Knights in Space

• Gallant has an almost perverse attraction to justice, how can it be fucked with?

  • Something amoral but technically “just”
  • Something so morally grey that there is no good outcome

World

• The Glorious Empire

  • The peace and relatively utopian post-scarcity nature of The Glorious Empire comes from the government and the structure of the Royal Knights’ Society

    • Associate Knights

      • Associate Knights are junior officers that are in the late stages of training, and are shadowing a knight before their own knighthood

  • The Chivalric Code dictates what is considered honourable and what is acceptable conduct

  • There is a hereditary constitutional monarchy, but the knights and nobles keep them in line

  • Nobles are elected life-peers who represent the people

    • They are all designated various sectors depending on population, with some controlling vast swathes of space and some controlling single mega-cities

      • There’s a trade off between area and people to control

    • Every election is a fucking event since it happens so rarely

• Neo-Saracens

  • An enigma to people in TGE. If there wasn’t documentation of them and a big fuck off border then you’d be forgiven for thinking they don’t exist

    • Some think they may even be aliens

• Steele has made laser weaponry obsolete. The only metal that can penetrate it is itself, so swords, bow and arrows, crossbows, spears, etc are used.

  • In ship-to-ship combat, hunks of steele, spears on ropes and giant machine-operated swords are used

    • The machines needed to maintain the stasis field necessary to launch the Steele are a) Enormous and b) Require the vacuum of space to be fired without disintegration

  • Laser weaponry is still in some places but for obvious reasons is used rarely

    • Gotta have a knight holding a laser pistol at some point for the meme

• Ships

  • Every ship has a bunker in the centre for citizens to go in emergencies, where ship systems can be controlled if the bridge can’t be contacted

  • Ships are controlled by a rotating series of knights who have all been trained in control + maintenance

  • Messenger shuttles are used to carry messages faster than a signal can

    • Every message is sent with and without a ship, but since time is of the essence, and sometimes the need for secrecy is paramount, a messenger shuttle is sent.

Lines

• “What if I don’t want to come?” “I could arrest you, or cut you down on the spot. Or you could come with me, your choice” “You Knights really are barbarians.”

• “Think of the promotions you’ll get for this” “For collaborating with the enemy? Oh yeah they’ll throw me a parade for this.” “But if we’re successful you could become leader of something or whatever, I don’t know what Neo-Saracens do”

• “Remember when we talked and you said you couldn’t do anything? Now you can.”

• “You’re in? What about that argument?” “If I wasn’t in I wouldn’t be arguing so much; I would wave you off with a handkerchief if I wasn’t in. But I am, and I want it known that I absolutely disagree with what you’re doing.”

• “Remember the 125.”

• “Is Magnus your real name?” “Does it matter?” “I think it does. You said you were from the frontier but you were a warden?” “Yeah.” “There are no wardens, the Holy Order of Rehabilitation has jurisdiction over that area. Nobody but knights know this and we’re under strict orders to keep it a secret for the safety of the Empire.” “Probably shouldn’t have told me, then.” “I think you already knew this.”

  • “What’s your name?” “Dunkaccino Richard.” “Is that your real name?” “Does it matter?”

• THE KING CONFRONTATION

  • “My Lord…” “Oh don’t start with the ‘Lord’ business. If we’re about to have a moral debate, I want us to be equals. I don’t know many lords who can constitutionally be overthrown by their subjects.”
  • You think this will end the war? So you’ve discovered the false flag, does that fix the centuries of border skirmishes? Does that end the suffering of all those Glorious Empire citizens who just want to live in peace? All you’ll be doing by releasing this is adding a blemish to my record. The war may even subside if you’re lucky. But the conflict? That ends when either they are gone or we are gone.
  • “If you want peace, prepare for war”

Inter-chapter dumps

• His Majesty’s Comprehensive Encyclopædia of the Universe

  • Steele

    • It cannot be overstated the importance of steele (pronounced steel) to the lives of billions, and the trillions of children who will be born thanks to it. Ships had been made using an alloy, but were still susceptible to being utterly destroyed from a single laser blast. Weapons had simply outpaced armour by such a wide margin that a single war could wipe out entire nation’s ships. Kings and nobles alike used the threat of conflict amongst themselves and others to bend others to their will. A third cold war of sorts had broken out amongst everybody, even within the same nation, as few would be willing to spend the resources and lives necessary to fight even a single battle.

  • The peace that has lasted decades, and how the king is the most popular thing since Jesus

  • Timeline of the Glorious Empire (Post-scarcity, abolition of currency five years later, foundation of Neo-feudalism, first sightings of Neo-Saracens)

• 2002 Charter of Peace (Regarding His Majesty’s Glorious Empire and The Neo-Saracen Conflict)

Outline

• King’s will attacked, Magnus (and other person) survives because ?
• They turn heat dampening up, Neo-Saracens should find it but don’t
• Messenger craft arrives at El’s Haven, war were declared
• Magnus tells Gallant that attack’s bullshit, Gallant suspicious about Magnus’ reasoning, but it seems fishy
• El’s Haven attacked, Magnus and nobody else gets attacked

Rough Draft

1

Sir Gallant, Member of the Order of Royal Knights (MRK)

“He’s part of the old guard. He was voted in when we were gearing up for the second colony war, he certainly wasn’t voted in for his calm, peaceful decision making.”

“Seriously, you must become a knight at some point.”

“No way, knights are all stuffy assholes.”

“Including me?”

“Including you. You’re just a stuffy asshole I hang around with.”

Gallant elected not to think too hard about what Page just said so he could enjoy the rest of his lunch.

Much like everything else on the ship, the luncheon room seemed to go on forever. Scratched and coarse steel lined the walls, scarred from many decades of drunk knights celebrating and scuffing the walls with their steele armour. In order to introduce some colour amongst the grey walls and grey floors and grey suits of the knights, the benches were painted in brown, woodgrain patterns.

As usual Gallant and Page were sitting opposite each other and throwing insults in equal measure to stupid conversations on topics like, “No really, the toilet did flush him out into space. Semer told us the whole story. Why do you think the sewer system was completely out for that day? He took it out with him as he was flushed.”

Gallant had a mouthful of food so he couldn’t respond. But even if he didn’t, he didn’t want to ruin such an interesting story with the truth of “I was there myself, it was just a routine maintenance shutdown. Also stop believing everyone you talk to, you naive idiot.”

Gallant looked around at the other knights surrounding them. As usual he and his associate knight entertained a good amount of looks from the other knights who, despite being clad in full plate armour, he could tell were giving him some sort of stink eye. Knights sit with knights and associate knights sit with associate knigts. That’s how it’s supposed to be. Having casual conversations with them, or let alone eating with them, was such a no no that the only reason there wasn’t a rule against it was that nobody did it.

Before Gallant could change the topic, the royal alert blared over top of everybody’s conversations. The sea of armour rose, some plates had been thrown across the tables, overshooting and clattering onto the ground. Some bowls were floating around, being held by knights with the vain hope that they could finish what they were eating. Gallant had spent so much time hurling insults at each other that they had left two almost pristine piles of beans and synthetic meat.

Gallant and Page rushed down the hallways to the emergency stations they were assigned. Each knight is given 396 different station positions with 80 different times they are expected to remember across an enormous timetable in an emergency. And Gallant’s station right now: Communications — Second Class, interpreting the communications sent from long range messengers, after it has been processed by first class communications, as a fail-safe against miscommunication. The two rushed down the Studded Hallways, so called for its look of cold steel banded with leather studs from repurposed knight armour, and on the overhanging bridge past the on-board farm.

By the time Gallant had his station in sight, Page was already there sitting in his chair with his feet on the console. Every time, somehow, Page has always found every shortcut and nook and cranny within a week. Gallant batted away Page’s boots from the console and unbelted his sword, placing it on the ground to avoid it clattering to the floor. It’s not against the rules to take off your sword anymore, but much like what most of Gallant and Page did it was frowned upon.

Nothing had come onto the screen yet, it was an emergency so instead of the usual flood of encrypted characters and digits, the two were greeted by a black screen. Gallant looked over at Page, who was intently fixated on the screen.

“You know it’s probably nothing, right? Another ship that needs repairs and could be armed,” Gallant stated, idly keeping one eye on the screen.

Page frowned but was still transfixed on the black square of nothing, “It was a royal alert wasn’t it? Means that it could be something more.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. It used to be used for threats of violence against us our our homeworld, maybe a hundred years ago. But now it’s just whenever the stationmaster thinks we’re not working fast enough. I don’t see how…” Gallant saw the flood of digits being read out on the screen, “…how…” He flung his full attention to the readout and began typing, making notes on the second screen and flicking back and forth between the two.

Page was now looking at Gallant, perplexed, “What? What’s going on?” Pages aren’t meant to speak during emergency situations, and as per usual Gallant wouldn’t care, but now he was seriously rethinking that. Gallant let out a “Shh!” whilst continuing to decipher and process the sheer volume of mathematical calculations.

Just as abruptly as the readout began, it ceased and erased itself from the screen. Gallant made his last few notes, then slumped back into his chair, his eyes wide and his mood solemn.

“What?” Page asked, getting more audibly impatient.

Gallant took a few moments to look at the black screen then slowly turned to Page, “It’s not about a ship that needs repairs.”

2

Magnus, civilian combat educator

The companionable hum of the engine created a lovely warm white noise for Magnus. His bed drifted him up and out of reality. He was almost there, the place where his memories and what he happened to be thinking about collided in the cocktail shaker of dreams. Just a little closer…

A loud blast launched him out of bed and gave him a face full of carpet. A moment after the royal alert blared over the ship speakers. After recovering from the initial white hot rage that comes with waking someone up from a good sleep, Magnus scrambled to his feet. He was acutely aware that the ship was spinning and he had to grip the bedside table to keep him stable.

Out in the hallway there were knights running in every direction as they all scrambled to take up arms and get into their positions. Groups ranging from solo knights to fully armed battalions ran past with zero concern for Magnus, or any of the other civilians who were being knocked to the floor. Magnus breathed a sigh of despair as he realised he would be heading for the civilian bunker on the other side of the ship. For the next 10 minutes, Magnus was an improvised gymnast. He ducked and weaved around pages and knights barrelling towards him, some of whom had their weapons drawn in the halls against the rules. I don’t think right now they cared.

As he ran past the beautiful painted marble of the enormous ship chapel, he was about to get to the armoury. Naturally, the closer he got the more intense the flood of soldiers was. Another blast rocked the whole ship, forcing the knights to lean against the walls, and the more weak pages and Magnus to the ground. He hoisted himself back to his feet with the help of a nearby railing and heard the shouts and barking of orders flowing from the open armoury doorway. The last group that exited must have left it open.

Magnus would have walked past but he saw something disturbing on one of the monitors. He rushed in, ducking past the oblivious knights who on any other day would have had him on the floor in seconds, and raced to the offending monitor and the knight controlling it.

“It’s off,” he said, in between breaths.

“Excuse me? What the hell are you even doing here, you need to be in the bunker!”

“If you listen to me I’m gone. Your aim is deviating to the right, if you fire now you’ll graze their outer shielding. Try a few units down and to the left.”

The knight once again opened her mouth to lay out some more abuse, but she paused for a moment and turned back to the monitor. She punched in the numbers and before she could double check this stranger’s maths, Magnus had slipped out.

There was much less activity as most people had taken up their positions and civilians were in the bunker. Well, all but one. Magnus crossed through a few more compartments, pausing ever so often to let the ship rattle with the blasts of steele spears ripping through the hull, before arriving at the blast doors to the bunker. The outer door had been left open for Magnus. The inner door stuck out like a sore thumb against the polished metal of the corridors, as its rough texture and dull grey exterior showcased its decades of neglect.

Magnus opened up the inner door straight away. It wasn’t strictly in protocol but at this point who cares?

The bunker had been divided into neat rows of grey, barely carpeted living quarters and functions. It was like a miniature version of the ship proper but with all the grandeur of a tin can. What looked like corrugated iron lined the walls and curved into a roof, like it was less sophisticated space-faring vessel and more shed.

Magnus was the last of the civilian bunker entrants and punched in his code to shut the outer door.

As he entered the control room, he sneaked a peek at the outside camera: as the other ship zoomed past the screen, he could see the enormous hole that had been ripped into it by the direct hit of the spear. Magnus took half a second to congratulate himself.

“What’s going on?” Magnus shouted to the others once he had made it to the centre console.

This is how it went. Whilst the civilians aboard Glorious Empire ships didn’t have to memorise the matrix of crisscrossing tasks and times that the knights did, there was still a hierarchy regarding who was in charge of controls and organisation. Magnus was high on the list, but just shy of being given anything but a ceremonial position.

