Noble V: Greylancer (7 page)

“Safety aside, his whereabouts are something of a concern. Could he have been taken
captive?”

“Knowing him, he would rather drive a stake into his own heart before having to endure
the shame of capture,” said Minsky. “Simple man that he is.” The general grinned,
though not so much out of respect for Gaskell’s sensibilities.

“One less general suits me fine.” Nombusol bared his teeth and smiled. “So there are
three candidates. And I shall include myself.”

“And I,” said Brewster, rapping his staff against his left hand.

Smiling, Old Brosius said, “Surely, an election will not do. You will all attempt
to eliminate the opposition and then cast a vote for yourselves. In the first place,
I find it odd the Privy Council has not yet appointed a commander.”

“Does the Council have a candidate in mind?” Minsky asked, his fangs gnashing.

No doubt the other generals present wanted to do likewise. The Air Chariot Battalion
was an elite group chosen from the Nobility’s best warriors. Immortal as the Nobles
were, they all varied by disposition. There were brave ones, and then there were cowards.
Though the matter of training was left up to the individual, every last Noble with
an aggressive disposition recognized himself a warrior and entered the Capital’s Training
Center.

It was at the Center that Nobles were sorted and tested on their aptitude as warriors
based on three factors: physical ability, self-possession, and belligerence. While
this was comparable to humanity’s conscription system, whether these Nobles chose
to become warriors and continue more advanced combat training was up to the individual.

Despite the incongruity of immortal beings serving on the battlefield, the Nobility
had gained complete knowledge of supernatural phenomena known as the occult even before
they gained supremacy over the world.

Phenomena that humanity had disdained as nonsense and child’s play had revealed themselves
as unmistakable truths. Among them was the existence of unidentified flying objects—UFOs.

That UFOs, long considered nothing more than optical phenomena, had been aggressively
engaged in infiltrating the planet was kept confidential among the world’s governments.
The human world established an investigative agency, which concluded the UFOs were
not merely engaged in observation but laying the foundation for invasion.

The Nobility had inherited that knowledge.

The enemy from outer space will someday bare its teeth and attack.

The Nobility prepared for this threat and developed weapons that took into account
the distinct advantages of their immortality.

They also concentrated their efforts into their defenses so they could protect physical
assets such as the Capital.

Thanks to advances in modern weaponry, hand-to-hand combat had been rendered all but
obsolete. But the Nobility had resisted modernity tooth and nail.

Despite preserving the nuclear weapons once eschewed by humanity, plus an arsenal
of antiproton cannons, dimensional oscillators, and DNA-destroying viruses they’d
devised in the course of their war against the OSB, the Nobility deemed these weapons
as last-resort methods to be deployed only in the face of wholesale slaughter and
defeat. They instead concentrated the bulk of their efforts on antiquated military
tactics.

Their plan was to destroy the OSB’s defenses, breach the lunar base, and then annihilate
the enemy in hand-to-hand combat.

Imprinted in the Nobility’s DNA was a deep nostalgia for the past, as a bird’s-eye
view of the Noble world so plainly made evident. That they insisted on adhering to
the ways of antiquity even on the battlefield might best be attributed to their psyche.

If winning victory by plunging a sword, an arrow, a spear into the enemy was the measure
of valor, then the Air Chariot Battalion was rightly the Nobility’s most elite group,
and its commanders had earned universal respect as the best of the best warriors.

Thus the prospect of a newcomer taking over the reins of command was hardly news generals
would welcome.

“Perhaps an errant shot of the antiproton cannon might encourage the Privy Council
to reconsider,” said Nombusol, echoing what was surely on the minds of the others.
Yet his suggestion was only met with silence.

Even dauntless generals of the likes of Brewster and Old Brosius glanced up at the
sky as if fearing someone had heard.

“Hold your tongue, Nombusol!” said Old Brosius, making certain to utter the blasphemer’s
name clearly. “The high chancellor of the Privy Council—he is the Sacred Ancestor.”

