Legion Of The Damned - 01 - Legion of the Damned (14 page)

Those who knew both men said that Leonid Chien-Chu resembled his father, though the son was a good bit taller and as slim as a commando knife. There were laugh lines around Leonid’s eyes and mouth. They grew deeper when he spoke.

“Red took all the data from the last seven attacks, ran it through Spinhead, and came up with an estimated time of attack.”

Narbakov turned on Red. His expression would have turned many people to stone. “Is that true?”

“Of course,” Red answered cheerfully. “What? Do I look stupid?”

“Yes,” Narbakov replied. “Thanks to that shirt. I want my money back.”

Red grinned as the officer snatched the money out of his hand.

“So,” Leonid said, doing his best to sound unconcerned, “are you going to do something about the incoming ships?”

Narbakov looked surprised as if unable to understand why the merchant would ask such a silly question.

“Sure ... they should be in range about a minute from now. That’s when operation boomerang goes into effect. Then, after the geeks sort that out, my cyborgs will open fire.”

“And the combination will be sufficient to hold them off?”

Narbakov glanced at the screens. “Yeah ... for the moment. But who knows? Hell, there’s a miniature fleet out there. They have enough firepower to open this roid like a can of baked beans. It might be different if we had some ships, or fighters, or some idea of when help might arrive. But we don’t, so if the geeks really want this chunk of real estate, they’re gonna take it.”

Leonid thought about that. The Hudathans had the power ... but would they use it? The planetoid called “Spindle,” and the equipment on it, were critical to obtaining the substance known as “stardust.” An all-out battle might destroy the very thing they wanted, which would explain why the aliens had held some of their forces back.

But what if he was wrong? Or the Hudathans grew tired of the prolonged battle and moved to end it? What then?

The lights dimmed as power was drained away from the main fusion plant and Narbakov spoke into his mike. Every legionnaire on Spindle heard what the officer said and knew what he meant.

“Remember Camerone.”

 

Rulon Mylook-Ra watched the asteroid fill more and more of his heads-up wraparound visual display. The planetoid was more than three hundred units long and half that at its widest point. One end was larger than the other and permanently pointed towards the sun. This was rather convenient from Mylook-Ra’s point of view, since the closest end boasted some of the best targets and put the sun behind him.

The boat had its own navcomp, but to avoid any possibility that their assault craft could be used against them, generations of Hudathan war commanders had placed most of the processing capacity on board their larger ships. This approach had a number of negative implications, including a heightened susceptibility to electronic counterm
easures, and a potentially disastrous effect should one or more of the mother ships be destroyed.

But none of these problems confronted Mylook-Ra as he vectored in on the asteroid, chose a high-priority target, and gave the necessary order.

The ship jerked as a flight of missiles raced away. Each missile had its own guidance system, so the Hudathan was free to activate his secondary weapons. They consisted of two energy cannons mounted under each of the assault boat’s stubby wings.

Energy stuttered out, drew red-hot lines across the planetoid’s rocky surface, and intersected at an antenna array. Pieces of metal spun free, supports collapsed, and what was left glowed cherry red. The Hudathan pulled up and looped around.

Mylook-Ra felt a sense of satisfaction. It turned to concern when he realized that his missiles were unaccounted for. They should have hit the target by now, or failing that, destroyed themselves. And there was another anomaly as well. He had encountered almost no defensive fire. Why was that? Previous flights had experienced stiff resistance.

The Hudathan triggered the com link and was just about to ask the flagship for more information when an entire array of alarms went off. Mylook-Ra was still thinking his way through the problem when the missiles he had fired moments before hit his ship and blew up.

 

Leonid weighed less than three earth pounds and held onto an air duct for additional stability. A series of monitors carried the action. The Hudathan assault craft exploded, Red whooped, and Narbakov nodded approvingly.

“Nice going, Red, but it won’t work next time.”

Leonid knew what the officer meant. Stardust, the almost magical stuff that had brought them there in the first place, was gathered by remotely controlled spacecraft called star divers.

