“Alert! Beta to the aircar! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!” The shriek of the red alert caught me in the shower in the assault craft, downside in Coldmark Port. I almost knocked myself cold bouncing against a wall on the way to the assault craft’s door. I snatched up undies, litepants and boots on the run, danced into my pants, and seized someone’s coldcoat from the ready room.
As the door to the assault craft snapped open, we ran out and our aircar approached us, hovering in icy air under a starry sky. The horizon glowed a red dawn. The car’s door hissed open and we hurtled in heads over heels like a squad of acrobats. Redhawk laughed hysterically.
“Count!” Snow Leopard shouted, his hair wild, face flushed, pink eyes burning.
“…Warhound, Dragon, Priestess-all here! Go!” Coolhand responded, and the assault doors slammed shut and we blasted off into the sky, a power climb. A wild tangle of equipment and people slid down the aisle to the rear.
“Ah! Get off me.” I had fallen on top of someone.
“They told me this was a ‘come as you are’ affair,” Coolhand said. He wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“It’s pretty cold out there. You’d better find a shirt,” I said, struggled to pull on my coldcoat.
“What’s the sit?” Coolhand asked.
“All right, this is it,” Snow Leopard said. He unwrapped a crumpled print, then turned suddenly on the pilot. “Do you have the cords?”
“Big ten! We’re ahead of Gamma!”
“Good! All right. Wait!” His head snapped up again. “E’s and comtops! Now!”
Psycho tore open the storage bins and began tossing out E’s and comtops. We grabbed them eagerly. I was working on my boots.
“Take a look! It’s got to be Valkyrie!” Snow Leopard held up the printout and we crowded around to see it. It was a recon shot from directly overhead. It showed what appeared to be the tiled roof of a large temple or palace. The roof glistened in the first rays of the dawn. A blue tile roof, draped with long strips of red cloth fluttering in the morning breeze. The strips were arranged in a peculiar pattern-a Legion cross!
A blood red Legion cross, draped across those blue tiles on the top of the temple. Deadman’s doom! That was Valkyrie all right! No doubt about that at all! A rush of hope shot through my arteries. I had my boots on now. I zipped up the coldcoat and checked my E. We’re on the way, Valkyrie! We’re on the way!
“Flash-Beta, Gamma, in the drop.”
“Get those comtops on! Tac mode! Now!” We snapped them over our heads and everything started to come together. Snow Leopard was still talking.
“All right, there’s the map. It’s a monastery complex. She’s in there someplace. Probably not in the building with the cross, it seems to be open, probably a temple. We’re in first, then Gamma…”
“Beta, Gamma!” Gamma was calling us.
“Go!”
“You take the west, we’ll take the east. We got dibs on the one with the cross.”
“Tenners!” It was not much of an ops plan, but it would have to do.
“They’re right behind us!” I craned my neck, and Gamma’s aircar glittered in the dawn behind us, leaving a frosty contrail in its wake. We headed west, the sun rising behind us. I turned to face front. A cold range of mountains lined the horizon against a blue-black sky. I snapped down the faceplate and clutched my E close to my chest. I felt no need for a mag, none at all.
Snow Leopard summarized. “If it moves and it doesn’t have blonde hair, kill it.”
“Tenners.”
“I don’t want a single door standing when we’re through. She’s there, and we find her! And get out fast! That’s the mission!”
“I’ll do deceptors and red smoke.” Redhawk’s hand hovered over the launch triggers. He had the maps stuck to the plex.
“Do it!” Snow Leopard ordered. The monastery complex appeared ahead on the horizon among the peaks, grey clouds slowly dissolving, a line of shadowy buildings materializing like a kingdom in the sky, floating magically in morning mists, the light of the dawn touching tall spires and illuminating great towers of pink stone. With a sudden flash we launched our missiles and watched the contrails as they streaked ahead.
“Red smoke and deceptors, Gamma.”
“Tenners.”
The morning burst over the monastery, a searing white flash and a multiple crack, a mini-nova, shattering the sky. A huge cloud of phospho-pink airburst over the complex and blinding fingers of flame shot down like hot hail, ricocheting everywhere. The bright pink smoke rolled around wildly and enveloped the entire complex in its grip. Streaks of lightning cracked wildly throughout the cloud, red-hot lances.
