Warrior Chronicles 5: Warrior's Curse Page 2

  “No.” Cort gasped as he tried to move again. He realized that at least some ribs were broken, so he fell back to the ground to allow his synthetics to stitch them properly. “Jane Munroe is Primary Command, and I want martial law on all human planets.”

  “Yes, sir.” The corporal relayed Cort’s orders.

  Cort coughed up some blood. “And get the governors and parliament secure. Everyone gets a CONDOR detail. No one can refuse it. Don’t restrict their movements, but make sure they are safe.”

  She spoke to the Kalashnikov again, then moved back as the medical team arrived. When they went to Cort first, he waved them away. “No. Take care of Thorn. I’m already mending.”

  A corpsman looked at the ruined eye, then turned his attention to Thorn and requested another medical team from the ship. As he worked on the civilian, the corpsman heard Cort cough again and turned just in time to see the general’s ruined eye pop out of its socket and hang on the side of his face. He remembered the battle for the Tapon homeworld, where Kim Addison had been as formidable as any of the H’uuman soldiers. As he turned back to Thorn, he said over his shoulder, “General, Mrs. Addison is going to be really pissed at me for following your orders.”

  As the corporal leaned over Cort to lift his eye back into its place, he could read her name on the chest of her FALCON. “Corporal Faulks, my wife is not to be allowed off of Solitude for any reason.” He winced as he took a deep breath. “For both the corpsman’s sake, and for Earth’s.”

  The Marine showed the barest hint of a smile. “Trust me, sir. No one wants Mrs. Addison here right now.” After a moment of listening to her comm, she added, “General Munroe is aware of the situation and has assumed Primary Command. Admiral Jones has dispatched additional ships to both Earth and Solitude. Admiral Bazal is on his way here as well.”

  Knowing the telepathic octopod was on his way to Earth made Cort’s immediate concerns much more manageable. The second medical team arrived and Cort let them work on him for several minutes. When they were about to evacuate him to the Kalashnikov, he stopped them. “Wait. I need to stand up and speak for a minute.”

  “Sir, that is a bad idea,” Faulks pulled her hand away from Cort’s face after the medic wrapped a bandage around the loose eye.

  “That’s an order,” Cort coughed more blood. “I assume the press is here. Get them rounded up. I’m going to speak before I leave.”

  Faulks and the medic looked at each other. The corpsman shrugged and Faulks said, “Yes, sir.” She stood and moved to the second ring of Marines that was forming. Once the reporters present were gathered, Cort stood gingerly and walked to where they waited. As he stepped toward them, the bandage on his head came loose and his injured eye fell to his cheek. The confusing signals it sent his brain caused Cort to stumble. Faulks steadied him and they stopped in front of the reporters, most of whom were wearing data glasses. Cort knew they were recording his every move and word.

  Cort lisped, “Yesterday I promised that every single one of you are safe from me.” His injured eye became too distracting, so Cort took the combat knife of a nearby Marine and cut the dangling organ from the muscles holding it. He handed the eye to the medic standing beside him, and turned back to the group of reporters just in time to see one of them faint, and another one vomit on a colleague in front of him. A coughing fit caused Cort’s blood to splatter on those closest to him, and the muscle tissue hanging from his empty eye socket constricted and twitched like living spaghetti. “Today some of you know that you aren’t.”

  “I have one thing to say to the people who killed my friend and loved one. I will find you. And I will rain destruction down on you in ways that will make your gods jealous.”

  --

  Light years away and several hours later at Bergh Station on Solitude, Kimberly Addison watched her husband speak to the reporters. Cort’s face was ruined again. His right cheek and forehead were covered with cuts and blood. She knew that side would heal fine. But the left side of his face was destroyed. His cheek was torn into two flaps that sputtered blood and saliva with every word. As she watched him cut the dangling eye off, her own already swollen eyes began to stream tears again and her lips quivered. She could see the broken bone underneath the torn flesh around his eye. Part of the socket itself was missing.

  Cort’s uniform was covered in blood. She wondered how much was his own and how much was Dar’s and how much was from the other victims. She thought about the day her first husband’s dead body was carried into the colony structure on Mars. It seemed so long ago, yet every time Cort’s body was broken in battle, that day came back and haunted her. Will there ever a be day when he doesn’t come back?

  She went to the boys’ room and kissed their young son on his forehead. As she turned to leave, George woke up. She looked at him for a moment before he sat up and spoke to her.

  “I have been watching the newsvids. Cort’s face is injured again. Will he be okay?”

  Kimberly motioned the avatar to follow her. It had been so long since she thought of George as anything other than a little boy, she often forgot that George stood for GEOthermal Responsive Gnostic Entity. The avatar in front of her was actually the humanoid interface for the massive, hundred-million year old entity that lived beneath the planet’s surface. Like so many others, Kim thought, George was another outcast that Cort had taken into his family.

