Legion Of The Damned - 06 - For Those Who Fell (27 page)

That was the moment when Calvo realized that Haddad was risking his life to stand at her side. She grinned. “That sounds like excellent advice, Sergeant. Thank you.”

A firing step had been formed around the edge of the gun emplacement, then fused into place with laser torches. Calvo vaulted over the berm, landed on the blackened glass, and raised her glasses. The oncoming horde had separated into clumps of riders by then, weapons held high, screaming their hatred. The rating who sat in the seat behind the gun was only a few feet away. He looked from the mob that filled his sight down toward Calvo. He was nineteen years old and had a hard time keeping his voice level. “They're in range, ma'am.”

Calvo was about to reply, about to tell him to hold his fire a bit longer, when two aerospace fighters appeared out of the sun. The energy bolts arrived before the sound of their engines did, tossed great gouts of sand up into the air, and destroyed the gun emplacement to the north. Thunder rolled as the pilots pulled up, banked to the south, and prepared for a second run.

Captain Amdo, still ensconced on the ship's bridge, took
control of the surviving cannons at that point and handed it over to the C&C computer. A firing solution was fed to the weapons, they whined as they turned, and bolts of blue light flashed into the sky. The lead fighter staggered as if it had just run into a brick wall, exploded into a thousand pieces of fiery debris, and scattered itself over the desert below.

The pilot of the second ship saw the explosion, had no time to react, and was forced to fly through it. A jagged piece of metal slammed into a stubby wing, sliced through a fuel line, and triggered a cockpit alarm. The Ramanthian knew there was no way he'd be able to make it back into orbit and turned toward
Hagala Nor instead. Captain Amdo gave thanks and hit a button. The gunners saw a green light appear and knew they had control again.

 

Srebo Riff was in the third rank of riders, and would have been in the first had General Kal Koussi allowed it, but could still feel the wild exultation of battle. Not that the engagement was likely to last very long, since while they were purported to be well armed, the hard skin named Pamee had assured him that there were no more than fifty aliens in and around the wrecked flier. He stood straight-legged, screamed his son's name into the wind, and saw a flash of light.

There was a loud
boom!
as an energy bolt capable of punching its way through durasteel ruptured the atmosphere, tore a bloody four-zurna-wide hole through all twenty ranks of Paguumi warriors, and kept right on going. There weren't any wounded, just a long line of dead bodies, most of which were so badly charred it would have been impossible to identify them.

Srebo Riff survived the initial blast, and even though he'd never seen an energy cannon before, instinctively understood its weakness. “Spread out!” he shouted into the Ramanthian-made com set. “Spread out
now!
” And key leaders obeyed him, thereby limiting the cannon's effectiveness,
as the gunner was reduced to firing on groups of two or three rather than a massed target.

But the legionnaires had
another
surprise in store for the digs—and it wasn't so easily countered. There were eight borgs, four of which were quads, and four of which were T-2s. Calvo planned to keep half of the force in reserve in case it turned out that the cavalry charge was a feint and the
real
attack came from somewhere else.

But that left two quads, and two T-2s, all of which had been given enough warning that they had been able to take up positions east of the wreck. None of the locals had the faintest idea what the strange apparitions were as they rose out of the sand, but it didn't take long for them to learn as machine guns opened fire, and the entire front rank of warriors disappeared in a welter of blood, shattered bone, and flying bits of flesh.

Shocked by what was taking place, Subcommander Pamee tried to turn his zurna around, discovered that the battle-maddened mount seemed determined to take the lead, and ran faster. The off-worlder soon found himself side by side with Srebo Riff. The Paguum nodded approvingly, screamed something incoherent, and charged a Confederacy cyborg. The Ramanthian felt inspired in spite of himself and followed the chieftain in.

In spite of the terrible carnage, there were still plenty of targets, and Lif Hogger's T-2 continued to mow the digs down as bullets clanged against his armor, and the native cavalry swept around him. A bio bod rode high on the borg's back. He fired his assault rifle, knocked a Paguum out of the saddle, and jerked as a bullet took him at the base of his spine just below his body armor.

“This is it!” Sergeant Haddad shouted to the legionnaires around him as the enemy swept in. “Pick your targets, make each bullet count, and remember that the nearest ammo dump is at least five lights away!”

