“It’s our best chance of getting out of here and getting these guns wrecked,” Wash said.
Shotton nodded once. “Yeah… unless we stumble on some kind of secret Dark Ops base, that’s our best option.”
“Dark Ops would probably kill us before we could get too close.”
Berlin drummed his fingers on a mushroom.
“Careful,” warned Wash. “That’s poisonous.”
Quickly removing his hand, Berlin said, “Okay, but why don’t we simply wait at the landing zone for a couple days?”
Sergeant Shotton showed remarkable cool in giving Berlin an answer. He had to know by now that he was dealing with an appointed officer who knew next to nothing, but Berlin had fought earlier. And clearly that meant something.
“We have to assume, sir, that the dog-men are already out looking for us over there.” Shotton inclined his head to Wash. “Is Poro-Poro high enough for something like that?”
Wash tapped his finger on the display. “It only shows a rise in elevation. The southeast slope is about forty clicks from us. But seeing as how this map was probably made from a satellite flyover with the usual jungle obfuscation, we aren’t really going to know until we get there.”
“Obfuscation?” asked Shotton.
“It means obscure or unclear,” said Berlin.
Shotton shook his head. “Glad they had time for vocabulary lessons at the Academy.”
Wash and Berlin smiled as the artillery platforms continued their slow, rumbling progress through the jungle.
“That’s a long march just to be disappointed,” Tierney said.
“Especially with the jungles and doros,” said another voice.
Wash turned to see that Parker, the sniper, had sidled into their midst. He stared at them with his pale eyes and said, “Looks like a foot patrol is headed up in our direction. So we either need to prepare to put them down, or we need to disappear before they get here.”
Shotton looked to the officers.
Wash nodded. “We’ve got what we can from this place. Let’s move out.”
10
Wash and the marines had traveled twenty kilometers before Corpsman Hellix told them they had to stop. Tierney could go no farther. Not without taking a long break.
Denturo was nearby when the word came in. “That’s just great. We save her life and she repays us by getting everyone killed. I say leave her.”
“We’re not leaving her,” Wash said, looking up to the darkening jungle canopy. Night was coming soon, and with the number of depressions, logs, and massive tree trunks around them, it was as good a place as any to rest. “Sergeant Shotton, let’s find some high ground and wait the night out.”
“Yes, sir.” Shotton began stirring his marines up like a kid kicking over an anthill.
“Thank you, sir,” whispered Corpsman Hellix before leaving to return to his patient.
Wash nodded. He wanted to sit down—he felt the day’s fatigue all the way down to his bones—but he couldn’t. Not until the marines, the enlisted men, were off their feet first. He looked over to Berlin, who had practically collapsed on a bed of moss at the base of a vine-entangled tree.
One of the artillery guns boomed in the distance.
The doros were firing with the fall of night.
As tough as things might be for Wash and the recon marines after a day of fighting, marching, constantly watching for doro traps, and contending with the jungle, things were even harder for the frontline legionnaires and marines right now, as heavy metal rained down on them from the night. They would be ducking in rifle pits and foxholes waiting for the barrage to end, knowing that the moment it did they’d probably be swarmed by waves of yipping doros emerging from the jungle to give them hell all night long. Fighting hard to get into the pits and make it up close and personal with knives and gnashing teeth. The doros were willing to spend lives in bulk to get close enough to stick a knife in a legionnaire.
It had been that way for months. When the Republic began showing in force to deal with the Psydon rebellion, things had started off well. Spaceports were taken on day one. Major cities fell as the Legion battled its way across the planet. But then the doros fell back into the jungle, and there, amid the creepy-crawlies, they were able to do a number on the Legion with a combination of hit-and-fade guerrilla warfare and those ever-hidden field guns.
Legion recon had been looking as deep into the jungle as they dared—some never returning. And here Wash, an appointed officer, the last person the Legion would want in this situation… he knew where the guns were located.
He only needed to make sure they got back to tell someone about it.
“Lieutenant Washam?”
Wash looked up, hoping that his name hadn’t been called more than once while he was lost in his thoughts.
“Yes, Private Haulman?”
“Sarge has us set up with shifts covered. Says you and the major should try and sleep through the night if you can. We’ve got this, sir.”
Wash smiled. “Thanks. But I’ll at least take last watch. Send someone to wake me up.”
“Yes, sir.” Haulman disappeared into the jungle, but not before adding, “Watch out for those big cats, sir.”
His feet heavy, Wash walked over to where Berlin was lying at the base of the tree. The major looked as though he was already asleep. Not wanting to wake his friend, Wash settled down quietly.
It felt good to be sitting. His back and feet rewarded him by hurting slightly less than they had a moment before.
He thought he would fall right asleep, but he found himself wondering just what it was that had had him so amped up to go out and experience war firsthand that he’d left his post.
Fortune and glory.
Heartbreakers and life-takers.
That was supposed to be the life of a legionnaire. Was missing that opportunity what had made Wash do it? And would it really have been so bad to have never fired a shot in anger?
