The Human Legion Deluxe Box Set 2

by Tim C Taylor

  It won’t be enough, said Colin.

  Caccamo said nothing, but he didn’t contradict the AI either. The Legion was fighting back stronger than Tawfiq must have calculated, but there were just so many monitors still fighting.

  Puja had been headed for Luna when… when we lost contact, said Caccamo. What do we know about that?

  Not much. Something sneaky is going on down there. Best guess is some kind of anti-neutrino energy beam.

  A frakk-up-KM ray?

  For sure, but I see no targets to hit from here.

  You mean, if we abandon the capital ships and go after the Lunar base, there’s no guarantee we’ll find anything to shoot at?

  The human’s got it, said Colin. Give him a banana, someone. OK, let me restate this, cos it’s a big decision and you need to be clear. You can concentrate on the monitor boats that we can see, and pray for the kind of luck that only Arun ever seemed to find. Alternatively, we can head for the moon, gambling everything on gut instinct and knowing that if you’ve made the wrong call the fleet is doomed because of your decision.

  Caccamo laughed. Thanks, pal. When you put it like that, it’s no choice at all.

  He exited the mental merging with his AI, a disconcerting experience like being pulled out of a vat of glue, and opened a channel to his command.

  “This is 1st Wing Actual. All X-Boat call signs form up on my position. We’re going to take another pass through the monitors, and then keep going all the way to Luna. We’re gonna honor Puja Narciso and all our fallen pilots by blasting the shit out of whatever frakk-up ray the enemy’s firing at us from that moon.”

  “Belay that,” ordered a voice he did not expect to hear again. “This is Legion Actual. All X-Boats are ordered to withdraw from the KM-compromised zone and regroup to the rear of Reserve Fleet 1.”

  What did Indiya mean: Reserve Fleet 1? There was only one reserve fleet, wasn’t there? Remembering Dock’s words from earlier, Caccamo shivered with hope.

  My god! She’s done it again. Frakk me, I could kiss that beautiful, purple-haired little wonder.

  “That won’t be necessary,” said Admiral Indiya.

  “Unggh. Sorry, Admiral.” Did I say that out loud? Caccamo made sure to shut down the comms manually.

  My brain must be more bruised than I’d thought, he told Colin. I don’t remember saying any of that to the admiral.

  You didn’t.

  Eh?

  I did.

  You did. You did? My friend, AIs aren’t supposed to address admirals with that tone of familiarity.

  I’m sorry. I can only say in my defense that I learned all my speech patterns from you.

  We shall have words… Oh, frakk!

  A proximity alert flared in the HUD. Caccamo steered the Phantom away from… nothing. There was nothing there!

  What the frakk’s going on, Colin?

  Dunno. Something’s there. Trying to feel it out with ultra-high-frequency radar, but it’s cloaked like nothing I’ve encountered before. Maybe it’s the admiral’s mystery reserve… evade! Evade!

  A battlecruiser un-faded into existence, and the Phantom was about to crash into a communications tower. On instinct, Caccamo tried to pull up and away but he wasn’t going to get the vector he needed.

  “Hope you brought a change of underwear, Colin,” he whispered, and dove down to the tower’s base.

  With your flying, the AI answered, I brought two.

  The Phantom ducked under a comm dish and slalomed through a forest of aerials. All the while, point defense systems tracked his every move but did not fire.

  “You know what, my friend?” said Caccamo as he pulled away from the battle cruiser, and noted the warships appearing all around him, “I’ve got a good feeling about this.”

  — Chapter 35 —

  “The Legion forces have been defeated by the brave Janissaries under my command.”

  General Ulmack paused for a reaction from the two other participants in the virtual summit space. Dine-Alegg, Commander: Earth Theater, kept her scent reaction and face impassive, as did Kiflun who must have turned impassiveness into a new art form to stay alive for five years and counting in the most difficult role in the entire New Order Empire: Tawfiq’s deputy.

  No matter, Ulmack told herself. These negotiations were always going to be delicate.

