The Last Legion

by Chris Bunch

  "Fair cagey, though. Unmarked suits, nobody in uniform, probably their ship's sterile, not a bad chance of getting away with it."

  "So what happens to us?" Garvin asked.

  "We're still gonna be in the army," Kipchak said. "But it won't be the Confederation's. And it might be a real long time before we get back to anything resembling home, if it matters to you."

  "Wonderful," Njangu said. "Just goddamned wonderful."

  Petr wasn't listening, but making fast clicking noises with his tongue as he thought. "Nope," he said. "Not for me, brother."

  "What's not for me?" Garvin asked.

  "I'm not serving any Protector," he said firmly. "Specially not a renegade. When the Confederation comes down on this bastard, it'll be the high jump for anybody and everybody wearing his colors."

  "Nope, not for me," he said once more.

  "What can you do?" Njangu asked.

  "Don't worry about me. You fellows just keep your heads low and don't take any promotions. They mostly don't hang strikers in the rear rank. Sooner or later things'll shake out, or you'll get a chance to slide out from under. You'll be all right." Petr's eyes weren't on them, but on the two guards at the hatch.

  "You're taking off."

  "Better honk."

  "Can we come?" Garvin asked. "Damned if I want to become any sort of pirate."

  "Don't be a prime idjit," Kipchak snapped. "You'd just . . ." He stopped, looked at Garvin and Njangu critically. "You serious?"

  "Yeh."

  Njangu thought for a moment, then nodded. "I've already got one strike on me, don't need another. I'll go, if you'll have us."

  "Well . . . I owe you, like I said. And being solo on a lifeboat can create problems, especially on a long jump, which I suspect we'll be making if we get that far."

  "'Kay. You can't take anything with you. We're gonna move backward, real slow. When the guards look at you, freeze. Don't look back. And for gossakes don't smile. Pretty soon they'll come for the others, which is when we go down past the refresher in the confusion, undog the hatch at the far end of the bay, then follow me. Hopefully that passageway's got air in it. We're going for one of the E-craft—escape ships—which should be on the mid-deck. All these goddamned troopships are built pretty much the same. If we're in luck, it'll be supplied and fueled. Otherwise . . . so let's go."

  Step . . . step . . . statue, I'm a statue, one of those bastards with the gun just glanced down the line, but not at me, not at me . . . step . . .

  Half an eternity later, the blond officer, Celidon, came back.

  "All right," his amplified voice cracked. "Pick up your gear, and come toward me in single file. We're going to search you, then move you all to a smaller compartment, to keep you from getting yourselves into trouble. If any of you have a weapon, drop it right now. Otherwise, you'll be shot where you stand."

  "First man!"

  The recruits shuffled forward slowly.

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  Petr Kipchak slid down a side aisle. Behind him were Garvin and Njangu.

  Crablike, they scuttled away from the main bay entrance.

  They passed the rumpled bunk Maev had taken Njangu to, and he had a moment of pain for what might've been but would never be.

  Kipchak stopped at a small hatch, double-dogged. He pulled on one dog, and paint cracked, fell away.

  "Goddamned shipyard assholes. If it don't move, paint over it." He put his full weight on it, and the dog swung clear. He pulled the other one almost free, moved the dog back and forth experimentally, nodded satisfaction. There was atmosphere on the other side.

  He opened the hatch, and the three crept out, into the bowels of the starship.

  Chapter 5

  N-Space

  Garvin heard their silent footsteps as smashing echoes through the empty passages. Kipchak took the lead, Njangu behind him. Both moved easily, Jaansma noted, used to stealth, while he sounded like a drunken mastodon.

  Petr gestured . . . down this passage . . . through this hatch . . . and the two followed. Twice he waved them back, and they ducked into an open compartment and space-booted heels clashed past.

  There was noise ahead, and Kipchak chanced creeping to the passage's turning.

  Voices came: "Awright . . . stay in line, goddammit . . . look, I don't have the friggin' registry . . . I said keep it quiet!"

  The sound of a blow, and a shout of pain.

