“All right, gang. Drag ‘em in.” My heart pounded. Still underground, we had launched a messy humanitarian rescue mission. The damned Scalers had set fires to drive us out, and the entire underground complex had filled with smoke. Most of the Scalers would surely die of smoke inhalation unless we got them out. Terrific!
Psycho found a smoke-free corridor, but it just didn’t feel right. He led the way, carrying two bodies. I dragged an unconscious Scaler girl behind me, probing the corridor with the flash on my E. Merlin and Priestess followed, dragging more Scalers. The stone walls were featureless and my skin slicked with sweat inside my A-Suit.
Priestess said what I’m sure we were all thinking, “This is crazy.”
“That’s a ten!” I agreed, “Where does it lead?”
“It leads nowhere, gang,” Psycho said, “The room is blocked with big vertical iron bars, and I’m not sure what’s behind them. We’re going to have to cut through and hope they aren’t load-bearing.”
“What?” My Scaler girl was still out cold on the corridor floor. They could all breathe in here. I reached out and touched the bars. I didn’t like it.
Priestess grunted and asked, “Is Snow Leopard coming?”
Right on cue, Snow Leopard broke in on the net, “Thinker, report!” Apparently, he was busy with the rest of the squad, evacuating more Scalers.
“Nothing to report,” I responded. “Have you got our breathers for the Scalers?”
“We’re working on it, Thinker. Keep your position, we’re sending an element to assist you.”
“Tenners,” I replied.
Why bar the room? I looked up at the stone ceiling. A root snake dropped down from somewhere and slithered away. My entire being ached with fatigue. Stay out of the corridors, they had said, stay out of the tunnels. And save the women and kids. Wonderful! Strangely, I felt no rush to leave. I didn’t like the smoke out there. That root snake and I had much in common, after all.
A root snake? My heart gave a little jolt. I pressed my armored fingers against the ceiling. The stone was smeared with a thin layer of earth. I switched to local and yelled, “All right! Psycho! Priestess! Merlin! Get out! Now. Leave the Scalers!”
A terrible metallic screeching deafened me, even through my armor, then it felt like the entire planet fell on me as the ceiling collapsed on top of us. My world exploded in a cosmic flash of glaring white lightning, a great red roar overwhelmed me and the lights went out. My face plate lit up with red warning lights. I gasped and found I could not scream. Dying, blind and helpless and paralyzed, lying on my back, buried beneath tons of earth. Sweety was with me, whispering a sitrep into my ears.
That poor Scaler girl must be dead already, I thought. Now I will join her, another immortal entering the ranks of the dead. They will add my number to the honored lists of the front rank of the Legion, that phantom army that goes into battle with every Legion unit. I will be a footnote in the history of the First Scaler Campaign. Valkyrie will mourn for me. Priestess will feel my loss…Priestess!
Rage and terror and shock coursed through my body. Priestess! I strained every fiber of my being to fight my way out. The A-suit gave us superhuman strength. But even so, I could not move my arms.
“Strength at maximum, Thinker,” Sweety whispered soothingly. “Try the right arm. It’s meeting less resistance.” I tried. Nothing. “Try again, Thinker. It moved a micromil.” Encouraging! Sweat popped onto my forehead. I strained every muscle in my arm. Nothing!
“You’re making progress, Thinker.”
“Yeah, how long is it going to take, Sweety?” I gasped.
“I estimate six hours at the current rate to dig up to the surface of the dirt. However, it is unclear how much dirt is above. And it is unlikely that you can continue at the current rate. This is just an estimate because…”
“Blackout, will you, Sweety? Just blackout!”
“Yes, Thinker. I’m sorry. You should not give up hope.”
“I said blackout!”
“Yes, Thinker.”
Think! The plasmapak strapped to my back, useless. I was going to die! Rescue! They had to rescue us!
“Snow Leopard,” I choked out. “Nova! Tunnel collapse! Thinker, Merlin, Psycho, Priestess need help! Nova! Nova! Nova!” My words died on my lips. A dead, hollow silence in my ears. Surrounded by tons of earth, I realized my comset was down.
“We have no communications, Thinker.” Sweety calmly informed me. No, they could not hear me-but they would know! We would be off scope and off map, and there would be an immediate response. Snow Leopard would be rushing to the scene right now, cursing me for being a damned fool. All of Beta would be digging for us. It was only a matter of time before they found us. I might even live! But Priestess and the others-were they still alive?
It did not make me feel better. I could hear Death, laughing at me. I remembered Priestess in starlight, eyes closed, in my arms, and I knew I did not want to die. All I wanted was to touch her again, to hold her in my arms and fall into those dark eyes, again.
The earth moved.
Moved! Right over my chest, movement! Someone was chopping at the earth with some kind of hand tool. Salvation! A warm wave rushed over me-a full-body orgasm of sheer delight, the blood pounding in my ears.
The earth loosened and I still could see nothing, but my left arm moved. I forced it up, and the earth gave way. Someone grabbed my arm, and pulled. I struggled frantically, wrenching my body from the grave with the full power of the A-suit. The earth gave, loosened, and I burst free.
