Feln knew the Black Hole Cannons could only be fired once per battle. Their ammunition was so expensive and hard to produce that only the Emperor’s own battleship, the Byzantia, was able to fire its Black Hole Cannons three times per battle. The Weiß Speer also carried a Planet Smasher that could be fired indefinitely, but like its smaller cousin, the Wave Blaster, it had to recharge between firings. As near as Feln could tell, the weapon hadn’t been used once in this battle. Siegfried was fighting the enemy the old fashioned way: with beam cannons and torpedoes.
“That is one tough ship,” Aaltskog said. “They haven’t even scratched her, while they’re all on fire.”
“Yeah, the battle’s gonna be over before we can even do this simple stuff,” Feln said.
The Hephaestus looked like a giant beetle— the main reason for its appearance was that the Hyper Battle Machine hangars were all oriented vertically along the length of the ship, unlike the hangar on the Tannhauser that was oriented horizontally. The hangars were also made to be able to accommodate bigger Hyper Battle Machines than Denxeiter. This combined with the vertical nature of the hangars made the ship almost as tall as it was wide. As the doors to Hangar Four opened under the massive carrier’s hull, Feln was struck by how spacious it was inside.
“You could fit two Big Brothers in here,” Aaltskog breathed.
As the hangar doors closed under Denxeiter, a landing pad folded down from one of the walls and Feln received an all clear signal to land. He did so and the Hephaestus’ maintenance crews immediately got to work. Workers of all manner of race with various types of equipment to aid in their tasks appeared from doors in the hangar’s wall.
“Hello, Captain,” Pren’s image reappeared on Feln’s screen. “Please give us the allotted time to complete our jobs.”
“Roger,” Feln said and got up to stretch his legs. Aaltskog piped the signal in from one of the Hephaestus’ external cameras so they could keep up with the battle outside. She then got up out her seat too and yawned, stretching out her arms above her. She absently wiped the dried blood from her cheeks that had come from her eyes. They used the opportunity to hold each other for a long moment before sitting down on the bed in Denxeiter’s cabin.
“We might actually make it out of this,” Feln said. Muffled sounds and vibrations from the service crew doing their work could be heard in the background.
“Looks like it.”
“So where do you want to get married?” Feln asked.
Aaltskog sighed, “It’s so nice to talk about that when we’re not about to head into the jaws of certain death.”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“No, it was actually very tragically romantic. And you know I’m a sucker for that kinda thing. I was being all snarky about your timing, but it actually really was perfect.”
“I aim to please.”
She leaned in and kissed him. “I don’t know where I want to get married. Maybe back home? Somewhere near the water. There was that little church.”
“The place my parents were married.”
“Yeah, how about that? Keep some kind of continuity going.”
“Sounds like a plan. And don’t worry, I’ll get you a ring. It has to be something pretty special.”
“Yeah, don’t get me some typical thing with a big dumb rock on it.”
“You sure? I’ve got a lot of backpay and nothing else I can think of to spend it on.”
“I’m positive. You know that’s not my style.” She indicated her uniform. “Then again, this isn’t really my style either, so who knows? It’s growing on me.”
“Yeah.”
“So what did go on inside the Resonance?”
“Oh man, I’m gonna have to tell you about it when all this is over. I’m gonna get about 1/20 into it and it’ll be time to go back out into battle.”
“Okay.”
“Just know that I found out some pretty profound stuff and you’re at the center of most of it.”
“No pressure.”
“Nope.”
Just then, a signal sounded from the cockpit.
“See, told ya there wouldn't be enough time to explain,” he said.
“Then lets get this battle over with as quickly as possible.”
“Yeah, if there’s even anything left to fight.”
They walked back into the cockpit to find Pren on the screen. “Captain, Companion,” she said. “The work you requested has been completed."
Feln and Aaltskog strapped back into their seats. “Excellent,” Feln said.
“When the battle is over, the Space Knight Commandant would like for you to come back to the Academy with us.” Pren said. Feln looked over his shoulder at Aaltskog who shrugged.
