Legion Of The Damned - 02 - The Final Battle (5 page)

Antonio played with a ringlet of hair. “Come now, Marcus . . . how dangerous can they be? Our intelligence reports indicate that their commanding officer uses drugs and their morale is at an all-time low. The legionnaires are tough but your troops could defeat them.”

“Yes,” Marcus replied, careful to keep his voice level. “We could defeat them. But what about the wave that would follow? And the wave after that?”

“So what are you suggesting?” Pietro demanded scornfully. “An alliance with the free breeders? Surrender all that we hold dear? I think not.”

“No,” Marcus replied testily, “the inference insults us both. I would never agree to that.”

“Then what
do
you have in mind, brother dearest?” Antonio asked mildly. “I know you too well to think that you would raise questions for which there are no answers.”

Marcus shrugged. The awful truth was that he
did
believe in some sort of accommodation but was afraid to say so. He searched for a graceful way out. “We need time. Time to build our industrial base, time to strengthen our military forces, and time to sow discord in the Confederation. I suggest we stall.”

Marcus felt the tingling sensation that signaled an urgent page. He touched his implant and rose to his feet. “My apologies, brethren. Another security matter, I suspect. Would you excuse me? I’ll take care of whatever it is and return as quickly as possible.”

The other men nodded, stood politely, and watched Marcus leave the room. They sat once he was gone. Pietro was the first to speak. “So, Antonio, what do you think of our brother’s plan?”

Antonio smiled lazily and leaned back in his chair. “I think it’s one-hundred-percent grade-A bullshit.”

Pietro nodded agreeably. “I concur. Stalling is a form of accommodation. I say we resist. More than that, I say we attack.”

Antonio lifted a well-plucked eyebrow. “Yes, brother dearest, but what of Marcus?”

Pietro looked thoughtful. “Our brother wants to placate the monster. So let him lull the creature to sleep. A long sleep from which it will never awake.”

“But how?” Antonio asked dreamily. “What will we do?”

Pietro looked grim. “We will shoot the monster where it is most vulnerable. Right between the eyes.”

 

The president of the Confederacy of Sentient Beings, defender of the Galactic Peace, and doer of deals, watched Clone World Alpha-001 grow larger beneath him. The shuttle shuddered as it hit the atmosphere and continued its way downward. Sleek aerospace fighters hung off each wing, ready to destroy anything the clones might send up, supposing they were stupid enough to do so.

The Clone World was rather average by the standards of Anguar’s race, having what he considered to be an excessive amount of surface water, and any number of unusable mountain ranges. Still, he could see how the high degree of match between Alpha-One and Earth would seem attractive to humans, and understood that it had been chosen for that reason.

Anguar had done his homework and knew that the personage the clones referred to as “the Founder,” an award-winning geneticist named Carolyn Anne Hosokawa, had chosen Alpha-One, Two, and Three personally, seeing each planet as a sort of creche for her clone-based society, and spreading them out to increase their chances of survival.

Then, having chosen their homes for them, and seeded them on multiple planets, Hosokawa had further assisted her creations by planning exactly how they would live, including a ban on reproductive sex, the establishment of highly efficient agro-industrial sectors, a carefully designed transportation system, and a gridwork of cities so similar that a person “grown” in one town would know the others equally well.

And while Anguar found the whole thing depressingly regimented, he couldn’t help but be impressed by the efficiencies gained through the Hegemony’s rigid top-down style. It would be comparatively easy to lead a society like that, Anguar thought enviously, rather than cope with the diverse mishmash of races and cultures he dealt with.

Of course it would be boring, too, especially if he had to cope with two versions of himself and listen to their speeches. The president smiled at the thought and felt the weight of an additional gravity settle on his narrow shoulders. He would have been crushed if it hadn’t been for the exoskeleton.

A thin layer of fluffy white cloud rose to meet the shuttle and momentarily obscured the president’s vision before vanishing from sight. A neat patchwork quilt of farmland appeared, each field exactly the same size as the ones that bordered it, all fed by ruler-straight irrigation ditches.

