The Morcai Battalion: The Rescue

She bent to her task. She questioned him and understood the answers as she treated his wound, which was a very bad one. A plasma blast from one of the Greshams had torn through his intestines. Untreated, the damage would have been quickly fatal.

She finished the sutures and smiled reassuringly. He would be taken to a prisoner of war camp, but nothing like Ahkmau. She reassured him that the Holconcom didn’t torture captured prisoners. There was a treaty, under which such behavior was punishable. He only nodded, relieved.

He was able to jump the chasm. Edris, however, was stuck on the other side. The Cehn-Tahr who took the Rojok into custody stared across, motioning her to jump.

She sighed. “Can you send over a levibelt, please?” she called back. “I’m afraid I can’t manage the distance—I knocked over the stone I used as a starting point.”

One of them waved. She hoped they’d send Stern or even Hahnson. But it was Rhemun who came.

He glared across the chasm. “You can jump that,” he scoffed. “It is hardly any distance at all!”

For a normal human, no. But Edris, with her gimpy motor functions, would end up dead and she knew it. For just an instant, she pictured the look on Rhemun’s face as she fell to her death. It would almost have been worth it. She grimaced.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, standing formally at attention and saluting. “I really will need the levibelt.”

He jumped across as if he’d moved only a step. “Very well. I can carry you over,” he said with long-suffering patience.

She backed away from him. “Sir...that would be unwise,” she stammered.

He frowned. “Explain that.”

She wasn’t sure how to say it without giving offense and she didn’t really want him to know how much she’d picked up about Cehn-Tahr customs—they were never shared with outworlders. But she was backed into a corner and she really had no choice.

“Sir, it would be unwise for the commander to touch me, sir,” she said stiffly.

He looked down his nose at her with pure contempt. “I see. You’ve heard that certain behaviors in my race can be triggered by touching, is that correct?”

She didn’t like the look in his eyes. “Yes, sir. Begging the commander’s pardon, sir,” she added.

“You think that I find you attractive, so that touching you would provoke me into unmilitary behavior?” he asked, almost purring.

“No...no, sir, of course not, sir.” She hated herself for wimping out.

He smiled icily. “Mallory, I find nothing attractive about you. In fact, the only emotion you provoke in me is revulsion.”

That was harsh, but she didn’t dare reply. She’d gone right off insulting him ever since he mentioned reassigning her. She was afraid of him.

He realized that. And it was unfortunate, because nothing revolted a Cehn-Tahr more than fear. It had been Ruszel’s incredible courage which had won his respect and his affection, despite her race. No Cehn-Tahr aboard the Morcai had more or better reasons to hate humans than Rhemun. Those whom he hated most were dead and out of reach of his vengeance. Mallory was close at hand, and vulnerable.

“Enlighten me, Lieutenant,” he continued. “Why should I find you attractive?”

“Sir, I beg your pardon, but I never said I was...”

“You hardly had to say it,” he shot back. “Apparently Stern finds you desirable, so perhaps I should send him to rescue you. Would that be more acceptable?”

She closed her eyes. “Sir, please...”

“Commander, we’ve got the last of them!” Stern called over, almost as if he knew what was going on there against the cliff. “Does Dr. Mallory need any help?”

Rhemun looked at Mallory as if he could have happily cut her throat. “Yes,” he said. “She could use assistance.” He turned and jumped lightly across the ledge. “Make haste,” he added coldly. “These Rojoks may be only a splinter of a larger rebel group.”

“Yes, sir.”

Stern jumped across the distance almost as easily as Rhemun had. He was a clone, but with greatly advanced genetics, courtesy of the Rojok scientists who had cloned him from his original during the attack on Terramer. He was almost the equal of a Cehn-Tahr in strength, even without the help of the microcyborgs that the entire crew wore.

“Come on, Doc, I’ll get you across,” he teased. He bent and lifted her. “Old man giving you hell, was he?”

She nodded. “Thanks for the lift, Captain,” she replied, and smiled up at him.

“Now, Stern!” Rhemun called angrily.

“Oooh, somebody’s in a red-hot rage,” Stern whispered in her ear, and she suppressed a nervous giggle.

“Coming, sir!” he called back to Rhemun with an angelic expression on his handsome face.

