Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks

by Owen R. O'Neill

  “Slaver captain?”

  “Yeah. Lady Day.”

  “You know him?”

  “Yeah.” Her shoulders twitched. “He and Trench were tight.”

  * * *

  In his stateroom aboard Retribution, Captain Lawrence closed the after-action report filed by Lieutenant Wagner and a flock of other documents, including supporting statements from Chief Zayterland and Gunnery Sergeant Thompson, and the latest sitrep supplied by his TAO. Further examination of the vessel’s core flies and interrogation of the crew confirmed the identity of the dead captain and the boat as Chiller Down, originally a corvette of Bannerman manufacture. Lady Day was five days behind them, bound for Mantua with an assorted cargo they’d loaded at Pyramus, no more than a hundred slaves. That was all.

  Sir Phillip looked up with a frown that mixed guarded satisfaction with pique in approximately equal parts and met Huron’s eyes across his desktop. “That midshipman of yours is quite the unique animal, Commander. What track did you say she is on?”

  “She is a flight-officer candidate, sir.”

  The captain nodded as if that explained everything. “Not quite the thing, these methods of hers, y’know.”

  “Sir, I don’t defend her methods, but she did find that hidden compartment the survey missed, and she did manage to maintain control of the situation so the girl was recovered without further incident, even with a rather severe concussion.”

  “Quite.” It was not clear which part of Huron’s statement he was agreeing with. “In truth, I find it difficult to quarrel with her results. However . . . there is such a thing as discipline.” On reflection, he seemed to find the remark uncharitable, for he added, “But she is young. No doubt she will come to it in time.” His tone lacked conviction, however, and Huron, deep in his private mind, was afraid he could not entirely disagree.

  Chapter Eight

  LSS Retribution

  Killian's Reach, Hydra Region

  Twenty-eight hours later, the entry panel to Huron’s cabin chimed. He called out “Yes,” and the door opened. Kris stood on the other side, looking haggard. She obviously had not slept, her eyes were red and puffy and the lines around her mouth were deeper than he had seen them.

  “Excuse me, Commander. May I come in for a minute?”

  “Absolutely.” He motioned her inside and the cabin door slid shut. “Go ahead and sit down.”

  Kris nodded, swung out a folding seat from the bulkhead and collapsed into it.

  “How’s the head?”

  “Been better.” Kris shrugged. “Been worse too.”

  “Was there something you wanted—?”

  “That girl—from the fleshex,” she interrupted him. “How old is she?”

  Huron consulted his desktop and opened a report from Chiller Down’s logs. “Sixteen, it says here.”

  “How long since she was taken?”

  “Looks like three standard years and few months. Why?”

  “She’s way pretty, and moving her like that—she had to be a captain’s bitch. A prime bitch. You know what that is, right?”

  Huron frowned. “I think so, but can you be more specific?”

  “You probably don’t see ‘em. They keep us really close.” That us—they keep us—jangled harshly in his ears. “A few get sold or more often traded, but once you’re a captain’s bitch you can’t run. No one will touch you, y’know? And the life has . . . advantages.”

  Huron nodded silently, doing his level best to maintain a neutral expression.

  “One of the big things is that you don’t get passed around a lot—unless they get really pissed at you and post you open-season. But . . .” Kris paused, closed her eyes for a moment before going on. “They have these . . . gatherings. Captains bring their bitches for entertainment. Y’know—appetizers, first course, main course, dessert.” She paused, her eyes sliding away, and wiped her knuckles across her mouth. “This girl would have been main course.” Kris knew all too much about being the main course, but there was no reason to tell Huron that. “That’s where he was goin’—Mantua Solstice Gathering. It’s top-line—huge. Lasts a week or more.”

  Huron leaned forward, a sound forming in his throat.

  Kris shook her head and waved off the interruption. “No. What I mean is . . . lots of deals get done at these things. A lot of business. You might get handed over to seal a deal—probably will.” Huron swallowed: he hated the detached, matter-of-fact tone, the twisted pronouns—you might equaling I was—and leaned back in his seat, waiting for Kris to continue. After a moment, she did. “But here’s the thing. Some of these guys are VIPs—”

  “VIPs?”

