It was well into the following morning, pitch black outside, so dark and overcast that Tara could not even see the lights of the starport through the panoramic armored picture window.
"Anything else, sir?" Lori, Tara's long-time secretary, stood in the doorway, hesitating.
"No, that's all, Lori. Go home and get some rest. Thank you. We start again at 0530."
"Yes sir." She faded away, securing the outer office.
Tara returned to the galactic stratsit holomap, which floated over the holo table, a great glorious burning sphere, a billion glowing jewels, cosmic rivers of fluorescent milky stars, lovely thrilling nebulae. It was like some brilliant mad artist's final canvas, his final statement, to be viewed over his pale, wasted corpse.
Fleets of battlestars dotted the galaxy throughout the map, every capital ship in Fleetcom, endless fleets of support ships. And the ConFree Legion was on the move, every last Legion, thousands, then tens of thousands, then hundreds of thousands of troopers, closing in on that tiny world, Vulcan, not even visible at that scale. The enemy was not on the map yet, but that would change quickly, Tara knew. And they were in for quite a fight when they surfaced from their ratholes. We are raising a mighty host, she thought, and we owe it to every trooper, slogging through the mud, to get it right before the first shot is fired.
No, there would be no sleep tonight. She knew even if she tried to sleep she would only see the holo starmap burning in her mind. So let's just stay here, and decide – a few things that still need deciding.
She turned away from the holo table to reflect and gasped in horror at the creature standing right before her. Dark! she thought in panic. He was within arm's reach, a tall male with tangled black hair, burning dark eyes that seemed to penetrate right into her soul, clean shaven, scowling, clad in what looked like an A-vest over a soft brown cloth uniform. She could tell instantly that this was real – he was flesh and blood, not any kind of holo. She opened her mouth to scream. He raised a hand and gestured and her throat was paralyzed. She could only croak weakly, standing there goggle-eyed before him. A faint odor reached her nostrils. What was that stink? Sulfur!
Greetings, Director General, he telepathed. Greetings from our people. We reach out in friendship. It is vital that we exchange views. Do you hear my thoughts? Will you respond?
I hear, Tara managed to telepath. She had been a first-class psycher in her youth, but her powers had been slowly fading. Who are you? she managed to ask.
Who am I? I am your future. I am your salvation. I am here for you. And I am pleased to meet you. I sense your soul. It is strong. We need strong human souls. People with vision. You have been selected.
Who are you, I ask again. Why are you here? What do you want? Tara gestured at the star holo and it vanished abruptly.
Oh, there is no need to worry about your battle plans, the creature said. I am not here to spy on you. I am here to explain to you that there is no need for a war.
Who are you? Get out of my sight! If you are too cowardly to reveal who you are, I have no desire to talk with you.
The creature smiled. You can think of me as the Ambassador from Satan, he telepathed. And I come bearing gifts.
Gifts from Satan! No thank you!
There is no need for war. All those young ConFree immortals, soldiers all, doing their duty, dying for nothing – dying because you scorn my words. Do you have any idea how many will die? Is this the higher morality of God? I am surprised. We offer peace and you refuse.
Speak! Say it then. What is the message?
The Dark waved a hand lazily towards Tara. She instantly grew dizzy and almost fell. Hot dreams rushed through her mind. Wonderful dreams. Peace – and power. A new beginning. No more strife. Peace, through strength. Billions will adore her, will worship her. She raised her head haughtily. A vast crowd bowed down before her. They were hers to rule – forever!
Satan has chosen you to rule his new empire here in this universe. You will rule all humanity, for him, while he perfects the ideal society for his own people. The humans will follow you. You will be the first empress of all humanity, the first co-ruler of this entire galaxy. Empress Tara. You will have absolute power. No one will dare oppose you. We can see into your mind, we know you dream of this. Now it is yours. You have but to say yes, yes, yes, and it is done. Call off your war dogs. Cancel your foolish attack. Now.
Tara shook her head violently and the obscene dreams vanished.
"No! No! No!" she called out verbally – her throat was no longer paralyzed.
