John Ringo: Against the Tide

“Thirty-eight,” Destrang said, nodding and pulling back his own sleeve. The brand was the same but with a “38” above it. The other two ensigns nodded and turned their own up. None of them had other scars, however.

“We didn’t have a class number,” Herzer said dryly. “And most of the roads you march on, we built. Anyone eat the lemon?”

“No, sir,” Van Krief replied. “The last couple of classes had had such a scuffle for it that they’ve outlawed it.”

“Pity,” Herzer said with a grin. “My suggestion was that they simply fall the class out, oh, about ten klicks out from the clearing and let them race for it. Anyway, at the time no one in the class, including Gunny Rutherford, knew what the lemon represented or who was buried there. I trust you all know?”

“Yes, sir!” they responded.

“Anyway, there was this big army, mostly Changed, on the way, led by a consummate motherfisker named Dionys McCanoc, pardon my language, Ensign.”

“Not a problem, sir,” she said, coloring and smiling.

“Dionys…” He paused and looked at the general again. “Dionys had a personal grudge attached to the attack, but that’s not important.”

“And the opposite,” Edmund interjected. “You saw the young boy with my wife?”

“Yes, sir,” Tao said. “Your son?”

“Dionys’.” The general smiled, thinly. “The act was nonconsensual.” He raised a hand to forestall the terrified ensign’s apology. “I don’t mind having Charles called my son; he’s a fine young man. But he is not the son of my body. So, you can safely say that I was not particularly pleased with McCanoc. We had a history from before the Fall as well. Nothing particularly important to the story. Go on, Herzer.”

Herzer paused and then shrugged. “There’s more to the story. I was present at the rape of Mistress Daneh. Rather, I was unable to prevent it so I ran away.” He looked at the ensign across from him whose eyes widened as she paled. “It’s not always the best course to be stupidly heroic. It would be nice if the world was that simple and since then it has been, by and large. But we are not all that we seem and it’s worth keeping in mind.

“As I was saying,” he continued, looking out the window. “Dionys was coming with blood in his eye. We were outnumbered ten to one. What would you do in that instance, Ensign Destrang?”

“Leave enough of a force in the town to possibly hold and then maneuver a force so that he could not attack the town without it sallying at his rear.”

“The problem being that he could hit the town and overrun it before the force outside could have done anything,” Herzer said. “The general went for the deep hook, instead, moving out of the town, leaving it defended only by the militia, and dangling the Blood Lords and the archers out as bait.” He remembered those fights like they were yesterday, almost his first introduction to battle. Friends dying around him, the feel of life being let out by his sword. “We… attrited the force with small damage to ourselves by luring it, repeatedly, into defensive positions.”

“Operationally offensive, tactically defensive, sir,” Van Krief said. She had apparently gotten over her shock.

“Precisely,” Herzer said. “Then we outmarched the army back to the town and met it at the Bellevue grade, with a clear line of retreat to secondary positions if we needed them. We held them, though.” He paused again, flexing his jaw. “We held them and beat them into a bloody pulp. No matter how many attacked, they couldn’t break the Line. Finally, they broke. Then Dionys attacked, alone.”

“Alone, sir?” Tao said. “Wasn’t that suicide?”

“Not if you’re protected by powered and field-protected plate armor,” Edmund replied, dryly. “Normally it’s a recipe for a massacre. And suicide to attack the person.”

“So… I committed suicide,” Herzer said, with a faint smile. He was still looking out the window. “And his power-sword went right through my shield like it was paper and took off my hand.”

“Dionys was also protected by a nannite cloud that drew its energy from the humans around it,” Edmund said, looking at his protŽgŽ with a querying expression. “Herzer still kept attacking, with a knife, trying to get something into the armor, until he was overcome by the field.”

“I wasn’t the only one,” Herzer smiled. “Bast, hell even Azure, Rachel’s house lion, got into the act.”

“I assume that someone killed him, sir,” Destrang said when Herzer was clearly done.

“Oh, yes,” Herzer smiled, looking at the young man. “Duke Edmund. Well, not killed, paralyzed.”

“You, sir?” Van Krief asked. “How?”

“Young lady, before the Fall I was, in all modesty, the finest medieval armor and weapons replica maker on earth,” Edmund said, smiling at her. “It would have been silly indeed for me not to have weapons and armor that could overcome anything Dionys, or that ham-handed hack Fukyama, could come up with. I made better stuff than that when I was your age.” He chuckled and shook his head, looking out the window.

“So that’s the story of how I lost my hand,” Herzer said, holding the prosthetic up and flexing it. “And afterwards, Duke Edmund, who as he has so humbly noted is something of a smith, made this for me. It slices, dices and makes julienne fries. Also useful for properly marking papers.” He made a shredding motion, exposing the sharpened hooks within the prosthetic. “Practically invulnerable to corrosion as well. Thanks so much.”

“You’re welcome,” Edmund replied.

“Not particularly heroic,” Herzer continued, “all I did was slow the bastard down for a half a minute or so. Bast slowed him down even longer.”

“And who is Bast?” Destrang said. “Other than an Egyptian cat-goddess.”

“I’d almost forgotten that.” Herzer laughed.

“Bast is Herzer’s girlfriend,” Edmund said. “One of them, anyway.”

“Excuse me,” Herzer replied, miffed. “With all due respect, General, sir, she was your girlfriend long before she was mine.”

“Your girlfriend is the duke’s age?” Ensign Van Krief blurted.

“Oh, much older,” the duke replied. “We old folk can get pretty spry, young lady.”

“Sir, I didn’t mean…” the ensign replied, flustered.

“I know you didn’t,” Edmund grinned. “That’s the problem with being a boss, you have to be careful what you joke about. That was a joke.”

“Yes, sir,” Van Krief said, smiling. “Sorry.”

“Bast is an elf,” Herzer said. “Actually, what she calls a wood elf. She was created during the AI wars. And, yes, we sometimes share a bed.”

“Or a patch of moss,” Edmund said. “Or a rock. Or standing up. Or in the water…”

“Milord Duke,” Herzer said, sweetly. “You recall what you just said about being the boss? And at the moment, you’re not wearing your magic armor so if you’d like to make it to the fleet base in one piece…”

“I don’t care how big you are,” Edmund replied, smiling and looking out the window. “Age and treachery beats youth and innocence all the time.”

“Sure, boss, but you’ve been training me in treachery for the last four years,” Herzer pointed out, reasonably. “So as I was saying about Bast. Bast is Bast. She’s incredibly beautiful, incredibly uncaring about appearances, irreverent, funny and the most deadly individual I know. I’ve seen her gut orcs, ixchitl and orcas with equal ease. She’s the best bowman I know, as well, and the best dancer. She flies a dragon as if she was born on one and flies them bareback, which is no joke let me tell you. She’s a couple of thousand years old and looks, and sometimes acts, fourteen. I’m honored to occasionally share her bed. Or, as Duke Edmund put it, a patch of moss, a beach, a rock, whatever.”