Chapter Four
0654 Hours, June 28, 2555 (Military Calendar)
Outskirts of unidentified civilian hamlet
Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System
Civilian life in Leka started early, or at least it did in the small and isolated hamlet Cobb and a fireteam of four Marines were observing.
At dawn, a dozen or so figures emerged from their simple dwellings to go about their tasks. Most went for the small patch of farmland on the hamlet's southern side and the rest made for a clearing in the surrounding forests, working with hatchets and saws to fell several trees that would be worked into usable materials.
There was a river nearby, more a stream, that provided drinking water and span a large wooden wheel attached to what Cobb guessed was a mill of some kind. Flour or lumber, he couldn't be certain of until he saw supplies being brought in.
Next to him was Corporal Mercer who, like the Spartan, was staring at the hamlet through a pair of binoculars. His three Marines were spread out in a defensive posture around their position half a klick from the hamlet, watching for intruders that might accidentally stumble across them.
'How many do you reckon live here?' Cobb asked.
'Fifty, maybe,' Mercer said. 'I count at least ten buildings that might be dwellings for people. Times that by four or five people per, you get fifty.'
'Not exactly a bustling metropolis,' Cobb said.
'Nope,' Mercer said.
They had spent most of the past three days setting up their new base of operations in Leka, establishing an outpost in a mountain range less than fifteen kilometres from the capital city the Marines had sardonically dubbed Camelot after the city of ancient Arthurian legend. It looked as though a mine had once existed there many years ago before drying up, leaving behind plenty of tunnels for shelter and concealment, plus a single track leading up to the location that would bottleneck anyone that thought to attack the location.
Two M247 machineguns covered the approach and a trio of mortars provided longer range support, out to five kilometres, ensuring that anyone foolish enough to engage the Marines wouldn't live long enough to regret their decision, and if they enemy proved more tenacious then Primo Victoria was holding position above them. She might have been small but her complement included five full-sized Archer missile pods, making for 150 of them.
With their foothold on the planet secure, Cobb turned his attention to Phase Two of RED BARON which entailed gathering intelligence on what life was like on Leka. Key points of interest were their social and political institutions, religious ones too. If not them, then Cobb would just destroy bridges and the like to hamper troop movements.
What might take a horse an hour to cover could be done in a fraction of that aboard one of the two Falcons Cobb had access to, to say nothing of the Pelican from Tranquillity. The only problem Cobb had with the dropship was it was the civilian version, meaning no weapons or armour beyond what could be strapped to it.
'Christ, it's almost like going back in time or something,' Mercer said a few minutes later as the figures from earlier gathered up their tools and started working the fields. 'You sure we haven't gone back in time, Cobb?'
'One-hundred percent,' Cobb said. 'But if we had, don't you think the landmasses would match up?'
'I guess so,' Mercer said. 'It'd be the same for a parallel universe, wouldn't it?'
'It would,' Cobb said. 'What we have here is a paradox, corporal. These people shouldn't be here, and yet they are.'
Mercer nodded in agreement. After Cobb's elimination of the ambush party Maher had taken blood and tissue samples for analysis and to the disbelief of everyone, found they were a perfect match for human DNA. There were no abnormalities beyond a very slight genetic drift, to the point that Maher had run the samples several times to ensure his equipment wasn't malfunctioning. It hadn't been.
The people on this planet could mix and breed with anyone of any UNSC colony and have no issues. It was simply baffling.
'How come they aren't more advanced that this?' Mercer asked, gesturing with his head at the wooden farming implements and dirt roads. 'Assuming they've been on this planet for as long as we've been on Earth, how come they haven't even developed electricity?'
'Could be any number of reasons,' Cobb said. 'Social, political, religious, even geographical. Hell, even back on Earth the technological progress of each country wasn't uniform. Some populations were eking out nomadic lifestyles while others were able to cross whole oceans. You just can't predict it.'
'I guess so,' Mercer said for a second time.
They lapsed into silence again as the sun crept higher into the sky. As it did, more people began to emerge from the dwellings and went about their business. Around a dozen small children appeared and clustered together, running about screaming and shouting in the manner their kind was known for. None of them wore particularly well-made clothes and grime was visible on their faces even from this distance.
As expected, the people living here weren't exactly rich in any sense but neither did they seem to be wanting for very much. Everyone seemed to be eating enough and the nearby stream provided plenty of fresh water to drink, and the lack of any meaningful ramparts or defences suggested the threat of being attacked was very low.
Either banditry was virtually non-existent or it occurred elsewhere within the region, likely on the frontier regions, away from where organised armed forces were located. A more established settlement lay less than seven klicks away in a straight line, ten by road, which had thick walls protecting the innermost parts from attack. And, of course, Camelot had the strongest looking defences out of all the settlements Primo Victoria and Tranquillity had spotted.
