Space Knight

Space Knight

  Brett P. S.

  Copyright © 2015 Brett P. S.

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 – Open Wide

  Chapter 2 – Good Morning

  Chapter 3 – Vector Trap

  Chapter 4 – Pirate Raiders

  Chapter 5 – Science Station

  Chapter 6 – Healing Factor

  Chapter 7 – Hand to Claw

  Chapter 8 – Lock Down

  Chapter 9 – Into the Aether

  Epilogue – One Thousand Pieces

  Chapter 1

  Open Wide

  Oskar’s boots sunk into the thick mud that ran across the edge of the basin on this smelly world. Niniji was the farthest thing from a dead rock in the south galaxy, though that notion carried with it some unintended consequences. A rumbling coursed through the mud and ran up his legs as a colossal creature swam beneath him. He hadn’t seen one of these in fifty years. Asteroids carry their eggs, and it’s never a dull cycle when one plants into a fresh world.

  The Ninijians were far from underdeveloped, but they hardly knew how to handle problems like these. Then again, if they could, life would get boring for Oskar. Too much time spent at the station and not enough time doing crazy stuff like this.

  “Come on you little scamp,” he said. “Come on up, and bite me.”

  A slithering sound shook his legs as the creature slid through the mud. He knew better, but it was almost as if he successfully ticked it off. Good deal, more or less. Oskar primed his plasma cannon and hoisted it up over his right shoulder. The interlocking mechanism handled itself as the weapon bonded to his suit’s attachment. He had about three charges worth of energy, though plasma could burn through a Varaxian Worm hide like salt through an ice cube. Fair trade.

  About fifty meters north ahead of him, the lake bed burst open and a ravenous maw reached high enough to devour the largest moon of Niniji. The huge slug-like beast tilted its jaws as it glared down at him with beady eyes he could hardly discern in the summer heat, and it screamed with sound waves that shook the ground. Luckily, he came prepared. He stuffed his ears with high frequency sound dampeners on the trip over. Varaxian Worms were a hassle in their own right, but the real trouble was that scream. Get close enough to hear it and the sounds paralyze an ordinary nervous system.

  “Now just hold still,” he said.

  Oskar carefully aimed his weapon at the creature’s head. A gut shot wouldn’t deliver a finishing blow, and the pain would only cause it to retreat below the river basin. The Ninijians depended on a kill shot, and he was about to deliver. Oskar lined up the sights and fired a blue plasma bolt that sang as it zinged through the air, burning oxygen particles into a mist. The blue comet flew closer, but just about the same time, the worm reared its ugly maw closer to him and the shot missed.

  “Crap.”

  Crap wasn’t the half of it, because the colossal creature slithered straight for him. Oskar leaped out of the way, evading a set of mandibles that could snap him like a twig. This wasn’t his best day, and the plasma cannon’s weight was slowing him down. The thought of dropping the glorified paperweight crossed his mind, but with the mud as thick as it was, he wasn’t getting it back if he did. What’s worse, the worm reared its head back around for another pass, screaming at the top of its lungs with a cry that nearly fried his sound dampeners.

  “Not good,” Oskar said as the electricity shocked his inner ear.

  The science team back at headquarters didn’t intend for them to withstand this much this close. Worms really are a nuisance, no matter the size, but if this one wanted to fight him head on, then Oskar saw only one course of action.

  “Precocious little guy, aren’t we?” he said. “Give me a big smile, okay?”

  He knew better, but as the creature’s mouth opened wide for the charge, it was almost as if it tried to smile. Oskar primed the cannon and set his sights due south at its thick skull, but he didn’t fire. Instead, he held his stance while the worm stood, poised for the attack. A momentary span of silence passed between the scream and the next action it took, which was to sink down and slither as it hit the ground running. Its ravenous maw opened wide, careening straight for him.

  “Open wide!”

  Chapter 2

  Good Morning

  Oskar Frei, the human form disaster. Wherever he traveled, bad things seemed to follow in his wake, and it wasn’t necessarily because of something as archaic as bad luck. Oskar was … well, very messy in his particular line of work.

  Oskar awoke with dreary eyes to the blaring sound of his morning alarm. He squinted to inspect the digits on the clock to see how long it had been going off. Six universal hours since the last cycle. He slept in again, not good for a punctual Space Knight. Worse yet, he probably had a host of messages buzzing in the console.

  Oskar picked himself up and shoved off his blankets, scratching his belly as his feet made contact with floor and he shambled over to his changing room. It was a small space, hardly more than a few steps away from his bed. He performed his morning constitution with borderline enthusiasm while his body continued recharging, but it wasn’t until he slipped on his casuals that the tight sleeve from his uniform nicked the deep scar on his shoulder. His arm promptly ceased stretching through the sleeve as he exhaled in a wince of pain that ran through his shoulder.

  “Still hurts,” he said.

  That Varaxian Worm took a nice chunk out of him. Libra’s staff did their best to seal the wound, but the toxins from its maw burrowed deep beneath the surface of his skin. It was all they could do to stop the deterioration of his nervous system. Healing the wound took more than they could muster. Oskar gently pulled his arm through the sleeve and finished getting dressed before heading out to the main deck of his ship.

