Star Axe: Rim Chronicles Book 8, #8

By Edita A. Petrick

An occupied world. A slave labor mining camp. Two captured Fleet officers. And a frontier god who could no longer stand to watch innocent lives perish.

 

The conflict between the Shoultain Warlords and the Federation has been going on for millennia but only through a series of skirmishes in the Neutral Zone. The latest such conflict, precipitated by traitors within the Fleet ranks, results in the capture of two young Fleet officers, Chief Medical Officer of the UGS Trevor Meridian, Karin Vexley and the ship's second rotation navigator, Kitaya DeWynter. Their ship can't assist them in any way, because that would constitute an outright declaration of war. Their friends and loved ones can only look on from outside the Neutral Zone, helpless in their anger and grief.

 

All the prisoners captured in the latest engagement are brought to Yerendor, one of the six worlds that fifteen years ago, the Federation surrendered to the enemy in exchange for signing a peace treaty. All six worlds have been turned into fearful slave labor camps. Karin and Kitaya's chances of surviving the brutal internment would be slim if not for one of the frontier gods who defies her membership to come and help the child she raised as her own.

 

The same engagement that resulted in Karin and Kitaya's capture, saw Captain DeWynter carry out his questionable mission with success. But like most things in life, that success came at a very high price that may not see him remain in the Fleet for much longer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edita A. Petrick
• Release date: Apr 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224062607

Edita A. Petrick

I'm a writer. That's all that can be said here. I love writing and I absolutely hate marketing. It just goes to show you where your natural talents lie. Writing comes easy. Marketing...that's something I will be learning until the day I die. All I can say about my books is that they're meant to entertain.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

The twisted and blackened wreck of the commercial star-liner sat on the hard-packed mound that used to be a water reservoir. From the edge of the camp, it was difficult to make out her name, or her owners’ logo. Beside it, close but separated by a wedge of open space, sat a gunship. It was not a wreck. If anything, its dark green hull looked as if the ship came out of the orbital space docks just yesterday.

They maintain it as if it was a shrine. Karin heard a voice and turned.

It’s a warning, the woman continued, nodding as if reaffirming something to herself. But you’d be surprised how many people in these camps didn’t believe it. Some fools even thought it was an invitation. They’re green jelly now. And that’s all you get if you give in to your temptation. A chance to feed their synthesizers.

Karin had noticed the woman before. She worked in the kitchen, close by to where she and Kitaya stood, in the row of kitchen slaves, mixing brown sludge that bubbled in huge vats over an open flame. There was no sound of human voices in the kitchen. No one as much as looked at their neighbor, much less spoke to them. However, this was outside, in the open; perhaps that’s why the woman felt she was safe to talk. Though to Karin it felt like she was reminding herself to resist temptation, rather than sharing information.

It looks fully functional, Karin said, then caught herself. It looks like it works.

"Oh, the gunship works. Of course, it works. Just last year, a squad of crabs came down, dressed in that storm-blue warrior gear of theirs, and took her out. They brought her back, all clean and polished, no name still; in any script, theirs or ours. They keep her hull blank. Sharhes-olah down in my hut says it’s because they don’t want to mark anyone’s grave. She’s a temptation and temptation is our grave. We are blanks to them. But name or not, she works. I saw with my own eyes as she rose for the sky. She works. That’s why they keep bringing her back. Temptation—to become our grave."

Do you mean she’s been off that hill more than once? The gunship fascinated Karin. It worked. That fact alone deserved not mere fascination, but adoration. And exploration. Playa told her to be careful and not let her thoughts stray too often to the hill with the gunship.

I am allowed only to take care of the two of you; I can’t help you with anything else, she had said the first morning that Karin stopped to stare at the hill with the cruel memorial.

I know. Treetop Magic has Treetop Rules, Karin said. By now I think your list of rules eclipses the list of conditions contained in the Neutral Zone Treaty by a warp factor.

