Guard at the Gates of Hell (Gladius Book 1) Page 8

  The Sergeant Major nodded. "I do, girl, but I'll bet you're going to find out more about them than you ever knew if you continue to hang around the Corps. We tend to do that to folks."

  Chuckling, he turned and pointed at a unit marching in from the badlands on the far side of the base. "That's Third Century, First Battalion, Second Cohort, coming in from a forced march. If you can shut up about being pissed at me for a while, you'll hear them when they sound off."

  Curious, Shana temporarily set aside her irritation and listened. The men were singing to the slow pace of their march. Strangely, the song felt as though it should be sung at a faster rhythm. The words were unfamiliar, nothing like the legion's language. "What are they singing?"

  "Le Boudin. It's damned old, girl, and the Corps inherited it from another Legion. Took their marching pace, too. They took it from what was supposed to be the marching pace of another Legion, a good two thousand years older than them."

  Shana could follow a lead in when she got one. "Is that why you march so slowly, tradition?"

  Sergeant Major Olmeg looked at her and smiled slightly again. "We march at 88 paces per minute and most militaries march at 110. You'd be surprised how fast you can move troops across bad terrain at that pace and have them pretty fresh at the end. Fresh enough to fight, anyhow. The first Legion that used it walked across the known world. The second crossed deserts. We took it to the stars. The cadence works and I've walked many a weary kilomeasure to that beat.

  "Now," he continued, "I'm going to show you around today so you won't get lost." He gave her an ironic look. "Again."

  They covered the base over several hours time and Shana found herself fascinated, even if she didn't understand half of what she was being shown. By midafternoon, she voiced just that complaint to the Sergeant Major.

  His response was characteristic. His minimal smile wasn't. "You'll get an interview with the Legate every morning you come here, girl, and he's the man for the tough questions, so hold them for him. Me, I'm detailed to play tour guide for my sins and show you around. If you want to know what something is or what someone is doing, ask. If you want to know why, you ask the Legate. That okay with you, girl?"

  Despite her irritation, she found herself warming to the old fart for some reason and smiled back. "Okay, What for you and why for him. Sounds like a deal."

  The next morning, Shana was sipping her tea in the Legate's office while he drank his coffee. This looked like it was going to be a regular ritual. It was a nice enough one, Shana decided.

  "You've seen the compound, Shana," the Legate said. "What did you think?"

  Shana studied the Legate. "You were run out of your old base with just a damaged troop ship. Where did all of this come from?"

  The Legate gave a small grimace. "That's a good question. There are several kits to construct a base like this and a complete heavy equipment issue on every Imperial troopship as standard equipment. I ask you to consider the implications of that for the Gladius. When we set down on a world for even a short time, this is our home, the only one we have. All of our equipment, uniforms, weapons, even our field rations, are packed in duplicate sets on the ship. Our normal garrison rations come from food synthesizers. We can also fabricate replacements for anything that isn't alive, so those sets are constantly being regenerated as they are used.

  "In other words, a Gladius is simply the human part of a superbly efficient mechanism for transferring military power where ever it's needed in a minimum of time. A man's personal belongings can usually be put into a small pouch. A Gladius, Shana, has no clothing other than his uniform. Everything is replaceable by an identical duplicate. The Gladius is the most highly refined soldier in history and the system under which he lives is the ultimate refinement of the way military forces have been treated for millennia. In our case, however, we don't live that way for the course of an enlistment or a career like other military forces, we live like this for generations, and know no other way of life. To Imperial planners, Sim Ettranty, we are not people, we are a weapon. A most complex and dangerous weapon, but a weapon. Ultima Ratio Regis... the last argument of kings. We are treated as such."

  Shana shuddered slightly. The idea of a life lived like that was so alien it was almost repellent. She couldn't live that way. "That seems like a cold impersonal existance."

  The Legate nodded. "It seems so... and civilians, even other militaries, feel that way."

  He looked down and started to take a sip of his coffee. "As do you."