“Our attacker’s ship and tactics matches what we have in the ship library for the Neo-Saracens,” said the civilian captain.

“Neo-Saracens!?” A man standing in the corner shouted, “They haven’t been spotted for the better part of a century!”

“I guess we should count ourselves lucky,” the captain shot back.

Magnus wanted to say something, but elected to stay quiet. Something here seemed really off. He looked another time at the ship and furrowed his brow. He saw the tactics that it was partaking in, of hitting and running, of never committing to a frontal assault, and he furrowed his brow further.

“We’re getting a message,” the captain announced, punching some digits into the controls. He leaned in to read the transmission, “‘Surrender and you shall be spared.’ At least they’re brief.”

Now Magnus’ brow was about ready to tunnel into the floor. This was all wrong. But as soon as the thought had dropped into Magnus’ head, he heard the familiar sound of a spear about to ram into the hull, and Magnus ran back from the wall clocking a kid down with him before a blinding white explosion filled the bunker.

Transmission end. Gallant and Page stared intently at the screen. Page’s cryptography classes hadn’t prepared him in the least for this flood of information that was scrawling itself across the monitor. Then, a brief pause. After the relaying of the black box from the messenger craft, it gave way to the status of the craft: ‘Severe damage to engines, life support, hull, oxygen rapidly escaping, attack consistent with Neo-Saracen hit and run tactics.’

Page looked at Gallant, who hadn’t looked anywhere but the screen since transmission’s beginning. Most would say Gallant’s face was inscrutable, but Page knew better. He could see exactly what Gallant was thinking, and it wasn’t pretty. The conversation between Haven Comms continued for a few moments more before ceasing, greeting the two with an idle black screen.

After an uncomfortably long amount of time spent in silence, Gallant simply said, “Huh.”

“What?” Page asked, “What’s the transmission about?”

“I don’t think I can say, protocol—”

“Protocol!? Since when have we ever even mentioned protocol? You know whatever you say isn’t leaving me.”

Gallant sighed and rotated to meet Page’s gaze, “I think the century of peace might be coming to an end.”

3

Page, Associate Knight to Sir Gallant

Do they separate the rivets on the wall by class?

I mean, they probably shouldn’t if they do, but do they? Sounds like it’s getting busy outside.

I guess if I’m following this thought, I have to wonder how difficult it is to make these rivets. It’s all the same materials but what if some of them are different. Do they keep those ones away from the others or do they just throw them out?

What if they’re just slightly wrong? Does that condemn them to rivet death? Did I really just make up something called ‘rivet death’?

“They’re made by machines, they’re all exactly the same.”

“Oh.”

The door to Page’s room was flung open and the sound of the moving crowd flooded in.

“What are you doing?” Gallant asked.

“Nothing, just staring at the wall.”

“…okay. You gotta get ready, we’re getting an emergency announcement. Didn’t you hear the crowd outside?”

“Right, give me a few.”

Gallant exited as soon as he arrived and Page jumped out of bed to the wardrobe. He slipped into his thin steele armour and caught Gallant outside trying his best not to be knocked over by the crowd racing to the ill-used announcement hall. Gallant looked relieved the second he saw Page as he could let himself get swept in the flood of people.

The announcement hall stood in stark contrast with the hallways that connected it with the rest of the ship. The coloured steel of the hallways gave way to the lavish carpeted foyer. The warmer colours and darker wood trims relaxed Page as they filed in with everyone into the seated areas. Page and Gallant both unbuckled their weapon holsters and dropped at their feet as they settled in for the announcement.

Gallant was looking at the stage, but his attention was entirely dedicated to his thoughts. It was a few days since the transmission and Gallant had been mentally absent from every job he was doing. Page at least felt on top of his game as Gallant’s ability to banter had gone nothing but downhill.

“What’s the announcement gonna be?” Page asked.

Gallant grumbled

“Wow, really!? That’s amazing!” Page exclaimed.

More grumbling

“Tell me more.” No response. Five sentences, much more than was usual for the last week. The rest of the auditorium was soon enough flooded by everyone else aboard El’s Haven. Knights, their associates, and civilians filed in in equal measure as a regally dressed man took the stage. It looked like he had taken the rug from his room and draped it over himself. The lord had graced everyone with his presence by virtue of it being where his office is. He took position at the stage, looking down at the obvious markers showing where to stand, and he opened his mouth.

“Freedmen and women of El’s Haven, as you all know I am not usually one for announcements.” He spoke in grandiose, sweeping tones, waving his hand to punctuate each beat. “The fact that I am here in front of you instead of a crier means this is a grave matter. In this Empire’s proud, centuries-long history…we have been at war no more than five times. Five times we have shown our might, and five times we have prevailed. That we awaken this sleeping beast so seldom is a testament to our relentless war for peace.”

The audience hummed, what the noble was saying was apparently landing with some people. “But unfortunately…” The murmurs began, most everyone had figured out what was coming next, Gallant was no longer staring at the floor and looked squarely at the noble. “…the situation with the Neo-Saracens, our once peaceful counterpart has become unsustainable. I ask you all now, to prepare for war.” Page could see Gallant immediately sink into his chair, the rest of the auditorium was struck with uneasy ambience. The noble looked around, clearly expecting something that wasn’t happening. Soon a single cheer from a lone associate knight turned into a series of claps, and then thunderous applause.

The noble smiled, THAT was the reaction. The cheers and applause seemed to never let up, in fact it was only getting louder and louder. Page began wincing from the noise and looked to Gallant, but was met with an empty seat.

Out in the lobby Page met Gallant hunched over a coffee table next to a pile of his armour.

“You okay, Gallant?”

“I feel like I’m about to throw up.”

A dry heave put a quick end to that conversation. Page sat next to him, rubbing his back and holding the bin ready to hand it to Gallant.

After a few minutes, Gallant sighed and leaned back. “I knew war was coming, but nowhere near this soon! I was expecting at least a few more months of negotiating but this is like they just went straight from the attack to war.”

“It’s not LIKE that, it IS that,” Page responded.

Gallant spent a few moments rending his hands.

“You should probably get your armour on, you’re not supposed to be out when you’re on duty,” said a voice coming from the entrance of the lobby. It was a knight with the face of his helmet open.

“You should probably get in the auditorium before you get a court-martial,” Page shot back

“Touche,” said the knight, hurriedly slapping his face plate down and disappearing into the auditorium.

When Page turned back to Gallant he was looking noticeably less pale

“I don’t get the knights in there cheering for war. It seems like they’re all but trained to love what the king does unconditionally.”

“And you?”

“I must have missed that class. But I have read our constitution, and we’re supposed to question a king when they don’t act in the interests of the people. And I’d say a sudden war fulfils that.”

“So what can we do?” Page asked.

Gallant thought for a moment, then without saying a word hurriedly put on his armour and sped out the entrance.

“Gallant, wait up you lunatic!”

Page ran behind him but he had less of that wonderful knight speed running training and with every turn around the corner Gallant got further and further away. He figured the direction Gallant was heading and decided to take a small detour. He ripped a service panel off of the wall, hopped in, and replaced the panel behind him. He wound around in the darkness, keeping a mental image of the station’s layout to guide him.

He popped out as Gallant disappeared behind a slowly closing blast door. Page raced over, punched in his code, and opened the blast door up again. He caught both Gallant and the Royal Guardian Knights, clad in golden armour, having a shouting contest.

“This is not conduct becoming of a knight.”

“I think I’m a better judge of that than you.”

“If you want any chance in hell of seeing the noble, you can start by treating his staff with the same camaraderie you would another knight.”

Gallant clenched and unclenched his fists, “Fine, I want an audience with him and it’s urgent.”

“What in the universe is happening here?” a familiar voice said from behind Page. Page turned around and saw the noble, much more soberly dressed than his on-stage persona and speaking with none of the grandiosity.

Gallant took a few steps forward to speak but a Royal Guardian Knight cut him off, “My Lord, This knight was seeking your audience to protest the announcement, and frankly was quite rude about it.”

“Really? Well this simply cannot do. Mister…”

“Gallant,” he responded.

“Master Gallant, has a nice ring to it. Come with me and tell me what’s on your mind, I hate to see any of our brothers weighed down with heavy consciences.”

He looked down at Page, still standing in front of him. “Feel free to sit at any of the available benches if you wish to wait,” he said calmly, motioning to the contoured wooden seats leaning against the wall.

Gallant and the noble disappeared behind the door and Page made his way toward the seat. Suddenly, the noble popped his head out. “Make sure you appreciate those seats. It’s so hard to get wood from Venus nowadays,” he said, smiling, before closing the door behind him. Page, still a little dazed from what happened, sprawled himself on two benches and waited.

4

Magnus M.I.A.

The two candles shone brightly in the dark. They never flickered, two perfect flames. See, there was no wind where Magnus was. In fact, not much of anything was where Magnus was…just two candles, side by side.

“Sir!” They seemed to call out.

“Sir!” They called out again.

“Sir!” All of Magnus’ senses flooded back to him. He was being shaken, the smell of burning metal was piercing, and a young guy, who couldn’t have been older than twenty, was filling his field of view. As soon as Magnus had seen him he was hoisted to his feet. Soon, pain was now the operative sense. A splitting headache and sharp, shooting pain in every rib made it difficult to even be hoisted up but Magnus only felt sorry for himself until he saw the bodies that were strewn around him. It was only when he was at his feet that Magnus heard the blaring life support alarm.

“How long has that been on for?” Magnus asked the boy.

The kid looked confused, and seemed to get distracted by something across the room that didn’t exist. As the kid turned his head Magnus got a good look at the waterfall of blood that was plastered over his temple.

“Okay,” Magnus said hurriedly, grabbing the kid and sitting him down at the console chair, “You stay here and try to relax while I get this air situation sorted.”

“Mhm,” the kid muttered, still transfixed on the nothing across the room.

Magnus couldn’t immediately see the hole or even the spear that created it. Steel shelves and emergency equipment plastered the walls making seeing anything meaningful impossible. He closed his eyes and felt the air rushing past him, pinpointing it to two disassembled steel cabinets lying against the wall.

He walked over and began moving the shelves aside, feeling the rush of air more with every thing put to the sides. A misshapen spear tip stuck out into the scorched wall, the hole leaving just enough room for air to escape. Magnus picked up a nearby metal rod and began prying it out of the wall. Each little bit of give caused the air to rush out faster until the THUNK of the metal rod shot the spear out like a bullet, yanking the rod from Magnus and pulling it out with it.

The rush of air was deafening now. Magnus had to put his foot on the wall and push himself off to avoid being sucked into…wait that’s space. It hit Magnus like a ton of bricks:

The bunker had been separated from the rest of the ship and was adrift in space.

Magnus dragged his attention away from the yawning void of space and back to survival, this air evacuation couldn’t last forever. While still keeping himself from slamming against the wall, Magnus scanned the area for some kind of plug. The objects and people all juddered violently and he was getting more desperate as nothing nearby was suitable. Magnus could feel the air getting thinner and reality was once again starting to bleed away.

The sound of something hitting the wall next to him jolted him back up. The kid had taken a lunch tray to the wall and the evacuation of air became a slight squeal. Magnus rushed over to a utilities cabinet and pulled out a roll of flexi-tape and taped up the entire tray so tightly it vacuum sealed itself.

Magnus took a few seconds to internally celebrate not dying for the second time today and…was it still today? He turned his attention back to the kid who had saved him with the dwindling mental capacities. “Alright, you sit down kid, I’ll see if there’s anything for that head.” The kid continued staring at Magnus blankly, and he manoeuvred him back to the terminal chair.

Magnus rifled through the piles of garbage and pulled out the glistening white box that was the first aid kit. Despite everything that was and had happened Magnus couldn’t help but think about how the most high tech thing in the kit was a pile of gauze and some tape. He walked back over to the kid, gauze, tape, and alcohol wipes in hand, and set about fixing the kid right up.

As he dabbed his head, Magnus said, “You’ve had a concussion. Try not to move or…think too hard. I guess.”

As he moved onto the gauze and wound it around the kid’s head, the kid began sobbing, “Are they okay?” He asked, trying to keep his head still, “Shouldn’t we be helping these people into beds or something?”. Magnus glanced over to the blood-covered bodies that surrounded the two.

“I don’t know, try not to think about it.”

“How can I not!?” He shouted, turning to look at Magnus, “What is wrong with you?”

“Keep your head still and be quiet. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

The kid turned his head back, looking distraught that the one other person with him was Magnus.

