Black Knight

by Andy Briggs

“Lee, this whole electromagnetic pulse plan is insane.”

  “Ah, always with the insane. Why is it when anybody has a megalomaniacal plan for global domination they’re labelled insane? Think of the environmental damage we’ve done to the planet. Now imagine that stopping, instantly, with a single EMP pulse. The world can regrow, heal itself. You’ve got to agree that’s a good thing.”

  “Millions will die!”

  “Not because of me. That will be down to survival of the fittest. Blame Darwin. Look, this is not only a conveniently easy way to save the planet, but I also get to rule it with a few old British dudes. It’s win-win. Do you know how much planning and preparation goes into these things? That’s quite a feat for somebody who’s supposed to be bonkers.”

  “It comes to something when both the World Consortium and Shadow Helix are working to stop you.”

  Lee took a step closer. “They’re both monsters in their own right, kid. The CMA has been chugging away for hundreds of years, way longer than those guys.”

  “Sorry, the CMA?”

  Having his monologue interrupted irritated Lee. “The Company of Merchant Adventurers.”

  “How was I supposed to know that?”

  “Just shut up and listen.” Lee hesitated as he picked up his mental thread. “So what if technology came along and swept the old guard under the rug? They were still there, waiting.” He pointed outside the dome. “The CMA’s mission was to protect the Empire, to find new trade and ways of ensuring Britain always stayed on top.” He indicated around them. “This started out as a peaceful project. A giant orbiting metal detector. Now things have moved on and the CMA realize this old thing is now in fact a superweapon. And when they realized that, they figured the Empire had to be made great again if the world was to survive.”

  “It’s not their decision!”

  Lee laughed. “Then whose is it?”

  As Lee continued talking, Dev became aware that one control desk was clicking and whirling faster than the others. A quick glance at Lee confirmed he was still reeling his monologue as he gazed at the planet below. That gave Dev the opportunity to sidle closer to the desk. The helpful brass plaque informed him it was the EMP CHARGING STATION. A small set of rotary dials were steadily counting down as the needle on the dial crawled towards the red.

  Lee was stalling him. He had already primed the EMP to fire.

  With a bellow, Dev activated his Iron Fist mech around him. He thrust his gauntlet as hard as he could into the control desk. He anticipated an explosion or at least a shower of sparks, but instead was rewarded with springs, rods and cogs lazily spiralling into the air, reminding him that he was in a zero-gravity environment. Lee stopped talking and regarded him with disappointment.

  “Well done. What exactly were you hoping to achieve? You’ve just destroyed the only way either of us had to tell when the EMP is going to fire. And let me assure you, the EMP below is still going to fire. That’s the nice thing about mechanics, you can’t short circuit them.

  Dev eyed the tunnel from which he’d emerged and hoped Lee was far enough away to block him. He charged towards it. But Lee had anticipated the move and leapt for him. He soared across the bridge and tackled Dev around the waist.

  The two spiralled away from the hatch. Without gravity to interfere they were now locked together, clawing at one another until they drifted into the central computer system.

  Lee’s gloved fingers slid over Iron Fist’s smooth surface, unable to find anything to grasp. Dev didn’t have the same problem. He scrunched his hand around one of the brass studs and was surprised when his synaesthesia detected traces of electricity flowing through it.

  “Ah, you found a few sparks?” said Lee. He didn’t sound concerned. “How would you like a few more?” Within the bulky suit he activated a switch. The Tesla coils on his shoulder burst to life – sparks leaping from one to the other behind his head as they charged the studs.

  Dev felt a surge of raw electricity flow through him as if he stuck wet fingers in the mains socket back home. A sudden flash and he was sent spinning end-over-end, back across the bridge. The mech was unable to absorb the powerful electrical jolt and, as Dev’s synaesthesia plugged him in to every aspect of Iron Fist, he felt the pain of hot needles digging into every part of his skin. His limbs tingled and even attempting the slightest movement hurt. He gently thudded to a halt against the dome and floated there like a splattered moth as he waited for the pain to subside.

