The Legion Awakes (The Sleeping Legion Book 1) Read online

  The Legion Awakes

  —Book1 of The Sleeping Legion—

  Copyright © J. R. Handley 2016

  Cover images copyright © DM7 (Marine), F. Schmidt (background)/ Licensed from shutterstock.com

  Published by Human Legion Publications

  Also available in paperback

  All Rights Reserved

  HumanLegion.com

  * * *

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Raymond F. Handley, my grandfather, with love. He was one of the most wonderful and loving men to have graced us on this side of heaven. He taught me to love reading, showed me that it could be a refuge when times were hard and a mentor when life was complicated.

  * * *

  — Beta and Recon Teams —

  Let’s face it, this book couldn’t have been finished without the help of your awesome work. I owe you more than a few silly lines on this page could ever show, so I’ll stick with a simple ‘Thank You’ from the deepest boughs of my heart. — J. R. Handley

  I wish to thank our beta and recon team members for this book, who bravely scouted out the first draft searching for hazards. This book is much better for their generous assistance. — Tim C. Taylor (publisher)

  Joseph Driver

  Lord Druss

  Ashley Ernst

  Thomas Estus

  R. Flair

  Dan in France

  Kathy Hite, RN

  Laurie Litchfield

  Sarah S. Reida, Esq.

  CPL Gordon Taylor, 7th Armoured Division, The Desert Rats

  Amanda Webb

  Jim Wilcox

  Table of Contents

  — PART I — Table of Organization and Equipment

  — Chapter 01 —

  — Chapter 02 —

  — Chapter 03 —

  — Chapter 04 —

  — Chapter 05 —

  — Chapter 06 —

  — Chapter 07 —

  — Chapter 08 —

  — Chapter 09 —

  — Chapter 10 —

  — Chapter 11 —

  — Chapter 12 —

  — Chapter 13 —

  — Chapter 14 —

  — Chapter 15 —

  — Chapter 16 —

  — Chapter 17 —

  — Chapter 18 —

  — Chapter 19 —

  — Chapter 20 —

  — Chapter 21 —

  — Chapter 22 —

  — Chapter 23 —

  — Chapter 24 —

  — Chapter 25 —

  — Chapter 26 —

  — Chapter 27 —

  — Chapter 28 —

  — Chapter 29 —

  — Chapter 30 —

  — Chapter 31 —

  — Chapter 32 —

  — Chapter 33 —

  — Chapter 34 —

  — Chapter 35 —

  — Chapter 36 —

  — Chapter 37 —

  — Chapter 38 —

  — Chapter 39 —

  — Chapter 40 —

  — Chapter 41 —

  — Chapter 42 —

  — Chapter 43 —

  — Chapter 44 —

  — Chapter 45 —

  — Chapter 46 —

  — Chapter 47 —

  — Chapter 48 —

  — Chapter 49 —

  — Chapter 50 —

  — Chapter 51 —

  — Chapter 52 —

  — PART II — — Chapter 53 —

  — PART III — — Chapter 54 —

  — Chapter 55 —

  AFTER ACTION REVIEW — About the Author —

  FORTRESS BETA CITY

  — PART I —

  2565AD

  Table of Organization and Equipment

  HUMAN MARINE CORPS

  1st Squad, Whiskey Company, 8th Battalion, 6907th Tac Regiment

  Current strength: 1 Marine, 37 cadets

  COMMAND SECTION: (SGT Scipio)

  [SGT Scipio] Sergeant Lance Scipio

  Cadet SGT Fitzgerald Wyckoff [Asst Sqd Ldr]

  Cadet LCPL Winnifred Pinza [chief medic]

  Cadet Cornell Woodbury

  Cadet Seamus O’Reilly [specialist: missile launcher]

  Cadet Devin Couch [specialist: Fermi cannon]

  1st SECTION: (c/LSGT Thorn)

