Loralynn Kennakris 1: The Alecto Initiative

by Owen R. O'Neill

  Finally, she did wake up and saw a promise of light through the curtains: the beginning of Nedaema’s 37-hour day. She got up and splashed her face with the incredible treat of pure cold water and went to the kitchen. She found a tuberous thing with a yellowish skin and white flesh, embedded in what she took to be a butter sauce. She zipped the clear foil to heat it and a few minutes later was eating it straight from the package with a spoon.

  It was butter, but unlike any butter she’d ever known. It was silky and amazingly rich with a clean taste spiked with unidentifiable savory flavors that went with the tuber outstandingly well. Although initially she had not felt hungry, she ate it all, wolfing the last bites and scooping out the remaining sauce with her fingers and licking it off. Then she went to the larger bathroom and stared defiantly at the tub. Well, fuck it. She was going to fill the thing, goddammit, and she was going to fill it with warm water!

  She started the taps, adjusted the temperature and stripped, feeling rebellious and almost sinful. Then she slid gingerly into the inviting liquid, the absurd inconceivable luxury of gallons of warm water—feeling the thrill as her ankles, calves, and thighs submerged, and then plunged her torso in, all the way up to the shoulders. Water slopped and splashed alarmingly and she did not care.

  Leaning back, wetting the hair that fell half-way to her waist, she closed her eyes, let go a shuddering sigh and settled deeper onto the tub, feeling the warmth invade and caress her muscles. And within minutes, she was fast asleep.

  It was a mildly insistent undulating tone that woke her uncounted hours later. It did not wake her abruptly so she came to consciousness little by little, her body still rocking in the water that had maintained its perfect temperature. She felt immensely rested, better than she could ever remember feeling, and she had no idea what the sound was as she lay there, eyes closed, until consciousness took hold fully and she realized it was a calling card.

  She almost leapt from the tub and bolted wet, pink and naked into the living space where the card lay caroling on a short side table by the couch. But it was not Mariwen’s card. It was Huron’s and the disappointment, mixed now with embarrassment, started to cool the adrenal burst in her veins. She picked his card up, shook a last tremor out of her shoulders, and tapped ACCEPT.

  Huron’s face appeared and for several seconds looked perfectly blank. She didn’t understand it. Feeling awkward, she ran a finger across her lips. “Hi, Huron.”

  “Hi Kris,” he said, now with a perfectly neutral smile. “Am I interrupting anything?”

  “No.” Kris shook her head and put the card back down on the side table so she could wring out her long wet hair. “I was just taking a bath.”

  “I see.”

  Glowering defensively, she scraped water droplets off her torso with the edges of her hands and shook them. “I’ve only had a bath once before,” she said, justifying her outrageous, perhaps even wicked, extravagance.

  “Well, you can take just as many as you like,” Huron replied with a wider smile. “But I suggest you up the collagen mix if you’re going to take more than three a day—that is, if you don’t want your skin to shrivel up.”

  She flicked more water off, her mouth crimped to one side. “You’re teasing me again.”

  “No, actually I’m not. You really can if you want.”

  She snorted and sleeked back her wet hair. “And who’s gonna pay for all that?”

  “Well . . .” He smoothed the hair over his temple. “You could say it’s on the house.”

  “Okay.” She shook her head in disbelief. “If you say so.”

  “Anyway,” Huron went on, “the reason I’m calling is that I wanted to know if you were serious about learning to fly.”

  “What?” The scowl vanished instantly and she grinned down at the little card on the table. “Yes! Can I?”

  “Ah . . . yeah. You can,” Huron said with a vaguely quizzical look. “I have a friend who gives flying lessons. His name is Fred Heink—a good guy, good flyer. I flew with him a lot, back when he was in the Service. His rates are reasonable—maybe a bit more than some—but worth it. I’ve talked to him and he might be willing to give you a break. If you want, I’ll give you his number.”

