I switched over to my own sounds. I closed my eyes, and the music of the stars overwhelmed me. I had stopped listening to other music on Hell. Now I had only the music of the stars, hissing and humming and roaring in my ears. Sweety played the recording on demand and it was quite an orchestra, the high pitched howl of blue-white supergiants, the crackling hiss of yellow primes, the awful shriek of stars being ripped apart by black holes, awesome rumbling from gas clouds giving birth to young stars, the hopeless moaning of a black dwarf-it wasn’t really music but I loved it.
As the assault craft approached the target, we saturated the area with opstars, tactical nukes, just in case. This set off another massive firestorm, a great ring of fire all around ZA. Then we blitzed the atmosphere with deceptors. The fighters rushed into the center of the target and left behind long lines of fire, greasy black smoke roaring up into the night, highways of fire for our attack.
The general order from command swamped all channels, “Launch aircars!”
We launched with a lurch and bang that rattled my teeth. It looked like we were invading Dante’s version of Hell. We fell into a roaring inferno, an evil night sky blazing brightly with the flames of Armageddon over a glowing, blasted wilderness of black smoking rocks and burning earth.
Despite my fears, I felt right at home. As we rode the flames to our assigned objectives, a wild cheer burst into my ears.
Snow Leopard barked the warning, “Prep to decar!”
We crowded by the assault doors underneath the glowing red tac lights.
The assault doors snapped open and Snow Leopard led the way into the darkness beyond. “Decar… death!”
We burst from the car into the smoking night, weapons ready, equipment dangling. The firestorm raged around us. Legion fighters blasted overhead, punching holes in the sky. Aircars shot past us, kicking up a wake of black dust.
We dashed to our assigned positions. Oily black smoke hung close to the ground.
“Command, Snow Leopard. Beta is in position!”
We were arrayed in attack formation, tingling with anticipation, weapons at the ready. Nothing stirred, except the Legion. We could see everything, and there was nothing to see. All around us, the land smoked in the darkness. We’d blasted a healthy chunk of real estate into a lifeless moonscape and landed in force, and there was no one there to fight.
Chapter 3: Grim Reaper
Days later, we’d settled into routine patrols, crisscrossing the planet in search of what wasn’t there. Gradually, boredom and frustration clawed at the ragged edges of our resolve. Then it happened! A native!
“Set your E’s on minimum V-stun rounds, ladies. Repeat, v-min.” Snow Leopard was already harassing us-he never let up. I was in the aircar, slipping the comtop helmet over my head. We were at last closing on a native! We’d been called in to pick up the search from the air for the native that Alpha squad had spotted in the forest while on foot patrol. He had gone to ground in a tangle of shrubbery. Redhawk spotted a nearby clearing and swooped down for a hot decar.
We hit the ground running in armor, but it was a short pursuit. He had disappeared into a very narrow tunnel leading down into the earth at a sharp angle. It was just the right size for a Scaler-our name for the scale-clad natives. They were smaller than us, but we could all see that a Legion soldier could fit in there as well-without armor.
Merlin launched a trio of microprobes and they showed a well-worn passageway extending a long, sinuous distance. It didn’t get any wider for a long time, so blasting a larger entrance was out.
I slipped my comtop on and activated the tacmap on my translucent faceplate. The comtop was a scaled- down version of the A-suit helmet. It provided light armor head protection and communication when we weren’t in our A-suits. We hurriedly changed into A-vests, litesuits and comtops.
“Stun rounds!” Psycho quipped. “Yes, sir! We sure wouldn’t want to hurt anybody.”
What a bloodthirsty little smartass. Psycho was a mental case. Snow Leopard spent a lot of time holding him back, but he was smart and fast.
I was not happy about the V-min, either. V rounds would stun and normally induce unconsciousness but minimum power didn’t pack much of a punch. I exited the aircar, adjusted my gloves, draped my E across my chest and yanked at the jumble of equipment strapped to my waist.
Snow Leopard looked appraisingly at the extra equipment I carried and cracked a grin, letting his guard down for a moment. “You look like a military surplus sale, Thinker.”
Dragon chimed in, “Hey, Thinker, can I borrow something if I need it down there? You know I don’t like to carry stuff.”
Psycho could be more obnoxious than Dragon. “Hey, Thinker, can you haul my gear, too?”
“Blackout, will you?” I didn’t mind. I always took as much stuff as I could carry. I knew the only way I’d really need something was to leave it behind.
The forest darkened. I glanced up at the clouds blotting out the sun. Violet shadows and a fine mist filled the air. Angel wings hovered above me. We’d named the delicate, jelly-like creatures air angels.
The entrance lay at the edge of a blackened, crumbling, dead city, choked with vegetation. Enormous tree roots snaked around the city, strangling it with glacial patience. Massive green trees rose amid the shattered stones of a fossilized past. Tiny, colorful flying creatures glided past, trailing the air angels. A stronger breeze stirred the forest. Nothing on screen.
We stood in the heart of the past. Broken stone blocks rested all around us, the tomb of a city, now part of the forest. It was officially designated Site 5543. The mist turned to pelting rain. Perfect-the tunnel will fill up with water and we’ll all drown.
We gathered around the entrance, along with a few life techies that had just arrived in another aircar. Then Squad Alpha arrived to guard the area and watch our backs. It could be a trap. We still didn’t know what we were up against or where the damned Systies were hiding. This tunnel or passageway would be a lovely spot to trap and kill a few Legion troopers.
Our camfax automatically blended with the surroundings. At that moment, we looked dark and wet. I re-ran the system checklist on my comtop. The darksight worked fine. So did the breather and the comset. We wouldn’t need the breather except for the water. Unless the tunnel caved in. Or they used gas. Or smoke.
Hardly anything to worry about.
“This could be tremendously amusing.” Coolhand had perfected his rather grim sense of humor on Planet Hell. A tall, slim youth, he came from some lost, hopeless spacer ratworld. Curly dark brown hair, friendly green eyes, a narrow, clean-cut face, tanned a pale brown. He was a musician, happiest when strumming his ionic lektra, his only real possession. In the field he was cautious, but good, so they made him a Two.
He looked up as three more aircars converged on our location from different directions-the clearing would soon run out of room. “I feel kind of sorry for this Scaler,” Coolhand said, gesturing towards the aircars. “All this attention. I think the brass are upset ‘cause they haven’t found anybody to shoot yet.”
There had been no opposition to our landing. No evidence of Systie intrusion at all. The fireworks had been for nothing, but we had no regrets, not for an instant. There is only one way to land on a new, potentially hostile, planet-successfully! And that meant kill anyone or anything that got in the way. There’s no time to quibble over philosophy, or to chat with the natives, discussing your benign intentions.
Back on Atom, during the long voyage, I’d admitted the truth to myself. I’d loved Hell. It was my darkest secret. I must be insane, I’d thought. Somehow I slipped past the psych tests. Would they send me back? Eventually, I discovered the others were just as crazy. The Legion knew exactly what it was doing. We were the scum of the Outers, the dreamers and the lost. We looked up at the stars and found the Legion gate. It was a one-way gate-no one who went in ever came out. No information ever came out, either-except what the Legion wanted to tell.
Whatever you want, you get. That’s what they told us as recruits. I didn’t believe it, of course. Nobody did. It was a complete shock, then, when we discovered it was really true. Whatever you want, you get. We could write
