Erik laughed.
* * *
Trace’s first priority after every planned Op was debrief — you didn’t get good at this stuff by chance. It took endless practice and review, but right now ship life was getting in the way.
She arrived at Medbay Three, newly opened with One and Two now full of wounded or dead, warning screens active above the door to say the pivot had been active, and as spacers liked to say with dry humour, objects in the room may not remain as you’d left them. Doc Suelo came to her as she arrived — a darker ‘African’ shade than her, faintly grey and vastly experienced. Phoenix was his fourth warship, and in between he’d run vast Fleet station hospitals, big city hospitals, and in his younger days, frontier medical wards on outposts no one had heard of. He’d come back to active duty, he liked to say, because some young punk of a captain had suggested that he might be getting too old for it, and he’d re-signed to spite him.
“I’m sorry Major,” he said. “But she’s becoming a problem, and if I can’t venture into my own ward, I’ll have to tranq her.”
“Not like I have anything else to do,” Trace said mildly. It was not her habit to complain, but as command staff on a warship, her most precious commodity was time. Long experience had taught her to defend that commodity forcefully when necessary, in the sure knowledge that others would take it from her if she did not.
“You’re the one who rescued her,” Suelo reasoned. “She might remember that. I don’t want to tranq her with her kid there, if we get off on the wrong foot we’ll have to lock her up for the duration, and I know from experience that kuhsi hate confined spaces. I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t think it was important.”
Time-short or not, if there was anyone on the ship who could get a favour from her, it was Suelo. “Good job getting all our criticals through the push,” she said. “I was certain we’d lose another one or two.” In heavy-G manoeuvres, the badly wounded often died. There was no helping it, and ship commanders had it drummed into them in the academy to ignore the possibility, least they get everyone killed.
“I was certain too,” Suelo said sombrely. “The LC was down here just now talking to a few of those conscious, looking real relieved. You know, that boy’s starting to grow on me.”
“We’ll start a fanclub,” said Trace, and reached for the door.
“You’re going in like that?” Trace held up her forearm guards and gloves, borrowed from a light-armour suit. Suelo nodded warily. “Just be careful. She hasn’t cut anyone yet, but those blades will open you ear-to-ear if they catch you right.”
Trace nodded, hit the door and went in. Within was a broad medbay, runners down one wall where the pivot would tilt the whole room in heavy-G. Bunks were built into broad frames running through the walls. On the furthest one, the rescued kuhsi sat with her cub. She wasn’t hooked up to lifesupport or even an IV. A flask of water sat on the bed table, and a sandwich that had been opened, and the meat picked out of it. Didn’t med-staff know that kuhsi didn’t eat vegetables? Probably not bread either.
She sat on the bed now, watching Trace approach, knees up, teeth bared in a snarl. Big ears back, eyes wide with fear and threat. She’d been much more sedate coming aboard — the suit had had a leak, evidently she’d had to get into it in a hurry, and pull her kid in too. Mild decompression had meant she’d been barely conscious when crew had pulled them both from the suit. Now consciousness had fully returned, and she was scared insensible. In the bunk beside her lay the little boy, one big ear protruding up from the pillow. Beneath a neighbouring bunk, Trace spied the remains of another sandwich, sent flying there with its tray, probably when a corpsman had tried to offer it to her.
Trace climbed onto the neighbouring bunk and sat there. The kuhsi stared at her, faintly trembling with tension. She had tawny fur, brown fading to pale, dark at the tufts of the ears. A powerful jaw, short whiskers, and long, blade-like nails protruding from her three middle fingers. A lot of females had those removed, she’d heard, voluntarily or otherwise. These were short, but looked effective enough. They made slice-marks in the gel-mattress even now. But pretty though she looked to human eyes, she did not look especially healthy. A cut marred both lips, and her ears were notched, one bent unnaturally. An eyelid drooped, partly swollen. And her jumpsuit and jacket were filthy and torn. Some dark patches looked like they might be blood. Old injuries, Trace saw.
