The Last Legion

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The Last Legion Page 23

by Chris Bunch


  "We could nail 'em good right now," Penwyth suggested.

  "Negative," Petr decided. "There'd be civ casualties. We'll sweep wide of the village," he said, "and lurk beyond the pathway on the south. I think they'll take that route back to wherever they live sometime tonight or tomorrow. We'll take a chance on losing them on the way. But I'd rather get a whole bunch of goblins than wipe 'em up one at a time."

  "What about the reaction team?" Finf Newent asked.

  "I don't see any chance to put them on the ground without alarms blanging. Poor Monique."

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  Just before false dawn Striker Deb Irthing heard sounds from the village. She nudged Stef Bassas, her watch mate, and he crawled back, tapped heels of the sleeping Gamma Team, lying in starfish formation.

  Petr Kipchak crawled up beside her, listened, and keyed his com to the main frequency assigned to I&R. "Gamma. Moving." He flipped the com back to the team frequency.

  Five minutes later, dark figures came up the trail. Petr counted sixteen. He didn't move, and the last 'Raum came past. Not good enough or tricky enough, he thought, you'll never trap Mrs. Kipchak's favorite boy like that, counted half a hundred, then said, "Go," stepped out of concealment, and Gamma went after the 'Raum.

  They moved very slowly, thinking of silence, breathing slowly, knowing the 'Raum were moving faster, confident on their own ground, certain they weren't being tracked. Once an hour Petr touched a tiny transponder on his combat harness, and a red blip flashed back at Camp Mahan, in the I&R Company's Plotting Room. It was about half-full of officers, mostly from II Section, plus Mil Rao, the Force's executive officer. They spoke but little, and the occasional scrape of a coffee cup or suppressed cough was very loud.

  The day was clear and hot, without clouds, the muddy trail starting to dry out. Kipchak changed point men every hour, but refused to let anyone else walk slack—just behind point. He regularly knelt and checked the tracks left by the seventeen. If the footprints were water-filled, he kept moving, but twice, when mud was seeping into the tack he stopped the team, letting the 'Raum get farther ahead.

  Even with all the caution, he almost led the patrol into them, just at midday. The 'Raum had moved off the trail for a meal, and it was only by luck that Bassas, taking point, saw the dull gleam of a weapon ahead. He froze, motioned once, and very slowly, very carefully, Gamma backed up twenty-five meters. They waited, heard movement after a time, and went on.

  It was late in the day when they heard the whine of a lifter. Gamma slipped off the trail, didn't look up, even though their faces were camouflaged. The lifter passed overhead. Petr Kipchak felt blood pound at his temples. Bastards, bastards, bastards, and they promised no goddamned overheads, probably frigging Williams not able to keep his goddamned hands out of the pie . . . The lifter came back, and Kipchak chanced looking up, saw the aircraft, saw a flash of the logo on the lifter's side; Matin. He swore again, in a new and different key. So there's a leak somewhere, somebody must've let the joumohs know there was something going on in this sector, and they're out looking.

  Njangu, too, had seen the markings. I'll have to tell Garvin, he thought. Next time, stand on that pigfuttering Kouro's neck and make sure he's drowned dead, not just soggy.

  The lifter made another pass over the featureless jungle, then its whine receded. The patrol went on.

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  An hour before dusk Gamma smelled smoke, heard the yap of giptels, and knew there was another village ahead. It was a bit larger than the first, and had three paths leading in and out. Sounds of laughter, cheering, came, and Gamma smelled something barbecuing. Something very tasty. They avoided looking down at the hi-pro rations as they chewed mechanically.

  "Two men," Kipchak said into the whisper mike. "Take the team's canteens and go back a quarter klick to the stream. Njangu," he went on, "I think they'll take the upper trail tomorrow. But bug the lower one, just in case. Take Irthing for backup."

  Njangu took two tiny devices that looked like nails with enlarged heads from a pack pocket, slid out of his pack straps, and moved toward the village, blaster ready, as dark closed in. He wished he had a pistol, but those weren't issue, but private purchase. Only Petr Kipchak carried one. Once a giptel heard or smelled him, and yapped, but no one paid any mind, too busy with celebrating whatever. He found the trail, turned the sensors on, buried them on either side of the track.

