Then they scrambled up the last few meters of debris-strewn steps and out to the ruined surface level of the labor camp where an eerie silence had descended.
The blockhouse had been blasted into rubble cloaked in a thick layer of gray dust. Tac-display showed nothing… except an army of Hardit infantry approaching fast from the northeast. But they weren’t in range yet.
For a moment, the chaos of the battle had left them alone.
No… Saraswati warned of movement from down in the stairwell.
“We’ve got company,” said Umarov, aiming his carbine down the stairs.
A frail voice rose from the depths. “Springer, you there?”
It was Spartika. If they could get her out in one piece, maybe this would all be worth it.
Springer called down to the resistance leader. “Come on up. Weather’s lovely for the time of year.”
“You’re mad,” Spartika sneered.
“No,” Springer replied cheerfully. “Just trying to stop myself from slipping that way.”
With Umarov keeping an eye on the Hardit infantry, Springer watched Spartika coming up the stairs. Two of the other rescued fighters were just behind her, though they looked in even worse shape than their leader.
When she’d known Adrienne Miller in the Aux slave team who worked in Detroit she had looked drained of everything but spite. Now, as Spartika, she looked as if she’d lost even that, her spirit pulverized into dust the same as the blockhouse.
Spartika was the first of the rescued fighters to poke her head above ground, and survey the devastation.
“Frakk!” she groaned, which pretty much summed up the situation.
The next few seconds were confusing. Springer’s eyesight went faulty, the terrain blurring in and out of focus. Umarov was saying something about running for the trees; someone was groaning.
When her mind snapped back into something approaching focus, she was staring into the snouts of a company-sized unit of Hardit troops who must have decided they had reached effective range because they knelt and aimed their rifles.
At her.
Double frakk! This wasn’t going to be easy.
Springer burst into action, bullets ricocheting around her ankles.
— Chapter 34 —
“Onward!” Tawfiq urged the driver. “Faster! We must proceed to the capital without delay. If word gets there before us that we have been humiliated by a pack of these human dogs, then we will be lost.”
She raised Commander Zwiline on the radio.
“Select your most talented subordinate,” Tawfiq ordered the commander. “Order them to eliminate the humans. I know these scum. They will flee but do not let them rest. Harry them. Wear them down. Employ all the militia you can muster and stiffen their resolve with one warband of janissaries. Tell your subordinate to preserve the janissaries and expend the militia freely.”
“It shall be done, Supreme Commander. What about the human slaves who stayed in their pens?”
“You know our mission, Zwiline. The future has no place for their species. See that they are exterminated.”
— Chapter 35 —
Springer’s vision blurred.
She had to move. Couldn’t stand still. Mustn’t be left behind for the Hardits.
Hardits. A great column of them was snaking north. In a hurry. Vehicles followed by uniformed soldiers bounding along on all fours in an effortless, loping stride. Looked like they had a lot of distance to cover.
Fine.
Suited her just fine. So long as they went away.
She followed Umarov on a zigzagging path back to the rendezvous point which was... couldn’t remember. Saraswati would know.
Lance Corporal Yoshioka was the only other person alive on LBNet. She was waiting for them just beyond the cover of the tree line.
Yoshioka grew a yellow command halo. BattleNet must have worked out Kalis was dead. Yoshioka was now 2nd Section’s tactical commander.
A vicious sting cut her left arm, making her stagger.
The sound of railgun rounds was in the air, and Saraswati was speaking in short sentences, which meant they were in trouble.
She kept running. The ground was cratered, littered with obstacles that threatening to trip her. Even level ground seemed to tilt into treacherous angles. She stumbled but did not fall.
Why did Saraswati keep calling her ‘dear’?
Okoro’s corpse was nearby, sprawled over the wreckage of a watchtower. Looked like he’d nearly made it back into cover. She detoured to scoop up his carbine as she passed.
She grabbed the weapon, but the horizon swooned and she toppled.
The ground finally claimed her. She skidded along on her side before coming to rest on her back.
She took a deep breath to get her strength back. Then she took another.
She heard her AI’s panic, but needed to rest just a little longer. In a moment she’d scramble to her feet and sprint for cover.
High above, the trees spread purple-fringed branches against a clear blue sky. It was such a beautiful sight. Arun had always been mesmerized by her violet eyes. She laughed. Maybe their children would have had purple eyes?
She felt a jolt of pain in her chest. At first the pain was something she observed as if happening to someone else, but it burned ever more fiercely in its intensity, as if a star were being born inside her.
A scream burst out of her lips.
“Shift your sorry human ass, cadet!” yelled the voice of Chief Instructor Nhlappo.
Springer frowned. She wasn’t a cadet any more. She was a Marine, and Nhlappo was hundreds of klicks away.
