by Tim C Taylor
Indiya worked her freakish mind-magic: oiling, loosening, freeing, replacing choking fumes with sweet-scented lubricants… all in the confines of his mind. This was the reason that he and Indiya were both based on Vengeance of Saesh over the protests of all the other senior commanders that co-locating the two leaders was too risky. To function properly, Arun needed her.
Arun stuttered but still couldn’t speak.
Elsewhere in our little human empire the enemy’s forces are rolling us back, Indiya said in his mind. The supply routes to our fleet will be cut. We won’t get another chance at this. We attack or we run. Your choice. Make it!
“The security lapses,” Arun gasped. “I have an update.” The other commanders looked at him with interest, but not the horror or concern that he feared. The incident in his head had only lasted a moment in the real world, the briefest of hesitations on his part.
“Some of the resupply convoys that never made it to the front line were not ambushed, they were diverted while in transit.”
Everyone stared at Arun.
“On my orders.”
The reactions of the various commanders would give a xenobiologist enough material to work on for a lifetime. Graz drew her head in until only her eye turrets were showing. Aureanus flicked his wing cases, as if about to leap into the air to escape this shock, while Commander Stonegaze gave a bass Jotun growl.
“Piece by piece over many years we have assembled a huge warfleet in secret and hidden it in deep space. Diverted ships, troops, and materiel are led via staging posts to this ‘Z’ Fleet. Other than a few FTL communicators, the fleet operates under a strict comms blackout. Commanders, ‘Z’ Fleet is already in transit to Olympus-Ultra. If we set off now, ‘A’ Fleet will arrive there simultaneously, catching our opponents in a pincer movement.”
Arun hesitated just long enough to get a boost of encouragement from a glance at Xin. She looked as if she believed in him.
“The best of us are in that hidden fleet. The White Knights despised us. We were all of us the unwanted, the untouchable lowest of the low. We of Earth were so reviled that our name came to be a symbol of the outcast. Whatever our biology we are all here the humans of this empire.”
Arun hesitated. Del did this so much better because he spoke of a truth deeper than simple facts. The facts were that the Human Legion was an alliance of more than simply the downtrodden. It included races such as the Littoranes and Jotuns, races held in high regard by the White Knights, as much as any client race could be. But that was the point: they were still clients, subservient to a master race, and that was the bond that united all the Legion. That was the bond Arun relied on now as he pressed on.
“To be Human was once a badge of shame, but our enemies miscalculated. Thrown together at the bottom of the barrel, we found each other and discovered strength in our diversity. Littoranes are skilled shipbuilders filled with religious fervor and a deep understanding of nature. Nimble Gliesans are natural pilots for our X-Boats. Our doughty Tallermans offer strength, resilience and patience – qualities evolved to enable them to endure their homeworld’s long winters. The secret people of Khallini are the greatest cyber warriors, as the Jotuns are Master tacticians in the physical plane. To be human is to be strong – strong enough to win our freedom. The word ‘human’ has grown from being a term of contempt to become a rallying cry for the dispossessed, inspiring terror in the hearts of those who oppose us.”
Lieutenant-General Graz rubbed the rocky plates of her hide together, making a deep grinding rumble that indicated the Tallerman’s irritation. “Your talk of humans as a rallying cry is all very well, General McEwan, but I notice you make no specific mention of the humans of Earth. What is your role? There are nine Legion commanders in this conference and three are descendants of Homo sapiens. Is this a sign that if we defeat the White Knights, you humans will set yourselves up as new tyrants?”
“We of Earth are the glue that binds the alliance together,” Arun replied.
“How very convenient for the Night Hummers,” countered the Tallerman commander. She swiveled her dome-like head through 360 degrees, assessing the reaction of the other commanders. A favorite saying of the Tallermans was that before you step forward, first look behind.
“The Night Hummers set you on this path that led to the Human Legion,” said Graz. “Have we allowed our noble talk of symbols and freedom to deafen us to the truth: that we are obediently following Hummer orders? General McEwan, did the Night Hummers suggest this secret fleet?”
Admiral Kreippil’s tail shivered. Arun had never seen the Littorane so angry.
“Lieutenant-General Graz,” said Kreippil, “rein back your caution before it strays into open dissent. Not only was the secret fleet not a Night Hummer idea, but Hummers were removed from ships before they were diverted from their original course. Communication with ‘Z’ Fleet is strictly limited to encrypted chbits. We have taken every precaution to ensure the Hummers do not know of the fleet.”
“Oh,” said Graz, “so you were one of the favored few who knew of this scheme.”
“For a hundred generations we have known of a hidden warfleet that would deliver us from our captivity,” thundered Kreippil, his gills flapping in time with his tail swishes. “There are still some on my homeworld who believe the Hummers speak for the gods, but those of us who serve with the Legion learned beyond doubt that, in spite of their base form, it is General McEwan and the venerated Admiral Indiya who channel the will of the gods. You and I might die in our next battle, General Graz, but our cause cannot fail. Do you doubt our divine sanction?”
