Andromeda's Fall (Legion of the Damned) (8 page)

Thunder-and-lightning storms were common, and the shuttle shook like a thing possessed as it dropped into Drang’s troposphere and entered its final approach. There was less airsickness this time, but half a dozen recruits had been forced to barf into their helmets and looked up in surprise as Hasker announced that “The ship’s about to land—so put those brain buckets back on.”

That got a big laugh from all the recruits who hadn’t thrown up. But their moment of joy was short-lived as the shuttle fell into an air pocket and lost one hundred feet of altitude before lurching forward again. After another three minutes of flight, the pilot said, “Hang on to your panties,” and the skids hit hard. As the repellers shut down, McKee heard the sound of rain drumming on the hull and knew it was going to be miserable outside.

“Welcome to Fire Base Charlie-Four,” Hasker said cheerfully. “Or what will be FBC-4 once you pukes build it. Because right now, it ain’t nothing but a clearing in the jungle. Release your harnesses and follow me.”

McKee saw a rectangle of light appear as the noncom clomped down the stern ramp into the pouring rain. He was wearing a bush hat, a poncho, and jungle boots. An assault rifle and a wicked-looking bush knife completed the outfit. Humid air flooded the cargo compartment, and the mutter of distant thunder was heard as Corporal Anders hollered, “What the hell are you waiting for? An engraved invitation? Get your asses out there.”

McKee felt the rain pelt her hat and poncho as she followed the first group of recruits out onto soggy ground. What she saw was depressing to say the least. FBC-4 was nothing more than a landing pad and a pile of cargo modules sitting on a patch of high ground. And as far as she could tell, the “high ground” wasn’t all that high—being only ten or fifteen feet above the dirty-looking swamp water that lapped all around it.

Heavy equipment had been used to strip all of the vegetation off the roughly circular plot of land, an electrified fence had been installed around the perimeter, and the soft glow of pole-mounted lights could be seen through the gloom. And of special interest, to McKee at least, were the Carletto Industries Trooper Is that could be seen patrolling just inside the fence.

Each cyborg was eight feet tall and weighed half a ton. And, because the war forms were intended to be intimidating, they had ovoid heads with smooth faces. Their bulky wedge-shaped torsos were designed to take lots of punishment, and their hydraulically operated limbs were thick and sturdy. A Trooper I could run at speeds up to thirty-five miles per hour for sustained periods of time and operate in a variety of other environments, including vacuum and Class I through Class IX gas atmospheres. Plus, each cyborg could carry a bio bod on his or her back.

McKee wanted to go over and inspect one of the cyborgs up close but was forced to put that desire on hold, as Hasker and his fellow NCOs began to holler orders. Anders pointed at a large stack of cargo containers at the center of the compound. “Unload those mothers or sleep in the mud. The choice is up to you.”

Thus began a grueling sixteen-hour battle that McKee would never forget. The containers were numbered, and there were four powered exoskeletons in unit 001, three of which turned out to be operational. The loaders had civilian equivalents, so some of the recruits knew how to operate them, and it wasn’t long before the eight-foot-tall machines were hard at work moving materials from place to place.

Once the exoskeletons had been put to work, it was time to open container 002, which held the first of four metal frameworks that needed to be bolted together. Unfortunately, the power wrenches that came with the kits weren’t waterproof and had a tendency to short out. That forced the recruits to tighten a lot of fasteners by hand and torque them down.

About three hours into the construction process, dozens of three-foot-long blood worms came wriggling up out of the water-saturated soil and went on the attack. It wasn’t clear whether they had been disturbed or
always
came up out of the ground at that time of day. Not that it made much difference. McKee swore as one of the fleshy horrors attacked her left boot. She hit it with a crowbar.

That put the creature down as Hasker and the other NCOs strolled about shooting the worms with short bursts of auto fire. “Pile ’em up!” Hasker ordered. “We’ll cook the bastards for dinner.”

So McKee forced herself to pick up her worm and carry it over to a quickly growing pile. “That’s the ticket,” Corporal Anders said approvingly as he began to gut one of the creatures. “They might be ugly, but they taste a lot better than MREs.”

