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  "We've got a hitch!"

  The shrill shriek of the monster seemed to cough, then cough again, before finally settling down to a piercing succession of hiccups. Cree wondered it if had bitten off more of him than it could chew and choked. The thought made him giggle.

  "Captain Cree?" Bridget asked, seeing the fixed stare leap back to life. "Are you with us, Captain Cree?"

  He had never seen such beautiful eyes in his life as the ones that were staring down at him with such compassion. They were the most delicate shade of green: pale and soothing. They looked at him with so much tenderness, such overwhelming sympathy, he knew he could trust their owner.

  "Three," Dr. Dean stated firmly. "That's it. No more today."

  There was a long pause then the woman in the viewing gallery agreed. "Three it is."

  "Onar demanded five," Dr. Dean told her treatment team.

  "Five and he would be fodder for the Ionarian worms," Dorrie scoffed, reaching for the tube. Cree gagged as she pulled the airway from his throat. He coughed and felt dribble running down his chin until the woman with the beautiful eyes moved over him and wiped it away.

  "It's over," she told him gently. "We're through."

  "S...stay," he whispered, his throat an agony.

  "What?" Even as the orderlies lifted him, moving him to a gurney, Cree found he could not look away from the woman's beautiful green eyes. He tried to lift his hand, to touch the hand of the woman whose eyes held him so enthralled, but his muscles wouldn't cooperate.

  "W...with me," he asked.

  "What is he babbling about?" Dorrie snapped.

  "I don't know," Bridget answered. Following behind the gurney, she watched the intense shivering that had taken hold of the Reaper. His body was quivering, his teeth chattering. He stared fixedly at the lights running by overhead as the gurney rolled down the corridor.

  "Get me some blankets for him, Dorrie," Bridget ordered. She walked ahead of the gurney, opened Cree's cell door for the orderlies to roll him inside.

  "There you go, Sir," the taller of the two orderlies said as he and the other man shifted Cree from the gurney to the bare cot. He glanced at Bridget. "Should we strap him down, Doc?"

  "Wouldn't hurt," Bridget replied. She was watching the vague smile trembling on her patient's face and wondered where his mind had taken him for the moment.

  "Green," she heard him say. "So green."

  The orderlies tugged the webbed restraints into place around the Reaper's wrists and ankles, then wheeled the gurney from the room. Bridget walked to Cree's bed and leaned over him.

  "Captain?" she questioned. When he didn't switch his attention from the light above him to her, she repeated his name. Still there was no response. She sighed, then reached out to tilt his head toward her. "Captain Cree?"

  There they are again, he thought, his lips pulling back in a slow, confused smile. There are those beautiful, understanding eyes. He tried to lift his hand to touch their owner's cheek, but could not.

  "How do you feel?" Bridget asked him.

  "What's your name?" he croaked.

  "Dr. Dunne," she replied. When he frowned, she amended her answer. "Bridget. Bridget Dunne."

  "Bridget," he repeated.

  "Are you cold?"

  "Aye," he sighed. Her voice was so soft, so incredibly gentle. It filled him with a need to which he could not put a name.

  "We're getting you a blanket." She reached out to smooth away a lock of dark hair from his forehead.

  Cree closed his eyes, the effects of the synthetic neurotransmitter making the smell of her flesh a vivid sensation in his nostrils. Like the caress of her voice, her touch was infinitely desirable and completely calming. "I understand what you are trying to do," he muttered.

  Bridget straightened up as though an unseen puppeteer had jerked her strings. "You do?" she gasped.

  He opened his eyes and looked up at her, his awareness returning in bits and pieces. There was no recollection of what had actually happened to him in the treatment suite— there never would be— but the emotions he had experienced in that hellish place were slipping back to him slowly. He knew whatever had been done to him had been extremely unpleasant, excruciatingly painful, and not something he'd care to ever repeat again.

  "What was I saying?" he asked, blinking.

  Bridget stepped back from the bed. "Do you know where you are?" she asked.

