Soldier of the Legion sotl-1

by Marshall S. Thomas

  “It’s the Legion!” Merlin exclaimed.

  Psycho glanced at his tacmod. “Negative. There’s nobody here.”

  “Deadman,” I whispered. I could see something, in the inky black of a far corner of the chamber, behind the columns, hidden from the flares. I could see what the Scalers feared, what had drawn their attention from us.

  “What is it?” Priestess demanded.

  Something big, in the dark. Something dark and evil, writhing in the shadows. Something from Andrion 3, to break your bones and drink your blood.

  “Death,” I said. “It’s death!” I was not too coherent, right then. I did not know if I could face another exoseg.

  Two of them emerged from the shadows, illuminated harshly by the glittering light of our flares. Two grim, terrible, giant killing machines, heads snapping back and forth, antennas cracking out like whips, front legs probing ahead of them, awful empty black eyes reflecting only death. Another great exoseg appeared out of the shadows, behind them. And another. Their chittering filled the chamber, the only sound. It chilled my blood. I felt the hair rising on my scalp.

  “To the death,” Merlin whispered reverently.

  “My, my!” Psycho exclaimed. “Just look at that!”

  “I can’t do this again, Thinker,” Priestess said quietly. “I don’t want this. Not again.”

  “Lasers,” I said. We faced the exosegs. “Zap ‘em with the light, Merlin. Maybe it will help. All right, let’s do it.” I could not tear my eyes away from those giant, obscene beasts. Merlin flooded the creatures with light. My skin crawled at the sight of them. My heart raced, adrenalin shot through my veins.

  We fired simultaneously at the first two exos, laser light ripping the air violently, dazzling our eyes, sizzling and burning, raw energy from the heart of a star. We sliced the creatures, from top to bottom, from front to rear. They disintegrated, quickly, screaming, a high-pitched squeal, grating to our ears. Their bodies, suddenly sliced into many pieces, simply fell apart, burning at the edges, smoking, the internal organs ripping out to fall among the rest of the wreckage. We ceased firing. A horrible stench suddenly hit us like a physical blow.

  “Deadman!”

  “It works!”

  “I love it! I love it!” Psycho was ecstatic.

  “Get the others!”

  Three, four, more! More exosegs, picking their way in fast motion over and around the steaming carcasses of those we had killed, twitching and snapping, reaching out for us with their antennae. We had no real reason to fear them, despite their terrifying appearance. Our fighting lasers cut through them like paper.

  Overcome with loathing, I fired again. Psycho and Priestess fired simultaneously. Merlin kept the light on them. It was a horrible orgy of death, a blind slaughter, a pitiless, deliberate massacre. I saw it through burning red eyes, and I loved every frac. I bounced the E up and down, and slashed from side to side and the creatures walked right into our firestorm and disintegrated, all those separate body parts falling down sizzling to steam and hiss in the water covering the stones of the chamber floor, yellow viscera suddenly free, spilling hot and steaming into nothingness.

  A hulking, smoking pile of obscene exoseg parts lay scattered all around us. A head, lying on one eye, glared at us, mandibles still twitching. The lasers did it all, an elemental force, the power of the stars at our fingertips, as we stood fast against a tidal wave of nightmare, grotesque alien creatures from the edge of the universe.

  I felt like a God. From the corners of my eyes I spotted Scaler warriors behind us, forming a human wall of tridents and spears, in front of their huddled women and children.

  More of them, a new exoseg come to die, its antennae lashing out among the fallen corpses of the others.

  “Take the Manlink, Merlin.” Psycho handed it to Merlin, who snatched it eagerly. Psycho stepped out to face the exoseg. He crouched, his black armor catching the reflections from the flares, his hot knife outstretched before him, already triggered, burning a blue-hot flame.

  “Hold your fire!” Psycho demanded, “Let me take him.” The exoseg paused for an instant, focused on him.

  “You maniac!” I gasped in horror, suddenly realizing his intent. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” I shrieked and pressed the trigger. The giant exoseg disintegrated in an irresistible, glittering stream of laser bursts, its burning remains showering down on Psycho.

  “You subnorm earther reject! Get your ass back here, Psycho!” I could hardly believe he had actually done it. What a raving lunatic.

  “Damn it, I had him! Why’d you fire?”

