)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Legion Air Base Miramar, California, Barracks of the 34th Legion 'The Khans', Confederacy of Earth Nations
))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Oliver Khulmano was a Legionnaire.
The President's Chosen.
And life as a Legionnaire was frickin' awesome.
Oliver's straining muscles pushed upwards against the bar as he completed another set of 90 kg bench presses. Sweat glistened off his dark skin as the barbell clanged back into its rack.
Oliver sat upright on the bench. His spotter, Private Ethan Thompson slapped him on the shoulder. "Way to get your pump on, OK."
"Thanks, ET." No one called him Oliver anymore. Every Legionnaire lost the right to their name when they enlisted in the Legions. Their names now belonged to the Confederacy of Earth Nations and the Legions did them all a favor and shortened it. Officially, he was OK-7/8/35 to the Legion, his initials and his birthdate. As 2060 drew to a close it marked him as a quarter century old, most of it lived in the twenty years since the Confederacy booted the Empire off of Earth.
He didn't mind being called OK by his comrades in the Legions. Oliver was a name he'd rather forget. That name brought back memories of nothing more than pain and fear. His first memories had been living in Camp Cape Town in South Africa. Refugees back in those days had been moved around quite a lot to avoid orbital bombardments from the Empire's warships. At one place, a town infamously remembered as Robertson, a bombing raid had come in the middle of the night. Oliver's parents had tried to flee to the woods along with Oliver and his six siblings.
Being only five at the time, Oliver had grown too big to carry quickly and somehow in the confusion had fallen. When he got back up again his family had been nowhere to be found. Oliver hadn't known which way to look but almost everyone in town was fleeing into the woods nearby. A nightmarish 'H' bomber had chosen that moment to fly overhead causing Oliver to look skyward.
The next thing he remembered was a searing wall of fire that charged out of the woods consuming trees, animals and people alike. Only a miracle had stopped the flames just short of the nearly empty city.
He found out shortly, that his family had made it to woods. Months later they had identified some of the bones as belonging to them through a sample of his DNA.
After the war the Confederate Youth Corps had scoured the thousands of refugee camps around the world for orphans like him. They took him in and taught him the honor of serving the Confederacy and President Harris. For several years they transferred him around the world to public works projects, usually city clearing and road repair in places such as India, Sweden and Brazil. The Youth Corps weeded out the smartest kids for university training. Everyone else enlisted in the Legions.
There were no exceptions. Everyone had to serve the Confederacy.
Service equaled 2nd Class citizenship upon retirement and that meant the vote. Not that Oliver thought about what voting meant or even what 2nd Class citizenship meant in the long run. Legionnaires were the will of the President. They could and did tell 2nd Class citizens where to shove it. Sometimes even the 1st Class elite, who mainly lived around Confederate Center in Colorado, but that was more of a risky proposition. Elites tended to stick up for one another and since any officer that rose to the rank of Major or higher was granted 1st Class citizenship and would ream out a Legionnaire that messed with another elite it was usually wiser to leave those Confederates alone.
Unless of course they did something against the President. That was the worst crime one could commit in the Confederacy. Treason either ended with the death penalty or a one way ticket to the penal labor camps. Oliver didn't want to imagine what happened to a 1st or 2nd Class citizen that got sent there. There were rumors the 4th Class prison laborer's ate their babies, something they had learned to do in Hawaii during the war. Oliver didn't question it. His sergeants told him it was true, and what they said was gospel.
The base's gym was a large complex stuffed to the brim with every type of weight training and exercise equipment imaginable. Hundreds of his fellow Legionnaires worked out in the gymnasium's multitude of cardio centers, Olympic-sized swimming pool, indoor basketball courts and weight center. The gym boasted several juice bars manned by licensed dieticians and a pharmacy that freely doled out protein powder, muscle supplements and steroids. The Confederacy wanted its first team soldiers lean and mean. Off duty alcohol was allowed in moderation for NCOs and officers but everything from nicotine and caffeine to marijuana and methamphetamines were banned and screened for on a weekly basis.
Oliver's life was a steady routine of working out, martial arts training, firing and explosives ranges and class room study, broken up by weekly fifty to hundred kilometer road marches with full kit in the California desert. Reading and math were only taught in the Youth Corps and Legions at the rudimentary level and thought of by the officers as superfluous. A Legionnaire only had to know enough to carry out a mission or read simple orders, everything else hindered the Confederacy and its ultimate victory over the Empire.
