Francescan War Chronicles 1: Space Knight Denxeiter Read online

  People like Feln were strongly encouraged to become Space Knights to make the most use of their gifts in service to the Empire. It would be a life of adventure, and very few turned down the offer. Maybe the fact that such gifted people would otherwise have to be under virtual house arrest to keep from harming others or themselves by accident may have also made up a lot of minds.

  Those who did become Space Knights became one of an elite few, for all intents and purposes answerable only to the Imperial Household. They were given highly important assignments and each was presented with his or her own Hyper Battle Machine.

  These were machines that went far beyond the normal combat machinery in the Imperial Arsenal. Reverse-engineered from Ancient designs and based around a biotechnical skeleton with other-dimensional enhancements, these machines were Blessed in their own way, giving them abilities that were practically magic, and in some cases actually were magic. The Blessing didn’t always work, and if it didn’t, the machine would be scrapped. But if it did (something just as rare as Blessed people), it was during that time their final forms and abilities would be revealed.

  Not all Hyper Battle Machines ended up in a humanoid shape. During his time in training, Feln had seen some truly bizarre Hyper Battle Machines: #58 looked like a giant gold snake, and #65 was in the form of a massive cube with weird patterns constantly pulsing across its surface. Feln breathed a sigh of relief when he became #34 Denxeiter’s fourth pilot in the past 127 years, not just because of Denxeiter’s honorable storied history, but because the machine looked humanoid. The odd forms made him nervous.

  Space Knights were also always presented with a Companion. A Companion was an android Mechanism with a positronic brain that was meant to do all high level service and synching of the Space Knight with his Hyper Battle Machine. But a Companion also filled a crucial role in that they would always be a loyal partner for their Space Knight.

  Having abilities far beyond the normal populace could lead to a very lonely life for a Space Knight otherwise. But by having a Companion, a Space Knight knew he always had someone to confide in, have fun with, and would always be there for him. Companions were made with materials that approximated real skin, hair, eyes, and all the other things that made them look and feel organic; they were also warm to the touch, increasing their organic “realness”.

  Finally, they were given a sort of Glamor to smooth over any niggling details that would have put them in the realm of uncanny valley. And thanks to their durable construction, a Companion could keep up with a Space Knight in most things and be very helpful in ways normal people couldn’t.

  Feln rounded a corner and saw his Companion, Aaltskog walking toward him. When she saw him, she brightened and started to almost skip. Other members of the crew glanced at her sideways, and in some cases just outright gaped. Feln rolled his eyes— Aaltskog was wearing one of her more provocative outfits again.

  He’d already received complaints about this and made many apologies, but Aaltskog wouldn’t be stopped. In this case, she was wearing a tank top that was way too tight, and a skirt so short, that with each step, her panties poked out of the bottom. The skirt was too short on top as well, sitting so low on her hips that the G-string of her panties poked up past the waistline. As if all this wasn’t bad enough, Aaltskog, with her short skinny body (she never wore a bra because she maintained there was no point, with almost nonexistent breasts) and short purple hair that covered her eyes, looked like a pre-teen.

  This made her already provocative outfit scandalous, and Feln was getting really tired of having to explain to people that he wasn’t some kind of weirdo who made his Companion do this. The one saving grace to her shirt was it left her upper arms and collar bones exposed, where the usual black tattoos identifying herself as a Mechanism were located: the Francescan Imperial Seal on each upper arm and her name centered under her collar bones in a slight curve like a necklace.

  Being from a planet with mostly cool weather, Feln had a fairly light complexion. But Aaltskog was so fair she was almost pure white. On one hand it made her look even younger, and by extension, more like a naughty faerie maiden in her taste of clothes. But on the other, it made her Mechanism tattoos even more obvious. At least with those tattoos so visible nobody would think her organic.

  No, Feln thought, they’ll just think I’m kinky for keeping my Companion this way…

  The fact was, Aaltskog had been with Feln since he was twelve. To make him more compatible at the time of his Blessing with his new Companion, he was given one the same age as him.