“Deceptor, smoke. On target. Approaching target, prep for decar.”
“Gamma approaching.”
“Beta, Gamma, we’re in the at.” The extraction team approached, entering the atmosphere. It was a powerful force. If the System wanted to counter them there, it would mean big trouble.
“Beta, Gamma. Major enemy strike force approaching your target in aircars. We’re moving to intercept.” Adrenalin shot through my system, a freezing burst of fear. A full-scale war!
“Landing!”
“Beta, decar!”
The assault doors popped open. Red smoke rolled in. I leaped out and landed running in a tiled courtyard. Despite the smoke it was as clear as daylight through the darksight of my faceplate. I snapped my E to xmin.
The aircar shot over my head, gone. We ran, leaping over low stone walls and up stone steps. A figure appeared suddenly before us, chain-mail armor, a cloak flapping about him-holding a spear! I shot him with xmax and the explosion blew him apart, splattering me with blood.
“Beta down!” Snow Leopard reported our landing.
“Gamma down!”
“Beta, Gamma, Val, you do the mission, we’ll handle the visitors.”
“Tenners!”
“Ten!”
Psycho crouched beside me, Manlink at his shoulder, a massive door before us. Our first objective, a great building. Psycho fired and the door exploded into splinters. I switched to gas and fired a burst into the doorway. A cloud of searing yellow gas rolled lazily out into the courtyard.
“First element entering objective…” Into the gas, a corridor lined with doors. A door opened, a figure stepped out, male, Coldmarker, a Starguard in one hand, confused by the smoke, weaving, his other hand over his mouth. I cut him in half with a burst of xmin, an explosion of gore. Snow Leopard sliced him lengthwise with laser. The Systie’s SG spit a brief burst of laser, riddling the ceiling, and the bloody corpse collapsed to the floor, the SG smoking. Merlin, behind us, had not had a clear shot.
“Second element entering objective…” Coolhand, Warhound, Dragon and Priestess were into our second target. I stepped over the shredded, dismembered corpse of the Coldmarker, adrenalin pumping wildly. Well-armed for a priest! I slipped on his blood and went down on one knee. I struggled up and threw myself into the doorway from where he had appeared, firing auto v-min. Screams, a blur of movement, the sharp explosions magnified within the stone cell, lancing into my ears-a bull of a man scrambling under a blanket. Terrified, I switched to auto xmin and fired until he was only twitching meat, the walls spattered with blood and gore, the cell full of upturned furniture and a bloody bed. I was still alive. I kicked in another door. A toilet, empty!
“Thinker here!” I launched myself back into the corridor, shaken. We took individual rooms as fast as we could. Psycho backed out of a room and fired a burst of flame. It exploded inside immediately and lit up Psycho’s figure. Someone screamed. Psycho’s eyes glowed behind his faceplate.
“Disgusting perverts!”
“Opscon, Atcon. We are intercepting the enemy aircar fleet. Permission to fire!”
“Atcon, Opscon. Open fire when ready.”
“Beta, Gamma-Topcat-still in the drop-we’re on the way.”
Snow Leopard popped out of a room. “All out cold here! Move! We need a prisoner! No more gas! Keep those E’s on v-min auto!” A stone staircase led up to the next floor. A baldheaded Coldmarker priest came charging down the stairs, a cloth wrapped around his mouth, firing an SG on laser. He ran into a barrage of V, which tore him off his feet. He came tumbling down the stairs like a rag doll, his SG bouncing along by itself. Psycho shot him through the forehead with a laser and his head exploded like a rotten fruit.
“Deadman!”
“These religious people are well-armed.”
“It’s the word of God, Cit,” Psycho laughed.
“Atcon engaging enemy aircars. All units on autofire.”
“Topcat approaching target. Hang on, guys!”
“Beta, Air. I’m giving you air cover.”
“Gamma, Air. I’m on you, too.”
“Deto!” Snow Leopard cursed. “Psycho, get out there with your Manlink and shoot down any enemy aircars that get through!” Psycho whirled and went charging back out the entrance. I blew away another door on xmax and came in low, firing on auto v-min. Dust and debris, and something on the floor-a young, bald Coldmarker in a dark robe, gasping.