He imagined most of the other appointed officers would’ve been fine never coming up against the doros.
But not him.
He was a real leej.
Wash looked over at Berlin. His friend was pretty damn close to the same, in his mind. He’d killed doros, acted bravely in combat. They were the two best points in the Legion. For whatever that was worth.
Wash was thankful for his friend. More than that, he was proud of him. Because even though Berlin wasn’t worthy of being an officer of the Legion, not by any stretch, he’d done better than any of his appointed colleagues—any civilian—could ever have hoped to in the situation. And the Legion was lucky to have him. Berlin could have stayed home. Rich and living easy. But he signed up. Came here. He was a good man.
Sleep was still a ways off, but close enough to whisper to Wash about the coming of dreams. His thoughts shifted as they so often do in those moments before slumber.
He thought of his family back on Spilursa.
Mom and Dad.
He hadn’t thought much about them since he’d joined the Legion. He hadn’t written home while undertaking Legion training. He didn’t long for a home-cooked meal; his mother never cooked anyway. That’s what servants were for. And real servants, not bots. Anyone could invest in a bot, but employing real, organic beings to do your bidding… that was wealth. That was status. And Wash’s family had it in spades.
Wash didn’t know why his family was now in his thoughts. He wondered obliquely what they might say about the events that had occurred this day. Not that he needed their approval, or had any illusions about receiving it. They’d made their thoughts about him joining the Legion quite clear on the day that he and Berlin were told that they were House of Reason Delegate Roman Horkoshino’s selections.
Mr. and Mrs. Washam were more than unhappy at their only son going down such a vulgar path. It was all fine and well for the Berlins to send their eldest off to war—that family had always been something less stately than the Washams, in Wash’s parents’ minds. The Be
rlins were actually richer, by far, but theirs was a newer wealth—one that could only be traced back a mere handful of generations. Wash’s family had landed on Spilursa centuries before, during the Great Migration. They’d built a fortune from the ground up. A fortune that had withstood the test of time. Starting out with noble occupations and cultivating the natural resources of their planet so it could develop to its rightful spot as one of the shining jewels of the galactic core.
Good, honest money.
Not like those Berlins, who had more money than they could possibly need, money that was obtained in the lowest of ways. Everyone knew a galactic-wide shipping company was only a couple of steps above outright piracy.
Wash found it all funny. He and Berlin. Their parents. Everyone was a case study in opposites. Wash wanted the Legion’s glory. Berlin wanted the House of Reason’s power. Wash’s parents wanted political power for their son. Berlin’s wanted their son to give back to a Republic—and a Legion—that had been so good to them.
“If you want a career in politics,” Wash’s father had lectured him when word of his appointment came out, “then you need to follow in your older brother’s footsteps. Find a nice neighborhood on the cusp of a major housing boom. One of the hip districts that used to keep the lower types sheltered. The sort of locale that’s attractive to all the young people who want to play at being urbane and sophisticated.”
Wash smiled at the memory of his starched father using words like “hip.”
Wash hadn’t told his parents—or anyone, other than Berlin—that he’d applied to be an appointed officer. They didn’t learn the news until after he was chosen. And even then, Wash’s father assumed it was all merely an angle for him to move up politically. A foolish angle.
“Make yourself a community activist,” Wash’s father had said. “Get a name for yourself. Live in the biggest house on the block. It’ll still be affordable when you move in, and you’ll be doing just fine when you sell it later and move to the capital after the district elects you for local office. It’s that simple. Just repeat until you climb each rung. Make the right friends, say the right things, and then you get a shot at the House of Reason. That’s the respectable way to go about this. Not running off to join the damn Legion like some kind of testosterone-fueled trigger monkey.”
Wash’s mother was no less disapproving, but for different reasons. “I don’t care if the House places you in protected roles. The Legion is always fighting. Always getting shot at. I don’t want to see my little boy blown to pieces.”
Wash smiled at this too. The risk of being blown to pieces while fighting with those testosterone-fueled trigger monkeys was the only reason Wash had taken the opportunity. It was the only thing that could have moved him to absorb the scandal of walking out on his family and joining the Legion Academy.
Because the Legion was different. The army, and to a lesser extent the marines—the navy especially—had all had appointed officers for some time. And those were viewed as respectable paths to power. They were part of an established gentry. But the Legion… that was an unruly and completely different animal. If anything resembling a well-groomed officer class was to come from the Legion, it would be viewed as a shock by many in the core.
“Hey, Berlin,” Wash said in a whisper, venturing to see whether his friend was sleeping lightly enough to wake up.
Wash felt like talking.
He wanted to know how Berlin felt his parents would handle what had happened today. The Berlins had been thrilled when their son was accepted as an appointed Legion officer. Though Berlin’s father didn’t serve—not beyond lending several of his ships to the Legion for combat refitting during the end of the Savage Wars—the rest of the family, from grandfather to several great-grandfathers, had all served. Some even as legionnaires.
“Yeah, Wash?”
“What do you think your parents would say about today?”
