The Morcai Battalion (24 page)

Jeffrye Lawson simply stood there, watching him leave, his eyes staring at nothing.

“Do you think they’ll get Mangus Lo himself, sir?” the adjutant was asking. “And the Jaakob Spheres? Gee, it would sure throw a monkey wrench into the Rojoks’ morale, wouldn’t it, sir?”

Lawson didn’t hear him. He walked out the door with his hands folded behind him, still incredulous. “I wonder,” he mused, “if we traded Tnurat Alamantimichar thirty Malumesser fighters and the design for our cadmium drive battlecruiser…maybe he’d loan us Dtimun?”

Stern started to rush toward Madeline, but Dtimun’s steely arm shot out and held him back.

“She is safe, Stern,” he said.

“Safe? But…!”

Even as the human protested, a
chasat
blast rocked the four attacking Rojoks, throwing them up into the air, to land in an unconscious heap on the hypoturf.

Madeline caught her breath. She’d been so engrossed in her work that she wasn’t even aware of the danger she’d been in.

Chacon moved forward, lowering his
chasat
as he approached the small group. Behind him, there was a fireburst of color in the night sky followed instantly by the thunder of a huge explosion.

“The communications network, I dare say,” Chacon said with a tiny smile as he stopped in front of Dtimun. “For a weary, beaten group of outworlders, you accomplish much in little time.”

“And just consider that we’ve barely begun,” Madeline agreed, joining them. She smiled self-consciously at the Rojok who’d saved her life. “Thank you, sir.”

He nodded solemnly. His eyes studied Dtimun. “Strangely enough, only Mekkar’s force was attacked by your men. My bodyguard was not touched. Can you explain this odd method of combat?”

“Black uniforms, sir,” Stern said with a straight face. “Very hard to see at night.”

“Absolutely,” Madeline agreed. “The arrangement of the Terravegan retina, you know. We can hardly see black. Of course, red is easily detected.”

“I myself have noticed this abnormality in humans,” Komak agreed fervently.

Chacon’s slit eyes twinkled. “By all rights,” he told them, “I should do everything in my power to put you back in those cells. But the fact is, no state of war yet exists between the Rojok and Centaurian empires—and since these humans seem to belong to you, I must let you go.”

“In which case, it might be wise to retire to your flagship, Rojok,” Dtimun told him, “because it is my intention to leave bare desert in the place of this abomination.”

“And the inmates?” Chacon asked.

“I have sent for the
Freespirit
.”

“I understand.” He hesitated. “You must know that Mangus Lo is even now at the spaceport in his flagship. He will have troops massing here when he ascertains the communication failure.”

“Yes,” Dtimun said. “But he will not know of the communications failure until he tries to send for help, and then it will be too late for him to call for reinforcements.”

“You understand that I cannot condone your plans for
Ahkmau
, nor assist you.”

“As has been said already, it is a pity we find ourselves on opposing sides,” Dtimun said quietly. “Good fortune, Rojok.”

“And to you,” Chacon replied. “My…regards to the Centaurian princess,” he added heavily, and without meeting Dtimun’s gaze.

Dtimun watched the Rojok walk away proudly, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “By opposing Mekkar’s force, he has condemned himself to a public execution. I can almost believe it was intentional, to divert Mekkar while we make our escape.”

“With all due respect, Commander,” Stern said with solemn, dark eyes, “we’d be dead already if he hadn’t intervened. If we took Mangus Lo home with us, there wouldn’t be anyone to give the order to execute the Rojok field marshal. Would there?”

Dtimun raised an eyebrow. His eyes twinkled green. “A thought which has also occurred to me,” he replied. “Ruszel, arm yourself and stay with Abemon. Komak, Stern, with me.”

Madeline glared at him with her hands on her hips. “I will take it personally if you die out there,” she muttered. “It wasn’t an easy job,
putting you back together again. Sir.” She glanced at Stern. “That goes double for you.”

“Nothing to worry about, Maddie,” Stern assured her. “We Centaurians are as formidable as all hell, aren’t we, Commander?” He grinned at Dtimun.

