Legion Of The Damned - 02 - The Final Battle

by William C. Dietz

  Parker nodded, removed a heavily starched shirt from its hangar, and held it up. A set of lieutenant’s boards had been buttoned onto the shoulder straps and Booly wondered how much longer he’d be entitled to wear them. He stuck his left arm into the appropriate sleeve, fought to pry it open, and winced at the pain. Parker showed no signs of sympathy.

  “The first thing to remember is that a Summary Court consists of a single officer, and the accused—that’s you, sir—must represent themselves. And that being the case, sir, you must look the exact opposite of the sort of person who would do what you are accused of doing, which is violating a standing order, assault on a member of the Confederacy’s Armed Forces, and conduct unbecoming an officer. Here . . . allow me to help with those buttons.”

  The charges, and the certain knowledge that he was guilty, filled Booly’s stomach with lead. Unless he insisted on a court-martial, and the military equivalent of a jury trial, the officer in charge of the Summary Court could punish him in any way that he or she chose, up to and including a reduction in the rank he had worked so long and hard to achieve. What would his parents think? Not to mention the tribal elders. But everyone knows a court martial is a two-edged sword, ensuring fairness on the one hand, and by-the-book rigidity on the other.

  “So,” the corporal continued, helping Booly into a pair of stiffly starched pants, “the lieutenant might consider the following advice: Accept full responsibility for your actions, look the presiding officer in the eye, and apologize for everything except hitting the marine. There ain’t an officer in the Legion that would punish a man for that.”

  Booly laughed and fastened his belt. It glowed from a good polishing. “Thanks, Corporal . . . you give good advice. Can I ask a couple of questions?”

  Parker nodded politely. “Lock and load, sir. Ready on the range.”

  “What happened to Lieutenant Riley?”

  “The powers that be decided to cut Lieutenant Riley some slack. He was verbally reprimanded, confined to quarters, and assigned to Legion Outpost NA-45-16/R. He lifts two and a half hours from now. Or so I hear.”

  Booly damned himself for the idiot he was. Not only had he let himself down, and embarrassed his parents, he had betrayed his best friend as well. So much for Riley’s application to Staff College. He swallowed hard. “Thanks, Corporal . . . I appreciate your honesty. Now for my second question . . . How does a know-nothing, wet-behind-the-ears junior lieutenant rate help from someone like you?”

  A smile stole over Parker’s tightly stretched face. “Some people are born lucky, sir, like a sergeant-major I once knew who ran through a hail of lead to save my ass and escaped without a scratch.”

  Suddenly a whole lot of things made sense. “You served with my father?”

  “Yes, sir, I had that honor,” Parker replied soberly, “and if ever you need a sometimes sergeant, keep me in mind. I like an officer who will stand and fight. That’s what they pay us to do. Now time’s a-wasting, sir . . . Let’s lace them boots, set that sling, and move out. It ain’t smart to be late.”

  Booly wondered whether Parker had chosen to help an old friend’s son or been asked to do so by the ex-sergeant-major himself. There was no way to tell and he couldn’t think of a graceful way to phrase the question.

  Booly donned his hat, checked the full-length mirror, and was surprised at how good he looked. Thanks to Parker’s preparations, and expert assistance, he could have passed a general inspection. Even with the khaki-colored arm sling.

  They left the BOQ together, and it wasn’t until they were outside and quick-marching their way across the quad that Booly noticed Parker’s MP arm band and holstered sidearm. He was a prisoner! And only by the grace of the unofficial noncom network had he escaped the indignity of a jail cell and everything that went with it.

  Cadets saluted smartly, frightened by the unexpected appearance of an honest-to-God officer, and the spectral MP. Booly returned their salutes, hoped he wouldn’t encounter anyone he knew, tried to look officerlike, and was relieved when they approached the admin building. He looked up and saw the pennant had been lowered. An omen? He hoped not.