  “Yes!” Kris almost shrieked, literally bouncing with joy in a tiny circle. Then suddenly she stopped. “I mean, how much is it? Is it still a lot?”

  “Oh, I think you can afford it. You should have your first disbursement soon, if it’s not in your account already. Fred’s lessons usually run about five hundred for the introductory course—that’s four weeks.”

  “Oh! Okay!” Kris was rosy with delight. “When can I start?” Smothering a giggle, she finally settled down on the end of the couch.

  “I’ll let you work that out with Fred. I’ve sent you his number. Call him whenever you like. He already knows who you are.”

  She giggled again, making little fists and wiggling them gleefully. “Thank you, Huron! Really! I really—I don’t know how to . . .”

  Huron just smiled benignly. “That’s alright, Kris, you don’t have to thank me. Or you can thank me by becoming a good pilot. We could use another good pilot.”

  Kris laughed, a peal of pure joy.

  “Just one thing though, Kris.”

  “What?” Her smile dimmed a touch as a hint of some new suspicion crept in.

  “You do know that the video on these cards is two-way unless you blank it, right?”

  Her forehead crimped with puzzlement. “Yeah—of course it is.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Huron pursed his lips and nodded. “Well, I’ll tell Fred to expect your call.”

  Her face relaxed back into a smile, not quite so giddy now but maturing into the warm glow of real happiness. “Thanks, Huron. Talk soon?”

  “Oh, you can count on it. Bye, Kris.”

  “Bye.”

  Huron killed the link, shook his head in wonderment, and tapped up Fred on his private line. Fred Heink was a grizzled warrant officer with a limp; an old Service friend recently retired, and he had never been known for an especially cheerful nature or for having a great deal of forbearance. So when he saw his friend’s still smiling, slightly pink face his first thought was that Huron, if not actually drunk, was certainly in an uncharacteristically cheerful condition.

  “Hello, Rafe. Been having a fine day, have you?”

  “You could say that, Fred.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “No complaints. But I’m calling because I just spoke with Kris—you remember her—and you have a student—a pretty enthusiastic student, at that. If you feel like giving her a bit of a break, let me know and I’ll cover it. Just don’t mention that I have to anyone—especially her. Okay?”

  “Means that much to you, does she?”

  “Well she’s different, Fred. I gave her your number and I think you can expect to hear from her pretty soon.”

  Fred pursed his mouth. Huron wasn’t normally given either to early drinking or enthusiasms, and he was having to rethink the root of his friend’s cheerfulness. “Looking forward to it.”

  “And Fred, there’s one more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “She likes baths.”

  “Okay.” Fred’s face compressed into a frown. This was not something that usually came up in regard to prospective flight students. “So?”

  “So if she calls after she’s taken one—or even while she’s taking one—just try to ignore it.”

  Fred’s eyebrows climbed almost to his receding hairline. “Okay?”

  “Like I said, she’s different.”

  “Thanks for the heads up.”

  “Anytime. Catch ya over the top.”

  “You too, Rafe.”

  Chapter Ten

  Eelusis Cosmodrome

  Nedaema, Pleiades Sector

  Kris sat cooling her heels in the No.4 hanger of a small private cosmodrome a few dozen klicks north of Nemeton. Cooling her heels literally, because in her eagerness to begin her third we
ek of flight lessons, she had arrived already wearing her flight suit, not counting on the unseasonably warm weather and that it would take forty-five minutes longer than expected to clear the traffic pattern for her lesson.

  So she sat in the big open hanger, baked by the afternoon heat radiating from the melt-rock paving, sweating and fidgeting until it occurred to her to remove her boots and gloves—the only parts of the suit that would readily come off—and find a place to sit where she could dangle her bare feet over a ventilation shaft. It may have looked a little ridiculous but Kris wasn’t concerned about appearances. She was going to try out a new trainer today, her instructor having concluded that after ten lessons in an old placid air-breather that couldn’t even break 15 kilometers altitude, she could handle something a little hotter. The new trainer was still an air-breather—it wouldn’t do suborbital—but the online specs promised a considerable improvement. So it would take a lot more than waiting almost an hour in the heat in an uncomfortable flight suit to cloud her happiness.

