Edward M. Grant

REBELLION

LEGIONNAIRE #1

CHAPTER 1

Approaching New Strasbourg, 2123 A.D.

The plasteel floor of the troop shuttle’s passenger compartment twisted beneath Logan McCoy’s boots like a dinghy bucking in a stormy sea. His hard, moulded seat rose beneath him as the shuttle climbed, then the thick, black webbing straps across his chest pulled his shoulders down as the seat dropped away, and left his stomach hanging in mid-air.

He closed his eyes, and tried to ignore the constant creaking and rattling behind his back from the thin hull that had been heated to over a thousand degrees by the fury of atmospheric entry as the shuttle descended from low orbit, and was now bumping through the turbulence lower in the atmosphere.

The air in the shuttle’s passenger compartment was growing warm as the heat from the heat-shield slowly soaked through the cylindrical green walls around them.

He reached up behind the transparent visor of his green plasteel helmet, and wiped away the drops of sweat from his forehead and eyes as best he could. More had soaked through the thin T-shirt beneath the heavy body armour that covered his chest, and now the black cloth of the shirt was stuck to his skin. He pulled the waistband loose from his fatigue pants, and shook it gently, to get some fresh air over his skin.

This was the second new planet he’d landed on since leaving Earth with the French Foreign Legion, and the sixth landing. But it was the first landing in a real combat zone.

The first landing where people on the ground might be shooting at him with real weapons, not simulated ones. Trying to kill him, and everyone else on board.

The next time he landed on a new planet, after a few months of his first combat posting here on New Strasbourg, he’d be a veteran.

Or a corpse.

The last time he landed, he and Desoto had been strapped into well-used Brigandine Combat Suits on the outside of an assault landing craft as it trailed kilometres of smoke and flames across the sky, listening to the hiss of cold air flowing into their helmets as the suit’s air-conditioning struggled to keep them cool. Staring through the darkened, centimetre-thick armoured visor of the helmet as the heat-shield below their feet melted and glowing embers flashed past.

With no choice but to stand there and hope the heat-shield held together until the pod touched down.

This shuttle trip had almost been relaxed in comparison. There were no windows to see what was happening outside the passenger compartment. And no-one had shot at them, so far.

But there was still time before it landed.

His heart thumped the way it always had before a fight back on Earth, as he sized up the other guys, and wondered whether he could avoid the conflict, and what might happen if he couldn’t. He’d been in plenty of fights in Paris in the last few years, but most had used fists or knives, not missiles and nukes.

They’d been fighting for dominance. To show the other guy who was boss. To beat, scar and bruise him, not to kill him.

War was different.

The deep, drawling voice of the shuttle commander spoke through Logan’s helmet speakers, as though the man had burned a trail of fire through the atmosphere from space into a combat zone so many times that now it just bored him.

“En approche finale. Préparer pour l’atterrissage.”

French, without a trace of a foreign accent. Like most of the Legion’s officers.

No Englishman like Logan could progress past Sergeant, unless he became a French citizen first. He’d learned enough of the language to get by during his years in Paris, and some more during the Legion training. Mostly new swear words, and l’argot militaire, the language of destruction and death.

In combat, his suit’s AI could translate between English and French, but he’d seen more than enough simulated casualties in training caused by the split-second delay the AI introduced to convince him not to rely on it.

And those simulated deaths were usually followed by the ‘corpse’ rolling on the floor groaning as the instructors gave him a good kicking for getting himself killed because he was too lazy to learn.

Studying the Legion’s language seemed much less painful.

But, for now, to the officers, Logan was still the rosbif with the wrong accent and wrong background, expected to give his life for the Legion, but not trusted enough to lead it.

He opened his eyes, and glanced at the other fifty-eight men of 3rd Platoon, strapped into the remaining rows of seats that faced inward along both walls of the shuttle’s narrow passenger compartment.

The equipment crates and kit bags piled in the space between the two rows of seats rattled in the webbing that held that cargo tightly to the deck as the shuttle bounced through the turbulence. But he could see past them to spot some familiar faces on the far side of the passenger compartment.

While most of the men wore body armour like Logan, Johnson was sitting on his. “Rather lose my arms than my balls,” he’d said as they climbed aboard the shuttle. Now he smirked, and gave a thumbs-up as Logan looked his way.

“Told you’d we’d be fine,” he said.

Logan nodded, and faked a smile.

Sergeant Volkov glared at Johnson from the far end of the hold. Johnson would be in the crap after landing, if Volkov had heard him speaking English. Or American, in his case.

Logan had never asked Johnson how he’d found his way to the Legion. Crossing the English Channel from England to France was one thing, but crossing the Atlantic from Dixie? He’d never heard of anyone crazy enough to do that before.

Most of the Legionnaires and recruits Logan had met so far had been colonists on planets captured during the wars, who’d somehow found their way to France, then the Legion. A few of the others were prisoners-of-war, who’d rather fight for France than spend years hoping to be repatriated. Some were deserters, who’d found no other way to survive after desertion than to go back to war under a different flag.

He’d never met another recruit who moved to France just to see what it was like.

Volkov was still scowling. His grey hair and wrinkled face marked him as the oldest member of the platoon, and at least twice Logan’s age.

Once, on the week-long trip across the light years to New Strasbourg, Volkov had claimed he’d been in the Legion since it was first formed centuries ago.

Logan could almost believe it. Somehow, the man had never quite managed to progress to lieutenant, and had been demoted soon after every time someone decided to promote him to chief sergeant. Rumour was, he liked the brutality of combat-zone NCO life too much, and just couldn’t bear leaving it behind.

“Are we there, yet?” Desoto muttered in French tinged with Desoto’s own thick Spanish accent, from the seat to Logan’s right. He swung his legs below the seat, tapping his combat boots against the floor of the hold.

How had Logan ever got stuck in a team with him?

Oh, yeah, they’d been assigned together since the first days of Legion training, back in France. Desoto wouldn’t have been Logan’s first choice if he’d been given one, but they’d managed to keep each other alive so far.

Which was more than some of the other recruits that joined at the same time could say.

“Shut it, Desoto,” Corporal Bairamov said from Logan’s left. “Just be glad you’re still alive.”

A woman wriggled on the far side of the shuttle. Short, and chubby, with squinting eyes. The only woman on board, strapped into the seat between Johnson and Lieutenant Merle, the platoon commander.

Johnson had chosen to sit beside her, when any other man in the platoon would have done his best to avoid it. As Logan’s father would have said, that’s the bloody Yanks for you, always thinking they’d get lucky.

But, after Johnson’s feeble attempts to start a conversation on the way down, now she was studiously ignoring him.

Poulin was her name. The damn political officer the platoon had been lumbered with, to make sure they didn’t get any ideas of their own, and do something the aristocrats of Paris might regret. First they gave the Legion weapons, then they did their best to ensure those weapons weren’t turned against them.

The loose black hair dangling from the bottom of Poulin’s helmet showed that she wasn’t one of the combat troops who sat beside her with hair shaved almost to the scalp. Right now, her eyes stared straight ahead, and her long, thin fingers clung tightly to the sides of her seat.

She wouldn’t have made it through the first hour of Legion training. Probably not even the Legion’s normal physical and mental pre-recruitment screening of volunteers, to eliminate the no-hopers and time-wasters early. Legion recruitment was officially open to male or female recruits, but there was a reason few women ever made it into the combat arms. Or tried.

Poulin looked like a liability even as a political officer. Her father was something big in the Ministry of Defence, or so the rumours said. How else would she have got the job?

For the men, the Legion was life and death. For her, it was just something to put on her resume to help her progress through the bureaucracy.

“Check straps and armour for landing,” Merle yelled.

About time. Logan grabbed the straps of his chest armour, and pulled them tight. Then tightened his helmet, and pulled the seat straps until they pressed the armour against his chest so hard he had to force himself to breathe.

If the turbulence grew worse, he wasn’t going to go flying around the cabin and break his bones before they even landed.

He wriggled his feet in his combat boots. They longed to feel solid ground beneath them again.

The regiment had been packed into the assault ship Marine LePen in their cramped, temporary quarters ever since they left LeBrun’s World to pass through half a dozen wormholes to New Strasbourg. The Legion ships were designed to carry their regiment to another system, then unload them as quickly as possible. There was no space on board for luxuries like decent beds or proper air-conditioning. Just cramped dorms that stuffed bunks into every available space, each bunk shared by three men on an eight-hour rotation.

And, after being crammed into the ship with the sweat of over a thousand Legionnaires for so long, the chance to breathe the fresh air of a planet and stretch his legs was worth the risk of being shot at by insurgents on the way down.

Poulin fumbled with her own straps.

“Let me help,” Johnson said. In French, this time.

Poulin simply ignored him.

The men nearby glanced her way, but none of them offered to help. Not even the lieutenant. The last thing any sane man in the platoon needed was to offend an aristo, and disappear into some political dungeon to be tortured and sent home.

Probably in pieces. In a bag.

It was easier to just say ‘equalité’ and let her get on with it.

Then Poulin stifled a yelp as the floor dropped away again. Her body twisted and bounced against her loose straps, and she grasped the seat tighter. Logan’s body pressed back against his seat as the shuttle turned beneath him, and his head twisted to the left as the pilot threw the shuttle into a crazed, turning dive.

Some of the other new recruits had been scared of burning alive if the shuttle broke up in mid-entry. But that rarely happened. This would be the dangerous part of the flight. The best way to avoid attacks from the surface was to get down to the spaceport fast, before they could lock on and hit with whatever weapons they might have.

Logan’s heart beat faster as he felt the familiar sensation of adrenaline filling his blood. His body was preparing for fight or flight, and he could do neither. His life was in the hands of the shuttle’s crew, not his own.

He breathed deeply, and tried to concentrate on how he’d be walking out of the shuttle in just a few minutes, dragging his kit-bag behind him across the spaceport, and looking for a place to sleep. A week in bed would be nice after this trip.

If he was lucky, he might get a few hours.

The cargo pile twisted toward the front of the hold, and strained against the webbing as the nose of the shuttle dropped further. The crates and bags slid to the left, then the right, as the shuttle tilted from side to side.

The pilots were working hard on this one. Or just trying to show off, and scare the heck out of everyone on board. With no windows, it was hard to tell.

Then a siren’s harsh blare filled the passenger compartment. The drawling voice of the shuttle commander returned. And he didn’t sound bored this time.

“Brace, brace, brace.”

The shuttle tipped hard to the right, pushing Logan up against the seat straps for a split second before he fell back as the nose tilted up. Poulin screamed, and clung tighter to her seat.

Without even thinking, Logan pulled his legs up to his chest and lowered his head onto his knees, making the smallest target he could for whatever was coming their way. It might not make a difference, but it would make him feel better for what might be the last few seconds of his life.

Something thumped outside, probably the crew launching decoys, if a SAM was heading their way. Not that they were likely to do much good, as a shuttle still glowing with the heat of atmospheric entry couldn’t be a hard target to lock onto. His instincts turned his head to look behind him for a threat, before he remembered the shuttle had no windows.

But at least he would never know what hit him.

His neck twisted as the shuttle turned again, and pulled up. His body shook with another adrenaline rush.

In a few seconds, he’d be on the ground, one way or another. Hopefully in one piece.

Just a few more seconds.

The siren blared again. Faster and louder.

The floor tilted to the left.

Then the far wall exploded inwards with a boom that shook the whole shuttle, followed by the high-pitched creak of the torn metal.

Adamski flew forward across the compartment, still strapped into his seat with jagged chunks of hull still attached to the back. He smashed into the cargo crates in front of him, and the seat caught in the webbing.

Something hard and jagged, the size of a tennis ball, bounced off Logan’s helmet, knocking his head to the side. He turned back just in time to see two seats tumbling out into the air through the hole, their occupants still strapped to them, screaming and writhing as they fell toward the green leaves of a forest at least a hundred metres below.

An arm floated leisurely behind them, severed at the elbow, and spinning slowly through the air.

Something red was splattered over the wall of the hull near the hole. Johnson was still in his seat beside the hole, but his head was gone. A piece of twisted medal half a metre across protruded from where his head should have been, above the narrow gash the shrapnel had torn through the hull.

A spray of blood spurted from the edges of what was left of Johnson’s neck, hit the chunk of shrapnel, and splattered across everything nearby.

The wind howled in through the hole as the shuttle twisted through the sky. Poulin shrieked as Johnson’s blood squirted over her body armour and helmet.

His head rolled across the floor, then smacked into her boots. She pulled her legs up against her chest, and shook. The head rolled away again as the shuttle’s nose tilted up.

Logan’s stomach rose into his chest as the shuttle dropped again, then tilted hard to the left until he could see nothing through the hole but the forest of tall, warped trees below them.

Then it turned back, until he was staring out at the sky. The nose yawed to the right. Were they landing, or crashing?

And would it really make any difference at this point?

A deep, booming voice began to sing. The words of Le Boudin, the Foreign Legion’s own marching song, filled the passenger compartment. The voice fought against the howling of the wind, Poulin’s shrieks, and the creaking of the hull.

Logan looked toward the source of the sound. A smiling mouth on the far side of the compartment, with dark, wide-open lips exposing bright white teeth as it sang. The man’s lungs were yelling the song with all their might.

Joffer. The Company engineer, and one of the few black faces in the shuttle. He’d said he was from somewhere in Africa, but the name had meant nothing to Logan at the time. It wasn’t one of the many place names drummed into the recruits in their lessons on the Legion’s history. No Legionnaires had fought and died nearby in the last few centuries.

Another voice joined the song. Volkov yelled the words from the front of the compartment, almost as though he felt that overpowering Joffer’s voice was a matter of honour.

Then more men joined in, as though hearing the familiar words had distracted them from the fear of imminent death.

Or, perhaps, so that if they crashed and burned in the next few seconds, at least someone would have a good story to tell of the platoon who fell out of the sky to their deaths singing the Legion’s song.

Desoto began to sing, and nudged Logan’s side. Logan took a deep breath and joined in too, feeling his body relax as he yelled out the familiar words and the world around him seemed to fade away.

As the other Legionnaires joined them, the cacophony grew louder and louder until it even drowned out Poulin’s screams.

Then the shuttle’s nose pulled up.

The thrusters roared outside, much louder than a normal landing as the noise came in through the hole in the hull. But still not loud enough to drown out the sound of nearly sixty Legionnaires singing.

Flames flickered into the air beyond the hole as a concrete landing pad rose into view, and reflected the thruster exhaust back toward them. The shuttle’s landing legs clunked as it touched down. Logan’s heart still raced as the shuttle settled on the legs with a loud creak, and the whine of the motors slowed. The flames outside flickered and vanished.

The singing faded away as the men looked toward the ramp at the rear of the shuttle. It whirred, and sunlight glowed around the top and sides of the frame as it began to open.

“Evacuate,” Lieutenant Merle yelled, as he pulled the release on his seat straps, and they fell away from his shoulders.

Sergeant Volkov released his straps, and stood, swinging his arms toward the ramp.

“Don’t just sit there, ladies. Allez! Allez!”

Straps clicked around the hold as the survivors unlocked them, and extricated themselves from their seats. Logan pulled his straps away, trying not to stare at Johnson’s body as the blood spray faded to a trickle of red dripping down his chest.

He’d seen dead bodies before. Some up close.

But none quite like that.

Medics raced up the ramp into the shuttle, pushing past the men trying to get out. The platoon medics clambered past the other Legionnaires, to head for the wounded. They took one look at Johnson’s headless corpse, then crouched over Adamski’s motionless body.

Heinrichs grabbed Adamski’s wrist, while another medic unclipped the straps that still held him in his seat where it had become jammed between the crates.

The Legionnaires strode toward the ramp. But, somehow, Logan’s legs just wouldn’t move as fast as they should. He gasped down as many rapid, deep breaths as he could, and his legs moved a little faster with the extra air he sucked in.

Lieutenant Merle had warned them before boarding the shuttle that the air on the planet contained less oxygen than they were used to, but Logan hadn’t expected to struggle quite so much. The oxygen level on the Marine LePen had slowly been reduced during the trip to try to get them acclimatized, but not far enough to be a risk if the ship was attacked and they had to fight. Now he was facing the full force of the planet’s weak atmosphere.

The bright blue sun that was shining high above the wide concrete expanse of the spaceport’s landing pads blinded Logan for a second as he followed the other gasping men down the ramp. The world seemed to spin around him as the adrenaline began to fade, and he slowly raised his hand to block out the sun’s glare.

The shock of seeing men die like that had prevented him from thinking about what could have happened to him, and the others. That could have been him in there, torn apart by the shrapnel, or falling to his death, still strapped to his seat. Killed by insurgents on his first day in a combat zone, without even getting a chance to shoot back at whoever had hit them.

The hot air around the shuttle’s still-glowing heat-shield was roasting his skin. He strode away across the grey, dusty landing pad as fast as his legs could go, following Bairamov and the rest of 1st Section.

More medics ran toward the shuttle from the buildings nearby, and men wearing body armour raced toward defensive positions around the spaceport, as though they thought they could shoot down a SAM with an autorifle. The regiment had brought some point defence guns to defend against missiles from the ground, but they were still packed into the shuttles the insurgents had fired at.

Logan glanced back at their shuttle. The side of the hull was black around the three-metre-wide hole where the SAM had hit it. They’d been lucky. If it had knocked out the motors at that height, the shuttle would probably have crashed. The whole platoon would be dead, not just three or four of them.

Dust blew into the air as the last of the flight of six shuttles from the Marine LePen landed on another pad nearby, blasting the concrete with the flaming exhaust from the landing thrusters. The other two personnel shuttles were disgorging the remainder of 1st Company, who stared at the damage on 3rd Platoon’s shuttle as they carried their bags down the ramps.

Men in powered suits hauled crates and combat suits out of the cargo shuttles. One of those shuttles spewed a thick pillar of black smoke from its motors. Had that been hit, too?

The flight crew clambered out of 3rd Platoon’s shuttle’s cockpit, then strolled through the passenger compartment and down the ramp, nodding and pointing at the hole in the side as they surveyed the damage. Ground crew rolled up in a six-wheeled truck, and jumped down onto the pad. They tutted as they stared at the hole.

“Now that’s a job and a half,” one of them muttered.

Then another siren whined, and was joined by a dozen more around the spaceport, until the noise grew so loud that Logan’s eardrums ached, and he covered his ears with his hands. The maintenance crew spun around, and hurried back across the landing pad toward their vehicle.

“What’s that noise?” Logan yelled at them.

“Radiation alarm,” the man yelled back. “Get inside, and wait it out.”

There were a dozen semi-circular mounds of dirt on the far side of the landing pads. Each mound must be at least ten metres tall, and some had metal doors that rose almost to roof level. More, smaller, dirt-covered buildings were spread out across the plain beyond. Men and women around him were already running toward the dark rectangles of the open doors in the walls of the nearest buildings.

Logan picked the closest, and followed them. For the first few steps, his legs kept up, then he was gasping. He slowed as he sucked in the weak air, and his legs began to ache. So did the other men around him.

Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. He stumbled on, and the door grew larger as he moved toward it, until he was able to fling himself inside.

Two dozen men and women now filled the corridor through the centre of the building. Leaning against the walls, crouching in the corners, or sitting on the floor.

Logan slumped down in the first gap he found, gasping, and stretching his ribs with every breath until his lungs were as full as they could go. Even then, there didn’t seem to be enough air to stop his heart pounding.

The hiss of dozens of men and women sucking in the thin air all around him filled the bunker, over the muffled noise of the sirens outside.

The last man in pulled the door closed. Red lights glowed around the frame.

“How long does this last?” Logan said, between gasps.

The man shrugged, then slumped down in the corner by the door. “Might be five minutes, might be five hours. Can’t really tell until it stops.”

“Does this happen often?”

“Once or twice a week lately. The sun’s been pretty active the last few months. Welcome to New Strasbourg.”

CHAPTER 2

Hastings, England, 2119 A.D.

Logan was fifteen the day the toffs came for his sister. It was a warm, sunny Saturday in September as the summer approached its end, and the cool green seawater of the English Channel lapped against the wooden hull of Jason’s father’s small dinghy as the two boys floated in it a couple of kilometres offshore.

The wood creaked beneath them, and the sail fluttered above them in the wind, tapping against the mast. Seawater from a wave slapping against the side of the hull splashed over Logan’s face where he sat at the rear of the boat, and he wiped it away. The sharp taste of sea salt filled his mouth, and he spat it over the side.

“Look at that,” Jason yelled from the bow, then stood and pointed to starboard, away from the narrow green line of the English coast.

A grey, boxy blob, long and low, was sailing slowly from horizon to horizon, further out to sea.

One of the Royal Navy ships that patrolled the English Channel, keeping watch for anyone trying to approach the coast of England from France, just fifty kilometres across the water. Not that anyone had in years, at least not so far as he’d heard about it.

Many of the world’s nations had treaties, agreements that they would never fight each other again on Earth, because past wars had been so destructive that no-one could risk another. And, besides, the resources in the off-world colonies were much more valuable to fight over. Earth was the place humans came from. Space was where they were going.

The Navy starships patrolled the wormholes and colonies in space, but their sea-going ships on Earth were there just in case nations couldn’t stick to the treaties. Should the French or the Reich decide to break the treaty and launch a sneak attack on England, the Navy would be their first line of defence.

Logan shaded his eyes from the sun with his hand as he stared out across the water. That blob must be a hundred metres long. Maybe a little more.

A destroyer, most likely.

He grabbed the long rod of the dinghy’s tiller beside him. The rough wood scraped against his palm as he pulled it gently toward him, turning the rudder in the water behind the boat. The dinghy slowly turned out to sea, twisting against the waves, and bobbing up and down as it slid over them.

Jason’s father was the only person Logan knew who had a boat, and the man sometimes let them borrow it to sail along the coast. Jason’s father was an engineer at the ammunition factory, one of the last remaining employers in Hastings.

Jason said his dad was on-call there night and day to keep the robots running, churning out bullets, missiles and shells for the Royal Marines and Royal Navy, and spent many nights at work, fixing their problems.

That put him far enough up the town’s hierarchy to afford a few perks. Like a terraced house instead of an apartment.

And the boat.

Of course, the toffs who ran the town got yachts and powerboats, and enough of them to fill most of the town’s new plasteel marina, down on the seafront by the old wooden pier that had been there since long before their parents were born. But those toffs would barely give Logan’s family a second glance if they somehow ended up in the same room together.

His family lived on UBI, the Universal Basic Income, and that barely paid for a small apartment to live in. His parents had tried to find jobs now and again to supplement their income, but with so much work now automated, there were hundreds of people fighting over every remaining opening.

They’d applied to move off-world, to one of England’s few colonies, but the competition there was even worse. They wanted people with experience in farming, mining, robotics and medicine, not those who’d barely found any kind of work since leaving school.

The only times he or his family would meet the toffs were when they were being punished for doing something wrong, or at the town party at the end of the summer, where the town toffs would turn up to show their faces, smile enough to make people think they cared, then disappear as soon as they could.

But the parties had music, dancing, games and contests, and better food than Logan ate the rest of the year. Real food, like the toffs could afford to eat every day, not cheap ration packs from the food vats that his parents brought home for Logan and his brother and sisters.

Everyone looked forward to the party through the summer, particularly the kids. It was the one day when they could stuff themselves with real meat, vegetables and cake until they could stuff in no more, then talk about how good it had been all through the cold, damp winter. A week had passed since that year’s party, but Logan could still feel the taste of real food in his mouth, instead of the sickly artificial goo of the ration packs.

“Don’t get too close,” Jason said.

Logan looked up. The destroyer had more than doubled in size as they approached, and it came closer with every second as the dinghy bounced at an angle over the waves toward it.

“I know what I’m doing.”

He knew better than to get close enough to a navy ship to be shot at. The fun was getting as close as you could before that happened. The navy crew would have spotted the dinghy long ago, scanned them, and figured out that they weren’t much of a threat. But, eventually, they’d react.

How close could he get before then?

“Come on,” Jason said. His voice quivered as though he was trying to sound less scared than he really was. “Turn back. Dad’ll be pissed off if you get his boat blown up. And I don’t want to have to swim home from here. It’ll take all day.”

Logan kept going. His heart beat faster, and a smile spread across his face.

Playing chicken with the navy ships was just about the most exciting time of his life. It sure beat sitting behind a desk at school, listening to the teacher drone on about things he couldn’t care less about, staring out the windows, and wishing he was somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

A drone hummed through the air about ten metres above them, the thin fuselage floating through the sky at barely more than walking speed, suspended beneath fat wings ten metres across, and pulled forwards by a lazily spinning propeller on the nose. The dark eyes of its cameras stared down at them.

Logan smiled, and gave it a thumbs-up.

The ship came closer still as the dinghy sailed on.

From that distance the destroyer looked like a squat black pyramid, squashed down and stretched out from bow to stern. Nothing interrupted the smooth surface except the rectangular hatches for missile launchers, and half a dozen turrets maybe two metres across. The long, thin barrels of rapid-fire gauss-cannon protruded from them, ready to shred anything hostile that came within range.

He’d read about these ships in the news once. One of the advertising features, recruiting boys for the Royal Navy. As he read the stories they printed of heroic battles, and long cruises around the Atlantic, he’d thought about joining up when he was old enough.

Maybe he still would, if they’d take him. Sail the seas, see the rest of the world, protect England from its enemies. Maybe, if he did well enough, he’d progress to sailing through space on one of the Navy’s starships, and taking the fight for humanity’s future out among the stars.

But a job was at least a year away. He had to finish school, first. Get good grades that would make him stand out from the other boys. Learn some skills that would be useful in life.

If he could stand it for that long without going crazy.

Two of the destroyer’s small turrets slowly turned toward them. The ship’s siren whooped. They were close enough.

Logan climbed to his feet beside Jason, swung his arms above his head, and yelled.

“Hey, Navy!”

The sirens whooped louder and longer. Logan laughed and swung his arms harder and faster as Jason grabbed the tiller, then turned the nose of the dinghy away from the destroyer. The dinghy bobbed up into the air as it hit the destroyer’s bow wake, then it slid down the far side of the wave, still turning away, back toward the green coast of England.

Logan slumped down beside Jason, still laughing.

Jason glanced over his shoulder, at the receding destroyer. “You’ll get us killed one day.”

“Come on. It’s just a bit of fun.”

Dark clouds were rolling in from the east, anyway. Grey spots appeared on the wood of the dinghy’s hull as the first of the raindrops fell. It was time to go home.

They tied up the dinghy at the marina, to the three-metre-thick plasteel quay that protected the boats from the winter storms. Then strolled home in the drizzle through narrow streets between white-walled buildings in the Old Town, and past the tall, dark walls of the gated management communities near the shore. The armour-clad guards at the gates glared at the boys as they passed. Logan raised his hand to wave at them, but Jason grabbed it and pulled it down. Maybe he had taken enough risks for the day.

A car was parked in their street, outside the door that led to the stairs to Logan’s parents’ apartment. The car was wide and black, with six wheels and six doors, maybe seven or eight metres long. He’d never seen a car in their street before. And now a huge one was parked right outside where he lived.

“What is that thing?”

“Dad would know,” Jason said. “I think it’s a Bentley. One of those new ones, with fusion engines.” He smiled, as though imagining himself driving one. “It could probably drive right round the world and back… and keep on going.”

“Then what’s it doing outside our door?”

“You got some relative in the toffs I don’t know about?”

“Closest thing I know to a toff is your dad. And you didn’t mention him getting promoted.”

The black paint on the car’s flowing bodywork shone as the sun peeked out from behind the clouds. Reflected sunlight glittered from the raindrops that slowly rolled over its curves, before sliding down to the moss-strewn, cracked tarmac of the road below. The car’s windows were small, and the glass dark, but something was moving behind them.

Logan leaned toward the side window as he approached the door to the apartment, and peered inside. An old face stared out. The hair was black, with faint touches of grey around the edges. The forehead was wrinkled, above small, dark eyes that stared at him for a second, before they turned away.

Logan recognized that face. He’d seen it at the work’s party the weekend before.

The man had been there with the factory bosses. Some big-shot, they said, who worked for the government in London. The man had spent some time talking to the people there, and handing out prizes at the end of the party to those who’d won the competitions and games during the day.

Logan’s sister Alice had won the dance contest. She’d smiled so proudly as the parents and kids clapped for her while she walked to the front of the crowd, to collect her prize from him. Now it sat on the shelf above the old fireplace in the living room of their apartment.

He seemed like the kind who’d have a big car. Those big government bosses could have anything they wanted.

But what was he doing there?

Logan’s heart thumped faster than it had when facing the navy ship. Nothing good could come from a toff showing up at their house.

“See you at school,” Jason said. He nodded toward the car. “Give me all the gossip in the morning, right?”

Logan placed his palm on the handprint scanner beside the apartment door, and glanced back toward the car. The toff was ignoring him now.

The scanner buzzed, and the door clicked open. Logan closed it behind him, walked past the door to the ground floor apartment where the Miltons lived, and climbed the stairs to his apartment entrance on the first floor.

Voices came from inside, but muffled by the wooden door beside the coat rack. He hung his coat on the hooks, where his mother always told him to leave it to keep the dirt of her clean floor, then slapped his hand on the scanner beside the door, wiped his shoes on the mat, and stepped in.

Feet tapped on the wooden floor of the living room. Alice paced from side to side, staring at the faded, brown floorboards that lay between the ratty sofa and their father’s armchair. Her long grey skirt swung around her legs with every step.

Logan peered past her, through the wooden door frame set in the flowery wallpaper of the living room wall, into the small kitchen beyond. The dim sunlight shining through the kitchen window illuminated their father’s face, as he sat at the table they used for cooking.

Their mother sat beside him, with her hand wrapped around his. On the far side of the table sat a man with greying hair, dressed in a black suit with thin white stripes. A dark, leather-clad attache case leaned against the side of his chair.

Another suit stood beside the window, leaning on the counter by the sink with his thick, muscular arms crossed over his chest. He glanced toward Logan with dark, staring eyes, and hard-set, scowling lips.

Logan turned, and looked away.

Then moved closer to Alice, so he could whisper.

“What’s going on?”

“Mum and Dad have visitors.”

“Did you see that car outside? Did they come in it?”

Alice nodded.

The grey-haired man leaned over the table, closer to their parents. “Your daughter, Mrs McCoy, will have the best that money can buy.”

“Best of what?” Dad said.

“The best of everything that life can offer, Mr McCoy. Mr Morgan wishes her to be happy in his employment. She will be treated very well.”

“So long as she spreads her legs for him?”

“So long as your daughter performs all her duties to Mr Morgan’s satisfaction, she will be rewarded appropriately. We are proposing a mutually beneficial arrangement for everyone involved.”

Alice continued pacing. Logan grabbed her arm, and pulled her to a stop. “What are they talking about?”

“You remember that man from the party? Morgan? The one who gave me the prize?”

Logan nodded. “Yeah, he’s waiting outside, in the car.”

Alice blushed, and looked down at the floor. She didn’t say anything for a while. Then she glanced toward the kitchen, and bit her lip before she whispered to Logan. “That’s Morgan’s lawyer. Morgan wants me to work for him.”

“That’s good, isn’t it? You can get away from here.”

She turned away from him, and crept across to the wooden staircase that led up to the bedrooms in the attic. She slumped down on a step, and pulled her legs up against her chest.

She wrapped her arms around them, and rested her chin on her knees. “I suppose.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Her cheeks grew redder, and she looked away. “He wants me to be his concubine.”

Some of the kids at school used to whisper to each other about that in the playground. The toffs, so they said, weren’t happy with just one wife, or sex-bots. They’d find some poor, unmarried girls who no-one wanted, take them home, and use them to raise more kids. When girls misbehaved at school, some of the boys joked about how they might end up as concubines if they weren’t careful.

But his sister?

He grabbed her chin, and turned her face toward him. He could tell from the way she looked into his eyes, and the way her body gently shook on the stairs, that she wasn’t joking. The man in the black car had come for her. As though a toff could have her the same way he could have anything else he wanted in the world.

He held her hand, and squeezed it.

“I won’t let them take you.”

She shook her head and frowned. “No. They’ll hurt you if you try to stop them.”

“I’m not letting them take you away from here if you don’t want to go.”

“You would be well rewarded, Mr McCoy,” Grey-Hair said in the kitchen.

The floorboards thumped as Dad stomped his feet on them.

“I am not selling my daughter.”

Feet thudded down the stairs above Logan and Alice. A face peered around the corner, looking down from the landing. A young face. Male. Scraggly brown hair. Wearing the old, hand-me-down Royal Marines T-shirt that Dad had brought home from work one day when Logan was ten. Once brand new and the darkest black, now faded, stained, and ragged at the seams, from years of the boys climbing trees and playing war games in the park down the street.

“What’s going on? Dad sent us upstairs.”

Malcolm was only nine, what would he understand? How much would he even want to understand?

“Go back to our room, and play with your toy soldiers.”

“I want to know what’s happening.”

Another face peered around the corner below Malcolm’s. Long red pigtails dangled below thick spectacles, above two small hands holding a teddy bear with one button eye hanging loose on a thread. Stacey, their kid sister. She peered down the stairs, toward the kitchen.

“What are they doing?” she whispered.

Alice’s head flicked around toward them.

“Will you two please just go back upstairs. I need to think.”

Grey-Hair picked up his case, and slid it onto his lap. Then pressed his thumbs against the fingerprint readers beside the handle, and clicked it open. He pulled out a wad of papers, and placed them on the table. He turned them around, then slid them toward Dad’s hands.

“There is a job opening at the ammunition factory for a safety manager…”

Dad pushed the papers away. “I don’t care.”

“The pay would be four times your current UBI, and with full Gold coverage on the National Health Service for all your family. You’ll get a nice new house in a new community, with four bedrooms, and security for your protection.” Grey-Hair glanced toward Mum. “Your children will go to the best schools in town, Mrs McCoy, and will have the opportunity to apply to university. They could become engineers, managers, or military officers.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’re not getting any younger, Mr McCoy. Or any more appealing to an employer.” Grey-Hair tapped the papers with his hand. “This would be the best choice for your health, and your wealth.” He leaned closer. “And your children.”

“Is Daddy getting a job?” Stacey said.

Logan peered past Alice, toward the kitchen. The suits were looking away. If they could sneak out quietly, and the damn creaky floorboards didn’t give them away…

“Let’s go,” he whispered. “Get away from here.”

Alice pulled her knees closer to her chest. “Where? He’s a toff. He’ll find us wherever we run.”

“Jason’s dad has a boat. We can cross the Channel…”

“Can I come?” Malcolm said. “You keep saying you’ll take me out on Jason’s boat, and you never do.”

For a split second, Alice laughed, until Muscles glanced their way from the kitchen. Then she frowned, and lowered her voice. “To France? We’d be dead before the day is over.”

“Maybe we could…”

She put her finger on Logan’s lips.

“Don’t you read the news? Even if we didn’t drown on the way… They’d torture us, Logan. Torture us until we wished we were dead. Then execute us as spies.” She ran her finger across her neck. “Cut our heads off. Better bloody Morgan than that.”

She lowered her chin to her knees again, and stared into the kitchen. Muscles watched the kids on the stairs as Grey-Hair continued talking. They’d missed their chance. Muscles wasn’t going to let his attention wander a second time.

Grey-Hair ran his fingers down lines of tightly-spaced text on the papers, too much and small for Logan to read. “Your daughter’s children with Mr Morgan—your grandchildren, Mrs McCoy—will have many opportunities they will never have if she remains here. He will raise them like any other child of his.”

“We should never have gone to that damn party,” Dad said. “If he hadn’t seen her…”

“Your grandsons will qualify for managerial positions. Your granddaughters will marry into the managerial class. Perhaps even higher.”

Dad said nothing.

“Mt Morgan moves in the highest circles in London,” Grey-Hair continued. “And she’s a pretty girl. Your granddaughters might even marry into the nobility, if they take after their mother, and play their cards right.”

Logan put his arm around Alice’s shoulders.

She was shaking, even more than before. How could they talk about his sister like this? Treat her as something to be traded, some machine to make babies for a toff? Didn’t they know she was a person?

Or did they just not care?

Logan’s hand balled up into a fist. He wanted to storm down the stairs, across the floor, and punch Grey-Hair in the face. Then throw both of them out of the apartment.

But Muscles was still staring at them. Logan wouldn’t even get to the kitchen before Muscles was on him. And what chance did he really have against a man like that?

Grey-Hair leaned forward over the table, and stared into Dad’s face.

“Mr McCoy. Anyone else on this street would beg us for such an opportunity. No-one in their right mind would throw it away. Please don’t make a mistake you’ll regret for the rest of your life.”

“No,” Dad said. “You won’t have her. Get out of my house.”

Grey-Hair rubbed his chin, then glanced toward Muscles. “Perhaps we should talk to the girl.”

Dad raised his arm. He held out his finger, and slowly turned his arm until it was pointing toward the apartment door.

“I will not let… that man… have my daughter.”

Grey-Hair tapped his fingers on the table. “Mr McCoy. We would like this to be an amicable arrangement. But perhaps there might be some irregularities in your UBI records. Your payments might be delayed. Or even cancelled.”

Dad held up a fist in front of his face, which was turning red as he spoke. He waved it toward Grey-Hair.

“You bastards. Don’t you threaten me.”

Grey-Hair leaned back, and glanced toward Mum.

“Mr Morgan, you’ve been drinking. You’re not thinking straight. Perhaps your wife…”

The table shook as Dad slammed his fist down on it. “Get out. And don’t come back.”

Grey-Hair sighed, then grabbed the papers and slid them back into his case. He clicked it closed.

“Mr McCoy, we will leave. But we’ll be back. And, next time, the terms on offer will not be as good.”

“If you bastards come back, I’ll kill the both of you.”

“If we have to come back, you won’t get that chance.”

Logan clenched his own fist tighter. If they tried to take Alice, he’d make them pay for it. Maybe he wouldn’t win the fight, but at least they’d know they’d got into one. That someone tried to stop them.

Even if he couldn’t save his sister, he could still discourage them from trying to take other girls from the street.

Grey-Hair picked up his case, and strode out of the kitchen, into the living room. Muscles followed, looking back over his shoulder, keeping an eye on Dad.

They passed the bottom of the steps where Logan sat, their shoes tapping on the hard floor in the hushed silence. They didn’t even look at him as they passed by.

Dad stood in the kitchen doorway, and raised his fist. “And don’t you come back.”

Alice pushed herself up from the steps. “Stop.”

Dad turned to her. Sweat glistened on his red face. “Keep out of this, girl, if you know what’s good for you.”

Grey-Hair stopped beside the sofa, and looked toward her. “Let the girl speak, Mr McCoy. Shouldn’t your daughter have a say in her future?”

“She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

Dad stepped into the living room, with fists ready. Mum grabbed his arm. She leaned closer to him and spoke softly. “Let Alice say what she has to say.”

Grey-Hair stared at Alice. “Go on, girl.”

Alice glanced at Logan, then lowered her face. “I’ll do it.”

Dad raised his fist toward her. His face grew even more red. “Listen to me, girl…”

“They’re right, Dad. You know it’s best for all of us.”

Dad opened his mouth to yell, but Mum pulled his arm, and he glanced at her. Logan grabbed Alice’s hand. How could he just let her go like that?

“You can’t leave.”

She smiled a sad smile at him, and her small fingers wrapped around his own. She squeezed his hand for a second, then pushed it away. “I’ll be fine. Just don’t forget me.”

“I’ll protect you.”

She nodded toward Muscles, and whispered. “You see that bulge in the suit under his arm? It’s a gun. I saw it when they came in. He’ll shoot you.”

“I’ll move fast.”

“If they don’t kill you, they’ll cut you off from UBI and make sure you never get a job anywhere in England. They’ll throw you out onto the streets, and you’ll spend the rest of your life begging and stealing every penny you need to stay alive. I can’t let you do that.”

She glanced toward their parents. “Besides, what else am I going to do? Stay here, and end up like Mum? What could happen that’s worse than that?”

“It’s not that bad.”

But he knew he was lying even as he said the words. Of course it was bad. He hated the thought of ending up like Dad as much as she hated to imagine ending up like Mum. Neither he nor she had a life to live there in that little apartment in Hastings. Not a real life, one that was worth living.

Muscles approached them. Alice smiled one last time, then took a deep breath, and crept down the stairs.

Grey-Hair adjusted his tie, then held out his hand toward Alice. “Really, this is for the best. You’ll all come to accept that in time, after you get used to your new life. One day, you’ll thank us.”

Dad pulled away from Mum, and lunged toward him. Muscles stepped forward, grabbed Dad’s arm, and pulled it away. He twisted it behind Dad’s back, and pushed him down to the floor.

Stacey shrieked, and hid behind her teddy bear. Logan jumped up, fists raised. But Alice glanced at him and shook her head rapidly. He stopped at the bottom of the steps, clenching and unclenching his fists, and imagining slamming them into Muscles’ face. Punching Muscles until his nose broke and he collapsed to the floor. Gun or no gun.

Grey-Hair smiled.

“Let’s not let this goodbye get ugly. I’m sure your daughter would like to leave you all with good memories.” He nodded toward Muscles. “Help Mr McCoy onto the sofa, please.”

Muscles pulled Dad up, and pushed him to the sofa. The springs inside creaked as Dad slumped down on the worn brown cushions, and Mum sat beside him.

Grey-Hair put his hand on Alice’s shoulder. Her body shook visibly at his touch. She tried to smile, but her lips quivered. Muscles watched over Mum and Dad as Grey-Hair pushed Alice toward the door.

She glanced back toward Logan.

Her eyes met his, and hers were wide, as though suddenly unsure of what she was doing. Then she glanced at Mum.

“I need to pack…” she said.

Grey-Hair slid his hand to the small of her back, and pushed her towards the door. “Everything you need will be provided for you. There is no need to take anything.”

“But I need some clothes…”

“Everything will be provided. Everything.”

Grey-Hair pushed on her back. She glanced at Mum and Dad as she took a step toward the door. Mum put her arm around Dad as tears ran down his red face.

“You can get your things when you come back to visit,” Mum called after her.

“No.” Grey-Hair said without looking back. “I’m afraid she won’t be coming back.”

Muscles followed Alice and Grey-Hair downstairs, glancing back over his shoulder to keep an eye on Logan as he followed a few metres behind them. Grey-Hair pulled the front door open, and pushed Alice out into the street. Muscles followed, keeping his hand near the bulge in his jacket.

Logan stopped at the door, and peered out into the rainy street. The car door slid open, and Grey-Hair motioned Alice toward it.

Morgan stared out at her. “Welcome, my dear. I’ve been so looking forward to seeing you again.”

He patted the seat beside him.

Alice took one last look at Logan, and the apartment where she’d lived all her life. Her long, auburn hair flicked behind her back as she turned away. She stepped into the car, and slid onto the seat next to Morgan. She flinched for a second as he slid his arm along the back of the seat, and around her shoulders.

Then he looked up at Logan, and smiled.

The door slid closed, and Alice left his life. She didn’t look back again as the car rolled away.

CHAPTER 3

New Strasbourg, 2123 A.D.

1st Company shuffled into the improvised command bunker, two hundred and fifty Legionnaires moving in single file through the narrow doorway from the bright sunlight to the dim, windowless interior.

Like the Legion’s sleeping quarters at the spaceport, the command bunker had previously been used as a hangar, with a fifty-metre-square concrete floor beneath a curved concrete roof that supported dirt piled on top of it to block the radiation. The hard surface of the roof reflected back the echoes of the Legionnaires’ murmured conversation, and the constant thumps of their boots on the floor.

A dozen rows of roughly-made wooden chairs faced a knee-high stage of ragged wooden boards near the doors on the far side of the hangar, doors that looked big enough to roll a shuttle through if they were open.

Logan crept across the floor, slowing any time he began to feel the world wobbling around him from lack of oxygen. His lungs were a little more used to the thin air of New Strasbourg after three hours of waiting for the radiation storm to subside, then an hour of exercise carrying the bags and cargo from the shuttles to stores and the sleeping quarters.

But not enough yet to rush around the spaceport without feeling light-headed. He shuffled across the uneven floor until he reached a chair near the end of the middle row, far enough from the stage to be inconspicuous, but not far enough to look like he was trying to hide.

Volkov was already sitting in the far corner of the room, studying everyone who entered. Logan had learned not to draw the platoon sergeant’s attention to himself without a very good reason. It usually hurt.

Wood creaked as Corporal Bairamov slumped down in the chair beside Logan. As his fireteam leader, Bairamov was easy enough to get along with, so long as you didn’t cause trouble, but could be hell if you did. Logan’s body had bulked up in training, but three years of combat in the Legion had stretched Bairamov’s arms until they were as thick as Logan’s thighs. No wonder the wood and nails of Bairamov’s chair were struggling to support the weight of his muscles.

As the other Legionnaires jostled for the best seats around them, Bairamov nudged Logan’s side, and flashed a wad of banknotes from his pocket.

“I made a thousand francs on the way down.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dead pool. I’d bet Johnson would go first. And he did.”

Betting on death wasn’t the worst thing Logan had seen or heard in his months in the Legion. But it was close. They’d asked if he wanted to join the pool, but he’d refused. He wasn’t going to profit from a fellow Legionnaire’s death, even if the man was a newbie. When he joined up, the instructors had warned them that half of the newbies wouldn’t even survive the first year, let alone the full length of their contract.

“You people are sick, you know that?”

“Gotta pay for my entertainment somehow.”

“What about McClain and Hoffman, when they fell?”

“They were alive until they hit the ground. Medics said so. Johnson didn’t last ten seconds after the shrapnel cut his head off.” Bairamov ran his fingers across his neck. “Why do you think they use the guillotine back in France?”

Logan shivered. He knew what they used the guillotine for. Maybe if he survived as many years in the Legion as Bairamov had, he’d be as blase about death.

But, damn, please say he’d never sink that low.

“They just got unlucky. It could have been you or me, if we’d been sitting where they were.”

“But we weren’t, were we? Someone’s looking out for us.”

“Shame they’re looking out for Poulin. How’s Adamski?”

Bairamov shrugged. “He’ll live. But he won’t be walking again for a few weeks. Hurt his spine pretty bad when he smashed into those crates. Medics will have to fix it before he comes back.”

“So the team has no grenadier?”

Bairamov chuckled as he slapped Logan’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you decided to volunteer. I thought I might have to carry that thing myself.”

Crap. That was another fifty kilos to haul around. And the Legion weren’t heavy infantry. Their combat suits were built for manoeuvrability and stealth, not to carry the kind of heavy loads the regular infantry might drag into combat. They didn’t even have grenade launchers built into their suits like the army, which was why someone had to carry one.

“So, what are the odds on me?”

“Better than most of the other newbies.”

“Why’s that?”

“You’re a stone-cold killer, kid.”

Bairamov might be right. Logan might be the only killer among the new recruits in the company. Probably was. But stone-cold?

He hadn’t meant to kill. It just happened. If he could go back… no, he’d do it again. The cops might have called it murder, but that asshole deserved a good beating, and just got unlucky that he picked the wrong guy to get beaten by.

Was that why Bairamov had taken to Logan since he joined the platoon? He figured Logan was a reliable killer? He shivered at the thought. That wasn’t how he wanted to be known. Not even in the Legion, which was full of them

Poulin strolled across the front of the crowd.

Ah, crap.

Having to listen to Poulin for half an hour was the last thing they needed after being shot at and irradiated that day. But she’d obviously cleaned up, and no longer had Johnson’s blood splattered across her face.

And had stopped screaming.

“What about our beloved politico?”

“Poulin? Who cares? Maybe she’ll go running back home to Papa, and leave us in peace.”

“They’ll just send another one to replace her.”

“But the new one could hardly be worse, could they?”

He had a point. The political officers in the training camps had done their best to indoctrinate the new recruits to worship the aristos, but those officers had spent years in combat units out on the frontiers, and knew what a pile of bullshit most of their propaganda was.

Few recruits had joined the Legion because they wanted to be hired killers for the aristos, to make them wealthier and more powerful. He certainly hadn’t. He’d kill to protect the innocent and his own comrades, but screw the politics.

Poulin climbed onto the stage and sat on a chair near the back wall, beside the company’s other political officers. She faced the assembled crowd as she sat, crossed her arms, and tapped her feet on the floor, staring at the Legionnaires as she did so. The men ignored her. She wasn’t going to live down her behaviour in the shuttle any time soon.

A man walked through the open door. Short, moustached, with a suntanned face below tightly-combed brown hair that was turning grey at the fringes. He adjusted his suit jacket as he strode toward the stage. The hubbub of conversation slowed as he climbed the low steps onto the stage, nodded toward the political officers, then turned toward the crowd, and smiled.

“Good afternoon, Legionnaires,” he yelled.

He waited for the conversations in the crowd to die away, then turned his head from side to side, scanning the assembled mass. Then spoke again.

“As mayor of Estérel I would like to welcome you to our lovely town, and to New Strasbourg. And apologize for what happened earlier today. The Compagnie d’Etoile has done its best to keep the insurgents away, but with these budget cuts…”

He raised his hands, and shrugged.

“Here here,” one of the politicos said, and clapped, slowly.

Whatever budget cuts the Mayor was talking about, any savings they’d made had to have been wiped out by the cost of sending a regiment of Legionnaires to the planet to deal with the problems those cuts had created.

And, wherever the other companies of the Legion regiment might have landed on the planet, they were probably listening to the mayor of whatever town they were now stationed in make the same excuses.

“Some of our lovely local girls wish to welcome you in their own way.”

The Mayor held out his right hand toward the open door, and a hundred male heads turned that way. The rest joined them as they heard the wolf-whistles and admiring comments from around the room.

A dozen girls marched through the door. Most looked around Logan’s age, with long, bare, tanned legs running from high heels to short skirts.

Thin white blouses bulged out around their chests below long hair, red, pouting lips, and faces glowing with makeup. The girls sauntered toward the stage, waving tricolour French flags above their heads, then formed a line behind the mayor, and smiled at the men.

The mayor opened his mouth, and took a deep breath. The girls began to sing the first words of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem, as they waved the flags high. The Mayor’s rattly voice followed along.

Two hundred and fifty men rose to their feet, scraping their chairs on the floor, and slowly joined the song with their deep, out-of tune, voices. They shuffled back and forward and side to side as they peered past the rows of men in front, trying to keep their eyes on the girls.

Logan did his best to ignore the Legionnaires’ singing as he joined in. The booming voices of the men drowned out the high-pitched singing of the girls, and the sound echoed back from the concrete walls and roof, rising and falling in volume, until he could barely even make out the words any more.

But he could hardly ignore the girls. Aside from Poulin, who’d spent most of the time since he met her trying to be a man and failing at it, he’d barely seen a girl in the last year.

The girls’ eyes roamed the crowd as they sang, stopping for a second to meet each man’s gaze, then moving on.

They sang the final words of the anthem, then put their free hands on their hips and flicked their hair as the the last echoes of the song faded away.

They pouted behind the mayor as he clapped.

“Thank you. Thank you,” the mayor said.

The scraping of two hundred and fifty moving chairs, and the thudding of two hundred and fifty pairs of boots on the concrete floor echoed around the room as the men sat.

The Mayor waited quietly for them to settle down before speaking again.

“Estérel has cafes, bars, and many, many lovely girls who would like to make the acquaintance of fine young men such as yourselves. Please, while you’re here with us, feel free to visit our town, and entertain yourselves. You are risking your lives to protect ours, and are sure to receive a very warm welcome.”

The girls posed behind him as he spoke, and smiled at the men with bright red lips.

Bairamov leaned toward Logan, and nudged him.

“Now I know what kind of entertainment I’ll be spending my winnings on.”

Boots clicked on the floor.

Captain Beaufort, the company commander, strode through the doorway, then across the hangar, toward the stage. Another man followed him, tall with freshly-trimmed hair, above a suit that would probably cost a year of Logan’s wages. A shorter man trailed behind them, with his shirt bulging out over the waistband of his pants.

“Thank you Mr Mayor,” Beaufort said, “and thank you to your lovely choir for their beautiful rendition of the national anthem. The Legion very much appreciates your efforts to make us feel at home, and we will do everything in our power to protect you all.”

The Mayor smiled and nodded, then motioned for the girls to leave. They pouted and swung their hips as they sauntered from the stage, still swinging their flags behind them.

Five hundred eyes followed them toward the door. Beaufort and the other men waited for the girls to pass, then climbed onto the stage themselves. Beaufort waited a moment longer before he turned back to the Legionnaires.

“My apologies, gentlemen. Though it looks the mayor kept you entertained during the delay.”

The men laughed as their attention returned to the stage. It had certainly been more entertaining than the beginning of their day. Especially for those who’d survived it.

Beaufort raised his hands to quiet them down, and waited for the echoes to fade. He looked toward the tall man. “This is Governor Porcher, of New Strasbourg.” Then at the other. “And Governor Chaput, of the department of New Moselle, where we are now stationed.

“We’ve just come from a VR conference with Commandant LePlage on the Marine LePen. Further landings are now on hold while we evaluate the safety of this site, and install the point-defence guns to protect it. The shuttles the insurgents hit will be out of action for several days for repairs, and we can’t afford to lose another.

“Our mission for now is to clear out the remaining insurgents in this department. Capture prisoners for intel, if possible. Ensure the insurgents have no support from the other colonists, and locate and destroy any weapon caches. Sweep them out of the mining villages, so they’ll surrender or starve.”

