Legion Of The Damned - 02 - The Final Battle

by William C. Dietz

  Most of the passengers were injured beyond the possibility of repair, or had been dead too long to bring back, but thirty-three brains had been resuscitated. Starke had been one of them.

  The trial had taken less than three hours. An artificial intelligence known as JMS 12.7 had found him guilty of negligent homicide, had sentenced him to death, and offered to take him through a course of appeals. He had declined. But then, just as they had prepared to run his brain through a computer-simulated version of what his passengers had experienced, to be concluded with his very real death, they had offered him the possibility of life as a cyborg. Out of weakness, and fear of the unknown, Starke had accepted. A decision he still regretted but didn’t have the courage to correct.

  “Hey, Starke . . . rise ’n shine, dickhead. You got company.” The “voice” cut through the cyborg’s thoughts like a knife. Though not received as sound per se, the syntax belonged to CPO Huber—butthole extraordinaire. Starke started to formulate a rude response and stopped when an unfamiliar “voice” entered his mind.

  “Legionnaire Starke? This is Lieutenant Booly. How are you feeling?”

  Starke felt a variety of emotions, including surprise, apprehension, annoyance, and pleasure. The response was automatic. “Yes, sir. Like hell, sir.”

  “I’ll bet,” Booly said sympathetically, speaking into a microphone and ultimately a computer that digitized his words and reassembled them in the form of “speech” the cyborg could understand. “I can’t claim to know what it feels like, but if it’s even half as bad as the descriptions I’ve heard, then you’re feeling pretty damned bad. The good news is that we’re hitting dirt pretty soon.”

  “Alpha-001?”

  “That’s right, soldier. Since you’ve been assigned to my platoon I thought I’d drop by and see how you are doing.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “It might be a little early to thank me,” Booly said dryly. “But here’s hoping. I’ll see you dirtside.”

  The officer moved on after that, and while there was nothing that could make Starke feel human again, the contact meant a lot. The lieutenant didn’t know it yet, but when the shit hit the fan, at least one cyborg would be covering his ass.

  9

  The survival of the Hudathan race cannot be left to chance. Anything that could threaten our people must be destroyed. Such is the warriorˊs task.

  Mylo Nurlon-Da

  The Life of a Warrior

  Standard year 1703

  Planet Hudatha, the Hudathan Empire

  The Valley of Harmonious Conflict had played an important role in Hudathan military affairs for thousands of years. It had been created by a meteor strike long before recorded history and was circular in shape. Gray cliffs, dotted here and there with equally gray foliage, circled the crater like a curtain of stone. Two passageways, one to the east and one to the south, provided access to the valley and had been sealed until the advent of gunpowder and projectile weapons had rendered rock walls ineffective as a means of defense. Now the larger stones, too big to be carried off for use in primitive huts, lay across the openings like the vertebrae of a long-dead beast, and hinted at the barbaric past.

  During feudal times the mountain-rimmed depression had been the site of numerous battles, culminating in the great slaughter known as the Harvest of a Million Heads, which had killed so many members of the aristocracy that a new order had been forced into being and what remained of the clans had formed a single government.

  A government which, like the Hudathans who had created it, was shaped by the cruel and unpredictable surface conditions of the planet itself. A distant part of Rebor Raksala-Baʼs mind took note of the fact that thick gray clouds had rolled in to obscure a previously clear sky and that the temperature had dropped thirty degrees since the ceremony had begun. Only the latest in the billions of wild fluctuations caused by Ember and the planet’s Trojan relationship with a Jovian binary. Snowflakes, just a few at first, whirled down to form a whitish crust across the upper surfaces of the Hudathan troops.

  The parade ground was huge and could have accommodated ten times the roughly three thousand Hudathans assembled there. They stood in harmonious rows, their backs vulnerable to the ranks behind them, not because they wanted to but because military necessity demanded it. Thousands of years’ worth of military experience had proved the absolute necessity of teamwork, even if it went against the typical Hudathan persona, and generated a certain amount of stress.