Calvo took the noncom's advice, raised her assault weapon, and put the crosshairs on one of the lead animals. It made for a large target, and when it fell, the body might block those behind it. The rifle jerked as the MO fired bursts of three rounds each.

Pamee felt the zurna stumble, knew it had been hit, and felt himself being launched into the air. The Ramanthian hit the sand, rolled head over heels, and felt a shadow fall across him. He had pulled his sidearm, and was firing up into the quad's armored belly, when the durasteel pod came down on his head and thorax. There was a crunching sound as chitin shattered, a momentary wetness in the sand, then nothing as the cyborg unwittingly pushed the officer's remains down under the desert's surface.

The charge broke after that, as Riff and the handful of warriors who remained to him were forced to flee back the way they had come, with energy bolts sizzling past their heads.

“Cease fire!” Calvo shouted, then said it again, via the com net. “This is Pandu Six . . . Cease fire! Over.”

There was one last burst of .50 caliber rounds as a legionnaire took her finger off the heavy machine gun's trigger, followed by nearly total silence as overheated metal pinged, servos whined, and a badly wounded zurna whimpered pitifully.

The bodies were stacked in bloody heaps where the cannon had caught them and laid out in tidy rows where the T-2s had cut them down. Haddad looked out over the battlefield in stunned amazement. “Congratulations, Captain, it looks like you won your first battle.”

Calvo was afraid to speak lest her voice crack. She heard Farner report that six legionnaires were dead, and four more had been wounded. The butcher's bill had been light, all things considered, but what about the next attack? And the one after that? How long could they hold before they were overwhelmed?

There was no answer, just the unrelenting heat and occasional gunshot as the troops put wounded animals out of their misery and directed the harried medics to warriors who needed medical attention. The maintenance officer sighed and went back to work.

The jungle and the desert had been at war for hundreds of thousands of years, which meant that the margins of the grasslands that separated them had been conquered many times before. Now, thanks to the interaction between conditions in the planet's atmosphere and major ocean currents, the desert was pushing great fingers of sand down from the north, and the jungle was in retreat. The savanna, which the Paguumi called the Grass Path, had migrated accordingly. It was dry, though, and what had once been a continuous band of rich green grass was interrupted by peninsulas of invading sand.

And it was there, at the point where the grass and scattered trees gave way to the thick jungle vegetation, that three raggedy figures stumbled out onto the savanna and collapsed. Kuga-Ka's uniform was ripped in various places, he'd lost forty pounds, and been forced to improvise a pair of sandals after his boots gave out. All he had left was the life-support pack, Corporal Mora Haaby's brain box, his assault rifle, sixteen rounds of ammunition, and a machete.

Knifethrow had acquired some sort of fungus, which though not evolved to feed on the Naa race, found the off-world organism to its liking. As a result large sections of the deserter's fur had fallen out, leaving significant islands of irritated skin. He carried an assault weapon, forty-six rounds of ammo, and two well-honed knives.

Sawicki had a bloodstained battle dressing tied around his head. It was three days old, but there weren't any more.
The human had lost a significant amount of weight, had constant diarrhea, and felt cold even though it was warm.

The .50 caliber sniper's rifle, the weapon he happened to be carrying when the RAV blew up, lay at his side. The long gun had proven useless for hunting, since the huge slugs had a pronounced tendency to blow small game into even smaller pieces and frequently got caught in the jungle foliage. Kuga-Ka had insisted that he keep the weapon, however, so the human had, along with thirty-two rounds of ammunition. “Damn,” Sawicki said feelingly, “it feels good to get out of that frigging jungle.”

“Yeah,” Knifethrow agreed as he looked out over the ocean of grass, “except what do we do now?”

Kuga-Ka lay on his back and stared up into the sky. Although it sounded rhetorical, the ex-noncom knew that the question was directed at him and fought a sudden surge of anger. How dare the mangy furball question his leadership! Sometimes he wanted to grab the Naa, twist his ugly head off, and pee into the hole. But that would be tantamount to slamming his assault weapon against a rock, throwing his machete away, or sharing the vitamins that the other two didn't know he had.

