Renegade Legion (The Human Legion Book 3) Read online

  Damned Hardits.

  With half his visor display reduced to white snow, Arun suddenly felt vulnerable. He switched back to normal sight and looked around for threats, taking another slap of disorientation as he snapped his focus from Detroit’s underground passageways back to the walkway in Jotunville.

  Arun glanced over at Corporal Puja Narciso, who was studying Gate 3 and the rest of Detroit’s surrounding area. She was using an advanced scouting sensor tool they had discovered in the battalion’s worth of war materiel they’d searched through on Beowulf.

  Arun cursed himself for checking on Puja. He needed to trust his NCOs. If the Hardits made a move topside, she would tell him.

  “Nearing rear hatch,” said Hecht over BattleNet.

  Arun hurriedly snapped his visor back to the feed from Hecht’s drone. He could make no sense of the blur.

  “Hatch is open,” reported Hecht.

  The feed showed color outlines of defenders.

  “Five hostiles,” said Hecht. “Drone on kill mode. Drone… drone retreating.”

  Hecht’s drone feed whited out.

  “Drone destroyed.”

  “I can see that, Hecht,” said Arun. “Why?”

  “My battlesuit AI overrode my kill instruction to the drone,” Hecht reported. “It reclassified hostiles as unknowns, sir. Targets were human.”

  Who would be skulking around Detroit’s corpse? Arun wondered. Survivors or traitors? Or even the mysterious Amilx they’d discovered in deep space?

  “Were they armored?” asked Arun.

  “Negative.”

  Nhlappo pinged him on the FTL comm. “Request update, sir. We detected weapons fire.”

  “We’ve encountered human resistance,” said Arun.

  “Can we negotiate with them?” she asked.

  “Unlikely,” said Arun. “They aren’t in the mood for talking.”

  “There must be a way to communicate.”

  “Maybe there is,” said Arun. “Until I know better, I’m classifying them as potential allies. I don’t want to shout at them. The Hardits will hear.”

  Arun considered the Legion’s move. Ordering a withdrawal felt much harder than committing to an attack. But he had to exploit his advantage: knowing the area above and below ground better than anyone else, thanks to detailed maps once provided by an alien ally called Pedro. A Trog who had compiled every detail of the nest and handed them over to Arun.

  “All units move out to Rendezvous Point Gamma,” he ordered. “We’re going to sneak in via the back door.”

  — Chapter 03 —

  When he was a cadet, none of Arun’s peers knew of the nest entrances to the south east, and fewer that the Troggie nest connected to the lowest human levels of Detroit. The Jotuns must have known, but did the humans they’d encountered defending the embrasure near Gate 3?

  He set Brandt’s Force Mexico to defend the entrance and united Nhlappo’s Force Kenya with his Force Patagonia into a single force that would push through the nest and into Detroit via the connecting passage at Level 9.

  The alien nest was an even more confusing maze than the upper levels of Detroit. The tunnels twisted back, crossing underneath and over themselves. The Marines pushed on, relying on the FTL link to keep contact with Brandt, and using Local Battle Net to keep flank guards in touch with the main body at all times.

  Spinning out flank and rear guards and reeling them back in again wasn’t simple in this maze, but Arun trusted his NCOs to handle the details, and they earned his trust by making it almost look easy.

  LBNet was secure from being overheard, but the Legion pressed on in grim silence anyway. Rotting carcasses of the Troggie inhabitants filled the tunnels. Some were still locked in combat after death, their halo of horns snagged on their rivals. Stubby energy weapons and the searing blast wounds they caused were further evidence that the insect-like aliens had suffered their own civil war. Mostly there was just death, as if the denizens of the colony had simply given up and laid down to die.

  Trogs had several different stages in their lifecycle, metamorphosing from one to another, the destination life stage depending on how well they had performed in the previous one. All stages took the form of six-legged creatures between five and nine feet long, with a head, thorax, and abdomen that looked deceptively like Earthly insects. The hardened abdominal carapaces of the dead Trogs still gleamed like the polished armor it was. Some of the other hard parts, such as mouth pincers and skull armor were well preserved too. The softer flesh inside, though, was in an advanced state of decomposition. Arun was grateful for his suit’s filters. The stench of death outside of his helmet must be overpowering.

