Legionnaire Read online

  And yeah… we’re all dead.

  Eventually.

  But if the koobs don’t suffer a minimum thirty-to-one loss for each legionnaire they dust, I’ll die one pissed-off sergeant. Granted, we’re not outnumbered thirty to one right now. It’s maybe two to one. Maybe. But it’s a long trip back to Camp Forge. We’ve got time to run up the score.

  Attention! LS-55, Sergeant C.Chhun.

  My helmet’s AI has something to say.

  The visor is alive with a HUD that indicates the location of my squad, green dots on a blue circular grid. Enemy combatants spotted by a legionnaire show up as red dots until they disappear as a confirmed kill. If we lose sight of a target long enough for the computer to no longer accurately predict its location, the dot turns yellow and stays fixed at its last confirmed location.

  I’m seeing a corvette-load of red dots. Too many yellows for my taste, as well.

  Assessing Threats.

  Assessing Threats.

  The message blinks in the upper left corner of my visor, superimposed over the optical scans of the ambush zone. Our buckets all run a software programmed by Republic scientists dedicated to keeping legionnaires the most fearsome warriors in the galaxy. It sounds great in theory, but it ends up being more of a distraction than a help. Still, the House of Reason loves it, and the contractors who make each bucket love the House of Reason. So we deal with it.

  Primary Target: Model M6 Heavy Tank.

  Manufacturer: Industrious Equipment.

  Planet of Origin: Unknown.

  Registration: Unknown.

  Manufacturer’s Recommended Crew: 5 humans/near-humans.

  Actual Crew: Unknown.

  Display Technical Schematic? Y/N

  That right there? That’s the problem. My visor is full of garbage text when “Tank!” would have done just fine. I flick my tongue across a sensor inside my helmet to turn off the message display. I wish that would do the trick permanently, but all it does is prevent any more updates for fifteen minutes. No time to be upset about it. This is how it is, and there is a tank out there.

  I look at the convoy behind me. The sleds in the rear are backing down the narrow, high-walled alley that winds through a farmer’s village on the way to Moona. The koobs fighting nearest are all hiding behind walls or in buildings. They’ve learned that when a legionnaire sees a koob in the open, he doesn’t miss. A few of them are sticking a rifle over the top of a wall and shooting blindly. But then I see a leej gunner on his sled’s twins blow off a three-fingered hand, and that practice seems to stop as well.

  The tank is on top of a ridge about a thousand yards away. That might be in range for the personal anti-armor missiles each squad carries, if it were a clean shot, but this tank is behind a wall of rock with thick branches from two spoonja trees further obscuring it. We’ll have to get closer to disable it. Time for a little mountain climbing.

  I drop down from the twins into a waiting group of leejes, all of them jumping for a chance to get in the fight. Twenties has come around, but massive blisters crowd his eyes, making him effectively blind. I send the basic up to take a turn on the guns and brief my guys. The kid hops right up without hesitation. If he’s afraid, he’s not showing it to the rest of us. He soon adds to the cacophony of noise.

  I give an impromptu briefing. “Hostiles are concentrated south of the caravan. Most have been suppressed by the twins, but there’s an old-model MBT on a ridge that’s going to pick the sleds off one by one if we don’t take it out. L-comm is still flooded with noise, too much talking from the basics out there. I want you to find Sergeant Powell and tell him we’re taking that ridge. He should be the sled immediately behind us. Ready to lower ramp?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m going to inform the point about what we’re doing. Form up with me when you’ve got Powell and his guys. Ooah?”

  “Ooah!”

  The men prime their N-4s and begin to take up formation at the rear of the sled, waiting for the order to disembark. I pull Quigs aside. “How’s Twenties?”

  “He’ll live. Out of the fight, though.”

  “The hell I am,” Twenties calls from his jump seat. He unstraps the vibroknife from his shin.

  Quigs is on him instantly, holding his wrist tightly. “What’re you doing, Twenties?”

  “Just need to see. Gonna pop these blisters.”

  Quigs sighs. “That’s… don’t do that.”

  “I’d prefer if you did, Doc.”

  I break in. “Will he be able to see well enough to shoot if you bust open those blister sacs?”

