“What happened to the goon? After Quillan went down, I mean.”
“I—um—he didn’t look too good. They don’t teach goon orderlies hand-to-hand, I guess.”
“What did you do to him, Kris?” Huron’s tone was drawn out and long suffering.
“Popped a shoulder, I think.” A pause. “His knee looked kinda funny, too.”
Huron swore long and elaborately under his breath. That played right into their hands: they could use it and the night with him to establish a pattern of behavior. “Do they know about the other night?”
Kris slid her eyes down and away, poking absently at the thick, tangy cream. Scrutinizing Huron, she saw that the bruise on the left side of his jaw had faded, but the scratches across his right cheek still showed faintly. Then she saw him returning the scrutiny and looked back into her drink. “Probably. He, ah . . . asked ’bout—us too. Makes me a medical problem, doesn’t it?”
“Yep.” He shook his head. “I think you may have effectively transferred jurisdiction on this one.”
That's why the order—at the point where had Kris had stopped reading it—mentioned “Possible chemical rehabilitation.” Chem-rehab was a medical issue. An inquiry, however serious, or even hostile, would have to admit statements from commanding officers, records of past conduct, facts in mitigation . . . but a medical hearing wouldn’t. It was strictly about mental competence and her psychological state. If that’s what this turned into, he’d be effectively frozen out unless he could get evidence of what Quillan had been trying to do. That would be grounds to move this to Admiralty Court, where he’d have a lot more leverage. And neither Quillan nor Mertone were above reproach—
“Fuck’n hell, Rafe.” The cry came out a long, tired moan. “Every time I strap in I think about the million goddamned fuck’n gruesome things that could happen to me. I figured it for a short run, but . . . But now they’re gonna turn me into some fuck’n cutie-doll Quillan can sit on his desk with my head goin’ up-an-down.” Her voice had slurred, sliding into a lank drawl. “Jus’ like her . . .”
Huron shifted, troubled by the changed inflection, but much more by her reference to Mariwen. Kris had visited Mariwen in the hospital in the days after the attack on the steps of Nemeton’s Grand Exhibit Hall—just as he had. They’d both witnessed the physically perfect wreck in the bed with the utterly vacant smile, speaking slowly and precisely, her voice with its lovely indescribable lilt reduced to a mechanized imitation of itself. And that, in essence, was what Quillan was threatening to inflict on Kris, based on his obdurate belief that Kris was dangerous.
Frankly, Huron was a little surprised Quillan was still alive. “Kris?”
She looked up as if waking from a dream. “Hmm?”
“Lie low on this,” he said carefully. “Toe the line until—”
“What? The giant fuck’n finger of Huron comes down an’ makes everything better?”
“Let this one play its way through channels, Kris. Even if Quillan—”
“Channels? Quillan is the fuck’n channel! Don’cha get this? He’s got this all wired in from—Fuck, I don’t know. Shit jus’ don’ always work like ya think it does.”
Huron, inspecting Kris across the table, let a breath go. It was hopeless trying to get through to her right now. He needed a day or two to check Quillan’s recent records and to see if he could get the raw log of the psycheval. That alone would be enough to raise a reasonable doubt and buy some time. At the moment though, Kris would be much better off in her rack.
“How are you feeling?”
“Jus’ fragged out is all,” she muttered, dipping her finger in her drink and dabbling designs on the table. “I’ll stretch. Why?”
“You’re mumbling slaver talk.”
“Am I? Of all the rip-shit motherfuck’n things to . . .”
Huron stood up, pulled her credit chip out of the dumb waiter. “Maybe you’d like to get some rest?”
She shook more strands of hair out of her face, pushing them back ineffectually towards the nape of her neck. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Would you like to go, Kris?” he urged gently. “What time is it, anyway?”
“Oh-dark-thirty,” she muttered. “Don’ worry. There’s a graveyard shuttle. Won’t turn into a pumpkin for at least two hours.”
“Y’know, I’ve never flown in a pumpkin,” Huron remarked. “How do they handle?”
“Probably like shit,” Kris answered blearily.
