Chapter Fifteen

Heroes of Camerone and model brothers, Sleep in your tombs of peace.

—From “Le Boudin,” official marching song of the French Foreign Legion

“By the standard calendar, today is the thirtieth of April. Today is Legionnaires’ Day.” Gunnery Sergeant Trent paused, surveying the upturned faces in the compound. It seemed odd to be making this address in a darkness relieved only by the glare of the floodlights, but it was 0800 by Legion timekeeping, despite the fact that the sun had gone down four hours ago and wouldn’t rise again for nearly twenty more. Except for the duty section manning the walls, a few of the more serious cases on the injured list, and of course the civilians, the entire garrison was formed up in the open area below the headquarters building, turned out in full dress uniforms and white kepis. It made him feel good, like a renewal of his faith in the Legion and everything it stood for, to see those ordered ranks taking part in the annual ceremony that was at the very core of the unit’s tradition.

He cleared his throat and continued. “One hundred and nineteen years ago today, in a cave in the highlands overlooking the Great Desert on Devereaux, Commandant Thomas Hunter and seventy-eight survivors from the Fourth Foreign Legion made the decision to attack the Semti garrison at Villastre. This was the culmination of the eight-month resistance to the Semti invasion, which had destroyed the rest of the Legion as a fighting force. The Semti Conclave’s Ubrenfar and Gwyrran military forces on Devereaux at that time numbered in excess of sixty thousand, and the garrison at Viliastre alone was known to be nine thousand strong.

“The Legion’s resistance had already bogged down the Semti offensive into Terran space, buying months of valuable time. With the legionnaires so badly outnumbered, Hunter and his men might have considered surrender, or they might have remained in hiding out of reach of enemy forces until help arrived. Instead Commandant Hunter organized a final raid on the port control facilities at Viliastre. The choice of the thirtieth of April was a deliberate one, for it marked the anniversary of the heroic stand by the First Legion on Terra at the village of Camerone. That happened nearly a thousand years ago, before the discovery of star-flight.

“Hunter and his men boarded several VTOL transports and flew in low, under the Semti sensor umbrella, while their orbital watch was below the horizon. They caught the garrison at Viliastre completely by surprise and destroyed the port control facilities and several warehouses loaded with the plunder of Devereaux. In the fighting Hunter and forty-one of his troops were killed. Lieutenant Eric Kessel took command of the thirty-six survivors as an Ubrenfar rapid-response unit deployed near the port.

“After an hour of sniping and two enemy assaults, the Legion force had been reduced to twelve men under the command of Chief-Sergeant Guy Marchand. The Semti governor and the leader of the Ubrenfars sent a demand to the legionnaires offering safe-conduct if they would surrender, but Marchand turned the envoys away. One hour later he and his men charged the Ubrenfar lines. Two men survived the fighting and were taken prisoner. The rest died in the service of the Legion.”

Trent paused. “Their final gesture caused the Semti to shut down Devereaux as a supply port for another two months, and resulted in another ten thousand troops being added to their garrison against the chance that more legionnaires might have been lurking in the hills. But there were no more. Hunter and his seventy-eight were the last. By their stand, the last unit of the Fourth Foreign Legion may have saved Terra at a critical juncture of the Semti War. More important, though, they reconfirmed the lessons of Camerone and set an example for all their successors in the Legion to follow.”

There was a stir among the men. Trent knew what they were thinking. On this Legionnaires’ Day these men knew they could be facing the same kind of odds as the defenders of Devereaux … or of Camerone. But Trent stuck with the traditional close to the speech. “I don’t know if any of you apes will ever really get what it’s all about. But maybe, just maybe, one of you might understand Devereaux someday.” He paused again, then went on in a brisker, more authoritative tone. “All personnel will draw an extra ration of wine tonight to toast the heroes of Camerone and Devereaux. Due to the nature of the threat to this garrison, Captain Hawley has been forced to suspend the usual celebrations.” There was a groan at that. Usually Legionnaires’ Day was treated as a three-day holiday. “Duty rosters are posted in the computer files. Don’t get so busy remembering the past that you forget the present. Now … dismissed.”

He turned and saluted smartly to the knot of officers standing nearby on the balcony that was serving as a reviewing stand. Captain Hawley returned the gesture with stiff formality.

