The Celestial’s Armor Test Read

There is a war raging in the stars.

The floors shook from the sudden cannon blasts from the black and gold warships over the moon city Cobalt Haven, where the Royal family of Edhellond have been hiding from the Warlock Vulmer Durr and his forces of pure evil. The family of high elves have been raging their rebellion against the Dark Imperial forces for the last six years, trying to keep the enemy at bay and believing their hidden castle in the system of Aqokar would be forever safe.

                It was why they had brought their only daughter to the castle, the twenty-year-old Princess Leona Edhellond, who was still being trained in combat and magic when the surprise attack was launched against their castle.

                All hope was lost, but Princess Leona never seemed to lose hope or the willingness to fight to the bitter end.

                She raced down the hallways of the space station away from the gardens. She had been spending all her free time in those gardens as of late, trapped in the castle, a massive dome over the tiny city, while they raged a war from the hidden throne against those dark forces.

The gardens, however, were housed in a different area under the dome; they sat in a building the size of a small destroyer and housed all kinds of plant life from Leona’s home world. The greenhouse had become her favorite place in the castle. She loved the flowers, the smell of the dirt, but most of all, the sounds of the birds in the house, reminding her of home.

                She had gone to the greenhouse to read some books after training in the arcane arts with her master mages for a battle she hoped would never come, but war was spreading across the stars like an ink well knocked over on a desk.

                Sooner or later, it would come for her.

                She wanted to be ready. The mages taught her how to channel her mana through the bracelets around her wrists to cast weather spells. She could channel the mana through her body, using her bones as the conductor, but it was a pain unlike any she had felt before, and it could cost her a lot in the end.

                She studied for hours until noon, gathering her books and finding a place in the gardens. There she was reading about the history of war, wishing she was reading about the history of love, but the alarms roared, and now she was racing down the hallway towards her parents with a group of four Royal Guards.

                The walls shook with the cannons from the warships firing onto the castle. She heard the alarms of the fire doors sealing all over the castle while the smell of gases started to leak everywhere. The cries of terror filled the airwaves and followed the hissing sound of the bolt blasters.

                Two guards, Folmar Leafblade and Kerym Nightroot, led the way down the hall. They were shielding Leona as best they could from the death all around them, but she stepped over bodies and into pools of blood. She saw the burn marks from the energy bolts blasting holes into people.

                She raced down the hall with the Guards wearing the light armor of the house of Edhellond, the gold, and sage of their sigil, with bolt rifles in hand when one of them, Kerym, dropped to the floor as a bolt blew out his back.

                He didn’t even have time to gasp before falling to the ground.

                Folmar dropped to his knee, firing the rifle with the hissing of the bolts filling the air around them. Leona still hugged the wall in her workout clothes, which were finer and more elegant than any commoner would dream of having in their lives. She had never taken her wealth for granted, always willing to help the lower classes, but she wasn’t ashamed of it like some of the younger royal families.

                And yet, her family's wealth would do nothing to save her now. The training from all the warriors in her life would be the key to her walking out of here alive.

                She was thankful to have her silver hair, with the light blue tips dyed, pulled up into a knot for her training. She was a long-bodied woman with fine muscles that seemed tiny and light but hid a power in them. Her long, elven face twisted up in rage at the sight of her fallen friend. She would remind herself after she got free of this battle to start wearing the war paint of John’s people, but for now, she would make the enemy bleed; it would be her war paint.

                Her bright purple eyes almost stood out against her milky-white skin. Her father, who she hoped was alive and escaping, always called her his winter flower. Her skin wasn’t pale like some of the humans she had met over the years, but hers was white, like someone had painted the hue into her flesh.

                She had long ears, longer than normal elves and a bit longer than most High Elves, which gave her unearned prestige among her people. She had those long-pointed ears untouched by earrings due to her mother and grandmother’s wishes for them to stay natural.

                She gave in to their wishes. She often did as her grandmother ordered. She was an old queen with willpower as tough as iron and stronger than the best elven steel. She wasn’t in the castle but hidden somewhere in the stars.

