He remembered Indiya calling him a cyborg, a killing machine. Perhaps she had meant that as a joke. But he’d never doubted she was right.
Yet they were also greater than killing machines in a way Indiya could never truly understand. BattleNet linked every Marine in the unit into a distributed superbeing. The suits did more than share data updates, voice communication, ammo and medical status and threat analysis. To a degree they thought and felt as one. Arun began to feel an ache and knew what that meant without needing to look away from his targets and consult Barney. The ache was the feeling he associated with ammunition running low. He was half empty, but most had fired more rounds than him.
He hoped this wouldn’t matter. That the Hardit militia who had been so reluctant to fight that they’d needed their own troops to fire on them would turn and run.
They didn’t. Their front ranks were being mowed down methodically but that only stung them into a greater rage.
Engines cut out, the damaged Stork came in for a controlled flop, right in the middle of the Hardit militia, carving a bloody channel through the enemy before halting, its nose slightly buried into the ground.
The Stork was on fire.
Animals could be goaded into such anger that they would stampede, heedless of any danger. As novices Arun had been taught this as both a potential combat tactic and a way of killing animals for food.
That’s what the Hardits were doing now. Stampeding.
Frakk!
The aching need for ammo resupply was becoming an unbearable knotting in his guts.
The others could feel the ache too, of course. The NCOs had caches of spare ammo bulbs and had passed them onto the rest of their section, but those caches were now spent. And the central ammo reserve was next to Arun’s position in the baby bunker.
“Laskosk, you and I need to do a resupply run.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Understood, Major,” acknowledged Sergeant Gupta, who was listening while establishing a new firing position some distance off to the northeast. “You are resupplying.”
Arun turned to issue orders to Stopcock, but the big guy was already scrambling over the ground to reach the ammo cache.
“I’ll resupply 1st Section,” Stopcock said. “You refill Yoshioka.”
“Acknowledged,” responded Arun, who was already following the missile specialist over the tortured ground to the cache.
Arun made three resupply runs up to Yoshioka’s position before running out of ammo bulbs and grenades. He couldn’t see Springer’s body, although this was hardly a sightseeing outing. The incoming rifle fire had slackened, but was still fierce.
Arun was racing back to his trench after the final run when the night suddenly exploded in a burst of purple-white. He hit the dirt and laid still, but Barney explained the Hardit attention wasn’t on him. A plasma bomb had hit the downed Stork.
Arun lifted his head and watched flames spread over the gunship setting the ground to smolder.
“If you want to live,” came Xin’s voice over WBNet, “keep your frakking heads down.”
In front of his bewildered eyes, armor sloughed off the badly damaged gunship, making Arun think of his alien friend, Pedro, sloughing chitinous skin as he’d morphed into a new form.
Each corner of the fresh-skinned Stork now bulged out like blisters. And from these blisters emerged long weapon barrels.
Auto cannons!
After the deafening thunder of the gunship engines, Arun could barely hear the chatt-chatt of the cannons as they tore into any Hardits who hadn’t fled far enough. Instinct made him tense as rounds flew overhead, but he knew there was no need. The cannon barrels were aimed by AIs who could easily distinguish human from Hardit.
He looked behind and, sure enough, saw the autocannons had ripped apart a group of Hardits who had sneaked around to his rear.
The carnage was sickening, but Arun had no room for mercy. Not for the Hardits, no matter how reluctant the militia had been to fight. But the sight of so much death numbed him, robbing him of his anger.
It was enough to halt the Hardit stampede.
They fled.
Arun crawled back to the baby bunker. The infants were not only safe inside, but making contended snuffles as each slept on their exhausted and wounded mother. Hell’s teeth. Human babies were more alien than the Hardits!
Suddenly, the children and mothers lit up in the reflected glow of an explosion. It came from behind… the Stork! A Hardit missile must have been waiting in the sky, choosing this moment to fly into the upper hull of the Stork, tunneling through the remaining armor and exploding inside.
The Stork tilted nearly onto its side, swiveling around, before falling back onto its belly. The Stork was big enough to have several compartments. The missile had blown out the main starboard compartment — no one would have survived that – but the hatch to the port compartment opened, turning into an egress ramp.
“Suppressive fire,” ordered Gupta, who painted a target zone onto WBNet of likely positions for the missile to have come from.
As the Marines and a few armed slaves opened fire, the survivors of the Stork raced for the relative safety of the hillside.
Arun didn’t stay to watch. He clamped his carbine to his back and scooped out the babies and their mothers, holding all four in his arms. He stared into the glazed eyes of Rohanna and Shelby. Arun felt a pressing need to mouth some words of encouragement to the wounded mothers, to assure them that even if they didn’t survive their wounds, that he would take care of their precious charges. No words of comfort would come, though. He had no milk, no food, and no expertise. The Marine Corps cadet curriculum hadn’t covered the care of infants.
All Arun knew was that he would not abandon these two burdens lightly, even though that made no sense to him, despite the line he’d spun to Stok about symbolism.
The airborne Stork added its heavy railgun to the suppressive fire, obliterating the ground in Gupta’s target zone.
