Slave of the Legion (4 page)

"You missed those guys, Redhawk!"

"Look at that! He's giving us the bird!"

"All right, gang," Snow Leopard said. "We're off to the armor shop, to get Cinta and Gildron fitted for A-suits. We're all going to get our suits checked as well. If anyone has any problems with your armor, this is your last chance before we hit the death zone. Are you listening, Psycho?"

"Yes sir! That's a tenners!"

"What did I say?"

"Last chance for Cinta and the monkey to get their armor fixed!"

"Somebody tell Psycho," Snow Leopard said wearily.

"So how did you like Hell?" I asked the new girl.

"Oh, we didn't go there," she said. "We did the field tests on Veltros."

"They didn't send you to Hell?" I was astounded. "But they send everyone there!"

"Not any more," she said. "They said it was too expensive, and out-dated. Primitivist, they said."

"Primitivist?"

"It's a new Legion, Sir. And they had to cut down on the training cycle, because of the war."

"The name's Thinker," I said. "Not 'sir'."

"Yes sir. Uh…sorry."

Primitivist! A new Legion! Unbelievable.

"Well, how were the—ah—field tests?" I asked her.

"Exhausting, sir. Oh! I'm sorry…Thinker. They walked us almost to death. I'm in good shape, sir. Oh! Sorry."

"Exhausting, huh?" Exhaustion had been the least of our problems in Hell. Potentially fatal dangers, constant terror, hate and resentment, thirst and hunger had all been a lot higher on the list for us.

"Priestess, I need some medical help." It was Psycho.

"What is it, Five?" Priestess responded warily.

"I get this really painful big bird whenever you get near me. I know you can help me!" Groans of disgust from the rest of the squad.

"I'm so sick of you, Psycho!" Priestess replied.

"This is a very real problem, Priestess—I'm not kidding!"

"Shut your filthy mouth, you worm!" Valkyrie snapped at him.

"Why don't you neuter him, Priestess?" Dragon suggested. "You need any help, let me know."

"You and which army?" Psycho shot back.

"Shut down, Five!" Snow Leopard ordered.

"It was a joke, guys!" Psycho objected. "It was a joke! Remember when we used to laugh? Everybody's suddenly so damned sensitive—is this a Legion squad or a garden party? Pardon me for living!"

"Just shut down, all right?"

"Aah, what a downer. It was a joke!"

###

"Just relax. It will only take a few marks." Two young A-techs were working the suit robot, a slim young Assidic male and a pale little blonde Outworlder girl. They were fitting Tara for her A-suit, guiding her slender arms into the molds as she stood in the machine. A-suits were individually fitted, but the robot automated the entire process. The techs silently fitted the molds over Tara's arms and legs and adjusted the links.

"Put your head back a little," the blonde said. "That's it. We're almost done." Tara was encased in a massive metal cocoon. The rest of the squad stood around watching, crowded into the fitting room. It was as silent as a chapel except for a muted hum from the robot. Tara's eyes were almost closed. She was gazing vaguely into space somewhere up near the ceiling, and appeared terribly vulnerable and fragile. Perhaps it was her beauty, that awful unearthly beauty that never seemed quite real. The Assidic and the blonde were both troubled by it, I could sense. And as I watched her there was a pale light, faintly illuminating her face. She was like an angel, a captive angel trapped in some hellish instrument of degradation. I blinked my eyes, and the light was gone. Priestess watched in silent fascination beside me. I grasped her cool hand and her slender fingers locked around mine. I could see only death in our future. I wondered why Tara was with us. She might be a good psycher but from what I knew of the O's, no human could ever come close to grappling with their psypower. Tara should not be here, I thought. She's…different. We have all chosen death, but Tara should not be wasted in our hopeless cause. Holy or unholy, any way you count it, there's no reason to waste her talents here. But here she is, just as much a soldier of the Legion as any of us.

"That's it! Your A-suit will be ready shortly. Who's next?" The robot hissed and snapped and unlinked itself, and Tara stepped out carefully, shaking her hair loose.

"What can you do for the big guy?" Snow Leopard asked. Gildron stepped forward at a gesture from Tara. A giant, clad in the
Maiden's
elektra-violet tunic and an extra-large camfax cloak.

"This is going to be quite a challenge," the Assidic said, grinning.

"What do you think?" the little blonde asked. "He's taller than the robot!"

