The alien reared up on its hind legs and surveyed the paraded humans through eyes that were milky and red-lined where Pedro’s had been gleaming black jewels. .
It spoke through a voicebox device that hung loosely from its neck. “Humans need ritual,” it said in that familiar approximation of human speech. “I give you a ritual of welcome. And a token of our thanks.”
Something made Arun snap a glance at the ceiling, noticing that half of Indigo Squad was doing the same. He started, the roof was about to collapse, crushing the life from them. But instead of death from above came… scents! Pleasant odors. Evocative ones all mixed together in a way that made no sense at all but were astonishingly beautiful. Taking a deep breath, and closing his eyes, the smells transported Arun to ripe topside fields bathed in golden sunshine. At the same time he imagined the rich security and comfort of warm blanket on a cold night. His blanket was shared with the spicy scent of a lover impatient for his touch.
He knew the Trogs experienced the universe through smell, but Pedro had never hinted that they could do this. Arun didn’t have the words to describe what the aliens were doing, and frankly he didn’t want them. The experience was magic. And magic was a treasure better experienced than explained.
All too quickly, the smells dissipated. Arun opened his eyes, and once more they were an underground assembly of 34 cadets, with Sergeant Gupta lined up beside the front rank.
“I see from your facial expression that our gift was well received,” said the Trog commander. “We are pleased. In time we will grow nest warriors of our own, but that is many years away. Until then, this moon will be garrisoned by humans. You are the first human warriors to take on that responsibility. As of this moment you are designated soldiers of the 1st Antilles Brigade.”
Bryant’s face was so pinched that it looked about to turn itself inside out.
“I am not a warrior,” continued the alien, ignoring the staff sergeant’s disgust. “I am not a general. I was a scribe until very recently, a role that you do not have in your Marine Corps, but means I was a seeker of understanding. I understand that human warriors need the comfort of a chain of command. Whom must they obey and who must obey them? Your colonel has agreed that I shall take the rank of captain. You humans also want everyone you meet to have sex. Therefore I designate myself male, and take the human rank-role-identification as Captain Pedro, Governor of Antilles and Great Parent of the Antilles Nest.”
Arun peered intently at this Captain Pedro. Could this really be Arun’s friend reborn?
“Colonel Little Scar has also agreed to reinforce you with another squad of cadets from your battalion. They shall be a little more experienced, being one training year ahead of you.”
Arun’s heart skipped a beat. Pedro loved to interfere, and knew all too well of Arun’s interest in one particular cadet in the year above. It had to be his Pedro.
But to share a distant posting on a silvered moon… It sounded like some romantic drent out of old Earth, but if that was what Pedro was angling for, Arun wasn’t convinced it would end well.
“As some may know, I learned much about humans from my friend Cadet McEwan. Now that I am a great parent, I have no time for luxury. No time for friends. Soon I shall select scribes to continue my work in exploring what it is to be human, so that we may aid each other in the future. McEwan’s special role is at an end, but as token of appreciation, I have decided to let him choose which squad will join you.”
You conniving little veck. Pedro had set him up. Do I choose Xin or not? She’ll hate me if I do, but… but Pedro’s brought her within my reach! The lingering effect of the Troggie scent magic teased Arun’s mind with the illusion that Xin was waiting for him, just out of sight… underneath that blanket.
“What is your answer?” Pedro prompted, pointing a limb at Arun.
“Thank you, sir. However, I regret to say that we have a chain of command for making decisions. I defer my choice. It is Sergeant Gupta’s to make.”
Pedro flicked his antennae back. His body might look different, but his gesture of anger was unchanged. “With my people, to refuse a gift dishonors the one who bestows the gift. Is this so with humans too?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then do not dishonor me! The decision is yours to make alone. If you refuse then I shall decide for you. You have 20 seconds.”
Skangat! Arun guessed whom Pedro would pick. Well, he wasn’t going to get his way this time. “Sir. I select Baker Company, Bolt squad.”
