Renegade Legion (The Human Legion Book 3)

by Tim C. Taylor

  “I will not abandon them,” snapped Arun. “Not without a fight.” He opened a private channel to Gupta. “Sergeant, arrest Spartika and her two cronies for desertion in the face of the enemy.”

  “With pleasure, sir.”

  Arun glared in silence at Spartika while he waited for Gupta. When the sergeant did move, having first organized every able-bodied Marine to overwhelm Spartika’s group, it was all over in seconds. The three Resistance fighters were far too weak to put up more than a token struggle.

  “Just what do you think you’ll accomplish, hero?” shouted Spartika. Her bile brought her fresh reserves of energy. She struggled against the two Marines pinning her arms. They barely held on.

  “Is this glorious retreat to orbit part of your master plan?” she sneered. “You lost half your force on Tranquility. You abandoned your dropships too. When you first landed, at least you had the advantage of surprise. Now Tawfiq is waiting for you. She’ll be ready, and every day she has to prepare her defense, she will strengthen. Notice how even the militia are upgrading from homemade bolt action rifles to semi-automatics, and they managed that within just one week. It’s a taster of what to expect. How about you and your Hopeless Legion? Can you say the same? Tell me, what’s your plan, generalissimo? What are you going to do next?”

  Arun pulled off his helmet and thrust his face in front of Spartika’s, fighting to control his breathing.

  “What am I going to do next? I’ll tell you what I won’t do… Unlike cowards such as you, I will not give up. There are still tens – maybe hundreds – of thousands of fellow humans on the planet, not to mention…” He was about to speak about the sleeping legion that Brandt uncovered, but he thought better of speaking openly in front of Spartika. “Not to mention other assets. I will not leave our people behind, and I will never lose hope. Not while the breath remains in my body.”

  With difficulty, he withdrew from Spartika, and turned his back on her. He addressed his Marines.

  “We’re headed back to Beowulf, which will be our base of operations to capture Antilles. Once that moon is ours, we will regroup, rearm, reorganize and rethink. And when we’re ready… we will come back.”

  His words were met by silence. There was no rallying call, this time. No ‘Death to the Hardits!’, no ‘Oorah!’, not even a ragged cheer.

  Instead, the Marines set their visors to be transparent, or removed their helmets altogether. Their eyes locked glances, wordlessly exchanging critical information like a human equivalent of BattleNet. The determined looks on those faces spoke of unfinished business, of a duty that needed seeing through to the bitter end.

  What was more, the Marines had been bloodied. They had a score to settle now.

  Tawfiq had won the first campaign.

  But this war was far from over.

  — PART V —

  Every Secret Has a

  Heart of Poison

  Human Legion

  — INFOPEDIA —

  Category: Regional Astrography

  — Tranquility

  Tranquility system lies to spinward of Earth, near the Muryani frontier. We do not have reliable data for early settlement of the system, but informed speculation is that the system was first settled by an unknown alien species as a mining outpost approximately 800,000BCE. Not long after a self-sustaining colony was operationally, the system was conquered by the White Knights and incorporated into their empire, where it stayed until the outbreak of the civil war.

  With the sporadic outbreak of frontier wars in recent centuries, Tranquility System has gained importance as both a military supply depot and a fuel mining and refining station. The name ‘Tranquility’ can be used to refer to the star, the entire star system, or just the planet of Tranquility-4. The full Jotun bifurcated noun for the system is Tranquility-Growth, though this is rarely used by humans.

  A BRIEF TOUR THROUGH THE TRANQUILITY STAR SYSTEM

  Tranquility (star) – A main sequence star with a very strong stellar wind of high energy particles, and an emission spectrum high in ultraviolet.

  Tranquility-1, -2, and -3 – The inner three planets are small, rocky, and airless. Mining operations concentrated here in the early life of the system’s colonization, but ceased within the past 100,000 years.

