The Last Legion: Book One of the Last Legion Series

by Chris Bunch

  Petr led them up a slope to a flat ground above the village, gathered the patrol around. He closed the whisper mike, spoke in a low tone. “This is safer,” he said. “We can see the trail they’ll take … I think … from here, and nobody’s going to get stumbled over. Or pissed on,” he said with a bit of a laugh. “There’s a big pool about twenty meters on, Njangu. You can go sluice off, and we’ll try to remember not to shoot you when you come back.”

  • • •

  There were three on watch, Kipchak, Jil Mahim, and Njangu. The party in the village had died down, and there were only two or three lights burning. They were high enough on the bluffs to look out over the bay, and could see the faint lights from Leggett to their right, in the west, and Chance Island, home, warmth, dry clothes, and real food glimmering like a jewel in the bay’s center.

  Petr had said it was all right to talk, as long as it was quiet, but neither Mahim or Njangu had anything to say, night, jungle, and the ’Raum close about them.

  It was very clear, and the stars shone with a hard beauty. Njangu wondered, if he knew where to look, if he could see the star Waughtal’s Planet orbited around. He hoped not.

  He jumped a bit as Petr began talking in a very low voice, almost as if he were thinking aloud. “When I was a boy,” he said, “I remember a holo. Old sucker, and the colors were starting to bleed a little. Anyway, it was about a planet called Rome, and how they carved themselves an empire. Their soldiers were called legionaries, and the empire kept them on the frontiers, keeping it safe.

  “Maybe that’s where I decided I wanted to become a soldier. Keeping people safe’s not a bad thing to do with your life. Anyway, there were barbarians, and they kept hammering at the empire, and little by little it shrank, and bits were lost, and eventually Rome disappeared.

  “I kept thinking about that, and what it would have been like to have been one of those legionaries, out on the far end of nowhere, looking at the stars and knowing they were enemy, and knowing there was nothing behind you, you were cut off, that there was no support, nobody to shout for when the barbarians came. I wondered what it was like to be part of a last legion like that.

  “Never thought I’d find out for real.”

  He fell silent, and there was no sound but a tiny, whispering wind.

  • • •

  “Intelligence says Gamma Team’s still on them,” Dill said. “The ’Raum have holed up in another village for the night, and Gamma’s sitting on a hill, waiting. So far the ’Raum don’t seem to be anything but fat, happy, and dumb.”

  “What’s their team leader going to do?” Gorecki wanted to know.

  “According to Cent Angara … and none of this are we supposed to know, being dumb-ass flyfolks in the rear rank,” Dill said, “he’s going to track ‘em until they lead him to a bigger target. Or, if they realize they’re being tracked, scrag ‘em.”

  “Hope he finds a big, wet, creamy target,” Kang said. “Something like a headquarters, right out in the open. Yum!”

  “Restrain yourself, Ho,” Garvin said. “All things come to she who waits.”

  “I’m not talking about coming, dammit. I’m talking about killing!”

  “You should’ve been the gunner, the way you talk.”

  “Nope,” Kang said. “Any fool can pull a trigger. It takes brains to handle electronics.”

  “I’m gonna shatter your whole world,” Jaansma said. “I’ll bet if we find them, they won’t have anything more sophisticated than what they’ve stolen from us for you to worry about.”

  “Then I’ll ask for a turn on the guns.”

  “Fair enough.” Garvin turned to Ben. “You know, O big-time and enlightened Vehicle Commander, I’ve been thinking.”

  “Tsk,” Ben said. “Brains aren’t authorized until you make dec. But try your feeblest.”

  “I’m wondering about these ’Raum,” Garvin said. “Mostly they live in the cities, with the biggest concentration over in Leggett, right?”

  “Except for the mines on C-Cumbre, pretty much,” Dill said. “But there’s got to be a kiloton of ‘em scattered around in the bush in little bitty villages.”

  “Scattered around doesn’t make for anything very impressive.”

  “I don’t see where you’re going.”

  “Sooner or later, we’re going to start nailing them,” Garvin went on. “We can’t keep being clusterbrains forever, can we?”

  “With Caud Williams anything’s a possibility.”

  “When we start hurting them,” Garvin went on, “it’ll be hard for them to get support from the villagers, fishermen, whatever, right?”