So the Hudathan waited for the resentment to subside and was careful to keep any trace of what he truly felt out of his voice. “Do you remember the flares? The ones we fired when the bugs flew over? Well, we're going to try again. We don't have any flares, not anymore, so we'll use signal fires instead. Once we get their attention, we're going to let the weird-looking bastards fly us north, pay us for our services, and drop us on a nice friendly planet.”

Sawicki had wondered why the ex-noncom wanted to signal the Ramanthians, but he'd never mustered the courage to ask, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. “No offense, gunny, but why would the bugs give us all that stuff? A bullet in the back of the head seems more likely.”

“That's true,” the Hudathan answered equably, “or would be, except we have something to offer them. We, which is to say
I,
know why the battalion was sent to Savas.”

Knifethrow scratched a patch of badly reddened skin and looked hopeful. “You do? That would be great! Why
did
the brass send us here?”

“To steal something called a hypercom,” Kuga-Ka answered lazily. “But once we tell the bugs what Kobbi is after, and provide them with a readout on what the 2nd can throw their way, they'll pound the battalion into bloody mush.”

“That'll teach them!” Sawicki said enthusiastically.

“Yes,” the Hudathan agreed dreamily. “It certainly will.”

Meanwhile, deep within the hole where she lived, Haaby floated in an ocean of blackness. It was lonely there, so lonely she actually looked forward to the times when Kuga-Ka would open the com circuit and torment her. What she feared was not death itself, because she looked forward to that, but dying without getting the chance to kill the Hudathan. So the cyborg waited, her mind adrift, waiting for the only thing she cared about anymore: revenge.

In wartime truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.

—Attributed to Sir Winston Churchill

Date uncertain

Had someone been present to witness the event they would have seen the yellow-orange orb that was the sun, bright points of light that represented the system's planets, and the steely glitter of stars beyond. Then, in the blink of an eye, a hundred ships dropped out of the never-never land of hyperspace to shimmer like spacegoing minnows.

Thanks to the efforts of microscopic nano that had not only been programmed to replicate themselves, but to constantly re-create the huge ships in the same way that a flesh-and-blood body produces new cells, the now-ancient vessels were as good as new. And, even though the enormous constructs were normally served by robotic crews, rudimentary controls had been provided for emergency use. Which was why Thraki Naval Commander Dithi Holaka and a crew of three occupied hard, unpadded chairs, in a control room that was small by even
their
standards, and were happy to have most of
the journey behind them.

Vid screens were mounted over gently curving control panels. With the exception of the two officers, each crew member sat with his or her hands thrust inside control tunnels where a matrix of laser beams measured each movement of their fingers and hands. A computer translated the readings into orders that controlled the vessel and its subsystems.

Holaka was fond of good food, a little overweight as a result, and notoriously irritable. A week in hyperspace with nothing to eat but prepackaged rations had done nothing to improve his temper. He slapped at the robotic form that roamed his body and sent the tiny robot diving for the safety of a deep pocket. “All right,” he said crossly, “we're here. Check to make sure all of the ships made it through safely.”

Myla Suro sighed. Even though she was used to Holaka's cantankerous ways, it would have been nice to hear a “please” or “thank you” every once in a while. The other ninety-nine ships were robotically operated and slaved to the computer on the command vessel. The first officer had already queried her shimmery flock and received the appropriate acknowledgements. “The entire flotilla is in place, sir.”

“I'm surprised but gratified to hear it,” Holaka replied grumpily. “Let the locals know we're here and set a course for Erini IV . . . Keep it down to half power until we receive an acknowledgment.”

Having no desire to get her rear blown off by an overzealous peer, Suro had sent the codes immediately after dropping hyper, and the reply was coming in. “Yes sir. All ahead half.”

The pilot, who sat with both hands in the nav matrix, gave the necessary orders, and the additional gees pushed the crew back into their unpadded chairs as the entire flotilla turned and accelerated inward. The better part of a day passed before the Sheen ships passed between a pair of heavily armed destroyers and dropped into orbit around the fourth planet from the sun. Most of Erini IV's surface was obscured by clouds,
but what could be seen on the control room's screens was brown in color and wrinkled by a continent-spanning mountain range. There were minimal polar caps, some h
uge lakes, but no oceans.

More than that could not be seen, but Suro knew that the only Thrakies on the planet were there to strip it of minerals, not to construct cities. The minerals that were used to feed the highly automated factories that supplied the orbital shipyards, which serviced the steadily growing segment of the Thraki navy that the Confederacy knew nothing about.

