Free Daring by Mike Shepherd Page B

twenty-five or thirty into them.”
    â€œFor a couple of weeks. Have you found any living quarters down on the moon?”
    â€œNothing,” Kris said. “All that’s down there are some digging and smelter gear. They were blown individually. But there’s nothing that looks like housing.”
    â€œSo they were living crammed into that ship,” Vicky said.
    â€œHaving babies and growing old together,” Kris added.
    â€œAliens,” Admiral Krätz said, shaking his head. “They are aliens even if they do look the most like us of any aliens we’ve found.”
    â€œWill the contents of this ship be shared with our home governments?” Admiral Kōta asked.
    The politician in Kris’s upbringing spotted the hot button in that question, but the fleet leader in her just shrugged. “I’m sending this cargo back to human space. Then I plan to continue my voyage of discovery. I expect to have more on my mind than who gets what of this mess.”
    The Navy officers drifted up to a window that looked into an isolated room organized like an operating center. On one table a lone body was strapped down and laid out. Its chest had been opened and its organs removed. They now floated in glass jars.
    â€œThey’ve got everything we’ve got,” Kris said. “Different arrangement. Our guess is that they started walking upright about six million years ago, too. Give or take a few months,” she half joked.
    â€œCan we go in?” Admiral Krätz’s head doctor asked.
    Kris nodded. “We’re using level-three biohazard suits.”
    The three doctors who had accompanied their admirals so far took their leave and headed into the operating room.
    â€œHave you run a DNA check?” Admiral Channing asked.
    â€œYes,” Kris said. “They have DNA, but their base molecules are different from ours. My biologists are very excited. And no, they doubt there can ever be any interbreeding. Even if our plumbing can be made to rendezvous, the genetics just aren’t going to let it happen.”
    â€œKris, we need to talk,” Admiral Krätz said, waving his hand, “about all of this. Who gets what? Where do we go from here?”
    â€œYes, we need to talk,” the other two admirals agreed.
    â€œWell, sirs, we have gravity on the Wasp. May I invite you to the Forward Lounge?”

12
    Kris was halfway back to the Wasp before she noticed that it wasn’t alone. A new courier ship hung just off where it swung in space with the Intrepid . A large shuttle from the Wasp was just departing from the stranger and heading back to Kris’s ship.
    â€œNelly, get me Captain Drago.”
    â€œI got him, Kris.”
    â€œHello, Your Highness,” he said cheerfully. “I was expecting a call from you.”
    â€œWhat’s a strange ship doing off our bow?”
    â€œThere’s nothing strange about the Sandpiper . She’s here to replace the Mercury . The king thought we might need another courier boat.
    â€œWhat’d it bring?”
    â€œWho said it brought anything?”
    â€œAdmiral Crossie would not pay for a fourth courier ship if it didn’t carry something twisted and sneaky and, I don’t know, special for him.”
    â€œSee for yourself. Longboat 2 will be reeled in right after you.”
    Kris was seated right behind the two bosun’s mates running the show. She watched over their shoulders as they attempted the new maneuver it took to land on the Wasp . Usually when a ship was in orbit, a longboat just nestled into a docking bay. But a ship wasn’t usually doing flips with another ship while both of them zipped along in orbit.
    Now they did.
    As it turned out, it wasn’t all that hard.
    To watch.
    The Wasp let out a long line with a loop at the end.
    The longboat snagged the loop with a hook it now dropped from its nose. The hook was retracted once it had the loop solidly in