Steel Gauntlet Read Online Free PDF Page B

charge, one thousand armored horsemen rumbling across the field. The ground beneath Henry’s archers began to shake. As one, the archers stepped back six paces from the stakes to give themselves plenty of room to draw their bows once the cavalry was in range. Fletcher was very calm now, totally absorbed in what he was doing, oblivious to the destruction thundering down upon King Henry’s army.
    “Shoot straight, me lads!” Fletcher shouted. “Send the goddamned frogs to hell!” Professor Jere Benjamin, dean of the M’Jumba University History Department, was suddenly and painfully called back to the twenty-fifth century by the insistent shrilling of his communications console and a sharp burning sensation in his right thigh. “Yipe!” He brushed furiously at the glowing cigar ash that had burned still another hole in his trousers.
    “Jere?” Kevin Fike’s face appeared on the vidscreen. “Jere, are you there? Anything wrong?” Fike’s normally flushed face was even redder that morning, almost matching the color of his hair. When his face got that flushed, Benjamin knew that the president of M’Jumba University was dealing with something out of the ordinary.
    “Uh, okay, Kev,” Benjamin muttered, massaging the hot spot on his thigh. Carefully, he marked his place in the book he had been reading and closed its covers. “I’m fine. What’s up?”
    “Jere, something very important. Can you come over to my office right away?” Two men sat in President Fike’s office, one a white-haired, distinguished-looking gentleman in civilian clothes and the other a heavyset, grim-faced man in the dress red uniform of the Confederation Marine Corps assistant commandant. Professor Benjamin stood in the doorway transfixed with surprise. The civilian looked vaguely familiar.
    “Come in, Jere, do come in,” President Fike said, rising from behind his desk. “I’d like you to meet Secretary Berentus, whom you know by reputation, and General Boxer, Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps. General Boxer is also chief of R and D for the Marines. Please, come in and sit down.” Slowly, Benjamin crossed the room and shook hands with the Confederation Secretary of War and the Marine assistant commandant. “Evan Boxer,” the general said, shaking Benjamin’s hand. He smiled, revealing conspicuous gaps in his front teeth. Evan? For a moment Benjamin did not know when he was.
    “Something wrong, Professor?” Boxer asked.
    Benjamin just stood there for an awkward moment, staring at the officer. “Uh, no, no,” he replied quickly, recovering himself.
    “You look vaguely familiar, is all,” he explained, his face reddening. Then to himself: I’ve got to stop living in the past so much.
    “Cigars?” President Fike asked brightly, offering a humidor. The cigars were imported from Old Earth, where the tobacco was grown and then hand-rolled according to an ancient technique. The several cigars in the humidor cost President Fike about a week’s salary. “Fidels,” he said proudly as each man gratefully took one and bit off its end.
    Secretary Berentus produced a lighter and they all leaned toward him to catch the flame. As he took the light and drew on his cigar, Professor Benjamin self-consciously placed his elbow to cover the recent burn spot on his trousers. For several long moments the four were silent as they savored the delicious texture and aroma of the wonderfully expensive cigars.
    “Ahhh!” Boxer sighed. “A cigar is a cigar, but a Fidel is a smoke.” The others laughed comfortably, enjoying their own Fidels enormously. “Professor,” the Marine asked after several more moments, “what do you know about tank warfare?”
    “Ah! Yes! Ahem. Well,” Benjamin began, his nervousness gone—he was in his element. “As you know,” he continued, assuming his classroom manner, “the last major tank battle in history was fought in 2052 at Lake Mistassini, in Canada, on Old Earth, and involved the 1st and 7th