The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1)

by Chris Dietzel

  “Maybe there’s use for you after all,” Morgan said.

  Occulus squeezed Vere’s hand and said something she couldn’t hear.

  “Don’t try to talk. We need to get you to a medic.”

  When he sighed, a strange gurgling noise came from his wound. That was when she knew he would die right there.

  “You have to find… the Green Knight,” he said.

  “This is no time for lectures. I don’t even know where he lives. I know this entire planet. There is no Green Chapel.”

  His eyes focused on her. He coughed. Then his eyelids drooped and she thought he was gone.

  “There is,” he said. His eyes closed and he stopped breathing.

  She squinted at him, not understanding. Off in the distance, feeling and sounding impossibly far away, her friends were shooting blasters into the trees, trying to flush out the bounty hunter that had done this.

  She thought he had already died when his eyelids opened once more and he whispered, “You spent your childhood there.”

  His eyes, which had been staring through her, now stared at nothing at all, becoming glassy and lifeless. His chin rolled to the side. His heart had stopped.

  “Occulus?”

  Her friend remained motionless. She waited for him to gasp for one more breath, to whisper another word and explain what he meant, but there was nothing.

  “Occulus,” she said, shaking him lightly.

  To her side, Fastolf and Morgan were still spraying the forest with laser blasts. Baldwin was shooting at a tree, waiting, then shooting at the next tree. A’la Dure was shooting the same tree trunk over and over until it collapsed. Leaves poured down all around them. Traskk was nowhere to be found.

  “Occulus,” she said again, closing her eyes.

  When she opened them, his lifeless face seemed perfectly at peace. She wiped her hand across his eyelids so they closed, then stood up. There would be time to bury him after the bounty hunter was dead.

  That was when the next cannon blast tore through the trees, destroying the fallen tree trunk next to her and sending splinters into everything nearby.

  41

  The Toaden watched everything going on below. Even though they thought they were protected, most of his targets were still completely out in the open as far as his shoulder cannon was concerned. Three of them were behind giant trees that would be turned into splinter bombs when his cannon ripped through them. The only thing keeping him from doing so was their annoying laser fire. It offered just enough worry to keep him attentive, making him focus on if and when he would have to jump out of the way of a lucky shot. He remained where he was, waiting for their blasters to lose their charge. As soon as they did, he would have an easy shot.

  Only the android, which he didn’t care about, knew how to stay safe. It was smart enough to turn off its primary systems so the Toaden’s sensors couldn’t find him. The Basilisk offered no threat either, but only because it had disappeared. The woman who was out in the open was the one who would make him rich when he killed her. Having the opportunity to kill a Basilisk, the natural enemy of Toadens for thousands of years, was enough to make the bounty hunter cricket with delight.

  With one of his long fingers, he touched a suction cup fingertip against the cannon to change the setting. Then he blinked, changing the screen that had lowered in front of his face from infrared to one of gray tones that could see through trees and everything else in a forest. Except for the rotten Basilisk, they were all there for the taking. He just had to wait for the annoying pests to stop firing their blasters all over the place.

  A shot landed four feet away from him, hurting his amphibian eyes with its intense light. He thought about hopping to another tree but even if they didn’t see him move they would see the branches swaying. The leaves would rustle. If his location was given away he would lose every advantage he had. Knowing he had all the time in the world, he waited.

  His primary target was still sitting on the ground, too stupid to realize she was talking to a dead man. The Toaden laughed at the ease of this kill. To think he was going to be paid a fortune for killing someone who refused to try and hide.

  He noticed the succession of shots by the woman and the heavy-set man was beginning to slow down. Their blasters were losing their charges. He crouched back into firing position, his thick hind legs keeping him facing forward, then coordinated his cannon to be in sync with the target he designated on the screen in front of him.

  There was a rustling of leaves by his feet but there had been twigs and leaves scattering everywhere due to the lasers streaking everywhere, and so he ignored it.

