Their swords met in the opening at their wrists again as he sought her hands, and he locked hers against the edge of his shield as before. The drain was more costly now as he lunged for her exposed hands but would be worth it to get the kill quickly. She shouted and made a weird twist with her sword that jerked the hilt up and over, and he found his sword somehow pinned against her shield, the force of his lunge still driving the tip in at an angle towards empty air while her own sword tip shot for his forearm.
He let go of his sword and threw himself backwards. One hand was still caught by the deadly blade and went stiff as the armor locked around it. His shield knocked her sword out of his armor as he spun and he aimed an awkward kick to push her away while his turret outlined the belly of her shield in fire as it chased her wrists.
The dance was over, but he wasn’t done yet. He pulled a pistol with his unimpaired hand and leapt towards her again. Javelins glimmered as they extended like spines from his armor towards her.
Usually, with guns, distance was the key to getting the upper hand, but she wasn’t going to give him space and the trick of diving in front of the sword might still allow him to beat her. He had, he thought, just enough power left, if he could catch a good shot into her shield.
Turret fire nearly blinded him as he charged into the girl. Bright red balls of plasma splashed across both shields and lightning flashed between them, arching between the two shields. He had to depend upon the outline the heads up display provided around her, marking her as a target as he ran into her. She wasn’t prepared and she fell back in order to swing her sword into position and made her own return lunge.
Moses saw his chance and dropped, bringing up his pistol at the same time, trying to put his face in the way of the sword. The gun in his hand hummed and he saw the line of flechettes reach for her wrists, but he hadn’t dropped fast enough and those that did go through the gap sparkled as they shattered against the rear curve of her shield. Plasma fire from the turret followed his flechettes, but by then it was too late.Her sword tip touched his shield, and slid until the blade was cradled beneath the bulge of the “belly”. It remained pinned there, spitting lightning, even as he tried to roll away from her. It took less than a second for his battery to fail and the shield fell. A dummy cation bolt splashed around his visor and her deactivated sword rose to find his groin, making his armor stiffen in artificial death.
She wiggled the sword between his legs. “How’d you like that?” She asked.
The armor loosened and he holstered the pistol to retrieve his sword. “Good fight.” He replied. They were both breathing hard. “Turrets add a lot of pressure.” He gestured up at his own.
“Thanks for the extra rounds.” She said. “I’d never seen that move with the shield before. I learned something new.”
“Anytime.” He said. The shield around the pit fell.
“Another time then.” She said, then turned to go.
“Got a name?” He asked.
She turned to him. “Kyra.” She said. “Like it says on my badge.” She fluttered her hands around the spot the heads up display spelled out names next to the faceless soldiers. “And you’re Moses.” She put one short leg over the railing of the pit. “Good fight Moses.”
“Good fight.”
That night Moses collapsed onto the mat he’d been issued along with his dinner. The food disappeared as soon as it was on his plate, then he was comatose on the mat looking up at the shield warped sky, listening to the ping and pop of artillery over the shield’s sphere and Maxwell complaining somewhere down the line that they should have issued them tents.
Moses’ suit of armor squatted at his head, compacted into its storage function, sword locked sideways across its back, helm sucked into the chest cavity. He barely remembered the prayer the priest had challenged him to keep and whispered the words into thedarkness.
“Jesus, I love you, and I trust in you. I know that I have sinned, and I want to do better. Something something, tomorrow help me be a better man. Amen.” He knew he should make some kind of reflection on his sins in order to be really sorry for them, but sleep was already upon him so he simply murmured “I love you. Help me to serve you.” His last thought was a quiet wish that he could have found Ephesus, then he surrendered himself to his dreams.
His dreams might almost have been his wakings. In them, he fought.
He relived duels, particularly those with Kyra but more often without any real opponent. He felt the sword twist and turn in his hands. The armor pushed at his limbs as it responded to his own movements with inhuman strength. His sleeping limbs twitched as he dreamed, sometimes almost waking him up until he fell so deeply into sleep that nothing could touch him.