If and when we get out of this hellhole with our sanity intact, I will take you to Calamora. I’ll take you to one of our Council sessions and you can share such sentiments with our membership, Playa said, and faded away. Karin had long clued into the fact that their caretaker, a Treetop Witch and one of the four-hundred-and-forty-three frontier gods who lived hidden in the Synoor jungle, was invisible to all who struggled to hold on to life, in Camp Renavindar.

While Playa appeared to her and Kitaya as a kindly aunt who faded into anonymity during large family gatherings, to the rest of the humanity and their camp wardens, she was invisible.

The bio-ship brought them to Yerendor. It wasn’t a large crowd. Just thirty-two slow-runners, as Playa called them. They were Nishan, from the third world on the Pericleidan chain—on the Allied side. They hired the wrong captain to take them on a religious pilgrimage. He sold them for a crate of pulse-fen rods to a Hebrides arms dealer. When the privateer’s ship was blown off course by a solar flare, a Shoultain patrol ship intercepted them and took them all—the arms dealer and his victims.

The bio-ship had a volume beam-collector. It’s how it dumped its load of captives on any given world.

Their beam-collector works, but the transport techs don’t, Playa said and shook her head. She said she would synchronize their arrival in the camp with the rest of the group.

Out of thirty-two, only twenty-eight materialized in the ‘reception’ area.

Stay, Play said and put her hand on Karin’s shoulder. They’ve lost family members. There is nothing you can do. They’re just a bunch of excited molecules now.

But they’re kids, Karin said.

Yes, and they’ve lost their parents but you cannot comfort them, nor can you show compassion. When I said this camp was going to be hard on you, I didn’t mean physical labor.

The Camp Renavindar was once upon a time the site of ancient tribal village. That was more than five-thousand years ago, well before the world knew there was a large community of humans roaming the star-studded galaxy.

The camp was set up in the mountainous regions of the Reiferan Plateau, half way to the Middle Ranges that rimmed the edge of the world’s Harpha continent. Long time ago, the village layout was in a pattern of concentric circles. Today, it would have been difficult to distinguish, if looking from above, what the distribution pattern was.

Those mud-huts with grass-thatched roofs that had withstood the test of time, were used to house the Kitchen Camp workers—sharhes.

I’ve streamed us to the supply camp, Playa said when the four Shoultain who beamed down seconds after their human cargo did, returned to their bio-ship. Karin saw that their beam-collectors sat on their shoulders. It made their transport from site to site very precise; unlike the wide-beam collector used on the captives that often missed its mark. They left the group without as much as checking whether anyone was going to come to take charge.

They left us unsupervised, Karin said under her breath and once again tried to squeeze by Playa to go and see how she could help the crying youngsters.

Nothing of the sorts, Playa countered. And as if her voice was the signal, the doors of the three large trailers sitting on a hill just ahead, fell down with a horrendous thud. The trailers stood on that small swell of land that was strategically positioned. It overlooked the remnants of the tribal village. The dark woods in the distance provided an unsettling contrast for the white-washed siding. A seemingly never-ending line of Shoultain guards kept spilling through the yawning doorways.

Twenty-five, Karin said softly.

And maybe more. Kitaya also spoke in a whisper.

How do they all fit in? Karin wondered. The evolution pushed the Shoultain race into the bulky end of the spectrum. An average Shoultain male was a head taller than an average human male. How much weight did that translate into, depended more on personal nutritional choices than evolution. The camp guards spilling from the trailers were all on the bulky side. Some of that could have been due to their armour. The interlocking plates might have been a sentimental tribute to their distant heritage, but Karin felt such nostalgia was misplaced.

They look like giant turtles that grew legs and are just learning to walk, she murmured when the guards paraded by without as much as glancing at them.

Off to start another productive day as overlords, Playa said.

Doing what? Karin looked around. There wasn’t much to see other than the distant line of trees.

