We had put out the fire in the vault and sent the Systie civs away to face whatever awaited them in the future. We even let them take away some of the books. I thought a lot about that historian. He believed in history, and his mission was to burn it. I believed in justice, and my mission was to kill. Thinking was not good for you—it led to nothing but trouble.
'Squad meeting, gang—now.' Snow Leopard leaned his E against the wall. We gathered around, still chewing on our rations. We were all in A-suits, helmets off. It was like a gathering of great metal spiders, feasting on carrion in the dark.
'All right, our mission is on,' Snow Leopard said quietly. 'Ten will be picking us up shortly in the aircar. Then we'll be off, past our forward elements, into the death zone. We'll be under heavy skies all the way—deceptors and psybloc. Take a look at the map.' Snow Leopard unfolded a silky printout tacmap and spread it out on the deck. We clustered around.
'Right there,' Snow Leopard said. His pale pink eyes were riveted on the map, his mouth was set, and faint blue veins throbbed at his temples. His chunky fingers poked at the map. 'We'll decar right there, and make our way by foot into the mountains. It has to be on foot—any aircar approaching the Mound gets spotted and blasted. We've already established that. Redhawk will return to the milbase with the aircar but stand by for pickup if we need it. So—we go up this valley. We'll stick to the river, if it's not mined.'
'What's the O presence in that area?' Dragon asked.
'As far as we know, there's nothing there. If they spot us approaching, they may send something after us. Or they may not. You can never tell, with the O's. However, we can certainly expect roving probes, free-floating genetic strands, patrolling energy spheres, and plenty of other nasty surprises.'
I remembered the genetic strands—the snakes—and the spheres, from Mongera. My blood ran cold every time I thought of the spheres. That's what had decimated Gamma—five spheres, five dead. That's what had turned my lovely little Valkyrie into a cold, homicidal psychotic. Now she was second in command of Beta. She'd be in charge if anything happened to Snow Leopard. And the frightening part was that I knew it was exactly what Beta One wanted. In the old days, Snow Leopard would never have even considered someone as unstable as Valkyrie for the Number Two slot. But Snow Leopard had changed too, after Mongera. We had all changed. And when crazy becomes normal, then normal becomes crazy. I wondered how Snow Leopard classified me. A little shaky, maybe. A little normal. Not crazy enough for command. Still too cautious, perhaps, to face the O's. Well, Valkyrie wasn't cautious, that was for sure.
'Up the river,' Snow Leopard said, 'and over the hills to the plain. Then we're almost there—the Mound is right here.'
'How do we get across the plain without being spotted?' Psycho asked. 'Looks pretty open to me.'
'When we're ready, we'll call for cover,' Snow Leopard said. 'They'll light up the entire sector with deceptors and smoke and psybloc. Not just our area, but the whole sector—so it won't highlight us. We go in at night, under cover. Nothing to it.'
'Nothing to it!' Speedy exclaimed in surprise. 'What happens if the O's spot us and attack? What do we do then?'
'We fight,' Snow Leopard replied, 'and call in Beta Ten in the aircar for evac, if necessary.'
'And what if he can't get to us? Or they get to him first?'
'Then we die. Any more questions?' The new guy paled, and shut down.
'You shouldn't worry, Speedy,' Valkyrie said soothingly. 'We all know what we're doing. We've fought the O's before. Just stay close to us and follow orders. You'll see—we'll get some kills. It's a good feeling, a great feeling, when you kill an O! We blew that last one apart, didn't we, guys? We filled the sky with psybloc and ripped its mags apart with canisters and tore it to shreds with the darts, and melted it with plasma, and cooked its genetics with the fieldfaxer and riddled it with laser and chainlink and tacstars and xmax and flame, we barbecued it, we char- grilled it, Speedy, and it burned like charcoal! We loaded it into the aircar in sections, didn't we, guys?' Her green eyes glowed, spittle was leaking out of her soft pink lips, and her face twitched. The Legion cross, burnt right onto her forehead, completed the picture. It was dead silent. She gave a nervous little laugh and wiped her mouth with the back of her armored hand. 'Like Snow Leopard says, there's nothing to it. It's a charge—a real charge.'
But Speedy wouldn't leave it alone. 'Did you have any casualties?'
'Casualties,' Valkyrie said. 'Yeah, let's see—the O's got five of us, on Andrion Three. And two on Mongera— the rest were killed by the Systies. Yeah, total of seven killed, by the O's.'
'Seven killed! How many O's did you get?'
'How many! There was only the one,' Valkyrie replied. 'Just the one, on Mongera. One is enough, believe me!'
'Just one!' Speedy's voice went up a few octaves.
'Relax, Speedy!' Valkyrie chided him. 'Deadman, what an old lady! Just relax; we'll kick the crap out of the O's.'
I closed my eyes. We were in the hands of the Gods.
Chapter 4
The Mission
A poisonous black rain fell through an uneasy night. We huddled in the aircar, armored and armed, hurtling into the future. Thirteen soldiers of the Legion, bound for death. We were on the left flank of the attack, moving fast and low with the advance elements of the 12th. The sky flickered with light, then faded. Deceptors trembled across the sky like lightning. Psybloc fell like hot hail. When it lit up, black clouds hid the stars and sheets of rain burst against the skin of the aircar. Dead forests of smoking charcoal trees flashed past outside, stark reminders of the elemental struggle that had just been waged. We could see other aircars on our screens. Green ghosts, all around us. The horizon erupted, an intense phospho-white burst, icy green core; then the shock wave rattled the car, the horizon fading once again.
'Antimat!' Redhawk exclaimed. 'Big one!' Redhawk was piloting and he had the speed close to max. Terrifying things came at us out of the dark, huge boulders and massive hills of burning trees and sudden cliffs, tearing right past us. I knew Redhawk had it all on screen, but it didn't make it any less scary.
'There's some O's over there,' Snow Leopard said. 'Just stay away from them.'
'Sounds like good advice!' We'd been through a lot with Redhawk, and we trusted him—he was a first-class driver. He was a little crazy, maybe, but he wasn't the only one.
'Control, Black Jade. Commo check.' Snow Leopard did one last check.
'Black Jade, Control. Read you ten high. Please go to blackout. Good luck.'
'Black Jade going to blackout.' Now we were truly alone, flying right into the mouth of fate.
'Play the stars, Sweety.' I spoke to my Persist, the tacmod. She responded wordlessly and in moments I was calmer, alien galaxies howling in my ears, black stars hissing, red giants crackling. It was the music of distant suns, the murmur of faraway nebulae, crawling slowly over my skin. The music of the stars—it was all I needed for any dark night, and I had shared it only with Priestess.
'Opstars!' Redhawk exclaimed. They glowed on the screens. I craned my neck to see behind us. There, a line of pale glowing fireballs rising into the sky. Lightning lanced down all around them.
'Is that us or the O's?'
'Looks like Legion stars to me.'
The rain was letting up. Something rattled past us, a black blur. Then a river of cold black molten mercury glittered under us, catching the light from a sky full of psybloc, multicolored sparklers falling slowly down into the dark. We followed the river like a great cenite bat, the wind whistling eerily past our armored plex, and it looked as
