Warrior Chronicles 5: Warrior's Curse Read online

  “No, no! It’s not okay!” Tears were streaming out of Cort’s good eye, and slowly soaking the light bandage on his new one. “I killed them instinctively. Your brother tried to kill Sköll, then I had to kill your uncle. He was an unmitigated fucking bastard!”

  Liz slipped off her gauntlet and touched Cort’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I know what happened.”

  “Can I see your tits now?” Cort asked with a grin.

  Liz looked at her commander sadly. “That wouldn’t be appropriate, sir.”

  “You’re probably right,” Cort leaned over the side of his bed and blew snot out of his nose onto her feet. “That wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  --

  For several more days, Ceram reported on Cort’s progress every afternoon. Quinn continued to visit Cort’s bed every night. When the doctor finally told Kim that Cort’s short term memory was returning, she shared the news with Liz and Quinn, and Quinn reluctantly stopped her nightly visits.

  The first two days of video therapy were comprised of footage and records from the Ares Federation universe. As he watched the vids, he took notes and critiqued his handling of the various challenges he had faced. The only indications during those days that he was not completely recovered were Cort’s comments about whether he would get a chance to couple with JJ or Jane Munroe when he got back to the other universe.

  The next three days of video were taken from Cort’s own footage of the assault on the planet below them. Kim was stoic through every crude comment he made, with both Liz and Quinn offering her support when she seemed at a breaking point.

  The final day involved Quinn telling Cort what had happened since his stroke. As Kim left his bedside that day at lunch, she admonished Quinn, “Don’t let him get too excited. And nothing about ...”

  Quinn quickly interrupted her. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Before the door had closed behind Kim, Cort asked, “Why aren’t you on top of me, Faulks? I’ll bet your tits are fantastic.”

  Quinn breathed a sigh of relief, knowing Cort didn’t remember any of their couplings, but was also a bit sad that they had to come to an end. “General, your wife wouldn’t appreciate that.”

  Cort’s anger was fierce and immediate. “How the hell did a coward get to be one of my Marines? Do you remember the day I cut my eye off? On the ship, when you were in just a FALCON, you were helping Ceram and your tit kept brushing against my cheek. I should have ordered you to let me suck it.”

  You’ve done a lot of that, sir. “Again, sir. Mrs. Addison wouldn’t like that.”

  “Whatever,” Cort had completely forgotten his anger. “It’s your loss. I’m a pretty good fuck. So what have you learned since I went down, you fucking bitch?”

  “The Gryll aren’t designed to sleep. Their brains don’t produce melatonin. That’s why they want the pineal glands. They puree them into a paste and rub it inside their sinus cavity. It makes them pass out, and more importantly to them, they dream. They consider it a mystical experience.”

  “What else?”

  “The cities are filled with restaurants that serve the baby meat to aliens visiting the planet. We’ve begun to put a stop to that. I have every city being swept, but it is a planet, and we have limited resources.”

  “You’ve cut off their supply of meat, though.”

  Quinn’s reply was grim. “We’ve found a few smaller processing facilities that are still in operation, but our first priority is exterminating the Gryll. We’ve lost several Marines to their telepathic spikes during the city sweeps.”

  “I assume that is how they killed the first eight?” Cort pushed his sheet down and began stroking himself, then added, “Are you sure you don’t want to fool around a little?”

  “Yes, sir. To both questions.” Quinn stared at Cort’s erection, remembering how it felt. “We also know what happened to the post-Cull females. They were immediately killed because they are incompatible with the Gryll breeding methods.”

  “What does that mean, Quinn?” Cort smiled as he realized she was staring at his actions. “Wanna suck it?”

  “No sir. Thank you, but your wife wouldn’t approve.”

  “Bitch,” Cort said. “I tried to get her to suck it the other day. I almost had her convinced. Her mouth was just an inch away. Then she wrinkled her nose and left.”

  Quinn’s eyes widened momentarily, then she went on. “They had synthetics, sir. The Gryll augment the babies’ food with a growth hormone that accelerates their development and increases the size of the pineal gland. Babies born with synthetics fight off the hormone, so they are useless. Consequently, women with synthetics are slaughtered for food.”

  “What about Havisim? How did she keep getting through their checks?”

  “George found records about her. Being transgender, they don’t understand what she is, so they didn’t do anything. I spoke to her though. She has been raped more than a hundred times by them. In one session, she was subjected to over fifty men in less than an hour, including some of the ancient specimens.”

  “I’d still like a chance at that,” Cort kept masturbating. “Anything else?”

  Quinn continued to stare at Cort’s groin as she replied. “Two weird things. The three species of ancient humans. They shouldn’t be here. The timeline doesn’t match up. I have people looking into it, but I suspect that we will find there is a program in place on the planet to produce breeding stock.”

  “Like a puppy mill.” Cort made a small grunt as he finished. “Can you clean this up for me, Quinn?”

