Space Knights- Last on the Line

by Emerson Fortier

  It didn’t.

  Chapter 17: Moses // Disturbances

  He was dreaming of swordplay when something tapped him hard in the center of his forehead and threw him into a falling dream. He woke with a start. “What? What?” He rubbed at the spot and looked up at the sky thinking it might have dropped something on him.

  “An EMP has been set off in the camp. You are being called to combat readiness.” His armor told him. It sat like a person on its haunches, the helmet sucked into its chest so that it looked headless as it withdrew the offending gauntlet it had tapped him with. The two red flags jutting over its head brought Moses to wakefulness and he scrambled to his feet. Argo pulled its head out of its chest and peeled open like a human shaped bag as Moses climbed in, feeling the armor reseal over him as he shoved the helm on.

  “Are we under attack?” He asked.

  “I am not sure.” The AI replied. “I have your orders.”

  All around him, the army of men sprawled across the grass were rising and climbing into armor as Moses had. Kyra’s armor was still poking her. “Show them to me.” Moses said as he nudged Kyra with an armored boot.

  On his heads up display an overhead map of the camp appeared, blue lines and cubes denoting the dueling pits and the tents. A red dot appeared in the Eastern corner. “You are to rally your squad in this position and make prepare to defend the camp should the invaders appear.”

  This was it. Moses felt his heart rate accelerate and his veins flood with adrenaline. He bent down and shook Kyra. “Kyra.” He called.

  She suddenly whipped over and sat bolt upright, banging into Moses’ helm. He careened backwards in a delayed reaction while she bent over and clutched her forehead. “What is wrong with you!” She yelled.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

  “Sergeant.” Argo said. “Officer Staycoffe wishes to speak to you.”

  “Let me hear him.”

  “This is Staycoffe.” The AI said.

  “Sarge.” The man’s voice bubbled with excitement. “I’ve the orders. Shall I wake my boys and gather them there?”

  “Yes. Go. I’ll meet you there.” Kyra was still rubbing her forehead.

  “What’s going on?” She asked.

  “Battle. Enemy tried to bomb us while we were sleeping. Suit up.”

  Her eyes went wide and she threw herself over her armor. As she crawled over it the suit unfolded like a predatory fish to wrap around her. She ducked her head into the helm and shoved herself upright, fully clad, the pistol that had been on her hip in one hand.

  “Your orders are on your screen.” Moses said. “Make sure the rest of your team gets there.”

  “Yessah!” She shouted, then Moses ran. He ran for the spot on his heads up display, swerving around thousands of other men swarming across the field towards their positions. The whole thing was utter chaos, and with the enemy on approach.

  When he got to their position Moses found a wide expanse of featureless grass filling the extreme edge of the shielded camp. To the left and right, perhaps a hundred yards away to either side, two low bluffs rose out of the grass, exposing crumbling earth to the wind just above the tips of the song grass. He could see other flags there, other platoon sergeants posting gunners on the ridge and knights just below as their platoons filtered in. There was a distant rumbling and Moses saw, far to his left, a stream of what must be automata galloping out of their own domed camp in a black river that tore across the midnight plain. Something streaked overhead and there were explosions amidst the black stream as it dispersed, running to fill the pampas, pursued by the slow bolts of the enemy’s plasma artillery.

  Staycoffe arrived next. He arrived as though onto a field already embattled, running at a sprint in front of his division. He dove into the grass as soon as he reached the position while the rest of his men spread out into a defensive picket, each one hunkering down in the best cover they could find with their guns pointed out towards the darkened pampas. Moses could see the heavy gunners to the rear supporting huge rectangular guns that swiveled over the whole field, the mediums like Staycoffe a few dozen yards ahead of them with their rifles poking out of divots in the pampas while the light gunners crawled forward to join Moses where the Pampas dipped between the two bluffs. Staycoffe wormed his way up to Moses as he watched them deploy and spoke to him from the ground, his rifle out and pointed downrange.

