Curse of the Legion (2 page)

Chapter 2
The Supreme Commander

Rainy season on Veltros is quite an event. It washes away the drought in a single day, and floods the landscape with elemental force. Then it rains every day around noon and again just after dusk, for about half a year.

It was early evening and raining hard. I sat in a criminally comfortable airlounge on the covered terrace of my home as the rain battered the tangled vegetation of the fern forest outside. The roar of the rain was almost like a waterfall, heavy sheets of rain shooting off the roof, drumming off the dato leaves, drowning the trees, thundering into the ground, transforming the forest floor into a sea of red mud. A light, cool mist touched my face as a warm thrill tingled over my flesh. My cup of dox was forgotten, getting cold in the holder of the lounge's armrest. Rain—I could watch it for hours, sitting there hypnotized, paralyzed with joy. Life's simple pleasures—it didn't get any better than this.

"You're getting wet." Priestess appeared suddenly out of the dark, just like a cat, dressed all in black, settling onto the armrest and sliding an arm around my shoulders. She leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

"Where've you been?" I asked.

"Shopping. I went down to Greenway and bought some pies."

"Pies?"

"Yeah. There's this new place called Bake-A-Cake. I got trapped there when the rains opened up and I wound up buying the place out."

"You shouldn't have driven the aircar home in this rain. It's dangerous."

"It wasn't that bad. The pies were warm; I wanted you to try them." I looked up at her. She was so lovely—slim and young, silky black hair, warm chocolate eyes, a child's face, untouched by cosmetics. I knew I didn't deserve her. I blessed Deadman every day for giving her to me. I knew exactly what it meant—I knew! I turned my face away. I didn't want her to see the tears forming in my eyes.

"Come on—I want you to try one of these pies, before it gets cold," she said.

"All right." Whatever she wants, I thought. That's what I do, for our love.

###

"The lady who runs this shop is called Kate," Priestess said, cutting me a piece of pie as we stood around the gleaming green marble of the center island in our giant kitchen. "She's ex-Legion. Her lover was killed in action against the O's on Uldo. She kept fighting, determined to kill as many O's as possible, seeking death like…well, like Valkyrie. Almost suicidal. Somehow she survived. Finally she quit the Legion. Now she bakes things. How is it?"

"Very good," I replied. "A bit…spicy. But a nice spicy."

"Homemade," Priestess said. "Of course, she doesn't have to do this. She does it because she loves it. Aren't they nice pies?"

"Very nice," I smiled. It really was very tasty. It was pleasant, being a homeowner and experiencing all this domestic bliss. Priestess and I had designed the house ourselves. She'd wanted a big kitchen, and it was huge, with a giant sunny breakfast area and table surrounded by plex. I'd wanted a big den, with plenty of fancy comgear, and I got that. The house was hidden in the forest, accessible only by aircar, a lovely single-story home of artificial stone and fake wood, with a roof terrace up top. The stone was a very lightweight plastic and the wood was a synthetic cellulose, produced by cyanobacteria. Building a home was an easy matter, with modern technology. Assembly had taken two days, and the cost was minimal. The fellow who did it loved his work. Like Kate the pie girl, most of our people did things they loved to do, not that they had to do. ConFree had conquered material needs. The challenge nowadays was not to lose sight of the battle for survival, which could intrude in an instant if you stopped paying attention because you were rich and lazy.

"She thinks about him every day," Priestess said. "Every single day." Her eyes were gleaming—filling up with tears. Now what?

"Come here," I said, taking her in my arms.

"I'm so happy," she gasped, nestling her head on my shoulder. "Please don't leave. Let's stay here the rest of our lives!"

"We're not going anywhere," I said.

"Quit the Legion!" she hissed. "Just get out! You're in danger every instant you stay on!"

"Calm down, Priestess. It's all right."

"It's not all right! You were going to quit! We were both going to quit—that was the plan! And then you changed your mind!" She pulled away from me, swiping at hot tears with the back of her hand.

"We talked about this before, Priestess. They need experienced people, to teach the kids. That's the only reason we stayed in. We agreed…"

"They sweet-talked you! Appealing to your patriotism! They're rats! We've got our own child! What about him?"

