Curse of the Legion (7 page)

"No, I haven't." It was on my 'must-do' list. The
Silver Cloud
was an air effects liner, a huge passenger craft designed primarily for family vacations. Priestess had been nagging me for months to arrange a trip.

"We'd love to go," Priestess said. "Thanks, Tara. It's tomorrow? But we don't have tickets."

"Don't worry about that. I'll get your tickets and staterooms. How many rooms would you like?"

"Um, maybe two. How much are the tickets?"

"The tickets are free. I'll see you at the Providence skyport at 0800 hours tomorrow."

As Tara departed I noticed Priestess and Millie exchanging glances. They were tense and grim. They appeared distinctly unhappy about the free tickets. I knew better than to ask any questions.

###

The
Silver Cloud
was even more impressive in reality than in the holo pix I had seen of it. It was a gigantic, silvery white air effects liner, reflecting the sunlight of a sparkling new morning as we boarded through one of two great passenger ramps locked to the leading edge of the fuselage. It loomed overhead almost like some titanic stone monument, resting on massive landing supports, seemingly growing out of the bedrock. The ship was roughly hexagonal in shape, flat on top and bottom, with no wings and a projecting nose. There were several decks inside, and wide viewports ran all around the craft, almost from stem to stern. Many of them were open to the morning and we could see people moving around inside.

"Wow!" Millie said as she walked up the ramp with Andrea.

"Wow!" Lester repeated from LiLo's arms.

Wow, I thought. We couldn't see the top of the ship from the ramp.

"Welcome to the Silver Cloud, sir," a smiling young man dressed in ship's whites said. "You're the Wester party? General Hanna has arranged your quarters. Please follow me." The
Silver Cloud
was run by a private firm. We followed him through wide, tastefully decorated corridors bathed in sunlight to two adjoining suites, huge luxurious rooms done in spotless phospho white and gleaming chrome—seemingly set up for an emperor and his concubines.

"I'm beginning to worry about this, Thinker," Priestess said.

"Your idea, Priestess. So don't blame me," I replied.

"Just remember, no matter what, the answer is still no."

"No—right."

###

We watched from an open viewport on starboard as the
Silver Cloud
lifted gracefully from the ground, completely soundless and seemingly as light as a feather. There was no sense of movement except for the view of the skyport, sliding gently away below us.

"No sound?" Millie asked.

"It's powered by a series of huge air effects props down below built into the bottom of the ship," I said. "If you listen carefully you can hear a muffled whisper, but it's built to be soundless."

"It's as if we're floating," Priestess said.

"It's not meant to go fast," I said. "It's meant to fly like a cloud. What a morning! Taste that air! What a view!"

"Is it dangerous?" Millie asked.

"No! Even if we lose all power, we'll just float down to safety. We can land anywhere—land or water."

"This is really something," Priestess said.

I leaned against the railing and breathed in that magnificent morning. Now this was the way to travel!

###

"There's a swimming pool topsides on the Lido Deck," LiLo announced excitedly, with Lester and Andrea in tow. "Two of them, actually! May I take the kids swimming?"

"Is there a wading pool?" Millie asked. Millie and Priestess and I were having brunch in a large dining hall on Deck 2, sipping dox and snacking on smokies and cheese, surrounded by other passengers doing the same. I loved the view, but we had skipped breakfast at home.

"Yes, Ma'am," LiLo replied. "It's all out in the sunlight up there. It's amazing! They have a running track, netball, and lots of other things. All these ladies are walking around in their undies tanning themselves."

I laughed, and so did Priestess and Millie. "Sure, take them, LiLo," Priestess said. "Keep a sharp eye on them. Do you have a bathing suit?"

"No, Ma'am."

"Here, take this—that should be enough. Buy yourself a swimming suit from the ship's store on Deck 1. Lester and Andrea both have those little waterproof things, in the survival kit."

"Yes, Ma'am. Thank you, Ma'am!" She took off with the kids.

"She knows a lot, but there's still a lot she doesn't know," Priestess reflected.

"She's cute," Millie said.

"There you are!" Tara exclaimed, charging into the dining hall. She was still in her blacks, and looked terrific. "I finally got rid of them! How are you all doing?"

