I fired auto canister just as the blast of its psypower hit me. At that range, my psybloc was not effective, and I took it full on.
The O exploded, splattering me with its awful gore. I collapsed inside the elevator, twitching and screaming. The O's psypower scrambled my brain. My E lay on the floor, smoking. The O squirmed outside in its death throes. The canister and x had worked—the creature was not in armor and did not have its mags up. Without the mag force field, it was doomed. I struggled to recover my wits. My muscles were all shaking. I picked up the E and crawled out of the elevator into that awful mess, right into the dying O. It raised one arm, and the skeletal fingers twitched. I pulled a psybloc grenade from the half-melted pack at my waist and tossed it blindly to one side. It exploded. I was going to run out of grenades soon.
"Enemy approaching! Recommend…" I crawled forward. My faceplate was blistered—I was almost blind. Darkness, ahead—shelter, escape. I scrambled forward, sliding down a slight incline in the dark. A ceiling of black cenite pressed down on my A-suit. My helmet scraped against it. I was wedged between two great slabs of metal. I crawled, my armor screeching its objections. I rolled another psybloc grenade ahead of me. It exploded, crackling phospho hot, lighting it all up: the cenite ceiling, burnt black, mils from my armor.
"Hydraulics weakening! Total hydraulics failure expected soon!"
"Then we do it manually, Sweety!" I had tried it once, in training. It was damned near impossible, even when nobody was trying to kill you.
"Tacnet failing!"
"Give me some good news, Sweety!"
"Negative, Thinker. Except for the Ship."
"What about the Ship?"
"We have reached the Ship, Three. You are under the Ship."
The Ship! I reached up one armored hand and touched the gritty, blackened surface—the Ship! That's what it was! I had crawled under the Ship! Deadman save us!
"Tara, Thirteen, One, Three! I'm at the Ship! Tara, get on that elevator, it leads to the Ship, acknowledge!"
"Enemy presence! I'm releasing deceptors!" Sweety informed me. They cracked all around me, flashing, blinding me momentarily. My faceplate was scarred and blistered—the polarization and darksight were both gone. Sweety had zeroed the O. I crawled away from it frantically. Even using all my strength, I could barely move the arms of my A-suit .
The world exploded in flame all around me, starmass running over my armor hissing and spitting, the kiss of death. I crawled blindly, terrified.
"Armor is fusing, Three!" Canister fire, auto x, crashing in my ears. And suddenly Gildron roared and Tara was shrieking commands. The fire flickered and died. I collapsed in a glowing A-suit, black smoke swirling all around me.
"Enemy presence! I detect…"
"Tara! Gildron!" I shouted. "Get under the Ship! Crawl to me! Do it!" I was under an access hatch. The smoke had swirled away just for an instant and there it was, right above me, surely placed by the Gods. A great rectangular cenite hatch, firmly closed. But there was a little panel with a recessed slot. I could barely make it out. I pawed at it with my smoking cenite fingers without result.
"Get this open, Sweety!"
"We're coming, Thinker!" Tara exclaimed. "There's another O out there!" A wild burst of canister x, the flashes lighting up the underside of the ship. We had only instants to live.
"Laser the lock, Thinker!" Sweety urged me. "No time for techprobe!" I dragged my E up toward the lock jerkily, the arms of my A-suit almost beyond my control. I slammed the barrel into the slot, snapped the controls to laser, and fired. The hatch snapped open, leaving a gaping hole.
"Wester!" Tara crawled toward me like an armored lizard. Gildron was behind her, firing his E again, auto x. I didn't want to know what happened to Twister. I looked up—the doorway was open! And the Ship was above. I forced myself to my knees, my head in the opening.
It was dark up there—I could see the gleam of oiled cenite. I clutched my E and set it to canister x. There were little recesses set in the cenite—handholds, footholds, a stairway to the stars for unwelcome guests. I reached out a hand and grasped the first hold. My chron read 0915 local, exact.
"One, Three," I reported. "Cinta, Gildron, Three are entering the Ship. Repeat, we're entering the Ship! Goodbye and God protect you!" And as I clambered up into the Ship, my blood was ice cold in my veins and I swore to Deadman that we would take the Ship for the Legion, or die.
