Marine Cadet (The Human Legion Book 1) (31 page)

One of the Agri-Aux stopped what she was doing and answered. “We do okay.”

“Do they torture you for sport?” pressed Arun.

Hortez shook his head, dismayed.

“Put it like this,” replied the Agri-woman, “we’d never trade places with you sad vecks. Not from the position we’ve reached. Now frakk off.”

Arun lifted the handles of his trolley and was about to lean into it when he stopped abruptly. Springer had let go of her handles and was racing down the bank toward the Agri-Aux.

Her legs were short but fleet. By the time Arun and Madge started to follow, Springer was already halfway to the Agri-workers.

With Hortez bringing up the rear, they chased after their comrade.

Springer was under the canopy now, remonstrating with the Agris. After a brief, heated exchange, she punched the Aux who had replied to Arun, felling her.

Arun slowed because Springer had turned around and was cutting a way through the field back to the path.

The Agris looked shocked. They didn’t follow that up with action.

Springer did.

She’d only made five steps before she turned back and flew again at the Agris. She punched one, shoved another to the ground, and kicked the Aux who was already down.

Once the Team Beta comrades had regrouped on the path, Springer explained: “I asked them about Alistair LaSalle. They murdered him. The vecks admitted it. He’s dead.”

When he’d first heard that Alistair LaSalle had been assigned the temporary role of senior cadet commander for Charlie Company, Arun hadn’t been surprised in the least. Alistair was smart, strong, and enormously popular. He lacked height and bulk. The untamable waves of his light-brown hair were permanently messy, but he wouldn’t shave his head like anyone else. Somehow Alistair had taken his unpromising physique and breathed such charisma into it that he seemed to have whomever he wanted in his bunk: boys and girls. And yet he never attracted envy, never needed to bully or intimidate competitors out of the way. He made success seem so easy. Arun couldn’t square the Alistair he remembered with a sorry refugee who – if Springer’s info was accurate – had died within weeks of his transfer.

“Murder is too harsh a word,” said Hortez. “They had no choice. I often ask myself whether I would do the same in their place.”

“You knew!” Arun rushed at Hortez. “You frakking knew he was dead.”

Arun’s hands reached for Hortez’s neck but Springer tripped him as he passed.

His chin thudded into the stones and dirt of the path, filling his mouth and nose with dust. For an instant he was winded, but a Marine cadet isn’t easily pushed aside. A moment later he was on his knees, ready to spring at Hortez, when Madge crashed into him, pinning him down onto the ground with her butt on his sternum. “Calm down, McEwan,” she ordered.

Arun tried to wriggle free, but couldn’t. Madge was lithe but strong. He’d have to attack her to get her off him.

Frakk it! He was too angry to care. Arun threw everything he had into bucking her off. He felt her lose balance, releasing her weight. As he struggled back to his feet, she came crashing down on his shoulders, splaying his legs and making him eat dirt again.

Officially they were all demoted. Madge didn’t outrank him anymore. No more playing nice. Fueled by anger, he shifted his weight, trying to prepare an elbow strike at Madge’s hamstring.

“Explain yourself, Hortez,” said Madge. “I can’t keep a leash on this attack drone for long.”

Hortez hesitated before responding: “To start with, I volunteered to come up here, risking my skin to make contact with Alistair.” The fight went out of Arun when he heard that. Hortez’s skin was a flaming mass of burns and sores. “I saw him a few times,” Hortez continued. “I waved at him. To begin with he waved back cheerfully, his old self. After a while he didn’t notice me when I passed by. Not long after that, I stopped seeing him. I didn’t know for sure he was dead.”

“But it was a safe bet,” growled Springer. “And those vecks out there confirmed it. Explain to the others how Alistair died.”

“It comes down to this. To live and work out here you must have a shielded suit. There are only so many to go around. You can even out food rations so everyone gets an equal share. You can take turns at the most dangerous tasks. But you can’t share a suit.”

“Yes, you can,” said Springer. “Take turns wearing it. A rota system, worked out hour by hour.”

