Where were the hovels for the downtrodden peasants? Perhaps in the forested western half of the earldom where Tom was doing most of his work.
Somewhere below, a gun went off.
On reflex, Jasmine looked in the direction of the sound. Beneath her boots, a flight of steps snaked down to where white powder smoke drifted across a wide, walled ledge. In five hundred years, it would be an enclosed garden, but right now it was bare except for some wooden sheds at one end, and what looked like a row of painted bird targets at the other.
Lowenstein emerged from the largest shed and waved at her.
"Right!" Jasmine scuffed the mud off her boots so she wouldn’t slip, then started down the steps. That bastard boffin had some explaining to do.
#
Jasmine shouldered her way into the shed.
As Lowenstein turned, she began, "You bastard, you’ve…" The egg-stench of old-fashioned gunpowder set off a coughing fit.
"Colonel Klimt! A pleasure!" said Lowenstein. He clicked his heels and made a half-bow. "We almost met at Bunker 13."
Jasmine's vision took on a pink tinge. Once again she heard her men and women screaming as the Elitist gas dissolved their masks then lungs, and the rumble of that final salvo of Death Rockets howling off to wreak pointless death on the newly liberated cities of the Egality.
She advanced on the man responsible, the man who should have been shot out of hand. She did not remember drawing her dagger. "I guess you shouldn't have come down here without your bodyguard or your flunkies."
A gun appeared in the white-haired scientist’s hands. He tutted. "This weapon may be old-fashioned, but it is loaded, and quite capable of killing you before you reach me."
Then she really saw the weapon.
A matchlock harquebus.
It was pretty enough – webbed by etchings of giant gryphons devouring unicorns — but it was primitive: just a barrel on a stock, with an S-shaped metal rod doubling as trigger and match-cord holder.
Jasmine tried to frown away the fatigue. "That gun’s not right," she said, without lowering her dagger. “Not invented yet.” Perhaps this really was an alien planet after all.
"Sixty or so years not right." Lowenstein swept his arm around, drawing her attention to wall-racks of similar firearms. "Hunting pieces. Not for war. And — yes — not invented yet, supposedly."
"So you did know." Jasmine wondered whether she could throw her dagger faster than he could shoot. "You tricked us into invading our own past."
Lowenstein threw back his head and laughed. "Does this look like an alien planet? Only the ignoramuses of the Egality would believe in such trash as parallel evolution and morphic resonance!"
From outside the shed came the sound of voices and boots coming down the steps. The rest of the Post Office Science Workers were returning. Lowenstein set down the harquebus on a workbench next to a General Combat Defender Mark Two, a weapon familiar from Jasmine's brief stint as an Air Marine. The elegant medieval firearm didn’t belong in the same world as the chunky GCD2 with its crude drum magazine.
The voices and stomping boots grew closer.
"You crazy bastard." Jasmine sheathed her dagger. "What happens when we kill our own ancestors?"
"Pah! We have merely split the timeline. The two worlds now exist in parallel. Our history is unchanged."
"How would we know if things had changed?"
Lowenstein’s eyes glinted. "You show considerable intelligence for an Egality soldier ant." He whipped the book from Jasmine’s left hand.
Jasmine blinked. Shit! She was slow today.
Lowenstein opened the volume at the famous self-portrait. Albrecht the Genius had been a handsome young man, if a bit too petite and wiry for Jasmine’s taste. "Post Office Security found this fine boy’s corpse in the Chapel. Dead, 1490. But this book is still, Albrecht the Genius Early Works 1491-1522." He snapped it shut. "Happy? Now, please exercise discretion." He lowered his voice. "The matter is Compartmentalised."
"Discretion?,” said Jasmine. “Don't you think other people will notice? They only have to speak to the locals..."
The scientist held his finger to his lips.
A blue-overalled Security Worker put his head around the door. "Everything alright, Worker Lowenstein?"
Jasmine exhaled and steadied herself. When was the last time she had slept properly? A week ago at least. Before her fight with Sir Ranulph.
Lowenstein laughed. "The Colonel is helping me with an experiment." He picked up the GCD2. "Outside, please."
