“I agree,” Casten said. “We’ve certainly got plenty of footage that’ll keep the anti-Space Monster lab guys happy for a while. This is a hell of a find!”
“Yeah, and now I’m gonna go in there and kill it,” Paress said soberly.
“Fair enough,” Casten said. “We really lucked into being here. Taking this thing out should really hurt the Midnight Group’s operations.”
“The only thing is, something like that, a lot of slaves have gotta be in there,” Paress said. “If we just go in and kill it, we’ll be killing those slaves too. We’re supposed to be saving them.”
“Okay. Well, when we attack, I’ll put on a heavy scan,” Casten said. “When I detect a jump drive or something like that— any kind of huge power spike, really— I’ll pinpoint it on your tactical display. Do everything you can to take out the jump drive and then destroy the defending ships and other stuff before we go in and try to rescue the innocent people.”
“This is gonna be really damn hard,” Paress said. “Normally I’d wait for backup, but this thing’s gonna be long gone by the time backup arrives. I’m gonna have to go really deep into destroy mode. Really deep— way more than last time. You’re gonna have to really watch me and bring me out as soon as it’s over, okay?”
“Yeah, of course,” Casten said.
“Because I’m afraid I’ll lose too much of myself,” Paress continued.
“I know,” Casten said. “Trust me, the millisecond you’re done, I’m pulling you…”
An emergency klaxon made both of them jump. For a moment, Paress thought that they’d been discovered and were being attacked.
“It’s an emergency signal,” Casten said as Allepexxis’ computer patched it through.
“…have staged a coup and taken over the capital and military,” a voice said. The signal was weak and Paress saw a note next to the transmission saying it was from a short-range station. “…repeat, Anloo Ange has betrayed Queen Artzia of planet Cymarus… tortured and murdered… used magic and war golems… magic war machines… have staged a coup and…” a sudden explosion and screams and gunfire could be heard before the transmission was suddenly cut off.
“What the hell?” Paress asked.
“It came from the 99th Frontier Edge,” Casten said. Paress could have read the information himself, but he was glad Casten was acting as a sort of communications officer so he could better concentrate on his options. “It was a short-range signal. Based on what they said about a coup, I’m betting the long-range stations were taken over. That short-range station was probably the last hold-out. They’re lucky we were here, or nobody would have been in range to pick up their message. Well, nobody except the pirates there.”
“Dammit, we have to help them,” Paress said. “You just said it. Nobody else will hear their signal. Or at least not in time. It’ll take years before it reaches anywhere else.”
“But if we leave, you know those pirates won’t be here when we get back,” Casten said. “Their sensors will pick up our jump drives spooling up and they’ll get the hell outta here. Who knows if we’ll ever see them again?”
“Yeah, I understand. You know I hate that we have to let these guys go. But you heard the message, somebody’s taken over a planet and is torturing and murdering people. I know these Midnight Group guys also torture and murder, but so far it hasn’t been on a planetary scale.” Paress exhaled. “We’ve gotta do this. We’re the only hope for those people.”
“I hear ya,” Casten said. “And I agree. Just wanted to make sure you were thinking of both sides.”
“Absolutely. This a lousy decision to have to make, but I’ve made it.”
“Okay. Well, we’ll have to make multiple jumps to get there, but on the way, we’ll pass through a system with a more powerful relay that connects to an Imperial outpost. They’ll have a line to Imperial HQ. We can relay the signal there so they can start to launch a proper rescue while we try to take care of things initially.”
“Sounds good,” Paress said. “Alright, let’s do this.”
“Aye aye.”
Casten had already laid in the jump coordinates by the time Paress powered up Allepexxis’ main engine. He watched as the pirate ships, picking up the engine’s output, went on high alert, forming a protective barrier around their mothership Space Monster.
“Jump drives are spooled up,” Casten said, as Paress blasted out of the asteroid field and to a clear area of space where it was safe to jump. Some of the pirates had broken away from the rest of the group and were approaching at high speed.
When Allepexxis reached the safe area to jump, Paress said, “Going into space jump in five…four…three…two…one…Jump.” He pushed the lever forward to take the Hyper Battle Machine into jump.
“I’ll be back for you bastards,” Paress said as he watched the approaching pirates.
Moments later Hyper Battle Machine #25 Allepexxis went into space jump on a mission to save Queen Artzia and the people of the planet Cymarus.
TO BE CONTINUED in Francescan War Chronicles Book Three: The Space Dragon’s Betrayal.
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Author’s Note
Thanks so much for reading Book Two in the Francescan War Chronicles! You have my eternal gratitude for taking the time to read my story. Time is an increasingly rare commodity, and I’m super appreciative of anybody who uses that rare commodity on my creations. I’m sorry I’m only able to release one of these a year, but should these books ever do well enough to become my “day job”, I’ll try to expedite the process!
