Human Legion: Marine Cadet Part 40

The cadets each raised a hand in front of them, palm up, and opened their fingers.

Arun didn't feel fear as his hand opened to reveal the color of his stone; he just felt numb. Sure enough, his stone was black. He quickly glanced around him. Zug had a black pebble too. Cristina's was white.

The five cadets with white stones wheeled right in readiness to march away. Cristina whispered hurriedly to him. "If you do it now, you'll not spend the next two years fearing what it might be like."

Because I will already be dammed? He did not dare to speak the words in his mind. Cristina's words were no comfort but the warmth of sentiment was. He couldn't imagine the males in his squad offering any words of comfort.

The line-up in front of the armory cabinet consisted of Arun, Zug, Springer, Lewark from Blue-4, and Del-Marie.

Sergeant Gupta opened the armory cabinet and Arun picked out a carbine. He was so used to the heft of the SA-71 that it normally felt like an extension of his body, but this gun felt awkward. If the gun was a part of his body, then this was a part that had turned cancerous. It was sickening, alien. He wanted to throw it far away from him, but he steeled himself instead to hold it as if this were an everyday gunnery drill.

And as with a gunnery drill, Arun flicked the switch to arm the carbine and read the ammo supply from the stock display. His gun was charged and an ammo bulb was in place, but the stock display was faulty.

To his astonishment, only Del-Marie replaced his carbine in the cabinet and went back to his place in the crowd, presumably because it had no charge or no ammo. Arun and the other cadets picked for execution detail glanced at each other nervously. Then they gave smart salutes to Sergeant Gupta and marched around the back of the hexagon where the executioners were lined up, marshaled by a veteran Arun didn't recognize.

Every few minutes they were reinforced by blank-faced cadets, arriving in ones and twos, and occasionally in larger groups.

As the selection played out over the next hour, it became clear that there was a strong random element to the selection. Sometimes all the carbines in the cabinet were armed and sometimes none. But over time the numbers began to average out and Arun saw the pattern that was emerging.

There were around 175 cadets in a company, and the battalion had eight depot companies in the graduation year. That made 1,400 due to be Culled.

The G-1 and G-2 years for 412/8 had another eight companies each, which made a pool of 2,800 executioners. The G-year cadets were to be decimated: one in ten would be executed. Arun had a.s.sumed that meant there would be 140 executioners picked, but instead there was to be one executioner for every member of the G-year. Did that mean they were all to be killed?

They heard a hiss. From around the sides and top of the hexagon came clouds of lurid orange. The smell hit them. Arun swallowed hard, fought to keep control. Once he'd gotten over the shock of being ga.s.sed, it didn't smell or taste so bad. And if it was toxic, it wasn't so toxic that he could see anyone keel over. In fact it tasted of burned biscuits and almond flavoring.

Human veterans advanced toward them from out of the billowing orange. For a moment, Arun thought it was his detail behind the hexagon that were to be killed, and the veterans their executioners. But the vets led them back around the hexagon and into the heart of the unfolding spectacle.

Sergeant Bissinger cleared her throat and addressed the parade. "Every world inhabited by our masters, the White Knights, is blessed by the Sacred Mists of Renewal, more commonly called the Flek. We cannot release the Flek here on Tranquility because it would kill us all. This orange vapor we release in emulation of the Flek as we..." She paused, just briefly but Arun caught it "...reach the climax of today's ritual."

The release of the pseudo-Flek gas had been timed so that as Arun and the other executioners came around the hexagon they appeared to the waiting crowd to emerge from the mist at the moment Sergeant Bissinger finished her speech. The veterans led the execution detail to their places. They lined up facing the hexagon in 47 rows of 29 cadets. Each rank had a veteran to either side, veterans from other battalions.

The mist cleared to reveal pale faces staring back at them. Twenty-nine cadets from the year of graduation stood with their backs to the hexagon, each a couple of paces apart. The other cadets due to be Culled awaited their fate a short distance to the left, already organized into ranks of 29.

Twenty-nine executioners would fire their carbines at twenty-nine battalion comrades. Arun understood now why his stock readout wasn't working. It was a cruel trick. All of the executioners would fire on a comrade, but only one in ten of the guns had live rounds. Arun had never fired a gun at another human being. That was just about to change. Whether he would kill his target was something no one would know until a split second after he fired.

Arun was in the third row. At least he wouldn't have to wait long to find out.

The first rank of executioners moved forward a pace and spread out a little so that each faced their victim head on.

Arun stared into the faces of the condemned, who awaited their fate with quiet dignity. In a few seconds, perhaps two or three would die. Maybe more or maybe less if this part of the Cull were as random as everything else. Most, though, would live.

