Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) (6 page)

If Brandt’s words had been met with a moment of hostility, Cristina’s brought out a silence that was altogether more tense.

Scendence was the hope, the passion, and the closest thing to freedom that would ever be experienced in the Corps. And not just the humans: other races played too on occasion.

While in crèche and then as novices, it had been possible – for some individuals, at least – to compete at Scendence purely for the thrill of doing so. Now that they were cadets, though, Scendence was a game played only to win. Not only were merit points a possibility, but the top 16 teams at the end of the season were granted immunity from the Cull. Cristina was not a good player. In any team she would be a liability. Winning immunity would be inconceivable.

“Of course we’ll have you, darling,” gushed Madge. “I’m playing Gunnery, of course, and Springer’ll take Obedience. What role do you want?”

“Save it for later,” said Brandt. “It’s 20:58. Inspection in two minutes.”

All eight cadets in the dorm scrambled to their positions at the foot of their bunks and stood to attention.

Although cadets had to be ready for inspection once in the morning, and again in the evening, on average each dorm was inspected about twice per week.

But after the company had been shot to pieces in the tunnels, and with images of Cadet Prong plastered all over Detroit, Arun’s wrenching gut told him they would be certain to get a visit tonight. And he bet it would be the toughest of them all who would come: Instructor Rekka.

When, earlier that day, Brandt had dispatched him alone into that narrow tunnel, Arun had been terrified. Isolated.

He felt worse now.

Springer caught his eye. Her anger had vanished, replaced by a smile of support.

At least I’ve one buddy I can always rely upon.

Then the door hissed open and Arun snapped his eyes front.

The inspection had begun.

The dorm for Blue Squad’s Delta Section was a narrow room with eight racks lined up against one wall. At the foot of each, a cadet stood at attention, awaiting the laser-sharp scrutiny of Instructor Rekka.

Arun had the sixth rack down. He kept his eyes front, but with four cadets already dealt with, he could sense Rekka advance to the fifth rack like an approaching storm front, her walking stick thumping aggressively on the deck like the sound of thunder.

Then came the worst part: the silence.

Like many of the instructors, Rekka was a former frontline Marine who had been too broken in combat to fight again, but too experienced to throw away.

The instructors who had trained them through novice school were in the process of handing over to the veterans who would command the cadets in battle after they had graduated as Marines. Although he would rather face an enemy division singlehanded than face an angry Rekka, Arun would miss the instructor’s wardrobe of prosthetic legs, her habit of whistling in her rare carefree moments, and those precious few moments when she awarded hard-won praise.

Rekka was a hard person to like, but wasn’t a sadistic bully, unlike some of the other instructors he’d endured. She was domineering because that was how instructors needed to be, but there was just one thing that made her boil with rage: when she decided the novices in her charge were abusing their precious gift of youth and health.

This evening, Rekka was beyond angry. The madder she got, the quieter and slower she talked. The instructor’s words were barely a whisper.

Rekka had found fault with every cadet in the room. Del-Marie’s bed covers had been creased. Madge’s were folded at the wrong angle, and as for her long, blonde hair, that was a disgrace that needed to be shaved off. Zug had to do fifty one-armed press ups for not standing straight, and Springer a hundred for being caught glancing Arun’s way.

Now it was Osman Koraltan’s turn.

As Rekka built up to Osman’s humiliation, Arun told himself endlessly not to rise to her bait when her attention turned to him.
Just suck it up, McEwan.

“What is this… this
rag
?” Rekka didn’t need to raise her voice. Everyone heard her disdain ringing loud and clear.

“It’s a flag, ma’am,” said Osman.

There was a faint swish, and Arun could picture Osman’s flag picked up on the end of her walking stick and swirled around.

“A
flag
? Is this the regimental flag, cadet?”

“Ma’am. No, ma’am.”

“Are you planning an insurrection, cadet?”

“Ma’am. No, ma’am. I would kill a traitor on sight, ma’am.”

“Then what is the point of this article?”

“It’s… the country I think I might have come from, ma’am.”

