Curse of the Legion

by Marshall S. Thomas

  "I just got off the shuttle. They told me you'd been badly burnt. I almost fainted." She looked into my eyes. My own angel—the girl from the past, the girl who saved the galaxy—Millie the Mole. We kissed, and the world spun around until I had to pull away, dizzy and weak.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked.

  "Are you kidding? They scooped up every nurse, medic, physician, trainee nurse…everybody. They wanted Priestess too, but you don't have to go if you have young kids and we didn't want Andrea and Lester put into some kiddies' concentration camp. So we decided only one of us would come. We played Strato for you. I won."

  "How did you do that? Priestess is pretty good at Strato."

  "I cheated. Now, what about your wounds? Were you really burned?"

  "Yes. It was bad. The biogro sheaths are off now. I'm recovering. You didn't know about it?"

  "No. We had no idea what had happened to you. Deadman, what a trip! I'm exhausted! The closer we got to Andrion, the more they revealed about how bad it was. So many casualties! I was terrified by the time we arrived. I haven't slept in days. I thought you were surely dead! I prayed to Deadman!" She closed her eyes and squeezed me again. It sure felt good.

  "I'm so glad you're all right," she sobbed.

  "Yeah. Me too."

  "Where were you burnt?"

  "Face, head, neck, arms, hands, legs, feet."

  "Deadman. Well, as long as the important parts are all right I guess I won't complain." She gave me a weak grin.

  "Have you been assigned to Alpha Station?"

  "As far as I know—I haven't checked in yet."

  "How are the kids?"

  "They want their daddy back."

  "And Priestess?"

  "She's fine. Very busy at the bodyshop. The really bad cases are evaced all the way to the Cluster and we get some of them at Providence. She wants to come here more than anything."

  "I wanted to write, but…no starlinks. It'll be that way for the duration." Until we cleanse the galaxy of this latest plague, I thought. Until we kill every last O in the galaxy. Not until then.

  ###

  Moontouch came to me in a rushing wave of memories, a warm silky saltwater wave that struck me gently as I slept and then trickled out to sea, over gritty white sands, leaving my skin tingling in sunlight. "I call out, helpless, in the hands of the Undead," she hissed. "A ladle of cool water, To seal the peace. Our fate unfolds…"

  I awoke suddenly, adrenalized and shaking. Again! She's calling me. She's calling me!

  "Westo? What?" I had awakened Millie, beside me. We had gone to sleep heart to heart, limbs entangled, in her little bunk in her little cube in Nurse's Quarters D. My heart had almost burst with joy, but I knew it was all an illusion. I was wasting time, indulging myself when I should have been working. It's true—the bastards had cut the cross of the Legion right into my heart, but I didn't mind. I really didn't mind. This time it was for me, and Moontouch—not for them.

  A ladle of cool water, To seal the peace. What the hell is the matter with me? I know what that means! Am I getting stupid in my old age? I know what that means! She had written that long before the O's invaded, long before she was a captive of the O's, but that didn't mean a damned thing. How could she know? She couldn't. But how could she know about the O's, before we did? And how could she know about the ladle? She probably hadn't even known what it meant, when she wrote it. Can it be true? Can it? Am I just hallucinating?

  "What is it, Westo?"

  "I think I know where Moontouch is."

  "You do? Where? How?"

  "She told me." Before she was even taken! It was crazy—I was crazy! But I couldn't ignore it!

  I forced my burning legs to the floor. "Millie. You've got to help me."

  "Yes. What? What can I do?"

  "I have to send a message to Tara. It has to go right to her desk and it has to go direct. I can't even get past the doors at Galactic Information here without a release slip from the Body Shop and even if I got in, I'd never be able to send the message direct to Tara."

  "Do you need a release slip?"

  "No. Not that. I can send a message to Tara directly. But I'll need your help."

  ###

  "It was no trouble," Millie said. "Nobody cares if you want to see your stuff." We were six levels below the Body Shop, in a semi-darkened corridor, facing a door marked PROPERTY. "Here we are." She inserted a plastic card into the lock and the door clicked open. We stepped in, and the lights slowly came on. It was a great warehouse, lined with rows of open storage containers. It was dusty and quiet.

