After all we had been through it was like a wonderful dream. Sometimes I thought it was more like a fantasy. Sometimes I even felt guilty, but I tried to make those thoughts go away quickly. We deserve it, I thought, after all we've been through, we certainly deserve a little happiness.
Priestess blinked sleepy eyes up at me. She yawned silently, just like a cat, and looked over at Moontouch. Moontouch did not stir. Priestess gave me a contented smile and licked my chest lazily. It was a sign she wanted to play. Her hand moved under the covers, the fingers walking down my chest like a ghostly crab, finding their way between my legs and then closing like a vice over her favorite part of my body. It was a little game we played—to see if two of us could make love without waking the third. Priestess slid her head under the blankets and I closed my eyes. We certainly deserve it, I thought. This is what life should be. The past was a nightmare—something to forget!
***
"Dox?" Priestess paused on her way to the drink mod. I popped the top on my breakfast tray and looked up at her.
"Please," I said. We were in Alpha Station's cafeteria, ready for another day. The place was fairly quiet. The Andrion System was just barely within the Outvac, almost off the starcharts, but it was nowhere near the Gassies, and the Gassies was where all the action was. We were a backwater, and that was fine with me. Andrion 2 was the closest to a home I'd ever had, and I kind of liked it the way it was. Priestess and I considered quitting the Legion, especially after Tara and I had been sentenced to two years at hard labor for insubordination and reckless disregard, but the Legion changed our minds for us. Tara and I hadn't actually done more than a year breaking rocks, and I got my Andrion 2 assignment as soon as the Lost Command was reunited with ConFree. Two Two One, Pointman, the Lost Command's maximum leader, had promised me that. We thought the Legion would execute him for leading a mutiny, but they spared his life. They had to force him into retirement, of course, but that didn't matter. After all he had been right, ConFree had been wrong; and without the Lost Command, ConFree might have lost the struggle with the System. And his hallowed 22nd Legion had not been dishonored or disbanded. It was still the backbone of the Outvac, and the Lost Command was now history. ConFree and the Legion were united again, strong and free, just as Two Two One had wanted, and Two Two One's nemesis, Kenton Cotter-Arc, had fled to the System.
The Legion needed people like Tara and me, and who cared about reckless d, anyway? Any Legion trooper worth his salt took risks, and if you'd never been charged with reckless disregard, you were probably not doing your job.
I pulled a mini d-screen out of a tunic pocket, placed it behind my tray, and powered it on. The news flashed on as I picked at my breakfast. A fresh-faced Legion girl confidently summarized the sit.
"…have confirmed the second direct attack on a ConFree world by the Omni horde. Heavy fighting continues downside on Marala 5 as the battle for the vac rages throughout the system. The 22nd Legion has released the following images, from an unidentified combat unit downside on Marala 5. Please note these shots are not suitable for children."
The screen shifted abruptly to a blackened sky, flickering eerily with deceptors and flares. Tacstars shrieked in the background. A phospho tacmap glowed lower left plate, but it was all scrambled. They were getting the image from a Legion trooper's helmet—a scary view, one I knew well. I could hear the trooper's labored breathing. The view suddenly shifted, jagged rocks lurched past, mud splattering over the faceplate, then the trooper was down, crawling between two boulders, his E thrust out ahead of him, icy bursts of laser snapping over his head.
"Four, do you see him? Four…"
"I see him, I see him."
"I can't move! Get…" the grating blast of a Manlink drowned out everything else. Then the screen erupted in light and sound. The trooper was firing auto xmax. Something crackled up ahead, a violet haze. I dropped my fork, stunned by the images. An O, it was an O—fire, canisters, for God's sake, fire!
The image spat and shrieked, then faded. The female announcer reappeared, several shades paler. "That was the latest release from Marala 5. That trooper died for you. Please support the Legion. We need volunteers for the fighting front. See your Super. No one will be denied. The situation is critical…" The d-screen snapped off abruptly.
Priestess removed her finger from the switch. She stood there, our dox on the table, looking down at me. I gaped at her, stunned.
"Let it go, Thinker," she said softly. "Just let it go. Please."