I clawed at my dirt-encrusted faceplate with my one free hand. Movement, across my vision-a green glow, coming at me quickly. An explosion of jagged pain shattered my skull, and a silent white-hot flash of searing agony burst through my brain.
“Get down!” Priestess, blessed Priestess, screamed into my ears. “I’m going to fire!”
Where the hell is my E? I struck out blindly with both arms, and ghostly figures swarmed over me. My armored fists struck flesh and bone.
A sudden series of loud, sharp explosions jolted me. V bolts! Something heavy fell on my leg. I saw only green dust, swirling madly. My arms were free, where was the E? I seized my hot knife and struck upwards. The knife burned its way into something, and shuddered to a stop.
I had to see! I grabbed my flash and triggered it. It burned into focus. Chaos, through swirling clouds of green dust. A Scaler, mouth open, eyes glazed. He collapsed slowly, like a rag doll, and I pulled my knife free. Another Scaler, whirling, snarling like a swarmer, blinded by the light. He raised his metal axe up and back, poised it to bash out my brains. I lunged up at him with the knife. It burnt with an icy blue flame, and sank into his thigh. My head exploded with pain.
“Get down!” Priestess pleaded. I collapsed, the knife glaring in a hopeless, wobbling arc, then fading as I lost my grip. The Scaler’s chest flashed, the sharp crack of a V bolt.
“Get down, Thinker! Get down!” I lay in a tangle of bodies, Scaler warriors draped over my armor. A tomb of earth surrounded me, a tunnel of black dirt and smoking dust, figures coming out of the dark and V bolts exploding all around me.
Priestess continued firing and I cringed in the dirt, clenching my teeth to stay conscious, swirling in a whirlwind of throbbing, gritty pain, wondering just what it was that had clobbered my helmet. I was still in my A-suit but my head had taken a beating. I caught a foggy glimpse of Scaler warriors, dirtmen, crouching behind mounds of black earth and jagged rocks, peering into the searing light from the torch, mouths open, shielding their eyes. I had dropped the hot knife but I still had the flash.
“Point the flash right at them, Thinker,” Priestess calmly instructed me. “Keep it right there.” She fired again, a continuous burst, knocking the Scalers senseless, blowing them away into the dark. My flash wobbled. It pointed down tunnel, illuminated only swirling dust. My vision was narrowing and I knew I was about to pass out.
“Love you, Thinker. Love you!” Priestess exclaimed. Somehow it made perfect sense. But I could not respond. Sweety zapped me with a stim, but it did not work.
“I’m going under, Priestess. I need you.”
“I’m coming, my love. You stay awake! They’re still out there. Keep that light shining!”
And then she knelt close beside me, aiming that big, beautiful E down the tunnel. She had her medpak out in a frac and pressed something into an access port on my armor. Strength burst into my veins, driving the webs from my mind. The pain began to fade.
“Priestess-Deadman, that stuff makes Green obsolete! What was that?”
“I gave you a biotic charge, Thinker. How do you feel?”
“What happened to me?”
“I saw the Scalers dig you out,” she replied, scanning the tunnel with her E. “One of them hit your helmet with an axe, just as I fired. He didn’t hurt the armor, of course, but the shock must have been transmitted to your head. Concussion.”
“That’s a big ten,” I confirmed. “What happened to our nice little smoke-free road?” I could almost move now. I kept the flash pointed shakily down-tunnel. It wasn’t much of a tunnel. We crouched in a great pile of collapsed earth, the soggy roof close overhead.
“It was a trap,” Priestess said. “Percy says it was a false ceiling, holding up tons of dirt-and we bought it! Then they came to dig out the dead, I guess.” Percy was her Persist. He had a voice like the hero in a subgirl’s sex fantasy. I always imagined him as a big, blond goon with a prominent chin and a tiny brain. It made me wonder about Priestess. But I had no complaints at that particular time, with Priestess hauling me back from dreamland and Percy scoping out the neighborhood.
“Sweety, what about Merlin and Psycho? Report!”
“I have a fix on Merlin up ahead as marked,” Sweety said calmly. “He is accompanying the enemy. I do not detect Psycho.”
Accompanying the enemy! I checked my tacmap. The tunnel ran on up ahead. There, B4 on the chart, surrounded by the enemy, a dark red glow. Scalers! Merlin, a captive of the dirtmen! My head cleared up fast.
“It’s Merlin!” I could hardly believe it.
“They’ve got Merlin,” Priestess echoed in amazement.
“How could they do it? It’s incredible!”
“How could he let them do it? Oh, no!”
“Merlin, Thinker! Merlin, Thinker! Report!” A faint hissing in my ears. Why couldn’t he hear us?
“Where are our people, Priestess? We must call Snow Leopard in!”
“No commo, my darling. There is no exit…no exit to our side. We’re cut off.” She seemed as cool as ice. “Be calm. We are together now. Together. How do you feel?”
Together. No exit. The tunnel went on. Dead quiet, the dust still hung in the air, smoking in the beam of my flash. My E was gone, but I still had my handgun, the mini, and we both had plasmapaks. I picked my hot knife up from the dirt.
“Estimate Psycho’s situation, Sweety.”
