"Good idea! Yes! Begin immediately! Twister, I'm going to unlink your chestplate. What the hell is the external temperature? Stand by!"
"So hot…is it really you, Cinta? Who's that with you? I'm so tired. Are we really leaving? What about the mission? We can't walk out on the mission."
"You're the mission," Tara replied throatily, as she frantically unlinked Twister's chestplate with trembling fingers. The firefight had seriously delayed them. How could they possibly make it in time? Tara did not know, but she did know she would never stop trying, as long as there was life left in her body.
***
"I'm giving her four marks," I said, "and if she doesn't show by then, I'll be going after her."
"I'll be going with you," Scrapper said.
"Me too," Priestess added. We were exhausted and hyper, our backs to the wall, gasping but totally alert, pausing in a murky corridor with a ceiling that was lost in the darkness above. It went straight up four levels and was slowly filling with smoke from the battles that had been raging in the Mound. We were only a few mikes from Reception and salvation, but I wasn't going on without Valkyrie. I knew she had to come this way. Time was flashing past too fast. If we missed the ship, I knew something terrible was going to happen to us.
"What is Valkyrie doing?" Priestess asked. She was right next to me. So close. I could only stare at her. I raised a hand and touched her armored shoulder. Her A-suit was a wreck, pitted and scorched, but still functional. The Legion built them tough, and it wasn't the lowest bidder that got the contract. She turned to me. I could barely see through her blistered faceplate, but it was Priestess all right—big dark liquid eyes, pale fragile perfect face, all covered with sweat. Vulnerable, tender lips. My God. My holy God. I could only touch her scorched faceplate with my armored fingers. My whole body was suddenly flooded with emotion. Priestess! My holy God, Deadman, I thank you, from the bottom of my immortal soul.
"Thinker," she said, raising her hands to my helmet. Just that one word, and it was all I wanted in my whole life. It wouldn't matter if we were killed in the next few fracs. It wouldn't matter. Priestess was mine, once more. I had gotten her back. Victory, I thought, just as Tara had said. Victory over everything, over everyone. Total victory, for Beta Three. Who could ask for more?
"Legion armor!" I snapped my E to my shoulder and Sweety zeroed the target for me. A little notice was flashing on the tacmap: BX11.
"Valkyrie!" I shouted. She came at us in a rush, trailing a cloud of smoke, her armor still glowing. "You made it!" I met her in a clash of armor.
"I did it, Thinker! I did it!" Her face was shining with joy. "Scrapper! Scrapper! Come here!" Scrapper fell into her arms, gasping, and I put an arm around Priestess, pulling her close. Victory, for Beta. Victory, against the curse of time. Victory, over the Gods!
"Let's go, gang," I said. "We're short on time. Move it!"
"One, Three." My voice was unmistakable, echoing in my ears. "Cinta, Gildron, Three are entering the Ship. Repeat, we're entering the Ship! Goodbye and God protect you!"
The effect was electrifying. The interior of my helmet was suddenly bathed in red. I looked over at Priestess in horror. Her E was pointed right at my faceplate, and the laser spot was crawling over my face.
"They're O's!" Priestess choked. Scrapper broke away from Valkyrie as if scorched, snapping her E up to her shoulder, and the muzzle was point-blank at Valkyrie.
"Nine is targeting you, auto canister x!" Sweety informed me briskly. "Recommend no sudden movements."
"Priestess!" I gasped.
"They're O's!" she shrieked. Her E was shaking. "They've taken our minds!"
"My God!" Scrapper gasped. "No! Val…."
"Priestess! It's me! It's Thinker! I'm real—Valkyrie is real! We're not O's! If we were O's your psybloc would have activated!"
"Scrapper—it's Valkyrie! I love you, Scrapper! I've been through Hell to get here for you! Just for you! Don't do this!"
"No!" Scrapper cried, but the E was still zeroed on Valkyrie.
"Don't you see?" Priestess shouted. "They're O's! They've taken our minds! It's not real! This is just what we'd want! Thinker for me, and Valkyrie for you! It's from our own minds, Scrapper—our own deepest desires! It's impossible! The bastards are psyching us! It's a cruel joke! Thinker just entered the Ship! You heard the transmission! He can't be here, too!"
