by Diana Palmer
She looked toward Rhemun and nodded, once.
The decaliphe, the famous death cry of the Cehn-Tahr warrior, echoed through the rocks around the Rojok camp, softly at first, and then building and building like the scream of a hundred cats. Even Madeline, accustomed as she was to the sound, shivered at the menace of it. The Rojoks, surprised, took precious seconds to react. By the time they did, it was too late.
“Malenchar!” she yelled, and rushed forward.
She jump-kicked the first Rojok in her path, knocking him down and using a nerve-pinching blow to temporarily paralyze him. Another came at her, firing his chasat. She walked right into the fire, a trick she’d learned from her C.O. It shocked the Rojok. He missed her at point-blank range. She backhanded him against a boulder, brought her leg up and snapped a kick into his solar plexus—which was, in Cularian species, just below his navel rather than above it. He gasped and fell. “That will teach you to mess with a specialist in Cularian medicine,” she told the sidelined alien.
Her senses, honed to incredible sensitivity by serving in the Holconcom, alerted her to a rear attack. She whirled as the Rojok started to fire, knocking the chasat out of his hand, following with a second kick that was even faster, rendering him unconscious even before he hit the ground. Not for the first time, she was grateful for Dtimun’s insistence on frequent combat practice.
Around her, the Cehn-Tahr were making quick work of the Rojok patrol. Genetically modified, their lean hands produced steel-hard claws in battle, a function of nanotechnology that was beyond anything the Tri-Fleet had invented so far. Of course, the Holconcom had cutting-edge technology, which was never shared, or discussed, with outworlders. Even Lawson, head of the Tri-Fleet, was not privy to such information.
She looked around her, smiling. The Cehn-Tahr were victorious.
“Ruszel, we have won,” Captain Rhemun told her with a green smile in his elongated eyes.
She beamed with pride. “Was there ever any doubt?” she asked, chuckling. “We’d better disarm them.” She got another chasat and, more valuable, a sensor sweeper.
She spun it around, watching for any sign of approaching patrols. She stopped dead when she read a high concentration of Rojoks to the north, in the path of the retreat to the spaceport; but these were behind a barrier of some sort. There was also a force net that would alert them to the presence of anything approaching. She grimaced.
“There’s a fortress,” she said as she joined the alien Cehn-Tahr. They were so tall that even with her moderate height, she felt small among them. They all had the height of the commander, and Komak. They must be crack troops, too, even if they weren’t Holconcom. They fought like tigers.
“A fortress?” the ranking officer Cehn-Tahr asked, his eyes revealing a blue curiosity.
She nodded, frowning. “It’s at least twenty feet tall. North of here. About a fourth of a klek. And it’s broadcasting sensor waves.”
They looked at each other. “We can scale the wall without difficulty,” the officer told her. “But they will be waiting for that.”
She pursed her lips. Her eyes twinkled. “I think I have a solution. Do any of you have a sensor web screen?”
The youngest of them came forward and saluted. “Yes, Ruszel,” he agreed. He pulled out a small packet and handed it to her.
She grinned. “I can’t keep up with you scaling a wall,” she said without envy, “but I can create a diversion to help you get over it past the sentries without detection.”
“How?” Captain Rhemun asked.
“You’ll see. Just keep a close watch.”
She tossed the lightweight net over her head. It would blind sensors and even sight to her approach, as it scattered light in all directions. It was like being invisible.
She ran to the wall, which was a true fortress, complete with guard stations at each corner and a huge, immovable metal gate. The guards were thick on the front wall.
She tossed a tiny disc flash grenade at the gate. While it erupted, blinding those around it, she lay down on the desert floor about twenty yards from the gate. She spread-eagled her body and stripped off the web.
When the flash died away, she was visible to the guards on the wall.
She heard them talking to each other, questioning each other about the female who lay unconscious just outside the gate.
“She wears the red uniform of the Cehn-Tahr Holconcom!” one called to his officer.
“No woman serves in that unit!” another scoffed.
“But, yes!” came the reply. “They have a warwoman. A human!”
More talk, but excited now. Capturing a member of the Holconcom would make them heroes. They fought over who would go out and fetch her back.
In the end, most of the soldiers on the front wall came through the heavy gate as it was opened.
“She might be dead,” one said.
“It might be a trap,” another muttered, looking around.
The officer glared at him. “A trap, when she is the only living thing on the continent besides us?” he exclaimed. “And what do you expect to find...the entire Holconcom lying in wait for us?”
Madeline slitted one eye. Behind the arguing Rojoks, blue blurs went noiselessly up the walls and over into the fortress.
“Is she alive?” one Rojok asked as he approached her.
“Shoot her,” another suggested, “and see if she moves.”
Uh-oh, she thought uneasily. That was a suggestion she hadn’t anticipated. But maybe they’d just wound her and she could repair herself...
The decaliphe sounded just as the thinnest Rojok was aiming a chasat at her stomach.
The Rojoks whirled at the terrorizing sound and broke into a run, back toward their fortress. Except for the one with the chasat. “So it was a trap, warwoman,” he spat. “You will not live to see it sprung!”
