Legionnaire

by Jason Anspach

  I struggle to pull my field mags from their protective case, eager to get my eyes on Twenties’s target. Following the reticule, I find myself looking at a distant outcropping of rock, shaded by a copse of defoliated trees. But that’s all I see. From my vantage point, no one is anywhere nearby. I hear the shot and see what has to be little pieces of koob fly up over the rock.

  “Target eliminated,” Twenties announces over the comm.

  “Nice shot, Twenties,” I say, again amazed at the legionnaire’s ability to hit, well, anything. No matter how difficult.

  “Victory Company, this is Pappy. I’m monitoring the observation bots. Confirm identity of target just hit.”

  I announce what happened over the L-comm. “LS-81 has a confirmed kill on Kreggak, the koob chieftain from Moona Village. ID was made by HUD facial recognition at range.”

  “Outstanding work.” Pappy’s voice scratches out praise. “I’m watching the koobs, and they look to be bugging out. Tribal structure requires the election of a new chieftain—but I think they’ve just had enough of getting their asses kicked.”

  A cheer goes up from the line. And, indeed, I can see koob combatants attempting to leave the battlefield over a distant ridge. My mags catch a glimpse of a human attempting to turn the koobs back, but the koobs aren’t having it. I figure this is an MCR insurgent leader, at the very least. I paint him with my mags, and just as I’m about to call him in for Twenties to try another long-range shot, I see him point frantically skyward. The koobs stop in their tracks, look up, and begin filing back toward the front.

  We’re in trouble. I search out the heavens, squinting from the glare of the sun. I see it a second before the call comes in from Andien.

  “An Ohio-class space cruiser arrived from hyperspace!”

  Ohio class. These are ancient, massive, near-derelict, deep-space cruisers, incapable of orbital bombardment but able to take a beating in ship-to-ship combat. Capable of carrying a full wing of starfighters.

  Needless to say, it’s not Republic.

  23

  Sergeant Powell is barking orders over the comm, filling the void of depleted NCOs by making sure every leej in both squads is ready for what comes next. “You heard Captain Ford! Wounded to the CCP! Everyone else, get in your foxhole. Heavies—shoot them down!”

  I look up as a wave descends toward us. Initially no bigger than a shining star, the incoming fighter wing gradually takes shape, revealing the sleek snub noses and dual blaster cannons of K-13 Preyhunters. These are older starfighters, but still effective.

  My mind is spinning with thoughts. I’m relieved that it’s K-13s—ships without bombs—coming our way. I need to make sure heads are down for what will surely be a blaster-strafing run. But how long did it take the MCR to piece together a functional Ohio-class cruiser? How long were they planning today?

  Running toward an open foxhole, as legionnaires stream past with deliberate hurry, I catch a glimpse of Exo. He’s got his AP missile launcher ready and is shouting for the incoming starfighters to “Bring it!”

  With a whoosh, Exo’s missile streaks up toward the lead fighter. Seconds later, three more follow it from the other heavy leejes with functional aero-precision missile launchers. The lead Preyhunter pitches into a downward roll and breaks formation, seeking to dodge the incoming fire. But Exo locked on before firing, and the missile quickly compensates, catching up and erupting into a massive fireball that incinerates the starfighter.

  “One!” Exo shouts. He deftly reloads and locks on for a second shot. This one hits its target straight on, but more Preyhunters shoot through the flaming debris and wreckage, continuing their attack run.

  “Two!”

  Whoosh!

  Another explosion.

  “Three!”

  The fighters are close, and there’s no way Exo and the other heavy leejes can wipe them all out before they’re on us. The lead starfighter opens fire at the north end of our line, targeting the sleds.

  Zet-zet! Zet-zet! Zet-zet!

  The blaster fire tears along our line, chewing up rocks and dirt before tearing into a combat sled, blowing holes in the hull. As a second Preyhunter swoops down, one of its wingmen explodes behind it.

  “Four!”

  The starfighters’ blaster cannons begin ravaging the ground. I dive away from the strafed path and shout, “Exo! Get out of that sled!”

  Whoosh!—comes Exo’s reply. He gets off a final rocket before leaping off the sled and sprinting toward me. The sled erupts behind him. We grit our teeth as the rest of the starfighters, now unchallenged, rip into our line.