  Then Celidon's voice: "Silence! I'll say this once only," his voice boomed. "Stay in the lines we've put you in. When you come to the noncom at the head of the line, give him your name, last first, and wait for him to check you off."

  "You're now members of the armed forces of Larix and Kura, and you will learn we mollycoddle no one, and require utter obedience."

  "Now, follow my orders!"

  Petr nodded wisely, as if he could've given the speech himself, and waved them toward a red-lettered hatch.

  EMERGENCY ACCESS TO LIFECRAFT.

  WARNING: OPENING THIS HATCH WILL SET OFF AN ALARM.

  DO NOT OPEN EXCEPT IN EXTREME EMERGENCY AND UNDER THE DIRECTION OF A SHIP'S OFFICER OR A SENIOR OFFICER OF YOUR OWN SERVICE

  Petr examined the hatch. Njangu was already looking at the dogs, then the hinges. He pointed to something Garvin couldn't make out, then opened and closed his fingers like a mouth . . . or an alarm going on and off. He pulled the warning sign a bit away from the hatch, then bent a corner of the plas back and forth until it broke free.

  Yoshitaro forced the plas into the back of one hinge, holding a tiny spring-loaded switch in place, held up his thumb with a grin, then crossed his fingers. Petr undogged the hatch. No alarm sounded. They went into a curving passage with smaller hatches at regular intervals, next to the outer skin of the ship. Garvin fancied he could feel the cold of space when he touched the bulkhead.

  Petr pointed to one hatch. They opened it without setting off an alarm and entered a small airlock. Kipchak opened the inner hatch, and the three went "down" into a single large teardrop-shaped room, with two hatches to either side labeled REFRESHER. The room was padded from floor to ceiling, and bunks were strapped to the walls. At the "bottom" was a short ladder leading to a command station with three screens, a handful of sensors, a single strapped chair, and—in the center of the panel—a square button with a cover.

  "Close the lock," Kipchak ordered, and Jaansma obeyed. After he'd dogged the hatch, Petr checked the dogs, then secured the inner hatch.

  "We're not in the clear yet," he said in a pointlessly low voice. "Sometimes these little bastards have a second alarm when the power's activated or when you boot out into space."

  "You two pull down a bunk apiece. I don't know if we'll be doing any grav-maneuvers, but there's no point in getting bruised up unless we have to."

  Njangu and Garvin obeyed. Petr went to the command deck, strapped himself in.

  "This boat is shit-simple," he said. "See this big mother button? That's power. When it goes on we'll have our own grav, and the screens'll give us real-time projections forward and aft, plus radar in the middle one. In N-space, all three'll be standard nav-screens. I hope."

  "I'm talking because I'm scared I'm going to set something off." He clenched his teeth, lifted the cover off the large red switch, pushed it.

  Gravity swung "down" from the nose of the teardrop to the deck of the boat, and the screens lit. Njangu felt a slight hum through the padding.

  "We're live," Petr said. "Let's see if we can just hit this thing . . . here . . . and . . . here we go."

  Garvin felt movement as a hatch slid open in the outer skin and the lifecraft's davits moved it into space, let it float. He stared at the com deck's screens, couldn't make sense of the center one, but the other two showed the bulk of the Malvern. Hanging next to it was the sleek needle of a warship.

  "Now the alarms go off," Petr said, his fingers tapping keys. But nothing happened. "I don't believe this," he said. "I've not lived that clean a life .
. . but here we go."

  He touched a button, then the main button, and the world jittered a little, and the screens showed the blur of N-space.

  "One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . ." and Kipchak touched another sensor.

  This time the screens showed normal space, and again Petr hit the main button, and they jumped again.

  "Two blind jumps," he explained, "just to make sure they didn't have sensors out. They ought to have a button here labeled PANICKED FLIGHT."

  They came back to real space. There was nothing around them, no stars, no worlds, no Malvern, no raiders.

  "With luck," he said, "which we're having a plethora of . . . that's shitpot-full for anyone without my advanced training . . . we jumped maybe half a light-minute each time. That'll be far enough to keep the goblins from finding us, but not so far we lose the computer's base coordinates."

