Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks

by Owen R. O'Neill

  The original plan had been to employ another stealth corvette, but no vessel was perfectly stealthy, especially in low orbit, so the team would have to deploy from an assault shuttle—a risky proposition. During the Lacaille operation, the Nedaeman corvette had been detected and unhappily, they lacked a firm estimate of Tirana’s surveillance capabilities: they might be as good as Lacaille’s, or even better. On the other hand, a slaver entering a system much frequented by slavers (and few others) was only to be expected, and what better way to impersonate a slaver boat than to use a real one?

  So the deal went through, at slightly below market value, and a little later that PM, Kris inked a contract to hire the craft back to PLE-SOCOM (Pleiades Special Operations Command, under whose auspices the mission was being run) on generous terms for a Terran month, fully indemnified and with a guaranteed option of extending it another thirty days. Thus, the CEF was spared risking a very expensive bit of hardware, and Kris left the table with a new corvette and some additional padding in her bank accounts. That night, a team of carefully chosen engineers set about adding clamps for an assault shuttle and tweaking its grav-plant profile and electronic signatures on the off chance someone on Rephidim might have the ill-fated Chiller Down in a database.

  That Kris was going to accompany CAT 5 on her own boat was the result of developments that began when Mariwen’s brother had interrupted their meeting to hand Huron a chip. Antoine Rathor worked for the Office of TransStellar Issues, the Terran security organization that dealt with smuggling, slaving and terrorism by non-state actors. No official conduit existed for sharing information between a Terran security department and PLE-SOCOM (or anyone in the CEF), but where officialdom failed, personal ties might suffice, especially when a retired Speaker was involved, and CNO had provided an MOU with conveniently vague wording.

  The chip was a dump of all the info OTI had on Mankho and his known associates, and Antoine Rathor had also privately communicated to Huron during their brief conversation that they expected an update from a trusted source ‘very shortly’. In this case, very shortly was the AM before Kris finalized the purchase of Flechette, and the update was that since the Lacaille raid, Mankho had started using doubles. As Kris had told them, Mankho had a horror of surgery, denying him biosculpting as an option to confound his enemies, but creating doubles was almost as good—in some ways, perhaps better—and he had no lack of ‘raw material’ to work with.

  How many doubles had not been ascertained, nor the exact whereabouts of all of them, but the source was confident that a number were with him on Rephidim. A good double could deceive any casual observer and even most acquaintances, and Corporal Vasquez had only imagery to go on. But no double could deceive someone who knew the subject intimately: the way they walked and stood and moved, their expressions and how they gestured when they spoke, could never be perfectly copied. And Kris, although she’d been in Mankho’s company for just less than two local weeks, knew him as few people did, and in ways fewer still would forget, even if they lacked Kris’s highly retentive memory.

  That attaching her to the operation was the obvious solution did not mean it was a simple or easy one. Kris was not close to being field rated: what she knew of ground combat consisted of her unarmed combat training and the introductory small arms classes she’d taken. About such things as deploying from orbit, covert reconnaissance, small unit infantry tactics, fireteam drills and the myriad other operational details CATs took for granted, she had no clue. The expected length of the transit—two Terran weeks—was precious little time to polish what skills she had.

  It was, however, more than no time, and she would not be called on to do much more than keep up, stay low, and follow orders. She would also have to understand a few of the rudiments of what CATs did and how, but as for that, a willing mind could achieve surprising results in fourteen days.

  Whether they were dealing with a willing mind or a reluctant one was unclear. Since returning from the Hydra, Kris had become even more withdrawn. When Huron met privately with Yu, neither of them were under any illusions about the risks of bringing her on the mission. But they also knew they were facing a digital choice: there was just no fallback at this point. Without Kris to finger Mankho, they would have to scrub. So they weighed the risks and resolved to approach her, though Huron waited until after the purchase of Flechette was wrapped up to do it. In spite of her evident pleasure at the deal, she acquiesced with a look so wooden as to give him pause—an unconsidered decision, almost, as if accepting the inevitable.

