Tawfiq fled, deciding to send underlings to complete the task of interrogating this creature.
But as the crashing noise eased with each footstep, she was surprised to find that she had somehow already learned everything she needed to know.
— Chapter 45 —
In a more innocent time, before he’d been caught up in the fallout from the White Knight civil war, Arun would have been impressed by the sector operations room on Level 3. As novices and cadets, they had been shown these upper levels of Detroit’s formidable defenses, not truly believing they would one day fight there. The battle computer displays had been glimpses into the intelligence behind this impregnable bastion, and the detail of Marines always on station here had seemed ready for anything.
They hadn’t been, though. Detroit’s defenses had been breached. Its defenders slaughtered.
Now the stragglers who still styled themselves the Human Legion – at least for now – relied on a portable power generator to provide light, heat, and to power three wall-mounted viewscreens and the battle AI they were linked to. His fellow officers met in the ops room with Arun, suited up with helmets off but within easy grabbing range, their faces looked drawn and pale in the blue-tinged illumination. They retained enough respect to wait for Arun to speak, but that respect was now stretched to breaking point.
The ops room made a natural base of operations for their rag-tag band of survivors, but Arun would give anything to have chosen someplace else. The bodies of the fallen defenders had been cleared away, but the room still carried the stink of defeat.
It hung about like heavy fog, clinging to Arun, threatening to possess him.
He sighed. It was time to speak.
“Over the past two days, the Legion has fought well. Thanks to the tenacity, spirit, and skill of our Marines, we have liberated hundreds of humans slaves from a Hardit labor camp, including local resistance leaders, and forced marched hundreds of klicks back here to Detroit, aided—” Arun nodded at Xin – “by the leadership and initiative shown by Lieutenant Lee.”
A pang of annoyance penetrated Arun. His praise for Xin had been well deserved, but she looked at him with contempt bordering on hatred. He mentally shrugged. Trying to understand Xin didn’t matter anymore.
“That’s the bullshit version of events, to borrow Sergeant Gupta’s vernacular. The truth is I’ve led us into disaster. We’ve suffered heavy casualties and most of the slaves we rescued died on the journey back. We’ve paid dearly and have little to show for it. Beowulf confirms heavy weapons are being discharged underground, have been for most of the past day. The Hardits are fighting amongst themselves to see who controls Tranquility. That’s the only reason we have this breathing space. Once a faction has established supremacy, we will be the next target.”
“Could we play one side off against the other?” suggested Brandt.
“I don’t think so,” Arun replied.
“There’s plenty of human historical precedent,” Brandt pressed. “A faction not confident of victory would ally with the devil rather than accept defeat. The Crusader princes of Palestine frequently allied with their Saracen enemies against other Crusader princes. The Nazis and Bolsheviks of Europe were implacable ideological enemies, but joined forces to extinguish a neighboring country named Poland.”
Arun waved at Brandt to calm down and cease his history lessons.
“You might be right, though having lived with the Hardits, I think their contempt for humanity is too strong for that to work. But that is no longer for me to decide. In light of my record, I stand aside.” Arun gave a bitter laugh. “I suppose you could say I’m resigning my commission.”
“None of us are commissioned,” said Xin. Her voice was icy cold. “The only Jotun Navy officer left alive on Beowulf nominated you, and we agreed the other officer roles and assignments amongst us. You have no commission to resign. This is an abdication.”
Arun shrugged. “What’s your point, Xin?”
“My point, Arun, is that you aren’t handing back some shiny award you no longer feel you deserve. Being CO isn’t a prize – it’s a responsibility. I never put you down as a quitter, McEwan. An idiot, perhaps. But you were full of ideas and, even if most of them were dumb, your combination of ignorance and tenacity meant you made them work anyway. Now you’re landing us all in the drent because things haven’t gone your way. Abdication. From where I’m sitting, sounds mighty similar to abandonment.”
Arun held Xin’s glare but said nothing. She was petite and she was beautiful, but neither characteristic prevented her from making him feel two inches tall. She had that drill instructor’s knack of going straight for the jugular in pointing out where he had gone wrong.