Using the pain to fuel her muscles, she levered herself back onto her feet and stumbled away to the trees. She abandoned Okoro’s carbine. She ignored Saraswati. There was only room in her mind for one thought: she would never give up. That drive to pull through kept her going, like a comrade she could lean on, keeping her moving until she was safe.
Finally, she made it into the trees, entering the undergrowth at a spot about ten meters from Yoshioka. As she pressed on, LBNet reacquired more of her unit, and her mind began reacquiring its faculties. Zug was there too, still giving her covering fire.
She pressed on, farther into the trees, where she saw Umarov with her own eyes, carrying an unconscious Spartika in his arms. In fact, Springer realized, Umarov was practically hovering in her face, not letting her out of his sight.
Her mind filled in some gaps and brought back a memory of Umarov coming back to save her. Saraswati had kept Springer conscious when all she wanted to do was rest, but it had been the old man who’d helped her to the trees.
“Thanks, Old Grognard,” she whispered.
“Anytime, youngster,” said Umarov.
She felt strength return to her surviving limbs and remembered what it meant to hope. Like Force Patagonia as a whole, she’d been damaged, but wasn’t out of the fight altogether.
But there was to be no more fighting for the moment. Having chased them away from the topside ruin of the labor camp, the Hardit infantry reformed and marched… marched!… away in the opposite direction, along the north road.
With danger receding, the losses they had suffered weighed ever more heavily on their minds.
None of 2nd Section’s survivors spoke as they fell back to Rendezvous Point Beta.
— PART III —
Bug Out
Human Legion
— INFOPEDIA —
Category: Alien Species
— Hardits
Summary
Hardits are short fur-covered humanoids (approx. 1.5m-1.7m tall) who are common throughout the White Knight Empire, where they often specialize as miners and engineers. They have a wolf-like appearance with a pronounced teeth-filled snout and acute sense of smell. Over short distances they employ a bandy-legged bipedal waddle. For longer journeys they will shift any equipment they wish to hold from their hands to their gripping tails, and then proceed on all fours. They are capable of trotting for very long distances so long as the atmosphere is not too oxygen-rich for their needs, or they are equipped with breathing apparatus.
Threats & Weaknesses
Hardits, especially female ones, are notorious xenophobes, despising all other species with such vehemence that a Hardit should always be considered a potential enemy, whatever the circumstances. Understanding their vassals’ phobia, the White Knights have kept Hardits in self-contained settlements, isolated from each other and particularly from other species. This is usually successful in preventing Hardits from giving trouble to other species. After all, according to the Hardit mindset, staying at home is preferable to going out and conquering the galaxy, because doing so would force it to interact with so many disgusting non-Hardits. On the other hand, Hardits who are goaded into action by a perceived threat, and Hardits who merge (often bloodily) into larger communities, can rapidly escalate into military threats.
Hardits distrust advanced electronics and AIs, perhaps as a natural extension of their xenophobia. This often leaves them weak militarily because this rules out the use of many key military assets. However, this advantage cannot be relied upon indefinitely because Hardits have such natural talents as engineers and innovators that they can rapidly evolved home-grown counters to your military advantages.
As soldiers, Hardits have several physiological weaknesses.
Hardits are not good at moving and firing a handheld weapon. For example, a Hardit soldier rushing to a new position in a firefight would first transfer its gun to its tail, move on all fours to the new position, and then transfer their gun from tail to hands before it could fire. The tail is also a vulnerable body part as it is difficult to provide armor while leaving the tail flexible. A Hardit soldier with its tail shot off cannot fight effectively.
Hardits are prone to hyperventilation in most atmospheres unless provided with breathing equipment. The Hardit homeworld has a low-density, oxygen-poor atmosphere.
Hardits are particularly prone to the disabling effects of bright lights, especially in the ultraviolet range.
Further Notes
In this Infopedia entry, we state assumptions about Hardit culture and physiology, but you should always consider that the Hardits who interact with humans and other species are usually the very lowest in Hardit society. There may be important aspects of Hardit culture that we have never encountered.
There are two principle Hardit genders, although there have been reports of more complex gender configurations. Males are slightly shorter, lighter in build, and with a more triangular snout. Other than during mating season, the two genders barely tolerate each other, and live in separate communities.
The mating period lasts for approximately one week out of every two Earth-standard years, each far-flung Hardit community synchronizing to their own local cycle with uncanny accuracy. The males who approach females first have about an evens chance of either securing a reproductive advantage, or dying from the claw wounds inflicted by an unimpressed female.
A tentative understanding of Hardit culture suggests that there is an overarching elite ruling class comprised of a very small number of alpha males. Beta males – which comprise the vast majority of that gender – appear to be lower in the social hierarchy than any female; they occupy the most inhospitable locations and carry out the most dangerous professions. And yet, most interactions with humans are from low-ranked female Hardits. Perhaps carrying out a role so odious that it is not assigned to males is the ultimate punishment for Hardit females. The truth is, we just don’t know. Perhaps the only thing we can say with certainty about Hardits is that, despite living near them for centuries, they have an unending capacity to surprise us… and that their surprises are usually unpleasant.