  “Oh, yer honor, I’m not liking this ground. Bad ground to defend, bad to hold. It’s got no cover to it. Only hiding places amongst the grass. Grass burns. Hard to see.”

  “Never the less.” Moses said. “It’s our ground to hold.”

  His hands opened and closed on reflex as Moses scanned the Pampas. He’d been afraid when he went to sleep, whether it was of the enemy or what he might do when they arrived he couldn’t have said, but now that he was here, he wanted them, wanted to see the enemy, to pull out his sword and make contact. To give this furious energy in his veins an outlet. Instead all he saw in front of them was waving empty grass.

  “I’ll have the boys dig trenches shall I? Cover of some kind, make visibility difficult in this grass, but some cover is better than none, and a place to run without leaving yer post gives a man a bit of courage, no?”

  “Do it.” Moses said. He couldn’t see the enemy anywhere. He turned and looked for Kyra and the knights to arrive. “You’ll have the knights to the front anyways. On this flat ground, I don’t expect you’ll have much of a shot if you stay behind us.”

  “As you say, as you say.” The team lead turned to his men and issued orders in a harsh tone Moses had not expected. “Targor! Mensa! You’re the shovels. Dig, and dig good. Trenches across this whole stretch of land, I don’t want anyone running to think they won’t stumble. Don’t make them deep, just enough for a body to lie in and not be above the loam. So deep.” He held his hands about two feet apart as though to show them. “Now go.” Two of the light gunners nodded then sprinted to obey.

  Kyra and her band of knights appeared running across the pampas between the squad’s heavies. Her sword was glowing above her head as she ran, at her height it was actually as tall as she was, possible taller. In the dark at the head of an army of other knights, it made her look more warlike rather than ridiculous. “Are they here?” She called as she approached, breathless despite the suit’s augmentation.

  “Not yet.” Moses replied. “Make a line, right here, groups of three.” He pointed, a spot roughly twenty yards in front of the heavies and roughly as far from the inside edge of the camp shield. “If they show up you charge together, but not until they’ve passed the shields, and not until the squires have had time to play their guns over them. Understood?” He’d had time to watch a few of the mixed squad melees, giving him some idea of how to deploy his troops. Otherwise it would all be guess work.

  “Yessah!” The knights lined up, shifting and scanning the pampas in the midnight light. Moses did the same for a moment, hunting for some sign of an enemy’s shadow amidst the shifting grass before moving behind his soldiers. His soldiers, he thought. It hadn’t taken him long to acclimate to command.It would have given him pause if he thought he had time for self reflection.

  Near the enemy’s camp there was a sudden blaze of lights. Distant sparks that shot across the open pampas. A strobe of dots fired back in return. The shimmer of the enemy shield and the flash of plasma fire the only things visible against the backdrop of stars and infinite waving grass. Artillery fell on the flashing lights, one gun, then three, then a blazing barrage so bright it was difficult to look at.

  “Are they coming?” Moses asked Argo.

  “The only fighting so far is around the enemy’s base. The hounds sent to scout the pampas have encountered their automated pickets.”

  “Nothing nearby?” Moses almost felt disappointed.

  “Unless you count the EMP, nothing so far.”

  Someone shifted near him. “Moses.” Kyra hissed.

  Moses jumped “What is it?”
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  “It’s the pistols. We’ve only got dummy rounds in our magazines. How are we supposed to fight with only dummy rounds?”

  He slapped his forehead. How could he forget. “The swords will still work.” He said.

  “But the pistols.” She hissed, “And I’ll bet the gunners have mostly dummy ammunition as well.”

  Moses called Staycoffe to him and the squire slithered through the knee high grass at a crouch to appear beside him, rifle couched at his shoulder as though ready to fire. “Yer honor.”

  “Do your men have combat ammunition in their guns?”

