Orion's Price (Loralynn Kennakris Book 6)

by Owen R. O’Neill

  Yet, it was his brother (through Nestor Mankho) who brought Loralynn Kennakris and Mariwen Rathor together. Had he not fixated on Mariwen Rathor as his centerpiece, had he not chosen to employ Mankho, they never would have met, never would have fallen in love. Loralynn Kennakris would not be here and Mariwen Rathor would not be coming to save her.

  And he wouldn’t be a hair’s breadth from possessing them both, as he certainly was about to do. All in consequence of a single random factor, whose effects had been allowed to propagate and mature. A concept his brother, for all his brilliance and his many admirable qualities, could never fully appreciate.

  Had his brother had his way, none of this would have happened. And how happy he was about that. It struck him as a sad waste that his brother could think of no better use for Mariwen Rathor than to send her up in a blaze of glory. But it made sense: the admiral had been a peculiar combination of esthete and acetic; Mariwen would not have fit into the entertainments he favored. His brother liked to set those up and then direct—watching the game, controlling it (as he knew, having featured in enough of them)—and Mariwen would have overwhelmed the whole. That would have been intolerable: his brother (who feared a crease in his uniform more than anything but failure) did not sit down at the feast; he took his pleasures at one remove. For him, the point was to maintain a finely balanced interplay of all the elements of his production.

  A rather pointless point, all things considered. The experience—that ought to be the point.

  General Heydrich rubbed his hands lightly, checked the time and glanced about his office. A drab space, and small. The villa was his getaway—the dull realities of work were not welcome here and he rarely used it. Yet he liked it for this meeting. The utilitarian setting, the complete lack of ostentation, lent a contrast that appealed to him, and he might as well put this thoroughly utilitarian desk to good use.

  Mariwen’s motivations for putting herself in his power were touching. Indeed, he was touched by them. From her request that Loralynn Kennakris be released to join Commander Huron in consular sequestration—which he was happy enough to grant—it took no great penetration to deduce she intended to ask him to approve Geris’ POW exchange proposal, offering herself in return.

  That too, was touching—as in touchingly naïve. Terrans put all too much faith in legal documents. Perhaps Mariwen did not fully appreciate that Geris’ proposal was just an offer to start talking about POW exchange, without any commitment? That even if he agreed to it now, he still had opportunity to derail it later. Loralynn Kennakris’s current status was a mere holding state, neither here nor there, and in any case, there was his surprise.

  Or, and perhaps more likely, she was merely desperate. He knew what she had been through as the result of being subjected to the neural implant by his brother; the years of rehabilitation. After all that, her mental state was no doubt questionable.

  Or more likely yet, as Arutyun seemed to suggest, she was just a pawn. Approving the proposal would certainly result in Commander Huron’s repatriation. And that, almost certainly, was the whole point. Only a very few people could have gotten Mariwen here and arranged all this. Huron’s father was the foremost of these few and he was a ruthless bastard of the first degree. He would have no compunction about sacrificing Mariwen to save his son.

  And that was the most touching thing of all about this whole situation.

  But not the best thing . . .

  Mariwen Rathor and Loralynn Kennakris. Together. It was almost too delicious to contemplate.

  His annunciator lit up again. She was here. It was time.

  A time, he intended to make the most of.

  The man standing at the open door of what appeared to be a small office was everything Mariwen expected to see. Except in height. He was shorter than she was, about three or four inches, given the modest heels of the boots she was wearing. Beckoning her in and inviting her to a seat, she saw him sizing her up, taking in the elegant black dress, the supple black leather gloves, and lingering on the bust of the corset bodice before returning to her face; the gaze of a butcher surveying a particularly fine piece of meat, but more repellent. He approved of what he saw, more than he wanted to let on, but the height disadvantage irked him a trifle.

  He seemed unwilling to sit until she did, and while that placed her in a more vulnerable position while he remained standing, she needed him to be at ease. She sat, with finely calculated grace. He moved to the other side of his desk and lowered himself into his chair, eyes on her all the while.