There, in the depths of somnolence, a dark figure entered the rings against him, huge and untouchable, in armor that was all black, but seemed to stare at him no matter what part of it he looked at. He knew, as one knows in dreams, that this figure would be the one to kill him. In the dream he wasn’t afraid. He had come here looking for this figure, it was a victory to finally stand before it. His only wish was that he could have found Ephesus, to introduce him to the black figure in front of him and teach him not to be afraid, the way he had when he ran away as a boy. He lifted his sword and felt an insane surge of happiness as he lunged, screaming a war cry, and fell into a dark and peaceful sleep.
Thunder rolled in the deepness of his sleep, drums, like the pounding of a heart, or the thunder of all the weapons he had learned about that day. He awoke to the sound of a siren, loud and impossible to ignore, and the shouts of a few sergeants to wake up while the men yelled to turn the bloody music down.
“So my brother is at the kennels.” Moses said to the AI later that morning. Breakfast was a thick salty mix of oatmeal,porqine and egg, like his mother’s but with the consistency of a gelatinous glue. Each spoonful adhered to the roof of his mouth and tried to stick his throat together before he could swallow. To his hungry palate, the protein still tasted like heaven. “If we’ve got time this morning, could I just go there to find him?”
“At your current top rate of speed, the journey would take too long for you to complete before your first scheduled event for today.”
Moses armored suit still squatted on the grass in front of where Moses was sitting and as he finished eating Maxwell found him, already suited, his helm pulled back from his face.
“How’d you do yesterday?” Moses asked.
“I hurt.” The big man said.
Moses nodded. His own aches had only been made worse by his night on the stiff pad. The pad was better than the frond mattress they shared at home, but it wasn’t thick enough to disguise the lumps and contours of the ground it lay on and those lumps had turned already sore muscles into boards across his shoulders and back. The muscles in his knees and elbows only burned by comparison.
“Talked to some of the other boys got assigned to our Battalion from Carmichael. Most of them got shoved into the squires. Not sure how we got the lucky straw but they spent all yesterday shooting targets. Seems almost unfair.”
“If it’s easy its not worth doing.” Moses said, quoting his brother.
“Not what I say.” Maxwell replied. “But if that’s how you like it I’ve heard from a few who’ve been here a while it’s gonna be a harder day today.”
“Why’s that?” He asked.
“Melee.” Maxwell grunted.
An hour or so later Moses’ suit climbed to its feet and opened for him as it told him it was time to report to the command tent for the days orders.
“So you made it through your first day.” Lieutenant Colonel Fyker stood at the front of the supply tent. Racks of weapons and gear were collapsed and stored away along the walls, replaced now by rows on rows of low benches filled by the thousand men of the second battalion, their helmets off, ear mics piping the officer’s words to them over the roar of the hovering drones that still supported the roof. “Good for you. If you got here early in the morning yester
day you should be pretty familiar with your weapons. For those of you who got here late, well, you’ll have gotten what you could get. I’ve already told you we’re short on time, so today we will be moving on to group exercises. You can count yourselves lucky. You should have already seen some of it in the melee pits. Those Battalions have been here longer than you. I hope you’ve learned from them. Now half of you should be Squires, squire’s raise your hands.”
Men in a range of styles of armor from thin to blocky raised their hands. “You’ll be in the shooting pits to the east end of the camp. I want you boys to focus on learning what constitutes good and poor cover. The fields so shot up now there won’t be any bad cover left, but you’ll be able to find out what does and does not constitute sufficient defensive positions to engage a similarly armed opponent. Remember, in a real battle you’ll be facing shock troops as well as ranged troops, so try to move quickly between targets. You won’t be able to pound at an opponent’s shield like you can now without someone trying to ram a sword down your throat. That will be the knights. Knights, raise your hands.”
