Legion Of The Damned - 02 - The Final Battle (4 page)

Standing on top of the foot-high wall that ran the circumference of Morzycki Hall, Booly did a deep knee bend and hurled himself outward. Air whipped by his face. He wondered if he was about to die. He hoped not, because the pennant seemed like a stupid thing to die for.

The scaffolding came up with incredible speed. His hands hit a cross-piece, slipped, and hit the next one down. He missed with his left hand, connected with his right, and gave an involuntary grunt as the weight of his entire body threatened to tear his arm out of its socket. But the cadet’s highly conditioned musculature managed to absorb the punishment and he held on.

It hurt, though, and Booly grit his teeth as he climbed the scaffolding and scrambled onto the roof. The flagpoles were lit from below. The one on the far left bore the emblem of the 1st Foreign Infantry Regiment, or 1st RE, most of which was stationed on Algeron, but had overall responsibility for administrative affairs.

The center pole flew the flag of the Confederacy, just the latest in the long line of governments the Legion had sworn to defend since its creation more than five hundred years before.

But it was the pole on the right, the one that flew the academy’s own emblem, that claimed his attention. Ignoring the ever-increasing hubbub below, and walking stiff legged as if on parade, Booly crossed the intervening distance while untying the pennant tied around his waist.

It took only moments to free the halyards from their cleat, to lower the tricolor for which so many legionnaires had died, and attach the pennant of those who aspired to follow. Then, after a series of quick, jerky movements, the pennant was up and snapping in the breeze.

A shout went up from down below. Booly tossed a salute toward the flags, spun, and ran for the small shack-sized structure that provided access to the roof. The door sensed his approach and slid aside. Stairs led downward and Booly took them two at a time. It was clear that escape plan “A,” which calle
d for retracing his path back over the rooftops, had never been realistic to begin with, which meant that his only hope lay in Tom Riley and escape plan “B.”

Fire doors provided access to hallways on each floor and they were numbered. The first read “10,” and he needed “B-1,” or basement level one. Gravity helped, and Booly went faster and faster, until he was in the midst of what amounted to a controlled fall. Suddenly, a man in a jogging suit stepped through the door labeled 2. Booly hit him head-on.

Both men went down, and when Booly sat up, he found himself looking into the face of none other than General Ian St. James. Not just a general, but the commanding officer of the
entire
Legion, and the next thing to god. A god Booly had met on two previous occasions and even shaken hands with. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, Booly realized that the makeshift hood had disappeared and left his face uncovered.

An eternity seemed to pass. The general had hard eyes. The mind behind them assessed Booly’s equipment and came to the proper conclusion. His voice was matter-of-fact.

“Over the roofs. Very ingenious. A first, if I’m not mistaken. Let me be the first to congratulate you on your courage. Were it not for the fact that my eyes have grown older, and therefore less sharp, I would swear that you look exactly like the son of one of the most unreliable sergeant-majors I ever had the misfortune to command. A thankless man who later rose to the highly unlikely ranks of major and ambassador to the Confederacy. But it would be inappropriate to attempt such an identification without my glasses. That being the case, I suggest you rejoin your classmates as quickly as po
ssible.”

Booly leaped to his feet. The salute came automatically and was inappropriate while out of uniform. “Sir! Yes, sir! Thank you, sir!”

St. James smiled and jerked his head toward the stairs. The cadet disappeared. The stairs were still vibrating when the general began the first of what would eventually be five trips from bottom to top. It was the only way he could unwind and get to sleep. A staff sergeant appeared from above.

“Sorry to interrupt your workout, sir. A senior managed to reach the roof. He raised their pennant.”

St. James did his best to look surprised. “Really? No harm done, I suppose. Haven’t seen anyone, though . . . must have made his way down before I entered the stairwell.”

The sergeant nodded respectfully. “Yes, sir. The cadets are slippery little devils. I imagine he’s gone by now.”

St. James smiled and started up the stairs. “You’re right about that. Of course I was one myself once. But that was a long time ago.”

The sergeant moved to get out of the general’s way. “Yes, sir. Did someone from your class make it all the way onto the roof?”

St. James smiled as he toiled his way upward. “Yes, Sergeant. Someone certainly did.”

 

Moolu Rasha Anguar had an ongoing love-hate relationship with the exoskeleton that his duties forced him to wear. He loved what it enabled him to do but hated having to depend on it. Plus, the contrivance was too shiny for his Dweller sensibilities, and smacked of technological superiority, a negative where the less-than-advanced members of the third Confederacy were concerned. Still, it allowed him to venture where his frail, sticklike body would otherwise be unable to go, and that was good.

Anguar checked to make sure that all the contact points were secure, ran a mental check on the neural interface that linked his nervous system with the machine’s microcomputer, and walked toward the center of the
Friendship’s
master stateroom. The exoskeleton felt ponderous inside the artificially low-gravity cell maintained for his comfort.

Though originally built for the Imperial Navy, and still quite capable of defending herself, the onetime battleship
Reliable
had been rechristened after the emperor’s death and turned into a sort of traveling capital, complete with its own largely automated bureaucracy, and chambers for the two-tiered senate, mercifully on hiatus at the moment.

More than that, the ship was a conscious attempt to avoid the impression that the government was centered on any one planet or beholden to any part
icular race. Just one of many smart decisions made by Anguar’s predecessor, a human named Sergi Chien-Chu, who had led the revolution against the empire, fought the Hudathan hordes to a standstill and laid the groundwork for the third Confederacy, the first and second having fallen to tyrants long before the time of the empire. He had died an untimely death two years previously, and Anguar was his somewhat reluctant successor.

