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CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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CHAPTER ONE

      THE VOICES IN the medical bay aboard the Cehn-Tahr Holconcom ship Morcai were growing louder as the discussion progressed. Techs nearby were straining unashamedly to hear the outcome. Dr. Edris Mallory was small, blonde, blue-eyed and stubborn. Her opponent, Rhemun, was the new commander of the Holconcom. He was tall, with long, curly black hair down to his waist. Like all Cehn-Tahr, he had catlike features, predominantly his eyes, which changed color to mirror his mood. Right now, they were brown. Threatening.

      “We must have a better allocation of space aboard the Morcai,” Rhemun said in stiffly formal Standard. “Your sick bay has very few patients...”

      “Begging your pardon, sir, it has quite a number of patients,” she shot back, her cheeks faintly rosy with temper.

      “Prove it,” he said with a smug look.

      “Delighted.” She slammed a data padd against his broad chest.

      “Mallory,” he cautioned.

      “Sorry, sir, my hand slipped.” She didn’t give him a bland smile with the lie, as her predecessor, Dr. Madeline Ruszel, would have. But he got the point.

      He looked at the padd with irritation. It did prove her point. Her sick bay had logged over one hundred visits from the Cehn-Tahr aboard ship in a week’s time. In fact, Dr. Strick Hahnson, who took care of the humans aboard, had logged twenty fewer visits than Mallory.

      He glared at her. His distaste for humans was painfully apparent to everyone aboard, but especially to Mallory, whom he rode mercilessly. She didn’t understand his ongoing prejudices, but she caught the brunt of them. He seemed to go out of his way to make her life miserable. She couldn’t think of a single serious infraction lately that would explain it. Of course, their mutual antagonism had a long history, all the way back to his first appearance aboard the Morcai when, as head of the kehmatemer, he accompanied Cehn-Tahr Emperor Tnurat Alamantimichar on a rescue mission to save Dr. Ruszel’s life after a failed mission. She and Rhemun had been instantly antagonistic toward each other. Sadly, his appointment as Dtimun’s replacement aboard the Morcai hadn’t done a thing to reduce the friction.

      “Very well,” he said curtly. He handed her back the padd. “You can keep your present location, for the time being, until I can think of something more suitable.”

      “You could always have me set up shop in one of the cargo pods, sir,” she returned, still standing at strict attention.

      It was a calculated insult. He lifted his chin. His cat-eyes were still an angry brown. “You push too hard, Mallory,” he said in a deceptively soft tone. “I have no love for humans, as you well know. Do not tempt me to have you replaced.”

      “I’m sure the commander would enjoy that,” she said, averting her eyes. “However, I should point out that the only Cularian specialists at the Tri-Fleet Medical Authority at the moment are all assigned to permanent duty elsewhere.”

      “There are new classes graduating yearly, however,” he returned, and his chiseled mouth approximated a very human smirk.

      “Also true. Sir.”

      His eyes narrowed. He glared at her, as if the very sight of her offended him, angered him. He wanted to tell her why he hated humans so much; he wanted to tell her about his son, about the ragged tatters of his life that a human was responsible for. But Cehn-Tahr were forbidden to speak of personal matters with outworlders.

      It was just as well. He wanted no personal conversations with this female, who reminded him so painfully of the past.

      He turned on his heel while she was snapping to a salute and walked away.

      * * *

      EDRIS LET OUT a shaky sigh. She was afraid of Rhemun. It wasn’t because he had authority over her. It wasn’t even because he was her own personal devil. It was because he made her feel things that she was forbidden by law to feel. She hid it as best she could, reciting multiplication tables in her head to keep her mind on the subject at hand, and not on how very attractive he was. She’d learned that trick from Madeline Ruszel, who used it to keep the former commander of the Morcai, Dtimun, out of her head.

      Mallory knew that Rhemun couldn’t read minds, of course. That was a trait only of the Royal Clan. But keeping her mind on work instead of her commander required all the mental tricks of which she was capable.

      At least she’d saved her space here.

      Tally, one of her medics, stuck his head around the corner. “Are we staying?” he asked in a whisper.

      She laughed softly. “We’re staying. At least, for the time being, until he can decide on a better place to put us.”

      “Like the cargo hold?” her assistant Tellas asked from beside her coworker, laughing out loud. “That was priceless, Dr. Mallory!”

      She laughed softly. “I’ll get in trouble again.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine why he dislikes me so. I guess it’s because we started off on the wrong foot, even before he turned a pot of soup over on my head.”

      “He what?” Tellas exclaimed, choking back laughter.

      “See, there was this disagreement,” Edris related, “when Dr. Madeline Ruszel was recuperating at the Imperial compound on Memcache. I thought she needed healthy vegetables and our new commander thought she needed meat for protein. There was a slight altercation.” She made a face. “I threw a soup ladle at him.”

      They almost doubled over laughing. “Oh, my goodness, and he didn’t demote you?”

      “He couldn’t,” she pointed out. “At the time he was head of the kehmatemer, the emperor’s personal bodyguard. Anyway, he took exception to having an object thrown at him, so he turned a whole pot of soup over on my head.” She sighed. “It took forever to get the grease out of my hair.”

      “Did he get in trouble?”

      She grinned and nodded enthusiastically. “Dtimun raked him over the coals and threatened him with the emperor. It was...”

      “Nothing to do, Dr. Mallory?” a deep, irritated voice came over the intership frequency. It was almost purring.

      She swallowed. She’d forgotten the damned AVBDs, the devices that were always listening, watching, aboard ship, to discourage potential spies.

      “Sorry, sir.” She stood at attention, as if he were actually physically present.

      “Back to work.” The circuit closed.

      She rolled her eyes at the others, who gave her a thumbs-up and went back to their jobs. They were still grinning.

      * * *

      EDRIS SLEPT BADLY. There was a mission the following day, or what passed for a day in space. The unit was to rescue a pod of colonists on an outlying planet who had barely withstood an attack from Rigellian pirates bent on conquest. The colony was located on a princely node of emerillium, which the pirates wanted badly. They planned to drive away the largely unarmed colonists and claim the mines for their personal wealth.

      However, the Cehn-Tahr Empire had sent the colonists there, and it took a dim view of pirates, in any case. So the Holconcom were requested, as the nearest vessel, to protect the settlers and solve the problem.

      “Probably, it will only take a glance at us to send them running,” Edris told her medics, “and I doubt we’ll be needed.”

      “Considering how the Holconcom fight, I agree,” Tellas said

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