A flash of green escaped the alien’s control, but was just as quickly erased from his eyes. “We have little time. Can you use that, if you have to?” he asked Madeline as they turned to leave, indicating the captured
chasat
he’d given her.

She gave him an incredulous look. “I commanded an Amazon squad.”

He pursed his lips. “I was referring to your knowledge of Rojok technology, not your courage. Of that, I have seen proof.”

She cleared her throat. “Sorry, sir.” She gave him a snappy salute, raised her eyebrows at Stern and moved out with her group.

With Dtimun in the lead, the three
Morcai
officers swept past the liberation effort, where humans and Holconcom were still opening the huge capsule barracks to free the ragged, cheering inmates. The hypoturf was littered with the bodies of red-uniformed Rojoks, the finest of Mangus Lo’s handpicked escort troops. Obviously they’d met their match in Chacon’s elite unit.

“What kind of chance have we got of getting through to Mangus Lo?” Stern asked as Dtimun darted through the entrance of the complex into the tube that led to the nearby spaceport.

“A good one,” Dtimun replied. “Most of his personal bodyguard was dispatched to eliminate Chacon. There will be only a skeleton crew aboard his flagship.”

“Accommodating of Mangus Lo,” Stern remarked.

“Indeed,” Komak agreed. “Commander, look! Our men have secured the spaceport!”

“Our men” were the humans led by the engineering officer, Jenkins. The Centaurian princess was waiting beside the
Morcai
’s elevator tube, her eyes green with triumphant laughter as she sighted Dtimun.

“You are victorious,” she said gently. “I knew you would be.”

“Karamesh,”
Dtimun replied with a flash of green eyes. “Jenkins, was there no resistance?” he asked the human, sweeping the area for signs of Rojoks and finding none.

“Quite a bit, actually, sir,” Jenkins replied, scratching his head. “But about time we opened fire on them, the princess moved in front of us and they…well, they ran away, sir,” he said feebly. “I’m at a loss to understand it.”

Dtimun only smiled. “Leave a crew here to guard the ship,” Dtimun told him. “And assist Dr. Ruszel in getting the Terramer survivors back aboard. The
Freespirit
has been sent for. If it arrives before the three of us return, take the
Morcai
back to Trimerius. You understand?” he added deliberately. “Tell Higgins.”

Jenkins swallowed, hard. He knew what the commander meant. The three of them might not come back. “Yes, sir,” he said quietly.

Dtimun led his two companions toward a sleek sandskimmer and slammed into the pilot’s seat, leaving Stern and Komak to jump in as he activated the engine and it began to whine.

“Insanity,” Dtimun muttered. “Komak, you, at least, should stay behind.”

“Unnecessary,” Komak said smugly.

The older alien gave him a glare. “I distrust this perception of yours. You might at least give the impression that you are not reliving history.”

Komak cleared his throat. “There is Mangus Lo’s flagship,” he said quickly, indicating a ship from which a few red-uniformed Rojoks were exiting.

“We’re going to storm his flagship, aren’t we?” Stern asked with a cold smile. “I’m looking forward to that.”

“Keep your hands away from Mangus Lo, Mister,” Dtimun cautioned as the skimmer lifted and shot ahead toward the distant Rojok ship.

Stern said nothing, but his thoughts were dark. Because of the Rojok tyrant, he would go through life as a carbon copy of a dead man, with fewer rights in Terravegan society than a block of wood. He would never command a ship again. He would never know the pleasure of comradeship with his mates. He would never forget the sound of Hahnson’s screams. And for the sum total of his living nightmares, he owed Mangus Lo a debt he fully intended to pay. And if the Centaurian killed him for it, that was all right, too. After all, he was already dead.

Dtimun landed the skimmer a short distance from the ship. It was a Rojok skimmer, and it attracted no attention from the two bored guards at the lift.

As they exited the skimmer, a Rojok voice cried,
“Cleemaah!”
and a
chasat
fired at the three uniformed humanoids he hadn’t even seen until he ran right into them.

Stern automatically threw the alien’s arm aside and darted a sharp thrust of his fingers up under the Rojok’s rib cage, dropping him instantly.