"No, we can do it," the Assidic responded. "We can raise the maxes. It can be done, I remember. Get me the manual."

"You're sure he can handle an A-suit?" Snow Leopard asked Tara.

"No problem," Tara replied. "And he can fire an E or an SG with the best. I taught him myself."

"He must obey orders," Snow Leopard said quietly. "The first hint of trouble and we leave him behind—remember!"

"He'll do what you say—I've told him. There'll be no trouble!"

Gildron got his A-suit. The techs said it was the largest suit on record. Armored and armed, he appeared truly formidable. But I had a bad feeling about the mission. We might have been A&A, but I didn't think it was going to ward off whatever was coming—not for an instant.

Chapter 3
Dead Kings

"Tac mode," Snow Leopard ordered. We made the adjustment. We were all in A-suits, camfax over black armor, glowing red faceplates—an aircar full of dead soldiers, bound for the future. I checked my E—it was perfect. Our suits had all been cleared for action. We hovered in a cloud of dust at an exit port, several other aircars close beside us, the armored doors of the milbase still firmly locked, harsh lights glittering off our plex.

"Well, this is it, Speedy," Psycho remarked cheerily, "you ready to die?"

"Is that supposed to be funny?" Speedy replied. "It's not funny." He seemed a little tense. He was getting a first-class introduction to the Legion.

"No worries, gang," I said quietly. It was something Coolhand would have said—but Coolhand was dead. I guess I thought somebody had to say it.

"STAND BY FOR EXIT!" the aircar announced. Redhawk held up one hand from the driver's seat. The jets whined to full power, and a dust storm swirled outside.

"Launch!" The massive cenite doors snapped open and we rocketed into the light, into whatever was to be. We split off from the other aircars immediately, max speed, low altitude. The sky was full of dark roiling clouds and from time to time golden sparklers lit up the morning—deceptors, falling down from orbit, covering the entire line of our attack. The landscape around us was a horror—charcoal skeleton trees, flaming earth, dirty black smoke full of sparks. The aircar's console lit up with data. The car snapped from side to side as we hurtled into the future.

"This place is never going to catch on as a tourist spot," Dragon remarked.

"Don't be so gloomy, Dragon," Psycho said. "We're just doing our job. Man's mission is to explore and destroy the galaxy—nuke it all, antimat every single new world until it glows in the dark, until even the bacteria die. You're a student of history, Snow Leopard—isn't that true?"

"Our mission is to kill O's," Snow Leopard replied coldly, "and if Uldo gets in the way, it's going to perish. You know, you're absolutely right, Five. There's no way the O's are going to inherit this world. It's going to glow in the dark first." Snow Leopard's response was so unexpected it took my breath away. Psycho was a raving lunatic, and Snow Leopard was saying Psycho made perfect sense.

"You'd be surprised," Merlin said, "how quickly a healthy planet can recover from events such as these." Merlin was an optimist at heart, unacquainted with reality.

"Doesn't look too healthy to me," Valkyrie commented.

"How you doing, Twister?" I was worried about the new girl.

"Alive so far," she replied. Somebody laughed. She was all right, I decided. Not brain-damaged after all.

Flaming clouds of greasy black smoke flashed past us. We were heading for Corin, where we would link up with the 12th before breaking off for our mission. If the 12th was unsuccessful in its advance, there would be no mission for us.

###

Corin was a great city of rubble, a moonscape of burning buildings, a greasy cloud of black smoke rolling up to a dirty sky. Legion fighters and aircars shot by close overhead and deceptors crackled in the sky and frantic refugees ran like ants through the flaming streets.

"What a mess!" We were assigned to maintain order at a refugee processing center until word came through on our mission. Thousands of desperate refugees fought their way into the center, a cavernous underground hall that had been a convention center, located under a great building that was now burning like a torch.

"Women and children to the aircar garage," I repeated for perhaps the hundredth time. "Everyone else to the tables. Back in line, you!" We were still in armor but had our helmets off. It was hot and sweaty in the hall. The refugees punched and clawed at each other for a place in line. Scores of huge airbuses waited in the garage to ship the women and children to the starport and then up to orbit and salvation. There were no questions asked of the women and children—not one. All they had to do was show up. It didn't matter who they were; they didn't even need any ID. The Legion was going to take care of women and children, no matter what. We believed in the future, above all.

It was not the same for the men.