Devereaux and Camerone … When the Fifth Foreign Legion was formed in the wake of the destruction of Hunter’s unit, the two names became the core of the fledgling organization’s mystique. “To do a Devereaux” was to face enormous odds with no hope of success, only the intention of upholding the Legion’s honor.

If they did a Devereaux here, on Polypheme, it wouldn’t have the same value as that stand by Hunter’s troops. The wogs wouldn’t go on to threaten the whole human sphere, and stopping them at the cost of the entire unit wouldn’t be hailed as one of the great military victories of history.

But the Legion would know … and remember.

O O O

Leonid Narmonov leaned on the parapet and stared out into the darkness. It was approaching high tide, and that meant the danger from the nomads was reaching its peak. They could swim right to the walls, the way they’d done in the first assault.

They’d have a harder time launching a surprise attack now, though. A full platoon—six lances—was deployed along the wall at all times, with the others ready to provide backup at short notice. There were nomad auxiliaries patrolling the waters outside the Sandcastle when the tides were in, and a Sandray or Sabertooth when the waters receded. And today Lieutenant DuValier had been supervising some electronics technicians, Legion and civilian, in fitting sonar transducers around the outer perimeter. After the next low tide gave them a chance to finish, the Sandcastle would have a full set of underwater sensors that would warn of any approach.

So it’s wine all around for these fine gentlemen, As I sing the refrain of these heroes again, The seventy-nine who died long ago, But live on in our memory of Devereaux!

Narmonov left the parapet to walk toward the source of the singing, a small knot of legionnaires clustered around a dim camp light. He recognized Haddad and Kelso from the Recon Lance, sitting together with a bearded sapper and a soldier whose collar tabs marked her as a Bravo Company medic. Kelso had a musynther, set now to reproduce a guitar, and played it with the same skill he showed lining up a laser shot.

Haddad looked up at his approach. “Ten-hut!” he said.

“As you were,” he replied quickly.

The corporal sat down and produced a canteen. “Join us in the Legionnaires’ Toast, Mr. Narmonov?” he asked.

Narmonov accepted it and drank to the heroes of Devereaux and Camerone. Then he paused, and instead of returning the canteen he held it up. “Let’s drink another one to Sergeant Carstairs and the other good lads we’ve lost,” he said quietly. “They kept the faith with the ones who made the Last March before.”

The others drank with him. He saw the pride on the faces of Haddad and Kelso, both obviously pleased with the way their subaltern thought of his people. He thought it was easy to win the loyalty of these soldiers. And once earned, that loyalty would make them follow a man to Hell and back.

Something splashed in the distance, and searchlights swung to scan the water.

Narmonov handed the canteen back and hurried toward the nearest guard post. The moment of rapport was broken.

O O O

Oomour-the-Lost knew fear; the same fear that had gripped him the day the Clan of the Seacliffs had been hunted down and destroyed by the Clans United. He had been separated from the others that day, too far away to come to their aid in time, though the death agonies of his people had echoed clearly through the sea.

Then the Voice of the Clan, the repetitive signals that identified them over vast distances and provided a sense of identity even to those who foraged far from the Clan, ceased. Oomour had reached the scene of the last battle to find the attackers gone; his clanmates dead and stripped of the tribal property, the young vanished. His whole life had gone with the Clan, leaving him a husk, empty, useless.

No one had really believed that Choor! would follow through with his threat to exterminate any Clan that resisted him. But the massacre had been Choor!’s work. He’d seen bodies he knew belonged to tribes in the Clans United.

Another Clan, the Far-Wave-Hunters, had taken him in for a time. Not as a part of the Clan, of course, but they had treated him well enough and given him the chance to join their trading expeditions among the land-dwellers.

Then Choor! had come again, to demand the Far-Wave-Hunters join his Clans United. The Clan-Warlord had talked of fighting, the Clan-Chief of moving somewhere out of reach of Choor! and his allies. All the same discussions the Clan of the Seacliffs had held.…

And Oomour had simply fled, too much afraid of seeing his new friends slaughtered as his old brothers had been. He’d fled to Ourgh, lived for a time as a beggar, then joined the Strangers-From-The-Skies to be a part of their “Legion.”

Now he swam the long circuit outside the walls of their Built-Reef, a scout for the Legion-Clan, watching for signs that Choor! would attack.