  Shana started to hotly deny the accusation, then shut up. He was right. "Okay, you caught me. But you aren't that way among yourselves, are you?"

  Corona shook his head. "Far from it. We place no value on possessions. We look inward instead of out. That's why we value music so highly. We say the ax is the soul of the Gladius and the brushara is the soul of the Cohort. Both are true, but the soul of the Corps is our music."

  Shana thought about yesterday in the Legionnaires' Club. "Come to think of it, I've seen men singing as they marched and heard others doing it just for fun. I begin to get the idea of what you're saying."

  She mulled that over and decided it was time to ask a hard question, one that had punched a button every time so far. "What happened to your women? Your families? All I see here are men, and every open source record I've viewed only shows male combatants. Why did you restrict combat to your men? Weren't your women capable?"

  Briefly, Shana thought of several pictures she'd viewed in the Legate's briefing chips. In sharp contrast to the big muscular kilted male Gladius, a woman was much shorter - a good bit shorter than Shana, in fact. Gladius women also shared several other characteristics. Long straight colorless hair where the men wore only stubble and a body that was very curvy, nearly stocky. The briefing had also included material on Gladius rank insignia and Shana was intrigued to discover many of the women in the pictures were very highly ranked.

  Women wore the same khaki shirts as the men, but without the weapons belt. Instead, they had some sort of dagger fixed to their left forearms. They didn't wear kilts, but long flowing skirts instead. Shana usually wore pants or short tight skirts occasionally and wondered how a long flowing skirt felt. A female Gladius's appearance and uniform was in sharp contrast to her male counterpart, but there was a feeling of rightness about it. Still, she wondered about the surprising difference. Maybe the Legate would explain it.

  Legate Corona snorted. "At the time of her death, my wife was several times your age and could probably break you in half. She was also the legion's Commander. Every legion is commanded by a woman. Still, she hadn't fought since her Virgin Mission in her teens. Female command was by our own design, not the idea of our creators."

  Shana was silent, simply waiting while he explained. The Legate appeared slightly sad. "Legio I Primus established, or more properly broke, the pattern intended by our creators. After a number of small wars and other conflicts, it became obvious that our life was to be one of constant warfare. Legate Batiste made the decision that not every Gladius would be condemned to that future, and established the idea of the Exempt. Every Gladius must first prove themselves on a Virgin Mission involving combat, but we deliberately exempt our women from fighting after that mission. Your ideas of sexual equality have nothing to do with it. To us, our women have a greater responsibility. They keep the Corps whole for the future, no matter what happens to the men. They also form our leadership because of the stability of their lives, hence the fact that my wife, not I, was the legion's Commander. It only makes sense to us to keep our heritage and leadership for as long as possible. Men fight the battles and, because of that, normally have much shorter life spans than women.

  "A Legion Support Command is staffed by our women and they drop onto a hostile planet behind the fighting Cohorts. That still puts them in danger, but they no longer have a duty to kill, only the right, and that's good. We deliberately genetically modified ourselves and bred for physical differences to make our men larger for physic
al combat while our women are smaller. A female Gladius is normally much shorter than you."

  Corona's face took on a sardonic expression. "The Empire's leadership regarded that as an unforeseen side effect of their own genetic meddling and eventually stopped bothering us about it. The men were getting the job done and seemed more suitable to the task, so the Empire was happy. Besides, only a portion of any military force is involved with personal combat. The remainder keeps the fighters supported. Our women performed that task superbly. The Empire didn't realize we'd deliberately exempted part of our population from killing and pain, as much as we could."

  Shana took a chance and decided to reveal her own brand new ability in Copio. "It sounds to me like you don't like your lives very much."

  The Legate smiled at her language shift and continued in Copio. "Would any rational civilized being want to live with generations of killing and war, Sim Ettranty? However, it's a task that needs doing to protect the Empire. The Gladius does it better than anyone ever has before and we're proud of the fact. We're satisfied that some of us, supposedly born to a life of constant battle, do not have to fulfill that destiny. The rest of us uphold our pledge, and people sleep safe because of that. Do we like our lives? To a degree. There are some things we wish we didn't have to do, but we do them well and that's enough."

