Legion of the Damned

by William C. Dietz

  The ballroom, empty of all life, passed on her left. Yellow sunlight slanted down from the high arched windows on her right.

  Logan ignored the elevator and took the access stairs. Mosby ducked as the Trooper II passed through doorways. The motion involved in climbing stairs threw the officer back and forth, but the harness held her in place. A squad of bio bods followed along behind.

  Logan paused in front of a fire door, checked for trip wires, and pulled it open. The second floor was just as deserted as the first. A long hallway led right and left. Impressionistic paintings, each worth a fortune, marched in both directions.

  “Hold one.”

  Logan held while Mosby pulled the com lead and triggered the harness release. Her combat boots thumped as they hit the floor. A sergeant approached. He wore armor taken from a dead marine and his features were invisible behind reflective plastic.

  “Orders, General?”

  Mosby jerked her thumb to the left. “Take your squad and search everything from here down. Logan and I will take the other half.”

  Jennings had instructed the sergeant to “stay with the general at all times,” but an order is an order, and there wasn’t much he could do. The sergeant swallowed hard.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The bio bods did it by the book. One trooper to the left of the door and one to the right. None of the rooms were locked.

  Mosby and Logan approached things in a different manner. She watched while he opened the doors. Room after room was empty. The Emperor’s quarters were directly ahead. Mosby felt her heart beat a little faster. The cyborg opened the double doors and stepped inside. She followed.

  The room where the Emperor had met with Chien-Chu, Scolari, Worthington, and herself was exactly as it had been that night, except that the gas-fed fire had been extinguished, light streamed in through the rectangular windows, and it was otherwise empty. She felt disappointed and knew it was silly. Something whirred. Logan turned towards the sound and raised his weapons. Mosby pulled her sidearm. A section of bookcase slid aside and the Emperor stepped through. He wore a loose-fitting pajama-like outfit and looked as handsome as ever. He smiled as if encountering a general and a Trooper II in his study was the most natural thing in the world.

  “General Mosby . . . how nice of you to drop in. I see you’ve been working out. Would you like to see our gym?”

  Emotions chased each other through Mosby’s mind: the shock of his unexpected appearance, the same attraction she’d felt before, and disappointment as she realized that it wasn’t really him. Because while the clone might look like the Emperor, he’d led a much more sheltered life and exuded the simplicity of a child. She remembered some of the things the three of them had done together and blushed.

  “Where’s the Emperor? The real one?”

  The clone raised a carefully tended eyebrow and shrugged. “He rarely tells me anything.”

  Mosby thought for a moment, then motioned with her gun. “You’re under arrest. Step into the hall.”

  The clone frowned. “Why?”

  “Because I’ll shoot you if you don’t.”

  The clone moved towards the hall. He eyed the legionnaires. “Are you going to kill me? He threatens to kill me all the time.”

  Mosby shook her head.

  “No. I plan to use you. The same way he did.”

  “And then?”

  “And then you can do whatever you want ... except for a career in politics that is.”

  “Oh,” the clone replied happily. “That sounds like fun.”

  The Emperor’s yacht was the same size as a battleship and as heavily armed. They had just come aboard and were striding towards the operations center when the first piece of bad news arrived. It came in the form of a printout carried by a pimple-faced ensign. He was intercepted, cleared by a pair of marines, and allowed to catch up.

  “A message from the captain, Admiral. It just came in.”

  Scolari snatched the message from the youngster’s hand, glanced at the Emperor, and saw no signs of interest. She sighed. Usurping the throne and having it dumped in her lap were two different things.

  Scolari read the message, then read it again. The news was anything but good. Ships had dropped hyper off Algeron. Her scouts had gone in for a closer look and run head-on into the lead elements of a Hudathan task force. One of her scouts had been destroyed. The other had launched a message torp and run for its life. There was no way to know if it had escaped or not.

