“I don’t have any money, remember?” Ky said. Her voice had an edge to it; she wished she’d softened it.
“Vatta tab.” Short and flat.
Ky shook her head. “I meant for them. No one can know they’re here. I know they aren’t criminals, and if they’re the ones those men were hunting, something’s very wrong.”
“That’s all right. You need clothes, too, I’m sure. Just order extra. Two of them are near your size.”
“And Kamat?”
“Toss hers in with the rest.”
“Maybe. Can we receive deliveries while the house is locked down?”
“The front door can be opened; it’s just a little slower. The ship armor slides sideways first, then the door opens as usual. And we really should unlock everything daily, if we can, to access the kitchen stores and air it out.”
Ky found the three women perched on the couch, wrapped in blankets, when she returned with a pile of Stella’s clothes. She set the clothes on the end of one bed and explained the plan for tomorrow.
“What if they come here looking for us?” asked Inyatta. Barash nodded. Kamat stared at her own lap.
“Someone did, earlier. But they didn’t say it was you; they just said escaped criminals. And they left after Stella told them only family was here. If they come back, they won’t make it inside. You don’t have tags in, do you?”
“I don’t know,” Inyatta said. “They drugged us, and my implant’s different—doesn’t hold everything it did. They might have changed it out. I couldn’t walk well most of the time; they’d give us a shot to wake up more if they wanted us to walk and take a shower. But if I had a tracker tag, they should have caught us sooner, shouldn’t they?”
Ky had no idea what the range was on whatever kind of tag might have been used. “They didn’t catch you; that’s all we know. We’ll work on that tomorrow. This house is shielded, and some parts double-shielded. If we unlock it tomorrow, we’ll put you in one of the inner offices.” She paused; they said nothing. “When you’ve dressed, turn left out the door, follow the passage past the head of the stairs, and take the first right. There’s a small kitchen at that end; Stella’s heating up soup.”
After soup and toasted cheese sandwiches, they all looked better, though Stella’s clothes were too big for all of them. Stella returned, holding a single bedraggled black wig and shaking her head. “This was all I could find in the old playroom storage closet. We had costumes up there, you remember, Ky? We used to have more wigs, but apparently Mother threw them out. I’m afraid it won’t be very comfortable—they were cheap wigs for children’s games—but you’re welcome to try it out. We might be able to trim it so it looks better.”
The three passed it around, each one trying it on. It looked entirely fake, and didn’t fit two of them, but Corporal Barash wanted to keep it on. Kamat asked if there was a scarf she could wrap around her head; Stella ducked into her room and brought out a tray of them. Kamat and Inyatta each chose one and put it on—one green, one orange. With the baldness covered, they did look more like themselves.
“How did you escape?” Ky asked.
“Remembered what you said,” Inyatta said, with a shy smile. “Figure out the next thing to do, and do it. When we got the chance—even though you’d said to stick together and we had no idea where the others were.”
“You weren’t all in the same building?”
“No—I don’t know. Where we were was big, many sections, and each was separately locked, besides each cell. All three of us were together because they didn’t want us to mix with any of the others that weren’t our people.”
“They had you in a prison?”
“Yes,” Inyatta said. “Not far from here, in fact. We walked to the city.”
“They said they were taking us to be checked out medically, and then we’d get home leave,” Kamat said. “But the first place they took us to—it did look like a hospital—they gave us shots. To take care of any infections, they said,”
“And we woke up in that prison,” Inyatta said. “There was a lot of yelling we couldn’t hear clearly when we arrived—”
“I could hear ‘quarantine,’ ” Barash said. “And ‘thirty days to be sure.’ ”
“They’d taken away our comunits right away, back at the start—”
“The mercs?”
“No, when we got to the base, before we flew here for debriefing. Our own troops.”
Ky nodded but didn’t interrupt. As she’d thought…they were all taken, and now she would have to find them, somehow, and get them released.
