Firemask: Book Two of the Last Legion Series

by Chris Bunch

  Another round whined overhead.

  “Soldier, I gave you a lawful order,” the guard commander snapped. “Drop that blaster!”

  He unsnapped his holster flap.

  “Shut yer friggin’ mouth, sir!” Barken called. “We’re not taking the flag down, not without somebody shooting me first.”

  The officer had his pistol half-drawn. Someone — perhaps two someones — was going to get burnt down in the next few seconds.

  “Stop!” Garvin shouted, somewhat surprised at himself. His own firearm was in his hand, and he was trotting onto the field.

  Both Barken and the officer of the guard turned.

  “What the hell are you doing, Alt?” the guard officer shouted.

  Garvin paid no attention.

  “You, Barken. Get rid of that stupid gun!”

  Barken glowered, started to say something.

  “Do what he says,” Njangu said calmly. He stood to one side of Garvin, his own pistol in hand, but held loosely, pointing down at the ground. “You’re betting into a pat hand.”

  Barken’s lips thinned, then he slumped and tossed the blaster away. It clattered on the tarmac.

  “Thanks, Alt …” the guard officer said.

  “Be quiet,” Garvin said. He wasn’t sure what he was doing or why he was doing it, knowing he was breaking at least as many regulations as Barken.

  “Tweg, bring the flags down. Bugler, we won’t have any music. No triumphs, no dirges either.”

  The bugler nodded shakily, tucked his instrument back under his arm. The warrant in charge of the flag detail looked perplexed. Garvin waved the pistol at him.

  “Follow your orders, Tweg!”

  The noncom obeyed, and the pulleys squeaked loudly in the silence.

  “You,” Garvin said, pointing at two of the men. “Case the Cumbre flag.”

  “Yessir,” one said.

  “You others,” Jaansma continued. “Take the Confederation flag and the Force ensign. Cut them apart.”

  “Sir?”

  Njangu heard a sound, spun, saw one of the guards stealthily unslinging his blaster. Njangu fired, and the bolt blew a meter-wide hole in the paving behind the man. He jumped, dropped his blaster.

  “Stand easy, friend,” Yoshitaro said in a mild voice. “This is just getting interesting.”

  “You heard my order. Cut the flags into little pieces,” Garvin ordered. “Every man here is to get one.”

  He spun toward the guard detail, not waiting to see that his orders were followed.

  “I want every one of you to take a piece of those flags and remember what they stand for,” he ordered. “If carrying it’s too much for you, give it to a friend, someone who wants to fight. Someone who won’t let anyone, not man, not Musth, take it from him without a battle.

  “We lost today. But this isn’t the end of the war. This is just the beginning.”

  CHAPTER

  10

  “There is a difference, young alts, between being a damned-fool firebrand and a warrior,” Caud Rao said coldly. “Don’t you realize you could have started a firestorm among the men?”

  Garvin started to say something, then clamped his mouth shut. Njangu stood beside him, both in dress uniforms, both frozen statues.

  “Go ahead,” Rao said. “I meant that as a rhetorical question, but I’m curious as to your answer.”

  “Yessir,” Garvin said. “Maybe it could’ve. But I said this wasn’t the time, the place for a fight, and I didn’t think I’d be disobeyed.”

  “You don’t sound especially sorry for what you did,” Rao said. He tapped fingernails on his desk, glanced up at Mil Angara, whose face was pointedly blank.

  “Very well,” he decided. “Maybe we’re going to need some firebrands, although I’m going to have a word with Hedley about the kind of officers he’s created.

  “Intelligence and Reconnaissance, Alt Jaansma, is the job description. Not Agitation and Instigation. Remember that.

  “I’m going to give both of you a verbal reprimand. I could have made it a formal reprimand in your record jacket, but I won’t have any trouble remembering either of you if you come up before me anytime soon.”

  He didn’t add that he expected the conquering Musth to vet the records, possibly looking for troublemakers.

  “Dismissed.”