  When they were back in the main room of the family quarters, Kim sat on the couch and patted the cushion next to her. George sat down and she pulled him against her side. “He will be fine, George. Our synthetics will heal him. But he will be sad and distant for a while. He was very close to Dar. We all were.”

  “I did not get to spend much time with Dar, but he was very nice to me. I never felt different around him.”

  Kim smiled for the first time since the security team told her what had happened. “Cort doesn’t let any of us feel different. We are all outcasts in some way, but Cort has molded us into a family.” Without thinking about it, Kim ruffled George’s synthetic brown hair. “He is an outcast too, you know. Other than you and Bazal, no one is more alone than he is.”

  “Sometimes I think his soul is as old as I am. Since Lex’s death, I have learned how to recognize his sadness. He becomes distant and his eyes change somehow.”

  “Yeah, they do. I see it too. You are much wiser than the little boy you appear to be.”

  “I keep this form for Dalek. Cort has given me permission to change my form if I choose to. I am only restricted in that I cannot take the appearance of any of you.”

  Kim smiled again. “I know. I wasn’t criticizing your appearance. I just mean that it is easy to forget how old you are. Unless we are talking like this, you are just my little boy.”

  George stopped moving and stared at Kim. “Really? You think of me as your son?”

  “Yes, of course. Cort and I both do.”

  George continued to stare as he quietly said, “I know Cort loves me. I assumed that you did not because I am not born of you.”

  “No you are not. But you are my son, nonetheless. I want you to grow up with Dalek. I want to watch you both grow into your potential.” Kim put her arm around her son and pulled him against her again. “I love you, George.”

  George leaned against Kim’s breast and whispered, “I love you too, Mom.”

  He didn’t see the new, happier tears, stream down Kim’s cheeks. Without looking up, he said, “I can help Father.”

  Kim sat up, wiping the tears from her face. “What do you mean?”

  “I have access to the complete datanet. I can mine the ‘net and find the people who tried to kill him. The people who killed Dar. But it would violate Father’s instructions.”

  Staring at him for a moment, Kim made a decision. “Do it. I will handle your father.”

  “Okay.” George looked at Kimberly for a moment. “Do you think I have a soul, Mother?”

  Kim didn’t hesitate. “You said you love us, so you must. Do
n’t you think?”

  George scooted away from Kimberly and leaned over to put his head in her lap. As she put her hand on his shoulder, he closed his eyes and began to work.

  Two

  In orbit above Earth, Cort awoke in the Kalashnikov’s infirmary. The left side of his face was tingling, a sure sign that the bio-synthetics in his blood were busy rebuilding his face. His neck and the other side of his face also felt as if they were asleep, but it was his left eye socket that actually woke him up. Turning his head to find the source of a noise on that side, a H’uuman doctor looked back at him. The tall, cockroach-like being looked at Cort and shook his antennae in a way that Cort had come to realize was disapproving.

  Handing Cort a comm unit and waiting until it was inside Cort’s ear, the bug clicked in his native tongue and the comm unit translated the noise almost instantly. Cort was surprised, because for the first time in all his communication with the species, he only heard the translation.

  “General, not only are you very hard to kill, you are incredibly asinine.”

  “Thanks, doc. Why don’t I hear clicking?”

  “Because you only have one ear right now. Why did you cut your eye out? Do you realize how long it will take it to grow back? You are going to spend months looking like a one-eyed fool. First Queen Heroc led us to believe you were an intelligent human. I fail to share that assessment.”

  “How bad am I?”

  “Your face will be permanently damaged. The bomb did a very good job of marring you. Your eyesight and hearing will return, and your bone structure will be repaired, but the surface will more resemble how you looked when you first battled the Cuplans.”

  The H’uumans and the Cuplans were actually the same species. The three-meter tall insectoids went the by name of their Supreme Leader. At the time Cort fought them, Cupla was their leader. When Cort destroyed their ability to make war, he allowed them one planet to be ruled by a male named H’uum.

  One of the captive insectoids, a female named Heroc, had negotiated the treaty that allowed her species to survive. One of the terms of the treaty stipulated that the species never leave their planet without Ares permission. Later, when Heroc became First Queen of the H’uuman Empire, her immediate contribution to the canon of laws that guided H’uuman life was to swear her species’ fealty to Dalek. Cort’s son was pronounced prince and living god to the insects. Heroc’s Law bound her people for ten generations. Very few people knew that her regard for Dalek came from her love for both Kim, who had become her closest friend, and Cort, who had conquered her people, then given them back their honor.

  When the Tapon attacked the H’uuman homeworld to abduct Dalek, Heroc died trying to protect the boy. The H’uumans violated the terms of the treaty to help rescue Dalek from the Tapon, and in the course of the rescue, millions of H’uumans died. When he realized the depth of their devotion to his son, Cort released them from the requirements of the agreement and welcomed the H’uumans into the Ares Federation. Their oath to protect Dalek was more binding than any treaty could ever be, so Cort felt they had earned a place as equals. That decision nearly led to another war with the Collaboration of Planets itself.

