We listened in horror. I was shaking inside my suit.
'Gamma!' Boudicca's voice was like the crack of a whip. 'Report!'
'Squad Gamma all present or accounted for, sir!' It was Valkyrie—her voice was shaky, but she was alive!
A body orgasm of sheer joy rushed through my veins. Alive!
'Count off!' Boudicca hissed.
'Gamma Two present!' Valkyrie shot back. I could tell she was just barely in control.
'Gamma Three—mission accomplished!' But the voice was Valkyrie's.
'Gamma Four—mission accomplished!' It was Valkyrie, again, counting off for the dead.
'Gamma Five—present.' A hoarse whisper. It was Scrapper—alive! She was Warhound's dream angel, an attractive girl with tawny hair and heavy breasts.
'Gamma Six—mission accomplished.' But it was Scrapper's husky voice, again. Gamma Six was dead.
'Gamma Seven—present!' A deep bass voice. Seven was Sassin the Assassin, Gamma's Manlink master, a fierce Cyrillian merc with skin as black as death and cold slit eyes and sharpened teeth.
'Gamma Eight—mission accomplished!' It was Sassin's voice, again.
'Gamma Nine—mission accomplished!' But it was not Gamma Nine—it was Sassin, yet again.
'Squad Gamma all present or accounted for, Beta,' Boudicca reported calmly. 'Four effectives, five dead. Please stand back, we're going to vaporize our dead.'
We stood there quietly while Boudicca spoke for the dead in a cold emotionless voice.
'Immortals in blood,
Brothers in arms,
Soldiers of the Legion
Flying black standards,
Gamma Two Four,
Delegates to the stars
All seasoned recruits
For Heaven's wars
Now recon Death's cold road.
Gamma Three, Gamma Four, Gamma Six, Gamma Eight, Gamma Nine; you're four effectives short— Remember your brothers-in-arms.
Missing in action,
We join you soon!'
Sassin then stood forth and fired one final tacstar into the killing ground. It burnt hot as a sun. I cried uncontrollably. I knew we were all going to end up like that—all of us.
###
'Let 'em rot!' Boudicca was furious. Through her faceplate I could see the Legion Cross burnt onto her forehead. She was crazier than Psycho. 'I'll not risk the rest of my squad for these stinking Systies!' We were back in the blood factory, adrenalin churning. Rows of pale Systies lay naked on slabs, sightless glazed eyes blinking slowly, tubes of blood snaking overhead. They were all dead unless we helped. We popped a flare so the Systies could see. It was a nightmare scene, black armor and cold flesh and leaping, flickering shadows.
'They're all alive,' Priestess reported, rising from the last one. 'Ten Systies. I've charged them all. This area is still pressurized. If the outside atmosphere leaks in, they die. I need emergency breathers from everyone; you've each got one in your medkits.'
'How can we transport them?' Warhound asked. 'There's only nine of us.'
'I can solve your problem,' Boudicca snapped back, 'with one tacstar! Or better yet, let's burn 'em! They don't deserve the dignity of a tacstar! These subs were helping the O's. We should kill them!'
'We're not leaving humans behind for the O's,' Snow Leopard responded. 'We're taking these prisoners to the aircar. We'll do it in shifts, if necessary. Priestess, you decide which Systies go first.'
'They're not humans!' Boudicca insisted. 'They're Systies! They're traitors! You're risking Legion lives for Mocains! Look at that skin—those are Mocains!'
'Take the Outworlders first, Nine,' Snow Leopard added.
'Tenners.' Priestess lifted one of the Systies—a female—from her slab. It was ob she could not stand. 'We can carry them easily,' Priestess decided, 'with our A-suits. Everyone can take one Systie.'
'That still leaves one Systie.'
'We can't drag anyone—don't forget that radioactive pool.'
'Thinker, can you take two of them?'
'Yeah, sure. Tenners. We can strap one on my back.' It would be no problem. Systie trash was light.
'All right, do it—so we make only one trip.'
'Gamma wasn't planning on making two trips!'
###
Doomed, we awaited the end, huddled in the dark. We never even made it back to the flooded hall. The starport was crushed, grinding in on itself, imploding, thousands of megatons of metal crumpling like paper, millions of megatons of lava, rushing in. Our road in had been sheared right off, and we had been carving a new road, with plasma, through a cenite nightmare, a cenite spiderweb. Now we were on our own road, Beta's Road, but it led nowhere. We were lost, pausing, as the base slowly ground itself to pieces all around us. Lolites illuminated the Systies, pale naked bodies sprawled all around us and sinister black A-suits stepping over them, our helmets scraping against the overhead.
We were in a raw, smoking, glowing hole, cut out of the wreckage with our plasma. Now we faced another drop, several levels straight down. No way out for the Systies. They could not even move. We were giving them a break—the Systies were on their backs, twitching. We had each contributed an emergency breather from our medpaks and Priestess had a few extras, so the Systies were still breathing oxygen. The air in the base was no longer breathable, as the lava rushed in with Andrion 3's poisonous air. The temperature was rising. The lava was close.
'Doesn't look good.'
'Ten, One. Ten, One.' No answer. Only another earthquake, and more shrieking metal. Faint groans from the Systies. 'We're still out of range.' Snow Leopard considered the options. I knew there was no need for me to think, with Beta One on the job.
'Thinker, do you think we're cut off?' Snow Leopard asked for my opinion. A bad sign. I noted he was on private.
'It could be,' I answered carefully. 'If not, we soon will be.' Once the lava cut off the starport from the aircar station we were done for.
Valkyrie was right next to me, silent. She was my past, my lost love, a stunning blonde with icy emerald eyes. I had asked her how she was, on private, and she had said she was alive. What more could a soldier of the Legion
