“I know most of you. And you know one another well. But General Rechs is completely serious about this. Call it another personal preference, but in writing up reports, giving orders, or any other time you find yourself around the general, it’s LC-123. Roger that?”
“Roger that,” answered the men.
“Good. It’s an hour to sunup. Let’s go introduce the candidates to their new squads.”
* * *
Wild Man was having good dreams. Which was to say he was having no dreams. Just the deep, black REM sleep that came with utterly exhausting yourself. The crash and recovery that never seemed quite long enough.
But the lack of dreams… that was all right. Because usually those dreams were nightmares. Reliving the grisly, all-too-short defense as the Savage wave burned away his former life. He’d sort of gotten used to those nightmares. Didn’t even mind them all that much. His wife would be there with the baby in those dreams. It would always be the moment he left them, when there was still hope. The worry and anxiety always made him feel a little sick if he woke up during that part of the dream. But in a way that wasn’t so bad. Because the pressure hadn’t come yet.
Wake up, babe.
The pressure of finding the Savages. Killing them. Staying alive to kill more. It didn’t seem as hard to keep his wife happy before the Savages invaded Stendahl’s Bet. They had their fights. But they were happy. He remembered them being happy. But now that happiness only came when…
Wake up and do one for me, babe.
He needed his finger on a trigger again. Needed to squeeze with a Savage marine in his sights. Needed to see the spray of blood, hydraulics, ichor, or whatever else was running through their debased and abhorrent veins.
Wake up…
Wake up…
“Wake up, candidates!”
Wild Man’s eyes flashed open and his ears became aware of a cacophony of noise so loud that it seemed impossible that his mind was lost, drifting in the silence of a black, thoughtless sleep.
Legion candidates were scrambling to get dressed. Rushing to make beds. Screaming back answers to the red-faced instructors—the officers and Command Sergeant Major Andres. Someone was banging on something hollow and metal, a drum without its skin… just making noise. Like a baby set down next to the pots and pans, making a racket just because there was one to be made.
There was so much shouting. But Wild Man got the message immediately, even if his groggy mind didn’t yet have the speed to hear the individual words. He had to get up and out of bed.
He swung his feet over the side of his bunk, careful not to disrupt the sheets and blanket too much. Wild Man had learned how to make a bed, something his wife had done the last time he regularly slept in one. Sometimes, on the nights when the dreams were incessant, he would sleep on the floor. Just to be ready. Just to stay hard.
Just to do another one. Babe.
Now he was wishing he’d chosen to do that last night. Because everything was chaos and noise and shouting and he wanted desperately to be out of the barracks, out of the Chang, and on to whatever was in store for the candidates.
“Get up, twinkle toes!” yelled CSM Andres.
Wild Man remembered when the sergeant had been gut-shot. Knew the wound still bothered him. Figured he used that pain in his stomach as a motivator, because he was as mean and direct a drill instructor as any of the other candidates had ever seen. That’s what they told Wild Man at least. Or, that is, what they said while he was in earshot, cleaning his weapon. Usually the only people who bothered trying to actually converse with him were Davis and the others he’d fought with on New Vega. Except not so much Andres.
And never Tyrus Rechs.
“Get up!” Andres repeated. “I want every candidate in formation outside Chang in five. And I’m only gonna say this once: there’s a color card on your footlocker. Memorize that color and fall into your new squad with the same outside. If you’re color-blind, best ask someone! Don’t nobody make the general wait!”
Wild Man quickly made his bed, then pulled on his pants, tucking in his T-shirt. He sat down on his footlocker to put on his boots, mirror-shined the night before. Then he glanced over at his card. It was kind of red. Maybe a little orange, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t a primary color, and his stomach fell at the thought that this was all some trick and the candidates were on the verge of being chewed out for failing to get their shades lined up right. Any excuse to punish them.
Looking around, Wild Man checked to see if he saw any other candidates with the same color card as himself. There were blues, pinks, whites, shades of purple and green, but he didn’t spy an exact match. Some of the candidates were stuffing the cards in their pockets, likely thinking the same thing as Wild Man—that this was a trick and so they took the extra precaution of taking their color along with them.
“Move your asses!” screamed one of the lieutenants. “Move your asses!”
It was odd to have the officers serve as drill instructors. But that’s how it was working. Rechs did things his own way. Wild Man had overhead the other candidates saying that, too.
Wild Man picked up his card and held it in front of his face, studying it. He moved to stuff it in his pocket and then stopped. Placed it back on top of his footlocker and stood, inspecting his bed, his clothing, and the barracks.
Some of the beds were made. Had been made by the time Wild Man opened his eyes from sleep. These belonged to the men who had been selected to serve as the Legion’s first NCOs. Wild Man knew he wouldn’t be selected for such a task. Candidates didn’t look to him for leadership, and he hadn’t excelled at much of anything. Some of the choices surprised him, and some were obvious. Some of the men chosen he liked. Others he didn’t.
He hoped his squad leader would be one of the good ones.
Legionnaires: Chapter Seven
“Holy hell, Sergeant. Why are these things so heavy?”