  When the Preyhunters climb once more, to no doubt circle around for another pass, our line is left with the screams of the wounded and chaotic shouts to regroup.

  “Missiles!” Exo calls out.

  I look to his cache and find the basic who’d been supplying the ordnance dead, nearly cooked by the blaster cannon fire. “Let’s go get ’em!” I say, and the two of us run over to grab as many AP missiles as our arms can carry.

  Exo jumps into a foxhole and motions for me to lower the missiles to him.

  “The whole cache will explode if they score a hit on the next pass,” I warn.

  Moving his fingers rapidly as a request that I hurry, Exo says, “They score a direct hit on this hole and I’m dead either way.”

  As I start handing down the rockets, Specialist Kags shows up, dirt smeared across his face, an N-4 slung in front of him. He crashes down on his knees next to me, sucking in gasps of air. “Give me a hand, Kags,” I say, handing Exo another missile. The Preyhunters are lining up for another attack run.

  “Yes, sir, but sir—” Kags points a finger toward the line. “They’re coming for us!”

  I look over and see koobs and kimbrins sprinting across the kill zone, moving en masse toward our lines. We’re going to be overrun if we don’t get some firepower on them—and with some of the sleds down, that’s going to be tough. “Get Exo his missiles,” I order, then key my L-comm. “The koobs are coming this way. Repulse their charge!”

  The last missile delivered, Kags and I find our own foxhole and take up firing positions.

  “I only have three charge packs, sir,” Kags says, his voice betraying desperation.

  “One more than me,” I say, swapping out my partially depleted pack for a new one. “So don’t waste ’em.”

  Our snipers begin dropping targets, and the krak-bdew of the N-18s is augmented by N-4s as we pour fire into the thick wave of oncoming insurgents. I hear the rhythmic hammering of our remaining sleds. The charge begins to falter as the traumatized insurgents see their comrades brutalized by these powerful blaster cannons at close range.

  The whoosh of AP missiles tells me that the Preyhunters are coming in for another pass. Kags and I duck our heads to avoid the onslaught, hoping we didn’t jump into an unlucky foxhole. I hear the deadly incoming starfighter blaster fire, Preyhunters blowing up in the air, men screaming, and the rattle of insurgent blasters and slug throwers growing ever closer.

  But the sleds have all quieted down. I hazard a look. Dead gunners are slumped in their turrets.

  “Preyhunters are disengaging!” Exo informs the company. “Koobs and MCR must be too close for another pass.”

  The insurgents are almost upon us. Kimbrin howls and human screams intermingle with wheezing battle croaks as the koobs’ air sacs swell in anticipation of making contact with our line. If I still had my bucket, it would be screaming at me to control my breathing, steady my heart rate. I’m gripping the stock of my N-4 so tightly that I wonder if they’ll find my fingers’ imprints there when they pry the weapon from my dead hand.

  Dead hand. I’m going to die. This is it. We positioned ourselves for maximum survival and maximum damage, like our brothers at Camp Forge before us. Now it’s our turn to be swallowed whole by the raging charge of the insurgents.

  Kags is sweating, his eyes wide. I gather myself, pat him on the back and say, “KTF.”

&
nbsp; He nods. “Yes, sir.”

  “This is everything, Victory Company.” Wraith’s voice, impossibly, is smooth and in control. Like he expected this. Like it was all part of some plan. “These kelhorns are going to pay such a high price that the very thought of more legionnaires coming to pick up revenge will keep them from ever sleeping soundly again. KTF.”

  We unleash a veritable hell of blaster fire. I’m killing insurgents with every squeeze of my trigger. Exo is shooting unguided rockets into the fray, blowing patches of insurgents apart from the blast. But still they keep coming.

  “Changing packs!” Kags calls out. I heat up my firing as he swaps out his blaster pack before popping back up to rejoin the fight.

  My own blaster dry fires—I’ve spent my last magazine. “Kags! Kags! Any more?”

  “Using my last one, Lieutenant!”

  I pull out my blaster pistol and take carefully aimed shots at the rampant horde. When they find us, they’ll say we gave our all.