  Still. "Legate, I know this must be painful, but I have to ask again. What happened to the women and children?"

  His answer was curt, harsh. "The Empire turned on us. They are turning on all of the Gladius units and many of the Fleet units."

  He sat back in his chair and inhaled a deep breath through dilated nostrils. "The Empire has hit hard times. They do not produce many new combat ships for a number of reasons, but they can muster ground forces. The tactics forced by that problem are simple enough. I saw them in action. Imperial representatives suborn the leadership of the Fleet Support Group and turn their guns on the legion based with them. Defecting forces are supplied with special ground troops brought in for the strike. They know you can't suborn a Gladius. Only a fool would accept such a declaration if it was made, since it would just be a tactic to gain time to strike back. No, they kill the entire legion.

  "In our case, they made a miscalculation. Several, actually. I had the Victrix out for an exercise when they struck." Corona grinned evilly. "As it happened, it was a live fire exercise, so we were fully combat loaded with live ammunition. We made it back under fire from Fleet defectors while the new Imperial troops were still overly preoccupied with destruction of the base. Our casualties were heavy since we lacked air support."

  The Legate suddenly looked like an old man. "The Imperial ground troops hit our quarters, the Support Area, and the schools first. They killed our women and children, the legion's future, deliberately. They paid heavily doing it, but they did it."

  Shana gasped. "That's horrible!"

  He looked her dead in the eye. "Sim Ettranty, they wanted us destroyed and killing our future was the fastest and most inevitable way to do it.

  "However..." he continued, his voice shaking with emotion, "we came back right through those miserable black uniformed bastards the Imperials thought were ground troops. Once we got our crew served weapons deployed, we were able to clear the skies for a space. We gathered the legion's survivors and enough Fleet personnel to man our ship and took off. There were very heavy casualties in the process.

  "In that attack, Sim Ettranty, I lost my wife and children. Every man you see on this compound lost a wife, children, a mother, a sister. Someone dear. They killed our women and children. THEY KILLED OUR FUTURE!" His fist crashed on his desk.

  After a moment, he was back in control and speaking in calm tones. "However, they didn't manage to totally suborn the entire Fleet Support Group. One of the reasons we escaped was that a good bit of the Group was still loyal and already up or managed to lift with us. They didn't accompany us here because of the second miscalculation the Empire agents made.

  "The Fleet has its own honor, Sim Ettranty. The men in those ships held to it. They were locked in combat with the defecting ships as we went into tachyon field drive. I have no idea how the battle ended, but I have to think the defecting force was destroyed. I personally saw a collier ram a defecting cruiser. The Fleet Support Group, I believe, went down taking its traitors with it."

  The idea of such an orgy of mutual destruction made Shana shudder. Lord Above grant nothing like that came here! She noted the Legate made no mention of civilians around the base, and she decided she didn't want an answer.

  It was a relief a few silent moments later when the Sergeant Major came into the office to pick her up. "Well, girl, want to see some more, today?"

  Shana was glad of the chance to escape the doom filled scenario she'd just had described. "Of course, Sergeant Major. Legate, if you will excuse us?"

  The Legate nodded absently, his eyes distantly focused on something Shana had no desire to see.

  Outside, Shana tried hard to think of a distraction. Anything other than the horror she'd just discovered in the Legate's office. The Sergeant Major looked at her with a cool assessment and said, "There's a combat football game going on right now. Want to watch? You can even play if you want, although I don't recommend it. You aren't in shape for that kind of thing."

  That stung her pride. She ran a minimum of ten kilomeasures a day whenever her schedule permitted, and usually did weights and aerobics, too. "I'm in better shape than you think, Sergeant Major. I want to play, not watch. I have my stuff in the trike. Where can I change?"

