The Loralynn Kennakris series Boxed Set

by Owen R O'Neill

  Huron and Kris performed their duty to Old Pete, hanging from the jack staff on the near bulkhead. That obligation satisfied, they turned to the small party waiting to greet them. That party consisted of a tall man, a short woman, and a nondescript young lieutenant. The tall man was also unusually thin; he had that slightly elongated build of one who’d grown up in low gravity, and there was a brief moment of surprise as Kris realized he was Retribution’s captain. Star captains did not usually meet mere lieutenant commanders when they reported; that was typically left to the executive officer—Kris took the short woman in the commander’s uniform to be her—but Huron’s social position clearly made him an exception in this, as in so much else.

  The young lieutenant stepped forward and saluted, then made introductions. The captain was Sir Phillip Lawrence, the title indicating he was from the Meridies Cluster. The woman was, as Kris had surmised, the exec, Commander Trislan Ravenswood. The lieutenant, per protocol, did not give his name. Huron made his acknowledgments and then indicated Kris. “Allow me to present Midshipman Loralynn Kennakris.” This was merely the identification required of anyone entering the ship.

  Kris advanced a step from where she’d been waiting at attention, saluted, and was even more surprised when Captain Lawrence addressed her directly. “Ms. Kennakris, welcome aboard. It seems the Admiralty has seen fit to be somewhat vague as to your precise status and seniority. Clearly, you cannot occupy a junior officer’s billet, and placing you with the noncommissioned officers is equally inappropriate, so I have interpreted their directive as considering you a junior warrant officer and have attached you to my staff in that capacity. However, I think it best that you continue to report directly to Commander Huron.” He switched his gaze to the latter. “Does that suit, Commander?”

  “Perfectly, sir.”

  “Very well.” He looked back to Kris. “The Lieutenant here will show you to your berth. Given the hour, we shall leave off your formal reading-in until the beginning of the forenoon watch.” He nodded to the waiting lieutenant. “Lieutenant, if you please. Midshipman, do carry on.”

  The lieutenant swung an arm down the passageway and with a cheery “Follow me, miz,” moved off briskly. Kris, caught off guard—she’d been about to return to the cutter for her neglected baggage—experienced a moment of paralyzing indecision during which Captain Lawrence politely asked Huron if he might “Spare a moment, please?”

  I wonder what that’s all about? The excessively polite tone raised her hackles but, realizing she was about to be left by herself, Kris shook off her paralysis and jogged a few steps to catch up with the retreating lieutenant. He guided her to the main ladder junction, and they ascended two decks before Kris found an opportunity to say anything.

  “Sir?” she asked as they approached a hatchway. “About my kit—”

  “A crewman will be along with it shortly,” he answered offhandedly as he palmed open the hatch and ushered her into a portside forward berthing compartment. Kris’s naval architecture was still a bit hazy, but from the captain’s comment, this must be where the warrant officers berthed. The noncoms would have the space just to starboard, across the main spline passage, with the rates occupying the forepart of the deck below and the rest of the crew the lower deck, just above the ground tier. Officers’ country would be far aft.

  The lieutenant hooked a thumb at the hatch. “You’re not in the system yet, but don’t worry. It’s coded open and so is your berth, and we don’t have any lock-downs scheduled. They’ll put you in with the next update at 0400.” Kris nodded, still befuddled and nervous about showing it. The lieutenant stopped and tapped the entry pad to open the third door on the left. “This is your berth.”

  Kris poked her head inside. There was a narrow bunk in a recess at the far end, two lockers and even an autovalet, not just a footlocker, set into the bulkhead, a desk console with its own chair, two folding seats and a mess port. “This is all for me?” She tried to keep the wonder out of her voice, but the lieutenant, whose expression had been verging on a frown since she’d asked about her kit, smiled. How much condescension was in that smile she couldn’t decide, but she tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “First time on a warship?” His tone was no less ambiguous than his smile. Academy mockups obviously didn’t count.

