Space Knight

by Samuel E. Green

  I tried to pull away, but the knight’s gauntlets must have borne runes that increased his strength, preventing me from moving my arm in his grip. When he squeezed, my armor crinkled a little.

  I reached for my hammer with my other arm, and the knight’s right hand shot out like a viper and grabbed my wrist. I winced as his fingers tightened and crunched the metal of my gauntlets.

  He made a beckoning motion with his head, and suddenly three of the robed figures around me removed their white garments to reveal the dazzling armor of Aquitanian knights. One of them cinched shackles around my wrists as I struggled to tear myself away.

  “You’re breaking the treaty!” I screamed in the knight’s face. In the best-case, his actions would increase tensions between our kingdoms, but they could just as easily bring about a full-scale war.

  “Quiet now, Little Squire,” the knight said as my bonds tightened “There is no one here to help you.”

  I felt a prick in both wrists, and my head began to swim with the effects of some disabling substance. The shackles must have contained a drug which was administered whenever predetermined conditions occurred. In my case, it was the desire to take out my hammer and summon lightning sprites to blast the hell out of these knights.

  My anger wouldn’t have cared about the innocent people around us, so it was probably a good thing I couldn’t grab my weapon now.

  The drugs bathed my mind in dullness, making me unable to make even the slightest attempt to fight against my captors. These knights had been hiding among the Tachionese worshippers, waiting for someone. Maybe waiting for a crew member from the Stalwart.

  The robed figures worshipping the impaled woman quietly parted, making way for the Aquitanian knights as they hauled my drugged body across the courtyard and into the dome-roofed building.

  Chapter 16

  I was standing inside an Aquitanian surveillance facility with my hands and feet shackled. The haze of drugs cleared a little while ago, and I could see straight now. My senses were still a little dull, but I guessed that as long as the shackles didn’t detect any heightened activity, they would quit pumping me with the disabling drugs.

  In front of me, soldiers sat behind ten computer terminals in two rows. All of them faced a ten-meter long monitor with a map of Tachion. Hotspots pulsed on the screen in bright red with text below each one identifying coordinates and providing information about the areas. From what I could gather, the hotspots seemed to indicate Grendel portal zones.

  I’d known Tachion experienced a high amount of Grendel activity, which is why the Aquitanian and Rutheni kingdoms wanted to acquire ownership of it so badly. Those portals were also the primary reason for the antagonism between the two kingdoms. Caledonia chose to stay out of the conflict, but now I’d been roped into it.

  “Christophe,” the shield knight said in Aquitanian to a soldier sitting at a terminal. “Activate the nullification prison. We’ll keep this Caledonian squire in there until we find out what’s going on.”

  “Yes, sir,” Christophe replied as he scurried out from behind the computer and went to a doorway at the back of the chamber.

  I was thankful for the extra classes I’d taken in Outer World languages at the Academy. I understood every word the men spoke to each other.

  “My name is Emeric,” the shield knight said to me in a convivial tone. He removed his right gauntlet and raised a naked palm to me in what I guessed was an Aquitanian greeting. “I’m sorry we haven’t met on the best of circumstances. Will you tell me your name?”

  I grunted, not wanting to reward his fake pleasantness with an answer.

  Emeric sighed loudly and slipped his gauntlets back over his huge hands. “You are only shackled and disarmed as a precaution. As long as you obey our demands, you shall be safe. Christophe is preparing a room for you.”

  “A room? You called it a prison to the soldier earlier.”

  “Ha, so you understand Aquitanian? I am a little less disappointed now. I was planning on taking one of the Stalwart’s Space Knights. But then I discovered you weren’t a knight. Still, a squire is all we have for now. We must get to the bottom of Cross’ plans before I send my men after your knight friends.”

  “The prison is ready, sir,” Christophe reported to the shield knight.