  The light on his shoulder cannon changed from red to yellow.

  The next two things that happened occurred at almost the exact same time. One was the Toaden pressing the trigger to send another blast of cannon fire down toward his targets. The other was the clawed hand of an extremely angry Basilisk reaching up and tearing the bounty hunter out of the tree.

  42

  It had taken Traskk longer than he wanted to get to the Toaden. It hadn’t been because he needed to look for the filthy creature; he could smell the thing from half a mile away. After repeated attempts to warn a distracted Vere, he decided to kill the thing by himself. It had taken a while, though, because he needed to circle out wide enough to make sure the alien forgot about him and wouldn’t notice him approaching from the side. If he had darted away from the group without cause it would have looked suspicious, so for the first few hundred feet, he lumbered away from the others as if looking for a snack. To add to the delay, as he got closer to the Toaden he was delayed by having to duck for cover as Morgan’s, Fastolf’s, and the others’ errant shots went sailing past his snout and fangs.

  Once he was at the base of the tree where the Toaden was positioned, all of that patience was forgotten. Traskk’s natural venomous hatred for Toadens got the better of him and without thinking about his own safety, he pushed his legs and tail against the ground, thrusting upward, leaping three stories in the air. At the peak of his jump, he wrapped his hand around the Toaden’s filthy foot and ripped it out of the tree. Right as he did, a blast of cannon fire shot out of the bounty hunter’s shoulder pack, toward the spot where Vere and the others had been.

  Even before he landed back on the ground, a noxious odor filled Traskk’s lungs and his long tongue hung out of his mouth as he gagged. Toaden venom. At its worst, it caused severe burns and even death. At its best, it stunk like a pile of foul trash. This Toaden’s venom was somewhere in the middle. It wasn’t burning Traskk’s flesh off where he had touched the creature, but it was bad enough to make the reptile retch and momentarily lose track of the bounty hunter.

  If asked, the Toaden would say the toxin was a defense mechanism. Traskk, though, knew it for what it was: a scared alien losing control of its bodily functions. He was even more angry knowing the filthy creature’s juices were on his hand than he was when he sensed it was getting ready to ambush them.

  When he roared, the yell echoed through the entire forest, causing a flock of speckled wands to fly off into the sky.

  A burst of laser fire erupted next to him. The Toaden was back in the trees, shooting at Traskk with a handheld blaster that fired quicker than the shoulder cannon but also had less power.

  Traskk leapt up toward it, but the creature immediately hopped to the next tree. When Traskk jumped toward that one, the bounty hunter hopped to the next one, turning just quickly enough to fire off three more shots that all sailed past the Basilisk.

  Although he could climb just as high as the Toaden could jump, Traskk knew he couldn’t do it as fast, and so rather than follow the Toaden from tree branch to tree branch, he acted like he was going to jump toward the Toaden, waited to see which direction the bounty hunter was going, then ran across the ground to the tree and slammed his massive tail against its base. The tail smacked with such force that the tree trunk cracked and the entire thing began to fall toward the ground.

&nbs
p; By the time it landed, though, the Toaden was gone, hopping from one tree top to another, all the while sending off bursts of laser fire back at Traskk. From tree to tree, the giant reptile slammed his tail against the trunks, snapping the smaller ones and causing quakes up the larger ones.

  “Just one?”

  Traskk looked behind him. Vere was there, looking up at the trees. Behind her, Morgan was also approaching. He growled an affirmative and glanced at where the Toaden was now perched. A spray of blaster shots hit the ground near their feet, causing them to jump to the side.

  Traskk told her to shoot the trees as he tried to narrow the bounty hunter’s radius, but Vere held up a hand.

  “I have a better idea,” she said, withdrawing the Meursault blade from its sheath.

  Looking up at the trees for a sign of the bounty hunter that had killed her friend, she let out a yell and wound back her hands. The invisible blade slashed through the air, leaving a yellow-orange trail of air behind it. A blade that was so thin it couldn’t be seen, a blade that could easily slice through metal and stone, had no problem cutting through even the thickest trees.

