John Ringo: Against the Tide

“Yes, Major,” one of the riders from the Richard said. “It’s easy enough.”

“And known throughout the ship, right?” Herzer said. “Meg… Mistress Travante swept this room for technologicals before this meeting. All the corridors around us are being secured by marines, unobtrusively. Why? Because everything that Sergeant Fink just said is… let us call it a lie. This is your real mission brief…”

“First call!” the sergeant bellowed, pounding on the doors. “Boots and saddles!” He continued down the corridor, pounding on the door of each of the Blood Lords that were stationed at Raven’s Mill. He was charge of quarters and it was time to face the bright new day. In another hour he’d be off-duty for twenty-four hours, after having been on-duty for the same, and he intended to be deep in the arms of Morpheus in two.

Behind the sergeant the platoon sergeants of the Blood Lord battalion spread out, passing the word they’d just been given.

“Drop the PT uniform,” the triari said, shaking his head. “Full armor and weapons. Draw starts in fifteen minutes.”

“What the hell?” the private said, dropping the light cosilk uniform back in his footlocker and pulling out a field uniform. “Why?”

“The damned general’s called a surprise inspection for 0800 hours. There’s time for chow at least…”

Malcolm D’Erle was dogged. There was no other way to describe it. His feet were burning, his chest was on fire and he was dog weary.

The archer corps had debarked at Wilamon on schedule and, after collecting some sketchy transport, had headed for the battlefield. It was sixty-five kilometers by road from Wilamon to the hilltop they were intending to use and they had a bare fourteen hours to make the movement. They’d marched in a standard series of quick march and double-time with breaks every hour. But the breaks seemed shorter and shorter as the time went on. The transport was mostly carrying water and the general had passed brutal messages on intake and usage of same. Food could wait. Rest could wait. The only thing that mattered was getting the majority of the archers, in some half-living condition, to the hill, on time.

And they’d made it. It was two hours before dawn when a group of green-clad, longbow-toting Rangers stepped out into the road and waved a bullseye lantern at the archer corps.

“Looking for General D’Erle,” the lead Ranger said.

“Here,” Malcolm gasped as the group was brought to a reasonably quiet halt. He could hear the archers falling out by the wayside but that could wait.

“Lieutenant Aihara, Fifth Rangers,” the Ranger said, his voice pitched to carry but soft. Not a whisper, that could be heard at a greater distance. “We’ve been scouting the New Destiny force for the last two days. We have your approach lines marked out and had wagons brought down with food from Tarson. No fires, obviously, but the food is bread loaves and meat. Casks of water and some wine if you wish to issue it. Chow line’s set up.”

“Lieutenant,” the general chuckled, “you are a sight for god-damned sore eyes.”

“Sir,” another figure said, coming out of the gloom. “I’m Ensign Destrang, General Talbot’s aide.”

“Yes, Ensign?” the general said, raising an eye at a dress uniform covered in greenery.

“I need a quiet word with you, sir,” the ensign replied, softly. “Soon. I have a dispatch from General Talbot and supplementary orders.”

“Let me get this clusterfisk under control,” D’Erle said, frowning and looking over his shoulder at the collapsed archers. “Then we’ll talk.”

“I can put this on myself, you know,” Herzer said, extending his arms backwards.

“Us to do,” Bast replied. “Hold open, Megan.”

The ancient Romans had put an enormous amount of thought and practical research into making field armor that a soldier could wear day in and day out and Edmund Talbot had seen few reasons to ignore them. The loricated legionnaire armor was made of overlapping steel plates, lorica, that were effectively thin steel bands held together by small fittings on the inside. They were bent to go around a human body and open on the front. There they were tied with leather bindings. They had to be bent back to be put on, but other than that the armor could be donned like a coat and was, for armor, remarkably comfortable and cool.

Herzer had already donned the cosilk undershirt, with wide half sleeves to prevent chafing from the edge of the lorica, the steel-faced leather kilt and the thick cosilk scarf that wrapped around his neck and folded across his chest. The latter was to prevent the armor from digging into the neck and also acted as a slight protective collar against rebounds.

Herzer tied the front of the armor as Bast and Megan put on his shin, knee and thigh guards. Then he held his arms out, smiling faintly, so they could attach the bracers. On his right, his only, hand he slipped on a leather glove backed with steel inserts on the outside. Last, Megan placed his helmet on his head. The original Blood Lord helmet had been a barbute, a solid helmet of steel with a thin “T” on the front for breathing and sight. Recently, the legions had gone to the original Roman design. It was far more comfortable and gave much greater vision in battle. Of course, the face was essentially unprotected, but nothing was perfect.

He looked at the two of them standing side by side, the childlike beauty of the ancient elf with her long, curly, blue-black hair and cat-pupiled green eyes standing next to the much more subtle beauty of the councilwoman and shook his head.

“Do I get to keep both of you?” he asked, holding out his arms.

“Friends are,” Bast said, accepting and joining in the group hug. “Friends will stay. All and always.”

“I won’t kick her out of bed, mind you,” Megan said, trying to smile.

“Will help with armor?” Bast asked Megan.

“What armor?” Herzer said, frowning.

“Going with,” Bast replied, slipping out of her bikini top and bottom. “Hard fight have. Back will cover. Ride Joanna. Won’t mind.”

“It is going to be a hard fight,” Herzer said, frowning harder. “A bloody shambles fight. You’re as good as anyone in the world, better than me, but you’re going to need armor and I don’t know any in this ship…” He stopped as the elf produced a square of fabric the size of a handkerchief from her apparently bottomless pouch. She started unfolding it. And unfolding it. When it was fully unfolded the deck of the compartment could be seen through a long, grayish bodysuit.

“Hard to put on,” Bast said, sitting down on the deck and shoving one leg in. “Megan to help?”

“What is that?” Herzer asked. He always tended to get a bit… horny before a fight. Just one of his many demons. And the sight of the elf writhing on the floor putting on that… cat-suit combat-nightie, was a bit more than he was prepared to handle.

“Carbon nanotube,” Bast grunted, shoving an arm into a sleeve that ended in an integral glove. “Not very stretchy. Think have gained weight.”

“Carbon… what?” Herzer asked as Bast got up and stretched, hard, finally getting all her digits into place.

“Carbon nanotube,” Bast said, posing with her arms in the air. She looked from one blank face to the other and then pouted. “Diamond? Girl’s best friend?”

“You mean that’s a suit of carbon nanotube?” Megan said, aghast.

“Yeah,” Bast said, simply, pirouetting in place so the zipper at the back was presented to Megan. “Zip me?”

“That’s the stuff that they used to put in tourney armor to make sure nothing could get through it, right?” Herzer said.