Spirit of Empire 4: Sky Knights (21 page)

Havlock scratched his chin in thought. “My men will add a thousand to that number.”

M’Kind and Havlock stared at each other. M’Kind spoke first. “It won’t be enough, sir, not against a thousand or more gleasons. You were hard pressed on the convoy with odds of five to one.”

“Agreed, but the walls will improve the odds.”

Galborae spoke up, his eyes alternating between M’Kind and Havlock. “You’ve told me many times how proud you are that every single member of your crew is a marine first and a crewman second.”

When the meaning of his words sank in, everyone stared at him. Havlock was the first to break the ensuing silence, his focus on M’Kind. “We’d both be putting our careers on the line, not to speak of their lives. It’s against all the rules.”

M’Kind’s preening stopped again, but not for long. He resumed, saying, “Agreed, sir. Tell me again why we’re here?”

A short silence ensued. M’Kind’s upper hands went back to feverishly working on his whiskers, then they suddenly stopped moving again. “We either go all out or not at all,” he said. “I have 2,500 crew members. As fighting men, they’re rusty, but as Sir Galborae reminded us, they’re marines. If I really reach deep, I can give you . . . maybe 2,000 on a temporary basis.”

Havlock’s eyes moved to Lebac who stared thoughtfully back at him, then gave him a brief nod. “I followed your lead on Aldebaran and we prevailed against overwhelming odds. Let’s do it again.”

Havlock’s eyes went to Galborae but did not linger there. He’d fought beside Galborae for a full month on the caravan and knew how he would respond. When his gaze fell on Atiana, she stood up taller, then stepped up to him.

She raised a hand to his cheek in a very personal gesture, saying, “I’ll beg if I have to.” She then lowered her arm and stepped back.

The battle against gleasons would be terrible, that he knew with certainty. He and his men had trained to use technology as their primary weapons, but the coming battle would be a primitive, barbaric battle of brute force even if it was fought with modern weapons. Were his men up to it? Was he?

The room was silent save for the muted voices of support staff in the background. He turned back to the image of Tricor and its battlements, imagining the horror of holding a wall against a horde of gleasons, creatures who would swarm up the walls like spiders. Then he looked back to Galborae, a man who had stood against a gleason and essentially died, a man who despite that had returned to save his people. He had risked everything that he was, and he had done so with full knowledge.

Their eyes met, and he knew Galborae shared his thoughts. The big picture suddenly came back into focus and made his decision easier. The Empire had given him the job of figuring out how to fight gleasons, and that’s what he would do. Besides, he’d come to like and admire these people.

He turned to Lebac. “You and M’Kind brief Turmae on what we can do to support his battle plan. I’ll go down with Queen Atiana and Galborae and get things started in the city. How much time do we have?”

“If the gleasons keep up their current pace of small scale attacks, they’ll build up a serious attack force in two or three days.”

“Get creative.”

“Creative, sure. A marine’s strong point.”

* * * * *

Suddenly lots of things needed to get done, and there was a deadline. Weapons, translator devices, and communicators had to be handed out. Most of the defenders needed training, and all the while continuous, small scale attacks by gleasons required the defenders’ attention. Havlock dispatched Galborae back to King Tennisol in Shanlock with a request for fighting men. He believed it was a long shot, but he could not leave a single stone unturned.

In the end, Tennisol brought 300 men, including himself. As he put it, “The only way they’d get on the sky ships was if I went first.”

Atiana called her advisors together and briefed them. They spread out through the city, calling on every non-fighting person to gather inside the inner wall. By late that afternoon she had a steady stream of people and animals coming into the castle’s great room and courtyard. After the sun went down, M’Kind brought his transporter down to the top of the spire and carefully lased off the top, then inserted the remaining cylindrical stonework into a shuttle docking bay on the belly of his ship. Crewmen worked feverishly to seal gaps so that no one would fall, and by the time they were done, they believed it would be a seamless transition into the ship. Atiana’s people would know they were in the ship—they would step from stone onto a surface they had never seen before, and the interior of the ship would be new as well—so he provided a limited number of human guides for direction. Once inside, however, there would be no way to avoid exposing the people to nonhumans—crew members would have to get them settled and provide food, water, training in the use of bathrooms, and a host of other issues. Atiana would be there to help them, at least at the beginning. People would be challenged, and they would be frighted by the aliens, but they would survive.

Atiana led the climb up through the castle to the transporter, then introduced her advisors to the alien crew members. After they got over the shock, she put them to work guiding new entrants.

Turmae, the most knowledgeable of the unknowledgeable, was pulled in many different directions. He reviewed a formal plan of battle with Lebac and M’Kind, then rode down in a shuttle and walked the walls with Havlock. His men came first, and he took the time to encourage and explain things to these frightened but committed soldiers. He warned them that they would soon be joined by nonhuman sky knights, but he cushioned the shock by making certain Havlock’s human marines had been disbursed among his own before deploying the aliens.

The top of the wall had cut-outs called crenels for defenders to lean out with some side protection, but that physically restricted the number of defenders on any section of wall. The higher parts of the walls between crenels were called merlons. The top of the wall itself was about two feet thick.

There was one serious weak point on the wall where rock outcrops resulted in a shortened wall. Watch towers on both sides of the weak section provided added protection against human attackers, but the shortened wall would be hard to hold against gleasons. Havlock thought about mounting heavy weapons on each end, but if the gleasons actually succeeded in breaching the wall, they would not hesitate to turn the weapons on the inner wall where they could do some real damage. He decided against. Turmae had no choice but to heavily reinforce it with soldiers. He chose King Tennisol and his 300 men for the job, and Havlock assigned four scooters to provide air cover. Galborae stayed with Tennisol, and together they detailed four marine snipers and 20 men to each tower. They spread the rest of the men and quite a few melds along the 150 meter length of wall, then spaced the remainder of the squad of marines evenly among them.

