Space Knight

by Samuel E. Green

  My forearm muscles cramped as I opened and closed my fists. Every part of me wanted to leap on top of Neville and strangle him. The only thing stopping me was thinking of the sorcerer’s potential punishments.

  I was in Neville’s pocket now, and he was a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

  I set my alarm for 5:55 and slept until then. Once I was back awake, I opened my strongbox and took the communicator out. When Polgar called, I relayed everything I’d learned today except for the information about the gauntlets. I still didn’t want to arouse any suspicion surrounding Casey. I figured the gauntlets were probably some side project she and her Grandpa Joseph had taken up.

  “Do not lose Olav for a moment while on Tachion,” Polgar reiterated. “I suspect you only need to watch him, and we’ll have our evidence.”

  I ended the call and slipped into bed. The twins were asleep, and Neville’s snoring seemed genuine this time.

  I was juggling so many moving parts, and I was only one mistake away from them all tumbling to the floor.

  If I didn’t succeed, then I’d be kicked out of the RTF. Mom needed me.

  I couldn’t fail her.

  Chapter 13

  “Thanks for agreeing to help me sort the enchantry!” Casey said with a grin.

  When the enchantress spoke with me earlier today, I’d agreed to help her sort through some boxes if she repaired my prot-belt and longsword. Although I would have helped her anyway since I enjoyed the beautiful redhead’s company.

  I smiled at the enchantress and tried to ignore the searing pain in my head. I rubbed my temples with my thumbs to ease the throbbing. I’d thrown up for over an hour this morning, and I never wanted to drink another beer again.

  “Are you sure you’re okay? We can do this some other time.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I said, my voice dull in my own ears. I walked toward one of the anchoring stations and bumped into a three-meter long cylindrical object in the middle of the shop. It was shaped like a cannon with a ten-inch barrel. I crept around it and sat in one of the anchoring stations. “I only need a minute.”

  After frowning at me for a few seconds, the red-haired woman sighed and crossed the length of the enchantry to the cabinets beside the semi-circle bench. I couldn’t concentrate for long enough to ask her what she was doing, and I tried to ignore the rattling noises as she searched through the metal shelves for something. Every bang ignited a searing pain behind my left eye while the fluorescent ceiling lights only increased my hangover’s severity.

  “Found them!” Casey came back to me and planted three multicolored pills into my right hand. Runes were imprinted on the faces of each tablet, and I recognized them as particularly strong inhibitors of pain receptors. Not the kind of enchanted medicine to be imbibed lightly.

  “I’m alright, truly.” I tried to hand them back to her, but she refused.

  “They’re super powerful. Technically, we’re not meant to use them for hangovers. But I’m guessing you don’t drink much from the fact that you look half-dead. Besides, I need your help. If you’re going to be any good to me today, then you’re gonna swallow them.”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s my own fault for getting drunk. I’ll deal with the pain.” I pulled her right-hand open and dropped the enchanted drugs into her palm.

  “I don’t want you moping around all day because you have a little headache,” she said.

  “Fair enough. You have some water?”

  She went to the workbench and returned with a jug. I swallowed every last drop of water and then fought to keep it down. My headache was still there, but I refused to whine about it all day when I had work to do.

  The enchantress grabbed the empty jug from me. “Feel better?”

  “Actually, I do.” I was mostly telling the truth, but I imagined I’d sleep for a good twelve hours once the day was over.

  “Good. Because you have a lot of work to do.” She grinned and pointed at a three meter high and seven-meter wide stack of iron crates. “I need you to take out anything that’s Squire class and put them in a pile. Zac’s going to come by later with a bunch of servitors. They’ll transport them to the armory to be dismantled.”

  “You don’t dismantle the equipment here?”

  “Nah,” Casey replied. I got the feeling there was something she wasn’t telling me. Looking around, I didn’t see a dismantling station anywhere else in the shop. Curiously, there was an absence in one section of the bench. I couldn’t remember seeing one in the armory, but then I hadn’t exactly been looking for one when I’d killed the pirates.

