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

that were equipped with everything needed for each knight to sharpen his weapon. The electric-powered wheels whirled as knight after knight stepped up and sharpened his weapons. Swords, axes, maces, spears, and other weapons gleamed with deadly edges as each knight skillfully slid their blades against a spinning stone.

The archers went to the target rooms on each ship and checked out their bows. Most of the Boulthorian archers used compound bows with both war arrows and special hard pointed arrows that had small razor-edged barbs that were designed to penetrate armor. The archers walked away satisfied that they were deadly accurate and some even rubbed their fingers together in an unconscious gesture of readiness.

On the bridge of the lead ship, Carnus, Admiral Rattell sat on his throne like a command chair. He sat calmly as the command crew guided the ship swiftly toward their target. With a glance he spotted a screen that showed the position of Carnus in the lead, between Courak’s ship Volutus to his right and Coalar’s ship Wenth on the left.

He looked forward and reflected on the mission ahead. Their plan was fairly simple. They would sweep down upon Caldar and drop their landing vessels, which would contain General Bruise and his three divisions.

Bruise and his knights would run slaughter as many unsuspecting victims as possible. The assault on the main stadium where the tournaments were being contested would not take very long, maybe two or three hours. They would head back to their ships to take off toward the battleships in protective orbit and race back to Boulthora.

With a smug smile Rattell sat back in his seat and reflected that most of the ships that had brought all of the students and dignitaries to the tournaments were on the ground and only two battleships and four smaller frigates protected Caldar. The Caldarian ships were not as well armored or armed as they were. From all reports the Caldarians were very closely aligned with the Althorians and were more protected by the very well armored and armed Althorian ships. How fortunate that there weren’t many Althorian ships nearby. Rattell smiled more broadly at the thought that the representatives of the planets represented were content that nobody would come here and assault them at the tournaments. What fools!

A door slid open behind and to the left of Rattell. He turned around and saw General Bruise step onto the bridge. The look on that brutal face revealed that Bruise had been having similar thoughts as he was preparing to lead the mission on the approaching planet. Bruise casually touched the dark gray oval pommel of his sword, strolled to a position in front of the command chair and raised his right hand to his forehead and dropped to his side in salute.

Rattell stood and saluted back and motioned Bruise to follow him to a door to the right of the bridge. The door slid open, and there was a short hall that led to the sleeping rooms of the command crew. The two men entered the first of these rooms, which was Rattell’s personal room. It was quite large and divided into two sections. The larger of the two was his sitting room, and the smaller was his sleeping chamber. Rattell indicated a chair for Bruise to sit in and went to another chair and reclined.

“How are your preparations coming?” asked Rattell casually as he watched his friend’s brutal face relax from its usual fierce determined look.

“Our plans are going quite well. I don’t anticipate any difficulties once we land and storm the stadium,” replied Bruise in a cool relaxed voice.

“What do you honestly think about this mission?” Rattell asked seriously.

“Well, to be honest, there is little honor in it. We will slaughter them with absolute ease. There is little sport also in slaying all of those unarmed people. On a positive note none of those children competing in the tournaments will ever grow up and become a full fledged knight, let alone have one of them turn into this Griffin General,” answered Bruise.

“So do you really think that one of these kids could grow up to be this Griffin General?”

“Are you asking if I believe in this prophecy about the Griffin General?” Bruise asked in return.

“I guess that I am. Personally, I’m not sure that I believe the prophecy. I’m not completely convinced that the prophecy is about to be fulfilled. Yet, the Sphinx sure seem to think that it is about to come about. I have never seen them around so much as now,” said Rattell with a note of concern in his voice.

Bruise sat back and took a moment to formulate his answer. “I don’t know if the prophecy is about to pass or not. I just know that we are in serious trouble if it comes about. However, I believe that even if, and I truly mean if, one of these kids grows to become the Griffin General or he comes from someplace else, he will be no match for our forces. My knights are the most elite on Boulthora. As for the Sphinx, we have no use for them. We don’t need their help or allegiance. We are the real power in the galaxy and we should be the ones ruling and expanding our empire.”

“You may be right about the Sphinx. I don’t care for them either. Yet for now we need them and their intelligence. Once this conflict with Althora is over the other planets will fall one by one and then we can look to overthrowing the Sphinx. My loyalty is to my king and fellow Boulthorians, and if Axlor wants me to fly you to Caldar and assist you in this slaughter, I obey.”

“Those are my sentiments as well. How soon will we arrive at Caldar so the assault may begin? My men and I are getting an itch we can’t wait to scratch,” replied Bruise as he stretched and stood up.

“We should be arriving in about three hours. I