  The first sign of life was reported by stealthed Marine scouts from 3rd Section who had pushed ahead. It seemed the secret link from the nest through to the human underground city was no longer so secret.

  “There’s three of them,” reported Sergeant Majanita. “All human. Two with SA-71 carbines, one with a flenser cannon. They’re behind a dirt rampart.”

  “Doesn’t sound like rebel Marines,” said Nhlappo.

  “Perhaps not,” said Arun. “But they could be collaborating with the Hardits.”

  Arun hesitated, and then immediately felt disgusted with himself because he felt compelled to run through his options once more, even though he’d already made his decision.

  Even if they had stripped Beowulf of every Marine, the Human Legion could only field 64 effectives in a gravity well. That wasn’t enough. Arun’s course here was risky, but there were no risk-free options, and what they needed more than anything were allies.

  Acting like a hero was comparatively easy. Arun found it far harder to ask his Marine brothers and sisters to be heroes while he waited behind in relative safety.

  No one had said this would be a breeze.

  “Hecht, here’s what I want 1st Section to do. Capture that position and all three unidentified humans without firing a shot.”

  “What if they fire back?”

  “I want all of them back here unharmed, Lance Sergeant. Can you accomplish that?”

  “Yes, sir.” There had been just a hint of hesitation before Hecht’s reply.

  After a brief consultation with Senior Sergeant Gupta, Hecht issued his orders to 1st Section, and a few moments later he set off, taking seven Marines with him out of sight around the tunnel bend.

  Arun counted them all out.

  He couldn’t help wondering how many he would count back in.

  — Chapter 04 —

  Arun was gambling that Hecht’s team would display cool courage and discipline under the enemy’s guns, two qualities conspicuously absent from Arun. He wanted to be in front, taking the position with Hecht, not stuck back in safety hundreds of meters away. His nerves were so shredded that if he’d taken off his helmet, he would have chewed off the tips of his gauntlets, their poly-ceramalloy armor no proof against his nerves.

  He needn’t have worried.

  After the action, Hecht reported how he’d led 1st Section’s Alpha Fire Team – Caccamo, Ballantyne, and Monroe – off toward the enemy’s crude earthen rampart. They left their carbines and equipment packs behind, and crawled inch by silent inch on their hands and knees. Their suits were in stealth mode, but against alert sentries that wasn’t a reliable cover for boots scraping, knees scuffing furrows through the dirt, vibrations felt through the tunnel walls, and countless other subtle telltales.

  When Alpha were in position, Hecht signaled Beta Fire Team – Naron, Bojin, Halici, and Lewark – to make some noise around the last turn in the corridor.

  It was enough for the defenders to train their weapons and their full attention on this unseen threat in the distance.

  Alpha seized their chance, leaping up to grab the enemy’s gun barrels before slamming their bodies into the dirt. The opposition never saw it coming. Only two got off shots, and they both flew harmlessly into the ceiling.

  It occurred to Arun that this was the Human Legion’s fir
st combat action. 1st Section had done them proud.

  And now it was his turn to be tested. In this campaign, taking prisoners could only ever be a temporary arrangement. Arun knew he would soon have to either recruit these unidentified perimeter guards as allies, or execute them as traitors.

  He wasn’t sure he could do either. But this was war. He had no choice.

  — Chapter 05 —

  “What is your name?” barked Sergeant Gupta. “Time is short. This is your final chance.”

  In the sharp illumination thrown by Gupta’s helmet lamps, Arun could clearly see the captive’s face.

  If that was Arun kneeling there in a dark Troggie cave, blinded by the lamps, he would be flinching under the assault of the sergeant’s snarling.

  The prisoner’s arms were pinned behind her by Madge, who gave a vicious twist and shake that must have wrenched at her shoulder sockets. But still… she said nothing.

