Cross of the Legion (33 page)

"Wrong! It was too close. We've got to do better. We've only got one chance at this target. We've got to do it right! Three casualties are three too many! I want zero casualties! And I want a clean escape."

"Why? Once the job is done, turn the holos off. Why escape? Who cares?"

"I'm not arguing with you, Psycho. We're going to do this a lot better. Zero casualties—and a clean escape. Dragon, Snow Leopard—let's go over the action. The rest of you, one hour break and stand by for the debriefing."

A chorus of groans greeted my announcement. I didn't care. We were going to do it right.

***

"Hi, Westo. You busy?" Millie stood in the doorway to my little cube. They had forced me to take a cube and I was glad to have a place to go over the ops plan on my own, completely alone, free from all interruptions—well, almost all.

"Come in, Millie." I had been hunched over a little built-in holo walldesk, going over the attack plan again. It was starting to all blur together. Perhaps I needed a break. She stepped in and sat on the open bunk, her knees brushing mine as I sat in the little wall chair. She was in her whites. A wisp of hair fell over one eye. She brushed it back.

"I've missed you," she said. "You've been so busy."

"Yeah. I guess so." Busy—and exhausted.

"Do you miss them?" She was gazing at a little holo of Moontouch and Stormdawn that I had put up on the wall.

"Of course." They haunted me. I couldn't even sleep any more. But I had vowed to do it—for them.

"How's the jump going?"

"Fine. No worries."

"How far in are we?"

"About half way to the first target. It takes a few days."

"Why do they call a star jump 'vac run red'? We're not really in the vac, are we?"

"Actually, we are. But it's not normal vac. It's an artificial wormhole—an antimat powered shortcut between two distant sections of our own universe. I don't know where the term came from. I think it's left over from the days before star flight."

She looked at me with those big brown eyes, a ghostly smile at her lips. "Do you still love me?" she asked.

"You don't have to ask that. Why do you ask that?"

"You didn't want me to come with you."

"I don't want you to die."

"Do you really think we're going to die?"

"We're going right into the Inners—like a bullet in the heart of the System. We may get in—but getting out will be the trick. Yeah. I think we're going to die."

"Then why go?"

"We're going to kill Satan."

"Is that so important?"

"Yes. It is."

"I don't care," she sighed. "Can I sleep here tonight?"

"You don't have to ask, Millie." I reached over and pulled her to me—head to head. I breathed in her scent, a faint, fresh perfume. What bizarre fate had brought us together? God? KCA? Tara? Millions of dead? Who could read Fate?

"Hi, gang." Priestess stood in the doorway, hair wet, bloodshot eyes, wearing faded camfax. "Can I crash here, Thinker? Psycho keeps trying to get my pants off and I'm really tired. He's so damned annoying."

"Sure. You can sleep with Millie. I've got to do just a little bit more work here. I'll, uh…I'll sleep on the floor."

"Thanks!" Priestess fell into the bunk, kicking off her boots. It had been a hard day.

"Why don't you join her, Millie? I won't be much longer." I doused the lights, leaving only the glow from the holo. I had to look at the milbase floorplan one last time.

"She's asleep," Millie whispered. "Wow."

I tried to concentrate on the holo map. Millie stripped off her whites, revealing tight panties and minibra. I tired to ignore her long, lovely legs and ample breasts as she pulled a blanket out from the drawer under the bunk.

"I may join you on the floor later if it gets too crowded up here," Millie said, snuggling in next to Priestess and pulling up the blanket.

"Sure. No monkey business, though. I've got to get some sleep."

"No monkey business. Tenners."

I went back to the map. I was tremendously weary, but I had to get this last part resolved. If we got stuck in the warehouse, we'd never even get into the sub. It seemed largely a matter of luck whether…

"Westo?"

"Yes, Millie."

"Maybe just a little monkey business."

***

"That's the supergiant," One said. "See it?" We had just popped out of stardrive and were approaching the Parsi Cluster. There were several inhabited worlds here, firmly controlled by USICOM and the United System Alliance. The supergiant was a brilliant gold, a lovely cosmic jewel. To us it was just another sinister landmark on Atom's Road. It was chilling to actually see it that close. The Parsi Cluster was the gateway to the Inners. The System had made a major effort to reestablish control here, and it was now firmly back in the Systie camp. Up ahead—still unimaginably distant, but getting closer every instant we were in stardrive—was the Dark Cloud, welcoming us to its dusty domain, where new stars were burning brightly in their cosmic womb. Beyond was the Pleiades, misty blue emeralds, beauty to strike you dead. And beyond that was the Hyades Federation—our target.