***
We were still in the Legion, but it was almost as if we weren't. Tara had found me a nice quiet desk job in Galactic Information on Andrion, sorting sitreps. It was similar to what I had done on Dindabai for the Lost Command, but this particular position was a lot less important. The truth was, I could have fallen asleep for a week and nobody would have noticed the difference. Remember, I was an ex-con and had a reputation as a wild man. Nobody wanted to take a chance with me. Well, that was fine with me. I was right where I wanted to be, scanning d-screens in a blast-proof bunker, then riding home with Priestess in the aircar every evening for dinner with Moontouch and Stormdawn. It was a fine life. It wasn't the Legion I knew, but that was fine with me, too.
Priestess worked in the Body Shop in Alpha Station as a nurse. She was happy. We were both happy. I wore my blacks all day, nicely creased, and never broke into a sweat. Priestess wore her whites. And when we returned to Stonehall every evening, it was a different world. It was certainly an idyllic existence.
The only trouble with doing sitreps is that sometimes you have to read them. It was not a happy ending on Marala 5. The O's took downside and held their own in the vac. When it became apparent that the system was lost, the Legion did exactly what it had said it would do in that event. It induced a nova in Marala's star. A notable first. The resulting catastrophe annihilated the planet and everyone on it. The O's were on notice now. They were not going to inherit any more ConFree worlds, and the Legion's determination must have been terrifyingly obvious, even to the O's. ConFree was hoping to persuade the O's to turn their attention back to the System, where the stakes were not quite as high for us. But the next move was up to the O's.
***
"Look, Daddy! Look at my kite!" We were on a terrace atop the palace, awash in sunlight, and Stormdawn had just taken the kite string from Deadeye. It was a beautiful, multicolored kite, high, high above us, dancing in the breeze, darting under fluffy clouds. Stormdawn ran along the terrace pulling at the string, eyes on the kite. He was almost eight Andrion summers now, all legs and arms and long silky, fine brown hair and a face as lovely as a girl's, and skin that was exactly halfway between my own pale Outworlder cast and Moontouch's lovely light copper. What a wonderful child. He was everything that Moontouch and I had hoped, and he was Andrion's future king.
"Your prince is happy, Slayer. He wears out your warriors!" Deadeye joined me by the battlements, a light sweat beading his brow. Deadeye was chief of Moontouch's palace guard, a formidable Taka warrior with shoulder-length hair and a necklace of exoseg teeth proclaiming his courage. He was small-framed but tough. I knew—we had fought exos together and fought the Cult of the Dead as well, and cast down the Sign of the Beast and raised the crown and the skull of the Book over the portals of the dead city of Stonehall. But now Stonehall was largely rebuilt, and the future was ours. Deadeye had guarded Moontouch and Stormdawn throughout the dark days of the ConFree occupation of Andrion 2, when I had been with the Lost Command on Dindabai. They had lived like rats underground for years, but now all that had changed.
Moontouch was by my side, enjoying the sunlight, letting it dry her long glossy hair, still wet from a wash. She was dressed in fine silks, Andrion tree-silk, glimmering gold in the sunshine. Her exotic, slightly slanted eyes glanced up at the sky. Her skin was flawless, a pale brown. She was a vision of languid beauty. Stormdawn charged along backwards on one edge of the terrace, under an overhanging ledge.
"Storm!" Moontouch ca
lled out abruptly. "Come back this way!"
"You don't know anything about kites, Mommy!"
"He's all right," I said. "Don't worry. He can't get hurt up here." Moontouch was like any mother. If it was up to mothers, kids would never even get out of the house.
"Hello!" Priestess appeared out of a doorway, clad in minipants and a ragged cut-off top, a towel draped over one shoulder and a little plexy bottle clutched in one hand. She was stunningly lovely, long silky legs and slender arms and gleaming black hair. "I'm off for a sunbath. Who's helping?"
"You need help to sunbathe?" I asked. This was a new one.
"Well, sure. Somebody's got to take off my clothes and rub in the tanning lotion—I'm still trying to beat Moontouch's tan. Come on, Thinker—it's fun!" She flashed me a delightful white smile.
"Daddy, you promised you'd play with me! Why is the kite going down?"
