Prophet and the Blood March (Prophet of ConFree) (43 page)

"But do you ever have any doubts, Professor? Doubts about whether or not we are doing the right thing?"

"Do you ever have any doubts about God?"

Bees was silent. No, she had no doubts. She had told no one about what Martial Breakblade had revealed about the origin of God. It made no difference to her. Her faith was absolute.

"We do the right thing," the Prof repeated. "And if I ever conclude we are not doing the right thing, I will stop doing it."

Δ

"All right, boys and girls," the Prof said. "This is the weapons brief. This is the initial light fam. No need to take notes, you'll get plenty of notes later. This is what will hopefully keep you alive, so pay attention." He stood behind the lectern in Briefing Room C, before a huge D-screen on the wall. C was one of the smaller briefing rooms. His audience was Delta Research's Legion core – Doggie, Scout, Saka, Ice, Bees, Smiley, Arie and me. Bird was there too, sitting near the Prof by the lectern. We were the old Squad Delta, and we had all been through Basic and Advanced together. Nobody else was there. Just us. We were the ones who were going into harm's way, for the women and children of ConFree. If we failed, those women and children would become either dead or slaves. We all knew that. Nobody even had to say it. Prophets or not, we were assigned to Martial Breakblade for this mission, and he was going to be on point.

Vulcan glowed on the wall, an obscene black and crimson and gold and fluorescent orange world, cloaked with black ash clouds, little glittering golden volcano pinpricks scattered everywhere.

"As you know, the decision has been made to ally with the Brights and counter our enemies with an attack on their main base, which is the planet Vulcan in the Gulf. A mighty clandestine army has been gathering there for about a year, according to the B's, consisting of Darks and Demons from Mid Haven. Their secret headquarters and bases are buried deep in the mines of Vulcan. Their plan is to attack our galaxy, once they are ready. The B's plan is to attack them before they are ready. ConFree has agreed.

"They have been preparing but so have we. Let's start with our own equipment. We already have individual A-suit cloaking that is quite effective, rendering Legion troopers invisible on the battlefield. We have recently acquired individual A-suit forcefield shielding, and it has been added to all Legion armor. This was a gift from the B's. This quantum web shielding is incredibly effective, more advanced by far than Omni or Demon shielding. It is not invulnerable, but it's damned good. Under the shielding, you will be wearing your Legion A-suit armor and you already know its capabilities and limitations. Defensively, we are in good shape. You will all be equipped with the E Mark 11 battlefield superiority weapon, which has a few updated features I will explain later. So to summarize, we're all set.

"Now, let's look at our enemies." The screen flashed to a detailed schematic of a Demon trooper in armor. They were short, squat, ugly creatures hiding inside flickering green shielding. "You've all met – and fought with – the D's. You will recall it was quite a challenge. They had good shielding and good armor. Because we had obtained several of their A-suits we were able to examine the superflash quantum web shielding, determine the frequency, and counter it with hypervelocity canister darts. You'll remember that worked quite well. The B's recently got ahold of some new Demon A-suits and assure us that the frequency has not changed. That's the good news. The bad news is that the weak point on their armor that we exploited before has now been fixed. No further weak points were detected. So we bring down the shielding, then hit the armor. Xmax , laser, or tacstar – your choice."

"How many D's will we be facing this time?" Doggie asked.

"The Brights have counted more than fifty thousand so far. Our own probes and eyemotes are still counting."

"Fifty thousand. Oh, we can handle that," Scout said wearily.

"You all remember the D's primary offensive weapon – the plasma battle rifle that fires a plasma stream that can melt your armor and a high density energy pulse blast that we call a plasmastar. We discovered that as long as you are cloaked, the weapons cannot focus on you properly to set off the plasmastar. That has not changed. So stay cloaked. What has changed is that the techies, bless 'em, have come up with an excellent method of disabling the plasma stream." Prof smiled.

"When you approach the D's, set your E to ECP which stands for eyemote counter-plasma. Or just ask your tacmod to do it. Fire one round into the air. The soundless round will contain a thousand eyemotes and each one will zero in on any available Demon battle rifle in range, penetrate it, and disable the plasma firing mechanism by blocking the circuit. And none of your D's will be able to use the plasma function. And they won't know why that is. They will still be able to fire xmax, laser, and so on, so stay alert."

