Loralynn Kennakris 1: The Alecto Initiative

by Owen R. O'Neill

  “We think so, sir.” Yes, his tone of voice was different; even more strained and jumpy. “She’s in sickbay. They’re still working on her.”

  “She was hurt?”

  “Not really, sir. I mean—well, yes—a little . . .” The ensign was trying desperately to articulate something that bothered him deeply. “Some—ah . . . abrasions and—you know, cuts and I mean uh, contusions—and . . . um . . .”

  “Where was she found, Ensign?” RyKirt asked just to shut him up. Weeping Jesus, the kid was unstrung. What had happened to this girl?

  “We found her on, um, A-deck, sir.”

  “Who we?”

  “I mean—me, sir. I did. She was with the captain.”

  “The captain wasn’t on the bridge?” A jittery headshake in reply. RyKirt looked at the girl’s image. Could it be that this kid found them . . . He frowned at his own obtuseness. That was a stupid thought, if there ever was one. It had been an hour and the report said the captain was dead.

  Dead.

  RyKirt snapped a look at Cardinovich. “You said the captain was killed?”

  “Ah, yessir. He was . . . was . . .” Cardinovich had gone so pale his flesh had taken on a yellowish tinge. He looked like he was going to vomit or faint or both. He started to quiver all over, still trying to answer RyKirt’s question. “ . . . you see . . . she . . . he . . .”

  RyKirt waved the ensign to silence; this was hopeless. He started typing on the console. Seconds later he had open the pertinent portion of the report young Cardinovich held limply in his hand, trying to keep himself at a species of attention. There was an image.

  Jan RyKirt had never seen anything like it. Not in over thirty years of service and thousands of gruesome machine-inflicted casualties. But no machine had done this. A sick feeling jumping in the back of his throat, RyKirt closed the report. “That girl did this?”

  “Yessir, yessir.” Cardinovich still looked like he wanted to be sick. He probably already had been. No wonder. “She was . . . still—still . . . well—sitting by him, kind of . . . well, y’know—”

  No, RyKirt did not know. And did not want to.

  “That’s alright, Ensign. You can go.” Now, before we have a mess to clean up.

  “Yessir.” Cardinovich bolted out.

  RyKirt sat back, shaking ever so slightly. Sonofabitch. Son of a Bitch. He popped a latch on the side of his desk, produced a shot glass and a silver flask, poured two fingers and tossed it back.

  Son of a bitch. Of all people, Cardinovich; a Nedaeman fresh off the beach. Among their other elevated accomplishments, Nedaemans were strict vegetarians.

  * * *

  Kris sat on a beige and cream sickbay bed, fidgeting. She hardly remembered being brought here, just a lot of smoke and noise and someone in battle gear picking her up like she couldn’t move by herself and carrying her out an EVAC port. She hadn’t liked that, but protesting and hitting space armor hadn’t done much good.

  They had carried her through a boarding lamprey and straight to sickbay where a couple of anxious young men cleaned her up—she’d managed to get an awful lot of blood on her—took her vitals and seemed relieved the blood wasn’t hers. As they worked on her and sprayed her clothes with a cleaner to remove the bloodstains, they’d started to ask how she’d gotten that way but the earnest young officer who had carried her out—she knew he was an officer by his shoulder flashes, Trench had taught her that—told them harshly to shut up.

  She didn’t know why he seemed so upset and she didn’t remember how she’d gotten blood all over her anyway. She suspected it had something to do with Trench. Trench was dead—she knew that—but she hadn’t seen what killed him. Maybe, it occurred to her, the young officer had killed Trench and thought he was her lover or something. The young officer spoke again to the medics—they were careful to not let her overhear—and after that everyone looked funny and got real quiet.

  She had told them then that it was alright. She hated Trench, really. He was your basic, brutal asshole. She was glad he was dead.