  Most of the assembled multitude, like Raksala-Ba, were about to graduate from basic training. The rest, like Grand Marshal Hisep Rula-Ka, were there to officiate. Rula-Ka appeared as little more than a distant dot from where Raksala-Ba stood, but he had a powerful voice, and it boomed through a multitude of speakers.

  “Each and every one of you is to be congratulated. You have completed basic training and are now ready for Advanced Combat School or technical training. Your strength, your courage, and your intelligence are critical to the future of our race. The galaxy, and indeed the universe, teems with intelligent life, all of which represents a threat to our people. Nowhere does the old adage ‘If a variable can be controlled it must be controlled’ apply more than in the area of military policy. Only a fool waits for his neighbor to mine the ore, build the forge, and temper the steel that will be used to kill him. I submit that the so-called Confederacy of Sentient Beings is such a neighbor, and that steel must be met with steel, and blood must be answered with blood.”

  Raksala-Ba watched for the subtle hand movement from his recruit-dagger commander, saw it, and joined the ancient cry. “Blood!”

  The word was like thunder and echoed off the crater walls. The cry was as ancient as the warrior code that had spawned it. Raksala-Ba reacted to the shout as his father had, and as his grandfather had, with a surge of patriotism. Not for the family that had pushed him out into a blizzard at the age of sixteen, or the clan that had done little more than endorse his enlistment chip, but for his eternally threatened race.

  Rula-Ka continued. “It is my pleasure to announce that some of you, a tiny fraction of the whole, have been selected for special recognition. Even now monitor drones are passing among you, identifying the chosen few, and touching them with the glow of honor. Those so identified are ordered forward that all might see and know them.”

  Careful not to move his head from the mandatory eyes-forward position, Raksala-Ba checked his peripheral vision. The snow was falling more thickly now but the monitors had little difficulty bobbing through it. They were shaped like globes and held aloft by small antigrav generators. There were fifty or sixty of the machines and the air hummed as they passed. Suddenly intense beams of white light flashed down to touch individual troopers. Raksala-Ba felt fear followed by pride as a beam found and held him in its actinic glare. The recruit was careful to walk with his head up and his back straight as he marched all the way to the front, did an about-face, and joined the others who had been chosen. They stood at parade rest and he did likewise.

  Rula-Ka was getting old now and the crest that ran from the front of his head to the back was even more prominent than it had been when childhood playmates had called him “shovel head.” His eyes were like lasers as they swept the ranks before him. “Meet the chosen ones, first of a new breed, best of the best. It is they who will meet the human-machine warriors in combat, they who will reign victorious, and they who will prevent defeat.”

  Raksala-Ba heard the words but had difficulty understanding them. “Chosen ones?” “Machine warriors?” But the machine warriors were cyborgs, brains that controlled electro-mechanical bodies, freaks that . . . He wanted to run, wanted to hide, but knew it was unthinkable. Fear, pride, and discipline held him in place.

  “And that,” Rula-Ka continued, “is why they will sacrifice their bodies and join the ranks of a new spear. A spear so honored that it will have a name instead of a number . . . and has already been added to the scroll of racial heroes. For these troopers, and those yet to come,
will be known as the ‘Regiment of the Living Dead.’ ”

  The name sent a tingle through Raksala-Baʼs entire body as did the cry of “Blood!” that followed and the certain knowledge that he was about to die.

  A huge drill instructor named Drak-Sa, “the Beast,” had been chosen to perform the executions. He took ten paces forward, stopped before the recruit to Raksala-Baʼs far left, and drew his side arm. It was a projectile weapon loaded with ultra-low-velocity ammunition. He looked up at Rula-Ka and waited for the war commander’s signal.

  In the meantime, a small army of medics, festooned with the equipment necessary to prevent clinical brain death, had appeared off to one side, and stood like ghosts in waiting.

  Rula-Ka allowed the moment to stretch tight, taking pleasure in the discipline of his troops, and the wind that nipped at his skin. The snow fell thickly now hiding the furthest ranks of troopers behind a curtain of white. He looked at the noncom and inclined his head.

  Drak-Sa leveled his pistol at the recruit’s chest. The trooper had developed a never-before-seen twitch in the muscles of his right cheek but still came to attention. The weapon made a dull thumping noise as the slug penetrated his chest, mushroomed, and broke his spine. The body crumpled to the ground and medics rushed to the warrior’s side.

