Space Knights- Last on the Line

by Emerson Fortier

  “Boo!” Some shouted. Others laughed and applauded the idea. Falkye put up a hand to silence them as he waited for Erin’s answer.

  “You say you’ll get me a new sword if I lose.” The knight asked. “Just as good as this one?”

  “Just as good as Anastasia.”

  “Do I get to have it customized a little if I do. Have her name etched in the side of the new one?”

  “Provided I get to pick the name.” Falkye replied.

  “What name you gonna pick?” Erin asked.

  “That’s for you to find out, if you lose the wager.” Falkye replied.

  Erin pondered it for a moment. “And I get a nice fancy grip. Something with some gold in it say, and a red grip instead of the black like this one.”

  “Does the lady object?” Falkye asked, looking up to his wife.

  Locana kissed her hand and blew it lightly towards the knight. “And another, more personal, if you teach my husband some self respect.” She said to general laughter.

  “Then we have a wager!” Falkye cried. There was general applause, and they solemnly set the terms. From the first shot fired the bet would be on. A whistle blew and the battle began.

  If asked afterwards, Irenaeus would have given a blow by blow account of the battle. The way the hound had danced backwards from Erin’s charge, the play of red plasma fire across the shields before they closed and hacked at one another with glowing blades and tendrils of shimmering warped space. He would have recounted the battle move for move, but in the moment what he saw was a lightning fast play of attack and counterattack, too fast for him to comprehend fully. He saw the guns target openings in each combatant’s shield, tendrils of plasma reaching through the illuminate each in a halo of red and blue fire. He saw Erin’s sword connect with the automata’s shield and spew lightning out the grip, and the black machine leap backwards in a swirl of slashing and stabbing weapons arms. He saw one of it’s cutting arms sheared off by a blast from the turret on Erin’s shoulder and saw the man jump into the black embrace of the hound’s arms to cut at it with his sword again, and again as it hurled itself away from the man.

  More of the machine’s tentacles disintegrated in the fire from the turret as the hound sought to fight back and Irenaeus heard his own voice mutter “It can’t touch him, it can’t touch him.” Moments before it ended. The sword connected again, there was a flash of light, the shield around the hound fell and for a moment the hammering of the knight’s shoulder turret carved glowing holes in the machine’s flank, then the sword hit it and the entire machine blew into a cloud of slag and debris and the thunder of the guns was replaced by a stunned silence until the boom of the machine’s death echoed back to the knight in the applause of the audience as it surged to its feet.

  The shield around the lawn shimmered, and died and the knight took off his helmet to wave his sword to the audience as they cheered.

  “Dreadful weapon.” Irenaeus heard his father say. “Just terrible. Can you imagine taking off a man’s head with it? It would take his whole chest with it.”

  “Just look what they did to the lawn.” his mother said. “All that leaping and running, and the explosions.”

  The lawn was totally shredded. So was the hound, and the knight bore a large burn mark along the right side of his armor, but Ireneus couldn’t care less. He cheered and cheered along with all the rest at the glory of the Marain man at arms. It was a moment Irenaeus would never forget.He imagined himself down there on the lawn amidst the wreckage and knew what his decision would be.

  The whole fight lasted for three minutes and fourteen seconds, according to the AI.Erin handed his sword to Falkye to general laughter and applause, and Falkye told him his new sword was being engraved even now with the name of Helen, “in honor of your previous lady’s fate.”

  “Seems you’d curse me to a repeat of the event.” Erin replied.

  “It only depends on whether you are Paris, or Menelaus.” Falkye said.

  Afterwards Irenaeus joined the rest of the cadre of young people that swarmed the knight to congratulate him and to touch the scar across the breastplate of his armor, a ragged burn mark left by some parry on the part of the machine Irenaeus hadn’t spotted in the fight, but as Erin and the rest of the audience drifted back inside and lawn servitors appeared to attempt a repair of the shattered lichen, Irenaeus climbed back up to the top of the bleachers where Aeneas, Mason, and Turqmos sat with a scroll unfolded over their knees reviewing the fight in slow motion, sometimes cross referencing it with the scars they could see on the lawn.

