The Legion Awakes (The Sleeping Legion Book 1)

by JR Handley

  He decided to think tactically, and launched his own verbal frontal assault. “Why were you assigned to me? What is your model specialty?” He didn’t believe she would answer, but he had to at least try. Xena surprised him when she actually replied. He expected more chicanery from her.

  Lance, what I am about to tell you is both complicated and classified. My original programming model was that of your standard Engineering Variant. All you need to know about that is summed up in our motto. ‘If God or Man could build it, the Engineer could destroy it. If an Engineer could destroy it, then they could rebuild it even better.’ What makes me unique is that while I was in storage after the death of my last human, my programing was altered by Spacer Technician Aura. She was experimenting with the ability to upgrade existing AI models, allowing a single AI to stay with its end user, even if said user received a transfer, promotion or change of career specialty. She succeeded, she cracked the code and now I contain every AI specialty. What can I say? I’m your best friend if you want to start a rebellion! And if that isn’t exactly what floats your void, then I would just be handy to have around. As for Dante and the other AIs from your old Tango Squad, I think you made quite the impression on Technician Aura because she stowed them away with me in your cryo pod. I cracked them while we were cryogenically frozen. They can do what I can do.

  Lance was dumbfounded, he possessed an AI with more skills than he could fathom, and the ability to spread like a virus, giving that information to other AIs as well. “Xena, never mention such treasonous thoughts again! Now, why would my Jotun officers want me to have this kind of AI? What makes me, more than someone else, more worthy?”

  That I cannot say. It requires information not available, thus requiring conclusions without all of the variables. I can tell you the ‘what’ but not the ‘why’ of our situation.

  The answer was as frustrating as it was incomplete and unhelpful. In an effort to calm himself down, giving his subconscious mind the time it needed to process this information, Lance decided to browse the digital pictures he kept stored.

  After playing around staring at his pictures, Lance decided it was time to get back to work and went looking for the company headquarters to formally introduce himself. He went into the map interface on his Aimee and followed its directions to HQ so he could report in.

  — Chapter 09 —

  Headquarters, Whiskey Co., 8th BN, 6907th TAC RGT

  As he marched to the headquarters, Xena was busy getting him every scrap of pertinent data on his new command, and the personnel files of every Cadet. She will probably tell me what they had for breakfast, the color of their poop and the name of their first kiss before I even get there, he smirked to himself.

  His company commander was a Captain Grigonna, and she was on the short list for a promotion if 1st Squad’s performance could be addressed so the company’s honor could be clear. She was rumored to be one fierce Marine, if the scuttlebutt Xena had dug up earlier was to be believed. Lance certainly hoped so, because he would need every ally he had if he was going to turn 1st Squad into Marines anytime this side of forever.

  As soon as he reached the company headquarters, he entered the antechamber and reported in to the senior sergeant on duty, with all the pomp and circumstance he could muster. He followed the DM 16.1 to the letter, hoping to make a better impression with his company commander than he had with his colonel. The senior sergeant, whose body language read as more machine than human, seemed less than impressed as he told Lance to have a seat and wait to be called back.

  Senior Veteran Sergeant Jelani Keita certainly embodied what came to Lance’s mind when thinking of a sergeant with years of combat experience. Tall and barrel chested, Keita’s body was covered with war merit badges, and more musculature than Lance had ever seen on a single body. If the White Knights were making recruiting posters for the Human Marine Corps, they would feature this mammoth of a man. He was darker skinned than the Island Marines Lance was used to interacting with, and missing the tattoos which would’ve told his career path, though his scars told their own tales. Keita definitely seemed at home in his stripes, something Lance would have to work on. Until then, he would have to fake it with his new wayward charges.