This book was originally going to be book number five, or maybe six. The plan was to jump back in time and cover the exploits of Captain Sonni (Paress’ hero), then jump ahead to Feln and Aaltskog, then back to Paress. But then I realized that all of this jumping around in time might become tiresome for the reader as he or she would have to keep a lot of stuff in mind while we skipped through the years. And while other, more esteemed authors may be able to effectively pull off such a feat, I think I’d rather play it safe. So, we’re rewinding the clock to cover Paress’ story for two books before we rejoin Feln and Aaltskog.
The reason for this is quite simple: a lot of what goes on in Paress’ story has a direct consequence in Feln’s. When we left Feln, he was nearly forcibly taken back to the Space Knight Academy under the direct orders of the Academy’s mysterious new commandant, Jeddeg Behlen. Feln has no idea who this person is and the only thing Aaltskog can find out about him is that he’s from the Hyper Battle Machine development department. It was only because of the intervention of Siegfried IV that kept Feln free from the Academy, but that reprieve will only last so long and at some point soon, Feln and Aaltskog are going to have to face the music. Reading this book and the next, we can begin to flesh out who this Behlen guy is and what Feln’s going to be up against.
When Feln went into his Resonance state, he encountered the shades of Denxeiter’s first three pilots, including Lila Aliss, a friend of Siegfried II (the Emperor in Paress’ time) and Johnny Vogel, who Paress met toward the end of this book. For any who have read Francescan Tales Book One: Denxeiter’s Duel (and God bless those of you who have!), we see how Johnny went into his Resonance state and the consequences of that on himself and Cassie. Soon after, a furious Paress arrives on the scene and he’s none too happy! That episode, two years in the future from where this book ends, will play out from Paress’ point of view in the next book.
At the end of Denxeiter’s Duel, Behlen gets into a discussion with the young Salvador Maass (the man who would go on to create Aaltskog) before th
e Sisters arrive to place Denxeiter back into his sleeping state. Behlen is still creeped out by the Sisters…
So with all these threads already there, I figured it would be best to just keep things simple instead of making the reader keep notes on who did what/ when. There’s already enough of that stuff happening anyway thanks to all the lore and history flying around. No need to make things even more complicated!
By the way, I keep a giant history/ timeline/ story outline file to follow, so there’s no worry that I’ll write myself into a hole. In fact, when I created the file, I started at the end and went backwards from there. You can be assured that I do know how all this will end because the ending is what I created first.
In this book, I tried to include some more shoutouts/ send ups of various geeky stuff. That whole discussion about mecha controls near the end is a wink to properties like Robot Jox, G Gundam, and more recently, Pacific Rim. There’s plenty of other stuff in there from the fairly obvious to the ultra obscure. Of course, I always want my stories to stand on their own even if the reader doesn’t catch any of the references. These books are by no means supposed to be tests of the reader’s geekitude— so if you enjoyed the story without catching a single reference, I’ll be very happy.
Incidentally, for any of you who might be thinking Paress’s story is going to turn into one big homage/ rip off of Warhammer 40,000’s Horus Heresy and the whole Traitor Space Marines saga, rest assured that this story is going in a completely different direction. I realize I just dropped another reference, but I figured this one needed to be talked about because Amazon often groups my books in with real 40k books and semi-40k books. And while I love 40k (and have spent plenty of money on that love), the Francescan War Chronicles are not supposed to be 40k books.
I hope you enjoy the gallery. Thanks again to mecha designer Dade W. Bell. I wish I could include more pictures and in higher resolution, but alas, I have to keep a balancing act between profitability and what Amazon charges for the file sizes. As with Book One, the paperback version will have much more graphic content because it’s not based on a downloadable file size. Even so, I still wanted to add some visual flavor as a small present for the reader of the e-book and that’s why I’ve still included a small gallery here as well.
See you in Book Three!
Don’t Miss…
If you enjoyed Denxeiter’s Duel, don’t miss Francescan War Chronicles Book One: Space Knight Denxeiter!
After years of hard fighting against the Aldonis Federation, Denxeiter’s fourth pilot, Feln Koenig, is finally given a reprieve when he’s assigned a peaceful mission to escort a fleet on its way to colonize a new world. He’s accompanied by his quirky female Companion, Aaltskog— a creation of Salvador Maass— who possesses strange abilities no other Companion ever has.
Their reprieve is short-lived when the fleet is ripped from space jump into an uncharted part of the galaxy, where debris makes communication and navigation all but impossible. It seems as if this region of space itself has a malevolent mind… and when a terrifyingly disturbing enemy suddenly attacks, Feln, Aaltskog, and Denxeiter will be pushed to their limits… and beyond.
Taking place 63 years after the events of Denxeiter’s Duel, the Prologue of this full-length novel appears below!
Francescan Star Calendar Year 583.2
Location: System Unknown
The colony orbiting the rocky desert planet had certainly seen better days. Along its cylindrical body of brass and gold there were countless scuffs and scorch marks. And while half of the colony’s twenty-mile length still showed signs of life with blinking lights and a vibrant, almost idyllic landscape visible through its glass sections, the other half was ruptured and open to space. It was charred from a great fire that had swept through at the same time the area was blasted open. Impaled into the colony’s side was the skeletal remains of a massive starship, burned black— the origin point of the fire that had burned the surrounding area.