  “Mopping up operations are underway,” Ulmack continued. “This phase of the war is over. It is time for us to assure ourselves that the New Order has the leadership it requires for the next phase of our expansion.”

  Kiflun showed as much reaction as if Ulmack had commented on the weather, but Dine-Alegg’s lip gave her away, quivering so violently that everyone could clearly see her anxiety. “I see,” she said. “You are suggesting that the mantle of supreme commander would be better worn by another.”

  “If our blessed leader were to die a glorious death in battle,” said Kiflun, “you, General Ulmack, would be propelled, unopposed, by the glory of your victory to replace her. Other than the name of our leader, everything would be as before. Such is the strength of the New Order.”

  “I merely ask a question,” said Ulmack. “Nothing more.”

  “Your excessive caution demeans us,” barked Dine-Alegg. “If the supreme commander were monitoring this summit, our lives would be forfeit for the words we have already spoken. We are still in battle, so let me speak plainly. Ulmack tries to sound us out as potential supporters in toppling Tawfiq. Kiflun says we would be replacing one tyrant with another, specifically you, Ulmack. Your first act would be to purge us. Do you deny it?”

  “If I were to directly replace Tawfiq, then yes. I would have you put to death. Which is why I propose a triumvirate. Two rivals will always produce an unstable distribution of power that would inevitably resolve in a single tyrant. But three can be stable so long as none of us has enough power to dominate the other two. If you wish this to become our future, if you wish to be of the triumvirate then we must act swiftly and decisively.”

  “Your forces have crushed the enemy,” said Kiflun. “The prestige and glory will flow to you, not Tawfiq. It is you who must act swiftly or face Tawfiq’s jealousy. Any division of power must take account of your desperation.”

  “I accept,” said Ulmack. “Dine-Alegg?”

  “I concur,” Dine-Alegg replied. “We must agree the terms of our…” She looked away, distracted by something out of sight of the virtual summit.

  “Who interrupts?” snapped Ulmack. “What is said?”

  Dine-Alegg returned her attention to Ulmack. Her scent carried pity, but her tail slumped low. “General Ulmack, you speak prematurely. Secure your victory before contacting me again.”

  She disappeared without following the normal exit protocols, leaving the other two reeling.

  When Kiflun had recovered, she touched her virtual tail-tip to Ulmack’s, a respectful gesture of farewell. “I salute your courage in daring to confront Tawfiq. Die well. Perhaps in another–”

  Ulmack didn’t wait for Kiflun to finish. She ripped herself out of the summit and threw her consciousness back into the privacy booth under the surface of Earth’s moon.

  The general was still fighting to regain her balance sufficiently to race to the command center, when the hatch opened to reveal Zeynth waiting outside. The aide’s fur stunk of nerves.

  “The Legion, sir. They’ve counter-attacked.”

  — Chapter 36 —

  Reserve Fleet 3 circled the outside of the New Order funnel, savaging the inward-facing monitor boats with missiles and lasers.

  Indiya had received a heart-stopping moment when her hidden reserve emerged slightly out of position in the middle of Caccamo’s retreating X-Boats, but only one fighter had been lost in a collision, its pilot safely ejected. The hellish difficulties in coordinating an invisible unit running as silently as vacuum was more than justified by the slaughter it was inflicting on the enemy.

  Calling it a ‘fleet’ was a grand gesture – it was in
truth only a reinforced squadron of just 35 warships with associated drone and fighter support. Some of the vessels were new builds, creamed directly off the shipyards, others were older ships listed as missing in action. It was their quality and the application that made the reserve the potential battle winner, not their numbers.

  And no matter how hard she scanned near-Earth space, no new Hardit forces were appearing. Tawfiq really had played her last hand.

  The monitor boats were still tearing through the shields of the Legion fleets caught in Tawfiq’s web, devastating the ship interiors now. Only the vital troopships, laden with the invasion force, were as yet unscathed, protected as they were inside the living shield of brave Legion picket ships and destroyers. Already, First Fleet ships were dying – Cleanser of Doubt, Blacktail, and Human Endurance were all being abandoned – and others were critically damaged. But the enemy monitor boats lacked turrets and maneuverability. They faced their trapped victims head on, with no response to attack from behind. The revealed Legion reserves cruised at will and destroyed the monitors from medium range – far enough out to be safe from the net that had trapped the main fleet.