  Lee drifted lazily over. “You see, this is one situation where your synaesthesia is not going to save the day. We’ve come full circle, kid. You were once the superhero – but now you’re redundant.”

  Lee came to a stop against the window and placed his glove over Dev’s heart. The Tesla coils charged up again.

  “I didn’t really want to have to kill you, but boy, you really know how to rub people the wrong way.” He nodded beyond the glass, at the magnificent vista beneath them. “But at least it’s a view worth dying for.”

  Using every morsel of strength, Dev suddenly elbowed the glass behind him. The window pane shattered – and the calm bridge suddenly became a hurricane!

  The single hole into space was enough to suck every molecule of air from Black Knight. It rushed past Dev and Lee like a tornado, and they too were sucked towards the tiny breach.

  The shower of parts from the broken control panel pelted them first – then Dev reacted in horror as the frozen bodies of the crew were thrust towards them.

  The broken pane wasn’t big enough for them to fit through, but as they impacted against the glass, the now weakened geodesic framework crumbled apart and they were jettisoned into space.

  More debris from the depths of Black Knight were pitched out in an ever-widening debris field. Dev and Lee spiralled towards the earth, but Lee was suddenly yanked to a halt as the umbilical cord attached to his suit pulled taut.

  Dev had no such safety line. With nothing to stop him he was pivoting earthwards. It was only a matter of time before gravity caught up with him and he went from zero gravity to freefalling to the ground.

  Despite the ache in his limbs, he had to do something now. He engaged his rockets and the roar of the engine shuddered him to a halt. A few little adjustments turned him the correct way around, and he could see Lee pulling on the umbilical cord, hand-over-hand as he slowly hauled himself back into the bridge.

  According to the mech’s HUD readout, Dev had been jettisoned at an angle half a kilometre from Black Knight. The new perspective allowed him to fully take in the machine. The surface was matte black, and he wondered how Victorian-era engineers had got it into orbit. Even modern technology would struggle.

  The snaking elevator cables were still extended and, just below the hangar, a long cylinder was mounted to the hull. An enormous crystal pointed at the earth like an unblinking eye, with a reddy-green aurora crackling across its surface. Readings from Iron Fist’s sensors confirmed it was building a lethal electromagnetic charge. Dev didn’t know if he had minutes or seconds before it was discharged across the planet.

  A quick check on the rocket’s fuel status reveal more bad news. He had enough for one last thrust. He looked down on the planet below him…

  It was clear he wasn’t going home.

  Dev had often wondered if, at the time of his death, he’d reminisce about all the good times in his life as they flashed before his eyes. But there was no nostalgic slideshow – no feelings of achievement – just anger that he’d never get to step foot on the beautiful blue-green gem below ever again.

  He watched as Lee managed to scramble back into the bridge. Dev took a deep breath and decided if he was going down, then he would take Lee with him. Now he would have to take a leap of faith that his patchy knowledge of physics was going to help him save the world.

  His thrusters ignited with full fury, propelling him towards Black Knight. In the void he was able to accelerate faster than a bullet before his fuel ran out – which happened seconds before he s
truck Black Knight.

  Black Knight’s hull folded like cardboard. Dev had been expecting more resistance. The Iron Fist mech powered into the guts of the monolith and the entire structure buckled around Dev in an awkward U-shape as his inertia was absorbed by the hull. The impact began to twist Black Knight out of position. With the enormous cables still tethering it to the earth, the hull began to corkscrew around them.

  Dev came to a halt in a crater of twisted metal that defaced the entire flank of the machine. The only sense of movement was as the earth suddenly shot past his field of view as Black Knight continued wildly pivoting, tangling the cables up like so much string in a drawer.

  Parts of the bronze hull had tightly folded around Dev. He pried his limbs free, leaving a mech-shaped dent in the metal. Alarms buzzed for attention inside his helmet. The jet-packs were damaged beyond repair, and with no fuel, useless.