  ~~ Alpha Fire Team ~~

  Cadet LSGT Cristal Thorn

  Cadet Jay Neville

  Cadet Fréderic Batie

  Cadet Alexandra Harper

  ~ ~ Beta Fire Team ~ ~

  Cadet CPL Emily Carmen

  Cadet Rebecca Platte

  Cadet Thomas Starr

  Cadet Stacy Urbana

  2nd SECTION: (c/CPL Mayer)

  ~~ Charlie Fire Team ~~

  Cadet CPL Lachlan Mayer

  Cadet Alexander Strudwick

  Cadet Michael White

  Cadet David Yoles

  ~~ Delta Fire Team ~~

  Cadet LCPL Amanda Grigori

  Cadet Rudolf Brankovic

  Cadet Ester Kovac

  Cadet Lucy Hode

  3rd SECTION: (c/CPL Darrow)

  ~~ Echo Fire Team ~~

  Cadet CPL Hugo Darrow

  Cadet Peter Foster

  Cadet Yakov Paszek

  Cadet Valeri Bogomolov

  ~~ Foxtrot Fire Team ~~

  Cadet LCPL Gloria Danzar

  Cadet Maria Aalto

  Cadet Vincent Meadows

  Cadet Erica Dorsey

  4th SECTION: c/CPL Tramonte)

  ~~ Golf Fire Team ~~

  Cadet CPL Penelope Tramonte

  Cadet Brittney Vacker

  Cadet Derek Stanbock

  Cadet Vlad Chernovol

  ~~ Hotel Fire Team ~~

  Cadet LCPL Charlotte Rochambeau

  Cadet Winston Gregorius

  Cadet Redmund Blakeley

  Cadet Hayley Mason

  — Chapter 01 —

  Beta City (Marine Farm #1)

  Cryogenic Revival Chamber #10, Level 8

  Auxiliary Technician Basil Terloar was having a bad day. Yesterday, Senior Lab Technician Ledatic, a really strict taskmaster, forced him to work into the wee hours of the night on some special project. Even in his sleep-deprived state, Basil could tell the project wasn’t approved by the Marine Corps chain of command.

  He finished loading the cleaning machine with the equipment Ledatic had left for him and hit the sterilize button. As the superheated steam erupted into the machine, obscuring its contents, Basil wondered why he was cleaning growth accelerators and self-aerating vessels stained black with bio-culturing agents. Kit like that was more at home in the agricultural research division, located closer to the surface on Level 3. It made no sense. What had agriculture to do with the cryo chambers deep underground where the Human Marine Corps stored the best of Beta City’s personnel?

  It was a question Basil would never dare to ask of his master.

  Ledatic was too ambitious – seeking to prove that he could be as valuable to Hardit society as a female. Unlike most Hardit males, Ledatic was a tall hulk of muscle with a strength of character most of his brothers lacked, easily enough to overpower the gaunt, weakened Auxie servants, such as Basil.

  The Auxie’s chronic exhaustion meant he had overslept that morning and missed his only meal. His belly was crying for attention. Further, he hadn’t had time to utilize the Aux Bath, which was reserved for Auxies assigned as stewards and technicians, so he was in the same filthy, lice-infested clothes he wore when not working in the lab.

  Ledatic was not going to like that.

  But there was nothing to be done
about it. Basil took a deep breath and reported in to his Hardit master in his personal laboratory.

  Ledatic looked up from his desk and fixed Basil with a glare from his three sulfurous eyes that looked down a snout wrinkling in disgust. The Hardit launched himself at Basil and began beating him for his offensive odor, raining blow after blow before ordering him to clean himself in the emergency Detox Shower.

  Damn those monkey wolves and their keen sense of smell. The emergency shower was pure torture, with water pressure that caused such a level of pain as to be comparable to a public flogging, without all the charm.

  After he was clean, Basil put on one of the spare technician uniforms kept in the lab for just such an occasion. He briefly marveled at the ability of these nanite-infested smartfabric uniforms to remain so pristine and white, regardless of what the wearer did throughout the day before.