“Situation unknown. I do not detect him in this area.”
I said something rude.
“That is not within my capabilities, Thinker.”
“Blackout, Sweety!”
“Yes, Thinker.”
“They’re up ahead,” Priestess said. “Waiting. We’d better dig our way back out.”
It rushed over me, the certain realization of what we had to do.
“Merlin is up ahead,” I said.
“Yes, Love. Yes, yes, yes, I know that. But Psycho must be buried. And the Scalers…”
“We have to go after Merlin.”
“But what about Psycho? What about the Scalers?”
“Psycho’s in armor. He’ll survive. Beta will dig him out. And don’t tell me about Scalers! It’s because of them that we’re in this mess!”
Sweety sent an alternating charge across the outside surface of my faceplate and the mud and goo that clung to it melted away. I turned off the flash. We wouldn’t need it; we’d be safer without it. The Scalers needed light to see, and we didn’t. The tunnel faded to a dark green glow…only phantoms, in the dust. No further decisions necessary, I thought. I could feel that cold rush, again, crawling over my skin. I always accepted it, when only one possible course of action remained.
Now the Gods of Fate had us in their hands.
“Let’s go, Priestess. I’ve got my handgun, you use that E.”
“Thinker.” She reached out and touched my armor. “I…” She hesitated. “I want you to know. We might die…” She stopped, embarrassed. “I love you. I want to be yours…I want you to be mine. Please tell me…if I’m dreaming. Am I crazy? Do you love me?”
I reached over and touched her helmet. She was a shadowy creature of the dark, a demon in green, a lover from Hell, reflections glittering off her A-suit and helmet and that long evil E. Yes, yes, just the two of us, Thinker and Priestess against the world. Wasn’t that what I wanted? What I really wanted? Stop fighting it!
“I do love you,” I said. “And I want you. But what about Valkyrie? She’ll kill us, if she finds out.”
“I told you. I don’t care about her! All I want is to live with you. Forever!” The Gods of Fate. She knew exactly what she wanted. She was everything I was not. The dirtmen waited for us, up ahead.
“Yes. Yes, of course.” It was like a dream. No more decisions needed to be made. Just pledge myself to her forever, and walk down the tunnel together, to meet the dirtmen. I knew I wanted her more than anything.
“Do you take me forever, Thinker? So long as we both shall live?”
“Thinker and Priestess. On the cross. Forever!”
“Forever!”
“Let’s go, my Love. We have work to do.”
This unusual wedding may have been the most decisive thing I had ever done in my young life, short of joining the Legion. I knew that Valkyrie would certainly go out of orbit. But I did not feel that I had any say in the matter at all. Fate rolled over me in an irresistible wave. And if Valkyrie did find out, it would mean that we had survived. What, then, would there be to worry about? In the Legion we worried about life and death. Everything else was secondary. And my only worry at that moment was whether or not my marriage with Priestess would end in sudden, violent death before we even had the chance to explore the hidden secrets of each other’s hearts and bodies.
We began moving down the tunnel and found Scaler bodies with their heads crushed. It looked as if Merlin had put up a fight, but he must have lost his weapons in the cave-in. We switched our plasmapaks to the front for easy access in case the tunnel fell on us again. We had to hunch over to avoid the dirt ceiling. Priestess stopped, and held my arm.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I can’t see,” she said. “Just a moment.” She stood there, silent.
“What’s the trouble? Is your faceplate damaged?”
“Tears, my Love. Tears of joy. I’m all right now. Let’s find Merlin.”
“They’re right up ahead. A whole gang of Scalers.” Priestess watched her tacmod. I prepped to fire. I could see from the tacmap that Merlin was not with them. A wet, filthy tunnel, a dirty place to die. If it got any smaller, we would have to use the plasmapaks. I was slimy with sweat inside my A-suit. We paused for a moment.
“Put it on xmin and blow them away,” I advised Priestess. I wanted to show the Scalers we were serious. They had tried to kill us, and we still played around with V bolts. Priestess adjusted her E and aimed up the tunnel.
She fired, and the xmin flashed brilliantly up ahead, the sharp crack echoing down the tunnel. A large chunk of the tunnel roof collapsed up ahead. No worries, we had plasma. I raised my mini, but there was no movement. Priestess aimed again. I glanced at my tacmod.
There was a sudden snapping, then the roof and walls of the tunnel around us burst in on us, showering us with dirt. Ropes whipped through the air, entangling us immediately.
A net! It jerked me right off my feet and I fell backwards. Another rope whistled past me, singing as if shot from a gun. I landed on my back, stunned. Priestess had fallen right beside me, on her side, already fighting the net. The net drew tighter around us. Thick leathery strands wrapped all around me. I moved my arms, and the A-suit strained. My mini had reeled itself back to the holster on my u-belt, and I could not reach it. The plasmapak was in the way. Priestess tried to raise her E to fire through the net.
“Get it loose! They’re coming!” I heard the dirtmen shrieking, coming at us like a pack of killer bloodcats.
