Dtimun managed a faint smile. “I chose well, when I requested your transfers. Search the casualties for any hidden tech or communicators. We must lift before their reinforcements arrive.”
Stern grinned. “Yes, sir!”
He and the others moved off.
Madeline, meanwhile, bent over the dead Rojok officer. She was still trying to reconcile what she knew of the commander with what she’d just learned about him. It was a fascinating lesson, to a Cularian specialist who’d been taught that the Cehn-Tahr had nothing more formidable than superior strength produced by microcyborgs.
Dtimun joined her. His eyes, as he studied the Rojok, were merciless.
Madeline got to her feet. The alien’s neck and back were broken. The violence of the attack had stunned her. She lifted her eyes to Dtimun’s. It wasn’t like him to single out a combatant for attack.
His eyes narrowed on her. He stepped closer, so that she had to look up to see his face. She felt the heat of his body with fascination. He made a faint sound, deep in his throat, the same sound she recalled from the embassy reception when Taylor had tried to humiliate her, the sound she remembered after her tumble down the cliff when they were lying on the ground. It sounded for all the world like a low growl.
“So many secrets,” she said hesitantly.
“More than you can ever know,” he replied, and his tone was bitter. His eyes moved over her lovely face with a delicate touch. He was experiencing sensations that he thought never to know again in his long life. His concern for her, his fear for her, had manifested in violent action. He had gone through the Rojoks like an emerillium burst as he searched for the officer who had toyed with Madeline’s life. When he found him, there had been no thought of capture or mercy. There was only revenge.
Madeline frowned as she read the violent emotion in him. “Your species is so mysterious,” she said absently. “We study you, we fight alongside you in battle, but we know almost nothing about your social structure, your behavioral patterns. We know only the physiology, and not a great deal of that. We know far more about Rojoks.”
“Be thankful,” he said, his voice harsh. “What you learned would give you nightmares.”
She cocked her head and her eyes softened. “Are you certain?”
He didn’t reply at once. His chest rose and fell a little heavily. “Almost three years as a Holconcom,” he said softly, “and it has not yet occurred to you how dangerous we truly are. Other races have sampled our combat skills and retain the memory as a nightmare terror which they have no wish to revisit. Old Tnurat conquered a hundred and fifty worlds with only that memory.”
She was looking at him with odd intensity, trying not to allow the emotion in her to dominate. She was a scientist. It was curiosity, she told herself. That was why she wanted to know more about him. “We’ve seen you fight.”
“And I have told you once before, you have not seen us fight as we can fight,” he replied solemnly. “The concept of mercy is unknown to us. We are a violent, aggressive species.”
He was saying something, but she didn’t understand.
“You have injuries which I inflicted involuntarily, in the act of saving you,” he continued.
“You’re very strong.”
“Even without the addition of microcyborgs, I have greater strength than a human male,” he said bluntly. “Komak has taught our own soldiers to reduce their physical strength in brawls with yours by removing their microcyborgs. But I am not a clone, and my strength does not come from any artificial means. In some circumstances, it is not possible to exert control.”
“You mean that if you didn’t pull your punches, you could kill without meaning to,” she translated.
“It is not possible to ‘pull punches.’ Not for me.” His eyes narrowed. “Your human body is far more fragile than I realized,” he said quietly. “I damaged you badly, and I was not angry.”
She smiled. “You have been. I tested your temper a lot when I first joined the unit.”
He let out a sharp breath. “You are not hearing me, madam.”
The smile became quizzical. “I don’t understand.”
“Obviously.” He turned away. “We must lift. Regroup your medical teams.”
He was gone before she could wonder exactly what he’d been trying to tell her. Strick had been hinting at something more, too. She tried to get a minute to pump him for information, but he became suddenly elusive. When they reached Trimerius, he was still dodging her. Ambassador Taylor’s intriguing remark haunted her, and now there were other bits of information adding to it. She was determined to solve the mystery, whatever it took.