  “Possibly,” Quigs answers. “Could be some permanent scarring, potential vision trouble down the road.”

  I nod. “Your call, Twenties.”

  “Do it.”

  I can’t help but smile behind my helmet. What a beast. “Carve him up, Doc. Twenties, you’re on overwatch.”

  Using a sterilized scalpel from his kit, Quigs slices open the blisters. Water spills out onto the deck, and Twenties grits his teeth in pain. Quigs stands back to examine his work. “Can you see?”

  “It’s blurry, but good enough to drop a koob if it puffs up its purple throat sac.”

  Twenties gets in line behind Exo and the rookie, Quigs on his heels.

  I again pull the medic aside. “I want you to check on Pappy’s sled. See if there’s any chance…”

  “Roger.”

  Quigs gets behind me, taking the final place in line usually reserved for the sled master. It’s still on me to call for the ramps to open. Sleds have one main ramp that drops down and another that opens upward, so the back of a combat sled looks like a pair of jaws opening to spew out squads of sleek legionnaires in their gray combat armor.

  I put my hand over the sled’s ramp button. “Final check!”

  Each squad member calls his number.

  “LS-67! Go!”

  “LS-95! Go!”

  Twenties grunts out his call sign, still in pain. “LS-81! Go!”

  “LS-55!” I shout. “Go! Go! Go!”

  The ramp drops with a thud the moment I press the button. The cracking of slug throwers and sharp kewps of blasters fill our audio sensors. The loudest noises are canceled out to keep from drowning ambient noise, which can be critical in battle. You never know when someone might be sneaking up behind you. Also, fun fact, loud noises can cause permanent hearing damage. Polarized lenses automatically eliminate the glare of the outside sun, and I watch my guys fly outside like they’ve got rockets on their backs the moment they see open air. They’re a bunch of cooped-up dogs making a break for it when the front gate opens.

  We’ve practiced sim disembarkations hundreds of times and have rolled out from live combat sleds onto the field almost as often. By the time a legionnaire undertakes his first CS storming, the motions are all muscle memory. From my vantage point at the end of the line, it’s a thing of beauty. Exo and the rookie move in quick step, each peeling off at the base of the ramp and covering a side of the sled. Exo takes a knee on the soft side, scanning our rear and flanks for any yellow dots that our HUD might have missed. Rook takes a knee on the hot side, his extremely heavy, rapid-fire automatic blaster hoisted higher than human arms could manage thanks to powerful servos built into his armored sleeves. Never agree to arm-wrestle a SAB user unless he’s only wearing his synthprene.

  Twenties is out next, moving quickly and burying his pain somewhere deep inside. He takes his place behind Exo and places his hand on his shoulder. At this point Exo will identify targets that Twenties will help engage. Exo gives the all-clear and moves to join the rookie, leaving Twenties to cover the cold zone.

  As man four, I move to whichever side has an odd number. I put my hand on Twenties’s shoulder. It all happens in seconds.

  “What looks good, Twenties?” I ask, though I have a decent idea where he’ll want to go.

  Twenties points two fingers at a stone building with a flat roof not far from our sled. “Right there. Help me clear it,
Sarge?”

  This is where being down a man hurts. Time is of the essence, and we can’t take that ridge until I’ve called in to Captain Devers. But leaving Twenties to set up and secure his long rifle in overwatch alone is unacceptable. So we’ll have to do it quick.

  KTF.

  “Let’s go,” I order, before leading the way.

  There’s a three-foot-high stone wall on the side of the road. I hop over it in stride, taken aback by the extra couple of feet I fall before landing in some sort of garden. I scan the surroundings through the open sights of my N-4 while Twenties makes his way over somewhat more gingerly.

  Our target building is a squat, square house constructed almost entirely out of the abundant rocks that cover Kublar. The doors are solid enough, but they don’t have anything on modern automated pneumatic portals. They’re built from a dense, perennially green wood found near water supplies. The windows are just holes in the rock facade. Fancy koobs try to arch them; most just go with another square. A few have shutters, but that’s hit or miss. The one we’re moving toward is the simple type.

  Twenties and I move on either side of the door in breaching position. I reach down and try the handle.

