Order of the Centurion

by Jason Anspach

  A small burst of blaster fire zinged down from one of the marines above. Keeping a peeking doro honest.

  The Dark Ops legionnaire moved swiftly to within forty yards of the doros hiding at the base of the ridge. He dropped to one knee and held up his hand to let Wash know that he was about to take action. Then he casually took aim and sent a blaster bolt sailing into the back of the rearmost rock, presumably killing the doro that hid behind it. The next shot was just as smooth and effortless. So was the next, and the next.

  Four times the Dark Ops leej squeezed his trigger, and if the rumored prowess of the operators were to believed—and Wash knew they were—that meant four dead doros. At least half the number of those pressing up against the ridge—though in the chaos, getting a sure count hadn’t been possible.

  It took that same number of shots for the doros to realize what was happening. Wash could hear them barking and growling frantically. One of them stuck its head out from behind a rock for a second too long—and had it removed, courtesy of Parker.

  Then blaster fire began to fly from the bottom of the ridge toward the Dark Ops legionnaire.

  The operator held his ground and carefully aimed his rifle even as doro shots sizzled past him. He sent back three return bolts coolly—almost casual in his unflinching performance—and the blaster fire coming from the ridge ceased.

  The legionnaire lowered his rifle to the ready position before motioning for the bot and basic to move with him forward.

  “Holy sket,” Berlin said. “He’s saying over the comm that they’re all dead now.”

  Wash looked out at the legionnaire, who gave him a casual salute, just a flick of his wrist, before jogging toward the ridge as the bot and basic scrambled to catch up to him. It dawned on Wash at that moment that all of this was the action of a single, lethal operator.

  The Dark Ops leej, the bot, and the basic would be all the help that was coming.

  22

  “Hey! Where’s Hellix?” called a marine to Wash’s right. “I think my ear got shot off.”

  One side of the marine’s face was streaked with sweat and blood. His ear was mangled, dark, and grisly, so much so that Wash couldn’t tell whether the ear was gone or not. But it was certain that at least part of it was no longer there.

  “Corpsman up!” shouted Sergeant Shotton.

  There was no reply from among the ridge.

  “Hellix!” shouted Denturo, looking odd without a wad of stim in his lip. “Hustle your ass down here!”

  Still no answer.

  “Parker!” Shotton yelled, his voice echoing across the rocks where the marines were wedged. “You see where Hellix was?”

  “Yes, sir,” a standing Parker replied. He shouldered his rifle and began skipping across rocks, hopping from overhang to overhang and making a beeline to where Hellix had taken cover. The speed of his movement was a testament to his agility—he was like some kind of suicidal mountain goat. And with each landing, the amplified sound of his boots and gear could be heard over the grim silence.

  Finally, he called out. “Oh, sket! Hellix is hit bad.”

  It was with that announcement that the Dark Ops legionnaire and his team—if that’s what it could be called—arrived.

  Wash wasted no time with formalities. “We’ve got a man wounded up there. Can your bot get to him or do we need to bring him down?”

  “I am capable of climbing,” said the bot. “I will attend to the wounded now.”

  The bot took to the rocks easily. It was nowhere as agile as Parker, but it impressed Wash with the way it was able to keep its otherwise lithe frame stable as it moved ever upward.

  “Gotta do me a favor, Lieutenant,” Shotton said, grimacing down at his knee. “Go up there and be with Hellix. I can’t with my leg, but he deserves that much.”

  Wash nodded and started upward. As he climbed the rocks, he heard the Dark Ops legionnaire speaking behind him. “I need to know who’s in charge of this operation.”

  That was Berlin, and Wash would have to leave his friend to go over things—and take the heat—with the operator. There was a reckoning coming, and it was time both points faced it.

  Wash scrambled up the ridge, arriving by Parker’s side—and Hellix’s—at just about the same time as the bot. Hellix was conscious and in pain. His hand was clamped down on what was clearly a gut shot. The powerful punch of the blaster bolt had ripped through his flak vest at its zippered seam.

