The Morcai Battalion (20 page)

“Yes,” the guard muttered. “It is an unforgivable burden on my men, having to turn extra duty to guard them. Not to mention the expense of pumping the pleasure drugs into them, and the extra strain on our water and sewage facilities. Then, there is the annoyance of feeding them…”

“They do not seem tranquillized, the humans and the Centaurians,” the other remarked, puzzled. “I noticed as I came in, they were jubilant, not quiescent as they should have been in their pleasure.”

His companion shrugged. “I cannot chart the effectiveness of the drugs on each individual prisoner and race, when I have eleven thousand prisoners in this complex alone. The emperor sets me an impossible task, and expects perfection without adequate funding!”

“I thought the camp was operated by recycling,” the newcomer queried.

The older guard shook his head. “The prison wavelength rumored that inmates were eating their dead comrades. We had carefully treated the recycled prisoners, but in the end we had to return to the more expensive chemical diet. It was…unfortunate.”

Lyceria shuddered in her mind at the calm discussion of such barbarism. For so long, she had dreaded even the thought of this monstrous place. Her mind had trembled at the sound of it, as if her fingers had touched death every time she heard the name
Ahkmau
. It was, she knew now, the certainty that her destiny was entwined with this place. It was a premonition of many years. She had always known it, felt it, as if she had looked into this life from still another life and seen what would be.

“For now,” the Rojok guard said, “you may place her in with the Holconcom prisoners in the
greeshmah
sector.”

As she started to sigh with relief, the other Rojok interrupted.

“That will not be agreeable. This one was sent by the emperor himself.” He moved uncomfortably. “It was his wish,” he added, “that she be treated to the full capabilities of
Ahkmau
.”

The guard looked bored. “As you wish.” He checked a compudisc in his six-fingered hand. “There is a sense-cell free on the upper level. I will have the technician bathe her with subsonics for a day or so before she is placed in total sensory deprivation. The shock of transition,” he added with a meaningful, cold smile, “is enough to rip even a Centaurian’s mind apart. It was used today on five of the Holconcom prisoners. They got down on their knees and begged for death. Interesting, is it not, when the Holconcom is rumored to be the terror of the Tri-Fleet vanguard.” He laughed.

Lyceria stiffened. Her heart had lifted with hope when she heard
that the Holconcom commander was still missing. Now, it fell heavily in her chest. If the Holconcom could succumb to torture, Dtimun must truly be dead. His will, as much as the secretive technology of the microcyborgs, kept the Holconcom strong. It came to her uncomfortably that the microcyborgs must have been removed by the guards. She closed her eyes with a shudder. Poor soldiers, to have their great strength ripped from them in such a place…

Never had she felt such hopelessness. She bowed her head and let them march her away to the cold, gray Plexiglas building that would soon become her tomb.

Three days had passed. One by one, two by two, the Holconcom of the
Morcai
and the humans of the
Bellatrix
had been taken away by armed guards, never to be seen again. As the numbers began to dwindle, the Rojoks became more determined in their search for Dtimun. They began to look for the Holconcom soldier that the humans had carried into the cell block, claiming he was inebriated. The emperor was making terrible threats. He was not convinced that the commander of the Holconcom was dead, and ordered that every single crewman be tortured until someone told the truth.

In the cell with the
Morcai
and
Bellatrix
execs, Dtimun still lay unconscious on his pallet. Despite Madeline’s frequent checks and attempts to revive him, he never moved. His pulse, however, was strong and regular, his Centaurian blood pressure normal. He was breathing regularly and without effort. But he wasn’t moving.
Despite the surgery and all their sacrifices and their hopes, he lay like the dead. Madeline grew more depressed.

Strick Hahnson, who was now free of the effects of the Rojok drugs, conferred with her, but neither could think of a technique that might restore Dtimun to consciousness. Nor did Komak have any hope to add.

“If something doesn’t happen, and soon,” Strick said quietly, “there won’t be any of us left to salvage from this red death. They took another thirty of our people away to the interrogation sector this morning. It’s hell.”

“Tell me about it,” Stern growled, hitting his fist against the Plexiglas dome. “My God, how do you think I feel? Those are my people they’re stuffing into those damned ovens, Strick. I trained those men. I know every one of them by sight and name. Here I stand while they go out there to stare hell in the face. And I put them there!”

Hahnson moved closer. “The Rojoks put them here,” he corrected. “The Rojoks, Holt.”

“He’s right, you know,” Madeline seconded.

“Recriminations will not help now,” Komak said, adding his voice to the others as he faced the humans. “We must find a way to get the men out of here. It appears that we must do it without the commander, since we can spare no more time to see if his condition improves or worsens. Perhaps…”

Before he could finish the thought, the Rojok officer who was in charge of this sprawling complex marched toward their cell with deliberation in every step, and Stern knew why he’d come.

