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CHAPTER ONE Battered and sore, Dr. Madeline Ruszel stood at attention in front of the Holconcom commander, Dtimun. The tall alien perched on the edge of his liquiform desk with his arms crossed, glaring at her. His cat-eyes, which changed color to mirror his mood, were the dark brown of anger. She knew she looked unpresentable. Her red Holconcom uniform was stained with synthale and her own blood. She was disheveled and bruised. Her long, wavy reddish-gold hair was in a tangle all the way to her waist, and also sweaty from her recent activities in the base officers’ lounge. Contacted by the base military police unit, after her apprehension, Dtimun had ordered Ruszel brought to the Morcai, the flagship of the integrated Centaurian and human commando unit known as the Holconcom. He hadn’t said a word since she arrived, with bruises just coming out on the soft skin of her face, around one of her green eyes. She’d been standing at attention for several minutes, waiting for the explosion. H
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO Sick bay was full. Not only were there combat casualties brought in from all parts of the battlefront, but a new type of influenza was making itself felt among members of the Tri-Galaxy Fleet. There was no vaccination so far, and hardly any treatment that worked. “I remember Dr. Wainberg, head of the Exobiology Department at the Tri-Fleet Military Academy, lecturing us on viruses,” Madeline said as she and Edris Mallory worked side by side on combat wounds encountered by two Dacerian scouts who’d been ambushed near Terramer. Edris laughed. “So do I. He and our human anatomy chief, Dr. Camp, gave lab exams that were, to say the least, challenging.” Madeline grinned. “Challenging to cadets who thought they could pass those courses by dissecting holospecimens instead of the real thing. The medical sector didn’t tolerate slackers. They meant us to be taught proper surgical techniques, and we were.” She frowned. “You know, it’s still fascinating to me that viruses aren’t actuall
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE Madeline was catching up on reports on her virtual desk when a flash came in from Admiral Lawson. She answered it at once. “Yes, sir?” she said respectfully. He grimaced. “I hate to have to ask you to do this, Ruszel,” he replied, “but everybody else cut me off the minute I mentioned a personal dispatch I needed to send to Dtimun…” He waited. She didn’t protest. He grinned. “I knew you had the guts to do it.” She sighed. “Everybody else is afraid of him, especially lately,” she confided. “He’s been in a sour mood. Not my fault,” she added at once. “I haven’t done a thing to upset him.” Lawson reserved judgment on that, but he didn’t say so. “I’m flashing the dispatch to you. Top secret. Eyes only. I can’t trust anyone else to transport it.” She blinked when it appeared, in solid form, in her cyberreconstitutor “in” tray. “Sir, you couldn’t flash it to the C.O.?” He shrugged. “I could, if he’d answer his unit. He won’t.” His face tautened. “He won’t like the dispatch, but
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR The war, like all wars, had periods of monotony and boredom. It also had sudden spurts of urgency. This was one. The Rojoks had landed an advance force on a planet in the Dibella system and were preparing a staging area for a far larger command. Lagana was the largest continent on the planet; a rich source of clean water and foodstuffs, of which the Rojok supply lines were desperately in need. Dtimun called in all off-duty personnel and set a course for the planet. The Dibella system was a link in a chain leading to the home planets of the Tri-Galaxy Council members. The advance, which was small at the moment, had to be stopped and the staging area destroyed. Lawson, for once, didn’t oppose the commando mission. Madeline had wanted to take Edris Mallory along on the mission, even if she’d had to conceal her on board. But once the Morcai put down on Lagana, the Dibella system’s fourth planet, she was glad she hadn’t. It was no milk run. There was a considerable Rojok presen
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE The medical station on Trimerius was overrun with battle casualties, and Edris Mallory was heading up a trauma team when Madeline walked in. She looked up and visibly relaxed when she saw her superior officer. “Oh, thank goodness,” she said fervently. “There wasn’t enough of me to go around!” Madeline only smiled. She activated her surgical field and went to work. “Can you tell me what happened?” Edris asked hours later when they were washing up after the last surgery. “What do you mean?” Madeline asked. “While I was on break, I overheard Dr. Hahnson talking to someone about injuries you sustained when the Rojoks threw you over a cliff,” she said in a hushed, incredulous tone. “I didn’t believe it!” “It’s true,” she replied. “I had a close call. Luckily, there were plenty of trees to break my fall,” she added without meeting the other woman’s eyes. Edris stopped washing her hands in the chemical field and just stared at her. “Trees,” Madeline repeated. “Big, soft trees.”
