Confident now, the human grew bolder. “No guts,” he spat at the alien. “You guys are all talk. Come on, stand up and let’s see if you bleed!”
Hahnson gaped at the crewman. He knew the man. It was one of the engineers, Declan Muldoon, and he was one of the most levelheaded humans he’d ever known. It wasn’t like Muldoon to actually start a fight.
Just as Hahnson started to relay that opinion to his colleagues, Muldoon laid a heavy hand on the Centaurian he was baiting and, deftly turning him, threw a heavy-handed right cross to the alien’s jaw.
The Holconcom sat and stared at the human, unmoved by the blow, which would have felled any crewman at Stern’s table.
“Tough guy, huh?” Muldoon persisted, grinning. “Try this on for size!” He threw another punch, putting everything he had into it. The Holconcom absorbed it as easily as he had the first. But his eyes began to dilate. As he turned toward the human, Madeline saw the elongated cat-eyes slowly turn brown.
“Stern, do something while there’s still time,” Madeline said quickly.
But the Bellatrix’s captain only sat watching the byplay with oddly blank, dark eyes.
Suddenly a low, soft growl began to grow in the silence that followed the human engineer’s next deliberate blow. The sound built on itself, like a low roar that quickly took on the ferocity of a jungle cat’s warning cry. It exploded abruptly in a high-pitched inhuman scream that froze Stern’s heart in his chest with a terror that bordered on panic. The blank look left his eyes as his jaw dropped. He’d never heard such a nightmarish sound in his life, even in combat.
“My God!” Hahnson whispered. “The decaliphe!”
Before the soft words died on the air, the Holconcom regular was on his feet. He began to crouch, his eyes darker by the second, his hands slowly assuming the shape of a cat’s open paw. They flexed. Beneath the tips of the fingers, steel claws began to extend in gleaming sharp points. It was a form of bionic engineering that none of the humans had yet seen.
Madeline pushed Stern, but he didn’t react. He was frozen in place by the low growl that built again in the Centaurian’s throat.
Madeline grabbed for Stern’s Gresham and fired it at point-blank range, into the back of the Holconcom, with the setting on maximum burn. It should have killed the alien. It should have dropped him to his knees at least. It did neither. She fired again, cursing under her breath, with the same result.
“What in the seven netherworlds…!” Madeline exclaimed huskily.
The Holconcom group had risen in unison. They were standing, watching the other Holconcom who crouched in front of Muldoon.
Hahnson got to his feet. “Twenty Greshams wouldn’t stop him now!” he told Madeline. “He gave the decaliphe—the death cry. Only Dtimun can bring him down! Hold the other men back, no matter what the Holconcom do, if you can. I’ll get the C.O.”
He was out the door at a dead run. Madeline moved forward with the Gresham leveled, ignoring Stern, who still sat as if in a trance.
“Hold it!” Madeline barked at two human noncoms who were in the process of rising from their seats. “Move and I’ll drop both of you,” she added, her green eyes backing up the threat. They sat down.
But Lieutenant Higgins, the Bellatrix’s exec, rose from his chair despite the threat of Madeline’s Gresham. Across from her, the Holconcom regular was moving with a catlike stalking gait toward Muldoon, who had by now realized his peril and had begun to back away, his face mirroring his fear.
“He’ll kill Muldoon, if we don’t do something,” Higgins pleaded huskily. “He’s my friend. If we could just get Muldoon out of here…! You don’t know what they’ll do if the alien actually attacks Muldoon.” He nodded toward the Holconcom. “You haven’t seen them fight. I have.” He swallowed, hard. “There won’t be enough of Muldoon left to bury, and then they’ll go for the other humans in a solid mass. They can’t help it, Doctor, it’s the way they fight…!”
Another sharp, catlike cry from the Holconcom interrupted him.
The hairs on the back of Madeline’s neck stood up, but she held her ground. She had, after all, been an officer in the Amazon regiment, long before she became a doctor. “Move toward him again,” Madeline told Higgins, “and he’ll have company. It’s Hahnson’s show. He knows what he’s doing.”
The rest of the Holconcom were still standing, and when the humans began to stand, as well, the Centaurians’ eyes began to grow darker and the pupils dilate.
Hurry, Strick, she thought silently. She wasn’t certain what the outcome would be, but she was inclined to believe Higgins. She’d heard things about the way the Holconcom fought, as a unit. None of the Amazons had ever seen them in combat or been liaisoned with them. The Centaurians had no female military, due to their obviously backward culture, she thought wickedly. But she had a feeling that if any of the humans made a move toward Muldoon, the Holconcom would mass and there would be a massacre. Higgins meant well, but his interference could bring about the very situation he feared.
Muldoon was looking paler by the minute, but he stood firm. “Go ahead. Kill me. Or try to kill me,” he taunted the Holconcom.
“Shut up, Muldoon!” Madeline called to him, in a tone that demanded obedience.
He gave her an odd look. One of the other humans turned to the Centaurian next to him and put up his fists. There were more growls. The Holconcom began to merge into a mass of red uniforms.
God, Madeline thought in anguish. There was nothing else she could do. If Hahnson didn’t hurry…!
She heard the autodoor opening behind her with relief, and moved her eyes to it.
But it wasn’t the C.O. It was Hahnson, grimacing. “Komak’s going after him,” he told her.
“Think we have time?” she wondered with black humor, taking her eyes off Muldoon for an instant.
It was enough. Higgins sprang into action. He went for the Holconcom bracing Muldoon and clipped him at the knees.
Incredibly the Holconcom was like a solidly rooted tree. He didn’t move an inch. But his hand did. He caught Muldoon by the throat with one hand, flung the human away and slammed him to the deck, where he lay still, unmoving. Then he turned toward Higgins.
“Oh, God!” Madeline ground out when she saw the Centaurian’s eyes. They were black. Pitch-black. As black as death. She’d never seen that color, but she’d read about it…
She fired the Gresham, again and again and again, but the emerillium propelled plasma spray simply bounced off. She could hardly believe her eyes. Then, just as the Holconcom reached Higgins, there was a sound behind her.
“Mashcon!” The single word had the ring of steel hitting rock. It froze the humans in their stances, like action figures. It muted the building growls of the other Holconcom.
All eyes turned toward the doorway. Dtimun was standing just inside it, with Komak at his side. The alien’s eyes, as black as those of his Holconcom, looked and held on those of the Centaurian who had Muldoon in his grasp.
The soldier’s eyes suddenly calmed. The black death was gone from them, to be replaced by a color that Madeline’s whirling mind couldn’t classify. His face abruptly contorted, and he screamed—something unheard of in the ranks of the Holconcom.
The scream died. He stood there, facing his commanding officer with a fear so complete it seemed to radiate from him and touch every Centaurian in the mess hall.
“You were warned,” Dtimun said, very quietly, “of the consequences of conflict. You have seen the power of the Holconcom. Now see the power of their commander.”
He moved forward so quickly that he was a blur in the eyes of the