Legion of the Damned

The Hudathan assault ships came out of the sun. The light, heat, and radiation that emanated from the brown dwarf covered their approach at first, but the legionnaires had excellent detection gear and picked them up.

The electronics tech had bright red hair, freckles, and the inevitable nickname of Red. He wore a brightly colored floral shirt and sat before a large console. It boasted hundreds of red, green, and amber indicator lights, a multiplicity of screens, displays, and readouts, plus a multilevel keyboard similar in appearance to those that had controlled pipe organs hundreds of years before. The keyboard, and the alternative voice-recognition system, linked Red with “Spinhead,” the planetoid’s central computer.

Though intended for scientific and commercial purposes, Spinhead, along with a few million imperials’ worth of ancillary equipment, had been pressed into military service after the attack two days before. And Red, though still a civilian, had become an honorary member of the Legion.

Captain Omar Narbakov was a tall thin man with black skin and quick brown eyes. His head was shaved and gleamed when he moved. The officer looked at his watch and swore. Red had bet him that the next attack would come at exactly fifteen minutes after the hour and it had. He reached into a pants pocket, found a wad of crumpled currency, and removed a ten-spot.

Graceful after nine months of near weightlessness, Narbakov turned towards the sound of Leonid Chien-Chu’s voice. “Oh, yeah? How’s that?”

Those who knew both men said that Leonid Chien-Chu resembled his father, though the son was a good bit taller and as slim as a commando knife. There were laugh lines around Leonid’s eyes and mouth. They grew deeper when he spoke.

“Red took all the data from the last seven attacks, ran it through Spinhead, and came up with an estimated time of attack.”

“So,” Leonid said, doing his best to sound unconcerned, “are you going to do something about the incoming ships?”

“Sure ... they should be in range about a minute from now. That’s when operation boomerang goes into effect. Then, after the geeks sort that out, my cyborgs will open fire.”

Narbakov glanced at the screens. “Yeah ... for the moment. But who knows? Hell, there’s a miniature fleet out there. They have enough firepower to open this roid like a can of baked beans. It might be different if we had some ships, or fighters, or some idea of when help might arrive. But we don’t, so if the geeks really want this chunk of real estate, they’re gonna take it.”

Leonid thought about that. The Hudathans had the power ... but would they use it? The planetoid called “Spindle,” and the equipment on it, were critical to obtaining the substance known as “stardust.” An all-out battle might destroy the very thing they wanted, which would explain why the aliens had held some of their forces back.

But what if he was wrong? Or the Hudathans grew tired of the prolonged battle and moved to end it? What then?

The lights dimmed as power was drained away from the main fusion plant and Narbakov spoke into his mike. Every legionnaire on Spindle heard what the officer said and knew what he meant.

Rulon Mylook-Ra watched the asteroid fill more and more of his heads-up wraparound visual display. The planetoid was more than three hundred units long and half that at its widest point. One end was larger than the other and permanently pointed towards the sun. This was rather convenient from Mylook-Ra’s point of view, since the closest end boasted some of the best targets and put the sun behind him.

The boat had its own navcomp, but to avoid any possibility that their assault craft could be used against them, generations of Hudathan war commanders had placed most of the processing capacity on board their larger ships. This approach had a number of negative implications, including a heightened susceptibility to electronic countermeasures, and a potentially disastrous effect should one or more of the mother ships be destroyed.

But none of these problems confronted Mylook-Ra as he vectored in on the asteroid, chose a high-priority target, and gave the necessary order.

The ship jerked as a flight of missiles raced away. Each missile had its own guidance system, so the Hudathan was free to activate his secondary weapons. They consisted of two energy cannons mounted under each of the assault boat’s stubby wings.

Energy stuttered out, drew red-hot lines across the planetoid’s rocky surface, and intersected at an antenna array. Pieces of metal spun free, supports collapsed, and what was left glowed cherry red. The Hudathan pulled up and looped around.

