Legion of the Damned

by William C. Dietz

  Chien-Chu looked around. Water splattered the edge of the fountain, birds twittered as they flew inside the transparent dome, and people clustered here and there. Dasser’s eyes looked as intense as they had to begin with. The merchant forced his voice to remain calm.

  “Treason is punishable by death and forfeiture of all family holdings.”

  “What?” Madam Dasser demanded. “You think that my family and I failed to consider that? But consider the alternative as well. Death at the hands of the Hudatha. Is that any better?”

  Chien-Chu thought of his son again, isolated on an asteroid where he had sent him, cut off from help and fighting against tremendous odds. Fighting? Or dead? There was no way to know. The answer came of its own accord.

  “No, I guess it isn’t.”

  “Then you’ll help? You’ll oppose the Emperor?”

  “The decision is not mine alone. I must speak to my wife. Together we will think about it.”

  Dasser nodded. “Good. But don’t deliberate too long. As time passes, so does the opportunity to act.”

  “There are others who think as you do?”

  “Yes, and all want you to join. We need your intelligence, wisdom, and strength.”

  Chien-Chu felt anything but wise and strong. But he smiled at the compliment, bent at the waist, and said, “Thank you, Madam Dasser. You have given me much to think about. We shall meet again soon.”

  Admiral Scolari had asked for and been granted an audience with the Emperor, although the circumstances were a bit unusual. The Emperor was something of a physical fitness buff, had his own personal gym, and, duties allowing, worked out at 3:00 P.M. each day.

  This afternoon was no exception, so Scolari found herself talking to a man who wore only a jockstrap.

  While sex had never been an especially important aspect of Scolari’s life, she found the Emperor’s lack of clothes to be more than a little distracting, a discovery that bothered her almost as much as the distraction itself and made it that much harder to speak coherently.

  The Emperor favored a vast array of computer-controlled machines for his workouts and was presently caged inside a device designed to enhance his shoulder muscles. Each movement was accompanied by a loud grunting noise, which forced Scolari to speak more loudly than she would have liked.

  “Thank you for the audience, Your Highness.”

  “You’re quite ... grunt ... welcome ... grunt ... Admiral. What’s on your mind? Grunt. The Hadathans again?”

  “Indirectly, yes,” Scolari said. “I am, however, mindful of the fact that Your Highness has taken the matter under consideration and will deliver a decision in due time.”

  The Emperor stopped, released himself from the machine, and struck a pose. Muscles bulged, veins throbbed, and sweat glistened on his skin. Scolari experienced some almost forgotten sensations and pushed them away.

  “So what do you think?” the Emperor asked, clearly expecting some sort of compliment.

  “Very impressive, Your Highness. No wonder the ladies fight each other for your attentions.”

  “Money and power help too,” the Emperor said pragmatically. He lay down on a well-padded bench, punched some instructions into the console that hung over his head, and took hold of a T-bar.

  “Now, where were we? Something about the Hudathans?”

  “Yes, Highness. The possibility that the Hudathans might attack the very center of the empire has various sectors of the citizenry concerned. Most have reacted appropriately, knowing that you and our armed forces will protect them, but some have allowed fear to cloud their judgment.”

  “Thirteen ... fourteen ... fifteen ... there.”

  Metal clanged as the Emperor let go of the T-bar and a hundred and fifty pounds of weights hit the pile below. He sat up and wiped his forehead with a towel.

  “Treason? Is that what you’re talking about?”

  Scolari was on dangerous ground here and chose her words with care. “Possibly, Highness, though treason is a strong word and should never be used without sufficient proof.”

  The Emperor stood. “And you lack that proof?”

  “Yes, Highness, which is why my words take the form of a warning, rather than an accusation.”

  The Emperor jumped, grabbed hold of a horizontal bar, and started his pull-ups.

  “Who ... grunt ... would you warn me against?”

  Scolari swallowed. This was the moment that she had dreaded. The moment when she blended truth with a carefully fabricated lie and hoped that the Emperor would accept it.

