by Tim C Taylor
The others left him alone to his grief.
They had seen this before. All too often. It was time to end the war.
— Chapter 35 —
Arun McEwan
Brompton Road Station
London Hypertube
According to Major Knudsir, who’d delighted in researching the hidden places beneath London, the city where the Legion’s last European bastion had held out, the neat text framed within green lines had been fired into the curved tile wall of the station platform for over seven centuries. Having spent most of those years buried under a thick protective layer of dust, the tiles had come up gleaming when Knudsir, to whom command of the stranded Legion forces had fallen in the final days of the siege, came across this long-abandoned station linked to the London Hypertube network, and recommissioned it as a forward command post. Its small size and mostly sealed exits made it relatively easy to clean, sterilize, and seal off from the radiation and chemical weapon residue that blighted the city above ground.
Arun ignored the senior commanders streaming around his hover chair as they left the meeting to reconnect with their subordinates. “What would they think of us?” he mused at the station name on the wall. “Our distant ancestors who last saw those tiles as they made their way to work, or perhaps looked forward to rendezvousing in the city above with their friends or lovers. The everyday matters of lives long forgotten, names consigned to unsearched data stores, but whose insignificant speck of existence mattered back then, and still does today. Together, all those forgotten people brought us to our position today in the galaxy. What would they think of us? Have we failed them?”
Arun felt a hand on his shoulder, a hard gauntlet of ceramalloy armor plating and artificial muscles, but gently placed.
“Only if they could hear you utter that meta-existential shite-babble,” offered Lance Scipio, adding a “Sir” as an afterthought.
Springer chuckled. “Thank you, Colonel, for saving me the bother of having to tell the old man the same thing. Again.”
Arun looked up at his lover, deciding that her bright scales resembled the tiles on the wall, though her patterning was far wilder. The brown pigment in her eyes had also reasserted itself, her body obeying the instructions of its recoded DNA rather than whatever force lay deep within her that expressed itself with the lilac glow.
She seemed bemused by his attention. Well, she’d better get used to it, he thought, I’ll never tire of looking on her face.
“Meetings. Conferences, strategy planning, politicking,” he told her. “As soon as we’ve cut Tawfiq down, they will all belong to someone else. You and I will be free of the aftermath. We’ve done enough.”
“I admire your optimism, General,” said Scipio. “Personally, I believe only death will free us from meetings, but you got what you wanted back there, didn’t you? Everyone on the planet and in space has agreed to back you. Marchewka, your ex-wife, the big ant we left in Australia, the space otter admiral – who seemed very disappointed to find you were still alive, by the way – and even the Sangurian warlord agreed that you are the big boss. CO of all you survey.
Arun sighed. He supposed Scipio was right, but the command meeting in the cramped cylinder of a room at the end of the Brompton Road Station had been harder than he’d ever expected. Even Scipio seemed to have noticed that Kreippil had assumed the command of the Human Legion had fallen to him, and that the human phase of its formation had come to an end. With the Littoranes at the head of this holy army, blasphemy would be driven from the galaxy in the name of the goddess.
It had been Marchewka who had frustrated Kreippil’s designs for leadership, arguing the strongest that the forces aligned to defeat Tawfiq must have a single commander-in-chief and that person had to be Arun McEwan. With Kreippil’s fleet still only able to project limited force through the corrosion barrier, it was Marchewka who commanded more boots on the ground and more guns in space. His words had won out.
The Final Alliance, Xin had named their coalition against Tawfiq.
The name carried a sense of its own impermanence. And although Marchewka carried the balance of power in Earth orbit, that would change. A large New Order fleet had arrived in the outer system and was using the giant snowballs of the Oort Cloud to refuel and resupply before heading in system. They would arrive too late to affect Tawfiq’s plan to ascend to goddesshood, her apotheosis, but who would meet them? The Final Alliance, or Kreippil in command of a holy fleet that answered to no one but the distant Queen of the Littoranes, and maybe not even her.