  Currently, the Feros sat docked at Delta Station, awaiting orders from one of Libra’s contacts. He received requests about once every six or seven cycles, which left him plenty of time to rest in between the havoc, and he had a good feeling about today. Oskar perused his list of inbound, unread messages.

  “Junk, junk, junk,” he said before his fingers stopped at a message labeled urgent by Libra HQ. “What’s this?”

  The last time Oskar received a message from headquarters was the day of his initiation. Sixty years and not one word from them, at least not directly. His requests ordinarily came through representatives of respective galactic populations, congress folk, more or less, but a direct message from Libra itself? He must have done something amazing … or terrible.

  Oskar read silently through the bulk body of the message.

  Libra sincerely requests your assistance with a mission of great importance … expect that you will comply in timely manner … clients asked for Space Knight Oscar Frei to deliver the artifact … our policy demands adherence to client requests … assigned a second Space Knight to ensure mission success and minimize damages.

  “The heck!” Oskar said as he shot up. “A second Space Knight?”

  “It’s about time you got to your morning duties,” said someone close by.

  Oskar spun to his left in the direction he heard it, noticing a slender woman in black casual overalls standing at the edge of the room. She held a half-eaten fruit in her hand, likely something she swiped from his storage unit around the bend. Oscar leaped back and grabbed the nearest object he could use as a weapon, a metal spoon he left on the counter from yesterday.

 
“Who are you and how did you get here?”

  “You read the message. Not me.”

  “You’re a Space Knight?”

  “I’m your partner,” she said.

  Oskar lowered his weapon, but he didn’t feel much more relaxed than he had a few moments ago.

  “Why did you think it was a good idea to break into my private ship?” he asked.

  “I let myself in. Besides, your door wasn’t locked.”

  “Yes, it was.”

  She chuckled, taking another bite out of the fruit.

  “Not by my standards,” she said. The pieces were coming together. Figured that Libra would send a Visor class to keep things dandy. “Name’s Olivia, by the way. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”

  “Guess I have to deal with you, Olivia,” Oskar said, crossing his arms. “I read something about transport in the specifics.”

  “Oh, I brought it with me,” she replied, tossing the fruit into a nearby garbage unit. There was at least a third left!

  While Oskar grumbled, Olivia whipped out something like a jewelry box, a tiny black case she opened to reveal an even smaller gemstone buried into a fluffy pillow bedding. For a piece of jewelry, it was gargantuan, though in retrospect, comparative to a rock one might find sitting in the soil beneath a river.

  “The Ninijians are calling this the Titan Crystal,” she explained. “Apply a certain degree of energy to it, kinetic, heat or electricity and the stone reacts, producing more than what you put in.”

  “Wait,” he said, scratching his head. “Perpetual energy?”

  “Possibly. The Ninijians want to study it, maybe even find a way to replicate the material … by the atom if the situation calls.”

  “I guess I can see why Libra wanted this job done right,” he said. “This could mean a lot for the other galaxies.”

  “So when do we leave?” Olivia asked.

  “After breakfast. How do you feel about toast?”

  “Oh, I haven’t had that in years.”

  “Every day on my ship, Space Knight.”

  Chapter 3

  Vector Trap

  Oskar stepped out onto the command deck of the Feros, surveying his surroundings before his eyes centered on Olivia Blaise operating ship navigation. A host of thin screens floated around her, displaying data from debris to nearby solar systems. They took off about 6 hours ago, effectively crossing the halfway point in the last fifteen minutes or so.

  Visors and Fissures didn’t typically mix well. Just being around one of them made the wound on his shoulder sting worse than the shots he took to neutralize the toxins. Oskar walked over to her, his boots clanking on the metal floor.

  “How’s it going?” he said.

  “Fine, more or less,” she replied. “I managed to shave thirty minutes off the computer’s projected flight time.”

  By hand, eh? That’s impressive, even for a Visor.

  “Do you need anything, like a cup of coffee?”

  Olivia stood up and wiped the sweat from her forehead. That many computer screens gave off a bit of extra heat, though Oskar never had that many operating at once when he made adjustments. Heck, he never made corrections in the first place. She walked past him, toward the exit.

  “I could use a shower. Do you have one?” she said.

  No coffee then.

  “In the lobby, past the kitchen. Second door on your…”

  Oskar stopped mid-sentence while the ship shook violently, as if hit by a plasma bolt. Olivia fell backwards and nearly hit the floor, but Oskar managed to catch her in the process.

  “Dammit,” she said, breaking away and rushing back. “The FTL engines are offline.”

  “We fell out of FTL?” Oskar shouted.

  “A vector trap,” she said. “I’m pulling up data on our surroundings.”

  The screens spread out wide in a flurry of panoramic shots, with yellow highlight icons for spotted debris fragments. Yellow practically painted the surroundings and cluttered the horizon. Upon closer inspection, Oskar recognized a few within visual range.

  “It’s a ship graveyard,” he said.

