To Clan and Conquer (Clan Beginnings) (2 page)

He’d face those who had gone before him soon enough.  At least the pain would stop.  In his last moments, however, Lidon couldn’t seem to stop the flow of words that poured like his life’s blood.

“Well, Piras, you’ll understand when I don’t make our dinner date.  Sorry, but some opportunistic gurluck cancelled by killing me.”

Also cancelled was the discipline Piras had earned for his public display of affection.  Discipline the Dramok would no doubt have been looking forward to.  Lidon had to admit, he would have taken pleasure in dealing it, though Piras would have given in much too easily.

The ship continued to shake as it took abuse from the enemy.  Somehow its defenses must have held for it to take so long to be destroyed.  Lidon looked forward to his death, to getting away from the pain.  It was all for the best; no doubt the damage to his leg would leave him crippled had he survived.  And what kind of life could a Nobek in his prime enjoy with such a handicap?  Not one worth living.

Lidon welcomed death, begged with all his soul for it to find him.  His voice so low that he could barely hear himself speak, he uttered the words his Imdiko father had blessed the bodies of his Dramok and Nobek fathers with: “To every man death must come.  Death, the destroyer of sorrows.  Death, that dark friend to the sick.  Go, and be not afraid.”  Lidon snorted.  “I was not sickly, nor do I have any hope of being relieved of my remorse, but what the hell.”

The fighter shook harder than ever.  The motion jarred his leg hard, making it shriek with misery.  Lidon opened his mouth to shriek with it.

He wanted to die, to at least relinquish consciousness, but the hurt went on, and on, and on…

* * * *

Lidon woke with a gasp to find himself in his lover’s darkened quarters.  His leg, his damned leg.  Fuck.  He’d rolled over onto it in his sleep and had lay there long enough to set off brutal pain.  He sat up, grinding his teeth together to keep from making noise and waking Piras.

Fifteen years after the incident, the agony still possessed the power to take him back to that hideous moment when his life changed.  While Lidon was grateful to still have purpose, to be of continued use to the fleet, the harrowing beginning to his ordeal lived on in his nightmares.

Times like these didn’t invite the words from the Book of Life to comfort Lidon.  Not when the torment was intense and much of the sleepless night lay before him.  Instead, the long-ago mantra from Nobek training camp ran through his mind.

Pain is my friend.  Pain gives me a challenge to show I have overcome and will continue to do so.  I worship my pain, and I invite it to give me strength.

He looked over at Piras.  The Dramok slept like a rock, fortunately.  He lightly snored now, arms and legs slung wide, hogging the sleeping mat as he often did.  The bed surface was clan-sized, big enough for three men and their Matara should they be so lucky as to have a rare female in their number.  Still, Piras managed to take up most of it.  Lidon had rolled to the edge to escape, ending up on his bad right leg.

The Nobek’s gaze wandered over the other man’s body, uncovered by the linens to the waist.  Piras was a long, lean, graceful man, tall and elegant to look at.  His strong jaw was somewhat at odds with the rest of his delicate face.  It probably came from the fact he ground his teeth together so much in near-constant frustration.  Those jaw muscles had gotten quite the workout in the last fifteen years.  Piras was easily annoyed, and it was often because of Lidon.

Lidon’s expression as he looked over his longtime lover was a mix of affection and irritation.  He debated waking Piras for sex, since he knew he wouldn’t be sleeping for the rest of the night.  It would be good to fuck out some of the angst from the nightmare, and Piras was never adverse to being on the bottom.  However, he was adverse to missing out on sleep.  Deprive him of even an hour of his usual rest, and he would be a vicious brute to his crew during his entire shift.  For such a docile lover, the captain was an unmitigated bastard outside the sleeping room.

The ridiculous hard-on had shown up despite the torment of Lidon’s leg.  He decided the guilt of watching Piras make everyone else’s life miserable wasn’t worth relieving his erection.  Nor was it worth listening to his would-be Dramok complain even as he put his ass up in the air for Lidon’s use.