“
You think?
The country you come from? On Earth. That is nova-frakking amazing. I’d always put you down as an uninspiring irrelevance, Koraltan. Someone I would forget the instant I’d handed you on to your veteran. Only a few days before I get to shake your hand and say good luck and good riddance, with a tear in my eye – you finally surprise me. I had no idea that you were born on Earth, Cadet Koraltan.”

Osman kept silent, but Rekka wasn’t going to let him off so easily. “Well, Koraltan? Did I get that wrong? Are you Earth-born?”

“Ma’am. No, ma’am. I meant the country I think my ancestors came from.”

Rekka snorted. “You credulous imbecile. The very notion of nationality is a fantasy fit only for veck-heads. Do you really think there is any way you can trace your ancestry back to a region of Earth? Let me tell you what really happened. Your grandfather picked an exotic name and backstory out of a history book, and used it to impress your grandmother. You, Osman Koraltan, are one of the disastrous unintended consequences of that unfortunate seduction. What country is this rag meant to represent anyway?”

“Turkey, ma’am.”

“Turkey? Tur-key! It’s the name of an avian species, you frakk-head, not a country.”

Rekka limped over to the waste chute, the red and white flag held aloft on the tip of her walking stick. They all heard the grinding noise when the garbage input sensor recognized it had incoming, and begun ripping apart the cloth at the start of its recycling journey.

Arun could feel the heat rise in his face. Osman had been given that flag two years ago. Two years during which Rekka had made no comment. But today, suddenly, it was a heresy to be rooted out and destroyed. Same as Madge’s hair.

As Rekka returned to Osman, her stick once again thumping out her approach, she asked in a sneering tone that made Arun cringe: “Does anyone else know anything about Earth or that flag?”

“Ma’am, the flag was originally made…” Arun couldn’t believe he’d spoken. He felt as if he’d stepped over a cliff and was staring in disbelief at the absence of ground beneath his feet.

All that was left to do now was fall.

“Yes, McEwan?” Rekka was in his face now. She was small and wiry, shorter than Arun. And yet she still managed somehow to loom over him, intimidating him with ease. “Did you forget to finish your sentence?”

“Ma’am. No, ma’am. Cadet Koraltan’s flag was originally made by Sergeant Horden, ma’am.” There, he’d said it! Projectile launched, brace for impact.

Instructor Rekka glowered at Arun for an eternity before spitting out that name. “Sergeant
Hor-den
. Are you referring to the man who
claimed
to be a descendant of President Horden?”

“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”

Rekka curled her lip into a slow sneer. “According to the story of the Vancouver Accord, President Horden sold a million Earth children to the White Knights. My ancestors, Koraltan’s and yours, all were amongst those children. Today we Marines swear by Horden senior and we swear
at
him just as often.
Horden’s Bones! Horden’s Children! Horden’s Sweet Hairy Fanny
. Everyone on this base swears by Horden. Even
you
, McEwan. Have you sworn by Horden?”

“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course you frakkin’ have you stupid drent-for-brains. Horden’s like all the devils and gods of every religion wrapped into one convenient package. The story also says that topping the list of slave children selected was his own first-born son. To claim descent from a specific person on Earth is the action of a deluded fantasist. But to claim that mega-veck, President Horden, as your ancestor is the deluded rambling of a truly sick individual, with megalomania only the start of the psychoses infecting their perverted mind.”

Rekka leaned in even closer. “Feel free to disagree at any time, McEwan.”

These past few weeks, Arun had been losing it. Acting wild in those Troggie tunnels, and speaking out of turn to Rekka: they were only today’s disasters. He didn’t know what had gotten into him, but he did know that right now he had to keep his mouth firmly shut.

“Now that we’ve established the nature of Sergeant Horden, this
so-called
authority, who produced a scrap of cloth purporting to be the flag of a hypothetical country, please explain to me, McEwan, why you saw fit to cite him.”

“Ma’am, Sergeant Horden explained – I mean,
claimed
– that he had identified genetic markers, clues to our Earth ancestry.” Arun stopped there. Horden had used Osman as an early test case. A successful one too. Either Horden was a fraud or Osman really was Turkish.

