"Missiles are passing overhead. We are not targeted. Recommend dispersal cease."
Passing overhead! Did I hear that right? I fell down to the snow, crashing onto my armored belly, and shakily brought my E to my shoulder. My whole body twitched in shock.
"Repeat, Sweety!"
"Missiles impacting!" The horizon lit up, glittering phospho green, trembling, then a horrible multiple electronic crack rumbled past us. A shock wave buffeted my faceplate, and the snow whirled around me. Yellow streaks shot skyward out there.
"ANTIMAT!" Sweety reported. "The aircar has been targeted and destroyed. I detect no further missiles. I detect no further aircars. I detect no further activity."
The horizon faded. I lay there gasping. The snow fell gently, covering my armor. I was too tired to consult my tacmod.
"Nobody move!" The transmission was shot through with static, but it was Snow Leopard all right. I forced myself to focus on the tacmap. What the hell had happened? What was an aircar doing way out here? Who would be stupid enough—or desperate enough—to try that? Well, whoever it was would not be telling. Antis! Deadman save us!
"I detect no further activity from the impact site."
Another flash lit up the horizon, then a ripping explosion. Tracers twirled through the sky.
"That's ampaks going off," somebody said.
"Beta, One, on me." I got up shakily and made my way back to our One. The aircar had been approaching us from the northeast, I realized.
It took awhile before we were all back together again—we had done a good starburst. When we were all there, we stood in the snow quietly and listened to Snow Leopard.
"That was a Legion aircar," he said quietly. "The tacmod got that much before it went off scope."
"A Legion aircar! You don't think it was Redhawk?"
"No—I don't. Redhawk is crazy, but he's not stupid. He'd come if we asked—but only if we asked. And we didn't ask."
"That was suicide!" Dragon said. "Why would anyone take an aircar this deep into the death zone?"
"I don't know," Snow Leopard replied. "But I don't like it. There is entirely too much activity in this area as far as I'm concerned. I want everyone to be one hundred percent alert at all times. Don't take anything for granted. If you spot anything unusual, report it to me at once."
"He's going on," Speedy said miserably. "I don't believe it." We ignored him.
"We continue the mission," Snow Leopard said. "Recon formation." Continue the mission—right. We would continue the mission, I knew, until we were all dead.
###
"Look at that. Look at that."
"Damn!"
"Easy—easy. Let's get a fix on it." We crouched in the show, peering into the distance. It was a cold white afternoon under a sunless sky and everything was muffled and obscured by the gently falling snow. There was more airsat out there, right in our path. Sweety was trying to color it on my faceplate but all she could get was sparkling fragments.
"Breeze is from the northwest."
"That could be good or bad. Depends on how big it is."
Suddenly the airsat burst into view on my faceplate, a mass of pale pink air, drifting slowly past us. The tacmap showed the extent and highlighted the wind direction.
"All right!"
"North!" Snow Leopard commanded. "We move north—now!" We hustled, keeping the airsat in sight to our left. It was still snowing, and the tacmod was almost useless. The Legion had seeded the clouds with deceptors, we knew. It was deceptor snow, I thought, Legion snow, to mask our approach.
"ALERT! SOILSAT! I detect pressure thermodetonators ahead! Recommend immediate halt!"
"Oh, scut!"
"Soilsat! What the hell is next?"
"Squad halt! Keep an eye on the airsat, Eleven."
"Tenners." Soilsat! The very soil was saturated with explosives. It would blow your legs right off, and there was nothing at all you could do except avoid it. Sweety lit it up in an icy phospho blue. It contrasted nicely with the pink of the airsat.
"We're all right with the airsat so far," Valkyrie reported.
"I get the impression they don't want anybody approaching their mound," Dragon commented dryly.
"The soilsat bars the way west," Snow Leopard said. "We keep walking north, mapping the extent."
"Let me guess," Speedy said. "We continue the mission."
"You're getting the idea," Snow Leopard replied.
"Transmission on Nova channel," Sweety reported briskly. "I am repeating and amplifying." We froze and listened.
