The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit

“Rub it in,” she muttered, flushing. “I was intent on saving a patient. I didn’t see the Rojoks rushing me.”

“Your impulsive nature could lead you to tragedy,” he said. “You must exhibit more control of yourself.”

“I do try, sir. But human nature is what it is. We can’t change what we are.”

He grew contemplative. “No,” he said, an odd bitterness in his tone. “We cannot.”

“About Mallory, sir...”

“You can use the comps to give her a virtual tour of the ship,” he said firmly. “I do not need any more distractions aboard. You and your temper provide quite enough already.”

“My temper?” she exclaimed. “Look who’s talking!”

“Remember to whom you are speaking!” he shot back.

“I didn’t break a Gresham in half with my bare hands when I lost my patience...!”

“Dismissed!”

She almost bit her tongue off keeping the reply back that she wanted to make. She saluted sharply, turned and marched out of the office. Behind her, she heard muffled curses in Cehn-Tahr, and marched faster.

* * *

LIEUTENANT (J.G.) EDRIS MALLORY’S expression was one of pure joy as she sipped the illegal caffeine in Madeline’s office. The use of stimulants, even natural ones, was prohibited by Tri-Fleet regulations. Not that anyone enforced the law, especially since Admiral Lawson himself sneaked in java from the Altairian colonies. Of course, he was an admiral and could get away with it. Madeline might not fare as well.

Edris closed her eyes and savored the taste and scent as she lifted her head. “Oh, bliss,” she sighed.

Madeline laughed. “It is pretty special, out here in the big black, isn’t it? We’re so far away from anything that can’t be grown in solution.” She sipped her own coffee. “I have to talk to you about something.”

Edris grimaced. “I’ve screwed up again, haven’t I?” she asked. “I’m just not suited to life in our present age, you know. I washed out of combat school with a memorable low grade, after I couldn’t get accredited as a breeder. Now here I am doing combat medicine, and I fumble more than I fix...”

“You’re doing well,” Madeline interrupted. “All you lack is confidence in your own abilities. Well, that,” she added hesitantly, “and the ability to talk back to people. To the Cehn-Tahr specifically.”

The slender young blonde moved restlessly in her chair. “They’re very intimidating, especially the Holconcom commander,” she replied. “He glares.”

“You have to learn to glare back,” Madeline told her. “They’re a misogynist culture. Their own women are denied access to the military, much less combat. The Cehn-Tahr think our military is mad to permit women to serve in it, mentally neutered or not.”

Edris finished the last precious drop of her coffee. “I’m just glad it’s you and not me serving aboard the Morcai.”

“That’s what I want to talk to you about,” Madeline told her. “Since Holmes and Watts shipped out, you and I are the only experienced Cularian specialists on base right now. There are twenty in graduate school, four of whom are due to be assigned to Trimerius when they graduate. But if something happens to me, you’re the only backup around.”

“Nothing will happen to you, ma’am,” Edris assured her with a smile. “You’re one of the bravest people I know.”

Madeline hesitated. “Anyone can die. The Holconcom can’t function without a medic who can operate on Cehn-Tahr soldiers in an emergency. The commander hates medics as a rule, and he won’t permit the Dectat to assign physicians to him. He’s reluctant to have me aboard, but Ahkmau convinced him that it was lunacy not to carry a Cularian specialist into battle.”

“He scares me to death,” Edris commented, wrapping her arms around her slender figure. “I don’t know what I’d do, if I ever had to substitute for you in the Holconcom.”

“That’s just the point. The commander agrees with me, that we need to start letting you come with us on certain missions aboard the Morcai so that you can get used to the routine aboard ship.” She deliberately didn’t meet Mallory’s eyes as she lied to her. It was in a good cause.

Edris lost two shades of color. “No,” she said at once. “Oh, no, I can’t do that. I can barely manage here, when you’re away with the unit. I could never...I mean, I can’t...”

“You can,” Madeline said, and in a tone that didn’t brook argument. “You got through medical school. You’ll adapt to the Morcai.”

Edris bit her lower lip. She looked hunted.

“They’re just men,” she said, exasperated. “Alien men, but males are pretty much the same anywhere.”

“Not the Cehn-Tahr,” Edris argued. “I’ve heard stories.”

Madeline raised both eyebrows.

Edris hesitated, but the gossip was too juicy not to share. “They say,” she said in a conspiratorial tone, “that a Cehn-Tahr soldier ate a young Jebob recruit during the Great Galaxy War...ma’am?”

Madeline was doubled over, laughing. That story had gone through the ranks over the years like a fever. Some people did actually believe it.

“Well, they said,” Edris said defensively.

“Edris,” Madeline replied, wiping away tears of near hysteria, “I can give you proof that no Cehn-Tahr has ever eaten another soldier.”

“You can?”

“The C.O. has never eaten me,” she reminded her colleague. “And nobody over the years has given him more cause.”

“You do wear on his nerves, I hear.”

Madeline laughed. “His nerves, his temper, his patience. He’s dressed me down, grounded me, brigged me on occasion,” she recalled. “But he’s never taken a bite out of me.”

That was true. The battles between the commander of the Holconcom and his chief medic had assumed the mantle of legend. Once, Madeline had followed Dtimun off the ship raging about his refusal to let her suture a bone-deep wound in his leg. He trailed blood out the airlock and just kept walking, even when she threw a cyberclamp after him in impotent rage.

“Isn’t it amazing that he never busted you in rank?” Edris mused.

“He did try,” Madeline assured her. “But my father is a colonel in the Paraguard Wing and best friends with Admiral Lawson. They ganged up on the commander and refused to let the demotion go through.” She grinned. “The C.O. was livid! And did he get even! He requisitioned my billet for storage and I had to sleep in the cargo hold for a solid week. He only relented when I borrowed a player from Hahnson and flooded the hold with ancient human drum and bagpipe music.”

“I heard about that,” Edris chuckled. “Didn’t he break a Gresham in half...?”

“With his bare hands, and lucky for him that the power pack was drained.” Madeline nodded enthusiastically. She pondered that. “You know, they really are incredibly powerful.”

Edris toyed with her java cup. “Do I have to go?”

Madeline nodded.

Edris sighed. “Okay, then.”

Madeline smiled. “Good girl,” she said affectionately, as she would have to a younger sister; if she had one. The government restricted information about the parents of children raised in government nurseries. It was one of many laws that she simply accepted, because she was educated to accept it, without question. But after serving with the Holconcom, her attitudes about her government were undergoing some serious alterations. Not that she could speak of them to Edris. Not now, anyway. She went back to work.

* * *

EDRIS MALLORY HAD never been aboard a Cehn-Tahr ship before. Everything about it fascinated her, from the way personnel ran to and from positions down the wide corridors to the temperature, which was several degrees cooler than SSC ships.