Spirit of Empire 4: Sky Knights (22 page)

“What’s a floater?”

“A portable bed.”

She shook her head. “You deal with the gleasons. I’ll deal with my people.”

His lips compressed and he started to turn away but she grabbed his arm. He turned back to blue eyes which had become pools of concern.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be curt. Everything is on the line here, Gar.”

“I know. We’ll be right there on the walls with your knights.”

Her eyes widened. “Not you, surely?”

“No. I’ll be with Turmae in the northeast spire. We’re soldiers, but at the moment we need to command. You should know I’ve given him overall command with a title borrowed from my people, a title that is given to the one who leads everyone:
General
. This has to be his battle. I’ll support him in every way I can.”

She dropped her hand from his arm and took a step back, considering the implications. In the end, she nodded and stepped back up to him. She lifted a hand to his cheek, their bodies almost touching, and said, “I’m glad the man I met in the dream is watching over us.”

The gleasons remained active, individual gleasons and small groups making numerous attempts at the wall, many more attempts than during the preceding months. Havlock ordered his shuttles to leave them alone. Instead, he let his experienced squads train defenders on the use of helmets, visors, stunners, and blasters. Most local soldiers did not receive helmets—once a gleason had been stunned, defenders could see their targets without visors—but they did get coaching on the use of blasters.

Galborae, full of nervous energy, patrolled his 150 meter section of curtain wall with King Tennisol and Limam at his side, rarely pausing to rest. During gleason incursions he coached individual defenders on proper shooting technique, and he carefully explained orders he and Tennisol would be issuing over the comm units. Each section of the wall had its own frequency for local instructions, though only commanders had access to the command network.

He was not unhappy with the skills he encountered—King Tennisol had brought his best, all of them experienced at fighting gleasons on the walls, though no one on the planet had experience fighting the numbers expected here.

Night fell at the end of the second day and a shuttle carefully approached an opening near the top of the highest spire, a spire which looked down on the whole town. A ramp extended from the shuttle and a crew of aliens pushed a portable command center through the opening and into the spire. Three aliens followed the command center into the spire, and the shuttle withdrew.

Darkness emboldened the gleasons. More and larger groups roamed through the homes and businesses and streets outside the walls, but the 100 meter cleared buffer discouraged all but the most foolhardy. Nevertheless, enough made the attempt that the defenders got plenty of practice.

Havlock and Turmae personally led the nonhuman crew members from the transporter to their assigned positions. Local knights, bowmen, footmen, and civilian volunteers stood transfixed in horror at the sight of these creatures, and without introductions from Turmae the whole thing would have been a disaster. Following his introductions, strong distrust and fear remained, but Turmae believed it would disappear once the fighting started.

Havlock assigned 100 marines to scooters—they would be his instant reserves—and Turmae packed snipers with long blasters and archers with longbows into every firing position on the higher walls and in the watch towers, positions which would under normal circumstances only become dangerous if the outer wall was abandoned. Gleasons, however, changed castle dynamics. Any gleason that breached the outer wall would, if not stopped, reach the inner wall and only be slowed down by the long vertical climb. After seeing demonstrations of blasters shooting from these high positions, Turmae agreed to abandon the fires he had prepared for heating water and oil. The hot water and oil might slow down gleasons, but it would not stop them, and the smoke and flames would interfere with snipers’ targeting.

* * * * *

Lebac called down from the transporter. “Gar, gleasons are still streaming in from every direction, but there’s a gap between the ones already here and what I believe might be a second wave. If they’re going to attack, I think it will be soon.”

“How many?”

“Hard to say. We’ve tracked a fair number of them into the buildings outside your walls and we can’t see them. I hope it doesn’t mean they’ve figured out we can see them in the open, but it might. I estimate at least a thousand, but probably a lot more. The shuttles are in position. They’ll stun the gleasons as quickly as they emerge from hiding, and as time permits they’ll follow up with blasters.”

Havlock gathered up Turmae and led him toward the command center in the top of the spire. “This is our place for the rest of the battle,” he said.