  Raksala-Ba found himself praying for death as his knees grew weaker and threatened to betray him. For to fall, and lie crumpled on the ground, that was a fate even worse than death. The recruit felt his sphincter loosen and something warm trickle down the back of his leg.

  The weapon thumped again, and again, and again, until the drill instructor looked Raksala-Ba in the eye and aimed the pistol at his chest. Snow fell like a shroud and the barrel gaped like the entrance to a clan tunnel. Raksala-Ba wondered if he would see the bullet or hear the sound it made. He didn’t.

  The technicians used chemicals to pull Raksala-Ba out of his cave. He screamed soundlessly as they rolled his consciousness out over an endless red plain, secured it in place, and forced him to listen.

  “YOU ARE NOT DEAD. THE FUTURE IS UP TO YOU. YOU ARE NOT DEAD. THE FUTURE IS UP TO YOU. YOU ARE NOT DEAD. THE FUTURE IS UP TO YOU.”

  The words went on forever.

  Like a dreamer who has experienced a dream before, and knows how it will end, Raksala-Ba felt himself pulled out and up. He wasted no energy fighting the sensation because he knew it would do no good. The red plain was as before, except that a variety of strange shapes and icons had been added to its surface. The voice returned.

  “LOOK AROUND YOU.”

  Raksala-Ba did as instructed.

  “IDENTIFY THE ICON THAT LOOKS LIKE A CYLINDER.”

  Raksala-Ba turned and saw a pink cylinder that stood on end.

  “GO TO THE CYLINDER.”

  “Go to the cylinder?” What in the four devils were they talking about? He was dead and couldn’t “go” anywhere.

  Excruciating pain lanced through Raksala-Baʼs mind-body. He screamed soundless obscenities at the voice and sent the same signal that had moved his body. Something happened. Did he move? Or did the cylinder move to him? Raksala-Ba wasn’t sure but the result was the same. He mind-touched the icon and felt something akin to a mild sexual orgasm. The voice boomed in his head. “THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU LEARNED.” Darkness closed around him.

  Raksala-Ba found himself on the red plain once more. The icons were as they had been. But others were present this time. Dark amorphous bodies stalked the land, their shadows crossing his, their thoughts like static in his mind. They were threatening, dangerous somehow, and he growled in a nonexistent throat.

  “YOU ARE PART OF A TEAM,” the voice said. “TAKE ALL OF THE ICONS AND PLACE THEM ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE PLAIN.”

  Somehow, without quite knowing how, Raksala-Ba knew east from west. Eager to complete the exercise and get away from creatures around him, the recruit thought his way to a pyramid-shaped icon. It was bright green. He tried to “think” the object across the plain but it refused to budge. A mild electric shock buzzed through his brain. The voice was calm and unemotional: “YOU ARE PART OF A TEAM.”

  Raksala-Ba looked around. Some of his fellow beings stood alone but three had gathered around a blue cube. He thought himself in that direction. The closer he got the better he could see. Although the “creatures” had heads, torsos, arms, and legs, all of which added to their somewhat Hudathoid appearance, they were different, too, and had a robotlike aspect. Suddenly the recruit thought to look down at his own body and discovered that he looked as they did. What had been static became language.

  “Welcome, comrade. We have been unable to move the cube by ourselves. Let’s find out whether the addition of your strength will prove sufficient. Please join in ‘thinking’ the cube towards the east.”

  Raksala-Ba did as instructed but the cube remained where it was. An idea occurred to him. “The voice said to ‘place’ the icons on the east side of the plain. We have bodies now. Let’s lift the cube and carry it across.”

  There was a moment of silence as the others considered the proposal, followed by general agreement. They bent at the waist, slid their hands under the cube, and lifted. The icon proved to be light as a feather and the foursome had little difficulty moving it to the “east.”

  Having seen their example, others gathered together, lifted their respective icons, and moved them to where the cube now stood. All were intelligent and understood the lesson: A team can accomplish that which an individual cannot.

