The Morcai Battalion: Invictus Part 19

"Please!" She saw the Rojoks making preparations. "There's no time. Please. Please go!" Her voice broke on the last word. Her courage had held up, until now, until death was a taste in her mouth. Tears dimmed him in her vision. "Don't risk everything just to let a scraggly band of Rojoks kill you because of your sense of honor! I'm expendable! Any soldier is!"

His eyes were a soft, quiet golden hue. They searched hers. His face seemed to clench as he looked down at her. "Madeline," he said quietly, "I will not live without you."

The impact of those words was visible. Tears slid, hot and salty, down her flushed cheeks. Her lower lip trembled.

He drew in a rough breath and struggled to regain the control of his emotions that the drug had cost him.

"You are Holconcom. You must stop weeping," he muttered. "It is undignified, especially in front of Rojoks."

A helpless laugh escaped her tight throat. "Yes, sir. Sorry." She swallowed. Her throat was dry. "I wish we could have saved Chacon. I suppose it was hopeless from the beginning," she said.

His eyes went that odd opaque blue that indicated mental linking. "Something has gone right, at least," he thought to her. "Sfilla and her people have found and liberated Chacon. He is safe."

"Thank goodness," she said, straightening. "The timeline will be secure, then."

He studied her. "I wonder." He frowned. "Do you not think it odd that Komak did not mention our deaths? Surely he saw this."

She met his look with curiosity. "You're right, he didn't say anything." She glanced at the approaching Rojoks. She sighed. "Well, I suppose he didn't want to upset us by mentioning that we were going to die saving Chacon." She searched his eyes hungrily. "It has been the greatest honor, and pleasure, of my life, to have served with you, sir," she said formally, straightening.

"And mine, to have served with you."

She bit her lower lip. "I'd give half my retirement for a gresham."

He was suddenly still. His indrawn breath was audible.

She looked up at him, frowning. "What is it?"

His eyes met hers. They were...green!

"Okay, now, what's going on?" she asked.

There was a whisper of wind, a skirl of red sand. The Rojoks, moving toward them with intent, suddenly stopped, dead.

All around, flashes of white solidified into Nagaashe. Dozens of Nagaashe. The ones Madeline remembered from Akaashe would have been dwarfed by these. They were as tall as a two-story building, coiled, and they were all spreading their hoods and hissing at the Rojoks.

"Your people have a saying, from centuries past," Dtimun commented blandly. "Something about a group called the cavalry coming over the hill...?"

She burst out laughing. "Yes!" Although she was certain that it didn't refer to white snakes the height of a building.

The Rojoks were running and screaming. In minutes, the heavily armed camp was deserted. A few of the serpents had pursued the fleeing enemy. The tallest, and oldest, of the others undulated over to where Dtimun and Madeline were secured to their posts by chains. He closed his blue eyes for a second and the chains fell away as if by magic. Had Dtimun not been drugged, Madeline mused, he could have done the same.

"We are greatly in your debt," Dtimun thought to him. "But I do not understand how or why you are here."

The white serpent laughed. "Old man in Dectat contacted us. Treaty we signed with him has clause for mutual aid."

"Thank you," Madeline said aloud. Her hand went protectively to her belly. "I thought we were dead."

The serpent lowered his head and looked into her green eyes. "Child will be greatest link between your world and ours and the Cehn-Tahr," he said surprisingly. "Because of child, new worlds will be open to exploration for both your peoples."

Madeline was very still. "You don't understand," she began quietly, and thought about the regression of the child and her own upcoming mind wipe.

"You will see," the serpent murmured.

"We're very grateful to you for saving us," she said again. Perhaps her thoughts hadn't been understandable to him.

The serpent nodded. "You saved our great-grandchild on Memcache," he thought to her. "Family is everything to us. You are now family. You are part of our tribe. You belong to us. So does your mate, and so will your child."

She was sure that no human had ever been so honored. It was a special mark of distinction, since she already owed her life to this tribe of serpents following the crash on their home planet when she had been so near death. Not to mention for getting her damaged s.h.i.+p to the ground in one piece. She smiled, delighted. "It is a great honor. Thank you!"

"You must bring your child to Akaashe to see us one day."