"Down this slope, all the way to the edge, will let you look into what’s left of the land once the Shoultain finish digging out the benzefite ore. It’s a crater, wearing several garlands. I tend to think of them as funeral wreaths. It’s what any region on this continent will look like, once all the ore has been extracted. The open pit down there has nothing more to surrender. The operations moved upstream. The camps stay. It’s not economical to keep moving them. Up there you will find the middle segment of Camp Renavindar. And the last one is just a stone’s throw upstream of that one. That’s the one where you have tunnels, not just a terraced pit."

That’s why it’s so quiet here, Kitaya said, glancing at the group that stood there, huddling together.

You follow that scar in the land for about two kilometres and then the quiet is no more, Playa said. Mind you when they’re blasting, you’ll hear that for sure.

They let the captives handle explosives? Karin pursed her mouth in speculation.

A dangerous practice, you might think, right? Playa faced her. Thousands of brave men who thought handling explosives gave them an opportunity to gain their freedom, have lost their lives when the Shoultain buried them in the tunnel, and then just moved on to open up a new one.

The Shoultain are telepaths, Kitaya said quietly. They literally read minds. It’s how they know when the miners are planning to escape. They also mind-control the workers in this camp. That’s why they don’t need more guards. Supervision is done by tele-probe spot checks. These happen only occasionally—when needed. But the humans can’t feel when they’re being controlled by tele-probes. Their behaviour must seem erratic…it’s why they don’t trust each other.

Yes, my child. The humans who live enslaved on these worlds don’t want to believe they’re mind-controlled. Why do you think that squadron of hulking marine humanoids ignored us? They’ll imprint their orders into the minds of new arrivals soon enough. By tomorrow morning, the men will be gone from this camp. Here it’s only women and children.

And as if to support her claim, the group started to break apart. The men went to stand off to a side. A few moments later, they were beamed out. The women and children headed for whatever hut their Shoultain overseers assigned to them via mental orders.

Are we visible? Karin wanted to know.

The two of you are. Follow me, Playa said and headed for the hut that stood apart from the others; in the shade of a rocky overhang.

We’re not going to fit into that. Karin observed.

You’d be surprised, Playa said—and they were.

Positively palatial, Karin said when they entered. She turned to Playa, Optical illusion—outside or inside?

I’ll let you figure it out, Playa said with a spray of laughter.

Their caretaker looked after the rest of their accommodations. They had two cots with a mattress that felt like a cloud, a wooden stand with a wash basin, a bar of soap that never diminished, no matter how often they washed their hands; and a faucet that wasn’t connected to anything. It always ran with fresh, cold water.

That’s very obvious Treetop Magic, Karin said when she saw it.

"There is no more plumbing to speak of in this region. The Shoultain destroyed much of the underground infrastructure when they discovered benzefite on this continent. I had nothing to plug into," Playa said and shrugged.

Just then, Kitaya clutched her stomach, A sink and a toilet might be nice, she managed to say between retching.

I’m afraid you will have to settle for this, Playa said and pointed at something. When Karin looked closer, she saw a door in the mud-wall that wasn’t there when she entered the hut.

She helped Kitaya to sit down and held her hands until the bout of nausea passed, then went to open the door.

A latrine and a tin bucket? The temperature outside must be at least thirty-degrees Celsius. She kept alternately looking at the frontier facility and Playa.

There are rules, Playa said. However, like the water faucet and the wash basin, the latrine is powered by Treetop Magic. No smell. No unsanitary waste that every doctor dreads to find, she hastened to add when Karin kept frowning.

Latrine is fine, just fine, Kitaya said and hurried for the door. As long as it has a door, she said as she closed it shut.

Thank you, Karin said after a while, giving Playa a slight bow.

Care to take a guess what the rules are in this case? Playa challenged her.

Karin started to shrug then reconsidered the gesture. The facility must blend in with the rest of the available amenities already on site, and complement the surroundings and the rest of the decor, she said.

Playa studied her for a long time. She said, You know, Karin, if I had put that question to our Veddlings as a test, I would have had to wait hours, if not days, to receive such a complete and correct answer. Not because they lack knowledge; but because they lack decisiveness.