Mylook-Ra felt a sense of satisfaction. It turned to concern when he realized that his missiles were unaccounted for. They should have hit the target by now, or failing that, destroyed themselves. And there was another anomaly as well. He had encountered almost no defensive fire. Why was that? Previous flights had experienced stiff resistance.

The Hudathan triggered the com link and was just about to ask the flagship for more information when an entire array of alarms went off. Mylook-Ra was still thinking his way through the problem when the missiles he had fired moments before hit his ship and blew up.

Leonid weighed less than three earth pounds and held onto an air duct for additional stability. A series of monitors carried the action. The Hudathan assault craft exploded, Red whooped, and Narbakov nodded approvingly.

Leonid knew what the officer meant. Stardust, the almost magical stuff that had brought them there in the first place, was gathered by remotely controlled spacecraft called star divers.

It takes a lot of sophisticated equipment to guide a spaceship through a sun’s corona and bring it home again. Equipment that Red had used to subvert and redirect the Hudathan missiles. A total of four ships had been destroyed.

It was a neat trick but it would only work once. There were any number of things the Hudathans could do to protect against similar attempts in the future.

Narbakov eyed the screens and activated his mike. “Another flight is on its way. Let’s show them what it means to attack the Legion.”

I’ll tell you what it means, a cyborg named Seeger thought to himself. It means that some poor bastard will get his ass blown off. Never mind that it’s made of plastic and metal ... it hurts just the same.

An entire platoon of Trooper IIs was assigned to Narbakov’s company. Some had been killed by now, but the remainder were located on Spindle’s rocky surface, hiding behind low-lying ridges or in the craters that dotted the planetoid’s surface. Hiding, and waiting for the next flight of fighters, at which point they would become sentient antiaircraft batteries.

Seeger had taken the name of the Legion’s best known poet, considered himself to be something of an intellectual, and felt sure that Narbakov’s novel use of cyborgs would wind up in the textbooks. Assuming anyone survived to tell the story.

Seeger stood, scanned the input relayed to him from Spinhead, and counted the incoming ships. There were thirteen ... fourteen ... fifteen of the no-good homicidal sonsofbitches. The cyborg tracked the fighters with the intensity of a person whose life depended on the outcome. Which it did.

Around Seeger, and behind him, the other members of the platoon did likewise. There were thirty-two in all, down from thirty-seven when the attacks had begun, and spread thin to minimize casualties.

The best target on Spindle consisted of the huge ramp-shaped railgun. It was used to launch the star divers and had been constructed within a V-shaped valley, a fact that had forced the aliens to fly a predictable path during low-level attacks and had enabled Narbakov to prepare a novel strategy.

Though not on a par with the heavily armored surface installations the aliens had destroyed during previous attacks, the cyborgs were highly mobile and could fire twelve mini-missiles without reloading. By lining both sides of the valley with Trooper Ils, Narbakov had created a veritable gauntlet of defensive fire.

Thirty-two cyborgs, launching two missiles a second, could fire 384 independently targeted weapons in roughly twelve seconds.

So, lulled into a false sense of security caused by the lack of ground fire during their first pass, and angered by the casualties inflicted by their own missiles, the Hudathans came in fast and low. Command swore that their missiles would track properly this time, but the pilots didn’t believe it and stuck to their secondaries. Lines of blue energy plowed red-hot furrows across the asteroid’s rocky surface.

Seeger had little more than a fraction of a second in which to see an incoming fighter, run a solution, and fire. By slaving his computer to Spinhead, and by working as part of a cybernetic network, his accuracy was greatly enhanced. Death lashed out from both his launchers and sped towards the assault boats.

Unlike their mother ships, the fighters were too small to mount defensive energy fields, so a hit was a hit.

A ship filled Seeger’s targeting grid, floated under the red X, and came apart as five or six missiles struck it. The resulting wreckage hit the ground about five miles away and, unrestrained by gravity, cartwheeled his way. The fighter was no more than a mile off when it exploded and sent chunks of metal flying in every direction.

