Stormdawn slashed at my face, his lovely features transformed into a frightening, unreal mask. Stormdawn! He shouted, leaping at me, cutting at me again with the knife. He was dressed in white silk and his eyes were totally blank.
"Ever faithful,
Ever free.
Immortal leader,
We die for thee!"
Chanting his death song, my darling boy came at me, swinging the knife like a hammer. I staggered backwards, stunned. I crashed into a desk and vaulted over it backwards. Stormdawn came after me, wanting nothing in the world but my death. He was so lovely I wanted to burst into tears. His hair—my hair!—was clean and silky. His eyes—his mother's eyes!—were a hazy brown. His lovely little face was as perfect and flawless as a biogen's. He was growing tall and strong—a prince! I could see his mother in him—and me!
I dropped my knife. He leaped at me, triumphant. The other Arcwhites surrounded us, anxious to witness my death.
"Stormdawn!" He swung the knife right at my face. I countered with a left block but I misjudged and he sliced my arm. He thrust to my belly. I seized his arm and tore the knife from his hand and tossed it away.
"Stormdawn!" I had him by both wrists. I pulled him close—face to face. "Stormdawn! It's your father! I am your father!" I saw only hatred looking back. My boy was a stranger. He kicked me in the groin. I fell to my knees in agony but retained the grip on his wrists—a death grip. He's not getting away from me—not ever! KCA was forgotten. Now there was only Stormdawn. My son!
"Let me go! Murderer! Assassin! You dare challenge the Gods! Die! Die!" He kicked at me. He was crying in frustration at his helplessness, crying—for KCA!
"Storm! It's your father! Moontouch and I want you to come home! Come home, Storm! Come home! We miss you!" I was crying myself now, forcing his face close to mine. I wanted to breathe in every last detail, I never wanted to forget it and if it was to be my death I would go out with Stormdawn's lovely image imprinted on my mind. The rest of the Arcwhites watched, fascinated.
"Come here, Stormdawn." I released his wrists and took his head in my hands and pulled him to me, my vision blurred with tears. He pushed away weakly and looked into my eyes, blinking.
"Daddy!" he gasped, and embraced me fiercely. I could only hold on, exhausted, bleeding, triumphant. And then Stormdawn pulled away again, and looked around at the rest of the Arcwhites.
"I'm going home!" he announced boldly. They stared at him in silence, stupefied. Stormdawn looked over to KCA, who was hauling the escape hatch open.
"False God!" Stormdawn hissed it in horror, but I swear everyone in the room heard it.
The hatch swung open and Millina popped out snarling and her fingers went around KCA's throat and he crashed to the carpet with Millina on him like a parasitic biogen psychotic, her bony fingers digging into his neck, her evil green face hot with rage, teeth showing. She was a terrifying sight, now straddling KCA triumphantly, strangling him to death. He was gurgling horribly, his arms fluttering helplessly. Everyone in the room was frozen in place, watching in horror, with Stormdawn's words still hanging in the air—'False God!' Dragon and Priestess and Scrapper stood in a ragged circle of biogens and children, but most of them were on the carpet, out of commission.
Then an eerie buzzing sound raised the hairs on the back of my neck and it came shooting into the room like a meteor, straight as an arrow to Millina. Sphere! I thought in horror, but it was too late. Impact! It flashed over Millina, burning from outside, transforming her in instants to a smoking, blackened corpse. Millina! I snatched a knife from the floor and charged KCA blindly, leaping over furniture. KCA moved in slow motion, brushing Millina's corpse away, getting up. Valkyrie leaped from the hatch, a roundhouse kick to the head, perfect, KCA was down again, stunned. Valkyrie stood over him, drawing back a shockrod, ready for a tremendous blow. A knife hilt suddenly appeared just below Valkyrie's right shoulder. KCA had nailed her with a cold knife. Valkyrie dropped the shockrod, collapsing, and KCA scrambled to his feet. Dragon and I arrived at the same instant, colliding. We went down in a tangle of limbs. Arcwhites leaped into the fray as well, their intentions unclear. I exploded to my feet. KCA was disappearing into the dark, forcing the hatch closed—but he had someone with him, dragging him in, an arm around his throat—Stormdawn!