He landed in front of Rhemun with his soft burden, but he put her down almost at once when he registered the fury in the alien’s expression.

“My hearing, like that of all Cehn-Tahr, is acute,” he informed the captain, who was by now standing at stiff attention alongside Mallory. “Another infraction,” he added softly, “and you will be up before a court-martial panel by the end of the day. Do I make myself clear, mister?” he added.

“Clear as mountain water, sir, yes, sir,” Stern replied formally.

Rhemun looked down at Mallory with barely bridled anger. “Dismissed!”

The two of them almost ran for cover. Mallory didn’t dare look at Stern. She was trying not to laugh at the brief glimpse she’d had of his rolling eyes before they left the commander standing there.

* * *

THE CAPTURED ROJOKS were turned over to a patrol ship for transport to the second of Memcache’s moons, where prisoners of war were kept in a spacious, comfortable facility. One of the Rojoks was overheard telling his comrades about one of the humans who spoke the ancient tongue.

Hahnson wondered who they meant. He didn’t know a single member of the human crew members who could even speak more than a few words of Standard Rojok.

He’d noticed that Edris had come back aboard even more depressed than usual, which prompted him to pay her a visit in her sector.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

She glanced up from lab results on a small padd. She smiled sadly. “Not so good. The CO’s mad at me again.”

“What did you do this time?”

She shook her head. “It’s better not to discuss it,” she said. She was wary of the AVBDs. It wouldn’t do for Rhemun to catch her crying on Hahnson’s shoulder.

He understood without a word what she was trying not to say. He closed the door and pulled out that little white ball and activated it.

“Nothing can hear through that, not even telepaths,” he reminded her. “Spill it.”

“I jumped across a crevice to treat a wounded Rojok and the rock displaced, so I couldn’t jump back. The CO offered to ferry me across, but I wouldn’t let him touch me.” She winced. “He just went ballistic...”

“Humans aren’t allowed to know such things about them,” he pointed out. “They’re very protective about their private behaviors, especially mating behaviors.”

“Dr. Ruszel told me that,” she replied. She drew in a long, heavy breath. “I know that if Cehn-Tahr males touch females, sometimes it triggers the mating cycle, even if I’m not allowed to know it. I wasn’t sure if it was the same for females of other races...”

“It is,” he interrupted.

She frowned. “I wasn’t trying to insult him,” she began.

“And how did he arrive at the idea that you had?”

“He hates me. He hates humans, but especially me,” she corrected. “He was insulted that I would think myself attractive to him at all.”

“I see.”

She lowered her eyes, almost in shame. “It’s probably not noticeable to anyone except Cehn-Tahr,” she began slowly, “but I...react...to him.”

He frowned. “React?”

“Outbursts of pheromones,” she said stiffly. “I know he can probably smell them, and that just makes it worse. Do you have something that inhibits hormone production?” she added plaintively.

“You get those at the same time you’re mentally neutered for service,” he began.

“Yes, but I tried to get into a breeding camp, remember? They did reject me but when they gave me the drugs later, I purged them, because I thought the board might reconsider my application. Bad move. Very bad move. Can you...?”

He sighed. “Yes. I can give you something. But there may be problems down the line. A lot of servicewomen who take them later in life have allergic reactions after a time.”

“It doesn’t matter about later, just right now,” she replied. “I don’t want to make things any worse than they already are.”

“Okay, kid,” he said gently. “I’ll have my assistant bring them over when we get through talking. I noticed that it was Stern who ferried you over the chasm,” he added with a grin.

She laughed. “Yes. Oh, I had such a flaming crush on him when I first came aboard the Morcai.” She shook her head. “In a way, I wish I still did. He’s mourning for the woman he lost all those years ago, so it wouldn’t be a problem.” She looked up with a grimace. “Why am I getting a case on my hateful commanding officer? Sheer cussedness, you think?”

“You can sure pick them,” he pointed out.

She grinned. “It’s like people who hate cats, and cats always want to sit on them, you know?”

“He is a cat...”

“He has cat genes,” she returned. “Besides, he doesn’t want to sit on me. He wants to get rid of me. Maybe curtailing my pheromones will help.”

“Maybe.” He wasn’t sure of that. No medicine known to science could completely override the human body’s natural response to stimuli of that sort. Mallory had to know it.

