The Morcai Battalion (23 page)

Higgins was watching something in the distance with curious eyes. “Sir, what’s going on over there?” he asked.

Stern and Komak joined him at the front of the domed cell. While they watched, two shiploads of Rojoks, red-uniformed,
gained entry at the front of the massive domed complex, silhouetted against the darkening sky with its band of dark red bathed in dying sunset.

“Mangus Lo’s personal guard,” Komak said uneasily. “Here to kill Chacon, unless I miss my guess. The Rojok commander, by coming here to rescue the Centaurian princess, has condemned himself to death.”

“Rescue the princess…!” Stern gaped at him. “Is she
here?
”

“Of course. Why do you think he took the commander and Ruszel if not to mend her from
Ahkmau
’s tortures?” Komak asked calmly.

“But how do you know?” Stern demanded.

Komak looked uneasy. His eyes averted to the new complement of Rojoks entering the camp. “It was known to us that the Rojok emperor had her,” he said. “We thought she would be brought here.”

“But that doesn’t explain,” Stern persisted.

“Later, Stern,” Komak replied. “We have problems enough.”

“You’re sure that’s why the Rojok commander took them? He isn’t going to stick them in a sonic oven?”

Komak shook his head. “I assure you, that was not his intention.”

“Then she’ll be all right,” Stern said with a heavy sigh. “Thank God. And we’ll be all right, too.”

“Think so, sir?” Higgins asked uncomfortably, nodding toward the complex’s entrance, where two full companies of red-clad Rojok elite guardsmen were just entering the darkened complex.

Darkness. Darkness everywhere, and behind the wall it was safe and warm. Coldness outside, a numb coldness that was deadly. She must not leave the wall. She dared not!

But…a voice was calling. Remembered and beloved, a voice was calling to her from the darkness. She wanted to go and find it. But the cold, the cold…!

Again and again, the slow, deep voice whispered, and like a silver shadow, it touched her. She ventured to the very edge of the wall and stood, trembling, listening. Again it came, coaxing, beckoning to her…

“I am afraid,” she thought to it. “Afraid!”

“You cannot stay behind the wall forever,” it whispered to her mind.

“I can. I can! It is safe here, and warm, and nothing can harm me.”

“That is existence, not life. We were not meant to stay in the womb. Without conflict, there is stagnation. Without agony, there is no ecstasy. Come out.”

Tears were in the soft voice now. “I do not wish to be born again!” she thought. “I am safe. Oh, let me stay here!”

“And do what?”

“And…simply stay here. I need do nothing.”

“What will you accomplish, by doing nothing?”

“You…confuse me. Go away!”

“No.”

“Please!”

“You will miss the sunlight, the touch of
canolithe
on the
celamas
. You will miss the smell of green things, the soft cut of the wind on your face. You will miss life.”

“I will not be hurt here,” she protested. “You offer me pain!”

“Pain, and pleasure. After the cut, the kiss of healing.” There was a pause. “The Rojok is here.”

A reaction! Her mind burst with color. “He? The bad-tempered one?”

“The one who took you to his harem.”

“Yes, to save me from Mangus Lo. And he never touched me…” A pause. “Chacon? He is here?”

“Yes. He risked everything to find you, to save you.”

Another burst of color. “He was kind to me. Kind, even when I
cursed him. When I told him that I would prefer
Ahkmau
to his harem, I saw him flinch. I…he makes silver ripples, in my mind.”

“He waits. Come out and see.”

“For him, I would walk into
Ahkmau
again. Are you ashamed of me,
becamon tare?
”

“You will never call me that in the presence of others!” he flashed at her.

“Oh, do not be angry with me,” she pleaded. “I promise.”

“Come, then.”

“Perhaps I will. For the bad-tempered one. And for you.”

Lyceria’s great cat-eyes opened suddenly, to the amazement of the two spectators, who had heard none of the exchange between the two Centaurians.

Her gaze, blue and soft, went first to Madeline, who was nearest, and then to Chacon, who stood like stone, watching, worried.

While Chacon looked long and deeply into the Centaurian woman’s soft, blue eyes, Dtimun moved to the synthesizer on the wall and calmly ordered a
chasat
from it.

He took the weapon, turned and leveled it at Chacon. “And now,” he said, “you will move in front of us into the complex and I will free my command.”

