Legion of the Damned

by William C. Dietz

  “And the thing that hangs over the fire?”

  Windsweet looked away. “There are ways, ancient ways, mostly forgotten. Many think they should be left to the past but some would bring them back.”

  The legionnaire started to speak, but stopped when Windsweet brought her hand to her mouth and touched her lips.

  Warriors appeared from the dark and shouted greetings to Hardman, Windsweet, and Shootstraight. Surekill appeared, striding out of the darkness, placing an arm around Windsweet’s shoulders. She frowned but allowed the arm to remain where it was.

  The chieftain was in fine form, relishing his role as host and determined to make the most of it. “Wayfar! Movefast! Windsweet! Welcome to our village. Come, refreshments are waiting, and a dance performance like none you’ve seen before!”

  Booly found himself swept along in the crowd, and while not treated to refreshments, occupied a place next to Surekill in front of the fire. Windsweet sat to the chieftain’s left. Doothskin rugs had been spread for their comfort, incense hung heavy in the air, and firelight flickered in a dozen sets of eyes.

  The thing, still suspended over the fire, squirmed and whimpered pitifully as the fire reached up to lick at the lowest portions of its anatomy.

  “You see?” Surekill asked. “Just as I promised. A dance performance like none you’ve seen before!” The chieftain laughed, as did many of his warriors, but Hardman and Windsweet were silent.

  The legionnaire had been allowed to keep some of the more harmless items of his gear. He felt for the flashlight, pulled it from a pocket, and turned it on. The thing was suspended in a wire net. It was doubled over, and therefore difficult to see, but Booly was able to make out leathery gray skin, a sauroid face, and a pair of fear-filled eyes. They blinked then closed as the smoke slid around them. Words hissed out of the thing’s frog-like mouth and Booly realized that it was sentient. He spoke without thinking and realized that the others had been waiting for him to do so.

  “What is it?”

  “It calls itself a ‘Hudathan,’” Surekill answered pleasantly. “A warrior named Ryber Hysook-Da, to be exact. He claims the status of subchief and came seeking an alliance with the Naa.”

  Booly looked up to where the Hudathan emissary swung over the fire. He’d met some aliens, and seen pictures of many more, but never one like this. “And you said no.”

  “Of course,” Surekill replied matter-of-factly. “We have no need for allies. The Legion will fall to us ... and to us alone.”

  The legionnaire looked Surekill in the eye and gestured towards the Hudathan. There was a void where his stomach should have been. “It wanted you to join an alliance against the human empire?”

  Surekill spoke as to a cub. “Yes, human. That’s what I said. The Hudathan claims that his race attacked yours, destroyed one of your most important planets, and will consume your entire empire. You were unaware of this?”

  Booly forgot where he was and shook his head. A planet destroyed? What the hell was going on? The Emperor would fight—that went without saying—and the Legion would lead the way. He had to escape, had to make it back, had to join his unit. Surekill was waiting, and anger had gathered behind his eyes.

  “This is news to me. I have never heard of the Hudathans, much less a war. It must have started very recently.”

  “Yes,” Surekill said. “That agrees with what the smelly one told us. Now, seeing that the Hudathan is an enemy of your people, perhaps you would like the honor of lowering him into the pit?”

  Hardman had been silent up until now. He cleared his throat, knowing that Surekill was likely to resent his words and take issue with them. He looked for and found encouragement in his daughter’s eyes.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea? The question of an alliance should rightfully go before the council of chiefs, and if you take it upon yourself to kill the alien, they will resent it.”

  Surekill wanted to hurl words at Hardman, wanted to say, “They? Or you? Which is it, old man? Which would resent my leadership more?” But he didn’t. Nor was there a need to do so. He had anticipated the situation and made a plan to deal with it. He smiled disarmingly and did his best to sound reasonable.

  “An excellent point, Wayfar. I admit to being a bit hasty at times, and ...”