  “Yeah. Big buyers, brokers, financials, major sutlers, haven owners . . .”

  “Okay.”

  “So you might get loaned to a VIP—couple of days, maybe a week if it’s really important.”

  “Is Mankho a VIP?”

  “No. Mankho’s up the food chain from those guys—top tier, three-M.” That was a bit of slang Huron knew: Money, Muscle, Materiel. “But anyway, some of these VIPs are Feds—or they bring friends who are Feds. Cops, port security, transit and customs guys. Um—”

  “Payoff or blackmail?”

  “Both, I guess. Sorry, I’m not making this real clear—”

  “It’s okay.”

  “But this is it—you remember what I told ya about goldfish?”

  Huron wasn’t likely to forget that anytime soon. He nodded.

  “Well, the bitches are the ones you want. If you’re a captain’s bitch, you hear a lot of shit. You meet all these people. A girl like that—she’s worth a ton in those circles. If something big was working—if they needed fed-hooks to pull it off, could be she was part of the deal. If they had a mark on the line, maybe she was in on that too. What boats was she on? Just Lady Day?”

  Huron thumbed through the report. “No. Says here she was first on Iron Maiden.”

  Kris had heard of the captain of Iron Maiden but she didn’t know him. She did recall him being pretty much a bottom feeder. That fit. Either Iron Maiden’s captain was into Corcoran for a fuck-ton and used that girl to settle up, or Corcoran poached her. Knowing him, he probably poached her.

  “Look . . .” Kris shifted restlessly. “Corcoran swung heavy. The way he was movin’ her, had to be a deal workin’. Good bet he was gonna loan her. That happens a lot right before a gathering opens—they have whatcha might call preliminaries. Probably not the first time either.”

  Huron flipped the file closed. “What might she know?”

  Kris tossed her hands to an impatient gesture. “She not gonna know what she knows. But she might recognize a voice or a face or . . . something. These guys are—fucked up. They like to run their mouth—get burly—talk large. And it doesn’t happen so often you don’t remember it. Try to find out if she got loaned, see what she remembers. If she can tag anyone, likely that guy leads to someone else. Somethin’ like this—gotta be way up there. If someone’s dirty—especially if someone’s dirty—she’s your best bet at tagging them.”

  “Will she cooperate?”

  “Dunno. Being a bitch—it’s not like . . . normal. Some girls, they uh—Corcoran could be a real jacked-up, undiluted motherfucker, but that don’t—doesn’t—mean . . . I dunno.”

  “Kris . . . I hate to ask you, but—”

  “You want me to talk to her.”

  “Would you?”

  Kris looked over at him; it was all he could do not to drop his eyes. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

  “Thanks, Kris. Get some rest, alright?”

  Kris nodded, stood up slowly.

  “Would you like something to help you sleep?”

  “No . . . Thanks.” She shook her head, loose strands of hair stirring about the drawn face. “I’ll be okay. Find out what she likes to eat.”

  The next AM, Kris slid into a chair across from the girl and a bowl of fresh strawberries. She was prettier close up—beautiful actually—with lustrous platinum-
blond hair waving across those exquisitely shaped green eyes under elegantly arched brows; high cheekbones in a face that hadn’t outgrown its adolescent softness. She had her heels up on her chair with her arms around her knees.

  “What do they call you?”

  “Tiara.” A soft, sweet voice, slightly breathy and not yet fully formed.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Kym.”

  “Hi, Kym. I’m Kris.” She reached a hand halfway to the strawberries. “You mind?” A shake of the pretty head, refusing to look up. Kris selected a strawberry and bit into it slowly. It was ripe almost to bursting, and she wiped the escaped juice off her chin with her forearm and then licked it off. Kym covertly followed the gesture with her eyes. “You were on Lady Day?” No response. “Ravel Corcoran?” That earned another momentary glance. Kris finished the strawberry. “He had you tagged?” Kris tapped her cheek—that was a popular place to put the organic nanochips.

  Kym shot her a hard look, then gave her head a vigorous shake.

