by T. J. Quinn
As he was rudely awakened from sleep, the nightmare of his reality came back to him full force. A wave of grief immobilized him for a moment.
"Get up, physician!" The soldier nudged him again, harder. "Gantan is badly wounded. Help him."
Hankura rose. He obeyed meekly while seething inwardly over Kaara's murder and Chelle's rapes. Sleep had only come to him when he was finally able to block out reality from his mind. The rest helped him gather strength for what he must do when the time was right.
The Tregan shoved him roughly through the doorway, and he stumbled on the stairs to the crude infirmary. It was a room with a table and a few simple medical supplies, lined up on two shelves opposite the outside entrance.
The Aledan could see the wounded man was dying before he came close to the examining table. There was little Hankura could do for him without a sophisticated life support system and fully equipped surgical cell. The soldier died before Hankura could start the examination.
When the other Tregan realized it, he punched Hankura in the chest and knocked him against the wall. Stunned, he slid to the floor. Hankura was tempted to retaliate with chackrin, but the timing was wrong.
Unfortunately, the Tregan didn't think so. Hankura managed to block most of his punches and dodge his kicks, but the Tregan was clearly determined to kill him. As Hankura was deciding to become the aggressor, Stagg and a guard came and pulled the soldier off him. The commander bellowed a reprimand then ordered the guard to help the soldier carry the body out to the incinerator.
When they had gone, Hankura faced Stagg with what he hoped was a convincing look of apprehension. Only Hankura felt little fear. He hated the Tregan too much to think about fear. That would come later, much later.
Hankura coolly appraised the other man. Stagg was taller and stockier, hopefully slower. And the Tregan Commander would hardly expect an attack from the cowardly physician.
"I couldn't save that man," murmured Hankura and he stepped back from the Tregan. As he did, he noticed a laser hanging invitingly on Stagg's belt.
"I didn't come to talk about him," sneered Stagg, his eyes full of contempt. "I came to tell you about your woman."
Hankura stiffened. He didn't need to hear any of it to know how the commander had tormented his mate. He had known her pain and humiliation acutely through the bond of their minds as he now knew her grief and despair.
"No more!" Hankura muttered and crouched as if in anguish.
The Tregan grinned smugly just before Hankura executed a perfect chackrin kick to his middle. The physician regained his balance in a fluid move and then brought his other foot up to crush Stagg's larynx and windpipe.
The commander fell backward, sinking to the floor. Hankura jumped on him and felt his hands close around the commander's throat. Already suffocating, Stagg could only struggle helplessly as Hankura finished choking him to death. At last, Stagg ceased his struggles. Hankura sat back, still straddling the body, and stared at the ugly scarred face, blue tinged lips and bulging eyes. He took his hands slowly from the man's throat, looking at them as if they couldn't be his own. Hankura had never killed anyone in his life. He could hardly believe it was over so quickly.
Then the hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle as his seventh sense alerted him to danger. He pulled Stagg's laser from its holster and stood facing the door with his feet slightly apart. Remembering combat training he never thought he would need, he leveled the business end of the weapon at the door.
The door was flung open, and Mograton burst into the room. His weapon was holstered on his belt.
Hankura hesitated for only the span of a breath, and Mograton reached for his weapon. Cold hatred filled Hankura's eyes, and the Tregan stared in surprise as the physician squeezed the trigger. Mograton gasped in pain as the Aledan cut his face viciously then took out his heart with a wide beam setting.
The smell of burnt flesh brought a guard running into the doorway with his laser drawn. Hankura killed him with a single shot and didn't stop to think about it.
The Aledan had much to do. He snatched the weapons from each of the dead men. From the guard, he took a pouch belt and strapped it over his lean hips. Then Hankura dragged each of the bodies to the stairs and shoved them tumbling into his former cell.
