The Morcai Battalion (13 page)

Madeline twisted Merrick’s forearm painfully and gave him to Hahnson with a grin as she ran for her own sector. Merrick was going on report the minute they reached an SSC base, she promised herself. She shook her right hand, feeling a tear in the skin. She was probably going to be in trouble with Dtimun for brawling, as well. But right now, her only concern was her patients.

“All execs and department heads to the main briefing room,” the intercom blared, alternating between Centaurian and Standard. “All execs and department heads to the main briefing room, on the double!”

She did an abrupt about-face, and met Hahnson, minus Merrick, as she made a jump up on the interdeck access ladder. “Damn Merrick!” she growled. “Wait until we get back to Trimerius!”

“Cloning carries its own punishment,” Hahnson reminded her. “Merrick will end up in a medical supply unit as spare parts.”

She felt momentarily sick at her own behavior. “Strick…”

“No time. Move it!” he said as they reached the top of the access ladder that ended on the main flight deck at operations.

He jogged into the briefing room with Madeline at his heels. It surged with pent-up energy as Dtimun took his place at the head of the glowing, oblong table and called the group to order.

“We are surrounded,” he said coldly, without mincing words. “The Rojoks have just meshed us in force nets which our depleted
emerillium
banks are unable to blast away. Our only hope now is to sabotage the ship.”

“Commander!” Komak exclaimed, as if in disbelief.

The older alien looked straight at him, with black eyes. Jet-black. Madeline searched desperately in her memory for the meaning of that color. Black…death!

“You cannot!” Komak raged.

Dtimun glared at him, seeming to flinch as he whirled to face the younger Holconcom.
“Debles ‘ha mechmal?”
he growled furiously, and he shivered suddenly.

“Camache…”
Komak began uncertainly.

Even as the guttural word fell on the sudden silence, the Holconcom commander fell, as well, crumbling onto the deck in front of his shocked officers.

Around the compartment, the Centaurian faces registered something like disbelief. Only Komak moved, dropping quickly beside his fallen leader, his long-fingered hand searching for a pulse.

Before he could speak, a shudder went through the deck, a metallic shudder followed by the sound of an explosion somewhere nearby in the corridor.

Madeline moved forward and knelt beside Komak while two of the other execs ran into the corridor to look for the cause of the disturbance.

Komak made an expression which, in a human, would have been a grimace. “
Dylete
,” he murmured to Madeline.

She laid her wrist scanner against the commander’s unmoving chest. “Yes, it is,” she confirmed tautly.

“You are familiar with it?” Komak exclaimed.

“My specialization is in Cularian medicine, which includes Centaurian physiology.
Dylete
is the time of half-life,” she said professionally, deaf to the speculative whispers around the table from both races as she kept her eyes on the wrist unit readings, “when the changeover from the first heart to the second occurs. Studies have confirmed that over fifty percent of your people would die without medical intervention if there are complications.” She frowned. “But I understood
that it only happened past the Centaurian half-life period. The commander is so young…”

“The commander,” he corrected her, “is eighty-seven of your years old.”

She caught her breath, because the unconscious alien could have passed for a human in his early thirties, as far as appearance went.

“It is time,” he told her. “The very worst time. You must tend him,” he added. “I will do what I can to save the ship.”

As he got to his feet, Madeline motioned to Hahnson, who’d just come back into the compartment along with Holt Stern, looking grim. “Strick, get me two medics and all the
digammonalin
you can synthesize. I’m going to inject him with the last of my
epenefadrenin
and pray that it will put one last surge of life into the old heart and delay the
dylete
.” As she spoke, she was programming the wrist unit’s micro drug bank to synthesize the tiny amount of medicine that was left from her treatment of the Terramer refugees. She felt the laserdot hammer the dose directly into the older of Dtimun’s two hearts. The new one, fully grown and vibrant, had not yet been stimulated into action. The curious configuration of the cardiovascular system in Cularian species had fascinated the first Terravegan exobiologists who encountered it. The body grew one heart, which performed until a new one was grown in tandem. As the new heart began to function, the old one decreased in size and was absorbed back into the tissue of the cardiac muscle. New blood vessels emerged, attached to the older ones and gradually replaced them, as well. It was a process unknown among humanoid types in the Tri-Galaxy. Nor had medical science progressed enough to explain or duplicate the process.

“Will he die?” Holt Stern asked suddenly, dropping down beside Madeline.

“Wishful thinking?” she murmured with an unfamiliar bitterness in her tone. She was remembering Dtimun smiling at her two small patients, the ones he’d saved with nothing more than the power of his mind.