  The extent to which Huron or Yu guessed what lay behind the stolid expression and stiff, clipped response they did not advertise, but they certainly didn’t think it was trepidation, and they were right. What Kris’s sullen manner had previously attempted to mask was a seething frustration that, having found Mankho—having had to recall and explain all he’d said and done to her, down to the feel of his skin and the way he smelled when he got excited—she was to be left behind, consigned to the sidelines, an impotent distant spectator, while people with no personal stake in the issue did the real work.

  As the days crawled by, her desire to be in at the kill hardened into a need, a physical pain deep in her core that she tried to keep off her face but couldn’t keep out of her voice, leading to short, sharp answers and failing to meet people’s eyes.

  What she endeavored to conceal now—a more difficult thing by far—was the surge of elation she’d felt when Huron broached the possibility of bringing her along, an emotion beyond anything in her experience. The echoes were with her still, and the trepidation she did feel—that if they knew, they might have second thoughts and leave her behind, after all—made for an unhealthy brew, always just below a boil.

  And they might have—Kris had no idea, for they were determined to be as impenetrable as she—but they also might not. They knew, to a degree she did not appreciate, that when infiltrating Hell, bringing a native guide along could make all the difference.

  * * *

  Not fully aware of her new status as a native guide, Kris sealed her bag, a smaller bag than usual because it contained only her personal effects (her uniforms and other kit had already been sent ahead), and took it out into the main living area where Kym was looking at the console with an expression of settled discontent. Dropping it by the entrance, Kris tried to think of something appropriate to say.

  In point of fact, she’d been trying to think of something appropriate to say since she started packing. In the past few weeks, Kris had come to realize she liked Kym—liked her a lot—and this was where they would part ways. Until now, Kris’s life had not afforded many opportunities for saying goodbye, and never with someone she actually liked. She had some vague ideas on the subject, mostly gleaned from old video entertainments: the goodbyes were always heartfelt and rather overlong, and no matter how final they were presented as being, some glaringly improbable circumstance always seemed to bring the principals back together at the end. How exactly this mapped to real life, Kris didn’t know, but she had a strong suspicion that it didn’t.

  “How’s it going?” she asked—a feeble attempt at buying a few more moments. “Finding anything?”

  Kym shrugged. She’d been getting info from the placement center in the Office of Colonial Affairs’ Repatriation Bureau for the past week on resettlement options, and while she studied them all diligently, so far none had any degree of appeal. This was hardly surprising: the Bureau’s matching algorithms were not well adapted to someone of Kym’s background.

  Fortunately, there was no hurry. The exception decree they’d applied for had been granted to the extent of providing placement assistance, and that carried with it a small payment, good for about three-month’s living expenses. Commander Wesselby had arranged for a more generous ex gratia payment through PLESIG, which Huron’s father had then augmented with a disbursement from some particular funds within Terran intelligence that he retained a degree of control over.

  Between them, those pa
yments approximately equaled the repatriation settlement Kym could have expected if she were a League citizen, but the total was, in fact, somewhat more. This was because Kris, in ignorance of the particulars of those disbursements, had arranged for Kym to receive a modest monthly stipend, paid for out of the proceeds of her own prudently invested repatriation funds. The end result of all this benevolence was not to make Kym rich (though indeed it added up to wealth far beyond any thoughts she may have had), but to give her a long breathing space before committing herself to anything. Kris knew, of course, that Kym, while deeply appreciative of the kindness she was being shown, wasn’t so much interested in breathing space as not living on a moon. She hoped this wouldn’t incline Kym to be overly hasty.

  Wanting to put the best possible face on it, Kris said, “Well, you’ve got plenty of time. This place is leased through the end of next month—it’s all paid up. No worries.” She had already explained that, but given her own unfamiliarity with financial matters and the sometimes embarrassing episodes it had caused (and continued to cause, if the truth be told), she wasn’t sure it had really sunk in.

  “I know that”—pointedly informing her that it had, indeed. “An’ I’m gonna pay you.”

  “Kym, it’s already paid—”

  “You paid it,” Kym insisted, firing a scowl over her shoulder. “You’re bein’ too nice again.”