“Snow Leopard, Thinker, prisoner!” I dragged him out into the corridor by one leg. A boy with smooth brown skin, only half conscious, his eyelids fluttering. Snow Leopard appeared by my side, scanning the corridor, his E up. Merlin kicked in a door and fired V bolts. It was deafening.
“Wake him up!” Snow Leopard ordered. I drew my hot knife and plunged the glowing blade into the boy’s arm. His eyes popped open and he shrieked in agony. I pulled the knife out and held it hissing a few mils from his eyeballs. He froze in shock, blood streaming from his arm, cold sweat on his forehead.
“Good morning,” I said. “I hope you speak Inter. We’re looking for the prisoner. The blonde Legion girl. If you don’t tell me where she is, I’m going to kill you.”
“No!” he croaked hoarsely. “Don’t kill us!” His Inter was just fine. “It’s in the Abbot’s Retreat. Over there!” He pointed it out shakily with his uninjured arm, gritting his teeth in pain. We could see it out the main door in dark morning light, right next door. A palace set up on high ground, red roofs, yellow banners floating out front, surrounded by low stone walls and terraces.
I backed off and shot the boy on v-min. He’d live.
“Beta, Gamma, Snow Leopard! She’s in the building with the red roof and the yellow banners. On me!” He and I charged out the door immediately with Merlin right behind us. The cold hit me right in the chest. Snow! Powdery white flakes drifted slowly down from a leaden grey sky. Our red smoke still drifted here and there, tinting the snow pink. Two figures ran along a terrace by the palace. Snow Leopard and I fired simultaneously on v-min, and they went down. An aircar flashed overhead with a boom and shot up into the grey skies.
“That’s Gamma!” A madman’s laugh. Psycho, rising up from behind a low wall, his Manlink pointed at the sky. “No Systies yet! Redhawk and Air Gamma are circling. Look at this snow! It’s freaking beautiful!”
We leaped over low walls, closing in on the building like a pack of swarmers. It was a great sprawling two-storied palace, with a massive double door of metal and wood, the building sparkling in a powdery layer of fine pink snow.
The air crackled viciously just over my head. A section of wall exploded, pitting me with stone fragments. I dropped to my belly in the snow. Snow Leopard lay beside me.
“Stay down, Beta! We’ve got ‘em spotted.” I recognized Boudicca’s steely voice.
Another shriek, a tremendous explosion, a brilliant green flash lighting up the sky. Someone came crashing down beside me.
“Hi, Big Guy!” Scrapper was armed with an E, comtop on, wearing a bulky Legion coldcoat. I could see her pale grey eyes through her faceplate. She always called me Big Guy. I wasn’t sure why.
“Ooh, that hurt! What should we do now, Chief? Give me the word. Stay put? We can stay put.”
“No, we’d better move! Now!” We scrambled to our feet and split up, firing on auto xmax. I could barely feel my fingers in the cold. The front of the building was smoking, disintegrating, phospho white and yellow starbursts flashing wildly, streaks of glowing shrapnel cutting through the skies and a sharp, violent crackling, all around us.
Psycho leapt over a small wall and landed next to me, firing full auto xmax. A mighty shock wave burst over us from above and an ear-shattering bang rolled through the mountains. Up in the snowy sky, a burning, flickering, disintegrating mass showered down from the heavens, a brilliant, flaming rain of death.
“Enemy aircars here. Where’s Atcon? Where’s Topcat?” Redhawk sounded busy.
“There’s two more, Beta!”
“I got ‘em! I got ‘em!”
“Topcat approaching your zero. We’ll clean your sky, guys.” The extraction team was with us!
Dragon appeared. He fired auto xmax right into the main doors of the palace and they blew apart, debris ricocheting everywhere.
The three of us cautiously approached the entrance. Coldmarker bodies sprawled over the terrace, several of them in a tangled pile before the doors, torn to bloody shreds. Systie SGs were scattered around, pitted and smoking. Not your typical religious sanctuary. Another aircar flashed overhead.
“…it’s ours!”
Two more darted past from the opposite direction, wheeling into the clouds for another pass. Psycho fired immediately, auto tacstar, flashing up into the snowy sky.
“Ha! They’re here!” He crouched, Manlink at his shoulder, furious, looking up into the sky, pink snow falling softly all around him.
