by Jay Allan
Nova struggled weakly, fighting an urge to either throw up or faint, aware of little more than the pain from her dislocated shoulder. She stared in disbelief when he reached down to unbuckle his fatigues. She had to get out of here, get away from this monster now clutching her legs.
“Could have done this friendly.” The captain leaned over her when she tried to roll away. He pressed one hand over her mouth and the other onto the grotesque lump distending her shoulder. She screamed into his hand until, almost gratefully, she passed out.
* * *
She was alone now. Alone with pain that flared up the moment she stirred on her bed. She groaned loudly and then pinched her lips tight when, little by little, she shifted her body until she finally sat on the edge of her bed.
Nova looked around her room as if her assailant might still be lurking in one of its corners. How long had she been unconscious?
Painfully, she pushed herself off the bed and fought a wave of dizziness before she could see again. It seemed to take forever to pull on a pair of loose-fitting trousers and fasten her robe. Tears of pain and anger spilled over her face and she wiped at them away, annoyed with herself for falling into Beryl’s trap. This wasn’t the academy and this wasn’t Targon. She had already seen enough here to realize the difference between the stringently ruled airfields where she had trained and worked and this backwater outpost. She had hoped to learn much during a tour under rougher conditions but this lesson was not one she had prepared for.
There was no one in the night-silent hall when she moved toward the stairs. The base clinic was a below the pilots’ floor and she was glad when no one met her on the way down there. Her knees felt unsteady, her long hair was a tangle and her face a puffy mess. She was not surprised when a medic rushed toward her, looking alarmed, when she walked into the med center.
“What the hell happened to you?” he exclaimed.
She pulled back before he could take her arm. “Get Doctor Soren.”
“She’s asleep. Come in here.” He put his hand on her back to guide her into an examination room.
“Touch me and I will break your nose,” she growled.
The medic looked at her quizzically for a long moment before nodding. “I see. Wait here.”
Nova sat on the edge of the exam table, cradling her useless arm and wondered how she had stooped from being hailed as a most promising junior officer among her peers to this. There was no part of her body that didn’t ache and her mind continued to throw up images of Beryl’s contorted face hovering above her. She stood up and paced, almost glad when her shoulder began to throb more excruciatingly to chase those images from her mind.
At last, the female medic arrived, obviously just pulled from her bed to attend to Nova. She was still running her fingers through her tousled hair when she entered the room. Like many Bellacs, she used brilliant dyes to decorate the naturally white strands.
“Are you going to tell me who did this or will I wait for the DNA results to find out for myself?” she greeted Nova while she prepared a hefty dosage of painkiller.
“Captain Beryl,” Nova said into the plastic cup held to her face. She inhaled deeply and soon felt the pain in her shoulder subsiding. A languid, rubbery feeling surged through her body and she suspected something more than painkiller in the dose she was receiving.
“Beryl himself, huh?” Soren began to manipulate Nova’s arm. “This okay?”
“Yes, just do it,” Nova said.
There was no sudden jolt, just some careful handling of her arm and then her shoulder joint slid back into its accustomed place. The remaining pain stopped nearly at once.
“Hold it like this. Better?” Soren asked, looking into Nova’s ashen face. “Shall we take a look at the works?”
Nova nodded. “Are you going to report this to Major Trakkas right away?”
Soren tilted her head. “The post commander? Are you sure?”
“He’s in charge of personnel. Who else would I complain to?”
“Someone who doesn’t think Beryl is the star of the show around here.”
Nova put her clothes on a nearby chair to submit to the exam. Bruises were inspected, samples were taken, wounds cleaned. Neither of them spoke during the procedure, giving Nova time to think about her request.
At last, Soren covered her patient with a thin sheet and sat on a stool beside the table on which she lay. She entered some information into the slim data tablet in her hands. “You’re off duty for a few days. That shoulder is going to feel like a massacre tomorrow. I’ll give you some tranks for it. You’re also seeing the post-trauma folks first thing.”
