Cross of the Legion (8 page)

"Enemy intruder eliminated," Redhawk reported. "I'd guess somebody has noticed this."

"Kiss, evac Pits," Dragon ordered. "Miss, Mams, cover us. Then Miss evacs Mams while we cover you."

"All right, I'm landing—on my zero!" Redhawk snapped.

We left the school warily, heading for
Kiss's
zero. The beacon showed he was hovering over an open area just past a little grove of trees.

"Legion! Legion unit, hold your evac! Nova, Nova, we're survivors from Augusta Station! We're on the way, Legion! Please pick us up!"

"Legion armor! Transmission zeroed! Three Legion A-suits, approaching from zero nine eight." Survivors! They were suddenly on my tacmap, three red dots, moving toward the school from out of the foothills below the mountains.

"Pits, Dragon, on me, engage targets, do not fire," Dragon ordered. "Kiss, hold your position. Miss, cover us. Legion survivors—negative on pickup. Maintain your course. You come to us!"

"We're on the way!" It sounded as if they were running. We hustled to cover Dragon. We took up positions to one side of the school. I found a fiercely burning section of wreckage from the Zeta unit and dropped prone in the energy field from the flames—comfy! It would be harder to spot me there. I acquired the targets right away. They were hustling over a grassy plain that stretched from the foothills to the school. It was totally open. I switched to xmax. A jagged bolt of lightning lit up the sky over the mountains. It was still lightly raining.

"Pits, Miss. I've got an O Type 4 air effects car that's changed course—hold it. It's discharging…discharging O troops, armor & arms, fields on—deto! Six of them, they're starbursting, looks like…heading your way."

"It's a setup!" Valkyrie exclaimed.

"Fast reaction," Dragon replied. "I see them. The car is leaving?"

"It's gone. They learn quick. Six Omni troopers, advancing on your position."

"Pits, Mams, don't worry. They'll have to get through us first!"

"Survivors, are those O's friends of yours?"

"Negative, negative, please pick us up—we're not going to make it!"

"That's a twelve, survivors. Drop your weapons."

"But the O's are almost on us!"

"Drop your weapons or there'll be no evac for you!" We were not a trusting bunch. Chances were high the Legion troopers were in the power of the O's. I watched all three of them toss their E's away. I knew how that must hurt, especially with a squad of O's on the way.

"Orders?" Ten asked from the
Kiss
.

"Kiss, maintain your position. Miss, hunt down those O's and blast 'em! Mams, kill any surviving O's."

"Tenners."

"Ten."

"Ten."

"Psycho, Thinker, we disarm and cuff these Legion troopers. Now!" I moved out of the flames and advanced on the three targets. They were sprinting towards us, frantic to escape.

"Be careful, Three!" Priestess cried out to me on private.

"Far enough!" Dragon barked. "Hands on your heads! Freeze!" The grating shriek of chainlink canister interrupted, followed by a horrifying multiple crack. A blinding series of tacstars rose from beyond the school, four swirling phospho fireballs, spraying luminous shrapnel.
Little Miss Miss
was going after the O's.

"Don't move!" I was on the Legion survivors, aiming my E at the closest one. Dragon and Psycho covered all three of them as I frisked them. They kept their hands up, speechless and seemingly exhausted. I ripped off grenade paks and ampaks, flinging them away, and roughly cuffed their arms behind their backs.

"All right, move! On us!"

I looked up, surprised, from the ground as dirt and shrapnel rained down on me. My ears were ringing. I was on my back and a blazing tacstar was rising above us. Deto!

"Any casualties?" Dragon was amazingly calm. I struggled to my feet—all in one piece! The O tacstar had thrown us all to the ground. It was writhing in the air above us, a glittering fireball, spraying brilliant tracers that were still hissing down into the dirt. A series of blinding flashes burst off to one side, followed by a multiple bang and a shock wave buffeting our armor—
Little Miss Miss
was hard at work! Psycho raised his E and fired a burst of canister. Trigger let lose a barrage of tacstars, ripping the air open, the stars shrieking wildly on their way to the targets. The three Legion survivors were up and moving with us as we headed for the
Kiss
. I could hear Mams, blasting away at the O's.