  As it was, the only cloud was Mariwen, who still hadn’t called back, but that was a modest cloud and even so, it was getting thin and wispy under the joyful glare of learning to fly, unlimited baths (it hadn’t quite sunk in until a few days ago that Nedaema was a water planet) and the fact that Mariwen was preoccupied with these hearings she was going to testify at, which Kris was hearing more and more about, and which were at least partially responsible for today’s delay.

  As Mariwen had told her, they concerned the slaver problem and were intended to galvanize public opinion into supporting the measures necessary to eradicate slaving in the Outworlds once and for all, and they were to last for three days. In attendance would be dignitaries from all over the League. A good chunk of the Grand Senate would be there and senior representatives from all the voting worlds, along with the Archon and the Scholiast, of course, and the Outworld governors. And the weight of the security needed to protect all these high-value targets was certainly impeding daily life and making just getting around—or getting a flight lesson—a terrific pain.

  Huron, when she asked about them, had been cynical. He rather thought that the voters hardly needed to be galvanized into supporting the slavers’ eradication. But he did see how it would help the political images of the people involved—he called it grandstanding—and given what Kris had learned about his political connections, she thought he was almost certainly right.

  But probably the biggest factor in dulling her disappointment over Mariwen was knowing that a call was more than she could reasonably expect anyway. Mariwen in her element was necessarily different than Mariwen in Kris’s element. But Kris was not sure she liked Mariwen’s element—she was sure she didn’t like Lora Comargo. She knew it might be completely irrational, but the way Mariwen had seemed to freeze when Lora spoke to her and the look that crossed her face afterward—the whole change that came over her—bothered Kris deeply. There was something about Lora’s tone; about the way she had addressed Mariwen, that almost reminded Kris of Trench: a sort of off-handedness like you were speaking to a pet, to something you owned.

  Kris felt a tremor just remembering it.

  It was absurd to think that Mariwen, of all people, would be married to anyone who even remotely thought of her that way and Kris could not account for it. But neither could she trust herself. Trench came back, often forcefully, at odd times and for no apparent reason. She would be perfectly fine for days and then something—a gesture, a phrase, a smell, almost anything really—would trigger a sudden visceral, almost tactile memory of him that would leave her shaking. She would be tense and jittery for hours after, going in fear of the next innocent trivial event that would again raise Trench from the dead. The rehab shrinks had told her to expect that, of course; they had taught her exercises that were supposed to help and maybe they did—a bit. But they were nothing to a long hot soak and there had been days when she swore she would never leave the tub.

  Hearing familiar voices outside at last broke this unpleasant reverie and she looked up with a happy expectant grin as two men walked through the hanger entrance. One was indeed her flight instructor but the other was Huron, and he was wearing a flight suit and carrying his helmet. Her expectant grin morphed into a questioning and candidly suspicious look.

  “Hi Kris,” Huron called out, smiling.

  “Hello Huron.” He certainly looked friendly but Kris was not yet sure how far she trusted the Navy Department’s motives. “What brings you here?”

  Huron grinned wider. “You do. I’m here to save you some money.” He waved the flight helmet at her instructor. “Fred here says it’s okay.” Fred laughed and said something Kris could not quite catch—the ending sounded like: “. . . can afford it.”

  “Money?”

  “Yeah. I thought I’d take you up today.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Don’t mind, do you?”

  “No!” Kris blurted, the pulse going fast in her neck. Take her up? A famous fighter pilot? “I mean—that’s fine. Great!”

  “Didn’t think you’d object.” He laughed. “Get your boots on. We’ve got clearance in five.”