“Look,” Magnus began, as he snipped the tape and sealed the bandage, “Those people may or may not be alive, and checking them should be the first thing we do. But they could have any number of spinal breaks or neck snaps or anything of the like. None of which is gonna be helped by us jostling them around everywhere.” Magnus sighed, “You stay right here, I’ll check who’s alive.”

The kid stood up, “I’ll check too. I know how to check a pulse.”

“Absolutely not,” Magnus said, raising his voice ever so slightly, “You shouldn’t be moving at all for at least a day.”

“I know! But we are in emergency all hands on deck mode right now. You need my help whether you want to admit it or not. And I’m going to help, whether you want it or not.”

Magnus shut his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose, “Fine, fine. Check everyone’s pulse and move the dead next to that pile of shelves.”

“That’s a little heartless, isn’t it?”

“We need them out of the way,” Magnus responded, already on his second person.

The two systematically checked the people for life. Most of them were alive. The few dead that Magnus had found, he lifted them over to the designated communal pile. Anyone that the kid found, he asked Magnus to do it. Magnus figured the kid had dealt with enough horrors for one lifetime.

“My name’s Alexander, by the way,” Alexander said, looking over at Magnus and still holding someone’s wrist.

“I didn’t ask,” Magnus replied, still checking someone and not looking.

Alexander ignored the rebuff and continued, “How can you stay so calm in a situation like this. And how did you stay uninjured?”

“I got out of the way. I think I clocked you on the way as well.”

“How did you know?”

“I heard the spear coming.”

Alexander paused for a moment, “You…heard it? From space?”

“As soon as the spear makes contact with the particles coming from the ship, it makes an unmistakable vibration.”

“Holy hell. You must be a ninja or something.”

“I was on the frontier.”

Alexander felt his entire body lock up, “You were on the frontier? Like…the criminal frontier, that one? But that’s only for the worst criminals in the Empire. Did you escape?”

“I was a warden. All the same constant threats of death, but I got to leave.”

Alexander relaxed his shoulders and stopped scanning the area for a weapon. Soon after the last person was checked by Magnus, and a nod confirmed the presence of life.

“Alright, kid. I’d say after an explosion of this magnitude everybody here’s gotten off pretty well. We have to… okay what are you doing?”

Alexander was looking around like he would be put to death if he looked in Magnus’ direction. “It’s the…uh…” he said, pointing to Magnus’ pile of people.

“Ah,” Magnus reacted with faint surprise. He grabbed Alexander and rotated him and himself 90 degrees. “We have to figure out where we are and why the bunker hasn’t been cut into a million pieces by the Neo-Saracens.”

“Are you trying to say this here,” he said, gesturing to the other people on the floor, “Is the best case scenario?”

“Just about, yeah.” Without another word, Magnus hopped around everybody, making sure not to move or even nudge anyone, and he flopped onto the terminal chair. The pop from his ribs forced out a yelp of pain and he hunched over, motionless.

“Do you need help?” Alexander asked, tiptoeing around the people much more carefully than Magnus had.

“Just give me a moment.” Magnus’ ribs were reminding him that he’s not a young man anymore and can’t take an explosion like he used to. He tentatively stopped hunching over and, still holding his chest in one hand, typed into the terminal.

At this point Alexander had joined him and was staring intently at the screen. “So where are we?”

“Man, you have some high hopes for this terminal working. It hasn’t even turned on yet.”

Alexander sighed but looked on. The screen stayed black and there was no sign of life anywhere in the bunker, besides most of the people and the lights. “There is no way there’s enough power for this thing, right? I mean, lights are one thing but—”

“The power in these bunkers are designed to last for weeks, even if the bunker is detached and floating in space which is…y’know.”

Alexander tried rubbing his face from stress but got his hand caught in the bandage. As he moved his hand away the terminal gave some signs of life. A few corrupted images flashed by before the stream of information began pouring in. Unlike the knight’s displays it was in plain English and there was a dial to limit the speed of the information. Magnus left it at full chat. “Holy shit, it’s actually working!” Alexander shouted. Shortly after a THUD could be heard behind the two. Alexander turned around and Magnus continued to stare intently at the screen. One of the survivors had rolled over and was lying on her back, letting out a groan as she did so.

“Magnus, hey Magnus,” Alexander prodded. “One of the people is waking up. We should giver her a neck brace and get her to a bed.

Magnus slammed a button to pause the display, “You will do no such thing. We are on a time budget right now and I don’t know when our attackers will be back. It took long enough for us to check who was alive, but we can’t spend anymore time on them. Throw a blanket on her, it’ll signal her brain to stay still.” Before Alexander could say anything Magnus had slammed on the display again and was checking the readout.

As Alexander scrounged around the wastes for a blanket, trying his best not to look at THAT part of the bunker, he asked Magnus, “What’s our situation?”

“Doesn’t seem like we’re going to die any time soon. Life support is good, and improving thanks to our patchjob. Energy is…” Magnus looked up at the lights and back to the terminal, “Well, you know that one. And I’m reading signals consistent with a Neo-Saracen craft.”

After that you could hear a pin drop. Alexander stopped just as he was draping the blanket over the woman. “You mean it’s still out there? So we’re dead then!”

“Oh for…” Magnus began, swivelling to look at him, “The last thing these people need as they’re waking up is some lunatic telling them they’re about to die. Now GET OVER HERE.” Magnus shouted, sharply pointing next to him. Alexander obeyed and Magnus tapped on the display. “If we would have been vaporised into space dust, we would have been vaporised into space dust in round one. Neo-Saracen heat sensors are second to none, they could more than easily figure out where we are. Not just in space but in this bunker, too. They’d have our crew compliment, what supplies we have on hand, what our offensive capabilities are, how much air you’re breathing, how fast your heart is beating, everything. The fact that they don’t even know where we are means something’s wrong with their systems.”

“What if they’re just toying with us?” Alexander asked, still unconvinced.

“I know Neo-Saracens. I’ve met Neo-Saracens. They don’t ‘toy’ with people. If they want you dead, you’re dead. They’re soldiers, not monsters.”

This answer saw Alexander relax somewhat, but enough that he wouldn’t annoy Magnus so much.

“But until that ship leaves, we can’t risk firing up the bunker’s emergency engines,” Magnus said, leaning back in his chair.

“What do we do until then?” Alexander asked.

“Hold our breath.”

5

Recovery

The door slammed behind Gallant and, without looking back at him, the noble motioned to the chair opposite his. There was no desk, it was just a magnificent, red, embroidered gold throne and a dinky little office chair. As Gallant sat down he noticed the distinct lack of grandeur coming from the noble. He was staring out his port window and tapping his fingers on his leg. There was a deafening silence as Gallant tried to figure out whether he was supposed to talk first or not. Or what the custom for being around a noble even is. Are you supposed to copy them? Are you supposed to wait for them to talk, no matter how obscenely long they take to collect their thoughts? Do—

“You know why my office is here?” He asked.

Gallant was taken aback, “Why…your…Is it because El’s Haven is the capital of this fief?”

“No, I mean why my office is literally in this location.”

Gallant thought a bit more on this, “I have no idea, sorry my lord.”

“Oh don’t start on that ‘my lord’ business. Makes me uncomfortable enough as it is to be in this ridiculous chair.”

“My bad, my l…” Gallant stopped himself. The noble went back to staring out that window. Gallant craned his neck around to see if anything special was happening. Nope, same speckled black universe he’s used to.

“I love this view. The noble’s office in El’s Haven was, and had always been in the exact centre of the station. I assume they wanted to project some undue sense of being the centre of this slice of the universe, or something. But when I took office I only wanted two things: the respect of my fellow man, and a view of fucking space. I begged the king and I got my office, it’s about a quarter as big but I have my portal to the void. What used to be the office is the mess hall you were at a week ago before the alert.”

“How did you know that!?” Gallant blurted out in surprise.

“It’s my job to know. But, I’ve always been enamoured with this universe. Each one of those dots seem like tiny specks of light. Then there’s always that moment where you realise that every one of those is a ball of burning gas that could eat billions of people without taking a breath.”

Even though the noble seemed more lax about protocol, Gallant still refused to interrupt him as he peered out at his balls of gas. The noble slid his eyes over to Gallant and chuckled, “Well go on then. Can’t have me talking about the universe too long we’ll be here forever!”

“Oh, right.” It flooded back to Gallant why he was here. “Respectfully, I have strong concerns about this declaration of war.”

“Hm?”

“I’ve been thinking on it for a while, but there is no way this is justified under the Chivalric Code. If we are to go to war, we need to have exhausted every other option. I don’t think a week is enough to cut it.”

The Noble nodded along, “If I’m being honest…I’m thinking exactly the same.”

Gallant stared in silence for a moment, “You are? Then what was with the speech?”

“If I get orders to tell everyone to brace for war, I’m not going to wait and complain. The only thing worse than a misled force is one that is utterly unprepared for war when it comes.”

Gallant began rubbing his forehead in stress, “Since we’re being so open. Is it okay if I completely fly off the handle?”

“By all means,” The Noble said without hesitation.

“Okay. What the hell is wrong with you!? Nobles are supposed to be in charge of investigations for their fief. This happened in YOUR fief!”

“I know, I know. I petitioned the king from here to the ends of the earth.”

Gallant flopped back into his dinky chair, “…and?”

“And…I was wasting my time.”

“Then call the knights! They love you and if you think this is an issue with the king then we’re the ones you call.”

“I may be popular out there, but the king is on a whole other level. I know the knights are traditionally the ones that stop the king, but I’m not going to have any luck convincing any knight from here to Shabbah to prevent this. And I doubt you’ll have any better luck…no offence.”

Gallant wasn’t even listening anymore. He knew halfway through the Noble’s pleas that he was right. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Gallant could stop this.

“But, I think you might be able to help.”

Gallant perked up, “What is it?”

“I can’t start an OFFICIAL investigation, but I could put you on the recovery mission.” Gallant smiled uneasily at the Noble. “That’s our only option?”

“That’s our only option,” the Noble repeated, standing up and stretching out his hand. Gallant himself stood up and shook it. “Great, if you need anything else,” The Noble leaned in, “Or find anything, my door is always open.”

Gallant walked out the door and motioned Page to follow him. As soon as he knew he was out of earshot of the guards, he covered his face with both hands and emitted a muffled scream. He dropped his arms to his side and looked over at Page.

“Uh,” Page said, “Went well?”

“Maybe,” Gallant said, “I don’t know. Not sure.” Gallant and Page walked back down the hallway from the grandiosity of the noble’s office to the gun metal grey they knew and loved. “You waited that entire time? You do realise you’re not literally attached to me, right?”

“It’s alright, I just started insulting the royal guard for fun.”

“That is cruel,” Gallant said, feigning outrage.

“I know, right?”

Gallant spent the next few days preparing for Derelict Recovery Detail. He had originally missed that class when he himself was a Page. “It was too boring,” he said. And now this one job was the most important thing in the universe for him. A few more refresher courses and Gallant was ready for the mission.

He told Page everything that had gone down at the noble’s office, and his unofficial official assignment. Page got excited when he heard this and shouted, “So you’re like one of those ancient private investigators!” to the shock of Gallant. He would have pulled rank right then and there on Page if he could.

He was so single-minded about it he had been waiting an hour before the classes to make sure he didn’t miss anything. Amid the cries of “Nerd!” from Page in what little time they spent together during this period, Gallant followed along with the order of recovery and what chances he had to slip out for any kind of investigation. It was a horribly layered affair with every step having to be sub-steps and it all needed to be catalogued. However, there were still chances to break away and do some individual reconnaissance.

The day came. Gallant hopped out of bed the second his alarm went off and rushed into his clothes. He leapt to the armour rack and strapped himself in, tugging a bit hard a few times and almost choking himself. He was still thinking about that war that was only being prevented at that moment by the gears of government. But for the first time since that announcement, there was something he could do.

As he left he was greeted with a, “Hey!” from beside him. He jumped back, gripping his sword but relaxing once he saw Page. “Don’t do it,” Page said, feigning fear, “Why are you so jumpy today?”

The two began walking to the port, winding around the labyrinth of corridors “Sorry Page, I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.”

“You do realise the universe doesn’t literally rest on your shoulders, right?”

Gallant briefly reconsidered cutting Page to ribbons, “I know, smartass. There’s a war happening and people around here seem to be too in love with the king to care.”

“And is that helped by you freaking out?”

“I’m not freaking out, I’m concerned.”

“So concerned that you’re being a freak about it.”