  “ ‘Course,” Kang said. “Especially if we do something smart, like start controlling the groceries and keeping track of city-bought supplies so we can see what villages are quartermasting the shitheads.”

  “Not bad,” Garvin said admiringly. “Promote that woman. Now, once we start hurting them, we’ll be hunting them pillar to post, right?”

  “Right,” Dill agreed. “Relentless pukes that we are.”

  “Hold that line,” Garvin said, “and consider something else. They slot somebody out there in the wilderness, it doesn’t make much of a dent in the holos. What would happen if they started killing people here in Leggett? Wouldn’t Matin go apeshit about the third body that got splattered on the front steps of their building?”

  “Sure,” Dill said. “Look how wiggly everybody got when that Rentier … Scryfa, I think it was, and his family got butchered last month. The ’Raum start doing that on a regular basis, and maybe leaving a bomb here and there to keep life interesting, D-Cumbre’ll start skreekin’ and hollerin'. Stands to reason.”

  “So shouldn’t they be moving into the cities and pushing things to make PlanGov knuckle under and talk about whatever changes the ’Raum think they’re fighting for?”

  Dill looked carefully at Garvin. “You know, troop, I’m sorta glad you’re on our side. ‘Cause what you just said makes way too much sense.”

  • • •

  Njangu woke before dawn, his head throbbing, his gut wrenched in a knot. He tried to vomit, couldn’t. Jil Mahim, the team medic, crawled over.

  “What’s the problem?” she whispered.

  “Got the creeping cruds,” he managed. “Probably from bein’ pissed on.”

  “That can do it to you,” she said, went back to her pouch. “Here. Painkillers and anticrud.”

  Njangu unscrewed his canteen, swallowed the tablets with a gulp of water. Seconds later, everything came up. “Oh frab,” he moaned.

  Kipchak crawled up beside the medic, found out the problem. “Can you march?”

  “Hell yes,” Njangu managed. “That’s better’n the alternatives.”

  Petr nodded. The only option was for Njangu to be left behind. After the ’Raum and the patrol cleared the area, the Force would evac him. Assuming there was something left to evac. “Saddle up, then.”

  Njangu feebly got into his pack, picked up his blaster. Penwyth and Mahim helped him up. “It ain’t gonna get any easier,” he managed. They moved to the trail, and were waiting for the ’Raum when they moved past.

  The day was hot, dry, and a blur. Njangu felt like he was on fire, pain in every joint. He wanted to crawl off to the side of the trail, lie down, and hope for sleep. Or death. But he didn’t. He kept plodding. The universe narrowed to one hand carrying his blaster, the crushing weight of his pack, and one foot in front of the next, over and over. Every time he brushed against a branch, or scraped a rock, it felt like a burning brand.

  Once, he found tears running down his face, hastily scrubbed them, and a portion of his camouflage, away with a filthy sleeve. Nobody’s ever seen Njangu Yoshitaro cry, and they wouldn’t now. No one since … since he couldn’t remember when. He hated himself, and everyone else. Kipchak for moving at such a killing pace, the bastard on point who always took the steep way, the rocky way, the son of a bitch behind him who wouldn’t do the decent thing and carry his pack for hi
m. Bastards the lot.

  He dully swallowed the broth Mahim fed him around midday, lost it minutes later. The medic held an airblast to his arm, and he was vaguely aware of hissing. Somebody was lifting him, and he got his feet under him. He stumbled, the pack almost bringing him down, but he found his balance. “Hep ho,” he managed, and they moved on again.

  The day was an agony of months and years, and when the tears came back again he didn’t bother to wipe them away. He didn’t see anything on either side, didn’t care if the goddamned ’Raum ambushed him. At least they wouldn’t be moving, at least the ’Raum’d let him rest, and being shot couldn’t hurt more than he already did.

  Eventually they stopped, and somebody led him to a tree, slid his pack off, and told him to sit down. Somebody else fed him some more broth, and this time it stayed down. Mahim gave him another injection, and he was instantly unconscious.

  He awoke in a gray dawn, feeling marvelous. He didn’t believe it, and cautiously felt his arms, his legs. He wasn’t dead, at least not unless dead included still being in a jungle. He could smell his body, and it still smelled sick. But he was alive. He remembered crying the day before, and, strangely enough, wasn’t ashamed.

