The Morcai Battalion Susan Kyle
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The Morcai Battalion
Contents
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Glossary
1
Terramer had been a trial peace colony in the New Territory of the galaxy, populated by clones of races representing one hundred twenty federated planets. A Rojok squadron had managed to reduce it to a smoldering ball of dust in a matter of minutes. An unprovoked attack against a defenseless continent of colonists. A dream of peace gone black in the sleep of treachery. She glared at the turmoil around her. The legendary code of ethics of the Rojok field marshal, Chacon, had gone up in smoke, along with ten million colonists.
She finished the sutures in a quick cytoplasm job on a young Jebob national and gave him a reassuring smile while she checked his vital signs with the bionic mediscanner built into the creamy flesh of her wrist. The scanner, standard SSC issue, contained its own diagnostic tools, medication synthesizer and modem. Her patients thin, blue-skinned face tried to return the smile, but even her strongest painkillers hadnt assuaged the agony of the massive radiation burns on his young body.
She stood up and eyed her medic teams. Lets speed it up! she called to them, brushing a long strand of auburn hair away from her sweaty temple. I want this group of pilgrims evacuated in ten minutes!
She avoided the pressured glares of her team. I know, I know, she murmured, what do you think we are, a bunch of bloody magicians?
They were working against time trying to patch up what few survivors the shoot-and-strafe air attack had left. Human and alien children wept softly in a nightmare chorus, looking for parents theyd never see again. The children, she thought, were the worst. The radiation was most damaging to young flesh, and of a kind the Rojoks hadnt used in the early days of the warfare. It was highly resistant to conventional treatment.
She joined Dr. Strick Hahnson at the prefab communications dome that the engineering squad had assembled in minutes, and leaned wearily against the transparent hyperglas.
Were running out of morphadrenin, she told the husky blond human life-science chief. Some of these younger ones wont make it, regardless. Strick, what in Gods name did the Rojoks hope to gain by this?
Ask their commander-in-chief, Chacon, he replied harshly. Weve got worse problems. The comtech cant get through to HQ and I cant find Stern.
She glanced up at him. He went scouting for the sci-archaeology group. I had hoped hed take some ship police with him, but you know the captain. Strick, the Jaakob Spheres were on that ship, not to mention two VIP Centaurian diplomatic observers. The Rojoks may have taken more than lives here.
He nodded wearily. His blond hair was wet with sweat, and damp splotches made patterns on his green uniform. He looked worse than she felt.
How many casualties? he asked.
About three hundred wounded to lift, if thats what you mean; and those are just the aliens under my jurisdiction. Human survivors number about two hundred
more.
Where are we going to put them? he asked idly, glancing up at the gleaming orange sky where radiation danced in pale blue patterns. What about that message, son? he asked the young comtech in the dome.
The interference isnt clearing, sir. I still cant get through. The boys head lifted. And I cant raise Captain Stern, either. He doesnt answer my commbeam.
Strick glanced down at the scowl on his slender companions face. Well give him five more minutes.
Her pale green eyes swept over the carnage and the ruins of the small jem-hued shops and marble streets to the wooded area beyond. If anythings happened to those Centaurian diplomats She sighed heavily. The Council would have had a bloody war of its own holding the Holconcom back, in any case. Now, with two of their own people involved, theres no way.
Which means well finally have a half chance of winning this damned war, he told her.
Amen. She watched the medics loading casualties into the self-propelled transparent ambulifts. Watch my boys, Strick. Im going to find Stern.
Holt Stern strode out of the green tangle of the forest into the clearing where the main settlement had been. He brushed against a spiny moga tree and a ripple of pain shuddered down his arm. Holding it, he glanced around the camp at the neat rows of prefab medical domes where his medical specialists were concentrated.
The personnel were familiar. He knew them. But something about the maze of green uniforms worn by the Strategic Space Command disturbed him. His lapse of memory disturbed him more. It was as if his past life were gone, and only the present remained. And the throbbing in his temple was especially unpleasant.
A rustle of leaves made him freeze at the edge of the forest.
He turned to find the face that went with the husky feminine voice. Madeline Ruszel paused beside a drekma tree. The exobiology chief was flushed with fatigue. Beads of sweat ran down from the mass of auburn waves at her temple to the corners of her full young mouth. She frowned up at him, marring the Grecian delicacy of her face.