  “We need to move things along, sir,” said Lieutenant Nhlappo over LBNet “if they won’t talk, all you’re doing is surrendering initiative to whomever we are facing. I can’t get anything out of my prisoner either.”

  The lieutenant entered the cave, a blue ghost in Arun’s low-light vision.

  Arun hated it when Nhlappo was right. He wasn’t ready to kill the captives, though. They could be potential allies… Even recruits. Or they could be fighting for the Hardits. What he needed was a way to force them to talk without torturing them so vilely that he made them his implacable foe.

  Suddenly Nhlappo’s helmet flared. Arun blinked, and then saw that she’d made her helmet visor transparent and activated the light inside.

  Arun flicked his attention back to the captive.

  Yes… The sight of Nhlappo’s face had dented the woman’s resolve.

  “You won’t force anything out of this one,” said Nhlappo. “Her name is Annalee Vanderman. Age…? She’ll be 18 now, thereabouts. Very intelligent, loyal, and utterly fearless. Just one problem. Lacks the killer instinct. When it came to battle, I never trusted her to pull the trigger. And that made Vanderman a liability.”

  “So you kicked me out of novice school,” sneered Vanderman.

  “I had no choice.”

  “You were wrong.”

  Vanderman’s words hung heavily over the dark cave. War had visited Detroit, leaving it a twisted wreck where the living were far outnumbered by ghosts. Vanderman sounded as if she belonged more to the dead than the living.

  What had transpired here? What horrors had those resentful eyes witnessed?

  “Let her go, Sergeant,” said Arun.

  When Madge obeyed, Vanderman eased her arms round to a more comfortable position in front of her.

  Frakk! Her hand… In the rush to bundle the prisoners into separate chambers for interrogation, Arun hadn’t taken a good look at any of them.

  “What happened to you, Vanderman?” asked Nhlappo.

  Vanderman raised her left arm. It terminated just behind the wrist, capped by a crude prosthetic that wasn’t shaped like a hand. It was an angled claw, a rest designed for gripping the barrel of an SA–71 carbine.

  Vanderman shrugged. “A traitor Marine shot it off. It was a fair exchange. I shot him dead. So you see, Chief Instructor Nhlappo, you were wrong about me. Do I get an apology?”

  “No. I stand by my decision. It was right given the facts as I knew them. But I am glad to be wrong. It means you will make a more useful recruit.”

  “Recruit? Recruit for what?”

  “Who are we?” mused Nhlappo out loud. “I’ll leave explanations to the major. Sir?”

  Arun bristled. Was that a hint of contempt poisoning Nhlappo’s voice, or was that Arun’s imagination?

  “We are the Human Legion,” Arun explained.

  Vanderman didn’t even bother to look his way.

  Arun tried again. “The White Knight Empire is split by civil war. Legal authority is unclear. That doesn’t make us legally free people, but we do reject the authority of any White Knight faction currently claiming to own us. Not until the civil war is over, and there is a clear legal authority with undisputed claim to all assets and responsibilities of the White Knight Empire. Not until then will we accept authority over us. And that’s vital. So long as we don’t claim to be free, we aren’t breaking Earth’s Accession Treaty to the Trans-Species Union. If we’re ever to do that, we need to have established our own empire first.”

  Arun paused waiting for a reaction from anyone present in the room. He didn’t get one.

  Ever since that heady day when he’d declared the creation of the Human Legion, they had been short on details of what to do after recapturing Tranquility. Most of the men and women of the Legion didn’t expect there to be an after, but Arun did. He’d tried out this speech, but only in private with Springer, Indiya, and Gupta.

  Arun continued. “The civil war could last for centuries. Join with us. Help us carve out a better future for our people and our descendants.”

  Vanderman looked at him with indifference.

  “The traitors called themselves the Free Corps,” she said. “They promised the Marines a better future too. Not for me, of course, thanks to your officer Nhlappo, I was a mere servant in a hab-disk. The Free Corps’ promises were plausible – enough to convince Marines to become traitors. But you’re different. There is nothing plausible about your promises. Seems to me like you’re offering only hardship and death. And hope. Maybe you offer hope for those who seek it?”

