After a long pause – a very long and painful one for Arun – she spoke. “Excuse me?”
“Ma’am. Sorry, ma’am. I spoke out of turn.”
All it took was an incremental shift in Nhlappo’s expression and Arun knew without doubt that his answer was utterly unacceptable. He wasn’t getting out of this so easily.
Dread spread through him like a virulent disease.
The other instructors quietly worshiped their senior, but Shlappo wasn’t loved by the school novices or the cadets. In the five years in which she had been Arun’s senior instructor he had never known her to say a single word of praise or encouragement. And training had been tough. Thirty percent of novices didn’t make cadet grade. Horden only knew what happened to them all. The best thing Arun could say about Nhlappo was that she never took out her frustrations in the kind of petty humiliations some of her junior instructors had developed into an art form.
And yet she had spent the past ten minutes tearing strips off him. He’d never seen her do that before.
This was very bad.
Nhlappo’s expression shifted once more, indicating Arun would have to answer now if he knew what was good for him.
“Ma’am. Our mission in the tunnels failed,” he said. “But I wasn’t even leading a fire team, and I did rack up the biggest kill count. Not saying I’m perfect – and I don’t like what the combat drugs did to me – but do I really deserve to be the scapegoat, ma’am?”
After peering at him over steepled fingers, Nhlappo picked up her digi-pad and began writing notes. She handed the pad over to the man at her left, a senior sergeant according to his rank insignia. The sergeant read her notes, nodded, and then passed the pad back. His face was coated in the kind of perfect parade ground glaze that showed no reaction to anything.
“You know I admire your courage in standing up to me,” said Nhlappo. “You’ve got backbone, son. I like that.”
Relief gushed over Arun. He felt knots of muscles untie themselves. He’d thought he was in for a mega punishment, and here was Nhlappo offering praise for the first time in recorded history.
“To answer your question,” she continued, “the reason I have selected you as – sacrificial victim – is because you’re the laughing stock of the entire regiment. And beyond. If the Fates cherish you as their darling, it is just possible you might escape with your life.” Her face went as hard as rock. “Don’t count on it, though.”
Arun held himself as tightly as he could, determined not to show any reaction to Nhlappo’s honesty.
“I’ve served the Jotuns for 150 years”, she continued in an infinitesimally softened tone. “All that time and yet I still don’t understand them. They’re lethally capricious, I can tell you that much. I have to guess what they want, and my guess is that they’ll give us such a negative de-merit mark that our battalion is guaranteed to be Culled for years to come. If we humans deal with this first by having our squads disciplined and re-ordered, then that could mitigate any punishment. I have to at least attempt to make an example to prove we are taking this seriously. I have decided that it is your role, Cadet McEwan. You shall be that example. I believe the term your generation has rediscovered is taking one for the team.”
Arun squared his shoulders another notch. “Ma’am. I understand, ma’am.”
“Oh, no,” said Nhlappo, suddenly angry. “No, cadet that just won’t do.” Nhlappo shook her head in such a way that left Arun feeling the biggest idiot on the planet. “Don’t misunderstand me, McEwan. I did not mean: ‘You’re my favorite really, yet I have no choice but to punish you. I’m sorry and I really hope you’ll understand.’.”
“No, ma’am. Of course not, ma’am.”
“Good. Because you thoroughly deserved the punishment I was going to give you.”
Relief flooded back. She’d said was. Had he gotten off somehow?
“Except you’ve made this worse,” she said. “Standing up to me was brave but it was also exceptionally stupid, even for you, McEwan. You stood your ground because you felt your punishment was undeserved. You felt an injustice. Isn’t that right, cadet?”
“Ma’am. No, ma’am.”
Nhlappo gave an exaggerated cough. “Excuse me, cadet.” She cleared her throat unconvincingly. “Nasty cough. Couldn’t quite hear what you were mumbling. You know what, McEwan? An element of the novice training program has just come to mind. Lying to a superior is punishable by death. Did we remember to teach you that?”
“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
“Thank you. I feel reassured. I’ll ask again, and speak clearly this time. Tell me, do you feel an injustice?”
“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
“Unacceptable!” Nhlappo slammed her fist against her desk. She rose, coming round the front of her desk to fix Arun with a close-up glare. Arun didn’t dare to breathe.
“Marines are not permitted justice,” she snapped. “Why not?”
Fumbling through her words for booby traps, Arun stumbled upon an answer that sounded plausible. “We are slaves, ma’am”
“Correct.” Nhlappo’s expression of disapproval lightened up half a notch, enough for Arun to breathe again. “If you live through today, perhaps you do have some chance of survival after all. Yes, of course, were slaves. Only a fool would forget that for an instant. From the lowest of humans who fail to graduate school and so join the Aux for the rest of their short lives, to the senior Jotun system commander, and even the insectoids you slaughtered in your tunnel exercise: we are all of us slaves. To the White Knights we are nothing more than a rounding error in a troop strength list reported to the nearest million. As individuals we are less than nothing to them, but as battalions, regiments and Marine fleet contingents, our pain and servitude is just enough to earn a semblance of protection for our homeworld. Earth was free from alien occupation last I heard, though I never trust what I hear on that subject.”
