The Loralynn Kennakris series Boxed Set

by Owen R O'Neill

  “Fox is down on both carriers,” Donovan added, indicating that landing operations were complete.

  “Status on Jellicoe?”

  “Confirmed dark and quiet. The demolition team is awaiting final clearance.” As Sabr nodded, Captain Donovan touched his ear piece. “Tech Exploit is reporting—”

  A blinking icon appeared on the main display, interrupting Donovan as the face of Commander Stacy Callahan, acting captain of LSS Ramillies, appeared in overlay.

  “Yes, Captain?” inquired the admiral, acknowledging Callahan’s temporary position. Ramillies belonged to Seventh Fleet, and thus Callahan was not part of his command. But Sabr was senior to Rear Admiral Tymon Murphy, CO of Seventh Fleet’s Task Force 72, making him senior officer on station. Undiplomatic and direct to a fault, he’d nonetheless laid himself out to be agreeable with Murphy’s subordinates, now going so far as to show the glim of an uncharacteristic smile.

  What Commander Callahan made of this unexpected gesture—Lo Gai smiling rarely portended anything desirable—he strove to keep out of his expression, rendering his rugged ebony face unnaturally wooden. “Main power has met ninety-five percent threshold, sir,” Callahan reported. “We’ll be able to achieve jump potential within the hour.”

  Sabr allowed his smile to develop itself. Ramillies’ engineering and damage-control teams had indeed labored like heroes to get the big carrier hypercapable so quickly. “Well done, Commander. My compliments to Admiral Murphy, and do you know if he can spare a moment?”

  “He’s in sickbay with Captain Shannon, sir.” Alex Shannon had been critically wounded when a torpedo strike destroyed most of Ramillies’ bridge early in the battle. He and Murphy were old friends.

  “How is Captain Shannon?”

  “I’m afraid it’s touch and go, sir.”

  “Please keep me informed, Captain. If he regains consciousness or takes a turn for the worse, do notify me at once.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Convey my personal compliments to your people as well.”

  That cracked Callahan’s stolid expression, set there by long hours of incalculable strain. “Ah—Thank you, sir.”

  “Anything further?”

  “No sir.”

  “Very well. Flag out.” With a brief acknowledgement, the commander’s visage faded. “My gig is ready?” Sabr directed the query sideways to Donovan. If Captain Shannon’s condition became dire, he felt a strong moral obligation to see him a final time.

  “We can have you there in five minutes, sir. Would you like us to close the range to Ramillies’?”

  “Do. I would not like to be a minute late.”

  As Donovan relayed the request to Shiro Watanabe, Nike’s captain, Sabr returned his attention to the status display and resumed paging through the screens. They felt the mild acceleration and a subtle change in the vibration of the living metal of the deck as the battlecruiser answered her helm.

  “What was that you were saying about Tech Exploit reporting in?” Sabr asked conversationally.

  “They report a clean sweep. Korolev is salvageable, but Leuthen and Kuhn aren’t even fit for scrap.”

  The news was received without evident emotion, being no more than he’d expected. It would have been nice, of course, if they’d been able to salvage IHS Leuthen, one of Halith’s newest heavy cruisers, instead of a tin can like Korolev. Kuhn, an old Kurgan-class destroyer, had been barely worth more than scrap before the battle. (Why Halith had felt she was still battle-worthy was a mystery to him.) But such things were part of the fortunes of war.

  Turning to consult the big omnisynth, he saw that the Halith force was continuing its retreat. Shadowing them was Battlecruiser Division 61, led by Captain Sir Phillip Lawrence in LSS Retribution. It took no imagination to visualize Sir Phillip looking for stragglers with his usual predatory intensity, for it was clear from his dispositions. He’d pushed his destroyer screen ahead to the outermost limit of tactical prudence, no doubt hoping to provoke the enemy into doing something rash.

  Donovan saw it too, and looked inquiringly at his boss.

  Sabr shook his head. Lawrence could be counted on to judge these things to within the finest of fine hairs, and in another half hour, physics would put it out of the hands of either fleet to do harm to the other. In the meantime, the Halith commander over there could see Sir Phillip straining at the leash as well as he could, and to the extent this demonstration helped to hurry him on his way, Lo Gai was all for it.