How well they could stand up to what the UNSC was able to bring to bear would be put to the test soon enough, though Cobb toyed with the idea of having the Marines drop a few incendiary rounds on the city to soften it up somewhat ahead of time. Most of the dwellings had wooden frames or thatched roofs, so fire was a major concern for those living there.
'You think any of our people are in there?' Mercer said a little while later.
'I have my doubts,' Cobb said. 'If they've been taken prisoner, they'll be in Camelot or some other major city. If they've been made slaves, they'll be sold to people that can afford them. These guys can barely clothe their kids in decent rags, so buying an able-bodied slave is out of the question.'
Even so, his HUD was running facial recognition on every person it spotted just in case. Cobb didn't quite know what he would do if the system did detect someone, though. Any attempt to free them would alert their captors someone had come for them, assuming they hadn't stumbled across the destroyed camp in the woods east of Murphy's ruins and put two and two together. He wanted to avoid the enemy realising they were at war for as long as possible.
'Christ,' Mercer said. 'These next two months are going to suck.'
0058 Hours, June 30, 2555 (Military Calendar)
Outskirts of unidentified civilian town
Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System
Cobb watched impassively as a stone bridge disappeared in a plume of smoke and dust, the victim of a well-placed block of C12 plastic explosives he had just detonated. A second later the shockwave hit and slammed into the lone Spartan as he lay prone among some shrubs. Soon after a bell started ringing out and a few minutes after that, scores of people came streaming out of their town with flaming torches lit to beat back the darkness.
They stopped and stared at the giant plume of smoke as it rose up into the sky before a few brave souls crept closer to the newly created end of the bridge, peering past it into the river below. When nothing bad happened to them more people came forward to see for themselves the twenty-metre gap that existed where robust stonework once had.
A figure soon emerged from the crowd, gesturing and shouting at everyone, directing them, and snippets of what he was saying reached Cobb but it sounded like gibberish. Garza was still working to create a software patch that could translate Lekian but for the moment it was just the written aspect, not the spoken, which had more to do with the fact the UNSC troops had yet to capture a native than a failing on Garza's part.
Even so, Cobb could recognise a leader when he saw one. Either the man was this town's mayor or he was in charge of the local contingent of soldiers. A dozen of them appeared and listened to him for half a minute, then dispersed into groups of four and fanned out. Cobb guessed they were looking for the perpetrators of the bridge explosion, which was to say him.
The trouble they had was that he was on the opposite side of the river, a raging beast fed by streams coming from the northern mountains. By the time it reached this town it was close to fifty metres wide and only narrowed slightly to forty metres here, right where the bridge had been built. The next nearest crossing was five miles away to the south, and the current was too strong for a person to swim across.
It seemed to dawn on the leader Cobb was watching that they wouldn't be able to cross over any time soon and he called out for his troops to come back. It would be his final order.
Cobb placed the crosshairs of his scope on the man's head and gave a measured squeeze of the trigger, like he had been taught, and four-hundred metres away a pink mist erupted from the man's head as a round passed through it and exited out the other side. He crumpled to the floor immediately and lay still, the round continuing out into the darkened countryside never to be seen again. The twelve soldiers froze in shock at the sight then regained their wits, rushing forward to assist their commander even though it was a futile endeavour.
As they did, Cobb crawled backwards and made his way to a waiting Mongoose, his work done.
1200 Hours, 15 Ostermon, 1065 (5th Age of the Empire)
Town of Rivercross
Tabah Region, Planet Leka, Katami System
Lord Ather looked out across the broken bridge with an impassive expression. It had been three days since the attack and reconstruction efforts were only just starting to take place. Stone and mason workers were chipping away at the damaged sections ready to replace them with new ones, whilst loggers were scouring the nearby forests for suitable trees that could be cut and shaped into the frame necessary to build the replacement arches.
'It could have been worse, sir,' one of the engineers said to him after a long moment of silence. 'The blast only took out the upper structures of the bridge. We still have the original piers in place to rebuild on.'
The engineer gestured at the great stone blocks that sat roughly in the middle of the river, providing a base for the two arches to connect. Despite the engineer's statement Ather could see the same blast that had taken out the bridge had scoured the tops of these great blocks too, even put faint cracks in them.
'Are you certain of that?' Ather said. 'I can see several cracks from this distance myself.'
'We tested the blocks, sir,' the engineer said. 'The cracks are superficial.'
'I hope for your sake they are,' Ather said.
The engineer paled slightly at that and audibly swallowed, but nodded in affirmation. Ather nodded back then span on his heel and started walking towards the main gate into Rivercross.
He cut an imposing figure at almost six feet in height and dressed in resplendent plate armour, a sword of equal quality strapped to his hip that he kept one hand on the hilt of to keep it from rattling too much as he walked. It also made him look ready to use it at a moment's notice, adding to an air of danger befitting one of the Empire's top knights.
