by blood wind
“Then you know already?” Ivonne asked, relieved that she would not have to be the one to bear such news to the Director.
“Know what?” Aurora asked.
Ivonne looked puzzled for a moment. “But from what Dr. Dean said, I thought she must know about Cree. He-”
“What of him?” Beryla shouted.
Ivonne looked from the Director to the bioengineer and back again. “That he was arrested,” she replied. “They took him into custody an hour ago.”
****
THIS TIME when he woke, Cree was in worse condition than the last time. Much worse. He could barely see through the swelling of his eyes. His ears were ringing from the repeated open -handed cuffing Konnor Rhye had taken great delight in administering and his gut felt on fire from the brutal jabs that had finally driven him to his knees.
“Wake up, Iceman,” Rhye sneered. “I'm not through with you!”
Konnor Rhye wiped Cree's black blood from his hands on a rag then threw the rag on the floor. He nodded to Inse and another man and between them, they hoisted the Reaper up straighter. Inse grabbed a handful of Cree's long hair and drew the semi-conscious man's head back.
The sound of Rhye's fist driving unmercifully into Kamerone Cree's jaw bored the fourth man in the Inquisition cell. He hid a yawn behind a delicate hand and shifted his lean body more comfortably in his chair. “He isn't going to talk, Commander.” Rhye buried his fist in Cree's belly and took an almost sexual pleasure from the gasp of pain that drove the defenseless man forward over the savage hit. Another vicious jab rocked Cree's head to the side and sprayed black blood on the wall. When he put all his force behind a punch to the place where Cree's kidney had been removed, the Reaper could not stop the scream of agony that shot from his torn lips.
“Pray do not kill him, Commander,” the man in the corner clucked. “The Tribunal would not like being denied the pleasure of seeing him hanged.”
“Hear that, Iceman?” Inse chuckled, his fingers tightening on Cree's scalp as he shook the beaten man's head. “They are going to stretch that thick neck of yours.”
“Go to hell,” Cree forced out through his battered lips. Blood dribbled down his chin.
“You will be there long before me!” Inse retorted.
“This is getting us nowhere,” the man in the corner sighed. “Guards!” He stood up, stretched, then watched as two burly interrogation guards entered the chamber. “Take this scum back to his cell until I am ready for him.” Cree was passed from one pair of captors to another. His sweat-matted hair was plastered to his forehead and his nose and chin dripped black blood. His head hung down against his bare chest as the interrogation guards hefted him between them. As they dragged him along, pain rocketed through his lower right side and he groaned, slipping once more over the edge of consciousness.
When he awoke for the third time that day, he was laying spread eagle on a table, Lord Traye Onar standing above him.
“You will, of course, tell me everything I wish to know about the Resistance, ” Onar said pleasantly. “I have a much more persuasive manner than our barbaric young Keeper.”
“I won't tell you anything,” Cree said, slurring his words. “You're wasting your time.” Onar smiled. “When was the last time you fed?” he asked conversationally.
Feeding had been the last thing on Cree's mind, he realized with a start. The other aches and pains shooting through his body had all but blocked out the fierce headache and nausea brought on by the antitoxin. His temperature had shot up so high at one point; he fancied he could feel the blood boiling in his veins. He hadn't thought to take sustenance before all this began…when?…
four hours earlier.
“Answer me, boy!”
A sharp pain entered Cree's shoulder and his swollen eyes widened just enough to see Onar withdrawing a thin six -inch long copper wire from his flesh. Before he could curse the old man, the wire was driven into him again, this time in the tender flesh under his armpit. The searing pathway the probe left made him writhe in an effort to get away from another stabbing. He rolled as far away as the manacles on his hands and legs would allow.
“You don't like that, do you, Cree?” Onar chuckled. “You know you can not escape me.” He pierced Cree's lower right side with the wire.
“When did you feed?”
“Twelve hundred hours!” Cree gasped. The places where the probe had entered his body were stinging with a bone-deep pain.
