The Sky Knights

By Gerard Whittaker

Sequel to The Cloud Knights.
A primitive world is targeted for invasion by an army of clones, and the conflict propels the Cloud Knights into a world wide war.
But the clones do not understand that this world was once called Earth, and the remnants of the Human race will not give up without a fight.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gerard Whittaker
• Release date: Apr 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476112107

Gerard Whittaker

Once I was a soldier, getting blown up a few times convinced me that a change of career might be a good idea.However, given some of the jobs I've done since, being shot in the chest could be preferable to being stabbed in the back. I'm happily married with my wife helping me proof read my books. I've studied military history, used most types of swords and medieval weapons. I spent a few years learning how to write and had my fair share of rejection slips. I'm still hoping to see my work in print. However, in the meantime, I want to share my worlds with the world at large. Perhaps someone might suggest ways to improve my writing. I've enjoyed writing "When Twilight Falls" intending to develop the story slowly with an ever increasing threat level. I've written about fourteen books so far, not all were completed. I was half way through a novel about an alien invasion with modern day US Airtforce taking on flying saucers. Then I saw a little film called Independence Day and sulked for a month. There are too many Sci-Fi books written for children in my opinion. So I'm trying to write for adults, if that includes a bit of sex then so be it. Heroes are just normal people in extraordinary circumstances. When they get the job done, they are still just your average Joe with all the weaknesses of you or I. For some reasons most of my worlds are not very nice, I suppose the good worlds don't need saving. So there is plenty of scope for temptation in many forms for the 'Heroes' to fall into. When you put yourself in their place, wouldn't you give in to temptation too? All the best to one and all. I wish you the best of luck in avoiding temptation. I've just uploaded a short novel called "The Streets of Bucharest". I'm still working on the full sized book and expect it to be online shortly. I'm sorry I screwed up not loading the full version. But I did give it for free to make up for my mistake. The Full version of The Streets of Bucharest is now online. It's only 40,000 words but I hope you will enjoy it. Just finished rewriting an old book of mine "The Bonds of Time". It was an experiment in erotic drama with a lot of BDSM thrown in. For anyone interested it also gives a short description of Aeden, a couple of years after the founding. It was not a very nice place when TIME was first being formed for self defense, and long before the Cosmic Guardians were even thought of to protect the Multiverse. Finished Isralla and now working on a sequel called Enryn, using a new slant, telling of a war from the Marines' point of view. I'm writing these with as little sex and as much action as the characters will let me. So if anything goes wrong, blame them! Date 13 December 2010 Thanks for the rating, for a writer who lives and works alone any kind of a pat on the back is very welcome. Sometimes I am intending to finish "Of Dusk and Dawn" in the New Year. But I admit to getting writer's block and being side tracked by Isralla and Enryn. I hope these books will keep you all amused till I can get back to D&D. A word of warning, I've finished a new book called "The Cloud Knights". A sort of cross between Biggles and Sharp, set in a crazy world you will not recognise. So if you like the idea of bi-planes versus airships, politics and treason, and a hero determined to rise from the ranks to become a Cloud Knight, fighting for freedom in a world where everything is for sale to those with the rank to claim it. Then you might like it! Currently working on a sequel called the Sky Knights, which will be big. And if that works I might round off the trilogy with the Star Knights. I also draw my own book covers using DAZ Studio which explains how I keep uploading new covers. Gerard Whittaker

Book preview

The Sky Knights

By

Gerard Whittaker

Started 2012-01-30

The Sky Knights

By Gerard Whittaker

Smashwords edition.

Copyright by Gerard Whittaker, 2012

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Prologue

Once there was a very pretty young woman who lived in a plastic box. Of course she wasn't really a woman, she was a clone. And the plastic box was designated as an Executive Third Class Single person Habitation module. Which meant that it was a box with a bed inside.

Her Master kept telling her how lucky she was to have a room to herself, as a secretary she only warranted a sleeping mat in one of the worker's barn sized habitats, and so her tiny cubicle on the highest floor of the highest building on Selike 4 was a position of honour. She only wished that it was not between her master's office and suite, for some of the tasks she had to perform were most unclonelike, and in a society of clones any thought of sexual relations were considered near blasphemous. For thousands of years all reproduction had taken place in maturation tanks, from authorised genetic donors who had been the pride of their race. Only a few planets still allowed Breeders to create life by the random mixing of genes, and this perverse minority were subject to all manor of persecutions.

Her twenty hour work day complete, she returned to her box, dropping to the bed in exhaustion, but as usual sleep would not come easily. Her Master was cutting corners again, and it was her job to decide which departments to give a ten percent nutritional cut. Already there was talk of malnutrition and loss of worker efficiency. To be honest the firm had always been overstaffed, and so a few thousand casualties were considered an acceptable way of balancing the ledgers.

The green sunlight shone through the tiny barred window high on the wall, casting ornamental shadows on the opposite wall. In exhaustion and frustration she stood up and pulled the bed to one side, and dragged the desk against the outer wall, and stood her clothing cube on top. The cube was small but still nearly empty, the executive level was warm and her master preferred she serve him naked most of the time.