Lidon thought about his altar in his own cramped quarters.  Crew quarters didn’t offer much room for personal items, but the Nobek had managed to make a space for the small wooden shelf where he burned incense and read from the Book of Life.  Most Nobeks meditated to calm their primal urges.  On a destroyer where a man could only move so far and was in near constant contact with others, serene contemplation was a must.  Lidon took it farther than most with a near-religious devotion to the philosophies of the Book’s writers, particularly the first prophet Lozatu’s teachings.

Meditation was the obvious choice, but Lidon’s heart was still drumming quicker than normal from his nightmare.  He didn’t think he could sit still.  He needed to move.

To the bridge then, though little would be happening with the captain asleep.  Lidon pushed the covers from his perspiration-sheened body and swung his legs over the side of the sleeping mat.

Even in the very dim sleep-mode lighting of the room, Lidon could see the differences in his legs.  The calves were nearly identical in shape, though the right was crisscrossed with scars.  The muscles of the lower leg hadn’t been nearly as damaged as the thigh.

Damaged?  His right thigh had been demolished.  Crushed and torn, it was a miracle any of it had been salvageable.

Lidon looked at his leg with consternation and pride.  A patchwork of scarred and lumpy flesh, it was a badge of honor many other Nobeks looked at with open envy and awe.  Few men received such a horrific battle wound and were able to keep the limb to show off.  In fact, the surgeons had begged him to let them replace the shattered leg with a robotic prosthetic.  He’d flatly refused though it meant constant pain and the limp of a cripple.

Pain is my friend, and I invite it in to make me stronger.
  With such thoughts burned into their brains, it was no wonder most Nobeks were both sadists and masochists.

Lidon quickly dressed, putting on his red-trimmed black uniform formsuit, which had been tossed on the floor from the night before.  He debated going to his quarters for a clean one then decided against it.  He’d shower and change before his regular shift.  For now, he needed to be engrossed in official business.

Putting his knee-high boot on the afflicted leg was an exercise in torture, and he hissed despite efforts not to.  Piras didn’t react, continuing to snore his way through the night.

Lidon got to his feet, putting his weight on his left leg as he reached for his brace.  The stiff metal contraption kept his weakened leg from collapsing under him.  It fit over his boot and ran all the way up to his groin.  The thing looked like an ancient torture device, which was why Lidon used it instead of one of the newer invisible-field braces.  The brace elicited respect from other Nobeks.  Unfortunately, it also made medics pester him to submit to more surgeries.  Particularly a certain Imdiko he knew, when Lidon was able to corner the man and force him into a conversation.

Lidon’s utility belt with its collection of tools and knives went on his waist, and he was ready to see how the destroyer’s nightshift was doing.  He limped to the door and it hissed open, letting in a wedge of light.  Piras sighed and rolled over.  He didn’t wake.  Leaving his lover slumbering, Lidon slipped soundlessly from the room.

The Nobek limped down the corridor heading for the ship’s transport system.  In the crew section at this time, it was an utterly blank stretch of hallway.  It was only when he crossed from that part into the destroyer’s more functional middle section that he started to see others.  Night shift personnel jerked their heads in quick nods to acknowledge him.

Lidon’s route took him past the medical department.  Knowing he was being foolish, but hopeful just the same, the Nobek slowed and peered in.  No one was being treated in the examination portion of the unit.  A few orderlies and techs were standing around talking.  The door to the head doctor’s office near the department entrance stood open, but the room within was dark.

Lidon sped up again as he passed Medical and got into the nearby transport, a tube-system conveyance that would take him anywhere within the ship.  The small room he stood in was every bit as bland as the hallway.

“Bridge.”  The transport’s door closed and he felt the slightest sensation of motion beneath his feet.  In less than thirty seconds the door opened again, and he was in the braincenter of the destroyer.

The bridge during the ship’s normal sleeping hours was quiet, humming with efficiency.  The room was a half-circle, with the first officer, captain, and weapons command’s podiums at the center of the flat end of the room.  Next to weapons command was the security station with five Nobeks keeping tabs on everything from the destroyer’s defensive shielding to simple policing of the ship’s crew.

Directly in front of those stations were the communications banks, both in-ship and fleet monitors, run by five crewmembers.  Beyond them were navigation and piloting, handled by a complement of three.

