Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks

by Owen R. O'Neill

  Locking eyes with Yu, Huron shook his head. “We can have the bird put some heat on ‘em.”

  Yu’s eyes were bleak. “No joy, sir. Marko’s right. Not with those sliders.”

  Scanning the plain below Huron saw that was true: they were too many and too dispersed for one shuttle’s indirect fire to hold them back for more than a couple of minutes. Not enough.

  “Carry on, Sergeant Major.” His voice was harsh and clipped.

  Yu called over Gergen and Cates. The two of them moved Tiernan into position, swearing steadily under his breath all the while, and set up the SAW.

  “Why’d they stop firing?” Kris asked, ears still ringing.

  “Chary of their own people,” Yu answered. “Lousy practice.” A message flashed on his visor. “Shuttle in five.”

  “Better get ‘em moving, Fred.”

  Yu nodded in quick decision. “Peel off by twos! Andie, you and Rachel go first. Toni, you and Kyle follow. Go now!”

  Huron did a quick plot, his face still an unhealthy color. Five minutes was about two minutes too long. They had thin ‘em out down there—give Marko a little more time.

  Burdette and Cates fell back to the cleft at the top of the ridge with Lopez and Argento behind them, while Kris heard Huron key on his mike. “Wojo, we got bunches o’ bad guys forming up with sliders down here. Can you discourage them at all?”

  “I got no fix here.”

  “Just lock on this, add six hundred meters northwest and lob in some plasma. I don’t care what you hit—just make some noise!”

  “Roger that. Commence noise makin’.”

  “Here they come!” Yu slapped Huron’s shoulder and they heard the SAW open up. Moments later they saw the light and heard the hollow whooshing thump of plasma charges hitting the flat below. Huron looked south and saw the trail of the shuttle approached low and fast.

  “Gotta move!” He took Kris by her good arm, pulling her to her feet. “Stay low.”

  Yu signaled the rest of their people; there were more explosions—Marko using his grenades now—and the team scrambled up through the rocks around the sharp summit to the other side. The assault shuttle came in hot, spun and dropped in the clear space downslope, leaving them a good hundred meters to cover. They sprinted, crouching low as the mortar rounds started falling again—Mankho’s people had seen the shuttle too and were firing indiscriminately—and when Kris stumbled in the last five meters, Yu grabbed her and chucked her bodily through the shuttle’s boarding hatch. She hit the deck rolling and slammed into the far side of the fuselage. A white-hot scream of agony lanced through the painkillers and she lay there curled up and gasping.

  “Nice to have you aboard.” The jovial voice rang out terribly loud and she looked up, squinting through tears to see Bodo Wojakowski grinning at her from the pilot’s chair, with Abe Donnerkill next to him. “Where’s your pals? Oh, here we are—” as the others vaulted through the hatch. Yu and Huron waited for the last two, Burdette—limping, swearing and shedding blood from her boot as she propped up Argento, who was coughing crimson foam at every step—boosted them in, and climbed in themselves.

  “That’s it!” Huron called. “Party’s over. Take her home.”

  Wojakowski brought the nose up and even as the hatch sealed, a mortar round detonating right in front of them. It did nothing against the shuttle’s armor but Wojakowski yelled “Fuckers!” as he gunned the thrusters. “Assholes! Coulda dinged my paint!” He banked hard as they all scrambled to get into harness. “Commander, when we get back to the nest, can I drop a thank-you note on that bunch of fuckers down there? I’ve conceived me a dislike.”

  Huron grabbed Kris by the leg to keep her from sliding across the deck and helped her buckle in. “Vasquez?”

  “Arrived up top a minute ago. Guess she caused quite a ruckus making her exit there.”

  “Then sure. Be my guest.”

  * * *

  Back on Kestrel, they stowed their gear in the aft weapons compartment. The adrenaline had long since faded; there was heaviness in their mood and movements, made worse by sending four of their team to sickbay: Kyle Argento, with a bullet through the lung, was the worst though he’d make it; Antoinette Lopez had joked on the way up that maybe she’d get a nice blue eye to replace the hazel one lost when mortar shrapnel shattered her visor, just to freak out her boyfriend; Andréa Burdette’s calf wound was ugly but uncomplicated, and Benn Gergen may or may not need to grow a new left hand—but most of all, by having to leave Marko Tiernan behind. It was a steep butcher’s bill for an op that had gained nothing—and not even Kris counted her shoulder in the tally. No one spoke as weapons were checked, stripped, safed and put back in the racks.