It was a roaring, spattering hiss, shot through with deceptors, but it was there, on the very edge of our hearing.
"…Nova! Nova!…" A voice from a pit of despair.
"…seriously wounded…mission has been…" An overwhelming rush of static. "…evac…repeat, Nova! Nova! Any Legion unit…"
"Let's go!" Dragon said.
"Silence!" Snow Leopard snapped. "Silence in the ranks!"
The transmission continued, hissing and snapping, a full-power nova, fighting the deceptors.
"…Nova! Nova! Nova! Blue Gold hit, requesting…" Static, overwhelming static.
"What are we waiting for, One?" I asked. It was a nova—a Legion unit needed help. Nothing took priority over that.
"Silence! I said silence!" I shut down. I didn't see the problem.
The transmission faded, wavered, then came back, faintly.
"…Jade, Black Jade, your…" More static. "…repeat, your mission has been cancelled. Black Jade, abort mission!" They were calling us!
Static, rushing in our ears. Then suddenly it rang out as clear as a bell. "…Black Jade, we need help! Blue Gold to Black Jade, Nova! Your mission has been cancelled…Nova! Nova!…" It faded out. We waited, horrified, the snow swirling all around us, waiting for our One to give the word. But there were no more transmissions from Blue Gold.
"We continue the mission," Snow Leopard said quietly. "Recon formation." The tacnet erupted immediately, everyone talking at once.
"Are you serious? That's a nova!"
"We can't ignore a nova!"
"They said the mission was cancelled," Speedy objected. "You heard them! Cancelled!"
"What's the problem, One?" Dragon asked. "It's a nova!"
"We've got to answer a nova," I said. "No matter what!"
"They've got wounded, One," Priestess said. "And they're calling us! We can't walk off and leave them! If we do, we'll be cursed forever! We'll be a blot in Legion history! They'll spit on us when they see us! We can't ignore a nova!"
"Please explain, One," Valkyrie said quietly. I could see the squad was on the verge of mutiny. We trusted our One more than anyone, but this was too much. The Legion doesn't ignore novas. We respond, and we die if necessary.
"You still don't get it, do you?" Snow Leopard said. "That aircar was hit by multiple antis. There couldn't have been any survivors."
"So who's calling us?" Valkyrie asked.
"I believe the car was dropping off troopers at regular intervals before it was hit. Probably two by two—hunter teams. They're the ones calling us. And they don't have any wounded. Dead maybe, but not wounded."
"They said they had wounded!"
"They said our mission was cancelled!"
"If our mission was cancelled," Snow Leopard replied calmly. "Recon Control would have come through and informed us. We can't contact them, but they can contact us. Our mission has not been cancelled."
"But what are they doing out here?"
"They're looking for us," Snow Leopard said. "We're their mission."
"Well, let's break blackout and contact them!"
"Nobody breaks blackout! We don't answer them!"
"What do you mean, we're their mission?"
"This conversation is over! We continue the mission. Recon formation—now!"
We obeyed. What else, in Deadman's holy name, could we do? We obeyed our One, and continued our march north, looking for a break in the soilsat. And it continu
ed snowing, clean and pure and soft. My blood was ice cold. I could hear the music of the stars rushing in my ears. A nova! We were walking away from a nova! I didn't understand it, but I knew Snow Leopard had to be right. I cast my doubts aside—our One was always right!
###
The snow had almost stopped when we came to the bodies.
A few light flurries drifted slowly down from a grey-white sky. The first body was a man, skewered on a sharpened vertical metal stake like a pig on a spit. Awful dead blue-grey flesh, the mouth locked open in one final, primal scream. The frozen blood on the stake showed he had been alive when it happened, but could not have lasted very long. The stake had been thrust into his abdomen with tremendous force and exited above one shoulder blade. And now he hung there, a sentinel of death against the grey sky.