Oliver's platoon rotated out of the base every four weeks for patrol duty. Usually, that entailed air combat patrols over the Los Angeles wetlands locating and shooting any looters trying to mine the underwater battlefield for souvenirs. Abandoned Imperial tech fetched a steep price on the black market, but to the Legionnaires it all belonged to the Confederacy and its own retrieval teams, and they would kill to defend it. Some patrol missions were the definition of boring to the young Legionnaires, such as supporting Army and Marine units patrolling refugee camps or reclaimed cities. Showing the helmet, as it was called, kept citizens in line.
Oliver longed for more exciting duty. Combat was where glory lay. It was the most obvious way a Legionnaire could serve his President. His Legion had done four stand-by hops in the past two years but each had proved a letdown without any actual combat. Other Legions had served in global hotspots such as Chechnya, Texas, and France and, of course, his homeland, or what was known as Bloody Africa. Dozens in just the last year alone. Somehow the 34th kept missing out on all the fun.
Oliver wiped the sweat from his brow before squeezing a squirt from his water bottle over his sweaty head. He looked up towards a portrait of President Harris hanging over one of the doors to the gym. It was a younger portrait from some time during the war. Harris's visage hung in nearly every room in the air base. Rarely did Oliver try to recall the faces of his parents but he could probably draw President Harris in his sleep.
"We've got squad simulators on the schedule this afternoon." Thompson said, indicating they should head for the showers soon.
They would hit the mess hall for lunch first and devour a 2,500 calorie lunch before heading over to their next class. Legionnaires spent nearly forty hours a week in digital video games that simulated battlefield conditions under the watchful and brutally judgmental eyes of their officers and NCOs. Oliver had been attempting for months to break the top hundred rank for top assault team members. Top members earned extra privileges and faster rank advancement.
Unfortunately, he didn't seem to quite have the temperament for it. If he held back and listened to his squad commanders he tended to do alright, but if placed in charge of a scenario he had a habit of stumbling into one stimulated ambush after another.
Oliver's strength was his speed. In athletic competitions he was one of the top five sprinters in the 34th. He'd held the Legion record for the Bayonet Sprint for the past three years, which was a half kilometer run in full kit with ten targets that needed to be dispatched along the way. Athleticism would only carry him so far. Officers liked the Legionnaires with high marksmen scores the best. Anyone with mechanical aptitude was swept into the Legion's combat engineers. A few Legionnaires had showed aptitude for computer programming and had been transferred into the supply units. A move Oliver looked down upon. If merely for his speed, Oliver had been slotted into a position in the Legion's signal platoon as a courier and been given extra radio training.
All of which didn't matter much if they were never sent into combat.
Combat was the mythical world of honor and glory for the Legionnaires. It was a realm that would prove oneself for all to see. Especially the President, who it was said, always had his eyes on his beloved Legionnaires.
There were few chances for large scale combat since the Empire had fled the Earth. Veterans from that conflict gave monthly briefings that regaled the new generation with stories from the battles of Los Angeles, Shanghai, Hawaii, Europe and Las Vegas. Once they even had the famous Sergeant Jones from Task Force Odysseus come and give them a speech, which they had talked about for months afterwards. Not a year passed where two or three brushfire wars sprang up around the world. Usually 3rd or 4th class citizens who were upset with their lots in life, Oliver figured. The uprisings burned bright and burned fast, usually put down in a few days.
He never heard any whispers of outrage at the massacres that usually accompanied such uprisings. Legionnaires were kept well away from the internet and contact with civilians outside the Legions. Army units sometimes grumbled about such things, but they were seen as inferior troops and not the elite Legionnaires that were the living will of the President.
The dream of every Legionnaires was to face off with the Empire's Stormtroopers. The Legions were born of the post-war loyalty battalions that emerged in the days following the Empire's retreat. Trained in the style of the Stormtroopers at a two year course in South Carolina under the watchful gaze of Sergeant Major Cortez, another Task Force Odysseus commando who Oliver remembered as a vicious taskmaster and drill sergeant, that washed thousands of recruits out of the Legions for not meeting its high standards. Oliver heard Cortez had retired a couple of years ago and worried about running into the grizzled veteran one day in the real world.
