“Oh, but you do. Just look at you, heart pounding, eager for me to take you. Wanting it.”
“You disgust me. The Puca have rotted your brain.” I forced the words out.
“No, I was always this way. In school, and then at the Academy on Dulcinea. It served me well. I took what I wanted, when I wanted, and when the Dulcinean authorities tried to stop me I came here where they appreciate my talents. Do you want me to tell you how many girls I’ve taken this way? How many that were just like you?”
He took another step toward me, but I had nowhere to go. I braced my hands behind me, thinking I might be able to push off against him and try to run, but not wanting to run except for the excitement of the chase and of him catching me again. My right hand found something, and I glanced behind me. A long knife with a thirty-centimeter blade was against my fingertips. It hadn’t been there a moment before. I grabbed it and held it in front of me, my mind clearing a bit at the touch of it in my hand.
“Let me go.”
He laughed. “You want this. I feel how you long for it. This afternoon is going to be about your pain, not mine. You won’t use that on me.”
He took one more step and I used it on him, pushing it deep into his belly. He staggered back, his hand trying to stop the flow of blood, and looked at the Puca lining the walls for help. There were at least a dozen of them and they did not move.
“Who are you?”
I stabbed him again, the blade going all the way through this time. He collapsed onto the floor, lying on his back, trying to crawl away from me
“I am Mala Dusa Holloman.” I sat on him, straddling his legs and I rammed the knife down into him again, holding it with both hands. “RuComm.”
He gasped. “Why? Why aren’t they stopping you?”
I stabbed him a final time, driving the blade up into his heart, listening to him die. “On assignment to the Union Aerospace Force.”
I sat there like that for a few minutes, making sure he was dead, feeling the Puca leaving my brain and a headache starting to pound. I got to my feet, threw the knife at one of them and watched it bounce harmlessly off the wall.
“Is that what you wanted from me? Are you satisfied? Are you satiated?” I walked up to the closest one and ran my fingers through his fur, wiping the blood from my hands on him, too exhausted to be afraid anymore.
“That, my dear Little Soul, was magnificent, if all too brief. Your master and creator is wrong to consider you flawed, and his vision of you is far too limiting. You are capable of so much more. Let me have you, and you can reach your heart’s desire of pleasure and power. This can be only the beginning.”
I turned around to look at what was left of Costrano, the flesh I had slashed, the blood pooling under him. His eyes were still open, staring sightlessly at the Puca he had expected to protect him from me. “Why did you have to make me do that? Was there no way for you to save him? Was he really past all redemption?” I was talking to Merrimac even though he was nowhere near.
My hands were starting to shake as fear began coming back, but it wasn’t fear of the Puca. I was terrified by what I’d done, how easy it had been and how satisfying. “Are you going to kill me if I don’t do what you want me to do?”
“What if I told you yes?”
“Then kill me. I’ve expected to die since I fell into the trap Kamala set for me this morning.”
“We could keep Kastanje away from the Union indefinitely if you joined us willingly and let us guide you. You’d enjoy that life. Do you see it?”
I did see it. The planet could be mine with the Puca’s help, nearly a billion lives to manipulate and to serve my ambitions. Faction would play against faction, and I could murder anyone that rose to challenge me. I could choose whoever I desired to be in my bed, take what I wanted, and then move on to the next thrill. Temptation swept through me. Yes, I wanted to do it, I should do it. I could rebuild Kastanje and make it better than it had ever been. It wouldn’t have to be cruel and barbaric. Many would have to die to get there, but in the end, the peoples’ lives would be better because of what I could do. Many would worship me. I’d like being worshiped. I watched myself moving through the twisted future path, ignoring the Puca on the margins that were feeding on me and everyone else. Then I saw it, as sharp as any real memory, the day when I would need to betray and kill Sam and Winona.
“You weren’t supposed to see that. How did you see that?”
I pushed on the Puca colony and I could feel the pieces of it skittering away from me. My vision cleared, and my head was pounding. “Kill me or send me on my way. No more fucking with my mind.”
“Kastanje is lost then, at least for now. Kastanje will hold a special priority within the Union if we kill you or hold you here. Merrimac will drive the issue and he may well destroy us. Your release will guarantee that the focus stays elsewhere. Alive, you are a just a junior officer that no one will listen to or believe. Dead, you would become a hero and a martyr to be avenged.”
I had a brief glimpse of that future pathway, me dead and Winona standing atop a pile of mutilated almost dogs, milky blue blood splattered everywhere.
“No, you must go back home. Kastanje will rejoin the Union, but there are more than a dozen factions down there and their suffering and anguish will provide us with food and entertainment for generations. It will take a hundred years for the Union to sort them out and restore peace. By that time, the people will be ready for a new separatist movement and we can begin the cycle again. We will still be here, but you and the daughter you carry will probably both be dust by then.”
“Daughter?”
“You know nothing of Merrimac’s plans. A daughter with this man, a son with another.”
“I don’t believe you. Why do you do this? Why not be like Merrimac and feed off compassion and love. Is human passion such a weak thing compared to our fear and lust?”
