Decker's War Omnibus 1

by Eric Thomson

  The leader kept walking without turning back, and Zack followed, conscious of the other silahdar on his heels. As they cleared the cluster of huts and neared the fence, the leader broke into a trot, then a run. Decker followed suit, and as they curved off to jog along the edge of the fence, he began to feel every bruise left by Ktek as his booted feet pounded the hard earth.

  The training camp was surprisingly large, and it took almost fifteen minutes to complete the first circuit. As they ran, he watched other slave recruits form up for morning exercise and noted that humans seemed to predominate. Whether they were from the Commonwealth or those strange lost colonists who claimed to have lived on a planet called Nelva for several millennia, he couldn’t tell.

  Of the other species, he recognized many and was amused to note they were all from societies considered by the Fleet to be techno-barbarian: primitive, aggressive and tough, yet having acquired the means for FTL space travel from unscrupulous traders.

  At the end of the fourth circuit, his stomach was protesting noisily, and he was getting thirsty, but since he had not been given permission to speak, he couldn’t ask the silahdar for water without risking what he suspected would be a very imaginative beating with a baton. The only good thing was that they too would need to drink at some point and if they hadn’t already done so, eat as well.

  By the sixth circuit, Decker was beginning to falter, and he stumbled over a piece of uneven ground, barely avoiding a crash that would have taken the squad leader down with him. The one behind, who’d witnessed it, said nothing though he cracked his stick across Zack’s shoulders.

  Slave recruit formations were now headed for the largest building from which the aroma of food wafted. His stomach rumbled much more painfully this time.

  At the end of the seventh circuit, they led him to the back door of the chow hall and Zack was given a few minutes to scarf down a mushy pile of food whose taste made last night’s supper seem like heaven.

  The day wore on with silahdars relaying each other to keep Zack in constant motion. As he became more and more tired, they began using their batons on him with increasing frequency. By the time the sun set behind the purplish mountains, he was sore, exhausted and surprisingly angry.

  He was equally astonished when they shoved him into a small box-like structure after he’d swallowed his supper, again in isolation from the rest of the slave recruits. Throughout the day, they’d only barked short orders at him, first in Anglic, then in Danjori, but with his growing fatigue, memorizing the words was becoming harder, and he was made to pay for his mistakes.

  The box, barely big enough for him to lie down in, was bare, and he understood that this would be his own private quarters for the night. Settling on the floor, he removed his muddy boots to use as a pillow and stretched out, feeling more worn than he’d been in a very long time. Zack nonetheless fell into a troubled sleep, where dreams of pirates, slavers, and Mala Daran mixed in a toxic stew.

  At sunrise the next morning, the same routine began all over again, but as he got progressively weaker, his mistakes multiplied, as did the beatings. That evening he fell asleep almost immediately once they slammed the door to his box shut. This continued for two more days, and he felt light-headed when they shoved him back into his cell the fourth evening. His body had worn a gentle groove into the bare ground, and he was out almost before he’d made himself comfortable.

  A brutal kick woke him to a moonless night. His internal clock had failed him since arriving on this planet, and he had no idea of the time, except that it felt like the latter part of the night, in the hours before dawn. He felt painfully stiff as he pulled on his boots and crawled out of the box.

  The two silahdars who’d rousted him weren’t shy about using their batons and Zack felt his anger flare up again, this time with the acid of a fiercely burning hatred rising in his gorge. Boot camp bullshit was one thing, but this smacked of field interrogation techniques, except they weren’t asking him any questions.

  A savage blow in the small of the back sent him to his knees on the edge of a puddle, and as he lowered his head to avoid looking at the silahdars, fearful of losing control of his rage, he saw his battered face reflected in the dark water. An underhand whack with a baton split his cheek open again, and droplets of blood-tinted the puddle a deep crimson. A second blow to the other cheek likely meant they wanted him to look up, and he humored them, as he had since his private tutoring in the brutalities of slave life had begun.