“Do you recognise me?” Trace asked. Indicating her own face. “I saved you. In the chah'nas ship.” The eyes widened immediately at that word. The ears dropped. Not a big fan of chah’nas, it seemed. “Chah'nas did this to you?”
A hiss, sharp teeth bared. Then a flash of forward movement, claws unsheathed and flashing for her face… Trace blocked with her forearm guards and remained otherwise unmoved. The kuhsi retreated fast to her bunk, crouched and trembling. It hadn’t been a serious move, no bodyweight committed, she hadn’t fooled Trace for a moment. Just an attempted scare.
A hissing, punctuated growl and cough — language, more frightened than frightening, and a gesture to the door with that many-clawed hand. That was clear enough, she wanted humans gone. Given this was a human ship, that was going to be a problem.
“Phoenix database,” Trace said to empty air. “Access translator, authorisation Major Trace Thakur. Identify kuhsi language, recently spoken.” She waited. And waited. Usually it was much faster than this, Phoenix had all of Fleet’s files, and those files were extensive, particularly of ‘friendly’ species.
Trace held the kuhsi’s gaze, unblinking. That wasn’t easy, those golden eyes were most inhuman and intense. But there was an advantage in letting it know who was in charge. Now to let it know that she was not only in charge, but not a threat. That would be a real trick, in this mood. One of its sharp incisors was missing, she noted. It was beginning to look like someone had been very mean to this frightened alien. Her gaze shifted to the cub. Unmoving, perhaps sleeping. He hadn’t flinched at that latest noise.
“Hello Major,” said Phoenix database in a cool female voice. “I’m afraid the database could not identify the language spoken. I will continue to analyse further.”
“Is the language kuhsi?” Trace wondered. This one could have been in space for a long time, out among the other aliens. Possibly it spoke alien tongues, just not English.
“The database can confirm with ninety-nine percent certainty that the language just spoken is a kuhsi language. I will attempt to place it within the kuhsi language family, in the event that the precise language cannot be ascertained.”
Trace took a deep breath, looking calmly at the kuhsi. “So. Our database doesn’t know where you’re from. Given that our database has something like five hundred known kuhsi languages, that means you’re from somewhere small and remote. Someplace without a modern economy yet. Given that you’re a female out here in space, where no females are supposed to be, I’ll guess further that you were kidnapped, or maybe a sex slave…” she glanced again at the little cub. “Probably trafficked by your own people. Which might explain the kid. He’d be about… seven? Our years or yours. Which means you might have been out here a while.”
She flipped channels on the uplink. “Doc? This one’s a real mess. I don’t know if this is just kuhsi psychology, I think there’s a chance if a human had been through what this one had, she’d be about as insensible.”
“Well, just… do what you can, Major.”
“Your little boy doesn’t look well,” Trace told the terrified alien. “You’re scared for him, but you’re going to hurt him worse if you don’t let us treat him. I’m sure you know what a medical bay looks like.” She uplinked to the wall display, and flipped it to the security cameras on Medbay One. The kuhsi looked, wary of some kind of trick. There were Phoenix marines, her marines, in bunks identical to these. Hooked to machines, wounds treated. Trace pointed to them. Pointed to the beds around. And pointed to the little boy. His clothes looked even more filthy than hers.
The kuhsi bare
d her teeth in an answering snarl. Trace sighed. “Okay. You don’t want us here. That’s fine.” She rummaged in a pocket, calmly pulled the little tranq gun she’d got from storage, and shot the kuhsi in the chest. With a scream the kuhsi launched at her throat. Trace caught her wrists without effort, and simply held her like that — fast as lightning she might be, but she was neither healthy nor strong, and Trace simply waited for the drugs to take effect, and kept the kuhsi’s teeth from her neck in the meantime.
When finally asleep, Trace placed her carefully on the next bunk, and rolled her gently to one side, arranging limbs most comfortably then prying the mouth open to check she wasn’t about to swallow her tongue. Damn sharp teeth in there, and sure enough, the left incisor missing. Only the socket remained, and this girl was far too young for that to happen naturally.
Trace had the cuff on her arm and breather on her face by the time Doc Suelo got in the room — all the vitals looked fine, or the machine told her they were, having automatically figured it was treating a kuhsi and having all the medical parameters preprogrammed.