"Daddy!" One last scream, and the hatch clanged shut. I screamed, leaping at it, battering at the cenite with my fists. Dragon pulled me off, shouting.
"One, Dragon! KCA is escaping in the minisub! Track him! We're evacing!"
"He's got my boy, One!" I shouted. "Track him! You track him! Don't lose him!" Priestess and Scrapper were helping Valkyrie, gently easing the knife out.
"Who wants to go home?" Dragon asked. A whole room full of Arcwhite boys slowly began raising their hands.
Chapter 30
Death my Destination
Surfacing!" Dragon announced.
We were at the controls of a large commuter sub packed full of Arcwhites, Arcangels and lots of others, fleeing the imminent destruction of Norport Station. The sea was full of subs, all heading away from the station as quickly as possible. The defensive sub force did not know what to target.
We burst through the surface like a breaching dragonshark in a large phosphorous wave. The cloudy night sky blazed with glittering tracers. A whole day had flashed past during our nightmare visit to Norport. Skystars and chainlink skysweep x floated eerily across the dark in beautiful patterns. Opstars and tacstars erupted, flashing night to day in frozen blue electric instants. Vibrations thundered into the skin of the sub. The party was on. The Wraith's small force of fighters was distracting the station's defenders while we got away.
"One, put us right on it!" I demanded.
"You're heading right for it!" KCA had beached his minisub in the swamp not far from BioSite 2. Kiss and Little Miss Miss darted back and forth over the swamp, hunting.
"That's it! See it?" Dragon said, pointing out the front port to a ragged shoreline of mud and saltweed and swamp trees covered with strangle vines. It was raining. There—a minisub, run up onto the mud.
"Kill him, Thinker!" Valkyrie gasped, holding a bloody cloth against her shoulder. Scrapper was right beside her.
"Put us right alongside. Just ram the shore."
A faint bump, and the sub slid to a halt. I was at the crew door in moments, hauling it open. A warm night—the stink of the swamp, a light rain and a faint buzz. One of the Phantoms passed overhead. I leaped down to the surface, landing with a splash in dark, waist-deep muck. I struggled towards the shore and the minisub, a sinister dark outline. Dragon was behind me.
The sub loomed over me. I vaulted up to the wet cenite deck. Rain peppered my face. The main hatch was fully open, revealing the interior—empty! I turned away. Dragon looked up from below. Priestess came splashing up beside him, still wearing the Arcwhite outfit, splattered with blood.
"The swamp," I said. "He'll be signalling for pickup. One…"
"He's not going to get picked up, Thinker," Snow Leopard responded instantly. "Kiss and Miss will see to it. Recon has seized control of BioSite 2."
A titanic blast shook the earth, lighting up the clouds for a split-frac, freezing every raindrop. A rolling fireball gained height just beyond BioSite 2.
"That's the tacsite."
"Has the reactor gone up yet?"
"Not yet."
I leaped down into the mud. I had no shirt but I still had that DefCorps cold knife. What the hell else did I need? I sloshed into the swamp—wild spooky black trees full of hanging moss and stranglers, ragged fields of chest-high swamp weeds, sucking mud and silty water.
"Let's spread out!" Scrapper shouted.
"All right—do it!"
"Thinker, Claws has spotted the bastard." One said, in my ear. "See the flares." Brilliant electric-blue flares glittered to sudden life, floating serenely over the swamp. I headed towards them like a well-trained attack dog.
"How many targets, One?" I asked.
"Only one target." My heart froze. I knew he didn't need Stormdawn any more. He must have known he was doomed at that point. Stormdawn was only to stop us from blasting his minisub.
One target! I guess I was already assuming, at that point, that Stormdawn was dead. I tried not to think about it.
"Beta, Recon, One. DefCorps Starfleet is dropping fighters into the at. We're running out of time. Our Fighter Force is disengaging and returning to the Wraith. Kiss and Miss will stay on target."
"I'm not leaving until KCA is dead!"
"We'll support you, Three. Go!"
