If Nox had been human girl, hell, she was tricky and evil enough to be one of my girlfriends. Too bad she was sinfully ugly, a married mom, and an alien to boot.

  -30-

  When I got down to the revival chamber, I found Sateekas was fresh out of the oven.

  “What’s that foul smell assaulting my nostrils?” he demanded. “My olfactory organ is overwhelmed by a distinctly alien stench.”

  “My apologies, Grand Admiral,” said the Mogwa bio-operator. “There’s a large ape-descendant in the chamber with us. That must be the source of the odor.”

  The Mogwas all twitched their faces a bit. I figured they were snuffling. I was beginning to feel a mite offended by this display.

  “Hiya, Grand Admiral,” I said, shrugging off any sensation of being unwelcome.

  The grand admiral peered in my direction. “I see a heinously tall blob of meat. It must be the McGill-creature, am I correct?”

  “You certainly are. Got it in one.”

  “What are you doing here, McGill? This is not my finest moment.”

  Sateekas was moving weakly, trying to organize his thoughts and his nervous system. I had sympathy for all that, but I also had orders from Lady Nox.

  I thought about how I could break all the bad news that was coming his way. I had to do it in a manner that would cause him the least amount of anxiety—and invoke the least amount of rage.

  “I’m here to guard your person just like always, sir,” I told him.

  “How absurd. I’m in the Mogwa fortress. Nowhere could be more secure.”

  I fell quiet while the rest of the revival team went through all the motions. They quoted numbers, gave him various tests, and endured some foot-hand slaps from the admiral as he irritably questioned their intellects.

  When Sateekas was finally released, I trailed after him.

  The garrison commander was right there at the door, and he tried to take over. “That’s enough, McGill,” he told me. “You are relieved of your duties. Return to your barracks and shut down.”

  “Uh…” I said, “I’m actually under orders from Lady Nox, Mr. Commander, sir.”

  “Lady Nox?” Sateekas demanded, cranking his orbs halfway around and looking at me. He peered suspiciously through his squinty, fresh-grown eyes.

  “That’s right, Grand Admiral,” I said. “The good lady wanted to make sure that you got up to your apartments safely.”

  “What nonsense…” He turned back around and grumbled as he thumped and staggered his way toward the upper floors.

  Mogwa weren’t much for stairways. They tended to use ramps for climbing up levels. I trotted along on the ramps behind him, following in his wake.

  The garrison commander seemed annoyed, but not enough to attempt to intervene again. He threw me a hateful glance bade at the second ramp, and bade Sateekas farewell. Then, he disappeared, heading for his military headquarters chamber.

  Once he was gone, Sateekas stopped walking and peered after him. He waited until he was a goodly distance away before he spoke in a hushed tone.

  “He’s an assassin, isn’t he?” he said. “I’ve always suspected…”

  “Uh…” I said. “I’m not sure about that, sir.”

  “Then why, by the blackest of the blackest of holes, did Lady Nox order you to escort me all the way up to her apartments?”

  “I don’t rightly know, sir, but I’m certain she’s concerned for your personal safety and well-being.”

  He made a nasty snorting noise. Something wet and sticky splatted on the ramp between my boots. I tried not to look too disgusted.

  “What utter nonsense,” he said. He turned around and made it up a couple more floors up the ramps. As he moved, I could see he was now operating his body with greater agility and purposefulness.

  When we got to the last passageway, the one that terminated in the large double doors that held Lady Nox’s apartment, I was very surprised to see a total lack of guardsmen. Instead, I counted no less than seven of the skunk-aliens.

  They all stood there, staring at us. I halted, as did Sateekas.

  “What are these creatures doing here?” Sateekas demanded.

  I took a dim view of the whole thing, having dealt with these aliens on multiple occasions. I stepped ahead of Sateekas defensively. My hand fell upon my pistol, but I didn’t yet draw it.

  “Hey there,” I said. “You skunks! What are you doing in this hallway? There’s no cause for you to be here.”