“Major, what the hell?” Suelo exclaimed as he strode over. “I told you I didn’t want her tranqed!”
“In my experience Doc, people get me involved when they’ve arrived at an obvious solution they know has to be taken, but can’t do it themselves. That kid’s not in great shape, we’re wasting time.”
She strode around the bunk and crouched by the little boy. He had his mother’s colour, but was even skinnier. She put the cuff and breather on him, and the machine started giving her feedback… a fast heartbeat, low blood pressure, general poor health. She took his hand and pressed the fingers, making the claws flex out a little… they’d been cut, he had barely more nails than she did.
“Someone’s declawed him,” she said. “Do they grow back?”
“Yes,” said Suelo, rigging the female up to an IV. “It’s not fast though.” The claws were a marvel of bio-engineering — there were only vestigial nails left on little finger and thumb, but the middle three were huge, the length of half a human hand when extended. Retracted, they segmented in unison with finger joints, giving kuhsi middle fingers a clicky, awkward coordination. Extended, they locked together, and were obscenely sharp.
“Poor little guy,” Trace murmured, stroking the cub’s head. Such improbably big ears. Kuhsi’s biggest problem with spacetravel, surely, was helmets. How did they stuff their huge ears into them? His mother’s had barely fit within that oversized chah'nas helmet. “If she’s one of their trafficking victims, this little guy might be the product of rape. If she’s not talking, might be an idea to run genetics in the meantime, just to be sure he’s her’s. Know what we’re dealing with.”
“So how does she end up on a chah'nas warship?” Suelo asked, coming over to check on the cub.
Trace shook her head. “We’ll have to ask when she’s more sensible. Get good restraints, and when she’s conscious, show her everything before you administer it to the boy. Don’t let her out, just show her that you’re caring for her boy. And might be an idea to only let women touch either of them. Given where she’s been, and how kuhsi males can be…”
“Yes,” Suelo agreed. “Yes, that’s probably wise. Thank you Major, you can go now.” Drily. “Your soothing feminine touch is no longer needed.”
Trace paused by the unconscious female’s bed on the way out. “Oh and feed them some fucking meat too… which idiot gave them sandwiches?”
“Let’s just say alien physiology wasn’t high on the corpsman qualification exam.”
Gazing down at the sleeping kuhsi, Trace concluded that someone’s neck needed to be broken. Possibly many necks. The galaxy at present was serving up an unending supply of them.
* * *
The chah'nas crewman barely fit in his chair. Phoenix did not have a brig, as such, just excess crew quarters that could be used as such in a pinch. That meant wall-bolted chairs between bunks, all human sized, and barely accommodating a 7-foot-plus frame, wide shoulders and elongated shoulder-blades accommodating that formidable extra pair of arms. The lower pair were cuffed behind his back, the upper pair on the tabletop.
Erik stood by the opposite bunk, not wishing to have to look up at the big reptileoid. Jokono stood at his side, and watched. Private Carlson stood by the door, armed despite the prisoner’s restraints, just in case. Chah'nas weren’t just big, they were strong, and this one looked as though he’d been working out. Chah'nas soldiers were augmented too, like humans.
“Greetings ally,” this one said, in contemptuous deadpan. A chah'nas mouth didn’t look particularly well-suited to human speech, with big lower tusks and underbite, but like humans they were omnivores, and had nimble vocals. This one spoke in a deep, bass growl, four eyes fixed unerringly on Erik about wide, inverted nose. “This is not much thanks for the species that saved your species from extinction.”
“You attacked a human vessel in human space,” said Erik. “That’s an act of war against any species, it’s about the only thing all species of the Spiral agree upon. Why do it?”
“I am a lowly crewman,” the chah'nas said. “I don’t know these things.”
“My marines caught you near the bridge. Three chah'nas but only one spacesuit. You got the spacesuit.”
The chah'nas’s nostrils flared. “So what?”
“Among chah'nas, the suit would always go to the higher rank.”
“I am marginally higher ranked. A common crewman nonetheless.”