  Two more exoseg soldiers jerkily picked their way over the great mound of stinking body parts, vacant compound eyes winking evil. We vaporized them, hitting them head-on with the lasers, slicing them up lengthwise. They exploded, green and yellow puss spraying outwards in an obscene halo of death.

  We ceased fire. A great silence settled over the chamber. I heard my heartbeat, and the sputtering of Scaler torches, the whimpering of children, and the hissing of our flares. We slowly re-formed our fighting circle, without words. The great hall was littered with unconscious Scalers, the victims of our V bolts. Beyond the bodies, a strong, straight line of Scaler warriors faced us, stretching all the way across the chamber, shoulder to shoulder, behind a wall of long heavy tridents and spears. The women and kids were behind them, in the shadows, all talking at once, shouting at each other. They may have been debating whether they wanted us medium-rare, or well done.

  “Don’t fire yet,” I said. “Let’s see what they do.”

  “Can we fire after they kill us all?” Psycho was still unhappy because I had terminated his exo.

  “Tenners, no more games. If they attack, we keep the E’s on laser.”

  “I don’t think they’re going to attack us,” Merlin said. “Look!”

  A Scaler warrior stepped forward. He was small but well built, with hard flat muscles and great scars on his chest. An ornament of gold glittered at his throat. He held aloft a heavy blackened metal trident, grasping it with both hands, keeping it parallel to the ground.

  “Watch him…”

  He walked towards us, fearless, and paused, almost arms-length away, the trident overhead. Three lasers pointed at his belly. He looked right into my eyes, and I knew he could see death, looking out at him. His eyes burned. He was not afraid. He had already decided what to do.

  He knelt, and brought the trident down, slowly, holding it out, to us. Presenting it, to us.

  “He’s surrendering,” Priestess whispered.

  I reached out to take it, in a daze. It was heavy. A sun symbol engraved the metal shaft, a sun with a single rune on its face, radiating light. The long line of Scaler warriors carefully laid down their weapons on the flooded stones of the great hall. I could hardly believe it.

  “Cease firing, Snow Leopard,” Psycho suddenly exclaimed. “The Scalers in the great hall have just surrendered to us.”

  “What do you mean, Psycho?” For an instant, I did not understand.

  “It’s Snow Leopard,” Psycho replied. “CAT 24 has broken through, they’re on the way. Engagement in the tunnel.”

  Priestess’s arms snaked around my waist and she buried her face in my chest. I balanced the E on my hip and tried to comfort her. A great relief flooded over me. I was suddenly very conscious of her very naked body, pressing close to mine.

  “Let’s see if we can find Priestess’s litesuit, guys, uh, and maybe mine and Merlin’s, too.”

  Chapter 7: The Mark of the Beast

  Seven weeks later:

  I awoke warm and comfortable. Completely relaxed, I wanted to stay in dreamland forever. It slowly dawned on my fuzzy mind that I was on the floor of the squadmod lounge, lying in a confused tangle of motionless bodies. I had not the slightest idea why. This has to be a dream, I thought. It felt so damned good just to be lying there, warm and lazy and mindless, that I wanted to continue like that forever. And it had to be a dream. The Legion does not sleep.

>   The bodies around me gradually came into focus. Squad Beta, asleep. Sleep, a forbidden drug. Priestess lay beside me, a blanket up to her chin, breathing deeply. In the dark, her face seemed faintly luminous. An angel, asleep. There, that angular shape against the sofa-Coolhand, his face sunk into a cushion, out like a stone. The others were on the floor, under blankets or pillows, sleeping where they had fallen.

  Memory crept in like a grey ghost. We had been busting the damned Cult of the Dead for weeks. It seemed more like a hundred years. Flying on mags and biotics, we had become spirits, biogens, walking tirelessly through a ghostly dreamland, our souls watching us from far away. Then the unbelievable had happened, another squad flew in. Beta had been ordered back to the squadmod and told to sleep.

  We collapsed when we reached the lounge. We all had our own cubes, but we didn’t make it. We crashed to the deck of the lounge, fumbled at our boots and armor, somebody doused the lights, cushions came off sofa and chairs, blankets appeared. The cubes all had bunks, but they were seldom used. I had not slept in a bed in some time. I did not trust them in any case; we knew that Atom’s wisdom came to us in our sleep from the bunks. We had enough wisdom already.