I drew her to me, gently. There was no sense in talking when she got this way. She came, reluctantly, then the dam broke and she cried a river, flinging both arms around my neck. Great, now it's raining in here. She was right, of course. I was a damned fool. But I couldn't help it. What had Valkyrie said?
You're a fool, Beta Three. You're a fool, and a fanatic.
She was right, too. The Legion needed people like me. Valkyrie knew me—better than anyone else. She had been my first Legion lover, but she had lost her soul, somewhere along the way. It wasn't easy in the Legion—not for anyone.

"How many more dead, Thinker? How many more?" Priestess demanded.

"None. No more! It stops here! We're staying."

What in Deadman's name am I doing here, I thought. It's all for Priestess. Nobody's shooting at us here, what's wrong with that? We've both put in our time in Hell. Don't we deserve a little peace and quiet?

###

I stood in the doorway to his room, breathing in the calm warmth and the deep silence and the dark. Lester was asleep, a faintly luminous angel against the soft dark blanket pulled up to his chin. A pale angel, completely innocent, completely relaxed in sleep. A child, trusting and secure and totally defenseless. He was achingly beautiful—silky brown hair, mine, a fragile, finely chiseled face and tender small lips, his mother's. And he had her eyes, deep liquid chocolate eyes, now closed in slumber. Half me and half her, just as I had promised, from that impossible past. This was it; this was what it was all about. This was what we had been fighting for. A glorious, awesomely beautiful child—the future of the race.

It was so quiet, so peaceful, so warm and cozy here in our own home that I could only hold my breath and savor the moment. How fortunate was he, how fortunate were we, for this perfect moment? And how long would it last? They taught history in ConFree. Real history, not myth and not lies. Every single school kid learned about our past. We had built our perfect worlds with blood and sacrifice. A lot of Legion soldiers had died to ensure Lester had a peaceful life. And he was going to learn that, as soon as he was old enough to understand. Ignorance was just as dangerous as evil.

I knew our happiness could end in a microfrac, if we ever really relaxed. All we could do was live for the present, and enjoy it while we could. And if anything or anyone threatened our sleeping children, we would strike without mercy at the enemy, all of us, united and resolute, and annihilate them from history. That was burnt right into my soul.

###

"ATTEN-SHUN!" A thousand new recruits snapped to attention on the parade ground. It was a bright, clear morning, still fresh from last night's rain. The red dirt field had been ground to the consistency of metal by generations of troopers, but it was slick and wet from the last deluge. We instructors faced the kids. We were clad in black and they wore loose khaki fatigues, lined up in training squads, platoons and companies. Only the uniforms distinguished the two groups. We instructors were all immortals, kept young virtually forever by gene therapy to renew our cells and pump up our muscles. The difference was that the recruits really were young, still mortals, just out of midschool, and the instructors were older—even though we didn't look it. We had seen all we wanted to see of death and destruction, but that's what we were going to teach.

"Welcome to Veltros Training Command!" the amps blasted the words over the assembled youth. "I am Commander Pietran Karel, C.O. of the Basic Training Course." He stood with a brace of other officers off to my right. "My staff and I are charged with transforming you people into Legion troopers and we all take that responsibility very seriously! We expect you to take it seriously too…"

As he droned on I looked over the kids. I'd be working with the 5th Training Company, consisting of ten squads divided into two platoons. A hundred recruits, ten to each training squad. It was my first assignment as an instructor and I was determined to pass on everything I'd learned. I knew they'd need it.

"…you will not all make it through Basic! Those of you who do make the cut will move on to Advanced Combat Training on Planet Hell. You'll be pleased to learn that we've returned the ACT to Planet Hell because we have more time now and it's such a good training experience. There's no need to worry about that right now. What you need to do right now is keep your mouth closed and your mind open!"

