Warrior Chronicles 5: Warrior's Curse Page 20

  “Yes’m”

  “I haven’t read him, but he had aliens, right?”

  “Yes. Red ones were like humans. There were tall green ones with lots of arms. White ones. Gorilla ones. Smart dinosaur dogs…”

  “Okay,” Kim interrupted. “We have aliens too. One of Cort’s best friends is called a Jaifan.”

  “A Jaifan?”

  “They are three-meter tall insects. They look like cockroaches that walk upright.”

  “No thank you. I’ll pass.”

  “You don’t get to pass if you want to be in our family. It’s a complicated history, but the entire species has sworn allegiance to Dalek. Cort trusts them more than any other species in the galaxy. If you don’t like them, you won’t be a part of our family.”

  “You can’t make me like someone I don’t, ma’am.”

  “No I cannot. Nor can Cort. I’m just telling you how he is. He doesn’t tolerate prejudice.”

  Clem looked at Kim for a long time before saying, “I ain’t got any reason to hate nig…negroes. Or retards. Or cockroaches, I guess. But I’m not sitting down at supper with them either. Maybe this ain’t the place for me. Can you all just drop me off back on Earth and let me be?”

  “It isn’t that simple Clem.” Kim sighed. “Okay, listen. I have an idea. When Cort was hurt this time, we set him up with a crash course in history. I want to do the same with you. Only with more of it. Going back to when you disappeared. I’ll put something together on a flexpad. Once you are caught up, we can talk more about it, okay?”

  “I guess that’ll do. I’m not promising to change though.”

  “And I can’t promise you that Cort won’t kill you, Clem. So you have to try. The world has moved past those things. We are all equal now.”

  “Even the cockroaches?”

  “Let me show you something.” Kim reached for her flexpad. “Remember what I said about the Jaifans? That they have sworn allegiance to Dalek?”

  “Yeah.”

  Kim tapped her flexpad and a video began playing. Then she handed it to Clem.

  “That was the day the people kidnapped Dalek?” Clem asked after watching the video.

  “Yes. The female that was standing in front of him was their high queen. Thousands of their species died that day. Just to protect my son. To protect Cort’s son.”

  “They did fight,” Clem acknowledged. “They sure as hell did.”

  “Clem, Cort had already accepted them as allies. Well, first he beat them. Then he befriended them. By the time this happened, he was already working toward making them equals in our society. But before we got Dalek back, millions of them had died to help rescue him.”

  “I can understand that, I suppose.”

  “What I’m trying to say is that Cort chose them. They earned his trust. They earned his loyalty. But you, as much as you mean to him, you are just blood. You aren’t family yet. With him, that’s something you earn.”

  --

  “Poppa?”

  “Yes?” Cort looked down at Dalek. The two were walking toward the shuttle bay, where Cort was going to ship over to the Remington, against Ceram’s wishes.

  “Are you going to get hurt again?”

  Cort stopped and squatted down in front of the boy. “I never plan on it, buddy. But sometimes it happens anyway.”

  “I heard Momma talking to Admiral Thoms. She said she wasn’t sure if you would be the same this time.”

  Cort sat cross-legged on the deck. He motioned the Jaifans around them to close off the corridor, and Bane put his head on Cort’s thigh, as Shart did the same when Dalek sat down.

  “I’m sorry I get hurt so much. I try not to.”

  “But you want to protect people?”

  Cort smiled. “Exactly. Most of all, though, I want to protect you and Momma. Sometimes that means I have to get hurt.”

  “So we don’t?”

  “Yes. So you don’t get hurt. Do you remember when the bad people took you?”

  “Not really. I remember Bazal singing to me, though. He did that a lot.”

  “He was protecting you, too.”

  “Everyone protects me. I want to protect people like you do.”

  “You’ll have to some day. Hopefully you won’t get hurt like I do, though.”

  Dalek’s face became serious. “Will I have a little boy to protect?”

  Cort smiled. “Maybe. But even if you don’t, you will have our family to protect. That’s our job.”

  “Is Clemmer family?”

  Cort hesitated. He stood up and took Dalek into his arms and said, “That’s up to him.”

  --

  On the Remington, Cort walked beside Liz and listened to her talk about the modifications that she had made for the refugees.

  “We printed housing for all of them. Most of the women want to sleep alone. But the men seem to prefer sleeping in groups. We’ve also kept the ones who have seen Jaifans separate from those who haven’t.”

  “That’s probably good thinking. How are they adjusting?”

  “We are processing them as quickly as possible. Some of them have committed suicide since being rescued. Some haven’t spoken a word. But the ones that bother me are the ones who don’t seem to be affected by it all. Even some of them who have seen Jaifans seem unfazed by it all. It’s disconcerting.”