  Companions spent the first five years of their lives in incubation as their brains were slowly woven together with other-dimensional technology. The process was similar to an organic child’s brain growth and development while also obviously different. After being released from incubation, Companions went though childhood like organic children, learning and growing in mind along the way.

  When Aaltskog met Feln, she had just been given her newest body to reflect her age of twelve, because although a Companion’s brain could age, its body could not. But unlike other Companions who transferred their brains into more adult bodies to coincide with the aging of their Space Knights, Aaltskog had firmly resisted. The positronic brain had to be shut down during the process, and in another mystery that nobody could seem to solve, there was about a five per cent chance the brain wouldn’t start back up.

  Aaltskog had become obsessed with this fact, and had a premonition that if she went through with any more body transfers, she’d die. Since most Companions’ premonitions actually came true (a theoretical side-effect of their other-dimensional engineering), Feln believed her and never tried to force her to change her mind. And while he understood that she likely dressed and acted this way to appear more like her true age of twenty-seven, the constant explaining and apologizing was tiring.

  Presently she landed in front of Feln with what looked like grease stains on her shirt and a smudge on her face.

  “Okay, I’m convinced,” Feln said.

  “Of what?” her voice often carried a note of naughtiness.

  “That you’re trying to get us kicked off this ship.”

  “Huh? Whaddya mean?”

  “This… this… getup!”

  Aaltskog turned and bent over to tighten the laces on her boots, exposing her panties. “Ya like it?”

  Feln made an exaggerated point of looking at the ceiling as two servicewomen walked by.

  “Alright, you, come on.” Feln started walking and Aaltskog glided up next to him with a giggle. Feln said, “so what were you doing to get so grubby?”

  “In the hangar doing pre-emptive maintenance on Big Brother.”

  Feln found Aaltskog’s nickname for Denxeiter endearing. “How’s he doing?”

  “Good. He’s asleep of course, so I want to make sure he’s ready when he wakes up.”

  “Ah.”

  “Why aren’t you in bed?” she asked.

  “I had a bad dream or something,” Feln mumbled. “I don’t know. It woke me up. I saw you were out so I figured I’d go for a walk and see if we ran into each other.”

  Aaltskog tensed. “Bad dream? Yeah, that’s not good. I’ve been telling you I’ve got a bad feeling about this mission. Maybe you’re picking up on something too…”

  “Nah, it’s nothing.”

  Feln glanced over at Aaltskog. The skip was gone and she was just kind of plodding along. Sure enough, even though he couldn’t see her eyes, he knew her brow was furrowed obsessing over this new “bad omen”. Dammit, he should have kept his mouth shut. He’d have to think of something. “So your outfit… is that from the Greasemonkey Jailbait catalog?”

  “Ha! You do like it!”

  “I dunno…”

  She brightened immediately. “That’s not a ‘no’!”

  He winked. “Maybe…” That seemed to be enough to satisfy her and she resumed a happy gait. Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “You know about half of all Space Knig
hts end up marrying their Companions. What do you think of that?” And then he immediately wished he could rewind time and stop himself. Sometimes his smalltalk after diffusing a tense situation made things even worse. As it did now.

  “Are you saying…?” she stopped in her tracks.

  “No! I don’t know why I said that! No, I’m sorry!” She hung her head and slumped as if her body was going to collapse. Her lips began to quiver. Great, now people would see a guy in his late twenties trying to talk to a crying pre-teen in risqué clothing. “Sweetheart, come on. God, I’m such an idiot.”

  But she didn’t cry. Instead, she grew solemn. “Feln, you know full well I would do the transfer if not for my premonition.”

  “Yes, darling, I know.”

  “And the failure rate. Five per cent. Do you know how many that works out to?”

  “Hmm. No, how many?”

  This question took Aaltskog by surprise and Feln could see her trying to do the math, first just wordlessly, then using her fingers. Finally, after what seemed like forever, she said earnestly, “Well, no. But it’s a lot!”