  “May I presume,” he said after the silence had drawn out a few crucial seconds—the dramatic pause any good actor inserted between walking onstage and beginning the dialog—“that there is no point in wasting precious time on pleasantries?”

  “None at all, General.” The use of his rank seemed to please him, judging his faint, distant flick of a smile.

  “Then I shall put the position to you, as I see it.” He leaned back, a lazy attitude, one hand tracing whorls on the desktop. “You are aware that a proposal has been made to resume exchanging prisoners. How you became aware—indeed, the whole account of how you came to be here, as fascinating as I’m sure it is—I will leave for another occasion. But nonetheless you are aware, and you know it requires my approval. You wish me to give my approval and for Loralynn Kennakris to be included in the initial prisoner exchange, and you are prepared to offer me something of value to me in return. Have I captured the essence of the situation correctly?”

  “Perfectly”—with an assenting dip of her chin.

  He placed his xel on the desk. “I have my order approving the proposal here”—pointing a long forefinger at it. “What am I to expect in return for signing it?”

  Mariwen shifted—a small movement that looked unconscious but wasn’t—and lifted her head. “Me.”

  “Very nice.” She saw a certain degree of stiffness invade his facial muscles as he said it, cheapening his smile even further. “But I am curious. What do you intended to purchase with this act of nobility? Aside from freedom for Loralynn Kennakris, that is. What for yourself?”

  It was a telling question, and Mariwen chose her answer with the utmost care. “Atonement?”

  “Fascinating.” She could sense the thoughts swirling behind the veneer of light amusement. “Truly, I am fascinated. Quite the thing to explore at some later— Ah!” He glanced down at the small blinking-orange rectangle on his desk, a pleased look suffusing his handsome features. “That would be my security detail responding. They will be arriving in a few minutes.” He raised his eyes to Mariwen and moved his head in a slight bow. “I regret this must bring our conversation to a close.”

  “General,” Mariwen said, her tone oily with sweetness. “It would be such a shame if we were to be interrupted now.”

  “Oh, I intend no interruption, Ms. Rathor. Quite the contrary.” He matched her inflection precisely. “And I would hate to impugn a woman of your evident gifts, but has it not occurred to you that there is nothing—at this point—that I cannot compel from you?”

  “General . . .” Mariwen sat up in the chair, inclining her torso to perfection. “I would very much dislike to impugn a man of your evident . . . qualities. But I believe you are overlooking something.”

  He questioned her with an arched eyebrow.

  Mariwen raised her arm and began slowing undoing the long row of silver buttons on the tight black glove. “You may—certainly—do anything you like to my body. But you can never compel me to do . . . this.” She closed her eyes briefly, her features smoothing to a look of utter peace and when she opened them again, she smiled. It was the smile that had made her a legend from Orion to the Outworlds, and even more. She put all the force of her love for Kris into that smile—all the warmth and rapture they had learned from each other during their brief months together.

  Heydrich went a little pale and swallowed.

  “Do we have an understanding, General?” Her voice was low and precisely modulated.
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  His eyes moved from her face to the nimble fingers that were still revealing that sleek forearm, the graceful hand suggestively flexing.

  “Just sign and authenticate that order and you can have anything you want.”

  He cleared his throat. “Indeed.”

  “Now, if you like. Here . . . if you like.” She began tugging the black leather glove off.

  He uttered something that sounded very like a grunt from deep in his abdomen and picked up a stylus and his xel. A brief scrawl, ending in a flourish. Pressing his thumb to the signature block, he looked up and the light in his eyes was unmistakable. “I should not have to tell you the consequences should I be . . . disappointed. But there. It is done.”

  “Show me,” Mariwen asked softly. He pushed the xel across the desk to her. Picking it up, she looked down to hide a flicker of anxiety. Her aim had been to have him hand her the xel. With his team on the way, she only had one chance left—if she had any chance at all.

