Spirit of Empire 4: Sky Knights (10 page)

“If we can find the gleasons we can take them out, but finding them is not a sure thing, sir.”

“Coordinate with the other shuttle. Have them keep their squad in reserve in case I need help.”

The squad’s officer, Lieutenant Fogel, objected. “Sir, you can’t be serious. You’re not going out there with us.”

“I’m not sitting this one out, Lieutenant.”

“Yes you are, sir. I insist. Someone needs to stay focused on the big picture. None of us has ever fought a gleason. Until we get things figured out, someone needs to evaluate everything we do. My butt’s going to be out there, and I need to know you’re keeping an eye on me.”

Havlock sighed, but he nodded. “You’re right, Fogel. I stand corrected, but just this time.” He looked sharply at the lieutenant. “Are you up to it?”

“I’m an Imperial Marine, sir.”

“Okay, now that we have that out of the way, are you up to it?”

Fogel sighed. “I don’t like it, but I don’t like what I saw in that town back there either. My guys are point men in a nightmare. We’re going to show everyone how it’s done.”

Havlock clapped him on his virtual shoulder. “Get the men ready and give me the word. It’ll be a quick drop, then we’ll cover you from above.”

Galborae went with Fogel. Everyone armed-up, and at Galborae’s insistence everyone buckled on a sword and carried a shield. However, they also wore the standard helmet, visor, and body armor. Galborae did not. The wounds he had received at a gleason’s hands six months earlier still pained him, and he was willing to take any precautions he could to avoid a recurrence, but he knew the guards would never believe him if he was dressed like a foreigner. He wore the new body armor Havlock had given him. No one would mistake it for local attire, but at least he did not wear the armor that hurt the eyes. He left his helmet and visor behind. Limam on the other hand was fully encased in her armor.

The shuttle dropped like a rock, opening the front ramp for a quick exit, then leveling out at the last second. The team wasted no time, racing out and taking up defensive positions. The shuttle lifted, leaving the team isolated on the road in front of the gates. Those gates, flanked by watch towers that looked far more formidable from the ground than they had from the air, stood closed. Galborae saw no guards, though he knew they were there. Clearly, the shuttle had frightened them.

He reached out for support from Limam and whispered, “We’ll find her.”

The sun was angling down toward the horizon, but it was still hot, dusty, and eerily silent. Lieutenant Fogel deployed the squad along both sides of the road. Any approaching gleasons would have an uphill run at them, a slight advantage to the marines, but he could almost feel the terror permeating everyone’s mind. They’d been honing their skills aboard the transporter against computer generated gleasons, but this was the real thing, not a training room. Limam, mindful of her earlier experience with a gleason but sensing Galborae’s anxiety, left him and padded warily through and around the squad. Fogel motioned everyone forward toward the main gate a quarter of a mile away.

Just as Limam raised her head in a snarl, the voice of their pilot, Sergeant Hawke, came through to each member of the squad. “We have four targets creeping toward you, two on the left at a range of 100 meters and two on the right a little farther out. Do you see them?”

Helmet visors showed brightly lit images of lifeforms. Four of those images suddenly carried target designators sent from the shuttle.

“Yes. Stun them,” Fogel ordered, “but don’t take them out unless we get in trouble. We need to learn what we’re up against.”

“Roger.”

Without having to be told, the men went to firing positions on one knee, half of them facing left, the other half facing right. Barely visible blue beams of stunners lanced down from the sky, and four gleasons emerged from invisibility, all of them a dark green color. One gleason on the right, after its initial shock, lowered itself to the ground. The other three raced for the marines, leaping erratically on their four hands and two feet, the power of their leaps fulfilling the marines’ worst fears.

Fogel gulped, but his lips firmed. “First two men on each side, choose your targets. Cleared to fire,” he ordered. “The rest of you hold up. I want to see how hard these things are to take down.”

Blasters sounded, but the gleasons were too quick and all of them missed. More shots followed and two gleasons went down. They were back up in an instant, barely slowed.

“Everyone open up, both sides,” Fogel commanded with a hint of alarm in his voice.

By now the gleasons on both sides had closed half the distance. Arms and legs began disappearing, but they kept coming, one of them reduced to crawling. Another reached throwing range, and sharp-edged discs flashed through the air.

“Incoming!” Fogel yelled.

The shields Galborae had insisted they carry came up just in time. Discs clanked hard as they hit.

Limam lowered herself to her belly and started slinking out into the field. She sent Galborae a message of warning:
A bad one comes.

“Don’t forget the fourth one,” Galborae said urgently to Fogel.

“I don’t see it,” Fogel answered.

“The ship called. “It’s stun must have worn off. It’s about 50 meters out. Should we stun it again?”

“Not yet,” Fogel replied. To his men he said, “Nine and ten, open up with stunners. When you see it, switch to blasters.”

Stunners fired at the life form image, and the indefinite target sharpened on their visors and started moving erratically. “One through five, stay on the first gleason,” Fogel ordered. “Six through ten, open up on the second. Galborae, call Limam back.” He checked the other side of the road and discovered both gleasons there wounded but still moving erratically toward his men.

Galborae sent the message to Limam and he joined the marines firing on the last target on the right. More discs came at them as wounded gleasons crawled toward the squad, and everyone had to duck. Galborae was back up in an instant, and he actually hit the beast, slowing it, but it was on them. Limam leaped, but before she could sink her teeth into its neck it tossed her away. It took the first marine it came to in its arms and started shredding, but the marine’s uniform prevented the claws from piercing. It raised its head with its mouth open, its eyes appearing to gleam in triumph, when two marines sighted in with blasters. The head disappeared in a red cloud, and it fell to the ground atop the marine.

Fogel kept focused. “We still have three wounded gleasons. Fire at will.”