“Mangus Lo should have the Jaakob Spheres on his ship, along with the captive scientists. His paranoia would not have allowed him to leave them on Enmehkmehk,” Dtimun told them as they moved closer to the lift. “He does not even trust his own guards in matters of security. But the ship will be well guarded. We must expect resistance.”

“I hope we get it,” Stern said coldly. “Nothing would please me more. Lead on, sir.”

Dtimun led the way through minor resistance. Rojok guards were quickly and quietly disposed of along the way. They arrived at the entrance to Mangus Lo’s portable throne room in a matter of minutes.

The door, gleaming with color, was reminiscent of carnival colors in its gaudiness. “The throne room,” he told the others quietly. “I memorized textdiscs of the Rojok flagship many years ago.”

That didn’t surprise Stern. “How many bodyguards will he have, do you think?”

Dtimun closed his eyes. He opened them almost immediately. “Twelve. Two to the left of the entrance, four at either side of the entrance to the tyrant’s throne room, six near the throne itself. Let’s go!”

Stern didn’t have time to wonder how he knew that. The instant the bulkhead entrance was opened up, red-uniformed Rojoks swarmed the incoming threat.

Pulse racing, throat dry, Stern ducked a
chasat
blast and attacked, knocking down one of the Rojok guards and finishing him in one smooth motion. He grabbed up the fallen
chasat
and leveled it at the next enemy soldier who came into range, firing instantly. Oblivious to the sounds of the
decaliphe
that burst from the throats of his companions behind him, he moved quickly down the corridor that led directly to the throne room.

The six remaining Rojoks were massed at the entrance to the throne room,
chasats
leveled and ready. Stern would have rushed them, even so, but just as he crouched for a burst of speed, two red blurs went past him with a grace and speed that left him breathless.

The horror of
Ahkmau
, the sacrificed comrades, the sadistic jeering of the guards while they tortured Hahnson—all of it added to the flame of his hatred as he waded into the fray. All he could see were shocks of blond hair and blurs of reddish bronzed skin and red uniforms. Blindly he shouldered his way through the Rojoks while Komak and Dtimun attacked. Mangus Lo. Mangus Lo. He was going to kill the madman. Nobody in the world was going to stop him. There was no other thought in his mind as he made his way into the imperial chamber. Something hit his arm with a staggering blow, and for a moment it burned with pain. He didn’t spare it a glance. As long as the muscles still worked, he didn’t care if the flesh was stripped down to the bone. He remembered vaguely that the bone was almost indestructible anyway. He kept moving.

As he reached the door,
chasating
one last Rojok guard to the floor, he rammed the handle of the weapon into the magnalock housing. The sound of tinkling glass accompanied the sudden release of the door to the imperial throne. It slipped up like a tightly wound spring suddenly released.

And there he was. The scourge of Enmehkmehk. The terror of
Ahkmau
. The source of the Tri-Galaxy Council’s nightmares. The emperor of the Rojoks. Majesty in red robes that looked two sizes too big for him. Authority with one dead leg that dragged behind his squat body. Arrogance with bowed legs and a face like a wrinkled red prune.

“Who are you?” Mangus Lo screamed.

“Death on two legs,” Stern replied quietly, raising the
chasat
.

Eyes dial-round in fear, Mangus Lo backed against his trophy case. If Stern had any idea of sparing his life, it was abruptly gone. There, within the oval confines of the huge, glassy showcase, was the head of a beautiful young Altairian boy, staring ahead with sightless spherical eyes, the blue skin pale in death.

“You sadist,” Stern breathed venomously, remembering what had been done to Hahnson. “You bloody, inhuman…!”

Throwing the
chasat
down, his hands went to the alien’s neck and he shook him violently, ignoring the pleas and threats, the cries that grew strangled in the Rojok’s thick throat. Hahnson’s head might have been in that case, or Madeline’s, if Chacon hadn’t arrived when he did.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a voice shouting at him. He ignored it. His hands tightened. Blind, deaf, dumb, he smiled down at the terrified little alien with bloodlust burning in his mind as the fear in Mangus Lo’s eyes fed his satisfaction.

