Loralynn Kennakris 3: Asylum by Owen R. O'Neill, Jordan Leah Hunter

furled his xel as Kris jogged up.
    “Hi, Kris”—giving her a welcoming nod.
    “Hello, sir.” She touched her cap brim casually. Her arm was out of its sling and he knew from that AM’s medical reports they’d pulled the matrix from her broken ribs, which were healing nicely. Physical therapy for the SMS was much more involved, but overall, she was looking more bright eyed and bushy tailed than was usual for her.
    Kris had grown from the Academy cadet of a year ago, and was almost unrecognizable from the girl he’d met the day she was pulled off the contract slaver Harlot’s Ruse : at once fierce, withdrawn and oddly magnetic—a collection of dangerous edges, beautifully assembled. Her personality had smoothed to the point where ordinary mortals could rub shoulders with her without coming away bleeding, but the new habits were still tenuous, and while there was no one he trusted more in a dogfight, in social situations the old, habitual inclination to shield her still leapt out at inopportune times and made things awkward.
    He could admit privately (there being no place for it in the professional sphere) that he missed flying with her. By tradition, the SRF usually assigned the most junior member of the squadron to be the squadron leader’s wingman. So when Kris earned her combat wings, she’d flown with Huron for three months until Ensign Charles Dance had joined.
    During the last war, Huron had flown mainly with Geoff N’Komo, making a famous duo to rival Jantony Banner’s partnership with Pavel Heink. But his connection with Kris was even stronger, as their tally of victories clearly showed. In the intensely focused purity of combat, the strengths of their relationship—an innate mutual comprehension that went deeper than consciousness, and a faith in each other’s abilities no odds could shake—were given full play, without the multilayered complications that so often (or so it seemed to him) would turn inward and bite when their lives weren’t on the line.
    Carefully schooling these thoughts off his face, he answered her evident good humor with a smile.
    “So what can I do for you?”
    Kris glanced about as if checking who else was within earshot, and then asked in a low tone, “Is the game still on for tonight?”
    “Yeah.” He paused. She was referring to the private weekly poker game he and N’Komo had established some months ago for select shipmates. (It was a tradition of longstanding with them, revived wherever they were stationed for a decent interval.) Membership was limited to six, always three men and three women. At present, the third man was Krieger and there were only two women: Ensign Sahyli ‘Shyli’ Casanova (she much preferred her nickname), a merrily minded young woman Kris had roomed with during her last months at the Academy; and Lieutenant Commander Leeza Cannero, who reminded Kris of an older version of another studymate, Minx, in face and form though not in character. The open seat had belonged to Lieutenant Dina Sexton, who’d lost parts both legs at Miranda, and was on her way to Verdun Military Hospital to have replacements cultured. (She was also going to get them to fix, or so she swore, a condition she termed ‘chronic height deficiency’.) Kris, learning of this a couple of days ago, had worked up the nerve to ask Huron if she could join in.
    “Sure you still wanna do this?” he asked, gauging her expression.
    “Absolutely.” Her tone was touch emphatic, in keeping with her new resolve to improve her social skills where she could. Becoming more social seemed like a good place to start.
    Huron, noting the tone, also observed the accompanying smile. “Okay. Which ranks higher, a straight or a flush?”
    “A flush,” she said confidently. Huron had given her a brief rundown on the theory of the game when she broached the subject last night and she’d checked the rules quickly on her xel. Gambling was unheard of on Parson’s Acre, the Outworlds colony where