Moving stealthily to the door, he stopped to scan the dusty compound by sight and insight. Zev was high overhead in its red phase, and Hankura guessed it was about midday. If that were so, most of the raiders would be out of camp until dark. That would give him plenty of time if he worked fast. Hankura didn't know how long his luck would hold out.
There were two guards beside the barracks entrance where Chelle and the other women were being held. And from the jumbled vibes he was getting, there were at least two Tregans inside harassing them.
Hankura closed his eyes and drew an uneven breath then made a run for it across the compound. Pressing his back flat against a hot steel panel, he paused to catch his breath, trembling. Laser poised in hand, he waited and listened to make sure that no one noticed the sound of his footsteps on the packed earth.
He could hardly hear anything over the wild pounding of his heart and the blood thundering in his ears. He'd grown weaker during his captivity than he thought.
But he could do it. He had to.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he gently probed the barrier Chelle had erected in her mind against his telepathy. No gentle coaxing would convince her to let down her guard. For Goddess' sake, woman, open your mind. Help me!
Inside the barracks, Chelle's eyes widened and her head jerked toward the source of Hankura's mental assault. Hankura, please don't . . ..
It's all right my love. His mental touch became gentle and soothing. I've come for you, but I need your help.
I feel you are very close. Where?
He sent the vision into her mind without words and showed her his plans. The prospect filled her with fear for all of them, but it gave her hope, too.
CHAPTER SIX
Of Desperate Times
About sixty miles from Elran, life in the abandoned pump house fell into a daily routine for the odd threesome sheltered there.
Nalina still treated Orin with wary aloofness, but she didn't seem as frightened of him as she was fifteen days ago. Maybe it helped that he took the trouble to learn some Zevian from them. Now Orin could talk directly to her without needing the little boy to translate.
Their days were busy. They foraged for fresh food from the cultivated fields and tried to coax some scrawny bushes to bear fruit by carrying water to them. The previous bombardments had knocked out the automated irrigation system, the house and the other out buildings. Many of the plants were dying for lack of water in the scorching desert heat. So the three watered as many plants as possible to keep them producing the food, they needed to survive.
During the evening meals in the darkened pump house, they each talked about their past lives. They never dared to look toward the future because it didn't look very promising for any of them.
At barely twenty, Nalina was orphaned during the bombardments at Lake Lessat. The village had been razed while Nalina was working at Mikal's agricomplex. She lived there with him and his two young wives, serving as governess for Lanimer. Mikal's two wives worked---Lania as an interpreter at Medrin Starport, and Merris worked in the mine outside of Elran. Mikal had been a Master Technician at the Elran Medical Clinic. He'd been hoping one day to complete his physician's training so he could become a physician like his old friend Hankura.
"All those dreams are gone now," Nalina's voice was thick with emotion. "He and his wives were all I had left. I think Mikal was beginning to care for me---maybe enough to make me his third wife. I could have been house mate for all their children. Merris' baby would have been born just before winter solstice. Maybe next year I could have born a third child for Mikal." She sniffled. "Now they're all dead. No one even buried them."
"I buried them---side by side," he told her. "I'm sorry they died. I thought they wou
ld make it, I wanted them to make it."
"So you buried them to salve your conscience?" Nalina's tone was sarcastic.
"I'm not like them! I hate them!" Orin asserted.
"If you hate the Tregans so much, why do you wear their uniform? Why do you look like them? What makes you different from those murderers?"
"My genes may have been strung together in the same pattern as theirs, but Nalina, I wasn't raised as an animal and conditioned to become a ruthless killer from childhood as they were.”
"I grew up in Veldis Lar before the Tregans took it. My host mother and her mate raised me with the same love they would have given a naturally conceived son. We were warned in time for my parents to escape, but the soldiers found me. Because I looked like the other soldiers, the Commander General had me dragged from my home in chains. They tried to break me on Tregas. Two months of brainwashing and survival training and they thought they could make me into a soldier. Ha! That kind of brainwashing only works with the young ones before the mental shield is fully matured. They figured pain would work instead."