“What are we facing?” Volkov said.

“The insurgency began with weapons stolen from the Compagnie d’Etoile, and explosives stolen from the mines. But, according to the latest Compagnie reports, they’ve since found a source of their own. They have no heavy armour or weaponry, but they’re not lacking in man-portable weapons. Or talent. They’ve been able to hurt the Compagnie badly enough to call in the Legion. We believe at least a few of them are ex-military, and the rest seem to learn fast.”

“Captain,” Chaput said, “The Compagnie was perfectly able to deal with the insurgency. They are trained, and better equipped than the insurgents. I did not ask…”

“What about the SAMs?” Volkov said.

“That’s a new one for us today. The Compagnie have never seen them used here before. But they don’t fly much. Most transport on New Strasbourg is by land, with trucks, or horses and carts. But, if the insurgents now have SAMs, it is surprising that they haven’t tried to shoot down any inter-department flights before this.”

Volkov stared at the man beside Beaufort. “Must be some aristos flying from city to city who’d make a good target.”

“Could be they only just got the SAMs. Or maybe they were keeping their new toys a secret to surprise us. So far, we don’t know.”

“How many insurgents are there?”

“Almost a hundred thousand colonists live here on New Strasbourg. Half of them are children, and nearly sixty percent of the remainder are women. So there are likely to be at most a few hundred active insurgents. But if they are able to operate so openly, many more here must support their cause.”

A hand rose in the front row.

“Why are there so many women here?”

“The mines work regular twelve hour shifts with whatever machinery the government can afford to send, and use muscles for the rest. Most of the men die young.”

Porcher put his fist to his mouth, and coughed. “To be fair, Captain, I have introduced strict safety standards to protect the men who work in the mines. Mining may once have been a dangerous activity, but today it is as safe as any other here.”

“My apologies, Governor. I must have been misinformed about the current conditions.”

A hand rose to Logan’s right.

“Who’s supplying the weapons?”

“Most of the weapons the Compagnie have captured so far were of Islamic State manufacture.”

“Do you think they’re trying to gain a foothold out here?”

That would make some kind of sense. France and the other nations of Europe had been fighting the Islamic State and its predecessors on Earth for centuries, on and off.

The Legion instructors had drilled its long history into the recruits during their training. Legionnaires had fought them many times through those centuries, and lost many men doing so. This could just be the next phase, fresh military history to be taught to new recruits in decades to come.

Hopefully, without so many dead.

“I don’t think the Islamic State is stupid enough to give its own weapons to insurgents, and hand us a very good incentive to attack them. If another power is active here, I doubt it’s them. Either way, the Navy are now protecting the wormhole. Whatever external support may have been sneaking weapons through it to the insurgents, no more will be coming to them any time soon.”

“What tactics are they using?” Volkov said.

“Mostly, ambush and run. Take a few shots, blow up an IED or two, then fade away into the local population where we can’t find them. Hide their weapons until next time, then hide among their supporters. They don’t want stand-up fights unless they’re ready for one. They want to keep hitting and killing us one by one until the government give up and call us home.”

Logan raised his arm. “Why?”

“The usual reasons. They’re light years from Paris, and say they’re working and dying to make people rich back home. They don’t seem to realize their life would be a whole lot harder without the supplies France sends to them. They’d be lucky to survive a year without our support.”

“New Strasbourg is a young world,” Porcher said. “There are no native animals living on the land, except a few bugs and worms. You could stuff yourself full of the native plants, and you’d still starve to death, because our bodies can extract so little nutrition from them. The government has invested substantial amounts of time and money in building this colony. It is our duty to repay the government and people of France for their investment. And we will.”

“Well, gentlemen,” Beaufort said, “I have other duties I must attend to. I’ll leave Governor Porcher to answer your questions. Tomorrow, we begin our patrols. Be ready.”

At least they’d get some time for sleep before the shooting began. And a few hours to prep their suits and weapons, and be ready to move out. Assuming the suits and weapons survived their trip down in the cargo shuttles, of course.

Some time to fit in a good meal, with any luck. He might not get another one for days out in the field, just the usual gooey ration packs.

“So how do the colonists repay France?” a voice asked from Logan’s left.

“A young world like New Strasbourg has mineral deposits near the surface from recent asteroid impacts. Most men work in the mines, sending back iridium, uranium, and many other valuable materials that are much easier to mine here than from the asteroids themselves. The women, children, and men unfit for mining work on the farms, to reduce the need for importing machinery to run them.

“There is also our speciality, Radwine. The early colonists discovered that grapes exposed to the star’s radiation bursts can produce the most exquisite flavours. It is considered an exotic delicacy in some parts of France.”

As bad as life might seem on this planet, it must be paradise compared to what many had left behind. In France, these folks would be lucky to have a factory job that kept them in food and healthcare. Here, they could build a life for themselves, so long as they kept those ores going back through the wormhole.

If Logan had been born on a planet like this, he’d have been happy to stay there. Maybe he’d even be out in the woods, shooting at anyone from back home who wanted to tell him what to do.

“If the plants are inedible, what do they farm?” another voice asked.

“Pigs and goats can partially digest the local plants. And there are edible animals living in the rivers and sea, similar to fish. For the rest, we have found a number of Earth plants are compatible with the soil, if properly fertilized and tilled.

“But, as a planet around new star, we are prone to solar storms which produce the brief but intense bursts of radiation that you saw earlier today. Many other Earth plants are unable to survive in those conditions.”

Logan raised his hand again, to ask the question he really wanted answered. “Why should we fight for the aristos against these people?”

Volkov glared his way. Logan was risking more than just a punch for just asking the question. But how could he risk his life to fight them, without knowing the answer?

“Another question?” Chaput said.

Porcher ignored him. “No, no. You raised a very good question, young man. These are our own people fighting us here, not the Reich, the Islamic State, or Dixie. I’m sure many of you are wondering why should be fighting them, and not our real enemies.”

Volkov continued to stare at Logan with narrowed eyes, but without the I’m-going-to-kill-you look of a few seconds before.

Maybe he’d just get latrine duty for a week.

Porcher raised his hand. “Let me show you why you should fight them.”

A holographic image appeared, floating in the air above him, and covering most of the wall. A truck with long, tank-like treads, and smoke rising from the hood.

The camera turned, showing a train of half a dozen trailers behind the truck, now reduced to a mass of bent wheels and twisted metal on a dirt track beside a pile of rocks and a sparse forest. The camera moved around the wreck, as though it was footage from someone’s suit cam.

As it passed the front of the truck, it turned toward a body slowly swinging on the far side.

A middle-aged man wearing grey coveralls, hanging by his feet from a cable attached to the truck’s roof. His arms dangled limply beside his head, and his face and chest were covered with blood that had sprayed out from the long gash across his neck.

The camera panned around. More men lay dead on the ground, which had turned dark red where their blood had soaked into the dirt around them.

“This ore truck was bringing uranium ore from the mines, to be shipped back to Earth. Insurgents ambushed it, destroyed the truck, and killed the driver and his Compagnie guards. Without exports, our economy will soon collapse. And, as of today, we can no longer even bring in the freighters to collect the ore, in case they’re hit by SAMs.”

The image changed again. A closeup of a young, female face, her eyes open wide, and black hair fluttering against her forehead. The image wobbled slightly, as though recorded by a drone hovering nearby.

“We received this footage this morning. Since the Compagnie pulled back to protect the towns, the insurgents have had their run of the villages. Until yesterday, this was the village of Petit Toulose. The villagers did not want to support the insurgents.”

The drone pulled back. The girl’s head ended at her neck, and a wooden pole streaked with blood protruded beneath it, with the other end buried in the dirt below. More heads were impaled beside her, and bodies were piled on the dirt behind them, surrounded by blood-soaked dirt. Women. Old men. Children. Smoke rose from the bunker-like buildings around the bodies, where flames flickered behind the narrow windows.

“The radical insurgents call themselves Montagnards, after the revolutionaries of the Reign Of Terror in Revolutionary France, who executed everyone who opposed them.

“Thirty men, women, and children, all murdered. An entire village destroyed, just because they remained loyal to France. This is why we fight them. This is why we asked for your help. The good people of New Strasbourg are relying on you. Don’t let them down.”

CHAPTER 4

Hastings, England

Logan should have been glad. Happy, even. The day after they took Alice away, Morgan’s men followed through on their promises. The McCoys were moved out of their apartment, and into a four-bedroom house on the outskirts of Hastings. In a new management suburb, with surveillance drones buzzing through the sky, armed police patrols, and a three-metre-tall plasteel wall surrounding the estate, to keep the riffraff out.

Logan no longer had to share his bedroom with Malcolm, as the remaining kids each had one of their own. The house had a garden with grass and flowers, and a garage. Some families on their street even had cars to put in their garage, and no longer had to take the company bus to the factory, if they couldn’t work remotely through VR. But the McCoys weren’t so lucky.

Logan’s bedroom had a view of the sea, as he looked out over the wall around the estate, and across the town toward the marina. He could sit in his room and watch the boats sail out to sea at weekends, to wherever the toffs might want to travel.

But he never had a chance to meet Jason at school and give him the news. Logan was moved out of his old school right away, to a school for managers’ children on the estate, safely contained inside the wall.

A school with smaller classes, better teachers, and new buildings that weren’t collapsing around them as they studied.

But the other kids there knew he wasn’t one of them. They didn’t even have to know his background to tell that he didn’t look like them, speak like them, or act like them. His accent alone separated him from the others, and they knew his father had been promoted from below, with no family connections to save him from falling back into the world from where he came.

All it would take was for one toff to take a dislike to him.

“Filthy, stinking chav,” they called Logan, as they ganged up against him in the playground. Six or eight against one, laughing and scowling as they surrounded him.

The first time they attacked him, he went home covered in bruises and scratches, with blood oozing from his mangled lips. His father told him to fight back next time. He did.

Three of the boys went home crying to their mothers, and Logan was suspended the next day. His father had to work hard and pull strings at the factory to get him back into class.

As Logan struggled at school, and tried to stay as far from the other kids as he could, his father started coming home later, and drunker, every night.

Dad spent more and more time drinking in the community pub with his new colleagues after work before he returned home. Which was a relief, because, when he did get home, he’d spend the rest of the evening in a drunken shouting match with Logan’s mother.

Logan made do by covering his head with his pillow as he tried to sleep.

He went back to the old neighbourhood one Saturday, but everyone there knew he was no longer one of them. Even Jason claimed he wasn’t home when Logan knocked on the door and asked to see him.

But why should they trust him?

He’d left the street without any warning, and returned as a manager’s kid. They had every reason not to. A few words from a toff could consign any of these families to living rough on the streets.

He took to climbing over the ‘No Entry’ barriers at the seafront end of the decaying old pier near the marina, walking out over the sea on the uneven wooden planks, past the boarded-up theatre and stores, then sitting at the end, all alone, watching the ships pass the town out to sea.

A police patrol saw him one day, but one glance at his new ID was enough to convince them to leave him alone with just a warning about the dangers of the old, rotten wood that had been exposed to the ravages of weather and sea for centuries.

He’d listen to that wooden floor and the tall wooden legs of the pier creak below him as he stared out across the cold, green waters of the English Channel. Out to where the water met the sea at the horizon.

The sounds of the town, and the sounds of his troubled life, seemed to fade away when he walked out along the pier, above the sea. The sunlight glinted from the white wings of seagulls squawking in the sky, and the stench of dead fish, old mud, and rotting seaweed filled his nose.

He’d shade his eyes from the sun with one hand, and stare out across the waves at the grey blobs of the Royal Navy and French ships patrolling the dark water that separated England from France.

One clear summer night, when he was eight years old, Dad had taken Logan, Malcolm and Alice for a walk up into the hills beyond the town, and shown them the lights in the distance. The lights of France, on the far side of the Channel, and the lights of the navy ships moving slowly as they faced each other off in between.

Alice thought they were pretty, but she was more interested in the flowers and trees. Logan sat on a rock at the top of the cliff, and stared out across a space that seemed larger than that between him and the stars. Men had crossed that vast, dark space and returned, but he’d never heard of anyone crossing the Channel. Let alone coming back.

He was looking at another world, completely disconnected from his. Were there even people over there like the ones he knew? Or were they as alien as his new classmates at school?

He’d made no friends in his new life, and no longer had any left in his old. If he was lucky, in a couple of years he’d get a management job in the same factory as his parents. Marry one of the less desirable girls in their suburb, who’d failed to catch one of the better-connected boys who taunted him at school, or a pretty girl from the chav estates to whom he could offer a new life of luxury that she’d never imagined she could have. Make some kids. Work for the toffs every day until he died, the way his parents would.

If he was unlucky, he’d never find a job, and be left with a choice between living off UBI, or joining the masses of chavs who lived hand-to-mouth every day on the streets of the big cities, stealing or worse, to make enough money to survive. Until they were finally caught doing something bad enough for them to be executed.

There had to be something better than this. A place away from the toffs, away from their constant interference, where he could live a better life. A place where he wouldn’t have to make such hard choices, where he could expect something more from his time in the world than a tedious job followed by long nights drowning his sorrows at the pub.

He packed his bag that evening. He took one last look at his mother sleeping in her bedroom, then crept down the stairs to the sound of his father’s snores, as Dad tossed and turned in his armchair. A moment later, Logan stepped out into the cold night air. The curfew would begin soon, but fog was coming in from the sea, filling the streets with a thin haze that would help him hide as he moved toward the shore.

He nodded to the guards as he strolled out of the gate, then stayed in the shadows, and away from the staring cameras and the buzzing of drones, as he made his way to the seafront. Sirens whined in the darkness, but the police had better things to do than worry about a kid running away from home.

He found Jason’s father’s dinghy where he’d last seen it months before. Tied up at the quay, floating low in the water with the sail furled, and the sides of the hull tapping against the rubber lumps that hung between it and the plasteel wall.

He tossed his bag into the dinghy, untied it from the quay, and climbed down. A few minutes later, the sail was fluttering in the wind above him, and the boat began to move.

He crouched low, expecting to be spotted at any moment, as the dinghy sailed out across the marina, between the yachts anchored in the water. Then he was past the quay, and the shadowy English coast faded as the boat entered the fog bank.

The lights of the town followed him for a few minutes more, their bright glow burning through the haze. Then they too were gone, and he was alone in the dark night. He pulled his flashlight from his bag. France was a long way away, but all he had to do was watch the compass that was mounted in the floor beside the mast, and keep it pointing south.

He couldn’t miss France if he kept heading that way.

His old life was over. Tonight, he was going to start a new one, or die trying. Whichever it happened to be no longer much mattered. He couldn’t continue living the way he was.

For hours, he sat in the stern of the dinghy, shivering as the damp sea air cooled around him, holding the tiller tightly in the darkness as the dinghy bobbed up and down on the waves, and watching for any sign of ships.

After a couple of hours, the luminous glow of the compass needle faded, and he took to turning on the flashlight every few minutes to check that he was still going in the right direction.

A low buzzing noise rose over the hissing of the wind. Somewhere up above, a drone was flying through the fog, searching for boats doing just what he was planning to do. He crouched low in the the dinghy, below the sail, for what good that might do. The fog would block the drone’s cameras, and there was little metal in the dinghy for it to detect, but who knows what other sensors it might have?

The droning buzz grew louder.

Then the dinghy stopped. The bow rose high out of the water, then it sank back, and the dinghy turned sideways in the wind. But it wasn’t moving any more, as though he’d run onto a beach on the far side of the channel. But it was surely much too soon for that? He’d be lucky to reach France before dawn.

He waited as the buzzing reached its peak, then faded away as the drone passed by. When he could no longer hear anything above the wind and the scraping from the side of the boat, he clicked on the flashlight, and shone it into the darkness around him. Wherever he pointed it, he could still see water as far as the fog would allow.

The dinghy tilted to the right as the sail billowed in the wind. Something long and black was pressing against the hull, just below the waterline. Logan reached down, and gasped with the shock of the sudden temperature change as his hand entered the cold water. He wrapped his fingers around the black thing, and pulled.

A metal cable. A bundle a few centimetres across of perhaps a hundred smaller cables wrapped around each other. It rose from the water in his hands, but it seemed to grow heavier with every millimetre he lifted it.

He heaved against the weight, but only succeeded in tilting the boat as a couple of metres of the cable rose from the water on each side of him. And the cable would go no higher. More, and thinner, cables hung down from it into the sea. As he tried to turn the cable in his hands, something bright and spherical flashed to his right in the fog. A buoy supported the weight of the cables in that direction. He swung the flashlight to the left, and spotted another buoy that way, barely visible in the haze.

He’d found the top of a huge net, hanging in the sea. He should have guessed there’d be some kind of obstacles in his way. The English and French wouldn’t let just anyone sneak across their narrow, water border.

But it was too late to worry about that, now. And the dinghy was light. He pushed the cable down into the water, trying to force it below the boat. The dinghy turned slightly in the wind, and the bow slid over the net.

He pulled up the centreboard, so the keel would be as flat and smooth as possible. The sail twisted on the mast, and the hull scraped against the cable as it slid over. At the dinghy tilted, he reached back and grabbed the tiller, pulling the rudder up out of the water.

Seconds later, the bow slammed down into the sea, the keel scraped over the cable, and he was safely on the far side. They’d made that net to stop or delay big boats and subs, not a dinghy as small as his.

He sailed on, staying as close to due south as he could, and staring into the night for any sign of another net. He checked the sea around him every few minutes with the flashlight, and hoped the batteries would hold out until he reached the far side.

Something tapped against the underside of the dinghy. He clicked the flashlight on and shone it ahead, looking for another net, or anything else that might be interrupting the steady flow of the waves around him. But all he saw were fog and sea.

The tapping came again, from the port side this time.

The boat tilted as he leaned that way, then tilted further as he leaned over the side, holding the flashlight out. He pointed the light toward the water.

He just had time to see the dark sphere that was bumping against the hull before the whole world exploded.

CHAPTER 5

New Strasbourg

The village of Gries looked as arid and dry as Logan felt as he stared down toward it from the barren, rocky hillside.

A winding dirt track barely wide enough for a horse and cart ran just beyond the rocks where 1st Section had taken cover, and led down the hillside into the valley below. At the end of the track, a kilometre away, stood the few dozen brown dirt mounds with tall, dark, narrow windows and metal doors that made up the village.

The mounds lined both sides of a long strip of dirt about five metres across which had been churned up by boots heading in all directions, and the thin tracks of whatever kind of wheeled vehicles had rolled through the village since the last rains. Ore trucks, maybe, heading back to town with supplies to be shipped back to Earth.

The blue, white and red stripes of a tricolour French flag flew prominently in the open square between three larger mounds at the centre of Gries, flapping slowly in the wind that was blowing in from the south.

But it didn’t mean much. The flag seemed to fly everywhere on the planet, no matter what the locals felt about it. A village that didn’t proclaim its allegiance to the government would be a village asking to be wiped off the map as a potential haven for insurgents. No-one in their right mind was going to announce that they were on the other side.

Particularly not with the Legion around.

Logan carried the same flag himself, displayed on the right shoulder of his suit. And English George Cross on the left.

The Legion said no man should be forced to fight his own people, and the flags on the suits indicating every Legionnaire’s nationality were one way to enforce that. But there was no guarantee of anything in fast-paced frontier warfare.

If a Legionnaire had to fight, he fought.

His suit motors whirred faintly as he raised his head above the rocks. The suit’s external microphones amplified the sounds of the village, tracked them, picked our those that sounded most human, and marked them on the HUD of his helmet visor as yellow squares. He zoomed in on a few of the squares as he studied the scene.

Women and children shuffled between long rows of vines and olive and orange trees behind the houses, rows that stretched out toward the fields of corn that filled much of the valley floor. The fields slowly petered out into a mass of thin, waist-high grass as they rose into the low hills on the far side of the valley, where a forest of the planet’s own scraggly, twisted trees was soaking up the light of the bright blue sun.

The roofs of a dozen or more small bunkers spread across the fields rose just a little higher than the corn, presumably so they’d have a safe place to hide if there was a solar storm while people were working in the fields.

More kids, mostly the younger ones, played in the narrow, slow-moving river that ran along the bottom of the valley, bringing its brown, muddy water to the village. They laughed as only kids can as they stood in water up to their waists, and splashed it at each other.

Goats were tied to posts outside the houses, chewing on the tall, thin, brown weeds that rose from the dirt all around the village. Chickens clucked in the yards behind the houses as they shoved their beaks into the dirt, looking for anything they could eat. Pigs dug through the dirt in wooden pens, outside their own small bunkers that protruded from the sides of the houses. A handful of horses chewed the thin grass around the edge of the fields, fenced in beside dirt-covered stables.

1st Section had left the spaceport at dawn, one of several sections from the company sent to scout and show their faces around the mining villages across the department, while a few fireteams were heading to the mines, to protect the ore trucks en route to the spaceport. After hours of marching, the sun was nearly overhead. It would be dazzling if the suit’s visor hadn’t darkened to block out the worst of the glare.

Living around a star so bright, it was no wonder most of the locals had been tanned brown by working outside. Logan could almost feel the heat on his skin despite the cold air blowing across his face from the suit’s air-conditioning unit.

“Alice, status check.”

“Reactor capacity 80%,” the suit’s AI responded. “Secondary lower body hydraulic pump output pressure down 1.5bar. Right knee motor has an intermittent ground fault. Remaining systems nominal.”

His suit could do with a service, but it wasn’t going to get one before they moved out from their hiding spot behind the rocks. The maintenance records showed it hadn’t been touched for over three years, except for routine servicing, and had been on combat duty much of that time.

The Legion was constantly deployed across the colonies, and had little downtime. The old, worn-out suits were just handed down to the new recruits. If Logan lived long enough, he’d eventually get a new one.

The only things moving in the cloudless sky were the two tiny dots of the drones providing high cover for air support. So high that he probably wouldn’t even be able to see them if the suit’s HUD wasn’t marking them with green squares against the blue sky.

The Legionnaires had trained for combined-arms battles, using their own weapons to take on anything that was within their capabilities, and calling in support for those that weren’t.

They’d easily won simulated wars that way, against other armoured troops in a combat zone. Just obliterate anything that moved that wasn’t on your side, and, sooner or later, you won.

But what if you got into a firefight in a village you were supposed to protect? Call down a drone-launched missile into a house full of kids, and the single hidden insurgent it killed would be replaced by a dozen more before the funerals were over. Didn’t seem like the smartest idea ever.

Logan adjusted the grenade launcher on his back as he turned, then scanned his sector of the horizon for any sign of insurgents heading their way. He still wasn’t used to the weight of the launcher on top of his normal loadout, and while the suit’s motors and mini-nuke power plant could easily lift it, the extra inertia still took some getting used to whenever he turned.

“Are you ready yet?” Poulin’s weak, whining, female voice said from the suit’s helmet speakers.

She was crouched low between the rocks, beside Volkov. Her suit looked like any other in the section, made of thick metal and composites that had changed their surface colour from the default silver and black to deep brown, to better match the dirt and rocks around her. Her arms ended at big metal hands, and her legs at long, clawed feet that gave better grip while moving rapidly across the battlefield.

The only real difference between her and the men was that she wasn’t hauling a hundred kilos or more of weapons and ammo. Which was probably fortunate. No-one wanted to get shot in the back when she dropped it.

Volkov was studying the village from a crouch behind the rocks. Logan could almost hear the swearwords Volkov wanted to send Poulin’s way, but that would just get him a fast track to the Legion prison.

Or worse.

“I said,” Poulin repeated, “are you ready yet?”

Volkov motioned for her to move forward, down the hill.

“Perhaps you would like to lead the way, mademoiselle?” he said, in the slow drawl he reserved for those he considered too stupid to live, but too much trouble to kill.

And he probably wouldn’t have to. After Poulin’s behaviour on the shuttle, she had now risen to #3 in the dead pool. The only real question was whether the insurgents got her before the Legionnaires did.

And how many Legionnaires she got killed first.

“We came to show the people that the Legion is here to protect them from insurgents, not to hide in the hills,” Poulin said, as though addressing a child who hadn’t yet mastered pooping in its potty and needed further instruction.

Logan turned his face away as he smirked, back toward his assigned quadrant, and scanned the dusty hillside above them for any sign of insurgents. After the number of times Volkov had yelled at him, punched him, or given him the some of worst duties in the platoon just for being a newbie, it was nice to see the Sergeant suffer for a change.

“Charlie fireteam,” Volkov said. “Set up all the heavies and cover us from here. The mules stay with you.”

Charlie team rapidly spread out and picked positions among the cover of the rocks. The robot mules followed the men. The mules’ six legs twisted beneath their boxy metal bodies as they moved, and their wide metal feet crunched the dirt beneath each step. Their surface changed colour slowly to a darker brown as they turned, the camouflage doing its best to fade into the background, like the Legionnaires’ suits.

The tough little robots carried supplies to help extend the Legion patrols. Spare ammo, food, heavy weapons, anything beyond what you had to carry in or on your suit for immediate use in combat.

Charlie team grabbed the section missile launcher and autocannon from the mules’ backs, and rapidly assembled them on tripods between the rocks with a good view of Gries. From the hillside, they could raise hell down in the village, if insurgents had set an ambush.

With the weapons unloaded, the mules shuffled into cover behind the rocks, then crouched down in the dirt, folding their metre-long legs beneath them. The faint hiss and whirr of their motors faded as they settled down.

Seconds later, after their colours shifted again, their bodies were barely distinguishable from the rocks around them. Boxy rocks with strange protrusions, for sure, but they’d fade into the background if anyone looked at them from more than a few metres away.

“Stay sharp up here,” Volkov added as he stood. “We may be coming out in a hurry.”

“Gries is a friendly village,” Poulin said. “There is no need to treat the people like enemies.”

“Every village is a friendly village, until the bastards start shooting at you.”

“There’s no chance of that here.”

“In that case, why did you need us? You could have just walked in there and sung Kumbaya with the locals.”

“To show them we are here now, to protect them from the insurgents. To give them the comfort of knowing we care, and the strength to ignore any threats the insurgents may make. To prove we are all in this together.”

“Travelling overwatch,” Volkov said. “You men heard our beloved political officer. Let’s show the people we’re here.”

Then he hopped over the rocks, and stomped away down the track. Alpha team scrambled to their feet, strode around the rocks, and followed him, leaving a gap of a few metres between each man. Then Bairamov stood.

“Bravo, on me.”

Logan raised his MAS-99 gaussrifle, gripped it tighter in the suit’s metal hands, and pushed the butt against his chest, so the suit’s motors would absorb some of the recoil. The hypersonic slugs it fired could punch through the thick metal armour of a suit, and the recoil would knock him flat if he tried to fire it without the mechanical assistance of his own. If he could even lift it, when the loaded rifle weighed over forty kilos.

He followed Bairamov down the track, forming a wedge with Desoto and Gallo, and remaining far enough away from Bairamov so a hidden mine or IED wouldn’t hit both of them. He looked up, watching the hills to the right as the section strode through the dirt toward the village.

If the insurgents were planning to attack the Legionnaires as they approached, the rocks above them right now would be a great place to hide. But the houses came closer with every step his suit took, and only the thin grass twisting in the breeze moved among the rocks and weeds up above.

Maybe the patrol’s arrival had scared the insurgents away. If Logan was hiding up there in the rocks with only body armour to protect him, he certainly wouldn’t want to take on one man wearing a combat suit. Let alone a dozen.

Back at school in England, the teachers had shown them vids of the Royal Marines landing on planets in assault pods, jumping out in their suits, winning battles, then climbing into shuttles to fly home. In the vids, the battles were always won, and the few token deaths on our side were always heroic and necessary. No-one ever got their head ripped off by shrapnel before they even touched the ground, or burned alive when the pod malfunctioned.

It all looked glamourous and exciting, and some of the other kids had been determined to join up when they were old enough. Logan had even thought about it himself.

But, unlike the Marines, Logan had soon learned that what the Legion did most was…

Walk. March. Yomp. Pound Ground.

Whatever the Legionnaires might call it in their native tongue, the act was the same. One foot after the other for hours on end, taking care not to let the suit’s power-assisted legs throw you high into the air where you’d be an easy target for anyone who wanted to kill you.

Even wrapped in a nuclear-powered exoskeleton, that much walking left your muscles aching after a day of non-stop travel across the worst of terrain. And Legion patrols usually took the hard route, the route no sane man would follow, to increase the chance of surprise.

Even if the insurgents didn’t have SAMs, transports large enough to carry a section of suited-up Legionnaires and their equipment could be heard a kilometre away. There was little to no chance of surprise if you came in with jets blaring.

By the time the transport landed and the men disembarked, the insurgents would be lying in wait, or scattering as fast as they could, weapons hidden, ready to fade back into the civilian population. Men on foot in combat suits could cover a hundred kilometres a day, even while staying in cover and taking their time to scout ahead before moving. And they could set their own ambush for the insurgents when the time was right.

There was a reason the Legion’s unofficial motto was ‘march or die.’ Even in training, they’d been expected to march up to forty kilometres a day. Without suits.

Logan’s legs felt weak just thinking back to those days. Nothing he’d done since had come close to the exertion and deprivation of his first weeks in the Legion. And he got half-decent food these days, too.

His metal feet crushed the dirt beneath him as the section descended the rough track from the hills to the village, covering a few metres with every step. The soles of his feet were used to marching, but they still tingled after the amount he’d walked that day. For all the arguments in favour of marching, he would still have preferred to fly.

“Do you really think the insurgents did that?” Desoto said on the team channel.

“Did what?” Logan said.

“Killed their own people like that. Chopped the heads off those little kids, and stuck them on spikes.”

Gallo chuckled. “If there’s one thing you’re gonna learn, it’s that the French like few things more than cutting their enemies’ heads off. It seems like their favourite hobby.”

“But why?”

Wasn’t it obvious?

“To scare the crap out of them,” Logan said. “Who’s going to try to stand up to the insurgents, if they know they might come home to find their families’ heads on spikes?”

“Seems like a shitty way to get rid of the aristos. These Montagnards sound even worse than they are.”

Bairamov coughed. “Cut the chatter, ladies. This is a combat zone, not a tea party.

“Sorry, sir.”

He was right. Now they were moving in the open and the blood was pumping through their veins, they’d started to relax after hours of staring into the hills imagining an RPG hidden behind every rock. When you expected to get shot at for so long and didn’t, you began to drop your guard. And that was exactly then the insurgents would aim to strike.

Logan turned back to his sector, and watched the bushes and dirt for any sign of life.

Still nothing.

After less than five minutes, they were on the valley floor, marching between fields at the sides of the track, and rapidly approaching the village.

The women in the fields stared their way, and some whose wide-brimmed hats weren’t up to the job of shielding their faces from the sun raised their hands to block it out as they looked up. The children pointed, and some of the younger ones ran toward the women, then clung to their legs.

“A friendly face is worth a battalion of solders,” Poulin’s gasping voice said over the speakers as she struggled to keep up with the rest of the patrol.

Volkov paused before he spoke. “Visors up.”

For the hours they’d walked en route to the village, Poulin had been telling them that they were supposed to look like friends, not an occupying army. Hearts and minds, she said. Make the people love you, she said, when those same people had spent the last year fighting the Compagnie. And done well enough against them for the Legion to be called in.

But, apparently, they’d be convinced by a friendly face and a smile. Where did she get this crap?

“Alice, visor up.”

The helmet visor slid up. The blast of heat on his face felt like he’d opened an oven door and shoved his face into it, after hours in the suit’s air-conditioning.

His eyes stung for a moment as his pupils contracted in the harsh sunlight. But the sudden feeling of light-headedness as the oxygen content of the air fell was the worst.

He opened his mouth and gasped down air as rapidly as he could, but his legs slowed for the final hundred metres to the houses. He pushed as much energy as he could muster into his muscles, and hoped the motors would do the rest.

An old man sat in the sun on a rock beside the house at the edge of the village, smoking from a small pipe. His face was a mass of brown wrinkles, and a red, lumpy growth bulged from his cheek. His bare right foot tapped on the dirt as he watched the men approach, and he nodded and smiled at them as they passed. His left leg ended at the knee, where it became a long bar of plasteel with a three-toed foot at the base.

Was he just taking a break and being friendly, or was he scouting for the insurgents? Sitting there until the Legionnaires were in position for an ambush, waiting until he could signal the insurgents to strike?

Or maybe that smile was the signal, and the trap was about to be sprung.

Logan shouldn’t think like that. But what else could he think? Anyone could be working for them. And they weren’t going to advertise that fact to the Legion.

Bairamov slowed as Volkov and Alpha Team entered the street, spreading out between the rows of houses.

The gap between the teams grew, giving Bravo Team more room to manoeuvre if they were attacked, and reducing the chances of an ambush catching all of them.

Logan marched behind Bairamov as the team entered the village. The rows of houses seemed to move closer together as he followed Bairamov along the street, and they became trapped between them, where their suit’s speed could be as much of a liability as a benefit. One mistake while turning at a full run in these streets, and he’d slam into the side of a house and bury himself in the dirt that was piled over them.

Logan watched the houses on his side of the street.

The door of the first house on that side was closed, and the windows beside it were dark. Two eyes stared out of those windows as he passed the house, then quickly disappeared as whoever was inside backed away from the glass.

A goat watched him from a pen at the side of the house, chewing idly on a leafy weed that dangled half out of its mouth.

A group of kids, maybe eight years old, peered around the corner of the house ahead, half-hidden in an alley between the house and its neighbour.

They muttered to each other, giggled, then ran toward the Legionnaires, laughing. Alice would be scanning them as they approached, and her sensors searching for signs of hidden weapons or bombs. Without the visor’s HUD, he couldn’t see the status displays, but she wasn’t warning him of any threats through the speakers.

A boy with scars on his dirt-covered, bare feet and a body wrapped in torn shirt and pants raced alongside Logan, panting as he struggled to keep up with the suit’s marching pace. Logan raised his rifle higher and slowed a little as the kids swarmed around them. The last thing he needed was to step on one if they jumped in front of him faster than the suit could react, or smack them with the rifle when he turned.

But what if the insurgents had sent them to distract him from the surroundings?

Could he even trust the kids out here?

“Can I join the Legion?” the boy said.

His shoulders barely reached the waist of Logan’s suit. He must have been about the age Logan was when he first started thinking about leaving home for a life of adventure. He’d have joined the Legion in a shot if he could have done so at that age.

“Sorry, kid,” Logan said. “You’re too young.”

Besides, they called it the Foreign Legion for a reason.

Every man in it, aside from the officers, was a foreigner. Or, at least, pretended to be. He’d heard that some Frenchies joined up under false identities, but had never met one. The Legion had offered him the chance to change his name and take on a new identity when he joined, in case he would rather forget his past life and start over. But he kept his own. What reason would he have to be ashamed of his life? He might have made mistakes, but they were his mistakes. He’d live with them.

“Alice, see anything?”

“The walls are blocking my sensors.”

The narrow windows beside the door of the nearest house were set about half a metre back below the mass of dirt that was piled over the curved side walls and roof. The dirt must be at least a metre thick. Thick enough to block the radiation from the worst solar storm… and thick enough to hide anyone inside from the suits’ sensors. If they had to fight, a hypersonic gauss round from his rifle might punch through the wall and kill someone inside, but he couldn’t shoot what he couldn’t see.

His heart pounded with the adrenaline rush. A street like this was the perfect place to stage an ambush.

Catch the section in a crossfire from houses on both sides, while they were surrounded by civilians. The Legion would lose, either way.

If they threw everything they had at the insurgents, those insurgents would drag out some dead kid after the battle, and blame the Legion. If the Legion retreated, they conceded the village to the insurgents.

The flag in the town square clattered as it fluttered against its white pole. Logan could see it above the roofs of the houses to the right, flying between the radiation sirens that stood on a pair of wooden poles at least a dozen metres tall.

The street opened out as they reached the square, and Bairamov slowed from a march to a walk.

The flag fluttered beside a building on the far side of the square, not much taller than the houses, but four or five times as wide. Government, most likely. Logan had learned in France that any building that big had to be something to do with the government, or the aristos. And this probably weren’t many aristos living in Gries.

A man wearing a crumpled suit and circular spectacles stepped out of the double doors at the front of the building, onto the dirt of the square. He waited as Volkov, Poulin and Alpha Team approached.

“Mr Mayor,” Poulin said.

“Good afternoon, mademoiselle. I was only just told of your arrival. We are so glad to have you visit our village.”

He held out his hand, then suddenly seemed to realize that, regardless of how strong Poulin’s own hands might be, the power-assisted fingers of her suit could crush his without even thinking about it. He made a vague attempt at a salute, instead.

Bravo Team stopped a few metres behind Volkov. Logan gasped down as much air as he could, while he had the chance.

But his heart didn’t even slow down. The adrenaline rush of standing there in the open surrounded by people who might want to kill him was making it pump faster than the exercise had on the way in.

The nearest cover they had were the buildings around the square, and they were a few seconds away by the time the suit built up speed and then stopped. Any competent ambush party would have men in them anyway, waiting to attack anyone who tried to hide beside them.

He looked toward the mayor. “Alice, scan him, will you?”

“Body temperature is high,” Alice said. “He is sweating.”

Logan could hardly miss the red face, the sun glinting from the drops of sweat rolling down the man’s skin, or the yellow-grey patches spreading across his white shirt where the sweat was soaking through the cloth.

But that could just be from the heat of the sun burning down on them, reflected back from the light brown dirt of the square and buildings.

Or the man could be scared out of his wits.

Which wouldn’t be surprising if he’d seen the vid of Petit Toulouse. Every colonist on New Strasbourg was probably imagining their head on a spike right now. What the insurgents had done might be evil, but it was great propaganda.

“Form a perimeter,” Volkov said.

“No,” Poulin said. “This is a friendly village. We will not come storming in here like an occupying army that doesn’t trust the people.”

“Fine. Alpha, introduce yourselves to the people in the buildings around the square. Bravo, take a patrol around the village.”

“That is not…” Poulin began.

Volkov turned toward Bairamov. “Show your faces, smile at the kids. Let the people here know we’re their friends. Exactly as our political officer says.”

For once, Poulin had no answer.

Logan suppressed a smile at Volkov turning Poulin’s own words against her. How could she argue with that?

Alpha moved toward the buildings. Curious faces peered out at the Legionnaires from windows and doors. The men nodded and waved at them.

“Have you seen any sign of the insurgents around here?” Poulin said.

The mayor shook his head. Fast.

“No insurgents here,” he said, waving his hands as he spoke. “We’ve never seen any sign of insurgents anywhere around the village. Never at all.”

Logan’s heart was still thumping hard as he followed Bairamov, Desoto and Gallo from the square.

If he was in charge of a village like this, would he be more afraid of the insurgents, or the Legion? Either could kill him. Poor sod probably just came here for a quiet life, and was now stuck in the middle of a civil war.

The kids were still watching the Legionnaires from the side of the square. They stood beside a building with wide windows and an open door, and a table on each side of the door piled with shiny trinkets. A middle-aged woman wrapped in a long dress of faded reds and yellows sat on a rough, wooden chair beside the tables, fanning herself with a wood and cloth fan in her right hand.

“Want to buy something, son?” she said as they approached.

Bairamov glanced toward the tables.

“No, but thanks, madame.”

They strolled on.

Logan kept his eyes moving over his sector, and tried not to stare at the locals as he passed them and they watched him go by. The ones who wanted him to stare at them were likely to be the ones who were trying to distract him from their friends with weapons hiding in the shadows.

A dog looked up at them from a gap between the houses. One side of its body still had fur, the other had only a few fuzzy patches between a mass of pink skin stretched tight over its ribs, and scarred by dozens of lumpy growths.

No-one paid any attention to the animal as it sat there. Must be hard being a stray, having to find a place to hide whenever the radiation storms came. It probably wouldn’t survive long enough to still be here if the Legion ever came back.

A girl raced out of the street to the left, her long grey skirt swinging around her legs as she moved, and a small brown bag banging against her side. Logan glanced her way and tightened his grip on his rifle, but Alice didn’t report any sign of weapons or any other threat.

“Please,” the girl said. “My father…”

She didn’t look any older than Logan’s sister had been when Morgan took her away. About the same height. Thinner, maybe. Her hair was long and brown, but not as red as Alice’s had been. Her body was shaking, and her eyes opened wide as she stared at the men.

“Alice, what do you see?” Logan whispered.

“No threats. No contacts.”

Bairamov took a step toward the girl. “How can we help you, mademoiselle?”

“My father is sick. Can you do something?”

Logan glanced at her, then back to his sector. Peering into the gaps between the houses, and up at the roofs, looking for anyone who might be hiding there ready to take a potshot while the girl distracted them. His heart was thudding again, and his palms were slick with sweat on the hand-grips inside the suit.

Bairamov nodded toward him.

“McCoy, Desoto. Take a look.”

CHAPTER 6

English Channel

The French found Logan floating in the Channel the next morning. He was clinging to the shattered remains of the dinghy’s hull, soaked to the skin, and barely alive in the near-freezing water. His teeth were chattering, his legs felt like ice, his clothes were sodden with salty water, and he could barely feel his hands.

But at least he could no longer feel the pain that had shot through his limbs after the mine exploded and blew the boat apart. That had slowly faded away as the cold numbed his flesh.

He lay half-on, half-off the side of what remained of the dinghy’s hull, with his legs dangling in the sea. He’d clamped his fingers around the torn edge of the wooden planks after the explosion, and clung on ever since, refusing to release his grip for a second even as the sharp edges of the broken wood dug deep into his fingers. After an hour, they’d grown so cold that he couldn’t even feel that pain any more. He’d struggled to keep his eyes open all night, terrified of surrendering to the cold and exhaustion. To close them for a few seconds’ rest, and slip into the sea, into a sleep from which he’d never wake.

Then a dark shape appeared through the thick grey haze of the morning fog, like a cliff sliding through the open sea.

A French corvette, come to investigate the explosion.

The wreck of the dinghy bobbed up and down in the ship’s wake, and the corvette’s searchlights cast bright beams through the fog, as they scanned the floating wreckage on the waves around him. They briefly illuminated the dinghy’s waterlogged sail, the mass of broken wood from the hull, and Logan’s torn bag and its contents. Then moved on.

A drone buzzed in a few meters above him, hovered for a few seconds, then flew away. The ship hove-to nearby, and a rope net fell over the side. Dark shapes clambered down the net, and jumped into the sea.

The world faded into blackness as hands grabbed Logan’s arms. He couldn’t stay awake a second longer.

He remembered little of the trip to shore on the corvette, or the few weeks in hospital that followed. The mine explosion that shattered the dinghy had shattered his body too, fracturing his left arm, both legs, and two ribs. Injuries on that scale took time to heal.

He faded in and out of consciousness for days as the French doctors repaired the damage. Had he been one of their own, a French boy gone sailing in the middle of the night who ran into a roving smart mine, they’d just have left him to die. But a boy from the far side of the Channel?

That was worth investigating.

The French government agents didn’t want to save his life so much as they wanted to know who he was, and what he was doing there. As soon as he could walk again, they dragged him from the hospital to a mouldy cell in the basement of a cold, dark building in the suburbs of Paris.

For questioning.

“Where did you come from?” they asked, in their heavily-accented English.

“Hastings.”

“Why are you here?”

“I wanted to get away from home.”

The interrogator leaned closer to his face, and almost spat as he spoke.

“How stupid do you think we are? Why would you risk your life to cross the Channel, just to get away from home? You are a spy.”

“I just wanted to see what life was like on the other side.”

“Then you are a spy. You will be executed.”

“I’m just a boy.”

“What information were you sent to collect?”

“No-one sent me.”

“Who are your contacts?”

“I don’t have any contacts.”

When the questions failed, they beat him with truncheons.

Not hard enough to break any of the bones they’d just spent so much time repairing, but hard enough to leave his muscles so battered that he was barely able to walk back to his cell, or to sleep that night from the throbbing pain.

Then, the next day, they questioned him again. And beat him again. Still he had no answers to give that would satisfy them. After a few more days with no sleep, he tried admitting to being a spy, just to get a break. But, when they asked for more information about what he was spying on, he could give no answer that would satisfy them.

They beat him again.

They starved him.

They kept him up all night by shining lights in his cell and filling the air with non-stop music.

When that still failed to produce a result, they tried holding his head underwater until he could hold his breath no longer, and they did it again and again. Then beat him. For fun, he guessed, because it no longer had much affect on him. His body had grown used to the pain, and barely complained.

Nothing worked for them, because he had nothing to tell them. And no way even to make up a lie that would convince them he really was the spy they were looking for. After weeks of abuse, he’d have preferred execution.

Finally, they let him go. Put a blindfold on his face, tossed him in the back of a van, and drove him through the streets of Paris. Then tossed him out.

As the whine of the van’s motors faded into the distance, Logan pulled the blindfold from his face, and stared at the garbage-strewn street and dark, dirt-stained buildings all around him. They’d left him alone on the streets of Paris, weak, half-starved, battered and bruised with no status, and nowhere to go. All he knew about France were the few words of French he’d learned by listening to the interrogators talk between themselves over his time in captivity.

Why couldn’t they have just shot him?

It would have been more humane than dumping him on the streets, battered and bruised, with no money and no ID. He’d be dead either way, but, this way, he’d suffer first.

Or maybe that was the idea?

The day was cold and wet, and he shuffled along the street, ignored by the men and women rushing past. He found a charred wooden shed behind a half-collapsed old store with boarded-up windows, and broke the door open. Then fell asleep in the debris on the floor.

He woke in the morning, shivering, with a dry throat, and an empty stomach churning and rumbling. He could hear muffled voices and footsteps outside the shed, and sneaked out as soon as he could, back onto the streets of Paris.

He walked the streets, shivering and cold, begging for money or food, using gestures when he didn’t know the French words. The longer he walked, the more desperate he became. If he didn’t find food soon, he’d have to steal some, or starve.

The Parisians either ignored him, or scowled and passed by.

The further he walked, the more he noticed other young men lounging against the walls, chattering rapidly to each other in French, too rapidly for him to understand more than a few words of what they said. Their staring eyes followed him, like a predator following its prey, waiting for the right moment to pounce. He didn’t try asking them for help, just passed them as rapidly as he could, and kept his eyes on them as he did.

About a dozen girls leaned against the columns and brown stone walls of an abandoned bank, below the smashed windows, beside the thick, fallen doors that lay on the stone steps outside.

Despite the cold wind and drizzle, none of the girls wore more than a few scraps of cloth that passed as blouses and skirts which exposed the bare skin between them to the winter air, and every male gaze that passed by.

The girls smiled and twisted their bodies toward him as he approached, then started yammering at him rapidly in French, fighting for his attention.

“Sorry, I don’t understand,” he said.

That only caused them to yammer more and faster, but, this time, yammering at each other.

He turned and walked away.

But the rapid tapping of hurried footsteps followed him along the street. He glanced back.

A man followed him, not much older than he was, with curly black hair above a black T-shirt and battered leather boots, and a small cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Voulez-vous une femme?”

And that was how Logan met Jacques.

Full-time pimp and part-time drug dealer, selling a few minutes of release to the desperate inhabitants of Paris Section 19, in whatever form his customers desired.

The French called it a ZUS, Zone Urbaine Sensible, a walled-off section of the city where they dumped those who couldn’t be made to fit into their society, and left them to fend for themselves. There was only one gate in and out through the wall, and permission to pass through the guard post there could be revoked for anyone at any time for any reason.

Such as being found outside the ZUS during curfew. The aristos didn’t want the riffraff of Paris messing up their evenings out on the town.

The police mostly stayed outside the wall, except when they came through for a sweep now and again to remind the inhabitants that they were still there, and still watching. Or when they decided that an inmate was too much of a threat to those outside in Paris and had to be disposed of.

So that was where Logan ended up, in the ZUS, working for Jacques.

It was where the police had tossed him, just one more piece of garbage dumped in the social waste dump to rot. And, with no ID, he couldn’t safely leave.

There was no UBI in France, or, if there was, it certainly didn’t extend to the ZUS. Those who lived there had to make their money any way they could.

He protected the girls from their competitors and customers, while Jacques sold his drugs. Logan might not have known enough French at first to talk them out of trouble, but he was tall, and rugby lessons at school had built up enough muscles to scare away most men who might try to rob or hurt the girls.

The men who weren’t scared of him… well, he got into some fights and earned some fresh scars, but, when a man threatened the girls, Logan only had to imagine Alice’s face as Morgan’s men led her away, and he’d give them much worse than he got.

Jacques found him a place to stay, and kept him fed, if only on stolen rations through the black market. After a few months, he started paying Logan for his work, giving him enough money for a few of the good things in life.

And some of the girls would show their gratitude, now and again. Most of them had grown up living rough on the streets, running and hiding from the worst the ZUS could throw at them, and not always escaping. Most were just glad to finally having someone to look out for them.

One of the girls, Angelique, took a liking to him, and him to her. She’d left home in rural France and come to Paris to find a new life. And ended up dumped in the ZUS, just like him.

They became kindred spirits, both still dreaming of escaping to a better life.

Logan might be a criminal, but he was happier than at any time in his life. If happiness required him to become a criminal, then so be it. He hadn’t made that choice, they had.

Jacques had started small, living rough and making money with petty thievery in and out of the ZUS, as so many did until the cops caught them, just the beginning of a long career in and out of jail that would eventually lead to their execution.

But Jacques was smart enough not to get caught, and had found other, more profitable, business than stealing. He a was rising star of the underworld now, with over two dozen girls working for him, and good connections to the gangs who manufactured drugs in the basements, abandoned factories and offices around the ZUS.

In a few years, he was planning to be one of the big men of Section 19. One of the successful criminals the others all looked up to, and aspired to be.

“Things will change around here,” Jacques said one moonlit summer night as they strolled home along the dark streets of Section 19 after a hard day’s work. “When I’m in charge, I’ll clear up the streets. The vicious little thugs who prey on the weak might not be afraid of the flics, but they’ll be afraid of me. And you’ll be with me. I won’t forget the people who help me on the way up.”

Red and blue lights flickered on the walls ahead of them.

Cops. Or the flics, as most inmates of the ZUS called them.

Jacques grabbed Logan’s shoulder, and pulled him into the shadows at the side of the street. Then along a dark alley, where they could hide among the piled-up garbage as they peered over the crumbling brick wall at the end, toward the police vans parked in the street beyond.

Two cops lounged beside the vans, hiding their identities beneath their helmets and armour, and holding short, bulbous submachineguns at their hips. The red and blue lights on the vans reflected from the shiny metal of the guns as the cops watched the surrounding buildings.

Four more cops with guns, helmets and shields pushed a couple of dozen teenage girls and boys toward the open doors at the back of the vans. The girls stared down at the street as the cops shoved them, or at each other. The boys struggled with the cops, who thumped them with the shields, or the butts of their guns, until the boys stopped complaining and moved on toward the vans.

“Hey, flics,” a tall, muscular boy wrapped in a leather trench-coat yelled from the alley across the street.

The cops turned toward him as he flung a fist-sized rock at them. It clattered as it bounced off one cop’s shield and fell to the pavement.

Another raised his gun and fired a burst toward the boy, lighting the darkness with his muzzle flash and filling the night with the chatter of gunfire. Shards of concrete flew from the corner of the building beside the boy as he ducked back into the alley.

One of the boys in the crowd barged past the cops as they stared toward the alley, and ran away from them along a street that was now silent and empty aside from the thumping of his shoes on the concrete.

Until a cop raised his submachinegun, and fired. Blood spurted from the boy’s back, and he fell to the ground, then slid to a stop. The other kids watched in silence as the cop strode to the still-twitching body, then smacked the boy’s head with his truncheon until bone cracked. The boy stopped moving.

Logan ducked down behind the wall. He’d never seen someone killed before, especially not like that. He could almost taste his dinner of gooey black-market rations coming back up his throat as his body shook at the sight.

“What are they doing?” he whispered.

Jacques held his finger against his lips, warning Logan to stay quiet. Then leaned closer and whispered back.

“New toys for the aristos.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every few months, the flics round up a bunch of kids, and hand them over to the aristos.”

“Why would the aristos want them?”

“Mostly, they hunt the boys for sport. And the girls for…” Jacques grunted and thrust his hips back and forwards. “You know. Maybe some of the boys too, if they’re pretty.”

Logan almost smiled. This had to be a joke. The aristocrats couldn’t really be that bad, could they?

Then he remembered Alice’s face as she climbed slowly into Morgan’s car. Of course they could. Toffs and bosses were the same the world over, weren’t they?

Arrogant, ugly, and ready to use anyone or anything for their entertainment. Because they could, and there was no-one to stop them.

He should have guessed the rest of the world would be no better, before he sailed across the sea. It would have saved him a lot of time, and a lot of pain.

“Why doesn’t someone do something?”

“You wanna get shot to save them? Go ahead. The rest of us just try not to get caught.”

Jacques lowered his head as the cops pushed the kids into the van. Then turned away.

He was right. The only thing that could stop the toffs was a revolt, and how likely was that?

Logan’s father had done more to try to protect Alice when they took her away than anyone had for these kids. Did the cops buy off their parents, offer them a chance to get out of the ZUS in return for their sons and daughters, or just grab some of the many kids who were living rough in the streets?

There wasn’t much chance of anyone rebelling, either way. No-one cared. They just wanted to survive.

Either way, this wasn’t a world to be weak and pretty.