Anything not burned was still dead; the landscape and all signs of life were silenced in the vacuum of space. Remnants of buildings, cars, and bodies slowly tumbled in a slow dance of death in and around the areas of the colony where they had once lived before being put into their final state by the decompression of the shell around them. Massive blue lightning storms arced between the shattered remains of the large solar panels and mirrors that once brought power and life-giving sunlight.
Bursts of red and green lightning suddenly blasted its way across the blue as a small fleet of insect-like things and deformed robots engaged a single target in a battle raging a few miles above the colony. The target of this group was a robot itself that shared some vague similarities with its adversaries, but was really very different.
This robot was much larger, 232 feet tall compared to the 55 feet of the robots and roughly 70 feet of the insect-things surrounding it. While the normal assumption would be that the massive robot would somehow be slower and more ponderous, the fact was much the opposite. It moved with a speed and agility comparable to the lightning around the space colony, easily outmaneuvering all it opposed.
The speed of its movement notwithstanding, the robot— like the colony— had also seen better days. Thanks to an overworked and failing navigation deflector, its gray paint was chipped and scratched, dull from constant exposure to a virtual sandblasting from tiny pieces of debris floating in space. While the robot’s overall appearance resembled some type of giant knight, it was nonetheless a knight that had seen a lot of hard fighting.
Parts of its armor were missing with hasty patch jobs applied all over to keep any crucial inner mechanisms from being exposed. One of the fingers on its left hand was missing, but this was still better than its other hand, which was missing completely. In fact, its entire left arm was gone, ripped out of its socket with some of the surrounding shoulder area, and covered with an oil stained grey tarp that almost blended in with the tattered dark gray cape flowing from the robot’s back. In many ways, this made the knight look like a sort of wanderer in the desert.
Its head sported a helmet with burn marks and a V-shaped crest that was broken on the left side, corresponding to the damage to its shoulder and missing arm below. Below the helmet, in the absence of a shield that had been ripped away long ago, a face resembling that of a human could be seen. A blood red eye glared out angrily with a pitch black iris that slid from enemy to enemy. As with its arms, only the right eye was intact. The other ripped out in some previous battle and now covered over with more tarp material to effectively create a giant eyepatch.
Among so many large distinguishing features, there was one painted item that although scratched and burned with war, had survived. It was an insignia shield design on the right side shoulder armor that depicted a skull overlapping two crisscrossing lightning bolts. Surrounding this insignia were the words: FRANCESCAN IMPERIAL STAR NAVY ULTIMATE FLEET ESCORT HYPER BATTLE MACHINE #34: “DENXEITER”
Denxeiter was piloted from a cockpit buried deep inside its chest cavity, and in this space sat a man who although not missing any limbs or eyes, somehow seemed like a tiny organic reflection of the massive robot he commanded.
Captain Feln Koenig, Francescan Imperial Star Navy Space Knight Rank AA7, looked like he had spent the last few months of his life in the middle of a tornado. His dirty blonde hair was matted and unkempt and in his eyes. A scar stretched diagonally across his face and still bore the visual remnants of what was obviously a hasty battlefield stitching. His captain’s hat looked like it had been stomped on repeatedly, matching his uniform which was once spotless and pressed, now stained and careworn.
It was a good thing that Denxeiter’s cockpit had a type of adaptive artificial gravity, or Feln would have had to contend with all of the garbage at his feet flying around him in weightlessness. The garbage was mostly wrappers for nutrition bars, drink containers, and the remains of packaging for meds to keep him awake on his long station. Though not as numerous, there were also the remnants of psych m
ed packaging.
There was a hatch behind his pilot seat that led into a small apartment with bed and restroom that while not luxurious, was rather cozy in its own way. Plenty of garbage was also scattered around the floor of the apartment, and on closer inspection, it was obvious that Feln had tried to keep the garbage constrained there, before it finally started to spill into the cockpit. Once it had crossed that threshold, Feln had simply given up trying to keep it at bay.
He was surrounded by a large, curved screen that made up half a sphere in front of him. Here, visual and other data was transmitted from Denxeiter’s eyes and other sensors. Various sections of the screen were out or filled with gray static from where a sensor had gone down or was destroyed. A large patch of the left side of the screen was black, corresponding to Denxeiter’s missing left eye.
Feln’s own gray eyes were tired and bloodshot from lack of sleep and constantly darting back and forth across the screen to keep sight of his enemies. His breathing was heavy and ragged as he pushed and pulled on Denxeiter’s control sticks and foot pedals to keep the giant robot in the fight and out of harm’s way. It was only thanks to his nano-tech-enhanced physiology that he was able to stay awake almost constantly and in action for a little over two weeks. Well, that and the meds.
At Feln’s command, Denxeiter blasted through the surrounding enemies. The twin beam cannons on Denxeiter’s forearm fired out a staccato rhythm of rapid fire laser blasts as the right arm moved in a wide arc. The shots pierced through the robots and insects leaving melted metal and charred exoskeleton in their wake. While most of the robots exploded, some just became motionless and dead like the insects.
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