  Tranquility-4 – A habitable planet of approximately Earth size and atmosphere. The low concentration of metals in the planet’s core means the magnetosphere is weak. As a result, the sunlight reaching the surface is lethal without proper shielding. A human shielded by nothing more than a hat and light clothing made from conventional textiles will die in approximately 3-4 weeks.

  There is some cultivation of Earth crops engineered to survive the conditions, and of Earth animals to graze on them. Whether these Earthly bio-enclaves would survive without careful husbandry is uncertain. Cultivation extends to several more crops and food animals that are part of the White Knight Universal Food System, meaning that service personnel had the enzymes and adaptive digestion programs to process these foods.

  In human-centric terms, there are two main areas of settlement, centered on the two main Marine depot bases: Detroit in the Gjende Mountains on the continent of Baylshore, and Beta City in the middle of Lake Sarpedona on the other large continent of Serendine. However, there are also continental-scale underground settlements created by two delving species: the Hardits and Trogs.

  Tranquility-4 has two moons. On the larger one, Antilles, ore processing remained active until recently, using raw materials sent here from the outer system. The smaller moon, Metius, is more distant, and is extending its orbital radius by 20 meters per year for reasons unknown.

  Tranquility-5: Klug – The planet of Klug is an unwelcoming world of high pressures and toxic acid clouds. Little is known of the planet other than that it features a native lifeform nicknamed the sludge-puddle, which in appearance resembles a greasy pool of mercury several meters in diameter.

  Tranquility-6: (inner asteroid belt) – The sixth orbital path in the ecliptic plane is a mix of carboniferous, silicate, frozen volatiles, and high-metal content objects. The belt is mostly mined out.

  Tranquility-7: Daiyna – A gas giant with several moons large enough to sustain significant populations. At the outbreak of the civil war, the Daiyna planetary system was colonized by the Hardits who maintained a fuel mining and processing station, dry dock, and ore processing plants.

  Tranquility-8: (outer asteroid belt) – A region in the outer system between three and four times the orbital radius of Daiyna. Has a higher concentration of heavy metals than the inner asteroid belt, but distances between objects is greater. After extraction and pre-processing, most ore is sent down into the inner system for further processing on Daiyna or Antilles.

  Tranquility-9: (Kuiper Belt) – On the outermost commercial edge of the system, this is a region that consists largely of frozen volatiles (especially methane, water, and ammonia) arranged in a series of low-density rings that ripple with the disruptive effect of a handful of rocky planetoids.

  Tranquility-10 (Sensor array) – An artificial construct of rocky objects placed in a spherical array beyond the Kuiper Belt. The distances between individual nodes in this array is vast, but close enough to form a semi-sentient early warning system. It is speculated that the planetoids in the sphere also house missile batteries, cyber-war factories, and that the sphere is linked using FTL chbit entanglement with White Knight sector command.

  This infopedia section was extracted from humanlegion.com

  — Chapter 70 —

  Arun gave the twisted lump of metal and ceramic a brutal kick, sending it skimming over the crater’s bottom and tumbling over the lip, disappearing into Antilles’ airless horizon.

  “Frakking Hardits!”

  He sighed. The Legion had withdrawn to the moon to resupply and rethink. Brushing aside the feeble Hardit defenses had been simplicity itself, but in finding some means with which to threaten Tawfiq… nothing. The mass driver that had bombarded Beta C
ity had been put out of commission by Beowulf, but the Hardits had done a far more comprehensive job of destruction before the Legion landed here. The fragment he’d kicked was the largest remaining. Everything that could be used to throw rocks down the well to Tranquility had been destroyed.

  There was nothing here to use as a bargaining chip with Tawfiq.

  Well, maybe there was something…

  “I’m done here,” he informed Hecht over the comm link. “Seeing with my own eyes, it looks even worse than the reports. Have the prisoners ready. I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  — Chapter 71 —

  The six Hardits assembled in the moonbase main control room were smaller than most that Arun had encountered on Tranquility. Their clothing, and for that matter the base itself, was neat and functional, everything clean, tidy, and meticulously maintained. It was a complete contrast to the careless scruffiness of other Hardits.