  It was at that point that one of Surekill’s most trusted warriors, Nevermiss Rockthrow, cut the rope that held the net aloft. Ryber Hysook-Da screamed as he fell into the pit, and screamed, and screamed, and screamed. His last thoughts were of how things should have been. This was not the way he had planned to die.

  16

  Words can be as lethal as bullets. Choose them carefully, aim them well, and use them sparingly.

  Irulu Boda-Sa

  Hudathan mystic

  Standard year 1414

  With the Hudathan fleet, off the Planet Frio II, the Human Empire

  The courier was little more than a pile of twisted metal. Bullet holes made a dotted line across a stubby wing. A gash, large enough for War Commander Niman Poseen-Ka to stick his arm through, marked the place where a piece of free-floating debris had hit the fuselage. Another hole, still plugged by a defective missile, signaled what should have been a death blow. The weapon had been disarmed and torches flared as technicians worked to remove it.

  Once assigned to the battleship World Taker, the courier had survived the destruction of its mother ship and made its way to the main fleet, because, unlike fighters and troop carriers, couriers were equipped with hyperspace drives and were capable of interstellar travel.

  Poseen-Ka circled the vessel, careful to step over a multiplicity of tools, hoses, and loose parts. His hands were clasped behind his back, his head was tilted back as far as it would go, and his eyes probed the wreck like lasers.

  His aide, a junior officer named Ikna Kona-Sa, did likewise, walking the same way that his superior did, mimicking his mannerisms. Poseen-Ka was unaware of this, just as he was largely unaware of the landing bay itself or the ship that it was part of. His attention was on the scout and the news that had arrived with it.

  The fact that the pilot had managed to ram the crippled ship through hyperspace, find the fleet, and land was absolutely amazing. Yes, the flight officer would receive the highest honors that the Hudathan military could bestow upon him, in spite of the fact that he had brought bad news rather than good.

  It seemed that Spear Three, under the command of Ikor Niber-Ba, had been attacked and completely destroyed. It was terrible news. He should have been sad, angry, anything but satisfied. Yet the word “satisfaction” best described the way he felt.

  The war against the humans had been too pat, too easy. Where others had seen victory he had seen the threat of defeat. There is, after all, a difference between winning a victory and gaining one through default. That was what the Hudathan forces had managed to accomplish so far. Because in spite of the often heroic resistance offered by military units left behind, and civilians as well, their navy had refused to engage in anything more than a skirmish or two. Why?

  It could mean that the humans were weaker than they appeared, and would surrender their empire one system at a time, or, and Poseen-Ka considered this possibility more likely, that they had sacrificed some of their less important holdings in order to buy time. Time that would allow them to consolidate their forces and prepare their own Intaka, which, coming as a surprise, would be all the more powerful. That was the source of Poseen-Ka’s satisfaction. The loss of Spear Three had clearly demonstrated that the humans could fight, would fight, if given the right situation, and were extremely dangerous when they did so. Especially considering that Niber-Ba had attacked what was primarily a civilian target and lost his entire command.

  But that was his interpretation of the facts, his analysis of the situation, and others would sit in judgment of him: individuals such as his superior, Grand Marshal Pem-Da, his chief of staff, Lance Commander Moder-Ta, and yes, the human known as Baldwin, who in spite of his nonexistent rank had t
he power to influence minds by virtue of who and what he was.

  All had their own hopes, fears, and motivations, motivations not necessarily aligned with his and therefore threatening. The destruction of Spear Three would present them with the perfect opportunity to replace him with someone more to their liking, since a loss of that magnitude necessitated a court of inquiry.

  They were routine affairs for the most part ... but not always. No, there were the cases of incompetence that such investigations had been designed to ferret out, the situations in which bad luck and the friction of war had conspired to ruin someone’s career, or worse, times when politics entered the picture, and routine investigations were used to remove officers with unpopular opinions.

