Legion Of The Damned - 02 - The Final Battle

by William C. Dietz

  Booly felt a strange sense of exhilaration as they left the shelter of the trees and broke into the open. Maybe this was the way ancient warriors had felt as they rode into battle. Their dooths thundering towards the enemy, their swords slicing through crisp mountain air, and their comrades to either side. Energy flowed through the legionnaire’s body as he moved to the rhythms of his cybernetic mount and a long, echoing war cry flowed from his lips.

  The sudden appearance of the Trooper IIs caught Nightkiller by surprise. He had served in the Legion himself so it took little more than a second for the bandit to realize that he was under surveillance by a tac-eye. Maybe the breed was smarter than he seemed.

  The bandit resisted the temptation to look up into the sky and hunched his shoulders against the energy beam that might or might not come. All he needed to do was stay calm, lead the first cyborg like so, take a deep breath, release it ever so slowly, and squeeze the trigger. The report and resulting recoil seemed like an afterthought. Nightkiller watched and waited for the officer to slump against his harness.

  Booly felt tiny bits of hot metal pepper his face, heard a clang, followed by the sound of a distant rifle shot. Helmo’s brain case was dimpled where the slug had hit. He yelled into his mike. “Honcho One to Honcho team . . . We are taking fire from high to the right! Hose ’em down!”

  Nightkiller threw himself backwards as the legionnaires opened fire. Their automatic weapons made a sound similar to ripping cloth, and rocket-propelled grenades thumped all around. The bandit abandoned all thoughts of completing his mission and concentrated on a successful escape instead. Speed was of the essence. A boot slipped on lichen-covered rock. He fell, landed wrong, and swore as pain lanced up through his leg, and called for help. “Rockthrow! Perkins! Give me a hand!”

  Dooths grunted, gear clanked, and rocks flew away from hooves as his followers hauled themselves up onto their saddles and headed towards the pass. None would meet his eyes. Nightkiller hobbled after them. “Wait! Wait, damn it!”

  Perkins, one of two humans in the band, rode the last dooth. He led Nightkiller’s animal on a jury-rigged lead and clearly intended to steal it. The Naa limped along behind and called his dooth by name. It jerked against the lead and rolled its eyes. Perkins turned, looked annoyed, and leveled his rifle. Nightkiller saw a flash and felt his knee explode. The ground hit him hard. He wanted to die, wanted to kill himself, and was reaching for his handgun when darkness pulled him down.

  Booly felt an odd sense of disappointment as Helmo arrived in front of the body. His knees hurt as he jumped down and felt for a pulse. It was thready but palpable. The officer called for a medic and tried to feel good about what they had managed to accomplish. All the effort, all the risk, just to capture a single bandit.

  Yet both the Legion and the tribes had played this game for a long time now, so long that it had claimed a place in both of their cultures, and become self-perpetuating, because when there was no real enemy to fight, the Legion had traditionally attacked the Naa, who had responded by building combat into the rites of warriorhood, thereby promulgating a sort of ritual warfare. Until recent times, when the Hudatha had provided both parties with a common enemy.

  Was this what he wanted to do with his life? Hunt bandits through the hills? Or provide similar services on other planets? The question followed the officer out of the mountains, onto the plains, and through the wire that surrounded Delta Base.

  23

  He who hunts shall also be hunted . . . for such is nature’s way.

  Naa proverb

  Author unknown

  Standard year circa 150 B.C.

  Clone World Alpha-001, the Clone Hegemony

  The com-ball had traveled a long, long way. The device had originated on Beta-001, clamped itself to the skin of an outbound robo-freighter, remained in place until the ship reached Alpha-001’s gravity well, transferred itself to a surface-bound shuttle, slipped past customs, and hid until darkness fell.

  Then, in accordance with the programming provided on Beta-001, and new information downloaded from an illegal micro-sat, the com-ball reactivated the expensive antigrav generator that kept it aloft, and used air jets to maneuver its way through Alpha-Prime’s gridlike streets.