“And then we woke up, our heads shaved like this, and—well, I’m the only one of the three with a prepaid skullphone account, but they’d operated on us all, and disabled all our implant communications. And forced Kamat to have an implant.”
“Which doesn’t do anything I can’t do myself,” Kamat said. “It’s disgusting.”
“They said you were really sick, in a hospital, and maybe would die, Admiral,” Barash said. “Were you sick?”
Ky shook her head. “Not at all. I had meetings, interviews—and legal stuff to do inside the family. And the news media—Stella, what did they have on newsvids about the Slotter Key personnel who were rescued?”
Stella shook her head. “I’m sorry—I didn’t pay attention. I was absorbed in the transfer of command inside Vatta. Mother had left a lot of loose ends. I glanced at one of the interviews you did, Ky, but I didn’t read beyond that.”
“Nobody said anything to me about infections or disease related to Miksland,” Ky said. “You had arranged a medical appointment for me through Vatta—”
“I wasn’t about to turn you over to Slotter Key military,” Stella said. “Even with Aunt Grace as Rector. Their shuttle failed and lost you—”
Ky noticed the others’ heads turning back and forth, like spectators at a tennis game, and held up her hand. “Wait, Stella. Inyatta, do you know where the others are? Still in prison? All in the same prison?”
“All I know for sure is what happened to the three of us. Except that the senior NCOs were taken by a separate flight from Pingats.”
“Staff sergeants? Sergeants?”
“Both. Gossin, Kurin, Cosper, Chok, and McLenard. I’m sure, because I recited the names over and over so I wouldn’t forget. In case—I don’t know what I was thinking, really…”
“That was good thinking, Corporal. A smart thing to do.”
“And we don’t know what they told our families. What if they were told we died of some horrible disease?” Kamat’s voice trembled. “What if they planned to kill us all, and the rest are already dead?”
“You’re safe here,” Ky said. “So get some sleep—we’re all on the same floor—and in the morning we’ll start figuring out how to help all of you.” She yawned; she couldn’t help it.
“Were you here in Port Major the whole time?” asked Barash as she stood up and put her soup bowl in the little sink.
“No, I just got back to the mainland today. I was on Corleigh, the island where I grew up. I hadn’t been back since the house was destroyed, after I left the Academy.”
“Come on,” Inyatta said as Barash opened her mouth to speak. “Everyone needs rest.” She turned to Ky. “Admiral, thank you for taking us in. And you, Sera Vatta,” to Stella. “And you, Ser.”
The others followed her down the passage toward the other wing. “Bad,” Rafe murmured, shaking his head. “Something’s rotten—”
“It’s all bad,” Ky said. The anger she’d been controlling flared again, white hot. “Aunt Grace let them be thrown in prison? Or did she plan it? Is she part—”
“You can’t believe that,” Stella said.
“I can,” Ky said. “And right now I want the truth! Stella, did you know anything about this? Anything at all? What did Grace say about the Slotter Key personnel?”
“Don’t bristle at me, Ky. I don’t recall her saying anything about them. We didn’t have that much time. I met her
at Hautvidor; she and Mac and Rafe and Teague. They were all talking about the mercs—whether the Mac-something—”
“Mackensee,” Ky said.
“Could land their force on Miksland quick enough to keep the others from killing you all. Then Grace got a call from someone in the military—Slotter Key’s, that is—and shooed us all out. Someone’s head would roll was the last I heard from her.”
“I don’t think she’s involved in what happened to your people,” Rafe said to Ky. “Teague and I overheard enough while in her house to know she was concerned about the others as well as you. But there’s division in the Slotter Key military, which she thinks might go back to that civil war.”
“Civil war?” Stella wrinkled her nose. “You mean that little insurrection thing she got caught in?”
Rafe cocked his head. “You don’t know more than that?”
“She told me about it,” Stella said. “Back when I was in trouble—you know, Ky, with the gardener’s son. She got involved with someone and ended up in some kind of violent mess. It barely shows up in our history books at all. Something happened to her; she was in a psych hospital for a while.”