"Yeah. I see it." Snow Leopard and I occupied the VIP chairs on the bridge, watching the screens.

"This place is crawling with Systie ships. We're in the Inners now."

"Cloaking fully active. Standing by 100 percent combat alert," someone announced.

"Continue recon run," the captain ordered. "We'll just see how good this cloaking is."

We had just made a star jump across 1,100 light years, and we were now well within the boundaries of Systie vac. The mission here was to test the effectiveness of our cloaking—against live bad guys. I had agreed it was probably a good idea. We wouldn't want to arrive at the Hyades without confirmation that the cloaking worked against Starfleet. We knew it worked against Fleetcom—but we weren't targeting Fleetcom.

"Entering Parsi Sector defensive fields. 4S systems coming on scope now." I could see them on the sector map, scattered carelessly through the vac like evil little red gnats. But there was nothing careless about it. 4S stood for Space Superiority Sector Sensors, and it was a notoriously dependable and effective early warning system designed to detect intruding starships. We knew it was good because the Systies had stolen the technology from us.

"This is crazy," I muttered.

"What have you done since joining the Legion that hasn't been crazy?" Snow Leopard asked. I had no answer.

"We are within the det field of the nearest sensor. Cocooning nicely. No trail. Cloaking appears to be 100 percent effective."

"That's nice."

"This is the point where they'd normally be in a frenzy, crash launching everything within range and siccing their tacships on us."

"No defensive reaction so far. Starfleet units in system defwatch continue normal routine. No downside targeting. Battle Fleet on combat patrol has not reacted. Two cruisers, one assault carrier, tacship screen, all on normal ready status—as marked."

"Terrific." The images of the Systie fleet put a little chill to my blood. This was definitely their vac. We didn't belong here.

"Captain?" Snow Leopard inquired.

The young captain turned, grinning. "They don't see us."

"Good. That's good."

***

I knew something was wrong—something indefinable. It would come to me at night, haunting me, awakening me from a fitful, sweaty, exhausted sleep, to stare, stunned, into nothing.

I should have known. Fool—did I think I could avoid my fate? Snow Leopard called me into Plans to tell me. Nobody else was there—just Snow Leopard. I settled into an airchair, still exhausted from the sleepless night and a hard day in E-Sim.

"We're getting better, right, One?" I asked. Beta was in top form. We were so good by then it was scary. I was anxious to get to the target. Only a few more sessions and we'd be fully ready. All I needed was One's approval—to reassure myself.

Snow Leopard took a nearby airchair and looked at me intently with inscrutable pink eyes. He held a little printout in one hand. I could never read him, but it slowly began to dawn on me that he had bad news.

"You know ConFree has been censoring the news, for proprop reasons," he began.

"Sure."

"I've just received some news that is over a month old. They should have informed us—earlier. I just learned this today."

"Yes?"

"The Systies have raided Andrion 2. Your boy—Stormdawn—they took him. He's missing."

And Moontouch's words echoed right then, in my mind, icy clear, as the adrenalin shot through my veins—'You will abandon me and your son, again, leaving us to face our enemies alone.' It was all coming true—all of it.

Chapter 24
Price of Admission

Eiros 4 came at us like a vision of Paradise, a stunningly beautiful, cloud-flecked orb reflecting the sunlight of a bright star, rippling sheets of silver and gold winking off great cobalt oceans, wonderful rust-green continents spiked with snowy peaks. It was so lovely it brought tears to my eyes. For all I knew we would die there, and I could only think that it would be a beautiful place to die.

"You'd better get in ES," Snow Leopard said. We were on the bridge, looking out the ports at that evil fantasy as the
Wraith
hurtled relentlessly along the glide path to our target, as straight as an arrow—an unstoppable, invincible, invisible meteor. A fearsome Systie war fleet was in orbit around Eiros. Starfleet, in all its glory. It froze my blood, watching those icy red tracks. But we shot right past them, a ghostly bat from Hell.

