Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) (23 page)

“But how can we negotiate with it?” hissed Springer, the scream setting her teeth on edge. “That
is
why we’re here, isn’t it?”

Before Arun could reply, a change came over Tawfiq like a fever breaking. Her eyeballs snapped back into focus – glaring at Arun.

“Frakkk-kk-kkk. Frakkk-kkk-kk. Frakkkkk. Frakk. You. Human. Filth!”

“It speaks,” said Arun.

Tawfiq raised her lips, revealing the full length of her fangs. She snarled.

“Do we have your attention, darling?” asked Madge. “We have plenty more bombs…”

Arun glanced across at his cadet corporal. She was giving the pitiful creature a sultry smile. This was more like the girl who had been his friend.

“Human scum. You will learn your place. Veck. Veck.”

Madge admonished with a wagging finger. “Naughty girl. And such rude words too. Don’t we think that’s the kind of bad attitude that got you into trouble in the first place? Hmm?”

“Give it another bomb, corporal,” Arun suggested.

“Not so hasty,” she said. “I’ve read up on animal training techniques. I reckon I can tame it.” She threw a patronizing smile at the Hardit. “You are bad furry thing. If furry thing do bad things to humans, we make furry thing scream with these.”

She brought out another two bombs from her pouch.

Tawfiq ceased her snarling and licked her lips nervously, her gaze never leaving the bombs.

“Not so brave when humans bite back, are you?” sneered Arun. He brought out a pair of bombs himself.

“Easy!” Springer put a hand over his arm. “Let’s get our demands met. Don’t push it.”

Arun took a calming breath, but the heat of his anger would not cool. This skangat of an alien was reducing Hortez to a sniveling wreck, and murdering the Aux in her charge.

No, he would not take it easy.

He flourished both bombs in front of the alien’s face. “I wonder what would happen if I set these off right in front of your eyes?”

“Shall we find out?” added Madge.

Arun leered at the alien, loving this. It was more than just sweet revenge. Since making cadet, he’d felt pushed ever further to the edge of the squad. Now he was in the thick of things, and Madge was backing him up for once.

He squeezed the bombs against the alien’s eyes.

“No. No. Please,” begged Tawfiq. She curled her tail into a circle. Was that a submission gesture? “Please let me speak first.”

Arun withdrew the bombs a short distance. The alien touched a stud on her collar and then stared into space for a few moments before explaining: “I have summoned an Aux worker so that I may demonstrate the new way of things.”

“I don’t like this,” said Springer.

“You worry too much,” said Madge.

“Really? I don’t think you worry
enough
, corporal. Look at her,” Springer gestured at Tawfiq. “She’s not cowed. She’s just buying time.”

“Is this one of your
visions
, cadet?” Madge sneered.

Springer seethed, but said nothing.

“You could be right, Springer.” Arun tried to speak soothingly. “No matter. If the Hardit tries anything, we’ll blast her with four bombs and see whether that encourages her to cooperate.”

The tension between the humans was nearly as great as that between the cadets and the Hardit. Before either standoff could break into violence, an Aux worker approached, jogging along the passageway.

He was a sorry sight. Head bowed under a grease-stained cap, and face half-covered by a shapeless bush of a beard. His blue overalls were so filthy that they could probably get up and walk on their own without the human inside.

The Aux looked suspiciously at the cadets before reporting in. “I am here, mistress.”

“Stay there,” Tawfiq ordered the Aux. “You!” She used her tail to point at Madge. “Kiss my boots.”

A chill traveled Arun’s spine as he watched the youthful playfulness in Madge’s face replaced by the chiseled steel of a Marine.

“I’d rather die,” snarled the cadet corporal. “And if I did, I’d make sure to take you with me.”

“The greater your insolence, the more severe the punishment I shall deliver.”

“You can’t threaten me,” said Madge.

Arun readied to release his bombs.

“I think she’s threatening to punish the Aux,” said Springer. “Not us. Not yet.”

“Correct,” said Tawfiq.

“Don’t you dare,” shouted Arun.

The alien moved – lightning fast. Arun threw his bombs but he knew he’d hesitated too long. Tawfiq dove for the floor, her back to the bombs. As she fell, she drew a grubby black box from her overalls and seemed to activate a control, but Arun couldn’t be sure because his world filled with pain and confusion as the flash-bombs drove away every other thought.