He picked up the white ball. “Just try to stay out of his way. Maybe, eventually, he’ll grow fond of us.”

“Oh, sure.”

He made a face and walked out.

CHAPTER THREE

NOT SURPRISINGLY, THINGS got decidedly worse on the Morcai after Mallory’s involuntarily action on the cliffside. Rhemun gave her hostile glances every time he saw her.

He seemed to be the only Cehn-Tahr in the entire Holconcom who disliked her. Even old Btnu was kind, and he had enough reasons of his own not to like humans. Edris had heard that Btnu had been involved in a conflict with Alkaasar, the Cehn-Tahr who had rebelled against the empire and died as a result of it. An aggressive, and apparently mentally unstable, human advisor had provoked Alkaasar into a battle he couldn’t win. But Btnu liked the little blonde doctor.

So, sadly, did Mekashe, Rhemun’s friend. He came to see Edris often in her cubicle, just to talk. He was curious about humans and their social groups. He found endless questions about Terravega and the medical corps. He was always smiling, always in a bright mood. Edris warmed to him.

But he had a peculiar habit of trying to give her things. She didn’t understand why he was so intense about it. He offered her everything from virtual pets to virtual flowers. She always refused, because the very intensity of his gift-giving made her uneasy. He was good-looking and kind. It didn’t matter. Her emotions were centered on one very unpleasant member of his species, one who didn’t want her interest.

Rhemun noticed Mekashe’s visits to the sick bay.

“Why does he come here so often?” he asked Mallory coldly. “Mekashe is in perfect health.”

“He’s interested in Terravegan customs, sir,” she replied, standing at attention.

“Yes?”

She swallowed. His tone was openly hostile. “He’s curious about humans.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “Let me give you some advice, Lieutenant,” he said quietly. “Never accept anything from him.”

She stared at him uncomprehendingly and flushed. “I...well, he’s very kind,” she began hesitantly, “and I don’t want to hurt his feelings. But I can’t, I mean I don’t, accept gifts from him. Ever. Sir.”

He lifted his chin. The way he looked at her was unnerving. She couldn’t quite decide what that look really was. It was possessive. As if she belonged to him and Mekashe was trespassing. What an odd, and stupid, thought. She closed her mind on it at once. He hated her. She didn’t need words to push that point home.

“I cannot speak to him about it,” he said stiffly. “It is a breach of custom, a social taboo. But you must continue to refuse any gifts offered.”

“I already do. Sir.”

He nodded. “Very well. Dismissed, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir.” She saluted and almost ran from him.

He couldn’t tell her that the giving of gifts was a prelude to courtship, or that Mekashe, unlike his own Clan, had accepted all the genetic modifications that Dtimun had. If Mekashe attempted to mate with the little blonde human, he would kill her.

As much as he disliked Mallory, he was also fond of Mekashe. They had been friends since boyhood. He didn’t want the death of Mallory to lie heavily on Mekashe’s conscience for the rest of his long life. Of course, that was why he was concerned. He turned and walked back toward the bridge. It was on Mekashe’s account that he was concerned. Only that.

* * *

THE ENDLESS DRILLS continued aboard the Morcai. Rhemun timed the men on their response and rated them when they fell short of his idea of perfection.

“This is difficult for the men,” Btnu cautioned gently. “Dtimun did this, but only at first, when the unit was formed after Ahkmau.”

Akhmau was a sore spot. He had not shared that horror with the crew, so he didn’t have the comradeship with the humans that Dtimun had forged. He was an outsider. They let him know it in many ways, most of which involved referring to their time in the Rojok concentration camp. It irritated him when the humans did it, but he hadn’t expected his exec, Btnu, to join in.

His eyes narrowed over darkness. “We must have adequate response time. It might mean the difference between victory and defeat. When I captained the kehmatemer, these drills were conducted daily.”

Btnu cocked his head in a very human way and even smiled. “I know, sir,” he said gently. “But you were a bodyguard unit. Infantry. This is mechanized cavalry. They are different disciplines. As well, the kehmatemer was a very small group of men. We have hundreds aboard ship.”

Rhemun didn’t fly at him. He felt like it. “We might say that the difficulty is on both sides, but it remains that we must perform efficiently in combat.”