"Have some dox, Tara," I said. "Take a seat. We're doing fine. Do you know they have swimming pools up topside?"

"Yes, the Minister of Education invited me to go swimming. He said he'd like to see me in bathing attire."

"And what did you tell him?"

"I said 'In your dreams, sir.'" She took a sip of dox. "Ah, that's good. Actually we had a useful session. We got a brief on the latest sitrep from Asumara."

"Really," I said. "What's the latest?"

"We found the Bold Lady in orbit around Asumara 5. They were refitting it, trying to disguise it. That's all we needed. Their infrastructure is almost totally destroyed by now. The whole planet is burning. We've hit every significant military, government and economic target they've got. Their star fleet is finished. We don't think there's a single intact starship left. All power is gone. Their population is going to be cranky for a long time. We're running out of targets. And this is just the initial reprisal, carried out by Fleetcom and our Phantoms. They can't even see the Phantoms, of course, but they sure as hell know when they hit a target. We haven't even communicated with them yet. But when we do, they'll be told that the ConFree Council has prepared a declaration of war, and unless they meet our terms we will make it formal. Then we'll enforce a galactic embargo and take stronger measures."

"Stronger measures?"

"We'll drop in the Legion and go after their military and government and religious people. Of course we'll use holo-x exclusively. We'll have zero casualties, and we'll slaughter them—just like they slaughtered our people on Fortuna."

"So they have to meet our terms. Do you think they will? What are the terms?"

"I don't really know if they will or not. This is the Blood Empire we're talking about. The U'tal are not really sane. They're religious fanatics, and they worship blood and death. They're cannibals. They eat their enemies, and drink blood from their skulls. They placate their mad god with human sacrifices of babies and virgins. They keep millions of slaves, torture them until they convert to the one true god, and engage in gang rape as punishment for anyone who opposes them. And their pets, those transgen apes—you've seen what they can do." Tara shuddered. I'd never seen her do that before. "Anyway, our terms—we haven't decided yet. There's been a recent development."

"What's that?" I asked. Priestess and Millie were listening in silence, almost like statues.

Tara smiled. It was like the smile of a saint. "You know, Wester, I've seen a lot of blood and death, and sometimes—every once in awhile—I wonder if we're doing the right thing. But then something happens that clarifies everything. It's almost as if Deadman lights it all up with his sword, for us all to see, and understand. I can't tell you how proud I am of our soldiers, Wester. All of them. Soldiers of God—that's what they are." For a moment it looked as if she was going to lose control, but then she softened, and gave us a sad little smile.

"We flooded the planet with eyemotes, Wester, looking for those Fortuna girls who disappeared during the U'tal raid." Six of them, I recalled, missing and presumed kidnapped by the U'tal. "We used tens of thousands of eyemotes," Tara continued. "We just dropped them everywhere. They were all programmed with images of the missing girls, and if even one of them succeeded in locating any one of the targets we'd be happy." Eyemotes were pretty neat, I remembered. We had used them on Dardos. They were the size of a dustmote, undetectable, could operate on their own or under remote control, and could send and receive visual and audio.

Tara took another sip of dox. She seemed completely content. "One of the eyemotes found one of the girls, in a—well, I guess you could call it a rape house—in an obscure suburb of the capital city. We then flooded the area with more eyemotes, and soon located two more of the missing girls in a temple complex. Both were being prepared for a religious ceremony where they were to be eaten alive by the priests. We dropped in a recon team in a Phantom. There was no time to set up the holo-x, so they went in live." She paused, savoring her dox. "Mmm! This is super."

"Come on, Tara!" I urged. "What happened?"

"All three girls rescued, some forty-nine locals killed or wounded, and zero recon casualties."

"All right!"

"The Mission Commander led the squad downside. He's one of our best. And you know him well—Dragon, your former Beta Eight."

"Dragon!" I exclaimed. "All right!" Dragon was certainly one of our best. He was a warrior's warrior.

"Heroes," she said. "They're all heroes. You should have seen those girls, it was so pitiful. They could hardly believe their nightmare was over. I'm so proud of our troops. That's what we do, Wester. That's what the Legion does."

