UNIVERSAL TURBULENT

XXXV - PLANET ELGIRON

Fort Camerone squatted on the dry, rocky plain, and, with the exception of the missile launchers, antenna arrays, and fly form landing pads that broke its hard, angular lines, looking a lot like the godforsaken outposts the Legion had occupied in North Africa, centuries before.

General Maltese Kairo low-crawled forward, used his elbows for support, and brought the binoculars up to his eyes. A motor whirred, and the outskirts of the ever expanding slum known as Naa Town, swam into focus.

The shanty town consisted of hundreds of makeshift earthen domes, each reinforced with whatever chunk of metal or plastic that the occupants could beg, borrow, or steal.

The officer panned from left to right. Data rippled down from the right side of the screen. Range, albedo, and more. None of it mattered. What did matter was the fact that smoke dribbled out of only half the chimneys, very little laundry had been hung to dry, and the narrow, twisting streets were practically deserted. Where were the cubs? The old folks soaking up the sun? No wonder his scouts were concerned.

Kairo tilted the glasses up until the fort filled his viewfinder. He scanned the topmost parapet. The Confederacy's flag snapped in the breeze, some censors turned on their mast, and a sentry stood at his post. Business as usual. Or was it? That was the problem.

Never one to ride a desk for very long, and eager to escape from General Saul's self-important bullshit, Kairo had assigned himself to a week of field exercises. Butt-busting, plain-pounding, hill-humping war games that would build muscles, hone skills, and keep the edge on.

And the plan had worked right up till the moment when his scouts went weird on him. Something was wrong they had claimed, something in the fort. That, in spite of the fact that radio contact had been normal.

None out of ten officers would have ignored the scouts and entered the fort. But not Kairo. He had traveled the almost impossible road from private to general, and if he had learned anything along the way, it was to trust his people. Not just some of the time, but all of the time, even when they appeared to be wrong.

That was why he listened, gave credence to their concerns, and went to see for himself. The officer back-crawled into some rocks, dropped below the skyline, and put away his binoculars.

The battalion's XO, Major Kebbi, along with Captains Runalong, Prima, and Vadine, waited for the general to speak. Chief Scout Gunmaker stood to one side. With his superiors but not of them. Kairo shook his head. "Something is definitely wrong, all right, but I'll be damned if I can figure out what is".

Gunmaker's face was expressionless, but there was pride in the way he held himself.

Kairo started to speak but stopped when a shadow flickered across the ground. Gunmaker glanced up, saw the Legion-issue recon drone, and raised his assault weapon. The airborne machine had almost certainly been dispatched by the people in the fort.

The range was long, and the target was moving, but neither of those factors made the slightest difference. The Naa fired a three-shot burst. The drone staggered and spiraled into the ground.

Kairo raised an eyebrow. "That was some damned expensive target practice, Sergeant".

Everybody grinned.

"Okay", Kairo said, "I'm a believer. I don't know what the problem is, but I'll be damned if we're going into that fort till we understand the situation. Deploy, dig in, and keep them ready".

The officers saluted and returned to their units.

* * *

Corporal Andre Coaster never saw it coming. Sergeant Guntter's hand struck the side of her face with such force that it made a crackling sound and she flew out of her chair. She hit the highly waxed floor and slid into a console.

Coaster swore, and had just started to rise, when a size twelve combat boot landed on her chest. Guntter's face was beet red. "You incompetent b***h! The orders were to lure them inside, not chase them away! Let's go. You screwed up, you tell Davide". The noncom signaled a pair of his toadies. They grabbed her arms.

The Ops center (OC) was a large space filled with monitors, consoles, and equipment racks. About two thirds of the OC staff had been part of or managed to survive the mutiny. Most had doubts but, like Coaster, had gone along. They ignored the tech's pleas as the troopers hauled her away.

Coaster babbled incoherently as the legionnaires half carried, half walked her down the outside corridor. "The joystick stuck! It came loose... The drone took off..."

"Save it for Davide", one is the legionnaires said. "The borg loves a good story". The other trooper laughed.

Coaster stopped, or tried to, but found herself lifted up into the air. The toes of her spit-shine combat boots left parallel dashes on the otherwise pristine floors.

The lift opened as the foursome approached. The passengers took one look and hurried away. They had a pretty good idea where the prisoner would be taken and didn't want any part of it.

Most of the fortress was buried deep underground, safe from bombs, missiles, and orbital bombardment. But the ready rooms and maintenance bays, where off-duty cyborgs spent most of their time were located one level below the planet's surface. So, in spite of the fact that Davide controlled the entire fortress, there was only one place where his fifty-ton body would actually fit.

Yes, the cyborg might have transferred his brain box to one of the human-sized bi-forms maintained for that purpose, but that would force him to abandon the source of his power, namely - the energy cannons, Gatling g*n, missile racks, and other weaponry which played such an important role during the revolt. Once he was outside his body, even for a moment, the cyborg would be vulnerable.

That was why the lift stopped at level two and they frog-marched Coaster through a pair of blastproof doors and out into the maintenance bay. The stench was horrible, and what she saw made Coaster gag.