Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1)

by Tim C. Taylor

  Or, if you have the tech, you could use gamma beams rather than nukes to do the same job.

  But simplest by far is to nudge the orbits of comets and asteroids to slam into the besieged planet, a rain of destruction unrelenting for years.

  In other words, to destroy a defensive warren, you’ll probably have to destroy the planet.

  Which is what the warren designers want.

  Why?

  Because forcing your enemy to destroy your planet denies it to him.

  And if he can’t use your planet for himself, why bother invading in the first place?

  Unfortunately for the defenders, that logic doesn’t always work: far too many wars are driven by hatred, not economic calculation.

  And the story of how our galaxy’s civilizations rise and clash plays out over such extended timescale that they can scarcely be conceived by humans – at least the original ones derived from Homo sapiens.

  But the aliens who design the warrens have been around far longer than us, long enough to know one thing with statistical certainty.

  If they build their warren well, then the day will surely come when it will be destroyed, along with the planet it has doomed.

  Further reading

  If you delve deeper into Detroit’s history and design, you will soon smack up against security walls. It’s no secret that Detroit held a lot of secrets. And if you need to ask what they are, you definitely don’t need to know.

  But whatever mysteries Detroit might have hidden in its depths, in its upper levels and hab-disks – Detroit was built as a defensive warren.

  And when the invasion did finally come, it proved a tough nut to crack.

  —— Chapter 27 ——

  The domain of Auxiliary Team Beta lay through a restricted access side tunnel off Corridor 710 on Level 5. During their years at novice school, the cadets had used this corridor countless times, but there had never been a reason to explore the restricted passageways leading into the unknown.

  Arun had expected his punishment detail would have to cross a guard post or input a security code into a locked hatch. There was none of that. The only physical barrier to prevent the curious from exploring the area was the stench. Cadets were used to showering two or three times per day. They were now entering the realm of the unwashed.

  “Hello!” called Springer. “Is anybody there?”

  A minute later, a dreary figure in heavily soiled overalls, that might once have been dark blue, appeared from out of the poorly lit passageway and beckoned them to follow.

  “Hi,” greeted Madge as they walked to meet the figure. “What’s your name?”

  The Aux ignored her.

  It was a woman, decided Arun, a girl. Like the cadets, she was probably still in her teens, though Arun found it impossible to be sure. The overalls hung very heavily over her shoulders, more like armor than clothing. Her face was gaunt and soiled, her hair crudely cropped.

  If the spark of life had dimmed in Hortez’s eyes, it was guttering in the girl’s, kept alive by the simmering heat of sly resentment.

  None of the cadets tried again to strike up a conversation. They followed the auxiliary in silence as she led them along a long corridor, ever deeper into their banishment.

  To either side were mostly closed doors, but one door had been removed allowing Arun a glimpse of a vehicle park of sorts. Instead of the hovertanks and strike flitters he’s seen in other parks, here were trolleys on casters and sit-on cleaning trucks that actually looked kind of fun.

  They hadn’t even reported in yet but already Arun was feeling an urgent need to lighten the mood of this death march. The Hardits were humorless bullies whose language translator AIs weren’t enough to stop them sounding like bumbling idiots when talking to humans. The next week was not going to be pleasant, but it would at least involve Arun mocking the hell out of the hairy monkey-vecks.

  Just as he was thinking of something smart to say – anything to break the doom-filled silence – Springer beat him to it. She sprinted ahead and dodged through a door that had been left ajar.

  Arun followed, hot on her heels.

  A light flickered on as soon as Springer entered the room, revealing it to be a workshop. There were banks of metal boxes, neatly labeled. Tools and power sockets dangled from the ceiling over scarred workbenches.

  “Hey, Arun,” said Springer. “Remember the workshops on Level 9?”

  He grinned back. Their class had been shown around the workshops where repairs were made for weapons mounted on the orbital defense platforms. This Aux workshop was suited more to fixing shelves, or maybe a leaky tap. But that was all right. Taps and shelves weren’t as impressive as a 60 Gigajoule Fermi Cannon, but even such humble equipment had their own part to play in the life of the Corps.