                “Fall back,” Folmar shouted over the bolts, screaming at them. “Fall back n -“

                She watched a few of the bolts nail him in the chest and shoulder. The blast blew holes in his body as he fell to the floor. He gasped for air, staring at Leona in a horror she would never forget. He mouthed something. Something she couldn’t read or hear as the life faded from his eyes.

                She snarled at another life taken in his pointless war and stepped out into the middle of the hallway. She was done running, but the guards behind her started to reach out to her. They would pull her back to cover, down the hallway to run for their lives, until they saw the lightning starting to dance around her.

                She couldn’t tell in the uniform armor of the Dark Elves and Reptilian troopers the blasts from the enemy, men, maybe, women. They have become known as the Faceless Horde or the Twilight Army, and their helmets, black and green, all share the same faces. A simple demonic design with almost no eyes, just lines running along their helmets where the eyes should have been, and the glow of a deep green when they wore their armor.

                The armor of the devil helped them against small arms. The weaker bolt blasters would do nothing against the Horde’s armor. It would crash against the plastic like steel, like a raindrop falling to the ground, but higher-rated weapons could do more damage, and the lightning swirling in Leona’s hands would keep the people inside the armor alive.

                Some saw the balls of blue and white power building in her long hands and started to spin to escape her, while others aimed at the guardsmen behind her; they must have been ordered not to harm her and almost started to fire.

                She whispered the spell's words, something she was practicing not to have to do, as the bracelets around her wrists glowed with the power of the lightning. She opened her hands with the lightning firing at the foes before her and then webbing like a spider’s work, cooking all the enemies to a steaming pile of the dead.

                Seconds later, the light show stopped, and Leona was on her knees, gasping for air. She had stretched her body's limitations to almost a breaking point during her training. She was weaker than she liked, but as the guardsmen grabbed her, she guessed it didn’t matter; the enemy was dead, at least those in front of her.

                “We have to go,” Captain Winterdagger said in his harsh tone, “now, your Highness.”

                She tried to get to her feet, but the thunder from the spell rang in her bones. It wasn’t painful at first like someone had tossed her into an iron bell, hitting it when she landed. It felt odd, then the shaking kept going, and the ache started to race, forcing her to fight to stay awake. She had pushed herself far too much.

                She always went too hard in her training. She had blacked out a few times from her training, something her masters reminded her wasn’t good, but Leona understood the depths of the problems they were facing in the stars.

                “Your Highness,” Captain Winterdagger said, jerking her to her feet while his best friend and guardsman, Paul Sandtouch, stood beside them, firing down the hall. The man's powerful rifle nailed a few of the enemy rushing at them. Paul was a perfect shot, one of the best sharpshooters in their army. He rarely missed; if he did, it was because he wanted to.

                Leona felt her body being pulled back down the hallway. All three of them knew the castle like the back of their hands. They knew the main halls were being flooded by the enemy, and the Horde was also taking the side hallways, but the secret pathways spidering out all over the castle were hopefully still free of foes.

                The secret pathways could slow them down to getting to the ships in the hidden docking bays, but it was always safer from the main attackers.

                Captain Winterdagger tapped a hidden lock on the side of the wall, opening a door and tossing Leona into the small tunnel with him following her. They both heard a grunt, turning to see Paul falling to the ground with shock and pain washing over his face. Leona, without thinking, spun to help him, but Captain Winterdagger closed the door in her face.

                “He’s dead,” he said, “we got to keep moving.”

                He was right. She hated he was right, but they had to get to the king and queen. They had to get out of the castle, off the moon, and, most of all, find out who had betrayed them. There was a spy in their ranks. It was the only way they could have been found.

                She jerked free of Captain Winterdagger’s hand, running ahead of him like they were playing some game of tag. She had traveled these pathways almost daily to make sure they were well mapped out in her mind. She got to the door leading them into one of the side halls near the Royal escape rooms.

                Captain Winterdagger pushed her aside, almost throwing her back, and she stumbled behind him as he reached for the door. She was about to curse him for pushing her so hard. He should know better than to handle the princess in such a manner, but now wasn’t the time as he opened the door, being sucked out of it. The hall was no longer there due to a blast from an enemy cannon, allowing the cold death of space to claim victims.