  “General Mosby, Highness.”

  The Emperor’s feet made a thumping sound as they hit the floor. She saw anger in his eyes as he turned to confront her.

  “If this is political, an attempt to discredit the general because she disagrees with your strategy, I will hang you from the flagpole in front of your headquarters.”

  Scolari fought to control the fear that bubbled up from deep inside. “No, Highness, never! I admitted that I had no proof, but I have suspicions, and a duty to report them.”

  “Good. Liquids are important, you know. You should drink at least three or four glasses of water every day.”

  Scolari blinked in surprise, recovered, and guided the Emperor back to the subject at hand. “Thank you, Highness. Although we lack evidence against General Mosby, we know she’s sympathetic to the Cabal’s point of view, and likely to support them.”

  The Emperor selected a staff about six feet long, placed it across the top of his shoulders, and rotated his torso. “Cabal?”

  Scolari repressed a sigh. “The secret group that favors all-out action against the Hudatha, Your Highness.”

  “Yes, of course,” the Emperor said thoughtfully, “and who else belongs to this Cabal?”

  “Madam Dasser does, Your Highness.”

  “You have proof?”

  “Yes, Highness. We managed to introduce a number of transmitter-equipped microbots into her mansion. One of them was designed to look like her favorite brooch. She wore it yesterday. Her conversations left no doubt as to the Cabal’s existence and her membership in it.”

  “She said nothing about General Mosby?”

  “No, Highness.”

  “And Chien-Chu?”

  “Nothing, insofar as we know. Madam Dasser did not elect to wear the brooch today, but left the council meeting with Chien-Chu and spoke with him by the fountain.”

  “And?”

  Scolari shrugged. “And nothing, Highness. The fountain made it impossible to hear what they said.”

  A full minute passed before the Emperor spoke. Scolari was afraid that he’d gone off the rails again and was relieved to discover that he hadn’t. The Emperor removed the staff from his shoulders and used it to lean on. “My mother gave me some advice about situations like this. She said that it’s best to let people talk, since that’s where most of them will leave it, but to be ready for action. So, tell me ... are we ready for action?”

  Scolari nodded grimly. “Yes, Highness, we are.”

  The Emperor smiled. “Good. Then there’s nothing to worry about, is there?”

  11

  ... When you dash the enemy’s sword aside, or ward it off, or force it down, you must slightly change the feeling in your thumb and forefinger. Above all, you must be intent on cutting the enemy in the way you grip the sword.

  Miyamoto Musashi

  A Book of Five Rings

  Standard year 1643

  Legion Outpost NA-45-16/R, aka “Spindle,” the Human Empire

  “I say it’ll work,” Leonid Chien-Chu said stubbornly.

  “And I say you’re full of shit,” Captain Omar Narbakov replied calmly.

  The men stood on Spindle’s rocky surface and looked up at the electromagnetic launcher more commonly referred to as “the railgun.” It was huge and the far end was lost in the blackness of space.

  The idea had been around for a long time. The concept required a pair of conductive rails, a power source, and a proj
ectile that rested on the rails and completed the circuit. Then, by providing a powerful pulse of electric current, like that available from Spindle’s massive accumulators, it would be possible to push the projectile forward. Once in motion, the object would accelerate for the entire length of the rails, gain a great deal of velocity in the process, and fly off in whatever direction it had been aimed.

  Initial research had focused on the possibility of a “super cannon” capable of lobbing artillery shells at targets hundreds or even thousands of miles away. There were difficulties, though, and other more cost-effective ways to kill people, so scientists turned their attention to the possibility of payload launching systems. After all, they reasoned, why use expensive chemical rockets to launch satellites when a railgun could accomplish the same thing for a fraction of the cost?

  The idea looked good on a CRT but there were problems, the most difficult of which was that anything small enough, and rugged enough to withstand the stress of a railgun launch, would cost more than the chemical rocket that it had replaced.