This argument continued until they arrived at the port, and then when they were boarding the ship. The ship, though infinitely smaller than El’s Haven, seemed to have about as many things to do on it. Sports areas, terminals to play around with, drinks to keep people focused, and just one knight, the ‘captain’, who had to stay focused on steering. And yet, even while everyone was settled in, had found what they wanted to do, and were having fun, Gallant and Page sat at a table and continued arguing.

“I just don’t see how worrying is gonna help. Of course I’m also worried about this, I’m petrified that we might be heading into a war we have no reason to be in.”

Gallant was taken aback, he had been repeating that last sentence in his head for the past few weeks now.

“But,” Page continued, “If the Empire went into a war it was wholly unprepared for whenever there was a whiff of conflict, it wouldn’t have lasted a year. There are things in place to stop this happening, and it’s always been people like you who poke their heads up and say something. That’s why every knight is treated like a demi-god, because of freaks who speak up about this stuff. So stop whining and enjoy the trip,” he finished, grinning as he let that last sentence out.

Even though he shouldn’t, Gallant felt at least somewhat calmer about this. After a few moments of silence, listening to the other knights laughing and drinking, Gallant asked, “Did you wanna try out that sparring arena?”

After Gallant had resoundingly beaten Page every round, and some complaining from Page that, “It doesn’t count as ‘on the ground’ if my ass isn’t touching it!” the captain shouted back to everyone, “Location in view! Everybody to stations!”

Gallant was following along in his head. The approach had begun. Gallant headed over to the miscellaneous telemetry station. It wasn’t glamorous but it didn’t matter, as long as he was on the in-person detail, the ‘cavalry’ team. He wasn’t originally, but a few shifting of papers here and there made sure it happened, and nobody dared question the noble for a second.

He and the maintenance knight settled into their respective areas, looking at terminals and facing away from each other. “Where am I heading?” Page asked.

Before Gallant could answer, the knight behind him shouted, “You brought your associate knight along to this prime recovery mission!?”

“Yes I did,” Gallant replied, still looking at his terminal, “When a knight is being shadowed you are to give them as close to a real knighthood experience as possible.” Gallant raised his head slightly, “You got a problem with that?”

The knight turned her head and half opened her mouth a few times, before turning back to her work, not caring in the least about following up. Gallant looked up at Page, “Go find a seat.”

As Page smiled and walked off the entire ship’s crew had settled into where they needed to go, and an eerie silence descended upon everything. The second Page had found a chair and sat down next to Gallant, the knight on heat detection shouted, “Fifty units inbound!” A chorus of other knights individually echoed this. “Ship status on approach?” Another knight shouted.

“Heat detection nominal!” Gallant shouted back. Page looked at him and the rest of the crew and they were all looking at their terminals like their lives depended on them. “Engines nominal, communications nominal. All clear.”

One more knight shouted to another. Then another to two more. Soon the ship was abuzz with voices from every direction. Page had actually attended his classes on derelict recovery, but the flood of voices that were being launched back and forth were so much more than the roleplays he had been trained with. Page wanted to ask Gallant what was going on and what everybody was talking about, but he had joined the chorus and seemed like he needed to be left alone.

Everybody’s voices were hastily quietened when the ship came to a sudden halt, forcing every knight to grip their terminals and Page to fail and tip over. “What are you doing?” Many of the knights began to shout. The captain looked at his reading and typed a few things, frowning the entire time.

“We’re here. These are the exact coordinates that were listed in the black box. We’re even at the same rotational angle.”

The knights murmured as they all worked away at their terminals. “All star locations line up, heat readings nominal. This is definitely where their location is listed as. All that’s in this system is a single ice planet orbiting a habitable-class star.”

“Heat sensor?” The captain shouted, turning to his right.

“Nothing detected on the planet’s surface.”

“Send a team?” The captain asked, followed by a chorus of ayes, including Gallant. Page was the only one who didn’t say anything but nobody seemed to notice. “Find any spikes in heat activity and save coordinates.”

The captain finally turned around for the first time in the trip. “Anne, Joan, and Egbert. Charter a cuddy and touch down to the hotspots.” Without hesitation they got out of their seats and headed down to the ship’s bay. The knights that had been working beside them hopped over to the now empty seats and picked up right where they had left off.

The captain sounded increasingly desperate in his orders, “Broaden search to the nearest neighbours. What’s close by?”

A rattling of keyboards led to one knight shouting, “The nearest star system is too far for the ship in its condition or the bunker to get to. We would have picked them up by now. Besides a comet shower and a nebula, there’s nothing here for ages.”

“I have an idea,” Page blurted out. The murmur halted and a few knights looked at him. Gallant shot him a glance that said, “You’re on your own, buddy.”

“What?” The captain asked, preparing to shoot down whatever he said.

“Um…well back in the academy my lecturer was telling us about a battle he was in. He was under attack by Neo-Saracens and before he evacuated he disabled the ship’s heat shielding and cranked out as much heat as possible from every part of the ship. The engines, the electronics, everything to mask his position.”

“I have no idea how that could help, please don’t say anything” the captain replied curtly and turned to say something to another knight.

Gallant spoke before the captain could say anything. “If the heat wave hits the ship we’ll detect the change in temperature and where it is.”

“We won’t be detecting anything when our sensors melt through the hull.”

“Please,” Page implored, “There are civilians on that ship. There’s no way we could find them in time if we took any other option.”

“The precious seconds we’re wasting debating this are the difference between life and death. We need to do this now,” Gallant said.

The captain debated in his head for a few moments, getting progressively more and more annoyed until, exasperated, he sighed, “Fine, but the second the ship’s core temperature reaches higher than 50C I’m pulling the plug.”

Gallant nodded and hammered away as Page watched intently. He had no idea what was happening but a wireframe visualisation of the ship had popped up. “Here,” Gallant began, “You can use this to check how the ship’s doing yourself.”

“Um, I didn’t realise these terminals could do that.”

“They can, I just had to program it for you real quick. Now focus up, two eyes are better than one.”

Knights had begun getting out of their seats and moved to various panels on the walls. This was an unorthodox move, it had to be done in an unorthodox way. They ripped the panels off revealing a mess of switches with arcane symbols pointing to other switches. The usual sound of frantic typing had been augmented with the frantic sound of switches being flicked. After a few minutes of this everybody could feel the cabin getting ever so warmer. Page had a bolt of realisation and ripped his jacket off and dumped it in his lap. He felt worse for the knights who’s armour did have a certain level of thermal control, but it would be nothing compared to how hot it would get.

“Nothing yet,” shouted the heat sensor.

“That rules out anything in a 5 metre radius,” Gallant glibly shouted back. Hotter and hotter it got. Everyone was sweating and the smell was starting to become a problem. None of these knights would dare take their armour off in mixed company, that’s for sure. Alarms were starting to go off. A small one shot from weapons systems, guidance was overheating, as it has a tendency to do in battle. The sound of combined alarms created a blaring symphony, evacuation alarms, every citizen aboard was to go to the bunker immediately. There were no civilians aboard but at least it warned them, I guess.

Gallant was really starting to feel it now. He could swear that the steele floor was starting to glow a faint dull red. He was glad he was just at a monitoring station, because if he had been at anything even slightly more involved he couldn’t concentrate for a second. Hotter and hotter still. Telemetry was going haywire, systems were flicking off and on and the ship diagram was lighting up like a Christmas tree with failed systems all over the place. Just about everything but sensors were at least partially damaged. The underwater sensors had quite literally melted onto the ship and…it was getting really hard to concentrate even just on this.

The heat sensor knight, ever the trooper, was somehow still giving regular updates. Shaky ones, but still consistent. “Nothing for 500 kilometres, nothing for 5000 kilometres, nothing for 5 AU.” On and on, getting more rattled as the ship continued baking its inhabitants to a crisp.

Page, who at this point was barely clinging on, noticed the heat sensor knight’s face light up, “An anomaly at these coordinates,” he shouted, mashing them into a keyboard on a second wind.

“SHUT IT ALL DOWN!” The captain screeched. Switches flicked, what keyboards were still function shut down their respective systems. Still too hot, at this rate the heat vents would melt themselves before siphoning off enough heat into space.

“Activate fire suppression!” Gallant ordered. Everyone nodded and the knight in charge flicked a few switches on his side. Nothing happened. He looked over to the nearest switchboard knight and he rerouted a few connections. He tried again and…still nothing. He balled his hand into a fist and banged on the panel a few times, and soon enough a flood of mercifully cold foam dropped onto everyone with an almighty THUMP. Everyone stayed in silence as the only ambient sound was the sizzling of the foam.

Everybody took a few moments to collect themselves again before the captain shouted, “Re-enable systems.” As everybody worked, progressively systems whirred into life. A few unused sensors had fused together but otherwise everything was operational, and now they had coordinates. “I’m never doing that again,” the captain sighed.

A messenger craft was dispatched to the planet loaded with the ship’s new coordinates and the engine was thrown into full blast. In no time at all a bunker came into view with no mothership in sight. It gave off no heat, and by all measurable means it didn’t exist if you couldn’t see it out the window. The ship, absolutely dwarfing the bunker in size, stopped neatly next to it, parking perfectly parallel.

As the captain announced for the crew to begin pre-boarding checks, Gallant prepared to begin his first round of sneaky investigation. “This is it,” he muttered to Page. He typed away the ship diagram and began patching himself into the other ship systems, looking for anything that the others might miss.

“Gallant, why are you checking the other systems?” One of the switchboard engineers asked, looking at a tiny display in the middle of a billion switches.

“I need to make sure none of the systems are operating differently to my readouts.”

This seemed to be satisfactory enough for everyone. Page smiled and leaned over to Gallant. “Well played.”

Gallant shot him back a quick grin and read the readout flying past the screen. Tiny objects were hitting the hull of the ship which couldn’t be heard, but the hull sensor detected them clearly. They were registered and catalogued as steele, it couldn’t have been anything else. There was residual sulfur and other compounds that were emblematic of an explosion. Gallant checked the ship’s library for reports of Neo-Saracens ever using explosives but nothing showed up. If they had used an explosive spear, they were modelling it after Empire or Nestorian models, which had since the war been made illegal to manufacture from then until eternity.

The captain flicked a clipboard off his desk and walked from station to station, dryly listing off a series of items to check off. “Is the primer on low power mode? Is there any reason you can foresee the coolant vents being unable to do their job properly?” Though the questions had a bit of importance, considering the ordeal the the ship had been through, the fact that everything important was still working made it seem like just busywork. One question stuck out in Gallant’s mind, however. They couldn’t detect the bunker through their heat sensors, something at this range that should have been completely achievable. There were only two possible options: Either the crew had set heat dampening to max or the systems were completely offline and they had all suffocated from lack of life support. Gallant was not eager to find out which.

After answering the captain’s questions about the ship’s systems and their readiness, the checks had been completed. “Okay,” the captain began, “I want Gallant, Triemme, and Valour to commence first entry.” All three stood up immediately, with Gallant leaning over to Page and whispering, “Keep short range communications open.”

Page rattled away at the terminal as Gallant headed off with the rest of the team. The port bay was stocked wall to wall with ships, enough to get a full compliment plus guests off the ship in a hurry. The team took one of the smaller ones closer to the port mouth, named “The Mary Sue” and assumed their stations. There were significantly fewer amenities on this ship, as it had enough room for three pilots and maybe a friend to sleep and live.

The Mary Sue left the safety of its home and parked neatly beside the bunker, lying in the shadow of the mothership. All three attached the zero gravity mobility patches to their armour, causing the armour’s light strips to glow a faint, incandescent teal and for each microscopic plate to slide around to where they need to go like clockwork. Gallant always found the name amusing, it was really just a fancy way of saying “You now have tiny rockets coming out of your hands and feet, try not to have too much fun.”

As the three stood in front of the hatch, waiting for the all clear to leap ships, Valour looked over to Triemme and asked, “You ever done a derelict recovery before?”

“Nope. Actually, does it count if your ship gets recovered?”

“Not really. How about you Gallant?”

Gallant was not really in the mood for small talk right now. “Oh yeah, it’s basically become a daily occurrence at this point.” Valour chuckled to himself and looked back at the hatch. The captain gave the all clear and the hatch warning lights blared as it opened.

“Everybody got their helmets on? Last chance to check,” Triemme said, somewhat nervous from excitement. The other two refused to indulge and stayed quiet. The hatch slowly opened and allowed the docking bay’s air to flood out, before a THUMP and the final gust exiting as the hatch completely opened. The three knights nodded to each other and tapped their boots on the ground. The vacuum of space only allowed the background white noise of the rockets and their own breathing to generate the ambient noise. As they glided across the gap, a brief flood of static came into Gallant’s helmet.