  For these were Hardit males.

  The gender distinction was the kind of detail that his friend Pedro would have obsessed over because his species had no concept of gender. Even the way that Arun had felt the need to assign a gender to Pedro had been a source of endless fascination to the insectoid.

  But Pedro was gone, yet another casualty of the civil war, along with every human and Hardit on Antilles. And Arun was past caring about any distinctions between different groups of Hardits. They were all equally guilty of xenocide in his eyes.

  Arun took off his helmet, wrinkling his nose at the musky stink that assaulted him.

  He circled the knot of prisoners who were kneeling in the center of the room, hands on heads, under the watchful eye of Hecht’s section.

  “Your lives hang by a thread,” he told them. He waited for the translator systems in the collars of the Hardit uniforms to produce the alien growls and puffs of scent the aliens used for a language.

  “Only I can save you now,” he continued. “Give me a weapon. Something I can use to threaten Tawfiq Woomer-Calix. If you don’t…” Arun made a cutting gesture.

  “All here are males of the second rank,” said the alien who appeared to be their leader. “Even I, Cadenqee Canola-Pututuizo.”

  “Explain,” said Arun.

  Cadenqee looked down submissively. “We rank below the most reviled female outcast. Tawfiq is female. Even if she calculates that our expertise is valuable, our lives are beneath her contempt.”

  “So Tawfiq rates you just one half-notch higher than human slaves.”

  “That is correct.”

  “My heart weeps for you,” Arun scoffed, hoping some of his disdain survived the filtering of translation. “Now give me something of value.”

  “We are oppressed,” said Cadenqee through the translator speaker in his collar, “our potential stifled by the fact of our birth.” The Hardit raised his head, looking Arun squarely in the eye. “You are human. The word has spread throughout the stars. It has transcended its origin as a mere species name to become a symbol for oppressed sentients everywhere, of every race. We here, kneeling before you as captives… we are human!”

  Hardly able to believe his ears were feeding him such garbage, Arun could only shake his head in bemusement.

  “This is your chance,” said the Hardit. His eyes seemed to be pleading, although the translation was as emotionless as always. “Show the galaxy that you’re better than Tawfiq and her like.”

  “I need something harder than sentiment,” said Arun. “And you’re fast running out of time.”

  “Kill me if that satisfies your blood lust, but spare my team. We were all of us on Antilles only following orders, but their orders came from me, however reluctantly. My underlings will happily work for you, fine engineers and technicians the lot of them. We despise Tawfiq Woomer-Calix as much as you do. Maybe more. You’d think with a common enemy we could make common cause together.”

  “There is logic to your proposal,” said Arun reluctantly.

  “Then spare my people.”

  Arun knelt down to the Hardit’s level, and took in its scent, its thick fur and long wolf-like snout. Did he hate this Cadenqee Canola-Pututuizo because of the way he looked and smelled and sounded? No, he decided, he didn’t. But his mind replayed images of Esther and the other human slaves being disemboweled by Hardit claws, of the burns and welts on the backs of naked, caged humans… of Rohanna and Shelby who had died in a hail of Hardit bullets never having summoned the courage to name their babies.

  “I could never trust a Hardit, not even one who did despise Tawfiq.” Arun took a few paces back. “Request denied.”

  Cadenqee bowed his head.

  “Hecht, wipe their Hardit stink from this base.”

  There was a tiny pause before Hecht acknowledged. Soft whines came from 1st Section’s carbines as they charged their rails. He could tell by the softer sounding whine that Hecht had ordered them to set their power low to avoid dangerous ricochets.

  The volley of darts tore apart Hardit hearts.

  The prisoners slumped to the deck, dead.

  Hecht looked to Arun with pain in his eyes, and Arun found he felt such shame that he had to turn his head away.

  He had meant what he said about not being able to trust a Hardit. Their execution was a grim necessity but… wipe their Hardit stink from this base… the prisoners had deserved more dignity than his childish taunt.