  “You have any more questions?” Casey prodded. “Because I’m thinking you’re stalling. Get to it, Squire.” She winked at me.

  Smiling, I went to work on the crates. Most of the weapons were no longer useful, their runes degenerated to the point where they couldn’t be repaired. I was surprised at the sheer amount of unusable equipment and guessed the Stalwart must have purchased them from a retiring ship. Selling old gear wasn’t exactly lawful because of the Caledonian Kingdom’s strict legislation regarding the correct disposal of Runetech, but I didn’t really expect anything less from a starship like the Stalwart.

  I could have done with a few upgrades, but none of the squire equipment I went through was functional. The Dust could be utilized, however, so this was still an important job. I went to work with gusto and hoped Casey would notice.

  Most of the items I could class-identify with a glance, but the few times I couldn’t, I scanned it with my prot-belt. My systems were able to access the Kingdom’s itinerary without any issue, but the belt still couldn’t emit a prot-field. At least it would be fixed after I finished helping Casey organize the old gear.

  The enchantress hunched over the bench while I worked. Her sleek back was always obscuring my vision so I couldn’t see exactly what she was doing.

  A Dust-drill buzzed in her right hand as she traced the runes. Normally intricate rune work required a closer look, but the magnifying monitor above her was switched off. I guessed she didn’t want me to see the piece of equipment she was drilling.

  “What are you working on?” I asked her. I knew it wasn’t my longsword because the weapon was lying on the other side of the bench.

  “You trying to come up with a reason for a break?” Casey’s white teeth flashed a sly smile. “Keep working, Nick. You can take a rest once you’re done.”

  I caught a glimpse of the Master-class gauntlets in her goggles’ reflection as she put down the drill and grabbed a smaller one.

  Casey had boasted about the special items when I’d first met her, and now she was keeping them hidden from me.

  I could count three main secrets I was determined to get to the bottom of. One was these gauntlets, the second was what had really happened on Brigantes, and the final secret was the armory’s strange door. They were all related somehow, and I was sure the meaning behind them would be of great importance to Duke Barnes and the Queen.

  While my mind tried to figure a way to tie the three secrets into some sensical narrative, Zac entered the workshop.

  The artilleryman grinned at me as he made his way to the pile of squire gear. “Heard you’ve had a bit of a rough morning,” he said.

  “I feel better now. Does the captain always give his briefings while the crew is drunk?”

  “Not all the time. The crew needed a drink.” Zac crouched, picked up an axe, and swivelled it in his hand. His expression turned dark, and he swallowed before speaking again. “We lost a lot of our crew in the pirate attack. Me? I’m lucky to be alive. If it weren’t for you, I would be dead.”

  I didn’t really know how to respond. The only other person whose life I’d saved had been Ludas Barnes, and he hadn’t exactly shown me much gratefulness. Thankfully, Casey saved me from saying something stupid.

  “Nick’s finished organizing the squire gear,” she said to Zac. “It’s all here for you to take to the armory.”

  “Any reason why you don’t have
a dismantling station in the workshop?” I asked.

  “Uhh . . . there’s not enough space in here,” Zac said in a jumble of words.

  “Really?” I made a point of looking at the empty section along the bulkhead where a dismanting station should have been, but I didn’t get an answer.

  “I can help you take the equipment there,” I said to Zac. “It’s the place with the weird door, right?”

  “Ah . . .” Zac’s head snapped toward Casey. I’d seen him confront a room full of pirates without batting an eye, yet my question made him blanch like a frightened child.

  Something was up.

  “Yeah,” Casey said in an indifferent tone that seemed forced. “That’s the one. But you can’t help. You’ve gotta hang around here so I can fix your longsword and prot-belt. Besides, Zac’s got the servitors to give him a hand.”

  Zac punched some keys on this prot-belt, and the servitors entered the room. The artilleryman started tossing the gear into the servitors’ containers.

