“How?” shouted Kimbo. “I got like four shots left in my N-1.”
Wild Man rose and sent a blast with his rifle into the chassis of the armored bot. The blast caused it to rock to one side, but then it turned, apparently unharmed, and unleashed a new volley of fire that sent the big man ducking for his life.
“Here,” Fast said, pulling out his last charge pack and tossing it to Kimbo. He drew his pistol and peeked out, looking for a way to get behind the rolling killer, but machine-gun fire skipping across the deck forced him to pull back.
“That bastard,” Randolph shouted. “Damn that old man!”
“We hold the line,” Fast said, moving a pistol magazine from his waist pouch to a bandolier around his arm. “It’s what we do.”
“Not that. I heard what he said. About my brother. Like he didn’t even matter. Like he wasn’t even a person!”
Everyone looked down. Except Fast. The sergeant locked eyes with the grieving soldier. “So screw him. Screw the old man. This isn’t his Legion. It’s ours. We’re fighting for each other now. Don’t let him get to you, because what he thinks doesn’t matter. What matters is that we make sure James didn’t die for nothing.”
Echo Squad was looking at their sergeant now. “Okay,” Fast said. “Not gonna stop this thing at range, so one of us is gonna have to get up close and shut it down. Or at least try to. That’s on me. Wild Man, Kimbo, Randolph—move right and draw fire. I’ll flank the thing before it can bear down on me.”
“You hope,” clarified Makaffie.
Fast nodded. “That’s the plan. Go!”
Wild Man ran to the opposite end of the room, drawing fire. Kimbo and Randolph did the same, drawing still more fire. Once in place, they put their weapons up over their consoles and sent blind fire at the armored tread-bot’s plating, just to keep it occupied.
“Go!” Fast yelled, so his team would know to stop shooting long enough that he didn’t become an object lesson in the dangers of friendly fire.
He moved along the wall, running with pistol in hand for all he was worth. He could see the machine identify the new threat and begin to swivel its chassis to put rounds on target. Banking hard and cutting inside, Fast saw the fixed heavy MG barrel on the robot spewing tracer rounds that zipped out and sparked along the deck plate as it adjusted its fire to catch up with the sergeant.
Hearing the snap of the bullets at his feet, Fast spun and found himself behind the machine. It was stocky, a little shorter than a man, but easily seven hundred pounds. The sergeant grabbed a welded handle on the back of its armored plate and pulled himself toward it. As it attempted to bring more of its powerful weapons around on the intruder, he shoved his pistol down into the inner reaches of the machine, and fired.
He didn’t stop until the weapon’s magazine was spent and the weapon dry-fired.
Fluid leaked, followed by a gout of smoke and flame—likely a battery being exposed to oxygen. The flames burned Fast’s hand. He pulled it away and tumbled from the machine, which seemed to be suffering seizures, jerkily attempting to move its mounted machine gun but no longer firing. The fire consumed it from the inside out, cooking circuitry and sending up smoke that activated alarms inside the lab. A spray of white foam jetted from above, covering the robot in a pillowy cloud of white.
For a moment the sergeant feared that the fire had been extinguished too quickly and the machine would be able to come back online. But it didn’t. It just sat there, the foam vaporizing from the heat of the fire and smelling like cherries in the air.
Fast let out a sigh of relief.
Then he heard Wild Man’s gun boom.
“’Nother one!” the sniper shouted.
Fast turned his head and swapped out pistol mags, expecting to be perforated at any second. He was out in the open. Without cover.
But the machine Wild Man had shot at wasn’t moving toward him. It was moving in the opposite direction. And fast. It had tucked itself into a compact square and was rolling on treads at high speed.
The Wild Man’s rifle barked again.
No. Not the rifle. Something else.
“Chang’s docking to join us,” Makaffie said. He sounded happy at the news.
Fast’s heart sank. All he could think was that the machine somehow knew that too, and was moving to repel boarders. And given how tight that entry corridor was, if the candidates were bunched up it could be disastrous.
The sergeant jumped to his feet. “Rifle!”
Wild Man understood at once and tossed Fast his big sniper rifle. The sergeant staggered from the weight of the big thing slamming into him. He ejected the round and made sure it was loaded and then took off after the rolling death machine.
Fast shouted final instructions. Not wanting to alert the machine that it was being pursued, if that was possible. “Tell them not to board!”
Makaffie activated his comm. “Tyrus, you need to delay boarding. Repeat or, uh, I say again… do not board!”
Legionnaires: Chapter Eighteen
Tyrus Rechs put a hand to his ear. He was lined up with several squads of Legion candidates waiting for the doors to the mini-hulk to open so they could storm the lighthugger and secure the data Makaffie had found with Echo Squad.
And now Makaffie was yelling, frantically telling him to delay boarding. But Rechs couldn’t understand exactly what or why.
“Say again?”
Makaffie repeated the message just as Sergeant Greenhill shouted from the front with Alpha Squad, “Doors opening!”
