Legion Of The Damned - 02 - The Final Battle

by William C. Dietz

  The answer was obvious. Somewhere, hidden where only he could see it, Poseen-Ka was weak. A weakness that could be seen in the fact that he had allowed himself to form a sentimental attachment to Rula-Ka. An attachment so strong that he had actually considered a trade. The out-and-out folly of it astounded him. The solution was obvious. He must ignore his emotions, order an attack, and emerge victorious. Over the humans and himself. Still . . . what if there was another way?

  Poseen-Ka touched one of a dozen buttons recessed into the armrest of his chair. The response was nearly instantaneous. His aide, a highly decorated recon pilot named Nagwa Isaba-Ra, appeared as if by magic. He was the most efficient assistant the war commander had ever been lucky enough to have. A recessed spot threw a slash of light down across the younger officer’s face. It reflected strength and determination. “Sir? You called?”

  “Yes,” Poseen-Ka replied. “I did. To what extent was the Inthulu System damaged during the last war?”

  There was absolutely no reason why Isaba-Ra should have that particular piece of information at his fingertips but he did. “The Inthulu System was barely touched during the first war, sir. It was bypassed during the leap to the inner planets.”

  Poseen-Ka signaled understanding, as well he could, for he had commanded the fleet his subordinate referred to. “So while the indigenous population will have heard about our methods, they don’t know about them.”

  The thought was rather abstract and Poseen-Ka took pleasure in the fact that Isaba-Ra understood what he meant. “No, sir. Most of the humans in this system have had little or no personal experience with our culture.”

  “So, they would believe an offer of terms?”

  The Hudathan known as Isaba-Ra felt his heart hammer against his lab-grown chest. They had warned him that this might happen, that in order to maintain his cover as a spy, the only spy the Hegemony had within the alien ranks, he might have to say or do something that would cost human lives. The fact that they would be non-Hegemony lives helped to some extent, but didn’t entirely eliminate the nausea in his stomach. “Yes, sir. Based on what I’ve read about human psychology, they would want to believe such an offer.”

  “Exactly,” Poseen-Ka said thoughtfully. “All the humans I knew placed great store in discussion. Let’s give it a try. Contact intelligence. Tell them to dangle the possibility of a trade in front of the humans. A planet in return for our crew. Make sure they do nothing to make Rula-Ka seem special.”

  Isaba-Ra signaled his understanding. “It shall be as you say, War Commander. Where should this meeting take place?”

  Poseen-Ka thought for a moment. “Somewhere they will see as neutral ground. An asteroid, perhaps?”

  Isaba-Ra gestured assent. “I will examine the possibilities.”

  Poseen-Ka watched the youngster leave the compartment and turned to the view screen. The planet was still there, as were the stars.

  Deep inside a blast-proof command bunker on the planet Prospect II, wall monitors flickered and radio traffic murmured in the background. The air was filter-fresh and cold enough to raise goose bumps on unprotected arms.

  Admiral Maria Salgado had short black hair touched with gray, a blaster scar down the right side of her face, and a two-pack-a-day stim-stick habit. She exhaled a thin stream of smoke and touched a remote. The wall screen faded to black. She had seen the video twenty-seven times. “So, Phillip, do you believe them?”

  “Hell, no,” Captain Phillip Hastings replied matter-offactly. “The geeks don’t negotiate. Never have, never will. Everyone knows that.” He was a thin man who liked to run. He felt closed in and did his best to hide it.

  “Well, Governor Kogan doesn’t,” Salgado replied dryly. “She believes in the tooth fairy, pots of gold, and Lord knows what else. She’s been all over me ever since the message came in.”

  Hastings shrugged. “You can’t really blame her, Admiral. Barring some sort of miracle, the geeks can finish us anytime they want. It’ll be a week or a week and a half before reinforcements arrive. She figures that even the possibility of a deal is better than certain death.”

  Salgado sighed. “I suppose you’re right. What have we got to lose? Send for the prisoners and request my shuttle. This mission belongs to me.”