"Priestess," I said. "I love you! My whole life has led me back here, to you. I've lost everything—except you. You can't imagine what's happened, how many years have passed, how long I've been dreaming about you and longing for you, since you and Scrapper ran into that starmass."
"Thinker!" Valkyrie cautioned me.
"No," I said. "No, I'm going to tell them."
"They won't believe it!"
"Priestess—you are everything to me. I've risked everything for you. And I'm here, only for you. It's just as Valkyrie said. We've both been through Hell. Look at me." I reached out a hand.
"Don't touch me!" Priestess shrieked. She jammed the barrel of the E right against my faceplate, and it scratched over the armored plex. My helmet was flooded with awful red light but I felt no fear.
"I'm not an O, Priestess. I'm Beta Three. I'm your eternal love, and I've returned, just for you. Look into my eyes."
"No!" Scrapper cried out in agony.
"Scrapper—it's true," Valkyrie said. "Every word is true! Long, lonely years have passed, and I've been dreaming of you, mourning for you, the whole time. And now I'm here—for you!"
"Evil lies!" Priestess choked out. "You're both O's, and you're here to kill us!"
"Priestess…" I moved forward and my faceplate was almost touching hers, and the E was still there, the laser light almost blinding me. "If we were O's, you'd both be dead by now. You may not believe what I've got to say, but I'm going to say it anyway. It's true, I did just enter the Ship. But I'm here as well. It's me, Priestess. I love you forever, and I've come back in time, to pull you free from the fires of Hell. So has Valkyrie, for Scrapper. It was the Ship, Priestess. It gave us the power to cheat time. Now look into my eyes. Can you kill me, after all we've been to each other? Do it, Priestess—if you must. I don't mind dying by your hand. My whole life has led me here. If you won't come with me, I have nowhere else to go. Kill me. Do it! But first I want you to look into my eyes and tell me you don't trust me."
Her face was twitching and her eyes were brimming with tears. I was ready for death. I had meant every word. But she only gasped and dropped the E.
"I can't do it," she choked. "I'm not strong enough. Kill me, if you're an O. Kill me!" I reached out my arms and embraced her, gently. We stood there in each other's arms and I couldn't see a thing through the tears, and I guess Valkyrie and Scrapper were doing the same.
***
"We're almost out of time!" Valkyrie was dancing in impatience. We were in Reception, in defensive positions, ready for anything. The massive main gates were frozen in the open position, a pale sky glowing in blinding contrast to the sullen, smoky interior of the great darkened hall. Redhawk crouched by the entrance with his E, kneeling next to Psycho who was lying on a field stretcher. Priestess and Scrapper were against the wall, their E's scanning for targets. I had just tossed out a deceptor and a psybloc grenade. Our tacmods were trash.
I had been overjoyed to see Psycho. I had been speechless with joy. But Valkyrie was right—we were very quickly running out of time, and there was no sign of Dragon and Snow Leopard or Tara, Whit and Twister.
"Twenty marks! Twenty marks and the ship disappears! We've got to be out that door in ten marks!"
"Redhawk, do a visual on the ship," I ordered. Redhawk leaped out the main doors and reappeared almost immediately.
"I can see it—barely. Cloaking is good. It's still there."
"Good. I want everyone to move out, right now. Get to the ship! I'll wait for the others."
"I'm not going anywhere," Psycho said.
"Neither am I," Redhawk added.
"I'm not going without the others," Priestess said.
"That's right," Scrapper said.
"I'm scared to go by myself," Valkyrie said calmly, "so I'll be staying here too, Thinker. Sorry!"
"Damn it, I'm giving you all a direct order—get to the ship! Now!"
"Huh?"
"Something's wrong with my comset. Hello? Hello?"
"Can't hear a damn thing!"
"Nineteen marks! Where the hell are they?"
"Alert! Legion armor! As marked!" A massive armored creature came staggering out of the smoky corridor that led to the interior of the Mound. It was Dragon, with Snow Leopard strapped to his back. Dragon kneeled, and we unhooked Snow Leopard and lay him on a field stretcher as Priestess examined the bloody stump of his missing leg. One! I was transfixed with joy—Beta One! Our One! I could only stare at him, in utter amazement. I had assumed he would be dead. He was alive!