  Something scurries behind us, and I swing my blaster pistol around. It’s aimed directly between Captain Devers’s swollen eyes. He’s carrying four charge packs in his arms.

  “Found these,” he says, handing them to me. “Here.”

  A fusillade of enemy fire snaps and buzzes overhead. Devers hugs the dirt while Kags and I swap in fresh charge packs. We open up on the enemy, but it’s like trying to stop waves by throwing stones at them. Suddenly I hear a beautiful noise.

  Dat-dat-dat! Dat-dat-dat-dat-dat!

  I look for the origin of the sound and find—God bless him—Pappy lying across a sled, firing its twin blaster cannons at close range. Each blast tears through multiple insurgents.

  “Don’t let up!” I call out to Doomsday Squad.

  We fire again and again into the enemy. A bullet strikes Captain Devers near his collar bone. Blood squirts from his neck with every pump of his heart. Kags moves to stanch the bleeding as Exo and I continue firing. I want Masters to be here, if he’s still alive. And Twenties. Maldorn. And Rook. I want us to die together.

  Soon, my charge packs are again depleted.

  I drop my N-4 and pull loose the tomahawk Masters bought for me. I hold it at the ready as a fleet-footed koob rushes toward me, a gleaming long knife in his hand. The insurgent attempts to plunge his weapon into me, but I sidestep and bring the tomahawk down on the back of his neck, sending up a spurt of the phosphorescent yellow blood. This one was an outlier, well ahead of his comrades. But they’ll all be on top of us before long.

  For reasons beyond my comprehension, I look up to the sky. A Republic super destroyer appears in orbit, fresh from hyperspace.

  “The Mercutio! The Mercutio!” Andien screams over the L-comm.

  “Keep fighting!” Pappy orders.

  I watch, mesmerized, as our tri-fighters engage a growing swarm of Preyhunters spilling from the MCR Ohio cruiser. The two mammoth ships rip into each other with heavy laser batteries. Dropships fall toward us, the glow of atmospheric entry making their white hulls glow red. These are engaged by MCR starfighters, and many are shot from the sky as they plummet down to relieve us.

  Exo drops back to my position. We’re out of our holes and fighting behind the cover of ruined sleds and wrecked Preyhunters. My tomahawk finds the forehead of an MCR human. Everything moves slowly, quietly. Legionnaires to my left and right spew out lethal fire. The insurgents roll toward us.

  Death.

  Soon.

  Darkness.

  Time accelerates to normal speed as a Republic dropship lands hard between us and the insurgents. Wings up, the dropship opens its side ramps. Inside, a legionnaire mans a heavy repeating blaster. He hurls fire at the koobs so fast that one shot is indistinguishable from the next. Deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

  A Republic Navy captain jumps from the sled. “Captain Devers! I’m looking for Captain Silas Devers!”

  “Over here!” Kags shouts.

  The captain runs to our position. He looks at Devers’s battered face and bandaged neck. “Oba… Get him on the dropship. All of you. It’s too hot, and we’re getting out.”

  Exo, Kags, and I carry Devers to the waiting dropship. We place him on board, then jump on ourselves. The doors immediately begin to close as the ship rises back into the air. I stare out to my left and see more leejes and basics entering other dropships. But some of my men are cut off, still fighting.

  “Hey!” I scream to the captain. “I still have men down there.”

  “Too hot!” the captain yells back, shaking his head.

  I see Pappy’s body, lying prone on the sled he manned, a pool of blood flowing over the side of the vehicle.

  “No!” I protest, leaping to my feet. “Take the point and put me back on the ground!”

  “That’s not happening,” the captain answers, his voice firm.

  Exo pulls me back into the jump seat. “C’mon, sir.”

  “Don’t tell me that’s not happening!” I grab the captain by his arm. “We’ve held off an entire army with half a company!”

  The captain wrests his uniform free of my grip. “Stand down, Sergeant!”

  Exo physically restrains me. “Sir, c’mon!”

  Kags helps Exo place me in a jump seat. The moment I sit down, I feel all my strength leave me. I feel utterly and completely expended. A medic looks over Kags’s work, applying skinpacks to an unconscious and pale Captain Devers.