“Gallant, you reading me? I can see what you’re doing and you look ridiculous,” Page said.

Gallant sighed and switched voice channels so the others wouldn’t get their channels clogged, “Reading you loud and clear, absolute blight on my life.”

“Are you reading anything on your suit?” Page asked.

Gallant broadcast on both channels, “I’m getting a higher and higher heat reading as we approach. It means they had to have boosted their heat shielding to max. They must be baked to a crisp in there. The first thing we should do when we get in there is drop the heat dampening and vent it out.”

“Agreed,” Valour and Triemme said in unison. Despite the massive power draw, the hatch to the bunker still accepted their codes and readily welcomed them inside. It closed behind them and with the air coming from the ship came also a wave of unbearable heat. The kind that Gallant had experienced about 30 minutes ago.

Gallant immediately went to the right panel and ripped it off, revealing a similar array of switches surround a display as seen on the mothership. It took a few flicks for the heat vents to shudder into life and begin cooling down the ambient temperature. Gallant sighed with relief, it was petty but he was ready to be in the cold again. With that, the dimmed emergency lights were replaced with the flash of the clean, surgical white of the regular ones.

It brought the beds into clear focus and there was a distinct lack of people in any of them. For all the team knew everybody had completely disappeared. The drive room was straight down the hall and as they passed more and more empty beds Gallant felt a sense of apprehension about entering the drive room. There was still air, the bunker didn’t have room for evacuation ships, it WAS the evacuation ship. There’s no way it could be deserted. But the bunks would tell a different story.

Up to the final cluster of empty beds and the hatch to the drive room greeted the team. Gallant and Valour had made it and Triemme was trailing just behind, pretending to take very deep looks at all of the beds as the “clues” they were. Meanwhile, the two who weren’t acting weird about the mission had already started the hatch opening procedure. It was much more involved than entering, as in the heat of battle you don’t want someone boarding and massacring every civilian. Only knights know how to open it and it’s a complicated affair that requires at least two to rewire circuits in a very particular way. That combined with the hatch’s noted tendency to break sometimes and require more knights with special equipment to assist, it was a bit tricky.

And yet, the click of the final plug whirred the hatch into life and unsealed it revealing two hot, bothered, sweaty guys sitting in chairs, and a smattering of people strewn on the floor. The younger guy nudged the other and pointed at the team.

“Where…the hell…have you guys been,” he said, straining every syllable out.

6

Questions

The noble opened his door to Gallant and Page sitting in his luxurious waiting chair.

“My goodness, do I need to invest in bug spray? Can’t seem to get rid of you two,” he said, motioning them into the room. Gallant stood up and started walking towards the office. “No,” The noble began, “Page too, I’m gonna need to speak to him about his little field trip.”

Page’s eyes widened, but he still got up without hesitation and joined Gallant. The door shut behind them, almost clipping Page on the ass, and now two chairs had been set up opposite the Noble’s glamourous, but now blue throne.

“New chair?” Gallant asked, trying to break the silence.

“Yeah, they get rotated in and out. I’m not a fan of it myself but even nobles have rules apparently.”

Everyone settled into their respective chairs, with the noble once again entranced by his view out the window. “I trust the derelict recovery went well?”

“Absolutely. Everything was procedural and to the letter. We recovered all civilians without any undue injuries, and the deceased have all been identified and their loved ones notified.”

“No issues at all?”

“I think you should have a word with those two guys, Alexander and Magnus. They seemed to have the right idea in separating the living and the dead, but the way they did it was horrifically unempathetic. Standard procedure is to take the deceased into the most secluded bunks and cover them completely with sheets. They had part of it done but it had the air of two people who were just trying to get it done as quickly as possible”

“I think sometimes you knights forget that not everyone can remain so calm in the face of pressure. Cut them some slack, they had just borne the brunt of an explosion.”

“I suppose…”

Once again the three were bathed in silence. Gallant really had something to say, but he was figuring out how to put it delicately.

“I don’t think this was a Neo-Saracen attack.” Oops.

“Excuse me!?” The noble asked, looking more shocked than Gallant was hoping.

“What’s this about!?” Page also asked, just as horrified.

“I’m not plucking this out of thin air. Nothing about the bunker seemed to add up. The substances in the explosives used are the same as ours prior to their outlawing. The Neo-Saracens have never been known to use hit and run tactics in their entire history. ”

“Yes, yes. I know all of this; The preliminary investigation has been very thorough.”

“This can’t be the Neo-Saracens then! You have to agree.”

“Who the hell would this be, then!?” The noble shouted. “Pirate activity hasn’t been recorded in decades. There are only three political entities in the known universe. The Empire sure as hell wouldn’t do this to their own people. The Nestorians have been our allies for centuries. The Neo-Saracens and us have an uneasy treaty which is set to expire in the next few years. The border colonies have been disputed since the day the treaty was created. I’m sorry Gallant, but you’re just wrong. The Neo-Saracens have every reason to attack us and the only surprise is that they jumped the gun on the treaty ending.”

Gallant tilted his head down and was rubbing his forehead. The noble was right. The Neo-Saracens had means, motive, and could very well have just copied Empire designs. As he sat dejected, the noble sighed.

“I did you a huge favour and I’m sure you appreciate it. But now I need you to repay it. Please accept what is happening and ready yourself for war. None of us want this, but now we all have it. I need you to promise me you’ll be a knight and not a cowboy.”

“Cowboy?”

“A symbol of ancient Earth’s wild west. I don’t want you gallivanting off to investigate something you think’s ‘suspicious’ when real people could die without you. You know you’re one of my best knights, there’s no way I can lose you especially if we’re entering into a war we could very well be outclassed in.”

“But I could stop this conflict and save everyone…”

“I’m sorry, I can’t risk that long shot compared to the risk of lives lost without you.”

Gallant nodded, still mentally preparing for the god knows how many years ahead of him there would be in this conflict.

“Please, if you find solid evidence of foul play, tell me and I’ll do everything in my power to stop the bloodshed. But never let that get in the way of your duty.”

Gallant was at least able to uneasily smile at the noble who was doing the same. The noble then turned to Page and dropped it.

“Now onto you, young master Page.”

Page scrunched up his mouth.

“You were never scheduled to be on that recovery mission. It was already hard enough to get Gallant there last minute. You sneaking on was—”

“I didn’t sneak,” Page interrupted, “I walked on and everyone saw me there.”

The noble raised an eyebrow and Gallant stared in abject horror. Gallant leaned over and muttered, “You know he’s going to kill you, right?”

The noble then continued like nothing happened, “I know you had gotten carried away in arguing with Gallant but you should still have had the presence of mind to leave. Gallant was just doing what your mentor’s supposed to do and standing up for you, but you are still an associate knight and you should be able to follow the rules under your own autonomy.”

Page opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it when he looked at Gallant almost pleading with him to stop. He opened it again and said, “Understood.”

“Alright, unless you guys have any other concerns I’m sure we’ve all earned some rest.”

The other two nodded as they rose to their feet and walked over to the door. As the noble looked out his window, Page leaned back in and said, “Why don’t you just rotate your throne ninety degrees so it’s always looking out the window?”

He looked at Page confused and then quite rightly ignored him, electing to go back to his desk and do some work. The second the two were out of earshot Gallant stopped Page, “What is wrong with you? We were already getting chewed out, he didn’t need advice on interior decorating!”

“I was, you already had your turn. It’s just been bugging me for a while. If he likes that view so much then why doesn’t he turn to face it?”

Gallant sighed and they started walking again. When Page looked at Gallant he didn’t seem dejected anymore. It seemed like the gears were turning. Page didn’t say anything when they passed by the station’s farm, not even making one comparison of Gallant to a farm animal like he usually would. There was something about this deep level of concentration he didn’t want to ruin. Finally Gallant stopped in his tracks, allowing people to flood past him in either direction. Page had over-walked a few paces and turned to face him.

“What’s up?” Page asked.

“I have to go see that survivor.”

“Which one?”

“The one with the beard. The older guy. It’s about the heat dampeners.”

Page was taken aback, THAT’S what he was thinking about? Before he could say anything Gallant was gone. It was about time for them to break anyway and go get lunch, and clearly he wanted to get his lunch with someone else. Page smiled and walked to the associate knight’s mess hall.

Gallant needed to know where the survivors were being housed. There were three locations on El’s Haven that had been earmarked for survivor recovery: Infirmary #4, Infirmary #13 and Housing Wards #52 - #74. The people would be none too happy for someone to be intruding on their recovery, and probably wouldn’t give him the time of day had he not been a knight. But Gallant was hoping he could leverage that against them. It wasn’t exactly ethical per se, but in the end saving lives would justify the means. Oh no, Gallant thought as he raced to Infirmary #4, Did I just unknowingly quote Machiavelli?

He started with Infirmary #4 because the other two locations were, conveniently enough, on almost the complete other side of the damn station. So Gallant wanted to start with the one that would be the most exhausting, both mentally and physically. Infirmary #4 was where the most injured of the civilians were located, and would be the least happy to have someone ask probing questions.

The second an out of breath Gallant opened the door he knew this was a bad idea. Chattering doctors rushed around the white halls of the infirmary, trying to administer treatments for broken necks and horrifically charred skin. Nobody in this room would be remotely ready to talk to Gallant, and nobody would pay attention even if he yelled. He left as soon as he had entered.

“Hold on!” he heard a voice behind him say. “Why were you loitering around the infirmary?”

Gallant turned around and was greeted by a doctor with long, black hair. “Knight’s business. You’re needed back in the infirmary.” he responded flatly.

“All patients are accounted for. That might work on civilians but not on me, what were you doing?” She said, her voice raising as she spoke.

Gallant sighed and pondered for a moment just running away. “I’m looking for a specific survivor as part of an ongoing…” Don’t say investigation. ”…I need to ask him some questions.”

The doctor thought about it for a moment and responded, “What does he look like? I was part of the first response team I might be able to ID him.”

“Middle aged, normal height, ginger hair and sported a beard.”

“Oh, you mean Magnus? The weapons educator aboard the King’s Will. I was only able to tease his name out of him after a lot of effort before two knights came and took him away. He was fine aside from a little heat stroke and a crabby attitude.”

Gallant chuckled a bit. There was only one place they would be taking this Magnus guy if he was enjoying an armed escort.

“Thanks,” Gallant shot off before leaving for the brig. Naturally, it was on the other side of the station and he longed to have Page’s ability to crawl through vents or do whatever he does to get to places so quickly.

The path he chose took him directly past the assoc. knights’ mess hall. Out of curiosity he peeked his head in and scanned the room. He spotted Page just as soon as Page had spotted him. Page began to rise from his seat but Gallant waved his hand for him to sit back down. Gallant flashed Page a thumbs up and Page smiled back at him in acknowledgement, the investigation was heading somewhere.

The brig was not far from the mess hall. What that said about how the station designer viewed the associate knights Gallant couldn’t say, and wasn’t really in the mood to think about it. The hatch to the brig were noticeably thicker than any other hatch on the station. A prisoner wouldn’t be able to escape through a single layered steele hatch, let alone the triple layered overkill that was the brig entrance. It was just there to comfort whoever enters more than anything else. The first hatch opened and the second was guarded by a knight in full armour. Maria, Gallant had briefly been stationed with her in comms when Page came down with Regalian flu.

“Business?” she asked Gallant.

“I’m here to see Magnus.”

“On what grounds?”

“Personal reasons.”

The knight nodded and punched his code in. That might not have worked had Gallant not been shrouded in the prestige of a knight. And one that had been a part of the derelict recovery team at that. Word had spread fast that Gallant was in the team that first found the survivors.

Through two more doors and the interior of the brig revealed itself. Two more knights brought Gallant on what seemed like a tour of the facility, with each cell having different and elaborate arrangements. Some had multitudes of chairs spread out into a circle, some looked like just regular rooms on the ship. It didn’t take long before Gallant once again saw the face he’d been looking for. Gallant nodded at the other knights who went back to their positions at the entrance. Gallant put his code into the cell and the blacked out glass lowered itself into the floor with many alarms and much fanfare. Magnus, lying on the rather luxurious looking bed, turned to look at Gallant.

“Hm?” Magnus muttered, breaking whatever train of thought he had at that moment.

Gallant walked beside Magnus, “You’re a prisoner, then?”

“I’m being housed for later questioning. I can leave if I’ve got an armed guard with me.”

“That still sounds like you’re a prisoner.”

