Future Days Anthology, page 30
part #1 of The Days Series
They close on the castrum’s palisade. A voice challenges them from the gated watchtower, which Syagrius named Porta Praetoria. He responds with a parade-ground bellow. The gates swing open; they march across the wooden bridge over the perimeter ditch.
“Sharpen up, people,” Edwards says quietly on the section net. Radio silence won’t matter much in the next few minutes.
They’re past the gates, under the tower, into the castrum’s heart. Soldiers are training; orders ring out, bodies move on command, swords clash against armor.
“About twenty spearmen throwing at targets, far right,” says Stepanychev. Pila, long iron spears with thin pyramidical heads; the weapon that killed Blount, and which they now carry, inexpertly.
“Big squad of hastati drilling to the left,” says Popov. Infantry, with swords and spears just like those they’re carrying, but likely a lot more capable than they are. Another worry.
#Bowman in the gate tower. Looking down, watching us.# Ross, on his back in the cart, using datalink so the sentry won’t see a dead man’s lips move.
“Ten archers at target practice, far left corner,” says Wallace. Edwards knows that these sagittarii are effective at ranges much greater than a hundred meters. Volley fire cancels out individual inaccuracy.
“We’re approaching the commanders. Halt on Syagrius’ next order.” Popov again. As he marches, he’s holding his head down to mask his speech, as if fiddling with the scabbard of his gladius.
Syagrius halts them twenty yards from a wooden building that reeks of a unit headquarters. Four men are standing on the raised boardwalk veranda that surrounds it, watching them. Two are robed, two in uniform.
Syagrius mutters a few words to Popov. “The senator is the nearest guy.” Popov keeps his head down. “The others don’t wear their clothes right.”
The maybe-senator calls out a few words; not an order, but still a greeting that demands a response. Edwards hears Syagrius’ name, recognizes this; polite condescension from the commanding officer toward a competent and trusted sergeant major.
We get close up, they’ll see right through this, Edwards thinks. Our skin, our eyes, the fucking bullet holes in the tunics. Red or not, the bloodstains show.
Syagrius answers with a few sentences, the senior Optio reporting respectfully to his commander.
Popov says softly, “He says he’s encountered a strange enemy, killed many, and brought one of the enemy’s dead for them to inspect. But he’s suffered the loss of several hastati to mystery weapons.”
Or they’ll wonder why no one else speaks or understands them.
The senator shrugs, peers down at the cart; speaks to one of the others with him.
In English.
“Looks like my chaps might have sorted out your magic cyborgs, Ranulf. I hope you’re good for the money, because that’s three in a row you owe me now. Well, shall we see what they’ve got in there?”
The group descend the steps, the senator and this Ranulf leading. Ranulf is tall, looking uncomfortable in the robes, and angry. But the supposed senator is smiling. Syagrius is right; something about this man speaks of wealth: the neatly groomed hair, the perfect teeth, the air of entitlement. The other two, a lean scar-faced man and a heavier guy with a shaved head, are in more ornate versions of the uniform that Syagrius wears. Bare-headed, they wear scabbarded swords.
Shaven-Head calls out an order to the centurion drilling the hastati. The swordsmen stop their weapons practice, fall in, form a squad. At the centurion’s order, they turn and march.
#Brace up.# Says Edwards on datalink. The squad halts ten meters away. Edwards studies them. Clones, right enough. They look nothing like Shaven-Head and Scar-Face. He sees the similarity of build and faces, distinguished only by minor details. But they didn’t prat about when they were forming up as a squad, and they march well in close order. They may be clones, but they look capable enough. And they’re studying him and Popov, these strangers with their Optio.
Edwards is conscious too of the archers, the spearmen behind him; deadly and probably hostile. Any moment now, the killing will start. The knot in his stomach is tighter.
The senator looks at Syagrius, says something in Latin, steps forward to look at the dead man in the cart. As he passes Edwards, the senator glances at him. He takes in the silver-flecked skin, the artificial eyes. His jaw sags open.
“Now!” Edwards shouts.
He and Popov throw down their spears, draw the pistols from behind their shields, drop the shields as well. The four men freeze; they know the weapons for what they are.
Movement everywhere. Syagrius draws his sword. Ross stands up in the cart, throws rifles to Stepanychev, Wallace, Anwar, Ogareff.
Someone shouts an order to the hastati centurion. Syagrius countermands it; the centurion hesitates.
Enough of this. Edwards shoots Scar-Face; the man crumples. Popov double-taps Shaven Head. Scar-Face writhes, moans. Edwards fires again. Quick, efficient kills.
Ross opens fire on the watchtower. Two three-round bursts. He stares upwards, watching for movement.
The hastati are aghast at the noise, and they don’t understand what they’re seeing, but they don’t break and run. Or attack, yet. Syagrius’ outstretched arm holds them still, for now.
