by Alma Boykin
“Here. She owes me a favor and I’ll let you and Panpit collect on it for me. Frau Meyerbeer speaks English and owns an apartment house not far from headquarters in Vienna, in a very nice neighborhood with a children’s garden and other things. Use ‘Rosemary Ni Panguar’ and if she doesn’t have anything open, she’ll find something reasonable and nice,” she ordered, handing him the woman’s card.
“For what does she owe you, Rachel?” he asked quietly.
The Wanderer-hybrid’s face went still for a moment as she thought back. “I helped her get justice in 1953 after a group of Russian soldiers—” she broke off, grey eye hard as stone. “Anyway, she’ll remember Rosemary Ni Panguar, because we’ve kept in touch over the years. Give her my regards and she’ll do right by you,” Rachel finished, once again leaving Rahoul to wonder what his friend had seen and done before she “settled down,” as she put it.
“Thank you. I’ll see what Panpit wants to do, and let you know if we take you up on the offer,” he smiled, and the Wanderer returned his smile.
Early the next evening, Sandra Monroe noticed that Rachel wasn’t eating nearly as much as she usually did. The blonde Canadian hadn’t yet approached the xenologist alone, although the other officers had encouraged her to do so during the year and a bit that she’d been with the unit. Monroe understood that despite the reality of the situation, Rachel felt guilty for General Jones’ death and all the other losses the unit had taken in that near-disaster. For her part, Monroe owed Rachel her freedom and probably her life for getting her and Lieutenant Neils Nielsen out of the trap before it sprung. The human woman studied the Wanderer and tried to decide what to do.
Afterward, she realized that what triggered her decision was Rachel’s reaction when one of the lieutenants brushed behind her chair. The civilian instantly hunched in as if expecting a blow. That’s not the Commander. That’s the reaction of a woman who’s . . . Oh shit. Rachel caught herself quickly and went back to normal, but Monroe’s mind raced with speculation, and she ate the rest of the meal lost in thought as she debated what to do.
That evening, after only two hours of sleep, Rachel gave up the attempt: the nightmares were not going away. Thank you Lord that my quarters are far enough from the others they can’t hear me screaming. It was as if she were reliving the entire episode, every night, in bits and pieces, with fragments of other things mixed in. I can’t go on this way, she thought, standing in the lab and staring out at the moon-touched fresh snow. Her promise to Khan and the Graf-General trapped her, blocking the easiest escape. There were no drugs she could take and her medical equipment only healed physical injuries, not shattered spirits and souls. Dear God, why? The last few nights had been so bad that she’d begun seriously considering trying to persuade Joschka and Rahoul to relent, to release her from her promise and let her die, mortal sin or not.
The sick part of it is that I was sterile long before they made certain that this “half-breed bastard” would have neither offspring nor pleasure. She gave a short, bitter bark of laughter. Not that it mattered, since they had already started killing me. And some people don’t believe in the existence of evil? She sipped her tea and wished it was something stronger.
Someone tapped on the door, then pushed it open. “Commander?” It was Sandra Monroe.
Rachel turned, worried. Jones’ protégée. Just what I need: more guilt. “How can I help you?” she asked, doing her best to conceal her pain and blackness.
The sturdy Canadian hesitated, then approached the advisor. “Well, ah, I’m not sure how to start.” Monroe looked Rachel over, noticing how worn the other woman appeared, even in the dim light. “We—that is some of the others and I—are worried about you. About what happened to you.” The next words tumbled out on their own. “And that you may not want to talk to a man about it.”
If there had been any doubt in Monroe’s mind, what happened next terminated it. The xenologist started shaking, tried to speak and failed. Shit. Sergeant St John and I were right. God damn those monsters. As the human watched, Rachel Na Gael collapsed in on herself, turning away before sinking to the floor of the lab and burying her head in her arms, sobbing. Monroe very carefully and slowly sat down next to the stricken alien. “Talk to me, Rachel.”
And eventually she did, slowly, over the course of several nights.
