by Terry Mixon
To Kelsey’s shock, the wildlife around them was deafening. The insects, which had been loud during the day, really opened up at night. There were also other animal calls in the darkness, but she couldn’t put any names to them. She had no experience with anything like that. It was amazing.
Beauchamp sat silent for a long while after Jared had finished speaking. She asked no questions, and she didn’t act as if she either believed him or doubted his words. When she finally did speak, her tone held no hint of judgment.
“If it were up to me, I’d be inclined to believe you,” she said quietly while staring into the fire. “I’ll warn you that others will not be as accepting as I. When we arrive at the outpost, you’ll have an opportunity to tell your story. The leaders there will have many questions.
“I also have things that I want to know, but it’s not the right time for me to inquire. Tomorrow is going to be a brutal day of riding for all of you, as well as difficult for myself and my people, eking out every single bit of speed that you can give. We will be brutal taskmasters.
“Honestly, I think that we’ll make it to the outpost before the horde catches up with us, but they could surprise me. We’re going to have to be ready to fight if they try to block us from reaching safety.
“To do that, everyone is going to need all the rest they can get. I suggest you retire for the evening and be ready to rise in just a few hours. We’ll ride as soon as we can make out the ground around us. Focus on your survival and worry about the political implications of your arrival once you’re safe, relatively speaking.”
The woman smiled grimly. “After all, there’ll always be time to hang you later if we don’t like what you have to say. Tomorrow could be a day of great danger for you, but don’t believe for one moment that you’re any safer at the outpost, unless you can convince our leaders there of your honesty. If you work for the artificial intelligences, they’ll find out and they will kill you.
“And if it’s true, I’ll help them do it.”
With that, the woman rose and walked off into the darkness, leaving them alone near the fire, which had burned down to coals over the hours.
Rather than wait for someone to say something, Kelsey stood and extended her hand to Talbot. Together, they walked off toward where they would sleep.
The other woman was right. Their survival depended on convincing their potential allies that they shared their goals. She had a few ideas about how that might best be done, but it was a toss of the dice. They had to be convincing, because if they failed to win friends and allies, they’d all die.
Worse, everyone on Terra would eventually die as well. And if the AIs were willing to do that to Terra, how long before they decided that humanity in general needed to perish?
Convincing them to help her would be the most important task that Kelsey had ever faced. One her Raider augmentation couldn’t help her with. One where it might be a strong negative influence on the discussions, in fact. Beauchamp had seen her fight without armor. That would come up, and she’d have to explain how she could do what she did.
That was a lot of pressure, but she’d make it work. She had to.
18
The next morning, Talbot woke feeling a lot better than he’d expected to. His medical nanites had done yeoman’s work while he’d slept. The pain and soreness that he’d been feeling was mostly gone.
Kelsey was up and seemed to have no ill effects at all, which annoyed him all over again. She made up for it by hunting him down some coffee. He needed it.
He wasn’t looking forward to another day in the saddle, much less the more difficult ride he expected them to make today, but at least he wasn’t suffering debilitating pain.
A quick check revealed that he was doing better than the regular marines because his Raider nanites were doing a much better job of caring for him. The artificial muscles woven throughout his real ones were also taking off quite a bit of the stress.
The regular marines, Fleet personnel, and scientists also had nanites, but theirs weren’t as capable as his. Each of them had been hit harder than him, his wife, and her doppelgänger.
That said, they were doing better than Beauchamp’s people had expected them to. He could tell by the natives’ expressions and whispered conversations that they expected everyone to be almost bedridden. Instead, they were up and doing what they needed to.
Beauchamp cut off their discussion with a loud whistle, and everyone settled down to eat some rations and get ready for a day of hard riding.
Talbot tried the local version of pre-prepared food and wasn’t surprised to see that it was just as unappetizing as the marine version. Well, that hardly mattered. They need the calories. He ate his share and then ate some more.
Watching Kelsey eat everything in sight had always amused him, but now that he was also a Marine Raider, his appetite dwarfed hers. Now it was her turn to be bemused by how much food he could put away. Luckily, he’d packed a lot of ration bars for just this situation.
That didn’t stop him from devouring everything Beauchamp’s people had to offer. Never look a gift horse in the mouth. That new saying was completely appropriate for this situation, he decided, having seen the beasts up close and personal.
By the time they’d finished eating, the sun was coloring the horizon. It would’ve been helpful if the moon was showing more light, but it would’ve also put them in danger since someone could see them at longer distances. On balance, it was probably better that only a sliver of its silvery gray surface was lit.
Talbot wished his marines could help, but their “assistance” would undoubtedly be more of a hindrance than a help, so they stood by, stroking their horses’ necks, talking to them, and trying to get them used to their presence.
The Fleet personnel and scientists put on the captured armor, while his people put on the marine unpowered armor. They also had the primitive weapons that they’d captured, but they weren’t worrying about that right now. No one had the time to even learn how to safely handle the swords. When the call came to mount up, they did so, and the column moved out.
