume you’re creating four task forces with rear admirals commanding?”
    “Something like that, Nelly.”
    “Who gets to choose who fills in as squadron commanders behind the promoted commodores?”
    “Cut a set of orders authorizing the task-force commanders to propose to Admiral Kitano the fleeting ups to commodore in my absence. We’ll let them fly while I’m gone, then I can finalize them, assuming they haven’t screwed up.”
    “If you’ll have Jack pull the promotion papers out of the document generator, you’ll have something to give Admiral Kitano tonight. I didn’t quite go in for the full calligraphy like the king, but I did it up right.”
    “Thank you, Nelly.”
    That done, Kris adjourned for the Forward Lounge.

7
    Kris had never seen the Forward Lounge so large and so full. No doubt, Penny had given up several centimeters of hull armor to stretch it out this far and provide tables and chairs.
    To Kris’s right, Commodore Miyoshi, soon to be admiral, was deep in conversation with the newly arrived commodore from Yamato. Around them, ship captains, XOs, skippers of Marine detachments, and chiefs of science teams were lost in conversations that, no doubt, were mirrored in the station dives as senior chiefs and Gunnys from the old team met their counterparts from the new teams and compared notes on the lay of the local land and the recent attempt to blight it.
    The Helvetican contingent had settled toward the back and was talking in hushed tones with the new arrivals from the Esperanto League and Hispania. The