“It’s no secret that we want to discover to what use the System is putting the unitium, and we’d like to know why the Systies are kidnapping Taka from Andrion 2. They also know our own psychers will be present. And they certainly know we’ll be looking for our missing trooper. We’re taking what measures we can against hostile psych, but we don’t think it’s critical if they discover who’s doing what. Without a long-term psych interrogation, they’re not going to extract more than surface knowledge. Some of you are even performing missions that are designed solely to deceive the System as to our real intentions, although you all think your individual missions are real, and will be doing your best to perform them. Obviously, we don’t even mind if the System knows this. They’re still not going to know what’s real and what’s not. Just rest assured that we know what we’re doing and that all your activity is necessary and being coordinated here on Spawn. Those of us who do have the full story can’t go downside for obvious reasons. But I can tell you our hearts are with you.”
He paused, and looked around again. “The first one to get a positive ID on Valkyrie is to call it in immediately. We must coordinate everything we’re doing. I don’t want any Lost Squad heroics. It’s not necessary and it could endanger your comrades. The entire Second Company is at your disposal. And I assure you, we’re going to accomplish all of our classified missions.”
Cubes let his eyes roam over the wardroom and it was like a little flash of ice when his gaze rested on me for an instant. “I want you all to listen very carefully,” he said. “And remember this. Don’t even try to hide this from any Systie psycher you may run into down there. We’ve gotten some very nervous messages from Fleetcom, about discretion, and prudence, and the necessity of avoiding another interstellar war. I suspect that kind of vocabulary came directly from ConFree, word for word. But Legion doctrine always gives the Mission Commander the discretion to handle the mission according to his best judgment as the officer on the scene. That has not changed. I am the Mission Commander for this mission. I am the officer on the scene. I have three priorities for this mission. First, recover Valkyrie. Second, accomplish all our other classified missions. And Third, avoid another interstellar war. In that precise order. And if the Third interferes with the First or the Second, the Third will be discarded. And if the Systies have any doubts at all about that, they are going to be very…very…surprised.”
Then he rose and saluted us, the Commander’s traditional salute to the troops, just before combat. “Soldiers of the Legion, do your duty. To the death.”
We all snapped to attention and roared out the response: “Death!”
I swear, they heard us on Coldmark. I had a feeling that this was no ordinary diplomatic mission.
Chapter 14: Coldmark
The United System Alliance’s covert construction of a hard-sited base on Andrion 2 and the covert exploitation of the mineral resources of that planet, which is in ConFree vac, is clearly a violation of treaty as defined in Para 18 of the USICOM-ConFree Interstellar Agreement on Sectors and Trade, as well as a violation of all accepted norms of common interstellar law. The Confederation of Free Worlds regards this incursion into ConFree space by DefCom forces as unprovoked military and economic aggression by the System, and we warn USICOM and the System itself that the severest consequences will ensue. The people of the Confederation of Free Worlds will not permit aggressors to launch military adventures into ConFree space, to kidnap natives of ConFree worlds, or to introduce dangerous animal species from another world. The System’s reckless actions in this case reveal its cynical contempt for all civilized norms of interstellar conduct and for solemn interstellar treaties signed by its own representatives.” Commander Two Three One, Val, our downside chief exec, was reading a demarche from Starcom. Lowdrop, the downside mission commander, sat beside him. I suppose we were showing contempt by having our exec read the demarche instead of Lowdrop. The negotiations had begun, and we were stating our position. It was not diplomatic, but it was certainly clear.
“The System’s attempted seizure of ConFree territory endangers the current suspension of hostilities between the System and the Confederation. I am authorized to state for Outvac Sector Command that force will be met with force, and that further aggressive acts by DefCom forces will meet with immediate reaction. It is entirely up to the System whether or not its aggressive actions will escalate into another interstellar war. I only wish to assure the United System Alliance that the Confederation of Free Worlds will react immediately to all attacks on its sovereignty.”