  As Kris fumbled into her boots and gloves—her fingers weren’t working as well as they might—Huron passed a few quiet words with Fred and they shook hands. “See you back here in a couple of hours, Fred.”

  Fred chuckled low. “Have a good flight, Lieutenant.”

  Flying with Huron would have been surprise enough, but the real surprise did not become evident until they were out of the hanger and halfway through the jet park. Kris had assumed Huron would take the trainer Fred had scheduled but they walked right past it toward a sleek midnight-black two-man flyer off by itself near the edge of the apron.

  “Are we taking that?” Kris asked, almost breathless, the color mounting in her cheeks.

  “Actually, you’re taking it,” Huron replied with a glint in his eye. “I’m just along for the ride.”

  They walked around the beautiful little craft doing their ground check and Kris took it all in with a thumping heart: from the ogive nose to the two scramjets alongside the tailfin; the short semi-retractable wings and shielded thrusters in the fuselage. This was the real thing: a low-orbit capable high-performance kite. She had to suppress a giggle as they climbed in via the wings and Huron helped her strap into the pilot’s seat.

  “Now two things,” he said as he strapped into the other chair. “One: we are staying on this planet today. Your ceiling is sixty klicks—I see stars and you’re grounded. Be a good girl and we’ll see about taking it over the top another day.”

  Kris nodded as solemnly as she could. “Okay.”

  “Two,” Huron continued, “You’ll notice there’s no co-pilot’s controls in this thing. If you screw up, it’s all on you.” As the full meaning of that and the implications for this lesson began to settle in Kris, her excitement changed key and she swallowed. “Okay.”

  “Good to go?”

  Kris nodded. “Good to go. Sir.”

  Huron chuckled. “Nice touch.”

  Huron talked her through the preflight checks; she asked ATC for takeoff clearance and received it, then warmed up the scramjets while she taxied onto the jetway using thrusters. Huron gave her instructions in a calm professional voice, and as they reached the launch line and she engaged the brakes to allow the scramjets to spin up to a hypersonic whine, he said, “Hear that? The pitch?”

  “Yes. What about it?”

  “Every engine has it own note—get to know it. If you ever hear it off-tone—and especially if you ever hear the slightest hum or warble—abort immediately. Those turbines throwing a blade will ruin your whole day. “

  “Yes sir!”

  “Good. I hope to hell you’re not tone deaf. Now another thing”—she could hear the smile in his calm tone—“she’s not much like that slug you flew last week. When you release brakes, she’s going to bolt. Don’t worry. She’s kind of a high-strung girl and she just wants you to b
e gentle with her. Yank the stick around and she’s liable to take offense. That will also ruin your whole day.”

  Jeezus! What did I get myself into here? “Oh, ah—yes sir.”

  “Take it sweet and easy, and she’ll give you a very nice ride.” He glanced over at her. “You ready?”

  Kris took a deep breath. “Yes . . . sir.”

  “Then let her go.”

  As ready as she thought she was, Kris was not prepared for what Huron had meant when he’d said bolt. The flyer shot forward with an acceleration that squashed the air out of her chest and the end to jetway approached faster than seemed possible. It felt like she was fighting a hundredweight as she eased the stick back but the little craft took to the air almost magically without a flutter.

  As they screamed over the trees beyond the end of the jetway, she pitched the nose up to 30 degrees, eased back on the throttle and a few seconds later they broke supersonic. She was getting her breath back and her vision had returned to normal when Huron nodded. “Not bad.”

  He leaned over and punched up some data on the Nav-Tac and her heads-up display came alive with traces. “Okay, now take her over to two-one-niner, angels thirty, and show me what you got.”

  Kris had never in her life felt so thoroughly alive. The darling little flyer responded charmingly to her slightest pressure; the sound of the scramjets was a song of purest joy; the dark blue dome of the sky shading to the deepest sapphire at the zenith beckoned wantonly but she held firmly to her promise, all the time remembering his.