The face of the brazen general turned ashen.

“Then…” Minsky pressed
his hands against his twitching cheeks. “The commander was handpicked by the Sacred
Ancestor himself? No, could it be…”

No…

No…

No…

Could it be…

Could it be…

Could it be…

A red wind gusted into the generals’ hearts.

Blowing away sand and rock, the wind surfaced a rumor they’d forcibly kept hidden
and dared not contemplate.

The Sacred Ancestor has a son.

It existed in a realm of consciousness beyond the reach of thought. Only rumor, which
none were allowed to touch, dwelled there.

Suddenly, the bronze door opened, putting an end to the intractable chaos.

The men blinked at the shadow at the door and cried out at once.

Greylancer!

The self-righteousness swelling inside the generals turned to dust and vanished.

It was the moment they acknowledged the presence of the one warrior that eclipsed
them all.

“The Six Demon Generals—it has been a long time,” said Greylancer, his voice dripping
with disdain rather than nostalgia. The Nobility’s vaunted generals were little more
than callow recruits in his eyes. Looking down at the paralyzed men, he said dispassionately,
“Gaskell is not here—perished, has he?” and continued, “By order of the Privy Council,
I will take command of tomorrow’s attack on the OSB moon base. I expect nothing less
than your full efforts.” Giving them not a moment to object, Greylancer ran a hand
across the air. “Here is the plan.”

An image of the moon ten meters in diameter appeared before him.

†

“We proceed as planned. Go,” said Greylancer as his chariot picked up speed. Was this
some kind of fantasy or fairy tale?

The Greater Noble’s vehicle, racing through space toward Earth’s moon, was none other
than a wheeled chariot from human antiquity.

Flying close behind was a fleet of aircraft, all with wings arched like those of bats.

The Nobility had previously attempted several attacks against the OSB frontline base
on the far side of the moon three hundred thousand kilometers from Earth but had only
managed to delay the OSB infiltration of Earth, a fact that made the temples of the
Privy Council members pulse with rage.

None of the allied aircraft’s propulsion nozzles were lit; an antigravitational propulsion
field surrounding each of the craft propelled them forward instead.

Perhaps having foreknowledge of the imminent invasion, the OSB commenced their attack.
Soon golden laser beams crisscrossed this way and that around the fleet.

“Atomic cannons. If you go down, wait on the lunar surface for the rescue vessel,”
Greylancer ordered.

A beam shot at Greylancer’s chariot—and was refracted away as if skipping off an invisible
spherical surface.

When the fleet came within three thousand kilometers of the moon, a swarm of OSB aircraft
rose up from the surface.

“Move to single combat maneuvers. When you’ve destroyed your target, after me.”

A human field general typically directed operations from the rear. But a Noble of
any mettle
led
his men into battle.

The attack order was not “Forward,” but “After me.” These were Greylancer’s chosen
words.

Noblesse oblige
—the obligation borne by humans of high birth, royalty and nobility, in return for
their high ranking. Driven by this obligation, the Nobility always stood at the vanguard
of their fleet. Cowards were they that shouted “Forward!” from a position of safety.
Noble warriors simply said, “After me,” and were the first to draw weapons fire.

And so too did the Nobility’s greatest warrior. But were not Nobles immortal? No,
the enemy’s primary weapon was not the atomic cannon but what followed.

The OSB fired a spread of graviton spheres. When they came into contact with Noble
aircraft, they neutralized the antigravitational propulsion field. One after the next,
the ion engines of the bat-shaped aircraft flamed on.

The atomic cannon followed, destroying the aircraft. Then, as the jettisoned pilots
plummeted through space, a barrage of stakes and steel arrows rained down to impale
them.

Greylancer threaded his chariot past the spheres, destroyed them as he passed, and
closed in on the moon base.

The feeling of movement was imperceptible in gravitational field propulsion. No matter
how fast he spun, aside from the visual change, Greylancer was incapable of perceiving
three-dimensional movement from within his chariot.