Pedro froze. Arun felt the insect regarded him out of those watery eyes as the silence stretched on. Why had he picked the bolters? He knew a few cadets in the squad but none of them well. He’d always liked the unusual name, and the lightning bolt emblem. The most important thing about Bolt Squad was that Xin wasn’t in it.
“Very well,” said Pedro eventually. “I have noted your choice. Bolt Squad it shall be.” He jigged his antennae in agitation. “To my brave human warriors of the 1st Antilles Brigade, I say again: welcome, and serve well.”
The humans saluted as their new commander limped out of the parade deck.
Once Captain Pedro was out of sight, Arun thought Bryant would say his piece, but all he could manage was to glower at the cadets. He appeared at a loss for words, not exactly a state Arun associated with veteran NCOs. In the end all he could say was, “What a steaming pile of crap,” before shaking his head in disbelief.
“There should be an officer handling this kind of ceremonial drent,” said Bryant. “The Jotuns love parades but… Well, you can tell by their absence what they think of this Antilles garrison. This 1st Brigade nonsense. We’ll continue your training as best we can. I’ve managed to rustle you up an orbital training environment for 48 hours, but training facilities from now on are ad hoc, make do, and only if you’re lucky. Sergeant Gupta has very capable hands but they can’t practice magic. Isn’t that right, sergeant?”
“No such word as can’t, Staff,” replied Gupta, who was standing to the left of the front line.
That won a smile from Bryant. “Even so, I want you back in Detroit where you belong. We have plenty of trained Marines to thaw out if we need a garrison, and a regiment of engineers to build the facilities, but Sergeant Bissinger says we should play nice with the Trogs for now. Apparently the Trog officer” — the way Bryant screwed his face made it plain what he thought of Pedro’s place in the chain of command — “has specifically requested that the garrison should comprise cadets because their minds are more flexible.” He sniffed as if assaulted by a particularly offensive odor. “Needless to say, those are not my choice of words. Nonetheless, you are here. I do not know whether you will ever graduate as Marines or re-integrate with the rest of Charlie Company. However, I am certain of two things.
“One. You are Marine cadets and represent the Corps on this moon. You will uphold the honor of your regiment and fulfill your mission to the best of your abilities. That mission is to prevent another insurrection. There are over seventeen thousand Hardit miners on this moon. The ore shipments launched from Antilles and elsewhere in this star system are the vital pulse of the regional economy. You will ensure those deliveries continue.”
The staff sergeant peered at the cadets as if searching. Then Bryant’s gaze found its target: Arun!
Bryant continued. “Two. Your brothers and sisters who fell here did so with honor. With one exception, you are not to blame for being posted here. I do, however, know the one individual who deserves blame. Cadet Arun McEwan, come forward!”
Arun marched with leaden legs to stand before Bryant. He felt the pressure of all those eyes staring at his back as he snapped a salute.
“Sergeant Bissinger has forbidden me to throw you out of the Corps. You can thank your alien supporters for that.” He started circling around Arun, a predator seeking a weak spot. “You could, however, quit voluntarily. Will you quit, cadet?”
“No, staff sergeant.”
“Due to your overactive sense of justice,
I had to send two good cadets to join the Aux for a week. They were lucky to make it back. It was you, McEwan, who put your sisters in harm’s way. I ask again, will you quit?”
“No, staff sergeant.”
Bryant halted, and leaned in. Arun could feel the sergeant’s breath on the back of his left ear.
“Hortez!” Bryant bellowed loud enough to make Arun flinch. “LaSalle! Two good young men dead. Cause of death? The colonel’s punishment after you lost your mind during a training exercise, because you weren’t Marine enough to handle combat stims. Will you leave the Corps and allow someone better than you to take your place?”
Arun paused. It was getting harder to say no. He hadn’t thought about Hortez for days now. That was shameful. “No, staff sergeant,” he said, but he knew his voice lacked conviction.