  His mind shifted to Ledatic. I really will kill that drented frakker someday, he thought, lamenting his lot in life. In truth, he was as close to a pacifist as any spawn of a human Marine could be. Basil shook his head and silently laughed at himself for thinking he might kill his master. It just wasn’t in his nature, which was the very reason he’d failed out of his first week as a Cadet. He’d rather study the physics of ballistics telemetry than fire the weapon himself.

  Basil contemplated his life – being a second-class servant in a culture of warrior slaves – and momentarily regretted the day that he’d been booted from the training necessary to become a Marine in the White Knight Army. Anything, even life with the violent killers in the Marine Corps had to be better. At least the Marines were fed and weren’t regularly beaten, tortured, and killed.

  Basil yearned to have a little control over his destiny, to do more than forever scurry after the whims of his master. But that required hope, and hope was dangerous to a mere Aux slave. He clamped down hard on such perilous thoughts.

  Instead, he prayed that Ledatic would be so engrossed in his special project that he would forget Basil for the rest of the day. It was the best he could ever hope for, because there could be no second chance for Auxiliary Technician Basil Terloar.

  — Chapter 02 —

  Cryogenic Revival Chamber #10, Level 8

  Unlike many of his Hardit brethren, Senior Lab Technician Ledatic Sayansi-Hisabati was exceptionally tall. At five foot seven, he towered over his peers, which inevitably brought him to the ire of the females of his race. In a female-dominated culture, any male who stood out quickly regretted whatever made him incapable of blending in. Further, while the Hardits were normally a lean species, Ledatic was a solidly built wall of muscle, which rippled under his short fur-covered body. Most Hardits had long tails, but his had been injured in a fire in his science lab. Ledatic was lucky to survive the fire, but aside from a burn scar on his snout and the amputated tail, he came out relatively unscathed. Still, he looked as much like a wolf humanoid as the rest of the Hardit species. His growl was just as intimidating and his mind as cunning, maybe even more cunning.

  Luckily, the amputated tail didn’t seem to slow him down in his scientific endeavors, though it made him less useful in any Hardit militia service. His ability to bounce back from this injury was probably due to his job as a technician, because the lack of a tail would certainly hamper his ability to perform as a miner or engineer. One drawback, however, was that in addition to making him visible to the female Hardits in his gynocentric culture, it also made him too intimidating to his masculine peers. This inevitably led to a solitary lifestyle, which suited his scientific pursuits, although it also meant that when he was lonely he had nobody to lean on.

  After his injury, Ledatic promised himself he would never again be pinned down and helpless, relying on others to save him. He used his physical therapy time to exercise and bulk up, though no matter how strong he became his insecurities always got the better of him. He became paranoid, convinced that everyone was staring at his deformities and whispering about him when he wasn’t there. Much to the delight of his fellow Hardits, the once genteel scientist became a harsh taskmaster. He became known for the severity of his beatings, and several human Auxiliary personnel died under the force of his rage. He worked himself to the point of exhaustion, and expected no less from his subordinates.

  Ledatic believed that his research into horticulture and the viability of underground grow houses could lead to a freer species, circumventing the natural Hardit agoraphobia, and their natural weakness to the searing high-energy sunlight on the planet’s surface. In fact, he took the job running the Cryo Lab to give him the free time to continue his investigation.

  He was deep into that research when a secure message came across the digi-sheet on his desk with secure orders requesting Cryopod #002-20040725-941-0073 be immediately revived. He was so engrossed in his work that he missed the significance of the assigned cryopod number, and he paged Basil, the Aux assigned to his lab. Why I bother to learn their names is beyond me, but this one is particularly smart, thought Ledatic.

  “Basil, get your arse in here now!” growled Ledatic into his comms device. When his words were translated through the voice box he wore on his neck it really did sound like he was growling in a definite canine manner.

  Basil ran in, out of breath, and promptly reported in to his supervisor. Before he could even ask what was going on, Ledatic thrust the digi-sheet into his hands and ordered him to go awaken the occupant of the pod, and ensure that his master wasn’t disturbed while he went about his research.

