Up Which a Lean and Foolish Knight Forever Rides in Vain

It took Chris a little longer than the viewers at home to figure out something unusual had happened. The missiles barreling down at him held his attention for the first few moments. He shot down the big rocket before they hit their apex, then put enough incendiaries and frag along their downward arc that he only had to dive out of the way of one small missile. He rolled down the ridge, a spout of dirt going up behind him, and came up to regain a visual on the Don Quixote. Instead, a shockwave nearly knocked him back down, and his eyes locked on a mushroom cloud rising from within the American wall. No, within a foundation where the wall had stood. The bricks and razorwire had been scattered by the blast, and it took him the better part of a minute to spot the vaguely Duelist-shaped mound where the Don Quixote had been thrown.

He heard a string of booms off to his right, and saw, across the bay, an artillery position outside a village on the far side. They had a model of railgun Chris hadn't seen before, but as he zoomed his view onto them, their blocky, brutalist aesthetic suggested Colombian engineering. The guns were trained southward, and were bombarding the west side of the American base. He panned over to the village, and noted that every flagpole in it was flying… either the Cuban Royalist flag, or the Californian Setting Sun. He panned back to the men operating the artillery, and… they were all in plain tan or olive fatigues, except for one officer in a gray Shogunate uniform.

An American made out these details, too, through a pair of binoculars. He called them in to his supervisor, and given he was stationed here for an important bit of intelligence work, that was the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. In Langley, the connection was a bit rough; the agent was right on the edge of the arena's jamming bubble. The deputy director put the call on speaker, and Jen hung on the field agent's every word.

“That doesn’t make any sense. The Cuban Communists never decided to pick a fight with you Yanks; the rebels would be crazy to. Didn't the faction you were backing join the Bourbonists, too? And the Shogunate officer…”

“Listen, lady,” the field agent said, “I’m just telling it how I see it. You wanna make sure these ain’t a rogue element or some shit, give San Román a call. He was still talking to us, last I heard.”

“Good work, Malone.” the DDCI said, “I think we’ll do just that, and if he can’t give us any reassurances… well, we’ll keep our boots on the ground up to speed.” When he hung up, he said, “Cooper, try getting a hold of the referee committee for the Duel, see if it’s even possible Don Juan snuck a nuke in.”

“It isn’t.” Jen said, “What’s more, they added a dedicated EMP weapon after the first match, that’s probably what lit up on that satellite. As for checking up on the rebels, I have an idea. San Román is a known friend of yours, they’ll expect you to call him. I might be able to get a hold of someone else, get you more concrete proof whether or not they’re moving against you. Let me call up a well-placed friend…”

She dialed a number with a country code for Spain, and a cell phone vibrated in Cuba. “Oh hi, Jen. It’s three hours behind in San Francisco, isn’t it? Are you on your way to… no, Chris’s match is this morning, isn’t it? Has something happened?”

She hasn’t heard. How do I tell her? Well, it’s best she doesn’t know right this instant.

“Good morning, Alicia. Yes, there’s been a little… development. Listen, I’m on speaker with some very important people, and if you can, I need you to get set up likewise. Is your father there? One of his generals, maybe?”

“Give me just a moment, Jen. They’re in a meeting right now, but if I…” They heard some faint chatter in Spanish, then, “I’ve got my father, General Duarte, and General Chavez here. General San Román will be back shortly.”

“Your Majesty, generals, this is Jen Higuchi. I work for Lord General Earp, on Project Lepanto. We need to know whether you have anybody deployed near the active Duel arena, or the American base at Guantanamo Bay.”

“Nobody.” Jen recognized the voice of General Emilio Duarte. “The Communists tried to encircle our position at Santiago, but we pushed north and cut off their advancing detachment, so now half the remaining Revolutionary Army is stuck on the eastern edge of the island relying on Colombian shipments for supplies. We have a firm hold on everything from Santiago to the eastern outskirts of Havana, but we are fighting on two fronts, and can neither retake the east nor seize the capital until Captain Hernandez wins his Duel and cuts them off from resupply. It would be days of fighting at least until we could get more than a small reconnaissance team within sight of Guantanamo.”

“So no shot at setting up some artillery on the west side of the bay?”

“With all due respect, Miss Higuchi, you would have to ask the Reds.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “I should come clean, then. I’m in Langley, Virginia, USA right now. The DDCI’s sitting next to me. Guantanamo Bay Naval Base has been fired on by an artillery unit flying your colors, and those of the Shogunate. I needed to be sure NATO and the League of Vienna had not just gone to war.”

“We are not mad, Miss Higuchi, Deputy Director.”

“This is General San Román,” another voice came through, “I have some scouts skilled in… clandestine operations, trained by your own Army Rangers. They are engaged in a deep strike against the Communist dogs north of Guantanamo, but I have a line of communication open to them. They can be there within the hour, and will put an end to this false flag attack, if you wish it.”

“Bring them in, general.” the DDCI said, “I’m sure the base commander would rather have them and not need them, then need them and not have them. I’ll tell him not to shoot your real guys. Guess I’ve also got to let the president know that whoever’s attacking us isn’t you.”