  Springer and Arun grinned at each other, a connection that extended for several invigorating seconds. They were going to get through this okay.

  Wandering off for a few moments hardly counted as a great victory for oppressed humanity, but it put Arun in the mood for ripping the hell out of the Hardits.

  Bring ’em on. I’ll handle them.

  He rejoined Madge and the Aux woman. As they pushed farther along the corridor, the air filled ever thicker with the heavy odors of unsanitized humanity.

  Eventually they entered a rectangular room that had the same dimensions as the dorms in the hab-disks, though this room appeared much larger at first because there were no racks, armory cupboards or head.

  There was a far more serious difference: dorms in the hab-disks housed eight cadets. In this room were fifty human auxiliaries lined up in two rows. They were hunched, faded skeletons more than people. The men, and boys old enough, wore matted beards.

  “You are slightly early.” The artificial voice came from the only Hardit in the room, a creature in dark blue overalls like the humans, except the Hardit’s was relatively clean and, while still rough material, hung more like clothing than semi-rigid armor. The voice was male, but Arun knew that didn’t prove anything.

  “I am not impressed, though,” said the Hardit. “Your species cowers in filth of its own fear. It is this fear that drove you here double fast, not respect for your better. By the time I have finished with you, I will teach you respect and justify your fear. Now remove clothing.” The alien gestured at the Aux who had led them in. “Number 87 will provide you with new uniforms.”

  The cadets started stripping off their fatigues while the girl who had led them here – Number 87 – went over to a box in the back corner of the room and came back bearing three sets of soiled overalls.

  “Those too, you dumb vecks,” urged 87, when the cadets hesitated to remove their underwear. “As if anyone cares here.”

  Arun complied. But when, naked, he reached for his new overalls, his eyes popped wide. Number 87 had lied. She cared that they stripped off completely, but in a freak-out way. As soon as the cadets discarded their clothes, she scooped them up. Once she had the full set, she flung most them into a heap of sacking, blankets and clothing piled up in one corner of the room, but kept a few items to one side.

  Was this a pile of bedding?

  For the briefest of moments, the idea tickled Arun that one of these Aux would enjoy his underwear for a pillow tonight. Then he looked again at the occupants of the room. Were 53 people really going to sleep here in this one dorm? There was scarcely enough room for them all to stand.

  “Hurry up or we’ll all be in the drent,” urged 87.

  One of the Aux collapsed in a rasping sequence of coughs, attempting desperately to suppress them.

  It was a reminder that Arun had new dorm-mates. He couldn’t help but begin to feel responsible for them.

  When he stepped into his new clothes, they felt oddly familiar – like a flak jacket, which was a crude form of armor with overlapping scales of toughened ceramo-plastics sandwiched between ablative and reflective layers.

  “Which one of you threw the light-bang bomb?” asked the Hardit.
>
  Arun raised an arm.

  “Your attack caused me mild discomfort. Very little actually. I almost did not notice.”

  Liar!

  “Nonetheless the idea that a human could attempt to harm superior sickens me to the tip of tail. Step forward!”

  This was the moment Arun had dreaded. Worse! It hadn’t occurred to him that it would be Tawfiq Woomer-Calix herself who would meet them. This was going to be personal.

  The Hardit reached into a pouch slung on her waist.

  What was it going to be? A stunner? Slow-acting poison? A whip? Maybe the creature thought humans deserved a particularly primitive form of torture, and was about to bring out a rusty knife.

  The prospect of pain was something he could bear, but to stand and meekly take it… he wasn’t sure he would be capable of that. The future that frightened him most was to end this punishment week alive but damaged. He would be no use as a cadet if he suffered permanent injury. They wouldn’t take him back; he’d be stuck here forever.

