The Loralynn Kennakris series Boxed Set

by Owen R O'Neill

  “Admiral, this order is damn near a declaration of war!” he snapped, holding the document away from his corpulent body.

  “Oh, calm down, Russ. That’s just a training order,” PrenTalien replied testily, nudging away the plate decorated with the last of his meal: soused trotters with mustard, bacon and hash browns.

  “Training order, sir?” Raven stared at the words on the flimsy incredulously. “Admiral Burton says here, ‘All mounts are to be authorized a full loadout of live ammunition. Fighters are to be kept fueled and armed. Each carrier is to maintain at least one squadron on Alert-Ten status. Comms are to be maintained in Condition Charlie. Task Group 34 is to keep its drives in hot-standby until further orders, and the rest of the fleet is to keep fuel status Tango.’”

  “That’s right,” PrenTalien agreed, less sharply than his prior comment. “Like I said, training.”

  “But sir,”—Raven’s voice rose half an octave—“what about these patrol orders? Pushing this far down the transit lanes? Intercept authorized for any ship that fails the initial challenge-response order or whose vector is more than fifteen percent off nominal? The merchant houses are going to scream bloody murder the first time we drop down on one of their skippers who’s trying to make a deadline!”

  PrenTalien frowned at his gifted but excitable Ops officer. “Was there a memo I didn’t get, Russ? Did we get subordinated to the merchant houses without anyone telling me?”

  “No, sir.” Commander Raven flapped the flimsy. “Of course not. But how the hell can we justify this as training?”

  PrenTalien leaned his heavy six-four frame back in his chair so that it creaked, and interlaced his fingers behind his head with an edged smile that was all too familiar. “Simple. I like my training to be realistic.”

  Chapter Nine

  CEF Academy Orbital Campus

  Deimos, Mars, Sol

  “But I have to see her.”

  The woman at the admissions desk raised her eyes without lifting her head. “You said you’re not immediate family?” She dropped her eyes back to a screen Kris could not see.

  “No, I’m not. But I have to see her! She called me.”

  “And not a relative?”

  “I told you—you gotta let me go to her. They called me!”

  “They?” The woman appeared to be keying in data. Kris tried to lean over the counter to see what the woman was doing but she couldn’t, and she couldn’t remember who’d called her either. Was it Mariwen? Or was it Huron? Someone had called her, told her to come now, immediately. Mariwen was in the hospital—she was . . .

  “ . . . dying! Look—please! They told me she’s dying! I gotta see her. Please! Don’cha understand?”

  The woman refused to look up. “I’ve told them you’re here. You can wait over there, if you want. If her condition changes, someone will be out to inform you.”

  Condition? What the fuck do you mean, ‘condition’? She’s dying! I know she’s dying . . . I gotta go to her—I have to . . .

  She started to reach across the counter toward the woman, but there was no counter and she was getting up out of a plastic chair in a waiting room with cream walls and a beige stripe and these stupid fucking fake windows that showed hummingbirds and shit, big gaudy flowers and scenes like that weird toy one of her schoolmates had when she was six—you shook it and these white flecks swirled around some little thing that looked like a dwelling—“It’s snow,” the girl had said—“That’s snow?” Kris had asked and the girl who was eight laughed at her and she got really angry—and a door with a frosted-glass pane filling the upper half opened and this young guy with an old-style pad was there—there was something weirdly familiar about him—looking at her and then at the pad.

  “Are you Loralynn Kennakris?” She nodded. “Come with me, please.”

  She stood up . . . into Mariwen’s room. The room was full of people—so full they crushed against her on all sides—doctors, techs, nurses, all moving, talking, jostling—and in the middle of it all, Mariwen in a huge bed with a sheet pulled up to the neck and her hair loose all around—long dark waves of it fanned out across the pillows—and the bed was surrounded by racks and racks of machines, all blinking and beeping, and everyone was talking loud to be heard over the noise. She turned sideways to squeeze through the press, a sharp elbow poking her in the ribs. The bed had side rails and Mariwen was still—so still—and the skin of her perfect face wasn’t its normal rich, warm, dark caramel at all but looked like white glass. What the fuck? What’s happened to her? The bed was white too—an impossible white—and she reached out a hand—the bed was so large she had to really stretch—and she could not feel any breath at all and Mariwen’s lips were turning blue . . .