Moses and Maxwell raised their hands as well a a host of others. “You’ll be in the sword pits, next to the dueling pits. Same goes for you. Turrets were only on sporadically yesterday I know, so some of you have been developing bad habits about where you hold your sword. Same goes for you goes for the squires. Remember you’ll be fighting ranged opponents as well on the battlefield, so keep your sword hands low where your wrists won’t get chopped off or blown up.”
He surveyed the room. “ That’s all for now. I want you to divide up into groups of twelve and thirteen as you go out to the pits. We’re building permanent teams here, so memorize who you’re with until we tell you otherwise.When we’re done for the day teams are going to be combined into squads and your AI will be informed. If you can’t find a team then let your AI find one for you, and if you don’t know what’s going on, Trust the AI. Remember that. The AI has more information than you ever will. The only reason you boys are on the battlefield is because you can give the edge to your AI, not the other way around. It follows your orders, but it also relays orders to you. Listen to them and you’ll survive. Disobey them, and you’ll die or I’ll replace your sword and rifles with soup spoons and spatulas and you can serve out the rest of the war frying dinner for the soldiers that could follow orders. Find your teams and report to a station. We’ll organize you from there. I know you’re sore, and some of you are probably still tired. Remember our days in camp are numbered. The faster you learn what you need to win a fight, the better your odds of surviving on the battlefield. Train hard, learn well. Dismissed.”
Fyker turned to his support staff as the rest of the battalion stood and made their way out onto the fields. Moses turned to Maxwell as Maxwell turned to him and raised a hand. “Team?” He asked.
“Team.” Moses said. He raised his hand in uncertain imitation of Maxwell and the big man hit his hand with his own then shoved his helmet on.
“There’s a real need for some kind of marking on this armor.” Maxwell said. “Everyone looks the same.” Moses nodded. After his dreams, the weight of the sword on Moses’ back felt natural, like an outgrowth of his own spine. The sore spots on his joints itched for exercise at the feeling of the armor around them again. The whole thing felt comfortable in a way it hadn’t the day before.
A knight grabbed Moses’ shoulder while they were trudging towards the melee field with the rest of the column and Moses recognized Kyra’s voice. “You come with me.” She told him.
“I’ve got another one with me.” Moses said. He tapped Maxwell’s shoulder and the big man turned.
“Him?” Moses could almost hear Kyra’s frown. “Alright, fine. I needed another one anyways. Meet me in the first dueling pit. That’s where I told everyone else to go.” Then she was gone, pushing through the throng of soldiers in search of some other likely candidate.
“See what I mean?” Maxwell asked. “Man can’t even tell if he’s lookin at a betty or brute in these things. What’s the girlfriend’s name?”
“Her names Kyra.” Moses said. “She’s not mine.”
“Not anyone’s if I had to guess.” Maxwell said. “Can’t imagine anyone pretty under all that steel. Just another bearded freak like the rest of us.”
Somewhere ahead of them along the column someone began to play at a musical instrument that sounded like tortured wood howling to the notes of some song.
“Sounds like a rusty boat engine.” Maxwell grunted. As they followed the column they passed the source of the noise, an unarmored man standing amongst the hulking soldiers with wooden pipes extended above his head while he blew into a pipe. The sound stopped as he spat the pipe out and yelled to the passing soldiers. “Huzzah boys! Huzzah for the warriors! Huzzah!” A few men cheered back at him and he took up the pipe again to inflate the bag, and the music howled around them as he marched along beside the troops.
The melee fields were chaos. Nearly two hundred and fifty men shouted at one another and gathered in clumps as teams formed. Soldiers without a team wandered between the groups looking for empty slots they could fill. Moses and Maxwell pushed through the narrow path of jostling armored bodies until they could hop the fence into the dueling pit where a handful of others were waiting, some of them sitting on the fences in order to make space in the crowded square of dirt.
“You the group Kyra was pulling together?” Moses asked.
