The Lazarus War: Legion (35 page)

“Even if your sergeant is injured?” Loeb asked, brusquely.

“She’ll do her duty,” I said. “If she’s alive, she’ll want to make transition.”

Loeb didn’t know that my real body had been injured too. Just going on: that was what real soldiers, and especially sim operators, did best.

“Priority is to make a pick-up,” I said. “When the Directorate attacked, Kaminski and Saul evacuated the ship in an escape pod. I want fighters searching for him. Make sure he’s aboard. That’ll give us two points to defend: the SOC and the CIC. The SOC is a priority. It’s the weak underbelly of any simulant operation. Meanwhile, I’ll get down to the lab deck and retrieve the Key.”

“That’s a lot of distance to cover,” Loeb said. “I want to believe that you can do this, but I can only give you an hour. If you aren’t done by then, I’ll have no option but to blow the core and initiate self-destruct.”

I nodded. “And if I activate the Artefact – if Saul’s theory about it acting as a Shard Gate is right – then be damned ready to use it.”

“Understood,” said Loeb.

I slipped my helmet back on, watched my HUD dance with graphics. All this talk was getting to me. There was fighting to be done.

“Good hunting,” James said.

I nodded. “Get ready to move on the hangar bay.”

Loeb saluted me, as I turned back towards the CIC doors. Marines and crew parted, eyes on me: their last and only hope.

“I can do this,” I said. “An hour will be plenty.”

I double-timed it through the ship.

The whispering was back – Carrie’s footfalls leading me on. She always seemed to know the way; the best routes, working them out before Mason. The disorder across the
Colossus
allowed me to move on my objective quickly. I avoided combat; didn’t want to get bogged down in a protracted firefight.

“What else can I do, sir?” Mason asked. “I want to help.”

“You’re helping plenty, Mason.”

“I want to get back into my sim. The Legion needs me. Maybe I could follow you over to the mess hall—”

“No. You’re doing more than enough.”

“But…”

“I want you to sit tight. That’s an order.”

“Solid copy.”

“I have to do this, then I can get the Key,” I said, running a checklist of objectives in my head. “Have you got visual on the mess hall yet?”

Mason paused, and I thought that I heard her swallow hard over the link. “There are lots of Directorate. They’re moving from the lab deck to the mess hall. They’ve got the place under siege. Looks like they are setting up barricades—”

That enormous thumping sound continued all around me.

“What is that noise?” I asked. It had been plaguing me for some time; always just out of detection range, but drawing closer wherever I went. “Sounds like machinery…”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ve just lost the hangar deck cams. They were unloading something big, but I didn’t see what it was. I…I’d say that they know you’re coming. There’s an air-shaft above you. Maybe you could use that – drop down behind them—”

“The thing about stealth,” I said, interrupting Mason, “is knowing when not to use it.”

“Copy that. Good luck. I’m going off-line for a while – I’ll try to work on a security patch, see if I can get some more cams working.”

“You do that.”

I didn’t want any distractions from the task. I was done with stealth. This called for a direct assault. I wanted them to know that I was coming; wanted them to fear me.

I activated my external suit-speakers.

“You have the choice of surrender. I can guarantee that you will not be afforded any rights under the New Geneva Convention. I will treat you as you’ve treated my people; without compassion or mercy. I will make it fast, although not painless.”

I unclipped a smoke grenade from my harness. Primed it, then tossed it around the corner.

The action was met with a volley of kinetic gunfire. Hard rounds churned up the corridor wall but I was back around the corner before any could hit me.

With a thought, I activated my drones.
Scout ahead. Be my eyes
. They silently detached from my suit. Although they broadcast grainy, low-res imagery, the drones used the same multi-vision modes as my suit. Suddenly, I could see the Directorate.

What am I dealing with here?
They had the mess hall entrance under siege. There was smoke and debris everywhere, makeshift barricades established every few metres. Twenty, maybe thirty, Directorate Swords. Their suits were good; they emitted very little heat, and barely showed up on infrared.