  Booly took his place in the green room and waited his turn. Time passed with excruciating slowness. The other miscreants were fascinated by the lieutenant in their midst. Some stared in openmouthed amazement, while others whispered among themselves and asked the guards for information. Parker used a series of narrow-eyed looks to intimidate some of the worst offenders but the sidelong glances continued.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity but was actually only forty-five minutes or so, the door opened and a private was dragged out of the inner office. She was livid with rage and it took two MPs to control her. “Screw you, bitch! I hope you rot in hell!”

  Booly had spent the last six years in a tough but protected environment, an environment where this sort of discipline problem was discussed during leadership classes but never witnessed. He watched the private’s heels leave two black skid marks across the highly polished floor and heard his name called. “Lieutenant William Booly! This way, sir . . .”

  Booly looked at Parker, got a thumbs-up, and nodded. “Thanks, Corporal . . . see you shortly.”

  So saying, Booly placed his hat in the crook of his left elbow, marched through the open door, and stopped in front of an ancient desk. It was made of wood and was bare outside of a stylus and computer console. The colonel who sat behind the desk had a blond-gray crew cut, an undisguised bionic eye, and a ramrod-straight back. The name tag above her left breast pocket read D. A. Axler. Her face was devoid of all expression. Booly snapped to attention, used his right hand to salute, and ripped off the correct protocol. “Second Lieutenant William B. Booly, reporting as ordered, ma’am.” He kept his eyes focused on the plaque over her head. It read Legio Patria Nostra, or “The Legion Is Our Country.”

  The colonel returned the salute but took her own sweet time before saying anything. Booly heard a mosquitolike whine as the bionic eye zoomed in and tilted down along his uniform. Finally, when the view was obscured by the edge of her desk, the colonel spoke. “You look pretty good for someone who spent the night disobeying general orders, wallowing in booze, and getting into fights.”

  It was a trap. Agreement would amount to a confession of guilt and denial could be construed as defiance. Silence could mean trouble, too, but seemed like the best alternative. The colonel stood, walked around the end of the table, and stood with her face two inches from his. Booly detected the faintest whiff of mint. She had a hard face and her good eye glittered with emotion. “Now, you listen to me, Lieutenant, and listen good. I think you’re a furry no-good freak conceived by a worthless NCO who went over the hill so he could screw the local wildlife.”

  Blood rushed to Boolyʼs face, the fur she had referred to stood on end, and adrenaline flooded his bloodstream. It was only through a major act of will that he kept his hands at his side and his eyes focused on hers. She might be the world’s worst bigot, or she might be jerking him around, but the results were the same. He hated her guts. To talk about his parents that way, to call his mother an animal, went beyond any possible justification. But an attack would give her an easy way to put him in prison.

  The colonel paused, her eyes still locked with his, well aware of his hatred. She clasped her hands behind her back and circled him. “See how easy it is, Lieutenant? See how easily I pushed your buttons? What the hell are you going to do next time? And the time after that? Are you going to fight every man or woman who calls you names? ’Cause if you are, Lieutenant, then you aren’t worth shit, and I should bounce your ass out of the Legion right now.”

  The colonel completed her circuit. Her eyes found his. “And guess what, piss ant, if it was up to me I would toss your butt out of here, because I don’t think you’ll make it. I think you’ll allow some two-bit asshole to lure you into one fight too many, or coddle your troops because you want them to fall in love with your furry ass, or make some other equally stupid
mistake. But I don’t run the Legion, and for reasons I don’t understand, General St. James thinks you have potential. I just pray to God that he’s right, and this isn’t a manifestation of the political crap that generals swim through, the kind that gets a whole lot of good people killed someday. Do you read me, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  Axler nodded grimly. “Well, I sure hope you do, because you are one sorry sonovabitch. Drinking is stupid, violating orders is stupid, and fighting is stupid. Even when they’re marines. Now, here’s the skinny. . . . You get to keep your shoulder boards, but I’m taking three months’ worth of your pay, and sending you to a planet where you will either lead or die. The second alternative being best for the Confederacy. Your shuttle lifts at twenty-three hundred hours tonight. Make damned sure you’re on it. Questions?”