The order came from Seeger’s platoon leader, a bio bod named Umai, and didn’t need repeating. The second wave of Hudathans had plotted their positions by now and were on their way.

Seeger turned and ran-shuffled towards his next position. It was important to move quickly but to do so without breaking surface contact. Sure, the asteroid’s anemic gravity would pull him back down five or ten minutes later, but he’d be dead by then.

A pair of fighters swooped overhead, and a line of explosions rippled along the ground behind him. Seeger dived into a crater, rolled, and bounced to his feet. It was a mistake and he knew it. His boots had already broken contact with the ground, and he was soaring upwards when someone wrapped their arms around his knees.

The civilians wore brightly decorated space armor. One featured a jungle motif and the other was covered with self-referential sayings that Seeger managed to ignore. They had learned their duties less than twelve hours before but carried them out with efficiency and a certain amount of panache.

One took his right side and the other his left. Missile magazines floated away and new ones were snapped into place. A hand slapped Seeger’s arm. The voice was female this time and originated from the suit with the jungle motif.

Seeger nodded his gratitude and turned his attention to Spinhead’s feed. A dozen globe-shaped things had appeared over the foreshortened horizon and were gliding towards him.

Sunlight hit one side of the objects and left the other dark. They looked a lot like the airborne float pods that drifted across the surface of his native Elexor each spring. Except that the float pods were harmless.

Death stuttered down, caught a pair of civilians shuffling towards cover, and popped them like organic balloons. Were they the ones who had rearmed him? He couldn’t tell.

Seeger swore, launched two missiles, and fired his gas-jacketed machine gun. The recoil pushed him backwards and threatened to dump him on his can, but the results were worth it. The pod was well within range and the lack of an atmosphere allowed the bullets to gain even more inertia. They drew a beautiful red line between his arm and the globe.

Seeger had no way of knowing what had destroyed the thing—the missiles or the bullets—but it blew up and showered him with slow-motion debris.

Seeger gave a grunt of disgust as he left the crater for position number three. The pods were unmanned. So fraxing what? They could kill you just as dead, couldn’t they? Officers. Dumb shits one and all.

The civilians were waiting behind an outcropping of rock. They were uninjured, which made Seeger glad. The man spoke first.

Seeger ran a reflexive check. He still had ten missiles, 82 percent of his machine-gun ammo, and enough power to run his energy cannon full bore for five minutes and twenty-seven seconds.

The civilians signaled their agreement and were about to depart when Narbakov came on-line. Seeger held up a restraining hand. The civilians waited.

Condition three translated to “standby.” Seeger motioned for the civilians to return and scanned the horizon. Nothing. For the moment anyway.

The legionnaire sat down, wished that he had lungs to smoke a cigarette with, and waited for Lieutenant Umai to say something stupid. It didn’t take long.

Red stood and stretched. “That’s all, folks. Spinhead predicts another major attack in about four hours with assorted harassment missions in between.”

Leonid forced himself to release the air duct and found that his fingers hurt. They’d survived another attack. He thought about the empire, about the Emperor, and about his father.

What were they doing anyway? Where was the Navy? The Marine Corps? And all the other government types who were paid to handle this sort of thing? Surely the message torps had arrived by now.

What about his wife, Natasha? She’d be worried—that much was certain—but what was she doing? Was she running a comb through her long black hair? Humming softly as she wrote a letter? Laughing at something his mother had said? She had a wonderful laugh that sounded like bells tinkling.

Leonid nodded and followed the officer out of the control center and into an emergency lock. A hatch slid closed behind them. A message had been printed on the wall. It was overlaid with graffiti but still readable. “We hope that you enjoyed your visit to Fatside Control. Please come again.”

Spindle had a prolate shape, similar to that of an eggplant, or spindle, hence the name. The blunt end, commonly referred to as “Fatside,” was eternally pointed towards the sun, while the other end, “Thinside,” was pointed away.

