Faith & Empire: Book One of The Holy Terran Empire

7.TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

We could not help ourselves. To a man, I'm sure, we turned our gazes to the sky. The sudden lull in return fire attested to the fact that even our retreating enemy's eyes were drawn away from the battlefield.

Our visors automatically polarized themselves to block out the harsh brightness. Even at full occluding, stinging light still seeped through. I couldn't see anything at first but white light from horizon to horizon.

After the first heart stopping moments, the light attenuated by degrees, yellowing and dimming and then darkening in the center of the sky. The center widened steadily, creating an expanding and thinning ring of light within which the stars slowly reappeared.

"King Alfred, this is El Cid, are you there?" Colonel L'Amour tried to raise them over the commlink. "Dave, this is Llewelyn, can you hear me?"

Static was the loud reply.

So high in orbit, the Imperial Frigate wouldn't have appeared any larger than a star in the sky, but our practiced eyes would have picked her out of the starscape readily enough. We knew, as well did the colonel, that he was calling out to his friend in vain.

The King Alfred was gone.

"Santo Cortez? Torquemada? Are you there?"

More static, followed by a faint voice behind the crackling white noise, "I'm afraid we've lost them, Colonel L'Amour."

"Captain Tarr, is that you?"

"Yes, colonel," the captain of the Austros Princedom carrier Czar Peter Magnus responded through the slowly thinning static. "We're okay. The carrier sustained minor damage but the King Alfred and the Halberds... they are gone."

"Let's keep moving!" Captain Obey ordered and we all sprung forward.

The enemy began running and firing again.

My armor suddenly lost power. The HUD went down but for a small, blinking red light centered on the bottom of the screen. My shield had not regenerated enough to withstand the electromagnetic pulse produced by the nukes.

The armor computer shut down every suit function but one as soon as it determined that it would not otherwise be able to absorb the waves of gamma radiation bombarding the surface. All power was immediately diverted to force shield generation in an effort to spare the sensitive circuitry that wove my skinsuit, gambeson, chain and plate mail into an integrated whole.

My crysteel visor went clear, providing me with a severely truncated view of the world outside my helmet. It was a view blurred by my every exhalation against the clear faceplate of the pressurized gambeson.

I began to feel clammy with sweat beneath the smart skinsuit I wore beneath the gambeson. The outside cold was beginning to seep through the protective layers.

I stopped running, thinking it best to preserve my, now limited, oxygen supply. It was disorientating being cut off from the HUD feeds and all communication with the Company. I was alone in my armor, my breathing heavy and loud, wondering if this was how my ancient, steel-plated predecessors felt.

I didn't like the feeling.

I turned around and spotted the Santo Colombo landing on the battlefield to attend to the wounded and dead. I should make my way to her, I thought, hating the idea.