They would need to beat the Kamele first of course, show that they had the expertise, up the breeding capacity of their population, build starships. It was empire building on a scale he hadn’t expected to see in his lifetime. Seeds sown today that wouldn’t reap fruit for another two centuries, but seeds that were in danger, now, that needed planting, now, and that started with Irenaeus. “If you agree to be my protege sign.”
“It’s already signed.” Irenaeus said.
“Good.”
Charles turned, took the document, scanned it quickly with his lenses and stuffed it into a drawer. His eyes still never found his brother’s eyes. “I’ve arranged for you to be an officer.” Charles said. “So there will be no front line fighting for you, but you will get to learn, to see what a battlefield looks like and what sorts of technology we need to develop.”
“I…” Irenaeus still looked lost, but elated, in some secret part of him that still wasn’t sure what was happening. “Thank you Charles.” Irenaeus said.
“Don’t thank me.” Charles said. He smiled his thin smile. It was a thankless job running the corporation. His brother would no doubt find it equally thankless. He was about to say more when he glimpsed, on his lenses, a shifting in the Marain camp, small bodies pouring into a long line within the shield. He frowned and held up a hand to keep Irenaeus quiet while he ordered his implant to call Falkye.
“What’s going on?” He asked, out loud, he offered the virtual link to his youngest brother who took it and joined the call.
“We’re engaging.” Falkye said.
“I thought we agreed to stay in camp.” Charles growled.
“Come down.” Falkye said. “You’ll see why.”
The chat went dead and and Charles scanned the battlefield being projected into his lenses. He saw no change, just the enemy, marching in drill through the fields around Bresia.
“Is there going to be a battle?” Irenaeus asked, all excitement.
Charles felt his stomach tighten and he stood without a word. Together they climbed into the elevator outside Charles’ office for the ride down to the ground floor and Falkye’s makeshift command bunker. Charles watched the line form through his lenses then turned them off, too disquieted by what he saw there. They had agreed not to fight, now he was seeing the entire army rallying behind their banners. He expected Falkye had a good reason, but could not help the sinking feeling he had. He tried to attribute it to the elevator ride.
When the elevator stopped, they stepped past windows which, despite the lower level of this floor, still provided a grand view of the valley from the headquarters’ place along the mountain side. Charles paused at the windows and took Irenaeus shoulder. The boy looked up at him, inquisitive.
“You’re my protege now.” Charles said. “And this is your first lesson.” He wanted Irenaeus’s attention. The army maneuvers on the Pampas had almost made him forget, but he still had a lesson to teach to Irenaeus, and he would have to do it quickly. “It’s a short one. I used to have friends, lots of friends. Now I have colleagues, I have enemies, opponents. I also have a few people I’ve done favors for and would call themselves my friends, but I don’t have, friends. Not anymore.” Falkye, Dylan, they were the closest he had, and when was the last time he’d visited Dylan’s home in the city? When was the last time he’d visited Falkye and Locana. No, he didn’t want to think about that right now. Right now he wanted to tell Irenaeus, to teach him. To prepare him. “Not since I signed my own document and became Dad’s postpartor.” It had been a hard lesson to learn. Old playmates came looking for favors after he’d ascended and didn’t take it well when he was forced to turn them down. The memories left a sour taste in Charles’ mouth.
Irenaeus got a stubborn look, and Charles got an IM from Falkye with a glowing green message in text. “Where are you?”
“I’m not going to abandon my friends, if that’s what you’re going to ask.” Irenaeus said. “We’re going, all of us, we agreed, and you can take back your postpartor if you want to.”
“That’s not what I’m going to say at all.” Charles said, where had he gotten that idea. “Quite the opposite. They’ll be given the same post as you, so they can have the same experiences that you will have. So that you will have allies when you take over the executorship of the company.” It was all part of the process, a first step in welding the entire corporation into a sword, the whole planet into one giant weapon that could be sold to the galaxy for any price they asked. A Kidawa and a Knopf playing second to a Quinn would make Irenaeus a power amongst the dynasties when they were older.