  “Mmmm. For the most part, we’ve a bit. The shells kept some in reserve when they loaded up on the play stuff. We’ve got maybe ten percent of our full capacity between the lot of us. You want I should send a runner to get more? We can all load off each other’s canisters. No need to break up the line.”

  “Can knights do that?” Moses asked.

  Staycoffe shrugged.

  “Each suit can empty its dummy round onto the ground in order to accept loads from ammo couriers.” Argo replied.

  “Good.” He turned to Kyra. “Assign two men, fastest we have, make it Bobgan and Ainsworth, and send them to reload with live ammunition and reload the rest of the knights. Tell them to move fast, we don’t know when they’ll come.” If they’ll come, he thought. “Staycoffe, you do the same, two of the fast ones to get ammo for the rest. Reload them one at a time, I want everyone to carry nothing but combat ammo. Go.” The two team leads nodded and separated to relay the orders, but he caught Kyra before she could go. “Send Maxwell to me.” It would be now or never it seemed, if there was going to be battle tonight.

  He heard Staycoffe’s harsh command voice yell for his “shovels” into the still night air as he sent them running for ammunition. “Plasma tankards first, right to left. The heavies will run out the fastest of the lot of us.” Then Maxwell appeared in front of Moses.

  “Those flags make you stand out.” The big man said.

  “You knew where to find me without your AI didn’t you.” Moses replied.

  “Aye. Spose thats the point. What do you need?”

  “How do you feel Maxwell? Are you nervous?”

  “Nervous as the next lad.” Maxwell admitted. He held one pistol in both hands, his fingers shifting on the grip.

  “Maxwell, I want you to take a gun.” Moses said. “You’re no good with a sword and frankly I’d rather have our strength in guns. Go to the armory tent and get re-outfitted. I’ll call ahead to make sure they have what you need ready.”

  “Yessah.” Maxwell said. “And... thank you.”

  “Be quick.” Moses said.

  Maxwell holstered his pistol and trotted off through the grass. Moses had Argo call Staycoffe.

  “I’m having the man I told you about re-outfitted to join the squires. What class of weaponry do you want him to pick up?”

  “Oh, yer honor. We’ve a full complement, but I spose if I was to ask for extra… mmm… I’d marry him to another heavy gun. Yes yer honor. That’s what I’d do. A heavy.”

  “Then that’s what he’ll be. When he arrives make sure he’s stationed with another man who can show him the buttons and levers.”

  “As you say.”

  He asked Argo to connect him to the armory. “I’ve already transmitted your request for re-armament as well as the lieutenant colonel’s permission.” Argo replied.

  Moses felt miffed. “What if I wanted to give the order.”

  “If you wish to satisfy your ego you may give me the command and I will pretend to execute it.”

  “Alright.” Moses said. “Do it then.”

  “Done.”

  “Argo.” Moses said after they’d watched the darkness for a while longer.

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks.”

  “It is no more necessary that you thank me than that you anthropomorphize me with a name. I have obeyed my primes.”

  “And I am grateful all the same.”

  Slowly, the ammunition couriers made their rounds, filling up each man’s spinal magazines with deadly flechettes, slugs and plasma canisters. When one of them approached him Moses waved him away until the rest of the squad was fully armed. He wasn’t there to fight, he was there to command, his ability to fight was of secondary importance to his ability to keep his men together. Maxwell returned, now even larger than he had seemed in the knight’s armor. The heavy gun extended from his shoulder on a small hoist, its tube roughly rectilinear and shining where the starlight touched it. “This feels more my style.” O’neill told Moses as he hefted the big gun from hip to shoulder, running the targeting scope across the empty pampas.

  “Good.” Moses said. “Go find Staycoffe, he’ll show you where to go. You’re in his team now. Do as he says.”

  Staycoffe positioned Maxwell to the rear and Moses went around the line, examining all the preparations that had been made. The knights crouched in their small groups, some with swords or pistols in hand, others engaged in preparation for whatever might come, each with a small pile of ejected dummy ammunition at their feet.