Madeline winced. It had been a truce. But she considered the price her comrades had already paid, she couldn’t voice her opposition.

“Is this an example of Centaurian integrity?” Chacon asked proudly.

“An example of necessity,” Dtimun replied. “This is war and I am a soldier. My primary duty is to free my men.”

“With a single
chasat?
” Chacon probed. “Once, you would not have needed a weapon, I think.”

An odd look passed between the two aliens. “So. This explains why Mangus Lo would risk a fleet on my capture.”

“I told him nothing!” Chacon retorted, eyes blazing.

Lyceria moved gracefully forward. She stared at the Rojok for a long moment. “He speaks truth,” she told Dtimun.

The tall Centaurian’s body relaxed, but only a millimeter. “I must use the tools I have to procure our release. A
chasat
is more visible than other…inducements,” he added enigmatically.

“But he saved my life,” Lyceria interjected.

“And if I had the choice, I would spare his,” Dtimun replied solemnly. “Let us go.”

The four no sooner left the Rojok ship and moved out into the dark complex than the newly arrived red-clad Rojok force was sighted, entering at the gates, only to be met by an equal force of Chacon’s personal bodyguard in its black uniform.

“What the…!” Madeline exclaimed.

“The Rojok emperor’s personal elite, are they not?” Dtimun asked the Rojok field marshal, his great eyes narrowing, darkening. “Because of Lyceria, Rojok?”

Chacon laughed shortly. “Because I dared to oppose this insanity, and to his face.”

Without hesitation, Dtimun flipped the
chasat
and handed it to Chacon. “I would have made a Holconcom of you, under other circumstances.”

“And I, a
mecmec
of you,” Chacon replied with dignity. “
Karamesh
, is that not what you Centaurians call it?
T’cleemech
, Dtimun of Centauria,” he said, extending an arm.

“
T’cleemech
, Chacon.”

“Now go, quickly, while this contest of forces plays itself out,” Chacon told them. “With luck, you may effect the rescue after all, and lacking a high-level hostage.”

The Rojok’s eyes went one last time to the Centaurian princess,
whose anguish was plain in her beautiful dark blue eyes. He smiled gently at her before he turned with the
chasat
close at his side to join his men, who were massing at the gate of the complex.

Unbelievably a sob broke from the lips of the Centaurian princess.

“Bataashe!”
Dtimun growled fiercely, his eyes silencing the alien woman. “Remember who you are!”

Wordlessly she bowed her head in deference to his authority, while Madeline looked on with pure shock. She was certain that no other military commander in the Tri-Galaxy would dare speak to a member of the Royal Family like that.

“Will he escape, do you think?” Madeline asked, to break the tension, as she jogged along beside the two gracefully moving Centaurians.

“Chacon is an able commander,” Dtimun replied, “and his personal guard is formidable in the field. He commands a loyalty not evident in Mangus Lo’s bodyguard.”

“Those guards in the black uniforms,” Madeline muttered, watching them mass in the distance where Chacon had disappeared, “look formidable.”

“Wait until we release our men,” Dtimun replied, “and you will see a formidable force, Madam. The Rojoks will regret what they have done to us, I promise you.”

And, she thought impishly, they would certainly give Chacon and his men a fighting chance to escape, as well.

“An interesting proposition, is it not?” Dtimun said aloud, glancing at her with a flicker of green in his eyes. She blushed for the second time in a single day, aware also of dancing green lights in the Centaurian princess’s soft eyes.

As soon as they reached the dimly lit cell that contained Stern and the others, Dtimun used his fist to jam the mechanism and pop the hyperglas open like a ripe melon.

“Time is precious,” he told the officers inside. “Come with me.”

“I wouldn’t miss this for a thousand mems and two months’ liberty!” Stern chuckled maliciously.

“Nor would I,” Komak agreed, relieved to see the two comrades and his commander reappear in such good health.

“He is here!” Lyceria said suddenly, in a harsh tone. “Mangus Lo. He is here!”

“Where?” Dtimun demanded.

She turned around slowly, stopped and indicated the newly arrived Rojok ship. “There! He waits for his bodyguard to bring Chacon to him, so that he can be killed!” Her eyes, wide and fearful, sought Dtimun’s.

“He will not kill the field marshal,” Dtimun said quietly.