  It’s barricaded. No surprise.

  With his helmet destroyed, Twenties pulled out his conduction set prior to disembarking. He whispers into his external mic, hoping only the two of us can hear each other. With buckets, we can just mute external speakers, but… “I’ve got an entry charger, Sarge.” He reaches into a thigh pouch and removes the small, sticky explosive.

  “Save it. We’ll go through the windows after clearing.” I produce a fragger from my chest bandoleer. ”There’s a window on the other side—you go in that way. We’ll clear corners and get on the roof.”

  “Probably koobs in there.”

  “Probably should’ve warned us about the ambush.” That ends the discussion.

  I move to the edge of the window, careful not to expose myself. Bone conductors in my helmet amplify the sound of someone shifting around inside. I hesitate for a second, wondering if maybe another legionnaire had eyes on this hut first. Then I hear the telltale wheeze-croak of a koob air sac inflating.

  I toss in the grenade, shouting “Fragger out!” into my L-comm. I roll back and brace myself against the exterior stone wall of the building. My armor is able to absorb all the kinetic energy of a fragger, but the little monster shoots out so many minuscule projectiles that some of them will find their way to the seams and shred through my synthprene undersuit.

  The grenade explodes, and a cloud of black smoke shoots from the windows and beneath the door. The boom is loud enough that I can feel it in my chest, but my bucket’s audio dampers reduce the volume to little more than a muffled whoomp-whoomp. The first whoomp is the fragger detonating an outer shell that sprays outward as two-millimeter-thick shrapnel. The second whoomp is the four compact balls that shoot upward and provide a second detonation, sending even more shrapnel at every angle. This secondary explosion lacerates anything organic to such a degree that severing or puncturing a major artery is all but certain.

  Smoke is still drifting out of the window as Twenties and I climb into the hut. My bucket filters away the acrid odor while my visor switches on its IR filters, allowing me to better see through the haze. No such luck for Twenties, who coughs from the smoke.

  Three koobs are on the floor. Two are dead, and one is writhing in pain, its air sac ruptured. I step over the body of the survivor, its phosphorescent yellow blood pooling on the wooden floor. I’m content to let the koob bleed out.

  I take hold of the single-rung ladder that leads to the roof. Halfway up, I hear Twenties’s blaster discharge a single shot.

  Whatever helps him sleep at night.

  Topside, the battle is raging on. The koobs nearest the sleds are still hiding behind whatever cover they can find, but the ones on the ridge are firing down at us defiantly. The tank’s main cannon is still traversing, seeking out a sled near the rear of the column. The gunner probably was overwhelmed by such a target-rich environment and spent all this time second-guessing himself until he saw that sleds were hitting reverse and getting away from the jam.

  Twenties begins to unpack his sniper kit with practiced efficiency. He stacks a pile of lumber against the parapet and takes up position, his N-18 long-barreled rifle resting on its bipod on the roof’s edge.

  Exo and Rook are crouching between our sled and a rock wall with men from Hammerfall and Specter squads. I signal to LS-52, Sergeant Powell, to send up relief to watch Twenties’s back. He nods and sends a leej running. Then I call for Captain Devers over L-comm.

  “LS-55 with priority message for LS-35 on channel Fear Beta Twelve. Over.”

  Static hums and the point’s voice comes up. “Uh, this is Captain Devers. Go ahead, Sergeant.”

  The fool is hailing me over the L-comm for all to hear. I wait for some cross-talk between drivers coordinating their retreat to subside before saying, “Captain Devers, sir, requesting message on channel Fear Beta Twelve, over.”

  “Just spit it out, Sergeant.”

  I mute my comm and give a brief, profanity-laced discourse on the value of House appointees. “Sir, requesting permission to lead joint assault with Hammerfall and Specter Squads. Requesting additional support from Gold Squad.”

  “Negative, Sergeant. Gold Squad is waiting this thing out in here with me. The sleds are… we should be clear of the road soon. Over.”

  “Sir, with all due respect,” I’m careful here, aware that I’m broadcasting on L-comm for all to hear. “That tank isn’t going to let every sled squirt out. We need to take it down. Requesting permission to go without Gold Squad.”