“That is us.” A man said, pushing himself off of the fencepost he’d been leaning on. He shook their hands and introduced himself as Marloque “The Musketeer.”
“If you’re a musketeer where’s your musket?” Maxwell asked.
“I only introduce him to the ladies.” Marloque replied with an audible smirk.
“How did you do that to your armor?” Maxwell asked.
“What? This?” Marloque held his arms out to better show off a long series of black lines cauterized into his breastplate and along his greeves. Up close they looked like hideous injuries but from a distance they made up a pattern of loops and curves that seemed decorative. “They are roses.” He said proudly. “The flower of the ancestors, and this,” He pulled out his sword and flourished it. “Is my thorn.”
“Roses are homeworld plants.” One of the other soldiers in the group explained. “Flowers they called them. Smelled sweet.” He made a motion with his hands as though to smell, a strange sight when his helm had neither eye or nose slits.
“I saw one once in the colonial project gardens.” Marloque said, pleased with himself. “The most beautiful thing I’ve seen. Like nothing else on this world I can assure you. It is my personal sigil.”
“Well how did you get it on your chest?” Maxwell asked.
“I burnt it there.” Marloque replied. “I can burn you there too, if you’d like.”
Kyra pushed into the ring, dragging a few more armored figures behind her. “That’s ten.” She said. “We need at least two more. I couldn’t think of anyone else. Do you know any good fighters?” She looked at Marloque who spun his sword and put it away.
“My dear lady, I tried to put people in the dirt, not memorize their names.”
“All the rest I know are with the artillery.” Maxwell said.
“We could grab a few of the passersby.” Marloque offered.
Moses didn’t wait for anyone to give the okay. He went to the fence and called out to one of the soldiers. “You still need a team?”
Two men answered, one bringing a friend with him and they had their thirteen. Then all they had to do was wait for the sergeants to move among the twenty odd teams with a hovering automata at their back and a pad which they had each soldier touch as they made their lists. “Alright. You’re in pit number three.” One of them told the group at large. “Get there. You’ll get your orders via the AI between rounds. Good luck.” Then they were off.
“Do we have a name?” One of the men asked in a deep baritone through his suit speaker. Dif
ferentiating them was going to be difficult, Moses realized. Besides Marloque’s “rose” tattoos there was very little to distinguish them besides their voices and getting their names right would be important for communication during the melee, as would knowing whether the person charging him was on his side or not. He began to study the names, forcing himself to pick out the letters the way he’d learned when he was being taught how to read all those years ago.
“What do we need a name for?” A boy called Ainsworth asked.
The baritone grunted. “Every gang I ever ran with had a name.”
“Really?” Marloque said. “What did they call themselves?”
“I’d better not say.” The Baritone said.
“They’ll give us a name.” Marloque replied. “Not a real name of course, but they’ll assign officers after this and we’ll be called by that officer’s name.”
“Kyra’s team.” The baritone man intoned.
Kyra laughed. “I don’t mind the sound of that.” She said.
The first melee was chaos. The pits were small, barely sixty yards long, and maybe twenty wide. The two teams ranged themselves opposite one another without discernible order until Marloque suggested working in squads of four. “Team up on them if you can. No reason to take them one on one, and our turrets will be firing this time. Better chance of hitting their hands now if they make a mistake.”
When the other team saw them arranging themselves that way they followed suit and when the shield went up and the weapons went live the pit was transformed into a blaze of light and violence impossible to see through with any clarity. Kyra yelled something and sprinted forward into the storm of plasma and bullets, followed a second later by her teammates, Maxwell, and the big baritone man with a knife strapped across his chest. Moses started to charge but stopped when he realized he couldn’t tell who was friend and who was foe. He stayed back and used his pistol, looking for openings where he cold cut hands or get a good angle into their chests. Several times he leveled his pistol at a knight he thought was one of his opponents only to have the AI correct him.
Space Knights- Last on the Line Page 17
