Free Redoubtable by Mike Shepherd

and his wife managed to turn away before they were explosively sick.

8
    Kris gave the Annams a minute to recover before she continued questioning them. She took the moment to squeeze down all feelings in herself. Gentleness, concern, anything that nurtured human warmth was something she could not afford today. Despite the sweat running down her face, the day would be a cold, cold one.
    Done locking down her gut, Kris asked the first of many questions that would lead to rack and ruin. “Is there a football stadium in Lander’s Rest?”
    Nelly had identified two large stadiums. Mr. Annam pointed out the larger one. “The smaller is for school contests.”
    “Jack, Penny, to me, please. I think I’ve got enough information to plan an attack. Abby, Colonel, are you on net?
    Both of them were.
    “You heard about Jackie Jackson,” Penny said as she trotted up to Kris. “He’s one bad hombre.”
    “One bad girl,” Kris corrected. “I think she’s Jacqueline, not Johnny.”
    “Jacqueline; I thought we girls were supposed to be nice and gentle and good,” Penny insisted.
    “Penny, you’re hanging out with a Longknife gal,” Jack said on net, still jogging toward Kris. “How could you possibly be that ill informed?”
    “Okay, so I believe in that sugar and spice and everything nice stuff. A girl’s got a right to her illusions.”
    “Sorry, folks, no illusions today,” Kris said. “We got ourselves some iron-hard facts. Ugly iron spikes with heads on them.”
    “Ah, Princess, this is Shuttle 1. We finally got the weeds out of our intakes. We’ve taken on a full tank of reaction mass. Do you need a lift off planet?”
    Jack joined Kris, hardly out of breath, but with the usual quizzical eyebrow raised. “That was the plan, as I recall,” Jack said.
    “That plan didn’t work out. Change of plan. New plan,” Kris said.
    Behind Kris, there was a gasp. She turned to see the Annams, mouth wide open. “But you are a Longknife. For Longknifes, things always go according to plan.”
    “Yeah,” Kris agreed. “I read that in the history books, too. Trust me. It may have worked that way for my great-grandparents, but it doesn’t seem to ever work that way for me.”
    Kris left the two locals to marvel at that revelation and turned back to her crew.
    “You’re not leaving?” Jack said.
    “No. Send the shuttles up to the Wasp . Abby, see that the shuttle loads are changed. Marines only the next trip down. No food. Ask Drago if he can put together a Navy landing party to back up the Marines. Shooters, docs, food, anything the squid can do to support the trigger pullers.”
    “Got that, Kris,” Abby replied on net. “We go loaded for bear. All that talk about us not wanting to upset Vicky and her daddy is canceled. We’re back in the kick ass and take names business. Goody Two-shoes stuff will have to wait in line.”
    Jack eyed Kris. He wasn’t actually questioning her decision. No, it was more like he wanted to make sure she’d weighed all her options and knew what she was doing.
    “The situation here is a lot worse than I expected,” Kris said crisply. “The local warlord is a vicious killer. If we maintain a presence here, and are kind enough to let her live, she will repay us by sniping at us on every corner. No, folks. We’d better cut the head off this snake today. I’ll apologize profusely to Vicky next time I see her.”
    “What is the target?” the colonel asked without skipping a beat.
    “That’s my problem, Colonel, and I’d like your advice on it. I see two, no three, maybe four targets, and I got a bad feeling in my gut that if I go for all of them, I’ll spread myself too thin and fail to get any of them.”
    “It’s been known to happen,” he said, noncommittal-like. “Talk to me.”
    “Somewhere, down in this haystack, is a needle of a pirate captain. He may or may not have a whole crew. I want to catch that joker and find out what he or she knows.”
    “After seeing the