  “Did you see how the shields absorbed the kinetic energy at the center?” Aeneas said. “The shield is fluid. It’s moving to increase the odds of a ricochet rather than simply absorbing the kinetic energy.”

  “Go to the end.” Turqmos said. Aeneas complied and the boys watched Anastasia turn the hound to shrapnel, then again, then again. “It almost looks like it’s making it explode.” Turqmos said in a low voice. “Like it’s ripping it apart from the inside.”

  “See the way it gets sucked through like that?” Mason asked, referring to the blade.”That’s a zero point blade for you. It’s meant for mining, cutting big rocks, mountains. A Hound is a very small rock.”

  “I’m going to sign up.” Irenaeus told them. They all turned to him. All of them serious. “I’ve decided.” He said, allowing his excitement to cool. “You heard what Falkye said, and Erin. They need men, and we’re men.”

  “We’re barely men.” Aeneas pointed out. “Turqmos isn’t even that.”

  “I’m fourteen.” Turqmos retorted. “Old enough to swing a sword.”

  “They’ll never let you.” Mason said looking at Irenaeus.

  “Why not?” Irenaeus replied. “I’m the youngest remember? You and I have something in common. There’s nothing for us here. Only Turqmos and Aeneas have anything to inherit. You’re Chandler’s son, he has a sponsorship, but you won’t. Not once he’s gone, and I’ve got nothing but older siblings and uncles and aunts who’ve taken all the prestigious positions and adventures. I can’t distinguish myself in the sciences, I can’t distinguish myself in business, the corporation is infested with my family, but no one is in the military.”

  “Those are all reasons you want to go, not reasons they’ll let you.” Mason replied, still in his quiet serious voice. “Even if you have nothing to inherit there’s no reason they should let you put yourself in danger. You aren’t even close to twenty yet.”

  “And you can’t even grow a beard.” Turqmos added.

  “If I don’t go.” Irenaeus said. “I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.” He looked around at the others. “So will you. There may never be another war in our lifetimes. Win or lose, if we don’t go, we’ll never know if we’re good enough.” He would never know if he could be brave, as brave as Erin when he faced the machine and drove his blade through its chest. He would never be able to stand next to a girl like Sara without feeling nervous and afraid.

  “My mother would let me go.” Aeneas said. “If I asked.”

  “Mine wouldn’t.” Turqmos said glumly. “They’d probably burry me in the records room for weeks if I even brought it up. I’d be counting bottles for eternity.”

  Irenaeus looked down at the slashed and cratered earth of the lawn below them and felt fire in his chest and eyes as he imagined holding a sword and dueling with a metallic monster. “Well I’ve made up my mind.” Irenaeus said. “Any of you aren’t chicken shit can come with me.” He glared at the other boys, daring them to challenge the decision.

  Aeneas studied the scroll on his lap, then looked up at his young friend. “We’re not even the legal age to join yet.”

  “The limit isn’t a law.” Irenaeus said impatiently. “It’s just a guideline. They break it all the time. I know. I looked up the rosters.”

  “Ira.” Mason said. The other boys fell silent as Mason studied Irenaeus from his seat on the bleacher. “This is really dangerous. Like really dangerous. Th
is isn’t like stealing your uncle’s flitter and visiting the tidal continent.”

  “Or taking that raft down to Quolhost town.” Aeneas added.

  “Or stealing the barrel of liquor from the docks.” Turqmos said.

  “This is, like, you could die.” Mason finished. “And not nicely.” He nodded towards the lawn where servitors were still struggling to remove the wreckage of the hound. “That could happen to you.”

