“Which is when he woke me up to combine forces,” said Furn. “We gave Svenson the full treatment, gloves off and hands on. It was the only way to break down her defenses. Turns out she’s augmented like us. She has hormonal control implants, though they are greatly our inferior.”
“And there was nothing junior about her role, either. There’s an entire research team who’ve been using their implants to defeat our interrogations and hide in plain view.”
The Legion’s augments were clearly enjoying themselves, but Arun really wished they’d get to the point. “And what exactly was this project?” he prompted.
“I’m getting to that,” Finfth said.
“Reactionless drives,” Furn cut in.
“Hey, this is my story,” Finfth said.
“Well you’re taking your sweet time about it.”
“Please!” Arun said quickly, his heart pounding. Reactionless drives! Did that really mean what he thought? “One of you.”
Furn rolled his eyes and gestured for his partner to continue.
“As I was about to say,” Finfth continued, “following Svenson’s complete and unwilling cooperation, we uncovered hidden research into developing a reactionless drive.” He paused, watching Arun as if anticipating a response.
Arun didn’t offer one. He daren’t. The freaks were hinting at an innovation that could have huge implications. Better to play dumb until their explanation was complete. “And this is exciting because…?” he said.
“Seriously? Do I have to spell out the implications for you?”
“We’ve all had a long day, so if you wouldn’t mind, yes.”
With a single shake of his head Finfth conveyed all the exasperation of a beleaguered teacher confronted by a pupil who refused to comprehend the obvious. “Look, think of it this way. If you fire your SA-71 in semi-automatic mode, why don’t you fall over?”
“The recoil limiter soaks up the recoil force.”
“How?”
“Beats me. I’ve always assumed that the gun converts the recoil energy into heat and then dumps that to the heat sink, in the same way that a warship’s shield does, sending the energy into a higher dimension.”
“And yet the dart leaves the muzzle with huge momentum.”
“Yeah. So?”
“With the scale of energy convertor we’ve uncovered, you could do the same with small void craft. Not starships… not yet… but something the size of a Stork. Connect this new energy convertor to a boat-sized heat dump and you could convert the vessel’s momentum into energy and dump it elsewhere.”
Finfth stared at him expectantly once more, and this time Arun couldn’t hold back. “So what you’re saying is: small warboats that can swoop in, halt in an instant and accelerate away again using the full potential of a zero-point engine.”
“Exactly!”
“Won’t the crew be crushed?”
“No, that’s the beauty of it. The force that slams you against your acceleration couch and tries to pull the skin off your bones… it doesn’t apply here, because it’s all channeled into the heat sink. The pilot could even be in freefall all the way. This discovery will revolutionize inter-ship conflict, and the side that deploys it first…”
Arun could picture it clearly. Warboats this nimble would make every other vessel in space look lumbering and cumbersome in comparison.
“Why has no one thought of this before?”
“The Reserve Captain told me that the reason Earth was invaded in the first place had nothing to do with mining or slave labor. It was because the White Knights desperately needed human imagination. The rest of the universe is so ossified in its thinking it has forgotten originality. Species like ours are prized because our thinking is unconventional, tackling problems that have stymied other races from a completely new direction. That’s the reason such an advanced, such an important, R&D base was established here at Khallini.
Arun was stunned. He’d heard the rumors about why aliens had fought over Earth, but after a lifetime of being told humans were a worthless race overdue extermination, the importance placed on the human contribution to Khallini-4 hadn’t even entered his thinking.
“Some of the people we’ve interviewed – the scientists who were working at the base, not the sleepers – they’re among the most brilliant minds humanity has ever produced, almost on a par with Furn and myself. And they’re only the ones that haven’t successfully hidden from us. The work they’re conducting is… inspired. The Old Empire was determined to take maximum advantage of their efforts, to reap all they could before abandoning the facility ahead of the 3rd Fleet’s arrival… And we must do the same.”
“In that, Finfth is entirely correct,” Furn said.
Interesting. It was hardly a surprise that Furn and Finfth would want to hang around at Khallini with all its technological wonders for as long as possible, but this was the first time Arun had heard them speak up on the subject with such authority.
“Even before these revelations, our precise timetable with regard to Khallini had yet to be determined,” Arun temporized.
“We appreciate that, General, which is why we’re presenting this to you now. In our considered view it would be madness to abandon the base too soon…”
“We have to stay here,” Finfth cut in, “not only to the last minute but past that… The R&D facility is worth keeping hold of, even if that means beating off the 3rd Fleet to do so.”
“What?” Arun might have thought he was joking had this been anyone else. “Thank you for your input, Leading Spacer Furnace-Shield. I understand perfectly well the huge military significance of a way to convert momentum to energy. But this is only a research project. Not even the Old Empire intended to stand and fight against the 3rd Fleet, not in any serious fashion.”
