Soldier of the Legion Read online

  “All right, gang,” Snow Leopard said with finality. “Let’s mop up.”

  ###

  Our helmets now off, Merlin and I ended up in the central hive of the obscenely opulent HQS building. Slaveblock 1 had been impressive, but the slavers had saved the best of their stolen riches for their headquarters. Rare and exotic woods paneled the walls and ceilings. Tapestries that surely could have ransomed small planets now lay shredded, blood soaked and crushed by Legion boots. Millennia-old pottery and glassware lay shattered, bits and shards strewn with a careless abandon that must be the stuff of archaeologists’ nightmares.

  Here the Fortune’s All-Sub Crimson Souls had planned their raids, counted their loot, and raped and tortured their captives. Here it had ended for many of them. They’d terrorized countless worlds but now their bloody, dismembered corpses littered the floor. Smoke still hung in the air and stunk heavily of gore and exhaust gasses of E’s and SG’s.

  The smell was getting to me. I started to put my helmet back on, but several of the nearby slaves saw what I was doing and gasped, apparently terrified that more fighting was imminent. I stopped. The young, attractive girls, some of them still naked, huddled in groups of two and three in the corners, consoling each other. Most were on one side or the other of absolute panic. Looking them in the eye seemed to calm them down a bit. I don’t think they really understood what was happening. Some probably thought we were just another bunch of slavers.

  “Whooo!” Psycho careened into the room, popped off his helmet and strutted around in his armor, the Manlink thrust out in front of him like a great cenite penis. “Mother did it again! Did you see those stars?” A little guy, he had short blond hair, vacant blue eyes and a wild grin. “Say hello and die! Thank you, Mommy. Thank you!” He stroked ‘Mother’, his Manlink. “Deadman! I haven’t had this much fun since...well, since yesterday!” Psycho had earned a reputation as a total maniac. He’d actually liked Planet Hell.

  “Snow Leopard, we’ve ID’d Saint Mongro.” Coolhand stood over a large corpse sprawled in a pool of blood. The dead man’s blue, pockmarked face was frozen in a harsh scowl. His filmy eyes stared into infinity. A dead slave girl lay crumpled beside him.

  Someone on Veltros had said it, and now I understood. The dead always look the same, like lumps of clay.

  Coolhand poked Mongro gently with his E, consulted a datacard and muttered to himself, “That’s certainly him.” Tall and rangy, Coolhand had a thin, handsome face and wavy brown hair. He seemed perfectly casual about having found the Crimson Soul’s notorious leader.

  Snow Leopard drifted over and glanced down at the corpse. He removed his helmet, revealing straight white-blond hair, hot pink eyes and a chunky face so pale we could see blue veins pulsing at his temple.

  “Record it,” he said coldly, and turned away.

  “Get any interesting kills, Thinker?” Dragon asked me. His sweaty forehead sported a nasty bruise, but he didn’t seem to notice. He moved like a great cat, balancing his E on one shoulder. His deep-set eyes glared at me. Dragon was a first-class killer. I always felt better with him around, tattoos and all.

  I wasn’t sure if he really expected an answer. “Well, nothing worth writing home about,” I replied.

  He actually smiled. “Good! Keep it that way. Interesting means you let them get the drop on you!”

  Before I could figure out how to reply, a commotion broke out down one corridor. Shouting, shrieking, a gang of girls went at it, jumping on each other wildly. A catfight! I ran, but by the time I arrived Warhound and Ironman had separated most of the combatants. One girl writhed on the floor as the others continued kicking and spitting at her, screeching invectives and convulsed with hatred.

  My natural voice needed no amplification this time, “Break it up! What is this? Stop that!” I threw the attackers to one side, straddling the downed girl to protect her. The others very quickly learned not to hit me in my armor. Cradling bruised knuckles, they circled like wild dogs, bristling with hatred.

  Ironman interrupted, “It’s Black Ice, Thinker!” He held several of the slaves back. “That’s what they’re saying. It’s Black Ice!”