"Yes," I replied. Invisible! I didn't dare laugh. The techs kept us alive. They had outdone themselves this time. We were ready—for anything. Nobody could have been more ready than we were, right then.

"It's going to work," Snow Leopard said. He was in camfax—his war clothes. He was aching to come with us, but we all knew he'd be more valuable to us in the Ops Center.

"Death," I replied. The
Wraith
eased into its orbit. Eiros was a gigantic presence, blotting out the stars, an ache in my heart for its hopeless beauty. I was clad in rags, my skin darkened, my hair long and tangled, a dirty bandanna wrapped around my head.

"Death. Get moving!"

"Beta, Mission One. Count off!" Snow Leopard's voice echoed right in my ears. I was standing alone in a featureless ES chamber, waiting tensely for insertion. We counted off—all there. The
Wraith
floated silently in the vac high overhead of the target, waiting for the exact optimum time to deposit its deadly cargo of invincible Holo-X killers right into the heart of BioSite 1, KCA's support milbase. And we were going to be killing, silently and quietly, as soon as we appeared. I was sweating already. Soon my muscles would start to twitch. Imminent murder always did that to me.

One had decided to name Operation Deep's strike force Beta—for that's who we were. We occupied seven of the
Wraith's
twelve ES chambers. That left only five for Recon—backup's call sign, another fitting name. We were hoping we wouldn't need Recon. At any rate, their mission was to stand by to secure BioSite 1 if our One decided it needed securing. They wouldn't be in the first wave.

"Commo check—Thinker, One. How you read?"

"Got you tenners, One," I replied. "Beta, Thinker, commo check, count off."

"Dragon."

"Psycho."

"Priestess."

"Valkyrie."

"Scrapper."

"Greenie." All here, and all in contact. Good. Let's get on with it!

"We're all set, One," I said. "What's your estimate for insertion?"

"Stand by, Thinker. Estimate…" a harsh blast rattled the walls of the ES chamber, the ship lurched suddenly, and I wound up on the deck, momentarily stunned. The damage warning claxon erupted, blasting its terrifying news—we had been hit!

"Maintain combat alert! Commencing emergency evasion! Cancel Holo-X mission! Emergency repair, I want accurate damage reports right now!"

"What's the sit, One?" I got up from the deck, my heart thumping. Dead—we were dead! And we didn't even get a chance to launch the mission!

"Thinker, report to ES Control!" I ripped open the door to the ES chamber and was at control in fracs. Snow Leopard sat before the Master Panel—twelve blank holo screens and three large holo tacmaps gave him total control over every Holo-X trooper. Several Legion techs were at their own panels, looking around nervously. The damage warning claxon cut off.

"What is it, One?" He held up a hand. He was listening to a sitrep on his command com.

"We've hit a mine," he said, "and sustained some damage. We're backing off and getting out of the system while we check the damage."

"Deto! Are we going into stardrive? Are they pursuing?"

"Don't know."

"Let's see the captain, now! Dragon, stand by!"

"Tenners," Dragon replied from his ES chamber. A white-hot anger was building in me. A mine! All our efforts down the tube—for a mine!

***

We found the captain and his Assidic exec bent over a holo table on the bridge, surrounded by a gang of Fleetcom officers, examining images of the damage while casting anxious glances at the status of the Starfleet cruisers and tacships that were lazily orbiting Eiros 4 like birds of prey. We pushed our way to the front.

"…an orbital anti-ship nuke mine, model ASMN-2, identification positive," someone said. An image of the device flashed on to a screen. "They cruise randomly in unauthorized orbits, looking for intruders. And our orbit was certainly unauthorized."

"Extensive damage to exterior service modules 4 through 11—orbital nav, downside mapping, hard and soft docking approach, downside LOS/VSR…"

"Starfleet tacships reacting. Two tacships diverting to…site of incident."

"Anyone coming after us?" the captain asked.

"No sir."

"Status of cloaking?"

"Cloaking reports 100 percent effective still, sir."

"The damage," the captain continued, "how bad is it?"

"All penetrations have been autosealed, sir. Damage Control suggests visual inspection prior to starlaunch."

"Captain," I interrupted. "Analysis, please."