  Expensive or not, the antigrav unit couldn’t lift the device any higher than a few hundred feet, so it was forced to wend its way between rows of high-rise buildings, all of which looked the same, and were filled with equally identical people. Many of whom could be seen through brightly lit windows, sitting with mostly same-sex companions, or watching government-approved holos.

  But none of that was of interest to the com-ball, which had been given a specific mission, and didn’t care about anything else. The building it sought was located in the most run-down section of the city, the part that had been built around the first spaceport, and was therefore different from the rest. There was irony in that, since the quarry was different, too, but that particular nuance lay beyond the parameters of the machine’s programming.

  Having located what it believed to be the correct choice, the messenger verified the address using one of the government’s global positioning satellites, circled the eleventh floor, found the room designated as 1106, hovered outside long enough to make sure the subject was home, and rose to survey the roof.

  Protective mechanisms might have been placed around the building, the com-ball’s programming was quite specific about that, which meant that the machine had to find and neutralize any such devices prior to entry. And sure enough, the messenger found six full-function detectors, a pre-provisioned escape route, and two carefully disguised hidey-holes, one of which contained a considerable quantity of illegal weapons and other equipment.

  Having completed its survey, the com-ball activated certain subprograms and destroyed the sensors with carefully placed bursts of coherent energy. Then, satisfied that it could enter the structure unannounced, the device propelled itself towards the side of the building.

  Fisk-Eight had been living in room 1106 for quite some time now. He looked up into Yee-Two’s face and wondered what she actually felt. Her eyes were closed and her mouth was open. Was the appearance of pleasure real? Or just another aspect of what he had paid for? Ah well, no matter. She had a nice body and knew how to use it.

  Yee’s artificially enhanced breasts flopped up and down as she moved, and tiny beads of sweat had appeared on her upper lip. Fisk-Eight was extremely close to orgasm when the com-ball smashed through the window and sent shards of glass flying in every direction.

  Yee was on a downstroke when the messenger put an energy beam through her head. It entered through the back of her skull, exited between her eyes, and burned a hole through the anarchist’s pillow. The body had toppled sideways and was in the process of falling when Fisk-Eight went for his handgun. A red dot appeared in the middle of his chest and froze him in place. The voice was unexpectedly familiar. “Move and you will die.”

  Fisk-Eight thought the voice belonged to Alpha Clone Marcus at first, but realized his mistake as the com-ball projected beams of light into the room and a pair of images appeared. The first belonged to the Alpha Clone Pietro, and the second to his brother Antonio. Although he had never been in direct contact with them, Fisk-Eight was well aware of the fact that the Alpha clones had financed his cell, supported the assassination attempt, and if Pietro’s expression was any guide, were far from happy.

  Though programmed to accomplish certain things, the com-ball’s artificial intelligence was free to tackle the job in any way that it saw fit, and used that freedom to weave the anarchist’s surroundings into the message it had been ordered to deliver.

  “So,” the image named Pietro began, “you imagined that you could simply walk away from your failure, hole up here, and escape the consequences.”

  The com-ball remained where it was, but the red dot had started to drift a little, down off Fisk-Eight’s chest, and over his lower torso. It takes a long time to die from an abdominal wound and
the anarchist pulled his stomach in. “No, I did the best I could, but things went wrong.”

  “Yes, they certainly did,” Pietro continued smoothly. “Marcus lives, the Legion whore shares his bed, and Alpha-001 functions as an undeclared ally of the Confederacy. All because of you.”

  “No,” Fisk-Eight insisted desperately, unable to take his eyes off the slowly circling red dot, “it wasn’t my fault!”

  “Oh, but it was,” the image of Pietro said calmly, as it paced back and forth. “Tell him, Antonio, tell him why it was his fault, and how the situation can be corrected.”

