Artillery appeared overhead, huge and pale against the white sky, and dropping towards them.
“Well you heard him!” Moses shouted. “Get up the crater wall, all of you, get a move on. If the hounds won’t hold then we’ve only got a few seconds to get a lead on these bastards. Go! Find a buddy and keep one another alive! Back to the camp!”
They went, scrambling helter skelter up the rearward wall of the crater, their frantic rush knocking more dirt loose in small avalanches that slowed the ones behind them. The artillery landed, not in the crater but to the south by a few body lengths. The heat and light of it was astounding even beneath the lip of the crater and behind the shield. Another round appeared in the sky, following along its predecessor’s track. “How long will your boys hold?” Moses asked his brother when the sound had died.
Ephesus shrugged. “No idea.” He said. Moses couldn’t see his face, but the tone of his voice conveyed a distracted awe at the amount of violence he’d seen that day, eyes wide as he tried to ignore the blood and gore which had splattered the ground and Moses’ armor. Ephesus swallowed. “They’re probably about used up by now. Against the big catos they can hold their own, but when it comes to men.” He shrugged. “They’re little more than battering rams.”
“Best get going then.” Moses said. “You’ll just be a big target on that thing of yours.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.” The boy said. “I’m to cover the infantry’s retreat. Those are my orders.” He drew himself up on the machine, straightened his shoulders and turned his faceplate straight at the older brother. Proud to be ordered to save his brother, and Moses was proud of him.
The artillery missed the crater again, this time to the opposite side, a tremendous crash and wash of light and fire that swam into the crater and amongst the clambering soldiers like a living thing to lap at their shields.
Ephesus waved for Moses to follow and charged his mount up the face of the hill past Moses’ men. Once again shot found his shield as he stood above and another ball of blazing plasma appeared in the sky arching towards them.
“Then go get the rest out!” Moses shouted as the sound and fire faded.
“You’re the last!” He heard his brother shout. Then another blast of plasma washed around them.
Moses heard, in his brother’s words, the death of everyone he’d trained with. The death of Ainsworth from the homesteads, and Staycoffe who’d killed a woman and hoped for mercy, of Chan and his father, and Kyra. He had no time to register the feelings that came with the knowledge of their death.He threw himself at the hill. The knight with the missing hand needed help and Moses put all of the anger and unacknowledged grief into pushing him up until he toppled over the lip of the crater. Then Moses was with him, hauling him to his feet as ball of plasma burst in the crater behind them with a roar.
He needn’t have bothered. Before the crippled knight had made it three steps a burst of bright cation bolts lapped lightning from his shield and it failed. The ionic plasma spat through the back of his helmet and burnt through the sensor clusters in the face plate dropping him where he’d been working his way up to a jog. Moses didn’t turn back, he let his suit take him, and he ran.
Chapter 20: Moses // Graves to Grass Stems
The camp had not felt this far away from the battlefield on that first jog towards the enemy. Even now, it seemed to stretch as he ran, the meter in a corner of his heads up display rising, but never reaching the speed at which he lost control of the suit. All around him, his men ran with him, while behind him he could hear the flags on his back snapping and crackling in the airstream the shield allowed to permeate its field in a vicious wind.
The scarred and pitted field of dirt exposed by the bombardment came to an end and they’re feet tore through grass and ferns like tissue paper. They stomped over the rough terrain like it was as smooth as the pavement in front of Carmichael’s church, stones and clumps that should have sent him sprawling when they were hooked by a toe were torn out of the ground as though they’d been shot by a medium’s rifle. Steps that found poor footing and should have sent him sprawling on a sprained ankle only put a slight swerve in the machine’s sprint for the shimmering dome of the camp beyond. They flew, Moses barely aware of the ground while behind him, the line of hounds was falling apart. He didn’t need to turn around to know, he could hear it.
The weapons fire that had marked the hounds appearance on the scene were slowing down. Plasma bolts and bullets that should have been stopped by the automata’s shields shot past him, or buried themselves into the soil, starting fires or sending up small puffs of dirt and debris. Ahead of him, Moses could see the last ragged remnants of the Marain army fleeing for the dome. The distance made them appear like small glittering bugs.
An aircraft swooped low over the field, a streak of light without distinction, and a line of earth erupted in gouts of dirt along the path some of his soldiers were running. One man went flying, rolling and then picking himself up to carry on. One of Moses’ feet caught on something the suit couldn’t tear out of the ground with his momentum and Moses followed his example, spilling through the trampled vegetation, rolling until he came up short and glanced backwards.
They were coming. The whole screaming army of them, black against the pampas, black against the horizon, still close enough for Moses to make out the grins and bizarre eyes they’d carved on their armor, a few six legged and silver gunned automata ran with them, their stumpy legs making hopping motions as they pushed themselves along amongst the men they were assigned to serve. A few hounds were still visible, racing back, away from the black wave, a few of them clumping up around a single black figure on which he could see his brother still mounted and closing fast. “Get up Moses!”
Moses turned and found Pete, once again, standing behind him, the knife taped to his chest with its grisly trophy. He held a pistol in his hand which he unloaded in the direction of the oncoming horde.