“As a matter of fact…” Stern began coldly.

“Look!” Hahnson interrupted, nodding toward the alien’s broad chest. “It’s working!”

Slowly, so slowly, the muscles in that powerful torso began to vibrate as the lungs responded to the medicine. Madeline scanned his pulse. It was weak and erratic, but it was a living pulse. Her heart warmed.

“Keep him alive,” Komak told her, sounding for all the world like Dtimun himself. “At least until I can find time to talk with him.”

“He can’t hear you,” Madeline protested. “It’s only a pulse. He’s in a mild coma…”

“He will hear me, when he has to,” Komak said quietly. He stood up and faced the other officers. “Decisions must now be made, while there is still time. The last explosion was the reserve engine bank being destroyed. We have only our primary lightsteds and enough power to the main weapons to sustain a short engagement.”

How could he have known that? Madeline wondered absently while she worked on stabilizing her patient.

“I have broadcast a distress call on scramble through a tiny distortion in the force nets,” Komak continued. “It may or may not reach the Imperial Dectat in time. We have, therefore, two options—to draw the Rojoks in and attack them from a set position, or use what speed we have left and attempt to run.”

“Either way will be suicide,” Stern said calmly. “You can’t reach Benaski Port, your path is cut off. You can’t sit still or they’ll blow you out of space. If you try to run, they’ll flank you and destroy your engines. Face it. We’re dead in space.”

Komak’s eyes darkened visibly as they scanned the human’s impassive face. “Our weaponry units still function, Captainholtstern,” he said coolly. “And they are superior to the weaponry of the Rojok vessels. So long as they function, we are not without hope, even though we are outnumbered.”

“So long as they function,” Stern agreed with an enigmatic smile that chilled Madeline to the bone.

“I must study the starmaps before I make a final decision,” Komak told the others. “For now, secure for battle and prepare for any eventuality.”

“There isn’t much hope, is there?” Madeline asked.

Komak’s eyes gave a flash of pure green mischief. “Dr. Madelineruszel, do you know from which legend the
Morcai
takes its name?” She shook her head. Komak continued, “The Morcai were a warrior race known for their courage in the face of impossible odds. As the story goes, a hundred of them once warred against the extinct Cru-cerian Warlords with their legions of lightships—and won. There are no absolutes. Anything is possible.”

“But not everything is probable,” Stern interrupted.

Komak only glanced at him, but the sudden dark anger in his eyes spoke. “To your stations,” he said. “Dismissed.”

“I can’t do it!” Madeline told Komak with fire in her pale green eyes. “I simply can’t perform surgery on him, Komak. I don’t have any actual experience in Cularian surgery. If the
dylete
itself doesn’t kill him, I surely will!”

“He has resources which I cannot explain to you,” Komak replied. It was an hour since the commander had fallen, and the two of them were alone with Dtimun in Madeline’s makeshift sick bay. “If he is restored to health, even these odds will not affect his ability to save
us. Without his help, we cannot avoid capture. I am inexperienced at the helm, for all the commander’s tutoring. I do not delude myself that I am his equal as a strategist. I know two theories of combat, attack and retreat. I cannot retreat, so I must attack. And without his help,” he added, nodding toward the alien in the ambutube, “I have little hope of victory. He is more than my commanding officer, Madelineruszel,” he added solemnly, sadly. “I wish…that I could explain this to you. I do not dare.”

She drew in a long breath. “I’m amazed that he’s lasted this long,” she said. “By all logic, he should be dead.”

He hesitated. “I could be spaced for telling you this,” he said slowly. “But it may allow you to save his life. Look.” He reached into the ambutube and touched his hand to the commander’s hairline. He pressed his thumbnail into the flesh and extracted a tiny, pulsing dot of energy.

She gasped.
“Microcyborgs!”
she exclaimed. “I’ve studied them theoretically, of course, in premed at the academy, but I’ve never actually seen one before. They’re like your
kelekoms
, aren’t they? Sentient technology, with amazing abilities that they share with a bonded companion.”

“Yes. They were created by old Tnurat Alamantimichar’s scientists, almost two centuries ago, from clones of the
kelekoms
. They are not only sentient, they lengthen life spans, enhance intellect and magnify strength and latent psychic abilities to an almost magical degree. We all have them, we of the Holconcom,” Komak told her. “However, the commander carries more than the rest of us. It gives him superior strength. There is also the question of his mental abilities, which are exceptional, even for a Holconcom, and of which you must never speak.”

She was curious, but she forced herself not to ask any more questions. “I give you my word,” she said formally. She frowned. “Then, the microcyborgs are keeping him alive.”

He nodded.

