Curse of the Legion (19 page)

Chapter 14
The Holy Dead

The view from atop the Alpha Station Body Shop complex was pretty spectacular. The hospital rose up eight stories to a roof topped by an aircar landing pad for emergencies. The rest of the roof was set up with plex tables and airchairs, and the walking wounded often came up to escape the wards and take in the view. I did it a lot, once the sheaths came off my legs and I was hobbling around with a cane. I liked to watch the sun set and the stars come out. At dusk it was still and hushed. This particular evening there were only a few other wounded in the lengthening shadows, and the air was clear and cool. I wondered if it was going to rain. Off to the northwest horizon I could see a vague purple glow—it was the Blue Mountains that led all the way to Stormport and the Cold Coast. To the northeast a dirty brown haze was barely visible. The Deadlands, leading into a fearsome desert. And all around the Station a vast forest of colorful flowertrees spread, giving way here and there to more open fields, scattered with dato trees. Air angels floated gracefully past, riding the breeze. I turned my head to the south, and the Mountains of the Exiles rose up from the horizon, a mighty bulwark stretching almost as far as I could see. Beyond that, I knew, were the Garden of God and Stonehall and Mount Light and Southmark and the Swamp of Lost Souls. An alien world, I thought. It was my home.

My arms were free now, and my hands, and my legs. New flesh, that had to be gently exercised, before the lifies signed off on my release. I was impatient, but willing. I knew I'd need to be in good shape, for what was coming. My legs still hurt like hell.

I tried to keep up with the news. With the Andrion engagement over, some bloodless bureaucrat back in the Crista Cluster had ordered that all Legion equipment be recovered from the Taka who had helped us. They had lists of E's and Lizzies and psybloc units that had been handed out, and now they wanted it all back, so the accounting would be complete. After all, there were some pretty serious regs against handing out good E's and hi-tech psybloc to indigenous auxiliaries.

Standing against the railing and watching the sun drop into a glowing pool of crimson-gold blood, I thought about that. The Taka casualties had been horrific. An apocalypse, a holocaust, for the Taka race. They had died like soldiers, all of them, facing the enemy, unafraid. Dying for their people. And for us. And now we were going to take back the weapons we had desperately pressed into their hands, in our hour of greatest need? I laughed.

I wasn't the only one who felt strongly about what the Taka had done. The original draft of our response to the directive was a two-word message that didn't leave our feelings in any doubt. Since it was also obscene, it was initially changed at higher levels to a one-word response that read, simply, NO. Cooler heads prevailed, however, and the message that ultimately went out gave good strategic reasons for allowing the Taka to retain all the equipment we had given them.

You had to fight the enemy relentlessly—and sometimes the real enemy was back in your own Hqs.

"I told you to be careful." A clear, feminine voice. "You don't ever listen, do you?" I turned. A tall, lanky girl stood before me in black fatigues, dark hair carelessly rumpled, a tired pale face and liquid eyes shining with emotion. She dropped a traveling bag to the deck and reached out to me.

"Millie!" I could hardly believe it. Millie in my arms, gasping, throwing her arms around me, her sweat like an exotic perfume, almost knocking me off my feet. I held on and didn't let go for a long, long time. She was trembling. Her cheeks were moist.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

"Wounded. Recovering," I said. "I'm fine."

"I just got off the shuttle. They told me you'd been badly burnt. I almost fainted." She looked into my eyes. My own angel—the girl from the past, the girl who saved the galaxy—Millie the Mole. We kissed, and the world spun around until I had to pull away, dizzy and weak.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Are you kidding? They scooped up every nurse, medic, physician, trainee nurse…everybody. They wanted Priestess too, but you don't have to go if you have young kids and we didn't want Andrea and Lester put into some kiddies' concentration camp. So we decided only one of us would come. We played Strato for you. I won."

"How did you do that? Priestess is pretty good at Strato."

"I cheated. Now, what about your wounds? Were you really burned?"

"Yes. It was bad. The biogro sheaths are off now. I'm recovering. You didn't know about it?"