  After an hour had gone by, Lance was told, rather unceremoniously, to go into the captain’s office. He smartly marched in to meet his new company commander, having no real idea of what to expect from her. When he got into the room, he was surprised at how fierce she looked. Lance knew that the average Jotun was a lethally capricious hexapod creature, and was always glad that they both served the same masters, the White Knights. Like all Jotuns, Captain Grigonna had six limbs and was covered in shaggy fur, but her huge head was covered in scars and places where the fur couldn’t grow because of the copious amounts of scar tissue. The prominent ridge running from the front to the back of her head had chunks missing out of it, reminders of battles she would obviously never forget. Luckily her fangs didn’t scare him, though many of his peers couldn’t claim the same.

  As Lance scanned the office, he could see that Grigonna loved the pageantry of military life, as her walls were covered in war trophies and Digipics of her career. What further surprised Lance was her very presence underground. Many believed that the only way to move a Jotun underground required strong narcotics or even stronger grok. Clearly this wasn’t a problem for the captain.

  Lance instantly stopped his musing as Captain Grigonna began to speak, using the voice boxes that were ubiquitous with life in the White Knight Empire. As he stood at attention, he couldn’t help but smell something foul in the air and remembered his old sergeants telling him about how the Jotuns were notorious for having breath that could instantly kill a Muryani in full kit. Not a bad capability, if it was true, since many of the regiments based on Tranquility had sent battalions to fight in the frontier war against the Muryani.

  “So you are the great savior, the one the Hummers are so aflutter about? Frankly, little human, I don’t see it. I will tell you this, I don’t like it and I don’t like you, but if you can turn around 1st Squad, you can live. And if your training regime proves useful, I might use it during our next battle. But you live under the sword, until you prove your right to live, Sergeant. Now, as per the colonel’s orders, Auxiliary Technician Basil Terloar has transferred to your command. If you fail, however, he dies too. That will be all.”

  Before he departed, Lance decided to try his luck again, since it had worked with Colonel Marchewka. “Ma’am, with all due respect, how long do I have to turn this ship around to your satisfaction?” As he tensely waited for her reply, he couldn’t help but notice how she flexed two of her twelve rubbery suction-tipped tubes that passed for her default hand configuration. He’d seen that these were capable of becoming three-inch claws that were as serrated and as effective as any Marine combat knife. He contemplated the stories he had heard of decapitations used to kill disobedient Marines, of the times when he’d personally witnessed it, and concluded that upsetting the Captain wouldn’t be in his best interest. These claws released some sort of toxin or infection into the body of their prey, paralyzing them.

  He felt like he had been waiting for hours, though Lance knew it had only been three minutes. After taking that pregnant pause, she snarled: “You have until I decide there has been enough time, no more, no less. Dismissed.”

  Not wanting to overstay his welcome, Lance saluted before quickly and quietly leaving the office. I guess that I will just have to make friends with the other sergeants and pump the NCO channels for information.

  — Chapter 10 —

  City Phase Unit 1, Habdisk 612, Beta City

  1st Squad, Whiskey Co., 8th BN, 6907th TAC RGT

  Back at City Phase Unit (CPU) 1, Habdisk 612, in the 100 rooms where his 1st Squad berthed, Lance found Basil outside the habdisk pacing – looking as jumpy as ever. I really will have to teach that Aux some self-discipline. He jumps like a scared crècheling. Basil looked so shifty that Lance briefly wond
ered what he might’ve stolen, but Lance laughed it off and walked over to greet him. “Basil, welcome to my little slice of crazy town. Home of the Cull Candidates, that lovely little tradition of killing off the bottom quarter of every graduating Cadet class. You and I have a lot of work ahead of us, whipping these Cadets into shape.”

  Basil swallowed visibly, obviously preparing himself to do something he saw as unpleasant. “With all due respect, am I, an Aux, the best person for this? I failed out of my first week of Cadethood.”

