Ashwood waited with bated breath, his EM rifle propped up on the edge of the trench, pointing towards the general direction of the dots currently descending from the sky.

His soldiers waited with him. No one moved a finger.

Suddenly, his comm came to life, startling the Colonel slightly. A grim voice of one of the pilots currently monitoring the shuttle sensors sounded through it, “We are seeing thirty-eight Fira-class shuttles, along with four Strisores.”

Ashwood cursed silently. The shuttles were bog-standard, but the Strisores were cutting-edge surface-to-orbit gunships. The defensive weaponry of their own shuttles would help… for a few seconds.

Without proper anti-air weapons, they’d be enough to annihilate his force on their own.

At least normally. He cast a glance towards the forest growing to the side. Ashwood could not see even a hint of Lieutenant Jane’s people, but he knew they were there.

Just like that, the two infantry railguns and their wielders hidden in the forest became their only hope of survival. Of course, only if Ashwood ignored the possibility of the Eigosians pulling through. However, counting on the unknown to end up in your favour would never be a sound strategy.

A normal human could never hope to hit a gunship as advanced as the Strisores. Even if they could, a single hit would likely not be enough. But Ashwood had faith that the Soma Aspis could manage. He doubted anyone up there knew of the possibility.

It was not much in the grand scheme of things, yet more of an assurance than the ‘army’ assembled on the plain in front of them could ever be.

He continued watching the incoming enemy, while silently relaying orders to his people. Soon one could hear soldiers shuffling around the camp, repositioning, as more of his people came to man the plain-facing trenches.

The enemy aircraft came to a stop about half of a kilometer in front of the assembled horsemen, a good three kilometers from their own position.

A short distance, especially with gunships present.

He could imagine the two Soma Aspis zeroing in on the four flying death machines. It would be a difficult shot, but they could make it.

Not yet though. Ashwood planned to give the Custodian a chance to handle things.

He had already underestimated her once.

Although It would be a lie to say that he had particularly high hopes. Even with the impressive display, it was somewhat difficult not to dismiss the Eigosians when one was looking at their best attempt at an ‘army’.

As he watched, the shuttles started landing.

A good sign, at least tactically. It put the Eigosian army between them, which even in the worst-case scenario would provide some amount of distraction. Any bullet not flying in the direction of his own people would be an advantage, even if a small one.

Ashwood and his people observed in silence as the last transport landed and soldiers started disembarking. The Strisores stayed hovering in the air, their threat clear to anyone with working eyes.

They watched as the Custodian’s soldiers angled their formations slightly to face them and as more than a thousand of their erstwhile compatriots formed up to match them.

Finally, after what seemed like forever but was most likely only a few minutes, twenty soldiers with especially bulky armour separated from the sea of blue and started marching towards the Eigosian army.

The massive army of steel-clad natives responded the same way they had to his approach.

The Custodian strolled towards them on her giant white horse, once again apparently unconcerned with treachery. Or her own mortality.

Ashwood watched the two incongruous leaders come closer, feeling himself beginning to sweat.

One way or the other, the mystery of Eigos would be at the very least partially answered soon.

When both the Custodian and the Terran group came to a stop, Ashwood found himself unconsciously leaning forward.

Catching himself doing so, he returned to his former position and tried his best to pretend to be unfazed. Quite the difficult thing to do, when his fate was being decided right in front of his eyes.

He stared as one of the twenty Terran soldiers stepped up and probably started talking. The soldier did not remove his helmet, so perhaps he had simply engaged the Custodian in a staring match.

A losing proposition if he ever heard of one.

The distance being what it was, he could not see much. Even so, he watched transfixed, not even blinking.

Thanks to that, he did not miss what happened next.

The Custodian raised her hand. Then she slashed.

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The soldier’s head fell from his shoulders.

The entourage of now only nineteen heavily armoured infantrymen froze along with every other Terran present, friend or foe alike, all watching the blood spurting from the man’s neck.

Then they opened fire, achieving nothing. The Custodian stood unharmed, a force field deflecting their attacks.

Ashwood could almost see the contemptuous look the woman no doubt currently wore.

No one spoke around him as they watched the increasingly panicking soldiers.

Suddenly, the shooting stopped, with the remaining nineteen just crumpling to the ground.

For a blessed second, the entire world was silent.

Then all hell broke loose.

A roar rose up from the thousand upon thousands of Eigosian warriors, before the knights charged in a hastily formed wedge.