“We’re going to make a try for Mangus Lo, aren’t we, sir?” Stern asked with a grin.

Dtimun shot him a glance from eyes that glowed green in the darkness. “A try, Mister?”

Stern chuckled. “Excuse me. I meant to say, we’re going to capture him, aren’t we, sir?”

Dtimun’s eyes laughed. “After I turn these men loose, yes, I am, and level
Ahkmau
in the process,” he added with a glance at the Centaurian princess, who nodded curtly.

“The men will enjoy that,” Madeline said.

“So will I,” Dtimun replied grimly.

“No official state of war exists between Centauria and the Rojok empire, as I recall,” Stern reminded him suddenly. “If you capture the Rojok emperor…”

“You humans are at war with him, Stern,” he said. “I’ll let you present him to the Council with your own explanations. Ruszel, keep close to Lyceria,” he added as they left the cell in the darkness.

“Yes, sir,” she replied, managing a smile for the beautiful Centaurian woman, who eyed her with open curiosity and shy friendliness.

Stern watched the two women together, wondering vaguely at the difference between them. Centaurian women had no warrior class as the humans did. Still, they seemed amiable enough. His eyes went to Dtimun, and farther, to Chacon’s men confronting the emperor’s elite, where loud voices arguing in feverish Rojok echoed through the darkness.

“A benevolent hand guides our path today,” Komak said. “The confrontation may give us just enough time to escape.”

As they neared the cell closest to the one they’d vacated, the sound of a
chasat
firing echoed in the stillness.

As
chasat
fire began to echo around the complex, Dtimun slammed his fist into the magnalock of the next cell in line and popped the hyperglas open.

Before Stern had time to wonder how Dtimun planned to deploy the troops, the problem was already being solved. The cell’s occupants, human and Centaurian, poured out into the reddish darkness, acting as if there’d never been a hint of animosity between them.

“Attention!” Dtimun called in a commanding tone. “Who’s ranking officer in this group?”

“I am, sir,” a thin Strategic Space Command engineer said, moving forward in a salute. “Lieutenant Hugh Jenkins, Terravegan Engineering Corps.”

“Jenkins, take Lyceria,” he said, leading the princess forward, “and your group through to the
Morcai
. Take the ship. I don’t care how, or with what casualties. Get the
Morcai
.”

“I’ll get it, sir,” Jenkins said. “But, the lady, sir…”

“Will be as safe with you as she would with me, Mister,” he replied shortly. “And you may find her a help rather than a hindrance if you meet overwhelming opposition. Move out.”

“Yes, sir!” The Terravegan engineer whipped a salute and motioned his group into action behind him.

Madeline was saddened to remember, at that moment, the brilliant engineer who’d been part of her now-dead Amazon squad: Tilitha Qua, an Altairian of uncanny mechanical skill. Her squad would have helped level the playing field here. And it might have given this chauvinistic alien commander a few uncomfortable minutes, because her women were the equal of any of his men.

But the moment passed. If she kept looking back, she’d remember Hahnson, and she’d be no good to anyone. This was a dire circumstance, which would require the best they had to give.

With the next cell group, it was the same, and the next and the next, while still the Rojoks returned fire at the entrance of the complex. Dtimun assigned one team the duties of a demolition squad; he sent communications officer Jennings and an ordnance expert to see to the disruption of the complex’s massive communications network. But he was careful, Stern noticed, to pick one medic out of each group to stay behind with those who were too weak to travel or fight. And into one separate core group, he gathered the sturdiest looking men of his Holconcom and kept them with the executive officers of both the
Morcai
and the
Bellatrix
.

When the ship’s complement was freed, the men quickly scoured the remaining cells in the complex, a task that grew so distasteful that even the nerveless Holconcom began to show signs of nausea. The Jebob nationals among the prison complement were the worst, the most tortured. They had been deprived of solid food for so long that
they were unable to sit up without help. They looked like skeletons, their blue skin purplish with lack of protein, their great round eyes so pitiful that they brought tears to Madeline’s eyes. There was so little left of their minds after the multisonic torture that they couldn’t hear the softest voice without screaming in pain. They simply…sat.

“We have no more time,” Dtimun said finally. “We must attack while we have the opportunity, before the confrontation outside is decided and we lose the element of surprise. Leave these people for now. When we have fought free, we will do what we can for them. If we hesitate, we may all remain here forever.”