“See?” Onar sighed. “You can answer questions when they are put to you in the correct manner.” He put the probe in his lab coat pocket then reached out to smooth the tangled, sweat-dampened hair from Cree's forehead. “You have an extremely high temperature.” He ran the back of his hand down Cree's cheek. “Is this a normal reaction when you need to feed?”
“I don't need to-”
The old man's hand snaked out to grab a fistful of Cree's hair and tug brutally. “I didn't ask if you wanted to feed, Kamerone. I asked if this is a normal reaction.”
“No,” Cree answered through clenched teeth.
Onar frowned. “No?” he questioned.
“I am sick,” Cree said and knew he was telling the truth. The antitoxin had killed his father and he feared it was killing him. His headache was worse-and it wasn't just because of Konnor Rhye's powerful fists-and his body felt as though he were steeping inside a cauldron.
“You are lying, of course,” Onar pronounced. He reached inside his lab coat pocket and took out the probe. He drew it across Cree's cheek, down his neck and onto his bare shoulder. “I have your personal Controller's data records. Reapers do not get sick, Kamerone. You have never been sick a day in your miserable life. Your parasite would not allow it.”
“ I'm sick now,” Cree grunted, half-expecting the sick old bastard to stick him again.
“I am so sorry to hear that,” Onar giggled. He considered a moment. “If that is true, then, the questioning will go that much harder on you. In either case, I intend to give you more pain that you ever received during assault therapy.”
“Lucky me,” Cree mumbled
The Tribunal Justice leaned over him. “Since I have your Controller's records, I know where each of the receptors are in your brain, Cree,” he whispered. “I am most interested in number three which is located in the frontal cortex. That is where pain perception occurs.” He ran the probe across Cree's chest. “Where the rational faculties of man exist. Once there, with this…” He held up the probe. “I can turn your brain functions on and off at will. A little nudge here; a stick there. A deep probe elsewhere.” He lowered his voice as though he were speaking to a lover. “I can cripple you mentally and physically.”
“Yeah?” Cree snorted. “And I bet you'll like doing it, won't you, you sick bastard?” He winced as Onar's fingers closed cruelly around his upper arm and the old man dug his nails into the tender flesh.
“Oh, I take great delight in doing my job well, Kamerone,” Onar replied, applying even more pressure. “And I shall take even greater delight in showing you just how well!”
****
ENSIGN PAEGAN Thorne, the Communications Officer of Cree's cruiser, The Revenant, squatted down with the other seven men and drew a grimy forearm over his face. “He's been taken to Rysalia Prime.”
“How the hell did they get him there?” Kahn roared. “I was told all the ships would be off-line!”
“He got there on my bloody ship!” Symthian Kullen spat. “Rhye must have found Cree and decided to take him down to the Tribunal in the hopes of getting the woman back.”
“Enterprising little bastard, isn't he?” sneered Commander Tealson Hesar.
“He'll wish he'd never slimed from his sire's sword when I lay my hands on him! ” the Reaper Captain swore. “He'll die in far more agony that poor Drewe Lona did.”
“How many men have we lost, now?” Alexi Noll asked. As soon as he had heard of Cree's capture, he had come to Kullen to join his fellow crewmembers.
Kahn shook his
head. “We've lost two hundred thousand just in the last hour and a half.” He looked about the main concourse where bodies lay scattered. “If I had known-”
“There is something I don't think you've considered,” Hesar interrupted him. “You are now the highest-ranking officer in the Empire.”
Kahn was silent a moment, then he shrugged. “I may be the only staff officer left.”
“By the gods, how many will this thing kill?” Kullen demanded.
“What concerns me,” Kahn put in, “is if it is contagious.” He swept his arm before him. “All these bodies will have to be incinerated before we do anything else. We can't take any chances.”
“If it is contagious-” Noll stopped, his eyes going wide. “Inse and Rhye were vaccinated at the same time as Thorne and me. If they are on Rysalia Prime, could they have carried the virus with them even though it didn't harm them? Is it lethal to the men of other races?”
“Surely not,” Kullen gasped. “Why would the Resistance wish to kill innocent men? Men who played no part in the deaths caused by the V-7?”
