The Morcai Battalion: The Recruit

“Not on Dtimun’s ship, you didn’t,” Hahnson reminded her.

“Oh, like you know,” Madeline muttered.

“Actually, I threw up, too, the first time I had to fly with Dtimun,” Hahnson confessed. “He’s just short of suicidal when he’s piloting a small ship. But that high grav landing really weirds out enemy combatants. They never expect it.”

“I suppose it would give us an edge in battle,” Edris commented weakly.

“I don’t suppose you’d know why the C.O. looks as if he’s been chewing on the hull plates?” Stern asked Madeline.

She gave him an angelic smile. “I’m certain it doesn’t have anything to do with me,” she assured him.

“What did you say to him?” Stern persisted.

“I only mentioned how lucky he was that I was with him at Ahkmau when he needed emergency surgery,” she replied. “And there was the matter of bringing Edris aboard.”

“But you said the commander wanted me to learn the routine aboard the Morcai,” Edris burst out.

“He did say that. Sort of,” Madeline hedged.

“What exactly did he say?” Hahnson piped in.

Madeline shrugged. “That I could give her a virtual tour of the premises.” She blinked. “Virtual, real, I mean, with the vid systems we have today, really, is there a difference?”

Edris put her face in her hands. “He’ll kill me.”

“Yes, but he can’t eat you,” Madeline assured her. “And we’ve already had that discussion. That Jebob soldier they said the Cehn-Tahr ate during the Great Galaxy War—he was actually eaten by a Rojok, wasn’t he?” she asked the men.

Edris covered her mouth with her hand and went pale.

“Rojoks don’t eat Jebob nationals,” Stern scoffed. “They’re far too stringy.” He yawned. “It was an old Altairian, and they’d just run out of rations...Mallory? You okay?” He winced. “Damn, and you just cleaned the deck already!”

Madeline hit him. He just laughed.

* * *

“I AM CERTAIN that I don’t want to serve aboard this vessel,” Mallory said when they’d treated the diplomatic patient and were safely back aboard the Morcai, heading back to Trimerius.

“You just had a bad introduction to Holconcom routines,” Madeline said soothingly. “First times are always difficult.”

“This first time will give me nightmares every night from now on,” Edris assured her. “How could you bring me aboard without telling the C.O.?” she moaned.

“Well, if I’d actually told him, he wouldn’t have let you come,” Madeline said reasonably, “and you have to learn someday.”

Komak came up beside them, running backward to keep pace. He was grinning. “Have you shown Lieutenant Mallory the kelekoms?” he asked.

“No, sir, and she’s not going to,” Edris interrupted firmly before Madeline could get her mouth open. “I’ve done enough damage for one mission. With my luck, I’d sneeze on one and give it some fatal disease.”

“They are quite used to humans now,” Komak chuckled. “It has been a long time since one of them was ill.”

“Has the C.O. had any luck finding a new partner for the inactive kelekom?” Madeline asked.

Komak shook his head. “Lawson will not provide him with any candidates.”

“Brave Lawson, to refuse the commander,” Edris murmured.

“He intimidates her,” Madeline explained to Komak.

“Who, Lawson?” he asked.

“No. The commander.”

“Oh.” Komak grinned. “He does not intimidate you, Madelineruszel,” he said.

“I’ve had all my shots.”

Komak frowned. “Excuse me?”

She chuckled. “Private joke.”

The intership speakers blared with Dtimun’s deep voice speaking in Cehn-Tahr.

Komak grimaced. “I am told to mind my own duties and refrain from delaying other crew members from attending to their own.”

“How did he know?” Edris asked, looking around warily.

“AVBDs,” Madeline said, bending the truth. She knew that Dtimun was a telepath, but she’d never told anyone. “They’re everywhere, except in the C.O.’s own office. You won’t see them,” she added. “They blend. See you, Komak.”

He smiled, turned and put on a burst of speed, leaving them behind.

* * *

“THAT OFFICER, KOMAK,” Edris commented as they jogged down the corridor of the Morcai on their way to the airlock, “he doesn’t seem a lot like the rest of the Cehn-Tahr.”

“I know. He’s spent so much time around humans that he’s taken on human characteristics,” Madeline laughed. “Odd, though, when we were in the death camp on Enmehkmehk’s moon, I was using Komak for blood transfusion for the C.O. When I synched and synthed compatibility factors, his blood seemed to have human elements.” She sighed. “And that’s impossible. We know the Cehn-Tahr never mate outside their own species.”

“Why?” Edris wondered.

Madeline blinked. “I suppose it’s their racial laws. It carries the death penalty.”

“Just like our military punishes any sexual fraternization with death,” Edris replied. “Isn’t it odd that both societies are so xenophobic?” she asked. “I’ve heard it said that all Terravegans were originally tea-colored with dark hair.”

“I’ve heard that, too,” Madeline said. “But I think you and I are proof that it’s just an old legend,” she added, smiling. “Your coloring and mine put paid to that theory.”

Edris fingered her blond hair and eyed Madeline’s reddish-gold hair and nodded. “Will the C.O. get over it? That I threw up all over the scout, I mean?”

Madeline stopped and looked at the other woman. “He’s amazingly tolerant sometimes,” she said. “He does have a temper, and he can be irritating and stubborn. But he’s the best commanding officer in the fleet. All of us would follow him out the airlock if he asked us to. Of course, he does have this deplorable, primitive attitude about medics being unarmed, and I do have to sneak weapons off the ship in my equipment bag...”

Edris’s eyes had widened and she was staring apprehensively over Madeline’s shoulder.