“I can’t get it loose! I can’t aim it! Help me!” Priestess struggled to get the E pointed down-tunnel but it was hopelessly entangled. I could not reach it. I strained at the net. It began to give. A single strand popped open, freeing my right arm. I could only reach my hotknife. I triggered it and forced it upwards, the strands of the net ripping open in its wake. Then the Scalers pounced on us, triumphant.
With a blood-curdling scream, a dirtman landed on Priestess. Torches danced in the dark. Four more Scalers leaped onto Priestess, axes smashing at the E as if to kill it. Someone landed on my chest. A savage, with upraised axe. I slashed upwards with my knife and it burnt into his chest effortlessly, hissing and spitting. He shrieked and fell backwards, spewing a fountain of blood, his entire chest carved open. I forced myself to my feet, slashing wildly with the knife. My helmet slammed against the tunnel roof and the cords fell away. I groped for my mini, but my left arm would not move. Something smashed my wrist, a hot bolt of pain shot up my arm. I held on to the knife, but the net was still wrapped around my legs and now someone pulled it and I went down again. Two dirtmen seized my knife arm. I hacked right through them, opening one up from the face to the navel, then caught the other across the chest. Shrieks of pain and terror and rage echoed in the tunnel.
More dirtmen piled onto my arm, heedless of the knife. On my knees, I lifted my right arm up and slammed three Scalers against the roof of the tunnel. Then I reached back and tore another one off my back, over my head and into the tunnel wall. A wild-eyed Scaler hit me on my faceplate with his axe. I countered with a right cross to his face, pulverizing him with my armored fist. His nose and cheekbones and temple smashed, blood burst forth from his eyes and nostrils and mouth.
More dirtmen landed on me, all glaring eyes and flashing teeth, battering at my helmet with large rocks wrapped in leather thongs. Another net fell over my head. No! My left arm popped out of the net and seized a dirtman by the throat. I squeezed and crushed his neck, lifting him right off his feet. Blood poured down my arm. I still had my knife and I opened up another dirtman, skewering him. My arm was buried in his chest, suddenly caught inside his rib cage, his body jerking like a puppet out of control. Axes smashed down onto my knife arm, and suddenly it went numb. A swarm of dirtmen covered Priestess, smashing downwards with their axes and rocks, shrieking. Priestess moved, using her armored hands, crushing arms and heads. The dirtmen screamed. Another net snapped around me, and I went down under a swarm of Scaler bodies.
Fiery torches lit up the scene with an eerie yellow glow. My right arm was useless and I could not see the glow of the knife. Bright, soundless explosions flashed through my mind. I could not move my arms. I could not hear Priestess. o
Death was a tunnel. They drag your corpse down a flaming tunnel, the road to Hell. A bumpy road, I thought. My head roared curiously as flames flashed from side to side along the tunnel. The Scalers had my body tightly wrapped in the net, dragging it somewhere. There was no need to be gentle with the dead.
The Scalers held smoky torches to light the way to Hell. Something jostled my body. Priestess was right beside me as the Scalers pulled us along, all wrapped up in the net. My plasmapak was no longer there, but we still had our A-suits.
“Priestess!” Oh, Deadman, let her be alive! “Priestess! Priestess! Answer me!”
“Thinker! Oh, my God, thank you. I thought they had killed you!”
“I’m alive. Did they hurt you?” We jostled together as the tunnel curved. The Scalers shouted among themselves; they could not hear us talking on the tacnet.
“They beat me until I stopped moving. They took the E.”
“Deadman! I thought we were finished.”
“I’m sorry, Thinker. I’m sorry.” I didn’t know why she was sorry, and had no time to find out.
“Sweety! Report!”
“Yes, Thinker,” she said. “Your E is missing. The enemy has taken the ampak, the plasmapak, the mini, the hot knife, the cold knife, the flash, the medpak, the bootknife, the U-belt, the excan, the toolpak and the ratpak. Your A-suit is fully functional. You have several injuries but none are serious. We have no commo as yet. The enemy attempted to open your helmet but failed. However, they may succeed on the next try. There are several layers of cords wrapped tightly around the A-suit. It is difficult to break free as the arms are securely tied.”
“Wonderful! Do you have any good news?”
“Yes, Thinker. If you break free of the net they will have difficulty restraining you.”
“You’re damned right they will! Suggestions!”
“Keep working on the restraints.”
The Scalers began to sing, a savage, rhythmic, haunting chant, chilling my skin. My helmet banged against a rock, and Priestess bumped up against me. I could not move the ropes, even with all the power of the suit. I had really botched this one. And all because I tried to save some Scaler women and kids. I should have let them die, instead of us!
A savage cheer filled the smoky air. We were dragged into a vast stone hall, a great cellar, somewhere under the temple. The floor was flooded with shallow, filthy water and the walls were coated with green moss and slime. The ceiling was smoke-blackened stone, glistening with moisture, supported by a forest of great stone columns. A jostling crowd of shouting, excited Scalers surrounded us, holding their torches high. Our captors continued chanting, dragging us through the water, the crowd splashing alongside, poking at us curiously with spears and tridents. Filthy Scaler children and fragile Scaler girls and the horrible walking corpses of the incurably aged all prodded and probed at us for a reaction. Metal axes banged off our armor. They wanted our blood. Priestess whimpered. My terror was complete but I did not want her to know.