After showering off the stink of the gym Oliver and Thompson stood under the wintery heat of the southern Californian sun as they waited in the mess hall line. Each year the Earth grew warmer and warmer as terraformers from the Baffin Island Project reclaimed the war damage, which had threatened a new ice age, one centimeter at a time.
Chow was devoured in massive gulps as extensively planned meals were shoveled into Oliver's gullet with hardly enough time to chew. Mess hall sergeants roamed through the tables shouting at Legionnaires to eat faster. Oliver would have been upset if it hadn't been happening at every meal during his seven years in the Legions.
Their trays were cleared by mess hall attendants as Thompson and Oliver rushed out of the mess hall towards the air conditioned simulation building. They stopped in their tracks when the mid-day anthem played out across the air base. Every officer and enlisted soldier snapped to attention and turned to the nearest CEN flag. If one couldn't be found a picture of President Harris would suffice. Those were much more common than Confederacy banners anyway.
They reached the SimOps building just in time for another klaxon to sound out. An electronic warble wafted from the speakers across the base. Oliver and Thompson looked at one another in disbelief. They knew what the ready alert signal sounded like but it had been over a year since they'd last heard its welcoming warble.
The two Legionnaires sprinted back to their company's ready room with Oliver pulling well ahead before they were even half way to their destination. The neat rows of benches were nearly full by the time they arrived. Rumors and scuttlebutt flowed through the ranks of the excited Legionnaires like the mutterings of overly excited preschoolers.
A quick inquiry from his squad mates Rostoc, Tonc, Sefla, Mefran, Basteren, Calfor, Casrich and Kappehl all proved that they didn't know anything about what was going on. Oliver looked to squad leader Corporal Lockwood who, along with several other junior NCOs was in quiet conference with Sergeant Rook. She must have noticed the pleading eyes of her squad as she merely turned and shrugged at them to indicate that she didn't know anything more than the regular Legionnaires.
5th Squad, 1st Platoon, Delta Company, 788th Battalion of the 34th Legion was an odd collection of Legionnaires deliberately built from a mix of elite recruits from all over the world, despite two of its members, Basteren and Calfor, being from the Restored United Kingdom. Legionnaires were deliberately assigned to areas they didn't originate from so they would have no sympathies for local inhabitants of combat zones. Specialist Mefran was an American but was born on the other side of the continent from Miramar, which in the end mattered little. If an alert was called there was slim chance the 34th would fight in territory it was familiar with. Plunging headfirst into the unknown for the President was the Legion's specialty and what they trained for.
"Attention!" A booming voice called out, snapping every Legionnaire to their feet.
From the side entrance strode the Company commander, Captain Bygar. The commander was dressed in his khaki work uniform and looked to have come directly from another conference with little time to change. He set his jaw and stared out at his Legionnaires. Oliver always thought the Captain looked to be offering a challenge for anyone to take a swing at him. Bygar was two meters even and a pure ninety kilos of muscle and as far as Oliver knew no one had ever taken him up on the challenge.
"Legionnaires, AMERCOM has handed us a bucket of shit."
Oliver frowned. He knew Bygar thirsted for combat just as much as anyone. Anything less than a firefight would be a disappointment and thus a steaming bucket of disappointing shit.
"The World Health Organization has issued an alert for the city of Quito. It's a medium sized, research city in the Union of South American Nations. They mainly deal in the manufacture of medical supplies. WHO is reporting on a small outbreak of the Fester." Bygar reported.
Oliver wanted to turn and judge the reactions of his squad mates but training had ingrained in him the necessity of remaining at attention during briefings.
Bygar continued, "As you all know, the Fester killed millions of people after the war. It can only be broken by mandatory quarantine and healthy doses of bacta. Bacta which we still have to purchase through the offices of New Zealand."
Oliver scowled at the mention of the rogue state. Almost universally referred to inside the Confederacy by its old name in refusal of its traitorous actions during the Earth-Empire War. The isolationists, claiming some kind of falsified action against it during the war had thrown in with an equally rebellious lot of Imperials. Rumors stated the Imperials had even been clones of one another. New Mandalore had grown rich after the war selling raw material and bacta to an ailing Earth that was trying to get back on its feet. They claimed a large swath of the South Pacific as their own and guarded it with a pair of Star Destroyers. Oliver, as well as every other proper Legionnaire, viewed them as a knife sticking into the side of the Confederacy and wouldn't be happy until that island nation was wiped from the Earth.
