by Terry Mixon
With his newfound knowledge, Talbot had the drones scan the other riders, looking for any other antiarmor weapons. He found two more with the tubes. One was in the process of reloading his weapon with something from his saddlebags, while the other one was taking aim at the building as he rode around it.
His companions had moved clear of the area behind and in front of him to give him a clear shot. Moments later, a bright spark of light fired out of the tube and slammed into the building in an area that hadn’t been struck by an explosive yet. More of the roof came down after the blast ripped the wall out.
The enemy riders hooted their approval and shook their bows in the air. That pissed Talbot off, and he decided it was time to end this farce once and for all.
He plucked one of the few plasma grenades they’d been able to recover from the pinnaces from his belt and pulled the pin. With the drones flying overhead, he knew exactly how far away the man in front of the ramp was. With a plasma grenade, all he needed to do was get close, and that little rise in the dirt wouldn’t make any difference at all.
“Fire in the hole,” he said over the general channel. “Duck and cover.”
He cocked his arm back and engaged his combat computer. It double-checked his calculations, adjusted the angle of his throw and the strength he was going to use, and then lobbed the grenade out over the ramp for him. Through the drones, Talbot watched it arc cleanly through the air and land directly in front of the man, rolling to a stop almost underneath him.
The target attempted to scramble back. He might not have known what the grenade was, but he obviously thought it was bad news.
He was right.
The grenade went off in an unbearable burst of light that put dots into Talbot’s vision, even down on the ramp with a helmet on. The shockwave struck the building, probably blowing out every window on this side of the structure. He hoped everyone had taken his warning seriously.
Another check of the drones revealed a fairly deep crater and no sign of the enemy or his weapon. They’d been atomized, along with a number of horsemen that were too close to the blast.
Even more were down, injured and screaming in pain. The wounded horses sounded like hurt kids, and that tore at his heart. The sound was going to torment his dreams for a while, but he hadn’t had a choice.
“Chloe,” Talbot said over the command channel. “The drones show two more bad guys with antiarmor weapons. I’ll take out the first one as he comes around. I’m marking him as target A. Target B is your responsibility.”
“Copy that.”
Since he had complete drone coverage, Talbot wasn’t worried that he’d lose the location and identity of the next man on his hit list. The building itself had shielded the horseman from the blast, and he was still coming around on his previous course, if a little more cautiously.
When the man cleared the building and raced into the area closest the ramp, Talbot ran up the incline and tore straight for him. The guy saw him coming and swung the antiarmor weapon around, but he was far too slow.
Before he’d even closed a portion of the distance, Talbot raised his rifle and fired a burst, cutting the man in half. He’d targeted well enough to miss the horse, so Kelsey would be pleased about that. That only left one threat to them now.
“Got him,” Chloe said moments later. “He’s down on the other side of the building, and our people have him covered. If anybody tries to go for the weapon, we’ll take them out. If there are no more high-tech weapons, we should be able to turn this fight around.”
Talbot sure as hell hoped so, because the butcher’s bill was already going to be too high. Now that he’d seen these weapons in action, he was deathly afraid for his wife. He prayed to the gods that they’d watch over his impulsive woman and keep her from the fate that so many of his people here had just suffered.
Kelsey laid into the attackers all around her, leaping as needed to come up to their level. After a few engagements, no one wanted to duel her. She was death on two feet.
The enemy forces didn’t have any more of the antiarmor weapons. Without them, they had zero chance against her marines. In less than two minutes, they’d broken the will of the attacking force and sent them scattering.
With the marines using their stunners or lethal weaponry, not very many of the enemy had gotten away, but that didn’t mean that everyone fighting them had been captured. The drones were able to tally each of the fleeing riders, so they knew that twenty-six of them had escaped.
When Julia arrived back at the camp, she’d passed word of the ones she’d taken out. Corporal Boske sent a couple of marines to retrieve them and tasked others with helping Beauchamp’s forces gather the horses. They’d accumulated quite a few, which might be useful in the upcoming journey.
If, of course, the other woman didn’t just take them. Kelsey and Beauchamp still had some things to figure out.
Most of the prisoners were unconscious and laid out in a long row. Others had been taken awake but wounded in one way or another. Those were shackled and seated in a rough circle, with armed guards around them. The last group were the dead, who were also laid out in a line.
Only the one marine had died in the fighting. His name had been Thomas Reed. Kelsey knew virtually nothing about the man, as he hadn’t been part of Athena’s original complement.
As for the defenders, they’d had half a dozen killed and maybe twice that many wounded. Their leader still moved among them, assessing the damage and preparing her people to move.
While Kelsey watched the woman, Corporal Boske stepped up to her side, her helmet off and resting in the crook of her arm.
“There was nothing you could’ve done, Colonel,” she said softly. “Even if we’d attacked them before they’d arrived at the camp, they’d have still pressed forward. These weren’t the kind of people that just broke and ran.”