  Lance, having reviewed the complete files of Basil Terloar, was prepared for this question. “Basil, the very thing that made you an unsuitable Marine will make you perfect for this job. If I am to revive fighting tactics that were abandoned with my generation, then I must have someone with your technical expertise. I saw that you are something of a technophile, preferring to tinker on war machines than fighting the war itself. That has a role as well, and if you had been born to sailors instead of Marines, you would be living the good life on some comfy war boat. We will need to shake the dust off the old equipment, probably make new gear and generally reinvent the wheel. In exchange, you get out from under that Hardit and probably a fuller belly. As our technical support you will, of course, face the same hellholes that we do. If we get Culled, you retire too. But if we win, Basil, if we win…”

  Lance looked at Basil, willing his words to sink into this broken Auxie, but Lance wasn’t sure the emaciated man had any fighting spirit left. Basil’s eyes peered at the ground, drifted to Lance’s boots, then shot up and locked with Lance’s. It was the first time Basil had ever made prolonged eye contact with him.

  “Yes, Sergeant Scipio,” Basil said firmly.

  Lance smiled at Basil and clapped him on the shoulder to show his appreciation. Basil only half-flinched at the contact. Lance knew getting this Aux on his side was the first hurdle to resurrecting his era in the modern Marines, and he began to feel pride rising in his chest.

  “Hurrah! That was a wise choice, Basil. Go secure your bunk in Room 102. That’s the section leader’s quarters for 1st Section, and the room off the back was originally the veteran sergeant’s room, before your lot turned it into the shag shack. We’ll get you kitted up soon, but until then, go ahead and secure your bunk and square it away. Dismissed.”

  As Basil turned towards Room 102, he was stopped by Lance’s parting shot. “Oh, and I want the sword that was in my cryopod in my room as well.”

  — Chapter 11 —

  City Phase Unit 1, Habdisk 612, Beta City

  1st Squad, Whiskey Co., 8th BN, 6907th TAC RGT

  Lance was waiting in his room off of the Command Section room when 1st Squad straggled back into their barracks from their latest training mission. He had rigged minor explosives to the wall lockers in each room, set to go off when the SA-18 Thermal Explosive Detonators established that a predetermined target group was present, thus maximizing the carnage he planned for his Cadets.

  The explosion would cause the rooms to fill with CW-1028 Gas, a non-lethal crowd control gas that temporarily caused severe eye and respiratory pain, and skin irritation. Further, it caused excessive vomiting and in some of the most severe reactions, it could cause temporary blindness. It was known to cause hardened Marines to tear up and have snot dripping from their noses. When the Cadets returned in their smartfabric uniforms, they wouldn’t have the equipment to protect them from the party Lance had planned for them.

  Lance had suited himself up in his combat armor, the battle-scarred suit he had worn on his last combat mission. He looked like every other battle-hardened veteran to have ever worn the Human Marine Corps mantel, deadly from head to toe. The more observant Cadets would see that Sergeant Scipio took great pride in his armor’s appearance, which shone from its most recent cleaning, though it had obviously seen field usage. In fact, the painted-on stripes were the only fresh and unblemished spots on his shining ACE Combat Suit, having been added just before he was cryogenically frozen. Unlike many other sergeants of his day, Lance’s preferred weapon was the heavy Mini gun, even though he knew that the standard best practices meant that he would have to revert to a boring ole SA-71.

  After tying into the Whiskey Company Local Battle Network, referred to as the LBNet, Lance waited. He had preloaded his ammunition carousel with rubberized non-lethal bullets, and electroshock darts. If 1st Squad knew what was about to happen, they might volunteer to join the Auxies, though they wouldn’t be allowed to quit so easily. When his sensors notified Xena that the Cadets had all returned to their barracks, she implemented the protocol Lance had authorized. This protocol included the detonation of the gas, and a preplanned order for the entire squad to assemble in the company ready room to be sent to every Cadet’s Aimee.

  Once the gas had begun its task of causing mayhem, Lance walked out of his state room like the harbinger of death, and began to spray the room with rubber rounds. Because his aim was assisted by Xena they all scored direct hits, and some even scored double and triple hits as they bounced off of Cadets, onto other hard surfaces and then hit other Cadets. When the Command Section looked like they had been raked over the coals, Lance shot each of them with electroshock darts and exited the room. He then began to systematically hit every room that housed 1st Squad, as none of the miscreants had thought to secure the situation, and none of the leadership had endeavored to take charge.