  With a mental command, Dev jettisoned them and watched as they spiralled towards earth. It didn’t take them long to strike the atmosphere and send flames coursing over them. Within seconds they burned up, suffering the same fate of an ailing shooting star. The same fate Dev would shortly endure too.

  Black Knight shuddered around him as the elevator cables began to tightly braid together under the satellite’s constant spin. The reinforced cables gave no sign of breaking – instead they began to twist like a string too tightly wound, forcing Black Knight to violently shift position once again. Fortune was with Dev as the EMP cannon was now pointing away from earth. The question was whether it would fire before it burned up in the atmosphere as the knotting action of the cables now started to pitch Black Knight towards the earth at an ever-increasing speed.

  Dev silenced the other warning alarms in his helmet, finally noticing that one of them was indicating dangerously low oxygen levels.

  That’s lucky. I’ll suffocate before I burn up, he thought with gallows humour.

  Then a thought struck him: Lee. The thief may be insane and emotionally detached, but there was one thing he certainly cared about: himself. There was no way he would have come up here without an escape plan.

  On cue, he saw Lee emerge from Black Knight’s hangar, gripping a series of metal tubes. At first glance it looked like a twisted pensioner’s walking frame, but puffs of gas from it directed Lee away from the ailing satellite and out into the darkness, his umbilical cord trailing behind him.

  Dev tried to follow Lee’s path to his destination, a difficult task when the universe was spinning around him, but a glint of sunlight in the distance revealed Lee’s ploy.

  It was the Osprey rocket.

  Lee had stolen it to provide him with a swift escape. And if he could use it, so could Dev. It was simply a matter of who got there first.

  Dev tried to run along the buckled hull, but his mag-boots were useless on the bronze hull – so he was forced to crawl, smashing holes in the metal with his clawed fingers to drag him along.

  He quickly reached Black Knight’s nose and tried to ignore the dizzying movement of the earth as he focused on Lee’s safety cord. Without thinking, Dev gave a few practice heaves like a bobsleigh rider, then propelled himself from the hull and into the clutches of space.

  If he missed Lee’s umbilical cord he would spiral away into the endless void. At least he wouldn’t burn to death in the atmosphere; if he didn’t suffocate first, he’d freeze once the mech’s batteries ran out of juice.

  With a wave of panic, he saw that his trajectory was too high and going to overshoot the cord. Dev reached for it, but it was inches from his grasp.

  In desperation he instructed the mech’s adaptive surface to form the metal casing around his hands into a hook. The surface morphed, the armour’s tiny scales overlapping—

  He snagged the cord at the last second and drew himself to a stop. Dev didn’t waste any time in hauling himself closer, wrapping the cable around his arm for security.

  Ahead, Lee buckled wildly as his cable dragged him back under the mass of the hitchhiker. He turned to look at Dev. Then, with a casual wave, he detached himself from the cable and used the jet frame to power himself towards the Osprey, leaving Dev dangling with no choice other than to drag himself along the umbilical cable to Black Knight.

  There was obviously no escaping his fate.

  Dev reached the safety of the hangar, attaching his mag-boots on to a catwalk, in time to see the distant speck of Lee opening a hatch on the Osprey and crawling inside.

  Then then hangar shuddered with a mighty boom as the EMP cannon finally discharged its destructive payload.

  There was a bright flash of green and red auroral energy that rippled like a ribbon in the breeze. Dev closed his eyes and looked away as the intensity increased. Even with his eyes closed he could still see glow through his lids. Then it all went dark.

  Dev experimentally opened one eye and saw that the cannon was now dormant. Opening both eyes he had to blink several times as the after-image faded from his retinas and the stars around him slowly became visible once more.

  His chest heaved with an involuntary sigh of relief when he noticed that he’d succeeded in turning the pulse away from the earth; otherwise he would have been looking at a planet where civilization had been stripped bare.

  He clung to the side of the EMP cannon and waited with growing jealousy to watch Lee jettison his capsule and soar to earth.