Irenaeus grinned. “Wait till I tell them!”
“What I’m trying to say to you is that you’ll need allies.” Charles said. “People who will work with you for the company. Who won’t try to use you when they find out I’ve made you my heir.” Charles studied his little brother, the excitement, the impatience to go in and watch the battle and go tell his friends all about it. “You were willing to give up all this for them, weren’t you.” He said.
Irenaeus frowned. “Of course. I said so, didn’t I?”
Charles squeezed the boy’s shoulder. “You keep them close, you don’t lose them. No matter what. A friend is more than an ally, a friend will give their life for you, on the battlefield,” He looked at Irenaeus to make sure he was listening. “And in the boardroom.” Maybe some good could come of his friendship with the Kidawa boy. An alliance with the biggest military family on Marain, the only military family on Marain, would be a powerful tool for Irenaeus on the so called throne. A throne with a paper army, an army of machines incapable of truly defending its own claim to power over the biggest threat that had ever reached their planet. “We’ll keep the postpartor secret for now.” He told Irenaeus. “We can reveal it in time.”
Irenaeus nodded and Charles felt, a warm sense, something fierce and proud that ran a spear through the knot in his stomach and made him relax just a little bit. There was no time to enjoy the sense of family he’d found in Irenaeus though. There was work to be done, and his brother, Irenaeus, would be the first and best ally he could hope to have in the years to come. The ally he had never found in Bairn, Dylan, or Falkye for that matter.
Charles led the way into the media room. “Why did we engage Falkye?” He barked. The first thing he saw was the crater running across the battlefield. “What... made that?”
“Orbital bombardment.” Falkye said. “And do you want to know what makes it different from a cherub? It works.”
By the time Charles had caught up with the battle their army of irregulars had been chopped into pieces and the remnants were in disorganized retreat, some to the hills, others towards the safety of a camp that would soon be surrounded. He watched them run, watched the defender’s beams of plasma shooting through the camp’s wall, and Falkye’s cherubs landing amongst the Kamele swarm in an attempt to slow their charge and sow some confusion, maybe catch them off guard. It was like throwing a rock at them for all the good it seemed to do. It might have bought them two minutes of confusion, at most.
“If they know how to kill men through their shields they’ll know how to break into a sealed up camp.” Charles said.
“We don’t know that for certain.” Laus said. An image of the field commander projected from the automata he rode on allowed them to see his face in one corner of the media room, a very unflattering angle of the old man’s jowls. He, more than likely, wouldn’t have cared. His army was being slaughtered.
“You’ve got almost five thousand soldiers behind those shields.” Falkye said. A paltry number in comparison to the number they had started with. “Do you want to know what they have?”
Laus looked off somewhere behind him. “I can see them.” He said. “They look like a bloody bug crawling along like that. They’ve brought they’re shields with them it looks like. I wonder why. Doesn’t seem to make much a difference when they can survive our artillery.”
“It will matter if they get around behind yo
u.” Falkye said.
“I want you packed and ready to move.” Charles said.
“That’s great, but where?” Laus asked. “We’ve got a shield here.”
“You have food for a week.” Charles said. “If that. They’ve let us supply you for God knows what reason up till now, but if you’re in a siege do you think that will continue?”
“There’s a shielded mining center to the east just inside the mountain range.” Falkye said.
“How far?” Laus asked.
“A little over eleven miles. I’ve sent the coordinates to your AI. Give it to the rest of your troops. If any of them can’t keep up or get separated they’ll still know where to go.”
“Eleven miles.” Laus said. “Does it have a name? This geographical point on the map?”
“Uh, Mineral Extraction sight two two four B.”
“The last stand of mineral extraction sight two two four B.” Laus said. “It will make a nice song don’t you think?”
“This is not a last stand.” Charles said.