The next four hours were brutal. As much work as their nanites had done, their bodies weren’t ready for the stress of riding as hard as they did. Unlike the first day, this time they only stopped twice during the morning, and those only briefly. Not even really enough time to recover any feeling in their legs and butts before they were in the saddle again and on the move.
He spent his time conferring with Scala, Chloe, and Boske about the overall layout of their troops and the terrain that they were coming up on. With the drones overhead, they had a good view out to about five kilometers. He might’ve been able to push that a little bit, but he didn’t want to lose any of the devices. They were irreplaceable at this point.
That didn’t mean that he wasn’t willing to risk the occasional one by sending it out on a recon mission out to ten kilometers. He mainly did that going forward, but he also sent out recon missions to the sides and to their rear.
Over the morning, they hadn’t seen anything worthy of note. Nothing but animals and long dormant desolation. This borderland between whoever Beauchamp served and the horde wasn’t well traveled. There were no roads and very few trails.
They broke for lunch, if it could be called that, and ate quickly. They didn’t bother with a fire because speed was more important.
It was late afternoon when he spotted the outpost coming up in the visual from one of his drones. The device was about at the limit of its ten-kilometer range when it spotted the structure growing out of the ground ahead of them.
When Beauchamp had used the word outpost, he’d thought of something fairly small and fortified. That was not exactly what he was seeing now. The structure ahead of them was a walled city. Maybe a small one, but definitely a population center that had thousands of people living in it. Perhaps tens of thousands.
The construction was a mixture of wood and stone, natural elements rather than plascrete. Based on the height of
the walls, and the vigilant guards observing land around them, the locals weren’t taking their safety for granted.
There were also reinforced positions on the walls that spoke to him of heavy weapons emplacements. He was willing to wager that something high-tech and powerful lurked inside those well-protected locations, though he wouldn’t know for sure unless he had a chance to look at them more closely once they were inside the outpost, should their hosts prove willing to show them to him.
He was about to pass that information on to the admiral when one of their drones reported an anomaly. Off to the left-hand side of their column, it had spotted another band of riders. This group was about twice their size and looked all too familiar. It was a horde war band.
He used his implants to do some calculations based on their direction of travel and speed, comparing it with their own. The horde would probably intercept them just short of the outpost. If that happened, this wasn’t going to end well.
“Heads up,” he said over the command channel and passed along the readings from the drones so that everyone would know the situation. That earned curses as his friends realized they weren’t going to get out of this unscathed.
While the higher-ups considered the situation, he called for Corporal Boske to join him. When she had done so, he spoke with her in a low tone.
“You’re going to command the ready response team. If we can keep that group off the main column until the admiral and Kelsey can reach the outpost, I’ll call that a win.”
The pink-haired noncom nodded. “You can count on us, sir. We’ll keep them off your necks.”
“I know you will. Good luck.”
What he actually knew is that he just ordered his subordinate to lead what could all too easily turn into a suicide mission. If they got bogged down in the fighting, even with their technological superiority, they’d be exterminated to the last man and woman.
Of course, since he was going to be personally leading the rear guard, he might find trouble of his own that would keep him from getting to the outpost.
He wasn’t going to tell Kelsey that. She’d try to come up with a different plan when they really didn’t have any other options.
While Boske was gathering her people, he called Chloe over a private com channel. “Chloe, I’m going to do what we can to keep the horde off your back. I need you to keep Kelsey and the admiral safe while we do it. Work with Howard to make sure. Adrian will be with me.”
His officer didn’t have to be told what that meant. “You got it, Colonel. Nobody’s getting through me or my people.”
“Excellent. We’re leaving in a couple of minutes. Good luck.”
He’d already marked the spots on the map where he’d make his stand, if he had to. Right now, he’d settle for grouping most of his marines on that side of the column. The drones told him the other side was clear out to the ten-kilometer mark. Depending on how well Boske did, he’d make the decision on whether or not to set up a blocking force.
Talbot let his eyes wander up to the front of the column where Kelsey was riding beside the admiral. They were discussing the information he’d sent them, and she wasn’t looking back toward him. She was a warrior, but she wasn’t as experienced as he was yet. She hadn’t realized at a glance what the situation was going to require. When she did, she was going to be pissed.
Well, he’d hope that things were well underway before she caught on. If someone was going to die today, it would be him and his people, not his wife or the admiral. He didn’t want that to happen, but if that’s the way things fell, he’d rather she live. If those two died, humanity likely died with them.
Julia was still tied into the marine net and heard Talbot’s instructions to Corporal Boske. A glance at her doppelgänger showed that the other woman was not aware of what her husband was doing. After a moment’s consideration, she decided that was probably for the best.
The hazy outlines of Talbot’s plan were already beginning to take shape in the mental battle space that the marines were constructing. She could see exactly how they planned to split off the ready reaction team to meet the incoming hostiles. The remaining marines would defend the column from somewhere closer, making a blocking force if required.