The captain straightened, his glance shooting over the holo table, the d-screen showing the Systie war ships, and the plex, revealing a rapidly receding Eiros 4. "We have hit an orbital anti-ship mine. It's bad luck, really. It didn't spot us, but it intercepted our orbit, probably by chance. Our shields deflected it, but the pressure detonated it. We're functional, but damaged. Cloaking is still good. Systie forces are now scouring our former orbit, looking for an intruder. They won't find one—and they won't find us. We're going to be repairing our damage outside the Eiros system."

"So all downside forces will be on maximum alert?" I asked.

"Not necessarily. Not likely…actually. These ASMN's are always going off like that. We don't use them any more. The Systies stole the design from us. They keep running into space junk. A grain of dust a bit larger than normal and bang! Your mine is gone—but it's a false alarm."

"So…no alert?"

If they don't find anything, they probably won't even report it downside except in a periodic report."

"Will they find anything?"

"I don't know. Could be we left some debris behind. We'll know when we do a full damage report."

"Captain," I said. "I would like you to turn this ship around. We're going to do the mission. Now, before they discover some debris and raise the alarm."

"Sorry, Captain. I guess I didn't mention. Your Holo-X transmitters are in Exterior Service Module 6. They're fried. I'm afraid you're not going anywhere."

Time seemed to slow down for just a few fracs. The captain, concerned about his ship. Snow Leopard, his lips sealed, face pale, eyes burning. The d-screen, showing a tangled mass of wreckage on the underside of the ship. No holos! Was this it? Was our mission over? Should I accept this, limping home without having even tried? Had KCA triumphed again? Tara's voice echoed in my mind: 'As long as my heart continues beating in my body, there is hope.'

"We're going in live," I told Snow Leopard. "Tell Redhawk and Claws to warm up the Phantoms. Tell Beta and Recon to board. Captain, prep to launch Phantoms. We're going in—now. One, I need a quick revised plan."

***

A cold rain battered us heavily as we squatted in knee-deep swamp water, snaking through tangled foliage. BioSite 1 was in a direct line ahead. I identified a spotlight, haloed in the rain. It was still dark, close to dawn, but we were not going to see the sun. I shivered, dressed in my Eiros native rags and headband, spattered with mud and soaking wet. I could see my breath in the air—scut!

"Thinker, One. Commo test. How do you read?" It was right in my ears—literally. Even when I thought we would be going in as holos I insisted on micromin implants for every trooper—just as insurance. They were new, virtually undetectable, and damned good.

"Loud and clear, One. How me?" I spoke in lowered tones. He would hear me—he would hear all of us, Beta and Recon. And he would track us just like holos. It was the only reason I dared go in live.

"Tenners, Thinker. What do you see?"

Dragon crept up beside me, glaring into that dark dawn at our objective. He was dressed like me—rags, headband, dark skin, mud. He looked pretty scary. We had landed in the midst of the swamp several K from the initial objective, in the
Kiss
. Recon had inserted behind us in
Li'l Miss Miss
. They were ready to shoot up the town, but we were virtually unarmed. Our mission depended on stealth and cunning, not force. Recon was only a backup—if the primary mission failed.

"There's one guard, Snow Leopard," I whispered. "Loitering by the door." One guard, looked like an Outworlder male, A-vest, shockrod at his belt. Shockrods were it, for KCA's base. Anything more potent would trigger immediate red alerts in BioSite 2 or Norport Station. KCA was deathly afraid of firearms and energy weapons—with good reason. All tyrants fear their subjects. It meant nobody would be shooting at us—but we would not be going in as holos, now. We'd be taking on biogens, hand to hand. The odds had shifted dramatically against us.

"I'm going to take out the exterior spotlights and cameras on your side, Thinker," Snow Leopard said. "The interior corridor is clear for now. Do the guard—then do the code. You know it."

"Tenners," I said. "Go ahead. Dragon, Psycho—the guard. As soon as the spotlight dies." Psycho twitched like a starved attack dog. He'd found the right profession, all right.

"We going in?" Millina asked. She was in a hooded camfax coverall, well protected from the rain and mud. Valkyrie crouched beside her, also in camfax.

"Pass the word—when the light dies," I replied. We had a whole lot of surprises set for KCA. The one ace we had was the eyemotes. We had sent in plenty of the nasty little micromin intruders, and some of them could do more than observe.