“The web, Ruszel, throw the web over you!” The voice, unrecognizable, echoed in her mind, but she heard it as if it were shouted at her.
Her hand slid under it and flicked it between her and the Rojok, and she rolled away just as he fired.
The Rojok suddenly stiffened. The weapon fell from his hand as he clutched his throat and began to choke. He fell to his knees, turning even redder than his race usually was. His eyes fixed and he fell forward, dead.
Madeline stood up, stripping off the sensor web, staring at the Rojok with wide, shocked eyes. There was no one in sight. Who had saved her? And, how?
“Run!”
She heard the voice again even as she heard the skimmer screaming through the sky, heading toward her. She threw the sensor web back over herself and zigzagged to the gate. She ran through it and sidestepped, just in time to miss the strafing run. Even as the skimmer shot up over the wall, there was a flash of light, followed by a loud report, and the skimmer exploded, cartwheeling all the way to the ground.
Her heart was beating double-time. She didn’t understand what had happened. She should be dead.
The Cehn-Tahr had made short work of the Rojoks on the walls. She got a glimpse of bodies thrown in a pile. None were moving and there was more blood than she’d ever seen in an attack. She averted her eyes. Even the Holconcom was not so savage in their assaults.
Captain Rhemun looked at her with an odd expression, as if he read those impressions in her mind. But he averted his attention to a hangar and she dismissed the thought.
There was a small troop transport inside, and they piled into it without hesitation. There was enough room for the squad, with a little to spare. Captain Rhemun took the controls and gunned the small craft into the sky. As it soared away down the canyon, Madeline went down on one knee to examine a wound on the youngest of the Cenh-Tahr.
“You have a compromised blood vessel,” she told him. “May I mend it?”
He look
ed toward his commanding officer, who nodded. “Yes,” he replied.
She pulled out her tool and sutured the cells together. He watched her with a rapt expression that she didn’t see. It only took a few seconds, and he was as good as new.
“Thank you,” he said formally.
“My pleasure,” she replied, smiling.
Before she could remind them about the elderly Cehn-Tahr waiting nearby, Rhemun had turned the craft and was easing it down onto the desert soil. Two younger officers jumped out, ran to the old Cehn-Tahr who was sitting on a large boulder, bowed, and lifted him, one on either side. He clung to their broad shoulders as they ran him, in a blur of motion, to the ship.
“Welcome aboard, sir,” Madeline told him with a grin as they eased him gently into a seat across from Madeline.
He gave her an odd look. “I thought I knew enough about human females from ancient texts we have archived in our libraries, collected from multisystem wave scanners. We have ancient vids that show human females in immodest clothing being attacked by various space creatures,” he told her. “They run and scream.”
“Oh, yes, the ancient entertainment films made on old Earth centuries ago. Neat propaganda for the primitive epoch, wasn’t it?” she asked, putting up her mending tool. “Not very convincing now, however.”
“Not to anyone who saw you fight today, Ruszel,” Captain Rhemun said solemnly, his solemn blue eyes meeting hers. “It was an honor to serve with you.”
She was touched, and a little surprised. She’d heard from many sources that Cehn-Tahr males were deeply prejudiced about women in combat, not to mention humans of any sort. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I can say the same.”
The old Cehn-Tahr, the commander of the unit, was watching her with open curiosity. “I am...surprised,” he said, choosing the word carefully, “that your commanding officer had no objection to your presence aboard his vessel.”
She looked innocent. “He had no choice, sir.”
“How do you calculate that?”
“I saved his life when we were held captive in Ahkmau,” she said simply. “Since only I know exactly what I did to his insides, while I was saving him, he needs to have me aboard in case he needs emergency surgery again.”
There were curious looks all around her.
“What did you do?” the old alien persisted.
“He went into the dylete while we were imprisoned,” she said, her voice very quiet. “I had to perform open-heart surgery with jury-rigged equipment, under battlefield conditions. The soldiers in our human crew, and his Cehn-Tahr one, bought the time with their lives. The Rojoks cut up my colleague, Dr. Strick Hahnson, like a wild animal to try to make us give up the commander. We refused.” The memory was still painful. “The Rojok field marshal, Chacon, arrived in time to stop the torture, but it was too late for Strick. The commander cloned him for Stern and me.” She smiled. “It was a bittersweet reunion after we escaped.”
The old man was listening with rapt attention. “The Rojok field marshal himself stopped the torture?” he asked.
She nodded. “Chacon and his men put the jailers in their own ovens, and gave the prisoners food and fresh water and medical care. We called the Freespirit to get the survivors out. Then we blew up the camp.”
The silence grew poignant. These aliens all knew the commander, she was certain.
“I understand how you must feel, to know that,” she said softly. “No Holconcom commander has ever been captured in battle. But they had no chance to hurt our C.O. We made sure of it. He got us out. He saved us.”
The oldest of the aliens leaned back against the bulkhead. His heavily lined face seemed even older. “We had heard about the escape, but not the particulars.” He looked at her evenly. “Now I understand how you came to be aboard his vessel, warwoman. He values you.”
