pounce.
“You have marked the wrong status on two of my crew,” he growled at her when she’d presented him with the latest casualty list after a brief skirmish with renegade Rojoks on an asteroid colony world.
Edris looked at the padd and winced. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said formally, still standing at attention. “It won’t happen again.”
He glared at her. Small. Blonde. Fair. Long, almost-platinum-colored hair tortured into a tight bun on top of her head. For one split second he wondered what it would look like loosened, and hated himself even for the thought. She was the image of a nightmare figure from his past, from a tragedy that he could never speak of to the humans aboard this ship. But it gave him reason to hate them, especially this one.
She swallowed. His hatred was almost palpable. She felt sick to her stomach. She didn’t know what she’d done to create such antagonism. Well, she did snap back at him when he was at his worst. But that didn’t really seem provocation enough for the anger he directed at her.
“Hahnson tells me that you aren’t adjusting well after your...incident,” he said after a minute. He lifted his chin and a cold little smile touched his chiseled mouth. “I suggested that a change of military assignments might be applicable.”
She went pale. Her mind flashed with images of laboratories and body parts and agar in petri dishes.
Unknown to her, Rhemun saw those images. He didn’t understand them. But, then, he understood very little about humans and their mental processes. However, her discomfort gave him pleasure. He felt a brief skirl of shame at his own behavior. An anniversary was upcoming. He couldn’t share its import, but it was connected to his opinion of Mallory and her race and culture. He hated both. He hated the anniversary. His life was replete with torment, from adolescence onward. He had lost his father in a most terrible manner, in a way that shamed him and his mother even today, despite the emperor’s kindness and support. Then he had lost another, to a human’s stupidity. He closed his eyes. The pain was almost palpable.
“Sir?” she prompted, surprised at the anguish on his face.
He opened his eyes. They were dark brown, anger almost gone to rage. He hated her compassion. He didn’t want it.
He handed her back the padd. “No more mistakes.”
She saluted. “No, sir.” Her tone was subdued.
His eyes narrowed. She was still pale. Why would the thought of reassignment be so disturbing to her? That was, after all, what Reboot was. The humans didn’t punish their officers, not even for murder. They just reassigned them.
“Dismissed,” he said in a cold tone.
“Yes, sir.” She saluted and hurried away.
* * *
IT WAS ONLY going to get worse. She knew that. But she had no alternative, no place else to go. She was stuck here, Madeline Ruszel’s replacement but never an acceptable replacement to the commander of the Holconcom, who revered Ruszel and hated Mallory.
“I should have known I couldn’t make it here,” she mumbled to herself as she ran blood samples through her small lab.
“Excuse me?”
She turned as Holt Stern entered. He was really a dish, she thought, smiling—dark wavy hair and dark eyes and a glorious physique. She wished she still had the crush on him that she’d had when she first served aboard the Morcai. But her heart was tugged elsewhere, to a person who didn’t want her interest, who found her actually repulsive.
“Hey, Cap,” she said with a grin. “How’s things?”
He chuckled. She wasn’t Maddie Ruszel, but he liked her. “Rough,” he remarked with a sigh. “None of us are dancing with joy over the changes around here.” He shook his head. “I never thought a court-martial would appeal to me more than staying in the Holconcom.”
She lifted her eyebrows.
“Nobody back at Terravegan HQ knows I’m a clone,” he pointed out. “If they found out, I’d be drummed out of the service. So would Hahnson. Only use we’d be then would be in some top secret government lab.”
Sort of like me, she thought, but she only smiled. “It’s not so bad. We just have to learn to get along together.”
“Not going to happen, Doc,” he replied, leaning back against a bulkhead. “I’m not the only one who has a problem. The new CO hates humans. Didn’t you notice?”
She averted her eyes. “He’s just not used to us yet,” she said. “After all, he commanded the emperor’s personal bodyguard for decades. All Cehn-Tahr. No humans.”
“He makes his contempt for us known,” Stern said quietly. “He doesn’t even try to hide it.”
“He wasn’t with you at Ahkmau,” she pointed out. “Dr. Ruszel said that’s what made the unit into a unit.”
He nodded. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” he agreed. “We pulled together and the CO got us out, with a little help from a real enemy, the Rojok Field Marshal Chacon.” He chuckled. “When he took power, we thought the wars would be over forever, especially when he was given a seat on the Tri-Galaxy Council itself.”
“We didn’t consider that a lot of old, hard-line troops didn’t want what they called ‘handouts’ from the Council. They thought of Chacon as a traitor and took to the field to oppose his rule.” She smiled faintly. “How’s that for a turnout?”
“Not what we all hoped for, for sure,” he agreed. He studied her. “How’s it going?”
Everybody knew what had happened to her. The humans had been sympathetic. Surprisingly, even some of the older Cehn-Tahr had been supportive.
“I guess I’m dealing with it,” she said. “Not very well.” She looked up at him. “How do you guys manage?”
He shrugged his broad shoulders. “After a few years in the field, it doesn’t affect you so much. You still feel it, I mean. You just don’t dwell on it. You can’t afford to. It will get you killed. Worse, it will get your comrades killed.”
She nodded. “The CO thought a change of military assignments might be the answer.”
Stern’s face went hard. “Does he know about Reboot?”
“Yes,” she said, and he looked surprised. “He said he was familiar with it.”
“And, knowing that, he still made the suggestion?” His face was like stone. “He’s not getting rid of you,” he said shortly. “Not unless he wants to lose the whole unit.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t push him. You guys have as much to lose as I do. I already have one death on my conscience. No more. Period,” she said firmly.
“We’d stand up for you,” he told her.
She smiled. “I know that. Thanks.”
He smiled. “What are friends for?”
*
