Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) (58 page)

Arun walked naked through the slime-coated floor and out into the passageway followed by Umarov. Clean fatigues were waiting in the dorm chamber. Back in Detroit he would’ve picked fresh fatigues from the bins in the shower block. Laundry was one of life’s practical details they hadn’t yet perfected.

“Now you’ve settled in, do you ever feel like taking Madge’s place?” Arun asked. “Or Brandt’s?
Lance sergeant Umarov
. How does that sound to you?”

“Worse than a death sentence,” growled Umarov. They entered the dorm warren, making for their section’s chamber. “The First Law of Soldiering still applies today.
Never volunteer for everything
. You’ll learn one day.”

“But Brandt, Del and Madge — none of them volunteered,” protested Arun. “They were picked as NCO tryouts.”

“Maybe,” Umarov admitted as they entered their chamber. They waved a greeting at Brandt, Del-Marie and Sadri, who was one of the new members of the section. “But you’re forgetting the Second Law of Soldiering — never stand out. Your cadet NCOs broke the Second Law and paid the price. No offense, Lancer Del.”

Del-Marie looked up from the softscreen he was studying with Brandt. “None take, Grognard.”

Arun laughed. Del and Umarov had understood each other from the start. The one time Arun had tried calling Umarov
Grognard
, the carabinier had given him an icy stare of warning.

Simultaneously they all fell silent when they sensed a disturbance following Arun and Umarov through the dorm chambers.

It might be Bolt Squad.

Arun climbed into his pants and hunted for his shirt. Then he caught sight of Del and Brandt getting to their feet and face the entrance. They looked seriously pissed.

Abandoning the search for his clothes, Arun turned around, just in time to duck under a flying fist. The shoulder barge that followed knocked him to the ground.

“This is your fault, McEwan.”

He looked up at Xin Lee’s face.

What the hell was she doing here?

“No,” he said. “No, it’s nothing to do with me.”

“Get to your feet,” she hissed, “so I can knock you down again.”

Two more cadets burst in, both female.

“You kids listen up,” shouted one of the invaders. “We don’t want to be here.” She pointed at Arun. “He is the worst of you, but I blame you all. If you know what’s best for you, keep out of our way. We run this moon now. When you’re off duty, you stay in your dorm. The rest of Antilles is off limits. Understand?”

Arun and the other members of the team all looked to Brandt for leadership.

“Save your threats for someone who will listen to them,” said Brandt, sounding even more pissed than Xin. “You’ve no right to order us around. Besides, when Cadet McEwan was ordered to select a squad to join us, he didn’t pick you. He picked Bolt Squad.”

“But we
are
Bolt Squad.” The speaker emerged from the adjoining chamber and pushed in front of the newcomers. “Cadet Lance Corporal Lee was transferred to our squad two days ago. So was I. Care to explain why?”

Xin’s arrival had been a shock, but the identity of the newcomer made Arun’s eyes pop so wide they threatened to explode. Standing in front of him was Chief Instructor Nhlappo. Except she was clearly in charge of the Bolt Squad expedition. Given the stripe on her shoulder, she was now Lance Corporal Nhlappo. Here, no doubt, to give him hell.

“Answer me!” she bellowed.

“Ma’am, sorry ma’am.”

“Don’t give me
ma’am
, McEwan!”

“Sorry, Lance Corporal.”

“So now even you understand, McEwan. You
are
to blame because you are an alien-faggot. If the colonel had punished you rather than myself, Hortez and LaSalle, then you would never have been able to stick your tongue up whatever passes for Troggie butt.” She frowned at Umarov, as if trying to figure out his role. Then she shrugged. “Carry on, Bolt Squad.”

“Yes, Lance Corporal,” answered Xin and the two other Bolt Squad cadets. They were panting, eyes wild and teeth bared. Eager for a fight.

“Oh, frakk!” said Del-Marie. “They’re on combat stims.”

Nhlappo withdrew out of sight behind a phalanx of more Bolt Squad cadets who advanced into the chamber and spread out, hugging the edge of the chamber.

Xin nodded. It was a signal to attack. All three of the cadets who’d first arrived leaped on Brandt, pummeling him on the ground. The others in Bolt Squad — another dozen cadets — stood at the ready, daring anyone on Indigo Squad to intervene.

