The Morcai Battalion. Diana Palmer

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ sat quietly in her temporary quarters watching crewmen dash past the magnetized transparent cell from which there was no escape.

      Her slender hand touched a dark blue bruise on the golden silk of her arm. She could control the pain, but not her rage at such rough treatment. Thoughts of her brother made the rage near unbearable. They assumed that she did not know what had been done to him. The fools did not know that the Clan of Alamantimichar were telepaths. She had felt every second of Marcon’s agony. She had touched his mind at the moment of death.

      She was aware of eyes staring at her, and looked up. The Rojok officer who had abducted her was grinning through the force shield. The slit eyes that peered out of that reddish-bronze face made her tremble. The shock of blond hair that fell on the Rojok’s broad brow was sweaty and slick. His hair was short, denoting a lesser rank. Only high-ranking officers were allowed to wear long hair.

      “You are a rare prize, daughter of Tnurat,” he told her, studying her fragile beauty. “What a pity that I cannot show you to Chacon. It might mean another mesag mark of rank.”

      Her chameleon eyes made dark, angry whispers, but her composure was perfect. She rose from the contoured couch, grace personified.

      “Had Chacon not ordered my capture, and the death of my brother?” she asked softly.

      The Rojok laughed heartily. “Chacon knows nothing of this mission. Some think our commander-in-chief wages warfare in far too chivalrous a manner. Some have promised me his mesag marks for the Jaakob Spheres—and you.”

      “Think you that Chacon will not discover what you have done when the Holconcom come in pursuit?” she asked.

      “The Holconcom?” He laughed again. “They are stories used to frighten children. But pursuers will find themselves pursued. Our forces even now are closing the distance between the planet Terramer and the Tri-Fleet battle lines. No ship can get through them now. Not even your phantom Holconcom.”

      Her delicate face lifted proudly. “There is one who will come to avenge the death of my brother.”

      “Let him try.”

      “Where do you now take me? To your home planet of Enmehkmehk?”

      His slit eyes narrowed. “If your arrogance persists, perhaps you will go to Ahkmau instead.”

      He was gone, and she felt the chills wander over her slender body in its silky coverings. Ahkmau translated in Rojok as “place of tortures.” It was located on one of the three moons of Enmehkmehk, the planetary capital of the Rojok empire. It was the death camp of the Rojok tyrant Mangus Lo, and even a Centaurian could feel fear at the mention of its name. Had she been capable of shedding tears in front of these savages, she might have yielded to them. But Alamantimichar was a proud Clan, and to show weakness to an enemy was to dishonor it. She turned back to her couch. Dtimun would come. No matter the odds against him, he would come.

      

      Back in the command chair on the SSC ship Bellatrix’s bridge, Holt Stern forgot the carnage and the Centaurians. He had a bigger problem. Terramer was located on the edge of the Algomerian Space Sector, which the Rojoks had already claimed as captured territory. If Chacon’s hunter squads were still in the area, it was going to take every ounce of his command ability to get the ship home.

      “Higgins,” he asked his sandy-haired first officer, “how’s our fuel holding out?”

      “We’ll make it back, sir,” Higgins said with a grin, “but we won’t have enough left over to fill a java cup.”

      “Like I thought. Helm, is the Centaurian ship pacing us?”

      The astrogator shook his head. “They were running a parallel course when we left orbit, sir, but they’ve disappeared. I assume they’ve lighted out of sensor range. Our tracker beams can’t touch them.”

      “Sir,” Jennings, the comtech, broke in, “I’ve got the short-range commbanks working now, and I’m getting an alien signal. Close, and on scramble.”

      “Ignore it,” Stern said. “Rojoks use an emergency code like that to get a fix on enemy ships.”

      “It doesn’t read like a Rojok signal, sir. There’s…”

      “I said, ignore it.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      He got up and flexed his shoulders while he checked the starmaps over the astrogation console in the cramped nose of the sleek starship. The headache was better now, although there seemed to be blank pieces of his life even behind the pain—pieces he didn’t have time to mourn. His brow furrowed. There were no patterns to indicate an intruder, but Chacon’s ships sometimes appeared like ghosts. He felt uneasy, and he’d learned to trust instinct more than machinery.

      “Higgins, slow us down to quarter-light and take the ship on bearing 6.25, mark one.”

      “Yes, sir.” Higgins gave the order to the astrogator. “Expecting trouble, Captain?”

      “I’m always expecting trouble, Higgins. Steady as she goes.”

      “Sir,” the comtech said, “that alien signal’s back. It’s in English this time, in the clear.”

      Stern sighed angrily. “Oh, hell, what’s it say?”

      “It’s a distress call from the Vegan Paraguard ship, Lyrae. They’re under attack from a Rojok squad and their weaponry is out.”

      “Location?”

      “They didn’t give it, sir. Shall I request…?”

      “No!” He slammed down into the command chair. “Under no circumstances are you to reply to that message! Astrogator, prime the auxiliary power units. We may have to make a run for it.”

      “Sir?”

      “Mister, if you were surrounded by a squadron of Rojok ships, and you had time for a single distress call, would you be stupid enough to omit your coordinates?”

      “Not me, sir,” the astrogator said, shaking his head. “Not unless I was trying to home in on a commbeam by sending it.”

      “Exactly. Prime those units. Jennings,” he shot at the comtech, “do your sensors register any other ships in the immediate area?”

      “No, sir. Just a meteor—an ‘iron’ judging by the density. Strange. I don’t remember any on the advance scans…”

      “Meteor?” He snapped a code into the console at his elbow and glanced over the up-to-date Tri-Fleet starcharts. No meteors or other celestial bodies were charted on the screen. That didn’t mean a rogue asteroid or meteor couldn’t be out there. Even so, he had a feel for navigation in space that many of his fellows in the Academy had envied. He knew that it was a trap.

      “Throw a modifier on your scanners,” he told Jennings, “and tie in the master computer for analysis. I think we’ve located our ‘friend in distress.’”

      “Yes, sir.” Jennings’s slender hands flew over the controls. He smiled. “Well, I’ll be a—there they are, sir. Two of them, Rojok configuration. Heading toward СКАЧАТЬ