Endurance (18 page)

I should have performed a more thorough eval on the baby, but FurreVa clamped a limb around my waist and dragged me around. “More … come.”

“Hooray.” I checked her vitals with my scanner and delivered the next infant. “I can’t put them together, they’ll try to eat each other.” Holding the sac in my arms, I glanced at the fascinated centurons. “Hey! Where’s my equipment?”

Nurse Dchêm-os and two interns appeared a moment later, pushing a cluster of portable incubator units. Before I could yell out a warning, they crossed the barrier. At once something small and lethal dropped down on them from the upper deck.

“Here.” I handed FurreVa the second struggling infant, who was already tearing free of the sac. “Bond for a minute. And whatever you do,
don’t push
.”

One of Zella’s ears was half gone, and the infant was busily gnawing at an intern’s throat when I got to them. I shoved the nurse to one side and grabbed the still-damp Hsktskt baby by its thin torso.

She was far too small and showing signs of respiratory distress, but her teeth worked splendidly. I got her as far as the incubator unit when she sank her teeth into my forearm. I shrieked. She kicked free and jumped to the deck to land on all sixes. A moment later she was over the barrier and down the corridor, with half of the centurons in hot pursuit.

I’d never dropped an infant before, but I couldn’t exactly feel terrible about this one.

“Terran!” FurreVa still held her baby, but another had emerged halfway out her flap and was snapping at its sibling’s little tail.

“Coming.” I checked the intern, whose throat was a bloody mess, to make sure he’d survive. He would. The other intern was unconscious. Zel cowered when I reached for her.

I didn’t have time to indulge her. “If you can knock out your own tooth, you can handle a chewed-on ear. Come on.”

I delivered the fourth infant, which was in better shape than the others, and placed it in the incubator at once. Zella managed to do the same with the one FurreVa held. All that was left to do was transfer the first from the storage container to the unit, then deliver the last three.

After a minute with no further progress in the delivery, I scanned the Hsktskt OverSeer. She was panting and exhausted, but no longer experiencing active labor.

I had to tell her why.

“FurreVa. We’ve got three of them safe. The centurons will get the other one.” I didn’t want to upset her, but she had to know. “The remaining three young in your body are dead.”

She turned her head and made a sound of grief.

I placed a hand on her scarred face and made her look at me. “We have to do this together. I want you to push when I tell you to, and let me take care of them. Okay?”

Delivering the stillborn proved a grim, silent task. Two were perfectly formed, but far too small. The last was huge, but from my scans possessed a congenital heart defect, which had caused the infant to die in the womb some time ago. The resulting toxic reaction within the mother’s body explained the premature labor.

Unlike TssVar’s mate, FurreVa wouldn’t be naming this one after me.

“Let me look upon them.”

Carefully I presented each one to their mother, allowing her to hold them before gently taking them from her. I carefully placed the bodies in the abandoned storage container, then attended to the cleanup.

“All right.” I looked at my ravaged medical team. “Let’s move them to Medical.”

I stopped by Reever’s quarters for a clean tunic on the way back to Medical. As soon as I stepped inside, the yowls and crashing sounds made me snap out an order for lights.

“What’s going on in”—something large and solid whizzed past my face, and I ducked—“here?”

The tableau before me bordered on absolutely ludicrous. Jenner stood perched on top of the garment storage unit, his tail and back swelling with stiff, raised fur. He was peering over the edge of one side and yowling furiously.

I saw some League footgear sticking out, kicking and jerking, and strode over to confront the intruder. A familiar spine-covered being was cornered between the storage unit and the wall panel. The object of Jenner’s displeasure paid no attention to me as he busily wrestled with something smaller, scaly, and quite determined to rip out his throat.

“Lieutenant Wonlee?” Then I saw what he was clutching between his talons. “God.” I looked around for my medical case. “Whatever you do, don’t let go of it.”

“I have … no intentions … of doing … so….” He had to keep dodging the hungry, snapping miniature jaws.

I noted with approval that he was trying to hold FurreVa’s missing infant as far away from his spine plates as possible. Then I spotted my case shoved under a chair, grabbed, and dumped the contents on the deck.

