“That’s her all right,” Priestess said. “Black Ice. Genetic ID is confirmed.”
“Thank you, Priestess.” Snow Leopard lowered the barrel of his E to the Mocain’s forehead. Her eyes widened for just a frac. Then her head exploded, spraying everyone with blood and gore.
I blinked back the horror. Several of the former slaves shrieked in terror, but more than a few danced gleefully around the room, not bothering to wipe away the blood. They held hands and sang some unintelligible rhyme with wild, feral looks on their faces. I wouldn’t forget this one.
“Prepare to evac the civilians,” Snow Leopard said calmly. He had ice water in his veins. I sometimes thought he could have been a biogen, one of those synthetically grown humans engineered for specific, singular tasks. To me, he was the ultimate squad leader. Only a few years older than the rest of us, he was certainly different. How could he be unmoved by this?
Priestess paused beside me and said in a low, hopeful voice, “It’s good, Thinker,” she said. “What we’re doing here is good.”
I looked up at her. “If you say so,” I replied as I reached for an embroidered shawl to wipe the blood and brains from my face and armor. Welcome to the Legion, I thought.
The rest was a blur. I did what I was told and moved like the efficient machine the Legion had forged. Now that the area was pacified, tech-teams moved in to gather what intelligence they could from the ruins. We sedated many of the former slaves, and evacuated the lot of them off-planet to our ship, the cruiser C.S. Spawn. The lifies, our med-techs, took custody of them. I didn’t envy them their jobs. There would be many tearful reunions as the Legion reunited them with their families, but I knew that despite our best med-tech and therapy, many would never be quite sane again.
I was exhausted, tired beyond anything I believed possible. It was time to report. Our squad assembled, still in armor, hauling weapons and equipment, in the Captain’s small office. We struggled to fit everyone inside. Snow Leopard stood at attention in front of the Captain’s spartan desk. The Captain waited patiently.
Snow Leopard was all business, “Sir! Squad Beta reports successful completion of the mission on Alshana 4. Two hundred sixty one slavers terminated, six hundred eight female captives recovered. Squad had zero casualties. Thirteen captives were killed in the crossfire. Thirty were wounded and are under treatment.”
“Thank you, Beta.” The Captain stood up, dressed in his blacks. He appeared to be very young, but in the Legion it was hard to tell. Our biotech kept us young and virtually immortal. His slightly slanted eyes hinted at a little Assidic blood. “It’s a shame about the captives, but it can’t be helped. You did a good job, troopers.” The Captain knew all about how the raid went. Everyone knew that he’d closely monitored our every move. Snow Leopard’s report was just a formality.
“Let’s see,” the Captain said, sifting through a pile of printouts and datapaks on his desk. “All right.” He picked up a printout. “Snow Leopard, based on the results of your Final Problem on Alshana 4, your squad has been certified by 22nd Legion Training Command as graduates of the Hell Course and fully fit for regular combat. Reassignment is authorized to an active-duty unit.” He paused and looked up, smiling, “Congratulations to all of you and welcome to the ConFree Legion.”
We greeted the news with a stunned silence. Finally Psycho said, “Aw right!”
It had been a long hard road, but we’d done it. We’d arrived!
“Thank you, Sir!” Snow Leopard spoke up.” On behalf of Beta, we thank the Legion!”
The Captain chuckled with a knowing expression. “I’ve got your assignment here, too. 22nd Legion, 12th Colonial Expeditionary Regiment-that’s the Black 12th-CAT 24, Second of the Ship-BE 14, Atom’s Road. That’s the Spawn’s battlestar. She’s a good ship.”
“Sir! We are honored to be assigned to Atom’s Road!”
“We’ll be underway to Atom as soon as we transfer your refugees. Atom will be starlaunching as soon as we arrive. The entire 12th has been recalled and will be on board. We’ve got a major mission, boys-a Systie intrusion into ConFree vac. It’s very serious. We’ll be facing the DefCorps this time, not some half-assed slaver gang with a little borrowed DefCorps hardware.”
“Sir! We won’t fail you! What’s the target?” Snow Leopard asked.
The Captain looked down at his notes. “Andrion 2,” he said. “It’s in the Outvac-quite a ways out. Over 750 light-years from the Crista Cluster. Nobody’s ever been there. But we’ll fix that.”