  Cree frowned. "In my room," he said, looking about him. He tried to move his arms and legs and when he found himself restrained, the softness evaporated from his expression and the belligerent, arrogant mask that was the Reaper's face settled into place once more. "When can I leave?"

  "Captain, you— "

  "Answer me!" he ordered. "You bitches have had your fun with me so unbuckled these gods-be-damned restraints and let me leave!" He pulled on the restraints, livid that he was shackled in the first place.

  "I hate being the one to tell you..."

  "Tell me what?" he exploded. Unease was poking a cold finger at his spine and he jerked viciously on the restraints. "Unbuckle these things!"

  Bridget shook her head, thankful for the confinement the webbed belts provided. "I can't, Captain." She took another step back from the bed. "We aren't through with you yet."

  Cree had been about to shout at her, but her words stopped him cold. He stared at her, his face going rigid. "What are you talking about?"

  "There's another session right after lunch," Bridget answered.

  "Another..." Cree stopped, shook his head. "No, you are mistaken." When the woman remained silent, looking down at him with what he knew could only be pity, he blinked, his lips parting in confusion.

  "I'm sorry, Captain," Bridget said and was surprised to realize she meant it.

  "What are they going to do to me after lunch?" he forced himself to ask.

  Bridget bit her lips before replying. "There are to be three sessions like the one this morning every day you are here, Captain."

  Shock flashed over Kamerone Cree's pale face. "Every day I'm here?" he questioned in a disbelieving tone. He tried to sit up, became enraged that he couldn't. He pulled furiously on his restraints. "What the hell are you talking about?"

  Bridget could hear the fear closing his throat. She amazed herself again when she began to feel true sympathy for the man. He had no idea what sentence he had been given, but was just now realizing it was far more brutal than he had expected it to be.

  "How long am I supposed to be here?"

  Cree saw her hesitate and knew a moment of abject terror. He couldn't remember what they had done to him in that room, but the residual anxiety of it was still thick in his mind. Whatever had been done had been the worst kind of torture that much he understood, and he didn't want to go through it again.

  "Answer me!" he bellowed. "How long?"

  He might be a Reaper, she thought, the most vicious of his kind if rumors were true, but he was also part human and the human part of him was staring back at her with a fear that had a sentience of its own.

  "How long?"

  "Two weeks."

  He stared at her, stunned. Surely he had not heard her correctly. He shook his head, wanting to clear way the buzzing that had suddenly filled his hearing. "How long?" he whispered, hoping against hope that he had not really heard what he knew he had.

  "You will be with us for two weeks, Captain," Bridget replied and almost reached out to touch him for she saw a little boy's expression of fear pass quickly over his face before his features relaxed with hopelessness.

  "Two weeks," he repeated in a dull, lifeless voice, understanding there if not acceptance. Slowly he shifted his gaze from her, turning his head so that he could stare up at the glaring white light overhead. "Two weeks of that hell?"

  "Yes," she answered, her pity growing even though she knew she should feel no such emotion for this man. "Three times a day for two weeks."

  He flinched. "Three times a day," he whispered.

  "I'm afraid so."r />
  Cree closed his eyes. "Go away."

  "I will as soon as Dorrie brings your blanket," Bridget replied, wondering why it was taking the woman so long.

  "I don't want a blanket," he said.

  "But you said you were cold," she protested.

  He turned his eyes to her. "Go...away," he repeated.

  Bridget hesitated, thinking she saw a shimmer of tears in the Reaper's eyes, then decided she could not possibly have since they were not programmed for any emotion other than anger.

  "I'll see you after lunch then." Cree looked away from her. Bridget never saw the tear that formed in his left eye and rolled down his clenched cheek.

  Chapter 4

  THEY CAME for him at 1300 hours, obviously expecting him to give them trouble. The six Security guards and the two orderlies had been prepared neither for his docility nor his cooperation as they unbuckled his restraints. He had surprised them even more when he swung his legs off the bed and preceded them calmly to the door

  "We are sorry about this, Sir," one of the guards apologized.