“It is for most of you. We feed on what you are; he feeds on what you think you would like to be. He bred you to feel everything deeply. Tell me you didn’t enjoy what you did here today. Tell me that the lust of your body, and the fear and the rage didn’t make you feel more alive than you ever have in the ‘civilized’ world Merrimac hides you in.”
“Let me go now. Let me feel my Samuel again.”
“Of course. There is one thing more. I want something to remember you by, and I think I’ll let your lover feel it too.”
He swung his head around from under my hand and bit hard into my left arm just above my watch. His teeth quickly sliced through my flesh and I heard and felt the sharp crack as the bones broke. Pain obliterated everything else in my universe and I screamed.
“Thank you, Little Soul.” A shiver passed through him. “Scream all you like, it is candy to me. Please give my regards to Merrimac.”
I slumped against the wall, trying to put pressure on the bite wound to control the bleeding without pushing on the shattered bones. The Puca were gone.
“Was that you screaming a bit ago?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you do this? Did you kill Costrano?”
It was Sergeant Narvasa from Becker’s Redoubt again, with his friend the Private. I grinned at them, completely out of it. I was in shock to the point where I really wasn’t sure where I was or what I had done. “Yeah.”
“Still as chatty as ever.”
“Yeah.” I giggled and held my arm up for them to see. Blood was still oozing from the bite and dripping off my elbow. Bits of bone were showing through my skin. “Not OK this time. Medivac?”
“Shit. Here, swallow this. It will dull the pain for a few minutes.”
I swallowed what he gave me, not caring what it was. He grabbed my good arm and helped me to my feet. I wobbled a lot. The Private reached around in front of me and pulled the zipper of my coveralls all the way up.
“Thanks. That was so ki
nd of you.”
“Don’t mention it. We’ve heard stories about what happens in this room. I’m not sure how you survived.”
“Found a knife. Stabbed him…” I looked up at the ceiling for the answer. “Four times. He was a bad man. Medivac?”
“Well…here’s the thing. We heard that Costrano killed our doctor, but we have a Lieutenant who thinks he’s a medic so we’ll take you there. He’ll at least splint your arm and dress the wound. He’ll have something stronger to give you for the pain that will make you even loopier. He might even have the medical AI working by now. After he finishes, we’ll take good care of you until your friends come back.”
“I have friends?”
“Your Union friends. We got word a little while ago that the government has agreed to terms and that we’ll be rejoining the Union. I guess that means we’re all friends again.”
“Oh, that’s good. I need more friends.” I smiled up at him. “I haven’t had lunch. There was a table here somewhere. It had fruit on it.”
I tried to turn, but the Sergeant pulled me along. “No you don’t. Everyone knows that’s how he drugs and kills the women he brings here, at least those he doesn’t strangle or give to his dogs.”
“Still hungry.”
“We’ll get you something to eat once the Lieutenant finishes with you. I’ll try to find you something clean to wear, but…” He looked at me, shaking his head.
“Oh! Oh! There’s a dress in the locker room. My size. Want it.” I wiggled my fingers in the direction of the locker room.
Sergeant Narvasa glanced at the Private.
“Sure. I’ll go see what I can find.”
We stepped out into one of the main passageways where teams were collecting the last of the dead. We stopped to let the litters pass. The drug I had swallowed was starting to work. My head felt a little clearer and the throbbing from my arm had eased a little.
“I have your jacket too,” he told me. “It’s back where Lieutenant Tobgye is set up.”
“The jacket with my rank on it.” I said softly, remembering Captain Rostron telling me I had to wear it. I gasped as I realized what that meant. “You knew. You knew what I was when you found me. Why didn’t you kill me?”
“I should have,” he answered. The corners of his mouth turned down as we watched the crews carrying the bodies past us. “We’d just come out of a nasty firefight and there you were, one more Union officer.” He looked down into my eyes. “There you were, scared out of your mind, covered in goo, cowering in the corner. I could see you shaking and I was about to kill you anyway. I aimed my rifle at your head, but I couldn’t pull the trigger. It’s one thing to shoot at people who are shooting back at you. It’s something different to kill a defenseless girl terrified on the floor at your feet.”
“Thank you.”
He shrugged. “It was all falling apart anyway. That was obvious even before this battle. I couldn’t see where killing you would change that. I suspected Doc Gharda was part of one of the resistance groups and could get you to safety. It didn’t work out that way, but I’m not sorry that you killed Costrano. Surprised maybe. I think you might be more dangerous than I first thought.”
“I’m not.” I pressed myself against the wall to let another litter pass, the dull pain pulsing through me with every beat of my heart. “Were you ever stationed here?”
“On and off.”
“There was a girl here several months ago. She has short mousy brown hair, maybe eleven or twelve years old. Earth years, I don’t know what that would be on Kastanje. Do you know who I mean?”
His eyes went cold. “Kaitlin Janssen. She used to bring flowers to our barracks on Sundays, always happy and full of bounce. I don’t know how she found flowers on this rock. She’s dead.”