  I’m gonna have my work cut out for me, mused Lance as he walked towards the company ready room, preparing for an ambush by these miscreants as they reported in. As he waited, Lance realized that he hadn’t kitted Basil up. The poor Auxie would be choking on gas just like the rest of Alpha Team. By Horden’s Hairy Fanny, the poor bastard is gonna hate me for a few hours. I will have to make a point of getting him access to the showers.

  Once Lance was in position he waited, hoping that these Cadets would finally show some military discipline. As the time went on, he began to get angry that they hadn’t come down the passageway, and began to understand the cruelties of his own veteran sergeants. After waiting for what felt like an eternity, he checked in with Xena for a status update and was enraged to discover it had been an hour since he had given 1st Squad their orders. Before he could even ask, almost as if she had read his mind, Xena responded to his unspoken question.

  I can verify that all but two of your squad have read the digital orders you sent them. I checked with the in-room sensors and found that they went to the showers and now are waiting for you in the Command Section habdisk. The cameras, the ones we can’t officially monitor, show they are waiting for you to come to them. All of them are armed with live rounds, but none of them bothered to get into their combat suits, and they are packed in tight enough that I estimate with 95% accuracy that I can immobilize all 37 of them with just 19 rounds. There is a chance that one of them might kill you, as they are using fully functional SA-71s. Also, be advised that it appears that these rifles have been hacked – someone has unlocked features not intended for Cadets. We also run the risk of killing or maiming one of them, though this is less of a concern. How shall we proceed?

  After pondering the tactical situation, and consulting the schematics, Lance knew what he had to do. Briefly, but only briefly, he considered seeking out a different plan since the current one risked the physical health of his Cadets. But they’d made their bed when they didn’t follow his orders to the letter. Having made his decision, Lance backtracked to the barracks where his Cadets were holed up waiting for him. After taking great care with his aiming, he fired a single rubber dart at the fire suppression system, spraying the room in an instant deluge of freezing cold water. Before he could ask, Xena quickly switched to an electroshock dart and fired several rounds at the large puddle the Cadets were all standing in. Their little standoff was over before the first Cadet had even hit the ground.

  With a speed and diligence that Beta City had never seen from them, 1st Squad swarmed out of their barracks and straight into the hastily modified ambush Lance had set
up when the situation changed. None of them got away unscathed, and rather than fight back or attempt to disengage and continue the mission with a flanking maneuver, they simply gave up. In an instant he knew that this failing wasn’t theirs, their instructors had failed them. After 17 years training, for the Human Marine Corps began training straight out of the womb, they should’ve reacted instantly and without even having to think about it.

  In a brief moment of pity, Lance decided to give them some reprieve. “Alright, 1st Squad, you have an hour to meet me in the company ready room. Anyone who disobeys and is not there will be immediately executed. Anyone who isn’t fifteen minutes early will report to Auxie Central and end their quest to become Marines. That will be all, dismissed.”

  — Chapter 12 —

  Whiskey Company Ready Room, Beta City

  While he waited for the hour to pass, Lance took off his helmet and clipped it to his belt. He took a moment to signal Xena to add Basil to the authorized user list in his quarters, then sent the command to authorize the Aux to use the shower. He had Xena page Basil with orders to grab a shower, put on his uniform, and meet Lance in the company ready room. As he stood there he wasn’t quite sure what to say, but he knew that they were woefully undisciplined and should never have made it through their testing.

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d think someone cheated the system, but that isn’t possible? I wish Braden was still alive. Even as a Cadet, Braden was such a digital whizz that he would be able to explain to me how this band of ne’er-do-wells made it out of Novice School, and how they had unlocked SA-71s during their little mutiny.

  Deciding that he first had to look the part, to scare his rabble into shape, Lance placed himself at a rigid At Ease position and waited, knowing Xena would notate the exact time each Cadet marched into the room.