  Given the fact that Poseen-Ka had counseled patience and stalled for time, when many wanted to leap down the enemy’s throat, he was vulnerable to criticism.

  The court would point out that Niber-Ba had failed to administer the Intaka. and by not doing so, had given the humans the opportunity to prepare a counterattack. The similarity between the Dwarfs approach and his own was too clear to deny. Had his subordinate knowingly followed his example? And picked the wrong moment to do so? Or had he erred by giving command of Spear Three to an officer so much like himself? Had he made other mistakes as well? Mistakes that were waiting to make themselves known.

  Poseen-Ka felt himself start the slide down towards depression. No! He pushed the feelings away. To doubt, to fear, to become entangled in all the possibilities, would lead to his defeat as surely as a bullet through the head.

  No, he must do something positive, find evidence that his strategy was correct, and present that evidence to his superiors.

  Poseen-Ka tore his eyes off the wreck, waved to his aide, and headed for the lock. The human female had proven herself useful once before. She might again.

  Colonel Natalie Norwood had just finished doing her thirty push-ups and was about to do some deep knee bends when the door to her cell vanished into the overhead. A Hudathan filled the entryway. Bodyguards stood behind him. There was no mistaking the fact that the visitor was War Commander Niman Poseen-Ka himself.

  Alarmed but determined not to show it, Norwood folded her arms. She was dressed, thank god, but something less than presentable. Not that it mattered, since Poseen-Ka had no way to know if she was presentable or not.

  “Don’t you people ever knock?”

  Words formed on the Hudathan’s tongue and waited to be said. They were stem and would put the prisoner in her place. He held them back. He needed the human’s cooperation, and interpersonal conflict was an unlikely way to achieve it.

  “I am sorry. Your norms are strange to me and I forgot.”

  Surprised by the war commander’s apology, and a bit taken aback, Norwood gestured for him to enter. The Hudathan’s bodyguards started to follow but he waved them back.

  Poseen-Ka looked around, saw the wire mesh that had been installed to keep the human out of the ductwork, and sat on the fold-down bunk. It creaked under his considerable weight.

  “You know where we are?” he asked.

  “In orbit around a planet called Frio II.”

  “That is correct. And what, if anything, do you know about the fighting here?”

  Norwood shrugged. Her voice was tight with emotion. “You arrived, found the place largely undefended, and went to work on exterminating the population. There were thousands of ships in orbit, refugees from planets you had already taken, and they were easy meat for your fighters. Your pilots used them for target practice, popping them like inflatable toys, laughing while they died.

  “Then, with nothing left in orbit, you went to the ground. Frio II was only lightly populated, so there was no need to use overlapping swathes of destruction as you did on Worber’s World, so you attacked individual towns and cities instead. These proved more difficult than anticipated, however, due to the harsh surface conditions and the fact that the habitats were largely underground.”

  If Norwood expected some sign of sorrow, some sign of remorse, she was sadly disappointed.

  “A military installation still exists.”

  Norwood brightened a little. “Really? That’s wonderful. I hope they kick your oversized butts.”

  Poseen-Ka seemed oblivious to the insult and made a gesture she didn’t understand. “There is little possibility of that. We control the system, the space around the planet, and for all practical purposes the planet itself.”

  Norwood’s hands started to shake. She shoved them into her pockets. “Well, goody for you. So why the visit?”

  Poseen-Ka stood. He towered over her, but there was something in his eyes, something she couldn’t quite put a finger on. Understanding? Compassion? Fear? Whatever it was made him less intimidating.

  “I need your help.”

  Norwood looked up at the alien trying to see if he was serious. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “No, I am absolutely serious.”

  “Never.”

  “You helped with the phytoplankton.”

  “That was different.”

  “As is this.”

  Norwood searched Poseen-Ka’s face, looked for some sign of what the alien was thinking, and found nothing. “What would you have me do?”

  “Convince some humans to surrender.”

  “So you can murder them? Never!”

  “I will allow them to live.”