Bacta was one of the main imports from New Mandalore. The Mandos imported it from some Imperial colony called New Thyfeeria. The miracle drug cured nearly everything under the sun. A severe case of the Martian Fester could clear up in 24 hours with a healthy dose. Malaria, COVID-19 or typhoid, a few hours. The only bad thing about it was it was some sort of bug secretion that was supposedly impossible to replicate. The CEN had thrown billions of Confederate dollars at trying to do so. Outbreaks like the one the Captain mentioned had to be squashed quickly before they got out of hand. Nobody wanted to dip into the bacta reserves the military had been stockpiling. Those were being saved for the next war with the Empire.
"So this will be a quarantine mission. We will establish a perimeter around the affected neighborhoods of this Quito place. Nobody is allowed in or out by order of the President. Except for our own medical teams who will judge how severe the situation is." Bygar explained.
A hand went up from the officers in the front row. They were the only Legionnaires allowed to move when the Captain was giving a briefing. Bygar nodded to a Lieutenant to ask their question. "Sir, is this a burn?"
"We won't know if we have to raze the city yet. Last time a burn occurred was Tangiers four years ago. Half a million people lost their lives that time." Bygar replied.
"Sir, what class city is Quito?" The Lieutenant asked another question.
"2nd and 3rd class citizens so leave the talking to your officers. This isn't a free fire 4th Class prison town, but at the same time remember you are Legionnaires. The President's finest. And you don't take shit from anybody."
Bygar let that sink in before attempting to amp them up. "Am I right? Can I get a Huah?"
"Huah!" The cheerful grunt ripped from every Legionnaire's mouth.
"Alright. Assemble at Hanger 5 in 3-0 minutes in full kit and battle rattle. Sergeants, I want a full load out for every Legionnaire. Dismissed!"
The room emptied like a flood as Legionnaires leapt from their spots and ran for their barrack armories. With well-oiled practice Oliver donned his Mjolnir power armor, nicknamed HALO armor by a populace who remembered the pre-war video game series. The exoskeleton gave him an extra five centimeters of height and allowed Oliver to carry loads up to 300 kilograms. Construction of the allegedly bulletproof suit was done in overlapping layers and had been remarked of it being akin to a giant three-dimensional puzzle. The armor's shell was composed of a multilayer alloy of remarkable strength and had been augmented with a refractive coating capable of dispersing a limited amount of Imperial phaser strikes. The suit contains a gel-filled layer underneath a thick black armored bodysuit. The gel layer regulated temperature and could reactively change its density. The inner skinsuit was made of a moisture-absorbing synthetic material linked to an environment control computer and the occupant's CEN-issue neural interface.
Unlike the Imperial Stormtroopers, who preferred their highly-visible white armor, the Mjolnirs were painted flat matte green to reflect the Earth's own military traditions. And, as Oliver's sergeants had informed him, it made it damn hard to spot him on a battlefield. His face shield was made of high impact plastic and protected him from toxins and bacteria. It was a clear face shield that could polarize in a microsecond in bright-light conditions and completely black out in combat and crowd control missions to protect Oliver's identity and create a uniformity between identical Legionnaires.
Designed by the Ministry of Improvement the battle suit was a sealed system, capable of extra-vehicular activity for a limited amount of time or operations in toxic atmosphere. It was hardened against EMP and radiation. The suit also possessed other features that enhanced its wearer's abilities. It had numerous clips, belts, and magnetic holsters for the attachment of additional weapons and ammunition; an advanced heads-up display, linked to sensors in the gloves which could detect the type of weapons and devices held, ammunition count, a targeting reticle, waypoints, and a radio uplink for communication, health monitoring and other helpful data.
The armor hung loose on Oliver's frame until he flipped open the control panel on his left forearm and powered up. A series of audible clicks sounded out as the Mjolnir's mag locks snapped into place. The armor grew snug around his body as the air filters started circulating within his helmet. Within seconds the reactive body glove cooled Oliver's skin.
Oliver ran to the gun armory where a pair of Chappie robots were busy issuing weapons to Legionnaires who had arrived before him. Oliver was issued his Battle Assault Rifle, several tear gas grenades, and a Thor ipeg submachine gun sidearm.