A few steps behind and to the left of him was Saria, his second and leader of the Holy Order of Chivalric Maidens. Like him she was dressed in some of the best armour the Empire's blacksmiths had to offer, though in keeping with her vows as a paladin it was devoid of the excessive décor that Ather's armour sported. At most there was an embossment of a rose, the symbol of her Order, over her left breast and another on the centre of the shield she carried.
'Do you think this is linked to the encampment they found on the Western Plains?' Saria asked as they walked.
'I do,' Ather said. 'The wound on Greyson is a near perfect match to those we saw on the troops responsible for watching it.'
The intact ones, he didn't need to add. A trio of explosions had reduced most of the soldiers there to ragged, bloody chunks the local wildlife had carried off, and of those left behind they all bore the same circular wound on their bodies that nobody had seen before. Further adding to the mystery was the presence of fifteen brass cylinders and a metal container they seemed to be designed to fit into, though none of the Empire's scholars and engineers could fathom their function.
'Could it be the Sanga?' Saria asked quietly, casting a wary glance around them both for potential eavesdroppers. 'Or the Jirul?'
'No,' Ather said. 'These attacks lack their typical methods. This has to be involved with that group.'
Neither even thought to mention the Kag. After all, they were just a step above that of a feral beast and lacked the technical knowhow to rig an explosion powerful enough to destroy a bridge, let alone the craftsmanship to create uniform brass cylinders in such quantities.
Who this new group was had been the subject of much debate since the capture of nearly two-hundred of their number seven weeks ago, especially as nobody had even seen anything like them before. None spoke Lekian, they wore clothes of a type never seen before, and reports from the soldiers that had taken them suggested the possession of some great steel beast that could fly.
However, this last claim was disregarded as nothing existed on Leka big enough to match the estimates given, let alone have the strength necessary to fly whilst covered totally in armour. It was dismissed as wild imaginations and a trick of the eye that came from a dawn raid.
Whatever their origin they had been seen as foreign invaders and treated as such, getting sold into slavery following their capture and spread across the Empire. Ather had thought about buying one or two himself but decided against it. He held command of the Holy Order of Chivalric Maidens, after all, and they fulfilled whatever need he might want from a slave already.
At the gate leading into Rivercross were the other members of the Order, sans the twins Ene and Zwo who were exploring a patch of land the locals had claimed to see a flare of light come from right around the same time Greyson was struck down. It might be nothing, but then again it might be something vitally important to figuring out what was going on.
Ather cast his gaze on them all as he approached, starting with Hannya as she kept watch over the others. She was the second oldest in the group after Saria at seventeen and often served as a maternal figure to the group, particularly the fourteen-year-olds Megumi and Efla who were the youngest out of everyone. They were stood next to Ost who looked the youngest out of them all despite being sixteen, a fact that Ene and Zwo would tease her about endlessly even though they were both a year younger than her.
Despite supposedly being a neutral party when it came to the fates of people, the Silent God had given generously when crafting each member of the Order as they were all strikingly beautiful in their own way, Hannya and Saria in particular who were growing into fine young women that any member of nobility would have given anything for them to be their wives, or at least their mistresses.
According to Church law, all seven were considered to be Ather's spouses and all seven were of legal age, too. They had all shared a bed with him at some point and as he approached, Hannya caught sight of his gaze and she seemed to know tonight would be her turn, a faint blush spreading across her cheeks as she half looked away.
'The mayor of Rivercross has secured rooms for us at the local inn, Lord Ather,' Ost said as he approached the group. 'And he has set aside ten members of the militia for your use.'
'Are they any good?' Ather asked.
'They're from the local garrison, my lord,' Ost said by way of a reply.
Which was another way of saying no. This deep in the heart of the Empire, away from the border clashes with the Sanga and Jirul, the fighting forces of the smaller towns and villages rarely tackled anything more than small groups of bandits or Keg nests, meaning they were lacking in the experience Ather would have preferred for going after what was obviously an organised foe.
He sighed. 'They'll have to do.'
It wasn't like Ost and the other girls were much better when it came to actual combat experience, but their training was amongst the best the Empire had to offer. They were likely equal to two or three times their number of the Rivercross militia, maybe more.
'Lord Ather! Lord Ather!'
As he took in this news, two voices called out to him from the bridge's direction and he knew without turning to look it was Ene and Zwo. He turned anyway and watched as the twins jogged up to him, noting the hems of their robes were wet with mud and that Ene was holding something in her hand. True to form, they were exact copies of one another with the only way of telling them apart was by looking at the side their hair was braided. Ene had it on the right, Zwo on the left.
'You found something?' Ather asked when they had rejoined the group.
'Yes, my lord,' Ene said. She held up her hand and opened it, palm up, to display another of the brass cylinders. It was completely identical to the ones Ather had found before and served only to confirm the attack here was the work of the same people that had wiped out the ambush force on the Western Plains.
'And that's not all,' Zwo added. 'We found tracks.'