“Do not fail me, rear squadron.”

A peculiarly shaped spherical building encircled by rings came into view ahead.

The antiproton cannons affixed on either side of the chariot poured hot beams into
the barrier shielding the building.

The antiproton beam was capable of vaporizing protons and all matter in existence.

Yet the beams glanced off the barrier wall and only vaporized the unlucky OSB craft
in the vicinity.

It was a deadly gamble. Would the Military Bureau’s dimensional cutter on Earth be
able to disrupt the enemy’s barrier from three hundred thousand kilometers away?

If the cutter failed, Greylancer would fly into the barrier and be reduced to dust.
And if the cutter were even a thousandth of a second off, Greylancer would be banished
to another dimension.

The Greater Noble did not flinch and pointed the chariot toward the barrier.

Was it his split-second evasive skills he trusted? The Military Bureau’s invention?
Or his own luck?

The barrier tore open.

As the chariot plunged into the white one-by-three-kilometer tear in the dimension,
the antiproton stream reversed direction and the vortex dragged Greylancer’s craft
down onto the lunar surface, right into the OSB’s base.

†

Inside the oddly shaped building there existed silver-colored automatons. Having no
natural shape of their own, the OSB had created organic beings by forming and discarding
body parts, then stitching the disparate anatomies together. The patchwork beings
were designed to carry out simple tasks. In parallel, the OSBs developed new and upgraded
incarnations of robots until finally, combining the two offspring populations, they
perfected organisms that might best be called cybernetic beings.

Then the protean OSBs adopted the form of their own cybernetic creations and gave
rise to a unique civilization.

The OSB appeared to possess a curiosity rivaling that of any other intelligent beings
in the universe.

It was only a matter of time before they ventured into the ocean of constellations.
In fact, the imminent destruction of their mother planet had made the endeavor all
but imperative. As their sun began to expand due to an abnormal nuclear fusion and
threatened to engulf the mother planet, the OSB devoted five thousand years to the
construction of a massive space fleet. Resting their fates in the stars, they set
out for another realm. Tens of thousands of years later, their wandering journey ended
with the capture of a lone space probe.

After thoroughly researching its mechanism, the OSB decided to set course for the
star system that produced this probe. Their intent was not peaceful coexistence but
invasion and conquest. Domination.
Uncharted
was just another word for
wild.
Civilizing the wild in their own image—such was the mission their god had appointed
them. They were forgiven any means to carry it out.

However, this would take another millennium. Although the OSB had developed a form
of lightspeed technology, they discovered a habitable planet en route to the probe’s
birthplace and settled there.

They required no longer than a hundred years to make this planet their new home. The
OSB slaughtered every extant species, and a strange civilization—one that began as
amorphous creatures and later took the form of cyborgs—was born.

The OSB seemed fated to solitude. Scientists concluded that, despite enjoying a period
of great prosperity, their civilization would become more isolated and eventually
perish. The neighboring star systems were devoid of intelligent life. There were no
species left to conquer.

Plagued by pangs of existentialism, the OSBs redirected their attention to the now-legendary
probe and the distant stars.

Thus, with a hundred billion stars reflecting in the bodies of their aircraft, they
embarked on a millennium-long journey of conquest.

By the time they entered Earth’s solar system, however, the Nobility were already
aware of their existence. Anticipating an invasion from outer space, the Nobility
had spread an elaborate surveillance network of satellites and planetoid bases throughout
the star system.

The first skirmish broke out somewhere near Pluto.

Though the Nobility’s fleet was crushed by the awesome firepower of the OSB, the existence
of the Nobility struck fear in the invaders.

Why? Blown into space, the Noble warriors neither froze nor suffocated, but vanished
into the void. After entering Pluto’s orbit, five hundred or so Nobles had drifted
around the planet until being rescued.