“Yes, sir,” Madeline replied sadly. He was right, of course, and her wrist scanner was being put to uses for which it was never designed. She was tired and weak herself.

“Even if we manage to escape,” young Crandall said behind them, “how in the seven netherworlds will we ever get all these hundreds, thousands, of prisoners out of here?”

“God knows,” Stern said. “The
Morcai
won’t hold them.”

“The hospital ship
Freespirit
would,” Madeline broke in.

“Indeed,” Dtimun agreed at once, holding up the remaining three groups of prisoners behind one of the dark guard stations. “But first we must free the camp,” he said. “Higgins, take Abemon, Crandall and Mezekar with you and get a message through to the Midmeridian Aid Station on Algomar before Jennings can disable communications here. Tell them the
Freespirit
is desperately needed to assist in evacuation.”

“Isn’t that taking a hell of a risk?” Stern asked uneasily. “If we don’t make it…”

“We’ll make it, Mister,” Dtimun told him, and the power was there in his eyes, glowing, burning, dark and deadly. “Go, Higgins!”

“Yes, sir!” The
Bellatrix
’s exec threw the Centaurian a smart salute and led his party toward the main command post.

Dtimun pulled eight of the Holconcom out of the group and there was a flurry of discussion, all in Centaurian. He motioned Madeline to him and they all gathered around her. Stern couldn’t see what was going on, but it seemed to involve the commander’s hair, of all things. Before he had time to wonder, the Holconcom saluted and rushed off into the darkness.

“The rest of you,” Dtimun said to the intermingled Centaurians and humans, “we’re going to take out as many of the Rojoks as we can on our way to the spaceport. You’ve all gathered up
chasats
as we freed prisoners from the few remaining guards. You’re armed. I know some of you are very weak. But this is our only chance to escape. Let us make the Rojoks pay for what our people have endured here.” He looked deliberately at the humans, weak but still standing at attention with determination on their faces. “When I send my Holconcom into battle, it is with but one order—
Malenchar!
I cannot make an exact translation into Standard, but it roughly amounts to this—engage the enemy and give them hell! Your targets are any Rojoks you find in red uniforms. The black-uniformed Rojoks are in as much danger of extermination as we are, so discriminate as carefully as you can when you fire. Questions?”

In the distance was the increasing fire of
chasats
, moving toward the domed complex where the prisoners were still escaping. “I think we’ve just run out of time,” Stern interjected.

“Malenchar!”
Dtimun yelled, turning to lead the others toward the source of the disturbance in a dead run.

At the command, the Holconcom began their ritual. The building growls Stern remembered from the
Morcai
’s mess hall echoed through the post with a mind-paralyzing intensity, from threatening growls that lifted into a piercing, blood-freezing scream that was the
decaliphe
—the death cry of the Holconcom. And then, like living shadows, they attacked.

Even to Stern, prepared as he was for it, the sound left a strange knot in the pit of his stomach. But many of the Earthers in the group had never heard it—having missed the fight in the mess hall aboard the
Morcai
—and it froze them in their tracks as they neared the complex entrance.

“
Comcache
,” Dtimun said softly to the humans, like the voice of an adult reassuring a frightened child.

Even as he spoke, the Rojoks were standing equally frozen, amid a landscape littered with dead and wounded Rojok bodies, their
chasats
leveled as they started looking wildly around for the source of the screams. Before they could find it, it found them.

The small group of Holconcom pounced on them from all sides, with the grace and speed and ferocity of humanoid cats, their strength as formidable as it had been before the removal of their microcyborgs. Only Madeline knew why, that she’d replaced them with the store she’d secreted under the commander’s hair. The Holconcom went for the Rojok throats with a speed and grace that was terrifying to watch.

But it was only the red uniforms they attacked. The black-uniformed faction led by Chacon stood in visible confusion, just watching.

From all sides now, reinforcements were coming up, more
Ahkmau
guards closing with
chasats
firing at anything that moved.

Dtimun hesitated for an instant, fighting the weakness left over from his surgery, but it was only momentary. He straightened. “
Malenchar!
” he called to the remaining groups behind him.

The humans scooped up the fallen Rojok weapons, wading in to fire at the attacking Rojoks. The blue radiation made tiny flames on contact with the red fabric of the Rojok uniforms as it penetrated flesh.