  “First time on a battlecruiser,” Kris answered carefully.

  “Oh, she’s a beaut!” His smile broadened considerably, and now there was no difficulty reading it. “Say, would you like a tour? I’m off after the last dog watch. You won’t be read in until tomorrow AM, so it’d be a perfect opportunity.”

  Right. That tour wouldn’t include your bunk, would it? But she smiled anyway, putting just enough ice in it to see if he’d get the hint. “Thanks, but I should check in with Commander Huron and see what he’s got planned for me.” Huron’s name or her hint—or both—worked their magic, and the lieutenant deflated appropriately. “Where do I mess, though?”

  “Warrant officers mess with us juniors in the C-deck wardroom, so I’d guess you’ll eat there. Or you can always punch up something in your quarters. The menu options are on the console. It’s okay if you’re not too picky.”

  “Thanks, Lieutenant.” Kris gave him points for being able to take a hint, but her cool smile did not change. He reached into a pocket and took out his card. “Tap me up if you need anything.”

  Kris took it. His name was Tomas Wagner and he was an assistant ESM officer, which meant he was responsible for helping oversee the ship’s passive sensors. “I appreciate that, sir.”

  Wagner touched his cap brim. “Most welcome. Good evening, Ms. Kennakris.”

  In his expansive, well-appointed day cabin, Captain Lawrence urged Huron into a seat with a cheery “No ceremony, Commander” that was a trifle overdone. Huron had never before met Sir Phillip, but he knew him well enough by reputation. He’d been promoted to his present rank in the last year of the late war at the ripe old age of thirty, partly through the work of providence and partly through the good offices of a powerful uncle, making him about ten years younger than most of his colleagues and only six years older than Huron. He had distinguished himself in several small actions, gaining a reputation as a bold, enterprising and skillful commander.

  Bold, skillful and enterprising he was, but not especially popular. He was known for being so punctilious as to appear frosty, and when he set himself out to be agreeable—as now—his affected bonhomie often did not come across as intended. He was particular about rank and refused to wink at the many little corruptions most naval men saw as their just desserts. His disapproval of alcohol was notably eccentric, nor did he tolerate any degree of licentiousness or vagaries of that kind.

  But more than these offenses against the immemorial customs of the lower decks, his crews disliked his habit of frequently destroying prizes. He condemned what he called ‘fortune hunting’ and felt it his duty to set an example of noble disinterest. His officers and crewmen, however, who saw no conflict between duty and profiting from a fine fat prize, were inclined to detect an alloy of hypocrisy in this attitude, for Sir Phillip, in addition to being a New Meridian peer, was from old money and, if his family did not ascend to anything close to Huron’s heights, he was still quite rich.

  During the peace, he continued to serve on active duty, unlike many officers—including Huron—who had put their commissions in abeyance to pursue opportunities outside the Service. For several years he had conducted anti-slaving patrols before transferring to the Naval Survey Department, a duty he found most congenial, having grown up in a family of surveyors who spent most of their time on planets that were not gee-standard, which accounted for his somewhat attenuated appearance. Now he was using the long fingers of both fragile-looking hands to arrange the cabin’s situation displays for Huron’s benefit, while he explained their current disposition in the Hydra.

  The significance of the Hydra lay in the fact that it was rich in habitable systems and interstellar ro
utes accessible to the old gravity-lens technology. It had been a major combat zone during the Formation Wars. In the aftermath, it was largely abandoned, partly because cosmic symmetries ordained that where conditions were hospitable to gravity-lens drives, they were less favorable for jump drives, but mainly because the region was devoid of the antimatter fields that fueled modern interstellar travel.

  But while a lack of convenient routes and available fuel had kept the Hydra from being resettled, that did not mean it was ignored—far from it. The Formation Wars had left enormous amounts of wreckage behind, from derelict starships and other valuable detritus that littered the ancient battle zones, to feral settlements which had never regained space flight in the aftermath of the carnage, some struggling along at pre-industrial levels even now. Wildcat salvage operations flocked there to exploit the first and slavers, the second; Bannermans and Tyrsenians primarily, but also many smaller and more ad hoc groups operating out of Mantua and Cathcar.