“Your foresight makes you a powerful ally,” said Graz, who could prove a formidable diplomat, belying her appearance as an inanimate slab of rock. “But have you forgotten that the Hummers evolved to peer into the future? You say you knew of this ‘Z’ Fleet for a hundred generations. Who is to say the Hummers did not foresee this a hundred generations before that?”
“That is a risk, I do not deny,” said Arun. “But we have taken every precaution to achieve secrecy. Even the White Knight Emperor has no idea of ‘Z’ Fleet’s existence.”
“You have chosen to strip essential forces from across our newly won territories,” said Pedro who held his antennae solemnly rigid. “Reinforced by their Hardit allies, the New Empire is threatening several systems. The Muranyi Accord advance at will from the old frontier and will shortly reach Legion systems. We do not have the means to defend ourselves. We will lose planets to invaders because of your secret fleet.”
“Possibly, yes,” Arun admitted.
“You have committed us to this pincer movement to capture the Emperor.”
“I have. It is a commander-in-chief’s decision to make.”
“And you made it without consulting us. I find that personally disappointing and hypocritical, given your past pronouncements on secrecy.”
Arun had no defense against the accusations. Pedro’s comments cut him like the tip of a combat blade, poisoned by truth.
“Nonetheless,” said Pedro, “your actions are optimal considering the context. I would do the same in your position. You have the full support of the Legion-aligned Troglodyte colonies that I represent.”
“As I pledge the forces of Littoran,” said Kreippil. “We must never forget that war is risky, even holy war, yet this is our best chance and I place my confidence in General McEwan. Commanders, I have previously offered you the war chant of ‘Freedom can be won’. As we proceed to the final battle for control of the empire, I withdraw that chant. I give you a new battle cry in its place: Freedom shall be won!”
Arun had heard this room echo with chanting before now as great victories were celebrated. The reaction to Kreippil’s new war cry was far more muted.
“Let’s do it,” said the Gliesan commander with a nervous twitch of his wings.
“This is our best hope,” said Indiya. Arun had hoped for more enthusiasm from her, since she had been involved from the start. Even Xin looked tho
ughtful.
Arun hadn’t entirely won over his commanders, but he could read the room well enough to know no one would back out of the alliance now. This was it… the next destination would be the White Knight homeworld.
He shot a glance at Xin who winked back.
It wasn’t until that moment that Arun fully realized that his life was about to change. The war that had consumed most of his life would soon be over. He couldn’t wait to walk away from it all and try out a civilian life with Xin, and – he felt a burst of deep satisfaction such that he’d never experienced – his daughter.
—— PART III ——
LINES
OF
CONTRAVALLATION
Human Legion
— INFOPEDIA —
HISTORY OF THE LEGION
– Civil Administration and Politics Part II
Most of the worlds liberated by the Human Legion had been under the control of the White Knights for longer than Homo sapiens had been in existence. There was much the Legion found itself responsible for: healthcare, taxation, law and order, economic and industrial production geared to the needs of the Human Legion war machine… Liberty was a powerful concept to those who fought in its name, but the implementation of liberty was a perplexing challenge that often seemed impossible to achieve.
Further, those in the Legion who freed worlds all followed the legal story that they did so in the name of the White Knight Emperor, temporarily administering the Imperial fiefdoms until such time as they could be returned to their lawful owner. And yet, underneath this legal fiction bitter rivalries soon emerged between the constituent races of the Human Legion, and other forms of division.
What if this legal fiction became a reality? What if these worlds were freed from direct White Knight rule, not merely for the few centuries in which the Civil War was expected to be fought, but permanently? Whose worlds were these to be? The Human Legion was a military machine and an ideal, but ideals alone can’t run planets. Would this ‘liberty’ prove to be nothing more than a honeyed word for military dictatorship?
The Legion’s answer to the question of who should control these worlds was tied up with another new problem: what to do with the Legion’s wounded and elderly? In addition, the war did not always go the Legion’s way, and so there were mass evacuations and migrations in a region where starship manufacture, propulsion, and cryogenics could all be produced cheaply. Where to settle these people?
The Human Legion’s answer, in what was soon termed the Human Autonomous Region, was to allocate worlds to specific species. This assignment was undisputed for planets that had birthed a species – such as the Littorane homeworld, which was reserved for Littoranes – but many worlds had been terraformed and then colonized, and control of these planets was hotly disputed. The Littoranes argued that their contribution to the war effort in shipbuilding and military personnel was greater, and their reward should be to expand their influence to new worlds. Look at the Hardits, they would say. Left to their own devices on low gravity moons and underground, the Hardits kept themselves to themselves, and most importantly, kept the peace. Allocate a world to one aquatic species, one underground species, and one land dweller: that was the Littorane recipe for peaceful coexistence within the Human Autonomous Region.
Most races fought hard against the superficial allure of the Littorane idea, seeing within an expansion of Littorane power at the expense of their own. Most species by far were land dwellers.
The axis of power within the Human Legion had always been the alliance of Littoranes with the humans whose ancestors had evolved on Earth. The question of world allocation was the first major cause of friction between these two, with the humans instinctively siding with the other land dwellers, while desiring to compromise with the Littoranes.