***
I found Stormdawn in KCA's wake, sprawled in a clump of saltweeds, almost submerged in the muck, discarded like a used dispo. His lovely face was cold and pale and still, his hair was matted with mud, and his white uniform was scarlet with blood. The rain pelted us fiercely and his blood was still flowing. I went to my knees and embraced him, stunned. His eyes—half closed, half open. Dead, cold eyes. His mother's eyes—dead! My heart was burning. I pulled at his blouse with trembling hands. His chest was a bloody mass of bubbling gore. Stabbed in the chest, stabbed in the heart, sliced open by a hotknife. Dead! I couldn't see clearly because of the tears. All I could do was hold him in my arms and cry like a baby.
"Thinker! Let us…Thinker!" Scrapper and Dragon were suddenly there, examining Stormdawn, pulling him from my grasp.
"Redhawk—land on our zero! We need a medpak. Now!"
"Thinker, KCA is right up ahead. See the lasers." Hot, glittering tracks sizzled down from the dark sky like golden rain, slicing the night.
I got up slowly. Stormdawn's cold hand slipped from mine. Dragon and Scrapper ripped his shirt off. My boy was dead. The laser was shredding the swamp—drawing me in like some kind of hypnotic, demonic vision. It was the hand of God, I thought, pointing the way—to KCA. I sloshed my way toward it, knife in hand, weeds and vines and cold dead branches cutting at my chest. I didn't even feel them. KCA. My nemesis. My fate. I could hear Little Miss Miss hissing overhead, the angel of death.
I found him sloshing through a wide pool of saltweed, his gaunt figure flickering in the flares. He was exhausted, forcing himself on, sweat streaming off his shirtless frame, a hollow face, a crude bandage wrapped around his forearm. I staggered forward, raising my cold knife. He spotted me, turned. He raised the hot knife. It came to life, burning blue, casting his face an unearthly hue. He was breathing through his mouth. He faced me. He knew there was no escape now, for either of us. A light rain glittered like snow in the cold light of the flares. Xmax and tacstars filled the skies, but it was all fading away, for me. Everything outside of KCA was just blacking out, just disappearing from view—as if it were not even there. I could only see KCA, just as if I was staring down a gun barrel at him. My whole being was focused on him—KCA and only KCA. He was imprinted on my brain with acid. A burning rage rushed through my veins. I'm a mad dog, and I'm going to tear out his throat and rip him to shreds. I'm going to drink his blood!
We circled each other in the muck, warily. My blade was out there, pointed right at him. His hotknife spat in the rain. I was just as tired as he was but it didn't matter. I am indestructible, I thought. I am a mindless Legion biogen, programmed to kill. And I don't care if I live or die.
He thrust, slashed, right, left. He didn't come close. It was hard moving in the water. I charged him, clumsily, butterfly slashes, thrust, thrust, back cut—nothing. He lurched backwards out of reach. But I had him with my eyes. He stared back. I know he saw death looking out at him. Death—what the hell am I afraid of? Death is my destination. I charged him again, going right in. The hot knife sank deep into my left forearm and I snapped it away, my coldknife slicing KCA's right shoulder open as he staggered back. I fell into the water. I surfaced, snarling. My left arm spouted blood but I didn't even feel it. I scrambled after KCA. He fell backwards over a tree root, going under for an instant, then surfaced, the hotknife still glowing, blood pouring down his chest from the shoulder wound. I attacked, going right in again. I could see the fear in his eyes as he suddenly realized that my only objective was to kill him, and that I did not care whether or not I survived the attempt. His hot knife sliced into my ribs as I slashed at his throat with my blade. We went down, tangled together under water.
I surfaced, slicing my blade wildly. Where the hell was he? A branch hit me in the head. We had moved into a forest of swamp trees.
"Thinker! Are you tenners?" Priestess was by my side, pulling me up. I had somehow slipped under the water again.
"You're bleeding, Thinker!"
"He's right there, Priestess. Where is he?"
"Let me…"
"Let go!" I tore away from her, enraged, splashing blindly into the dark. Where is the bastard? Is he going to get away?
"Thinker…to your right!" It was Dragon, somewhere behind me. And a sudden flare found KCA for me, lurching along holding on to a large tree root. He turned wearily as he spotted me again. He raised the hotknife. His face was pale and covered with icy sweat. His naked chest streamed with blood. I guess I looked the same. He faced me, exhausted, the blade out. I sloshed up to him with the last of my strength, and raised my own blade. My left arm was useless and I was losing a lot of blood from the arm and from the wound in my ribs. I was dizzy—lightheaded. But KCA was still there, imprinted on my retina, on my brain. KCA, and nothing else.