"That did it!"

"Twelve, that's a twelve, do another pass, Miss!"

"There's two of them in the trees…"

"Claws, go after those…"

"They're still moving!"

"Canisters! Pour it on!"

"Come on, Miss!" Something whistled eerily overhead, the air rustled, then the charred forest erupted again, bursting into flames.

"Ah, damn…" One of the Legion survivors was down, collapsing face first into a little gully, lying there stunned, arms cuffed behind his back. I straddled the gully, covering him with my E.

"Get up, trooper! Get up or we leave you! I'm not gonna carry you!" I reached down and got a grip on one arm and pulled. A sweaty, exhausted, emaciated, and obviously female face looked up at me from behind the faceplate—pale brown skin, slanted Assidic eyes, high cheekbones over hollow cheeks, a wide mouth. I froze, stunned. Deadman's death! My skin was suddenly crawling, and I knew the Angels of the Lord were right there, hovering over us. I could hear the beating of their glorious wings, shielding us, protecting us from all harm.

"Tara!" It was all I could say. I was stunned. She looked up with glazed eyes, too tired to talk. Then I could see the light dawning. It was beautiful to watch.

"Wester!" she croaked. "Is it really you?"

"Bet your ass! Get up, Tara. Get on my back, if you can't walk. I'll carry you! I'll carry you a hundred K if I have to! Let's go!"

She got up and a gigantic O came right out of that burning forest, violet force field crackling, wreathed in flames like some kind of creature from Hell, unloosing a wild volley of X. It impacted all around us, spraying us with shrapnel. I felt a big piece bang onto my armor, and I snapped my E to my shoulder and fired a mighty barrage of canister. The evil little darts buzzed like supersonic bees, chilling my blood, lighting up his force field. The field flickered, weakening. The whole squad fired at it, an evil highway of canister darts, xmax and laser. I fired x and the force field burst open, flicking off. The O went down. It shrieked—a lovely sound! I seized Tara by one arm and we ran wildly to the evac point.

We all arrived at the same time. It was a wide field with knee-high grass that was swirling wildly from some unearthly breeze, but the
Kiss
was not there. Nothing was there! I ran into the field, looking up into the sky—nothing!

I slammed into something violently and went down hard. I looked up in a daze and the
Kiss
was hovering above me. I had run right into one wing. I had forgotten the damned thing was invisible until you were right on it.

"Get in!"

"Get up, Thinker! We'll set up a flashing arrow for you next time!"

We leaped into the assault locks and the doors slammed shut behind us as the
Kiss
lifted off. If any surviving O's were watching, they were probably wondering where we had gone. I was ecstatic, collapsing against the wall bench, looking around the crowded compartment, now tangled with a whole squad of troopers and equipment, a chaotic scene. Tara was right beside me, gasping in exhaustion.

"Priestess, it's Tara!" I shouted.

"Kiss, cover our evac," Valkyrie ordered.

"That's a ten, commence evac, I've got the targets, we're going after them." The car lurched as we began our firing run.

"Is this an airlock?" One of the Legion survivors knelt before me, his hands still cuffed behind him. He was sweating and filthy and bearded but his eyes were blazing. He obviously had something to say.

"Tenners," I replied, "This is a shuttle, we assault from the airlock."

"Keep it closed! Don't contaminate the ship! Keep it closed! Keep the helmets on! Don't unlink! Take us into the vac and purge the airlock! If you let it loose, we all die! Do you understand?"

"Yeah," I replied. "Yeah, I do. Redhawk, keep the inner airlock sealed. Repeat that to Miss Miss. After they board, do not open the inner door until you hear from us, keep the troops in the airlock, confirm."

"Big ten, Thinker."

"Dragon, Thinker," I said. "Did you hear that?"

We were lucky—extremely lucky.

