Read Online The Last Legion: Book One of the Last Legion Series by Chris Bunch - Free Book Online

the other man said. “The security tech we bought can only keep his radar down for another hour.”
    Brooks recognized him by the livid scar down his cheek as Comstock Brien, who’d left the ’Raum almost five years ago, one of the first of The Movement to go into the hills, now regarded as its most dynamic war leader. He was not tall, above average for a ’Raum, once stocky, heavy-bodied, but the time in the jungle, the time running, had worn him down to gauntness.
    “Is it open?”
    Brooks slid the door open. Brien took a lantern from his belt, turned it on, and they entered.
    “A candy store,” Poynton said.
    Brooks made a noise like laughter.
    “Telex there, Blok over there, and the primary ignitors are in this room here.”
    “Get the detonators first,” Brien said. “With those we can make anything go up.”
    Brooks and the woman carefully took padded boxes of various detonators, carried them to the gravlighter, came back for another load.
    Poynton had just stepped out of the bunker when a light blazed, and a voice said:
    “Move and die.”
    Both stopped.
    “Mellusin Security,” the voice said. “Put the boxes down. Slow. There’s two guns on you.”
    They obeyed.
    “Five steps forward,” the security woman said. “Prone on the ground, arms and legs extended.”
    Brooks knelt, went on his face. A second lightbeam came on, pinned the two against the muddy ground.
    “You,” the woman said. “You in the bunker. Come out. Slow. Guess you three didn’t think we’ve got our own snitches out listening for when somebody asks about explosives. Or that we’d set some extra alarms on the demo supplies just to make sure.”
    Brien came out, hands half-raised.
    “All the way up.”
    His hands moved … and he dived forward in a shoulder roll. The guard’s blaster went off and the bolt crashed above Brien’s head into the bunker. Flame flashed, and smoke boiled as an alarm seared the night.
    The guard spun, aiming again at Brien as he came to his feet, and Brooks was on his hands and knees, bear-walking forward into the woman’s legs, sending her sprawling. The other guard’s light flickered toward Brooks, just as Poynton got her pistol out and shot him.
    The woman was rolling onto her back, both hands on her blaster, trying to aim, but Brooks was on her, hands clawing at her face. The gun spun out of her hands, and he had her throat and squeezed, squeezed, and felt bone crack, her heels drum against the ground, and smelled shit as she died.
    He was off the corpse and on his feet. Another alarm screamed from a distance, matching the bunker’s fire warning.
    “Let’s go,” Poynton said.
    “No,” Brooks said firmly. “We’ve time for one more load. And we’ll take the guards’ sled with us.”
    His voice was calm, emotionless. The other two stared in surprise, then obeyed. Brooks trotted back into the smoky bunker, ignored the growing flames, draped slings of explosive porta-paks on his arms, staggered out, and dumped them into the back of the security lifter.
    “
Now
let’s go.”
    “What about you?” Brien said. “I can’t see how you’ll be able to get back to your shift with the hue and cry out.”
    Brooks got into the pilot’s seat of the sled, examined the controls. “It seems the One has decided I’m now on the run, like you.” He shrugged slightly. “What happens, happens. Let’s lift!”
    He started the sled, brought it clear of the ground. The others jumped into their lifter, started its engine.
    The air shock-waved as something inside the bunker exploded.
    The lifters came off the ground, swung, then went to full power, banked around a rusting conveyor way. Jord’n Brooks followed, and the two craft fled into the night.
    The only thought in Brooks’ mind was:
Wish I’d had time to say good-bye to my children.
    Three minutes later the bunker exploded, destroying a square kilometer of the mine’s aboveground equipment and buildings, and killing forty-five ’Raum miners,