Mara also seemed to be an excellent teacher of military subjects. There were twenty of the new residents that wanted to help protect the Duchy, and she began showing them, and I must admit, me, how to actually shoot and move in what she called a ‘tactical environment’. When she was teaching, though, she changed, being unemotional and methodical instead of showing the sense of humor I had become used to. As she said, though, we had very little time to get trained up.
The new members still needed more food and rest than I did, so I had extra instruction on the Gut, drone systems, and the bikes during their rest periods. She then trained Cal and John on how to use the Ape, or its real name, the Advanced Field Engineering Multi-Use System. It was a good thing she didn’t need to sleep, only requiring an hour of what she called ‘downtime’ a day so she could spread out all this instruction over the whole day. In my limited free time, I did start making lists; drafting Sandra to help me so I could coach her on reading and writing and basic arithmetic. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
The diplomatic mission to North Star had returned from the capital, and Peter and Headman Diaz had managed to get us some corn and other seeds, along with potatoes, which had already gone into the ground. The Duchy of the North Star had sent its own mission out, and as Ceedo was on the very fringe of their border, and as Duchess Edgerton had firmly stated she had no desire to head east at all, everything was all smiles. Fortunately, we had several houses built by then, as well as the barn and the palisade. One of the houses had been dressed out as the ‘Ducal Estate’ so that the Duchess could receive them, and all the more interesting weapons and tools were well hidden as soon as the approaching group had been detected by the OP.
I wore the data glasses all the time now, and the skin covering for my arm had been completed. So, even though the color shift was dramatic between my natural tan and Mara’s much darker skin, it still looked far more natural than the metal. I had switched back to wearing more normal clothing than the R-34 coveralls, and Mara now had several dresses so we didn’t look so out of place, and I was carrying my old revolver instead of an Old World pistol. The main reason for that was that once we had that mission, traders were now coming to visit, and there was a village setting up on the road at the base of the ridge. Most of our militia carried bolt action rifles like my old one, scavenged from the raiders who didn’t need them anymore, but hidden down in the village were some Old World weapons and ‘tactical vests’ for the militia that had received the specialized training and just in case.
Most of the new residents knew that there was something unusual about the Duchy of Ceedo, but none of the original groups felt inclined to talk about it. Especially after Mara and I both stressed that speaking too much might draw the sort of attention that we could not survive. You will not thrive on the frontier without developing a strong sense of caution.
It had been a month since I had gotten my new arm, and I was in the bunker office; it was a room off the private bunkroom that had effectively become ‘mine’ and which Mara had told me had been the bunker commander’s. Right now, I was checking our food stocks; Mara had shown me how to access the warehouse’s inventory management so she didn’t have to do it all the time. We had been purchasing what we could from traders, the chickens were thriving, and we had managed to get one set of plantings done before the end of summer, so if the weather held, we would get some harvest.
Sandra was watching me and working on her alphabet when there was a buzz in my head.
“Milord, this is Michael in the OP.”
Mara was in downtime, so she wouldn’t be able to respond, “Go ahead.”
“We have something.”
“On my way.” I looked over at Sandra, “Tell Master Peter to meet me in the OP.”
She nodded, and we entered the elevator; she got off at SURFACE, and I continued on to OP.
Once there, I looked at the scan map. As Mara explained it, it used radar and cameras mounted on the extendable post that we could retract to hide to track movement over a 360° arc around R-34 for a distance of what worked out to about 20 miles when it came to carts and wagons. If someone brought a traction engine or a hauler out here, it could be seen at an even further distance. This information was presented in a ‘holographic format’, an image that looked translucent but perfectly displayed the rolling landscape of the hills and ridges. Right now, there was a string of flashing yellow boxes southwest of us on the old road.
“Traders or normal travelers?” I asked.
Michael, the current watchstander, shrugged, “I don’t know, milord. There are at least six large carts.”
Nodding, I sat down at the drone controller station and launched a ‘Recon Bird’. “You’re on the list for training on this,” I said as I navigated it toward the target.
