Curse of the Legion

by Marshall S. Thomas

  PRIORITY IR GI OUTVAC STARCOM CLASS1

  The Outworlder Cultural Alliance—I'll be damned. I thought back to that Doctor, what was his name, Kaspar, Len Kaspar. Taking action, at last. I'll be damned. What could I do? I could only pray for them. People had to do what was necessary, for their future, for their children. And what was necessary was never easy. It was always hard to take action—to do what had to be done. It was easy to do nothing.

  I clicked on to the Asumara Front, absently. Asumara appeared before me, a great grey-green planet, heavily clouded, oceans of almost black water glittering in faint sunlight. The holo display showed all our forces, thousands of starcraft circling the planet like silver fireflies, each ship labelled in tiny, burning crimson letters, with codes showing the task forces and the missions and ongoing operations and status boxes for the details—anything I wanted to know, right there before me. Task Force Hammer, Task Force Thor, Task Force Bounty, Task Force Hunter. I always felt better, somehow, watching our assault.

  I zoomed in onto the planet. The mottled green continents were speckled with little red dots—downside Legion and Fleetcom milbases, also labelled, with more status boxes. Every military operation on the planet was right there, Legion attacks and raids and counterattacks and recon missions, air strikes and snatch missions and hunter ops. FCB Delta, FCB Ice, FCB Liberty, Camp Lucille, Camp Stag, Fort Providence, Fort Gala. We were roaming freely over the planet, setting up shop and shattering their military. But it was about time to leave. We had made our point, publicized it throughout the galaxy, and now Asumara could just concentrate on putting out the fires and counting their dead and rebuilding. Maybe, just maybe, they'd think twice before attacking another ConFree world. And it didn't look like we had to worry about the Pegal Stelcom intervening on Asumara's side, despite their ultimatum. It was clear that we were very serious, and the Pegal Stelcom would be crazy to get involved.

  I noted a long list of downside bases that were ceasing operations and evacing topsides. I was glad to see it.

  Asumara flickered, and vanished. What's this? I hadn't done a thing. I reached for the controls, but a soft ping announced an incoming message, and a notice appeared on the master d-screen: STAND BY FOR FLASH. ALL CHANNELS OPEN. A sudden silence settled over my cube. The cubes next to me had gone dead as well. It was a little eerie, with the familiar hum and muted hiss of all our workstations suddenly gone. An allchannels flash! What could it be?

  FLASH FLASH FLASH FLASH ALL CHANNELS OPEN

  CITE STARCOM FLASH 001. TEXT. FLASH COSMIC SECRET ULTRA ALL CHANNELS ALL UNITS. GALACTIC NOVA. WAR WARNING. MAJOR OMNI FLEET MOVEMENTS. OMNI FLEET IS LAUNCHING FROM GASSIES SECTORS 2-4, 5, 7-9, 11-20, 22, 26. NEAR SIMULTANEOUS LAUNCHINGS, OVER 4561 COMBAT LAUNCH WORMHOLES DETECTED AND COUNTING. TARGETS UNKNOWN. THIS IS A FULL STRATEGIC ALERT FOR ALL UNITS. OMNI FLEET APPEARS TO BE LAUNCHING STRATEGIC ATTACK AGAINST UNKNOWN TARGETS. ALL UNITS PREP FOR ATTACK, ALL UNITS LAUNCH, GALACTIC WAR PLAN CRIMSON SHIELD IS NOW IN EFFECT. STAND BY FOR FURTHER INFO.

  The O's! I could only stare at the offending message, stunned. Major fleet movements—war! The wall around my cube dissolved suddenly, revealing the war room in all its awful, vast magnificence. All the stars of the inhabited galaxy burnt a cold milky silver above and around us in an eerie blacklit sky—an awesome panorama. Down in the dark, scores of ranking officers fluttered like moths, the silver piping on their dark uniforms faintly luminous in the violet light, their red and green laser pointer beams slashing up wildly among the stars. Off to one side, past the Outvac and the Gassies, past Katag, Coldmark, Uldo and Mongera, far far away in the deep, unexplored frontier a glowing mass pulsed as thousands of crimson dots flickered like bleeding wounds. Launch signatures—more every instant, peppering the vac. The O fleet was launching, ripping artificial wormholes into the fabric of the cosmos.