  But nothing happened. Dev was beginning to feel lightheaded as the oxygen in his suit thinned out, and he began to find grasping hold of his thoughts was almost impossible…

  But when he did, he gave a shallow laugh, using way more oxygen than was sensible. The Osprey had been directly in the path of the EMP blast. Eryl Stoker’s state-of-the-art rocket has been rendered useless in an instant. The fried circuits meant Lee was trapped inside. Unable to get out. Unable to return to earth.

  Dev’s dark thoughts about Lee’s fate were interrupted when Black Knight shuddered as it glanced the earth’s atmosphere. The vibration increased with intensity until Dev could feel his teeth rattling. Through the open hangar doors, he could see an increasing field of debris coming from Black Knight as it broke apart, slowly toppling towards the earth like a beanstalk…

  Beanstalk. The word echoed in his brain, and vague recollections of the fairy tale percolated at the back of his mind. Jack hadn’t died on the cloud…

  There was still a way down!

  Dev sucked in a deep breath to clear his mind. It no longer mattered if he had just a few sips of air left – he refused to give in. If he dwelled too much on the consequences then he knew he wouldn’t have the courage to do what was required.

  He banished everything from his mind, and ran as fast as he could along the catwalk – mag-boots thudding with every step. He kept his eyes fixed on his destination as he suddenly deactivated the magnets and recklessly soared into open space.

  Dev swooped over the knotted mass of elevator cables that began to rapidly fill the hangar as they slackened off. He was aiming further down the space elevator where the cables had not yet wrapped together. He shot towards them like a missile, his aim true as he flew inches above one of them. With outstretched arms he embraced the cable, applying gentle pressure that he hoped would control his fall. Already he could feel the friction heat through Iron Fist, but he ignored it as he now followed the cable’s path straight down.

  He hoped that his slightly slower descent meant he wouldn’t strike the increasingly thick atmosphere fast enough to cause a flaming re-entry like spacecraft usually did. Dev gripped the cable tighter, slowing him just enough to smoothly re-enter the atmosphere. It looked as if his crazy plan would work!

  He felt a rush of fresh oxygen flow through mech’s vents and he finally allowed himself a scream of pure adrenaline as he nosed-dived towards the clouds.

  An explosion from the corner of his eye caught his attention. He looked back and upwards, he saw Black Knight blowing apart in the upper atmosphere. One massive chunk spiralled away in a trail of black smok
e and debris, while the other half was a blazing mass of flames, still attached to the cables.

  And everything was getting heavier as it fell to earth, which meant the cables were now toppling through the air like felled trees, with Dev still sliding down the trunk. Worse, the flaming section was lolling over in a huge U-turn and falling slightly faster than Dev was as it reached its terminal velocity of 120 miles per hour. Which meant it was catching up with him!

  Patchy high-altitude clouds kept blocking Dev’s view as he plummeted through them.

  He now had no choice but to go faster than the flaming hulk above, countering his plan of a controlled freefall. He slackened his grip on the cable and instructed the mech to form a more aerodynamic shape.

  The surface rippled as small fins and ridges formed across his body. His HUD’s speedometer climbed to just under three-hundred miles per hour as he plummeted. It was fast enough to outpace the falling space junk but it would turn him into a pancake when he reached the ground.

  Dev gritted his teeth and kept his eyes on his altimeter which was almost a blur as it counted down. Then he heard his uncle’s voice and at first thought he was having another memory relapse, before realizing his radio was once again operational.

  “Hey, Charles. Guess who’s back!”

  “Dev! What’s your status?”

  “Hurtling towards earth at terminal velocity. I’ve leapt out of planes in this suit before – would it survive an impact now?”

  “The mech is tough, but it’s not indestructible. From that height, and that speed … you don’t stand a chance.”

  Dev didn't waste any further time on conversation. He was rapidly running out of height.

  “HALO,” he assured himself as he punctured through the last clouds and saw the glittering ocean beneath him.

  At the very last moment, Dev wrapped his arms and legs around the cable and squeezed as hard as he could. The mech’s shape morphed into a series of spiky small flaps to further reduce his airspeed.

  Sparks erupted from under the mech and Dev howled at the intensity of the heat that managed to seep through the suit.