What are Veddlings?

Those of us who are in training, Playa replied.

How long do they train?

Playa chuckled. A few thousand years at least. Some more, some less. It all depends on the talent—and the curriculum.

Perhaps it’s time to take a good look at the curriculum and design one that…complements the available talent, Karin said. It might speed things up.

I will do my best to bring you in as a guest-lecturer, Playa assured her with a spray of laughter. To Karin, it sounded like bells ringing in a distance.

What do the guards and our fellow-captives see when they look at us? What do we look like? Karin changed the topic.

Playa waited until Kitaya came out of the ‘frontier facility,’ and then showed them in holo-cloud.

Karin studied the non-descript middle-aged woman, with mousy brown hair, pulled back into a bun, soft, almost malleable features, and dressed in shapeless brown coveralls.

If I turned around, counted to three and then turned back, I would not be able to give a description of the person I saw, just three seconds ago, Karin said.

That’s the idea, Playa said. I’m pleased I’ve chosen so well.

Are we sisters? Kitaya asked when she finished studying her ‘avatar.’ It looked nearly identical to Karin’s avatar.

Good point, Playa exclaimed and Kitaya had a new avatar. It was just as non-descript as Karin’s, but there were some differences. The hair was short and frizzy; the body was a lot bulkier than Karin’s avatar and she was dressed in gardener’s coveralls.

Is my avatar fat because of this? Kitaya patted her still flat stomach.

Karin put a hand around her shoulders. You’ll grow into it, Kit. I like it.

How long before I won’t be able to see my feet? Kitaya sounded anxious.

Karin served her a squished smile. What is it that really worries you? she asked.

We’re in the Shoultain labor camp. Kitaya tried to get out of answering.

Yes, and we have our own personal frontier god looking after us. So, once again, what is it really that worries you?

Our wrist locators have a range, but Kent should have been able to buzz it this far. We’re not thousands of light-years away. I haven’t felt a thing. What if they aren’t looking for us?

Kit, I think that green bio-field de-polarized our wrist locators, Karin said.

But you’re not sure.

No, Kit. I’m not sure but Kent would have buzzed us; knowing Kent, he’d damn well fry our wrists. I haven’t felt a thing. In fact, I can’t even feel the chip. For all I know, that green bio-field could have dissolved it, or our bodies absorbed it—I don’t know. What I do know, is they’re looking for us.

It doesn’t feel like that to me, Karin.

They’re looking for us. Next.

But what if they won’t…?

We’re Fleet officers. The Fleet is obligated to look for its members until they either find them, find their remains or find what happened to them. They’re looking for us. Next.

Kitaya was worrying about the wrong thing. The Fleet did have an obligation to look for its members, but only within the federated territories. The Fleet also contracted the search and rescue of its members to the para-military outfits like the Simlow Rangers. This expanded the radius of where they could legally search for missing crew members, but even Simlow Rangers could not cross the Neutral Zone.

Given the situation and the tension that must be coursing through the entire Pericleidan strip in the wake of that daring capture of two Shoultain patrol boats, no one was going to come even close to the Neutral Zone; not for a while. And that’s precisely what worried Karin.

It’s why she stopped every morning on her way to the huge row of open-sided messy trailers that stood on a stone plateau down where the land levelled off, and stared at the macabre memorial on the hill. It had a gunship that worked.

CHAPTER TWO

Ezra was a charming, little world.

The one and only massive continental plate was still too young. It had yet to break into several tectonic plates. Youth of landscape was usually characterized by sharp features. The tall peaks that rose in the distance and could be seen even from the lower floors of Max Callisto Fleet Headquarters were mostly bare. Some did have white snow caps but only near the top. They were named somewhat unimaginatively, the Needlescape Mountains.