  "Don't be," was all the Reaper said, reinforcing the nickname the Fleet had given him long ago.

  "I am told he did not resist," Justice Vuin Barif grumbled as he seated himself in the viewing gallery.

  "He would not dare," the only woman in the gallery remarked. "He has too much pride to allow anyone to see how truly afraid he is." She watched Cree enter the treatment room and lie down on the table. "I would venture to say it will take several days of treatment before he begins to balk at being brought here."

  Bridget glanced down at him as she came to the table. Dorrie and Tina Portas were closing the restraints on his upper arms as she took her place at the head of the treatment table. He barely acknowledged her before fixing his attention on the overhead light.

  "Are you ready, Madame Director?" the woman in the gallery inquired.

  "Yes."

  "You may proceed."

  Cree shot a look to the gallery, narrowed his gaze at the shadow of the person speaking, then allowed the woman behind him to place the hellish rubber wedge between his teeth.

  "You are going to feel a sting, Captain," Dr. Dean said.

  Water...Fangs...Fire...Falling ....

  The sensations shot over him with blinding speed, alternating with one another for a root in his terrified mind. He convulsed.

  "Where is she?" his mind demanded. He whimpered. "Where IS she?" He screamed. "WHERE IS SHE?"

  His eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out, came to just as quickly.

  "Captain?"

  The light was piercing white, filing his head with the worst pain he could ever remember experiencing.

  "Why wasn't she here?"

  "Captain?"

  He tried to focus. Someone shook him gently, spoke his given name. Fog, thick and numbing was clouding his vision and he couldn't move, couldn't find his way out of the mist.

  "Why wouldn't she come to him?

  "Captain Cree!"

  The voice was more insistent, but it was not her voice.

  He could smell his own sour sweat. It was distasteful to him and it filled him with shame. Reapers did not sweat. He had never smelled like this and it offended his sense of honor.

  "Captain Cree!"

  His vision cleared and he found himself looking up into the beautiful green eyes of the woman for whom he had been searching in his nightmare world. She was leaning over him, her face concerned, those beautiful green eyes filled with tears. "You are back in your room, Sir," she told him.

  He turned his head away. "What time is it?" he mumbled.

  "Fourteen hundred hours," she replied.

  An hour? He'd been in that demonic place only an hour? It had seemed like an eternity that he was lost there. Despite his inability to remember what had happened in the treatment suite, he instinctively knew it had been much worse this time.

  "When?" he forced himself to ask.

  Bridget reached out to push a lock of hair from his forehead. "Eighteen hundred," she said gently.

  "Every five hours," he whispered.

  "I'll stay with you until— "

  "Go away." The command was bitter. "You weren't there when I needed you and I don't want you here now!"

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Go away, woman!"

  When the door shushed to behind her, Cree's face crinkled with hopelessness. He had never once doubted his bravery, his ability to withstand whatever the world, or the Empire, threw at him, but this? This unspeakable torture was beyond his understanding and he found himself dreading every ticking minute, every passing nanosecond that brought him closer to the room at the end of the hall.

  Falling...water...fangs...fire.

  Helpless...hopeless...defenseless...useless.

  "Why had she left him alone?"

  "He is experiencing the four most primitive, primal fears there are," the woman in the gallery explained to the others. "From deep within the human part of his subconscious, all those elemental emotions dredged up to frighten and violate a man's mind have survived civilization, breeding, education, and conditioning. No amount of neuro-manipulation can either erase or negate them. The drug invading his system is simply magnifying those emotions Reapers have been conditioned to ignore."

  "What exactly are we talking about here?" Barif asked.

  "He is experiencing his imminent death in a variety of forms. That is the one thing every human man fears most, for it is the end of self, the end of existence. To a Reaper, death is an enemy to be overcome; to a human male, it is something more meaningful. It is the human part of him the drug is attacking."