“Uh, we’d like to come back with the Tannhauser if possible,” Feln said. “Could you please pass that on to the Commandant?”
“I’m sorry, sir, the Commandant’s orders were explicit.”
Feln sighed, “Alright, fine.” He looked again at Aaltskog who pantomimed shooting herself with a gun.
“Very good, sir. I’ll relay your decision to the Commandant. I’m sure he’ll be most pleased.”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, we’re now ready for launch. Please remember that unlike the ship you’ve been assigned to recently, you’ll be dropped downwards from the hangar doors you came in.”
“Roger.”
“Happy hunting, Captain. Launch will occur in 5…4…3…2…1. Launching!”
The floor dropped out from under Denxeiter and they were off again.
“Ironically, I think we’re better off staying away from the other Machines,” Feln said. “They seem to have their own thing going.” He watched as the three of them continued their path of destruction.
“Yeah, they weren’t very chatty with us,” Aaltskog agreed. “Maybe they’re too much in awe. I think they’re all younger than us. Their Machines are newer than ours after all, even if they’re all over fifty years old.”
As they were talking, Feln flew into a group of insects and started blasting away at them with Denxeiter’s new pistol. It wasn’t as powerful as the makeshift gun he’d been using, but it was more than enough for destroying the smaller enemies. Its fast rate of fire meant that he racked up multiple kills very quickly.
“Yeah, well, they’d better be in awe of us,” Feln said grinning. “Bunch of kids…”
A giant flash of light behind them made Feln jump. He was too busy shooting at more enemies to see what it was.
Answering his unspoken question, Aaltskog said, “The Weiß Speer just destroyed one of the enemy super ships. And I think she’s about to—“ Another huge flash lit up the battlefield. “—finish off another,” she completed.
Feln shook his head and smiled. “The Prince is doing all of this with just good old fashioned brute force. It’s gonna be interesting when he becomes Emperor.”
A few enemy ships the size of corvettes inserted themselves into Feln’s battle with the insects. Having a new set of drones, he launched them at the newcomers and got back to the business of killing his original targets. He kept one eye on the drones as they darted around the small ships automatically and fired at them from multiple angles before zipping to new positions to fire from. The enemy ships never got a chance to lock on to the drones’ positions before they were gone and firing from a new spot. They were soon overwhelmed and exploding. But more ships were coming to take their place along with some heavier ships.
Feln started splitting his time firing between insects and ships. As he dived on the larger ships getting into destroyer and light cruiser size, his fight was starting to get more ferocious. He noticed that in his zeal, he’d split off from the Francescan fleet and was deeper in the enemy fleet than he’d originally planned to be.
“We need to start moving back to friendlier skies,” he said.
“Yeah, but they’re kind of surrounding us,” Aaltskog said. “Our way back is getting closed off.”
“
Well, we’ve seen worse.” He had the drones cover him as he kept shooting at the nearest ship in the light cruiser size range. He quickly holstered the pistol for the makeshift bigger gun, using the Den Aegis to block incoming shots as he did so. Thank God for a new, fully working shield, he thought. He aimed the larger gun at the ship and fired, bursting the ship’s shield, then again, destroying the ship entirely. He aimed the gun straight up and fired at a corvette diving from above. The ship burst into flames and exploded. Feln flew up through the explosion and repeated the multiple shots on another nearby light cruiser. That ship exploded too.
“Maybe we should call for help,” Aaltskog said as a couple of ships the size of heavy cruisers started to get into the fray.
“Nah, we’ll get out of here,” he said. “The last thing I want to do is look weak in front of those other Space Knights.”
“I hear you there,” Aaltskog agreed, “but we’re still doing our thing with a heavily wounded Machine. I don’t think anybody would blame us.”
