The lights flickered for just an instant and then the deck came up and smacked me right in the face. A universe of flashing stars exploded in my mind. I struggled to remain conscious, trying to lift my head. It felt as if my nose was broken. It was completely silent, but high gravs pulled at my body. Tara and Gildron were also down, struggling to get up off the floor. A psybloc grenade rolled around ahead of us, spitting white-hot tracers. I had accidentally pulled the pin, but that wasn't the cause of our distress. High gravs—I could barely move. The Ship had launched—we were underway. Rising up through Uldo's atmosphere, a rising star. And we were in it! A cold hand clutched at my heart. Suddenly I could see Beta, all of them, in a flash. Snow Leopard, just a voice, snapping off his last command, "Get that O!" Valkyrie, sacrificing herself for us. "Goodbye and God bless you," she had said. And Twister, broken and crawling. "Leave me!" she had shouted. "Get the Ship!" Psycho, bloody and crippled, sitting behind an E, surrounded by grenades. "Don't you worry about your rear." Merlin, dying, his last words still ringing in my ears: "Take that Ship, Thinker. Don't let them get it!" Dragon, begging me to kill him. Scrapper, lost in the flames. And Priestess, my holy Priestess, gone to find Scrapper, right into Hell, fate unknown. "We live together, forever," she had said, as the main door of the Mound screeched open. They were all lost to me now, I knew.
Tara and Gildron and I were bound for the stars.
PART III
BEYOND DOOM'S DRIFT
Chapter 12
The Ship
"It's Snow Leopard!" Tara announced, almost in shock.
"What?" I was astounded. We faced a large circular hatch, fully sealed, blocking further access along the corridor. I was sweating blood, working on the lock with Gildron's techprobe. Ship's grav was on, but it was weak.
"One! One! It's Cinta, do you read…" Gildron interrupted her, screaming wildly, waving his E around. He was no damned help at all. The hatch snapped open, spiraling outwards from a pinhole in an instant. The light dazzled my eyes and my E was on canister and my finger twitched on the trigger.
Snow Leopard stood right there bathed in sunlight, clad in a litesuit, completely unarmed. He raised one arm slowly, and it was a blessing. His face was serene and his pale pink eyes were calm. There was someone else with him. She stepped out from behind him. It was Priestess, also in a litesuit, glowing like a star, as radiant and lovely as an angel. Her lips moved, and she spoke my name.
"Thinker…Thinker…Thinker…"
Gildron fired auto canister right into them and the doorway erupted. The shock waves blew me to one side. I screamed and raised a bloody arm. Two huge O's staggered before us shrieking, armored and armed, shimmering behind violet mag force fields flickering all around them. One of the creatures fell to its knees abruptly. The other opened an awful mouth and raised a weapon and then my brain turned to mush and I winked out like a candle.
I fought to regain consciousness. I was certain I had been horribly wounded. My head was splitting, my skin burning as if scalded with acid. I gasped for oxygen but could not seem to get any—my lungs were on fire. I struggled to see, but it was all hazy. I tried to scream, but nothing happened. I wanted desperately to thrash around, to raise my arms, but it was beyond me. The pain overwhelmed me, triggering all my circuits into overload. Terror and hatred battled inside me.
Clouds. White, puffy clouds, floating past me in a pale green sky. What the hell? It was so sudden that I stopped struggling to watch it. Wondrous silvery clouds lined with sunlight drifted past me in that wonderful emerald sky. It was a miracle. Peace flooded my tortured body. I was home, I thought. Home—home at last. How many millennia, how many long, tortured mutations, how many false worlds, how much mental torture, how many more memory deaths must we endure, before the end? It's foolish—all the struggle, the tears of the orphaned young, the cries of our heart-mates, lost to us, forever and ever, in the abyss, in alternate universes. How can we continue? How can we live with these awful, wonderful memories?
My skin crawled. It was suddenly warm and my heart was full of love. I was in a grove of strange trees with bark like lizard skin and spiky leaves, forming a softly swaying roof over us as we walked dreamily in fields of phosphorescent white flowers. Icy water rushed in the distance. Then it was deliciously cool but I was warm with love.
And I wanted to cry. Because She was everything I had ever wanted. And She was lost to me forever, a million light years in the past, a billion lost stars between us. Why did it have to be this way? We must be strong, they said. Strong, or we all die. I fought for Her. I lived for Her. I would never see Her again. I could still feel Her grasp, Her claws digging into the scales of my forearm. Will this agony never end? I will die of loneliness, under strange stars, in an alien galaxy.
Terrified, I tried to crawl out of that awful vision, but I was totally helpless. Pale green light suddenly flooded my eyes. Blinking, I gasped my way to consciousness. Above me, a white ceiling blazed with the rays of a long-dead star. I lay on my back. Then I was off again, into the mists. Snow Leopard stood over me, concerned. Then he turned away, relieved.
"He'll be fine," Snow Leopard said. "He's dead now. Three!" He reached out suddenly and grasped my shoulder. "Don't forget the mission, Three! The mission! Alive or dead, it's the mission!" His face was pale and strained and his hot pink eyes were almost spitting sparks.
Two more figures approached through the mist. Priestess and Valkyrie, side by side, hand in hand, silent in their A-suits. I was in my A-suit too, the armor all burnt and twisted, lying under Uldo's stars on the death pyre. Merlin, Psycho, Dragon, Scrapper and Twister lay close beside me, their A-suits shot to pieces. My comrades were all around me, the dead and the living. Snow Leopard and Priestess and Valkyrie jointly held out the torch and the pyre burst into hot, green flames to send us on our way, and they chanted the death song.
"Immortals in blood
Brothers in arms
Soldiers of the Legion
Flying black standards
Beta Two Four
Delegates to the stars
All seasoned recruits
For Heaven's wars
Now recon death's cold road
Beta Three, Beta Four, Beta Five, Beta Eight,
Beta Twelve, Beta Thirteen
You're three effectives short
Remember your brothers in arms.
Missing in action,
We join you soon!"
We advanced in recon formation through the mists, fully armed, all shot up, our A-suits smoking and burning, a spectral army bleeding from fatal wounds, some of us missing arms and legs, but that was not going to stop us. Nothing was going to stop us! We were marching for God, for Justice, for our people, and we were bound for Hell. Satan was going to die, along with all his minions.
Legion A-suits up ahead, shining like molten mercury.
Three soldiers, armed with E model 1's. As we come closer, I recognized them—it was Coolhand, Warhound and Ironman.
Our own lost squad, our own lost troopers.
I paused before Coolhand. It was him all right, just the way I remembered him, tall and handsome, his narrow, finely chiseled face breaking into an easy grin. My blood brother, killed on Mongera.