Arun dared. He dodged out of the clutches of a lunging Bolt Squad sentinel, and jumped onto the bundle of bodies that had formed over Brandt. He grappled, trying to reach into the writhing mass and pull attackers off his lance sergeant. Umarov was running interference behind him.

A kick to his nose threw Arun off the writhing bodies but only for a moment. He dove back in, riding the punches and kicks to get purchase. Del-Marie and Sadri were somewhere in this confusing melee too but the mass of limbs was too confusing to make out. Finally, Arun got a good hold of a leg and levered himself backward. The legs kicked and thrashed but he pulled the attacker off Brandt.

The attacker rolled to one side before springing to her feet. She glared at Arun. It was Xin.
Figures.

Her beautiful dark eyes flashed danger, immobilizing Arun with horror even when those eyes were coming straight at him. He snapped out of his stupor just in time, slipping under her headbutt and throwing her over his shoulder.

She grunted when her head sent a chair spinning and she landed with a thud onto her back.

Arun took in a rapid glance of the combat. Umarov and Del-Marie were on the deck, held down under a crush of attackers. It was Brandt, Arun and Sadri against Xin and the other two. Three on three. And if combat stims really were in play, this was a fight to the death!

Xin was scrambling to get up, but Arun was already over her, pinning her down with his weight through his knees. He lifted his weight momentarily, but only to get a twisting action from his hips to maximize the power behind his fist that he launched at her pretty button nose, aiming to shatter it and drive the bone fragments into her brain.

With his fist just two inches from her nose, Arun realized what he was doing and snapped out of his combat rage. He gasped, pulling his punch. It still struck home, but was a stinging slap rather than a lethal strike from a trained 17-year-old killer.

Xin seemed to snap out of her combat state too. Her eyes snapped open, staring wide-eyed at Arun. Was she shocked at her violence? Impressed with Arun?

No, neither! Xin shook spasmodically. Her stare tracked him as he twisted off her, leaving her to her fit. Something clattered to the floor beside him. It was an electro-stunner that had fallen out of Xin’s fingers. She’d been about to ram it into his gut when someone had sent a shock bolt into her. Horden’s frakking children! What now?

Arun got to his feet, assuming a cautious crouch as he checked for this new threat.

Trogs were swimming through the walls, bowling over the Bolt Squad perimeter from behind. Each Trog was holding two guns that looked like modified SA-71 carbines.

There were about a score of Trogs. The cadets of both squads were still or writhing on the ground, shocked by stun rounds.

Blowing up the enemy was simplicity itself. But to blow someone up
slightly
, without permanent damage, was anything but. Which meant these Trogs had been armed with specifically anti-human stun rounds.

Everyone in the chamber had been shot except Arun.

He put his finger to the faint bulge in his sternum. Had his pheromone implant saved him? The Trogs waved their guns at him but seemed uncertain whether to shoot him.

When the shocked humans began to recover enough to sit upright, one of the big insects brought out a voicebox and brandished the speaker about its abdomen like a trophy.

“Attention, human younglings. This is a message from your great captain commander, whom we call the great parent. Your presence here is to assist in the defense of a key imperial asset. Your selection as warriors is an honor. It is mandated that you do not render each other inoperable. The great parent’s authority over all sentients on this moon is paramount. Anyone guilty of…
acting naughty…
will be…
tropied
.”

Arun struggled to keep a straight face as the bewildered cadets rubbed at their heads, wondering whether they had really just heard those words. Of course, this was Pedro having fun again, inserting recordings of Arun’s voice toward the end of his speech. Arun’s smile vaporized. Pedro had played him for a fool, giving him the choice of reinforcements and then bringing Xin anyway. Nhlappo too. Was she in the plot with the good guys?

The artificial voice came louder now. “You will all now separate and return to your respective habitation chambers to await punishment from human commander-adults.”

The groggy Bolt Squad cadets picked themselves up and shuffled away, the fight shocked out of them.

As Xin passed through the door, she stopped and glanced back at Arun.

He grinned and blew her a kiss. With his chances with her well and truly blown, he might as well act as if it were all a joke

Arun expected her to respond with the twisting hand gesture that meant she wanted to rip his heart out and devour it.

She didn’t. Instead, she winked.

She
winked!

