The Last Legion: Book One of the Last Legion Series (2 page)

“Seven hundred and fifty trained men. The men they can have, heavens knows we’ve got enough of
them.
Take a few thousand more out of the slums for all of me. But trained? Doesn’t he know there’s a peace on?”

Meghavarna let a smile come and go. “What about transport?”

“I’ve got the
Malvern
about through with her refit,” Corfi said. “Terrible waste of fuel and all, but with a skeleton crew …

“Yes, the
Malvern.
And we can transship in a cycle, perhaps two. Or as soon as they release those precious
Nanas.
”

“Good,” Meghavarna approved. “I assumed you could expedite the matter.” He rose. “I was a bit worried when your assistant told me you weren’t in yet, knowing you live out toward Bosham.”

“I didn’t even try to go home last night,” Corfi said. “Stayed at the club, so I wouldn’t get caught in the troubles.”

“What’re they wanting this time?” Meghavarna asked. “I don’t really keep up on civ doings.”

“Bread, no bread, too much bread, the wrong sort of bread, or something,” Corfi said indifferently. “Does it matter?”

“Not really.”

Corfi saluted perfunctorily, left Meghavarna’s office. He took the drop to the main floor where his bodyguards waited, then rode the slideway for half a mile to his offices.

He decided he’d handpick the
Malvern
’s crew using his man in BuPers. That couldn’t rebound on him, no matter what happened, since no one with sense concerned themselves with who went where in Transportation Division.

A nice obedient crew … then he’d bounce the
Malvern
once, maybe twice, in various “directions” before he jumped it toward its final destination through Larix/Kura. That should keep his boots clean.

Corfi reached his office, told his bodyguards to take a break — he wouldn’t be needing them for an hour or so. Corfi neatly hung his body-armored overtunic on an antique wall rack, unlocked his safe, and removed the cleaner. He swept the office, found nothing more than the two standard bugs feeding prerecorded pap to Security, and keyed the vid to his assistant’s line. Corfi gave the man some meaningless orders, while he checked the line with the cleaner. Still clean. He touched sensors.

The screen cleared, and he was looking at a tiny garden. Curled on its synthetic moss was a young woman, barely more than a girl. She was naked, and her ash-blondness was natural.

“Hi, darl,” she said throatily.

Corfi grinned. “Suppose I was the bloc monitor?”

“He doesn’t have my code,” she said. “I didn’t expect to hear from you until tomorrow. I thought you were seeing the wife-o tonight.”

“I was,” Corfi said. “But seeing you like you are … I guess those damned riots’ll keep me at the office another night.”

“Pity,” the woman said. “I’ll be ready.”

“You can be more than ready,” Corfi said. “Remember that bracelet you were looking at?”

“Ooo.”

“Suddenly we can afford it.”

The girl squealed in delight.

“I
thought
that’d make you happy,” Corfi said.

“Oh, I am, I am, darl. Hurry home, so I can show you just how happy I am.” She parted her thighs slightly, caressed herself.

“Got to go now,” Corfi said, realizing he was having a bit of trouble breathing. “I’ve got some work to take care of.”

The girl smiled, and the screen blanked.

Corfi waited until he calmed, then touched sensors once more. The screen blurred, became blank green. Again he keyed numbers, and the same thing happened. At the third screen he input letters and numbers he’d memorized several years ago, touched the
SEND
sensor. The transmission would be bounced at least a dozen times before it reached Larix.

As soon as he’d finished the final group, he broke contact, and, once again, checked for a bug. Still nothing.

Alban Corfi, soon to be somewhat richer, was a
very
careful man.

Altair/Klesura/Happy Vale

Tweg
Mik Kerle stared glumly out at perfection. Utterly blue sky. Sky, even if it was a little reddish, beautiful, with a scattering of clouds. A spring breeze filtered through the open door, and Kerle smelled flowers, fresh hay, and, from somewhere, a woman’s perfume.

He heard the tinkle of her laughter and snarled.

Perfection all around, and he was supposed to recruit for the Confederation’s Army. Why would anyone here want to enlist and go wallow through the mud on some armpit world where people were actively trying to kill her? Leave a place where everyone seemed to know his place and, worse yet, like it? A place where all the women were gorgeous and happy, and the men stalwart and good-tempered?