“Yes, Sir!” Snow Leopard sounded supremely confident.
The Black 12th, the 12th Colonial Expeditionary Regiment, under the 22nd, the Black Legion! The 22nd had an ancient and glorious history. In the Plague War, it had been known as the Rimguard, and the Rimguard motto, Deliver Us From Evil, had a special meaning for all Outworlders. We still carried those words on our blacks.
I swallowed hard. Into the Outvac. Seven hundred and fifty light-years. I must be insane! In a few days, I would really do it. Until now there had always been the vague idea that if I wasn’t good enough or brave enough the Legion would just send me back home. I didn’t expect or want to go back-it was just a kind of mental back door or escape hatch. Nice to know it was there. It was just a dodge, a way to avoid accepting the full reality and consequence of joining the Legion. Some part of me hadn’t quite grasped my decision to forever leave my old life behind.
Not anymore. The final string was cut and I was suddenly dizzy.
Then Psycho was shoving me, “Come on, Thinker, wake up! Time to go and get out of these stinkin’ suits and grab some eats!”
The meeting was breaking up and I was impeding the rough flow of tired, armored troopers making their way out of the Captain’s office.
“Yeah,” I said. “Time to go.”
Chapter 2: Year Zero
As we approached Atom’s Road on the Spawn, I found a small viewport. Atom hung silently in space, a blinding silver dart that reflected all our hopes and dreams. As we drew closer, Atom’s immense size became clear. Two other cruisers were already affixed to their docking blisters, and they looked almost like toys in comparison to Atom. Deadman, she was lovely-crafted by the Gods! I knew she was also the ultimate killing machine, capable of knocking a planet out of orbit. We all knew her mission and her stats, but I best remembered that last line of the official description: “The C.S. Atom’s Road represents the united power and resolve of the citizens of the Confederation of Free Worlds.” She was ours-and she was a mighty weapon.
“Stand by for vac run red.” A star jump! The announcement found me in my tiny cube on Atom, trying to activate the wall desk. I knew that all elements of the 12th had arrived, all four cruisers were secure and power was building to open the artificial wormhole. Atom would hold open the dimensional vortex all the way to our destination, where it would slam shut behind us with a light show that would announce to everyone in the sector that we’d arrived.
At first, I assumed I would be sharing my cube in shifts, but Priestess had burst in, almost giddy with the news that they were our own cubes. We weren’t used to such luxury.
Without fanfare or further warning it came, with a great shudder and a high-pitched whine. Atom poked a hole in the universe and hurled us through it. Into nothing, nothing to see because nothing was there. We all felt it, though. There was a kind of pressure that closed in on you, and seemed to reduce your field of vision a bit. I asked one of the techs if the dimension we were traveling through had existed before or if we had created it-and why was it that there was nothing in it but us? He looked at me with pity and just shook his head. I resigned myself to my fate. I was a great believer in fate.
The void between the stars is like the hand of death. I was a spark, hurtling into the dark, my past forever gone. A bitter cold numbed my bones. My soul froze, I think, but not from the cold. I knew we were never coming back.
I thought a lot. I had plenty of time to think, lying in my bunk, staring at the overhead.
I’m not sure, anymore, whether or not thinking’s good for you. As best as I can recall, every time I’ve gotten in trouble, it was preceded by heavy bouts of thinking. I’ve got to give it up one of these days. But not between the stars.
Atom’s open mess was full of Legion troopers in camfax fatigues and black-suited Fleet Command personnel; FleetCom vacheads, we called them. It wasn’t lunchtime but every table was taken and there was an awful racket. I spotted Warhound sitting alone, writing something with a lightpen on a starlink datascreen. As I approached, he shifted a hand to conceal the screen.
“What you doing, Warhound?” I asked as I pulled out a chair.
“I was…just writing my mom.” He lowered his eyes. Warhound was a good kid with sandy hair cut close to his scalp. Sunken, pale blue eyes dominated a rugged crudely-cast face.
Writing his Mom. Deadman! Many of the younger troopers had only known a mother’s love, never a lover. We’re innocents, I thought, in the service of a savage god.