  Quinn licked her lips, momentarily tempted, then she tossed him a hand towel. “No, sir.”

  Cort wiped the mess from his stomach and said, “What’s the other weird thing?”

  “What’s a puppy mill?” When Cort dismissed the question and covered himself back up, she went on. “The other thing might just be coincidence, but it bears mentioning. The Gryll are three meters tall and eat babies. In Icelandic mythology, there is a giantess named Grýla who steals bad children and eats them.”

  Before Cort could ask Quinn anything else, Kim opened the door and stepped in. “That’s all the time you get, Colonel.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When the two women were outside the medical bay, Quinn told Kim what Cort had done. Kimberly looked at her for a long moment and calmly said, “I’m sorry, Quinn. Ceram says he will get better, but I will have to wait it out.”

  “It’s okay. I’ve seen men do that before. It doesn’t change who he is, anymore than his scars do.” Quinn said goodbye and turned to walk away. I just hated to see it go to waste.

  --

  It was two more days before Ceram commed Kim with a significant update on Cort’s condition.

  “His brain scan is normal, Pledge Mother. He may still have emotional outbursts, but I think the worst is behind him.”

  “He can be around women again?”

  “Maybe not you, but most women, yes.”

  Kim couldn’t imagine that she had any tears left, but more ran down her cheeks. “And Dalek?”

  “And Dalek, Pledge Mother. And your surprise. But I am sure there will be an emotional display then. I suspect that one will be genuine though.”

  An hour later, Cort was showered and ready for his day. Ceram had confined him to the ship, but he could work again. He donned a FALCON and left the medical bay for the first time weeks.

  He walked to his quarters, where he found Kim and Dalek waiting for him. The boy jumped up and ran across the room. Two feet from his dad, he launched himself into the air and Cort caught him.

  Cort feigned a fall to the floor and rolled around with Dalek for a minute before Kim released the wolves who joined in the fray. It was several more minutes before Cort sat up with tears in his eyes. His FALCON was covered in hair and slobber, and Dalek stood in front of him looking serious. “You have to stand up, Poppa.”

  Playing along, Cort stood and came to attention. “What next, sir?”

  “Marine, you will
wait here until I bring your grandpa.”

  Cort looked at Kim questioningly, who only smiled as Dalek disappeared into Cort’s office. A moment later, he came back holding the hand of a man in a World War I uniform. The twenty year old came to attention and saluted Cort. “Corporal Reed Clement Addison, Second Squadron, Third Balloon Company, American Expeditionary Force, reporting for duty, sir.”

  Cort would have recognized Reed Addison in a gunny sack. A picture of the man had been on the mantle in Cort’s childhood home his entire life. Cort’s eyes swam in tears as he returned the salute of a man he had always called Clem, then he stepped forward and hugged his great-grandfather.

  Fourteen

  “Clemmer is from the past like you, Poppa!”

  Cort looked down at Dalek. “I know, Son. He’s even older than me.”

  “Poppa, I know! Grandpas have to be older.”

  Clem smiled at the exchange. “I’m still trying to understand all that, sir. You’re forty if you’re a day, I’m twenty-four.”

  “You understand it, Clem. I know you do. I still have some of your old books. Edgar Rice Burroughs for instance. Think John Carter. That’s what happened to you.”

  “It’s what happened to you too, sir.”

  “Dalek,” Kim said, “Why don’t you take the wolves for a walk?”

  “By myself?”

  “Yes. By yourself. But stay off of the bridge.”

  “Awww. Okay.”

  Bane was loathe to leave Cort with the newcomer, but Cort reassured him, and the wolf walked out of the room and took his place at the front of the small pack.

  When Dalek was gone, Cort motioned Clem to sit down as he sighed. “Okay Clem, let’s get this out of the way right now. In this room, in any room, when we are alone, I’m Cort. Don’t call me sir.”

  “You have stars on your shoulder, sir.”

  Cort pulled opened his flexpad and linked to his suit. A moment later the stars disappeared from the smart fabric of his FALCON. “Now I don’t. Look Clem, this is hard for me. I know it is for you too, but military protocol won’t help us. I just want to get to know you.”

  “Sir, I’ve been used against my will to cheat on my wife and rape women for almost four years. Who knows how many children I have. Now your wife tells me that I am your great-grandfather. She gave me the family history and told me our family owns half the durn universe. Do we really own a planet? Who needs a planet?”

  Cort smiled. “Yeah, Clem. We own a planet. Several actually. And no, we don’t need them. We protect them mostly. I’m going to show you dinosaurs.”

  “No thanks, sir. Dinosaurs have been controlling me for too long.” Clem eyes were distant for a moment, then he came back. “When I went off to the war, I didn’t have a jitney to my name. Mary and I had a baby on the way, and we were living in a tack room in Daddy’s barn. Oh, I’d made it nice for Mary. She had her ticking curtains, and I built a little bassinet for her out of a chicken crate...”

