almost as if he was talking to himself. I had no idea what he meant.
'What do you mean, Snow Leopard?' Priestess asked. Apparently I was not alone in my ignorance.
Snow Leopard blinked, and came back to us. 'Don't you remember Uldo, from the history of the Legion? That was in Basic. The Cauldron, they called it. The Cauldron.'
The Cauldron! Of course, now I remembered. That was where I had heard about Uldo before, in Basic. The Race War. The Legion had met the DefCorps here in a great battle, on Uldo.
'Uldo was a ConFree world,' Snow Leopard said, 'and the System was expanding and powerful in those days. They dropped onto Uldo with all they had. And the Legion countered them. All of Starcom was involved. We had four Legions down here. Four Legions.' Snow Leopard paused, his eyes focusing on images we could not see.
'We lost the vac first, then the at. The Eighth Legion was ultimately trapped downside. The whole Legion—it was hopeless, but nobody surrendered. The DefCorps moved in. They had to fight for every mike of land. That was the Cauldron. Nobody from the Eighth survived—not a single trooper. They fought to the death—all of them. The whole Legion, gone, snuffed out like a candle. There were rivers of blood and forests of bones. The Systies paid for their victory. They never revealed their casualties.'
It was one of the darkest chapters in the Legion's history. Now I remembered what they had said: There were so many A-suits buried in the killing fields that the cenite poisoned the soil, and nothing would grow there.
'The Systies took Uldo,' Snow Leopard said, 'and enslaved the population and imported their own races and made their own world here. Then—a few weeks ago—the Omnis came, just the way they always do, dropping from the skies like fireflies. Millions of them. Soon they were swarming over Uldo, and the Systies knew they had lost another world. That's when they made the political decision to call in the Legion.'
Snow Leopard looked up again, to the flickering shadows on the ceiling. 'Such irony. The Legion returns to Uldo, allied with the System, to fight the O's.' He looked vaguely around. 'The Legion has decided the O's are to be stopped here, on Uldo. They've never been stopped, but we're going to stop them, here. We're giving it all we've got. And we'll never leave. Uldo's earth is soaked in Legion blood. This is our home, gang. Our home.'
The rest of the squad was loading up the aircar with supplies. I saw a few people I didn't know. It looked like we were going somewhere.
'So what's the mission, One?' Dragon asked. I was freezing. I took another sip of hot dox.
Snow Leopard put down his cup. 'The mission, right. There's a big offensive underway, right into the O's axis of advance. We've got a recon—a very important recon. We are to accompany advance elements of the Twelfth to the forward battle area and then jump off, making our way surreptitiously to the target. It's deep in Omni territory.'
'And the target?' Dragon asked.
'It's an Omni installation,' Snow Leopard replied. 'Take a look.' He opened a doc case and pulled out some reconsat shots. The prints showed what looked like a vast earthen mound, roughly circular, rising from a dark smoky plain. Little plumes of smoke seeped from the mound, caught in a light breeze. Faint trails could be seen running around the outside.
'What is it?' Tara asked.
'Nobody knows,' Snow Leopard replied. 'We only know it was built by the O's. They're building these all over the planet. After they secure an area, they build one of these…mounds.'
'So it's an Omni base?'
'We're not sure. The funny thing is, there's not a lot of activity at the mounds. We don't see many O's around these structures. Only a few. What we do see are human captives—lots of them, marching into the entrances. Those dark openings at the bottom there. Here, here's a good shot.' He passed us another print. A long, ragged line of hopeless refugees, hunched over against a cold wind, heading for the Mound. Men, women, children. Toddlers, walking bravely beside their parents. Babies, in their mothers' arms.
'Where are the O's?'
'That's it—there aren't any. It's psypower. The O's want them in the mounds—they have to go.'
I didn't want to see any more. I passed the print on to Tara. Her face was cold and hard.
'What do the O's do with them?'
'That's our mission. Determine what goes on in the mounds. Once we report back, the Legion will decide what to do.'
'The Legion should attack right now! Why the delay?'
'There's a lot of things the Legion should do. But we've got a war to fight, too. We've got to take on the O's face to face and defeat them and push them back. The offensive is starting right now. If we can't do that, there's no sense in dropping a heavy force in behind the lines to face who knows what. No, there has to be a recon first. By the time we're through, it should also be clear if we can defeat the O's or not. If we can, there should be some resources freed up to target the mounds, if that's what has to be done. If we can't, it won't matter.'
We were interrupted by a noisy outburst from the shadows.
'Does not.'
'Does so.'
'Does not!'
'Dwarf!'
'Mutant!' Psycho and Redhawk were discussing the move over by the aircar. Valkyrie intervened.
'Blackout! What is this, a playschool? Shut down, both of you!' Valkyrie was pale and angry. The black Legion cross on her forehead added a little edge. She was a stunningly lovely blonde vision. She had been mine, once, but she didn't belong to anybody now—except maybe the Legion.
'Does not!'
'Does so!'
'Shut down, creeps!'
Snow Leopard sighed, and turned back to us. 'Dragon, you know I wanted you as our Two, but you were away. Eleven is our new Two.'
'Valkyrie?' Eight could hardly believe it. Neither could I.
'She's a good trooper. Dependable—and fearless.'
'Crazy, you mean.'
'She's got the experience. She was Two for Gamma. And you weren't here. So she's it.'
'Tenners.'
'Now—do you all know why Tamaling is here?'
'That's a twelve, One,' I said. 'We don't know—except she has orders.'
'I don't know either,' Tara said, 'and I'm more than a little curious.'
'All right,' Snow Leopard said. 'I've briefed Valkyrie. I see no need for everyone in the squad to know this, but I'll brief the four of you.' Snow Leopard looked up at Gildron, who was staring at him intently. 'Does he understand anything I'm saying?'
'Gildron understands much,' Tara replied, 'especially kindness, and hostility. He responds appropriately to both.'
'Wonderful,' Snow Leopard said. 'All right, here it is. I received orders from Xcom late yesterday—after the Legion spoke with you, Tamaling.'
'Call me Cinta, please.'
'Cinta—fine. The orders came direct from Starcom. High-level stuff, and most unusual. They say you are a very powerful psycher, and are to accompany us on our mission to the Mound. They believe your psychic abilities may prove useful.'
'Do they!'
'Yes. Are you a psycher?'
'Yes. That's correct.'
'Really. What am I thinking?'
'You're thinking you'd like to pull my panties down and lick my—ah…'
'All right! Close enough!' Snow Leopard blushed, his face suddenly turning scarlet. Dragon couldn't help laughing. 'I'm sorry,' Snow Leopard said. 'Sorry.'
'It's all right,' Tara said. 'I get a lot of that.'