Easing the Hsktskt infant from Wonlee’s sharp claws proved no simple task. A few minor lacerations later, I wrenched the baby free, thrust it into my case, and snapped the lid shut.

“There.” Panting, I pushed a handful of hair from my eyes before I went to the console and reported that I’d captured the last of the infants. Then I turned to address the Lieutenant. “How did you get in here?”

“Ventilation shaft.” He pointed to a small open hatch on the upper deck. “I’ve been using them to collect reconnaissance information for Major Devrak.”

“Really.” I wondered what else they’d been using the shafts for. Wonlee held out his arms and began trying to coax Jenner down from his perch. “Um, I don’t think he’s going to come to you.”

“No, he’s not.” Wonlee dropped his clawed hands and gave my pet a disgruntled glower. “Ungrateful creature. I saved his life, you know.”

“Did you?” I picked up the case, which was rocking back and forth from the furious struggles within. “Any particular reason why? I can’t imagine it was out of fondness for me.”

“I came here to … talk to you.” Wonlee straightened his tunic.

I’d already noticed the outline of a displacer pistol standing out under his tunic. “Your nose is getting longer, Lieutenant.” He gave me a puzzled frown, and I tightened my grip on the case. “You came here to kill me.”

“All right.” He folded his arms. “Originally, I was ordered to come here to kill you.”

“Maybe next time, huh?” I tucked the case under one arm, shielding it with my body, and backed toward the door panel. “Thanks again for saving my cat.”

“Wait. We need your help.”

“Is that right?” My brows rose. “Why would you need help from a traitorous Terran beast-lover like me?”

He averted his gaze. “Doctor, we’re going to arrive at the slave-depot soon. Many of the crew are injured, and if the slavers decide we’re not worth selling …”

The Hsktskt would have a cookout. The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on me, either. “Let me see if I follow. Major Devrak considered me unworthy of sharing the same oxygen with you people, and sent you here to assassinate me, but now you’d like me to treat the injured crew members so they’ll pass slaver inspection. Have I got this right?”

He had the grace to look ashamed, then nodded.

I was tempted to tell him where to shove his weapon, then I sighed.

“I’ll see what I can do.” I opened the door panel, checked the corridor, then gestured toward the hatch. “You’d better crawl back there before you’re missed. And do something with that pistol before they find it on you.”

He patted the weapon, gave me a grin, then hoisted himself up through the narrow opening.

I thought about Wonlee’s earnest request as I made my way back to Medical. Were the League prisoners in such bad shape? Shropana had likely poisoned everyone with his lies, and the sick or injured might have been too afraid to report for treatment.

Maybe I’d just
let
Patril have that heart attack.

FurreVa was back in her foam cradle and being assessed by Vlaav when I came in and placed the last of her infants into the incubator array. I did a quick scan on the babies and found them in tolerable condition.

“Schedule surfactum treatments for all of them,” I told the Saksonan when he came over to report.

“Those require induction of an endotracheal tube.” Vlaav peered at the infants’ glittering teeth and audibly gulped. “Do I
have
to do that to these creatures?”

“If you want to create the proper spaces in the bronchial tubes and aeviolii, yeah, you do.” I adjusted the incubator arrays to keep the internal temperatures warm and dry. “After you tube them, set the respirators to provide continuous positive airway pressure, so their lungs won’t collapse.”

“You’d better have a look at the female. The graft work has sustained considerable damage.”

“Wean them off the surfactum once the lung scans clear. Remember to use gentle shaking if they experience bouts of free-breathing apnea,” I told him as I cleaned up. “If apnea persists, we’re going to have to keep them tubed.”

Before I could go and check their mother, a familiar figure stepped forward to block my path.

I had no more patience, not even a millispec left. “What do you want, OverCenturon?”

“You have been wounded.” He nodded toward my arm, still oozing blood from where the Hsktskt infant had taken a bite.

“So?”

He reached out and ripped the sleeve of my tunic completely off. Not to bandage it, of course. He jerked my arm around to display the wound. Beneath which should have been a PIC. “You have removed your identification.”

“No, I didn’t.” I glanced around wildly. The medical staff couldn’t help me. Maybe I could get to a console. “It healed. Burning me doesn’t work.”