  Seeing the dangerous glint in the squad leader’s eyes, the whole purpose of this treatment became evident. Since he’d been brought here by Mala Daran, everything they’d made him do was designed to test and ultimately destroy his self-control. She’d called him a feral ex-Marine and he was annoyed at himself for not understanding. They were trying to break him, just as one breaks an animal before training it to do a task and that meant the punishing pace of physical exertion, as well as the beatings, would continue until he lost his grip on his temper and struck back at the silahdar.

  What would follow was sure to be painful to a degree he’d never experienced, but he couldn’t go on much longer with this charade. He needed to remain the Zack Decker he was, the one who had to get away from here and hunt down the people who’d killed his wife and sold him into slavery. If he let them wear him down any further, he might lose part of that man and turn into what they wanted him to become: a slave in his mind and not just his body.

  He looked down at his reflection again and tensed his muscles. When the baton came swinging down, his right hand snapped up and snatched it, pulling the silahdar off balance. Decker lurched to his feet twisting the hard wooden cane out of the man’s hand and swung it at the squad leader, catching him on the side of the head before turning it on its former owner with equally devastating results.

  They had wanted him to break and come at them. They just hadn’t been prepared for it, and Zack smiled as he systematically rained blows on each silahdar in turn. He ignored the sound of running feet because he had no intention of fighting them all; he just wanted to enjoy his brief and ultimately futile revenge on his tormentors.

  It took six of them to subdue him, and he eventually lost consciousness under the onslaught.

  His eyes opened to the milky glow of full daylight, and he discovered that he was lying on the ground, spread-eagle, unable to move. The soft morning breeze on his exposed skin quickly confirmed that he’d been stripped naked. His head was caught in a block of some kind, rendering him unable to move anything but his eyeballs and they weren’t seeing anything but low, gray clouds.

  The shape of a silahdar in a more elaborate uniform than his tormentors had worn came into view as the man stepped over Decker with one leg to straddle him. He held a small, writhing object between his thumb and finger.

  “Decker,” he said, his voice loud enough to carry, “you are about to undergo the punishment reserved for one of the worst crimes a slave can do: assault a silahdar. You’ve compounded your crime by using the badge of office as your weapon.”

  “This,” he continued, bending over to show Zack the centipede-like thing he held, “is a juluk, a local insect that likes to swarm its prey and bring it down with venom before consuming it. We humans are not compatible with the juluk’s digestive system, and they cannot actually eat us, but while they figure that out, the pain they can inflict is indescribable. We don’t get many chances to use the juluk punishment and yours will be witnessed by the entire recruit contingent, as well as our Atabek and his staff.”

  He tossed the insect to the side and disappeared from Decker’s sight. This then was how they intended to break him. The brutality had merely been a way to push him into earning his punishment. Insect bites – how bad could they be?

  A horrible sensation of tiny hairs brushing against his skin suddenly came from the inside of his right thigh and ran up his leg. Another brushed the crack of his buttocks and Zack couldn’t suppress the urge to move, anywhere and in any direction, but his restr
aints were too strong.

  Then, a mass of them began to scuttle along his legs, over his groin area, and up his torso. The feeling of thousands of tiny feet was one to induce horror in even the most stoic of men, but if that were all, he figured he could probably handle the punishment. Then the first bite came in the soft area by his crotch.

  It was as if a very narrow laser beam had burned through his flesh right down to the bone. He gasped at the unexpected pain. All of a sudden, dozens upon dozens of laser beams pierced him from his face down to his feet as the juluk struck en masse. Decker’s gasp turned into a scream that echoed across the nearby mountainside, tearing at his vocal cords. His body spasmed under the assault, and he felt his right arm leave its socket as he tried to escape the agony.

  He had no idea how long the ordeal lasted because his spirit, under the relentless assault, had shut its connection with reality and hidden in the darkest corner of his brain, gibbering in fear. Slowly, however, he became aware that the searing burns had stopped, leaving his body throbbing as it fought off a venom that couldn’t quite kill it.