“My eyes are not what they used to be, but it’s a good position. From here I can see everything. Your communicators will let me talk to each of my knights.”

“We’re going to do even better than that. I’ll show you.”

When the two of them entered the small room, the presence of three aliens brought Turmae up short. One alien looked like a frog. It’s four eyes, each on a long stalk, looked in any direction it wanted, and the creature had a mind like a computer to process those multiple inputs. Another had no eyes at all. It’s head was, literally, all ears. Multiple stalks sprouted from its head, funneling sounds into its brain. Tiny wires ran from the command center’s communications console to the creature’s hearing stalks, enabling it to process many calls. It would either provide responses or forward those calls to the appropriate people.

The last creature resembled a gleason in some ways, though it was dressed in a marine uniform and did not come equipped with claws, only hands and feet. Turmae knew this particular Dramda, Sergeant Guarl, the weapons expert he had trained under on the transporter. Four arms had access to various weapons, including long and short blasters, a stunner, and a vicious looking knife which was almost a small sword. He was their protection in the event a gleason made it into the room.

Each of the marines bowed to Turmae and spoke a few words, then went back to work. Havlock turned Turmae toward a spherical, bright blue, holographic display of the city floating in the air and stepped into it. Turmae followed, awed by the amazing presentation even though he had operated a similar one on the transporter.

Havlock showed him how he could reach out and touch any part of the display to expand it, and by touching symbols of his knights, he opened a line of communications to that person. Turmae caught on quickly and went to work checking on his men. He could expand the picture a little or a lot, and with high magnification he could see every stone and every person. He spoke briefly with each of his men and with some of Havlock’s. When he had gone all the way around the wall, he turned to Havlock.

“I don’t hold with magic, but considering what we’re up against, I’m willing to turn a blind eye. Our men are as well positioned as I can make them.”

“When the gleasons show, you’ll see them as clearly as you see your men, so you’ll know when your men are in trouble or if they need reinforcements. The commanders out there will call for help on their communicators, but because you can see everyone, you can decide who needs the most help. That would not be possible if you were with them on the walls.”

Havlock moved his finger out beyond the curtain wall on the display and touched buildings which instantly expanded. “We can only see the life forces of gleasons when they’re outside buildings. Lebac is certain there are a lot of gleasons inside the buildings, so there are a lot more of them out there than we can see at the moment. The stunners on our shuttles can stun targets inside buildings even if they can’t see them, and that will probably drive the gleasons outside, so soon after the battle starts we’ll have a good idea of what we’re up against. We’ll know where they’re going and will be able to reinforce any weak spots.”

“And we’ll know when they get past the wall.”

Havlock nodded, though he personally believed they had a fair chance of stopping the gleasons at the outer wall. It would be a battle of brute force, that he knew, but blasters were powerful weapons and there were a lot of them. Still, he understood that he and Turmae had to plan for the wall to fall. He expanded the hologram to include the sky above and gave further explanation. “These symbols are my shuttles, all 20 of them, and these are marines on scooters, 120 of them. This big one is the transporter. They’ve each been assigned a position, but except for the transporter which is still loading people, they’re staying out of sight until I call them. We don’t want to give away all our tricks to the gleasons.”

“Queen Atiana should see this.”

“Call her.”

“How?”

“This is her symbol on the drawing. Just touch it.”

Turmae called her, still a truly amazing feat as far as he was concerned. He left the hologram and went out into the stairwell to talk privately with her over their comm units.

“Your Majesty, I’m up in the northeast spire. Havlock brought one of his light maps and it’s a general’s dream come true. We can see the whole battlefield. You should see it.”

“I’d like to, but this is your battle. Our people need to see me with them. Let me know how things progress.”

“Major Lebac thinks it will start soon. I’m sure you’ll hear the shooting.”

“I’ll try not to interfere, but please keep me informed,” she said.