Along the most forward part of the curved section were the monitors, giant vids that kept the bridge informed of everything they needed to know to run the ship efficiently.  Central was the constantly scrolling status-read, giving up-to-the second information on ship’s condition, position, and anything of note happening outside of it.  A quick glance told Lidon they were on course for CP-108, a small moon with an acceptable atmosphere for life forms such as Kalquorians.

As the Nobek limped out of the transport, the first officer looked at him from the captain’s station with surprise; surprise Lidon shared.

Dramok Tranis, Piras’ second-in-command for only the past four months, was young for his rank.  Very young.  Thirty years Lidon’s junior, he nevertheless carried himself with maturity and assurance.  Even now, caught off guard by Lidon’s sudden appearance, there was only a slight widening of eyes and steady stare to betray his concern.

The first officer’s deep voice was smooth, betraying nothing of his feelings as he acknowledged Lidon.  “Weapons Commander?  You’re not on this shift’s rotation.”

“No, First Officer, I’m not.  Neither are you.”  As the senior security officer for the entire destroyer, Lidon’s rank was only a step below that of the first officer.  As Piras’ lover, he could get away with the borderline show of disrespect.  It wasn’t something Lidon liked to indulge in.  Sleeping with the captain shouldn’t mean special treatment.  But with Tranis so new, the Nobek couldn’t help but test him.

Tranis’ eyebrows rose over sharp blue-purple eyes.  His slitted pupils widened just a hair.  The corner of his mouth twitched.  Damned if he didn’t look almost amused by Lidon’s slight challenge instead of affronted or scared, the reactions the Nobek would have expected from anyone else.  Dramok Tranis was different, however.  From the little Lidon had seen so far, the younger man seemed to know when to let things lie peacefully and when to bite back.

Tranis went back to his readouts, which hovered over the captain’s computer station.  He kept his body angled towards Lidon.  The Nobek noted the younger man also kept his head tilted in such a way so he kept the weapons commander in his peripheral vision.  It was almost a watchful Nobek pose, one that said Tranis wasn’t threatened but he wanted to keep an eye on the situation anyway.

The first officer said, “I’m filling in for Ranem.”

Lidon let his gaze wander just a bit, enjoying the sight of the strong, wide shoulders and chest of the Dramok.  The formsuit uniforms Kalquorians wore let a man know exactly what he was getting when it came to other men.  With the first officer, the promise was exceedingly nice.  Tranis was more muscled than Piras.  Shorter too, right about Lidon’s height.  In the Nobek’s opinion, the view on the bridge had vastly improved since Tranis came on board.

He made himself stop before his gaze went any lower.  “Is Lieutenant Ranem sick?”

“Injured.  He insulted a fighter squad leader.”  Tranis’ hint of a smile became the real thing.  “Five broken bones and internal injuries.  He’ll be back on duty tomorrow after the repairs have taken hold.”

Lidon snorted and limped over to the weapons computer station, where a lieutenant commander stepped aside, bowing slightly to his superior.  A curved floating platform like the one Tranis stood at, the black podium put everything Lidon needed to do his job well at his fingertips.  Lidon glanced at the vids floating over it.  The Nobek lieutenant, only slightly younger than Tranis, had brought up all the latest ship diagnostics, security communications, and flight course scans for Lidon’s immediate inspection.  Lidon wouldn’t have to punch him for sloppy command transfer, and that was fine.

One item caught his attention immediately, and he read it over with his brows drawn together.  “That’s an interesting report from the border defense.”

Tranis nodded.  “I’ve been wondering what those anomalous energy readings coming from Joshadan space might be.  They look like power signatures from ships, but the defense stations can’t lock down a source.”

“If those are ships, they’re not answering communication attempts.”  Lidon’s eyes narrowed.  The border defense on the perimeter between the Empire and Joshadan space was thought by many to be a joke, more a punishment for misbehaving Nobek soldiers than real duty.  Joshadans were a peaceful lot and not interested in technology beyond what they absolutely needed.  Kalquor provided the small world and its colonies with defense, which typically consisted of nothing more than beating back the occasional Tragoom raid.  It was certainly not as exciting as manning the border with Bi’is territorial space.  A destroyer sweep in this section of the Empire, such as what they were doing now, was considered akin to taking a vacation.