                The chilly hand of space reached out to the captain, jerking him free from his place and throwing him far into the darkness. The breathable air in the hidden path started to rush out like water poured from a cup.

                Leona almost gasped at the sight of the High Elf being launched into space, but the cruel nature of death forced her to shake the shock free and fight to stay alive. Her hands reached out along the walls, looking for something to grab onto when the door shield blinked on, and she smacked into it.

                The energy giggled against her skin, almost feeling good at the touch. She pulled away to see the horrors before her eyes, and the moment of pleasure dashed away when her mind understood what was going on.

                The city around the castle was under the environmental dome, where many of the elves of the Royal Court, their families, their warriors, and their servants lived, being fired upon by the long sword-like battleships floating above them. The black ships housing thousands of the enemy burn bright with orange energy rushing to the cannons charging to fire again. She could trace the lines where the cannon cores were being housed on the ship due to the flow of the orange lights on their hauls.

                She watched in horror as the energy blast from the cannons rained down onto the green and gold buildings, now shielded and locked down due to the dome being breached, and the force of the cannons pushed the buildings down to the ground like someone was pushing their heads under water. The energy crashed against everything the way fire does when consuming a house, taking with it the many trees on the streets of the keep.

                She had traveled out into those streets to read under those trees. She could freely meet the families walking those streets, unlike the worlds her family ruled, where it could be unsafe for her to be out in public alone. She would have to stay on the Palace grounds unless the Royal Guards walked with her, but not here.

                Here, she could walk around freely.

                There were thousands of High Elves in those buildings, women and children, who were now dead in the blink of an eye. Their only crime in this war was being born to one of the Great Houses wearing a Crown of Power.

                She closed her fists, vowing to make them all pay. Every person on the warships would feel Leona’s rage for killing such innocent souls. They would all die. She would make sure of it. It was now her life goal to make all who started the war pay for it.

                But to make them pay, she needed to survive. She spun on her heels, running back down the hallway, knowing another way to get to her parents. She hoped and prayed, almost reaching for John’s cross around her neck, but they were still alive.

                She got to another door and took a deep breath before opening it. The door slid open as she jumped back, hoping not to be sucked out into the depths of space, but the air rushed in and was filled with the stench of burning bodies.

                There was smoke rolling down the hall, now running to meet her. She took a step out into the hallway, seeing a bolt rifle on the floor, picked it up, and saw the battery still had half of a charge. She had another hundred-plus shots in the rifle.

                It would be good enough for her. She started down the hall, darting her eyes around, but the smoke was hurting them. She couldn’t see her surroundings, knowing the enemy was close by. They were pouring into the castle, killing everyone but the Royal Family.

                She stepped out of the smoke to find a group of the enemy executing the wounded against the wall. She fired on them, roaring about their cruelty, with the bolts killing many of them. A few of the enemy jumped out of the way, with one firing back, but the shot went wild.

                Leona kept moving towards them, letting the bolts fly freely until she was knocked to the wall. She hadn’t checked her side, not seeing another enemy group coming down the side hallway. One of the troopers seemed to know who she was, hitting her in the face with glee.

The stars from the blow spun in her eyes with a ringing in her skull, but she wasn’t going to be gunned down without a fight. She turned on the attacker only to find two rifles pointing in her face. There was blood starting to fall from her nose, and she could taste the iron against her tongue.

                “Don’t fight, your Highness,” one of the dark troopers snared. “You’re coming with us under the orders of Archbishop Jessikah Adalinda.”

                “You’re going to have to kill me, Reptilians scum,” she hissed at him. The man’s voice gave him away even with the helmet. She couldn’t see his face, didn’t need to see those lizard-like eyes, but the way he rolled his s’ and r’ gave it all away.

                “Don’t push it, knife ears,” He growled back. “Get her.”

                Three armored men around him dashed for Leona, tossing their rifles onto their backs where the magnets on their armor caught them. She started to fight against them, pulling and pushing, but the armor gave them enhanced strength, and there was nothing she could do to free herself.

