Free Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks by Owen R. O'Neill, Jordan Leah Hunter

pretty fancy hardware in overwatch to detect the corvette, track the team and cue the sensors? That corvette and the shuttles had some of the best signature suppression we’ve got. If even Halith has hardware that good, we’ve missed it badly.”
    “But if they were being surveilled from the moment they got in-system, why let it go as far as a firefight? Propaganda value? Doesn’t make much sense—just detaining the corvette would’ve still given them a dandy incident, if that’s what they were looking for.”
    That took a few unpleasant moments to digest. “You have a point.”
    “And all the indications are that surprise was complete. If they were waiting for them, that means our team couldn’t detect ‘em.”
    “Or they weren’t waiting for them. Which implies they had their forces staged in the vicinity but not close enough for our team to find them, and a good enough idea of the timing so they could warn against the corvette even if they couldn’t track it. But once the shooting started and the shrike went up . . .” Trin folded up the flimsies and stuffed them back in her pocket. “Nick, how conspiratorial are we feeling?”
    “Well, I don’t know about you, but I could fit myself for a tinfoil hat about now.”
    Wesselby tried to suppress a bitter smile. “Do you want to go on record with that?”
    “Let’s just keep it between you and me for now. But it’s looking rotten as hell and this ain’t Denmark.”

Chapter Six
    CEF Academy Orbital Campus
Deimos, Mars, Sol
    Sergeant Major Yu, barefoot and dressed in a black exercise rig, bestrode a stage erected in Shuttle Hanger #6. Class 1861, all dressed alike and already diminished to forty-two of its original fifty-six members, sat on rows of equipment lockers placed before the stage, some trying to keep their naked soles off the icy metal deck and reflecting that Yu was pacing back and forth on nice, warm wrestling mats. It was their first day back after the mid-term break, and some of the cadets were clearly still feeling the effects of a week of liberty—their reward for completing the first half of their initial six-month term—and with that sadistic genius that so characterized the bureaucratic military mind, it was their first day of unarmed combat training.
    Sergeant Major Yu was the Academy’s senior unarmed combat instructor. Moreover, he was a three-time All-Forces Unarmed Combat Champion, a distinction he shared with no living person, and with the next tournament coming up at the end of this term, it was being confidently predicted by most that he would win a fourth title, something never before achieved. This opinion was not universal because Yu would be competing for the first time against the reigning champion, a corporal named Vasquez who had won the title once previously, and interest in the match was sure to mount to feverish heights. Early betting favored Yu by odds of three to two.
    Kris, sitting in the second row, was mostly unaware of the growing excitement surrounding the upcoming tournament, but she was not unaware of the cold deck and was sitting cross-legged to avoid it, dignity be dammed. She was not among those suffering from an excess of liberty because she’d spent her liberty right here on Deimos, luxuriating in the quiet of an empty dorm, Tanner and Minx having gone downside to Mars and Basmartin having been treated to a trip to Earth. Basmartin had invited her along but she had declined, claiming the expense as the reason; a false reason as Kris could easily have afforded it—she was, in fact, quite well off, with her credit account still flush with the repatriation payout the government had given her in consequence of her enslavement.
    The true reason she declined was that Mariwen Rathor was from Earth and while Kris had no notion of Mariwen’s current whereabouts—the last time she’d seen her was in a hospital on Nedaema—the pain of that visit and the association with Earth were still too sharp. So