She managed a smile. “He won’t when he hears how I’ve fouled up this mission,” she said with a grimace. “He ordered Stern and me on a very simple assignment to the diplomatic mission. He didn’t say to get separated, lost in the desert and involved in a small war.” She looked around at her comrades. “You’ll all come and visit me in the brig, I hope? I expect to be there for some time,” she added with resignation.
There were amused sounds from the others.
“If he puts you in the brig, Ruszel,” Captain Rhemun assured her, “we will come and break you out.”
“Would you, really?” she asked, beaming. “How kind!”
There was a sudden shock that threw them against the bulkheads.
“The Rojoks want to play some more,” she guessed, certain that a skimmer was following them, and shooting.
“Then let us raise the stakes,” the eldest Cehn-Tahr said, with amused green eyes. He got up, limped to the command console and sat down in the copilot’s seat. His hands flew on the buttons, making quick work of the weapon controls.
He shot a command at Captain Rhemun.
“Hold on to something,” he warned the others.
The small ship stopped abruptly, reversed and moved backward at blinding speed. The Rojok ship shot past it. Seconds later, a spray of emerillium beams hit the Rojok ship and knocked it out of the sky like a swatter.
“Wow!” Madeline exclaimed, laughing. The old one was as good a pilot as her commanding officer, who was in a class of his own.
The old alien glanced at her, his own eyes laughing as well. “Their pilots have no imagination. It will lead to their ruin.”
“Let us hope so,” she agreed.
She wanted to mention the voice that had saved her life, but she was uncertain of the wisdom of it. The old one might think she was crazy. So, instead, she asked him how to communicate with Meg-Ravens, and he taught her a few very basic phrases. She had just time to memorize them before they came within sight of the spaceport.
* * *
THE SMALL SHIP put down at the spaceport. Dtimun was standing with Stern and several ambassadors, scowling. He advanced at the sight of the Rojok scout ship. A crewman, a weapons specialist, shouldered a nanomissile and prepared to fire. Dtimun knocked the barrel into the air.
“Would a Rojok ship land here among enemies with no show of force?” he shot at the young man. “Put yourself on report, Jones.”
The young crewman grimaced. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”
The panel on the Rojok skimmer slid open and Madeline Ruszel jumped out. Behind her was a contingent of Cehn-Tahr, but Dtimun didn’t recognize their unit in the brief glimpse he got of them. Madeline didn’t give him a chance to. She waved to her companions and started toward Dtimun at a dead run. The ship’s doors closed and it lifted immediately.
“Where have you been?” Dtimun demanded. “We sent out search parties!”
“Got lost,” she confided. “Sorry, sir.”
“Who was in that Rojok ship?” he persisted.
“Some Cehn-Tahr regulars who got caught in a cross fire,” she said. “They gave me a lift.” She recited mathematical formulae in her head to deter any probing.
He glared at her. “What Cehn-Tahr regulars? I had no intel about that.”
“What about the diplomats?” she asked to divert him.
“Safely aboard ship. We had to fend off a double Rojok attack, from the spaceport as well as from a hidden base nearby,” he replied. “We must send a team back in to deal with the Rojoks at the base, but not until we get the diplomats to safely.”
The Rojoks at the hidden base were no longer a threat, but she didn’t dare say so. She rushed into the ship, still solving math problems until she was safely back in her own sector.
CHAPTER SEVEN
DTIMUN GAVE HER a silent glare when she came aboard the Morcai behind him. But if she thought she’d have time to explain her absence further, she was wrong. He motioned her to her ow
n department and jogged toward the bridge access ladder.
She glared after him, almost colliding with Komak as he ran to his post.
He flashed green eyes at her. “You are late, Madelineruszel.”
“I am, but I have an excuse. Not that the old man’s going to give me the opportunity to tell it to him,” she fumed. She stopped and frowned thoughtfully. “Komak, you always run my names together. But the guys back on the planet didn’t.”
“Guys?” he asked curiously.
She hesitated. Perhaps she wasn’t to mention the group to anyone else. Dtimun had seen the Cehn-Tahr planetside, but nobody else had.
Komak made an odd sound and looked shocked.
“What’s the matter with you?”
He started to speak and grimaced. “I am not permitted to say. I must run!”
He took off before she could question his strange behavior. His eyes had been blue—that same odd blue that the commander’s turned when he was probing her mind. Ridiculous, she thought as she ran toward her department. Komak certainly could not read minds!
They’d been back on Trimerius for two hours before Dtimun called Madeline into his office aboard the ship.
She stood at parade rest in front of his desk and stared at the wall. He seemed busy with a compudisc. He didn’t speak for a full minute.
“Komak had something disturbing to say about your absence on the planet.”
She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “With all due respect, sir, Komak doesn’t know what happened. I haven’t told him.”
He got to his feet, moved to the front of the liquiform desk and perched on the edge of it, facing her. He was so tall that even in the half-sitting position, he was still taller than she was. His elongated eyes narrowed, so that their color was difficult to classify.
“What contingent were you with, when you became separated from us?” he asked.
“A group of Cehn-Tahr regular military,” she replied. “They were cut off from their main assault force and their leader was wounded. He had a compound fracture.”