  He was only about three meters from the back of one hut, and heard the sound of a man panting, a woman moaning. The woman squealed, and the man grunted several times. I am in the wrong end of this business, he thought, then thought nothing as the man came out of the hut, a dim, naked form. Njangu slowly raised his SSW, wondering why his gut turned at the thought of killing someone who was naked.

  The man peered into the gloom, and Njangu's finger tightened on the trigger, then the man laughed hugely and began urinating. Njangu felt spray on his face, and acid burned at the back of his throat. The man finished, scratched, went back into the hut, and more laughter came.

  Yoshitaro swallowed hard, and started back toward the patrol. Irthing was squatting next to a tree, shoulders shaking. So this is how to become a legend in the Force, Njangu thought.

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  Petr led them up a slope to a flat ground above the village, gathered the patrol around. He closed the whisper mike, spoke in a low tone.

  "This is safer," he said. "We can see the trail they'll take . . . I think . . . from here, and nobody's going to get stumbled over. Or pissed on," he said with a bit of a laugh. "There's a big pool about twenty meters on, Njangu. You can go sluice off, and we'll try to remember not to shoot you when you come back."

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  There were three on watch, Kipchak, Jil Mahim, and Njangu. The party in the village had died down, and there were only two or three lights burning. They were high enough on the bluffs to look out over the bay, and could see the faint lights from Leggett to their right, in the west, and Chance Island, home, warmth, dry clothes, and real food glimmering like a jewel in the bay's center.

  Petr had said it was all right to talk, as long as it was quiet, but neither Mahim or Njangu had anything to say, night, jungle, and the 'Raum close about them.

  It was very clear, and the stars shone with a hard beauty. Njangu wondered, if he knew where to look, if he could see the star Waughtal's Planet orbited around. He hoped not.

  He jumped a bit as Petr began talking in a very low voice, almost as if he were thinking aloud. "When I was a boy," he said, "I remember a holo. Old sucker, and the colors were starting to bleed a little. Anyway, it was about a planet called Rome, and how they carved themselves an empire. Their soldiers were called legionaries, and the empire kept them on the frontiers, keeping it safe."

  "Maybe that's where I decided I wanted to become a soldier. Keeping people safe's not a bad thing to do with your life. Anyway, there were barbarians, and they kept hammering at the empire, and little by little it shrank, and bits were lost, and eventually Rome disappeared."

  "I kept thinking about that, and what it would have been like to have been one of those legionaries, out on the far end of nowhere, looking at the stars and knowing they were enemy, and knowing there was nothing behind you, you were cut off, that there was no support, nobody to shout for when the barbarians came. I wondered what it was like to be part of a last legion like that."

  "Never thought I'd find out for real."

  He fell silent, and there was no sound but a tiny, whispering wind.

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  "Intelligence says Gamma Team's still on them," Dill said. "The 'Raum have holed up in another village for the night, and Gamma's sitting on a hill, waiting. So far the 'Raum don't seem to be anything but fat, happy, and dumb."

  "What's their team leader going to do?" Gorecki wanted to kno
w.

  "According to Cent Angara . . . and none of this are we supposed to know, being dumb-ass flyfolks in the rear rank," Dill said, "he's going to track 'em until they lead him to a bigger target. Or, if they realize they're being tracked, scrag 'em."

  "Hope he finds a big, wet, creamy target," Kang said. "Something like a headquarters, right out in the open. Yum!"

  "Restrain yourself, Ho," Garvin said. "All things come to she who waits."

  "I'm not talking about coming, dammit. I'm talking about killing!"

  "You should've been the gunner, the way you talk."

  "Nope," Kang said. "Any fool can pull a trigger. It takes brains to handle electronics."

  "I'm gonna shatter your whole world," Jaansma said. "I'll bet if we find them, they won't have anything more sophisticated than what they've stolen from us for you to worry about."

  "Then I'll ask for a turn on the guns."

  "Fair enough." Garvin turned to Ben. "You know, O big-time and enlightened Vehicle Commander, I've been thinking."

  "Tsk," Ben said. "Brains aren't authorized until you make dec. But try your feeblest."

