Loralynn Kennakris 3: Asylum

by Owen R. O'Neill

  “Ah . . .” Huron began as N’Komo’s already wide smile widened to its outer limits and Shyli covered a chuckle.

  “What?” Kris asked, her tone becoming challenging. “You said this was strip poker.”

  “Right,” Huron acknowledged, recovering himself. For indeed, boots were all Kris was wearing. Ever since they’d been acquainted on Nedaema, he’d known her attitude toward nudity was on the outré side, even by the standards of the CEF (which were notably relaxed), and it occurred to him he should have expected this response to his overly casual use of the game’s appellation. But she’d also let down her hair, and the way the shoulder-length chestnut waves framed her high-cheekboned face with its firm full lips and perfectly shaped hazel eyes under dark, arched brows was startling to behold. Combined with her tall, gracefully sculpted athlete’s physique—broad shoulders above a trim waist that flared smoothly into strong hips surmounting long legs—he wondered if they were getting more than they bargained for.

  Oh well . . . “It is. You just got a little ahead of us.” He stood and started removing his shirt. Shyli, locked in mortal combat with a fit of giggles, got up with him and took off her tunic, followed by N’Komo and then the others.

  Two minutes later, they were all attired alike in service boots, with their clothes neatly folded and stacked beneath their seats. Kris, her worries now substantially allayed, settled in and favored the other players with an expectant smile.

  “So what is it we’re playing for here, anyway?”

  Two: The Marines

  Z-Day minus 32 (AM)

  Port Lux, Saarland District;

  Tenebris, Cygnus Region

  Captain Minerva Lewis, CEF Marine Corps, opened her eyes to an insistent pounding. Blinking away the haze that was a remnant of the night before—three types of cognac, four varieties of scotch, and other drinks more dubious and less memorable—she identified the pounding as being from the door to the room, not her cranium. Sliding out from under the dark, lean, muscular arm that curved over her hips, she took her sidearm off an end table and cocked it while groping for her boots with the other hand.

  “What the fuck?” her companion muttered, shaking sleep-tousled dark red hair out of her light green eyes.

  “Some dead asshole,” Lewis muttered. “Just doesn’t know it yet.” She slipped her boots on and stood, otherwise naked, while the woman behind her also retrieved a holstered weapon. The pounding redoubled. “Stay there. Watch my ass.”

  “You know how I love watching your ass. Though, of course, I’d rather—”

  “We’ll get back to that.” Crossing the floor with a lighter step than might be expected for her size and condition—by the reckoning of Lodestone Station, her home colony, the captain was six-foot three and a solid one hundred eighty-five pounds—she checked the readouts near the door. They showed a single person demanding entrance. That didn’t mean much: the sensors in a flophouse this cheap were easy spoof, when they worked at all. She couldn’t recollect giving anyone sufficient offense last evening to warrant an oh-dark-thirty call, but some parts of the festivities were distinctly indistinct and, in this quarter of the port, there was no sense taking chances.

  Waiting until the pounding resumed, she popped the door partway open and swung her sidearm through—right into the face of a gulping, wide-eyed ensign. To his credit, the young man did not squeak.

  “It’s alright, Shy,” she called back to the sleeping niche.

  Lieutenant Shiloh Wells, flight officer, SRF, and every bit as innocent of clothing as the captain, stepped from around the bed. “Who’s the prick?”—gesturing at the pale ensign with her sidearm.

  “Who are you?” Minerva Lewis asked the young man, his blond hair still cropped close to his round skull, symptomatic of his first deployment.

  “Ensign Jeremiah Pfeiffer, ma’am.”

  “You don’t say.” Lewis uncocked the pistol. “So what’s all the ruckus for?”

  The ensign stepped through the entrance, trying to master his tendency to gape, and held up a flimsy. “We couldn’t reach you, ma’am—”

  “Damn straight. I’m on furlough here.”

  “New orders, ma’am. Highest priority. Direct from—”

  “Ah, just give it over”—taking the flimsy from his moist hand. She scanned it and scratched her temple with her trigger finger. “Oh fuck me.” Half turning, she waved it at the lieutenant. “I’ve been reassigned.”

