The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1) (6 page)

The Green Knight
, by Zaina.A – Digital Art

11

From the General’s quarters of the Athens Destroyer, all that could be observed were other destroyers and the vastness of space. As far as General Agravan could see in front of him and behind him, ships just like the one he was aboard stretched into the distance. All of them hurtling through space on their way toward Edsall Dark.

The General, like Mowbray and all other Vonnegans, was slightly taller and thinner than an average human. And like all others of his race, he had no hair anywhere on his body or head. His skin glinted with a purplish complexion. His cheeks were sunken and his eyes were two different shades of gleaming purple.

“Tell me,” a second Vonnegan male said from the other side of the room, “What is the reason for using a gravity mine in fixed warfare but proton mines in unconventional warfare?”

The person speaking was roughly the same height as the General, but his skin was smoother, his eyes larger. Both were indications that he was a teenage Vonnegan rather than an adult. He was also the only person on the entire ship who wasn’t wearing a Vonnegan naval uniform. Instead, he wore intricately woven fabric that was such a light shade of purple it was almost gray.

General Agravan turned from the viewport and walked back to where the teenager sat at a desk. In front of them, scattered about, were diagrams of various space warfare tactics, miniaturized holograms of some of the most famous space battles of all time, any one of which, when touched, would expand to fill the room and allow General Agravan a chance to explain why one fleet had won a battle and the other had lost.

“Well, Minot,” the General said, touching a pinprick of light so it expanded. In front of them, a hologram grew in size until it was the same shape as the desk the boy was at. “A gravity mine, set off in a battle where there are no formations and no traditional lines of fire, will undoubtedly have as much risk of destroying a Vonnegan ship as it would an enemy ship.”

As he spoke, the three dimensional hologram came to life, showing a scattering of Athens Destroyers and Solar Carriers in a battlefield without clear sides, the ships all interspersed. As they watched, an Athens Destroyer shot a small projectile into the middle of the battlefield. A moment later, Minot’s and General Agravan’s faces both lit up as the hologram’s representation of a gravity mine exploded. But instead of a Solar Carrier getting sucked into the explosion, the nearest Athens Destroyer was hit.

“You see,” Agravan said, his hand on Minot’s shoulder, “You have to adapt your weapons to the type of battle that is unfolding. Just because you have ten types of weapons doesn’t mean you have to use all ten. Maybe you’ll only use laser cannons in one battle. In another, maybe only proton torpedoes and ion depth charges. You let the circumstances of the battle, as well as the type of forces you are facing, determine your response.”

Minot smiled at the hologram and at the next lesson he had learned.

“What’s next?” he said. “I want to learn everything there is. I want to be the greatest Vonnegan leader in the galaxy’s history.”

“I have no doubt you will be, young one,” Agravan said. “But that’s enough military strategy for one day.” He opened a desk drawer and withdrew an old-fashioned book made of actual paper. “Read this.”

Minot looked at the title, then frowned. “This has nothing to do with war!”

“The galaxy’s best rulers didn’t learn just about war. They were schooled in every aspect of life. If you want to one day make the Vonnegan Empire bigger than it’s ever been before, you’ll need to read this and many other books just like it.”

“But I”—

“But nothing. Your father learned the exact same things when he was your age. If he had only learned about battle strategy and nothing else, he wouldn’t be the ruler he is today.”

Minot smiled and looked out the viewport at a planet the Athens Destroyers were approaching. “And he wouldn’t be about to take over the entire CasterLan Kingdom!”

General Agravan smiled. “Go read, Minot. I have to go to the deck.”

12

“You!”

As Vere stepped closer to the Green Knight, she saw that even though the knight’s helmet had a cross-shaped opening in the front where his mouth and nose and eyes should be, she couldn’t actually see any part of his face because of the shadow his helmet cast in the bar’s dim light. It was possible, she thought, that he might not have a face at all. There was also no indication what army, if any, he fought for. He carried no shield and his chest plate was a shiny emerald color without any coat of arms.