  Black Ice! I suddenly recognized the girl as a Mocain, hair cut short to the scalp, hooded eyes and no eyebrows. Her pale skin had a greenish cast. As the Deputy Chief of the Fortune’s All-Sub Crimson Souls, she bore responsibility for the deaths of thousands. The Mocains were our enemies. They were also the System’s master race, but this one had turned outlaw. Clad in a torn top, litepants and boots, she bled heavily from the nose and mouth. Black Ice—alive!

  Snow Leopard arrived and took charge. “Priestess, I want a genetic ID on this one. These Mocains all look the same to me.”

  Priestess elbowed through the crowd and pressed a medprobe to the girl’s neck, then consulted it and checked Coolhand’s datacard. Priestess was Beta squad’s angel: dangerously beautiful, with silky black hair, smooth pale skin and vulnerable lips. Every day that passed drew me closer to the realization that I wanted her to be my angel. My heart always sped up when she was nearby, but I certainly didn’t want her or anyone else to know it.

  “That’s her all right,” Priestess said. “Black Ice. Genetic ID is confirmed.”

  “Thank you, Priestess.” Snow Leopard lowered the barrel of his E to the Mocain’s forehead. Her eyes widened for just a frac. Then her head exploded, spraying everyone with blood and gore.

  I blinked back the horror. Several of the former slaves shrieked in terror, but more than a few danced gleefully around the room, not bothering to wipe away the blood. They held hands and sang some unintelligible rhyme with wild, feral looks on their faces. I wouldn’t forget this one.

  “Prepare to evac the civilians,” Snow Leopard said calmly. He had ice water in his veins. I sometimes thought he could have been a biogen, one of those synthetically grown humans engineered for specific, singular tasks. To me, he was the ultimate squad leader. Only a few years older than the rest of us, he was certainly different. How could he be unmoved by this?

  Priestess paused beside me and said in a low, hopeful voice, “It’s good, Thinker,” she said. “What we’re doing here is good.”

  I looked up at her. “If you say so,” I replied as I reached for an embroidered shawl to wipe the blood and brains from my face and armor. Welcome to the Legion, I thought.

  ###

  The rest was a blur. I did what I was told and moved like the efficient machine the Legion had forged. Now that the area was pacified, tech-teams moved in to gather what intelligence they could from the ruins. We sedated many of the former slaves, and evacuated the lot of them off-planet to our ship, the cruiser C.S. Spawn. The lifies, our med-techs, took custody of them. I didn’t envy them their jobs. There would be many tearful reunions as the Legion reunited them with their families, but I knew that despite our best med-tech and therapy, many would never be quite sane again.

  I was exhausted, tired beyond anything I believed possible. It was time to report. Our squad assembled, still in armor, hauling weapons and equipment, in the Captain’s small office. We struggled to fit everyone inside. Snow Leopard stood at attention in front of the Captain’s spartan desk. The Captain waited patiently.

  Snow Leopard was all business, “Sir! Squad Beta reports successful completion of the mission on Alshana 4. Two hundred sixty one slavers terminated, six hundred eight female captives recovered. Squad had zero casualties. Thirteen captives were killed in the crossfire. Thirty were wounded and are under treatment.”

  “Thank you, Beta.” The Captain stood up, dressed in his blacks. He appeared to be very young, but in the Legion it was hard to tell. Our biotech kept us young and virtually immortal. His slightly slanted eyes hinted at a little Assidic blood. “It’s a shame about the captives, but it can’t be helped. You did a good job, troopers.” The Captain knew all about how the raid went. Everyone knew that he’d closely monitored our every move. Snow Leopard’s report was just a formality.

  “Let’s see,” the Captain said, sifting through a pile of printouts and datapaks on his desk. “All right.” He picked up a printout. “Snow Leopard, based on the results of your Final Problem on Alshana 4, your squad has been certified by 22nd Legion Training Command as graduates of the Hell Course and fully fit for regular combat. Reassignment is authorized to an active-duty unit.” He paused and looked up, smiling, “Congratulations to all of you and welcome to the ConFree Legion.”

  We greeted the news with a stunned silence. Finally Psycho said, “Aw right!”

  It had been a long hard road, but we’d done it. We’d arrived!

  “Thank you, Sir!” Snow Leopard spoke up.” On behalf of Beta, we thank the Legion!”