  Bannerman claimed a nominal suzerainty over the Hydra, but it had neither the resources nor the will to enforce it. Halith meddled opportunistically but had eschewed any major operations since it conquered Zalamenkar two centuries ago. The League formally rejected the Bannerman claims and asserted the right to patrol the region to maintain a tenuous contact with a handful of settlements, keep tabs on Bannerman, Tyrsenian and Halith activities and, as now, to discourage slavers.

  “The Admiralty made a damn job of it, of course,” Sir Phillip said as he finished uploading the latest data and zoomed in on their present location, the elements of his squadron picked out in a fine glowing green. “They promised us Gryphon and she was snatched away in the first week—no surprise there—but what’s truly nettlesome is that they filched Fury and Ethalion, and replaced them with Ixion and Swiftsure. Now the only destroyers we have are Avenger and Naiad, and being saddled with all these frigates”—he meant Ixion and Swiftsure, together with Kestrel, a stealth frigate that was one of the task force’s original members—“I don’t know how they imagine we will be able to cover our assigned sectors with anything like thoroughness.” He highlighted the vast expanse that was their intended hunting grounds. “One might think that the Admiralty would appreciate that slavers are not just foxy bastards but that their ships are legged to the nines, and no frigate yet built stands a chance should it come to a race. In a stern chase, I shall have to leave half my force in my wake and I don’t relish that, I tell you. Not that they have anything that can touch Retribution, to be sure,” he added, feeling that perhaps he was giving the wrong impression, “nor Avenger—nor Naiad, if it comes to it—but I should not like to chance the mauling they might give Ixion or Swiftsure should they come upon either of them alone.”

  “Then, sir, I imagine we’ll just have to stay ahead of them,” Huron remarked casually. As Admiral Sabr’s staff operations officer, he knew more than Captain Lawrence about the backstage maneuvering that had gone into forming his squadron. There was never any real possibility that they would be allowed to retain Gryphon, however ideal that would have been—the light cruiser was well armed for her size and wonderfully fast—but the decision to pull the two destroyers did smart.

  Huron thought it probably smarted particularly for Sir Phillip, because the reduction in force deprived him of being appointed commodore. He led the detachment as Senior Captain, nothing more, and if Lawrence despised fortune-hunting, he certainly did not feel the same way about glory-seeking. He coveted a rear admiral’s stars and hoisting a commodore’s broad pennant was a necessary prerequisite. Captain Lawrence had not yet achieved this distinction, and at this point in his career, he was beginning to feel time was against him.

  It was not time, as Huron was aware, but certain parties who were against the captain. His early career had created resentments that his personal qualities had done nothing to dispel, and those parties would not miss an opportunity to delay his step if they could. It didn’t help that his present CO, Rear Admiral Ilene A’Nakuma, was a Belter. Belters proudly retained their rough frontier manners and they especially detested Meridian spit and polish, while the aristocrats of the tightly linked Meridies Cluster tended to think of Belters as no better than colonists. Huron knew and respected Ilene, but he allowed that she was touchy. It was also known that back when they were both captains, she had been jumped over Lawrence into a position he thought rightly his, and that position was largely responsible for getting Captain A’Nakuma her step. Lawrence had made some impolitic criticisms, verging on personal, and Huron was mortally certain the admiral had not forgotten them.

  Such political machinations were to be deplored, but they were as much a part of naval life as the drinking and off-duty pleasure-seeking Captain Lawrence denounced in his Orders of the Day. As much respect as Huron had for Lawrence as a fighting captain, and that was considerable, he did not have much sympathy for his constant kicking against the pricks. At the moment, though, this was neither here nor there.