                She was cursing and shouting at them. She thought about reaching into herself to pull more of the magic out, but all that would do would cause her to blackout after she killed them. She was sure there was going to be more coming down the hallway looking for some people to kill, and if they saw Leona passed out on the floor, then there was no saving herself.

                She wasn’t going to be carried off without a fight, and a Reptilian trooper punched her in the stomach, making her cough out blood from the cut on her tongue. She hung there between the other troopers. She lifted her eyes towards the trooper with rage and death in them.

                He popped his knuckles. “Keep it up, princess,” he said with a smile, “we have to take you in a life, but not whole.”

                Before she could utter a word, a massive metal hand, like a dinner plate, came out of the darkness, wrapping around the trooper’s helmet and crushing it between his fingers. The green blood of the Reptilian’s body shot out from the breaking of the helmet, and the body of the trooper was tossed to the wall when a long skeleton metal man stepped forward. The head of the metal skeleton was long, like an ax blade, with three lines running along the whole shape of it. They glowed an eerie blue with two black dots staring right at Leona.

                Leona smiled at her old friend, the Golnaut, the best friend of the man who was soon to be her husband.

                The troopers let her go, jerking their weapons free and firing some of the bolts at Tomahawk. His body, made from kinetic steel, absorbed the energy of the bolts, allowing him to power up his weapons, and the eerie blue started to glow brighter.

                Leona rolled out of the way as Tomahawk fired the lasers from his eyes, cutting the troopers in half before they knew what was happening. Their bodies fell, and Tomahawk turned his oddly shaped head towards Leona. She was picking herself up off the floor.

                “Are you close to being overloaded?” She asked, and Tomahawk nodded in agreement. The kinetic steel could only take so much energy before it would start to crack, and the dull-minded worm-like creature inside the skeleton steel would die from the oxygen poisoning his blood.

                “Is your war suit on the Nebuchadnezzar?”

                He nodded again.

                “Leona,” a deep voice spun her to look down the hallway and see a man with red clay skin dashing for her. He wore the uniform of her kingdom, showing his high rank in their court. He had his legendary pistol drawn from the fighting and a short sword dipped in green blood as they raced for each other. His dark eyes, matching his space-black hair, made her heart jump for joy. He had an eagle’s feather coming from the warrior’s knot on the back of his head.

                She jumped into his arms. Over three hundred and forty-six years ago, a colony of humans seemed to come out of nowhere. There were English men and women in the colony and a group of people with darker skin. They called themselves Carolina Algonquians, which meant little to the races of the stars but everything to them. They were shocked about the new worlds filled with the older races, but many of the older races linked those humans with the Atlanteans.

                They brought hope for the Atlanteans, happy to know their home world wasn’t destroyed, and those new humans brought their religions with them. A faith called Christianity, which had taken root in the kingdoms among the lower classes, had come from the people of Eden.

                The Atlanteans didn’t seem to like the new faith. They had their gods and goddesses, which only caused tension with the believers of the Christ Children. Many deaths were caused in the holy wars between the Atlanteans and humans until the Dark Emperor launched his attacks.

                Atlanteans spoke of their home world. They called it Eden. The new humans called it Earth.

                John Nighthawk, holding Leona, had never seen Earth, didn’t know what it was like, and called the stars his home. He was the head of her father’s Imperial Scouts, knowing how to cut deals with outlaws and pirates while jumping around the stars on heroic adventures like some characters of the filmbooks Leona loved to read as a child.

                “Thank God you’re alive,” he said after they kissed. “My ship is ready; I need you to get on it.”

                “What about my father and mother?” Leona asked.

                John flipped a golden box from his side, a large box that held the Crown of Righteousness. She knew the box well. Her father rarely wore the crown due to its deep power. She took a step back, shaking her head.

                “Your father has ordered you to take my ship,” he said, thrusting the box into her hands. “You need to get it away from here. Hide it, and then fight.”

                “Fight?”

                “We can’t let him get his hands on it,” John said. “You hide it somewhere, anywhere, as long as no one will find it, and you keep fighting against them.”

                “Until when?”

                “Until I find you again,” he said. “I’m going to take your mother somewhere safe. We will contact you once we get to my hideout.”