It won’t be enough. They are all dead.

“Come out, Alliance!” someone shouted in poor Standard.

I suspended my looped message for a second.

“Fuck you,” I yelled back. My suit translated into machine-Chino.

Then I activated the loop again.

Someone whistled further down the corridor.

“This guy is crazy,” my suit AI translated.

“Something like that.”

I crouched, rolled another grenade along the corridor floor.

“Respirators!” a Sword shouted.

I viewed the scene through my drones. They hovered in the smoke, behind the enemy barricades; innocuous enough, barely a threat, the enemy ignored them. I saw the Sword commandos pulling respirators over their faces, closing their visored helmets, and aiming Klashov 1500 assault rifles in my direction.

The grenade bounced along the ground. Hit the first barricade.

I’d like to think that the soldier behind it realised his mistake, in the split second he had to react.

The grenade exploded.

Not a smoke: a hi-ex.

The barricade had once been an officer’s desk. Pulled from one of the sub-chambers, welded to the floor and wall. It was a poor shield from the explosive blast and the grenade tore through the thin metal surface easily. The soldier was thrown backwards, losing his grip on his rifle.

The soldier next to him started firing, almost randomly, into the smoke.

I popped around the corner of the junction, my M95 up. I thought-activated the strobe mounted on top of the gun: in the low-light conditions, the scene was rendered in frightening stop-start motion. Only a small advantage, but it was something. The battle-rifle produced its own light as I fired. The M95 was a Krell killer at this range; against Directorate troopers, even Swords, there was no contest.

There are professionals, and there are simulant operators. Then there is the Lazarus Legion.

I whetted my lips, was so eager for the kill.

The second man went down in a volley of plasma pulses. His black armour lit white – a hole through the chest-plate, then another in his helmet. I reached the barricade behind which he had sought shelter in a single stride. My boot up, I slammed it aside, clearing the area.

More shooters popped up out of cover. Hard AP rounds slashed the area; tracer fire directing the other soldiers to my location. They were using depleted uranium shells, my AI told me: likely to puncture my combat-suit on impact.

“
You have the choice of surrender
…”

That was if I got hit, of course. My null-shield illuminated, taking the brunt of the enemy fire. Still firing with one hand, I dropped another smoke grenade with the other. Smoke and debris filled the corridor, just how I liked it. I controlled the battlefield: it was my decision as to how this played out.

“
…I can guarantee that you will not be afforded any rights under the New Geneva Convention
…”

A Directorate commando was pinned behind the next barricade. On his back, helmet discarded, he’d abandoned his rifle and was aiming up at me with a semi-automatic pistol. His face contorted into a mask of hate and he fired at me again and again. Pumped with chemical courage: there were nerve staples across his forehead, plugged into his temples.

For a split second, I thought I recognised the man. The storm drain. The pitiful soldier Carrie and I had found.

I wasn’t going to show weakness this time.

I fired until the man was ended. The recognition was instantly gone: he was just another corpse. Dead like all the others.

I moved on. Even though the occasional round breached my null-shield, the bullets only grazed my combat-suit. So long as I stayed operational, none of that mattered. I wasn’t concerned about damage limitation. Speed was the key – I needed to get into the mess hall.

My armour camo-skin gently shifted, mimicking the movement of smoke across the surface: in contradiction of the malevolent soul within. I lifted my booted foot, stamped down on another commando’s chest. There was a reassuring crunch as the soldier stopped moving.

“
…I will treat you as you’ve treated my people; without compassion or mercy
…”

Fear and awe were my two best friends.

I fired wherever I saw movement.

They killed my mother. They killed Carrie. They killed my child.

The Directorate hadn’t considered me or the crew they had cold-heartedly slaughtered. None of them had considered Elena, what we had lost all those years ago, back on Azure. I blocked the thought: cut off that neural pathway. Easier to forget – to become an instrument of war.