"That's amazing!" Arie said. "Can they adapt that technology to counter all our enemies so they can't shoot at us at all?"

"I can assure you they are working on that," Prof said, with a satisfied smile. "But it may take awhile.

"All right, next gang of enemies is the Gulf Stellar Commune. All three slave states have united and you saw the weapons systems when you watched those Pegal Stelcom troopers stomping through town to show them off. The Brights have acquired some samples of these battle rifles and passed them to us." A schematic of the new battle rifle appeared on the wall screen. "Our techies examined them. The Commune calls them the Sabertooth. The Sabertooth is a rugged, dependable, well-made battlefield superiority weapon. Like the E, it has no moving parts except for the xtex generator and the rounds themselves. It fires armor-piercing X, laser and vac. The caseless xtex rounds are generated in the buttstock. It also fires grenades of various types. It is fully integrated to the A-suit's tacmod for one-round hits."

"So it's similar to the E?" Doggie asked.

"Not quite as good as the E, but close. The Sabertooth is an improvement on the SG. They also have clones of the old Systie manlink so watch out for tacstar nukes. So – these are human enemies. You know what to expect, and how to counter them. Now, that new battle armor." The image flashed to a labeled view of the new Commune battle armor. "It looks good, and it is clearly superior to what they had before, the old Systie Atlas model. But they do not have cloaking. And they do not have shielding. Both would have been too challenging for the new mass army that the Commune has rapidly pulled together. But the new armor is a good touch. It's not quite up to Legion standards but it's good."

"How about the troopers?" Scout asked. "The human material?"

"Ah, good question. I'm afraid we do not have any answers to that. This army is untested. I believe there are a whole lot of brand new draftees. And the old-timers – they will be the squad leaders – may be old peoples' militia types, watchstanders, practiced in pushing unarmed widows and orphans around."

"Well, that's good news," I added. I knew war was the ultimate ugly business. If anyone opposed us, we would kill them quickly. But if there were prisoners – that was different. The politicals would get a bullet in the head, sure, but the foot soldiers – we wouldn't have anything against them, even if they had been shooting at us not long before their capture. Soldiers! I was instinctively understanding of them. It didn't much matter what side they were on – I understood.

"Before we get into discussing the Darks, I'll tell you about the MS – that's shorthand for malevolent spirits, and those creatures will be deployed on the battlefield by Satan and the Darks. The B's know all about this Satanic tactic. The primary purpose of these spirits is to catch you off guard and keep you busy while Demons, Darks or Commune forces are attacking. The spirits that will likely be deployed against us will be from our own Dimension Two." The screen displayed hazy images of a horrific assortment of freakish spirits that had been imaged during our encounter with them on the asteroid Pacifica. "Your tacmods and tacmaps will keep track of and display any activity coming from D2. Remember, these ugly creatures normally cannot hurt you – but they can possess you, if they detect a weakness. All I can say about that is be alert, be resolute, be courageous, think about everyone you love, think about God or Deadman, and think about the women and children of ConFree. If the MS do succeed in possessing you, we're all in trouble. If one of us falls victim to these spirits, we'll know about it when somebody starts firing on their comrades. I pray that doesn't happen. We'll discuss appropriate responses later.

"Now as we learned on the Pacifica mission, these spirits also have a limited ability to affect material objects. On Pacifica, they were left with the capability to set off plasma charges. That's worth worrying about. If spirits appear in our vicinity, your tacmap will detect them and alert you. Counter them with autovac once you can track them. That will disperse them and force them to reform. Tacstars also do a good job of disrupting them, but that's kind of like using a hammer against a mosquito. Just remember, don't fear them, just counter them."

"I'm going to be handing out crosses," Bees said. "I'd suggest everyone wear one around your neck, even if you don’t believe. The spirits hate them, and will likely avoid them." Crosses? Sure, I'd wear a cross. I'd take all the help I could get.