After that, it was time to put the roof panels in place and screw them down before starting on the siding. Each four-foot-by-eight-foot sheet of metal was equipped with what one recruit recognized as a bullet-resistant liner. That prompted McKee to ask the obvious question when Hasker passed by. “Sir, what’s this stuff for? According to the orientation materials, the locals are Class Five indigs.”

Class Five civilizations were almost always preindustrial, which meant that firearms if any were produced by hand and, therefore, in short supply. Hasker grinned. “Good one, McKee. The frogs
are
Class Five. Only trouble is that gunrunners can slip past the single ship that the navy keeps in orbit, put down in the bush, and trade cheap weapons for bales of sneeze. That stuff grows wild here—and a single hit can cost as much as a hundred credits on Earth.”

McKee knew that was true because she had tried some of the drug while in college. “So they use the guns to shoot at us?”

“Every chance they get,” Hasker answered cheerfully. “And that makes it real hard to sleep sometimes.”

He might have said more except that a Klaxon sounded. Two or three blocks of F-1 had been placed on a piece of sheet metal and lit. The bricks continued to burn in spite of the rain that fell on them. A makeshift grill had been set up over the fire, and it was crowded with steaming worm carcasses. The smell was heavenly, and like all the recruits, McKee was hungry.

So even though she had some misgivings about eating worms, McKee took a foot-long section of the smoking meat. It was served on a freshly cut stick. The skin was crispy, and the flesh was firm, with a taste reminiscent of pork. She surprised herself by eating the whole thing and washed it down with swigs of bottled water.

Then it was back to work as the rest of the siding went onto the buildings, floors were laid, and the plumbing was installed. Floodlights bloomed as the sun went down and the surrounding swamps came alive with the sounds produced by a small army of nocturnal creatures. There were croaks, grunts, and what sounded like some very human screams.

Occasional bursts of gunfire were heard as the T-1s sought to keep the worst of the local fauna away from the fence, and there were occasional flashes of light as night wings attempted to land on the electrified fence and burst into flame.

Finally, after what seemed like a week of struggle, the exhausted recruits were allowed to lie down on their recently installed bunks with their muddy uniforms still on. McKee had never been so tired. Something screamed out in the swamp and was answered from half a mile away. Light could be seen through gaps in the siding as a computer-controlled beam swept across the compound, and another woman began to snore. Boot camp was under way.

* * *

The rain had stopped, and occasional rays of sunlight were touching down here and there, as the NCOs began to pound on the metal siding with their rifle butts. “Up and at it, people . . . Inspection in thirty minutes. That includes you
and
your shed. So turn to.”

All of the females were housed in building three. And all of them were as filthy as the interior of their shed. So the first step was to place their gear on the top racks and wash the place down. A process made possible by the presence of hoses, plenty of hot water, and drain holes in the floor.

Working under the supervision of the so-called HPIC (Head Puke In-Charge) the women went about the process of scrubbing the decks. Once the dirt had been loosened, it was time to spray the place down.

The HPIC for building three was a beefy woman named Nora Pachek. She had tattoos all over her face, neck, and arms. She was buff,
very
buff, and had already served a tour with the marines. Why Pachek left the green machine for the Legion was a mystery and likely to remain so because none of the other recruits had the guts to ask her about it.

Though not a member of Pachek’s all-female posse, McKee liked her straight-ahead style and had been careful not to complain when she drew various shit details. Maybe that was why Pachek assigned her to scrubber duty. It was hard work. But once the job was done, the scrubbers could hit the showers, and the first ones in were the first ones out. That meant they would have more time to prepare for inspection. And one of the many things that she had learned over the last few days was that little things could make a big difference.

So she was able to enjoy a hot, if somewhat brief, shower before putting on the uniform of the day, which consisted of a tank top, shorts, and barracks boots. The latter was for show and, as one wag put it, “to piss us off.”

After that, it was time to go outside and line up. The sun was out, a swirling mist hung over the swamp, and the day feeders were in full cry as the inspection began. The cacophony of hoots, howls, and gibbering sounds was a constant reminder of the fact that FBC-4 was a very small island in the middle of a very large swamp.