When his senses returned, the passageway was filled by the sound of screaming as before. But this time the screams were agonizingly human, coming from the Aux who was thrashing around on the floor in some kind of fit.

Springer and Madge went to aid the Aux, but Arun threw himself at Tawfiq who had risen to a crouch.

He wrestled the alien to the floor. Tawfiq was strong and managed a kick to his gut. Arun bit back the pain and landed two good punches on the alien’s face.

Frakk, that hurt his fist! This creature had bones as strong as poly-ceramalloy, but the fight had gone out of Tawfiq enough for Arun to wrench away her black box.

Desperate to shut off the agonized screams from the Aux, Arun thought he’d simply thumb a control and that would be the end of it. What he saw on the box, though, was scrolling alien script that meant nothing to him. There was no icon, no red button… nothing to say
press me
. He jabbed at the face of the control box anyway.

No effect.

“You will never find it, human.” Tawfiq was sitting up now, wiping blood from her snout.

“Then you turn it off, or I’ll kill you,” shouted Majanita.

“No.”

The cadets looked at each other. The instructors had often rammed home the maxim that to win battles, you had to seize the initiative and keep it against all odds.

They’d just surrendered initiative to the alien and they all knew it.

“The pain device is still operating,” said Tawfiq as if the cadets couldn’t hear the Aux’s screams. “It is intended to give a sharp shock. Prolonged use leads to neural pathways frying. Your fellow human will soon go from being a lowly cog in a Hardit machine to being a worn out old part that will need grinding down into components and recycled.”

“What do you mean by recycled?” asked Majanita.

Tawfiq was in no hurry to reply. They listened as the Aux breached a threshold of endurance. His screams dulled and his writhing slowed.

“Tell me, humans, have you ever seen an auxiliary who was old, or injured, or otherwise functioning poorly?” Tawfiq looked at all three in turn as that Aux’s screams turned to low groans. “You can’t tell one Aux from another, can you? See how little you value your own kind. Well, let me inform you that you will never see an auxiliary who is unfit because such an individual has no net worth. You humans breed like vermin, which is why you need regular culling. Your human lives are cheap to spend and expensive to maintain.”

Madge pointed an accusing finger at the alien. “You evil vecks. You cull the Aux?”

“Give Tawfiq the box, Arun,” screamed Springer

“And Marines too,” Tawfiq told Majanita. “We cull you too, of course.”

What
? For a moment Arun forgot the Aux.

“No,” said Springer. “You’re wrong. Marines in the reserve are stored in ice.”

“Stupid human. We build the ice boxes. That was my job once, in better days. We know how fast you breed and we know how many ice boxes we make. You breed faster than we can make boxes and the insect filth can build their tunnels. The older humans were even more pathetic than you slightly modified versions. Why use a valuable icebox to store an inferior model when you upgraded humans are so plentiful?”

“Wait till we tell our superiors about this,” said Arun.

“No, Arun, we can’t wait,” shouted Springer. “Give her the box. And, corporal, you need to do as she asks.”

By now the Aux worker’s struggles had died away to an occasional twitch.

Tawfiq spoke to Madge as if oblivious to the life or death drama unfolding. “Do you really think your superiors don’t already know?”

Arun couldn’t take it anymore. He gave a last ineffectual jab at the control box before handing it over to the Hardit.

“Turn it off,” he begged.

“I have machine lubricant on my footwear,” she responded. “Clean it off with your tongue. Then I will consider your request.”

Throbbing with humiliation, and fighting off his combat-tuned instincts that urged him to punch this veck, Arun sank to his knees, head bowed.

Tawfiq kicked him in the teeth. Not hard but enough to leave a copper tang in Arun’s mouth.

He glanced across at the Aux. Froth was coming from his mouth. He was choking.

“First,” said Tawfiq, “you must ask permission in the correct manner.”

“Please mistress. May I lick your boots clean?”

“Good enough,” said the Hardit. She tapped away at the control box, and the Aux went limp. “The Aux is free from pain.”

Arun took a threatening step forward

“Wait!” shouted the Hardit. “I have set the device to inflict a lethal dose of pain in eight minutes. If I am satisfied with your efforts then I shall postpone this worker’s death sentence by another eight minutes while the next one of you learns your place. If you kill me, you’ll kill your precious Aux. Now get licking.”