  Sleep. Unbelievable! Every muscle in my body ached, but I felt as if I had been reborn. All the exhaustion was gone. It had been there for weeks, a constant presence, a dull ache behind my eyeballs.

  Bodies, in the dark. I could see them now, dimly. Warhound laid flat on his back on the floor, still in his litesuit, not even a blanket, his mouth open. Merlin and Psycho lay in a tangle of equipment between two chairs. I could see their faces clearly. I wondered what demons drove Merlin. Around us and when we were in action, he was just one of the guys. On his own time, I’d seen some of the esoteric things he read. I knew a bit about his background. He had walked away from a research lab to join us in the mud. There was no doubt in my mind that he could switch over to some cushy safe-zone, top-echelon tech job any time he wanted. Was he running away or was he looking for something, trying to prove something? I suspected his dreams would be an eerie freefall into an alternate universe.

  Psycho’s face appeared troubled. His dreams would be violent, exploding with light and sound. I did not envy him. Up against the doorway to his cubicle, Ironman slept, shoulders hunched uncomfortably against the wall, a blanket tangled around him, both hands palm up on the deck. Ironman, our youngest male, had let his hair grow out and now it partially covered his face. Ironman was in excellent shape, better than any of us, better even than Dragon. He was everybody’s little brother, and I felt a special responsibility toward him. I really liked him.

  Their breathing sounded like a far off sea, beating gently on a sandy beach. It was our first real rest since arriving at Andrion 2. A faint light glowed around the door to the tac room. I heard the faint peeping of our sensors. Not everyone slept.

  I forced myself up. The lounge smelled like a gym. We had not washed in some time. I still wore my litesuit pants, but had torn off the tunic. I found my own cubicle in the dark, closed the door, hit the lights and blinked hard at the glare. A soundless explosion, burning into my eyes. Someone had ripped the bedding from my bunk. I peeled off my pants and jox and tossed them into the cleaner. I did not know where to look for my shirt. Hot and sticky, I stank like a corpse. My mouth tasted as if something small and evil had crawled into it and died.

  I moved into the head and confronted my naked body in the mirror. Death, recently risen, stared back. I had not changed much since Hell. My skin was burnt brown and covered with scars. The Legion cross was etched onto my left arm, just below the shoulder, the result of a celebration following our induction. My brown hair still had streaks of blond from the searing sun of Hell.

  I emerged after an icy shower; the Legion didn’t use warm water. We thought it immoral. In fresh camfax litepants and a shapeless, sleeveless gym shirt, I padded barefoot into the darkness, picking my way around the sleeping bodies to the tac room, the towel hanging around my neck. I felt like a brand new soul.

  A warm, green glow from the sensors bathed the figures in the chairs. Snow Leopard gazed at the monitors, but I could read nothing in his pale face. He appeared fresh and relaxed. Weapons were stacked carelessly against the wall. Dragon sat beside Snow Leopard with a cup of hot dox. His shorts and a sleeveless bodyshirt revealed his taut, hard muscles. Dragon had a Master’s in Contact, and you didn’t want to make him angry. He was a dark, brooding presence, his brown skin covered with black tattoos, relics of some lost life. They were indecipherable, arcane symbols, sinister icons of an unknown race. A snakelike dragon crawled down one arm, armored beetles marched across his chest, and sightless faces stared up from the backs of his hands. Hash marks from obscure, forgotten wars marked his shoulders, and even his earlobes bore strange symbols. He was as young as the rest of us, and new to the Legion. He never talked about it, but I thought that he must have had a fascinating childhood. I liked Dragon. Smart and tough, he didn’t fight the program.

  Dragon looked up. “The dead walk. Are the rest of them up yet?”

  “Still out,” I responded. “Give them a day or so.”

  “Welcome back,” Snow Leopard said. “Have some dox.” His eyes did not leave the monitors. From the tac room, we controlled the entire AR. Nothing could escape our invisible eyes and ears.

  “Thanks, Snow Leopard,” I said. “I’ll get it.” I walked over to the kitchen console and hit the tab. A cup of hot dox appeared. It burned my lips, great. Life flowed into my system.