  "I'm wondering about these 'Raum," Garvin said. "Mostly they live in the cities, with the biggest concentration over in Leggett, right?"

  "Except for the mines on C-Cumbre, pretty much," Dill said. "But there's got to be a kiloton of 'em scattered around in the bush in little bitty villages."

  "Scattered around doesn't make for anything very impressive."

  "I don't see where you're going."

  "Sooner or later, we're going to start nailing them," Garvin went on. "We can't keep being clusterbrains forever, can we?"

  "With Caud Williams anything's a possibility."

  "When we start hurting them," Garvin went on, "it'll be hard for them to get support from the villagers, fishermen, whatever, right?"

  "'Course," Kang said. "Especially if we do something smart, like start controlling the groceries and keeping track of city-bought supplies so we can see what villages are quartermastering the shitheads."

  "Not bad," Garvin said admiringly. "Promote that woman. Now, once we start hurting them, we'll be hunting them pillar to post, right?"

  "Right," Dill agreed. "Relentless pukes that we are."

  "Hold that line," Garvin said, "and consider something else. They slot somebody out there in the wilderness, it doesn't make much of a dent in the holos. What would happen if they started killing people here in Leggett? Wouldn't Matin go apeshit about the third body that got splattered on the front steps of their building?"

  "Sure," Dill said. "Look how wiggly everybody got when that Rentier . . . Scryfa, I think it was, and his family got butchered last month. The 'Raum start doing that on a regular basis, and maybe leaving a bomb here and there to keep life interesting, D-Cumbre'll start skreekin' and hollerin'. Stands to reason."

  "So shouldn't they be moving into the cities and pushing things to make PlanGov knuckle under and talk about whatever changes the 'Raum think they're fighting for?"

  Dill looked carefully at Garvin. "You know, troop, I'm sorta glad you're on our side. 'Cause what you just said makes way too much sense."

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  Njangu woke before dawn, his head throbbing, his gut wrenched in a knot.

  He tried to vomit, couldn't. Jil Mahim, the team medic, crawled over.

  "What's the problem?" she whispered.

  "Got the creeping cruds," he managed. "Probably from bein' pissed on."

  "That can do it to you," she said, went back to her pouch. "Here. Painkillers and anticrud."

  Njangu unscrewed his canteen, swallowed the tablets with a gulp of water. Seconds later, everything came up. "Ohfrab," he moaned.

  Kipchak crawled up beside the medic, found out the problem. "Can you march?"

  "Hell yes," Njangu managed. "That's better'n the alternatives."

  Petr nodded. The only option was for Njangu to be left behind. After the 'Raum and the patrol cleared the area, the Force would evac him.

  Assuming there was something left to evac. "Saddle up, then."

  Njangu feebly got into his pack, picked up his blaster. Penwyth and Mahim helped him up. "It ain't gonna get any easier," he managed. They moved to the trail, and were waiting for the 'Raum when they moved past.

  The day was hot, dry, and a blur. Njangu felt like he was on fire, pain in every joint. He wanted to crawl off to the side of the trail, lie down, and hope for sleep. Or death. But he didn't. He kept plodding. The universe narrowed to one hand carrying his blaster, the crushing weight of his pack, and one foot in front of the next, over and over. Every time he brushed against a branch, or scraped a rock, it felt like a burning brand.

  Once, he found tears running down his face, hastily scrubbed them, and a portion of his camouflage, away with a filthy sleeve. Nobody's ever seen Njangu Yoshitaro cry, and they wouldn't now. No one since . . . since he couldn't remember when. He hated himself, and everyone else. Kipchak for moving at such a killing pace, the bastard on point who always took the steep way, the rocky way, the son of a bitch behind him who wouldn't do the decent thing and carry his pack for him. Bastards the lot.

  He dully swallowed the broth Mahim fed him around midday, lost it minutes later. The medic held an airblast to his arm, and he was vaguely aware of hissing. Somebody was lifting him, and he got his feet under him. He stumbled, the pack almost bringing him down, but he found his balance. "Hep ho," he managed, and they moved on again.

  The day was an agony of months and years, and when the tears came back again he didn't bother to wipe them away. He didn't see anything on either side, didn't care if the goddamned 'Raum ambushed him. At least they wouldn't be moving, at least the 'Raum'd let him rest, and being shot couldn't hurt more than he already did.

