Legion of the Damned

by William C. Dietz

  The seal around his visor broke. Air rushed by his face. Tears were torn from the comers of his eyes. The clouds vanished and a wasteland appeared below him, blurred by the tears but identifiable nonetheless.

  Good ... that corresponded with what was supposed to be down there ... and meant that the mission was still intact.

  The Hudathan checked his readouts, confirmed the fact that he was still high enough to appear on radar, and scanned for his team. Each was equipped with a low-powered locator beacon, and assuming everything was all right, would appear on his mind-screen.

  He looked and looked again. One ... two ... three ... four ... Where was number five? The worthless piece of dat feces had disappeared. It figured. Marla-Sa had always been jealous of him and would do anything to ruin his chances.

  “STAND BY TO RELEASE MAIN CHUTE ... FIVE, FOUR, THREE ...”

  Hysook-Da waited for “ONE,” sent the appropriate signal, and felt the fabric spill from its pack.

  The chute opened with a powerful jerk, the world stabilized around him, and a sense of relief flooded his mind. He had survived, up to this point anyway, and stood a good chance of making it to the ground.

  It seemed like only seconds had passed when the boulder-strewn ground rushed up to greet him, smacked the bottom of his boots, and sent a shock through his legs. He rolled, recovered, and pushed himself away from the frost-glazed dirt. He was alive!

  There was very little wind. The chute collapsed around the Hudathan and draped itself over some nearby boulders. Hysook-Da reeled the fabric in, gathered it together, and shoved the bundle under some rocks.

  The team maintained strict radio silence while they homed in on their leader’s beacon and gathered around him.

  Hysook-Da checked to make sure they were uninjured, swore when he heard that Marla-Sa’s pod had failed to separate, and used a carefully placed micro-sat to verify his position. The results confirmed what his eyes had already told him.

  It would take the better part of a Hudathan day to reach the hills, and who knew how many more to find the indigents and buy their loyalty. A difficult task, but not impossible, given the fact that the Naa had reason to hate the humans and were fighting against them.

  Confidence filled the Hudathan’s mind. The day would come when Hudathan children would study his exploits in school. He would help by making sure that the Naa granted him some sort of dramatic name. “The Warrior Ghost of Algeron” would be nice, or something very similar. He’d give it some thought during the march.

  There wasn’t a lot of cover but the Hudathans were well trained and used what there was. The team maintained patrol formation, kept their sensors tuned to maximum sensitivity, and paid close attention to their surroundings. Their heads swiveled right and left, their breath fogged the air, and their feet made prints in the frosty soil.

  Some distance away, small almost invisible animals scurried in front of them, sun glinted off a visor, and light speared distant eyes, eyes that had been turned to the south when the team landed. They blinked, brought the Legion-issue glasses back a hair, and narrowed. Someone was coming. Not Naa, not human, but similar in appearance.

  The warrior zoomed in, recorded twelve carefully selected images, and tucked the device into his pack. Then, having checked to make sure the dots were still coming his way, the warrior lowered himself to the ground and started to run. It was a graceful lope that ate distance and conserved energy.

  It looked as if trouble was on the way and Surekill would want to know.

  13

  Lastly, the great uncertainty of all data in War is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which ... like the effect of a fog or moonshine—gives to things exaggerated dimensions and an unnatural appearance.

  Carl von Clausewitz

  On War

  Standard year 1832

  Planet Earth, the Human Empire

  The Emperor stood with his back to the room. A tiny insect buzzed around his head. Sunlight streamed in through the high arched window and threw his shadow across the floor.

  Admiral Scolari stood just beyond it, her heart beating like a drum. This was the moment that she’d been waiting for, when the Emperor made his decision and the tide turned her way. Like his mother before him, the Emperor had done a masterful job of playing each branch of the military off against all the rest, preventing any of them from growing too strong.

  After all, why grant the Legion their own planet, if not to balance the influence of the Navy and Marine Corps?