I went right at him again. I flung my left arm up with all my strength and thrust my knife forward with my right. His hot knife sliced into my left upper arm and went burning all the way through into my armpit and chest, penetrating to a point not far from my heart. My blade sank hilt-deep into his chest. We stood there for a moment, face to face, chest to bloody chest, glaring into each others eyes. Then we fell apart. I toppled backwards into the muck, leaving my knife in his chest—right where it belonged.
But the fight did not end there. I fought on for hours in a hot haze, gasping for air, bleeding from fatal wounds. Everything was swirling around me like a cyclone, so he was hard to spot, but every once in awhile I'd see his eyes, rivetted on mine, and then his face, a ghastly blue from the hot knife. I would continue my attack, refusing to die, and he would hit me with the hot knife, again and again, and I would bury my blade in his chest, again, again, again…
People kept interrupting me, trying to get me to calm down, to rest, to lie down. Fools! Who were they? Didn't they know what was at stake here? It was KCA! And he was right there, right at the point of my blade!
"He's dead, Three. He's dead. Please!" They'd say things like that, too, but I wasn't going to listen to that kind of talk. Not until I'd killed him myself!
"How is he?" Hot, red dreams, the world swirling around me. Gritty, awful pain, scalding my skin.
"He'll pull through. The tip of the blade actually penetrated his heart—burnt a little hole, but hit nothing vital."
Got him in the heart. Nothing vital, for a soldier of the Legion. We had cenite hearts, didn't we? They'd beat for a thousand years—after the original inhabitant was long forgotten.
"Thinker. Thinker! Talk to me, Thinker!" I strained to make out who it was—where the hell was KCA? Someone came into view, floating hazily before me—a girl, lovely pale face, dark hair—Priestess!
"Move aside, Priestess!"
"Thinker! It's all right! He's dead. Thinker—you killed him. It's over!"
I stared at her, not quite grasping it. Her eyes were red and swollen.
"KCA is dead, Thinker. We're on the Wraith. It's over!"
"Westo! We've been praying for you! You're going to be all right!" It was Millie, beaming at me, evidently overjoyed about something. Her eyes were red, too—funny. I was in an airbed, in the Body Shop. How had that happened?
"He's conscious!"
"Thinker! You got the bastard!" Dragon leaned over me, glowing with a savage joy. "I cut off his head. I saved it for you! The whole galaxy is going to see it!"
I tried to nod, but the effort made me dizzy. I
should have been happy, but I wasn't. I was crashing into the depths of despair. Why hadn't he killed me? It would have been so much easier for me. My eyes filled with tears. I grabbed a handful of Priestess's blouse and pulled her ear down to my lips. It was hard to talk.
"Priestess," I croaked. "I want you to take good care of Stormdawn's body. When we get to Andrion…he's going to have the funeral…of a prince." It was so hard to say I almost couldn't. I was blinded by the tears.
"Thinker," Priestess replied, "Stormdawn is going to be fine. His wounds were not fatal!"
"Don't you lie to me about that, Priestess—I can't stand it!"
"She's telling the truth, Westo!" Millie interrupted, "Your son is alive! He's right here in the Body Shop! The hotknife missed his heart. It was a bad wound, but MedUnit 901 fixed him up fine. I helped the surgeon myself!"
And it was just as if a glorious sun was rising, right in that room, a brilliant golden sun, blinding us all in its holy, life-giving rays. I felt that God himself was right there. I could only reach out for Priestess and Millie, and hold their hands, in silent rapture and grace. And now the tears were for joy. From that day on, I was a believer.
***
"We never did have to nuke the place," Psycho said. "When One reported King Rat was fleeing the scene, there was no longer any need. We just popped back into the toilets and flushed ourselves away. Uhh…in a manner of speaking. And there was such a rush to grab a sub out, nobody paid any attention to me." Psycho flashed a huge grin and flung an arm around Sassy. Millie had set our airbeds side by side in the Body Shop, Valkyrie and Stormdawn and I, slowly recovering from some rather nasty wounds. I held Storm's hand much of the time—just for reassurance. His lovely smile was the best medicine for me.
Cross of the Legion Page 40