along behind, I marched back over to the hospital.
Inside, the hospital was as gray and depressing as the stockade. Word was out on me all right:
I didn’t even have to flash ID for the duty dragon to point me toward the jail ward. I snapped off
a salute and strode down the corridor.
Finding the jail ward was simple. Finding Roy was another story. The ward was now
completely empty. Well, the beds were, anyway. Through the swinging doors at the far end I
heard the unmistakable sounds of a poker game. I strode down the rows of empty beds and
slammed through the doors.
Roy froze in the act of putting a tall glass of something amber and dewy on the table beside a
burly orderly with a fat stack of chips in front of him. The Sprite was still in his hospital gown,
but he’d poufed it up on the side and fluffed it over somebody’s belt. Damn if he didn’t make it
look like clothes. Did nothing for my mindset that the little bastard had clearly been whispering
sweet nothings in the orderly’s ear.
The whole damn crowd blinked up at me. The orderlies looked guilty. Roy went into full
‘terrified slave’ routine. Didn’t matter, far as I was concerned now; my sympathies had just
shriveled up and died. The little bastard didn’t care about Romeo or me. He was just out for
himself. I motioned for the orderlies to stop trying to sweep the evidence out of sight then turned
on my heel and strode back out.
I didn’t hear Roy scamper up beside me so much as I smelled him. Kid must’ve bathed in a
bulb of Jungle Gardenia.
“It’s not what you think,” Roy hissed at my shoulder. I didn’t stop, so he skipped sideways to
match my pace. I noticed he kept his head down, addressing my toes like a good slave should. “I
need their help…”
“Yeah, sure you do.” I fought down a sneeze and kept going. “Whoring’s real hard without
customers.”
“Will you listen?” He jumped in front of me, forcing me to either stop or run him over. I
stopped. Partly because I didn’t feel like taking a flying sprawl. But mainly because I realized he
was still playing for those gods-be-damned vid cams. “You don’t understand anything,” he
hissed.
“What?” I folded my arms and waited.
He kept his head down when he spoke, lifting only his eyes to mine. And if stink eye could
kill, I’d have been dead on the spot. “I’ve got to get back on to the freighter!”
“Yeah, well, don’t we all,” I snarled.
“Listen!” He kept his snarl to a near whisper. “Sasaki sent a couple of messages out just
before the attack. Only his second caught him at it. She tried to stop him and he shot her. That’s
what started the fight on the bridge.”
Those must be the messages ShipMind kept harping on. Didn’t matter either way, far as I was
concerned. “Yeah, so?”
“So I want to be out of here before –”
I’d hit him before I realized I’d balled my fist. Little bastard must have been used to ticking
his owners off because he rolled with the punch like an expert. “So you want to get out of here,
huh? Just you.” I grabbed him by the neck before he recovered and hauled him over to his bed.
A glance at the far doors showed me the big orderly’s face ducking out of sight. Yeah, Roy
wouldn’t suffer. He already had his mark lined up. “You miserable little scumbag,” I growled in
his ear. “You can damn well whore your way through the ranks for all I care. I am through
wasting worry on you.”
I threw him on to his bed then stalked out.
A part of my mind said I ought to understand. Even if he got out of this shithole alive, he was
still a slave. Best he could hope for was another bout on the auction block. I shouldn’t blame him
for grabbing any chance he had to find a protector. Gods knew I’d have done the same in his
boat. And yet… I’d thought he cared. I couldn’t put a finger on the reason, but somehow the way
that boy moved on so fast felt like a betrayal.
Chapter 8
The polar bears were still working their inconspicuous routine when I stepped back out into the
night. I rubbed a hand across my eyes, trying to rub out the anger pounding my temples. With
those two in tow, there wasn’t anything much I could do now except find someplace to hole up
and get my head working again. That, at least, was already set.
The Sisterhood’s barracks defied all the myths army scuttlebutt created around the group. It
was a long, gray ugly hut, same as every other long, gray, ugly hut on the base. Only the inverted
heart beside the door marked it as a Sisterhood barracks. Predictably, some choom had added the
inevitable red dots to the curves of the heart. Never failed. Show men any pair of inverted loops
and all they see is boobs. ‘Course, with the sisters, that was as close to seeing the real thing as
the guys were going to get. Generally even the dumbest grunts figured that out after a couple or
three broken noses. So the men made up wet dream rumors to compensate. By and large the
sisters just let them run. The boring truth would’ve been bad for male morale.
I knocked, gave it a three-count before poking my head around the door: sisters were not
known for welcoming barge-ins. Inside, a couple of battle-scarred senior sisters sat darning socks
on the nearest bunks. The door dragons gave me the look-over without dropping a stitch. There
was no welcome in it.
“What you want, Aryan?” That was the elder of the two, a buzz-cut, gray haired non-com
sporting a jaw-to-ear scar.
“I got the invite,” I told her.
“Yah?” Hell would’ve froze at the ice in her voice.
