As this mass of Hardits nervously pushed down the passageway to where Patagonia waited in their redoubts, they gave no indication that they could smell the humans watching their every move. They acted oblivious to the instrument of death being prepared in the helix just a few hundred meters behind them.
When they were close enough for his liking, Gupta readied Patagonia’s welcome. “In memory of our fallen and wounded: Cusato, Chung, Ballantyne, Naron, Bojin, Halici, Lewark, Kalis, Rhenolotte, Yoshioka, Okoro. This is for you. Plasma cannons ready. Carbines, pick off any of them trying to escape. On my mark… fire!”
At a range of a dozen meters, the embrasures on the redoubts suddenly widened, just enough to allow the heavy plasma cannons inside to fire through them and blast the enemy in crossfire. The Hardits were engulfed in violet-tinged blooms, rounds of packaged ball lightning that burst on impact, searing limbs and setting alight clothing and fur. The passageway cracked with thunder as the plasma cannons drew on the energy feeds that ran below the redoubts to pour out a relentless barrage of fire.
Despite Barney’s best efforts to make sense of the sight, the plasma bursts generated so much visible light that the scene through Arun’s helmet whited out.
Arun looked away.
“Cease fire,” ordered Gupta. “Carabiniers, pick your targets.”
Bodies littered the approach to the redoubts. Most of them burned fiercely. A few survivors staggered, tripping over their comrades, and screaming in a high pitched wail that made Arun shake. The aliens were heavily susceptible to flash-bombs, as Arun had found out for himself when he’d pushed one in Tawfiq’s face, long ago. The light and noise from the plasma barrage had left the enemy scouts utterly stunned.
Taking aim through the embrasure at the survivor farthest away, Arun let off two shots. Barney confirmed his kill before the Hardit had finished slumping to the ground. There were no more targets. The rest of Force Patagonia had made sure of that.
“All dead,” confirmed Madge from her position further up the corridor.
“And we’re all done here,” Xin added. “We’re coming back empty handed.”
Arun laughed. In this operation, empty handed meant success. Force Kenya hadn’t just brought the gamma bomb, they’d carted with them empty ammo crates in waterproof seals. They had left the bomb in one crate and then used the others to build up an innocent-looking stack. The beauty of a gamma bomb was that it wouldn’t damage dumb materials such as those used in the crates. After ten minutes for the radiation to settle to an acceptable level, the Marines would return and fill the same munition crates with carbines, ammo bulbs, missiles, and grenades. It would be the start of a supply chain that would arm the human slaves across the planet.
The Hardits wouldn’t know what had hit them… so long as the stack of crates was enough camouflage to fool them. If they did try to defuse the bomb, the Hardits would set it off, risking sending the blast radius in the wrong direction, and catching the Marines in its lethal path.
Guess we’ll find out soon enough, Arun mused as he watched Kenya filter past the redoubts and into the airlocks behind. Once they had made their exit safely, Arun and the rest of Patagonia followed them, activating their impellers as soon as they entered the water. They dove for the depths, putting as much water as they could between them and the gamma bomb’s lethal rays.
With the immediate danger of enemy contact over, and the threat of the gamma bomb too abstract to worry him, Arun’s mind soon turned to Springer’s contact with a Night Hummer.
The moment he thought of the bloated alien gas sacs, Arun felt his confidence hemorrhage. Whenever the Night Hummers came into focus — even when other species were discussing them — he felt his free will was being exposed as an illusion. It was like being stuck behind a defensive position. Trapped. Out of options.
But he hadn’t been the only human the Night Hummers had alerted the Jotuns to. There had been two others: Xin, and (he still assumed) Indiya.
“Xin?” he asked on a private channel. “Were you ever taken to an asteroid to meet a Night Hummer?”
“A Hummer? We’re about to blow a gamma bomb and you want to talk about the Hummers? I don’t know about any asteroids, but I was taken to encounter a Hummer in a restricted area of Level 9.”