Do you really refuse this most generous offer? Think carefully. It will not be repeated. If you refuse, we will find someone else. And millions – no, billions – of humans will die horribly. Think again!
I refuse! Get out of my office!
The Dark reached out for her and seized her by the throat with his left hand, lifting her from the floor and cutting off her windpipe.
Foolish girl-child! I will rape you, as punishment for your insolence. I will strip you and rape you in your own office, to demonstrate Satan's power and your pitiful weakness. My seed will grow inside you and fight any attempts to remove it, and you will bear my child. He snatched at her blouse with his right hand, ripping it off, exposing her breasts. A little golden cross was at her throat, dangling from a delicate golden chain. The Dark snarled and snatched at the cross, tearing it loose from the chain, then shrieked and slammed it to the floor as his palm sizzled and burnt, revealing a smoking cross-shaped welt. Enraged, he clawed frantically at Tara's waist, slamming her to the holo table, ripping off her uniform trousers, tearing them away with such violence that bloody tracks appeared on Tara's legs. Tara was helpless in his iron grip.
The door to Tara's office blew open with a violent bang and two A-suited Legion troopers charged in firing autovac. The vac bolts knocked both Tara and the Dark to the floor. Another bang sounded as the Dark teleported away, the air rushing in to where he had been. The two troopers hovered over Tara, concerned. More troopers rushed in, and a medic found her way to Tara and slowly revived her from the effects of the vac bolts.
Δ
I triggered open the door to our quarters. It slid open soundlessly. Honeyhair was sitting in the little den alcove, gazing thoughtfully at a d-screen. She turned her head to greet me, smiling in recognition. A smile just like sunshine, her lovely green eyes sparkling in delight. So much love, I thought. So much love. Then she got a good look at me. The smile vanished. She went pale, rising from the chair.
"What is it?" she asked, fearfully.
"We’re leaving immediately. For the target. They're boarding right now. I've come to say goodbye."
She whimpered and rushed into my arms, embracing me fiercely, her heart thumping against my chest, her breath gasping in my ears, her cheeks wet with tears, already.
"There's been some kind of security breach," I explained. "The attack is on, as soon as we can get there."
"Oh no. No, no, no," she gasped. "Oh my God! Please, please, please be careful!"
"No," I replied. "There'll be none of that. We're going up against Satan, the Darks, the Demons, malevolent spirits, and the Stellar Commune. We'll be following a lunatic Bright Martial who will be on point, bent on a glorious suicide. The only way to be careful is not to go. And I'm going."
She moaned in despair, clutching me tightly, trembling in hopelessness. I am not going to cry, I told myself. I am not going to cry.
"I'm sorry, Honeyhair," I said. "Sorry about everything. Now – don't even think about contacting me. If I survive, I'll contact you. But the truth is it is very unlikely that anyone in Delta Research is going to survive this mission. I want you to think of me as already dead – as soon as I walk out that door. My will is in the top desk drawer. I'd advise you to remarry some civilian with a nice safe desk job, if we succeed in defeating Satan and ConFree survives. But I promise you – I promise you – that I will love you for all eternity, alive or dead, this world or the next. And that my last thought, just b
efore I die, will be of you."
"Don't you say that, Prophet, damn you!" she shrieked. "You will survive! I've been praying to God every day, every night, for you! For your safety and survival! God promised me you are going to be all right! Do you hear me? I'll be on my knees praying for you, the whole time you’re gone. For you and all of Delta! Don't you ever give up! Don't you dare listen to Satan! You're a soldier of God! You kill those cursed Darks, those Demons, those slave soldiers. Kill them all, kill everything that moves, you hear me? You watch out for your comrades, all of them! You make sure they all survive! And you show Satan he shouldn't have picked a fight with the ConFree Legion. Kill all those slaves, and spit on their stinking corpses, you hear me?" She was trembling. "And never surrender! Never give up! You hear me, soldier? You return with your shield, or on it! And I'll be waiting, no matter what! And if you are killed, I'll not marry some slug civilian. I'm not a damned housecat! I'll enlist in the ConFree Legion, that's what I'll do! So if you don't want that to happen, you'd best return to me. You hear me?" She was enraged, she was crying a river of hot tears, and her fingernails were digging into my back.