  Irenaeus nodded, trying to match the Mason’s somber tone. Mason was the first person Irenaeus had spoken to about the idea of joining, and afterwards they’d retreated to the Quinn media room to call up ancient footage of the wars men once fought on the homeworld against one another before automata outclassed them on the battlefield. They had watched in horror as men were butchered, torn apart by bullets, melted by energy weapons or blown to pieces by crude explosives and left to die, their blood and entrails staining the homeworld’s soil a dark red that turned brown in the beating sun. The sight, even fake as many of the theatrical videos were, wove itself into the nightmares that still followed Irenaeus around. “I’ve made my decision.” He would join without them, if he must.

  “I want to.” Turqmos said. “My parents just won’t let me.”

  “I’m in.” Aeneas said. He clicked the corner of the scroll and it rolled up nicely into his palm. “My great grandfather fought your family over that moon we blew up. Mother would be proud to see that heritage continued.”

  “And Turqmos can run away with us.” Irenaeus added. He winked at the frowning boy.

  Irenaeus and Aeneas looked at Mason who groaned. “If you get me killed, I swear I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”

  Irenaeus whooped. “We should go find a recruiting station right away!” .

  “I think we should talk to Falkye first.” Aeneas said. “Or Charles, and I’m going to talk to my mom. They may be able to help us get into a good position… better than a hired recruiter could.”

  Irenaeus groaned. That would mean taking days. They might have fought the first battle by then. “We’ll all want time.” Mason said in his quiet voice. But the decision had been made. For Irenaeus that was enough.

  Chapter 10: Moses // Sword Play

  The “Assessment” felt more like Christmas to Moses than a real test. Every aspect of the suit of armor seemed surreal. The amount of power he could put into any movement was enough to turn rock to powder. The sword on his back could turn any substance (not made of space time, according to the AI) to a blast of rubble. The turret on his shoulder could fire bursts of a huge variety of ammunition, from red balls of light trailing bolts of lightning called “cations” that blew into tendrils of superheated gas and crawled across a soldier’s shield after the openings through which it could melt critical components on the armor, to solid slugs which could (theoretically according to the AI) destabilize a singularity to take down a shield, and explosive rounds with a toolbox of differing payloads the AI selected from at need.

  In addition to the turret on his shoulder two handguns were holstered on either hip with a magazine of almost a thousand explosive flechettes that could tear a man to pieces, if the video demonstrations were to be believed. Moses stood in the center of his shield bubble with a glowing sword as tall as his shoulder and felt again the crazy rush of adrenaline and excitement at the prospecting of going onto the battlefield to meet death armed like A god. In a million years he never would have hoped for what he’d been given.

  That said, it was obvious from his first duel in the sparring squares how unprepared he was to actually wield these wonderful gifts. “Keep your sword down.” The AI told him when he lifted it for an overhead swing. “Don’t slash. Stab, and pivot.” It told him when he tried to batter an opponent. “Keep your hands close to your body for more control. Hitting them won’t do you any good, you have to hold the sword against their shield to drain the powercells.”

  “I really should have called you Asshole.” Moses growled as the day went on.

  “You may assign any number of syllables to me so long as you follow instructions.”

  Moses tried to do so. He’d come to the army with the cold blooded intention of finding a death he could be proud of. At the rate he was going, that death would come soon, and make little difference. He watched the other men in armor in the rings while he was between duels and tried to emulate the moves he saw that worked. For the most part though, they were bubble enclosed figures bumping against one another while turrets swiveled in tight patterns and swords waved ineffectually in the empty air. Clumsy. He liked to think he did a little better, but there were fights where he knew he looked just as ludicrous. Rather than discourage him, the ineptitude he saw everywhere provided Moses with a focus. If getting good with the sword was the hard thing, then he would do it, even if he had to stay in the rings until his arms fell off. In a few fights, that focus seemed to be paying off. He was improving, even if his coordination was still clumsy. His only distraction was the occasional fear that Ephesus would be struggling as much as his clumsier opponents were at learning the ropes of this new worlds requirements.

  “You said the suit had a communications function didn’t you?” Moses asked the AI after a particularly bad fight.

  “Yes.” It replied.

  “I can call Ephesus then, my brother?”