LC-330 had never served in the military. And now he found himself a newly minted sergeant, expected to answer the question put to him by the Legion candidate holding the new battle rifle assigned to his squad.
“The N-1 will punch a hole clean through a Savage marine,” the sergeant answered. “That was a distinct problem on New Vega—having to go through copious amounts of ammunition and energy just to put ’em down. These rifles will make a difference.”
One of his men, LC-08, called Wild Man by his peers, raised his hand. There was an anxious, almost eager look in his eyes. “Are we shooting them today, Sergeant?”
LC-330 shook his head and then looked down for a moment. “No. Not today.”
His squad, called Echo, part of Second Platoon, was gathered at the edge of the obstacle course. They sat together in a small circle, their sergeant standing tall. The other squads from Second Platoon doing the same. First Platoon, along with Captain Milker, had moved out ninety minutes ago. Everyone had thought that today would be a change of pace. A chance to do something other than run.
“We’ll be running the gauntlet,” the sergeant said. “Only now your rifle, body armor, and kit are coming along.”
There was a groan from Echo Squad.
“Hey. Legion won’t send us to fight Savages wearing PT shorts… and we wouldn’t like it if they did.”
“Easy for you to say, Sarn’t.” It was LC-116. A PFC from one of the United Worlds planets by the name of Daniel Kimm. The candidates called him Danny. Then Danny Boy. Then Dan-Bo. They someone threw in Kim and that stuck, and now he was Kimbo.
Unless the general was around.
“Easy? How’s that, Kimbo?”
“You was always at the front of the pack.”
LC-330 shrugged. “Gotta hump it either way, candidate.”
“You figure that’s why they made you sergeant?” asked LC-25. Davis. She had been an officer prior to all of this. Pilot. Fought alongside the genera
l and a few others on New Vega. But the way she was asking wasn’t challenging, like she thought she ought to have been selected. Just curious.
“Might be,” LC-330 answered. “And I’m no stranger to giving orders.”
Before the Savages showed upon New Vega, LC-330 was on-planet to deliver a cargo hold full of archeological specimens taken from one of the pre-inhabited worlds. The galaxy was full of them. Temples and civilizations that seemed to have been long abandoned by the time FTL travel was discovered and mankind started to explore the stars with reckless abandon. Various professors and scientists jockeyed to label the lost and forgotten builders of these abandoned ruins, but the term that stuck was… the Ancients.
And LC-330 had done everything short of getting inside the impenetrable Ancient temple on a little multi-biome moon called Gable’s Purchase. Mostly that meant supervising a dig and taking anything out of the ground that might be of interest. Bones would be examined for signs of sacrifice or consumption—burn marks or knife scars, respectively. And there were a few pieces that seemed obvious enough. Things like utensils, vessels, and bits of fused and clumped machinery. A few items were a mystery—things with no analogous modern counterpart and seemingly no purpose. Those were the kinds of things the buyers, be they museums, universities, or private collectors, got the most excited about.
And paid best for.
The buyer on New Vega was the head of a university anthropology department that had just received a generous grant—a product of the boom happening on-planet. LC-330 and his first mate, Zeb, had just delivered the load, and the payout for the crew was enough to keep them all in their cups or in the arms of some lover for hire until their captain found another job and gave them the usual ultimatum: stay until your money runs dry or leave the revelry for another months-long trip in the bush digging bones and fighting the elements.
Only, the Savages showed up and erased everyone’s plans and hopes and dreams in an instant. A few ships—the lucky ones—got off-planet in those first moments. Those were the ones with enough of a crew on board that they were able to take off, departure protocols be damned, and make a mad run to the far side of the planet, looking to escape the looming Savage hulk.
No one minded that. Most would have done the same thing if they could have. And those escaping ships would be the only hope the rest of the populace would have of surviving what came next. Those first escaping ships would spread the news: Savages on New Vega. Send help.
The captain and Zeb were running for the docking berths when the bombers launched from the lighthugger sowed bombs like farmers’ seeds over the area. The two adventurers watched as everything they’d worked for—and their only avenue of escape—went up in a spectacular ball of flames.
Savage marines dropped into the New Vega streets from orbital assault pods. It was instant pandemonium. Citizens gunned down in the streets. But not dead. Not unless they were the local first responders. Those were engaged and overpowered by marines using lethal arms. Gas-fired projectiles. Slug throwers. Same as the pistol the captain carried on his hip.
Everybody else fell as if dead. But teams of special Savages began gathering them up even as the marines advanced further into the city.
“Harvesting,” Zeb observed. “With ill intent, I’d reckon.”
“Never any other way with Savages,” the captain answered.
He pulled his pistol. Zeb did the same.
The crew was somewhere in the already flaming city. Likely holed up in a whorehouse or saloon, trading gunfire with any Savage marines attempting to take the building as patrons screamed with fright and clung to anyone who looked willing to fight. That’s what happens in those times of sudden violence. Those in need of protection flock to the protectors. Sheep to shepherds. Cubs to mama bear.
Zeb and the captain didn’t venture into the city. Didn’t make an attempt to link up with the crew to fight their way to freedom or start some underground resistance cell. Because that wasn’t how you survived a Savage invasion.