  The Captain chuckled with a knowing expression. “I’ve got your assignment here, too. 22nd Legion, 12th Colonial Expeditionary Regiment—that’s the Black 12th—CAT 24, Second of the Ship—BE 14, Atom’s Road. That’s the Spawn’s battlestar. She’s a good ship.”

  “Sir! We are honored to be assigned to Atom’s Road!”

  “We’ll be underway to Atom as soon as we transfer your refugees. Atom will be starlaunching as soon as we arrive. The entire 12th has been recalled and will be on board. We’ve got a major mission, boys—a Systie intrusion into ConFree vac. It’s very serious. We’ll be facing the DefCorps this time, not some half-assed slaver gang with a little borrowed DefCorps hardware.”

  “Sir! We won’t fail you! What’s the target?” Snow Leopard asked.

  The Captain looked down at his notes. “Andrion 2,” he said. “It’s in the Outvac—quite a ways out. Over 750 light-years from the Crista Cluster. Nobody’s ever been there. But we’ll fix that.”

  “Yes, Sir!” Snow Leopard sounded supremely confident.

  The Black 12th, t
he 12th Colonial Expeditionary Regiment, under the 22nd, the Black Legion! The 22nd had an ancient and glorious history. In the Plague War, it had been known as the Rimguard, and the Rimguard motto, Deliver Us From Evil, had a special meaning for all Outworlders. We still carried those words on our blacks.

  I swallowed hard. Into the Outvac. Seven hundred and fifty light-years. I must be insane! In a few days, I would really do it. Until now there had always been the vague idea that if I wasn’t good enough or brave enough the Legion would just send me back home. I didn’t expect or want to go back—it was just a kind of mental back door or escape hatch. Nice to know it was there. It was just a dodge, a way to avoid accepting the full reality and consequence of joining the Legion. Some part of me hadn’t quite grasped my decision to forever leave my old life behind.

  Not anymore. The final string was cut and I was suddenly dizzy.

  Then Psycho was shoving me, “Come on, Thinker, wake up! Time to go and get out of these stinkin’ suits and grab some eats!”

  The meeting was breaking up and I was impeding the rough flow of tired, armored troopers making their way out of the Captain’s office.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Time to go.”

  Chapter 2:

  Year Zero

  As we approached Atom’s Road on the Spawn, I found a small viewport. Atom hung silently in space, a blinding silver dart that reflected all our hopes and dreams. As we drew closer, Atom’s immense size became clear. Two other cruisers were already affixed to their docking blisters, and they looked almost like toys in comparison to Atom. Deadman, she was lovely—crafted by the Gods! I knew she was also the ultimate killing machine, capable of knocking a planet out of orbit. We all knew her mission and her stats, but I best remembered that last line of the official description: “The C.S. Atom’s Road represents the united power and resolve of the citizens of the Confederation of Free Worlds.” She was ours—and she was a mighty weapon.

  ###

  “Stand by for vac run red.” A star jump! The announcement found me in my tiny cube on Atom, trying to activate the wall desk. I knew that all elements of the 12th had arrived, all four cruisers were secure and power was building to open the artificial wormhole. Atom would hold open the dimensional vortex all the way to our destination, where it would slam shut behind us with a light show that would announce to everyone in the sector that we’d arrived.

  At first, I assumed I would be sharing my cube in shifts, but Priestess had burst in, almost giddy with the news that they were our own cubes. We weren’t used to such luxury.

  Without fanfare or further warning it came, with a great shudder and a high-pitched whine. Atom poked a hole in the universe and hurled us through it. Into nothing, nothing to see because nothing was there. We all felt it, though. There was a kind of pressure that closed in on you, and seemed to reduce your field of vision a bit. I asked one of the techs if the dimension we were traveling through had existed before or if we had created it—and why was it that there was nothing in it but us? He looked at me with pity and just shook his head. I resigned myself to my fate. I was a great believer in fate.

  The void between the stars is like the hand of death. I was a spark, hurtling into the dark, my past forever gone. A bitter cold numbed my bones. My soul froze, I think, but not from the cold. I knew we were never coming back.