  Parker was squeezing Hellix’s other hand, and from the somewhat uncomfortable expression on the sniper’s face, Wash could tell that Hellix was squeezing back with all his strength.

  Good, thought Wash. That’s good. His strength hasn’t left him. He still has some fight.

  The medical bot crouched and made itself compact, seeming to fold in on itself in order to squeeze between the rocks to get close to Hellix. “Regretfully,” the bot said, “I do not have your medical records and am unable to download them. However, I shall endeavor to do my best with my knowledge of human anatomy and physiology.”

  The bot tilted its head toward the gut shot. “I will need to have an unobstructed look at your wound, Corpsman Hellix. Kindly move your hand.”

  When Hellix didn’t—either because he wasn’t present enough to hear the request or because he was simply unwilling to take it away—Parker nodded at Wash, prodding him to do it.

  Wash gently took the corpsman’s hand in his own and moved it away. Hellix didn’t fight him.

  The wound was ghastly: a fist-sized hole right in Hellix’s stomach, blistered around the edges from the heat of the blaster bolt. The impact had punched pieces of the flak jacket inside the corpsman. Everything looked raw and ugly.

  Wash knew enough about combat injuries to know that what he was seeing was not good.

  The medical bot’s head tilted from one side to the other. Its optics focused and zoomed, making miniscule servo clicks and whines. It looked like a curious child examining a butterfly for the first time.

  After studying the wound intensely and scanning Hellix from head to foot, the bot held out its thin, mechanical arm. A syringe popped out of a compartment on its wrist. The bot rolled up Hellix’s sleeve, exposing the man’s shoulder. “I have something for you, and then I will have to go and assess any others. A marine below has lost eighty percent of an ear.”

  The bot placed its hand on Hellix’s arm and caressed it in a soothing motion. But Wash could see the needle lunge forward and inject its contents into the corpsman’s body like venom from an insect’s stinger.

  The bot stood. “You are a brave marine, Corpsman Hellix. The Republic and any who know you should be proud.”

  And then it turned and headed down the rocks.

  “Hey!” Parker shouted after the machine. “Don’t walk away! He’s hurt. He needs help. You gotta stay with him, man.”

  The medical bot turned its head as if it wanted to reply, but something in its programming was prohibiting it.

  Hellix was still holding Parker’s hand. “It’s all right, Park.” The corpsman’s voice sounded melodic and dreamlike. The bot must have injected him with some kind of pain-suppressing narcotic. “The bot just means that it’s done what it can. I’m not making it off Psydon alive.”

  “What?” Parker sounded like he couldn’t believe it. Not when Dark Ops had just arrived. Not when a Republic medical bot was here just when they needed it.

  “It’s okay,” Hellix said, somewhat more feebly, but no less strong in his conviction. “I’ve made my peace. And I don’t feel bad about it. Had to happen someday, right? I don’t feel bad… I don’t feel… anything right now except… good. I feel good.”

  Parker leaned down, not letting go of his friend’s hand. “Don’t get all defeatist on me, buddy. Hang in there.”

  Wash could see that some of the other marines were craning their necks, watching the bot as it descended, wondering what was going on.

  “I…” began Wash. Then stopped. The simple utterance of words seemed
somehow… sacrilegious. As if he had no right to be speaking out loud in such a pivotal moment in a man’s life. His mind supplied him with an abundance of phrases to say. They were all memorable, worthy things… in isolation. Things he’d read others saying at times like this. In the history texts. In the holofilms.

  You did all that could ever be asked.

  Your sacrifice will never be forgotten.

  You did good, kid. You did good.

  Each of these sounded, phony, hollow, forced. Unworthy of the final moments of the corpsman’s life. But Shotton had sent Wash up to be here, to see through the hard reality of men wounded because they followed orders.

  Because they followed two points into the Psydon wilds.