The result was that worlds were typically allocated two or three primary land-dwelling species, with many, but not all, also allocated aquatic species and underground dwellers.
Those who had survived a career in the Legion were offered land, money, and transportation to settle as reservist-colonists on allocated worlds. Those whose homeworlds were within the Human Autonomous Region (HAR), were offered settlement on the homeworld if they chose, often against the wishes of the civilian authorities. Many who settled on their homeworld regretted doing so, discovering that millennia of genetic modification and indoctrination had created an unbridgeable gulf that separated them from the inhabitants of their ancestral worlds.
Even while the war still raged, a division grew within the HAR between the long-civilized homeworlds and the frontier worlds that within a few short decades had transformed from long-established mining posts and military depots into fractious multi-species worlds of reservist-colonists and their descendants.
While the Civil War raged on and the future for all worlds in the HAR remained so uncertain, the need to support and resupply the Human Legion in its bid for liberty proved just enough of a unifying force to these worlds to function in peace. But long before the war ended, under the surface of that peace, rivals jostled for position and made their preparation for the war’s aftermath.
— Chapter 13 —
Arun felt himself swallowing hard. Again and again. He could neither help the nervous tic, nor was he prepared to feel ashamed for his nervousness. Even so, he glanced at his security escort for their reaction to his worry.
They remained implacable behind their opaque helmet visors, continuing to look behind every ladderwell and inside every bulkhead recess in the deployment tube, checking for threats as they made their way to Lance of Freedom’s ‘B’ Hangar.
Over the years, Arun had gotten to know each and every one of the men and women of his security detachment. If any of them had noticed the commander of the Human Legion showing a little anxiety before the climactic battle of the war, he expected them to consider that a good sign, an indication that despite all they had lived through their commander was still human.
Xin wouldn’t be so generous. Arun knew precisely how she would react if she could see his weakness. She would roll her eyes and berate him for being too ready to accept the blame for the Legion’s reverses and not willing enough to accept credit for their victories.
At heart he felt like just one more individual in a legion of heroes, many of whom were more skilled and courageous than he was, and yet it was his strategy that had brought them here to the gates of the White Knight Imperial capital, his negotiation with the Emperor, his plan for the secret ‘Z’ Fleet that had arrived to tilt the odds in the Legion’s favor, and his decision to stand and fight 99 years ago in the Second Battle of Khallini.
And now, having secured the lesser moons and planets of the Olympus-Ultra system, the Legion finally faced the New Empire forces besieging the Emperor on a moon named Athena. Here, where it mattered most, Legion forces were superior.
Xin was right. He should be bursting with pride at his part in getting to this point. Instead all he could feel was that the final victory was his to lose.
The odds may have been in their favor, but who could tell what hidden surprises lay in wait?
He laughed. Thinking of Xin had cured his nervous swallowing. She was like that: a correcting influence on him who could be invoked just by thinking of her, not even needing to be physically present.
His Littorane adjutant, Major Spreese, fluttered her gills. It was the slightest gesture, but Spreese was sharing her approval for her general’s good mood. She had always monitored more than just Arun’s administrative needs, and he knew how damned lucky he was to have her.
The dashed line along the outer bulkhead changed from red to green, followed a few meters later by the new deck number: 13. They were almost there.
Barney read his human partner’s mind and established a comm link to the boss of the hangar where they were headed.
“Coombes here.”
“It’s McEwan. We’ll be with you in five minutes.”
“I know. Your chief guard dog, Pioretti, has jus
t informed me, along with all of his concerns about how inadequate my own security arrangements will be for his gilded master.”
Coombes growled indignantly, but it was all in good humor.
“Sergeant Pioretti is as soft as anything,” replied Arun. “You just have to scratch him behind the ears first.”
Coombes laughed, but Arun could hear the strain behind his tone. With all the security leaks, everyone was on maximum alert, and that meant CPO Coombes was almost a prisoner in his own domain as his hangar had been shut down to anything other than the task of ferrying Arun safely to the newly combined fleet’s flagship, Holy Retribution. Arun’s heart leaped in anticipation of setting foot for the first time in the largest vessel the Littoranes had ever built.
“Sorry, Coombes, for being such a colossal pain in the ass.”
There was no practical need for Arun to contact his friend at all, let alone apologize. But Arun had learned the hard way to demonstrate how much he valued his friends.
Arun expected a playfully snide reply.
Nothing.
Instead he felt a sudden jolt of alarm sent directly into his nervous system by Barney.
‘Comm link lost.’
Before Arun could ask Pioretti what was going on, his security squad flew into action.
Six Marines cocooned Arun, protecting him behind their armored bodies. The majority took up defensive positions around the tube with one fire team trying to break out of whatever threat might be gripping them and re-establish contact with the rest of the ship. Spreese drew her sidearm and moved slightly to one side, locking her tail around a handhold in the bulkhead.
He knew the drill perfectly because they had practiced it so many times.
Was it a drill this time or for real? He wouldn’t be surprised if Indiya and Xin had dreamed up a last-minute test of the security arrangements.
In his heart, though, he knew this was no drill.