  "What happens if we do?" Garvin asked.

  "We're screwed, blued, and probably not tattooed," Petr said. "This boat should . . . emphasis should . . . have our final destination as one option, a return course to Centrum as a second, and a jump to the nearest inhabited worlds the program's got in it for a third."

  Again, his fingers ran across sensors. Njangu was watching intently.

  Petr looked up, grinned.

  "Didn't think a crunchie'd know this stuff, eh? Gonna have to learn, the more you know, the longer you live. There's no such thing any longer as an infantryman who can't run at least basic exterior ballistics while he's zigging like hell and hollering for his momma."

  "Plus learning how to operate anything and everything, from whatever the goblins're armed with to . . . to the Malvern."

  "You could've piloted that?"

  "Could've gotten it off the ground and into space," Kipchak said, "with a couple dot-and-carry types to punch the buttons I couldn't reach. As for setting up for a jump . . . that's what computers are for. Now, shuddup."

  "We're getting our options." He scanned the screens.

  "Mmmmh," he said after a time. "First possibility, going back to Centrum, is a little chancy. Seven, maybe eight jumps, since this turd doesn't have near the range of a real ship, and the life-support'll be a little iffy by then."

  "Next possibility is the closest human-occupied system. Which just happens to be Larix. What a coincidence. I don't think we want to go there, do we?"

  The other two shook their heads.

  "So it's on to the original destination, D-Cumbre. Two, more likely three jumps. Say a ship-week. Gad, but we're dedicated Servants of the Confederation."

  "I'll bet there'll be a real shitstorm when the three of us show up instead of that hogwallower Malvern."

  Jaansma and Yoshitaro looked at each other, didn't mention the obvious.

  When . . . or if.

  "So lemme set things up for the jump, and we're off," Petr said, sounding impossibly cheerful.

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  Again, N-space swirled. Garvin's and Njangu's eyes kept being trapped by the kaleidoscope patterns, but Kipchak was oblivious.

  "Pay attention here," he said. "This is why I wasn't blowin' smoke up your butts when I said this'd be better with more'n one."

  "Whoever designed these boats figured he'd have shocky people who didn't know which end of a starship goes squirt trying to run it. So they set things up to be real simple. Find your program, hit the start button, then just sit there eating your fingernails."

  "The only instruments you've got to watch in hyperspace is this needle here . . . which you keep between these two black bars with this little slider, and this timer. Every two ship-hours you reset it. If you don't, it'll kick the ship back out into real space."

  "That's to keep survivors from getting too damned lost, I guess. And nobody I know's ever found a way to short around that fail-safe."

  "So we stand watches."

  "Nice to know we're needed," Garvin said.

  "You are, boy. You truly are. Not just here, but in the most important way. Anything you consume gets processed, and you'll breathe it, drink it, or get it for breakfast all over again." Petr grinned evilly, waited for nausea on the other two's faces, was disappointed.

  "The recycler doesn't run at anything near a hundred percent. When the cycler's only got a single-source feeder, one survivor, it starts getting . . . sloppy is maybe the most polite way to put it, pretty quick. The more it's got to play with, within reason of course, the better off we all are."

  "There's got to be other supplies," Garvin said. "Otherwise, if we eat no more than we crap, we'll be thinking about Yoshitaro over easy in a couple of days. Diminishing returns and things like that."

  "Right," Petr said. "Supplies should be over there. Basics, plus quite a few luxuries. They realized anybody using these piddlers'd appreciate a little spoiling while they're waiting to be rescued."

  Njangu went to the indicated cabinet, undipped the fasteners, and opened it.

  "H'rang-dao!" he muttered. "Guess what, guys? Somebody did a little self-enrichment at our expense."

  Kipchak was across the compartment.

  "Fine," he said, voice hard. "Real fine. Somebody, maybe in the shipyard when the Malvern got refitted, maybe even somebody in the crew, decided to sort through the goodies. For off-watch snack time or to sell."

  "What do we have left?" Garvin asked.

  "We won't starve," Petr said. "But we're going to get very tired of soyaglop before we make it to Cumbre."