Before she could tell him again that there wouldn't be a child, he undulated back to Dtimun. The serpent had said that the Dectat had contacted the Nagaashe. They knew Dtimun had been kidnapped, but perhaps they didn't know about the child. She had to hope so. It would be unbearable to have been spared from death at the hands of the Rojoks only to have Dtimun killed by his own people for his relations.h.i.+p with Madeline-even though it had saved Princess Lyceria from likely the same fate as Chacon.

There was a strange remoteness on the part of Dtimun once they were reunited with Sfilla and on their way back to Hazheen Kamon's camp. Perhaps his lack of control had unsettled him. She supposed his comment had been a last act of kindness, something to make death easier for her. She didn't really believe that he didn't want to live without her.

Chacon was waiting when they arrived. He laughed wholeheartedly at the sight of them, dusty and begrimed, their garments streaked and torn.

"You look like refugees," he commented.

Madeline gave him a similar appraisal, noting the bruises and abrasions on his dusky skin, the dusty long blond hair and torn s.h.i.+rt and trousers. "Begging your pardon, sir, but you don't look a whole lot better than we do."

"I must agree." He locked forearms with Dtimun and gave them both an affectionate smile. "You have risked much to save me. I am forever in your debt."

"I still have to save you one more time for us to be even, sir," Madeline replied with a grin.

"We can consider that you are, Ruszel. You are forgetting that you saved me when you removed the sniper on Benaski Port."

"We know that Lieumek betrayed you," Dtimun said, solemn now. "I am sorry."

Chacon's eyes twinkled. "Actually he was working on orders from me."

"What?" Madeline burst out.

"We knew there was a traitor, but not whom. Lieumek has a female paramour who is Dacerian, who also has ties to Ho Chan Ho's a.s.sa.s.sins. He permitted her to think that she could manipulate him. The plot was revealed slowly, but entirely. I allowed myself to be brought here, where we already had operatives in place. Unfortunately it was she who gleaned information about your mental abilities and told the other Rojoks who apprehended you. She has been...dealt with, however," he added grimly.

"You know about his mental abilities?" Madeline asked, taken aback.

He glanced at Dtimun, whose eyes were narrow with surprise. "Such a thing is difficult to hide from a close friend," he said with a smile. "Until now, he had no idea that I even suspected it," headded. "I have never revealed what I know. The Dacerian woman, however, was a telepath and I fear she might have told others. I am sorry for this."

"It is not your fault. Neither is it a problem any longer. Many changes are coming in the future. Good ones."

Changes. Madeline wondered what they were, and why the revelation of his psychic abilities wasn't a concern to him.

Chacon motioned to Sfilla, who came forward grinning with her arm in a sling. He smiled, too. "Your finest a.s.sa.s.sin here was instrumental in rooting out the ringleaders and, shall we say, removing the threat." He shook his head. "I am gratified that you never sent her to eliminate me," he told Dtimun, tongue-in-cheek.

"If you think she's formidable, you should meet her son," Madeline interjected.

Dtimun glared at her.

"The captain of the kehmatemer is known to us," Chacon chuckled. "We are hopeful that he will never replace Dtimun as leader of the Holconcom."

"That's hardly likely," Madeline replied. She thought of the future, then, of her eminent return to the Amazon Division and the end of this happy episode in her life-which she would never remember.

Dtimun would return to lead the Holconcom. It would be over. All over. She hadn't realized that it would happen so soon.

Dtimun and Chacon were staring at each other very solemnly. Madeline didn't notice. She was miserable.

She straightened and saluted Chacon. "I'm glad you're safe, sir, but I hope you won't mention my part in your rescue," she added with twinkling eyes. "I'm afraid Admiral Mas.h.i.+ta might take the news of it badly.

You are the enemy, after all, and court-martials are so messy..." He laughed out loud "You have my word that I will never tell Admiral Mas.h.i.+ta."

"I'll go with Sfilla to pack up, sir," she told Dtimun formally, and saluted him, too. She left before he could say what he was thinking.

Chacon became solemn with her exit. "The child...you are going to permit her to remove it, along with her memory of it?"

Dtimun was very quiet. "There are processes at work that I dare not reveal. Even to you."

