The Morcai Battalion

2

The labyrinth interior of the Rojok vessel was buzzing with activity. Lyceria of Clan Alamantimichar sat quietly in her temporary quarters watching crewmen dash past the magnetized transparent cell from which there was no escape.

Her slender hand touched a dark blue bruise on the golden silk of her arm. She could control the pain, but not her rage at such rough treatment. Thoughts of her brother made the rage near unbearable. They assumed that she did not know what had been done to him. The fools did not know that the Clan of Alamantimichar were telepaths. She had felt every second of Marcon’s agony. She had touched his mind at the moment of death.

She was aware of eyes staring at her, and looked up. The Rojok officer who had abducted her was grinning through the force shield. The slit eyes that peered out of that reddish-bronze face made her tremble. The shock of blond hair that fell on the Rojok’s broad brow was sweaty and slick. His hair was short, denoting a lesser rank. Only high-ranking officers were allowed to wear long hair.

“You are a rare prize, daughter of Tnurat,” he told her, studying her fragile beauty. “What a pity that I cannot show you to Chacon. It might mean another mesag mark of rank.”

Her chameleon eyes made dark, angry whispers, but her composure was perfect. She rose from the contoured couch, grace personified.

“Had Chacon not ordered my capture, and the death of my brother?” she asked softly.

The Rojok laughed heartily. “Chacon knows nothing of this mission. Some think our commander-in-chief wages warfare in far too chivalrous a manner. Some have promised me his mesag marks for the Jaakob Spheres—and you.”

“Think you that Chacon will not discover what you have done when the Holconcom come in pursuit?” she asked.

“The Holconcom?” He laughed again. “They are stories used to frighten children. But pursuers will find themselves pursued. Our forces even now are closing the distance between the planet Terramer and the Tri-Fleet battle lines. No ship can get through them now. Not even your phantom Holconcom.”

Her delicate face lifted proudly. “There is one who will come to avenge the death of my brother.”

“Let him try.”

“Where do you now take me? To your home planet of Enmehkmehk?”

His slit eyes narrowed. “If your arrogance persists, perhaps you will go to Ahkmau instead.”

He was gone, and she felt the chills wander over her slender body in its silky coverings. Ahkmau translated in Rojok as “place of tortures.” It was located on one of the three moons of Enmehkmehk, the planetary capital of the Rojok empire. It was the death camp of the Rojok tyrant Mangus Lo, and even a Centaurian could feel fear at the mention of its name. Had she been capable of shedding tears in front of these savages, she might have yielded to them. But Alamantimichar was a proud Clan, and to show weakness to an enemy was to dishonor it. She turned back to her couch. Dtimun would come. No matter the odds against him, he would come.

Back in the command chair on the SSC ship Bellatrix’s bridge, Holt Stern forgot the carnage and the Centaurians. He had a bigger problem. Terramer was located on the edge of the Algomerian Space Sector, which the Rojoks had already claimed as captured territory. If Chacon’s hunter squads were still in the area, it was going to take every ounce of his command ability to get the ship home.

“Higgins,” he asked his sandy-haired first officer, “how’s our fuel holding out?”

“We’ll make it back, sir,” Higgins said with a grin, “but we won’t have enough left over to fill a java cup.”

“Like I thought. Helm, is the Centaurian ship pacing us?”

The astrogator shook his head. “They were running a parallel course when we left orbit, sir, but they’ve disappeared. I assume they’ve lighted out of sensor range. Our tracker beams can’t touch them.”

“Sir,” Jennings, the comtech, broke in, “I’ve got the short-range commbanks working now, and I’m getting an alien signal. Close, and on scramble.”

“Ignore it,” Stern said. “Rojoks use an emergency code like that to get a fix on enemy ships.”

“It doesn’t read like a Rojok signal, sir. There’s…”

“I said, ignore it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He got up and flexed his shoulders while he checked the starmaps over the astrogation console in the cramped nose of the sleek starship. The headache was better now, although there seemed to be blank pieces of his life even behind the pain—pieces he didn’t have time to mourn. His brow furrowed. There were no patterns to indicate an intruder, but Chacon’s ships sometimes appeared like ghosts. He felt uneasy, and he’d learned to trust instinct more than machinery.

“Higgins, slow us down to quarter-light and take the ship on bearing 6.25, mark one.”

“Yes, sir.” Higgins gave the order to the astrogator. “Expecting trouble, Captain?”

“I’m always expecting trouble, Higgins. Steady as she goes.”

“Sir,” the comtech said, “that alien signal’s back. It’s in English this time, in the clear.”

Stern sighed angrily. “Oh, hell, what’s it say?”