“She’s right,” said Nhlappo.
Arun took a deep breath and stuck out his chin in readiness for the assault from the woman who actually had been a genuine drill instructor. Nhlappo was worse even than Xin, the older woman had vastly more experience than any of them here.
“Listen up, McEwan,” she barked. “Major.” She spat his rank as if a terrible insult. “We followed you to Tranquility knowing our attempt to retake the planet was a high risk gamble. Horden only knows why, but we wanted to believe in you and your vision of the Human Legion. Not that you’ve done anything to justify that faith, but the alternative was a slow ignoble suicide. It still is. I’m not the only one here who’d far rather go out in a blaze of vainglory.”
“I knew your support was always lukewarm, Lieutenant. Do you now withdraw it? Will you lead us in my place?”
“One of your problems, Major, is that you want to believe everything is about you. No, I haven’t changed my views on anything. It is you who’s doing that. You’re losing your nerve. You’ve suffered a reverse. We all have. Suck it up, boy. Don’t you dare crumble on us now. You’re the only thing holding us together. We’re still working a high-risk gamble. Nothing’s changed. Listen to Lee because she’s got more balls than you. More tactical nous too.”
“You’re right,” said Arun, adding quickly: “About Lieutenant Lee having tactical sense.” Arun was winging it here. The planner brain in his mind was urging him to grasp some detail about Xin that was vitally important, but he couldn’t get any details. What did he need to tell her? Arun couldn’t figure it out. Couldn’t even face her yet. Instead he breathed out and looked to Brandt. “And you?”
“You know they’re right, Arun. All this drent about being officers… Hell, you were never even a cadet NCO. I bet it feels like a game, doesn’t it? As if your legitimacy is nothing more than a paper mask. One that’s become torn and crumpled from the first time you’ve gone outside. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Arun nodded.
“Well, here’s the bad news. Whatever any of us here or out there in Detroit think of you, your torn mask of command is the only one we have, and it’s tailored to your ugly face. No one else can take your role.”
“Understood.” Arun could see, though, that Brandt hadn’t finished with him yet.
“Do you actually want to know what I think?” growled Brandt.
“Yes, of course.”
“I think you’ve already answered your own question, Arun. You’re just too scared to follow your instinct. Being CO doesn’t mean you have to fire every weapon or lead every assault. It doesn’t even mean you have to take all the decisions or plan everything, despite the freaky brain the Jotuns put inside your head. It means you have to be the leader. So lead, damn you!”
Brandt. Lee. Nhlappo. Three pairs of eyes held him captive in their gaze and would not let him wriggle free. Was this how it felt to be a medieval king surrounded by his earls and barons? Holding no love for their monarch but giving him their support in a delicately calculated balance of power?
Arun shrugged. Frakk history. He had a vision. A future where humans could win their freedom.
And he would lead the Legion to that future. Springer had told him he would.
Springer’s foresight would have to be the Le
gion’s guide at this narrow juncture.
“Very well,” he said. “I want to consider how to use the Resistance fighters. Adding in those we liberated from the camp, we have about 30 fit to fight now, and about a dozen more recovering from their wounds. Assessment?”
“I’m not impressed,” said Nhlappo, sneering. “They’re resentful, poorly led, and physically unfit. In the long term, best to use them to augment Marine units, but in the short term any unit reinforced by them would be weakened.”
“How about Spartika?” asked Arun. “She’s so weak she can barely stand, but Narciso says she will recover in a few days. She established herself as the local Resistance leader, which is why I fought so hard to extract her. I still think if we are to add the Resistance and liberated slaves into our fighting force, we are better doing so with them as allies rather than absorb them directly. At least at first.”
“I don’t trust Spartika,” said Xin.
“You’ve never met her,” Brandt pointed out.
“Don’t need to. She’ll betray us if she finds the right opportunity. I know I would in her situation.”
Nhlappo joined in: “So are you saying we need to make sure Spartika never recovers from her ordeal?”
Xin shook her head. “Negative. We keep her onside. The major was right to risk all to recover her. She represents a future power struggle, that’s all I mean. We need a hold over her, but she isn’t a threat to us for now.”