As Turmae and Havlock completed their inspection of the outer wall and made their way up up the hill through the city toward the inner wall, Havlock pulled Turmae into an alley for a private meeting.

“If the gleasons overwhelm the men on the curtain wall, how do we retreat?”

“Each watch tower sits above an entrance to a tunnel. My men are showing the escape routes to your men. A few additional routes are through the streets, but we’ll do our best to avoid using the streets.”

“You’ve carved tunnels through stone?” Havlock asked incredulously.

“We had to mine the stone for the walls somewhere. Why not mine it close to where we needed it? The tunnels are for one-time use only. They’ll be sealed at each end when the last man is through.”

Havlock frowned. “If they have to retreat, there will be a lot of confusion. How will they know the last man is through?”

Turmae scowled. “I told you I’d never had to defend the fortress. That doesn’t mean we didn’t practice it. My men know what to do. They’ll protect your men during the retreat.”

Havlock rubbed the stubble of his beard thoughtfully. “There’s no question that you’re the expert here.”

“Actually, we have a serious shortage of experts,” Turmae responded calmly.

Havlock looked into deep, wide-spaced, brown eyes that glittered with intelligence. Turmae might be from an emerging world, but he was smart and he was a survivor. Havlock made a decision and knew it was the right decision even if his superiors someday ruled otherwise.

“This has to be your battle, Turmae. You’ve spent a lifetime getting ready for it. I’ll support you by providing whatever magic I can come up with, but this will be a battle of brute force. You’re far better equipped to lead it than I am.”

“Of course it’s my battle. Was that ever a question? Tricor is my home.”

Havlock grasped his upper arm. “Guard captains don’t command thousands of men, especially when most of them are mine. Where I come from we call such men generals. Don’t waste my men, General.”

* * * * *

The two of them completed their inspection of the inner wall, both of them reaching the same conclusion. Homes and a few businesses had been built right up to the wall following unification of the five kingdoms.

“Some of these structures come half way up the wall,” Turmae said with regret. “We’ve done half the gleasons’ work for them. They’ll have no trouble getting up on roofs, then onto the wall. They still have a lot of wall to climb, a wall with few hand-holds, but this is bad.”

Havlock frowned, not sure how his next words would be received. “We need to clear these structures away from the wall.”

“We don’t have time.”

“The guns on my shuttles can kill buildings as easily as they kill gleasons.”

Turmae stared at him. “By all means, of course!”

“Your people will be furious.”

“Why?”

“We’re talking about destroying a lot of homes and businesses.”

Turmae gave him a strange, uncomprehending look. “It’s not so many, though in truth the wealthiest families live here since it’s closest to the castle. Sky Lord, everything you see here belongs to the Queen. This is her kingdom. If you prefer, I’ll get her approval, but you know as well as I do how she’ll rule.”

Havlock stared at him, not sure what to say, so Turmae ignored his ignorance. With a touch of impatience, he said, “They’ll rebuild, but only if they’re alive. How do we do this?”

“Just give me the okay,” Havlock said. “My shuttles will get started as soon as you’ve gotten your people out of the way. We’ll try not to damage the wall too much.”

Turmae leaned out over the masterfully crafted wall and looked down, then he looked farther out at the shuttles patrolling the curtain wall. When he straightened back up, he said, “I’m an old man and set in my ways. I have never known life without these walls, but I don’t think my replacement will need them. Damage them if you must.”

Havlock did not hesitate to mount heavy weapons on the inner wall. This wall could not fall or the battle would be lost.

No one slept that night as shuttles pounded away for hours, turning a two-street expanse of buildings adjacent to the inner wall into rubble. When the sun rose, smoke obscured most of the upper town and castle, adding fear to an already frightened populace. Atiana moved ceaselessly among her people encouraging and cajoling, keeping a steady stream climbing the stairwell.

At one point, M’Kind called down to Havlock with an urgent complaint. “I told her she could bring people,” he said. “I never told her she could bring animals.”

“What are you talking about?”

“They’re bringing farm animals and pets, anything they can squeeze up the stairwell. My ship has become a barnyard.”

“Well, tell her to stop.”

“I did. She assured me she’d do her best. Nothing has changed.”

Havlock skirted a throng of people and animals who were inching their way toward the castle and forced his way inside the main door. He was shocked at the number of animals in the line and dismayed when he saw the mayhem within the great room of the castle itself. He found Atiana at the bottom of the stairwell encouraging people to move quickly.

“I thought you were on the transporter,” he shouted above the din.

“I was. I wanted to check on progress here, so M’Kind found me a ride down on a scooter. It’s not as nice as riding a sauron.”

“What’s with these animals?” he asked, waving his arm across the room. “M’Kind tells me you assured him you would do your best to stop them.”

“I did not offer to stop them,” she retorted. “I told him I would do my best. To me, that means getting as many animals up there as I can. We need them to survive if we’re to survive.”

She tilted her head to the side and looked a question at him. “Presumably there will be life here after the battle. Have you not thought that far ahead?”

Havlock blinked at criticism that was spot on target. Everywhere he turned, he was reminded again that he did not fully appreciate this society and the hardiness of these people. He shook his head. “We won’t be able to fit everyone into the ship if you bring animals.”

“I know. When it’s full, the rest will stay here. Some of these people are not strong enough to deal with the stairs anyway.”

Havlock sucked in a breath. “I hadn’t thought about that.” He looked to the main doors. “Can they even get this far? It’s a long climb up that hill. Do I need to bring floaters?”