  CREE'S SILENT scream filled his head. The pain— he thought as his flesh split and sloughed off, his bones turning black as they charred— the pain was so horrific, so invasive, so utterly intense, he longed for the surcease of life. But just as soon as the flames had enveloped him, blistering his flesh, then burning deep through the epidermis, past the coris, into the muscles and nerve bundles, dissolving capillaries, splitting open veins and arteries and flashing into the very marrow of his bones; just as the pain became so terrifying that he had began to beg for death, she was there holding out her hand to him.

  "Come, Kam," she whispered. "Come to me and the pain will stop."

  He held out his hand, striving to touch hers, hopeful, ecstatic, then she began to fade from his sight.

  "No!" he cried out, but she was gone, leaving him lost, desperate, so totally without hope.

  "No more today," Bridget told him as he came flying up through the ashes of his own disintegration. "You can rest, Captain."

  He found her eyes, those wonderful, pitying eyes and he drew comfort, small as it was, from those precious, friendly eyes.

  "Bridget," he sighed, remembering her name and very proud of his ability to do so.

  "Yes, Captain," she agreed, stroking his cheek.

  They lifted him onto the gurney and his head lolled. His weary, grainy vision caught sight of the people in the gallery observing him, pointing at him, wanting him to break.

  "Damn you to the Abyss," he thought he told them, but later, he could not remember if he had or not. As he lay in his bed, once more strapped down despite the fact that he could not seem to get his muscles to maintain any semblance of strength, he decided he had not said anything at all.

  He might have dozed, but he did not think he had for he was bone-tired and unable to sleep without the triso. He came to himself, feeling her cool fingers on him again. She was smiling gently at him, sorrowfully it seemed to him, and he had to look away, unable to bear the sight of her.

  "Make a fist for me, Captain," she told him.

  He swiveled his head back around and saw the syringe in her hand. His gaze shifted to hers and held although he didn't say anything.

  "Make a fist, please," she repeated.

  He slowly clenched his hand. "That isn't my triso."

  "No, Sir, it isn't."

  "Then what is it?"<
br />
  She explained it to him and he nearly howled with outrage.

  The drug was part of his punishment: an excruciating stimulant that would race to the somatomotor area of his cerebral cortex; an emotional roller coaster that would cause intense hyperactivity. Being strapped down as he was, there would be no way for him to get up to pace his cell to wear the agitation from his body. It was an exquisite torture, designed to drive him mad.

  "I am sorry, Captain," she told him for what must have been the tenth time since he had made her acquaintance. "I truly am sorry; you don't deserve this, Sir."

  The drug raced through his veins and he began to itch in a hundred places, his arms and legs an agony of tingling. With no way to scratch, no way to relieve the maddening sensations washing over him, he threw back his head and bellowed with rage.

  "Damn you!" he shouted, glaring at the camera. "Damn all of you!"

  All, he thought with a pang of true regret, except the woman with the beautiful green eyes.

  CREE LAY there calmly enough the next morning as Bridget locked into place the band across his chest. She smelled of flowers, a scent that was clean and fresh. He studied her face and for the first time in his life the word sensuous had meaning for him. She moved to the table to place the rubber wedge between his teeth. She smiled at him and he obediently opened his mouth.

  When the drug entered his body, he knew something was wrong. The feeling— one of acute anxiety coupled with emotions he couldn't have explained with words— flooded through him and in rapid succession, the fire dissolved him, the water invaded his lungs, the rocks crushed him and the fangs ripped him apart with such swiftness, he barely had time to register the godsawful pain.

  "Kamerone! This way, beloved. Come this way!"

  He turned away from the darkness and saw her standing at the top of a small rise. His hope soared and he started to climb to her, striving to keep her beautiful face before him; but then the all- encompassing terror of impending death loomed up out of the darkness and sprung, catching him unaware with a hemp noose that dropped over his head and jerked him off his feet, away from her.