  One of them produced a broom. He began sweeping in an unconvincing manner at the floor. The other six just continued to stare.

  “Ah…” Sateekas said. “They are mere servants, sent here to clean up. It’s about time some of the locals volunteered to service my whims… No Mogwa should be required to perform such a task—and you humans are far too overpriced to be wasted on this kind of menial labor.”

  He began to trundle forward again, but I stopped him by putting a hand down in front of his face. He made some rough snorting noises of surprise and anger.

  But I glared at the skunks with suspicion. I drew my pistol and aimed it in their direction.

  “Get out of here,” I ordered them. “This passageway is off limits to your kind.”

  The skunks froze. Even the one who was fake-sweeping paused. They all stared at me for a moment.

  I took a menacing step forward, thumping my boots loudly and leveling the pistol at the nearest.

  That was all it took. They bolted. They ran off in a half-dozen different directions and disappeared down side passages.

  I walked around a bit, making sure the coast was clear. During this time, Sateekas grumbled and complained about paranoia and delays.

  At last, I knocked for Lady Nox to open the door. She did so, and Sateekas scuttled inside. I moved to follow them, but I was not allowed to enter.

  “Your services are no longer required, McGill,” Sateekas said as he snaked one of his arms around Lady Nox.

  I have a hard time reading regular human woman’s expressions, much less a Mogwa’s, but to me, she looked resigned and annoyed.

  “Good night, McGill,” Lady Nox said.

  Then the door closed in my face.

  As I turned around and began to walk down the passageway again, I saw one lone skunk alien, still wearing his servant’s uniform. It was the one with the broom. He stared at me as I approached. I considered giving him a kick, but decided not to, stepping aside instead.

  He reached out with his broom and poked at my boot experimentally.

  I stopped and put my hands on my knees, looking at this single, fluffy and deceptive creature.

  “What do you want, skunk?”

  “You have failed us,” he said.

  “How so?”

  “We discussed our arrangements with you in the city,” he pointed vaguely off over his shoulder.

  I immediately got the feeling he was talking about the time I’d been taken to King Vorhoos and given an ultimatum, followed by a very distasteful dismissal.

  I laughed at the skunk. “What did you think? …that I was supposed to listen to you after you went and shot me to death? Where I’m from, we don’t take kindly to murdering skunks.”

  He looked at me quizzically for a moment, cocking his head. “You claim not to be in our employ?”

  “That’s right, I’m not in your employ at all. I don’t even like you guys much.”

  “I thought all was made clear,” the skunk said. “We made our argument of injustice. I thought that you, as a fellow slave-creature—”

  “Well,” I said, “you thought wrong. You can go back home and tell Vorhoos that.”

  The skunk dropped his small broom and scuttled away. I watched him leave and looked around to both my flanks and my six—just in case there were more of these aliens sneaking up on me—but I saw nothing threatening.

  These Nebrans reminded me of the gremlins of Blood World. In all honesty, those guys were probably worse, but these skunks came in a close second when it came to skullduggery and vicious shenanigans.

  Shaking my head, I returned to my guard barracks and bunked down for the night.

  * * *

  In the middle of the night, I was treated to a rude awakening. All my troops in the barracks shared the experience.

  Without warning or preamble, several Mogwa guardians marched into the place in their little tanks and threatened us. My men rolled up out of their bunks, scowling. They reached for weapons, but they didn’t immediately aim them in the direction of any Mogwa.

  Carlos and Sargon, being men that had frequently dealt with the Mogwa in a personal sense in the past, both appeared behind them. They weren’t carrying guns, but rather clubs.

  I knew what they were thinking. One of the best ways to take out a Mogwa in his tank was to get in close and simply beat him to death with a large, heavy object.

  I put up a single hand, palm high and flat, signaling them to hold off.

  “What’s this?” the garrison commander demanded. “A sign of surrender and obsequiousness?”

  He didn’t even seem to get the fact that I was signaling the men behind him—which he had not even noticed yet.