“Thinker! Is that you? Who is that?” Merlin, the object of our quest, called out to us. But his voice wasn’t on our tacnet. The Scalers had stopped dragging us and now five or six of them sat on my chest, cutting the net away from my helmet. I still couldn’t move my arms. They fumbled at my helmet, trying to get it off. They would find the links soon. The other Scalers crowded around, torches held high.
“Merlin! It’s Merlin! We’ve found him!” It was an absurd statement, considering the circumstances. I craned my neck to see him. There! Merlin, out of his A-suit, chained to a massive stone pillar, blood streaking down his chest.
My helmet popped open and the Scalers wrenched it off. They swarmed all over me, knees and elbows and hands. The screams and the fetid stink of the place hit me like a physical blow, cold and wet and dead. A bloody haze, by flaming torchlight. I still couldn’t move my arms. I could feel nothing, running on straight adrenalin. About ten of them sat on me. Knives at my throat, a knife sticking into an ear, another forced into my mouth. Hopeless! I was as good as dead. They were after the armor, now. They had gotten Merlin out, so they knew how to unlink the suit.
They got our A-suits and litesuits off, stripped us naked and trussed us up like newly caught mumpups, the cords biting into our skin. I may have been in shock. There were hundreds of them. Bleeding heavily from the mouth, I wondered how we would die and hoped we would make a good death.
A roar suddenly erupted from the mob. A Scaler warrior stood over us, brandishing what I assumed was Priestess’s E. Small and wiry, his eyes glittered red in the torchlight and his hair was matted with dirt. He held the E aloft, waving it around, screaming harshly to the crowd.
“Priestess, is your E still on safe?” They had tied my hands behind my back and I could not see her.
“Yes.” I could barely hear her through the noise of the crowd. But why should I worry? Now they could only crush our skulls with rocks, instead of zapping us with the E.
Priestess screamed and I wrenched myself around enough to see what was going on.
The leader had Priestess by the hair, forcing her to her feet, her hands tied behind her back. The leader continued exhorting the crowd, forcing her head back, waving the E around with his other hand. War trophies. The sub! Priestess was absolutely lovely, even with blood trickling down from her head wounds. Her body appeared phosphorescent in the dark against all those dirt-caked Scalers. The torchlight flickered and flared and her skin glowed red and golden in the dark. An unexpected hush fell over the gathering. The sputtering of the torches underscored the heavy breathing of the mob.
Priestess was slim and lovely, incredibly beautiful, a child-woman, a starflower in the night. To the Scalers, her beauty must have seemed almost supernatural. Even the leader became silent, holding Priestess at arm’s length by her hair, staring at her in awe.
Then the Scaler women reached out to touch Priestess. I wondered if they thought they could have some of her beauty by touching her. Some of the men reached out to touch her as well, their hooded, evil eyes burning with lust.
The first warrior who slid his hand between her legs was rewarded with a sharp, perfectly executed front snap kick to the crotch. His face turned white and he collapsed without a sound. The crowd roared. The Scaler leader bellowed and pulled at Priestess’s hair, brutally yanking her off her feet, wielding the E like a club, striking out at the other warriors. Was he angry with them for touching his trophy?
Priestess fell to the floor, face contorted with pain. The Scaler women shrieked at the men, some of them beating at the warriors with their fists. Their meaning was clear: Hands off the alien girl!
Sloshing through the water, the leader dragged Priestess by her hair over the flooded, slippery stone floor. Another great shout went up and my captors hauled me away by my feet. I caught a glimpse of Merlin, being undone from his chains. A whiff of smoke hit my nostrils.
“Thinker! Thinker! Do something, for God’s sake! Deadman, help me!” Priestess was desperate and terrified. I struggled, but to no avail. I could not even see her anymore. A moving forest of Scaler legs surrounded me. Then the forest fell away, and I saw.
A metal grate, blackened by the fires of many centuries, rested over a deep, dark stone pit, its depths already smoking from a newly lit fire. The Scalers pulled away the blistered, crisp-blackened remnants of a giant exoseg from the grate, and chanted an evil song. The exoskeleton collapsed as they pulled, stiff black legs snapping off from the thorax as if from dry rot, showering the Scalers with ash. The filthy grate was covered with charred rot from the exoseg.
They dragged Priestess onto the grate, and fastening her wrists to the bars with chains. Merlin and I were next. Here the Scalers roasted their enemies, and we were the newest addition to the list. This was our fate, a slow, agonizing death, a long slow burning over an open fire.
The Scaler leader and two other warriors brought a bucket of dirty, oily liquid over to Priestess and began rubbing it onto her body. They started on her face and worked their way down, taking their time, exploring her body thoroughly. Priestess shuddered and cried out, twisting her legs to get away from them. The Scaler girls started in again, screaming angrily and pelting the warriors with rocks. They moved away from Priestess reluctantly and she collapsed, glistening with oil.