###
"It's an airlock—and this door is not going to open until the other one closes!" We were facing a tall, firmly-closed cenite door, and Tara was stating the obvious. She sounded nervous, with good reason. The O's were still probing under the Ship with their starmass, and flames were spitting up from the open hatch on the floor. Gildron roared, wild with rage.
"Techprobe, Thinker!" I was hauling it out of the toolpak even as Sweety spoke. If we couldn't get this door open, we were cooked. Literally. I snapped the probe onto what looked like a locking mechanism and waited for it to do its thing.
"We killed one O," Tara said, "but there was at least one other O out there."
"We're in the Ship!" I exclaimed. "How can we stop it? We'll have to wreck the controls or the drive!"
"We'd be better off outside," Tara said grimly.
"Take the probe," I said. "I can't control my suit any more. Gildron, get me out of this A-suit."
"No, Wester!" Tara warned. "You can't survive without the suit!" She was holding the techprobe against the lock.
"I can't survive in it—I can't move!" Gildron wrenched off my helmet and it dropped to the floor. The chestplate went next. My life expectancy was dropping fast.
"Success!" Sweety reported. The floor hatch banged shut abruptly, and the inner airlock door snapped open. Tara gasped, dropping the techprobe and snatching at her E. Gildron raised his E to his shoulder, covering us. I was on the deck, squirming out of my A-suit.
A pale light glowed in the doorway. Gildron stepped out cautiously, a gigantic figure in a black A-suit, wielding his E like an axe. I got up from the floor and picked up my E. I snapped the tacmod out of the A-suit helmet and ripped the u-belt loose with the toolpak, the ratpak, the ampak and the medpak attached. I draped the u-belt around my neck and pulled out a psybloc grenade. I was wearing only the litesuit. It would give me a little protection, but not much. I followed Tara out the door.
Soft silvery light, from above. A perfectly circular corridor with strange black fixtures lining the walls. A shiny, mirrored ceiling. A padded, pale white walkway under our feet. Deserted except for us. But the psybloc units were still flashing atop Tara and Gildron's helmets.
"There's something wrong," Tara said.
"Of course there is!" I snapped. "There's something wrong with the Ship, the Mound, the O's—the whole installation. There's only a few O's here, and the Ship doesn't work! Otherwise they'd be gone!" I was almost crying in frustration. It was clear to me by now that we were facing only a small number of O's, and that the O's must be struggling with one big problem—a non-functional starship. It was surely taking all their attention, for they didn't even have time to fight off all the humans that were swarming over their Mound. But I also knew that, for me, it probably didn't even matter. I was out of my armor, helpless and hopeless, and my skin was crawling. One little touch of starmass and I'd vaporize into gas. It was highly unlikely that I was going to live to see if we secured the Ship or not.
That's when the psybloc units went off. But they didn't snap off naturally—they burst, spraying us with shrapnel. I took some of Tara's unit in one cheek, my hand coming away bloody.
"That's it—all we need!" I said. We were trapped like rats.
"Canister, Gildron," Tara ordered. "Let's go—we have to find the bridge."
"Psybloc grenades," I suggested, raising one.
"Negative, Wester. We're running low—I'll give the word when they probe."
"I'll be ready!" I had one twitching finger in the ring of a grenade as we set off down the hall. My blo
od was ice and my heart was thumping. I could taste my death like acid, right on my tongue.
The lights flickered for just an instant and then the deck came up and smacked me right in the face. A universe of flashing stars exploded in my mind. I struggled to remain conscious, trying to lift my head. It felt as if my nose was broken. It was completely silent, but high gravs pulled at my body. Tara and Gildron were also down, struggling to get up off the floor. A psybloc grenade rolled around ahead of us, spitting white-hot tracers. I had accidentally pulled the pin, but that wasn't the cause of our distress. High gravs—I could barely move. The Ship had launched—we were underway. Rising up through Uldo's atmosphere, a rising star. And we were in it! A cold hand clutched at my heart. Suddenly I could see Beta, all of them, in a flash. Snow Leopard, just a voice, snapping off his last command, "Get that O!" Valkyrie, sacrificing herself for us. "Goodbye and God bless you," she had said. And Twister, broken and crawling. "Leave me!" she had shouted. "Get the Ship!" Psycho, bloody and crippled, sitting behind an E, surrounded by grenades. "Don't you worry about your rear." Merlin, dying, his last words still ringing in my ears: "Take that Ship, Thinker. Don't let them get it!" Dragon, begging me to kill him. Scrapper, lost in the flames. And Priestess, my holy Priestess, gone to find Scrapper, right into Hell, fate unknown. "We live together, forever," she had said, as the main door of the Mound screeched open. They were all lost to me now, I knew.