I studied his face as he continued. It was a stony mask, no emotion showed. Val was a tall, rangy, handsome Outworlder with curly, reddish-brown hair. The Systies despised Outworlders; they hated having to deal with us. They would have preferred exterminating the Outworlder race, but they had tried that once and it hadn’t worked. Now we were strong and free, and hostile to them. It drove them right into the Sun.
We faced the Systies across a massive oblong table in a Coldmark conference room. Our side was lined with black uniforms. The various Systies races wore khakis and blues and whites and dark reds and greens, depending on their unit. We Outworlders had pale eyes and light skin burnt dark by the stars, and bronze Assidic skin, the mark of the Conqueror.
Across the table, greenish, pale-skinned Mocains dressed in DefCorps khaki regarded us through hooded eyes. Beside them, in USICOM blue, were Ormans from the Inners, a stunted race from a lost world, clinging to life and power like parasites, surviving by guile and deceit, riding to the stars with the Mocains. They controlled USICOM, and functioned as reliable political advisors to the Mocain.
Also present were a host of mortals from conquered worlds: Luytenians and Pherdans and Dardans and Elidians and many others, wearing DefCom khaki and USICOM blue and STRATCOM red and Starfleet white and Alliance gold.
Coldmarker USICOM officials refereed the encounter. The racial tension in that room was palpable.
“We demand a public apology from the System for this blatant act of aggression, and an immediate explanation for these unprecedented actions. We also demand reparations from the System for all damage done to Andrion 2 as a result of its aggression, and an immediate exchange of prisoners.” Val hated the Systies. He was from Angaroth, a world savagely brutalized by past Systie atrocities, and that was all the reason he needed.
We sat on steeply banked rows of seats opposite each side of the long conference table. The room was packed. Information flunkies from both sides snapped away with their solscans, and vidmons recorded the procedures. After today, we would all have files opened on us by DefCom Information. I did not care; I was only there for one reason.
I glanced over at Gravelight, a pale princess clad in black, with hair like golden sunlight. Some of the Legion girls had worked on her prior to the meeting. Gravelight normally did not worry much about her appearance, but the conference was a big psywar opportunity for us. Our delegation was projecting immortal youth and beauty and raw, confident Outworlder power. We were everything the System desperately wanted to crush, a direct threat to the corrupt, dead heart of their petrified interstellar empire. We wanted to make sure the message got out. Oblivious, Gravelight coldly glared at only one person, a sallow Orman girl with stringy black hair and a weary face. That would be one of the Systie psychers, and a silent battle would be raging between those two as the negotiations continued.
“Take a good look, Thinker,” Coolhand said softly. “We don’t often get to see these people so close while they’re still alive. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” He smiled cheerily.
“I really feel privileged, Coolhand. This is indeed an honor. Those Greenies make my skin crawl.” We called the Mocains Greenies because of the faint green tint of their pale flesh.
“Scope out the giant at the end of the table. That’s an Inner from Picos. If I was his size, I wouldn’t let any Greenie push me around.” Coolhand held a datascreen. There was so much information flashing around that room
that I half expected our screens to start blowing out.
Psycho leaned toward us, interrupting. “Coolhand, can I shoot that slimy bald Greenie with the gold on his shoulders? Can I?”
“Now settle down, Psycho. We’ll tell you when to start shooting. Not yet!”
“Please? Just one guy, the green slime. Just one, tenners?”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Have you girls heard enough of this nonsense? If so, we’ve got work to do.” Snow Leopard seemed anxious to get moving. Gamma had already filed out. Every move we made had been planned in advance. If we accomplished nothing else, we would keep a lot of Systies very busy. The negotiations would continue for days, maybe weeks. Beta and Gamma would be busy elsewhere.
Outside, our aircars hovered right at the entrance to the Government Center, metal skins shining silver in the sunlight, armored plex all black.