Chapter 4
Tracks in the Dust of Time

"We were in A-suits almost a month," Tara said. "I can't recommend it." She was in an airbed in the body shop of the
Spawn
, floating on a thick current of air, head supported by a large, snowy-white pillow. She was looking considerably better, although still pale and hollow-cheeked. The thin layer of slime was gone, and her auburn hair was clean. We were all gathered around her, everyone who had known her in Beta—Priestess and me, Dragon, Psycho, Valkyrie, Scrapper, Redhawk and Twister. Even Snow Leopard was there, leaning against the bulkhead. We all owed her our lives—some of us more than once.

"At first we hid out down in the mines, and ditched the A-suits. We were afraid we'd be spotted. But we'd go out for recons. Then when we saw what was happening, we suited up and stayed that way." She sighed, and looked up at the overhead. A strange, fragile beauty, even now, wasted and emaciated, she still possessed that awful, unearthly beauty. It was almost as if she were a separate species, a little closer to Heaven than the rest of humanity.

"Any idea how it started?" Valkyrie asked.

"No idea. But we saw it spread. We saw people die. We saw O's die. We had to assume it was transmitted through the air. I thought I was going to go insane, after a week in the suit. I started to choke. I wanted to die, I wanted to rip the helmet off and take a breath. I stuck it out. Elektra Four and Six helped. We all helped each other. None of us could have survived alone."

"You weren't afraid you'd alert the O's with your Novas?" I asked.

"Of course we knew we'd alert them. But at that point we didn't care. We knew they had bigger problems to deal with, and we knew we couldn't take much longer in the A-suits. We figured it was worth the risk."

"Why weren't you at the school with the Nova?"

"Are you kidding? We wanted to see who would show up. We were afraid your rescue burst came from the O's."

"One month in an A-suit!" Psycho laughed. "That's got to be a record!"

"I can tell you the plumbing could be improved upon. As a matter of fact, if I ever get my hands on the retard who designed the solid waste elimination unit, I'll cheerfully strangle him!"

"Make some suggestions," Snow Leopard said. "Input is always welcome."

"I can solve this problem in exactly two months," Tara responded. "First, you get ahold of the slug who designed the current system. Then you seal him into an A-suit for one month and feed him e-rats. Then, when he gets out, you inform him that he gets to do it again in exactly one month; and that if he has designed a better system by then, he may use it the second month. That way, even if he fails, I'll feel good about it."

"My my," Psycho said, in evident admiration. "Remind me not to get on this young lady's shit list."

"Why should she be any different from everybody else, Psycho?" I couldn't resist adding.

"Well, DD has handed the sample of the fungus to Lab, and they are being very, very careful with it," Dragon said. We had all sat in the vac for quite some time in the
Kiss's
airlock. DD said the stuff couldn't survive in the vac. He had stored his own sample in a sealed medtube—standard medical procedure for possibly dangerous substances.

"If they're not careful," Tara added, "everyone on board will die a horrible death."

"They'll be careful," Snow Leopard said. "The sample is going to Starcom as soon as we can link up with Atom."

"This is heavenly," Tara said, "just being able to lie here like this, and drink what I want and eat what I want. I love this stuff." She sipped at a frosted glass of fruit blossom, pressing the glass against her cheek from time to time, almost in ecstasy. "It's the simple things in life that become important after you come that close to death."

Priestess and I were still there, but the others had left. It was getting late.

"What were you doing on Augusta 6 anyway?" I asked. Tara gave me a dreamy smile.

"I was redeeming myself."

"What does that mean? Are you still working for Galactic Information?"

"I can't tell you what I was doing on Augusta 6, Wester. Suffice it to say that it didn't work out."

"I should have thought the Information folks would have written you off after the Mound. You're still dealing with them, aren't you? Wasn't the rock pile enough to convince you to stay away from them?"

"I blame the Legion for nothing, Wester." She looked off into space. "We're all the Legion. The Legion is us. The Legion does what it has to do, and we do what we have to do. If our paths sometimes diverge, nobody's to blame. Where would we be without the Legion? We'd be Systies. We'd be sheep. But I shouldn't have to explain this to you. Now tell me—what are the two of you doing here? The last I heard you were both safe and happy, at last, on Andrion 2."