  Movement, from the edge. Moontouch's words echoed in my mind. We were going to war with the O's. Humanity was once again on the brink. Abandon all hope, unsheathe your sword, and prepare to die for your people. Absolutely right, Moontouch. Absolutely right. My skin was crawling. Not the O's—not again! How could we survive?

  ###

  Sometime near the end of the first week of the war, they forced a bunch of us into the elevators and back to the surface, under orders to return to our quarters and get eight solid hours of sleep. We had been camping out down there, dropping from exhaustion occasionally and sleeping on the floor in shifts.

  I staggered out the blast doors, blinking up at the stars. It was a soft, cool night, a great hush under a glorious field of stars. The city lights were all out to confound our foes. I had to think real hard just to remember the way back to my quarters. I paused at the Iron Road with several other exhausted analysts. Low stone buildings lined the broad pedestrian avenue. It looked strange all blacked out. I wanted to walk across the boulevard but there was an obstacle. As we watched, a great phalanx of silent runners came charging out of the dark, ten or twelve abreast, filling the avenue, coming right at us. It was almost like some mad vision. I stood there stupidly wondering if I was imagining it, or they were real. Then they were running past us, hundreds of them, young men clad only in shorts and running shoes. Hundreds? No—there were thousands, charging past us without a word, focused only on the run. Women too—young girls, tight halter tops and shorts and running shoes, that's all—charging along with their comrades. Stunned, I could only gaze at the numbers stenciled on their shorts—12/22. My old unit—the 12th Regiment of the 22nd Legion, reconstituted, after annihilation on Uldo. The 12th, with us again.

  The runners were superb examples of Legion youth, lean and hard and tough, not a hint of fat anywhere, hair cut short, long legs flashing over the pavement. Wiry, superbly fit soldiers, ConFree's finest specimens, handsome young men and beautiful young girls, just out of midschool and Providence and Hell, charging into the future, almost naked, armed only with their unshakable will and everything the Legion had taught them. No doubts, no fear, and no retreat.

  Our children, I thought. Our children! Deadman, look at them—they are magnificent. They're all here, Outworlders and Assidics and volunteers from every race in the galaxy. All ready to spill their blood for their people, for their civilization, for the future, for their own children, if it ever came to that. And what will it come to? Will they all die in the war, a sacrifice for the future? And what will be left? Only the shirkers and the weak, as our civilization slowly expires, its best genetic stock wasted in hopeless, mindless wars?

  The runners kept coming. We couldn't make it across the boulevard, we'd be flattened. We just stood there, watching in awe. Some of the runners were chanting as they swept past us.

  "Run! For your comrades!

  Run! For your squad!

  Run! CAT Three-Two!

  Run! Third of the Ship!

  Run! For the Twelfth!

  Run! Two-Two Rimguard!

  Run! For the Legion!

  Victory! Victory! Victory!

  Victory or death!"

  I watched in stupefied exhaustion. These were the people we were sending to war. They'd go anywhere we said, they'd do anything we said. It was our solemn duty to get it right. It was entirely up to us, whether they lived or died. Did I really want this? What the hell was I doing in Galactic Information anyway, hiding underground like a worm? Was that really important? I should be with these kids—fighting for the future.

  Chapter 8

  Entering the Cathedral

  "We're in, Commander. They're blind and deaf—and we're in." The pilot almost whispered it. A thrill ran over my flesh. It was a rainy, black night out the armored plex of the Phantom—completely overcast. And we were invisible. Perfect! We had dropped into the system from the empty reaches of the Outvac, past all their unholy black starships, right into their planetary defensive field. We had listened to it screeching and gibbering in our ears. And we had slipped right in, cloaked in the Legion's miraculous technology. Right into their heart, just like a sil
ver bullet.

  Rain was blasting against the plex like shrapnel. It was all dark out there; I couldn't see a thing. But I didn't have to see. I knew exactly where I was. My tacmap told me everything I had to know. It unfolded the terrain below like a magic carpet, guiding us straight as an arrow to the target.

  I could hardly believe it. It was actually happening. My heart was thumping and a warm glow ran through my veins. Phantom voices whispered in my ear. The right thing to do is never easy, Tara hissed. Abandon all hope, unsheathe your sword, and prepare to die for your people, Moontouch had written, in spidery Taka runes. Correct, I thought, closing my eyes. You're both right. Now it's time to surrender to the Gods, and do the right thing. No matter how hard it is! Just unsheathe your sword, and prepare to die. I felt good, I suddenly realized. Good. Happy. Ecstatic!