“Our bomb’s on Level 6, and you’ve shaped the blast pattern to a hemisphere aimed at the levels above. If Beta had its own Level 9 section for Hummers, do you reckon it might survive the blast?”
Xin hesitated. “Yes, I think so. The chamber I saw looked heavily shielded to me. Gravity was much lower, less than on Antilles. How the hell they did that, I’ve no frakking idea, but they obviously put a lot of effort into getting the environment right. Anyway, what the frakk are you talking about? Is there something I should know?”
“Just a hunch.”
“A hunch!” Arun sensed Xin was fighting to control her anger. “Fine! Keep your secrets to yourself. Not a good policy, though. It doesn’t engender trust. You need to learn that, Major.”
A few moments later, when Arun was in sight of the silver lump that was the Stork, he received an unexpected communication from Indiya on Beowulf.
“Major, we’re detecting significant energy signatures emerging onto the planet’s surface about 30 klicks northwest of Detroit. I can’t say what they are but their speed of advance on Detroit says they’re motorized. They have air support too. Plenty of it.”
“Aircraft? Are you sure? I thought Hardits were as psychologically unsuited to flying as Jotuns to tunneling.”
“Turned out that was a lie, remember? Even if you’re right, they could be drones remotely controlled from underground. Whatever they are, they’re real. ETA eighteen minutes.”
“Eighteen minutes! There’s no way we can get there in time to affect the outcome. Can you station Beowulf over Detroit before the enemy arrives?”
“Yes. Standby… Course laid in.”
“Brandt’s handling Detroit’s defense. Let him know when you’re there so he can call on you as fire support.”
“Understood,” she acknowledged, but there was a catch in her voice.
Indiya had been icy cold ever since she’d vaped all those people the last time she’d turned Beowulf’s engine into a deadly weapon. Nothing he’d said could convince her that she wasn’t a mass murderer. Since the destruction of Themistocles, this was the first time Indiya had sounded uncertain.
He guessed why.
Setting off the engine in the atmosphere could blow up Beowulf or set the atmosphere alight. Arun had taken so many risks on the planet’s surface that it was easy to forget that Indiya hadn’t.
“One day,” he told Indiya, “when all this is over, you promised you’d take me on a tour along the outside of your ship. Just the two of us. I’m still looking forward to that.”
He heard the pinched intake of breath. “Your attempts at romance are not welcome, Major. I’m a ship’s captain. Not a girl. Indiya out.”
Arun clenched his fists as tightly as his gauntlets allowed. Why were all his friendships shutting down?
He hadn’t time to fix his life problems now. Arun hunkered down with the other Marines at the bottom of the lake, using the Stork as a shield.
The light at this depth had a murky quality made worse by the cloud of mud thrown up by Marine boots thumping into the lake bottom.
Xin gave a three second countdown over BattleNet and then detonated the gamma bomb.
His ears popped and he felt or maybe heard an electronic groan buzzing through the inside of his helmet.
That was it. Barney reported minor damage but he said it was no worse than a mild cyber-attack. He was designed for resilience and would soon be back to full strength.
Arun scanned BattleNet. One of its functions was to constantly relay information on the health of the Marines, their suits, and the AIs that bridged the two. It seemed the waters of the lake had taken the brunt of the radiation pulse. The Marines were fine. Some of the suits had taken dam
age, but none were in a critical state.
By now, the hemispherical blast pattern of the bomb meant everyone in Beta City above Level 6 should be dead. But the Marines had survived.
He com-linked to the Stork. “Dock, you all right?”
“Ah, Major. Yes, we’re snug and happy here. Thank you for your warm concern.”
“You’re our ride out of here, Dock.”
“A service it will be my pleasure to provide. Radiation levels not as bad as we feared. We can’t take you aboard under water, but we can move off the bottom quicker than we expected. I’ll give it another five minutes, before my bird can make it out of here. If you follow five minutes later, you should be safe.”
“Detroit’s about to come under attack,” Arun said, after adding the other officers into the comm channel. “We need to squeeze our safety margin.”
“Already factored in,” said Dock.
