Francescan War Chronicles 1: Space Knight Denxeiter

by C. K. Pershing

  White hot lightning seared Feln’s vision from the right. He turned to see Xxixxixx firing its multiple lightning cannons into another enemy and cooking the thing alive.

  “He’s kinda doing the same thing to the one I fought when I threw it into the broken solar arrays,” Feln said.

  “You guys can share notes,” Aaltskog said.

  Feln looked around and didn’t see Olok at first. It wasn’t until he noticed another one of the aliens hunched over convulsing that he realized that Olok was inside. Sure enough, the monster’s skin suddenly ruptured open as Olok’s smaller spheres burst from inside its body followed by Olok itself firing its high power beam and slicing the alien apart.

  Denxeiter’s danger alarm went off and Feln saw another monster heading straight for him. He started firing with the big gun and was satisfied to see some of its eyes explode. It started to launch its own beam attack back at him and he dodged to one side only to be caught by one of the monster’s arms. Feln set the drones to work on the arm as he pulled out the pistol to fend off the creature’s other arms that were swatting at him.

  Just then the top of the monster’s head caved in as Maksinder came crashing down on it from above, all four oversized fists hammering in one place. Stunned, the monster released Denxeiter from its grasp. Feln unsheathed Ganxeiter’s sword and jammed the blade deep into one of the thing’s burst eye sockets and rotated around the circumference of its head ripping out the rest of the eyes along the way. The monster screamed but was cut off when Olok neatly sliced the front of its mouth away from the rest of the body. Xxixxixx followed up by charring the rest of the thing with its lightning cannons.

  “Hey nice teamwork,” Feln said to the other Hyper Battle Machines. He was answered with silence. “Are our coms down?” He checked his console and saw they were working perfectly.

  “Man, why’re they giving us the cold shoulder?” Aaltskog asked.

  “I don’t know. It’s pretty strange considering we’re all Space Knights.”

  As if to answer his question, Olok’s pilot suddenly appeared on screen: Lt. Silas Clorinde, Francescan Imperial Star Navy Space Knight Rank AB6. He was a young man with boyish features and close cropped dark brown hair. “I’m sorry we can’t talk right now, sir. We were instructed to keep our minds on the battle and leave any extraneous talk for afterwards.”

  “Extraneous?” Feln asked, but Clorinde was already gone, Olok barreling along and puncturing another alien’s body while slicing it up with laser fire.

  “Well, you do tend to get pretty chatty in the middle of a fight,” Aaltskog said.

  “Ha, look who’s talking! Besides, I wasn’t asking them for their life story, just giving congrats on good teamwork.”

  “Who knows who their chief instructor was? That guy looked like a kid and from what he said about how they were taught, the other two are probably the same age.”

  “Yeah, I’ll admit ever since we got into the field, I stopped paying attention to who the instructors are at the Academy.”

  “Well, whoever instructed them must be somebody who does things a little differently.”

  “Yeah, he instructs them to be a bunch of stuck-up asses.”

  “Now now, it’s up to you to set a good example for the youth of tomorrow,” Aaltskog said with a giggle.

  “Hmph,” Feln uttered as he started to chase one of the other creatures through a group of ships.

  “So we’re not helping them?” Aaltskog asked.

  “No, you can tell that Clorinde kid wanted to tell me to stay out of their way. So I will. They know what they’re doing, I’ll let them do it.”

  “Yeah, screw ‘em.”

  “Exactly,” Feln said as he shot some blasts from the big gun and hit the creature in its side. It turned to face him but was quickly blown apart by multiple beams from some nearby cruisers.

  “Did you plan that? To chase that thing into the heavy firepower of some waiting ships?” Aaltskog asked.

  “No, that was just lucky. But if anybody asks, yes, I absolutely planned it.”

  “Your secret’s safe.”