Fatside had been chosen to house the primary habitat, since it was larger, and thanks to its exposure to the sun, a good deal warmer. So warm, in fact, that air-conditioning was a must. An additional advantage was that Fatside’s considerable metallic content served to protect residents from radiation.

The administrative and living spaces had been excavated rather than built, so the walls were of rough-hewn stone, still marked where the robotic mining machines had eaten their way through the rock.

The corridor ended at what looked like an alcove but was actually a shaft. Narbakov stepped inside, flexed his knees, and jumped upwards. Leonid did likewise. The next landing was ten feet up, but thanks to his almost nonexistent body weight, the merchant had little difficulty making the jump. He waited for the hand bar, grabbed it, and was spared the indignity of crashing headfirst into the padded ceiling.

Leonid pushed himself out into the main corridor. There was another vertical shaft to his immediate right. The simplicity and efficiency of the system pleased him.

The corridor was crowded with miners, technicians, and the occasional legionnaire, all of whom were forced to vie for space with robots, automated transporters, piles of supplies, broken-down mining equipment, and the mess caused by the never-ending construction. That plus the poor lighting made for a crowded and almost oppressive atmosphere.

Passersby could have been gloomy and depressed, and probably should have been. After all, they were under constant attack and cut off from help. But Leonid was struck by, and somewhat proud of, the fact that they weren’t. The jokes, smiles, and routine greetings were much as they had been prior to the Hudathan attacks, with only tired eyes, and in some cases fresh bandages, to show the pressure they were under.

The staging area in front of the main lock was a madhouse. The smell of stale sweat hung over the crowd like a cloud, only slightly diluted by the sharp tang of ozone and the all-pervasive odor of chemical sealants.

Thirty or forty men and women were in various stages of undress as they either donned or removed their space armor. Six of them were legionnaires and came to attention when Narbakov appeared. He returned their salutes and slapped a woman on the back.

Leonid had no idea what the officer was referring to, but smiled, and nodded his agreement. It was important to show civilian support.

The voice was amplified and originated from within the lock. A klaxon sounded, a beacon flashed, and doors slid open. The first thing to emerge was a blast of cold air. That was followed by a transporter, which, like most equipment on Spindle, was extremely light and powered by a small electric motor. It lurched slightly as its balloon-style tires hit the uneven floor.

The machine carried a heavy load, though, including a pair of wounded bio bods, a badly mangled Trooper II, and three medics. All, with the exception of the cyborg, wore space suits with the helmets off. One of them caught sight of a med tech and yelled instructions.

“We’ve got a borg with a jammed life support module, a leaky pressure system, and more holes than a Swiss cheese! Tell surgery to prepare suite four, rig a number three laser, and stand by. We’re on the way.”

Leonid stepped aside to make room for the transporter. Held aloft by the lack of gravity, and pulled by the vehicle’s suction, a cloud of vaporized blood followed behind. The wounded bio bods were conscious, but the Trooper II just lay there, like a giant among Lilliputians. The merchant wished him or her the best.

Narbakov was frustrated, worried about the cyborg, and ready to take it out on someone. It must have shown, because the miner made a face and waved the officer off.

Leonid thought about the men and women on Spindle’s surface, risking their lives to rearm cyborgs like the one on the transporter, but decided to let it pass.

They stepped into their suits, checked each other’s seals, and entered the lock. It was crammed to capacity with repair crews, legionnaires, and supplies. In spite of the fact that their helmets were on, most had open visors and were still talking to each other.

The chatter stopped instantly. Visors were sealed, checks were made, and silence prevailed. The regulations regarding radio discipline were strictly enforced. Unnecessary conversation could cost a civilian a week’s pay or put a legionnaire on report.

No one resented the rules, or tried to flout them, because to do so was to risk lives. Their own and others as well. There were a lot of ways to die on Spindle, and good clear communications were critical to keeping the death rate as low as possible.

The hatch opened and people spilled out onto the asteroid’s surface. This was the moment that Leonid always looked forward to, the time when he stepped out of the lock and was bathed in dull red sunlight.

