Refuge: Book 3: The Legions by Dandridge Doug

Author:Dandridge, Doug [Dandridge, Doug]
Format: azw3
Published: 2013-09-02T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twelve

General Zachary Taylor broke off the mental contact with a smile on his face. It still seemed strange to make direct contact, mind to mind, with someone hundreds of kilometers away. Still, thought the officer, getting up from his desk and walking from the room, the wolf cub trotting at his heals, it’s a Godsend to be able to maintain communications without our radios.

The men and women in the war room snapped to attention as soon as their commanding officer entered. Taylor waved them to at ease and walked from the room. A long corridor and he was out in the sunlight, the valley laid out before him. Over half the land was now turned over to crops, and they were nearing the time of the harvest. We just might make it, thought the commander of the Earth forces. He turned and looked at the mountains a couple of kilometers to the west, still capped with snow, and so reminiscent of the Alps, or the Rockies. I need to talk with that engineer, thought Taylor, turning away from the view and starting down the road, his guard detail falling in around him.

Don’t know why I need a guard detail, thought the General with a huff. To him the idea seemed just plain silly. He was well to the rear, as safe as anyone could be. But his allies had insisted on such, stating that it was as much a show of power as a needful precaution.

The General stopped along the way to watch some of the men train, soldiers in full infantry armor, swinging double weight blunt swords into heavier than normal shields. It was an old Roman technique for strengthening the troops, giving them greater endurance when they were swinging the normal short sword, and holding up the normal weight shield. Others were lifting weights, using an Earth technique for getting stronger, while over the hill came the singing of a company on a run. And we had hoped the combination of old and new would give us an advantage. So far it seemed to be working. The Reserve Legion was ready to defend the valley, and the Fourth Legion, made up of younger people with little in the way of previous military training, would be ready to deploy in another month.

Even the armor was a combination of Roman and modern. The helms were closer to those worn by American football players, though of a different construction, as were the shoulder pads that the men wore at the top of their Lorica armor. So far that had provided a superior combination as well. So far everything we have tried has worked. We’re bound to come up with something that bites us in the ass. Hopefully it won’t be something that loses us a battle we can’t afford to lose.

The General spent a few more minutes watching the training, his mind going over the manpower figures that were starting to trend against them. He could get maybe another legion

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