While the CIA was straightening things out, Chris was getting a grasp on the situation himself. Something bugged him about the “rebel” uniforms, and after staring at them under intense magnification a moment longer, it clicked. The general motley assortment of earth tones was correct, but all the rebel troops he had seen in Santiago de Cuba had two consistent elements stitched onto whatever fatigues they had: Royalist flags, and rank insignias. These guys were clean, no distinctive markings at all, like the Shinobi and CIA paramilitary agents in the Andes. Further, the one Shogunate officer was in the complete wrong uniform to be leading or advising rebels in the field. That was an Army or Marines job, and both those branches had their own camouflage patterns for their combat uniforms, Army heavier on browns and tans and Marines on greens and grays. These fatigues were solid gray with a black helmet and plate carrier, a Gendarmerie field uniform. These men weren’t what they were trying to come off as, but if they were Cuban Reds, they would have probably used the right Shogunate uniform, if only accidentally by pulling at random from what they had captured over the course of the war. But Chris knew of at least one Gendarmerie uniform that had walked off into the hands of…

MSI. The Colombians were finally taking direct action.

Through a camera mounted along the east edge of Boqueron, its lens only slightly cracked by the explosion, the Politburo watched him load another EMP shell and take aim across the bay.

“He’s figured it out.” Admiral Castro was gripping the long oak table, his rodent-esque voice echoing through the white-and-gold pillars of the cathedral.

“So what?” Fernandez leaned back easily in the chair at the table’s head– traditionally reserved for the General Secretary of the Party, but who was going to stop him? “Worst case scenario: Don Quixote is out for the count, and the Americans figure out this attack wasn’t the Shogunate’s doing. They will not be able to produce any proof it was us, and even if they work it out that Don Juan didn’t have a nuclear weapon, we double down on that narrative, claim victory off a rules violation, and move troops into Mexico City.”

“And risk war with the entire League of Vienna? It was a bold plan when we thought we could drag NATO in on our side, but with that scheme about to come unraveled, it’s national suicide! The Soviets aren’t around to back us up anymore, we can’t–”

“There are others, dear Sancho. Rising powers that don’t fit the old molds of socialist, capitalist, and feudal. India, Rwanda, even the new Russia. The Romanovs and their parliament of gangsters have probed both NATO and the League for the prospect of membership, but both talks fell apart. Perhaps they need a different sort of ally. And NATO should not be counted out just yet. It is conceivable we will fail to give them a casus belli here and now, but if we can manage some early victories… well, the capitalists are nothing if not vultures.”

Chris, just as Fernandez and Castro went back and forth about a ground invasion of Californian Mexico, watched the Colombian artillery position as his EMP shell sailed in. It struck the ground a little short of their position, but one of the massive railguns sent out bright electric arcs from its muzzle, and the shell racing out of it under magnetism flew high and wild, striking the Caribbean Sea several miles out and convincing an Irishman in a blue helmet he’d had quite enough to drink for the day. About two-thirds of the artillery powered down, but the one-third farthest from Chris kept up the barrage.

He grabbed another EMP shell from the now beefed-up thigh magazine, and turned the head of the Don Juan left as he brought it up to reload. He caught a blur of motion coming at him, dropped the shell, and brought the EMP launcher up like a quarterstaff to block.

The Don Quixote went from a four-legged charge to a two-legged leap, its legs folding back together as its mad rush ended with an airborne lunge, its hands extended forward. Inside it, Captain Hoffman commanded this action by running on all fours into a leap like a cat’s, a motion she found far more natural than her predecessor Major Quispe had.

Her cockpit and other modules had been moved over to a new Frame F, between Frames B and C in the balance it struck between mobility and resilience, with high-torque motors hardened against EMP weapons and more intricate articulated hands with clawed fingers– their tips were thick vibrating spikes, like some unnatural union of a hypersonic toothbrush and an awl.

The Juan held one of the Quixote’s hands at bay with its EMP launcher, but the other scraped across the cockpit. Chris gritted his teeth at the metal-on-metal shriek, and faintly made out the bulletproof glass in his viewport shattering on the other side of the steel sliding hatch. As the motion ended, he saw sunlight shining through a thin band of pierced steel plating near his leg. “WARNING!” a feminine voice called in a convincing facsimile of human panic, “Cockpit breached!”

He braced one foot of the Don Juan against the slope behind him, and pushed back on the Quixote, sending it staggering back two steps. Before it could grapple him again, he slammed the firing controls for the small, close-range missiles embedded in his Duelist’s shoulders. Their shaped-charge warheads snapped struts in the Quixote’s frame where they made contact, but they would have been better against a target with fewer air gaps and more solid plating. Still, Chris smiled, grimly satisfied to finally get a chance to use his close-quarters weapons and skills. His final missile struck the top left corner of Quixote’s cockpit, severing an arm and exposing Captain Hoffman to the warm Caribbean sun. He could just see the left edge of her face where a motion-control pad had been shredded away; her cheek had been burned, and blood ran out of her ear, but she grinned at him cruelly, and stepped forward. He tossed the EMP gun at Quixote’s feet, and drew his knife.