  Raksala-Ba stood on the surface of a computer-generated planet. The grass, trees, rocks, and other objects were recognizable but lacked detail and definition. The voice was unemotional as always. “YOUR CYBERNETIC BODY HAS BEEN EQUIPPED WITH A VARIETY OF WEAPONS. YOUR RIGHT ARM CONSISTS OF AN ELECTRONICALLY DRIVEN, SIX-BARRELED, FULLY AUTOMATIC PROJECTILE WEAPON. AIM AT ROCK NUMBER THREE AND FIRE.”

  The numeral 3 appeared over a distant rock. Raksala-Ba raised his arm and saw a set of cross hairs slide across his mental view screen and pause over the boulder in question. In the meantime, information regarding windage, target density, and a dozen other factors scrolled down the right side of his electronic vision. He thought the word fire and felt his arm shudder as simulated feedback reached his brain. Rock chips flew in every direction and the target seemed to go out of focus as a haze filled the air. Raksala-Ba thought the word stop and the weapon obeyed. A programmed wind blew the dust away and the recruit saw that the rock had been shattered and reduced to four or five large chunks. The voice returned:

  “YOUR LEFT ARM HAS BEEN EQUIPPED WITH A THREE-PINCER TOOL HAND AND AN EXTERNAL MISSILE RACK. PROVISION HAS BEEN MADE FOR SIX PROJECTILES. EACH WEAPON CAN BE INDIVIDUALLY CONFIGURED FOR ANTIPERSONNEL, ANTIARMOR, OR ANTIAIRCRAFT MISSIONS. ALL OF THESE MUNITIONS CAN BE GUIDED TO THE TARGET IN THE HEAT-SEEKING, ELECTRONIC-ACTIVITY, OR OPTICAL MODES. AIM AT TREE SIX AND FIRE.”

  Raksala-Ba brought his arm up, allowed the cross hairs to settle in over the designated tree, and ordered the launcher to fire. The force of the recoil caught him by surprise and pushed him backwards. The missile hit the tree. Bark flew and a chunk of wood disappeared, followed by a series of individual explosions. Raksala-Ba jerked as an electric shock stabbed at the tender flesh of his brain.

  “YOU FIRED WITHOUT SELECTING WEAPON MODE OR TRACKING PROGRAM. TRY AGAIN.”

  Raksala-Ba raised his arm and selected the antiarmor mode with optical targeting. When the missile fired he was braced for the recoil. It flew straight and true. The recruit heard the electronic analog of a sharp cracking noise as the war-head detonated and the tree toppled. He shuddered slightly as a mild orgasm rippled through organs he no longer had. He remembered his body and wondered where it was buried.

  Like those around him, Raksala-Ba felt nervous. Computer simulations were one thing but real combat was something else. Yes, the hostiles were an inferior race called the Muldag, and no match for Hudathan regulars, much less cyborgs, but the voice had gone to great lengths to explain that the aliens had b
een equipped with high-quality human weapons, and promised that their eggs would be allowed to hatch if they won the upcoming battle. Raksala-Ba had his doubts about that, but really didn’t care, since a Hudathan defeat would most likely mean death. And, though he had doubted it at first, he did want to live. Even if that meant life in a metal brain box.

  Others felt differently of course, which accounted for the fact that more than a third of the recruits chosen on graduation day had been killed by the psychological trauma involved, or “excused” from further service by the seldom-seen observers.

  The shuttle shuddered as it dropped down through the planet’s atmosphere. Like the other cyborgs who sat knee to knee in the cargo bay, Raksala-Ba was linked with the ship’s sensors and could see the richly green continent rising to meet them, studded here and there with mirror-bright lakes, and bound together with lazily flowing rivers.

  The Muldag were a relatively obscure race. They had colonized only two planets in their home system, and had no particular need to find more. That hadn’t saved them from the attentions of a Hudathan expeditionary force however, a force that had taken less than three planetary rotations to defeat what little military the Muldag had and turn their home planet into a combat range.

  The target, such as it was, consisted of an already bombed-out city. Having been armed with human weapons, Muldag prisoners of war had been dropped into the area with orders to fight for their lives and their unhatched offspring. Which was more than sufficient motivation in the minds of those who had designed and would observe the exercise.