  “Effective when?” The flight officer’s lovely face was set in a scowl.

  “Immediately, ma’am,” the ensign stammered. “My orders—”

  The captain resettled her cool gray eyes on him. “Look, Piffle—”

  “Pfeiffer, ma’am.”

  “Shut up.” Lewis crumpled the flimsy and stuffed it into the breast pocket of his rumpled white uniform. “That order came in at 0900 yesterday. When did they give it to you?”

  “1730, ma’am. When I came on duty.”

  “So they waited all day to send the dogs out. And you’ve been combing every bar, whorehouse, flophouse, and outhouse in this dump ever since, is that it?”

  “Ah—yes. Ma’am. I wasn’t to come back ‘til I found you.”

  “Uh huh. It’s 0630 now. So you’ve been at this for thirteen hours straight, huh?”

  “Um, I guess so, ma’am.”

  “You guess so. I guess you’ve been stoppin’ for some recreation here and there along the way.” She caught and held the ensign’s watery eye. “Or you’ve been doin’ a righteously shit job of recon.”

  “Um—ah—”

  “I don’t care which it is, Piffle. Thank gawd you’re not my problem. Now that you’ve found me, here’s what you’re gonna do.” With a hand on the narrow shoulder, she turned him about and propelled him forcefully through the doorway. “You’re gonna report back that I’ll check in at 1400—”

  “Make it 1500,” put in Shiloh with a wink and snicker.

  “1500. No. 1530. Run along now. That’s a good ensign.”

  “But, ma’am.” Pfeiffer was quivering on the threshold. “How do I—? It says immediate—”

  “Improvise and overcome, Ensign.” And she shut the door on his incontinent stammering. “Shit. Eight months on the line, and they can’t even give us three full days.”

  Lieutenant Wells approached with more sway in her hips than was strictly necessary and laced both arms about her much taller lover’s neck. “Then we’ll just have to make the best of it.”

  Lewis took possession of those round hips with both hands and dipped her head for a kiss. “Suppose so. Now that we’re both up, where were we?”

  “You said something about Oh fuck me, I think?”

  Z-Day minus 32 (PM)

  Port Lux, Saarland District;

  Tenebris, Cygnus Sector

  “Heya, Captain! What the hell’s up now?”

  Walking across the melt-rock paving of the open concourse that connected the flyer park with the rambling eyesore of Saarland District Headquarters (formerly a school, a casino, and—according to local legend—a brothel), behind which rose the steep stone-dotted scarps that threw the heat of the blue-white primary down on Port Lux, Minerva Lewis turned at the sound of the familiar voice.

  “Hi, Anders. Wish I knew. What’ve you heard?”

  A short lieutenant with a gymnast’s build, her company XO, sauntered up. “Seems we’ve been amalgamated.”

  “We?”

  “Yeah, they brought what’s left of the company here. Just got in a few hours ago.”

  “Amalgamated with whom?”

  “The 321st and two platoons of the old 35th. They haven’t told you yet?”

  “Nope. They sent this squirt around outta calling hours—too green to know you don’t pass out in a whore’s rack with your uniform on.”

  “So he had seen a naked woman before.”

  “Dunno. But he has now. Why?”

  “They were still laughing about it when I reported to the new CO. Y’all made q
uite an impression, I gather. You’d think nobody ever pulled a gun on him neither.”

  “Probably haven’t. Training ain’t shit these days.”

  “It’ll serve him well in the end. How’s Shiloh? She alright?”

  Lieutenant Wells had been on Camperdown; her squadron rotated out the week before the Miranda action. They’d both learned of the big carrier’s destruction just that PM.

  “She’s okay. A little tight around the edges.”

  “They take her outta the line?”

  “They did. Sending her back for a training billet. She’s overdue, but she’s still pissed about it. But whatcha gonna do?”

  Anders shrugged in philosophic agreement. “Give ‘er my best when you see her.”

  “Wilco.” Lewis checked her xel. “Gotta square up and sup with the devil. What’s he like?”

