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

wondering how this could work. Neklon even looked dubious. However, Trance thought that his idea was good, he’d been thinking about it for a while. Just think of how surprised their first opponents would be when they get stuck in their fort and had the defenders come from everywhere and keep coming to wipe them out.

Chapter 14

Test of a New Leader

At home life for Trance was what it had always been. Trance had chores to do, but when it was leisure time he watched television or read a book from his beloved collection. He could sit and read away the hours when he had the chance.

After school the day he had won the position of captain he walked home and after he did his homework he started reading a classic murder mystery from Earth. His brother and sister were home an hour before him and were watching a movie with the new movie disk player when their mother got home from shopping. Trance marked his place in his book with a bookmark and took his captain’s patch to show his mother.

“Mom, do you remember when I told you that I might be up for the captain’s position for the knight class?” Trance asked her.

“Yes, why?” she replied as she unpacked a paper bag of groceries. Then she saw the shield-shaped patch with a gray mountain behind a golden sword. She looked up at him and saw the grin on his face. “You got it. Oh honey that’s great,” she said with a little nervous excitement. Sure she was excited that he had a high position at school, but she didn’t necessarily like him being a knight.

Soon she had the patch sewn onto his warm blue and black plaid coat. After she was finished she asked, “When is your first battle?”

“Ottuthday (the Althorian equivalent to Earth’s Saturday) here against the Azarians,” he announced.

“Alright, what time do you need to be at the school?”

“Eight o’clock in the morning,” he said.

“You better call your grandmother, she will want to know.”

“Okay,” Trance replied just as Kyle came in the front door and sped up the stairs to find them in the kitchen. Kyle had just got home from being on duty at the castle.

“Did you get it?” asked Kyle excitedly when he saw Trance.

“Yep,” said Trance proudly as he showed the patch his mother had sewed on to his coat.

“Congratulations, I knew you could get the captain’s position!” Kyle said excitedly.

“Thanks Kyle. Thanks for recommending me in the first place. I’ve got to call gran’ma now to tell her about it and tell her when our first battle will take place,” Trance said as he went to the telephone. Phones on Althora, Trance had learned, were more like a small computer terminal. You used a small mouse to click on a couple of icons that would dial the number you wanted while you watched a small screen to see the person you want to talk to. Also there was a miniature camera that would film you and transmit your image to the other person’s screen. There was even a mini-microphone to speak into to transmit your voice over very fine fiber optic lines. Cables hadn’t been used for three hundred years. The fiber optic lines were as fine as spider silk.

As the day wore on the elation Trance felt for becoming the new captain on the Gray Mountain Warriors changed into the realization that whether the team succeeded or failed rested on his shoulders and his alone. Please God; help me to be a good captain and a good example to my team, he prayed.

***

School life had become a little easier for Trance as he stopped being just the new kid in school. He was now by far the most popular boy in school and the most easily recognized. He went out with a couple of girls, but none of them were quite right for him. Still he went along and tried to find the right girl.

In the classrooms his ability to continuously get good grades made him well liked by all of his teachers. He was very attentive in class and took good notes. He was not the best note taker by any means, yet he did his best to apply himself to learn the material his teachers presented and pass any quiz or test they gave.

As the time for the first battle drew closer everyone got anxious to know how Trance, a boy from Earth, was going to defeat the Azarians, their first opponents. Finally the day for the battle arrived and everyone was stunned.

Trance set everyone in place, and then went to stand on the wall with the archers and took up his own bow and arrows. He watched the approach of the Azarians much like he had when they had battled the girls. Trance knew ahead of time that they were going to be outnumbered one hundred against seventy. Twenty new boys had joined the team and fifteen more girls had joined. This is going to be tough he told himself. The battle started just then when the Azarians sent a fleet of arrows at the fort. Trance ducked and ordered the seven archers with long bows and the three archers with crossbows to return fire.

Both arrow and stone throwing catapults fired in both directions (both weapons threw stones made of a special foam rubber and arrows with rubber arrowheads). The Azarians dressed in armor that was like that of Roman soldiers, brought up their battering rams and began knocking down some holes in the outer fort.

With their large rectangular shields the Azarians grouped together in tortoise formations, approached the holes in the wall and prepared to enter the fort. In a few minutes holes were knocked through large enough for soldiers to go through.

Trance’s mind whirred to find a way to beat them out of their shells. An idea formed in his mind that might work. “I want the rock catapults to rain rocks on their