Tara and Gildron and I were bound for the stars.
PART III
BEYOND DOOM'S DRIFT
Chapter 12
The Ship
"It's Snow Leopard!" Tara announced, almost in shock.
"What?" I was astounded. We faced a large circular hatch, fully sealed, blocking further access along the corridor. I was sweating blood, working on the lock with Gildron's techprobe. Ship's grav was on, but it was weak.
"One! One! It's Cinta, do you read…" Gildron interrupted her, screaming wildly, waving his E around. He was no damned help at all. The hatch snapped open, spiraling outwards from a pinhole in an instant. The light dazzled my eyes and my E was on canister and my finger twitched on the trigger.
Snow Leopard stood right there bathed in sunlight, clad in a litesuit, completely unarmed. He raised one arm slowly, and it was a blessing. His face was serene and his pale pink eyes were calm. There was someone else with him. She stepped out from behind him. It was Priestess, also in a litesuit, glowing like a star, as radiant and lovely as an angel. Her lips moved, and she spoke my name.
"Thinker…Thinker…Thinker…"
Gildron fired auto canister right into them and the doorway erupted. The shock waves blew me to one side. I screamed and raised a bloody arm. Two huge O's staggered before us shrieking, armored and armed, shimmering behind violet mag force fields flickering all around them. One of the creatures fell to its knees abruptly. The other opened an awful mouth and raised a weapon and then my brain turned to mush and I winked out like a candle.
I fought to regain consciousness. I was certain I had been horribly wounded. My head was splitting, my skin burning as if scalded with acid. I gasped for oxygen but could not seem to get any—my lungs were on fire. I struggled to see, but it was all hazy. I tried to scream, but nothing happened. I wanted desperately to thrash around, to raise my arms, but it was beyond me. The pain overwhelmed me, triggering all my circuits into overload. Terror and hatred battled inside me.
Clouds. White, puffy clouds, floating past me in a pale green sky. What the hell? It was so sudden that I stopped struggling to watch it. Wondrous silvery clouds lined with sunlight drifted past me in that wonderful emerald sky. It was a miracle. Peace flooded my tortured body. I was home, I thought. Home—home at last. How many millennia, how many long, tortured mutations, how many false worlds, how much mental torture, how many more memory deaths must we endure, before the end? It's foolish—all the struggle, the tears of the orphaned young, the cries of our heart-mates, lost to us, forever and ever, in the abyss, in alternate universes. How can we continue? How can we live with these awful, wonderful memories?
My skin crawled. It was suddenly warm and my heart was full of love. I was in a grove of strange trees with bark like lizard skin and spiky leaves, forming a softly swaying roof over us as we walked dreamily in fields of phosphorescent white flowers. Icy water rushed in the distance. Then it was deliciously cool but I was warm with love.
And I wanted to cry. Because She was everything I had ever wanted. And She was lost to me forever, a million light years in the past, a billion lost stars between us. Why did it have to be this way? We must be strong, they said. Strong, or we all die. I fought for Her. I lived for Her. I would never see Her again. I could still feel Her grasp, Her claws digging into the scales of my forearm. Will this agony never end? I will die of loneliness, under strange stars, in an alien galaxy.
Terrified, I tried to crawl out of that awful vision, but I was totally helpless. Pale green light suddenly flooded my eyes. Blinking, I gasped my way to consciousness. Above me, a white ceiling blazed with the rays of a long-dead star. I lay on my back. Then I was off again, into the mists. Snow Leopard stood over me, concerned. Then he turned away, relieved.