  A nod from his chief of staff brought Sabr’s attention to a lit icon on the main screen even as the chime sounded. It was Rear Admiral Murphy. Murphy had been Seventh Fleet’s acting CO during the months of Vice Admiral Angharad Ross’s incapacity after the defeat at Kepler last year. Considered not to have enough time in grade to be promoted, he’d been replaced by the politically powerful Vice Admiral Franklin Tannahill. It had proven to be a divisive appointment. Admiral Devlyn Zahir, Cygnus Sector’s famously fiery commander in chief—she was the first cousin of Sabr’s spouse and the resemblance was marked—had argued vigorously for Murphy’s promotion, doing (given her impolitic nature) perhaps more harm than good. But there could be no question where Seventh Fleet’s sympathies lay, and Zahir had taken the slightly unusual step of restructuring TF 72, assigning the bulk of Seventh’s strike power to it, making Tannahill’s position almost redundant as far as offensive operations went. Tannahill, a fussy commander with a reputation for being something of a martinet, fumed at being sidelined in favor of his more aggressive subordinate but could not easily object.

  During the controversy, Admiral Sabr had developed a healthy respect for Murphy’s qualities, and when TF 34 had unexpectedly happened on TF 72 already engaged with Halith’s Duke Albrecht Fleet, he’d elected to leave Murphy as officer in tactical command rather than divide the command structure in the midst of a fight. With the fight over, he still resolved to tread lightly.

  “Tim, how are you? And how is Captain Shannon?”

  “Pretty fair, Admiral, but I’m afraid they had to tank Alex.”

  “Sorry to hear.” Putting someone in cryostasis was the method of last resort, and even if they could be revived and treated, the chances of postmortal cryonic dementia were lamentably great. “I don’t doubt he’ll pull through, Tim.”

  “Me neither,” replied the younger man with a slightly strained smile. Alex Shannon was said to be so stubborn that he expressed the trait down to the cellular level. “Though if we’re wrong, the afterlife is gonna be a bitch of a place to reside in.”

  “True words. Under the circumstances, I suggest you jump ahead to Epona as soon as Ramillies makes potential. We’ll watch the gate here for you, just in case the Doms decide to get ambitious.”

  “I appreciate that, but we’d rather not leave you holding the bag.”

  “You’ve got most of the wounded, Tim. Better you go ahead. We’ll follow as soon as they’ve jumped. Should they change their minds, you know it’ll be the last thing the sonsabitches ever do.”

  “Can I at least give you some people to help with Blenheim? I hate to see the old girl like that.”

  “Thanks, but Kyle and Dalton are doing all they can. Keep your people in case something shakes loose on the way home. But as you appear to be in a giving mood, I’ll ask for a prize crew for Korolev.”

  “Happy to.” Murphy couldn’t entirely disguise the twinge of relief he felt. “I’ll send one right over. Have you thought of a provisional name for her?”

  “I believe that should be your privilege.”

  “Your people captured her.”

  “Your people destroyed Revanche.”

  “Okay. Since you insist, what do you think of Carlow?”

  “Appropriate.”

  “Thank you, Lo Gai. See you back on the beach.”

  “Happy return, Tim.”

  The line dropped and Rear Admiral Murphy’s image faded. With a glance to confirm that Sir Phillip was still keeping within the bounds of pr
opriety—he was, if those bounds were considered a trifle elastic—Sabr spoke to Captain Donovan. “Raise Blenheim, please.”

  A moment later the harassed and sweating face of Lieutenant Jeremy Dalton, Blenheim’s senior surviving engineering officer, appeared.

  “What’s her status, Lieutenant?”

  Dalton blotted his forehead with a sleeve. “I’m afraid it’s no-go, sir. We could get the plant back to maybe forty percent in two, three hours, but she’ll never take the strain. The keel’s near sheared at the root and there’s nothing but good will keeping things together aft of frame one-oh-four until you hit E-Ring. All the stringers god made, if we had ’em, wouldn’t help.”

