"Opstars!" Redhawk exclaimed. They glowed on the screens. I craned my neck to see behind us. There, a line of pale glowing fireballs rising into the sky. Lightning lanced down all around them.
"Is that us or the O's?"
"Looks like Legion stars to me."
The rain was letting up. Something rattled past us, a black blur. Then a river of cold black molten mercury glittered under us, catching the light from a sky full of psybloc, multicolored sparklers falling slowly down into the dark. We followed the river like a great cenite bat, the wind whistling eerily past our armored plex, and it looked as cold as death down there, a river of black ice lethargically flowing out of some frozen wasteland, some arctic Hell. Bleak hills rose on each side of the river.
"Sir?" My eyes snapped down to my comset readout: B13, on private to me.
"Yes, Thirteen?" It was the new girl—what was her name? Twister. Who else would call me 'sir'? She was sitting right next to me, I suddenly realized, clutching her E.
"I'm scared," she said. Just that. She turned her head to me and I saw her pale frightened face behind her visor. Soft brown eyes, freckles all over her nose and cheeks. She was like a big, awkward colt, barely out of puberty. What in Deadman's name was she doing here? They hadn't even sent her to Hell.
"Good," I said. "That's normal. If you weren't scared, you'd be crazy. You're supposed to be scared. We're all scared. Don't worry."
"Valkyrie's not scared," she said shakily.
"Valkyrie's crazy," I replied. "She's been through a lot. She's got an excuse."
"Psycho's not s-s-scared," she said.
"Psycho's also crazy," I said. "Certifiably insane. He's different."
"How about One," she asked. "He's not scared, is he?"
"One is our leader," I said. "He's got ice water in his veins. He's different, too. But the rest of us are all terrified—so don't feel like you're alone, all right?"
"But I'm so s-scared my teeth are ch-ch-chattering. And we…we're not even in combat." I looked into her faceplate. Her face was twitching, cold sweat on her brow.
"Try to relax, Twister," I said. "Take some deep breaths. Maybe you should take a mag."
"Can I hold your hand? Please?"
I took her hand in mine, wordlessly. Cenite fingers, intertwined. It did seem to work. Her face stopped twitching. She closed her eyes and bit at her lower lip. And we kept going, rushing into the dark, now deep in O territory, right in the death zone, and things were coming at us from out of nowhere and flashing past, gone. Black mountains wheeled past to one side and we were still over that river of ink. The O's were up ahead somewhere, waiting to kill us, and I was holding hands with Beta Thirteen. Well, it wasn't the Legion I knew, but I had to admit it did feel good. I felt better already.
"Hot metal! They'll never spot us under this sky!" It was a deceptor sky, glittering and flickering, black clouds with silver edges, strange lights flashing and fading and the screens solid green, full of junk. Something ricocheted off our aircar.
"That was a deceptor!" Redhawk shouted happily. "There's so much crap falling down, we're running into it! We're free, guys—free!"
Gildron snarled, and it put a chill to my blood. He was a massive A-suit in the back of the car, sitting next to Tara. Psycho snarled back at him and made ape noises.
"Shut down, Psycho," Valkyrie snapped.
"I'll shut down if you come back here and sit on my, uh, lap, honeybuns," Psycho retorted cheerily.
"Psycho, if you don't get with the program I'm going to take your Manlink away and give it to Dragon," Valkyrie said. "That's a promise!"
"Good idea," Dragon said.
"Can she do that, One?" Psycho asked. The Manlink was his only love. It was Beta's Mother of Destruction, totally evil and totally holy.
"Shut down, Five," Snow Leopard said. Psycho sighed and shut down.
The car shuddered. Twister settled down and I carefully removed my hand. I did not want Priestess getting the wrong idea. I caught a glimpse of jagged black mountains far above us, outlined by flickering blue lightning. We continued, into that awful night. I felt we were rushing onward to our own extinction.
"Talk to me, Priestess," I said on private.
"What is it, Thinker?" she answered. "How are you doing?"