“I haven't said anything because I hadn't had time, but I have reason to believe the virus won't harm anyone but Rysalian males,” Hesar stated.
“Why do you say this?” Kullen asked.
“Remember when Cree went to Hell-12?” At the other men's nods, he shrugged. “He brought back a Necromanian and a Serenian, princes of the royal houses there.”
“So that's who those men are,” Noll said.
“Where are they now?” Kahn asked.
“The last I saw of them, they were with the search party looking for Doctors Sejm and Kym.” A horrible feeling closed in around Tylan Kahn. “We've got to get to Cree before they hang him.” He looked at the dead bodies then turned to Noll. “Alexi? Organize a party of men and start incinerating.”
“Merciful Alel, Admiral!” Noll exclaimed. “It will take us days to take these bodies to the incineration unit.” Kahn shook his head. “Use your phasers, son.” At the other man's flinch of disapproval, he reached out and put a hand on the young man's shoulder. “We have no choice, Lieutenant. It has to be done.”
“Where are you going?” Kullen asked.
“To the lab,” Kahn replied. He crooked a finger at Cree's Keepers, Hern Belvoir and Andre Arbra. “You two come with me. I want you to guard our womenfolk. I've asked Dr. Dean and Bridget to locate LeJong Kym's protocol book. If they can find her notes on the vaccine, maybe they can make enough to inoculate Rysalia Prime and we can save some lives.”
“The way this thing moved through here, it was worse than an Ionarian firestorm!” Hesar reminded the Admiral. “We can't even begin to have time to vaccinate five or six hundred thousand men!”
“We have to pray to the gods that it can't be passed on by casual contact, then,” Kullen put in. “If it's just this gas that was shot through the ventilation system, we're doing okay. According to Dr. Burds, all the canisters on each station have been expended.” He frowned. “But if it can pass from one man to another, I fear our world is doomed.”
****
BERYLA SAT on a lab stool and hung her head. “I can not believe they did this,” she whispered.
“Do we have to worry about it being spread from one man to another?” Kahn asked.
“I don't think so, but I'm not sure,” Beryla stated flatly. “Until I find that bitch's lab notes, I'll have no way of being sure.”
“Have they found Dr. Kym or Hael yet?” asked Amala Dayle.
“No,” Kahn answered. “But we will. And when we find them, I doubt they'll survive the trip to Rysalia Prime.”
“If they aren't already there,” Bridget said softly. She had cried until her face was swollen. Her worry over Cree had turned her ashen and she shook as though she had the ague. When Kahn had come into the lab, he had tried to comfort her, but she had rebuffed him.
“I am going after Cree,” Kahn announced. “I want that vaccine brewed by the time I get back.”
“LeJong might have taken them with her or else destroyed them,” Dorrie put in.
“By the gods, woman, I don't want to hear that!” he thundered, glaring at her. He had slept with this woman many times-as had a lot of other men on FSK-14-but at that moment, he despised her.
“I am sorry, Admiral,” Dorrie replied, “but you have to consider it.”
“I don't have to consider squat!” He put a hand to his head and rubbed.
“How is your headache?” Bridget inquired.
“There,” he snapped. He was more concerned with her pale face and trembling than with his own pain. He marched over to her and took her arm. “Come with me.”
Bridget tried to shrug off his hold. “Where are we going?”
“Home for the moment,” he growled, dragging her along in his wake.
“I am not going-”
Kahn didn't say another word. He merely stopped, hefted Bridget over his shoulder, and left the lab with her beating on his back with useless fists.
“That man is falling in love,” Tina remarked.
“I've known that for the last five months,” Beryla sighed. “I wish to God I hadn't let it happen.”
“How could you have prevented it?” Amala inquired. “Love comes of its own accord at times.”
“What will happen to us if only a hundred or so men are left on our world, Dr. Dean? ” Ivonne asked, putting forth the one question that was uppermost in the minds of every woman in the room.
“We can make do without them,” said Dr. Burds.
“Who will fight for us?” Ivonne pressed. “Take care of us?”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Dorrie spat. “We learned here today that we can fight.”
