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<< previous | Prologue | Interlude 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | next >>
They sat in the gunship's galley. Wild looked from each of his friends in turn. His companions. His comrades in arms.
Mrrraiff, the Falanar pilot, sat opposite, running claws through his great, leonine mane. He was a good pilot and a vicious fighter. He had this annoying need to "play with his food," however. They had found prisoners missing in the past, only to discover them in the cat's quarters, begging for mercy. A disturbing sight at best.
Next to Mrrraiff sat Prrrl. Prrri, their other Falanar pilot was much more reasonable. Though he had all of the normal cat-like attributes, his civilized nature kept him from torturing prisoners.
To Wild's right sat their Oort technician, Tuluph. Tuluph talked in rapid Oort to his small group ofAl robots. Tuluph was insane, pure and simple. It was a miracle he had ever made it past ISC psyche evaluations. Sometime, during his military service, something terrible had happened to him. Wild wasn't sure what, and Tuluph had decided that he was the only intelligent being in the universe. Since then, he refused to speak Species Standard, and only accepted his creations as sapient. Mitchell had taken pity on him and added him to their group. He never gave them much grief, though, and somewhere inside, he still understood that the other people in their privateer group were actual people. He had saved their lives many times, seemingly ignoring the fact that he wasn't supposed to be able to understand their cries of distress and shouted orders.
Next to him sat Clemmons. Clemmons was big for a Human, and Wild sometimes thought that he was as strong as one of the cats. Clemmons was strange. He didn't quite seem Human. He was disconnected, more alien than most aliens. Clemmons had a secret, Wild was sure of it. He happened to be the best soldier among them, however, having served a year in Force Recon before joining Mitchell's group.
Next was Fooluph, their Oort doctor. Fooluph was a master of xeno-biology. He had saved most all of them. He regularly worked miracles, as demonstrated by Mitchell, alive and breathing, sitting at the head of the table.
And then there was Wild himself. Wild had grown to love this group, though he could never let such signs of weakness show. He had to stay somewhat distant. If they got too close to him, they might figure out his secret.
They had been gathered together by General Giles. Giles had been looking for men to travel with Mitchell. Since the institution of the Privateer Laws, the ISC had placed combat-trained veterans, armed with well designed ships, among the ranks of the privateers. The successes of these plants had raised morale and added to the privateer mystique. They had caused the Imperials to fear the privateers more than they deserved, and fear caused mistakes.
Then Mitchell's entire group died. He needed more men, and Giles had been happy to provide them. Of all the plants in the field, Mitchell was one of the most successful.
Mitchell made eye contact with each of his crew members in turn. "The rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."
Wild laughed, obligingly, then quieted when he noticed no one else had joined in. Probably, he was the only one of them who had ever heard of Mark Twain.
Mitchell continued. "Thanks to Wild and his stubborn refusal to accept my death, combined with vacuum induced hypothermia, and the efforts of our good doctor, I come to you nearly whole."
Wild felt like he should say something. "You would have done the same for me, sir." Somehow, that didn't seem adequate to describe his feelings.
"Maybe," Mitchell said, "but 1 owe you nonetheless. Wild is right though," he said to the group in general. "We need to work together like that more often. All for one and one for all."
Again, Wild was the only one who got the reference.
"There's a problem, though." Mitchell said, nodding to the doctor.
"The Lt. Colonel was dead for twenty minutes, while Wild dragged him through that ship. Despite a slight slowing in the decomposition due to hypothermia, his entire neural net collapsed."
Wild looked at the Lt. Colonel with concern. Of course, he had known that, but knowing what had to be happening to a man you dragged to safety, and hearing it from a physician, were two different things.
"I performed neural pathway reconstruction. It allowed me to revive the Lt. Colonel, but I'm not an NPR specialist, by any means."
"What does this mean?" Wild asked.
"Well," the doctor continued, "the new pathways are just as good as the old ones, but the damage was extensive enough that they are different. It will take the Lt. Colonel some months to relearn how to use his own brain. Though he will recover, for now his IQ is much lower than it was before."
"That's right," Mitchell said, and Wild thought he could make out a slight slur in his speech, like talking was difficult. "The doctor assures me my reflexes are unhampered, but my mind is ... muddled."
No one said a word. They looked at the table selfconsciously.
"So 1 need your help. There are people in the Marines who would like nothing better than to catch me in a moment of weakness and have me pulled from this position. Rivals that would like to see me fail."
"We have talked to General Giles about this," the doctor chimed in. "We need to work together until the Lt. Colonel recovers his full faculties. If his problem is discovered, our little band of pirates will be disbanded for sure. We must be as successful as ever, and that means working as a team."
"You can count on me, sir." Wild said.
"You are still the Captain, Lt. Colonel," Clemmons said with an uncomfortable grunt.
"There are those who preach that the weak should be fed upon. I am one of those people." Mrrraiff said. Wild started moving his hand toward his sidearm. "However, there are times when a great warrior must be given time to heal, so he can slay more of the enemy and bring glory to the clan."
Prrrl just nodded in agreement.
"Well then, I thank you." Mitchell said. "Since the doctor is already in agreement, and our confused engineer is unlikely to say anything at all on the matter, we should discuss the matter of our next target...
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