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX Madeline cursed with every step she took down a red valley that looked as if it had once been a river. This continent was largely desert, and there were chova mounds everywhere. The giant ants had a potent venom, a neurotoxin that killed quickly. She kept to the sheer wall at one side of the valley, avoiding the mounds. She hadn’t noticed a caspidas ramp—a linear accelerator used for long jump rapid transit—until she’d stepped on it just after she and Stern separated. The next thing she knew, she was miles from the city, on a rough path that led to some sort of power substation. The accelerator devices weren’t commonly used in this part of the galaxy, but she assumed that this one was for the convenience of utility workers repairing power grids, to allow them to avoid the dangerous chova mounds where colonies of the deadly giant antlike creatures lived. She could have kicked herself for the mistake; especially when she noticed that the engine in the device was smoking. She
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN Dtimun gave her a silent glare when she came aboard the Morcai behind him. But if she thought she’d have time to explain her absence further, she was wrong. He motioned her to her own department and jogged toward the bridge access ladder. She glared after him, almost colliding with Komak as he ran to his post. He flashed green eyes at her. “You are late, Madelineruszel.” “I am, but I have an excuse. Not that the old man’s going to give me the opportunity to tell it to him,” she fumed. She stopped and frowned thoughtfully. “Komak, you always run my names together. But the guys back on the planet didn’t.” “Guys?” he asked curiously. She hesitated. Perhaps she wasn’t to mention the group to anyone else. Dtimun had seen the Centaurians planetside, but nobody else had. Komak made an odd sound and looked shocked. “What’s the matter with you?” He started to speak and grimaced. “I am not permitted to say. I must run!” He took off before she could question his strange behavior. Hi
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT The staff meeting had none of its usual passion. Probably, Madeline thought, because they were just past the difficult mission of rescuing the diplomats from Ondar and with no new objective in sight for the time being. Lawson was massing for a new offensive, and he never advanced without proper supply and communications lines. It would probably be weeks before the Morcai saw action again. “We are within easy reach of Dacerius,” Komak spoke up. “Would shore leave not be a fitting reward for our latest ordeal of combat?” “Hear, hear!” Madeline seconded. Everyone else agreed, all at the same time. Hopeful looks claimed the faces that turned toward Dtimun. He sighed, sitting on the edge of his liquiform desk, his arms folded across his broad chest. “Dacerius is far too dangerous a destination for shore leave,” he told Komak. “Rojok forward patrols have recently erected bases in the desert regions.” “There’s always Benaski Port,” Stern suggested. Dtimun glowered at him. “The m
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE Dtimun started toward Madeline at once. Both adult serpents moved in front of her and spread their hoods. Amazed, as he read their thoughts, he stopped in his tracks. The serpents moved gracefully to face Ruszel. For a few seconds, while the baby serpent rubbed her cheek and purred, she waited for death. And then, without warning, the two adult serpents moved on either side of her, swayed and purred, and rubbed their heads against hers. The two Centaurians stood spellbound a few feet away. The little serpent jumped from Madeline’s shoulder to the hood of the larger of the two big serpents. All three looked at Madeline and suddenly vanished. Madeline let out the breath she’d been holding and gaped. “What the…?” “And she will befriend the serpents,” the seer quoted, breathlessly. Dtimun was in front of her, his great eyes dark blue with lingering faint traces of the concern he’d felt. Involuntarily, his hand touched her long hair. Fearful for him, because this was a taboo th
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN Inevitably, her quick mind rebelled against the boring and endless task of adding infinite numbers toward the absolute value of Pi, and the instant she lowered her mental guard, Dtimun was right there in her mind. “Sir, you mustn’t,” she protested urgently. He hesitated. But then she felt his mind withdraw. He turned away from her, toward a second huge open fireplace that dominated the room. In it was a holographic fire, complete with popping and crackling sounds and real heat. Above it was a painting. It depicted a fierce battle during the Great Galaxy War. A tall Centaurian was leading a charge on foot, holding a huge, glowing energy sword in the air over his head. His features were generic, although he seemed to be bristling with authority even in the static setting. She glanced at her commander and knew that he’d never brought another person here, not even one of his own species. It was an honor. She stared at him with mingled emotions. Strongest of all was curiosity. “
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN Madeline had thought that she could separate her professional identity from the woman who suddenly harbored feelings she couldn’t control. But she couldn’t. In the weeks since she and Dtimun had gone to Memcache, everything had changed. She found herself watching him, flushed and flustering when she was around him, nervous as a cat. In turn, he had begun to avoid her. Caneese had warned her, for reasons still not understood, to avoid being alone with him. But that was simple. He never permitted himself to be alone with her. Now, even when she had to consult him on assignments, the door to his office was always left open. The distance between them was new and disturbing. She didn’t challenge him, as she used to, or defy him. She had become quiet, intense, fascinated with the new emotion that was overwhelming her. Even as it grew, he became more elusive and his temper deteriorated even more. Things were bound to come to a head, and they did, at a called meeting of all Tri-