Putting one hundred ships in orbit, and doing so safely, was no small task, which meant that Holaka was downright cranky by the time that the whole process had been completed. Pictograms that showed the command ship's position relative to the orbital repair facility flashed on the screens as the pilot used tiny, almost imperceptible, movements of her fingers to guide the vessel between a pair of enormous blast doors into the zero-gee dock beyond.

Suro held her breath as the vessel glided into position, slowed as the pilot fired a series of braking jets, and came to a full stop. That was when a set of opposing tractor and repellor beams shot out from their various projectors and locked the hull in place. “Not too bad,” Holaka commented grudgingly, as his form climbed up onto his shoulder. “Place all systems on standby, delegate control to the dock master, and call for a shuttle. They have a cafeteria here, and I'm hungry.”

 

The dock master's office was high on the back wall, where he could look out through a duraplast window, and watch everything that took place below. What the diminutive civilian couldn't see from there, his robotic spy balls could, and they dashed hither and yon as if competing to see which one could add the most interesting picture to the mosaic of tilelike screens that lined the surrounding bulkheads.

Now, as his Ramanthian guest entered the office, Dock Master Wono bowed in what he understood to be a gesture of respect. “Welcome, Ambassador Orno, it's an honor to meet you.”

Orno inclined his head. Although the being in front of him was small, and slightly stooped, his eyes were bright with intelligence. “Thank you. The honor is mine. Foreign Minister Oholo Bintha speaks highly of both you and your facility.”

Wono, who was the oldest person on or near Erini IV, offered the Thraki equivalent of a grin. It revealed two rows of extremely sharp teeth. “The foreign minister is very kind. If I'm competent, it's because I'm old enough to have made every possible error and learned from my mistakes.”

Orno produced a series of clicks that the Thraki knew to be laughter. He gestured toward the window. “Please step over here, Mr. Ambassador. As you can see, the first ship has entered the bay. All of the necessary equipment has been manufactured according to the specs provided by your navy and is waiting in orbit. The robotic systems will be removed and new ones installed.”

In keeping with orders from above, Wono made no mention of the fact that specs for all of the Ramanthian systems had been shared with Thraki intelligence officials, or that each vessel would be thoroughly bugged prior to delivery. After all, just because the two races were on friendly terms today, didn't mean that they would be tomorrow.

Orno looked out into the enormous bay, saw that all manner of robotic equipment was already closing around the hull, and felt a profound sense of satisfaction. Soon, within a matter of months, the Ramanthian navy would be a hundred vessels stronger. After that they would retrofit another group of ships, and
another,
until all of them were ready to defend their new masters. The diplomat's thoughts were interrupted as Wono cleared his throat. “Not to be
crass, but I was told to expect a down payment, and would like to get that out of the way.”

“Of course,” Orno said obligingly, “I will order my crew to remove the chests from my ship. Cash is a bit unusual . . . but these are unusual times.”

“Yes,” the Thraki said, looking at the Ramanthian's insectoid body. “They certainly are.”

In spite of the fact that Fort Camerone's theater had been retrofitted to serve as Senate's chambers, it still looked like what it was: a large box-shaped room with a slanting floor, five hundred folding seats, and a raised stage. The words “Legio patria nostra” had been painted over—but anyone with a sharp eye could make them out through the cream-colored paint.

President Nankool stood at the podium and waited for the politicians to walk, strut, and whir into the room. Even though the venue had changed, the Senate was the same. That meant it consisted of the same factious, squabbling, and often petty beings it had before, all except for ex-Senator Alway Orno that is, who though no longer present, continued to be a source of trouble. In fact, the entire morning had been devoted to debating the question of whether there was enough evidence to try the treacherous bug for mass murder, destruction of government property, and grand theft in abse
ntia or whether it would be necessary to capture him first. All of which was understandable, but unfortunate, given all of the other high-priority agenda items awaiting the senators' attention.

But Nankool was a skilled politician which meant that even as the master-at-arms brought the gavel down and called for order, the strategy that he and key members of the Senate's leadership had devised was already in place. A respected
senator made a motion to table the matter while a committee of judicial experts took a look at relevant precedents. There was a second, followed by a vote, and the measure was approved by a razor-thin margin. But a win is a win, and Nankool took the opportunity to bolster morale by introducing the Prithian representative, Senator Itnor Ikaka.