  They filed into the locker space to take a quick shower, still silent, and it was not until after they got back into their fatigues and caps were put on and settled, that Huron turned his attention to Kris, and said quietly, “Leave me with this officer.”

  As soon as they were alone, Huron pinned her with a look so savage she was sure he was going hit her. She’d never seen him like this—veins swelling in his neck and his face suffused with rage—and when he took a half step forward she involuntarily backed, fetching up against the lockers.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” His voice wasn’t loud, not much above a whisper, but it cut. “Don’t you fucking understand we need him alive—his brain intact? If we wanted the fucker dead, we’d have nuked his compound from orbit.”

  She flattened against the lockers, squashed by the force of his anger—his completely justified righteous anger—and stared into his dark furious eyes, hating that he was right, and in that hatred ground out, “I need him dead.”

  Huron moved back a step, opening the charged space between them. Something condensed in his look, something implacable and terribly cold.

  “Then you can fucking well explain that to Marko’s wife and kids. I expect your letter within the hour.”

  The words hit her with almost physical force, worse than if he’d actually struck her, and she struggled to remain upright.

  “Dismissed, Midshipman Kennakris.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  LSS Kestrel

  Rephidim, Outworld’s Border Zone

  Fifty-six minutes later, in a fresh uniform, with her shoulder wrapped and her right arm clipped up, Kris pressed the entry pad to Huron’s cabin. The door slid open and she saw him, sitting at his console in fatigues, looking tired. He looked up and she saw the depth of his exhaustion, as if his anger of an hour ago had hollowed him out.

  “Yes, Midshipman?”

  Kris saluted, left-handed and uneasy, and produced the flimsy she’d printed. “The letter you requested, sir.” He motioned her over and she entered, pacing the few steps smartly and laying the plastic sheet by his console. He picked it up, leaned back and read:

  Dear Ms. {__________} Tiernan and family {_______________},

  It is with the very deepest regret that I inform you of the death of your husband, Pvt. 1st-Class Marko Tiernan. I must further inform you that it was through my own ill-judged actions that your husband was killed. I cannot adequately express to you the overwhelming sorrow I feel that my failure caused the death of your husband, a very good man, respected by all who knew him, and whom it was an honor to know.

  I am sorry I cannot describe the nature of the operation in which he died, but you should know that your husband, although severely wounded, insisted on remaining behind and covering our escape alone, against overwhelming odds, saving my life and the lives of all the rest of his team.

  I cannot ask your forgiveness for what I did, nor can I forgive myself, and I know of no recompense that I could possibly offer, but I do pray for you and your children and wish with all my being that someday you may be granted a measure of peace.

  With most profound apologies and regrets,

  Loralynn Kennakris, Midshipman, CEF

  “I don’t know their names, sir,” she said haltingly when he put the fl
imsy down. “I was hoping you could add them for me.” He looked her up and down, still standing at rigid attention. “And,” she began again, stopped, then gathered herself and went on, looking straight ahead and speaking very formally, “And I respectfully offer my resignation or submit myself to whatever . . . discipline normally applies in such cases.”

  “Courts martial for negligence and dismissed from the service is usual,” he said, cool and detached.

  “I would accept that, sir.” Still staring fixedly at a point on the wall behind his head.

  “If,” he continued, “if you were a commissioned officer. You aren’t. You're a midshipman and you lost your head in your first firefight. You fucked up.” He handed the flimsy back to her. “Let’s not compound that fuck-up by being hasty or by wallowing in it.” He nodded at the sheet she held uncertainly in her hand. “If you want to do something for Marko—for his wife and kids—become the officer they deserve.” He turned back to his console. “That’s all, Kennakris.”

  She saluted again and turned to go, but his voice stopped her. “I’ll put their names in it for you.”