The spotlight sputtered and abruptly faded. Darkness rushed in. I strained to make out the guard. At last I spotted him. He was looking up at the dead light. Two shadows crept up behind him, then leaped on him, pulling him down quickly—a brief struggle, then no further movement.

I splashed through the muck to the door and punched in the over-ride combo on the access plate, rain pouring on my head. They used simple number codes throughout the complex, with people only knowing the codes to which they had legal access. One's eyemotes had programmed us a new over-ride. We chose something simple—1, 2, 3, 4. The door clicked.

"How's the corridor, One?" I asked.

"Clear. It's still early. Go!" The eyemotes gave him the view, but we were blind. I pressed the access lever and the door slid open, revealing a deserted security post and an empty corridor. We padded in, five dark Eiros natives dressed in rags, dripping water, splashed with mud. Just behind us Millina and Valkyrie entered in their camfax coveralls. The door snapped shut. One would be restoring power. And the dead guard was out of camera range.

"Change," Millina whispered urgently. We moved up the corridor. I found the door and triggered the over-ride. It hissed open—a little reception room, quite nice. Perfect. Millina and Valkyrie entered. Priestess and I joined them, sealing the door behind us. Psycho, Dragon and Scrapper had taken another room. We had to get out of the corridor for just a frac.

Millina and Valkyrie ripped off their camfax coveralls, revealing spotless forest-green uniforms. A general's star was set into Millina's collar. It was the uniform of the SIS—a role Millina knew well. Valkyrie's collar had a single pip. She was the general's aide and likely sex toy. "Damn!" The catch on one of Millina's boot covers had come loose somewhere in the swamp. Her left boot was covered with slimy mud. I peeled off the sodden cover, went to my knees, snatched a sleeve from her discarded coverall, and began frantically cleaning the boot. A lovely little barefoot Outworlder girl with wispy blonde hair wandered in, clad in shorts and a shapeless, sleeveless top. She was barely out of puberty. She stood there for just a frac, surprised but not yet afraid. It was a strange scene—the Mocain general, her elegant aide, and two scruffy male and female Eiros laborers. The male was on his knees shining the general's boots.

Priestess and Valkyrie tackled her viciously, slamming her to the deck, whipping angel wire around wrists and ankles, leaving her hogtied on her belly on the carpet, gagged with a ragged strip of camfax stuffed into her mouth. The girl had collapsed instantly. She certainly wasn't a biogen—just an innocent. There were plenty of human civilians here, and more in KCA's lunatic underground city—wives and kids, dependents of KCA's brainwashed slaves.

"Shine it!" Millina's left boot still looked like hell, and details like that could give us away. I shined it until it glowed. Valkyrie had the girl by her hair, the tip of her icepick dagger poised over her back. One push and it would go right through the little girl's frail body. The push daggers were pretty low-profile—but we would have to discard them before we entered the sub, as there was a weapons check in the warehouse and only authorized officials could carry knives.

"The boot's done," Millina said. Everyone was looking at me. I stood up, adrenalin burning. Valkyrie shook the girl's head, to draw my attention, the dagger poised over her back. The girl looked right at me, big liquid blue eyes, the tears suddenly gushing forth. She had just realized she was going to die. What a beautiful child! She had her whole life ahead of her. She was so young! She could be my daughter! The closet, I thought, we can drug her, we can…no, no. We have no drugs, all we have is angel wire and daggers. We can't leave her, we can't take the chance. She'll raise the alarm. She'll betray us. They'll kill us all—all of Beta. Priestess, Valkyrie, Dragon…all my closest comrades, dying, because of my weakness. And Satan will live! Because of me! A frenzied image of Biergart. I had executed him in cold blood on Katag, so that we might live. And I could hear Tara, hissing in my ear: 'You have to be strong, Wester, to triumph over Evil. You have to be stronger than the Evil!' The little angel was looking right into my eyes, pleading, mewing pitiful little whimpers through the gag—as if she could read my mind! And Tara, again, a cold, merciless whisper: '…it was the right thing to do. The right thing to do is never easy.' She had said that after dropping an antimat on a couple of hundred ConFree schoolchildren. I turned away to face the door, frozen, horrified, stunned.