  It was possible that Sir Phillip’s thoughts were running in a similar vein as he considered his small force on the various displays. Certainly it was the best part of a minute before he responded with a wry bend of his thin, flexible mouth. “Stay ahead of them—that’s the trick, to be sure. Packed a crystal ball in your kit, did you?”

  Huron kept his visage professionally blank. “Not in my kit, sir, nor crystal. But I believe Ms. Kennakris might be able to contribute something in that regard.”

  “Yes.” Sir Phillip stroked his narrow jaw in a contemplative gesture. “I’ve heard something of her oracular powers. Jan RyKirt was loud in her praise on that score.” Huron was a little surprised that Lawrence knew about Kris’s role in the victory at d’Harra but he betrayed nothing. Then the captain pulled his long face into a frown. “You’ll forgive me saying, Huron—I know it don’t sound quite proper—but this whole business is rather irregular, you know. Making her a midshipman and all that. One hears things—can’t help it, really—and she’s so young. Do you really think she’s quite the thing?”

  With that, a certain undercurrent in Laurence’s manner broached the surface and it dawned on Huron that the captain’s issue was not so much with Kris’s age or irregular rank, but with the fact that her hastily assembled dossier had not included an image. Eight years as a prized slave had given Kris a horror of enhancing her looks—indeed, she would have preferred to disguise them—but her fine, strong features were not of the type that could be dulled or blurred. She had not yet realized that pulling her hair back and eschewing makeup in an effort to look severe only accentuated her knife-edged beauty.

  Huron was well aware of the effect this could have when met with unexpectedly, and given Kris’s peculiar status—betwixt and between as it were—and the captain’s strong feelings against shipboard romances, Huron could understand and almost forgive his anxiety. Almost but not entirely, and he knew how to express his feelings while staying just to the right side of sounding insubordinate.

  “I think, sir,” he said with a particular drawl that was accompanied by a hint of brimstone in his eye, “you’ll find that Ms. Kennakris can take care of herself.”

  Chapter Two

  LSS Retribution

  New Madras Outstation, Hydra Border Zone

  While Commander Huron and Captain Lawrence were indulging their several reflections, leading to Huron having a closeted meeting with Commander Ravenswood for a more detailed appraisal of the intended operation, Kris was unpacking her kit into her expansive, well-appointed space (as she considered it), and indulging reflections of her own. Being back aboard ship brought out weirdly conflicting feelings, as if she’d stepped into an old, familiar house only to find that while the superficial appearance was as she remembered, everything substantive had changed. It was a sensation not unlike her first days in the Academy’s mock-ups, but much more acute, and she was at a loss to explain it. The transit from Nedaema to Sol on a plush commercial liner had elicited no such reaction, nor the voyage out here on Tyche.r />
  Conceivably, it had something to do with the quality of the air, which was always just a shade too fresh on naval combatants with their near-religious fixation on cleanliness, so different from the fetid miasma of a slaver ship: the curious scent of sterility, of scoured desks and spotless bulkheads and metal too often polished. Or perhaps it was the subtle vibration of a living ship, sensed below hearing and overlaid with the myriad sounds of ship life: ventilators clicking and whirring, alarms and alerts beeping and trilling, the buried hiss of hydraulics, the sound of hatches constantly opening and closing, how footsteps and murmured conversations would ripple down the passageways.

  Whatever it was, it was not being helped by the fact that she still wasn’t clear on what she was supposed to do exactly, and it would have been even worse if she’d overheard the captain’s crystal ball comment and Huron’s response. Yet, it was still better than enduring two months of galloping boredom or, when it came right down to it, subjecting herself to the ‘slings and arrows’ (a phrase she’d picked up from Huron, and taken a liking to) of Sol’s outrageous societies.

  Picking up her xel, she tapped out a message to Huron, asking if he had any orders, and received an immediate reply that she was at liberty for the evening. Wagner’s offer was still on the table and he wasn’t wrong about it being a perfect opportunity. Kris took out his card, noted his contact number and paged him. Less than a minute later, he popped up in overlay on the display. She hit ACCEPT.