Like that oaf looking in the window at Kerle’s carefully spread-out exhibits. Here a tiny uniformed
tweg
ordered her twenty soldiers through a fascinating confidence course, there a
cent
was receiving a medal from his
caud
, while his hundred stood in stiff ranks behind, and in the center three
strikers
busied themselves learning some sort of electron-trade. He’d gape at the tiny mannequins, then guffaw and go harvest his turnips or whatever he harvested.

Kerle moaned, still looking at the bumpkin. Tall, almost two meters. Well-built. Good muscles. Blond. Human to the nth classification. Handsome, the sort men would follow anywhere, given a few years seasoning. A recruiting poster sort of yokel.
Don’t walk away, boy. Come on through those doors and help a poor tired
tweg
make his quota.

Kerle goggled. The yokel was walking through the door.

The recruiter came to his feet, beaming, well-rehearsed camaraderie in gear, while the back of his brain told him the young man had no doubt just slipped away from the nearest home for the terminally confused.

“Good aft, friend.”

“ ‘Day,” the young man said. “I’m interested in joining up.”

“Well, this is certainly the place,” Kerle said. “And you’ll never regret it if you do. The Confederation needs good men, and will make you proud you decided to serve your government.”

“What I’m really interested in is travel.”

“Then the Confederation is your ticket. I’ve seen twenty, thirty worlds, and I’ve only been in ten years, made
tweg
in the first four, and should be up for
senior tweg
when the next promotion list comes out,” Kerle said. “Not that you have to enlist for that long. Standard term is only four Earth-years.”

“Reasonable,” Garvin Jaansma said. “Gives everyone a chance to see if they get along.”

“Any particular trade or skill you’d be interested in?”

“I’m not much on working inside. Prefer to be outdoors if I can. What about that?” The young man was pointing at a small model of an assault lifter. Kerle picked it up.

“That’s a Grierson. Used in Armored Infantry. The Grierson’s the standard assault vehicle, called an Aerial Combat Vehicle, an ACV. Carries two attack teams. Chainguns here and here. Rocket pod here. There’s a whole lot of different configurations. Ultrareliable. Dual antigrav units under here, give it about a thousand meters overground lift. We use it for patrols, or attack. In the assault it’d be backed up with heavy lifters, gunships like that model of a Zhukov there, and of course there’d be other assault lifters with it. You can even modify it into an in-system spaceship. You could command one of these in a year, maybe less. Five million credits the Confederation’d trust you with. Plus twenty men’s lives, which is the real price. Not many jobs give someone your age that kind of responsibility,” Kerle said, sounding truly impressed.

“Sounds interesting,” Jaansma said.

“A couple of things first,” Kerle said, toes curling inside his mirror-bright boots, anticipating the bad news. “Have you talked to your family about this?”

“They don’t mind,” Jaansma said. “Whatever I think is best for me they’ll go along with. Anyway, I’m eighteen, so it’s my decision, isn’t it?”

“The first big one you can make,” Kerle agreed. “Another question. I don’t suppose you’ve had any trouble with the authorities?”

“None at all.” The answer came quickly.

“You’re sure? Not even a joyriding or maybe a fight or two, or getting caught with alk or a snort? If it’s minor, we can generally get clearance.”

“Nothing whatsoever.”

The young man’s smile was open, sincere.

Capella/Centrum

The
Malvern
bulged far overhead, dwarfing the line of men trudging toward its gangway. Garvin Jaansma gaped upward.

“Move along, dungboot,” a cadreman snapped. “The Confederation don’t want you to break your neck before you even get trained.”

“Good advice,
Finf
,” a voice grated, “you being the experienced star-rover and all. I’m surely admiring all your decorations and such.”

The junior noncom flushed. His uniform breast was as slick as his shaven head. “Quiet, you.”

The man who’d spoken stared hard, and the
finf
flinched back as if he’d been struck.

“Keep on moving,” he muttered, and scurried away.

