Centurion's Eve

How The General & The Missus Plan For A War...

It wasn’t a particularly elegant way to draw up stratagem, but it was his war to wage, and his way to plan for it. The great conference table lay dismantled, leaned up against the oak-paneled wall, making way for a galley’s worth of paper spread end-to-end across the floor. Sat at the top of it all, with silver arm braced against the hard tile, was General Adam Knox.

Before the dark gray commander were scores of potential battle-lines, hundreds of angles of attack, probabilities based on the size of forces, ratios of automated to manned craft, earmarked profiles on every possible machine A.C.E.S. had thrown against them. Combined with his first-hand knowledge as a Haven police officer, Knox was a one-wolf calculator, formulating every possible path towards victory. Though his mechanical arm was the only aug he owned, he felt as though it made for as fitting an ornament to this display of arithmetical skill.

Taking the Marshall settlements could be done with any number of these plans, the key would be holding onto it. The nature of the canyon disqualified it from being a perfect bulwark to stave off invading forces, but it could still be wielded as such. Anyone stationed either in its basin or on its cliffs would work to dull the enemy’s edge. Moreover, there was the siren song of that sweet morale boost, of saying that the hallowed ground which birthed the New World of wolven civilization was secured, of saying that the legacy of J.B. Marshall shall be preserved so long as the Ambiorixian army stands, of saying that the Force was knocking at the enemy’s door; by God was that something to hang a beret on.

Any air of romance was swept aside by the interminable running of numbers. He surveyed performance data on every single ride at his disposal, and every great experiment in refurbishing old-world machinery. His hiring of Hell Patrolman Nic Ridgefield as chief engineer was a hell of a get, one he was glad Godred himself got to see before his passing. The Force was still 98% bikes and cars, so the few tanks they had would have to maintain a tight trajectory and keep to the back. That said, the firepower alone would make up for the distance. A mile-wide cavalry of automobiles and motorcycles was as unhinged a way as ever to wage war, but the spirit of his predecessor loomed large over the old schoolyard base. It was the way Godred had waged it, so for the foreseeable future, it’d have to be part of Knox’s plans.

So deep he was, in his studies and plans, that he didn’t hear the cracking of the door to his conference room, nor the soft patter of sandaled paws across the tile. He only recognized the intrusion when a flush of warmth rolled down his spine, sparked by the touch of a soft white hand on his shoulder, and a tender kiss on his neck. “Figure you could do with a little R&R,” came the playful whisper of his wife, Angel. “Never seen you this bad since we were prototyping.”