penetrate the force field?'
'I don't know, One. I don't know.'
'One!' I was on my knees, inspecting the deck. 'Look at this!' There was some filth on the floor. Dark, slimy filth.
'Priestess,' Snow Leopard ordered, 'Take a sample of that, and don't lose it. And take the knife, too. Lord, I can hardly believe this! He brushes off tacstars and xmax and laser like gnats, and then we take him out with a cold knife and biobloc.'
'Don't forget the plasma!' I reminded him. 'I got the O right in the chest with the torch.'
'So it might have been the knife…'
'Or the biobloc…'
'Or the plasma.'
'Or maybe a combination! Let's get outta here!'
'I've got the samples,' Priestess said.
'Get up, Warhound. Helmets—let's go, let's go.'
We backed out slowly, back the way we had come, through a spreading fire. The complex shuddered again, and we could hear a tortured grinding. The lava was forcing its way into the starport. It was definitely time to leave.
'NOVA! NOVA! NOVA! ANY LEGION UNIT…WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!'
The alarm almost shattered our ears. It was a full power burst, a wild and desperate appeal for help, a frenzied, suicidal gamble. We froze, our own holocaust burning all around us.
'Full power! They've had it.' Snow Leopard declared grimly.
'Who is it?' Psycho whispered.
'Home in! Sweety, did you get that?'
'Ten, Thinker! I have zeroed the site, as marked.' It flashed onto my faceplate.
'NOVA! NOVA! GAMMA TWO FOUR…' It turned into a scream, a shriek of agony. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck. Then there was only dead air.
'Gamma!'
'Oh no…Gamma!'
'Do we answer?'
'Move it, Beta! We answer with our feet! Everyone in the area will be moving on that site. But there's a good chance that's only us.'
'That's where the O came from!'
'Is anyone going to give me my E back?'
'Somebody give Six his E back.' Snow Leopard led the way. We followed him, tracking the O like a pack of wolves. Further into the Camp of the O's. We would never get back to that aircar, I decided. Never. We would follow Snow Leopard to our deaths. We would die with Gamma, face to face with every O on the planet. We would die for the Legion, just as we should. We would die with our E's on auto xmax, we would die in a burst of our own tacstars.
We would die for Gamma.
Dead air. Only dead air from Gamma, hissing in our ears. A full-power Nova. Suicide—only a truly desperate sit would justify a full-power burst. The tacmap showed Gamma was in the heart of the starport, far far below us.
Deadman only knew how they had got in there. The entire starport was being slowly crushed as the magma forced its way in. I figured we had zero chances of surviving this one.
I tried not to think about Valkyrie—Gamma Two. I had once promised her—in a different life—that she would always have a call on me, no matter what the future brought. I had promised her that she only had to call, and I'd be there, no matter what. No matter what, I had said. Well, she had called. And we were coming—no matter what. It didn't get much clearer than that. You call a Nova and the Legion is going to respond—no matter what. That's the difference between the Legion and the rest of humanity. Try it sometime with your non-Legion friends. It's a very fast method of discovering Truth.
###
We cut our way to Gamma with plasma. As we got closer to the heart of the starport, the structural integrity of the base became worse and worse until finally we were just slicing our way through a massive tangle of compressed metal.
'Gamma, Beta. Approaching your position.'
Silence.
We slashed away at coils of solid cenite—why so damned thick? And thousands of writhing cables, spitting pale liquid. Only the Gods of Hell knew what that was. We cut straight down; our tacmods showed Gamma was right below us.
'Gamma, Beta! We're on you! Respond!'
Muffled curses, as we cut away at the metal. They were right below us! The deck glowed and melted.
'Fire at will, gang,' Snow Leopard ordered. 'Take it easy on the tacstars, Psycho—we don't want to hurt Gamma. But I expect the O's will be here. See you all in Hell.'
It was One's farewell. How could we not follow our One? Yes, we'd follow him into the heart of Hell and shoot Satan right between the eyes. I wished a quick prayer as the deck collapsed beneath our feet.
'Gamma, Beta! Respond! Damn! Nine, take out that section there.'
They had to be right below us, a steep drop. We could see down through several levels, tacstar shafts, spiderweb cables and twisted cenite junk dangling in air, a thunderous fire roaring down below, thick clouds of black smoke rising. Gamma had fought a desperate battle, and had unleashed a hurricane of tacstars.
'Gamma on scope, as marked! All weapons live, tacstar, laser, xmax, flame, biobloc. Recommend extreme caution!'
Good advice from Sweety—good advice.
'Deadman. Gamma, Gamma, Gamma, Beta, Beta! Beta responding to your Nova! Gamma, it's Beta! Answer, Gamma! We're here! Don't fire!'
Silence—only silence.
We cut away another massive slab of metal and it fell in a rush of sparks, trailing a chaotic jumble of cenite cables.
I could see Gamma now on the tacmap, lower left plate, a ragged circle of glowing dots. Why weren't they answering?
'Beta, Gamma.' Cold and dead, it was a voice without soul. 'Board. Watch out for the spheres—there's no defense.' It was Gamma One, I suddenly realized—Boudicca. Her voice was a hoarse, chill whisper.
We had to rappel down to Gamma's position. Everything was burning all around them, a flaming, glowing holocaust.
Gamma was in a fighting circle, but most of them were not moving. Some of the A-suits were glowing cherry-red. There was no sign of the O's. We approached cautiously, E's up. I reached for one of the glowing A- suits.
'Don't touch him!' A stinging rebuke from Boudicca. 'Don't touch our dead!' I withdrew my hand quickly.
'Report, Gamma!' Snow Leopard demanded. Some of them were still alive, I could see. I was frantically looking for Valkyrie. It was so smoky, and I was so charged I could not see clearly.
'One hundred percent casualties,' Boudicca replied coldly. My adrenalin count jumped.
Snow Leopard knelt before Boudicca and gently moved her E to one side. 'Gamma—tell me what happened.'
I could see into one of the faceplates of the dead. I looked away quickly. Broiled alive, the inside of the faceplate covered with heat bubbles, a glimpse of what had once been a human face. Deadman, I never want to see it again. My heart pounded frantically.
'Spheres,' Boudicca responded. 'Glowing spheres of energy. Probes. We tried tacstars, we tried stunstars, we tried xmax, we tried laser, we tried flame, we tried vac. Scut, we even tried biobloc. None of it worked. The spheres hit our A-suits and merged. Five spheres—five dead. They didn't have a chance.'