  In one stroke, the sword sliced down a pair of large trees. Both began to fall. But she was still running. The next swing brought with it another leaf-colored slash of air and another two large trees falling to the ground. Another slash, another set of trees downed. In a matter of seconds—the colored vapor dissipating where the sword had cut through the air—half a dozen trees were down and a clearing had been created. Best of all, the Toaden hadn’t been able to jump from the trees quickly enough to get away. After jumping from one tree that was falling to another that was also falling, he missed a step and went crashing to the ground, where a tree landed on top of his V-shaped legs, not only crushing his feet but also trapping him in place.

  The bounty hunter, which had shot a hole through Occulus’s chest and killed him, had put up a good fight against Traskk. Now, though, he gave a pitiful, wailing cry as it tried to free itself from under the tree.

  “Ribbettttt,” it croaked over and over, disgusting Traskk to no end.

  When it saw Traskk and Vere approaching, it looked for its blaster, saw it was too far away to reach, saw too that its shoulder cannon had been destroyed, and then let out an even louder cry.

  “Ribbbettttt!”

  The noise made Traskk growl from deep within his throat.

  Vere put a hand on his shoulder to keep him from moving forward and, the Meursault sword hanging from her other hand, said, “He killed Occulus.”

  Traskk growled something back at her.

  And with that she gave the Toaden one last look, sheathed her sword, and turned back to find the others. As she walked away, she heard the bounty hunter make one last series of croaking wails, heard Traskk growl, then the sounds of arms being ripped off, fangs tearing flesh from bone, and an angry Basilisk finally getting its vengeance.

  As she approached her group, she saw Baldwin crouched overtop Occulus even though he was dead and nothing could be done. Part of her wanted to run up and push him away from her friend. Part of her wanted to yell toward the sky until every bounty hunter with plans to kill her knew exactly where she was. Better to face all of them at once than be hunted across the entire planet.

  Baldwin saw her approach and stepped back from Occulus’s remains. Fastolf, for once, knew not to joke or try to make light of the situation. Pistol stood aside, perfectly still, eyes dim, until called upon to do something else. A’la Dure sat on a fallen tree trunk, her eyes closed.

  “Is it dead?” Morgan said, referring to the bounty hunter.

  Vere nodded, then got on her knees and began moving away all the leaves in front of her.

  “I apologize, Vere,” Pistol said. “There is so much life around us in these forests that my sensors couldn’t detect one as being a threat.”

  “It’s fine, Pistol,” Vere said, still moving dirt away from one spot of the ground. “I understand.”

  “What are you doing?” Morgan asked.

  “We have to bury him.”

  “We don’t have time.”

  When Vere ignored her and began moving dirt away, Morgan said, “Pistol, how much longer to the capital?”

  The android’s eyes brightened. “Four days and six hours.”

  “You see?” Morgan said to Vere. “We need to go right now. We can’t wait.”

  “She’s right,” Baldwin said meekly, refusing to make eye contact with Vere when she looked at him.

  Vere paused in her digging, then stood up. “We at least need to burn his body. It’s the least he deserves. We can’t just leave him here to rot.”

  “And signal every bounty hunter exactly where you are? Fastolf, tell her she’s not making any sense.”

  But the joker of the group kept silent, refusing to say anything.

  Morgan said, “Pistol, how many ships are in the area?”

  “Seven. No, another just arrived. Eight.”

  “And how many are friendly?”

  “Please rephrase.”

  “How many are CasterLan ships?”

  “None.”

  “There? You see?” Morgan said. She put a hand on Vere’s back, gently urging her forward, but Vere turned and smacked her hand away. Face to face with Morgan, she raised a fist. The two women glared at each other on either side of Occulus’s body.

  Baldwin shook his head and said, “Not like this. This is the last thing he would have wanted.”

