Francescan War Chronicles 1: Space Knight Denxeiter Read online

  Space Knight DENXEITER

  Francescan War Chronicles Book One

  C.K. Pershing

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part 1

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Part 2

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Author’s Note

  Concept Art Gallery

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2016 by C.K. Pershing

  Art copyright © 2016 by C.K. Pershing

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum.

  For Tontette, my best friend, for everything.

  Part I

  Prologue

  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 med 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 t
he 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.

  Feln no longer winced with each robot’s destruction and the death of the pilot inside as he did when all of this first started. The fact that he was killing what used to be his friends and colleagues didn’t factor into his thoughts. He knew deep in his heart he was actually giving them a mercy killing.

  Feln thought he caught movement to his left, but it was quickly lost in the blackness of the dead section of screen. Still, he knew to trust his instincts and turned to fire the Xeiter Beam. Denxeiter’s head crest glowed and sparked as a white hot beam erupted from the crest’s center. The beam wasn’t as strong as it used to be thanks to half of the crest being gone, but despite its sputtering and noise, it still cut through three robots. Sure enough, they were trying to get him on Denxeiter’s blind side. About ten enemies were bearing down, already shooting.

  “Den Aegis!” Feln gasped out and the robot responded to his voice command by quickly swinging its cape around to intercept the incoming fire. The beams hit the cape and mostly dissipated before passing through in a much weaker state where Denxeiter’s shields could handle what was left. Where the cape’s material wasn’t as ragged, the beams bounced off into space, but there were very little of those sections left.

  Denxeiter pulled a pistol from a holster located in one of its hip armor plates. Feln quickly squeezed off a series of shots. He was rewarded by enemy bodies rupturing into a massive cloud of debris: blood, oil, body parts, all intermingled in a sickening kaleidoscope. A series of shots lanced at him from below. One of them pierced the pistol and he just barely threw it away before it could explode in Denxeiter’s hand.

  “You already got one arm, you’re not getting the other,” he ground out before firing the Booster Punch at the three attacking insects below. Denxeiter’s targeting computer had already locked onto them as Denxeiter’s forearm and fist blasted off at the elbow, propelled by powerful rockets. Maneuvering thrusters at the wrist allowed the Booster Punch to change direction at a ridiculously high speed and Feln was greeted with the sight of a Z shape of light as the weapon zigzagged back and forth, punching holes in the bodies of the insects as it went. They exploded into a bloody green mess as Denxeiter’s forearm slammed back into place at the elbow with a couple of G’s of recoil. Feln noted that one of the attitude adjustment thrusters must have gone out recently as the docking maneuver was usually smooth with no recoil.

  “Something else to keep Aaltskog busy…”

  What was Aaltskog doing right now? He smiled. Of course, she’d be watching this battle as best she could, hunched over a monitor in the colony. Due to communications in this system only being able to travel a few yards before breaking up completely, Feln hadn’t heard from anyone since a couple days after this mission began. But even with the loss of coms and the inevitable loss in visuals thanks to all the debris and shortage of functioning cameras, Aaltskog would be faithfully watching without ever having to stop to eat or sleep or go to bathroom. She was his Companion, and Companions didn’t have to worry about such things. Although Aaltskog liked to do those things since it made her feel alive.

  “Yeah, sometimes even going to the bathroom…” and then Feln burst into laughter. The idea! An android that enjoyed pooping once in a while! Feln wondered what Aaltskog’s creator would think of that. Then again, who would even think to create an android capable of doing such a thing? Who was more to blame? The creation or the creator? He’d have to ask her what she thought of all this…

  Feln was jarred awake by flashing warning lights and the loud “Danger” klaxon. Dammit, he’d fallen asleep— in the middle of a battle! He’d never done that before. He was having some kind of ludicrous dream about… something… or… someone… And then he slapped himself because he was about to fall asleep again.

  Something smashed into Denxeiter’s back and as he turned to see what it was, Feln was knocked forward by something else slamming into the front. His head would have bashed into the main console, had the reusable airbag not deployed from the console’s center. It quickly retracted back into its compartment, ready to deploy again in a similar circumstance with a burst of compressed air.

  Looking back and forth quickly, he saw that he was being held by a small group of insects. Their legs moved around Denxeiter’s body and interlocked with each other, forming a sort of cage around the robot. He spun around and twirled through a series of maneuvers to throw them off, but they were locked tight.

