Legion Of The Damned - 02 - The Final Battle Read Online Free PDF

exoskeleton that his duties forced him to wear. He loved what it enabled him to do but hated having to depend on it. Plus, the contrivance was too shiny for his Dweller sensibilities, and smacked of technological superiority, a negative where the less-than-advanced members of the third Confederacy were concerned. Still, it allowed him to venture where his frail, sticklike body would otherwise be unable to go, and that was good.
    Anguar checked to make sure that all the contact points were secure, ran a mental check on the neural interface that linked his nervous system with the machine’s microcomputer, and walked toward the center of the Friendship’s master stateroom. The exoskeleton felt ponderous inside the artificially low-gravity cell maintained for his comfort.
    Though originally built for the Imperial Navy, and still quite capable of defending herself, the onetime battleship Reliable had been rechristened after the emperor’s death and turned into a sort of traveling capital, complete with its own largely automated bureaucracy, and chambers for the two-tiered senate, mercifully on hiatus at the moment.
    More than that, the ship was a conscious attempt to avoid the impression that the government was centered on any one planet or beholden to any particular race. Just one of many smart decisions made by Anguar’s predecessor, a human named Sergi Chien-Chu, who had led the revolution against the empire, fought the Hudathan hordes to a standstill and laid the groundwork for the third Confederacy, the first and second having fallen to tyrants long before the time of the empire. He had died an untimely death two years previously, and Anguar was his somewhat reluctant successor.

    Anguar circled the compartment. The exoskeleton operated smoothly and multiplied his strength. He grabbed the edge of the massive desk and exerted upward pressure. It was bolted to the deck but metal creaked before he let go. Anguar gloried in the machine-made power, realized what he was doing, and berated himself for his weakness. Because to seek power, to enjoy power, was to court the very thing that would destroy all that he sought to build. A government that would represent all the known races fairly and preside over a thousand years of peace.
    Suitably chastised, Anguar took a turn in front of the gigantic mirror. Like most of his race, the president was vain and considered vanity a virtue. He looked past the exoskeleton and took a moment to admire his well-shaped head, the large ovoid eyes that humans found so appealing, the pleasingly thin body, the long, sleek limbs, and the dangly sex organ that had provided him with so much pleasure over the years. Yes, it was a sensible body for the low-gravity world on which his race had evolved, but far too delicate for use on the planets favored by humans and other muscle-bound species.
    Still, many observers agreed that it had been Anguar’s frail physiology, combined with his people’s extremely low birthrate, that was at least partially responsible for his victory in the last election. It seemed that other races, humans included, found it difficult to see the Dwellers as a physical or cultural threat, and preferred them to representatives of more brawny and therefore more threatening species.
    Anguar thought it strange, almost perverted to think about the ways in which aliens perceived his body, but knew that physical differences were important, especially to physiological bigots like those on the planet below, human clones, who were not only subject to the many weaknesses typical of that particular race, but followers of a science-derived religion that threatened to further weaken the already-shaky Confederacy by refusing to join it.
    Anguar sighed and used his implant to summon his attendants. They would dress the exoskeleton, a humiliating affair, but necessary in order to makehim appear even vaguely human. The humans had pungent sayings for almost every situation, but his favorite applied