If her doppelgänger realized that her husband was preparing to put himself in harm’s way so that she could escape, she had no doubt that the woman would lose her mind.
Oh, she was much more of a warrior than Julia was, but she wasn’t going to let her husband sacrifice himself for her. Oh no. She’d make certain that she stood beside him until the bloody end. She wouldn’t leave him behind to die when she would live.
Her eyes slid over to Scott Roche. While they weren’t in the least romantically entangled, he’d have the same type of reaction if it were her in danger. That was going to be awkward because she’d already decided that her assistance might make the difference between the ready response team being able to break away from the incoming horsemen and being bogged down in a fatal encounter.
They already knew that the horde had heavy weaponry that was capable of taking out powered armor. If they were going to stop the horsemen, they needed a way to do that where they didn’t expose themselves or get bogged down, allowing the horde to cut them off from escape.
With her mind made up, she nudged her horse over closer to Scott. “I want you to coordinate with Admiral Mertz and Kelsey. You’ve been doing a good job of keeping an eye on the scientists, and I want to see that continue. We can’t afford to lose any of them on the final rush to the outpost.”
He nodded. “I’m on it, Highness.” With that, he rode forward to join that part of the column.
With her friend distracted, Julia took the opportunity to edge farther away from the main column so that she was trailing behind Corporal Boske and her subordinates tasked with stopping the horde from cutting them off from safety.
The marines never glanced back at her. They were focused on the task ahead of them, and they had their implant maps to tag everyone who was going. Julia took the opportunity to utilize the overrides that she had built into her implants to add herself to the ready response team listing as a member.
Her ability to do that would probably shock Jared Mertz. After all, he’d recommended to the emperor and the senate in this universe that she be declared unfit to be heir as a way to make certain that someone they didn’t trust didn’t have authority she wasn’t supposed to have.
The problem with that was that now that they were reunited with her doppelgänger, they’d had to find a way to have their cake and eat it too. A turn of phrase she heartily approved of, since she loved cake.
They’d secretly re-enabled Princess Kelsey’s authority without telling Julia. She’d already been checking for that because she’d expected that’s what they’d do. They’d added some code that Carl Owlet had created to make a perfunctory effort at keeping her out, but it was easily subverted.
At least that’s what Austin Darrah had told her when she’d asked him to bypass it. He hadn’t even needed to get someone more skilled than himself at programming to make it happen. The system just wasn’t designed to keep someone with the right access codes out.
As her codes were exactly as valid as her doppelgänger’s, the kludge was never going to work. She’d just needed someone to subvert their hack without letting them know that they’d done so.
She had no intention of abusing her authority as heir to the throne, but when push came to shove, she’d do what she needed to do to be certain that this mission succeeded. It only took a little earnest conversation to convince Austin of that, and now she was able to do what needed to be done.
Someone had to get out of here with the override. Only victory in this universe would see the device get back to hers. If her participation in this fight made it more likely that Scott would eventually return to her universe with the key to victory, then it would be worth it, even if she didn’t make it.
She’d taken an opportunity last night to go through the
heavy weapons that the marines had brought along for their armor. The last fight hadn’t involved the use of them because the marines hadn’t expected to run into anything dangerous to them. This time they were carrying weapons capable of knocking pinnaces out of the sky or destroying entrenched positions. Modern entrenched positions.
While she was no expert at the use of something like that, she’d taken the opportunity to pilfer one of the spare weapon systems, packing it away with her armor. Now she’d be able to assist in this battle in a way that she hadn’t before.
There’d be no stunners this time. They’d hit the enemy as fast and hard as they could. Their only real hope of doing so and getting away was to catch them before they knew they were in danger and exterminate them. And that’s what she intended to do.
19
Jared tried his best to split his attention between the interface accessing the drone feeds and riding his horse. As an inexperienced rider, that wasn’t exactly easy. In fact, every time he thought he had the hang of it, a change in his horse’s gait distracted him.
The marines in the ready response team were moving off to intercept the incoming riders while Talbot sent Major Scala and more of the marines on a course that put them between the column and the hostiles. They’d only dismount if the ready response team wasn’t able to delay the horde forces.
The distance between the column and the outpost was shrinking as they rode toward it, but it was a race to see if they reached the walls before the horde caught up with them. A race that he wasn’t certain they were going to win.
Out of habit, he performed a check of where his senior people were and what they were up to. A good leader trusted his subordinates to take care of the mission at hand, but as he was ultimately responsible for what happened, it paid to make sure that everything was actually getting done the way it needed to be.
Talbot had the majority of his marines in hand, Scott Roche was taking care of the scientists, Sean Meyer was overseeing the Fleet personnel, Olivia and Elise were safely tucked away in the middle of the column, and Kelsey was furiously studying whatever she was looking at through her implants as she rode next to him.
