The door just buzzed when Admiral N'Skrek tapped it with his bladearm. He frowned, reached out, and tapped the door control again.

BUZZ

He reached for it again when a hologram of Legion appeared in front of the door panel.

"Oh, it's you. Hang on," Legion said.

The door whooshed open and Admiral N'Skrek went inside.

The massive troop bay, designed for an entire division to do parade practice, vehicle maintenance, or pre-deployment work, had been altered by the Immortal. Now the walls were white, the bay was sectioned off, there was equipment everywhere, and the entire place smelled slightly of astringent and disinfectant.

There were also at least two dozen Legions from where N'Skrek could see, not counting the one coming forward and extending a hand. That one had a bushy beard and a thick, heavyset body.

"Welcome to my lab, Admiral," Legion said, giving a short bow. He turned and waved at Admiral N'Skrek to follow. "Don't worry, I made sure that even someone your size can move about easily."

"Thank you for the consideration," N'Skrek said.

Legion just nodded. "Between you and power armor, I need to make the aisles wide."

N'Skrek looked around. Lots of high tech equipment, most of which he had no idea what it did. He was a Navy man, a Space Force man, not R&D or Games & Theory. He had a PhD in geopolitics and astropolitics, but that didn't quite give him the knowledge base to understand what was around him.

Several times he could tell he had stepped through a psychic suppression curtain though.

There were versions of Legion all over the place. In each walled or curtained off section there were a dozen or two of the lean, bald versions of Legion working under the watchful eye of a Legion with a bushy beard. They were using instruments, mixing chemicals, overseeing computers, and other esoteric tasks.

Finally the Legion leading him stopped, waving around.

"Here's pretty much the nerve center, Admiral," Legion said.

The Admiral could see several different XNA creatures being dissected, slides being created from carefully excised tissue, and other strange and slightly apprehensive goings on.

"I see," N'Skrek said.

"Right now, it's just me. True, I'm using partially disconnected clones of myself to give myself multiple different viewpoints, but..." Legion shook his head. "It's still me."

"Meaning you lack the true multiple viewpoints of trained researchers that a scientific team possesses," N'Skrek stated.

Legion nodded. "Exactly. If I miss something, or come in with a bias that blinds me, I still have it no matter how many times I replicate myself and no matter how much autonomy I give my clones."

N'Skrek looked around. "All right, how do we fix it? I know we have genetic technicians here on the Gray Lady working in cloning and medical, do you want to draft them to help you?"

Legion shook his head. "No. For this, I need real researchers, real out of the box people as well as people firmly grounded in decades of research," he leaned against the counter and sighed. "I need specific skillsets that I can't find on the Gray Lady, and I know because I already checked the ship's company's records."

N'Skrek shook his head. "That's supposed to be confidential."

Legion shrugged. "I'm an Immortal, rules are different for me."

"I don't really like that," N'Skrek admitted. "I get it, you're like fifty thousand years old with strange and deadly powers, but the chain of command must be respected."

Legion nodded. "Fair enough," he looked up. "Which is why I'm asking your permission to bring people on board to work with me."

N'Skrek looked around. "Clone them?"

Legion shook his head. "Not exactly."

N'Skrek stared for a long moment. "SUDS them."

Legion tilted his head and lifted one corner of his mouth while making an 'eeeeehhhh' sound. "Not quite."

Staring at Legion with his much practiced "The Admiral Wants Answers" expression, N'Skrek folded his bladearms behind his back. "Explain."

"I can reach certain places. Bring someone on board," Legion said. He held up a hand. "Before you ask, I can't move anything too big. One or two people at a time, maybe. Even then, it's dangerous," he dropped his hand and shook his head. "Where I move through, unshielded, when I make hops isn't pleasant. The further away it is, the shorter the time is, but the more dangerous, the more stuff... weighs."

N'Skrek knew better than to say that what Legion had just said didn't make any sense.