  Garvin snapped a salute, and he and Njangu pivoted, marched out of the CO’s office. Caud Rao shook his head.

  “There are times I wish I could be young and bigmouthed like those two.”

  “No you don’t, sir,” Angara said. “It just gets you into trouble.”

  “As if I’m not in it already.” Rao got up, paced to a window. “I wonder how long the Musth will take to figure out what they want to do with us. I’m surprised, as efficiently as they came down, their war leader didn’t have any contingencies for the Force.”

  “Maybe,” Angara suggested, “they expected us to conveniently fight to the last man.”

  Rao considered what he knew about the Musth, nodded slowly. “Possibly. If you’re right, that means they aren’t particularly gifted at analyzing other beings.”

  “We beat them once, didn’t we, which might suggest something?”

  “Historical precedent doesn’t seem to matter much in combat,” Rao said dryly. There was a long silence.

  “Grig, would you mind doing me a favor?”

  “If possible, sir.”

  “Could you quietly scout around for one of those pieces of our colors? I’m not at all sure we might not be called on to be like those two in the not-too-distant future, and I think I might need something to remind me how to do proper damned foolishness.”

  Angara grinned tightly, reached into a breast pocket, and took out a bit of colorful cloth.

  “Already taken care of, sir, by Alt Penwyth. One for you, and one for me.” He handed the piece to Rao, who looked at him quizzically.

  “There’s something pretty goddamned frightening about having an exec who knows you better’n you do yourself.”

  • • •

  Planetary Police announced they were “developing several leads” to the unknown bomber, which meant they had nothing.

  • • •

  The bank officer looked nervously at the two officers.

  “This is irregular. Most irregular!”

  “Just about everything is, these days,” Garvin agreed. “I assume you’ll need to check this with her attorney. Here’s his com number.”

  “Yes … yes … that’s what should be done.”

  The man dithered with sensors, spoke to a secretary, was routed to a courtroom, and then waited while Gy Glenn was brought out of court.

  “This had best be important,” he said, scowling as much as he could manage a scowl.

  The banker explained, and now it was Glenn’s turn to look astonished.

  “You said the officer is there in person.”

  “I am,” Jaansma said.

  “Would you swivel the pickup so I can identify him,” Glenn requested. “Thank you. That’s the man. Would you step out of hearing, please?”

  The banker obeyed.

  • • •

  “Alt Jaansma, you’re sure that’s what’s best?”

  “I am.”

  “I assume your decision has something to do with the, shall we say, change in the current political situation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you object to my checking with Miss Mellusin, sorry, Mrs. Mellusin?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Garvin said. “But I think we’ve got to move quickly.”

  Glenn gnawed at his lower lip.

  “Call that banker back over. I’ll com her, but you can proceed with the transaction immediately. Our new friends from elsewhere, should they learn of this, might well object, so we’d best get the matter finished as quickly as we can.”

  The banker listened, looked even more astonished, and shut down the com.

  “You have proper security, I assume?”<
br />
  Njangu, without speaking, lifted an arm. From outside the door, Monique Lir and half a dozen soldiers in full combat garb, doubled into the bank.

  “We have three armored transports and a gunship outside,” Njangu said. “I don’t think we have to worry about being held up.”

  “You appear to have this matter well thought out,” the banker said. “In what form would you like it?”

  “Five- and ten-credit coins,” Garvin said.

  “Very, very irregular,” the banker said. “But it’s good that you came to the central branch. We can manage the transaction, but any other branch would have their vaults depleted.”

  Neither soldier commented.

  “Miss Yazeth,” the banker said, “conduct these people to our vault. I’ll give you instructions as we go.”

  Half an hour later, soldiers began trundling heavy bags of coins through the bank and loading them into the waiting Griersons. The banker stood watching, the confirmation from Jasith Mellusin no comfort, for he looked like he was about to start crying seeing money he secretly thought of as his vanish into the hands of goons and thugs.

  • • •

  “The situation,” Loy Kouro said cheerfully, “may not be as disastrous as everyone thought.”

