Death of a Friend, Chapter 3
27 Aug 2022MdN
Date: Late July 3230Location: Somewhere in the Alioth system
Setting: It's the height of Alioth's war of independence
Chapter 3
"Left flank!" screamed the soldier ahead of Jaffa, hand pointing at a pair of Imps scrambling over a pile of bricks. It used to be a house, so did the other three or four piles between Jaffa and their assailants. An occasional wall still stood where a bomb blast hadn't quite finished the job. The two Imps desperately tried to reach the cover of one.
A few shots cracked out from behind Jaffa. He heard the whizz of projectiles flying over his head and saw them impact against that far wall as the shooter traced a line towards the two men struggling to reach its sanctuary. One made it, the second Imp let out a scream and partially collapsed as a puff of red mist replaced his left leg below the knee. An agonising metre short of cover with that carbine spitting death all around him, kicking up dust and splintering the stones at his feet. He hobbled on his remaining leg, and dropped out of sight behind the wall.
Jaffa would never get used to the sound of steel splintering bone. Flesh hits just gave a muffled thunk, but the lower leg was bone, and that was a most sickening sound. They all heard it, friend and foe alike, most cringed at the thought.
Then the squad machine gun made their guests feel less welcome. Rapid deep thuds in a seemingly endless torrent of steel that ripped into the wall. Whole bricks were destroyed as bullets slammed into the masonry. The small impact craters left by the first carbine disappeared in a cloud of disintegrating clay blocks, and when that cloud finally cleared, the wall stood no more. The Imps apparently buried under yet more rubble.
"We can't defend here, Jaffa," his sergeant had run over to him during the melee. "These two failed, but there are flanking moves being constantly pushed back," Jaffa could just hear him over the gun fire aimed in their direction by yet more Imps, angry now, at the loss of their comrades. He nodded his agreement and heard more shouts warning of advanced enemy troop movements in various directions. The fighting was suddenly close and personal. Ruined buildings offered so many places to hide and sneak forwards.
"Withdraw to the next defensive line?" Jaffa suggested and received a shaking head and a shrug. They'd prepared a number of rings around the town's old temple, an imposing cube of thick decorative concrete that was miraculously still intact among a sea of destruction. They'd planned to fall back to each line, defending as they went.
"Same story with each line," the sergeant replied. "We stop, defend for a while, then get overrun. We no longer have enough men to defend the lines, and we'll lose more each time we try."
The realisation of defeat was lost on neither man, but there were civilians to protect in the temple and they'd seen what happens to prisoners.
"Will your fly-boy come back?" the sergeant yelled over the din, serious eyes stared into Jaffa's.
"Hell yes," replied an affronted Jaffa.
"Then we trust in him. Withdraw to the temple. That's our citadel. That's where we make our last stand." And hope to God you're right, he didn't say.
A last stand citadel brought home how precarious their situation had become. He'd known it of course, but those words slapped Jaffa straight in the face.
This was it.
They would die here today if Richard failed to return in time.
Would he?
Could he?
Still, the temple crypt was where he'd laid Berengaria for her final rest. He would die defending her tomb, that was strangely comforting.
The sergeant barked orders along the line. A career military man, he had this rag-tag bunch of rebel fighters well drilled in basic infantry skills. They were holding up the entire Imperial Army, weren't they? Jaffa, full of pride, watched them move with speed and skill. They'd come a long way, but now it was likely they'd reached the end. They would die together, man for man.
He lacked the military skills of his sergeant, but it was Jaffa these men fought for, the sergeant included. It was Jaffa they'd believed in and followed into this fight. Jaffa was who they trusted to get them back home safely. Instead, was it a vain death he led them to? They'd lost so many already, his Berengaria just one of a town full of the bodies of heroes. It was down to Richard now, there was little more they could do.
"Time to go, Jaffa!" the sergeant yelled, breaking him out of his reverie.
To the temple then, to be reunited with Berengaria.