  “Damn these things…” he said as he noticed one in back opening its mandibles. A spiked tube began to emerge. Oh no, not that! That was how they got in, how they took over. That was why half of the enemies he was fighting used to be his friends.

  “That’s not happening!” he yelled. “You bastards aren’t taking me! You don’t know who you’re messing with!” He knew that they didn’t care about his rantings. But it made him feel better as he scrambled to think of a way out of this. The spike reared back and struck. Denxeiter’s armor held, but he saw that its integrity had decreased by 20%. Four more hits before it got through if he was lucky. But three might be all he’d get… Some more enemies had appeared in front of him, silently waiting for their compatriots to finish their work.

  He couldn’t use the Xeiter Beam on the insects holding his front because one had managed to wedge a claw under Denxeiter’s chin to keep him from looking down. The insects were too close to be able to shoot them with the beam cannons on the arm— their shotgun effect would damage Denxeiter’s own body; the Booster Punch was still recharging and wouldn’t be ready for another twenty seconds. Too bad he had already used up all the shots of the Burst Slammer last week, since it emitted from Denxeiter’s chest and would have instantly vaporized the insects… not only the ones attached, but the other ones that were waiting. The drones could have easily picked these things off but they were lost long ago. The Smasher Blade? No, again they were too close, hugging him so tight, they were almost buried into every crevice of Denxeiter’s front and back. And even if he could use it, it would undoubtedly drain whatever power he had left. The spike hit again.

  Ugh, he had stop thinking of what he couldn’t do, and concentrate on what he could. He glanced at the integrity rating. Sure enough, it was down another 40%. So he was right in thinking he’d only get three chances.

  Then he noticed that shield strength was still at 100%. The shields couldn’t protect against physical attacks, they were meant to protect Denxeiter’s body from any beams that managed to get through the Den Aegis— but they would need time to recharge after getting hit. Since Feln had managed to avoid any direct beam shots in the last few minutes, the shields were charged and at the ready.

  “Overload shields!” he said.

  “Warning, overloading shields will result in them being rendered inoperable,” a deep voice (Denxeiter’s? Feln had wondered) boomed out.

  “Do it!” Feln yelled as he watched the spike quivering about to strike.

  Electric blue lightning erupted across Denxeiter, and arced across the bodies of the insects. A high-pitched squeal vibrated through Denxeiter’s body as the insects were roasted alive. The sound and vibration made Feln feel like his teeth were going to burst. The insects were screaming.

  Feln laughed hysterically, “Burn you bastards! I told you! I told you, you damn bugs! You don’t know who you’re messing with!” And then he suddenly grew sober, “I’ve really gotta get some sleep…” But he couldn’t help but gigg
le as he blasted off straight up and saw the insects’ charred bodies fall away.

  He had to focus, get a grip. He needed some psych meds. He opened the small panel in the right console that housed the meds, but it was empty. Of course it was empty! He knew that already. “This is too much.”

  The group of enemies that had been waiting were now speeding up toward him. He quickly looped over and dove down to intercept them. Now that his shields were dead, he had to be even more careful since the Den Aegis couldn’t guarantee full coverage and even a medium energy beam could now do some real damage to Denxeiter. The Xeiter Beam crackled to life and fired, killing a couple of enemies, before finally sputtering out for good— not to be used again until it could be repaired.

  “Booster Punch!” Feln fired the recently recharged weapon and it once again screamed through space, killing the rest of the group. It slammed back into place even harder this time, and he got a warning saying that it was wedged in place and couldn’t be fired again. Yeah, the attitude adjusters were definitely shot. To make matters worse, overloading the shields had apparently also overloaded the beam cannons on Denxeiter’s forearm.

  Feln spun around ready for the next attack but it never came. He was alone. It was over. He collapsed back in his seat. Thank God! He didn’t really have any more weapons at the ready except for one, and there was no guarantee that it would even work. He’d fight them off with punches and kicks if need be. He sobered as he realized that it was only a matter of time before more of them showed up, and punches and kicks would be exactly what he’d have to use. Well, if that’s what it took…

  The space in front of Denxeiter started to distort and shimmer as something uncloaked in front him. He sucked in a breath of air in shock and then anger as a purple robot around the same size as Denxeiter appeared. While Denxeiter had a male appearance, this robot had a female design. Feln’s teeth gritted as his screen flashed the words: FRANCESCAN IMPERIAL STAR NAVY ULTIMATE FLEET ESCORT HYPER BATTLE MACHINE #40: “GANXEITER”