“Negative. The world doesn’t work that way, Springer. Not out here. Alistair and another ex-cadet, a woman, were sent here. Everyone else was already established, already won the right to their suits. None of them would ever give that up. Alastair was fearless and he was fiercely determined. No one I’d rather have beside me in a fight. But he was a nice guy. Too nice to live.”

Madge let Arun wriggle free from underneath her and return to his trolley, his anger drained into the dust. What would he do if he had to choose between dying or living in the knowledge that someone else had to free up his place? Probably, he decided, he’d fight the decision as long as possible before choosing to live.

What a choice!

The others seemed to be infested with the same thoughts because no one spoke until they reached Alabama.

Alabama Depot consisted of a squat building with smaller extrusions around its base. A semicircle of grain silos ringed the main buildings like teeth in a jaw. On the hardened area outside the back of the main building three trucks waited, their human drivers lazing in their cabs. An ordered swarm of Agri-Aux in their pink-laced costumes loaded plump sacks onto the trucks. These sacks had the same pink tracery as the Aux suits, presumably to afford the same protection from the sun.

Without needing to say a word, Arun’s group halted about fifty paces away from the Agri-Aux and assessed their options.

“They don’t look riled,” said Hortez. He glared at Springer. “Despite your stunt.”

“I still care, Hortez,” she shot back. “I’d rather die than be like you.
Faded.”

“C’mon, focus!” barked Madge. “Are they a threat or not?”

“Negative,” said Arun. “Even if they know about Springer throwing punches, they don’t look like there’s any fight to them. Besides, what are we going to do? Ram them with our trolleys?”

“Look in your crate, McEwan,” said Madge. “Tell me what you see.”

Madge made no sense at all, but Arun was too tired to defy her. Checking the brakes were on, he came around the side of his crudely patched-up crate to peer inside. “There’s some plastic boxes. Can’t see what’s inside.” He shifted the top layer of boxes aside. “Frakk! You told me they were hidden at the bottom of the load.”

Poking out of the crate was an SA-71 Marine carbine, grip angled upward ready to be taken out and used. “I suppose I’d be wasting my breath to ask if it’s loaded.”

“You would,” said Madge. “Got them ready while you boys were chatting away and we loaded the cargo. Didn’t tell you because we didn’t want to worry your dear little heads.”

Arun was about to protest when Madge raised a hand, shutting him up instantly. Who was he trying to kid? Madge was in charge, formal rank be damned.

Madge organized them into a crude wedge formation, taking point with Arun and Springer on the flanks and Hortez – who no longer had a trolley – taking a position at the rear.

They activated hover mode and the wedge of trolleys advanced.

This is madness,
thought Arun.
How have I come to this?

From far back into his earliest childhood, Arun had taken care not to say or do anything that could be considered treasonous or disloyal. Those who didn’t learn that lesson fast enough were no longer around.

Were they now so desperate that they would turn their illicit SA-71s on their fellows?

As the laden hover-trolleys breached the perimeter of the hardened loading area, Arun’s fears dissipated. For starters, the idea of an attack wedge of trolleys was too ridiculous to hang on to. And far from crowding around to exact revenge for Springer’s attack, the Agri-Aux shied away, as if gripped by a group delusion that if they pretended they couldn’t see Arun’s little unit, the newcomers would go away.

As the Agri-Aux turned to scurry away, Arun expected to see resentment of their faces. Instead, he saw shame.

Only the truck drivers high up in their cabs watched them. They must be shielded, reasoned Arun, because they wore only white vests, their heads bare.

There were three huge doors in the back of the main building, of which two were open. Madge led their wedge toward one of these open doors, a route that took them close to one of the trucks.

The driver was a fat man but powerfully built. He was in his mid-twenties or even older, which made him one of the oldest Aux Arun had seen. His face was grim set and not fearful in the slightest. He peered at their damaged wooden crates with intense interest.

Arun kept his eyes focused on the driver.

The driver stared back. When Arun drew level with his cab, the man shouted. “Hey!”

Arun let go of his trolley’s handles and reached into the opening in his crate. He felt for the loaded carbine.

“I ain’t seen nothing,” the driver said, his voice coming from a speaker set into the cab door.

Arun’s hand wrapped around the carbine’s grip. The familiar shape felt comforting.