  The Sergeant Major grinned. "I admire your spirit, girl, even if you've bitten off a little more than you think. We have an unused set of officer's quarters erected and you can change there."

  Inside the dome the Sergeant Major pointed out, Shana took a quick look around before changing. It was two stories inside, with two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. There wasn't a single personal element in the entire dome, probably normal, especially for unused quarters. Opening the closet in one of the bedrooms, she was surprised to find a full set of uniforms for a woman. There weren't any in the legion, and the Legate had just explained why. Why did they stock the closets? A quick check of built in drawers showed undergarments for a woman also? Why these?

  Out of curiosity, she measured one of the soft flowing skirts against herself, and found it too short, and a little bigger in the hips. That figured. Female Gladii she'd seen in some of the material she'd gotten from the Legate showed a woman both shorter and a little curvier than she was. So this was all standard issue. Is that why the clothing was here? It simply came with the quarters? They just put it up out of habit? The concept was so impersonal it bothered her.

  Changing into athletic shorts, sports bra, a pullover shirt, and her running shoes, Shana braided her hair then trotted back out to the Sergeant Major. "I'm ready."

  He nodded at her attire, although he showed no real interest at her as a woman, which left her slightly miffed. She knew she had good legs, damn it! "All right, girl," he growled, "let's get you in the game."

  As they walked over to the playing field, he explained combat football. "It's simple, you see. There are few rules, but four referees help keep down broken bones and such. There are two balls, two goalies at each goal, and you can move the ball by kicking, throwing, or running with it. The teams can be any size but they should be about equal. Usually have about twenty men on a side."

  "Do women play?"

  "Oh, our women play along with the men. And they take their lumps along with the men, too. You won't be out of place to the Gladii on the field, except that you're weaker and slower than they are. It isn't a matter of your conditioning, girl, but the fact that we're stronger, faster and longer lived than you."

  Shana gave him an interested glance. "Genetic traits?"

  The Sergeant Major replied, "Some, but we use nannie mods for most of that. We can duplicate those mods in a normal person if we want to do it. We do it when we take in recruits from local po
pulations if they pass our tests. We could do it to you, too."

  "Me?"

  The Sergeant major nodded. "Not a problem. Two days in the hospital on the troop ship."

  He gave her another searching glance. "If you're so keen on studying us, girl, you might consider an abbreviated recruit course. That goes with the mods. Get to know us from the real inside out."

  He gave her an evil grin. "If you survive this damn fool notion of playing combat football, that is."

  Shana turned her face forward and walked in an irritated silence, but her brain was busy with what the Sergeant Major had said. Live longer? Be faster and stronger? What woman who cared for her body wouldn't want that? She even considered the recruit training and immediately rejected it, but the vagrant little thought kept coming back. Why not?

  As they approached what looked like a riot between two soccer goals, Shana started to have second thoughts. As she watched, one of the Gladii body checked another, sending the man flying and grabbed one of the balls, heading for a goal, only to go down in a mob tackle. When the Sergeant Major waved to one of the officials, whistles blew and everyone took a break, heading for the water bottles laid out on nearby tables.

  The Sergeant Major turned to her and pointed out onto the field. "Just get on out there. There aren't any positions except the goalie. Just move the ball to the opposing goal. The boys without shirts are one team, the ones wearing shirts are the others. Team numbers are close enough, so adding you won't make any difference.

  "Given Cauldwell's ideas on the female body, I'd imagine you'd want to be on the shirts' team," he finished dryly, "not the skins."

  Shana walked out on the field, self-conscious and a bit intimidated from the looks she was getting. By now all of the men knew who she was, but it was obvious they were a little surprised at her presence on the field.

  One of the younger Gladii, a member of the shirts team, walked up to her and said in Copio. "Glad to have you, Sim Ettranty. You won't get much contact if you stay on the fringe. Just keep your eye on the balls and try to move one into that net whenever you get the chance," he said pointing to one of the goals. She'd never seen the man before, but he knew who she was. Hmmm.