It hurt so much that Arun bit his lips hard enough to draw blood. He sucked at the blood as it leaked out, frightened of the repercussions if it slipped out and stained the officer’s uniform.
“Are you a sergeant, McEwan?”
Arun hesitated while he pushed away the agony in his shoulders. “No, sir.”
“Oh, I see. Then you imagine yourself an officer. An ensign, perhaps.” He snarled, hurling hot alien breath across Arun. It smelled like burned sugar. “No. Command to you is so natural. You deserve a higher rank, I think. Lieutenant perhaps? What should you be? Which officer rank are you?”
“I am not an officer, sir.”
“You are correct. You are human. Humans have never been officers. Until now.”
Where was Krimkrak going with this? Arun licked his lips and found the bleeding had stopped.
“In light of your actions on Bonaventure, I promote you.”
Arun was so stunned it felt as if the entire galaxy had moved far away, leaving just him behind. Then he had to fight back the thrill that threatened to make him punch the air in triumph. Was this the moment when his destiny came to call? Was this where it really started?
“Congratulations on your new rank, General McEwan.”
Arun’s nerves fluttered. For a moment, the resilience of his dreams convinced him this was real. That wounded man on Bonaventure had called him General McEwan. Then the edifice of his hubris began to crack. Seriously? A general?
His dreams of destiny collapsed into dust, leaving behind only the conviction that Ensign Krimkrak did not mean him well.
“We do not have uniform insignia instructions for a general,” said the ensign. “This is an exceedingly elevated rank. So much so that none of you would recognize the insignia marks even if we did have them. Instead, I will make do with old insignia once used by generals on Earth. Stand still, McEwan, as you receive your reward.”
Krimkrak reached out with his hands. After removing Arun’s yoke from his shoulders, each of the alien’s twelve finger tubes turned inside out and then split in two. The ends of all twenty-four fingers twisted and hardened before sprouting three-inch claws from their tips.
The alien’s claws flicked across Arun’s shoulders in a blaze of pain.
Arun kept his posture rigid but couldn’t help growling in the hot pain of his torture.
Krimkrak withdrew his bloodied claws to inspect his handiwork.
Around Arun’s head, blobs of his blood mixed with the eddying swirls of tattered smartfabric fragments, a confusing blur that matched the shocked fuzziness in his head.
But Krimkrak wasn’t finished. Arun remained at attention as he allowed the ensign to tear into his bloodied flesh once more. Knowing what was coming made this much harder second time around.
Arun squeezed his eyes half shut and pinched his mouth, but this time did not utter a sound even though the pain was worse. This time he was prepared.
After a few more seconds of flesh-carving, Krimkrak wiped his bloodstained claws on a clean part of Arun’s uniform and withdrew a short distance from the cloud of crimson debris around the Marine.
“I have etched three general’s stars into each shoulder,” said the ensign. “Let the pain remind you of your place, human.”
“Yes, sir,” replied McEwan through gritted teeth.
Krimkrak shut off the images of the dead Marines and shot away out of the hatch, leaving the humans in their hollow parade square.
The Marines were used to their officers walking off and leaving their human NCOs to dismiss their unit. But the NCOs were as drug-addled as their Marines. Indigo stood there, eyes glazed, unsure what to do.
That gave Arun plenty of time to wallow in the agony the officer had carved into his shoulders. Thanks to his robust Marine physiology, the blood flow from his wounds had already slowed to a stream of red drops ejected by blood pressure away from his skin, and slowed by air resistance to cloud and clump around him like an aerial oil-slick.
He needed first aid, but first he had to escape. He thrashed his body, but couldn’t reach the bulkhead where his comrades stood watching him.
“Springer,” he yelled, “grab my feet.”
She reached out, but Arun was too far away.
“Umarov,” Arun said, “help her.”
Umarov pushed off the bulkhead to act as a bridge between Arun and Springer, who reeled them both back to the charged floor.