  All three cadets had made a pact. No goading the Hardits; no rising to their bait. They would suck up every bit of drent they were given and get out of here in one piece… unless he saw an opportunity to make the monkey-like aliens look like buffoons. He bet Springer would do the same.

  Madge wouldn’t. Even if a hidden traitor really was feeding his buddies with low-dose combat drug, it wouldn’t change her. When she needed to be, Madge was as hard as a kinetic torpedo. She would stay professional throughout while Springer and he would need to goof around to cope. That was why Springer was his best buddy and Madge was his section leader.

  The Hardit brought out a phial of liquid, which she dipped her thumb into and then smeared over a square fabric patch stitched into the breast of Arun’s overalls.

  Tawfiq replaced the phial and brought out two more – there were dozens in that pouch – mixed them together and smeared the resulting paste onto the fabric patch.

  “You are designated number 106,” Tawfiq told Arun. “Return to your place.”

  While Madge and Springer were given the same treatment, numbered 109 and 114 respectively, Arun looked at his breast. Of the alien’s fluid there was no sign, but now he looked closer he could make out his new name, 106, marked in faded human numerals.

  “Approach your mistress, 106.”

  Arun obeyed.

  Tawfiq stared at him along her long snout. She appeared disappointed that he held her three-eyed gaze and glared back for all he was worth. Being a head taller than his all-powerful mistress made that a helluva lot easier.

  “Keep looking into my eyes,” she ordered. As Tawfiq spoke, she lifted her tail and snaked it around behind her. Strips of the rough fabric used in their overalls were wrapped around her tail from its base to a hand’s width from its tip, which was left bare. The tip was flattened but curled in on itself like a rolled tongue.

  Suddenly the tip whipped through the air and smacked into Arun’s left cheek. He was still gasping with shock when the tail whipped back behind the Hardit and slapped him on the right.

  This time, Arun was ready for it.

  He hadn’t broken eye contact with the alien. It was a pathetically small victory, but at this point he’d take what he could get.

  After that came a steady rhythm of slaps from the Hardit’s tail.

  On the spectrum of torture implements he had steeled his nerve against, this slapping barely registered. In fact he suspected it hurt the creature’s tail more than his cheek. It was the surprise that had made him gasp.

  But that didn’t mean it was easy. To stand and take a beating, however feeble it might be, filled Arun with shame. What kind of Marine would crawl to these ugly creatures? He bit his lower lip. His body started to shake with the effort to keep from punching that stupid alien veck between its three ugly eyes.

  There was a bulbous projection on the end of the Hardit’s snout that he assumed was her nose. Arun pictured grabbing that nose in his hand and pulling with every ounce of strength. Would it come off? His hands clenched with the thought. He hoped it would only come half off. Yes, that was even better.

  “Return to your place.”

  Arun came back to himself, realizing his breathing was fast and shallow. He stepped back, still not breaking eye contact.

  He was daring the alien to break eye contact with him.

  “109, come here for whipping.”

  Madge stepped up and Tawfiq started to beat her the same way.

  Arun was still seething with humiliation, quaking with all the anger that had pumped through his muscles but had nowhere to go.

  By contrast, Madge barely seemed to register what Tawfiq was doing, which only made Arun feel more humiliated.

  Standing there and taking it was bad, but to watch his friend take her slapping was far harder. They were part of a team. Even though Madge thought him no better than pond scum right now, they still looked out for each other. But Arun could only stand there and shake with impotence.

  “109 is female, isn’t that so, 106?”

  “Right,” said Arun.

  “She has long and yellow hair does not she?”

  “Yes.” Your translator isn’t worth drent, Hardit.

  “And human males find that very attractive in human females, don’t you… 114?”

  114? That was Springer!

  Springer didn’t answer. Arun couldn’t entirely blame her. Did this monkey creature really think she was a guy? Hadn’t Tawfiq just seen Springer naked? Actually, come to think of it, the alien hadn’t been paying much attention. Just wait till he got back and told Osman.