  Antonio smiled vacantly. His hair gleamed with pomade and his body was strangely transparent. “It might interest you to know that you are the only Fisk still alive. You encouraged Fisk-Three to sacrifice himself during the assassination attempt, and we terminated the rest, starting with the child called Twenty-seven, and working our way through two-hundred thirty-six more. Would you like to know why?”

  Fisk watched the dot. It drifted downwards and lingered over his already shriveled penis. His throat was tight and he found that it was difficult to speak. “Yes, tell me why.”

  “Because,” Antonio said, his eyes also on the dot, “you and those like you are an aberration, one of the few mistakes the Founder made. She feared that a society without anarchists might become too stable, might grow complacent, and fall of its own weight. So to keep my brothers and me on our toes, and create a counterbalancing effect, she commissioned the Fisk line, the Trotski line, and a couple more. The unintended effect was that by existing, by being who you are, you and your brothers had a tendency to destabilize those around you. So much so that you even undermined the effectiveness of your own cell, sacrificed a member of your own line, and went your own way.”

  “That’s right,” Pietro said brightly, his ghostlike eyes glowing from out of the gloom. “Tell him what he must do to survive.”

  The dot was stationary. It seemed to pulse slightly and Fisk-Eight felt a growing sense of warmth around his genitals. Sweat covered his forehead and he held on to the bedsheets with both hands. “Tell me, tell me what I can dog . . . .”

  Antonio nodded. “First, you must recognize that my brother and I rule by genetic right, and that you are descended from an inferior line.”

  Warmth had turned into real heat. His genitals felt as if they were on fire. Fisk-Eight felt his eyes start to bulge. “Yes! I’m inferior! I’ll do whatever you say!”

  “And then,” the Alpha clone continued unemotionally, “you must find a way to get close to our brother Marcus and kill him.”

  Fisk-Eight fought against the pain. What was that smell anyway? Burned linen? Singed pubic hair? “Anything. . . I’ll do anything you want.”

  The pain started to fade. “Excellent,” Pietro said, pausing at the foot of the bed. “Do as we command, and life will be very pleasant for you.”

  Both images faded to nothingness, the dot disappeared, and the com-ball floated out through the broken window. The anarchist held his genitals with both hands, ignored the smell that emanated from the vicinity of Yee’s body, and started to think. Marcus would have to die, that much was clear, the only question was how.

  Mosby turned slowly, admiring herself in the full-length mirror. Her body had a tendency to gain weight and she had done battle with it through a regimen of dieting and exercise. But her breasts were visibly larger and the lower part of her abdomen more rounded than before, a fact that accounted for the increasing tightness of her uniforms. The changes in her body served to confirm what the self-administered test had already told her. She was pregnant.

  The knowledge made Mosby happy, since she had wanted to have a baby for a long time, but her joy was clouded by the problems that faced her. Although she and Marcus had enjoyed an extremely active sex life, free of all contraceptive measures, they had never discussed what would almost surely happen as a result, and Mosby feared that the reality of her pregnancy might cause a crisis in their relationship.

  Also, there was her career to think of, and her obligations to the Legion. There was absolutely no doubt that President Anguar knew of her affair, and had ordered her superiors to ignore the situation so long as it served the Confederacy’s purposes, but what if Marcus denied her? She would miss him, but she would miss the information provided by his spy even more, as would the rest of the Confederacy.

  It all served to make the next few days even more important. Marcus had invited her to his country estate. She hoped her stay would provide the perfect setting in which to tell the Alpha clone about her pregnancy and secure their relationship. A relationship that would meet her needs and the Legion’s as well. Mosby padded out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. A rather generously cut summer-weight dress had been laid out on the bed and she looked forward to wearing it after a week of supertight uniforms.

  Bio-storage Building 516 was just as unassuming as its name. What appeared to be a low-slung warehouse was actually just the topmost level of a multistoried building that reached down instead of up. But in spite of the precautions taken to protect it from aerial attack, the uppermost levels of the facility were relatively accessible and given over to various kinds of genetic research.