His tongue touched my cheek. “I will make it work.”

I should have screamed or fought or
something
, I suppose, but I was positive the nurses would carry out my orders and signal Command. Convinced, too, that Reever would come to the rescue.

After all, he
always
came to my rescue.

I told myself the same thing over and over, as GothVar marched me down the corridor to the launch bay, where the blood and gore-splattered discipline post still stood. I felt confident as he secured the door panel. I even smiled bravely when he bonded me to the post.

“Reever won’t let you do this.” Would be nice if he showed up right about now, too, I thought.

“HalaVar is not here. He cannot stop me.” Flat-Head stretched my wounded arm above my head and lashed my wrist securely. His heavy
body crushed mine into the hard, crusted surface of the post. For a moment, our faces were only a centimeter apart. His repulsive breath made me hold mine. “I will drink of your pain, Terran.”

“Herbal tea is much easier on the digestion.” Come on, Reever, now is the time to come charging in to save me. “I can prescribe something for you, if you’d like.”

He wasn’t listening, only fiddling with something on the floor.

“Why did you let FurreVa take the blame for what you did to those prisoners?”

“She will capitulate.” His tail slammed into the post, just below my feet. “As will you.”

What was he talking about? I leaned over to get a better look at him, and saw what he was fooling with.

“You can’t use that.” Sweat that had been beading around my brow suddenly streaked down my temples. GothVar stopped for a moment to gaze at me. “Um, you have to do this with a laser.”

“As long as the designation is legible,” he said, activating the thresher unit, “I can use any means I wish.”

“No.” I said it again, louder, so he would understand. “Cutting is
not
the same thing as branding. For branding, you use heat.”

FlatHead simply adjusted the unit to produce a focused, narrow beam and input something on the thresher’s panel. The low hum become a high, eardrum-piercing whine. Then the OverCenturon stepped aside, and waited.

The displacer band hit my arm, and everything that had happened to FurreVa came back to me in a huge, terrifying rush of images. “Stop it!”

He didn’t, of course.

The thresher began cutting into my arm. Not like a lascalpel, which was hot, fast, and efficient. No, this was more like being gouged with a cold, dull eating utensil. I twisted, digging my heels in against the post, trying to get away from the beam.

Reever, where are you?
“Turn it off!”

GothVar would leave it on, I thought, closing my eyes tightly, biting the inside of my lips to keep from screaming. He’d leave it on until it dug through my skin and muscle and bone. Until my body dropped to the deck. Until my arm was left hanging by itself on the post. That was where my ex-bondmate would find me, armless, cold, and white.

Because this time, Reever wasn’t coming to my rescue.

GothVar drew closer. I felt his claws hook into my slave collar, and I couldn’t bear his touch and the thresher chopping into me at the same
time. I opened my eyes, saw the voracious alien gaze locked on not my arm, but my face.

His mouth parted, allowing the black tongue to slide out and trail up and down my face. Tasting the droplets of sweat and tears, I realized. Licking them from my skin as though they were wine.

My teeth stayed locked together, but I got this much out: “Get—away—from—me!”

“More, SsurreVa,” he said, and ducked under the beam to crowd me from the other side. “Scream for me.”

He certainly liked to hear people screaming, and looked ready to chomp down on anything I moved. I kept silent and tried to hold still. It wasn’t easy. The beam had gotten through the first layers of derma and superficial tissue, and was now tearing into the deep fascia.

How had FurreVa endured this? How could I?

Like a mouth of flat-topped fangs, like
his
mouth, the thresher kept at me. The odor from the Hsktskt’s mouth and my own blood choked me. I couldn’t take a deep breath. The pain worsened, darkened from sharp and stabbing into profound agony.

How long, how long can I stay conscious?
My ears filled with the rush of whistling sobs.
Not long, but I can’t pass out
—
he’ll leave me here to bleed to death. He’d leave me until the beam dices me up
.

GothVar’s voice inched into my ears … telling me … oh, my God, he was telling me what he …

Something seized me by the throat, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe at all. I felt my lungs burn, my larynx strain around an unreleased gasp. Yet I couldn’t overcome that vise around my neck, couldn’t fight it. Whatever it was held me suspended and helpless.