CHAPTER FIVE
The medical station on Trimerius was overrun with battle casualties, and Edris Mallory was heading up a trauma team when Madeline walked in.
She looked up and visibly relaxed when she saw her superior officer. “Oh, thank goodness,” she said fervently. “There wasn’t enough of me to go around!”
Madeline only smiled. She activated her surgical field and went to work.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Edris asked hours later when they were washing up after the last surgery.
“What do you mean?” Madeline asked.
“While I was on break, I overheard Dr. Hahnson talking to someone about injuries you sustained when the Rojoks threw you over a cliff,” she said in a hushed, incredulous tone. “I didn’t believe it!”
“It’s true,” she replied. “I had a close call. Luckily, there were plenty of trees to break my fall,” she added without meeting the other woman’s eyes.
Edris stopped washing her hands in the chemical field and just stared at her.
“Trees,” Madeline repeated. “Big, soft trees.”
Edris was still staring.
“Be a nice colleague and believe my lies.”
Edris just shook her head. “I feel like a mushroom.”
“What a coincidence,” Madeline exclaimed, “because that’s exactly how I feel most of the time!”
“You aren’t going to tell me, are you?”
Madeline just grinned.
“I do work with you.”
“So does Stern, but I’m not telling him, either,” came the droll reply.
“Well, at least that makes me feel a little better,” the younger woman sighed. “It’s something damaging to someone else, I gather?”
Madeline’s eyebrows arched. “Now you’re a telepath?”
Edris gave her a hunted look. “Trees won’t break a fall of over a hundred feet without breaking you in the process.”
The older woman averted her eyes.
“The commander caught you, didn’t he?” Edris asked in a hushed tone. “And you can’t admit it without getting him in trouble.”
Madeline’s eyes mirrored her shock.
“I’m not totally hopeless,” she said firmly. “And I do understand things, even if I seem slow and fumbly from time to time. I won’t tell a soul. I’m just glad you got to come home.”
Madeline was touched. “Thanks, Mallory.”
Edris’s blue eyes twinkled. “Too much work here for one Cularian specialist,” she teased.
Madeline threw a sponge at her. She ducked, laughing.
The conflict with the Rojoks was heating up. So was Madeline’s private life. The unexpected contact with Dtimun on the last mission had shaken her. She’d never had close physical contact with another being. Well, she had hugged Stern and Hahnson from time to time in a comradely way. But this was different. There was no one she could discuss it with. Not that there was anything to discuss. There was no possibility of anything outside a military formality with the mysterious commander of the Holconcom.
From birth her path through life had been chosen for her. She’d been part of the military since she was a child. Emotion was not part of her makeup. She’d been taught that fraternization was a deadly taboo. She was mentally neutered. Or…was she?
Now, the memory of that contact wouldn’t go aw
ay. Worse, there was a sudden distance between herself and her commanding officer. He went out of his way to avoid her company. She didn’t understand why, but she thought it might have something to do with their last mission.
The situation on Ondar was heating up, too. The ambassadors had finally agreed on sanctions, just about the same time that contact with them had been lost.
Dtimun went to Lawson and insisted on a rescue mission. Lawson stonewalled and refused to let him go.
Dtimun simply shrugged, gave him a green-eyed laugh and walked out the door.
“I’ll have you shot down if you lift!” Lawson yelled after him as he walked away. “I swear I will!”
Dtimun didn’t even answer him.
“Let’s go!” Madeline called to Edris. “We’ve got a mission!”
“But, ma’am, you don’t need me, and there’s a backlog of patients…!” Edris tried to protest.
“We’ve got two new residents and three new interns working the unit, starting today,” Madeline muttered, grabbing the other woman’s arm. “I’m not going on a rescue mission to a diplomatic conference alone, not with the ratio of Cularian species represented and their importance to the Tri-Fleet,” she returned. “You’re coming with me.”
“But the commander said…!” Edris protested.
“Flame the commander,” Madeline retorted curtly. “I need backup and you’re coming with us.”