  My hammer hung from the soldier’s prot-belt, and I eyed it with envy. From looking at him, I could tell he wasn’t a squire, so he couldn’t use the weapon. He probably planned on breaking it down for Arcane Dust or selling it on an illegal market. I thought about lunging for the weapon, but the handcuffs prevented me from acting on it. Even if I could have sprung free of my shackles and grabbed the hammer, it would have been a bad idea. Captain Cross explicitly commanded us not to get involved with the other kingdoms. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have a choice. I had to find a way out of this without increasing the tensions between the Caledonian and Aquitanian kingdoms.

  “Good. Shall we?” Emeric held out his arm toward the rear end of the chamber.

  I walked ahead to the doorway the shield knight indicated. Blue runes marked the stones inside the room, and I guessed they nullified Runetech. If I somehow found a way out of my shackles, I wouldn’t be able to send a distress signal from my prot-belt as long as I was in there.

  A single mattress sat in a corner, and a bucket lay beside it. When I stepped inside, a forcefield sectioned off the doorway from the rest of the building, trapping me inside.

  I snarled at the shield knight. “Do you always imprison squires from other Triumvirate Kingdoms?”

  Emeric stood with his arms folded across his massive chest and smiled smugly. “The Stalwart is moments away from performing an act of aggression.”

  Whatever this shield knight knew could be essential for my mission. Could he have knowledge of insurrectionist activity?

  “So you know all about why Captain Cross brought us to Tachion?” I asked the Aquitanian knight. Acting like I knew something seemed to be a better idea than showing my ignorance. This way, I might goad the knight into telling me his theories.

  “Not everything,” Emeric said, “but I’m about to know much more.” He grinned and pressed his prot-belt.

  Needles popped out of my shackles and punctured my hands. I clenched my teeth as they administered another dose of drug to me. This one also dulled my senses, but I guessed it was a truth serum.

  “Now, you will tell me why Cross is interested in specific Grendel rifts. What is he searching for?”

  “I don’t know,” I said as my body heat roared like a furnace.

  The serum was causing my pulse to fire rapidly. The handcuffs’ detection systems were identifying my bodily state as divergent, and more drugs were filling my veins. I wouldn’t be any use to anyone in a few moments.

  Even in the haze, I laughed to myself. The inventor of these bonds mustn’t have thought about the interactions of the drugs and how they’d make interrogating a prisoner rather complicated. I figured the knight hadn’t used them before because he gave me a confused look as I continued chuckling.

  “Perhaps it was foolish to have you shackled with prototypes,” he muttered, confirming my theory. “Nevertheless, I do not require any more information from you, other than to satisfy my personal curiosity. Your purpose here is purely economic. Cross is a faithful captain, and he’ll see his squire returned to him. I wish to make a trade. I shall learn of the prize which your captain seeks shortly. Goodbye, Little Squire.”

  I watched the man march to the entrance of the surveillance facility where he joined the other knights. I hunched over and clutched my stomach. My insides felt like they trying to crawl out from beneath my skin. The drugs had worn off quickly earlier, so I estimated their biological half-life couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, so I endured the comedown as best I could.

  When the pain subsided, I saw Emeric and the twelve knights leave the building. I didn’t know how long I’d wrestled with the drug’s effects, but the giant monitor was now displa
ying a single location. The text described it as a portal zone about eight hundred kilometers southwest of Salenum. I assumed it was the location where Olav and the others had gone. The same place where Emeric and his knights would now be traveling toward.

  I needed to find out what was happening there. The runes inside my prison negated the use of Runetech armor, but did they also prevent me from using my mutation ability? I’d never used the teleportation magic consciously before, so I wasn’t sure where to start.

  Picturing the area outside the surveillance facility didn’t take much effort since the image of the crucified woman was seared into my memory. I concentrated on a section of the courtyard where there hadn’t been any robed people, closed my eyes, and jumped to the spot.

  When I opened my eyes, I was still in the cell. I tried the same thing a dozen times, clenching my fists, gritting my teeth, and squeezing my eyes closed. All I got was the same unsuccessful result.

  “Are you alright in there?” Christophe walked over from his terminal. He must have seen me jumping around like an idiot.

  “As good as I can be,” I yelled back to him.