“Well I don’t see how it couldn’t be!” The field commander shouted. “It’s a shielded site. So what? We have shields here and they don’t seem to do a damn bit of good, what difference does it make if the shield sits at the top of a rock or in the middle of a field? A rock can crumble, a shield can fall.”
“And an army can be evacuated.”
Laus was silent.
“Or reinforced.” Falkye added.
“Fair enough.” Laus replied. “The order has been transmitted. We’ll run, at the first sign of danger.”
“You’ll run before you’re encircled.” Falkye said.
“That’s an order.” Charles added when Laus was silent. “Automata we can replace, but men…”
“Understood sir. Minimal cost to the corporation and all that. A man’s life is more valuable than a machine’s. I’ll get them out for you. Never fear. I’ll get them out.”
Charles turned to look at Irenaeus. He sat in the back of the room on the low set of theater seats, his eyes wide as his lenses sparkled with some personal feed. Charles grabbed the synchronization icon that drifted in his digital vision next to the boy and peeked in on the Irenaeus’s personal universe. A close up shot from one of the surveillance drones of a man with red flags on his back dueling in the trench before the retreat. That closely zoomed in Charles could see that the Kamele armor was not actually black but scarred all the way across with strange faces and eyes, a personal touch that was not universal amongst the armored suits but made them look outlandish, alien, particularly with the snarling face that each of them wore for a helm. The Marain soldier’s sword hand was exposed for a second too long and the many faced Kamele knight ran his sword through to chop off the man’s hands at both wrists. The injured knight flung himself backwards, holding up the wrists as though for mercy as the Kamele soldier was bathed in the light of lightning drawn out of the Marain knight’s power cells, then the shield fell and the sword went down, and everything was red bits across dirt turned to mud. The Kamele soldier waded through the puddle of gore as he sought new prey. When the shot was finished another began, another soldier, not far away, this time two Kamele knights against a single Marain irregular who hadn’t managed to pick himself up after the bombardment and struggled to fight on his back in the dirt.
Charles closed the link and looked to Falkye. “Mute the connection with Laus.” He messaged him.
Falkye glanced at Charles, then obeyed without protest. When the image of Laus’ jowls showed a mute icon Falkye turned to his older brother.
“How the hell did this happen?” Charles asked. He kept his tone level but did not hide the anger in him. It rolled in his stomach, like a fire, or water at full boil fighting to escape the pot.
“We had an opportunity.” Falkye said.
“How did I ever think you would make a competent commander.” Charles said.
Falkye went red and turned away. “We had an opportunity.” He said again. “The Kamele were divided. Half their army was on the opposite side of the town in their camp.”
“How many did we lose? What percentage? Michael?”
“Seventy five percent of the soldiers sent into battle have been lost.” The AI said from the walls. “This amounts to a forty five percent loss of total human soldiers in the first army. Hounds lost amounted to-”
Charles cut it off with a wave of his hand. “Forty five percent lost.” He said, looking at Falkye. “And what did you hope to accomplish?”
“They were separated.” Falkye said. He glared at Charles. “We agreed. We agreed, all of us, that we needed to find opportunities to season our soldiers. This was the first opportunity we found.”
“You wanted to season them?” Charles said. “Against half of their army? What were you thinking? Every one of those soldiers will have to be replaced. Every one! Do you think it will be easy to replace them when the news gets out? When the world finds out we’re getting slaughtered? That we’re losing the war? Those men had a week of training against an army that’s conquered three worlds!”
“We aren’t losing yet.” Falkye muttered.
“How are you going to tell them that? What are you going to show them?” Charles ran his hands over his face and through his hair. He closed his eyes but the lenses, synched to the room rather than the implants that turned them off when his eyelids shut, continued to display the war torn landscape and retreating army for eyes that did not want to see. “Fuck!” He shouted. He whipped his hand at the synchronization icon and the room went dark for him.
“We’ll lose even more trying to get them out.” He said. The fires had died. Only coals remained, smoking and bitter in Charles’ gut.