The end came a month later.

Angelique had gone off with a client, as Logan sat on his rotting chair in the shade of the derelict old bank and watched over the others. The usual suspects were scowling across the street, ogling the girls, and selling drugs and whatever they’d managed to steal the previous day. Staring at him, trying to intimidate him.

Just another day in Section 19.

Angelique screamed. By the time Logan reached her, she was crouched on the ground with a blood-stained lip and a bruise over her eye. The man she’d picked up stood over her, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her to her feet. Then punched her again.

Logan wrapped his arm around the man’s neck, and pulled him away from her. The man struggled, and Logan’s free hand slammed into his kidneys.

Then the man grunted and stamped down on Logan’s feet, twisting hard in Logan’s grip as he did so, and pulling himself free. The man turned, his face contorted in fear, and swung his fist at Logan’s face. Logan dodged.

Then punched the guy with all his strength. The sound of the man’s nose crunching just encouraged him to hit the face again, and harder.

The outside world faded away as the man’s face became the scars of the suit-wearing, muscular heavy who took Alice. Then the grey-haired wrinkles of Morgan’s lawyer. Then Morgan himself. Logan punched again and again, then slammed the man back against the hard stone wall of the bank.

“Stop,” Angelique yelled, and grabbed Logan’s arm.

But he was far too strong for her to pull him away. Logan continued punching, again and again, until the limp body slid down to the ground, and lay there, motionless.

Then he punched the man some more.

By the time he was done, standing over the man, sweating and gasping for breath, it was too late.

“What did you do?” Angelique yelled. She shook as she crouched and checked the man. He didn’t move as she touched him, and Logan knew from her eyes as she looked up at him that he’d just killed a man.

Her eyes were wide, her lips quivered, and her chest heaved. The dead man was dressed in a smart, tailored suit, not the T-shirts and rough cloth so common in Section 19.

He was an aristo, a toff, come down to the ZUS for a bit of rough entertainment with a girl he assumed no-one cared about. But someone would certainly care about him. They’d miss him soon, and come looking.

“Go,” he said. She didn’t need to be there, or anywhere nearby, when the cops arrived.

And they would, soon enough.

CHAPTER 7

New Strasbourg

The girl turned away from Bairamov, and pointed down the street she had just emerged from. It turned to the left off the main street through the village, and led between two rows of houses—the same kind of radiation-resistant curved bunkers as the others they’d seen across the planet—then petered out into the fields about a hundred metres away.

“Is that a good idea?” Desoto said.

Bairamov looked over the girl’s head, and peered down the street. “Please remember to say sir when you’re questioning my orders in future. Our beloved political officer said to show our faces and smile at the locals. You two are prettier than me. Get in there and do your jobs.”

“Yes, sir.”

Logan nodded to the girl.

“Let’s see what we can do for you.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I have no money to pay for a doctor to help. Or any way to get them here if I did.”

“Don’t the mines have doctors?”

The girl turned, and led the way along the street. “Only for the miners.”

“What does your father do?” Desoto said.

“He lost his arm in the mines two years ago. He can’t work there any more. He has a pension, but it doesn’t pay for much.”

Logan fell into position a few metres behind the girl, taking slow and careful steps so he wouldn’t risk colliding with her if she stopped, and staying far enough back that she wouldn’t be in the crossfire if someone did attack them.

They were heading on their own into what may well be an ambush. What a great way to fill their day.

But if her father actually was sick, Heinrichs, the section medic, might be able to do some good. And, just maybe, that would make the rest of the village feel better about helping them find the insurgents.

Desoto moved ahead of him, watching the houses on the left of the street. Logan watched the right.

Smoke rose from a chimney at the side of the next house, and the smell of burning wood and roasting meat filled the air as they passed by. A wrinkled, grey-haired lady with squinting eyes sat on the steps outside the door, lifting the hem of her black dress to scrape at sores on her calves. She glanced up at Logan, then returned to her task.

A young boy, maybe six years old, sat between that house and the next, playing in the thick dirt with something long and yellow, with spikes protruding from the side.

Logan’s eyes followed the boy as he approached. What was that thing? The boy smiled at him and held up his hand. Empty eye-sockets stared at Logan from the dog’s skull he clasped tightly in his fingers.

Logan glanced back along the street. Bairamov and Gallo still stood at the corners, one on each side of the street, scanning their surroundings as Logan and Desoto followed the girl. Sweat dripped from Logan’s forehead, onto his eyes. He blinked it away, but his skin felt warm.

His heart was pounding, and that didn’t help. He could pull his hand out of the arm of the suit to wipe sweat away, but, last time he did it, the contortions required had almost dislocated his shoulder. He was in no hurry to try that again.

“Alice, suit temperature down five degrees.”

Fans whirred deep inside the suit, and a blast of cold air blew on his face from the vents around the helmet, forcing some of the hot air of the village away from his face.

He shivered as the temperature rapidly dropped, but he could feel the sweat drying on his skin as it cooled.

They were half-way down the street now, and the girl had shown no sign of slowing.

“Which house is yours?”

She glanced back at him and smiled, then pointed down the street. “Just a couple more houses.”

“Which one?” Desoto said.

She pointed at the last house on the left, beyond which the packed-down dirt of the street began to merge into the fields outside the village.

“That one.”

She moved on, passing the next house, with Desoto trailing behind her. Logan looked away from her and glanced toward the house ahead of them just as glass exploded from it, out into the street.

The sharp cracks of rapid-fire high-velocity rounds filled the air, and raised spurts of brown dirt as they hit the ground near Desoto’s feet, then rose up the front of the house behind him as the recoil took the shooter’s aim higher.

The girl didn’t even glance back.

At the noise, she ran headlong down the street, and hit the dirt behind the steps in front of the next house along. Then she covered her head and lay as low as she could, pressing her body down into the dirt, and fumbling with the bag that hung around her neck.

“Contact,” Logan yelled into his mike, and dove for cover at the side of the house as Desoto ran for the far side of the street. If putting a metre of dirt between them and the shooter wouldn’t protect them, nothing there would.

“Alice, visor down.”

The suit’s visor slammed down. The world outside the suit dimmed for a split second as the visor blocked out much of the sunlight, before Logan’s eyes adjusted.

Cool air thick with oxygen blasted into his face, giving him a sudden boost as it filled his lungs and spread through his body. He’d need it as the adrenaline flooded his body and his muscles tensed, ready to spring into action.

He glanced behind him. The green squares showing Bairamov and Gallo’s positions on the HUD moved around at the end of the street.

He switched his rifle to his left hand, and held it out around the corner, watching the sight display on his HUD as he swung it around to scan the front wall of the house.

The dark rod of a rifle barrel protruded from the broken window to the left of the door, and the shooter fired again as Desoto ran for cover beside a house on the far side of the street.

A round drew sparks from the right leg of Desoto’s suit as it grazed the metal and ricocheted into the wall of the house. The rest of the burst hit the wall as the rifle’s barrel rose, and threw a cloud of dirt into the air as the rounds ploughed into the dirt piled over it.

Desoto’s leg twisted beneath him as he ran for cover, and slumped down in the alley between the two houses.

“What’s happening?” Bairamov said.

“Shooter in the house beside me,” Logan said.

“I’m hit,” Desoto said.

The gun barrel still protruded from the broken window. Whoever it was, they weren’t a very good shot. If Logan had been firing from an ambush like that, Desoto would at least be out of the fight with a badly-damaged suit, if he wasn’t dead.

That kind of inaccuracy said insurgent, and not one with much experience. Nor very smart, if he’d decided to take on a section of Legionnaires by himself.

Logan could fire at whoever was in there, and probably hit them through the wall. The rounds would still hit hard enough to hurt them, even if they didn’t have enough velocity left to kill. But there could be a whole family in the house, and only one of them was shooting.

“Can you see what’s in the house?” he said. “Can you see who shot at you?”

“All I saw was this house I’m taking cover behind, while I was running for it as fast as I could go.”

Logan glanced toward Desoto. The status around Desoto’s position on his HUD showed suit damage, but nothing beyond that. The hit had damaged the suit’s leg, but not the man inside.

As Desoto glanced around the corner of the house, the rifle fired again. Two rounds punched through the corner of the dirt pile as Desoto ducked back, and a cloud of dirt flew out from the house alongside as its walls finally stopped them. The rest of the burst blew narrow craters in the dirt near Desoto.

“Do you have a positive ID on your targets?” Bairamov said.

“I don’t have crap,” Desoto said. “Just some asshole shooting at me from a house across the street.”

“Do not engage without a positive ID.”

Logan glanced toward the girl. He could barely see her past the steps, but she was pushing herself up and staring his way, holding her bag close to her chest as her body shook.

He pulled the grenade launcher from his shoulder, crouched at the corner of the house, and aimed at the window. It was just a narrow slit from that angle, but he wasn’t aiming to hit the shooter. The rifle fired again, and more dirt erupted from the house near Desoto.

Logan selected smoke. The launcher thumped, and and it hammered against his shoulder as he fired a three-shot burst.

The grenades flew toward the window, trailing the first hint of grey smoke behind them. A cloud of smoke burst from the window as they flew through it, bounced off the walls, and landed inside. A second later, one of the grenades flew back out, as the shooter grabbed it and tossed it through the window into the street.

But the other two were still billowing out smoke inside the house. Without a mask, the shooter wouldn’t last long in there.

Logan slung the launcher over his left shoulder, and grabbed his gaussrifle with his right. It wouldn’t be very accurate if he had to shoot from the hip, but it wouldn’t need to be at this range. He just needed a clear target in front of him, and the rate of fire would do the rest.

“Moving,” he yelled. Then slammed his foot onto the dirt, and pushed himself up from his knees.

The smoke cloud was spreading into the street through the smashed window as he rushed around the corner of the house, toward the metal door between the windows.

His heart pounded as he raised the suit’s power-assisted right foot and slammed it into the door.

The metal clanged as his foot smacked into it. Then the lock and hinges gave way under the force of his kick, and the door flew backwards into the house, scattering wooden chairs across the room as it slammed into the table behind it.

Logan swung the rifle as he leaned into the doorway.

Thick smoke filled the interior of the house. If he wasn’t wearing the suit with its air conditioning, he’d be coughing and spluttering by now. A red square appeared on his HUD. Alice’s sensors had spotted someone in the rear of the house, moving away from him.

“Runner,” Logan yelled, and crouched as he strode through the room, as fast as he could move without smacking his head or arms into the ceiling or walls.

If anyone else had been in there with the shooter, they’d have been running out of the door to get away from the smoke well before now. The wooden table crunched beneath his feet as he stomped down on it.

Something else crunched beneath the wood. The rifle. The shooter must have dropped it there as they ran.

Of course.

No-one got a clear view of his face while he was shooting. Without the rifle, he could just mingle among the villagers, and the Legion would never find him unless those villagers were willing to give him up.

Logan ignored the rifle, and charged onward. He had to catch the man before it was too late. Logan’s metal arms smashed against the frame of the doorway between the living room and the kitchen as he barged through it to get to the back of the house. The back door was open, out onto the brightly-lit dirt yard behind the house.

A man wearing a leather jacket and long brown pants above mud-smeared leather boots was hobbling away from the house, coughing. Logan pushed the kitchen table aside, scattering pots and pans across the floor in a cacophony of clangs and clatters, then charged out through back door. The shoulders of his suit hit the metal door frame, but it tore loose from the wooden frame of the house, and clattered to the ground behind him.

“Halt,” Logan yelled.

The man jogged toward the field of corn behind the house, still coughing from the smoke, and leaving a thin brown cloud behind him as his boots kicked up loose dirt from the surface of the yard. The chickens squawked and scattered as he stomped between them, and the pig stared out through the wooden fence around its pen, swinging its head from side to side to watch the action, and snorting at the men.

Without the rifle, there was no way to prove the man in the leather jacket was the one who’d been shooting at them.

But he’d been inside the house, or he wouldn’t be coughing from the smoke. And who else would start running away, when a Legionnaire told him to stop?

Maybe that didn’t count as a positive ID to the officers, but it seemed positive enough right now. Logan could argue the technicalities with Bairamov later. He took a long step toward the fields, following the man.

Then something exploded behind Logan.

The blast shook his suit as it reached him, then a shower of dirt poured down from the sky, tapping on his metal skin.

A thick brown cloud of dirt filled the air in the gap between the houses, beside the corner where he’d been taking cover only a moment before. Beyond it, green squares moved on the HUD, showing where the other members of the section were moving toward them.

“Man down,” Bairamov yelled.

Gallo’s status showed red on the HUD, right in the middle of that dirt cloud. Suit damaged. Man inside… not good. But there was no time to worry about what might have happened to him.

The asshole who’d attacked them was heading into the fields. As Logan turned back toward him, the man ran headlong into the rows of corn, which twisted around him as he pushed through it, then bent back as he passed, leaving little sign of where he’d been. As Logan leaned forward and pushed his suit into a run, the shooter vanished into the corn.

Logan raced into the field, faster than an unassisted human could move, leaving a cloud of dirt in the air behind him as the claws kicked up the loose ground. Then he slammed into the corn, crushing the stalks that fell beneath his feet, and flattening more as his arms and legs slammed into the stalks to his sides.

He couldn’t see the shooter any more, but he could see the top of the corn bending up ahead where they were running. Did the guy really think he could outrun a Legionnaire in his nuclear-powered suit?

Logan raced on, making up about a metre of the gap with every one of the suit’s long steps.

A red circle appeared on the HUD, down on the ground somewhere just ahead. Then a patch of half a dozen more. Mines. The asshole was leading him through a minefield. Or, at least, a field of something round and metallic that was buried where Alice’s sensors could spot them.

Logan slowed, crouched, then leaped over the whole patch of them in one bound.

His head and chest rose above the top of the corn at the peak of his jump, and he could see the man again for a split second. Logan’s suit was rapidly gaining on his prey. But the shooter was almost at the edge of the field.

Logan raced on, stomping down the corn, until the last row bent aside as his suit forced its way through the plants, before he broke out of the field onto the plain beyond. Yellowing grass stretched from the edge of the corn down toward the river, and the grass was now bent and twisted where the shooter had forced his way through it.

The shooter was running flat out now, his arms swinging hard beside him, heading toward something grey that stood out against the brown dirt.

A concrete pipe about a metre across protruded from the hillside. A stream of brown liquid dripped from the end of the pipe, down into the river where it formed a dark swirl in the water until it was carried away by the current.

If the shooter was trying to escape through the pipe, there was no way Logan’s suit could fit into it to follow. If they got inside, and followed it back to wherever it came from in the mines, there wasn’t much chance of catching the man.

He’d probably already scouted every drain under the hills, and know exactly where he could get out.

“Halt, or I fire,” Logan yelled, and the suit amplified his voice into a booming roar that echoed back from the hillside.

The shooter ran on. Just metres from the pipe now.

The clawed feet of Logan’s suit tore up the dirt as he slowed and dropped to a crouch. He raised his rifle, and aimed at the running man.

The crosshairs on his visor lined up with the man’s back for a split second, then he dodged aside, trying to follow a zigzag path toward the pipe. Logan held the rifle steady, and waited a second until the man zigzagged back. As the crosshairs lined up on the man, he squeezed the trigger.

The rifle kicked, firing a single hypersonic gauss round that impacted a millisecond after it left the barrel, leaving no time for the man to dodge. A shower of bright red blood exploded from his chest, and sprayed across the dirt around him.

His body tumbled as it fell forward, and slid across the ground, before finally coming to a stop against a rock beside the pipe. The dirt around him slowly darkened as the last of the blood pumping through his veins oozed out onto the ground.

CHAPTER 8

Paris, France

The cops came sooner than Logan expected, racing into the ZUS in a swarm of black vans with sirens blaring. They stormed up the stairs into the apartment Jacques had found for Logan, and dragged him out into the street, then back to his old, familiar cell.

Finally, he discovered why they’d let him go.

They’d been following him ever since they dumped him in the ZUS, sure there must be more to him than what he’d told them, and expecting him to meet English contacts in France.

Now they seemed unhappy that the best he’d been able to offer them were drug dealers, pimps, and thieves. And, in return for that useless information, they’d let him out of prison to murder an aristo.

As Logan looked into their faces as they yelled at him in the dark prison cell, they seemed more scared than he was.

He knew what was coming for him. They had no idea what the aristos might do to punish them. But, if the stories Logan heard in the ZUS were anything to go by, it would be worse.

The usual beatings followed. More dunking in cold water. More long nights without sleep, with the flics banging on his cell door and yelling in at him whenever he closed his eyes.

Anything, it seemed, that might help to make him confess to something. Anything that could justify their actions to the dead aristo’s family.

And then it stopped.

In many ways, the silence and inattention was almost worse than the constant racket and beatings. He’d grown used to the predictable routine of the cell door opening as soon as the dawn light shone through the barred window in the stone wall of the corridor outside his cell, being half-dragged along the cold floor to the interrogation room because his legs couldn’t carry his weight any more, then beaten and yelled at all day until they dragged him back to his cell.

In a way, knowing what each new day would bring was peaceful and reassuring.

Now there was nothing. Just a silent, staring cop bringing a tray of gooey ration mush for Logan to eat every lunchtime. Feeding him enough nutrition to keep him alive, but not enough to restore his health, or his muscles.

No matter how much he tried to get the cop to talk to him, the man just ignored everything Logan said, and walked away along the corridor outside the cell as silently as he came in. And he kept up the silence for weeks.

Then they moved him to his new cell. And his last.

This one had a window of its own. A narrow window, high in the wall, sealed with thick metal bars. Low enough that he could see out of the cell by standing on the bed, but too small for a man to clamber through, even if he could find a way to remove the bars.

A window which overlooked the gravel courtyard in the centre of the building.

A vertical, rectangular, wooden frame taller than he was filled the centre of the courtyard. What little sunlight that reached the courtyard past the roofs of the multilevel cell blocks surrounding it glinted from a thick metal blade at the top of the frame. At the bottom was a hole in a wooden plank, about the size of his neck. In front, a bucket.

A guillotine.

The history teachers had spoken about the French Revolution at school. The government had killed thousands of aristos and peasants with those things. Chopped their heads off in front of cheering crowds.

Back then, it was just history. And now…

It could be him.

The next morning, he woke to the sound of men yelling in the courtyard. He blinked his tired and bleary eyes after a night of twisting and turning in the cold air on the hard mattress of his wooden bed while men screamed in the distance.

Then he stared out through the window.

A cop stood beside the guillotine. A tall, thin man wearing an ill-fitting uniform, scratching the back of his neck.

He grasped the wooden frame with his other hand, placing his fingers beside a short lever that protruded from the side of the frame below the blade. His fingers tapped against the wood, as though he had better things to do that morning, then he leaned against the frame, and whistled quietly to himself.

The rusty, riveted iron door in the grey stone wall on the far side of the courtyard creaked open. A male face moved out of the doorway into the yellow morning light. A sullen and scrawny face, with the skin pulled close to the bones. The man’s scraggly brown hair fluttered in the wind as another cop pushed him out into the courtyard.

The grey prison uniform flapped around the man’s arms and legs as he crossed the courtyard on his bare feet, wincing as the gravel dug into his flesh. He looked even thinner than Logan had become in his time in jail. How long had he been there?

The cop following the prisoner grabbed his wrists, and pulled them behind his back. Then twisted his arms against their sockets until he grimaced with the pain.

“No,” the man gasped.

The cop leaned close to his ear. “Don’t fight it, man. Do what you’re told, and the pain will be over in a minute. If you struggle, it’ll only hurt more.”

He pushed the prisoner across the courtyard to the rear of the guillotine, then down to his knees.

The wooden necklace at the base of the guillotine clacked together as the cop pushed the top half down hard against the prisoner’s neck, then it clunked as the cop locked it shut. The man pushed up with his arms, pressing his neck against the wood, and trying to push it open. But the lock held it firmly closed. It didn’t even rattle as the prisoner struggled.

The cop stepped in front of the guillotine, raised his right arm high in the air, and glared down at the prisoner.

“Any last words?”

The man spat into the bucket. “Fuck you, flics.”

The cop lowered his arm. The other pulled the lever at the side of the guillotine. Wood creaked and clunked.

The blade flashed in the sunlight as it fell, reaching the base in a split second. As it clunked to a stop, the prisoner’s head tumbled down into the bucket. Blood sprayed from his neck as his body fell to the ground.

Logan looked away.

They were just messing with him again. Making him watch them executing other men, to scare him. To try to make him talk, and tell them things they thought he knew, but didn’t.

Assholes.

He slumped down on the bed, and leaned against the corner of the cell wall, barely moving.

If they really were going to execute him if he couldn’t tell them what they wanted to hear, what was the point in doing anything else? He would die, either way.

He didn’t even bother eating the meal the guard left, and fell asleep to the sound of the cops yelling at the prisoners in the other cells. Now he knew his life was about to end, it was the best sleep he’d had in months.

They came for him in the morning.

“Is it my turn?” he said.

The cop spat through the bars, onto the concrete floor of the cell. “Someone wants to see you.”

They unlocked the thick barred door, then nodded for him to come out. Should be believe them? Who would want to see him? Who even knew he was there?

Jacques? Angelique?

No-one he’d met in Section 19 was likely to be allowed in, even if they wanted to visit. If they weren’t already in the cells themselves, being tortured to find out what they might know.

His thumping heartbeat seemed to echo back from the hard walls as he took what could be has last look around the stone and concrete of the cell, then stepped out into the corridor.

What else was he going to do?

They took him from the cell, one cop in front, one behind. He might be able to fight one of them, but not two. Not in his condition, Probably not even at his best.

His face felt like it was glowing in the cold air, and sweat oozed from his forehead. His body shook. He struggled to keep one foot moving in front of the other, but the cop behind nudged him and told him to hurry up every time he slowed.

Their footsteps, his bare feet and the guards’ boots, echoed from the stone walls of the prison as they led him downstairs, through metal gates with bars as thick as his thumb. Then on toward a dark, metal door. The cop in front of Logan opened it, and motioned him to go in.

He stepped through the doorway, and the door clanged shut behind him.

A man sat at a small wooden table in the centre of the room, in the striped glow of the sunlight shining through a barred window behind him that opened onto the courtyard. He was staring at a tablet screen on the table, but looked up at Logan as he entered the room. The man’s eyes studied Logan from a middle-aged face with a long, thick scar across the right cheek, on a head topped with black hair shaved almost to the scalp.

“Logan McCoy?”

Logan nodded. “That’s me.”

The man pointed at the simple wooden chair on the far side of the table. “Sit,” he said, in English.

Logan glanced around the room. The two of them were alone, as far as he could tell. The walls were bare, aside from the window opening on the execution yard. If they planned to kill him, this was a strange way to do it.

He pulled the chair back from his side of the table, then slumped down in it, and crossed his arms over his chest.

The man tapped his fingers together as his hard eyes stared into Logan’s face in silence. Logan wanted to look away, but he stared back for what seemed like an hour, until the man finally spoke again.

“Do you know who I am?”

Logan shook his head. All he knew was that the man could speak English with only a hint of a French accent. He looked like a toff, but how was Logan supposed to know any more about him than that?

They’d never met before, unless it was during some kind of torture session that his mind had blanked out. He’d never even seen the man before, that he knew of.

The man lowered his hands, and flipped through pictures of the dead aristo on his tablet. Logan couldn’t help glancing that way as the pictures slid across the screen. The last time he’d seen that dead face was back in the heat of the moment, with his mind filled by the lust for blood.

At the time, the details hadn’t really sunk in. Now he could see every bruise on the aristo’s body, every broken bone, all the details of his smashed face.

All the things he’d done.

The old man looked up. “I am Colonel Rousseau, of the French Foreign Legion. The man you chose to murder was my nephew, Alphonse.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it.”

“You beat him to death with your bare hands. Pummelled him so hard that they found some of his nose bones inside his brain. Does knowing you’re capable of doing that to a man worry you? Upset you?”

“He was hurting a girl…”

Rousseau slid the tablet aside.

“I wasn’t reprimanding you. He was never my favourite nephew, and I can see the flics have already done enough of that. I want to understand what happened, and why. The flics say you told them he was beating up a whore?”

Logan nodded, and said nothing.

But Rousseau referred to the cops in street slang, as though he had little more respect for them than Logan did. Would a toff really think of them that way? Back home, the cops served mostly to protect the toffs from the workers and the chavs.

Rousseau should be on their side.

“I’m afraid that part doesn’t surprise me at all. I gather poor Alphonse had some rather peculiar tastes, and liked to indulge them whenever he could. But what would possibly make you kill another man to protect a cheap ZUS whore?”

“She’s my friend.”

“So you would risk your own life, and kill another man, to save a friend?”

How much longer was the old man going to keep asking these questions?

Logan’s stomach twisted as he thought back to the beating he’d given the aristo. The groans, whimpers and pleading in the last few seconds of the aristo’s life. The feel of bones breaking under his fists. This chat was beginning to feel worse than the beatings the cops had given him. They beat him for things he’d never done, to extract information he’d never had. But he’d done real harm to this man. Killed his relative.

“I did it, didn’t I?”

“And they claim you stole a boat in England, then you sailed it out into the Channel minefields, just to see what was on the other side?”

“I was running away from home.”

“You are a brave young man, Monsieur McCoy. Reckless, certainly. But brave, nonetheless. And I so hate to see a brave young man die for no good reason.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

Rousseau shrugged. “Sooner or later, the flics will kill you, yes. If you tell them what they want to hear, they will call you a spy and kill you. If you don’t tell them what they want to hear, eventually they’ll call you a murderer and kill you. It might be days, or it might be years, or it might be as soon as you leave this room, but they’ll never let you leave this place alive.”

Logan’s body shook again. This really was it. He’d never walk free under the open sky another time. His future was a world of stone cells and beatings, until they decided they’d had enough. Then the guillotine in the courtyard, while the other prisoners watched from their cells.

“I’m sorry for what I did…”

“You did what you thought was right at the time. It’s easy to question your decisions in hindsight, believe me. Particularly decisions where men die as a result. I didn’t come here so you could tell me you were sorry. I wanted to find out whether you were the right kind of man.”

“The right kind of man for what?”

“The right kind of man for my Legion. A man who would sail over the sea to a foreign land in search of adventure, despite knowing he would probably die that day. A man who could live on his wits for three years in a country where he didn’t even speak the language. A man who would kill another to protect those he loves.

“I came here to give you a choice. You can walk out that door and spend what remains of your life in a prison cell for saving some poor girl from one of my damn crazy nephews. Or you can volunteer for the Legion, pay your debt to France, and die doing some good for your new homeland.”

CHAPTER 9

New Strasbourg

Bairamov stood there between the concrete pipe and the rock as Logan scanned the hillside for any sign of more insurgents. But nothing moved on the hill, except a rat scuttling between two rocks.

The dark liquid pouring into the river from the pipe splashed as it hit the water, and glittered in the bright blue sun. Bairamov reached out his right foot, and flicked the shooter’s body over. His suit’s claws tore through what was left of the man’s shirt as they rolled the body onto its back.

The chest was a mass of blood and torn bone, where the shockwave of the hypersonic round from Logan’s rifle had ripped it apart as it exited the body. The entrails steamed on the ground beside the body in a blood-soaked, yellow mess, where they’d slid from his abdomen as the body rolled over.

“Like I said, kid. You’re a stone-cold killer.”

Logan stared down at the mess in front of him. It had been a man a few minutes before, until Logan ended its life, No, not even a man. He hadn’t seen the shooter’s face before, but, now that he could, he could see it was just a boy. Maybe fourteen? Fifteen? No wonder the shooter had only taken a few shots and run for his life.

He must have been scared out of his wits back there, after he’d shot at them. And desperate, to have risked taking the shots at all. What kind of parents would send their kids out to do something like that? Did they even know he was doing it?

Probably not. When Logan was that age, he wouldn’t have asked his parents’ permission to do anything.

This wasn’t like the first time Logan killed, back in Paris. He’d killed the aristo by mistake, in the heat of the moment. This time, he’d been quite deliberate and calculating. Taken his time to aim, then shot the boy in the back as he ran away.

Never even gave him a chance.

But, no matter he much he told himself he should feel bad about it, he couldn’t. If he or Desoto had been half a metre closer when the boy opened fire, they might be the ones lying on the ground with half their body missing, instead of the boy.

And, if Logan had waited a moment longer in cover beside the IED hidden in the dirt pile at the side of the house, he might be the one lying in the town square while Heinrichs tried to keep him alive, not Gallo.

No, he really didn’t feel bad about shooting the boy at all. He didn’t feel much of anything as he stared down at the body.

If the boy had wanted to stay alive, taking potshots at the Legion was a bad way to go about it.

“Any idea who it is?”

Bairamov backed away, into the cover of the rock. It wasn’t much, but it would stop small arms fire from further out in the fields, if anyone else was hiding there.

“My suit scanned their ID chip, and sent it back to Intel. They’ll let us know, if we need to know.”

Logan knelt beside the body and placed the butt of his rifle on the ground, using it to support himself as he leaned forward. At least the suit was filtering the air before feeding it into his helmet. His stomach churned just imagining what the body must smell like out there in the hot sun. He much preferred the rubber, plastic, and faint electrical smells of his suit.

His metal fingers grabbed the boy’s jacket, and pulled the front open. He reached for the pocket sewn into the lining.

The suit’s fingers were more than twice the size of a normal human, and the cloth tore as he reached inside. He pulled the pocket away, but it was empty. The pockets on the boy’s pants looked empty, too.

Whoever the boy had been, he’d left behind anything that might provide useful information, before he’d decided to start shooting at the legion.

He might be dead, but he wasn’t entirely stupid.

“On me,” Bairamov said. “Now, let’s get back to the square to regroup.”

“What about him, sir?”

“That asshole? Let him rot out here. No-one in the village should complain. And it’ll be good for the soil.”

Logan stood and shouldered his rifle, before he followed Bairamov back toward the village.

His eyes scanned the fields to the right. The corn was as tall as his head would have been if he was walking on his own feet, but, in the suit, his head was a metre above it. The stalks twisted slowly and gingerly in the wind, as Logan tried to peer into the shadows between them for any sign of more insurgents in wait.

But Alice would already have warned him if she’d spotted anything on her sensors.

“Good job, kid.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“But a damn stupid one. That boy could have had a dozen friends waiting in that field, while he drew you out into the ambush. And then you’d be dead right now. You should have kept eyes on him, and let the drones do the work. That’s what they’re there for.”

“I thought I might be able to capture him, sir.”

“Don’t worry about it, kid. You’ll learn. Or you’ll get killed. It’s really only a question of which happens first. Just remember, no matter what the officers might say, a live Legionnaire is more useful to me than a prisoner for Intel. Half the team is out of action thanks to that little asshole back there. I’ve seen this shit before, and don’t want it happening again.”

“Where?”

“I spent six months fighting the insurgents on Chantemesle. We stopped them there, but we lost half the platoon to IEDs and stupid ambushes like that one. I only got promoted to team leader because everyone else in the team was dead, or lying in a regeneration tank for months to rebuild their bodies.”

They entered a gap between two houses at the edge of the village. Logan studied the thick dirt piles on both sides of him for any sign that someone had dug into the dirt recently,

“You think there might be more IEDs here, sir?”

“If they’ve figured out its a way to hide them from us in plain sight, they’ll keep using it. We can’t dig into every house around here looking for them. I’m surprised they only had one this time.”

Logan hadn’t noticed anything when he was right alongside the other IED. Life was going to be hell for the Legion in these villages, if the insurgents could hide their bombs so easily.

“We should pick up the rifle, sir.”

“Desoto already grabbed it before he went back to the square for Joffer to check out his suit. We’ll take it back to Intel. Doubt it will tell us much, though. Looked like standard cheap Islamic State crap to me.”

Speaking of intel, where was the girl?

Logan crouched by the corner of the house as they entered the village, and looked both ways along the street. It was empty now. No sign of the girl in either direction. A faint cloud of brown dust still hovered in the air, raised by the explosion, and slowly dissipating in the faint wind. But the girl had vanished, as though she’d never been there.

“Has anyone seen a girl?” he said over the net. “Thin, brown hair down past her shoulders, long grey dress?”

“The Legion’s not here to help with your love life, McCoy,” Volkov drawled.

Logan pointed toward the house the girl had indicated. “She said she lived over there, sir.”

Bairamov looked that way for a moment, as though he was wondering whether it was worth walking into another ambush to keep Poulin happy. “Check it out,” he said, at last.

Bairamov covered the empty street with his rifle as Logan jogged over to the house. He stayed low and zigzagged as he moved, in case there was another shooter hidden behind the dark windows. Then crouched beside the door, and banged on it. The metal door shook and clunked as his suit fist hammered against it.

“Anyone inside?” he yelled.

No answer. He banged again, but there was still nothing. He raised his rifle to point into the window, and looked through the sight on his HUD. Nothing moved in the shadows inside. If the girl was there, she was hiding where he couldn’t see her.

“Found her?” Bairamov said. He must be getting worried, crouched over there by another house that could explode at any moment. For that matter, so could this one. Logan backed away, down the steps, into the street.

“Sorry, sir. Must be the wrong place.”

The remainder of the village was just as empty between the house and the square. The tables outside the store were bare, with just a few rocks piled on top to keep the tablecloths from blowing away in the wind. Eyes watched from dark windows as the two of them jogged from house to house, stopping to cover each other as they moved. Only the pigs, goats, and dogs remained out in the open. Logan would be hiding, too, if he’d just seen someone attack the Legion.

Particularly if he’d been helping them.

Volkov was leaning over the mayor as they entered the square, his metal body towering over the sweaty bureaucrat. Poulin sat on the steps beside him at the entrance to the village hall. Desoto lay in the shadows to the side of the building, and Joffer hunched over his leg, pushing tools into inspection hatches on the side. Heinrichs worked on Gallo on the far side of the building, stabilizing him while two riflemen stood guard over them. The rest of the section had taken cover wherever they could around the buildings, and crouched there, scanning the square, buildings, and the alleys between them. Their visors were down, and weapons ready.

No-one seemed to care very much about presenting a friendly face any more.

And Volkov’s face was grim behind his visor as he turned toward Logan.

“You were asking about a girl?”

“She called us into the street, sir. Right past the house where they shot at us, and where the IED was that hit Gallo.”

“And where is she now?”

“She disappeared, sir.”

“Why did you let her get away?”

“I was chasing the asshole who’d shot at us, sir. I didn’t have time to watch where she went. And I don’t even know whether she’s involved.”

Volkov stomped across the square toward Logan, then leaned toward him until their visors almost touched. Logan could just see Volkov’s eyes through the two darkened visors, and they were bulging with anger.

“So far as I’m concerned, everyone here is involved, until they can prove they’re not. If we don’t find her, you’ll be lucky if you’re just cleaning the latrines for the next month. With your tongue.”

If they weren’t wearing suits, Logan would be rolling on the ground in pain by now after Volkov punched and beat him. But the suit was too tough for a punch or kick to hurt.

Besides, it was government property, and far more valuable than a new recruit.

Volkov wasn’t going to dent it.

“Sergeant…” Poulin began.

Volkov swung his metal hand through the air, toward the buildings around them. “I want every house in the village searched until we find the girl. No-one leaves until we do.”

“No,” Poulin said. “I cannot allow that. We are here to help these people, not hurt them.”

“In that case, they shouldn’t be shooting at us.”

“There will be more of them shooting at us if we treat them all like criminals.”

For once, she was right.

If the Legion dragged the villagers out of their houses to look for the girl, or anyone else who might be working with the insurgents, they’d only encourage these people to help the insurgents more in revenge. And the insurgents knew that.

So long as they could scare or cajole the villagers into hiding them, they were safe. If the Legion went all-out to find them, the insurgents would win.

The government would end up having to nuke the planet from orbit, because no-one would be on their side any more.

Even Volkov grasped that quickly enough after his initial anger faded. He stomped around the square in silence, then slowed and stopped.

The Mayor’s face dropped as Volkov crept back toward him. The claws on Volkov’s suit’s feet tore up the dirt as he moved with slow, measured steps.

“Where are the bastards? Where are they hiding?”

The mayor swung his hands wildly. His face glowed red, and sweat poured from him. “I don’t know. I never heard of any insurgents here before. They must have seen you coming, and decided to take a shot at you.”

“You don’t just sneak into a village and set up an ambush without anyone noticing. Someone here knows who they are, and someone here is hiding the girl who led my men into it.”

“No-one would have helped them. We are loyal citizens. We support our government and the government of France in every possible way. I’ll ask around, see what people know…”

Volkov raised his arm, and clenched his metal fist in front of the Mayor’s face.

“I’ll be glad to help convince them to talk.”

Poulin stood, and stepped up beside the mayor. “Stop this. No-one is going to be tortured here. Any prisoners we capture will be returned for proper interrogation.”

A faint roaring filled the air around them, and grew steadily louder. The boxy brown shape of a VTOL transport rose above the hillside at the edge of the valley, then raced down it toward the village, staying low where a SAM wouldn’t have time to lock on before they were below the horizon.

It roared over the houses furthest from the village square, before the nose tilted up and the thrusters on the transport’s sides rotated until they were pointed forward and down. It slammed to a near-stop in the air right above the square, then lowered the nose and descended.

A cloud of dirt filled the air as the thrusters blasted the ground and blew the dirt aside, then the transport settled on the short legs beneath it, and the motors whined as they slowed. The ramp at the rear opened with a faint hiss, and clunked as it hit the ground.

“Looks like Gallo’s ride is here,” Bairamov said. “Let’s get him on board.”

Logan, Bairamov, and Heinrichs grabbed Gallo’s arms and legs, then hauled on them. The motors of their suits groaned under the extra weight of Gallo’s, but they lifted him far enough to take his weight off the ground.

Logan dug his foot claws deep into the dirt surface of the square, and pushed against it as Bairamov led the way to the transport. The back of Gallo’s suit scraped gouges in the dirt as it bumped across the ground whenever they relaxed their grip too much.

Gallo’s eyes were open, and his head twisted from side to side in the helmet as they carried him. His lips moved, but made no recognizable words. He was probably completely out of it on whatever painkillers the suit had injected into him.

They hauled him up the ramp. Four medics stood inside, wearing air masks. Logan and the others lowered Gallo to the floor. The medics swarmed around him, attaching sensors to his skin, and cutting through the suit.

“How is he?” Logan said.

“Prepare for dustoff,” said a voice from the speakers inside the hold. The motors began to rev up.

“We’ll fix him up and get him back to you,” the medic said. “Get clear, we have to go.”

Logan, Bairamov, and Heinrichs jogged down the ramp as the transport’s thrusters fired up again, blowing away what little loose dirt still remained in the square.

Logan backed up to the nearest wall with Bairamov close behind him, then moved further away around the corner of the building as the rising dirt blasted into his visor, and the external temperature display on his HUD rose every higher in the heat from the thruster exhaust.

The transport rose slowly above the buildings, then swung around ninety degrees, and raced off toward the hills around the valley as fast as it had arrived. Even if any insurgents had managed to set up a SAM ready to launch since the transport flew in, it was heading back on a different course.

Volkov was still arguing with the mayor, but Logan couldn’t hear what they were saying, and didn’t really want to. It wouldn’t be anything good.

What would he do, if he was in charge of a place like this? If he opposed the insurgents, they’d kill him. If he opposed the Legion, they’d shout at him, maybe torture him, and then kill him. What good choices did the mayor have?

Finally, Volkov turned away. The mayor bowed, then strode back into the village hall, probably just glad to be safely in a place where Volkov couldn’t rip his head off with two power-assisted metal fists. Volkov stormed away to the middle of the square, with Poulin trailing behind him. Then he finally spoke over the net.

“Charlie team, pack up. We’re moving out. Rendezvous at the rally point.”

CHAPTER 10

Pyrenees, France

Logan grunted and hunched over as the fist hammered into his stomach. He raised his head and stared into Chief Corporal Beauchene’s lean, slightly wrinkled, scarlet face. The Chief leaned closer, his hand still balled into the fist that had just punched Logan again.

Logan could smell the cloud of cheap, hoppy beer stench that oozed from Beauchene’s mouth whenever he came too close. The instructor seemed to start drinking the cheap Legion beer before breakfast, and continue on and off until he climbed into bed late at night.

But, somehow, he never seemed to grow drunk, just vicious and angry.

Centuries ago, so they said, Legion officers had been known to beat misbehaving recruits to death, to encourage the others. Rumours among the other recruits in Logan’s section said that Beauchene had been a serial killer in his civilian life, before he was sent to the Legion to atone for his crimes, and the man was frustrated that he was only allowed to beat the recruits these days. Not kill them.

But they were probably making that up.

Probably.

“What worthless waste of breath has Rousseau sent me this time?” Beauchene yelled, with his lips so close to Logan’s ears that the shout almost deafened him.

Beauchene pointed along the line of recruits who were standing to attention in the parade ground beside Logan, past the weather-beaten white walls of the centuries-old barracks building, and down the steep hill toward the three-metre wall that surrounded the camp.

“Run to the wall, and we’ll see if you can remember to salute properly when you get back.”

Then he nodded toward the smaller, dark-skinned man standing at Logan’s side. “You too, Desoto. You should be keeping your team-mate in line. If he fucks up in combat, you’ll be dead with him.”

Logan saluted, and turned toward the fence.

He jogged toward it, then accelerated to a run. He was used to this now. The run down to the wall was easy, he could just let gravity pull him toward itl, and try to stay upright on the loose dirt. But his legs would be jelly by the time he reached the parade ground again on the way up.

“I hate all you foreign bastards,” Beauchene yelled at the other recruits. “You aren’t worthy to scrub a Frenchman’s ass.”

Logan could hear Desoto’s gasping breath behind him, and mutterings that he was sure must be Spanish swearwords.

The first words Beauchene had said to the new recruits as they lined up on the parade ground on their first day were “Si vous parlez Français, asseyez-vous.”

Logan had learned enough French to get by during his three years in the ZUS. He followed the order, and sat. Most of the other recruits just stood there, looking at him. It was an easy way to determine who really understood some French, and who didn’t.

So the instructors had teamed him up with this smiling, non-French-speaking Spaniard who’d somehow found his way across the border wall to France, then volunteered for a life of adventure in the Legion.

And found more than he’d bargained for.

Desoto had explained that he’d learned English by listening illegally to the radio broadcasts that reached Spain from the BBC propaganda stations extolling the virtues of England, and encouraging the people of Europe to rise up and join them; one of the ways the politicos got around the lack of communication channels between England and France.

The people never did rise up, of course, and most likely never would, but Desoto had learned enough of the language that way that he could try to understand Logan’s translations from the French. But Logan often wondered how much the Spaniard really understood of what the instructors told them.

Logan dug the heels of his boots down into the grass as he approached the wall, then slid to a stop. He slapped the wall with his hand, then turned around, and began to run back up the hill just as Desoto reached the wall. His leg muscles strained with the effort of pushing his body uphill, and his breathing grew deeper and faster.

Logan’s first week as a Legion recruit wasn’t going as well as he might have hoped. But it was still less painful, and a little better fed, than the time he’d spent in prison.

And, at least for now, he still had his head. Even if his lip was cracked from Sergeant Dubois punching him when he was a little too late translating orders from French into something Desoto could understand.

“You’ve got what it takes to be a success in the Legion,” Rousseau had said, just before the cops led Logan out of the prison room, to load him into the back of a van to be delivered to the Legion. “But, flunk out, and you’ll be back here the next day. Don’t make me regret this decision.”

But did Logan really have it?

He’d thought he was fit in the ZUS, but the Legion was showing him how little he knew. He might not even live to see the end of the course at this rate. Still, anything had to be better than just sitting in that cell, waiting to be executed.

He’d heard that the English government would sometimes take criminals who’d committed serious crimes, and offer them a place in the Marines instead of a long jail term or a noose.

Dad had told him the Americans got most of their Marines that way, but he’d been complaining for years about ‘the bloody yanks’, so who knew what was true, and what he just made up so he would have something to complain about?

Either way, the French must have had the same idea. As Rousseau had said, killing him was a waste if he could be made to do something useful for France instead.

And what better place than prison to find men who were used to lives of violence, and had few qualms about using it to achieve their ends? He’d met plenty of such men in the ZUS, where power and wealth was all that mattered, and no-one would have had any qualms about hurting him for their benefit, or entertainment. Or the girls he was protecting.

To the rich and powerful, they were just disposable toys.

He was gasping for breath by the time his boots stomped up the last few metres of the hill, past the side of the barracks, and onto the parade ground. He leaned against the flag pole and bent forward, holding his aching belly, and sucking in air as fast as he could.

He wiped the swear from his brow, and felt his face cooling in the mountain air now he was no longer running. Then stumbled on, back to rejoin the line of recruits.

“Garde à vous!” Beauchene yelled.

Logan moved smartly to attention this time. He’d learned what that meant, and he didn’t need to be punched again this morning. Even Desoto knew that much French after his first few hours of training, and stood at attention beside him as he returned, chest still heaving as his body recovered from the run.

The Legion called it The Farm. But it didn’t much look like one. Just a couple of low concrete buildings set on the side of a shallow valley, surrounded by a three-metre-tall wall with guards at the gates and drones in the sky, in case any of recruits decided they’d like to desert before they even finished training.

They might more accurately have called it The Prison, but, despite the hard beds and freezing river water in the shower block, it was more comfortable than the prisons Logan had been incarcerated in so far.

“The Legion is now your homeland,” Beauchene told them. “Wherever pile of shit you maggots may have crawled out of, you are here now to die for the glory of France, so women will weep at your heroic deaths, and men will write rousing songs to remember you by. And I expect every one of you bastards to send ten of the other bastards to Hell first, or I will personally fight my way down there to kick your bloody face in.”

And the Legion might as well be their homeland, because none of them were going home any time soon. Except for the few who had volunteered to join as free men, who could still ‘go civil’ and walk out the gates.

But that walk, admitting that you just weren’t tough enough, and didn’t have what it took to become a Legionnaire, might take more courage than staying the course.

Farm or not, the instructors certainly behaved like animals, though few were as vicious as Beauchene. But the rapid and rough punishment quickly separated out those who couldn’t handle the tough, brutal life of a Legionnaire, and sent them home without wasting time.

They’d told Logan when he arrived that only one in four made it through training to be awarded the famous white cap of a Legionnaire. And he wasn’t the only man in The Farm whose future might depend on winning that hat. It seemed Rousseau had made a hobby of scouring the prisons of France, looking for ‘the right men’ for his Legion.

Adamski had told a similar tale late at night in the barracks, as the recruits whispered their life stories to each other in the darkness. He’d broken into some aristo’s house in Marseilles, trying to find something to sell to buy food and drink while he lived rough on the streets after jumping ship from the Russian Navy, then swimming to the shores of France. He was clearing out the jewels piled in the safe and thinking of how many fancy meals they would buy, when the cops grabbed him.

The aristo turned out to be Rousseau’s nephew, and Rousseau informed Adamski that he could spend twenty years in jail, or five in the Legion. And assured him that the Legion had much better food.

Either the General had an enormous family with relatives all over France, or he wasn’t being entirely honest with the truth.

Regardless, Rousseau had managed to talk both of them into signing away the next five years of their lives to the Legion. Volunteering to join the toughest sons of bitches in the French military, always the first to be sent in to the worst battles in French space, and the last brought home. Often, in bags.

And it was too late to change their minds now.

With the muscles and stamina he’d built up in Section 19, Logan would have flown through the physical training. But the flics had starved and beaten that out of him in prison.

Now he was rebuilding his body all over again. He’d stuffed himself with as much food as he could since leaving his cell, as he worked his way through the Legion recruitment system, and had expected he’d be able to continue at The Farm. But he was lucky if he had more than five minutes to wolf down whatever mass of goop the cooks slapped on his plate each day, no matter how unappetizing it might be. Breakfast was the best meal of the day, and that was just a slice of bread and a cup of coffee.

He thought many times about breaking into the kitchen at night, and making a proper meal for himself. He dreamed of the delights he’d cook from the contents of the Legion freezers. Meat, vegetables, cakes, meals like the ones the toffs ate back home. He studied the cheap locks on the doors and windows every day he passed by. After his years in the ZUS, they wouldn’t provide the slightest protection against his skills.

But then Johnson broke into the Officer’s Mess one night, and Dubois caught him slumped in a corner beside the garbage disposal with a fat belly, and chocolate and croissant crumbs smeared across his face around a wide smile.

The instructors called all the recruits to the parade ground, and forced Johnson to eat every croissant they could find in the Mess, until he threw up. No-one seemed quite sure whether it was a punishment or a reward, but Johnson still had a smirk on his face at the end. At least until the instructors gave him a good beating afterwards.

That didn’t look much like fun.

Logan had asked Adamski one time about his experience in the Russian Navy, as he seemed to be one of the few who’d taken to the Legion life with a smile on his face. Even Chief Beauchene didn’t seem to phase him, though, with Adamski’s prior experience of military life, he rarely screwed up, and rarely got hit.

“Russian Navy was worse,” Adamski had said, in his tortured French. “There are no whips here. No-one gets thrown into sea for screwing up. This is like holiday in comparison.” Then he smirked, and nudged Logan ‘s side. “Except less vodka.”

Perhaps it was.

If your idea of a holiday consisted of non-stop cleaning, running, climbing, press-ups, and sit-ups. Logan had expected the Legion to teach him to fight like a soldier, to use military weapons, and military tactics. They issued him a rifle soon after he arrived, but an old one, an ancient gunpowder weapon with no ammunition, that had probably last been fired a century ago.

The rifle was just another weight for him to have to haul around everywhere he went, and something else to keep a close eye on to ensure no-one walked off with it. At best, that would have left him doing press-ups non-stop until someone found it. At worst… a sore and bloody neck.

For the first few weeks, the instructors mostly seemed to spend their time trying to beat him down and wear him out, with constant chores and kilometre after kilometre of runs on little sleep and little food. The few days when the recruits were allowed to get to bed early, expecting to collapse into eight hours of deep sleep, were just another form of punishment.

They’d be woken by instructors yelling and banging clubs on garbage-can lids for a midnight run, or for another surprise inspection at two in the morning, where the instructors would find an excuse for every man to fail and spent the rest of the night cleaning and reorganizing his bed and kit.

By the third week, all Logan dreamed about in the few hours of rest he managed to claim each night were eating a good meal and getting a proper night’s sleep.

But he never did.

And the slightest mistake due to that lack of sleep would be rewarded with a sharp punch to the chest or a club across his back, and another fifty press-ups, or a run to the wall and back. Every night he went to sleep convinced he would finally drop out the next morning, but, every morning, he remembered that would mean a return to his cell, for just long enough for them to prepare to chop off his head. Every time he imagined his head lying in the metal bucket, his dying eyes staring up at the stump of his neck as it spurted blood, he was more determined to see The Farm through to the end.

After a month, when half the recruits had already dropped out and taken the long walk through the gates back to prison or civilian life, the survivors began to study something that almost resembled the kind of training he’d expected, beginning with knife fighting and unarmed combat.

That day in the gym, Beauchene asked who knew how to fight. Logan should have known better than to put up his hand, but his street fights in Paris had taught him how to punch and dodge. And he’d killed a man with his bare hands.

Besides, he’d appreciate a chance to punch Beauchene for a change. Even if he got punched a few times in return.

Beauchene motioned for Logan to attack him.

The instructor didn’t even put up his fists, but just stood in the middle of the gym with his hands at his sides, and a smile on his face.

That was when Logan began to wonder whether he’d made a mistake. Beauchene wouldn’t do that if he expected to get hit. But there was no backing out now. Logan feigned a punch with his right hand, then dodged left and swung a punch from that side. If he was just fast enough…

Beauchene dodged the blow, punched him in the face, and kicked his legs out from under him.

Logan slammed down on the floor, with his mouth full of the coppery taste of his own blood. Before he could get up, Beauchene was kicking him in the stomach. Logan grabbed Beauchene’s foot, and tried to pull it aside, to knock the man off balance so he’d fall.

Beauchene twisted his foot against Logan’s thumb, pulled it free, and swung the boot down on Logan’s hand. Logan grabbed for the hand as it pounded with thudding pain beneath Beauchene’s weight, and lay there, grimacing, as Beauchene lectured the other recruits.

“Some of you think you’re hard men. Some of you think you’re tough because you killed someone. Well, I can tell you now, what worked on some aristo with his dick hanging out in Paris won’t work on me, or on the battlefield. You pull that street crap here, and I will kick the shit out of your worthless ass, you understand? A Legionnaire trains as he fights, and he fights as he trains. What you learn about losing here, you won’t have to learn the hard way, in combat.”

Beauchene finally took his boot off Logan’s hand.

Logan hobbled back to the line of recruits, spitting out blood and holding his wounded hand against his wounded stomach. He was probably lucky they were fed so little, so he had nothing to throw up.

“Yes, sir,” the men said.

“Now, where’s my next volunteer?”

CHAPTER 11

New Strasbourg

Logan crouched in his metre-wide slit trench in the dark dirt, beneath the glow of a billion stars in the moonless night sky. The Milky Way stretched from horizon to horizon in a blaze of light, and one of those lights would be his home.

“Alice, show me Earth.”

The suit’s HUD drew a square around one small dot in the sky, and flashed it to attract Logan’s attention. He stared at the tiny spot of light, but that was only the sun. Even the suit’s light intensifiers wouldn’t be anywhere near powerful enough to see the planets orbiting around it from so many light years away.