The entire bar had fallen silent at the sight of the armored giant. All of the aliens that had been gossiping about someone carrying a Meursault sword now began whispering about the guest who was covered from head to toe in green. And yet the knight didn’t look foolish or outlandish in one color, as if he were wearing a costume—quite the opposite. Each part of his uniform had finely stitched green lining. The blacksmith who had forged the green axe hadn’t left a single dull mark or imperfection. Most out of place, the knight wore a thin green chain around his neck, from which a swamp-colored gem gleamed.

“Are you the captain of this crowd?” the Green Knight said, his voice a loud and deep monotone. His finger was still pointed at Vere. When she shrugged and looked behind her to see if someone else understood the Green Knight’s question, he bellowed, “Where is the captain of this crowd?”

No one offered a reply. The Green Knight took two more steps forward, looking first at the little Feedorian bartender, then at all of Eastcheap’s patrons.

“I run this place, if that’s what you mean,” the bartender said in his Feedorian accent.

The Green Knight turned so the open slot in his helmet faced the bartender. The knight didn’t speak, but the little alien still cried out and went running out the back door of his own bar. It would be talked about for a long time afterward, but there was never any agreement on why the Feedorian had darted off. Perhaps the Green Knight’s terrifying face had come into the light, or perhaps there was no face at all. Whatever the reason, Eastcheap’s owner ran from his bar and didn’t return for the better part of a year.

The Green Knight turned back to the rest of the bar without saying anything. After scanning all of the tables and all of the various types of beings, his booming voice said, “You shall grant me a game.”

No one asked the knight what he was talking about. No one moved or spoke at all.

The Green Knight withdrew his green axe from its guard, holding it up for everyone to see.

“I will trade one strike for another. I will accept the first blow. If anyone accepts these rules, let him take my weapon, claim it as his own, and play my game. In a seventh day, it will be my turn. Now,” the Green Knight slowly turned so that one by one every alien and human alike had a chance to face him, “who will play my game?”

Astonished at what they were seeing and hearing, the entire bar was silent. A few aliens who didn’t understand Basic asked their friends what the behemoth had said. When it was translated for them their eyes widened and they laughed before quickly falling mute like everyone else.

“No one?” the Green Knight said. “No man here knows arrogance or valor? All of you cower and quake before me?”

The Green Knight laughed then, but because the laugh was also loud and monotone, it sounded like an avalanche rumbling down a mountain rather than a man enjoying himself.

Only one person dared speak to the Green Knight.

“A man? You’ve reduced your chances by nearly half.”

As she said this, Vere took a step forward.

Occulus reached toward her and whispered in her ear, “Be careful, Vere. You will rue what you do today.”

But she was already facing the Green Knight again. “What should I call you?”

“The Green Knight.”

Fastolf burst out laughing. The entire rest of the bar, though, remained silent.

“Tell me where you’re from,” Vere said.

“Edsall Dark,” the voice boomed. “In the Green Chapel.”

“With his blue father and yellow mother, I bet!” Fastolf said, but no one paid him any attention. He stopped laughing when Morgan gave him a dirty look and raised a fist toward him.

Vere said, “I know every part of Edsall Dark. There is no Green Chapel.”

“There is,” the monotone voice said.

“There is not.”

“There is!” the knight boomed, and for the first time, Vere looked around her and realized she was closer to the mysterious visitor than anyone else in the entire bar. She wished she could take a small step backward without anyone noticing.

“Okay, okay,” she said, her palms out in front of her. “Maybe there is. But I don’t know where it is. How will I find it?”

“It will find you,” the Green Knight said.

Vere turned to look at her friends and rolled her eyes, but she was sure that even as she did so, A’la Dure and the others, the people who knew her better than anyone else, could tell she was regretting having spoken up.

The knight extended his hand. In it was his green axe, which he offered to Vere. She made minor movements with it to get used to its weight and balance. It was lighter than it looked, easy to guide through the air.

“In a seventh day,” the knight said again.

Then, without saying anything else, the Green Knight bent his head forward slightly so part of his neck was left unprotected. Vere leaned forward to see what color his flesh was, but all she saw was the green lining under his armor.