The second battle unfolded in Saturn’s orbit, but despite an eventual retreat, the
Nobility had dealt a great blow to the OSB.

Made to reckon with an uncommon foe, the OSB deployed an advance detachment to Earth.

By possessing the humans they encountered, the OSB obtained intelligence on their
vampire enemies. They were astounded to learn of the Noble gift of immortality.

Meanwhile, the vampires captured an unfortunate OSB that had stolen the identity of
a Noble.

Predicting an even fight in a battle of brute force, the OSB built a permanent base
on the far side of the moon in anticipation of a war of attrition. Because they subsisted
by altering their form to absorb any nearby energy sources, they required nothing
more than solar energy while in their lunar bivouac.

Thus began the war between the OSB and Nobility that would span three thousand years.

The moon base was wrapped in silence. No audible alarm was necessary to alert an army
of robots, nor was there air to carry any sound to a Noble’s ears.

Robots on combat vehicles sped down the corridors, and fighters swooped down from
above.

Gravitational field spheres flew about in every direction. The enemy intended to neutralize
Greylancer’s antigravitational field before unleashing an attack.

“I’m going in. Anyone who is able, after me!” Greylancer shouted. He moved to switch
off the chariot’s field.

“Commander, you mustn’t do anything rash!” a voice said from the image of the console
floating next to his ear. The two-dimensional grid contained all of the ship’s controls
within easy reach. “You will be cannon fodder if you lower your ship’s field.”

“Yunus.” Greylancer muttered the name of his subcommander. “I can’t be bothered to
turn the field on and off. Only those that can need follow.”

Robots armed with shoulder-mounted blade-launchers flanked the Noble and fired.

Greylancer dropped the field and reached for his lance.

He swung the massive weapon, and several explosions erupted in the vacuum around him.
When the blades traveling at supersonic speed made contact with the lance, the convergence
of the two opposing forces disintegrated the blades. Blue electromagnetic waves and
ash scattered everywhere.

At what speed was such a feat possible? With what force? How do you track each blade
and strike it down, Greylancer?

A rain of black arrows fell from the inky sky. The robots faithfully executed the
legendary Earthian tactic for slaying vampires, only their arrows traveled at thirty-four
kilometers per second.

Greylancer stood against each and every arrow shot at him. How exquisite, how awesome
was the flash of his lance. And the arrows reversed their courses.

The arrows shot through the robots’ faces, heads, and torsos, and felled one robot
after the next, tendrils of blue lightning lashing out from their failing bodies.

Before he realized it, Greylancer was alone in the skies.

There were metal walls to the right and left of him that cascaded down like waterfalls
into the darkness below. He could not see bottom, as the chariot’s console was not
registering a measurement.

At the outset of the attack, Noble chariots had released nano-sized sensor insects
to gather information on the base.

Greylancer’s target was the energy core. The chariot’s computer system was supposed
to guide him there based on the intelligence gathered by the sensor insects.

The console projected in the the air read:

Distance to target converted to Noble measurement: 24,986 floors down.

More enemy aircraft approached. They numbered over a hundred. An object resembling
a sphere with a stabilizer mounted on it unleashed a storm of blades and stakes.

The chariot repelled the attack and, powered by its ion engines, dropped in a straight
line into the abyss at seventeen kilometers per second.

The g forces crushed Greylancer’s face and nearly tore away his hair.

Countless red lights blipped on the console, in radar-mode.

Here they come
. Greylancer’s wind-twisted lips curled all the more. He was smiling.

The enemy dispersed.

After downing the blizzard of blades and stakes head-on, Greylancer rapped his knuckles
against the handrail.

“Let us go somewhere they will not expect.”

The robots repositioned themselves just as their computers directed, their formation
aligning with how Greylancer routinely engaged multiple enemies. They placed unqualified
trust in the analysis the computer extrapolated from an unfathomable number of scenarios.

But a full-frontal charge—

An impossibly long lance came at the robots from an impossible angle and plunged into
their power units.