Rekka stepped back a few paces. “I know all about Horden’s lies. Haven’t you realized yet that we’re all such a thoroughly jumbled-up mongrel mess that any genetic markers present in our distant ancestors have long since been lost in the homogeneous genetic paste that fills the bones of every Marine. And that’s a good thing! I understand the human need for a tribe to belong to. You already have yours. Have you learned nothing, McEwan? Your nation is the Human Marine Corps. Your clan is the 412th Marines, or the 412th Tactical Marine Regiment for those who enjoy the long-winded version. I don’t hold with all this Earth drent that the Jotuns indulge you in these days. I’ve been out there in the wars, and I can tell you it’s the belief in your unit, and in your comrade standing alongside you that holds Marines together. Not some dumb romantic guff about Earth.”

She paused to stare at each cadet in turn, daring them to so much as breathe in a manner that she could construe as backchat. She stretched that moment of tension to her satisfaction before continuing. “Last I heard, Sergeant Horden was en route to the Akinschet system. I expect when he gets there that he’ll change his tune pretty damned sharpish.”

Rekka rocked back on the heels of her prosthetic legs. They were her everyday pair, encased in gleaming black plastic and silvered metal, except for the rubbery sole to the built-in feet. She lifted her stick and used it to poke Arun in the chest.

“I’ve warned you before about speaking out of turn, McEwan. Give me twenty squat jumps.”

“Ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”

Arun’s anger returned in ever-increasing waves. Arun tried to suck it back in but today his self-control was shot to hell.

The instructors claimed that many of the rituals of training and command had been gleaned from practices used centuries before on Earth. The Jotuns reasoned that military training evolved over centuries to match the human psyche would be a better starting point than anything they could devise.

And so punishment for minor infractions often meant press ups, digging and filling in fighting holes, or similar pointless physical activity, even though in comparison with the original humans of Earth, the Marine cadets possessed immense physical strength and endurance. Wetware augmentation and genetic manipulation meant Marines were different mentally too. When not succumbing to a tendency toward ill-disciplined rage, they took an iron will for granted.

All of that meant punishment exercise was easy. Normally. But not today.

The anger in Arun’s breast tempted him to glance meaningfully at his rack where he’d placed the walking stick the medics had given him.

He didn’t. Rekka knew perfectly well that he’d suffered a leg wound. Drawing attention to his stick would be weak, and achieve nothing but win contempt from everyone in the room. Instead, he drew upon his mental strength and gingerly crouched down into a squat position. His wounded leg felt stiff, but only when he got into the deepest position of the crouch did his left knee grind as if his joints were made from rusting steel that hadn’t seen oil for decades. With a supreme effort, he managed to cap his scream of agony. He looked down at his limb, expecting to see the blood seeping out the wound opened up by the Troggie guardian’s claw.

There was no blood, no bone shards poking through the skin over his knee.

“Begin!” Rekka ordered.

Arun jumped as high as he could, flinging his arms up as he leaped. He knew that if she decided he’d made a halfhearted jump, she would make him start again at the beginning.

At the top of his jump, Arun pointed his toes down and lifted his head high, as per the prescribed form. The jump was easy. The descent was not.

When he landed and his legs took his weight it felt as if hot blades were plunging into his injuries. Arun grunted but did not cry out. At the deepest point, when his legs changed from slowing his fall into beginning his ascent, those blades grew jagged edges and jerked around in his wound. Arun gasped before executing a perfect jump.

Determined not to give Rekka the satisfaction of hearing him scream, Arun willed his jaw to clamp firmly shut and stay closed.

I will not scream. I will NOT scream.

The second landing was even worse. The imaginary blades stabbing into his leg grew red hot.

I will not scream. I… I will not scream.

The blades exuded agonizing venom, which spread to his right leg.

I will not scream!

Arun’s world became a foggy battlefield where pain fought against Arun’s iron will for control of his body. He could even imagine the crump, crump, crump from a far-off artillery battery.

Then he realized that what he thought was incoming shellfire was actually the sound of Instructor Rekka’s walking stick thumping the deck in front of him.

“I said stop!” She was shouting. “You’ve made 24 jumps. I only wanted 20. Can’t you count?”