  Looking at the words of the order without reading them, she fought down the fear that threatened to overpower her. If she could master her expression, if she held out the xel out to him, if that induced him to lean across the desk, then . . .

  “I wonder, however . . .” His voice, with the lazy, self-assured, almost gleeful intonation of one immensely pleased with himself, tightened the skin at the back of her neck. “I wonder if you are aware of what Loralynn Kennakris actually did at Asylum.” Her head jerked up and the hairs on her arms pickled against the tight sleeves as goosebumps erupted along her arms. She fought the urge to rub them. “Ah . . .” The glee bubbled to the surface and blazed in his face. “I see that you are. Then you will appreciate the woman has committed a terrible war crime, and bringing her to trial is no more than justice. Obviously, that order cannot apply to her.”

  The shock—a shock so intense it went beyond pain, almost beyond feeling, so that her body could only register it through extreme rigidity—seemed to rip a chasm through the middle of her soul, opening up a void that what remained of her floated above, disembodied, weightless, ready to fall, ready to be consumed.

  The paralysis passed, leaving behind a cold sweat and a sharp copper taste that swept over her tongue as a sickening hatred flashed through her whole body, at first icy cold, then feverishly hot. From his chair, Heydrich watched her with a hideous intensity.

  “You seem to have thought of everything. Haven’t you?” The words were whisper-soft, as dry and bitter as dead ashes. She shifted her weight, bringing her legs under her.

  “What happens now?” She held the xel out to him.

  He reached for it.

  If Heydrich hadn’t been armed, or if he’d carried two sidearms instead of just one, he might have stood a chance. If he hadn’t been savoring his victory, he might have noticed the subtle change in her posture. But no Halith officer could conceivably appear in uniform without a sidearm, few would consider the need to carry a backup weapon in their own compound, and none could have resisted how vulnerable Mariwen had appeared in that instant.

  So he was totally unprepared when she seized his wrist and gave it an expertly savage wrench. The bones in his wrist parted with an appalling pop; her other hand clamped on his forearm, yanked and twisted with all her weight behind it and his elbow went too. Heydrich’s face turned dead white and his jaws clamped, biting through his lip, but he didn’t scream or falter. He swung hard with his left arm, a powerful blow but awkwardly delivered, that caught her across the side of the face. Blood flew as a heavy ring on his middle finger cut her; she let go and he sagged back, left hand scrabbling for the gun in the holster on his right hip.

  Mariwen launched herself over the desk, stiffened fingers aimed at his throat. Reacting with blind instinct, he flung his good arm backhand to ward her off. But she wasn’t reaching for his throat at all, she was rolling to the side—to his right where the momentum of his swinging arm brought the gun within her reach. She plucked it from his holster and tumbled to the floor, feeling the light fabric of her dress’s skirt rip. Heydrich, missing his blow, groaned and lunged at her. She got a booted foot up into his stomach and shoved with all her strength. He catapulted backward, tangled with his desk chair and flipped over it to land hard on his back.

  Coming to her feet with his gun in her hand, Mariwen heard the entry pad chimed. She smiled down at him where he lay with his legs still caught in the chair, and there was nothing charming in it at all. “Always carry a backup,” she said, blotting her bleeding cheek with her sleeve. “That’s the first lesson my self-defense instructor ever taught me.”

  There was a second chime, more urgent than the first. “My—my security . . . detail,” Heydrich wheezed, the blood frothing from his mouth.

  “No time to lose then.” With a gentle squeeze of her index finger, the pistol fired. There was a single flat pop and Heydrich looked down, astonished at the hole in his sternum. His good hand reached reflexively towards his hip, fingers scrabbling for an instant before he sagged back to the floor, a perfect blankness erasing his shocked expression.

  The door behind her opened and she spun to face a squad of men in combat armor. The light pistol was no use against armor, but it would be enough to keep her from being captured. She was raising it beneath her chin when the leader put an arm out and barked, “Stand down!”

