Alien Skies, page 23
part #3 of Wakanreo Series
“Ready, sir?” he asked.
Kamuhi nodded and they left the training area for a tour of the base. Kamuhi had lived on base with Yulayan for several months, before and right after Malia was born, but he had been a civilian then, and it had grown since he left it to go to boot camp. In addition to public places, like quarters, bars, and eating places, Quolund showed him facilities he didn’t know were there, like the listening center that monitored Wakanrean news and entertainment broadcasts, and the Intelligence Desk where all reports were analyzed.
“We work pretty closely with Intelligence, sir,” Quolund said, as they walked back to the security building. “They border on the paranoid sometimes, but they definitely provide useful information for us.”
“Did they have any advance notice of the qatorglynai raid the other day?”
“No, sir, that was right out of the sky. We were ready for demonstrators, maybe even a riot, but no one guessed there would be an abduction.” He glanced sideways at Kamuhi. “That was your wife that got snatched, wasn’t it, sir?”
Kamuhi nodded. “I appreciate everyone’s help, Sergeant. You were on the team that rescued her, weren’t you?”
“Yeah, I was there,” Quolund said. “We wondered about it. If it’s too personal, sir, just say so, but why did they snatch her and why did they take her to a hospital?”
Kamuhi debated what to tell him. Secrecy seemed fruitless. The details were bound to come out. “Yulayan is half Wakanrean and half Terran. Like a true Wakanrean, she had gone through shahgunrah, which is a kind of mating—you’ve probably heard about it?”
Quolund nodded so Kamuhi went on.
“Anyway, she chose to terminate shahgunrah because the other person—her shahgunrahai—was a qatorglynai and he hated her for being half Terran. ThreeCon had developed a procedure to end shahgunrah; it involves surgically placing an implant in a gland near the brain and in the brain itself. The qatorglynai have become alarmed at the number of people who have chosen to end shahgunrah this way; they see it as a threat to their way of life. They wanted to take Yulayan and remove the implant; this would have restored shahgunrah if they had been able to do it.”
Quolund shook his head. “Sounds like your wife has become a game piece in a pretty frightening game?”
“Yes. That’s a good way of putting it, Sergeant.”
“Good thing we got her back in time. Is she going to be reasonable about checking in when she leaves the base?”
“Fortunately, yes. It seems I’ll have to be reasonable, too—although I think Commander Harlengin is being unduly cautious in my case.”
“I don’t know, sir. Those two slime balls at the hospital went right for you.” Quolund looked at Kamuhi appraisingly. “I didn’t see it myself since I was in the advance group, but the team said you took care of yourself—stopped both of them.”
Kamuhi smiled. “They weren’t well trained Sergeant. I don’t think either of them knew what they were doing. Besides,” he added, “I didn’t drop the second one, Captain Drushachh did. She stunned him.”
Quolund shook his head. “But you got the knife away first.”
“After I let him cut up my arm with it.”
“Ah!” Quolund said. “You do need to work on using that left hand. I thought so when I was watching you fight. Terrans always favor one hand or the other. Milorans don’t have that difficulty. We use both hands equally well. Don’t worry about that, sir. I’ll take care of that little problem for you. Captain Drushachh put me in charge of your training.”
“She did?”
Quolund nodded. “Certainly, she did. She told me to see that you’re up to speed on everything in that line. Corporal Prakech will take care of the systems. That’s her area. I handle the training room and the physical training program for all the staff.”
“I see. Where are we going now, Sergeant?”
“The firing range, sir. You’ll need to practice there, as well.”
The firing range was in the basement of the security building. The weapons available to the Security staff ranged from simple stun guns on up to rocket launchers that could take down a building. Quolund took Kamuhi to the weapons locker and officially signed out a stun gun and an extra charge pack to him.
“You’re to carry this at all times, sir—even off duty. Commander Harlengin’s orders.”
Kamuhi nodded. The stun gun was a standard issue weapon. It had no lethal setting although he knew it could be altered to produce a fatal charge if one had the skill and the right tools.
Quolund watched Kamuhi hit the target four times out of five and he grunted approval. “They told me you were new to Security work, sir, but you seem to know your way around with just about everything.”