“She didn’t give the details?”
“Not exactly. She did tell me she’d killed some people, that she’d been scared a lot.” Stella’s voice was cool, calm, as if whatever had happened to Grace didn’t matter in the slightest.
“I suspect it was a lot more than that,” Rafe said. “She’s a very complex woman, and she’s—she reminds me of someone I knew.”
“Well, it’s a hard job.”
Rafe looked at Ky. “We’d better get some rest, too, Ky.”
“I want to talk to her now—” Ky could feel the anger boiling up again.
“It’s late,” Stella said. “There’s nothing she could do tonight anyway.”
Ky stiffened. “If she’s involved, she certainly could do something tonight! Others are still in prison—or somewhere—being mistreated like these.”
“I know you’re upset,” Stella said, “but be reasonable, Ky. They aren’t really your troops; you don’t have any authority. Grace does, but she’s got a lot on her plate.”
The tone ripped the last shreds of Ky’s control. In just that calm, almost syrupy voice Stella had insisted Ky’s earlier enthusiasms and angers were unreasonable overreactions. Older to younger, senior to junior.
“You do not get to tell me who my people are or aren’t!” Ky said. “You weren’t there, you don’t—” Someone had hold of her arm; she spun, freeing herself, and struck before she realized who it was. Rafe, who had slipped the worst of the force and now stood just out of reach, poised in case she attacked.
“Ky!” Stella said, now roused and angry.
“Don’t,” Rafe said to Stella. She stepped back, frowning.
Ky turned slowly to face Stella. “He’s right. Don’t. Don’t lecture me in that tone, Stella. Ever again.”
For a long instant the three of them did not move. Ky stood rigid with the control she exerted not to strike again. Then Stella shrugged. “You’re right, Ky. You’re not a shareholder anymore, you’re not living on Slotter Key, what you do is your own business and not any concern of mine.” Her voice was cool, level. “Except that you are in my house, and you are the one who decided to bring strangers into it, fugitives, and then give me orders. And I am your cousin; your actions do affect me; I was attacked in my own apartment on Cascadia because of you. You might remember that when your temper cools.”
Ky felt the rage subsiding as if it were a column of boiling water leaking out of a pipe.
“I do,” she said, her voice still colored by it, but quieter. “I didn’t know about the attack.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
“Yes. Some.” She felt sore, as the tension dropped, sore and tired inside and out.
—
Stella made it to her own suite, closed the door behind her, and let loose a streak of language that Ky probably did not suspect she knew. How dare Ky treat her that way! Ky hadn’t even spoken to her on the flight back from Corleigh, had just sat there sulking, as if Stella were responsible for the bad news about her money and missing out on a longer vacation with Rafe.
The problem wasn’t just money. Ky didn’t have a ship to boss around anymore, a crew that hung on her every word and thought she was wonderful. She was feeling sorry for herself and probably believed Stella had it easier because Stella still had both the homes she’d grown up in, a mother alive, and Jo’s children as a promise of the future.
“Easier!” she said aloud, surprising herself with the venom in her voice. “Ha! I have nothing. My mother—my real mother—is someone I never met and never will, and my real father was a monster. My so-called family lied about my birth, Jo wasn’t any relation to me, and her children—how can I love them as if they were my real niece and nephew when I will never have children of my own?”
Not that she’d really wanted children. But still. The things she might have said to Ky, wanted to say to Ky, boiled through her head, vicious and potent as vitriol. Ky was the lucky one. Ky’s parents had been her real parents; yes, they were dead, but she was not being hassled by a live “mother” who wasn’t, a woman riven by grief and fear, whose only real grip on life was the twins she clung to. And yet Ky, as always, had grabbed the moral high ground, eager to play rescuer to those three peculiar-looking women, no doubt eager to have them kneel at her feet again, bask in their adulation of the great, wonderful Admiral Vatta who had saved everyone.
“Gah!” Stella said aloud. “And ordering me around like one of her soldiers!”