Kelsey didn’t know about that, but she wasn’t going to argue with the woman. If there was one hard lesson that she’d learned over the last few years, it was that second-guessing yourself was a path that led to misery. You did the best you could with the information that you had at the time and dealt with the consequences. Which was what she needed to do now.
“We need to bury him,” Kelsey said tiredly. “We’re not going to be able to take him with us.”
The other woman delicately cleared her throat. “Colonel, he was struck by high explosives that utterly destroyed him. It would take a long time to find all of the pieces, and that would be one of the grisliest jobs I could imagine. I found part of one boot with his big toe. That might be the largest part of him left in one piece.
“Perhaps that’s sacrilegious of me, but I have no desire to dig through the dirt and find bits and pieces of a friend. Let him lie here where he died.”
Kelsey grunted and nodded. “You’re probably right. Have you kept Jared informed about what’s happened?”
The other woman nodded. “Yes, but I haven’t kept you informed of what was happening there. They’re engaged with a similar size group right now. Our reinforcements turned around and are almost back to the building.”
Kelsey spun on the corporal. “Why didn’t you tell me as soon as we’d finished fighting? Get everyone gathered up. We move out in three minutes.”
“Colonel, take a breath. By the time we get there, the fighting will be over. Your husband is more than capable of defending that building, and from what I’ve heard, he’s taken steps to eliminate the antiarmor weapons. They took some casualties, but the fight has already swung in their favor.
“You have a job here that you need to finish. If we don’t find allies, we’re all going to die. We’ve offended this horde, and now we need to know what they’re going to do about it. We need to find out if we’re even going to be able to start the journey toward the Imperial Palace, or if we’re going to be digging in somewhere for a last stand.
“Friends would help us a lot right about now, and we can’t let this opportunity pass. You’ve made a conne
ction with this woman. It’s time for you to do what you do best: make friends.”
Kelsey felt the corner of her mouth twitch up. “Is that what I do best? I thought it was breaking things and killing bad guys. They certainly seem to think so.”
She gestured toward the prisoners, many of whom were staring at her with expressions of terror on their faces. She’d made a strong impression, it seemed.
The other woman seemed to consider her for a moment and then shrugged. “I’ve always considered that more of a hobby for you. Right now, your ability to make a connection with these people is what’s going to get us out of the trap we’re in.
“If there’s a way to get to the Imperial Palace, to know what threats are between here and there, and come up with a plan to help us to dodge them, she and her people might be our best source of information about them.”
Kelsey considered that for a long moment before nodding. She took a deep breath and looked over at where the others were gathering. The marines were still patrolling, but Julia had stepped over to, and was talking with, Clarice Beauchamp.
Interesting. Kelsey hadn’t considered that possibility, and she wondered what the other woman was going to tell the warrior. Was Julia a better diplomat than she was? Now might be the time to find out.
“You’re right, Corporal. Gather as many of the loose horses as you can. Since we did most of the heavy fighting, I’m going to press our claim to them. If Talbot can capture those around the building, we might have enough for everyone. That would cut our travel time down significantly.
“Meanwhile, I should probably head over and see what my doppelgänger is telling our new friends. We wouldn’t want her to give away the farm, would we?”
14
Jared kept firing until the enemy finally broke and raced off in numerous directions, undoubtedly to regroup at a safe distance. He had no idea how many of the horsemen they’d killed or stunned, but he thought they might have gotten more than half.
They stayed on guard in case the enemy returned for another run at them, but after about ten minutes, Talbot told everyone to stand down.
Jared stood and shook the debris and dust off of himself. They hadn’t had any more ceiling collapses, but a lot of the material had drifted down onto the combatants during the fighting.
He wanted to assist in pulling survivors from the rubble, or treating the moaning and screaming wounded, but he knew that he had to pay attention to the overall picture first. He’d find out what the butcher’s bill was soon enough.
Commander Roche was waiting when he got downstairs. He’d been in charge of the non-combatants, even though he wasn’t technically in their version of Fleet at all. Jared had made an exception for the grave circumstances they’d found themselves in. He’d had Sean Meyer heading the armed Fleet personnel to defend the room if the enemy breached it.
“What’s going on?” Roche asked quietly once he’d come down the stairs. “I can see from the drone network that the enemy has broken off, but did we win?”
“We survived,” Jared replied as he found a brush on one of the walls and started getting the worst of the debris off of his marine fatigues. He’d just finished when Talbot came down the ramp with his helmet off.
The larger man headed directly over to him. “We’ve driven them off, Admiral, and the building is secure. Chloe is still working on rescuing the trapped personnel and tallying our casualties. We’ve got a number of injured that are going to start coming down fairly quickly. Commodore Stone is waiting to be receiving them.”
The other man’s eyes narrowed. “Is that dust all over you, sir? Were you upstairs?”
“Of course I was. I wasn’t about to let them fight without me. I’m my sister’s brother.”
Talbot chuckled. “I suppose that I shouldn’t have expected anything else. In any case, the fighting is wrapped up at the landing camp as well. We lost one marine there to one of the antiarmor weapons.