"Tenners on that," I said.

"Of course there are still three girls we haven't located yet. That will be part of our terms—plus the surrender of the entire chain of command responsible for the Fortuna raid. Little things like that. Then we leave the bastards alone again, until their next brainstorm. I wanted to incinerate the planet but the Council thought that was too extreme."

"Extreme? You? No!"

"I learned it from you, Wester. The Council still doesn't get it. These Blood Empire U'tal fanatics are subhuman, brainwashed psychotics. They're not much more intelligent than their man-ape hybrid pets. They'll not stop until they're dead. And we're the ones that will have to do the killing. I'm not sure they'll accept our terms."

"Well, here's hoping you're wrong," I said.

###

The Great Rift was truly spectacular, a giant bleeding gash in the deadlands, dropping off straight down to ochre canyons with wild whitewater rivers cutting through a vast wilderness of magical gorges cut through flat-topped mesas of blue granite. We arrived there just at sunset—Veltros's star was blood red, the Rift was glowing like molten lava, and the Northmark Mountains were a pale purple in the distance. From the
Silver Cloud
we could see from horizon to horizon, and the Rift didn't end—it could have circled the planet for all we could tell.

"Nice view?" Tara asked me. We were on Deck 3, out in the open, leaning on the railing along with a crowd of others, bathing in the view and the sunset. Priestess and Millie were all rifted out, taking a break with the kiddies at the wading pool, but I couldn't get enough of the place.

"It's pretty amazing," I replied. The air was brisk. It was going to be a crisp, clear evening. It didn't rain much in these latitudes.

"These little breaks are important," Tara said. "They clear the mind. I can tell you we need clear minds, for what we're discussing."

"And what are you discussing?"

"The future of ConFree."

"Is this where the Council makes its decisions? On vacation boondoggles?"

"Oh no, no decisions—just thoughts, to bring with you for when the decisions are going to be made."

"I see. What kind of issues are you working on?"

"There are a lot of issues. A pending war with Asumara, biogen delegates from the Hyades, oppressed Outworlders all over…plenty of individual problems. But we can't approach things piecemeal. We have to change our policies first, we have to change our attitudes, we have to adapt to a changing galaxy. If we're going to survive, and prosper, we have to learn from history. We can't just keep on doing what we've been doing. It may have worked in the past, but that doesn't mean it's going to work in the future."

I knew Tara pretty well. She was staring off into that lovely view, but I knew she didn't see it. She wasn't talking to me, she was talking to herself—getting her thoughts straight. I knew I wouldn't have to say much—just let her talk.

"Do you know what happens to empires, Wester?"

"Growth, universal empire, corruption and decay, collapse. Something like that." Every ConFree school kid knew that. We made damn sure of it.

"Exactly. Collapse. Empires collapse. It's a universal law of history. Do you think ConFree is an empire?"

"Well, I've always thought we sure resembled one. I mean, we were grappling with the System, it was a fight to the death, and they were an empire, and we could only defeat them by being bigger and badder than they were. And now they've collapsed. So that leaves us."

"The Empire of ConFree?"

"Until we collapse, I suppose."

"Well I'll tell you a secret, Wester. That's not going to happen on my watch—and ConFree isn't an empire."

"No?"

"No. We have no galactic territorial ambitions. As a matter of fact, we are responding to the dissolution of the System by withdrawing back to our own territory—the Outers. We have no permanent interests in the Inners, the Gulf or the Gassies. Our home is the Outvac—the Crista Cluster, Dindabai, Andrion, Veda and other Outers worlds."

"Withdrawing! That wasn't what we were doing a few years ago. You told me yourself that we were going to land on every System world, and cleanse it of slavery. We were going to fight forever, for as long as it took to drive a cenite stake into the heart of the System, and kill off galactic slavery for all time. I accepted it, but I assumed that our leaders were all insane."

"That's right, Wester. That was our policy. We were in a fight to the death. But that's over now. We won. Yes, the System's still alive. But they're no longer a threat. They are doomed by the forces of history. Empires collapse. They're collapsing. And we did it."