Another Sword leapt from a side chamber, firing his Klashov on full auto. I felt the jarring impacts this time. A round penetrated the armour of my left shoulder. The bullet slashed through tissue, lodged in the bone, shattered. The pain was momentary and intense: uranium had a painful effect, even on a sim. My medi-suite responded with a dose of adrenaline and a painkiller shot.

I didn’t even pause.

Pain is good
, I told myself.

I discarded my plasma rifle. I could see the soldier’s face behind his goggles. Despite the drugs and the fatigue, there was terror in his wide pupils. Not even the staples could touch that. He froze as I reached for him. I clamped my enormous gloved hand around his neck. The insignia on his uniform marked him as an officer of some stripe, maybe the equivalent of a sergeant. I effortlessly lifted him off the ground and snapped his neck. I couldn’t even hear the response – such was the roar of gunfire, now all around me – but the body went limp.

“
…I will make it fast, although not painless
…”

I tossed the soldier aside. In the same motion, reached for my pistol. The trusty PPG-13 activated, powered-up and good for another twenty shots.

The loop started again: “
You have the choice of surrender
…”

INCOMING, my AI notified me. TAKE EVASIVE ACTION.

I twisted on the spot, held my left hand out. My three-sixty-degree cameras showed a grenade had been thrown at me by someone behind my position.

Three more attackers, in fact. Trying to flank me.

I fluidly caught the grenade. Just as fluidly threw it back. The three attackers scrambled the way that they had come, yelling to each other to take cover.

“
…I can guarantee that you will not be afforded any rights under the New Geneva Convention
…”

I turned to the mess hall bulkhead. Less than a hundred metres to go.

I fired my plasma pistol with one hand – aimed to keep the Swords down. By now, there were smoking holes in the walls and floors. The barricades behind which the soldiers sheltered were so much molten slag, destroyed beyond recognition. I unclipped another grenade – incendiary this time – and threw that further down the corridor. More screaming – bodies aflame, unsure of whether to run towards me or away. I caught two of them, snapped more necks.

“
…I will treat you as you’ve treated my people; without compassion or mercy
…”

My plasma pistol eventually ran out of power. I stormed the next barricade, slammed it aside with my shoulder. The soldiers behind it scattered, leaving rifles and grenades on the floor.

“
…I will make it fast, although not painless
…”

I was suddenly outside the mess hall.

Another couple of stray rounds pinged against my null-shield. Shooters from behind me, attracted to the sounds of battle.

I reached over my shoulder and grabbed the next weapon available to me. That was the flame-thrower: a huge incinerator unit surely not approved for use aboard an occupied starship. I primed the flame-thrower’s firing mechanism and the pilot light immediately lit. Then I took up a position behind the last barricade, although in my combat-suit I was so big that it barely provided me with any cover at all.

There were shouts down the corridor. Boot-falls against the deck. Another ten or so soldiers. Although many of my drones had been disabled during the battle, I still had enough circling the zone to inform me of their location.

Fifty metres and closing.

Not close enough.

I waited. A heartbeat, a second.

They started shooting and my null-shield lit. Of course, they knew exactly where I was. But that was hardly the point.

Where they were: that was what this was all about.

Twenty metres.

Close enough.

I lurched up and over the barricade; extended the flame-thrower, aimed high, and fired. A jet of super-heated combustible fuel poured over the area between me and the Directorate troopers, creating a wall of flame. I panned left and right. A sheet of white fire consumed the deck and covered the corridor. Kept my finger jammed on the trigger – I didn’t care about ammo consumption.

The Swords were screaming.

The nearest to me suddenly ignited – ragged outline flagged by my HUD – and a grenade on his belt popped. The remains of the body collapsed among the burning wreckage of the corridor. As an afterthought, I tossed another couple of incendiary grenades further down the corridor. There was more screaming, the energetic
pop-pop-pop
of ammunition cooking off in the heat.

My HUD tagged twenty-two dead bodies. More than I’d expected, not as many as I’d hoped.

The
Colossus
’ emergency response routines finally responded: dispensing green halon gas over the funeral pyres, putting out the fires.