  “She’s dying,” Kris said, looking to the nearest doctor. He was facing away, intent on some traces on his obsolete pad. She reached for his arm—“She’s dying!”—but he slid away into the crowd. She turned to a nurse who was talking to a tech—Don’t you fucking understand? Her lips are blue! She’s not breathing!—but she couldn’t reach the woman as a knot of people, talking nonsensically, pushed between them, cramming her back against the side rails.

  Kris shoved her way into the mass of bodies. Why couldn’t they hear her? Why weren’t they paying attention? Mariwen wasn’t breathing! Why wasn’t anyone doing anything? She kept turning but all she saw was the backs of coats and hospital uniforms and where was the door? Where was the fucking door? She had to get out—she had to get someone—someone who’d listen—who’d do something . . . and the strange young man grabbed her elbow.

  “You don’t understand.” She wanted to reply, to say—anything—but the words would not come. “Don’t you know why you’re here?”

  Why I’m here? I’m here to—

  “End it.” He gave her arm a squeeze. “She wants you to end it. That’s why you’re here.”

  She yanked away and, turning again, was back at Mariwen’s bedside. All those people were crowding around and jostling her but they were sort of gray and she couldn’t focus on them clearly and it was quiet—everyone was still talking but it was quiet. She leaned over and Mariwen was very near, her face was still—so still—and fragile and more beautiful than anything should ever be and now her parted lips were even paler: frosted as though her breath had frozen on them and it was cold—why was it so fucking cold?—and she could see the slender ice-blue vein in Mariwen’s throat, feebly pulsing, and—

  Was that a gasp?

  She’s trying to breathe!

  No. There was a gentle pressure on her elbow, forcing her arm forward . . .

  Look! She’s trying to breathe!

  No. She wants you to end it. Let her go. She wants to go . . .

  Kris’s arm moved forward. She didn’t want it to but she couldn’t help it. The tiny flutter of that pale blue vein grew unnaturally large in her vision as her hand reached out for that pure white throat—just squeeze, just a little squeeze—and her thumb touched, felt the frail beat under the chilled skin as her fingers started to close . . .

  Kris bolted upright in her bunk, her whole body shaking, her hands clenched into fists and her heart hammering so loud that Tanner, Baz and Minx, who were all staring at her with shocked expressions, must have heard it clearly. Baz keyed on the lights.

  “Wha’appened?” He rubbed a hand across his face. “You okay? You screamed.”

  Unable to speak, Kris nodded. Minx said something low and unintelligible and rolled over. Baz started to get up and Tanner shook his head. Baz looked over at him. Tanner repeated the gesture. Baz lay back down.

  The shaking began to subside. Kris let herself collapse slowly back onto her bunk and someone killed the lights. She rolled onto her side, toward the wall, and jammed her face hard into the pillow. No matter what, she was not ever going to let them hear her cry.

  Chapter Ten

  CEF Academy Orbital Campus

  Deimos, Mars, Sol

  Three nights later, Kris looked up at Basmartin
across the narrow common table in their dorm. “Gawd, do we really have to do a unit on the history of slaving?”

  There was only the two of them at the moment—Tanner was off getting some simulator time and Minx hadn’t been seen since dinner—and they’d been reviewing the upcoming units for this quarter’s history class. With all the new challenges of their second quarter, Kris had missed this gem her first time through. They still had the same scholastic load but now practical training, especially in the lethal arts, was added as well. Their ship drill had been stepped up, becoming much more realistic; their unarmed combat training had intensified, with leagues set up in imitation of the All-Forces Unarmed Combat Tournament, and they had begun small-arms training.

