Her words snuffed out the Aux spirit, making them turn their heads and look away.
Hortez whispered into Springer’s ear. “You’re insane. And I don’t mean that in a good way.”
Madge ignored him and led the little team out of the room.
The Hardit made no move to stop them. Instead, she called out: “I do so love the spectacle of you humans fighting over scraps of food like flea-ridden, starving animals. Which, of course, is all you are.”
The humans marched proudly away until they were out of sight. Then Madge halted.
“First question,” she said. “Who the frakk is Cliffie?”
—— Chapter 30 ——
Arun took point as they stormed into Team Gamma’s room. They identified Cliffie immediately. He was fat and clean shaven, the opposite of the males in Team Beta. Their room had the same discarded human clothing, except here the collection was much larger and had been neatly arranged into a crude staircase leading up to a seat. A throne, Arun realized, of tight rolls of clothing bound together by loose fabric strips.
Sitting on his throne was Cliffie.
The Gamma Aux were enjoying their meal. Arun counted eight buckets of food and 35 Aux. Team Beta outnumbered the bullies. It should be them dominating the smaller group, not the other way around!
Arun charged up the textile steps toward Cliffie. Before he reached the throne, Gamma proved their worth, dropping their meals to crowd the invaders. The four Aux who had been eating at Cliffie’s feet now formed a protective wall between Arun’s group and their leader.
So Cliffie had guards, and his team had discipline and full bellies. None of that was enough to stop Arun feeling this was ridiculous. The enemy was defending the crest of an artificial ridge constructed from dirty shirts and underwear. Insane! But Arun didn’t doubt the look in their eyes that said they would defend this position to the death.
Madge had discussed tactics before they moved in. Success, they’d agreed, depended on speed. It was essential they overpowered Cliffie before his team could react.
This wasn’t going well.
From the perspective of a full Marine, or even a cadet, the Aux were all failures for one reason or another. But as Arun felt the gaze of angry eyes pierce his body, he was well aware that everyone here was at least partially combat trained.
“We have guests,” Cliffie said. He gestured at the crowd to back away. “Give them a little space to speak their piece.”
Arun halted halfway up the steps, just outside of punching range of the guards. It had been Madge’s idea for him to take the lead, to brutally pummel Cliffie into submission. She argued that one primal male brute ousting another would make the message clear in this primitive world. But the assumptions of macho brutishness crumbled in the face of reality. Three of Cliffie’s guards were women, and Cliffie himself was clean and groomed, his voice soft and playful.
“Please,” said Cliffie to Arun. “Speak.”
Arun snarled his reply: “You took food that belonged to Team Beta.”
“Yes.” There was no malice in Cliffie’s voice. He spoke as if explaining a simple truth to a child. “Did you come to inform me of this,” he added while Arun was still thinking of a reply, “or did you want to ask me something?”
“Give us our food.”
Cliffie tutted. “This is a grim place, to be sure, but there is no need to coarsen it with rudeness. Do I hear a please?”
“Are you mad? No, you don’t get to hear a please. Politeness went out the door when you stole what wasn’t yours.”
Cliffie scratched his chin, making a play of chewing over Arun’s words. “I’ve heard of you. Here on a forced vacation after making some ill-advised threats. Threats you did not follow up properly. But…” He stretched out his arms in a welcoming gesture. “There is no need for unpleasantness. Let me educate you. You speak of stealing. That is a legal term. The rule of law is very strong in the Auxiliary camps, my new friends, and our law is called Natural Law. Our law says that the strong must take from the weak. Team Gamma is stronger than Team Beta, and that gives us the right to take your food. There is no crime committed here. Permit me, if you will, a demonstration.”
He held up one arm and clicked his fingers.
Cliffie’s guards dove at Arun.
Arun picked out the one farthest from the wall and leaped at her, plucking her from the air and diving off the steps to the floor. The fall wasn’t far but was enough for him to twist in midair so that when they hit the ground, the guard was beneath him and his knees pulled up into her gut, winding her.