  My amusement at Casey’s craftiness vanished when I realized I wasn’t going to get any straight answers. I’d not been part of the crew for very long, so I probably needed to earn their trust before they were willing to divulge any of the crew’s secrets.

  Their reticence was understandable, but Polgar expected new information every day. I could only stall for so long before the sorcerer would realize I was hiding things from him. Making him mad and getting kicked out of the RTF was one thing, but if insurrectionists were on the Stalwart, then my duty to the Queen meant asking my friends tough questions.

  “So what’s behind the door in the armory?” I asked them plainly. “You obviously don’t want me in there because of whatever is behind that door.”

  “Uhh . . .” Zac swivelled from me to Casey, and his mouth was a big black hole of indecision.

  The redheaded woman sighed. “It’s off-the-books. None of us know what’s in there except the captain’s inner circle.”

  “And what about the dismantler?” I asked.

  “We can tell you honestly that we don’t know why the captain ordered the dismanter to be taken to the armory,” Zac said.

  I studied the artilleryman, and he appeared to be telling the truth. “Can you tell me what you do know?”

  “I’d rather not,” Zac said. “Besides, you’re better off not knowing anything. If shit hits the fan, better to be ignorant.”

  “Ignorant of what?” I pressed. “What’s happening on the ship?”

  Zac seemed unhappy with the current state of the Stalwart, and I figured getting an answer out of him would be hard but not impossible. Except Casey glared at him before I could ask any more questions, and the artilleryman walked away to load equipment into the servitors.

  I looked at Casey for some answers, but she turned away as well, resuming her work on the bench.

  What the hell was going on? Was this confirmation the crew were insurrectionists? Maybe not. The dismantler might have been moved to the armory to give the enchanters more space to work. After all, there was a giant cannon in the middle of the enchantry.

  The dismantler’s absence wasn’t too big of a mystery, but the door in the armory definitely was. Elle had said she would check the point clerk’s database for the runes on the doorframe. Maybe she’d discovered something by now. I’d meet with her as soon as I was done here.

  I didn’t broach the subject again while I helped the artilleryman load the equipment. Casey and Zac seemed far too tight-lipped for the moment. Pressing too far might mean losing the germinating friendships with the artilleryman and enchantress.

  “Keep your head down,” Zac said to me as he laid a chest piece into the servitor. “You’re only a squire, and I’m just an artilleryman. The Space Knights will be the ones who run into trouble if the RTF gets word.”

  “Word of what?” I whispered while keeping an eye on Casey to make sure she wouldn’t overhear. “What’s really going on here?” I figured asking Zac whether there were insurrectionists on board the starship might be playing my hand too fast.

  “I can’t tell you, man. I barely know myself. You should hope you don’t get promoted too quickly.” Zac shut the lid on the final servitor’s loader, pressed a series of buttons on his prot-belt, and the group of robots shuffled out of the enchantry. The artilleryman barely looked at me before leaving. I wondered whether I might have lost my new friend by digging too far.

  “Uhh, Nick,” Casey said as she stood over the workbench.

  I wandered over to her. My longsword was lying over the bench, and its rune sparked with magical energy.

  “Something’s wrong with the Forcewave rune.” The enchanter frowned as she stared at the blade. “It’s not like Max to sell an unreliable weapon.”

  I was expecting her to chastise me for asking all those questions, so I felt strangely relieved. Sure, my longsword was probably broken, but at least my friend wasn’t yelling at me.

  “You can’t fix it?” I asked.

  The red-haired woman shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “I guess I’ll have to ask Elle about a replacement.” As soon as I said it, I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned the point clerk’s name because Casey’s expression morphed into pure outrage.

  “Good luck with that!” she exclaimed and turned her back to me.

  “Listen, Casey, I really appreciate you trying to fix my sword. How about you take a look at my prot-belt? I’m sure you can get the field up and running again.”

  The beautiful redhead slowly turned, and she gave me a little smile. “Alright. I’ll see what I can do.”

  I unclipped my belt and handed it to her. She furrowed her brow as she placed it beneath a magnifying camera. The monitor above the bench displayed the runes along the belt’s surface and its dangling jewels in perfect clarity.

