Casper had dreamed of what was happening now. Had talked endlessly about how to make it happen. But there had never been a way that didn’t involve conquering. A bloody, modern-day Alexander capturing planet after planet, Hellenizing the galactic culture until humanity—at last—was unified. Except that unlike Alexander, Casper would keep on living.
But Rechs had no stomach for conquerors. He saw them as tyrants, necessarily. And there was no doubt in Casper’s mind that if he attempted to become a Caesar, Rechs would be the man to stop him.
The thought of fighting his oldest friend was painful. Why gain the galaxy if it would cost you your soul? And what destroys a soul faster than the loss of a true friendship?
The Savages changed all that. Not the random, nomadic hulks that appeared to spread terror and were destroyed by a coalition of superior naval firepower. But this new threat. A coalition to counter the human coalition. The Savages who would stay.
The conquering Savage.
And that… that at last was something the galaxy could join together over. A common enemy. From Hitler to the die-back, history had shown Casper what was possible when humanity found a common enemy.
Casper moved through the corridors of the Chang, nodding and saluting at those who jumped out of his way. The ship had been modified to serve as a central command vessel for the nascent Legion. The most notable change had been the general staff room, which had been converted into a processing center where candidates who quit or were cut from Legion training gathered to find out what came next. The large holotable had been removed, replaced with a multitude of chairs and a few ominous medical supply benches.
Training had not been without its injuries. Some so severe that the men would never fully recover. Another thing Casper wanted to talk to Rechs about.
The admiral entered the room and found approximately twenty glum men sitting in chairs, the dirt, sand, mud, and blood from the day’s training scuffed into the carpet and plastered to the chair legs. The ship’s rudimentary cleaning bots had to work the room multiple times a day.
“I’ll be with you shortly,” Casper said, cutting off any attempts the washouts might have hoped to make at conversation.
He strode directly to a door at the opposite end of the conference room, then through a security door that led to his staff officer’s office. Beyond that was his own.
Immediately Casper knew something was wrong. His staff officer, a lieutenant named Cami Dutton, was pacing the room in a clearly agitated state.
“Admiral,” Dutton said, gesturing to the door leading to Sulla’s office. “I tried to stop him, but he barged right in.”
“Who?”
“And I tried to call for a security team to haul him out of here, but he… he did something with the comms.” Dutton glanced behind herself. “I didn’t want to leave him unsupervised.”
“Who?”
“He… uh, locked me out, sir.”
“Lieutenant Dutton… who are we talking about?” Casper asked, thinking that this sounded like something Rechs would do.
But the description the lieutenant gave sounded nothing like the burly soldier.
“I… don’t know his name, Admiral. He wouldn’t say anything except ‘Relax.’ He was skinny and… I think part of the Spilursan Ranger element. One of the washouts perhaps?”
Sulla approached the door to his office. “You say he locked you out?”
“Yes, sir.”
The door chimed, and the light above it switched from red to green. “That seems to have been remedied, Lieutenant.”
“Admiral, I’m sorry. I should have—”
But Casper had an idea as to who was on the other side. And if it was who he thought, there was little Lieutenant Dutton could have done beyond tackling the wiry little man before he had a chance to slip past.
“It’s fine, Lieutenant.” The door swished open, revealing a slight and far-eyed man Casper knew as Makaffie. “I appreciate the action you took. Some candidates in need of out-processing have built up in the conference room. Would you make sure their files are loaded up for me? I’ll need to reassign them once I finish chatting with my… friend here.”
Makaffie looked up from Sulla’s personal computer and gave a sly grin at the word “friend.”
“Of course, Admiral,” Dutton said. She frowned at the skinny man, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a scrawny, hairless chest, then turned to her next task.
Sulla waited for her to depart and for the door to close behind her.
“What are you doing in my office, Private Makaffie?”