"I'll be right there, Storm." Priestess's offer was tempting, but Stormdawn was having a crisis with his kite.
"No takers?" Priestess asked. "Hmm…maybe I should ask Moontouch." Moontouch gave her a secret smile.
"I'll help you, Priestess," I said. "I'll be right there. Just let me resolve this kite thing first." I turned and looked out at the view. What a day! Our palace shone white in the sunlight, topping a massive fortress that dominated a central hill rising from a vast forest. Other hills rose around us, covered with the ruins of the old Stonehall, massive stone blocks disintegrating in the relentless grasp of the forest. Restoration efforts were underway on the nearest hills. Stonehall was rising. The Grand Canal gleamed like a ribbon of gold far below. Several barges floated in the little port, unloading a shipment of stone blocks for the new Stonehall. The Taka were proud of their restoration. On the horizon, I could see the Garden of God.
"Daddy, you saidyou'd play with me! Don't you care about me? Don't you love me?"
"All right, all right, what are you doing with that kite? Don't you know how to fly a kite? Give me that!" I seized the string and staggered off with it, pulling at the kite. It kept fluttering down.
"You're doing it all wrong, Daddy! Weren't you ever a kid?"
No, I thought. I was never a kid. I missed that part. I had joined the Legion instead.
***
I started having trouble sleeping. We still slept outdoors, up on the terrace under a silken awning, as it seldom rained in the summer. I would get up silently, disengage myself from the girls, pad over to the battlements, and look up at the stars.
High summer on Andrion 2. I could smell the scent of the forest; I could smell the flowers, even way up there. The stars were magnificent, a dark field of milky jewels. I knew exactly where Marala was. I could see it clearly, up there in the silver dust. It looked just like any other star, but to me it was a lot more. Of course, I knew what I was seeing was a lie. Marala was hundreds of light years away from Andrion, so we wouldn't get to see the nova for hundreds of years. But I knew it was there, a massive, chilling, deadly eruption, rippling outwards, a mighty apocalypse. A whole planet full of humans and O's had died there—and I knew there was a good chance there would be more of those Legion stars burning in the heavens before our war with the O's was over. A sky full of novas, burning our defiance into the vac for the whole galaxy to see. A chilling vision of destruction, and a fitting Armageddon for the Legion. No, we couldn't see Marala's nova with our eyes—but it was there. I could see it with my mind. Every time I looked up at the stars, my eyes went right there. It was like a curse. It was hanging there in the sky. How could I ignore it?
I knew the Legion was out there. And a lot of people were dying, for me.
I thought about the decision—to detonate the star. Millions of ConFree citizens had died for the future—for us. I wondered what it was like to make a decision like that. Does one person take responsibility? Or do they fix it so nobody is to blame? I wondered if they had explained it to all the people who were stuck downside, before they did it. Or did they decide it would be better not to tell anyone? Deadman. Only the Legion could make decisions like that. It was insane.
Would we really dare do it again?
***
I snatched the sheet up from the doc tray as soon as it materialized. I was at my desk in Andrion Info, eagerly fingering the flimsy doc. A personal note—from Beta Eight. Dragon! I respected him more than anyone else in the galaxy, except maybe for Snow Leopard, our old Beta One. A pers note was very unusual. Soldiers of the Legion didn't normally have time to keep up on their correspondence. They were focused on staying alive. The note had to mean bad news. I was sweating already, a thin sheen forming on my brow as my eyes took in the note. Dragon had written it manually with a light pen on a Legion E-pad that he must have liberated from his Hqs. A Legion cross topped the document, followed by the unit designation. The handwriting was hard to make out.
22nd Legion—The Rimguard
Headquarters, Strategic Reconnaissance Command
Location: [-CENSORED-] Date: 322/04/12
Chief
Thought I'd take a couple of fracs to update you on the sit out here. Where 'here' is I can't say, but I can assure you, you don't want to know. I've got my own squad here—they call me 'One' now. The SRC is a real kick—it's where they put the crazies. We get all the 'choice' assignments, usually in bad guy country. Right here it's so cold that I can barely move my fingers.
Psycho is my second. He's still a major pain in the butt, but he's a good second. He keeps the kids in line. Snow Leopard is in the SRC now, he's in my Hqs. And Redhawk is our driver! He's just as crazy as ever.
