Orion's Price

by Owen R. O’Neill

  “Grandfather won’t let them take you.”

  Your grandfather has much bigger targets in his sights. “Uh huh.” Keeping the sodden cloth to her nose hid the note of doubt. “Look, Arianna . . .” She’d hardly ever used her given name before. “If they do come . . . you’d know, right?”

  “They won’t”—face hardening in a determined frown.

  “But if they did. You would, right?”

  “I would. Yes”—reluctantly conceding the point.

  “Could ya tell me?”

  “Why?”—suspicion hardening her young face even further.

  “I wanna be . . . prepared.” She’d handled Admiral Heydrich and his henchman on Ilya Turabian, but she wouldn’t have any of those options here with his brother, the general. Of the options she did have, a sidearm would be best, but chances of laying her hands on one were slim or none. But a nice sharp knife—that would be easy. It would take longer—five minutes at least; ten would be safer—but if Arianna could warn her . . .

  Arianna was chewing her lip now, eyes troubled with a new and darker understanding. “I could.”

  “Thanks.” Kris dropped her hand from her face. Her nose was barely oozing now. “Maybe you could do me a favor, too?”

  “What favor?”

  “Give Rafe—Commander Huron . . .” Mariwen, why the fuck did I tell you this was ‘just a vacation’? “. . . a message for me? If I can’t.”

  “What message?”

  “Tell ’im . . .” She had to pause to force the words past the lump in her throat. “Just tell ’im . . . ask him . . . to tell her goodbye for me.”

  “Tell who goodbye?”

  Kris looked into the young girl’s ashen face, regretting she was the cause of it. If there were any other way . . .

  Goddammit, her nose was throbbing. She swiped at the tears leaking from the corners of her eyes with the back of her hand. “It doesn’t matter. He knows.”

  Chapter 20

  Denver Heights, Colorado

  Western Federal District, Terra, Sol

  “Kris owns a ship?”

  “Yes.” Trin sound a trifle surprised by Mariwen’s question. “She got it as result of that anti-slaving operation she participated in while she was at the Academy. She rescued a young slave from it. Kym. It’s been leased out almost the entire time she’s owned it”—adding this last by way of a possible explanation for Kris’s failure to mention it.

  “She did mention Kym,” Mariwen mused, tapping a finger on her lower lip. “Who’s leasing it?”

  “Well . . . not to put too fine a point on it, me. Or shall I say, people I work with.” At Mariwen’s interested and slightly puzzled look, Trin continued. “The ship is Bannerman-built, and we have a Bannerman pilot—she’s been with us for quite some time. It’s an excellent arrangement for missions of this kind.”

  A shallow crease appeared in Mariwen’s forehead. “But the Bannermans are on our side now.”

  Trin’s answering smile was equally shallow. “Yes. It’s telling that’s still a good cover, isn’t it?”

  Nodding, Mariwen’s eyes shifted down for an instant.

  Reading the flicker of movement, Trin said, “So everything is set. The rendezvous with Paavo’s people has been established and he’s made the necessary arrangements to get you on-planet and into a safe location. His people are taking care of the groundwork—you’ll be briefed on that when you arrive.”

  “Do we know when that will be?” Mariwen interrupted, the strain she was trying to hide coloring her voice.

  “According to the latest we have, you should leave at the end of this week. That will get you to Halith Evandor the day after Geris and Kat are due to return.”

  Another distracted motion of her head as Mariwen listened. Up until now, she’d focused on her training—absorbing everything Trin and Nick could teach her—and that had kept her fears and doubts at bay. But for all she’d told Trin she was dealing with the aftermath of recovering her memories, and despite the progress she’d made there, those shocks still echoed and re-echoed through her, catching her unawares when she least expected it. All those events, spread over years, had compacted into one endless nightmare moment out of time, and now there was no time to really deal with it, or even grieve. Lora’s death, and more than that, their whole life together—or what she’d remembered of it—had been as a tale told to her; a history learned but never lived. She had loved Lora—but not enough? Had she chosen to not love her more? To put convenience ahead of her heart? Might it have been different between them? Could it have been? Should it have been? Those questions hemmed her in, the grief twisting and turning back on itself because she couldn’t allow herself to feel it. When she allowed herself even an instant think to about it, the nausea and nerves would take over and she couldn’t think. Each day was a struggle to block it all and just concentrate on what she could control, because any chance to save Kris depended on it. She couldn't do anything for Lora then, and if she didn’t keep it together and on-point, she wouldn’t be able to do anything for Kris now.