Farmland gave way to housing, but it was nothing like the fanciful resin-reinforced rammed-earth homes that his people preferred, or the wildly diverse structures he’d seen on other human-settled planets. No, these were concrete
gray high-rise buildings, each as identical to all the rest as the people who lived in them.

The shuttle dropped even lower and started its final approach. Anguar saw carefully spaced parks, broad avenues, and man-made lakes. They were pretty, and he said as much to his military aide, a marine major named Stephanie Warwick-Olson. She sat opposite Anguar, with her back toward the cockpit, and turned to look out the window. She was pretty by human standards, though too fleshy for any self-respecting Dweller, and somewhat intimidating. Her voice was calm and matter of fact. “They’re pretty, all right, but I notice that the parks command the high ground, the streets are wide enough to
accommodate heavy armor, and the traffic circles could be used as choke points. Very professional.”

Anguar looked out the window again and found that Warwick-Olson had somehow transformed the previously pleasant scenery into a potential battlefield. Repellors flared as the shuttle hovered and touched the ground five hundred feet from the terminal building.

The next fifteen minutes or so were filled with hurried comings and goings, confused multilingual babbling, and the genial anarchy that accompanied the president everywhere he went. His multiracial staff provided him with reminders of protocol (all three of the Alpha clones must be addressed as “Mr. President”), a list of primary objectives (secure Hegemony support), and a review of secondary objectives (evaluate the Legion’s commanding officer in light of allegations regarding his conduct).

And then, just when Anguar thought his head would explode, the hatch cycled open and he stepped out into bright sunlight. Cameras swooped in, hovered, and captured the carefully managed moment. He squinted, pulled his thin, almost nonexistent lips into a human-style grin, and made his way down the roll-up stairs. Flags snapped in the breeze, rows of identical soldiers stood at attention, and a pylon in the shape of a double helix twisted up towards the sky. The exoskeleton performed flawlessly and he was glad of its strength when the first of three identical humans applied what cou
ld have been a bone-crushing grip. He had cautious brown eyes and a bar code on his forehead.

“President Anguar, welcome to Alpha-One. My name is Marcus-Six. I hope your journey was a pleasant one. May I present my peers? This is Antonio-Six, president of Hegemony planet Alpha-Two, and Pietro-Six, president of Hegemony planet Alpha-Three.”

Anguar said polite things to the clones, was introduced to Legion colonel John M. Sinkler, the officer who might or might not represent a problem,
and was led past the assembled ranks of the Hegemony’s Lightning Brigade, a unit comprised of identical soldiers, all of whom wore red berets with silver flashes pinned to them.

Of equal or even more interest to Anguar were the seven-and-a-half-foot-tall, one-and-a-half-ton Trooper IIs that stalked along behind the last rank of clones, keeping pace with the president while covering the crowd with their laser cannon, machine guns, and shoulder-launched missiles. And, as if all the armament weren’t sufficient, each cyborg also carried a heavily armed legionnaire on his or her back.

The Legion was something of mystery to Anguar, consisting as it did almost entirely of humans, and having what he considered to be masochistic values and traditions. Like bravery in the face of impossible odds, death in battle, and a brooding pessimism.

Why did they continue to fight? Their motto was The Legion Is My Country, a phrase that seemed to put their needs above all others, yet they had almost single-handedly fought off the Hudathans, and were sworn to defend the Confederacy, the latest in a long line of governmental sponsors that reached all the way back to a principality on their planet of origin.

And what of the cyborgs themselves? Men and women plucked from the very precipice of death to live on as machines of war. They were in their own way even stranger than the clones they guarded him against.

Anguar felt mixed emotions. On the one hand he was grateful for the cyborgs’ presence, knowing they could and would protect him, but he was concerned as well. The purpose of his visit was to gain the Hegemony’s support for the Confederacy—and aiming guns at its citizens seemed like a poor way to go about it.