  Jasith carefully put her fork down. They were having a late breakfast on one of the terraces of her mansion on the Heights.

  “And what might that mean?”

  “I’m starting to believe we can survive, maybe even prosper, working with these Musth. They’re hardly the monsters some paint them.”

  “Prosper?” Jasith said. “Loy, they’ve taken us over, said anybody out after dark will be shot, anybody in groups of ten or more’ll have the same thing done to them … I don’t see how you can call that prospering.”

  “Oh, that’s just typical soldier talk,” Kouro said. “Soldiers always overreact to everything. Give it a few weeks, let them see what happened to Aesc was an anomaly, they’ll settle down.”

  Jasith balled up her napkin, tossed it down beside her.

  “What about the penalties they’re planning on levying?”

  “That’ll just have to be the price of doing business. Look at it as just another tax. Except that it won’t be levied forever.”

  “Who says?”

  “Why would they want to put us out of business?” Kouro asked reasonably.

  “So they can own it altogether,” Jasith said. “I don’t believe you’re saying this. Doesn’t it bother you that anytime they want to make an announcement about anything they just waltz into Matin, and take it over?”

  “Surely it bothers me,” Kouro said. “But I’m enough of an adult to know you can’t always kick against the pricks.”

  “I wonder what your father would’ve done?”

  “He’s gone,” Kouro said, voice sharpening. “I’m in charge now.”

  “No, Loy. You’re not in charge of anything,” Jasith said. “The Musth have all the cards, and they’re playing them as they want.”

  “Typical miner,” Loy said. “All you see is what’s in front of you.”

  “What I do see is they’ll want to buy my ore, at a price they’ll set, and I’ll bet it isn’t one that I’ll laugh about.”

  “As I said, some things you just have to live with.”

  “So says the mighty publisher,” Jasith said. “One who speaks for all Cumbre.”

  “What the hell’s the matter with you lately?” Kouro said, tone hurt. “You’re always on edge, ready to jump down my throat.”

  “I merely said I thought you were talking like either a fool or what some would call a traitor,” Jasith said evenly.

  Kouro was on his feet.

  “So that’s it!”

  “What’s it?”

  “You and that damned soldier you were screwing before we got married … are you seeing him again? Playing a little hide the sausage on the side?”

  “I’m not seeing Garvin,” Jasith said, coming to her feet, chair crashing back. “I married you, didn’t I? And you were the one who proposed, weren’t you?”

  “I wonder how I got tricked into that,” Kouro said. “Maybe so you could be sleeping around with people below our class, and nobody’s say anything if, oh, look, there’s a child. What comes next, Jasith? You going to start bedding ‘Raum, one in every orifice?”

  Jasith came around the small table, slapped him. Kouro jerked back, hit her in the mouth with his fist. Jasith cried out in surprise, then stumbled and fell.

  Kouro leaned over her.

  “Don’t you ever do that to me again! Not ever!”

  He stamped from the room. A few moments later, she heard his speedster lift away from the landing deck, drive away at full power.

  Jasith sat, stunned, for a time. She lifted a hand to her lips, wiped them, looked at the traces of blood on her fingers.

  “No,” she said quietly. “I won’t ever do that to you again.”

  • • •

  “I wondered how long it’d take them to get around to us,” Garvin said. He and Njangu were “lounging” near a seemingly unmanned gun position, in the event things escalated.

  Other soldiers were close to other missile and gun stations. No one got inside the turrets or pits, remembering the antiaircraft site that’d been obliterated on that first day of the Musth occupation. Three weeks had passed since then, and the Legion had long since run out of fingernails to dine on.

  Over Camp Mahan circled layers of Musth — aksai on high cover, a mother ship underneath it, then two velv, another layer of aksai, all escorting a single highly polished wynt.

  “Time enough,” Njangu said. “Now, is it gonna be catastrophe or just simple disaster?”

  The wynt grounded, and Wlencing and his staff got out, entered Force Headquarters.