  "We want Row 41," Millie said. We set off down the aisles. She was in nurses white. I was in black fatigues, struggling with my cane. The legs were slowly improving but they still hurt.

  "All right—Row 41. Look for your serial number. I don't think anything will be touched. There wasn't any time."

  "There it is!" I said. "34673002, that's me." My A-vest and comtop and psybloc and E and boots and all the other equipment had been tossed into the storage bin carelessly, just as it was when they ripped it off me in the emergency room. The A-vest was burnt black—parts of the comtop were melted. My E was indestructible. The damned things would outlast their creators. I pulled the comtop out of the pile. The visor had already been torn off.

  "Is it there?" Millie asked. "It should be. They were concerned with you, not your equipment."

  My fingers found the device, nestled into the lining of the comtop. I forced the lining aside, found the catches and snapped it out.

  "That's it," I said. It was a little metallic device that fit neatly into the palm of my hand. "It's a Q-link. I can activate it with Sweety and that's my commo—Cosmic Secret and direct to Tara."

  "Is she going to believe whatever Moontouch told you?"

  "I'm not going to tell her that. I'm just going to tell her—where to look."

  ###

  "Any reply from Tara yet?" Millie asked me. We were in the Body Shop cafeteria, having breakfast at a little plex table. It was fairly crowded, but the noise level was low. I was really enjoying myself, savoring the spicy scent of the smokies, sipping at the dox and almost floating away, it was that good. I knew life was short, too damned short, and figured I might as well enjoy what I could while I could.

  "Not yet," I replied, glancing at the Q-link on the table beside us. Millie was in her nurses whites. She looked like an angel to me. I thanked God every time I laid my eyes on her. Somebody was watching over me, that was for sure.

  "What exactly did you tell her?"

  "I sent her a text message, which is all you can send with this thing. But it's a quantum link so it's instantaneous. Here—this is what I sent." I handed a crumpled printout over to Millie.

  "Tara," Millie read it aloud. "Urgent Fleetcom recon sector Gildron's world. Strongly suspect Omni presence. Pls advise results soon as poss. If results positive pls also provide official desig & starcords. Wester."

  "What does it mean?" Millie asked, handing the message back to me.

  "You never knew Gildron," I said. "He was…from another world. Not quite human. He was a powerful telepath. He was Tara's bodyguard, for quite awhile, and later…they married. He had been abducted from his home world in a slaver raid, and Tara bought him from the slavers. He was from an unknown race. Nobody had ever seen anything like him, and even Gildron didn't know the location of his home world. Nobody knew except the slavers who had originally grabbed him, and they were long gone." I took another sip of dox. Gildron—I missed him. I really missed him.

  "Gildron accompanied us on a rather hazardous mission that involved contact with the O's," I continued. "Well, to make a very long story very short, he communicated with the O's—telepathically—and they told him where his home world was. He was planning on returning there when he…when he sacrificed himself. For us." The cafeteria faded away. Gildron. What a heroic figure. I thought him an ape when I first met him. But I was the ape—not him. He was more like a God.

  "
Before he…left us, he told Tara where his world was. I remember that much. But I don't remember where it was, or even the name. It would be way out there in the Nulls, probably. Some place we've never been. Some place that is not even mapped."

  "But why do you think the O's are there? You think Moontouch is there, right?"

  "When Gildron was telling us about his contact with the O's, he said the O's knew his world and his people. That's why they greeted him as a friend. He told us how the O's described their first landing on his world. They were prepared to blast it to ashes, as they had met only hostility from the native creatures of our galaxy. But when they landed, heavily armored and glowing with mag shields and prepped to fire their Vulcans, one of the natives approached them—with a ladle of cool water. He offered it to them. They drank it, and from that day to this there was peace between the O's and Gildron's people."