  She rose to her feet and turned to Lieutenant Nhlappo. “I want to hear the words from you, Chief Instructor. The Human Legion… Is it real?”

  “It’s real, Vanderman.”

  “And should I pledge my allegiance to this Legion? Put my hope into this man’s vision?”

  “I can’t answer for you, Annalee. You must decide for yourself.”

  Vanderman laughed. “You haven’t decided yourself, yet, have you? Still, I don’t believe you are Free Corps spies. Let me speak with the other two you captured with me.”

  — Chapter 06 —

  As he waited in the Troggie tunnel outside while the captives talked amongst themselves, Arun checked the status of his subordinates. Sergeant Gupta had organized the defense of the tunnels, setting up monitoring posts to warn against attack from Detroit’s lower levels. Lieutenant Brandt and Sergeant Exelmans had established a rearguard near the hidden woodland entrance to the tunnels and reported no activity from the enemy.

  Arun felt itchy. Nervy. He wanted to be doing something more active, but winning the trust of the survivors of the attack on Detroit was vital to boost the tiny numbers of his force, which was why he had ordered everyone out of the cave where the three prisoners discussed what they should do.

  Of course, the prisoners’ privacy was an illusion. Gupta and Nhlappo were using their suit AIs to listen in on every word they said. The pretense of privacy was a courtesy, no more, but important for all that.

  Arun distracted himself by using the FTL link to update Indiya who was keeping Beowulf hidden in an ice-ball cluster in the outer system.

  Indiya gave a brief report in a voice curt with tightness.

  “What’s eating you?” Arun asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “You sounded belligerent.”

  Indiya hesitated before replying. “2nd Lieutenant Lee… She’s…”

  When Indiya’s words tailed off, Arun tried hurrying her along. “Let me guess. She’s acting like she’s in charge, badmouthing everyone who disagrees with her, and probably flirting with your best friends, which is the most annoying crime of all because the spineless vecks are powerless to resist her.”

  “I guess you know Xin Lee.”

  A smile flicked across Arun’s face. Indiya had been cold and withdrawn since she’d killed hundreds at the press of a button during the mutiny. This was the loosest, most human, he’d heard her since that day. “Do I know Lieutenant Lee? Yes, ma’am, I do. And that’s why I put her in command of the remaini
ng Marines on Beowulf. If our force on the planet is captured or killed, Xin’s the best bet you have for keeping your ship safe from anyone trying to board. And to show a little muscle if you ever dock at far-off platforms.”

  “She’s got eleven Marines, two are seriously wounded and another two sided with the rebels. Her influence is growing every day. I don’t trust her.”

  “But I do. We’ve been over this. She won’t go against my wishes, nor will she take Beowulf and leave without me, because she knows her fate is entwined with mine.”

  There was silence from the ship for several seconds before Indiya stated: “You’re not my commander, Major McEwan.”

  Yes, he was… but he decided now was not the time to press that point. “I am your ally and your friend,” he said. “You need to trust me on this.”

  “Forcing Xin on me over my protests. That isn’t a great way to win my trust, Arun.”

  Barney indicated that Nhlappo was trying to open a private comm channel.

  “We’ll have to discuss this later, Indiya. Nhlappo is trying to tell me something.”

  He told Barney to switch channels. “They’ve agreed to side with us,” said Nhlappo. “Now they’re discussing how to make use of our firepower while keeping operational control for themselves.”

  “I’m in control here,” snapped Arun.

  He stormed into the prisoners’ cavern.

  “The limits of my courtesy have expired,” Arun said. “Let me remind you that we are at war, and on this planet we face a numerically superior enemy. I need to speak with your commander immediately.”

  The two female prisoners looked at each other: Vanderman and a petite Marine of pale skin, and curiously rust-colored hair, that Arun suspected was a marine of Umarov’s vintage – a marine stored cryogenically for the best part of a century before thawing.

  There was a male too. A little older. A quizzical look came on this man’s face as he peered at Arun.

  “One thing first,” this man said. “What’s your first name?”

  “Arun. I’m Arun McEwan.”