Del-Marie set his spoon down beside his bowl of chow-hall gruel and glared at Arun across the table. “If you don’t shut your mouth, McEwan, I’m going to rip out your hamstrings and use them to sew your lips shut. Permanently.”

“Just making conversation, lance corporal.”

“No, McEwan. You prattling on about your illusory love affair is not conversation. It’s a monologue and I’m sick of it.”

But she winked!
Arun kept that memory to himself as he began to puff with indignation. An age ago, when Delta Section, Blue Squad were freshly minted cadets, Springer and Arun’s prattling had lightened the section’s mood. Osman’s antics had also helped to entertain the unit as they made their first step along the journey toward being Marines. Osman was dead and Springer still absent. Arun was trying to keep up the morale of his exhausted comrades. Trying to turn back the clock…

A red mist enveloped Arun. He answered with venom: “Does it offend you because it is a woman that I want for a prong-buddy? Would it be better if I talked of sharing my rack with one of the men? How about Stoney from the Bolters. He’s—”

“Oh, please. You’re just embarrassing yourself. You never were very good at doing anger. Love is love, Arun, in all its forms. It excites us. Thrills and teases us with the promises of paradise but we know we risk being tumbled into the lowest form of misery when love fails. Life without love would be a cold and lifeless as the void. I like to hear other people talk of love, however they experience it. Just not you.”

Arun frowned. “What’s the matter, Del?” When Del-Marie started up with his poetic phrases, it meant something was seriously troubling him.

Del-Marie shook his head, disappointed. “Your prattling about Xin fills the room like a gaseous emission from your backside. It’s crude and stale. We all want to ignore it but it just keeps coming until we’re all choking on your emanations.” The chow hall — a crude cavern with a scattering of tables — was bubbling with laughter by this point. “And yet your words are ultimately nothing more than warm gas that dissipates to leave nothing behind of any consequence.”

“And the rest of you?” shouted Arun at the others as he got to his feet. “Is that what you all think? That I’m a joke?”

He searched the faces for support. Madge was laughing at him, as were the cadets from Hecht’s Alpha Section. Zug looked thoughtful.

“Yes, Arun,” said Del-Marie. “I speak for everyone in the section. It’s been nearly four weeks since this Xin creature arrived and you still haven’t stopped talking of your undying love. On the rare occasions when you do see her you’re too tongue-tied to do more than nod and grunt and try ineffectually to reduce your drooling. She tried to gut you with an electro-stunner, for frakk’s sake!”

“That’s because Nhlappo gave them all stims.”

Del sighed. “The girl who loves you is due back tomorrow minus her leg. You love her too, you’re just too dumb to realize because you’ve bewitched yourself over this Xin. Snap out of it, Arun. You’re not thirteen years old anymore. Act like a man. In a little over two years, you and I could be boarding a troopship to go to war. Sooner, if you believe Umarov. I don’t want to fight alongside a little boy who’s too scared to talk to girls. The Bolters have their own chow hall. Why aren’t you there?”

Ungrateful shunters, the lot of them.
Arun blanked Del-Marie and sat back down, contemplating finishing his gruel.

Zug wouldn’t let Arun go. “Our real problem is that we’ve lost Springer, just when we need her most. She isn’t just the funny one with the silly ideas and spooky violet eyes. She’s the one who keeps us together. Call her our emotional hub, if you like, our squad’s heart. We need our heart because so many things have happened at once. First you embarrassed the colonel and then you let us down by abandoning your Scendence team mates.”

“Hey, that’s not fair. I thought you’d gotten over that.”

“Stow it, McEwan,” said Majanita. “Zug’s doing the best he can to sugar coat. Would you prefer it if I told you how it really is?”

Arun kept his mouth closed.

“Rightly or not,” continued Zug, “we all felt at the time that you had let us down. I’ve heard rumors that we have been fed low-level combat drugs for weeks or more. Maybe that’s true and influenced our reaction. Then there was the Cull.”

“I know,” said Arun. “Sorry, man.”

“I executed a fellow human being. A nineteen-year-old girl from our own battalion. Our scores were added to hers and we didn’t earn enough to keep her alive. In a very small part, we are all responsible for her death but it was me who killed her. It has changed me, Arun. I can’t yet explain how, but I am not the same person I was when we started this training year.”