  Wash looked down at the dying man. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  The other marines began to climb up the ridge, aware of the fate that had befallen their friend. He was not the first of their number to be lost, but he was the man who had most devoted his time and energy to helping them. Patching their wounds. Caring for them. Trying to save them.

  As the marines gathered, Wash felt out of place and began to make his way back down.

  On the descent, he passed Denturo, who clapped him on the shoulder. “Sucks, man.”

  Wash nodded. It did suck. And yet somehow the marine pausing to take the time to commiserate with him made him feel a little better.

  23

  Subs couldn’t believe what he was hearing from the point major. He’d expected some cock and bull story. Some kind of excuse for why the point had had to bend, if not break, the chain of Legion command and put not only his own life, but the lives of these marines in danger.

  He didn’t go into the conversation angry. He knew the point would pay the price for his decision. If anything, this might in the end be a good thing for the Legion, if not for the lives lost. The brass in Legion command would be well-supplied with the ammunition necessary to sink the House of Reason’s appointment program once and for all.

  But instead of scrambling to cover his rear, Major Berlin was open and candid. He talked about how he felt as though he had been missing the war, and how a future career in politics would be greatly benefited by him seeing action. And how that was something that the Legion—quite rightly, in Subs’s opinion—would never allow to happen. So he used his rank to get a team of recon marines and a SLIC crew to move out dangerously deep into the jungle.

  If nothing else, Subs admired the point’s brutal honesty. Most of what he’d heard about this special class of officers was that they were feckless, conniving liars who would do anything to help themselves. Men who would throw you under the repulsor bus as soon as you look at you. But Berlin was making it clear that all the responsibility rested on his shoulders.

  And then Berlin shared some news that utterly floored Subs. The team had somehow stumbled across an enemy outpost holding Republic prisoners of war.

  They neutralized it—and while Subs could rebuke the point for his inability to save the POWs, given the circumstances described—details that were backed up by the marine sergeant—Subs wasn’t sure even a legionnaire assault could have spared the POWs’ lives. That was the sort of thing you sent in Dark Ops for.

  The presence of Republic prisoners in that sector of jungle—one relatively close to Firebase Hitchcock but deemed by Republic strategists to be unoccupied—said something about the doros’ ability to disappear into the terrain. The cunning dog-men were setting up where their enemy was not, a critical factor in waging a successful war. And yet they were also sending their forces each night in fierce attacks against Legion positions. Launching attacks from exactly where Republic intelligence said they were all concentrated.

  The doros were cleverer than Subs had thought.

  That fact made the major’s next bombshell more believable. So despite how decidedly unbelievable it was on its surface, Subs had no doubt about its veracity.

  “Mobile artillery platforms,” said Berlin. “The prisoner we rescued—Tierney—she’d been taken back and forth between the camp and the mobile base for interrogations. So we followed the direction where she’d told us she’d last seen them. The things are massive. The guns themselves move on a base that sort of… well, I don’t know what you’d call it. Not terraforming in the strictest sense, but they literally pick up the jungle, carry it over their frame, and set it back down behind them. It’s like they have this sort of perfect…” Berlin snapped his fingers, searching for the right word.

  “A constant camouflage,” Sergeant Shotton supplied.

  “Yeah. Like the platforms are always moling their way just below Psydon’s surface, with only the guns sticking out right in the midst of the rest of the jungle. It’s no wonder no one has seen them.”

  “Did you actually witness them firing?” asked Subs. That was the other thing that had been baffling the Republic. Even when operating, these artillery cannons left no visible trace, no telltale flash of hellfire.

  “No. Never saw them fire in person. But we heard them after we’d marked the spot and left.”

  The man who’d gone up with the medical bot, the potential Nether Ops guy, came back down and interjected himself into the conversation. “I got a pretty good look at the guns.”

  “This is Lieutenant Washam,” said Berlin. “But everybody calls him Wash.”