  Mariwen hesitated and the man opened his visor. “Ms. Rathor, I am Captain Malinen.” He spoke quick. “I have a message for you from Lieutenant Commander Loralynn Kennakris. The message is: ‘Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades or loose the bonds of Orion?’ ”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I am senior security-staff aide to Admiral Caneris. I am to tell you that Commander Kennakris and Commander Huron are safe. They are in no danger.” His eyes swept the room. He had already noted Heydrich sprawled on the floor and was looking for something else. “Now that this situation is . . . resolved, the exchange agreement will proceed. Will you please surrender your sidearm?”

  “Take your helmet off.” The captain complied. Mariwen aimed the pistol between his eyes.

  “I appreciate your concern, Ms. Rathor,” he said. “But there are things we must do here and we have very little time.”

  “What things?”

  “The room must be sanitized.”

  “And what happens then?”

  “I have orders to conduct you to Undersecretary Danilov. He will arrange your transport home.”

  “I meant to Commander Kennakris and Commander Huron.”

  “It will be some time before the arrangements for their exchange can be finalized. However, I have a copy of the order if you wish to see it.”

  She’d seen Heydrich transmit the order, but how would this Captain Malinen have gotten it so soon? And a copy of a Halith order would mean nothing her. “Have your men drop their weapons and step back.”

  “Do it,” the captain ordered. The squad placed their rifles on the floor and retreated through the doorway.

  “Hand me that rifle.” Mariwen nodded to the closest one.

  “You will find it heavy,” Malinen said.

  “Hand it to me.”

  He did. It was heavy. “The safety is not engaged,” he remarked in an unnaturally calm voice. Mariwen hefted the weapon; the captain and his men watched her intently. What now? If Kris really had given them the message, she meant for her to trust them. Had she? No one else knew she’d told Kris that—probably not even Huron. Could they have tortured it out of her? Learned it by other means? Mariwen knew full well what could be extracted from a living brain. But if they had done all that—if they knew to extract that memory—why mount such an elaborate charade? And if they had raped Kris’s brain as thoroughly as that . . . She sighed and dropped the rifle butt to the floor.

  “You’re right. It is heavy.”

  With a stiff nod, Malinen flicked a gesture at his team. “All right, find it. Excuse me, ma’am.” This last to Mariwen as he brushed past and joined a man examin
ing Heydrich’s corpse. “Forehead would have been a better choice,” he said, turning to look at her. “His brain may retain impressions.” Mariwen just stared at him. “I mean no disrespect.”

  “Got it,” his man said, putting down a handheld scanner and using a small tractor to extract the flattened bullet from the Heydrich’s pleural cavity.

  “Fragments?” the captain asked sharply. “Anything penetrate the floor?”

  The man passed a scanner back over the corpse and floor. “No. All correct.”

  “Good.” Malinen lifted Heydrich’s corpse back into the chair, straightened it into an upright sitting position, stepped back, drew his sidearm and fired one shot in the dead chest. The report made Mariwen jump; the body and chair flipped violently backwards and landed against the base of the far wall upon which a large starfish stain of blood was now spattered, about a meter off the ground.

  “Have you found it yet?” Malinen asked another of his men. The man had been busy scanning the walls, the desk, the fixtures. “Not yet, sir.” The captain checked the time, frowned.

  “Wait,” the man said. “I think . . . yes, here it is.” He was gesturing at a ventilation shaft in the ceiling. “Not easy to reach though.” Malinen nodded to two other men in his squad. They came over, and boosted the first man onto their shoulders. He removed the screen and they lifted him farther in.

  After a minute, he said, “Here.” His voice echoed from the shaft and a small recording device dropped to the floor. Malinen dug into a pocket and produced an identical device, handed it across, and it was passed up to the man in the shaft. A few seconds later, he dropped down with a thump, and Malinen nodded.

  “All correct. Sweep everything—blood on the floor, fingerprints, epithelials, inhalants.”