Curse of the Legion (21 page)

"A gang of Systie big shots, I suppose. Is it important?"

"It sure is. I can't tell you whether my strategy with the O's will have positive results. But sending the recording to the System seems to be working."

"How's that?"

"Some of our most sensitive sources in the System have just reported a major political purge is underway. Initial reports indicate many high-ranking System officials have been detained, interrogated, mindscanned and imprisoned—and the purge is growing."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"I think it's the direct result of that recording I sent to Chairman Darton.
Think the unthinkable, plan the audacious
—advice from the enemy, Wester. Good advice."

"Why do you think that? Who's being arrested?"

"I think it shows my suspicions are confirmed. It's the Ormans who are being arrested. All of the victims of this purge are Ormans. Jarzha Gwinn is an Orman—and he was addressing his Orman colleagues in that talk. That's who the audience was, I'm sure: Orman officials, and only Orman officials. They staff the highest levels of the System government, they wield great influence. And their comfortable little world is now coming unravelled. The Mocains have always been uneasy with the Ormans, and unless I'm badly mistaken, my recording has tipped the balance in showing the Mocains that the Ormans are a subversive influence, loyal only to themselves."

"Good lord. It's almost as if you've instituted the purge,"

"No, it's not me, Wester. It's the Mocains who are doing the purging, not me. I'm just a facilitator. I'm just shining the spotlight. The Ormans have gotten too powerful, too arrogant, too self-confident. They think they can do anything. But they're wrong. The System was unaware of that meeting. It was a Mocains-only show. I was just lucky enough to have caught it with that eyemote."

The buzzer sounded again.

"Yes?" Tara asked.

"It's General Rono, sir. He wants to…"

"I'll see him. Wester, take the back door. I think I've tried the general's patience long enough. Remember—any problems, see me."

"Thank you, Tara."

"Bless you, Wester. We'll find your wife—don't worry!"

Chapter 16
The Sword of Light

"Take a look," I said. We were facing a pale d-screen that focused on what looked like a stone hut built into a dirt hillside. It was the dead of night on Andrion 2, but a soft morning on the screen. "This is real-time. A Q-link eyemote. It's bloody miraculous," I continued. We huddled around the screen in an otherwise darkened recon comcen. I was in the chair, exhausted but elated—little beads of sweat were trickling down my temples. Deadeye and Stormdawn bent over the screen, soft green light illuminating their narrow faces. They both still wore death paint. It would not come off until the mission was over, or they were dead. Dragon was in another chair, a formidable presence, leaning forward as if to devour the image.

"We go in," I whispered. I touched the controls gently with one hand. The view focused in on the hut, then floated towards a wooden door that appeared to be firmly shut. I maneuvered the eyemote right through the crack between door and frame. The view darkened, then slowly adjusted. We floated near the ceiling, looking down. The view showed a large room, full of bulky wooden furniture, large chests and bins and oversized beds piled with bedding and evidently full of slumbering giants. A low fire flickered eerily in a wide stone hearth, casting the only light. Two figures tended the fire, adding tinder and setting pots and pans of food over the fire. Breakfast, for the family. The first figure was huge, clad in a dark robe. She was evidently female, but her body was almost entirely covered in short, curly dark hair. The firelight lit up her face, a giant female savage looking out past thick tangled brown hair that framed her head like a halo—a heavy brow ridge, deep-set liquid eyes, wide nostrils, and a wide, somewhat sensitive mouth. The second figure was considerably smaller—a human, also female. Her graceful bare arms glowed almost gold in the firelight as she adjusted the pans. She was also clad in a dark robe. Long straight black hair fell to her shoulders like silk. Her face was serene, and her dark eyes reflected the fire as the shadows danced over her high cheekbones and delicate, narrow face. I clenched my teeth savagely as the tears again filled my eyes.

"Mama!" Stormdawn's hand hovered over the d-screen. He was trembling, and I knew he couldn't see her any better than I could, at that point.

"Deadman!" Dragon exclaimed.

"I thank the Gods," Deadeye whispered in astonishment. I didn't have to say a word. I just let them watch her preparing breakfast. Some of the giants in the beds were stirring. It was time to get up. I tried to compose myself. I finally spoke.

"I told you I'd find her. She's alive. And we're going to go and get her!"

"Who are these creatures?" Deadeye asked. "How do we fight them?"

"We don't fight them. These are good creatures. They are friends. As long as Moontouch is with them, she'll be safe from the O's. You can think of them as angels, if you want. They are…holy."

"What's the target?" Dragon asked. He had not yet been briefed.

"I can't tell you yet. Except that this particular target is over 10,000 light years away. Nobody's ever been there—except the O's. And the O's are there. Plenty of them."

"How did she get away from them?" Dragon asked.