“He’ll eat me!” Edris wailed.
“He’ll have to kill and dress you first, and he won’t have time,” Madeline returned, still pulling. “Now, let’s go!”
The vator tube operator was motioning frantically as they approached the ship.
“He won’t lift before we’re in the vator tube, will he?” Edris worried as they sprinted toward the big copper hued saucer ship.
“No, but he will lift while we’re still in the tube, so let’s hurry!”
Edris was panting as they dived headfirst into the tube with the operator and rolled. Sure enough, the ship was already lifting when the tube surged up through the opening.
“Oh, no!” Edris wailed, pointing toward a wing of interceptors heading right toward them. “Surely they aren’t going to shoot at…aaaahhh!”
The scream came as tracers winged their way at the vator tube. It retracted into the Morcai just in time to keep the two women, and the amused Cehn-Tahr vator tube operator, from being vaporized.
“Those were our ships! They were shooting at us!” Edris shouted. “Why were they shooting at us?”
“Well, I’m just guessing, but I imagine Lawson told the commander to stand down, and he refused,” Madeline chuckled as they ran toward the medical unit, flanked by the vator operator who was also rushing to his post. “It isn’t the first time he’s tried to enforce an order with attack ships.”
“It will do no good, save to give their gunners some target practice,” the vator operator laughed.
The ship weaved, almost throwing the women to the deck, even in the high grav interior.
“What if they hit us?” Edris queried, holding on to the vator operator for support as the ship reeled again.
“Hit the Morcai?” He chuckled in a very human fashion. “The commander pilots us now,” came the amused reply. “No gunner alive can hit us at such times.”
“He’s right,” Madeline assured her. “The C.O. has tech in this ship that even Lawson doesn’t know about. We’re almost invincible. Besides that—” she traded a grin with the vator operator “—the C.O. is the best pilot in the fleet.”
“Indeed he is,” the alien agreed. He put on a burst of speed and vanished down the corridor.
“I expect he’s laughing while he dodges the emerillium bursts, too,” Madeline laughed. “He does love a good fight.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Edris moaned as the ship lurched, and then lurched again.
“You’ll get used to it. Honest. You got used to six meg landings,” she added.
“I did not! I just stopped throwing up during them!”
Madeline looked at one of the vid screens in the corridor. The Tri-Fleet interceptors were flying toward them one minute. The next, the Morcai was cutting through open, empty space with only a tiny shudder to indicate the increased acceleration, thanks to the Morcai’s delicate pressurization systems.
“Oh, that’s impossible,” Edris told her, stunned. “No ship can move that fast!”
“The Morcai can,” Madeline said with pride. “Come on, Edris, just a few more feet to sick bay, and I’ll give you something for that nausea.”
“I’m never going to make a spacer.”
“Yes, you are. Like everything else, it’s only a matter of practice.”
Edris didn’t reply. But her eyes did, and they said she didn’t believe it one bit.
They put down on Ondar, just outside the main city but short of the spaceport. Dtimun dictated the formation of the shore party. Madeline had wanted to send Edris, but Dtimun insisted that Madeline go with Holt Stern to check out the council quarters and see if there were casualties. The bulk of the Holconcom was headed to the spaceport, where a Rojok battle cruiser had been detected.
“But I don’t need to go searching for phantom casualties,” Madeline protested. “The kelekoms didn’t pick up a single sign of a Rojok in the council chambers. Sir, Edris is more than capable…!”
He held up a hand, silencing her instantly. “These are diplomats,” he reminded her. “They will expect my most experienced medical officer.”
She glared at him. “Can I at least carry a sidearm? If there is a Rojok ship at the spaceport, no doubt they’ll be looking for ways to get to the diplomats before we can.”
“We will not revisit that argument now.”
She sighed. “Very well, sir.”
“Why do you not wish to go?” he asked abruptly. “You usually pester me to include you on away missions.”