  “Liz, I don’t need to tell you how much damage they could do if they snapped. Keep close tabs on them. Once we get back to our universe, if Bazal is still around, he’ll have his hands full.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that. I mean, about Bazal. I wonder if any of them will still be around when we get back.”

  “We just have to get back there as soon as we can, and hope to see our friends again."

  “It’s strange to think of how much time has passed over there.”

  Cort stopped walking and turned to his companion. “Liz, the last few weeks…” he began. “I’ve read the reports. I know what’s happened down on the planet. But that time is gone for me. What did I miss?”

  Liz remembered the feel of Cort’s hand against her body and blushed. “Cort, you weren’t yourself.”

  “That’s not an answer, Liz. But your reaction is. What happened?”

  Liz looked around, and seeing they were alone, told Cort about him grabbing her. It was his turn to blush. “Liz, I’m so sorry.”

  “Sir. It was the stroke. I was over it before I left your bedside. It was just a medical anomaly. We’ve been through worse together.”

  They began to walk again, in silence. As they entered the magazine-turned-housing area, they passed a pair of men talking. Both were heavily bearded, something modern humans weren’t capable of, so he knew they were both refugees.

  “One good thing about this is that the refugees who choose to reproduce will reintroduce a lot of genetic traits that were lost in the early iterations of synthetics.”

  “Yes. Ceram has brought that up several times. He’s taking blood samples to make sure nothing is lost. Even if the refugees don’t reproduce, we should get back a lot of things that were lost to the Cull.”

  One of the bearded men had caught up to them. “‘Ay mate, who’re you now?”

  “I am General Addison. Who are you?”

  “I’m Billy by damn Rogers, General.” Rogers looked at his partner. “A general no less. Now I’ll get something done! Not that e’s my bloody general. But e’ll do!”

  “What is it that you want to get done, Rogers?”

  Bane’s nape stood up as he placed himself between Cort and the man.

  “When’ll you be takin’ me back to my Mary, General? This bloody mess has gone on long enough!”

  With his last word, Rogers poked Cort in the chest with two fingers. Bane reacted by taking the hand in his jaws and pulling the man away from Cort. Rogers’ friend immediately kicked at the wolf, and Cort punched him. Cort called Bane to his side and looked down at the man he had hit. It was clear that his jaw was broken. Rogers was holding his
hand, broken bones showing the force with which Bane had bit him.

  Cort raised his hand to stop the two FALCON-clad Marines that were running toward him and said, “Now listen to me, Mr. Rogers. I am trying very hard to appreciate your situation, but if you ever touch one of my Marines or one of my wolves again, I will kill you. Do you understand me?”

  “I’ll ‘ave the King’s men on you, you bloody ape!”

  “Do you understand me?” Cort repeated slowly. A crowd had gathered around them and the two Marines moved closer to Cort and Liz. Behind the crowd, Cort could see several CONDORs approaching.

  “Rogers, the world you left doesn’t exist anymore. I’m trying to be considerate of that, but do not try me. My wolves mean much more to me than you do.” Cort waved over the pair of CONDORs. “Take them to medical.”

  As the men were carried away and the crowd dispersed, Cort asked Liz if there had been many other problems with the newcomers.

  “Nothing serious, but it’s clear that the abductions were random. There are a few dozen we have confined to their quarters.”

  “What’s the current headcount?”

  Liz sighed. “Seventeen thousand total. Of those, six thousand are non-homo sapien. Another twelve hundred are children.”

  “Does that include the handicapped children?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are they?”

  “The children? I have them in another area. They are essentially orphans. We’ve been able to match up three of them with their parents. All pre-cull.” Liz’s tone was sober. “Cort, you know about the food, right? What they were feeding them?”

  “Yeah, I know. And I want to keep that under wraps. No one discusses it at all. Not even privately.”

  “I’ve already given those orders.”

  “Take me to see the kids. Not the babies. I can’t face them right now. Just the kids.”

  A few minutes later, Cort and Liz turned a corner into the area that had been set aside for the children. There were pods that had been printed to form a school. There were three dozen rooms surrounding a courtyard, all with clear walls on the side facing a printed park. In the park, wolves were socializing with children. There were only human adults visible, but Cort could see images of Jaifans and other species on screens in some of the classrooms.

  It was at that moment a little girl approached him. She was pale and clearly malnourished, but he knew from Liz the children were being nursed back to health.

  The little girl looked him up and down. “Your clothes are funny, like Elizabeth’s.”

  Cort realized that he and Liz were the only two people in the school who had military uniforms on. The teachers, who had been taken from the Marines and ship crews, were in simple light blue tunics, and the refugee children were all in brightly colored clothes. Cort suspected they were somehow color coded, but wasn’t concerned as to how. His focus was on the little girl.

  “Yes, they are. Your clothes are very pretty though.”