Jasmine shrugged and followed him. Some Security Workers looked at the GCD2, left off smoking and fled into the nearest hut.
A knight’s breastplate hung from the back wall of the range, to the right of the painted bird target. Propped up next to it was a section of armour plate from one of Jasmine's tanks.
Lowenstein handed it to her. He clapped his hands against the cold then slipped them inside the pockets of his leather coat. "The tank armour. Automatic bursts, please."
Jasmine slung the strap over her shoulder and adjusted it until the stock bumped her hip. The GCD2 was easy to shoot, but no good at more than 50 metres. She strolled downrange until she was at least that close, then opened fire.
The Egality engineers had designed the GCD2 for literally any idiot to use. The forward handle compensated a little for the kick, and the trigger released bursts of three bullets so that you couldn't piss away your ammo shooting over people's heads. Hand one of these to an enraged slave of the Elitists, and you had a soldier… or so the theory went. In practice, the single factory making them had been taken out by an Elitist bombing raid, so they had only ever been issued to Air Marines.
Jasmine pulled the trigger. The rat-tat-tat sound smacked her ears, as she played the bullets across the riveted steel plate, flaking the grey paint, making bullets ricochet.
"So?" she said.
"Try the body armour," said Lowenstein from close behind her.
Jasmine rotated a few degrees and opened up on the knight’s breastplate. Her bullets chipped the wall to the left. She adjusted her aim. Now flecks of stone flew off the wall to the right. She tried again. Somehow the juddering gun always managed to miss, just like when she tried to machine gun Sir Ranulph. She shook her head. "Fuck me."
"Indeed," said Lowenstein, almost in her ear. "The harquebuses do no better, which explains why they are not used for war. Now, try using the sights with single shots."
Jasmine toggled the mode, raised the heavy weapon to her shoulder, exhaled, and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet pinged off the breastplate.
“You see?” said Lowenstein. “When you actually aim with intent, with will, you hit.”
Jasmine nodded. “But the damn thing bounced off.”
“Try again.”
She switched back to three round burst, aimed carefully, and landed three more hits. Then she broke off the inhibitor and fired on fully automatic. This time she was aiming properly, and sure enough each round drew sparks from the breastplate.
She advanced, firing in long bursts. The closer she got, the more vivid the memories of fighting Sir Ranulph, and the louder the ricochets from the seemingly impenetrable armour.
The hammer clicked on an empty chamber. Jasmine turned. "Not good."
The scientist nodded. "Come." As she followed him down range, he said, "Your report went to the engineers who could not find anything wrong. General Hamilton was not satisfied — the Experimental Tanks Brigade is close to his heart, did you know?"
"Ha!" said Jasmine. "Without it, he would just be an administrator, not a general."
Lowenstein shrugged. "I will not pretend to understand Egality internal politics. So..." They arrived at the two targets. The tank armour had actually suffered more surface damage than the knight's breastplate. "Where the Egality engineers failed, a… former… Elitist scientist succeeded," he said. "I carried out exhaustive tests, not just on the castle walls, but on the enemy weapons." He stooped, fish
ed behind the tank armour, and produced a battle axe with a flourish.
"Shit!" Jasmine took a step back.
The white haired scientist hefted the axe over his shoulder and struck the breastplate. There was a resounding clang. A slight dent now marred the armour. "So," he said. He brought the axe across his body and struck backhanded against the tank armour. The tip of the axe blade thocked into the steel. Lowenstein left the axe sticking there and shook his hand.
Jasmine laughed. "Not used to doing the actual fighting, are you?"
"Not with an axe, no." Lowenstein rubbed his wrist. "So, call it an Anomaly."
"No shit. I had fifty tanks blasting away at the castle. The few times they did score a hit, they just damaged the paintwork. And then the giant crossbows turned my HQ squadron into so many kebabs."
Lowenstein's eyes twinkled. He leaned close to examine the gun and whispered, "The Anomaly originates from their weapons and armour, not ours."
In the corner of her eye, Jasmine noted that at least one Security Worker was watching them. She pretended to smile as if Lowenstein were flirting, and said very quietly, "Does Field Marshal Williams know this?" She didn’t much like Williams, but he was leader of the expeditionary force. This was information he needed.