Like most of his peers, the brightly plumed politician loved the spotlight and strutted to the podium, where he ruffled his feathers and scanned the audience with saucerlike yellow eyes. He had an excellent command of standard speak, a deep, booming voice, and an undeniable stage presence. “War is a terrible thing, but so is systematic evil. To see evil, yet tolerate it, is to participate in it. Therefore, after careful consideration, the High Council has decided that Prithia will ally itself with those battling the Ramanthian empire.”

There was a loud cheer, followed by all manner of applause, as the vast majority of those present came to their feet for a standing ovation. One of those present, a senior diplomat named Charles Vanderveen, had spoken with Ikaka the evening before. Because of that he knew that while his daughter would never receive credit for stimulating the High Council to reevaluate their position, it wouldn't have happened without her intervention, and the knowledge made him feel proud. He was the last person to stop clapping.

Booly, who was standing at the back of the room, clapped as well but not so enthusiastically. Though fierce fighters, the Prithians were not a populous race and had no navy other than three squadrons of ships that would be forced to remain in orbit around their home world lest the Ramanthians attack it. So, while the announcement would produce some positive headlines, the Prithians wouldn't be able to provide much help. The officer felt someone arrive at his side and turned to find Lieutenant Thinklong standing there. “Yes, Lieutenant? What's up?”

The Naa whispered into Booly's ear, the general's eyes
widened, and he nodded. “Put them in my conference room. Send for Xanith, Leeger, Hykin. Oh, and put in a call for Admiral Chien-Chu as well . . . I'll meet them there in ten minutes.”

The aide nodded, said, “Yes sir,” and slipped away. Booly took a moment to contact Nankool's administrative assistant and reserve a fifteen-minute slot on the president's schedule for later that afternoon. Whatever came out of the meeting in the conference room would have to be approved, and with so many beings vying for the president's attention, getting some face time could be tough. Everyone else had arrived and taken seats by the time Booly stepped through the door, and Leeger said, “Atten-hut!”

Booly said, “As you were,” waved everyone back into their seats, and went to the head of the table. Besides Xanith, Leeger, Hykin, Chien-Chu, and Thinklong, four additional people were present in the room. The Naa hurried to introduce two of them. The others, a corporal and a private, were there in their capacity as guards. They wore sidearms and stood at parade rest behind the prisoner. “General,” Thinklong said, “I would like to introduce Captain Marvin Posson and Citizen Teeg Jackson, both of whom arrived from Savas about an hour ago.”

“Welcome to Algeron,” Booly said, his gaze shifting from the man in civilian clothing back to the naval officer. “I understand you had to dodge some bugs in order to get here.”

“Yes sir,” Posson replied, well aware of the fact that there were two admirals in the room. “I was in command of one of the two transports that took Colonel
Kobbi and his battalion to Savas. Unfortunately, both ships were damaged going in. My crew and I managed to land the
Spirit of Natu,
but the
Mothri Sun
crashed. Fortunately, all of her crew and passengers survived. Later my ship was destroyed as well.

“Citizen Jackson is a deserter, but he had a good ship, and Colonel Kobbi prevailed upon him to bring me here.”

Booly raised an eyebrow. “
‘Prevailed'
on him?”

Posson smiled. “Colonel Kobbi can be quite persuasive when he wants to be. It should be said that while Jackson is a smuggler, he's also one helluva pilot and deserves a great deal of credit for getting us out. The bugs pretty much own the Savas system.”

It was the first time Posson had ever said anything nice about him, and Jackson was visibly surprised. Now, as Booly looked more closely, he saw that the smuggler wore wrist restraints. “I see . . . Is citizen Jackson dangerous?”

“No,” Posson answered honestly, “I don't think so . . . But he's a flight risk.”

“So noted,” Booly replied. “Corporal, remove that man's restraints, but if he tries to run, shoot him in the leg. That goes for the rest of the people in this room.”

There was laughter as the corporal removed a remote from a holster on his pistol belt and touched a button. The restraints fell away as if by magic.

“All right,” Booly said, “start at the beginning.”