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE Madeline spent her R&R in the base gym, trying to make up for all the missed practice in combat techniques. If she did have to leave the Holconcom and join an SSC unit, she’d never cut it without some remedial combat practice. Dtimun wouldn’t permit her to carry a weapon and he insisted that she remain behind the lines in any forward mission. Combat wasn’t really required of her aboard the Morcai. In a forward division of troops, it would be. The Amazon Division would be the only place she could go, if it came down to it. Maybe that wouldn’t happen. Maybe the absence would relieve Dtimun’s symptoms. She hoped so. Flannegan, of the First Fleet, helped her with the workouts. For all his bluster and insults in bar brawls, he was a formidable fighter on the mats. He’d been in combat even more than Madeline, and he knew moves that she didn’t, handy for close-in fighting, which Rojoks loved. He was a master trainer in hand-to-hand for the First Fleet, to which he belonged. He
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Two weeks later, Madeline was in charge of a company of girls in the forward division, charged with search and rescue of a downed Jebob ship on one of the planets in the Meg-Warren sector, which was several parsecs distance from the front. It wasn’t a choice assignment. The planet on which the ship went down was Akaashe, as the Cehn-Tahr called it, the home planet of the fearsome Nagaashe, the giant serpents who had once been the terror of the three galaxies. Their numbers were reduced now, and no one believed that any were left even on their home world. Madeline, who had seen both adult and child of the species, and knew of the Cehn-Tahr hopes for a treaty with them, knew better. “No one’s seen a Nagaashe in decades,” Madeline’s EXO, Darmila, mused. “They’re probably extinct. This is just a milk run, ma’am, something to get you back into the rhythm of the job.” “I’ve seen a Nagaashe in the past six standard months,” Madeline said solemnly. “And you have no idea of the
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Dtimun was out the airlock of the Morcai ahead of the old one and the kehmatemer as soon as the ship’s massive engines whispered to a stop. His mind searched for Madeline’s and could not find it. Anguish washed over him. The Nagaashe approached the Cehn-Tahr warily. The humans in the Holconcom started backing up at just the sight of the giant serpents. Weapons Specialist Jones raised the barrel of his nanomissile launcher. Dtimun caught the barrel and threw it up without even looking at him. “Put yourself on report, Jones,” he said. “Yes, sir,” Jones groaned. “Sorry, sir.” The old one came outside with two robed figures, both of whom had joined the ship from a skimmer as they passed Dacerius. Everyone stood back to let the robed figures approach the giant serpents. They bowed and hissed. The robed figures hissed back. So began the long and arduous process of negotiation for Ruszel’s release. But Dtimun was losing his mind as he stood beside the Cehn-Tahr contingent, to
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Madeline was taken to the fortress near which she had first met Caneese, in the religious compound at Mahkmannah on Memcache. The older woman was there to meet the ambutube, tossing out instructions as if the fortress were as familiar to her as her own home. Madeline noticed it. Dtimun only smiled. Lieutenant Edris Mallory and Dr. Strick Hahnson were guiding the ambutube into the bedroom that Caneese signified. It was bigger than the entire barracks where Madeline had lived for most of her career as a medical practitioner. “Here?” she asked weakly as two strong attendants eased her out of the ambutube and onto a bed which seemed big enough for six people. “Here,” Caneese said gently, and with a smile. “You are an honored guest.” “Why?” Madeline asked bluntly. “All I did was get blown up by some angry serpents.” Caneese laughed. “You made peace with the serpents, who have been our adversaries since the end of the Great Galaxy War. The Dectat is in an uproar. Our finest d
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Madeline was feeling much better. Caneese had the staff of the fortress, as Madeline thought of it, concoct recipes with tastes that appealed to a human palate. The room had been filled with pots of wonderful flowers that emitted a subtle perfume, one that didn’t cause the head stuffiness that some plants did. The window was open, so that Madeline could look out on the formal gardens behind the structure. Imagine a simple soldier in a place like this, she thought, and was more aware than ever of the differences between herself and the Holconcom commander. He was obviously an aristocrat, important in his society far beyond his abilities to command a crack military unit. The hopelessness of her situation didn’t improve with that thought. Soon, when she healed, she must return to the Amazon Division, to war and more war until the conflict with the Rojoks was resolved, one way or another. And that didn’t appear to be an event that would occur soon. She pulled her aching bod
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
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