She had been created as a prototype from long neglected genetic stock, and was of average height for one of her kind, with firm muscles and a near white complexion that had never been exposed to sunlight. And had short hair of burnished bronze and large intelligent eyes of fiery green. Her breasts were full and proud with upturned nipples, her waist narrow but rippling with muscles, her hips and buttocks wide and firm. Her face was a master piece of impish beauty with a high forehead and cute nose. Her only adornment was a tattoo on her right forearm: Bren000000000000. Which translated as the prototype of the Bren series, and meant that she was called Zero.

It was a pity that she was a slave and didn't know it. For all inconvenient words had long since been pruned from the language of the clones, like honour, freedom and love. All she knew was obedience and duty.

Zero climbed onto the desk and stood on her clothing cube, to look through the tiny window at the ever changing valley of boxes piled upon boxes. The air was filled with wind blown dust that had long since stripped the pastel coating off the box city, leaving a drab grey everywhere except in the corners protected by the unused and unopenable windows. Most of the buildings had the heavy construction sections on the ground, with office cubes above, and the thousand worker habitation modules above that. Higher still were the first of the executive levels, and the Praetorian Guard levels that protected the senior executives on the highest few floors.

Zero gazed down on the city below, seeing one of the great flying lifters swooping down to begin dismantling an unused buildings, removing the executive level and replacing it with a light manufacturing unit. The city was ever in motion, growing and mutating like a living thing. Far across the valley Zero could see a huge building that she knew to be nearly as large as the one she lived in, it was easily a kilometre on each side, and over half that high, and, like all the others, was constructed of hundreds of neatly piled boxes. One side of the building was being winched open to reveal the tail section of a medium freighter being given a final polish, before being lifted into orbit to link up with whatever transporter modules it needed. She strained her eyes but could not see the workers who rushed to finish the massive drive module. Most would be terrified to see the open sky, after generations of living in their city sized factories. Even after twelve years serving her master, and being able to peer fearfully through her private window, just the thought of going outside simply terrified her.

Get here, you lazy bitch, her master called fondly.

Zero stumbled from the window in sudden fear, and rushed to push her furniture back into place, before stumbling from her room towards the office.

What kept you? he snapped as she rushed to kneel before him.

I was sleeping, she gasped. I am sorry master, but I have just spent twenty time parts on the report you wanted. He looked blank. You know? The one about further reducing the worker's nutrient rations.

Well now you can start again. He was short and plain, but highly intelligent, or so he claimed, and none had ever seen fit to dispute it. No one knew how old he was, with highly advanced medical technology, and an endless supply of cloned spare parts, or spare part clones, age did not touch the Master of Selike 4. If he had ever had a real name was open to dispute, because all called him Master, and meant it! For he owned the world and a dozen more besides, and had a seat on the Great Council that controlled most of the galaxy. The office took up half the highest floor of the building, which meant about an acre of priceless carpet and works of art. The other half of the floor was taken up by his suite, which was even grander. And one level below was the barracks for his personal Century of the Praetorian Guard. The other nine hundred lived just below the main Executive levels. Which put a full Legion of nine foot tall professional killers between the down trodden workers and the spoiled executives.

Zero took her seat behind her master's desk just as a second executive entered, this one looked like a bad copy of the first. A twentieth generation clone, she guessed. We have a problem master, he stated with a deep bow.

Ah, Kar. I was wondering when you would find a new threat to the Race of Reason.

Nothing that bad sir, but bad enough to the Company I fear.

Are they not the same? the master chuckled, meaning that to him the Company and Galactic Civilisation were one and the same. And what was good for one was good for the other. Tell me about it, he said twining his fingers and pretending to look interested.

We have been tracking an asteroid ship for hundreds of years, just one of tens of thousands still roaming the galaxy. Only this one is heading towards an unexploited Company world.

I didn't think we had worlds unused.

An oversight, we bought it off another company a couple of thousand years ago, but it was too far up the second galactic arm to be of interest. Ships were much slower then.

And so it fell through the net, the master sighed. So what is the problem? Assemble a task force and run the ship off.

The problem sir is that the world in question is occupied, and that could void our charter.

Somebody is trespassing on a Company world! the master gasped in outrage.

I'm not sure of that sir, they might even be natives. There is an interdiction satellite in orbit, and it has reordered no traffic in the system since the original survey. And that was so long ago the natives might have evolved into sentience.

Show me, the master said grimly.

Kar put the recording on the main screen and Zero caught a view of a beautiful world of clear blue skies, rippling seas, majestic mountains and green forests. The snooper swooped down towards a small town and focused on the inhabitants, who looked surprisingly human, if dressed in odd drab clothing, and a pretty woman carried what could only be an immature male. Zero fought to avoid gasping on disgust, 'Breeders'!

This scan was taken a few years ago, Kar explained, the technology is early internal combustion engine, you know, biplanes and airships.

Warlike?

If you consider trench warfare to be warlike, Kar said dismissively. Their idea of tactics is to try to blind their opponents with sunlight glinting off bayonets, while being machineguned to death.

Zero. She looked up in confusion. I want you to organise a task force to take the planet.

