Francescan War Chronicles 1: Space Knight Denxeiter

by C. K. Pershing

  “Captain?” she was saying. “Can you hear me?”

  Feln nodded. “Oh…yes, Commander. Could you repeat that?”

  Achren looked miffed for a moment before her eyes narrowed slightly and she gave a knowing smile. Feln cursed himself. He was a Space Knight captain, not some silly cadet caught in a Nymph’s bewitching gaze!

  “I was asking what we’re waiting for. Shouldn’t we get back to the group and then the fleet? The longer we wait, the more chance to get lost from them.”

  “I know, I just wanted to kill anything that might try to follow us. It’s why I brought the Artemis along. You’ve got enough firepower to slam the backdoor shut, so to speak.”

  “Yes, sir. Although I have to say that with all the interference, laser targeting is the only thing we have that will work with any range, and even that’s going to be shoddy due to all the debris.”

  “Understood. We’ll just have you fire everything and whatever it hits, great, and if it doesn’t hit anything, then I guess there’s nothing there.”

  “Or it’ll mean they dodged our missiles. Maybe we shouldn’t launch all of them because we’ll only have one—”

  “Noted, Commander.” Feln glared at the Nymph. “But we’ve got to play the hand that’s dealt us.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, cowed. Feln made a mental note to talk to her later and let her know he wasn’t angry. While her point was valid, now wasn’t the time to be second-guessing the plan of a superior officer.

  Just then, Feln noticed movement coming toward them. So the fleet was being followed! A part deep down inside of him felt a sense of petty smugness at being right.

  “There!” he said. “Movement at 12 o’clock. Get ready.”

  “Opening blast doors,” Achren responded. Hatches ringing the Artemis and going down her length sprung open. The small ship’s usual appearance of a sleek arrow changed to that of a pine cone as all the doors opened.

  Something emerged from the gas. “Fire!” Feln yelled.

  “Firing!” Missiles poured out from behind the Artemis’ open doors and streaked forward, a swarm of angry bees.

  A few found targets and their explosions could be made out as bright lights in the gas appeared. And then to Feln’s horror, he saw red beams zipping back and forth, destroying other missiles. There were precious few explosions after that. Damn, they had some kind of anti-missile beam weapon!

  “Take the medical ship, join up with the group, and get back to the fleet,” Feln ordered. “I’m transferring drone control over to you.”

  “Sir, we can still help.”

  “With what? Your ship doesn’t carry heavy beam weapons and your missiles are all gone.” So much for that wonderful plan, he thought bitterly. “I don’t intend to die. I’ll catch up, but you have to go!”

  Achren saluted, “Aye, sir!” Her comm window closed and the Artemis turned and blasted away, the drones following with the medical ship in tow.

  Feln turned back to the approaching enemies. A couple more red beams shot out, blindly feeling for him. Wait a minute. Red beams? They should have been green like the other enemies’. What was going on here?

  A warning sounded from Denxeiter. Something was coming. Fast. He strained his eyes to see and then noticed it. The gas and debris were moving as if being pushed out of the way by an unseen force. Feln never guessed he would be so thankful for the stuff, but without it, the intruder would have been invisible. The thing seemed unsure of his exact location, but he knew it must have found him when it suddenly shot straight up and then came screaming down at him. He swung Durandal up to slice the enemy in two and was met with a loud bang and a shudder as the sword met something.

  It pushed down on him hard and he pushed back in turn as hard as he could. Suddenly, the space behind the force started to ripple and distort. And to Feln’s shock, another Hyper Battle Machine emerged from the distortion. It held a rapier that was currently pressing against Durandal. A window with a dark-skinned girl with green hair popped on to his screen.

  “What the hell?” Feln and the girl both said in unison.

  Chapter Four

  The girl’s clear blue eyes flashed with anger. “Why did you attack us?”

  Feln stared back in shock. “Were there any casualties?”

  “Yes! Two destroyers sunk and a light cruiser badly damaged.”