  “Understood, Lieutenant.” Sabr had been prepared for that. Throughout the AM, he’d cherished a private hope that Blenheim might have enough left in her to get home, even if they had to bundle her with Trafalgar. But hope was like water in the desert, and it disappeared into the sand just as quickly. “Secure things there and prepare to disembark your people.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Should I page Commander Kyle? He’s down the hole.”

  “That’s not necessary, Lieutenant. You’ve done all you can. Report when all’s secure.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  As the line dropped, Sabr returned his attention to the omnisynth. “When Lieutenant Dalton gives the all clear, tow Jellicoe and remaining captures alongside Blenheim, secure with ley lines, and set the fusion bottles to blow together.”

  “That’ll take some time, Admiral,” his chief of staff remarked cautiously.

  “Then make the time”—fixing the captain with his dark-shadowed gimlet eye. “She’s a proud old ship and she handed out better than she received. She doesn’t deserve to go alone.” His turbulent black gaze returned to the main screen. “No one should go alone.”

  Z-Day minus 41

  LSS Trafalgar

  en route to Epona, Cygnus Sector

  Kris came to in sickbay, her body suffused with a deep burning ache, and tried to lift her head. Nothing happened. The false sensation of muscles contracting utterly betrayed her. A spasm of panic coursed through her, to which her body was unable to respond with so much as a twitch. A medical corpsman, hovering over her and intent on a scanner, did not notice she was conscious until she made an effort to clear her clogged throat.

  “Hey,” he said with what he obviously thought was a reassuring smile.

  “Wha . . . why . . .” She tried to force the words out but they would not come.

  “Oh, nothing to worry about,” the corpsman said, as he put a mask over her nose and mouth. Something sharp and bitterly cold shocked her throat and lungs. “We gave you a paralytic. Can’t have you moving until the assessment’s done. That’ll be a little bit.”

  The vapor left a sour, caustic aftertaste on her tongue but the congestion in her throat was gone. The shock of being unable to move subsided, and she tried again. “Why . . . why’d—I pass out?”

  “Oh, that.” He put down his scanner and peeled back one eyelid to shine a flashing blue light in her pupil. “That was a bit of an infarction you had a there. No big deal—suit defibrillator took care of it. Kinda expected, y’know.”

  Kris did not know.

  “Well, other than that shoulder and five busted ribs,” he explained, “you got a righteous case of R&R. Nothing we can’t handle, but yeah—there’s some smooth muscle damage. Not too much, but we’re gonna keep you wired here for a bit.”

  So that’s what it feels like.

  R&R in this instance stood for “rattle & roll,” which was the short form of “shake, rattle & roll,” the informal name for the muscular damage pilots suffered from sustained ultra-high gee maneuvering. Doctors called it Submesodermal Microrupture Syndrome, and Kris would have given a lot to have lived her whole life in ignorance of how it felt.

  “How . . . long?”

  “Can’t rightly say. Doc’s gonna be back soon. He’ll fill you in.” He picked up his scanner again, scribbled more notes. “Sorry we can’t do more for the pain just yet. It’s a . . . well, I guess you’d say it’s diagnostic.” More scribbling. “I know it sucks.”

  You think it sucks, Kris thought acidly.

  “And you got a visitor. Wanna see him?”

  “Commander Huron?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He gestured with the scanner. “Gotta send this to the Doc. You want I should get him?”

  “Sure.”

  Moments later Rafe Huron stepped into her field of vision, wearing a carefully unconcerned and false smile on his disconcertingly handsome features. “Hi, Kris.”

  Kris tried a fake smile of her own. “We gotta stop meeting like this.”

  “Yeah.” Huron rubbed the bridge of his nose, slightly crooked from an old break he refused to have corrected. “I’m not going to ask how you feel.”

  “That bad?”

  His mouth twitched sideways. “Well, I know it’s not good. Been there myself.”

  “Really?”

  “Twice.” He dropped his hand, looked off toward a bulkhead. “Let’s see, the first time was . . . ah . . . damn! I forget his name.” He shook his head. “He was a stubborn bastard—wouldn’t take no for an answer. That was in the last war. The second was Mananzas Cay. I got ship duty after that.”

  “That was about a year before we met, wasn’t it?”

  “I guess so.” He grinned and it was genuine this time. “Lucky, huh?”