  The ship lurched, falling wildly. I was right where I wanted to be. That was Andrion 2 out there, where my Legion adventure had begun. Andrion 2 was the only home I had ever had. And my family was out there, my first family, Moontouch and Stormdawn. My lovely wife, my lovely son. Their images were etched into my skin, and their memories were etched into my heart. They were somewhere out there, in the O's horrific holocaust, and I was going to find them, or die trying. It was a good cause, I thought—it was the right thing to do. And if I perished, it would be for all the right reasons.

  No choice. I had no choice. Nobody has any choice, when the O's drop from the sky. Their sinister mother ships had appeared first in the Andrion system, dropping an irresistible stream of assault craft glowing like fireflies as they burnt their way down to the surface. There were thousands of starships and tens of thousands of vacfighters—we hadn't known they had that many. Then, as Fleetcom hurled itself at the alien fleet in an all-out counterattack, another great Omni fleet appeared in the skies over Dindabai. Again, thousands of brutal black motherships, pitted with the scars of the cosmos, and swarms of mindless, seemingly suicidal fighters and unstoppable assault craft, overwhelming our initial defenses. More fireflies, burning obscene paths right into our hearts. Andrion and Dindabai—they were both on the opposite side of the Outvac from the Crista Cluster, some 700 light years away. But we knew the Crista Cluster was their ultimate target. They hadn't attacked the System, the Pherdan Federation, or any of the other Gassies worlds in the vicinity. They were after ConFree, that was clear. We were the target.

  Fleetcom gave it all they had, countering both attacks. The greatest starfleet clash in history was underway, and it was not at all clear who was going to prevail. All we knew for sure was that before it was all over we were probably going to lose an entire generation of Fleetcom officers and men—snuffed out in righteous combat, willing human sacrifices, throwing themselves into the teeth of the O's merciless assault, before the O's could reach our home worlds, our women and children. There was no way in hell I could hide any longer in the War Room, with all those holy soldiers dying for me, for my women and children, for us all.

  Priestess and Millie had cried like children over the starlink from Veltros, losing it entirely, hugging each other in grief, and the children had howled and sobbed and shrieked, knowing only that Daddy was not coming back. There was nothing I could do at all except tell them, and grit my teeth.

  Those initial weeks were grim. We still appeared to have technical superiority in the vac, but they outnumbered us by a terrifying margin. We weren't getting any help from the rest of humanity. Only ConFree was responding to the Omni's attack. Did the fools think they could hide from the O's? If we went under, they'd be next. Traitors! Fools!

  "That's it! That's your target!" The pilot sounded excited. We were almost floating now, gliding over a wild, tangled forest shrouded in rain, battered by stormy winds. It was a perfect night for a fool like me. Inside the Phantom I was bathed in a crimson glow as I double-checked the tacmap. The coordinates were perfect. A warm thrill ran over my flesh.

  "Stand by for insertion!" We crashed through the forest like a titanic brick, snapping huge branches off trees that had stood undisturbed for centuries.

  The assault door snapped open abruptly. An icy rain and freezing wind whipped into the cabin. It was as dark as the back of my soul out there.

  "Thanks for the lift!" I shouted, and leaped out into the future. Life or death, victory or defeat, it was all the same. We simply did what we had to do—only that. I landed in chest-high undergrowth that writhed in a typhoon of muddy spray whipped up by the Phantom, which was quite invisible.

  "Deadman protect you!" the pilot whispered on the tacnet, his last word as he hit the throttle.

  "Death!" I replied. What the hell else did we worship? Immortal life, and eternal death. I was in comtop and A-vest, clutching an E and wrapped in a Lizzie camfax cloak. With the Lizzie, I was just about as invisible as the Phantom. It was the latest generation of Legion camo, impregnated with millions of tiny active holo 3D cells that autoreflected exactly whatever was behind you—from every angle. Right now I was surrounded by a black, wet forest, and the rain was pattering onto my comtop as I followed the faint red lines glowing on my visor to show me the way.