  The Mogwa were masters of deception and sheer pig-headed arrogance, but they weren’t terribly good at tactics. They had a rather poor sense of fighting and predatory behavior.

  “What can I do for you this morning, Mr. Commander, sir?” I asked.

  “You have brought an alien spy into our midst,” he said.

  “What? You mean that skunk with the broom?”

  “Stop your worthless chatter. There’s a creature, a creature of unrelenting filth, and of a highly predatory nature,” he said. “He apparently died at one point, and we were directed to revive him. He keeps saying he’s a member of your company. When he was brought back to life, he severed two of my bio-officers’ limbs.”

  That’s when I noticed something about the second Mogwa in the group. He wasn’t wearing a combat suit, and he did seem indeed to be missing two limbs. He looked as if he was in great pain, and his stumps were wrapped with an artificial-skin container.

  “Oh…” I said, looking at that and frowning. “Did you happen to catch the name of this individual?”

  “The name is Raash,” another loud voice boomed from the back of the group.

  I peered, and indeed, I saw Raash.

  Blue scales and teeth presented themselves to me. His yellow squinting eyes regarded me with hate. His tail was rigid and upright, a sure sign that he was angry. He was nude as well, but for a Saurian, that didn’t mean much. They weighed over two hundred kilos on average and stood about two meters tall. A Saurian male didn’t need a weapon or a uniform to be dangerous.

  “This is the creature in question,” the Mogwa commander said. “He broke free of the revival chamber after having injured my medical officer. I now declare him to be your responsibility. Any further misbehavior on his part will be directly attributed to you and your platoon.”

  I sputtered a bit at this, as did Sargon, but the Mogwa commander wasn’t interested. He marched out of the place, shuffling aside any human who got in his way.

  The bio-officer glanced over his humping shoulders, nursing his injured limbs. He hissed and spat as he exited the room last, directing a volume of ejectus toward Raash, who was standing tall.

  I turned toward the lizard alien who pridefully regarded me in return.

  “Raash…” I said, “so let me get this straight. Somebody ordered you to be revived here with the Mogwa garrison by mistake. Then… you took that opportunity to chew off your own reviving physician’s arm?”

  “Your statement has multiple inaccuracies.”

  “Okay, let’s just forget about all that,” I said. “What do you want here?”

  Raash pointed a very long claw in my direction. He made a stabbing motion with it, but I didn’t quite let him reach me.

  “My demands are simple and inescapable,” the lizard said. “You will add me to your guardian group. You will treat me as you would any other member of your combat team of soft humans.”

  “Oh yeah?” I said. “And what are you going to do if I don’t do that?”

  “Then I’ll expose you, James McGill. I’ll inform Sateekas of your interactions with the rebels of this planet. You will be ejected from this fortress and prevented from returning.”

  I thought that over, frowning. Lady Nox already knew I’d talked to the skunk-king… but… “Okay, whatever. Pvt. Morales?”

  “Yes, Centurion?”

  “Get out of that bunk. You’ve been replaced by this here lizard.”

  Looking shocked, Morales was ejected from his sleeping place. Raash stretched out upon the bunk instead. Immediately, the fabric of the sheets and blankets ripped underneath his thorny, scaly skin.

  Sargon stepped up to me, looking doubtfully at the lizard who was stretching out and making himself comfortable.

  “You want I should get him a blanket or something, sir?”

  “Unnecessary,” Raash said. “Human beings are such delicate creatures. The interior of my mother’s egg wasn’t this comfortable on Cancri-9. I would be embarrassed to require this much padding, even in my own grave.”

  “Seems like he’s fine, Sargon,” I said, heading back to my own bunk. It was not yet dawn, and I wanted to get a few more hours’ sleep.

  “I do have one requirement, however,” Raash announced.

  I swear, with every word he spoke, some of the fetid stink from his unbrushed, curved fangs managed to reach my nostrils after it wafted across the barracks.

  “What is it now, Raash?”

  “I require that you turn off the air conditioning,” he said.