She was tough as nails. I could see I didn't have to worry about her. She'd get by, whatever happened to me. It was good to know that. We kissed goodbye, a kiss to last forever, if it had to. And I didn’t cry.
All right Satan, you filthy worm, I thought. Stand by – I'm coming. We're coming. And you're going to regret it.
Chapter 16
Vulcan
We wound up in the middle of nowhere, some nameless track of vac where the tacship Vampire, Delta's designated driver, rendezvoused with the Bright battlestar God's Light for our date with destiny. The Vampire was crowded with troopers from other units, but Delta left them behind us as we marched through the docklock into God's Light with all our equipment. We were hyper and noisy as we entered the alien ship, accompanied by Blackie, who sensed our mood and barked excitedly. The Legion had not yet perfected that new doggie anti-cloaking formula and Blackie remained a valuable weapon for us because some of the Commune troopers used cloaking – just the elite units – and also Blackie could detect spirits from D2 faster than we could. So he accompanied us, armored up with a doggie-vest.
God's Light was an amazing starship, a gigantic blazing white delta swarming with Bright knights, so many Bright soldiers there was barely room to turn around despite the size of the ship, which never seemed to end as we marched through the spotless corridors in our armor, searching for our quarters. About halfway there, Martial Breakblade appeared with a group of knights and greeted the Prof with joy. He appeared to be in top form, bubbling over with anticipation for the big fight that was coming.
Our quarters were in a corridor lined with bunks and crowded with young Bright knights in camfax utilities, thought-chatting excitedly. I could hear them easily. I was getting pretty good by then. They stroked Blackie with delight and helped us out of our A-suits, marveling at our unfamiliar armor. The male Brights flirted with Ice and Bees, and the females appeared fascinated by us all. We stowed gear and weapons at a designated spot in a weapons' ready room.
I did not join in the excited telepathing that was going on. I could only think of the brief scenes we had witnessed on our way up in the shuttle ride in the Mary to orbit around Quaba. It looked like all of Fleetcom was there, starships everywhere you looked, loading up with equipment and troopers and then drifting away from orbit, one by one, ship by ship, vac drive engines flickering to life. Hundreds of starships – thousands of starships. A mighty fleet, on the move, heading off to a perilous destination. Hundreds of thousands of Legion vacheads and boots were off to war, for their families, for their squadies, for all the women and kids in ConFree, for humanity. No turning back, no doubts, and no regrets. And it wasn't just Quaba, and it wasn't just ConFree. I knew that scene was being repeated all over the inhabited galaxy, because ConFree had friends, and those friends were coming to join us. Standing by our side, as we had stood by theirs. I knew that Honeyhair was back on Quaba, on her knees, praying to God, to Deadman, for me.
I went scouting, off by myself, and found a little alcove off the corridor that was stacked high with alien dropboxes. I fell to my knees. Nobody could see me, I assured myself. I prayed. I closed my eyes and raised my hands like I had seen Bees do it but my hands were fists. God and Deadman, I prayed. Listen up! If you are there, here's what I promise. Take me, if you want. Count me as dead. Kill me, when the time comes. It's all right with me. But I pray for Delta. Protect my comrades, if you can. Protect my squadies. Watch over Delta. Put your hands on them and guide them through the chaos. Bless them all. Give them strength, let their aim be true and let them move through the enemy like a scythe through grain. Spare them all, if you have the power to do it. Yes, kill me, that's fine – but give me a high bodycount before I go out. I want to wade hip-deep through dead Darks. I want to bathe in blood. And God, Deadman, I pray for victory – for the Legion. For humanity. And watch over Honeyhair, too. Watch over her. All right, that's it, that's my prayer. Delta is in your hands. And if anything happens to them, I'm going to blame you. And I'm coming after you, dead or not. So you'll have two chances to kill me.
Amen! I did a Legion cross and a Christian cross, before my face. I opened my eyes. Bees was standing there, peering into the alcove from the corridor.
"Prophet. Are you all right?" she asked.