  I thought a lot. I had plenty of time to think, lying in my bunk, staring at the overhead. I’m not sure, anymore, whether or not thinking’s good for you. As best as I can recall, every time I’ve gotten in trouble, it was preceded by heavy bouts of thinking. I’ve got to give it up one of these days. But not between the stars.

  ###

  Atom’s open mess was full of Legion troopers in camfax fatigues and black-suited Fleet Command personnel; FleetCom vacheads, we called them. It wasn’t lunchtime but every table was taken and there was an awful racket. I spotted Warhound sitting alone, writing something with a lightpen on a starlink datascreen. As I approached, he shifted a hand to conceal the screen.

  “What you doing, Warhound?” I asked as I pulled out a chair.

  “I was...just writing my mom.” He lowered his eyes. Warhound was a good kid with sandy hair cut close to his scalp. Sunken, pale blue eyes dominated a rugged crudely-cast face.

  Writing his Mom. Deadman! Many of the younger troopers had only known a mother’s love, never a lover. We’re innocents, I thought, in the service of a savage god.

  “How’s the headache?” I asked. He seemed to suffer more from the effects of our wormhole transit than most. Priestess had given him medication for the pain. Stardrive sure didn’t help. The pressure made it hard to take even without a headache.

  “Better. Thanks.” Warhound resumed writing his letter, forming the words carefully.

  I called up a dox from the table menu and popped the cap. Breaking the seal heated the dark liquid instantly and the rich, sweet aroma flowed over us. Hot dox. Undoubtedly better than sex!

  Warhound may have been an innocent, but I knew that, if need be, he would die for us, without hesitation. He was as loyal as a dog. Warhound was not the brightest star in the heavens but he was one of us now. He knew, after Planet Hell, that we’d die for him, too.

  As I sipped my dox, my mind drifted. This trip wasn’t a pleasure cruise. If Outvac Sector Command wanted to retask Atom’s entire group to the far side of the Outvac, there must be more at stake than they’d told us. A couple of vacheads at the next table chatted about how unprecedented this deployment was, and I listened carefully. According to them, moving Atom would leave a huge gap that would have to be filled with forces drawn from elsewhere, and moving those forces would require further adjustment. Command was spooked about something and very little spooked the Legion.

  “Hi, guys.” Ironman joined us, setting down a tray with ice water and a power bar. Ironman was Beta’s youngest soul, just out of mid-school and still growing. He faced the future with hope and faith. Long brown hair hung over one eye as he stirred his ice water with a straw. Strikingly handsome and superbly fit, Ironman was a lifter, proud of his growing physique. I happened to know that he came from a Legion world, a privileged world. What a fool! He was underage, why had his parents consented? Bright, dynamic, handsome, strong—he had it all, his whole life ahead of him. Everybody liked Ironman. What in the name of Deadman’s death was he doing here? The Legion wasn’t for innocents like Ironman. The Legion wanted the dreamers, the drifters, the doomed and the lost.

  “Is everything tenners, Thinker? Something wrong?” Ironman smiled tentatively, revealing even white teeth.

  “No. It’s nothing, Ironman.” I felt very protective of him, though I’m not sure why. Every night I prayed to Deadman for his soul. But then again, I prayed for everyone in Beta.

  ###

  I found our pilot, Redhawk, in Spawn’s aircar bay with his lover. A long line of fearsome black birds filled the bay, gleaming with slick, silent and deadly. My blood stirred, just looking at those lovely ladies. I located our own car by the tail number—24B. Coiled like a snake, ready to strike. I ran my fingers over her wet, icy cold skin.

  I loved aircars. They could hover like bees with the airblast from fans hidden under the fuselage or hurtle through the sky like a fighter. Fully armored and heavily armed, the assault aircar was a true battlefield superiority weapon. Aircars were equipped to insert a squad into the target area as well as provide tactical air cover and retrieval.

  “Don’t touch my girl.” Redhawk stepped out of the shadows under the fuselage. Tangled red hair fell to his shoulders. His pale splotchy face was spattered with slick. His sparse mustache and scraggly beard looked even rattier than usual. Clad in filthy sleeveless coveralls, he clutched an angular tool I couldn’t identify.