"The Brights told us a great deal about the Darks," the Prof continued. "The Darks are a very special and very focused bunch. Their road has taken them to an entirely different place from the Brights. Satan is their God. They worship him without reservation and their mission is to secure a new universe for him and for them – free of the Brights. In this new universe they will reign supreme and the inhabitants of this place – that's us – will serve them." The wall screen now showed a detailed schematic of a Dark, clad in their strange dark grey armor, dark green faceplate, carrying a bizarre battle rifle that appeared to be a clone of the Bright's Battlestorm lightning rod, and wearing a dark flowing cape, which looked like camfax. The Dark was evidently tall and strong, but we could not see his face behind the faceplate.

"The Brights advised us to avoid the Darks, but that may be difficult, considering where we are going. The Brights said they would engage the Darks, and said that we should retreat if we come under Dark fire. But we're not going to do that, are we? Here's the bad news: The Darks are armed with the lightning of the gods, same as the Brights. Their primary battle weapon is pretty much identical to the Bright's weapon. If you get hit head-on with one of those electrical bolts you will be torn to shreds, armor and all, and will die of blast, shock, burn trauma and electrocution – all at once. The good news is that your new Bright shielding may protect you if the bolt does not hit you dead-on. More bad news is that your cloaking will not work with the Darks. Those guys will see you if you come within range – about fifty mikes. The Brights themselves do not use cloaking. Neither do the Darks.

"All right, the armor: The Dark's armor is pretty much invulnerable to us. First is the shielding, which is quite effective; second is the armor itself, which is also much more effective than ours. The Brights can take on these guys but they stress that we should not attempt it. And if all that is not enough, both Brights and Darks can teleport in extreme cases. That is a function of Dimension X. It takes a lot out of the individual who does it, but it can be used in a last-chance emergency to escape your enemies. You remember both Brights and Demons have that capability as well.

"The B's have tested our weapons systems. They advise the following, if we find ourselves trapped in a confrontation with the Darks: Use auto chainlink tacstars, auto manlink tacstars, auto xmax, fighting laser and canister darts, in that approximate order. The hyperdarts may bring down the shielding or may not – in an ideal situation in the lab it will. But combat is not an ideal situation. Tacstars will be most effective and may actually work if you get lucky. The Brights admired the chainlink, and recommend it over the others." Chainlinks! A chainlink was normally mounted in a Legion phantom. It should certainly give the Darks something to think about. "Smiley is chainlink qualified," the Prof continued, "and will be equipped with a chainlink for this campaign. Auto xmax, laser and darts may also distract the Darks. A stunstar may also distract them, but should not affect them. All right, here's what these guys look like."

The screen flashed to display a Dark male, no armor, clad in soft grey clothing. He was tall and slender, short black hair, clean shaven, clean classic facial features, dark brown eyes, and light brown flesh. He looked almost like an Outworlder and almost like a Bright, except his skin did not have that unearthly glow that the Brights had, and his hair was dark and not golden or silver. So – this was a Dark, an angel that fell from grace. This was to be our most powerful enemy. Alone, we had no chance against them. With the Brights by our side, we might survive – or even prevail.

"According to the Brights, the Darks are extremely spiritual – except their values are the opposite of the B's, and ours. Satan views his realm as holy, and to him and his followers, all outsiders are lesser beings, almost like animals, not worthy of concern. All wisdom comes from him, and anyone with a different view of reality is a deadly enemy who must be overcome – killed or conquered, or shown the error of his ways by force."

"That sounds like most human governments," I added.

"Yes, Prophet, you are correct," Prof said. "Most human governments are Satanic in their approach to the populations they rule. ConFree is the happy exception. All right, boys and girls, take five and reflect on your good fortune."

Δ

Bird stood before the wall screen, which displayed a giant shot of a lovely white saucer-shaped starcraft. "Look at that!" he said. "It's magnificent! Have you ever seen anything more beautiful than that?" He was staring at the craft, transfixed. It was almost as if he was adoring it, worshipping it. "This is the most wondrous starcraft that has ever been created. Oh my God, just look at it!" The pix revolved slowly so we could see it from all angles. It wasn't a pure saucer shape, but it sure was a knock-out. I had never seen such a lovely ship. As the ship continued rotating, an insignia came into view – a black Legion cross. A Legion cross! We leaped to our feet, cheering. Blackie ran around, barking wildly.