  “Answer,” ordered Tawfiq. The voice coming through her speaker was calm, but the alien was twitching with agitation. “Are you attracted to this female’s hairs?”

  “Yes,” said Springer. “Her yellow hairs fill me with such extreme lust that I often faint with the desire to caress them.”

  Steady on, Springer. Don’t push it.

  The alien paused, probably to translate Springer’s words, before addressing Arun. “And you, 106?”

  “Sure,” he replied. “109 has pretty hairs and looks really hot.”

  “I wonder,” said Tawfiq, “whether 109 will still look really hot by the time I have finished her whipping.” The Hardit sped up her tail swipes. “Shall we see?”

  The artificial voice was expressionless, but Arun couldn’t help but imagine a sly quality to it. A gloating that Arun longed to smack out of the creature. He looked at the lineup of Aux, searching for support, but they glanced away, pretending not to see, or looked bored as if they’d seen it all before. Only Hortez watched from the back row, anger sketched onto his face.

  “Keep watching, 106!” The Hardit’s artificial voice did not change its expression, but the alien’s anger registered as a louder volume. “This is only a gentle introduction to your program of torture.”

  Madge began to blink. Then she sneezed. The tail had whipped her cheek unerringly but with the sudden movement of the sneeze, it cut into her nose, bringing out a stream of blood. The Hardit’s striking tail smeared the beads of red over Madge’s cheeks.

  Arun bore it for another half dozen swipes, but the sight of his friend smeared in her own blood was too much.

  “Okay,” he told the Hardit, “you’ve made your point.”

  The alien stopped. “The human speaks. What does it mean?”

  “I said you’ve made your point. You’re the boss. We’ll do what you say. There’s no point in carrying on hitting her.”

  “Oh, but there is. You are just too stupid to understand yet. But you shall.”

  Glaring at him all the time, Tawfiq’s tail curled around her waist and touched a device at her hip.

  Every muscle in Arun’s body contracted at once. His diaphragm squeezed the air from his lungs. His knees pressed hard against his chest and he fell to the ground, unable to do anything but silently scream against the pain wracking his body.

  Then the pressure released enough for h
im to draw a breath, and relax the clamp that his jaw had become. No wonder the overalls hung so heavily; they contained an electro-shocker system.

  Before he had time to speak, the pain was back and his own muscles had been turned against him again, compressing him into a ball. He rolled over in a feeble attempt to escape the Hardit, who he thought was kicking him, but it was difficult to know what was going on since all that mattered was the need to breathe because the Hardit veck was enjoying this too much to release him from the pain. Steam blew out his mouth. Something was smoldering. It might be his skin or teeth or maybe the hairs over his body but it didn’t matter anymore because…

  Then he was breathing the sweet, sweet air. Gulping at it greedily, petrified that each breath would be his last.

  It took some time for Arun to fully come back to his senses.

  “Stand!” Tawfiq ordered.

  Arun struggled to his feet.

  “I assure you that I have not hit 109 while you were incapacitated.” Tawfiq advanced on Arun and pressed her snout up into his face. Her breath stank of stale cabbage and fresh feces.

  She growled in her throat. Then the speaker attached to her collar elaborated: “I did not wish you to miss any of 109’s pain.”

  Tawfiq went back to slapping Madge.

  After only half a dozen swipes, the beating was interrupted when another Hardit walked in. Tawfiq switched off her translator unit and the two aliens argued in their own growling speech. Their tails touched and stroked each other. Then, without any change in their conversation, their tails stretched longer and thinner and snaked through gaps in their overalls to caress each other’s body.

  When they began rubbing with their tails, the tone of their voices softened, taking on a crooning quality.

  Arun managed to be both disgusted by the lewd alien display and grateful for the interruption to their torture.

  The respite only lasted a minute or so before the two aliens broke off contact.

  “I enjoyed your pain,” said Tawfiq in her artificial human male voice. “But we must save the rest of the female’s beating until later. Humans, you have work to do.”