  Millie was waiting—still puzzled. "Don't you see?" I asked. "It's what Moontouch said in her warning to me—before the war with the O's, long before she was ever taken prisoner. 'Dirges, in the dark, to the holy dead. The Gods laugh. You abandon us, again. I call out, helpless, in the hands of the Undead. A ladle of cool water, to seal the peace. Our fate unfolds…' That's what she said. A ladle of cool water, to seal the peace. What else could it be? They've been there before! They know the place! I know from Deadeye's info and from Fleetcom records that shuttle could only have been bound for one of three Omni starships in orbit around Andrion 2 at that time. One was destroyed within the hour. The other two escaped—and we don't know where they went. But I have the Legion ID number for both those O ships. If we find either ship calling at Gildron's world, that's where we'll find Moontouch. I'm certain of it! And it's so far out in the Nulls, nobody is going to look there without a damned good reason."

  "You haven't given her any reason."

  "She trusts me. She'll do it. Fleetcom will target that sector and investigate. If there was any recent starship activity anywhere nearby, they'll discover it."

  "How could Moontouch know this?"

  "She reads the future like I read a d-screen. She's done it before. It's bloody miraculous. I don't know how she does it, but I know she does it."

  ###

  "How do the legs feel now?" Millie asked me. I was glistening in biogel, soaking up the sun by the bodyshop swimming pool, lying almost flat on my back on an airlounge with dark sunglasses protecting my eyes. It was a bright, glorious day, and the pool was surrounded by wounded soldiers lying in the sunlight and pondering their survival.

  "Well, they don't sting any more. Now they itch."

  "That's progress, right?" Millie was in white, taking a brief break from her duties, leaning on the little table, her gaze wandering over my body.

  "Yeah. I'm almost outta here. One more deep soak with the biomim, and they say I'll be released. I can tell you I'm sick of this place."

  "Don't forget I'm…" the Q-link lit up and buzzed. I stared at it stupidly. It had been over a week since I had contacted Tara. Millie seized it, and I grabbed my tacmod.

  "Sweety," I said. "Activate the Q-link!" I grabbed the device from Millie. The message slowly scrolled along the tiny d-screen: BINGO! FLEETCOM DESIGNATION U53955. SEE YOU SOON. TARA.

  "Bingo! It means the O are at Gildron's world. Deadman!" I exclaimed.

  "She hasn't given you a starcord."

  "Yes, she has. Fleetcom has given the place an official designation, it's probably brand new. It will be on the starcharts now; with the designation we can find the starcords instantly."

  "How come she hasn't told you anything? Is that all she has to say? What does she mean, see you soon?"

  "I think she means she'll see me soon. I'm not usually anxious to see her, but this time I am. I've got to find out what Fleetcom discovered. She might be there. If the O's are there, Moontouch might be there." Adrenaline, flooding my system.

  A sharp electronic yelp peeped urgently. Millie leaped up. "Emergency room alert," she gasped. "Got to go!" She ran off in a hurry.

  Bingo, I thought. That sounded ominous. There was a massive galactic-wide search on for the bulk of the Omni fleet. We knew they needed worlds to live on, just like we did. They had seized plenty of Systie worlds in the past, but didn't seem to be concentrating their forces around any one system. It was almost as if the planets they had seized were of little use to them once they exploited the native populations. Mongera, for example, was the closest world to the Outvac that was still occupied by the O. I knew it was probably going to be the first place we attacked, in the wake of the Omni retreat from Andrion and Dindabai. Mongera was in the Gassies—I had fought the O's there, and the Systies, as a green trooper. My closest comrades perished there, people I would never forget, Coolhand and Ironman and Warhound and Boudicca and Sassin. So much blood, so much sacrifice. And yet it now appeared that the O were pulling out of Mongera as well. Strange. Well, what the hell did I know? I just carried an E. Let Tara figure it out. All I wanted to know was where Moontouch was. And, once I knew that, nobody had better stand in my way. The holy dead—right! There were going to be a lot more of them by the time I was through!

  Chapter 15

  Advice from the Enemy

  "Commander Thinker? Do we have a Commander Thinker here?" A harried-looking young female Legion troopie was looking over the disorderly gang of officers who had crowded into the little ante-room, competing for her attention. All of Andrion Station was being over-run. It seemed like half of the ConFree Legion had dropped onto Andrion 2, prepping for the offensive, and if you wanted to see anybody important you had to wait in line.