Berlin didn’t stir, he just spoke. “Wash… they’d be so proud.”
Wash smiled.
“How ’bout yours?” Berlin asked, his voice distant, as though he wasn’t quite awake. But he was doing his best.
“They’d never forgive me.”
Berlin laughed. “That’s probably true.”
Wash waited a long moment before asking his friend, “Do you think… Do you think your parents would be proud of me too?”
Berlin’s only answer was a light snore.
Wash realized that he was growing melancholy, which led to thoughts of loss and death. He’d seen no shortage of that today. And what about him? Would he soon face the unimaginable… the hereafter? What could be worse than if there simply was no more life?
You can die out here, Wash. Easily.
And…
Do everything as though your life depends on it.
Wash didn’t want to die. And yet… he was out here to kill. To make sure that life stopped living.
But those were just doros. And if they didn’t want it, they shouldn’t have started it. Wash was only killing those who wanted to kill him first.
His eyelids tugged at him, and he felt the heavy promise of the rapture of sleep. It was probably a good idea to doze off. He didn’t want to spend the next several hours in a steamy distant jungle lying wide awake and thinking about his own inevitable death.
He hoped it would be quick. His death. That it would just… happen before he had a chance to know it was about to occur. Because that was the worst part. Knowing it was coming.
Probably why we all try to drive the thought far from our minds, Wash.
Truth be told, it was a big part of why he’d signed up for the opportunity to serve the Legion. It was why he’d gone through the grueling trials of Legion training instead of taking a pass.
He would die someday, and some complex and quiet part of him wanted to live so seriously and so dangerously that when that day came, he would feel like he had cheated death long enough. Like his dying was part of the bargain. Like it was only fair to the rest of the galaxy that a man who had lived so hard and so fast should finally catch up to the rest of the lost souls.
That fight today… It was exactly what Wash wanted to do for the rest of his life. It was what he hoped he would die doing. He hoped he would die fighting.
He hoped he would die a legionnaire.
***
Wash woke up to the sound of the sniper hissing his name. “Lieutenant Washam.”
Though Wash’s eyes opened, they still felt thick with sleep. His tongue didn’t feel fully functional. He didn’t trust himself to modulate the volume of his own voice. He reached into his nostril, pinched his fingers around some nose hairs, and yanked them out violently for the sudden waking jolt it brought about. “Time for my watch?” he asked.
“No,” the marine answered urgently. “Dobies.”
11
Wash jumped to his feet, rifle in hand, ready at that moment to engage in a firefight.
But the sniper waved him down. “They’re not in the camp. But not far enough away, either. Saw ’em close enough that I know they’re tracking.”
Of course they aren’t in the camp. You would have heard the blaster fire if it were otherwise, knucklehead, Wash yelled at himself.
“Okay,” he said in a whisper, giving a slow, deliberate nod to let the sniper know that he understood the situation.
“Sarge is asking me to go through and get you up first, then the others. He wants to see you.” In the sparse moonlight penetrating the jungle canopy, the sniper’s face was painted a ghostly blue, and his eyes looked like they had no color.
“I’ll wake up the major,” Wash said. “You go on ahead. Thanks, Marine.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wash gently pushed on his friend’s shoulder. “Berlin,” he whispered urgently. “Buddy, wake up.”
Berlin stirred, then faced Wash, blinking in the darkness. “It’s not morning.”
“I know. A scout spotted the doros and they might be on our trail. We need to get u
p and be ready for whatever comes next.”
The seriousness of this statement prompted Berlin to rise up, but the sleep wasn’t fully gone, and he did so clumsily, making quite a racket.
“Shhh!” Wash put a finger to his lips. “Wake up all the way, then let’s go. We need to talk with Sergeant Shotton.”
Berlin let out a yawn and stretched his arms as though he’d just woken up from his plush point bed in his special Legion quarters. His rank got him perks a first lieutenant didn’t see. “I was dreaming about my parents. Funny.”
“I know. That’s because we were talking about them right before we went to sleep.”
“We did?” said Berlin. “Huh. They’d be proud of us, Wash.”
“I know.”
The two points moved past bleary-eyed marines. It was evident that the sniper’s rousting had come much too quickly for all their tastes. Tierney, still accompanied by Corpsman Hellix, looked as though she’d need an injection of narco stims to ever get up again.
They found Shotton quietly directing Denturo and a few other marines on where to set up. The men hastily and dutifully moved off to their positions as Wash and Berlin arrived.
“Is it still too early to say good morning?” Wash asked the sergeant. He’d barely been asleep for an hour before Parker roused him. Dawn was still a long ways off.
“Don’t know about the protocols in all that, but so far, things ain’t lookin’ very good.”
“What’s the situation?”
“Parker says a team of about eight dog-men are about a kilometer back that way.” Shotton hitched his thumb to point in the direction from which they’d marched. “Doros had their noses to the ground, so it’s a good bet they’re tracking us.”
“Only eight?” Berlin said, sounding optimistic. “We can handle that many.”
Order of the Centurion Page 9