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  “How much?”

  Kris stepped to the console, leaned over Kym’s shoulder and opened her accounts screen. She showed Kym the bank draft for the lease amount and what the remainder came to. Kym, lips compressed into a studious frown, opened her own accounts, and under Kris’s guidance, stroked the funds across.

  “There,” Kym pronounced with great satisfaction.

  “Yeah. Thanks. Um—” Kris checked her xel. It was getting late. “I—ah—gotta go. You take care of yourself, okay?”

  Returning to the entryway, she leaned down for her bag and heard the sound of Kym practically flinging herself out of the chair barely in time to brace for the impact. Kym’s slim arms came crushingly around her waist and Kym’s face was mashed into her breast.

  “Gonna come back, right?” A softly piercing voice, muffled by the cloth of her fatigues.

  In her hurry of spirits, Kris wondered if Kym could have possibly forgotten that after this op, she was returning directly to the Academy and wouldn’t leave it again until the end of the next term, seven months from now.

  “Um—not here—”

  “I don’t mean that.” Kym cut off her faltering response with a look in her startling green eyes that was almost fierce. “You’re gonna—gonna be careful out there, right? You’re gonna come back. You’re not gonna do nothin—” White teeth worried at her trembling lower lip. “Ya gotta come back. ‘Kay?”

  “Kym,” Kris began, feeling more acutely self-conscious than she could ever remember being. “I’m just goin’ along as an observer. Nothin’s gonna happen. A’course, I’m comin’ back.”

  “Promise me,” Kym whispered intensely.

  “Yeah. Okay. Promise.”

  The arms around her waist eased their grip. Kris picked up her bag as her diaphragm was finally allowed to draw in a deeper breath. Cycling the entrance open, she stepped through and then put her hand over the jamb.

  “Look. Maybe I’ll see you again someday.” It was one of the most painfully ridiculous things she’d ever said, and Kym, who seemed to know that as well as she did, just nodded. With an uneasy, artificial smile, she dipped her chin in answer, and turned to go.

  “Kris?”

  Half against her will, she paused and looked back. Kym was wedged there in the entryway, holding the door open.

  “Remember?”

  Her throat closed up around whatever she was going to say. She nodded again. Looking down, Kym let the door go and disappeared inside. Kris stood for another moment, surveying the white blankness of the closed entrance. She shifted her bag to her shoulder, turned, and left.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The Octagon

  League Capitol Complex, Nereus, Mars

  As Corporal Vasquez, her crew of would-be slavers, and a crew of authentic slavers on the evocatively named packet Miss Goodnight all hurried to their appointment with destiny at Outremeria, and CAT 5 journeyed to their own rendezvous, in this case with LSS Kestrel at a dismal patch of vacuum off the transit lanes between Mantua and Knydos, the Plenary Council sat in earnest deliberation on the question of invoking the ultimatum, held in abeyance these past months. Most earnest deliberations, and occasionally acrimonious too, as when the Commerce Secretary got nasty and the Secretary of the Navy got sore, and the Speaker had to call a recess for an hour to let tempers cool.

  In the end, none of that heat made it into the final outcome: a statement carefully couched in tones of sorrow more than anger, requiring the Bannerman government to surrender either the named parties or all information that might tend towards aiding the apprehension of same, and a few more minor clauses, within 2,592,000 seconds of the stated GAT date-time group. Speaker Gauthier duly informed the Bannerman ambassador the next morning of the Council’s action, and had a hardcopy of the ultimatum hand delivered under the Council’s official seal. She also sent around her private fig-leaf-bearing emissaries to assure the ambassador that a face-saving compromise was still possible, if wiser heads could but seize it.

  The mixed messages muddied the waters wonderfully, which delighted the Bannerman ambassador, who undertook to muddy them even more. In public, he was bombastically defiant; in private, he scrutinized the offered fig leaf carefully, talked soothingly, and forbore to seize it. The two and a half million seconds allowed for an answer (a Terran month) was predicated on the communications delays involved, and the Bannerman ambassador played both his public and private roles to the hilt while waiting for his government to respond.