“Shall we go find out?”
She stood up, stumbled a bit, and took refuge under Huron’s outstretched arm. “Sure. I ain’t got nothin’ to lose.”
Outside Romney’s sealed interior, Epona’s night air hit Kris square between the eyes, cold and wet and reeking of dead sea creature. The smell was, in fact, from a type of yeast that grew in meter-thick sheets on enormous shallow beds along the margins of Epona’s tideless seas. This highly nutritious yeast was Epona’s major export. Usually the smell was not that bad, but now it made Kris want to gag. She closed her eyes and tried breathing through her mouth.
A silver groundcar edged out from the alley behind Romney’s and Huron waved it by. The driver, a heavily muscled corporal, saluted with a choppy motion exaggerated by the distortions of the armor-glass windows, and the car accelerated down the deserted road. Kris looked longingly after it. Romney’s was about three klicks away from the shuttle port and clearly Huron meant to walk it. Odd. . . Huron had never seemed like a sadist before.
She leaned heavily on his arm as they trudged down the melt-rock pavement, ripples of nausea washing through her. He kept up a light, aimless patter, the kind of absurdly neutral state dinner conversation he must have become adept at while still quite young. She listened with not even half an ear, her eyes straying now and again to the bright pinpoints of light above. One of those pinpoints was the LSS Trafalgar, Kris’s erstwhile home, and—beginning at 0615 this AM—her prison.
Don’t be so g’damned impatient, she flung at a random winking light. I’m comin’. And in the best of company.
The night air was working to clear some of the alcohol haze from her mind, and when her stomach settled enough that she could concentrate on what he was saying, she interrupted him. “Huron, I . . . uh, heard rumors that things are heatin’ up.”
The arm she was leaning on stiffened, but in the dim light of Epona’s moon rings she couldn’t make out the expression on his face. “There are some indications, Kris.”
“Heard that—ah—Halith’s beefin’ up the Asylum Fleet again.”
Asylum was a secondary but important transit node here in Cygnus, an uninhabitable, asteroid-filled system that had been named by an Amalekite splinter group who thought the system could provide a sanctuary for their particular brand of fervent, narrow, rigid religiosity, free from all worldly temptation. The system was certainly free of worldly temptation, but also any means of worldly support, and within twenty years, the little colony had gone to meet the Maker, along with most of the colonists. That had been a century ago but the name remained, although now mariners used it not in the sense of a refuge but to mean: “You’d have to be crazy to go there.”
Asylum formed a stellar triad with Miranda and Epona. These three systems controlled major routes between the League, the Karelian Republic in Perseus, and the Kepler Junction. Because Asylum provided an excellent forward base from which to cover Kepler, Halith occupied it at the beginning of the war and built a major orbital resupply base there, protected by a dedicated fleet.
During the armistice talks that followed Wogan’s Reef, Asylum became a major bone of contention. The problem was that the League negotiators had “magnanimously” proposed to return to the status quo ante bellum. This position was disingenuous at best because the Bannermans changing sides after Wogan’s Reef had seriously weakened Halith’s overall position.
The key to Halith’s eastern domains (as referenced to galactic north) was Novaya Zemlya. This vital nexus was protected by Tau Verde, a massive
ly fortified system. But now, with Bannerman being an ally, the League could bypass Tau Verde via Zalamenkar, potentially destabilizing the whole of Halith’s Auriga sector. Worse yet, the League might even be able to occupy Amu Daria via this route. Amu Daria had been seeking independence for decades (by one means or another, including activities not far removed from terrorism), and if the League was able to find a solid foothold there, that would directly threaten Haslar and the critical Hissarlik transit node that served Halith Evandor itself.
Faced with these intolerable possibilities, Halith responded with a radical proposition: all forces would be removed from Cygnus, including the Kepler Junction, and the whole region declared a demilitarized zone. This meant that the League would abandon Epona Outstation and pull Seventh Fleet back to Regulus, while Halith would surrender Asylum, with its resupply base and supporting fleet, and pull the Duke Albrecht Fleet, which still occupied Kepler, back to the Rho Ceti Principate.