The president’s thoughts were forced off in another direction as a band struck up the human version of “All Hail The Confederacy.” It sounded horrible to Dweller ears but Anguar smiled gamely and placed a hand over his uppermost stomach, a location roughly analogous with the location of the human heart.

Then, with an honor guard provided by members of the Lightning Brigade and a bodyguard composed of heavily armed cyborgs, Anguar was escorted to a limo for the drive to the capitol building. He noticed that the clones had opted to ride in a separate vehicle and wondered if it was because of his race. Major Warwick-Olson, his personal secretary, and a communications android capable of relaying messages throughout the Confederacy joined him.

Doors thumped, radios crackled, and they whirred onto a side street. Leather-clad police officers on gyrostabilized unicycles rode to either side. Anguar noticed that all of them were female, had a fringe of red hair hanging below the edge of their white helmets, and possessed the same laser blue eyes.

Though popular with politicians, motorcades and parades are a security being’s worst nightmare, and this one was no exception. As the limo started into motion Anguar saw that no less than three Trooper IIs led the way, six guarded each flank, and who knows how many brought up the rear. They ran with an easy ground-eating pace. The president frowned and turned toward Warwick-Olson.

“Major, I understand the need for security, but this seems excessive. I question whether there is a real legitimate threat.”

Warwick-Olson never took her eyes off the window, and her right hand never strayed far from the weapon concealed under her left armpit. A small, almost invisible receiver fed a constant stream of information into her right ear. “You’re welcome to your opinion, sir, and free to replace me anytime you wish, but I respectfully disagree. The people of Alpha One were subdued by force of arms, live under foreign occupation, and are led by xenophobic human clones. They have a well-trained, well-equipped army that still has all of its weapons. If
they
don’t constitute a real and legitim
ate threat, then who the hell does?”

Anguar’s immediate reaction was anger, but it quickly gave way to an appreciation of her honesty and the knowledge that she was correct. He cleared his throat. “Point taken. Comment withdrawn.”

Warwick-Olson turned toward Anguar, smiled, and turned back again. “And that’s the other thing, sir; you’re what we humans call a ‘keeper,’ and they don’t come along every day.”

The compliment was so genuine, and so unexpected, that it caught the president by surprise. It took a moment to frame a suitable reply, and the by the time he had it ready, the opportunity had passed. Anguar remained silent instead.

A pair of police clones motioned the limo out onto a broad tree-lined boulevard. It stretched two miles toward a perfectly positioned dome. Ranks of citizens lined both sides of the street. They had been drawn from various specialties and assembled into homogeneous groups. Medical technicians here, agricultural workers there, and so on. The people who for one reason or another had managed to outlive their peers had a tendency to stand out. The rest became a white, brown, black, or yellow blur, depending on the racial identity of the man or woman from whom the group had been cloned,
something made all the more interesting by the fact that the rest of the human race had become more and
more homogeneous over the last three hundred or so years until most were light brown in color. Light brown was a tint Anguar approved of because it matched his own.

But what
really
claimed Anguar’s attention was the almost total silence that accompanied the ride. Like most democratically elected politicians, the Dweller had at one time or another been on the receiving end of twenty-one-gun salutes, fireworks, holo displays, applause, boos, cat-calls, insults, and flying vegetables. But never, not once, had he been greeted with a complete and abiding silence. A silence made more ominous by the fact that thousands and thousands of blank faces were staring at him.

The president looked at Warwick-Olson. She shrugged. He turned toward the window. A block of all-black faces flashed by. A sense of hopelessness settled over his narrow shoulders. Deep down he knew the rest of the visit would be a waste of time. The Hegemony had one mind and it was made up.

 

The sun shone brightly, the air was crisp, and the field was newly mowed. A band, their instruments gleaming, struck up a dirge. Like most of the music the Legion loved, it had a funereal quality, as if already mourning for the 643 men and women who slow-stepped out onto the field, wheeled right, and marched toward the far end. Each movement, each step, was clearly delineated and as somber as the music that accompanied it.