Merlin and I were then tied to the grate as well, and the warriors threw the rest of the oil on us contemptuously. They retreated and the crowd hushed. They surrounded the grate, a huddled, torch-lit, silent mob, warriors and women and children and the living dead, a whole Scaler city, come to see the aliens die. The fire flared up below us and someone threw a bucket of oil into the pit and the flames burst to life, searing our backs. We lay in the filth of the last victim, the bars of the grate now heating up and burning into my naked flesh.
Priestess moaned beside me. Merlin moved restlessly, raising his bloody head to look around. My fate roared in my ears, the spectators laughed, the torchlight flared over the shadowy ceiling, the heat rose from the fire pit. I remembered Gravelight’s words: “They will roast you slowly over fires…you will die slowly.”
There was no avoiding our fate this time. We would die, immortal or not, burnt to black crisps. The Legion would find our bodies, and many Scalers would die in revenge. We would be buried under cold skies, side by side beneath the strange stars of this new world. Generations of schoolchildren would chant our names, the First of the First, Thinker, Merlin and Priestess who died for you in the first assault. We would not be forgotten, and I would lie beside my lovely Priestess for eternity. I began whispering the chant of the Legion, our death song.
“I am a soldier of the Legion.
I believe in evil,
The survival of the strong…”
The grate burnt into my flesh, now. Smoke rose all around us. I raised my voice.
“…and the death of the weak!”
We were weak, to have been trapped like this. I was weak, to have thought of the Scalers first and of my comrades second. Priestess had stopped whimpering. She joined her words to mine.
“I am the guardian
I am the sword of light…”
And now Merlin joined us, in a strong, clear voice.
“In the dark of the night.
I will deliver us from Evil!”
The Scalers surrounded the fire pit, silent phantoms in the torchlight. And now we would die, with the chant of the Legion on our lips, until the pain overwhelmed us.
“I accept life everlasting…”
Life! Life everlasting. It only meant death, in the end. The Legion promised life, and delivered death. A fair bargain. To us, death was the final frontier, the final mystery, the final, holy glory.
The Scaler leader leaped onto the grate, screaming at us, waving the E over his head. We defied him, raising our voices so that everyone could hear us clearly. We knew we were going to die.
“I will trust no Earther worm,
Nor any mortal man…”
He stood right above me and raised the E like a club, as if to bludgeon me to death. I thought briefly that it would be preferable to burning. Something snapped, and a neat little pinhole suddenly appeared on his forehead. He stiffened, and a thin stream of bright red blood squirted out of the hole. The Scaler leader shuddered and collapsed, falling face-first onto the grate.
The crowd stood motionless, shocked. I raised my head, trying to look around. Priestess clanked her chains, trying to see behind her. For an instant, it was quiet.
The crowd exploded, V bolts burst among them like the fist of a mighty God, earsplitting explosions shattered the silence, filled the great hall. Someone had a Manlink on V-min auto, working the mob over slowly, systematically, from one end to the other. The V bolts blasted the Scalers right off their feet, arms and legs flailing, explosions of filth and dirt, bodies tumbling wildly, multiple blasts hammering into the mob relentlessly. The Scalers screamed in a wild panic, clawing and trampling each other to get away. But there was no escape. V bolts, again and again and again, seeking out the Scalers, cracking white-hot in the dark as Scaler torches flew through the air, trailing hot sparks. The hall darkened as the torches went out. Now there were only the eerie lightning flashes of the V bolts and the glow of the fire pit.
The grate burnt painfully into my flesh. “Come on, guys, whoever you are! Cut us loose,” I shouted.
The Scalers were a frantic tangled mass of bodies in the shallow water covering the stone floor, now trying to rise, to crawl, to get away. But the V did not stop. Bolts of searing hot energy burst among the survivors, knocking them head-over-heels. No mercy! V swept the hall, chasing after fleeing groups of Scalers, tumbling them down as they ran. In a frac, an angry, determined mob had been turned into fleeing rabble.
Psycho suddenly appeared and knelt over Priestess, his Manlink glowing. “Hi, Honey. You still hanging around with these two losers?” He aimed again, and fired into the darkness.
Psycho! Psycho the Maniac, Psycho the Avenging Angel, covered with dirt, armored and armed and as cool as could be. Through his faceplate, I saw his happy grin. He sliced through Priestess’s bindings with his hot knife. A stone bounced off his armor. He ripped off another burst into the dark. “If they keep that up, they’re going to upset me, and I’ll switch to xmax,” he informed us.
“Cut us loose, Psycho!” Merlin demanded.
“What do you think, Priestess?” Psycho inquired calmly. “Why don’t we just leave them here. Who needs ‘em? They’ll just get you into trouble again.”
Priestess didn’t waste any time. “Give me your mini!”
Psycho fired again, a long burst. Priestess sliced my chains off with a laser burst from the handgun and then freed Merlin. Rocks ricocheted harshly off the metal grate. Regrouped, the Scalers had started to fight back.
Psycho fired on xmax and a tremendous blast lit up a far corner of the chamber. He peered into the dark, surveying his handiwork, shaking his head. “I leave you clowns alone for a couple of fracs and come back to find the Scalers having you for lunch. Can’t you do anything right without me?” He was in his element. He was magnificent under stress. When there was no stress, he generated it, just to annoy us.