"She didn't," I replied. "The O ship took her to this world. They evidently sent their human cargo downside, and the natives welcomed the detainees into their homes."

"Why did the O's do that?"

"I don't know. Maybe they figure it's easier to let the natives handle their captives for them, until they need them back."

"This is Gildron's home world, isn't it?"

"That's right, Dragon. Here—watch this." I switched the view to another eyemote. It was floating high above the little settlement, revealing a series of stone huts built into low hills near a little stream of fresh water.

"Aren't you afraid you'll lose Moontouch?"

"No. I've got four eyemotes locked on to her. If we lose any, they'll be replaced. We've got plenty of eyemotes. We'll not lose her. Now look over there."

The eyemote showed a series of interlocking crystal-like structures not far off, reflecting the early morning sunlight. They were quite beautiful.

"What's that?"

"Those are Omni hives—it's where they live. Their version of squadmods, I suppose. As you can see, it's direct line of sight to our target. The Omnis are all over this world. This is just the closest hive."

"So if we drop here to snatch Moontouch, we can expect to engage the O's in combat."

"That's a ten. But that's not all we have to worry about. Moontouch is not the only Taka captive staying with the Daz'ra. We're still tracking everyone down, but so far we've got twenty-seven other Taka in this vicinity."

"I see," Dragon said.

"Oh, that's not all. There are also eight ConFree captives—in the immediate vicinity."

"Terrific. And how much time do we have to do this?"

"Maybe five marks. That's about it. That's all Tara will give us. After that, all hell is going to break loose, and the O's may lose interest in us quickly. But if we hang around too long, chances are high we'll run into an antimat."

"Do you have any good news for me?" Dragon asked.

"Yes. I've found my wife, Stormdawn has found his mother, Deadeye has found his Queen, and we're about to liberate twenty-eight Taka and eight Outworlders from the O's. And even if we fail, we're going to exterminate a great many O's, and leave a cleaner galaxy behind us. That's the good news."

###

"It all seems rather straightforward," I said, leaning over the tacmap that glowed on the circular holo table. It was a perfect 3D representation of the target, now zooming out to include the nearest Omni hive.

"That's what worries me," Dragon said.

"It
is
straightforward," Snow Leopard said. "The only problem is the time constraints." He was rubbing his hands together slowly as his hot pink eyes glared at the holo. Snow Leopard hadn't changed at all—straight white-blond hair, an icy pale face, blue veins throbbing at his temples and those burning pink eyes—nothing could escape them. It was terrific having him here, and in charge of the planning. He was my first squad leader, and Dragon and I trusted him with our lives.

"We should have Holo-X," I noted. "It's crazy not to have Holo-X. Why should we go in live? The op may fail without Holo-X."

"You need a platform to use Holo-X," Snow Leopard noted calmly, "and we ain't got no platform." He'd said it before.

"We should!" I'd said that before, too.

"Three, General Hanna says no Holo-X. You know why. The future of humanity may depend on a successful attack on Mantis. This will be our only chance to destroy the entire Omni fleet—at one go. By all rights she shouldn't even agree to your op, but she's giving you five marks. That's it. And we're not giving the O's any warning with some tacship suddenly appearing to serve as a platform for a Holo-X attack."

"We can do it, Thinker," Dragon said. "We don't need Holo-X. We drop in a phantom, grab Moontouch and hustle her into the ship."

"I told you, she'll not come. She'll insist we evac all the others—all the Taka and all the Outworlders. I can predict the future too, you see."

"Well, we'll just have to do it. Or as much of it as we can."

"I'm going to stun her if it comes to that," I declared.

"You'll be sleeping alone for ten years," Dragon noted.

"I don't care. She's the mission. Not everybody else. We can't evac the whole damned world in five marks. Suppose she wants us to take the Daz'ra too? Deadman!"

"Let's see the attack again," Snow Leopard demanded. There were only the three of us in the tacmod. It was dark in there except for the glow of the holo. It lit us up, three soldiers of the Legion, clad in dark camfax fatigues, mapping out the future.

"Mark!" I said, triggering the attack. The tacmap was now illuminated faintly—a pale silvery moon cast a bewitching glow. Our Phantom appeared from the northwest, a single blue dot simulating the fact that it was completely shielded, completely invisible to the enemy and all their defensive systems. The ship smoothly glided to a landing just behind the little series of hills that were riddled with the Daz'ra's stone burrows. Ten A-suited soldiers burst from the Phantom, now covered by the hills which blocked line of sight to the nearest O hive. The ten soldiers starburst, but they were all headed up the hills and over the top, bound for the huts on the other side. They soon appeared on the far side, and at that point they were visible to any O who happened to be on watch. It was night and the O's lovely crystal hive glowed a faint pink in the distance. Three A-suited soldiers blew away the door of the hut that held Moontouch, and entered. That would be me, Deadeye and Stormdawn. I knew that hut all right. It was carved right into my heart. We still had a hell of a lot to do but from that moment on it was all over for me. The only thing to decide was how many of us were going to die.