He tried to press home his advantage by punching her in the face but one of the guards had grabbed him as he fell, and was now holding back his shoulders.
Arun’s punch still thumped into the downed guard’s nose, but there was no strength in his blow.
With a supreme effort he got to his feet despite the guard on his back who was throttling him, and the one on the ground grabbing at his legs.
Just as he was preparing to throw back his head to dislodge the guard on his back, the two he’d left behind on the steps fell upon him, dashing him to the ground. Pinned helplessly beneath their weight he could feel the weight of more Gamma Team Aux jump on him, kicking and punching.
Where was his backup? Then he spotted Springer and Madge, already pinned on the ground. Hortez was out of sight.
All he could do now was bring his arms up to offer a little protection for his head.
Arun was dazed. Under the crush of bodies, he was gasping for air. But even in that confused state he knew Gamma was only disabling him. They could easily have killed him but the pummeling stopped without serious damage. Instead, they hooded him, lifted him, and threw him onto one of the lower steps of the ramp of clothing. All the while, they kept enough of a crush of bodies on top that he couldn’t scramble free.
He realized with a shiver of humiliation that he’d been hooded by a dirty pair of shorts. More clothing was thrown at him. The huge mound of clothing that Cliffie’s throne sat atop was huge, far larger than Team Beta’s collection and easily enough to suffocate someone.
Panic injected fresh energy into tired limbs. Arun tried to buck and writhe his way out, but the press was too heavy. He tried to dig out an air pocket but it was too late, the crush too strong. His desperate gasping for air had sucked in the dirty fabric of the shorts pressed into his face. But he didn’t care because his head started swimming. His mind was slipping away.
He felt a brief flicker of regret for getting Springer and Madge into this mess and then… And then he was breathing. Through the filter of discarded underwear he was breathing air. The weight from his back was lifting. He managed to raise himself to all fours, to throw off the shorts around his head.
While Arun still knelt there with his head hung low, trying to come to terms with still being alive, he heard Cliffie crowing. “There, you see? A practical lesson in Natural Law. But your team are hungry, you say. We aren’t heartless, are we Gamma?”
From around the room, all the Aux replied: “No, Cliffie.”
“You, 45, give the pretty one an empty bucket. I want all of you to tear off a hunk of bread – a generous one, mind – and throw it onto the floor. If our guests want the food, they can pick it up and take it away.”
The next few minutes were a nightmare that made Arun shake with shame. Every time they bent over to pick up some bread, they were kicked in the butt. So they took to scrambling around the floor on their knees, but Gamma took that as an invitation to ride on their backs, smacking their flanks and butts with cries to giddy up! That brought fresh waves of jeering from the crowd. The need for revenge burned ever hotter in Arun’s gut.
They gave Team Gamma spectacular entertainment that night.
Gamma would pay for that!
——
Once they had put a safe distance from Cliffie’s team, they regrouped, the bucket of hard-won bread safely in Arun’s hands. Hortez needed a rest. He was so weak he could bare
ly walk.
Arun was fuming, unable to speak because he was too angry at having his ass kicked in every sense.
“What do we say to the others when we get back?” asked Springer.
“That’s your call,” replied Madge. “After all, it was your dumb idea to get Beta’s food back.”
“We tell the truth,” Springer said through clenched teeth. “We got Beta more food. How we did it is none of their business.”
—— Chapter 31 ——
“There’s gotta be a Hardit weakness we can exploit.” Arun scanned the slumped forms of the Beta Aux, but he couldn’t detect any signs that his pleas were inspiring them. “C’mon, we’ve all been to the same school. We’ve been trained to look at a combat scenario and uncover the enemy’s weak points.”
“Don’t you think we’ve tried,” said a tired voice from a figure crumpled against the back wall.
“What’s your name, friend?” Arun tried to pitch his words carefully: encouraging and friendly. It wasn’t easy. He looked at these wretched almost-cadets. He felt pity for them, but more than that, anger. Fury that these people who were almost like him had been treated so foully, but even more rage that these pathetic specimens had allowed themselves to sink so low so quickly.