Zeb and the captain had lived through two Savage invasions. Each time it required the same thing: reach the wilderness and live off of the land until help came to drive the Savages away or destroy their hulk… or until the Savages finished whatever they were doing and left on their own in an attempt to fade away before the United Worlds or whoever else could come and engage.
So the duo moved through the city, dropping Savage marines with their pistols and reloading as they went. It was chaos, but it was also clear that the Savages were herding the citizens of New Vega toward the Hilltop area where their hulk had landed. Easier harvest. And many of the locals seemed to be heading that way of their own volition. Heading for the underground bunker system New Vega had once employed to stave off pirate invasions as a fledgling colony.
Once the captain and Zeb slipped through the ring of Savage marines, it was a straight run into the wilds. The Savages aren’t as different as you might think. They face the same limitations as any other finite force in the galaxy. Armies control cities, but the wilds… they’re flyover territory.
Just don’t get spotted by the drones. Stay away from the foot patrols that venture twenty kilometers or so from the city and then turn around and head back. And don’t linger where you might be caught.
The two spacers, adventurers who’d chosen life on their own terms, didn’t linger. And they didn’t get caught. They moved so far out into the bush that the glow of New Vega—still powered by automatic generators long after its populace had been captured or gone to ground—had all but faded from the night skies. They stayed out there, fighting a savagery of deprivation. Cold. Wetness. Hunger.
Hair grew matted. Skin darkened as a layer of filth folded itself into every crease and pore. They lost weight.
Zeb’s gums started to bleed because he wouldn’t eat pine needles. He lost a tooth before relenting.
Then the Coalition came in all at once, setting down inside the city in numbers that were more than sufficient to finally drive the Savages from New Vega. Zeb and the captain marched through the night, the starlit sky flashing without end as Savage anti-aircraft guns attempted to slow or stop the inevitable.
Salvation had come.
Zeb turned his ankle somewhere along the way. Had to limp and hang on to the captain. It slowed them down, but they made it. Found themselves in the sights of two wary sentries armed with pulse rifles who worried incessantly about suicide bombers in their midst.
Zeb lifted up his shirt to show off a sunken chest, exposed ribs, and a belly swollen with hunger. And no weapons. “Only place left for the explosives is up my ass,” he yelled at the sentries. “And you’re welcome to check there so long as you let us through and get us the hell off this godforsaken rock.”
They let the men through. Sent them to an aid station. Warm food. Kaff. Blankets.
Zeb was in a bad way. He almost died out there. But it turned out he died on a hospital frigate that was blown apart trying to escape New Vega after a bombing run gone terribly wrong.
LC-330 wasn’t on that ship. He wanted to stay and fight the Savages. Felt strong enough to do it. Knew his help wouldn’t be refused so long as he found a pragmatic officer. He was embedded as a scout with a platoon of soldiers from somewhere on Levenir—part of the United Worlds. They were seeking a route through the city that would take them around the Savage defenses.
The captain’s helmet fit, but his United Worlds uniform was baggy, and those pants and shirt billowed as the bombs erupted well short of their target and the overpressure and dust storm enveloped him and his unit, hurling shattered pieces of buildings the size of cars, along with actual cars, in all directions.
He woke up a lone survivor. Covered in dust except for the whites of his eyes.
Everything everywhere seemed dead. But he made it back to the stadium. Found other survivors. Got out on the Chang. Volunteered for Legion training.
Except Zeb.
And Zeb’s dead.
It wouldn’t be until he reached the Legion training planet called Hardrock that he started to put weight back on. Regain muscle. The general and the admiral, Rechs and Casper, they pushed you hard. But they didn’t starve you. Not like the wilds did.
A man grew strong training for the Legion. LC-330, who had always been the strongest and fastest man he knew, grew stronger on his way to reaching the rank of sergeant. And now he had his own squad of Legion candidates who would rely on him to keep them squared away and get them through this nightmare that was Legion training.
“So,” Davis said, bringing LC-330 back to now. Back to waiting, his squad assembled. “What are the orders, Sergeant? No way we aren’t gonna be forced to run in all this.”
“I wasn’t kidding so stop asking,” said LC-330. “We’re running the gauntlet. Plus a little extra.”
Someone groaned. The big man. The Wild Man. He wasn’t a runner. It was a wonder he was still hanging around. Him and Davis both. But they had something. That extra checkbox in the makeup of a man that wouldn’t quit.
LC-330 had that quit box unchecked, too. And it would be his job to make sure his squad kept going. Failure is a result. Quitting is a choice.
“Command Sergeant Major Andres will order us to fall into a timed run. We will make that time and from there will be instructed on proper handling and firing techniques for the N-1. And… Echo Squad: we finish this run together.”
Legionnaires: Chapter Eight
It was agony. It was agony and the obstacle course was barely halfway finished. Wild Man grunted, crawling on his belly beneath razor wire, the cumbersome N-1 rifle cradled in his arms as he went headfirst down a gulch, sliding more than anything else. Feeling the sand build at his chest and roll back his shirt to deposit itself inside his clothing, where it would rub against his skin.
Gods & Legionnaires (Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars Book 2) Page 33