  “My communications capabilities are dedicated to in-combat functions. I could call your brother, but camp bandwidth is restricted to executive use when not part of a training exercise.”

  As he was trying to think of some other way to find Ephesus, the AI interrupted. “You have a fight.”

  Moses felt fire run through his nerves the first time the AI had said those words, but now the fire was beginning to dull and his brother’s old adage about doing the hard thing was the only thing still keeping him going. He pushed through the tightly packed observers until he reached the ring the AI highlighted in blue and clambered in past soldiers waiting to watch him make a fool of himself.

  “What’s your name?” The man at the end of the ring called as Moses turned to face him.

  “Moses. What’s yours?”

  The man reached behind him and unsheathed his sword with a laugh. “It’s Maxwell behind this sword laddie. You ready to dance?” Maxwell was clearly still enjoying his training. Moses pulled his own sword from its sheath, spinning it a few times as the ethereal glow snapped around it.

  “Come find out!” He called, and the big man charged.

  Their fight was as ridiculous as usual. When Maxwell charged Moses met him with a charge of his own. Both swung their swords to meet one another but before the blades could touch their shields struck one another and Moses felt the suit rebound from the impact, hurling them both backwards. Their swords simply waved in front of one another, both shoulder turrets swiveling but silent as the fell and picked themselves up.

  The two combatants pressed the attack again, slower this time, pushing forward until their shields touched and then lashing out. Lightning sparked from both swords as shields growled harshly under the blade’s edges. “Battery is at half charge.” The AI informed Moses. Moses tried to kick Maxwell but found his own shield in the way.

  “You gonna help with that big gun on my shoulder?” He asked.

  “The executive AI has determined that better results are to be had from early training in the use of the sword without the gun. I will not be firing until you have achieved sufficient mastery to handle your own weapon before joining it to my own.”

  Moses grunted and backed off, dodging a few of the other man’s wild swings. It was a change from what he was used too, but one that made sense. If Moses’ gun had been firing, the big man’s wrists, exposed around the handle of the sword, would have been stiff and frozen from the dummy rounds after his wild swings. This would give them a chance to actually learn to wield them. Or would they?

  The swords were huge, more or less a spear length blade with a grip as long as a man’s shoulders were wide. You coul
d swing it with one hand, but two hands was what it took to bring the blade to life. Moses released one hand from his hilt and swung the blade to his shoulder out of the way while he fumbled for the pistols at his hip with his free hand.

  “Open the shield.” He yelled at the AI. The shield opened and Moses sprayed the other man with flechettes, aiming for the gash at his wrists. Maxwell’s hands went stiff as the flechette clattered off of their armor plating, and the shimmering blade in his hands fell to the dirt. Live rounds would have turned his hands to strips of shredded meat. The turret on Maxwell’s shoulder spun towards Moses as his AI snapped the shield in place and Maxwell’s rounds rammed into the shield, the force strong enough to hurl Moses against the back fence of the dueling ring.

  “You’ll still have to finish him.” The AI informed Moses.

  “I thought we didn’t get turrets.” Moses growled.

  “As part of the training, it’s activation remains at AI discretion, despite the army wide advisory.”

  Moses reholstered his pistol and advanced, careful to angle his shoulders so that his wrists were protected from Maxwell’s turret by the long umbrella like “belly” of the shield. He had to lean forward into to the torrent of flechettes pouring from the other man’s shoulder in order to make any progress and Maxwell tried to back away but eventually Moses cornered him and brought the sword around in an underhand swing that kept his hands safe while touching the blade to Maxwell’s shield. Lightning flashed from Moses’ handle while Maxwell’s turret tried to shoot out his hands, but the sword was caught between their shields at a point the turret couldn’t hit Moses without turning off the only thing between Maxwell and the sword. Maxwell’s shield failed and Moses’ sword went dark as it skated up the man’s belly.

  The turret fell silent.

  “Is he dead now?” Moses asked.

  “He would have been dead the moment his shield failed.” The AI told him.