The League replied that it would be willing to consider the proposition if Halith agreed to allow the Principate to hold a monitored plebiscite to choose a new government. The current regime had been installed by what amounted to a Halith-supported coup, which had started the war. The League negotiators proposed that a joint commission be set up to arrange for and conduct the elections, and that a CEF Task Force be dispatched to monitor the elections and then remain there until the new regime was “stabilized,” while Halith deployed a unit of like force to protect their “interests.” The task force nominated was, in fact, Admiral Sabr’s—the one Kris and Huron belonged to.
Halith, knowing full well that any fair elections would go against them, leading to their ejection and, very likely, Sabr’s powerful task force, or one like it, being permanently based there, adamantly refused. They would fight to the death rather than accept the League holding a knife to their collective throats on both sides of their domain.
If the League would not agree to the original proposal, the Halith delegation insisted it must retain Asylum, purely for defensive purposes, as well as the control of Kepler to ensure the “freedom of navigation” through it. The real importance of Asylum to Halith, however, was that it gave them direct access to Miranda, which in turn allowed them to threaten Karelia, thus offsetting, to some degree, the League’s threat to their eastern domains. Miranda was home to a substantial pro-Halith minority, most of them colonists who had settled there during the half-century Miranda had been a Halith possession. This meant that any Halith incursion into Miranda would be met with a useful degree of popular support. Indeed, Miranda had already suffered one civil war, which the pro-Halith factions lost after the League intervened. With proper Halith support, it was unlikely they would lose again.
The armistice had therefore been signed with the matter unresolved, the negotiators having agreed to deal with it by treaty. But the treaty talks had gone nowhere, and the last Kris had heard—about a month ago now—the talks had been broken off. The Duke Albrecht Fleet had not been withdrawn from Kepler, and Asylum Station remained active.
Then three weeks ago, Admiral Joss PrenTalien had taken over Seventh Fleet with much fanfare. As the victor of Wogan’s Reef, PrenTalien being assigned to Seventh Fleet was, in itself, a kind of escalation. It was also anomalous. PrenTalien had been commander in chief of Pleiades Sector up until three months ago, when he stepped down in the wake of Fleet Admiral Westover’s resignation, and was succeeded by Hamish Burton, then Third Fleet’s CO. No one had expected PrenTalien to stay on the sidelines, but many were surprised when he accepted a “demotion” to relieve Vice Admiral Franklin Tannahill, Seventh Fleet’s well connected but unpopular commander. (This undoubtedly included Frank Tannahill, who’d thought he was immunized against such machinations and now found himself “promoted” to the General Advisory Board, where “old admirals” went to “fade away.”)
Nor was this the only stirring of a vigorously bubbling pot. With Admiral Burton’s blessing, Admiral Narses, the new CNO, had transferred TF 34 to Seventh Fleet in exchange for TF 72, now redesignated TF 7/34 and TF 3/72, respectively. The move was justified on the grounds that TF 34 was already stationed at Epona, where it had been supporting Seventh Fleet, and Admiral Sabr had long been PrenTalien’s deputy. Task Force 72 was commanded by Tymon Murphy, a well-regarded young rear admiral, who had been Seventh Fleet’s acting commander for a time after the Battle of Kepler. Notably aggressive, he was given the role of Burton’s deputy, in which it was thought he would complement the new CinC’s methodical and somewhat cautious manner.
More irregular, PrenTalien had been allowed to retain command of the flagship squadron of the Ardennes Strike Force, officially DREDRON Ardennes Tango, which was nominally Burton’s command. The rationalization for this was the loss of TF 72, which had contained the bulk of Seventh’s strike power.
The true purpose of this arrangement, as anyone with an eye for strategy knew, was that it brought together in this most critical sector (and likely flash point) the CEF’s three most famed fleet commanders: PrenTalien, Lo Gai Sabr, and Admiral Devlyn Zahir, the commander in chief of Cygnus. This concentration of firepower—physical, intellectual, and also moral—was thought sufficient in itself to curb any Halith tendency towards mischief making, especially regarding Miranda, where Ardennes was now stationed.