  “No, ma’am!”

  “Then why are you still here? Get the hell out of my office!”

  “Yes, ma’am!” Booly snapped off a salute, did a perfect about-face, and marched to the door. It opened, then closed behind him.

  Axler watched the young man leave, waited for the door to close, and smiled. “He’s gone, sir.”

  A section of wood paneling swiveled out of the way and General St. James stepped into the office. He had watched the whole thing on closed-circuit video and carried two cups of steaming-hot coffee. One went to the colonel. “Nice job, DeeDee, you scared the crap out of him.”

  Axler took a sip of her coffee. It had too much sugar in it but she wasn’t about to tell the general that. “I thought he was going to take a swing at me when I insulted his mother.”

  St. James nodded. “Yeah, but it had to be done. The Legion needs to look more like the Confederacy that it’s fighting for. That means officers and legionnaires of every possible race. Or combinations of races, assuming the Naa aren’t of human stock themselves, which scientists are beginning to doubt. But we can’t afford hotheads. Lieutenant Riley swore that Booly walked away from a confrontation inside that nightclub but I had to know for sure.”

  Axler nodded. “Yes, sir. Well, now you know.”

  The general smiled. “I sure do. Now tell me about all the ‘political crap that generals swim in.’ I’d like to know more.”

  The colonel checked to make sure the general was joking and they laughed together.

  The better part of the afternoon was spent out-processing for Clone World Alpha-001. Parker, sans arm band and weapon, accompanied Booly through the process. The young officer had thanked the NCO, and tried to release him, but the cadaverous corporal refused to go.

  The first stop was a normally quiet area three floors above the Green Room. Normally used for routine administrative purposes, the offices were temporarily transformed into processing centers whenever a class graduated from the academy. A sizable number of Boolyʼs classmates were already there, talking, arguing, and trading friendly insults. Booly looked for Kadien and didn’t know whether to be happy or sorry that he wasn’t there. Colonel Axler had been right about the way he’d been manipulated, and the last thing he needed to do was get in a fight with a classmate. But if Kadien said one word, just one word about his race, Booly knew he would wipe the sneer off the other officer’s face.

  Habits are hard to break, so the newly minted lieutenants automatically formed six lines and put an arm’s worth of distance between themselves and the person in front of them. Each line terminated in front of a door, and each door had a number stenciled on it. Everyone had heard Riley’s or Kadien’s version of what had taken place the night before and Booly was greeted with hoots and whistles.

  “Hey, Booly! Some marines are looking for you!”

  “Look! He kept his boards!”

  “Bill, good to see you, man, how’s the arm?”

  “Hey, shithead, whereʼd they send you?”

  A hush fell over the crowd. Everyone knew he’d been to Summary Court and was curious about his punishment. Booly forced a smile and shrugged. “Clone World Alpha-001.”

  There were groans, words of commiseration, and a round of the usual clone jokes. But Booly knew most if not all of the men and women around him were secretly pleased. Not because they were bigots but because humans beings like to feel lucky.

  Fortunately for Booly, his classmates’ attention spans were notoriously short and conversation soon veered toward the eternal verities of sports, sex, music, and warfare, not necessarily in that order. Booly’s headache had returned, and his arm hurt, but it felt good to be reabsorbed into the wrap and weave of military society. The line moved quickly and Booly found himself standing in front of it fifteen minutes later.

  Door number three opened, he stepped through, and found himself in a brightly lit but otherwise unremarkable room. There were no furnishings other than a platform with a frame around it. A vaguely humanoid robot with an olive drab paint job greeted Booly with relentless courtesy. “Welcome to out-processing station three. Please step onto the platform. The platform will rotate. Do not be alarmed. A series of questions will be asked. Please answer in a loud, clear voice.”

  Booly obeyed and the platform started to rotate. A gender-neutral voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once. “You have been wounded. With the exception of your wound, are you in pain?”

  Booly lied. “No.”

  “Do you have bouts of nausea? Blurred vision? Unexplained dizziness?”