Lowenstein made a play of adjusting the GCD2's ejection mechanism. "I belong to the Post Office so I report to Postmaster General Hamilton, only. He prefers to wait… until he has time to personally review my findings."
Jasmine felt sick. She’d seen this before, but not on the same scale.
Postmaster General Hamilton would delay until the coffins had buried Field Marshal Williams's credibility. Then he’d use Lowenstein’s research to pull the army back from the brink, making himself the hero of the hour.
He’d call an election and, as if by magic, Postmaster General Hamilton would become Field Marshal Hamilton of the Egality Expeditionary Force. He’d have an entire army at his beck and call, and a whole new world to add to his personal empire. Except of course, this wasn't a new world, was it?
Jasmine pushed the gun into the scientist’s hands. She stepped back from him. "Why the hell do you care?"
"The Aliens are coming," said Lowenstein.
"Yes, the real ones, and it's your bloody fault." Jasmine didn't bother to keep her voice down. She was damned if she was going to be drawn into one of Lowenstein's schemes. "Remember, I'm the one who found those pickled specimens of yours in the basement of your bunker."
"If I recall, you also found the photographs from our interplanetary probe."
Jasmine chewed her lip and remembered the grainy images of vast rocket ships parked like tanks between two of the dried-up canals that criss-crossed the surface of the Red Planet.
"Blame me for fighting a war to the utmost. Blame the Elitists for having a different political philosophy..." began Lowenstein.
"Different political philosophy..!" began Jasmine.
Lowenstein held up his hand. "But do not blame us for the Aliens. They must have started invasion preparations the very moment they detected radio signals emanating from our planet."
Jasmine turned to go. If Lowenstein sounded like he was making sense, she really did need to catch up on her sleep.
The scientist caught her sleeve. "Listen!"
Something about his tone made her stop.
Lowenstein continued in a hiss. "Somebody in a less... vulnerable position than me must bring this anomaly to the attention of the right people. Otherwise we will never win the resources with which to defeat the extraterrestrial invasion." He released her. "At the very least, we humans need somewhere to hide."
"Some of us are less human than others," said Jasmine.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tom heaved his motorbike out from behind the tank and saw yet more tanks heading west: one of Jasmine's battalions of smog-belching monsters making a show of force. Since tanks were still officially experimental, the crews were mostly on secondment. However, each vehicle bore the same Post Office horn-and-horse badge that Tom sported on his uniform.
General Hamilton had spent a very long hour that morning explaining how the crews should really be fully transferred to his Resource, so that the Post Office could have a proper Tanks Division, rather than just an Experimental Brigade.
Tom grinned. He knew what Marcel and Jasmine would say about that.
The muddy road widened just a little more. Tom opened the throttle and, swerving to avoid swinging howitzers, roared past the armoured vehicles.
It was good to be free of the ponderous tanks, and even better to be free of the weekly meeting. General Hamilton was only trying to keep his people in the loop. Even so, it was hard to take an interest in news from branches of the Post Office such as Housing, Logistics and — Tom wrinkled his nose – Sanitation. Was it really worth bringing them through the Gate, just to make reports?
A gap! Just a few extra metres between tank squadrons. It was enough… probably.
Whooping, Tom cut across the twin prows of a moving mountain. He changed down a gear and stood up on the pegs. Leaning forward, he let the motorbike carry him up the side of the valley and onto the higher path.
Like all medieval roads, the future Autobahn 12 was really just a braid of seasonal tracks. Only an idiot – or somebody with a tracked vehicle — would willingly choose the lower routes during autumn. The upper routes, however, were dry and safe for a motorbike, as long as you didn’t go too fast.
How fast was too fast? How fast did he need to go to prevent disaster?
It hadn’t been much of a warning – just a hint from radio chatter. All the same... Tom eased open the throttle until the path wiggled towards him like a silk scarf in the wind.
The bike lurched. The wheels skidded towards the edge… the steep slope… and the unstoppable tanks, thirty metres below.
Whooping, Tom kicked out at the bank. The bike righted itself centimetres from the edge, careened into the upper slope, then skittered back onto the path.