The world’s crust was mostly volcanic rock. The soil came from the nearby star system, in huge ore cargo ships. It was the only way the Federation knew how to make the world habitable. Even though the seeding efforts have been going strong for centuries, the grass was still something of a rarity. The Ezran Chamber of Commerce voted to give priority to farming community over the beautification of citizens’ surroundings. Parks and meadows that the city planners slipped into the city designs, had to yield to long strips of arable fields. As a result, Ezra was nearly self-sufficient in food production, even though freighters and cargo ships arrived periodically, bearing staples and supplies.

The Meridian sat clamped on the radial arm in orbit. She would receive an overhaul, and even a stay in orbital dry docks if that proved to be necessary. Then again, there was that brief and a little disturbing entry in Captain’s Log: Meridian did not fire a single shot—at anyone. There was confrontation, but no engagement. The four destroyers, observing and serving as back-up, recorded everything that transpired on the edge of the Neutral Zone. The UGS Trevor Meridian, the only Devon-class starship in the Fleet, still considered a prototype, entered the Neutral Zone. It captured the two enemy patrol ships and brought them out of the Zone with its triple-braid tractor beam. One of the four destroyers rotating out of their patrol was also brought out safely. The other three were not. The ten short-range fighters, TRX class, were also captured by the enemy ship. Their loss was somewhat exacerbated by the fact that two Fleet officers, both crew members of the Meridian, were also captured by the enemy. The Fleet had an obligation to look for its members. There was protocol to be applied to these types of situations and search would commence once all administrative measures were satisfied.

The Meridian’s bridge crew, including its Captain, Co-Captain and First Officer, and all crew members and officers who held even a peripheral knowledge of the situation, were scheduled for comprehensive de-briefing sessions. These were expected to last at least four, five months, simply because the situation was without a precedent.

Arduous, torturous and onerous stream of pointless questions, Orbon murmured as the three of them headed for the wing where the de-briefing sessions were to take place.

Twelve bodies, cut to shreds as if they walked into some kind of band-saw, would definitely set off an alarm in any Admiralty, not just here on Ezra, Alcoway said. And that kind of event tends to overshadow the victory of bringing in two Shoultain Q-patrol boats.

It’s hard to believe those two Avians did all that damage in less than five minutes, Orbon said, shaking his head.

Kent submitted evidence. It’s hard to dispute something that you can not only show on screen, but in holo-scan, Alcoway said. And it wasn’t a simulation or even recreation; it was live action, as it happened.

Gallen kept walking between the two, silent and indifferent.

Captain…? Alcoway tried to bring him out of it.

I know. I’ve heard. Your briefing is detailed and to the point, as always. Both of you are doing a great job of telling me what to say. The problem is that I don’t feel like saying anything. I don’t want to talk at all.

Then just answer their questions, Alcoway said.

Telepaths are unpredictable. They went berserk and killed their handlers, Gallen said. How’s that for an answer?

And what if they’re not? Alcoway challenged him.

Weren’t you the one who found that…I don’t even know what to call it, Gallen ended up clearing his throat so forcefully he had to stop to catch his breath.

I did, Captain, Orbon said. And it was gruesome. That’s about the only way I would describe it. If they ask you about it, refer them to me. I’m the first one on the scene of the…crime, I suppose. Though Mark here seems to think there might be extenuating circumstances.

The Avian species in this quadrant are a higher-register of the ornithoid class. They’re sentient. Their hearing range is comparable to ours. But certain sounds—synthetic sounds like high-frequency ultrasonics—are very frightening to them. Something set those two off. It wasn’t words, and it wasn’t action. If that were the case, they would have shredded their Master Glyn long time ago. It was something sudden and unexpected and no one else heard it but them, Alcoway finished.

So, I’m to defend them killing twelve people? Gallen sounded uncaring.

No, Captain. You are to offer one possible explanation. If that is not palatable to those panel members, then let them make their own conclusions. We can only tell them how we saw things from our side, Alcoway said.

I’ll tell them to ask you or Orbon, Gallen said glumly.

That’s always a good idea, Captain, as long as you keep in mind that you are the captain. You were at the helm when all this went down, Alcoway said, voice hardening.

