Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) (20 page)

Gupta looked up and stared at the cadets sitting before him. “Let’s find which of you worms was paying attention in my last briefing. What often happens before a civil war battle, especially at the beginning of the war?”

Arun watched hands shoot up.

“Yes, Skull?” Gupta nodded at one of the cadets.

Skull was taken by surprise to hear the sergeant use his nickname. “Sergeant, soldiers lose the will to fight. Desertion rates are high.”

“Correct. Of course, it depends on the background to the war, and how a soldier came to be recruited in the first place. In many civil wars, not only do individual soldiers desert but entire units go over to the enemy, often murdering their officers in the process.”

A sense of danger snuck into the briefing hall. “Our Czech soldiers were mostly unwilling conscripts who felt a far closer cultural affinity to the enemy and only resentment to their ruler, the Hapsburg emperor. Egged on by Russian propaganda promising freedom for the Czechs and their own homeland, entire divisions deserted to the Russian side. Czech soldiers captured by the Russians were housed in prisoner of war camps. These were rich recruiting grounds for Czechs who were prepared to fight on the Russian side. These Czechs fought in their own units but under Russian orders. In their minds they fought for freedom. To the Russians, they were plasma fodder.

“Freedom is an intoxicating idea. It can drive people to extreme acts. Even I have to take care with my words. I don’t want us all executed for inciting insurrection.”

Arun joined in the nervous laughter, relieved that the sergeant appeared to realize the danger in his words. Gupta’s near-treason hadn’t gotten them killed yet.

“These turncoat units were organized into the Czech Legion. With a peak strength of about 60,000 in comparison with the Russian Army’s total wartime strength of 12 million they would have been nothing more than a historical oddity if not for two things. In 1917, the Russian Empire collapsed and turned its attention to its own civil war. A year later, the Hapsburg Empire imploded and the wider war ended.

“It was as if the sea had suddenly gone out, leaving the Czech Legion stranded inside the largest country in the world. They’d suddenly transformed from a historical footnote to the only large force of disciplined troops in Russia. They were now important. By that time, all sides in the Russian Civil War distrusted the Czechs at best, and in many cases wanted them dead. What did the Czech Legion do?”

Gupta acknowledged one of the hands. It was Alice Belville, the cadet lance-sergeant from Gold Squad. “The Czechs fought their way back home, sergeant.”

“They did that, Belville. But their route home lay to the west, through the bulk of the forces hostile to them.”

Gupta hadn’t invited input from the cadets, but Arun found he had his hand up.

“McEwan?”

“They forced a passage to the east, sergeant.”

Gupta nodded. “The Trans-Siberian Railway was the longest railroad in the world, running nearly 6,000 miles from the west to the east of Russia. Over the next three years, the Czech Legion forced passage along this railroad before being evacuated by sea from Russia’s eastern coast.”

Another disturbance made Arun glance to his left. It was Springer again. The wisp of steam over her eyes and water dripping from her nose explained what had happened. She’d never had visions so close together before. Her eyelids must be brutally scorched.

Gupta continued as if nothing was happening. “If they had simply sat in a train carriage and waited to reach their destination they would have been ambushed and wiped out before they’d gone a hundred miles. The Czech Legion became almost a nomadic state, controlling all the stations along the railroad for a hundred miles or so either direction of their force concentration, and the countryside around that stretch. They negotiated with the local people and rival factions in the Russian Civil War for supplies, security and passage. That required great skill, discipline and organization.

“Why do I mention the Czech Legion? They weren’t members of the Marine Corps, but I think of them as if they were, because that is exactly how I expect Marines to think and act. So you tell me. What can the Legion teach us about some of the drent you cadets have gotten yourself into recently?”

“Sergeant,” asked Majanita, “Did you pick that example because of Cadet McEwan?”

“Interesting. What makes you think I did?”

“The Czech Legion stuck together under stresses that would have crushed most units. They showed tenacity, initiative, cunning, ruthlessness, all those good things, but most of all they are a lesson in sticking together.”

Gupta thought for a moment. “I would have chosen the Czech Legion’s story in any case, but I did have McEwan’s situation firmly in mind.”