“About face!”
Arun turned around to face his comrades. Now he could see the 34 pairs of eyes all focused on him, malevolent beams of contempt in the hellish parade deck.
“No one escapes the Cull,” Bryant told the assembly. “Not even on this godforsaken moon. If the battalion is in the Cull Zone in your graduation year, then you will be considered for decimation no matter where you are stationed. Some of you in Indigo Squad were forced to fire upon your battalion brothers and sisters in the recent Cull. It was you, McEwan, who ensured our battalion was chosen to endure that grief. Their blood on your hands. You brought the shame on our regiment that pushed those cadets into the Cull Zone. Do you still believe you deserve a place amongst your brothers and sisters you see before you?”
Bryant spoke cleanly and calmly, without rancor. His words, though, were barbed and tipped with the most agonizing poison of all: the truth.
The past few months had been a hellish sequence of vulley-ups and bad luck. Arun hadn’t deserved much of it, but he’d been the cause all the same. Back when all this crap had kicked off, the freshly minted Cadet Arun McEwan would have looked into the faces of his brothers and sisters and caved.
The staff sergeant was waiting for Arun’s reply. So too were his brothers and sisters in Indigo Squad.
Now that Arun’s eyes were adjusting to the hell-light, he saw the Indigo Squad faces looked supportive, not contemptuous. And he’d grown up these past weeks. No longer was he just some kid trying to fit in, he had a destiny. If there was the slightest chance that his future lay with a Human Legion fighting for freedom, then that was worth the price others had paid. And more. Far more.
“Well, McEwan? What is it to be? Do you deserve your place in their ranks?”
He’d made solemn oaths. To the Night Hummer to protect its species, and to the Culled cadets to avenge their deaths. Was his word good?
Yes, it was!
“Yes, staff sergeant. My place is with them. One day I will make you proud. “
“Very well, you may return to your place.”
As Arun marched back to his place, Bryant addressed the squad. “The training shuttle departs Docking Bay 2 at 16:20. McEwan?”
“Yes, staff sergeant.”
“Be at Docking Bay 1 at 16:10. For this exercise, you’re coming with me.”
—— Chapter 64 ——
With a protesting screech of its hull, the shuttle braked suddenly. The deceleration tested the harnesses of the two armored occupants of the passenger compartment, yanking them up off the bench, trying to dash their brains against the overhead.
But the shuttle was configured as a troop carrier. The harnesses were good for far more extreme stresses, and the bulkheads had already folded out of sight before Staff Sergeant Bryant had finished shouting: “Out!”
Arun slammed the harness release and pushed away. Less than two seconds later, Arun and Bryant had deployed, SA-71 carbines at the ready, and the shuttle was already blasting away.
The shuttle had braked but not to a stop. Arun had been taught long ago that there was no such thing as being at rest in space. Everything moved in relation to something else; you had to frame an inertial reference based on what was important.
Of maximum importance right now was the target of this void deployment exercise: a signal buoy orbiting Antilles. A quick check with Barney showed the shuttle had bequeathed them a textbook 3 klicks per second velocity directed at the buoy.
So far, so good. Except the point of close void assault was to concentrate your forces to overwhelm the enemy defenses. The only way to prevail was to have enough Marines soak up the inevitable heavy casualties as you closed.
But there was no sign of the other shuttle, which carried the remainder of Indigo Squad.
It was just Bryant and Arun.
They were alone.
Just the way Bryant must have planned it.
Arun had a split second to react. Had Bryant brought him here to murder him?
There was no other possibility.
It was him or Bryant. The first to shoot would live.
Arun told Barney to initiate emergency evasive maneuvers for five seconds that would end with his carbine with safety off and aimed at the NCO.
Nothing happened!
Bryant had locked up Arun’s training suit. He couldn’t move.
But Bryant could. Already, the NCO was out of sight, behind Arun.