  But lately, that had become harder and harder as each passing second increased the tension, like beads sliding down an already tense wire, and each new bead a little heavier than the last. As each new second approached, as each bead poised for its descent, she could no longer help wondering if this was the one that would snap it. Between now and the end of the week felt like a lifetime . . .

  “Do you have any questions?” Trin asked gently.

  Mariwen inhaled and breathed out slow, looking a bit hesitant. “Actually, yes.” Another breath. “How do you deal with this—the stress? Do you have a trick for it?”

  “Actually, I do. I learned it from my father.”

  “Those are some of the best.”

  “I think so.” Trin smiled. “I give myself permission to get shit-faced.”

  “I’m sorry. Shit-what?”

  “It’s an archaic term for a state of advanced inebriation. Rather apropos, don’t you think?”

  “Yes . . . quite.”

  “It’s in the other room. Let me get it.”

  Trin left for the other room and came back a minute later with a bottle of Karelian brandy.

  “My father drank this every evening with our meal—two fingers, never more or less. He felt that troubles are always with us, no matter how hard we fight—and whether we win or lose.”

  “Seems a little—pessimistic?” Mariwen asked, recalling Nick’s comments about Karelians. Clearly, they didn’t fight to a draw.

  “On Karelia, we greet each sunrise by asking what new burden awaits.”

  “I see.”

  “One way to deal with them was to allow yourself to not deal them,” Trin explained. “An escape clause, if you will, so they didn’t get a life-lock on you.” Trin set the bottle on the table between them. “Two fingers of brandy, an evening of drunken oblivion—something. Something to remind you that there are limits to how much anyone can ask of you.” She paused, turning the bottle about slowly. “He gave us this bottle the night we were evacuated. My mother kept it till her death—never could bring herself to open it.”

  “Why haven’t you opened it?”

  “I’m waiting for the proper day.”

  “What day is that?”

  “Frankly, I’m not entirely sure,” Trin said. “I’ll know it when it comes.”

  Squeezing her hands together unconsciously, Mariwen dropped her eyes again. Trin had spoken with a bend of her lips that hinted at more than Mariwen thought she might want to know—things entirely too private. Certainly not to be asked about.

  “I hope—”

  A ping from Trin’s xel cut her off. As Trin picked it up, a swarm of butterflies erupted into Mariwen’s stomach.

  Trin’s dark, level eyebrows pulled together. “Forget what I said about the end of this week.”

  “What is it?” Mariwen’s tight throat made the words almost a whisper.

  “Lord and Lady Geris are on their
way home. The adventus tour has been cut short due a crisis in his father’s health.” She lifted her gaze to Mariwen’s face, her expression ambiguous. “Pack your bags.”

  The butterflies evaporated.

  “They already are.”

  Chapter 21

  Docklands Quarter, Halevirdon

  Halith Evandor, Orion Spur

  Taylor Lessing stared at the last message on his cel like a man under a sentence of death. Which, for all intents and purposes, he now was. The message read:

  “Your offer is most intriguing. I am intrigued and in exchange for the information you have, I am prepared to offer you something even more valuable: the continued use of your remaining limbs.”

  General Heydrich had sent it, and he could hear the laughter behind the words. Not that Heydrich was actually ever seen to laugh. He was sure nothing more than an arrogant smirk ever appeared on the general’s patrician face . . .

  The fucker . . .

  The attempt at anger did not rouse him. He had no anger left, it had all bled out, and trying to summon the ghost of it left him feeling even more depleted.