  Feln’s screen identified her as Lt. Katashka Nonn, Francescan Imperial Star Navy Space Knight Rank AB7, and the purple Hyper Battle Machine she piloted as FRANCESCAN IMPERIAL STAR NAVY ULTIMATE FLEET ESCORT HYPER BATTLE MACHINE #40: “GANXEITER”. If Denxeiter looked like a heavily armored knight, Ganxeiter looked like a female warrior that specialized in quick, precise attacks; as such it was much more lithe and smooth than its “male” counterpart.

  The girl, Katashka, continued, “Your ID shows you as Feln Koenig piloting #34 Denxeiter. So what are you? Some kind of traitor?” Her Ganxeiter was locked in crossed swords with Feln’s Denxeiter. But with the word “traitor”, Feln suddenly felt a wave of cold fury emanate from inside the girl that chilled him to the bone. With that, the Ganxeiter pushed hard with its rapier against Denxeiter’s own sword and forced Feln back.

  He gasped against the assault to both his body and spirit. While his Blessing had come by way of nano tech, Katashka had obviously gotten hers from magic. Though at a glance, there was nothing overly remarkable about her dark skin and green hair, the more Feln looked at her, the more he could detect something… supernatural about her.

  He gritted his teeth and summoned his strength, “That’s…enough!” His own sword, the Durandal, flashed and knocked Ganxeiter back in a shockwave. In the blink of an eye, he pulled Denxeiter’s left pistol from its holstered position and aimed it squarely at Ganxeiter’s head. “I’m no traitor! I’m—”

  Ganxeiter twirled to the right, shot down the length of Denxeiter’s outstretched arm and came up behind Denxeiter. Feln dropped down and saw Ganxeiter’s rapier pull across the empty space where Denxeiter’s head had been milliseconds prior. He twisted upside down and brought a foot crashing down on Ganxeiter’s head. The purple robot staggered back while brandishing its sword defensively.

  “Dammit, I don’t want to hurt you!” Feln said. “My fleet got pulled out of jump into this place and was suddenly attacked. I was making sure we weren’t being followed and ordered a missile ship to fire blind behind us to discourage any more enemies who might have been chasing us.”

  Ganxeiter had recovered and was getting into an attack stance, but as Feln spoke, the robot relaxed its pose. Katashka’s screen came on again.

  “You were also pulled from a jump?”

  “Yes! We started heading toward that light source behind me to hopefully get our bearings when a bunch of alien ships suddenly appeared in the middle of this damn debris and gas and opened fire before we even realized they were there.”

  Katashka’s expression changed from anger to one of concern. “Oh… How bad was it?”

  “Pretty bad,” Feln spat. “Nobody had their shields up so the enemy was able to slice right into us. Destroyers, cruisers, corvettes, you name it… we lost a bunch. Just before you showed up, I had my attack drones tow a medical ship to safety from this very spot.” He looked around. “Those aliens might even be watching the two us as we speak. I don’t know if they’re native to the system, or have just been stuck here longer, but they know how to take advantage of the surroundings,”

  After a moment, Ganxeiter sheathed its sword and Katashka said, “Alright. I’m sorry for attacking you.” She must have suddenly remembered she was speaking to a superior officer because she hastily saluted and added, “—sir!” The cold feeling coming from her withdrew and Feln let out his breath.

  “No, no… I would have done the same thing in your shoes… And I’ll never forgive myself for giving an order that resulted in friendly fire casualties.” Feln was quite proud of never being responsible for any such incidents in his years of service. But in a matter of hours
after arriving in this cursed system he had already taken the lives of at least 1,000 of his fellow Francescans. His head lowered as he started to dwell on their deaths.

  “Captain?” Katashka said. “It wasn’t your fault. For what it’s worth, I would have done the same in your shoes.”

  It was nice of her to say, but Feln wouldn’t be consoled. Katashka was only reacting to his screw up and there were no deaths on her hands. Still, there was a lot at stake and he couldn’t wallow in self pity. If he was court-martialed or worse when this was all over, he’d accept the punishment willingly. “Let’s get to your fleet and get them hooked up with mine. Maybe we can all put together a plan to get out of here.”

  Katashka looked back. “They should have been here by now. We were all together before I flew off ahead…”

  “That’s not good. Lead the way.”

  “Aye sir.”

  As they flew back the way Katashka came, Feln asked, “How did you get here?”