  Kris gave him an answering smile. “Lucky.” Then the smile faded. “Did Tole make it back?” In the murderous melee that had taken place over Prince Valens, Kris and her element leader had gotten tangled up with six Halith fighters in a swirling dogfight that pulled them far from the main action. Tole’s fighter had taken heavy damage early on and the last she’d seen of him, he was arcing away, out of control, trailing molten slag and gas.

  “Most of him.”

  “Most?”

  “His bird was pretty much toast and he had to swim home. Rough ejection. We got him back all right, but if he wants to have kids, he’s gonna have to clone ’em.” Huron did not look like he was kidding. She decided not to ask. His gaze wandered the room for a moment before meeting her eyes again. “You know, there’s no shame in taking a pass under circumstances like that.”

  “I hate to come home empty handed.”

  He smoothed the hair over his left temple. “You could leave some for the rest of us.”

  “I think I did.” A pause. “Who the hell was that guy?” She had dealt with the remaining bandits after Tole was knocked out of the fight—that went okay and she was no more than singed. It was the other fighter who’d shown up a couple of minutes later—out of nowhere, flying solo. No sane pilot ever flew solo. It was almost like he’d been waiting . . .

  “Won’t know for sure until all your data gets collated, but I have a hunch.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Think of the best Halith pilot we know.”

  “No way! He’s a captain now—teaches goslings back at Haslar. No way they let him go up.”

  “Maybe. There was a rumor on the Boards he wangled a staff posting—director of flight ops planning for the Haslar Fleet.”

  “That wasn’t the Haslar Fleet out there.”

  “No, but it’s possible he talked his way into a transfer. After all, what’s the point of being flight ops planner for a fleet that never leaves port except to parade around the core systems to impress the plebs?”

  “You really think it was Banner?”

  “That’s my guess, but we’ll see.”

  Kris closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Captain Jantony Banner had scored over two hundred victories in the last war. Between the wars, he’d formed up a training squadron with three friends, all top pilots: Lord Garvin, Pavel Heinck and the Vicomte Sallinger, and gone touring with their protégés. They called it Banner’s Flying Circus. Garvin had been killed in an accident on Vehren years ago. Huron had shot down Pavel Heinck during a skirmish here in Cygnus.
Sallinger was reportedly attached to the Prince Vorland fleet and still flying.

  Jantony Banner . . . Her lips moved without her knowing it and Huron broke in on her thoughts.

  “I did confirm one thing, though.”

  She didn’t bother to open her eyes. “What’s that?”

  “You just made ace-in-a-day. Got five and a half out there.”

  That got her eyes open. “I did?”

  “Yep. Congratulations. Tole’s gonna owe you a triple fuck-ton of beer.”

  Had things been working better, Kris might have gone to the effort to make a face. She’d learned to like coffee, but she couldn’t grasp the Service’s deep attachment to beer.

  “I thought it was only four—that the rest got away.”

  “Well, no doubt you were distracted at the time.”

  Fuckin’ no kidding.

  “Get some rest, Kris. I know it feels bad now, but it won’t last. They do a bang-up job on SMS these days.” She detected a ghost of a smirk and a slight twinkle in his eye. “No pun intended.”

  Kris rolled her eyes as he turned away.

  None taken.

  Z-Day minus 39

  LSS Trafalgar, on-orbit;

  Epona, Cygnus Sector

  Forty-eight hours later, supported by a cocktail of carefully blended painkillers and duly admonished by the ship’s doctor about her immoderate behavior, Kris walked into the wardroom with one arm in a sling but under her own power. The nanocytes had done their ticklish work—a not exactly painful process but one that produced a singularly annoying crawling sensation—and were now breaking down and being flushed out of her system as fast as her overworked kidneys could manage. They had given her some pills to help with that, along with strict instructions to scrupulously avoid rich food and strong drink—clearly someone’s idea of a bad joke.

  In truth, it wasn’t as much of a joke as Kris had first thought. The atmosphere of rejoicing that flooded the carrier after the battle had been tempered by the loss of many friends, but it was rejoicing nonetheless. There was no shame in feeling elation at still being alive, and if there were friends to be mourned, that mourning could go forward just as well, or even better, in good fellowship and strong drink as in sorrow and tears.