  “Oh. Down there, huh?” Labial tags were uncommon, but she wouldn’t be surprised if Corcoran was partial to them. Slavers thought of labial tags as a kind of joke: not who they owned but what . . .

  Kym squeezed her eyes tight shut and nodded.

  “Fucker.” Kris selected another strawberry. “Trench never tagged me. He liked bracelets.”

  Kym’s head jerked up, green eyes wide. “Trench? You’re . . . you’re that Kris?”

  “Uh huh—Harlot’s Ruse. I don’t think you ever met him. I’d remember you.” Kris held out the strawberry.

  Kym regarded it uncertainly and brought a hand to her lips. “Everyone said you were dead.”

  “Really? Well, they did try pretty hard.” A beat of silence. “They’re good strawberries.”

  Slowly, the girl uncoiled a little from her seat; thin delicate white fingers reaching out, taking the strawberry; biting it, catching the juice on her bare forearm and licking it off. “Thanks.”

  Kris exhaled deeply and tossed her xel on Huron’s desk. Her throat burned and she swallowed twice to ease it. “It’s all on there. Two loans—not Corcoran’s idea. Somebody upstream leaned on him. One about four months before the conference on Nedaema. The other was two weeks before the Lacaille op. She doesn’t know where, but you might be able to figure it out from the cargo. Same guy—but the second time she brought a friend.”

  “She?”

  “Yeah—the loan was to a woman. Probably why Corcoran didn’t like it. Some of ‘em are strange about that.”

  “Oh.” Apparently guy was not a gender-specific term in the Outworlds. Huron turned the xel towards him, skimmed the record—it was long and detailed. “Good work, Kris.” He paused. “There’s one more thing, though.”

  Kris grimaced. “What?”

  “One of us has to talk to Kym—assess what else she knows. And tell her what’s in store for her when she gets to Sol.” He paused again. “Had she ever been off Lacaille before?”

  “I don’t think so. Didn’t sound like it.” Kym had said she was from some minor township in the southern temperate zone. Not the sort of place people went star-faring from.

  “What about Kap-Yar?”

  “Where?”

  “The main city. Lacaille’s starport.”

  “Dunno. Maybe not.”

  Probably not, Huron considered. Lacaille had been a middling prosperous Bannerman colony, but its nominal independence had not been good for it. Without the influx of subsidies (and it was likely the Bannermans let the colony go to stop paying those subsidies), the economy had started to slide and was still sliding. The ruling junta was a textbook example of gangster government, to the extent there was government at all. It was no surprise that they had invited Nestor Mankho, or that he was comfortable there. The degree of adjustment required to live on any League planet—

  He shook his head.

  “Huh?” Kris’s voice broke off his contemplations.

  “Nothing. Random thought. Which would you rather?”

  The tension in her neck was sending painful roots down into her back and across her shoulders. She’d never regretted not having access to a tub so much in her life.

  “I’ll talk to her.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  “But when we get back. Those rehab people—”

  “Sol’s not Nedaema.” Though in fact, he wasn’t sure how much difference that really made.

  “And she’ll get paid, right? Like I was?”

  That was a gray area, Kym not being a League citizen, or taken from a League-controlled planet or from League-registered vessel. But there were ways around that. “She’ll get paid.”

  “Alright.” Kris nodded, stretching her neck, hoping it would crack. “That it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Finally, the stubborn vertebra popped, appallingly loud. “Okay. I gotta go take a shower now.”

  Chapter Nine

  LSS Retribution

  Killian's Reach, Hydra Region

  They had been at it for hours—too many hours—and Kym’s answers were growing ever more vague and troubled. She was flagging badly, her spirits failing. Kris understood: the stream of faces, voice samples, and vids affected her too, and she was feeling guilty about pushing the young girl so hard.

  On reviewing everything Kym told them in the first interview, they’d concluded that the friend who accompanied the woman on the second loan could be key: the timing was too suspicious. Kym wanted to help; she persisted with the best will in the world, but it was no use. She couldn’t clearly identify anyone, and now her descriptions were starting to diverge, painful memories stirred up in a muddle that confused times, places, incidents . . . Kris decided to call it quits.