“On that point, I agree,” Btnu replied. “However, I will remind you, respectfully, that Dtimun led his troops more by affection and respect than by command alone.”

Rhemun’s jaw tautened. “I have no wish to befriend them.”

“I know your past. The humans do not. You judge them by a tragedy. They are not evil. They have courage and good hearts.”

“A human was responsible for my father’s death,” Rhemun said coldly. “A human killed my son.”

“Yes.” Btnu went closer and put a hand on Rhemun’s shoulder, as a fond father might. “But these humans did not.”

Rhemun felt cold. The memory of the past was covering him up, like ice. He never smiled. He never laughed. His heart was dead. And he was imprisoned here with the humans on a ship in space, because of his Clan status, because he was next in line to command the Holconcom. He wanted to go back to the emperor’s bodyguard, but there was no escape.

“I do not belong here,” he told Btnu, the words dragged out of him.

“You will belong here,” the older Cehn-Tahr said quietly. “But first you must make the effort to earn the humans’ trust.”

Rhemun didn’t reply with words. But he sighed, and nodded curtly.

Btnu smiled and went back to work.

* * *

THEY WERE ORDERED to Ondar, to pick up refugees from an ongoing conflict between a mixed culture community and a group of renegades who opposed Chacon’s entry into the Tri-Galaxy Council with all the member worlds of Enmehkmehk’s empire. The renegades struck unexpectedly, and efficiently, taking supplies, equipment, and sometimes even people when specializations were needed for some project.

Nobody could track them down, because they had no fixed base. The refugees were in a camp outside the largest city-state on the continent. This was where Madeline Ruszel had first encountered Tnurat. Edris had heard the story many times, so that she could almost picture it in her mind before Rhemun set the medical staff down in the camp and she saw the reddish landscape for herself.

“Prepare the refugees for transport,” he told Edris and her staff. “Hurry. The renegades strike quickly, and thanks to their depredations, they have equipment that equals our own.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, saluting him without quite meeting his eyes.

She led her medics into the camp, performing triage as she went along. There were only a couple of serious cases. One was a young Altairian boy who had suffered plasma burns when he ran unexpectedly between a Rojok and a colonist who were exchanging fire. The other was an elderly Altairian female with a concussion. Edris took care of the boy while Tellas, her assistant, treated the concussion.

Mekashe and several other soldiers who formed Rhemun’s personal bodyguard unit had come down with them.

Ensign Lawrence Jones, the young blond weapons specialist, had accompanied them because of his prowess with a sensor cannon.

He paused beside Edris. “Ma’am there’s a signal I can’t read,” he said.

She glanced at his monitor unit and grimaced. “That’s a casualty,” she pointed out. “See the life signs? It’s Cularian, too.” She looked past him. “Who’s missing?”

“Not sure, sir. I don’t see Mekashe, though,” he added worriedly. Like Edris, he was fond of the commander’s friend.

She finished healing the boy’s wounds, smiled at him and reassured him in Altair that he would heal and be whole again.

“You speak Altair?” Jones asked, grinning. “It’s really hard to learn, Ma’am.”

She smiled at him. “Really hard,” she agreed. “I’m so slow that it takes me forever, but I’ve picked up quite a few languages in the past few years, even some that are an archaic form.”

“I’m slow, too, Ma’am. Don’t feel bad.”

She nodded. “It’s okay, Jones. You’re doing great.”

“Thanks.” He glanced over to where the commander was just entering one of the scout ships. “He’s going back to the ship to relay our progress to the military command,” he told her. “We’re having some comm issues on the ground. It’s intermittent but it’s causing him to be short-tempered. More short-tempered,” he added under his breath. He shook his head. “I wish he didn’t hate us so much.”

She sighed. “You and me both, Jones.” She got to her feet. “I’ll have one of the air techs fly me over to the source of that signal. Darn, it’s gone again. No matter, I saved the coordinates. If it’s Mekashe, I’ll send up a flare. You be watching, okay?”

“That’s an affirmative, Ma’am. Please be careful.”

She grinned. “You do the same.”

