March of the Legion (3 page)

Chapter 3:
In the Camp of the O's

Lunchtime on Andrion 3. Try it sometime; you're not likely to forget it. Somebody said it's always lunchtime on Andrion 3, and the trick is to be the diner, and not the dinner. That was Psycho, of course. He was having a good time, on Andrion 3. But he was a homicidal maniac. Frankly, the place bothered me. Psycho said it was because I was a pussy.

Lunchtime! No, you won't find this place in any Galactic Guide to Fine Dining. It was bitterly cold and as black as the back of my soul. The only light was what we brought along, and we were not advertising. We were in the O's unholy world, so close I thought I could hear them breathing, all around us. We were freezing, but not from the cold. I was having a lot of trouble with my body parts. We were all terrified and exhausted. I really believe even Psycho was scared.

Priestess and I lay close together, blocking one end of the corridor. The Omnis had made this place; it was part of their starport, burrowed into the heart of a massive volcano in the tortured primeval terrain of Andrion 3. We had said our initial hello with a barrage of antimats, right on the starport, and it upset the O's. I can tell you the O's get very cranky when they're upset.

Snow Leopard ordered a food break. We hadn't eaten since the drop. I didn't care much for food, but my body did. We were in armor, eating cold comrats from the rat tubes in the helmets. It was an awkward procedure. I saw Nine through her faceplate by the cold muted lolite of my flash. She was a pale angel, stricken with some terrible, mortal malady. She trembled in the cold and the dark, eyes glazed, lips wet from the food. The lolite glimmered dully off her black armor. We were all in bad shape. I felt we were inside the beast that was the O. Its metal coils wrapped around us like cenite intestines; dark wet alien metal, a corridor for fools, our own death's road, and I thought it was everything we deserved.

"Deadman!" A hoarse whisper from Psycho. "This is the second best thing I've ever tasted!"

"Blackout!" Snow Leopard whispered back. We were all a little tense. One did not want any noise, so nobody asked Beta Five the obvious question. I already knew the answer: "Your sister!"

Deadman, it was cold! The base was in the heart of a volcano—how could it be so damned cold? My faceplate kept melting the frost. This corridor had once been pressurized and breathable, for both the O's and us, but we had vaporized a good deal of the base, and Andrion 3's poisonous atmosphere was seeping into what was left through shattered walls and airlocks. The corridor we were following burrowed into the rim of the lava lake that sheltered the Omni starport.

A faint light flickered to one side. Black armor, a red faceplate, a pale ghostly face, piercing red eyes, a loose lock of white-blond hair. It was Beta One—Snow Leopard.

"How's the food?" he whispered.

I paused briefly. "It's fine! Haven't you eaten?"

"Not yet. Somebody's got to stay on guard." He cradled his E in his arms, and his helmet continued to track from side to side as he spoke. His faceplate was pitted with scars; we had caught it good when we decarred. I swear, our One was so good he was hardly human.

"I'll take the watch," I said. "Get some eats!"

"Appreciate it," Snow Leopard responded. "Keep scanning, all over. We won't have much warning if it's the O's."

I snapped on max alert, and the screens glowed to life on my faceplate. I knew we would not have much warning if it was the O's. I knew that, for sure. There wouldn't even be time to say our prayers. I cradled my E and slipped off the safeties and set it to xmax. My mouth was all wet and sticky from the food. My body, inside the A-suit, stunk like a corpse. I sipped some water from the helmet tube and focused on Priestess.

She had stopped eating. Her E lay across her legs, and she was using her fieldpak as a cushion for her head. I was exhausted and stunned; and the whole world seemed to focus in on Priestess at that moment. I was overwhelmed with longing and gratitude and regrets when I thought of Priestess. She didn't have to be here at all; she didn't even have to be in the Legion. She had told me about her world, Korkush, a Legion world; it was hard to believe she had ever left such a place. Now she was here, at the very end of Atom's Road, a child of the Legion, clutching an E instead of a doll, worrying about casualties instead of boyfriends.

Crawling, cold and frightened and hungry, into the domain of the dead, awaiting the evil embrace of the O's. Hopeless—surely it was hopeless. We did not know what had happened to the mission; deceptors were so heavy, we couldn't even hear command overrides. We were on blackout, dead to the world, cowering like dogs, burrowing like worms, twitching at every sound, every movement.