It takes a lot of sophisticated equipment to guide a spaceship through a sun’s corona and bring it home again. Equipment that Red had used to subvert and redirect the Hudathan missiles. A total of four ships had been destroyed.

It was a neat trick but it would only work once. There were any number of things the Hudathans could do to protect against similar attempts in the future.

Narbakov eyed the screens and activated his mike. “Another flight is on its way. Let’s show them what it means to attack the Legion.”

 

I’ll tell you what it means, a cyborg named Seeger thought to himself. It means that some poor bastard will get his ass blown off. Never mind that it’s made of plastic and metal ... it hurts just the same.

An entire platoon of Trooper IIs was assigned to Narbakov’s company. Some had been killed by now, but the remainder were located on Spindle’
s rocky surface, hiding behind low-lying ridges or in the craters that dotted the planetoid’s surface. Hiding, and waiting for the next flight of fighters, at which point they would become sentient antiaircraft batteries.

Seeger had taken the name of the Legion’s best known poet, considered himself to be something of an intellectual, and felt sure that Narbakov’s novel use of cyborgs would wind up in the textbooks. Assuming anyone survived to tell the story.

Seeger stood, scanned the input relayed to him from Spinhead, and counted the incoming ships. There were thirteen ... fourteen ... fifteen of the no-good homicidal sonsofbitches. The cyborg tracked the fighters with the intensity of a person whose life depended on the outcome. Which it did.

Around Seeger, and behind him, the other members of the platoon did likewise. There were thirty-two in all, down from thirty-seven when the attacks had begun, and spread thin to minimize casualties.

The best target on Spindle consisted of the huge ramp-shaped railgun. It was used to launch the star divers and had been constructed within a V-shaped valley, a fact that had forced the aliens to fly a predictable path during low-level attacks and had enabled Narbakov to prepare a novel strategy.

Though not on a par with the heavily armored surface installations the aliens had destroyed during previous attacks, the cyborgs were highly mobile and could fire twelve mini-missiles without reloading. By lining both sides of the valley with Trooper Ils, Narbakov had created a veritable gauntlet of defensive fire.

Thirty-two cyborgs, launching two missiles a second, could fire 384 independently targeted weapons in roughly twelve seconds.

So, lulled into a false sense of security caused by the lack of ground fire during their first pass, and angered by the casualties inflicted by their own missiles, the Hudathans came in fast and low. Command swore that their missiles would track properly this time, but the pilots didn’t believe it and stuck to their secondaries. Lines of blue energy plowed red-hot furrows across the asteroid’s rocky surface.

Seeger had little more than a fraction of a second in which to see an incoming fighter, run a solution, and fire. By slaving his computer to Spinhead, and by working as part of a cybernetic network, his accuracy was greatly enhanced. Death lashed out from both his launchers and sped towards the assault boats.

Unlike their mother ships, the fighters were too small to mount defensive energy fields, so a hit was a hit.

A ship filled Seeger’s targeting grid, floated under the red X, and came apart as five or six missiles struck it. The resulting wreckage hit the ground about five miles away and, unrestrained by gravity, cartwheeled his way. The fighter was no more than a mile off when it exploded and sent chunks of metal flying in every direction.

“Move! Move! Move!”

The order came from Seeger’s platoon leader, a bio bod named Umai, and didn’t need repeating. The second wave of Hudathans had plotted their positions by now and were on their way.

Seeger turned and ran-shuffled towards his next position. It was important to move quickly but to do so without breaking surface contact. Sure, the asteroid’s anemic gravity would pull him back down five or ten minutes later, but he’d be dead by then.

A pair of fighters swooped overhead, and a line of explosions rippled along the ground behind him. Seeger dived into a crater, rolled, and bounced to his feet. It was a mistake and he knew it. His boots had already broken contact with the ground, and he was soaring upwards when someone wrapped their arms around his knees.

“Whoa, big fella ... keep that up and you’ll be in orbit.”

Seeger mumbled words of appreciation as the man pulled him down.

