Gates of Hell

by Susan Sizemore

  You’re calling? She was even more surprised when Reine blocked the telepathic thought. “You’re calling?” Roxy repeated aloud.

  “There is a range for telepathic transmission,” Reine answered. “You’re somewhere out on the Rose border. I’m—not. It’s easier to call than to send.” Lying was not one of Reine’s many talents, and she looked foolishly uncomfortable doing it.

  We could find each other in hell. No answer. O—kay. Roxy sat back and crossed her arms beneath her ample bosom. Several colored lights on the console and a stream of figures across the bottom of the flat screen told her just how secure this channel was. “Hope you’re not paying for this yourself.”

  “MedService is picking up the tab.” MedService was Roxy’s old outfit. Reine had always been MilService all the way. “I’ve been asked to deliver the message. They need koltiri working in hospitals and quarantine centers to combat this Sagouran Fever pandemic.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ve been asked nicely. Now it’s my turn.” Reine gave a toothy smile. “Time to come out and play, little sister.” Roxy shook her head. “You going, big sister?”

  “I can’t.”

  Roxy sat up straight, glaring at the woman who wouldn’t even talk to her properly. “But I’m supposed to go? Why aren’t you volunteering to leave your nice, safe haven? Rafe won’t let you?”

  “You’re the one married to the asshole.” Reine held up a hand before Roxy could make another sneering comment. “I’d volunteer if I could.”

  Reine let her get a sneer in this time. “Too busy working on classified projects? Too busy with all your husbands and wives?”

  “I only have one wife. She and Rafe send their love. And to Eamon,” she added after a noticeable pause. There was no mistaking the worry in Reine’s eyes when she added, “Martin’s not on board right now. The way this fever is jumping planets, having someone I love away from a safe environment is scary.”

  Roxy crossed her arms again. “You’re scared for your husband, but it’s all right for your sister to deliberately expose herself to contagion?”

  “He’s Terran, you’re—”

  “Half.”

  “A doctor as well as a healer, with vows and oaths and stuff to fix people. Your healing skills are needed more than your research right now. You used to work in hospitals.”

  “Eamon doesn’t want me to leave.”

  “So?”

  “We’ve got some promising research going.” First, do no harm. That was how the oath Reine had mentioned started. In some ways, it was safer for the rest of the galaxy to have her in hiding aboard a warship.

  “It’s not Eamon’s decision. Not as your captain, or as your husband.”

  “But it is yours?”

  “Aren’t we a little old for bickering?”

  “No.”

  Reine laughed. “I’d love to get into a really good fight with you, hon, but this is a ten-minute burst transmission. You don’t want me using all of MedService’s budget for this year, do you? You’re needed in your capacity as a koltiri healer, Dr. Roxanne Shirah-Merkrates. That’s the message. I can’t go. Not because I’m involved in any secret analysis of captured Trin technology—which I am.”

  “This line really must be secure.”

  “Yeah, but Trin spies know who’s dissecting their stuff; it’s getting to me that’s the hard part.”

  “Which is why you can’t be bothered to perform your duties as a koltiri?”

  “I’m pregnant, Roxy.”

  Oh. Damn. “Bitch.”

  Reine looked genuinely hurt. “You don’t want to be an auntie?”

  “I don’t want to leave my ship. Or my husband. Or my duty to another oath we took. I’m not like other koltiri, or I wouldn’t be on a warship on border patrol,” she reminded her sister—the sister with the cushy inner-Systems sector-ship berth. “The Tigris needs her ship’s medical officer.” Okay, she agreed with Reine, but Reine had no business calling her husband an asshole. That was her job.

  Reine was not moved. “How very patriotic.” She sighed, and mirrored Roxy’s arms-crossed position. “You now expect me to give the come out of hiding speech, right?”

  Roxy nodded. “That should be next up on your agenda.”

  “You’re such a mind reader, little sister. Oops.” She gestured with a pointed finger. “Shouldn’t have added that. You have problems with my—”

  “Being my perfect big sister,” Roxy finished for her. “Damn it, Reine!” Roxy slapped a hand down on the communications console. “Stop playing me. I’m not your guitar.”