  I wanted to scream and pound on the walls. How the hell had I teleported those two times? Once on Tyranus to bring Alice and Ludas to the starship, and another time on the Stalwart to save Casey’s life.

  I was missing something, except I didn’t know what.

  Unless I could get out of this cell, I wouldn’t be able to find Olav. The Aquitanians were unlikely to kill me, but I didn’t like being their prisoner.

  Christophe peered at me like I was a caged zoo animal. “You are most peculiar. What were you trying to do earlier? You don’t need to use the bathroom do you?”

  I smiled at the man’s disgusted expression. “I’m fine.”

  His prot-belt buzzed, and he touched his helmet. “Emeric, sir. More squires? Yes, I will have them dealt with appropriately.” He tapped his left temple and grinned at me. “Seems like some of your friends are looking for you. Space Knight Emeric has given me permission to dispose of them as I see fit. There is a cavern not far from Salenum with a pit so deep you cannot see the bottom. It is said it reaches to the planet’s core.”

  “Why would you kill them? Don’t you need us as bargaining pieces?”

  “We have all we need with you in our custody,” Christophe said. “We can’t have the others reporting our intentions to your captain. It would only take one distress signal for our hand to be played. We will ensure it looks like an accident. We do not wish to break the treaty, after all.”

  The monitor showed a video-feed of the courtyard outside the building. The three squires were talking with the white-robed men and women. They approached one person and then moved on to another. In a few minutes, I watched them speak with a dozen different Tachionese. I guessed the squires were asking them whether they’d seen someone who looked like me.

  I didn’t think the Aquitanian soldiers would leave this building to attack my friends, so I hoped none of the Tachionese people outside would point the squires toward this building.

  But that was exactly what happened. An old robed man thrust his finger almost directly at the camera, and the squires started moving toward the domed building.

  The Aquitanian soldiers activated their prot-fields and grabbed their laser rifles. They took cover behind the wall separating the entrance from the computer terminals.

  The squires were oblivious.

  They couldn’t know they were minutes from getting pinged with laser fire. They each wore their shield belts, but with their prot-fields deactivated, they would be dead in seconds.

  I had no weapons, and the runes at my feet negated the magical abilities of my armor. My wings were clipped, and I was trying to fly. If only I could figure out how to use my mutation.

  I was about to watch three men, two I counted as friends, killed in cold blood. They didn’t stand a chance.

  Suddenly, I was standing outside the cell. None of my captors noticed me appear, but I was still shackled. I couldn’t separate my wrists or my ankles, no matter how hard I pushed and pulled against the metal bonds.

  The monitor screen showed the squires wading through the crowd toward the building. They were probably two minutes away.

  I activated my Runetech equipment and ensured all the rune glows were dampened so I wouldn’t give myself away. With a touch of my earpiece, my visor extended over my face. I spotted Christophe in a corridor leading out from the main room. His back was facing me, so he didn’t notice as I lifted my arms over his head and pulled the shackles against his throat.

  “I need you to release my bonds,” I said quickly, knowing the squires would enter the building soon. I was desperate, so I tightened the metal bar against the soldier’s throat. Only a little more force and I’d crush his larynx. He nodded slightly so I released a little bit of the pressure.

  He entered a code into his prot-belt, and the shackles around my wrists and ankles released. Before the soldier could turn on me, I lifted my right arm and cracked him on the skull with my elbow, and he dropped unconscious at my feet. I checked his waist, but couldn’t find my hammer. He must have put it somewhere. I glanced at the cabinets lining the corridor and rifled through them, but I couldn’t find my weapon anywhere.

  I didn’t have time to hide Christophe’s unconscious body, so I ran back into the corridor and grabbed a laser rifle as I passed a weapons rack. It wasn’t my lightning hammer, but it’d have to suffice.

  The surveillance facility’s entrance door creaked open while I aimed the rifle on the soldiers who were preparing to fire at my friends. Before the door fully opened, I pulled the trigger. Blue bolts burst from the gun, peppering the backs of the Aquitanian soldiers. They were surprised by what seemed like friendly fire, and they leaped for cover behind the computer consoles. My gunfire had caught the attention of the squires about to enter the building, and I saw Nathan swivel away from the doorway.