  “I’m part of the 169th fleet. Task Force Eighteen. We were in mid-jump on the way to the 79th frontier to support the 101st.”

  “Against the Grelk Coalition, huh?”

  “Yes. I guess our people there got a little more heat than they were expecting so fleet HQ threw together our fleet from different outfits near the frontier and sent us on our way.”

  “But the Grelk are just a bunch of pirates.”

  “Yeah, but there’s a pretty strong rumor they’re being backed by the Aldonis. Something must be happening if the Empire put together a battle fleet like ours to go in for support.”

  “Huh, meanwhile, my mission was supposed to be an easy one babysitting some colonists. I just finished a tour fighting the Aldonis themselves at the 304th. Then we wound up here.”

  Katashka was about to say something, but instead gasped, “Oh no!”

  Red and green beams were flashing through the gas and debris that clogged this area of space. Katashka shot ahead into the fray, not waiting for Feln to give his ascent.

  “Yeah, green beams… That’s them,” Feln muttered as he chased after her.

  The two of them burst in on three alien ships about the size of destroyers circling around a lone Francescan destroyer. The Francescan was already burning, but was still firing beams intermittently.

  “Xeiter Beam!” Feln yelled and realized Katashka was doing the same. He absently thought it fitting that of the 79 Hyper Battle Machines currently serving, he’d encounter another “-xeiter” type.

  The super intense beams screamed toward the enemy ship and zigzagged across its body, slicing it apart like a butcher might carve a piece of meat. After a brief moment suspended in mid air, the parts of the ship exploded.

  Two more craft were approaching them from either side. They had blunt noses that flared back to points at their sterns. Feln realized that these ships must have been built specifically for ramming. How odd! Feln thought as they picked up speed.

  “Those things, they’re gonna try to crush us!” he said.

  “On it!” Katashka answered. “Ion Twister!” Ganxeiter unsheathed its rapier and twirled its wrist quickly, keeping the tip of the sword aimed at the enemy coming at Katashka. A glowing tornado quickly formed around the twirling sword and Ganxeiter jabbed its arm forward in a quick thrust. The tornado leapt from the sword and shot at the alien ship, growing ever larger. It smashed into the ship’s nose, crushing it in before breaking through and leaving a giant hole from the ship’s bow to stern.

  Feln, who couldn’t help but watch with keen interest, turned to the ship coming his way. “Wave Slash!” Denxeiter slashed the blue arc of light from its sword that immediately sliced the oncoming ship in half. The two Space Knights shot away in opposite directions from the tumbling pieces of enemy ships that collided and exploded, and circled down on to what looked like an enemy cruiser— Denxeiter from the top, Ganxeiter from the bottom.

  They both jammed their swords into the hull of the ship and corkscrewed around the length in opposite directions. As they flew away at either end, the ship separated into spiral chunks and careened into another enemy ship; both ships erupted into a huge explosion.

  Feln and Katashka looped around again and met at the center of a large circle where they slammed their swords into an enemy “light cruiser” from either side (without knowing the full weapons capabilities and ranking of the alien ships, Feln decided to just think of them according to the closest approximation in size to Francescan ship classes). They flew in a circle around the ship splitting its hull in two halves. Each Space Knight grabbed a half and threw it at a different enemy ship.

  As they were rewarded with two more explosions from the ships meeting their ends, Feln was surprised at just how in synch he and Katashka were. The battle had grown quiet so Feln relaxed a moment. The window with Katashka on it had minimized to a very small thumbnail on his screen. He tapped the window to make it larger and looked at her. She had an expression of intense concentration and was scanning the area for more enemies.

  She was very pretty. No, Feln thought, not pretty… Sexy. Yes, she was no doubt attractive. But more than that, she just seemed very sexual. Maybe it was the predatory look in her eyes as she looked for enemies, or the way she lightly bit her lip while concentrating…

  And then she suddenly looked right at him and smiled. Feln quickly looked away, blushing. Oh dammit, he was actually blushing! If Aaltskog ever caught wind of this, he’d never live it down. He stammered. “So, uh, I wanted to ask, where’s your flagship?” Yeah, great cover, he cursed himself.