  But time passed, man colonized space, and electromagnetic launchers came into their own. Space was the perfect place to use a railgun. With no atmosphere to overcome, railguns consumed less power and subjected their payloads to less stress. Besides, who cared how much stress a chunk of rock endured on its way from an asteroid to a pickup barge?

  So, when stardust was discovered, and the decision had been made to gather the stuff in commercial quantities, railgun-launched scoops had been the obvious solution. The scoops, also called “star divers,” were fully automated spaceships. The railgun provided a highly efficient, low-cost way to get them started, but conventional drives carried them the rest of the way.

  A typical mission would carry a star diver around the sun, in through the sector of the atmosphere that looked the most promising at that particular moment, and back by a carefully calculated deceleration curve. Once the ship had slowed sufficiently, tugs took over and guided the star diver into Spindle’s docking facility, where it was unloaded, fueled, and prepared for the next launch.

  What Leonid proposed to do was turn the railgun back to its original purpose. He wanted to convert the device into a cannon, use the star divers as the high-tech equivalent of cannonballs, and launch them at the Hudathan fleet. It would, he’d pointed out, give them the means to strike back and possibly win. Narbakov had been quick to disagree. The merchant found it hard to be patient.

  “Why, Omar? Why are you so opposed to the idea?”

  “Because you don’t have the means to launch enough star divers to do any good.”

  Narbakov had a point. The railgun was similar to the single-shot rifle Leonid had received on his twelfth birthday. In order to reload, it had been necessary to open the bolt, eject the empty casing, and insert a fresh cartridge. Only then could Leonid close the bolt, aim at the target, and squeeze the trigger. The gift had been his father’s way of teaching finesse over force. After all, why use ten bullets when one would do the job? Which was fine then ... and useless now.

  “All right, Omar, you have a point. But you’re forgetting one important factor. The Hudathan fighters rely on their mother ships for fire control, attack linkage, and electronic countermeasures. So if we kill the mother ships, we’ll kill the fighters too.”

  “True,” the legionnaire said grudgingly, “but the Hudathans have three battleships. The first star diver might catch one of them by surprise. The rest won’t.”

  “Unless we find a way to launch all of our surviving star divers within seconds of each other,” Leonid countered, “in which case it might work.”

  “Maybe,” Narbakov admitted, sunlight gleaming off his visor. “But the effort to do so will siphon effort away from the rest of our defensive preparations.”

  Leonid shrugged. The suit barely moved. “So what? You’ve done an incredible job, Omar, more than anyone could rightfully expect, but we’re going to lose. We might survive the next attack, or the one after that, but the geeks will eventually win.”

  Narbakov stood tall. His voice was stern. “Then we will die as they died at Camerone, at Dien Bien Phu, and at the Battle of Four Moons.”

  Leonid sighed. “Suit yourself, Omar. But I plan to live.”

  Ikor Niber-Ba stood on the platform and looked the length of the launch bay. It had been sealed and pressurized for this occasion. Rank after rank of pilots, crew, technicians, and soldiers stood at attention. Beyond them, towards the rear of the enormous compartment, rows of battle-scarred fighters waited to rejoin the fray. A trio of robotic vid cams stood poised around him, their insectoid bodies still, their lenses ready to feed to the other ships whatever ensued.

  This was it, the moment when he inspired then with visions of victory, when he struck the sympathetic chords of racial fear, when he motivated them to win. But the words had fled to places unknown and taken his surety with them.

  The Hudathan cleared his throat. The sound was small in the cavernous space. The problem lay not with those who stood before him, but with those who had died, their bodies preserved within their suits, forever drifting through the blackness of space.

  Not to overcome a fortress, or to subdue a planet, but to deny the humans a substance that glittered when exposed to light.

  The situation made no sense, had no meaning, yet held him in its ice-cold grip. A grip that was all the stronger now that morale had started to sag, now that his fighter pilots had grown unduly cautious, now that the myth of Hudathan invincibility had been shattered. The seemingly endless assaults and the ensuing casualties had planted seeds of fear in the hearts of his crew, and it was his job to root them out before they could grow and flower.