"How am I doing?" I stifled a laugh. "I guess I was wishing I was somewhere else. With you."
"Do you know what I want, Thinker?"
"No. What do you want?"
"I want to be your wife, forever. For all time. As long as we both shall live."
"Sounds good to me. Although I'd worry about that last part."
"Promise me, Thinker. You and me. Forever. Swear it, on Deadman."
"Priestess and Thinker. A billion years. On the cross!"
"And if we die, we seek each other out, in Heaven."
"I promise, Priestess. Forever."
"Cross your heart and hope to die?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die."
###
"Decar!" Ice cold adrenalin. The aircar's assault doors snapped open, a cold wind rushed in from outside, and Beta One stood right in the door like a dark angel from some Legion Hell, all black armor and glowing red faceplate, his E strapped to his chest.
"Follow me, Beta," he commanded. "It's all for one, and one for all. Death!" And he was gone, into the dark.
"Death!" We hissed the response and tumbled out the door, following our One all the way, to life or death, to Heaven or Hell. Whatever road he chose, we'd be right in his footsteps, and if anything got in our way, it was going to die very quickly.
"I want to pick up twelve troopers when you call for evac, gang," Redhawk called out. "Don't disappoint me."
"Keep it in the red, Redhawk," I responded. "Fast and low!" And the aircar was gone in a blizzard of dead leaves.
We were in a cold dark forest full of great ferns growing around twisted black trees draped with strangler vines like thick brown snakes. A light rain fell from the tangled roof of the forest. We saw it all in darksight green. I crashed through undergrowth, trying to keep Dragon in sight—he was right up ahead. It was a winter forest, rising up all around us. We headed into a ravine, sliding down wet dirty slopes into the cold heart of this nightmare world. We had to put distance between us and the aircar as fast as possible. All for one, I thought, and one for all. I had never heard that before—but Snow Leopard was perfectly correct. What better words to describe a Legion squad?
"It's a walk in the park, Twister," I said. "A walk in the park!" It wasn't really me speaking. It was Coolhand. He was with me; he was in me. I knew I had to take his role—somebody sure did. Snow Leopard was too far gone now—he was losing his patience. And Valkyrie wanted only blood.
"Tenners, Sir," Twister replied. "I'm all right."
"Death!" Speedy muttered. "I don't believe he said that. Is he serious? Is that where we're going?"
"It's for luck, new meat," Psycho told him. "Listen and learn!"
"It's a holy place," Valkyrie added. "You'll see—we'll show you! I told you, stop worrying!" Out of her mind. Completely gone. But I had no time to think about it. I was too busy tearing through the ferns, sliding down cliffs of mud and roots and vines, splashing through an icy fast-running stream, eyes on my tacmod. If the O's had tracked the aircar, they'd know where to look for us. And the only solution to that was to move out as fast as possible.
Four hours later, we slowed down but we were still sloshing through dark wet jungle, eleven soldiers, single file, following our One into the unknown. It was raining lightly and from time to time dim lights flickered in the dark sky past the forest canopy. Otherwise it was like a green cathedral, tall trees glowing green-black in our darksight, wreathed in mist. Some of the trees were all white, phospho white, like ghosts. It was cold and wet and miserable. We were following a little stream through a steep ravine.
"Squad halt. Break." I moved away from the stream into the jungle and collapsed in a mass of ferns. I was tired already. Icy r
ain streamed down my faceplate.
"Wester, it's Tara." She was on private, I noticed. Tara always called me Wester. She had named me herself, in our own impossible past.
"Yes, Tara."
"You've been with this bunch a long time, haven't you?"
"That's a ten."
"This Beta Eleven person—Valkyrie—what is her problem?"
"That's not easy to answer, Tara. She's been through a lot."
"So have I. But I'm still coherent and rational."
"All right, she's a little strange. What do you want me to say?"
"Why is she your Number Two?"
"You'd better ask Beta One. It wasn't my choice."
"Are we supposed to trust her, when things get hot? I've done a little probing—it's frightening!"