It’s all my fault, Gallen murmured

Alcoway’s hand shot out and stopped him like a barrier. Gallen, snap out of it. If they’re looking to blame someone for what happened, let them do it. You do not do it for them, is that understood?

The stressful morning of the first day interrogatories proved to be just a warm-up. After that, each and every morning brought in new conflict, new stress, and new pain when the loss of the crew became a topic for discussion. The fact that Kent, the ship’s Artificial Intelligence virtual crew-member who was incorruptible and impartial, could not pick up the signal from the wrist locators, hung over the room like a dark cloud.

The days turned into a never-ending struggle to keep up with the de-briefing panel of experts, whether they were the Fleet or Behavioral or its Science Experts. Each morning, Alcoway rose well before his alarm went off. He sat up in bed, feeling the way he’s felt ever since he watched the Shoultain bio-ship swallow that which he never, ever wanted to give up. He felt disconnected. Once again, the Fate had robbed him of his life. He wanted to shout and rage at everything and everyone and couldn’t find the energy to do it.

The Meridian was given a hero’s welcome. But no one on board cheered. Not its Captain, not its crew and certainly not its Chief of Security. They delivered the Shoultain patrol ships and their crew to the Ezran Fleet Command. They also transferred the custody of the two Avians to them. The verbal and electronic transfer was done in orbit. The physical transfer came later, when a science vessel, the UGSS Althea assumed orbit and confirmed transfer of the enemy’s ships and their crew. They also took the two Avian telepaths.

Alcoway knew that it wasn’t what Karin would have wanted. She would have petitioned the President himself to get those Shoultain crewmembers treated as prisoners, not guineapigs. But Karin wasn’t there. The sound of her name threatened to send him out of the interrogation room, raging inwardly at the injustice of it all.

When Kent read the ship’s log entry about what happened in the Neutral Zone, and sought confirmation, Gallen left the bridge. Alcoway knew he had to remain behind, and carry on in his joint capacity as the ship’s Captain. He tried to block out Kent’s hourly reports of the results of his search and attempts to pick up the locator signals. He had no illusion about such search yielding anything that would foster hope the two were still alive.

Four months into the interrogatories, there was only the two of them. They did not say a word to each other until they were entering the de-briefing room in Max Calisto.

I’m resigning my commission, Gallen said, dry-voiced.

They’re not dead, Gallen.

I need to get back out there and look for her. I thought you’d want to do the same….

There are other ways to go about it.

What other ways?

They had to endure hours of de-briefing. The torture went on for months. It was exhausting having to repeat every painful detail over and over, but it helped to numb his mind to that other pain that rimmed his heart.

That one attacked when there was no one around to press him for explanations of things that barely made sense to him.

I’m resigning my commission, Gallen said again when the torturous de-briefing sessions were finally over.

He walked beside him, silent and forbidding, until they made it out of Max Callisto and into the streets, then grabbed him and dragged him into the first alley he saw. He pinned him against the wall.

You can’t help anyone, Gallen, when you’re a civilian. The only thing going for us in this situation is that we’re both Fleet officers. And so are they. The Fleet is obligated to look for its officers. They’ve already started….

You heard what they said. They’ll be looking to confirm their deaths. They’re not looking for anyone alive. Protocol has to be followed and all such useless shit. Those are feeble efforts, Gallen tried to shake off his hand.

They are efforts. That’s all you want for now, field intelligence. I told you there are other options. But we can’t put them in play as civilians.

What other efforts? Gallen was unconvinced.

DeBarre, Alcoway said and tipped his brows at him.

He knew he made an impact when Gallen stopped struggling.

Where can we find him? Maybe for the first time since the tearsling stole his hope, the Captain of the Meridian sounded interested in staying around.

I found him already. He’s going in as we speak. We’ll get whatever the fleet comes up with—like I said, we need intelligence—and we’ll get it to DeBarre.

I can’t wait…I don’t want to….

