Space Knights: The Arrival by Gregory Samuelson (buy e reader .TXT) 📕

day Trance dressed in some of Martin’s good clothes and joined the family as they went to church that morning. The service was very nice and was much like the services from his church back home. He impressed many people in the congregation. They all knew of the Earth people but he was the first one that they had ever met. Trance was also excited to receive his own copy of the Bible from their minister. He couldn’t wait to get back and start reading it.

As the days passed, he helped Chorus and Martin in the fields. He learned how to use all of the tools in the barn, how to drive all of the robot animal vehicles and how to care for them. He also learned about the farm animals, how to care for them and what they were used for. The Markems had sagers and henivers as well as cows, more like small bison, and large boars. The animals were quite fascinating. Every day he would go out and feed them and gather up the heniver eggs. He felt quite at home and felt his muscles getting stronger and stronger. His endurance was also increasing to where it was before the global escape from Earth. As he helped outside he started to develop a tan and he felt healthier than when he had first awakened from the deep sleep chamber.

But, much as he liked living with and helping Chorus and his family, he still missed his family. He prayed daily that God was watching over them. He often imagined what it would be like to see them once again. Still he was plagued by the dread that they were dead. Chorus was very understanding and encouraged Trance to talk to him about his feelings. He promised to try to find out what had happened to Trance’s ship and where his family was.

On a happier note, Trance did have great fun with them. His most fun came when they went to town shopping. The stores and businesses were very interesting, but what he enjoyed most was seeing and talking to the knights that patrolled the town. His mind lingered on them most of the time. When he was growing up he had always dreamed of being a knight, slaying dragons, battling other knights, and rescuing and romancing maidens. And now he found himself in a place where those dreams could come true.

In town he learned from the knights how he could go about becoming a knight. They told him that he would have to take the Knight class at school and learn about basic knighthood. This class would teach him the very basics in military courtesies and combat maneuvers. The class would also teach him the basics of the seven main types of weapons that knights used: sword, ax, bow and crossbow with arrows and bolts, spear, military dagger, mace, and the weapons that were combinations, such as the halberd, a spear with an ax head. There were even a variety of military flails, a spiked metal ball attached to a chain that went to the handle in the same weapon category. All of the knights carried a small dagger as well as their main weapon and shield.

Through talking with the knights he also discovered that a troop of knights was divided in seven groups, one group for each main weapon. There were ten men in each group, a total of seventy men in the whole troop.

Trance’s observations showed that all of the knights wore surcoats over their suits of armor. These were made of all sorts of fabric and had a design on them, such as a dragon or unicorn (these creatures actually existed on Althora). The armor the knights wore was composed of plates that were smooth and had a rounded look. The plates were ergonomically shaped to the body and covered an inner layer of chain mail. The knights wore what looked like an athletic boot that just came up to cover the ankle where it met the bottom edge of the plates covering the lower legs. They also wore what Trance thought looked like fingerless athletic gloves. Their helmets for the foot soldiers, or pawns, resembled football helmets with a solid chin guard like a motorcycle helmet and a face shield that could tint in the sun.

The true knights that rode on their sleek war-horses had helmets more like a motorcycle helmet with its chin guard and face shield. “It is the belief here on Althora that the armor works best if the knight has more freedom to move in it. If you do become a knight you’ll learn that there is no perfect armor. All have a weakness. It’s just a matter of learning to protect your weak points and exploiting your opponents. Even the Boulthorians’ more angled armor isn’t perfect,” one knight told Trance.

Each knight also had a small, shield-shaped badge that was worn over the heart. The badge had a picture of either a standing knight, which indicated that he was a pawn or foot soldier, or a knight seated on a horse. The badge also had a letter and number. The letter referred to the weapon that the knight carried, and the number referred to his troop number.

Trance also learned that the badges were different colored in order to indicate their rank. He learned that the knight with the gold badge was the captain. There were two knights that had silver badges. They were the lieutenants, the knight with the small number one in the right corner of the badge indicated that he was the first lieutenant and second in command. The other lieutenant had a small number two, second lieutenant, and number three in command. There were three knights with bronze badges, who were sergeants; from highest to lowest, master, weapons, and order sergeants. Blue was for the corporals, red for chevaliers, and white for solitaires.

Trance also saw and learned about the impressive robot horses that the knights rode. They