Arun almost felt he should wilt with embarrassment from the unwanted attention. He didn’t. Didn’t feel anything at all. For his failings to be dissected and analyzed was becoming an everyday burden.

“So tell me, cadets,” said Gupta. “McEwan broke his commitment to play Deception for his squad team so he could play with… individuals from elsewhere in the battalion. How does that relate to the Czech Legion?”

Caccamo from Hecht’s Alpha Section answered first. “Sergeant. Because McEwan let his team down. The Czechs didn’t. By sticking together, the Legion gives us a lesson to counter McEwan’s example.”

Gupta frowned. “Stand up, Caccamo!” he barked. “Idiot! The White Knights consider us nothing more than cheap plasma fodder. The Jotuns hold us in higher regard. Only a few nanometers higher, but that’s better than nothing. I, on the other hand, expect nothing less than for you to be Marines, the very best of the human race. We are not dumb fodder. The difference between surviving combat and being a casualty statistic is half training, half dumb luck, and half using your initiative to make your own luck.”

No one dared to speak.

Gupta continued in a slightly softer tone. “Anyone who thinks I can’t add up hasn’t been listening properly. So, now, Caccamo. Instead of repeating what Majanita just said, use that withered lump between your ears to think. Why did I pick the example of the Czech Legion?”

“I don’t know, sergeant.” Arun was impressed at Laban Caccamo for keeping as cool as a cryo box under Gupta’s glare.

“Don’t know?” bellowed the sergeant. “You’re no use to me, Caccamo. Sit down.”

Caccamo obeyed.

“Anyone?”

Majanita had a reply. “The Czech unit structure was crushed. Rendered obsolete. Their army no longer existed. Even their country no longer existed. They had only themselves. Maybe…” She clammed up.

“Complete what you started, cadet. A Marine never starts anything they don’t intend to see through to completion. You should know that.”

“Sorry, sergeant. Maybe the parable’s lesson is that the legion re-framed their world. They formed a new unit from the wreckage of the old. New buddies. New loyalties. A new team. They set themselves a new goal and set about achieving it by any means available. By teaming up with cadets outside of Blue Squad, has McEwan forged a new unit for the benefit of the battalion?”

“I don’t think we know the answer to that, Majanita. Not yet. Maybe Cadet McEwan is a visionary, reacting to circumstances by creating a Marine Legion to get us out of the Cull. Or perhaps he’s nothing more than a teenage boy who couldn’t refuse an offer from a pretty girl. I don’t care about the answer. I do care that instead of thinking through the possibilities, you all picked the lazy choice by blaming McEwan for disloyalty.”

Gupta tapped at his head. “Up here! This is where you’re failing me. Being able to see the same situation as everyone else, but see new possibilities within it is what makes the difference between a good Marine and the kind of half-evolved plasma fodder those other races think we are. Do you want to prove them right?”

“No sergeant!” replied both squads, Arun right up there with the rest.

The sergeant studied his cadets for a few moments. Arun wasn’t sure whether the sergeant had just stood up for him. He sure felt inadequate, though.

“I can see from your faces that I’ve confused the hell out of you.” Gupta’s scowl lightened. “That’s a good thing because your brains need shaking up. You’re too robotic. If Blue and Gold Squads were stranded in the midst of a civil war, I would expect you to turn the situation to your advantage, same as the Czech Legion did. That’s all for today. Dismissed.”

As soon as Gupta had left through the door at the back of the stage, Arun made for Springer.

“What happened?” he asked her. “What was in your vision? Did you have two?”

Springer closed her eyes and shook her head. Her eyelids were brutally red, her eyes bloodshot and watering. “It isn’t clear, Arun, more a vague feeling, triggered by certain words.”

Majanita put a supportive arm around Springer. “Leave her alone, McEwan.”

Osman stood beside her, glaring at Arun. The rest of the section waited nearby.

“No, he needs to know,” said Springer. She sounded exhausted. “Arun, you and the Czech Legion are connected. I think… I think that one day you will create a–”

Majanita slapped her hand over Springer’s mouth. “Shut up! Don’t even think about how that sentence ends.”