I looked at Priestess and she looked at me, silent. "I guess it had something to do with you, Tara," I said. "It was becoming increasingly difficult to stay there. The war was becoming harder and harder to ignore. Then I got a note from Dragon, and he told me you were missing. And…well, you had come after Priestess, and the others, in the Mound. It didn't seem right…to stay home. Even though I didn't think there was a chance in hell that you could be alive."

She just looked at me, not even blinking. Then she slowly raised one hand, and held it up. I grasped it. It seemed very cold. Priestess added her hand to ours.

"Thanks, gang," Tara said.

"It's nothing," I said.

"Yes, it is. It's a whole hell of a lot. It's your whole life. But I guess I should have expected it. I never thought it would last for you, Wester. Safe and happy—I knew you wouldn't be able to deal with that. You belong out here with the rest of the crazies. You too, Priestess. You've got too much stardust between your teeth. You're not the little domestic housecat you pretend to be. You're just as nuts as your mate."

"Maybe," Priestess said grimly, "but I'd trade it in a frac for a quiet life."

"At moments like this, I think the same thing. But the moments don't last. Time rolls on, the stars wheel in the sky, and new worlds come right at you. New worlds—Lord, I'm tired! I believe I'll take a little nap now. Good night, gang."

"Good night, Tara. Sleep well."

"Bet your ass!"

***

I ducked as another titanic explosion lit up the dusk over the milbase, sending a glowing orange cloud skyward. The shock wave buffeted my A-suit. I had a terrific view, up on the top floor of the Civic Center. The great picture window had already been blown out and swirling, greasy clouds of black smoke rolled in from the burning milbase, dirtying up the governor's palatial office. I kept scanning, but the DefCorps had pulled out, leaving plenty of bodies behind.
Kiss
was hard to counter, and she was still going after them. They were going crazy trying to spot her. Meantime
Little Miss Miss
was finishing off the milport. The DefCorps transmissions were sheer chaos. They had no idea what was happening.

"You could have avoided a lot of trouble," Dragon told the governor, "if you had handed over the sub when we first asked for him."

"STRATCOM refused," the governor replied. He was sitting at his desk, a tall powerful Mocain, bald head and no eyebrows, faintly green skin, golden earrings dangling, clad in DefCorps khaki. "We asked, and they refused. They said the Legion had no business interfering in the internal affairs of a System world."

"Your fleet is space junk, your milbase is burning, and the 12th DefCorps is going to need a lot of replacements for Calgoran 2 when we're through. Maybe even a new governor." Dragon stood by the desk in full armor, his E aimed at the governor. The governor appeared angry, but not afraid. Mocains were tough bastards. We knew we had to be a lot tougher than them to get what we wanted.

"DefCorps units retreating from last positions. Looks like heavy casualties," Redhawk reported. We could hear tacstars going off, a horrific series of ripping, crackling blasts.

"Keep after 'em, Redhawk," Psycho urged him.

"If he doesn't show up soon," Dragon reminded the governor, "we'll destroy the starport and everything in it. STRATCOM won't like that. They may even blame you."

The governor picked up a handcom and spoke into it in an alien tongue. Then he addressed Dragon, in Inter. "They've located and detained him. They're on the way in an aircar—but they are reluctant to approach this area."

"Describe the car. We'll let it in."

"Everything all right up there, Thinker?" Priestess asked me on the net.

"We're fine, Priestess. You just keep a sharp lookout down there," I replied. Priestess was on ground level, covering the approach to the building. The whole city was frozen in shock, stunned by the ferocity of our unexpected attack. We were only two squads, and we normally didn't do this type of work, but we had been available when the decision had been made that something was to be done. So we were it, and Calgoran 2 was going to remember us, no matter how it ended.

"You're all insane! It's only a minor criminal! Let the courts handle it! You have no right to interfere!" The speaker was a squat little Orman, hogtied on the dirty carpet, looking around wildly, sweat on his brow.

"Shut down, Pig," Valkyrie came to life, moving away from her post at the door. "The courts freed him. We've already seen the courts in action!"

"The police made a procedural error in the arrest!" The Orman's eyes were wild and his face was speckled with little cuts from flying glass. "The law says he goes free! That's the law! We're a society of laws here, Legion!"