  Faintly the thought came — you just pushed through something, my friend. Like you did on the cliffs. Taught you, didn’t it? He put the thought aside as being hopelessly romantic and got ready for the day’s march.

  • • •

  They followed the ’Raum for two more days. Now the villages were fewer and smaller as they moved closer to the Highlands. The ’Raum made their camp in kwelf groves. Gamma didn’t have that luxury and slept in the open. But at least the rains had stopped — the dry season had arrived.

  • • •

  Njangu was on point. He was utterly alive, every nerve singing, and the brush of a breeze on his skin was like a blow. The air was sharp, clean, and every tree, every flower had a different, distinct scent. His breathing came slowly, regularly, from below his diaphragm, as he’d learned from his sensei, long ago on Waughtal’s Planet. He could feel the enemy ahead, maybe two, maybe three hundred meters, feel the careless, confident way they moved.

  He jumped when Petr tapped his shoulder, thumbed him back into the column, almost got angry, then obeyed. It was someone else’s turn — no one could maintain perfect alertness for long. Finf Newent slid past, flashed a tight, meaningless grin, teeth pulled back in a near snarl. Njangu followed him at slack, a respectable distance from Newent.

  The jungle blew up in front of him, and Newent stumbled back, arms splaying, his SSW spinning, and fell against him. Yoshitaro heard the thud of gunfire, and Newent convulsed, grunted, went limp. “Hit them,” someone was shouting, and Njangu realized it was Kipchak. He pushed Newent’s corpse away, fired four bolts at waist-level, fought the urge to go flat, found a grenade on his belt, thumbed, and hurled it, then crouched and sprayed more rounds. Other blasters were stuttering, and the volume of fire from the ’Raum slowed, and he tossed another grenade, rolled, and the three behind him sharded into splinters. He forced himself up to his knees, lifted the heavy SSW, sprayed fire across blank green jungle.

  For an instant there was silence, and Kipchak shouted, “Back,” and he obeyed, stumbling away from the ambush and a bolt clipped a branch over his head, and he almost tripped and fell. There was a cluster of rocks, and the patrol was behind them. “Come on,” Kipchak shouted. “Fall back … you’re the last,” and the patrol was moving again, at a shuffling trot.

  Njangu realized he was last in column, closest to the enemy, and fought panic. Kipchak was there, firing past him. “Back to the trail fork,” he ordered, “we’ll mousetrap ‘em there,” and Njangu obeyed, hearing the air rasp in and out of his lungs. Gamma spread out at the fork, and Njangu spotted a thick cluster of brush to one side.

  “Jil,” he ordered. “You and Stef keep running back. Make a lot of noise. Stop about fifty meters down the trail and drop off to the side. Slot anything that comes down. We’ll shout you back up when we need you. The rest of you, over there and get ready to smash ‘em when they come.” He wondered dimly what made him give the orders, but Gamma was obeying, and Petr came back. He saw what Njangu had ordered, nodded. Seconds later they saw motion up trail, and five ’Raum half ran toward them.

  “No … no … no …” Petr was whispering … “NOW!” and five Squad Support Weapons blasted fire. Screams, and staggering bodies, and Njangu let another burst go into their midst.

  “Up, up,” Kipchak ordered, and shouted for Mahim and Bassas. “Now we’ve got them going … don’t let up.” They went back the way they’d come, past four bodies and one sobbing boy. Kipchak’s pistol fired, and he was silent. Five down, Yoshitaro thought. Twelve to go. Njangu saw Newent’s blank, staring eyes in a mask of blood, looked away. Mahim stopped long enough to tuck a sensor on the body, turn it on for later pickup.

  All that day the patrol followed the ’Raum. The com started chattering, and Petr keyed the mike: “This is Gamma. All frigging units stay off this freq or I’ll close the com down. Clear.” There was a squawk of outrage from someone, but then the com was quiet.

  “We’re tracking ‘em,” Petr explained as he ordered a halt. “And we’re too close. Look. They’re leaving a blood trail. Let ‘em get a few minutes ahead,” he said. “Then we’ll go on.”

  “What happens next?” Penwyth asked. “We need a piece of the bastards for slotting Newent.”

  “They’ll try to trap us,” Kipchak said. “And if they can’t bust us, they’ll try to lose us, which we aren’t gonna let them do. Don’t worry. We’ll get ours.”