  That Kennakris woman. There should’ve been no way she could refuse.

  But she did refuse. Well, fuck her . . .

  He’d taken his last shot. Returning, he’d sent a message to Heydrich stating he had info about a valuable POW that he’d share in return for fixing his legs and a decent place to live. Sure, it was desperate gamble, but what did he have to lose? Heydrich would give him legs or maybe kill him and either way was better than living out this fucking un-life for the rest of his days.

  Now he had his answer.

  Game-over.

  Almost . . .

  He had one act left. One last turn on this cube-root-of-fuck-all stage he’d been trapped on. Three steps:

  Step 1: He tapped out a message to Heydrich saying he would send the info very first thing in the AM. That was bullshit. He had the info in front of him. But the asshole could wait a few hours for it.

  Step 2: He wheeled himself into the kitchen nook and removed a heavy steel crowbar from the back of the bottom-most drawer. Then to the bathroom, to the shower stall, where a typically shoddy repair had been made in the floor near the back wall. Raising the bar with both hands, he smashed through the tile, and then smashed through the subfloor beneath. Reaching into the cavity below the splintered subfloor, he felt around until his fingers made contact with a plastic case.

  Lifting it into his lap, he flipped open the locks, raised the lid and sighed. The black, stubby 10-mm service sidearm within had cost him a great deal and he’d run severe risks to get it, back when his credit here was still good for something. But it was worth it—worth almost anything—as insurance against the day he might need it.

  Against today.

  Opening the action, he fed it one clip. The gun cycled into Active mode. The safety, he left on.

  For now.

  Step 3: Back in front of his console, he cradled the gun in his lap and stared at the display. On it was a message he’d typed to Heydrich, ready to be coded and sent. The SEND icon glowed soft orange.

  POW 6274936 is Loralynn Kennakris. Talk to Arutyun.

  All he had to do was tap, and Loralynn Kennakris would find out firsthand why she should’ve said yes. And he would tap. Very soon . . .

  His right hand fondled the pistol’s heavy shape. He sucked air slowly, deep into his lungs. Maybe Heydrich would’ve killed him anyway? That was dangerous knowledge, he had. A moot question, though. He wasn’t giving the asshole the chance. His exit from this stage would be sweet, swift, painless.

  Hers, not so much. In a few days—okay, weeks maybe—she’d give anything to have the option to do what he was about to do. Anything at all. But it wouldn’t be enough.

  Nothing would be enough.

  What a sweet thought that was. He held it fast in his mind’s eye and smiled. Yes, in a way she’d sent him home, after all. And with his penultimate act, he’d send her to where she belonged.

  I hope you like it there . . .

  He thumbed the safety off. Lifted the gun and pushed the muzzle into the soft, sagging roll of flesh beneath his jaw. Held the index finger of his other hand over the SEND icon.

  And laughed.

  The door to his apartment crashed in. Armed men burst through. He lurched around, his finger still on the trigger, his other hand instinctively flying up as hot horrid amazement jolted through him. The helmeted man in front raised his hand and opened his month to shout.

  He never heard it.

  He never heard anything again.

  “Oh, fuck me,” grumbled the squad leader under his breath, looking at the mostly headless corpse in the wheelchair and the ghastly spatter painting the wall behind and much of the ceiling. “Touch nothing,” he growled over his shoulder to his men. One of them said, “There’s a message waiting here, sir.”

  He looked, saw the man pointing at the console, and stepped to it. Taking out a xel, he snapped the screen open, scanned the space and transmitted the results. Seconds later, his xel flashed. He answered.

  “Yes, sir. Understood. Will comply.”

  Ending the call, he reached out, tapped the CANCEL icon with a gloved finder and deleted the message. Mating his xel to the console with a hardline, he entered a series of commands and waited until the screen blanked. Then he disconnected. To whoever checked, it would appear Lessing purged the system thoroughly before offing himself.

  As would only make sense under the circumstances.

