He shook his head. Springer a killer. No, it still didn’t feel credible.
“General…”
“I know, Del-Marie, I know. There’s a White Knight on hold.” Arun took a deep breath. He wasn’t ready for this, not so soon in the Human Legion’s emergence. Frakk it, who was he kidding? He’d never be ready, not for this.
“Go ahead. Connect me.”
“Patching you through now, General.”
There was a click and then the sound of a disembodied artificial voice, a computer translated voice identical to those used by Trogs, Jotuns, Littoranes… and the Hummers. “Who is this?” asked the voice.
“I’m General McEwan of the Human Legion. Who the frakk are you?”
There came a long wait before the computer voice replied: “In your language I reveal my name as Xotencatl Sum-Deus. I am the legitimate ruler of the White Knight Empire.”
“So?” he snapped back. Arun immediately knew he’d spoken too harshly. Many lives depended on his words. Billions of them. Trillions. “So what do you need of me?” he added hastily.
“The Empire is locked in stalemate, and I am blockaded inside the imperial citadel. Fighting is ongoing through all sectors, but with your destruction of the rebel 3rd Fleet, both sides in this civil war are now evenly matched.”
Why the hell should I care if you fight your rivals to extinction? Arun managed to keep that thought in his head.
“You have no love for me,” said Xotencatl Sum-Deus, the, what…the Emperor? “That is understandable. However, know this. The empire’s weakness is well understood by our rivals who press hungrily at our borders. If the stalemate persists in the civil war, you may win yourself a few decades in which to bask in the illusion of freedom, but none of us are ever truly free. The Muranyi are already conquerors of a dozen systems left defenseless by this internal conflict. I can tell you their rule is steeped in the blood of conquered species. And beyond them the Amilxi who are rumored to be even more callous. Many other races prepare to pick easy winnings off the carcass of our prostrate empire.”
“I’m listening. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to win me this war. And quickly. My loyal spotters saw your new weapons. Mustangs did you call them? Impressive. Rid me of the rebels. Save the Empire.”
“Why should I do that?”
Another pause. “Because I can give you what you’ve always craved. As your legitimate master, I can offer you the ultimate reward in the form of a legally binding agreement. My Intelligence Corps has been watching you for some considerable time, Cadet Prong, Marine McEwan, Major McEwan and now General. You were right all along. Freedom can be won.”
— Preceding Events —
This, the fourth volume in The Annals of the Human Legion is self-contained, but readers may benefit from a reminder of the preceding events.
In the year, 2565AD, Arun McEwan is a 17-year-old freshman cadet raised on Tranquility, a depot planet of the Human Marine Corps, the military organization set up from a portion of the million human children given to the White Knights five centuries earlier in the Vancouver Accords. In this period, human military personnel are kept ignorant, separated, and specialized, a policy enthusiastically followed by the Jotuns, at least officially. These six-limbed aliens act as the Marine Corps officers, but are slaves of the White Knights just as much as the humans.
Conspiracies abound in Tranquility’s two depots: Detroit and Beta City. The potential of two cadets, Arun McEwan and Lee Xin, to become pivotal historical figures has been foreseen by the Night Hummers (an allied race who can see into the future). One shadowy faction of Hummers and their allies pin their hopes on these adolescent humans as a means to win freedom from the White Knights. With extreme caution, they nurture and protect the valuable humans, extending their conspiracy to include the nest of social insectoids called Trogs, who live underneath Detroit. Arun McEwan befriends a Trog conspirator whom McEwan names Pedro.
While demoted to the lowest human status — that of the Aux — McEwan uncovers an operation to smuggle military supplies out of Detroit to arm an uprising by a race of miners and technologists: the Hardits. Chief Aux torturer is Tawfiq Woomer-Calix, but McEwan survives her cruel treatment and organizes an act of defiance by the human Aux slaves, although his comrade, Hortez, is left behind, presumed dead.
Fearing their wider conspiracy is about to be uncovered, the Hardits launch their uprising early, to the disgust of their human and Jotun co-conspirators. The plan had been for these rebels to act together to seize the entire star system as an opening act in a wider civil war starting up across the White Knight Empire.
The Hardit rebellion is narrowly defeated. McEwan takes part in a military operation on the moon, Antilles, where he is badly wounded, but still manages to save the life of his cadet friend, Tremayne (nicknamed Springer). Tremayne, however, loses a leg and suffers disfiguring burns. The pre-cog Night Hummers also have their agenda. They manipulate McEwan into swearing a solemn oath to protect their species and win their freedom from the White Knights, no matter what the cost.
The Tranquility system prepares for war. Marines frozen for decades are thawed, ready to deploy. McEwan and his fellow cadets are hastily reclassified as full Marines and shipped off to the Muryani frontier.