The skinny, hollow-eyed man held out his hands, fingers splayed and dancing as though he were feeling the colors and textures of some cosmic acid trip. “That’s Mister Makaffie now, man. Private Makaffie died on New Vega. Part of the deal Rechs made with me. I’m a free man now… man.”
“That in no way explains what you’re doing in my office.”
“Well, technically it’s also big bad Tyrus Rechs’s office. And he said to do what I needed, and I needed a look at these data files you got.” Makaffie looked up and pantomimed an explosion about his head. “Which are like… kerpowboom-chigga, you know?”
Casper sighed. Technically, what the man said was true. He was sharing his office with Rechs—not that the general ever used it. He wasn’t exactly the paperwork type.
“Oh and hey,” Makaffie mumbled, his gaze fixed again on the screen before him. “Tell your secretary or whatever that I didn’t wash out from Legion training. It’s insulting.”
“I’m sure Lieutenant Dutton didn’t—”
“Because, like, I wouldn’t be caught dead doing that gung-ho rah-rah stuff, man. The universe is karmic. There’s like some serious payback for specializing in killing, man.”
“Didn’t I read in your file that you created some kind of super-narcotic? H8?”
“That’s different. Death is like, a side effect. Not the main feature. I can hook you up with some, though.”
Casper set his jaw. “That won’t be necessary. What is it you need?”
He knew that the man before him was some kind of technical savant. Rechs had told him as much. And he knew the Legion would need some serious R&D to be able to stand toe-to-toe with the Savages. The armor Rechs had procured from the Savage hulk Moirai was proof of the advanced level of tech those zealots had created out there in the dark. He and Rechs had been cataloguing whatever technological schematics they could from their encounters with the Savages. Other planetary governments and coalitions had done the same, but Casper’s database was—whether through espionage, firsthand encounters, or political bribery—the most complete in the galaxy.
“Just grabbin’ some stuff. Don’t know what I need ’til I see it. But these Savages. Man… them working together ought to have all of us pissing our pants because just a basic look tells me that marrying some of the separate tech will result in quantum-level advancements.”
“That’s what we need to beat them.”
“Yeah, well, you’re gonna get it. I mean, probably gonna get it. How long until weapons training?”
“Next week.”
“Okay. Cool. Can it be in two weeks?”
“Why?”
“Because I have some prototypes. Real revolutionary stuff, man. Incredibly efficient. Lethal as hell. Gonna punch through Savage armor like it’s weaved out of clouds.” Makaffie tittered at his own joke, sniffed, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “So like, this stuff takes off, and pulse rifles are yesterday’s news.”
Casper nodded. “Spare me the technical details, but tell me about it… Mister Makaffie.”
Makaffie’s face lit up. “It uses a charge pack, and it’s energy-based but not like a pulse rifle. It shoots legit projectiles I call bolts, only you don’t have to load ’em like the old gas-fired slug throwers. It draws the bolts from basic m
atter through a specialized intake.”
“Like… sucks the dust out of the air?”
“Right,” Makaffie said, nodding with a trance-like enthusiasm. “Sucks in all the particulate matter that’s constantly floating in the air and strains it out, same way your nose hairs do. Then the charge pack energizes the bolt and hurls it at insane speeds. Killer stuff, man.”
Casper smiled. “What was it you were saying about galactic karma?”
“Huh? Oh, that doesn’t count either, man. Not like I’m the one pulling the trigger, you know?” Makaffie curled his index finger back and forth, simulating a trigger pull. “So anyway, I got about four tested models in my lab. But they’re bulky as hell. But then I was talking to Tyrus and he said something about a nanitic battery that some Savages was using to keep the lights on or some such. And I think I can use that to make the weapon easier for one of you legionnaires to carry.”
Any sense of frustration Casper might have had over this intruder’s presence in his office had blown away like an empty cloud passing above a parched desert. The Legion would be equipped in the same armor as the Spilursan Rangers—Rechs’s armor was too advanced and cryptic to duplicate, at least for now—but with this new tech, the legionnaires would be packing considerably better firepower than their Spilursan or Savage counterparts.