  Damn! The Hudathans would polish off what was left of the Legion, jump inwards, and strike for the empire’s heart. Then, rather than the massive fleet that she’d imagined, they’d find easy pickings instead.

  Guards snapped to attention as they entered the ops center and the ship’s captain rose to greet them. He was a middle-aged man, tall and thin, and had the unctuous manner of an undertaker. He hurried forward.

  “Your Highness! Admiral Scolari! Welcome aboard. The crew is honored by your presence. I will do everything in my power to—”

  “Shut the hell up,” Scolari growled. “I haven’t got time for your ass-kissing bullshit.”

  An intelligence officer inched her way forward. “Captain?”

  Still smarting from Scolari’s rebuke, Captain Kresner lashed out at her. “Yes, Lieutenant? What the hell do you want?”

  Her voice was hesitant. “Over there, sir, on screen two.”

  Scolari looked and felt her heart jump into her throat. The shot showed the Emperor, or an exact likeness, sitting on his throne. An electronic key had been inserted towards the bottom of the frame. It said, “Live.”

  Scolari’s voice cracked like a whip. “Silence! Bring the audio up!”

  “And so,” the clone concluded, “I have decided to step down from my position as Emperor in favor of a transitional government led by those known as ‘The Cabal.’ The Hudathan menace must be dealt with first, but when that’s been accomplished, they have agreed to empire-wide elections. So I urged you to follow the Cabal’s lead, to support our troops and ignore those who would lead you astray. Thank you.”

  “That isn’t me,” the Emperor said dully. “That’s my clone.”

  “Not anymore,” Scolari answered wearily. “Perception is reality, and since your clone was a closely guarded secret, people will treat him as the Emperor and you as an imposter.”

  The Emperor was silent for a moment. Something changed behind his eyes, as if his more rational self had momentarily gained control and was taking charge.

  “Unless . . .”

  Scolari felt suddenly hopeful. “Yes, Highness? Unless what?”

  “Unless we find the Hudathans, make peace, and save the empire from war.”

  Scolari took a deep breath. The Emperor’s plan was so outrageous that it just might work. They would approach the aliens, negotiate the best terms they could, and stay in control. Not a win, but not a loss, and a lot better than nothing. She smiled.

  “An excellent plan, Your Highness. Captain ... prepare to break orbit.”

  22

  Medals are often won by people who screw things up ... then fight like hell to get out of it.

  Lieutenant Colonel “Smoker Six” Merritt

  United States Army

  Somewhere in Saudi Arabia, Planet Earth

  Standard year 1991

  Planet Algeron, the Human Empire

  Loose gravel slid out from under the dooth’s hooves, the animal backed away from the precipice, and Wayfar Hardman swore. The snow had turned to sleet and attacked the scarf that covered the lower part of his face.

  The dooth found firmer footing and refused to move. The chieftain jerked the creature’s head around and kicked its barrel-shaped sides. Slowly, and with a good deal of grunting, the dooth picked its way upwards. Rocks scraped by on Hardman’s right, some marked by ancient tools, the legacy of ancestors long dead.

  Damn Windsweet anyway, for leading the human up here and forcing him to follow. He was too old for such trails and saw
no purpose in them anyway, ending as they inevitably did on some high and rocky plateau.

  Still, there was some sense in it, he supposed, since the two of them were outcasts, unlikely to gain admission to an established village, a fact that still made him feel guilty. So, with bandits to avoid, and the Legion to watch for, the high country offered a rough and ready sanctuary.

  A piece of rock projected outwards. Hardman let the reins fall slack, allowed his mount to edge her way around it, and reassumed control. The trail opened up a bit after that, and the Naa was about to kick the animal in her sides when a rifle shot rang out. A rock bounced into the air, tumbled end over end, and fell from sight.

  “Hold it right there.”

  Hardman pulled back on the reins. The dooth came to a halt. The chieftain held his hands chest-high and palms-out. The wind ripped his words away.

