Loralynn Kennakris 1: The Alecto Initiative (3 page)

Ensign Cardinovich looked even more uncomfortable. “I don’t
know if she does or not, sir.”

“Well, make damn sure she finds out.”

“Yes, sir.” Cardinovich saluted and started to turn.

“Christ son, not
now
.” Cardinovich actually jumped.
“Finish your report. What about cargo?”

“About three hundred slaves, sir. Mostly on the holding
deck.”

“That’s the second time you’ve used that word.”
The kid’s
gotta learn
, RyKirt muttered to himself. Cardinovich, though, was looking
blank and for a moment the captain was sure he was going to ask, “What word?”
but to his credit he figured it out.

“We’re having trouble sorting them out, sir. There was some
spalling in the holding deck.”

“Saying that up front will save you a lot of breath,
Ensign.”

“Yes, sir.”

RyKirt went back to the images on his console. They were
flat file-pics of the newly liberated slaves, those identified so far. They
showed all kinds of people: mostly young men and women but some kids too, and a
few that were middle-aged, even elderly.
Specialists
, RyKirt thought,
looking at the older ones. Paid pick-offs. Slavers didn’t always take in big
batches.
Bastards
. He swept the pics to the margin. “Do we know when all
these people were taken, Ensign?”

“All the debriefs aren’t filed yet, sir”—RyKirt hid a
smile; at least the kid could learn—“but most in the last two to three months,
galactic arbitrary time. One’s about eight years, though.”

Sweet Jesus
, RyKirt breathed. Then aloud: “Eight
years
?”

“Yes sir.” Cardinovich started skimming the images around on
the console’s flat surface. “That’s her, sir. Only, she doesn’t look much like
that anymore.”

RyKirt looked at the face of a sweet, smiling ten-year-old
who was going to be a very beautiful woman someday. With a jolt, he realized
that someday was
now
. The caption on the image said, “Loralynn
Kennakris. 1
^st
in Class, Skel-Thorun Secondary School. Year ‘29.
Yarrow Township.” That didn’t ring any bells with RyKirt. “Where is this place,
son?”

“Parson’s Acre Colony. In the Outworlds—the
Methuselah Cluster. It’s on the back, sir.”

RyKirt flipped the image. Sure enough, the information was
there. Parson’s Acre was a spinout of Fredonia; mostly Scottish and
Scandinavian genome, though some Mirandans and Amalekites had recently
emigrated. They came because the colony had
been put under secondary proscription after some local magnates got caught
running a big slaving operation. A few colonial officials had been
involved too, and the planet had been reopened for immigration. He recalled the
operation that had shut the slavers down. Yes . . . about six years ago now.

“Parents? Family?” RyKirt asked.

“There’s a father, sir. Nathan Kennakris. His file’s there.”
He pointed. RyKirt saw the name, stroked the file open. Nathan P. Kennakris:
emigrated to Parson’s Acre in the year ‘22, killed while working for a small
wildcat asteroid mining operation on Tolliman in ‘31. Took out a hefty life
insurance policy there. Death initially ruled an accident caused by
intoxication—later changed to suicide. Company refused payment. No mother
listed and no siblings; no aunts, uncles, cousins . . . “That’s it? No
relatives?”

“Not in our files, sir. Just that.”

RyKirt uttered a noncommittal grunt. Colonial records were
far from perfect, especially if you wanted it that way, and Mr. Nathan P. Kennakris
might well have. He closed the file and noticed that Cardinovich was standing a
little more stiffly now. Something knit together in RyKirt’s mind.

“Is she alright, son?”

 “We think so, sir.” Yes, his tone of voice was different;
even more strained and jumpy. “She’s in sickbay. They’re still working on her.”

“She was hurt?”

“Not really, sir. I mean—well, yes—a little . . .” The
ensign was trying desperately to articulate something that bothered him deeply.
“Some—ah . . . abrasions and—you know, cuts and I mean uh, contusions—and .
. . um . . .”

“Where was she found, Ensign?” RyKirt asked just to shut him
up. Weeping Jesus, the kid was unstrung. What had happened to this girl?

“We found her on, um, A-deck, sir.”

“Who
we
?”

“I mean—me, sir. I did. She was with the captain.”