  Indiya watched in precise detail as a monitor blew up, a gout of flame sending the gun turret spinning off into space like a flaming cooking pan. She combined the new data from her observation with the information sent back by the spy drones she’d launched to seek out weaknesses in the Hardit ships. By following the pattern of the explosion, she found another one.

  “Monitor power cores are located here,” she explained to Flag-Lieutenant Hood, painting the weak point on an image on the CIC’s main screen. “Instruct the fleet to target them directly.”

  As the updated targeting strategy passed around Reserve Fleet 3, the destruction of the Hardits accelerated. There were fewer spectacular explosions, but with the power plants eliminated more rapidly, the monitor weapons fell silent with increasing rapidity.

  But there were still so many. And they were showing more resolve than she’d planned for. Instead of turning to face the new threat, they remained in place, still raining death on the trapped vessels, heedless that behind them, Indiya’s hidden reserve was destroying them unopposed.

  Cleanser of Doubt exploded in a fireball. The battle cruiser had played a pivotal role in the First Battle of Khallini, but no more. All hands were lost.

  Reserve Fleet 3 wasn’t going to be enough. Everything rested on the final reserve.

  — Chapter 37 —

  Ulmack strode into the command bunker, every hair on her body standing rigid with fear and anger. “Report!”

  “Sir, the enemy has attacked with a hidden force,” replied the tactical officer, gesturing with her tail to the holographic battle grid in a cylindrical tank at the center of the room.

  “Fleet Commander Shi-X’Il,” is on standby, added the officer, but there was little her chief subordinate could tell her that wasn’t obvious from the battle grid. These new Legion ships were unaffected by the traps Ulmack had set and were rapidly tearing the New Order fleet to shreds.

  “Sir, the fleet commander…?”

  The power of speech eluded the general. She’d warned Tawfiq of the dangers in relying so much on the Blood Virus intelligence, but instead of listening to an experienced military officer, the supreme commander had used the opportunity to humiliate her overly competent subordinate.

  “Please, General,” said one of the junior officers in the scenario planning team, “what do we do?”

  Ulmack almost laughed. The planners would know better than anyone that there was nothing they could do, nothing they could rescue from this debacle. Even if Ulmack could save some of her personnel from slaughter at the hands of the Legion, she couldn’t save them from the torture Tawfiq would inflict on anyone who returned home with the stench of failure clinging to their fur.

  “Get me a channel to all near-Earth forces,” she ordered the signal officer. “This is General Ulmack. The cunning human nefnasts have caught us in a trap of their own making. Ignore their counter-attack. Concentrate all your fire on the trapped ships. Take as many of them with us as you can. Fight well, my brave Janissaries. I am proud to have served with you. One scent! One people! One victory!”

  For several heartbeats there came an uneasy silence punctuated by sharp intakes of breath and the grinding of jaws. Then the bunker and the airwaves erupted into cheers and chants.

  Ulmack exuded pride from every pheromone duct. She normally considered such displays of emotion to be unseemly for a senior field commander, but this was not a normal time. The honor at serving with such magnificent and loyal subordinates was too strong to be bound by mere decorum

  Her mood hardened into anger when she corrected himself. There were some who were not loyal.

  Ulmack beckoned one of the Janissaries guarding the main hatch.

  The guard marched over without any sign of hesitation and allowed the general to take her sidearm.

  “Kremsup,” announced the general, storming over to the Blood Virus team area. “I find Supreme Commander Tawfiq guilty of gross negligence and treason against the New Order. And I find you guilty of being an annoying little shit. In Tawfiq’s absence you are to receive both sentences yourself.”

  Kremsup couldn’t look Ulmack in the eye, but at least she didn’t try to run.

  Ulmack shot her through the heart and the skull.

  For a moment, she considered turning the weapon on herself, but that would be a betrayal of her duty. Instead, she took her seat at the main control console and awaited the end.