* * * * *

The gleasons had completely surrounded Tricor, so Havlock expected an all-out attack from every direction, but the gleasons surprised him. A mass of white blobs suddenly poured out of buildings across the clear zone toward the weakest spot of the wall. Stunners opened up from everyone along that wall and from the four scooters assigned to that section of wall. Two shuttles raced in to assist. The gleasons’ horrible, ululating scream sounded as several hundred raced across the cleared area.

Turmae acted as if he’d forgotten he was in a high tech control room. He started reaching out to specific knights, issuing crisp orders for defenders to each side to reinforce the middle. He then contacted nearby defenders to fill in for the soldiers racing along the battlement to reinforce.

From Galborae’s position on the wall, gleasons suddenly became visible on the far side of the clear area as shuttles lit them up with stunners. As soon as they became visible, the gleasons’ straight charge changed to erratic leaping, making them difficult targets to hit. Everyone opened up with long and short-barreled blasters, but in their panic many of the shots went wide. Snipers in both watch towers opened up with precision shots, and from high above and behind him, snipers stationed in watch towers along the inner wall added their carefully aimed shots. Shuttles and scooters followed up stunners with blasters, but shuttle weapons were too powerful to use near the wall itself for fear of breaching the wall. Multiple flights of arrows sung through the air from archers on the inner wall, their effect on the gleasons almost as awful as the blasters. As gleasons neared the wall, grenades rained down on them mercilessly.

In the command center, Turmae had things well in hand so Havlock waited in the background for the rest of the attack to materialize. Strangely, it did not.

Fighting along the wall intensified as gleasons neared the wall. Gleasons, horribly mangled, fell by the dozens, but many reached the wall and started climbing, and they were fast. Soldiers leaned out through the crenels shoulder to shoulder and sent a solid wall of energy straight down the wall, taking out more of them. Gleasons, when wounded enough to lose their grip on the wall, fell, knocking gleasons below them from the wall, but that did not stop them. They just regrouped and started climbing again.

The catwalk became crowded with men and melds as Turmae sent in reinforcements, making movement difficult. Galborae felt the fear rolling off the defenders as an almost physical thing, and when the first gleasons made it onto the catwalk, that fear changed to terror. He shared their terror—he did not need imagination to know what it meant to be engulfed by the arms of a gleason, he only needed memories.

If the men succumbed to terror, the battle would be lost. He had to rally them. He sent a mental command to Limam that she would relay to the rest of the melds—focus only on invisible gleasons that made it over the wall. The men would deal with the visible gleasons.

He lifted his eyes to the sky and uttered a brief prayer, then he jumped up onto a crenel and hoisted himself farther up to the top of the merlon, the highest part of the wall. He drew his sword, looked at its four foot blade, and decided it wasn’t long enough. He touched controls on the hand guard and doubled that length. To his amazement, when he looked out over the gleasons, they had slowed for a moment and had turned their faces to him. Then, like a flock of birds turning in mid-flight, the whole mass of charging gleasons changed course toward his blade.

Galborae leaped along the top of the wall from merlon to merlon toward that weakest spot, very much aware that a misstep would send him into the gleason mob at the bottom of the wall. As he ran, the shimmering blade swung back and forth along the outside of the wall, cleaving any gleason within reach. When he reached the shortest part of the wall directly above the rock outcropping, he stopped, but his blade did not stop.

Turmae, not certain what was happening, went to a cut-out in the wall of the spire and looked out at the wall. Even in the bright sunlight, Galborae’s flashing sword caught his eye. The effect that sword had on the gleasons was readily apparent as well. He returned to the electronic display and confirmed that a wider attack had failed to materialize, then deployed more defenders toward Galborae.

Galborae stayed up high on the parapet leaping from merlin to merlin, his blade slashing without pause. Soldiers packed into the crenels below him shoulder to shoulder, leaning out with blasters. Suddenly, King Tennisol leaped up on the merlin next to Galborae with his sword held high. A dozen of his knights followed with blasters, then marines to each side joined them high on the merlins, doubling the number of weapons pouring fire down on the gleasons. Gleasons swarmed, even climbing over the backs of gleasons above them as they frantically tried to reach Galborae, but the murderous hail of energy and the slashing blade stopped them dead.