  ——

  Basil couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he set out to retrieve the requested cryopod from Level 10, and arrange its transportation back up to the revival chamber on Level 8. He recognized the look in Ledatic’s three eyes. It said he thought he was close to a breakthrough, though he was always on the very edge of a breakthrough. This also meant that you could get a few easy days if you could just keep him busy on his calculations and the various other accoutrements of his work. The only downside: when his breakthrough fell through, life would become very miserable.

  Basil silently thanked whatever supreme being made him that the retrieval process was fully automated, and shuddered at the idea of having to locate the pod himself within this frozen army stuffed into every cranny of the level. While waiting for the pod to arrive, he set out to get a uniform and to program it with the proper settings for the soon to be revived Marine. He then made sure that food would be ready in the Recovery Room where the newly revived re-oriented to their surroundings. The room was huge, capable of housing a company at a time, but today its cavernous quality would just have to be cozy enough for the individual revival. Once he had set out a uniform, complete with boots, cover, and a digi-sheet, Basil paged the mess stewards for food to be delivered.

  Immediately upon the arrival of Cryopod #002-20040725-941-0073, Basil began the revival protocol. First he ran a diagnostic check on the occupant, one Sergeant Lance Scipio, to rule out the presence of diseases or defects from the cryogenic freezing process. Then he checked the integrity of the AI Storage Compartment, as a breach in that seal could end with an AI going rogue, which in turn would require initiation of Reformat Protocol. Once he was sure that the AI storage was secure, he opened it so he could insert the sergeant’s combat AI into the digi-sheet assigned to him. Scipio could move it to his Aimee later if he chose. He was shocked to discover several other AI units in there, nestled in a cryo-resistant cloth that made them look to Basil like stowaways.

  I wonder what I’m supposed to do about these, thought Basil while he monitored for resuscitation attrition as the machine ran through its revival process.

  — Chapter 03 —

  Cryogenic Revival Chamber #10, Level 8

  The first thing Lance noticed were the bright lights of the sterile, white lab where they were reviving him. He slowly became aware of his surroundings, noticing that he wasn’t on board the Grendel anymore. That realization unleashed a flood of memories and regrets, as he mourned his childhood friends w
ho had died on his first mission. All they were supposed to do was investigate QEP 16, an orbiting quarantine enforcement platform that had gone offline in a nearby star system. They hadn’t expected to do more than show up and switch the lights back, but the mission turned into a cluster-frakked disaster in which every other member of the company had either been sliced in two by a hidden foe, or had been executed because of the dishonor their poor performance had brought on the regiment. Even their Jotun officers had been put to death. All but one, Captain Grimgerde. In fact, Lance wasn’t sure whether he was shivering because he lay naked in his cold cryopod or because he was reacting emotionally to losing everyone he had ever known.

  His vision began to improve. The blinding light became pinpricks, which turned into floating specks of light across his vision that slowly became a mere light sensitivity. When he could finally see again, he noticed the human in front of him, a male who seemed tall when compared to the Marines from the Island where he was from. Finally, I won’t be a hugely freakish oaf, thought Lance. If only Jason had lived to see this. He’d love not standing out as the biggest guy in the room.

  Awash in his own private musings, Lance almost missed that the male was talking to him. “Hello, I’m Auxiliary Technician Basil Terloar. You’ve been resuscitated and are about to be returned to duty. Are you feeling okay?”

  Wow, he sounds funny, thought Lance, a definite nasal sound. I wonder how I would sound to him. “I’m feeling fine, Auxiliary Technician, the usual resuscitation hunger. I see that I’m not on board the Grendel anymore. Where am I?”

  “You’re in Beta City, on Tranquility-4. I’m sorry, normally I would’ve told you where you were being revived. Do you have any other questions before we proceed to the Recovery Room?”

  “Questions? I’ve got plenty but let’s start with the basics,” said Lance through a clenched jaw, “like where on Horden’s hairy fanny is Beta City?”