“I know.” After Magnus said this he hoisted himself up and sat on the side of the bed, “So what brings you here, Sir…”

“Gallant.”

Magnus smile, “Gallant, I know that name. You’re the crazy knight the guard was talking about.”

Gallant shot him a dead look, “Sure, and as part of my downward spiral into insanity I need to ask you a few questions.”

Magnus gestured at Gallant to go ahead.

“Wasn’t there a kid with you, why isn’t he here?”

“I took full responsibility for the handling of the bunker after the attack. He’s probably been sent off to his parents or something. Is this really what you want to ask me?”

Gallant tapped his sword a few times, no need for small talk, then. “It’s about the heat dampeners.”

Magnus was taken aback, nobody who had questioned him had even cared about it. “Yeah, I set them to maximum to evade detection. And in the process just about cooked everyone to a medium-rare death.”

“Wow,” Gallant said as he leaned back in his chair, “I don’t know if that’s something I would have thought of doing. Especially since no galactic empire in history has ever willingly fired upon a civilian vessel, least of which a civilian bunker.”

“It was just in case, for the safety of the civilians. I didn’t want us to be the first.”

“Like hell it was for safety,” Gallant said, ever so slightly raising his voice, “You would rather take the fifty-fifty chance of dying of heatstroke than the risk of something that hasn’t happened before? If that’s true I’m sure I could get you transferred to the psychiatric ward. In fact, I’m sure this is the exact reason you’re here.”

Magnus laid back and stared at the ceiling, “If you don’t like my answers then that’s your problem, not mine.”

Gallant rubbed his forehead; This was not going how it did in his head. “You genuinely thought that you were going to be destroyed by the Neo-Saracen ship?”

“I genuinely thought we would be destroyed by the ship if I didn’t do what I did. Tell your noble that’s the statement.”

Gallant stared for a few seconds at Magnus. Magnus seemed to believe in what he was saying without a trace of irony. He stood up and before he left he said, “I’m not here on behalf of anyone. I’m doing this by myself to save people’s lives.”

He left Magnus, who was still seemingly discerning the mysteries of the universe in a blank, white ceiling. Gallant had barely made it out of the brig and down the hall before his name was being shouted by Maria.

“Gallant!” she began, “Magnus wants to see you again.”

He smiled. This time when he sat back in his seat he unbelted his sword and took off his helmet. Magnus was once again sitting upright on his bed.

“Give me a reason to trust you,” Magnus demanded.

Gallant was shocked. “I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t know what reason you came to talk to me, or why you’re on your strange lone wolf-type mission. But, whether it’s a sense of civic duty or a form of psychosis, you need me to talk. And since what I could say could get me stuck in the bowels of the legal system forever, I need a reason to trust you.”

Gallant thought about this as he tapped on the plate armour on his leg. It was a good point, this guy had some serious information and no reason to divulge it to somebody he just met.

“Because…” Gallant began, still forming his point, “…if you tell Maria to tell the noble what I’m doing, he’ll never let me near you again. He’s told me to drop it once, and once in the knight’s order should be enough.”

Magnus laughed. “Good work, give me enough leverage to bury you. I like your strategy, as self defeating as it is.”

“Thanks, your praise means a lot to me,” Gallant remarked, unimpressed.

Magnus got up and checked outside the window carefully. Nobody. He hurriedly sat back down and leaned in to mutter, “We weren’t attacked by Neo-Saracens.”

Gallant had been chasing this question for a while, but hearing it come from someone else still made his heart drop. “No no no. No way. This should be an open and shut case. The craft attacking matches our records on Neo-Saracens to a T. We sent a messenger to the Neo-Saracens and they got turned around.”

“And yet, here you are, on your own. Investigating despite strict orders not to. You’re feeding me this line of excuses but I think you’ve been fed it by someone else.”

“Someone I trust.”

“And I’m sure they got fed it by someone they trust too. Neo-Saracen ships have incredible heat sensing. You might not know it and it’s probably not on record but it’s true. The Empire’s heat dampening certainly leaves something to be desired, enough so that the bunker should have been sniffed out by the ship lightyears away. There’s no way that ship could have lost us if it was a Neo-Saracen craft.”

Gallant knew he should be more horrified but he had one looming question: “Why didn’t you tell this to the preliminary investigators? If you genuinely believe this then why only tell it to me?”

“If you’ve been investigating this at all you know that this declaration of war is premature. Clearly the powers that be want to beat the drum of war and damn the consequences.”

Gallant was almost personally offended, “The powers that be? What do you mean by that!? Are you referring to the king? The nobles? The knights, even? None of those groups have been accused of corruption ever. We’ve barely ever been at war in the Empire’s long history and we were always the attacked. Nobody wants this.”

“What I’m trying to say,” Magnus said, interrupting Gallant’s rant, “Is that we were attacked by somebody, but not the Neo-Saracens. If you guys are going to be at war, it’d be better if you knew who it should be.” Magnus leaned in further for one last comment, “And I don’t think anybody should be off the table.”

Just like with the noble, Gallant had to agree with Magnus. “How do you know so much about the Neo-Saracens?”

“I’m a weapons educator. That means ALL weaponry, so I lived in the capital Saraca for a few years.”

“How? The second you hit the Neo-Saracen border you would have been immediately turned around.”

“Yeah, I didn’t exactly have a warm reception. But I managed to get an audience with some officials and was given some time to plead my case. They let me guest speak in one class and no more.”

“If that’s true, you have to be the first person to see the Neo-Saracens in a hundred years. What are they like?”

“Not as friendly as you’d think. Or, I guess, more friendly if you believe your king. I signed a privacy agreement which I’ve just broken and would rather not be extradited for what I’ve already said.”

Gallant understood, and now they both had dirt on each other. Gallant was quickly running out of questions and the only way forward seemed to be outside of El’s Haven. The brick wall. Gallant was now all too familiar with this feeling. If Gallant asked the noble for the time and resources to investigate, he’d be shot down. If he told the noble what Magnus said, not only would Gallant be reprimanded for doing what the noble asked him not to, but he would be taking the word of someone even he barely knew anything about. And who’s only compelling argument was that he agreed with Gallant. It was shaky ground at best to launch an official investigation on. If he left El’s Haven on his own and broke the Chivalric Code to do so…it wasn’t even worth considering.

One more question popped into Gallant’s head.

“How did you wake up from that blast?” Gallant asked

“Come again?”

“It was a concussive explosive. Those things can down an elephant but you and the kid managed to wake up by yourselves, how?”

Magnus smiled, “I’ve had practice.”

This cheeky bastard.

“As for the kid, I dunno. He got lucky I guess.”

With that Gallant had nothing more to ask. An uneasy feeling that he would rather have not had his questions answered was descending on him.

“Tell me if anything else comes up,” Magnus asked.

“Sure,” Gallant muttered. He was too busy thinking about the implications to say anything more. As he left and the hatch closed behind him, he wondered if he could still fight in this war knowing what he did. Who knows, maybe the two empires would just sort this out diplomatically.

7

They Won’t

“Sir Holy of New Coldania, MRK; Sir Holy of New Constantinople, MRK; Sir Holy of New Croatia, MRK; Sir Holy of New C—” The El’s Haven crier had been reading from the list for ten minutes now. Many in the Sir Linus Memorium Announcement Hall who were listening had filed out, having heard the one name they never hoped to hear. A few phonemes and the knight wouldn’t be able to sleep well for a while. The first assaults had begun. After some minor skirmishes by the Empire and then the same back by the Neo-Saracens, the first honest to god battle had taken place. Scout ships had spotted scout ships and called in their mother fleets.

Gallant remained in the hall, experiencing a completely different yet much more horrible pain. Everybody he personally knew were civilians and were about as far from the front lines as possible. In fact, his parents were nothing but excited for Gallant to finally get his knighthood after so many years of being trod on as an associate. And immediately he was singled out in his cohort as exceptionally loyal and resourceful, being placed on one of the most dangerous posts in the Empire, on the border between them and the Neo-Saracens. His parents were less than thrilled with that, and everything had been left still uneasy since.

Gallant thought about this and how absolutely right his parents’ worry was. If the attacks wouldn’t kill him, it was going to be the knowledge that this war might be for dubious reasons.

“Hey,” he heard a familiar voice say, nudging him out of his mind.

“Hey Page,” Gallant mumbled.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

Gallant was in no arguing mood, and he knew Page was right. But it still felt like he had to stay, to torture himself for not stopping this happening. He froze for a few seconds, and eventually rose to his feet. “Next detail’s at station port 5, how fast can you get there?”

Page smiled, “Faster than you.”

“No, I mean…Why don’t you log onto the terminal and I’ll check the logs to see how fast you got there. Aaaand…”

“Wait, are you sure? We could get into t—”

“GO!” Gallant shouted, a little louder than he expected, causing the few people left in the hall to stare momentarily. Before even finishing his thought, Page had disappeared. He didn’t even know what time it was so there was no way he could know how fast he’d be. Gallant sighed and began the long walk across the station. Even if Gallant had nothing on his mind and speedwalked like a gangster in an 80s musical, it would still take a while.

Some misguided but well meaning idiot on the station planning committee decided that, in order to make sure the knights and scientists inhabiting the station don’t get too complacent and out of shape, there will be as few elevators as possible. Perfect for knights who already have rigorous exercise regimens and have to haul suits of armour around when on duty.

Still, it gave Gallant the chance to check out the sights. The station wasn’t just there for observing the colonies, it was ostensibly a research outpost. One that just happened to have an enormous concentrated military presence the likes of which the Empire had never seen before to keep an eye on quarrelling colonists and Neo-Saracen activity.

Enough about politics, Gallant declared in his mind, Time to see the sights. What labs weren’t airlocked to keep samples in were mostly boring plain rooms with scholars in dull cloaks moving substances to different tubes. Naturally, the hydroponics areas containing the zoologists and botanists were the most interesting to look at, but in keeping with that day’s theme there was nobody there.

Knights and civilians alike were chattering amongst themselves as they walked past Gallant in the gargantuan connecting hallways. The noise of everyone’s conversations were being amplified and bounced around by the walls so much that it made it seem like there was an entire crowd of people. These corridors were the nexus between work and pleasure on the station and they were appropriately over-designed, with gilded crown moulding and decadent Corinthian columns that stretched into the roof. They were obviously useless, but when you have the resources of the Glorious Empire then you have the budget to have gaudy tastes.

Gallant rubbed his eyes, he hadn’t slept well in a while and—

“Gallant?” he heard.

Gallant turned around, he had his helmet on and somehow Magnus managed to recognise him through the tiny slitted window. “Magnus? Why are you…” Gallant looked down and finally noticed that his hands were cuffed, “…in manacles?”

“He already ran off on us on one of his walks,” Maria stated, smiling and looking at him. By the tone of her voice, and despite the cuffed suspect, her voice indicated that they had been talking and her and Magnus were at the very least acquaintances.

“I need to talk to you…” He looked at Maria, “…alone.”

She nodded at both of them and walked a distance just out of earshot. Which, considering the volume of the hall, didn’t need to be very far. Magnus was technically not a prisoner despite his restraints, so she knew he still had the right to privacy given to all citizens.

“I’m on the way to my post, so say little or follow hotly.” Despite the options Gallant gave him he began walking away anyway. As expected a silently grumbling Magnus followed. Gallant had noticed that Maria was none too subtly following them, trying to maintain a respectful distance. A true professional.

“I don’t usually—”

“I looked you up, you know,” Gallant interjected. Magnus looked unfazed.

“This isn’t where you want to be focusing your attention if you wanna keep investigating,” Magnus said. Gallant stopped, looking like he was almost about to explode. Maria was about to walk into earshot but a sharp glance by Gallant made her change her mind, and briefly wonder if she was about to die.

“I don’t want to waste my time on this! But if I’m going to take your word and validate my hunch, I need to be able to trust you. And I think you know I found nothing. There is at least a birth date on every single living organism in our borders, and yet you turn up nothing. Not a criminal record, not a work record, not even a medical record. As far as the library is concerned, you’re not even dead. You just don’t exist! Not even the knights can make that happen.” As Gallant ranted at him, Magnus betrayed no surprise behind his bushy beard. “As you demanded of me not a few days ago: ‘Make me trust you’. Because if not, I’m going to stop this and save what few lives I can as a soldier.”

Not expecting a response, Gallant stopped being an obstruction in the hallway and walked off. After he had rounded a corner Gallant checked, but nobody was following. Had Magnus just dropped this entirely? Gallant was the only knight anywhere near willing to aid him, so the only reason he’d stop is if he gave up as well. Gallant mentally shrugged and started properly coming to terms with the fact that this was happening. He had already broken quite a few direct orders from his noble, and anything more would have been lunacy.