Feln shot toward the nearest large ship, firing the big gun all the way. He dodged its return fire and kept shooting until the enemy’s shields burst. He quickly holstered the gun and pulled out Ganxeiter’s sword, jamming it into the gun bays and making them explode as he had done to the big ships during Resonance. The ship started to get wracked from internal explosions until the entire thing blew up.
“That may be so, but I’m not about to give up my cool, lone-wolf-tough-guy image just yet,” he said, watching the explosion with satisfaction.
“The lone wolf that has his fiancee along with him in the backseat,” Aaltskog said with a laugh.
“True, but it’s still just one actual Machine,” he said. He pulled out the pistol again and blew away some more insects as he slowly made his way back to the fleet.
“Oh, so it’s not so much that you’re the lone tough guy, as it is Denxeiter,” Aaltskog chastised.
“Silence, Mechanism,” Feln said. A couple more enemies exploded from Feln’s shooting. One of the drones finally got hit in the crossfire and exploded, but the other three kept on confounding their enemies and more ships exploded.
“The carbon-based life form is showing emotion. I believe it is called…anger,” Aaltskog said in another robotic voice before laughing.
“The carbon-based life form is going to choke the Mechanical life form when we get back from this,” Feln returned.
“Once again, you say all the right things to make me so hot,” she replied. “You know how being rough turns me on. Punish me, baby!”
Feln rolled his eyes just before lining up another shot and destroying more enemies. They were almost out of the pocket of enemies and back to the fleet. To his left rear, he saw the space begin to shimmer. Great, more enemies. Sure enough, a new large enemy ship appeared, but this one was different than any of the other ones he’d seen. It was tall and cylindrical, like a floating tower.
And then it ceased to exist when a few of the royal super battleships all opened fire at once and the ship was completely vaporized. Feln and Aaltskog burst into laughter.
“That poor bastard,” Feln said. “He got here just in time to die before he knew what hit him.”
“I guess the Prince must have ordered those royals away from him and over here to help this part of the fleet,” Aaltskog said.
“Probably,” Feln agreed. “After he singlehandedly blew away two of their super ships, he must have figured he didn't need them covering him.” As if to underscore the point, the third and final ship the Weiß Speer was fighting exploded, leaving the Francescan flagship alone with the exception of some smaller enemy ships that were also quickly destroyed.
Feln had used the confusion caused by the destruction of the enemy ships to punch through the last bit of enemies in his way and return to the safety of the Francescan fleet battle line.
“There, see? We got out by ourselves,” he said.
“Never doubted ya for a minute, my dear.”
Four more enemy ships jumped in like the previous one and two were dispatched in the same way by the royals. The other two were also duly obliterated, along with the remainder of the group of enemies Feln had been fighting, but not before they each disgorged eight smaller ships. As the new ships flew toward the Francescan fleet at breakneck speed with the fading light from the explosions of their motherships behind them, Feln realized they weren't ships at all.
“It’s more of those damn space monsters like what was inside the colony wreckage,” Feln said.
The hail of firepower from the Francescan fleet destroyed five of the things, but the rest managed to dart between shots and were soon flying in among the fleet.
“And these are actually a lot bigger,” Feln realized. “They must be full grown.”
Indeed, the creatures were almost twice the size of what Feln had fought, which was already much bigger than Denxeiter. These things were almost the size of battleships, but their speed and maneuverability was just as fast as the smaller one Feln killed.
The Francescans moved to keep their battle line strong against the exterior enemy forces, while shifting to also fire at the new enemies that were now wreaking havoc inside the fleet. For the first time since this battle started, the enemy was starting to score significant hits on the Francescans and various cruisers began to explode from the beams the creatures fired. Some of them flew along and scooped up multiple Aldens in their massive mouths before clamping down their giant teeth and grinding the robots apart.
Feln had been trying to keep up and chase the things down and couldn’t help but think of large aquatic creatures that ate by intaking vast amounts of plankton as he watched the enemies do almost the same to the Aldens. He fired his pistol at one trying to get its attention and thought maybe he'd made a mistake when the thing turned and started to come after him.