This infopedia section was extracted from humanlegion.com
— Chapter 36 —
Springer removed her helmet and inhaled the cool, fresh air – or so she intended.
The Hardits feared the sun and its lethal rays. So they shielded the avenues they used to traverse the planet’s surface, engineering tall roadside trees with high canopies thick with absorbent purple leaves.
As stifling warmth encased Springer’s face, she realized the trees also trapped the hot air.
She felt a glimmer of sympathy for the thirsty huddles of rescued slaves who’d collapsed amongst the trees the instant the major called the rest break.
Her empathy only lasted for a few seconds, chased away by resentment. These refugees were a burden. Nearly half the force who’d set out from Detroit to rescue Spartika hadn’t made it this far. If they didn’t abandon the liberated slaves, none of them would make it home alive.
No Marine left behind. She’d wanted to reclaim that maxim. But as klick followed klick, stumbling along the avenue in her damaged suit, it became ever harder to see the faltering refugees as their own.
Umarov was propped up against a tree opposite her, also with helmet off. In his face she could see that he was thinking the same thoughts. He caught her attention and stared back. By silent agreement, they both decided this wasn’t yet the time to openly discuss their deadly calculations.
“Hey, Old Man,” Springer called instead, “what is it with you and your blades? Does old age mean you forget where to find your carbine trigger?”
He shrugged, taking his time to reply. “Blades are a good melee weapon.” The strain in his voice betrayed his exhaustion. “Enemies don’t like seeing their mates being sliced open by a berserker.”
“A bullet or dart would leave them just as dead.”
He didn’t respond.
“Using your carbine more would save on your muscles too,” she said kindly. Umarov’s generation didn’t have the endurance of Springer’s.
She let him be, turning her attention instead to the huddle of NCOs clustered around Arun, who were debating all their fates. Gupta, Puja, and Hecht were there. Kalis wasn’t, replaced by Yoshioka.
She cast her gaze a little farther out and, sure enough, also spotted Rohanna and Shelby nearby with their babies. Since meeting the major, the two women had tracked him as surely as any wild predator, keeping their infants within his sight and hearing, constantly plucking at those instincts that said babies needed protecting. The babies were swaddled in rags, but the mothers kept resolutely nude other than cloth wrapped around their heads and hanging down their necks.
Seeing Arun trying so pitifully hard not to look at the nursing mothers would be funny if those babies weren’t going to get them all killed.
She shrugged. If she were one of the mothers, she’d do just the same. Except she could never be a mother. She sighed. Not after that plasma blast on Antilles had ruined her insides.
It was just as well she wasn’t the CO, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to abandon the infants.
But Arun had a more ruthless cast than her; he just didn’t know it yet. She’d glimpsed what he might become in the future, and it wasn’t pretty.
She shrugged. Hard-nosed or soft as fresh snow, she was too exhausted to deny that Arun was the most important person in her world. She put her helmet back on, and told Saraswati to listen in on the NCO huddle.
——
“Go on,” Arun told Hecht. “Speak freely.”
Hecht had impressed Arun with his quiet competence, but he was too reluctant to add his input.
“There is no sign of pursuit,” said Hecht. “They didn’t know we were going to hit the camp, which means their aerial, and orbital surveillance is poor. They hit us with attack drones, but only a handful. If they had more, they would have wiped us out easily.”
“Get to the point,” prompted Arun.
“Keeping to these tree-lined routes is not helping to keep us from prying eyes, because there aren’t any. And anyway this route is too obvious. They might use fast underground transport to get ahead of us, and cut off our retreat.”
“Your assessment has merit,” responded Arun, “but I didn’t choose the avenue only to evade observation. It was also to shield the liberated slaves from the sun. Corporal Narciso, your medical assessment, if you please.”
Puja looked grim. “Bad and getting worse. The refugees are on the point of exhaustion. Spartika still hasn’t regained consciousness. I don’t know how she was interrogated, but it took a lot out of her. Only Jennifer Boon is combat effective, though not for much longer without water. The Marines are tired too. Most have been running for hours while carrying two refugees and all their kit. All the time we’re getting more accidents. One Marine tripped as she slowed for this rest stop and crushed both her passengers to death in her fall. We are still 130 klicks from Detroit.” Puja shook her head. “We won’t make it like this. We need water most of all.”
“I agree,” said Gupta. “We can’t make it back at speed without abandoning the refugees. If we don’t abandon them, we must expect a fight.”
Arun nodded, considering the advice from his most experienced veteran, and Puja Narciso, who had trained as a medic. He found himself glancing over at Shelby and Rohanna, who’d shadowed him every step of the retreat.
Renegade Legion (The Human Legion Book 3) Page 12