  Then he remembered seeing an unnamed human slave clutching at her belly with eyes wide, unable to comprehend that her intestines were spilling out, thanks to Hardit claws.

  He cursed himself for feeling sorry for the prisoners. It was his empathy trying to confuse him, that frakking useless part of him that was forever trying to make him see the galaxy through everyone’s eyes but his own. No more.

  “Empathy,” he said to no one in particular as he left the room, “is a weakness.”

  But he couldn’t suppress the voice deep inside screaming that he was turning into a monster.

  — Chapter 72 —

  “There’s someone down here, near where we’re digging.”

  Arun looked up from his screen at Springer. But even though his friend was standing next to him, she was impenetrable behind her helmet visor.

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Someone we know…”

  Arun sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for puzzles. Springer was part of the team ransacking the base for supplies: FTL-entangled material, power cells, food stocks, oxygen… anything that would let them take the fight back to Tawfiq as soon as possible.

  He stopped himself. When had he become so impatient? If Springer was vague, it meant one thing. “Are your eyes hot, Phaedra?”

  “Yes, Arun. And it was more like a vision this time, like you always want it to be. Saraswati is helping.”

  “Well?”

  He could picture Springer frowning inside her helmet. It took her a minute to collect her thoughts, but Arun knew she was worth hours.

  “Someone we know is here and waiting for you.”

  “Pedro? The Trog? Do you mean Pedro?”

  “I don’t know, Arun.”

  Arun’s heart pounded. He had to keep from whooping. Finally! Good news.

  “Doesn’t matter, Springer.” He touched her shoulder gently. Before the civil war had visited Antilles, Pedro had been responsible for the moon and everyone on it. Who else could it possibly be but Pedro?

  — Chapter 73 —

  The echo from the drills died away. Madge gave Springer the order to try once again to establish contact.

  “Pedro,” she said at high amplification. “Pedro! Help is coming. Can you hear us?”

  It took several seconds for the reply to be reconstructed by Springer’s specialist recon AI and relayed to everyone there.

  “Pedro?” said a voice. It didn’t sound like the kind of speech synthesizer used by the Trogs.

  There came another delay as Springer’s AI refined its interpretation. Then the words came through as clearly as if the speaker were in the room.
“For frakk’s sake, Springster, I’m not a dungering insect. Don’t you recognize my voice?”

  “Hortez!” screamed Majanita… in a way that made Arun think she’d been no stranger to Hortez’s rack back when they’d been novices.

  Arun laughed. It was a splendid surprise to glimpse Madge’s human face underneath the mask of duty. Hortez had always been the charmer. But no one had heard from him since the day of Operation Clubhouse, when they’d put one over on Tawfiq.

  “Madge,” yelled Hortez. “Is that your scream of delight I recognize? How I’ve longed to see your pretty and ever-cheerful face. I hope you’ve stopped giving Marine McEwan such a hard time. He doesn’t mean to be such a donk, it’s just his nature.”

  “Hort, I don’t give him as hard a time as he needs and deserves. It’s not because I don’t want to, but it’s awkward now that he’s a major.”

  “Major? Horden’s hairy backside… I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised. Pedro is always telling me our little Arun will do great things. And when I say ‘always’ I don’t mean that as a figure of speech. I swear I would have torn that frakking insect’s legs off and stuffed them down its throat… if they hadn’t fallen off of their own accord. Hell, I’d have stuffed myself down his throat. Anything to shut him up about frakking McEwan.”

  Arun realized that he, Madge, and most of the other Marines had unconsciously removed their helmets, despite the dust hanging in the air from the drilling.

  When it came to sharing a special moment, humans, it seemed, still needed to look from face to face and see the joy reflected in those eyes.

  “How did you survive?” Springer asked.

  “After Operation Clubhouse? Simple, Pedro had me frozen before anyone came for me. He woke me nine months ago. I’m his carer now. Believe me, I was better off frozen.”