“What’s your name?” Jokono asked calmly.
“Kel-ko-tal.” Barely taking his eyes off Erik. Eye contact was a sign of respect… but ‘respect’ among chah'nas did not mean what it did among humans. Chah'nas always tried to best those they respected. “I am of Ko-sheel caste, warrior third-grade, by way of Ama-shaal caste, warrior fourth-grade. Not that that means anything to you.” Contemptuously.
“You’re right,” said Erik. “It doesn’t mean a damn thing. Your ship proved no challenge for mine, both my ship and my marines are without a scratch or a casualty.”
A glare from Kel-ko-tal, and finally a lowering of the eyes. If you could get dominance over a chah'nas early in conversation, you took it. “We were ambushed,” he muttered. “It was not a fair fight.”
“And what would a lower-ranked crewman know of the tactical situation?” Jokono asked. “Even human lower-ranked crew rarely know what happens on the bridge, yet you describe events like you were there.” Kel-ko-tal growled, perhaps realising he’d been outplayed.
“Civilised peoples have rules,” the alien muttered.
“We do,” said Erik. “Rules like not attacking other species’ ships in their own space. Once you do that, it’s war, and there are no rules in war.”
“We are not at war! We are supposed to be allies. Human and chah'nas, we were victorious together, and now you dishonour that effort with your treachery.”
“You say Phoenix took an unfair advantage against you — what do you call it when an FTL warship intercepts an unarmed sub-light freighter?”
“We call it following orders.”
“Orders from whom? From chah'nas command? Or from human command?”
Kel-ko-tal gave him a look with four eyes narrowed. “Why should either surprise you? You know what you did. Murderer of your own Captain. Ambition without rules is like a cancer. We see this condition among chah'nas too, and we exterminate it where ever we find it.”
“Captain Pantillo was the greatest captain in the human fleet,” said Jokono. “He was loved above all others by his crew. Do you think the current crew would rally behind the man who killed him if they believed that tale?” With a nod to the marine standing at the door.
Kel-ko-tal glanced. “I know that this one is the son of wealthy and powerful people,” he said, looking back at Erik. “Humans value wealth more than chah'nas. Such corruption is unsurprising.”
“Then you know nothing of humans,” said Jokono.
“Who ordered you to att
ack Abigail?” Erik pressed.
“No one. She was talking to your other ship, the Chester. It was suspicious. We investigated. Your command had given us leave to do so upon entering Argitori System. No specific command was given to board Abigail.”
“Which command?” Erik demanded. “What level would stoop so low to give permissions to the likes of you?”
“The highest level!” Kel-to-tal said defiantly. “The only level of human command that deals with us aliens.”
Erik and Jokono looked at each other. It was a hell of an admission. The prisoner was talking about the Big Three — Fleet Admirals Anjo and Ishmael, and Supreme Commander Chankow. Given that Anjo was the only one on Homeworld when Tek-to-thi had been there, it could well have come from him. Fleet Admiral Anjo had given a chah'nas warship permission to do as it pleased, with unarmed human commercial vessels, in a human system? That admission alone would see Anjo’s head roll, if it reached the right ears. But Fleet Admiral Anjo was not a man known for career suicide. This permission of his had led to a chah’nas vessel intercepting a human vessel in full view of a very busy human system, so it wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. How had Anjo thought he could get away with it… unless there was something else going on that would exonerate him?
Jokono caught Erik’s eye and nodded slightly — good, that meant. Jokono was a former police investigator. He thought in terms of constructing a case, bit by bit. But who would prosecute it, Erik wondered? One renegade warship? They’d need friends, elsewhere in human space. If they found a way to survive out here, on the run from their own Fleet, this was still going to get awfully difficult and complicated. And very dangerous for other people too — if they could find any allies elsewhere willing to help them play this game against Fleet High Command.
“The kuhsi prisoner and her son,” said Erik. “Where did you get her from?”
“The furry thing and her little beast? I forget.”
“Is your memory defective? No wonder you have achieved so little with your life.” Again the four narrow-eyed glare. “Tell me or I will dispose of this defective thing.”
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