"He'll be fine," Snow Leopard said. "He's dead now. Three!" He reached out suddenly and grasped my shoulder. "Don't forget the mission, Three! The mission! Alive or dead, it's the mission!" His face was pale and strained and his hot pink eyes were almost spitting sparks.
Two more figures approached through the mist. Priestess and Valkyrie, side by side, hand in hand, silent in their A-suits. I was in my A-suit too, the armor all burnt and twisted, lying under Uldo's stars on the death pyre. Merlin, Psycho, Dragon, Scrapper and Twister lay close beside me, their A-suits shot to pieces. My comrades were all around me, the dead and the living. Snow Leopard and Priestess and Valkyrie jointly held out the torch and the pyre burst into hot, green flames to send us on our way, and they chanted the death song.
"Immortals in blood
Brothers in arms
Soldiers of the Legion
Flying black standards
Beta Two Four
Delegates to the stars
All seasoned recruits
For Heaven's wars
Now recon death's cold road
Beta Three, Beta Four, Beta Five, Beta Eight,
Beta Twelve, Beta Thirteen
You're three effectives short
Remember your brothers in arms.
Missing in action,
We join you soon!"
We advanced in recon formation through the mists, fully armed, all shot up, our A-suits smoking and burning, a spectral army bleeding from fatal wounds, some of us missing arms and legs, but that was not going to stop us. Nothing was going to stop us! We were marching for God, for Justice, for our people, and we were bound for Hell. Satan was going to die, along with all his minions.
Legion A-suits up ahead, shining like molten mercury.
Three soldiers, armed with E model 1's. As we come closer, I recognized them—it was Coolhand, Warhound and Ironman.
Our own lost squad, our own lost troopers.
I paused before Coolhand. It was him all right, just the way I remembered him, tall and handsome, his narrow, finely chiseled face breaking into an easy grin. My blood brother, killed on Mongera.
"Good to see you, Thinker!" he said. I fell into his arms. I couldn't believe it, but I didn't want it to go away.
"Warhound! Ironman! My God!" I pulled away from Coolhand and embraced the others. Warhound, his rugged face split with a big grin. Ironman, all youth and innocence, his long hair hanging over one eye. They were Gods, clad in sunlight. "Deadman! I love you guys! I never told you that!" The rest of the squad gathered around, ecstatic.
"All right, gang, we've got a mission!" Coolhand said. "Listen up. Snow Leopard has run into a delay, so I'm in charge. We're going to take the Ship. This is how we're doing it." He opened a tacmap print and we gathered around. But blood spilled on the map, splattering all
over it.
"Thinker…do you mind?" My blood—it was mine.
"I'm sorry, Coolhand. Sorry." I backed away. I was bleeding from the throat. "Can somebody stop the bleeding?"
"That's a twelve," Dragon said. "Priestess's still on the other side. Just let it bleed, you'll be all right."
And they were gone in a flash. I was in the Tomb of the Kings on Andrion 2. It was dark but there were torches, spitting eerie flames from the walls. A boy stood in a field of broken bones. He was naked to the waist and his hair fell to his shoulders. Skin of gold and dark liquid eyes. Lord, what a perfect child. The Delegate from the Past moved, a shadow, behind him. The hood fell from her head and it was Moontouch, the Keeper of the Dead, my lost dream. She was a fallen angel with satin skin and long black silken hair. She blinked and I was hers, again and forever.
She raised a crown, a dark iron crown, over the boy's head.
"In the name of the Book," she said, "May the Dead bless you." She set the crown gently over the head of that lovely boy. He stared straight ahead, bravely. I knew he would grow into a courageous warrior; I knew he would carve his name into history with his sword.
Movement, all around. It was the Dead, all the dead Kings and Queens of Southmark. Mouldy skeletons walking stiffly, still clad in ancient armor, clutching their weapons, black swords and rusty axes and broken spears and dusty shields. They clashed their weapons against their shields, a chilling rhythm, all together, deafening, in the Tomb of the Kings. An army of dead, an army of ghosts, banging out their war song. And they were chanting, above the clashing of the weapons.
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