Kamuhi grinned. “Thanks, Sergeant. I’m not completely new. I spent several months in the Security Office at my training base, before I went to OPI. I learned a lot there—if Lieutenant Guhlhan had seen me miss that first shot, I’d have paid for it on the practice floor.”
Quolund opened his eyes wide at the name. “Guhlhan hna Parkwaht? You trained with him? Shuhkfarah!” He uttered a Miloran oath reserved for averting the wrath of the god of coincidences.
“Farah na muhk,” Kamuhi said politely, giving the rejoinder that agrees with the speaker. It was vaguely like saying “Include me in that.”
Quolund was surprised. “You speak Miloran?”
“Pretty well. I wouldn’t say I’m fluent in it. I need more practice in that, too, Sergeant.”
“But you trained with Guhlhan hna Parkwaht, sir? Big man, not tall but wide as a house—quick on his feet for a Miloran and with great control. He could get through your guard and touch you on any part of your body he wanted, and just as hard as he wanted, too.”
Kamuhi nodded. “That’s him. He was a good teacher. I owe him a lot.”
“I trained with him, too, more years ago than I care to think about. How is he?”
Kamuhi told Quolund the story of Jasoahn and her orders. The Miloran laughed heartily even though he had never met her.
“I’m happy to hear old Guhlhan finally found someone. He was ugly as sin, too, as I recall.”
Kamuhi smiled but made no comment. Once he got to know them, he could learn to tell Milorans apart, but he could never determine what made one good looking and another ugly.
Quolund took him back to Corporal Prakech’s office since Captain Drushachh wanted him to get started on the security systems.
They could see Corporal Prakech sitting at her desk through the open door of her office. She looked up when Sergeant Quolund knocked on the door frame. When she saw Kamuhi, she rose and came to attention.
“As you were, Corporal,” Kamuhi said. It still seemed strange to be the one saying that.
The Corporal was tall for a Shuratanian, almost a meter and a half. She had the same round, pleasant face as most other Shuratanians Kamuhi had met. Her eyes were sapphire blue instead of the more common emerald green.
When Kamuhi asked her to, Prakech sat down at her terminal to show him how the security systems were monitored. Her fingers flew over the keys, tapping out codes. The screen flashed in different patterns that she explained as each one came up.
“You can set it for audio if you need to do something else while you’re monitoring,” she said. “I prefer a visual display, but not everyone does.”
Kamuhi nodded. “What does the blinking blue display on the right side of the screen indicate?”
“That shows the level of system integrity. If it gets below that second line, we’ve got a problem for that system. Even if you don’t have the terminal set on audio, it’ll call your attention to that right away. In fact, even if no one’s actively monitoring, every terminal in the Security Desk will beep and get pushy if one of the systems goes critical.”
“Is the desk staffed all the time, Corporal?” Kamuhi asked.
“Every minute of every day, sir. The number of people varies depending on the time of day, but there’s always at least two for the com and two to go on calls.”
Kamuhi mentally reviewed the list Drushachh had showed him. “Is everyone checked out on everything? I mean, can they all do the same jobs?”
“The basics, yes, sir,” Prakech said. “Everyone knows how to monitor, and almost everyone can go on a call. I handle the systems training and certify the staff. Master Sergeant Quolund does the same for defense, both hand to hand and weapons.”
She logged out of the system and showed him how to log back on. Every terminal had both a palm ID panel and a retinal scanner built right into it.
“This is very important, sir,” she said. “Whenever you log in, you have to identify yourself with your palm print and eye scan, and then you have to enter your password. If you forget to give the password, the system will let you in, but it will set off a silent alarm. There will be armed staff here in seconds. If no one cancels the alarm, the room is flooded with knockout gas five minutes later.”
Kamuhi smiled. “That seems a little drastic.”
Prakech shook her head. “If anyone tried to take over this base, they’d start here. We take it very seriously. Captain Drushachh says that anyone who sets off the alarm by mistake has to go three falls with Sergeant Quolund—for real, not a practice fight.”
“Has anyone ever set it off?”