"Four marks!" Snow Leopard barked.

"Damn it! This is impossible! We've only entered one hut." I objected. The rest of the squad were still hustling toward the other target huts. The Phantom was rising, popping over the hills and settling down into the designated evac site. And suddenly tacstars were flashing all around the huts. A gang of armored, shielded Omnis were charging forward from the hive. The reaction team—terrific! The Phantom popped up and lunged forward at the O's, spraying the area with tacstars.

"Fleetcom is now launching the strategic attack," Snow Leopard announced. "You've got less than a mark to evac the area. Antimats are on the way."

"Deto!" I noted. "This won't do."

"We'll have to have the Phantom nuke the hive before we do anything else," Dragon said.

"More time wasted," Snow Leopard observed. "We don't know the reaction team is going to come at us like that. It's just a possibility. We'll be watching them with the eyemotes. It could be there'll be no reaction at all."

"But we have to prep for it." I said.

"Of course," Snow Leopard said, maddeningly calm. "We have to prep for everything. But you also have to decide what's likely and what's not likely. Why should they react so quickly? They're fat and happy. The natives are friendly. The O's suspect nothing."

"Scut!"

"Decision time is fast approaching to launch Operation Lotus. This will be the most massive attack Fleetcom has ever launched. We're going to destroy their fleet—all of it. And we're going to annihilate their downside installations—all of them."

"And what about the natives—Gildron's people?"

"There's nothing we can do about them. The question is does all of humanity survive or die. That's what we have to worry about. Nothing else."

"They die, so we can live?"

"That's correct. Now remember, if anyone asks, this is Operation Lily, and the target is Mongera. That's what everybody thinks, at this stage. The true target will be revealed only after we're in the hole. All right, let's get to work. Once we're launched, the whole squad will practice in the E-sim holo chambers, repeatedly, until we get it right. We'll be on Atom's Road, and the ES chambers are fully integrated. It's going to be a long trip—but when we get there, we'll be ready."

"Atom's Road!" Dragon exclaimed. She was our first starship—an old friend.

"Atom's Road," I repeated quietly. It was a good sign.

###

"You remember my girl," Redhawk said. We were in the launch deck of the cruiser
Spawn
, docked with
Atom's Road
, and we were on vac run red, barreling our way into the hole, into the out and out to the in, cutting a terrifying artificial wormhole right into the heart of the cosmos, going further than anyone had gone before. And we weren't alone. Almost all of Fleetcom was with us and much of the ConFree Legion as well. Redhawk and I huddled in the shadows under a giant, icy black bird that was so grim and deadly that it seemed almost alive. I reached up and touched her frosty skin. The cenite armor was close to indestructible but it was so smooth and slick it seemed—almost liquid. I couldn't quite make out the shape. It was roughly delta-shaped, but it seemed to kind of fold in on itself just when you thought you had it. The damned thing was gigantic.

"Is this…the same gal who took us to Augusta 6?"

"That's right, Thinker. This is the Kiss." Redhawk looked up at her in adoration. His greasy, tangled red hair reached to his shoulders and his ratty, scruffy beard was in worse shape than ever, but his bright blue eyes were glowing. "She's my lover and she's one tough bitch. This is our honey. The Spawn will launch us, far beyond the Mantis planetary system, beyond the O's defensive systems. And Kiss will take us there—she's a long-range shuttle and she's invisible, completely cloaked. And if the O's do spot her, she'll make them wish they hadn't. I can promise you that." He ran a finger along her skin tenderly.

"I remember the Kiss," I said. We had been through a lot together, the
Kiss
and I. Augusta 6, where we had rescued Tara, the Calgoran raid, the Camelora 7 raid where we had fought the O's with Holo-X and then slaughtered a large number of ConFree children—for their own good, of course. Odura, on our search for the origin of the White Death. That early raid on Pherdos, and the Santos recon where Priestess was horribly wounded. And Eiros 4, the ultimate mission, where we confronted KCA himself.
Kiss
was there for it all. She was always dependable, always there. And I knew Redhawk was the best pilot in the galaxy. Recon didn't use aircars any more—they used Phantoms. So, it was to be the
Kiss
. That was good.
Atom's Road
,
Spawn
and the
Kiss
. Those had to be good signs.

"You can depend on me, Thinker. I'll be there for the evac. And if the O's attack, Kiss and I will kill them all, very quickly. You can depend on that too. Believe it!"

"I believe you, Redhawk."

"How's Priestess?"

"She's fine. Back on Providence, raising our kid—Lester."

"And your other wife? You've got a kid by her too, don't you?"