  “You are koltiri of Koltir. Do the job you were born to do. Out.”

  Needless to say, Roxanne Merkrates, Physician and Healer, stuck her tongue out at the blank screen. Then she laughed. “Hey,” she said, bouncing to her feet. “I’m gonna be an aunt!” She laughed again as she left the media center to return to sickbay. “I sure as hell hope the father’s somebody she’s married to.” She was being unkind and unfair, but she was a sister, so a certain amount of petulance was allowable when her older sister was in manipulation mode. Since Reine really wasn’t a holier-than-thou type, Roxy was over her annoyance by the time she was out in the corridor. At least her annoyance with her sister.

  ———

  “You’re sweaty.”

  Roxy glanced over her shoulder and continued bouncing the orange ball on the playing court deck. Eamon winced ever so slightly with each small impact on the pale, simulated-wood surface. She didn’t get that he didn’t get it. “Of course,” she answered. “We’ve been practicing for the last hour.” Behind them, two dozen other crewmembers continued to drill, going through a swift-paced shootaround that Roxy longed to jump back into. Basketball was the one thing she knew she was good at. It helped that she was six foot four. Their father had given Reine and Ben music; he had passed on his love and skill with the sport to Roxanne. She, in turn, had infected a large number of the Tigris’s crew. Captain Merkrates disdained “sweaty pursuits” other than sex and martial arts training, but agreed any legal activity was useful for combating the boredom of . long-range patrols.

  “I called sickbay,” he said. “They told me you were here.”

  Roxy continued to bounce the ball. She didn’t try to read his mind—he didn’t like for her to and didn’t really trust she could do it without harming him—but it wasn’t hard to know what he was thinking. She didn’t try to read his emotions, either, not in the way that was as natural to her as breathing. She was trained to shield incoming as well as outgoing emotion, to turn empathy on and off. Had she and her husband been bonded it wouldn’t have been possible, but no privacy-loving Alpaean aristocrat would ever consent to giving up a part of themselves in such a way. Alpaean intimacy was not Koltiran, or even Terran, and she had accepted the man on his own terms for nearly four years. Even if he didn’t like basketball. Besides, she didn’t have to be an empath to know that he wasn’t happy with her. He wanted to go somewhere and have a long, private talk. Again.

  She’d been working for sixteen straight hours, and had a fight with her sister. She wanted to get sweaty and work off a lot of frustrated energy. She eyed her tall, handsome husband up and down with a sideways look, continuing to slowly dribble the ball. Of course, sex did count for getting sweaty and working off frustrated energy. It was the one thing they’d always been able to agree on. “I thought you were on the bridge,” she told him.

  “I decided to take a few minutes away from staring at the Rose Nebula to spend some time with my wife.”

  She grinned. “I’m flattered.”

  He touched her hair, a rare gesture for him in public. “The Rose will be there when I get back. I don’t know about you.”

  She felt the hard knot of pressure curl tighter inside her. “Afraid I won’t come back?” She hadn’t meant to say that out loud. She hadn’t even meant to think it. “You’re my husband. I love you. I want to make this work.” She let the ball go, and nodded as it rolled to
ward the sea of bare legs and waving arms jostling under the baskets. “This is the only place I can call home.”

  “I know. You wouldn’t be happy away from the ship. They don’t understand what we’re about, away from the warships.”

  It wasn’t her happiness she was thinking of. “It’s the safety of the galaxy I have to worry about.” She sighed. “But Sagouran Fever is more dangerous than my bad temper.”

  “Oh, really?” His dry tone grated. So did the understated, sarcastic arch of his eyebrow. “You can’t save them all,” he reminded her. “Even if you were to throw yourself into the thick of the rescue scheme.”

  One of the young men on the basketball court pivoted and waved his arms. He took no notice of Eamon as he called, “Hey, Roxy, come on, beautiful! Let’s play!”

  “Grett,” Eamon said, with a stern frown. When a second young man whistled, and also called to her, he added distastefully, “CeCe. Security people.” He looked like he’d just swallowed something disgusting.

  “And ensigns, to boot,” she added. “Shameless.”