  “Still, that’s a good idea. Right now Denxeiter can’t do much to hurt these things, so let’s try to herd them into some spots where the ships don’t have the speed and maneuverability, but do have the firepower.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Feln saw another creature zipping around firing its beams at various ships as it went, but also dodging between their return fire. He dropped in behind it and started firing. It dodged his shots, but he slowly got it to enter the field of fire of another group of cruisers. No matter which way the alien went, red beams sliced through it and soon enough, it was also dead.

  As Feln started to chase another, he asked, “Hey, how’re we doing overall? Once these things showed up, I kinda lost track.”

  After a moment, Aaltskog said, “Four of their really big ships are left including the first one. The other ones have started to move into a protective formation around it. Most of their other ships are dead. In fact, with the exception of these things we’re chasing around, they’re all pretty much pulling into a defensive sphere. Nice to make someone else have to do that instead of us for once.”

  The alien that Feln was chasing and shooting at flew into yet another killing zone between Francescan ships and was summarily destroyed. “I wonder why they just don’t retreat and jump out?” Feln asked. “We’re wiping them out.”

  “No idea. Maybe they’re just too proud to run.”

  “Nah, I think this is some more sneaky stuff.” He opened a comms channel to the Tannhauser. After a moment, Kesh appeared.

  “Hello Captain, is everything okay?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. We’re beating the enemy…” Another of the giant enemy ships exploded. “But I feel like they’re drawing us in to a trap.”

  “Yes, I feel the same way. I’ll pass on your concern to the Prince, but I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s already had a similar feeling.”

  “Thank you sir.”

  Kesh nodded and was gone. Feln turned back to the battle searching for another monster to chase, but realized they had all been killed. With the internal area of the fleet no longer compromised, he moved into position with the battle line and joined his firepower with the rest of the fleet, shooting at what few insects remained.

  Siegfried came back over fleet wide communications. “Attention fleet. Space Knight Koenig has suggested the enemy may be laying a trap for us. Captain Koenig has become something of a specialist on fighting these things and I agree with his assertion. Truly, the enemy could have tried to retreat but continues to fight on. I believe there is more to this fight than stubborn pride.

  “I’m sending orders to ships that I want to leave the battle line and establish a defensive zone at the rear of the fleet as well as top and bottom. We cannot allow the victory within our grasp to cloud our judgment.” He paused as someone whispered something to him. He turned back to the screen. “It has been brought to my attention that His Majesty, The Emperor, has decreed that if possible, we must capture a so-called alien ‘queen’. He wants to interrogate one of the beings who rules the enemy. With this in mind, choose your shots wisely after we have destroyed all but their flagship. That is all.”

  “Huh, does he mean the Emperor wants to interrogate one of those things personally?” Aaltskog asked.

  “Maybe,” Feln said. “I wouldn’t be surprised after seeing how hardcore his son, the Prince, is.” As he spoke, various ships pulled away from the main battle line and assumed new defensive positions around the fleet. Feln decided to do the same. He had a gut feeling that the surprise would come from behind the fleet.

  After a few minutes, the space all around the fleet began to shimmer as six more of the super heavy ships began to jump in. “Sometimes I hate being right,” Feln groaned as the Francescans opened fire and the newcomers responded in kind.

  With the arrival of so much enemy heavy firepower, the balance had suddenly
started to shift in the enemies’ favor. A light cruiser near Denxeiter exploded under the withering fire and a heavy cruiser started to drift out of the defensive line as fires raged across its hull. It was then that Feln noticed a large number of the really large insects like the one the possessed Francescan ships had brought into his fleet. And possessed Katashka.

  “Dammit, I thought we were done with the superbugs,” Feln said. Like the rest of the rearguard, Feln fired at the big insects, but if the things’ shields weren’t enough to protect them, generally their tough exoskeletons made up the difference. Even so, the timely positioning of the fleet’s defenses to cover the ambush meant that many of the insects were destroyed by heavy weapons fire, even as the Francescans themselves were starting to take more losses from the ships.