Gallen, I don’t want to have to drag you into an alley every time you lose it. Get a grip, as your wife and mine would say.

He got through to him via back door. Karin’s not your wife.

Semantics, Alcoway dismissed the observation.

I hold a stronger hand here. Kit is my wife. I have the legal right to insist that the Fleet spares no manpower or resources to find her—all right; I get it. I’ll stay connected, he promised.

He managed to stay connected most of the time; but now and then, Alcoway still had to grab him and all but bounce him off the wall to knock some sense into him.

How do you do it? Gallen asked him.

They’re not dead, Gallen. That’s what I go to bed with and that’s the first thing in my mind when I wake up.

But there were mornings where Alcoway’s faith and resolve faltered.

That’s when he woke up hours before the alarm and sat on the bed, head bowed. When he raised it again, it was to seek that which tempted him every time he looked at it—his phaser.

The first few days after they came back to Ezra, he took out the phaser every chance he got, between the time he rose and the time he went to bed. He didn’t want to live; but more than that, he didn’t want to have to deal with the pain that attacked the moment someone said her name. And it sounded often enough during the de-briefings.

When the Fleet finally finished grilling him, and gave him a passing mark and a meaningless string of words on his record, he went to bed knowing he would wake up and finally discharge that phaser—set on high.

He reached for it, fully intending to make it his last morning, when her words came to remind him of something he had hard time to believe.

If you think things are bleak but I’m not beside you, they aren’t as bad as you think.

It played in his head, with her voice, as if she was standing beside him. It’s what made him put down the phaser and get dressed, then head out for another day of soul-shriveling existence.

CHAPTER THREE

E verything is a negotiation, Playa said when Karin asked her whether Kitaya could get a break half-way through the day from stirring brown slush in the great pots standing on bare metal plates.

Have you told her yet? Playa asked, staring at Karin with an inscrutable expression; then again, her ‘favorite-auntie’ avatar always wore an inscrutable expression.

I’ll take her shift. You just have to cover up the hole in the ranks of kitchen slaves that her absence will leave. Karin pretended not to hear what she didn’t want to answer.

Don’t you think you should tell her? You’re not only her doctor, you’re her friend. You’re the sister she could have had, if only her parents had lived through Bresling’s invasion. Tell her.

If I tell her, will you give her an afternoon break and cover up for her absence? Karin slipped into negotiation as if she just remembered what Playa had said at the onset of their conversation.

You know, Karin, when we get out of here—and it is entirely up to you whether we do or don’t—I will not only take you to observe how our Membership Council works, I’ll let you chair it. That’ll straighten out quite a few kinks in our ranked members. You have a deal.

The next day, when she saw Kitaya supporting her back with one hand, and trying to hold on to the wooden paddle spoon with the other, Karin reached for it and made her let go.

You’ve earned your well-deserved rest. Go lie down, she said.

Karin, the guard doesn’t have to be here to see that someone’s missing, Kitaya said. He might not be a powerful telepath, but to them it’s an evolutionary trait. They all possess it. They all use it. It’s second nature to them. And they all perform a mental check of this camp on an established schedule. We’ve no idea what that schedule is. I can’t leave.

Yes, you can. I’ve cleared it with our Synoor caretaker.

Kitaya stared at her for a few seconds then asked, What are you supposed to do in return?

Everything is a negotiation, Karin said, grimacing. I’m supposed to tell you that soon, very soon, you won’t be able to see your feet.

Kitaya chuckled. I can barely see them now and I’m not even six months pregnant—that is if you and your probe are right.

"I’m right, the probe is right and you sure as hell didn’t get pregnant on your wedding night. It was the dinner and the deep discussion the two of you had at the Mar, afterward. Was that the first time….?

Yep, Kitaya cut her off quickly.

Karin shook her head and laughed. Must be some kind of record. Her smile grew abridged. Well, at this rate, by the time you’re into your last trimester you won’t be able to see much of anything below your boobs.

Kitaya laughed. I don’t care as long as the baby’s healthy.

