by Diana Palmer
“I read two hundred, Commander, traveling at half sublight speed.”
“Maliche, they are confident!” Dtimun growled.
“The casualties can’t take another battle,” Madeline said tightly. “And I didn’t save them just to have you blow them up, sir. It isn’t their bloody war. There must be one aid station we can reach before—”
“What we have reached at the moment, Madam,” the Centaurian interrupted abruptly, “is the limit of my patience.” His eyes were enough to silence her. He turned slowly to the comm unit again. “Degas, can we make Benaski Port?” he asked, naming a notorious way station on the outskirts of the civilized galaxy.
“If we reduce our weaponry capability and divert all power to the engines,” the Centaurian navigator replied. “It is the only neutral port within reach.”
“Then throw your lightsteds and make for it at maximum light.”
“Yes, Commander.”
Dtimun turned back to Madeline, his eyes calmer but still tinged with brown anger. “I will have Komak supply another synthesizer, which you will not touch. They respond readily to speech, even Terravegan speech, because of the translators we employ in all comm units aboard. I gather that your knowledge of bionic tech is as limited as your knowledge of proper female behavior.”
“Proper…?” Madeline just gaped at him.
“Our science has been long capable of producing self-sustaining, self-perpetuating machines. Living machines, if you will,” he continued unabashed. “They are extremely sensitive to alien bacteria, a fact which Komak was sent to impart to you. Apparently he was too late.”
Her green eyes narrowed. She was struggling with an urge to knock him on his superior rear end.
His eyebrows arched, and his eyes became threatening at once.
Madeline blinked. It was coincidence, surely, that anger. “What a pity,” she said with mock softness, “that your science couldn’t also provide a means of inoculating the machines against alien bacteria.”
Dtimun let that insult fall unnoticed. “Until your people were taken aboard, no humans had ever set foot aboard the Morcai. Such preventions were unnecessary. We have had to make modifications to our language banks to accommodate you. There was no time to attend the machines.”
“What about more medtechs?” she persisted.
“I suggest that you make arrangements with Hanhson to acquire some of his.” He held up his hand when she started to protest. “I am aware that your specialty is Cularian medicine, and his is Terravegan, but surely some medical expertise is preferable to none at all. That problem rests with you. Benaski Port is still three days away at our present speed. You must accommodate the delay.”
“Perhaps some of the wounded will last that long,” she said tightly. “By your leave, sir,” she added with a salute.
“One thing more, Madam.”
She turned, the question only in her resentful eyes.
“The next time you step onto my bridge,” he said quietly, “tread lightly. Your disregard for military routine could easily grant you a place in history textdiscs as the first human female ever spaced aboard a Centaurian warship. Am I understood?”
Her teeth ground together. But all she said was, “Yes, sir.”
The alien watched her leave the bridge with a ramrod stiffness in his posture. Then he turned to Stern. “See to your men, Mister. Word has already reached me of unrest among them, even in the small time since you came aboard. No incidents of violence can be tolerated.”
“For that,” Stern told him, “you will need a miracle. Sir.”
He saluted and followed Madeline’s trail off the bridge. For that one, brief instant, he felt almost like his old self.
Mangus Lo, the Rojok dictator, sat at his many-hued stone desk in the palcenon and drank in the news his chief advisor had just provided.
“Is it true?” he asked with a malicious smile. “The Holconcom vessel has fallen into the trap? Cleemaah! We have him!”
“But, Excellence, the trap is not yet sprung,” the tall, slender Rojok advisor protested gently.
“A mere detail. Chacon knows nothing of what has been done?” he asked quickly, searching the younger man’s eyes.
“No, Excellence,” he replied. “I instructed the soldiers in secret, as you ordered.”
The dwarfed, middle-aged Rojok nodded in something like relief. “He is my ablest commander,” he said, “yet his distaste for my methods is a hindrance. The terror must be maintained!” He slammed the polished stone desk with both fists and his eyes gleamed almost transparently. “Compassion is the death of the cause! Why does he oppose me? Does he not know that I could have him killed with a word?”
“If your Excellence will permit me,” the advisor said, “he has become something of a legend among our people. To have him killed would be to welcome revolt.”