She narrowed her eyes. “Can you get the other Holconcom to give up one microcyborg each?” she asked, thinking quickly.

His eyes widened. “I…yes!” he burst out, delighted. “I am certain that I can!”

She smiled, feeling optimistic for the first time. “They just might make the difference. I know it’s a breach of ethics for you to admit that they even exist—the technology is outlawed in the Tri-Fleet, as I’m sure you already know. But the extra units will keep him alive, for the time being.”

“I will obtain the units. Then you must operate,” he said quickly. “I cannot let him fall into Mangus Lo’s hands. His capture would provide the Rojoks with means to overcome the entire Centaurian Empire. It is imperative that he live—or die—free.”

“What is he?” she asked abruptly. “Why does Mangus Lo want him so badly?”

“It is a secret matter,” he replied sadly. “I cannot speak of it. If we do not avert capture, I must kill him. It is that important.”

She ground her teeth. It was a horrible responsibility. She wavered. After all, she was far more qualified than Hahnson to perform the procedure, and she had the knowledge. It would be no more risky to interfere with the
dylete
than to let the process continue naturally and possibly cost the commander his life. She kept seeing the face of the tiny Altairian boy whom Dtimun had saved…

“All right,” she said. “I’ll…try.”

“Good.”

“Komak, alternatively we might place him in a stasis tube,” she said quickly. “I saw at least three of them in the sector near the
kelekom
unit. One was in use…”

“You did not interfere with it?” he asked abruptly, frowning.

“Of course not!” She hesitated. “Why?”

He averted his eyes and stood erect. “I must manage the technology while we have time. I must also conceal the
kelekoms
in case we are boarded. I will return shortly.”

She stayed with Dtimun, her eyes curious on the rapid eye movement. Was he dreaming? Did Centaurians dream? And just what was in that stasis tube that Komak didn’t want her to see? Why was Dtimun so important that Mangus Lo would send an entire fleet to get him? So many questions, she thought, and so few answers. There was also Stern’s odd behavior during the commander’s collapse, which she didn’t understand. She hoped Hahnson was keeping a close eye on their captain. She didn’t dare allow herself to think about Dtimun dying. It was curiously painful, and she had more than enough problems as it was.

Komak, true to his word, returned in minutes with a small tube of glowing microcyborgs. Madeline quickly implanted them just under his hairline, noting that his pulse and breathing regulated even more as they pulsed and began to entwine themselves in the neurons of his brain.

“If we can just outrun the Rojoks,” she began.

The whole ship rocked. Komak stood up and his eyes went an opaque-blue. “
Maliche!
” he burst out, his head jerking as if he saw something unthinkable. “Madelineruszel,” he said at once, even as he started out of the sector, “gather all the instruments you would require for emergency surgery and conceal them in your boot. Hurry. We have no time left!”

“What in the seven netherworlds…?” she faltered.

But he broke into a run and went through the hatch before she could get the question out. Even as he left, a red alert sounded shipwide. It didn’t take a military expert to guess that the Rojoks were closing in. But Komak had known before. How?

With cool efficiency, even through her apprehension, she quickly gathered her instruments and put them in a protective pouch, securing them in the high-topped boot on the unconscious figure in the ambutube. She might be searched. She was hoping that the commander would not be. There was one other thing she could do, with enough time, and that was strip every mark of rank from Dtimun’s uniform, which she did, pulling the rank mark and the insignia of command from his high collar and throwing them into a nearby disassembler unit.

As an afterthought, gritting her teeth, she used a sonic wand to remove the commander’s short, neat beard. Many of the Holconcom wore mustaches, so she left that. When he was back on his feet, he’d court-martial her for removing his facial hair. The short beard was as much a symbol of his rank as the embryo-shaped motif on his uniform. What a good thing, she thought, that Centaurians had that golden-hued skin that didn’t tan, so the quick shave wasn’t going to be noticeable to an outworlder. The skin under the beard was the same soft gold as the rest of his skin. Once more, she found herself studying him, amazed at his similarity to a human, right down to his ears and fingernails. Except for the golden skin and elongated eyes, no one could have distinguished him from a human.

A sickening wave of fear washed over her as she felt the ship suddenly shudder and buckle, slinging her headlong to the deck. A second later, she heard the explosion as it reverberated throughout the ship. The Rojoks surely had them. They were stopped dead. The engines no longer hummed under her feet, as they did continually when the ship was in motion. The attack was already underway, and she knew with horrible certainty what the outcome would be. In her mind, she could see the classified holophotos depicting the open, waiting doors of Mangus Lo’s sonic ovens on
Ahkmau
…