Oh, they are, Karin said. She had been monitoring Kitaya daily. She kept her med-probe in the side-pocket of her fatigues and Playa warned her not to let anyone see she had it.

I will screen you. But I may not be able to screen your tools, Playa said.

Why not? Karin didn’t understand.

Rules, Playa said. I barely understand them. For that reason, I won’t bother explaining them to you. Just take my word for it. Some things are out of my control and unless I want to mutiny against our Leader, I can’t affect the change.

Kitaya passed the paddle spoon to Karin and went to get some rest. It took her almost a day to come back to the moment when Karin answered her.

She left her paddle spoon stuck in the mush and walked over to Karin. What did you mean when you said yesterday, they are?

I mean they are both just fine, Karin said, hiding a smirk.

Both? What do you mean both?

Karin held up two fingers.

No!

Karin nodded, grinning.

No, that can’t be…. Kitaya maintained and then started to cry.

Tears of happiness, I’m sure, Karin commented and went to comfort her.

Playa not only kept her word about covering for Kitaya in the kitchen, but added a morning break.

Two, Kitaya said, when she handed the paddle spoon to Karin. I’m not even sure I’ll be able to take care of one. How am I going to take care of two—here, of all the places…?

It was that anguished lament that set the morning pattern for Karin.

Each morning she would take two more steps sideways than the previous day, and stop to stare at the tableau of a fully functioning gunship and a burned-out wreck of a commercial liner. The gunship sat in profile. Its design seemed to be a mix of Kressler-class destroyer and Akeron-class light cruiser, a frigate design. Kressler DXPs were used on the fringe. The colonial marines, out of Nestor-Luna 19, would take them on patrol when they wanted to make a point to the Fredolis that the fringe, resource worlds in the Mishtimani were legally Allied post-holds. The DXP-class had what was whimsically referred to as ‘intimidating’ fire-power. It had an array pulse-canon, normally handled by one weapons officer, and a line-jammer that punched holes in the energy shields. Often that was enough to convince the Fredoli war-head spikers that the Allies were defending their side of the border. The Akeron was a Fleet-design that was available to commercial outfits. It had two hulls connected by a stem. Its weapons array was mostly for show, not serious defense. The stem could be converted to quarters for guests who liked to take ‘cruising’ vacations.

The gunship’s secondary hull was too small to be a fully-equipped and armed feature. The ship sat on it, though it did have stumpy landing skates. The Allied gunships didn’t usually make landfall. They were orbital defense systems. This one looked more like a transport ship, than a battle-ship.

What are you? What are you? What are you? Karin kept whispering each time she took two more steps in the direction of the display hill, as she came to think of it. She needed to get as close as possible to see the hull. Did it have seams that would crack open to allow pulse-canons discharge their punishing salvo? Or were those just cracks in the plating from sailing through a debris-strewn cloud? Were those darker oval shapes torpedo tubes that would launch phase-emitter torpedoes if the ship was threatened on its way out? Or were they just outlines meant to deceive. The Shoultain were famous for visual misdirection.

But this is a mining camp, Karin whispered, shuffling back into her path to the kitchen. It doesn’t make sense to keep a fully armed gunship on display. It’s not guarding anything. It’s just a temptation; a prop. However, props were for display, which meant they didn’t have to work. This one did. It might not have been a gunship, but it wasn’t a prop either. That’s fine, Karin thought, I’ll take a hybrid. I just need to learn a little more about her.

The kitchen was always a busy place and a focus of the camp. Everyone who ended in Kitchen Camp had to work either cooking, or packaging, or washing chipped plastic containers then re-filling them with slop again, or stacking them on floating platforms. The guards would then deliver them to the other two camps. Every day, usually in the morning as Karin and Kitaya were making their way down the path, heading for the kitchen, five or six women, and their young helpers would right the barrels that they turned over the night before. They’d stand there, heads bowed, even the children. After a while they woke up from their trance, and went to dip plastic buckets into the barrels.

Water, Karin said. "How do