“Is that necessary?”
“It’s what’s best. You combat grunts might have had to prepare yourselves for the kind of horrors you encounter but it’s policy. They’re getting great results with cognitive processing.”
Nova grimaced. “Messing around with your memories. No thanks. I like my head where it is.”
“No one’s going to do that. It just lets you re-associate what happened to make it more tolerable. I’ve seen them get some pretty horrific cases back on their feet fast.” It was Soren’s turn to grimace. “And back out into the field.”
“Will it make me forget?”
“No. That would take more work. I wouldn’t trust that sort of thing to anyone but the clinic on Targon. If you want that I can put in a request for medical leave.”
“No,” Nova said at once. She touched her shoulder as if to test the darkening bruise. “I have no intention to forgetting any of this.”
“Revenge, Lieutenant?”
“Not risking my career over that bastard. But that doesn’t mean this is over, believe me.”
“So you definitely want to report this?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Nova said angrily.
“Beryl runs this place. He keeps the grunts in line and functioning under some pretty extreme conditions. They don’t want women in their ranks and they do whatever it takes to keep them out. You’re a pilot and that’s even more offensive to them. Frankly, I’m tired of patching up his victims and don’t think they leave the new boys alone, either. If you’re smaller or smarter, you’re fair game. That’s what it is here, Nova. You’ll only make it worse for yourself by reporting it.”
“I am not putting up with this!”
“Then get a transfer out of this pit. What are you doing out here, anyway?”
Nova dropped her forearm over her eyes. “Bellac wasn’t exactly on my dream sheet. I want to get to Targon. I need the creds for that. And places like these are the fastest way to get them. I knew it’s a pit. Just didn’t think I’d have to watch out for our own people, too.” She moved her arm again to peer at the doctor. “Did they get to you?”
“They tried. I made some noise about a few cases when I first got here. Some comments were made. I got the message.” She sighed. “I’m not a soldier, I’m not an officer, and I’m not a pilot. I’m probably a coward. Once I have a few more points I’m out of here, too. Back to Siolet where they know how to run a military hospital. I stitch them up when they lacerate themselves and I don’t get in their way. You’re a target and they’ll keep at you until you know your place.” She fussed with her recorder and did not look at Nova. “I’ve seen it again and again. Sometimes I think this place is more like a prison than a military base. You get along or you get out, one way or another. Not everyone gets hurt, but it’s the main routine. They don’t have the smarts to find other ways to make your life intolerable.” She tipped her head toward the door. “I had a chat with Lieutenant Tonda earlier. Somehow I don’t think you’re the sort that’s easily intimidated. Admirable, but not likely to make your tour here all that much fun.”
Nova grimaced. “Not exactly a vacation, so far, anyway.”
* * *
“Whiteside! Step in here.”
Nova nearly jumped off her metal bench when the base commander stepped into the hall to bark at her. He ignored her salute and returned to his
cramped work room. When she followed she saw that she was alone in here with him. No other officer was there to take her deposition, no Doctor Soren, no peer witness to the proceedings. Just Major Trakkas, looking like he wished she’d never come onto his base.
“Sir,” she said, standing stiffly beside the data console where he had taken a seat. The rest of the room was lost in murk and clutter.
The Centauri officer scrolled through a few screens of information before turning to look at her. She ground her teeth when his violet eyes travelled slowly all the way down to her boots before moving up again. “I read the reports, Whiteside,” he said.
“They were filed three weeks ago, sir,” she pointed out. Three weeks of lewd remarks, speculating glances in her direction, whispered conversations, hostile looks and outright ostracism by some of her fellow soldiers. The only time she had felt at ease at all was among her wing, in the air, doing her job. The major finally summoned her only after, reluctantly, she had asked Captain Dakad to move the case forward. At least Beryl was on a mission to one of the Rim towns and she had not seen him since the night of the attack.
