The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit

* * *

THEY HAD HOPED to land undetected, but the Rojoks had new state-of-the-art sensors and they worked. The minute the scout ships touched down, the Rojoks were waiting for them.

The onslaught was fierce. Two Rojok squads armed with kremoks, the new rapid-firing plasma rifles that fried internal organs, tore through the human infantry like fire through forests. Madeline saw two soldiers she’d served with since basic training go down, dead before they hit the ground. She checked them, anyway, but it was far too late for any medical technique to bring them back other than as clones, a living death in Terravegan society. She rose and moved quickly to the sound of plasma fire, forcing herself to be professional, not to let her emotions get the better of her. She had to tend to the living.

The medical research facility on Camcara was developing a counterweapon, a chemical screen that would be woven into the newest uniforms issued to the SSC. Madeline had adapted the technology for the Holconcom and Dtimun had authorized the addition and made it standard issue. But the uniforms were still in quality control tests.

Some of the commando squads were still using the older chasats, and one of those units had wedged itself between Dtimun and his bodyguard in the thick, muggy green jungle of vines and plants that covered this continent. Madeline cursed as she tried to move past a tangle that resembled a spiderweb. Then she remembered the illegal Gresham she’d tucked in the small away kit over one shoulder. She pulled it out and activated the power pack. With that, she cut through the vegetation in no time. She pressed ahead. The urgency grew as she heard the thum-thum sound of chasat fire close by.

“Ruszel!” She heard the ranking member of Dtimun’s four-man bodyguard unit in the tissue-thin monitor pasted just behind her ear.

“Yes!” she spoke into the matching monitor that rested like part of the skin at her lips.

“The commander has been hit!”

For an instant, the world went black. She was very still. “Critically?”

“Unknown. We saw him go down. Afterward, he did not move. We cannot get to him from our position. He has not answered our comms.”

“Where is he?” she asked tautly.

He gave coordinates. She didn’t speak to her comrades, who were mopping up the Rojok attack force. She motioned her medics toward three wounded Cehn-Tahr and then, with her heart racing at her throat, she sprinted toward the position where the commander was located. She didn’t dare think about his injury. With his greatly modified strength, if he was unconscious...!

Terror welled up in her. She didn’t see where she was going, she only ran, seeing the coordinates in the ether display that popped up from its concealment at the corner of each eye, produced by a film of circuitry which she wore over her corneas. She followed the blip, her illegal Gresham ready to fire. She wasn’t going to be captured. The C.O.’s life might depend on her, if he was still alive.

If he was still alive. She felt the words, like knives. He couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be! She realized suddenly that if he died, the light would go out of the world. There was nothing that would make up for his loss.

Forbidden thoughts, she told herself, and she must clamp down on them at once. She was a doctor, and a patient was waiting. That was what she needed to be thinking about.

She rushed through a cover of native vegetation and saw the commander flat on his back with two Rojok soldiers standing over him, chasats drawn.

She yelled, commanding their attention before they could fire. As they turned, surprised, she took them down in a heartbeat with two quick blasts and never even paused to check, to make sure they were no longer a threat. She was a dead shot, especially under combat conditions, having been battle-tested as a child.

“Sir!” She slid onto her knees at his side, her wrist scanner already busy, searching out clues to his condition. “Sir?”

The members of his bodyguard suddenly came running from the direction of the worst fighting. Their uniforms were torn and one had a bloody arm.

“Why did you leave him?” she raged at them from a face as red as her hair. “Your job is to protect the commander, not to act as regular combat troops!”

In her mind a familiar, furious voice made itself heard. “Remember who you are, madam!” it demanded.

Her eyes turned to his. They were open, brown with pain and anger, but open and alive. She was shaking. She hadn’t even realized it.

“Remember who you are,” the angry voice sounded again in her mind. “Pull yourself together! You disgrace the uniform with this display of hysterics.”

She forced her mind to work, her body to relax. Her face reverted to its usual serene expression. “I beg your pardon,” she told his bodyguard in her usual, measured tones. “I spoke out of turn. We lost some of the Terravegans in the first wave, two of whom I had served with for years. It...affected me.”

“No apology is necessary, Ruszel,” the ranking bodyguard officer spoke for all of them. “We were pinned down in a gulley and could not get to the commander in time. Had you not been armed, the Rojoks would have killed him.”

“What...Rojoks?” Dtimun gritted as she opened his tunic and revealed a penetrating chest wound. “And what do you mean, had Ruszel not been armed?” he demanded, his angry voice gaining strength.

Madeline, busily working on his wound, tried to look invisible.

“Two Rojoks were in the act of killing you when Ruszel fired on them,” the officer said respectfully.

“You were armed?” he demanded of her.

She ground her teeth together as she pulled out another tool and began to repair the cellular damage. “So court-martial me.”

“I intend to!” he shot back. “How many times must I tell you that medics are not permitted weapons in combat? It draws fire from the enemy directly to you!”

“She saved your life, sir,” the eldest of his bodyguard interjected solemnly.

“Yes. And that’s twice...” Madeline began with defiant humor.

“Silence!” he growled. He tried to sit up while she was still working on him.

She pushed him back down. “Stay there!” she grumbled. “I can’t mend tissue on a moving target!”

The bodyguard stood rigidly, waiting for the explosion. To their amazement, the commander only made a sound in his throat and lay back down in the grass while Ruszel’s deft hands reduced the wound.

“After all the time and effort I put into saving your life at Ahkmau, I’m not letting some stray Rojoks take you out,” she muttered as she worked.

“We have already agreed that you most likely repaired me in such fashion that I will never function properly again,” he reminded her.

She made a face. “You could look for years in the Tri-Fleet and not find another Cularian medicine specialist who could operate on you under combat conditions.”

He didn’t answer. The rigid lines of his face began to relax. Madeline realized belatedly that he had been concealing the extent of the pain. It must have been horrific, she reasoned, considering the extent of the damage.

She finished the sutures and applied a sterile bandage. “You’re lucky that the Rojok hit your lung and not your heart,” she said absently.

“Your misfortune,” he replied, touching the invisible bandage with the tips of his fingers. “You have been warned repeatedly about flouting the regulations forbidding weapons to medics. This time you will pay the price.”

She got to her feet, trying not to notice the broad, muscular chest with its thick wedge of black hair confronting her as he followed suit.

“You’ll file charges,” she said nonchalantly, “the board will ask for my side of the story, I’ll call your bodyguard as witnesses and everybody will note that you would be dead if I hadn’t disobeyed orders. You’ll lose your case, I’ll get a commendation, and the Tri-Fleet will foot the bill for all the legal wrangling.” She gave him a smug look from twinkling green eyes.

“We would be required to tell the truth under oath,” the chief of Dtimun’s personal bodyguard interjected. “Sorry, sir.”

Dtimun closed his uniform shirt. “Get back down there and check the Rojok camp for intel,” he growled at the officer.

The other Cehn-Tahr saluted, grinned at Madeline and led his unit back to the dwindling sounds of combat from above.

Madeline knew she was in trouble. She didn’t even have to note the color of his eyes. It was bad enough that she’d carried a Gresham. It was worse that she’d forgotten herself so completely that she’d shown her fear for the danger he was in. She toyed with complex mathematical computations, hoping they might prevent him from seeing too much.

He didn’t say anything at first. He checked his virtual combat array to see how the mopping-up was proceeding, and he noted the position and strength of the remaining Rojok troops.

“Well, I couldn’t let them kill you,” she said defensively when he finally glared down at her. “I’m a doctor. I took an oath to save lives.”