"I'm fine, Bees, thanks. Just fine. I feel great!" And I got up and embraced her.
Δ
First shock was all we had been promised. We were all strapped very tightly into our crash seats in the assault chamber, all armored up, weapons strapped to our sides, when it came. The noise almost deafened us, a horrendous screeching blast, and the ship vibrated like a mighty bell, shaking as if it was tearing itself apart, and my armor buzzed and hummed as elemental forces shot through the ship. But it did not end. It continued; it grew in intensity. Shrieking in our ears, promising imminent death. We were in the Hello There, a Bright plasma drill bunker-buster assault ship and we had just hit the surface of Vulcan and were slicing our way straight down into the Dark's underground fortress, thousands of mikes below. The walls of the Hello There were lined with simports that gave us the outside view. On the way down from the God's Light we had seen that terrifying shower of plasma drill bunker-buster missiles that preceded the assault ships, slicing their way into the installations below and hopefully turning the underground into one great glowing field of opstar- and tacstar-nuked burning wreckage. There were many assault ships accompanying us. We were not the only one. ConFree didn't have any ships like these. But the Brights did.
"All right folks, all is well," the Prof said. "From all I've been told our target area, Zero Alpha Eleven, should be pretty much vaporized by the time our assault doors snap open, and we expect no opposition in the landing zone. However, Eleven is very much smack in the heart of the Dark zone, so when we start hitting opposition, they will likely be Darks."
The ship was buckling, screeching, vibrating, rattling. I could hardly hear the Prof. The simports were dancing around in my blurred vision. Now they showed only glowing plasma shooting past as we vaporized our way down into the underworld.
"As you know, we are assigned to Martial Breakblade, who is the Martial of Task Force Glory, roughly equivalent to a Legion Company, but consisting of twelve six-knight squads, and reporting to Battle Group Morning Star – which is their equivalent of our Combat Assault Team. Our overall archangel command is Mission Gabriel. The other two commands are Michael and Raphael, but we won't be dealing with them. Now, the reason–" A particularly jarring blast shook the ship. Then the chaos resumed, as before.
"The reason we're with Breakblade is that if we follow our multiple attack plans successfully we will be eventually fighting our way into sectors near the surface where we may encounter allied human troops. That's when Delta's talents will be most useful. In the meantime, we are just grunts. And Doggie is in command. Over to you, sir," the
Prof said.
"Doggie," I said. "I have a question."
"Sure. What."
"Instead of risking our butts like this, why hasn’t the Legion equipped us with attack holos? Aren't we an important enough unit to rate the attack holos? That way we can kill the enemy and they can't kill us."
"Good question, Prophet. First, quite whining. Second, I've been told the Legion is using every attack holo unit in the inventory to equip our front-line soldiers with that wonderful weapons system for this mission. See, they need it more than we do 'cause they won't have Brights by their side to counter the Darks. Trouble is, we are a special mission unit that will be accompanying Bright knights into battle. And also the Brights are not familiar with the holo units, which must be controlled from orbiting ships. I asked. And that was the answer. Just stick close to the B's. They'll kick all the enemy ass that shows up. We'll do fine."
"Yes sir," I replied. Strange, I reflected. Doggie was a newly promoted Major, but the Prof was now a Brigadier General and Ice, Saka, Bees and I were Commanders. Six of Doggie's squad members outranked him, but that didn't matter in the Legion world. He was the tac man, and he was in charge. Scout, a Captain, was his Two. Bird was not with us for our vacation in the underworld. He was going to be fighting up in the sky and the vac, taking on the Darks, Demons and Commune planetary and air defenses.
We continued down, down, down, the plasma rippling past the simports, the ship shuddering, bouncing us around in our seats. Last ride, I thought. Last ride. I knew these plasma drill ships were one-way trips. The ship would be abandoned and detonated after delivering the troops to the target. A depth display above the simport counted off our progress as we continued ripping into the rock, and the depth showed up on my faceplate as mikes – passing a thousand mikes, now. Not far to go.
Prophet and the Blood March (Prophet of ConFree) Page 34