  Isaba-Ra was cold, tired, and increasingly pissed off. He, along with a dagger of specially trained naval commandos, had been waiting in the wreckage for sixteen hours. During that time he had gone through four sets of oxygen tanks, filled his liquid waste container to capacity, taken three uneasy naps, and consumed six of the foul-tasting food wafers.

  Human scouts had come, inspected the wreckage for any signs of an ambush, missed the twelve Hudathan troopers hidden deep among the twisted steel girders, and left some spy eyes to watch for them. Their failure was understandable, since the wreck was huge, and the commandos were equipped with heat cloaks and ECM gear.

  Still, if the humans didn’t hurry up and get there, the spy would go crazy. Not that he was exactly sane, especially given the fact that he felt more and more Hudathan with each passing day, and had an increasing amount of difficulty remembering his past identity.

  Maybe it would have been easier if he’d been a less successful Hudathan. But.Isaba-Ra was a hero, universally judged to be good at what he did, and rewarded accordingly. A helluva lot different from the man he’d been, a know-nothing intelligence tech, genetically destined for a boring life. Not so for Isaba-Ra, who might rise as high as his talent and luck would take him. Spear commander? War commander? Grand marshal? Nothing was beyond the realm of possibility. It was tempting, very tempting, and increasingly on his mind.

  Isaba-Ra heard three clicks over the speakers inside his helmet. The humans were coming! He answered with two clicks, the signal to feed looped video to the spy eyes, and prepare for action. Quickly, and with a minimum of fuss, the commandos took their assigned positions. There was no gravity to speak of so it was important to move with great care. Then, with everyone in place, the second, more important wait began.

  Admiral Salgado hadn’t worn battle armor in a long time. She had nearly forgotten how confining it could be, how certain odors built up over time, and how vulnerable she felt, knowing that the only thing between her and hard vacuum was what amounted to six layers of bonded fabric. Sure it was tough, sure it was strong, but there were plenty of weapons capable of punching holes through it. The officer pushed the thought away, wished she could light a stim stick, and checked to see how the rest of her party was doing. They were in the final stages of boarding the shuttle.

  The Victory’s launch bay was a cavernous space that dated back to the bad old days when the emperor and his advisers had favored size over nearly everything else. The Victory, which normally served as a training vessel, along with a handful of smaller ships, were all that remained of the small but potent planetary defense force she had commanded. A combination of sorrow, bitterness, and guilt nearly overwhelmed Salgado as she boarded the shuttle, signaled for the deck crew to remove the roll-around stairs, and took a seat on the starboard bulkhead.

  The Hudathans sat across from her. They were huge hulking figures who gazed impassively through their face plates and seemed anything but cowed. Salgado wondered what they were thinking, especially the oldest of the four, who claimed to be a noncom, but received a lot more deference than the rank called for. Was he an officer, perhaps? Claiming a lower rank in an effort to mislead his captors? That might account for the rather unusual willingness to negotiate, something she had made clear to Governor Kogan, who had acknowledged the possibility, and made it equally clear she didn’t give a damn what rank the prisoners were, as long as the negotiations were successful.

  Salgado sighed. As presently constituted, the deal wasn’t much of a deal. They had a promise and nothing more. There were no precedents to follow, no bilateral guarantees, and no one to act as a witness if the Hudathans broke their word. The only comfort the officer had was the knowledge that her advance team had planted an e
xtremely powerful command-triggered mine aboard the wreck, which she could detonate at the first sign of treachery. She wanted to live, but had already lost nearly everyone she cared about, and was quite willing to trade her life for the enemy’s.

  It took less than an hour to make the trip to the slowly drifting wreck. Salgado fought the temptation to think about how many valiant men and women had died aboard the onetime cruiser, and how many would die during the days, weeks, and months ahead. The pilot interrupted her thoughts. “I have visual contact with the wreck, Admiral. Visual, electronic, and IR scans confirm six, repeat six, suits of armor, all radiating within normal parameters.”