“Really?”
“Gerald and yourself are first for training. We need more than just the Duchess and I that can handle some of the systems here…Stand behind me so you can watch what I do, and don’t be afraid to ask questions.”
With the amount of practice I had had, flying the drone toward the target was easy enough, and I kept up a running commentary on what each control I was using did. Michael did ask some good questions, but our conversation tapered off as I got the drone closer to the target. When I was a little over a half mile out, and the rangefinder indicated 1000, I set it to hover and ‘zoomed-in’ the camera. There were six carts all right, and four of them were cages.
“The tithing caravan,” I said as I engaged the ‘Track lock’ that would keep the camera following the lead cart. Michael, keep an eye on the scan map.”
He nodded and walked over to the big map as I climbed out of the operator’s chair. Walking over to the locked cabinet, I opened it, handed him a set of data glasses like mine, and powered them up.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes, milord!” he said in surprise.
“Good, I’m going to be giving Master Galway a set as well. They will assist in our communication.”
At that moment, Peter entered, “What is it?”
“The tithing caravan,” I said as I handed him the data glasses. “The Duchess is still resting, and I’m not sure when she’ll be awake. I’m going to get the ambush party and drive them to the site in a Gut. You’re in charge until Mara wakes up.”
“Be careful.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“If I was careful, I wouldn’t be here today.”
He smiled, “And neither would we. Good luck.”
“That’s my name!”
Heading down to SURFACE and jogging down the road while calling out for the ambush team to follow me, I headed to the building we had hidden in the woods just outside the village and had parked a Gut with the team’s weapons and equipment. Once there, I used the data glasses to unlock the door, and we entered. I pulled on my vest and helmet and swapped out my revolver for an Old World pistol while the rest of the team picked up their rifles, helmets, and vests.
Starting up the Gut, I drove out and brought up the drone images from the OP on the large screen on the panel. Cal, who was sitting in the passenger’s seat in the cab, shook his head and said, “This is like magic.”
“The way the Duchess describes it, there used to be billions of people on Earth, but the war destroyed all the capabilities to build things like this and the support networks that kept all those billions of people alive as a part of destroying every major city and industrial center. The Hivers wanted absolute control and a much smaller population, and far more primitive technology was part of that. Mara says that the True Empire’s current technological level ranges to a period between some two to three hundred years before hers.”
“Still hard to believe.”
“I’ve been working with her since she woke up, and I agree with you completely. This,” I gestured at the inside of the Gut’s cab, “and all the rest is very hard to believe.”
Cal laughed, “How does she do it? She has more energy than any six of us.”
Shrugging, I lied, “I have no idea. She just is who she is.” The fact that she was the mind of a long-dead soldier placed inside a mechanical body was a little extreme to reveal.
The Gut sped down the old road, the suspension soaking the bumps far better than any New World construction. As we drove along, I kept one eye on the images from the drone. The Gut appeared as a blue outline and was visibly closing on the red of the raider convoy. Pulling up to the pre-scouted ambush point, which was a dip and a turn between two hills, I stopped the Gut out of sight of the roadway.
“Bonchance, what’s your status?” Mara’s voice sounded in my head.
“We’ve just arrived, Duchess, “ I replied. “Sending up the Gut’s drone.”
“I’m heading up to the OP and will take over drone ops.”
“Understood, milady,” as I was speaking, I was launching the Gut’s smaller and less capable drone. “It’s up.”
“Handshaking...” whatever that meant, “I have control. Acquiring Gomers…Designating.”
Red triangles started appearing. “How many socs?”
“At least three. I’ll flag them.” Three of the tringles turned into red circles while I finished climbing out and bringing the BZ-20 with me. Climbing to the top of one of the hills, I set up in my sniper hide while the ten militiamen set up in their own firing positions. Some well past the ‘kill box’, as Mara called it.
“How far out?” I asked.
“One klick.”