She lunged with a twist, bringing her remaining hand forward and turning the opening in her cockpit away from him. He extended his open hand to meet hers, and their fingers locked together with a sharp impact. She drove the Quixote’s claws into the back of Hernadez’s hand… no, Don Juan’s hand, a hand that didn’t feel pain, she realized a moment too late. Her opponent clamped down with his grip, pulled her forward as a salsa dancer into a twirl, and plunged his knife into the small of Quixote’s back, grinding its nuclear reactor to a halt.

Grabbing one of its legs now, Chris drove the Quixote head-first into the slope, blocking its few remaining missiles from striking him, but guaranteeing they would blow Hoffmann to bits if she tried any last-ditch tricks with them. Staring through the skeletal frame of the Quixote, Chris made out the explosive charge for the cockpit ejection system. He ran his knife across its housing, planted a flare in it from his shoulder-tubes, and let go of the Quixote’s frame. The cockpit burrowed itself into the dirt while the rest of the Quixote jumped free under the force, nearly pivoting back upright, and he knocked it aside.

The referee committee saw this through one of the surviving cameras, and immediately switched the jamming bubble off.

“Hernandez!” a voice came through on Don Juan’s radio. “Captain Hernandez, can you hear me?”

“General Earp?”

“Was that explosion inside the Yank base your work, boy?”

“Of course not, sir.”

“Had to ask.”

“Is that artillery position across the bay friendlies?”

“Hell no. Weapons free, Captain. There’s a squad of Royalists inbound to their position, but don’t you let up ‘til you see offroad vehicles peelin’ in.”

“Had to ask.” He angled his back-mounted railgun, and let loose on their position.

When the man dressed as a Californian Gendarme– actually an MSI agent, and his “rebels” were borrowed Interior Ministry troops– saw the Quixote fall, then felt a shockwave from one of the Juan’s shells, he ordered a retreat into the captured village. He and the lieutenant following him, nearly deafened as the shells came down around them, didn’t hear a UTV peel into the village square as they crossed it with their heads down, and stopped only when they felt the muzzles of rifles against the backs of their heads. When their captors flipped them on their backs, one of the Cuban rebels barked, “Who are you? Out with it! It’ll be a lot easier for you if you sing now.”

The Interior Ministry lieutenant knew he meant it. Though these eyes were dark, and set beneath the wooly hair of a man Captain Hoffmann’s beloved great-grandfather would have called something like Mischling or Untermensch, he had seen the look in them before, in his commanding officer. They shared her cold cruelty, a look more befitting a child staring down a trapped insect than one man looking on another.

Meanwhile, Admiral Castro stood shouting at Fernandez, who held his ground in a calm, almost mocking tone, while the rest of the Politburo looked around uncomfortably.

“It’s over!” Castro’s voice echoed, “Call the Army back from the border.”

Fernandez shrugged. “I see no reason to. The capitalists and the feudalists do not have enough cool heads between them to prevail. The Shogun is practically an Ainu savage, his Director of Security is an inarticulate cowboy, and the American president and his Secretary of Defense…” Fernandez shuddered. “As our old Russian friends would say, nekulturny.”

“Bogotá is going to go up in a cloud to make the one in Guantanamo Bay look like a firecracker, if you persist down this path!”

“When did you get so disagreeable, Sancho? Besides, even in the worst case, you’ll be safe in a well-furnished bunker underneath a mountain.”

Something broke inside of Sancho Castro Lopez. Despite the shaking in his hands, the blood flushing his face, the pounding of his heart, he laughed breathlessly. “Then, excuse me for a moment, Comrade Minister. I must notify the flag officer of the Pacific fleet.”

In the Politburo building’s antechamber, once called the narthex when this was a house of God, Castro met his bodyguard. “Can I bum a cigarette off of you?”

Mountain raised an eyebrow. “When did you start smoking?”

“Just now. We might be about to fight all of NATO and the League on our own.”

Mountain whistled. Though he generally kept himself to one smoke a day, he had two unfiltered Cubans in his breast pocket. He pried them out, and handed one to Castro.

“Thanks. You can light up, too. In fact, take a few days off. Take a vacation to California, or maybe the States, my treat. Bring your family. I’ve never even asked if you had any family, have I? I’m terrible. Before you go, can I borrow your gun?”

Mountain looked around the room, but the only others present were friends of his, bodyguards to Politburo members not in the best of Fernandez’s graces. He drew his piece, an old but high-end Smith & Wesson model in .41 Tucson Special, and handed it to Castro.

“Thank you. You’ve served your country well.” Castro breathed deeply, turned with a crisp about-face, and stormed back into the meeting. Mountain’s microphone picked up a sound bite that would be played in documentaries for years to come: two gunshots, then a moment of silence, then a shout from Castro:

“Viva el pueblo. Viva los trabajadores. ¡Viva Colombia!”