  “Kerr?” Another shrug. “Brand new light colonel. Terran. A bit young. Still got the parade gloss on him. I expect he’ll be okay once he acquires some field polish.”

  The lieutenant colonel’s service record, which Lewis was glancing over, suggested as much. She furled her xel. “Yeah. I just hope the polishing don’t cost too damn much.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Colonel Oren Kerr was a fit-looking man of medium height, with brown eyes, blond hair, and that peculiarly erect carriage of the newly promoted. A bit young was even younger than she’d expected; clearly he’d been marked for rapid advancement. Minerva Lewis made him out to be not quite thirty.

  She herself was forty-three, old for a captain, but like many officers—especially the young ones commissioned near the end of the last war—she’d put her commission in abeyance during the peace to pursue other avenues. In her case, those avenues led to employment in a couple of mercenary outfits before accepting a commission in the New UK’s marine corps, where she rose to the rank of colonel. Five years ago, she’d returned to her native Service, still at her former rank of first lieutenant, and received an immediate promotion to captain for her “record of accomplishment while on foreign service”—a polite term for soldiers in her situation—“tending to reflect well on her capabilities as an officer.” There she stayed, while the Oren Kerr’s of the Service passed her by.

  In peacetime, she would have likely retired a captain, perhaps with an ex post facto promotion to major to pad her pension, for she was a colonial with no interest (rather the reverse, her father—an inveterate smuggler—being a guest of the state at the penal colony on Paradise), while Kerr would make bird colonel in two years and brigadier in five, set to retire at her age with the full benefits of an eleventh-hour elevation to major general.

  War, however, was the great leveler, and the freshly minted Lieutenant Colonel Kerr no longer had an assured inside track on promotion, as railguns, 10-mm slugs, and shrapnel took no notice of social standing. Of course, Kerr could get her killed through inexperience, arrogance or plain idiocy—or all three—and she had no wish to die that way. If it came down to it, she’d told Anders after last month’s bloody debacle at Anandale—where they’d lost twenty percent of the battalion, with another half wounded or missing, and Colonel Hatch and Major Walker had both bought it—she was gonna die “her own fuckin’ way.” So she had a deep interest in taking the young colonel’s measure.

  At the moment, Kerr was perusing her service record and being rather too ostentatious about it, leaning back in his chair, with his left index finger idly stroking a drooping mustache which was a shade darker than his hair. That style had recently been revived by some marine officers, but Lewis thought Kerr had probably grown it to make himself look older.

  His right forefinger traced down the display of his unfurled xel as he spoke slowly under his breath. “Anson’s Deep, Second Miranda. Ilmatar, Pohjola, Saari. Two years in Probyn’s Irregulars, six years with the Tanith Rangers. Seven in the Royal Caledonians, 95th Rifles. Pathankot, Durwan Station. Rejoined and promoted. New Madras. Awarded the League Order of Merit with wound stripes there”—she’d paid for it with a bullet through the lungs—“Chiron. Themiscyra. Order of Merit augmented”—two dozen pieces of shrapnel pulled out of her torso and left leg—“Novo-Rangoon”—she’d lost an eye there and had worn a dashing black patch until they cloned a new one—“Najema . . .” His voice dropped to inaudibility at this point as he flipped to a new page and the finger continued its trace until it reached Anandale.

  He set the xel aside. “No doubt about it, Captain, you’re an interesting officer.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “And twice All-Forces Unarmed Combat Champion in the bargain. It’s not often that you meet one of those.”

  “Depends on the company you keep, sir.”

  Kerr swiveled his chair gently from side to side. “Yes, I see you operated with the Strike Rangers a time or two.” Or six. But only twice on the open record. “Know Fred Yu well?”

  “We’ve met”—tersely, as Kerr had not yet earned that familiarity.

  “And Corporal Vasquez, of course.”

  This time, Lewis contented herself with a nod. Assigning her to this prick was the reason they’d fucked her furlough sideways? Anders thought he’d be okay. What okay-ness had he seen in him?

  “What went wrong at Anandale? I hear it was a shambles.”

  Just about everything. “There’s a report, sir. I really can’t comment.”