A tooth-rattling howl as the air glittered with laser bursts flashing down in a beautiful, horrible arc from the sky, laser rain, slicing an irresistible path through the terrace, everything in its path disintegrating, exploding into dust. Psycho ducked. I couldn’t get any closer to the ground because of my clothing.
“Systies are strafing. Psycho, hold ‘em! Air cover! We need smoke! Beta, Gamma, on me!” Snow Leopard rounded the corner, joining us, and stepped into the flaming ruins of the open doorway. I followed, anxious to get out of the courtyard. A series of sonic booms shattered the sky. Four, five, six. All right! That had to be Topcat, the extraction force, with Legion fighters. About time! They’d give us the air!
Inside we faced a great hall lined with benches, the walls covered with heavy tapestries, with a raised platform at the far end and a nightmare red goblin carved into the wall behind the platform. He didn’t look too friendly. Perhaps that explained the SG’s.
Smoking incense, flickering candles, and a sudden silence. Doorways. Two stone staircases, either side of the platform, leading up to the second floor. Warhound kicked open one of the doors. A library, deserted. Dragon did another. Musty, empty cells, desks and paper.
“V-min, v-min, gang, she’s here. Upstairs! They live upstairs!” We picked our way carefully around the benches. Nothing stirred. Snow Leopard and Boudicca each took a staircase. Aircars shrieked past outside, and sonic booms rattled the building. We could hear tacstars howling on full auto. Could it be Psycho? I found myself behind Boudicca, hustling up the stairs. Scrapper and Sassin followed me. Sassin was the Cyrillian merc who carried Gamma’s Manlink. Of course, we called him Sassin the Assassin.
We gained the second floor behind a barrage of v-min auto. We found a body in the corridor, a Coldmarker male. I caught a glimpse of Snow Leopard, Dragon, Merlin and Priestess, coming up the other staircase, firing v-min auto into their corridor.
It was a long rectangular building and the corridor ran around the building, giving access to all the rooms. A great explosion shattered the sky outside. We did not have much time! The corridor was lined with closed wooden doors. I blew away the first one, and Sassin went for the opposite door. Boudicca joined me, stepping into the smoking dust, her E at her shoulder. A Coldmarker priest stood against the wall, clothed in a dark robe. “We’re unarmed,” he said shakily in Inter. “We’re a servant of God.”
Boudicca pointed her E right at his head. “Drop the robe, holy man.”
He carefully loosened the cloth belt and the robe slid to the floor. He was pale and fat and almost naked, trembling like jelly, clad only in a dirty loincloth. No weapons.
“We want the girl,” Boudicca said, “the Legion girl with the golden hair.” Her voice was a hoarse whisper. It raised the hairs on the back of my neck. She didn’t have to voice any threats. He understood.
“Next cell!” He responded immediately, gesturing up the corridor. He trembled violently.
“The Legion thanks you,” she said. Then she switched to xmin and shot him in the chest. The explosion blew him apart, spraying us with gore, splattering the entire room with blood. I was stunned for an instant, frozen in horror. She had been almost sane when I knew her in Hell.
Laser light flickered and cracked in the corridor, and V bolts banged away on auto. Gamma and Beta were kicking in doors and firing on v-min.
Boudicca stood before the door to the next room. Sassin raised his Manlink and fired and the door crashed right into the room. Boudicca and I stepped into the dark, E’s on v-min. A narrow slit in the cold stone wall high above admitted a sliver of daylight, revealing a fireplace with a few dying red embers. Valkyrie stood in the middle of the room facing us. She wore a Coldmarker cloak with the hood back and her golden hair shone in the dark. She appeared calm and detached. She stood over another girl, icy pale skin, black hair, heavy lids. A Mocain! The Mocain was on her knees, almost naked, shivering, facing us, her wrists and ankles tied behind her. Valkyrie stood over her, and she had the Mocain’s hair in one hand and a cold knife in the other.
“Millina, meet the Legion,” she said. “Legion, Millina. Hello, Thinker! Hello, Boudicca! Good to see you! Millina, I wanted you to see the Legion, before your death.”
The Mocain spoke. She tried to turn her head to face Valkyrie, but Valkyrie would not let go of her hair. “Legion…” the Mocain gasped, “We never killed you, Legion.”