“How’d I do?” A distinctly out of breath Page asked as Gallant walked in.

“Hm? Oh,” Gallant mumbled out, just now remembering. He pressed a few buttons and brought up the log, taking maybe half a second to glance before declaring, “Fifteen minutes exactly.” It was a nice number to say so why not.

“Seriously? That’s what I got in my last end-to-end time trial.”

Whoops, Gallant thought. “Maybe you’ve hit the limit,” Gallant pretend-reckoned as he punched his credentials into the terminal.

“Or maybe you just suck at timekeeping. I’ll find someone with more Olympic spirit,” Page said, smiling.

Gallant had long since stopped thinking about what he was saying to Page and was looking out the thin glass window to the station’s bay. Luckily a Gallant at 10% brain power throwing out grunts was enough for Page.

The bay felt like it could have housed another station inside of it. Whoever had designed it had clearly gone to the same design school as the nexus hallways, Gawdy Design U or something. The few parts of the bay that were for actually parking and not for the designer to overdo it and gold plate everything were all bunched up against the reassuringly firm looking steele door. It set itself apart from the rest of the bay as it seemed actually functional with little but a gigantic cog adorning the centre.

Man, it would be so easy to steal a ship and get out of here. Gallant stopped himself, confused. Where the hell did THAT thought come from? Not saying I would. But if I did I wouldn’t have much of a headstart. I’d be racing the rest of the knights to— Stop, this is not healthy, the matter has already been put to bed. I know, but this is purely a hypothetical. Okay, hypothetically, if this plan went forward then people could die with nobody to help. The knighthood needs every cog in its machine or it can’t function at peak efficiency. It’s not like they grow on trees, a replacement would take weeks. But STOPPING the war could save billions. That just seems over the top.

So we’re out the bay door, the terminal would have to be set on a timer, of course, to make sure we have time to escape. Where would you go after that? Where would this ‘investigation’ even start at?

Gallant thought about that but his mind drew a complete blank. Where to start indeed? There were three options and they each subdivided into so many possibilities. Each civilisation is home to billions of people, each with their own homes and buildings to house bureaucracy to account for these homes. Needle in a galactic haystack.

A warning siren knocked Gallant out of his daydream and the terminal was warning him of a ship outside on a collision course. The warning these things are usually pretty sensitive so after waiting a bit to make sure it didn’t just go off for no reason, he began the procedure to open the bay door and let the ship in. The reading for the ship was strange but it was probably just a modified civilian ship. Messing with the ID broadcaster is illegal so this person was going straight from the bay to the brig. At least Magnus will get some company.

Then another warning light shot on. Then a few more. Soon the entire terminal was lit up like a Christmas tree and a confused Page looked on with shock and worried confusion. A single repeating message was flying across the screen…

8

DO NOT OPEN THE DOOR, UNDER ATTACK

By now Gallant had gotten used to the shaking of the station. His feet were firmly planted like tree trunks, as opposed to Page who had spent more time on his ass than anything else. The terminal’s screen had two different readouts. To an outsider they would both be disgorging random characters. However, to a knight, one side was showing the integrity of the station’s systems and the other was showing how many civilians had been accounted for, both evacuated and dead. The civilian evacuation procedure had improved significantly since the second colony war and, unlike then, the dead civilian counter was slowly trickling up as the evacuation amounts shot up too fast to follow. As soon as the civilians accounted for in their sectors hits 90%, the knights begin their evacuation procedures. In Gallant’s sector, it was at 45%; It would be a while.

- DESCRIBE PEOPLE EVACUATING, GALLANT FINDING EVERY WINDOW IN THE ATTACK TO OPEN THEN CLOSE THE DOCK

In the brief moment that Page was on his feet, he asked Gallant, “Why is everyone evacuating; Shouldn’t we be filing them into the bunker and fighting back or something?”

Gallant responded to the now sitting Page, “Based on the number and type of ships attacking us we’re well outmatched. Evacuating is just ensuring that as little of the station is destroyed as possible. We can always take it back later.”

Page still seemed unconvinced. “How do you all know you’re outmatched?”

“By memorising algorithms. Now, quiet. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re being att—” Was all Gallant could get out before even he was thrown from his terminal and onto one knee.

“TICK TOCK, GALLANT, YOU’VE MISSED A WINDOW! WE NEED TO GO NOW!” Radioed one of the knights who was guiding people into ships on the dock below.

Gallant hauled himself back up and shot a glance at Page to make sure he hadn’t broken his neck. The now crumpled pile of armour lying on the floor was groaning. He was alright.

Another window, another few ships were able to slip out the dock with the help of Gallant and the evacuation percentage ticked further up. Gallant was being given jobs from other stations as those sectors were being evacuated and the knights left their posts or the posts themselves were destroyed. At this point he was controlling fire suppression for the entire station, dock exits, anti-personnel weaponry, brig operations…wait.

“We can’t evacuate right now!” Gallant shouted to Page.

“I know that. Not before the civilians, right?”

“No, I meant that brig operations have transferred to me.”

Page seemed to understand immediately. The brig was in Gallant’s sector, so either the terminal had been destroyed or the brig was now floating into space. Page tried thinking positive and assumed the former. He pulled up the camera feed for the brig and, naturally, they weren’t working. However, there were two lifesigns reading from the brig, meaning that either Magnus and the knight were alive, or the Neo-Saracens had learnt how to phase through walls.

“We’re gonna take the scenic route to evacuate, meet Magnus along the way,” Gallant stated

“Can’t we let one of the other knights take care of it?”

“What other knights? If they were still in control then brig operations wouldn’t have been transferred to me. We could very well be the only knights even close to the brig.”

A siren blared over their conversation. “The 90% threshold has been reached, we will be evacuated shortly.” The storm of characters on the terminal screen faded into a deep blue and the names of knights to be evacuated scrawled itself across. A skeleton crew would be left behind for the final phase as the station is shut down and rendered as useless to its conquerors as possible. Technically by this point Page should have been evacuated along with the rest of the associate knights, but he decided he could take a bit longer to leave.

The onslaught seemed to have abated for a moment, at least in that sector as the two could hear the distinct rumblings of others being carved up. Gallant spotted his name rolling across the screen, and in the next instant he rattled off a few requests attempting to test out a theory. He asked to be placed on the skeleton crew, failing that being allowed to have his operations transferred to somewhere close to the brig, failing that to be allowed more time to evacuate, and so on. He sent off anything and everything that would let him do anything but evacuate right this moment, and soon he confirmed his theory as his first request was approved.

“What’s going on?” Page asked.

“I sent off as many requests as I could. Everybody is so overwhelmed that if nobody responded to all of my requests, then I get what was ignored. Now come on, we’ve got a prisoner to save.”

One swipe across the screen and the flurry of activity crashed to an unwelcoming black. This thing wasn’t turning on again without a team of knights and a week of rewiring. The second they stepped out into the hallway they knew they wouldn’t be getting far without dying. Scorch marks adorned the walls and the hallways twisted and crunched around itself like a rope tied into a knot.

“This way!” Page shouted, uncharacteristically taking the lead on this one.

From Gallant’s perspective Page seemed to be rushing around the hallways at random like he was a headless chicken. Hallways that led directly to the brig were turned away from in favour of smaller and more roundabout routes.

Gallant knew better than to ask, but, “Wait, why are we not taking the direct routes?”

“Trust me, those hallways I passed by would have been made into swiss cheese based on what I’ve seen from other major hallways. This is the route that gives us the least chance to be sucked out into space. And the route that will be the least air-deprived.”

Gallant thought about it for a few moments and realised that Page was completely right, and more impressive still he had done all of this thinking on the fly. But, after seemingly forever of quick turns and going down hallways only to back out of them again, there was finally something that Page didn’t account for.

Gallant and Page immediately drew their swords and readied themselves in their fighting stances. There, in front of them, two people clad head to toe in steele armour, but they were most certainly not knights. The armour was more ornate and had more of a green tinge to them, rather than the calming gun-metal grey of Page and Gallant.

“Stay close, but behind me,” Gallant muttered to Page. Page registered the overwhelming gravity pf how Gallant was speaking and followed his orders without argument. They took a few steps forward and the two figures came into clearer view. One had been rewiring the keypad to the door in a futile attempt to reach where they shouldn’t, while the other was halfheartedly keeping watch. There was no way they could get in. Between the need to reroute a million interconnected systems and the complexity of knights’ cryptography, they were going to be there until the heat death of the universe.

“Halt!” Shouted Gallant, preparing to go through the warning procedure that he had gone over a million times. The two rose from their stupors and drew their swords. “You are unlawfully on the property of his majesty the King of the Glorious Empire. As a servant to the empire, I am bestowed the right and duty to arrest you and take you before the royal courts. If you do not comply, you will have forced me to take aggressive measures. Do you understand what I have asked of you?”

Nothing. The two did not move but they paid attention like they understood what Gallant had just spouted off. After an excruciating silence, but one that was required of him by the Chivalric Code, he advanced on the two. And as Gallant expected they took a few steps forward in kind and both swung.

Gallant batted away the left soldier’s horizontal swipe and Page more clumsily blocked the right one. Gallant booted him back and forced them to clatter against the wall, stunning them. He wheeled around and jabbed just above Page’s head and toward the face plate of the second solder. He immediately withdrew his assault on Page to swipe away Gallant’s attempt to blind him. Gallant used this momentum to face the first attacker, who had just risen to their feet and both grabbed each other’s wrists. As they were locked like this Gallant was overwhelmed by curiosity, as he peered into the darkened face visor and could just make out two human-looking eyes.

He snapped himself out of this and jerked the attacker’s wrist in such a way that forced their sword out of their hand. He pushed them back and, with no way to block this, plunged his sword into the attacker’s gut. He withdrew his now-bloodied sword, leaving this person to clatter to the ground.

Page had just barely been holding off the other attacker who was holding the back of his blade and forcing it down onto Page. Seeing their brethren turned pile of flesh in a suit on the ground, they pushed Page to the side and rose their sword to prepare an attack of Gallant. However, they seemed to have underestimated Page’s ability to steady himself and before the other soldier could react he ran across, holding the hilt of his sword in one hand and the back of the blade in the other, and pressed his sword’s broadside deep into the soldier’s stomach. They took Page’s sword with them as they fell to the ground, leaving a stunned Page to stare at what he had done.

Gallant holstered his sword and rushed to Page. “Are you alright? Page, are you still with me?”

Page shook himself out of his trance, “Oh, yeah. Yeah I’m still here. You should go through that door while I collect my sword.”

Page sounded bizarre, like he had been replaced with a robot. But right now there was no time for Gallant to talk to Page, he needed to get to the brig before any more Neo-Saracens did.

The rainbow of wires that were spaghettied in front of him gave him flashbacks of being in class and desperately fighting the urge to sleep. He tried to recall what he was supposed to learn and connected wires to wires, each soldering themselves snugly. Gallant noticed out of the corner of his eye Page, having holstered his sword, fiddling with the Neo-Saracen’s helmet.

“Page, leave them. They died fighting for their people, afford them the respect they deserve,” Gallant demanded.

Page immediately stopped and joined Gallant at the door.

Once he finished with the last one he lifted the keypad and started punching numbers in.

“By the way,” he said, leaning back to look at Page, “If I wired this incorrectly then we are going to explode and die.”

“What!?”

Gallant pressed the last button and an ominous beep was followed swiftly by the doors triumphantly flung open. Gallant looked back and smirked.

“You’re the worst knight I know.”

The brig’s lighting and even emergency lighting seemed to have completely died, and the two disappeared into it as the door slammed shut behind them.

9

Prisoner Transport

The only way that Page knew he was still following Gallant was the occasional red diode that faded in and out, bathing them both in ominous red light. Other than that, the darkness would have made Page feel like he was in cave, had it not been for the near-constant bombardment outside.

“Why aren’t we calling out for Magnus and the knight?” Page whispered, the hallways echoing his voice a bit too loudly for comfort.

“I read two lifesigns, I do not know who’s. And if we are entertaining the worst case scenario, I would rather not be cut down by two Neo-Saracens and added to the pile of Maria and Magnus.”

Page nodded, but he didn’t know why since Gallant was still leading from the front. The distant sound of clattering made Gallant draw his sword faster than Page could even notice. They were definitely walking slower than before. The brig wasn’t that big, but at this pace it was going to take too long to cover any ground.