The sun was huge and filled a quarter of the merchant’s vision. His visor darkened slightly, but not much, since the dwarf produced only 0.4 percent as much energy as the same area of the sun seen from Earth’s surface. It was one of the things that he missed the most, the warmth of sunshine on his skin and the interplay of sun and clouds. Pleasures that disappeared when you lived inside an asteroid.

This sun was different. It had a mass twenty-five times that of Jupiter, or about one-fortieth that of Earth’s sun. But despite its large mass, the dwarf had a radius of only 76,900 kilometers, giving it an average density of 26, a statistic that took on additional significance when compared to the density of lead ( 11 ), gold ( 19), and osmium (22).

The dwarf had begun to contract from a gas cloud about 154 million years previously, and its deuterium-burning phase had been over for 79 million years. It was still cooling, with a surface temperature of 1,460 K, as compared to the sun’s 5,780 K, and was hotter inside than out. Material near the core would heat up, expand, and rise towards the surface. There it would cool, become more dense, and sink towards the interior.

The atmosphere was cool enough to contain a variety of molecules including corundum, perovskite, melilite, spinel, fosterite, enstatite, and more mundane things like titanium oxide, iron-nickel alloys, and sodium, aluminum, magnesium, and calcium silicates. Most existed in the form of condensates about fifty to one hundred micrometers across and dust particles of the same size.

Chien-Chu knew that the different types of condensates and dust particles liquefied, evaporated, and solidified at different temperatures and pressures, producing the fogs, mists, clouds, and similar structures that swirled across the dwarf’s surface. And somewhere in that seething caldron of activity, tiny particles of stardust were being formed, strange stuff that had the unique ability to produce lasing of wavelengths all across the visible spectrum.

The result was brilliant scintillations in a rainbow of colors, sometimes simultaneously, sometimes in pure monochromatic gleams. The effect was completely chaotic and therefore endlessly fascinating to watch, and if there was one thing that people were willing to pay for, it was personal significance. They’d pay large amounts of money for the thing, substance, or condition that set them apart from their peers and make them seem special.

Wait a minute ... A terrible heaviness settled into the pit of his stomach. Given the fact that stardust had no established military or industrial applications, and that the Hudathans were unlikely to define “beauty” the same way that humans did, there was little doubt as to what they would do. Having failed to take Spindle with a minimum amount of force, they would gradually escalate, until victory was theirs. Narbakov’s voice intruded on the merchant’s thoughts.

Ikor Niber-Ba, commander of Spear Three, looked out through armored plastic. The sun, and the grotesquely shaped asteroid that attended it, filled the view port.

The humans had no long-range weapons, a fact that had allowed him to bring his command ship in rather close, lessening the distance that his fighters had to travel.

Niber-Ba was tiny by the standards of his race, little more than 250 pounds, a condition that had plagued him all of his life. In a society based on strength he had been weak. A punching bag for stronger males and the object of derision by females.

But the blows and insults had both strengthened and hardened Niber-Ba, pushing him in on himself, making him harder and smarter than those around him.

Eventually his nickname, “The Dwarf,” had been transformed from insult to honorific and struck fear into the hearts of many. And the fact that the Dwarf was confronting another sort of dwarf was not lost on Niber-Ba, for he had spent many years comparing himself against the societal ideal and had a highly developed sense of irony.

It was this ability to look within, to see his own failings, that came to his rescue now. Spear Three had been delayed, kept from rejoining the rest of War Commander Poseen-Ka’s fleet, and it was his fault. He had been too cautious, too paranoid, holding back when he should have launched an all-out attack. The substance that the humans worked so hard to scoop out of the sun’s atmosphere had no strategic value, after all, and was, from a Hudathan point of view, completely worthless.

There was no reason to delay the attack that an officer like Poseen-Ka would have launched by now, no reason except his own timidity and fear of failure.

Niber-Ba drew himself up to his full height of five foot six, did an about-face, and headed for the ship’s command center. The humans were about to die.