Spirit of Empire 4: Sky Knights

by Lawrence White

  “You, too, are from an emerging world?” she asked in wonder.

  Her amazement caused him to pause, to consider things from her perspective, a perspective he’d once shared. But events had forced him to change, and he believed they might force her to change as well.

  He asked her, “As a queen, did you lead your men in battle?”

  “Of course.”

  Her answer startled him. “You did? Weren’t you in the way?”

  She mentally bristled. “Why is everyone around here treating me like a helpless princess?”

  “My apologies, Your Majesty,” he said, chastened. But he pressed on. “Tell me, were you really helpful to your men in battle?”

  “Yes. I’m not strong with the sword and made no attempt to hide the fact. I’m very good with a bow, and my men used that to their advantage. Besides, the presence of the queen keeps the men motivated.”

  “You’re talking about leadership, and I couldn’t agree more. It can sway the outcome of a battle, and I respect you for knowing that. But Governor Havlock tells me your focus has moved beyond your kingdom to encompass all of Tranxte now. You no longer lead a few, you lead many.”

  She bristled again. “I still lead from the front. I lost the argument yesterday or else I’d be down there with Governor Havlock right now.”

  “No, Your Majesty. I say you won the argument. Governor Havlock was smart enough to put you where you’re most needed.”

  “But he’s going to speak face to face with a peick. When he did that with a gleason, he nearly died.”

  “And you would prevent that how?”

  That gave her pause. In a smaller voice she said, “My blaster could make a difference.”

  He nodded. “Hmm. Let’s see . . . he has 10 squads of marines and their shuttles. That’s over 250 guns. The frigate is watching over everyone with multiple, high power weapons. You’re right—your extra handgun would make a huge difference.”

  She blushed, but she did not give up. “Tranxte is my world. I should be the one down there.”

  “Aha! Now we’re getting to the real issue.”

  She hesitated, then said softly, “No, that’s not the real issue. The real issue is personal.”

  He put a virtual arm around her virtual shoulder. “I know. Everyone with eyes knows. There’s no good answer to that one. Let me just say that he is where he needs to be, and your being here gives him the freedom to do what he needs to do.”

  “So the woman stays in the rear while her man goes out to be a dead hero?”

  He dropped his virtual arm from her shoulder with a frown. “There’s some truth to what you say, but that’s only part of it. If Governor Havlock convinced me of anything, he convinced me you’re a potentially great leader for Tranxte, and a smart one to boot.”

  “I won’t lead from the rear.”

  “Define rear.” He held up a virtual hand, knowing her retort would be sharp. “I know what you’re going to say. I was once there myself. Back on Earth I led some of the most elite forces on the planet, and I always led from the front. Since coming to the Empire, I’ve been through the Great Cats’ protector training and am one of the most lethal humans you will ever encounter. I’m also wise enough to know my leadership down there would be detrimental.”

  “Because you haven’t fought gleasons?”

  Josh smiled. “I have fought gleasons, and it was up close and personal. As you can see, I lived through the experience. No, it’s because my attempt to lead these men would interfere with the expert skills they’ve developed over years of working together. They have their own leaders who lead from the front. They’ve practiced maneuvers until they’re second nature. They know how their fellow soldiers think and act, and they conduct their missions like dancers following a script. It pains me to say it, but I’d just be in the way.”

  He faced her and put his hands on her shoulders, willing her to understand what he was about to say. “I have a feeling you’re going to find yourself in this position a lot during the coming years. You might have already. Leading from afar takes different skills, and they’re not learned overnight.”

  “Gar doesn’t know it, but I’ve been watching him and learning. Did you know about the enormous battle we fought against the gleasons for my kingdom?”

  “No.”

  “Thousands of gleasons followed his caravan to my fortress city. We had several days to prepare. We had to defend our walls against gleasons who we knew would swarm like spiders. Gar knew his modern weapons could only do so much in a battle of that nature. He turned command of the battle over to my captain of the guard and named him general, even though we had more of Gar’s men than our own on the battlements. I was not in the command center with them, so I can only imagine how it went. We won, though we lost one wall and nearly lost the second. I suspect having those two commanding the way they did made a difference.”

  He nodded. “It might have made all the difference. I don’t know if I could have made the choice he made to turn the battle over to another, but since you prevailed, history will likely prove it was the right thing to do. For me, learning to command from the rear has been a hard road. In the beginning I just wanted to be in the thick of it with my men, but guess what? I’ve discovered that manipulating the big picture can be just as rewarding and certainly better for our men on the front lines. The marines on this mission see one thing—their mission. You and I, on the other hand, see their mission in the context of saving worlds.”

  Atiana looked thoughtfully at him. “Lady Krys accused me of being an expert manipulator. She even caught me trying to manipulate her. Are you doing the same to me right now?”

  The grin on Josh’s face made him look less severe. “Us Knights spend most of our time manipulating others so I probably am, but in your case I’m just trying to share some hard-learned lessons. I have to confess, though, that the more I’m around you the less certain I am that my advice is needed.”