Valkyrie's got her own squad too (you remember Valkyrie!). She's in the SRC too, and Scrapper is her Two. Snow Leopard has been watching over us all. Twister is on his staff at Hqs. We're all tenners except I got hit on the last mission and lost my hip. They gave me a new one though, I'm fine.
I hear you and Priestess got your dream assignment to Andrion. Let me tell you, Three, so long as we know there are normal, happy people out there living normal lives, it makes it all worthwhile. When things get bad out here I think about you and Priestess and Moontouch and your kid and I think, that's what we're fighting for, and maybe one of these days it will be me.
Three—you know how the Legion is. I don't know if you heard or not, but I thought I should tell you. Tara was on Augusta 6 when the O's took it. She's missing. I just thought you'd want to know.
Three, you just stay right where you are. Don't you do anything stupid. You've done enough for the Legion already. I don't want to add you to my collection of dead people, I've got enough already. You hear me? You just stay right there!
Later—Dragon.
Tara—missing! I was stunned. No, I had not known. Nobody had told me. We were mindless robots, a swarming hive, focused on the future of our race. Who the hell would miss a single individual?
Augusta 6. It was the first ConFree planet the O's had struck, after we had cleverly stopped their offensive into Systie vac. They had used new tactics, and seized the planet before we could resist.
We had not even had time to detonate the star.
I was tied to Tara for life—just as if we had been born twins. I knew it by then. The two of us had been through too much together. I had told her to give it up, to quit the Legion, to settle down and raise her adopted son, Willard. She said she was going to do it. I knew she was lying, even then. I lost track of her, after they let us out of the stockade. But here was the confirmation. Tara, on Augusta 6. You crazy bitch—you'll kill me before you're through. I know you will. Tara, my evil, dark angel. I prayed she was dead. It was a lot better than living as a slave of the O's. I prayed for her soul, and my own. Why hadn't she just given it up? Why?
***
We had a personal arms locker down in the basement of the palace. It was delightfully cool down there, with shiny marble walls and mirrored marble floors. I hadn't been to the locker in months. It wasn't locked, of course. Nobody would steal anything from us on Andrion 2.
I
touched the catch gingerly and the double metal doors slid open, triggering a faint light inside. And it was all there, a sudden nightmare from the past. My A-suit and Priestess's, standing there side by side, awful black cenite armor crisscrossed with hundreds of deep white scars, peppered with tiny gouges and cuts, riddled with hits. The faceplates of the helmets were closed, unreadable, deep dark ruby red, also spiderwebbed with a fine, almost invisible tracery of scars. The sight was so startling, so powerful, that my adrenalin gave me a jolt. It was almost as if the two A-suits were alive, it was almost as if two Legion soldiers were standing there in the locker, standing for a hundred years, Legion immortals, waiting for the signal to emerge, horrors from the Age of Chaos, infernal killing machines, ready for another war.
The armor was sweating. Little beads of moisture, trickling slowly down. Right in A corridor, in Alpha Station, they had propped up an A-suit just like these. It was almost obscene, in that bright, airy place. There was a huge sign on the wall that said, simply: THEY COME IN ALL SIZES. I had to walk past that damned thing every day. Everybody in the Legion was a volunteer. All you had to do was raise your hand, and you'd be at the front.
My E was right next to my A-suit. Waiting. It was an E Mark 3—the best the Legion ever made. I had carried that one into the Mound, on Uldo. A rush of emotion shot through my veins as I gazed at her lovely lines. You beautiful, nasty, sweet black bitch—I remember you! I remember every chip in your armorite stock, I know every scar on your cenite skin. You were in my arms, in the valley of the shadow of death, and you kept me alive. You slept with me, and me alone, you were faithful, all those years, to me. You've got scars from Coldmark, and Andrion 3, from Mongera and Uldo. You tasted starmass in the Mound—you ate it for breakfast! You annihilated all my enemies, humans and O's alike, everywhere I've been, with your superhuman eyes and ears. You're a cursed holy bitch, you're a Goddess from Hell, and we're married for life. You're my slave, and I'm yours.
Cross of the Legion Page 2