* * *

A FEW MINUTES LATER, Edris wished she hadn’t ordered the scout to leave her in the clearing. She’d been certain from the readings that a medical emergency loomed nearby—most likely one of their Cehn-Tahr crew who’d gotten separated from the rest of the landing party. It might be Mekashe who was missing. The sensor reading indicated a wounded person, a wounded Cularian person, in this vicinity. The sensors had suddenly fallen prey to an electromagnetic interference of unknown origin, however, so it was impossible to use a robot probe to find the victim. She’d started to follow the sensor trail when her unit began malfunctioning. It was almost, she puzzled, as if the signal had been wiped out by some sort of jamming device. It was quite possible that the renegade Rojok unit could still be camped near the refugees. They would certainly have jamming devices.

She checked her wrist sensor again. It was almost useless. At least the drug banks would work if she found an incapacitated soldier here. She only wished she’d taken more time and refilled the med banks first. As usual, she’d jumped in too quickly, without enough preparation. It was a fault she’d tried to correct over the years. Her head injury from years ago was still causing problems, even now.

Well, it would mean some walking, to use her eyes and ears to search for a patient. But if it was Mekashe lying there injured, it would be worth the effort.

A sudden, sharp sound made her turn her head. She heard a voice speaking an ancient dialect of Rojok, which only a few outworlders, including Edris, could even understand.

“Holconcom!” it rasped. “Shoot!”

She felt a sudden burning pain in her lower rib cage. “Stop! Medic, not soldier...!” she called back, in the same dialect, just before she hit the ground.

There was a scramble of feet and suddenly she was surrounded by Rojok soldiers of some elite group, all wearing black uniforms. The leader, who could be recognized by his long blond hair, stood over her with narrowed eyes. At that, he couldn’t be the ranking officer, his hair only came to his shoulders, too short for even a company commander.

“Edris Mallory,” she said, quickly using a light dose of her precious few meds to alleviate the pain. There was no time to diagnose the damage. “Dr. Mallory.”

“Holconcom,” the officer returned.

“Medic...not Holconcom soldier,” she corrected. “I was searching for a wounded person. Our sensors...” She couldn’t mention that they didn’t work; this party of Rojoks was certainly one of the rebellious splinter groups that didn’t honor Chacon’s cease-fire with the Tri-Galaxy Fleet. “Our sensors weren’t specific,” she added.

“Our leader was wounded in a firefight with one of the refugees in a camp near here,” the Rojok said. “You speak our dialect. This is unprecedented.”

“I have an affinity for languages,” she replied. “May I see your leader? I am a specialist in Cularian medicine.”

He looked even more surprised. He glanced at the others, who were uneasy and coaxed him to let her try.

He sighed and signaled his men to holster their weapons. “Yes. We will take you to him.”

It was hard to get up, even harder to walk. There was some internal damage, but not immediately life-threatening. Perhaps a slightly damaged lower lung. It was difficult to breathe normally, so it was probably the lung. The lower lobe was expendable, if necessary. Thank goodness the shot hadn’t been better aimed. She’d already used a mild sedative, just enough to get her through the worst of the pain. She got to her feet.

She followed them to a speeder, got inside, and was whisked to their base camp. It was small. There were only about ten of them. They looked shocked when their comrades came into camp with a small blonde human female wearing the uniform of their enemy, the Holconcom, but they recovered quickly when the ranking officer explained why they’d brought her to camp.

He took her to a molded plexifab hut, inside which was a tall Rojok officer, middle-aged, lying unconscious on a pallet.

Edris went to him at once and prayed that her scanner would work long enough to diagnose, and that the electromagnetic field wouldn’t interfere with the operation of her drug banks.

She grimaced, because the scanner wasn’t working properly. “There’s interference with my sensors here...” she began worriedly.

The ranking officer snapped something to a soldier, who saluted and left. Only a couple of minutes later, the sensors were working again. A jamming device. That made sense.

“Thanks,” Edris said with a glance at him. “I’m afraid we’ve lost the ability to do examinations without our tech these days. Medicine, like weaponry, is dependent on it.”

He nodded. He didn’t speak. He stood, grim-faced, while she diagnosed the condition of their leader.

She sighed and smiled. “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she promised him. She went to work. It was a penetrating wound which had done damage to several internal organs and nicked his colon. She set about using her tools to do the necessary repairs.

Halfway through, he came around and groaned.

“Sorry,” she said in the dialect, and used the last of her drugs to inject a powerful painkiller. “Better?” she asked.