She looked behind her. Fastolf’s big eyes were proof that he was loving every minute of the show. A’la Dure and Occulus were both staring at her, pleading for her to give the axe back and have someone else play the knight’s game. Traskk, uncomfortable at seeing a specimen even taller and more muscular than he was, let out a low Basilisk growl. Turning back, Vere saw the Green Knight still leaning toward her, still unconcerned that he was about to die.

Without waiting for another word, she brought the axe up over her head, then curved it at an angle so it slashed diagonally through the Green Knight’s neck.

The knight’s helmet, the head still inside, dropped clean off his body and landed with a loud thud between his and Vere’s feet, where it rolled once end over end before coming to a stop.

13

Above the sparkling swirls of color that made up the planet of Zephyr, the Vonnegan fleet gathered. One hundred starships, each an Athens Destroyer Class-C or larger, lingered in orbit around the celestial body. Most of them rotated slowly and harmlessly around the planet like odd-shaped metal moons. Ten of the ships, though, positioned themselves over the one area that had been colonized.

Only a small fraction of the planets in the galaxy could naturally support life. A few more could have their atmospheres altered enough that they became, through artificial tinkering, habitable for humans and aliens alike. For all the other planets and moons that had cities on them, like Folliet-Bright, an artificial environment was protected by a force field. Only as much or as little of each planet that could be built within a containment field could support life and have a colony built within it. The rest of each planet remained severely lethal. If the containment field were ever disabled, the entire population would die gruesome deaths from either extreme heat or cold or from breathing in poisonous gases. It had been hundreds of years since a containment field had failed, however, due to all of the redundancies and failsafes built into them.

There was one such containment field on Zephyr, a haze of multicolored energy surrounded by otherwise nondescript moons. Inside the field was a completely different looking terrain. Instead of violent swirls of storms and noxious gases, a city of humans and aliens went about life as if they were on any other planet in the galaxy. Crops were grown. A spaceport allowed vessels in and out. But outside the field, endless lightning storms raged, fueled by air that was made up almost entirely of Propohlix, an element that carried an electrical charge. The result was an entire planet covered in beautiful white lightning, continuously and endlessly, so bright it could be seen for light-years. This covered ninety-five percent of the planet. The colony of New Zephyr covered the other five percent.

A few ships within New Zephyr saw the Vonnegan fleet massed above their planet and darted away from the colony, out into space and away from anything that might happen. The Athens Destroyers let these ships go; they weren’t there to hunt down tiny freighters or personal vessels. Most of the people on New Zephyr didn’t flee, however. They remained in their luxury apartments, looking up at the fleet in the sky, wondering why they were in CasterLan space.
 

The lightning storms were such a tourist attraction that few people could afford to live on the colony. Those who could thought they were too important to be attacked or invaded. And so they watched as each of the ten ships hovering in space above the colony launched a single silver oval object, elongated and smooth, down toward the planet.
 

The Athens Destroyers didn’t open a barrage of cannon fire, they merely let these little ovals drop down toward the containment field. They were among the last things anyone on Zephyr would ever see.

14

Vere held the Green Knight’s axe in her hand. At her feet lay the Green Knight’s helmet—the head, still inside. In front of her, the knight’s body was still standing upright. Part of her wanted to turn and ask her friends, “What now?” Instead, she remained facing forward without saying anything at all.

Behind her, Occulus, Fastolf, and the others remained motionless and mute. All around the bar, humans and aliens that had been dividing their time between drinking and brawling all gazed at the spectacle of a vertical body without a head.

It wouldn’t have been so awkward if the knight’s body had collapsed to the ground in a lifeless heap the way she had expected. After all, the knight had lost his head and was still standing. Every other loser of a quarrel in Eastcheap immediately dropped to the ground when they were beaten. Instead, the helmet and head had clattered to the ground with a thud, and the rigid form of the Green Knight’s enormous body remained standing perfectly upright. The knees didn’t buckle. The torso didn’t sway. He remained in the same position he had been in when Vere sent his head crashing to the floor.