It was still strange to imagine his family, Jason, Angelique and everyone else he’d ever known living around one of those tiny little dots.

Would they ever go out at night, stare up into the sky, and wonder whether he was living on some planet around one of the stars they could see? Or did they just think he’d drowned in the Channel, or been executed by the flics?

The Legion didn’t allow recruits to make contact with their relatives and friends during their service, and he couldn’t have contacted his parents in England from France, even if he wanted to.

The fifty kilometres of sea between France and Hastings might as well be fifty light-years. With the wormholes the early explorers had discovered as they ventured toward the edges of the solar system, space was easier to cross.

The hillside around the trench was so dark that he could see little of the rest of the section with his own eyes. Even the light intensifier in the suit’s visor only showed blobs where helmeted heads poked up above the edges of their trenches, and the dirt blocked most of the glowing heat from the suit reactors when he switched to infrared view.

All that showed on the visor were the infrared lights on their helmets, flashing the day’s IFF code, to mark them as friendlies to drones and other units. And those flickered so fast in their coded signals that they were only a dull glow to human eyes, barely visible above the background noise.

He’d stopped digging the trench when it was just over two metres deep, enough to reach up to his suit’s shoulders while he stood in it, or to cover him completely when he crouched. Volkov had made them spend the rest of that afternoon digging in after they stopped marching from Gries. Wearing the suit, it hadn’t felt much like hard work at the time.

Who needed a shovel to dig, when you had powered arms and metal hands? Just force your metal fingers down into the dirt, pull your hand back, and toss the contents onto a pile. Then repeat. About ten thousand times.

He rolled his shoulders and twisted his elbows inside the suit to try to relieve the pain of all that exertion, but it still didn’t seem to help. Digging might not have felt like hard work when he was doing it, but now his body sure felt like it had had a workout that day.

But, at least the work had kept them occupied until after the sun set, either from digging, or watching over their team-mates as they dug.

Desoto was crouched further down the trench with his rifle beside him, eyes closed, and helmeted head leaning against the dirt. One of them should get some sleep before they had to fight again.

Volkov had made a big show of leaving Gries, marching the section out of the village in a group. He led them away along the track in the opposite direction from where they’d entered, then on past the fields and the dead boy, up into the hills at that end of the valley.

The villagers watched the Legion leave in silence from the windows of their houses, or from where they were working in the fields. Someone back there knew who that boy was and where he came from. Someone there had to know who planted the IED, if only the owner of the house it was in. Someone there knew who the girl was, and where she’d disappeared to.

But none of them were talking.

So Volkov had followed the track up into the hills, then taken a left, climbing up through the rocks, and on over the peak of the hills. Finally they hiked a kilometre or so along the far side of the ridge, hidden from view to anyone in the village by a hundred metres of rock, and found a temporary camp site where the rocks around the site would hide them from anyone who came looking. For all the villagers knew, the Legionnaires had disappeared, and wouldn’t be coming back any time soon.

Or maybe not at all.

After all, it wasn’t even midnight on the first day, and they’d already lost three men dead, and three wounded, two badly enough to be hospitalized. And those were just the casualties Logan knew about. Crap. At that rate, none of them would last much more than a month.

The drones were still hovering about ten kilometres above the village, giving them the eyes they needed now the hills blocked any direct view. The drones circled too high for any of the villagers to see it in the dark night, and much too high to hear, when their big wings allowed them remain on station for days with only a slow-moving propeller to keep them aloft.

But they could watch everything going on in and around the village. Not just in visible light, but whatever their sensors could monitor.

Logan studied the infrared footage from the drone’s cameras on his HUD.

The boy’s body still lay at the edge of the fields where they’d left it. It was still slightly warmer than the dirt, and Logan could see it as a blob on the darker soil near the rock. It lay beside the warm waste flowing out of the pipe into the river, which glowed as it dripped into the water, then slowly faded away as it floated downstream.

He flipped to the second drone’s cameras, which were pointing down at the village.

Nothing moved, except streams of hot smoke rising into the sky from the chimneys. At least, nothing warm enough for the infrared cameras to detect against the dark background of the dirt and fields.

The visible light cameras showed glowing lights from the windows of some of the houses, but could see little in the deep shadows between them.

“We should move on,” Poulin said. “There is nothing more for us to do here. We have other villages to visit.”

Volkov drawled in response.

“Considering you just got one of my men shot and another blown up back there, ma’am, I think I’m going to take my time over this visit.”

“I am in charge of this patrol.”

“You are in charge of the political aspects of this patrol. I am in charge of the military aspects. And, right now, we are in a military situation. I’m going to find out who set up this little ambush, and either kill them, or catch them for intel.”

“I will not let you create further ill-will toward the Legion in this village. We must show the flag elsewhere, and convince them to send the insurgents away.”

“Can I suggest, mademoiselle, that since you are so eager to be moving on, you start walking now, and we catch up with you in the morning? You slowed us down so much today with your constant demands for rest breaks that it would make sense for you to get a head start tomorrow.”

“I’m not walking off into the night on my own.”

“But it would make this patrol more efficient. Surely you can see that would be beneficial to all of us?”

If Poulin did wander off into the night, and got lost forever, it would make everything more efficient. At least until they were given another political officer to replace her.

Logan smirked as she and Volkov argued. Volkov could have switched them to a private channel, but he’d chosen to leave their conversation on the section net, so everyone could listen in.

Logan flipped back to the first drone’s camera as he listened to them argue. A bright blob had appeared in the cornfield near the boy’s body.

He switched to the drone’s visible light camera, but there was little detail to see in the faint starlight, just a hazy blob. Neither the drone’s light intensifier nor infrared sensors could show more detail from that height in these conditions. The blob looked too big to be human, unless they were crawling.

“Alice, when will the moon rise?”

“Moonrise at this location is in fourteen minutes.”

It would surely help. But they’d seen the planet’s biggest moon from the Marine LePen on the way into the system. It was closer to the planet than Earth’s, less than half the distance away. But it was a barren rock barely a hundred kilometres across. Two smaller moons orbited closer, but they weren’t much larger than the space stations Logan had visited for his zero-gravity training. Even with the moon up, the sky would have little in common with a well-lit night on Earth.

He switched back to infrared. The blob moved forward, slowly. A dog, maybe? It would have to be a big one to appear that large. He shivered as the blob crept toward the body, and imagined the dog sniffing the corpse, then sinking its teeth into the rotting flesh. The boy may have been an asshole, but he didn’t deserve that.

“Something’s moving in the field, sir,” Logan said on the section net, interrupting Volkov and Poulin’s argument.

“I’ve got it,” Volkov said. The drone’s light-intensifying camera zoomed in on the blob. It turned into a dim L-shape, bending as it moved. It had six legs, and something flapped around two of them as it crept out of the rows of corn.

No, it wasn’t one creature. It was two.

A horse, from the look of the blob. And a human, unless there was some other creature on New Strasbourg that walked on two legs. And something dark flapped around the human’s shoulders, like a mass of black or brown hair.

“Might be your lucky night, McCoy,” Volkov added. “I think we may just have found your girlfriend.”

The enhanced picture was grainy, and the resolution low, but the bright blob that was now crouching near the boy’s body could certainly be the girl he’d seen back in the village. He wouldn’t know for sure until they caught her.

Or killed her.

She had to have known that, when the boy carried out his attack on the Legion, he would have a good chance of ending up dead. But the way she was leaning over his body, rather than just turning away from it and leaving, said there was more to their relationship than just soldiering together.

She pulled something from the horse, then carried it toward the boy. She crouched for a few seconds, and rolled the boy over. Then dragged his body toward the horse. And fumbled with it for a moment, as though hauling his corpse up onto the horse’s back.

Then stopped and stood, wiping her arm across her brow. She grew larger and clearer in the image as the drone slowly descended, still circling around the field, but moving lower to get a better view. But it still floated kilometres above the surface, out of her sight and out of her hearing.

Moments later, she bent down. Something glowed in her hands. A circle of dim light surrounded her, and wobbled as she raised the lantern she’d just lit, holding it around chest level. The corn would shade its light from the village, but the drone hovering above could see it easily. It was just bright enough to illuminate her face. Logan zoomed in further. Despite the harsh, dark shadows across the grainy image of her face, that definitely looked like the girl he’d seen in the village.

She led the horse behind her with her free hand as she crept toward the edge of the field, down by the river.

Then crept on through the grass beyond it, past the pipe that was still pumping its dark waste down into the water. And up the shallow incline beside it, crouching whenever she needed to grab a rock for grip, as she and the horse clambered up into the hills.

“Should we follow, sir?” Bairamov said.

“The drones can track her for now,” Volkov said. “But be prepared to move out on my order.”

Logan checked his rifle, and flipped through the diagnostics on his suit. One round fired, suit hydraulics still worn and glitchy, otherwise everything was working as well as it usually did. The grenade launcher was loaded, and ready to fire if he needed to. The others checked their weapons around him.

They should have guessed the insurgents would mostly move at night. Not only because they thought they could hide in the dark, but because there’d be little radiation to worry about. If there was a solar storm in the next few hours, most or all of it would be blocked by the bulk of the planet between them and the star. All any insurgent out in the open had to worry about was what little radiation might find its way around the planet, and down to them on the far side.

But where the heck was she going?

CHAPTER 12

Pyrenees, France

Logan accumulated more scrapes and bruises before he could fight the instructors off in most of the combat training sessions. A lot more. But the beatings lessened and the food improved, though there was still never enough to sate his hunger.

He did better at shooting and knife fighting than unarmed combat, and his scores rose rapidly the more they trained. Beauchene actually began to compliment him, occasionally.

But then came the Kepi Blanc March. The most important test any Legionnaire would ever face. Pass, and he’d gain the white cap of a Legionnaire. Fail, and all he’d see was the door of The Farm as he was sent back to wherever he came from.

The march was two days on foot, with each recruit hauling all his equipment in his pack, and his rifle over his shoulder. Led by instructors and monitored by drones, just in case a recruit should decide to take a short-cut, or to try to make a run for it, because that was better than heading back to prison if they failed the march. Not that any of them would feel much like running after a few hours of marching kilometre after kilometre across the hills around The Farm.

“Do you want to be a Legionnaire?” Beauchene asked them as they lined up on the morning of the march.

And that line of recruits had thinned, until there were now little more than a third as many as had lined up on that first day, weeks ago.

“Yes, sir,” the assembled recruits answered as one.

But every one, like Logan, must have been wondering whether they really meant it. And which of them would be on their way out of the Legion within forty-eight hours because they just didn’t want it enough.

The instructors loaded the recruits into ancient, mud-smeared trucks, whose engines roared as they bounced over the rough roads and dirt tracks of the nearby hills. Beauchene kept the men in Logan’s truck singing Legion songs, and taught them a few new ones along the way; mostly the kind you wouldn’t sing in polite company. Whatever you said about his instructing techniques, he knew how to take the mens’ minds off their problems.

Then the trucks stopped, and he was yelling at them again to get out, and get moving.

Each instructor led a team across the hills, and marched so effortlessly that they made it look like an afternoon stroll. The recruits followed Beauchene as he strode over the grassy hills beside the mountains that separated France from Spain, capped with snow, and the thick plasteel and concrete of the wall, which glowed in the sunlight where red lights weren’t flashing.

For a second Logan wondered whether hiking over those mountains and finding a way across the border would be easier than finishing the march.

But Spain still wasn’t home. An escape would be temporary, to say the least. He’d be in some prison in weeks, at most.

Besides, the cool mountain air and the smell of grass and flowers was almost relaxing. For the first few hours.

Then his legs grew heavier with every step. It was barely noticeable at first, but rapidly worsening as the day went on. Desoto gasped for breath beside Logan, as he adjusted the straps of his backpack every few minutes. Logan’s was pulling his shoulders down, and the weight on his hips seemed to be pulling them away from his chest.

If it continued, his legs would be half a metre shorter by the end of the march, crushed down by the perpetual load.

But carry it he did.

The strain grew as they climbed uphill through the woods. Pain began to spread through his knees and ankles as the march skirted the edge of the woods along the side of the valley, and they peered down the hill for any sign of the other teams, eager to know whether they were ahead or behind.

They laughed every time they saw another team behind them. And muttered and cursed every time a team was ahead.

By lunch, Logan’s feet were pounding in his boots, but a hot meal and drink helped take his mind off of the pain. Desoto pulled off his boots and socks, and studied the blisters growing on his heels.

They’d marched hundreds of kilometres before in training, but they’d never marched so fast for so long. And it was taking its toll on their bodies.

“Now you’re fed and watered, ladies,” Beauchene said, “we can do some real marching this afternoon.”

And he meant it. Now they were on the flat ground at the top of the ridge, Beauchene had them marching faster than ever before. Logan’s legs became lead weights, and his feet wore down, blistered and bloody, in his combat boots.

Clouds rolled in along the valley, and rain began to fall. Now they not only had to march, but keep it up while their boots slipped in the mud, with their fatigues soaked through to the skin, and rain dripping down their helmets.

Desoto yelled as he slipped and fell.

Logan grabbed Desoto’s arm and heaved, gasping and straining to lift the man, and the pack on his back that must have weighed about the same again. Desoto grabbed a rock, and the two of them got him back to his feet. Then struggled onward, marching even faster to catch up with the others.

After that, it was just one step after another, following the man in front, staying ahead of the man behind. That was all they had to do. And keep on doing it for the rest of the day.

And the next.

By the time night came, Logan barely had the strength to build a shelter in the trees that would keep the rain off him overnight. He and Desoto shovelled their supper down their throats before clambering into the shelter and pulling the boots from their feet to let them air overnight.

“I don’t think I can go on…” Desoto said.

But Logan was already fading into blissful oblivion as every bone and muscle in his body demanded rest.

Stefano and Yazid gave up after breakfast. Beauchene yelled at them to try to keep them moving, but yelling wasn’t enough to motivate their bodies to move another metre. Beauchene didn’t even try thumping them, he just handed their rifles to Logan and Adamski, and told Stefano and Yazid to meet the truck at the bottom of the hill, where it would take them home to Mummy.

Logan slung the rifle over his left shoulder. Great, another weight to carry. But the Legion didn’t leave weapons behind.

There would always be a new recruit that needed one.

They marched on. Over the hills, through the woods, breathing in the clean mountain air, trying to ignore the pain, struggling to turn it into a motivation to keep going, rather than a reason to collapse and give up.

Markov made it to lunch. Then he tossed his pack aside and told Beauchene he’d had enough.

Beauchene grabbed him by the chin and stared into his eyes with a madman’s gaze, but Markov just shrugged. “Better years in jail than years of this shit.”

Beauchene took Markov’s rifle himself, and directed him to the nearest village to wait to be picked up. And reminded him that the drones would be watching him all the way.

“Any more of you don’t think you’re cut out to be in my Legion,” he said to the survivors, “you might as well follow him right now. I’m not stopping again.”

Desoto took a step forward, but Logan grabbed his arm.

“I’m done,” Desoto said to him. “I can’t take any more.”

“We’ve only got a few hours left. We got this far. We can finish it, can’t we?”

Desoto stared at him for a few seconds, then nodded.

They marched on, down from the hills, legs moving easily as gravity pulled them on, back toward something resembling civilization. With houses nestled between the green fields, it was certainly more civilized than anything Logan had seen since leaving Paris.

As they passed through the small villages, the girls pouted and stared at the marching men. The old men sitting at tables outside the bars looked up from their wine glasses. Some raised their glasses, or shouted encouragement. Others just scowled.

All the recruits, no matter how much they might have wanted to quit a few moments before, pushed their shoulders back, pushed out their chests, and marched through the villages like they’d never marched before.

The pain no longer mattered. They might be willing to quit in the woods where no-one else could see them, but they sure as hell weren’t going to show weakness in front of civilians.

The sun was sinking toward the Pyrenees when Beauchene raised his hand and told them to halt.

Logan and Desoto were taking turns to lean on each other for support, and Logan slumped down on a rock at the side of the track. He gasped for air, thankful for a break at last. The soles of his feet pounded almost as rapidly as his heart, sweat had soaked through his fatigues, and the blisters and cracked skin on his feet sent pain stabbing through them whenever he moved. A rest was nice, but would he ever be able to get going again?

He lay back against the rock, and closed his eyes. He could go to sleep here. Maybe he’d never wake up.

“C’est fini,” Beauchene said.

Yes, Logan was finished. Just send him back to prison. Wake him up when it was time to die.

No, wait. Pain and exhaustion had become his entire world, and Beauchene’s words took a moment to sink into his mind.

It was finished.

Not him.

The march was over.

He’d done it.

“You are now Legionnaires,” Beauchene said. “You have joined a proud tradition, centuries-old. And you will make me proud of you.” He leaned toward Logan. “Because, if you don’t, I will hunt you down, drink your blood, and eat your liver. Then I will kill you. Do you understand?”

Logan remembered yelling in response, but he could barely believe he’d have found enough reserves of energy in his body to do so. The “Yes, sir,” that emerged from his lips must have been little more than a whisper.

He did stand proudly at that moment, even though his body was shaking from the cold and exertion, he could barely lift the weight of his pack and rifles, and his feet were raw from marching.

Desoto leaned on Logan’s shoulder and laughed.

They’d succeeded where so many other men had failed, and that white cap would be their reward. They were now officially Legionnaires, and no-one could take that away.

Moments later, the trucks arrived to drive them back to The Farm. The men laughed as they shook hands, helped each other into the trucks, then slumped down on the hard, wooden benches inside.

Half of them were snoring by the time Logan fell asleep. The rest were by the time Beauchene’s shouts woke back at The Farm’s gates.

Beauchene led the new Legionnaires out to line up on the parade ground under the bright glow of the floodlights, finally wearing their prized caps. Beauchene gave another inspiring speech which Logan was too tired to remember or care much about, then they collapsed into their bunks.

For once, they weren’t disturbed before morning.

Two days later, they marched from The Farm to the train that carried the new Legionnaires to the DeGaulle Spaceport, to climb about Legion shuttles that carried them to an assault ship orbiting high above the Earth. Like the shuttles that landed them on New Strasbourg, there were no windows to watch the world of his youth shrink beneath him as he rose into the sky on a trail of flame, leaving all of that behind.

He barely had time to unpack and glance out of one of the few portholes in the assault ship before it was blasting away from the only planet he’d ever known, and toward the first wormhole he would travel through in his life, a strange freak of physics which would allow them to cross dozens of light-years from planet to planet in a few days of their time.

And, so, a week later, he landed on LeBrun’s World, the French military’s training world, and the second he had ever felt beneath his slowly-healing feet. An otherwise uninhabited world of varied climates where the French forces could train as hard as they wanted, with no natives or colonists to complain about the noise or the mess.

The first work was spent in Medical, being prodded and studied, and connected to machines he barely understood even when they were explained to him. The doctors and engineers examined and processed every new recruit, enhancing their bodies, making them stronger and faster, and increasing their endurance. That would all have been useful back in France, but the Legion didn’t invest the time and effort in enhancing the bodies of those who might drop out afterwards. Only those who’d earned their cap qualified for treatment.

The next week began combat training. On the first day, six recruits went to the hospital, some with life-threatening wounds. On the second day, two went to the morgue.

Legion training was as realistic as as the instructors could make it, including using live ammo in the instructors’ weapons. One screwup, and it could well be your last day in the Legion.

And, most likely, the last day of your life.

Two more recruits were burned alive during assault drop training. The shuttles had carried the new Legionnaires back up to the assault ship, just so they could make their way back down in assault pods, as they would when landing on an occupied planet. The dead recruits’ assault pod heatshield failed because they hadn’t completed the pre-drop checks properly. The next day, the instructors played the recording of the mens’ screaming calls for help to the assembled Legionnaires, to encourage them not to make the same mistake.

Logan checked his pod four times before the next landing practise. Those screams were something he would never forget.

Only one more died in the remaining six months, though half the new Legionnaires spent some time in the hospital.

They fought each other and the instructors across the barren plains, in the mountains, and through derelict towns built just for the Legion to destroy in their training.

They practised jungle combat, arctic combat, underwater combat. They went back up into space, for zero-gravity and vacuum combat.

And they marched.

Not just on foot this time, but hundreds of kilometres in their suits, with the instructors leading other groups in attacks on their patrols as they struggled to reach their destinations. They studied tactics, military history, and every weapon in the Legion’s arsenal, including the assault ships’ heavy artillery and nukes. And practised with all of them, except the nukes.

They studied foreign weapons, not just so they would be able to identify the enemy, but because the Legion had to know they would be able to handle any weapon they might pick up on the battlefield.

In the final weeks, they engaged in wargames against the French Army recruits based on the far side of the planet. Games that included a planetary assault, cover from the assault ship in orbit, and every other weapon that would be at their disposal in a real battle.

When it was done, the Legion had won, with twenty percent simulated casualties and a few real ones. The Army took eighty percent.

And then it was over.

The year of training had seemed like the most important thing in Logan’s world at the time, with his life depending on success. A constant struggle toward one goal: graduating as a Legionnaire, trained and ready to fight. Feeling as though his life would be complete once he reached that end, and he could finally relax. Now it turned out to be just a prelude to his real life in the Legion, as front-line infantry.

The instructors had beaten down Logan’s old self, starved it, and pushed it to the limits of its endurance. Every step of the way, they encouraged him to quit, turn around, walk out of The Farm, go back to the prison he came from, until his only motivation was to win his white cap and prove them all wrong.

Then, after they’d broken him, and he’d beaten them, his new self grew on top of the foundation they’d created, with levels of strength and endurance he’d never imagined he had. And the training and confidence to make use of it.

The newly graduated Legionnaires lined up on the parade ground on their last day together, and marched in front of the assembled dignitaries. Including one familiar face.

Rousseau watched from the throng, nodding quietly to himself as the men passed. Logan saluted proudly. Whatever might happen in the future, that man had saved his life, and found him a new home.

The next day, Logan was assigned as a replacement to 1st Company, along with a dozen of the other newbies.

The regiment had been hit hard on their last posting, losing a third of their men in combat with the Prussians. They needed fresh blood to fill out the ranks.

And that was how he ended up, two days later, sharing a bunk on the Marine LePen, and heading for New Strasbourg.

CHAPTER 13

New Strasbourg

Logan crawled uphill through the dirt. The moon was now high in the sky above the valley, but it cast only a faint glow on the hillside around him. Not enough to see his surroundings well with his naked eyes, but enough for the suit visor’s light intensifier to show a clear, if blurry, view of the barren hillside.

The knees and elbows of his suit tore into the ground as he crawled up the hill, heading for the narrow plateau above.

The drones hovered high above them. The infrared cameras had shown no signs of life on the plateau after the girl rode ten kilometres up a narrow path from the river to reach it, before she disappeared into one of the dark, silent buildings that stood upon it. There’d been no sign of her for over half an hour, not even a glow from her lantern.

The drones had followed the girl as she rode up the hillside, then Volkov had led them around the reverse slope of the hill to catch up with her. It wasn’t difficult, when their power-assisted legs could move several times faster than she was moving with the horse in the dark.

Now the rest of the section crouched in what cover they’d found further down the hillside, waiting for Logan to give the all clear to move up.

Alpha Team was behind Logan to the south, Charlie to the east, and Bairamov and Desoto were about twenty metres to the west.

“Take a look, McCoy,” Volkov had said, after they watched the girl lead her horse into the building through the drone cameras. “Maybe your girlfriend would like another chance to kill you today.”

In other circumstances, Logan might have appreciated a promotion to point man for the section. It would at least have shown that Volkov had enough faith in him to trust their lives to his judgment.

Tonight, though, he could be sure that Volkov was just sending the dumb newbie up front because the drones didn’t show much of a threat, and Logan was the most expendable, if they turned out to be wrong.

Graduating as a Legionnaire really hadn’t changed much at all. The veterans who’d already survived months or years in the Legion weren’t going to trust him until he’d proven he could hold his own in battle without getting anyone else killed. Nor, to be honest, was he.

Not after what Bairamov had said earlier.

He was right. Logan could easily have run into an ambush chasing the boy out of the village, but, at the time, he’d been so high on adrenaline that he hadn’t even stopped to think for a second about the danger he might be in, or leading others into.

Running down the one who attacked and wounded his comrades had been all that mattered.

A rock rose above the edge of the plateau to his left, a couple of metres above him, and a couple of metres tall. It would give him some cover when he peered over the edge, and looked into the buildings up there on the plateau.

He crawled sideways across the hillside toward it.

“Alice, you see anything?”

“No threats.”

The suit sensors weren’t detecting anything alive on the plateau. Nor were the drones in the dark sky above him. It looked like the girl was there all alone.

Most likely, he could have marched up the hillside singing Le Boudin or La Marseillaise just as safely as he’d crawled all that way. And his knees and elbows wouldn’t hurt so much.

He crawled up to the rock, then gripped his rifle tighter as he raised his head above the edge of the plateau, and peered around the side of the rock toward the buildings. There was enough moonlight now to see the faint outlines of boxy shapes marked in red on his HUD, where the suit’s AI had flagged buildings as potentially hiding threats. The boxes glowed in the moonlight as the suit’s light intensifier enhanced the image.

A couple of dozen wooden buildings ran across the plateau in two rows facing each other, and a third row ran at ninety degrees across them at the end of the street. What looked like rusting shovels and scythes leaned against the walls of some of the buildings, beside wheeled contraptions with rusty blades that looked like something you’d use to dig up the fields. A cart leaned against another building, the wooden wheels twisted sideways on the old axle, and the shafts where a horse would have pulled it leaning high against the wall.

Bones protruded from the dirt nearby. Long, curved ribs much too large to be human. And a narrow, stretched jaw, more like a horse.

Some of the buildings didn’t look much healthier than the rotting horse skeleton that lay beside them. Planks had fallen from the walls of the building behind the cart, exposing the cracked wooden frame beneath. At some point in the past, the walls had supported double doors. But now, the right door was a pile of twisted planks on the dirt, while the left hung from only the top hinge.

The roof of the building alongside had partially collapsed. The edges of the roof planks still clung to the walls, but the middle had sunk a few metres, as though the joists supporting it had bent or broken.

The wall bulged out beneath the sunken roof, where the planks must be pushing the walls apart. In a few years, there might be nothing left of the village aside from a big, rotting pile of wood.

“Alice, what is this place?”

“Valenciennes was one of the first communities on New Strasbourg.” Alice said, quoting from the intel pack Logan had loaded into the suit before the patrol. “Earth lost contact with New Strasbourg five years later. Colonists first landed during a time of low activity in the solar cycle. When activity returned to normal, their buildings were unable to protect them from the radiation of the first solar storm. Only five men survived here, by remaining in the mines until the rescue mission arrived. Valenciennes was abandoned when new towns were built by the next wave of colonists, with radiation protected buildings.”

No wonder this village looked different to the others they’d seen. No wonder it looked so old and decayed, like everyone had disappeared overnight; just gone away and left everything they owned behind them.

They had left. In coffins.

The buildings must have been lying there exposed to the sun, wind, and radiation for decades, since the last villagers died. It was no surprise that walls and floors had collapsed in that time, with no-one to repair them.

The girl had vanished into a rectangular building near the edge of the village. It looked about six metres tall, and twice as wide, with doors big enough that a horse and cart could pass through them. Some kind of barn, from the look of it. The doors were closed now, and she must have shut them behind her. But why? She couldn’t live up here, unless she’d built some kind of radiation shelter inside. As soon as the sun rose, she’d just be counting the hours until a solar storm killed her.

“Alice, infrared.”

The image on Logan’s visor flickered for a split second, then became a mass of colour. The wood was still warm from the heat of the day, and glowed brighter than the dimmer dirt and the cold, dark sky. There was no sign of the girl, or anything human, but something glowed brighter than the wood through the narrow gaps between the planks that made up the wall of the barn. Her horse, maybe?

“Plateau looks clear, sir.”

“You see the girl?” Volkov said.

“I see her horse, sir. And the drones haven’t seen her leave the building. No sign of anyone else.”

“Alpha, Charlie, advance. And be quiet about it. Bravo, find the damn girl, and see if she has friends here.”

Logan glanced behind him. Bairamov and Desoto’s squares on his HUD were moving up the hillside toward him. The rest of the section were spreading out as they clambered toward the edge of the plateau, ready to move in and clear the buildings.

“Sir,” Desoto said, “can’t the drone just put a few missiles in the buildings, and save us the trouble of clearing them?”

“I don’t think Poulin would be very happy about that,” Bairamov replied. “Besides, missiles are expensive.”

Logan pushed himself to his feet, and began to run toward the barn. His metal claws dug into the dirt as he accelerated, then scraped against the ground as he slowed.

Get up. He sees me. Get down. One of the first things Beauchene had drummed into them even in the early tactical training they received back at The Farm. Never stay out of cover long enough for the other guy to shoot back at you.

The suit slid to a stop behind the trunk of a tree outside the village. The tree might not stop a gaussrifle round, but it would hide most of his body from view if anyone was looking that way. And there was nothing better between him and the barn.

He crouched behind the tree, raised his rifle, and studied the buildings ahead of him. Still no sign of life. Nothing moved or made a sound. The village looked as silent and empty as it must have the day the colonists died.

He heard a scraping and thumping as Bairamov hit the dirt behind a rock ten metres to his left, then swung his rifle around it, toward the village. Desoto followed. His feet skidded across the dirt as he tried to stop behind a decaying wooden cart that lay on its side. His suit fell to its knees, and he slammed into the cart. The wood cracked and fell around him as he slid to a stop in the middle of the pile.

“I said quiet,” Volkov said. “What moron did that?”

“Sorry, sir,” Desoto said.

“Next idiot who makes a noise like that is on shit-burning detail for a month.”

The green squares indicating the members of Alpha and Charlie teams lined up in Logan’s HUD as they took cover just below the edge of the plateau. Logan scanned the building again. Still just a big blob visible in IR through the gaps in the walls, and no other sign of life. Nothing showed in the drone’s cameras, except the glow of the suited men around the edge of the plateau, waiting to move in.

“Bravo,” Volkov said, “capture the girl or kill her, whatever works for you. Alpha, move in and clear those buildings. And watch for mines.”

“Desoto, McCoy,” Bairamov said. “Move in. McCoy, be ready with that grenade launcher if there’s trouble.”

Alpha team were moving to Logan’s right. Desoto glanced toward Logan, who stared at the buildings through his rifle scope as Desoto moved closer to the barn, stopping behind a pile of wood that looked like it had once been a shed of some kind. Still no sign of life inside the barn.

Logan pushed himself to his feet, ran to the nearest corner of the barn, then slammed down in the dirt. He peered through a narrow gap between the planks in the wall. Even with the light intensification in the visor, he could see little inside.

The grey blob of the horse showed faintly in the shadows, but no sign of the girl or her lantern. Nor did the suit’s sensors show any sign of weapons or explosives inside. There was nowhere to hide a bomb from the sensors in an inch-thick wooden wall.

“See her?” Desoto said.

“Just the horse.”

Logan rose to a crouch, and approached the doors as Desoto covered him with his rifle. Then he ducked as rifle rounds cracked in the night, breaking the silence that had filled the air beforehand. But they weren’t coming Logan’s way.

“Contact,” someone yelled. A red square appeared on the HUD in a building near the far end of the street. Then another, on the upper floor of a building hidden behind the barn.

“Charlie,” Volkov said, “flank them.”

Charlie team began to move on the HUD, approaching the village. Alpha split up, taking cover along the cross-street. The wooden buildings wouldn’t do anything to stop a rifle round, but they’d conceal the suits behind them. With no muzzle flash from the gaussrifles to give away the shooters’ position, the fight would come down to who saw the others first.

Logan kicked the barn doors. Splinters flew from the wood as his metal foot smashed into the door, and the claws tore into the planks. The lock ripped away under the impact, and the door twisted on its hinges. He kicked it again, and the nails holding the top hinge to the door tore away.

The door twisted further, and the top fell inward, stopping at an angle where the lower hinge still managed to hold it off the ground. Logan stepped up onto the door.

The hinge creaked beneath the weight of his body and suit. Then he crouched as he stepped through the doorway, and jumped down onto the dirt floor of the barn.

The horse whinnied and turned, and wood crunched as the animal backed into one of the poles that supported the roof. Its reins strained as it pulled back, lifting its muzzle toward the pole they were tied around.

“Alice, IR.”

The visor’s image shifted to infrared. The heat of the horse’s body glowed against the wood, but there was no other source of heat in the barn. He looked up, into the roof. The girl wasn’t hiding above him, either. She’d simply disappeared.

“I’m hit,” a voice yelled. One of the HUD squares for Alpha team showed suit damage.

“Stop shooting,” Poulin said. “We need them alive.”

Volkov’s voice sounded like he was torn between laughing and yelling with rage as he spoke. “You heard the mademoiselle. Please try not to kill all of the bastards.”

The shooting continued. Logan crept toward the far side of the barn as Desoto clambered over the door behind him. The final hinge gave way, and the door slammed down onto the dirt floor with a loud crack of torn and broken wood.

Dirt was piled up waist-high against the inside of the walls, as though someone had been trying to build themselves some kind of improvised radiation shield. Not that it would do much good, at least once the sun was above them. Which it would be, in just a few hours.

Otherwise the interior was empty, aside from some old farm tools, and stacks of ancient, rotting, straw-like plant stems.

He kicked the straw, but nothing moved beneath it. He grabbed a rusty pitch-fork from the tool pile, and shoved the prongs into the dirt piles in case another IED was hidden there. The spikes just sank into the dirt until they scraped against the wooden wall behind them.

Desoto crouched beside the wall, in the corner across from the horse. “Where’s the girl?”

“I have no idea.”

Logan pushed on the human-sized door on the street side of the barn. It creaked open onto the weed-strewn dirt of the street outside. Through the doorway, he could see the rear of the left-most building that the others had targeted as hostile.

Yellow light flashed to his left for a split second, then chunks of the roof planks of that building exploded upwards, tumbling through the sky. They clattered across the street, and smashed into the buildings on Logan’s side.

Logan glanced to the left.

The green squares of Charlie team were moving into the village from that end, and one of them crouched with a grenade launcher on his shoulder. Whoever it was stared at the building for a second, then slung the launcher and walked on.

The red HUD square that had hung over the wrecked building disappeared. Logan took a step out of the door, then crouched at the side of the street, as he pulled his own launcher from his back.

“Drone incoming,” Bairamov said.

A flashing red rectangle appeared on Logan’s HUD, around the building with the other shooter. Logan pressed himself back against the wall.

Then a crackly howl came from the sky.

The building erupted in a spray of wooden splinters for a few seconds as one of the drones opened fire with its Gatling gun. The thick planks on the side of the building split apart as the hypersonic rounds tore through the wooden frame. The top floor twisted and collapsed, pushing the walls apart until they fell to the ground in a pile of shattered wood.

Then there was silence once more, except for the sound of Logan’s breathing, and the air hissing into his helmet.

“Move up,” Volkov yelled. “Clean up the mess. There are probably more of the bastards hiding here somewhere. Bravo, do you have the girl?”

“No sign of her, sir.” Logan said.

“Then where the hell is she? She didn’t come out of the building, and she didn’t just vanish into thin air.”

“Don’t use the drones again,” Poulin said. “I need prisoners.”

“Bravo, try to get her alive, if it’s not too much trouble.”

Logan stepped back into the barn. The girl had to be there somewhere. The drones would have seen her leave, even if he hadn’t. He peered up into the roof again. Wooden planks ran across the rafters, and were piled high with straw. But nothing showed there in IR. There was just nowhere for the girl to hide.

He turned around on the spot, staring at the walls. Could she have removed some of the planks, and moved from one building to the next without being seen?

None looked loose, and she’d still have to cross the open dirt between the buildings, where the drones should have seen her. Besides, if she thought the Legion were following her, why would she even come here? Unless it was a trap.

There was something else. He glanced toward the horse. They boy’s body no longer hung over its back. Wherever she’d gone, the dead boy had gone with her. She wouldn’t have dragged him through the village, would she?

An explosion rattled the planks in the walls. Logan dove to the dirt. Another explosion followed a second later. Sounded like grenades, but whose?

“Man down,” a voice called. Then rifle rounds cracked in rapid bursts.

One of Charlie’s men turned flashing red. The buildings they were clearing had turned green on the HUD as they marked them safe, but one now switched back to red.

“I thought you cleared that damn building?” Volkov yelled.

More grenades exploded, followed by long bursts of rifle fire. No-one had flagged a hostile in the building, so who was firing at what?

“We did, sir.”

“Then where are they coming from?”

“Don’t know, sir. But I don’t reckon there’s anything alive in there now.”

The rear door creaked behind Logan as Bairamov clambered over it. “Where’s this damn girl?”

Logan crouched as he stomped across the building toward the horse. Wood creaked beneath him, and his foot sank a few centimetres into the ground.

He stepped back, and kicked at the ground with the metal claws. Dirt sprayed into the air, then the claws scraped on wood. He crouched, and dug his fingers into the dirt.

They wrapped themselves around a plank, and he pulled it free. More planks lay in the dirt beside it, and he heaved on them all until he’d cleared the ground beneath them.

“What have you found?” Bairamov said.

Logan crouched, and stared down at the floor of the barn where he’d ripped up the planks.

“Alice, IR illuminators.”

The suit’s external IR lights turned on. Lights bright enough to illuminate the area around him for the suit’s visor to see, but still invisible to anyone looking their way with the naked eye.

And a dark circle about a metre across lay there in the dirt where the planks had been, hiding it from view until he’d stepped on them.

A tunnel entrance.

Logan had crawled through smaller tunnels in the caves along the shore when he was a kid. But he’d been much smaller then, too.

And not wrapped in hundreds of kilos of metal and plastic.

This tunnel was wide enough for a human to drop into, but too narrow for a man in a suit.

It didn’t look like the kind of thing the colonists would have built when they first constructed the village. And a thin layer of dirt still clung to the top of the planks, as though someone had stuck it there to try to hide them.

The suit’s ground-penetrating radar was only designed to spot mines, not to look metres deep into the ground. But it showed a faint outline of something leading away from the hole, out of the building, and across the street.

“Sir, I’ve got a tunnel.”

It would make sense. If anyone was still living there, they’d be living underground to protect themselves from the radiation. There was nowhere else they could go.

And, if they built radiation-protected homes above ground, they’d be easy to see. But beneath a dead village… no-one would notice them there. Even if someone saw the insurgents as they came and went, they’d just see a few people enter the buildings and leave.

More gunfire outside.

“I’m hit,” a voice yelled.

A suit in Alpha team showed damage on the HUD. Another building they’d marked as cleared turned red.

“Sir,” Bairamov said, “we’ve found a tunnel in the building where the girl was. They must be using them to move around behind us.”

“Drop grenades down the tunnels,” Volkov said, “then fall back to the rally point. We’ll call in the drones and and destroy this place.”

“No,” Poulin yelled. “We need to capture this village.”

“Mademoiselle, if you’d like to go crawling through those tunnels, feel free. But I’m tired of you getting my men shot. The rest of us are leaving.”

“Disobey me again, and I’ll have you demoted and shipped back to France. Don’t think I can’t do so.”

Volkov was silent for a few seconds as gunfire and grenade explosions continued around the village.

Logan lowered his rifle barrel into the tunnel mouth, and looked through the sights on his visor as he tried to see around the curve at the bottom.

But that only showed him another metre of dirt, and the roughly-cut planks that supported the dirt roof and walls of the tunnel proper.

Finally Volkov spoke again.

“Bravo, send a man down into the tunnels to scout them out. Alpha, Charlie, destroy any tunnels you see, and keep the bastards’ heads down until the mademoiselle is happy.”

CHAPTER 14

Logan’s now-empty suit stood in the straw, facing the dirt pile beside the wall of the barn. The back of the suit was wide open after he’d climbed out. The HUD and instruments still glowed faintly inside the suit, giving him just enough light to see by when he leaned in through the open back.

The heat of the reactor warmed his skin as he leaned past it. He pulled open the survival kit attached to the inner wall of the suit, and grabbed the pistol, light-intensifying goggles and flashlight from the kit.

He strapped the goggles onto his face, and could see the barn again, in the glow from the suit’s IR illuminators. The rubber of the goggles smelled new, and the straps pressed them hard against his face. This was probably the first time they’d been removed from the survival kit since it was installed when the suit was built.

A Legionnaire whose suit was too badly damaged to stay in the fight rarely lived long enough to need them.

He closed the back of the suit and sealed it, then grabbed a few grenades from the suit’s belt. They were large enough for the suit’s oversized hands to easily hold them, but small enough for a human to use if he had to. He clipped them to his belt.

Bairamov and Desoto watched from where they were crouched on the far side of the barn.

Logan pulled hard on the straps on his body armour to check they were tight, then slid his helmet back onto his head, and tightened it in place.

“Can you squeak, McCoy?” Bairamov’s voice said from the helmet’s speakers.

“What do you mean?”

“If they see you, just squeak loudly, and pretend to be a rat. It might work.”

“I’ll bear that advice in mind, sir.”

Logan sat back and took a deep breath. Then another. And one more for luck. The world grew brighter and seemed more solid as the oxygen filled his lungs. Maybe he should wait a bit longer, let his heart slow down, and wait for his skin to cool, and the sweat to stop.

Or maybe he was just delaying things, and should get down there and do his job. Even though he might never come back out of the damn tunnel.

He took one more deep breath. “Going in. Don’t shoot me when I come back out.”

He’d have no way to communicate with the others once he was inside the tunnel. His helmet comms wouldn’t get through the metres of dirt above him. And it would really suck to get shot by his own comrades when he crawled out.

“Good luck,” Bairamov said. “And kill a few of the bastards for me.”

Logan took another grenade from the suit, pulled the pin, leaned over the edge of the hole until he could reach down to the tunnel entrance, and tossed the grenade inside.

It bounced along the dirt floor into the tunnel for a metre or two as Logan rolled aside. Then it exploded with a crack that left his unprotected ears ringing, and threw a cloud of dirt into the air from the tunnel entrance.

If anyone was waiting down there, he’d either just killed them, or just woken them up. He’d soon find out which.

He leaned over the edge of the hole, turned on the goggles’ IR illuminators, and peered into the tunnel. It was empty for the few metres the goggles could see in the IR glow.

Chunks of wood lay scattered across the dirt where the grenade had blown them down from the roof and walls. The walls bulged in where the explosion had weakened them, and the weight of the dirt pushed them inward. How long had those rotting planks been standing there, supporting the weight of the dirt?

They’d better not pick today to collapse.

He could still hear firing and explosions around the village. He had to get this done, to help his fellow Legionnaires who were being attacked out there.

He pulled his head out of the hole, lowered his legs into it, then crouched low enough to get his head and shoulders into the tunnel.

He clung tightly to the pistol as he went prone on the dirt floor, and began to crawl along the tunnel. His rifle was too big and heavy to take with him, and the recoil too powerful. If he ran into anything down there, it would have been a liability, even if he could carry it with his unassisted arms.

He crawled slowly, gasping for breath as he moved. He’d grown used to the oxygen in the suit, and his body complained now it had to deal with the thin air of the natural atmosphere again. Every few metres he stopped and peered further along the tunnel for any sign of movement. But no-one was heading his way.

There was a junction up ahead, where another tunnel crossed his. He crawled toward it, then kept his head low as he peered around the corner. Just more planks along the walls and ceiling, the faint smell of mould and rotting wood, and no sign of life. He breathed slowly to make as little noise as possible while he lay there, and listened for a few seconds.

The sound of gunfire came from the right. The left side was silent, as was the rest of the tunnel he was following, on the far side of the junction.

He twisted into the right-hand tunnel and crawled on. His body seemed to press harder and harder against the ground with every metre he crawled, as though it was trying to find a hole in the dirt to hide in.

When he first entered the tunnels, he could be sure no-one was behind him, and the only threat was ahead. Now they could be coming from two tunnels behind, and the one in front. And, if they were behind, he couldn’t even turn around to fight them.

Something scraped up ahead.

Logan stopped instantly, held his breath, and listened. The noise of the earlier grenade explosion still buzzed in his ears in the silence of the tunnel. Something moved in the dark, hazy shadows at the limit of the goggles’ range.

A second later, the screens in the goggles went white as a bright light glowed ahead.

He pulled the goggles up with his free hand.

A flashlight was swinging around the tunnel up ahead.

The light reflected back from the wooden walls near the flashlight, and faintly illuminated the side of a face and an arm that protruded through the floor. The arm held a rifle, which pointed toward the roof of the tunnel.

The flashlight beam wandered along the floor of the tunnel, then shone into Logan’s face.

“Who’s that?” the man yelled.

The pistol bucked in Logan’s hand as he fired twice.

He flinched as the gun boomed in the narrow tunnel, and left his ears ringing again. The flashlight fell to the dirt floor, and the man struggled with the rifle, trying to swing it around to point down the tunnel, toward Logan.

Logan fired twice more.

The man fell backwards, then vanished into the ground. The flashlight rolled across the floor, and came to a stop against the wall.

Logan crawled forward, pistol held ready to fire. The beam of the flashlight was shining across the tunnel now, and the light illuminated a dark opening in the floor. The man must have come up through there from a level below this one.

A metre from the hole, Logan grabbed a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it forward. It fell through the hole, and he pushed himself down hard onto the dirt.

The grenade explosion thumped below him, loud enough to hear over the ringing from the gunshots. The planks in the walls rattled. The roof shifted, and dirt dripped onto his back from the gaps between the planks.

Logan lifted his face and pulled the goggles back over his eyes, then crawled forward to the hole, and looked down. The remains of the insurgent lay at the bottom of a hole about three metres deep, his flesh torn apart into a bloody mess by the grenade explosion. Hand and footholds had been cut into the planks on the walls.

Logan’s breath wheezed, and his heart pounded. The sounds of the world began to return as his ears slowly recovered from the explosion. He lowered his head into the hole, and listened carefully. Someone was mumbling down there. He couldn’t hear the words, but he could hear someone talking. Probably more than one person.

He could crawl back along the tunnel, say he hadn’t found anything. Maybe Volkov would believe him. Or maybe not. Because he probably wouldn’t believe Logan whatever he said.

No, he had to go down there and see who was hiding on the lower level.

He lay beside the hole for a few seconds, waiting for any sound that might indicate someone crawling along the tunnel below him to investigate the noise, and breathing deeply to try to fill his blood with oxygen.

Then he twisted around until he could slide his legs down into the shaft. He pressed the toes of his boots against the wall until he found a foothold, then descended one step at a time, stopping half-way to listen for anyone approaching. All he heard was the mumbling, louder now but still unintelligible.

He continued down, hanging by his arms as his feet passed the bottom of the shaft and dangled below him into the lower tunnel. The body squished beneath his boots as they touched down on the ground. He coughed at the smell of burned flesh, then crouched on top of the remains and pulled himself into the tunnel that led toward the voices.

A face appeared out of the darkness.

Logan swung his pistol ready to fire, then stopped. Someone lay in an alcove at the side of the tunnel, covered from neck to feet by something thick and dark. They weren’t moving, and he recognized the face as he slowly crawled closer.

The dead boy’s body, wrapped in a tarp. It didn’t smell so bad, down in the cold air of the tunnels, but Logan crawled past as fast as he could.

Maybe they figured it was safer to bury him somewhere in the tunnels than up on the surface, where someone might see the grave. Either way, the girl had definitely been down there, after all.

And one of the voices he heard up ahead whose mumbling echos reflected from the wooden walls sounded high-pitched, and female. The other two were deeper, more masculine.

As he crawled on, he tried not to think of how much dirt was above him, and how thin a layer of planks was supporting it. Or how hard it would be to turn around in the tunnel and crawl back out if there were too many insurgents down there for him to handle.

They shouldn’t be expecting anyone to be crawling through their tunnels. Any sane commander would have done what Volkov suggested, and just pulled out of the village to blast the place with heavy weapons. Logan didn’t plan to die just so Poulin could look good to her aristo friends. But every moment he spent down in the tunnels not clearing them out was another moment the insurgents could be using them to move around and shoot at his comrades up above.

He crawled faster.

After a moment, he reached another cross-tunnel. He looked both ways and listened, then crawled across it. The voices were still coming from ahead of him, and some of the words were intelligible now.

A light glowed dimly a few metres ahead of him in. Logan raised the goggles as he crawled toward it, and blinked as his eyes tried to adjust to the faint glow after the bright image in the goggles. The voices grew louder as he approached. He could hear the words clearly now.

“How could you do it? Kill your own people?” the girl said.

“We didn’t order it,” a male voice said.

“We need to get out of here,” a deeper male voice said. “Those shots were in the tunnels, not the village.”

“Who did it?” the girl said. “How many other villages have they slaughtered?”

“It’s the damn Montagnards,” the first man said. “And I have more important things to deal with right now.”

“What’s more important than mass murder? How will the people support us after that?”

Time to earn some brownie points with Poulin. Logan grabbed a grenade from his left side, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the room. Then lowered his head and closed his eyes.

The girl yelled as the flashbang went off. The flash was bright enough for Logan to see the glow even through his closed eyelids, and the bang made his ears ring again. He took a deep breath, then pushed his head and arms out of the tunnel, into the room.

It was about three metres square and two metres high, with thick planks for walls. A lamp hung from the ceiling, shining its light around the room. The girl crouched low on the far side, behind the narrow table that filled the centre of the room below the lamp, and held her hands over her ears. Her lantern lay on the floor beside her.

One man held his hands over his eyes as he leaned back against the wall. The other glanced at Logan, then fumbled for the rifle that leaned against the wall beside him. Logan swung the pistol up, and put two rounds in the man’s head and neck, above their body armour. The man collapsed to the ground.

“Drop your weapons and surrender,” Logan yelled, but even he could barely hear the words over the ringing in his ears from the flashbang in the confined space.

Something moved in the shadows of the tunnel mouth on the far side of the room. Logan didn’t hear the rifle firing from that tunnel, but he could hardly miss the dirt and wood splinters spurting into the air as the rounds hit the ground and walls near him. He ducked back into his tunnel.

More shots followed, tearing chunks from the wooden walls beside him. Then something small and round smacked into the dirt, and rolled across it to thunk against the wall.

A grenade.

Logan reached for it. Rifle and pistol rounds smacked into the wood nearby. He ducked back for a split second, then grabbed the grenade, and tossed it back. He barely heard the explosion over the ringing in his ears, but he could hardly miss the flash from the end of tunnel.

The room went black. Logan pulled the goggles down, and peered around the corner of the tunnel, into the room.

The table had collapsed at one end. The lamp lay smashed on the floor, and the lantern had been crushed beneath the fallen table.

Planks hung loose from the walls where the explosion had torn them free, and more dangled from the ceiling. A body lay beside the table, and the head and arms of another dangled out of the tunnel entrance on the far side of the room. The shooter’s rifle lay on the floor beside them.

No sign of the girl.

Logan held the pistol out in front of him as he crawled out of the tunnel, and into the room. Then crouched behind the half-fallen table and rolled the nearest body over. The face of the man who had been standing beside the table stared up at him, the eyes and mouth now wide open in death.

A tablet lay beside him, in the ruins of the table. Logan grabbed it and stuffed it inside his body armour. At least there might be some intel on there to keep Poulin happy.

He stepped carefully over the twisted planks, staying close to the wall, and followed it toward the tunnel on the far side. A sudden crack filled the room as he stepped on one of the broken table legs, and snapped it in two. He crouched and waited, breathing slowly and deeply with the pistol aimed at the tunnel mouth. But no-one came his way.

He swung the pistol around the corner, and peered down the tunnel. The goggles showed only the body of the rifleman, and an empty tunnel beyond.

The girl was gone, or hiding out of range of the goggles.

Forward or back? He knew the route behind him, but who knew who might have moved into the tunnels back there while he was exploring this level?

The whole tunnel complex was too connected, it was too easy to find a route to let you flank anyone who came in. And it was probably designed that way. Going on ahead… at least they’d probably be ahead of him, not waiting to shoot him in the back.

He dragged the rifleman’s body out of the tunnel entrance, and ignored the coppery smell of blood and the dark patch that had spread across the dirt beneath the dead man’s chest. He crouched, then crawled into the tunnel.

He crawled along it, stopping every metre to peer into the darkness for any sign of the girl. He could see long, twisting trails in the dirt as though someone had dragged themselves along there not long ago, but it could easily have been made by the now-dead rifleman crawling toward the room, not the girl crawling away.

He continued crawling, slowly.

The girl had an advantage, because she knew these tunnels, at least well enough to find her way in and out. But he could see where he was going in the darkness, and she probably couldn’t. She probably couldn’t see anything at all.

What would he do if he was crawling through there in pitch blackness, with no hint of light, and knowing someone was probably chasing him? Crawl as fast as he could, and hope to recognize the tunnels by feel? Hide in the first side tunnel and hope anyone following would go past?

Or just go crazy, feeling the walls closing in on him, and thinking every sound was a man with a gun ready to shoot him. Someone he’d never even see before he died?

Something interrupted the smooth wood of the ceiling just ahead. A dark, rectangular patch. And another in the floor.

He crawled closer, until the floor disappeared ahead of him. There was another shaft here, going back up to the higher level, and down even further. He looked up, and listened.

Now he could hear faint scraping in the shadows, like one of the rats that used to raid the garbage bins outside his parents’ old apartment. And maybe it was a rat.