  The squires crouched in low ditches Staycoffe’s “shovels” had dug, stubby light guns and long medium’s poking through the grass as they scanned the black horizon and the short space of song grass visible in the glimmer of the camp shield. The distant firefight shifted and moved across the darkness, then finally came to an end, and the random artillery fire from the enemy camp began to rain across their own camp again. Each shot was a long shooting star that chased the sky until it reached its zenith and fell to burst across the shields with a boom and a flash of light that illuminated the grass for hundreds of yards around them. In the sudden flashes of light, all was still. All was empty. Unless the enemy were invisible. He supposed it was possible. He knew nothing about the enemy. Not even what they would look like. The briefings he’d seen at the meal tent only said that they were humans, armored like he was.

  “We have been ordered back to our sleeping quarters.” Argo told him just as the excitement was turning to sleepiness in the unending silence. Moses roused himself.

  “No attack?” He asked.

  “It would appear that the EMP was intended to test our military infrastructure.” The AI replied.

  “Alright.” Moses said. He stood from where he’d been crouching in the grass. “Can you put my voice through to all of the men?”

  “Yes.” Argo said. “Should I also transmit your voice to Kyra.”

  “Yes.” Moses said. Too tired to bother being annoyed.

  “Alright boys.” He said when Argo told him he was through. “No fight tonight. Back to the beds. We’ve got a long day ahead of us yet.”

  Around their position other squads were pulling out. Gunners rose from hiding spots in the grass and knights sheathed swords as they turned en masse back to the sleeping quarters. Moses followed the AI’s instructions back to the spot he’d unrolled his sleeping mat and stepped out of the suit to collapse on the thin pad. Kyra fell on her mat beside him, then rolled over to put her head on his chest again, one hand near his. He could feel the adrenaline from the thought of a first battle still in him, dormant now, but still present. A sense of excitement that seemed to stay with all of the men as they collapsed around him, many of them turning to the men around them to talk in low voices.

  “Did you see?”

  “Do you think?”

  “Stinking cowards, trying a game like that.”

  After a while the army fell silent and Moses felt alone with the stars above, still unable to sleep, remembering the flash of light across the pampas, listening to the pop and watching the flash of artillery above the camp. Alone that is, until Kyra shifted her head on his chest to look at him. “Can’t sleep?” She asked when she saw the glitter of his eyes.

  “No.” he whispered.

  “Too excited.” She hissed.

  “Still tired.” He replied. Laying down, he could feel his body’s aches and pains from t
he thirty five mile an hour sprint he’d done with the suit of armor that evening. He felt stiff, and knew he needed sleep.

  “Momma used to say there’s only one cure for a restless night.” Kyra said. She ran a hand up Moses chest to cup his cheek and kissed his shoulder, grinned.

  “You ran away from your momma.” Moses said.

  She shook her head, red puff of unruly hair black in the night. “Not so. Not quite. I ran away from Eden.”

  “I thought it was supposed to be paradise.”

  She moved up and tried to kiss him but he turned and her lips found his cheek. “Is that a no?” She asked.

  “Not tonight.” He hissed back, hating that he didn’t tell her it would never be, the weakness in it, when her touch reawakened the adrenaline sleeping in his veins. Others lay all around him, he was sure many were still awake. “There’s people everywhere.” He said.

  She pouted. Kissed him again on the cheek. “Guess we’ll just have to go sleepless then.” She said, and nestled back into his shoulder, one arm around his waist. “I like you Moses. I don’t want you to think there shouldn’t be anything between us. Stopping us from playing like a team.”

  His throat was dry, and his blood was pumping too fast, the adrenaline from his sudden wakening reanimated by the girl’s close proximity, and her offer, the smell of her, like Lisa’s but, mustier, closer. “It’s not what I want.” He said. It was a lie, but he wanted Lisa too, and he’d told her no. He carefully kept his shoulder to Kyra, even though she kept her hand around his chest. If he wasn’t careful, he wouldn’t say no again.