He was afraid, and had to fight the urge to flee once again. Where could he swim, though, that Choor! and his Clans would not someday catch up?

Oomour started toward the surface, distracted by his thoughts. He never saw the looming figure waiting behind and above him, a figure who lashed out savagely with a nomad spear.

Pain lanced through Oomour’s side, biting, searing.

Then there was nothing.

O O O

Narmonov ran to the watch post as a legionnaire pointed and shouted. “Something moving down there!”

Another soldier raised his FEK, but Narmonov knocked it aside. “Hold your fire, dammit!” he said sharply. “That might be one of our wogs down there!”

Lights knifed through the darkness, probing the waves. Dropping his faceplate and setting it on infrared vision, the subaltern scanned the area. Nothing … Nothing …

Something warmer than the water bobbed to the surface, a fuzzy bright patch on his display. Narmonov switched quickly to LI and the image shifted, becoming clearer, plainer. A native, floating face down, either unconscious or dead. He recognized the tattoos on the nomad’s back. It was one of the auxiliaries … Oomour, that was the name.

Blood stained the water around the unmoving form.

“Send one of our other wogs out there,” Narmonov ordered. “That’s one of our scouts.”

He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and swung to face it.

Dark shapes were crawling up the wall of the Sandcastle near the HQ building.

“Sound the alarm!” he shouted, unslinging his FEK. “Get some men to the wall over there!”

O O O

“Fire! Pour it on, you sons of strakks!” Trent bellowed the order as he ran, still buckling on a piece of plasteel chest armor. He’d been checking over the next day’s duty roster with Sergeant Valko and Legionnaire Garcia in the base’s operations center when the klaxon sounded. Now Valko was rousing the off-duty troops while Trent headed for the wall.

The compound was ablaze with light, and searchlight beams were playing across the eastern side of the base as gunners searched for targets. Trent ran past a small, gaunt legionnaire wearing corporal’s stripes on his gaudily painted armor. The man was stripping the cover off of an onager that had been rigged on a pintel mount overlooking the ocean. Further on, several Legion riflemen were leaning over the parapet and pumping full autofire into the restless waves below.

Subaltern Narmonov was directing troops nearest the threatened sector. The young Ukrainian looked harassed.

“Gunny!” he shouted as Trent approached. “Glad you’re here. Take charge of getting the reinforcements on the line. And try to get our friendly wogs reeled in. We’ve got at least three out there, and one poor devil who’s probably had it.” He paused. “I’ll be over there,” he concluded, with a wave in the direction of the fighting. A few dark nomad shapes were mixed in among the legionnaires flocking to defend the wall, and more were climbing rapidly.

The wogs had chosen a good spot to launch a strike. The walls at that point projected outward at an angle that shielded the attackers from the legionnaires’ fire. That allowed the natives to climb virtually unmolested.

So far the troops at the top were holding them, but as more attackers added their weight to the assault the legionnaires would be in trouble.

“Yes, sir,” Trent acknowledged the subaltern’s order. He doubted if Narmonov heard; the officer was already running for the thick of the fight, shouting encouragement punctuated by fierce oaths in Russian.

A lance from Alpha Company came up the stairs from the center of the compound. It was a heavy-weapons unit, and Trent directed the corporal in charge to deploy around the gatehouse in case of another assault in that sector. “Get those Fafnirs ready, but don’t fire them until you get orders … or until the wogs are threatening to overrun you,” he finished. “Explosions in the water will screw the wogs up, but some of our scouts are still out there.”

“We’re on it, Sarge,” the corporal told him cheerfully. He was grinning. “Come on, you sandrats, let’s bag us some polliwogs!”

“What’s the situation here, Sergeant?”

Trent spun as Lieutenant DuValier and Bravo Company’s two recon lances appeared, with the unit’s junior C3 technician, Legionnaire Dubcek, bringing up the rear. As usual the Exec was impeccably turned out, managing to make even battledress look elegant and stylish, though he looked tired. “Nomad assault, sir,” the sergeant said formally, touching his helmet. “So far it appears confined to Sector One, but I’ve posted extra men by the gatehouse. I saw Subaltern Bartlow mustering some troops by the main pumping station, too.”