“Do we still raid Beta for materiel?” asked Xin. “Or head straight back to Detroit? Loading up with munitions will take at least ten minutes.”
The choice terrified Arun, how could he know which course would be best?
“I’ll speak to Brandt first. Beowulf will offer fire support, though I don’t know how useful that will be.”
“Major?” It was Nhlappo. “Are you sure we’ll be ready to go soon? I think that’s radioactive fallout.”
He followed her pointing finger up at a white cloud slowly descending to the lake bottom. It looked like fat chunks of snow.
“Well, Dock?” queried Arun.
“Nothing to worry about,” said Dock cheerfully. “You’ve just killed every fish in the lake. They’re either floating on the surface or descending to the bottom. They’re slightly radioactive, but shouldn’t be a problem. Nor the dead birds that will reach you later. Mind you, I don’t fancy one of those fish for my dinner. Hold on, we’ve company. Standby… Major, I’m picking up an incoming transmission from the Hardits. It’s… an individual calling itself Tawfiq Woomer-Calix. Asking for you by name.”
Not again! “Tell the veck to go vulley herself. No, belay that! Is she asking for peace terms?”
“Hmmm. Not in so many words… I rather had the impression she was gloating, but I don’t know the species well. The Hardit says it wants to inform you about its attack plans because it wants to imagine the dismay on your face as you defecate in fear. We might have lost some fidelity in translation, but I think you get the gist of it.”
“Very well,” he told Dock, regretting already what he was about to say. “Patch Tawfiq through.”
— Chapter 51 —
Just the sight of Tawfiq’s ugly three yellow-tinged eyes on the inside of his helmet made Arun want to retch. He wished he’d restricted the link to audio-only, but it was too late now. He didn’t want to show weakness, especially since he’d patched the Hardit into the Marine command channel. People were hearing this exchange. He wished Springer was doing the talking. Or Xin. They were so much better than him at this sort of thing.
“Bad luck, Tawfiq,” he opened. “You should have killed me when you had the chance.”
“Why should I have bothered?” The lack of emotion in the alien’s synthesized words only riled Arun more.
“Because if you’d killed me, we wouldn’t have been able to defeat your mutiny on Themistocles and Beowulf, wouldn’t have come back to take our revenge on you.”
“I know. None of that matters.”
“We’ve just wiped out the garrison of your main military base and taken some serious hardware.”
“I know that too, human. It make no difference.” Tawfiq lifted her lip away from her fangs. Had she learned to sneer like a human?
Arun sneered right back at her. “This is only one of many Human Legion victories to come, Hardit. And with all this materiel from Beta, and more resupply on the way, in each new battle we fight we will be stronger than the last.”
Okay, so he exaggerated their strength, but the alien showed no sign of being concerned. “Stupid human. You grasp half-truth, as always. Each battle will be easier, but for us, not you.”
“You’re full of drent, Hardit. Face it, you lost.”
“We knew you were coming. Why else do you think we waited for you to split your forces before we attacked location who you call Detroit.”
The monkeys knew Arun’s team was coming? How? Arun shook his head. He refused to believe this. Tawfiq was trying to vulley with his head. Nothing more. He decided to play along, though, to see what the alien was up to. “Are you implying you have a spy in our ranks? It’s impossible. We killed all the traitors.”
The moment he finished speaking, though, doubt chilled him. They hadn’t killed all the traitors, had they? Ensign Dock... Could he be working for the enemy?
“We have no need of spies amongst you humans,” answered Tawfiq. Arun wasn’t sure to be relieved or horrified at the implications. “Not when we can see the future.”
“Enough with the riddles, Tawfiq. Why did you wish to speak with me?”
“I am never sure of the depths of ignorance to which you humans sink. Therefore I ask – have you heard of a pre-cognitive species called Night Hummers?”
Arun snarled. The alien veck knew full well he did.
“Ahah,” said Tawfiq, a crass sound coming from the voice synthesizer. “I sense you know of Hummers. The future-teller sees you as an ally – in a metaphysical sense. So I thought it best if we kill it. Then I had a better idea. Why not get you to kill it?”