"No. We had no idea what had happened to you. Deadman, what a trip! I'm exhausted! The closer we got to Andrion, the more they revealed about how bad it was. So many casualties! I was terrified by the time we arrived. I haven't slept in days. I thought you were surely dead! I prayed to Deadman!" She closed her eyes and squeezed me again. It sure felt good.

"I'm so glad you're all right," she sobbed.

"Yeah. Me too."

"Where were you burnt?"

"Face, head, neck, arms, hands, legs, feet."

"Deadman. Well, as long as the important parts are all right I guess I won't complain." She gave me a weak grin.

"Have you been assigned to Alpha Station?"

"As far as I know—I haven't checked in yet."

"How are the kids?"

"They want their daddy back."

"And Priestess?"

"She's fine. Very busy at the bodyshop. The really bad cases are evaced all the way to the Cluster and we get some of them at Providence. She wants to come here more than anything."

"I wanted to write, but…no starlinks. It'll be that way for the duration." Until we cleanse the galaxy of this latest plague, I thought. Until we kill every last O in the galaxy. Not until then.

###

Moontouch came to me in a rushing wave of memories, a warm silky saltwater wave that struck me gently as I slept and then trickled out to sea, over gritty white sands, leaving my skin tingling in sunlight.
"I call out, helpless, in the hands of the Undead,
" she hissed.
"A ladle of cool water, To seal the peace. Our fate unfolds…"

I awoke suddenly, adrenalized and shaking. Again! She's calling me. She's calling me!

"Westo? What?" I had awakened Millie, beside me. We had gone to sleep heart to heart, limbs entangled, in her little bunk in her little cube in Nurse's Quarters D. My heart had almost burst with joy, but I knew it was all an illusion. I was wasting time, indulging myself when I should have been working. It's true—the bastards had cut the cross of the Legion right into my heart, but I didn't mind. I really didn't mind. This time it was for me, and Moontouch—not for them.

A ladle of cool water, To seal the peace.
What the hell is the matter with me? I know what that means! Am I getting stupid in my old age? I know what that means! She had written that long before the O's invaded, long before she was a captive of the O's, but that didn't mean a damned thing. How could she know? She couldn't. But how could she know about the O's, before we did? And how could she know about the ladle? She probably hadn't even known what it meant, when she wrote it. Can it be true? Can it? Am I just hallucinating?

"What is it, Westo?"

"I think I know where Moontouch is."

"You do? Where? How?"

"She told me." Before she was even taken! It was crazy—I was crazy! But I couldn't ignore it!

I forced my burning legs to the floor. "Millie. You've got to help me."

"Yes. What? What can I do?"

"I have to send a message to Tara. It has to go right to her desk and it has to go direct. I can't even get past the doors at Galactic Information here without a release slip from the Body Shop and even if I got in, I'd never be able to send the message direct to Tara."

"Do you need a release slip?"

"No. Not that. I can send a message to Tara directly. But I'll need your help."

###

"It was no trouble," Millie said. "Nobody cares if you want to see your stuff." We were six levels below the Body Shop, in a semi-darkened corridor, facing a door marked PROPERTY. "Here we are." She inserted a plastic card into the lock and the door clicked open. We stepped in, and the lights slowly came on. It was a great warehouse, lined with rows of open storage containers. It was dusty and quiet.

"We want Row 41," Millie said. We set off down the aisles. She was in nurses white. I was in black fatigues, struggling with my cane. The legs were slowly improving but they still hurt.

"All right—Row 41. Look for your serial number. I don't think anything will be touched. There wasn't any time."

"There it is!" I said. "34673002, that's me." My A-vest and comtop and psybloc and E and boots and all the other equipment had been tossed into the storage bin carelessly, just as it was when they ripped it off me in the emergency room. The A-vest was burnt black—parts of the comtop were melted. My E was indestructible. The damned things would outlast their creators. I pulled the comtop out of the pile. The visor had already been torn off.

"Is it there?" Millie asked. "It should be. They were concerned with you, not your equipment."

My fingers found the device, nestled into the lining of the comtop. I forced the lining aside, found the catches and snapped it out.