The Legion believed everyone was responsible for their actions, and I knew everyone paid for their sins. There is a time in everyone's life, the Legion believed, when you choose where you stand, and it is always a hard choice. But it was a hard life, and we were a hard people. We risked our lives for humanity, routinely. And when we needed some help in return, we were not sympathetic with those people who hesitated, for whatever reason.

"Where is our wife? Our children?" A young Outworlder shaking with emotion, at last at the table, faced a Legion trooper who was punching data into a comlink. The trooper was a young Assidic, jet-black hair and fierce slit eyes, clad in armor, his helmet on the floor by his feet.

"Your ID, please. Quickly."

"That's our ID. What has it done with our family? Why have we been split up?"

"Where did you last see your family?" The Assidic touched the ID to the screen.

"Over there," the man gestured toward the garage. "They went in there!"

The trooper looked up at him. "They'll be all right. They will be evacuated to a Legion base by airbus, then launched into orbit and out of the system to a holding facility. They are official Legion evacuees. We guarantee their safety."

"You guarantee their safety!"

"That's right. Your family is under Legion protection. They're as safe as anyone can be, in a war zone."

"Safe. Good. Good. Well, how about us? Do we qualify for evacuation?"

"We need laborers. It may be dangerous, but we need manpower, very badly, right now, for the defense of Uldo. Can you assist us?"

The young man hesitated briefly, licked his lips, then responded. "Laborers. Yes…yes, sure. We can help it. As long as our wife and children are safe."

"Good. You qualify for evacuation. But first, you help us. Take this card to that table over there. Next!"

"We wish to be evacuated." Fat jowls, wild eyes, a face slick with sweat. "We are a journalist. There's nothing more for us here."

"Your ID please."

"Do we have time? Is that truly necessary?"

"Only if you wish to be evacuated."

"ID. Very well, here's my ID." He handed it to the trooper, who touched it to the d-screen. The screen filled with data.

"You don't qualify. Next!"

"Wait! Wait! What does it mean, we don't qualify? We are a respected journalist! If we don't qualify, who does?"

The young Assidic looked up at him briefly, then took a second look at the screen. "You're in the Black Book, Systie. You don't qualify for evac. Next!"

"Systie! Systie!" The journalist was turning red. "It dares to call us Systie! We are all Systies here, Legion!" He waved his arms around, taking in the entire hall. "We thought ConFree was here to help us! What Black Book? Is it only the politically reliable who are to be evacuated? Is that it?"

"'The CrimCon's satanic motives are apparent to anyone who is familiar with the Legion's horrific orgy of racist genocide against all defenseless non-Outworlder peoples.'" The Assidic trooper was quoting from the d-screen. "'Life under the Variants would certainly be preferable to death under the Legion. We already know what the Legion represents, but all we know about the Variants is what the CrimCon's hateprop apparatus has told us. Inviting the Legion to "assist" us is simply insane. Our only goal should be to stop the killing. And that won't happen as long as the Legion is here.' Are those your words?"

"What does that have to do with anything?" the journalist responded warily. "Have we failed the Legion's political reliability test?"

"Stop the killing, huh? Who do you write for anyway—a journal for the feeble-minded? The O's would like us to stop the killing. It would make it a lot easier for them to slaughter your people."

"We don't know anything about the Variants!"

"Then why are you running from them? Why ask the Legion to evacuate you?"

"Our wife and children are being evacuated. The System told us the Legion would be doing the evacuation!"

"We'll help your family, Systie—but we won't help you."

"Why not!" The journalist was sweating profusely. "It's criminal to split up a family like this! And it's a crime against humanity to sentence people to death for expressing their opinions!"

"Death?" the trooper asked. "Don't tell me you're afraid of the O's? I thought they were preferable to the Legion."

"The Legion has maddened them! It's attacked them! They're only defending themselves!"

"I see. So we're responsible for everyone they kill."

"Yes! Yes! It's the Legion's doing!" He was wild-eyed and dripping sweat. He knew now there would be no evac for him.