  “What’s your name, Doctor?”

  “I am Ceram. I am of Heroc’s final brood.”

  “Most of the people under me wouldn’t speak to me as freely as you do, Ceram. It's refreshing. What else is wrong with me?”

  Ceram flexed his mandibles into the shape Cort knew to be a smile. “General, you will be fine. Just uglier by human standards. Your ribs are almost healed, as is most of the internal damage. As for the freedom with which I address you, as I said, I am of Heroc’s final brood. I know that which you respect and that which you do not. I will treat you the way she taught me to.”

  Cort smiled as well as he could and shook his head. “Damned if that woman isn’t still pushing my buttons. How is Thorn?”

  “He too, will be fine. His internal injuries were more extensive, but your FALCON armor protected him from most of the shrapnel created by the blast. His wife is onboard as well. She has asked to see you as soon as you are willing to receive her.”

  “In a few hours. I need to speak to Kim first. Who else is here?”

  “Admiral Bazal arrived late last night. He is working with his staff to determine who is behind the attack.”

  Cort looked down at the tubes feeding synthetics into his system. “How soon can I be up and around?”

  Ceram flexed his mandibles again. “Human doctors would tell you several weeks, but I know your history too well. You can get out of bed in a few more hours. I want your ribs to be completely healed before you start walking. Your eye will take months to grow back because of the complexity of its interface with your brain, but the rest of your face will be intact within days. Your hearing should be repaired by the end of today. The ear itself will take at least four days.”

  “Any idea what I will look like when I am completely healed?”

  Ceram handed Cort a flexpad after touching it several times. The image was of Cort’s right profile. As he manipulated the image, the face turned and Cort saw his left cheek. Like the scar he had borne years ago, there was a line of uneven skin moving from his hairline to his chin. Between the scar and his ear, the skin was marbled as if Cort had been burned.

  “I thought skin healed faster, Ceram. Shouldn’t it be fine?”

  “Normally, yes. However, the internal injuries were significant enough to cause your synthetics to prioritize the healing process. We could completely remove the skin on that side, and it would heal properly, but you would have to be under my care for several weeks so we could abrade the wounds daily to prevent further scarring.”

  “No. Maybe at some point, but not right now. Thanks, Ceram. Will you get me a video unit so I can contact my wife?”

  “Of course, General.”

  After Ceram left, Cort activated the tachyon comm unit and connected to the H’uuman control system on their homeworld. The system patched him through to Solitude, where Tur, the insectoid who was the leader of Dalek’s security detail and had become a part of the family, handed Kimberly a similar unit. When he saw her face, he could tell she hadn’t slept much, and that she had been crying.

  “Hey. You been cutting onions?”

  “You look like hell, baby. But it’s better than it was yesterday. You’re lucky Dalek was asleep when that newsvid got here.” Kim’s eyes filled with tears again. “Show me the rest. How bad is it now?”

  Cort opened a window on the comm unit that showed his own face, and propped it on his lap. He took the bandages off of his face, and both of them saw the damage for the first time.

  Kim appeared to lock her jaw momentarily, then burst out, “Why the hell did you cut your eye off? And why did you do it in front of the press? Do you have any idea what it’s like to watch your husband cut off his own eye? Damn you, Cort! And why can’t I come to you?”

  Cort looked at his face while Kim vented. When she finally took a breath he spoke in a calm and reasonable voice. “You know very well why you can’t come here. You’re safer there than you would be anywhere in the galaxy. I’ll be home soon enough. How are the boys?”

  “Dalek wants to see your face. He overheard some of the security people discussing the bomb and asked me about it. George is concerned.” Kim looked down for moment, then back at Cort. “I need to tell you something, baby.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s George. He loves us. He called you ‘Father’ last night. And me ‘Mother.’ He’s our son, Cort. As sure as Dalek is.”

  Cort smiled, causing his face to tingle painfully. “I know that, Kim. To me, he has been since the day Tsao activated the avatar.”

  “He understands what is going on, though. More than Dalek. He understands as well as any adult could.”

  “What are you hiding, Kim? What does he know?”

  “I wasn’t going to tell you, but Bazal commed me this morning and asked what George was doing.
Cort, you gave him permission to learn from the datanet. Last night he said he could sift the ‘net and find out who did it, but that you had forbidden him from using his connection that way. I told him to do it anyway and that I would deal with you.”

  “Put George on.” Cort demanded.

  “Cort…” Kim began.

  “Put him on, Kim. Right now.”

  When George’s image was in front of him, with Kim standing behind the boy, Cort said, “George, Son, when we first connected to you, I promised you that you didn’t have to do anything but play with Dalek. I wanted you to choose what you do, not be a servant to us. And I don’t like you being a part of this.”

  “Father, it’s okay. I told Mother I could do it. She didn’t ask me to. I want to help you. I know I look like Dalek, but I’m older than you are. And smarter. So let me help.”