  “They want you.”

  She beamed. “I know. Isn’t it cute?”

  Eamon waved her toward center court. “Go. Play. I’ll watch. Which ought to keep those two from pawing you.”

  He backed up against the far bulkhead and leaned back with his arms crossed, slim and neat in his black uniform. She trotted off to join her team. Grett and CeCe were eager, enthusiastic, cute Terrans. The brash young men recently assigned to the Tigris were on the opposite team in this game. This did indeed give them plenty of opportunities to paw her, especially in shoving battles under the baskets. She didn’t mind; playing opposite a pair of horny ensigns was good strategy. Within a couple of minutes, a groping shove from Grett drew a foul and sent her to the free-throw line.

  It really was a pity the sound of the alarm klaxon spoiled her concentration when she made the free throw. She dropped the ball and turned toward Eamon, who was already heading for the door. Roxy forgot the game and ran for her alert station with everyone else. The alarm tone indicated a Tertiary Alert. Her post was the bridge Med station for a Terlert. The two security men crowded her heels, heading the same way.

  Chapter Four

  “I want to know who they are.”

  Roxy heard the words from Eamon as she flung herself out of the lift and into her seat. Grett and CeCe took up posts flanking the bridge door. No one paid any attention to the three of them being dressed in sweaty purple shorts and tank tops rather than uniforms.

  The central holoscreen showed two ships, a bulky freighter, old and obviously crippled, and a sleek white cutter, hanging in space before the Tigris. The ships were backlit by the glow of the Rose obscuring the starfields beyond. Blue lances of energy weapons connected the two ships, and the white glow of buckling shielding was beginning to obscure the outline of the freighter.

  “What the hell?” she muttered. That didn’t look like a pirate fight going on outside; those were both Systems ships. It did look like she needed to be ready to handle casualties from the old freighter once Eamon got the fracas stopped.

  “The cutter’s a Triallen defense ship. Broadcasting Triallen recognition codes now,” the communications officer said.

  “Get a line open to the freighter,” Eamon ordered. “I want shields instantly on my command.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “The Triallens are jamming transmissions from the freighter.”

  “Counter.”

  “Aye, Captain. Computer access codes coming up now—if they haven’t been tampered with.”

  “Assume not.”

  A few delicate adjustments were made to communications equipment, then a powerful signal was sent toward the cutter.

  “We’re open to the Triallen vessel.”

  “Triallen vessel, this is the USS Tigris. You will cease fire immediately.”

  The name alone was enough to frighten many ships off. Roxy wondered if the cutter’s captain had sense enough to turn tail and run. The Tigris had earned her fierce reputation.

  “Shields completely down on the freighter.”

  “Weapons’ hits to starboard and engines. It can’t take another hit.”

  “Mr. Dawson, I want the Tigris between those two ships.”

  “Aye, Captain,” the pilot replied.

  “And put one suggestive laser shot across the Triallen bow.”

  Roxy didn’t have time to look up as she searched for life signs amid all the confusing incoming data, but all around her she registered the exhilaration mixed with fear the crew felt as they reacted once more to a combat situation. She couldn’t help but feel the adrenaline rush herself. Damn, it felt good!

  “Distress signal coming in from the freighter. They only have AEI on the bridge.”

  “Too much interference to pick up bioscan readings,” Roxy added. “Want me to do it the old fashioned way?”

  “Save your telepathy, Physician. Get a tractor net on the freighter, Bear.”

  “Estimating fifteen minutes before the freighter blows, Captain,” Maura Weaver reported. “Energy overload in the drive has started a self-destruct sequence.”

  “Triallen craft moving away.”

  The sensors on all boards shifted across the color scale to silver, and blanked out. Roxy visually detected the faint shimmer against the rose background of the nebula just before the now-fleeing cutter disappeared completely from the main screen. Escaped. It was embarrassing. After thirty seconds, not a single trace reading had appeared on any sensor.

  “Damn!” she snarled. “How did a planetary defense force get a Shireny cloak!” The cloak was so classified she’d probably broken a law by mentioning it, but being related and telepathically linked to one of the members of the top design team in the Systems tended to give her a lot of secret knowledge she didn’t particularly want.