Anguar circled the compartment. The exoskeleton operated smoothly and multiplied his strength. He grabbed the edge of the massive desk and exerted upward pressure. It was bolted to the deck but metal creaked before he let go. Anguar gloried in the machine-made power, realized what he was doing, and berated himself for his weakness. Because to seek power, to enjoy power, was to court the very thing that would destroy all that he sought to build. A government that would represent
all
the known races fairly and preside over a thousand years of peace.

Suitably chastised, Anguar took a turn in front of the gigantic mirror. Like most of his race, the president was vain and considered vanity a virtue. He looked past the exoskeleton and took a moment to admire his well-shaped head, the large ovoid eyes that humans found so appealing, the pleasingly thin body, the long, sleek limbs, and the dangly sex organ that had provided him with so much pleasure over the years. Yes, it was a sensible body for the low-gravity world on which his race had evolved, but far too delicate for use on the planets favored by humans and other muscle-bound species.

Still, many observers agreed that it had been Anguar’s frail physiology, combined with his people’s extremely low birthrate, that was at least partially responsible for his victory in the last election. It seemed that other races, humans included, found it difficult to see the Dwellers as a physical or cultural threat, and preferred them to representatives of more brawny and therefore more threatening species.

Anguar thought it strange, almost perverted to think about the ways in which aliens perceived his body, but knew that physical differences were important, especially to physiological bigots like those on the planet below, human clones, who were not only subject to the many weaknesses typical of that particular race, but followers of a science-derived religion that threatened to further weaken the already-shaky Confederacy by refusing to join it.

Anguar sighed and used his implant to summon his attendants. They would dress the exoskeleton, a humiliating affair, but necessary in order to make
him appear even vaguely human. The humans had pungent sayings for almost every situation, but his favorite applied to the universe as a whole: “Life sucks.”

 

Alpha Clone Marcus-Six rounded a corner and started down the marble-lined corridor that led to the Chamber of Governmental Process. Guards, their weapons, uniforms, and faces completely identical, lined both sides of the hall and snapped to attention as Marcus approached.

Their rifle salutes were identical, as they should have been, given the fact that every single one of them had been cloned from the badly mutilated body of a soldier named Jonathan Alan Sebo, a hero of a mostly forgotten war who was said to have embodied all the virtues of the perfect foot soldier, and had therefore been chosen as the donor from which entire armies had been cloned.

Each soldier had different experiences of course, giving rise to different personalities, but they still had a great deal in common, including durable bodies, enough intelligence to operate high-tech weapons, and an almost fanatical determination to carry out whatever orders they were given.

The clone army had already proved its worth, because while it had been defeated by the Legion, it had won some battles as well, and never permitted more than what the Alpha clone thought of as a temporary occupation of Alpha-001, just one of the many things he and his peers were about to discuss.

The last of the soldiers popped to attention, a laser beam scanned the pigment-based bar code on the Alpha clone’s forehead, and the doors swished out of his way. Never breaking step, Marcus entered the Chamber of Governmental Process.

It was a large room, circular in shape, with a highly polished white floor. Triangles of shiny black marble pointed in towards the center of the room, where a beautifully wrought double helix served as both a pillar and sculpture. The Alpha clone knew that it was modeled after a single molecule of a chemical substance called deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, the basic building block for all living organisms, and the only symbol his religion permitted.

The sculpture shimmered as bars of light representing the four chemical compounds called bases floated upward and disappeared into the ceiling. A circular table fronted the symbol. A pair of men rose to greet him. An outsider would have been at a loss to know who was who but Marcus had no such difficulty.

Pietro looked much as he did himself, with light brown skin, flashing black eyes, and perfect teeth. But the stylized silver clasp worn on the lef
t shoulder of his carefully draped toga, and the almost military way in which he held himself were unmistakably his.

Antonio used pomade on his hair, and arranged it in ringlets, a conceit Marcus found especially unattractive. Still, Antonio was the less rigid of the two, and therefore the more likable.

Taken together, they were “The Triad of One,” the supreme leaders of the Clone Hegemony, and outside of the donor duplicates kept on permanent standby at various medical centers, the only representatives of their particular parent currently alive.

Given the fact that life span is determined in part by heredity, and the previous generation had died in quick succession, the current triad had been decanted within a few years of one another. Others would follow of course—but that would be many years in the future.

Marcus nodded politely. “Greetings, Pietro. Welcome, Antonio. Sorry I’m late. The president’s security people changed the landing site again. A standard counter-assassination tactic but bothersome nonetheless.”

Both men bowed, not out of deference, for all three were of equal rank, but because this was
his
planet rather than one of theirs. They spoke in unison and their voices had exactly the same timbre. “Greetings, Marcus. You look wonderful.”

It was an old joke but Marcus laughed anyway. “Thanks. So do you. Shall we sit?”

The other Alpha clones nodded and took their traditional places around the table. The chairs had been custom designed for their third-generation predecessors and still fit perfectly.

“So,” Antonio said, allowing his eyes to droop slightly, “what will the alien propose?”

Marcus shrugged. “You’ve seen the intelligence reports. He will offer to withdraw most of his troops from Alpha-One in return for our support of the Confederacy.”

Pietro shuddered. “Align ourselves with alien free-breeders? Never!”

Marcus nodded dutifully but felt vaguely unhappy. While he shared his counterpart’s distaste for the completely laissez-faire manner in which the Confederacy’s member races managed their respective gene pools, Marcus knew they outnumbered the Hegemony ten to one, and were a force to be reckoned with. Of course it wouldn’t be politic to admit that—not directly, anyway—so he took a more circuitous route. “That’s easy for you to say, Pietro, but you don’t have a battalion of cyborgs strutting around your capital. Please
allow me to remind you that it is we who serve as hostages to the Hegemony’s good behavior.”