So, about half a mile. Switching on the rifle’s sight, the images displayed on my helmet visor as I lined up on the lead oxen. The next few minutes were me watching the range count down to 500. “At the five hundred marker,” I said through the helmet. “I will be firing at one hundred.” That was one hundred past the militia on the far side of the kill box and just out of the effective range of a standard smoothbore snaplock.
There was a chorus of ‘Understood, milord’s as they settled in.
So few against so many, there were over thirty triangles, and that was the first thing the militia on this team had asked: How can we do this? Mara’s response had been it was just her and me against the entire compound, and we had won then.
“Four hundred,” I called off as we waited. “Three hundred…” Slowly, they came into the box. “Two hundred...wait for it.”
“They haven’t noticed you yet,” Mara’s voice came in.
“With the socs, we got lucky with the wind. It’s nice and still.”
“Closest soc is to the east of the lead cart, ten meters.”
“I see him…Ready to fire, in Three…two…one…” I squeezed the trigger, killing one of the lead oxen instantly. The boom was muffled with a version of the same kind of sound suppressor Mara had on her pistol, and the power in this first magazine of shells was lessened to remove the crack they made through the air. To the drover and the rest of the raiders, it was as if the ox had simply had its head explode and dropped dead.
Swinging the barrel slightly, I acquired the red dot on the closest soc’s head and fired again. Even with a lower-powered cartridge, it blew the top of his head off. Now, the militia were shooting, aiming for the drovers first. I was searching for the other two socs, one of which ducked behind a tree; I ejected the current magazine and switched to one of the standard ones while pressing the switch to disable the suppressor. Then I simply fired the quieter round in the chamber, followed by a standard round from the new magazine, through the tree.
The first round nearly made it all the way through but kept him pinned behind; the second blasted all the way through in a small fiery explosion and destroyed the soc.
“Two socs down!” I called out, “I’m trying to target the third.”
“HE’S BACK BY US SPOILERS!” Cal yelled in a panicked voice.
Swinging the barrel, I looked for the soc, but there was too much clutter that was even breaking up the shape in other visual modes. “Duchess! We need help!”
“Master Cal…Duck.”
There was a roaring sound from above, and glancing up, I saw a shape that looked like the Howler but smaller, spewing out fire.
“What is that?!” I yelled.
“I did mention that there were combat drones? Since I couldn’t be there in person…”
The rapid-fire weapon it was using completely destroyed the remaining, to the point it was difficult to identify as anything more than some kind of shredded meat and fragments of cloth and metal. The remaining raiders were easily dealt with by the drone hovering overhead like an angry bee.
Now came the messy job of stacking the bodies in the carts and setting them on fire. We took any documents, their powder and shot but left the rest to burn.
Loading back up in the Gut, we returned to the village.
“Lord Bonchance, what was that thing that aided us?” one of the men, Simon, asked.
“Something like the Gut, the helmets, and the L70s, it should not be talked about. The Duchess was controlling it.”
“Milord, who is the Duchess? Where is she from?”
“That is her story, not mine, and if she wants you to know, she will tell you.”
_____________________________________________________
After I had the vehicle parked and unloaded, we secured the building and carried our equipment in sacks to keep it less noticeable uphill to the bunker, where we cleaned our weapons in the garage. Mara stepped out of the elevator and smiled, “Fantastic work, all of you, Lord Bonchance; a word?” she turned and left.
“Of course,” I turned to look at the others, “I agree, you were all amazing.”
Following her into the elevator, we descended to the M1 level and the conference room. Peter and John were already there.
“Hail the conquering hero?” John asked.
“No,” I replied as I shook my head, “it was a slaughter. The men did well, though.”
“You did, too,” Mara added as she sat down. “I was resting, so you took command and did exactly what was needed. Did you get any useful information?”
‘They had a map,” I dropped it on the table. It was a series of lines with rough bearings and das of travel marked on it. “The start of these directions,” I tapped the crude paper, “is where their city is.”
Mara smiled, “And that is just what we needed to know before we do the next foolish thing.”