Marshall Thomas: Soldier of the Legion

“Tenners, Beta. Pilot, AC gate is open. Roll to launch tube.”

“Rolling!” The aircar jerked forward abruptly and shot along the guide rail. We sluiced into the tube with a deafening metallic shriek, slamming us against the restraints. We were now in our assault carrier, and it would deliver us and the other six aircars of CAT 24 into the lower atmosphere of Andrion 2. I had no idea how many other CATs were participating, and I knew better than to ask.

In assault orbit, we watched the screens, A amp;A-armored amp; armed. All systems on, blood pounding in my ears, breath echoing in my helmet. My comrades rode beside me in their gleaming black armor and glowing red faceplates. As cold as death and all juiced up, every nerve ending on full alert. Our assault carrier slowly fell out of orbit, into the dark side, leaving Atom’s Road far behind. A glittering armada of death followed us, a night sky full of fighters and assault craft, alien warriors from far across the galaxy, come to stay. The date on my chron read 312/10/02 CGS, but I knew that was crap. It was Year Zero for Andrion 2.

And for us.

The chosen landing zone was a great, flat, flowered plain. Good killing ground and lots of room. We christened it ZA, Zero Alpha. It reminded me of all the ZAs on Planet Hell.

Being creatures of the great dark, we brought darkness with us. And light. Yes, we certainly brought light. We watched them prep ZA on the screens. Eye-searing antis flashed to life in the dark, again and again and again, turning the night into day. The planet shuddered. Antis scared me. We used antimatter for our star drives, our vac drives, and to settle serious arguments-it was nasty stuff. The screens gave us a view from the Ship, tiny intense brilliant white pinpricks burning on the night side of Andrion 2. The Hand of God, glowing with irresistible power in an alien night.

Come on, Systies-show yourselves!

We dropped opvacs onto ZA, great vacuum bombs, punching huge holes in the atmosphere, creating a horrific windstorm. Then we lit it, a flaming sky, burning it all, right down to the bare rock, a great searing white glow in the night. Then gamma, saturating the landscape, enough to fry the very microbes. Then biobloc-every bloc we could imagine, in the human range. Biobloc was even scarier than antimat-if it was set to your genetics you died a horrible death. We threw in everything we had. We did not want any opposition in ZA.

“Thinker, why are we doing a max?” Merlin was on the private channel. “Doesn’t that mean we’re expecting opposition?” Merlin took everything very seriously, even his occasional bad jokes. He was basically unfamiliar with reality.

“It could be they just don’t want to take any chances. Don’t worry, we’ll do all right, Merlin.” I wasn’t sure we’d do all right, but I wanted to think so.

Ironman broke in, also on private. “Thinker, keep an eye on me on the tacmap, will ya?” He was just a kid-like my little brother.

“Tenners, Ironman. No worries.”

Snow Leopard stepped on our conversation, cutting in on the override squad command channel. “We got it, gang!” He was brimming with confidence. “First wave. We all know what to do. I want this to be better than any of the drills we did on Planet Hell. Beta rules, all the way down-and no chitchat. We do it right!”

When we entered the atmosphere, the assault craft shuddered, and bounced wildly. We were totally helpless. If anything went wrong, we would all die, burnt to cinders, with perhaps an instant or two to realize death was at hand.

The drop song came on. It drove me crazy, I hated it, but they played it every time.

“The past is dead and gone,

The scent of flowers in a tomb,

A half remembered tune,

From a half-remembered time.

Open your eyes, cast off old dreams!

A New World awaits you-

A New World to love you-

Drop, drop, drop!

The Past is dead and gone!”

I switched over to my own sounds. I closed my eyes, and the music of the stars overwhelmed me. I had stopped listening to other music on Hell. Now I had only the music of the stars, hissing and humming and roaring in my ears. Sweety played the recording on demand and it was quite an orchestra, the high pitched howl of blue-white supergiants, the crackling hiss of yellow primes, the awful shriek of stars being ripped apart by black holes, awesome rumbling from gas clouds giving birth to young stars, the hopeless moaning of a black dwarf-it wasn’t really music but I loved it.

As the assault craft approached the target, we saturated the area with opstars, tactical nukes, just in case. This set off another massive firestorm, a great ring of fire all around ZA. Then we blitzed the atmosphere with deceptors. The fighters rushed into the center of the target and left behind long lines of fire, greasy black smoke roaring up into the night, highways of fire for our attack.

The general order from command swamped all channels, “Launch aircars!”

We launched with a lurch and bang that rattled my teeth. It looked like we were invading Dante’s version of Hell. We fell into a roaring inferno, an evil night sky blazing brightly with the flames of Armageddon over a glowing, blasted wilderness of black smoking rocks and burning earth.

Despite my fears, I felt right at home. As we rode the flames to our assigned objectives, a wild cheer burst into my ears.

Snow Leopard barked the warning, “Prep to decar!”

We crowded by the assault doors underneath the glowing red tac lights.

The assault doors snapped open and Snow Leopard led the way into the darkness beyond. “Decar…death!”

We burst from the car into the smoking night, weapons ready, equipment dangling. The firestorm raged around us. Legion fighters blasted overhead, punching holes in the sky. Aircars shot past us, kicking up a wake of black dust.

We dashed to our assigned positions. Oily black smoke hung close to the ground.

“Command, Snow Leopard. Beta is in position!”

We were arrayed in attack formation, tingling with anticipation, weapons at the ready. Nothing stirred, except the Legion. We could see everything, and there was nothing to see. All around us, the land smoked in the darkness. We’d blasted a healthy chunk of real estate into a lifeless moonscape and landed in force, and there was no one there to fight.

Days later, we’d settled into routine patrols, crisscrossing the planet in search of what wasn’t there. Gradually, boredom and frustration clawed at the ragged edges of our resolve. Then it happened! A native!

“Set your E’s on minimum V-stun rounds, ladies. Repeat, v-min.” Snow Leopard was already harassing us-he never let up. I was in the aircar, slipping the comtop helmet over my head. We were at last closing on a native! We’d been called in to pick up the search from the air for the native that Alpha squad had spotted in the forest while on foot patrol. He had gone to ground in a tangle of shrubbery. Redhawk spotted a nearby clearing and swooped down for a hot decar.

We hit the ground running in armor, but it was a short pursuit. He had disappeared into a very narrow tunnel leading down into the earth at a sharp angle. It was just the right size for a Scaler-our name for the scale-clad natives. They were smaller than us, but we could all see that a Legion soldier could fit in there as well-without armor.

Merlin launched a trio of microprobes and they showed a well-worn passageway extending a long, sinuous distance. It didn’t get any wider for a long time, so blasting a larger entrance was out.

I slipped my comtop on and activated the tacmap on my translucent faceplate. The comtop was a scaled-down version of the A-suit helmet. It provided light armor head protection and communication when we weren’t in our A-suits. We hurriedly changed into A-vests, litesuits and comtops.