  That made the medics look even funnier. One of them said something stupid and then asked her if she wanted anything to help her sleep. She declined crossly—why the hell would anyone want to sleep now?—and asked if she could have something to eat instead. They said okay, that was fine, and they took her into a little room off to the side with the beige and cream bed and asked her to wait. Then they left. When the door closed, there a faint clicking noise and she knew without checking they’d locked her in. That pissed her off some—being treated like a criminal like this. She hadn’t done anything wrong; she was on their side, after all. Maybe they didn’t believe her about Trench.

  Well, they’d figure that out soon enough. Right now, she really wished they’d come back with some food. She felt like she was starving, although she remembered having breakfast just a few hours ago. She remembered it real well—it was that lousy goddamn concentrate they always ate. She’d finished it right before Trench had found out about the ventilator and all hell broke loose.

  She smiled. Trench had been so pissed when he sent her down with the animals. She was really happy he was dead. If she came across the young officer who had killed him again, she’d have to thank him. Right now she drummed her heels absently against the padded side of the bed.

  Where the hell were they? How long did it take to get food on this crate? She fumed a moment and then stopped it. She didn’t know what to expect on a navy ship. Evidently they didn’t just welcome you with open arms. It wasn’t the rescue she’d dreamed of, but that was okay. She was used to waiting.

  The door clicked and opened, snapping her to as if she’d been dreaming. It was an old trick of hers, going down and down into a deep cottony nothingness—a refuge when things got too bad, hurt too much, or when she was just bored to the edge of sanity. It was a good trick; freaked people out when she made it last more than a couple of hours. Weird that it had just happened now though—she hadn’t been trying to do it . . .

  A man carrying a tray stepped through the open door. He folded out a small table and put the tray on it. The door stayed open, but she couldn’t see anyone outside. She remembered the medics locking her in as they left.

  Probably have the outer door locked now. Bastards.

  The newcomer wasn’t any of the people she had seen yet. He was tall—taller than her by seven or eight centimeters— and young looking, although older than the medics or the young officer in the battle gear. This one had on crisp blue uniform with rings on the sleeve and bars on the shoulders. An officer too—and higher rank than the other one, if weight of braid meant anything.

  He was nice looking, she thought: rich brown hair winged with a touch of premature gray; a slightly crooked nose and a moderate mouth that seemed to pull to one side when he smiled. He was slim, but broad shouldered; clean shaven and devoid of earrings or tattoos that she could see—that fit with what she’d heard about fleet men. Kris decided that without that nose and the crooked way he held his mouth, his features would be almost pretty. It was the eyes that did it: warm dark brown, surrounded by long black lashes. Kris hadn’t ever seen a man with such pretty eyes.

  He hadn’t said anything yet and seemed to be looking her over in rather the way she was looking at him. She wondered if he liked what he saw—everyone else had. Trench could have gotten seventy-five, even a eighty thousand for her any number of times.

  Thinking about Trench made her wince uncontrollably. She looked down to hide the twitch in her shoulders and the officer smiled and said, “Hi, I’m Senior Lieutenant Huron, Arizona’s TAO. Sorry this took so long—there are about three hundred of you aboard right now and we’re having a little trouble adjusting.”

  He had a nice voice, she thought; pleasant, but stuck somewhere between a tenor and a baritone. Did they pick out him special? Is this where the ugly questions come in? She couldn’t imagine what kind of ugly questions anyone would think she knew the answers to, but that’s what a lot of people sai
d happened.

  “It’s getting cold,” Huron said lightly. “It’s not the greatest under any circumstances, but it’s better hot.”

  Carefully, she lifted the lid. He was crazy—it smelled wonderful. Her mouth watered. She glanced at him.

  “No, we didn’t spike it. But I’ll try it if you like.”

  If you’d spiked it, you’d have taken the antidote, she thought, but didn’t say anything. No, she decided, trust him. They were supposed to be the good guys.

  She picked up the fork and tried some. It was delicious; some kind of fish in a sauce she could not identify, real vegetables, and a mound of small red berries in a cup. She ate ferociously, only taking time out to gulp the fruit-flavored juice that came with it. He watched her eat and smiled.

  When she finished, she wiped her mouth on a napkin—a cloth napkin—how did they do that?—and glanced up at him. “So what happens now?”