The wounded gleasons did not last long. Their bodies shredded, they appeared dead, though no one was willing to make that assumption.

“Two more inbound,” came from the shuttle. “Can you verify no friendlies at 11:00 and 3:00 and two hundred meters?”

Fogel stood up to get better geometry on the targets. “No one there,” he answered the ship.

Target designators quickly marked the images. “Do you want us to deal with them?
”
Hawke asked.

“Affirmative. I want to make sure these four are really dead.”

Blue beams came from the shuttle, lighting up two more gleasons. Powerful red beams followed, but even they had trouble hitting the erratically moving creatures. However, when the ship’s blasters did find them, they disintegrated.

Havlock came on the comm. “Your three gleasons are down, but they’re still moving. Do not approach them. We’ll take care of them from here. Get your heads down while we fire. I’m sending squad two down to reinforce you. They’ll pick up your wounded.”

Canons fired from the shuttle. Dirt and rocks from the blasts of those heavy weapons pelted the squad, but the three mortally wounded gleasons disintegrated. A shuttle raced in and dropped its squad, the medic pushing a floater toward the wounded marine. Marines from first squad pulled the dead gleason from the wounded soldier whose face had been partially torn away. Other injuries were not known at the moment. They loaded him on the floater and he disappeared into the shuttle with the medic.

Havlock called in two more shuttles to take up the air support duties. “Head for town,” he ordered Fogel. “You have a little breathing room as near as we can tell, but it won’t last long. Every gleason in the area seems to know what happened and is heading this way.”

“Aye, sir. These things are worse than our simulations.”

Orders sounded and the squads reassembled, then spread out and moved toward the town’s main gate, a gate that still had not opened. Heads never stopped swiveling as they searched through their visors for more gleasons.

Galborae strode ahead with Limam at his side. When Lieutenant Fogelcaught up to him, Galborae explained
,
“After that, the guards are probably more afraid of us than the gleasons. They might not open up to anyone. Let me go first.”

Fogel halted the men and had them set up a perimeter while Galborae and Limam strode ahead toward the gate.

“Open up!” Galborae shouted with a touch of anger in his voice.

“Who are you?” called back a frightened voice.

“Sir Galborae of Waerton, demon killer.” He lifted his lord’s banner high. “Open up in the name of Lord Boral.”

“Wait.”

The wait turned into a long wait. Before long, Sergeant Hawke called from the ship. “Two more possible gleasons are working their way along the cliff behind the city.”

“Can you take them out?
”
Galborae asked.

“We can light them up, but our guns might damage the wall. I don’t think we want to do that. Wait! Both of them are working in concert, climbing the wall. They’re fast!” The ship fired its stunners, the beams lighting up one gleason, then the other, but disabling the defenders on the battlements in the process. Both gleasons fell but managed to arrest their fall at the base of the wall. With little pause, they started climbing again.

None of this was visible to Galborae and the squads. Havlock ordered snipers to the ramps on both shuttles. Ramps lowered as the shuttles approached the rear wall and snipers moved into position, lying prone on the ramps. Multiple shots from long-barreled blasters finally succeeded in taking out both gleasons.

“Okay, they’re taken care of,” Hawke reported. “They’re at the bottom of the cliff and almost certainly dead.”

Galborae and the squads continued holding in the middle of the road, Lord Boral’s banner still flying high in Galborae’s hands. “Now will you open the gate?” he yelled.

“You killed our men.”

“No, they’re just sleeping. They still breath. I saved them from the demons. Open up.”

A cranking sound came to them and a nasty looking portcullis began lifting into vertical tracks in the stones. When it reached the top, one side of the enormous door swung partially open and Galborae’s wife, Milae, poked her head out. When she saw it was really him, the door opened just enough to let her through. She raced toward him with a young meld by her side.

He caught her in his arms and swung her around in a tight embrace. It had been half a year since he’d left, and this woman who was normally cool and collected put a lot of need into that embrace.

“I thought you were gone forever,” she finally choked out, tears coursing down her cheeks.

“You’ve had a long, hard journey,” Galborae said.

“It was a terrible time.” She looked up at the shuttles hovering over the city. “Everyone is frightened. Well . . . they’ve been frightened for months, but now they’re terrified. Which is worse, the demons or these sky ships?”

“We should get out of the open. More demons are coming.”

She nodded and turned, still in his arms, and called to the guards. “It’s Sir Galborae, my husband. Let us in.”

The gate swung open, and the squads filed through. Many, many arrows and lances pointed down at them from the battlements. Fogel deployed the men nearby as an officer of the guard stepped up to Galborae.

Before he spoke, Galborae held up a hand. “We’ll help you defend the town if you’ll let us. You need explanations, but there will be time for that later.”

The officer wiped a sleeve across a sweating brow. “We’ll take any help you can give us.”

Fogel spoke into his microphone to the shuttle. “This is a pretty big place, Colonel. We can patrol the walls, but we’d be more effective with another squad or two.”

“I’ll send Captain Horlen. He’s with squad three. Just keep the door open for him.”

“Uh, can I suggest two more squads, sir? Just until we get up to speed on tactics?”

“Very well,” Havlock answered tersely. “I’ll be along shortly.”

Two shuttles landed just long enough to deploy their squads, then they lifted back into the air and joined the others patrolling the approaches to the town. Havlock’s shuttle dropped him off, then it, too, left to look for more gleasons. By the time Havlock came through the gate, Captain Horlen had finished making assignments. All four squads headed up toward the battlements and spread out.

“Captain!” Havlock called. “Our men have translators, right?”

“Lots of them, sir. I checked personally. Do you want me to come with you?”

Havlock considered. “No,” he finally said. “I need you up there. I wouldn’t mind taking one of your men, though. I’m not sure what we’re getting into. There could be trouble.”