"That's it," I said. It was a little metallic device that fit neatly into the palm of my hand. "It's a Q-link. I can activate it with Sweety and that's my commo—Cosmic Secret and direct to Tara."

"Is she going to believe whatever Moontouch told you?"

"I'm not going to tell her that. I'm just going to tell her—where to look."

###

"Any reply from Tara yet?" Millie asked me. We were in the Body Shop cafeteria, having breakfast at a little plex table. It was fairly crowded, but the noise level was low. I was really enjoying myself, savoring the spicy scent of the smokies, sipping at the dox and almost floating away, it was that good. I knew life was short, too damned short, and figured I might as well enjoy what I could while I could.

"Not yet," I replied, glancing at the Q-link on the table beside us. Millie was in her nurses whites. She looked like an angel to me. I thanked God every time I laid my eyes on her. Somebody was watching over me, that was for sure.

"What exactly did you tell her?"

"I sent her a text message, which is all you can send with this thing. But it's a quantum link so it's instantaneous. Here—this is what I sent." I handed a crumpled printout over to Millie.

"Tara," Millie read it aloud. "Urgent Fleetcom recon sector Gildron's world. Strongly suspect Omni presence. Pls advise results soon as poss. If results positive pls also provide official desig & starcords. Wester."

"What does it mean?" Millie asked, handing the message back to me.

"You never knew Gildron," I said. "He was…from another world. Not quite human. He was a powerful telepath. He was Tara's bodyguard, for quite awhile, and later…they married. He had been abducted from his home world in a slaver raid, and Tara bought him from the slavers. He was from an unknown race. Nobody had ever seen anything like him, and even Gildron didn't know the location of his home world. Nobody knew except the slavers who had originally grabbed him, and they were long gone." I took another sip of dox. Gildron—I missed him. I really missed him.

"Gildron accompanied us on a rather hazardous mission that involved contact with the O's," I continued. "Well, to make a very long story very short, he communicated with the O's—telepathically—and they told him where his home world was. He was planning on returning there when he…when he sacrificed himself. For us." The cafeteria faded away. Gildron. What a heroic figure. I thought him an ape when I first met him. But I was the ape—not him. He was more like a God.

"Before he…left us, he told Tara where his world was. I remember that much. But I don't remember where it was, or even the name. It would be way out there in the Nulls, probably. Some place we've never been. Some place that is not even mapped."

"But why do you think the O's are there? You think Moontouch is there, right?"

"When Gildron was telling us about his contact with the O's, he said the O's knew his world and his people. That's why they greeted him as a friend. He told us how the O's described their first landing on his world. They were prepared to blast it to ashes, as they had met only hostility from the native creatures of our galaxy. But when they landed, heavily armored and glowing with mag shields and prepped to fire their Vulcans, one of the natives approached them—with a ladle of cool water. He offered it to them. They drank it, and from that day to this there was peace between the O's and Gildron's people."

Millie was waiting—still puzzled. "Don't you see?" I asked. "It's what Moontouch said in her warning to me—before the war with the O's, long before she was ever taken prisoner. 'Dirges, in the dark, to the holy dead. The Gods laugh. You abandon us, again. I call out, helpless, in the hands of the Undead. A ladle of cool water, to seal the peace. Our fate unfolds…' That's what she said.
A ladle of cool water, to seal the peace.
What else could it be? They've been there before! They know the place! I know from Deadeye's info and from Fleetcom records that shuttle could only have been bound for one of three Omni starships in orbit around Andrion 2 at that time. One was destroyed within the hour. The other two escaped—and we don't know where they went. But I have the Legion ID number for both those O ships. If we find either ship calling at Gildron's world, that's where we'll find Moontouch. I'm certain of it! And it's so far out in the Nulls, nobody is going to look there without a damned good reason."

"You haven't given her any reason."

"She trusts me. She'll do it. Fleetcom will target that sector and investigate. If there was any recent starship activity anywhere nearby, they'll discover it."

"How could Moontouch know this?"

"She reads the future like I read a d-screen. She's done it before. It's bloody miraculous. I don't know how she does it, but I know she does it."