“Where do we need to be?” Moses asked his AI. “Waiting.” Argo replied.
“We gonna actually fight this time?” Maxwell asked, rubbing at an eye with a gauntlet then looking at it as though to accuse of hurting him. He had his helmet under one arm and must have forgotten he was wearing his armor.
“How long are we waiting?” Moses asked the AI.
“Until our orders come in.We’re to rally in readiness to move out. I understand there’s been movement by the enemy.”
Moses whipped around to look out at the dome sealed village. He could make out black shapes maneuvering across the gass, rough squares that seemed to flow like liquid shadow in the sunlight.
“Staycoffe!” Moses’ voice fell an octave as he shouted, and he had to reign in his excitement. He pointed. “Are those men moving down there, or automata?”
“Men.” Staycoffe replied without lifting his rifle. “Thousands.”
The rest of the squad stood and formed a loose line to get a view of the black line as it advanced across the plain. An eerie silence fell to accompany their advance as soldiers across the Marain camp strained their senses to for any sound from the distant enemy.
“Alright!” Moses shouted. The time had come, this time without a doubt. He pointed to Kyra and Staycoffe, encapsulating them in a short sweep of his arm. “Captains, make sure your people are fed. Send runners again, each ones to bring back food for two , one for himself and one for one of the others. You are not to gorge yourselves, but you eat.”
“Not sure I feel quite, the stomach, for it.” One of the gunners grumbled.
“You ever try to plow a field with an empty stomach?” Ainsworth asked. “Not fun. I bet it’s the same to fight on one. I’ll run, for the mess.”
“Who’ll go with him? Captains, build your teams.”
“Shovels!” Staycoffe barked. “Shovels get your asses moving! You heard the sergeant, you’ve got thirteen men to feed.”
Moses took a piece of his own advice and spooned the oatmeal into his mouth. Like the gunner as soon as he’d seen the enemy all thought of hunger had left him and been replaced with a quavery feeling in his bowels and a flutter in his chest, but he knew he’d want something in his stomach before the day was out. Particularly after hiking all night to get here.
Runners made their trips in little enough time. He’d hardly finished his own bowl by the time the shovels and Kyra’s runners sat down to dig into their own bowl. Everyone watched the lines of dark shapes maneuvering across the pampas, a few who’d set their bowls aside toyed with their weapons. “They aren’t shooting.” Pete small said.
“No one’s shooting.” Marloque said. “Gives it an ghostly quality doesn’t it. This advance.”
“They want us to fight.” Pete small grunted. He swung his knife at a fern and began to whittle off the leaves of the stem he’d detached with a dark smile.
“There aren’t even any aircraft.” A gunner said.
Moses could feel his heart racing as he watched the enemy. His breath came in shallow gasps and one of his eyelids twitched. Their approach was slow, much slower than necessary, a maneuver meant to draw them out, as Pete Small had said, at least to Moses’ excited mind it seemed so. That was death out there, the black shadow that lived in his dreams, the sharp sword he’d been waiting for, that he’d told everyone, and himself, he’d come looking for. They were waiting for him. They were trying to draw him out, he and his men. The men he’d told Fyker he would protect.
He realized he was starting to hyperventilate and tried to relax. He crouched and let the flags drape around him like a red cave, sealing him into a smaller universe devoid of the men around him who would be following him into battle. The oatmeal in his stomach turned to gravel and he thought he might throw up for a moment but he swallowed the bile and sought serenity, finding it in the memory of the day he knelt before the tabernacle after his confession and prayed for the strength to die well and find heaven. He remembered, in a flash, the image of Christ kneeling in the garden carved into a panel of the Carmichael Church and remembered the story that was read every easter in the darkness of the candle light vigil, how Jesus had gone into the garden on the day before his death and prayed that death pass him over, if his father wished it, as it passed over the Israelites in Egypt. “Not my will.” He’d prayed to his Father in heaven, “But thine.”