“I know what day it is, Lieutenant,” he snapped. “This is a war zone. I have more burning issues than figuring out why you can’t keep your door closed at night.”
She gasped. “Sir?”
He waved his hand in a dismissing gesture. “What do you want, Whiteside?”
“What do you mean? Captain Beryl assaulted me. Raped me.”
“He says you asked him into your room. That you like it rough.”
Nova felt her anger rise and reminded herself to stay calm. The last thing that would help her now was to give in to her temper. “You know that isn’t what happened,” she said evenly. “No matter what he told the rest of the base.”
He observed her for an uncomfortably long time. “You think it’s your job to stir things up here, Lieutenant? Wave protocol and policy under my nose when I have hundreds of Shri-Lan crawling like lice through civilian zones? We can’t tell the damn difference between rebel and local because Targon won’t let us expel off-worlders. My ground troops are being chewed up by weapons even you haven’t seen, Specialist,” he added with a wave at her records, “and you want me to spend my time making sure everyone is playing nice here at the base?”
It’s your damn job, she thought to herself and bit her tongue.
He let her wait while he continued to study her files. “Your psych assess looks all right,” he said.
What did that mean? Because the base shrinks declared her fit this couldn’t have been all that traumatic? She hadn’t told them about the nightmares or about the gun she kept beside her bed now. They seemed happy with their tests and she got her plane back. After all, soldiers like Nova were trained for this, weren’t they? Weeks of relentless, soul-numbing, body-breaking conditioning. Survival when captured, resistance under any condition, let nothing touch you, never give up. And, ladies, be prepared to be targeted for special treatment. Nothing said about being targeted by your own people.
Trakkas winced when something on the screen caught his attention. “Whiteside. I thought that sounded familiar when I first saw your name on the roster. Tegan Whiteside is your old man? Colonel Tegan Whiteside running the Pelion base?”
“Yessir.”
He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the console, his lips pursed. Finally, his eyes travelled back to her. “A colonel’s daughter is what we have here. Now doesn’t that make my day complete. No doubt a bit of noise from you is going to bring a whole lot of hurt down on our heads.”
“Major, I—”
He held up a hand. “But you’re not that sort, Whiteside. You’re tough and you think you need to prove something. You’d rather put up with Beryl’s entire squad than run crying to Daddy, isn’t that so?” He leaned to the screen. “You did some ground combat against the Shri-Lan rebels on Phi, got your wings on Magra and then flew over Tannaday. Bucking for Hunter Class, I’m guessing. Weapons Specialist, just to show you have a big brain. There’s no way your father would have dumped you onto this rock if he had any hand in your duty transfers. Because you won’t let him, isn’t that right? No special favors for Whiteside Junior. And you won’t whine to him to get your ass out of here.”
She said nothing. He was right.
He folded his hands behind his closely-cropped head and sat back in his chair, swiveling slowly side to side as he contemplated. “But unless he’s a heartless bastard he probably has a pretty good idea what’s going onto your record. Including your little misunderstanding with Captain Beryl.”
She frowned. Up until this moment she hadn’t even thought about her complaint against a superior officer showing up on her records. And although her father was hardly the warmest of Humans, he did not fall into the ‘heartless bastard’ category. He never interfered with her career choices but seeing this incident in her files would not go uninvestigated. ‘Ironballs’ Whiteside’s reputation as a tough, uncompromising commander was widespread and no one would ever accuse him of ignoring policy. Her transfer into what he’d consider a safer tour of duty was guaranteed.
And she would agree. His wife, her mother, had been killed in a rebel attack on Magra only a few years ago and all that remained of his family in Trans-Targon was Nova. It was that reason, not any hope of favoritism, that kept her silent about some of her more hazardous assignments.
“Tell you what,” Trakkas said. He looked like someone about to bestow a great favor upon lesser beings. “We’ll downgrade this to a simple assault, I’ll keep Beryl out of your way until your tour here is done, give him a slap to remind him of his manners, and we’ll let this settle down naturally.”
