Loralynn Kennakris 1: The Alecto Initiative by Owen R. O'Neill, Jordan Leah Hunter Read Free Book Online Page A

am going to get invited to the NCO mess,” she muttered. “Say, you wouldn’t be
interested in a job, would you? Lora’s a good agent. She doesn’t often handle
newcomers, but I know she’ll work something out if I ask her to. If you want,
that is.”
    “You know ?”
    “I know ,” Mariwen answered with a twinkle in her eye.
“I’d stop speaking to her. She’d lose her twelve-and-a-half percent and her
meal ticket. Besides, we’re married.”
    “Oh.”
    “Don’t look like that. We’re not that married.”
    Kris’s ears began to go red. Mariwen giggled and shook her
head. “That’s a joke. Are you interested? I’m serious. About the job, I mean.”
    Kris shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. I’m—well . . .
Thanks for asking, though.”
    “Okay. But if you change your mind . . .”
    Kris changed the subject instead. They chatted for awhile
and it turned out that Mariwen had been a paid pick. A gang had picked her off
while she was vacationing on Hestia alone—Lora had returned just the day
before to negotiate her next contract.
    “God, I’m glad she wasn’t there,” Mariwen moaned. “I mean,
what would they have done?”
    Kris didn’t have the stomach to tell her.
    “They were very polite and all that. No violence—no real violence. They didn’t hurt me or even threaten me really. Mustn’t damage the
merchandise or anything.” She stabbed a chunk of reconstituted vegetable with
controlled viciousness. “I’d cheerfully cut the balls off each and every one of
them. With a nail file.” The vegetable disappeared in a single snapped bite.
    Mariwen had no idea who’d paid for her kidnapping. The small
ship she’d been brought in on docked with Harlot’s Ruse and left; her
handlers had been killed in the attack.
    “Handlers?” In all her years as Trench’s slave, Kris hadn’t
heard of that.
    “Handlers. When you’re special, you get handlers. I was special .”
She dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “They keep you from scarring yourself. The
re-gen marks still show to a connoisseur”—the venom in the inflection burned
hot and acid-bright through the word—“and they keep you from killing yourself.
And, yes, I thought about that. All the time.”
    Kris mashed her napkin under the table and said nothing.
    Mariwen asked where they were going. When Kris told her,
Mariwen looked blank with surprise. “That’s where Lora is. We live in Nemeton.”
That was a city on Nedaema, Kris gathered. “Christ, I hope she hasn’t gotten all
worked up about this. I wonder what she’s heard . . .” Mariwen fretted over the
thought. “I hope she hasn’t found out too much. She’ll have every goddamned
producer within fifty light-years out to bid for my ‘story’. One week with the
bad guys in a stinking little ship.” She shook her head. “I’ll be sick. Now if
I had your story, that would be something—”
    “You don’t want my story,” Kris said, more harshly than she
meant.
    Mariwen put hands in her lap, looked down at them. “I did it
again, didn’t I? I’m sorry, Kris. I really am. I just keep forgetting. I don’t
know why.”
    Kris touched her arm lightly. “It’s fine,” she lied. Then
they talked about other things.
    After dinner, they went back to their quarters again. They
were full this time; as crowded as she’d been led to expect. Commander t’Laren
came in as promised and talked to them— addressed was maybe a better
word. Isabeau t’Laren was a rather hard-looking woman with short roan-red hair,
younger than middle-age and attractive in a muscular sort of way. She didn’t
smile easily, and then only with the lower half of her face. She was polite but
very formal. Most of the other women watched her with a kind of silent awe. She
told them much of the same information that Lieutenant Huron had already given
her and Kris listened with her eyes closed. She wasn’t sure if she liked the
commander or not.
    After she spoke to the group, t’Laren