As the weeks passed, Rahoul Khan noticed Rachel’s gradual improvement, and she admitted that she’d talked to Monroe and Himself, as she referred to her mentor, but about what she refused to say. Pre-departure bustle and chaos kept him from checking again until his last day in England. She was out in the garden, inspecting the mulch on the roses and more delicate plants, and she waved him over, dusting the snow off her knees and shins.
“All packed and ready to go?” she inquired, knowing the answer.
“No,” he said mournfully. “I had no idea babies required so much equipment! Panpit’s sister is helping, and her father is in charge of loading the shipping boxes. If he can pack a C-130, he can manage a flat,” Khan said. Rachel laughed, and even he had to chuckle at the humor of the situation.
“Thank you for Frau Meyerbeer’s information. She found us a flat with access to a garden and a crèche in the complex. If Panpit helps out two afternoons a week, Sita and Robin can stay free three mornings or afternoons a week, and the cost is reduced other times.” He was happy to see Rachel’s eye light up at the news.
“Good! Let me know if there’s anything else I can do, although most of my contacts have retired or moved to the rural areas,” she grinned.
“Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?”
She sobered. “Yes, there is. Come with me, please.” She led him around a corner, out of sight of anyone inside the offices and away from the security cameras.
“Hold me, Rahoul. I need—” she briefly looked away and he could see how hard it was for her. “I need someone to touch me who doesn’t want to hurt me and who has no romantic interest in me. Please?”
He took her in his arms, feeling her stiffen then relax, and he tightened his grip as she buried her face in his coat. He held her, letting her lean on him and wondering just how deep her injuries went. After several minutes she pulled back and he released her. “Are you certain you are going to be all right?” he demanded.
“I will be now. Thank you. It’s going to be a new year before I return to normal, and some things will never come back.” She touched a hand to where her ears had been. “But it’s getting better. And my claws are regrowing nicely,” she bared her teeth, “so I’ll be scaring junior officers again by Easter.”
They both laughed at that, and he saw genuine joy in her eye. He gave her a one-arm hug, then they walked back to the lab. A thought struck him and he asked, “Rachel, how do you know General Eszterházy?”
She flashed the mischievous grin he knew all too well. “If I told you that House Drachenburg, House Sárkány, and House Ni Drako have worked together, would you panic?”
“Yes, I would. As much as you would panic if I told you that you are going to a meeting in Vienna around the New Year,” he riposted, drawing a wider grin.
“See you there, then,” she said. “And Rahoul? Thank you very, very much for all you’ve done for me.”
“Bitte sehr und auf wiedersehen, Freierrin Komanderin Na Gael Ni Drako,” Khan replied, giving his friend a last half-embrace before leaving.
December, 2009. General James McKendrick settled back into his chair in his office at the 58th Regiment of Foot’s headquarters. He’d finally arranged his various possessions to his satisfaction: picture of his son and daughter, a framed swatch of his Clan Henderson tartan, assorted military photos and certificates, and a three-quarter life-size black onyx raven that decorated his desk. If only the Regiment were as easy to sort out, he mused.
He’d received very short notice of his new command, but had known enough from the terse description of the situation to realize the difficulty facing him. McKendrick’s task: rebuild the unit and restore
morale. Making things even more challenging was the fact that two of the surviving staff members had rotated back to their home commands within three weeks of his arrival, per a schedule determined earlier. In addition, despite protests from several quarters, the executive officer had been reassigned to GDF headquarters in Vienna on staff duty. The reason given by the civilian leadership was that “things would go better” if McKendrick had a clean slate. The Scotsman disagreed, but the Undersecretary had been implacable. “Start fresh and build from the ground up. That’s the best thing to do,” the administrator had sniffed. And so, of the senior staff, only the xenology specialist, Commander Rachel Na Gael, remained. At least a solid core of NCOs and junior officers had stayed, forming a good foundation for McKendrick’s efforts.