I collapsed onto the floor before he could catch me. “Oh, God, I’m sorry. I tried so hard to find a way to stop this, I really did. I was too late to save her.” I started to sob; the image of the girl smashed up against the wall with her eyes closed consuming me.
Sergeant Narvasa took a knee next to me. “Kaitlin died six weeks ago; at least we think she did. Costrano took her with him after dinner one night. No one ever saw her again.”
The tears stopped and something else consumed me. “I’m going to kill all of them.”
“All of who? Costrano’s dead and the separatists are finished.”
I nodded and let him help me back to my feet. “It’s a start.”
“You are a strange one.”
We walked together, following the litters carrying the dead. “Sergeant? Why did this have to happen?”
“Because your Union…” His voice started angry. He turned and looked down into my eyes again. His were a dark brown with a gentleness in them. “I don’t know,” he finished with a sigh.
“I don’t know either. I’m glad we’re back to being friends.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
CHAPTER 11
HARD CHOICES
Lieutenant Tobgye of the Kastanje Defense Force may not have been a great medic, but the portable medical AI he used on me was the latest Union standard. I watched it starting to knit my bones back together before the drugs hit. After the drugs hit…well, I don’t remember much of anything. Sergeant Narvasa helped me find a soft bunk and covered me with my jacket. I was pretty looped.
“Sergeant,” I told him as I closed my eyes, “promise you won’t shoot me in the head while I’m sleeping. I wouldn’t like that.”
“I promise. I kind of forgot to ask you your name. I guess Doc was right about me and women.”
I opened one eye to look at him. “Mala Dusa.” I yawned before finishing. “Holloman.”
He chuckled. “Of course you are, sweetheart.”
I reached out for my Samuel, snuggled into him, and slept away the afternoon.
I worked on FAC Zero Nine for the next five days while I waited for the Esprit Orageux to reverse course and swing back around Kastanje. The KDF had provided me with a new comm pin, making it easier to talk to the AI and access what I needed to work on repairs throughout the Redoubt.
I had loaded a version of Zero Nine’s AI from the Redoubt’s central archives using the monthly backup made before the attack. She remembered Kamala, but didn’t remember what had happened to her. It made me jealous. It would have been nice to wipe that day out of my memory.
I often had Sam or Winn whispering in my ear while I worked undoing all the damage I’d done in the engine room. It made the time go a little quicker, but not by much. I kept daydreaming about what I was going to do to Sam the second we were alone. That would start me giggling and then Zero Nine would want to know why. She giggled too when I explained, making me appreciate the mods Kamala had made to the AI. She had given Zero Nine an open attitude to human sexuality, and her knowledge of anatomy was comprehensive and imaginative. She made me blush more than once, and I started keeping a mental log of all of her good ideas.
“Use your teeth next time.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Trust me, you won’t. Do you like it when he bites you there?”
“Gently, yeah.”
“Of course, gently. Return the favor. And then twist your hips around the other way so he can do this to you at the same time.” An animated diagram appeared on the display, replacing the schematic of the weapons array I’d been tuning.
“Oh, wow. That looks…um, really interesting.” I’d attracted Sam’s attention now and his emotions slammed inside me. It made it hard to concentrate on the repairs I was trying to finish, or anything else other than the warmth filling me.
His voice whispered from my comm pin. “MD, I don’t know what you’re doing right now, but I wish I was there with you.”
“You have no idea, my love.” I bit my lower lip and swallowed hard. “OK, maybe you do
. Zero Nine, you’ll have to excuse me for a few minutes. I’ll be right back.” I glanced at the animation and grabbed my display pad. Yeah, that was a really good one.
“Take your time.”
There was a colonel wearing the black and gray mottled uniform of the Kastanje Defense Force sitting in my chair when I returned. I had left my jacket draped over the chair’s back and he was examining the gold lieutenant’s bar and winged lion attached to the collar.
“Tell me, why did a Union officer repair my central computer system and then this FAC?”
“They were broken. I know how to fix them.”
“Bah. Engineers. God bless the lot of you. You’d fix a broken guillotine even if its blade were hanging over your own neck. But you’re not just any engineer, are you, Lieutenant Holloman? Let me try this again. You don’t work for me and I don’t trust you to be directing the repairs of my broken stuff.”
“I’ve never made a secret of who I am. My understanding is that Kastanje is back in the Union, so we’re all on the same side now.” He was starting to irritate me. “And who are you, sir?”
“Lieutenant Colonel Pieter Gerbrandij. As of yesterday morning, I command what’s left of Kastanje’s military. Everyone above me has been purged by the Provisional Government.”
“Oh.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, that was kind of my response too when I found out.”
“I suppose you could call what I’m doing penance.” I imagined Winona rolling her eyes at me for using that word.
“Penance? You feel bad about defeating us?”
“No, sir, I’m not sorry about that one bit. I would like to have found a way of bringing you back into the Union that didn’t kill so many people. Except Costrano. He needed to die.”
He nodded. “I do not see a long and illustrious military career in your future, Lieutenant, not with that attitude. It’s a good thing you’re an adequate engineer. Is this FAC ready for action?”
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