  But the Hudatha threatened the entire empire, and in order to counter that threat the Emperor would have to place all of his forces under a single command or risk the possibility of defeat. There was no substitute for a single vision, a single strategy, and a single leader.

  And there was little doubt that she should be that leader, since it was the Navy that tied the empire together and would bear the brunt of any attack—an attack she’d meet with the largest fleet ever assembled. Then, by dealing the enemy a single decisive blow, she’d join the short list of military leaders who through a single engagement had changed the course of history.

  And then? Well, who knew? But it would be stupid to let all that power go. Besides, there was the Consortium of Inner Planets to consider. They had sponsored her and would expect a say. Would they decide to leave the Emperor in place? It seemed unlikely at best. The Emperor interrupted her thoughts.

  “My decision is made.”

  “Yes, Highness.”

  “All of my forces will withdraw to the inner planets and prepare to defend them.”

  “Including the Legion, Highness?”

  The Emperor spun on his heel. Sunbeams rayed around him. His voice was hard and unyielding. “I said all of my forces, did I not?”

  Scolari bowed her head. “Yes, Highness. Sorry, Highness.”

  The Emperor waved the apology away. The copies argued in his head. Some favored his decision while others opposed it. Damn them anyway, eternally squabbling, making his life miserable.

  “There’s no need to apologize. You have your orders. Carry them out.”

  Scolari bowed low. “Yes, Highness. Immediately, Highness.”

  The Emperor nodded and turned his back. Scolari did an about-face and her cloak swirled around her as she headed for the door. An insect was perched on her left shoulder but it was far too light for the admiral to notice.

  A pair of Trooper Ils stood guard as General Marianne Mosby closed the front door to what had been her house and hurried down the walkway. It was dark and the streetlamps threw circles onto the street.

  The hover limo was long, black, and heavily armed. The engine hummed, the vehicle floated just off the pavement, and a blast of fan-driven air hit her ankles.

  A door opened and she slid inside. The interior smelled of leather and expensive cologne. The cologne belonged to her XO, a handsome colonel named Jennings. Light came from the ceiling and left half of his face dark. He smiled sardonically.

  “The general travels light.”

  Mosby smiled in return. “That’s one of the many advantages of a career in the military. Uniforms can be obtained almost anywhere.”

  Jennings chuckled and turned towards the driver. “Subport seventeen and step on it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The officers were pushed backwards as the limo accelerated away from the curb. Jennings looked out through the window, saw the main gate flash by, and watched for signs of pursuit. There were none. He turned to Mosby.

  “So far, so good.”

  Mosby nodded. “If mutiny can be described as ‘good.’ There’s no possibility of error?”

  Jennings shook his head. “None. Madam Dasser’s people managed to get a microbot in through the Emperor’s security. He gave the orders himself.”

  Mosby felt an emptiness settle where the bottom of her stomach should have been. She’d been confident of her ability to seduce the Emperor, to turn his opinions arou
nd, to guide him to the right direction. But she’d failed, and because of that, the entire Legion was in danger. Scolari would be more than happy to throw their lives away in battle, or failing that, to disband the Legion altogether and merge its personnel with the Marine Corps.

  Mosby scratched the expensive leather with her fingernails. No! It mustn’t happen! The preparations had been put in place some time ago and the orders had gone out. Sixty-four percent of the Legion’s personnel on Earth were about to take part in what would look like an elaborate war game but was actually a mass escape. An escape that would free them to fight the Hudatha on the rim worlds, where victory could still be won and lives could still be saved.

  Mosby felt bad about those left behind, but knew there was nothing she could do, since a larger force would almost certainly raise suspicions. Once free of Earth’s gravity well, she’d give orders to head for Algeron and worry about the consequences later.

  The driver merged with traffic on the Imperial Expressway, changed to the VIP lane, and activated the strobes mounted behind the limo’s grille. Other vehicles, those driven by Imperial bureaucrats and the like, hurried to get out of the way.