Moses shoved himself to his feet as shot splattered around him. “What are you doing?” He shouted at the barrel chested knight. “You’re supposed to be running!”
“I’m your buddy.” Pete grumbled. His pistol emptied and he turned to follow even as Moses hurled himself past.
More airships arched overhead with thunderclaps and Moses heard impacts all around him. A black streak rammed into the dirt in front of him and rolled, absorbing the impact to rise galloping past Moses, another hound that bristled with weapons being hurled into the wave behind him.
More landed, but it wasn’t enough. To either side Moses could see that the wings of the enemy wave had moved up while he and his survivors had evacuated, long arms that stretched around in an attempt to encircle them, still closing as they all ran for the same distant dome.
Ephesus thundered past followed by his small entourage of hounds. He shouted something Moses didn’t hear while the tassel on his helmet chased him in the unrelenting wind. Maxwell stopped as the boy passed him and leveled his gun behind them but Moses hit him as he came level, slapping at the shield with the flat of his sword. “Keep going!”
“They’ll catch us!” The big man said, even as he obeyed.
“Not if we run!” In front, Moses could see the medium gunner well ahead toting a rifle as big as the knight’s swords.
“You will be our third buddy.” Pete Small said as Maxwell fell in with them. “We must keep one another alive.”
Maxwell replied with a grunt as he leapt through the grass.
Artillery dropped from the sky in front of them, not a few isolated shots this time, but a wall of fire as when they’d first advanced. Flames danced out from the spot like water spilled from a bucket as the song grass burnt with a cool blue flame. Moses ducked his head as he ran under it, felt the fire wash around him as he made it to the other side, Maxwell still close behind and Pete Small to his left. More hounds were landing all around, more aircraft dogfighting over head, to either side the wings of the long black wave were closing in a
round them and ahead the camp was growing closer, closer. He could see the men in their lines now, see the knights behind the shield, guns above them on the low hill, saw the first wave of enemy soldiers reach the camp’s shield and lances from the heavies on the ridge reach out through the bubble and the enemy automata race forward to catch the beams on their own shields while the face bedecked enemy soldiers rushed to close the gap between Moses and the camp. Then the world turned to fire with a roar and he was picked up off of his feet and hurled towards it.
It was like being bombarded again. The ground ran from him and he tumbled through the air. Only this time there was no gout of dirt, no black cloud of dust, but instead a brilliant golden light, damped down by the helmet to allow him to see as he was tossed about in the force of the explosion.
He hit the ground and bounced, then bounced again, then skidded to a stop amidst a maelstrom of grass and flying fern fronds.
He landed without any sense of direction. Just beaten and sore everywhere he thought he could be sore. There was a second blast, this one more distant and Moses raised his hand instinctively against the blast wave. This one did not pick him up as the first had, but it did blow wind and dust and more bits of broken grass around him.
“Pete!” He shouted. “Maxwell!” His guts were sore where they’d compressed themselves against his ribs and spine in the landing.
There was no answer, but as the haze and dust cleared, he saw, ahead of him, the camp, shimmering amidst the dust storm. Knights stood in a row at its edge, with squires arranged behind them, hundred of them, all of them watching Moses through their faceless masks, as unlike the garish tattooed faces of the enemy’s helmets as could be imagined, and still just as alien and unnerving to Moses’ battered brains.
Moses dragged himself to his feet. The ragged flags on his back snapped in the wind from a third blast and he discovered that one leg, the leg he’d tripped on, was stiff where something from the fall must have broken in the explosion after being overstrained. He limped forward, one step at a time, until he reached the shield and and passed through into safety, where he collapsed.
Somewhere, in the chaos outside the shield, he’d left his men behind, he knew. Dozens, hundreds, all those who had come to the flags and died, all those he’d watched, dismembered or blown to bits. He himself had almost died, almost been taken by that black figure, the way all his men had been. It was too much. He began to shake, and then to laugh, and someone had to grab him and haul him to his feet, to lead him back to their own lines.
Chapter 21: Charles // Damage report
The Kamele army was milling around in front of the Marain camp after their midnight march when Charles called Irenaeus into his office. The boy wasn’t anywhere nearby of course, but the Kamele hadn’t yet started firing on civilian or corporate air traffic around the Mighty River’s basin, and that meant he could arrive from virtually anywhere in as little time as it took for him to receive the IM and get to one of the flitters parked all over the family valley. That amount of time turned out to be just under seven minutes, an impatient seven minutes for Charles. His decision had been made. It was now just a matter of turning that decision into action. While he waited Charles watched the Kamele trying to lure the Marain army out in the dawn light. It was an effort doomed to fail despite Falkye’s eagerness for combat.
Men were not like machines, as Charles frequently reminded his bellicose brother, they could not be replaced so easily when lost, and the enemy had experience and numbers on their side. They had the advantage for now. In skirmishes the hounds beat the Kamele scuttlers nine times out of ten, and the Kamele still had no industrial station capable of replacing them. Charles wanted all of the invaders automata destroyed before they tried for a real battle.