“I’ll see if I can delay weapons training,” Casper said at last, suddenly mindful of the failed candidates still waiting processing and reassignment.
“Cool strings, man.”
Casper nodded. Cool strings. “What’s this weapon called? I want to tell the command staff about it.”
“Oh. Well, like, Tyrus already knows, you know. But he’s the only guy besides me. We’re calling it the N-1.”
Legionnaires: Chapter Four
This is a waste of time, babe.
The broad-shouldered sniper who had long ago lost his wife, family, and name grunted in reply, sending a white, bubbly glob of spit from his increasingly dry mouth to the ground as he added mile upon mile to his knees. Running was hard for him. Always had been. Not from any defect, just what came with being taller, broader, and heavier than most.
A lion could run with a herd of gazelles. For a little while at least. But not for long. And this pack of Legion candidates—the gazelles among them—had been running for so long now that the Wild Man could identify them only by the trail of dust they kicked up.
Still, the sniper carried on. Knowing that he would not find his way to the front of the pack with the lithe long-distance runners, but determined not to fall out of formation altogether. Because that was when the general or one of his officers ran up beside you and without fanfare or mercy would say, “You’re out.”
And then that was it. And then… well, then she’d be right.
But the Wild Man didn’t think she was quite right about it. She, for some reason, couldn’t see this training for what it was. She didn’t have the proper sight picture.
You need to do another one, babe.
Wild Man grunted.
Too long, babe.
Wild Man huffed and rasped, sounding like something untamed. A reflection of the name he’d taken because it fit and because his true name was forgotten. Wiped away from the galaxy the way the Savages had wiped away everything he had known or loved from his home world.
They gave him a new name when they arrived on this forest planet, just after the orbital bombardment turned a great, fifty-mile swath of it into a wasteland.
Legion Candidate 0008.
LC-08.
That’s how the general and the officers referred to him now. He didn’t mind it. Though he preferred when the other candidates called him Wild Man. The officers never called him that. And neither did Tyrus Rechs. That bothered him a little bit, because he had gone to war with that man. And now the general acted like he didn’t know anyone but the admiral and the command sergeant major.
But that was just how the army was, he supposed. Whether or not you call it a Legion.
A wrinkle of pain showed up in his ankle. Spiking every time he took a stride and landed on the foot. He hoped it would go away after another mile or so, but knew he wouldn’t stop even if it remained.
Don’t you love me, babe?
“L-love… you,” rasped the Wild Man. He felt sweat fling from his nose and jaw for the effort.
Then go find a Savage… Go do another one, babe. I need it. We both do.
He knew she wasn’t talking about him. Could see her standing there, little child hoisted up on her hip. Both of them asking for a vengeance that could only ever result in the death of every Savage in the galaxy… or the death of the Wild Man. There could be no compromise.
But compromise was what she saw this training furlough. Precious time withering away when New Vega was thick with Savages. Three hulks full.
The Wild Man saw how Tyrus Rechs fought. Saw the kind of damage the man had done with his volunteers, deep behind enemy lines. If killing Savages was his life’s quest, the Legion would provide its fulfillment. With the Legion, he would kill more Savages than he could ever hope to by himself. He just needed to make it through the sadistic selection process.
“C-can’t,” he muttered, the same answer to the same request. The one that had started even before they landed to train. The one issued by his darling while he was still recovering on the ship. Still trying to shake off the nightmares those Savages plied him with in those terrible stasis baths.
“Yes, you can,” panted another voice. Feminine, almost like his darling. But different. Not his wife. She wasn’t demanding… she was encouraging.
The Wild Man looked over and saw Captain Davis. Only now she was LC-25. Legion Candidate twenty-five. She’d helped everyone get down beneath the great hill on New Vega, then helped them get back to the surface. But Rechs acted like he didn’t remember that anymore, either.