But, if he was a girl trying to escape, going up would be his first choice. He looked down. This shaft descended a long way, too far for the goggles to illuminate. If he was a girl running away from someone in the darkness, he sure as heck wouldn’t choose to go down there.

Besides, up was up, and closer to getting out of these damn tunnels. He straddled the hole, holstered the pistol, and grabbed the hand-holds above him. His arms strained against his weight as he hauled himself up, until he was high enough to push the toes of his boots into the holes and climb with his legs. The scraping grew louder as he climbed higher, and the faint cracks of gunfire outside the tunnels joined the noise.

He stopped half-way up the shaft with a pounding heart and a light head, to gasp down some air. He paused again just below the top of the shaft, pulled the pistol from his holster, then pushed his head up and peered out. Only the dirt and planks of another tunnel running left to right showed in either direction. But the scraping seemed to be coming from his right.

He clambered out of the shaft, and lay on the dirt floor. Then pulled the last HE grenade from his belt.

If there was anyone or anything important down that shaft, he could give them something to remember him by.

He pulled the pin and tossed it down the shaft below him, then grabbed the pistol, pulled his legs up into the tunnel from the shaft, and crawled away as fast as he could.

He made it about three metres away before the ground shook beneath him, the tunnel walls bent in toward him, and everything went black.

CHAPTER 15

Logan woke in the darkest blackness he’d ever experienced. A heavy weight lay on his legs, and he spat the taste of dirt from his mouth. More dirt crunched between his teeth as he moved his jaw, and he spat again. Then fumbled with the goggles on his face. Turning them on or off made no difference. The world around him was just as black either way. The blast must have broken something inside them.

Or it better have. Because the alternative was that the big explosion had broken his eyes. And he didn’t want to think about that.

But his heart thudded again as he did. What if he was blind? He stared into the darkness, and it slowly became a hazy grey as his eyes tried to adjust, and find anything they could identify. They still seemed to be working. Probably.

He left the goggles pushed up on his forehead. If he ever managed to get back to the surface, Volkov would be pissed if he’d lost Legion property.

But what if he couldn’t get back? His legs were numb. He could be trapped down there in the darkness until he died. The Legion would try to find him, if they’d managed to clear out all the insurgents up above. But they wouldn’t go digging through the dirt to get to him. He’d go mad from thirst after a few days, if the constant darkness didn’t get him first.

He shivered at the thought. Or maybe it was the cold air.

No, he’d find a way out first. Either by escaping from the tunnel, or…

The pistol was no longer in his hand. He reached forward, and found no obstruction. No sign of the pistol, either. The tunnel was clear in that direction.

The air smelled almost like gunpowder, as though it was still full of dirt from the explosion, but was no less breathable than it had been before. He lay there and listened. The silence was so intense he could hear only the blood rushing through his own ears. But he could feel a faint breeze around his face. Air was still moving somewhere. As it should be, because there must be many entrances to the tunnels around the village.

He pulled his right knee forward. Heavy weight pressed down on his boot, and it barely moved. He tried again. The boot pulled against his foot, but began to move. Dirt hissed and stones rattled as he hauled his leg forward. He winced as his calf scraped against something hard and sharp. The edge of a smashed plank from the roof or walls, maybe.

Then he pulled out the other leg. The muscles ached from being buried for however long he’d been knocked out after the explosion, but nothing seemed broken. Pins and needles stabbed at his legs and feet as the blood flow returned now they’d been relieved of the weight of the dirt piled upon them.

The insurgents must have had some kind of ammo dump down there, and the grenade had set the whole thing off. Most of the blast must have gone up the shaft, and along the tunnels below him. Otherwise he’d be dead and buried.

As any remaining insurgents probably were, if they’d still been alive down below.

Whatever.

There was no way out behind him. He had to keep moving the way he’d been going. The insurgents clearly had tunnels into many of the buildings, and he just had to find one.

He crawled forward through the blackness, tapping his hands against the walls every few seconds to check for any side tunnels that might lead to a building.

If this was the other end of the tunnel he’d entered earlier, that one had seemed to follow the main street of the village. His fingers dug into the dirt as he crawled along it, and he reached out as far ahead of him as he could.

The last thing he needed was to fall down another shaft in the darkness. If he broke a leg down there…

His knuckles slammed against something cold and hard as he pushed his hand forward. It scraped across the dirt, and smacked into the wall. He reached out, and felt cold metal. Then a trigger, and the plastic sides of a pistol grip.

He turned the pistol around carefully in the dark, trying not to shoot himself by accident, feeling the metal and plastic with his fingers until he had it safely in his hand and pointed away from him. At least Volkov wouldn’t be able to punish him for losing it now.

As he moved on, there was no sound any more except for his own breath, the scraping of his hands and boots on the dirt, and the tapping of his fingers on the wall. No more scraping ahead, and no shooting up above.

If the section had given up on him and left, it would be a long trek back to Gries, particularly on foot. And he’d be lucky if the villagers didn’t take him out in the fields and shoot him when he got there.

He tapped the butt of the pistol against the right wall. It thumped against solid wood. Then he moved on another half metre, and tapped the left with his hand. More wood. Another half-metre. Surely they wouldn’t have built a tunnel to nowhere? It had to come out of the ground eventually, or it would become his coffin.

He swung the pistol grip toward the wall again, but his arm twisted past where he’d expected it to stop when the butt hit the wall. He slid that way along the tunnel, holstered the pistol, and ran his hand across the dirt. He reached out as far as his arm would go, but there was no obstruction even as he strained his shoulder until his tendons complained. He slid his hand back around toward his side, and it stopped part-way as it slapped into wood. The side wall of a cross tunnel.

He crawled into the side-tunnel to the right. After a few seconds of crawling, his hands found the wooden wall at the end of the tunnel. He rose to a crouch, and slid his hands up the walls. The left hand stopped as it reached the wooden roof of the tunnel. The right continued up a shaft, until it found the wooden hatch over the tunnel mouth.

He pushed it up. The hatch moved easily, and a thin rain of dirt poured down onto his face and shoulders. He coughed and flicked his face to shake the dirt away, but kept pushing. Then squinted as the near-blinding glow of the sun burned into his eyes. He closed them, then blinked a few times as pain stabbed his eyeballs. Then opened them only far enough to see a faint bright band between his eyelids as he pushed the hatch aside. It slid a few centimetres, then stopped.

He stood as well as he could, and peered out through the gap between the hatch and floor. A twisted, cracked, wooden plank leaned against the wall of the building above the hatch. The wall on that side had collapsed inward in a mess of broken planks, and they now lay on top of the hatch. The sun had risen just above the edge of the plateau, and now cast long, dark shadows across the floor of the building as it shone through the gaps between the planks, and into his eyes.

He pushed up on the hatch, until the broken planks that were pressing down on it creaked above him. He twisted his head sideways as he pushed it out through the gap between the hatch and the ground, and his shoulders followed. The back of his body armour scraped against the hatch, and the wood creaked again as he squeezed out and pushed it higher. He dug his fingers into the dirt and heaved until his body slid through the gap, and his legs followed.

Then he lay panting for a moment as he filled his lungs with enough air to sustain himself. He grabbed a plank that leaned against the remains of the wooden frame of the house, and used it for support as he pulled himself to his feet. Then he shaded his eyes from the dazzling light of the morning sun as he crept out toward the street. The last thing he needed now was to surprise one of the others, and get himself shot.

“Sir, I’m back,” he said into the helmet mike.

“Damn, McCoy,” Bairamov’s voice answered. “LeFavre thought he’d just won the dead pool. You got the girl?”

“No, sir. But I don’t think anyone else will be coming up out of those tunnels.”

“Was that you who blew the shit out of this place?”

“Please tell Mme Poulin that it wasn’t intentional, sir.”

Logan reached the doorway at the end of the building. It opened out onto the street, where the door had fallen onto the ground outside.

He peered out. The sunlight burned his eyes. He pulled down the helmet visor, and it darkened until it blocked out the glare. The centre of the street had become a crater at least five metres across, and a couple of metres deep. The explosion his grenade set off had blown the dirt up into a ridge a metre high, and the centre had collapsed into the tunnel shaft. No-one was going back down there in a hurry.

Not without a dozen miners to dig their way in.

A transport sat on the open plateau at the end of the street, with engines whirring and the rear ramp down. Two men in suits carefully carried a third up the ramp, with one leg of his suit hanging limply down, mangled and twisted.

A familiar suit stood at the edge of the crater, with a Russian flag on the shoulder. Bairamov. More of the men of the section crouched in defensive positions around the street, or near the transport.

Logan stepped out of the doorway, feeling almost naked in just his fatigues, helmet and body armour.

Even if all the insurgents were out of action, a solar storm right now would give him only a short time to dive back into a tunnel before the radiation killed him.

Bairamov turned toward him.

“You made a hell of a mess.”

“Shouldn’t you be in the barn, sir?” With Logan’s suit. And weapons. Not the kind of thing they should be leaving lying out in the open, even though the suit was soft-locked to their Legion IDs.

“We came out to see what the noise was about. You shook the whole damn building, and the dirt from the explosion went so high that most of it ended up on the roof. What the heck was that?”

“IED factory, maybe? Ammo dump? I don’ t know, sir. I just tossed a grenade down a shaft in the tunnels. I didn’t see what was down there before it blew up.”

“Remind me to stay away from you in combat, kid.”

Poulin was crouched over a pile of bodies on the far side of the crater. Volkov stood beside her, his rifle raised, and turned his head slowly as he scanned the street.

Sunlight reflected from three long gouges across the back of Poulin’s suit. Something had hit her during the firefight. Maybe she’d smarten up a little, now she had some real experience of life in the Legion.

But probably not.

Logan strode around the crater toward them. If Volkov had expected him to die down in those tunnels, Logan was going to stand in front of the man and show him his plan failed.

Two suits strolled along the street toward the pile, dragging the limp, blood-soaked bodies of two men in civilian clothes behind them.

One of the suits carried a bloodstained head, dangling below the suit’s metal hand on the end of its dark hair, and swinging as he walked. The men tossed the bodies on to the pile, then dropped the head on top.

“That’s eight insurgent KIAs, sir,” one of the suits said. “At least, we figure it’s enough pieces to make eight.”

Poulin leaned over the new bodies, and held out her suit’s hands toward them. “Intel says they’re all fake IDs. They’re in the colony database, good enough to pass everyday checks, but a deep scan shows enough inconsistencies in the data to flag them as suspicious.”

“So they could search the database, and maybe find more of the insurgents?” Logan said.

“They already are. But it takes time to scan that deep. And, by then, they’ll probably have created new IDs.”

“Someone must have entered them into the database,” Volkov said. “I’d like to talk to that person.”

“So would I.”

“Any other use for the bodies?” Volkov said.

“I’ve scanned whatever’s left of them, sir,” Bairamov said. “If Intel need any info, I should have it.”

“Good. Let the rats have them.” Volkov’s suit whirred as his helmet turned until the visor pointed at Logan’s face. “So, Mr McCoy. We thought you were dead.”

“Sorry to have disappointed you, sir.”

“What the hell have you been up to for the last couple of hours down there?”

“Scouting the tunnels, sir.”

“Any of the bastards still alive?”

“Not that I saw, sir. But five or six KIAs.”

“And the girl?”

“I saw her down there, sir. The explosion knocked me out. When I woke up, she was gone.”

Volkov’s visor leaned close to Logan’s face. “Hmm. How convenient, McCoy. How very convenient.”

“I didn’t mean to toss a grenade into an ammo dump, sir. If I did, I’d have been further away when it went off.”

“Do you have some connection to that girl? Something that would make you want to let her escape?”

“Never seen her before today, sir.”

“You do realize I can have Intel run another background check on you? I gather you’re one of Rousseau’s boys. If they find anything…”

Poulin stood, and her suit crunched across the dirt toward them. “Where are my prisoners?”

“They didn’t want to surrender, ma’am.” Logan reached into his body armour, grabbed the tablet, and held it out toward her. “But there might be something useful on this.”

Poulin’s long, metal fingers clunked down on the tablet, raised it toward her visor, turned it around, then placed it in a pouch on the outside of her suit.

“I’ll get it to Intel. But I’d rather have prisoners.”

Logan glanced toward the sun, which was rising over the roof of the building across the street. If there was a solar storm, the wood would do just about nothing to protect him from the radiation. “Can I get back to my suit, sir?”

“We’re about to move out,” Volkov said. “Hurry up, before I decide to leave you behind with your girlfriend.”

Logan strode along the street, and around the edge of the crater. Then through the half-open doorway of the barn.

His suit was there, where he’d left it, over beside the wall. The back of the suit was still closed, and locked. But the doors of the barn were wide open, out onto the plateau outside.

And the horse was gone.

CHAPTER 16

Logan stared at the five cards he held in his hand. Two aces, a jack, and two threes. Not so bad. Not so good. His chair creaked as he slumped back in it, and he kept his face perfectly still, giving away as little as he could to the silent, stern-faced men sitting around the roughly-carved wooden table in front of him.

Learning to hide whatever he might be feeling was a useful skill he’d learned during those months in the cells back in Paris. He’d worked hard to not give the interrogators a way in for their questioning. To not show them they were winning.

And it came in handy during the section’s late-night poker games. They’d scouted around a few more villages after the firefight in Gries, but hadn’t run into any more insurgents on their trip.

Walking through the villages, smiling at the villagers and not being shot at had almost felt like an anticlimax after all the excitement of the patrol’s first stop. Perhaps taking out one of the insurgents’ bases had knocked a bit of the fight out of them for a while.

Then they’d returned to Estérel. They needed time for equipment repairs and overhauls, medical treatment for the wounded, and debriefing with Intel.

And, tonight, for drinking and a few games of cards.

Something small, long and dark moved on Logan’s left wrist. He swung his right hand, and slapped it hard. Bright red blood smeared his fingers as he pulled his hand back. He wiped the remains of the mosquito from his wrist, onto the leg of his fatigue pants. There might not be much native life on this planet, but the mosquitoes, cockroaches and bedbugs that had stowed away on the colony ships seemed to be doing just fine.

“Chavs?” Bairamov said from the far side of the table. He raised his voice to be audible over the muttering and clinking of plates and glasses from the men and women sitting at the other tables in the old, wooden barroom.

It was their first night off duty since the landing on New Strasbourg, and the fireteam had strolled through the streets of Estérel until they wandered into Pierre’s Place, then decided to stay a while.

The sign outside the door claimed it was the oldest bar in town, and that was easy to believe. It was rather more difficult to believe that the place could remain standing until the end of the night.

There was no concrete in the bar walls or roof, it was just an old wooden building with a dirt floor, like those they’d seen in the Valenciennes. The roof planks high above the table bowed downwards beneath the weight of the metre of dirt that had been piled on top of them to protect against radiation. Flecks of dirt had been falling slowly through the gaps in the roof onto the table and floor as they sat and played.

Either way, the place seemed popular with the locals. Like the men and women—but mostly men—at the other tables who were resolutely staring away from the Legionnaires, and doing their best to avoid eye contact any time Logan looked their way. A few had left when the Legionnaires walked in.

Were they insurgents showing their dislike of the Legion, or townspeople worried that the insurgents might attack? Or heading off to tell their insurgent friends that the Legion were in town?

He couldn’t continue wondering whether every colonist he ran into was trying to kill him, or it would drive him insane.

That was probably the insurgents’ goal, anyway. To keep the Legionnaires guessing until they began to see everyone as an enemy. But he was keeping an eye on the men and women around them, just in case. So were the others.

“They called you Chavs?” Bairamov repeated.

It was one of those nights where men who’d shared their first experience of combat together felt the urge to tell each other their life stories.

Logan had been explaining why he left England, and ended up in France. He nodded, and looked between the helmets and empty wine glasses scattered across the table, toward Bairamov’s face. Which was somewhat hazy right now. Logan had learned to drink alcohol in the ZUS, but the wine here burned your throat on the way down, and melted your brain when it hit your stomach. Or maybe it was just that the alcohol had more effect in the thin air.

Either way, his voice slurred a little as he spoke. “That’s what they called us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Corporate Housing And Violent, the teachers said. But I think they just made that up.”

“Like the Rednecks in America?” Gallo said from his seat to Logan’s right.

The medics hadn’t cleared him to return to action yet, but he’d sneaked out of the hospital with bandages still wrapped around his legs after Logan and Bairamov smuggled in a set of fatigues so Gallo could hide his wounds.

He might be in trouble with the officers tomorrow, but what were they going to do? Send him back to the unit early? With the casualties they’d taken, he’d be there again as soon as they could get him fit enough to operate his suit. Which wouldn’t be more than a few days, either way.

“Everyone has a name for us.”

The useless ones, the unconnected ones, the ones who didn’t come from a distinguished, ‘elite’ family who could pull strings, and whose only value was that they might be slightly cheaper than machines. And slightly smarter.

From talking to the other recruits he’d met, he knew now that families like his own existed in every country on Earth. The workers, to be used and abused by the toffs, and replaced if they objected to their fate. Maybe one day things would change, but how? The toffs had all the power, and no qualms about using it. The workers had none. The unemployed had even less.

“The French, you know, call them Les Sauvages,” Desoto said from Logan’s right. “Savages, like wild animals.”

Logan had heard that slang more than once from the flics in the ZUS. “The aristos are the real savages.”

Bairamov tossed a ten-franc note onto the table. “Raise.”

“I’m out,” Gallo said, and tossed his cards onto the table.

‘Me too,” Desoto said. “I’m out of the game for tonight, and I’m out of money.”

Bairamov smirked, and stared into Logan’s face. “So, how about it, hero? You feeling as lucky tonight as you were in those tunnels?”

Logan squinted as he stared into Bairamov’s eyes. Was he bluffing, or did he have a better hand? He was right, either way. Logan had used up plenty of luck in the tunnels.

Could he rely on having any left tonight?

He placed his cards down. “Fold.”

“Thank you,” Bairamov said, as he reached out for the pile of cash on the table, and added another hundred francs to his winnings. Logan grabbed Bairamov’s cards, and flipped them over. Two tens, a four, a five and a two.

Well, Logan didn’t really need the money, did he? What could he do with it? They’d be back out in the field before he knew it, with nothing to spend it on.

Bairamov grabbed the cards, and shuffled them back into the pack. “Another round?”

“I’m done,” Gallo said.

Desoto’s chair legs dug gouges in the dirt floor as he pushed his chair back and stood. “I’m gonna take a look around, while the sun’s still up.”

Bairamov stuffed the cards in his pocket. “Good plan.”

Logan grabbed his helmet, and studied the faces of the men and women in the bar as he strolled toward the doors. Few of them looked up, and none of them looked like they wanted to pick a fight with four Legionnaires.

But their friends still might.

The air outside the bar was beginning to grow cold as the sun descended toward the horizon. Logan shivered as they stepped out of the doors, and sudden pain stabbed his eyes as they adjusted to the bright light of the setting sun after the dim electric glow inside.

Bairamov strolled away along the street, toward the setting sun. They followed.

“So, Volkov stopped hassling you?” Bairamov said.

Logan rubbed his jaw.

It still hurt from where Volkov had punched him after they returned to base, because he came out of the tunnels without the girl, or any other prisoners to keep Poulin happy. Poulin was still bitching about that, despite the tablet he’d found her, which she’d been doing her best to investigate with Intel.

He rubbed his stomach, which hurt too where Volkov had punched him earlier that day, when he wouldn’t admit that he was working for the insurgents.

Which, admittedly, would still have to be better than being beheaded as a traitor if he had admitted to it.

“I don’t think he ever will. He’s convinced I’m working with that girl.”

“You did let her escape twice.”

“You don’t really believe I’m on their side, do you?”

“Well, you do have to wonder.”

“I didn’t let her go. I had more important things to do than chase her. Like stay alive.”

“Catching her could have saved more lives.”

“I checked the drone footage after the explosion. She must have sneaked back to the barn while you and Desoto were looking at the crater. Then went racing away on the horse until she was out of drone range. There was no way to see where she went after that.”

“I doubt you’ll be seeing her again. After what happened back at the village, she’s going to be scared out of her wits and hiding out somewhere. That is, if her friends aren’t pissed that she led us right to them, and ready to stick her head on a pole. Must have taken them a long time to build that base, and we destroyed it overnight.”

“I think Volkov’s trying to get me killed, because he can’t prove I’m on the other side.”

“He’s just playing with you because you’re a newbie. And you know what they say… if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you more bad-ass. At this rate, if you survive this posting, you’ll be toughest son-of-a-bitch in the Legion.”

There was that.

“Besides,” Bairamov continued. “If he really believed you’re on their side, you’d be back in jail by now. Or dead.”

“I’m surprised he let you out of the camp,” Gallo said. “Those latrines are a hell of a mess.”

“He said he’d rather have me out in the town where I couldn’t cause more trouble for him.”

An old man stared at them from a small, round table outside the next bar along the street. A small white cup steamed on the table in front of him. The smell of coffee filled the air as they passed. Logan took an even deeper breath than he had been taking while walking along the street to keep his lungs filled in the thin air. The warm, rich smell of the coffee helped to clear his head after the wine they’d drunk in the bar.

Faint piano music grew louder ahead of them. Light glowed from the windows and doors of a building to the right, maybe ten metres wide, with two rows of windows below the dirt roof. Girls leaned on tall wooden poles beside the doors, where the light from the windows played over the bare skin between the narrow bands of cloth that covered the more interesting parts of their bodies.

Desoto pointed toward a blonde leaning on the left-hand pole. “I’m sure I saw her at the Mayor’s singalong.”

He was right. Though the girls had been wearing more clothes back then.

She must be freezing in the evening air with so much flesh exposed to the elements. The other girls looked familiar, too. Bairamov had been right about them putting on the show to tout for customers.

The girls waved at them, and yelled.

“Hello, soldiers.”

Bairamov turned slightly, angling toward the steps at the front of the building. “Coming to the knocking shop?”

Desoto frowned. “Would if I had some money left.”

Gallo shuffled beside them, staring at the girls with wide eyes. “Wish I could, but Volkov will kill me if I pull these wounds open, and can’t get back to the section on time.”

Logan looked up the steps at the girls. They reminded him too much of the girls he’d known back in Section 19. Down on their luck, broke, and desperate to make a living.

If the Governor had been right about the number of women on this planet far exceeding the number of men, it was little surprise that girls would end up working for their living any way they could.

The bureaucrats might be able to afford concubines, but few miners would. No matter how many men arrived on New Strasbourg from Earth looking for a new life, there’d probably always be an oversupply of girls and women looking for a way to survive, or to pay their fare back to Earth. And few places for them to work when most of the money came from mining.

Though this bar looked and sounded like a much better place to work than the derelict buildings of the ZUS. Maybe they’d even run into some aristo who’d take them away from all this, one day.

But probably not.

“No, thanks,” Logan said. The girls might be young and pretty, but he’d known the girls of the ZUS too well to want to take advantage of their sisters here.

“You really are in love with your girl,” Bairamov said.

“I’m just not in the mood.”

“When was the last time you got laid?”

Logan shrugged.

That would have been Angelique, a few days before the flics caught him and dragged him back into prison. A long, cold night when they’d talked once more about getting away from all that, and building a new life together somewhere else. Somewhere they could be free. Even though they knew they never would. And never could.

But how long ago was that?

“Dunno.”

“You must remember.”

“A year, maybe.”

Bairamov chuckled. “No wonder you’re so grouchy.” He slapped Logan’s shoulder. “Come on man, I’ll buy you a girl for tonight. It’ll do you some good.”

“I’m really not in the mood.”

“The way you’ve been burning through your luck since we landed here, this might be your last chance.”

“I’ll take that risk.”

“Alright, Desoto, it’s your lucky night. Since I won all you money, it’s only fair I buy you a girl.”

Bairamov strode toward the bar.

Desoto glanced back at Logan and Gallo, then shrugged and followed him. The girls smiled at the the two men as they climbed the steps to the doors. Then four of them wrapped their arms around Bairamov’s and Desoto’s, and led them inside.

“Damn,” Gallo said. “You know, I think it would have been worth letting Volkov beat the crap out of me for a night with those girls.”

“You want to join them?”

“I ain’t got any money left, either. So I’d just be in there window-shopping.”

Logan checked his pocket. He still had about fifty francs left. And who knew when, or if, he’d have a chance to spend it after tonight. “Let’s take a look at the town. I’m buying.”

“More wine?” Gallo said.

Logan was still feeling lightheaded, though it was hard to say whether that was from the air, the wine, or the girls.

Probably all three.

“I’ve had enough. I could do with some real food.”

“I haven’t had decent chocolat in a month.”

Logan could almost smell it.

A bowl of steaming hot chocolate would certainly warm him up. The sweet taste already seemed to fill his mouth as he imagined swallowing it. And whatever other food they might have that wasn’t made from goo out of a vat.

He strolled on along the street.

Wooden tables lined the exterior of a building a hundred meters ahead, and a painted sign hung from the wall showing pictures of steaming drinks and plates piled with food. The smell of baked bread and roast meat oozed into his nose as he came closer. Whatever that place was, it smelled better than anything he’d smelled since he landed on New Strasbourg.

Joffer sat at the table closest to the door, and Heinrichs on a seat across from him. A girl giggled beside them. Pretty eyes, long hair, long legs, wrapped in a black dress. She nodded at whatever Joffer was telling her.

Heinrichs raised his hands and motioned toward Logan and Gallo. “Join us, boys. Gallo, you’re looking better than the last time I saw you.”

“I could hardly look worse.”

Logan slumped down in a chair across from Heinrichs, pushed away the empty plates and mugs to make space, and slapped his helmet down on the tabletop.

His body relaxed as he took the weight off his legs, and breathed slowly and deeply to fill his blood with oxygen. Gallo sighed as he sat on the far side, then stretched out his legs and massaged his thighs with his hands.

“That’s the most work my legs have done in days.”

“No luck with the nurses then?” Heinrichs said.

“I think the Legion chooses nurses who’ll scare the men into wanting to go back to battle.”

The girl turned away from giggling with Joffer. Those eyes and the curves beneath the tight dress didn’t look like someone who’d make a man want to go off to battle to get away.

“What can I get you, soldiers?”

“Give me chocolate,” Logan said. “And some of whatever smells so good.”

Gallo smiled a wide, goofy smile at her. “I’ll have the same.”

“How’s the hero of Valenciennes?” Heinrichs said.

Not that again. “Sick of people making fun of me.”

“Come on. You’ve bagged almost as many insurgents as the rest of the company since we got here. You ought to be getting a medal.”

“Tell Volkov that.”

The girl smiled at Joffer, then sauntered into the cafe.

Gallo leaned over the table toward him. “You fraternizing there, Joffer?”

A wide smile spread across Joffer’s dark face. “I’m showing a friendly face to the locals. Just like our lovely political officer said we should.”

“Do you think it’s working?” Logan said.

Joffer chuckled.

“Don’t know about her, but it’s working for me.”

“Since you’re so good at it, we should send you in to the next village for Poulin. They’ll love us by the time we walk in.”

“I don’t know why we bother,” Gallo said. “I don’t like the aristos any more than they do. I didn’t sign up to come out here and kill French colonists.”

Heinrichs picked up a coffee cup from the table, sloshed the dark liquid around the bottom, and took a sip. “Look, you’ve got three kinds of people on this planet. The ones who care about kicking out the aristos. The ones who want a quiet life, and don’t care who’s in charge. And the ones who’ll cut your head off for not caring. Those bastards don’t deserve mercy.”

“Yeah,” Joffer said. “It’s kind of shitty killing farmers and miners to protect the aristos, but imagine what it would be like if we pulled out and left them to their own devices. They’d run out of space to bury the bodies in a week.”

He was right. It was one thing to shoot at the Legion, like the boy in Gries. The Legionnaires might not like it, but they were the muscular arm of the government out here. You had to expect that.

It was quite another to cold-bloodedly murder your fellow colonists just for disagreeing with you.

“If I run into those Montagnards,” Logan said, “I’ll kill the lot of them and celebrate afterwards. But I still don’t like doing the aristos’ dirty work, either.”

“You didn’t kill that kid for the aristos, did you?”

Logan shook his head. “Of course not.”

“Then why did you?”

“He shot Desoto, and blew up Gallo.”

“There you go, kid,” Heinrichs said. “You’re learning. The Legion is what matters, not any of that crap. It will be here long after the aristos are dead and gone. You’ll go crazy if you keep worrying about politics.”

“Yeah,” Joffer said. “You can let your girlfriend do that.”

“She is not my girlfriend.”

“Just kidding.”

“Volkov isn’t.”

Heinrichs laughed.

“You’ll understand when you’ve been in the platoon as long as we have. Every time we get a batch of newbies, Volkov picks one to shit on, to encourage the others. This time, you got the shit stick. It’s nothing personal.”

“You’re lucky we’re in a combat zone,” Joffer said. “So he can’t kick the crap out of you every day. Right now, he needs every man he’s got.”

The waitress’ hard shoes clunked on the wooden deck around the cafe as she hurried back to the table. The sweet smell of chocolate filled Logan’s nose, and she placed two steaming bowls on the table in front of him and Gallo. Then hurried back inside.

Logan lowered his face into the sweet steam rising from the bowl. Then sniffed in a long breath. Damn, that smelled good after so long trapped in a suit with his own stench.

He dipped a spoon in the bowl, then slid it into his mouth. The warm liquid heated his body from the inside as it slid down his throat, and the sweet chocolate took away the taste of battle. His whole body relaxed as he swallowed more.

Then the girl returned, and two more plates clunked on the hard wood of the table as she slapped them down, then walked away. Dark meat dripping with thick juices protruded from the sides of a pair of baguettes. The meaty smell was enough to make Logan’s stomach rumble. He grabbed his, and turned it over in his hands. Then held it to his nose and sniffed.

“What do you think it is?”

“Horse?” Joffer said. “Who cares, it smells good.”

“And tastes good,” Heinrich added. “At least, it tastes better than the crap we get for rations.”

Gallo opened his mouth wide, stuffed the end of the baguette between his lips, and tore it away. The corners of his lips curled into a smile as he chewed.

Logan grabbed his and bit down.

Whatever was in it, the real texture of bread and meat tasted good after weeks on Legion rations. Might be worth becoming a colonist here just for the food. And the girls.

If it wasn’t for the insurgency and radiation storms.

He grabbed the spoon, and followed the baguette down with a mouthful of chocolate.

Something whistled high above them. Gallo’s mouth froze in mid-bite. Logan looked up from his chocolate. He’d heard that sound before, in training. Except then, it was muffled through the microphones and speakers of his suit.

“Incoming,” he yelled.

CHAPTER 17

Logan dove to the deck beside the table. His chest slammed down onto the wooden planks outside the cafe, and the impact knocked the breath from his lungs. Gallo slammed down on the far side of the table. Heinrichs and Joffer followed.

Then the ground shook beneath them, followed by the booms of half a dozen explosions around the town.

Dirt sprayed into the air at the end of the alley across the street as a mortar round exploded over there, throwing out a shower of glowing, white-hot shrapnel that faded to red before it slammed into the dirt piled over the surrounding buildings. The table shook, and Logan’s helmet fell to the ground beside him. He grabbed it, and slammed it onto his head.

More whistling followed, as another flight of mortar rounds came their way. The cracking of the point-defence guns at the airport joined the noise, and at least half a dozen of the mortar rounds exploded high in the air, scattering shrapnel in a cloud that hit the ground like metal rain.

Two more impacted intact, exploded, and sprayed the street with dirt and high-speed shrapnel. A loud, shrill scream joined the noise of the mortar rounds and guns. A woman’s scream, from somewhere down the street.

As the whistling and explosions faded, Logan clambered to his feet and stepped into the building.

The others grabbed their helmets, and followed.

The girl and an older man crouched behind a counter inside the cafe. The girl peered around it.

“What’s going on?” she said.

More whistling. More point-defence fire.

Logan stepped behind the counter. Then dropped to the floor, and pulled her down beside him.

“The insurgents are firing mortars. Stay down.”

The other Legionnaires hit the floor near the thick, dirt-covered walls, away from the door. More explosions rattled the wooden sign outside the cafe. Shrapnel clattered against the open door of the building. More screams joined the first. Male and female, this time. And more whistling.

How many damn mortars did these people have? So much for the insurgents having no heavy weapons.

“Why do they attack us?” the girl said. Her eyes were wide, and she was shaking beside him.

“Because they’re evil little bastards,’ Gallo muttered as he chewed on his baguette on the other side of the cafe.

More whistling.

“How can you eat at a time like this?” Heinrichs said.

“If you’d seen the kind of food we get in the hospital, you wouldn’t miss a chance to get something decent down you. And we’ll be on those damn patrol rations again in a few days.”

“Probably tomorrow, after this,” Joffer said.

More explosions outside. More screaming. More yelling. And more mortar shells flying. The wooden floor of the cafe rattled as a shell exploded just outside the building. The girl screamed, and Logan grabbed her as shrapnel bounced through the doorway, and scattered across the floor. It was spent by the time it landed; no match for the Legion helmets, but still jagged and glowing red hot. It would hurt if it hit bare skin.

And then the whole thing was over. No more mortar shells flying, no more guns firing. Just the screaming outside, the girl whimpering beside him, and Gallo’s teeth grinding together as he chewed on his baguette.

Logan waited for a moment, but no more shells came.

The helmet radio was full of Legion chatter as they began to respond to the attack. No shells had fallen near the spaceport where the point-defence guns would have stopped most or all of them. The insurgents had deliberately attacked the town. Medics were heading there to help out.

He waited a moment longer, then helped the girl to her feet, and Joffer consoled her as she cried on his shoulder. Logan pulled twenty francs from his pocket for the food, and tossed them on the counter. After this attack, he wasn’t going to be getting time off again any day soon.

Then he stepped out into the street. The mortar explosions had blown the table onto its side. The remains of the chocolate were splattered across the wall of the cafe. A dog was eagerly digging into the remains of his baguette. Blood dripped down the dog’s side from a twisted piece of shrapnel that protruded from its fur by its back legs.

Heinrichs stepped out of the cafe beside him. “I’ll see if I can help out.”

Logan surveyed the damage in the main street as he and Gallo walked back to look for Bairamov and Desoto. Chunks of shrapnel from the mortar shells protruded from the dirt piles covering of the buildings all around him. Medics worked over the wounded townspeople in the street, and carried the worst toward Pierre’s Place, laying the wounded on the tables inside, where blood dripped from the tabletops onto the dirt floor.

Bairamov strolled out into the street from the whorehouse, adjusting his fatigue jacket, and tightening his body armour and helmet straps.

“Glad to see you’re OK, sir.”

“Hiding under the bed behind a metre of dirt is a pretty safe place to be in a mortar attack. And I barely even had to break my stroke.”

“Wouldn’t have done much good for you if there’d been a direct hit on the whorehouse.”

“But at least I’d have died happy. And the girl was glad to have a big, strong man to protect her.” Bairamov smirked. “I reckon I might get a discount next time.”

“What about Desoto?”

“Last I saw, he was chasing his girl around the place, trying to calm her down after she ran away screaming during all the explosions. I’m sure he’ll join us once he’s done.”

Half a dozen suits strode along the street behind them, from the direction of the spaceport. Volkov and Lieutenant Merle were easy to identify from the way they seemed to command the ground around them as they moved. The others kept their distance ahead of and behind the officers, holding their rifles ready, and scanning the area around them. Mortars would just be an annoyance to anyone wearing a suit, unless there was a direct hit. But who knew whether the insurgents might have something more planned? Logan began to feel naked standing out there in the street, but he’d be no safer standing beside an IED hidden in the dirt walls of the nearby buildings.

“How bad was the attack?” Merle’s voice said from Logan’s helmet speakers.

“Three dead so far, sir,” one of the medics replied. “At least a dozen wounded.”

Volkov’s familiar voice joined the chatter on the company net. “Would have been much worse without the point-defence guns, sir. They hit most of the mortar bombs.”

“The ones that got through still caused a lot of damage.”

“They’re all we’ve got, sir. We’re spread thin on this planet. We have to pick and choose were to put them.”

“No-one expected the insurgents to attack their own people just to get at us. What kind of psychos would do that?”

Governor Porcher strolled along the street toward them, with Poulin at his side. Chaput followed close behind them. Porcher’s suit looked as though it had just been cleaned.

Chaput’s was dishevelled and smeared with dirt, as though he’d been crawling on the floor. His face was smeared with dirt and sweat that glittered in the fading sunlight.

Poulin’s sleek but crumpled black dress looked nothing like her military clothing. Nor did her pointed, high-heeled shoes, which would have been more at home on a dance floor than the dirt streets of Estérel.

She obviously must move in very different circles to the rest of the Legion.

Bairamov strode toward the officers as they stopped outside Pierre’s Place. Logan and Gallo followed. The politicos joined the crowd.

“What’s that?” Poulin said as she stopped beside them, pointing toward the east.

Logan turned, and followed her gaze.

Dazzling streaks of light raced across the sky, descending from high above the clouds at a steep angle to the surface. The ground vibrated beneath their feet a few seconds after the streaks touched down, and a thick brown cloud rose above the horizon from where they’d hit. More glowing streaks followed the first, until dozens were coming down every second.

“It must be the Marine LePen,” he said.

Logan had seen orbital bombardments before, when the Navy demonstrated them back in training. The Marine LePen wasn’t a battleship, but it still carried cannon capable of causing total devastation on the ground.

They didn’t even need to fire explosive rounds. The metre-long metal rods fired magnetically from the cannon hammered into the ground at near-orbital velocity, and the impact alone caused far more damage than any non-nuclear explosives they could have packed into them.

As he watched, the impacts were tearing up the ground to the north-east of the town, throwing columns of dirt and debris a hundred metres into the air. Branches and even small trees tumbled in the middle of the dirt cloud, before falling back to earth. The angle of the flaming rounds changed as the ship passed over the target from horizon to horizon, and it would soon be out of range again. But little would be left in the target zone by then.

The ground began to shake, gently at first, but growing stronger as the shockwaves reached them through the dirt.

He sure wouldn’t want be be hiding out there right now, with flaming death from the sky coming his way, and nowhere to hide unless it was a dozen metres under the ground.

’Sanitizing’, the Navy bods had called it. They claimed there wouldn’t even be any bacteria left in the area after they were done with it.

That seemed hard to believe, but there sure wouldn’t be many insurgents walking around out there now, even if they were wearing combat suits. The rods would tear through a suit like it wasn’t even there, and turn the man inside into a spray of red mush.

As the Navy liaison said back in training, it’s a bad idea to bring a rifle to a starship fight.

“Mademoiselle,” Volkov said from his suit speakers. “You might not want to be standing out in the open like this. If they attack again…”

“I’m not going to be intimidated by these people.”

Volkov sighed. “As you will.”

“I was discussing the source of the insurgents’ fake IDs with the Governors when they attacked us.”

“Have you figured out who created them?”

“The account that created them is supposedly registered to a department official. But that ID is just as fake as the insurgents.”

“As I told you, mademoiselle,” Chaput said, “I will question every member of my staff tomorrow. I will find out who has been working with these people, and…”

“I have also been examining all the data we could extract from the insurgent tablet so far. Looking for names and places the insurgents mentioned. Anywhere or anyone who seemed important to them.”

“And what did you discover?”

“When I checked the all place names in the colony records, I discovered that every ore truck heading to the Saint Jean mine in the last three months has been attacked, and either turned back or been destroyed.”

Chaput waved his hand through the air. “Saint Jean is merely an inconvenience, mademoiselle. The mine is far from here, and of no great importance to the department. Keeping the route open to the mine is impractical with the number of men at our disposal.”

“If the colonists here believe it is impractical, our success in reopening the route will invigorate support for the Legion.”

“The mine has been shuttered for weeks, and the miners laid off. It will reopen when our current troubles are over.”

“We can’t let the insurgents think they’ve beaten us.”

Merle interrupted.

“We’re spread too thin already, mademoiselle. We have many other mines and villages to protect. And we can’t spare men while the insurgents attack us in our own backyard.”

“Do you remember the vids Governor Porcher showed us when we first arrived? Saint Jean is the mine that the truck was returning from when it was attacked. We need to clear that route, and prove we are in charge here. Not the insurgents.”

“Mademoiselle Poulin,” Porcher said. “There are much more important things for your men to be doing right now. Things that will have a much greater impact on the insurgents.”

“No. I insist. This will be done.”

“We could send a transport to fly the ore out,” Volkov said. “That would be faster and safer.”

“The insurgents have SAMs now,” Chaput said. “We have spare trucks, but we can’t afford to lose any transports.”

“Besides,” Poulin said, “that would show the insurgents we’re scared of them. We must send a truck.”

“You should just stop worrying about such an unimportant mine. There is nothing there we can’t get a dozen other places.”

“The insurgents clearly don’t think it’s unimportant, or they wouldn’t be trying so hard to prevent us from reaching it.”

She had a point, for once. Either there were some very eager insurgents in that area just looking for a fight, or there was something about the mine that made it important to them.

Either way, someone was going to have to fight their way up that road sooner or later. Poor bastards.

Volkov’s eyes steamed behind his visor for a few seconds, before he spoke over the platoon net. “Bairamov, I’ve got a little job for you.”

CHAPTER 18

Logan’s breath came in short gasps as he trotted along the dirt road ahead of Bairamov. They’d been jogging for an hour, and their suits must have covered the best part of thirty kilometres already. A year ago, he’d never have imagined he could push his body for so long, but, so far, this patrol was no worse than their regular practise runs had been in training on LeBrun’s World. Their suits could have run even faster, but the ore truck wouldn’t be able to keep up with them if they had.

He looked to the left, through the gaps between the trees in the thick woods to the side of the road, then looked up and past them to the low hills beyond. Still no sign of anything that might be a threat. Just leaves, bushes and dirt.

Little noise, either, except the metallic clanking of the tracks on the ore truck as they crunched through the dirt behind him, giving it enough grip to haul a train of four ore carts toward the mine.

Desoto jogged on the far side of the truck as point man, twenty metres ahead of Logan. Gallo brought up the rear with Bairamov, and a mule for their supplies.

Two Compagnie men sat in the truck cab with the driver, wrapped in body armour and carrying rifles. But the Legion were the first line of defence. And anything that got past them would surely be too tough for the Compagnie to handle.

Still, two more rifles were worth having.

After the Marine LePen had sanitized the area from where the mortar attack was launched on the town, Merle and Volkov had returned to the spaceport to prepare to scout the area for intel, with most of what remained of 3rd Platoon. Bravo team, on the other hand, had been consigned to guarding an ore truck, like so many of the other Legionnaires in the company.

“You understand,” Volkov had explained as Logan prepared to follow the truck out of the town, “it’s not that going to this mine is an important job, no matter what Poulin might say. It’s just that I don’t want you around me, and the Lieutenant won’t let me shoot you.”

So, there they were, escorting the truck the best part of a hundred kilometres to the Saint Jean Mine, where it would be loaded up with ore before they escorted it back again.

Then repeat, until Volkov found something more useful for them to do.

At least he’d given them a drone, which hovered a kilometre above the patrol.

The truck made so much noise as it crawled along the dirt road that there was little point trying to keep the drone high enough that it would be hard to spot from the ground. Anyone who could see or hear it in the sky would already have spotted the truck. Any kind of surprise on this patrol was going to come from the insurgents, and monitoring them was far more important than trying to be stealthy.

And it didn’t help that Poulin had been so eager to discuss the mine out in the damn street, where there could have been a dozen insurgents in the shadows, monitoring the results of their attack. Knowing that she considered the place so important could only make the truck seem a more urgent target.

But, so far, the drone hadn’t seen anything unusual. Just the truck, the Legionnaires, and the trees beside the road. There’d only been one single attack on any of the ore trucks since the Legion began escorting them, and that had been averted when the Legionnaires spotted the IED the insurgents had planted in the road, and destroyed it before the truck passed by.

The insurgents didn’t seem likely to attack men in suits with near-obsolete Islamic State rifles.

But, as Poulin said, no-one had tried to run a truck along this road for weeks.

Maybe the insurgents would have forgotten about this route, when no-one had tried to drive through it for so long. But, if the miners were preparing to fill the truck with a load of ore when it arrived, the insurgents have plenty of advance warning before the patrol reached the mine.

“Are we there yet, sir?” Desoto said, as his gasping voice boomed from the suit speakers.

“Still a couple of hours,” Bairamov said. “So keep your eyes open and your weapons ready. We’re not just facing another dumb kid with a rifle. They know the land, and they’ve had plenty of practice.”

“Don’t know if I can make a couple of hours, sir,” Gallo said. “My legs ache.”

“Man up, ladies. We’re not stopping for a break.”

“I should still be in hospital.”

“Then you shouldn’t have let Volkov see you sneaking out. I told you to stay out of his way.”

That had been a bad move.

“If you’re fit enough for a night on the town, you’re fit enough to fight,” Volkov had said.

And now Gallo was back in his suit as part of the fireteam. Which would be appreciated if they did run into trouble. Four suits had to be better than three.

As Logan reached the next bend in the road and followed it around toward the right, he spotted a dark shape at the treeline about five hundred metres ahead. The suit’s HUD flagged it in orange as the site of a previous ambush.

The truck the insurgents had hit in that attack was still lying there at the side of the road; blackened, burned, and abandoned. Left behind when the Compagnie recovered the survivors, and the bodies of the dead.

Logan turned his head and looked out to the north-west, scanning his assigned sector around the truck.

The leaves and branches of the trees in the woods moved in the wind, but nothing else seemed to. They would give some kind of cover to any insurgents who might want to attack them, but the trunks were narrow and widely separated, with most of the branches and leaves beginning five metres or more above the ground. Not a good place to hide a group of men, even if they had dug more tunnels to allow them to move around the area unseen.

A mine or IED was more likely than a firefight, but the suit’s sensors hadn’t detected anything like that so far. Nor were the insurgents likely to try to attack them again near the site of a previous ambush. Anyone passing by would be at their most alert near the ambush site.

Logan gripped his rifle tighter at the thought, and scanned the area, looking for any sign that the wreck might have been interfered with recently.

As he moved closer, he could see the shape of the burned-out truck. It lay on its side, and two trailers were twisted and bent behind it, with their sides ripped into sculptures of jagged, soot-blackened metal.

He’d seen that kind of damage in training. The trailers had been hit by an RPG, or worse. Which wouldn’t be a nice thing to be hit by in a suit.

“Alice, see anything?”

“No threats. No contacts.”

The drone still showed nothing alive in the woods beside the road. Logan tried to swallow as he stared into the shadows around the leaves beside the truck, but his throat was too dry. He lowered his mouth to sip from the straw near the base of the helmet. Orange juice flowed into his mouth, and he savoured the sweet taste as it wet his tongue, and slid down his throat. It made the suit smell better for a few seconds, too, after he’d been sweating in it for an hour. They say people don’t notice their own smell, but the people who say that had obviously never jogged tens of kilometres in a suit without a break.

“Ambush site ahead,” Bairamov said. “Stay focused.”

If Logan was the insurgent leader, what would he do?

He wouldn’t try to attack them at the old ambush site. That would be stupid. But, just after the truck passed it, the men would relax, and feel good about having survived beyond the point where other men had died.

They’d be talking to each other about how great that was. Distracted from their surroundings.

And that would be an excellent place for an ambush.

He stared past the wreck as he jogged on, peering into the shadows below the trees. Something moved in the dim light. Long and curved, like a big leaf, not a human. And nothing showed up there on infrared.

Then he was alongside the wreck, passing the blackened underside of the truck, and the mangled tracks. He stepped away into the middle of the road, leaving more room in case they’d decided to hide an IED inside the wreckage, but there was no sign of the dirt being disturbed in the recent past.

Nothing would have walked along the road since the attack other than humans or their horses, but there were no prints of any kind in the dirt, except the gouges left by the tracks and wheels of another truck passing by. Even any boot prints from the day of the attack must have been washed away by the rains over the last few weeks.

The HUD showed no threat reports from the suit’s sensors. He glanced back at their truck as it rolled past the wreck.

The driver and Compagnie men stared out from behind the transparent plasteel windows, most of which were now covered by thick metal plates drilled with holes to allow them to see and shoot out. The driver’s eyes were well hidden behind his dark sunglasses, but he must be wondering whether he would suffer the same fate as the burned-out truck he had just passed. How much had they paid him to take the job?

“Halt,” Desoto yelled. The claws of his suit’s feet scrabbled in the dirt as he slowed, then stopped. Logan stopped on the far side of the road, a few metres back. He crouched down near the treeline, and swung his rifle as he stared into the woods, his eyes searching for approaching insurgents.

Nothing visible, and nothing on infrared, either.

The truck’s tracks clunked and the motor hissed as it stopped a hundred metres behind them.

Desoto took a slow step forward.

“Desoto, report,” Bairamov said.

“I’ve got something under the road, sir. Metallic, about a metre across, hard to tell any more than that.”

Logan glanced that way for a second. A red oval on his HUD showed the object Desoto’s suit had detected. His own suit’s sensors showed nothing that way, but he was more than ten metres from the object, and the ground-penetrating radar wouldn’t normally read that far.

“Desoto, back away,” Bairamov said. “McCoy, hit it with the grenade launcher. I don’t like sitting around out here with a stationary truck.”

Logan backed away and unslung the launcher as Desoto took slow steps back toward the truck. Logan selected HEDP grenades, aimed at the spot Desoto had flagged, and fired one.

Then flinched as the ground erupted into a ten-metre-tall cloud of dirt and debris.

The cloud spread above the road as it fell back toward the ground, and dirt, stones and chunks of shrapnel tapped on the skin of Logan’s suit. Then it was gone, leaving just a five-metre wide crater in the road where the IED had been.

The truck was built to protect the crew against radiation, and the hull might, perhaps, be tough enough for the men inside to survive an explosion like that. But it wouldn’t have been going anywhere in a hurry afterwards. If ever.

“Good find, Desoto,” Bairamov said. “Move on, and keep your eyes open. Truck, move up slow. Let’s get out of here.”

Logan switched back to his rifle, and swung it toward the woods as Desoto jogged onward. Then he followed, keeping a safe distance between them, and staying far over on his side of the road. The truck’s tracks clunked behind them as it began to move again.

CHAPTER 19

Another hour, with another IED buried in the road, and yet another hidden at the treeline. Both spotted early by Logan and Desoto’s suits, and detonated before they could damage the truck or Legionnaires. If the Compagnie had been equipped with suits with as many sensors as the Legion’s, they’d have had no problem getting the trucks along this road so far.

Logan jogged on along the dirt road, as he had for what seemed like eternity. The road they were following was slowly rising toward the grey, snow-capped mountains at the end of the valley.

The land on the right of the road had dropped away until it was now just a narrow strip of bushes and trees that ended at a dark cliff falling thirty metres or more to the river at the bottom of the valley. The woods on the left had thinned out over the last hour and a half as they climbed out of the valley, as the road rose away from the river, and the water that kept the plants alive. The trees were now thinner and shorter, with fewer leaves. That meant less cover for insurgent attacks, but the rocky hillside above them partially made up for it.

“They’re just fucking with us,” Desoto said. “If no-one’s been up this road for months, they probably buried a few IEDs before they found somewhere else to go and take potshots at the Compagnie.”

“You can complain to Poulin when we get back,” Bairamov said. “But, if you don’t keep your eyes open, you’re not going to get back. And Volkov will give me shit if I lose another man. So stay focused. We’re almost there.”

The map on Logan’s HUD showed the twisting road ahead rising into the hills until it reached the mine. At the rate they were moving, it was still half an hour away.

Probably more, if the truck continued to slow every time the gradient of the road increased as it climbed toward the mountains. They were lucky the trailers were empty going in this direction, because it surely wouldn’t be climbing the hill fast with tons of ore piled in them. But, only a kilometre or two ahead, was the village of Saint Jean.

On the map, it looked to be balanced precariously on the side of the cliff. Logan could barely see it up the hill, not so much by the dirt-covered buildings as the glittering waterfall where the stream that ran through the village tumbled over the edge of the cliff and broke into a spray of water droplets as it fell toward the river.

The suit’s external mikes could just make out the crash of the water smashing into the rocks at the edge of the cliff, the hissing as it poured down through the air, and the splashes as it joined the river down below them.

The village grew clearer as they jogged closer.

The buildings were almost the same colour as the dirt around them, but the blue sunlight reflected from the windows in the side walls. But no-one was moving in the streets, and no smoke rose from the chimneys in the curved roofs.

The fields beyond them, which must have been rough at the best of times in this poor soil, were little but a mass of knee-high grass and scraggly Earth trees whose branches had twisted into shapes he’d never seen back home. They curved and wrapped around each other as though the radiation had turned them into cannibal monsters devouring each others’ flesh.

An antenna rose a few metres above the roof of one of the buildings. Probably the village comms centre. But Alice wasn’t picking up any signal from it. At least, none she could decipher.

“Sir,” he said, “the village looks deserted. Like no-one’s been there for some time. Months, maybe.”

“Halt,” Bairamov said.

The truck wobbled on its shock absorbers as it came to a halt with the trailers twisting slightly in the dirt behind it. The Compagnie men stared out warily, with their rifles ready.

Desoto jogged to a rock at the side of the road, and crouched behind it. Logan dropped prone in the dirt, then studied the village through his rifle sight.

From the road, he could see little of the village. The road ahead followed the curve of the cliff around to the left, with only a metre or two of grass and bushes on the right. One screwup by the driver, and the truck would be tumbling down into the valley.