Orin shuddered. "I pretended to be like them so they wouldn't kill me. I didn't want to die. Then, they sent me here to kill people who never did anything to me. But, they're the ones who made my life hell, so I killed them."
He fell silent for time, staring out into the darkness through the doorway of the bunker. The things he had seen since he came to Zevus Mar gave him many sleepless nights. He could still hear that Zevian girl screaming in his dreams as Damon tortured her. He should have killed Damon then---before he had the chance to hurt anyone else. But then, they would have killed him on the spot.
Orin wished he could stop feeling guilty. At least he had saved Nalina and Lanimer. They were safe now, and they could take care of themselves.
"You won't have to worry about me anymore, Nalina. I'll be gone by sunset tomorrow," he said abruptly.
She gasped. "You're just going to leave us here?"
"Do you want me to stay?" Orin's eyes mocked her, and he laughed. "It's been two weeks, and you're still terrified of me. You've been scared so long; you see only a soldier---not a man. You'll be glad to see the last of me."
Even in the darkness, Orin could see that she wasn't glad at all. But she was too proud or too stubborn to say so.
"Do you want me to stay, Nalina?"
"I don't know," she murmured with a defensive shrug.
She gave a sharp cry as Orin seized her arm and forced her to look into his eyes with his other hand. "Don't you, Nalina," he demanded in a hushed whisper? Her eyes went wide with fear, and she shrank from his grip.
Orin let her go before his emotions took control of him. He jumped up and stalked out of the bunker into the cool night air. What had he expected? He might as well face it now as later. That's how they would all feel about him.
As a deserter, he was a lost man with nowhere to belong and no one to care.
Nalina looked up at Orin, he thought, rather contritely when he came back to the bunker the next morning. Maybe it was relief he saw in her eyes as she searched his face.
Orin shook his head and sighed, lowering himself to the floor against the opposite wall from where she was sitting. He'd come back to say good bye. That was a mistake. It would have been easier to walk away if he hadn't looked into her soft dark eyes again. Orin gave Nalina a sad smile and reached into the plastic bucket beside him for one of the last pieces of fruit there.
He tossed it to her and she caught it, offering him a shy smile. She bit into it as Orin watched intently. She looked good in the red suit he had found in the wreckage of the house. Her gown was in tatters, and he had nothing that would fit her small frame. With a couple of cuts and tucks, Nalina had made the boy's tunic, and pants fit with some ornamental pins from her gown.
Orin hadn't thought her pretty at first, but she was soft and feminine. In her own way, she was very attractive. At times, she was almost beautiful---especially when she smiled at Lanimer. If only...
He shook his head and got up. There were no if-onlies in his present, only reality. "I'm leaving now. You'd better go out to the orchard tomorrow and see if any more kwashes are ripe." He bent to pick up one of the sweet red and yellow globes for himself. "There's plenty of food. You two will be fine here."
Nalina nodded but did not meet his eyes. Disappointment stabbed Orin. She wasn't going to ask him to stay.
Lanimer watched them both, sensing the undercurrent between them. Even Orin's tight mental shield couldn't entirely hide his emotions from the young telepath. Sometimes, adults were just too dumb to see what they should do. It wasn't their fault they weren't mind readers like him. He wanted to tell them a thing or two. But, he knew from experience that it wouldn't do any good. Adults didn't care that he was a telepath. He was just a kid. What did he know?
Zev was in its yellow morning phase as Nalina and Lanimer watched Orin pack his gear. When he finished, they followed him out of the bunker with murmurings about picking some fruit before it got any hotter.
Orin stopped short, barely two meters from the doorway as a whining sound filled the air around them. Nalina and Lanimer bumped into him.
"What is it, Orin?" Nalina asked in alarm.
"A military transporter," he told her grimly. "There could be anywhere from six to twenty men inside. Back in the bunker, both of you! If they start looking around, they'll know someone is living here. They won't stop looking until they find us."