The Terran soldiers responded a moment later, opening fire. Five-hundred meters was on the high end of a standard EM rifle’s effective range, but still inside it. A salvo from the thousand or so rifles should have decimated the medieval army.

It didn’t.

The Custodian sat on her horse surrounded by corpses, staring at her enemy. A force field shimmered before her, blocking the massed fire effortlessly.

The Strisores opened fire next, the knights barely having passed a hundred meters.

Guided missiles flew through the air, some impacting the energy shield straight on, others going upwards or to the sides, futilely trying to bypass it and instead impacting more of the shield.

Then the Custodian clenched her hand into a fist. The four cutting-edge gunships crumpled as if they were made from paper, the illusion only broken by the sounds of tearing metal.

The Eigosian knights had covered over half of the distance in the meantime.

Before they could get any closer, the warships in orbit opened fire.

The first round missed, whatever panicking officer likely firing it before the weapon could properly align itself on its target.

Unfortunately for the Eigosians, when a gun got big enough, ‘missing’ became very relative.

The earth shattered in a massive explosion only a couple hundred meters from the knights, the shock hitting much of their flank. Hundreds of men fell, some along their horses. Many were trampled underfoot by the horses behind.

It was the first thing that seemed to surprise the Custodian, causing her to quickly glance upwards.

The second and third shots did nothing at all, another energy shield covering the skies.

The remaining knights continued their charge, even as the orbital bombardment intensified.

Ashwood watched slack-jawed as more and more of the massive, starship-killing railgun rounds hit the Custodian’s energy shield, doing absolutely nothing.

As he watched, the knights passed the Custodian, flowing around her.

The fire from the massed Terrans intensified for a moment, yet to their surprise, the energy shield moved with the knights.

“Impossible,” Ashwood murmured.

Seconds later, the knights couched their lances and sped up.

Then they crashed into the Terran lines and chaos ensued.

Some of the Terran soldiers were speared through as lances found weak points in their armour, but for most, their armour held.

This did not help them much, the force behind the impact throwing the soldiers back, snapping their bones and rupturing their organs.

Many managed to avoid this gruesome fate, either dodging or managing to hide behind the grounded shuttles.

With the lances ruined, the steel-clad knights threw them away, drawing swords instead.

This is when cracks started showing through the Eigosian technology.

As the remaining Terran soldiers fired in a near-panic, some of their bullets found success, passing right through the flimsy medieval armour of their adversaries.

Not all. Many were caught by energy shields blinking into existence in front of the would-be corpses, allowing the knights to cut their enemies down with impunity.

Ashwood watched one particular knight advance behind his metal shield on a soldier frantically firing his pistol. Unfortunately for the soldier, his sidearm was a simple chemical weapon and lacked the power needed to penetrate the shield.

A moment later the knight stood in front of him, ineffectively stabbing twice before his third strike managed to get through the soldier’s armpit, rupturing an artery if the blood was anything to go by.

The Colonel could only blink at that. The standard issue armour was not terribly durable, but the idea of swords of all things getting through felt almost offensive.

“Sir?” Jane said, forcing him to tear his eyes from the battle.

Ashwood turned his head to face her, “Yes?”

“Shouldn’t we do something?” Jane asked.

“No,” he responded, not even having to think about it.

Sensing her silent question, he continued, “The battle is already won. We’d achieve nothing but possibly anger the natives.”

He was not about to bank his life and the lives of his soldiers on his limited understanding of the Eternal Laws.

And there truly was no need.

With those words, he turned back to the rapidly concluding battle.

During their little exchange, hundreds more died, the numbers very firmly in the Eigosians' favour.

He could see the Custodian, now dismounted, walking towards the center of the giant free-for-all. Near her, Terran soldiers fell to their knees, apparently immobilized. Knights rallied close by, forming a protective wall around her.

Its purpose was anyone’s guess. Ashwood really doubted the Custodian needed something like that. Still, he made note of it. After all, the value of insight into Eigosian society had recently skyrocketed.

When she reached the very center of the battle, surrounded both by kneeling Terrans and her own men, she stopped.

Then she started to glow.

Not the strange but relatively weak glow of her eyes the Colonel had already seen, but a strong light coming from her entire body.

Before he could even try to comprehend what was happening, the Custodian quite literally exploded in light, stunning most of the battlefield.

Ashwood blinked rapidly, trying to get the afterimages from his eyes, trying to understand what had happened.

A second later, a thought struck him.

The bombardment had stopped.