The Battle Assault Rifle was the war-winning staple of the Earth-Empire War. Voice activated to its user and able to switch between and fire a vast variety of rounds from non-lethal shock and rubber bullets to flechette rounds designed to work their way between enemy armor plates. The BAR was an air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed, fully automatic bullpup rifle that fired 7.62×51mm ammunition. It came standard with a rail mounted ammunition indicator and magnetic compass for orientation. BARs were tough and reliable. It had electric targeting, an ammo supply indicator, and a recoil-reduction system. The Battle Assault Rifle could fire 900 rounds per minute.
Oliver wished they were being issued Epic A1s or E3 phasers. He had qualified on both weapons but they were only issued to the Legionnaires at the embassy on the moon or if contact with Imperial forces was imminent. Tibanna, the necessary superheated gas needed to arm a phaser, required an expensive process to manufacture and it was mined at a Space Force mining facility orbiting the planet Venus. The Confederacy wasn't going to bother with expensive phasers on its own people when good old fashioned bullets were readily available.
GX-1 Short Haulers awaited the battalion on Miramar's airfields. The tarmacs were filled with the heavy clomp of Legionnaire boots as they reformed their platoons and rushed aboard their designated transports. There was little noticeable difference in their eagerness to serve, whether it be against their natural enemies in New Mandalore or the Empire or even their own people. To the Legions, anyone who defied the Confederacy and President Harris was a traitor and thus their enemy.
Oliver snapped his armor's jump clips into place disenabling him from moving about the transport in flight. Privates Casrich and Thompson snapped into place on either side of him. Corporal Lockwood went down the line and made sure each member of her squad was squared away before locking herself into place at the end of the row. Only Sergeant Rook and the transport's loadmaster would be able to move about and that was only because they had to operate the doors.
Twelve GX-1s, carrying thirty Legionnaires apiece, lifted off from Miramar. They quickly accelerated towards low orbit leaving sunny southern California behind. Oliver had heard stories about how the regular CEN Army allowed its soldiers to listen to music to get them pumped up for a mission. That wasn't so in the Legions where Confederate Ministry of Information news and inspirational speeches were broadcast to inspire the Legionnaires. Oliver had little exposure to music during his life and didn't understand what the fuss was about.
The flight only took about forty minutes for the Short Hauler to orbital hop down to South America. The city of Quito was situated practically on top of the Equator.
"Deactivate all auto traffic within two klicks of our LZ." Sergeant Rook ordered.
Corporal Lockwood entered several commands into the control pad on her forearm. Below the transport, all auto traffic rolled to a stop as government-controlled microchips killed their engines.
The ship hovered for a few seconds. Troopers across the aisle had their snaps unlock as Sergeant Rook opened the rear cargo door. A cold wind filled the transport causing loose debris to fly around the cabin. Ear dampers in his helmet blocked most of the outside engine noise from deafening Oliver.
"3rd Squad, Go!" Sergeant Rook shouted above the din.
The troopers across from Oliver turned and rushed out the back door. For all they knew they could have been forty kilometers up, though Legionnaires trained for an initial three meter drop when deploying into a combat zone. Legionnaires would have gone over the top even if they were at the edge of space. Their training didn't allow for disobeying orders.
The Short Hauler climbed for altitude for a few seconds once 3rd Squad was deployed. Oliver could feel the transport banking low over the ground. Through one of the cabin's few windows, he could barely make out the outlines of dozens of buildings outside indicating they were over Quito. The Short Hauler dipped towards the ground again into a new section of the city.
Oliver felt his locking snaps release. Sergeant Rook pointed at his squad. "5th Squad, Go!"
In a single file line the Legionnaires of 5th Squad bolted out the rear loading ramp. Sergeant Rook slapped each of them on the shoulder armor as they rushed past the NCO.
The drop was only a meter off the ground. The Short Hauler was slowly moving forward so each Legionnaire didn't land atop the Legionnaire who had gone before them.
They hit the ground and rolled, only stopping in perfect firing position either sprawled flat or on one knee. Each of them had their BARs drawn and ready. They were arranged in a perfect circle with their weapons providing 360 degrees of security.
They had landed in the middle of a street in front of a make shift barricade made out of mobile concrete barriers and a risible gate arm in front of an old Stryker III infantry vehicle. Behind the barricade were a mix of two dozen Army soldiers and police who sat or leaned on the barricade sharing a smoke as they idly watched the rapid deployment of the Legionnaires.