It landed on the hillside twenty paces from Arun, extending ramps down on its port and starboard sides.
“Everyone get in!” ordered Arun.
Only once he’d deposited his burden safely inside the Stork did he query Sergeant Gupta. “Who are we missing?”
“BattleNet reports plenty who are dead, but we’re missing half of 2nd Section. If they’re off-grid, probably means they were hit by plasma bombs. Do we search for their bodies?”
“Hurry up,” called Xin. “We need to lift off.”
“Hold,” Arun told her. “Give me two minutes. No more.”
As he hurried off to the defenses to the east, he checked BattleNet for any 2nd Section survivors. He found two who were conscious.
“Schimschak, Binning. Where is the rest of your section?”
“We lost contact some time ago,” said Binning. “Presumed dead.”
“Lewark’s definitely dead,” added Schimschak.
“She was in 1st Section,” hissed Binning.
“Just saying. Blast took her leg off. I couldn’t stop her bleeding out. I brought Zug back myself.”
Springer! Where was Springer?
Arun remembered her disappearing from BattleNet about the time that Gupta’s charge burst open the Hardit mob. How could he forget? Umarov’s node had gone too.
Arun didn’t expect to see either of them alive, but he couldn’t bear to flee the battlefield without even looking for them.
He steeled himself for the site of a blackened corpse that had once been his best friend, the vibrant girl with a gentle smile, and violet eyes that sparkled with such an unfettered spirit that her friends named her Springer.
“Major! Arun, over here!”
Barney turned Arun’s helmet around, and focused his visor on the person calling his name.
It was Umarov, calling out in his own voice because he had lost his helmet, which would explain his disappearance from BattleNet. Alongside him was Yoshioka, also without her helmet but with the limp forms of
two Resistance fighters slung over her shoulders. Umarov was limping, and in his arms carried a charred body partially covered in armor. Alive or dead? Arun couldn’t tell.
Arun gently took the body from his friend. It was still warm, still alive. The way the flesh softly yielded as he hurried to the Stork, and those legs…! Arun’s eyes widened. Springer!
He needed to look upon her face. He realized her helmet wasn’t sealed onto the rest of her armor. He pulled it off and threw it to Umarov.
Springer’s face was blasted, her hair scorched. She was the most beautiful sight he could imagine. Her eyes opened and he gazed into those violet pools.
“Been a while since you held me naked in your arms, Arun.”
He shushed her. “This isn’t the time.”
“But there won’t be another time. Not with me like this.”
“Because you’re wounded?” He saw past those eyes and took in the fresh burns over the puckered scars from two years before. “Springer, the gulf between us is because I’ve become your CO. Not because of how you look.”
She raised her hand and touched his visor. “You’re a gentle liar, Arun.”
Arun glanced up. They were nearly there. Nearly safe.
“If I could rid this world of the Hardits,” he told her, “and strip away my rank, I’d make love to you here on the battlefield.”
“This isn’t the time for romance, children,” growled Umarov. “You can save that fluffy stuff until we’re airborne.”
As if agreeing with Umarov’s urgency, the ground trembled as the Stork spooled powerful engines.
“Come on,” urged Yoshioka.
“Lance Corporal, where’s your helmet?” Arun asked, changing the subject.
“A furry skangat shattered it with a drill. Nearly did the same to my head but I fragged it first. Ripped its stinking arm off.”
Arun was about to ask Umarov why Springer seemed to be wearing his helmet, but they had arrived at the ramp up to the waiting gunship.
He let the others go first so that he could lift up Springer. Their glances caught each other for a stretched moment, and then he kissed her.
She tasted of roasted dirt, blood and sweat, but he didn’t care one bit.
With only a buzz for warning, the external speakers on the Stork blared out. “When you’re quite finished, Major. I’ll lift off just as soon as you see fit to come aboard.”
Arun’s jaw dropped open. That voice… that supreme flier… it was Dock, the Beowulf traitor who’d escaped execution for treason only by Indiya’s insistence that she couldn’t spare experienced personnel, not even to justice.
“Are you coming, or not?” urged Dock.
Springer’s face dimpled with a grin.
It was more than enough to fill Arun with warm bubbles of relief. Arun bounded up the ramp which was retracting before he’d even stepped into the hold.
He looked around at the sorry looking survivors, expecting anger, resentment. Maybe amusement at his kiss. Instead he saw only exhaustion and resignation on every face there except one.
On the far side of the hold, a beautiful face was twisted into a baleful glare of white hot hatred.
Xin.
— Chapter 43 —
The footage was already twice as long as she had called for, but she wanted this to be endless, because the smell of her opponent’s humiliation was the most intoxicating scent Tawfiq had ever experienced. Even beyond her most glorious dreams.
And she had such expansive dreams.
The Great Council members – those who had survived the coup – knelt with snouts pushed against the floor of the council chamber, ritually licking the polished stone, now coated with dust and debris from where Tawfiq’s janissaries had blasted through the wall.
All except one! One fool. Lord Ammrithk had glanced in her direction momentarily.