“There was a Night Hummer in Beta City?”
“Human, there still is.”
“Arun,” interrupted Xin, “the Hummer will be on a deep level in a shielded life support system. I bet it’s still fine.”
“The other human is correct, McEwan. The Hummer is alive. You could even take it away in that little shuttle you have. Think for a moment on how useful it be to see into future. But can you reach Hummer in time? This is the little challenge I am setting you.”
Arun bit his lip. There was nothing he detested more than being taunted by smug aliens who thought humans were irredeemably inferior. Even his Trog friend, Pedro, could be unbearably condescending. One day… one day he’d get Tawfiq in his grasp. Then they’d learn who was the superior one.
Arun drew a deep breath, unexpectedly stung by the memory of his Troggie friend. He’d never known how many Trogs had shared Tranquility with the humans and Hardits. Maybe billions. All dead. Arun would avenge that xenocide. The Hardits had a frakk-load of pain coming.
“What is wrong?” asked Tawfiq. “Aren’t you going to ask why the Night Hummer is threatened?”
“No. I tire of your childish games, Hardit. If we’re really in the drent, we’ll find out for ourselves soon enough.”
“Then you don’t wish to know of the mass driver bombardment?”
“What?”
“Come now, human. Even you can’t have forgotten the reason why you brought your stinking carcass to the moon you call Antilles? A new bombardment is due to commence any moment now, only this time the mass driver is aimed at Beta City.”
“Indiya, you there?” Arun asked over the FTL link.
“Yes, Major.”
“We have intel of a mass driver bombardment of my position from Antilles. Can you confirm this is accurate?”
“Affirmative. I left a sensor probe in Antilles orbit. Accessing now. Standby.”
“I hear you are confirming my words,” said Tawfiq. “Maybe you very slightly less stupid than you smell. I leave you now, but don’t take too long with your checking. If you will rescue your pre-cog, you don’t have much time.”
— Chapter 52 —
Arun’s head spun too quickly to get traction on a clear line of thought. All the talk of destiny swirling over him these past two years had been a comfort in the back of his mind – reassurance that he would survive the next firefight, and the one after that, because he had an appointment to keep with the future.
But this destiny drent wasn�
��t at the back of his mind now, nor was it any comfort.
What to do?
There was only one way to protect Beta City and the Night Hummer that might be inside, and didn’t Tawfiq know it? Beowulf had to take out the mass drivers at source. And that meant abandoning Detroit to Tawfiq’s air force.
It all made sense now. Tawfiq had been playing them all along. She had the best possible source of Intel: a glimpse into the future.
Arun had to win that resource for the Human Legion.
“Sir?” prompted Nhlappo. “If the monkey’s right, then our position is about to be bombarded, our home base is about to fight for its life, and the water above is still dangerously radioactive. You need to start making decisions.”
Of course he did, but what? There was no time to tease out a brilliant idea from his planner brain, no point in weighing the pros and cons because his every option was a variant of failure.
He did the only thing he could: went with his gut.
Arun opened the FTL channel to Beowulf, looping in Dock and all the Marines of Force Patagonia. They had the right to hear this.
“McEwan to Beowulf.”
“Here,” replied Indiya. “We’re still analyzing sensor data, but we’ve reached 90% confidence that your intel is accurate.”
“That’s good enough to act.” Arun had to pause and take in a sharp breath. “Proceed to the moon without delay and destroy that mass driver.”
“Major, there are three waves of enemy aircraft inbound for Detroit. They have no idea we’re here. We can wipe them out and then proceed to the moon.”
“Negative. The enemy is toying with us, Captain. They know everything we’re planning. I’ll wipe that smile off Tawfiq’s snout, but first you must proceed immediately to Antilles.”
“There are civilians sheltering in Detroit. Innocents expecting our protection.”
“I am aware of that, Captain Indiya. And you should be aware that I am not willing to debate command decisions in the middle of a battle.”
“Beowulf is my command, Major.”
Renegade Legion (The Human Legion Book 3) Page 20