“I’ll have Chloe gather our dead so that we can bury them. There are a lot of enemy bodies as well, so we’ll create a separate grave for them. We’ve got a few prisoners, but not as many as you’d think. Apparently falling off of a horse racing at full speed doesn’t do well for your chances of ultimate survival.
“What we do have is plenty of armor and weapons suitable for use under primitive conditions. A lot of bows and arrows, a lot of swords, some spears, and some leather armor that we can probably use for a number of our people.
“The marines have their unpowered armor, so they won’t need that, but the Fleet personnel and scientists could probably do with a little bit of extra protection, when push comes to shove again.”
“Are we going to interrogate the prisoners?” Roche asked. “Maybe they can tell us what we’re up against. Maybe they can tell us why those people felt the need to kill us.”
Jared nodded. That kind of information would be good to know. If they were going to have to fight people like this all the way to the Imperial Palace, they needed to have a better idea of what they’d done to offend them. Had it just been their presence? Or had it been something murkier?
“What about the horses?” Jared asked. “How many did we capture? Do any of us know how to ride them?”
The marine’s eyes unfocused for a moment as he checked something through his implants. “It looks like we’ve captured roughly forty. We’ll probably pick up a few more as we finish sweeping the area, but I’ll bet we get no more than fifty. Kelsey’s group also captured a number of horses, though it’s uncertain whether they’ll get to keep them or not. The other group might object.
“I’m hopeful that she can make a deal with them. At some point, the enemy is going to come looking for payback. They don’t know exactly who we are, but they know where to find us. I’d imagine it’s going to be a significant force with as many heavy weapons as they can gather. Since we won’t have powered armor when they come back, we need to be gone without leaving an easy trail for them to follow.”
“How do we do that?” Roche asked, throwing up his hands. “No matter what we do, we’re going to leave a trail a kilometer wide. Even if we figure out how to ride the horses and take off for the forest, they’ll still be able to follow our tracks right to us. Nothing we do is going to get us clear of their response.”
Jared nodded. “There’s something to what you’re saying. We’d best hope that Kelsey can make friends with these new people. If they’re already involved in a war with our new enemies, throwing in a few more people behind their protective walls isn’t going to hurt them. We can probably trade equipment for our safety, if we can trust them.”
He scratched his chin and looked up at the ceiling. “I want everybody ready to travel within the hour. Have Doctor Stone consult with me about who’s too injured to move and what we can do to move them anyway. We can’t leave anyone behind, so she’s going to have to figure out how to make this work.
“Let’s hope that Kelsey makes us some new friends. We really need a few right about now.”
Julia found herself amused as Clarice Beauchamp studied her closely. The other woman was undoubtedly confused at how the woman she’d been speaking with earlier had suddenly gotten into armor. Or perhaps even why she’d bothered to do so after the fighting was already over.
“I’m not the woman you think I am,” she said with a bland smile. “That’s my twin sister.”
While that wasn’t technically true, giving the woman the impression that she and her doppelgänger were twins by birth rather than variants of one another from different dimensions was a lot easier than trying to explain the whole story to someone that she imagined either wouldn’t believe her or didn’t need to know the truth.
“Sisters?” the other woman said slowly. “I see. What’s your name?”
“I’m Julia. Now that the fight is over, what are you going to do next?”
“We’ll gather what equipment we can quickly salvage and then depart. We thank you for your intervention, but the horde will not
allow this invasion to pass. If we’re still within their reach by dusk tomorrow, they’ll do their absolute best to kill every single one of us. They don’t take intrusions to their territory lightly.”
Julia gestured toward the tents. “Everything that we couldn’t carry with us is in those. Take whatever you like. It’s not something that we’re going to be able to carry with us.”
Though that was possibly inaccurate, if they got their hands on some horses. Other supplies were inside the pinnaces, so they could play this by ear if they got their hands on enough mounts.
She looked out at where the other group’s people were busy capturing the loose horses. “As we shared in the fighting, I believe it’s also customary that we share in the spoils. While we don’t want any of the equipment, we would find it useful to have extra mounts. Do you have any objection to us taking the horses that were orphaned in the battle?”
The other woman seemed to consider that for a moment and then slowly nodded. “Horses are easy enough to come by. They roam free, and we can capture and train those we need or raise them in our own corrals. These are warhorses, however, and they may be somewhat dangerous for your people, particularly new riders. If I were you, I’d definitely wear at least leg armor before trying to ride them.”
The other woman was undoubtedly referring to the more primitive armor that was being salvaged from the dead. Those that had been shot with modern weapons had most of their armor chewed up, but perhaps the leggings could be salvaged. Or it would be a case of mixing and matching to find what worked. In any case, that grisly task belonged to someone else.
She did some quick calculations. Based on the number of people they had back at the building, minus the casualties, and the number of horses that Colonel Talbot said that he’d recovered, added to what she was getting here, they still didn’t have enough to give everyone a mount of their own. They did have enough to put two people per horse, with some left over for the experienced riders. That would have to do.