  “Sergeant, it’s fine. We should have Camp Forge on the comm soon. There’s some residual interference, but then I’ll request an artillery cannon barrage. I’m ordering all units to return to their CS and await… wait for their turn to get off the road, over.”

  I open my mouth to reply when the sensational krak-bdew of the N-18 ruptures the air around me, followed by the hiss of super-heated gases escaping the rifle’s barrel. My eyes go to the ridge, and I see a koob tumbling down like a rag doll. The HUD on my visor shows one less red dot.

  Twenties found his mark.

  And from the looks of it, the old MBT has settled in on one of its own. My visor traces the potential trajectory. The gunner is looking to blast one of the sleds at the end of the column, still locked in place. I call out the danger on L-comm. “Silver 6, Silver 6, this is LS-55 on overwatch. Do you copy?”

  Whoever is in that sled is going to be lit up if they don’t disembark right now.

  “What is it now, Sergeant?”

  Of course it’s Captain Devers’s sled. If there weren’t basics and leejes in there with him, I might well keep my mouth closed. “Silver 6, Silver 6, confirmed hostile MBT zeroed on your location. Disembark! Disembark!”

  “Belay that order,” Devers says with all the postured regality of an admiral of the Core. “These koobs don’t have munitions for that thing or they would have fired by—”

  The MBT’s turret spews out fire. A shell blasts into the rock wall, saving the sled from a direct hit. The tank begins to compensate, raising its cannon.

  “All units, disembark! Disembark!” The order is called in by Lieutenant Ford, LS-33. His men call him Wraith due to his penchant for appearing undetected, commenting on conversations you didn’t know he was there to listen in on. Wraith oversees Hammerfall and Specter Squads, and I can see the red bar painted on his shoulder plates as he stands with Exo and Rook at the marshaling point.

  Doors drop, and legionnaires begin to spill out of the immobile sleds. But something is delaying Silver 6. Captain Devers isn’t opening the door. The tank makes a final adjustment. Having overcompensated, it ratchets back down. Whoever’s sitting behind the gun isn’t comfortable, thankfully.

  The cannon belches a booming fire. I suck in a breath as Silver 6’s drop door flings down. A
single leej stumbles out seconds before a high-explosive shell pierces the sled’s armor.

  An eruption of flames issues from every conceivable opening in the sled. It comes out of the port leading up to the twins like a funnel. It blows through the front windshield and billows out the open ramp. A couple more leejes stumble out, both of them engulfed in flames.

  I can hear them screaming until their bucket comms short out from the heat.

  Legionnaire armor will save you from a lot of things, but burning alive ain’t one of ’em. Other than the lone survivor, the entirety of Gold Squad is wiped out.

  Oba, what a way to go.

  The silvene lining, if there is one, is that the senior leej, in this case Captain Devers, is always at the back of the line. The last one off the sled. Looks like we’ll take that ridge after all.

  03

  When I was a kid there was nothing I loved more than watching the Galactic Fighting Championships. I knew the name of every fighter in every species index and weight class. For a while, I thought I’d be a GFC champion. I would “train” by punching and kicking our domestic bot, D2O (Ditto) while it attempted to clean. I still have a holopic somewhere of six-year-old me holding Ditto in a rear naked choke, its shining gilded arms waving helplessly. Good times from our family apartment on Tiamu City.

  Yeah, I’m a Teema boy. Born and raised.

  Anyhow, when Republic aptitude testing consigned me to the Legionnaire Corps, my GFC dreams tapped out. But I still love combat sports. We even have something we call “LFC”—Legionnaire Fighting Championships—on board the Chiasm.

  Did, anyhow.

  Of all the fighting formats, my all-time favorite is tag team. You’ve got four equally classed fighters, two on each team. One man per team starts the fight and can tag in their partner at any time, provided they can reach them. Those fights have a strategy that you don’t see in one-on-one bouts. There’s a thing called the hot tag that always causes the ampistadiums to erupt. A fighter will get isolated, and the opposite team just works ’em over while his partner desperately stretches out a gloved hand to tag himself in. Usually these guys don’t have the stamina to keep going, and tap or get knocked out. But sometimes they hold on and make it across the octagon to tag in the fresh fighter.