(eng) Mike Shepherd - Kris Longknife 14.5 by Kris Longknife's Replacement

Author:Kris Longknife's Replacement [Replacement, Kris Longknife's]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Penny stood on the steps of the command center. She’d called in the world. It was a real hoot to watch the world come running.

A few miles away was a very long runway. It was now cycling longboats through it at a prodigious pace. First one shuttle would land and taxi around the apron to a stop. By the time Marines had piled out of it and jumped aboard small wheeled transports they’d brought so they could race for Penny’s location, three more longboats were down, and a fifth would land as the first taxied out. While the sixth was on approach, the first would start its takeoff run.

There were never more than five shuttles on the ground at any one time.

Admiral Drago was not only dropping two reinforced Marine battalions, but a serious Navy contingent as well. Communications, medical, technical, whatever it took to support and feed this army was landing and moving out with the efficiency that only a highly-advanced civilization can bring to the organization and application of violence.

Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.

Racing up the road from town was a different and definitely less well organized effort.

The first to arrive was a police officer that appeared to be the sheriff of the district. She was quickly followed by the city’s chief of police. On the very bumper of her car were three large, black rigs from which emerged cats, all in black jackets with sliver piping. Apparently, President Almar had her own investigative force and they considered themselves as having primary jurisdiction.

Penny, the daughter of two cops, understood very well how these things went. She turned them over to themselves and left them to debate the issues to their hearts’ content. Maybe one of them was in cahoots with the kidnapper. Maybe none were. It didn’t matter to Penny, none of them were likely to do anything good or bad while they argued who was head honcho here.

In the meantime, one of the rocket scientists had gotten hold of the engineers who built the command center. A small fleet of work trucks, rusted, bent and muddy, rolled up to the bunker. Penny had a Marine captain take these engineering bosses down to see what there was to see.

Four minutes later, engineers and techs in muddy boots and loaded down with gear went running into the building. A few minutes later, the senior engineer was back at Penny’s elbow.

“Hi, I’m Krysta. I can’t say that I’m pleased to meet you, or you me. To start with, this is lousy ground,” she told Penny. “Water’s almost up to the surface. We had to drive pilings to get the bunker not to sink. How they got that tunnel to hold up long enough to pull this off is a bloody miracle and I spit on the goddess who accepted the offering,” she said, spitting on the deck.

“Now, we can follow the tunnel, redigging it and supporting it as we go,” Krysta said,

“or we can forget what’s down there.

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