Oliver could see the resentful looks in the policemens' eyes. Police were widely known to be involved in the illicit black markets that plagued the Earth since the war. A quarantine zone manned solely by police was laughably porous as anyone with money could simply bribe their way past law enforcement officials. All that would stop with the arrivals of the Legionnaires, whose loyalty to the President and the Confederacy was without question. They were authorized to conduct summary field executions of any police officer suspected of breaking Confederate law.
The Army soldiers were even worse. In Oliver's opinion they couldn't even be trusted to clean his armor. The demands of the Confederate military were so great that normal enlistment rates could never keep up and large portions of the Army and Marines were draftees from 3rd-class citizens. Resentful of their lot, they did as little as possible until their service time was up. Unfairly linking them to their predecessors in his mind, Oliver could understand why Los Angeles and Shanghai fell so easily during the war.
Corporal Lockwood marched over to the barricade. A few of its defenders stood up at the Legionnaire's approach. "Who is in charge here?"
"I am." An army sergeant answered in heavily accented English.
"I hereby relieve your command and place your men under my authority." Lockwood told the men at the barricade. She had every right to since Legionnaires superseded both the Army and local authorities in combat and crisis situations.
"Si. I expected as much." The sergeant replied. "Things have been quiet since we put up the barricade but work is ending around most of the city soon and people are going to want to come home."
"That's too bad. I have orders to contain this section of the city and prevent anyone from entering and exiting my squad's area of operation."
"Ok. You Legion guys can take point on that. My men will sit back and follow your lead." What the sergeant surely meant was his men would sit on their asses and watch the Legionnaires take all the heat from the civilians. That was fine with Oliver because, at least, they wouldn't be getting in his way.
The Legionnaires took up their places at the barricade and settled in for a long, boring duty assignment. News slowly trickled in from other barricades in the perimeter and from command. During routine medical scans of a local elementary school this morning three children as well as a possible seven others were diagnosed with symptoms of the dreaded Martian Fester. It was enough of a mandate to quarantine a large section of the city or perhaps the local nation if the WHO or CDC demanded such a measure.
The neighborhood they had quarantined was a large suburb of Quito named La Magdalena. Several thousand 2nd class citizens lived there and mainly worked in local government service or were research scientists in the large biotech industries that populated Ecuador. All that meant to Oliver was that the locals were a bunch of nerds and he dismissed them as such.
When a woman carrying groceries was turned back by Specialist Sefla he purposely ripped open her bags spilling her food onto the street. The whole squad got a big laugh out of the woman's futile efforts to grab as much of her spilled goods as she could before the Legionnaire pushed her away from the barricade.
More and more civilians were turned back as they returned from their jobs. Many 2nd class citizens were unable to afford a luxury like a car this far from Confederate Center and nearly everyone arrived on foot. They were told to leave, but without homes to return to they just milled about in the road a few blocks away from the barricade.
Street lights came on as the sun set. No city on Earth, except perhaps Confederate Center, had been rebuilt to pre-war conditions yet. That left a lot of Quito still hovering between the dark places and the light. Under the few street lamps, Oliver could see the crowd down the street grow in size from a few dozen people turned back at the barricade to hundreds and then thousands of people drawn to the quarantine zone.
It was an hour after sunset when the mob started to approach the barricade. As they grew closer, Oliver spotted among them a Catholic Priest walking side by side with a priest of the Guardian of the Whills. Both sects showing they were supportive of the people. Oliver, like every other Legionnaire had no use for religion. The only one that deserved their faith was President Harris.
A middle aged man in glasses led the crowd. They started chanting in English and Spanish "let us pass" as they approached. The police and Army soldiers took up ready positions behind the barricade while 5th Squad stood defiantly in front of the obstacle.
At ten meters Lockwood flashed the hand signal for standby. Each trooper brought their BAR to their shoulder and aimed it into the crowd. The mob stopped dead in its tracks. Oliver wasn't the only Legionnaire who spoke to his weapon. "Point blank range. Safety off. Full auto."
The weapons echoed the commands in their electronically altered voices. Lockwood shouted down the firing line. "On my command."
"Wait. Wait!" The man who led the crowd took two steps forward. His hands held out where the Legionnaires could see them. He wasn't armed, nor should he be since private gun ownership in the Confederacy carried an automatic prison term of twenty years hard labor.