She shook her head again.
Kamuhi asked her some questions about how the systems actually worked. She showed him the online reference manuals and how to access them from within the systems themselves. By the time he left Prakech’s office, Kamuhi had a basic idea of what the systems could do and how to use them.
He ate a quick lunch in his office with his feet propped up on the desk and one hand on the terminal, while he flipped through screen after screen of information. He spent the afternoon with Sergeant Quolund, learning how the duty roster was created.
The sergeant entered Kamuhi’s name into the personnel file and showed him how he would be added in to different shifts as needed. He explained what jobs had to be staffed at what times and how the program would suggest names but could be overridden if needed.
“If you’re late for your shift,” the Miloran said, “the tracking system will start looking for you, backtracking to wherever you checked in last. And of course, if anything comes up where we need you, we’ll call you on your personal com.”
Next the sergeant typed a code next to Kamuhi’s name. “I’ll make sure you’re scheduled for practice when I’m in the training room. That way I’ll be able to oversee your training.”
When he had finished manipulating the week’s personnel data, Quolund downloaded a copy of the schedule to Kamuhi’s com.
“You can access the system from your home terminal if you accidentally delete this,” he said. “But remote access generates a report to Corporal Prakech, and she gets antsy if you do it too often.”
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Kamuhi said.
He went home that night and found Yulayan and Malia just getting back from her parents’ house.
“Hello, sweetheart,” he said, kissing his wife’s cheek. “How was your day?”
“All right, I guess. I spent most of it with my mother. She’s trying to find me a job as a physicist. Some of the chemical companies do research that involves physics.”
“That would be great if you want to do that,” Kamuhi said. “Do you?”
“I don’t know. I never thought about working for a chemical company. But Elazanai is right in that there isn’t much of a market for physicists in Wisuta except in industry. There’s the University of Wisuta, of course, but I don’t particularly want to teach.”
“Well, it can’t hurt to look,” Kamuhi said. He swooped Malia up and gave her a hug. Then he lifted her over his head and shook her just slightly. “Hello, little bug.”
Malia giggled and squealed delightedly.
Yulayan and Kamuhi started to prepare dinner together while Malia played in her room. Kamuhi was stirring a pot of soup when he remembered the conversation with Jared.
“Did you get a chance to talk to your father about Malia?” he asked Yulayan.
She nodded. “Yes, but he already knew about it. The Disciples approached him! They asked him to let them meet her. He refused—told them to come to me directly. Apparently they were reluctant to do that because we live on base.”
Kamuhi considered this news. “I wonder if that means anything. Do they think we’re polluting her with Terran influences or something?”
Yulayan shook her head. “I don’t know, Kam. She’s three-fourths Terran, after all. How could they object? Besides, a lot of the people in ThreeCon are Shuratanian or Miloran.”
“I suppose all that matters is they’re not Wakanrean.” Kamuhi reached over and stole a piece of the vegetables that Yulayan was cutting up.
“How was your first day in Security?” she said, swatting at his hand with her own.
“Not bad. I learned a lot already.” He told her about the people he had met, and about Sergeant Quolund knowing Lieutenant Guhlhan.
“Are they going to be beating you to a pulp here, too?”
Kamuhi laughed. “I don’t know yet, guisha. I only tried two of them. I’m not worried about the Terrans but there are ten Milorans I haven’t faced yet. Come to think of it,” he added, “I’ve never faced off with a Shuratanian. They’re so small, I don’t think I’ll have trouble, but I don’t really know about any of them yet.”
He found out soon enough the next morning when he showed up at his appointed time in the training area. He had changed into practice clothes since Sergeant Quolund frowned on staff doing their regular workouts in uniform. Quolund smiled broadly when he walked in.
“There you are, sir. Let me know when you’re warmed up, and I’ll get you set up.”
When Kamuhi finished his exercises and came over to the Master Sergeant, he noticed the Miloran was holding a length of cord in one hand.
“All ready, sir?” he said jovially. When Kamuhi nodded, Quolund summoned another Terran, a tall brown-haired man with ruddy skin and a pleasant face.