  “I’m going out,” I announced. I needed some air. I picked up the nearest E and punched the door open. Cold air flowed over me, a bright, clear morning. I stepped down barefoot onto gritty soil. Andrion 2’s star was already high overhead in a cold, clear blue sky. We were high on a forested hill, a magnificent view. Trees covered the mountains and the vista below was all forests. A wild, virgin world, as far as I could see. A faint breeze touched my skin, and my breath hung visibly in the air. A chill ran over my flesh.

  “Quite a view,” Dragon said. He had followed me outside, soundlessly, now standing beside me with his cup of dox steaming in the cold.

  “Reminds me of Providence,” I said. I thought of our very early training on Veltros. After months of brutality, after the Legion had molded us into perfectly functioning, human machines of flesh and blood and bone, we had been sent out on yet another route march, with full weighted compaks and heavy-weighted, chargeless weapons. We marched toward the mountains, magnificent nameless snow-capped mountains, and the day had been still and clear and cold, just like today, and, looking toward those icy mountains and walking over that spongy turf, I had been overwhelmed by a sudden joy, and wonder, and gratitude, and I knew then that the Legion was all I wanted in life.

  “This is great!” Psycho exclaimed, with his mouth full. Beta gathered around the table in the lounge, having a feast. I hadn’t had a decent meal in days. Music blasted, somebody had a sex show on a screen, and everybody talked at once.

  “That’s disgusting! How can you eat that slop?” Ironman chided Psycho.

  “It’s all I ever eat.” Psycho seemed genuinely surprised by the question. “It’s all you need. Read the label! Comrats have everything you need for a balanced diet.”

  “You’re a barbarian,” Dragon cut in. “Nobody in his right mind would eat that stuff if he didn’t have to.”

  Psycho just stared at him. “A barbarian? Me, a barbarian? Hey, I don’t eat animals!” A low blow. Dragon was a flesh-eater, and that bordered on cannibalism on some worlds.

  “You’re gonna eat a fist if you don’t shut down!” When the black snakes on Dragon’s arm started to enlarge, it was time to end the conversation. Psycho went back to his comrats, grinning.

  Psycho liked to harass Dragon from time to time, but always backed off after he had made his point.

  Ironman remained silent, probably sorry he had raised the subject.

  “Have some juice.” Coolhand slid a mug of freezing bitter over t
o me.

  A burst of laughter. The music was hypnotic, insistent.

  “Death!” I drank. Cold and clear and tart, it was perfect. Bitter, from the past. “This won’t last forever.” Somebody had to say it.

  Sure, it wouldn’t last. We’d be back to work tomorrow, maybe today. I closed my eyes.

  “The wind is with us, Slayer.” Deadeye crawled beside me through a field of wild saw grass under the stars, a few dark clouds scudding past close overhead, a cool breeze rustling lightly through the grass. What a night, still and clear, as if the Gods held their breaths.

  Deadeye was Beta’s Scaler. Actually, he was mine. He had attached himself to me right after our disagreement with the exosegs in the underground. Deadeye had been a witness. He liked what he saw. He was deadly accurate with his slingshot, hence our nickname for him. He had named me Slayer. I’m not sure why, since it had been Psycho who had saved us all. Perhaps I’d seemed more real to him since Psycho had been in armor.

  Deadeye crept past me, cautiously, clad in loose legion-issued camfax, long hair splattered with mud, and eyes alight. He spoke in Taka, the language of the People of the Clouds, the Scaler’s own name for one of the largest tribes. I was learning it in spite of myself. Atom whispered in my ear at every spare frac, and even Sweety harassed me in Taka.

  Deadeye was a Cloud, as were most of the tribes in our AR. The Cloud People formed the Clan of the Sun, and claimed descent from the Far March of the Golden Sword, the ancient race of Sunrealm, as they called their world.

  When that first Scaler…Taka, I corrected myself again…war chief bent his knee to me, it was for forever. Loyalties to the people of Sunrealm were clear-cut, leaving no room for compromise. Deadly enemies one instant, we became allies and protectors the next.

  Our power over the exosegs generated the change. In a few moments, we had proven ourselves capable of annihilating the hated Beasts, the great terror that had struck the Sunrealm a generation in the past. Our power was awesome to the Taka, and it became immediately clear to them that we represented the Future, and the Hope, and the Light.