  The squad leader, still with a discontented squint about the eyes, slid his xel back into a pocket and waved to his men.

  “All right, that’s it. We’re done here.”

  Chapter 22

  Denver Heights, Colorado

  Western Federal District, Terra, Sol

  Mariwen was gone.

  Antoine had known she would be. On receiving her two-word message that her departure was imminent, he’d dropped everything to take the fastest transport available from the League capital on Mars direct to the Terran Navy cosmodrome at Cheyenne Mountain, but without any real hope. By the time he made orbit, she was already out of calling-card range, depriving him of even that meager solace.

  Standing in the foyer of the small windowless apartment, its wall tinted that peculiarly invisible shade of beige and the sparse furniture conveying nothing but a bleak anonymity, he was overcome by an impression, not of mere emptiness, but of abnegation—a disavowal of life or living or even the concept of habitable space. How a person as full of life and fire as Mariwen could have stood it for a second, he could not conceive.

  Except he could. What Mariwen planned to do, she had not—could not—share with him. Under what he judged to be the circumstances, even sending that two-word message had risk. But he’d known from the instant he’d given her Nick Taliaferro’s contact info this would happen. When his sister got that look, you could no more stop her than you could stop an avalanche by shouting at it. She would bear this place. She would bear . . . anything—do anything—if it would bring Kris home.

  Even leave without saying goodbye.

  She trusted him to understand; trusted their mother to understand. And he did. Their mother would.

  Rubbing his tongue against the back of his teeth in a mouth gone dry, he felt it unfair to curse the accident of fate that sent him to Nereus for three weeks of crucial meetings within days of her meeting Nick and Trin. But he cursed it anyway; silently and thoroughly, while an old tag mocked him from the vaults of memory: He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.

  The invective made little impression on his mood and none at all, he was sure, on those who sitteth in the heavens, but it relieved him enough to check the apartment’s access log with a mind less disturbed. It verified that no one else had entered since Mariwen had left, and that she’d left before he’d broken Mar’s orbit. Which meant, of course, she knew he had no chance of returning in time, and asking him to come here served some other pur
pose. It was up to him to discover that purpose.

  It took no more effort than walking into the small sleeping space. It contained a conformal pallet (probably comfortable enough, though it looked like it would give the most dedicated penitent pause) and lone table, rigidly devoid of character. On the table was an envelope and on the envelope, a letter.

  Picking up the letter, he read:

  Hey, Big Brother,

  It’s time to go. I wanted to leave something for you, but I had less time than I thought. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better—the metre is atrocious, the rhyme scheme sucks. Break the news to Mom gently, will you? After 30 years, her daughter still can’t get it right.

  So please forgive the faults: in the poem—in me—and in me and Kris. Mom said if it only lives for a while, it will still have lived. That says it all, doesn’t it?

  Give my love to mom—don’t forget to keep some for yourself.

  Bye,

  Mariwen

  Opening his jacket, he slid the sealed envelope into an inner pocket, tucked the note in carefully after it, and turned to leave. As he turned, a break in the room’s crushing sterility caught his eye and he stopped. Beneath the pallet lay a scrap of paper, crumpled by an impatient fist and tossed aside without a thought. Stooping, he teased it from its refuge and spread it upon the table top.

  The words, written in Mariwen’s unmistakable hand but cramped and slanted in haste, completely filled the page, crowding its torn edges.

  I have to take this journey. This all started with a dream—remember? Became a dream—then more than a dream—and I can’t let it go. I don’t know where this is going—where it leads—what I’m doing—who I’ll become—if I’ll succeed. I’ve burnt—am burning—everything I had or knew—except this. Except you. Stumbling—lost in ashes—splayed open. Soul in shreds, faith in tatters and you’re the only guide I have. Finite—can only do so much. But for you, I’m ready to keep running through the borderlands of death.

  Light my path, Kris.

  Antoine stared a while, as still as the room itself. Noticing the shadow of more writing on the back, he flipped the note over and read the four lines there, written less hurriedly but then scribbled out.