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

human. Humans have never been officers. Until now.”
    Where was Krimkrak going with this? Arun licked his lips and found the bleeding had stopped.
    “In light of your actions on Bonaventure , I promote you.”
    Arun was so stunned it felt as if the entire galaxy had moved far away, leaving just him behind. Then he had to fight back the thrill that threatened to make him punch the air in triumph. Was this the moment when his destiny came to call? Was this where it really started?
    “Congratulations on your new rank, General McEwan .”
    Arun’s nerves fluttered. For a moment, the resilience of his dreams convinced him this was real. That wounded man on Bonaventure had called him General McEwan. Then the edifice of his hubris began to crack. Seriously? A general?
    His dreams of destiny collapsed into dust, leaving behind only the conviction that Ensign Krimkrak did not mean him well.
    “We do not have uniform insignia instructions for a general,” said the ensign. “This is an exceedingly elevated rank. So much so that none of you would recognize the insignia marks even if we did have them. Instead, I will make do with old insignia once used by generals on Earth. Stand still, McEwan, as you receive your reward.”
    Krimkrak reached out with his hands. After removing Arun’s yoke from his shoulders, each of the alien’s twelve finger tubes turned inside out and then split in two. The ends of all twenty-four fingers twisted and hardened before sprouting three-inch claws from their tips.
    The alien’s claws flicked across Arun’s shoulders in a blaze of pain.
    Arun kept his posture rigid but couldn’t help growling in the hot pain of his torture.
    Krimkrak withdrew his bloodied claws to inspect his handiwork.
    Around Arun’s head, blobs of his blood mixed with the eddying swirls of tattered smartfabric fragments, a confusing blur that matched the shocked fuzziness in his head.
    But Krimkrak wasn’t finished. Arun remained at attention as he allowed the ensign to tear into his bloodied flesh once more. Knowing what was coming made this much harder second time around.
    Arun squeezed his eyes half shut and pinched his mouth, but this time did not utter a sound even though the pain was worse. This time he was prepared.
    After a few more seconds of flesh-carving, Krimkrak wiped his bloodstained claws on a clean part of Arun’s uniform and withdrew a short distance from the cloud of crimson debris around the Marine.
    “I have etched three general’s stars into each shoulder,” said the ensign. “Let the pain remind you of your place, human.”
    “Yes, sir,” replied McEwan through gritted teeth.
    Krimkrak shut off the images of the dead Marines and shot away out of the hatch, leaving the humans in their hollow parade square.
    The Marines were used to their officers walking off and leaving their human NCOs to dismiss their unit. But the NCOs were as drug-addled as their Marines. Indigo stood there, eyes glazed, unsure what to do.
    That gave Arun plenty of time to wallow in the agony the officer had carved into his shoulders. Thanks to his robust Marine physiology, the blood flow from his wounds had already slowed to a stream of red drops ejected by blood pressure away from his skin, and slowed by air resistance to cloud and clump around him like an aerial oil-slick.
    He needed first aid, but first he had to escape. He thrashed his body, but couldn’t reach the bulkhead where his comrades stood watching him.
    “Springer,” he yelled, “grab my feet.”
    She reached out, but Arun was too far away.
    “Umarov,” Arun said, “help her.”
    Umarov pushed off the bulkhead to act as a bridge between Arun and Springer, who reeled them both back to the charged floor.
    By then, a homing instinct had told Charlie Company to march back to their mess quarters on Deck 4, even without Staff Sergeant Bryant’s instructions. Arun and his comrades fell in with the rest. None of them spoke, but each pace brought a wince of pain