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  Other cabinets had been looted as well, including the one labeled ENTERTAINMENT. Petr wasn't upset by this.

  "Gives you a chance to learn something else," he said. "There's two ways to pass the time when you're off duty and trapped somewhere you can't get a load on and get your ashes hauled, which'll be most of your military career. Believe it or not, you can get too much sleep."

  "One is lying, the other's learning. Lying is the most common—everybody sits around and tells his or her life story, the most interesting thing that ever happened, the least interesting thing, and so forth."

  "Like everybody was doing on the Malvern," Garvin said.

  "Not everybody," Petr said. "Mostly those were the newbies. They weren't thinking about what happens when the lies run out. What happens when you know everything there is about somebody else? Real quick, you start hating their guts."

  "It's always better to go first to your own resources. Read a disk, if you've got one. Or, if you don't, find somebody that knows something, and make them teach it to you."

  "It'll give you something to think about, plus you can get pissed off at them and they at you for something that's got nothing to do with anything important."

  "So what do we do now?" Garvin asked. "Njangu's got another two ship-hours before I relieve him."

  "I noticed, back when you were dealing with that gambler, you seem to like words," Kipchak said.

  "I do."

  "That's a good liking to have. So sit down over there. And listen."

  Garvin obeyed.

  "Enter CHORUS as Prologue," Petr began.

  "CHORUS:

  'O for a muse of fire, that would ascend

  The brightest heaven of invention:

  A kingdom for a stage, princes to act,

  And monarchs to behold the swelling scene . . .'"

  Garvin and Njangu exchanged utterly bewildered looks.

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  Ship-hours and shifts later, a slightly hoarse Petr finished, "Which off our stage hath shown; and for their sake. In your fair minds let this acceptance take."

  He stood, bowed.

  "And that," he said, "I'm damned proud of."

  "I guess," Garvin said haltingly, "you ought to be. That's called a play?"

  "Yep."

  "How many more of them do you know?"

  "Oh twelve, maybe thirteen."

  "All by this same guy?"

  "Mostly
. And some others. Moliere. Robicheux. Van Maxdem. Anouilh."

  "You memorized all of them?"

  "Keeps you busy in the dogwatches."

  "Everybody in the army does shit like that?" Yoshitaro wanted to know.

  "Nope. Just some." Petr went to the 'fresher, drank water.

  "Now it's your turn to entertain me."

  "Half a lifetime later, they came out into real space, in the midst of a planetary system.

  Petr lifted the com mike from its slot and touched a sensor. Panel lights glowed. "We're broadcasting on standard distress freqs," he said, and keyed another sensor. "D-Cumbre, D-Cumbre, this is a lifecraft from the Confederation Transport Malvern. Please respond to this frequency. D-Cumbre, this is a lifecraft from the Malvern . . ."

  Chapter 6

  D-Cumbre

  The tall, silver-haired man opened the door. He wore the emblems of a caud, and was the commander of Strike Force Swift Lance.

  Petr came to his feet at rigid attention. Njangu and Garvin awkwardly followed suit. All three wore brand-new uniforms, Njangu and Kipchak the mottled green of the infantry, Garvin the black coveralls of Armor.

  "Come inside," Caud Williams said, voice cold. The three followed him into the office of Governor General Wilth Haemer. The head of the Cumbre system's Planetary Government, direct representative of the Confederation, looked like anyone's grandfather. But now he wasn't offering sweets but scowling in righteous anger. The door closed with a loud click.

  "These are the three men. Governor," Caud Williams said. Haemer walked behind his huge, highly polished wood desk, bare except for an expensive-looking old-fashioned writing pen and single com button, stared as if they were diseased cells.

  "I see," he said. "All three rank recruits."

  "Two, sir," Williams said. "The man to the left is a re-enlistee."

  "Hmph," Haemer said. "Couldn't make it on the outside, eh?"

  The back of Kipchak's neck reddened, but he said nothing.

  "I should congratulate the three of you," aemer said, "for surviving an . . . extraordinary experience. But I'm unable to, since one or all of you fools had to blab your fantasy to the joumohs the minute you got out of the rescue ship."