“Go on, Lee.” Arun knew Xin had more. He could see her stark expression loosen up as she talked, meaning that Xin’s mind was fertile with tactical ideas. Arun recognized that look. Xin used it when she berated him for failing to grasp the importance of combined arms, of the need for heavier fire support and an air wing. Xin’s dreams were filled with battle tactics.
Xin continued. “Lieutenant Nhlappo reports we’ve recovered enough discarded equipment to equip another few score Resistance fighters, but our main stores and armories in Detroit were destroyed. We can’t take a planet with about a hundred armed fighters. We need to arm the human slaves, to turn scores into tens of thousands. For that we need Spartika as a figurehead and we need to raid the only place on the planet capable of equipping an army.”
“Beta City,” said Arun. The teasing glint in Xin’s eyes confirmed this was her intended target.
“Makes sense,” said Brandt. “The enemy expects us to hole up here and lick our wounds while they’re busy fighting each other. The last thing they will expect is for us to attack the most obvious target on the planet.”
Arun raised his eyebrows. “And people say I get outrageous ideas! But you could be right. By most accounts the rebels abandoned Beta City in a hurry. I think the chances are that a substantial level of stores are waiting for us to grab them… It’s a helluva risk, though.”
“Let me lessen that risk,” said Nhlappo. “A little, at any rate. As you said, Lee, Sergeant Majanita hasn’t recovered a great deal of abandoned equipment here in Detroit. We’ve still no SAM pods, for example. But there were many levels of security in the Human Marine Corps, and I’ve managed to access hidden stores. I recovered dozens of jet racks, blinder missiles, and a tactical gamma bomb.”
Arun dared to hope.
Jet racks were a means of transporting individual Marines in battlesuits. In theory they were lightning fast but left Marines vulnerable in transit and when dismounting. In practice, he’d never known anyone to train on them. Gamma bombs were tricky weapons that could easily backfire, but with a good deployment, and a lot of luck, could wipe out an army in a single blast. But the missiles…?
“What’s a blinder?” asked Xin.
“Fits standard missile launcher. A munition withdrawn from human use a few decades ago. Probably to keep us from getting too strong. I’m not supposed to know of their existence. Could be key to achieve air superiority. Maybe orbital superiority too. It’s a cluster round. When the initial transport stage reaches the target areas, it fragments, releasing dozens of semi-intelligent mini-drones. If you set them right, the blinder drones will hide and hunt.”
“Hunt for what?” Brandt asked.
Nhlappo stiffened at the interruption “Depends how you program the munitions. But usually they locate and mark anything they think might be an enemy targeting system. When you give the signal, they come out of hiding and make use of the bomb they carry inside them.”
“And then we send in the gunships,” said Xin. “Instant air superiority.”
“That’s the theory. And we only have one gunship left, but essentially, yes.”
“I can’t help thinking there are deeper secrets waiting to be discovered here in Detroit,” said Arun. “There must be plenty that even you aren’t aware of, Lieutenant. If only we had the time to really explore.”
“But we don’t,” said Nhlappo.
“No, but there is one more weapon in our arsenal that the enemy are unaware of. You all know how Beowulf destroyed Themistocles with her engine exhaust. Some of the Navy techs think they have worked out how to weaponize the engine to fire into an atmosphere. In theory we can wipe out anything in the engine effect cone down to a few tens of meters above the ground. It’s ultra-high risk and untested. It could blow up the ship or ignite the atmosphere in an unstoppable chain reaction. Factor it into your tactical calculations but don’t risk using it unnecessarily.”
Arun addressed Brandt. “Thank you for that pep talk earlier. I need to lead, not plan everything myself. Let’s see if I was listening properly.” He turned to Xin. “Lieutenant Lee, I said before that I was impressed with your tactical ability in rescuing us in our retreat from the Labor Camp. Lieutenant Brandt was right to imply I should make more use of all of your talents. Lee, I want you to prove to me that your tactical skill was no fluke. Under Lieutenant Nhlappo’s direction, I want you to form a battle plan. Find a way to get us in and out of Beta City with a minimum of risk and maximum haul of equipment that we can use to arm freed slaves. Make use of any weapon or resource in our possession. You have one hour. Get to it.”