“This isn’t an away mission, it’s a milk run,” she said curtly. Her eyes were accusing on his face. “The Holconcom is going after Rojoks. You’re sidelining me from the action.”
He looked away. “You are a healer, not a soldier,” he said shortly.
“I am a soldier,” she pointed out. “I can fight.”
He looked uncomfortable. His chin lifted. “Your assignment on the Morcai is to treat the wounded, not wade into battle alongside the Holconcom.”
“It would be, if you’d let me,” she muttered.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Madam, your inclination toward physical violence is at variance with your chosen profession.”
She blinked. “Could you occasionally speak in standard, sir, so that I don’t need a translator hub?”
He glowered at her. “You will search for injured diplomats and, if you find any, you will treat them.”
“Yes, sir,” she said heavily. “Well, maybe a stray Rojok will jump into my path on the way to the council chambers.”
His eyes narrowed on her face. “If that happens, Stern will be with you.” An odd look crossed his face as he said it, almost as if he found the thought distasteful.
“Of course,” she replied, and averted her eyes. She was getting fanciful.
“You have served with Stern for many years,” he said abruptly. “Have you never felt anything other than comradeship for him?”
Both her eyebrows tried to meet her hairline. “Sir, my feelings have been neutered regarding man-woman relationships. We all are.”
“Which is no answer at all,” he replied curtly. Except that his lips didn’t move.
“He’s my friend,” she thought back to him. “Only ever that. Sir.”
He moved restlessly, as if his own question had unsettled him. “Carry on.”
“Yes, sir.”
She didn’t understand why he had such thoughts about Stern, but it was better not to think about it. Things hadn’t been the same between them since the last away mission. Life was becoming complicated.
“If the old man’s punishing
you by making you look for lacerated diplomats, why do I have to be punished with you?” Stern groaned.
She glared at him. “Because I’m not allowed a gun. I guess the C.O. is afraid I might accidentally get my hands on a Rojok when he wasn’t looking.” She shrugged. “I can’t even hide a sidearm from him anymore. He overheard me telling Mallory that I tucked one into my kit, and now he has it searched every time I leave the ship!”
“Shouldn’t have said that in front of him,” he chuckled.
“Tell me about it.” She looked around. The planet was mostly deserted. There was a scattering of buildings, here in what passed for the town square. But there were no signs, in standard or any other tongue, and no virtual map hubs.
“Now where do we go?” Madeline asked irritably.
“Let’s split up and see if we can find someone to ask. If I haven’t flashed you in five minutes, meet me back here.” He indicated a tall light under which they were standing.
“Fair enough. You don’t have a spare Gresham…?”
“If I did,” he mused, smiling, “I’d be nuts to give it to you. The old man would have my head on a stick.”
“Oh, thanks so much,” she muttered.
“You’re welcome.” He bowed.
She tossed him a sarcastic look and walked off in the other direction.
On the way, grumbling about being put out of the action, she made a wrong turn and got separated from her former captain. Worse, she stepped on an accelerator pad that she didn’t see…
CHAPTER SIX
Madeline cursed with every step she took down a red valley that looked as if it had once been a river. This continent was largely desert, and there were chova mounds everywhere. The giant ants had a potent venom, a neurotoxin that killed quickly. She kept to the sheer wall at one side of the valley, avoiding the mounds.
She hadn’t noticed a caspidas ramp—a linear accelerator used for long jump rapid transit—until she’d stepped on it just after she and Stern separated. The next thing she knew, she was miles from the city, on a rough path that led to some sort of power substation. The accelerator devices weren’t commonly used in this part of the galaxy, but she assumed that this one was for the convenience of utility workers repairing power grids, to allow them to avoid the dangerous chova mounds where colonies of the deadly giant antlike creatures lived. She could have kicked herself for the mistake; especially when she noticed that the engine in the device was smoking. She wouldn’t be able to use it on the return trip, not unless she could repair it, which was an impossibility. In a less dangerous situation, it would have been a joke. But she wasn’t laughing now.
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