It was a bright, clear day. Crowds of scruffy Coldmarkers lined the tall wire mesh fences surrounding the compound, and a ragged shout went up when we appeared. Coldmark militia stood around nervously, armed with local SG clones, while DefCorps troopers stood guard by the doors, whispering into their wristcoms.
We entered the first car and Gamma took the second one. As I got in, two more Legion aircars flashed across the sky, followed moments later by two Systie aircars. Our day had begun.
Redhawk grinned at us from the pilot’s seat. He was the only troopie I knew crazier than Psycho. The assault door sealed shut abruptly. “Strap in, kiddies, or you’ll be sorry!” Redhawk slammed the thrust forward and we shot away from the compound at blinding speed, powering up into the sky at a steep angle. Since nobody had strapped in yet, this caused us some distress. Warhound landed on my face, and all our loose equipment shifted position immediately to the rear.
“Will you kindly remove your knee from my throat?”
“Sorry!”
Redhawk laughed madly. He hit the sounds, and the cabin filled with wild lektra music, shattering our ears. “They’ll never catch us!” he screamed over the music. He arced the aircar into a steep dive.
“Strap in, girls!” Snow Leopard ordered. We knew Redhawk, and we didn’t mind his driving. We knew he was the best. I settled into a seat and strapped in. Psycho found a seat next to me. He always enjoyed these little rides.
Now we flashed at treetop height right over Coldmark City, only there were no trees and it wasn’t much of a city. As the aircar bounced and shuddered through rough air and sunlight exploded across the darkened plex, the entire panorama of Coldmark slid by below. We saw a seemingly endless slum, hundreds of thousands of squalid little shacks constructed from trash, wood and plastic and metal scraps, set in a smoky, cratered wilderness full of slow-moving people, looking up in surprise as we flashed overhead. A city of mud and burning garbage, inhabited by slaves. Down below, a bewildering variety of groundcars bounced over rutted roads, and in the middle, a tiny child ran gleefully away from a furious old lady shaking a broom.
We flashed over a polluted green canal. It looked like people were urinating and defecating on one side and washing clothes in the other. Off in the distance, Government installations rose from the sea of shacks like islands, surrounded by high wire-mesh fences.
Snow Leopard sat next to Redhawk, shouting into his ear. “Can you turn down the music!”
“What?”
“The music! Turn it down!”
“What?”
“Turn down the bloody music!” Snow Leopard’s face was bright red.
Redhawk pointed to his earphones, and leaned over close to Snow Leopard. “I can’t hear you! The music’s too loud!”
Grimacing, Snow Leopard turned it down himself. We were so low I thought we were going to collide with some of the shacks. We darted over a sea of mud, full of naked laughing children, chasing a ball through the filth. Priestess tapped my shoulder. She sat just behind me, and she was upset. “Thinker…how can they live like that? What kind of a world is this!”
“It’s a world of rich and poor, Priestess. You read the sitrep. This is just what it said.”
“But I…but…I didn’t think they would live like this! In filth! What is the matter with these people? Don’t they know about public sanitation? Or personal hygiene? Isn’t anyone watching over those children?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Priestess trembled, glaring out the plex. “This is criminal! What kind of a government is this! They don’t care! It’s treason! High crimes against humanity! Nobody should treat human beings like this, not even mortals!”
“Keep that Manlink away from her, Psycho.” I did not know what else to say.
“You want me to kill somebody for you, Priestess?” Psycho was no help at all. He loved to drive people over the edge.
“Filthy scum! We should put a strike in on every one of those Government compounds. Antimat the lot!” Priestess really meant it, I could tell. “Kill them all! Blow away all those wire fences and let the mob in to tear them apart! They’re subhumans, Thinker! Subhumans!”
“You got that right!” Her fingers dug into my shoulder. She stared fixedly out the plex, convulsed. She came from a Legion world, a very sheltered existence.