  “What do you want to happen now?”

  That caught her off guard. Somehow she hadn’t managed to think that far yet. She crumpled the napkin in her hand. “Well, I . . . I’m not sure. I hadn’t thought—I guess . . .”

  Huron pulled a swivel seat away from the wall, sat down. “What do they call you?”

  “Kris.”

  Huron looked contemplative. “It’s important for you to know,” he began slowly, as if reciting. “It’s important for you to believe that you’re free to do what you want now. There are placement programs and a lot of other great stuff the taxpayers bitch about and you can take your pick. You’re not the first person in this position—I do wish you were going to be the last. We’ll help if we can.”

  She thought of the locked doors. “Does that mean I can go? I’ve got freedom of the decks?”

  She saw him smile, a little tightly. “It will. It doesn’t quite yet. I’m afraid the medics aren’t quite done with you. Your tests are being run now, and”—he sighed, as if trying to put a good face on something unpleasant—“they’ll want to run a psych profile. It’s no big deal, but we need to check you for implants.”

  Somehow, that made lunch settle kind of hard on her stomach. “Yeah. Okay.”

  “Sorry,” he said gently. “Slavers love practical jokes. Implanted slaves is a favorite. Of course, their notion of humor is blowing something up—but I guess you know them better than I do. I am sorry”—she wondered what the second apology was for—“but they’ve put some very nasty ideas into some very good people and sent them to us. We have to be careful. Please try to understand.” She nodded. “Anything else I can do for you?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Cassandra Station.”

  Kris hadn’t heard of it.

  “It orbits the primary moon of Nedaema. In the Pleiades.”

  “Oh.” The Homeworlds. Kris had seen vids. “What happens there?”

  “More of the same, I’m afraid. They’ll put you in rehab for a couple of weeks—check for a few things we can’t. Depending on who—or what—was on that ship with you, there may be an additional quarantine period. Give more time for the immunocytes to kick in.” A look of distaste crossed her face. “Yeah, I know. It’s likely no fun. But we don’t like to mix our microbes any more than we have to. Slavers aren’t too picky about that either.”

  She nodded again. Odd how after eight years, a few weeks could seem so long. Not that she had anywhere in particular to go . . .

  “. . . and somebody will go over your rights and entitlements with you. I can’t tell you much about that—I’m not a lawyer and I don’t want to misrepresent anything—but I’d say you have a healthy chunk of change coming.”

  That got her attention. “What?”

  “Policy,” Huron answered unhelpfully. “Part of the Repatriation Act. Every detainee”—a polite government euphemism for slave—“is considered to be hired on the day they’re taken and owed back wages for the length of their indenture, plus interest at median commercial lending rates. After eight years, that adds up to quite a lot. I can’t say with certainty, but I’d guess about a meg or so.”

  “A meg?” That couldn’t be right. Meg was another term for million, which was ridiculous.

  “Yes.”

  “About a million?”

  “Yes.” Smiling now.

  Kris was flabbergasted. She’d never heard of so much money in her life. No one on Parson’s Acre made close to that much in a lifetime. Even the richest landholders weren’t worth that. “But I was only eleven.” Kris didn’t know why that would matter, only that it should.

  “Makes no difference. Legally, you were an employed adult the moment they took you.”

  “Oh.”

  He seemed to take her remark differently than she meant it. At any rate, he suddenly got very solemn. “We try to be fair, Kris. Everyone gets treated the same—as close to the same as we can, anyway. There isn’t much else we can do, besides kill the sonsabitches. Sorry.”

  She shook her head—there wasn’t anything to apologize for. She tried to say so, but it didn’t come out quite right. He got up as if to go and handed her a card. It said Rafael Huron, Senior Lieutenant, CEF, and had the Arizona’s arms embossed on it. Funny, she thought, he’d never mentioned his first name. “We’ll be reaching Cassandra in about four days. I’ll try to get the needle-goons to let you out of here.”

  “But I thought you said . . .”

  He smiled, a very becoming smile. “Oh, they’ll still run a profile and all that—but at least you can wander around some. You’re clean. Well, I think so—and I haven’t been wrong yet.”