  Feln remembered that it was the head tentacle from one of the large insects that possessed Ganxeiter. He assumed his brief on the incident had been spread around the fleet and nobody would be caught unawares as Katashka had been. As it stood, none of the large insects were able to get close enough to use their tentacles. Feln figured their plan was to attack the Francescans from behind and perhaps possess their ships before the rest of the fleet could respond.

  At least it seemed like that plan had been foiled by the timely repositioning of part of the fleet. But if too many more of the large Francescan ships in the defensive line were destroyed, the insects might still be able to break through and effect possessions. Although the super ships were the overall danger, Feln saw the insects as the more pressing of the two. He wouldn’t allow any more Francescans to die like Katashka did and then have their bodies used against their comrades.

  He shot at the head of an insect with the big gun and sent the drones to help, its body was riddled with beams from a newly arrived team of gunships that included G-799. The large insect convulsed and died floating listlessly in space. Since the possession tentacle could still be active if the body was dead, they kept shooting at the body until it was completely destroyed.

  Feln was about to thank the gunships for their help when two Francescan ships suddenly emerged from jump above the recently arrived alien fleet. One was a royal super battleship almost five miles long that Feln’s screen identified as the Eendracht. The other ship, the Carthage, was the lead in the class of heavy assault carriers the Tannhauser belonged to. However, unlike the Tannhauser’s usual Francescan paint scheme of bluish gray, this carrier was white with gold trim and gilding like the battleship that came with it. This marked it as another royal ship.

  “Oh man, don’t tell me…” Feln said as he stared at the white carrier. The Eendracht fired its Planet Smasher gun and promptly obliterated one of the large alien ships. This was quickly followed by the Carthage’s Wave Blaster that wiped out any alien ships or insects remaining in the immediate vicinity. Into this newly created hole in the alien fleet, the carrier launched its compliment of white Aldens and fighters.

  And a Hyper Battle Machine.

  “Yeah, it’s her,” Aaltskog said, voice tinged with terror.

  Chapter Nine

  The newly arrived Hyper Battle Machine was #115 Es Wird Finster, the latest weapon commissioned into the Space Knight Corps.

  It looked like a giant dark gray armored skeleton with a breast plate in a skull motif wearing a black cloak (Feln absently remembered his opposition to creating something similar for Denxeiter) and carrying a massive scythe. Instead of feet, its lower legs ended in long blades. Along with the scythe, seven large swords darted around the Machine’s body in a fashion similar to Denxeiter’s drones.

  Another aspect made Es Wird Finster stand out: instead of the black Francescan Orennis Leaf insignia that Denxeiter and other similar Hyper Battle Machines sported on the backs of their capes, this Machine had the full Francescan crest of crossed flintlocks and sword overlapping a fiery sun design emblazoned on the back of its cloak. Only members of the Francescan Imperial Royal Household were allowed to use such a design, and there was only one member of the Royal Household currently alive that had been Blessed.

  “Kriemhilde,” Feln said as he watched the black cloaked form leave behind the Aldens and fighters to dive down and split a large insect in half from top to bottom with its scythe. Es Wird Finster spun around and swung the scythe in an arc to cut another insect in half as the swords spiraling around it sliced apart any other enemies that got near.

  “Guess we’d better help her before she gets in too deep,” Feln said, flying into the fray.

  “I dunno, I think she’s got this covered,” Aaltskog said shakily.

  Feln understood her concern. Kriemhilde II was named after Emperor Gustav II’s wife, the first Empress of the Francescan Star Empire, and she also happened to be Es Wird Finster’s first pilot. Her Blessing was similar to Feln’s in that it made her stronger than normal humans, except Kriemhilde’s manifested more powerfully than Feln’s and her skin was much more resilient to damage. While Feln could survive some small arms fire, Kriemhilde was able to withstand more powerful weapons.

  But this had come at the cost of Kriemhilde always having a certain sense of numbness. Her skin’s toughness made it hard for her to feel slight sensations. Considering that she hadn’t had to deal with those problem until she was Blessed at the age of twelve, it was a hard transition for her.