But suddenly the neck of his dirty, ragged uniform contracted like a tourniquet, jerking him clear of the floor to hang some two feet off the ground, as if suspended by a coathook. His hold on the little dictator only tightened.

“Drop him,” a cold, familiar voice commanded.

He knew Dtimun’s voice, but it didn’t register. He wasn’t letting go.

“Drop him!” The hand contracted.

Stern reluctantly let the emperor slide out of his grasp onto the floor.
He slumped. He was suddenly very tired. Sadly, it seemed that the Holconcom commander wasn’t going to allow him to kill Mangus Lo. Pity.

“Spoilsport,” he muttered as he rearranged his collar.

“Dtimun!” Mangus Lo whispered through his tortured windpipe, his slit eyes widening. “I have you now! With you as my prisoner, I can conquer the galaxies! No Centaurian would dare stand against me…!”

Dtimun’s eyes burned black. His hand shot out and grasped the Rojok’s fat neck, lifting him completely off the deck. And for an instant, Mangus Lo wavered between life and death.

“No fair, Commander!” Stern grumbled. “If I can’t kill him, neither can you.”

Dtimun met the human’s eyes levelly. He drew in a long breath. His eyes, calmer, went back to the Rojok emperor. “The Jaakob Spheres. Where are they?”

“Here!” Komak said from the rear of the throne room, his green eyes laughing as he held up a glowing amber globe with the hope of the free galaxies inside. In the center was a cluster of tiny globes, each containing DNA from a racial type, with documentation written in a dead language. He smiled. “Evidently the Rojok scientists could not decipher them,” he added. “They are recorded in Old High Martian.”

“Where are the scientists?” Dtimun demanded of Mangus Lo.

The old emperor glared at him. “They refused to translate them. They were expendable.”

“As was the Centaurian prince?” Dtimun added in a voice so soft and dangerous that Stern felt uncomfortable.

Mangus Lo looked at him blankly. “He would not tell me where you were,” he said, as if it should have been perfectly clear why the boy was tortured. “I have had this plan in mind for some time, to attack Terramer and kidnap the Centaurian elite, so that you would be forced to come and rescue them.” The Rojok smiled coldly. “What
are a few thousand lives, if I have you at my side? The greatest of the alien commanders—without you, the Tri-Galaxy Fleet could not menace us…!”

Dtimun glared at him. “You are completely mad,” he pronounced.

The old Rojok blinked. “You will decipher the Spheres for me,” he said quickly. “Then you may take Chacon’s place at my side. I will give you a planet to rule, servants, women! Chacon must die,” he added, his mind obviously far removed from the reality of his capture. “He disobeyed me and came here. My guards say that he actually saved the Centaurian princess. I sent her here to die, because your men would not give you to my guards…” He frowned and stared at Dtimun. “How did you escape?”

“You will have a brief time to ponder that before your execution,” Dtimun told him, still furious.

The emperor smiled. “You will never get out of here alive, with or without me.”

Dtimun smiled back. “We will all get out of here alive,” he countered. “You will face justice.”

“I am a sovereign ruler. You cannot try me in a court.”

Dtimun didn’t grace the remark with a reply.

Stern straightened. “I hear marching feet,” he said. “Reinforcements?”

“I have many troops in other ships,” Mangus Lo said pleasantly. “You are mine now, Dtimun.”

“Do you think so?” Dtimun’s eyes flashed green, just as the door burst open behind him.

Madeline Ruszel could have kissed every medic aboard the
Freespirit
as she watched them gently go to work on the survivors of
Ahkmau
who could be saved. So quietly, so efficiently, they consoled the broken-spirited, the half-dead, the mentally torn. Medics of all
races were represented in that crew, and possessed of a dedication rare for the time. Most of them were retired from high-pressure work. They were too old for conventional medicine, so they formed this fraternity of healers, bought a space-going vessel, and became the most famous rescue ship in the three galaxies. Madeline admired them with all her heart.

“How many of them can we save, do you think?” she asked the head surgeon, Lindsey Bagnacdor of Terravega.

The dark-skinned, dark-eyed surgeon shrugged. “There are several hundred who are starved already beyond salvation, despite our sophistication. Another two hundred have minds so completely destroyed that we will never be able to identify them. In forty years of medical practice, I have never seen the likes of this place. Never!”