  Salgado, a damned good rocket jockey in her younger days, wished she were in the cockpit, seeing the wreck with her own eyes, but knew that would undermine the pilot’s confidence. “And the spy eyes?”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary, ma’am. The negotiating team and that’s all.”

  “Very well, then, close on the wreck, but keep your finger on the trigger. The numbers match . . . but the possibility of an ambush continues to exist.”

  “Aye, aye, ma’am. Closing now.”

  By prior agreement the shuttle fired its retros while still a long ways off, slowed, matched the wreck’s rate of drift, and assumed a position one mile out. A Hudathan vessel of similar size and capability could be seen in the corresponding slot two miles away. The pilot announced their arrival. “We are in position, Admiral. All sensor readings normal.”

  Admiral Salgado looked around the already depressurized cargo compartment and grinned through her face plate. “All right, ladies and gentlemen, time to de-ass the shuttle, and see what the geeks have to say.”

  The cargo door slid open and the Hudathan prisoners were ushered out into the void. They were closely followed by the guards and negotiating team. All of them fired their suit jets and moved away in a sloppy sort of formation. It took them less than five minutes to cross the intervening space and land on the wreck.

  Salgado was interested to note that although three of the aliens had no difficulty landing on the wreck, the oldest, and the one she suspected of being an officer, misjudged the situation, and would have overshot the target entirely if his guards had failed to intervene. A problem the human understood, since she didn’t get much suit time, either, and could easily make a fool of herself. It might be meaningful, or it might not, but one thing was for sure: if she bought the farm, the geek sonofabitch was going with her.

  Isaba-Ra waited until the grand marshal was aboard and the humans had committed themselves before making his move. Though not an actual Hudathan, the spy executed the plan in much the same manner as a real Hudathan would have, straight ahead, and balls to the wall. He didn’t like what he was about to do, but felt that it had to be done, and was determined to be successful. He gave the only order his troops needed to hear. “Kill the humans.”

  The Hudathan shuttle launched a pair of torpedos at the very same moment as Isaba-Ra’s commandos opened fire from their carefully concealed positions. Their fire, plus that of the heavily armed Hudathan negotiating team, was nearly irresistible. Suits were already imploding all around her when Salgado felt a weight drop into the pit of her stomach, said, “Aw shit,” and detonated the well-hidden mine. The ensuing explosion ripped 25 percent of the wreck apart, killed most of those present, and propelled the rest into space.

  Isaba-Ra was among the fortunate few who managed to survive. His first reaction was one of surprise, followed in quick succession by suspicion and fear. Who had planted the bomb? The humans or Hudathans? And if the Hudathans were responsible, had they been trying to kill him? Or was he simply viewed as expendable? Lord knew Poseen-Ka was capable of a move like that, and due to the fact that the human had been raised in a culture where societal needs came first, he could understand the underlying mind set.

  But why? There would have been no need had the original plan been given enough time to succeed. That left the humans, and the strong possibility that their advance team had planted a command-detonated mine, and done so right under his nose. How would Poseen-Ka react to that? Would the war commander see it as a regrettable but understandable artifact of war? Or as an act of massive incompetence punishable by death? Both were within the realm of possibility.

  Isaba-Ra fired his jets in quick succession, stabilized his suit, and scanned the heavens. He found the still-battling shuttles, zoomed in, and watched the human vessel explode. Part of him felt a terrible sense of sadness while another reacted with almost clinical detachment. The decision was made. For better or for worse, for life or for death, he would contact the only ship likely to pick him up. Isaba-Ra activated his emergency beacon, announced his situation via radio, and waited to see what the five fates had in store for him.

  Poseen-Ka stared into the holo tank. The analog was twenty feet across, and looked exactly like Prospect II, all the way down to the scientifically precise pattern of fires that crisscrossed its surface, the clouds of thick black smoke, the still-glowing lakes of molten slag, and the strange lightning storms that played across the once-fertile farmland. The globe rotated before him and the Hudathan knew that this part of his job was nearly done.