“We can do this together, Wild Man,” Davis said. “I’m with you stride for stride. We don’t let the leaders get out of our sight.”
Only, she wasn’t matching his strides. For each lumbering scissor of his own legs, Davis took at least two of her own. She was faster than him, but her legs shorter. Her endurance seemed on equal footing. And both of them were behind the elite runners that attempted to keep pace with the relatively fresh-legged Captain Milker.
They had begun with six miles along uneven terrain. Up and down hills. Constantly looking out for the exposed roots, craters, and other obstacles that littered the course following the ad hoc fleet’s “clearing” of the fifty-mile crucible meant to turn professional soldiers into something new. Something better.
They ran those half-dozen miles still wet and covered with the sands of the obstacle course. Wherever a drenched United Worlds gray T-shirt touched flesh, the skin was raw and aggravated. Thighs chafed. Nipples bled. Feet blistered. That was the ugly truth of it. There were no stylish, high-end running outfits. No hydro-units, heart-rate chips, or other gadgets. No hot showers waiting for them at the end of those first six miles.
Captain Milker had led them to a lake fed by melting snow runoffs pouring down an imposing mountain all the candidates hoped they’d never have to visit. The lake was a mile across. Milker told them to swim to the other side.
It felt good to dive in the water. To feel some of the sand finally wash away. But then the chill of the water, born of the snow, began to bite into their bones. It took rapid, tiring strokes just to keep warm.
Those who arrived at the far bank sat and waited for the rest of the candidates to join them. Not wanting any to fail, but hoping they would take a long while yet. Some of the men exchanged quick vows that they wouldn’t be left behind, and then fell to sleep as if dead.
Captain Milker himself looked tired. Whatever reserves of strength he had banked by not taking the obstacle course that day were seemingly depleted. He panted as hard as any man.
The Wild Man was far from the first across, but he was not the last. Which meant he got a moment’s rest. But only a moment. He lay across a large stone slab, stealing the warmth it had drawn for the sun and noticing the pain on his skin and in his limbs. Feeling the heaviness of his socks and boots. He was not a good swimmer. Hadn’t even known if he could swim until he went into the water. He’d floundered until he managed to watch a few of the faster swimmers move and figured out how his body ought to behave. Still, it was a hard go, much more work than it should have been. He’d swallowed enough lake water to make his stomach feel bloated and sick.
A few of the other candidates stood. Not yet broken or bowed. Ready, if not eager, for more.
And then more came.
Captain Milker straightened himself and shouted, “Swim back. Run for chow!”
The captain watched as the candidates picked themselves up from the rocky shore and trudged back into the rippling lake like ghosts of the sea returning to their watery grave. He watched and waited, resting as long as he could before going in after them.
And the Wild Man had tossed himself into the wetness. Whatever gains he had from resting under the sun were quickly taken away in the sobering sensation of ice-cold water immersing the flesh.
Kick and crawl to stay warm. And then run. Run to leave the water behind you. Replace its cold with the warm saline flow of sweat shaking off his brow with each thunderous step.
It was during the run back that he first saw the general. The old man glided by—a lion that ran like an antelope. He was moving against the stream, heading for the lake, far behind the school of candidates that had left long before him.
Four miles of the return run had gone by, Wild Man figured, when Captain Davis put a stop to the conversation he’d been having with his wife.
“Just a couple more miles,” Davis panted. “No sense quitting after you’ve already killed yourself.”
No. There wasn’t any sense in that. If you killed yourself, you may as well keep on being dead.
They ran in silence after that, but Wild Man felt refreshed. He felt that Davis had led him to a new reserve of strength. Together, the pair of runners kept pace. The antelopes up front moved gracefully, but they didn’t disappear.
Gods & Legionnaires (Galaxy's Edge: Savage Wars Book 2) Page 31