  “Yes, my flagship…of course.” Her smile grew larger and he suddenly couldn’t stop thinking of that mouth kissing him…and going down on him…and… Her eyebrows suddenly lifted in shock and her eyes seemed to pierce him before she settled into a coy expression.

  Feln’s embarrassment grew to horror. “Hey, what the hell is this? Are you reading my mind? That’s been against the law since the Treaty of Galarisa!”

  Katashka blinked and shook her head, “Errr…no, not technically. I’ll explain it to you later. It’s part of my Blessing. Or curse, maybe. Even so, you might want to watch your…signals, for lack of a better term.” She looked away. “It’s hard to tell through all of this, but I think my flagship is this way.” She flew off and he followed.

  What did she mean by “signals”? If she wasn’t reading his mind, then what? Obviously, this had something to do with how she was able to fight in such perfect synch with him despite the fact that they’d only known each other for about 45 minutes. Magic Blessings could manifest in very strange ways— they weren’t as cut and dry as technological Blessings. He wondered if his attraction to her was real, or a side effect of her Blessing as well. He’d already doubted himself for perhaps falling under the sway of the Nymph commander Achren— and now this, all in the same mission. Great.

  After passing some cruisers and destroyers, Katashka’s voice interrupted his thoughts, “I think I see it, Captain.” Through the gas and debris he started to make out a fleet carrier.

  Unlike the Tannhauser, which was a heavy assault type meant for direct action with a Hyper Battle Machine and one wing each of fighter planes and robots, a fleet carrier was much larger and built more for force projection. Thus, while the Tannhauser could dish out and take more punishment directly, its flight complement was rather small. A fleet carrier had virtually no armor and no direct offensive weaponry— but it was able to put five mixed flight wings in the air and could support up to three Hyper Battle Machines depending on their size and configuration.

  As they got closer, his screen identified the ship as “Heavy Fleet Space Carrier #16 Imperial Francescan Star Navy Uhlinder”. At over 200 years in service, the Uhlinder was one of the oldest ships in the Navy with a storied past and a record 72 battle stars.

  “Wow, the Uhlinder. Is your father an admiral or something to get such a choice assignment?” Feln asked, only half joking.

  “No, my father’s a mechanic. I guess I was jus
t lucky.”

  “You guys should be able to carry more Hyper Battle Machines. Where are the others?”

  “It’s just me. The other hangars are carrying supplies for the 101st Fleet.”

  “Ah. Too bad, we could really use more Machines like ours right now.”

  “Definitely.”

  Feln noticed that the Uhlinder was engulfed in a swarm of fighters and robots creating a defensive screen that had made the ship no doubt untouchable to enemies. The remains of destroyed alien ships floating around testified to that. Whatever battle had taken place near the Uhlinder was apparently over as it was quiet here. Maybe the enemy had stretched itself too thin fighting both this fleet and Feln’s.

  As they got closer, some of the fighters swooped out to greet them, no doubt surprised by Denxeiter’s arrival and wanting to take a look. Thanks to the lack of communications at a distance any farther than a few yards in this part of space, there was no way to signal ahead to let the Uhlinder and its protection know he was coming.

  An Alden robot in blue camouflage flew out and hovered close to Ganxeiter. A screen popped up with a girl who was obviously Katashka’s sister, with hair almost the same shade of green (It must be their natural hair color since I doubt they’d both dye it the same, Feln thought) and similar features. The screen’s title showed her name to be Lt. (jg) Valisia Nonn, confirming the obvious. Her expression at Feln’s presence was one of shock, but she saluted and said, “Welcome, Captain.”

  After Feln returned Valisia’s salute, Katashka said, “This is my sister, Valisia.” And then as if answering a question she’d been asked a hundred times said, “No, she hasn’t been Blessed.”

  Feln, who had been curious, but wouldn't have asked the question outright, nodded and said, “I see. Good to meet you! That’s a pretty hot Alden you’ve got there. An X type?”

  Valisia’s face lit up, but before she could say anything, Katashka said, “Yeah! She’s really good. She was one of the top pilots in her class. The duke who sponsored her entrance into the academy gave it to her for a job well done.”