"Tara—I don't quite know how to say this, but I think she is just what we need, for where we're going."
"Are you serious?"
"I'm afraid so."
"You've changed a lot, Wester. You really have."
"Yes—I suppose I have."
"Three, One." I cut the link with Tara immediately. It was Snow Leopard, on private to me. Now what?
"Yes, One?"
"Give me a readout of your tacnet power reserve."
Sweety came through with the data. I asked her to repeat it before I relayed it to Snow Leopard.
"It's in the red, One. Twenty-four percent."
"Thank you, Three. One out."
Twenty-four percent. What the hell! It should have read a hundred. I knew I checked it before we left. That was strange—very strange.
"Sweety," I asked. "What happened to the tacnet power reserve?"
My Persist responded immediately. "The power charge has dissipated itself, Thinker. It was at full power at last reading."
"I know that, Sweety. But why has it done that? It's not supposed to do that. We've expended no power. The damned things are supposed to last for years! Why didn't you tell me when it was getting low?"
"The charge status indicator failed to register the true status of the charge until I investigated, Thinker. I have insufficient data to resolve the problem. It is possible that the power pack is defective."
Defective? I had never heard of a defective power pack. Strange.
"Let's get moving, guys." It was Snow Leopard. We were off again.
###
"Looks quiet, gang." Snow Leopard lowered the spotters but kept contemplating the valley. The night sky was covered with undulating black clouds, flickering now and then with eerie silver lights. A distant thunder sounded, rumbling over the skies. We were peering out of the edge of the forest, perched on a sheer cliff overlooking the valley. We could barely make out a thin silver stream, meandering along the bottom of the valley. The rest of the valley was unreadable in our darksight—a great dark shifting gash in the mountains. The sky was full of deceptors, and it made everything hard to read.
"That's our river, right, One?" I asked.
"That's a ten. We'll walk it and catch some sleep and by then it will be daylight. We'll walk it all day, and should be in position to make our break tomorrow night."
"Sounds good to me," Dragon said. "I'm ready to crash." We had been walking for close to seven hours. Every muscle in my body ached.
"There it goes again, One!" Merlin exclaimed.
"Possible DefCorps presence," Sweety reported, "as marked. Very faint, masked by deceptors. Identification is tentative."
Snow Leopard scrambled over to where Merlin was scanning the valley. He raised the spotter again. They were looking back up the valley behind us. There was something there, roughly southeast. The valley ran to the northwest and that was where we were going. Snow Leopard and Merlin kept scanning the valley.
"Nothing but chaff."
"That was a Systie A-suit. That was a reasonably good reading."
"Just like before—more or less."
"Systie armor. Damn it!"
The sky flickered and flashed. More deceptors. The glare outlined Snow Leopard and Merlin clearly, cenite robots wrapped in camfax, caught in a frozen hail of rain suddenly filling the sky.
"What would Systies be doing out here?" Valkyrie asked.
"I'm damned if I know," Snow Leopard replied. "We're far in Omni territory, and there's nothing here anyone could want."
"Could it be a Systie offensive?" Dragon asked.
"Here? No. The offensive is off to the east—not here."
"Well, at least we know the deceptors are working."
"That's something."
"All right," Snow Leopard said. "We continue the mission. Let's get down into the valley."
###
"Cover me," Snow Leopard said calmly. "I'm going in." We were on one bank of the river, crawling around twisted drowned trees and great rounded boulders all covered with green slime. Snow Leopard was a glowing green lightman in my darksight, moving cautiously toward the river. It had been a long night. I was exhausted. Merlin was right next to me, I noted, his E up. Sweety was quiet. It did not appear there was anyone there except us. The whole squad was spread out behind us, but they were virtually invisible.
Snow Leopard waded into the river, his E up and ready to fire. Further, wading right in until the water covered his head. The opposite bank was quiet, a black forest rising up, covering rugged hills.
I went on private to Merlin. "Four, Three. Did Snow Leopard ask you about your tacnet power reserve?"