"Look, Systie," the Assidic responded patiently. "We don't yet know the outcome of the battle for Uldo. That's why we're doing the evacuation. In the event we lose, at least some of the planet's human population will have been saved. But you have to realize we can only evac a very, very small percentage of the total. Well under one percent. The rest will all die, under the O's, if we lose. And there's nothing at all we can do to change that, if we lose. So you see we are under absolutely no compulsion, moral or otherwise, to evacuate anyone who asks. You've spent your adult life spewing hatred for ConFree and the Legion, and opposing everything we've been trying to accomplish. I can't think of a single reason why the Legion should expend any effort at all to move your fat ass off this planet. I'd suggest you take a walk, and ask the O's to stop the killing. Let me know what they say. Trooper, get this guy out of my sight."

I hustled Fatso back out of the hall, through the frantic mob, and he was screaming epithets against the Legion and demanding justice. Justice! Justice was what he was getting—Systies shouldn't ask for justice. I felt really good when I tossed him out the door. It certainly made my morning.

###

"Nothing on scope," Valkyrie reported. We were all on foot, A&A, carefully picking our way through the glowing rubble of Gadalpa. It had been Uldo's global governmental and administrative center. Now it was a flaming wilderness, scores of massive office mods looming above us under dark skies, enveloped in smoke, burning freely. The O's had been here briefly and the Legion had countered. We were far behind the attack, tying up loose ends until our recon mission was approved. I was on my knees by a tall, smoking stone wall. My armor glowed from the heat. The tacmap flickered on the lower left plate on my visor, and the safeties were off on my E. Valkyrie was right ahead of me, huddled against the wall, and Merlin was immediately behind us.

"It's good news, Thinker," Merlin remarked. "The fact we're here means the O's lost the engagement."

"Then why am I so freaking scared?" I asked him.

"Cover me!" Valkyrie was off, charging ahead in a low crouch into the smoke, then falling onto a pile of rubble. I fired another deceptor and it exploded above her, a shocking phospho burst of dirty yellow smoke, screeching electronic gibberish, showering the streets with hot hail, scrambling our screens.

I ran into the mess hunched over, breathing hard, E up and scanning, boots slamming down onto powdered rubble. Sweety, my tacmod, whispered sweet nothings in my ears. "All clear, all clear, no enemy in view. Systies remain in the records center ahead. Psybloc is close to max."

A fiercely burning aircar, resting on its roof. I hit the dirt behind it, then crawled to one end for a look ahead. The energy field from the burning aircar was a good place to hide. My armor glowed red as the flames crackled around me. I spotted the records center, a massive low building of white stone. Smoke curled out of the doorways.

"Looks like a ten, One." I reported. "No O's."

"All right, gang," Snow Leopard replied. "Our mission is to take that building. And don't forget there's a Systie squad in there. Let's do it." Snow Leopard was up ahead, as usual. He took off, making for the building. I raised my E.

###

"We've been ordered to secure the records center, and relieve any System units here," Snow Leopard explained to the DefCorps squad leader. "Your mission is over." There were six of them, clad in bronze-colored Systie A-suits, armed with SG's. We had found them in a great hall littered with rubbish, filling with smoke. We were all juiced up and had taken firing positions against the walls, centering the Systies in our field of fire. One wrong move and they would all die in a microfrac, torn to bloody shreds. I was already twitching inside my A-suit, my finger trembling on the trigger. I fully expected we would have to kill them.

"It doesn't know how good that sounds!" the DefCorps squad leader replied. "We never thought we'd be glad to see the Legion! Are there any V's out there now?"

"It's clear from here to the causeway," Snow Leopard said. "We were told to ask you to rejoin your unit. They couldn't contact you because of the deceptors."

"It doesn't have to say it twice! We're gone! Let's go, guys! We can hardly believe this! The V were all around us—we thought we were dead!" They hustled out the main entrance. Then the Systie leader turned back. "There's some civs in the vault downstairs—Government people. Out of their minds—they're Cit's problem now. Good luck, Legion!" And then they were gone.

###

The vault was full of smoke. A large fire burned at one end and the air was charged with glowing fragments of ash. Thousands of empty safeboxes covered the floor, and we walked through miniature mountains of datapaks. A muscular man with no shirt wielded a shovel, feeding scores of datapaks into the flames with his every movement. A young Outworlder with thin sandy hair staggered around, his arms full of datapaks and datacards and books. His face was grey with fatigue and beaded with sweat. He paused when he saw us, weaving slightly, taking us in silently.

"The Legion," he finally said. "Perfect. A fitting end. Shoot us," he said. "Please. We want to die."

"We're not shooting anyone," Snow Leopard replied. "What's the sit here, Systie? What are you doing?"