By then, a homing instinct had told Charlie Company to march back to their mess quarters on Deck 4, even without Staff Sergeant Bryant’s instructions. Arun and his comrades fell in with the rest. None of them spoke, but each pace brought a wince of pain from Arun that grew worse with every step.
The trauma from the cuts was painful enough, but Arun had been wounded many times before and knew it would take more than a few deep claw-slices to damage him permanently. But the wounds felt hot and itched unbearably. His body’s defenses were telling him they were fighting off toxins or infection.
The wounds were not clean and it felt as if something had been inserted into his flesh.
Had the officer poisoned him?
— Chapter 12 —
“When I heard your shuttle had been lost… I… I couldn’t bear to lose you too.” Deputy Chief Cryo Officer Purify peered over his thick glasses at Indiya, concern evident in his rheumy old eyes. “Thank goodness you’re all right, my dear.”
After a moment of feeling insulted to be called my dear, she wrapped her arms around him, burying her face into the crook of her uncle’s neck. Even his scratchy white beard felt comforting today.
“It’s a good job I was with Marine McEwan,” she said from inside the embrace.
Uncle Puri drew back, embarrassed by the physical nature of her affection. “Arun McEwan?” he absent-mindedly took off his glasses and rubbed at one eye. “I’ve heard him mentioned. Did you know the Sergeant of Marines is his brother?”
She considered this news. “No I didn’t, and I can’t see how that’s significant. I do know that my McEwan was the only one of them with enough initiative to save us. None of the other Marines could possibly have thought that through because their minds are so tainted.”
“Er, yes. Yes, I assumed it was just me who thought that. Our ship’s detachment of Marines appear normal to me, but the battalion we are carrying as passengers does seem a little… sluggish. Even for Homo sapiens mutans. Or should that be Homo sapiens giganteus?”
Indiya was about to admonish her uncle for running off on a linguistic tangent. But when she thought about it, Uncle had always found comfort in puzzle games, and distraction was what he needed.
She tried to give a genial laugh. “Yes, I suppose we can’t really call them human. What does that make us, though? Homo sapiens astorum?”
Uncle Puri tilted his head and tugged endearingly at his beard. “Does that mean star humans?”
Indiya shrugged. “Maybe. When I was a girl you taught me useful things, such as how to blend cryo fluids to match an individual’s physiology. You never had time to teach Latin.”
“My dear Indiya, I hope I encouraged you to think. That is far more important than knowing transitory facts that could become obsolete as you progress through your life’s journey, let alone a language dead for so long that the dust that first settled upon it has become rock. But back to your Marines. Please don’t judge them harshly. Not only are they a more simple-minded form of human than ourselves but, like you, our current cargo are not yet out of their teens when judged in standard years. Unlike you they are not ready to carry out their tasks, rushed into their combat suits before they’re fully trained. It is only natural that they should lack initiative.”
“Uncle, I’m not a child. We both know they’ve been doped.”
Purify’s expression hardened. Mamma used to talk with pride that her older brother had been the first human on the ship promoted to officer rank. Her uncle hadn’t achieved that by being nice.
“Explain,” he ordered.
Indiya wanted to, but should she? She wasn’t only talking to her indulgent uncle now, but the deputy commander of the cryo teams. Too late. She’d already incriminated herself.
“The Marines were given mind-altering drugs while in cryo,” she said. “I think they still are, even after thawing.”
“Who told you they were drugged?”
“No one. I saw it in the cryo diagnostics.”
“They were not drugged.” Uncle Puri articulated every word with exaggerated precision. “They were given growth factors.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You know perfectly well that these Marines are a work in progress. Homo sapiens mutans, remember? These militarized humans are ever changing. Each cargo has slightly different needs. Perhaps this batch is reacting unfortunately to their growth drugs. It needs tweaking but that is something for the Marines to work out for themselves. Do you see?”
“Yes, Uncle.”
His face softened and the ship’s officer became her uncle once again. “Nothing to worry about, my dear. Nothing to get involved with.”