  The ’Raum backtrailed three times, but all three times their hasty ambush was spotted before it was sprung. Then, as Kipchak had predicted, the ’Raum went more slowly, into thick brush, up rapidly drying creek beds, over stony ground. But each time Gamma was able to stay with them.

  They rounded a bend and saw two sprawled bodies, moving slightly. “They’re worried,” Petr said, “They’re dumping their casualties.”

  Mahim started forward. “No!” Petr shouted. He sprayed a burst into each body. One was knocked aside by the impact, and Njangu saw the primed explosive charge set under her, and then the charge blew, shredding the woman’s corpse. “Nice try, but no daggah,” Petr said, and the pursuit went on.

  By dark, they were high up on the bluffs, and mist from the Highlands rolled down over them. Njangu thought he was breathing fire, his lungs searing, and the rest were gasping as loudly. “Com,” Petr ordered, and Irthing, who was carrying the set, handed him a mike. “This is Sibyl Gamma. Scrambling.” He touched buttons on the com. The scrambler not only ate power, but reduced broadcast range on the coms. “Do you have me marked?”

  “Sibyl Gamma, this is Sibyl Control,” the com whispered. Kipchak recognized Hedley’s voice. He made a quick status report. “I think they’re holing up for the night. Anyway, they should unless they’re brain-dead. Can you get me a sniffer in the air?”

  “Affirm.”

  “Don’t hit them,” Kipchak ordered. “I say again, don’t hit them. Let me know if they move before first light. We’ve got them going, and I think they’re heading for something solid.”

  “This is Control,” Hedley said. “Understood, will comply. But watch it. They could be planning a surprise.”

  “This is Gamma. Understood. That’s one reason I want the sniffer up, to give me a little early warning if they put the hounds out.”

  “Understood.”

  “Just give me a chance to nail them down, and you’ll have your big target.”

  “This is Gamma. Clear.”

  • • •

  Everyone, even revolutionaries, fall into the trap of routine. So it was with the ’Raum. In spite of their policy of never meeting in the same house or village twice, or on the same night, the huge cave at the rim of the Highlands had become a permanent headquarters. The tiny entrance was still well guarded, but now there were paths leading to it. The Movement’s
records, computers, coms were centered there, and so it was necessary to garrison the outside of the cave. Other ’Raum units, after action, retreated there to report and get new instructions. Since it was perfectly safe, they also lingered for a day or two, finding a chance to relax, to raise their voices above a whisper, to laugh without looking over their shoulders.

  The cave’s inner chamber held the twenty men and women of the Planning Group, plus another fifteen of the ’Raum’s most respected fighting leaders. Comstock Brien stood by at an easel, with a Confederation-issue map on it.

  “This is an excellent opportunity to hit the Rentiers and their dogs hard,” he said. “That patrol is obviously a stalking horse. It’s trailed our unit for several days, without forcing contact. The Force wants a battle, and I think it should have it.”

  Jo Poynton stood. “Brother, what makes you think that we can outfight the Confederation soldiers?”

  “We have consistently done so this far,” he said. “And their response time with reinforcements has been miserably slow. I’ve put myself in their commander’s mind. He wants to draw some of us into the open. He’s thinking perhaps we’ll send out a hundred, maybe a hundred fifty men, so he’ll be prepared to respond with two or three hundred. Excellent odds, from his perspective. But what are the chances of the Force’s unreliable air-delivery vehicles being able to put a full three hundred men into the mountains? I would say very, very slim. Plus whatever vehicles they successfully launch can be hit by the antiaircraft missiles we’ve acquired. That should make them cautious.

  “My plan is simple: I have three hundred troops mustered outside this cave. Our team is less than three hours distant. By dawn, we could reach them and first obliterate that patrol with, say a hundred men, giving the patrol time enough to report the enemy strength. The Force will then bring in reinforcements. Just when their men are landing, we’ll hit them with the rest of our fighters.

  “I’ll com immediately for another two hundred fighters from the regional units in the area, which will give us overwhelming force. By the time the Force realizes its surprise assault was expected, the men on the ground and, hopefully, a great number of their combat vehicles will be destroyed. They will, of course, panic and counterattack with every man, every vehicle remaining at Camp Mahan.