Элизабет Мун - Into the Fire

“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?”