“The captain wasn’t on the bridge?” A jittery headshake in
reply. RyKirt looked at the girl’s image. Could it be that this kid found them .
. . He frowned at his own obtuseness. That was a stupid thought, if there ever
was one. It had been an hour and the report said the captain was dead.

Dead
.

RyKirt snapped a look at Cardinovich. “You said the captain
was killed?”

“Ah, yessir. He was . . . was . . .” Cardinovich had gone so
pale his flesh had taken on a yellowish tinge. He looked like he was going to
vomit or faint or both. He started to quiver all over, still trying to answer
RyKirt’s question. “ . . . you see . . . she . . . he . . .”

RyKirt waved the ensign to silence; this was hopeless. He
started typing on the console. Seconds later he had open the pertinent portion
of the report young Cardinovich held limply in his hand, trying to keep himself
at a species of attention. There was an image.

Jan RyKirt had never seen anything like it. Not in over
thirty years of service and thousands of gruesome machine-inflicted casualties.
But no machine had done this. A sick feeling jumping in the back of his throat,
RyKirt closed the report. “That girl did this?”

“Yessir, yessir.” Cardinovich still looked like he wanted to
be sick. He probably already had been. No wonder. “She was . . . still—still .
. . well—sitting by him, kind of . . . well, y’know—”

No, RyKirt did not know. And did not want to.

“That’s alright, Ensign. You can go.”
Now, before we have
a mess to clean up
.

“Yessir.” Cardinovich bolted out.

RyKirt sat back, shaking ever so slightly. Sonofabitch. Son
of
a Bitch
. He popped a latch on the side of his desk, produced a shot
glass and a silver flask, poured two fingers and tossed it back.

Son of a bitch
. Of all people, Cardinovich; a
Nedaeman fresh off the beach. Among their other elevated accomplishments,
Nedaemans were strict vegetarians.

*     *     *

Kris sat on a beige and cream sickbay bed, fidgeting.
She hardly remembered being brought here, just a lot of smoke and noise and
someone in battle gear picking her up like she couldn’t move by herself and
carrying her out an EVAC port. She hadn’t liked that, but protesting and hitting
space armor hadn’t done much good.

They had carried her through a boarding lamprey and straight
to sickbay where a couple of anxious young men cleaned her up—she’d managed to
get an awful lot of blood on her—took her vitals and seemed relieved the blood
wasn’t hers. As they worked on her and sprayed her clothes with a cleaner to
remove the bloodstains, they’d started to ask how she’d gotten that way but the
earnest young officer who had carried her out—she knew he was an officer by
his shoulder flashes, Trench had taught her that—told them harshly to shut up.

She didn’t know why he seemed so upset and she didn’t
remember how she’d gotten blood all over her anyway. She suspected it had
something to do with Trench. Trench was dead—she knew that—but she hadn’t
seen what killed him. Maybe, it occurred to her, the young officer had killed
Trench and thought he was her lover or something. The young officer spoke again
to the medics—they were careful to not let her overhear—and after that
everyone looked funny and got real quiet.

She had told them then that it was alright. She hated
Trench,
really
. He was your basic, brutal asshole. She was glad he was
dead.

That made the medics look even funnier. One of them said
something stupid and then asked her if she wanted anything to help her sleep.
She declined crossly—why the hell would anyone want to sleep now?—and asked
if she could have something to eat instead. They said okay, that was fine, and
they took her into a little room off to the side with the beige and cream bed
and asked her to wait. Then they left. When the door closed, there a faint
clicking noise and she knew without checking they’d locked her in. That pissed
her off some—being treated like a criminal like this. She hadn’t done anything
wrong; she was on their side, after all. Maybe they didn’t believe her about
Trench.

Well, they’d figure that out soon enough. Right now, she
really wished they’d come back with some food. She felt like she was starving,
although she remembered having breakfast just a few hours ago. She remembered
it real well—it was that lousy goddamn concentrate they always ate. She’d
finished it right before Trench had found out about the ventilator and all hell
broke loose.

She smiled. Trench had been so pissed when he sent her down
with the animals. She was really happy he was dead. If she came across the
young officer who had killed him again, she’d have to thank him. Right now she
drummed her heels absently against the padded side of the bed.