“Miller,” replied the voice from the back wall. “Adrienne Miller.” She sounded as if she had to search her memory for the name. Arun recognized the voice as the girl who had taken their clothes and sneered at their attempt to win back some food. Number 87.
“Well, Adrienne, I don’t want to kick a girl when she’s down,” said Arun, “but there’s one big difference between us and you. I fully intend to get out of this. That’s tough on you but we all know it’s true. I think my hope can spark inspiration, a fresh look at old problems. There’s no harm in trying, eh?”
Adrienne simmered with resentment. Until he saw that look, Arun had recognized her voice from before but not her face. All the Aux had the same clothes, cropped hair, grimy faces and look of hopelessness. It was as if their personality had been abraded away, leaving worn stubs where once there had been people. Hortez had a little of his old flair left, and Adrienne had her resentment. Soon even those would be gone.
“How about rivalry?” suggested Madge. “Some Hardits are senior to others. That’s got to mean resentment somewhere in the system.”
“Never gonna work,” said Hortez. “Sure they don’t get along like perfect buddies. Sushantat is the number two. She resents Biljah who’s in charge and so does no work. Tawfiq is treated like dirt by the others. We think she might be a lower caste. Hen thinks she’s too good to be mucking out the humans. She’s so deliberately lazy that she actually works hard at her laziness.”
“Hold up,” said Springer. “You’ve just given us a host of grievances. Sound like pretty much all the Hardits hate being here.”
“That’s right,” said a new voice from the crowd. “But it won’t help you. However big the divide between Hardit clans and individuals, it is nothing compared to the gulf between Hardits and humans. Most of them are arrogant, lazy, and cruel. But they aren’t stupid. You’ll never be able to play one off against another.”
“But this is working,” Madge insisted.
“Is it?” asked Adrienne.
“Sure it is.” Madge sounded excited. “We’re just getting started and already we’ve got a list. They’re lazy. They’re cruel–”
“–And we already know they struggle with the heavy air and don’t like going topside,” said Arun. He looked into the Aux faces. Most had turned away, already given up on the stupid newcomers. They’d taken the extra bread Springer’s group had won from Cliffie, but that hadn’t won the right to lead the group. Hortez was trying to look encouraging but wasn’t doing a good job.
They were losing them.
“What about sex?” Arun said. That got a look of contempt and disgust, so he added quickly: “I mean between the Hardits. Are there any romances between them? A couple who would seize a chance to canoodle, thus giving us a chance to do something while they weren’t looking?”
Hortez answered. “Forget it. Put Hardits together and they rub each other constantly. They don’t understand privacy. I mean Sushantat will be talking to us, giving us a good yelling, and Hen or Tawfiq–”
“Or both,” laughed Adrienne.
“Yeah, maybe both will be sneaking their tails inside Shushantat’s overalls for a good fondle. Some of the guys think that’s rubbing the team scent over each other, but I’m sure it’s more than that.”
“They’re all females,” added another voice from the crowd. “If we live long enough, we’ll find out about mating season, but most of the time Hardit females and males avoid each other.”
Hortez stood up. “I got something. Well, I think. I dunno…”
“C’mon, man,” encouraged Arun. “Spit it out.”
“It’s like this. Looking after an Aux team is like mucking out the pigs.”
“What are pigs?” Springer asked.
“An Earth animal,” Hortez replied. “Doesn’t matter. Point is, our overseers have sunk to the most demeaning job possible. They hate that. They take every opportunity to humiliate us because we’re the only people even lower than them. I guess it’s some kind of consolation.”
“Brilliant!” Arun packed as much enthusiasm as he could as he slapped Hortez on the back. “Knew you’d come through for the team, man.”
“He hasn’t said anything useful yet,” said Miller. “Besides. It’s easy for you. Oh, I’m so clever because I have all these fancy ideas. You’ll go back to your nice clean bunk in a week, sleeping on sheets laundered by an Aux slave, a belly filled with Aux-cooked food. How does any of this drent you’ve been talking actually help me?”
