Indigo Squad by Tim C. Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

headgear was one of the wonders of the universe.
    Ensign Krimkrak and his little white hat had kept Charlie Company waiting in silence for nearly an hour now, long enough for Arun’s concentration to wander. Every now and then, his brain would suddenly notice afresh that people were standing on the overhead, and send a stab of panic to his guts to alert him that something had gone fundamentally wrong with the laws of physics.
    If only the other physical worry could be brushed aside so easily. The heat! His zero-g training had been on ancient hulks open to the frigid void but Beowulf was the opposite. The ship fought a constant battle to dump the heat it generated out to space fast enough to avoid cooking its occupants. His hip flask felt like it weighed as much as a miniature planetoid, but he daren’t drink from it. Not on parade.
    Precisely one hour after the parade had formally begun, the six-limbed alien officer cleared his throat… and 144 thirsty Marines begun to hope their ordeal might soon be over.
    “Honor your fallen comrades,” ordered Ensign Krimkrak. When he’d cleared his throat, Arun had thought the officer would speak with his own voice, but instead the order came through a human voice synthesizer. Arun had heard Colonel Little Scar speak once. The commander of the 412th Marines had sounded as if he’d swallowed a box of razor blades, and gargled with grit.
    Keeping his mid-limbs pointing at his feet, Krimkrak flung out his upper-left arm. On the bulkhead behind him and to the left appeared images of the two officers killed in the boarding action on Bonaventure : Lieutenant Balor and Ensign Geror. At a similar gesture from his upper-right arm, the remainder of the port bulkhead cycled through images of the human Marines killed in the same action, and Marine Giorgio Yakubov who had perished the day before when the shuttle had been caught in Bonaventure’s explosion.
    “Too many died,” announced Krimkrak after a few minutes contemplation. “Your performance was unacceptable.” The alien began swiveling his trumpet-like ears, a sign of agitation. “One of you distinguished himself, both in the capture of Bonaventure and in an incident yesterday when we lost a shuttle. A mere Marine – the lowest among you – took initiative. Assumed control.” Krimkrak snarled. “Decided your fate.”
    In his own razor-grit voice, the officer added: “And his.”
    Without warning, the ensign shot across the parade deck like a railgun dart. He must have been wearing a maneuvering harness under his dress uniform.
    From sweltering heat, Arun suddenly felt a paralyzing chill of fear. Krimkrak had swooped to a halt ten meters away. An unarmored Jotun weighed more than a human in a battlesuit. A primitive instinct told Arun that he was prey, and had better run.
    “Come here, Marine McEwan.”
    Arun pushed away from the bulkhead, slowly somersaulting to match the orientation of the officer, who was at right angles to Indigo Squad.
    Krimkrak grabbed Arun’s shoulders, arresting the human’s momentum as surely as if he’d slammed into a battlecruiser. The rubbery suction-tipped tubes that passed for a Jotun’s default hand configuration looked soft but gripped forcefully enough to make Arun wince; his arms could pop out of his shoulder joints at any moment.
    It hurt so much that Arun bit his lips hard enough to draw blood. He sucked at the blood as it leaked out, frightened of the repercussions if it slipped out and stained the officer’s uniform.
    “Are you a sergeant, McEwan?”
    Arun hesitated while he pushed away the agony in his shoulders. “No, sir.”
    “Oh, I see. Then you imagine yourself an officer. An ensign, perhaps.” He snarled, hurling hot alien breath across Arun. It smelled like burned sugar. “No. Command to you is so natural. You deserve a higher rank, I think. Lieutenant perhaps? What should you be? Which officer rank are you?”
    “I am not an officer, sir.”
    “You are correct. You are