Before the meeting, both Flag Lieutenant Hood, and Grace had warned Arun that Indiya had finally cracked. It was bittersweet indeed to hear the voice of his daughter alive and well, but for her to speak of his oldest ally’s mental anguish.
! C o m e. F o l l o w u s !
The Nest Hortez scribes Arun had dispatched after the meeting to update his Nest commanders had returned, jumping around the ancient tube station platform in excitement.
? W E L L ?
Springer’s query came as one helluva shock. That she could understand the scribes was impressive, but for her to speak the pheromone language already was astonishing. The scars where her scent device had been inserted were still fresh. But Arun had lived with his scent implant for most of his life and could glimpse behind the words of the scribes to the thoughts themselves. Whatever had excited them so much concerned his clone children, and it had profoundly shocked the Trogs.
“I’ll catch you later, Queen Ant,” said Scipio with a chuckle. “I’ve got some… ahh… business of my own to attend.”
“Okay,” said Arun absentmindedly as he set his hover chair speeding along the platform. “And when you attend to Kraevoi, please tell her that when Tawfiq is dead, I want to explain what happened in Phase Guinshrike all those years ago.”
— Chapter 36 —
Arun McEwan
Brompton Road Station
London Hypertube
The scribes were so eager for them to follow that they covered most of the distance to their clone children on foot.
“Let me carry you,” Springer had insisted when Arun had slowed to allow his chair to negotiate the ancient steps down from the station platform.
Arun had shrugged her away. As the CO, he needed to comport himself with a little dignity. But Springer was not one to be brushed off easily, especially where her children were concerned.
“You already have a reputation for embarrassing yourself in tunnels,” she pointed out. “By comparison, to be carried over my shoulder barely registers.”
There was no answer to that, and so with Arun balanced over her shoulder, they pressed on through frequent barriers of protective hazard sheets draped from the roof, past bemused legionaries still coming to terms with the idea that the long siege of Europe was finally over, and on to a passenger waiting area for the modern hypertube where the Jotun commander, Knudsir, was waiting for them. He explained that he’d ordered them here out of the way because Arun’s children were beginning to freak out his exhausted Marines, and frankly they had seen enough in the past few weeks.
Scores of men and women inside linked hands and mumbled an indecipherable chant. Some stood, while others knelt on the chairs or sat in each other’s laps, and all of them resembled Arun and Springer.
Springer herself pushed to the center of the crowded room, her children grudgingly parting to admit her. Over her shoulder, Arun saw a steady trickle of the clone children continue to join the group. There must have been a hundred of them or more already, and it was strange to feel so ignored by them.
Normally, he felt more comfortable around the Dragoon Trogs than his human descendants who acted as if he were a combination of deity and celebrity, around whom they tried but failed to behave normally.
Without warning, they ceased their chanting and regarded Springer and Arun in their midst with slack-jawed surprise, suddenly remembering to be awestruck so close to their hero parents.
He felt bad ab
out it, but Arun shuddered. He was their father, after a fashion, but that didn’t prevent this being super creepy.
One of the older women, her buzz cut hair shockingly white, emerged from the nervous crowd to face Arun, and gave her parents a bow. “We have foreseen,” she said.
“Wait!” said Springer and shooed her children aside until she had placed Arun and herself into two of the waiting chairs. “Now, tell us your name and then what you sensed of our future.”
The woman paused to think. Until their parents had awoken from their long cryogenic sleep, the human members of Nest Hortez had identified themselves only by scent. “Escandala-351,” she replied.
Inwardly, Arun cursed Pedro for forcing him to endure such weirdness once again. Escandala had been his mother’s name, and now that he thought of it, this woman did resemble the images he had seen of Sergeant Escandala McEwan as she had been before her death at the battle of Akinschet in 2560. Though the burning lilac eyes, not so much.