No sooner had the doors spread apart than a sudden and violent fusillade of machine-gun fire ripped into the opening. The bullets cut through the air with zips and zooms, slamming into columns of hapless Legion candidates, blowing holes in their helmets and ripping through hearts and lungs. Those in the front line dropped where they stood.
Rechs grabbed the man next to him and pulled them both against the wall, hugging it tightly as the bullets snapped down the corridor. Candidates dropped to the deck, some dead and others alive and trying to get below the line of fire. Still others dove to the sides of the airlock and corridor, pressing against the wall and pulling themselves tightly inward, hoping nothing was left exposed to be shot off.
“Lieutenant!” Rechs shouted to one of his officers, just a few feet behind him, hugging the wall.
The lieutenant leaned forward to reply. “Yes, si—”
A bullet slapped into his helmet and the man collapsed limply into death, his blood spraying the legionnaires nearby.
“Someone shut the doors!” screamed a panicking candidate, but the unyielding fire prevented anyone from reaching out.
“Dammit,” Rechs growled. He activated his comm. “Casper!”
There was alarm in the admiral’s voice. “What’s going on, Tyrus?”
“I need a crew-served weapon down here. A rocket launcher. Something heavy-duty.”
The general wished for his armor. Wondered at whether outfitting himself the same as his candidates was as wise as it had seemed when the bullets weren’t flying. With the protection and weapons suite at his disposal, he was sure he’d have had no trouble destroying whatever was shooting at them. It had all happened so fast that Rechs didn’t even know what he was facing beyond that it was shooting big, fifty-cal bullets at his men.
“Mobilizing,” Casper said at last. “I’m heading there personally.”
More bullets snapped down the corridor. They were completely trapped.
“Just make it fast!”
* * *
Sergeant Fast ran with the big sniper rifle carried at the ready. It felt every bit as heavy to him as the mockup N-1s they’d been forced to train with while on Hardrock. Whether that was because he was tired, or because Wild Man’s gun was actually that heavy, he didn’t know.
The bot had been slowed somewhat by the dead and dying Savage
animals that lay strewn across the lab floor. Fast was moved into a part of the ship that was still under the red glow of emergency lighting. There were fewer of the dead beasts here—just the ones that had been wounded in the onslaught and had managed to slink away this far before finally succumbing to their wounds.
And then Fast heard the rapid discharge of the robot’s machine guns. It was echoing from around a corner—it must have looped back to the airlock and was shooting at his fellow legionnaires.
Fast picked up his pace accordingly. The longer that thing operated, the worse it would be for the unlucky bastards on the other side of it.
He ran, jumping over a fallen creature, only to feel himself hurled sideways by a blindsiding impact from his right. He landed hard on the deck, and the rifle clattered out of reach.
The sergeant knew right away what had knocked him over. Could tell before the beast opened its maw to reveal that slimy mix of human and animal teeth. Before it let out its horror movie scream of a woman about to die. Only this time the scream belonged to the killer.
The thing’s claw-like hand—it felt more like a hand than a paw against Fast’s forearm—pinned him to the ground. But his right hand was free, and that was all that mattered. He reached down, unholstered his pistol, and fired several shots into the Savage’s head, involuntary squeezing his eyes shut with each trigger pull.
The thing stopped screaming and fell to the side.
Without a word Fast pushed it off, recovered the rifle, and resumed his run. He kept the pistol out, holding it ready in his right hand while the rifle barrel was gripped in his left. It wasn’t exactly an easy carry, but Fast couldn’t afford another delay.
He saw the next Savage beast before it could pounce. Watched it leap as he approached. Trained his pistol on the thing and shot it out of the air. He left it dead or dying behind him. He kept running.
The machine-gun fire was louder now. Fast was right on the tread-bot. And the time of everything was upon him. Men had surely died. Were certainly dying with each passing second. Maybe newly hit, maybe bleeding out because medics couldn’t reach them under the withering rain of destruction.
He turned a corner and saw the thing, a backlit shadow as it blazed tracers down the corridor, into the airlock, and deep into Chang’s hangar. Dead Legion candidates were stacked in the open, and Fast could see the living huddling against the sides of the airlock, peeking and then ducking back to avoid the stream of firepower. Waiting for death or for the machine to run out of ammunition. And who could say which would happen first.
Maybe the thing had rear defensive capabilities. Maybe Fast slowing and dropping to a knee was a mistake that would get him killed. But he was breathing heavy and needed a stable shooting platform. He lifted the weapon. It felt unbelievably heavy, as though hewn from rock. Through the scope, he found an actuator that he thought connected the machine’s “head”—its optics and camera—to its body.
He held his breath even though his body only wanted him to suck in more air. He buried the part of his psyche that was screaming at him that maybe another of those creatures was behind him.
And he pulled the trigger.
The boom resonated loudly. The overpressure cleared his sinuses. His ears rang despite the comm-capable plugs shoved into them.
But the robot fell silent. The guns stopped. And, slowly, the Legion candidates emerged from their cover.
Cries for medics filled the air.
Sergeant Fast checked behind himself for more Savages.
He was alone.