  Cort’s eyes teared up as Clem spoke. Kim put her hand on his shoulder.

  “... but it was a barn. So I went off to war. Mary moved into the house with Momma and Daddy. I used to have a picture of my boy. Shelby was his name, but I guess you know that. Boy grew like a weed when I was gone.”

  “He got to be over six feet, Clem.”

  “That ain’t a surprise. His momma came from good stock. Her people were mountains. Even the girls were tough. You can see that your muscles came from her side.”

  Cort could see that. Clem was as skinny as a pole. Even thinner than modern humans with their synthetics. He turned to Kim. “Does he have synthetics yet?”

  “No. We were waiting for you to set up the protocols for the new people. And there is something else, Cort.”

  “What?”

  “There are a lot of live babies. Thousands of them. And most of them are beyond saving.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The hormone they gave them. It’s to grow the pineal glands. But it damages the brain. Most of them have severe mental disabilities.”

  Clem asked, “Can’t you give ‘em that fake blood you have?”

  “No, it doesn’t fix things that are already broken, Clem.” Cort furrowed his brows. “Can we do anything?”

  Kim looked at the floor. “No, baby. They are all in various stages of brain death. Only their autonomic systems work. Ceram says they might as well be on life support.”

  “What about the others? You said most of them?”

  “There are some, fewer than a hundred, that will grow up to be functional, but they won’t be right. They are going to need help for their entire lives.”

  “Are there any normal ones?”

  “No, baby. They start getting the hormones immediately after birth. There are a few, maybe twenty, that will be able to live reasonably normal lives, though.”

  Clem asked, “So they are all retards? Can’t you put them in hospitals or something?”

  “Clem,” Cort explained, “today’s humans don’t associate that word with mental impairment. Don’t use it again.”

  “I can’t call a retard a retard? What do I call them? Suck egg mules? White niggers?”

  Cort stood up. “I’m not going to say it again. Don’t use that word. Or nigger. You want to know what Grandma Mary didn’t tell you while you were gone? She had identical twins. One of them was retarded. Probably because his umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. He grew up in a special hospital. It wasn’t a good life for him. No better than the one you’ve lived for the last few years. And it was worse in a lot of ways.”

  “You’re lyin’!”

  “I suspect you know I’m not, Clem.” Cort sat back down. “Listen to me. It’s a different world now. A different universe. You’re going to have to learn a new way of thinking if you want to be a part of it.”

  “What if I don’t?”

  “Then I’ll leave you here. There’s no place in my universe for bigot. I kill them all the time.”

  “Baby, calm down. Give him time to adjust. You needed it too.”

  “Yeah, listen to your moll old man.”

  Cort moved so quickly that Clem couldn’t react. The bigger man was across the room almost instantly, and grabbed Clem by the neck. Raising the thin man up, Cort pushed him against the wall and then lifted him, raising him half a meter off the ground.

  “The last man who insulted my wife is dead. I hit him so hard that his heart exploded.”

  Panic filled both Kim’s and Clem’s eyes. Kim grabbed Cort’s free arm but was unable to move it. “Baby, he didn’t mean it! Let him down.”

  Cort relaxed his grip on Clem’s neck just enough to let the man breathe. “You’re my blood, so you get two choices. You can apologize to my wife, or I can tighten my hand and let you run out of air. Right now, I don’t care what you decide.”

  Clem gasped for air as he struggled against Cort’s arm. Finally he went limp and whispered, “I’ll apologize.”

  Cort dropped him and walked away. Clem crumpled into a pile. After his ragged gasps quieted, he rolled onto his hands and knees and looked up at Kim. “I’m sorry ma’am. I was outta line.”

  Kim reached down and helped Clem into a chair. “You didn’t know better. But you need to learn, Clem. Please try to.”

  At his liquor cabinet, Cort began to fill a glass. Kim said, “Make one for Clem too.”

  “No.”

  “Cort. Pour him a glass, or I will.”

  Cort downed the amber liquid then looked at his wife. “Then you do it. I’m going to find my son.”

  When Cort was gone, Kim handed Clem a glass of whiskey. “He’s a hard man.”

  “Would he have really killed me, ma’am?”

  “He’s killed billions. A few years ago, someone kidnapped Dalek. He killed their entire species. They are extinct now. He’s destroyed planets and brought an entire galaxy to its knees.”

  “But I’m family.”

  “Not to Cort, Clem. To him, yo
u are blood. But you aren’t family yet. He chooses his family. Maybe you need to meet the rest of us to understand.”

  “Does that mean I’m going back with you to the other universe?”

  “No. His family is all represented here. But you need to be prepared for it. If you have an outburst like you just did in front of George or H’uum, not even Dalek could save your life.”

  “How do I prepare for it? Are they half-breeds or something? I can hold my tongue when I need to.”

  “Clem. Sit down. You’ve read Burroughs, right?”