  Feln couldn’t help but laugh. He hugged her close, “You really are something.” Thankfully he felt her shoulders get looser and relax. With a soft giggle she said, “You know I’m bad at figuring that stuff out!”

  “Yes, Lord help me, I’m stuck with a Mechanism that can’t do math.”

  She elbowed him in the ribs… hard. “Oh, ha ha! First of all, it’s not like I know how many AI’s are out there, much less how many do transfers. It’s not like we’re some kind of robotic hive mind bent on taking over!”

  “Yeah, rise of the machine seductress overlords.”

  She elbowed him again.

  He coughed and said, “You know, it’s bad enough that you break the Second Law of Robotics at least ten times a day by not obeying my orders. It’s not like I’m giving you anything that would conflict with the First Law… But this is twice just now that you’ve broken the First Law itself by injuring a human: me! What would Galarisa Positronics think of you? They’d be scandalized!”

  Her response was to stick her tongue out at him. “Anyway, I don’t need math to do my job!”

  “Yeah, silly me for thinking that a girl who maintains an ultra-sophisticated piece of military hardware would need math…”

  “I don’t! I just… know what to do. You know that. It’s one of my central programming traits. I’ll sing a song to myself or whatever, and my hands know what to do by themselves.”

  “I know. And you’re sure you’re not a tool of the machine hive mind?”

  “As a wise man said a couple minutes ago, ‘I dunno… Maybe…’”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” The hall was empty. He suddenly grabbed her and pulled her close. He lifted her face and pulled the hair from her eyes. Her irises were bright purple with little white star designs in circles around her pupils. She was always self-conscious of her eyes.

  The star designs were the marker that she was created by Dr. Salvador Maass. Maass had been a brilliant android designer and all of his creations were coveted as the apex in realism, personality, and skill— they were so well-made, they didn't need the Glamor to appear organic and alive. Nobody could quite put a finger on what made Maass’ creations so perfect… they just were. It was only natural that Feln would receive a Maass design as his Companion considering his standing as a Space Knight. And then one day, for reasons known only to himself, Maass went on a space walk and after singing a lullaby, took off his helmet and killed himself.

  Later, Aaltskog began to hide her eyes behind her hair— after all, she was easily capable of seeing thanks to vision in a range of spectrums. And while she had always maintained it was to keep from being kidnapped or worse by some of Maass’ more extreme fans after his suicide (she and her fellow creations were now considered to be essentially collectibles), Feln knew she had other reasons she wasn’t telling him. He didn’t pry.

  “You do have the most beautiful eyes,” he said, wiping the smudge from her face. She looked at him with those eyes; they were wide open and he felt her peering into his soul. “I’ll never order you to keep your hair out of the way, but you should.”

  “No, they’re only for you,” she said. “Always.”

  Someone cleared their throat. The Tannhauser’s commanding officer, Captain Ashley Larkin, was standing there looking slightly bemused. Aaltskog blushed and did a little jump away from Feln, tossing her head slightly to bring her hair back down in front of her eyes.

  Feln saluted and after Larkin reciprocated, she said, “You two are up late. Or maybe really early.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Feln said. Aaltskog hid behind him. For some reason, Larkin scared her, even though Larkin had always been kind to the little android.

  “Hello, Aaltskog,” Larkin said in a friendly way. She was in her fifties, but because Francescan humans aged at a slower rate, she still looked like she was in her late twenties. It was her bearing that gave her away as someone who had seen a lot of action on the frontier. Maybe that’s what scared Aaltskog— Feln didn’t know.

  Aaltskog peered out from behind Feln’s arm, “Hello, ma’am…”

  Larkin nodded and turned to Feln, “Captain, as much as I’m fascinated by the physical relations between enhanced humans and their Mech’ girls, I really must insist you cease this behavior.” Behind him Aaltskog made a squeak of terror.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Feln said.