“How’s the headache?” I asked. He seemed to suffer more from the effects of our wormhole transit than most. Priestess had given him medication for the pain. Stardrive sure didn’t help. The pressure made it hard to take even without a headache.
“Better. Thanks.” Warhound resumed writing his letter, forming the words carefully.
I called up a dox from the table menu and popped the cap. Breaking the seal heated the dark liquid instantly and the rich, sweet aroma flowed over us. Hot dox. Undoubtedly better than sex!
Warhound may have been an innocent, but I knew that, if need be, he would die for us, without hesitation. He was as loyal as a dog. Warhound was not the brightest star in the heavens but he was one of us now. He knew, after Planet Hell, that we’d die for him, too.
As I sipped my dox, my mind drifted. This trip wasn’t a pleasure cruise. If Outvac Sector Command wanted to retask Atom’s entire group to the far side of the Outvac, there must be more at stake than they’d told us. A couple of vacheads at the next table chatted about how unprecedented this deployment was, and I listened carefully. According to them, moving Atom would leave a huge gap that would have to be filled with forces drawn from elsewhere, and moving those forces would require further adjustment. Command was spooked about something and very little spooked the Legion.
“Hi, guys.” Ironman joined us, setting down a tray with ice water and a power bar. Ironman was Beta’s youngest soul, just out of mid-school and still growing. He faced the future with hope and faith. Long brown hair hung over one eye as he stirred his ice water with a straw. Strikingly handsome and superbly fit, Ironman was a lifter, proud of his growing physique. I happened to know that he came from a Legion world, a privileged world. What a fool! He was underage, why had his parents consented? Bright, dynamic, handsome, strong-he had it all, his whole life ahead of him. Everybody liked Ironman. What in the name of Deadman’s death was he doing here? The Legion wasn’t for innocents like Ironman. The Legion wanted the dreamers, the drifters, the doomed and the lost.
“Is everything tenners, Thinker? Something wrong?” Ironman smiled tentatively, revealing even white teeth.
“No. It’s nothing, Ironman.” I felt very protective of him, though I’m not sure why. Every night I prayed to Deadman for his soul. But then again, I prayed for everyone in Beta.
I found our pilot, Redhawk, in Spawn’s aircar bay with his lover. A long line of fearsome black birds filled the bay, gleaming with slick, silent and deadly. My blood stirred, just looking at those lovely ladies. I located our own car by the tail number-24B. Coiled like a snake, ready to strike. I ran my fingers over her wet, icy cold skin.
I loved aircars. They could hover like bees with the airblast from fans hidden under the fuselage or hurtle through the sky like a fighter. Fully armored and heavily armed, the assault aircar was a true battlefield superiority weapon. Aircars were equipped to insert a squad into the target area as well as provide tactical air cover and retrieval.
“Don’t touch my girl.” Redhawk stepped out of the shadows under the fuselage. Tangled red hair fell to his shoulders. His pale splotchy face was spattered with slick. His sparse mustache and scraggly beard looked even rattier than usual. Clad in filthy sleeveless coveralls, he clutched an angular tool I couldn’t identify.
“How’s she doin’, Redhawk?” I gave him a big grin. I couldn’t help it. I really liked the guy.
He laughed. “She’s hot and wet. No foreplay required. Give us the word, we lift.” He looked up at the car with fierce adoration, scratching his chin absently. Redhawk was a free spirit. He could work on the aircar for days without sleep or sustenance. At other times, he would collapse in a stupor, seemingly developing laziness as a serious art form. Once in the cockpit, however, his genius came to light.
“Come on in, Thinker.” Redhawk stepped up through the open assault door into the aircar. I joined him, settling back into one of the crash seats. Laughing, he produced two icy cans of dark bitter from a refrigerated equipment rack, and tossed me one. I popped the cap and let the freezing lager sluice down my throat. Bitter was illegal in the aircar bay but Redhawk had never been bound by the rules.
I had to stop thinking about my fate, about Command’s fears and my own. Lost, hopeless and undoubtedly insane, I had been drawn to the Legion, as if sleepwalking. It seemed as though the twin angels of Love and Death haunted me day and night. In my dreams of home, Tara beckoned to me, a symbol of my lost life. She’d laugh at me, and say I was too soft. I wanted only to forget her, but I couldn’t. Death, my other angel, stalked my dreams as well.