“Maybe not, but their agenda isn’t ours,” Furn said, unfazed by Arun’s attempt at formality. “Hear us out. Since Finfth woke me we’ve been working this through between us, and what we’ve discovered is a game changer, something that could swing the outcome of the whole war. There’s a new type of fighter in development here at Khallini designed to operate with the momentum-to-energy converter rather than simply being modified to house it. It’s still in the early proof of concept stage, but the results are promising… Essentially, from all that we’ve seen we’re confident the idea works, but there’s a lot more work needed before we have a functioning battle winner.”
“That’s what those test rigs are for,” Finfth jumped in.
Arun knew what he meant. They had discovered elaborate facilities already in place, wondering at their purpose and assuming they would discover it in time as they continued to peel away the facility’s secrets.
“Commit to staying here so that we can do that work, commit now, and by the time the 3rd Fleet arrives we’ll be in a position to do more than just tweak their noses,” Finfth said.
“This is our chance to prove that the Human Legion is a force to be reckoned with,” Furn added.
Arun could understand what had gotten the freaks so excited. The White Knights of the Old Empire considered the 3rd Fleet to be such a threat that they had established a new base to combat them, devised new tactics and weapons to fight them. But the Legion had taken that base. If they then went on to defeat the 3rd Fleet, both sides would have to sit up and take notice. It would change the whole dynamics of the civil war and immediately mark the Human Legion as a major player. But the risk was enormous.
“We’ll never get another chance like this,” Finfth said into Arun’s thoughtful silence.
Arun would never have considered either Furn or Finfth to be reckless, yet what they proposed was… bold to say the least. He had never encountered brains as keen as theirs in any other human. If they saw an opportunity here only a fool would dismiss the possibility, but at the same time they were unencumbered by the sort of responsibility he shouldered, which meant he was not about to jump wholeheartedly behind their plan. Nor would they expect him too.
He contemplated them for a moment longer, Finfth looking impatient, Furn simply waiting for his response. “You really believe in this new weapon this much?”
“Yes,” they said in unison.
“Very well then. I’ll give this serious consideration.”
Finfth would have said more, but Furn ushered him away. Arun sat for long moments, mulling over what the two freaks had said. The Legion could never do it, of course, take on the 3rd Fleet, but what a prospect. It would certainly catch the attention of both the existing factions. And the augmented ‘specials’ were anything but fools…
Could the Littoranes be persuaded to remain patient and wait for the enemy to come to them? Could Del-Marie convince them that this was the Goddess’s will, that here was an opportunity to inflict serious damage to the enemy? The real question was, did Arun really want them to? He fetched Barney, and together they mined the newly updated records of the interviews and analysis of the research and production facilities. How much he was likely to understand was uncertain, but he was determined to glean all he could before putting anything before his senior officers.
God help him, but he was actually beginning to take Furn and Finfth’s proposal seriously.
—— PART V ——
THE SLEEPING LEGION
Human Legion
— INFOPEDIA —
HISTORY OF THE LEGION
– The Sleeping Legion
If their new weapons could be readied in time, the main Legion fleet was determined to stand and fight the 3rd Fleet for control of Khallini. It would be a desperate gamble, even victory would be a close run thing. But the Legion did not gamble everything on this one battle. Not quite. They still had their base in the Shepherd-Nurture system, the home system of the Littoranes. But if the Legion fell at Khallini, the Littoranes would be vulnerable.
Still burning with desire for revenge against the Hardits who had slaughtered every human on Tranquility, the answer to this problem was abundantly clear to the human survivors of the Fall of Detroit. A squadron of three warships, under the command of newly promoted Colonel Nhlappo, was dispatched to Tranquility to retrieve the millions of frozen Marines hidden under Detroit, and make the Hardits pay for their crimes. The operation of retrieving millions of cryo pods and bringing them to orbit would take years, by which point the outcome of the Legion’s stand at Khallini would be known.
Would this sleeping legion be transported to reinforce the victorious fleet at Khallini, or be sent to bolster the defenses at Shepherd-Nurture?
Only time would tell, and the answer was not one anyone had anticipated.
— Chapter 28 —
Tawfiq Woomer-Calix, Supreme Commander of the Hardit Empire, Primogenitor of the New Order and Scourge of humanity could not have been more content.
The humans were stupid, an inferior race. She had known this all along, but their last trespass on Tranquility had ended some way short of the total humiliation she had planned for them. This time, though, it would be different.
The humans’ greatest weakness was their complacency. Amusingly, they seemed to believe that they were the superior race, imagining they could saunter back here, establish a base and take whatever they pleased, that she would not have learned from the previous conflict, would not have planned.
The clues were there, had the humans not been so blinded by arrogance. Even at the time of their first return to Tranquility her glorious reign had begun to take effect, establishing new Hardit tactics and new resources. In the years that had passed since she bloodied their soft skins that time around she had consolidated her power and been far from idle. Tranquility was hers. How dare they come back here and challenge that?