“I gave her the invite, Del.” A slender young woman with the coppery skin of a Derrakhti
native lifted herself up on a bunk a couple of beds down. I poked my head far enough through
the door to recognize the profile of the driver who’d waggled wings at me earlier. The single
blue stripe on her sleeve marked her as a private first class. “I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you.”
“Huh.” Dragon Del gave me a second glance-over. It still wasn’t friendly. “You know who
she is, Awen?”
The girl shrugged. “Heard she brought in a Lupan. Figured that made her one of us.”
Del snorted. “Oh, she brought him in all right.”
“Turned him right over to Kriegsman’s askers, she did, this one.” The second dragon shot me
a sneer the Colonel would’ve envied. She bore the true-black skin and boulder build of a deep
space miner.
“Yeah, sure I did,” I snarled. “That’s why I just spent the last few hours facing the Colonel
down to keep that Lupan safe.”
The girl call Awen rolled upright to sit on the edge of her bunk. “Heard she hammered those
chooms at the stockade,” she said. Her voice was soft, but not weak. She was young, maybe
eighteen at the outside. She looked sweet and sad, the kind of girl who joins up to get away from
the chooms on the street only to find the chooms in the army were worse, and harder to out-run.
“Heard she made those boys hop. And made ‘em handle that Lupan right.” She looked to the
dark dragon. “Those’re your clansmen over there, Paris. You must’ve heard, too.”
“Yah, I heard, I did.” The dark dragon finished her darning, her needle work sharp and angry.
�
�I think she’s okay, Del,” Awen said.
The dark dragon jerked her head at me, still speaking to Awen. “She’s still Aryan, she is.”
The Aryan part of me wanted to just tell them all to gob off and head for the lay-over quarters.
But I ached too much and stank too bad to face the trudge back. I pushed my way in and
slammed the door behind me. “Look, you two – I’m just a gods damned, gobbin’ grunt like the
rest of you.” Along the rows women lifted their heads. Damn, I could wind up splattered all over
the wall if the whole barracks turned against me. Right now, I was too tired and sick in the gut to
care. “I just lost my whole gods-be-damned gobbin’ squad out there. I been in combat or in
trouble for the past thirty-odd hours. I also got two of the dumbest-ass men I ever saw to take
care of, and I got Kriegsman callin’ me a –” I bit my tongue before I hanged myself with my
own words. I ran a hand across my eyes and felt myself sway. “So if the invite’s off, just say so.”
“Huh.” Del shot a questioning glance at her sister dragon, got a half-shrug for answer.
“Okay,” she told me. “You got the invite, you got the right. You can take Tanner’s bunk.” She
went back to torturing her sock.
“Thanks.” Having found its opening, exhaustion was making the most of it. The room tried to
fuzz out. I shook my head to clear it. All that did was make me dizzier. I settled for holding my
breath till I got the two dragons back into focus. “Look, I don’t mean any trouble. Give you my
word on it. If you’ll just point me toward the showers, I’ll be outta your way.” I tried for a smile.
“After that, I’m just going to be out.”
“I’ll show you.” Awen lifted herself off her bunk.
“You sure?”
“Sure you’re going to get yourself lost if I don’t.” With that, Awen nudged me aside and led
me back out the door.
I must have passed out when the warm, musty air from the shower hut enveloped me. I only
realized I was naked when a stream of hot water ran past my eyes and down my breasts. Old
terrors triggered. I came awake with a yelp, heart pounding and fists swinging.
‘S’all right. I’ve got you.” Awen ducked, but held on. Light gleamed on coppery skin that
surely wasn’t mine. I blinked till I got her in focus, realized Awen was naked, too.
Oh, damn. Should’ve realized. “Hey, look.” I tried to wriggle the sponge out of her hand. “I
don’t mean to seem ungrateful, but –”
“No worries.” Awen ignored my swipe, went back to scrubbing. “You were out on your feet.
It was just easier to strip off and wipe you down. No expectations, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks.” My eyes were trying to close. I slapped my cheek to get them open again.
“Mind if I ask what all the hassle’s about? Sisters don’t usually challenge an invite.”
Awen went still for a moment. “It’s what they did to Tanner, sir –”
“Kat. Call me Kat.” I blinked. “Who?”
“Tanner.” She tried for a smile, gave it up and concentrated on scrubbing instead. I noticed
her arm lacked the coppery gleam of the rest of her skin. I found the reason in the fine surgical
line at the base of her shoulder where brown met copper. That arm was a plain army-issue
replacement. However sweet she looked, this girl had seen some heavy combat.
“What happened? What’d she do?”
“Kriegsman accused her of doing a com cast on the sneak.
“Yeah, so? Grunts’re always sneaking messages. What’d Kriegsman do, post her to
shitsville?”
“He executed her.”
“What?”
I felt rather than saw Awen’s sob. “We are secret squirrel here, you know that. Nothing comes
in. Nothing goes out.”
“Yeah, but execution?”
“He accused her of spying for the Lupans.”
“Was she?”
“Of course not!” Awen turned the word into a snarl. “She didn’t need to send anything! She
knew my husband’s dead. He bought it off Rustom.”