He glanced at the schedule floating on his computer screen and frowned. Today would be the first time he and his staff sat down together and ran through a tactical exercise, and McKendrick wondered what the result would be. One never quite knew how people would work together under pressure until the actual event, because there were some aspects of combat that even the best live scenarios couldn’t replicate. But this would be a start to finding the rough places and holes. And although the GDF included some of the best soldiers from around the world, he knew there would be holes.
McKendrick polished his glasses, assembled his notes, and walked to what one of the NCOs called the Wizard’s Lair. The room housed a three-dimensional holographic “sand table,” several superfast computers, and some communications equipment that might as well be powered by magic for all McKendrick understood how they worked. As the stocky, muscular redhead walked down the corridor, he heard a brisk step-tap-step ringing out behind him. He stopped and turned, to see Commander Na Gael making her own way to the training session. The sound ceased abruptly, although she kept walking, and he wondered how she’d done it.
“Good morning, Commander Na Gael,” he said as she drew closer.
“Good morning, sir,” came her lightly accented reply. She fell in at his right shoulder and he noted with relief that she was wearing an eye patch and cosmetics to conceal some of the damage to her face. Why her disfigurement bothered him so much, McKendrick couldn’t say. Perhaps it was because she resembled someone he had once known, or maybe because he didn’t expect that kind of injury on a civilian. Although he’d been warned, the reality still took him aback. He supposed that he’d get used to her injuries in time, but for now they were a distraction, one he didn’t need. She looked odd enough as it was, with her mismatched brown-black hair and very pale skin and eye.
McKendrick saw Captain Maria de Alba y Rodriguez, the communications officer, waiting at her station as he pulled open the door to the workroom. Colonel Tadeus Przilas, the American executive officer and the adjutant, Captain Moshe ben David, arrived before the door could close behind their commanding officer. A moment later Captain Edward O’Neil slid in. The English logistics specialist seemed a bit damp. “Got caught outside when the rain started,” he said as he took his seat at the display.
The sextet logged into their various stations and the equipment sent a signal to the referee. He or she sat at a computer console in Vienna, timing the simulation and watching to see that no one tried to slip in unauthorized equipment or otherwise cheat. There were, however, almost no unauthorized tactics for dealing with whatever scenario the training system generated. Some of the options were purely imaginary, while others derived from real-world events. Rumor had it that part of the GDF training budget went to buying science fiction novels, and the idea didn’t surprise McKendrick, given what he’d learned in the three weeks since he’d been seconded from the regular Army.
McKendrick looked at his officers and advisor. “Everyone ready?” A chorus of “affirmative,” and “yes, sir,” came back, and he entered the code to start the program, wondering as he did what sort of oddness the system would generate this time. Well, the first oddness was a polite apology, because of a glitch in a software update in Vienna—it would be five more minutes before the simulation started.
“Typical computer,” Przilas commented as he leaned back in his chair. “Works perfectly until you try to use it for something.”
Ben David twitched impatiently, running a hand through his black hair as he fidgeted. He was all energy and motion until he got a weapon in his hand, McKendrick had noticed. The Israeli had cross-trained as a sniper and the general had watched him at the improvised long-distance range that ben David and Na Gael had set up one afternoon outside the main headquarters building for an informal competition. All extraneous motion ceased once the young officer took his shooting position.
“Got ants in your pants?” the exec asked, making ben David flush and freeze in place. McKendrick glared a little at Przilas, who looked briefly confused. The American had a more casual air than his commanding officer would have liked, but this wasn’t the time to call him down. Captains de Alba and O’Neil watched the by-play without comment, both taking the extra time to glance over some of the intricacies of the equipment, efforts McKendrick approved of highly. According to Lieutenant Colonel Khan’s introductory briefing, the British branch was the first to get this new simulation equipment because it had the dubious honor of catching a high proportion of “events” relative to its operations area. McKendrick wondered why and added it to his list of things to ask Na Gael.
“Easy ben David, I was just kidding,” Przilas half-apologized, bringing McKendrick back to the present. “Maybe we should bottle your energy and mix it with the Commander’s soberness and see what happens.”