  The levels below them were a good deal more secure, however, housing as they did the backup supplies of sperm and ovum necessary to ensure that the Founder’s grand vision would be enacted, even if the primary and secondary storage facilities located thousands of miles away were somehow destroyed.

  But it was the deepest levels, those to which only a trusted few had access, that Fisk-Eight wished to visit. But every lock has a key, and thanks to his training and will to survive, it took Fisk-Eight a surprisingly short time to find the one that he needed.

  By activating his carefully nurtured network of contacts and informants, the anarchist discovered that a gentech named Crowley-Three had not only managed to avoid using the government-mandated contraceptives, but had also given birth to an unsanctioned free-breeder baby, and was necessarily raising the one-of-a-kind infant at home. Converting the unfortunate woman to his needs was almost too simple, since Crowley knew that the authorities would take her child off-planet should it be discovered, and leave her behind.

  So Fisk met the gentech in the cafeteria, pretended to have a friendly conversation with her, and accepted the I.D. badge that she slipped under the table. It said “Visitor” across the front and Eight clipped it to his breast pocket while pretending to tie a shoe. From there they went to a bank of elevators, waited for one to arrive, and stepped aboard. The anarchist found himself in the presence of eight clones, including four additional Crowleys. All were female, had wide-set green eyes, and a scattering of freckles across their noses.

  Three exchanged greetings with them, explained that Fisk had been ordered to run a storage audit, and would be accompanying them to the lowest level. A variety of genetic lines had been sent to carry out this task in the past so the Crowleys nodded, welcomed the anarchist to the facility, and entered into an animated discussion of the weather. The platform paused twice to let others get off. The anarchist felt his stomach muscles tighten as the elevator dropped to the lowest level. Crowley-Three swore she had taken care of the necessary clearances, but had she? The fact that she had given birth to an unsanctioned baby, and had managed to conceal it from the authorities, argued for her competence, but who could be sure?

  The door swished open and he followed the Crowleys left, off the platform. A security guard got off his stool, gave the clones a cursory once-over, and checked Eight’s pass. He frowned, ran a scanner over the bar code printed along the bottom edge of his card, and smiled when a green light came on. “Thank you, sir. You may proceed.”

  Fisk-Eight nodded agreeably, followed Crowley-Three down a side corridor, through some double doors, and into a white-walled room. Crowley pressed a hand against the wall, waited while her prints were scanned, and turned as a door opened. The anarchist followed her into a comfortably furnished apartment. An ea
sel filled one corner, music floated on perfumed air, and plants thrived under fiber-optic-supplied sunlight. A far cry from the laboratorylike setting he had envisioned. A man sat gazing at a holo sculpture. He turned, stood, and smiled. “Crowley-Three, isn’t it? I thought so. Your walk gives you away. And who might this be? I don’t remember seeing your line before.”

  Fisk had fancied himself as immune to the effects of celebrity but found himself wanting to address the man as “sir.” Because even though he had been through different experiences, and was therefore mentally and emotionally distinct from the Alpha clone Marcus, the backup looked exactly the same. It took an act of will to remember that this wasn’t the same man, and was in fact little more than a living organ bank, on standby in case Marcus needed a new heart, liver, or kidney.

  This was where things could get tricky. The anarchist had made certain assumptions about the backup’s life experience, about his state of mind, and everything rode on his being right. Fisk-Eight cleared his throat and looked at Crowley. “Get the container we agreed on plus the auto cart. And remember, one word, and your secret will be out.”

  Crowley grew pale, nodded in a jerky manner, and backed out of the room. The backup observed all this with a slightly raised eyebrow and turned to Fisk. “This grows curiouser and curiouser. I have an implant. Tell me why I shouldn’t use it to summon help.”

  Fisk-Eight spread empty hands. Everything depended on what he said. The words were chosen with care. “Because I can offer you the one thing you want most . . . freedom.”