I remembered Planet Hell very well, but I hadn't thought of it as a "good training experience" at the time. It had been more like a near death experience for me, I mused. The first two squads in the 5th were lined up abreast facing me. Kids, just out of school. What in Deadman's name were they doing here? They were all volunteers. Everybody in the Legion was a volunteer. They knew exactly what they were doing. ConFree believed in the Truth. That's what our proprop broadcast, all day and night—the Truth, just as it was. You could watch Legion soldiers dying horribly on the news, every day. But you also knew why they were dying.

Young troopers, mostly male but plenty of females sprinkled among them as well. Nobody could stop a Legion volunteer. They were mostly Outworlders, pale skin and light eyes, but there were a lot of Assidics too, brown to golden skin and dark hair, slightly slanted dark eyes. Some of the Outworlders clearly had Assidic blood as well. Outworlders and Assidics were one people now, united against System slavery and tyranny. A few exotics stood out here and there—Cyrillians with ebony skin, one big troopie who looked like he could be a Mocain—it didn't matter. We took everyone. You didn't even have to be fully human. Anybody willing to bleed for ConFree was qualified.

The future of the race. That's what I thought, looking over those kids. Where the hell do we get them? Our own children. They just keep coming. I knew as long as they kept coming, ConFree would prosper, and our civilization would live on. As soon as they stopped, we were doomed to extinction.

###

"Fotsee snow keen?" Lester asked, squirming in my arms and reaching for the snow cream. I pulled the cone out of his reach and then gave him a little dab on the nose. He laughed at the cold and smeared it over his face. Priestess and I were standing with a crowd of other people under the eaves of the Frosty Snow Cream shop in Greenway. It was early evening and a light rain cast a faint mist over us all. Frosty's was lit up like a spaceport. It was crowded with sloppily dressed young people, shorts and sleeveless tops, elementary and midschool students, parents, gangly boys and adorable giggling young girls and even a few toddlers like Lester. One little kid had a balloon. Guys and girls were covertly casting glances at each other, the midschool kids inside the shop were chatting it up and dishing out snow cream creations and everyone was happy.

This is what life should be like, I thought. Everyone happy, and getting along. I knew most worlds weren't like this. I had seen the difference. I had lived on Nimbos, a System world, exiled and psyched and powerless, where everyone was at each others' throats, where the rats in charge had divided the population into different classes and races and religions and beliefs, where jealousy and hatred reigned supreme. A simple scene like this would be impossible there. There weren't any snow cream shops on Nimbos, at least not for proles. And any public gathering would be infiltrated by pickpockets and informants, prostitutes and toms and bi's, with human wolves circling the herd for women and children and the weak, and child racist gang members cursing and pushing everyone else aside, anxious for resistance. It wasn't like that here. We were happy on ConFree worlds. We were one people, one language, one culture.

An insane chant echoed in my mind, a nightmare from my past:

Mine yours, yours mine
Good bad, bad good
White black, black white
Truth lies, lies Truth
Smart stupid, stupid smart
Beaootiful ug-ly, ug-ly beaootiful
Strong weak, weak strong
Knowledge ig-no-rance, ig-no-rance knowledge
Courage cowar-dice, cowar-dice courage
Wealth poverty, poverty wealth
Patrio-tism treason, treason patrio-tism
War peace, peace war
Victory defeat, defeat victory
Freedom slavery, slavery freedom!

Topsy-Turvy, it was called—an elementary school rhyme, for generations of doomed children. The System celebrated ignorance. They gloried in it. I shuddered. I knew exactly how real it was.

Priestess hung on one of my arms, lazily licking her snow cream as I held Lester with the other arm. I looked into his eyes. He gave me a big smile. What a lovely child. He was absolutely beautiful. What an amazing creature. Priestess had insisted on naming him Lester—that was my civilian name, before I had joined the Legion.

"Thinker! What a mess! He's going to be cold!" Priestess was wiping the cream from Lester's face.

"He's all right," I protested. "A little snow cream won't hurt him." The rules had recently changed, and procreation was acceptable for active duty Legion troopers who were not in combat slots. Had that not happened, Priestess and I would both have quit the Legion. I had promised her a baby, and we were both in non-combat status after the mission to Eiros 4. After that one, neither of us had any desire to see any more dead people—especially ourselves.