  Something like pity comes across the naval captain’s face. “Look, legionnaire, I understand.”

  I want to tell him that he doesn’t. That he couldn’t. But the words die at the bottom of my lungs.

  We climb higher into the atmosphere. An intense, deep zersh sounds somewhere outside the dropship, causing the spacecraft to rock. The Mercutio has begun an orbital bombardment of the battlefield.

  The captain reaches out to an overhead bulkhead to keep his balance. “I understand how difficult this is, but dropping legionnaires would only get more Republic soldiers killed. We have a heretofore-unheard-of army of insurgents massed at one location. The admiral couldn’t let the opportunity to destroy this force in one blow pass by. As a legionnaire, I know you understand that.”

  Exo sits between Kags and I as the ship is buffeted by the turbulence caused by powerful orbital laser blasts from the super destroyer. Exo tosses his bucket to the floor and stares up at the dropship’s ceiling.

  Kags leans out from his seat, looking past Exo to me. “KTF, right, sir?”

  I pull my thoughts away from my men. From Wraith, and his men, and the burning hope that they found their way to their own dropships. Staring at the deck between my boots, I nod. “Yeah. KTF.”

  Epilogue

  Awards and Ceremony

  The skies are always blue, the winds fair, and the streets are paved with gold on Rep-1, capital of the Galactic Republic. This month the House and Senate named the planet “Utopion” in honor of this ideal—and because some Republic-approved poet laureate typed a screed against all the perceived injustices the lad could imagine. Last month it was called Tolera. It would change again next month. Most folks just called the place “the capital” or “Rep-1.”

  Exo was done with the Legion. He’d walked away from the ceremony and the parade ground in his legionnaire dress blues and silver knowing he was done with everything. All he was looking for now was a strong drink. A lot of strong drinks. And then he was out. Done with the Republic… and the Legion. Done with heroes who weren’t heroes, and the real heroes who were real dead.

  He wandered to the private government shuttle stations, away from the glitz and glamour that marked the center of the galaxy and the ruling elite. He would find some dark place that served his particular brand of poison, and he would just…

  … he would just fade away.

  He found a place and slithered into its forgiving darkness. Didn’t even bother to read the name on the holo-sign.

  The ceremony honoring the point was over. It still burned seeing that puke standing up there li
ke he’d done something. Getting all the glory. Acting like he’d done anything other than make sure everyone got good and killed.

  Almost everyone.

  At least Devers’s shiner hadn’t fully healed. Exo smiled at that small victory.

  He drank the first one to Pappy. It went down hard. Its burn felt like some just punishment that had finally caught up with him.

  Outside, beyond the darkness of the bar, the sun wasn’t yet overhead. It was still late morning. That’s when the Republic liked to hand out their shiny medals. Then give everyone the day off.

  What was it all for?

  You got into the Legion “for adventure, and glory,” Exo murmured as he ordered another from the hulking bartender.

  “What?” asked a voice from the darkness of the sprawling yet nearly empty cantina.

  Exo normally wouldn’t bother to answer anyone about anything when he was in this kind of mood. But today, watching the phonies get to go on living while the real heroes got quietly forgotten, cached on some memory bubble no one might look at for a thousand years, well… today he was surly enough to repeat himself.

  Just to see.

  Just to see if he could pick a fight and get tossed in a brig somewhere long enough to clear his head and get his mind right. Then he’d be back in formation and ready to kill, kill, kill, for the Republic.

  “Adventure and glory,” he spat, the words a challenge.

  The bartender raised his eyes, gave a half-hearted jowly smile, and moved on.

  Exo realized he was talking to himself. A voice deep inside had asked, “Really?” As in, “Is that what you joined the Legion for, young leej?”

  Exo smiled bitterly. He tossed back a little more poison, hating himself for being that guy. The guy who’s doing it for all the wrong reasons.

  “Legion ain’t about fortune and glory, kid,” creaked an old man’s voice.

  Exo looked around, searching for who it was that wanted an elbow smash to the face. Along the dark cantina’s ancient bar, where a thousand drinks had been served to a thousand drunks headed out into the deep dark never to return, an old man sat in the shadows. He stared up at a screen showing skiff racing. The spindly old figure nursed a small drink.