  “I know you’ll hate me for saying it,” Morgan said, “but he would have wanted you to get back and prevent the war more than anything else. The last thing he would have wanted was for you to get there late because of him. You know I’m right. If you hate me for saying it, hate me later, but right now, we have to go.”

  Vere looked down at her friend’s face. He looked completely at peace there on the ground. Already, some of the leaves she had pushed away were creeping back toward his body each time the breeze came through. Soon, he would be completely covered under yellow and orange by the Forest of Tears.

  “Fine,” she said, turning in the direction of CamaLon and everything she had once run from.

  As she walked, though, she couldn’t help but imagine her old friend as yet another sad spirit floating through the forest for eternity. The thought made her eyes burn, and she made sure to walk ahead of everyone else so they couldn’t see her face.

  43

  Above Edsall Dark, at the Tevis-84 portal, a convention of sorts was taking place. Bounty hunters from all around the galaxy had heard about the price put on Vere CasterLan’s head and had raced through three, four, or five connecting portals in order to arrive here and have a chance to be the one to kill her. Bounty hunters from as far as the Twi-Nik-Die sector arrived in a matter of minutes because they jumped from a portal there to a portal in the Vonnegan Empire to the PlunkTon portal to the Tevis-84 and just like that they had gone from one side of the galaxy to the other, all for a chance to get rich.

  A Cig-Non attack vessel, slower than most bounty hunters would prefer but heavily armored to withstand surprise attacks, appeared through the portal and was immediately attacked by a Ting-9 fighter that didn’t want the competition. The Cig-Non’s armor absorbed the barrage of blaster fire sent at it, then returned its own assault. The Ting-9 fighter, although fast, couldn’t outrun the Cell-missile sent its way. It disintegrated into hundreds of unrecognizable parts, leaving the Cig-Non to fall toward the planet’s surface.

  A pair of modified ion-chargers sent proton torpedoes at a bounty hunter whose ship was entering Edsall Dark’s atmosphere on its way to find Vere. The ion-chargers were a favorite ship of bounty hunters because of their speed, but they carried limited firepower. Even so, halfway to the planet’s surface, one of their proton torpedoes found its mark and the ship that had possessed the head start erupted into flames before breaking into ten different parts.

  Every ship that tried to make its way to the planet’s surface had to fend off three o
ther ships trying to do the same thing. There were no allegiances. No teams banding together. To do so would violate the bounty hunter’s code.

  Ships of all sizes and types sent blaster fire and bombs at one another on their way toward the Forest of Tears.

  Just before finding a spot to land, a Lerrk bounty hunter had to fend off a pair of automated Twin-Turbo-Basel fighters, each piloted by an android. This was particularly infuriating for the Lerrk because it meant the person trying to get rich off of the kill was probably already wealthy and had chosen to remain safely at home instead of enter the battle himself. Rather than land, the Lerrk was forced to turn his vessel around, send a cluster of gravity bombs toward the pair of ships, then began attacking another ship that had appeared through the portal and was making its way toward the forest.

  No CasterLan ships departed from CamaLon to fend off the bounty hunters. Nor did any dash across the fields and into the woods in an attempt to find Vere and her companions.

  44

  “We need to talk,” Morgan said.

  Vere stepped over a fallen tree, then ducked under a large branch before answering, “I’m not in the mood for conversation.”

  Behind her, a man she had called a friend, a man who had sat beside her for six years, enjoying jokes and making toasts, lay dead on the ground, not even buried with a marker. She promised herself that if she did get through this, as improbable as that seemed, she would return, find Occulus’s body, and give him the proper burial he deserved.

  They had walked for another eight hours without significant rest. Every two hours they stopped to refill their canteens with whichever source of fresh water they could find, but they never sat down because they all knew that if they did, it would be torture to force themselves back up to their tired feet again. Not only that, but any unnecessary delay would make their chances of getting back to CamaLon in time even less likely.