“I understand.” But heat came to her cheeks.
Uncle Puri took her hands in his. “You are a hopeless liar, Indiya. I know that grieved your mother terribly. Not that she lied herself. She always told the truth no matter how ugly. Or unwelcome.” He sighed. “I miss her so.”
“Wait there, Uncle.” Indiya went to her kit cabinet and brought out a thumb-sized device.
“I’m an idiot,” she said with venom. “Stupid. Moron. Imbecile.”
Puri interrupted her self-directed abuse. “What does that do?”
“Shields us from security snoopers.”
“Really? Does it work?”
“I don’t know. Furn made it for me. I’ve never dared to use it, though.”
“If Spacer Furnace-Shield fashioned this device, I propose we assume it works. Tell me candidly of your suspicions.”
“The Marines are extremely suggestive, sir. They are overly aggressive and their critical faculties have been suppressed. As you said, only the battalion we carry as cargo has been brainwashed. The Marines in our ship’s detachment are as normal. A few in Charlie Company seem less affected but only one completely so.”
“Your young man, Arun.”
“Yes. And I’m not the only one to notice. Even when in cryo, someone was checking on his pod remotely all the time. I tried finding out who, but whoever they are had security locks so privileged that even Furn daren’t try to break them.”
“Say no more of this to anyone, Indiya. I mean it. Swear it on your mother’s name.”
“I swear. I won’t tell a soul.”
He nodded. His eyes looked younger, though focused far away. Planning. Plotting. “I shall make discrete inquiries. Leave it with me.”
Indiya flung her arms around Uncle Puri and crushed his old bones to her.
He’d lifted such a weight from her shoulders. Everything would turn out all right now.
— Chapter 13 —
In zero-g, the ACT-2 battlesuit – mainstay of the 412th Tactical Marine Regiment – could accelerate fast enough to crush even the enhanced physiology of the human Marine inside. Many of the human suit techs speculated that the propulsion system – which they maintained, but none would ever dare to admit they understood – was the same as that used in ship-to-ship missiles.
True or not, an armored Marine flying at speed in zero-g was a lethal kinetic missile from the perspective of anyone getting in their way.
To enable fast deployment of Marines, and crewmembers equipped with thruster packs, wide deployment tubes were cut through Beowulf’s decks and frame bulkheads: three running fore to aft, and two from beam to beam. Without intervening hatches to bar their way, Marines could fly through these highways at high velocity to within a short distance of wherever they needed to be.
When general quarters were sounded, any crew walking in the deployment tubes would scramble out the side hatches and dash to their stations through the ladders and smaller pressurized compartments that comprised the bulk of the ship’s interior.
On their way back from witnessing Arun’s punishment parade on Deck 14, Charlie Company was traveling up Deployment Tube Beta the slow way, marching in single file along the green walkway set into the wall. They looked like ants following a pheromone trail.
To the occasional passing crewmember traveling along the yellow or red tracks – set at 120 degrees to the green walkway – one of those ants was swaying so much that it must have seemed drunk.
The tottering Marine was Arun, and he had more concerns on his mind to worry about looking an idiot in front of the ship-rats. The burning pain in his shoulders was excruciating, but that was only a stark backdrop to the certainty he’d been poisoned.
Without his shoulder yoke pressing down on his shoulders – he’d abandoned the yoke in the parade deck and had refused Springer’s offer of hers – every time he unstuck his boot from the charged walkway, his momentum threatened to pull him off the tube’s wall. More than once, Umarov, who was marching behind Arun, had to reach up and grab Arun’s feet before he floated away.
Every step was an effort of concentration. The dashed green line that ran either side of the charged area of walkway seemed to start moving, first forward them backward. Arun shut his eyes. When he opened them, the line still appeared to move. His sense of balance pitched forward and he flung out his arms because he was falling. There was no gravity. He knew his body was lying, but the lurching in his stomach screamed that he was falling… falling…
“What’s up with him?” said someone in the far distance. “Blood loss?”