Tom braked, switched off and planted his feet on solid ground to wait until the elation faded. He raised his goggles and filled his lungs. There, framed by the mouth of the valley, was the Great Forest.
Suddenly the tanks didn’t seem so very big.
In the week since arriving on New Egality, Tom had scrambled his bike between its vast boles, walked under its russet canopy, kicked piles of its fallen leaves, but this was the first time he’d really seen the forest.
There was a near edge, flush against the river, and a western horizon. Everything between was trees. Everything, except the creeping gash around the King’s Highway, a Kill Zone where the Post Office had peasants working to remove anything which might provide cover for an attacker. Near the River Brander, a single russet spur remained, pinching the road.
A Post Office General Purpose Armoured Transporter was parked on nearby cleared ground. Even at this distance, Tom could make out the white horn-and-horse emblem.
So it was true. Something bad was brewing.
Steeling himself, Tom trundled down to the ford. He opened the throttle and splashed into the water alongside a tank. Leaning against the current, he ploughed across and veered into the Kill Zone. He wove around the stumps of butchered trees and skidded to a halt next to the tracked vehicle. He raised his goggles and dismounted.
Father Hengist was in conversation with a Post Office Security sergeant.
Tom relaxed a little. As a Post Office Integration Worker, he was the equivalent of a lieutenant. In theory, he could tell the sergeant what to do.
As Tom approached, the peasant headman shook his head.
The sergeant waved his carbine and shouted, "YOU CUTTY TREES. NOW!"
"Enough!" snapped Tom. He switched to medieval pronunciation, "Father Hengist, what is the problem?"
"Lord Tom, greetings." Father Hengist bobbed his head. "They wish us to chop down the Fairy Grove." He gestured at the ancient trees. The branches dripped with strips of bright fabric and corn dollies.
> Tom winced. He’d prepared words for this sort of problem, but now they didn’t seem very polite. "Do you fear children’s stories?"
"I fear the Fair Folk," said Father Hengist.
"But you are a priest!"
"Exactly."
The sergeant turned, "If you’ve stopped yabbering in Woggish, can we get some work done?"
Tom hardly heard him. His stomach clenched and his mind hurtled back to a world of pain… his broken nose dripping blood onto white tiles, rough hands on his flesh…
The Sergeant smiled. It was the same open, farm boy smile, and it made Tom’s scar itch. "Do we know each other?"
"Hello, Corporal Brown," said Tom.
Brown’s smile faltered. "Not Corporal anymore. And I don’t remember you."
Tom glanced at the other soldiers and imagined them without their blue caps. Some of the faces were… familiar. "Sandhaven Rehabilitation Centre," said Tom, fighting to keep his hand from his regulation sidearm.
"I was too traumatised to remember much of that," said Brown.
"You were traumatised?"
"Oh yes," said Brown. His eyes twinkled. "My Trauma Councillor says I was a victim of a brutalising regime which sucked me into traumatic situations. But I’m OK now." He fished out a dog-eared card from his top pocket.
Tom blinked and read, then reread, the text...
ARCHIBALD BROWN IS CERTIFIED REHABILITATED. HIS PERSONAL HISTORY IS OFFICIALLY COMPARTMENTALISED. IT IS A GRADE 2 OFFENCE TO DISCUSS INCIDENTS BEFORE 12/03/29.
— By order of the Post Office Counselling Division
Just as he had learnt on the street, Tom counted to ten, schooling his breathing until neither words nor body betrayed his feelings. He shrugged. "It’s old history."
"We’ll get along fine," said Brown with another farm boy grin.
Tom turned back to Father Hengist. "Your pardon, good yeoman. Do not trouble with this grove."
Father Hengist got his people moving
Brown asked, "What did you say?"
Tom looked at the ex-Rehabilitation cop and didn’t bother to hide his contempt. The medieval accent was strange on modern ears, but not that strange. It was as if people just switched off when they heard anybody speak foreign. It was probably why nobody not in the know had worked out that this wasn't really an alien planet.
Armoured heroes clash across the centuries! (Swords Versus Tanks Book 1) Page 6