  “I heard there was trouble coordinating with the relief force.”

  The problem was no relief force. Anandale—officially Operation Avalon—had been the proposed invasion of Wolf-Rayet in neighboring Cepheus. The colony was nominally independent, but by controlling it, the CEF could launch an attack on the much richer and more important settlement of Port Mahan, which had been seized by Halith early in the war. Occupying Port Mahan allowed Halith to threaten both the Andamans and the vital junction at Winnecke IV. Getting it back was a League priority.

  Lewis’s battalion was the tip of the spear. They were to land at Anandale, where Wolf-Rayet’s security forces were based and, having ensured they would not (or could not) interfere, move south to link up with the rest of their regiment and a division of New-UK ground forces to secure the starport of Naxos, at which the main force would land.

  As it turned out, Halith, who’d initially thought Wolf-Rayet’s neutrality worked to their advantage, had changed their minds on this point and, through the offices of a sympathetic high commissioner in the colony’s administration, had deployed two divisions of irregulars at Anandale and dispatched the Ilion Fleet to secure the system.

  On landing, Lewis’s battalion found itself almost immediately surrounded, while the appearance of the Ilion Fleet’s lead elements forced the invasion to be aborted. A relief force was standing by to extract the battalion under just such an emergency, but the comms protocols had been incautiously changed at the last minute and a transcription error had been introduced (by some little shit who’d better pray he never met any of the battalion’s survivors) which kept them incommunicado for nine crucial hours. The battalion managed to fight its way clear and cover the two hundred klicks to Naxos, where they were able to seize a motley collection of craft and evacuate the survivors, including all the wounded. Once clear of the planet, a plain language request for assistance, sent in the guard band, finally brought the relief force in, and completed the rescue.

  The after-action report, which Lewis herself submitted, tabulated the final result like this:

  Forces Deployed: 850 of all arms

  Killed: 169

  Wounded: 396

  Missing/Unaccounted for: 51

  Total Casualties: 616

  Fit for Duty: 234

  “That’s true, sir,” Lewis flatly answered the lieutenant colonel’s question.

  “You took command, I believe. After Major Walker was killed?”

  “Incapacitated, sir”—shot once through the chest and twice through the gut. “She died on the way back”—holding my hand and biting through her lip to keep from scre
aming ‘cuz there weren’t enough pain meds to go around, and she wouldn’t take a single dose away from her people.

  “Damn shame. Caitlyn Walker had a reputation as a fine officer.”

  Better’n you’ll ever be. Rest ye gentle, Kate.

  “Well—” He gave his smooth hands a little toss and sat up straighter. “You did save six hundred of our people.” The corner of Lewis’s mouth twitched at the words our people. “All in all, a remarkable accomplishment, under the circumstances.”

  “Thank you, sir.” As if you’re in a position to judge.

  Leaning forward, Kerr laced his hands on the desktop. “Now, about this promotion . . .”

  Oh, that’s what this is all about—he thinks I’m gunning for his job. It was true the regimental commander, Brigadier ‘Long John’ Henderson, had put her up for promotion. There’d even been loose talk of giving her a brevet rank so she could retain command. That obviously hadn’t happened.

  “I’m afraid I have bad news. Or perhaps I should say, less-than-welcome news. It hasn’t been denied exactly, but the decision is being held in abeyance. For the time being.”

  “I understand, sir.”

  “All good things in their time, Captain.”

  Right-o.

  “And you may rest assured there shall be no shambles under this command.”

  Now that’s a big fuckin’ comfort. “Yessir. Is that all, sir?”

  “Yes— Oh, not quite. Almost slipped my mind.” He retrieved his xel and opened a window. “Do you know a Commander Wesselby, by any chance? DSI-PLESEC?”

  Lewis checked her move to rise, curiosity suddenly piqued. Most people involved with intelligence or SPEC-Ops knew of Commander Trin Wesselby in one way or another, and some of them lived to regret it. “Not personally, sir.”

  “She addressed a message to you. As you weren’t available, it seems, they forwarded it to me. Peculiar.” He batted the window around to face her. “What do you make of it?”