  “What?” Carlos squawked, finally speaking up. “You don’t want a blanket, but you want us all to fry in our beds?”

  “The natural temperature of this planet is perfect,” Raash complained. “You humans are the ones altering it to your own convenience. You have no right to discomfort me in this manner.”

  A number of surprised-looking expressions shifted to gaze at me. I frowned, thinking over Raash’s request. Finally, I nodded.

  “All right. Turn off the A.C., Carlos.”

  “Aw, hell,” he complained. But he walked over, and he did it.

  The rest of the night was hot, sticky, and full of the raspy sounds of Raash’s breathing.

  -31-

  Any sane human—or Mogwa—would’ve figured that the last thing Sateekas should want to do the day after he’d been revived was go on another showboating patrol.

  But they all would have thought wrong.

  “McGill, attend me,” Sateekas said. I hustled forward, jangling and clanking in my armor. Behind me, dozens of other troops did the same. It was a goodly two days after the disaster in the streets of the Nebran capital, and all of my men had been revived by now.

  The Mogwa garrison commander looked chagrined. “I find it unnecessary for this color guard to—”

  “Stop right there,” Sateekas said, putting up a foot-hand in his face.

  The commander bristled, his mini-tank betraying his own personal reactions as would an exoskeleton. These tanks responded immediately to the movements of the Mogwa occupant, and they tended to reveal the inner thought patterns and emotions of the pilot inside.

  “It is you who shall not be attending me today,” Sateekas told the garrison commander. “You will stay here where you belong, inside the fortification. McGill and his troops will provide all the protection I need.”

  The garrison commander seemed aghast. “But Grand Admiral—”

  “I will hear no more of it,” Sateekas said.

  “Well, sir, then perhaps you can at least tell us where you’re headed so that we may make arrangements and can possibly scramble a rescue party to your location.”

  “Unnecessary and counterproductive,” Sateekas boomed back. “You will stay here—all of you. You will follow my orders in this matter, or you will be removed from your duties.”

  The garrison commander and his tank shuffled a bit. His gun was aimed up directly into the sky, as was traditional and respectful when in the middle of a non-combatant situation, but it was twitchy. I suspected that possibly, just possibly, he wanted to aim it at myself or maybe the grand admiral himself.

  “Very well, sir,” he said, at last. “It will be as you command.”

  “Of course, it will be! Out of my way!”

  Sateekas headed for the exits with his typical, wobbly gait. As before, there were two of them, Sateekas and his son Nero. My platoon hustled behind them. I made it a point to tuck my troops in close, surrounding and enclosing our charges.

  So far, Nero hadn’t said a word. He was merely staring and listening. I got the feeling he was absorbing all that was said—he wasn’t a dumb kid.

  Maybe there was hope for the boy yet. Maybe, he had inherited the brains of his mother and the bravado of his father. It would be a nice combination if it was possible. He certainly had the arrogance of both.

  We headed out into the courtyard where a transport waited. Vapor rolled off its flanks. A ramp uncoiled from the side of the craft, and we marched aboard.

  Inside the small suborbital craft, it was a tight squeeze for forty men—plus one lizard. It was only when we were aboard and Sateekas was berating the pilot that he took note of the single extra member of my guard detail.

  “What’s this?” he demanded. “That’s no human—and it’s no Nebran, either. Who brought this unknown beast onto my transport?”

  His legs churned, and he moved at a crawling pace towards Raash, who was sitting in the back. I followed Sateekas, and I offered my apologies. I’d kind of hoped to sneak the lizard aboard without him having noticed.

  “This is Raash, sir,” I said.

  Sateekas stopped in front of the blue lizard, who was already hissing and showing a few extra rows of curved fangs. “What purpose might a Saurian serve aboard my transport? Besides sabotage?” Sateekas directed a foot-hand in the direction of the interloper. “Remove this animal, McGill,” he said. “We won’t be taking off until you do.”

  “Hold on there, Grand Admiral,” I said. “This is Raash.”

 

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