But the plain was full of dead A-suits and smashed equipment, and little rock rats scuttled everywhere. The soil was just dust—there was no vegetation. We came upon a tacair base with a downed Legion fighter burnt black, a massive, dead bird. Then a line of amtacs blown to smithereens, the wreckage scattered over the dusty plain.
And then we stopped. A Legion soldier on his knees cradled a wounded comrade in his arms, pressing a canteen up against his squadie's lips. Dead in a microfrac, the A-suits fused together forever, an eternal monument to war and humanity. The wounded one had his visor up, to get the water. His face was a skull.
"Oh, no." Somebody was crying.
"Silence in the ranks!" Valkyrie snapped. "Forward, Beta! They'll pay for it! They'll pay!"
We moved, forward. I didn't need Snow Leopard to tell me—this was the Cauldron, where the Eighth Legion had perished against the System. These were soldiers from the past, soldiers of the Legion who had died for the future and for Uldo. Well, we were the future, and our job was to make sure they had not died in vain. When we were through with the O's, we were going after the Systies, I knew. Uldo was ours—we had paid for it in blood!
We walked for hours, and it never changed. The wreckage of an entire Legion was spread out over the plain. We didn't touch any of it—it was holy ground. I knew it was very unlikely the O's would spot us here. There was so much cenite here, a little more would make no difference at all.
A cold wind blew all around us, raising yellow dust. The dust swirled everywhere, obscuring the smashed aircars and the dead A-suits, and sometimes they seemed alive in the dust. An entire Legion, maneuvering all around us in one last, titanic battle. I tried not to think about it. I sure didn't need this.
###
"I shouldn't be long," Snow Leopard said. "Only an hour. If I'm not back by then, investigate. If anything happens to me, continue the mission."
"Tenners. We'll be fine," Valkyrie said.
"Keep everyone up against the wreckage, and no movement."
"Tenners—go on!"
"Thinker, you want to come with me?"
"Sure." I hadn't been paying attention, and hadn't the slightest idea where Snow Leopard was going. We detached ourselves from the shelter of the shattered squadmod and set off to the north. As we walked, One was silent. The temperature dropped. A scraggly treeline appeared ahead. Once, a forest had been there, but now it was dead, like everything else in the vicinity. Charcoal trees, their charred limbs scratching at the sky in silent protest.
"It's right up ahead, Thinker."
"What's up ahead?"
"Take a look." Snow Leopard stopped. He consulted a faded old printmap. He turned it over and showed me the reverse. It was a puzzling little diagram. It looked like a city plan, all divided up into little numbered squares, surrounded by roads. Only there was a pattern showing in the center—a Legion cross. It looked like a plan for a public park. Then I saw the title, on the bottom:
"4/8 Legion Cemetery at Palin."
"Come on," Snow Leopard said. "It was right in the center of the forest." I followed. The trees were just kindling, all burnt black. Why would Snow Leopard want to see a cemetery? The whole battlefield was a cemetery. Hadn't we seen enough death?
It was still there, under a grey sky. Thousands of vertical cenite markers, blistered and burnt but still there, marked the dead. Rows and rows, laid out neatly in a dead, charcoal forest. Each marker had a Legion cross on top, the designation 4/8, the serial number, squad name and warname below, then the date, and then that last, awful line: "Died In Service."
We walked slowly past the rows of markers. Some of them were marked "Unknown." I followed Snow Leopard up and down the rows. Every once in awhile I saw my own designation, Beta Three. There were a whole lot of Beta Threes in the Legion. Once I saw Beta Nine's designation, and then I stopped looking.
I drifted over to a dead tree and sipped at my canteen while Snow Leopard continued walking up and down the rows. I didn't know why we were there. Once Snow Leopard cursed, quietly. Once he appeared lost, and consulted his map.
Finally he squatted in the middle of the cemetery. He was still looking around, but I couldn't see his face—his back was to me. I didn't say anything. The sky was completely covered with heavy grey clouds.
We had been gone a half-hour when Snow Leopard finally moved. He got up and walked right past me, back the way we had come. His faceplate was darkened.
"I couldn't find him," Snow Leopard said. I followed him. I was afraid to ask who he had been looking for. Finally he told me, as we picked our way around more downed A-suits back in the Cauldron.
"My father died there," he said.
"I'm sorry," I replied.
"Don't be," he said. "He died for me—and you." And Snow Leopard didn't say anything else until we got back to the squad. It explained a great deal about our One, I thought. A great deal.
###
We continued advancing, moving carefully forward, staying close to the wreckage. There was plenty of wreckage to choose from—the Eighth Legion was all around us. The sky was all grey now, completely overcast. It was getting colder. A persistent light breeze stirred up the yellow dust. As far as we could see ahead, there was nothing but the shattered shell of a once-mighty army.
"That's a Systie aircar," Dragon said. It appeared slowly out of the dust haze, shredded like paper, blown to bits. Broken bronze-colored DefCorps A-suits lay scattered around it like discarded toy soldiers, half buried in the shifting dust.
"ALERT! AIRSAT! Chemically charged aerolayer ahead! I detect thermodisplacement igniters! Recommend immediate retreat!" Sweety's warning was icy clear. Adrenalin flooded my veins.
"Back! Back!" Snow Leopard ordered immediately. "Slowly—carefully!" We tiptoed back the way we had come, hearts thumping. Airsat! Damn!
"Let's see where it's going—freeze in place!" We froze. I was next to a pile of dinged-up dropboxes and I tried my best to merge with them. A couple of little brown rock rats shot out of the dropboxes and scurried away. Their ancestors probably had plenty to eat, I thought.
Snow Leopard stood calmly in the open, looking through his spotter. Now Sweety had a grip on it, and she colored the airsat for me—it had been invisible but now it was a pale pink on my faceplate, a massive blob of charged air blocking our path, drifting slightly in a light breeze. Thank Deadman for the tacmod, and thank the Legion for the techs—if not for their twisted dark science, we would have walked right into that and set it off. Airsat would have pulverized us all, A-suits or not.
"The breeze is blowing it southwest," Valkyrie said.
"It'll come up against the hills," Snow Leopard said, "and then start back. That's probably the boundary. Merlin? Do you agree?"
"Yeah—I wouldn't like to get between it and the hills. It's probably free to wander wherever the breeze blows it, within certain set boundaries."
"There's no way it can detect us?"
"Not unless we walk into it. Then it's all over. But as long as we can see it, we can outrun it."
"I don't like this," Speedy said, tensely. We ignored him.
"All right, we go around it," Snow Leopard said. "Northeast, then northwest."
"There may be more of them," Merlin said.
"We'll deal with them one at a time," Snow Leopard replied. "Beta, on me." And he was off, his E balanced casually over one shoulder.
"One at a time," Speedy mumbled. "Great! It's obvious the place is completely surrounded by airsat. We can't fight airsat, can we? Can we?"
"Keep your comments to yourself, Fourteen," Valkyrie said. "When we want your opinion, we'll ask for it." Speedy did not respond. The fellow was starting to get on my nerves.