Legionnaires: Chapter Nineteen
The old man was the first to pop from cover. He had an ancient-looking pistol in his hand. Sergeant Fast had seen them before on digs, from wrecked colony ships or lost scout explorers. A 1911, it was called. A fine gun.
“Captain Milker,” Rechs shouted. “Clear this ship.”
“Yes, sir! First Platoon, Second Platoon, on me!”
The surviving Legion candidates pushed out of the airlock and began to move through the ship. Clearing rooms that Echo Squad had already cleared and then moving further in. Occasionally the scream of a Savage could be heard along with the blast of N-1s.
Fast felt spent. But he saw Echo Squad emerge from Humberto’s office, carrying the body of James. They set it down when they ran into the general. Rechs gave them a quick salute just as the sergeant rejoined his team.
Makaffie’s eyes were bright. He was elated. “Tyrus! You need to come with me. Everything we hoped for… we got it.”
Rechs nodded and then looked down at the body of the oldest Johnson boy. The scientist retreated for the lab, safely following two squads of Legion candidates who’d moved in that direction. Rechs motioned at the dead man with his 1911. “What was his name?”
Randolph answered before anyone else could. “LC-125, sir. He was my brother.”
The grieving candidate gave a look to the rest of Echo Squad as if to say, let it be. Don’t anyone call him James. Because the old man don’t deserve to know his real name. They all understood.
Rechs worked over his jaw like he was chewing, but there wasn’t anything in his mouth. He grunted out a “Hm,” and then looked to Sergeant Fast.
“You did a hell of a job, Sergeant.”
Fast unslung the Wild Man’s rifle and handed it back to his friend. The sergeant’s face was wet with the sweat of combat. His chin straps were loose and his helmet hung askew, its battle visor pulled up. “Thank you, sir.”
“Gonna need men like you to fill in the officer corps, LC-330. What’s your name?”
Fast looked at his squad, who all looked back patiently. Expectantly.
“LC-330.” He paused a moment before adding, “Sir.”
Rechs clenched his jaw and followed Makaffie to the control room. A moment later Casper arrived, leading medics and an unneeded heavy-weapons crew inside the ship.
“The general?” he asked Sergeant Fast.
Fast pointed. “Control room.”
Casper nodded and, apparently sensing Echo Squad’s wear and fatigue, took the time to clap each man on the shoulder. “You boys head back to the Chang. Get some rest. You’re legionnaires now. I want you to know that. You’ve done everything asked of you and then some. None of that is lost on any of us.”
Randolph nodded to the body of James. “How ’bout him? He a legionnaire, too?”
Casper looked down at the corpse. “You’re damn right he is.”
And then he left after Rechs.
Medics came in and tried to pick up James. To carry him off the Brentwood and back onto the Chang. But Randolph wouldn’t hear of it.
“He’s my brother. I’ll carry him.”
But he wouldn’t carry him alone. First Fast, then Wild Man and Kimbo, took hold of their fallen comrade. Together they gently lifted him. Fast had an arm wrapped under James’s shoulder and kept his head from dropping down by cradling it in his palm. In unison, Echo Squad moved toward the Chang.
Randolph stroked the face of his older brother. “I know it’s funny, but I don’t… I don’t feel so bad. For me, I mean. It’s… it’s how Mom will feel that makes me upset.”
Fast nodded. “Yeah.”
They carried the body of James to a hastily built aid station set up in the hangar, where medics and shipboard nursing staff were loading the dead into body bags. Kimbo, Wild Man, and Sergeant Fast left Randolph to be alone with his brother. To see him off for the inevitable.
After a few moments of silence, Kimbo spoke. “I thought the old man was gonna cut off your balls when you answered him with your LC number back there, Sergeant. Then again, standin’ up to the old man like that… he probably knew you had too much balls to cut off.”
This made the Wild Man chuckle. And then he grew serious. “How come… how come you didn’t tell him?”
Wild Man was thinking about himself. A
bout how he couldn’t remember his real name anymore. Maybe the sergeant was the same way.
Fast shrugged. “I dunno. Just seemed like, after all that, the old man didn’t have the right to ask that question. We earned being legionnaires, but that don’t mean he earned the right to suddenly act like he knows us.”
Kimbo nodded. “Yeah. All of a sudden he wants to act like we’re more than numbers? Forget about it. Still the same guy that made everyone run when Condrey drowned, remember?”
Wild Man nodded. “Davis and I… we fought right next to the old man on New Vega. I didn’t… I never liked how, how he pretended not to know us. Didn’t seem right.”
Sergeant Fast raised his eyebrows. He understood all that. But more importantly, he understood why his men needed someone who would fight for them. Because fighting would soon be all any of them had. And he knew that was how things would be until they all drew their last breath.
“So, Sergeant Fast,” said Kimbo. “That ain’t your real name. Wild Man didn’t just get a lucky guess the first time.”
Fast smiled. “No. That’s not my real name.”
“So… what is it? Sergeant.”
Fast looked at both men and smiled as much as he could. “Aeson Ford.”
THE END
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