Priestess deserved better, I knew. We would die together, at least. Together. My eyes roamed over the corridor walls. A slimy, gritty, dark cenite metal. Centuries of filth encrusted the deck. I did not like it. It reminded me of the exos. This was an exoseg world, and this corridor stank of exos. Perhaps the Omnis didn't use it any more—well, that was fine with me.

"How ya doin', Redhawk?" A quiet whisper from Psycho, down the corridor.

"Flying…I'm flying, Psycho. Pink clouds, it's really beautiful. I'm all right, earther, big ten on that." Redhawk was completely out of his head. He was our worst casualty. Priestess had kept him alive and stabilized the wounds and patched his armor. Now he was in Neverland, Nineland, courtesy of Priestess's tender armored fingers. Priestess kept us all alive, in Death's Holy Land. Redhawk could not even walk, now. But Priestess would keep him alive, until we all died. Redhawk, Beta Ten—a certified lunatic. He had gotten us almost there, almost down, when it happened.

Psycho was trying to get Redhawk to swallow his rats. I saw them as shadows in cold muted light. Psycho was having trouble—Redhawk's face was flushed and beaded with sweat, and he was hallucinating and didn't want to eat. Priestess had been struggling with him when Psycho pushed her aside and told her to get something to eat herself.

"Priestess—how you doing?" I whispered it.

She stirred slowly and came to life, looking my way. "Thinker…I'm all right. Psycho, how's Redhawk? Is he eating?"

"Yeah, he's eating now," Psycho responded. "He's not all here, though. You sure you didn't give him too much of that stuff?"

"I gave him the correct dosage. His injuries are extensive—we must spare him the pain." Priestess raised her eyes, looking up into the dark. What was there for her to see? Nothing—there was only nothing, for us all.

Spare him the pain, I thought. Why not the rest of us as well? There was probably a regulation against it somewhere. Pain is good for you—that's what we believed, that was Legion doctrine. Pain is good for you.

The earth trembled, a faint, distant shudder, and suddenly it was as if the corridor was made of jelly and we were moving. We could feel the vibrations in our bones, a deep deep lava heartbeat. Specks of dirt floated down from the roof, and we all froze, in the grip of the Gods, awaiting our fate.

It slowed, and stopped. Once again it was solid rock, all around us. Adrenalin, still flooding my veins. Terror, cold and exhausted. How much more? Deadman, how much more?

"Earthquake. Scut." Five sounded disappointed.

"It's the lake," One informed us. "The whole starport is floating under the lava, and the lava is moving all around it—and through it. The lava must be busting up their starport. We dropped two antis right into the lake—it's got to be an unholy mess by now."

"Nice job," Psycho responded. "How come the O can build a starport like that, when we can't?" Psycho was short and wiry, pale blue eyes and a smooth, child's face. But if you looked closely into his eyes, you could see there was something wrong.

"I'm sure Merlin could explain it," One replied wearily, "but I can't." Merlin was Beta Four, our science wizard.

"Well, let's go back to Atom and ask him." Psycho was an incurable little smart-ass.

"Fine idea," Snow Leopard said. "You got an ops plan that will accomplish that, you let me know." It was indeed a fine idea. Beta Four had all the answers, but he had lost his legs in the Coldmark raid, and he was growing a new pair back on Atom. Atom was all we wanted, just to see Atom, again. Atom's Road was a holy place to us, our only home in a hostile galaxy. Atom held Beta Four; and Beta Eight, Dragon; another casualty from Coldmark. Deadman, I missed them! Merlin was a genius—we could sure use his insight here! And Dragon—he was like a force of nature, he was simply unstoppable. I'd rather have Dragon covering my back than anyone I knew, but Dragon was not with us either. Serious internal injuries, and a clenched fist, to show he'd pull through. There was not much left of Beta now—Two and Seven—Coolhand and Ironman—were also back on Atom, in the Body Shop. Coolhand was my blood brother, from Providence and Hell. It was not the same without his calm, faint smile. I wondered how Ironman was. We all had a soft spot for Ironman, the Kid. But he was long gone now—Two and Four and Seven and Eight were only memories, here in the guts of the beast. Whatever was to happen here would depend entirely on us: our leader Beta One, warname Snow Leopard; our Manlink Beta Five, warname Psycho; our medic Beta Nine, warname Priestess; our pilot Beta Ten, warname Redhawk; and yours truly Beta Three, warname Thinker, the Fool, the Fatalist. Lastly was Beta Six, Warhound, now missing in action. Six soldiers, out for a walk in the dark. We were still on Atom's Road; believe me, we all knew that.