“You,” he said, indicating Stern as guards suddenly flanked the slit entrance the sprung magnalock had created. “Come.”

Stern stood his ground, folding both arms across his chest. “No,” he said stubbornly.

The Rojok officer’s eyes narrowed, if possible, even more. “You have no choice,” he told Stern. “It is part of the programming. You cannot refuse.”

“The hell I can’t,” Stern replied coolly, although the effort the refusal was costing him was evident in his strained expression. “It’s going to take more than those two lizard-faces to get me out of this cell.”

“If you do not come now,” the officer warned, “you will be interrogated with the others. You will die with them.”

Remembering the Holconcom officers marching proudly to the ovens, the humans standing at attention while they were mowed down by
chasats
, the pain and agony in the faces of his men while man after man was taken off to the interrogation section—his body straightened suddenly as rigid as steelex. “I belong to the
Morcai
Battalion, Mister,” he said in his best military tone. “I win with it, or I die with it. But I will not,
ever
, surrender!”

Something in his carriage, in his voice, in the strength of will in his tone, carried to the others in the nearby cells. None of them knew yet that he was a clone, but they knew he was a fellow prisoner and that was enough. Like blood calling to blood, it made them move to the front of the domes, their eyes watchful, angry. And, man by man, slowly, very softly, the hundreds of humans and Centaurians who had been forced together on the
Morcai
to this place of tortures, began to chant. The sound of it grew like a prayer in intensity, stronger and louder and deeper and prouder until it made a roar of emotion loud enough to shake the pillars of the gigantic dome itself. “Free-dom! Free-dom!
Free-dom!
”

Stern raised his fist and chanted with them.

The dusky-skinned Rojok shut the door to the cell again, and with a red-hot glare of hatred at Stern, who was smiling, he whirled on
his heel and marched his soldiers out of sight, with the chanting war cry dogging every step he took.

“That,” Madeline remarked seconds later, “was a damned stupid thing to do.”

Stern grinned. “Would you rather I’d gone with him and spilled my guts?”

Hahnson chuckled steadily. “Threw them a curve, didn’t you?” he asked. “That wasn’t in the plan, apparently. You were planted here as a spy, weren’t you?”

“Dead-on, my friend,” Stern replied quietly. “For the moment, anyway, I seem to have thrown off the Rojok influence on my mind.”

“With a vengeance.” Hahnson grinned at Komak. “How do you like the unit’s new name—The
Morcai
Battalion?”

“Our numbers do make a Battalion as Centaurians reckon it, Strickhahnson,” Komak agreed, “and we were together as a unit on the
Morcai
, so the name does suit. However, the commander’s reaction to it may be more…emotional…than mine,” Komak added with a flash of laughing green eyes. “He—how is it said?—finds humans distasteful.”

“He leaves a bad taste in my mouth, too,” Madeline retorted, smiling at Komak’s puzzled expression. Colloquial expressions were lost on aliens. Her eyes went to the commander’s lithe form on the covered floor. “I really am going to expect a knighthood for this, you know,” she said, tongue-in-cheek. “Furthermore, I expect to throw it up to the commander for the rest of my life that his hearts belong to me—every time I see him, that is, which I hope is only over an interstellar vidscreen every fifty years or so.”

“When you throw it up to him,” Stern told her, “please make sure that I’m in the next solar system. As your skipper, he’ll hold me responsible. I’ll be lucky if I get off with less than eighty years of forced labor when he runs through my court-martials.”

Komak frowned. “Holtstern, why should you be court-martialed?”

Stern looked weary. “How’s treason for a start? Followed by aiding and abetting the enemy, attempted murder…”

Komak shook his head, an oddly human movement not common to Centaurians. “I will not allow you to be court-martialed,” he said quietly. From his imposing height, he seemed as formidable as the commander had been. His eyes mirrored blue solemnity. “Without your cooperation, the commander would be dead. And the trap of the Rojok would have been sprung, even had you not been with us.
Karamesh
,” he added with a soft green smile in his eyes. “It means, in your tongue, fate,” he translated.

The living shadow of Holt Stern smiled at the
Morcai
’s exec, oblivious to the glances of the other occupants of the cell. “Do you think you could save up that speech,” he asked Komak, “and recite it quickly to the commander when he comes out of the coma—you know, just before he snaps my neck?”

“Oh, I will certainly try, Holtstern,” Komak agreed readily, and the green laughter danced in his eyes.

There was no laughter in Chacon’s slit eyes when he heard his aide’s urgent, whispered message. The look on his taut, dusky face caused the young officer to take a quick step backward.

“When was she taken?” he snapped, and his eyes took on a glitter that was all too familiar to the younger Rojok.

“Two days ago, my agents told me,” the aide said uneasily. “I would stake my life that it was not one of your personal guards who betrayed her, Commander.”

“So would I, Lieumek,” Chacon agreed coldly. “The emperor’s spies are legion, and there are loose tongues in any harem.”