“Yes, sir.” Xin gave him a crisp salute that would satisfy the strictest drill instructor. Nhlappo, who had been that drill instructor, gave him a challenging look but it was an improvement over the open contempt of before. As for Xin, her eyes were brimming with emotion. Excitement. Gratitude. Destiny. Hell, he’d just unleashed Xin Lee at full throttle. The room crackled with energy and belief. Arun wanted to stay and soak it up into his tired bones, but the Legion was demoralized. He had to go out there and be seen to hope.
Before he could get to his feet and leave Xin and Nhlappo undisturbed, a call came through from Gupta.
“Go ahead, Sergeant.”
“Incoming Hardit transmission, Major.”
“Tell the stinking monkeys to go vulley themselves.”
“This particular stinking monkey claims to know you, sir. Says its name is Tawfiq Woomer-Calix.”
Foreboding twisting his insides, Arun told Gupta to put the transmission through to the ops room.
All three viewscreens were filled by the leering triple-eyed head of the person Arun hated above all others on the planet.
Tawfiq!
— Chapter 46 —
“I think you are there present, yes.” The Hardit spoke in a synthesized voice devoid of emotion. “Acknowledge please.”
Arun wasn’t without emotion, though. He longed to punch the veck in the snout. The aliens all sounded the same, but Arun had no doubt that this was Tawfiq. That particular monkey’s voice synthesizer had never quite managed human grammar.
The Hardit couldn’t be sure that Arun was hearing her. She loved mind games, especially any that inflicted mental anguish. I can play games too, Arun thought. So he ignored Tawfiq, uncertain whether he was being petty or whether this was a message to the Hardit that he would only play this game on his own terms.
Arun studied this evil creature who had delighted in torturing him when he was forced to join her Aux work gang. Back then she had dressed
in scruffy work gear, scarcely cleaner than her slave workers. Now she wore a uniform that couldn’t be more different. Its silver material had black channels etched into its glossy surface that suggested metal machinery, or perhaps electronics. If the uniform’s intention was to make its wearers look like indomitable military cyborgs, the effect was ruined by the inbuilt elliptical parasol that rose above the wearer’s head, like the haloes in depictions of the most holy people in Earth religions.
Tawfiq’s uniform was similar to that worn by the elite troops they’d encountered at the Labor Camp, except for the cleanliness and complexity of the gold lightning bolts extending from the shoulders, which made him think Tawfiq had reached a senior rank. Somehow the alien looked even more arrogant than normal, as if she were certain she had already won. And that lit a fire of rage in Arun’s belly that he could not control.
“I’ll kill you, monkey,” he blurted out.
“Ah. You acknowledge. Good. Now we know you can see this transmission, human scum. You come from off planet or maybe hide away from war. Hero or coward in human terms, makes no difference to we, your superiors. You steal hundreds of human slaves. Keep them, with our thanks. They are worthless animals. They stink so much we retch. We only kept them alive as a kindness.”
“Do you even have a point, monkey?”
“I wish share observation. You call me monkey. That makes me laugh because my people not animals like you humans. We engineers and scientist. We observe and learn. You too dumb to act on more than instinct, so we teach you what you too stupid to learn for yourselfs. Let me teach you now. What I observe about humans is you having two slight skills. The first is digging into the dirt. Look. We have made use of your skill. Do you see?”
The camera panned away from Tawfiq to reveal a scene of misery that made Arun gasp. A crude trench, about a meter deep, had been dug into fields of human crops. It could be Alabama. It could be any of a hundred agricultural areas. The trench extended far into the distance. Lined along the trench at ten-pace intervals were hundreds of beaten, skeletal human workers, their sun-blistered backs turned to the camera. The slaves stared down into the trench at their feet. The shovels discarded nearby made it clear that they had dug the trench themselves.
Renegade Legion (The Human Legion Book 3) Page 17