  Oskar noticed two red blips crop up in the far distance. The actual objects were too obscure with the lack of light in deep space, though the Feros’ onboard scanning equipment allowed Olivia to bring up an enhanced image. A repurposed frigate and destroyer, highly unorthodox.

  “Pirates,” Olivia said.

  “How long before we can jump to FTL?”

  “At the rate of cool-down, two minutes, maybe,” she said. “I suggest you operate the auxiliary guns.”

  Oskar shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, I suggest you do.”

  Olivia hopped up and stared him down.

  “I’m a better pilot,” she said.

  “You’re a better everything,” Oskar replied, “but this is my ship.”

  A momentary silence passed between the two of them with a myriad of choice words brewing beneath the surface. At the end of it though, Olivia nodded before bolting past him. She vanished in a flash while Oskar took a seat at the main console, clearing up the clutter until a few screens remained.

  Oskar sunk back into his seat and sighed.

  “That went better than expected,” he said.

  “I heard that,” came a voice through the console. “We’re going to have a discussion about battle strategy if we live through this.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Chapter 4

  Pirate Raiders

  Oskar carefully monitored the readout on the two approaching ships. There wasn’t much use running at this point, especially since the less he throttled his engines, the faster FTL would cool. It was a rookie maneuver for those caught in a vector trap to try to outrun the captors. Pirate ships generally had superior engines and armaments to most civilian ships, even if they lacked adequate shielding.

  At a few thousand meters away, the ships slowed to a stop. Oskar’s readout showed their weapons primed and warming up. A small buzzing sound filled the command deck, and he glanced down to see a communication channel ready to open. He pressed the button, opening a video feed of a large Druuga commander, dressed in traditional battle garb. A handful of scars dotted his scaly face of light blue and gold, and the alien squinted his eyes through the video feed.

  “Can I help you with something?” Oskar said. “I’m in a hurry.”

  “Do not mock me, human,” the alien said. “Jettison your cargo and you may leave.”

  “We don’t have any cargo.”

  “I do not believe you,” he replied. “Make this difficult and we will take your ship as well … in one piece or one hundred.”

  “You are interfering with official Space Knight business!” Olivia blared across the channel. “Let us go and we may consider not reporting this sector to Libra.”

  “Bah, Space Knights!” the reptilian shouted. “None would pilot a junk freighter such as this.”

  “Ouch. My pride.”

  “Enough talk!” the alien said. “If you refuse to comply, then my work is made simpler still.”

  Oskar saw over two dozen lights flicker on across his screens, the signals of immense power sources shooting to the maximum. He barreled down on the throttle with evasive maneuvers as a hail of plasma fire rained down on the Feros. Bits of plasma scraped his shields, but he wasn’t out of it yet. Olivia fired back on manual, blasting through their defenses with rapid-fire plasma bolts.

  The big one’s shields went down first, as he appeared to have distributed more power to weapons than defenses. These aliens behaved typically, more prepared to intimidate than to actually fight. As their weapons bored down on him again, a few bolts stripped through Oskar’s weakened shields and grazed his armor, practically liquefying the metal.

  “That didn’t sound good,” Olivia said.

  “Is he dead yet?”

  “Working on it,” she answered. “Get me
closer.”

  If that was the way to win this, who was he to interfere? Oskar drove hard through the hailstorm, diverting full power to Faros’ Bow shields in one swift maneuver that practically rammed through the command deck of the frigate before he pulled up just in time. Just before that, though, he saw Olivia plant two plasma bolts straight through it, effectively rendering it a heap of metal. The weapons of the big one stopped firing for the time being, and the smaller destroyer ceased a few moments later.

  “Look at him run,” Oskar said, watching the destroyer flee at full FTL speed.

  He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath while he stared up at the ceiling lights of the command deck. It seemed a shame to leave an entire frigate to its own devices, especially since some Druuga still lurked and their friends would be coming back … eventually.

  “You’re going to let them live, aren’t you?” Olivia said, planting a hand on his shoulder and squeezing hard. Oskar winced, and his body contorted from the pressure until she let go. “That’s all right, I suppose.”

  “It’s just how I operate, ma’am.”

  “You take unnecessary risks, Oskar. I don’t approve.”

  “I’m really sorry.”

  “Our objective wasn’t to destroy the pirates, only to outlast them until our FTL drive came online,” she said, gripping his shoulder again. “And if I was the pilot, that would have been an option.”

  “Ouch!” Oskar yelled.

  “If you could, please resume our flight plan. I’m taking that shower now.”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Chapter 5

  Science Station

  The airlock to Jinako Station closed behind them and a spray of anti-toxin gasses poured through the tiny chamber, killing off any harmful bacteria Oskar or Olivia might have tracked in with them. Given the state of his kitchen, probably more than a few. The thick musky air made him wheeze and cough, but he muscled through it until the airlock opened again and he strode past what remained of the fog.

  A resident Ninijian was there to greet him, a small creature about four feet in height. Ninijians weren’t especially known for their stature, but their intelligence held few rivals in the South Galaxy. Their only failing was that they didn’t practice warfare technology. Other than being unusually short, they appeared mostly human. The Ninijian looked like a child from where Oskar stood.