Chapter 6 – A Simpler World

Start of Entry - Orbit 3011, 10^th Moon, 40^th Solar Cycle

Eventually, I graduated from MAAC Basic.  I never did have sex with Cinda again, but there was no shortage of volunteers to share my bed.  I learned from my previous mistake and I didn’t let my emotions get away from me – even when I saw Cinda pairing off with different men.  After all, it was just sex, right?  Life in the military was short.  Fraternization was not forbidden or even frowned upon.  Who knew how long our life expectancy would be once we hit the frontlines, right?

Anyway, on the day we graduated, I did have a nice conversation with Cinda and we exchanged personal information and promised to keep in touch.  I think deep down though, we both knew that neither of us would keep that promise.

After the ceremony, I spent a nice week of R and R with my other favourite person in the whole world.  My baby sister Q’Wen.  Well, she’s not quite a baby anymore, but she certainly is my only other blood relative.  She had just turned twelve orbits old and was developing quite the ferocious reputation at the boarding school.  I guess it was both L’Cor’s and my faults that she grew up to be a tomboy.

We were walking down Main Street in our home city of Avon Mist.  She was hugging my left arm as we walked.  I didn’t mind.  L’Cor is several orbits older than me and though I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, he tends to be an overbearing older brother sometimes.  With Q’Wen, I got to be the older brother for a change.  This was going to be one of the last few completely free times that I would have for her so I really wanted to make it special.  I pretty much blew my entire pay from MAAC Basic on her.  What did I need the money for anyway?

Life for Q’Wen hadn’t exactly been a picnic.  Come to think of it, it wasn’t a picnic for me either.  My father had died when I was young.  He was an astronaut in the Space Exploration Force and had disappeared during a mission.  In hindsight, it wasn’t hard to figure out what had happened.  His team was probably one of the first human teams to come in contact with the Saxx.  Our mother eventually remarried a doctor (Q’Wen’s father) and we moved to another neighbourhood in Avon Mist.  About six orbits ago, a large spaceship crash-landed in the suburbs and three gigantic three-legged armoured war machines crawled out and decimated the entire area.  Q’Wen and I were not home at the time.  We were downtown, watching our big brother lead his high school starball team to victory in the championship game.  My mother and step-father never had a chance.

Ok, enough with the bad memories.  Q’Wen and I had spent the afternoon watching a movie.  Not just any movie though.  This movie was loosely based upon my favourite book, History of Royal Gaya.  Unlike documentaries that downplayed the magical and fantasy aspects of the book, this movie actually featured them.  It was refreshing to actually see certain scenes of the book brought to life on the huge holoscreen.  The actress who played Princess Gaya was very pretty and actually came really close to my own mental image of her.  The actor who played the Black Knight however, left a lot to be desired.  He was, in a word, a lump who barely managed to deliver his lines.  Oh well, can’t have ‘em all, right?

Q’Wen was chatting amiably and I really enjoyed my time with her.  Then, she asked a question that floored me.

“Did you have a lot of sex in MAAC Basic?”  She was smiling a devilishly innocent broad smile.

I suddenly missed a step and tripped.  “Excuse me?”

If possible, her smile seemed to grow even broader.  “Sex!  You know, that thing that happens when a man and a woman like each other.  Sort of what happened in the dark when the Black Knight and Princess Gaya were alone.”

I choked on my own saliva and muttered a bit.  I certainly never expected to talk about sex to my twelve-year-old sister!  “Um, well, ah, well, the women in the military were certainly very friendly.”

She giggled in response and I had to laugh with her.  Then she asked me another unexpected question.  “So, did seeing Princess Gaya for real make you love her even more?”

“How did you know?”

She rolled her eyes and said, “I hacked into your AV journal the first night you visited!”

The boarding school had rooms for visiting family members and I had vague memories of Q’Wen visiting me in my room.  I had been so tired from traveling that I had fallen asleep soon after I got in.  It seems as if Q’Wen had used my downtime to her advantage.  I suddenly remembered my first few recordings.  “Did you…uh…”

She giggled again and said, “You really should keep in contact with Cinda.  I’d really like to meet her one day when this war is over.”

I sputtered some more.  There was so much I could say right now but I didn’t know where to start.  At first, I felt somewhat peeved that my privacy had been invaded, but when I looked into Q’Wen’s face, I couldn’t feel mad.  She hadn’t seen me in several moons, and probably won’t see me for many more - maybe even orbits.  What harm was there for her to have some insight into my inner most thoughts?