  Nor was the Speaker idle. She sent to the Halith ambassador as well, assuring him this was purely a matter of combating terrorism, nothing more—his government need not feel the slightest concern—it was, after all, to everyone’s benefit that Nestor Mankho be apprehended—a clear case of mutual interest. The Halith ambassador replied calmly that he understood perfectly well. He would inform his government of the Speaker’s message, which he did, and promptly arranged to have his minions meet clandestinely with those of the Bannerman ambassador. What those two men then said, thought and did, together and in private, they kept to themselves.

  What Speaker Gauthier said, thought, and did was less obscure. She surveyed the effects her efforts were having, believed in what she saw, inwardly congratulated herself on her deft handling of the situation, and told her intimates they could relax. All would yet be well.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  LHC Flechette

  en route to rendezvous w/ LSS Kestrel

  Life on a corvette built for six, that might carry nine or even twelve in a pinch, left something to be desired when packed with fourteen. It should have been fifteen, but Lieutenant Elkins had not made the trip. An ‘opportunity’ for another assignment had suddenly become available and he’d hastened to take it. Few questions were asked and no tears shed.

  The dozen members of CAT 5 who, along with Kris and Huron, made up this cozy congregation packed in three to a rack, were a miscellaneous bunch. Kris was surprised to learn how many of them were Terrans: Master Sergeant Andréa Burdette, who answered informally to Top and was CAT Second as well as the team’s EW specialist; Warrant Officer Bodo Wojakowski, their shuttle pilot/engineer; and his copilot and gunner, Staff Sergeant Abraham Donnerkill. Burdette had kept the broad accent of New South Wales, while Abe Donnerkill spoke with the brusque, clipped tones of his native Essen in the Ruhr. Only Wojakowski, from Lublin in the Polish Avar Collective, spoke with the flat Terran accent, though he tended to elaborate it with a discordant twang.

  PFC Rachel Cates, the unit medic and sniper/scout for Fireteam Charlie, had the lank build, ghostly
pale coloring and silver-white hair of a Belter, but with a smoother accent than most—except when she swore, which she did with feeling but not often, unlike some of the others.

  Gunnery Sergeant Antoinette Lopez, Fireteam Charlie’s Leader, was from Antigua, as were Fireteam Alpha’s extraction duo, Corporal Sam Perez and PFC Kyle Argento. That was not a surprise to Kris: from what she’d seen at the Academy, Antiguans were statistically overrepresented in the CEF Marine Corps. (In her mental tally, she also added Corporal Vasquez to the roll of CAT 5’s Antiguans.)

  The rest of the team were colonials, three of them Outworlders, including Sergeant Major Yu, who hailed from Lodestone Station in the Inner Trifid. Lance Corporal Benn Gergen, Fireteam Charlie’s Gunner, Kris immediately recognized as being from Reveille in the Methuselah Cluster, and PFC Marko Tiernan, the team’s designated sniper, was from Whitworth in the Outer Trifid.

  The final two members were the unit’s demolition experts, both attached to Fireteam Alpha: Tech-Corporal Arno Watkins, who was from Fredonia and was also a small-craft pilot (Kris learned that each CAT had at least one person qualified to fly small craft, in addition to the shuttle crew), and Specialist Ioan Resnick from Mytilene in Crucis Sector.

  If they were a diverse bunch, they were also a raucous one, as Kris learned when they described the nature of their operations to her. At the Academy, Kris had been taught the fundamentals of the fireteam concept which, as applied to CATs, involved forming Fireteam Alpha and Fireteam Charlie, the former being the action team, who were assigned the objective (snatching Mankho, in this case), and the latter being the cover team, who provided the necessary support.

  That explained why Fireteam Alpha consisted of two experts at subduing non-cooperative targets and two demolition specialists (a loose term that covered being adept at getting in and out of fortified spaces, as well as disabling critical infrastructure and generally ‘blowing shit up’), while Fireteam Charlie was composed of a sniper, a sniper/scout medic, a gunner (who manned the unit’s SAW), and was led by a gunnery sergeant.