Arun took a sharp intake of breath. Nhlappo’s words could be considered insurrection.
“My words appear to trouble you, cadet. Do you wish to contradict them?”
“Ma’am. No, ma’am.”
“Good. You have a lesson to learn. Learn it well. You are a slave. Slaves must never imagine they deserve justice, because that is one short step away from rebellion. Any slaves who do not grasp this will be rooted out and destroyed. Understand?”
“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
“I believe you do. To be sure of that, I intend to extend your punishment. All members of your squad will suffer the same penalty I had intended for you. Furthermore I will make sure they know that you are the cause of their misery, and why.”
Even if he were executed, they would curse his name. Springer too, he realized with a jolt.
“Most people would say I’ve just wasted the past ten minutes of my life by talking to you. By this time tomorrow, you will probably be dead. But the Jotuns possess an infinite capacity to surprise us, and so there remains a chance that you will live. That is why you and I are discussing this matter. Attention to detail. In warfare, administration, even romance, drama, literature – yes, I am familiar with those activities – attention to detail is frequently what separates success from failure. And, if you are to die, I want you to know why, and I want you to die well. Can you do that, McEwan? Can you die well?”
“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”
Nhlappo judged him with a look. “Perhaps,” she said grudgingly. She activated a control on the surface of her desk. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
The door opened. Rekka entered, accompanied by two cadets: Hortez who had led Blue Squad in the tunnel exercise, and LaSalle who had been put in charge of Charlie Company in its entirety. The cadets looked deathly pale. Even Rekka looked troubled.
Nhlappo addressed Arun. “The reason I told you of punishments you would have had is because events are now out of my control. We’ve all been summoned by Colonel Little Scar to explain why everyone on the planet is laughing at his regiment.”
Running was Arun’s first instinct. Everything was stacked against him. Where could he run to? The one place he might find sanctuary was in the Troggie nest, but he would never make it that far. The forces of inevitability crushed any resistance from him and rooted his feet to the floor. All he could do was attempt some semblance of dignity.
He felt a shove in his back from the veteran sergeant – Arun still didn’t know his name. It was enough to get Arun’s legs working.
“Move!” he ordered. “The colonel will not expect to be kept waiting any longer.”
Arun marched to his fate.
—— Chapter 10 ——
Senior Instructor Nhlappo led Arun and the doomed group through Gate Three and out into the eddying breeze on the planet’s surface. Arun looked back at the heavily fortified entrance that bristled with gun emplacements manned by Marines.
“Eyes front, McEwan!” barked Instructor Rekka from the rear.
Arun reluctantly obeyed. Wrenching his gaze away from his home filled his gut with an aching sense of loss. The colonel hadn’t invited them over for coffee and biscuits, that was for sure. Arun didn’t expect to ever see his home again. Never see Springer’s warm smile. And his plans for Xin were exposed as nothing more than a joke.
Look on the bright side, he thought, you always enjoy any chance to come up to the surface.
In Arun’s experience there were four main reasons why cadets were allowed on the surface. A visit to the colonel was definitely not one of them.
A Marine was expected to fight in any environment: in the airless void of space, racing through endless hive tunnels deep underground, defending snowy mountain redoubts, or flushing insurgents from sweltering jungle thick with vegetation. Simulating these combat conditions was not an easy task, but the Human Marine Corps on Tranquility had access to an entire planet to provide as many training environments as required.
His use of the topside training grounds was the first reason why Arun was no stranger to the planet’s surface.
Marines had to be in superb physical condition. Arun had climbed the endless Gjende Mountains that shadowed the Detroit base and had run, marched, and slept many times on the adjoining plateau, ignoring roads and crude paths to cut through fields of wheat, maize and more exotic crops, to the consternation of the Agri-Aux and the insistence of the instructors.
That was reason number two.
The third reason was to endure the mutual incomprehension of inter-species encounter sessions, where Jotuns and young humans would meet and attempt to get to know one another. In theory, the result would be human Marines who weren’t so terrified of their officers that they were unable to function properly in combat. Arun saw no signs of that working, but the Jotuns had such an extreme phobia about being underground that the only way to move them beneath the surface was to render them unconscious first.
Arun’s mind refused to think openly of the fourth reason why he might be summoned to the surface, pushing that cruel knowledge deep into his mind so that it only surfaced in his everyday thoughts as a persistent feeling of dread.
They pressed on in silence through service buildings, storage depots, and vehicle parks, and onward to Jotunville.
There was no official title for the complex of palaces topped with soaring spires and connected by glass walkways at obscene heights. Whatever it was called, to be summoned here was an ordeal few cadets ever experienced, and fewer returned to their underground holes to tell the tale.
As defense against orbital bombardment, Jotunville and the underground Marine complex nestled at the bottom of a narrow valley that meandered beneath towering mountain peaks. The transparent building material favored by the Jotuns would have generated a sense of space and warmth if their city had been situated out on the plateau, but most days inky shadow blanketed the valley floor, shrouding Jotunville with a chill aura of doom. Only once had Arun seen this phalanx of crystal spires at midday, when the illumination from the overhead sun caused it to gleam like a polished jewel.