That still didn't make this all right, Gupta had called this a battle. Arun wouldn't flinch at going into battle with the possibility of ten percent casualties. But this wasn't combat whatever Gupta might say. This was humans copying their betters, a foul mockery of an utterly alien ritual. Surely it was going along with killing your comrades that was stupid and cowardly, not questioning the murder?

The front rank raised their guns.

Was Arun prepared to defy orders? Was anyone here?

The front-rank veterans faced in at their cadets, raised their arms... and then threw them downward.

A ragged volley of shots rang out. Three of the condemned slumped to the bare rock of the parade ground, b.l.o.o.d.y chunks blasted out of their bodies.

Dead before they hit the ground, thought Arun. Flenser rounds aimed at the heart. A quick death, but a messy one.

He wondered why he was a.n.a.lyzing the execution in such cold detail, and then realized he was distracting himself from looking into the faces of the front rank of executioners as they filed back to the rear of the execution detail.

He couldn't look upon them because in a few moments he would have become one of them. He knew he wasn't going to rebel. He didn't have the will to disobey orders.

When in doubt, obey orders. It was all he'd ever known. And if that meant he was a coward or stupid then so be it. What he did know for certain in that moment was that he was a slave.

The 26 survivors of the Cull picked up the corpses of their fallen comrades and carried them round to the rear of the hexagon. Without delay they were replaced by the next group of 29 condemned cadets, stepping carefully so as not to slip on the gore-splatter rock.

It felt dreamlike as Arun watched the front rank of executioners spread out to match their victims, raise their carbines and fire!

This time, one cadet from 8-412 fell down dead.

This time Arun did look at the executioners because something was wrong. The whole ritual was wrong, he thought, but now something had disrupted the smooth workings of the execution process.

The veteran on the right of the front rank marched in front of her detail. She halted before one particular cadet. It was Olmer, one of the original members of Xin's Scendence team.

Olmer dropped her carbine. The sound of the ceramalloy-plastic blend striking the rock floor made Arun cringe. He'd never heard the sound of a dropped gun before.

"I can't do it!" Olmer screamed. "I can't fire. You can't make me."

If Olmer was panicking, the effect of this disruption on the cadet she had failed to shoot was even more dramatic. The condemned started to cry.

The reason soon became clear.

The veteran drew her sidearm from its holster and shot Olmer in the head. Then she turned to the condemned cadet who by now had slumped down onto her haunches, her head in her hands.

The veteran shot her through the heart.

Of everything he'd seen so far that day, the sight of the cadet slumped against the hexagon waiting her fate was the cruelest by far. If Olmer had obeyed orders, then the older cadet would probably still be alive. Everyone saw that drama unfold. Everyone got the message. Arun had never attended the Cull before, but he'd attended executions. It was always the same.

Disobey orders and you will be killed.

Breathe so much as a word of dissent against the White Knights, and it won't be just you who is killed.

Arun did what he always did. Suck up the anger and humiliation and stored it for the future. Everything on this planet was designed to control the slaves who lived here. But if he survived to graduate as a Marine, one day he would get away from Detroit.

He made a vow. He swore it on the blood of his murdered cadet comrades, and on the h.e.l.lish memories that their murderers would carry for the rest of their lives. Unlike Olmer, he would wait. Over time he would stack the chances in his favor. One day he would revenge all of humanity against the White Knights.

And then he found himself lined up opposite a tall boy with hooded eyes staring back at him with quiet dignity. Arun recognized the face but didn't know the name. Good, that made this a little easier.

Arun raised his carbine and trained his sights on the cadet, aiming for his heart. Usually when he fired, he was wearing armor and had Barney to direct his aim. Manual aim was so much more personal and if he had to go through with this then Arun preferred to do it himself. To hide behind Barney would be disrespectful to the cadet, who was calmly looking at the business end of Arun's carbine.

I will revenge you, Arun promised the condemned cadet. He took off the safety, and heard the whine as the barrel charged in preparation to fling a sh.e.l.l at four times the speed of sound. The gun had already been set for the required distance of an execution shot.

The Human Legion.

Desperate to think of anything other than the horror all around him, Arun clutched at a speck of hope for the future. Gupta had talked of a Czech Legion that had survived impossible odds behind enemy lines, and Springer's vision had hinted that it might be Arun's fate to lead a modern-day equivalent. He'd been too busy trying to survive to think these treasonous thoughts. Now he could think of nothing else.

One day, I swear, there will be a Human Legion. Arun made his vow in the privacy of his head and kept his mouth rigid. Even to mouth the words would be disastrous. The Human Legion will be a beacon of hope to all humankind, he continued silently, and I will play my part in that story. I promise you.