  “Teacher says our pretty clothes are proof that the monsters can’t hurt us anymore. The monsters didn’t let us have clothes.”

  “They didn’t?”

  “Nope! We had to be naked. Even when we were cold. Now I have lots of clothes. Well, kind of. I only have one set, but every day I get a new one that is a different color. So I know the monsters aren’t here.”

  The girl was incredibly cute. She had a very slight Chinese and British accent, but she spoke clearly. Cort suspected she had been abducted from Hong Kong. “Well, we do have some people who don’t look like us, but they are aren’t monsters. And you don’t need to be afraid of them.”

  “The Jaifans? I know about them, they helped rescue us from the real monsters.”

  “Yes, the Jaifans. They look like monsters, but they aren’t.” Cort led Liz and the little girl to a nearby bench. When they sat, Bane stayed at Cort’s side but nuzzled the girl’s hand until she began to pet him.

  “Is he really a wolf? I thought wolves were mean.”

  “He can be. He would be if someone tried to hurt me.”

  “Even me?”

  “No. Wolves know when people are really mean. They try not to hurt good people.”

  “What about the monsters?”

  “Bane, that’s his name, wouldn’t be nice to them at all. He would fight them.”

  “If I had a wolf, I wouldn’t be afraid of them anymore.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Melanie. What’s yours?”

  “Hi Melanie, my name is Cort. The grownups have to call me Sir or General. But you can call me Cort all the time, okay?”

  “Okay, Cort.”

  “Melanie, it’s okay to be afraid of the monsters. Everyone is afraid sometimes. But you don’t have to be afraid anymore.”

  “I still have bad dreams about them.” Melanie’s cute face wrinkled into a frown.

  Cort’s flexpad vibrated. “Excuse me just a moment, Melanie.” He looked at the pad, then at Liz who had watched the exchange with tears in her eyes. Cort tapped out Are you sure? Liz nodded and he reread her message.

  Her parents are confirmed dead. I’ve been coming here every day and talking to her. I’m going to adopt her, so don’t get your heart caught the way I did, Cort.

  That’s great, Liz. Have you talked to her about it?

  A little. She wants to start staying in my quarters. I was waiting to talk to you about it.

  You have my blessing, Liz.

  “Do you like it here, Melanie?” Cort focused again on the little girl.

  Melanie pointed at Liz as she said, “I like the wolves, but not the school. I would rather spend my time with her.”

  “Well Melanie, I am the boss around here, so I’ll make you a deal. If you will come to school every day, I will make sure you get to play with the wolves, and you can stay with Elizabeth at night. Would you like that?”

  Melanie jumped up and threw her arms around Cort. “REALLY? YES! YES! YES!”

  Liz began to cry. The little girl immediately let go of Cort and ran to her. “Why are you crying?”

  “They are happy tears, honey. I didn’t know I loved you until I met you. So I am happy the General is letting you stay with me.”

  Melanie’s eyes widened as she looked at Cort. “Even Elizabeth has to call you General?”

  “Most of the time she does. But not always.”

  “I won’t be as afraid tonight.”

  “Like I said,” Cort gently touched the girl’s hand, “everyone is afraid sometimes.”

  "Even you?"

  He nodded. "Yes. Even me."

  She was suddenly concerned. "Even monsters?"

  "Even monsters," Cort assured her.

  Doubtfully, Melanie asked, "What are monsters afraid of?"

  "Me."

  Melanie looked questioningly at Liz, who nodded. “It’s true. Even monsters are afraid of him.”

  “Are you afraid of him, Elizabeth?”

  Liz was startled by the question. She looked at Cort for a long moment. Then, without breaking her gaze, answered, “No, Melanie. I’m not afraid of him. He is a good man.”

  In that moment, something passed between Cort and Liz. She would never again question his killing of her brother and uncle, and he would never again question her loyalty. Cort stood. “I have to get back to the Kalashnikov. Liz, turn things over to your flag captain and show Melanie her new quarters.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you sir.”

  “You do realize, you won’t be on ships anymore after this, right?” Cort asked.

  “I don’t need to be, Cort. I’ve found what I was looking for.”

  Fifteen

  The next morning found Cort in a foul mood. He woke next to Kim, slipped out of bed, and dressed in a FALCON. Going directly to the galley, Cort grabbed a tray and put two cups of coffee on it, filling the remaining space with fried bacon and toast. Half of the bacon was missing from the tray when his comm sounded.

  “Ares. What is it?” />
  “Blenda sir. I’m dirtside. We’ve found an underground city. We can’t scan it and we can’t get in. It’s too well guarded. At the very least we need the HAWC. We may even need orbital support.”

  Cort couldn’t pinpoint how or why the sound of Quinn’s voice affected him. Was he feeling guilt? That didn’t make sense. He couldn’t figure it out, so he tried to put the emotion aside. “Define well guarded, Colonel.”