Orin didn't add that he doubted they would take any prisoners. By now, the military would have figured that he had killed the other soldiers at Mikal's agricomplex. He would be lucky if they killed him on sight. Otherwise, he would wish for death many times over.
Inside the pump house, Orin took out all their weapons and put a fresh power pack in his ion rifle. He gave Nalina his military issue laser, which was more powerful than hers then put hers into his pouch for a backup weapon. Then, he strapped on his canvas pouch belt and put several extra power packs for his rifle inside it.
"Nalina, stay here and keep Lanimer inside with you. Don't come out for anything until I tell you to. If they come, shoot them . . . And if I don't come back stay inside until morning. Maybe they'll think I was the only one here."
As Orin turned to go, he felt her hand on his arm. There was fear in her eyes, but it was a different kind of fear than he'd seen before. She was afraid for him not of him.
Mother of Life! She was so small and vulnerable. He hated to leave her unprotected. But what else could he do? His best chance to protect all of them was to second guess the other Tregans and try to draw them away from the bunker before they got close enough to see it.
They were already too damn close to suit him. He didn't dare think what they could do to Nalina and Lanimer before he could stop them. Orin looked away from her dark eyes as the vision of Damon torturing that girl shook him again. He shuddered as he saw Nalina in her place.
"Keep hope, little one." He managed a tight smile as he stared into Nalina's somber dark eyes. "My life won't come cheaply to them if that's my destiny. I won't let them hurt you!"
Then, he turned and strode out of the bunker, unable to look back.
Orin saw ten of them as he lay on his belly under some brush on the rise above where the transporter landed. From scraps of conversation that drifted up, he knew they were looking for him while they checked the outlying complexes for refugees. They'd missed their morning meal, and they planned to stop to eat before they searched this complex.
Orin knew the procedure. They'd pair off and divide the complex into sectors. Each pair would walk their sector, keeping in contact with the others through their helmet coms. The deserter had to bide his time. He could only monitor their progress by sight and sound. He'd taken the com out of his helmet and destroyed it so they couldn't home in on its signal and find him.
Soon, the Raiders finished eating and started to move along the south side of the complex---away from the pump house to Orin's relief. He watched and
waited with his rifle poised.
Two men came closer and closer, carrying their rifles poised in front of them. Orin decided to give them the same chance they would give him---none at all. He clenched his teeth and fired with calculated precision. The two men fell dead.
Nausea threatened Orin's churning stomach, and he swallowed hard against the bile that rose in his throat as the smell of death reached his nostrils. They were probably his biological brothers, but that didn't matter. Killing them was the only chance Nalina and Lanimer had to survive.
Orin passed an assessing gaze over the area around him. He held his breath for several seconds to listen. Then, he slowly raised himself to a crouch and ran for cover. A searing pain shot through the length of his right thigh, and he dove behind a tree sheltered rock. He landed hard, grunting in pain. This time, the burning flesh had been his own.
Zev was coming into its red phase as Hankura inched along the barracks wall of the prison camp. He was still clad in the dirty blue service uniform that declared his rank of Chief Medical Officer of the Searching Star. His muscles tensed with each step, and his skin felt cold and clammy with sweat in spite of the heat.
Half a month ago, he would have been horrified to even consider what he was about to do. Hankura was a physician sworn to save lives, not a soldier, hardened to war. But he wasn't thinking in terms of taking lives. He was only thinking of saving Chelle and ending the torment they'd shared at the hands of the Tregans.
Hankura stopped at the corner of the gray metal building to listen again. He took a deep breath and drew another laser gun from his pouch. He felt his heart racing with the adrenalin surging through him. Taking a deep breath, he leaped around the corner firing both weapons at once. Both guards fell, but one reached for a weapon. A narrow beam burned through the ragged material on Hankura's upper arm, searing a few layers of skin. Hankura killed the Tregan, barely aware of the pain.