There was little sun now, in the mid-morning. The lack of light made transparent walkways suddenly materialize overhead, making Arun fight hard against the instinct to duck. Distant palaces became ethereal phantoms that defied his attempts to grasp their shape. Jotunville was ghostly and threatening, as if its existence were only partially in the material plane. As they penetrated deeper into the city of glass spires, and the confrontation with the colonel grew closer, Arun's nerves began to shred.
How were the others coping? He hoped the two instructors were wetting themselves with fear, but they both had hearts of granite: they wouldn’t be worried. The unknown sergeant following Nhlappo was no different. Maybe it was only Arun who was so scared that placing every foot forward took a supreme effort of courage. His fellow cadets were showing no signs of nerves. Hortez would be singing in his head to clear his mind of darkness, as he put it. As for Alistair LaSalle, he adapted to anything life threw at him, which was presumably why the instructors had tried him in the role of senior company sergeant for the tunnel exercise.
Mastering fear was about deflecting the anticipation of danger. The instructors had drilled that into him all his life. So he tried occupying himself by deploying an imaginary Marine company to defend Jotunville. Two squads up on either end of the overhead walkway would catch an enemy below in flanking fire, pinning them down while another squad, ready to launch flechette grenades, would sneak around and catch the invader from the rear. Then the command squad would fire a quick suppressing frag barrage before the remaining three squads charged the confused survivors.
But he was only replaying standard classroom tactics. The mental trick crumbled almost before he’d begun because they were in such deep shadow that he had to invent the layout of the surrounding buildings.
What made the fear so difficult to deflect was that this whole stupid business was so pointless. Arun didn’t believe there was ever any glory in dying, no matter how you had to go, but there were deaths that at least counted for something.
To be executed for an embarrassing accident – that would mean his life had been utterly pointless.
He couldn’t prevent his hands clenching into fists, his muscles readying to release explosive power. To fight injustice, to fall in a struggle for freedom. Now that would be worth dying for…
“Loosen those hands, McEwan,” thundered Rekka. “You will march like a Marine, not an ill-disciplined brute.”
Arun tried for his best parade ground form as they began to ascend a spiraling loop of transparent stairs, sheathed in a twisting tube. A quarter of the tube was open, exposing them to a blustering wind and a sheer drop that grew rapidly more lethal until he soon realized that he could end it all on his own terms by throwing himself off.
Suicidal thoughts haunted him, teasing fingers plucking at him through the opening in the tube. A few seconds of falling and then it would all be over. The colonel’s revenge would be cheated.
Arun flung his arms out against the walls of the tube, bracing himself against the seductive thoughts in his head.
Jump…
No!
He wouldn’t! Not while there was hope. And there was a slender hope. Nhlappo had said so.
Or had she planted false hope, in case of just such a moment as this?
“Keep moving, McEwan! Have you no dignity?”
Arun felt his jaw tighten. No I haven’t, you stupid veck! For days, Arun had struggled to keep wild mood swings in check, and now Rekka’s admonishment was like a flamethrower, coating Arun with incandescent fury.
He fantasized about grabbing the skangat of an instructor and throwing them both off the stairway tube. But there was still hope. He had to believe that. So instead Arun launched his final mental defense, the one marked: ‘Do not use except in case of emergency’. He folded his conscious mind away and relinquished control to the unconscious parts of his brain. He had
been engineered to do this during sentry duty, or when deployed for ambushes, waiting for hours or days with his finger on the trigger, waiting for an enemy to appear.
But this wasn’t sentry duty. Would he wake up when he needed to?
That sense of unease stretched, infusing his mind for an eternity until–
Rekka slapped him… “That was a coward’s escape,” she sneered. “But at least it got you here.”
Arun found he’d arrived on a transparent walkway, about to follow the rest of the group through a glass door that was sliding open. Of the journey here he had no memory.
He glanced down, but the ground was too far away to see.
Then he passed through the door and into the colonel’s domain.
The humans were in the lower of two circular rooms built with the same transparent material as the walkway. They looked like two identical glass bowls stacked one atop the other but offset by a quarter of their diameter.
On the upper level, sitting at a double-banked work station, was the colonel of the 412th Tactical Marine Regiment. His name translated as Little Scar.
Only his head was showing over the back of his chair, but the nick in his left ear was enough for Arun to recognize the colonel from parade ground inspections.
From the tilt of his head, Little Scar was staring up at the clouds gamboling across the gleaming blue sky, his dangling bronze earrings in the shape of hammers brushing the back of his neck.
Sky?
The only view through these windows should have been shadowed mountainside. But that had been replaced by a sunny vista. Arun could even hear imaginary birds calling to each other as they flew through the spiraling walkway that led up through the roof.
Curved sofas covered in emerald green velour ran along the walls of the lower room, the huge size of these sofas making him feel like a small child sent to see the grown-ups, or a mortal approaching the gods. They could have been built for eight-foot tall humans if not for the additional armrests at shoulder level. Of course! Jotuns were hexapeds.
Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) Page 7
