cold as death down there, a river of black ice lethargically flowing out of some frozen wasteland, some arctic Hell. Bleak hills rose on each side of the river.
'Sir?' My eyes snapped down to my comset readout: B13, on private to me.
'Yes, Thirteen?' It was the new girl—what was her name? Twister. Who else would call me 'sir'? She was sitting right next to me, I suddenly realized, clutching her E.
'I'm scared,' she said. Just that. She turned her head to me and I saw her pale frightened face behind her visor. Soft brown eyes, freckles all over her nose and cheeks. She was like a big, awkward colt, barely out of puberty. What in Deadman's name was she doing here? They hadn't even sent her to Hell.
'Good,' I said. 'That's normal. If you weren't scared, you'd be crazy. You're supposed to be scared. We're all scared. Don't worry.'
'Valkyrie's not scared,' she said shakily.
'Valkyrie's crazy,' I replied. 'She's been through a lot. She's got an excuse.'
'Psycho's not s-s-scared,' she said.
'Psycho's also crazy,' I said. 'Certifiably insane. He's different.'
'How about One,' she asked. 'He's not scared, is he?'
'One is our leader,' I said. 'He's got ice water in his veins. He's different, too. But the rest of us are all terrified—so don't feel like you're alone, all right?'
'But I'm so s-scared my teeth are ch-ch-chattering. And we…we're not even in combat.' I looked into her faceplate. Her face was twitching, cold sweat on her brow.
'Try to relax, Twister,' I said. 'Take some deep breaths. Maybe you should take a mag.'
'Can I hold your hand? Please?'
I took her hand in mine, wordlessly. Cenite fingers, intertwined. It did seem to work. Her face stopped twitching. She closed her eyes and bit at her lower lip. And we kept going, rushing into the dark, now deep in O territory, right in the death zone, and things were coming at us from out of nowhere and flashing past, gone. Black mountains wheeled past to one side and we were still over that river of ink. The O's were up ahead somewhere, waiting to kill us, and I was holding hands with Beta Thirteen. Well, it wasn't the Legion I knew, but I had to admit it did feel good. I felt better already.
'Hot metal! They'll never spot us under this sky!' It was a deceptor sky, glittering and flickering, black clouds with silver edges, strange lights flashing and fading and the screens solid green, full of junk. Something ricocheted off our aircar.
'That was a deceptor!' Redhawk shouted happily. 'There's so much crap falling down, we're running into it! We're free, guys—free!'
Gildron snarled, and it put a chill to my blood. He was a massive A-suit in the back of the car, sitting next to Tara. Psycho snarled back at him and made ape noises.
'Shut down, Psycho,' Valkyrie snapped.
'I'll shut down if you come back here and sit on my, uh, lap, honeybuns,' Psycho retorted cheerily.
'Psycho, if you don't get with the program I'm going to take your Manlink away and give it to Dragon,' Valkyrie said. 'That's a promise!'
'Good idea,' Dragon said.
'Can she do that, One?' Psycho asked. The Manlink was his only love. It was Beta's Mother of Destruction, totally evil and totally holy.
'Shut down, Five,' Snow Leopard said. Psycho sighed and shut down.
The car shuddered. Twister settled down and I carefully removed my hand. I did not want Priestess getting the wrong idea. I caught a glimpse of jagged black mountains far above us, outlined by flickering blue lightning. We continued, into that awful night. I felt we were rushing onward to our own extinction.
'Talk to me, Priestess,' I said on private.
'What is it, Thinker?' she answered. 'How are you doing?'
'How am I doing?' I stifled a laugh. 'I guess I was wishing I was somewhere else. With you.'
'Do you know what I want, Thinker?'
'No. What do you want?'
'I want to be your wife, forever. For all time. As long as we both shall live.'
'Sounds good to me. Although I'd worry about that last part.'
'Promise me, Thinker. You and me. Forever. Swear it, on Deadman.'
'Priestess and Thinker. A billion years. On the cross!'
'And if we die, we seek each other out, in Heaven.'
'I promise, Priestess. Forever.'
'Cross your heart and hope to die?'
'Cross my heart and hope to die.'
###
'Decar!' Ice cold adrenalin. The aircar's assault doors snapped open, a cold wind rushed in from outside, and Beta One stood right in the door like a dark angel from some Legion Hell, all black armor and glowing red faceplate, his E strapped to his chest.
'Follow me, Beta,' he commanded. 'It's all for one, and one for all. Death!' And he was gone, into the dark.
'Death!' We hissed the response and tumbled out the door, following our One all the way, to life or death, to Heaven or Hell. Whatever road he chose, we'd be right in his footsteps, and if anything got in our way, it was going to die very quickly.
'I want to pick up twelve troopers when you call for evac, gang,' Redhawk called out. 'Don't disappoint me.'
'Keep it in the red, Redhawk,' I responded. 'Fast and low!' And the aircar was gone in a blizzard of dead leaves.
We were in a cold dark forest full of great ferns growing around twisted black trees draped with strangler vines like thick brown snakes. A light rain fell from the tangled roof of the forest. We saw it all in darksight green. I crashed through undergrowth, trying to keep Dragon in sight—he was right up ahead. It was a winter forest, rising up all around us. We headed into a ravine, sliding down wet dirty slopes into the cold heart of this nightmare world. We had to put distance between us and the aircar as fast as possible. All for one, I thought, and one for all. I had never heard that before—but Snow Leopard was perfectly correct. What better words to describe a Legion squad?
'It's a walk in the park, Twister,' I said. 'A walk in the park!' It wasn't really me speaking. It was Coolhand. He was with me; he was in me. I knew I had to take his role—somebody sure did. Snow Leopard was too far gone now—he was losing his patience. And Valkyrie wanted only blood.
'Tenners, Sir,' Twister replied. 'I'm all right.'
'Death!' Speedy muttered. 'I don't believe he said that. Is he serious? Is that where we're going?'
'It's for luck, new meat,' Psycho told him. 'Listen and learn!'
'It's a holy place,' Valkyrie added. 'You'll see—we'll show you! I told you, stop worrying!' Out of her mind. Completely gone. But I had no time to think about it. I was too busy tearing through the ferns, sliding down cliffs of mud and roots and vines, splashing through an icy fast-running stream, eyes on my tacmod. If the O's had tracked the aircar, they'd know where to look for us. And the only solution to that was to move out as fast as possible.
Four hours later, we slowed down but we were still sloshing through dark wet jungle, eleven soldiers, single file, following our One into the unknown. It was raining lightly and from time to time dim lights flickered in the dark sky past the forest canopy. Otherwise it was like a green cathedral, tall trees glowing green-black in our darksight, wreathed in mist. Some of the trees were all white, phospho white, like ghosts. It was cold and wet and miserable. We were following a little stream through a steep ravine.
'Squad halt. Break.' I moved away from the stream into the jungle and collapsed in a mass of ferns. I was tired already. Icy rain streamed down my faceplate.
'Wester, it's Tara.' She was on private, I noticed. Tara always called me Wester. She had named me herself, in our own impossible past.
'Yes, Tara.'
'You've been with this bunch a long time, haven't you?'