“It’s a distress call from the Vegan Paraguard ship, Lyrae. They’re under attack from a Rojok squad and their weaponry is out.”

“Location?”

“They didn’t give it, sir. Shall I request…?”

“No!” He slammed down into the command chair. “Under no circumstances are you to reply to that message! Astrogator, prime the auxiliary power units. We may have to make a run for it.”

“Sir?”

“Mister, if you were surrounded by a squadron of Rojok ships, and you had time for a single distress call, would you be stupid enough to omit your coordinates?”

“Not me, sir,” the astrogator said, shaking his head. “Not unless I was trying to home in on a commbeam by sending it.”

“Exactly. Prime those units. Jennings,” he shot at the comtech, “do your sensors register any other ships in the immediate area?”

“No, sir. Just a meteor—an ‘iron’ judging by the density. Strange. I don’t remember any on the advance scans…”

“Meteor?” He snapped a code into the console at his elbow and glanced over the up-to-date Tri-Fleet starcharts. No meteors or other celestial bodies were charted on the screen. That didn’t mean a rogue asteroid or meteor couldn’t be out there. Even so, he had a feel for navigation in space that many of his fellows in the Academy had envied. He knew that it was a trap.

“Throw a modifier on your scanners,” he told Jennings, “and tie in the master computer for analysis. I think we’ve located our ‘friend in distress.’”

“Yes, sir.” Jennings’s slender hands flew over the controls. He smiled. “Well, I’ll be a—there they are, sir. Two of them, Rojok configuration. Heading toward us at two sublights, using a meteor holoscreen to mask their signals.”

Stern grinned, feeling confident now. “Hold your course, astrogator. Weaponry, tie in your emerillium boosters and give me the best widescan spray pattern you can manage. Fire on my signal. Higgins, bring us down to half-sublight and hold.”

“Aye, sir.”

Stern leaned back in his chair, keeping his eyes glued to the short-range scanner screen on his console. As he watched the approach of the “meteor” he had to grudgingly admire the strategy of the Rojok captain piloting that lead ship.

The Rojok vessels drew closer by the second. Tension grew on the bridge. The crew was accustomed to these confrontations, but the effect of battle was still the same. Fear, quiet terror, dry throats were all a part of space conflicts. Retreat was impossible once combat was engaged. Where was there to go, except into cold space? Uncertainty rippled through the crew. No commander, no matter how capable, could guarantee the outcome of a battle.

The Rojoks, depending on their “meteor skin” disguise to camouflage them, were beginning to make their run. To an untrained eye, the only disturbance among the bright stars would have been a wayward little meteor feeling its way to oblivion. But Stern knew, and was ready.

“Weaponry, stand by,” he called.

“Ready, sir.”

“Watch your screen. Give him five seconds into the run, then lock on to him.”

“Counting, sir. One…two…three…four…”

Before he could voice the final number, a violent shock wave hit the Bellatrix and threw it careening off course. Stern’s back slammed into the arm of his chair and he fell with a racking thud to the deck as the generators that maintained the pressurized interior hit a blip. He was on his feet before the full effect of the bruising ride hit his suddenly throbbing temples.

“Grab the helm, Mister!” He hit the intercom switch. “Weaponry, post two,” he called into the intership lock, “can you lock on to him?”

“Yes, sir. Got him!”

“Fire all tubes!”

The ship lurched as the condensed tubes emitting emerillium waves left the ship, pitching the crew against the bulkheads. Stern grabbed his chair and threw himself into it.

“Helm, divert to secondary course!” he barked.

“Leaving over, sir!”

“Weaponry, success of strike?”

“We hit one of them, sir, amidships,” the weaponry officer reported. “But the others…”

“Line up your pattern and fire when ready!”

“But, sir,” the officer argued over the screen, “we don’t have anything left to hit them with! The hit we took blew hell out of our boosters. We’re paralyzed aft!”

“Helm, can we outrun him?” Stern shot at the astrogator.

“We can try, sir, providing we have enough fuel to throw to the auxiliary units. Leaving over now.”

Stern’s hands bit into the soft plastiglas of the chair arms as the big ship began to lurch forward with a humming surge of power. “Come on, baby,” he whispered, as if the ship were a female he could coax. “Come on.”

“He’s tailing us, sir,” the astrogator called over his shoulder. “He’s barely a parsec behind and closing. When he makes half that distance, he’ll fire. And we can’t make any more speed.”

Speed, Stern thought furiously. Dammit, speed!

His hand went to his head, to the blinding pain that gripped him when he tried to think, to reason…He fought it. And a flash got through.

“Helm, hard right flank and slow to sublight!” he barked. “Quick, dammit!”