At the same time, Madeline moved behind Stern and touched his
scalp with some sort of cold instrument. He gave her a puzzled look. She only grinned.

Seconds later, Stern met the charge of a burly prison guard with taut muscles and a grim smile, his hands chopping at the alien almost simultaneously with the firing of the
chasat
that blasted him. Despite his genetic engineering, the
chasat
blast should have killed him. Incredulously the radiation danced lightly on Stern’s chest without penetrating. The Rojok looked as shocked as Stern felt. He threw a
kojo
blow to the alien’s neck with the flat of his hand and the Rojok dropped lifelessly to the hypoturf.

Blank-eyed, Stern looked down at himself and glanced at Dtimun, who was watching him with an amusement that Madeline seemed to share.

“Microcyborgs,” she mouthed, and grinned.

“Did you…?” he asked Dtimun, for obviously the alien had authorized the removal of one of the units that had been hidden in his own scalp.

Something like a smile touched Dtimun’s lips. “You are a member of my crew, are you not?” he asked simply. He turned. “Ruszel, get out of there!” he snapped at the auburn-haired physician, who’d stooped down to try to patch up one of the Holconcom left in her group. She didn’t see the four red-uniformed Rojok guards heading straight for her until a
chasat
blast almost severed her ear.

“What the hell do you mean my daughter’s lost behind enemy lines?” Colonel Clinton Ruszel yelled at Jeffrye Lawson, his silvered red hair burning against his tanned face in the light of the ceiling panels. “How did she get there in the first place?”

“Will you calm down and listen to me, Clint?” Jeffrye Lawson
growled, slamming his fist down on the smooth, glassy surface of his desk.

“How can I calm down? Dammit, I thought she was on a routine rescue hop to Terramer. What happened?”

“Rojoks attacked the rescue party. They killed Holt Stern—you remember him, surely?” Lawson asked sadly, and the Paraguard officer nodded impatiently. “The
Bellatrix
was destroyed in the attack. Afterward, the entire crew of the
Bellatrix
was apparently taken aboard the Holconcom ship
Morcai
…”

“Dtimun’s ship,” Ruszel said at once and with a sigh of heartfelt relief. He sank down into one of the admiral’s rigidly uncomfortable chairs. “Why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place? She’s all right, then.”

“What?” Lawson asked blankly.

“If she’s with Dtimun, she’s safe, of course. My God, Jeff, I fought with him in the Great Galaxy War. Best damned commanding officer I ever served with. He helped me get Maddie and those Marcopian kids away from the terrorists, too,” Ruszel recalled with a grin. “The Rojoks sure as hell couldn’t capture him.”

“Evidence is to the contrary,” Lawson said apologetically. “Our reports indicate there’s every chance that they’ve been taken to
Ahkmau
. It was one reason the Council agreed on a war vote. Old Tnurat practically threatened to declare war on them if they didn’t.”

“If Dtimun was taken to
Ahkmau
,” Ruszel said stubbornly, “it was because he planned it that way. My God, Jeff, he’s probably launched an all-out offensive and is liberating the place right now!”

Lawson drew in a weary breath. It was like arguing with a rock. “Clint,” he began patiently.

“Admiral!” His adjutant’s voice was breathless, his face jubilant as he appeared in the doorway.

“Yes, son?” Jeffrye asked.

“Sir, you’re not going to believe this,” the young officer said, laughing. “It’s the
Freespirit
. She just got a distress call from
Ahkmau
for assistance in evacuating the inmates from the camp. And it was sent by the
Morcai
Battalion!”

“Now, what did I tell you, Jeffrye?” Clinton Ruszel said calmly. “And there you sat, worrying yourself into the grave.”

“
Morcai
Battalion?” Jeffrye asked incredulously. “What the hell is that? And evacuating
Ahkmau?
Are you sure you heard right, boy?” he demanded of his adjutant, scowling.

“Yes, sir!” the younger man nodded.

“Well, if that’s all you dragged me in here for,” Ruszel said impatiently as he adjusted his service cap back on his head, “I’ll be getting back to my command. Honest to God, Jeff, scaring the hell out of me, dragging an officer off the front lines with a bunch of garbage about kidnapped crewmen and prison camps…” He was still muttering to himself as he absentmindedly saluted on his way out the door.