When I didn’t say anything right away, her expression grew concerned.  “Are you mad at me?  I’m sorry I peeked, but you really should put a better password on your journal, you know?”

I gave her a reassuring smile.  “I’m not mad Q’Wen.  In fact, if you want, I’ll give you a copy of my journal before I leave.”

Her concerned expression suddenly grew deeper.  “Why?  You’re coming back, right?”

I stopped walking and gave her a hug.  “Q’Wen, it’s a war.  Anything can happen.  If something happened to me, I just want to make sure you have something to remember me by.”  I fished my copy of History of Royal Gaya out of my pocket.  “Here, I was going to give you this before I left anyway.  I might as well give it to you now.”

Her eyes grew as big as saucers.  “But that’s your treasure!  When I was little, you wouldn’t even let me touch it!  It’s all you have left of your father!”

I glanced at the battered book.  It really was my treasure and I felt a pang in my chest at the prospect of never seeing it again.  It had been a good companion on those lonely nights.  I took Q’Wen’s hand and pressed the book into it.  “Don’t worry.  I have an electronic copy in my journal.  I want you to have this.  When our home was destroyed, we never got a chance to recover any mementos of our parents.  L’Cor is not sentimental enough to want to leave anything behind, but I am.  If something happens to me, I want this book to remain in our family.”

Tears were streaming down her face now.  “Don’t die R’Tus!  Please come back!”

I hugged her again until her storm of tears passed.  What could I say?  I couldn’t lie to her and tell her that I would be back for sure.  Anything could happen, right?  When she got control of herself again, we continued our walk.  It really was a nice day and I wanted to make the most of it.

Later that night, she stayed in my room and curled up in my bed.  I sat on the floor and we talked about nothing and everything.  Then, she surprised me for the third time that day.  She sat up in bed and said, “Tell me a story, please?”

When she was younger, I used to tell her stories from the book to her.  Instead of reading the archaic words from the book, I would use plain simple language so that she would understand.  “Which story would you like?”

She thought for a moment and then said, “Tell me that one about how the Black Knight rescued Princess Gaya from the Mordue Hunters.”

I gave her a playful frown.  “What?  That one again?  I must have told you that one a thousand times!”

“It’s my favourite,” she said simply.

I had to agree.  It was my favourite too.  It was the story of how the Black Knight and Princess Gaya first met.

I started to talk and I could see that Q’Wen had closed her eyes so that she could picture my words in her head.

“Princess Gaya rode through the Damon Forest with her Royal Guards.  They normally would not have tried to pass through the dreaded forest but they had to return to the city of Camu as soon as possible.  The Mordue were massing an army and Princess Gaya had to rally her own forces.  Their drac’en steeds wove through the forest trails with slithering ease.  All was quiet in the forest.  Too quiet.  That should have been Princess Gaya’s first warning.  However, she was so concerned with getting back to Camu that when the ambush occurred it caught her and her Royal Guards completely by surprise.

Drac’ens have short stout necks with large serrated teeth.  They have large noses but their eyes are rather small.  As such, while they have an excellent sense of smell, their eyesight left a lot to be desired - especially in the dim light of the forest.  Princess Gaya might have seen the tripwire, if she wasn’t so concerned with reaching her destination.

Her drac’en snagged the wire and a cleverly concealed spear shot up from the ground and impaled her steed.  She hit the ground hard and rolled away from her drac’en’s death throes.  Behind her, her Royal Guards had met a similar fate.  Two of them did not get back up.

A horn trumpeted through the forest and in moments, Princess Gaya and her remaining guards were surrounded.  Their enemy wore dark amour with horned helms.  They were the Mordue Hunters!  The Hunters specialized in tracking and killing important people for the Mordue Empire.  In a way, Princess Gaya felt honoured.  The Mordue Emperor was willing to dispatch his prized Hunters to hunt down and kill one princess of one little obscure nation.  Her efforts to unite the smaller kingdoms must be taking fruit!

She parried an attack with her buckler and stabbed her long sword into the belly of her attacker.  The armour was thinner there and her attacker grunted in pain.  He dropped his sword and grabbed Princess Gaya’s blade with both hands and fell backward.

With her sword pulled from her grasp, the Royal Guard immediately closed ranks around her and formed a protective circle.  Princess Gaya could do nothing, as her loyal guardsmen died one at a time to protect her.