“Silence!” Mangus Lo eyed the advisor with a piercing, deadly fury. “You, too, are expendable! You are all expendable!”
“Excellence, I did not mean…!” he began quickly.
The dictator waved him off. He stood up slowly, dragging his withered, useless leg as he moved, eyeing the advisor for any sign of contempt—a sign which, if he saw it, would cost the ambitious diplomat his life.
“The trap will shut,” Mangus Lo said. He gazed out the oval window at the small, white moon over his towering winter palace on Enmehkmehk. Ahkmau was there, his notorious place of tortures. In his mind, he could see the smoke rising from the sonic ovens. He did so enjoy watching the annihilation of his enemies. He smiled. “I will have Dtimun. And, with him, I will have the power to bring the Tri-Galaxy Federation and the Centaurian Empire itself to their knees!”
“I…do not understand,” the advisor ventured.
He whirled on the younger Rojok. “You are a diplomat! You are not expected to understand, only to obey!” he screamed. “One word more and I will have you sent to the ovens!”
The advisor paled. He stood rigidly, unmoving, unspeaking.
Mangus Lo smiled at his companion’s terror. He turned back to the window, his eyes glowing with a strange, mad fire. “It is ironic,” he mused, “that only I know Dtimun’s worth. When I have him, I have the universe in my hands. The universe!”
Holt Stern called his officers together in a briefing room near the improvised medical stations and delivered Dtimun’s ultimatum. The reaction was predictably unfavorable.
“Like being captive on a slaver,” a weaponry officer grumbled.
“Aye, and it’s not even our fault,” Declan Muldoon, the aging engineer, agreed with a harsh glance at Stern.
“If there’s any fault,” Stern said loudly, “it’s the Rojoks’. Whether we like it or not, we’re stuck here for the next three solar days and we’ll make the best of it. I want our boys kept in line. Do it with words if possible, brig them if you have to. I don’t want any trouble on our side.”
There were irritated looks all around. Stern could feel their eyes measuring him, and the unfamiliar hostility infuriated him.
“You shudna let that cat-eyed terror yank us off the Bellatrix and blow her up,” Muldoon said reproachfully. “We could have got her to port.”
Stern glared at the Irishman, then at each man in turn. “The past is dead, gentlemen. I’m in command here, and you’ll follow orders or I’ll brig the lot of you. Is that clear?”
Muldoon lowered his mutinous eyes, but his face only grew redder.
“I’ve had reports of grumbling and even threats being overheard,” he told them. “If you’ve got a problem, you tell me, and I’ll handle it. Who’s first?”
Higgins stood up. “Sir, before I became your exec, I was trained to be an astrogator, and they’ve assigned me to the weapons deck. I’m not complaining, maybe there’s no room for another astrogator in their navigation sector, but I’m getting a lot of static and hard looks from the Centaurian execs. I don’t know their technology, and no one will explain it to me.”
“I’ll see what I
can do.” Stern looked around. “Anyone else?”
“Yes, sir.” Jennings, the comtech, rose. “The communications exec’s got me polishing the consoles wearing space gear. He says I’m a walking bacteria bank and he won’t let me touch his precious equipment unless I’m properly attired. I started toward the kelekom unit but he stopped me outside the door. He said something about me giving his kelekoms germs. Sir, what the hell kind of cyberbionics do they use to run this crazy ship?”
A brief skirl of laughter passed through the crew and they relaxed a little. Stern remained rigid. “They use living machines,” he said, “highly vulnerable to our bacteria. Do what they tell you.”
Madeline Ruszel stood up. “Dr. Hahnson and I are currently practicing medicine,” she said, “in a glorified storage room and what seems to be a mess hall,” she added with a wince. “The Centaurians are still trying to use the mess hall and storage facilities with our sterile fields in operation and surgery being performed.”
“I’ll take care of the problem,” Stern assured her.
Muldoon stared at the dark-eyed captain. “Sure, and what’ll you do about them cat-eyes struttin’ around like they was kings and making one big joke out of us? One of those SOBs threw a damplegraft at me and made noises like a mugwort when I fell trying to catch it. I canna press two hundred pounds of metal! I almost threw a punch at the…”
“Keep your hands off the Centaurians,” Stern told him. “That goes for the rest of you, as well. If you mix it up with the aliens, it’ll be your necks and I don’t have the authority to countermand the commander’s orders. All I could do is wave at you when he kicked you out the airlock. It’s his ship.”