By switching to external camera, Arun got a visual on Bryant. He expected to be staring down the barrel of a gun, but Bryant had clamped his carbine to his thigh and was pressing his thumb down on a control box in his hand.
Arun flinched. But all he felt was a popping in his ears.
“EMP bomb,” explained Bryant. “Nanoscale spybots are clever little skangats, but the one downside of being so small and so simple is that they aren’t strongly EMP hardened. I’ve blasted a 50 klick privacy sphere. God help us all if I’m wrong.”
Arun had learned his lesson about speaking out to his superiors. He said nothing.
“I’m proud of you, cadet. You’ve repeatedly shown backbone and initiative.”
“But Staff—”
Bryant cut Arun’s query off with a cutting gesture. “I know. I handed your ass to you in public. Now that we’re in private — hopefully — consider your ass handed back, with my compliments. Best guess is that your fun and games in Alabama spooked the Hardits so bad that they thought we’d rumbled them. They launched their rebellion before they were ready. Thousands died. If it weren’t for you, that figure could have been millions. The rebels could have won — at least in the short term. In the long term, even if they’d won, their insurrection has probably earned extinction for their entire race. Why here and now? We still don’t know.”
“Which makes me think the rebellion was part of a wider operation still ongoing,” said Arun.
“I agree. And that kind of instant analysis combined with the initiative and planning abilities you’ve demonstrated leads me to think you’re a natural leader. What do you say to that?”
“Thank you, staff sergeant. But I don’t think I’m cut out to be an NCO. I’m not a natural leader of people.”
Bryant maneuvered to take a position facing Arun. With glare reflecting off the NCO’s faceplate, Arun couldn’t see his face. From the jerking of Bryant’s suit, Arun had the impression he was nodding in agreement.
“Right answer,” said Bryant. “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear you say. You’re right. Maybe with a few more years on your clock you’d make a passable lance corporal. Maybe not. I’m not talking about you being a leader of men and women, I mean a commander of combat units. Armies perhaps. Commanding a unit and leading the Marines in that unit are very different things.”
“You mean… like an officer, staff sergeant?”
“I do, McEwan. Last I heard there weren’t any officer vacancies for our race in the Human Marine Corps.”
Bryant closed the gap between them so their helmets kissed. He spoke faceplate to faceplate. “But there will be in the Human Legion.”
Panic flared through Arun. How the frakk did he know about the Human Legion?
“NCO p
rivilege,” explained Bryant. “You’re still in a training suit and I have the override. I can do more than lock your suit’s motors, I can also listen in to your words. I can only hope the Hardits’ human allies didn’t know how to do the same.”
“You think there are human traitors too?”
“How else could they have drugged you cadets? They still are, by the way. I daren’t let on that I know that. They’re doing it to turn you into unquestioning robots. If Charlie Company were ordered to fire on friendly units, I don’t think many could shake off the drugs enough to question that order.”
“But surely they can’t keep this secret indefinitely,” said Arun. The conspiracies were starting to make sense. “Which means… which means they will make their move soon.”
“Agreed.”
“But… the Human Legion? Where do you get that name? I have never uttered those words.”
“Stow the chatter, McEwan. We haven’t much time. You might not have said them but you did hear them spoken once, by…” He broke off to check records. “By Cadet Phaedra Tremayne.”
“Springer?”
Bryant laughed. “Springer. Is that what you call her? I like that. Very human.” He paused, keeping the faceplates in contact. “Damn. The rest of the squad is coming. Listen, trust the colonel, your Trog friend, myself, and Sergeant Gupta. And Cadet Lee. There are a few others but best you don’t know who. Hopefully the traitors aren’t after us specifically, but they can kill us just as surely if we get in their way. Stay alive and keep your profile low. You have a responsibility to the future. I hope one day to serve under you in the Human Legion. Sir.”
Arun was too stunned to reply, but amidst that explosion of surprise, he logged the mention of Cadet Lee. Did Bryant mean Xin Lee?
Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) Page 44