“He has summoned Mekkar,” the young Rojok added nervously.

Chacon’s thin-lipped mouth tugged upward in a half smile. “He thinks I will allow myself to be assassinated? By the hour, he grows more
groshmot
. It is no less than I expected. He has always been unpredictable, and his obsession with the Centaurian Holconcom commander has no logic in it.” He locked his hands behind him and stared sightlessly at the vidscreen of his flagship, where a colorful array of distant nebulae and suns stained the black velvet of space. “Lock in a course for
Ahkmau
.”

“Ahkmau?”
Lieumek gasped. “You are as mad as Mangus Lo! It would be suicide…and even if not…think of your career!”

Chacon turned and looked down at the younger alien. The raw power in those dark slit eyes was part of the warrior’s legend, and it was no less potent now than on the battlefield. The young Rojok saluted smartly.

Chacon watched him march away in a silence that was broken only by the mighty hum of the ship’s engines.
Ahkmau
. Lyceria, in that place of nightmares! A jewel flung into mud. A Silesian butterfly with its gossamer wings ripped. His tormented eyes closed. He was a warrior, used to combat and death and the horror of the battlefield. He should not have had this reaction to the news. One female was much as another, and he had never felt the need to be bound to one for life. His career was all he lived for. It had been demanding. There had never been the thought of a home other than the deck of his flagship. There was nothing so unusual, after all, about this Centaurian princess. She was expendable. She meant nothing to him, nothing at all…

He waved his hand over the vidscreen control and brought up the helmsman on the bridge. “Throw the lightsteds and give me all speed!” he growled to the officer, in a razor-sharp tone that brought a dozen startled pairs of eyes toward the helmsman’s screen.

The death camp was literally crawling with guards, searching, prodding. Stern watched them in a creeping silence that ended abruptly when the camp commandant came back with death in his whole look late in the afternoon.

“It has been decided,” he told Stern and Komak, “that since interrogation has not produced the Holconcom commander, that a public execution might loosen tongues. There is much…affection…among the human element for Dr. Hahnson. He will, therefore, be the first victim. You may save his life by telling me which of the remaining Holconcom in the internment camp is Commander Dtimun. I have no more time to waste on examinations. Over forty-five have already been conducted with no results and I tire of subterfuge and silence!”

While he was speaking, six Rojok guards armed with
chasats
entered the cell, thrust the other occupants aside and dragged Hahnson out of it. The action was so rapid that none of the cell’s complement even had time to react until it was too late. Stern and Komak made a grab for the struggling victim, only to be
chasated
at stun setting and crumpling to the floor before the Rojoks left the cell.

“Fools!” the commandant growled contemptuously. “Resistance will accomplish nothing here. Tell me what I need to know and I will spare the surgeon. You are humans. The Holconcom commander means nothing to you. Save your comrade. Speak.”

“You can’t kill him!” Madeline Ruszel yelled furiously. “It’s in violation of the Malcopian Articles of War!”

“We do not recognize them here,” the commandant said haughtily. “Compassion is for weaker races than ours. Take him away,” he ordered the guards.

“Let him go, you damned sand lizards!” Higgins broke out, leaping toward the dome.

“Strick!” Stern whispered, his fists taut at his side.

Impotent, helpless, he watched them frog-march Hahnson away to a hastily prepared transparent torture cell in the center of the domed complex. It was elevated, visible to the entire camp, and equipped with sound amplification. The latter fact became immediately apparent when Hahnson was slung into it, by the one vibrating word that passed his lips—the last that ever would.

“Malenchar!”
he yelled in Centaurian, at the top of his lungs. A second later, the multisonic transmitters were turned on. The next sound was a scream so tortured, so piercing, it turned Stern’s feet to jelly under him.

“Oh, my God,” Stern groaned, his fists hammering impotently at the flexible strength of the transparent dome that held him prisoner. “Oh, sweet God, not Strick!”

Beside him, Madeline Ruszel stood reciting curses like whispered rosaries as she watched, and knew better than the rest just how potent Hahnson’s agony really was.

“Will it kill him quick, at least, just tell me that!” Stern asked her, his eyes riveted to Hahnson’s shuddering body.

She was a professional. But Strick, like Stern, was an old, old friend and comrade of many battles. “The…uh…the unit,” she said, struggling to keep her voice calm, “has a…a self-repairing mechanism. It injects modified stem cells enclosed in nanobots into his…his body. The nanobots repair the disrupted cells instantly, so that it can…can burn them up and heal them and start all over again. He will, eventually, die,” she choked. “But not for a…long time.”

Both Stern’s fists hit the dome at the same time. “I’ve got to stop it somehow,” Stern husked, hating the Rojoks, hating the camp, hating himself for his programming that had brought them all, that had brought Strick, to this hell. His insides felt empty. “I’ve got to stop it!”