“Where are the others, Psycho?” Merlin looked around wildly, an eternal optimist, completely detached from reality.
“Others?” he laughed madly. “Come on, we can handle this bunch. I just dug my way out of the cave-in. There aren’t any others!”
I snatched up Priestess’s E from where the Scaler had dropped it and let loose a long burst on v-min into the dark. It got darker fast. Scaler torches sputtered weakly here and there where they had fallen and piles of twitching Scaler bodies could be seen in the gloom. Only Psycho could see properly. The rest of us were all but blind in this underground world. The fire pit illuminated us nicely for the Scalers.
“You’ve got a beautiful ass, Priestess.” Psycho always said exactly what he thought.
“Thanks for rescuing us and keep your hands off!” she replied hotly.
“Can you please concentrate on the Scalers, Psycho?” I suggested. “Let’s get away from the fire.”
“On me,” Psycho said simply. He knew the way out. A rock exploded off Psycho’s plasmapak. He whipped around and fired again on xmax. A searing detonation illuminated shattered Scaler bodies flying through the air, and a sudden horde of fierce-looking dirtmen off to one side, whirling their slings in the air, coming right at us.
“Damn! Where did they come from?” A hail of rocks ricocheted all around us. A heavy metal trident flashed past my face.
“Lights! Psycho, give us lights!” Merlin had armed himself with an axe. He snatched the flash from Psycho’s waist and snapped it on, right at the dirtmen.
The sudden light was dazzling, silent nova, bursting to life, glaring and sizzling right at the dirtmen. It stopped them like a wall, just for a moment.
“V-min,” I said. “Auto.” We were really not supposed to be killing them.
“Always thinking,” Psycho retorted. “What a pain.”
He and Priestess and I stood shoulder to shoulder while Merlin held the light. We opened up with V bolts on straight auto. We cut down the dirtmen with thunder and lightning, with V bolts from another world, and the underground shook with the earsplitting din of the battle. The dirtmen just kept coming, right at us, chanting their death songs. Lord, they were good!
“The other side.” Rocks pelted us from behind. We formed a fighting circle, back to back, surrounded.
“Flares.” Merlin could only cover part of the chamber with his flash so we fired flares out into the darkness and they burst into brilliant light, glaring and spitting from the far corners of the great hall. Now we could see it all, many, many Scaler bodies, and women and children huddled in terrified clumps on the watery floor, playing dead. Warriors, leaping from behind those great columns, launching stones and evil spiked metal balls through the air to whistle past our ears. Shadows leaping from wall to wall, hundreds and hundreds of Scalers all around us, swarming in blind panic and terror and hatred and courage and bloody suicidal sacrifice. I felt for those Scalers, I really did.
“Deadman!” Psycho exclaimed. “I haven’t had this much fun since Planet Hell!”
“I love you, Thinker! I love you!” Priestess could not hold it in.
“What is this, confession time?” Psycho was outraged. “I save her ass, and she loves you? Wait’ll I tell Valkyrie!”
“Look out!” A spear flashed past my cheek and bounced off the stone floor. A rock hit me square in the chest, leaving me breathless.
A low wailing arose from the Scalers. Hysterical screaming, urgent shouting, someone barking out commands. The rain of stones slowed, and ceased. An evil silence fell on the great chamber. Scaler women and children ran frantically along one wall, illuminated by a flare. Grimfaced warriors with heavy metal tridents stood fast in the human flood, facing the direction from which the civilians were fleeing.
“It’s the Legion!” Merlin exclaimed.
Psycho glanced at his tacmod. “Negative. There’s nobody here.”
“Deadman,” I whispered. I could see something, in the inky black of a far corner of the chamber, behind the columns, hidden from the flares. I could see what the Scalers feared, what had drawn their attention from us.
“What is it?” Priestess demanded.
Something big, in the dark. Something dark and evil, writhing in the shadows. Something from Andrion 3, to break your bones and drink your blood.
“Death,” I said. “It’s death!” I was not too coherent, right then. I did not know if I could face another exoseg.
Two of them emerged from the shadows, illuminated harshly by the glittering light of our flares. Two grim, terrible, giant killing machines, heads snapping back and forth, antennas cracking out like whips, front legs probing ahead of them, awful empty black eyes reflecting only death. Another great exoseg appeared out of the shadows, behind them. And another. Their chittering filled the chamber, the only sound. It chilled my blood. I felt the hair rising on my scalp.
“To the death,” Merlin whispered reverently.
“My, my!” Psycho exclaimed. “Just look at that!”
“I can’t do this again, Thinker,” Priestess said quietly. “I don’t want this. Not again.”
“Lasers,” I said. We faced the exosegs. “Zap ‘em with the light, Merlin. Maybe it will help. All right, let’s do it.” I could not tear my eyes away from those giant, obscene beasts. Merlin flooded the creatures with light. My skin crawled at the sight of them. My heart raced, adrenalin shot through my veins.