  His breathing was ragged, agonized even, but when he opened his lids, no juluk tried to bite his eyeballs. In fact, he quickly realized that he couldn’t feel the masses of tiny insect feet crawl over him. Then the pain of his dislocated shoulder hit and he sobbed.

  Unseen hands removed his shackles, and his head was freed from the restraining block as silahdar medics brushed off the last juluk corpses and tended to the hundreds of bleeding punctures the insects had inflicted.

  “It is fortunate,” one of the medics said as he tended the wounds in his face, “that a taste of our blood is more fatal to the juluk than their venom is to us. Otherwise this punishment would mean certain death.”

  The words registered dimly in Decker’s consciousness, but before he could croak out a question, another medic wrenched his shoulder back into place, and he blacked out again.

  Six

  When he woke, he was on a hard cot, his bare body covered by a thin sheet of silky material. The air around him had the universal smell of antisepsis that could only mean he’d been taken to the infirmary. He could feel each puncture throbbing, and when he tried to turn, his ruined shoulder forcefully reminded him of its presence.

  “Ah, you’re awake.” A wizened human face appeared in his line of sight. She had what he’d begun to call the Nelvan accent. “I suggest you try to move as little as possible. It takes two or three days to shake off a juluk attack.” She shook her head. “Barbaric, but since we’re property and not autonomous beings, it’s considered as nothing more than an attitude adjustment. I’m Tika Bron, by the way.”

  Decker grunted in reply, not trusting his vocal chords to cooperate. Bron nodded her approval.

  “The way you screamed out there, you’ll not want to be talking for a while. The Atabek had the juluk count increased since it took you such a long time to lose consciousness. You’ve probably impressed him if he’s ever impressed by his possessions. If you think you can sit up, I’ve got some nourishing soup for you. It’s none of the swill they give to the hard cases.”

  At the mention of food, his stomach reliably grumbled, and he gingerly pushed himself up against the wall.

  Bron took a small, cylindrical container from the sideboard and removed its lid. Immediately, a strange, but appealing aroma filled his nostrils. She grabbed a spoon and settled on the edge of the cot, facing Zack.

  “I’ll be feeding you, for now, so just open wide.” She dipped the spoon in the thick liquid and placed it in Zack’s mouth. The taste was as good as the smell, to his great relief. It was, in fact, the tastiest food he’d eaten since the reivers kidnapped him these many long weeks ago.

  “What happens to me now?” He asked in a hoarse whisper after he’d swallowed the last of it.

  “When I’m sure the venom has been flushed from your system, the Atabek will have made his decision. For now, you’re in my charge.”

  “How long?”

  “It’s different for each person. You appear to have an efficient metabolism, so maybe twelve to eighteen hours. Try to sleep some more. It helps speed up the process.”

  Decker lay back and closed his eyes, intent on probing deep within himself to find out whether he was still the same man or whether he was on his way to becoming a tamed slave soldier. That he’d shatter if they ever subjected him to the juluk punishment again was beyond question, but that led to the risk of destroying the part of him that was valuable to the Atabek. A thoroughly ruined man was useless as a warrior.

  The terror he felt at remembering the first brush of juluk feet on his skin made it clear that the lesson had sunk in, and they would always have that lever to control him. But as he probed deeper, the part of him that had vowed to collect the debt he was owed remained intact. They’d failed to break him completely. He still had enough of his strength when they staked him out. If he hadn’t understood their purpose so quickly, he couldn’t imagine what his mental state would be right now. He doubted that he’d still be Zack Decker – at least not fully.

  He let a small smile play on his swollen lips before drifting off into a deep sleep.

  *

  “You’re being discharged this morning,” Bron announced with a smile as she returned from analyzing the latest blood sample a few days later. “There’s no more venom in your system and the bite wounds are healing nicely. The shoulder will take a little longer, but you shouldn’t be asked to do any acrobatics for a while.”