"We've got to get him to the ship, now!" Priestess said.
"Go!" I ordered.
"No!" Snow Leopard gasped. "Where are the others? Who's missing?" He forced himself up on the stretcher, looking around, a pale sweaty face and hot pink eyes.
"Tara and Whit and Twister," I said.
"Where's Merlin?" One asked. "Where's Gildron?"
"Merlin is dead," I said. "Gildron has secured the target."
"Merlin! Deadman!" Snow Leopard gritted his teeth and eased back down onto the stretcher.
"We're not going to make it!"
"One?"
"We go together!" he gasped. And all I could do was stand there, looking at my One in silent admiration. We go together. Yes—it was perfect. Beta would live or die together. We were one, and we would share whatever fate was written for us together.
"I'm doing a full power burst," I said. "We've nothing to lose. X Tara, X Whit, X Three. Return to evac point! Evac, evac, evac!" The burst would pinpoint our position to anyone within range, but at this point I was no longer worried about it.
"What is this X crap?" Psycho asked through clenched teeth.
"I thought you had secured the ship, Thinker," Snow Leopard said slowly, struggling to rise from the stretcher again.
"Sixteen marks!"
"Who's got the Ship? Who's secured the Ship?" One could not sit up. He was flat on his back, fading fast.
"Gildron's got the Ship," I said. "Don't worry—the Ship is ours!"
"Fifteen marks! The O ship should have launched by now!" Valkyrie said.
"X Three, X Tara—we're on the way! Don't leave us!" I almost jumped out of my skin. Tara!
"Get the stretchers up! Ten, Nine, take Five. Eleven, Twelve, take One. Eight, you're on point, I'm on the rear." We scrambled into position.
"One has passed out. Sit is stable."
"Fine."
We waited, poised to rush out the main gates. Time was running out.
"Twelve marks!"
"We've got to leave by ten!" I stood there, in the doorway to the inner corridor, sweating, gritting my teeth, nervously lighting up the smoky corridor with my E. Come on, Tara—faster! I knew the Star of Dindabai was launching into time drive at exactly 0940 hours, and nothing at all could stop that. Recon Control had already spotted the ship, a Legion fighter was diverting to the site, and the Star of Dindabai had to be gone by the time it arrived.
"Nine marks! It's hopeless, Thinker!"
"Legion armor! As marked!" Sweety spotted them for us on the tacmap. Three A-suits, coming at us quickly from the corridor.
"Dragon, blast the outside with deceptors!"
"Deceptors away!" A multiple crack echoed through the hall. We had to leave no trace of our passing, no matter what was to happen.
Tara and Whit appeared out of the smoke, supporting a third figure between them. Her A-suit was scorched and blistered and half-melted, but she was walking—Thirteen! Beta Thirteen, Twister, our holy lost innocent, back from the dead.
"The time, Wester!" Tara exclaimed.
"Run!" I shouted. "The ship is launching!" And all of Beta burst out of the doorway to the Mound, past those awful blackened gates into Uldo's weak sunlight. There was no sign of life. The Systie civilians were gone. The air was shimmering with deceptors. We would have made a pitiful, almost comical spectacle, had anyone been watching—two stretchers cases, one walking wounded, and everyone hustling along in armor that looked like it belonged in a junkyard.
"Thinker!" Dragon had stopped, and Redhawk and Priestess almost ran him down from behind with Psycho's stretcher. A shattering boom echoed across the sky like thunder.
"What the hell!" I screamed, enraged at Dragon for stopping, running up to see what was wrong. Dragon stood there calmly, his E casually draped over his folded arms.
"It's gone," he said quietly. "The Star of Dindabai is not there. It's launched."
I stood at Dragon's side, looking across the snow-covered plain to where the ship had been. At that distance we should have been able to see it clearly, even with the cloaking. Dragon was right. The Star of Dindabai was gone. We were trapped in the past.
Chapter 20
Blink Once and You're Gone
We stood there stunned, soldiers of the future, trapped in the past. Five was struggling to sit up in his stretcher but One was still out. There was a roaring in my ears. I felt like a trapped rat. I glanced at my chron, just to be sure: 0942 hours. The Star of Dindabai had left right on schedule. Tara came crashing up against me, staring wildly out of her faceplate.