Chacon lifted a ridged eyebrow. His eyes twinkled. "Plots within plots. Would Ruszel's old fellow be involved in them?"

Dtimun's eyes made a flash of green. "He sent the Nagaashe to rescue us," he replied. "He could never admit it, of course, without revealing that he had knowledge of an illegal bonding, an illegal pregnancy, and the salvation of our most dangerous enemy commander-in-chief. The Dectat would probably s.p.a.ce him for it."

"Unlikely."

Dtimun shrugged.

"You had better make certain that Sfilla follows Ruszel's every footstep," Chacon advised. "She is formidable, also, and she will have plans for her future that you may not be aware of."

"That is what concerns me." He smiled.. "The war will end one day."

"I have hopes of this." He hesitated. "Lyceria..."

Dtimunlooked at him knowingly. "I sent her back to Memcache before Madeline and I came here with Sfilla. She is safe." He smiled. "Lyceria is like the rest of her family where her affections are concerned- unchangeable."

Chacon grimaced. "She is very young."

"So is Madeline, but it makes no difference."

Chacon smiled. "There will be a scandal in high circles."

"Madeline and I are likely to create a higher one, and soon. You might want to monitor the nexus in the near future."

"A Cehn-Tahr and human child," he said, shaking his head. "It will confound the three galaxies. Many things will change because of it."

Dtimun nodded. "You have no idea how true that is." His eyes flashed a green smile at Chacon. "Please try to avoid future kidnapping attempts. Madeline is unmanageable even under normal circ.u.mstances."

"And far more unmanageable under unusual ones," the other alien agreed. "But she is unique."

Dtimun's eyes made a soft brown shade. "Yes. Unique."

They traveled on a commercial s.h.i.+p to the edge of Dacerian s.p.a.ce, but the Morcai intercepted the vessel and took Madeline and Dtimun on board.

Madeline's condition, easily visible, had a sudden and shocking impact on both Holt Stern and Edris Mallory, whom Hahnson had not told about Madeline's condition.

"It's all right. I'm only a little bit pregnant," Madeline said at once, tongue-in-cheek.

Edris looked from her colleague to the towering, unapproachable alien commander with absolute shock.

Which was nothing compared to the look that claimed Captain Rhemun's face when he joined them.

Dtimun's eyes narrowed, darkened and he growled ferociously.

Rhemun flushed, snapped to attention and avoided looking at Madeline at all, while the humans struggled not to laugh.

Madeline glanced at her companion, confounded. She hoped that response would leave with the child.

She frowned. What if it didn't? Even if she returned to Admiral Mas.h.i.+ta, would the commander be left in this condition, vulnerable to his military authority and the Dectat? Would he still be protective of her, wherever she went, when the child was removed? After all, his memory couldn't be wiped, Hahnson had once said.

He glanced down at her. His eyes narrowed. She looked worn and tired and desolate. He calmed at once.

"It has been an ordeal for her," Dtimun told Hahnson. "She will need rest and access to the herbs that Caneese made into a potion for her. Can you supply it?"

"Of course," he said. He smiled at Madeline. "It becomes you."

Madeline didn't smile back. She was trying to muster enough courage to face the ordeal ahead. She straightened. "Strick, the sooner the procedure is done...!"

She stopped because Dtimun swung her up in his arms, turned and carried her down the corridor, to the amus.e.m.e.nt of their audience.

"This isn't the way to sickbay," she pointed out weakly.

"We are bonded. We live together."

"Yes, but that's what I'm trying to take care of, if you'll just let me," she protested, struggling.

"Desist," he said without looking down at her. "You will upset the child." He glanced at her as they reached his quarters and his eyes flashed green. "You might sing to him in that odd language."

"It isn't odd, it's ancient French, from old Earth, and how did you know about that?" she asked, stunned.

He activated the door with his mind, walked through and closed it. "The child speaks to me."

She caught her breath. She knew the child's emotions, but she had no idea that Dtimun could communicate with his son on such an intelligent level. "No. It's not possible, not at this stage of his growth."

He put her down gently on the bunk and sat down beside her, smoothing her disheveled hair on the narrow pillow. "I a.s.sure you that it is."

Tears stung her eyes. It was going to be more of an ordeal than she realized.