  She shut down the holographic projector, swept the desktop clean, closed the files, logged out of the ship’s libraries and furled her xel. Kym huddled on her bunk looking desolate. They’d moved her into this compartment so she could have a space to herself; the privacy also made debriefing easier.

  “Thanks, Kym.” Kris pocketed the xel and started to get up.

  “Sorry I din’t do well.”

  Kris looked over but Kym would not meet her eyes. “You did fine, Kym. Really.”

  “You gotta leave now?”

  Kris stopped and resettled slowly into her seat. “No. Not just yet.”

  Kym squirmed to the edge of the bunk. “What’s gonna happen to me?”

  “Nothing you don’t want to happen.” Kym didn’t seem satisfied with the answer. Kris changed tack. “Any family—friends?” Since Lacaille was a Bannerman client, there were no registries to check. But slavers didn’t raid Bannerman clients.

  Kym shook her head, then shrugged.

  Kris felt a chill settle in the pit of her stomach. “Who sold you, Kym?”

  That forlorn little head shake again. “Papa got in trouble with the local boss over money. We’d two bad years and he had to borrow again for planting.” She looked at Kris for a sign of comprehension.

  Kris nodded. That’s certainly what he would have said. “Your papa’s a farmer?”

  A tiny, distracted nod. “They came while I was out riding the bounds. I got back and they’d tied up Mama and Stacy in the house and—and . . .” raped them, Kris filled in the silence. “And they were taking Papa into the barn . . .”

  Kris let a pain-filled breath out slowly. “And so he sold you to make up his debts.”

  “No.” Kym shook her head and wiped at her eyes with her forearm. “No. I did—me. I told ‘em if they’d leave Papa alone—and Mama and my sister—I’d go. The boss said okay.”

  Oh good fucking Christ. Kris got up and crossed the cabin to sit beside her. Kym scrunched away a little, then stole a look at Kris and put her hands between her knees. Kris slowly put an arm around her shoulders—they were quivering.

  “I’m sorry, Kym.”

  The shaking increased, almost a paroxysm, and then Kym leaned into her. Kris brought her othe
r arm around, encircling the girl. The image of her own father as he sent her off was sharp in Kris’s memory: him standing alone in the swirling red road dust, hand raised, the early morning light slashing across his rutted empty face . . . Had he known? Had he asked? Or had he known not to ask . . .

  “I can’t go back.” A tiny, thin, halting voice, shattering her thoughts. “If I go back, they’ll kill them.”

  Yes, they will.

  “I’m scared—I’m so scared. Please don’t go.”

  Kris tightened her grip around the narrow shoulders, waiting for the tears to come, keeping her own back. They did—a salty, silent flood—and Kris, her own eyes dry and hard, held Kym and said nothing.

  “Fuck, Huron.” Kris was sitting in his cabin that evening, head down, rubbing her brows with the fingertips of both hands. She’d finally coaxed Kym into taking a mild sedative; she was sleeping now, and Kris hoped like hell she wasn’t dreaming. Huron had listened to the story without comment.

  “So, no luck with the woman or the friend she brought along?”

  “No luck.” Kris dropped her hands. “Got anything for a headache?”

  Huron reached over to his console and tapped out a request. “Did she see anyone who reminded her of the woman?”

  “Yeah—kinda.” Kris got slowly to her feet, went to the console, brought up one of the files they’d been trudging through. After a minute’s browsing she put half a dozen pix on the desktop. “She said the woman sorta looked like these here, but she wasn’t any of ‘em.”

  Huron cocked his head. “Interesting.”

  “What’s interesting?”

  Huron highlighted five of the six. “That’s the same woman.”

  Kris looked more closely at the images. Within the limits of surgery it was certainly possible. “Who is she?”

  “Her name is Sandrine Onstanyan, but she was born Byrony Levasseur. She gets a visosculpt every year or two, so pix aren’t much help—those are the latest we have. She’s Nestor Mankho’s wife.”

  “The fucker’s married?” She dragged her palms down her face. “That’s tight. Where’s she from?”