Arun knelt down, stuck out his tongue, and set to work.

Arun stood at attention, flanked by Madge and Springer. In front of them, sitting at a polished desk of real wood, was Staff Sergeant Bryant, the senior NCO for the battalion. Sergeant Gupta stood behind his superior.

Also there, to Arun’s mounting horror, was Instructor Rekka. Arun had hardly seen her since that day in the colonel’s office when her superior, Nhlappo, had been demoted. Rekka would be loving this chance to plant evil thoughts in the heads of the NCOs.

At least Bryant had the decency to let Arun explain what they had discovered about Hortez, about the despicable way the Hardits treated their human workers.

There was no mulling over Arun’s words. No heavy sighs through steepled fingers. Bryant’s reply was instant and unadorned.

“The stories of individual Aux are news to me but of no interest. The wider fact of Aux mistreatment by the Hardits is known by Detroit NCOs. I fantasize about throttling those wretched monkey-vecks with my bare hands, but the weak cannot openly threaten the strong. And the hand we humans have to play here is even weaker than you can imagine. Therefore there will be no more talk of using even non-lethal force against the Hardits.”

“But, staff sergeant–” pleaded Springer. She meant to go on, but Gupta silenced her with a curt shake of his head. Bryant chose to ignore her.

“Your actions today have brought a formal complaint from the local Hardit leader,” said Bryant. “Instructor Rekka has known you for years. Sergeant Gupta has known you for only a few weeks. Even though the handover from your instructors has formally completed, I requested Instructor Rekka to advise me on suitable punishments.”

I bet she did
, thought Arun.

“You three are to work as auxiliaries for a week. God help you.”

“This cadet begs permission to speak, staff sergeant,” asked Springer.

“Granted.”

“Hortez is one of our own. What about:
No Marine left behind
?”

“He is an auxiliary. A reject. He is not a Marine.”

Bryant sighed and slumped a little. He wasn’t enjoying this. “It’s a hard galaxy,” he said, “and if you survive your punishment I hope it teaches you this lesson. Do not expect justice in this life. Fight for it. Build for it over centuries. But never assume justice as your right, because if you do, you will be sorely disappointed. You, McEwan, should know that more than any here after Chief Instructor Nhlappo tried to teach you that only a few weeks ago.”

Rekka started chewing them out for forgetting they were all slaves. Arun wasn’t really listening. His mind was on Tawfiq and her brutal monkey friends, who would be waiting for Arun to come into their clutches. He might not survive their welcome. Since Pedro had put the idea into his head that someone was drugging the cadets, if he died, he would take that secret with him. He had to speak out about the drugs now.

“Staff sergeant?”

“Speak.”

Arun looked into his superior’s eyes. Could he trust the NCO? What about Gupta and Rekka?

“Well?” snapped Bryant.

He daren’t trust Bryant. If the staff sergeant were a traitor, Arun would be condemning Springer and Madge to death too. No, it was too risky. “I’m meant to be playing in a Scendence match this week.”

Gupta’s fists clenched. Bryant’s lips clenched into a tight, white line, and he glared with such intensity that Arun felt he was being sliced by a laser cutter. The senior NCO seemed to come to a decision. “You know, I must be crazy, but even though you’ve not listened to a word I just said, I’m going to cut you slack this one time, and pretend I didn’t hear you. Despite demonstrating stupidity at every level, you did show good fighting spirit in confronting that Hardit. One day, you might make an adequate Marine. You’re all to report to Auxiliary Camp Delta at 07:00 hours tomorrow for a 7-day reassignment. Short of murder, suicide, or insurrection, your orders are to obey every Hardit instruction to the letter.”

“Yes, staff sergeant,” they chorused.

“This cadet begs permission to speak, staff sergeant,” said Arun.

Bryant frowned. He looked about to rip Arun to shreds but then stopped himself. “Granted, because I’m incredulous. What the hell could you possibly think I need to hear?”

“Thank you, staff sergeant. I am also ordered to attend a Trog liaison meeting next week. Colonel Little Scar ordered me to–”

“Yes, I know what the colonel wants of you. Very well. I shall inform the Hardits. Attend your liaison meeting but do not dally.”

“Thank you, staff sergeant.”