She glared at him. How did things get so turned around all of a sudden? “What sort of slap?”
He shrugged. “Twenty days in lockup.”
“This is disgraceful! He damn near pulled my arm off!”
Trakkas came to his feet and towered over her, close enough to force her to take a step backward. “I am about done with you, Lieutenant. I’ll give him thirty days. You know what that means? Thirty days without the toughest commander I have for these men. I’m going to have to pull Captain Tovah off the front line to take his place. Leaving me short in the field. So you, Lieutenant, are going to hump your ass out to Shon Gat and fill in the ranks.”
She winced. The remote town he had named was the supply base for the nearby elevator construction. It was rapidly expanding in anticipation of the traffic and prosperity the tether would bring once the orbital skyranch was complete. It was also infiltrated by rebel factions deeply embedded among the local population and more arrived with each transport and caravan. Air Command presence had turned the entire place into a state of siege. Random attacks on military patrols, haphazard attempts at sabotage and days-long skirmishes were the order of the day. “I am a fighter pilot,” she reminded him.
He laughed without any real semblance to humor. “You’re also an expert marksman and I can definitely use more snipers. The Kites are done out here. There are no more rebel bases that you can lob your little missiles at from a safe distance. And I have no intention of letting the pilots laze around until Targon decides what to do with you.” His violet eyes gleamed with a mix of menace and mirth as he leaned over his workspace to enter his instructions. “You’ll get a little education in how things really work on the ground, Lieutenant. Won’t that be nice?”
“I’ve done ground combat,” she said but there was little protest left in her voice. She had lost this battle.
“Good. You’ll be useful. I think we both know it’s probably best if you’re not hanging around the base. Things won’t get any friendlier for you once I lock Beryl up. Report to Captain Rudjo at the Shon Gat garrison tomorrow. Maybe he’ll let you fly evac.”
Chapter Three
From up here, it was easy to see how this town might have been pretty once. Before the planet and her two moons had ever seen someone without white hair or red skin or carrying a l
aser weapon. Before interstellar travelers had discovered that rare fracture in space that let them form a jumpsite uncomfortably close to the planet. Before the rebels followed through the breach, smelling easy pickings and a shortcut from here to the hotly contested Magra-Aikhor sector.
Almost two hundred years, local time, after off-worlders had been accepted by the Bellac Tau natives, the population had grown into an uneasy mix of locals, Centauri, Feydans, and even some Humans. Cluttered composites of traditional brick architecture and imported construction made up the towns that sprawled along coasts and the fertile foothills, including this one, Shon Gat.
Nova sat on the running board of her hover, the screen of her scanner held loosely in her hands while she surveyed the town below. The original stone architecture still delineated the perimeter, as did parts of an ancient wall. Orderly pathways separated it into sectors organized according to who lived there or what took place there. Neat residences, livestock areas, market places, meeting circles, open spaces were all still visible. Over time, the newcomers had blurred the boundaries. Modern trading places, machine shops, hover pads, military installations and not a few ragged slums had turned Shon Gat into the sort of sprawling, unmanaged frontier town she had seen in other places.
Of course, from up here, without moving in for a closer look, one did not see the areas destroyed by explosives or scorched by laser fire.
Since opening Bellac to off-world traffic so long ago, Air Command had found more important properties to protect elsewhere. The Union’s advances toward bringing the remote planet into the Commonwealth had stalled again and again even as the rebel factions grew and multiplied. Now, both the Arawaj and Shri-Lan groups held firmly established territories here, well supplied by anti-Union sympathizers in other parts of the vast Trans-Targon sector.
Desperate to avoid becoming the official headquarters of Shri-Lan activities, the governors of Bellac Tau had appealed to the Union, offering control of the jumpsite in exchange. No one seemed to find it especially ironic that, if not for the Union itself, the planet would still be minding its herds and fisheries without even an inkling of worlds beyond its moons.