The man was big in any direction, not fat, but heavy, solid. His face was set in a perpetual scowl under his forward-combed, thinning black hair. A scar ran down one cheek and faded out in the middle of his thick neck. He appeared to be in his early thirties. He wore unshined half boots, heavy black canvas dungarees, a green tunic that would have been expensive new, sometime ago, and had a small, battered bag at his feet. There was a military-looking stencil on it:
KIPCHAK, PETR.

He eyed Jaansma and the recruit beside him, snorted, and turned away.

“I want to learn how to do that,” the other recruit said in a low voice.

“Do what?”

“Melt ‘em with a look like that guy did. Cheaper’n a blaster and not nearly as convictable.”

Garvin extended his hand, palm up, and the other man repeated the greeting.

“Garvin Jaansma.”

“Njangu Yoshitaro.”

Garvin considered the other young man, who was about his age and height, dark-skinned with close-cropped black hair and Asiatic features. He wore charcoal trousers and a pale green shirt. Both fit poorly and looked cheap. He had a collarless windbreaker over his shoulder. Yoshitaro reminded Jaansma of an alert fox or hoonsmeer.

“Did anybody say where we’re going?” he asked.

“Of course not,” Njangu said. “Recruit scum don’t get told shit ‘til they have to know it, which I guess’ll be whenever we get where we’re going.”

“What about training?” Jaansma said. “I enlisted for Armor, and so far all I’ve done is polish toilets.”

The older man turned back.

“And that’s all you’ll do ‘til you get to your parent unit. The Confederation’s got a new policy. They ship your young ass to your home regiment, and let them whip you into shape.”

“That isn’t the way it is in the holos,” Njangu said.

“Damn little is,” the man said. “It’s ‘cause the Confederation’s falling apart, and they don’t have time or money to take care of the little things like they used to.”

“Falling apart?” Garvin said incredulously. “Come on!”

Garvin had seen troubles in his wanderings, but the Confederation itself in trouble? That was like saying the stars were burning out tomorrow, or night might not follow day. The Confederation had existed for more than a thousand years, and would no doubt exist for another ten thousand.

“I spoke clearly,” Kipchak said. “Falling apart. The reason you don’t see it is because you’re right at the center of things. You think an ant knows somebody’s about to dump boiling water on its nest? Or a
wygor
ever realizes what the skinner wants?”

Neither young man understood the references.

“What do you think all the riots are about?” he went on.

“What riots?”

“You didn’t watch any ‘casts while you were farting around in the ‘cruit barracks?”

“Uh … no,” Yoshitaro said. “I don’t pay much attention to the news.”

“Better start. A good holo-flash’ll generally clue you how deep the shit is you’re about to get tossed into, and maybe even give you time to pack hip boots.

“People are rioting, tearing things up because they can’t get things. Centrum being a high-class admin center, nobody bothers to grow anything. Which means everything from biscuits to buttwipe gets shipped in, not produced locally. Since the system’s showing cracks, sometimes those shipments don’t get here in time for dinner.

“It’s real hard to accept you’re on the greatest planet in the universe, like the holos say, if you can’t afford beans and bacon.”

“How come you know so much, anyway?” Njangu said, just a bit billigerently.

This time the look came at him. But he didn’t quail. Kipchak let his glower fade down.

“ ‘Cause
I
pay attention,” he said. “Something you better learn. For instance, I could tell you where we’re going, what unit we’re headed for, and even what the pol/sci setup is there. If I wanted to. Which I don’t, much.” Perhaps he was about to add more, but they’d reached the ship’s gangway.

“Your name and home world,” a synthed voice intoned.

“Petr Kipchak,” he growled. “Centrum, when it suits me.”

“Noted,” the robot said. “Compartment sixteen. Take any bunk. Next.”

And the huge
Malvern
swallowed them.

• • •

The compartment stretched into dimness. It was filled with endless four-high rows of bunks, with small lockers under the bottom one, and, like the rest of the ship, was spotless and smelled of fresh paint. Fresh paint and an incongruous odor of dust, as if the
Malvern
was an antique.

The recruits were ordered by a harried-looking crewman to strap down in their bunks and stand by for lift.

The
Malvern
came alive, a deep hum reverberating through every deck. The deck speaker said, “Stand by.” The hum grew deeper until it made your bones sing, and the
Malvern
shuddered.

“Are we in space?” Njangu asked.

“I think so, but — ”