“Yes, sir!”

The astrogator dived for the control, and seconds later the huge ship lurched like a fish out of water. Stern ground his teeth as the braking spools were engaged, bringing the force of thirty G’s down onto his chest. He could barely breathe, the pressure was so great.

The stars came blurring back into focus. The pressure eased. He pulled his aching body upright and gasped for breath. “The Rojok?” he asked quickly.

The astrogator turned with an apologetic shake of his head. “Sorry, sir. He’s on to us. He slowed as we did. He’s right behind us, and I can’t give you enough speed to ditch him. I’m…sorry, sir.”

Death. He could taste it. He could see in the faces of his crew that they, too, knew. Again, he fought the pain inside his head for a strategy, any strategy, that might spare the ship. But that, too, was a losing battle.

Wearily he looked around at the somber, set faces of the bridge crew. He sighed wearily. “If we die,” he said, “we do it like men. Any argument?”

The officers and crewmen shook their heads wordlessly.

He nodded. “Turn the ship, astrogator,” he said quietly.

“Course, sir?”

“Straight down the Rojok’s throat,” he replied, “with every ounce of speed you can manage.”

“Yes, sir.” The astrogator’s fingers whipped the controls into position. “Ready, sir.”

Stern fixed his eyes on the screen, at the oval Rojok ship hanging there in space like a fish waiting for a worm. His heart was climbing into his throat, and he felt a fear he hadn’t known existed. Familiar, this feeling. As if he’d been through that narrow door once before and dreaded repetition of it. The fear simulated panic, and he had to fight the urge to get up and run.

The pain, the searing pain in his mind, grew steadily. Something alien in his brain was fighting this decision. Trying with pain to force him to countermand his own commands.

His hands gripped the arms of his chair. He remembered Madeline and Hahnson down below and tried not to think about them. He straightened with a tremendous effort. Dignity first. It was the credo of the SSC. Even in death, he had to have the dignity of his command.

Almost blind with pain, he drew in a heavy sigh. “Astrogator,” he said in a gruff whisper. “Ahead full!”

The astrogator turned and met his eyes with a somber, resigned ghost of a smile. In it were admiration and honor. “Aye, sir.”

The flagship Morcai sliced through the stars like a giant metallic blade, her massive engines making far less noise than her first officer. Komak’s usual high spirits did as much for the weary bridge crew as the promise of shore leave. Only the Morcai’s stoic commander seemed to be unaffected by it.

Dtimun, sitting in his spoollike command chair, listened only halfheartedly. His mind was a galaxy away, on Enmehkmehk, home planet of the Rojok Dynasty. It was there that Chacon would surely take his captive—to Ahkmau, the infamous death camp on one of its moons where political prisoners were kept. The thought of Lyceria in such a place was torture, even to a career soldier’s trained mind.

“ETA Trimerius?” he asked the helmsman.

“Two mekkam, Commander,” was the reply.

Komak joined the older Centaurian, and the laughing green light left his eyes. They grew blue with concern. “Your eyes speak for you,” he told Dtimun, careful lest the others hear him. “I regret Lyceria’s capture. I know that the commander’s heart was soft for her.”

“My heart is soft for no one.” Dtimun’s darkened eyes belied the words. His gaze went to the main viewscreen. “Maliche, I could make more speed in a crippled scout! Are your gravs malfunctioning, helmsman?”

The pilot glanced at him. “I have not fired them, Commander,” he said, and his eyes went to Komak.

“I assumed,” Komak told the commander, “that you would wish a lesser speed to keep the Earth ship under surveillance. Should it encounter a Rojok patrol, its defense systems would render it incapable of a counterattack. Human ship designers make no allowance for stabilizing BEK gyros and reflectors such as ours.”

Dtimun glared at the younger Centaurian. “I will not play parent to an inferior shipload of aliens. I have no more love for humans than does the Rojok tyrant Mangus Lo, or his field marshal, Chacon.”

“Were it our race that Mangus Lo persecuted in his death camps,” Komak said quietly, “instead of the humans, I think your sympathies might find more interest in them.”

“By Simalichar, you try my patience!” Dtimun stood up. His chameleon eyes faded from a concerned blue to a questioning gray. “What merit can there be in a race whose entire history is preoccupied with pride in cruelty and contempt for life?”

Komak’s eyes went green with mischief. “I had not known that the commander’s library included textdiscs on human history.”

Dtimun ignored him.