  Eventually they stopped, and somebody led him to a tree, slid his pack off, and told him to sit down. Somebody else fed him some more broth, and this time it stayed down. Mahim gave him another injection, and he was instantly unconscious.

  He awoke in a gray dawn, feeling marvelous. He didn't believe it, and cautiously felt his arms, his legs. He wasn't dead, at least not unless dead included still being in a jungle. He could smell his body, and it still smelled sick. But he was alive. He remembered crying the day before, and, strangely enough, wasn't ashamed.

  Faintly the thought came—you just pushed through something, my friend. Like you did on the cliffs. Taught you, didn't it? He put the thought aside as being hopelessly romantic and got ready for the day's march.

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  They followed the 'Raum for two more days. Now the villages were fewer and smaller as they moved closer to the Highlands. The 'Raum made their camp in kwelf groves. Gamma didn't have that luxury and slept in the open. But at least the rains had stopped—the dry season had arrived.

  ———«»———«»———«»———

  Njangu was on point. He was utterly alive, every nerve singing, and the brush of a breeze on his skin was like a blow. The air was sharp, clean, and every tree, every flower had a different, distinct scent. His breathing came slowly, regularly, from below his diaphragm, as he'd learned from his sensei, long ago on Waughtal's Planet. He could feel the enemy ahead, maybe two, maybe three hundred meters, feel the careless, confident way they moved.

  He jumped when Petr tapped his shoulder, thumbed him back into the column, almost got angry, then obeyed. It was someone else's turn—no one could maintain perfect alertness for long. Finf Newent slid past, flashed a tight, meaningless grin, teeth pulled back in a near snarl. Njangu followed him at slack, a respectable distance from Newent.

  The jungle blew up in front of him, and Newent stumbled back, arms splaying, his SSW spinning, and fell against him. Yoshitaro heard the thud of gunfire, and Newent convulsed, grunted, went limp. "Hit them," someone was shouting, and Njangu realized it was Kipchak. He pushed Newent's corpse away, fired four bolts at waist-level, fought the
urge to go flat, found a grenade on his belt, thumbed, and hurled it, then crouched and sprayed more rounds. Other blasters were stuttering, and the volume of fire from the 'Raum slowed, and he tossed another grenade, rolled, and the tree behind him sharded into splinters. He forced himself up to his knees, lifted the heavy SSW, sprayed fire across blank green jungle.

  For an instant there was silence, and Kipchak shouted, "Back," and he obeyed, stumbling away from the ambush and a bolt clipped a branch over his head, and he almost tripped and fell. There was a cluster of rocks, and the patrol was behind them. "Come on," Kipchak shouted. "Fall back . . . you're the last," and the patrol was moving again, at a shuffling trot.

  Njangu realized he was last in column, closest to the enemy, and fought panic. Kipchak was there, firing past him. "Back to the trail fork," he ordered, "we'll mousetrap 'em there," and Njangu obeyed, hearing the air rasp in and out of his lungs. Gamma spread out at the fork, and Njangu spotted a thick cluster of brush to one side.

  "Jil," he ordered. "You and Stef keep running back. Make a lot of noise. Stop about fifty meters down the trail and drop off to the side. Slot anything that comes down. We'll shout you back up when we need you. The rest of you, over there and get ready to smash 'em when they come." He wondered dimly what made him give the orders, but Gamma was obeying, and Petr came back. He saw what Njangu had ordered, nodded. Seconds later they saw motion up trail, and five 'Raum half ran toward them.

  "No . . . no . . . no . . ." Petr was whispering . . . "NOW!" and five Squad Support Weapons blasted fire. Screams, and staggering bodies, and Njangu let another burst go into their midst.

  "Up, up," Kipchak ordered, and shouted for Mahim and Bassas. "Now we've got them going . . . don't let up." They went back the way they'd come, past four bodies and one sobbing boy. Kipchak's pistol fired, and he was silent. Five down, Yoshitaro thought. Twelve to go. Njangu saw Newent's blank, staring eyes in a mask of blood, looked away. Mahim stopped long enough to tuck a sensor on the body, turn it on for later pickup.

 

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