Where the hell were they? How long did it take to get food
on this crate? She fumed a moment and then stopped it. She didn’t know what to
expect on a navy ship. Evidently they didn’t just welcome you with open arms.
It wasn’t the rescue she’d dreamed of, but that was okay. She was used to
waiting.

The door clicked and opened, snapping her to as if she’d
been dreaming. It was an old trick of hers, going down and down into a deep
cottony nothingness—a refuge when things got too bad, hurt too much, or when
she was just bored to the edge of sanity. It was a good trick; freaked people
out when she made it last more than a couple of hours. Weird that it had just
happened now though—she hadn’t been trying to do it . . .

A man carrying a tray stepped through the open door. He
folded out a small table and put the tray on it. The door stayed open, but she
couldn’t see anyone outside. She remembered the medics locking her in as they
left.

Probably have the outer door locked now
.
Bastards
.

The newcomer wasn’t any of the people she had seen yet. He
was tall—taller than her by seven or eight centimeters—
and young looking, although older than the medics or the young
officer in the battle gear. This one had on crisp blue uniform with rings on
the sleeve and bars on the shoulders. An officer too—and higher rank than the
other one, if weight of braid meant anything.

He was nice looking, she thought: rich brown hair winged
with a touch of premature gray; a slightly crooked nose and a moderate mouth
that seemed to pull to one side when he smiled. He was slim, but broad
shouldered; clean shaven and devoid of earrings or tattoos that she could see—that
fit with what she’d heard about fleet men. Kris decided that without that nose
and the crooked way he held his mouth, his features would be almost pretty. It
was the eyes that did it: warm dark brown, surrounded by long black lashes.
Kris hadn’t ever seen a man with such pretty eyes.

He hadn’t said anything yet and seemed to be looking her
over in rather the way she was looking at him. She wondered if he liked what he
saw—everyone else had. Trench could have gotten seventy-five, even a eighty
thousand for her any number of times.

Thinking about Trench made her wince uncontrollably. She
looked down to hide the twitch in her shoulders and the officer smiled and
said, “Hi, I’m Senior Lieutenant Huron,
Arizona
’s TAO. Sorry this took
so long—there are about three hundred of you aboard right now and we’re having
a little trouble adjusting.”

He had a nice voice, she thought; pleasant, but stuck
somewhere between a tenor and a baritone. Did they pick out him special? Is
this where the ugly questions come in? She couldn’t imagine what kind of ugly
questions anyone would think she knew the answers to, but that’s what a lot of
people said happened.

“It’s getting cold,” Huron said lightly. “It’s not the
greatest under any circumstances, but it’s better hot.”

Carefully, she lifted the lid. He was crazy—it smelled
wonderful. Her mouth watered. She glanced at him.

“No, we didn’t spike it. But I’ll try it if you like.”

If you’d spiked it, you’d have taken the antidote
,
she thought, but didn’t say anything.
No
, she decided,
trust him
.
They were supposed to be the good guys.

She picked up the fork and tried some. It was delicious;
some kind of fish in a sauce she could not identify, real vegetables, and a
mound of small red berries in a cup. She ate ferociously, only taking time out
to gulp the fruit-flavored juice that came with it. He watched her eat and
smiled.

When she finished, she wiped her mouth on a napkin—a cloth
napkin—how did they do that?—and glanced up at him. “So what happens now?”

“What do you want to happen now?”

That caught her off guard. Somehow she hadn’t managed to
think that far yet. She crumpled the napkin in her hand. “Well, I . . . I’m not
sure. I hadn’t thought—I guess . . .”

Huron pulled a swivel seat away from the wall, sat down.
“What do they call you?”

“Kris.”

Huron looked contemplative. “It’s important for you to
know,” he began slowly, as if reciting. “It’s important for you to
believe
that you’re free to do what you want now. There are placement programs and a
lot of other great stuff the taxpayers bitch about and you can take your pick.
You’re not the first person in this position—I do wish you were going to be
the last. We’ll help if we can.”

She thought of the locked doors. “Does that mean I can go?
I’ve got freedom of the decks?”

She saw him smile, a little tightly. “It will. It doesn’t
quite yet. I’m afraid the medics aren’t quite done with you. Your tests are
being run now, and”—he sighed, as if trying to put a good face on something
unpleasant—“they’ll want to run a psych profile. It’s no big deal, but we need
to check you for implants.”