Falkye nodded, silent.
“Get them out.” Charles said. “Get them out. We’ll figure out what to do afterwards.” He would figure out what to do. Whether he needed to replace his brother or not.
Falkye nodded and hit icons Charles could not see, reactivating his connection to the battlefield while Charles turned to leave. Irenaeus rose to follow and Charles shook his head.
“Stay here.” He told the boy. “Learn the cost of a mistake, and how to avoid one in the future.”
Irenaeus nodded and sat back down while Charles marched out and rode the elevator back up to his office to tackle the mining problem once again. The path into the mountains would be open to the Kamele now. There was no way the second army group would be able to reach the decimated remnants of their first army in time to keep the invaders from penetrating into the upper reaches of the Mighty River’s basin.
In his office Charles pulled up a map and studied it while a feed of the battle played on the surface of his desk. The Mighty river was like a jugular at the throat of Quinn corporation. The pampas had been a loss, its agriculture had been a major source of food, but synthesizers wouldn’t be hard to reintroduce to the population, that problem was easy to solve, but iron, copper, tin? The raw materials of industry depended upon the mines and refineries up and down the mighty river, and if the invaders cut off those, there was nothing to stop them from marching into the family valleys to slaughter the dynasties one by one, with or without the hounds.
On his desk, the camp shield descended into a mobile configuration as Laus began his retreat into the hills.
They needed men, he needed them fast, and he needed them inside the river valley. Or he needed automata that could actually make a difference on the battlefield.
He dismissed the mining information on his computer and shoved the physical files into a bin for later then called up the engineering reports. Something they were working on must have some kind of answer. Or maybe he would just have to replace Falkye. But with who? He could feel a headache beginning in the back of his eyes as he considered options in a scenario that had gone from bad to worse.
Chapter 22: Moses // The Siege of Song Grass Hill
“We have received rally orders.” Argo told Moses.
Moses grunted his a
cknowledgement. A medical engineer knelt next to him with his leg armor open from the knee down while he peeled pieces out and put new ones in, muttering as he wrestled with pins and bolts. The engineer didn’t bother collecting the pieces he dropped. He pulled replacements from the bag at his belt while the old ones pooled in the grass next to other discarded fragments of armor. “Alright, try it.” He said as he snapped the last piece in place. The leg resealed around Moses and Moses rose, flexing the knee. “To the line and back.” The man said. Moses complied, jogging the distance between the soldiers at the shield and back. “Looks good.” The man said when he’d returned, barely glancing up from another man he’d started working on whose hand had frozen around his sword hilt.
Moses held up his gauntlet where there was a ragged line of scorched metal from a sword that almost took off his hand. The enemy who had inflicted it on him was now painted across the scar as a black and red stain of burnt blood, tacky and mixed with the blood of a dozen others who had died to Moses’ sword.
The engineer glanced up Moses, then down, then up again. “Can’t you see he’s working here?” The other knight asked.
The engineer dropped the piece he’d peeled off of the other knight’s gauntlet and quickly wiped down Moses’ scar then sprayed it with a foam that hardened when he touched a tool to it. He waved a hand at Moses. “It’ll keep grit from getting in and freezing you up like this guy. Now clear out. This spots for people need work. You’re good.”
Moses did as he was told and followed the heads up display towards his designated rally point. All around him, the camp showed signs of getting ready for the next stage of the battle. Lines formed around the low hill, on bluffs and small ridges. Swords and guns glimmered in the morning sun as the soldiers looked out at the apocalyptic landscape. A wall of heavily tattooed men stood arranged in square maniples of a hundred soldiers facing the camp while another army made its way across the base of the mountains to the east under the cover of a shield. The blackened pampas still burned in a few places and aircraft like globes of glowing light danced above the smoke. Every now and again there was a boom and flash of light as random artillery fire fell on the camp shield over the heads of the wounded men and damaged armor that lay in heaps while medical engineers scurried around them.
Space Knights- Last on the Line Page 30