The Orion Plague by David VanDyke Page B

Doctor bowed her head in apparent
submission, carefully hiding a smile. Such threats did not concern
her much; all powerful men made them. The trick was to be so
valuable to them that they could not afford to dispense with her
services, and also to never show disrespect to their faces. Such
men were far more sensitive to the responses of their underlings
than they would admit. Was she not a psychiatrist of the first
order? She understood human motivation better than anyone,
including Winthrop Jenkins.
     
     

 
     
-8-

    At Battalion HQ Repeth turned Bill over to
the confinement platoon, who had converted the old Dormitory into
their new stockade. She understood that the hardware was already
there to keep prisoners, but it still bothered her.
    When she reported to Colonel Muzik, the first
thing out of her mouth was, “We need an interrogation team. Pros.
This Bill guy has a window on something we knew nothing about. But
in the meantime I’m going to question him. He promised me to spill
his guts in exchange for his life, so I need everything I can get
from him, before he decides to get cute.”
    “And then?”
    “And then we go to Pax River.”
    Colonel Muzik cleared his throat. “Not alone,
you’re not.”
    Repeth’s shoulders set stubbornly. “I have a
good team, sir.”
    “And you can keep them. But five people and
one souped-up Hummer is not enough for an assault. I’ve already
asked for some stealth drone imagery and once we get it we’ll have
an idea what we’re up against. You did fantastic work but this is
now bigger than either of us.”
    “So we do all the hard stuff and the regulars
go in and get the attaboys.”
    Muzik looked at Repeth, appalled. “You never
used to care about who got the glory, as long as the mission got
done.”
    She slammed a fist into the wall, leaving a
hole in the drywall. “And I don’t really care about that now. I’m
just tired of us line doggies doing all the scut work while others
sit back and wait for the sexy jobs. And,” she took a deep breath,
“I have to be there. If Rick is there, I have to be there.”
    Muzik nodded slowly. “You know, Jill, you’re
not making it any easier for me to have confidence in your state of
mind.”
    “What, you don’t trust me all of a
sudden?”
    “What I don’t trust is your objectivity. It
may not be my call anyway. Look, go interrogate your prisoner.
Don’t wreck him; he may hold the key to getting Rick back. I’ll see
what I can do about getting you in on the Pax River op. And Jill?”
he said as she turned to go. “Remember, Professor Stone is still
out there. You’re a cop now. Tracking down criminals is your main
job, not rescue. It would be better for everyone if you thought
about that.”
    The door slammed behind her. “Don’t tell me
what my freakin’ job is,” she muttered under her breath as she
stomped down the hall. “My job is to find my boyfriend. Fiancé.
Whatever.” Shoving her way into the womens’ latrine, she glared at
the Spec-4 washing her hands there. “Get out,” she snarled. “GET
OUT!”
    The woman bolted, and Jill locked the door.
Turning both faucets on full blast, she plunged her face into the
water just in time to convince herself she wasn’t crying.
    Half an hour later, puffy-eyed but composed,
she walked in to the stockade for the first time since she had been
prisoner there. The place they called theDormitory had been cleaned
up, sanitized, given a new coat of whitewash – but a prison is a
prison is a prison, once it has been used for caging people. An
oppressive spirit lingered there, echoes of beatings, rapes, and
the casual abuse of power that no amount of paint could cover. She
shivered, soulstruck.
    “I need to see the prisoner I just brought in
an hour ago. Goes by Bill,” she said to the guard.
    “You’ll have to get a pass from the
Commander,” the MP sergeant there said.
    He was one of the new ones, probably a
reservist called in as augmentation. Another one