Rachel smothered a disrespectful noise and concentrated on her notes, ignoring the American’s comment. She had not been favorably impressed with Przilas or General McKendrick, to be quite honest. That impression had been reinforced after the general’s first visit to the lab. The intercom system had been undergoing a major, long-overdue upgrade and the lab, located at the far end of every wire or cable in the building, was the last area that needed work. So when McKendrick tried to call her, she’d missed the buzz because the technicians replacing the old fiber optic lines hadn’t quite finished their work. The general had wandered down to the lab himself, opened the door without knocking and spotted her working at the spectrometer. “Commander Na Gael?” he’d called as he walked over to the lab table. She’d looked up and turned towards his voice, forgetting that he’d never seen her without cosmetics and her eye-patch.
McKendrick’s eyes had bulged so much that she’d wondered if they would push his glasses off his nose or fall out of their sockets first. His emotional projection struck her like a slap to the face. She was used to surprise and pity, but it had been quite a while since anyone had been truly horrified by her mangled face. She had turned away, making sure to keep her head angled so McKendrick saw as little as possible of her scars. The officer had gotten control of himself almost instantly and they’d concluded their business. Since that afternoon he’d done his best to avoid her and she in turn took care never to leave her personal quarters without having cosmetics and her patch on, in case she met him or one of the other new people by accident. Rachel still ate with the NCOs once or twice a week, but she hadn’t gone to the officers’ mess since that encounter. No point in ruining everyone’s appetites, she’d thought with more than a touch of self-pity.
Rachel noticed Tadeus Przilas watching her as she pretended to be busy with the computer. He didn’t trust her, and she’d heard from the NCOs that he’d made comments about “that alien.” Well, his ego got bruised pretty badly, she reminded herself. Yes, but he asked for it, and I didn’t leave any permanent marks on him or holes in him. Although next time I might.
Przilas had been surprised to see Na Gael in the gym, engaged in hand-to-hand combat practice against Sergeant Anthony Lee. Przilas didn’t approve of a civilian training with the soldiers, judging by his sour expression. He’d finished putting on his fencing vest and had begun working out with Lieutenant Taibi. Both men were former Olympic fencers
, and it had been a good bout. When the men finished, Rachel had asked Taibi for a saber match. He’d agreed and she’d beaten him with a series of fast, hard attacks. The Ethiopian had taken it with good grace, laughing at her unorthodox moves and having her teach him one of her stranger parries. Przilas had decided to show her what he could do and she’d beaten and disarmed him in less than a minute. Everyone in the gym could tell that it had stung his ego and confidence, and he’d avoided her from then on, even after she’d offered to show him how she’d done it. He won’t get better if he refuses to learn, she growled, irritated once again.
The computer chimed and the lights dimmed as a topographic display appeared in front of the six officers. McKendrick noticed Rachel sitting up, a small grin on her face, as she studied the battlefield. The terrain resembled what little he’d seen of the central Appalachian Mountains in the United States, with steeply folded ridges and a wooded valley drained by a small river. A voice with a faint German accent announced, “Seismic recordings indicated an impact or explosion in this valley approximately four weeks ago. Because it is relatively uninhabited and difficult to reach, little investigation was conducted until the residents of Pierce’s Mill,” an area of the display brightened, indicating the hamlet’s location, “disappeared. A traveling librarian on her regular circuit reported the absence, and local authorities began investigating. They found,” and simulated camera footage of things that had once been humans attacking a state policeman played on the officers’ computer monitors.
Having been given the background, the scene changed and the five soldiers and their advisor began participating in the scenario. To complicate matters, the weather started closing in. Heavy snow made resupply more difficult, greatly reducing possible air support. McKendrick found his resources reduced to the troops on hand, with very slow logistical support. Captain O’Neil frowned, then began running through his own options and possibilities. McKendrick ordered Przilas to begin evacuating the residents of the valleys on either side of the invasion point.
