The Stellar Legion

The Stellar Legion is a short science fiction story by Leigh Brackett.

No one had ever escaped from Venus’ dread Stellar Legion. And, as Thekis the low-Martian learned, no one had ever betrayed it – and lived.

The Stellar Legion, fighting on Venus against the natives, is quite the opposite of stellar. Rather, they're the dregs of the service, the psychotic, the criminal, the dishonored. But when the young commander Lehn encounters one of his new underlings, MacIan, he senses that something about him is different.

MacIan seems like an honorable and brave soldier. Still, when it turns out that someone in their company is a traitor, and it looks like MacIan, Lehn is willing to admit that his instinct might've been wrong. But was he really wrong?

The Stellar Legion was first published in Planet Stories magazine in 1940. E-book: ePUB, 5,700 words, reading time approximately 30 min.

Leigh Douglass Brackett (1915-1978) was an American author, particularly of science fiction, and has been referred to as the Queen of Space Opera. She was also a screenwriter, known for her work on such films as The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959) and The Long Goodbye (1973). She was the first woman shortlisted for the Hugo Award.