A faint roaring filled the air around them, and grew steadily louder. The boxy brown shape of a VTOL transport rose above the hillside at the edge of the valley, then raced down it toward the village, staying low where a SAM wouldn’t have time to lock on before they were below the horizon.
It roared over the houses furthest from the village square, before the nose tilted up and the thrusters on the transport’s sides rotated until they were pointed forward and down. It slammed to a near-stop in the air right above the square, then lowered the nose and descended.
A cloud of dirt filled the air as the thrusters blasted the ground and blew the dirt aside, then the transport settled on the short legs beneath it, and the motors whined as they slowed. The ramp at the rear opened with a faint hiss, and clunked as it hit the ground.
“Looks like Gallo’s ride is here,” Bairamov said. “Let’s get him on board.”
Logan, Bairamov, and Heinrichs grabbed Gallo’s arms and legs, then hauled on them. The motors of their suits groaned under the extra weight of Gallo’s, but they lifted him far enough to take his weight off the ground.
Logan dug his foot claws deep into the dirt surface of the square, and pushed against it as Bairamov led the way to the transport. The back of Gallo’s suit scraped gouges in the dirt as it bumped across the ground whenever they relaxed their grip too much.
Gallo’s eyes were open, and his head twisted from side to side in the helmet as they carried him. His lips moved, but made no recognizable words. He was probably completely out of it on whatever painkillers the suit had injected into him.
They hauled him up the ramp. Four medics stood inside, wearing air masks. Logan and the others lowered Gallo to the floor. The medics swarmed around him, attaching sensors to his skin, and cutting through the suit.
“How is he?” Logan said.
“Prepare for dustoff,” said a voice from the speakers inside the hold. The motors began to rev up.
“We’ll fix him up and get him back to you,” the medic said. “Get clear, we have to go.”
Logan, Bairamov, and Heinrichs jogged down the ramp as the transport’s thrusters fired up again, blowing away what little loose dirt still remained in the square.
Logan backed up to the nearest wall with Bairamov close behind him, then moved further away around the corner of the building as the rising dirt blasted into his visor, and the external temperature display on his HUD rose every higher in the heat from the thruster exhaust.
The transport rose slowly above the buildings, then swung around ninety degrees, and raced off toward the hills around the valley as fast as it had arrived. Even if any insurgents had managed to set up a SAM ready to launch since the transport flew in, it was heading back on a different course.
Volkov was still arguing with the mayor, but Logan couldn’t hear what they were saying, and didn’t really want to. It wouldn’t be anything good.
What would he do, if he was in charge of a place like this? If he opposed the insurgents, they’d kill him. If he opposed the Legion, they’d shout at him, maybe torture him, and then kill him. What good choices did the mayor have?
Finally, Volkov turned away. The mayor bowed, then strode back into the village hall, probably just glad to be safely in a place where Volkov couldn’t rip his head off with two power-assisted metal fists. Volkov stormed away to the middle of the square, with Poulin trailing behind him. Then he finally spoke over the net.
“Charlie team, pack up. We’re moving out. Rendezvous at the rally point.”
CHAPTER 10
Logan grunted and hunched over as the fist hammered into his stomach. He raised his head and stared into Chief Corporal Beauchene’s lean, slightly wrinkled, scarlet face. The Chief leaned closer, his hand still balled into the fist that had just punched Logan again.
Logan could smell the cloud of cheap, hoppy beer stench that oozed from Beauchene’s mouth whenever he came too close. The instructor seemed to start drinking the cheap Legion beer before breakfast, and continue on and off until he climbed into bed late at night.
But, somehow, he never seemed to grow drunk, just vicious and angry.
Centuries ago, so they said, Legion officers had been known to beat misbehaving recruits to death, to encourage the others. Rumours among the other recruits in Logan’s section said that Beauchene had been a serial killer in his civilian life, before he was sent to the Legion to atone for his crimes, and the man was frustrated that he was only allowed to beat the recruits these days. Not kill them.
But they were probably making that up.
Probably.
“What worthless waste of breath has Rousseau sent me this time?” Beauchene yelled, with his lips so close to Logan’s ears that the shout almost deafened him.
Beauchene pointed along the line of recruits who were standing to attention in the parade ground beside Logan, past the weather-beaten white walls of the centuries-old barracks building, and down the steep hill toward the three-metre wall that surrounded the camp.
“Run to the wall, and we’ll see if you can remember to salute properly when you get back.”
Then he nodded toward the smaller, dark-skinned man standing at Logan’s side. “You too, Desoto. You should be keeping your team-mate in line. If he fucks up in combat, you’ll be dead with him.”
Logan saluted, and turned toward the fence.
He jogged toward it, then accelerated to a run. He was used to this now. The run down to the wall was easy, he could just let gravity pull him toward itl, and try to stay upright on the loose dirt. But his legs would be jelly by the time he reached the parade ground again on the way up.
“I hate all you foreign bastards,” Beauchene yelled at the other recruits. “You aren’t worthy to scrub a Frenchman’s ass.”
Logan could hear Desoto’s gasping breath behind him, and mutterings that he was sure must be Spanish swearwords.
The first words Beauchene had said to the new recruits as they lined up on the parade ground on their first day were “Si vous parlez Français, asseyez-vous.”
Logan had learned enough French to get by during his three years in the ZUS. He followed the order, and sat. Most of the other recruits just stood there, looking at him. It was an easy way to determine who really understood some French, and who didn’t.
So the instructors had teamed him up with this smiling, non-French-speaking Spaniard who’d somehow found his way across the border wall to France, then volunteered for a life of adventure in the Legion.
And found more than he’d bargained for.
Desoto had explained that he’d learned English by listening illegally to the radio broadcasts that reached Spain from the BBC propaganda stations extolling the virtues of England, and encouraging the people of Europe to rise up and join them; one of the ways the politicos got around the lack of communication channels between England and France.
The people never did rise up, of course, and most likely never would, but Desoto had learned enough of the language that way that he could try to understand Logan’s translations from the French. But Logan often wondered how much the Spaniard really understood of what the instructors told them.
Logan dug the heels of his boots down into the grass as he approached the wall, then slid to a stop. He slapped the wall with his hand, then turned around, and began to run back up the hill just as Desoto reached the wall. His leg muscles strained with the effort of pushing his body uphill, and his breathing grew deeper and faster.
Logan’s first week as a Legion recruit wasn’t going as well as he might have hoped. But it was still less painful, and a little better fed, than the time he’d spent in prison.