“You dare?”
Tawfiq rose from the High Councilor’s throne, the seat of power still covered in dust and debris. She stormed over to the errant lord, unable to resist glancing at her janissaries as she did so.
The crew recording the footage for live broadcast were instructed to keep the janissaries out of shot. The general population made to view the footage weren’t able to see the janissaries, but with scent–enabled players so common these days, they would smell the genderless soldiers and be terrified.
Let them fear the New Order, gloated Tawfiq, as she breathed deeply of her janissaries’ manufactured odor of metal and oil. The scent of victory.
Tawfiq straddled Lord Ammrithk, feeling the hot sweat of fear, feeling his body rub against hers as he pushed himself again and again to the floor.
The excitement his fear awoke in Tawfiq went beyond intoxicating. She felt the irresistible pulsing that presaged the arrival of the mating season – the Time of Challenge.
No! She would not permit herself to feel aroused. Not by this Lord of the High Council.
Not by a mere male!
“You displease me,” she growled at Lord Ammrithk. She spread her arms to encompass the whole council. “Punishment is not confined to the guilty, but extends to the associates of the condemned. For that is the way of the New Order.”
“Strength through victory! Victory through strength!” The janissaries gave an unprompted chorus of the new way of things.
Tawfiq stepped away, back into the ranks of her janissaries.
She had exposed the High Council, her people’s ultimate authority for hundreds of generations for what they were: degenerate weaklings. With a snap of her jaws, the signal for execution, the leaders of the Hierarchy were swept away in a hail of bullets.
— PART IV —
The Hidden Legion
Human Legion
— INFOPEDIA —
Category: Military Life
— Early Legion Uniforms
With the creation of the Human Legion came the need for new uniform designs to reinforce the split from the Navy and Human Marine Corps organizations who had pledged unceasing loyalty to the White Knight Empire. Given the iconic look of Human Legion uniforms today, it is surprising to learn that their design was regarded as a minor detail barely worth a mention in the written record of that time.
White and cream were the colors of the old White Knight regime and its loyalists. Red was the color of the rebel faction in the civil war, including the so-called ‘Free Corps’ Marine units. In a war waged over hundreds of light years, and that employed technology still barely comprehensible to humanity, it is strange to think how significant these colors came to be as a rallying call for each faction.
The political position of the early Legion was to be belligerently neutral in the civil war. Not wishing to use the colors of either faction, the Legion reprogramed its smartfabric fatigue uniforms to be all black.
Those looking for a more romantic twist to their history have said black was chosen as the color of the void, signifying that the Human Legion owed no allegiance to any one planet, but represented space itself. The truth is revealed in a copy of an order from Major Arun McEwan issued the day after the inception of the Legion. “As a stopgap, all Legion uniforms will immediately be reprogrammed to an all-black color,” he wrote. “This declares our neutrality. A permanent uniform design will be agreed at a future date, when we have time for such details.”
That day is still to come, and with its all-black uniforms such an instantly recognizable symbol of the Legion, the day will not come soon.
The earliest Legion uniforms – those used in the First Tranquility Campaign – had no need for unit or service insignia, so small was the Legion’s size at the time. Even rank was not initially shown on the uniform. The only distinction was that Marine uniforms had subtle bronze facings, while Navy uniforms had silver (being the traditional color to represent the stars).
Later uniform designs added rank insignia on epaulettes, service specialism on the collar, unit insignia on the right shoulder (e.g. brigade, fleet, or regiment) and optional tactical recognition
flashes on the left (e.g. taskforce, drop zone, or wave). A dress uniform variant was also added; in most cases this was nothing more than a different program for the same smartfabric garments, although woven natural fabric versions have been worn on special occasions. The dress uniform design includes a cloth-effect beret, simulated braid, a high-neck collar, and the appearance of a double-breasted jacket.
Centuries after the young Major McEwan’s deferred a proper uniform design, the all-black colors are now spreading from personal uniforms to starship hulls, and vehicles that range across land, sea and air. Whether the sight of these black fleets instills pride or terror in those who see them, one thing is for certain: black is no longer a neutral color.
This infopedia section was extracted from humanlegion.com
— Chapter 44 —
As Tawfiq approached the strange creature, the sound grew ever more difficult to bear: two trembling tones, one ultra-high, the other a sub-bass rumble. The two sound waves beat mercilessly at the inside of her skull.
“Do you know who I am?” she asked the source of the painful noise.
“You are Tawfiq Woomer-Calix.”
“Correct. I am Supreme Commander of the New Order, and your place in that order is to do my bidding.”
“No.”
No! It had been a long while since anyone had refused Tawfiq. Before she could reprimand the disrespectful creature, old doubts flooded her. The paranoia.
Had she imagined that denial? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d heard voices in her head.
She clutched at her head. The pressure on her temples was excruciating.
“You heard correctly,” said the voice again. “I am not here to do your bidding. I summoned you to do mine.”
The status light on the creature’s translator system hadn’t registered any activity, so those words couldn’t possibly have come from the wall speaker.
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