When the last of her guards fell, Princess Gaya picked up a sword, backed up against a tree and prepared to sell her life and her chastity dearly.  There were only four Mordue Hunters left, but it may as well have been four hundred because there was no way she could beat four to one odds.

Suddenly, blinding white light filled the forest.  Princess Gaya looked away from the intensity.  Even the four Hunters could not look directly at the light.  Princess Gaya allowed herself to feel a small thread of hope.  Surely this magical light could only mean that her wizard Malin had come to her rescue?  The light seemed to last forever but eventually it died down.  When she could, Princess Gaya looked back over to her right where the light had come from.  Her heart sank.  Instead of seeing her wizard Malin as she had hoped, all she saw was a tall figure in black armour.  It was just another Mordue Hunter!

But wait!  Could it be?  The helm on the newcomer was not horned in the fashion of a Mordue Hunter.  As the newcomer strode forward, one of Hunters raised a crossbow and fired it at the newcomer.

A cry of warning froze in Princess Gaya’s throat as the crossbow bolt shattered on the chest armour of the newcomer.  But that was impossible!  At this short range, nothing short of a stonewall could stop a bolt!

The Hunter that fired the crossbow readied his weapon for another shot.  Two of the Hunters charged the newcomer while the last one turned his attention once more to Princess Gaya.

One on one odds were a little bit more to Princess Gaya’s taste.  She sidestepped a lunge, stepped into her opponent’s charge and hammered her buckler into his helm.  It was enough to distract him for a precious second.  She used that second to step back and swung a powerful horizontal blow that parted the Hunter’s head from his neck.

The Hunter with the crossbow took careful aim with his weapon.  Princess Gaya was about to charge him when a brilliant red light flew from the newcomer’s head and drilled a hole through the Hunter’s helm.  The Mordue fell without a sound.

A warrior mage!  Surely only a warrior mage could have cast a death spell while locked in combat with two Hunters!

At two to one odds, even a trained Royal Guardsman would have difficulty in winning.  However, the newcomer treated them almost like playthings.  Instead of fighting with his sword, the newcomer raised his left forearm to block a mighty overhand attack.  The Hunter’s sword broke in half at the impact.  Then, the newcomer used the same left arm to punch the Hunter in his chest.  As the Hunter fell, Princess Gaya could see a large dent in his armour.

The last Hunter swung his sword in desperation.  This time, the newcomer raised his own sword in response.  It flared up as a blue magical light engulfed it.  The newcomer contemptuously batted the Hunter’s sword aside and then passed his magical sword through the Hunter’s neck with an almost gentle ease.

Princess Gaya took off her helm and said, ‘I thank thee, fierce strange for thy timely aid.  I am Princess Gaya of the city kingdom Camu.  Might I have the name of my rescuer?’  In response, the newcomer removed his own helm and for the first time in her life, Princess Gaya laid eyes upon the Black Knight.”

A soft snoring sound distracted me from my narration.  Q’Wen had fallen asleep.  I smiled as I gazed upon her face.  She looked so innocent when she slept!

I sighed as I thought about the story was I telling.  How many times when I was growing up, did I wish that I was there at Princess Gaya’s side?  Compared to an invasion by giant three-legged alien bugs, uniting a continent seemed much simpler.

Although I had long since stopped believing that this book was a true account of our history, I never could shake the desire to be a part of the story.  This story had fair maidens, dashing knights and miraculous magic…Hadis, who wouldn’t want to be part of it?

Apparently, our father was something of a fanatic too.  After all, he had named his sons L’Cor and R’Tus.  These are mimicries of an ancient Gayan dialect.  Leicour for heart and Erthus for the colour black.  My mother obviously carried on the naming convention with Q’Wen, which is taken from Queen.  Put them all together and you get Black Heart of the Queen.  Or, for those of us who are familiar with the legend, Black Knight who holds the love of the Queen – this is obviously a reference to the great romance between Princess Gaya and the Black Knight.

I think I’m going to follow in Q’Wen’s footsteps and call it a night now.  Tomorrow, I’m going to take Q’Wen to the amusement park where she’s going to try to thrill me with the rides there.  How could those puny rides possibly thrill someone who has jumped out of an space shuttle with nothing but a few layers of alloyed armour and jump jets that may or may not work is beyond my understanding!