  “This is not the sort of greeting I expect from my future son-in-law!”

  There was a pause followed by another order. “Unwrap your scarf.”

  Hardman did as he was told and felt hundreds of tiny ice-cold cannonballs pepper his face. The voice was closer now but the Naa kept his eyes straight ahead.

  “Are you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Follow the trail. I’ll be along in a while.”

  Hardman rewrapped his scarf, kicked the dooth into motion, and grinned. Booly trusted no one and that was good. His daughter’s life would depend on it.

  The trail wound through the site of an ancient rock slide. Hardman could see where Booly and Windsweet had pushed some of the more recent boulders off the path, and he marveled at their energy.

  Once past the rock slide, the trail shelved sharply upwards, turned through a rocky defile, and ended on a windswept plateau. A thin coating of sleet had turned everything white. Tumbledown stone walls showed where ancient windbreaks had stood. The people who had lived there had been very tough, or so desperate they had preferred the rigors of the heights to the dangers below.

  A rock bounced off his shoulder. Hardman smiled. The human, accustomed to endless supplies of ammunition, had fired a warning shot. His daughter, knowing that every bullet was precious, had thrown a stone instead. Her voice was thin but determined. He could see the handgun from the corner of his eye and it was rock steady.

  “Show your face.”

  Hardman unwrapped the scarf.

  Her voice was hesitant. “Father?”

  Hardman felt a lump form in his throat. He spoke around it.

  “Who else would ride all the way up here for a cup of your tea?”

  Hardman swung his left leg over the dooth’s woolly neck and hit the ground just as his daughter threw herself into his arms. She pressed her face against his chest. The smell of her filled his nostrils and he was glad that she couldn’t see his tears. He used the top of her hood to wipe them away.

  “So you chose to live the life of brellas rather than buka.”

  Windsweet laughed and reminded him of the cub that had played around his feet. “Come! I’ll serve the tea you came for!”

  “In a moment,” Hardman admonished. “First the supplies I brought you ... then the dooth.”

  They had barely unloaded two enormous saddlebags full of food when Booly appeared. His winter whites rendered him almost invisible against the sleet-covered rocks. The males eyed each warily, neither sure of what to say, both wishing for some sort of divine intervention. It was Hardman who held his hands palms-out. The words came more easily than he’d thought they would.

  “My daughter loves you, human, and that’s good enough for me.”

  Booly grinned and placed his hands against the chieftain’s. Their fingers intertwined. “Thanks, Wayfar ... and I have a name. It’s Bill Booly.”

  Hardman scowled. “That’s not a name ... it’s a collection of sounds. Longrun Banditkill. Now, that’s a name.”

  Booly shook his head in mock surrender, led the chieftain’s dooth into the cave where their own animals were quartered, and left it to chew on a bundle of dried grass.

  They had taken the best of the underground dwellings. A doothskin blocked most of the wind and a spiral stairway led down to the common room. The interior was spacious, but not overly so, and a dooth-dung fire glowed in the ancient fireplace. There was very little smoke, but what there was trickled up through a funnel-shaped chimney and was vented to the outside. Colorful blankets were hung here and there. Booly and Windsweet had worked hard to make the space pleasant, and Hardman was impressed. The human dumped one of the saddlebags into an alcove and he did likewise.

  “This is nice, very nice, just right for an aging father. I’ll bring my things and move in.”

  Windsweet laughed and beamed her pleasure. This was a dream come true. To have both of them there, and reasonably happy with each other, was all she could possibly hope for. Except for the little one, of course ... and only she knew about him.

  “Come,” Booly said, beckoning Hardman to a place by the fire. “Warm yourself and tell us about the journey. How did you find us?”

  Hardman took his coat off and held his hands to the fire. He grinned. “It was like following one of the roads that the Legion builds. A blindfolded cub could have done it.”

  Booly gave a snort of derision. “Maybe, if I’d been alone, but Windsweet led the way.”

