I closed my eyes. We were in the hands of the Gods.
Chapter 4
The Mission
A poisonous black rain fell through an uneasy night. We huddled in the aircar, armored and armed, hurtling into the future. Thirteen soldiers of the Legion, bound for death. We were on the left flank of the attack, moving fast and low with the advance elements of the 12th. The sky flickered with light, then faded. Deceptors trembled across the sky like lightning. Psybloc fell like hot hail. When it lit up, black clouds hid the stars and sheets of rain burst against the skin of the aircar. Dead forests of smoking charcoal trees flashed past outside, stark reminders of the elemental struggle that had just been waged. We could see other aircars on our screens. Green ghosts, all around us. The horizon erupted, an intense phospho-white burst, icy green core; then the shock wave rattled the car, the horizon fading once again.
"Antimat!" Redhawk exclaimed. "Big one!" Redhawk was piloting and he had the speed close to max. Terrifying things came at us out of the dark, huge boulders and massive hills of burning trees and sudden cliffs, tearing right past us. I knew Redhawk had it all on screen, but it didn't make it any less scary.
"There's some O's over there," Snow Leopard said. "Just stay away from them."
"Sounds like good advice!" We'd been through a lot with Redhawk, and we trusted him—he was a first-class driver. He was a little crazy, maybe, but he wasn't the only one.
"Control, Black Jade. Commo check." Snow Leopard did one last check.
"Black Jade, Control. Read you ten high. Please go to blackout. Good luck."
"Black Jade going to blackout." Now we were truly alone, flying right into the mouth of fate.
"Play the stars, Sweety." I spoke to my Persist, the tacmod. She responded wordlessly and in moments I was calmer, alien galaxies howling in my ears, black stars hissing, red giants crackling. It was the music of distant suns, the murmur of faraway nebulae, crawling slowly over my skin. The music of the stars—it was all I needed for any dark night, and I had shared it only with Priestess.
"Opstars!" Redhawk exclaimed. They glowed on the screens. I craned my neck to see behind us. There, a line of pale glowing fireballs rising into the sky. Lightning lanced down all around them.
"Is that us or the O's?"
"Looks like Legion stars to me."
The rain was letting up. Something rattled past us, a black blur. Then a river of cold black molten mercury glittered under us, catching the light from a sky full of psybloc, multicolored sparklers falling slowly down into the dark. We followed the river like a great cenite bat, the wind whistling eerily past our armored plex, and it looked as cold as death down there, a river of black ice lethargically flowing out of some frozen wasteland, some arctic Hell. Bleak hills rose on each side of the river.
"Sir?" My eyes snapped down to my comset readout: B13, on private to me.
"Yes, Thirteen?" It was the new girl—what was her name? Twister. Who else would call me 'sir'? She was sitting right next to me, I suddenly realized, clutching her E.
"I'm scared," she said. Just that. She turned her head to me and I saw her pale frightened face behind her visor. Soft brown eyes, freckles all over her nose and cheeks. She was like a big, awkward colt, barely out of puberty. What in Deadman's name was she doing here? They hadn't even sent her to Hell.
"Good," I said. "That's normal. If you weren't scared, you'd be crazy. You're supposed to be scared. We're all scared. Don't worry."
"Valkyrie's not scared," she said shakily.
"Valkyrie's crazy," I replied. "She's been through a lot. She's got an excuse."
"Psycho's not s-s-scared," she said.
"Psycho's also crazy," I said. "Certifiably insane. He's different."
"How about One," she asked. "He's not scared, is he?"
"One is our leader," I said. "He's got ice water in his veins. He's different, too. But the rest of us are all terrified—so don't feel like you're alone, all right?"
"But I'm so s-scared my teeth are ch-ch-chattering. And we…we're not even in combat." I looked into her faceplate. Her face was twitching, cold sweat on her brow.
"Try to relax, Twister," I said. "Take some deep breaths. Maybe you should take a mag."
"Can I hold your hand? Please?"
I took her hand in mine, wordlessly. Cenite fingers, intertwined. It did seem to work. Her face stopped twitching. She closed her eyes and bit at her lower lip. And we kept going, rushing into the dark, now deep in O territory, right in the death zone, and things were coming at us from out of nowhere and flashing past, gone. Black mountains wheeled past to one side and we were still over that river of ink. The O's were up ahead somewhere, waiting to kill us, and I was holding hands with Beta Thirteen. Well, it wasn't the Legion I knew, but I had to admit it did feel good. I felt better already.
"Hot metal! They'll never spot us under this sky!" It was a deceptor sky, glittering and flickering, black clouds with silver edges, strange lights flashing and fading and the screens solid green, full of junk. Something ricocheted off our aircar.
"That was a deceptor!" Redhawk shouted happily. "There's so much crap falling down, we're running into it! We're free, guys—free!"
Gildron snarled, and it put a chill to my blood. He was a massive A-suit in the back of the car, sitting next to Tara. Psycho snarled back at him and made ape noises.
"Shut down, Psycho," Valkyrie snapped.
"I'll shut down if you come back here and sit on my, uh, lap, honeybuns," Psycho retorted cheerily.
"Psycho, if you don't get with the program I'm going to take your Manlink away and give it to Dragon," Valkyrie said. "That's a promise!"
"Good idea," Dragon said.
"Can she do that, One?" Psycho asked. The Manlink was his only love. It was Beta's Mother of Destruction, totally evil and totally holy.
"Shut down, Five," Snow Leopard said. Psycho sighed and shut down.
The car shuddered. Twister settled down and I carefully removed my hand. I did not want Priestess getting the wrong idea. I caught a glimpse of jagged black mountains far above us, outlined by flickering blue lightning. We continued, into that awful night. I felt we were rushing onward to our own extinction.
"Talk to me, Priestess," I said on private.
"What is it, Thinker?" she answered. "How are you doing?"
"How am I doing?" I stifled a laugh. "I guess I was wishing I was somewhere else. With you."
"Do you know what I want, Thinker?"
"No. What do you want?"
"I want to be your wife, forever. For all time. As long as we both shall live."
"Sounds good to me. Although I'd worry about that last part."
"Promise me, Thinker. You and me. Forever. Swear it, on Deadman."
"Priestess and Thinker. A billion years. On the cross!"
"And if we die, we seek each other out, in Heaven."
"I promise, Priestess. Forever."
"Cross your heart and hope to die?"
"Cross my heart and hope to die."
###
"Decar!" Ice cold adrenalin. The aircar's assault doors snapped open, a cold wind rushed in from outside, and Beta One stood right in the door like a dark angel from some Legion Hell, all black armor and glowing red faceplate, his E strapped to his chest.
"Follow me, Beta," he commanded. "It's all for one, and one for all. Death!" And he was gone, into the dark.
"Death!" We hissed the response and tumbled out the door, following our One all the way, to life or death, to Heaven or Hell. Whatever road he chose, we'd be right in his footsteps, and if anything got in our way, it was going to die very quickly.
"I want to pick up twelve troopers when you call for evac, gang," Redhawk called out. "Don't disappoint me."