  The war commander looked up and found eleven sets of eyes waiting to meet his. All the members of his staff who were still alive and able to attend in person. Two more, their images projected onto a long curvilinear screen, hung in what seemed like midair. Their eyes met his as well. All wore cross-straps and a single red gem. They waited for him to speak. He allowed the silence to stretch long and thin before he broke it.

  “The humans have paid for their treachery, for the cowardly way in which they murdered Grand Marshal Rula-Ka, and our unsuspecting negotiating team. Should any of you wish to hear the details of what happened, Arrow Commander Nagwa Isaba-Ra was there, and will be glad to describe what took place.”

  Isaba-Ra, who stood at parade rest off to one side of Poseen-Ka, felt their stone-cold eyes turn his way. He had been exonerated of all responsibility, praised for his valor in the face of the enemy, and submitted for another medal. What should he feel? Relief at being alive? Pride in having murdered a party of unsuspecting humans? And what was he anyway? A clone? A human? A Hudathan? He wasn’t sure anymore. Poseen-Ka spoke and the spy gave a sigh of relief as the eyes shifted away.

  “The war has entered a new phase. In spite of our many victories, and the success of our valiant cyborgs, the humans fight on. Their strategy has been to slow the force of our attack while they ready themselves for the climactic battle. This stems from their essential weakness, from the fact that the Confederacy consists of many races, all of whom put their interests first. Discussion, negotiation, and compromise. Those are the flaws that will bring them down. For while our enemies dither, we shall strike, and strike hard, aiming our blow for the very place where defeat claimed our honor, and so many of us died. The planet called Algeron.”

  A human audience might have applauded or given some other external sign of approval. The Hudathans did no such thing, but Isaba-Ra could tell that they were impressed nonetheless, and ready to follow Poseen-Ka’s lead. It showed in barely seen hand gestures, in the way they looked at each other, and the hardening of their expressions. If Poseen-Ka wanted to attack Algeron they were ready.

  It was, Isaba-Ra knew, the kind of information he had been sent to get, and worth thousands, maybe millions of human lives, because a warning, given in time, could enable the Confederacy to prepare. Assuming he gave the information to the Hegemony, and assuming they saw fit to pass it along to the Confederacy. So what would he do? Confirm his external identity and remain silent? Or act in concert with the inner voice that was so distinctly human? The choice was his and his alone. The voices droned on while the man called Isaba-Ra searched for his soul.

  22

  One should know one’s enemies, their alliances, their resources and nature of their country, in order to plan a campaign. . . .

  Frederick the Great

&nb
sp; Instructions to his generals

  Standard year 1747

  Planet Algeron, the Confederacy of Sentient Beings

  Easytalk Nightkiller elbowed his way out onto the sun-warmed rock, brought a pair of Confederacy-issue binofinders up to his eyes and scanned the flatlands below. He saw piles of rain-rounded boulders, lots of low-lying scrub, and water-cut ravines. Due to the fact that the planet had an extremely short rotation, he could actually see the long, dark shadows crawl towards the east. Dust spiraled up and away from whatever had disturbed it. The Naa moved the binoculars to the right, racked focus, and found what he’d been looking for. Nightkiller felt honored. The Legion had seen fit to send a full platoon after him. Scouts forward, bio bods behind, Trooper Ils on the flanks, and a quad to bring up the rear. Just like they had taught him at NCO school, never for a moment suspecting that he’d take the knowledge over the hill and use it against them.

  The Naa thumbed the zoom control, watched a Trooper II leap towards him, and focused on the half-visored face visible just beyond an armor-clad shoulder. Nightkiller didn’t like officers or half-breeds, so greasing the captain wouldn’t bother him in the least. The fact that he’d get paid for it was icing on the cake.

  It seemed that the breed’s father, an ex-officer, had gained more influence than certain chieftains thought a human should have, and was marked for death. But his followers, the tribe once led by the famous Wayfar Hardman, were skilled warriors and continued to protect him. Until now, that is, since his efforts to unite the tribes against the alien Hudatha had forced the human to travel more than usual, and left him vulnerable to attack. But that was an opportunity for someone else. His job was to limit the human’s effectiveness by terminating his son.