Then the veteran gave the command and Arun squeezed his trigger.

Flenser rounds consisted of an aerodynamic sh.e.l.l that broke apart about two meters before the target to release pairs of tiny blade-encrusted b.a.l.l.s connected to each other by monofilament wire.

They were designed to tear great holes through unarmored targets.

Arun saw the results on human flesh. An micro-instant after he began to take in the sight, he heard the crack of the flenser casing open and the wet ripping sound as the casing's contents struck home The cadet's left chest disintegrated, leaving behind scored bone, gristle, and tatters of bloodied cloth from the clean fatigues she had picked up from the laundry shelf a few hours earlier.

Arun hadn't shot her. This was the cadet alongside.

An irritated whine and click came from Arun's carbine as the gun tried repeatedly to select a round from the ammo carousel, but he knew it was empty. He'd been spared.

He glanced up at the cadet that he had aimed at. He was looking back, not at Arun but at the person to Arun's right.

Arun followed his gaze and looked into Zug's face. Zug who had just shot dead a cadet from his own battalion.

Zug the Aloof, Arun had called him earlier.

He wasn't so calm now. He looked deathly pale. Then he started retching.

Arun willed his old friend to keep it in.

On the march to the rear of the execution detail Zug held it in about half way. Then he vomited, all over Arun's back.

Arun thought back to the boneheaded curse he had thrown at Zug in the shower earlier that morning.

Sergeant Gupta had been right all along. Arun's words in the shower had been those of a coward.

And a stupid one too.

Arun's shame was complete.

* PART IV *

You're all Marines.

Now.

Human Legion.

* INFOPEDIA *

Terminology.

MARINE.

The term, MARINE refers to both the soldiers and military organizations whose primary function is one or more of the following: * Close a.s.sault and boarding of s.p.a.ce-faring vessels.

* Defense of s.p.a.ce-faring vessels against close a.s.sault and boarding.

* a.s.sault from s.p.a.ce against the defended surface of a planet.

The term is widely used to describe the relevant military forces of most political ent.i.ties within the Trans-Species Union.

The original Earthly military meaning of marine (water-borne rather than s.p.a.ce-borne military forces) is now referred to as 'littoral marine' or 'seaborne marine'. Referring to a member of such a unit as a 'wet marine' is a sure way to start a fight.

The military term 'marine' is not capitalized in general use, although marine organizations will frequently capitalize when referring to themselves. Since the accounts you are now reading are about the Human Legion, and its predecessor/ rival, the Human Marine Corps, we capitalize as 'Marine' when referring to those organizations. We, the authors, are ourselves mostly Marines. Whatever the grammatical niceties that proper nouns might demand, it is impossible for us to think of ourselves as anything other than Marines with an upper case 'M'. To call us mere marines would be an insult.

And, we would argue, an insult to our ancestors, for we were not the first Marines by a long way.

Seaborne marines were critical in ancient Earth history. In the Battle of Salamis (-480CE) Greek Marines played a crucial role in defeating the much larger Persian forces, helping to set the cultural underpinning of what would later be called Western Civilization.

A s.h.i.+p-boarding technology called the corvus enabled Roman Marines to win naval supremacy in the Mediterranean Sea (around -250CE), ultimately meaning the Romans defeated their arch rivals the Carthaginians to become the dominant regional superpower for many centuries.

The next major innovation in seaborne Marine forces came two thousand years later with the development of a much larger self-contained, combined-arms Marine army that could fight wars almost unaided. This was the United States Marine Corps.

It is widely speculated by modern-era Marines that the military units formed from human slaves following the Vancouver Accord were inspired by the US Marine Corps. Others regard this as wishful thinking, pointing out that while the Human Marine Corps might draw inspiration from the fighting spirit of their US ancestors, the segregation and racism inherit to their command structure more closely follows the army of the British East India Company in the early 1800s CE.

Whatever the truth of that argument, we the Marines of the Human Legion acknowledge the rich heritage of our Earthly military ancestors, and indeed those from other planets. We recognize their example and transcend them, because the Human Legion is not based in the past. We have a single mission: to fight for a better future. A future for us all.

Freedom can be won.

* Chapter 56 *

Scorched, perforated and abused for decades - despite all that, Fort Douaumont's long, lazy tumbling caught the sunlight and gleamed like an unwinnable jewel for an instant... and then the moment was gone and the training hulk was s.p.a.ce dross once more.

Fort Douaumont teased Arun. He couldn't take his eyes off her in case he missed another glint of hidden beauty.