There was another ahead—a female, skewered, hopeless, the gleaming cenite stake exiting from her neck. She was long dead and covered with frost. There was a little pile of rags at the foot of the stake. A dead baby, its head crushed, one blue hand still clutched in a little fist rising up out of a snowdrift. A long line of them loomed ahead, all crucified, up on metal stakes. Men, women, even a few children. Frozen human scarecrows, mute warnings to those who might approach.
Someone cried. Someone else cursed—awful, blood-curdling oaths.
"Don't look away," Snow Leopard said. "Look at every one. I want you all to remember this. Don't ever forget it. This is what we're fighting. The O's did this. We're just dogs, to them."
Speedy whimpered, and fell to his knees in the snow. "I can't," he gasped. "I can't go on. I've seen enough. I'm finished. Please—please—I can't."
We ignored him. We stopped, stunned. We had followed a path through the soilsat heading roughly southwest toward the mound, and now this. I could not take my eyes off the woman up on the stake. She was young, I realized. The baby—it must have been hers. And I realized in a cold flash that it had all been for this, my whole life, just for this one crystal moment, standing in the snow under those holy dead. Everything that had gone before was nothing—the Gate, Providence, Hell, Andrion 2, Coldmark, Andrion 3, Mongera, Katag—all nonsense. We were going to the Mound to confront the O's, and these poor dead people were pointing the way, raising their wasted arms, opening their filmy eyes, shrieking silent screams, urging us on—to the Mound. And I knew, as sudden as a laser burst in the brain, that nothing was going to stop me from going on.
Not blown power packs or Systie squads or nova beacons or snakes or spheres or airsat or soilsat, not traitors or hysterical new guys, not even desperate novas from Legion units—nothing was going to stop me! I was a slave of the Legion and I was marching to the Mound, and nothing at all was going to stop me.
I snapped open my visor. The snow had stopped. The air was icy. I held my E tightly against my chest. Slave of the Legion—yes, I was a slave, I realized. Just as surely as if they had put chains on my legs. I was going to die for the Legion. But that was all right—I didn't mind. We were all slaves of Fate. And we were all going to die—even immortals, like us. Those were my brothers and sisters, up there on those cenite stakes. And we were going to avenge them. I felt good—about everything. Ecstatic, I suddenly realized. Ecstatic, just as Tara had said. What we were doing was something good, she had said, something good, and simple. Marching in the mud, for God, for Justice, for our people.
"Send me back. Please!" Speedy moaned. "I can't do it. You're all insane! You're going to die if you go on—you're all going to die! One, please! I can't do this!" He was still on his knees.
"Somebody shoot him," Valkyrie casually suggested.
"Fourteen, go on private to me, please," One said. We couldn't hear the rest. We didn't even care. Shoot him, let him go—it didn't matter. We didn't need him, we didn't want him. He would not be coming with us, I knew. Everyone else was quiet, but I knew what they were thinking—I knew.
When Snow Leopard was through talking with him, Speedy came back onto the tacnet, transformed. "Thanks, One! You don't know how much this means to me. I'm going to go back and quit the Legion. You're right, this is not for me. Guys, I appreciate it. Merlin, Psycho—thanks for your help. I'm sorry it didn't work out. Twister, good luck to you. I'll never forget you guys—best of luck to all of you! Any messages? I can take messages back." He was edging back the way we had come.
"Yeah," Valkyrie said. "Tell them we're going on with the mission."
"I'll do that. Goodbye, Beta—good luck!" And he raised his E in farewell and turned and started walking back.
"He'll never make it," Psycho said.
"He knows the risks," Snow Leopard said. "He prefers them to what lies ahead. I did all I could for him. I told him exactly what route to take. Assuming he can get past the guys that are following us. It was either that, or shoot him. I wasn't going to have him accompany us any further."
"He was a strange guy," Dragon said.
"No, he wasn't," Scrapper said softly. "He wasn't strange at all. He was perfectly normal. It's we who are strange."
And that was the final, frightening word on Beta Fourteen.
We put him right out of our minds.
"All right," Snow Leopard said coldly. "We continue the mission. Recon formation."
