and a nervous tic.
'We're not ready for this!' Whit squeaked.
'Hostiles on the pad!'
'Elektra, Alpha, engaging the enemy!'
'Hot zero! Decar!' The assault doors snapped open and the troopers leaped out of the car on both sides, screaming. We followed Elektra Two out into the dark, hitting the pad. I had a death grip on Whit's arm, running hunched over after our Two, a series of flashes off to the left—laser, crackling right over our heads, drilling jagged patterns into a nearby hanger. Two opened up, the entire element opened up auto xmax, the flashes dazzling my eyes. A line of parked airtrucks exploded, lighting us up, a deafening, shattering blast, a glowing fiery mushroom cloud rising above the port.
I released Whit and snapped the E to my shoulder and fired auto x into the holocaust.
Armored troopers ran at us right out of Hell, fully armored Legion troopers. I fired at them, convulsed with fear. Elektra Two exploded, ripped to shreds, spraying blood all over me. A titanic blast flashed white-hot and I winked out like a gnat caught in a volcano.
Chapter 20
Fate Unknown
'So that's it—that's all of it,' I said to the datapak. I was alone in my cell with the little device as it autotyped my words across the glowing d-screen. 'You asked me to record it all, so I did. And it's also what the Legion told us to do if we're captured by the enemy. Cooperate, they said, and stay alive. Tell them everything you know—they'll find out anyway. And if you know anything the Legion shouldn't have told you, it's the Legion's problem, not yours. Your problem is staying alive. And Legion troopers aren't supposed to know anything important.'
I paused, for a moment. It was a cold, dark, miserable metal cell and the datapak was set on a battered metal table. My datapak girl—my only companion. Confess, they had said. Tell us everything. I didn't mind. I felt good. I was beginning to enjoy the task, after all this time. I was so far away from them, there was nothing at all they could do to harm me. I resumed speaking.
'Stay alive, they said. Stay alive, for we will get you back and they will pay, in blood. Maybe not right away —maybe not for a very, very long time. But the System is doomed, and we're going to recover you, sooner or later.
'Your name doesn't come off the list, ever, and we don't stop looking, ever, until we find you. Even if it takes a hundred years. Or 200 years. Don't forget, you're an immortal.
'Survive, they told us. Survive—and believe.
'But what if it's ConFree that has snatched you? Nobody ever thought of that. After all, we were fighting for ConFree. Why should they be taking Legion prisoners?
'Why, indeed. You haven't even admitted who you are, ConFree, but I know. Write it down, the interrogator told me. Fine, I've written it all down, exactly as it happened.
'Read it, you bastards. Think about it, if you still have the power to think. Maybe you can learn something— about what the Legion does for ConFree. Maybe you can see what it's like to be a soldier of the Legion, facing the Systies, facing the O's, so ConFree Inners can live in peace and treasonous ConFree politicals can hatch nasty deals with the System to advance their own sleazy careers.' Will anyone ever read this, I wondered. Anyone besides ConFree? Thinker's last will and testament—what a joke!
'I've told you everything, ConFree,' I continued. 'But you've told me things too, with your questions. You've got me, but you haven't got Tara, have you? If you had, you wouldn't be asking me all these questions—because she's the one with all the answers.
'And you don't have the Star, do you? No, you don't. The Star is all you want, isn't it? And you don't have it. If you did, you would have no interest in me. You really botched the Andrion Two raid, didn't you? You got me and maybe Whit, you got us off planet somehow, but neither of us knows a damned thing. We certainly don't know where the Star is. You missed Tara, and you missed Gildron, and you missed the Star. And the Legion knows exactly what you're up to now. Good op, huh, guys? Willard could have done it better!
'I guess my life ends here. ConFree tells me they're going to deep-psych me—they're going to erase my memory. That's certainly something to think about, while I still can.
'Perhaps it's better this way. I still have no idea what happened to my comrades. For all I know, all of Beta is dead. They were a part of me and I was a part of them.
'Priestess was my eternal love, and Valkyrie was my lost past, and the rest of them were little pieces of my soul, Snow Leopard and Merlin and Psycho and Dragon and Redhawk and Scrapper and Twister. Merlin is dead for sure and Redhawk is probably alive, but all the others are phantoms, fate unknown. Moontouch survives, with my son. And Tara—Tara is still out there somewhere, I'm certain of it. But it doesn't matter. They are lost to me—all of them, forever.
'So what is the loss, if they take my mind? I've lost my soul already. All I'm left with is my sorrow. Let them take it. But I'll tell you this, ConFree. You'd better burn it all out of me—you'd better not leave a thing. Because if it comes back, if I remember any of this, I'm coming after you, ConFree. And I won't be alone. For I am the Legion— I'm nothing else. I'm a soldier of the Legion, I'm a slave of the Legion, and you made me.
'And I swear to Deadman, if I remember any of this, you're going to regret it.'
THE END
of Slave of the Legion
To be continued…
KEY:
Slave = System rule, Anarcho-Tyranny, government directs people. Insecure, crime-ridden, violent, extreme poverty, lawyers/criminals rule.
Free = ConFree rule, Citizens' Constitutional Republic, people direct government. Secure, crime-free, peaceful, prosperous, lawyers/criminals proscribed.
AT = Anarcho-Tyranny