"What I can do, it take the data you'd normally load into a message torpedo with me and I can drop it off at Terran Command and Confederate Command," Legion said. He smiled. "They'd pay attention to anything I dropped off.

"But you still want my permission to bring people aboard," N'Skrek guessed.

Legion nodded. "It's only polite, and I'd rather not have your shipboard security or your Marines shooting them in the face. I'm not sure what species I'll be bringing aboard, since I'll be going by intellect, neural plasticity, knowledge, experience, and scientific knowledge base," Legion smiled. "Not necessarily in that order."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

N'Skrek thought for a long moment, rocking back and forth slightly.

Finally he brought out a pack of cigarettes, offered one to Legion, who took it, then lit one for himself.

"All right. If you can assure me they won't compromise the mission," N'Skrek said.

Legion shook his head. "I can't promise that. What we discover will undoubtably have massive effects on the mission."

N'Skrek thought, then nodded. "At least you're honest. All right. I believe you have our best interests at heart, you are one of the Biological Apostles. Bring them aboard."

Legion gave a slow smile. "Want to be present to see how I'm going to do it."

Exhaling smoke around his footpads, N'Skrek nodded. "It might be best if I witness how you plan on doing it at least once."

Legion waved for N'Skrek to follow him. The big Treana'ad followed the human through the walled sections until they reached a warsteel cube covered in twisting and interlocking runes. There was a single door in the middle. Around the base of the walls there was drawn rings and runes.

"Looks like Crusade work," N'Skrek observed.

"Some of it. Crusade works with Hellspace more than any other being in known space," Legion said. He put his hand on the door panel and winced. "Blood test."

The door slid open, revealing a room full of hanging chains woven with strips of vellum that had inked runes on it. In the middle of the room was a massive set of concentric circles with a pentagram in the middle. There were runes in the star sections, between the star sections, and between the concentric circles.

"Come on in," Legion said. His grin got bigger. "Such sights I have to show you."

N'Skrek pushed down his nervousness and followed the Terran in, brushing against chains and barbs as he followed the human to the middle.

"Don't say anything, and for the love of the Digital Omnimessiah, do not step inside the circles, no matter what you see, hear, or think you experience," Legion said.

N'Skrek noticed that the Terran was sweating slightly.

Legion waved his hands and the candles lit. He began talking, slowly, his voice steadily rising as the cadence picked up.

N'Skrek had taken a few required computer programming courses and could swear some of what Legion was reciting was programming code.

The candles erupted in long pillars of flame for a moment. The chains rattled and whispered. N'Skrek felt cold fingers trace down his upper spinal cord.

The flames dropped, almost going out.

In the middle of the pentagram stood a small creature. It had knees and hocks, its knees backwards. It had a barbed tail, large eyes, animalistic ears, a mouth full of jagged teeth, and skin like old wood.

It was also on fire.

"What?" it asked, its voice grating and squealing.

"I didn't summon you. Where's your mom?" Legion asked.

"Busy. She sent me," the creature squealed.

"Go get her," Legion ordered.

"Eat my ass," the creature squealed.

"Go. Get. Her," Legion snarled.

"How about you... eep!" the creature vanished in a puff of smoke.

There was silence a long moment.

There was an eruption of smoke. When it cleared a massive figure stood inside the pentagram. It was all corded muscle, horns, fangs, and wings. It held a burning chain and barb whip in one hand that slithered on the floor. Its wings beat slowly behind it. Its eyes burned a malevolent red.

"What do you want, idiot?" the creature rumbled.

"I need a favor," Legion said.

N'Skrek had decades of military discipline under his belt, keeping him from running screaming from the room.

"People in my care need ice water. What's your point?" the creature asked.

"Everything's too far for me to reach. We're on local SUDS. I need the SUDS reconnected and a data link to TerraSol or the Confederacy," Legion said.