The rounded sides of the dirt-covered buildings were lined up in a single row along the side of the road furthest from the cliff. Beyond them, a wooden bridge constructed from thick tree trunks was laid across the river. It barely looked strong enough to hold the truck, but it must have supported plenty of ore trailers over the years.

“No-one’s answering from the village or mine,” Bairamov said. “Comms have been getting worse the further we go into the mountains. Even the relay in the drone can’t reach anyone any more.”

The longer Logan studied the village, the more the sight made his skin crawl.

No-one had been here in quite some time. The insurgents could have had their run of the area, if they wanted to. This could be another Petit Tolouse, for all they knew.

At least he couldn’t see any heads on spikes.

So far.

“It’s a trap, sir. It’s got to be.”

“There’s no way for the truck to drive around the village on the cliff side. We either roll straight through, or head up the hill to put enough distance between us and the village to be safe.”

“Do you think the truck can do that?” Gallo said.

“I’d rather it got stuck than roll over an IED.”

Logan tilted one of the drone’s cameras for a moment, using it to follow the stream up the hillside. The water twisted and turned between the rocks on the hill as it tumbled down from the mountains. The stream was at least a couple of metres across, and dropped through a series of rapids on the way.

“I don’t see any way over that stream, aside from the bridge. Can the truck ford it?”

Bairamov was silent for a moment. “Driver says the truck could, but not the trailers.”

“So, who wants to bet there’s an IED under the bridge?” Desoto said. “We can’t blow that one up. And they know that.”

Bairamov didn’t respond for a while.

“We’ve got a job to do. Every minute the truck is stationary out here is another minute it makes a great target. The Legion is gonna get up this damn road, or die trying. Otherwise, Poulin will be pissed.”

The faint buzzing of the drone faded as the motor slowed and it descended, then the buzzing grew louder again as it moved ahead of them, scouting out the village. Logan scanned the hillside for insurgents, then brought up the drone’s cameras on his HUD.

The village looked as empty from the drone’s point of view as it did from his. More so, in fact. The door of the building with the antenna was swinging gently from side to side in the wind as though no-one could be bothered to close it.

“Desoto, McCoy, move up,” Bairamov said.

Desoto glanced at Logan, then pushed away from the rock, and jogged up the road toward the village. He dropped prone in the dirt a few seconds later.

Logan pushed himself to his feet and followed, then dove to the ground again, raising a thin cloud of dust around him as the front of his suit slammed into the dirt.

Desoto moved on, crossing another ten metres at a run as Logan covered him, until he went prone right at the edge of the village. Logan stared into the village and fields again for any sign of movement.

Aside from the swinging door, there was nothing.

He pushed himself to his feet, and jogged toward the village, going prone again just before the first building. He sure wasn’t going to get close enough to the walls to get blown up. The drone moved ahead of him, only about a hundred metres up.

A red square appeared on his HUD, around the bridge. “There is something under the bridge,” Bairamov said. “Can’t see much detail from the drone, but it doesn’t look good.”

Desoto moved up until he’d passed the building at the edge of the village. Logan glanced at the drone footage on his HUD. There was something boxy in the shadows beneath the bridge.

Wrapped in cables, or ropes… or wires.

The bridge itself was a mass of logs tied together with ropes. What they were seeing there could be just more logs tied to the bridge to support the weight of the trucks passing over it.

Or it could be a bomb.

Desoto stared along the street through his rifle sight. “What do we do now, sir?”

“McCoy, take a look. Desoto, cover him.”

Sweat was running down Logan’s forehead as the rushing blood in his veins warmed his body faster than the suit could cool it.

He took a deep breath, then another. Then pushed himself to his feet. He jogged into the village, passing Desoto before he went prone on the road between the first two houses.

He glanced toward the dirt pile on the roof. It didn’t look like anyone had dug into it recently to plant a bomb. But who could really tell?

“Alice, scan this place.”

“No contacts. No threats.”

“Alice, scan it again.”

“No contacts. No threats.”

If Alice’s numerous sensors couldn’t see anyone, what chance did his eyes have? He jumped to his feet and ran along the alley between the houses to the weed-strewn back yards, which were barely distinguishable from the tall grass of the overgrown fields beyond. Bones lay in the dirt of the yards; chickens, he’d guess, from the size.

And it was hard to mistake the pig’s skull at the end of a long, mangled spine with thick ribs. The planks around the pig pen were cracked and bent as though the animal had smashed them apart with its own weight.

Then died soon after.

If the people had decided to move out of the village, would they really have left their animals behind? If the insurgents had cleared the village out, why didn’t they take them? They could at least have cooked the pigs and chickens and had a good meal.

Whatever had happened here, it made no sense so far.

Logan climbed to his feet, jumped over the log fence around the yard, then sprinted across the gap between this house and the next. He jumped over the next fence, and dove into the dirt behind the next house. Still nothing on the suit sensors.

He took half a dozen deep breaths, then jumped over the next fence, and jogged through the yards until he reached the bank of the stream. He slammed down on his chest again a few metres from the back wall of the house, safely away from any IED that might be there, or under the bridge.

“What do you see, McCoy?” Bairamov said.

There were another half-dozen buildings on the far side of the river. Logan swung his rifle along the row, but the sight view showed nothing except dirt piles, wooden frames, and wooden fences. And a kid’s tricycle lying on its side on the far side of the bridge.

He peered below the bridge. Boxes were tied to the logs with ropes, for sure. And thin, brown wires connected them, and ran up into the logs. It looked a lot like a bomb.

“Alice, scan the bridge.”

The boxes glowed orange on the suit’s HUD. He was too far away for the suit’s sensors to give a definitive answer, but they were showing a 30% chance of being explosives.

“We were right, sir. Looks like a bomb, and looks like it’s set to detonate if anything rolls over the bridge.”

“Think you can defuse it?”

He’d taken demolition training, but that was mostly about blowing things up, not defusing them.

There were specialists for that, and they had drones to do the hard parts of the job, the ones that would get you killed. Pulling out detonators was easy enough… until you pulled out the one they’d booby-trapped to set the bomb off if removed.

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“Then you’d better find another way across the river. And do it before the insurgents find us.”

CHAPTER 20

Logan jogged from rock to rock as he followed the stream up into the hillside behind the village. He’d covered about three hundred metres so far, and that was about as far as he wanted to go on his own, even with the drone following for support.

The stream was still too wide and deep to ford. Below the bridge, at the top of the cliff, the water was about five metres wide. Here, it was still at least four.

He crouched beside the stream behind the cover of a two-metre tall rock, then leaned forward far enough to lower his suit’s arm into the water.

The hand went in past his elbow, and his metal fingers still hadn’t found the bottom. That made it easily a metre deep. Much too deep for the truck’s trailers to roll though.

With the suits, they could easily knock down some trees to build a bridge solid enough for it to cross, but, even with the nuclear-powered strength of the suits to help them, placing the logs and locking them down would take hours.

“You hurrying, McCoy?” Bairamov said. “Because my ass is out in the wind down here, and the bastards could come to take a look at any moment.”

“Only chance I see, sir, would be to push some rocks into the stream so the truck could roll across. But dragging them here would take an hour. Maybe more.”

“Alright. Fall back to Desoto. I’ll try to raise the Lieutenant and see what we do from here.”

“This is the kind of thing they should have thought about before they sent us here,” Desoto said. “They should have known to send a portable bridge with us.”

“Tell that to Poulin next time you see her.”

“Maybe you can ask her to come and defuse the bomb, sir.”

Bairamov didn’t answer, but the drone’s motors buzzed louder, and it rose into the sky.

Logan stood, and jogged back toward the village. The less time he was out on his own with no backup, the better.

He pulled up the drone’s camera views on his HUD. It was creeping back toward the village as it climbed, and the area the cameras could see grew larger with every second as it rose higher. All he could see was an expanse of dirt, rocks and tall grass, with the occasional tree.

And something else. Something bright flashed further up the hillside, and a glowing dot raced across the image.

Logan turned just in time to see a bright light trailing a thin stream of smoke rising into the sky from the rocks higher up the hill. Heading toward the dark dot of the drone.

“SAM,” he yelled.

He sprinted for the nearest rock, and dove behind it. He glanced back at the drone’s camera image on the HUD just in time to see it catch the nose of the missile as it approached the drone. Then the signal dropped out. A split second later, the boom of the exploding warhead reached Logan, as the drone disintegrated into a cloud of debris that glittered in the sunlight as it fell toward the village.

“Contact,” Desoto yelled as rifles cracked.

Logan leaned around the rock. Chips flew from it, thrown up by rifle fire from a rifleman lying prone in the grass a couple of hundred metres away. Logan pulled back fast, and looked up the hillside. A man was running downhill, heading toward the rocks beside the river. Logan swung his rifle that way, and fired a burst. The insurgent’s rifle tumbled through the air as blood spurted from his body, and he fell to the ground.

Red squares appeared rapidly on his HUD as the others marked targets. At least a dozen men were moving over the hillside, and heading down it toward the truck, with their weapons held ready.

Rifles cracked from below Logan on the hillside as the other Legionnaires began to fire. Some of the red squares stopped moving, around insurgents smart enough to take cover now they were taking fire themselves.

Logan grabbed the grenade launcher from his back, selected HE grenades, and raised the muzzle high for indirect fire over the rock. The impact point showed as a circle on his HUD. The insurgents were smart enough not to group up enough for him to hit more than one with a grenade.

He aimed at the nearest square, then twisted the launcher a few degrees ahead of them to allow for their movement, and fired a burst. The launcher boomed, and the grenades arced across the sky.

He picked the next-closest target, and sent another burst heading their way.

Then the booms of the first explosions reached him. Logan pointed his rifle around the side of the rock just as the second grenade burst hit, and looked through the rifle sight on his HUD. Dirt spewed into the air from the explosions, and one of the insurgents tumbled to the ground with his face and chest smeared with blood.

“Insurgent down,” Logan said, and tagged the man as dead. If he wasn’t, he didn’t look like he was going to rejoin the fight any time soon.

Rifle rounds slammed into the rock near Logan’s hand.

He pulled his rifle back, and fired a third burst of grenades over the rock. With the drone gone, the launcher was the closest thing to artillery support they had, and he might as well use it.

The insurgents on his HUD moved as soon as they heard the grenades launch. More rifle rounds cracked from the far side of the village, and another of the insurgents went red.

“Insurgent down,” Gallo said.

But the rest of them had got out of the impact zone before Logan’s grenades landed. Indirect fire over the rocks just gave them too much warning. At best, he was merely annoying them now, or forcing them out of cover where the others could shoot at them.

He slung the launcher and held his rifle tight as he looked behind him. He wasn’t far from the village. Maybe a hundred metres remaining before he’d be in cover behind the closest house in the row along the street.

But there was no cover between here and there.

Unless…

He glanced behind him as something hissed. A dark trail of smoke raced through the air, flying down the hill toward the truck, accelerating as it moved.

The mule ran forward, past Bairamov and the truck, before it exploded in a cloud of smoke and flames. The burning legs of the mule collapsed to the ground in front of the truck.

“RPG,” Bairamov yelled.

Logan swung out around the side of the rock, aimed his rifle toward the man holding the RPG, and fired a burst. The man dropped the RPG and dove to the ground as dirt erupted all around him where the rifle rounds impacted. Logan ducked back as two insurgents returned fire at him.

The rest of the team fired toward the man with the RPG. Logan waited a second, then he crouched, and ran toward the stream, just a few metres away. Then jumped off the bank, down into the water.

Rifle rounds cracked above his head, but his legs sank more than a metre into the water, and the riverbank covered his body and head as he crouched and crept along it toward the village. In a few seconds, he was clambering out onto the bank of the stream where it passed the row of houses.

Then he crouched at the corner of the closest house, and peered around it.

Just don’t let there be a hidden IED…

“Taking a lot of fire here,” Gallo said.

Logan leaned further around the corner of the house.

He couldn’t see the insurgents through the tall grass in the fields, but he could see where they were marked on his HUD. He aimed the grenade launcher toward the nearest red square, and fired a burst. Then moved on to the next, and fired again. He could at least keep their heads down to take some of the heat off Gallo.

Logan fired off the last of the grenades, and slung the launcher. He’d had plenty more ammo in the mule, but that was history now. Bairamov must have used the robot to block the RPG before it could hit the truck.

“Moving,” Gallo yelled.

Gallo’s square moved on Logan’s HUD.

Logan fired his rifle at a random selection of insurgents as Gallo moved toward the truck.

Then another RPG round roared over the hillside.

“Fuck,” Gallo said,

The back of his suit exploded in a shower of blood, flames, and debris as the RPG round slammed into his chest. The suit stood upright for what seemed like minutes, with a huge, ragged hole ripped through it. Logan could see the dirt and grass of the hillside between the bloody remains of Gallo’s arms and abdomen.

Then it tipped forward, the knees bent, and slowly tumbled to the ground.

“Man down,” Logan yelled. ‘They got Gallo.”

Logan fired his rifle at the nearest insurgent. But, now Gallo was no longer firing, the insurgents were aiming at him.

He ducked back behind the house as rounds ploughed through the dirt around him. Eight or nine insurgents were still firing out there, and there were only three Legionnaires and two Compagnie men, with no heavy weapons, no drones, and no backup.

Logan could still see the truck beyond the buildings where the road curved around along the clifftop. Another RPG round flew across the hillside, trailing smoke toward the truck.

Dirt exploded from the road as the RPG round impacted just behind it. The rear trailer wobbled as the blast hit it.

“Truck, move on,” Bairamov said. “You’re a sitting target out here.”

As the truck’s tracks began to move, Bairamov ran towards it. Insurgent rounds threw up dirt around him, and sparks flashed from the back of Bairamov’s suit as one impacted there. Then he was on the far side of the truck.

Bairamov jogged along beside the truck. His rifle cracked as he leaned between two of the trailers, and fired a long burst in the direction of the RPG.

Dirt and stones flew from the ground nearby, and the man backed behind a rock. The Compagnie men in the truck fired wildly from the windows, spraying bullets that hammered into the ground around the remaining insurgents.

Logan crouched, and lined up his rifle sights on the man holding the RPG as he loaded another rocket. Logan swung the rifle slightly, placing the crosshairs on the front of the rocket, instead of the man.

Then fired.

The rifle kicked against his shoulder. The grenade exploded in the man’s hand as the round hit it.

His arm and the remains of his head tumbled through the air above the rock, and the rest of his body splattered across the dirt and rock in a red, gooey mass.

“RPG’s down,” he said.

At least that might be some small consolation for Gallo.

“Desoto,” Bairamov said, “form up on me when we pass. McCoy, you’d better do something about that damn bomb, and do it fast. The truck isn’t stopping.”

What the hell was he supposed to do? He ducked behind the building and glanced toward the bridge. He had less than a minute before the truck reached it. Rifle rounds cracked around him, throwing dirt clouds into the air as they hit the wall of the house. And he had to do it under fire, too.

He jumped back into the stream, and waded through it to the bridge. The bomb was held onto the logs by ropes wrapped around it in four places. Dark and weathered, they looked little different to the ropes holding the rest of the logs together.

He could hear the tracks of the truck approaching now. Desoto jogged in front of it, and fired his rifle madly between the buildings. Not much chance of him hitting anything, but it should keep the insurgents’ heads down. The truck would be on the bridge in a few seconds.

Logan stared at the bomb. And the ropes. And the wires.

But he didn’t need to defuse it, did he? He just needed to get it far enough away that the bridge wouldn’t be damaged if it did go off.

And there was only one way to do that.

He slashed through the ropes with the blades on his suit’s hand. The IED tilted as the ropes gave way, but didn’t fall free.

The truck was only metres away. He jumped over the bridge, and slashed through the ropes on that side.

The boxes splashed down into the water.

He backed away, then jumped out of the river as the flow of the stream heading for the waterfall caught the boxes, and they began to slide downstream. The wires between the boxes and the bridge unwound and stretched.

The wires going to whatever was supposed to set it off.

Then the ground shook as the IED exploded, throwing a towering column of foamy water into the air.

Logan’s foot slipped on the muddy banks of the stream as the blast hit his suit. He slid backwards as his feet tried to grip. He bent his knees and tried to crouch as the suit overbalanced and toppled, but only found empty air beneath him.

The suit tumbled as it fell backwards, over the edge of the cliff. His rifle flew from his hands as he reached out, trying to grab anything that might support him.

But his hands only found more empty air.

His arms and legs thudded against the rocks as he fell over the cliff, and red lights glowed on his HUD, warning him of damage to the suit. He turned his head, trying to see anything he could grab onto, but could only see the dark rocks and bright sky above him.

The suit twisted around as it fell, until he was facing to the side, along the valley.

The metal feet of the suit slammed against the rock of the cliff, and it turned further, until he was looking straight down. A thick rock outcropping protruded from the cliff below him, and he tried to grab it. His hand clamped down on the end of the outcropping, but the rock cracked as it took some of the suit’s weight. It broke apart with a loud snap, and the suit fell past, barely slowed.

Logan grunted as the back of the suit hit the cliff again, and the suit frame smacked against his own back. More red lights glowed on the HUD, and the suit flew away from the cliff, now barely ten metres above the river, and tumbling toward it.

CHAPTER 21

“Bairamov? Desoto? Anyone hear me?” Logan said. But no-one answered. Nor was there any indication of their status on his HUD. His suit’s reactor was still running, but the suit status display was little more than a sea of red, indicating all the failing or failed systems after the fall. His suit was going to need a lot more than just a service after this.

He hung in the straps that held him to the suit frame. They strained against his shoulders, hips and groin as they supported his weight with the suit lying face-down in the water.

The arms of the suit were bent beneath his chest, trapped between the front of the suit and the bottom of the river. He pushed with his hands, trying to lift the suit from the riverbed.

The motors whirred faintly, but the arms wouldn’t move, no matter how hard he pushed on the hand grips in the suit. He tried to bend his knees, but the legs only twisted slightly, then came to a stop with the ozone smell of arcing, and the acrid stench of burning wiring.

His suit wasn’t going anywhere any time soon under its own power. That was for sure.

The visor was still intact, despite some scratches and chips on the surface, and the suit could keep him alive under water for an hour or more with no external air. But he couldn’t just stay there and wait.

For a start, no-one but Bairamov and Desoto had any idea where he was, or was likely to come looking for him.

He’d have to find his own way out.

And then explain to Volkov how he’d lost his suit, his weapons, and the rest of his team.

Which wasn’t going to go down well.

He grabbed the pistol from the survival kit, and holstered it. Then the goggles. He was lucky he’d managed to scrounge a new pair to replace the ones he broke in the battle, while those were being repaired.

The food and water from the kit went into the pouches on his body armour, and there wasn’t very much of it. To get back to the Legion, he had at least eighty kilometres to cover to town, and he’d have to travel by night, then find somewhere safe from radiation to sit out the day. As fit as life in the Legion had made him, it would still be a long trip. At least three days in this thin air. Maybe four.

For now, he should be safe enough following the bottom of the valley, as the sun was in the west, and would be behind the cliff for a few hours. Maybe he’d have cover for the whole time until it set.

But once he passed out of the shadow, he’d no longer have millions of tons of rock to protect him from anything the star could put out.

And he still had to get out of the river, first.

He sucked in a dozen quick, deep breaths, filling his lungs and blood with as much oxygen as they could hold. He might need it before he reached the shore.

“Alice, open up.”

“I am underwater. Opening the suit would be hazardous. Please confirm order.”

Certainly hazardous to him, if he couldn’t get out, and drowned as the water poured in. But the suit frame didn’t seem badly damaged. Maybe hazardous to the AI, too.

Hopefully she’d still be intact by the time they recovered her. If not… he’d made a backup before they left.

“Sorry, Alice. Confirm. Open the suit.”

He took another deep breath as motors whined and the back of the suit began to open, then his own back turned to ice as river water poured in. He resisted the urge to gasp as his body shook and shivered at the sudden temperature change as the water ran over it.

Instead, he held the last breath he took, and tried to ignore the cold as water filled the front of the suit. Then the back of the suit opened completely, and the last of the air inside it burst past him in a trail of bubbles. He slammed his hand onto the clip in the centre of his chest that held the straps together, and pulled on them until they came free. Then twisted out of the suit’s exoskeleton frame.

His arms pulled him up and legs kicked as he swam toward the surface, and his face broke free of the water in the shadows of the cliff. He glanced back, looking for a landmark to help him find the suit when they returned to recover it.

But the water splashed around him as the river carried him away, twisting and turning, between rocks protruding from the surface. He paddled with his hands and twisted around, to look downstream. White foam sprayed into the air as the river tumbled through rock-strewn rapids just ahead.

He kicked and paddled through the water, toward the rocks near the shore. He needed every ounce of the oxygen he had sucked in before he left the suit, and pushed all the energy he could find into his limbs as they struggled to haul him away from the rapids.

His heart was thumping hard, and he gasped down a fresh breath every time his mouth rose above the surface. He’d swum in the Channel back home, in the sea off the beach at Hastings, but it had never been as hard as this. Even the one time he made the mistake of swimming out to sea with the receding tide, then trying to fight his way back to the beach against it.

Then, like now, he’d struggled as hard as he could against the water, but salvation barely seemed to come any closer no matter how hard he pulled himself toward the shore. Only luck and swimming well beyond the point of exhaustion had saved him that time.

The rocks passed by on his right as the water carried him on, and his own efforts to swim across the river had barely any effect as the current tried to turn him around in the swirling waters. If anything, he was moving further to the left as he tried to swim to the right.

His head bobbed up and down in the river as it became more turbulent with every metre it travelled toward the rapids. He gulped down a mouthful of cold water as he gasped for breath, and spat it out as he bobbed up again. The roar of the rapids filled his ears, and the spray landed in his hair. If he didn’t smash into the rocks, he was going over them, and on down the river. Probably with a few broken bones.

But the world was fading around him as his lungs ran out of air. The roar of the rapids faded, the water no longer seemed real as his consciousness began to fade, and his eyelids drooped. He had no strength left to swim toward the shore.

The first rock towered above him, rising two or three metres above the water. He sucked in a deep breath, and kicked his legs with all his remaining strength, pushing himself away. His left foot slapped against the side of the rock, then he was past it, slowly turning in the water and heading downstream.

Another rock protruded from the water just ahead. A small one that barely rose above the surface, but was perhaps a metre across where it did. He kicked toward it, and swung his arms through the water with all the energy he could find, pulling himself toward the rock until he was almost on top of it.

His shoulder strained as he reached for the rock, and wrapped his left arm around it. Then he grunted with pain as the arm took his whole weight against the force of the current, and pulled him to a stop. His legs floated out behind him as he swung his right arm round, and wrapped it around the rock alongside the left.

He pulled himself onto the rock, until his chest lay on top of it with only his legs dangling over the side, which took some of the strain away from his arms. He lay there for a few minutes, gasping down the air until his heart slowed and his head began to clear. Then he pulled himself up.

The cliff towered above the river, about ten metres to his left. But there was no easy route in that direction. He’d have to cross three metres of churning water to get to the next rock, and would still have a long way to go. On the far side, though, away from the cliff, a chain of rocks led right across the rapids.

He crouched, then jumped to the first of them, another flat rock about a metre away. The next rock rose higher from the water, and he grabbed it, then pulled himself up and clambered on top. He hopped from rock to rock until he reached the last of them, right at the river’s edge.

He crouched on top of it, and looked down the valley.

Only long grass and a few spindly trees grew down there, in the shadows most of the day. He slid down the far side of the rock, and sat on the dirt beside it, leaning his back against the rough surface.

Water oozed from his fatigues beneath the body armour as the pressure between his back and the rock forced it out. The dirt around his legs slowly became dark mud as water soaked into it from his trousers.

“Bairamov? Desoto? Do you copy?” he said. But there was still no response.

Well, that was a complete clusterfuck. Gallo was gone for sure. With Adamski in hospital and Bairamov and Desoto MIA, Logan knew few of the people still left in 1st Company, and knew few of those as well as he knew Volkov and Poulin. And he’d rather not know either of them.

Particularly after Poulin got Gallo killed for her stupid ore truck plan.

Though the insurgents had seemed remarkably determined to destroy it. Not to mention more competent than those the Legion had run into before. Whatever group was based around here, they knew what they were doing.

Logan’s helmet visor showed the local time. Still six hours to sunset. He could start moving before then, but he’d have to stay in the shadows, and try to cross over the river to the cliff if he could. Which didn’t seem likely, if all the rapids were as fast and turbulent as that one.

His eyelids drooped. Between the thin air, the exertion of the day, and the relief and surprise at still being alive, his aching body just wanted to sleep. For a few days. Better yet, for the rest of his five years in the Legion.

But the food and water wouldn’t last forever, and who knew whether he could safely drink from the river. Every minute he sat there resting was another minute that supply would have to last. The sooner he started walking, the sooner he’d be back with the rest of 1st Company, and they could return in force to clear this place out. Assuming they weren’t already on their way, if Bairamov had managed to call for reinforcements.

Logan pulled his boots from his feet, and tipped them upside down until the water drained out. Then wrung as much water as he could from his socks before he stuffed the boots back on. He grabbed the side of the rock, and pulled himself to his feet. His socks squelched in the boots as he took a step forward. Then another. His feet were going to hate him by the time he got back to base.

But, march or die. That’s the Legionnaire’s life.

He stayed in the shadow of the cliff. But where to? If he followed the valley, it would eventually lead him back to Estérel. Or he could try to make his way to the mine, after all. He’d be able to contact the Legion from there, maybe get a transport to pick him up. If he was lucky, he’d run into Bairamov and Desoto heading back from the mine, and could ride shotgun in the truck. Volkov would be less pissed at him that way.

But, if he was unlucky, he’d run into the insurgents again in Saint Jean, and they’d kill him. Or capture him. Which might well be worse. But at least he knew he could spend the day in the buildings there, if he had to. He couldn’t remember anywhere on the road they’d followed along the valley that would protect him from a solar storm.

He could be dead by this time tomorrow, no matter which route he picked.

“This is Legionnaire Logan McCoy,” he said into the helmet mike. “Can anyone hear me?”

The helmet was still transmitting, but no-one responded. The helmet radio didn’t have much range, and even less when the signal was blocked by the cliff on one side and hills on the other. The Legion would only hear him if they were within a kilometre or so, or had a drone high enough that the signal wouldn’t be blocked by the cliffs.

Odds were, no-one would consider the team missing for at least another day, and then the company may be too busy to come looking any time soon. Particularly if there were any more insurgent mortar attacks on the towns and villages in the department to deal with.

A thin, dark log twisted slowly in the water at the edge of the river ahead of him, caught in a slowly-turning eddy behind a rock.

He stared at it as he approached. For a log, it seemed to be bending a lot as the water swirled around it.

He slowed, and moved closer to the riverbank as he marched. No, that wasn’t a log. Something floated around it, something like long, brown weeds. Or long, brown hair.

As he came within a few metres he could see a pair of legs twisting side to side in the current beneath a waterlogged skirt. And outstretched arms floating beside a huge, bloated body.

And smell it. Rotten and putrid.

He stepped away from the dead girl’s body, coughing and spluttering at the stench. And hurried past. He had no desire to take a closer look. Whoever that was, they’d been dead some time. And, with no animals on the planet, there was nothing to eat their remains except their own bacteria.

But the smell grew no better. More bodies lay wrapped around the rocks near the riverbank, or trapped between them. At least a dozen, and who knew how many more had been carried further downstream.

So this was where the colonists from Saint Jean had ended up. The insurgents had tossed them over the cliff, down into the river, and they’d floated on until they came to a stop among the rocks. What had these people done to deserve that?

His body shook as he strode past them.

Those insurgents hadn’t just killed a fellow Legionnaire. They’d murdered dozens of innocent colonists. Not just the men who might fight them, but the women and kids, too.

That was it. He wasn’t going to spend days sneaking back to Estérel. He was going to regroup with Bairamov and Desoto, then find the bastards who did this, and make them pay.

CHAPTER 22

The sky was glowing blue with the first light of the sun rising above the hills as Logan crouched among the trees, studying Saint Jean for a second time. The village was just as dead as when he’d first seen it, except there were more bullet holes and RPG craters from the firefight yesterday.

A column of smoke rose from one of the houses near the bridge, where the dirt roof had collapsed, and the wooden frame beneath smouldered. Something must have hit it and set it alight. Of the insurgents, there was no sign this morning. But he could still smell the burned ammunition and food packs from the blackened pile of scrap beside the road that had once been their mule.

He couldn’t afford to stay out much longer in the sunlight. His suit had a radiation detector, his helmet didn’t. For all he knew, he could be dying already.

He followed the trail of the truck tracks toward the village, looking up into the hillside for any sign of insurgents as he did so. But nothing moved up there.

He could see some of his own grenade craters spread across the hillside, but the insurgents must have carried away their dead and all their possessions.

For now, at least, the hillside was empty. He could only hope it remained that way.

The remains of Gallo’s suit lay slumped in the road about twenty metres from the burned mule. Logan didn’t want to look at the mess, or smell it. But the stench of burned flesh filled the air as he approached the pile of wreckage that used to be a suit, and the blackened flesh of the man who used to operate it. He should bury what was left of Gallo, but he had no time right now. He’d return as soon as this mess was sorted out.

He tried not to breathe as he strode toward the remains. He’d only known Gallo for a few weeks since he’d joined 1st Company, and had been starting to get to know the man. And now he was just a mangled mass of flesh in a melted suit.

What a waste. He didn’t deserve that.

Gallo’s rifle lay beneath the suit, but it was of little use to a man on foot. Logan would barely be able to lift it without the suit’s artificial strength, let alone fire it. Grenades still hung from the side of the suit, and he tried not to look inside as he crouched and grabbed some. Then clipped them onto his belt, and hurried away from there as fast as he could.

The open door of the building with the antenna was still swinging on its hinges as he entered the village. He crept across to it, and peered in through the windows. Nothing was moving inside the building. Sunlight reflected from the console beside the rear wall, but the screen was off. There was no signal his helmet could hook into to communicate with the Legion.

He stepped into the open doorway for a closer look. The console screen was broken, and the electronics behind it smashed. Whoever had thrown the people out of the village had made sure no-one could communicate with it, either.

He stepped back into the street, and reached out to close the door. Then thought better of it. If the door had been open since the insurgents killed the villagers, they’d notice if it was closed today. He couldn’t afford to bring them looking for him.

He crept on toward the bridge. Track marks led away on the far side, along the road toward the mine. Some of the logs had fallen away at the side of the bridge and now lay at an angle across the river, probably torn away by the explosion. But the truck must have got over.

The claw marks in the dirt from Bairamov and Desoto’s suits left long trails on this side of the road near the river. They’d got this far, too.

So where were they?

He opened his mouth to transmit to them, then thought better of it. If they hadn’t been captured, he had a good chance of hearing from them as they returned along the road. If they had… he was just eliminating any chance of surprising their captors. It was radio silence for now.

He crept toward the bridge, pistol at the ready, for all the good it might do him. Then over the logs to the far side.

He glanced back. No-one was following him, but he’d left a long trail of boot prints in the dirt as he moved.

Well, too late to think about that.

The child’s tricycle that had been lying on its side was now upright, on its wheels. And there was something else, too.

Hoof prints. A horse had walked along the road recently, and he didn’t remember that from the day before. Maybe he’d missed them in the heat of the battle, but they looked fresher than the marks the truck and suits had left behind.

The prints stopped at the bridge. Then began again on the far side, where the horse would have stepped off the logs and back onto the dirt. The trail continued for a few metres, then curved around, toward a wide building with doors large enough for the horse to get through, that could be a barn of some kind.

And one of the doors was slightly ajar. The wooden bar that would have sealed the doors shut lay on the ground beside them, shattered into half a dozen pieces, presumably hit during the battle the day before.

And no hoof prints came out of the building.

So one thing was sure. He wasn’t alone.

None of the insurgents had ridden horses during the attack on the truck yesterday. But maybe they’d hidden the animals somewhere over the ridge. If the insurgents were out in the daylight, they couldn’t have come far without something to help them move fast enough to escape the sun’s radiation.

He crouched low as he jogged to the corner of the barn.

He peered in through the gap between the doors, but could see little more than a pile of straw in the corner of the barn. He’d seen the back of the building yesterday when he scouted out the river. It was completely buried beneath the dirt. There was no way in or out, aside from these doors.

His heart pounded, and sweat dripped down his forehead as he crept toward the door. He’d have felt a lot safer in his suit than he did with just an inch of wood and some body armour to protect him. He took a few long breaths as he pulled a grenade from his belt, then pulled the pin.

He tossed it through the gap, crouched, and covered his ears. The flashbang exploded in the barn, rattling the doors and illuminating the interior through the gap between the doors. A girl screamed, and the horse whinnied.

Then he kicked the partly-open door.

The bottom scraped on the dirt as it opened, and it exposed the dirt floor and piles of straw and hay inside as he swung around the edge of the door. The horse’s hooves thumped on the ground as it reared up, but the reins were tied to a pillar that supported the upper level of the barn. The pillar jerked as the reins pulled against it, and a cloud of dust fell slowly toward the floor from the hay and straw piled on the upper level.

The girl crouched low in the straw on the far side of the barn, holding her hands up to her face, and rubbing her eyes. He recognized that hair and that dress. And, as she lowered her eyes and whimpered, he recognized the face.

She screamed as Logan grabbed her shoulder, and pressed the pistol against her head. The horse reared up again at the noise, then kicked against the wooden walls of the barn. The planks shook, and dirt fell in through the gaps between them.

She pushed herself up, kicked at him, bit at his arm, and twisted out of his grip. As she turned aside, he grabbed her arm and kicked her legs out from under her. She yelped as she slammed down onto the straw, then rolled over. He straddled her stomach, grabbed her wrists with one hand so she could no longer hit him, and waved his pistol toward her face.

This time, she wasn’t getting away.

“Stop struggling,” he said. “If you run, the solar storms will kill you.”

She stared up into his face, and her eyes blinked as they struggled to recover from the bright flash of the grenade. “Who are you?”

If he hadn’t been sure she was the girl from Gries when he saw her, he was when he heard her voice. He’d heard her speak enough times back in Gries and the Valenciennes tunnels to recognize her accent.

“Logan McCoy. French Foreign Legion. And you’re under arrest as an insurgent.”

She kicked her legs and tried to swing her arms, even though Logan was holding them against the ground. All they did was wiggle.

“Why are the Foreign Legion sneaking around Saint Jean?”

“Probably for the same reason you are.”

“I’m here to visit my aunt. But she’s not here.”

“It’s a little late for that. Your friends have already come to visit her.“

“What do you mean?”

“They threw your aunt off the cliff.”

“They wouldn’t have…”

Logan nodded toward the doors. “Her body’s down there in the river somewhere, if you want to look for it. Along with all the others.”

She relaxed at last, and was silent for a moment. Her eyes and mouth opened wide. Not that he really believed she had an aunt in the village, but she didn’t seem to believe the insurgents would have killed them.

“You can’t mean that.”

He looked into her eyes. Could she be serious about her aunt? She looked distraught, but what man could really tell whether a girl was lying? He’d learned that much in the ZUS. All of Jacques’ girls were expert liars, at least when they wanted to please their customers. Customers who didn’t have much of an incentive to disbelieve them.

“I don’t know whether I saw your aunt down there. But I saw a lot of people. If she was up here…”

Then the girl began to cry. For a second, Logan wanted to release her. Then he remembered Gallo lying in the square after her friend blew him up. And what was left of his body, back in the ruins of his suit.

“I’m not who you think I am,” she said, finally.

“You’re the girl who led us into an ambush in Gries, and you’re the girl who was in the tunnels in Valenciennes. You can deny it if you want, but we’ll get the truth out of you in the end. So you might as well admit it now.”

She just stared at him, and pouted. “If you let me go now, I won’t tell anyone what you did.”

He waved the pistol in front of her face. “You can tell my sergeant exactly what I’ve done. He’ll be real glad to hear about it, because he’s been pissed with me ever since you got away the first time.”

She stared at the gun.

“You wouldn’t really shoot me, would you?”

Could he? She’d tried to get him killed. She’d helped to get Gallo killed. He should really want to shoot her for revenge. But she was just a girl, and no older than his sister had been the last time he saw her. What did she know about real life?

“I’ll be in less trouble for taking you back dead than I will for not taking you back alive.”

The urge to fight seemed to leave her face at his words. As though, for the first time, she really believed he might do it.

“Now,” he continued, “Do you think you could do what I tell you, and stop doing things that might make me want to shoot you? We’d all be better that way.”

She nodded. “Just don’t hurt me.”

Hurt was the least that Intel were likely to do if they got their hands on her. But that was a choice she made when she decided to take on the Legion. He thought of Gallo, and all the men wounded and killed so far on this deployment. If she could give them intel that would help them end the insurgency…

“Did you see that burned-out suit back before the bridge?”

She nodded. “That was a friend of mine. Before your friends killed him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Bit late for that. But I’m not exactly worried about hurting insurgents at this moment. Do you understand?”

She nodded. Good. The more scared she was, the less likely she was to do something that might make him do something he’d regret.

His heart had slowed down as his body recovered from the exertion of the last few minutes in the thin air. He’d been up all night and most of the previous day, and now his eyelids were starting to feel heavy. He had to stay out of the sun for the rest of the day, and be ready to head to the mine tonight if the truck didn’t come back.

That meant he needed some sleep.

He yawned at the thought. He’d survived months in Legion training on barely any sleep, but the last few days had been mentally harder than anything the instructors had put him through. No wonder they pushed them so hard in training, so they’d have some chance of surviving combat in the real world.

But that didn’t seem like a good plan when he was sharing the building with a girl who’d previously led him into what was supposed to be a deathtrap. She’d pretended to be an innocent bystander before. Surely she wouldn’t stop at trying to take his pistol or a grenade and kill him while he slept?

“Come on,” he said, and climbed off her. He stepped back and kept the pistol at his hip as she clambered to her feet, and brushed the straw from her dress.

He grabbed her wrist, and she squealed as he twisted her arm behind her. “That hurts.”

“Not half as much as your friends hurt my friend when they fired a rocket through his guts. You got any rope on that horse of yours?”

She shook her head.

“You sure? Because if I can tie your hands up, I won’t have to worry so much about you running away.”

“I haven’t got anything like that.”

The horse snorted as it twisted on the end of the reins in the far corner of the barn.

He’d never ridden a horse before. Never seen one up so close before. Or smelled the stench of hay, crap and sweat. A few of the bosses’ kids back home had horses, mostly the girls. That was about all he knew about them. They couldn’t carry a man in an assault suit, so the Legion had little use for them, only on special missions where a suit would be hindrance.

A couple of small bags hung from the saddle. But who knows what she had in them?

“Where’s your metal suit?” she said.

“It was easier to sneak up on you without it.”

“So how did you know I would come this way?”

“We have our sources.”

“Where are your friends hiding?”

“They’re out there, watching us.”

“Then why do you want to tie me up?”

A wooden ladder led from the floor of the barn to the half-floor above them, stacked with more hay bales and straw. A short rope dangled from the pillar near the top of the steps, with a harness at the end that looked like it would go over a horse’s head. Logan reached up and pulled it from the pillar.

“What are you doing?”

He dragged her closer to the wall, then wrapped the rope around her wrists, and tied the other end to the pillar. She could still stand and sit, but wasn’t going to be going anywhere in a hurry. Even if she could get her thin fingers close to the knots in the rope, they didn’t look like they’d be strong enough to untie them.

He found a spot a couple of metres away, and sat himself.

“Don’t just ignore me,” she said.

“If I was ignoring you, I wouldn’t have tied you up.”

“You can’t just leave me like this.”

“Sorry, but I have to get some sleep. And it’s either tie you up, or shoot you. I think you’ll prefer it this way.”

She wriggled against the pillar, and the rope rattled against the wood. “I can’t sleep like this.”

“I’ll make you a deal. You admit to being on the other side, and I’ll move the rope so you can sleep. Can’t say much fairer than that.”

She said nothing.

Fine, then.

He wriggled on the straw until he found a comfortable spot, then closed his eyes. That felt good after so long on his feet. But there was still something wrong. Something that had bugged him since they arrived there in the village.

The insurgents hadn’t taken Gallo’s rifle. They hadn’t even taken the grenades from Gallo’s suit. The rifle needed power to operate and kicked too hard to use without a suit. But surely they would at least have taken Gallo’s grenades. He would have, if he was one of them. And they’d cleared up their own dead and taken their weapons away, leaving none behind that were still usable. Were they really in such a hurry to leave and chase the truck? As slow as it was, it could easily outrun a man on foot, so they had little chance to catch it. They’d have shot at it a few times, then turned back when it passed out of range.

“Alright,” the girl said. “I was the girl you met in Gries. But I didn’t know what they were planning to do. They just asked me to get you to walk down that street, past the houses. I didn’t mean anything.”

Logan chuckled. “You knew where to find an insurgent base. You hid after the firefight, rather than talk to us. You took the boy’s body back to the insurgents. I think you knew exactly what was going on.”

“I was scared that you’d torture me. I’ve heard the stories about what the Legion does to rebels. And I’d heard people talk about the rebels hiding in Valenciennes. I thought they could help me.”

“Who was the boy? The one who shot at us.”

The one he killed. Did she even know he did that? She’d been hiding in the street the last time he saw her in Gries, and probably running away by the time he shot the kid.

“I knew him at school. We both grew up in the same village He just asked me to help him. That’s all I know.”

Yeah, whatever. You didn’t just agree to help an attack on the Legion. That was the kind of thing that signed your death warrant with your own blood.

“What’s your name?”

“Why would I tell you?”

“Fine. I’ll call you Alice. Is that OK?”

“No. That’s not my name.”

“It is now. Unless you feel like telling me what it really is.”

Her eyes narrowed, and she scowled at him. She didn’t like him very much. Not that he was surprised. He wasn’t sure he liked her much.

“Well,” he said, and shoved more straw beneath his head. “I’m exhausted, and I’m going to sleep. You can spend the rest of the day working out your story for when I wake up.”

“I can’t just stand here all day.”

Logan closed his eyes, and wriggled his head on the straw until he found a comfortable spot. He could already feel the world beginning to fade away into sleep. “Unless you’re going to tell me who you really are, I don’t really think you’ve got much choice.”

“I don’t think I know who I am any more.”

He opened his eyes again, and yawned.

“What do you mean?”

“It all seemed to make sense. My father died in the mines, my mother brought up five of us on her own. We just wanted freedom, so we could make sure it wouldn’t happen again. Half the kids I know lost their fathers to the mines, or working out in the sun storms.”

“And freedom is supposed to end that?”

She pouted as she spoke. “At least we’d keep the money from selling what we mine, and it wouldn’t all go to the aristos back home. We could make sure no-one else has to die in the mines.”

“And that’s worth killing your own people, and putting their heads on spikes because they disagree with you?”

“We didn’t. We wouldn’t. We want to be free, together. Why would we kill other colonists?”

“You haven’t seen the vids?”

Her face dropped at Logan’s words. She spoke more quietly as she responded. “That wasn’t us. It was the Montagnards. We’re not with them. I knew no-one had heard from Saint Jean for weeks. No-one’s heard from the mine, either. After I saw the vid, I came here to make sure my aunt was safe.”

“We spoke to the mine yesterday.”

“Not to anyone we know.”

CHAPTER 23

Logan crawled through the dark night, staying as close to the ground as he could. The sky above glowed with stars, and the lake beside the mine entrance, about a hundred metres wide and maybe five hundred long, glittered in the starlight through his goggles’ light intensifiers.

Without the goggles, he’d barely have been able to see as he moved through the moonless darkness from Saint Jean. With his naked eyes, the only way to tell where hills and mountains ended and the sky began was by the sudden appearance of the stars when the mountains no longer got in the way.

Through the goggles, the mine entrance was little more than a dark blob against the slightly lighter hillside. Drill holes and the weathered scars of shattered stone ran across the rock wall beside the three-metre tall, metre-thick wooden beams that supported the entrance, and showed where the miners had blown their way in with explosives when they built the tunnel.

Piles of dark rubble at least ten metres tall surrounded the entrance, where the miners must have dumped them when the mine was being built. A dozen or more wooden carts sat in a group beside the piles, and wooden rails ran toward them from the mine entrance.

Two men stood beside the rubble piles, one on each side of the mine entrance, both wearing armour, and holding a rifle.

They didn’t look much like the Compagnie men who had come with the fireteam on the truck, but it was hard to tell with the limited resolution of the goggles. Not to mention that the men seemed to be wearing goggles similar to his own. They’d need them, if they were going to see much of anything in the darkness on the plateau outside the mine entrance.

He ignored the two obvious guards for a moment. They were probably standing there as much to draw the attention of anyone who approached the mine as to stop him getting in. While he was shooting at them, their friends would be getting ready to shoot him.

He stared into the dark shadows on the hillside above the entrance. A grainy blob moved behind a rock. Another crouched beside a rock to the right. If there were two men on the hillside, there were probably more elsewhere that he couldn’t see.

The truck was parked outside the entrance, facing toward it with the trailers twisted along a curved path behind. The side of the truck was pockmarked with bullet holes, but no serious damage. So they’d got it here somehow, still pretty much intact. Logan had left the girl and horse in the barn after the sun set, and followed the truck’s tracks up the hill from the village on foot, moving as much as possible among the trees and rocks to stay out of sight of anyone watching the road. Bairamov and Desoto’s claw prints in the dirt of the road had accompanied the truck all the way to the mine.

Whoever these men were, they were guarding the mine. And they seemed determined to keep any uninvited guests out, so there was something in there they wanted to protect. These weren’t just a few villagers with shotguns and hunting rifles, they had military equipment, and knew what they were doing. They must have done, when Bairamov and Desoto arrived, or there’d be signs of a firefight on the plateau. The others had probably been glad to reach their destination, been taken in by whatever show of a friendly welcome the insurgents had put on, and the insurgents surprised them at a time when they could do little to protect themselves.

Either way, Logan had to get in there, and find out what was going on. He hadn’t expected to be able to walk in the front door, but how else could he get inside? And do it without any of the guards spotting him?

He’d expected to be able to sneak around the area with his goggles while the insurgents were blind in the darkness. But, when they had goggles too, the odds looked even. Worse in fact, with at least four of them and one of him. He might as well have come in daylight.

If only he had Alice to help, he’d have the schematics of the mine right on hand in the intel pack. He’d skimmed through them before they left, and he knew the mine had only this one entrance, and an emergency exit tunnel further up the hillside. But they’d surely be guarding that one, too.

He crawled slowly up the hillside beside him, moving away from the guards while gaining some height to give him a better view of the area around the mine. He paused every few metres in the cover of a rock or tree trunk, to peer around it and check that he hadn’t been spotted.

Then stopped and looked down. The plateau was barren, aside from a few dozen long trails of boot prints in the dirt heading in all directions. Men had been in and out of the mine many times since the last rain up here, and they’d left their marks behind in the dirt.

But that was all. Each of the trails either started or ended at the tunnel entrance. Some did both. So it didn’t look like they were entering or leaving the mine through any other route. And one pistol and a few grenades wasn’t going to get him in there, when he was up against at least four men with rifles or worse. Even if he could take one of their rifles from them, it wasn’t likely to be enough.

He thought back to the schematics, closing his eyes as he tried to visualize the image on Alice’s HUD. He’d grown so used to the technology in his suit that he suddenly felt ignorant without it. Not to mention weak and vulnerable. In many ways, he was just a machine that helped the suit get its job done, and believed it was a man using a machine.

But there was something else. There had been more lines on the schematic, leading away from the mine at an angle.

He remembered them, now. They were heading across the plateau toward the cliff face. He hadn’t taken a closer look at them at the time, because why would he need to?

He looked toward the cliff. His gaze followed the plateau toward it from the mine, but, from where he was up on the hillside, he couldn’t see over the edge of the cliff.

Maybe it was nothing, or he was just imagining he’d seen the lines. But it was all he had. He crawled back toward the cliff edge, following a path that curved slowly away from the mine, to stay out of sight of the guards.

Finally, he lay at the top of the cliff, and peered over. There was something below it. Half a dozen pipes protruded from the cliff face. Some were narrow, no more than half a metre across. They wouldn’t do him much good. But the one in the middle was more than a metre in diameter. Tall enough that he could crouch inside it, if not walk.

Maybe the boy he shot had had the right idea back in Gries. Crawl through the waste pipe into the nearest mine, then find another way out where the Legion wouldn’t be watching.

Logan crawled along the cliff edge toward where the pipe would be below him, studying the cliff face as he moved. There were ridges in the cliff, and a narrow ledge that ran below the outlets of the pipes. Which made sense. There had to be some way for the miners to get down to the pipes when they had to do some kind of maintenance.

And there it was. A rough, rusty metal ladder attached to the cliff face by thick, black bolts. He swung his legs over the edge, and carefully lowered his boots onto the first rung they reached, trying to make as little noise as possible. He clambered down slowly, passing the mouth of the pipe on his right as he did so. Then his boots clunked down onto the ledge.

He stepped along the ledge toward the pipe, trying not to look down, and keeping one hand on the ladder for support, as his boots barely fit on the narrow ledge. He leaned around the side of the pipe, and peered into it.

The faint starlight barely illuminated even the mouth of the pipe, so he risked turning on the IR illuminators. A dried-up stream of dark liquid marked the bottom of the pipe, running in a haphazard way to the mouth from as far back as the goggles could see. Whatever that crap was, it hadn’t been running out of there for some time.

He leaned in. There was a faint oily smell, but nothing that immediately alerted his senses to danger. He clambered into it, moving slowly to avoid making noise when his boots scraped against the concrete walls.

He had to crouch low to creep through the narrow pipe. His back was sure going to hate him in the morning if he had to follow the pipe for a long way. The mine entrance must be a hundred metres away across the plateau, then who knows where the pipe went inside the mine. Or whether he could even get out once he’d gone that far.

His boot crunched down on something in the bottom of the pipe that cracked beneath the sole, and the sound echoed back from the hard walls.

He slowed down. He didn’t need to make a noise that would alert anyone near the far end. He still had most of the night to scout the mine, and return to Saint Jean.

The pipe seemed to go on forever.

After a few minutes, all he could see both ahead and behind were a few metres of a circle of dirty concrete, as though the outside world had never existed. He stopped every minute or so, and listened. There was a faint tapping ahead, followed by a scratching as a rat stared up at him from the bottom of the pipe, with the light of the illuminators reflecting from its big, round eyes. It squeaked as Logan approached, then turned and ran away, its claws scraping against the concrete as it moved.

Then he spotted something up ahead. A dark lattice rising from the middle of the pipe to the top. A ladder, going up to… somewhere. The pipe continued on, but, if there was a ladder, there had to be a way out. He reached it, and looked up. There was a hatch in the top of the pipe, just above his head. The only question was what was on the other side?

He clicked off the illuminators, and the pipe went dark. But his hands could find the hatch. He pressed gently on the cold, hard metal. The hatch didn’t move. He pressed harder. Still no movement. He pressed his shoulders against it, and pushed up with his legs. The hatch stayed shut. It must be sealed from the far side, somehow.

He crouched again, and moved on along the pipe. It had to go somewhere. Though perhaps all the hatches were closed at the moment, because nothing was flowing through it.

But what other choice did he have?

CHAPTER 24

Logan peered out of the open hatch at the end of the pipe, into the darkness around him. Whatever garbage the miners usually dumped down the pipe, they weren’t doing it right now. It had been dry all the way into the mine.

The tunnel alongside the pipe was dark and quiet, though he could hear faint, muffled voices somewhere nearby. Thinner pipes ran near the base of the ridged, rocky tunnel walls from both directions, and joined the pipe he’d crawled through.

He shivered in cold air that stank of mould as he clambered out, and closed the hatch behind him. The IR illuminators on his goggles lit up the few metres of the rocky tunnel nearest to him, beyond which the tunnel faded into blackness except for a faint glow in the distance to the right.

In the other direction, above the pipes on the walls, stood a row of wooden wheels taller than Logan, lashed together from poles and attached to wooden axles that protruded from the wall. Wooden rods protruded from the side of each wheel, maybe twenty of them around the circumference, as though someone could grab them, and turn the wheels by hand.

Beyond the wheels, the tunnel ended in black. There was only one sensible way to go.

He crept along the dirt floor of the tunnel toward the glow, stopping and listening every few metres.

The mumbling grew louder, but was hard to decipher after it echoed from the hard walls of the tunnel. A few metres from the light, he turned off the IR illuminators, and slid the goggles up onto his forehead. The tunnel curved to the left, and he put his back to the wall, pressing himself as close to it as he could as he crept around the corner. The light was coming from an open doorway on the far side of the tunnel, just a few metres ahead of him.

He could make out a voice now. A familiar voice.

Volkov’s.

“I need to know where my men are.”

“Sergeant,” another male voice said, “your men have already loaded up their truck, and left.”

“And they didn’t even inform me?”

“I believe they tried. Comms are bad right now with these solar storms. You’re lucky you were able to get through to us now. You may not be able to later.”

“When did they leave?”

“You just missed them by a few minutes, I’m afraid. Their truck was damaged in an insurgent attack on the way here. It required repairs before it could return to you.”

“Thank you. I’ll expect them soon.”

“The truck is heavily loaded, and travel will be slow at night. I wouldn’t expect them too soon.”