But the senator tries to run; Wallace catches him easily, trips him, kicks him in the face as he sprawls. His nose explodes with blood. Ranulf fumbles in his ill-worn robes. Anwar waits until a pistol emerges, laughs, and takes it away in a blur of movement. She slaps him left-right-left across the face with the weapon, then kicks him hard in the shins. As he drops to his knees, she kicks him again, this time in the groin, and tosses the pistol into the cart.
Across the square, which Syagrius calls the intervallum, the archers and spearmen are deploying. In a moment, their officers will make up their minds too, and they’ll launch their weapons. But right now, what they see is Syagrius, their Praefectus Castrorum, and a small squad of strange hastati. If the Optio is content with the situation, it should be all right for now. Stepanychev and Ogareff are tracking targets with their rifles, ready for the centurions’ decision.
Edwards seizes the moment. “Into the building. Bring those two,” he says, before the balance shifts again. He and Popov run for the headquarters building.
The others drag the prisoners. The senator is stumbling, cursing, hands up to his ruined nose; Anwar tows Ranulf, still moaning at the pain between his legs. Ross, Stepanychev, and Ogareff cover the move, eyes and sights fixed on the squads of spearmen and bowmen.
Syagrius stands and faces the sword-squad, the pilum carriers, the sagittarii, raises his arm again. “Hastati! Fratres!” he calls out.
Edwards and Popov reach the door; it’s locked. Popov tries to kick it down, but it won’t move. He tries again, swears, looks across at Syagrius, who’s still addressing the legionaries.
“He’s saying, ‘brothers, valiant soldiers –’”
“No shit,” says Edwards. “Never mind that, just get the fucking door open.”
“You won’t succeed,” says the senator as he’s dragged up, snuffling through his bloody nose. “Only I can open that door. Surrender now, cyborg, and you might just live.”
“My God, you’re stupid,” says Edwards, scratching the man’s throat with his gladius. “You shouldn’t have told me that. Or called me that.”
“I’m not letting you in there, whatever –”
Edwards cuts a little deeper. Red trickles down the gladius’ blade. He holds it up so the man will see, then stares him in the eyes as he licks the blood from the sword’s blade. He grins. “Really whatever? Let’s find out. What do you have to do to open the door, shout ‘Open Sesame’? Is it fingerprints? Does the hand still need to be attached to your arm? Or is it an eye scanner? Let’s see if it works when I cut the eyes out of your head. Still whatever?”
“I’ll let you in,” says this maybe-senator.
“Good lad.”
✽✽✽
It’s a could-be-anywhere communications room. All the technology that’s missing from this mission is in here. Screens, map displays, comms sets, surrounded by forgotten drinks and discarded plates of food. Two uniformed guys, watchkeepers or technicians or whatever, staring in horror at what’s come through the door: cyborgs in legionaries’ clothing, carrying pistols and rifles, dragging prisoners. And there’s a pale-skinned guy who’s already assessed the situation, and whose eyes are darting around the room. He’s a techie, definitely.
They all see the weapons, all raise their hands high. Edwards sends Wallace to keep an eye on the three of them, leaves Anwar with the two prisoners; she pushes them onto chairs. Stepanychev, Popov, Ross, and Ogareff are outside with Syagrius, who’s keeping a lid on the hastati and the centurions. It’s not what you’d call under control; it’s more like spinning plates.
But Joel Edwards is loving this. For the first time since – well, since when? – things could be turning their way. He sheathes his gladius, prods the robed senator with the pistol. “Talk to me. Tell me who you are and what this is. Start with why we’re fighting these people.”
“Call it research.” His face and neck are a mess of blood; he can’t take his eyes off the sword. “My name is Travis. I run the ARTOK operations development unit.” The voice quavers: he’s trying to be assertive, but he’s terrified. “We carry out combat evaluations to assess military capabilities in various configurations of force-on-force encounters.” It sounds like a sales pitch he’s used a thousand times.
And it gets worse. “I can understand that you find the situation challenging. I’d be happy to take any feedback you may have –”
Edwards punches him in the face, left-handed. Travis staggers, somehow keeps his feet. Joel Edwards isn’t having any of it.
“Try that for feedback, Mr. fucking Travis. That’s bullshit. What do you mean, research? Putting Roman soldiers up against us? Us? You must have known we’d kill them. What kind of research is that? And medieval European knights fighting American Indians? Are you all mental?”
Edwards doesn’t really know what his next move should be. Now that he knows that the mission is a fraud, everything else is just detail. He doesn’t care about these people or their motives, but someone needs to talk, to explain this, to tell him why he can’t remember what happened yesterday. He paces up and down.