  This last was a most unexpected pleasure. Like most cadets, Kris had never handled a firearm before in her life, and while she was mostly indifferent to rifles, she found that a well-balanced sidearm in her hand gave her considerable joy, especially when used to make holes in silhouettes on the live-fire range. Neither her enthusiasm nor her skill ascended to the heights Basmartin’s and Tanner’s did—both of them had promptly joined the Academy’s lower-division pistol team, and Tanner looked like he was bidding fair to bring back a trophy—but she was able to hold her own on a good day and at no time did she disgrace herself.

  The biggest change, however, was their introduction to track-specific simulations. The simulations cadets had access to for their first quarter were of a general character, emphasizing team exercises and stopping short of being true wargames. They were conducted on a level playing field and things went as advertised, the uncertainties being heavily constrained and managed.

  Now Kris and her classmates were introduced to full-fledged flight simulators. These simulators were their first step towards basic flight training, which they’d begin in their second term, and they were a far cry from the simulations of their first quarter. The exercises grew exponentially in complexity throughout the quarter, starting with simple solo missions and building rapidly to full squadron level exercises, which would culminate at the term’s end in War Week, their first taste of real wargaming.

  Kris was solidly in the middle of their class scholastically, but she showed a remarkable degree of skill in these new simulations, coupled with a rare degree of stamina. Basmartin came very nearly up to her level—he might at times surpass it—and they often flew their missions together, so far eclipsing the other first-term cadets’ teams that in the officially denounced but winked-at wagering on these exercises, they rapidly found they had to offer odds of four-to-one or better to get any takers.

  But this competition was not just about vanity, and the money (while nice as a concrete measure of their prowess) didn’t mean that much, Kris having her repatriation settlement and Baz’s family being quite well-to-do. What truly mattered was that the scores they earned in these exercises were one of the major factors in determining how they would be placed at the beginning of their second year, when flight-officer candidates were divided into the Tactical Fighter Program and the Advanced Fighter Program. AFP candidates were the elite’s elite: those who were trained for reconnaissance and deep-strike operations, while the cadets in the Tactical Fighter Program focused on the less glamorous interception, interdiction and area-defense missions.

  Kris, Baz and Minx all had their hearts set on making it into the AFP—Tanner professed to be happy to just escape with his wings—but the odds against all of them doing so were high. Only a third of new cadets in the fighter track were accepted into the advanced program and only about half of those could be expected to graduate from it, the rest reverting to TFP candidates. The rough six-to-one ratio of TFP graduates to those from the advanced program was itself almost twenty percent higher than the actual number of billets available in recon and deep-strike wings, so perhaps a fifth of AFP graduates could still expect to find themselves facing disappointment.

  Who was disappointed and who was not depended on a host of factors, and one of those factors was, unhappily, scholastic performance, which meant getting at least acceptable marks in her classes even when they dealt with topics as obnoxious as the history of slaving.

  Basmartin looked up from the notes he was making on his tablet. “Well, it is a big part of what we do,” he said. “Y’know, a lot of people don’t take it as—” He lurched to a halt, uncomfortably aware that, Kris being an Outworlder, his foot had just arrived within dangerous proximity to his mouth. “Well, yeah,” he finished. “It doesn’t look like a major unit, though.” He dropped his eyes back to his tablet, determinedly studious.

  Kris grunted as she flipped to the abstract. She knew Baz was merely being considerate, but somehow it made her feel even more like an alien. He didn’t treat Tanner with such tender respect. On the other hand, there were plenty, like Minx, who treated her with hardly any respect at all. No one had really found a comfortable middle ground yet and, she had to admit, that included herself. Silently, she applied herself to reading:

  Throughout history, slavery, as an impulse, has never died. Even in the halcyon years of the Second Colonization Period, when new technologies had briefly allowed people to get ahead of many chronic problems, it lay coiled in Humanity's basement, waiting for the wolf at the door to overwhelm the humanitarian within. When the first colonies were settled and the harsh habitats made healthy workers a scarce commodity again, it began to stir. It woke and yawned full wide during the chaotic expansion that proceeded the Formation Wars [see Formation Wars—Causes—Aftermath], and grew sleek and well-fed in the darkness afterwards.