  He gave her a moment, then added, “I hope you’ll take my manipulations as a complement, Your Majesty. You’re no longer on the front line of a squad of soldiers or a caravan, or even your own knights. You’re leading a world, and a lot of people are counting on you to be good at it. Someday a few of them might even appreciate your efforts, though more of them will probably hate you. It’s just the nature of things.”

  “In spite of that, you like it?”

  He winced, then looked through the net at the formation of ships screeching through the upper atmosphere toward the ground. Because of the magic of the net, she knew the direction of his thoughts.

  “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been with them,” he said nostalgically. “How many times I’ve stood in the open door of an aircraft and jumped into danger, how many times I’ve assaulted a position. I miss it.” He turned to face her. “I willingly give it up for what I’m doing now. Our jobs are bigger than ourselves. Few ever get the opportunities we’ve been blessed with.”

  “What if you err? Mistakes could cost a lot of lives.”

  “I have erred. I will err again. So will you. We’re not asking you to be perfect, we’re asking you to do the best you can.” He paused, then added, “Some of us have joined in a pact, and I include the Queen in this pact. We give all that we are. We do it for our children and for our children’s children.”

  “The Queen told us. I would make such a pledge.”

  He shook his head. “Not to me. Not yet. The day might come when the Queen calls on you for more, but at the moment your pledge is to the people of Tranxte. They need and deserve all that you are. I imagine you already made such a pledge to the people of your kingdom, but if you haven’t already, it’s time to include everyone on the planet.”

  * * * * *

  Thousands of mulogs had formed up around the edges of the spaceport and were clearly visible on life force sensors, though they were less easy to see with the visual sensors since they tended to blend in when stationary. Because of the size of the port, any a
ttack by them would have to cover a lot of ground before reaching the meeting place in the center of the port. The frigate and ten shuttles could easily thwart such an effort. Havlock was concerned that the peick speaker was not in plain sight, but he was willing to wait once he landed. If things deteriorated after he showed himself, he would just turn around and leave.

  When his forces were in position, he gave the command. Three shuttles settled to the ground near the center of the port, and marines raced out to set up a perimeter. The shuttles lifted off but remained close by. Havlock’s shuttle raced straight in toward the center of the perimeter. Just before landing, the front ramp opened to allow quick egress for his squad.

  The moment the ramp opened, heavy guns popped up around the edges of the port and opened up on his shuttle. Even heavier weapons popped up around the nearby production facility, all of them focused initially on his shuttle. The pilot tried to abort the landing, but the shields on his ship overloaded and failed. The attackers got through to the ship’s power plant and the ship fell the last few feet, crashing then tumbling out of control toward the edge of the port.

  The frigate struck back with multiple weapons, silencing one heavy gun after another, but others continued hammering away at the crashed shuttle for a little longer before going silent, tearing jagged holes in the twisted wreckage. The three nearby shuttles interposed themselves around the crashed shuttle to take the brunt of the attack and two of them went down, but they hit the ground under control.

  The crashed shuttle came to rest half way between its intended landing spot and the edge of the port, leaving the marines already on the ground out of position. They set out for the crash sight at a full run. Orderly ranks of mulogs rose up from the tall grasses surrounding the port, running upright on their two hind legs in a full scale attack. Peick snipers, previously hidden, rose up with long barreled blasters to fire down preplanned, clear lanes between their attacking forces. Marines fell, though because of their body armor, some got back up.

  Fifty peicks lifted off from the city on armed scooters and headed the short distance to the port.

  With Havlock out of the picture on the crashed shuttle, command reverted to Lebac. Six of his shuttles remained unscathed, and one was damaged but operational. He ordered marines on scooters to intercept the airborne peicks, then he sent the last three shuttles in to protect Havlock’s crashed shuttle.

  The first two squads to land, all of them hardened experts after fighting gleasons on Tranxte, set up a new perimeter. They opened up with pinpoint accuracy against the mass of mostly unarmed mulogs running toward them. With help from weapons on the airborne shuttles, they established a temporary barrier to the mulogs. Still, several marines fell to well-aimed blaster shots from snipers, and marine sharpshooters started focusing on those peick sharpshooters.

  Peicks on scooters tried to head straight for the crashed shuttle, but marines on scooters intercepted them. The sky quickly filled with a vicious dogfight of over 100 scooters. Scooters zoomed every which way, marines and peicks vying for positions from which to fire while doing their best to avoid getting shot down. Slowly, the marines forced the general melee away from the spaceport, but then peicks on the ground added their blaster fire to that coming from the peicks on scooters. The marines were forced to pull back closer to the spaceport, and the aerial battle slowly moved toward the crashed shuttle.

  The frigate moved into position above the crashed shuttle and unleashed its massive anti-ship weapons on the mulogs and on the the few heavy weapons still visible in the city, though they appeared to be abandoned now. The frigate’s upper weapons carefully picked off enemy scooters, and before long the peicks on scooters were so outnumbered that they had to withdraw. The marines took that option away from them, following them and taking out every single enemy scooter before returning to engage ground forces.

