The Morcai Battalion

Stern’s mind was a nexus of conflicting emotions. He stared at Muldoon blankly as he realized what he’d done, and what the consequences could have been. He couldn’t believe he’d put his men at risk like this!

“What will you do with him?” Stern asked the Holconcom commander.

Dtimun didn’t reply. He turned back to his officers. “Prepare him.” He glanced at Stern. “All officers will go immediately to the green section airlock,” he added. “Video monitors will be activated for the crew, so that they may watch, as well.”

He made a gesture with one lean hand, which prompted the Holconcom with Muldoon to act immediately, almost carrying a protesting Muldoon out of the canteen. The man’s sobs could be heard like echoes of fear.

Madeline gasped aloud. “You can’t mean to space him!” she exclaimed. “There are protocols…!”

Dtimun didn’t answer her. He looked straight at Stern. “Ask your captain the penalty for inciting intermilitary conflict in time of war.” He turned and followed his officers and Muldoon, expecting obedience.

The humans gave Stern shocked, angry looks as they filed by, too shaken by what they’d seen to risk the commander’s temper.

“Stern, for God’s sake, do something!” Madeline raged.

“It’s too late,” Hahnson said for him, his face set in hard lines. “No power in the galaxy will stop Dtimun when he thinks he’s right. Damn it, Stern! You’ve cost us one of our best engineers!”

He filed out behind the other humans. Madeline hesitated, but only for an instant. She was shocked at Stern’s unnatural behavior, at his instigation of the conflict. She turned her eyes forward and followed Hahnson.

Stern watched them go with wide, blank eyes. He was puzzled and vaguely frightened by his actions, but he couldn’t seem to stop doing insane things. Perhaps his concussion had prompted it. Regardless of the reason, Muldoon was about to be spaced, and Stern couldn’t do a thing to stop it. Not a single damned thing.

5

By the time Stern got to the airlock station, Muldoon was standing inside the closing doors. Dtimun’s third officer, a tall Centaurian named Btnu, was at the wall with his hand on a switch.

Madeline started to protest, but Hahnson kicked her boot. Hard. She swallowed her rage and glared at Stern instead.

Dtimun turned and looked straight at the human crewmen as he gave the order to Btnu. Inside the airlock, Muldoon was pounding at the transparent screen, yelling, his face red and swollen. He looked frantic.

Idly, Stern thought how out of character it was for Muldoon, who was one of the bravest engineers he’d ever served with, to behave in such a manner. He’d seen the Irishman beaten bloody and still struggling to his feet to give back the punches. He wasn’t the sort of soldier to beg and plead.

While he was thinking it, Btnu threw the switch and Muldoon was suddenly floating in space.

There was a muttered curse from beside him as the Irishman tumbled over and over and slowly became a speck in the deep black of star-sprinkled space.

“This is what you can expect if there are ever additional incidents of this sort,” Dtimun said in a deadly, soft tone as he turned to face the humans. “We are at war. Aboard this ship, we fight Rojoks, not fellow crewmen—even reluctant ones! Remember what you have just seen. Never forget it!” He glared at them. “Dismissed!”

The humans grouped together like defiant, belligerent insurgents and left the deck. The Holconcom showed no emotion whatsoever. They saluted their commander and followed out behind the humans.

Madeline’s fists were clenched at her sides. She said nothing, but her eyes spoke for her. She’d almost run out of vicious names to call him, mentally, when he suddenly turned on his heel and glared at her.

Dtimun abruptly walked to her side and stopped with his hands linked behind his back. His posture was threatening enough, without the dark anger of his elongated eyes. “I have no qualms about spacing women,” he pointed out, in deep tones without a trace of an accent. “Interfere again and I will prove it. You have duties, Doctor, none of which pertain to command of this vessel. Attend to them!”

She swallowed, her teeth clenched so hard that she thought they might break, and snapped the hateful alien a salute before she turned with perfect posture and marched off the deck.

Hahnson grimaced as he saw Stern’s expression, but he said nothing. He saluted and joined Madeline outside.

Dtimun’s expression never wavered when he looked at Stern. “The Holconcom fight as a unit,” he said. “If I had not intervened, you and your entire crew would be dead. Explain your behavior.”

Stern frowned. His hand went to his head. There was a terrible pain, a shattering pain. He could hardly bear it.

The alien’s eyes turned blue. He cocked his head. “This pain,” he said, “is it from the concussion?”

It didn’t occur to Stern to wonder how the alien knew he was in pain. He could barely think. “Pain,” he gritted. “So…much…pain…!”

He dropped to the deck, unconscious.

When he came to, he was in the makeshift human sick bay and Hahnson was bending over him, a concerned expression on his broad face as he checked Stern’s head with a small device that read through tissue and blood and bone.

“Will I live?” Stern husked.

“You may not want to, considering how much trouble you’re in,” Hahnson told him quietly.

“The commander was out of line, too,” Madeline muttered, standing just to the side of Hahnson. “I’m saving up infractions. When we port at HQ, I’m bringing him up on charges.”

Hahnson gave her a tongue-in-cheek glance. “Pay your burial fees first.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” she said curtly. But she didn’t push the issue. “How is he?” she asked Hahnson.

“No major damage that I can see,” Hahnson said absently, checking his scanners. “But there are some minor deviations in the endorphin levels, and there’s some foreign substance that I can’t even identify.”

“I have some memory loss,” Stern admitted at last. He winced. “And headaches that aren’t even describable.”

“Maybe the deviations are responsible,” Madeline interjected.

“That doesn’t explain them,” Hahnson replied. He handed Madeline a copy of his readings. “You’re better at exobiology than I am. Run those through your diagnostic computer, will you? Perhaps you can find something that my scanners can’t read.”

“My degrees are all in Cularian medicine,” she pointed out. “That’s Rojok and Altairian and Centaurian genetics.”

“There are some similarities to Rojok cell structure,” Hahnson said surprisingly.

Stern sat up too quickly, grabbed his head and groaned.

“Just lie back down, if you please,” Hahnson said, easing him onto the medical scanner array. “I’m not accusing you of being a Rojok spy. I said there were similarities, that’s all. You might have picked up some cellular residue left behind by the Rojoks when they attacked the colony. This equipment is sensitive enough to detect week-old skin cells.”

“Oh,” Stern murmured.

Madeline peered into the computer built into the examination array and frowned. She exchanged a glance with Hahnson that Stern didn’t see.

Hahnson read it very well. He patted Stern on the shoulder. “You just lie there and rest for a few minutes. I’m going to walk Madeline through the sensor workup. Okay?”

“Okay.” He opened his eyes and looked up at his comrades of many years with a worried frown. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked abruptly. “I let that cat-eyed terror blow up the Bellatrix without a protest. I let him space Muldoon. On Terramer, I was willing to sacrifice the Jebobs and Altairians. What the hell am I turning into?” he asked in anguish. “Why can’t I remember anything before we left the Peace Planet? Why didn’t I rush that cat-eyed terror when he spaced Muldoon?” He groaned, holding his head. “The pain…is terrible. I can’t…function…like this!”

“We’ll find the answers, Holt,” Madeline said quietly. “I promise.”

He drew in an unsteady breath. “Muldoon’s gone. It’s my fault.”

“It’s his,” Hahnson corrected shortly. “He could have gotten us all killed. If you’d ever seen the Holconcom fight, you wouldn’t be apologizing.” He shivered faintly. “It’s not a sight you ever forget.”