“Lord.” Moses whispered. “Father,” Jesus said to call God father didn’t he? Somewhere, he’d heard it he remembered. Perhaps it was just a priest. He could still see the enemy making their advance out on the Pampas, a writhing wall of black. He closed his eyes.
“Lord.” He whispered again. “Not my will, but your will. Not my will but your will, be done.” The tension receded, the fear of death, of failure, of battle, as he released it into the words, allowed the black figure of his dreams to touch him. “If it is your will, oh Lord. Not mine.” He breathed deeply once, then continued. “If I die today, accept me into your heavenly kingdom, but give me the strength, until my death, to fulfill the commission which you, and the Lieutenant Colonel have given to me. Help me to protect my men, help me to command them so that they might come to your kingdom faultless of any failure which I might inspire in them. Give me strength.” He crossed himself. “Give me strength to defend them, and if it’s your will.” He let out a breath. “Let me die well. And…” He added as an afterthought. “Keep my brother safe especially.” Thank you, he added in silent thought. Thank you for bringing me to a place where I can be everything you made me to be.
When he stood Kyra glanced at him, but said nothing. His expression had returned to what he hoped was the stern face of command. It still wasn’t a role he was used to playing.
“Orders.” Argo said.
“Thank God.” Moses slammed his helmet over his head and turned to the rest of his squad, his fist raised. “We’ve got our orders boys! Lets move!” The squad cheered and shoved their heads into their own helmets or hefted weapons to follow Moses as he marched down the path Argo mapped out for him. In the distance Moses could hear the man with the screaming shoulder pipes playing his loud music as the army made its way forward to the edge of the shield.
Argo’s path converged with dozens of other squads as they were maneuvered into a huge line. An imitation of the Kamele formation which still undulated across the terrain a few miles distant. Their final spot on the line brought them close to the man playing the pipes over his shoulder and Moses felt his heart rate pick up a notch to the howling of the music.
Argo directed him to a spot that felt like the center of the line and he stopped to survey the mass of milling disorderly soldiers. “This is it.” The thought felt lodged in his mind, running over and over. “This is it. This is it. This is it.” He could feel the enemy swords, even if he couldn’t see them.
He turned and walked a few steps backwards until he could survey his entire squad. How to arrange them for battle? He’d never done squad melees. He hadn’t seen what worked and what didn’t except in passing. He figured there was only one real logical way to do it.. “Knights to the front!” He shouted. When the other squads looked at him he gestured and called again. “First squad, Knights to the front! Captain Kyra, get your knights in front of the squires! Captain Staycoffe arrange your men for combat! We’re going to meet the enemy today!” There was a ragged cheer, from his squad and others as other sergeants followed his example, stepping in front of their squads and calling for their men to arrange themselves for battle.
“You had a panic attack earlier.” Argo said. The AI’s voice echoed in the helmet like a voice trapped inside his head. He grunted in acknowledgement and turned to study the enemy line. Across the battlefield they were a black line against the grass with little visible in the way of details. How many were there? Thousands, tens of thousands? There was no way to know. “Other AI are reporting many others in the army suffering similar attacks.” The AI added.
“It’s to be expected.” Moses said. “Th
ey might die today.”
“If it was the words which calmed you, they may calm those men as well.” The AI’s tone gave no hint of command or suggestion. It was, from the machine’s point of view, just a fact.
Moses understood. He turned and studied his men. Each of them had their weapon out. Waving them and fiddling with them in fits of nervous excitement. “What do I say?” Moses asked. The thought of praying with the soldiers scared him more than the thought of meeting the enemy. It put a damper on his adrenalized excitement.
“Comfort them.”