  Great gusts of wind whipped the rain almost horizontally through the forest. I opened my visor. The rain battered at my face and the wind whistled through my helmet. I fell to my knees, and grasped a handful of dirt and raised it to my face. I pressed it to my nose and mouth. A pungent, earthy, sharp aroma. Never had I tasted anything better. The wet, muddy soil of Andrion 2—my home! I rose to my feet, dropped the soil, and snapped my visor closed. I clicked the safety off my E and set it to auto-x. My tacmod confirmed that the psybloc was active and scanning for Omni psych activity. I had never felt better. I wrapped the camfax cloak tighter around me and set off, into whatever was to be. I was going to find my family, and anyone or anything that tried to stop me was going to die a sudden and extremely violent death. I was as calm as a priest entering a cathedral, and I guess that's what I was doing after all.

  ###

  "Omni target," Sweety reported calmly, "fully armored, armed with Vulcan multistike, safety on, starmass activated, mag shields up, non-directional psyprobes detected. The target does not appear to be aware of your presence. Your psybloc is prepped to respond if probed. Recommend immediate attack with canister and auto-x." I lay flat on my belly behind my E, wrapped in Lizzie camfax, completely invisible to the O or anyone else, as the adrenaline shot through my body. I was inside the twisted maze of the Queen's Underway, a series of pitch-black underground tunnels that led from the seven hills of the city of Stonehall into the trackless forest that surrounded it. It was here, in the Queen's Underway, that I had hoped to make contact with the Taka, and find my family. I knew that the Taka would never surrender to an alien invader, just as they had never surrendered to us, until we showed them that we were on their side after all. And I had no reason to think the O's would ever learn of the existence of these tunnels. This was where Deadeye and his Taka warriors had rushed Moontouch and Stormdawn when those ConFree traitors had dropped on to Andrion 2 to snatch the Star. I had high hopes that I would find the Taka, and Moontouch, and Stormdawn right here, hiding in the Queen's Underway. I had been overjoyed when I had found the hidden entrance in a clump of dato palms strangled in thick vines, right where it was supposed to be. I had used it as an exit, years before, to escape Stonehall, running from ConFree, but now it was my entrance, into that magic road—the path home, to my family. And now—an O! Damn it! They knew about the tunnels! A wave of despair rushed over me.

  Pitch black, yes, but I could see just fine. The darksight on my comtop visor lit it all up for me in a soft green, and the zoom sight on my E brought the O right up close and personal. It was glittering in a pulsing violet force field that enclosed its tall, twisted body and made the creature hard to see. I spotted the hot glow of the starmass at the tip of the Vulcan. Safety on—the bastard was off guard! I had a vague impression of its awful split head and noted the strange concave cenite armor plates over its chest. The long
, almost skeletal arms and legs, the joints in all the wrong places. They were about six times stronger than we humans, and they were psychers of limitless ability. If one of those merciless bloodthirsty nightmares got its mind wrapped around yours, you were instantly helpless, terrified—and dead.

  All those thoughts flashed through my mind as my finger tightened on the trigger of my E. Two billion humans had been sacrificed, as we tried vainly to resist their attack into our universe, into our galaxy. But we had held them off, until we developed the technology to resist them. It was the psyprobes that had made them irresistible at first. It took us a long time to get the psybloc right. We had used the first generation on Mongera, lighting up the skies with psybloc, to counter the psyprobes. Then later, on Uldo, the labrats had integrated the psybloc units into our A-suit helmets, and given us psybloc grenades. The helmet units had been pretty awkward, but now we were set. My comtop had a little Psybloc Mark 3 unit that autoacted in the presence of psyprobes and also attacked the prober with counterpsych that burnt its way into the creature's brain and was so maddening that it could knock an O right off its feet.

  Bless the techs, I thought. Bless them! They give us life! I used to be terrified of the O's but now I felt only hate, for what they had done. We saved them from the Plague. We passed everything we knew about the Plague to them, and they had used it successfully. And now they attack us! Die, you bastard!

  I fired canister and the tunnel echoed with the eerie crackling buzz of the cenite microdarts, cutting through the O's force field like a swarm of evil killer bees. My teeth vibrated in response. The violet haze flickered and faded and Sweety switched to auto x-max. The explosive xtex rounds shrieked like banshees from Hell and then erupted all over the O, riddling its armor as the field pulsed wildly, don't let it trigger the starmass, Deadman, anything but that! I was not in armor, as you can't hide from the O in armor, and my mission was to hide. But one touch of that starmass and I'd disintegrate into a gas.