“Hang on!” he said, as he pulled out Ganxeiter’s sword and shot into the thing’s mouth before it had a chance to chomp down on Denxeiter’s body. Its mouth closed behind him and it was dark inside. Denxeiter was thrown around as the creature writhed trying to kill the Hyper Battle Machine in its body. Feln started stabbing at the inner walls of the monster’s body, but Ganxeiter’s sword couldn’t pierce the tough scaly flesh very well.
“Uh, what were you trying to do with this maneuver?” Aaltskog finally asked after Feln hadn't made much headway.
“Well, you know, I managed to really hurt the last one from inside,” he said through clenched teeth just before getting slammed against the opposite wall. “But I’m realizing two things: then I had Durandal with the Wave Slash, and that one was still young. This one’s an adult and I think its stomach is a lot tougher.” He pulled out the big gun and started firing. He was rewarded with some holes blown into the sides of the thing’s stomach and a scream emanated from deeper inside the its body. “At least now we’re getting somewhere.”
Light came in as the creature opened its mouth and reached in with two of its arms to pull Denxeiter out as if a person might try to dislodge a piece of food stuck in his back teeth. The claws on the ends of the arms jerked Denxeiter out into the light roughly and swung it around before trying to pull the robot in half. A deep creaking sound could be heard from somewhere inside Denxeiter as its spine was stretched to its near limit.
Feln shot at the thing’s eyes and as some of them exploded into ooze, the grip lessened and Feln was able to extricate Denxeiter. Just as he was almost away to safety, one of the other arms suddenly grabbed Denxeiter’s foot and started to pull it back in.
Two high intensity red beams shot out from behind Feln and rotated around the circumference of the monster’s head, blowing out the rest of its eyes. It screamed again and let Denxeiter go as its arms instinctively went to protect its “face”. Gunship G-799 had arrived and continued to pour fire at the enemy’s head. The monster started to try to escape and blindly fly off, but the brief pause in its flight had given any nearby Francescans time to create a crossfire. The thing was pier
ced by beams from all sides and with a final scream was sliced into immense chunks of meat.
Vonnen’s face appeared on Feln’s screen. “Are you okay, Captain?”
“Yes, thanks a million for the save,” Feln breathed.
“Of course, it was my pleasure.”
Feln watched as the other gunships chased after another of the creatures in the distance, the speedy little Francescans keeping up while blasting out chunks from the enemy’s body. He noticed Vonnen watching too.
“Ah, sorry for holding you up,” Feln said. “I’ll let you get back to it. Thanks again.” He saluted.
“Happy hunting, sir,” Vonnen said, returning Feln’s salute and G-799 blasted off to join its compatriots.
As Feln thought of the gunships sticking together, he started to wonder about the other Hyper Battle Machines. He had grown so used to not being able to rely on sensors and navigational equipment that he forgot it was now easy enough to find them. As he located them on his screen Aaltskog said, “Having second thoughts about going it alone?”
“I was just thinking that against these things, Hyper Battle Machines are some of the best weapons we have,” he answered. We should probably stick together until we kill all the monsters.”
“Good point.”
Feln found them and took off in their direction, passing various destroyed Francescan ships along the way. He was annoyed to come across the dead remains of only one of the enemies. “These things… I hope there aren't many more, because they're the real killers.”
As he found the other Hyper Battle Machines, he saw them engaged in battle with five of the alien monsters. He was encouraged by what he saw. Two of the aliens were dead, ripped apart by laser beam fire and other, more physical means. He soon saw those physical means at work as he saw Maksinder using two of its giant fists to punch the teeth out of one of the creatures, while its other two hands gouged out some of the monster’s eyes. The monster’s own arms had been torn out of their sockets. Feln was impressed at Maksinder’s strength considering how much bigger the aliens were than the Hyper Battle Machines. The alien’s arms were longer than Maksinder was tall, and yet somehow Maksinder actually seemed to be stronger.
Francescan War Chronicles 1: Space Knight Denxeiter Page 34