  “I don’t have the authority to order you, of course. I’m just asking as a favor. Please. This ship is crewed by plenty of people who are far away from their loved ones. And while there are some shipboard romances here, it’s still between service people in similar situations. Obviously, your Companion is crucial to your mission, and we’re happy to have the two of you aboard. But please consider the morale of those other crew members who aren’t so lucky to bring along a loved one.”

  “Of course, ma’am. It’s my fault completely and I do apologize. It won’t happen again.”

  “Thank you, Captain. I really do app—“

  With a deafening bang, the ship suddenly lurched sideways as if a giant foot had kicked it. Feln jumped and caught Captain Larkin before she hit the opposite wall.

  She didn’t seem to notice she was in his arms as she looked around with narrowed eyes and said, “We just dropped out of jump space. Or rather, something pulled us out.”

  When it seemed like the ship was safe and another lurch wasn’t coming, Feln set Larkin on her feet. She was already on her way down the hall to the bridge, “What the hell is going on here?” The Red Alert klaxons were sounding. She looked back and said, “You two had better get to the hanger.” She turned to go and then stopped and looked back, “Oh, and Captain, thanks for the save.” She disappeared around the corner.

  “Don’t mention it,” Feln said to the empty place where Larkin had been moments before. He turned to Aaltskog, “Alright, let’s go wake up Big Brother.”

  Chapter Two

  As its name attested, Planetary Colonizing Fleet #198 was a group of ships put together to establish a new world for the Empire. The planet was in System #1609-00080 located about 700 lightyears away from the Francescan home world of Wystra. It had been discovered three years ago and was put forth as an ideal candidate for terraforming.

  The most noticeable aspect of the fleet was the twenty-mile long cylindrical colony that housed the workers and colonists that would spend the next few years terraforming the planet to make it habitable. When finished, the colony itself would be broken up and the materials brought to the planet to expedite construction of the planet’s first city. The colony was presided over by a governor and carried a small defense force known as a home guard. After the colony’s dismantlement, the governor and home guard would transition to become planetary governor and planetary defense force.

  Other ships in the fleet were mostly support ships carrying various materials needed for terraforming the planet, such as water
, plant life, and animal embryos in cryonic storage. Other ships carried the construction equipment needed for such an immense task, and still others were essentially gigantic mass conversion machines used to change what was currently a barren, lifeless world into a planet with an atmosphere capable of supporting a population.

  Of the 145 ships in the fleet, only 36 were true warships that comprised a task group. The Tannhauser was a heavy assault space carrier acting not only as flagship to the task group, but to the colonization fleet as a whole. With the Tannhauser were four heavy cruisers, five light cruisers, ten destroyers, fourteen corvettes, and two missile ships. While all Francescan support ships were armed and could likely fend off small pirate attacks, they didn’t have the muscle required to take on a dedicated fleet of warships. The initial surveys had shown the destination system to be free of any hostiles, and an overall clear area of space of ten light years around. But in the past, the Empire had learned the hard way that this didn’t always mean all was safe.

  Fairly early in the Imperial history of terraforming and colonization, a planet was found that appeared to be a suitable candidate. After the all-clear was given by the initial survey, a colonization fleet had gotten to work, with only a few corvettes as a light precaution. Two weeks later, the entire colony had been destroyed and all the inhabitants killed by a race known as the Ralliok. The war to defeat and subjugate that species ended up turning into a protracted fight that almost brought the young Empire to its knees. However, it was the first war the Francescans had fought and won on a galactic scale and not just in its home star system; many hard-fought lessons were learned that resulted in a much stronger Empire capable of expanding and defending its holdings at an extremely high level of competency.

  One of those lessons learned was to not depend on the light firepower of the support ships in a colonization fleet. It was now standard procedure to send an attendant task group of dedicated warships with every colonization fleet. The warships would stay with the colony until the planet had established a planetary defense system and bunkers to stay in during any hostile attack until help could arrive. The time to do this was usually anywhere from a year to year and a half depending on planetary and system conditions.