Most of the recruits, McKee included, were found wanting where their boots were concerned and assigned to shit details that would eat up some if not all of their free time that evening. Once the inspection process was over, Hasker laid out the agenda for the day. “After chow, you’re going to build an obstacle course. Not inside the fence, where everything is all snuggly, but
outside
the wire, where the creepy crawlies live. The T-1s will try to keep the frogs away, but one or two of the slippery bastards could still get through, so stay sharp. If you see something suspicious, let us know.

“Ideally, you would be packing heat,” Hasker continued. “But with the exception of Pachek and a couple of others, most of you pukes wouldn’t know a rocket launcher from a mop. So right after lunch, I’m going to introduce you to your new best friend—and that’s the L-40 Assault Weapon.”

Breakfast consisted of a boxed MRE (Meals Ready to Excrete). Then it was time to switch their barracks boots for jungle boots. They were equipped with steel shims designed to protect the wearer from the spikelike pogi sticks the frogs liked to plant in the shallows near game trails.

Then it was time to pass through a gate, wade into the surprisingly cold water, and start work. Tall stakes marked the points where the various obstacles were to go. So it was a matter of hauling raw materials out and bolting, binding, or in one case welding them together. The result was a circular course that included a high wall, a rope challenge, a zip line, and more. All supervised by NCOs who weren’t required to get their feet wet thanks to the fact that they were high and dry on cyborgs.

Lunch came next, followed by the distribution of weapons, all of which showed signs of heavy use. Pacheck tore hers down and put it back together in a matter of minutes. “This piece of crap is more like a shotgun than a rifle,” she complained. “Where’s the rifling?” It was a rhetorical question. But having heard it, McKee made a note to find out what rifling was and why she should care about it.

The empty shipping containers had been stacked to form bleachers by that time. So the boots had a place to sit as Corporal Anders stood on a module repurposed as a stage. A holo projector had been placed on top of the box and quickly came to life. The weapon had a boxy look. The image was a bit thin due to the sunlight streaming down from above, but still viewable. And Anders, who clearly relished the role of instructor, was in top form.

“Listen up, maggots,” Anders said, “and listen good. The weapon in your hands is called the Axer Arms L-40 Assault Weapon—often referred to as the ‘AXE’ for short. Do not under any circumstances refer to the L-40 as a ‘gun.’ Because a gun is a crew-served weapon like a howitzer—and there ain’t none of you pissants big enough to carry a cannon.

“Now that we got that straight, let’s get to it. There will be a fucking test, and the people who flunk will wind up dead. Every time the L-40 fires a cartridge, it is fed down into the rotary breech from a magazine located on top of the barrel. Each 4.7mm caseless round is
square
in order to reduce friction and to maximize the number of rounds that can be loaded into a magazine.

“The cylinder rotates clockwise, bringing the cartridge into alignment with the barrel. When you squeeze the trigger, the firing pin will set off the round, and gas pressure will be used to feed a new cartridge into the chamber. By now you blockheads have noticed that all of the L-40’s moving parts are sealed inside a protective housing. That means you can submerge the AXE in water, march through a sandstorm, or go belly down in the mud, and it will continue to fire.

“Now take a look at the grip. It is located near the vertical gravity axis, which makes the L-40 easy to use. The grip includes the trigger, the safety, and the fire selector switch. That allows you to choose between single-fire, burst, and full auto. You can expect to put out six hundred rounds per minute in the sustained-fire mode—and two thousand rounds per minute in the three-round-burst mode. Finally, we have a carrying handle up top, complete with a variable optical sight that can be used in low-light situations.

“So the next time you run into an Imperial taxpayer, you should go up to him or her and thank that taxpayer for providing you with the finest assault rifle in the whole fucking galaxy. Is that clear?”

The answer came back. “Sir! Yes, sir!”

“Good. It’s nice to have people agree with me. From this point forward, you will carry your AXE to chow, you will carry your AXE into the showers, and you will carry your AXE when you take a shit. Because this planet is not a safe place to be, and there ain’t no place to hide. Okay. Let’s go down to the water and see if you can fire those weapons without killing each other.”