"It won't be necessary, Gamma. This is a Legion op. The Systies will be unarmed."
Boudicca was quiet. Stunned is more the word. Unarmed! Going to face the O's, unarmed. They were certainly putting themselves at our mercy. I wouldn't do that, with Systies. No—I was not that trusting.
"Right, if there are no more bitches I'd suggest we get to work." Snow Leopard stood up, aggressive and confident once again. "Hit your quarters and start working on the mission orders. See the ship for your bunks. When I want you, I'll let you know."
Chapter 9:
Volunteers
"How'd you like a ship like that?" Dragon asked.
We were in a troop shuttle from the Spawn, gathered around the screens, approaching a prize of war. A private starship, a fabulous toy for galactic plutocrats; a wonderful, shimmering white ship, stunningly beautiful. It was a slaver and had been seized by a Legion interceptor. Now a Legion prize crew was aboard. This was to be our transportation to Mongera. I knew this ship. I had visited it in orbit around Coldmark. This was the Personal Ship Maiden, and it was Tara's ship. My heart beat faster as we approached. It was a ship of light, a beacon of hope and life floating in an infinite, black ocean of death. How could such a lovely ship be a slaver? Tara—how could she possibly be involved in such an unholy venture, even as a Legion asset? I could hardly comprehend it. I had attended midschool with Tara in our own impossible past. How long ago it seemed!
"Slavers!" Merlin remarked. "Nice company we're keeping."
"We need them," Coolhand commented, "to get port clearance. So let's be nice!"
"Slavers and Systies!" Boudicca spat. "Scut! Some mission!"
"Thinker." Dragon was right next to me, grinning happily. "You meet any hot slave honeys when you were on board her?"
But I didn't really remember much about the slaves at all. What I remembered was Tara, her face glowing out of the dark. She was certainly cooperating with the Legion—but at what cost? The Tara I knew was as bright as a sun—compromise was not in her vocabulary, and slavers only lived until they met the Legion. She would have gladly shot them dead, herself, and felt good about it.
"Prep for docking! Secure all personnel!"
Stone cold beauty, a ship like a burning star glittering in the dark. What horrors had it known? How many hopeless slaves had seen those portals? How many tortured souls had Tara delivered into the unknown? Tara, Tara, Tara, my hopeless, dark angel—what will be your fate?
Priestess squeezed my hand, smiling up at me, a child of the Legion, blinking warm dark eyes. A shot in the heart. Priestess was mine, totally mine, and she was all I ever wanted. Just to be alone, with Beta Nine—how could I want anything more? But life was not that easy, could never be that easy. Tara awaited me, in a ship of slaves, and back on Andrion 2, a Dark Cloud princess was going to have my baby. Moontouch, Moontouch, Moontouch, my secret obsession. What was I going to do? It was all dark to me—in the Legion you live one day at a time.
###
The Legion never told anyone a thing they didn't need to know. Snow Leopard certainly knew about Tara, and so did Delta One. I only knew a little.
Delta's half-squad came on board with us, and the Spawn's prize crew was ferried away. We went into stardrive immediately—there was no time to waste. While Delta took charge on the bridge, Badboy fanned out through the ship, looking for trouble. It was a palace in the stars, still and lifeless except for the padding of our boots in the carpeted halls and the sighing of the conditioners. The odor of perfume still hung in the air. A pleasure palace, full of memories. Now it belonged only to the Legion—what would we do with this ship of lights?
We found the brig—they had locked the humanoid inside. I had heard about this creature, but had never seen him. Gildron, they called him.
He snarled at us, his eyes dark lifeless pools. A giant, he was clothed in the ship uniform, elektra violet. Thick hair covered his huge body. The prize crew had said he was the Commander's personal bodyguard. I tried to reconcile this half-human beast with the girl I had known, and could not. Tara had taken a very strange road to the present. I sighed, and turned away.
The Cyrillians were all unarmed, but it was their ship; we didn't trust them for an instant. They snapped to when we approached, and tried to be helpful. We were all armed, at all times, and prepared to fire. They knew it. The Legion was not a trusting bunch. The Cyrillians watched us with suspicious eyes, and whispered to themselves in their own language. They had jet black skin, yellow slit eyes, and sharpened teeth. Cyrillians were mercs, refugees from a savage, violent world that had been effectively destroyed by the System in a series of nasty civil wars. They were survivors. Gamma had one Cyrillian in their squad—Sassin the Assassin. He was a survivor, too. And so was I.
###
I was on aircar watch when she came. Our Systie aircar was safely tucked away in the launch bay of the Maiden, and we were not about to let any of the slavers near it. So we watched it. I sat there under its great black belly, my E at my chest, nightmares rushing through my mind, and there was nothing at all I could do to stop them.
She came as silent as a ghost and at first I thought I was imagining her, a vision from my past, glowing softly out of the darkness. Then she moved, just a little, and her auburn hair slid over her shoulders like silk, and she blinked hot exotic eyes and wet her lips. The shadows highlighted her high cheekbones and her skin was like brown satin. She was dressed in black. I rose to my feet.
"Hello, Wester." That soft, slightly husky voice.
Adrenalin, my heart exploding. She had always called me Wester.
"Tara! Hello." It was the best I could do, under the circumstances. I tend to freeze up in the grasp of angels.
"Are you worried about the aircar?" A faint, faraway smile.
"Yes. Yes, we are."
"There's no need to worry. My Cyrillians are very enthusiastic about this mission. They will do exactly what I tell them to do."
"And what will you tell them to do?"
She blinked, looking right at me. "We'll do the Legion's will. Isn't that what it's all about? We all do the Legion's will."
"Even you, Tara?"
She looked around, uneasily. "Especially me, Wester. Are you going downside in that thing?"
I looked up at the aircar. "Yes, I'll be downside."
She looked at me again, a soft, faraway gaze, full of longing and regret. I didn't need it; not then, not ever. "…all the more reason." Her lips found the words, but I could hardly hear her.
"Say again?"
"All the more reason…" She tossed her head back, and her hair hissed around her shoulders again, silk on silk. "…for the mission. I can hardly believe it, Wester. Surely it must mean something."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean we're tossed together again, two grains of sand in the wind. You're going downside, and I'll be watching over you, from above. Doesn't it give you a thrill?"
"Tara…" There was only one thing I wanted to know from her. "You'd make it easier on me if you'd explain something. You command a slave ship, your alias is in our Black Book, and you pass secret messages to the Legion. I suppose that makes you a Legion asset, but it doesn't explain a thing to me. I knew a girl called Antara once…a long time ago. She wouldn't do what you've done. Why, Tara? Why? You used to tell me everything. Remember?"
She looked up at the aircar again. "Remember…yes, I remember. How could I forget? Yes, that was a long time ago, wasn't it? A girl called Antara…life was simpler then. I was just a girl, and you were just a boy. Now you're a soldier of the Legion, and I'm…well…a lot of things, I suppose. I see the Legion has told you nothing. Yes, of course they wouldn't. I can't answer your questions, Wester. You want more than I can give."