  When the monitor showed all three squires with their backs to the exterior wall, I resumed firing at the enemy from behind cover of the storage boxes. All the soldiers’ low-level prot-fields were active, but I did get a few successful hits. A bolt seared through the helmet of one soldier and burned a hole into his skull. Another soldier screamed as he clutched a half-melted arm. From the painful cries, I guessed I’d pinged a few more.

  Before crouching back down for cover, I counted two dozen armed enemies remaining. They wielded the same guns I was using to fire at them, but my prot-field was much stronger than theirs. I could hold up for longer, but there were probably more enemies on the opposite side of the building. My gunfire would draw them out soon, and I’d be a sitting duck. The place was large, so there could be at least a few hundred soldiers elsewhere in the building.

  Those were odds I couldn’t beat, even with an advanced prot-field and Runetech armor.

  The metal wall I’d taken cover behind rattled when projectiles slammed into it. I peered up at the monitor screen as the soldiers continued firing their laser bolts. The squires seemed caught in indecision, unsure whether to flee the location or enter the building.

  My stomach lurched as I thought of the carnage seconds away from unfolding.

  But what I saw on the monitor screen surprised me.

  Neville activated his prot-field and engaged the soldiers charging out from the surveillance building. With a thrust of a needle-thin sword, Neville plunged the blade into one of the soldier’s stomachs. The squire flicked it toward a second enemy, and the fine-point skewered the soldier’s neck in a gush of blood. Nathan and Richard pincered from either side of Neville and hacked the rest of the soldiers to pieces with short swords.

  I admired their courage and fighting prowess, but I couldn’t let them kill themselves for me. While they were loyal friends, they’d be dead friends if they didn’t flee this building before reinforcements came.

  I fired another flurry of laser bolts at the soldiers near the entrance, and one of my shots bounced off my
target’s prot-field before slamming into the giant monitor screen. The bolt seared a hole into it, and shards of glass the size of fists showered the soldiers beneath. A few prot-fields must have registered the glass as projectiles because they hit the forcefields with a thud, but some of my enemies’ prot-fields failed to stop the glass, and their faces were shredded.

  I heard shouting break through the screams and turned to my right to see more soldiers filter into the chamber. A turn of a corner would put me in their line of sight with no place for cover. There was no way my prot-field could stop all the gunfire those men would aim in my direction. They hadn’t seen me yet, so I had a few seconds.

  Then I noticed my hammer lying on a console three meters to my left. I’d have to make a jump for it, and risk getting hit, but then maybe I could summon a sprite. It’d cause a distraction which might save my friends.

  I didn’t have time to think about it, so I just dived for the hammer. I heard laser rifles fire as my right hand curled around the weapon’s handle. I rolled around the console and attached the laser rifle to the magnetons on the back of my armor. With a dash of my fingers, I activated the lightning hammer’s rune effect on my prot-belt. I pounded the weapon’s base onto the ground, and the force of the blow cracked the tile. A lightning bolt streaked from the ceiling, slamming onto the floor with a thunderous boom.

  A smoking portal fractured the air in front of me. A blue-skinned sprite tumbled out from the rift, unfolded its wings, and screeched. Although only a little over a meter tall, it was mostly humanoid in appearance. Needle teeth filled its thin-lipped mouth, and its skin glittered with overlapping scales. Black pits served for eyes, and the ends of its fingers and toes extended into keen talons.

  The soldiers let loose on the creature, spraying it with laser bolts the color of its scales. My mind felt strange, like there was something in the back of my imagination I couldn’t quite grasp. I remembered my lessons on summoning runes and realized I had a mental connection with the sprite. I channeled all my desire to kill the soldiers and envisioned passing the command to my summon. The entity let out a high-pitched wail and charged into the masses of enemies. Electric flashes sparked as the sprite’s talons slashed carapace armor.