The civilians wore brightly decorated space armor. One featured a jungle motif and the other was covered with self-referential sayings that Seeger managed to ignore. They had learned their duties less than twelve hours before but carried them out with efficiency and a certain amount of panache.

One took his right side and the other his left. Missile magazines floated away and new ones were snapped into place. A hand slapped Seeger’s arm. The voice was female this time and originated from the suit with the jungle motif.

“Good luck, soldier. We’ll meet you at position number three.”

Seeger nodded his gratitude and turned his attention to Spinhead’s feed. A dozen globe-shaped things had appeared over the foreshortened horizon and were gliding towards him.

Sunlight hit one side of the objects and left the other dark. They looked a lot like the airborne float pods that drifted across the surface of his native Elexor each spring. Except that the float pods were harmless.

Death stuttered down, caught a pair of civilians shuffling towards cover, and popped them like organic balloons. Were they the ones who had rearmed him? He couldn’t tell.

Seeger swore, launched two missiles, and fired his gas-jacketed machine gun. The recoil pushed him backwards and threatened to dump him on his can, but the results were worth it. The pod was well within range and the lack of an atmosphere allowed the bullets to gain even more inertia. They drew a beautiful red line between his arm and the globe.

Seeger had no way of knowing what had destroyed the thing—the missiles or the bullets—but it blew up and showered him with slow-motion debris.

Umai came on-line.

“L-One to L-Troop. Here’s some scoop from Spinhead. The pods are
unmanned
. Repeat, unmanned.”

Seeger gave a grunt of disgust as he left the crater for position number three. The pods were unmanned. So fraxing what? They could kill you just as dead, couldn’t they? Officers. Dumb shits one and all.

The civilians were waiting behind an outcropping of rock. They were uninjured, which made Seeger glad. The man spoke first.

“Good shooting, soldier ... you nailed that pod but good.”

“Damned straight,” the woman added. “How’s your ammo?”

Seeger ran a reflexive check. He still had ten missiles, 82 percent of his machine-gun ammo, and enough power to run his energy cannon full bore for five minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

“I’m in good shape. Haul butt and I’ll meet you at position four.”

The civilians signaled their agreement and were about to depart when Narbakov came on-line. Seeger held up a restraining hand. The civilians waited.

“N-One to L-Troop. You did a nice job. Go to condition three, repeat, condition three.”

Condition three translated to “standby.” Seeger motioned for the civilians to return and scanned the horizon. Nothing. For the moment anyway.

The legionnaire sat down, wished that he had lungs to smoke a cigarette with, and waited for Lieutenant Umai to say something stupid. It didn’t take long.

 

Red stood and stretched. “That’s all, folks. Spinhead predicts another major attack in about four hours with assorted harassment missions in between.”

Leonid forced himself to release the air duct and found that his fingers hurt. They’d survived another attack. He thought about the empire, about the Emperor, and about his father.

What were they doing anyway? Where was the Navy? The Marine Corps? And all the other government types who were paid to handle this sort of thing? Surely the message torps had arrived by now.

What about his wife, Natasha? She’d be worried—that much was certain—but what was she doing? Was she running a comb through her long black hair? Humming softly as she wrote a letter? Laughing at something his mother had said? She had a wonderful laugh that sounded like bells tinkling.

Narbakov’s voice jerked him back to reality.

“Come on, Leo ... it’s time for the daily damage assessment.”

Leonid nodded and followed the officer out of the control center and into an emergency lock. A hatch slid closed behind them. A message had been printed on the wall. It was overlaid with graffiti but still readable. “We hope that you enjoyed your visit to Fatside Control. Please come again.”

Spindle had a prolate shape, similar to that of an eggplant, or spindle, hence the name. The blunt end, commonly referred to as “Fatside,”
was eternally pointed towards the sun, while the other end, “Thinside,” was pointed away.

So the names made sense even if the sign didn’t.

The forward hatch hissed open and Narbakov stepped out. Leonid followed.