In the last hours before embarking for the troop ships, Beowulf and Themistocles, McEwan and Xin Lee make love in the Antilles base, afterwards revealing to each other that they are both part of the conspiracy to win freedom from the White Knights.
Only six months into the journey, they chance across a vessel that they disable and board. The vessel’s position, its crew of vintage Marine-like humans, and the manner in which it soon explodes are all unexplained mysteries.
The rebel faction in the Civil War seizes both ships and turns them around to return to Tranquility, where they will join the fight to seize the system.
McEwan and Tremayne are rescued by an alliance between a spacer, Indiya, and her fellow ‘freaks’ — experimental enhanced humans — and the Reserve Captain, an ancient Jotun Navy officer and scientist who has played a role for many years in the development of experimental human forms, an unwitting member of one of the deep conspiracies.
Aided by Xin Lee, McEwan’s faction retakes Beowulf but the plan goes badly wrong. Themistocles is destroyed. Nearly all the Marines and crew on Beowulf perish.
The survivors are divided and despondent. It is the one surviving Jotun officer, the Reserve Captain, who uses her authority to rally the human stragglers and appoint a leader: Major Arun McEwan.
Desperate for a purpose, the humans cheer McEwan when he announces they will return to Tranquility and retake their home, not as slaves of the White Knights, but as members of the Human Legion.
Leading an expeditionary force of just 59 Marines, McEwan attempts to reclaim his home world from Hardit control. The campaign is hard fought, but ultimately futile. The lazy and ill-disciplined Hardits McEwan knew in his days as a cadet have hardened into the brutal New Order, led by Tawfiq Woomer-Calix, who has emerged as a ruthless tyrant.
In the Fall of Detroit, the leader of the Legion defense, Lieutenant Edward Brandt, discovers a secret store of cryogenically frozen soldiers hidden deep underneath the city. Millions of them.
But there is no time to revive them. The expeditionary force flees the planet leaving behind the still sleeping Marines and the corpses of half their force, including Lieutenant Brandt.
Regrouping on the Moon, Antilles, the Legion uncovers McEwan’s friends: Hortez and Pedro, who in turn reveal 600 humans frozen not long after the creation of the Human Marine Corps.
But as the Beowulf, the Legion’s only starship, leaves the Tranquility system for a destination suggested by the Hummers, McEwan is beginning to discover the Night Hummer conspiracy wherever he looks, even in the presence and existence of the one person he loves: Springer. When Springer says she can foretell McEwan’s future, but that she can’t see herself in that future, she rejects M
cEwan completely.
Disconsolate, McEwan seeks what solace he can from other friends and lovers, not yet realizing that they too have their secret agendas.
The year is 2569AD. This is the beginning of Human Empire…
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WAR AGAINST THE WHITE KNIGHTS
The fifth book in the annals of the Human Legion. Coming January 2016…
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Table of Contents
— Preface —
— Prologue —
—— PART I —— — Chapter 01 —
— Chapter 02 —
— Chapter 03 —
—— PART II —— Human Legion — INFOPEDIA —
— Chapter 04 —
— Chapter 05 —
— Chapter 06 —
— Chapter 07 —
— Chapter 08 —
— Chapter 09 —
— Chapter 10 —
— Chapter 11 —
—— PART III —— Human Legion — INFOPEDIA —
— Chapter 12 —
— Chapter 13 —
— Chapter 14 —
— Chapter 15 —
— Chapter 16 —
— Chapter 17 —
— Chapter 18 —
— Chapter 19 —
— Chapter 20 —
— Chapter 21 —
— Chapter 22 —
— Chapter 23 —
— Chapter 24 —
— Chapter 25 —
—— PART IV —— Human Legion — INFOPEDIA —
— Chapter 26 —
— Chapter 27 —
—— PART V —— Human Legion — INFOPEDIA —
— Chapter 28 —
— Chapter 29 —
— Chapter 30 —
— Chapter 31 —
— Chapter 32 —
— Chapter 33 —
— Chapter 34 —
— Chapter 35 —
— Chapter 36 —
— Chapter 37 —
— Chapter 38 —
— Chapter 39 —
— Chapter 40 —
—— PART VI —— Human Legion — INFOPEDIA —
— Chapter 41 —
— Chapter 42 —
— Chapter 43 —
— Chapter 44 —
— Chapter 45 —
— Chapter 46 —
— Chapter 47 —
— Chapter 48 —
— Chapter 49 —
— Chapter 50 —
— Chapter 51 —
— Chapter 52 —
— Chapter 53 —
— Chapter 54 —
— Chapter 55 —
— Chapter 56 —
— Chapter 57 —
— Chapter 58 —
— Chapter 59 —
— Chapter 60 —
— Chapter 61 —
— Chapter 62 —
— Chapter 63 —
— Chapter 64 —
— Chapter 65 —
— Chapter 66 —
— Chapter 67 —
— Preceding Events —
Human Empire Page 31