“What happened to our memories?” He stops in front of Wallace’s prisoners. The two watchkeepers are trying not to draw attention to themselves.
The third man, the pale guy, won’t meet Edwards’ eyes either. He shakes his head. “They’ve been edited,” he says quietly.
Joel Edwards stares at him. “Tell me something I don’t know. What I want to know is why.”
The voice is somehow familiar. “They told us to do it! We just followed their orders. I swear, it was genuine research when it started out.” He points at Travis and Ranulf. “But they got carried away with it.”
After a moment, Edwards remembers when he last heard this man. You will be extracted on completion of the mission.
Ranulf contributes something at last. His hair is askew, his chin is bloody from a split lip, his cheeks are red where Anwar slapped him. His voice is strained; he’s still hurting, but he has a try at sounding like a senior executive. “It makes no sense to let you remember anything from the previous tests, so some of your memories have been suppressed. Now do as Mr. Travis says, and hand over your weapons –”
Anwar growls, pretends to spring at him. He cowers backwards, and she laughs. “Shut it, Ranulf, or I’ll give you some memories you’ll want to suppress.”
Edwards says to Wallace, “You’ve been here before, you reckon. Does any of this seem familiar?”
She stares around, checks the room and its equipment, shakes her head. “No. I remember something about the battles, the guys on ponies, the biplanes. But I don’t know anything about this place.” She takes a breath, then stares at him. “Edwards, remember what he said outside? Whatsisname, Travis, said something about this one, Ranulf, owing him money. ‘Three in a row,’ or something like that. Do you remember?”
When Wallace says it, the whole thing falls into place. Edwards nods. “You’re right. I get it. I bloody get it. You bastards have been betting on us, haven’t you? You’ve been breeding clones to fight your play battles, calling it research, and then betting on who wins. And you’ve wiped our memories, so you can use us and reuse us. How bloody dare you. Is that it? I’m right, aren’t I?”
Travis and Ranulf answer him with silence. But Joel Edwards knows. #Popov, get yourself and Syagrius in here. I’ve something to tell him.# He says.
While he waits, he thinks about the lander abandoning them, the dead drone, the useless maps, the minimal ammunition. Five crucified men, clones of the soldiers who nailed them up. Killing the hastati; Mirza and Blount dead. The bodies in the river. Breeding people so you can bet on who kills who.
“Give me a coin,” Joel Edwards says to the pale quiet man.
✽✽✽
Travis and Ranulf are kneeling on the office floor, and their faces say they know what’s next. The watchkeepers and the pale guy are lying face down. Wallace and Anwar are staring at Joel Edwards.
Popov explains it to Syagrius. He nods slowly, says, “Yes, Edwardus.” He draws his gladius and steps behind Travis. Wallace draws her bayonet, stands behind Ranulf.
The kneeling men feel the blades against their necks. Somebody whimpers.
“It’s like this,” Joel Edwards explains. “I can only ask so much of Syagrius, and I reckon he’s done enough. I need one of you two to help me order people about, so we don’t have to fight out way out. Just one.”
He’s excited now. There could be a way to avoid a massively-outnumbered firefight, get out of this place, get on the lander, get off this island. He’ll figure the rest out later.
Edwards turns to the prone men. “You three should come in handy for techy stuff like getting the lander back here. And you’re going to give us back our memories, somehow. Oh, and get us out of here. Yep, I admit I’m making this up as I go along, but what else can I do?”
Back to Travis and Ranulf. “Now, I don’t mind which one of you, but we’re going to cut somebody’s throat, just so everyone gets it that I’m serious about this. You two seem to like a gamble, so I’m sure you won’t mind. I promise it’ll be fair.”
He takes the coin out of his pocket, holds it high, turns it round. Every eye follows him. “Travis, if it’s heads – well, it’ll be your head. Ranulf, you’re tails. Clear? Everyone ready? Here we go, then.”
He flips the coin into the air.
###
About JCH Rigby
PRIOR TO HIS SF NOVEL series set in the galaxy of The Deep Wide Black, JCH Rigby (Charlie) wrote short stories and plays, on subjects as diverse as a comedy about a medieval bishop who takes up piracy, and a satirical near-future in which motorbikes are forbidden. Later, he developed "Nano Futures", mini short stories which distil SF tropes into one hundred words.
Connect with Charlie here: www.castrumpress.com/jch-rigby.
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Books by Castrum Press
SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY SERIES
The Saiph Series by PP Corcoran
The K’Tai War Series by PP Corcoran
The Formist Series by Mathew Williams
The Deep Wide Black Series by JCH Rigby
The Feral Space Series by James Worrad
ANTHOLOGIES
The Empire at War: British Military Science Fiction
Future Days Anthology
More at: www.castrumpress.com/scifi-fantasy-books
Christopher Nuttall, Future Days Anthology