  By all accounts she had been a gentle, quiet girl before her Blessing, and while she had mostly stayed the same, combat seemed to awaken something primal inside of her. She had become known as something of a berserker. The professional and general consensus was that it was her mind using the opportunity that combat presented to give her pent up feelings a release from normal life where her diminished sense of touch had made her own body a type of prison.

  Aaltskog wasn’t alone in her concern that Kriemhilde’s behavior during battle was simply a side of effect of her Blessing and was slowly driving her insane. Only drones were allowed to fight her in training ever since she severely wounded a trainer by accident, and would have gone on to kill him if multiple other trainers didn’t subdue her. The rumor was that as soon as the battle was over and Kriemhilde’s normal personality reasserted itself, she tried to commit suicide. Nobody had ever been able to confirm or deny the rumor.

  As far as Feln knew this was the first time Kriemhilde had seen actual battle. She was already a great help to the Francescan side as she obliterated multiple enemies either through her blade weapons or the black beams Es Wird Finster shot from its eyes. As Denxeiter got closer to the other Hyper Battle Machine, Feln thought it may very well be his last mistake if she truly was insane.

  “Yeah, but we might need some insanity in this battle,” Feln finished his thought out loud.

  “As long as she knows we’re on her side,” Aaltskog said.

  The gunships, perhaps feeling the same way Aaltskog did, stayed with the other Francescan ships and continued firing at the remaining enemies. Feln didn’t blame them. As he got closer to Es Wird Finster, he had to wade through a thickening cloud of alien body parts and fluids. He saw the dark Machine in the middle of the fray slicing apart alien insects much larger than itself as if they were made of cardboard. He switched on communications between the two Hyper Battle Machines and was greeted by the sound of soft laughter.

  Feln didn’t have time to be chilled by the sound because he saw an insect come up behind Es Wird Finster and fired his big gun at it, blowing a hole in the back of its head. He followed up with Ganxeiter’s sword to behead the creature and then sliced the head apart. Just as he finished, the danger klaxon sounded and Es Wird Finster spun around and brought the scythe down toward Denxeiter’s own head. With a gasp, Feln slid to the side and the scythe roared past, slicing an insect in half that had come up behind him without being noticed.

  “Thanks for having my back,” a young female voice said, a hint of laughter remaining. “And I’m happy to immediately return the favor.”

  “Thanks. Glad you weren’t aiming for me, m’lady,” Feln said. After what
he learned about Denxeiter’s mind in Resonance, he couldn’t be sure if the danger klaxon was meant for the insect or Es Wird Finster.

  He was rewarded with a short giggle as Es Wird Finster turned to chop up more insects. With each sweep, its scythe seemed to put out almost as much force as Durandal did when activating the Wave Slash. But where the Wave Slash had a finite amount of attacks before having to be recharged, the scythe seemed to be able to do its job indefinitely. That so many large insects could fall so quickly and easily to this single Hyper Battle Machine— a feat that required the combined forces of both Denxeiter and Ganxeiter— was sobering.

  “Hey, lets have some fun. Follow me,” Kriemhilde’s voice said as Es Wird Finster blasted off toward one of the enemy’s super ships.

  “Uh, yes, m’lady,” Feln said, trying to keep up.

  “Are we doing what I think we’re doing?” Aaltskog asked.

  “Looks like it,” Feln said, as Es Wird Finster screamed in on a collision course with the monstrous vessel. He breathed a sigh of relief as a host of massive red beams flew past them from behind. The Eendracht, which Feln was convinced was sent along to keep Kriemhilde out of trouble, had fired a massive salvo of shots at the enemy ship in Kriemhilde’s sights. The beams crashed into the ship’s shields, greatly weakening them.

  Still flying toward the ship, Es Wird Finster held out its scythe with straight arms and started to spin its entire body, its cloak flung out making the entire machine look like a giant twirling black flower. Soon it was lost in a black blur resembling a spinning vortex.