“Thanks to you,” an anonymous voice muttered.
Stern ignored it. “If that’s all?” He waited, but only a sullen, resentful silence met his ears. “All right. Dismissed.”
Madeline was the last of the Bellatrix department heads to leave the compartment. She turned at the door. “You made a mistake, Stern,” she said.
“What kind of mistake?”
“Telling the men you wouldn’t back them up. It does nothing for morale, and theirs is just about shot. They’re being bullied by the Centaurians. You’ve as much as said you won’t stop it.”
“Why lie?” he asked blankly.
Her eyes narrowed. “What’s the matter with you? I’ve never known you to back away from a fight, even when you were outmatched!”
“Maybe I’m tired,” he said coldly, resenting the words.
“Maybe you’d better pull yourself together before you get the bloody lot of us killed,” she snapped back. She turned and left without another word.
Stern glowered after her. She irritated him. They all did. The humans were suddenly as distasteful to him as the aliens.
He shook his head as if to clear it. Other thoughts were shaping themselves in his mind. It would be soon, now. He had duties to perform, a mission to accomplish. Let the humans whine while they could. A slow, alien smile touched his lips.
4
The massive Tri-Galaxy Council chambers had the feel of an eons-old tomb. Tri-Fleet Admiral Jeffrye Lawson, a Terravegan native, sat numb and rigid in his solitary chair, unmoving in the maelstrom of motion around him.
The gray-haired old warhorse eyed the diplomats with quiet contempt. The stoic neutrality of the majority here in the costly war was responsible for casualty lists that left him sleepless and haggard. Idealists, the lot, he thought bitterly. Establishing “Peace Planets” like the colony on Terramer while the Rojoks were building better ships and bigger armies and sending hunter squads to terrorize the New Territory by killing colonists. The neutral solar systems didn’t even have the guts to send representatives of their various governments to Terramer, at that; they’d sent clones. In this universe, clones had no social status whatsoever, despite the best efforts of activists. They were property, at the mercy of governments that had no mercy.
Above the heads of the member delegates, Lokar, the Jebob chairman of the Council, stood quietly at his raised podium. In his thin, blue-skinned hands he held the small communidisc that had heralded an emergency session in the middle of Trimerius’s night.
Around Lawson, diplomats in various state of national dress were hurrying into their seats around the circular chamber. In seconds, all eyes were on Lokar’s long face.
“As you were told,” Lokar began in a gently accented voice, translated by the prompter into an uncountable number of languages and dialects that fed directly into each member’s implanted receiver, “the communication I hold is from the Imperial Dectat of Centauria—the seat of the one hundred twenty planet empire of Tnurat Alamantimichar.”
Lawson grimaced and moved restlessly in his chair, waiting for the patient old Jebob to continue in the sudden death hush of the assembly. Just the mention of Tnurat’s name was enough to cause panic.
“I will activate the message.” Lokar laid the disc on the dais and touched it with his sonar ring.
Tnurat Alamantimichar’s deep, powerful voice filled the chamber. No image came with it. Only high military and political leaders had ever seen him. The emperor’s reputation for privacy was legend, like his military. “At 1600 hours Terravegan standard time this day,” he began, “the Rojok federation decimated Terramer. Among the dead is my son, Marcon. My daughter, Lyceria, is presumed to be a captive of the Rojoks. This Council,” he said accusingly, “guaranteed the safety of my children as diplomatic observers on Terramer. The guarantee was worthless. The Holconcom, after rescuing one of your Tri-Fleet ships from attack, was cut off behind enemy lines and communication discontinued. Before contact was lost, I was informed that the Jaakob Spheres were also in Rojok hands.”