“No. He hasn’t lost enough blood. Doesn’t make sense.”
Arun discovered he was curled into a fetal ball, his feet on the walkway. He uncurled a little and looked up into Springer and Umarov’s concerned faces.
“What do we do?” asked Springer.
“How should I know?”
Springer leaned in closer. “What is it Arun? What have they done to you?”
Poison. The word echoed in Arun’s mind, but he’d lost the ability to bring it to his lips.
The concerned expression froze on Springer’s face.
Arun frowned. Then his stomach lurched again with a sudden sense of descending, down… down into an endless abyss. Everyone around him was frozen in place and yet he was falling… falling through a void now because the rest of the universe had vanished. The only truth of this nothingness was the searing pain in his shoulders. That felt real. He clung desperately to the pain, becoming one with it. If the pain left him all that would remain was oblivion.
Even the pain began to recede, fading into a dull ache.
No! I can’t die yet!
Arun sank down through his diminishing pain and dropped into… into himself.
The universe was a distant memory. Only his pain was real. With the utter absence of anything else in this void, the pain rose to agonizing levels, spreading to fill his reality.
Panic spiked in his gut.
So, he could still feel fear… that was something, at least.
Arun blinked.
Once again he could see the physical universe. He cast his gaze over a statue of Springer looking down at him confused. The confusion in Umarov’s furrowed brow was unchanging, as was the march of his Indigo Squad comrades back to Deck 4, caught in a moment of permanent awkwardness. The pain was manageable once more.
Arun’s body was as frozen as his comrades’. Which made no sense. If he couldn’t move, how could he shift his viewpoint? Was the entire universe solidified, leaving his eyes as the only moving part?
He felt something build in him, his brain heating.
Then a blinding white light exploded inside his mind, whiting out the deployment tube and everyone inside it.
“At ease, McEwan.”
“What?” He looked around but couldn’t see a source for the human voice.
“I am a simple AI, not Ensign Krimkrak. N
onetheless I represent his authority and therefore you are to afford me the same respect as if the ensign were physically present.”
A convincing image of Ensign Krimkrak eased into existence.
Arun gave a sharp salute. “What is this, sir? Where am I?”
“Silence! You would not speak to an officer unless spoken to.”
Arun shut up.
“Better. Listen carefully, Marine, because your body’s anti-toxin defenses will soon drive me from your bloodstream. What am I? A self-assembling wetware AI passed by the ensign into your bloodstream when he cut your shoulders. Why? We have to assume disloyal factions are monitoring communications at all times. You are experiencing a buffered conference at a virtual time rate sped to appear a thousand times normal. The outside universe hasn’t really slowed to a thousandth of its normal rate, but it will save us a lot of trouble if you assumed it had.”
The image of Krimkrak fizzed with static for a moment, long enough for Arun to notice that the AI had spoken with Arun’s own voice. Oh, well. One more slug of impossibility didn’t make much difference.
“McEwan, the ensign expects he isn’t your favorite officer right now, but assures you that you and he are fighting on the same side.”
“Sir, which side is that?”
Virtual Krimkrak looked peeved at the interruption before nodding – which was strange because that was a specifically human gesture.
“That is an important question. I am on the side of Colonel Little Scar, and Sergeants Bryant and Gupta. Of your ally amongst the insectoids of the moon Antilles, whom you call Pedro. Do you accept our shared allegiance?”
Arun imagined shrugging. “I don’t recognize we have a side, a team with an agenda, but I do recognize those individuals as having tried to keep me alive. I guess if you knew who they were and you were hostile to me, I would already be lost.”
“That is a logical position. You should trust me because the alternative is to assume that you are already doomed.”
“Agreed.”
“You must work with the ensign to defeat mutiny on Beowulf. On Bonaventure, Lieutenant Balor and Ensign Geror were murdered by human Marines acting on orders from traitors. We must assume that Captain Mhabali is the leader or at least prominent in the rebel group.”
Indigo Squad Page 5