  “So you say.”

  “I give you my word.”

  “Screw your word. Have Baldwin do it. That’s what you pay him for.”

  “I don’t trust Baldwin.”

  The words were so honest, and so unexpected, that it took a moment to understand and absorb them. Poseen-Ka was truly asking her for a favor, taking her into his confidence, offering some sort of friendship. But why? Was it real? Or a trick? She looked up into his eyes. “Why?”

  “Because he is a traitor and cares only for himself.”

  Norwood sensed he was telling the truth. She also sensed that there was more truth to tell. “And?”

  “And he sides against me.”

  “In what way?”

  The alien made a motion with his hands. “He, like many of my superiors, feels that I should bypass planets like the one below and strike at the heart of the human empire.”

  Norwood felt a sense of excitement, as if she was close to learning something very important, and worked to keep her face impassive. “And you?”

  “I think that your superiors could be preparing a trap for us, and even if they aren’t, could find a way to take advantage of the unsecured systems that we left behind.”

  Norwood nodded. “So you want to take more time, secure planets like Frio II, and attack the inner planets after that.”

  “Exactly.”

  Norwood frowned. “I still don’t understand. How would I help? And why should I do so?”

  The alien was silent for a moment as if choosing his words with care. “I need evidence that your superiors are preparing a trap for us. Evidence I can use to defend my strategy. But your soldiers have orders to destroy such information before they die.”

  “Really?” Norwood asked sarcastically. “How rude. And you expect me to help? Well, forget it. That would be treasonous.”

  “Would it?” Poseen-Ka asked. “Would it be treasonous to save human lives? Especially in light of the fact that they have already been sacrificed? Left behind to delay us, or worse yet, because no one cares? Surely you have wondered. Where is your navy? Why do they run before us? When will they fight? All I ask is a chance to examine some records. I am willing to give hundreds of lives in return.”

  Norwood struggled to deal with her emotions. She had asked herself those questions, not once, but hundreds of times. It was clear that something was wrong, terribly wrong, but what? Why had the navy withdrawn? Was it part of a plan, or just massive incompetence on an Imperial scale? She wanted to believe the first possibility, but feared the second, and found herself in a terrible po
sition.

  Assuming the defenders were willing to surrender and provided her with the information that Poseen-Ka wanted, what then?

  If there was a trap, or the likelihood of one, Poseen-Ka would continue his present strategy of destroying the human empire one system at a time. If there was no trap, and Poseen-Ka lost his command, or was forced to adopt a more aggressive strategy, the Hudathans would strike at the heart of the empire, an attack that would almost surely cost millions, if not billions, of lives.

  Measured in terms of casualties, it seemed as if Poseen-Ka’s strategy of steady attrition would be better for the human race, allowing as it did for some sort of counterattack.

  So, by helping Poseen-Ka, she might help the war effort. But what if she was wrong? What if her decision cost billions of innocent lives?

  The easy answer was no, because that was the answer that her training had prepared her to give, and she was fundamentally opposed to helping the Hudathans in any way. But what of the lives she could save?

  Sweat covered Norwood’s forehead as she replied.

  “I’ll help under the following conditions: that you will accept the surrender of every human on the planet, that you will feed and house them appropriately, and that you will forswear all use of torture.”

  The Hudathan made a motion with his right hand. “Done. It shall be as you say.”

  Norwood shook her head. “No, I haven’t finished yet. I reserve the right to tell others about our conversation and why I agreed to help you.”

  Poseen-Ka thought for a moment. “Humans, yes ... but Hudathans, no ... and that includes Baldwin.”

  Norwood nodded. “Fair enough ... and one other thing.”

  The Hudathan looked stem. “I warn you, human. I grow weary of your demands.”

  Norwood shrugged. “Promise you won’t connect me to your machines. Sex is nice ... but the session after my visit with the phytoplankton damned near killed me. A sincere ‘thanks’ is reward enough.”