“But if I had, I might say your crates look a little busted.”

Arun glanced back at the driver. He looked amused, a little contemptuous perhaps, but Arun didn’t see aggression there. Reluctantly, he loosened his grip on the carbine.

“What do you mean?” Madge asked him. Arun looked her way and had no doubt what her hand was gripping.

“Me?” answered the truck driver. “I don’t mean anything. I didn’t see you, remember? And that goes for anything you might be carrying, because I definitely didn’t see
that
. I’m just saying, in a kind of neighborly thinking out loud kinda way, that if anyone did have a busted crate, there’s plenty of spare timber in the fab shop they could use to fix it.”

“Thanks, man,” said Hortez,

“I didn’t see nothing nor hear nothing. If anyone felt thankful, they’d do well to remember that.” With that, the driver folded his arms and looked out the other side of his cab.

Madge considered a moment before deciding to take the driver at face value. She picked up her trolley and pushed it the final few paces into the loading bay, the others following close behind.

Inside the main building, they pushed their loads to the far end of the bay, as far away from the main doors as possible. Hortez and Arun guarded the cargo while Madge and Springer scouted the complex.

They soon reported back that they’d encountered two humans repairing split grain sacks, and a fab shop with all the materials needed to repair the crates.

Best of all they brought back a 3 gallon water bottle, the same kind used to refresh water fountains back home.

They debated but rejected the idea of keeping some of the cargo behind. Too risky, they decided. So they set to work making good the damage to the shattered crates. By the time they had crates fit for transport onward – obviously repaired but sturdy – the grain trucks had departed and most of the Agri-Aux loaders had drifted away. A handful, though, had tasks to carry out in the depot buildings. They kept their distance from the Team Beta group.

Hortez had wheeled a few half-filled grain sacks over to where Team Beta sat with their backs to the wall, passing the water bottle between them. He arranged the sacks into a semblance of a reclining armchair. After explaining that the Hardits didn’t care what you did during the day so long as you completed your task and stayed out of trouble, he spread his hands behind his head, leaned back, and relaxed.

The others followed suit, taking an unexpected breather before returning through the burning sun to the hellish dungeon that was Aux Camp Beta.

Arun was of the opinion that a Marine should grab any chance to ease off the pace, and make the most of it while he or she could. The apex of the roof about was 20 meters high which made the interior cool, airy and comfortable. There was soft ambient lighting but neither windows nor any opening in the roof, just the main loading doors. Relaxing on his nest of grain sacks, Arun felt proud of himself for being able to forget about the Hardits, who probably intended that he would not live to return to his battalion.

“You know what this could be?” said Arun suddenly.

“What?” replied Springer, without enthusiasm.

“A clubhouse.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s an Earth concept, a place to relax. A place where you don’t get bothered by your betters. You can just chill out, watch a game, chat with your friends…”

“Are you serious?” asked Springer.

“Relax.”

“It’ll never work,” said Madge.

“Why not? The Hardits rarely come here. There’s space, shielding, and plenty of seating.”

“That’s not what I mean,” replied Madge acidly. “You can’t bring your friends here to chat with them because you don’t have any friends.”

Arun bit back his tongue.

Madge twisted the knife further. “Oh, and I nearly forgot, we’ve no game to watch either. Not since our star player abandoned us and we got knocked out last round.”

I would have carried on playing for you if you’d let me.
As he fumed with the unfairness of his victimization, an Agri-Aux woman, approached them carrying her hat in her hand and a haunted look about her eyes. She looked a force to be reckoned with all the same, perhaps because she was older than the group from Team Beta. This woman had to be at least 25.

She introduced herself as Esther.

None of Team Beta acknowledged her, but that didn’t stop Esther from standing so close that she was impossible to ignore.

“They come at night,” she said.

“Who?” asked Arun. “Hardit smugglers?”

She nodded. “They use orbital shuttles.”

“That’s what I keep telling this lot,” Hortez said to her. “I’ve seen the telltale scorch marks on the hardened area outside.”

Madge had sat up. “Did you know Alistair LaSalle?” she asked of the Agri-woman.