  — Chapter 38 —

  “In position,” announced Commodore De’Zaeli’X, the Gliesan commander of Reserve Fleet 2. “Targeting source of Hardit energy spikes. Launching strike now. Degrading ground defenses.”

  This was Indiya’s very last play. Satisfied that Legion point defense and drone clouds were sufficient to cope with the fire streaming up at them from the Lunar surface, Indiya hooked a thread of her attention onto a spy drone piggybacking onto a salvo of void-to-ground missiles.

  At a thousand klicks away from its target on the surface, another level of the Hardit defenses activated – energy shields, Fermi beams, and missiles. But De’Zaeli’X had anticipated this. The Legion’s void-to-ground missile salvo was already slowing and beginning to loop around these obstacles. They raced safely out of range of the Hardit ground defenses, leaving space for the follow-up kinetic torpedoes to overtake the first salvo and strike the enemy defenses that had now revealed their locations.

  When the first salvo finished looping around and headed back in for their targets, the enemy defenses had been all but wiped out.

  “Registering hits on the command bunker,” announced the Gliesan commodore. “Two other underground installations hit, as are multiple power generators, and six beam weapons of unknown configurations. Total destruction. If there’s a Hardit left alive, it’s dug a very deep hole.”

  “Thank you, Commodore. Remain in a defensive pattern over Luna. If the enemy has any surprises remaining for us, they could well come from the moon.”

  Meanwhile, Indiya had been following the relief of the Legion fleet with other parts of her consciousness. Even with the Lunar beams destroyed, the K-M Region was still too hot for X-Boat energy shunts, but the zero-point engines of the main fleet were coming back online, as were their heatsinks. Leading from his flagship, Vengeance of Saesh, Kreippil’s First Fleet began to fight back, its offensive power still severely limited, but enough to tear a swathe of destruction through the dwindling funnel of monitors.

  Second and Third Fleets were not so limited and began ruthlessly smashing their opponents.

  Indiya began to breathe again, filling her lungs through her gills. She remembered that a small but vital Legion unit was not engaged, which prompted an unfamiliar twinge of amusement.

  “Caccamo?” she called over a private link.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Indiya almost grinned. She had known Laban Caccamo since she w
as a girl. He was the first Marine to volunteer for cross-training as a naval rating in support of Beowulf’s severely depleted crew. In the entire Legion Navy, he was the closest thing to a human she could call friend.

  The smile faded, and she was pulled out of her youthful memories, once again an enhanced, void-optimized human swimming in a water-filled compartment filled with alien spacers.

  She was the very reason Beowulf had lost nearly all its crew. The train of tragic events that led to Laban Caccamo becoming an X-Boat pilot was set in motion because she had ordered the deaths of every soul aboard her sister-ship, Themistocles. But Caccamo deserved to be a hero – as did all the X-Boat pilots. He didn’t deserve to suffer from her misery.

  She tried to inject a smile into her voice. “Laban, what was that you said about kissing me?”

  “It wasn’t… I didn’t… It was an unguarded exclamation of admiration. I apologize.”

  Indiya smiled for real this time. She knew perfectly well the overly familiar comment had come from Caccamo’s AI, like a parrot taught to swear by an old sailor. “If you wanted to show your affection for me, I’ve just a thing for you.”

  Caccamo cleared his throat. “Sir?”

  She paused to enjoy the knowledge that Laban was squirming in his Phantom, but also to confirm the change she was reading in the battlezone.

  “The Hardit monitors are beginning to run for it,” she told him. “I want you to take your Z-Boats and pursue the enemy ships. Destroy them all.”

  “With pleasure, sir. With pleasure.”

  — Chapter 39 —

  Gripping the seat arms with three hands, General Aelingir used her other hand to check her plasma pistol had the full power charge and unfouled barrel necessary to kill the maximum number of Tawfiq’s abominations.

  The dropship gave a sudden lurch, but the general simply swallowed hard and pretended nothing had happened that could possibly distract her from yet another equipment check.