                “Okay,” she said, unsure of herself, looking down at the box. He kissed her again and then started to walk away.

                “Tomahawk,” he ordered in his deep voice, which she loved, “protect her with your life.”

                He nodded and turned back to her.

                “Wait,” Leona said. “What about dad?”

                “Smith is getting him out of here,” John said, but he was lying. Leona could see it in his hurt-filled eyes. “We have to regroup. I love you, my moonflower.”

                “I love you too,” she said, fear rushing into her bones. She dashed at him again, dropping the box and kissing him hard. “You come back to me, John, you hear me?”

                “I will.”

                “We got to have our wedding,” she said, “in your father’s church, and I want three little boys from you.”

                “Yes, ma’am,” he said softly, touching her long chin. “Anything for you, my princess.”

                She watched him run down the hallway, not sure if he was going to come back. She picked up the box and looked at Tomahawk, who watched John dash out of sight.

                “He’ll come back to us.”

                He nodded.

                “Let’s get to the Nebuchadnezzar,” she said. “I’m sure Icarus is cursing up a storm.”

 

-

 

John Nighthawk couldn’t feel his right foot as he was being carried into the viewing room on board the Morning Star with two Dark Troopers on his side and one behind him. The one behind him, clad in war armor, carried his rifle with the barrel pointing at John’s head. He was carried up the steps in the large room to the round viewing window where he could watch the hidden castle being destroyed. The warships were firing on the city below. The starfighters were circling the domed city, blasting any ship trying to flee. They were killing everyone. They were killing everything, and John looked away from the sight of death.

                He turned his wounded gaze to the tall woman on the raised platform. She was drinking some wine and almost looked human from the back. She had the body of a lovely woman, making John think she could easily take any man to bed with such a body, and her black hair was tied up with golden and red bands. The gold and red matched her light armor and the hilt of the long needle-like sword on her hip.

                She drank more of her wine.

                “When I first,” she said in a smooth snake-like voice, “gained my rank in his army, I took my fleet to a moon with no name, and I destroyed the city there. The death camp my family was sent to after the Great War of the Stars was near the city. They blamed us, my people, for the cause of the war. They cast us as the villains, making us pay with coin and blood.”

                She spun to look at him, and her face was almost human. There were hints of Reptilian blood in her body. Scales were coming from her collar; her skin was a snake-like green, but her eyes were like a cobra. She stared right at him with his now one good eye; he held her gaze.

                “When some of my people,” she said, “rebelled against the chains bound to us, they sent our families to the death camps. They would gather up whole villages to cast them into those camps. It was there I learned my hate for the elves and their allies. There, I found my faith in the Dark Emperor as he liberated the camps.”

                She drank more of the wine while strolling over to him. She handed the wine glass to one of the men rushing up to her side.

                “He came with dark magic and black fire,” she said, “freeing us and giving us a new duty in life, but still, it took some of our kingdoms a long time to bend the knee to his might.”

                John locked his jaw.

                She nodded to the window and said, “But my people sure saw the truth of his power, and here we are raging a just war against our oppressors.”

                “You’re lost in the end,” he said. “No empire can survive built on hate and evil.”

                “Oh, please,” she said, shaking her head. “What do you think all empires are built on, hm? The rage of a common enemy.” She reached out with her long finger, letting a nail grow to lift his chin toward her murderous eyes.

“I will find the princess,” she said, “and I will make her death painful.”

He said nothing.

“Your best bet is to tell me where she hid the crown,” she said, “if you don’t, then I’ll make all of your people work themselves to death in a new camp.”

He said nothing.

“Very well,” she said, cutting his chin just a little. “The King and Queen of the House of Edhellond burn with their people.”

There was a fire inside the wound racing down to his bones. He could feel it in his teeth like someone was pouring hot iron into his mouth. He gasped for air. He wanted to scream, but the pain was blocking the air from escaping his mouth.

He was dying.

“Soon, all our enemies will meet the same fate,” she said, “when the Dark Emperor gets the Crown of Power, all of creation will bend to our will.” She stretches out her arms as if she was in church. “Behold the new order to the stars.”