They would learn their error though, oh how they would learn. The true purpose of the recent action had gone unnoticed, the raid on the precious warehouse dismissed as unimportant and the incident forgotten about as soon as the attackers were slain. Fools.
Tawfiq watched on the vast screen before her as the orbital elevator the humans had established continued to ferry icer pods into the clouds, and far beyond into space, sealing her victory in the process. That was the beauty of her plan: the humans were doing the work for her. All she had to do was watch.
Without warning the scene before her changed. It was difficult to be certain at first given the scale and the absence of any context other than the sky, but the elevator had stopped.
Was this due to a technical glitch that would soon be remedied or something more ominous? She had to know.
Again her enemy’s complacency came to her aid. They assumed their communications to be secure, never dreaming that Hardit experts had cracked their encryptions within the first days of their return.
Tawfiq eavesdropped on a conversation between two of the beasts – both females, she thought, though it was difficult to be certain; humans all sounded so much alike.
What she heard banished her good mood. Rage welled through her and she gave voice to an inchoate scream that sent the bevy of juniors waiting on her royal whim cringing with concern.
She mastered the anger swiftly. Such displays were unseemly now she had reached such an elevated status.
So what if the enemy had discovered her scheme? It was merely the first step. Already the effects would be felt, unsettling the humans, disrupting their plans. They would be confused, their morale dented and fragile, and now she would deliver the hammer blow that would shatter it entirely and send the glorious Hardit legions marching in triumph over the human dead.
Her plans had moved forward a little, that was all; the result would still be the same.
“Commence with stage two!” she commanded.
The juniors scurried to obey, anxious to be useful.
Tawfiq felt her good mood returning. Victory was assured.
— Chapter 29 —
It had only been, what, four months since Nhlappo had last seen the orbiting squadron? Even in that short space of time the three starships had been transformed. Where before a curved superstructure had been attached over the upper and lower hull surfaces, resembling an exploded view of a Troggie carapace, now those carapaces had sprouted a skeletal structure. From Beowulf, Indomitable and Leviathan, ribs and cross-bones stretched far into space, lashed together by a complex pattern of rigging.
In the two years since brushing aside the Hardit resistance to establish the Legion’s renewed presence on Tranquility, Nhlappo had established a safe zone connecting the area around the orbital elevator’s ground station with the abandoned Marine base of Detroit and a new settlement built on its ruins. Deep underground, beneath Detroit’s collapsed lower levels, had waited generations of Marines hidden in cryo-slumber, oblivious to the wars that had been waged above them. Thousands had been revived already, and put to good use bolstering defenses and relieving the Wolves whose ferociousness had routed the Hardits at the start of this campaign, but whose temperament was less suited to the discipline of a long-term, watchful defense.
Millions more of the sleeping Marines had been brought up the space elevator and stored in orbital parks. The cryogenic pods stuck to each other using their in-built mag-clamps. With their radiation shielding and near-zero power requirements, the pods could be parked there for centuries. From the ground they were visible as glistening patches in the sky that seared the eye if you looked at them directly on a clear day, and outshone the largest moon, Antilles, during the early part of the night.
The sky shoals were faded now, most of their constituent pods moved into the ship rigging. Millions of them. A sleeping legion being readied for war.
But would it work?
“The harness extends like a pair of hemispheres mounted above and below each ship,” explained Tizer, the chief designer. “But there is a clear area between the hemispheres to allow the main engines to fire and the forward shield projector to protect against the interstellar medium at cruising speed. The most difficult design challenge was the mounting system that allows the ship to spin through 180 de
grees to begin deceleration without disturbing the harness. We can do more than spin the ship about a flat plane. A tilt of up to eight degrees allows–”
“Cut the crap,” Nhlappo interrupted. “I’ve heard that before, and if I wanted to hear it again I could have saved myself the trouble of the ride up here and listened to you from my comfortable office in New Detroit. I’m old fashioned. I need to see things with my eyes and feel with my gut. My boot needs something to kick.”
She looked menacingly at Tizer. The Navy freak shifted uncomfortably in his maneuvering harness, his side-lit face tight-lipped. She knew he was itching to tell her that she couldn’t feel with her gut, but baulked from pointing out such a self-evident truth to the most senior officer in the system. Even the slightest metaphor undermined his ordered world, and yet his mind could make intuitive leaps like no one she’d ever encountered.
Poor Tizer. She gave him a hard time but she was fond of this strange little man. Grateful too for his engineering genius. Tizer was clueless about the subtler forms of social interaction, such as lying. And that was the principle reason why Nhlappo was here today in orbit.
She blanked her helmet visor. She almost felt guilty when she saw nervousness immediately tighten his face. “When the ships accelerate away, will the pod harness take the strain? Look into my face and tell me yes or no.”
Tizer’s lip steadied. The muscles on his face softened with relief. “Oh, yes,” he replied. “So long as the ships stay within the parameters I have set.”
“You mean so long as they don’t accelerate any faster than an arthritic snail and keep their course dead straight.”
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