“Perhaps I should send a team to meet them en route.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary. I doubt the insurgents will want to tangle with the Legion a second time so soon.”

Logan crept to the doorway, and peered around the corner, into the room. A tall, muscular man, maybe thirty years old, leaned over a console at the far side of the room. Volkov’s face filled the console screen in front of him.

Volkov said nothing for a few seconds, then spoke. “Thank you for your time.”

“Thank you for sending your men. We will now be able to reopen the mine, to send the motherland the supplies it needs.”

Logan could see the other man’s face side-on as he looked at the console. Logan almost recognized that scarred face.

The insurgent attack the previous day had been too intense to take a good look at the attackers, but he was sure Scar-Face had been one of them. That face was hard to miss, or mistake. No wonder they’d been trying to stop trucks getting to the mine. They owned it.

The screen faded to black as Volkov closed the connection.

Why would Scar-Face even tell Volkov that?

Volkov would find out it was a lie very soon. If the team and the truck weren’t back in a few hours, he’d be sure that something had happened, and would certainly send out more men or a drone to look for the truck. The lies were just buying a little time.

Logan tightened his grip on the butt of his pistol. He could try to capture the man, or just kill him. But what good would that do? There must be at least another dozen insurgents here. He’d get himself killed, and no-one would be able to tell the Legion what was going on here.

Scar-Face tapped the console screen. A few seconds later, another familiar face appeared.

Chaput. The department Governor.

Logan triggered his helmet camera to start recording.

“Your friends are getting antsy,” Scar-Face said. “You should never have sent them up here.”

“I did my best to convince them to stay away. And I told you to stop their truck before they reached the mine. But their political officer is determined to open the route.”

“They won’t be when they see what comes next.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re staging a little distraction with the Montagnards. The Legion will soon have more important things to worry about than this mine.”

“I need more than a distraction. You said you could beat the Legion and free this planet.”

“And we will. In time.”

Chaput’s face grew red, and glistened with sweat. “I don’t have time. I’ll be recalled to France at the end of this year. You know that.”

“This planet will be free of France before then. Just relax and let us do our job.”

Chaput opened his mouth, but Scar-Face reached out to the console screen, and it went black. A light flashed beside it.

Logan ducked away from the doorway as Scar-Face stood.

Logan locked the helmet recording. So Governor Chaput was part of the insurgency. He probably expected to be in charge when the planet broke free of France and they sent Porcher packing.

But he didn’t look like the kind of man who could keep Scar-Face or the Montagnards in check if the insurgents gained their freedom. Chaput was more likely to find himself staring up at his bloodstained neck from the bottom of a bucket as soon as the Legion left.

And how did Scar-Face plan to beat the Legion, anyway? Once they heard about his base here, they’d obliterate it. He couldn’t fight them off for long, with just rifles, RPGs and body armour. The Marine LePen could sanitize the mine from orbit, or just drop a nuke on top. Scar-Face and his Montagnard friends had already eliminated any civilians in the area. So it would hardly matter any more if the Legion turned the whole mountaintop to glass.

Footsteps moved away from Logan. He peered around the doorway again. Scar-Face was disappearing into the shadows of a tunnel on the far side of the room, shining a flashlight ahead of him. Logan waited a moment, listening to the footsteps and their echoes fade away, then crept toward the console.

He touched the screen, but it remained black. If must be locked to Scar-Face’s fingerprints or DNA. He should have guessed it wouldn’t be that easy. His helmet wasn’t finding any kind of open comms network it could connect to, either.

More voices mumbled from the tunnel where Scar-Face had gone, the words lost to the echoes from the rock walls. Not just male voices this time, but another voice, more high-pitched, and definitely female.

A voice he was sure he recognized.

Oh, crap. Why couldn’t she just do what she was told?

Logan moved that way, staying in the shadows again as he left the light of the communications room.

The voices grew louder as he moved, and he followed them past two side-tunnels. Then his tunnel came to an abrupt end at a ledge about two metres across, where the floor dropped away just beyond a wooden railing at waist height on the far side of the ledge.

The ledge rose in a spiral around a central shaft, maybe ten metres in diameter. No wonder they had those huge rubble piles outside the mine, if they’d had to dig this out.

A drop of water splashed on his helmet, and another on his shoulder. Over the mumble of voices from up above, he could hear the faint echoes of more water splashing down below. It must be dripping from the roof of the shaft, like the caves on the Channel coast back home.

He peered over the narrow wooden railing. The joints creaked as he leaned on it and looked down. The shaft became a black hole at the limit of what the IR illuminators could light.

Thick brown ropes hung down the centre of the shaft, from pulleys in the roof. Big pulleys, almost the size of Logan’s chest, that must be designed to lift heavy loads. A narrow wooden platform protruded from the ledge near the pulleys, and the ends of the ropes were tied to the wall beside it. Some cables ran across the roof, but the illumination was too dim to see much detail that far away.

No-one seemed to be moving or talking down below. The dirt on the ledge showed the boot prints of hundreds of feet moving up and down them, and the recent prints of Scar-Face’s boots heading up. Logan just added a new trail on top of the others as he followed the ledge to the top, and crouched beside the ropes, peering around them into the entrance tunnel.

A slow wind blew past him, as air circulated between the shaft and the mine entrance. A yellow light glowed near the entrance, as Scar-Face and two other men stood in the circle of light from a lantern.

The girl stood between them, holding her lantern high up, near her face.

Dammit. She must have got out of that rope and followed him. Whoever she was, she was certainly determined to cause trouble for him.

“Thank you for your time, mademoiselle,” Scar-Face said. “But I think you can see that we’re all fine, and no-one is here who shouldn’t be.”

“Then he’s still outside, trying to find a way in.”

“In that case, my men will find him. Thank you for your help, and you can now go home.”

“I came to Saint Jean to look for my aunt. She lives there. But the village is empty. What happened to everyone?”

“They all left one day. I’ve no idea where they are now.”

“The Legionnaire told me that they’re all dead. That the Montagnards killed them.”

The men with rifles tightened their grip on their weapons at her words. They glanced toward Scar-Face, as he put his hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“Like I said, I have no idea what happened to them. You should probably go back there and wait for her.”

“You did it, didn’t you? Why?”

Scar-Face stared at her for a few seconds, as though deciding what to do. Then he pressed his hand against her shoulder, pushing her into the mine. She swung around and slapped his arm, trying to push it away from her. Scar-Face grabbed her arms, and the men around her swung their guns toward her.

Logan backed away from the tunnel as Scar-Face dragged the girl toward the shaft. She shrieked and squealed as she tried to dig her feet into the floor of the tunnel, but it provided little resistance to Scar-Face’s strength as he pulled her along.

Logan found a spot in the shadows beside the ropes, where the wall of the shaft curved into a shallow alcove that would hide him from view, and crouched there.

Scar-Face pushed the girl out onto the ledge. Then stopped.

The girl twisted in his grip, and stamped her feet. One of her boots stomped down on Scar-Face’s. He just ignored the blow, and pushed her closer to the edge.

The girl twisted her head toward him. “Let me go.”

“You had your chance to walk away,” Scar-Face said. “Now you can say hello to your friends down there.”

Then he pushed against the girl’s back. She twisted around as her feet slipped on the edge of the ledge, then flew out into the air. Her legs kicked beneath her as she fell, and her arms swung around her head, as though trying to grab thin air.

Then they caught something.

The girl shrieked and grabbed the rope that hung down the centre of the shaft. She swung wildly as she clung to it, trying to get a good grip, and her hands slid slowly down. One of the men raised his rifle, and swung the muzzle toward her.

Crap. Logan couldn’t just let them kill her.

Volkov and Poulin would be pissed.

He leaned out, and fired three times. Blood spurted from the rifleman’s legs as the pistol rounds smacked into them, below his body armour. His rifle clattered to the rock as he fell to his knees, then tumbled over the ledge.

The other men swung their rifles toward Logan, and he ducked back as rifle rounds blew rock splinters from the walls around him. He grabbed the smoke grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and pushed his hand out just far enough to fire a few unaimed shots along the ledge to keep the insurgents’ heads down. He waited a few seconds as the grenade heated up and smoke erupted from the case, then tossed it along the ledge.

The men yelled, but Logan couldn’t hear their words over the ringing in his ears from the gunshots. The shooting stopped. The girl screamed below the ledge as the smoke spread. By now, she probably couldn’t see anything except a thick cloud of smoke up above, and a rope dangling below her into a black, bottomless pit. Logan kept his head down as the insurgents fired into the smoke again, blowing splinters of rock from the walls all around the shaft. The rope twitched as a rifle round hit it, and tore one of the rope strands away.

The girl shrieked, lost her grip for a second, and fell another metre before she grabbed the rope again. She clung to it with one hand. Logan holstered the pistol, and stayed low as he raced across the ledge, then leaped out into the shaft.

He grabbed the rope, wrapped his legs around it, then slid down, moving hand-over-hand. The insurgents yelled behind him, and fired into the rock walls above his head until Scar-Face yelled for them to stop.

The girl was hanging on to the rope below him. She swung her free arm around, and tried to grab the rope with it, but that just made her body swing more.

She squealed as Logan swung out around her, then he grabbed her waist as she let go of the rope. She struggled in his grip as he slid down, deeper into the darkness, and away from the insurgents shouting and shooting up above. More rounds struck the spiral ledge around the pit. One tore into the rope above them, ripping through more strands, and it creaked as the remaining strands strained under their weight.

He slid down faster. Something glittered a few metres below them. And rock splinters filled the air as the insurgents fired past them, tearing up the shaft walls.

Logan relaxed his grip on the rope, and slid until the next burst of gunfire came their way.

Then he let go.

CHAPTER 25

After falling for what felt like minutes, but must have been only a few seconds, they splashed down into the water at the bottom of the shaft. The sudden shock of slamming into the freezing water shook Logan’s body, then his head went under, and he swung his arms madly all around him, trying to pull himself back to the surface.

His feet swung below his body, searching for the bottom of the pit, but found nothing to support him in the depths. The world faded as he descended two or three metres beneath the surface, but his arms began to pull him back up. He kicked with as much power as he could, and his right hand slammed against something hard. He clasped it with his fingers and pulled. His face broke the surface of the water beside the spiral ramp, and he clung to it as he turned to look for the girl.

She was splashing and spluttering in the water a metre away. He held onto the ramp as tightly as he could, and reached out his hand toward her. Her face went under again, and he lunged forward until his tendons strained and his hand began to slip on the wet rock. His fingers found hers, and clasped around her palm. He heaved her toward him, and pushed her up onto the ramp. She lay on it, gasping for breath, and coughing up water.

“I told you you’d be safer back in the barn,” he said.

“I didn’t think they’d try to kill me,” she gasped.

Logan pulled himself onto the ramp beside her. His sodden fatigues squelched as he slid his knees and elbows onto the rock.

“Now do you believe me that your Montagnard friends killed everyone in Saint Jean?”

“They’re not my friends.”

Water sprayed into the air behind them as the insurgents fired more rounds down the shaft at random. Logan grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled her toward a dark opening in the wall. A tunnel entrance, half-submerged further down the spiral ramp, where the water was about waist high.

He pushed her in, and followed close behind her, with his hand on the butt of his pistol in case she tried anything.

The water slapped against the rocky wall as their legs and hips sent waves careering away from their bodies, and the smell of damp mould filled his nose.

Her hands slapped against the wall as she moved ahead of him. “I can’t see anything.”

Logan turned the goggles’ illuminators back on, and the dark tunnel lit up for him.

“Don’t worry. I can. Just keep going.”

“I can’t walk if I can’t see.”

“If you stop walking, they’re going to kill you, too.”

Logan could hear voices behind them in the shaft, and the clatter of boots striding down the spiral ramp.

The insurgents were coming their way.

One Legionnaire, one pistol and a few grenades against who knows how many men. He’d fought rival gangs in the ZUS at odds of five to one or more, but they didn’t have guns or RPGs. He couldn’t fight off that many here.

They had to be out of sight before the insurgents reached the water. If they couldn’t find him or the girl, maybe they’d think they’d drowned at the bottom of the shaft. No-one was likely to go diving in to check for bodies.

The tunnel forked just ahead. “Turn right,” he said.

It was as good a direction as any.

They turned just as the sound of the insurgents’ boots reached the other end of the tunnel.

Logan grabbed her shoulder and pulled on it to slow her down, so they’d make less noise as they waded through the waist-deep water. He glanced back around the corner, but the goggles couldn’t even see as far back as the shaft. Hopefully the insurgents wouldn’t be able to see that far, either.

They waded on.

The girl was shivering as the water soaked through her thin clothes. Not that Logan was much better, but at least the thick cloth of the fatigues kept water near his skin, where his body could warm it up. They’d had to get out of these waterlogged tunnels before they froze.

As they approached a crossroads in the tunnel, he tried to build a mental map of the mine, and the maze of tunnels they were progressing through.

“Turn left.”

That would take them further away from the shaft, rather than turning back toward it. Either way, they needed to keep turning in different directions, to confuse any insurgents who might be following them.

The tunnel opened into a cavern ahead of them. The ceiling and walls faded into dark shadows at the limit of the goggles’ range, but it was probably four or five metres high, and perhaps twice that wide. The mould smell was just as strong as it had been since they entered the tunnel, but something else joined it. A smell he recognized.

Dark shapes floated in the water across the cavern. Bloated bodies, limp arms and legs. One of the dead men slowly turned as the waves from Logan and the girl’s steps smacked against its side. Bone showed through the man’s cheeks where a rat sat on its face, slowly chewing through the flesh. It raised its bloody nose and squeaked at Logan as he strode past.

“What is it?” the girl said. “What’s that smell?”

“You don’t want to know. Head to the left.”

The mouth of another tunnel showed as a dark rectangle in the wall on that side. He couldn’t see any tunnels on the other walls. And didn’t want to spend a moment more than he had to in the cavern with a dozen dead men.

“Where are we going? It’s like a maze.”

“Right now, we’re going anywhere those assholes aren’t. Once we’ve lost them, we can figure out how to stop them.”

“I can’t hear them any more.”

“They’ll be coming soon. They can’t afford to let us run around loose in the mines. There’s got to be some way to move between the mine levels other than that shaft. They need a way out in emergencies. We just have to find it.”

They pushed on through the tunnel. It twisted slowly to the right, then ended as it opened out into another cavern.

Logan grabbed the girl’s shoulder, and pulled her to a stop.

“Wait here,” he whispered.

She grabbed his arm. “Don’t leave me.”

He pulled her hand away. “Keep quiet. I’ll be back.”

She shivered and whimpered as she leaned against the wall in the darkness. He peered out of the tunnel, into the cavern. From the slope of the roof, it must be the size of one of the hangars at the airport, and the roof was supported by rows of narrow stone pillars that rose from the water.

He left the girl, and waded slowly out into the cavern, creeping from pillar to pillar until he could see the far side in the IR glow of the goggles’ illuminators. A tunnel in the far wall ended at a ledge about three metres above the water. And something hung from the rock wall just below it.

No, two things.

Two men, naked from the waist up, with scars and bruises across their torsos. They dangled from ropes that were tied around their wrists, and attached to metal rings in the cave wall above the ledge. Both swung limply at the end of the ropes, with their chins slumped down against their chests.

He raised his pistol, and crept through the water toward them. Tiny waves spread out around him, reflecting from the stone pillars, and forming an increasingly complex pattern around him as he swung his legs through the water. He looked up into the tunnel entrance above the men as he approached them. But it was dark and empty, and the only sounds came from the water splashing around him.

The man on the left raised his face from his chest, and stared toward Logan. The eyelid bulged around the man’s right eye, the cheek was dark with bruises and blood, and the lips were bloated as though he’d been punched a few times too often.

“Who’s there?”

“Legionnaire McCoy, sir,” Logan whispered.

Bairamov chuckled. “Legionnaire McCoy… I told you the bastards couldn’t kill you, didn’t I, McCoy?”

Logan grabbed the tied ropes around Bairamov’s wrists, and untied them quickly. Then lowered Bairamov until he could drop his arms and lean back against the wall. Bairamov rolled his shoulders and sighed as he relaxed them, then wiped some of the blood from his face.

Desoto soon followed. He cradled his right arm with his left hand, and winced every time it moved.

“What’s wrong with your arm?” Logan said.

“Bastards kept hitting me until something broke.”

“I had worse in training,” Bairamov said. “You’ll get a week in the hospital.” He rubbed his bruised face. “Maybe I’ll join you.”

Muffled voices echoed around the tunnel above them.

“Who’s…?” Desoto began. Logan put his free hand over Desoto’s mouth for a second, then grabbed Desoto’s shoulder, and Bairamov’s arm. The two prisoners could see no better than the girl in the darkness of the unlit cavern. He pulled them away from the wall, and toward the tunnel he’d entered from. He moved a few metres away, until he could barely see the ledge. Then hid them behind the pillars.

As the echoing footsteps grew louder, He turned off the goggles’ IR illuminators. He didn’t need them right now, as the tunnel began to glow with the beam of a flashlight that swung as the man carrying it strode along the tunnel.

Three men stepped out onto the ledge, holding rifles at their hips. They leaned over the edge, then pointed their rifles down, and opened fire. The girl’s scream was barely audible over the gunfire as they fired dozens of rounds down toward where Desoto and Bairamov had been just a moment before.

The gunfire stopped.

The beam of light from the flashlight swung down from the ledge, and across the wall below. It stopped at the first set of dangling ropes. Then swung to the next.

Then it swung out across the water.

“Where are you?” one of men yelled. “Come out. We’re not going to hurt you.”

Logan almost chuckled at the lie.

Instead, he grabbed a grenade from his belt, pulled the pin, and tossed it their way. It clattered as it landed on the ledge, and rolled until it hit the wall behind the men. They yelled, and the beam of light swung back around, pointing toward the tunnel, then along the walls, searching for the grenade.

Then the grenade exploded. The flashlight flew across the ledge, clattering against the wall as it fell to the ground, with its beam shining out across the water.

Two of the men toppled from the ledge, and splashed down into the cavern. The footsteps of the third echoed from the rock as he raced away, back along the tunnel. Logan raised his pistol and fired half a dozen rounds at the rapidly receding man, but he disappeared in the darkness as the rounds ricocheted from the walls behind him.

One of the men in the water was still moving, his arms slowly paddling as though he was trying to stand. His breath came in gasps, and he mouthed words, but nothing intelligible came out. A dark patch was spreading across the water beside him, deep red in the glow of the flashlight.

Bairamov grabbed the man from behind, and wrapped his muscular arm around the man’s neck. The man still struggled, slapping his hands against Bairamov’s arms, and trying to get hold of them.

“Not so much fun from this side, is it?” Bairamov said, and smiled. “Much more fun torturing helpless men.”

A sharp crack echoed around the cave as Bairamov snapped the man’s neck, then grabbed the man’s goggles before tossing him back into the water. The body floated away across the cave, with arms and legs outstretched.

Logan reached under the water, and felt around with his free hand until his fingers found the cold metal of a rifle. He grabbed it, and slung it over his shoulder. Then found the other, and handed it to Bairamov.

He pulled spare magazines from the dead man’s belt pouches, and pushed them into his own.

Logan tossed his pistol to Desoto, then turned his rifle over in his hands. H&K G90 gaussrifle, from the Prussians, not the Islamic State weapons the insurgents had been using before. He’d practised with a G90 during his foreign weapons training just a few months ago. And it would certainly be more useful than the pistol.

He unclipped the dead man’s body armour and belt, and helped Desoto put it on over his bare chest. Then slid the man’s goggles over Desoto’s head. Bairamov took the armour and belt from the other.

“Thanks, man,” Desoto said. “What do we do now?”

Logan nodded behind him.

Back toward the flooded tunnels.

“Follow me.”

CHAPTER 26

Logan led the way through the tunnels. He could barely feel his legs any more, after the freezing water had sucked the heat away from his flesh for the best part of half an hour. Now it felt like ice right down to his bones. And his balls weren’t doing much better, either.

Hopefully they’d still work, if he ever needed them again.

The only sounds in the tunnels were the echoes of the water swishing around them as they strode through the darkness, the muffled yelling of the insurgents somewhere behind them, and the faint scratching and squeaking of the rats that had made a home in the mine.

The ridged pistol grip of the rifle was digging into his palm as he gripped it hard, ready to fire at anything that moved ahead of them in the glow of the goggles’ illuminators. The tunnels stank of stagnant water, mould, and rotting bodies.

He pulled the girl behind him by her hand. Her wet clothes clung to her skin, and she shivered and whined.

Desoto brought up the rear behind Bairamov, staring into the shadows behind them with his injured arm hanging loose, and pistol at the ready. Wearing the goggles, they could all see in the dark. The girl couldn’t. She wasn’t likely to try running away this time.

Bairamov swung his rifle toward her.

“So, McCoy. What’s your girlfriend doing here?”

“The insurgents tried to kill her too, sir.”

“Maybe they were trying to convince us she’s on our side.”

“I don’t think so, sir. They threw her down a mine shaft.”

“Why would they do that?”

“Same reason they killed everyone in Saint Jean, I imagine, sir. Same reason they killed the miners here.”

“All of them?”

“Dunno if it’s all of them, sir. But there are a heck of a lot of bodies in the river down in the valley, and in one of the caverns down here.”

Bairamov tapped the girl’s shoulder with the muzzle of his rifle. “Nice gang you hang with, girl.”

Her teeth chattered as she spoke.

“It wasn’t meant to be like that. We’re not Montagnards. We didn’t ask for them to do this.”

“It’s never meant to be like that. Everyone thinks life will be just wonderful if they can just get rid of the asshole in charge. One thing I’ve learned is that you’re always better off with the asshole you know, than the asshole you don’t.”

“Where’s all this water from, sir?” Logan said.

“The mine’s been closed for quite a while. I guess water must collect down here if they don’t pump it out. I doubt they want anyone here who’d interfere with what they’re planning.”

“And what is that?”

“I have no idea.”

Maybe those wheels Logan saw when he crawled into the mine were supposed to be used to pump out the water from these lower levels. They might well use men to turn them, to save having to bring in more machines. And those men were now floating, dead, in the water around them. The water could have been rising for weeks.

“What happened to you, anyway?” Logan said.

“When we stopped the truck outside the mine, they invited us in like old friends. I was just glad I got here alive, and would have trusted anyone with a friendly face after those assholes back at the village. Dumb idea.

“They shot the Compagnie men and driver on the spot, and surrounded us with RPGs. Nothing we could do but surrender. They’ve had us dangling in the water down here ever since. Except when they took one of us out to beat him.”

“For interrogation?”

Bairamov shrugged.

“For fun, I think. They didn’t really seem to care whether we said anything or not.”

“How many are there?”

“I counted about a dozen. But there are probably more.”

“I heard them talking to Governor Chaput. I figure he must be working with them.”

“Fucking aristos,” Desoto said. “They’d sell out their own mothers for a few francs.”

“You’re sure of that?” Bairamov said.

“The scar-faced guy told the governor there was a surprise coming for us.”

“Then we have to find a way to warn the Legion.”

“I tried. Their comms are locked here, and I couldn’t raise anyone through my helmet.”

“I think they’re jamming everything around here, at least when they’re not using their own system. We couldn’t contact anyone elsewhere after leaving Saint Jean, not even to report that we’d arrived here. Could we hook your helmet into the mine comms somehow?”

“Do you know how to do that?”

“Not unless there’s a hole marked ‘plug helmet in here’.”

“Then how do we warn them?” Desoto said.

“Our suits are up there somewhere, unless they’ve destroyed them. If we can find those, we can make a load of trouble for them while someone finds a way to warn the company.”

“How would we do that, sir?”

“Find some way to stop them jamming us if we can. Or march back to Estérel if we have to.”

“I didn’t see your suits,” Logan said. “But I haven’t seen much of the mine above this level.”

Gunfire cracked around the tunnel.

Logan ducked, and pulled the girl down until only her head was above the water. Then he turned off the IR illuminators on his goggles, as did the others. The tunnel became a black abyss. Rifle rounds splashed into the water or tore chunks of rock from the walls, but none came close enough to hit them. The insurgents didn’t know where they were, they were just firing in the hope of hitting them by chance.

“Hold your fire,” Bairamov whispered. “And stay low.”

Logan backed along the tunnel, keeping his right hand against the wall so he wouldn’t lose his sense of direction in the darkness. The others followed, staying as low in the water as they could. Rifle rounds cracked through the air above them for a few seconds more, then stopped. With no-one shooting back, the insurgents would probably soon give up and move on.

“We have to find a way out of this level,” Bairamov said, keeping his voice low as it echoed from the hard tunnel walls.

“It’s a fucking maze, sir,” Desoto said. “There’s no way out.”

Logan stopped as his back pressed against a rock wall at the end of the tunnel. He turned the illuminators back on. The tunnel forked again, left and right. Left would take them back toward the main shaft. He turned to the right, and followed the tunnel that way.

“Do you actually know where you’re taking us, McCoy?” Bairamov said.

“Not really, sir.”

“There are exit ladders near all the working faces of the mine. I’ve no idea where we are, but if we can find them, we can get out.”

“How do you know that?”

“Some of us study location intel before a mission, McCoy. Don’t forget that in future.”

“I took a quick look, sir. I didn’t expect to end up fighting in the mine. Or without my suit.”

“You should expect to end up fighting everywhere. It’s what the Legion does whenever we stop marching.”

“I can’t go much further,” the girl said “I’m so cold. I can hardly move any more.”

Logan stood. His body shivered as he lifted his shoulders from the water. He grabbed the girl’s hand again, and almost dragged her behind him, pulling her along fast enough that she had no choice but to keep up. He stared into the shadows at the limit of the illumination from the goggles, looking for any sign of a way up.

The tunnel turned to the right up ahead, and something dark rose vertically beside the wall nearby. Logan moved on as fast as he could while pulling the girl behind him. Then his free hand closed on the side of a wooden ladder that rose up into the tunnel roof. Logan stopped beside it, and leaned close to the wall so he could look up the ladder. The shaft rose into a tunnel a level above, then continued on upwards.

“Ladder,” he said, then swung his rifle around to his side on its sling so he could easily grab the ladder.

“I can’t see,” the girl said.

“They could have put some lights down here,” Desoto said.

Bairamov stopped just behind the girl, and crouched with his rifle aimed back along the tunnel. “Cheaper for miners to bring lights down with them than to wire the whole place up. McCoy, let’s see what’s upstairs.”

Logan climbed a couple of rungs, then grabbed the girl’s hand and placed it on the rung by his knees. He moved higher, and she fumbled behind him for a moment before she found her footing and started to follow. As she climbed behind him into the blackness, Bairamov followed. Then Desoto, moving slow as he climbed with only one good arm. Logan slowed a little to help him keep up.

Then stopped as his head reached the floor of the next level of the mine. Water dripped from his boots and body armour, into the shaft below. The girl’s hand tapped the rung below him, then slapped against his boot. She stopped moving.

He looked left and right, but nothing showed either way. Then up. The ladder continued, and the higher they could go, the better. He climbed on, passing the tunnel as fast as he could. The wooden rungs creaked and the frame rattled against the wall, as he climbed.

The next level was the same, except for muffled yells in the distance. He moved on again. The faster they could get away from the searching insurgents, the better.

Then the ladder came to an end at the next level. Logan swung off the ladder to the dirty rock floor, then crouched and reached down to grab the girl’s hands as she climbed through from the lower level. He pulled her up, and she swung her ass onto the floor, then pulled her legs out. Her wet dress stuck to her hips and thighs as she clambered to her feet.

“Where now?” Bairamov said as he climbed out behind her.

Two directions. Left or right. One of them was correct.

But they didn’t have to decide. A light glowed in the tunnel to the left, and Logan turned off his illuminators. A long shape moved in the bright glow beside the wall that way. A rifle lit by the IR illuminators of the insurgents’ goggles.

He pushed the girl behind him, and raised his own rifle as the glow approached. Then nodded to Desoto to pass by and lead the way. Desoto grabbed the girl’s wrist, and pulled her along the tunnel, away from the approaching riflemen.

“I see three,” Bairamov whispered.

“Same here.”

“Shoot the bastards.”

Bairamov’s rifle cracked, and the glowing light on the wall jumped as one of the men slumped against the wall. Logan fired too, but his burst went wide, blowing rock splinters from the walls as the man he’d aimed at ducked below the line of fire.

Logan crouched lower as incoming rounds came his way. He and Bairamov could see the insurgents by the glow from their IR illuminators, but the insurgents would barely be able to see the Legionnaires.

But they rapidly wised up, and dropped to the floor. Their lights went off, leaving everyone firing into blackness.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bairamov said, and began to back along the tunnel, slapping a hand against the wall as he moved, to maintain his sense of direction in the darkness.

Logan pulled the last HE grenade from his belt, and tossed it back along the tunnel.

He followed Bairamov, crouching as low as he could, and firing bursts from his hip into the darkness as he moved.

Then the grenade exploded.

The insurgents yelled, and Logan and Bairamov backed away faster. The tunnel turned a corner behind them, then a faint glow illuminated their path. Desoto crouched a few metres ahead with the girl slumped on the floor beside him. The glow in front of them showed where the tunnel opened out through the cavern wall beyond.

“Sir,” Desoto said, “You need to see this.”

Bairamov crouched in the tunnel mouth, and took a step out into the glow. Logan peered around the corner beside him.

The tunnel ended at a rock ledge which continued around the wall of a deep, oval cavern, with only a wooden barrier to prevent them from falling. Water tapped as it dripped from the roof, onto the rock floor at least twenty metres below. Lights glowed on stands arranged around the floor near the the cavern walls, raised high and pointing inwards. They illuminated three rows of dark, humanoid shapes in the centre of the cavern.

Combat suits were lined up on the rocky floor down there. A couple of dozen, maybe more. A mob of men swarmed around them, checking the suits, and preparing them for use. One of the suits on the far side of the cavern was already moving, and men were climbing into others on that side.

And those weren’t Legion suits. They were heavy infantry, not the Legionnaires’ scout suits. And Bairamov and Desoto’s suits weren’t among them.

Logan recognized the ornate spikes on the helmets, and the eagle logo on the chest of the suits. He’d seen them in training, both in the vids the instructors showed them, and the early weeks of combat training in VR, before they were let loose in real combat suits.

Those were Panzergrenadiers.

“Merde,” Bairamov said.

CHAPTER 27

Scar-Face stood beside the suits on the far side of the cavern, and barked rapid orders in a language Logan didn’t recognize. Prussian, presumably? He’d heard a few words of the language from Heinrichs, and it sounded familiar.

“Anyone understand Prussian?” Logan whispered.

“A little,” Bairamov said. “Sounds like he wants them to hurry up and move out of here.”

“Why would Panzergrenadiers be on New Strasbourg? And why would they be with the Montagnards?”

“I don’t know. But I figure we’ve found out who’s been shipping weapons to the insurgents. They must be planning something, and we can be sure it won’t be anything we’ll like.”

“Maybe they’re preparing to invade,” Desoto said. “Getting their guys in before the main force arrives, and destabilizing the local government to make the invasion easier.”

“Then they’d have been stupid to have caused enough trouble to bring the Legion in. The Compagnie would stand little chance against Panzergrenadiers. But the Legion has kicked their ass before.”

“So they must want us here for some reason,” Logan said.

“Yeah, and that’s the scary part.”

“The ones we met in the tunnels don’t seem that tough,” Desoto said.

“These guys are just the Montagnards, is my guess. The Panzergrenadiers wouldn’t want to waste suit-trained men hunting us runaways in a tunnel. They’re much too valuable to lose doing something they aren’t needed for. They’re probably here to advise and support, not to get killed.”

Rifles fired behind them.

The shots went wide in the dark tunnel, but Logan’s helmet jerked as a ricochet from the wall bounced off it.

“Move,” Bairamov said.

Desoto crouched, and ran along the ledge.

The gunfire intensified for a second as he was silhouetted in the tunnel mouth, then the ledge curved round enough that the men in the tunnel could no longer see him. Logan grabbed the girl’s hand, and pulled. She squealed and struggled, until he pulled harder. As she began to move, Logan pushed her ahead of him.

Bairamov fired wild into the dark tunnel as Logan followed Desoto, pushing the girl in front of him. He tried to ignore the clatter of rock shards and thumps of ricochets hitting his helmet and armour as rifle rounds slammed into the cave wall and roof.

The men in the cavern below them yelled. Then more rounds began to impact the walls, fired from the cavern.

Desoto was almost at the far end of the ledge. Logan pushed the girl toward him.

“Go,” he said. The girl ran on.

Logan raised his rifle above the top of the wooden barrier. The sights weren’t compatible with his helmet, so he could only hold it there and fire a few bursts down into the cavern to try to keep their heads down.

He moved a metre along the ledge before he fired again. Then heard footsteps as Bairamov raced toward him.

“For fuck’s sake, move,” Bairamov said.

The wooden barrier exploded behind Bairamov as a burst of heavy rifle fire from one of the suits hammered into it, and shredded the barrier into a spray of wooden splinters. Logan turned and ran, with Bairamov close behind, as the suit’s fire tore up the wooden barrier all around the cavern.

Then they were back in the relative safety of a tunnel at the far end of the ledge. The gunfire continued, but the men in the cavern couldn’t fire into the tunnel to hit them. Logan gasped for breath, and his head began to pound from lack of oxygen as he pushed his body as hard as he could.

The girl slowed in front of him, but he grabbed her waist and pushed her on. “Keep moving.”

Desoto led the way. The tunnel reached a crossroads, and he turned right. They followed it, Desoto leading, Logan helping the girl, and Bairamov bringing up the rear.

“Now many do you think there are?”

“Maybe a platoon? That’s few enough to sneak down here on a shuttle without being spotted, but enough to make life hell for anyone they might meet. And they’ve already caused enough trouble to split up 1st Company across the department, and taken some of us out of action.”

“Then what’s 3rd Platoon going to do against a platoon of Panzergrenadiers supporting insurgents, sir?” Desoto said. “We’re already down on numbers.”

“Maybe Poulin can lecture them to death. But they’re sitting ducks for a surprise attack, unless we can warn them.” Bairamov turned to the girl. “Do you have any way to communicate with people outside the mine?”

She shook her head.

“What about your horse?” Logan said. “How long would it take to reach the nearest village that can send a warning?”

“A couple of hours.”

“I don’t know how to ride a horse,” Bairamov said.

“I didn’t mean you,” Logan said.

“You can’t be suggesting…?”

“We’ve got to do something here to stop them. And she’ll be safer out of here.”

“I am not trusting an insurgent to bring help.”

“Got a better plan?”

“Desoto could go.”

“Desoto, can you ride a horse?”

Desoto shook his head.

“And do you know where the next village is?” Logan said.

“No idea.”

“Fine,” Bairamov said. “You can both go.”

“Two people on the horse will slow us down,” the girl said. “Besides, he has a broken arm. How would he hold on?”

Bairamov shook his head, and pushed them onward along the tunnel. “McCoy, if you really are working with this girl, Volkov won’t have to kill you, because I will.”

The tunnel forked. Desoto turned to the right, and they hurried along it. Logan listened for boots behind them, but they would be impossible to hear over the noise they were making themselves. Echoes of their footsteps seemed to come from all directions, as the noise bounced around the rock walls of the maze of tunnels and returned to their ears.

Hopefully the Montagnards would find it just as confusing.

Desoto stopped, and the girl squealed as she slammed into his side. Logan grabbed her shoulder as she stumbled, and pulled her back to her feet.

“Ladder, sir,” Desoto said.

“Then get up it.”

Desoto clambered up the ladder. Logan helped the girl find the rungs, and she began to climb. He followed. They passed one level, then another. Then his head rose above the floor of the next.

A green symbol flashed on Logan’s helmet display as he climbed, and his head reached the middle of the tunnel. He stopped.

“Sir…” he began.

“Just keep moving,” Bairamov said, his voice muffled as he spoke from the shaft below Logan’s feet.

“Sir, I’ve got a signal from your suits.”

The girl had stopped a couple of rungs above him. Desoto clung to the ladder above her, and peered down.

“Where?” Bairamov said.

“They must be somewhere close. The signal wouldn’t pass through this rock.”

“Find them.”

CHAPTER 28

Logan watched the signal level meter as he led the way along the tunnels. The signal was higher than when he climbed off the ladder, but it had been higher before as he tried to follow it, then faded out again. Wherever the Panzergrenadiers had put the suits, they surely couldn’t be far from the central shaft. They wouldn’t want to drag them down these tunnels if they could just take them down the ramp, away from the entrance. If he was right, the group was still heading the correct way.

Metal clanked and thumped on rock up ahead. Faintly at first, but it grew louder as they approached the main shaft, and the echoes made it seem louder still.

“Sounds like they’re on the move, heading up that ramp,” Bairamov said, “Once they’re out in the open in their suits, they’re not likely to care much about us.”

“You wish, sir,” Desoto said.

“This place only matters so long as they can hide in it. If we get back to the Legion, we’ll return to wipe it out. If they want to openly take on the Legion, hiding here won’t do them much good. Whatever their plan is, they’re going active now, maybe because we forced them into it. McCoy, we need our suits fast.”

“This is crazy,” Desoto said. “Surely they’d have just dumped the suits down in the water. What reason would they have to keep them?”

“Lot of useful intel in a suit, if they can manage to break into the AI. I sure hope they failed.”

“But what use do they have for them now they’re leaving?”

Logan slowed. There were muffled voices up ahead, barely audible over the noise of the marching suits on the ramp. The girl bumped against his back, and the others slowed behind her.

He stopped at the crossroads ahead, and looked around the corner. A light glowed a few metres down the tunnel to the left. The shadowy figures of two men moved in the light. Logan motioned to Bairamov, who moved up beside him, and studied the men.

A guttural shout came from the far end of the tunnel, and the two men glanced toward it. Bairamov motioned toward Logan. He released the girl’s hand, then crept along the tunnel toward the men as fast as he could without making enough noise for them to hear over the sound of the suits climbing the ramp. Bairamov followed, with his rifle ready at his hip.

Logan could see the two Legion suits now, standing in an alcove in the wall, facing away from the men. Some rectangular electronic boxes sat on the floor of the tunnel beside them, the glow of their lights faintly illuminating the darkness.

The furthest man pulled a grenade from his belt, and pulled the pin. He pulled his arm back to toss it into the suit. Logan broke into a sprint, and grabbed the man’s arm as he began to swing it.

Just a little too late.

The grenade fell from the man’s hand, and clattered to the floor. It rolled across the tunnel, and clunked against the rock of the far wall.

Bairamov struggled with the other man. He grabbed the man’s chin and pulled it back, preventing him from yelling. The man struggled as Bairamov pulled a knife from his belt, and slammed it into the man’s side.

Logan’s man opened his mouth to yell. Logan punched him in the face, then grabbed him as he spun around. Logan pressed his knee against the man’s back and pushed him down onto the tunnel floor. The man began to scream.

Then the grenade exploded beneath his chest. His body jerked, and blood oozed from his back where shrapnel had punched right through the body armour at point-blank range.

Logan wiped blood away from a gouge on his arm where a chunk of spent shrapnel had dug into it. Then he pulled the twisted metal fragment free, and tossed it aside.

He crouched and swung his rifle toward the far end of the tunnel. But the metal feet were still clunking up the central shaft, and no footsteps were heading their way. With that much noise in the mine, they probably hadn’t even noticed the sounds of the fight.

Bairamov studied the suits, then waved to Desoto to join them. Wads of dozens of coloured cables ran from the interior of the suit to the electronic boxes on the floor.

“How long will that take to fix?” Logan said.

Bairamov leaned in, and pulled one of the cables free. “Give me a few minutes.”

The girl leaned against the wall, trying not to look down at either of the dead men in the faint light around the suits. Logan smiled at her as Bairamov and Desoto worked on the suits, but it did little to change the wide eyes and tight lips of terror on her face.

The noise of the marching suits rose to a peak, then began to fade away. The Panzergrenadiers would be out of the mines pretty soon. And Bairamov and Desoto were still working on their suits.

“Anything I can help with?” Logan said.

Bairamov pushed his head deep into the suit as he pulled the last of the external cables free, then began to attach some of the internal cables that dangled inside it. “The bastards did a good number on the AI. We may have to go without it. Desoto, how you doing?”

“Not very easy with one hand, sir.”

Logan stepped back to Desoto’s suit, and pulled some of the cables free. But the two of them working together wasn’t much faster than one. Particularly with Logan looking for anyone who might be approaching along the tunnel.

“What’s going to happen to me?” the girl said.

Bairamov pulled another cable from inside the suit’s leg, and slid it into a socket near the waist. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Not unless you survive.”

Logan pulled the last of the external cables from Desoto’s suit, and tossed them aside as Desoto began reconnecting the cables inside it, groaning and wincing as he stretched into the suit and twisted his wounded arm. The suit hummed and buzzed as it began to come back to life.

“Can you operate this with one hand?” Logan said.

“Easier than I can climb a ladder. And I’ve done that many times today.”

“That’ll do,” Bairamov said, then clambered into his suit. He adjusted the straps that held him into the frame, and pulled them tight around his body. The HUD glowed as he grabbed his helmet from the holder and lowered it onto his head.

“Let’s move, Desoto,” he said. Then the back of the suit whirred as it began to slide closed. Logan ducked out of the way, and helped Desoto climb into his own suit.

Bairamov’s suit took a step back as Logan pulled Desoto’s straps tight, then placed the helmet on his head. He tapped the helmet. “Bonne chance.”

“We’re sure gonna need it. Sophia, seal up.”

The back of Desoto’s suit whirred as it closed. Bairamov’s suit crouched low, so the head wouldn’t hit the roof as he moved. He grabbed the gaussrifle that leaned against the wall beside it, and crept along the tunnel.

Desoto’s suit back closed, severing a cable Logan had missed, and Desoto grabbed his gaussrifle and followed. The noise of the suits’ movement was loud enough in the tunnel that Logan didn’t even have to show the girl where to go to follow them. She could easily hear where the suits were going.

When she moved too far ahead, he grabbed her hand and pulled her back. Who knows what would be waiting when Bairamov stepped out of the tunnel. They didn’t want to be within a few metres of an RPG explosion in a rocky tunnel if someone was waiting out there for them to emerge.

But no explosion came as Bairamov stopped at the end of the tunnel and leaned out to look up the central shaft. A few seconds later, he stepped out, and was finally able to raise his head to his full height.

Desoto followed as Bairamov stomped a few metres up the shaft. Logan stopped at the end of the tunnel and looked around the corner. Desoto’s IR illuminators lit up much of the shaft, as he looked toward the entrance.

“Desoto,” Bairamov said on the team net, “on me. McCoy, warn the Legion, then you can introduce your girlfriend to mademoiselle Poulin. Maybe she’ll be happier to talk after this. We’ll try to take the heat off you.”

“Do you really think you can beat them, sir?” Logan said.

“Do you believe in miracles, McCoy? If you do, try sending one our way. Now, you’ve got your orders. Follow them.”

Bairamov strode up the ramp. Desoto followed a few metres behind. Logan led the girl around the wide spiral, but there was no way they could keep up with the suits, even for the three loops of the spiral that stood between them and the entrance.

He looked up the shaft as they climbed the ramp. The ropes still dangled in the centre of the shaft, torn at the ends where the earlier firefight had ripped them apart.

The cables on the roof of the shaft were still there. But what were they for, anyway?

Bairamov was almost at the top of the ramp. Desoto just a few metres behind him, rounding the final turn on the spiral before the entrance. His suit’s IR illuminators shone brightly on the ceiling, revealing more detail through Logan’s goggles.

The cables ran across the roof to eight or ten shoebox-sized boxes around the circumference, and perhaps a dozen more in the centre. The other ends of the cables were tied together, and hung down the walls for a metre or so, before they disappeared out into the entrance tunnel.

Logan’s heart jumped as he realized what they were.

“Sir…” he began.

Bairamov was just about to duck into the entrance tunnel when the ceiling exploded.

CHAPTER 29

The roof of the mineshaft erupted into a mass of tumbling, shattered rock that fell in what seemed like slow motion. Chunks slammed into the legs of Bairamov’s suit’s and the shoulders of Desoto’s with the thuds and crunches of mangled metal, before Logan came to his senses and looked away.

He grabbed the girl by the waist and pushed her into the tunnel entrance just ahead of them, then followed her himself, diving down beside her just as a chunk of rock the size of his chest slammed down onto the ramp where he’d been standing.

The ground shook beneath them as more rocks tumbled down the shaft. Logan covered the girl’s body with his as the rocks continued to fall in a cacophony of thumps and crashes, followed by splashes from the chunks that tumbled all the way to the bottom of the shaft and landed in the water. He waited a moment longer, until the last echoes of the explosion had faded away. Then stood and helped the girl up.

“What happened?” she said.

“They must have decided to destroy the mine to cover their tracks. Or to trap us in here.”

The tunnel shook again, and loose dirt and stones fell from the roof.

“And I would guess that was probably the emergency exit tunnel going up.”

She gasped, and her body shook. “Then we’re trapped? We’re going to die in this darkness?”

Logan glanced behind them. The rocks piled up beyond the mouth of the tunnel were too big for him to move.

With a suit, he might be able to do it, but the only suits were on Bairamov and Desoto, and they’d be busy trying to dig themselves out right now.

If they were still alive.

In any case, there was no point in trying to get out that way, when the mine entrance would be blocked, too. He thought back to the last second before he dove into the tunnel, and what he’d been able to see. The dark entrance to one more tunnel above them, then the mine entrance above that.

He peered into the distance along the tunnel where they stood. There was a side tunnel just ahead. Something long and thin lay near floor level, and followed the tunnel onward.

Pipes. Metal pipes ran along the walls. He grabbed the girl’s hand, and pulled her toward the tunnel.

“I think I have a way out.”

CHAPTER 30

Logan climbed up the wooden ladder. It had been easy to find by following the pipes, which now rose beside it, up the shaft between levels, along the wall. The ladder ended just above the floor of the next level, and he pulled himself out of the shaft, then grabbed the girl’s hand and helped her up beside him. The pipes led away to the right. He turned on the helmet’s lights and pushed the goggles away from his face. There was little point trying to be stealthy any more, now the Montagnards and Panzergrenadiers had left the mine.

The girl raised her hand in front of her face. “Turn that off.”

She’d been in the dark for the last hour or more. No wonder her eyes needed some time to adjust to the harsh glow. Logan turned away from her, aiming the lights down the tunnel.

“You’ll get used to it in a minute or two.”

He followed the pipes along the tunnel. She crept behind him, blinking, and holding her arms out in front of her. He grabbed her hand again, and helped her on to the next junction. The pipes turned left, and he went that way.

This was beginning to look familiar. Those wooden wheels on the wall with the handles. More pipes joining those he was following, down near the floor. The wide, curved surface of the effluent pipe leading out to the cliff face.

And the hatch, still slightly open.

He stopped beside the pipe and lifted the hatch.

“What is that?” she said.

‘Our way out. Follow me, and be careful. You don’t want to fall out when the pipe reaches the cliff.”

He swung his legs down through the hatch, then adjusted the rifle on his back, and dropped into the pipe. The girl peered in and bit her lip for a moment, as though wondering whether she should risk climbing in.

But where else was she going to go?

Finally, she clambered in behind him, and crouched low.

Logan began to move.

“Where does this go?”

“Out.”

Assuming they hadn’t blown this up, too. If they had… well, maybe he could dig his way out somehow. But, if it was clear, they’d be outside in a few minutes.

There was only one way to find out which.

“I think I liked it better when I couldn’t see,” the girl said. “Now I can, it feels like this pipe is getting smaller all the time.”

“I came in this way. If it’s big enough for me, it’s sure big enough for you.”

“I want to go back.”

“Sure. Go back into the tunnels in the dark. You’ll be dead in a few days. If you don’t fall down one of those shafts and break your neck, you’ll die of thirst. Or starve.”

“I don’t want to die at all.”

“I’d say it’s a bit late for that. You could have been safe at home right now if you hadn’t decided to help the insurgents shoot at us.”

Her breath was coming in long gasps behind him. So was Logan’s, but he still hadn’t grown accustomed to the air. She’d grown up on the planet, and she must be used to the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere.

No, she was just scared. And no wonder, after everything that had happened in the last few days. When all was said and done, she was just a girl taken advantage of by adults who should have known better. She couldn’t help it.

“Are you really going to take me to be tortured?” she said.

Something was glowing faintly in the distance. “Can you see the stars?” he said, as much to distract her from her fears as to confirm what he was seeing.

“Where?”

“Up ahead. At the end of the pipe.”

And he could definitely see them now. The pipe was still open, and he could see the sky through the hole at the end. Just a few more seconds, and he was slowing for the end of the pipe as it reached the cliff. He stopped just inside, then leaned out of the pipe and looked around them. No sign of anyone waiting, and the only sounds were the running water far below them, and the wind whistling through the valley.

He grabbed the edge of the pipe, and swung his legs around, down onto the ledge.

“Careful,” he said. Then helped her out. He nodded to the left. “There’s a ladder that way. You probably don’t want to look down.”

Though she wouldn’t see much if she did, other than the faint starlight reflecting from the river. All he could see was the ledge ahead of them, in the helmet lights.

She grabbed his waist, and he turned toward the rock face and helped her along it. He clambered onto the ladder, then climbed up a couple of steps before leaning over and helping her grab the rungs. He climbed higher, pointing his face down so the lights cast an oval glow beside the ladder that she could use to get onto it.

He stopped as he approached the plateau, turned off the lights, and looked over the edge through the goggles, toward the mine entrance. The truck was gone from the plateau, and the only life he could make out in the starlight was a horse chewing something grassy at the edge of the lake.

He climbed the last couple of rungs, then helped the girl up. There was something he still had to check before they moved on. He slid the rifle from his back and led the girl across the plateau, toward the mine entrance. Then looked in.

“Do you see the others?” the girl said.

The wooden supports holding the tunnel up had collapsed, and rocks were piled up inside the mine entrance, blocking it completely. He and the girl were alone now. They could forget any help from Bairamov and Desoto any time soon. The two Legionnaires were buried under there somewhere.

“Bairamov? Desoto? Can you hear me?” he said.

There was no response from the helmet speakers. Nor any signal from their suits shown in his helmet display. And there was nothing he could do for them right now, without a suit of his own to help dig them out. If they were still alive, his only chance was to find the Legion and return with help.

The horse had taken a step into the lake while they peered into the tunnel. The reins dangled down over its neck as it tapped its front hooves against the ground, and sucked up water from the lake. Logan turned the helmet lights back on, and helped the girl toward it.

The horse looked up as they approached. He’d never ridden a horse before. But how hard could they be to drive?

“I need your horse,” he said. “I have to find those damn Panzergrenadiers, and warn the Legion. If you head back down the road, you can be in Saint Jean before sunrise.”

The horse returned to drinking, and ignored Logan as he approached it. He patted the animal’s neck. Maybe that would help keep it calm.

Then he put his foot into one of the stirrups, and hauled himself up, throwing his leg over the far side of the saddle. The horse continued to drink, and its head was so low that the reins had slid half-way down its neck. Logan leaned forward and grabbed them, then pulled them back up. As the reins pulled its head, the horse puffed air through its nose, and twisted its head against them. It chewed on the bit, with a metallic rattle.

“I’m coming with you,” the girl said.

“This is probably a one-way trip.”

He hadn’t really thought about that until he spoke, but it was true. If the Montagnards and Panzergrenadiers didn’t get him, the sun would be up in a few hours, and he’d be out in the open for the next solar storm. The odds really weren’t good.

He looked up at the sky. Earth must be there somewhere, but, without his suit, he couldn’t even tell which star it might be orbiting. It was strange to think he’d be buried such a long way from home, if the Legion ever found him. And, odds were, no-one he knew on Earth would ever even know.

Still, if he stopped the Panzergrenadiers, maybe someone would write a marching song about him. A grand one, that went well with a bottle of wine and a pint of beer.

The girl stepped up beside the horse’s neck, and stared into Logan’s face. She seemed to be losing some of her fear now they were out of the tunnels.

“They killed my aunt. I want to stop them too.”

“And they’ll kill you as well, if you’re with me.”

She grabbed the reins, and adjusted them in his hands, then shifted his boots in the stirrups.

“Besides, you really don’t know what you’re doing. You need someone to help you.”

She put her foot on top of Logan’s boot in the stirrup, then grabbed the saddle and his waist, and hauled herself up behind him. Logan slung his rifle around across his chest as she put her arms around his waist. Then she leaned forward, far enough to look past his shoulder.

“I thought you said it was slow with two?” he said.

“Not as slow as you’d be, trying to figure it out by yourself. Now, press your legs against her sides to get her going, and steer with the reins.”

He pressed his boots against the horse. It shook its head, then began to move forward. Its legs sloshed through the lake toward the dirt banks around it. Logan leaned forward and clung on with his feet as the horse climbed out, and its back tilted beneath him.

A wide trail of metre-long footprints from the Panzergrenadier suits, and rough gouges from the truck and trailers, ran up the hillside near the mine entrance.

“How fast can this thing go?” he said.

“Not as fast as men run in those suits.”

“Then I guess we’d better get moving.”

He pulled hard on the right rein. The horse’s hooves stomped on the hard dirt as it turned toward the tracks. Then he kicked the horse’s side, and tried to hold on as it accelerated beneath them.