“HAAAH,” A voice on the right shouted before a sword entered Gallant’s peripheral vision. He countered it at the last minute, holding onto his blade with both hands. He studied the attacker closer who just as quickly lifted his sword back.

“Gallant?” Magnus asked, both surprised and relieved. “And you brought the child too, I’m flattered.”

“Watch it,” Page mouthed off.

Gallant looked at Magnus’ sword which had been inches from his face moments ago. He recognised it almost immediately.

“What are you doing with Maria’s sword?” He asked.

“I’m sorry Gallant, we were attacked. I was able to close the door in time but a few got in and Maria covered me as I ran.”

“Why could you not help her fight, you are a weapons expert aren’t you?”

Magnus lifted a leg as far as he could up to the red light, but the pain forced it back down again. Gallant caught the long slash mark running across the shin, still dripping.

“I wanted to, but she ordered me to run. And I’m not in the habit of ”

The scraping of rapid footsteps behind him made Gallant’s hair stand on end. He instinctively thrust his sword back and it was deflected, forcing him around to face his attacker. The other lifesign, a Neo-Saracen. Page made to charge immediately but Gallant motioned his other hand for Page to stay back. And Magnus certainly wasn’t going anywhere. Gallant and the Neo-Saracen circled each other like bulls, Gallant holding his breath every time the Neo-Saracen passed close to where Magnus was. At least this person had a sense of honour and wouldn’t cut down an injured civilian. He didn’t even seem to notice Magnus.

A blast from outside momentarily distracted the two, and when Gallant looked back Maria’s sword was thrust through his opponent’s chest. Gallant nearly dropped his sword, but without hesitation holstered it and hauled Magnus up to his feet, as painful as that was.

Gallant shouted, “What is wrong with you? He—”

“Let me go!” And Gallant did so, Magnus stopping himself from hitting the ground using the wall. “We don’t have time for your knight’s code honourable battle shit! Need I remind you this place is about to be torn apart inside a few minutes. You can yell at me when we’re away from this place.”

Gallant opened his mouth to argue but knew he was right. He turned to Page, “Make sure Magnus is taken to our evacuation craft, I’ll bring Maria.” Page nodded and hooked Magnus’ free arm around his shoulders. They hobbled over to the door, stopping only for Gallant to lift up the pile once known as Maria and slung her across his back. He made sure her helmet was sealed tightly and followed the other two, who were slower and better at directions. One of them were, at least.

As they traversed the glittery hallways, which only ceased to be so when the lights were knocked out intermittently by more attacks, Gallant had a rising sense of tension. At first he thought it was because he was anticipating another attack, but thinking some more he knew that couldn’t have been it. Especially once they arrived at the dock, empty but for the single evacuation craft remaining. There was no reason to feel worried as they were powering up to leave.

It was only as they left, the bay doors closing then fusing behind them in a hot flash, that Gallant finally knew what it was.

“Fine,” Magnus said, still panting from the trip, “Now you’re free to yell at me.”

“Why did we not see any more Neo-Saracen soldiers than we did?”

Magnus was taken aback, “I guess we were lucky.”

“No, we were not. An armada of this size and we did not meet any more boarders? And how did they get on in the first place?”

“What are you trying to say?” Page asked, trying not to look at the pile of armour sitting at the back of the craft.

“I am saying it is no longer feasible to obey the noble; My investigation officially begins here.”

10

Knights in Transit

“How the hell are you so good at navigation?”

“You know those maze puzzles you did as a kid?”

“You did a lot of them?”

“No, I made a lot of them. You need a good head for layouts to make ‘em”

“Page, stop messing with our guest for a moment,” Gallant interrupted, “I need to concentrate.”

“I am no guest, I’m just as much a part of this—” Magnus said, before Gallant held his hand out behind him, palm out. The universal symbol to shut the fuck up. Gallant was buried in a terminal, rattling away at the keys like he was a crazy person typing a manifesto.

“Why can’t we just go to the noble with this stuff?’ Page asked.

Gallant stopped, “What stuff?”

“Y’know, those Neo-Saracens who were trying to kill Magnus.”

Gallant furrowed his brow, “Why would I go to the noble? It is not uncommon for enemy combatants to attack their enemy. That’s why they are the enemy.”

“Yeah, but what if they weren’t just on board for general war reasons?” Page replied.

“The kid’s got a point.”

“Not a kid.”

“You’re younger than thirty, you’re a kid.” He turned to Gallant, “It seemed more like a targeted strike team than a random squadron, Neo-Saracens don’t board a vessel unless all resistance has disappeared.” Magnus looked back at Page, “And yeah how did they get on board?” He asked this rhetorical question as if Page knew, and he was met with a confused shrug.

“Remind me why the hell do you know so much about them?” Gallant questioned.

Magnus was taken aback. “I told you, I taught a class.”

“ONE CLASS! A single class and you have managed to absorb the sum total of an entire culture?”

“You’d be surprised.”

Gallant was about to continue this fruitless argument but the terminal beckoned. It seemed he was away long enough for it to become a problem.

“What are you doing, anyway?” Magnus asked

“If I’m going to betray my people and the brotherhood that protects them, I’m going to have a solid damn lead to go off of. Something that would at least sound semi-reasonable at a Degradation trial.”

Magnus furrowed his brow and turned to Page.

“Degradation is when a knight is stripped of their sword and they become a civilian again.”

“There’s no way that’s happening. Exposing a war for the sham it is? You’d be a hero.”

“Quite possibly, but a hero who betrayed his order and went on his own quest like the barbaric knights of old. By the end of this war I am not going to be a knight. The least I can do is try and save as many as I can by finding the truth as quick as I can,” Gallant replied, maintaining a steely demeanour despite the horrific weight of what he was saying.

“That’s not quite an answer,” Magnus opined.

After a brief pause to silence a few more alerts, he said, “I am chasing up any ship in communication range who are transporting the survivors of the King’s Will and negotiating them to standby.”

“Until what?”

“Until we know where we’re going.”

The work Gallant was doing seemed to be tapering off, until the second he was given an order to transport to “The End of The World, a station on the edge of the border between The Empire, The Neo-Saracens, and uncharted space.”

“It’s gonna be real awkward when they have to rename this place once more areas get colonised,” Page muttered to Gallant, who was fighting to not crack a smile. He launched into action and hailed each ship, giving them directions to their destination and to give the instructions for any other ship containing King’s Will survivors. Here, the benefits of the knights’ relative autonomy worked in Gallant’s favour; Within minutes each ship was in formation and were travelling as an armada to their destination.

“And if we’re attacked on the way there?” Magnus finally asked.

“This far from the front line? If there really was a fleet that was powerful enough to wipe us out, that was diverted all the way here to attack us, then we have just won the war.”

The telltale signs of entering The End of the World were showing themselves all around the shuttle. The speckled black of the sky was slowly being replaced by a burning red and gold cloud that enveloped more of the window as they travelled further. If anybody travelled here without a clue, they probably would think they’ve ended up in hell.

The stars barely shone through the nebula as the harsh floodlights of the station came closer into view. Perched atop a large golden brown asteroid was an industrial black complex of pipes, exhausts and platforms. It looked like a blackbird keeping a golden egg warm.

Closer still, more details came into view and the constant stream of space dust being vented out became apparent. Despite being made of hardy Steele, dents adorned every surface and not a single smooth area existed. It was clear that existing here was a battle, and one that would only undertaken by an empire that needed to show that it could last forever.

As they approached, Magnus, Page, and Gallant fell silent, as swirling flashes of red, orange, and gold flooded the cockpit. If you weren’t paying attention, you may have thought that you’ve just entered hell. Unrelatedly, Gallant was trying to enter the station.

He pulled up the station’s communication channel and ran through the standard lines. “Shuttle designation…” He pulled up a set of characters and frowned. ”…Dung Beetle requesting emergency clearance to a hanger of controller’s choice.”

With no delay the reply channel opened, severe static from the all-clouding nebula making everyone’s voice sound like a crispy audio soup. “Contingency formation 3-B, hanger 16.”

Gallant raised his eyebrows in surprise but knew he had to fly quickly to join the scrum that had formed outside the hanger opening. 3-B is one of the last contingency formations down the list, only reserved for a station overload of catastrophic proportions. Indeed, Magnus and Page peered out the main visor to a swarm of gun-metal grey crafts slowly funnelling their way into the bay entrance. To an outside observer, it looked like just an uncoordinated, heaving mass of ships flying in when they could, but only the heaving mass part was true.

“What did you do, Gallant?” Magnus asked.

“Nothing at all, the amount of survivors I diverted is negligible for a station of this size. Something else has happened.”

Gallant joined the flood and, after having their entire field of view obscured by the asses and undersides of other ships, the bay door graciously opened and a different controller directed them to a space surrounded by ships of different varieties. From chunky transports to sleek battlers, but all were sporting burn marks, shrapnel and some even still had spears jutting out of them. Knights with red crosses painted on their helmets were either directing traffic with wild hand signals or were rushing about with stretchers.

When the Dung Beetle landed and the three walked down the exit ramp they could see the utter carnage for themselves. The Dung Beetle was not the prettiest thing in the world, but it was pure beauty compared with everything else in the bay, including the people. It was a regular sight to see armour being wheeled out which was dripping blood onto the bay floor. A slipping hazard if there ever was one.

Gallant spotted what must have been the only knight without orders slumped exhaustedly against a chunky transport vehicle and walked to him. It would be more accurate to say battled, as he fought through the crowd of injured knights hobbling around and uninjured knights helping their comrades around. He broke free and knelt down to the other knight’s eye level, tapping her on the arm.

“What happened?”

She looked up and exhaustedly yanked her helmet off, revealing a set of vacant eyes and a head drenched in sweat. “There was a battle to retake the King City colony.”

“Really? Was it under Neo-Saracen control?”

“No, that anti-government lot decided to take control of King City after hearing about the war. While we were out on our peacekeeping mission the Neo-Saracens took advantage and attacked while our fleet was in orbit.”

Gallant had seen the aftermath all around him, but hearing the context somehow made it all the more horrifying.

“How did you all escape?”

“We grounded our fleets on the planet and we were blockaded by the Neo-Saracens. We fought off The Independents until we got backup and…the real battle began,” She replied, clearly shaken to her core but keeping her speech as matter-of-fact as possible. Gallant placed his hand reassuringly on her shoulder and she patted it, acknowledging it but silently asking him to leave. He left her slumped against the transport ship taking a long awaited nap.

Back at the Dung Beetle, “Were you an outlaw?” Page asked, shouting over the crowd which had finally finished trickling in from outside.

“No,” Magnus shouted back.

“An assassin?”

“No.”

“A priest who moonlights as a serial killer?”

“No, and stop talking.”

As soon as he said that, like he was summoning a spirit, Gallant popped out of the crowd as if having just been given birth to.

“You’re so graceful, like a swan with both legs broken,” Page commented.

“What did you find out?” Magnus asked.

“It was the Neo-Saracens.”

Everyone knew. Magnus had already arrived at the conclusion but waited for Gallant to find out himself so what he said next would have more weight.

“You can stop all of this.”

“I MIGHT be able to stop SOME of this IF I’m right. You are leaving out a lot of qualifiers,”

“And I’m sure you’ll remember that in fifty years when the few humans left alive do their own investigation and find out that the war was a sham. Look around you, do you think you alone could have stopped this? The loss of you on the front line is nothing compared to ”

Gallant stayed silent, but seemed not to be angry at Magnus. Moreso he was getting defeated, realising that everything Magnus said was confirming that Gallant was wrong.. He glanced over at Page.

“I don’t know, Gallant,” Page began. “He does make a good point. I mean, look around. Do you really think you could have stopped any of this from happening

-----

Saraca, the alien homeworld of the Neo-Saracens

- Gallant discovers that Magnus was a prisoner

-

-----

- Gallant brainstorming

• Fool them into coming to the same location

• Kidnapping?

-----

It spelled out one word: HAVEN.

Shit To Fix

• Make Gallant say fewer contractions to give him that ostentatious declarative speaking style

• Read the world section and make sure everything’s consistent

• More shit about helmets and clothing.

• The ship that was attacked was called the King’s Will

• Magnus and Gallant’s dialogue in general

  • Emphasise the cynic vs moral conflict

• El’s Haven is a military outpost and the closest to the disputed colonies. Make this known early on so the attack makes sense

  • The Glorious Empire built it with the intention of peacekeeping between the colonists, but this wasn’t agreed upon with the Neo-Saracens and they believe it’s Empire imperialism

• Make knights more brutal and less jovial all the time. They really do slit up motherfuckers like nobody’s business, they just treat their civilians well.