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our intakes. Locked them up something terrible.”
    “The other longboats made it to orbit,” Jack snarled.
    “Yes, sir. They pulled water into their tanks while they were out in midlake.”
    “Can you get the weeds out?” Kris asked.
    “The copilot and some Marines have been trying to do it for the last five minutes. We really sucked it up there, ma’am.”
    “So we aren’t going anywhere,” Kris concluded.
    “It sure looks that way,” the poor pilot answered.
    Kris stood. “Thank you for your hospitality,” she said with a prayerful bow to the couple. Then she turned to Jack. “Captain, Lieutenant, looks like we better start walking over to Sergeant Bruce’s roadblock.”
    “It does look that way,” Jack said, activating his battle board and beginning to arrange his way-too-few troops.

5
    The hike to the roadblock was hot and dusty. As Kris reflected back on her other advances to hostile contact, they all were either hot and dusty, or cold and wet. Why was a firefight never on a lovely, pleasant day?
    Must be a rule somewhere.
    “So, Your Highness,” Jack said, “what are we doing here?”
    Kris heard a serious question . . . heavily salted with sarcasm. But she had to admit, she’d been seriously chewing on just that question . . . in the light of what she’d started off the day wanting to do.
    “Wouldn’t it be nice if we don’t win a bloody battle today?” she finally said.
    Jack didn’t seem surprised at her answer. “I assume that ‘Let’s not lose a battle today’ is at least one step higher on your priority list.”
    “No question about that,” Kris agreed.
    Jack mulled that over for a moment. “You know, if we did kind of accidentally wipe out this hostile force coming our way, it might leave us the only power on this planet.”
    “I doubt it,” Penny put in.
    Kris gave her a raised eyebrow.
    “Face it,” Penny said. “Do you honestly think the big man is in the mob headed out here? You announced yourself, Princess, when you took down that pirate in orbit. They know they’ve got one of those damn Longknifes in the mix. If I were the big guy, I sure wouldn’t risk my fair skin anywhere near you.”
    “I think Penny has a point,” Kris said. “Even if we killed or captured every thug we’re about to run into, there will be plenty left to cause us trouble tonight and next week. Jack, do you think you could control this planet with two hundred Marines?”
    Jack scowled. “My company’s job is to protect you, Miss Highness, not get stuck running around a planet chasing every bad actor with a gun.” He paused, then added, “Still, I hate standing by while those pigs steal food from starving people.”
    “There is that.” Kris sighed.
    “There’s a second reason we really shouldn’t be wailing all over the badness on this planet,” Penny said.
    Kris and Jack both eyed her.
    “Let’s say that we set up our own police force here. That means we’ll have to run food in here to feed all the hungry. How are you going to explain to Vicky Peterwald next time you run into her that you aren’t really, actually, intentionally poaching on her old man’s territory?”
    And Kris was under specific orders not to even give the appearance of United Sentients horning in on Greenfeld’s natural sphere of influence . . . much less actually doing the horning-in thing.
    She hadn’t complained about those orders when she got them.
    But then, when she accepted her orders, she wasn’t having her face rubbed in this mess. Had Grampa Ray, King Raymond I to most everyone else, seen this coming when he sent her here to do this job?
    Had he, once again, chosen her because he knew she’d ditch her orders and do the job?
    For the forty-eleventh-million time, Kris allowed nasty thoughts about being one of those damn Longknifes to chase themselves around the inside of her skull.
    Enough of that, Kris thought, shaking her head. Policy reviews would have to wait for another day. Just now, she