CHAPTER 31

Logan might not have known much about horses before he climbed onto this one, but, with the girl’s help, he’d learned a lot about them as it raced across the hillsides following the trail the Panzergrenadiers and truck had left behind them. The horse was panting beneath them now, and running noticeably slower than when they’d left the mine. Logan’s legs ached, his arms ached, and his butt ached. Death would almost be better than another minute trapped on the back of this thing.

The horse approached a field of rocks as it descended the hillside ahead. Logan clung on tighter as the horse crouched slightly, then jumped forward, stretched its legs out as it flew over the rocks, then lowered them again as it hit the ground on the far side. The girl twisted on the saddle behind him, and he reached back and grabbed her to hold her in place.

“How much further,” she gasped, pulling tighter on his waist and pressing her head against his back.

The first glow of dawn lit the sky behind them. The sun would be rising above the hills before long.

He could finally see the Panzergrenadiers and the truck a little more than a kilometre ahead. He was lucky they’d taken the truck, because it had slowed the suits down. They must have needed a way to transport all the Montagnards, who didn’t have suits to protect them against radiation.

But he’d missed any chance of warning the Legion before the insurgents arrived. He could hear the crack of rifle fire and the thump and boom of grenade and RPG explosions up ahead.

The fight was already on.

He pulled back on the reins, and the horse slowed to a trot, then to a walk. It gasped for breath as its feet slowed, and twisted its head against the reins. It must be as glad to slow down as Logan’s body was. And he’d just been clinging on to the creature’s back, not running.

He studied the scene ahead of them. The truck was parked a few hundred metres behind the insurgents. They were carefully advancing up a ridge, with the Montagnards leading, and the Panzergrenadiers providing support fire from the rear. Logan could make out the curved buildings of a small village on top of the ridge, and a flagpole where a tricolour flag still fluttered in the morning breeze. No civilians moved in the streets, only combat suits. Legion suits.

Hopefully the villagers had got the hell out before the fight began. They wouldn’t stand much chance otherwise, with the amount of ordnance flying toward the village.

At least the Legion had some kind of defensive position. But the Panzergrenadiers were living up to their name, as their grenades flew high through the dark sky toward the ridge, and exploded among the rocks and low trees that still remained around the village.

Logan walked the horse carefully around the battle, keeping his distance from the insurgents. Unless he got a lucky hit on a vital system, his rifle would do little to a man in a suit, except annoy him. Maybe he’d damage their weapons, if he was lucky. Punching through that armour would require something with more power, like a MAS-99 or RPG.

The main attack wave was trying to fight its way up the ridge, while more groups of Montagnards and a handful of Panzergrenadiers tried to flank the defences to the east and west. As he approached the ridge, his helmet began to receive messages from the company net. Volkov’s voice barked orders. Lieutenant Merle asked for status.

Logan could just turn around, and look for a place to hide out the day. Wait for the end of the battle, and see who won. He was too late to warn them before the insurgents attacked. He could only provide one more body to shoot back.

But he couldn’t just sit there and watch them die, to save his own skin.

Besides, what would happen to any surviving villagers if the Montagnards found them? He wasn’t having another massacre on his conscience. If all he could do was take a few of them with him, so be it.

“I have to get in there.”

The girl leaned past his shoulder. “I’d rather be in one of those buildings than out here while the sun is up.”

Logan swung the rifle around to his side, grabbed the pistol grip with his right hand, and used the sling to support it from his shoulder as he held it against his hip.

“So, what is your name, anyway?”

He waited a second for her to respond. Then she did.

“It’s Nicole.”

“Well, Nicole… hang on.”

Logan pulled the right rein hard, and kicked the horse’s side. It began to walk, and he pressed harder with his legs against its side, until it broke into a fast trot. He pulled it around toward the village as it accelerated to a gallop. There were only a few dozen men between him and the village.

Only.

The horse’s hooves thundered across the ground, and the creature gasped for breath. Spit flew from its lips as it used up whatever reserves of strength it had left.

Two Panzergrenadiers lay prone behind rocks, firing rifles at the village. Logan pulled the horse around to the left, and sprayed the nearest suit as he passed. Most of the bullets went wide, and impacted the dirt around the rock, but sparks flew from the suit where some hit.

For a few seconds, the Panzergrenadiers seemed to have no idea of what had happened as the horse passed them and charged on.

Then the riflemen behind them began to fire. Rounds tore up the dirt to Logan’s right, and he swung the horse to the left.

A Montagnard rifleman was crawling forward among the rocks ahead of the horse, and another was setting up an RPG behind a rock to their left. Logan pulled the left rein harder, and swung the horse between the rifleman and grenadier.

He twisted the rifle to point across the horse’s neck and fired. The burst threw up a shower of dirt around the grenadier, and Logan raised the barrel. The next burst ricocheted off the rock. The Montagnard dropped the RPG, then ducked behind the rock.

Two Panzergrenadiers up ahead.

They raised their arms, aiming their suits’ built-in grenade launchers at the village, and firing bursts of grenades that way. One turned toward Logan. Their net must be full of reports of some crazy guy with a rifle on a horse by now. Logan fired at him. Splinters of glass exploded from the man’s helmet visor as rounds impacted, but failed to penetrate. Maybe it would make them hard to see.

Then the horse was past the front line of Panzergrenadiers on this side of the ridge. A handful of the Montagnards were crawling up the hillside ahead of him, or making a run from cover to cover. Some turned toward him, and fired their rifles as he approached. Logan ducked as rounds cracked through the air around them, swung his rifle their way, and fired until the magazine was empty.

A Montagnard went down, oozing blood from what was left of his face. Another fell backwards, screaming, as a round tore off the lower half of his leg. The rest took cover and fired as the horse passed, moving too fast for the riflemen to aim.

There was nothing much left to do, except gallop as fast as the horse could until they reached the village. Logan pulled the reins at random, and the horse followed a twisting path up the ridge. Rifle rounds slammed into the ground around them, and more passed over their heads. Whether aimed for them, or heading for the village, was hard to say. But the horse was now racing directly into the crossfire between the two sides.

Logan ducked low over the horse’s neck, and the girl leaned over him. The horse was panting hard now, and beginning to slow. After running for so long, how did it have any energy left? Its hooves continued to hammer the ground, but the pace grew slower with every second.

Logan kicked the horse’s side, willing it to move faster. But there was only so much it could do, after the long run from the mine. It needed a break.

Upended trees lay on top of each other at the entrance to the village, blocking the wide main street that ran between two rows of houses. More trees lay on their side on the approach to the village, two directly across the track in front of the street, two more at an angle on each side.

Logan gave up on trying to weave as they approached the barricades, and let the horse make its own way as fast as it could. But more rifle rounds hit the ground ahead of them.

Every second put more distance between the horse and the Panzergrenadiers and Montagnards. But it reduced the distance to the Legion.

And now they were firing at him.

“1st Company,” Logan called over the company net. “It’s Legionnaire McCoy. I’m approaching on a horse. Don’t shoot me, you stupid bastards.”

The fire lessened. A few more rounds came from the village, then they stopped.

“Relax, boys,” a voice said on the net, and laughed. “The cavalry is here.”

An RPG round slammed into the ground to Logan’s right and exploded, spraying dirt into the air around them. The horse reared and twisted at the noise, and the flying dirt that smacked against its body.

Logan clung to the horse with his legs, released the rifle and pulled on the reins, trying to get the animal to calm down. The girl squealed behind him as the horse’s front legs kicked the air, and it turned on the spot.

A grenade exploded behind them, and that gave the horse an incentive to run on.

It raced toward the first tree-trunk barricade as another grenade exploded to the left, and chunks of bark erupted from the tree trunks as stray rifle rounds hammered into them.

Logan hung on as the horse jumped the barricade. Its hooves clattered against the tree trunks as it barely passed over them, then slammed down on the far side. Just a few seconds now to the final barricade.

The Legionnaires who were crouched in cover behind the houses stood and stepped out, firing their rifles non-stop toward the Montagnards and Panzergrenadiers, spraying rounds past each side of the horse to keep their heads down.

Then the horse jerked beneath Logan.

He yelled as it lowered its head, then tumbled forward as its legs collapsed beneath it. He flew from the saddle, his left leg twisting until it slid free from the stirrup, then he slammed into the ground three metres from the tree trunks.

He tumbled with the impact, rolling aside just as the horse’s body slammed down into the dirt beside him. Blood gushed from a deep wound in its side.

Nicole crawled away from the horse as its hindquarters twisted and its legs kicked hard, barely missing her. It tried to twist back onto its feet, but that just caused more blood to gush from the wound.

Logan grabbed Nicole’s hand. “Come on.”

“We can’t just leave her.”

Logan pulled Nicole toward him. “She’s done. We’re not. Come on, before it’s too late.” He pushed her to her feet. “Stay low, and move fast.”

She turned to look back at the wounded horse, but he pushed her on, and followed as close behind her as he could. Another grenade exploded behind them. He winced as a chunk of hot shrapnel impaled itself in his leg.

The horse gave out a deep, rattly groan. Logan glanced back as he pushed Nicole through a gap between the barricades. Shrapnel had torn more bloody wounds in the horse’s side, and its head slumped to the ground. It whinnied one last time, then its head fell to the ground, and the body went still.

A metal hand grabbed Logan’s body armour, and pulled him around the barricade.

“Crazy son of a bitch,” a voice said.

“Keep that chatter off the platoon net,” Volkov said.

Nicole limped away from the barricade, toward the nearest building in the street. Logan limped behind her, still wincing every time his leg muscles pressed against the jagged shrapnel.

Nicole slumped down on the steps in front of the building. Incoming rifle rounds slammed into the dirt piled over the roof, but were well above their heads as they crouched. Logan sat down beside her, and twisted his leg around to expose the shrapnel that protruded from his thigh. It wasn’t much larger than a nail, but hurt like a knife. Fortunately, it was buried in the muscle, nowhere near a vital blood vessel.

“Are you OK?” he said.

“I think I twisted something when I fell.”

Logan pulled on the shrapnel.

He gritted his teeth as a centimetre of bloody metal emerged from the leg of his fatigues, then another. Another centimetre came out before it finally slid free, and he tossed it aside. Blood oozed out of his leg. He pulled a bandage from the first-aid kit on his belt, and wrapped it around the wound.

Nicole stared back toward the barricade. “Did they…?”

“Sorry. Your horse is gone. One of the grenades hit her after we ran. But she did good. We wouldn’t be here without her.”

Logan looked around the village as he worked on his leg. The Legionnaires had constructed a hasty defensive position there. The men who didn’t have buildings, barricades, or rocks to hide behind crouched in rough slit trenches, only emerging from them to fire their weapons.

Even Poulin had a rifle. She lay beside a building, partially hidden behind a rock, and fired randomly around it down the hillside. She might not hit anything, but hopefully she could help keep their heads down.

Mortar bombs or rockets had exploded around the streets, scattering small, twisted chunks of torn metal that protruded from the buildings and the remaining trees around him.

A few of the mortar bombs must have dug into the ground when they landed, and left craters a metre deep and a couple of metres across. At least the craters might provide some free cover for the Legionnaires.

“Let’s find somewhere safer for you to sit,” Logan said.

He helped Nicole to her feet, and they limped along the street together, crouching below the erratic, incoming rifle fire. The girl winced every time a grenade exploded, but Logan just pulled her on faster behind him. The sooner she could get safely into a building, the better.

The flagpole was on their right, still flying proudly above the roofs of the nearby buildings. Logan led Nicole on into an alleyway between the buildings, heading toward the flag. The village square opened out at the end of the alley, surrounded by long, low buildings protected by more barricades of tree trunks and dirt.

Moans and yells came from the building on their left. Logan steered her that way, and peered inside. Wounded men lay on bloodstained straw that covered the dirt floor as the platoon medics swarmed around them. A civilian man and two women assisted, but barely glanced up as he entered.

Logan helped Nicole into the impromptu aid station. One of the women grabbed her, and led her to an empty patch of straw in the corner.

“I’ll be alright,” Nicole said. “I can help them in here.”

Logan nodded.

“Go for it.”

She’d be safe for now. Hopefully. Only a direct hit from a rocket was likely to damage the building.

Of course, she might not be so safe if the Panzergrenadiers and their friends won the battles.

So he’d better make sure that didn’t happen.

“Get everyone we can spare to the west flank,” Merle said.

“Sir, it’s Legionnaire McCoy. Can I help?”

“About time we got reinforcements. Where are the others?”

“Gallo is KIA, sir. Desoto and Bairamov are MIA. Do you have a suit I can use?”

“What the hell happened to yours?” Volkov said. “Did your girlfriend steal it?”

“I fell off a cliff, sir. I had to abandon it.”

“McCoy. For the first time since I joined the Legion, I am honestly speechless. If I survive this battle, I’ll be telling this story for decades to come.”

Another voice joined the net. Joffer. “Got a salvaged suit over by the village hall. Last guy’s in the aid station, he didn’t mess it up too bad.”

“Try not to lose that one, McCoy.”

CHAPTER 32

Joffer was correct. The suit wasn’t that badly damaged. If you didn’t count the ten-centimetre diameter hole in the lower back, and the much narrower entrance wound in the front. No wonder the last guy wasn’t using it any more. Logan would be safe enough, though. Unless he decided to run away from the fight, and expose the hole.

And he had no plans to turn his back on these people.

The sun rose over the hills as Logan clambered into the open back of the suit, and slid into his seat in the frame. Red smears of blood coated the suit’s HUD. Logan wiped them away with the side of his hand, and adjusted the blood-stained straps until they held him tightly in the suit’s frame.

“Suit, load settings Logan McCoy.”

“Confirmed. Settings loaded.”

“Alice. When will the Marine LePen be in range?”

“One hour and thirty-eight minutes to next orbital pass with a firing solution.”

Just over an hour and a half, and the Marine LePen could make the Panzergrenadiers and Montagnards regret that they’d ever been born. But could the platoon last that long?

“Alice, seal up.”

The back of the suit whirred closed behind him. The sounds of gunfire and explosions faded as the back clunked shut.

“Suit damage prevents airtight seal,” the suit said.

Hopefully he wouldn’t need one tonight.

Logan grabbed the gaussrifle that leaned against the wall of the village hall beside the suit. The magazine was half-full. The suit froze for a split second as he tried to straighten up, while red lights flashed on the HUD. Then it moved again.

Great.

Whatever had hit the suit had screwed up the exoskeleton. But it would have to do.

“McCoy, you ready yet?” Volkov said.

“Ready as I’ll ever be, sir.”

“Join up with Charlie team on the west flank. They need all the help they can get right now.”

Mortar bombs whistled toward the village.

Guns chattered around the village square in front of the hall, and some of the bombs exploded in mid-air. Others came down intact. Dirt sprayed into the air in the middle of the square as a mortar bomb exploded there, and shrapnel rattled off the side of Logan’s suit.

The men had barricaded the square almost as well as they’d barricaded the entrance to the village. No wonder they decided to put the aid station there.

Slit trenches surrounded the village hall itself, deep enough for a suit to crouch in without being seen, or stand in to shoot out. Tree trunks blocked the streets and alleys that led into the square, with only small gaps for men to pass by.

But a suit could still jump over them logs, if it had to. If the Panzergrenadiers came charging in, the barricades wouldn’t provide much protection against them.

Charlie team’s position appeared on the HUD. Logan jogged out of the square as more dirt and shrapnel tapped against the suit, then turned right along the town’s main street.

“I hear I got some new blood,” a voice said on the team net. Kader, according to the HUD.

“McCoy, sir. I’m on my way.”

A shower of dirt erupted from the building to Logan’s left as he jogged along the street.

The grenades that were hitting the buildings might not hurt those inside, but they’d eventually blow their way through the roofs if the Panzergrenadiers kept firing them.

Rifle rounds cracked through the air as Logan approached the western perimeter. He crouched and stayed in the cover of the buildings as much as he could, but the fire grew ever more intense. The insurgents must be throwing everything they could spare at that flank.

He took cover behind the building for a few seconds until the rifle fire lessened, then ran to the next. A grenade exploded on the far side of the building, just behind Charlie team. Kader raised a grenade launcher, and it popped as it fired a burst back the other way. An autocannon boomed as it fired beside him.

Three men leaned around piled tree trunks in the middle of the road, firing rifles. Beyond them the HUD showed a mass of red squares, at least a dozen insurgents tagged as coming their way. Kader crouched beside another torn down tree trunk on the right, and the remaining man in Charlie team fired the autocannon over it.

Logan dropped to the ground, and crawled past the front of the building as fast as the suit’s metal knees and elbows could carry him. He could hear the rifle rounds slamming into the tree trunks as he crawled toward them, and crawled across to the right of the autocannon.

He leaned around the right side of the trunk, to fire past the hacked-up remains of the roots toward the Montagnards who were crawling their way. One dropped his rifle as Logan fired a burst his way, then grabbed it and rolled back behind a rock.

“What happened?” Logan said.

“We were scouting out the area around where the bastards launched the mortar attacks from the other day,” Kader said, then fired another burst from the grenade launcher. “And these guys had an ambush lined up for us. We lost half of 3rd section before Volkov got us out of there. We fought our way up here, pulled down the trees for some kind of defence, and we’ve been fighting off their attacks ever since.”

“What about the civilians?”

“Most of them got out of here as fast as they could. A few wouldn’t go, and some stayed to help out. Poor bastards.”

Rifle rounds hammered into the tree trunk barricade, and Logan rolled back behind it.

A grenade slammed down and exploded, showering him with splinters and chunks of wood. He held out the rifle at arm’s length, aiming it between the roots, and looking through the sights on his HUD.

“What the hell are they trying to do?”

“I figure they thought they’d get us all in the ambush. Might have done too, if Volkov hadn’t got us moving out of there as fast as we could go. Now they’re in the shit. We’re hitting them hard, and they won’t get a chance like this again if they retreat.”

“They’ll still get us if we don’t get more support soon.”

Logan leaned around the trunk again. A Montagnard was running between rocks, heading toward the barricade. Logan fired a burst, and blood exploded from the man’s legs. The man fell as his legs collapsed beneath him, and crawled behind the rock, dragging the bloody mess of his left calf behind him.

The autocannon fired above Logan as he leaned back while incoming rounds tore up the dirt beside the tree. Kader fired another burst of grenades, then stopped to reload the launcher with a magazine from the ground beside him.

Grenades exploded behind them, and shrapnel rattled from the back of Logan’s suit. The early morning sunlight reflected from chunks of shrapnel that had embedded themselves in the tree trunks of the barricade.

Something slammed to the ground beside him. A suit rolled on the ground, with the left hand missing.

The autocannon gunner.

“Medic,” a voice yelled over the net.

“On my way,” Heinrichs said.

Kader reloaded the launcher and raised the muzzle above the barricade. “Just you and me left, kid. Get on the autocannon, and give the bastards hell.”

CHAPTER 33

Logan knelt behind the autocannon and grabbed the hand grips with the metal fingers of his suit. Blood was still splattered across them from the hit on the last gunner. Rifle rounds hammered into the plasteel shield that stretched a metre in each direction around the cannon barrel.

He kept his head low, but the gun sight was just a hazy mess, probably badly damaged by the same rounds that hit the gunner. He peered through the narrow gap in the shield above the cannon’s thick barrel, but it barely gave him enough space to see where it might hit when he fired.

The Montagnards were still moving forward, and four of the Panzergrenadiers were approaching with them.

The Panzergrenadiers’ suits had turned green, grey and brown to match the terrain they were crawled up toward the barricade, but the other Legionnaires were targeting them as they moved, and they showed up on the suit HUD as slow-moving red squares.

Logan turned the gun toward the nearest square, and fired. The cannon jerked hard against the tripod as a burst of three hypervelocity armour-piercing explosive rounds belched from the barrel. The impact of the shells downrange threw dirt and rocks into the air, but, without the sights, he was firing too low to hit the suits.

He raised the barrel a few degrees, and fired another burst. The exploding shells blew a mass of chunks from a rock, but had no impact on the insurgents other than to keep their heads down for a few seconds.

Logan paused, waiting for one of them to move. The red squares were slowly coming closer, but they were staying in cover whenever they weren’t firing at the defenders or crawling up the hillside toward them.

That hillside had once been thinly covered with trees, and Logan could see the shattered bases of the trunks protruding from the ground. But the trees themselves had either been pulled down by the Legion, or shot down at some point during the battle. Only a handful still stood on the hillside, and those had lost most of their upper branches.

The fallen trunks were thick enough to provide some sporadic cover for the insurgents as they approached.

A suit emerged from hiding behind the end of one trunk. Logan swung the cannon and fired as the suit raced toward a rock. Two rounds hit the dirt in front of the man and blew dirt and stones into the air. But the third hit home. The lower half of the suit’s left leg tumbled through the air as the suit slammed down onto the ground. Blood spurted across the dirt as the suit crawled to the rock, and slumped down behind it.

A rifle round ricocheted from the shield on the cannon, and bounced off Logan’s helmet. He ducked as more rounds punched into the shield, adding more dents on the inside where multiple hits were degrading the plasteel. It wouldn’t last much longer under that kind of hammering, before they were able to punch through.

He raised his head and fired again, toward a man racing between a rock and a tree trunk. The cannon fired one round, then stopped. The ammo counter showed empty.

“Ammo,” he yelled.

Kader fired another burst of grenades, then pulled the empty magazine from the launcher and tossed it aside. He glanced at the pile of empty crates and magazines behind them. “We’re out. Anyone else got ammo?”

“We’re running out of everything,” Volkov said. “Make do with what you’ve got.”

Kader dropped the grenade launcher, and grabbed his rifle. He fired around the left of the trunk barricade, and Logan went prone on the right. The insurgents were less than a hundred metres away, now.

“Fire everything you’ve got,” Kader said. “If we don’t stop them now, we never will.”

Logan fired at anything he could see. But the insurgents were moving fast now the heavy weapons were out of ammo, and carefully. They only moved out of cover for the second or so they needed to run to the next rock, fallen tree, or ridge in the hillside. Then they went down and fired at the village. And they were getting close.

His gaussrifle flashed empty.

He pulled out the magazine, tossed it aside, and replaced it with a spare from the suit’s ammo storage. Then rolled back, ready to lean past the tree and keep shooting.

Just in time to see a trail of smoke heading for the barricade. Chunks of wood flew from the tree trunk as the RPG hit it, and exploded. The autocannon toppled over, and crashed down on its side with a mangled barrel. Logan fired back with his rifle at the Montagnard with the RPG, but the man ducked into cover too fast, and the rounds only hit empty air.

Then the Panzergrenadiers rose from the ground, and began to run toward the barricades. Another RPG fired from the left, blowing apart one side of the tree trunk barricade on that side. The rifleman who had been taking cover behind it fell back, and rolled to the far side, dragging his left arm behind him.

Grenades flew from the launchers on the Panzergrenadiers’ suits. Logan ducked back behind the barricades as the grenades exploded on them, shaking the tree trunks, and filling the air with chunks of bark and showers of splinters.

More exploded behind him, shattering the empty ammo boxes, and throwing empty magazines into the air. One magazine smacked against the back of his helmet before he rolled back into firing position.

The Panzergrenadiers were moving too fast to aim at. He swung the rifle their way and held the trigger back, spraying he area around them.

One suit went down, slamming hard into the dirt as sparks burst from its legs. It slid a few metres before coming to a stop. The others continued on, and Logan fired until the magazine was empty.

He grabbed another magazine from the suit’s stores, and slammed it into the rifle. He swung back around the tree trunk ready to fire. The Panzergrenadiers were almost on the first barricade, just over ten metres from the one Logan lay behind. And now that first barricade was providing cover for them, blocking Logan’s view of the hillside behind it.

The Montagnards rose from cover and sprinted after the Panzergrenadiers, crouching low and firing as they moved. The rifle rounds weren’t aimed, but hammered into the dirt all around the barricades.

“Prepare for close combat,” Kader said.

Logan extended the blades from the arms of the suit, and psyched himself up to swing them. He’d fought with knives in the ZUS, but never blades half a metre long.

Then the dirt erupted around the approaching insurgents.

One of the Montagnards went down, slamming into the dirt before his body disintegrated into a mass of flying blood and flesh. A Panzergrenadier dodged behind the outer barricade, but the suit’s leg exploded before it got there. Brown splinters erupted from the barricade as more rounds hammered into it.

“What is that?” a voice said over the net.

“2nd platoon’s drone made it at last,” Volkov said.

The drone’s Gatling gun continued to spray the area as the insurgents took cover. More of the Montagnards fell across the hillside, in a gruesome spray of blood and guts. The remainder began to pull back, sprinting from cover to cover as the drone fired hundreds of rounds at them in a few seconds.

A cloud of smoke appeared behind the Montagnards as the surviving Panzergrenadiers sprayed the area with a long burst of smoke grenades.

The drone continued firing. Logan and the two remaining riflemen fired through the smoke. Kader raised his rifle and fired over the top of the barricade.

If they weren’t actually hitting anything, at least they could encourage the bastards to keep running.

Then a small dot rose from the plain to their right, trailing a bright flame and a stream of grey smoke. The point-defence guns fired from the town square, and the missile exploded in mid-air. Two more SAMs rose from further to the right. Bright, glowing decoys burst in a shower from the drone as they approached.

One SAM exploded as the guns caught it, but the other dodged the decoys and reached the drone.

It vanished in a cloud of smoke and debris that moved slowly to the south as it fell.

“Ah, crap,” Kader said.

He raised his head above the barricade, and peered down the hillside. Logan looked around the side. The smoke was slowly clearing beyond the barricades, and the last of the insurgents were running down the hillside.

“West flank’s clear for now, sir,” Kader said.

“Good,” Merle said. “We need help to the south.”

“They may be back, sir.”

“I’d rather have men firing on the side where they are than the side where they might be. Get over here.”

Logan followed Kader along the street toward the village square. They raced past the village hall, toward the barricades in the south of the square.

The smoke trail of another RPG round raced through the air above the barricade and past the flagpole, before it slammed into the roof of the village hall and exploded. Dirt showered Volkov and Poulin as they crouched in a trench beside the hall, firing toward the hillside.

“Morning, Mademoiselle,” Logan said as he passed her. She didn’t reply.

Probably out of ideas on how to make the Panzergrenadiers like them.

Three Legionnaires were already taking cover behind the barricade. Another was dragging the point-defence gun across the square, toward the south.

An autocannon fired over the barricade, blowing chunks of dirt into the air where the explosive shells hit the hillside around the insurgents. The ruins of one of the platoon rocket launchers lay on its side near the barricade, still smouldering.

Kader jumped into a slit trench near the barricade.

A rifleman was already there. He glanced at Kader for a split second, then turned his attention back to the insurgents, and continued firing.

Logan found a trench on the far side of the barricade. Long tracks in the dirt showed where an earlier occupant had been dragged away toward the village hall. The dark stains in the soil showed where he’d been hit.

The point-defence gun began to fire with a rapid-fire moan as the Legionnaire behind it pointed it manually toward the hillside. The long, rapid-fire bursts tore up the dirt around the advancing suits, and ripped through two Panzergrenadiers who were moving at the time. Their suits exploded, and fell to the ground in shattered chunks of metal and flesh.

Using the gun as an anti-personnel weapon made sense in a desperate situation, but the rate of fire to shoot down missiles was too fast for the ammunition supply to last long.

But at least it was suppressing their fire. Logan aimed at a Montagnard who rolled on his back to avoid the explosive shells. Logan’s rifle rounds sprayed across the ground in front of the man, then Logan raised his aim a little. The next rounds blew the man’s head and shoulders apart, and he collapsed with arms outstretched beside what remained of his body.

A crouching Montagnard leaned around a rock as the point-defence gun fired. He swung an RPG around the side of the rock, and the smoke trail of the RPG round followed a split second later. The Legionnaire firing the point-defence gun rolled aside as the RPG round flew toward it.

The gun exploded, and the smouldering remains scattered across the square.

Logan swung his rifle, and fired a long burst toward the Montagnard with the RPG. The man’s chest exploded with at least half a dozen good hits, and the remains went down.

But, no matter how many insurgents they hit, there always seemed to be more.

The HUD showed dozens still crawling over the hillside to the south, and others approaching to the east. Those they’d fought away from the west seemed to be regrouping further down the hillside. They’d be back. He fired at the crawling men until the magazine was empty, and ducked back behind the barricade to reload.

Then a call came over the platoon net.

“They broke the east flank, sir. They’re in the village.”

CHAPTER 34

The main street of the village had become a storm of rifle fire and shrapnel as the insurgents tried to force their way past the few Legionnaires the platoon could spare to stop them. The dirt-covered buildings that had given solid protection to the Legionnaires were now protecting the insurgents as they fought their way along the street from the barricades at the east, toward the centre of the village.

Logan crouched beside Kader at the corner of a house about half-way along the street, leaned around it, and added his fire to the thousands of rounds per minute that were heading toward the insurgents as the far end of the street.

Grenades arced over the roofs from the Panzergrenadiers at the far end of the village, and slammed down onto the street and roofs around the Legionnaires, bursting into showers of shrapnel. A grenade buried itself into the dirt roof of the house Logan sheltered behind, and showered his suit with dirt and hot metal as it exploded. He leaned round the corner again, just in time to see a burst of rifle fire from a Panzergrenadier tear apart the helmet of a Legionnaire beside the rear of the aid station.

At least a dozen red squares remained on his HUD in the village, and dozens more were moving up the hillside to the south. And those were just the insurgents the Legionnaires had targeted. There were probably more they’d missed.

“Alice, where’s the Marine LePen?”

“Forty-six minutes from firing solution.”

No chance of that. The platoon would be lucky to last ten. Whatever happened, the battle would be over by the time the assault ship could help out.

“Any ideas, sir?”

Kader leaned out around the corner of the house, and fired a long burst along the street. He was answered by a burst of rifle fire from the far end, and ducked back.

“Shoot the bastards. And keep shooting them until we’re dead, or they are.”

Logan crouched beside him, waited a second, then leaned around the corner of the building, and fired. A suit ducked back behind a building further down the street as Logan’s rounds hammered into the wall of the building in front of them.

A grenade exploded behind him, and he leaned back into cover and glanced behind him. A Panzergrenadier and a couple of Montagnards were firing over the barricades at the west end of the village.

The insurgents held both ends of the main street now.

“We’ve lost the west flank,” a voice said over the net.

“We can’t hold the entire village,” Merle said. “Fall back to the village square.”

“Let’s go,” Kader said.

He backed away along the alley, following it back toward the square.

Logan followed him, backing away slowly, and taking the far side of the alley so they wouldn’t get in each others’ lines of fire. A face appeared at the end of the alley as a man raced around the corner of the building. No suit, and an RPG on their shoulder, already loaded and ready to go.

The RPG fired, and Logan jumped back as the rocket flew his way. It hit the side of the building beside him, and exploded. The worst of the blast passed by the side of his suit, but red lights flashed on the HUD. He glanced at the suit’s arm. It sparked where the explosion had blown a chunk of shrapnel into the actuators.

He pulled it free, and tried to twist the arm. It turned, but stopped and whirred before moving again as the actuator briefly hung up.

The insurgent had reloaded, and swung the RPG to fire a second time. Logan dove to the ground and fired a long burst from his rifle. The hypervelocity rounds punched right through the Montagnard’s body armour, and blood exploded from the man’s back.

The Montagnard’s legs went limp, and he fell forward, slumping down onto the dirt near the corner of the house, just inside the alley.

Logan jogged back along the alley toward the body.

He grabbed the RPG from the ground, and glanced along the street. A Panzergrenadier jumped out of cover between the houses on the far side. Logan swung the RPG and fired. The rocket flew into the visor of the Panzergrenadier’s helmet and exploded, scattering blood, brains and metal across the street. The suit fell to its knees with only the bloody stump of a neck where the helmet used to be. It slumped back, and collapsed between the houses.

Logan pulled the Montagnard’s body into the alley, grabbed the last RPG round from its back, and reloaded. He leaned out again, but rifle rounds were hitting hard around him now, as every insurgent began firing his way.

Grenades exploded on the roof of the building behind him. He slung the RPG, and backed along the alley as fast as he could, holding his rifle at his hip.

“McCoy, get back here,” Kader said.

A face peered around the corner of the building, from the main street into the alley. Logan fired the rifle from his hip, and the insurgent ducked back. He fired another long burst, then turned and ran as fast as the suit could move.

Gunfire tore into the building on his left, just behind him. Something thumped into his left leg, and he nearly stumbled as the leg stopped moving, but he pushed harder with his foot, and the leg moved again.

Then he was at the barricade.

He ducked for a split second, bending his legs to add their strength to his momentum, then threw himself into the air. The suit flew over the tree trunks of the barricade, then landed on the far side. The claws on the suit’s feet scrabbled for grip in dirt of the square, then his right left slid out from beneath him. The RPG went flying. He slammed down on his right arm and rolled, before the suit slid to a stop.

Grenades exploded around him. Rifle fire ripped into the roofs of the nearby buildings. Logan grabbed the RPG, and crawled back toward the barricade, where Kader and others were firing into the alley beside the aid station. He clambered up into a crouch as he approached the barricade.

He popped up behind the barricade, raising the RPG above it, ready to fire. A smoke trail raced down the alley toward him. He ducked back, and crouched as an RPG round flew past, barely clearing the barricade, and passing less than a metre over his head. It smacked into the front of the building behind him. The windows exploded outward, and the door blew off its hinges, rattling down the steps to the street below. A woman screamed inside.

Splinters flew from the barricade as rifle rounds hammered into it from the alley. Logan raised his rifle above the barricade with one hand, and fired a long burst, spraying rounds across the alley. He pulled his arm back as the insurgents fired at him.

Kader fired his rifle into the alley from Logan’s left, then ducked behind the barricade as the insurgents fired his way. Another Legionnaire on Logan’s right raised his head to fire. A rifle round smacked into his helmet, and he toppled back, his suit sparking as he rolled on the dirt.

Logan pulled a grenade from his belt, and tossed it over the barricade, into the alley. He grabbed the RPG, and waited for the grenade to explode. Then raised the RPG over the barricade and looked out.

A Panzergrenadier was racing along the alley toward them, through a cloud of smoke that slowly blew toward the east in the wind, while half a dozen Montagnards fired rifles toward the barricades.

With no cover in the alley to protect them from the Legion defenders, they’d had to resort to speed, firepower and smoke grenades. Logan swung the RPG toward the Panzergrenadier, and fired. He didn’t wait to see whether he hit, as more rifle rounds hammered into the logs, and he ducked back fast.

The RPG round exploded, and the Panzergrenadier didn’t jump over the barricade. Something must have gone right. With all the ammo gone, he tossed the useless RPG aside, and raised his rifle again. He held it above the barricade, looked through the sights on his HUD, and fired at anything that moved in the smoke. Until it showed empty.

He pulled the rifle back down, ejected the magazine, and searched through his suit stores for another. But the HUD was already telling him he’d fired his last round.

“I’m out,” he said.

“Join the club,” Kader said. “This is my last mag.”

Logan dropped the rifle, and grabbed the last grenade from his belt. If he was going to die, he’d do his best to take at least one more of the bastards with him, whether with the grenade or the blades on his suit’s hands. He didn’t need Beauchene on his case, as well as Volkov.

Grenades flew over the barricade, slamming down into the square behind them. Explosions tossed shrapnel and dirt into the air. Something creaked, and Logan glanced behind him. The flagpole wobbled, twisting to the right. Then an RPG round slammed into the ground beside it, and a Legionnaire dodged aside as the pole toppled and slammed to the ground.

Logan pulled the pin on his grenade, waited a couple of seconds, then popped up and tossed the grenade into the smoke. He began to crouch behind the barricade. But his left leg stopped moving half-way.

Red lights flashed on his HUD.

“Left leg primary actuator failure,” the AI said.

Shit. He twisted the leg, and it bent beneath him, slowly lowering the suit. Far too slowly, with his head still above the barricade. Now he knew why Beauchene had always told them to lean around cover, not fire over it.

The Montagnards fired. Rifle rounds hit the barricade, and one ricocheted off Logan’s helmet, knocking his head aside as he crouched. One of the Montagnards grabbed the grenade, and raised it to throw back. The grenade exploded, ripping off the Montagnard’s head, and turning his hand into a bloody mess of flesh and shattered bone.

Then the bright trail of an RPG rocket raced along the alley from the far end, illuminating the smoke as it flew. It exploded between the Montagnards. One collapsed to the dirt, his arms jerking toward the half of his head that remained on his neck. Another screamed and rolled on the ground, with only bloody bone where his right arm used to be.

The other Montagnards turned to look back toward the main street, staring into the smoke cloud that still hovered there. Rifles cracked from the far end of the alley, firing from the smoke, and spraying their fire across the dirt.

The remaining Montagnards fell in a bloody pile as the gaussrifles tore through them. Explosions boomed in the nearby streets, and the cracking of the gaussrifle fire intensified.

Two green squares flashed up near the far corners of the aid station building, and a dozen more appeared along the street and alleys nearby. Two suits crept along the alley, emerging slowly from of the smoke. Logan recognized that Russian flag on the shoulder of the suit in front.

“I see you made it, McCoy,” Bairamov said over the fireteam net. “We brought some friends.”

The crack of gunfire and thump of grenades intensified from the hillside south of the village square. Logan turned and looked that way. Dozens of green squares appeared on his HUD, streaming down the hillside toward the insurgents.

The red squares of the insurgents flashed and disappeared, or retreated. But more green squares approached from the far side.

Whoever they were, they had the insurgents caught in a crossfire. A few of the Legion markers showed suit or occupant damage, but the new arrivals were taking down ten insurgents for every man the insurgents hit.

“Who is that?”

“2nd platoon. We caught up with them on our way here.”

Volkov stood beside the barricade, and fired his rifle toward the mass of fleeing insurgents. “If you have ammo left, use it. Show these bastards who’s boss around here.”

“I’m out,” Logan said.

Bairamov tossed a magazine Logan’s way. “Here.”

Logan grabbed it in mid-air, and slammed it into his rifle as he limped to the south barricades on his suit’s failing leg.

2nd Platoon were chasing the insurgents back toward the ore truck, hitting them from both sides as 1st Platoon fired down the middle.

Logan crouched beside the barricade, and began to fire. A few of the Montagnards dropped their weapons and put their hands up. The rest fought on, but, caught in crossfire from three sides, they had few places to hide. Even Poulin was firing at them from the barricades.

The Panzergrenadiers were fighting to the last man, still launching grenades at 2nd Platoon as they retreated toward the truck. But only a handful of Panzergrenadier suits were still moving. The rest lay on the dirt, dead or wounded.

One suit leaned around the rear of the truck, between the truck and the trailers. He swung a rifle and fired. Metal and blood exploded from the back of a 2nd Platoon suit, and the suit fell to the ground.

Logan went prone beside the barricade, and took careful aim as the suit dodged back behind the truck. It reappeared a second later, firing over the truck’s engine bay.

Logan’s sight crosshairs lined up with the suit’s visor as the Panzergrenadier began to duck behind the truck again. For a split second, he could see the man’s face through the visor. A face covered with familiar scars.

Scar-Face. He should kill the murdering bastard. But if there was going to be any value in this mission at all, it wouldn’t be revenge, it would be protecting the decent people of New Strasbourg from Scar-Face and his friends.

And there were still better ways to do that than shooting him in the face.

Scar-Face ducked back behind the truck. He leaned out around the rear, between the truck and the first trailer, and aimed his rifle.

Logan’s rifle cracked. Scar-Face’s rifle went flying as sparks and blood exploded from his right arm. His suit slumped down behind the truck, and fell to the dirt.

CHAPTER 35

Bairamov shuffled across the village square. His suit was battered with deep and mangled dents, the visor was cracked, and the surface camouflage changed colour randomly as he moved. But it didn’t look too bad all-in-all, for being buried under a pile of falling rocks.

“You’re late,” Logan said.

“Took us a while to dig ourselves out of that mess in the mine. But at least we didn’t miss the fight.”

“You arrived just in time for the finale. And it would have been a different story if you hadn’t.”

Desoto stumbled across the village square behind Bairamov, dragging his right leg, with his left arm hanging loose at his side. He held his rifle in his one good hand.

“Not having much luck today, are you Desoto?”

“It’s getting better. I think.”

“Where’s Volkov?” Bairamov said. “We’d better check in before he thinks we deserted.”

Logan nodded across the square.

Bairamov grabbed the good arm of Desoto’s suit, and helped him toward the village hall, where Volkov, Merle and Poulin were talking.

Kader and two of the other Legionnaires had picked up the flagpole, and were lifting it back into place.

Logan grabbed it too, and helped them push the broken end down into the dirt beside the shattered remains of the base. It might be a metre shorter now, but the tricolour flag of France was flying over the village again.

Then he hobbled toward the aid station.

“Alice, visor up.”

He lowered his head so it would clear the roof as he looked in through the doorway of the aid station. Nicole was hunched over a man on blood-stained straw, holding his hand as a medic worked on his leg, where bone showed through torn, bloody muscle. The front of her dress was stained with blood.

“Nicole,” he said. “I need you for a second.”

She looked down at the man’s face. His eyes were wide, but distant. The Legion had good painkillers. They needed them. The man smirked at her, and nodded.

She released his hand, then followed Logan outside. He led her along the alley, away from the square to the main street, so fewer ears would be listening to what they had to say. With the failing leg of his suit dragging behind him, he didn’t even have to try to walk slowly so she could keep up. The suit could barely hobble faster than she could walk.

“What happened to your leg?” she said.

“The suit took a hit during the fight. How’re you doing?”

“I had no idea it would be this bad.”

“Welcome to a day in the life of the Legion.”

As they reached the corner of the building beside the street, she crossed her arms over her chest, and stared at the massive destruction around them. The village buildings had been torn up by rifles and grenades, the surface of the street was a mass of craters, one on top of another in places, and shrapnel protruded from every soft surface along it.

She glanced at the headless Panzergrenadier across the street, the smouldering suits and bodies of wounded and dead men, then at the wounded Legionnaires who were being helped out of their suits by the survivors, and carried to the aid station.

“So, this is what your little insurgency came to,” Logan said.

She turned toward him, shaking.

“What’s going to happen to me?”

“You’re done with this insurgency business, right?”

“I didn’t want this.”

“Well, this is what happens when you pick sides in a war.”

“I just want to go home. Forget about everything that’s happened.”

“Maybe you’ll meet a nice miner. Have some kids.”

“I don’t think I could live like that. Spending my whole life here, farming and making dinner, like my mother.”

“Trust me. There are worse ways to live.”

“Maybe I could marry a soldier.”

He could even come back here, maybe. In another five years, when his enlistment was up. If they’d let him.

If he survived.

Come back to a world where everyone wanted to kill him. Even the sun. Maybe not such a great plan.

He watched the 2nd Platoon medics carry a man past them, heading toward the aid station. Another Legionnaire held the wounded man’s lower left leg, which hung from the knee by a strip of muscle and skin.

“Not much future in that,” Logan said.

“I guess you’re right.” Nicole nodded as she watched the medics pass. “I should get back to helping your friends.”

“You probably should.”

She turned and hurried after the medics, as fast as she could move with her injured ankle. Logan hobbled along the alley behind her, back toward the village square. Volkov, Lieutenant Merle, and Poulin were still conversing near the village hall. Best to keep out of that.

Logan hobbled past them, and stopped beside the barricade at the south end of the square, where he could look out over the hillside below. The bark on the tree trunks had been shredded by thousands of rifle rounds, exposing fresh wood beneath that had been decorated with hundreds of chunks of shrapnel that glittered in the sunlight. He sat on the barricade, put his rifle across his lap, and stared down over the hillside. 2nd Platoon were busy rounding up the survivors among the insurgents.

Some were still able to move, and the Legionnaires led them away at gunpoint. The wounded were carried toward the aid station. The dead… would have to wait.

Two of them carried a man with a familiar face, and a bloody mess where his right forearm should have been. Scar-Face yelled in Prussian as they carried him up the hill toward the square and the aid station. At least Logan might score some points with Poulin when Scar-Face was introduced to Intel.

Volkov’s voice came from Logan’s suit speakers. “Where’s the girl, McCoy?”

Logan glanced back toward the aid station. Should he tell them? No, maybe someone could have some kind of happy ending after this. Or, at least, a not-so-unhappy ending.

“She didn’t make it, sir.”

Volkov strode across the square toward Logan, opened his visor, then stared at Logan in silence for a moment, as though trying to determine he was lying.

Logan put on his best poker face.

“I’m sorry, sir. The insurgents got her in the battle. There was nothing I could do.”

Volkov huffed. “Merle’s putting you up for a medal for your crazy stunt today. You’re officially a hero.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And that’s another reason I don’t want you around. Heroes get people killed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“There’s a fireteam leader position open in 1st Platoon after they ran into an IED. You’re it. Try not to cause them as much trouble as you’ve caused me.”

Promoted and cast aside in the same breath. That was Volkov for you. The sergeant turned to walk away, but Logan interrupted him.

“How bad was it, sir?”

“The battle? Twenty WIA, fifteen KIA, last I heard.”

Volkov strode away. Including all the men they’d lost since arriving here, that meant maybe fifteen men in the platoon were still fit to fight. Damn.

Merle stood beside the entrance to the village hall, talking to a male civilian. Logan hobbled that way. He’d sent Merle the recording from his helmet earlier. Now he should check in.

“Morning, McCoy,” Merle said as he approached.

“How’s it going, sir?”

“Intel managed to crack that tablet you found, and they were very interested in your recording from the mine. Chaput is on his way to an appointment with Madame Guillotine if he doesn’t tell them everything they want to know. And some of his aristo friends won’t be far behind him. Without the aristos’ support and Panzergrenadiers’ weapons, the insurgency will be crippled. The Compagnie can handle what’s left.”

“I need to recover my suit, sir. And Legionnaire Gallo’s body from Saint Jean.”

“I’ll arrange a transport. But do it fast. We move out in forty-eight hours.”

“More Panzergrenadiers, sir?”

“With the intel from that pad, the Marine LePen has picked more Panzergrenadier transmissions from orbit. The rest of the regiment is moving in to clear them out.”

“Why wouldn’t they all attack together?”

“Your arrival at the mine must have pushed this group to act early, before they were ready. Fortunately for us.”

He was probably right. Scar-Face had no way to know whether Logan had warned the Legion they were in the mine. Their only hope for surprise was to attack straight away, and kill as many Legionnaires as they could. And they’d come damn close to killing the whole platoon.

Logan glanced across the square toward Poulin, who was now slumped on the steps outside the village hall with the rifle across her lap, staring at the ground.

If she hadn’t been so resolute about sending them to the mine, they’d never have found the Panzergrenadiers, and the regiment would be facing coordinated, surprise attacks across the planet in the near future. That would have been a bad day for everyone.

Maybe she’d done something right for once.

“What were they doing here, anyway?”

“We may find out when we interrogate the survivors. But while the Panzergrenadiers have been stoking the insurgency against us, the Prussians have attacked the colony on Saint-Simon. It looks like part of a bigger plan to tie us up so we couldn’t get there to help. Even now, we’re three wormholes away. We still may not get there in time.”

PREVIEW: INSURGENCY

LEGIONNAIRE #2

INSURGENCY

Deep Space, 2123 A.D.

The universe whirled around Logan McCoy’s head. A silent universe, other than the constant wheezing of his own lungs struggling to suck in another breath.

His eyes adjusted to the dark a few hours ago, and now the space between the brightly-glowing stars no longer looked black, but had grown into a faint grey illuminated by the glow of billions of galaxies, and trillions of suns.

Yet few of them traced out familiar constellations.

He was light-years from the world where he was born just twenty years ago, living a life he’d never imagined as a kid.

And even the stars were wrong.

He lay as motionless as he could in the cramped confines of the vac suit, the only thing that was keeping him alive in the cold and vacuum of deep space. His chest pressed against the hard frame of the suit as the stars seemed to pull him toward them, compressing his ribs against his lungs under his own weight. His nose was squashed against the transparent plasteel visor, forcing him to breathe through his mouth.

A black, skeletal shape slid past the stars above his forehead then on down, blocking the light as it moved lower and lower in front of him, like a monster eating the universe.

The Robespierre, one of the destroyers escorting the Foreign Legion Assault Ship Marine LePen to Saint-Simon as part of Taskforce Richelieau.

As it crept across his field of view by a few degrees every second, anti-collision lights flashed, casting a brief red and white glow across the hard, rutted surface of the ship’s spherical bridge, and the missile launchers and guns hanging from a thin frame around it.

The destroyer slid past his nose, and continued moving down until it disappeared below the bottom of his visor, leaving him alone with the stars again.

But more ships replaced it. The other destroyers in the task force, the cruiser Jeanne d’Arc, and the Army assault ship Denis Diderot, waiting patiently in deep space until they were cleared to enter the final wormhole to Saint-Simon.

Logan willed his body to slow down, to use less air, and keep him alive a little longer. The oxygen level on the vac suit’s HUD glowed red, now down to two percent.

He had a few minutes left. Ten, maybe twenty at most.

Every breath he took brought him closer to zero, then he’d only have whatever oxygen was left in the suit to breathe before he died. The air already stank of rubber, plastic and his own sweat, and it was growing warmer, more stuffy and humid with every moment that passed.

Bungie cords clasped his outstretched arms and legs to the side of the Marine LePen, and they strained under the centrifugal force as the ship’s rotation tried to toss him away into space. All it would take was for the clips on the end of the cords to give way, and he’d be left to die a lonely death as he floated away from the fleet, never to be seen again.

He twisted his head to the right, sliding his nose across the inside of the visor until his cheek pressed against it instead. As his eyes turned toward the edge of the visor, he could just see the rim of the airlock about three metres away.

The outer hatch was still closed. Despite the low oxygen level in his tanks, no-one was coming out to save him.

It was so close. Yet impossible to reach from where he lay.

Even if he could escape from the cords, he’d never be able to clamber across those few metres of the ship’s hull without a safety line to hold him in place. If he tried to crawl without one, the rotation of the ship would throw him off into space well before he got there.

He turned his face back, scraping his cheek across the inside of the cold plasteel visor until he could see space again. He twitched his nose, trying to return it to its normal shape after it had been squashed against the visor for so long.

Though perhaps that was a blessing, because he couldn’t breathe so fast with his nostrils squashed. So the air in the suit would last a little longer.

He checked the HUD again.

One percent.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Edward M. Grant is a physicist and software developer turned SF and horror writer. He lives in the frozen wastes of Canada, but was born in England, where he wrote for a science and technology magazine and worked on numerous indie movies in and around London. He has travelled the world, been a VIP at space shuttle launches, survived earthquakes and a tsunami, climbed Mt Fuji, assisted the search for the MH370 airliner, and visits nuclear explosion sites for a hobby.

Find more of his his books at:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0073B3QKA

ALSO BY EDWARD M. GRANT

FADE TO GREY

How do you repair a dead planet?

Maintenance Bot M-3 was always proud of the smooth and reliable operation of the starships it maintained as they travelled the galaxy searching for life on unexplored worlds. It lived for the desperate struggle against the forces of chaos and decay, fighting against time to complete repairs before disaster struck.

But this job may be beyond even its capabilities.

A 15,000 word science fiction novelette set in The Future’s universe.

ROBO-ZOMBIE

Darren’s Robo-Rat project would have saved countless lives, allowing rescuers to go places no human could survive. If only the zombie apocalypse hadn’t interrupted its funding.

Now he’s trapped on a hotel roof in Saskatoon with his boss, while the girl he loves fights zombies far below. But Rob the zombie, a case of electronics, and a cordless drill may offer a chance to rescue her after all…

A 7,500 word science fiction horror short story. With remotely-controlled zombies.

SMILING IS CONTAGIOUS

Tired of healing wounded soldiers on the borders of the British Empire, Silas Cane returns to the heartlands of Victorian England as a rural doctor. The quiet Oxfordshire village is a welcome break from the chaos of war, until a smiling madman dies of a disease never seen before.

After watching so many men die, Cane will do whatever it takes to keep the villagers alive.

If they don’t kill him first.

A 14,000 word science fiction horror novelette.

SPACE WEASELS

Vicious, congenitally bureaucratic, and proud of their resplendent flame-red uniforms which give them a five minute life expectancy in combat, the Flaming Space Weasels wiped out most of Dirk Beretta’s fellow space marines at the battle of Din Bin Foo… then served them for lunch with a nice Merlot.

In the aftermath, Dirk quits his job as poster boy for the space marines, to drown his sorrow in cheap booze and cheaper women. But when a gang of pirate Weasels come hunting fresh meat for the kibble factories, his brand of pig-headed determination and excessive violence may offer the chance for redemption… and revenge.

A 7,000 word science fiction short story.

Copyright

Banchixi Media

Canada

Copyright © 2017-2018 Edward M. Grant

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced without permission in any manner whatsoever.

First Edition, 2018

Revision: #13068 - December 20, 2018

Published by Banchixi Media, www.banchixi.com

Content

Edward M. Grant
REBELLION
LEGIONNAIRE #1

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

CHAPTER 23

CHAPTER 24

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 26

CHAPTER 27

CHAPTER 28

CHAPTER 29

CHAPTER 30

CHAPTER 31

CHAPTER 32

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 34

CHAPTER 35

PREVIEW: INSURGENCY LEGIONNAIRE #2

INSURGENCY

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY EDWARD M. GRANT

Copyright