Legion Of The Damned - 06 - For Those Who Fell (18 page)

Booly closed the door and shed pieces of his uniform as he crossed the room. “That depends . . . How much will this cost?”

“Everything,”
Maylo answered, as he entered the circle of her arms.

“Everything? That's a lot.”

“Yes,” his wife agreed soberly, “it is. There are rewards, however, one of which is right here.”

Booly felt her hand take control of his and guide it down over silky-smooth skin to her lower abdomen. That was when he realized that rather than being flat, the way it usually was,
her stomach felt slightly rounded. He looked into her face and saw her smile. “
Really?
A baby?”

“No, not just any baby,
your
baby.
Our
baby.”

Booly laughed joyfully, kissed her, and laughed again. “Can we still make love?”

Maylo looked up into his face and smiled. “Yes. For quite a while yet.”

“Good. Let's celebrate.” And they did.

I'll hide my master from the flies, as deep As these poor pickaxes can dig.

—William Shakespeare

Cymbeline

Standard year 1609

It had rained during the night, but the clouds had disappeared, leaving a clear blue sky. But puddles remained, some of which were quite large, forcing the citizens of Savas Prime to navigate their way between them on their way to the only structure large enough to hold everyone. They filtered into the customs dome, milled around the mostly open duracrete floor, or huddled in small groups.

There hadn't been a whole lot of commerce in and out of the Savas system of late, not with a Ramanthian destroyer in orbit, and what little bit of traffic there was bypassed both the dome
and
the local customs officer, something he was almost powerless to stop since the locals had no love of taxes or those paid to collect them. That was why the structure was empty except for a pile of shipping containers stacked along a section of the curvilinear wall that would most likely remain there until the end of the war.

There was a stir as Colonel Kobbi arrived, and a general
movement in toward the makeshift platform, as the military officer climbed a pile of increasingly larger crates until he stood on top of a full-sized cargo module. Sunlight streamed down through the skylight at the center of the dome to bathe him in gold.

Santana and a small cluster of legionnaires stood off to one side, ready to intervene if the crowd turned ugly. The fact that he was
there,
rather than chasing Kuga-Ka and his henchmen through the jungle, made the cavalry officer angry.

However, for reasons Santana could only guess at, Captain Gaphy had assigned Lieutenant Awanda and a squad of six bio bods to
find the deserters and bring them back. No small task given the fact that the renegades had weapons, an RAV loaded with stolen supplies, and a hostage.

There was nothing Santana could do, however, but stand and watch as Kobbi prepared to address the townspeople. There wasn't any PA system, but the bandy-legged legionnaire didn't need one. He had a voice that had been tested on dozens of parade grounds and never found to be wanting. “Good morning,” Kobbi began. “I would like to thank the citizens of Savas Prime for their hospitality . . . and apologize for any hardship we brought them. There have been numerous inquiries regarding our plans, so I thought I would take this opportunity to answer those that I can.

“As most of you are aware, half of my battalion landed here . . . while the other half landed in the Pandu Desert. It is my intention to march north, reconstitute my force, and undertake the mission we were sent here to accomplish.”

“Why?” a male voice demanded harshly. “Your duty is
here
.”

Others shouted, “Yeah!” “That's right!” “You said it!”

The crowd surged forward, and Santana turned to Dietrich. “Take two bio bods. Flank them and stand by. Fire over their heads on my order.”

The noncom nodded, selected two soldiers, and slipped away.

“No,” Kobbi replied stolidly, “it isn't. Unfortunately, the nature of my orders prevents me from sharing them with you—nor do I have the latitude to act on my own.”

“But we'll be slaughtered!” a woman wailed. “Take us with you!”

“I can't do that,” the officer responded, “and you wouldn't want me to. If the battalion sees combat, which I believe that it will, it would be impossible for us to protect civilians. The best thing you can do is evacuate Savas Prime, hole up in one of those mine shafts, and maintain a low profile. It may be a while before the navy arrives in-system, but when it does, you'll be able to reoccupy the town.”

There were angry protests, and Santana was starting to become concerned for Kobbi's safety, when a loud explosion shook the dome. Someone shouted, “It's the bugs! Run!” and the townspeople stampeded toward the exits.

Meanwhile, out in the plaza that marked the center of Savas Prime, Captain Gaphy stood and stared toward the south. One of the Ramanthian aerospace
fighters had already passed overhead—and it appeared that two more were on the way.

One of the problems associated with his addiction was the fact that the joy-leeches fed whenever they chose to. That made it difficult to function at times. The officer gave an involuntary jerk as one of the creatures injected a dose of endorphins into his bloodstream and began to suck blood from his abdomen. Gaphy fought the rising sense of euphoria and struggled to concentrate. One part of his mind was focused on the oncoming fighters while the rest rode a towering wave of ecstasy.

Seemingly off in the distance, as if shouted from the top of a hill, someone told Gaphy to “Take cover!” but the officer
was pretty sure that he was immortal and saw no reason to compromise his dignity.

Slowly, as if underwater, the legionnaire drew his sidearm and took aim at the oncoming aircraft. He managed to fire two rounds before his ears were filled with the roar of engines, something exploded off to his left, and a shadow flitted over his body. He wasn't wearing his body armor, and a piece of jagged steel punched its way through his chest a fraction of a second later. Gaphy fell, his head hit the pavement, and the handgun skittered away. The sky looked so blue, so very . . .

But then Gaphy was gone, as someone yelled, “Medic!” hands ripped at his bloodstained shirt, and the fabric was ripped away. The medic took a look at the hole in the officer's chest and knew he was dead. A private pointed to one of the leeches. “Look at that! What is it?”

Well aware of the fact that its host was dead, the leech reached out to make contact with the new food source, but failed when the medic jerked the intended victim back out of range. “I don't know, Mendez, but there's more of them. Grab his ankles . . . we'll drag him to cover.”