Priestess sat up, her hands moving against the corridor wall. A faint reflection from a cold knife. Now what?

"What're you doing, Priestess?" She did not answer. I moved closer. Her pale face held no emotion. She was scratching something into the dark cenite metal of the corridor wall with her cold knife. I moved the lolite closer. It was a Legion cross, spidery silver lines cut into the black grime of the centuries. She wrote her lover's name under the cross: 12/22.

She put away the knife, and contemplated her handiwork calmly. I wondered if Beta Nine was going over the edge. I pondered the cross. 12/22, the 12th of the 22nd, the 12th Colonial Expeditionary Regiment of the 22nd Legion. The Black 12th, we called it, and the 22nd was the Black Legion, the Rimguard. The Legion was Priestess's lover, and my rival.

She always had a Legion cross on the wall in her quarters. I wondered about that, but I thought it a harmless eccentricity. Priestess was a believer, I knew. And here, in the cold jaws of death, she still believed. I took a deep breath.

"You planning to be here long, Priestess?" I whispered.

She slowly turned her head and focused on me with a sad little smile. "No, Thinker…no, I hope not. I just wanted to show we had been here."

"Who do you think is going to see it?"

She sighed wearily, and let her eyes stray back to the cross. "It doesn't matter, Thinker—it doesn't matter. Probably nobody. But it means we were here. It shows we came this far. This far, at least, into the camp of the O's."

Into the camp of the O's. Lord, that we were! The Twenty-second's motto was "Deliver us from Evil," only in the Legion chant, it was "I will deliver us from Evil." Well, this was it, all right; the O's were all the Evil you could ever want, and it was up to us to do the delivering. It was all up to us—one under-strength squad, Beta of CAT 24, Second of the Ship, Atom's Road, 12th CER, 22nd Legion. And maybe Beta Nine was right; why shouldn't we mark this place with our sign? It might be our epitaph. But even if we were never heard of again, at least we knew we had done it. Perhaps a million stellar years in the future, an intrepid band of brave archaeologists would come probing into a cold, dead world; full of extinct volcanoes and dead lava seas; and billions of bizarre, petrified, monstrous fossils; and come across our Legion cross and the notation: 12/22. What would they think? What sort of lunacy, they would wonder, could have drawn intelligent life to such a violent, savage, primeval world?

What sort of lunacy, indeed? The Second had stated it clearly, back on the
Spawn
. He had put it in terms we could easily understand. The mission was to die, for the Legion. What else did we need? It was as good an explanation as any.

My faceplate lit up. "Alert! Movement!" It was Sweety's clear, metallic voice, right in my ears. My adrenalin exploded.

"Don't move," I hissed. The visible lights vanished, but to me, it was as clear as daylight, a cold green invisible light, my faceplate's darksight illuminating the corridor with its magical glow.

"Life form!" Sweety whispered in my ear. A red glow on my faceplate, outlining the target somewhere down tunnel. "Exoseg Gigantic, species unknown. Advancing as marked."

"Nobody move!" I repeated. "It's an exo—I've got it on scope."

"Scut!" Psycho cursed. "Scut!"

"No movement!" Snow Leopard ordered. "Not a muscle! Thinker, try biobloc. If that doesn't work, go to flame. No energy weapons! The rest of you, as soon as Thinker fires, attack, but until then don't move a frac!" Exos could see in the dark and they could spot the slightest movement. If nobody moved, they would not detect us. I was positively relieved it was only an exoseg. Only an exoseg! The creature could tear us all to shreds and have us for breakfast, armor and all, but they were a lot more fun than the O's—that was a definite ten.

"Species unknown! Exoseg advancing! Recommend no movement!" Sweety was absolutely right. The O had already demonstrated their mastery over these nasty exoseg buggers, and we had no way of knowing what kind of exo this was; we could not let it escape. I was frozen inside my suit, on my knees, the E in my arms. Priestess was on the deck before me.

"One, can we forget the biobloc?" I asked. "Let me go to flame right away." We all know the biobloc would probably not work, and it might spark the creature into fleeing. We did not dare try laser, or xmax. We were afraid the O would detect it—we did not know their capabilities.

"Negative, Three. Do biobloc, then flame." One knows best, kiddies!

"Exoseg Gigantic approaching, species unknown!" Sweety had it on scope. I could see it vaguely now, a green blur twitching on my faceplate.