Valkyrie leaned over and hissed in her ear. “Your mistake!” She brought the knife down and slashed the Mocain’s throat from ear to ear. The Mocain convulsed and a scream started but it was abruptly cut off as a cascade of bright red blood spurted freely out from her neck. Valkyrie kicked her in the back, and the Mocain fell face-first to the floor. I could only watch, stunned.
“Die, you sub!” Valkyrie appeared to be consumed by an ice-cold fury.
“Are you all right?” Boudicca asked.
“I’m fine! Give me an E!”
I handed her my mini in slow motion, still in shock from what she had just done. I reached out and touched her. It was wonderful to see her. I tried to say something, but I could only stare at the dying Mocain.
She snarled, “I want to kill every one of these filthy priests! Every one!” I’d never seen her like this, not even in her fighting fury when we almost died on Hell.
Boudicca turned and called it in, “Mission accomplished! Request extraction now!” The noise level rose outside, a continual banshee shriek of auto laser and the ripping, popping bursts of auto xmax and the horrible, unearthly supersonic blasts of the tacstars. As we hustled out into the corridor, I became suddenly conscious of the events that had been going on all around us. I had been too busy to absorb the transmissions, but I was getting them now.
“Systies on the ground! Moving in! Fully armored!”
“Get ‘em! Get ‘em! Get ‘em!”
“I’m hit! Oh, God!”
“Take out that bunch!”
“Topcat on the ZA!”
“We’re taking fire!”
“They’ve got the target!”
“There’s two of them over there. Get ‘em both!”
“I’m strafing them. Legion, get down!” There it was again, laser rain, ripping down all around us, burning holes in the stone walls of the monastery, ripping through the courtyards like the fingers of the gods. My skin crawled. It always crawled when I heard the lasers.
It was getting ugly. I led the way, “Down the stairs!”
We went charging down, and came sliding to a sudden stop halfway down the stairwell. Two fully armored Systie troopers, armed with SGs, stepped into the main doorway in a gust of red smoke swirling in from outside, like great robot genies in some wild drug-induced nightmare.
Sassin and I fired simultaneously. His was a tacstar. A brilliant, white-hot micronuke blew away the two Systie troopers and took out the doorway and most of the wall as well. Shrapnel peppered us, and I noticed my hands were bleeding.
Then the Systies counter-attacked. There was a sudden flash, and everything downstairs exploded. A hot pain lanced my left arm. I screamed in pain and anger. “Whoa! Back! Back up the stairs!”
We laid down a tremendous barrage of xmax and tacstars, retreating back up the stairs. The building wobbled. Coolhand let loose about four smokers, and somebody in Gamma lobbed down a deceptor and it crackled and spun away merrily. It would keep the Systies busy for a few marks anyway.
“Topcat, Snow Leopard. Beta and Gamma are trapped on the upper floor and we need extraction. Systies have the lower floor. We’ve got Valkyrie.”
“Good job, guys! Topcat is on you! Blow a hole in the roof! We’ll extract you!”
“Right here!” We gathered around a spot near the outside wall. Dragon and Doubledare guarded the stairwells. Sassin blew open a jagged hole in the ceiling. I shot a flare through the hole.
“We see you, guys! Tell us when you’re ready!” Another tacstar rocked the building downstairs. An aircar whistled overhead.
“They’re coming up!” Dragon announced, firing a long burst of auto xmax. Doubledare let loose as well. We charged back to the stairwells and split our forces, half to each stairway.
Snow Leopard took charge, “We have to stop them, or we’ll never get out. Down! Attack!” We fired deceptors and walked down the stairs right into them, firing, and it was the last thing they expected. The building shook with the frenzy of lasers and xmax. I expected it to collapse at any time. Green smoke whirled all around us, and even with the darksight, it was difficult to see. The Systies used deceptors too. Tacstar bursts flickered and cracked, white-hot nuclear light, glaring and fading. We fired flame on auto and filled the downstairs with rolling sheets of fire.
We paused halfway down the stairwell, again. A roaring inferno, full of burning splinters and shattered, blackened A-suits. One of them moved up from the floor, staggering sideways, flames running all over his armor. We fired lasers and white-hot tracks appeared on his armor and the metallic screeching set my teeth on edge, and he twitched and fell into the flames with a crash. At the end of the hall, the red God surveyed the scene silently, flames shooting up all around him.