“Maybe she was trying to help? Get word out to his family?”
“His hunting pack would take care of that. And I…” Awen shrugged, looked away. “I already
knew.”
“Oh. Uh… how?”
Awen cocked her head at me, looking puzzled. “Didn’t you feel the Touch?”
“Feel? Hells, woman, we were trying to kill each other.” I knew as I said it that it wasn’t true.
At least not all the way.
Awen knew it, too. “If he’d been trying to kill you, you’d be dead.” Her grip on my arm
tightened painfully. “But Impression can happen in a heartbeat, especially after something like
combat.”
“Yeah, well I thought he was going to kill me. Instead…” I closed my eyes, remembering the
rush of emotions when Romeo touched my neck. “He just put his hand on my neck.”
“And what did you feel?”
“Longing,” I said. “Warmth. A kind of welcome…”
“And…?” She peered into my face like she thought I was prolonging a joke.
“And regret…”
“Regret?”
“So don’t rub it in, all right?” I snorted despite myself. “Maybe he wasn’t ready. Or maybe he
just didn’t want me.” That last possibility hurt worse than I wanted anybody to see. Myself
included.
“Who else was there?”
“My – that lady boy Sprite that came in with me. From what he said, Romeo – my Lupan –
used that Touch business on him first.”
“On a man?” Awen dismissed the idea with a tsk. “Never heard of a man-man bonding.
Impression’s always male-female. It’s some kind of pheromone thing. Lupan men can’t respond
to other men.” She went back to scrubbing me down. “Don’t worry; your ladyboy may think he’s
bonded, but he’s wrong. That Lupan’s yours.”
“You want to bet?” Gods, I wanted to believe her. I wanted it so much, I didn’t dare let
myself think about it.
“Yeah, and I’ll win it, too.” Awen lowered herself beside me, her frown gone thoughtful.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“About Impression. That’s what they call the bonding. Lupan men mate for life –”
“Yeah, right. That’s what they all say.”
“No, they do. It’s some psycho-chemical thing.” Awen’s expression went dreamy. “When a
Lupan man finds his life-mate, it triggers some kind of psycho-hormonal reaction. As soon as he
touches your skin – it unites your souls. You always know how the other one is. That’s how I
know my man bought it. I felt it when he died.” She searched my face, her eyes lit with the kind
of memory I wished I had. “I know he wanted to see the kids.”
“Kids?” Some part of my mind latched onto the image of brown-skinned, wolf-eared little
ones. “You got kids?”
“Two, a boy and a girl. Our girl’s still a baby.” She smiled, dreamy again. “Left them with my
husband’s clan. They’re safe. They’re on Den Lupus.”
Babies. She had to say babies. On Den Lupus. Shit.
The real horror of Kriegsman’s plans kicked home like a gut shot. It wasn’t the ‘enemy’ that’d
die if his attack force reached Den Lupus. It’d be mothers and babies and people who loved each
other. Then those Lupan hunting packs would home in on the worlds of the Commonwealth,
worlds that had now dropped their defenses. And our babies would die… Oh, damn me to all the
hells. Why’d she have to tell me?
“Hey, Kat, you okay?” Awen shook me back to the present.
“Yeah.” I felt my head sag, winched it up again. With a start, I realized that Awen had already
managed to work me into a pair of army shorts. She rose – already dressed, I noted – and pulled
me up. She got my arms through the sleeves of a tee, then straightened me up and stepped back.
“Think you can walk?”
“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.” I proved it by putting one foot in front of the other. Awen guided
me back to the barracks and Tanner’s cot in silence after that. I wished I could think of anything
to say. But the back of my mind kept harping on the image of Awen’s babies trapped in a
burning crib.
There must be some god somewhere that had it in for me, I decided. Because somehow, some
way, I had to stop Kriegsman. My last thought before I passed out was that there had to be a
smarter way to commit suicide.
Chapter 9
A growl woke me. I shot upright in a bolt of terror, grabbing for a gun that wasn’t there. Took
me about five pounding heartbeats to realize the growl was my stomach rumbling. I dropped
back down, settled for just breathing until the fear-knot let go of my gut.
Damn, I’d been out for the count. The first gray hint of dawn outlined the shadows of the
empty bunks around me. Outside, the racket had kicked up to rolling thunder level. I pushed
myself upright and felt smooth cloth under my hand. Somebody’d laid out a clean uniform for
me. Awen, most likely.
It was early enough the Sisters were probably still at chow. I ran through what options I could
think of while I dressed. Every instinct I had told me to get the hells off world now. Only if I did,
then I was leaving Awen’s kids and every other innocent in the whole gods-be-damned, known
universe to die. The question I couldn’t answer was, how in all the hells was I going to stop
Kriegsman from launching Armageddon?
I was still trying to think up alternatives when I reached the mess hall. The half-dome curve of
the ceiling turned noises back in on themselves; the place reverberated with the din of clattering
platters and grumbling soldiers. I spotted Awen and the door dragons at a bench along a side wall
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