Such a slow war of attrition would give them the time they needed to build and train an army, to find skirmishes in which to season their men and eventually engage the main host. While such tactics did not satisfy the dynasties hunger for victories, it would yield a better result in the end. A result far better than the slaughter he expected in a general engagement at this point in the war. Give the invaders a year or two of delaying actions and their appetite for war might fade. They might be able to plant some spies, to learn about their enemy. For now, they kept the enemy out of the mountains and away from the Quinn corporation’s beating heart. They could do little harm on the pampas.
At last, the door to to Charles’ office dematerialized and Irenaeus stepped in.
“I’ve decided to get you a post with our first group.” Charles said without preamble. “You’ll be joining the army.” He noted the way the boys eyes went wide with suppressed excitement and gave him a thin smile of his own. “The commander there’s name is Laus, Stanislaus Kaczmarek. I’ve told him about you and I’ve told him that he’ll have a dynasty here if he can kick the invaders off the planet, or wipe them out, whichever he prefers.”
“You’re the best!” Irenaeus shouted.
Charles put up a hand. This part was somehow harder to say. The decision made he’d debated keeping the information to himself until he saw how the boy did in the army, but he was impatient, and he wanted his brother to know what was at stake. “I’ve also decided to make you my Postpartor.” Irenaeus’ enthusiasm turned to confusion.
“Your successor?” He asked. “But, Charles-”
Charles shoved a piece of paper across the table to him. “You sign this, and it becomes official. I’m sure you know how it works.”
Charles remembered signing his own document when his father had made him his postpartor, the heir apparent to the entire Quin Corporation. It wasn’t as simple as that of course, there were still elections, and if the dynasties had put up a fuss they might have been able to get Falkye, or even Darren, or one of his other uncles, brothers, nephews, nieces. He supposed they could have gotten his sisters if any of them had married into real high society, but his mother’s connections had all been urban connections, and she disapproved of the high society men that came courting, none of them Church goers. “Cortizans without courtliness.” She’d said of them. Horrified when his father told her it was all politics. “My daughters will marry for love if they marry at all. You have you’re heir. I’ll not have their lives made miserable.” And so they were put out of the equation, not that the urban society hadn’t put up a mad fight for the hands of the CEO’s daughters, several very wealthy merchants and prospectors had been made out of the deal, but his mother had her way and Charles sat on the so called throne, looking at his youngest brother as he picked up the same document he’d lifted at his age.
Charles had been proud when his father handed him that paper. Irenaeus just looked, scared. Charles stood up and turned away. He looked out the window which looked down the mountainside to Quinn city, small square buildings running along the river’s edge, boats coming and going on the broad stripe of water far below, shield drones visible drifting above, inactive, for the moment. He knew at least a few of the homes in the city had personal shields they’d leased from the corporation for the duration of the war as well. Shields he suspected were rarely turned off these days. He’d made it fairly clear to his communications staff that the population should be prepared for bombardment of the major infrastructural centers at any time. Quinn city was the largest of those. He expected it to beone of their biggest targets.
“If you accept you’ll officially be considered my protege in the event of my abdication or retirement.” Charles said. Or death, but that didn’t need saying. “It doesn’t guarantee you the corporation, but it does guarantee you a place.” Charles turned around. “That is what you wanted isn’t it? A place?”
“But Charles.” Irenaeus said. “What about your kids? Don’t you want them? Wouldn’t you want one of them to… to have a place?”
Charles turned away again. “I’m sure you’ll make a place for them.” He said. His fists were very tight behind his back. He flexed them and flexed his neck. He didn’t say “What children?”
The words he did say were the ones he’d prepared. The thought he’d prepared anyways, the plan that had been brewing in the back of his mind since visiting the front. “By the time they are old enough to begin to learn the way a corporation is run this war will be over. The war is now, as you said. Our future is now. There’s a fortune to be made in war, a dynasty to be built, expanded, into the stars itself. If we’re to make war our fortune, then we’ll need a war leader, a CEO who understands the lessons learned in war, who can export war, export our experience, in war.” The seeds to that vision had been laid a hundred years ago in the war with the Kidawas. Technology developed that they’d now learned was defunct, ineffective against the veteran Kamele tactics. If they could learn from them, learn to defeat them, then the whole universe would be open to the corporation. The whole universe of mankind’s domain.
“Export war?” Irenaeus said. “You’re talking about conquering other stars?”
“No.” Charles looked back at him. Irenaeus still looked nervous and that aggravated Charles somehow. The boy wanted a place and he was offering it to him. Something he’d had no right to expect. But he’d never been trained, so that training would have to start now. “I’m talking about selling our expertise, an expertise we are going to have to acquire if we’re going to win this war. I’m talking about turning war into shares. Shares in foreign corporations, corporations that cross star systems, corporations with interests and petty squabbles across inhabited space. I’m talking about turning ourselves into the galactic elites the Kamele should have made themselves if they hadn’t been stupid enough to try and claim their shares in our corporation and overthrow us. I’m talking about selling our skills to the stars, leasing it.”
Space Knights- Last on the Line Page 29