  Subs shook the man’s hand, and suddenly remembered that Alistair was standing nearby, looking unsure what he should be doing. “I’m Sergeant Major Boyd, but call me Subs. It’s less of a mouthful. My friend here is Specialist Alistair Loewns. He came with me from Firebase Hitchcock—the only one willing—just on the outside chance you didn’t all get yourselves killed. So even though he’s a basic, he’s one who deserves your respect.”

  Alistair brightened at this introduction. He gave a fractional nod.

  Wash nodded in return. “I’m grateful for you both. The bot came at the right time, too.”

  As the man shook Alistair’s hand, Subs studied him. He had the bearings of a legionnaire. Rigid posture, standing tall. But there was also a sadness in his eyes that Subs didn’t quite know what to make of. And if he was a legionnaire, he was ridiculously out of uniform.

  “I’m going to cut right to the skinny here, Lieutenant Washam, because I need to know every card I’m dealing with. Are you in the Nether?”

  Wash stared at him blankly. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Nether Ops. If you’re in, let’s not play dumb. I’m a short hop to retirement and I don’t need any more medals. I won’t take credit for finding the artillery, Nether Ops can take all the credit. I don’t care. But I do need to know.”

  “No,” Wash said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s Nether Ops?”

  Subs examined the man for a beat. “So what are you, then? Because legionnaires have armor. That’s sort of part of our shtick.”

  “He’s Legion,” insisted Berlin. “Appointed by Delegate Roman Horkoshino, same as me. But he’s different. He actually passed the Academy on his own merits—just like all you other legionnaires do. He’s a point… but he’s a sharp one.”

  “Is that so?” said Subs, not believing it for an instant. He’d heard enough about points flaunting outright disorderly disobedience in the Academy and thereafter to know better.

  “It’s the truth, Sergeant Major,” said Shotton. “I’ve served alongside enough legionnaires in my time—I’m not far from retirement myself—to know a leej when I see one. He thinks Legion, he walks Legion… hell, he was able to haul my butt all the way from the ruins to here on his back. And he fights like a caged devil, same as the rest of you bunch.”

  During all that praise, Wash looked down. Perhaps embarrassed, though humble was the word that came to Subs’s mind. Humility wasn’t always how a leej carried himself, but some of them did. And Subs always felt that the ones who went through their service showing humility… those were the best the Legion had.

  Whether Wash was the real
deal as his friends insisted, or if he had pulled the wool over their eyes the same way Major Berlin had the SLIC crew and recon marines, ultimately didn’t matter. Subs was with them now, and if they had the approximate location of the doro artillery in their possession, it was crucial that word reached Legion command as quickly as possible.

  “In the jungle, behind me,” Subs said, “was a large force. They were slow-moving because of numbers, but I’m thinking now that they’re a detachment from that mobile artillery platform you all saw.”

  Berlin looked over his shoulder, watching the tree line for their arrival.

  “Which most likely means that the artillery division knows there’s a Republic presence in the jungle who may have a bead on their location. And so they’re gonna do two things: One, move that artillery as far from here as they can as quickly as they can. And two, send those doros to kill us to keep us from ever letting anyone else know about it.”

  Wash nodded. “Our plan was to cross the valley and do an all-hail from Poro-Poro Peak.”

  Subs looked at the round rock formation on the other side of the shallow valley. That was a good bet. Much as he’d tried, he’d been unable to reach anyone over L-comm except Berlin. There wasn’t another legionnaire in range for a good distance. So unless they were able to maximize their comm range… they were stuck.

  But that didn’t mean the plan was an easy one.

  “You go down in that valley, and you’re gonna be visible to just about every doro around. A major topographical spot like that, you can bet the doro already have it zeroed in with their guns.”

  “Well, is there any alternative?” asked Wash. His tone wasn’t challenging; he spoke as if genuinely seeking input on the best course of action.

  “Potentially. Once Firebase Hitchcock gets its long-range comms back online, Captain Garcia there is supposed to scramble SLICs to come looking for us in this general direction. The comms may well be up by now, given the time. If we see the SLICs nearby, we can pop some flares and get them to pick us up.”