"Tenners, Thinker. He sure did."
"And?"
"It was down to less than twenty-five percent."
"You too! So what's the story?"
"Everybody's is down. Everybody in the squad."
"Deadman! How could it happen?"
"Well, that's a good question, Thinker. One I've been thinking about quite a bit."
"Does it mean we can't contact Recon Control?"
"It means we can't contact them securely. And if we contact them insecurely, we die."
"Come on in," Snow Leopard called out, "the water's fine!"
"Cover me," Valkyrie said. She was next.
"How do you think it happened, Merlin?"
"I think it happened in the armor shop. They did the routine checks on all of us, and passed every A-suit."
"How could they screw up that bad?"
"I don't think it was a screw-up. Let's go."
We plodded across black sands and splashed into a cold, fast-running river. I walked in until I was fully under and the surface was a pale phosphorescent mass, rippling over my head. At first it was so dark it was like walking in ink, but as my darksight adjusted to the underwater world I saw the water was full of faintly sparkling silt, floating eerily past us. We walked against the current on a bed of rounded pebbles, through great fields of pale filmy weeds. I could vaguely see Eleven up ahead, but the tacmap was trash—complete trash. A massive, sunken tree appeared to one side, twisted limbs reaching out to me like a childhood nightmare. The darksight gave everything a faintly green tinge—a river of midnight green.
"This is great," Merlin said. "The mineral content is so heavy it's like walking through a deceptor field. Nobody's going to find us in here!"
"It's good news, Four," Snow Leopard replied. "Let's start walking. I want to put some distance between us and the insertion point. Then we'll break for the night."
A school of phospho white fish darted past us. Liquid sheets of faintly glowing light flowed gently past. Another tangle of black sunken trees, a series of great boulders, then free-floating masses of luminous green algae sliding off my armor. We walked against a strong current and had to lean into it to make progress.
"This is really wild!" Psycho exclaimed in delight. "Merlin, bet you can't spear one of those fish with your hot knife!"
"Save your energy," Snow Leopard said. "We've got a lot of walking to do."
###
I came out from the kitchen, cold as ice, the E extended before me. They were in the family room. The lady was sitting on a sofa with a cup
of hot tea, watching the wall screen. The two little red-haired kids were playing with holo toys on the carpet. Domestic bliss—but I'd put an end to that. I was there to finish the job.
"Mrs. Biergart?" I inquired. Startled, she almost dropped her tea, and turned in her seat to face me—a heavy, older mortal lady with reddish hair and splotchy skin. The E was at my shoulder and the laser sight was right on her forehead. The teacup went then—she paled and her mouth opened. I fired, and her head exploded like a ripe melon, splattering blood and brains and bone all over the room. The children screamed and scrambled up from the floor as I shot the first one right in the chest. It knocked him against a wall smeared with his own gore. The second child cowered in a corner, pale and shaken, twitching with terror, splattered with his brother's blood. Pale blue eyes, I thought, just like his father. Staring at me! I shot him through the forehead.
I awoke screaming, terrified, and was overcome with a blind panic when I saw only darkness. Then my faceplate lit up with data and I remembered I was at the bottom of the river.
"What is it? Answer!"
"Deto! What?"
"It's Thinker—Thinker, answer!"
"Nothing! Nothing! It's nothing," I said groggily. "I'm sorry—it was a nightmare."
"Aw, scut!"
"You nearly gave me a heart attack!"
"All right, settle down!"
"Hey, can a guy get some sleep around here?"
"Blackout—now!"
My heart was thumping and I was covered in cold sweat. The current gently washed over my armor. Black weeds moved all around me. We were all flaked out on the bottom of the river hidden in a massive tangle of dead rotting trees and mud and seaweed. Sleeping, at last, renewing ourselves for the coming day's march up the river. The nightmares were getting worse, I thought. I couldn't even sleep any more.
"Thinker—it's Priestess." She was on private. "Was it Biergart again?"
"Yeah," I confessed. "I shot his wife and kids. It was…terrible."
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