  Coiled in the basement? Yawned? Really? Sleek and well-fed in the darkness? Kris shook her head, suppressing an impolite sound.

  The reasons for it were not complex, though some have wished to make them so: in an expanding universe of dangerous, sparsely-populated worlds dependent on technologies they did not always own or could not easily replicate, the most desirable capital was people, those highly-productive, infinitely-adaptable, easily-reproduced machines.

  Suppressing rude noises was getting harder. So slaves were ‘highly-productive machines’ now? Maybe someone should have a short, sharp talk to the ‘machine’ that had produced this crap.

  An interstellar economy of person-trade grew in the dark, cobbled together by those planets who retained interstellar flight at the expense of those who did not. Loose federations formed and exploded and reformed [see Slave Federations], driven by the need to expedite the movement of the valuable and fragile cargo. The Slaver Wars were not that at all; they were merely the end of the Formation Wars, fought by the people who still had guns and starships . . .

  Jeezus, who wrote this? She clicked the author tag. A. O. Morgenthau, Senior Fellow, Nedaeman National University for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics. That figures. A goddamned yeast-eater trying to be cute. She scanned his list of other works: ‘Alcohol and Philosophy’, ‘Food and Philosophy’, ‘Sexual Ethos in Slave-Dominated Cultures’—Oh, fuck you!

  Kris almost slammed the tablet on the table. What was it with Nedaemans and their sick fascination with slavers’ sexual tweaks? They’d badgered her with those kinds of creepy questions during her time in Rehab on Cassandra Station. Fuck’n psych-voyeurs. She jumped down a page.

  Suggested Further Reading: Immunocytes and Rise of Abolitionism.

  What the hell? She glided the cursor over the précis:

  Major reduction mortality due to immunocyte technology is shown to mitigate primary economic factors supporting slave-taking and trading, allowing abolitionist sentiments to be asserted with diminished risk of collateral effects. The role of improved health in enhancing the perception of the value of human life is explored. Compare the 3rd Nanocyte Revolution and the advent of modern terraforming.

  Typical, Kris thought, thinking of the unit they’d done on Economic Determinism. She was scheduled for her first immunocyte implants at the end of this term—she’d already been tested and her genome mapped to make sure it would take, since the CEF woul
dn’t allow anyone to deploy out-system without it—but no one had explained what they were exactly or how they worked. As a kid, she’d been inoculated with proactive vaccines but that was it—they didn’t have anything else on Parson’s Acre. She clicked the link to immunocyte technology.

  Immunocyte Technology. Immunocytes function as a hybrid-Molossian hive-mind controlled by the liver. They produce a threat matrix for any potential antigen and modify the molecular and genetic structure of the antigen to render it harmless, according to the host’s risk profile. They perform the same functions for random mutations within the host itself; for example, suppressing cancerous growths. They also interact with and can if necessary modify natural lymphocytes and macrophages. Effectiveness is claimed to be 100% against all known antigens.

  Limitations: Algorithms employed by current-generation immunocytes have a 12 to 18-month confidence window, depending on the host’s genome. This is not considered an issue as long as the immunocyte implant is properly maintained.

  Of more concern is the potential for rapidly mutating antigens to overwhelm the host before the immunocytes can reach a stable solution. This is primarily due to the nature of the current algorithms which require a large number of trials to meet acceptable confidence thresholds. Developers stress that such concerns are purely theoretical and no such antigens exist, but critics claim that these assessments are too optimistic, and that the potential exists for engineered viruses to exceed the known limits of the adaptive mutation rates of wild-caught viruses.

  Development: Modern immunocyte technology is based on the pioneering work of Dr. Victor Osorio, who developed the first safe and effective proactive vaccines. This work was later expanded upon by his son, Dr. Ivan Osorio. Dr. Osorio’s work was heavily supported by Ilmatar Neoforming, now part of the KKHR Control Group, which still holds several important patents relating to immunocyte technology.