"The sub confessed!" Valkyrie shouted.

"It doesn't matter!" The Orman snapped, glaring up at her from the carpet. "That doesn't matter! Only the law matters!"

Valkyrie snarled and went for him, seizing him in her armored hands, yanking him off his feet, striding over to the ledge where the picture window had been, dangling him over the edge.

"Let me kill him!" she exclaimed.

"Go ahead," I said. I personally suspected the Ormans were responsible for most of humanity's problems.

"No," Dragon said. "That's enough, Val. Put him back."

She hurled him back onto the carpet with a curse. He lay there gasping. Several sharp booms echoed overhead.

"Two DefCorps fighters are reconning the city,"
Little Miss Miss's
pilot reported. "I'm going after them."

"Have fun," Redhawk said. "I'll orbit the site."

"Pads, Valkyrie. How's Hotpants?"

"She's stable, Val. Don't worry—I'm on it!" Hotpants had been hit during our assault on the Civic Center. Pads, Valkyrie's medic, was watching over her downstairs.

"If she dies, your Orman lawyer dies also, Greenie!" Valkyrie snarled to the governor.

"They're here," Priestess reported. "One aircar, approaching very slowly down Civic Avenue."

"All right, watch them but no firing. Psycho, escort them in."

"Tenners. I'll try to restrain myself."

"Don't hurt him, Psycho. We've got some special plans for this sub."

"I'll bet."

The System had made a bad mistake on Calgoran 2. Two ConFree citizens, sisters, had been visiting friends on the planet. Both were documented as ConFree nationals, which normally ensured the local officials would not harass them. Private travel between the System and ConFree was now possible, but not recommended by ConFree. Nevertheless, if someone wanted to go, they could.

They should have stayed home. ConFree citizens don't know about crime, and tend not to believe it even when they're warned. The two sisters were drugged, abducted from their hotel cube, and then raped and murdered. All their belongings had shown up on the black market. The bodies were discovered, and revealed they had been tortured as well. Torture was the sport of choice for Calgoran 2's criminal class.

The murderer, a career criminal, was tracked down, arrested, and confessed. He was promptly set free—because of a legal technicality. It was the usual result under Systie laws. He then started marketing a recording of the week-long rape and torture session of the two sisters, which he had meticulously documented. It was a big seller, and he was kept busy producing extra copies.

ConFree sent a Ministry of Interstellar Relations team to Calgoran 2, to investigate the crime and demand custody of the killer. They were sent away, with the explanation that the case had already been resolved in court. They brought a copy of the sub's documentary with them when they returned. It certainly sealed his doom. That's when the Legion was called in.

"One subhuman, as ordered." Psycho said. "It's him. We checked the genetics." The sub was escorted in by two very nervous Systie cops, disarmed, wearing police A-vests and semi comtops. The sub had his wrists manacled together in front. He was tall and lanky, a great head of oily, matted shoulder-length hair, an ugly, scarred and pock-marked face, dark brown skin seemingly covered with a thin layer of slime, a scraggly beard. He looked puzzled and…uneasy.

Psycho kicked his feet out from under him and the sub fell face first onto the dirty carpet.

"Thank you, gentlemen," Dragon said to the policemen. "You may leave now. Psycho, see they get their weapons back—outside."

"Tenners."

Valkyrie reached down and grasped the sub by his glistening hair, pulling him to his knees, looking into his savage face.

"Would you like to try raping me?" she asked pleasantly.

"I'd love it, bitch," the sub leered, revealing misshapen teeth. "I'd make you beg for mercy!" He apparently had no idea with whom he was dealing. Valkyrie raised the butt of her E and smashed his face, shattering the nose, cheeks and teeth with one blow, transforming the face instantly into a bloody, oozing pulp.

The sub croaked once and fell onto his back, spraying blood and teeth all over the governor's carpet.

"Did anyone record that?" Valkyrie asked.

"That's a ten, Val," Tourist said.

"Good. The ConFree terrorism and public relations boys are going to make a feature-length documentary on this sub's arrest and punishment, and release it right here on Calgoran 2. They expect it to out-sell the rape-torture story."