"No!" she gasped.
"Gone!" I confirmed, pointing shakily to where the ship had been, a flat lifeless plain covered with a thin layer of fine snow, under a dead white sky. A light breeze blew a fine spray of glittering snow past us. I reached out one arm to Priestess and touched her. She turned her face to mine.
"What does it mean?" she asked quietly. Of course, they would not understand. How could they?
"What are we going to do, Wester?" Tara did not know what to do! A bolt of fear hit me in the chest. It was all up to me, I knew—our future. I knew something terrible was going to happen to us if we did not complete the time hop. I knew there had been no record of us in the past. Nobody had found a marooned squad of time travellers when the Legion retook the Mound, and they were going to retake the Mound very shortly. You can't change the past! It meant, I was convinced, that we were going to be annihilated from history in the next few marks, one way or another. I did not know what was going to do it, and I did not want to find out.
"Thinker?" Dragon turned to me. I knew he would do whatever I said. They all would.
"Run," I said. There was only once chance.
"What?"
"Run! Run for the ship!" I started trotting forward, pulling Tara with me.
"But the ship isn't there any more!"
"Run! Run! As fast as you can!" I broke into a run, and the others were right behind me, charging forward, Redhawk and Priestess struggling with Psycho's stretcher, Valkyrie and Scrapper on the other stretcher with the unconscious Snow Leopard, Tara breaking off to help Whit with Twister while Dragon sprinted along with his Manlink up and scanning. We were running wildly, recklessly, the blood pounding in my ears—closer, closer, closer. We were there in a few marks. I staggered to a stop and checked my tacmap. This was right where the ship had been all right. The others came stumbling up, exhausted. And we stood there, totally exposed on that awful plain. The Mound was right on the horizon, an evil presence—and there was nothing else at all except us and a faint breeze.
"I don't know what's going to happen," I said, raising my E and slipping off the safeties. "Stand by." The others put down the stretchers gently and raised their E's again, and we formed a pitiful little defensive perimeter around the two stretchers. It was Beta's last stand. We were going to go out fighting, I thought, like soldiers, instead of dying like slaves, with a whimper, on O-Rock. The Gods had given us that, at least.
The snow stirred around us. A great breeze suddenly arose and the snow exploded into powder, swirling m
adly in the air. A great roar assailed our ears, and a deep shadow blotted out the sky and rushed over us. A gigantic presence was screaming over our heads, coming right at us, a cenite sky, falling on us like an asteroid, blazing with lights. I could only gape above us, stunned.
It settled over us like a huge bird returning to its nest. We were blinded in a whirlwind of snow and peppered with dirt. A brilliant spotlight illuminated us harshly from over an airlock that was suddenly sprouting a crash ramp. A couple of A-suited Legion troopers leaped to the ground, hauling Manlinks, trailing lifelines.
"GET IN! FASTER! FASTER!" A voice like artillery, totally powerful, totally inhuman. We seized the stretchers and ran for the ramp. The Star of Dindabai had returned for its missing children.
***
When that airlock door sealed behind us and the ship leaped back into time drive, it was just as if we had all suddenly gone insane. We had fallen into the airlock in our eagerness to get in. The stretchers had skidded along the deck and the two SF troopers at the doors had been yanked in automatically like armored fish at the end of their lifelines, crashing right into us, and then the outer doors snapped shut and the ship lurched wildly and I knew we were off. I scrambled to my feet, snapped off my helmet and dropped it. The others were getting up too, weaving drunkenly, gathering around One and Five on the stretchers.
"We did it!" I seized Tara by her shoulders. She unlinked her helmet and dropped it with an air of finality. She was smiling giddily, covered in sweat but glowing in triumph, and it was as if she could hardly believe it. She just held out her arms and I embraced her, armor to armor, cheek to cheek, sticky wet hair and salt sweat skin, and I guess it was our ultimate victory. Tara and Wester, triumphant over two universes, the past and the future. My blood was flowing ice cold as I realized what it really meant, as I realized it was really real.
"Cinta!" An inner door snapped open and Gildron was there. Tara discarded me immediately, throwing herself at Gildron.
Secret of the Legion Page 40