  • • •

  It was catastrophe, although not quite complete. Wlencing told Rao he did not propose to completely dissolve the Force. It was to be reduced to a single battalion of light infantry, two thousand men, which would serve as backup to the Planetary Police in the event of riots or emergencies. All aerial capabilities except about fifty or so Griersons for transport were to be grounded.

  Headquarters would be trimmed down appropriately.

  The Zhukov Gunship Battalion was to be dissolved, its ACVs scrapped. The Artillery Detachment, except for two Shrike batteries, was to be broken up. Alt heavy weapons were to be turned in, to eventually be scrapped.

  The disarmament was to be complete in sixty days.

  Rao and his staff listened to Wlencing’s orders, stone-faced.

  When the Musth finished, Rao asked, “What is to be done with the excess men?”

  “I thought the anssswer would be obviousss,” Wlencing said. “Dissscharge them asss civiliansss, which they were before.”

  “A good percentage of them aren’t from Cumbre, and have no place to go,” Angara said.

  “That isss not my concccern,” Wlencing began, and an aide leaned close, spoke quietly.

  “I have a posssssible sssolution,” he then said. “The minesss on C-Cumbre will now be operated at full capacccity. Thossse sssoldiersss who don’t find placesss will be accepted as minersss.”

  Rao considered arguing, knew it would be useless. Without reply, he rose and stalked out, his staff flanking him.

  Wlencing’s aide waited until the room was empty, then asked: “Since we shamed them, will they now fight?”

  “No,” Wlencing said. “We have beaten them down too far. They might have been capable of a last stand, if we had attacked them at first. But using wisdom, we ate at them, allowed our presence to become commonplace, and now it is too late. They are truly beaten.”

  “Will they obey your orders?”

  “What choice do they have?”

  • • •

  “Well?” Caud Rao asked his staff. On scrambled screens were the commanders of the dispersed regiments.

  “They didn’t leave us any options, did they, sir,” Mil Ken
Fong, head of Operations — III Section — said.

  “No,” Rao said. “I hoped by stalling them, pretending we were beaten, which we would’ve been, we could get some time to find alternatives. I was wrong.”

  “What we should’ve flipping done,” Hedley said, “was blow Wlencing and his staff out of the sky as they were landing. That would have given us some time.”

  “We don’t fight like bandits, like criminals,” Rao said coldly.

  “Maybe we should …” Hedley let his voice trail off.

  “So we have two choices,” Rao said. “We fight … or we fold. Votes … although I’ll make my own decision. I just want to see what you think.”

  “We’re still part of the Confederation,” Angara said. “We fight.”

  Rao looked at the screens, at the men and women in the command bunker. No one, not even Hedley, dissented.

  “Good,” Rao said. “We’ll stall as long as we can, get the word out, then hit them hard.”

  • • •

  “Three officers to see you. Cent Hedley with Alt Jaansma and Aspirant Yoshitaro,” the Force Command tweg announced through the intercom.

  “I should have expected them,” Rao muttered.

  “Pardon, sir?”

  “Nothing. Show them in.”

  The three officers entered, and Hedley saluted.

  “I assume this is important?” Rao asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Hedley said. “We want to offer an alternative to fighting or giving up.”

  “Why didn’t you mention it during the staff meeting?”

  “It might not be palatable to some of the officers, sir,” Hedley said. “It’s actually these two men’s ideas.”

  Rao nodded to Garvin.

  “It’s fairly simple, sir. We surrender … or at least give in to their demands.”

  “Let them break up the Force?” Rao said.

  “Let them break up what they can,” Yoshitaro put in. “I don’t think they’re fools enough to let us discharge troops into some kind of inactive reserve. But there’s nothing to say those who want to couldn’t join some kind of veterans’ association after a few weeks.

  “Sprinkle those in every city on Cumbre, and that’ll give us an intel source, and reserves we can call up when we need them.”

  “We?”

  “Some of us go underground,” Garvin said. “We use the dispersed locations, plus the base on Mullion Island to strike from.”