  Niber-Ba clasped his hands behind his back and swept the audience with his eyes.

  “You have done well. Time and time again you have looked death in the eye and stared it down. And thus it shall be one more time. Not two, three, or four more times, for there is no need. One overwhelming blow will be sufficient to crush all resistance, to seal the humans in their rocky tomb, to eradicate the menace that they represent. With that in mind I will commit all of our ships, and all of our fighters, to the next attack. Our robo-spies are cruising the surface of the asteroid even now, and the moment that their reports have been analyzed and cross-checked, we will attack.”

  A sharp-eyed psych officer felt the confidence flow back into those around him, saw them swell with pride, and seized the moment. “A cheer for Ikor Niber-Ba! Long may he command!”

  The cheer was part shout, part war cry, and it shook the ship’s hull metal with its power. Niber-Ba felt it, was lifted by it, and was immeasurably cheered. No one could stand in the way of warriors like these. No one.

  Seeger waited for the other cyborg to get into position, grabbed his end of the steel I-beam, and lifted. It, like the fifteen others before it, would be used to reinforce the railgun’s basic structure. In order to launch six star divers, and do so in a relatively short period of time, all would have to be positioned and ready to go. That was why Leonid Chien-Chu had ordered his workers to build a complicated framework over the point where the ramp met the asteroid’s rocky surface, and why Seeger, along with three more of the Legion’s cyborgs, was lending a servo-assisted hand.

  If the launcher was about to become a cannon, then the framework was a magazine, feeding full-sized spaceships into the chamber like bullets into a gun—spaceships that would put a lot of stress on the ramp as they were fired in quick succession.

  Seeger followed the other borg down the side of the railgun’s s support structure and paused when she did.

  “Are you ready?” Her name was Marie and she’d spent more than a thousand imperials to have her voice synthesizer reprogrammed to sound like that of a famous pop singer, which allowed her to pick up the odd credit or two singing in bars. Lots of guys had hit on her, hoping to score through a dream box, but none had succeeded. None that he knew about anyway.

  “Yeah,” Seeger replied. “That’s a
roger.”

  “Okay.”

  Marie looked upwards towards the point where the bio bods were working to weld the steel supports into place. Laser torches burped blue-white energy, headlamps bobbed up and down, and a latticework of crisscrossed 1-beams divided the star field into a maze of squares and rectangles. She switched from the Legion’s utility channel to the frequency used by everybody else.

  “Ground here. You guys ready for some steel?”

  A male voice answered. “That’s a roger, babe. Send it up.”

  Marie’s voice was sweet but ice cold. “My name isn’t ‘babe,’ butt hole, and here comes your steel.”

  Marie bent at the knees, Seeger did likewise, and both straightened together. Unrestrained by gravity or an atmosphere, the I-beam soared upwards.

  Someone—Seeger wasn’t sure who—grabbed the beam and pulled it in. At that exact moment, as a laser torch lit the scene with a whitish-blue glare, something round drifted by. It moved slowly, deliberately, as if it had every right to be there, which it might, for all he knew. Yet something bothered him. A similarity between the object and what? Then he had it. Float pods! Like those on his native Elexor! Like those the Hudathans used during their attacks. Seeger tracked the device while keeping his voice light and casual.

  “Marie, meet me on F-5.”

  Marie turned his way, curious as to the reason for his request, and switched to F-5. It was a combat frequency, scrambled both ways, and theoretically secure.

  “What’s up?”

  “Remember the float pods? The ones the geeks use every once in a while?”

  “Who could forget? I was there when one of those things cooked Salan in his own brain box.”

  “Well, it’s payback time. Look upwards, to the left of the railgun, drifting right.”

  Marie looked. A bio bod would have seen little more than laser torches and headlamps, but the cyborg was equipped with sensors, and once she knew where to look, had little difficulty separating the globe from the metal around it. Thanks to her infrared sensors, light-amplification equipment, and on-board processing capacity, the globe looked much as it would have in broad daylight. With one small exception, Seeger was right.