“But we need men!” Ivonne protested. “Defenseless women are targets for ruthless men!”
“What we need,” Beryla interrupted their argument, “is to find those damned lab books. Everything else can wait!”
****
BRIDGET SLAPPED him as hard as she could, putting her full weight behind the hit. The blazing red imprint of her palm on his cheek when his head snapped to the side and the satisfying sound of flesh to flesh brought her out of her self-imposed inertia.
“Don't you ever manhandle me like that again!” She slapped him again for good measure before going to a chair and slumping into it.
Kahn fingered his stinging cheek and sighed. He no doubt deserved her anger for his highhanded manner, but he didn't deserve to have his jaw broken. He worked his aching chin from side to side, testing for breakage and winced at the pain still throbbing in his temple.
“What will they do to him?” she asked.
He didn't want to tell her that at that very moment, Cree was more than likely being tortured for the information locked inside his mind. He doubted very much that she could take such knowledge. So he lied. “There will be a trial, but they can't start that until the Chief of Fleet Operations arrives and, I'm sorry to say, that's now my new job title”
“You said you were going after him,” she accused.
Kahn nodded. “As soon as Coure has The Sirocco on line. I'll be taking the Reapers with me. I'll insist Cree be brought back here for execution.”
Bridget's eyes flared but before she could speak, he put his hand on her knee. “Bridie,” he said. “You have to understand. They will want to hang him.”
“No!” she shouted. “You can't let them!”
“I am not going to let them,” he said firmly. “I will bring him back. Don't worry about that.”
“You promise?”
“I promise,” he said and stood. He looked down at her for a moment then leaned over and placed a light kiss on her forehead.
“You stay here. There are still pockets of Tribunal devotees running around lose. Taking Cree's woman would be a real coup for them.” He turned to go.
“Tylan?”
Kahn looked around.
“Be careful.”
He did not need to read her mind to know it wasn'
t his safety that concerned her, but Cree's.
****
“YOU SHOULD not have promised her what you can not hope to deliver, Admiral,” Symthian Kullen said as he joined Kahn in the corridor.
“That nasty little habit of listening in on other people's conversation is very rude,” Kahn snapped.
Kullen snorted. “Even if Cree is still alive when we get there and he has survived the questioning, there won’ t be anything left of the man she knew.”
“Shut up,” the Admiral hissed.
“It would be a blessing for them to end his life if they have downloaded his memory. I, for one, would rather see him hanged than spend the rest of his life as a mental cripple.”
“I said shut up!”
Kullen's jaw tightened. “There are five Reapers waiting on board The Mistrial, Admiral, ” he said. “Six Reapers, seven Shepherds, and nineteen Keepers. Between us, we will get Kamerone Cree back, but at what price to the man?” Kahn thought of the six Shepherds left behind who were cleaning up the bodies on FSK -14. There should have been seven, but Lona was gone. Out of the twenty-one Keepers assigned to Reaper crews, two were also staying behind to protect the women in Dr. Kym's lab who were desperately looking for a vaccine. Forty-one men-
“Forty-three,” Kullen corrected, further annoying the Admiral.
Aye, Kahn reasoned. With the Serenian and Necroman there were forty-three.
The gods help us.
“Amen to that,” Kullen agreed.
Chapter 24
HE DWELT in darkness so complete, so cold, so silent, it was almost like already being dead. They had taken away the warmth; they had taken away the light; they had taken away the slightest sound, condemning him to utter silence. His body was one massive welt of pain; blood and body fluids oozed onto the cold stone floor so that he was forced to lay in the vile mess and shiver. The stench was unbearable and his fever had gone way beyond his ability to comprehend it. He wondered that he still drew breath.
There was only one thing keeping him alive and he whispered her name: “Bridget…” Her precious name on his torn lips was a soothing balm. Her lovely face a beacon in the otherwise ebony darkness of his existence. Not even the intense hunger ravaging his insides could keep him from seeing that beloved face floating in the darkness before him. It staved off the thirst that was threatening to turn his flesh to cinders.