“Is anybody back there?” Snow Leopard asked the pilot.
“Oh, yeah. Big ten on that. We got one Systie aircar way, way back there, still on us. But not for long! Hang on!” Redhawk whipped the aircar around in a wicked tight turn. The gravs pulled at us as the car arced dizzily in a great circle.
“Hey, we were just here!” We ripped over the field full of children again. They waved wildly at us, frozen briefly in mid-stride. Redhawk put her even lower, right along the stagnant canal, booming past the line of Coldmarkers at their communal toilet. We passed so close to the surface that we sprayed water all over them.
“That guy fell into the canal!”
“What a way to go!”
“You’re heading right for the aircar!” The Systie aircar was rapidly approaching, a flashing red light on the console.
“That’s a ten! I’m locked on!” Redhawk had a wild look in his eyes. The sensors were shrieking. Redhawk eased the controls back and we arced upwards into the sky. I saw it coming, right at us, a speck, a dot, a dart, an aircar! It flashed past so fast and so close it was just a silver blur, and an ear-shattering sonic boom rattled our car. Redhawk shrieked with laughter as he slammed the controls forward and we dived for the deck once again.
“That should slow him down just a tad.” Redhawk gave us his craziest grin as he stood the car on its side again and the world came rushing at us from above. It would have slowed me down, I knew that. I would at least have wanted to change my pants before continuing the pursuit.
We found a river, dotted with ancient wooden fishing boats powered by ragged sails, and followed it upstream, almost on the surface. The water rippled in golden sunlight, a river of diamonds sailed by black phantom ships. A morning shower sparkled in the sunlight, raindrops vaporizing against the skin of our aircar. “They’ll be on us again shortly, but the first target is right ahead.” Redhawk had settled down. He liked to fool around, but he always got the job done.
We gained a little altitude, left the river, hurtled over a line of rocky hills, then straightened out, booming laser-straight over flat marshy lowlands.
“There it is.” The sensors lit up again. I could see it now, a sprawling complex, metallic fences glittering in the sun, a series of low, windowless buildings, bristling with antennas. Redhawk put it on max, and we shot right over them, trailing another sonic boom.
“Good morning, Systies!” The Government complex vanished behind us as Redhawk whipped the aircar around, heading for the next target.
“Did we get everything?” Snow Leopard asked.
“Looks like it,” Merlin replied. He sat up front, checking a data screen.
“You think we’ll learn anything?”
“We’ll learn a lot. I don’t know if we’ll learn whether or not Valkyrie
is there, however. Without her c-cell she’s going to be hard to spot.”
“Well, we’ve got to try.”
“Tenners-we’ve got to try. And, who knows, maybe we will spot her. This is hot biotech.”
“Second target coming up!”
“There’s another aircar on our tail.”
“I predict he’s going to be more wary than that other guy.”
We pointed the aircar’s nose right at the second target. All over Coldmark scores of Legion aircars were doing the same, and sending the data straight to the Spawn, while the Coldmarkers and Systies were scrambling, trying to monitor our activities.
We did not know if Valkyrie was here or not, but we would certainly do our best to find her.
“All right, Gravelight’s next. Where’s her cube?” Commander Val moved around the assault craft contacting just about everybody, gathering info and issuing orders at the same time. I had been elected to carry his personal starlink. It was heavy. I knew we weren’t going to get any sleep that night, and I was glad I didn’t have his job.
“Right here,” I said. We paused at the open door to Gravelight’s cube. Gravelight sprawled across her bunk, a wet towel covering her face. Quarters were crowded in the assault craft, and only VIPs rated a cube. The cubes were molded around the bunk. A desk and commo gear formed one wall, with a mini kitchen unit. A tiny, body-sized closet served as a toilet and shower. You couldn’t move without bumping into one of the walls or the ceiling. The heavy gravity seemed odd. We were downside, docked in Coldmark Port, and nobody liked it.
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