She doesn’t need to
, thought Arun.
I help to create a Human Legion. That’s what she thinks. Gupta was practically spelling it out. It fits with what everyone has been hinting at all along.

“Go away,” Osman told Arun.

“No,” said Arun. “Springer, can I please ask you something? I’ve never wanted to ask until this moment.”

“I said, go away.” Osman was shoving him now.

“Let him ask,” sighed Springer. “What is it?”

“Your visions of the future,” said Arun, grimacing uncomfortably because he didn’t know how to put this without insulting Springer. “Have any come true?”

“No.”

Arun relaxed. He let Osman give him a last shove and then watched his friends move away without him.

Springer paused and turned around. “But that’s the thing about the future,” she said to Arun. “It hasn’t happened yet. But it will.”

She wanted to say more but she choked back and kept silent, as if suddenly noticing the verbal minefield all around her.

The passageway crackled with tension like a G-Max cannon before an x-ray burst.

“We both know it will happen,” she said, sounding as if the words were being forced out of her at gunpoint.

Arun didn’t say a word. He scarcely dared to breathe. Microphones in in the walls, nano-spies floating in the air. No one knew what form the surveillance systems took, but everyone agreed that they were everywhere, feeding through any signs of disloyalty to the Jotuns.

Springer spoke the three words she shouldn’t, the name that meant Arun’s life could never return to normal. “The Human Legion,” she said.

Arun froze, expecting hidden beams of death to strike him down at any moment. There was no cover to shield him, nowhere to run. If the Jotuns decided he should die then his existence would end as surely as night extinguishes day.

But death, if it were coming, was not immediate.

By the time he unclenched, the rest of the squad had ushered Springer out of sight, on their way to the orbital elevator and dropboat training.

Arun raced after them, desperate not to be left alone.

The trips to see Pedro were worse than useless: they consumed valuable time that Arun could never get back. With graduation to qualify for, and his battalion in the Cull Zone – not to mention the Scendence commitments that were causing so much annoyance – every hour spent away from training was painful.

But Instructor Rekka had taught them that so long as your position was secure from immediate assault, if you were given a task then you should put everything else out of your mind and do that task to the best of your ability.

Sometimes that required an iron will, but Rekka was right.

Out in the field, if you were assigned to dig fox holes or latrines, then you let the perimeter guard worry about intruders and you concentrated on your digging.

And if you were tasked with a friendly afternoon chat with a seven-foot insect, then you put away thoughts of culls and graduation, you put on your most companionable smile, and you talked with the alien.

If he could, Arun would cancel his chats in an instant. Since he couldn’t, he took pleasure in this excuse to roam the bustling underground labyrinth that was the Detroit base.

Pedro encouraged Arun to explore, because that way he could ask endless questions about the human levels.

Arun’s hab-disk was on Level 6, near Corridor 622 that ran between Helix 62 and Helix 6, which was the main spiraling ramp in his regiment’s portion of Detroit. Today, on his meandering route to Pedro, he cycled up the Helix 6 ramp to Level 3. This was a level of barracks and defensive positions. The topology of the base was the same on all levels: Corridor 622 always connected Helix 62 with Helix 6, whatever level you were on. But the route Corridor 622 took to get there was different on every level. Here on Level 3, the corridors zigzagged to prevent a single blast of firepower sweeping the entire corridor of defenders. In the hab-disks you talked of walls and ceilings, but here the tunnel structures were hardened and you had bulkheads and overheads instead. If not for the gravity keeping Arun’s bike firmly on the deck, Level 3 could easily be mistaken for a warboat interior.

Level 3 was deserted. That’s why Arun loved it here. There were plenty of Marines to fill the barracks and man the hardened alcoves peppering the corridor. But they were deep down in Level 10 or below, stored in cryogenic iceboxes.

Arun peddled on around Helix 64, crossed the regimental boundary and on to Helix 72. From there he took Corridor 712, which passed by the southern edge of Detroit.

He’d passed by a huddle of Hardit engineers arguing over something in their growling speech, flicking their long tails at each other aggressively. It was unusual to see them so active. When he passed the monkey-like creatures on his travels, they were more often slumped against the wall, apparently asleep.