  “Oh? Why’s that?”

  “I’ve received instructions to remove your head hair and give you the tattoo. You’ve been declared a silahdar.”

  “That was quick.” Decker sounded dubious as if he were about to face another test.

  “Hardly,” Bron chuckled. “Trained warriors don’t need to spend the full ten weeks in the school, and the Atabek has decided that you’ve passed the required tests.”

  “Yeah,” he replied sourly. “That was quite the initiation, wasn’t it?”

  *

  Decker examined his shiny bald head in the washroom mirror with a sinking heart. He hadn’t realized that he actually valued the bit of individuality his hair represented. Now he looked just like the others, right down to the black and red marking on the left side of his skull, a representation of the same mythical creature whose carving he’d stared at for so long in the dojo.

  Bron had applied a thick paste to his head and then, after a ten-minute wait, she had hustled him into a shower stall to rinse it off. His hair wouldn’t re-grow for months, she said, and for some, it never came back at all. The tattoo took slightly longer to apply, but it was permanent. He was going to scare little children looking like that when he got back to the Commonwealth.

  Realizing that he was convinced it was just a matter of time before he was on his way home, Zack smiled at his reflection. With any luck, he could return the juluk punishment favor to the Atabek before leaving. Decker liked to settle his debts.

  They’d left him a new uniform, of the same reddish brown as the full-fledged members of the Kashdushiya, the slave regiment, rather than the dull gray of a trainee. It fit loosely enough to be comfortable, even if the material was a bit coarse. There were no identifying marks on the tunic so he couldn’t guess at what they might have in mind for him, but that was of no concern. He could do virtually any job in an infantry battalion and then some.

  Mala Daran came to collect him just as the sun was nearing its zenith. She inspected him carefully, paying attention to his visible injuries and to the fresh tattoo.

  “Well met, silahdar,” she finally said, smiling. “You may speak at your leisure, Decker. The enforced silence is for mere slaves, not soldiers.”

  “Nice to see you too, sanjaqui.” If she noticed the sarcastic edge to his tone, she didn’t show it.

  “You may call me by my name if you like. We only use function titles in formal settings.”

  “Very egalitarian.” He gave her a sardonic smile.<
br />
  “We’re all equally slaves.” She nodded as if to emphasize the point. “It’s almost time for the midday meal, and I thought that I would eat with you. Afterward, we can discuss your assignment.”

  As they joined the throng of silahdars lining up in a chow hall decorated with barbarous banners and trophies, Decker had a very eerie sense of belonging. He wore the same uniform, had the same identifying marks as these soldiers and that made him feel more at home than he had in a long time. Never mind that he found Daran to be fascinating, now that she’d lost the formality she’d shown when he was still a recent purchase.

  That unsettling thought seemed put into question the strength of his will to get home. Perhaps the horrifying juluk treatment had succeeded to a greater degree than he thought. Could there have been something in the venom to change him? He scarcely thought it possible.

  “You look lost, Zack,” Daran murmured as she prodded him to move and close the gap in the line.

  “I just had a ghost walk over my grave, that’s all.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Do you ever get a strange, unnatural feeling that’s gone almost the moment you notice it?”

  “I have, a few times in my life.”

  “That’s what we call it back home.” Decker shrugged.

  “And what caused the feeling?” She sounded genuinely interested.

  “I recognized this place as belonging to soldiers, and as I’m one of you now, it belongs to me as well.”

  “It’s a good feeling isn’t it?” She said, a gentle smile transforming her face.

  “Yeah. I just hope the food is better than the slop you had them serve me my first night.”

  Now she laughed openly, a throaty, rich sound that he found curiously alluring.

  “It is, have no fear. You’ll see the choices clearly indicated by species. Though we can eat each other’s food, tastes vary too much to serve single meals.”

  And she was indeed right. He took generous helpings of unidentifiable dishes marked for his race after Daran had taught him the runic symbols for ‘human’ and they were delicious if spicier than he expected.