“Now, sir,” he said, “if you’ll give me your right hand, we’ll get started.
Kamuhi was startled but he held out his right hand. Quolund slipped the cord around it, knotted it into a noose and pulled it tight.
“What are you doing, sergeant?” Kamuhi asked, alarmed.
“Don’t worry, sir,” Quolund said reassuringly, “I’m just taking care of that little problem with your left hand being weak. A few weeks of practicing without using your right hand, and you’ll be fine.”
He ran the cord around Kamuhi’s waist and proceeded to tie his right hand firmly in place behind his back.
“Don’t you think this is a little extreme, Sergeant,” Kamuhi protested.
“Not at all, sir,” the Miloran said, briskly tying another knot. “Best solution there is. I’m surprised Lieutenant Guhlhan never used it on you.
“Now we’re ready, sir.” He nodded at the brown-haired Terran. “This is Private Petersen, sir. He’s new and I’m sure you could take him with no trouble at all if you had the use of both your hands. Let’s see how you do with just the one.”
Kamuhi faced off with great reluctance. He felt slow and awkward with his arm bound. He realized he was used to using it for balance, as much as anything else.
His instinct was confirmed. He had a lot of difficulty moving with anything like his usual speed at first. Luckily, Quolund had been right in his assessment that Petersen was raw. He had a weak grasp of the fundamentals of boxing and even less of how to kick or throw someone. Kamuhi stayed out of his way pretty well as he learned to adapt to having only his left arm available.
Petersen seemed to be gaining confidence, too, probably because Kamuhi hadn’t done any damage to him yet. He moved in closer and managed to get a hit in on Kamuhi’s chest. Kamuhi responded by using his left hand to catch his opponent’s arm and flip him over onto the mat.
Quolund made disapproving noises as he helped Petersen to his feet. “You need to work with Soong a little more, Private,” he said. “You’re not ready for the Ensign here, even with one arm out of the way.”
He sent Petersen off to practice with a young Terran woman who was drilling a group of three other Terrans.
“Now, sir,” he said, smiling at Kamuhi, “since you did so well with Petersen, let’s find you someone just a little harder to deal with?”
He called over a Shuratanian and introduced him as Corporal Joranchh. The corporal was as tall as Corporal Prakech and noticeably bulkier. His blue-green eyes surveyed Kamuhi as he bowed to him from across the mat.
The Terran soon discovered that smaller size wasn’t holding the Shuratanian back any. He was fast on his feet and good with his hands. He got in past Kamuhi’s limited guard very easily and parried most of Kamuhi’s attempts with no trouble. Kamuhi was able to land a few good hits but he made no attempt to throw the smaller man. He considered he was doing well to keep the Shuratanian from throwing him.
They kept it up for almost an hour before Quolund called a halt. “That’s enough for now, sir,” he said. “Hold still, and I’ll get you free of that.”
Kamuhi was glad to be able to move his arm again; it was beginning to go numb. He winced when he straightened it the first time. He was also considerably more winded than he would have been after a normal workout.
“Do you really intend to do that to me again, Sergeant?” Kamuhi asked.
“Certainly, sir,” Quolund said. “When you can throw Joranchh with consistency, I’ll move you up to someone else. Eventually, I’ll take you on myself and we’ll see how strong that left arm has gotten.”
The idea of fighting any Miloran, let alone the Quolund, with one arm tied behind his back had no great appeal for Kamuhi, and he said as much to the Lieutenant.
The Miloran just laughed. “Now, sir, I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
KAMUHI dove into learning about the security department’s systems and the staff. He asked Quolund to rotate his shift so that he had a chance to work with everyone fairly soon. In his workouts, the master sergeant insisted that Kamuhi continue practicing with his right arm tied. Within three days, Kamuhi could get past Corporal Joranchh’s guard, and on the fourth he threw him several times in the session. Sergeant Quolund watched approvingly. The fifth day, Joranchh was gone and in his place Quolund introduced Private Schubert, a tall Terran, not that much shorter than Kamuhi. He was a good deal more experienced than Petersen and a good deal stronger than Joranchh. Kamuhi hit the mat with alarming regularity.