“Is anyone hurt?” Snow Leopard asked.
“Dragon, Merlin, Sassin and Warhound, stay on the stairs and defend the main doorway. The rest of us, back upstairs and let’s call in the evac.” We could hear heavy firing outside again, and more sonic booms. Sweety was briefing me on the situation but I found it hard to concentrate when people were trying to kill me.
“Beta, Gamma, Topcat. We’re on the ground defending your building. You are under heavy assault.”
“Tell us something we don’t know! Keep them away from the main door, will you?”
“Your door is secure for now, but don’t exit that way. Use the roof and get out quick! More bad guys on the way!”
Valkyrie had pulled a table from a nearby room and moved it under the hole we had made in the roof. Another door opened suddenly and a Coldmarker ran out gesturing and screaming. Somebody shot him in the face, and the back of his head splattered against the wall.
Valkyrie spat at his corpse. “Idiot! What a stupid move!”
Warhound and Hotshot leaped up on the table and crawled up into the shattered wooden beams of the ceiling. Warhound shot off another flare. There was so much adrenalin in my system I could taste it on my tongue.
“Topcat Air, Beta, Gamma ready for evac! Yellow flare!”
“I’ve got ‘em, Topcat! Cover me!” Redhawk shouted as our aircar appeared above us, balanced effortlessly over the hole, assault doors snapping open. The backblast rushed down through the hole and washed over us. I boosted Valkyrie up to Boudicca, who was standing on the table. Valkyrie paused just for an instant between us, clutching my coldcoat, and she suddenly appeared very vulnerable, not at all like the terror I knew. Clear green eyes full of emotion, heavenly golden hair dancing in the breeze.
“Did you really come here just to get me back?” she shouted above the shriek from the aircar. She looked right into my eyes, and then looked up to Boudicca.
“I was in the neighborhood,” I replied. “Thought I’d look you up.”
“Don’t get mushy on me, Valkyrie,” Boudicca said. She hauled her up to Warhound’s outstretched arms. “Get your scrawny butt into that aircar!”
Snow Leopard would be the last one into the car, in true Legion tradition, waiting until our rear guard was safely aboard. We had a tremendous view from the aircar as we struggled to haul everyone in. The snowy sky burnt with glittering laser tracks and flashed with white-hot airbursts. Every few fracs the aircar rang with hits, shrapnel scarring the plex and xmax banging against the skin and rocking the car, and lasers burning into the armor mils from our flesh. Heavy Legion fighters boomed overhead, ripping holes in the sky. Legion and Systie aircars spiraled through the air in crazy patterns, looping and falling and diving and flashing past us and darting up into the leaden clouds chasing each other around and loosing long bursts of laser and tacstars.
The monastery complex rocked back and forth below us as Redhawk tried desperately to steady the car. Everywhere we looked, the buildings of the monastery glowed with swirling, multicolored clouds of smoke and flashed with brilliant explosions, as if the complex was lit up for some lunatic, barbaric festival, with flashing lights and fireworks. Legion soldiers in A-suits advanced into Systie fire, and glittering sheets of heavy laser from the skies, suddenly there. Broken, smoking A-suits littered the terraces of the monastery. Through the smoke I could see the Systies, too, A-suited DefCorps commandos, firing tacstars at the Legion! I raised my E just as Snow Leopard jumped in. We shot away from the roof instantly and the assault doors slammed shut.
“We’ve got to recover Psycho!” Snow Leopard said. Then the ceiling of the aircar exploded, an ear-shattering crack, a bright white flash, and the plex blowing away, icy air roaring in-streaks of phospho white bursting away from us. Tacstar! Laser tracks peppered the ceiling. We had two squads inside and it was an awful mess. The roar of the air rushing in and the shriek of the jets overwhelmed us all. I could barely hear Redhawk’s voice echoing in my comtop. We were dead!
“Beta Air hit! Nova! We’re coming in!”
The earth tilted up madly and another aircar flashed past us and the monastery slid away, and then moved back at us quickly. I watched the spires of one of the buildings coming right at us and I could see Valkyrie’s Legion cross, red cloth fluttering on a blue tile roof, still there!
Then there was a sickening blast and a white hot flash inside my head and I was gone.