  Huron’s entry pad chimed for a second time that night and the door opened to reveal the solid form of Sergeant Major Yu. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

  Huron closed the document he was working on and motioned him in. “It’s been a bad fuckin’ day, Fred. Would you like a drink?”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever turned down a drink, sir—except once.” Huron lifted his eyes in a question as he produced a bottle and two glasses from a little cabinet behind his desk. “That bright-blue lizard piss they brew in Little North Bear, way out in the Trifid. Ever try it, sir?”

  “Provo Ice?” He poured a generous amount of smoky amber liquid in each glass and the subtle aroma began to fill the cabin.

  “That’s it, sir. Gut just can’t handle that shit.”

  Huron smiled and handed a glass to Yu. “Marko.”

  “Marko,” Yu echoed and they knocked back the scotch in one. Huron refilled both glasses. “I shouldn’t have done it, Fred.”

  “How’s that, sir?”

  “Kris. Came close to losing it with her.” He swirled the scotch in the glass. “Never should have put her in that position. Two bad . . . bad calls.”

  Yu didn’t offer any thoughts on that, but after a moment asked, “How’s she taking it?”

  Huron took out Kris’s letter and slid it across the desktop. Yu took it, read it, and looked up. “She wrote this? I knew she had guts and to spare but . . .”

  Huron nodded. “I’m half-tempted not to send it. It wasn’t her fault—not really.”

  “You want my opinion, sir?”

  “Always.”

  “That’d be your third bad call. Sure it ain’t all her fault, but she wrote it—she deserves to have it read. And Laeyna will understand, sir. It’ll make her feel better to know what sort of officer Marko served with, even if only for a few days.”

  “Thanks, Sergeant Major.”

  “Anytime, sir.”

  Huron drained his glass. “How’s Vasquez?” He knew she’d been recovered but the report—if anything so brief could be called a report—included only a few fragmentary details, and those were a little . . . outré might be a good word.

  “Bloomin’, sir, from what I heard. Don’t have anything official yet—that might have to wait till we make orbit—but a flash came through with the bare bones, so to speak.”

  Huron’s mouth twitched to one side at the double entendre. “I take it that phrase might have been more literal than usual this time?”

  “Well sir, she did show up with a boatload of beauties, most near naked or better. And—ah—she wasn’t exactly regulation herself.”

  That squared with the fragments that had been relayed to Huron: something about a short corset, gauntlets and thigh-high boots—air-dancers, in fact—and nothing else.

  “Seems that in the confusion, she disarmed some security, rounded up the gals nearby, shot her way into the garage, yanked a power main and then jacked a cargo lighter. Loaded ‘em in and boosted clear of the air-top where they met up with the corvette, leaving some merry havoc behind her.” Yu tossed off the scotch. “Says she’s keeping them boots as spoils of war.”

  Huron stifled a snorting laugh. Once Flechette had picked up Vasquez and her ‘boatload of beauties,’ the corvette had made a swift—and prudent—exit out-system, and now they wouldn’t rendezvous until Beta Crucis. With that many people crammed into Flechette, Huron didn’t think they could find room to lie down—they’d probably all have to sleep standing up. But the cruiser LSS Osiris was patrolling off Knydos with her task group, and Flechette could rendezvous with her in four days—sooner, if Osiris got the message Kestrel had sent her quickly enough.

  The detour would give Vasquez and the corvette’s skipper plenty of time to construct their official after-action reports but Huron still wondered how this was going to be set into standard AAR navaleze: dry, tedious and with much use of the passive. That, at least, would be something to look forward to.

  Yu put down the glass and rose. “Well sir, I oughta get back unless there’s something else.”

  Huron shook his head. “No, there isn’t. Carry on, Sergeant Major.”

  “Yessir. G’night, sir.”

  “And you, Fred.” The sergeant major made his exit and Huron returned to his console, reopened the document he had been working on and resumed typing.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  LSS Kestrel

  departing Rephidim, Outworld’s Border Zone

  They held the ceremony the next AM, after first assembly. Gunnery Sergeant Lopez, with a black patch over her missing eye, had called on Kris and formally requested she attend with full kit. There was a curious insistence on the word full. Besides being full of knots inside, she crammed everything she had into her kit bag and hurried down the passage to the forward assault bay, wearing her dress blues. Lopez had also emphasized this was not a full dress occasion (Kris’s full-dress uniform hadn’t made the trip anyway), but the sergeant hadn’t said what it was. All Kris had with her, besides her combat armor, were fatigues and her blues, and fatigues just didn’t seem right.