  The limo accelerated, followed the freeway through the center of an office complex, then down between government buildings and out towards the suburbs beyond.

  Lights sparkled for as far as the eye could see. They glittered white, blue, and amber, like semiprecious stones thrown on black velvet, lighting the way for citizens only barely aware of the danger they were in. For the empire’s losses had been systematically understated until now, a strategy that had given the Emperor some additional time, but wasted most of it as well.

  A suspicion entered Mosby’s mind and was followed by the conviction that it was true. The Emperor had used her, grown tired of her, and tossed her away! Stalling all the while.

  The shame of it brought blood to her face and she turned towards the window. Damn the man! His mind had been made up from the start.

  It took the better part of fifteen minutes to reach the outskirts of the metroplex and exit towards subport 17. Though fairly sizable, the spaceport was only one of thirty that ringed the Imperial City and handled the tremendous amount of traffic it generated.

  Mosby watched as repellers flared and a large transport, outlined by its navigation lights, moved off the apron and onto a launch zone. She hoped it was one of hers, packed with legionnaires, only seconds from relative safety.

  The limo turned, threw her against the door, and accelerated up a side street. Warehouses stood side by side on the left and right. Mosby saw a checkpoint up ahead, felt the nose rise as the driver adjusted the fans, and braced her feet as the limo slowed. Scanners read the bar codes engraved on both fenders, a computer confirmed the VIP license plates, and activated a variety of automatic weapons systems. Safeties switched on, lights flashed green, and Mosby heaved a sigh of relief.

  If Madam Dasser’s security forces could infiltrate a microbotic snooping device into the Imperial Palace, then the Emperor’s secret police could easily do likewise. Mosby had prepared herself for the very real possibility of a trap, but the checkpoint had been the logical place to spring one, and their failure to do so was a burden lifted.

  The limo swung wide of the terminal, made its way onto the apron, and headed towards the north end of the field. Auto loaders, maintenance bots, and support vehicles flashed by to either side. Lights could be seen through the windshield as a line of transports ran through their preflight checks and prepared to lift.

  Jennings said something into his pocket phone and put it away.

  “We’re looking good, General. I made arrangements for you to board the Enduro. She’s the biggest and, if it comes to a chase, the fastest.”

  Mosby felt mixed emotions and put them aside. Though normally disdainful of officers who used rank to ensure their own safety, it was imperative that she reach Algeron.

  Assuming the escape was successful, Scolari would call it “mutiny” and move against the Legion. It was Mosby’s duty to give St. James as much warning as possible. The fact that she’d be welcome in his bed was nice but entirely beside the point.

  A transport loomed out of the night, its shape streamlined to deal with planetary atmospheres, but only slightly so, relying on brute strength to overcome the shortcomings of its boxy design.

  The door hissed open and Mosby stepped out. She looked around. Where was her adjutant? A noncom to guide her aboard?

  The questions were still coming when night turned to day and a spotlight pinned her to the concrete. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once.

  “Freeze! You are under arrest! Any attempt to move or to communicate with others will result in death!”

  Four APCs swept in around the limo, aimed their weapons in her direction, and hovered in place.

  Mosby froze. There was little or no point in doing anything else. Scolari had known all along, had waited for the perfect moment, and nailed her in the act. That would make a difference later on, the difference between a conspiracy to commit mutiny and the real thing, which should be sufficient for a death sentence.

  She heard Scolari before the admiral actually appeared. There were inserts built into the soles of the other officer’s combat boots and they made a clicking sound as she walked.

  The admiral’s face was gaunt but alight with pleasure. The words had been rehearsed and flowed smoothly from her tongue.

  “Well, what have we here? The much-vaunted Legion slinking away in the night? Heading for home? How sad that such a famous organization should die such an ignominious death.”