Komak studied the older alien with respectful eyes. In a society where Clan was life itself, the commander wore no Clan insignia and claimed no allegiances. He was as mysterious as he was feared and respected by his men. In his years of commanding the Holconcom, no challenge to his authority had ever been given. Not even by the emperor, whom Dtimun treated with utter disdain. His ongoing feud with old Tnurat Alamantimichar, head of the Dectat, was legendary in the space services. No one knew what had started it. No one dared ask. But Komak knew things about him that the other crewmen didn’t. Dtimun was aware that Komak’s odd outbursts of insight had a basis in fact. It had been disconcerting when he realized that Komak knew more about him than he’d anticipated. As he thought about it, Dtimun glared at Komak.

“Commander,” the comtech called out, “the Earth ship has disengaged her lightsteds and is slowing to a crawl. I show two Rojok destroyers trailing her.”

Dtimun turned his angry eyes from Komak to the viewscreen at his semicircle console. The Rojoks were already firing when he engaged the video. The Earth ship hung as if dead in space, offering no resistance as salvo after salvo connected with her hull and sent her reeling to and fro. Then, with the suddenness of a cosmic storm, she turned slowly and began to pick up speed as she began a run that would take her on a collision course with the lead Rojok vessel.

“Is that black-eyed captain of theirs a madman?” Dtimun growled. “What use can this strategy serve? Komak, check the energy scanner.”

Komak’s hands flew over the scanner switches on the command console. “His weaponry is useless,” he reported. “His fuel output reads less than one-quarter capacity and his repulsers are almost gone. I estimate two more hits will finish him.”

Dtimun watched the sleek starship bear down on the Rojok, so quickly that the enemy ship couldn’t possibly get out of the way in time. “I understand his motive,” he said. “A laudable last resort, but a hollow victory. Helmsman, hard about and prime main batteries!”

“Aye, sir.”

Dtimun dropped into the command chair with his long fingers barely touching the master weaponry control panel. It was going to require precision timing, this maneuver. If he fired too soon, the second Rojok vessel would have time to destroy the Earth ship. If he fired too late, the spray pattern would destroy both ships.

The Morcai began to bear down on the Rojoks like a flash of light, and the stars around her seemed to be speeding in the opposite direction in her wake.

“I register a scan,” Komak said quickly. “The Rojok has spotted us.”

Dtimun’s fingers tensed on the firing switch. “If he changes course,” he said tightly, “I may cost the human his ship. Helmsman, take me in on a deflect pattern, close range. Time will allow me only one shot. I want the best I can manage.”

“Yes, Commander. Leaving over now on deflect course. Engines ahead, full-drive.”

Dtimun focused his huge eyes on the screen. His long fingers curled around the firing switch. Out in space, the Rojok grew like a suddenly inflated balloon, filling the viewscreen.

Holt Stern sat quietly in his chair, watching the Rojok flash toward the Bellatrix, with a deceptive numbness in his chest. The bridge already had the feel of a morgue as each crew member spent his last seconds in stonelike aloneness, untouching, unspeaking. Stern clenched his teeth to hold back the fear. At least, he thought ironically, the headache would die with him. And then, the Rojok ship filled the viewscreen…

The Rojok came screaming in toward the Bellatrix. There was a final surge of power as Higgins ordered the astrogator to throw the throttle wide-open. Then, quite suddenly, a ball of green mist enveloped the enemy ship.

It took Stern precious seconds to realize what was happening. In a mind yielded to death, thought came slowly.

“Full about!” he barked at the astrogator, praying the man would recover fast enough to make the maneuver. A split second’s delay, and the Bellatrix would go up in atoms along with the Rojok.

“Aye, sir!” The astrogator’s thin, trembling hands seemed to hit the switches in slow motion.

Stern felt the huge starship vibrate like a running heart with the sudden braking. She bolted under the pressure, as if torn apart between time and speed. Then, with a recovery that was nothing short of miraculous, she began to turn and inch away from the doomed Rojok ship. In seconds that were centuries to her crew, she pulled away with a rippling burst of speed just as the Rojok ship exploded in silent fireworks out in the eternal night. The shock wave that came in her wake was enough to rattle the scanners on the bridge.

“God!” Stern breathed in mingled relief and gratitude.

“Sir, we’ve got the megatrons back in working order, now,” Higgins said quickly. “Not nearly up to par, but I think we’ve got enough charge to hit the other Rojok.”

“Lock on target and fire at will!” Stern told him.

“On target, Captain. Megas away!”

Stern watched the blue bolts fly into the second Rojok with boyish excitement. The resulting explosion was no less enjoyable than the first had been, and the colorful display produced nothing more than a light jar to the Bellatrix. Stern leaned back in his chair with a long, shuddering sigh.

“Good work, Higgins,” he told his exec. His eyes went to the astrogator and fished for a name, and was surprised when he couldn’t find it. “What’s your name, son?” he asked.