“Getting scared?” Redhawk asked. He draped himself over his seat lazily, his coverall zip half open, exposing a sweaty, hairy chest.
“I get braver with every sip of this stuff,” I replied.
“I ran into Valkyrie in Supply,” he said. “She asked about you.”
I hesitated. “Yeah? What did you say?”
“I told her you had some serious second thoughts about the relationship. And I reminded her that I was available and damned good in bed. She told me to…well, never mind what she told me. It wasn’t very ladylike. So I guess she’s still stuck on you.”
Visions of Valkyrie, Gamma Two, came to me, faintly. What kind of dark magic, what kind of evil alchemy, could find love in the Legion? Visions of silky golden hair, and a great hush. We’d slept out under the stars, on Hell. I’d been Gamma Four then-it was before I was transferred to Beta Squad. Once, we’d camped by a cold, black ocean with luminous silver waves and a beach of silver sand, with death waiting in the night. I blessed the Gods when she first came to me, but it got to be lonely after awhile. She was always there, but her thoughts were far away. For all I knew, she could have been a biogen. But I knew she wasn’t-I could understand biogens.
“Thinker, you still with us?” Redhawk slouched in his seat, finishing off his bitter. “Man, you’ve got it bad!”
I smiled. “Yeah. I guess so.” Here, even Hell seemed like the distant past-a previous life.
The rumor mill spread the word long before the official announcement: We were about to exit the wormhole and re-enter normal vac. I was lost in a crowd of troopers facing a giant d-screen in one of the rec rooms when I heard a faint whining. Reality languidly stretched in on itself. The pressure that had given us all mild tunnel vision abruptly vanished with a jolt. For a moment, I fought for control of my stomach. Then it was over. The ship shuddered and groaned, and the screen filled with stars. A savage cheer ripped through the ranks.
This was routine for the vacheads but good news for us. We made it! The future was dark, but we were right on course.
Troopers pointed excitedly at the screen amid cries of, “Look at that!” and “It’s beautiful!”
Andrion 2, itself in orbit around Andrion’s yellow dwarf star, grew larger and larger, glowing on the screens. It was truly lovely, truly marvelous, with great luminous green oceans and continents covered with brightly tinted forests. Rugged black mountain ranges spawned cold blue
rivers that traced aimless patterns through endless flowerfields. Vast silver deserts of sand dominated cold plateaus. The polar areas gleamed white, and wispy clouds streaked brilliant skies. It reminded me a little of Veltros, and I tried to put the thought away. My heart beat faster. The future would depend entirely upon us.
Back in my cube, I collapsed onto my bunk, slid a datapak off the shelf and triggered it. I must have seen it a hundred times, but it still stirred my blood. A thin, silvery line, almost invisible, etched into the dark. It was the long-range image of the Systie antimat track entering this system. No doubt it was very much like the one we had just made on our wormhole exit. It was why we were here, prepped to drop onto this far-off world.
Outvac Sector Command-Starcom-had detected the Systie track quite by accident, in the vicinity of the Andrion System. When a ship exits an artificial wormhole, the negative energy slams the portal shut and the ship leaves a searing antimat trail-an unmistakable footprint on the cosmos-as the ship powers onto vac drive.
Why would the Systies be interested in the far rim of the Outvac? The Andrion System was the only habitable system in the sector, and we could think of no conceivable reason for a System starship to be here. It was, after all, deep in ConFree territory, our territory, and the Systies had seriously breached the treaty by intruding. CI had concluded their target was Andrion 2-what else could it be? There were no other obvious choices. The Legion had reacted immediately. ConFree had had no active colonization plans for Andrion 2, a Phase Four planet. The Systie antimat track changed all that.
Our mission: seize the planet, repel any Systie intruders, establish control, and find out what they were up to.
ConFree and the System were not officially at war, but the Legion and the DefCorps knew better. In this uneasy truce, both sides knew that only the survivors compiled the incident report. Regs were regs, and we took them seriously in the Legion, but when we were in a remote sector and up against the DefCorps troops on the far side of the Outvac, there weren’t any rules. It didn’t matter what the diplomats said later.
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