  Chapter Three

  LSS Arizona

  Inner Trifid Boundary Zone

  Lieutenant Huron was as good as his word. About fifteen minutes after he left, the medical director, a severe-looking man, older in appearance than anyone she’d seen so far, came in and said she could go. He did not look particularly happy about it but if he had any protests, he kept them to himself. They’d scheduled some tests for the next morning, he said, and handed her a pamphlet to look over in case she had any questions. A yeoman outside would show her to her quarters.

  She glanced haphazardly at the pamphlet and threw it away as soon as she was outside the sickbay door. The yeoman met her courteously, handed her a black wrist strip with a small display like a cel, and proceeded to take her to where she’d bunk. On the way, he explained some things about the ship she was on.

  The major compartments were all divided by airtight armored hatches, of course, but a lot of the interior spaces had hatches too. Some, like sick bay and a few other spaces that she couldn’t identify just had doors, but the rest were all airtight and secured. She figured it was a navy thing; there had been a lot fewer hatches on Harlot’s Ruse, mostly just at the main junctions.

  The yeoman explained that if a hatch seal showed green you could enter it. If red, it was either locked or restricted—the same went for doors. If you really needed someone on the other side, you could ask via the entry pad but you had to convince the system that the interruption was warranted.

  When she indicated she didn’t like that idea much, the yeoman smiled and explained, “The system’s kinda dumb. Tell it pretty much anything and it’ll asked for consultation with whomever it is you want—unless they got a real strong lockdown logged. If so, better respect it. People don’t lock down here without a damn good reason.”

  Getting around was pretty easy, he said: the black thing on her wrist was a pathfinder. If she wanted to go somewhere, or got lost, she could punch up the destination on the display and a pale lavender line in the floor would guide her to it. If the line was red, the requested area was restricted. “You can go there, of course—you just can’t get in.” Otherwise, she could display a set of green lines that showed all of the places she could go.

  “Must get confusing with all these lines running around,” she remarked. “How do I know which is mine?”

  “Oh, you’re the only one who can see yours,” he explained. “They got a some
sort of neural projector built in—it shows your line just to you. It ain’t really on the floor.”

  “Oh,” Kris murmured. She regarded the pathfinder dubiously. They hadn’t had such stuff on Harlot’s Ruse or anywhere else Kris had been.

  The yeoman went on merrily playing tour guide, showing her one of the five messes, the rec-rooms, the library. He pointed out other places—most of which were off-limits—and she listened with a scant half an ear. Finally, they stopped in front of a sealed hatch.

  “Through there has been set aside for you ladies,” he said. “Sorry it’s a bit crowded. We’re not really equipped to handle all you lot but I hope you’ll manage. Your bunk’ll have your name on it, and there’s a trunk with some clothes and such. I can’t vouch for the fit, but we did what we could.

  “The head’s through the back to the left, with the showers. There’s some regs on the wall you oughta get familiar with—the consoles have all that info too. Bring up the bookroom if you wanna read or check out the shows. If you need to get a message off-ship, one of us’ll pass it on to the Exec—we’re under comms silence but I don’t know how strict. Dinner’s at four bells; that’s in twenty minutes. We got Foxtrot mess fixed up specially for y’all but you’re welcome at any of the others, of course—‘cept the NCO’s. You’ll need an invite there but they’ve got the best food on the ship and I don’t think they’d mind you asking.” He made it sound quite personal.

  “Better than the officers?” she asked.

  “Oh yes, ma’am,” he answered vehemently. “Officers is kinda stingy, on account of they gotta buy their own food, not like the rest of us. Plus they got to eat what the Exec likes.”

  “Is that bad?”

  “Depends on the Exec. Commander t’Laren’s a real good sort, though. She’ll probably come round and look in on y’all after dinner. You haven’t met her?”

  “Uh . . . no.”

  “You’ll like her,” the yeoman said confidently. “Have a nice PM, ma’am.” He turned to go. She was confused. “Wait. How do I . . . I mean, don’t you have to—”