  Marines from the last shuttle to land entered the crashed shuttle to search for survivors. Bodies of the dead and wounded transferred out and departed for the cruiser, and marines on the ground began a controlled retreat to the remaining shuttles which then lifted for the cruiser as well. Scooters returned to their shuttles, a somewhat tricky maneuver when airborne, and those shuttles eventually returned to the cruiser as well.

  The frigate remained on station, its purpose no longer to take out attacking mulogs but to obliterate the remains of the downed shuttles and scooters. There was no way they would allow the peicks to get their hands on technology that could let them travel into space.

  Galborae, with an arm around Atiana, met the returning shuttles in the hangar bay, but the medical staff ignored them, their only focus saving any marines that could be saved. Floaters exited the two shuttles one by one, at first carrying wounded, then the dead. Atiana did not recognize anyone on the floaters under all the medical paraphernalia, so she and Galborae followed them to sick bay and waited.

  Akurea found them there. She put an arm around Atiana’s shoulders and tried to steer her out of sickbay. “Come on. There’s nothing you can do here. Let’s go back to the command center. We’re not done with this world yet.”

  Atiana lifted dry eyes to Akurea. “I have to know if he’s alive.”

  Akurea lifted a hand to her mouth in horror. “You don’t know?”

  “Everyone’s been too busy saving lives to talk to us.”

  Akurea frowned and bit her lip. “I’m sorry. I should have come for you sooner. He’s alive but in bad shape. That’s all I know. ”

  Atiana closed her eyes and swayed, leaning heavily into Galborae. The spell passed and she straightened, saying, “Had it not been for Lady Krys’ vision, we might be in there with him.”

  Akurea nodded grimly. “There were only four survivors of the crash. I guess what you’re doing is really important to someone.”

  “The Queen, I’m told.”

  Akurea shook her head. “Not just her. I think it’s important to the Leaf People as well.”

  “I’ve heard of them but have not met them. After what happened today, I’m forced to give their visions more credence.”

  Akurea’s lips tightened into a thin smile. “A meeting with them probably lies in your future.”

  When they reached the command center, Atiana’s gaze went to Josh and stayed there for a time, her mind on the advice he’d given her. She reached a decision and stepped to the center of the room with most eyes on her. She lifted her chin and said, “We’ve suffered a great loss today, a surprising loss. In hindsight, we misinterpreted the peicks’ positioning. They were not set up to defend themselves. This was, all along, an ambush.” She kept her gaze moving around the room, adding, “They behaved exactly the way you built them to behave.”

  She looked to Josh. “The question we have to answer is this: are these appropriate adversaries for the gleasons? From what I have seen, I believe they are.”

  “Don’t we have another question to answer, as well?” he asked. “Don’t we have to decide if the gleasons are needed here?”

  Atiana shook her head. “No, that’s not our decision. The peicks’ have to answer that question themselves.”

  Josh’s eyebrows rose, about all the reaction he ever showed. “Surely you don’t intend to send another committee to talk with them.” He thought for a moment, then added, “The peicks fight with strategies, just as we do. The gleasons fight mostly singly, though from what I’ve heard, they’ve demonstrated some crude strategies. It could be an interesting competition. I say bring the gleasons.”

  “I hope I’m not the only one with this thought in my head,” Atiana said. “What will the descendants of the peicks and gleasons become? The survivors of this conflict will be hardened killers. Are we creating something we’ll regret?”

  “A valid question, My Lady,” Josh answered. “Assuming, of course, that any of them survive.”

  * * * * *

  Atiana asked for a link to the surface and got one. “You fought well today,” she said into the communicator.

  A
disembodied voice filled the room. “It’s what we do. Come back. Let’s do it again.”

  “No. We came to talk, not to fight.”

  “Then you came to the wrong place.”

  “You talk among yourselves. Why not with us?”

  “You created us to fight. We learned today, but we want to learn more. It’s not very challenging fighting among ourselves.”

  “We’re not a good opponent. We’re weak where you are strong and strong where you are weak. I have a better solution.”

  “Explain.”

  “I’m prepared to bring a worthy opponent, many of them, thousands of them. We call them gleasons. They live to fight just as you do, but they are not enhanced. They don’t need enhancements, so amazing are their fighting skills. You might not prevail against them.”

  “They are the ones we were designed to fight?”

  “No. You were designed to fight weaklings whose main weapon is a powerful mind weapon. With your ability to withstand the mind weapon, I think you would have found little satisfaction fighting them. I’m offering you a harder test.”

  “We seek challenge, always.”

  “I can bring the challenge you crave, but I must know: do you speak for all the peicks?”

  “I command.”

  “I need to hear you say these words: ‘I invite the gleasons.’”

  “I invite the gleasons. Bring as many as you can.”

  “I will. It will not be soon, but I will do my best to convince them to come.”

  “Hurry. Or better yet, come to us again, now.”

  “No. I do not need another lesson from you. I respect you and wish you well with the gleasons. They will come without warning. It will probably be a year.”

  “Hurry.”

  She nodded to Admiral Jas who had the communications officer break the connection. “We’re done here,” she said. “Will you take me home?”

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Josh held up a hand. “Not quite yet. We’re still hearing a distress beacon. We have to investigate.”