  "That's me," I responded, pushing my way to the front. I was clad in formal blacks.

  "Front and center—Commander Thinker? All right, go on in." She triggered the door open and I stepped in to the inner sanctum. Tara stood behind a large conference desk, raising her slim arms over a huge pile of plastic files, as if in supreme frustration, then abruptly freezing as I approached. The door slid shut behind me. It was a large office, atop Alpha Station, affording a panoramic view of the base.

  "Wester! You look terrific." She was in her blacks, and she looked terrific too. "I heard you were badly burned. You don't look it." She lowered her arms.

  "I was pretty badly fried but they fixed me up. Hello, Tara." She came out from behind the desk and took my hand, leading me over to a lounge by the armored plex window. From the view, it was clear how badly the base had been damaged. Much of the exterior was burnt black and blown to shreds. Alpha Station was now surrounded by thousands of camfaxed portable storage units, aircar bays, interlocking warehouse mods, field command centers, armories, field galleys, portabarracks and endless rows of squadmods. Legion soldiers scurried between the structures like ants as aircars shot past overhead. The new city had arisen almost overnight and spread all the way into the surrounding forests. I guess it was pretty impressive. The Legion could move damned quickly when necessary. Tara was examining me closely.

  "Are you all right, Wester?" she asked as we settled into the lounge.

  "I'm fully recovered, Tara. Why are you staring at me like that?"

  "It's just…I'm so glad to see you." Now she had both hands clutching one of mine.

  "Really?" It sure wasn't like her.

  "Really. I know, you think I'm a biogen. I'm human, Wester. I get more human the older I get."

  "Yeah, me too."

  "Ever kiss a general?"

  "What?" This wasn't the Tara I knew. Was she having a nervous breakdown? She laughed, a sudden flash of white teeth, her lovely auburn hair swirling over her shoulders. "Relax, Wester, I'm not going to attack you!" She released my hand with another dazzling smile. "It's just that I am…ecstatic…to see you. And I'd like to thank you, personally."

  "For what?"

  "Are you kidding? For that Omni you delivered to me! He had everything but a red ribbon around his neck! And for Mantis. For what? How can you ask?"

  "What's Mantis?"

  "Mantis is w
hat we've named Gildron's world. Good lord, Wester, do you have the faintest idea what you've done?"

  "I guess not."

  "Well…I hardly know where to start. That live O. Deadman, we now have the entire genome sequence, the biotic field, the brain aura, the psycells—everything! They don't have any more secrets from us. There are a growing number of ways we can kill them. They're not a threat any more, Wester. Because of that one O. Because of you!"

  "Thank the Taka. I didn't capture it, they did."

  "Oh, we will thank them, Wester, you can bet on it. But you gave him to us—you made it happen. The situation is now reversed, Wester. We don't have to fear them any more. We're already developing the biobloc for Omni targets."

  "Good. Let's kill them all and rid the galaxy of them forever. Now tell me about…what is it? Mantis. What did you mean, 'bingo'?"

  She looked at me calmly, smiling like a saint. "We found it, Wester. At Mantis. The hive. Their galactic headquarters. The whole fleet! There are tens of thousands of Omni starships orbiting Mantis, Wester. The O's are swarming over the planet. They have settlements downside—lots of them. We're frantically examining the data. Critic Cosmic Secret, Wester. Not a word to anyone! This is it. We're not going after Mongera, that's the deception op. It will be Mantis—our one big chance to exterminate this plague. This will be the battle for the galaxy. This will be the final battle—final victory, or final defeat, for humanity. We're going to be victorious, Wester! I've never been more confident. How did you do it, Wester? I thanked Deadman, on my knees, when I fully realized what you had done, I swear it. How did you do it? You're truly amazing. You're admitted to the Body Shop with serious burns, and then you send me a message telling me where the O's main force is located. We've been searching for that site for years!"

  "It wasn't me." My heart was hammering. I wasn't sure whether Tara's news was good or bad, for my mission. I guessed it couldn't hurt to go for broke. I didn't give a damn for the final battle. All I wanted was Moontouch.