  “Ha! I know exactly what went wrong. The longsword short-circuited the connection between the prot-belt’s batteries and the field generator. It’ll work fine once I’ve fixed them up.” Casey then used a fine-toothed drill to connect two runes with Arcane Dust. When the two lines merged, a blue light burst from the completed enchantment.

  “See? I totally needed your help,” I said. “I’m not leaving for Tachion for a few more days. How about you keep the longsword and see whether you get some inspiration? I’ll get a weapon from Elle in case you can’t find a way to fix it.”

  Casey was beaming now, and she gave me a firm nod. “Hey, Nick, thanks for being so nice. I know you want to find out what’s going on behind the scenes, but I really can’t tell you. I wish I could.”

  “I understand.” I figured she’d sworn some vow of secrecy. Either that, or she had been threatened to remain silent. If it was the latter, then I would set things straight soon enough.

  Chapter 14

  I left the enchantry and took a short trip to my quarters. The squire twins were sitting behind their beds. From their sweat-soaked jumpsuits, it looked like they’d returned from a physical training session.

  “You should come watch the knights in the battle room some time, Nick,” Richard said.

  “Yeah, they totally destroy each other,” Nathan added.

  “I might just do that,” I said as I opened my strongbox. I would enjoy seeing Moses and Olav go at each other in a friendly brawl.

  I carefully took out the Durable Two-handed Battle Axe of Rending I’d looted from the dead ex-knight on Bratton. I kept my body between the twins and the strongbox so they couldn’t see Polgar’s communicator.

  “Damn,” Nathan said from over my shoulder.

  “Uh . . .” I turned and saw the squire was looking at the axe and not the comms device. I snapped the strongbox shut and locked it.

  “That’s a badass axe,” the squire said as he gaped at the weapon.

  “Where’d you get it?” Richard asked.

  “From a . . . former knight.” I had almost said ex-knight, but the only Space Knights who were called ‘ex-knights’ weren’t honorably discharged. Th
ey either went AWOL or were kicked out.

  “It’s a beauty.” Richard stared at the axe in awe. “You must have pried it from his dead fingers.”

  I chuckled dryly. “Pretty much. I gotta trade it in at the point clerk’s for something I can use.”

  “You should hold onto it,” Nathan said. “It looks like it could do some serious damage.”

  “I can’t.” I couldn’t keep the disappointment out of my voice. “I need a weapon now, and I won’t be able to use this axe until I’m a knight.”

  “That’s a shame,” Richard said.

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I can’t really help it. Anyway, I gotta go. See you guys in the galley later?”

  “Definitely,” the twins chimed together.

  I left the squire quarters and caught the elevator to Deck 5.

  The fifth deck contained the bridge, the captain’s quarters, the officer’s quarters, and a small hub of guest rooms normally used for kingdom officials. I wasn’t exactly sure where Elle was staying while aboard the Stalwart, but the guest rooms were the most likely place.

  Since I wasn’t wearing my cuirass, I couldn’t attach the two-handed axe to its magnetons. It meant I was walking around Deck 5 with a deadly weapon in both my hands, and some of the crew gave me strange looks as I ventured into the passageway leading to the guest rooms.

  I was glad when I found Elle inside a rectangular chamber with a single bed and a standing wardrobe. I rested the axe against the bulkhead and approached the point clerk. She sat behind a silver desk and her skull was connected to her computer via the black mist. It looked like a dozen serpents were writhing from her scalp.

  Elle had explained the Medusa-link to me yesterday. It was the means through which she connected herself with certain tech. What I saw of Elle now certainly reminded me of the ancient myths of the woman with snakes for hair. I wasn’t sure whether it was an illegal mutation, but she hadn’t wanted to talk about it for long.

  When I stepped toward the point clerk, she snapped her head to face me. Her eyes were doing the weird thing where they were all whites except for scrolling binary code. After she blinked a few times, her eyes returned to their regular hazel color.