He hesitated, then, before he could take the cowardly way out, shouted. “For those of you who pray!” He called. “Take a knee!” Soldiers knelt, not just in his squad but all down the line, as far as his voice had carried. When they saw it other sergeants shouted for their men to kneel. Moses found himself at the head of a kneeling host of thousands with a huge lump in his throat. It went like a wave all the way down the line until even the caterwauling music fell to silence and the few who hadn’t knelt in Moses’ own squad took a knee. He gulped, then made the sign of the cross.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” He fought to keep the quaver from his voice as he invoked the three names of the creator. Argo projected the voice in a booming thunder, that cut over the entire visible line and Moses thought of his father, walking through the woods on their pilgrimages to the little Church in Carmichael, always praying the same prayer over and over. For his sons, Moses was sure, for his wife, for his home.
“Hail Mary,” He thundered. The first prayer that came to mind. “Full of Grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
Across the army scattered voice echoed back the words, following along as they no doubt had learned from their own parents or in their own Churches. “Holy Mary. Pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death.” The words echoed in Moses mind. His father had prayed those words constantly, now he, Moses, had made that prayer his own, to offer up his life to defend everything his father loved.
He hit his chest with a fist as he shouted into the silence. “Now, and at the hour of our death! May it not come this day! But should it come, let it come at the cost of the invaders blood! Amen?”
“AMEN!”
The army roared back the Amen and rose crowing to their feet. Moses looked out at his men through tear fogged eyes and remembered his indecision in the face of his father’s question. This was something to live for, these brothers in arms, and to die for too, all of it all wrapped up in one, all of life.
The bagpipe started up again and Moses marched back into the ranks to stand behind his men. Maxwell hit his shoulder as he went through and shouted an Amen at him, followed by others as he passed by. Staycoffe gripped Moses arm as he came to stand beside him. “It will be a great day yer honor, a great day today. To die that is. A great day to die.” It was like a madness that gripped them all.
The lieutenant colonel rode in front of them, flags a tangled rage of crimson cloth and snarling black insignia as he shot by, up and down the ranks, pausing here and there to issue commands, followed everywhere by two or three supporting officers who scurried back and forth from him with orders for various squad sergeants. At last the Lieutenant colonel stopped to stand in his saddle and face the line of men. “It’s time to meet the enemy!” He shouted, a speaker booming over the pampas, the mics in their helmets relaying the words to those in his battalion who couldn’t hear him. They roared back at him and Moses threw his own yell into the roar. “Now that’s Bresia you see across from us. That’s the name of the town the invaders have chosen to call their own!” His voice had a fever pitch that Moses had never heard in the officer’s voice before an excitement that went beyond rational. “That’s your own folk! Brothers, sisters, cousins, wives. They all belong to Marain! That’s your town! Are you going to let some invader take them from you like this? Are you going to let them claim this world you’ve built for yourselves?”
“No!” The army roared back.
“Then let’s take it back from them!” Fyker roared. “Follow your sergeant's orders and stick to your squads! No breaking ahead of your unit! I want to see each and every one of you back here by tonight, carrying the head of one of these Kamele bastards!” He shouted. “With God you bloody boys, go with God!” Like a shot he ran, up and down the line once more brandishing his hat at them as though it were a sword while they roared back at him. The order came through Moses’ helm and he shouted “Forward!” and the whole squad took off at a trot, knights brandishing swords, squires waving their guns as though they were swords, the whole group screaming for blood while the reserve troops dropped away behind them. Then the artillery began.
It began as a long arching rain, visible as it rose into the sky then growing larger as it descended towards them. It rammed into the camp’s shield, no longer a scattered bombardment of random shot, but very much a concentrated hail of glowing plasma right at the spot where they would emerge from the camp’s protective field. “No fear!” Moses shouted. “No fear!” He pulled out his own sword for something to brandish and heard the music start up again as the musician kept in step with them.
The artillery drew closer and closer. It was a maelstrom against the edge of the shield, a wall that towered over them, rage and fury embodied in swirling fire. The black figure of his dreams stood above the fire, ready to turn him back, but Moses found, beside his squad, that he was not afraid. The soldier’s enthusiasm of a few minutes before damped down in the face of the barrage. The line visibly wavered before the threshold of their first real dance with death. Then Kyra screamed and threw herself towards the fire to disappear through the shield.