“The Hardits are the key,” explained Escandala. “If you make a frontal assault with your armies, you will not reach Tawfiq in time. The Hardits will give you another line of attack that can succeed. We have seen this.”
Arun winked at Springer while his daughter who looked like his mother squeezed drops into her eyes from a bottle she kept in a chest pocket. “You always told me you didn’t see with your visions.”
Springer gave him a hefty punch in the shoulder. “Escandala is being metaphorical, you drent-head.” She stared her daughter. “Right? You can’t tell us which Hardits, can you? You can’t draw a picture or describe a scent?”
Escandala shook her head. “All I know is that they will allow you to get to Tawfiq from a direction that she won’t expect.”
“And there’s definitely more than one Hardit?” added Arun. Around them, the other clone children were filing out of the room, content they had played their part and had nothing to add to what Escandala would say.
“A small number, I think,” said Escandala. “More than one, but not whole armies.”
“So you don’t think it’s a split,” said Springer. “You don’t see us aligning with one of Tawfiq’s rivals to drive a wedge into the enemy.”
“I don’t think so, but I’m not certain about that.”
Arun resisted the temptation to snap at her. She claimed they needed Hardits, but of the millions on the planet, she couldn’t say which ones. He supposed it was an improvement. Until today, whenever the clone children had met in groups and tried to discern the patterns of the future, all they could say was that the campaign would end in blood. Yeah, great help. Every time, it had been the same answer. But how could they use this new insight? Within the hour, they would be heading west beneath the Atlantic for the final confrontation. They had a few New Order Hardit prisoners, but they had revealed little of use. Approaching Earth orbit, there were Hardit legionaries aboard First Fleet troopships. The Hardit mini-tankers of the 7th Armored Claw had distinguished themselves in several battles across the galaxy, and their survivors were licking their wounds here beneath London. Did Arun need to order Kreippil to land another Hardit and Wolf assault Regiment in Europe to join Arun’s main force as it travelled beneath the Atlantic?
“By Tyndall, I know the ones she means,” said Major Knudsir walking in from the lobby outside. “Despite the deprivations of the siege, I kept these two prisoners alive and well treated. I sensed they might have a part yet to play.”
“Yes,” said Escandala. “I like what this Jotun officer is saying.”
“Please forgive my impertinence at addressing you, Major,” said Springer, “but without trying to rationalize your choice, can you tell us what instinct provokes you to spare these Hardits?”
“Oh, that’s simple. With most of the prisoners we capture, if we set them free they would simply return to their units as fast as possible and fight us, loyal Tawfiq Janissaries to the end. A few are so traumatized that they’re broken beings, incapable of being soldiers again. But this pair of deserters we caught skulking in the Hypertube, still believe in themselves as soldiers, but they have lost belief in their cause. They are Janissaries, but they bear no love for Tawfiq Woomer-Calix nor for the New Order.”
Springer looked pointedly at Arun, which confused him until he remembered that her name was supposed to be Lissa, and when they had first served under Jotun officers, to address a major directly, as she had just done, was to invite summary execution for disrespect. Arun, on the other hand, was now a general.
“Thank you, Major Knudsir. Your service in commanding this last European bastion against the New Order has already been honorable enough that the poets must already be at work. They will search tirelessly to discover the words that will immortalize you and your brave army. And now you provide great service again. Perhaps even more so. Major, I trust your judgement. Bring these Hardits to us here, immediately.”
The major wore a Jotun model of armored combat exosuit, but his helmet was off and hanging by his hip, and Arun was amused to see Knudsir’s fur stand up and his ears prick out in pride. Human-Jotun relations had progressed a long way since he was a cadet.
“Yes, General,” said the Jotun, giving a human style salute with both arms on his right side. “Thank you, sir. It is my honor to obey.”