"Tough titty," the demon rumbled. It slowly moved around the circle. "You did that rune wrong. You misspelled 'binding' and 'obey'. That's Sanskrit and that's Urdu," it shook its head. "I should rip your arms off a few times so you don't insult me like that."

"I wanted you to know I'm serious," Legion said. He frowned. "Can you contact your mother?"

The demon went stock still. "No."

"Contact her. I need to talk to her too," Legion said.

"I'm busy. I have billions of souls arriving constantly. It's worse than the Glassing out there. Not as bad as the Terran Xenocide Event, but pretty bad," the demon said.

"Then send your mom," Legion stated. "I need people. Not by name, but by skill and education and profession."

The demon motioned and the first creature appeared. "Blu'uba'alz can handle it," the massive demon shook its head. "I'll see if I can contact mother, but as far as I know, she's dead."

"Yeah, I've heard that before," Legion smiled.

The demon just grimaced and vanished in a puff of smoke.

"See, you could have just talked to me instead of bothering Mom," the imp said.

Legion reached out and scrubbed part of the line away. "All right, follow me."

He turned and left the 'room', N'Skrek and the imp following.

"That was the Lady Lord of Hell, the Matron of the Damned," N'Skrek said.

Legion nodded. "We're old friends. Well, as close to friends as she's ever had."

N'Skrek winced. "I thought she was a myth."

"Until a little bit ago, you thought I was a myth too," Legion grinned.

0-0-0-0-0

Legion sat down on his couch, swirling the drink in his hand. A few of the other Immortals who knew him well wound recognize him as the 'prime' one. The main mind and control of the others.

Despite the legends, killing the 'prime' would do nothing except force him to respawn or designate another as 'prime'.

He dimmed the lights until the room was full of shadows.

He'd spent the day going over the list of what he needed with the imp until the list of requirements was done. He'd watched the imp vanish after wresting promises to return from it through incantations and a few well placed kicks.

Legion closed his eyes, trying to relax.

The door chimed and Legion frowned.

He honestly expected the Matron of the Damned, not someone ringing his doorbell.

"Enter," he said, opening the door.

A nervous midshipman stood outside the door. "I have a list of recent arrivals, courtesy of Admiral N'Skrek."

Legion pointed at the table. "Go ahead and set it there."

The midshipman looked nervous as he set it down on the table. He stood up, fidgeted nervously, then cleared his throat.

"Speak freely," Legion said.

"Is it true? Is it true that the Digital Omnimessiah was real and will return?" the midshipman asked.

Legion nodded. "Yes to the first part, I don't know to the second."

"Is it true that there's an afterlife?" the Pubvian asked.

Legion nodded. "There is."

The Pubvian nodded, smiling. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Legion said.

He had grown used to those questions.

The midshipman hurried out, the door whooshing shut behind him.

Legion swirled the drink and sipped at it, slowly disconnecting himself from the other clones.

He needed time to think without the massive influx of sensory input and thought. He let the clones know he was going solo for a bit, instructing them to only reach for him if everything went tits up and one of the creatures got loose with its power or if Daxin showed up mad.

He finished at the same time as he finished his drink. He set the glass on the table, tapped the table, and refilled the drink with Ol' Wavy Grain with three ice cubes and a slice of lime on the side.

Legion leaned back, sipping at the drink.

The door chimed again.

Legion sighed and waved at the door. "Enter."

The door slid open, to reveal Sacajawea standing there.

Legion heaved a sigh to mask the disappointment that it wasn't his Sacajawea.

"Come in," he said.

Sacajawea shuffled in, stopping in front of him.

"What?" Legion asked.

"Luke, can't we leave? Can't we go someplace far from here?" she asked.

Legion sighed, closing his eyes.

Of course, now that he was disconnected, she wanted to do this. He took a deep breath, steeled himself to refuse her demands, her pouting, her tantrums.

"No."

She moved forward, straddling his legs, sitting down on his lap with her legs folded to either side of his. She put her hands on either side of his face, lowered her own face.

And kissed him.