  So when she arrived to see the marines in their service grays and Huron in his undress blacks, she self-consciously assumed her place in the circle, feeling uncomfortably conspicuous. No one took any evident notice, however, and once Master Sergeant Burdette, supporting herself on an old-fashioned metal crutch, called them to attention, Sergeant Major Yu and Gunnery Sergeant Lopez brought out a camo-shelter and spread it on the deck at the center of the circle. Then Burdette, laying her crutch aside, limped up carrying Marko’s duffle bag, and began solemnly laying out his marine kit on the fabric. (His personal effects had already been sealed for shipment home, along with the requisite bronze box.)

  When all the items were arranged, she got laboriously to her feet and limped back to her place, where Yu was waiting with her crutch. The sergeant major nodded, and in a strict order—and to Kris’s initial bewilderment—each member of the team approached the shelter and took one item of Marko’s, replacing it with a like item of their own. Rachel Cates went first, laying down her assault rifle and taking Marko’s, which Huron had preserved. Sam Perez exchanged his ammo belt, and Kyle Argento traded his canteen. Finally, Benn Gergen came forward, his left arm heavily wrapped, to swap his service sidearm for Marko’s, the grip of which he’d carved to own taste, leaving the last item: a tin cup, slightly crushed on one side. No one had ever explained to Kris why marines were still issued a tin cup. It seemed a weird anachronism, but the enlisted ranks, who called them by the Antiguan name pialla, were quite fond of them.

  Without warning, all eyes fixed on Kris. She was obviously expected to swap for it. The mess kit she’d been issued had something similar, but it was navy issue and not really the same. But that apparently didn’t matter. Rifling her kit bag for the cup occupied an anguished thirty seconds, then she stepped forward
and put it down, picking up the dented pialla with nervous fingers. When she returned to her place, Burdette called them again to attention.

  Sergeant Lopez took a pace forward, snapped a salute that was answered by all present, and began to sing Amazing Grace in a pure-toned velvet soprano that filled the compartment to admiration. The rest of the team joined in after the first verse, except for Huron and Yu—and Kris, who didn’t know the words. There followed a minute of silence, after which Burdette and Lopez carefully bundled up the camo-shelter and tied it. The bundle was placed in a waiting torpedo crate, draped with the Red Ensign of the CEF Marine Corps, and Yu called up the surviving members of Fireteam Charlie, while he and Burdette stepped alongside the crate’s head.

  There was one place to fill, and as Kris wondered who it would be, Yu nodded to her. Swallowing against the rush of nerves, Kris took the final place. On command, the six of them lifted the crate, no more than fifteen kilos, and slid it into an open ejection port. Yu armed the firing mechanism and stepped aside. As the others formed ranks and saluted, Kris was gripped by a horrible premonition.

  You’re not gonna make me—fer fuck’s sake don’t make—

  But Huron came forward and, exchanging salutes with the sergeant major, pressed the firing stud. With a rush of compressed air, the torpedo crate was consigned to the eternal night. Yu turned to face his team.

  “Dismiss.”

  And Kris, letting her breath go, realized that, aside from the song and these few orders, no one had spoken a word during the entire ceremony.

  Dismiss, in this case, did not seem to mean leave. The members of CAT 5 continued to hang about, chatting with the occasional burst of laugher, and Wojakowski brought out a bottle of something and shared it around. Kris did not partake. But she did notice when Lopez handed a small wrapped package to Burdette, who handed it to Yu. He unwrapped it and Kris caught the wink of gold—Marko’s collar tabs. Closing his thick, powerful fist about them, he crossed the floor to Cates and, putting his arm about her shoulders, placed them in her hand. She took them with a tight, trembling smile and damp eyes and Yu gave her a grandfatherly embrace, which unsettled Kris most strangely.