"Flight sounds good to me!" Whit exclaimed. I knew it was hopeless. We couldn't outrun them—the aircar was already rising and soon it would be on us as well. Flight or fight—absolutely right, Sweety. I could fight, maybe take out some of them—maybe even a lot of them—but the aircar would get us. Hopeless!
"Let's go," I said. "Run!" We took off again and the aircar whistled over the tops of the trees, probing with the searchlight.
"Uniden intruders, halt or we will fire!" The message crackled in my ears.
"Troopers approaching—we have been spotted—aircar has locked on again!" We crashed down a steep cliff covered with shrubbery. Whit did not get up. I staggered back to find her laid out, gasping.
"We can't!" she said. "We don't want to die! Leave us! We're surrendering!"
I turned and ran into the dark, frantic. The searchlight flickered wildly all around me, a nightmare light show. I flashed to another time, also on Andrion 2—we had hunted down two Systie troopers through a cold forest just like this one. They had both died—and now it was my turn.
A deafening blast behind me, and the shock wave knocked me off my feet—stunstar! The forest blazed, glittering with hot raw light. I staggered on. Vac bolts burst off the trees around me. I went to ground and crawled to the closest tree.
"Target, Sweety!" I raised the E, set to auto xmax.
"Target marked!" A Legion trooper, A-vest and comtop, right in my sights, icy laser sights, my finger gently caressing the trigger, just a tad more pressure and he dies.
A Legion trooper! Insanity! Am I insane? Are we all insane?
I dropped the E onto the leaves.
"Legion squad, I'm surrendering!" I choked out. "I will not fire on you!"
###
I guess we were both in shock when they hustled us into the aircar. Whit was pale and splattered with dirt but unhurt. The squad's One was a young Outworlder who looked like he was in shock himself.
"You're Beta Three!" he accused me. "Admit it!"
"All right, I'm Beta Three. So now what happens?"
"And this is Maralee Whitney, exec of the Maiden—right?"
"Right. So?"
"Terrific! We did it, guys!" The squad was excited and hyper, packing into the aircar. The assault door snapped shut and we lurched up into the dark.
"Three Three, Elektra, mission successful, we've recovered them both, request instructions!"
"Elektra, Three Three One, good! We've got a little trouble in the airpark, go directly to the port, acknowledge!"
"Those people are shooting anything that moves!"
"You'll be covered, Elektra, I'm calling them right now. I'm ordering Alpha to the port as well."
"Does anybody know what the hell is happening?"
"That's a twelve. Just get them in the shuttle."
"Tenners."
The squad's One handed me back my E. I gaped at it stupidly.
"I don't know who you people are," he said, "but there are a whole lot of seriously disturbed individuals out there who want to get ahold of you in the worst way. And all I can say is that's not going to happen on my watch. That right, guys?"
A murmur of assent from the Legion squad. They were clad in litesuits and comtops, fully armed and fully confident. Arrogant, foolish young troopers, spoiling for a fight. There were even a few girls. I could see Beta in their eyes. Had we ever really been that innocent?
"You mean you're not with ConFree?" I asked carefully.
"ConFree? We're with the Legion! We've been ordered to get you aboard the P.S. Maiden. What do you mean, ConFree? We're all with ConFree, aren't we?"
"Never mind."
"Do you know what this is all about? Who are those crazies? Does it have something to do with ConFree?"
"All I can say is don't trust anybody."
"That part we've already figured out!"
"Firefight at the Port," someone reported.
"Well, scut!" Elektra One exclaimed. "That's where we're going, guys. Iden targets and suppressing fire, Ten—then we roll in and drop off, by element—Death!"
"You got it!"
"Death!" The car snapped to the left and we fell into the dark. Tracers floated past outside. A chainlink screeched wildly—the pilot was prepping the zero.
"Two, you take the third," Elektra One was saying, "with the two specials. Escort them to the shuttle. Kill anyone who tries to interfere. Alpha should have the sit in hand. We'll cover you. You two—" he turned to Whit and me—"stick with Elektra Two here. He'll do you right." Elektra Two was a young Assidic male with fierce slit eyes and a nervous tic.
"We're not ready for this!" Whit squeaked.
"Hostiles on the pad!"
"Elektra, Alpha, engaging the enemy!"
"Hot zero! Decar!" The assault doors snapped open and the troopers leaped out of the car on both sides, screaming. We followed Elektra Two out into the dark, hitting the pad. I had a death grip on Whit's arm, running hunched over after our Two, a series of flashes off to the left—laser, crackling right over our heads, drilling jagged patterns into a nearby hanger. Two opened up, the entire element opened up auto xmax, the flashes dazzling my eyes. A line of parked airtrucks exploded, lighting us up, a deafening, shattering blast, a glowing fiery mushroom cloud rising above the port.
I released Whit and snapped the E to my shoulder and fired auto x into the holocaust.
Armored troopers ran at us right out of Hell, fully armored Legion troopers. I fired at them, convulsed with fear. Elektra Two exploded, ripped to shreds, spraying blood all over me. A titanic blast flashed white-hot and I winked out like a gnat caught in a volcano.
Chapter 20
Fate Unknown
"So that's it—that's all of it," I said to the datapak. I was alone in my cell with the little device as it autotyped my words across the glowing d-screen. "You asked me to record it all, so I did. And it's also what the Legion told us to do if we're captured by the enemy. Cooperate, they said, and stay alive. Tell them everything you know—they'll find out anyway. And if you know anything the Legion shouldn't have told you, it's the Legion's problem, not yours. Your problem is staying alive. And Legion troopers aren't supposed to know anything important."
I paused, for a moment. It was a cold, dark, miserable metal cell and the datapak was set on a battered metal table. My datapak girl—my only companion. Confess, they had said. Tell us everything. I didn't mind. I felt good. I was beginning to enjoy the task, after all this time. I was so far away from them, there was nothing at all they could do to harm me. I resumed speaking.
"Stay alive, they said. Stay alive, for we will get you back and they will pay, in blood. Maybe not right away—maybe not for a very, very long time. But the System is doomed, and we're going to recover you, sooner or later.
"Your name doesn't come off the list, ever, and we don't stop looking, ever, until we find you. Even if it takes a hundred years. Or 200 years. Don't forget, you're an immortal.
"Survive, they told us. Survive—and believe.
"But what if it's ConFree that has snatched you? Nobody ever thought of that. After all, we were fighting for ConFree. Why should they be taking Legion prisoners?
"Why, indeed. You haven't even admitted who you are, ConFree, but I know. Write it down, the interrogator told me. Fine, I've written it all down, exactly as it happened.
"Read it, you bastards. Think about it, if you still have the power to think. Maybe you can learn something—about what the Legion does for ConFree. Maybe you can see what it's like to be a soldier of the Legion, facing the Systies, facing the O's, so ConFree Inners can live in peace and treasonous ConFree politicals can hatch nasty deals with the System to advance their own sleazy careers." Will anyone ever read this, I wondered. Anyone besides ConFree? Thinker's last will and testament—what a joke!