We fired simultaneously at the first two exos, laser light ripping the air violently, dazzling our eyes, sizzling and burning, raw energy from the heart of a star. We sliced the creatures, from top to bottom, from front to rear. They disintegrated, quickly, screaming, a high-pitched squeal, grating to our ears. Their bodies, suddenly sliced into many pieces, simply fell apart, burning at the edges, smoking, the internal organs ripping out to fall among the rest of the wreckage. We ceased firing. A horrible stench suddenly hit us like a physical blow.
“Deadman!”
“It works!”
“I love it! I love it!” Psycho was ecstatic.
“Get the others!”
Three, four, more! More exosegs, picking their way in fast motion over and around the steaming carcasses of those we had killed, twitching and snapping, reaching out for us with their antennae. We had no real reason to fear them, despite their terrifying appearance. Our fighting lasers cut through them like paper.
Overcome with loathing, I fired again. Psycho and Priestess fired simultaneously. Merlin kept the light on them. It was a horrible orgy of death, a blind slaughter, a pitiless, deliberate massacre. I saw it through burning red eyes, and I loved every frac. I bounced the E up and down, and slashed from side to side and the creatures walked right into our firestorm and disintegrated, all those separate body parts falling down sizzling to steam and hiss in the water covering the stones of the chamber floor, yellow viscera suddenly free, spilling hot and steaming into nothingness.
A hulking, smoking pile of obscene exoseg parts lay scattered all around us. A head, lying on one eye, glared at us, mandibles still twitching. The lasers did it all, an elemental force, the power of the stars at our fingertips, as we stood fast against a tidal wave of nightmare, grotesque alien creatures from the edge of the universe.
I felt like a God. From the corners of my eyes I spotted Scaler warriors behind us, forming a human wall of tridents and spears, in front of their huddled women and children.
More of them, a new exoseg come to die, its antennae lashing out among the fallen corpses of the others.
“Take the Manlink, Merlin.” Psycho handed it to Merlin, who snatched it eagerly. Psycho stepped out to face the exoseg. He crouched, his black armor catching the reflections from the flares, his hot knife outstretched before him, already triggered, burning a blue-hot flame.
“Hold your fire!” Psycho demanded, “Let me take him.” The exoseg paused for an instant, focused on him.
“You maniac!” I gasped in horror, suddenly realizing his intent. “Fire! Fire! Fire!” I shrieked and pressed the trigger. The giant exoseg disintegrated in an irresistible, glittering stream of laser bursts, its burning remains showering down on Psycho.
“You subnorm earther reject! Get your ass back here, Psycho!” I could hardly believe he had actually done it. What a raving lunatic.
“Damn it, I had him! Why’d you fire?”
Two more exoseg soldiers jerkily picked their way over the great mound of stinking body parts, vacant compound eyes winking evil. We vaporized them, hitting them head-on with the lasers, slicing them up lengthwise. They exploded, green and yellow puss spraying outwards in an obscene halo of death.
We ceased fire. A great silence settled over the chamber. I heard my heartbeat, and the sputtering of Scaler torches, the whimpering of children, and the hissing of our flares. We slowly re-formed our fighting circle, without words. The great hall was littered with unconscious Scalers, the victims of our V bolts. Beyond the bodies, a strong, straight line of Scaler warriors faced us, stretching all the way across the chamber, shoulder to shoulder, behind a wall of long heavy tridents and spears. The women and kids were behind them, in the shadows, all talking at once, shouting at each other. They may have been debating whether they wanted us medium-rare, or well done.
“Don’t fire yet,” I said. “Let’s see what they do.”
“Can we fire after they kill us all?” Psycho was still unhappy because I had terminated his exo.
“Tenners, no more games. If they attack, we keep the E’s on laser.”
“I don’t think they’re going to attack us,” Merlin said. “Look!”
A Scaler warrior stepped forward. He was small but well built, with hard flat muscles and great scars on his chest. An ornament of gold glittered at his throat. He held aloft a heavy blackened metal trident, grasping it with both hands, keeping it parallel to the ground.
“Watch him…”
He walked towards us, fearless, and paused, almost arms-length away, the trident overhead. Three lasers pointed at his belly. He looked right into my eyes, and I knew he could see death, looking out at him. His eyes burned. He was not afraid. He had already decided what to do.
He knelt, and brought the trident down, slowly, holding it out, to us. Presenting it, to us.
“He’s surrendering,” Priestess whispered.
I reached out to take it, in a daze. It was heavy. A sun symbol engraved the metal shaft, a sun with a single rune on its face, radiating light. The long line of Scaler warriors carefully laid down their weapons on the flooded stones of the great hall. I could hardly believe it.
“Cease firing, Snow Leopard,” Psycho suddenly exclaimed. “The Scalers in the great hall have just surrendered to us.”
“What do you mean, Psycho?” For an instant, I did not understand.
“It’s Snow Leopard,” Psycho replied. “CAT 24 has broken through, they’re on the way. Engagement in the tunnel.”
Priestess’s arms snaked around my waist and she buried her face in my chest. I balanced the E on my hip and tried to comfort her. A great relief flooded over me. I was suddenly very conscious of her very naked body, pressing close to mine.
“Let’s see if we can find Priestess’s litesuit, guys, uh, and maybe mine and Merlin’s, too.”