Colonel Ishida had been in many battles before, but never had he felt as exposed as he did this morning. He had always thought that being at ground zero of a massed Melconian offensive was the worst situation that a commander could possibly face, but he’d always faced it with a regiment of Bolo Mark XXXs at his back. He wasn’t used to friendly artillery arriving late or off target. He wasn’t used to being surrounded by the enemy with no ability to maneuver out. He wasn’t used to commanders screaming over the Corps channels, arguing over who was going to support who, where, and when. And he definitely wasn’t used to having hypersonic needles punching through one side of his vehicle and out the other, barely missing him.
And Walter Rice’s endless commentary on the performance of his laser didn’t help. Throughout the entire fight, Rice was recalibrating his crystal, altering its spin to cover different arcs at different speeds. Walter was also prone to sudden outbursts, constantly making the colonel believe that they were about to be hit.
His son’s thirty Templars were in the thick of the fight for six hours before Tigris Guard was finally ordered to take over the offensive. All along the front, Alabaster Guard units held ground while Tigris Guard units jumped past them. This occurred while the aliens changed tactics, now using hit-and-run assaults with concentrations of their infantry, and plasma pistols instead of their needle rifles to blast the soldiers out of their positions. In some places, the human lines were thrown back with great losses, but in others they advanced unimpeded. Sensors showed that the aliens were withdrawing all of their armor to the rear, but the Templars of the Tigris guard refused to give chase without infantry effectively covering their flanks.
Progress would be slow in this battle.
It was late morning now, and the sky was surprisingly clear for this time of year. Distant explosions created a rumbling sound in the area that never let up. The Delassian forces had large supplies of shells, and Colonel Ishida was suspecting that they’d be using all of them.
“Hold on a minute.” Walter Rice said from close behind him.
Kaethan had approached along with Walter, who was now wearing his official Alabaster Coast sunglasses, given to him by Sergeant Pritchard just a few minutes earlier. He was an honorary member of the unit, Zen told him, now that he had fought along side them.
The alien’s helmet was caught on something, and Toman was having trouble taking it off. Walter, though, removed a long dagger from the alien’s belt, and pried off a metal clamp at the neck. The helmet then slid off cleanly.
“Looks like some ancient Egyptian god,” Kaethan commented.
The alien’s neck and left jaw were blackened by a nasty burn, but otherwise the head was undamaged. Its green eyes were open, unseeing.
“All aliens look like someone’s idea of a god,” Toman said harshly. “Or demon.”
“He’s big enough,” Walter said.
“Three fingers, two opposable thumbs.” The colonel sounded like he was making mental notes. “I don’t feel up to taking off his boots.”
Kaethan noticed Walter, who had cleaned the alien dagger with a strip of cloth from the alien’s sash. He now was looking intently at the blade.
“Collect knives, Walter?” Kaethan asked.
“No,” he said vacantly. “I minored in metallurgy. I make them.”
“You make it sound like all metallurgists make knives.”
“Most guys do. What else would you choose as a semester project? A kitchen faucet that survives a re-entry burn?”
“So instead you make daggers that survive re-entry burns?” Kaethan chided him.
“Is it usable?” The colonel asked with a serious edge. “Or is it just decorative?”
Walter surprised them both as he seemed to balance the weapon in his hand, and then he gripped it by the blade as if for throwing. Then once more he studied the blade itself that reflected the light in rippling silver and white.
“Both, actually,” Walter finally said. “It has several alloys in it just for decoration, but it certainly looks like it’s been heavily used in its lifetime. This blade definitely has a purpose. I wonder if they all have them.”
“They do. There are two more bodies . . . scattered . . . down that way. They both had daggers on their belts.”
“Colonel,” Walter asked sheepishly, “will I be shot for looting if I take a couple?”
Toman shook his head.
“That only happens when we fight each other,” he assured him. “But be ready to give them up if asked.”
“Will do.”
Walter stood up and went off looting, then. Some nearby explosions sounded from down the road, on the far side of the rise. Kaethan stood up and looked expectantly toward the sound, but no further rounds were hitting.
“How are your men doing?” Toman asked as he studied the inside of the helmet and the electronics that were there.
“Lost five,” Kaethan said solemnly as he looked back at the alien body. “Two others are seriously injured.”
Only two of his Templars were totaled, but ten were heavily damaged. A small army of engineers was swarming over them now trying to get them back into fighting shape. Their railguns themselves were starting to be targeted near the end, after the aliens found out how hard it was to punch through their armor. But the alien missiles, when they got through the Templars’ defenses, burned through their protection with a variety of warheads. The heavy walls between compartments helped keep many of the casualties down.
“You did very well this morning, son.”
As surprised as Kaethan was at the compliment, he couldn’t accept it.
“Not one of the recon units made it out.” Kaethan shook his head. “I’d call that a failure.”
“They had no chance,” his father rebuffed. “The aliens’ needle rifles sliced right through those Haulers. I can’t believe you’re trying to use them.”
With Kaethan’s silence, Toman suddenly realized that his son took that personally. He, of course, was blaming the government for using such an inferior personnel carrier, not his son . . .
“But your Templars stood up wonderfully.” Toman tried to recover from his mistake, by changing the subject. “Are those Mark Twelves, Thirteens?”
“No,” Kaethan replied shortly. “Just Elevens.”
Toman cursed to himself silently. Another mistake. His son took offense again. This always happened whenever he tried to talk to Kaethan. It seemed destiny. At this rate Kaethan would disown him by the end of the day.
The Elevens, he formed a recovery, were actually better in some ways . . .
“Father,” Kaethan said then.
“Yes?”
“Do you know why I didn’t go to the Concordiat Academy?”
Toman set down the alien helmet to his side.
“I always assumed that you were threatened with the same tortures that your mother threatened me with if I ever encouraged you to.”
His son smiled and chuckled. Toman felt that this was a change for the better. Rarely had he inspired that reaction in his son.
“Just checking,” Kaethan said.
“Did you actually think that I was disappointed in you for not joining? What would ever give you such an outrageous idea?”
“Nothing, Father.” Kaethan stopped him. “Just checking.”
“I would hope so,” Toman said, and picked up the helmet again to study it.
A column of Haulers passed them, then, driving towards the rise to the east. They wouldn’t cross over, of course. They’d just drop off their infantry, and join the ever-growing numbers of other Haulers abandoned by the side of the road. Some things, humans learned quickly. For other things, it took longer.
* * *
The sight was spectacular.
As the last of the Kezdai infantry streamed across the bridge, a hail of artillery shells was raining down from above. This was the only safe crossing of the Witch River for fifty kilometers in either direction, and both sides knew it. Every howitzer and rocket howitzer in the Telville arsenal was nearly melting its barrel trying to get at the forces that were concentrated there. But not a single shell made it to the ground as a massive lightning storm crackled and thundered over the valley, forking up into the sky to intercept dozens of shells at a time.
Sergeant Emmet Lear of Alpha Company, First Mechanized Brigade, watched the lightning show from behind a large rock outcropping overlooking the valley, heavily shrouded by trees and underbrush. The highway was a kilometer to the north, snaking away from him, viewable through many branches and leaves. Electricity filled the air around him, causing him to suffer static shocks whenever he touched the ceramic-metal barrel of his gauss rifle. The smell and taste of ozone in the air was almost choking. His short beard itched constantly as the hairs seemed to want to stand on end. Added to that, a sharp rock goaded his ribcage as he lay prone, peering through the underbrush.