DuValier nodded curtly. “I ordered him there. Why aren’t you bombing the bastards in the water?”

“Sir our wogs are still out there,” Trent responded, spreading his hands. “Mr. Narmonov says he saw one of them either killed or badly wounded, but the rest are unaccounted for.”

The lieutenant scowled. “Damn stupid putting them out there,” he muttered. “Score another for the boy genius.” He seemed to recover himself. “All right, Sergeant. Continue here.”

“And you, sir?”

“Since we can’t blast them out of the water, I’m going to try something else. What we need is to get a better angle on those damned wogs as they climb. Some troops out there will do the trick.” His gesture took in the water beyond the wall.

“That’s suicide, sir!” Trent protested. “The wogs’ll be all over you. Anyway, by the time you get on your hard-suits.…”

“The hell with suits!” the Frenchman snapped. He touched a device hanging from his neck, and Trent realized for the first time that all of them were wearing oxymasks. They were usually used in riot-control situations, but they’d work for a short time underwater. “Come on, you misbegotten misfits! Let’s do it!”

They pushed past Trent, heading for the parapet and fitting their masks in place. Dubcek started shedding his C3 terminal. The computer and communications terminal wouldn’t stand much exposure with those corrosive waters below. But that wouldn’t stop Dubcek from following DuValier into action.

Trent’s eyes followed them. Part of him wanted to stop the lieutenant, while another part wished he were following the man.

Then he turned. “Mr. Wijngaarde!” he shouted, catching sight of the First Platoon CO. “Can I have some riflemen for the walls here? We have to cover Lieutenant DuValier!”

In the back of his mind Trent felt a twinge of regret. It was too bad that Lieutenant DuValier had taken such a dislike to the captain. Fraser and DuValier had a lot in common.

Starting with bravery …

O O O

Fraser burst into the command center, still cursing the alert that had awakened him from the first good sleep he’d enjoyed in three standard days. Just when you let your guard down, he told himself bitterly. That’s when trouble always starts. He didn’t like the coincidence of this attack on the evening of Legionnaires’ Day. Had they just been lucky, or had Choor!’s clans learned that a Legion garrison usually declared it a holiday? Extra rations of wine and a wild night of celebrating would have made an attack easy.…

Hawley, Garcia, and one of Alpha Company’s C3 technicians were already in the room. The senior captain looked up. “Looks like a commando job, Fraser,” he said casually. “They picked a protected approach up the walls, and seem to be confining the attack there.”

“Recon drones?” Fraser asked.

“Up and circling, Captain,” Garcia told him. “Very little sign of activity. I think that supports Captain Hawley’s theory.”

“A good move, I’d say,” Hawley said approvingly. “Looks a bit like the Imperial French op against the terrorists on Ys. The Ysan Freedom Brigade’s garrison didn’t have much perimeter security, of course. I’d say we’ve got a much better position than the YFB … and the wogs aren’t anything comparable to the French, no matter how good this Choor! is.”

“With all due respect, sir,” Fraser said, “I’m afraid this isn’t a wargame. We’ve got a fight on our hands.”

Hawley didn’t answer. He seemed entranced by the view on the monitor as the recon drone circled beyond the walls.

“What the hell…?” Fraser whispered, as he caught sight of humans in the water.

“Lieutenant DuValier, sir,” Garcia broke in quickly. “He’s got Pascali’s and Braxton’s recon lances.”

“They’re not even in hardsuits!” he said, sitting down beside Garcia. “What the hell are they playing at out there?”

“Sergeant Trent says they’re trying to clear the attackers off the wall. He’s deployed riflemen to cover them from the nomads.”

Fraser looked away. It was a good plan, but damned risky. If nothing else, those men would be sick by the time they were fished out of the sea. Polypheme’s oceans weren’t quite lethal to unprotected humans, but even short-term exposure caused some nasty allergic reactions.

That was assuming the wogs didn’t get them first.

“What reserves do we have left?” he asked.

The Alpha Company technician—Fraser vaguely remembered that his name was Jurgensen—checked a computer display. “Sergeant Reynolds, sir. First Platoon Alpha. Twenty-one effectives.”

“All right. Pass the word for Reynolds and his men to suit up and relieve Lieutenant DuValier out there.” Fraser leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. He only hoped the backup wouldn’t come too late.