— Chapter 37 —
Arun McEwan
Brompton Road Station
London Hypertube
The comm connection ended, and the viewscreen that had showed the Hardit legionaries of the 7th Armored Claw reverted to a transparent material taped to a tiled wall on which had been painted the words: “Please do not smoke”.
The two Janissary prisoners gave no reaction, as if the connection to their non-Janissary Hardit brethren, who were a few klicks away beneath another part of London, was so powerful that cutting the transmission channel made little difference.
Wokmar and Shocles had stood through the entire linkup standing wide-mouthed and speechless, and they showed no signs of any change.
“Have I broken them?” Arun asked Scipio in all seriousness after a couple of minutes’ silence.
“How should I know, sir? We allied with Hardit militia on Tranquility against the New Order, but that’s not the same as recruiting Janissaries. We had a few Hardits join up as AuxTechs, but they weren’t Janissaries either, and you know how much Hardits love tinkering with machinery. To be honest, I’m as surprised as these two monkeys to see Hardits serving as frontline Legionary fighters.”
“These two we spoke with,” said one of the prisoners, “they merge their scent with you humans and Littoranes and other aliens, and do so voluntarily?”
Arun read the English version of the name written in ink on the Janissary’s collar. “Well, Shocles, if you’re asking whether our Hardits are best friends forever with filthy xenos such as myself, Major Knudsir, and Colonel Scipio, then I’m sorry to disappoint you. Several Hardit communities – usually miners in asteroid belts and outer system shells – have joined as members of the Human Autonomous Region.” He laughed to see both Hardits curl their lips in contempt. “Yeah, they like the name about as much as you. Anyway, those are full-fledged Hardit colonies who volunteered to become a part of what we are carving out from the White Knight Empire, but rest assured the individuals within those communities would rather bathe in their own vomit than be in close proximity to a being from another species. The Hardit legionaries you just heard from are something of an exception. Renegades–”
“Males,” said the other one, Wokmar.
“Err, yes. I believe they are. We pair them up with Wolves, who are themselves the outsiders of humanity. They get along okay.”
“I cannot believe that my Hardit brethren could cooperate voluntarily with a lesser species,” said Wokmar.
“But to believe that is to believe our race is one of fools,” countered Shocles. “We have seen successful symbiotic relationships between species on many of the biospheres we have encountered during our campaigns. Why,
then, are you so quick to discount cooperation between species of unrelated biospheres?”
Wokmar snapped her jaws hard. “I despise your logic, Shocles. Because it is impossible to refute. The implications…”
Shocles gave Arun a long stare with her yellow eye trio. Arun knew enough about Hardits to realize that with Shocles’s ears pitched forward, the longer the stare, the more carefully Shocles was considering Arun’s point of view.
Time was pressing. Arun had spent over an hour talking with Shocles and Wokmar, and setting up the link with the Hardit legionaries, but he allowed Shocles another couple of minutes before the Janissary spoke again.
“My comrade talked of implications,” said the Hardit. “It would be easy to underestimate their significance. And maybe not just for us, but for other disaffected Janissaries too.”
“The New Order preaches perpetual war against all other species in the galaxy,” said Wokmar. “We may choose not to fight a race at a given moment in time, but that is either due to a temporary armistice or because we are waiting to defeat our enemies in detail. But we are at war with all other races at all times until either Hardits are the only survivors in the galaxy, or we are ourselves exterminated.”
“Our minds can encompass the possibility of eventual defeat, but of a third option, one in which we are not at war with creation, this is a dangerous and powerful new idea to us.”
“Gotta love the spiritual awakening aspect, guys,” said Scipio, “but our intel says your former boss is going to raise a new super army in five days. Clock’s ticking and it’s a long walk to Victory City. You know anything about this?”
“No,” the two Hardits said.
“Just peachy,” said Scipio. “Word is, Tawfiq’s talking about becoming a goddess. Don’t suppose you know anything about that either?”
“No,” agreed Wokmar, but Shocles twisted her tail around her comrade’s and gave a sharp tug.