  Booly had all three but knew why. “No.”

  “Do you have regular bowel movements? Have you seen blood in your stool?” And on and on until the questions and the sound of his own replies became a distant drone.

  In the meantime a complex tracery of laser beams roamed his body, hundreds of precise measurements were taken, and the resulting information was sent across campus to a series of one-story buildings where an entire set of perfectly tailored class-A, class-B, and utility uniforms were produced, along with body armor, shoes, boots, and a customized side arm. Additional weaponry if any would be issued on-station.

  Once that process was complete, and the platform had stopped, Booly was directed to pass through another door. The second room was very much like the first, except that there was no platform, and the resident android had no human qualities whatsoever. It consisted of some tubes, a shiny metal arm that extended from the ceiling, and a sensor-equipped air gun. Like his peers, Booly had been inoculated many times during the last six years and undid his shirt before being asked to do so.

  “Welcome to out-processing station three. You will receive a full set of inoculations appropriate to Clone World Alpha-001. If this is not your destination, or you have entered the room by mistake, please say so now.”

  Booly remained silent and the computer-controlled equipment picked up where it had left off. “Please expose both your shoulders.”

  The sling was a hassle but Booly got the job done. The robotic arm whined as it moved into place and the air gun felt cold against his skin. “Please stand still. The air-injection system will lacerate your skin if you move.”

  Booly stood perfectly still, flinched when the gun went off, and braced himself as it was positioned on his wounded arm. The injector fired again, the arm whirred up and away, and the officer checked to see if he was bleeding. He wasn’t. The machine intoned its final blessing. “Thank you, and have a nice day.”

  The officer was still struggling to get all of his buttons buttoned as he stepped out of the cubicle and into a room staffed with a real person. The private was twenty-something, reasonably attractive, and immune to Lieutenants. She noticed his fur but did a good job of hiding her curiosity. A com set, computer console, and mysterious black box sat on top of her well-worn desk. “Lieutenant Booly?”

  “Yes?”

  “Please take a seat, insert your right hand into the box, and remain still.” Booly could have demanded an explanation and would have received one but found it difficult to overcome six years of unquestioning obedience. He did as he was told.

  The black box hummed, someth
ing warm wrapped itself around his wrist, and a tingle ran up his arm. The private looked at her computer, then at him. “Each unit is keyed to a single person. Did you feel a tingling sensation, sir? Good. That was the page function. You may remove your hand. Your orders have been downloaded into your wrist term, along with a copy of your service record, Legion regs, and a few other odds and ends. This booklet covers the operational stuff. Questions, sir?”

  Booly withdrew his hand and found that a small flat black box had been attached to his right wrist. It was identical to the units worn by enlisted people except that it had a command channel and more memory. Data that would automatically self-destruct if his vital signs fell below certain limits. Booly touched the case, watched the full-color screen come to life, and saw a five-item menu.

  • PERSONAL

  • COMMUNICATIONS

  • NAVIGATION

  • COMMAND

  • E-LOCATOR

  He knew that four of the five listings would provide access to sub-menus but would figure them out later. “No, thank you. I’ll read the booklet.”

  The private looked relieved. She hated explaining things to lieutenants. They were so damned stupid. She smiled politely. “Thank you, sir. Have a nice day.”

  Booly nodded, adjusted his sling, and walked out into a sparsely populated hallway. Parker was waiting and led him off to get his uniforms and other gear. His career, already tarnished and somewhat in doubt, had started.

  7

  Where troops have been quartered, brambles and thorns spring up. In the track of great armies there must follow lean years.

  Lao-tse

  Standard year circa 604 B.C.

  Worberʼs World, the Confederacy of Sentient Beings

  True to their programming, and eager to carry out their missions, millions of maggotlike microbots burrowed down into the planet’s slowly dying flesh. Most, but not all of the tiny machines dug down through soft, moist earth, followed fissures into the ground, scuttled through subsurface conduits, probed the depths of long destroyed buildings, and communicated their finds via bursts of low-frequency code.