But then came these rumors that the Asylum Fleet was being reinforced.
Kris gave in to her wishful thinking. “So I thought that—if things really are heatin’ up—well, over at Miranda, PrenTalien’s fighter-light. And since we’re the closest, I thought—thought they might pull a couple of squadrons . . .” She let the sentence trail off into embarrassed silence.
Huron cracked his lopsided grin. “Divine intervention, Kris?”
She leaned a little more heavily on his arm. “Somethin’ like that.”
Huron shook his head. “Look, there is some action going on at Asylum, and no one thinks they gave Seventh to PrenTalien just because he was bored. But don’t get your hopes up, okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” Somehow, it didn’t come out quite as sarcastic as she’d intended.
As they approached the shuttle port’s fenced compound, a bored, sleepy-looking guard came up on the vid plate to check their IDs. Kris had some trouble with hers and the guard snickered behind his well-groomed mustache as he opened a hole in the security barrier inside the fence. They walked through the aperture, crackling with pink and violet coruscations from the interaction of air with the barrier’s edge effects.
On the other side, Huron’s driver was waiting for them in the groundcar. It had settled down on its counter-gravity skirts in a way that struck Kris as feline. He emerged from the armored canopy and saluted. It took a while for Kris to figure out that he was waiting for them to get in. Huron, however, waved him off again.
“That’s alright, Jenk. You can call it a night. We’ll get in the hard way.” The driver saluted a second time, got back in the car and drove it off.
Kris looked after the departing shape. “The hard way, huh?”
“Yep.” He pointed. “Over there. Let’s go. I need my beauty sleep.”
Kris followed the line of his arm to the far end of the compound, to the last docking stand, and the corners of her mouth pulled down. “What the hell? That’s not the graveyard shuttle.”
Indeed it wasn’t. What awaited them was a sleek black shape, poised on the docking stand like a piece of abstract sculpture. No squat, rounded transfer shuttle ever tried to mimic those lines, which looked hypersonic just sitting there. Short wings folded back over the molded scramjet intakes, and the ogive nose gestured upwards as if yearning to be let loose from the ground.
“That’s RyKirt’s gig!” Kris finally exclaimed, while Huron just stood there and looked smug.
“You are correct.”
“You borrowed the Captain’s gig just for a joyride down here?”
“I was top-side checking in, and I needed transport,” Huron answered reasonably.
Kris looked askance at him. “Can I borrow the keys, dad? Huh, can I, can I?”
Huron’s grin was unmistakable, even in the feeble light. “Take it however you like.”
They climbed in via the wing ladders, and Kris let Huron strap her into the co-pilot’s console seat. They ran over the prelaunch checks together—Kris rather perfunctorily because she was having distinct trouble focusing her eyes. Huron asked for, and received, launch clearance, and Kris heard the whine of the hybrid scramjets spinning up. Released from the stand, Huron kept the brakes on until the very last moment, supposedly because the runway was a little short.
When he let them go, the gig shot forward with a rush that slammed Kris back in her seat before the inertial compensators could fully kick in. They couldn’t have been more than fifty meters up when Huron stood the craft on its tail and punched up into a perfect ballistic arc.
Showoff, Kris thought, but before they broke the atmosphere, she was asleep.
* * *
Huron nudged her awake just before the tractor beam dropped them into the deck clamps with a thump. It wasn’t any worse than the usual handling, but in Kris’s state it hit her like a roundhouse kick. She grunted in protest and sat there, her ears ringing, while Huron unsealed the canopy.
He waited for several moments, then leaned over, and popped her strap releases. She got out of the seat on the second try and down to the deck without falling. The trip to her quarters with Huron holding her arm was a dizzy interval, seemingly much longer than it really was and hard to remember once they got there. Huron helped her off with her boots and out of her fatigues, and as she stripped off her tank top and began to wriggle awkwardly out of her briefs, he turned to go.
The Loralynn Kennakris series Boxed Set Page 112