  Mosby shrugged. “I may die but the Legion will live on.”

  Scolari shook her head in mock sympathy. “I think not, my dear. You see, I know that the Legion lives not in the trophies displayed on Algeron, or in the uniforms you wear, but in the hearts and minds of the great unwashed horde. Yes, the Legion lives in the stories they’ve heard, and when the myth has been destroyed, the organization will follow. Think about how the story will play in the media, how the people will feel, and you’ll understand what I mean.”

  Mosby didn’t have to think about it. She knew Scolari was right. The Legion was about to die.

  Metal glowed cherry red, radiated heat, and caused Sergi Chien-Chu to sweat. He thumbed the torch to a finer setting, finished the weld, and removed the protective facemask.

  The sculpture, one of many that dotted the grounds around his mansion, was a fanciful mélange of rusty metal plates, all flying in different directions. Each plane, each angle, was in conflict with all the others, challenging their positions and making a statement of its own.

  Or so it seemed to Chien-Chu. But others perceived things differently. His wife was a case in point. Where he saw angles in conflict, she saw pieces of rusty metal, and where she saw a rainbow of color, he saw flowers dying in a vase. But such is marriage, and a happy one too, though strained by the situation on Spindle.

  Each dawn brought the hope that a message torp would arrive, that the news would be good, that Leonid was alive. But each sunset made such a message less and less likely, and their spirits would spiral downwards.

  Chien-Chu had taken refuge in his work, and in his hobbies, but Nola spent long hours knitting on the veranda, thinking about her son or comforting their daughter-in-law.

  Natasha was a lovely young woman with huge eyes, a long oval face, and a slender bird-like body. Chien-Chu adored her almost as much as he did his son, and feared that the news of Leonid’s death would be very, very hard on her. No, he mustn’t think like that, for to do so was to tempt fate. Or so his mother had always said.

  “Uncle Sergi! Uncle Sergi! Auntie Nola wants you!”

  The voice belonged to a five-year-old boy. He was a chubby little thing, like the puppy that gamboled at his heels, and long overdue for a bath. Mud, his favorite substance next to chocolate cake, covered his face, hands, and playsuit.

  Chien-Chu lifted the boy in his arms. “She does? And
what does Auntie Nola want?”

  A pair of serious brown eyes met his. “She wants you to come to the house, that’s what. There’s a woman to see you.”

  Chien-Chu hung the laser torch on the sculpture and started for the house. It was a long low one-story affair and seemed part of the ground that it stood on. Ivy climbed here and there, brick peeked out between neatly trimmed shrubs, and windows winked in the sun.

  “And does this woman have a name?”

  The boy shrugged. “I made mud pies.”

  “I made a sculpture.”

  “I’ll bet Aunt Nola will like my mud pies better than your sculpture.”

  Chien-Chu shook his head. “No sucker bets. I’m getting too old.”

  “How old are you?”

  “None of your business.”

  Chien-Chu was huffing and puffing by the time he reached the veranda but too stubborn and too proud to put the boy down. They entered the living room together.

  It was huge, with high ceilings, dark beams, and a massive fireplace. An eclectic mix of modem and traditional furniture was scattered about.

  Nola Chien-Chu and Madam Valerie Dasser sat on opposite ends of a comfortable couch. They held teacups in their hands. Madam Chien-Chu took one look at her husband and frowned.

  “Sergi! Look at you! Overalls. Filthy ones at that. And Toby! Shame on you!”

  The little boy smiled happily. “I made mud pies.”

  “You look like a mud pie. Now, run up stairs and take a bath. Your piano instructor will be here in half an hour.”

  “But I don’t like him!”

  “I don’t want to hear any more. Now, scoot.”

  The little boy took one look at his aunt’s face, saw that she meant it, and ran towards a hallway.

  Chien-Chu dropped into his favorite chair, ignored his wife’s pained look, and smiled at Madam Dasser.