She was sweating now, pure fury hot as summer sun. All the quarrels in their past rose up, all the times she’d been told Ky was smarter or more sensible.
Her daysetter chimed, reminding her it was time for bed. She took a shower instead, letting the familiar beat of hot water on her shoulders relax them, inhaling the fragrances designed to calm, until she could think more clearly. She was the elder. And she was CEO of Vatta, all of it, responsible for the businesses, the employees, their families. That was where her energy should go, not on trying to fix her stormy younger cousin that no one else had ever been able to fix, either.
She had the shares now. She had the support of the corporate Board. Ky couldn’t touch any of that. She would show everybody that—monster’s bastard or not—she deserved to be where she was: in the big corner office. She drifted into sleep imagining that office and herself in charge…She hated the thought of her birth father, the family traitor, the criminal—but it was amusing to realize that he would be proud to see one of his own in charge. More than her adoptive father, the father of her childhood, who had never trusted her ability, who had preferred Jo, “the smart one,” to “that idiot Stella.”
CHAPTER TWO
SLOTTER KEY MILITARY ACADEMY
DAY 1
At last. Iskin Kvannis, Commandant of the Academy, had changed from his stark white uniform into more comfortable clothes in the Commandant’s quarters. He settled into the comfortable chair behind his desk and ran through the messages waiting for him. His wife reminded him about his daughters’ birthdays coming up in a couple of tendays—as if he needed a reminder. Their presents were already wrapped and stowed in the desk in front of him. Three minor infractions by cadets were now on his schedule for Commandant’s Hours the next day. And the fugitives from the military prison at the nearby base were still on the run. His focus sharpened; he checked the time and called the officer who was supposed to have found and taken them back to prison days ago.
“They must have found a place to hide, Commandant,” Major Sherman said. “There’s no trace of them—”
“Surely someone’s reported something—three bald women in military hospital garb can’t be that hard to spot.”
“We think they got clothes from somewhere.”
“They’d be trying to find Admiral Vatta,” he said, not for the first time. “You should be looking at
every place they might think to find her.” Luckily, she was far away, on Corleigh, and expected to stay there another two tendays at least. By the time she returned, the survivors wouldn’t be a problem anymore—at least, all but these three. And three—even if they couldn’t find and dispose of them before they went public—could be explained away. The injections that would finish their treatment and pass a postmortem examination by any military forensics had finally passed their clinical trial.
“Commandant, a team did go to the Vatta city residence. They spoke to Sera Stella Vatta, who assured them that no one had been to the house or entered the property. A Vatta watchman was resident there for the days the family was gone, patrolling the house and grounds regularly. But she did say that Admiral Ky Vatta was back in the city, at the house.”
“What? I should have been told that at once! How long has she been there?”
“It’s in the memo I sent.” Sherman sounded whiny, as usual; Kvannis clenched his teeth. “She returned just today. That break-in is why she came back. If only you’d let us contact the city police, put out a bulletin. Civilians don’t even know about the fugitives, let alone a description.”
“I was sure your people would have them back in custody by now, Major. We did not want to start a panic among the populace. But now, I suppose, since your team failed, we’ll have to take that risk. I will see that the police are notified. Perhaps your team can keep some kind of watch on the Vatta residence, just in case they show up there.”
He sat thinking awhile after that conversation. The break-in…had that been one of the over-eager civilian allies? It didn’t really matter now; what mattered was Ky Vatta in Port Major. He had already reminded Immigration that Ky Vatta, like Stella Vatta, had violated the law requiring absent citizens to renew their citizenship regularly. He’d been told that Admiral Vatta was a hero, for whom allowances would be made, of course, but now that she wasn’t an admiral—now that he’d made sure his friends on the legal side of Slotter Key’s military had opened an investigation of Master Sergeant Marek’s death at her hand—a few more “facts” might persuade Immigration to do more than sit around with their thumbs in, warbling about the glory she’d brought to Slotter Key in the Battle of Nexus.