There were murmurs among the councilmen. Lawson cursed under his breath. It was a disaster. The Spheres gave the Rojoks the key to the DNA of every Tri-Fleet member race. With them, the Rojoks could engineer viruses to target each specific race. But, even worse, there was one tiny strand of DNA which encoded the history and military capability of each one, as well. These secrets were not even shared with outworlders. Old Lokar had persuaded the Tri-Galaxy Federation members to include that secret in the Jaakob Spheres, guaranteeing their safety. They had been carried aboard the diplomatic observers’ ship for safekeeping. What a joke! Safekeeping, indeed.
“I demand,” Tnurat continued, “that the Council retaliate for this atrocity. If such retaliation is not forthcoming, the Dectat will act in a declaration of war on the neutral member planets of the Council. I allowed the limited use of my Holconcom as forward scout support for the Tri-Galaxy Fleet in response to a plea from your Admiral Lawson, after the latest Rojok incursion into Tri-Fleet territory. Now I ask, no, I demand, that the Council, including the neutral worlds, send armed units to support my government’s troops in a declaration of war on the Rojok tyrant Mangus Lo. The alternative is that you will fight not only the Rojok, but the Centaurian Empire, as well. The vanguard of our military is the Holconcom,” he added in a soft threat. “Some of you may remember how they put down revolutions in our planetary space. And how they deal with enemies. The choice is yours. Help me rescue my daughter and stop Mangus Lo’s aggression, or face the consequences. I will expect a reply within one standard hour.”
A long, heavy silence fell over the room. Lawson watched idealism die in the eyes of the diplomats, giving way to what was undeniably fear.
The Terravegan ambassador stood up. “May I speak?” he asked Lokar.
“You may. I present the human ambassador from the Terravegan colonies, Giles Mourjey.”
“Honorable Chairman, members of the Council,” Mourjey began, his eyes sweeping among the male and female delegates of the Tri-Galaxy Council, one of whom was an imposing Centaurian female named Karimasa. “The only force standing against the Rojok invasion of the New Territory has been the Royal Legion of Terravega, with some small assistance from the Altairian and Jebob militaries. I think it goes without saying that the human regiments of t
he Tri-Fleet have made the larger sacrifice of men and women. You may also have heard of Ahkmau, the Rojok death camp, where two million human soldiers have been systematically tortured to death in Mangus Lo’s insane lust for galactic conquest. With all due respect, delegates, while you were pursing the idealism of interracial harmony with your clones on Terramer, the Royal Legion of Terravega’s Strategic Space Command was pursuing a different goal. It was enforcing the only war vote of any member planetary systems in this Council, standing against a bloodthirsty dictator who’s already enslaved two planetary systems that declared neutrality. The humans have been decimated by Rojok attacks in the New Territory!”
A dark green, slender delegate stood up quickly. “What he says is not true,” the delegate, a Vegan colonial, growled. “The Meg-Vegan High Council also issued a war vote and our Guards even now fight with the humans.”
“Yes, indeed, Ambassador,” Mourjey replied, “in rec halls on bases all over the three civilized galaxies, they fight with us. But on the battle lines, they turn around and run!”
The Vegan turned dusky under his green skin, but he didn’t deny the charge. Instead he sat down, smoldering.
Mourjey faced the Council. “Delegates, the human colonies are getting damned tired of fighting this unholy war virtually alone. If it’s peace you want, if you hope to retain your own planetary systems, you’ll have to crawl out of your holes and fight for them! If you’d rather not involve yourselves in the danger, then by all means, go home and learn to speak Rojok. That is, if the Rojoks don’t take the New Territory before you have the time, and throw the lot of us into Mangus Lo’s sonic ovens!” He sat down.
Lawson swung around and got to his feet. “He’s right,” he said. “I’ve tried to tell you delegates that the conflict can’t rock on like this. I’ve only got five hundred thousand men left in the Strategic Space Command of my Royal Legion, out of the five million I started with. We’ve lost ships, we’ve lost supply transports, we’re even now patching comm units into neutral ships because we’re losing outposts by the day. I need help, or the Rojoks are going to grab the solar systems in the New Territory. If they do that, its mineral resources and colonization possibilities and water resources and fertile farming plains are going to be dead to us. Our overflow populations and dwindling energy and food stores will send some of us into oblivion as a race, and the Rojoks won’t have to fire a single shot to accomplish our demise.”