  The Captain’s pale eyebrows were looking like slightly off-kilter exclamation points when he glanced her way. He didn’t question her knowledge. “Untraceable.”

  “By any of our equipment, yes, sir,” Bear spoke up.

  “I’d speculate the Triallens are heading for home,” Weaver offered.

  Eamon nodded. “Speculation noted. Can we have audio from the freighter?”

  The communications officer clicked a few switches and a static-filled transmission began. “Two survivors… peaceful mission…Do not send rescue party. Repeat. Do not. Plague ship… Sag Fever on board… “

  Looks were exchanged around the bridge; the emotional level soared. The reaction explained why a planetary security vessel might fire on an unarmed ship.

  “Permission to lead the rescue party?” Roxy asked, coming to stand beside the captain’s chair. Worried jade eyes met hers as the voice from the wrecked ship continued to frantically warn them off.

  “Very well, Physician,” Eamon agreed after a moment’s hesitation. “A minimum party. And be quick.”

  “You’ll have thirteen minutes,” Maura cautioned.

  Roxy hurried to her console, hastily signaling Bonita to prepare quarantine conditions in sickbay. When she headed for the lift, Grett and CeCe once more crowded in on her, both sets of eyes bright with excited pleading. “All right,” she told them firmly. “You’re minimum enough.” The bridge doors closed behind them and they were soon trotting toward the pod bay. “I want both of you in environmental belts at all times.”

  “What about you?” Grett asked.

  “They give me a rash.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Yes. Stunners. This is a rescue mission.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they agreed, meekly enough, but Roxy wasn’t completely convinced of their sincerity. The security men were aware of the Tigris’s crew’s reputation for violence, but too young to have been part of the good old days when there’d been a battle almost every day. They were eager to earn their stripes and become real members of the meanest crew in the Eighteen Fleets. Damn fools, she thought, but proudly. “Be careful,” s
he admonished as they grabbed equipment and weapons from techs standing by in the pod bay. “I mean it.”

  ———

  “Pod attached.”

  There followed a brief flurry of activity while three bodies jammed themselves through the freighter’s emergency hatch. Then they were standing in the ruins of the ship’s bridge. The two security men had pulled on dark coveralls and were surrounded by the faint blue glow of environmental shields. Roxy had taken a deep breath before squeezing through the tiny airlock. She let it out slowly only after the appropriate sensor jewels on the boys’ coveralls reported that, yes, Artificial Environmental Integrity was functioning. It was minimum, but functioning. The bridge was dark but for the illumination provided by Grett and CeCe’s blue glow and faint emergency lighting from the helm’s control board. Roxy really didn’t pay much attention to sensors when it came to life readings; she could feel where the two survivors were located.

  “Stay here,” she ordered. The two young men, like proper grunts, cautiously spread out and followed her, grumbling colorfully about the darkness as they picked their way through the debris of crumpled machinery and dead bodies. She frowned, but admitted to herself that they were acting properly to watch her back. She was glad she’d remembered to put on a pair of boots as she moved cautiously across the littered deck.

  There were two people slumped in the helm and navigation seats. Roxy ignored the one mumbling into the communications headset. She concentrated on the person slumped forward over the helm. One touch told her the woman was near death. “Oh, my.”

  Roxy knelt beside the woman, vaguely aware of Grett and CeCe trying to assure the other crewman that he was going to be all right. The woman’s skin was parchment dry, far too hot for her type of humanoid. “Okay, hon, let’s see what we can do.” Roxy closed her eyes and put herself inside the sick woman.

  It burned—very deep in the blood. Tenacious little bastard.

  Somewhere in the distance she heard herself shriek, and registered the boys’ surprised reaction. Then she stopped paying attention to anything outside the fever.

  Disease was a mindless hunger, a monster that fed on life. This one took the image of fire. With lots of teeth and thousands of burning claws. Roxy stood naked before the huge, burning creature that was feeding on the woman’s life. Roxy stepped between the fever and the dying woman. She held a flaked obsidian knife in her hand. She raised the weapon and called out, “Okay, big boy, show me what you’ve got.”