PART II
HOLY GROUND
Chapter 8
The Mound
"That's it, guys. That's the Mound." We were flat on our armored bellies on a bleak, treeless plain. The snow had stopped and the clouds were blowing away, leaving a clear, luminous pale grey sky and a cold white sun. There was no sign of deceptors. We were lumps of snow in our camfax, crawling like worms through dry packed snow. We were several K away from the Mound but the zoom on my faceplate brought it up close, and the scope on the E brought it even closer. And there it was—the Mound.
It was a massive, circular structure, a great earthen mound on the horizon, the top dusted with a layer of brilliant white snow, glittering in the sunlight. Vents on the roof spewed faint plumes of smoke that drifted off slowly in a light breeze. There were dark openings on the sides—it was hard to make out the details. At ground level, great blackened cenite doors were firmly closed. The Mound rose up against the skyline, an imposing, brooding presence, dark and silent. It appeared to be completely deserted.
"Those windows look like they open," Psycho said.
"Those aren't windows," Dragon said. "They're grates of some kind. Don't look like they open to me."
"Do so."
"Don't."
"Quiet," Snow Leopard said. "It's doubtful we'd get to them anyway, they're too high. Does anyone see any camo doors up near the top?"
I snapped up my visor and set the scope on my E to max. Grass grew on the side of the Mound. Earth covered the entire structure. I couldn't see any camo doors. There was not a sign of life.
"They're going to spot us out here," Dragon said calmly.
"You're a real strategist," Psycho replied.
"There could be anything under that dirt, One."
"How do we get through those gates, One?"
"Mother will get us in, guys," Psycho responded quickly. Exactly—the Manlink would get us through. Tacstars—micronukes. We'd walk right in through a nuclear cloud and die with our fingers on auto x.
"Hopefully, that won't be necessary, gang," Snow Leopard remarked. "Merlin, what about those structures on top?" One was off to my left, with his spotter. I brought my sight up to the roof. There were several bizarre metallic devices up there.
"Commo or guidance systems," Merlin said. "Hard to say—we don't know much about the O's commo."
"If there are any O's in there," Tara said, "they don't seem interested in what's going on outside."
"How do you know?" Snow Leopard asked.
"Nobody's psyprobing this area," Tara replied.
"I wonder why."
"You'd think they'd do it routinely."
"All right," Snow Leopard said. "Mission briefing. Listen up, guys."
I knew it was
important when Snow Leopard said to listen up. Mission briefing! We were almost on top of the target, and only now does he do the mission briefing. We were about to find out what was really going on. We didn't move; we continued lying there like lumps of snow, scoping out the target, but our One's voice was right in our ears, crisp and clear.
"There are a few details about this mission which I have not so far revealed," he said. "But the time is now right. The original mission was to recon the Mound, discover what it is, and report back. If the Legion had the resources and if the situation justified it, a stronger force would then attack the Mound. That was the original mission. The Legion simply wanted to know what the mounds are, what they do. A simple recon mission.
"Shortly before we left, the mission changed. As you know, the O's have built plenty of mounds on Uldo. And as our offensive penetrated into the death zone, something curious happened to the mounds. Starships came out of them—Omni starships. Camo doors opened up near the top, and out of every mound a single starship exited, and flashed on up through the at and escaped, out to the vac."
We listened, completely silent.
"That happened to every mound on the planet, except for one—this one."
"You mean the ship is still in there?"
"That's what the Legion thinks."
"Deadman! An Omni starship!"
"Exactly," Snow Leopard said. "An Omni starship. We've been fighting the O's for hundreds of years and never seen the inside of an Omni starship. The damned things detonate when you hit them. If we can seize this one and secure it for the Legion, it could change the course of history. It could win the war for us—it might actually ensure the survival of our species. There's simply no way to stress how important this could be."
"But it might not even be there, Snow Leopard," I objected. "Maybe there is no ship. Maybe it left already, if there ever was one."
"It's possible, Thinker—but we think it's there. The exterior configuration of the mound changes slightly when a ship is launched. This mound hasn't changed. It looks like it's still inside."
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