Madeline nodded. “A nightmare,” she agreed. Her eyes went to the spaceport where the
Morcai
was filled with her crew and waiting to be boarded. Most of the camp’s inmates had been teleported aboard the
Freespirit
while the battle still raged between Chacon and Mangus Lo’s warring forces, and the survivors of the Holconcom. It was impossible to tell who was winning, but the diversion gave the
Freespirit
time to land and evacuate the camp. In the meantime, the rest of the
Morcai
complement found its way aboard, including a grinning Lieutenant Jennings, the communications officer, who had mined the rest of the base’s communications network after disabling the primary unit.

Dtimun and Stern and Komak were still missing, however. Jenkins and Higgins were adamant about waiting. Dtimun had commanded them to lift if he wasn’t back when the
Freespirit
was ready to depart. It was a direct order, and they meant to obey it.

“We can’t risk waiting, Dr. Ruszel,” Higgins said apologetically. “By now, Mangus Lo’s ship will have realized that primary base commu
nications are out, and he’ll have ordered reinforcements here from his ship. If we don’t get out now, we could all be recaptured.”

“I know, Higgins, but…” she argued sadly.

“We have to get out while we can,” he said.

He was only doing what he was told. In all honesty, she couldn’t even blame him. But she still procrastinated, even now, hoping to buy just a little more time for Stern and Komak and the commander…

“Dr. Ruszel, we have to go now!” Higgins insisted.

At his side, Jennings listened to the microchip receiver in his ear and grimaced. “It’s Abemon,” he called to Higgins. “The
kelekoms
are registering an entire fleet of Rojok fighters on the way here!”

Which raised the question of how the
kelekoms
had been hidden from the Rojoks all this time, but she didn’t have time to ask, and she could no longer argue her position.

“Okay. I’m on my way,” she called. She extended her hand to Bagnacdor. “Thank you for responding so promptly. You must leave now.”

“I’m only glad we could be of assistance,” he said, smiling. “Our size is our greatest asset in rescue missions like this. Of course, that bulk makes us sluggish, and we can’t run very fast. But very few warring cultures try to shoot at us. We have a good reputation.”

“The best. If ever I can be of service…”

“When you get too old to be a combat medic, come and see me,” he offered. “You’d be an asset.
Bon chance
.”

“And you.”

She moved slowly back toward the
Morcai
even as the
Freespirit
signaled to her medics that they had five minutes to teleport the remainder of the survivors aboard. Damn, Higgins, she thought as her eyes scanned the crowded spaceport where battles were still raging, they wouldn’t leave you!

“Aren’t we even going to blow up the place before we leave?” she
asked the young first officer as she paused reluctantly at the hatch to the elevator tube of the mammoth ship. Its coppery hull gleamed like Vegan honey in the first rays of the sunrise.

“Already taken care of, Doc,” he said, smiling. “The demolition teams have been busy while you and the rescue medics evacuated the survivors. Everything goes up in atoms when we lift.”

She glanced behind her and winced. “Higgins, couldn’t we…?”

“Doc, I don’t want to leave them, either,” he told her gently. “But the C.O. said to lift, and I’ve got to. You haven’t heard yet, but we received a lasergram from HQ. The Centaurian dectat just forced a war vote through the Council and announced its own. We’re now officially at war with the Rojok empire, and that includes the entire Centaurian fleet, as well as Tri-Galaxy Fleet forces. That means Chacon will soon be ordered by the Rojok Military Command to stop us from escaping. Maybe he hasn’t heard about the war vote of the Tri-Galaxy Council yet, but he will, any minute. I’m sorry. We have to go. Now!”

“Karamesh,”
she murmured with a weary, sad smile. The thought of the cloned Stern sitting out the war in a prison camp like this was wounding, not to mention the treatment that Dtimun and Komak would receive. It had been a hard day. First, preparing Hahnson’s scarred body for urning. Now, giving up what was left of Holt Stern, abandoning him to fate. It had been a very hard day. She turned slowly and made her way to the elevator tube, her heart sagging around her ankles.