"Go back now or we shall open fire." Lockwood warned. The Legionnaires had been given batteries of PSYOPS screenings and mind exercises that eroded any value of an individual's life out of their normal thinking. Legionnaire recruits by the hundreds had died right next to them and each Legionnaire was required not to bat an eye at the loss of a comrade. Feeling anything for a civilian, no matter their class, over the needs of the Confederacy was as alien to the mind of a normal Legionnaire as the non-humans who served the Empire.
"We don't want to cause any trouble. Our families are on the other side of this quarantine. We just want to go back to our homes and make sure they are safe." The man said. Several people in the crowd nodded and quietly pleaded with the soldiers manning the cement walls.
"In accordance with civil and military law, this area has been quarantined for a suspected outbreak of the Martian Fester. Until such a time as medical authorities have cleared this site, no one is allowed in or out of said area under punishment of death for treason against the CEN." Corporal Lockwood's voice carried over the crowd. A policeman with a bullhorn translated her proclamation into Spanish.
"I was a soldier in the war. I have earned my rights." The man demanded, revealing his 2nd class citizenship. They would have to arrest him, Oliver decided. This wasn't like popping 3rd and 4th classers. There would be some heat for taking this guy down unless he did something more overt than protesting a quarantine. He pointed to the neighborhood beyond the barricade. "My wife and baby are in there."
"Stand down, citizen." Lockwood demanded as he took another two steps forward placing himself directly in front of Oliver's BAR.
"The Confederacy cannot keep people from their homes. If my family is sick I will share in their illness. I work for Pfizer Medical, the vaccine people, and they will get us the bacta we need." The man took another step forward.
The crowd behind the man wavered. They looked from him to the Legionnaires weapons, unsure of what to do next.
Lockwood snapped her head in Oliver's direction. "OK-7/8/35, bust him."
Oliver reacted on training. Within a second his BAR was slung across his back. He stepped forward and grabbed the man by the right wrist and twisted upwards, snapping several of the bones in the man's forearm. Oliver spun the man around, while still holding the shattered wrist he placed his other hand behind the now screaming man's back and slammed him violently to the ground. They had brought along zip ties for just such an occurrence, which Oliver cuffed around the man's wrists behind his back.
A shorter figure burst from the crowd at the very limit of Oliver's peripheral vision. The figure slammed into the armored Legionnaire at full speed but failed to accomplish anything more than to budge him a few centimeters.
The smaller figure wailed on Oliver's back and shoulder pads with his fists. The blows were soft enough not to register as impacts on the computer inside his Mjolnir.
The crowd gasped. They knew Legionnaires were the physical embodiment of President Harris will. To assault one carried with it an automatic death sentence. They all realized as one that as they were watching the small figure harmlessly beat on Oliver they were staring at a dead man.
Oliver reached out with his right hand and pushed the little person off of him. He skittered a meter away and readied himself to pounce on Oliver's crouched back.
He never had the chance.
Corporal Lockwood took a couple of steps forward and unholstered her Thor ipeg. She put the submachinegun to the figure's temple and pulled the trigger. The single shot plowed straight though skull and brain matter before exploding out the other side of the cranium. Its exit took half the skull and brain with it as it splattered the people in the front ranks with gore and teeth.
The body collapsed at Oliver's feet next to the bound man on the ground. Oliver looked down to discover it was a small boy around the age of ten years or so. The man stared at the corpse that fell next to him. He screamed. "My son!"
The crowd howled in shock. Before their cries could turn to rage the Legionnaires rushed forward. 5th squad formed a new line between Oliver and the arrested criminal with their BARs pointed into the heart of the mob.
"Disperse now!" Corporal Lockwood demanded. The Army soldiers and police arrived at the side of the Legionnaires to offer support. Oliver judged their reaction time as pathetic.
The stunned crowd's reaction was even slower. They stared in a daze at the boy's body and the assault rifles pointed in their directions. Lockwood raised her Thor into the air and fired off a dozen quick rounds.
The mob panicked. In seconds the crowd had turned and was fleeing back down the street.
The police took the weeping man into their custody while the boy's corpse continued to bleed out in the street. The Army sergeant came up and looked at the dead body. He crossed himself. "Madre di dios. Did you have to do that?"
"Get you men back on the barricade, sergeant." Lockwood ordered the man.
"How should I report this?" He asked pointing at the body.
Oliver and Lockwood both looked down at the corpse. Oliver shrugged. Lockwood gave him the proper response.
"There's nothing to report. Quarantine perimeter is secure."
The Confederacy of Earth Nations was safe.
))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
Up Next- Finding a new Way