The entire town shook as the
Spirit of Natu
took a direct hit from a ship-to-ship missile and exploded. An enormous mushroom cloud boiled up to blot out half the sky, even as a secondary blast sent still another column of smoke upward, and pieces of debris rattled and in one case clanged as they hit the surrounding duracrete. Then, satisfied that the objective had been destroyed, the Ramanthian pilots pulled up and away.

Santana was at Kobbi's side as the colonel stepped out of the miraculously untouched customs dome and took a look at the devastation that surrounded him. “You know,” the battalion commander said to no one in particular, “those bugs are really starting to piss me off.”

 

Even though Lieutenant Lis Awanda could look up and see glimpses of blue sky, very little light made it down through the triple canopy jungle to the ground below. That meant that while there were plenty of plants to either side of the trail, most weren't very large. Many were green, but there were pale yellow leaves as well, and some that had maroon spikes. Higher up, beyond what she could actually see, Awanda had the impression of extremely tall trees, a lot of interlocking foliage, and a tangle of parasitic vines.

The whole thing was beautiful, but frightening, too, because of the limited visibility. Anything could be hiding in the shadows including predators, Jithi tribesmen, and Gunnery Sergeant Hreemo Kuga-Ka. The first two possibilities bothered her, but the third scared the hell out of her, and the cavalry officer keyed her radio. Ito was on point. He heard the
click,
turned to look, and saw the loot hold up her hand. The legionnaire nodded, dropped to one knee, and kept his eyes on the jungle ahead. The patrol was on the right trail, Ito was certain of that, since there was no mistaking the pa
ncake-sized RAV prints that bracketed both sides of the path.

Awanda had closely cropped black hair, brown skin, and broad cheekbones. A miniature version of the 1st REC's wreath-and-shield insignia dangled from her left ear. She was a combat veteran and knew that trails were the natural place for the enemy to lay traps, plant mines, and set up ambushes. But to travel parallel to the trail would eat time, allow the deserters to widen their lead, and lessen the chances of catching them. Still, it made sense to pause every once in a while, and listen.

Private Ricci saw the loot's gesture and relayed it back to Nugen, Eckers, and Sergeant Brio. All of them were grateful for the momentary respite. In spite of the fact that they had left Savas Prime only five hours before, they were tired. Even though the rain had stopped before they left, water continued
to drip down through the foliage, leaving them soaked. Making them even more miserable was the warm humid air, constant harassment by insects, and the fact that like most cavalry they were uncomfortable in the role of foot soldiers.

Still, none of those factors bothered the legionnaires as much as the nature of their quarry. With the exception of Sergeant Brio, every single one of the troopers had been bullied by Kuga-Ka at one time or another, and they weren't all that eager to catch up with him.

The jungle teemed with life, much of which seemed determined to screech, chortle, and trill all at the same time. Awanda strained to hear something besides the ambient noise, thought she detected the distant thump of what might have been an explosion, but couldn't be sure. The cavalry officer used her right
forearm to wipe the sweat off her forehead, looked up toward the sky, and directly into the thumb-sized camera-sensor unit that Knifethrow had attached to a neighboring tree trunk.

Meanwhile, a thousand yards uptrail, Sawicki shook Kuga-Ka's shoulder. “They're here, gunny, just like you said they'd be. It looks like Lieutenant Awanda and at least three troopers. There may be more, but they're out of camera range.”

The Hudathan's eyes popped open; he yawned and stretched. “Are they on the move?”

“Nope. They're taking a break.”

“Where's Knifethrow?”

“Right here,” the Naa answered, dropping out of a tree not six feet away.

“Damn!” Sawicki complained. “Don't do that! You scared the hell out of me.”

In spite of the fact that Naa physiology had evolved to cope with cold rather than warm temperatures, Knifethrow had adapted to the jungle environment by stripping down to his trousers and sweat-soaked fur. He grinned. “You'd
better pay attention Sawicki—or something will sneak up and bite your ass.”

Kuga-Ka eyed the tiny vid screen, saw the patrol start to move, and reached for a headset. It was connected to Haaby's brain box. “So,” the Hudathan said into the mike, “how's it going, freak? Are you all cozy in there? Just waiting to die?”

The Hudathan's voice seemed to echo through the darkness that surrounded Haaby. “Why haul the extra weight around?” she inquired. “Kill me now.”

“Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?” Kuga-Ka said. “But that would be too quick . . . too painless. Besides, I have to kill someone else right now . . . Rather than send Santana the way I hoped he would, the leech-head sent Awanda, so she's got to die. And it's your fault. Because if you weren't such a freak, none of this would have happened. Think about it.”

Haaby liked Awanda, and was about to try to intervene on her behalf, when the Hudathan cut her off. Darkness closed around the legionnaire, and she tried to cry.

The ambush had been ready for hours, which meant that all the renegades had to do was take their places along the east side of the trail. Ito followed the RAV tracks up a slight rise, over a fallen tree trunk, and through a gurgling stream. But, in spite of his best efforts to take in everything around him, he failed to see the deserters as he walked past them.

Awanda was more observant, however. She saw the thin, almost invisible monofilament line just as Ito's boot broke it. She thought a warning, but never had the opportunity to deliver it, as the bounding mine jumped up out of the mud and exploded with a loud
bang!
A thousand steel spheres scythed through the air, blew Ito off his feet, and removed the officer's head.

That was when the renegades stood and opened fire with their assault weapons. Ricci, Nugen, and Floro went down in a welter of blood as Brio grabbed Eckers by the back of his combat harness and pulled him back out of the killing zone.
Then, firing from the hip, the survivors backed down the trail. The incoming fire stopped. The legionnaires turned and ran.