  Hardman chuckled. “That explains it, then. The truth is that it took me quite a while to find you. My daughter can make life extremely difficult when she wants to. Something you’ll discover for yourself in the very near future.”

  Windsweet made a face from across the room, Booly laughed, and wonderful smells filled the cavern as dinner started to simmer. It was only after they had eaten and were sitting or lying around the fire that the conversation turned serious. Booly made the question sound like a statement.

  “There was fighting. We saw contrails when it was light and the flash of explosions when it was dark.”

  Hardman signaled his agreement. “True. Other humans came. They destroyed the fort and fought many battles.”

  Booly felt a tightness in his throat. “They destroyed Camerone? Never!”

  “‘Never’ is the time of fools,” Hardman said levelly as he used a bone to pick his teeth. ”Trust me when I tell you the fort was leveled. But it sounds worse than it actually was, since every single human left the fort prior to its destruction and took the riffraff from Naa town with them.”

  Booly remembered how it had been with thousands of troops and hundreds of vehicles pouring out of the fort. He had assumed that the Old Man would defend Camerone to the death, which showed how much he knew. Chances were that the Navy and Marine Corps had believed the same thing. If so, they had wasted a lot of time, energy, and lives attacking something of little strategic value. He grinned.

  “So who won?”

  Hardman looked Booly in the eye. “You tell me, human. The others left and the Legion remains. That looks like a victory to me. But in a war where worlds are valued as villages, and entire solar systems stand for continents, who can say? And the smelly ones will present difficulties as well.”

  “Smelly ones?”

  “He means the Hudatha,” Windsweet said, wrinkling her nose. “The ones Surekill captured smelled horrible.”

  Booly sat up in alarm. “You’ve seen more of them?”

  “Yes, many more,” Hardman affirmed. “They land all the time. And spy machines too. It’s the same in the south. The most recent arrivals said interesting things before the flames consumed their words.”

  Booly remembered how the Hudathan had screamed as he fell into the pit. He felt sick and Windsweet had turned away. “What did they say?” he asked.

  Hardman was silent for a moment as if choosing his words with great care. “They said their ships are as numerous as the stars ... that they will strike soon ... and the Legion will die.”

  Guilt rose to pull Booly’s spirits down. He should be there when the Hudathans struck, fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with
his comrades, not here cowering in a cave.

  Hardman watched, gauging the human’s reactions, guessing at his emotions. His voice was calm. “You could help them.”

  Booly showed a flicker of interest. “Really? How?”

  “My scouts tell me that while the Legion fought bravely and sent many warriors to the next world, they suffered heavy casualties. That, plus the fact that many legionnaires were shipped off-planet during the last month or so means they will be severely outnumbered.”

  Windsweet had told Booly about her father’s spies, but he still marveled at the extent of the chieftain’s intelligence network. “So?” he said.

  “So the Legion could use some help, allies who know every nook and cranny of the planet’s surface, and are proven warriors.” The last was said with obvious pride.

  It took Booly a moment to realize what Hardman was suggesting. It didn’t make any sense. “You mean it? The Naa would fight with humans? But why? You fought the Legion for years. Here’s your chance to be rid of them once and for all.”

  “But at what price?” the chieftain countered. “It’s true that humans occupy our planet, but only a small part of it, and they smell good. Most of the time anyway.”

  Windsweet laughed and so did Booly. The truth was that the Naa’s culture and the Legion’s culture were complementary. That, plus the fact that the Legion had never allowed colonists on Algeron, meant the natives had been spared the horrors of full-scale colonialism. But that was something Booly saw no reason to go into.

  The legionnaire frowned. “What about the southern tribes? How do they feel?”

  “The same way,” Hardman replied. “They too will fight. But only until the Hudathans are vanquished. Things must return to normal after that.”

  Booly was surprised. He’d never heard of such cooperation outside the area of commerce. And how were the two groups communicating with each other?