“I don’t know yet, Adrienne. But I’m gonna come up with something. I promise.”
Adrienne snorted. “What about you, 114?”
“Believe in him, sister,” said Springer.
“I know he’s annoying,” added Madge. “Horden knows I’d leave him here behind with you if I could. He’s unreliable, stupid, lazy…” She gave Arun a baleful stare. “Disloyal. Frankly, he’s an imbecile whose head is ruled not by his brain but by something a few degrees south of there. But there is one thing I can’t take away from him. When it comes to Scendence, he’s the best Deception-Planning player I’ve ever seen. Some say his head is wired up like an organic battle computer. You all know that most scuttlebutt flying round the base is steaming with drent, but I am certain of one thing. If there’s one person who can come up with a plan to improve your lives, it’s Arun McEwan. You just need to give him a few facts to work on, and time to think.”
Arun grimaced. He’d hoped to get some fresh ideas to feed into his planning brain. But he’d heard frakk all of any use and now even Madge was building him up into a messiah.
If he was going to come up with any bright ideas they’d better arrive soon, or he would be stuck in this stinking hole for the rest of his short life.
—— Chapter 32 ——
Arun leaned over and tapped Madge on the knee. “Hey, Corporal Majanita! Can I ask a question?” When she didn’t immediately respond, he whispered: “Have you got a blade? I don’t mean a weapon, just something that can cut.”
Madge lifted the brim of her hat to give him the benefit of a foul look. “And I was having such a lovely dream.”
“No you weren’t. You had one eye open, watching that Adrienne. I don’t blame you, either.”
“Well, keep it quiet anyway,” she whispered. “Springer’s snoring away. I can feel her rumble through my back. She’s sweet when she’s asleep.”
Arun tried to lean closer still to Madge without disturbing Hortez whose weight was heavy against Arun’s spine. Like most of Team Beta, the newcomers slept back-to-back because with over 50 people in a room 8 meters by 4, there was no space to lie down. Even the strongest only managed to slump against the walls, using discarded clothing as a layer of insulation against the c
old plastic skin of the wall and still wearing their dirty hats.
The initiation for newcomers varied depending on the mood of the Hardit overseers, but always included the order to strip naked, and don the heavy overalls through which they could send punishing shocks into their human workers. To wear any other item of clothing was punishable by death; the Hardits were very clear on that point.
At first Arun assumed the no-underclothing order was so the effect of the electric shocks wasn’t diluted. That may be the case, but after the experiences of his first day, and talking with the Aux, he saw a new pattern of Hardit behavior.
The aliens had no qualms about inflicting pain, mutilation, and death, when it suited them, but they quickly tired of such things. What drove them was not sadism but the desire to lord it over the humans. The lower the Hardits could grind the humans into the dirt, the more superior they felt.
They could have destroyed the discarded human clothing, forcing them to shiver in the cold during their allotted sleep shift. Instead they were allowed to use the moldering and insect-ridden clothing as nesting material. The garments piled against the back wall during the day were now spread out over the floor and piled on top of the slumbering Aux. Forbidden to wear their own clothing, the humans were expected to be grateful for permission to burrow under these reminders of their shattered lives like feral animals.
The Hardit skangats found that very amusing.
By now, Arun had shuffled closer so he could whisper into Madge’s ear, Hortez having slumped away to lean against the shoulder of another Aux.
“I know you, Madge,” Arun whispered. “You’re sneaky. Have you a blade, shiv, sharpened rock? Anything that would cut?”
“Get a grip of yourself, cadet.” There was a hard edge to her whisper. “Out of earshot you will address me properly.”
“Sorry, corporal.”
She glared.
“It’s those Hardit vecks, corporal. I can see how this plays out. Every day they’ll make me watch you being beaten and humiliated. I can’t take that forever. I’ll break. I know I will. I’ll punch them in their stupid snouts. And then they’ll kill me.”
Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) Page 21