“At a run!” Moses shouted “You’ve got shields. Are you going to let a girl make a coward of you?” Pete Small bellowed next and charged ahead, then they were all running each man roaring as he raced towards the invisible veil between them and hell.
Moses grit his teeth as the shield approached. He felt nothing as the shield slid around him. Bolts of fire rained down all around him in a stunning display of raw pyrotechnic power. Melted dirt splashed his shield and brilliant red plasma swam around the edges, drawing bolts of lightning from it, but all around him and before him men pushed through, like bubbles in brilliant waterfall. His feet splashed through molten glass and as suddenly as he was surrounded by the roar of the inferno he was clear again, his field of vision marred only occasionally by the bolts of fire that rained down from the artillery barrage. “Shield?” He asked Argo before he thought to look at the heads up display.
“Our power levels remain at ninety six percent.” The AI replied.
Moses wanted to laugh. He’d just passed through hell and it were as though he hadn’t even been touched.It was all just a psychological test. No wonder they hadn’t bothered bombing when they’re troops started the advance. Ahead and around him, the formation of his squad had dispersed slightly as they stumbled through the maelstrom. He was about to shout for them to regroup and carry on when black automata shot in front of him, hundreds of them, possibly thousands, traveling at hundreds of miles per hour and followed by the thunder of their footfalls. “Moses!” He heard a familiar voice shout. He turned and saw his little brother sitting atop a pack master like the Lieutenant Colonel’s.
“Ephesus!” He shouted.The boy wore armor like the lieutenant colonel’s, just a breastplate and shoulder pads, but where the Lieutenant colonel had flags attached to the saddle, Ephesus’ mount bore twin cannons like a short barreled version of the heavy’s guns, and where the Lieutenant Colonel wore a hat that made him look like he belonged in the army, Ephesus carried a helmet in on hand that was a copy of the knight’s helmet with the addition of a spike at the top from which a long red tassel dangled.
“I’ve been assigned to your squad!’ Ephesus shouted. “We’re to move ahead of you and weaken the enemy’s front! Did you see the fight last night?”
&n
bsp; “I saw!” He shouted. He wanted to rush to his brother, to embrace him, to include him in the joy and the love he’d found for his squad on the eve of battle.
“I was there!” Ephesus shouted. Ephesus shook his fist as the automata he was riding wheeled to follow the wave of black machines now advancing across the pampas towards the enemy. “We’ll beat them to a pulp for you!” He shouted. “Make sure to leave you something to clean up.” As he was turning away and putting his helmet on he shouted over his shoulder. “I can’t believe they made you a sergeant!” Then he was gone, a black speck whipping after the rest of the hounds barreling through the grass.
“Do I have clearance to call him now that I’m an officer?” Moses asked Argo.
“You do.” The AI replied. “However since we stepped out of the camp shield we have been sealed from any wireless methods of communication. There is substantial jamming by both enemy and allied electronic warfare transmitters, not to mention dozens of active attempts to hijack my control of the suit.”
That gave Moses pause. “That can happen?”
“Not so long as I block all wireless communication. I can, of course, defend us should the need arise, but we are currently a sealed environment, electronically. I am safe, unfortunately that means that we will be limited to visual and voice communication only.”
“Tighten up!” Moses shouted to the squad. By then they’d advanced well beyond the firing line, and the line of soldiers was beginning to disintegrate. “Keep pace, watch your squad. Stick together!” A few of his men looked at him, the rest obeyed instinctively, pulling together as the automata ahead of them rammed into the enemy formation in a blast of distant light and noise. By that time they were perhaps a half a mile distant, the enemy vaguely visible as dots of darkness that merged and danced across the undulating terrain.
More artillery fire arched overhead from the enemy encampment and splashed down, this time amidst the automata his brother led. Lances of light shot from the line of Kamele soldiers as the automata milled around them and clouds of smoke and fire burst around the soldiers.
Space Knights- Last on the Line Page 26