Certainly master. Aims, objectives and budget?

Round them up for sale, a trillion credits ought to do it. If we sell them at auction we might make most of that back.

Do not forget my master that these could quite well be legal natives, Kar pointed out. It might be wise to avoid a court case at this point. I was thinking of orbital bombardment with biological weapons.

After they are sold as slaves it hardly matters. They are breeders, don't forget, vermin in the eyes of the law. However, as such their novelty value could be high in some quarters.

The pleasure satellites are always looking for fresh meat, Kar agreed. And the mines will take all the men we can find, no questions asked.

Do you wish a small advanced mercenary company, Zero asked timidly, or a cheap army?

As cheap as possible, her master snapped. The Praetorian Guard ought to be able to take the whole world in a month. But round up some cannon fodder. You know the surplice workers? Conscript them. We might as well get some use out of them before they die.

Will they fight knowing they will die? Kar asked.

Tell them that they can have the world, after they have taken it, the master laughed.

Will they? Zero gasped in sudden longing on watching the virgin world on the wall monitors.

Of course not, the master laughed again. They will die there, by enemy action or starvation, it hardly matters. Then he saw her, and the sudden longing in her green eyes. She knew too much and had served him too long. Far longer than any of his other secretaries. He sighed with resignation, but at least her replacement was ready in stasis. You might as well activate your understudy girl.

Recycling? she gasped in sudden hope.

You have served me well, for how long?

Twelve cycles master. Then she said eagerly, Have I earned my reward?

That and more, I will miss you. But you have earned the right to a better life.

Zero hurried to her box, and the terminal, to begin organising an invasion, as Kar turned to the Master and chuckled, Stupid bitch.

Well, she will have a much better life, or parts of her at least, the master laughed.

That night Zero claimed her replacement from stasis, taking her own clone to the box. Una looked fourteen, and had been force educated with all that Zero knew in the times they had been together. They lay together on the narrow bed as Zero continued to brief the girl. Whatever he does to you scream and look horrified. The more the better, and the sooner he will finish.

Then this is all my life will be, work and abuse? Una sobbed.

Until you earn Recycling.

You believe that? You really believe that we earn the right to live free?

If I am wrong I will find out for sure tomorrow, Zero replied sadly. If I can, I'll contact you.

From beyond? Una scoffed. I've something for you my friend, a transparent sheath that fits over your thumb. If in doubt, use it.

I will, but hope I do not have to. Come, I have given you all our master's secret passwords, now we have one last night together.

Zero, how many times have you been cloned? How many of us are there?

A few hundred that I know of, but most were sold off world. Do not forget...

That the fewer there are of us, the more valuable we are, she laughed.

In the morning Zero reported to the Recycling centre very early, desperate to claim her reward for years of devotion to her master. She entered through the gleaming doors into the comfortable waiting room, to see that it was still empty. She waited for a long time but still no one came to see her.

Finally she tapped out an access code on the internal door, one gleaned from her master, and entered the centre. A dozen examination booths lay on either side of the corridor, all were bright, clean and cheerful. Even the medical scanners and probes didn't alarm her.

The door at the end of the corridor opened and a medic looked at her in horror. What are you doing here? she gasped. The bald woman had a dark completion and the look of a Zen series, and wore the sky blue coverall of the recycling cast. Being bald meant that she was a low level clone, technically Zero too should be bald but was permitted cranial hair to please her master. Normally only executive and technical clones were allowed hair. We are not ready.

This is the recycling centre, Zero pointed out. I'm eager to start my new life.

The medic looked unsure whether or not to laugh. Your records won't be ready for a few minutes, so just lay on one of the testing beds.

Zero complied, resting on one of the plastic coated beds, as the hidden machinery began to scan her body. She rested for half an hour as the medic bustled around the machinery. Can you explain what is going to happen?

What did your master tell you?

That my new life would soon start, I always understood that it meant that I would be going to one of the colonies. A new world.

It'll be a new world all right, the medic replied dryly. But there arn't any new planets, and haven't been for a long time.

Zero sat up unexpectedly at this news, just as restraining bars dropped down to hold her legs and right arm. Why do you need these? she gasped in outrage. Only her master had the right to treat her this way, not some low level corridor rat.

Lay back and shut up, the woman snapped. I can't concentrate with you jabbering away.

Explain yourself woman! Zero snapped. I am not yours to order about.

The medic grabbed Zero's left hand and forced it back towards the empty restraint. You don't get it, do you? she laughed. Don't you understand that recycling is what they do to garbage. We're going to recycle only the bits we can sell.

The shock was almost enough to weaken Zero, she slumped back as the restraint grabbed at her wrist, and then anger exploded within her breast for the first time as she realised that she had been lied to her entire life. Her left hand shot out of the restraint to grab the medic's throat, and pulled back driving the woman's head hard into the medical monitor, leaving a bleeding gash in the forehead. The medic was stunned for a couple of seconds, and Zero had time to place her thumb against her forehead and twist. The drugs held in the sheath on her left thumb were crushed and mixed resulting in a powerful neurotoxin. And while not meant to kill it seized up the medic's muscles until she was frozen like a statue, her face a mask of horror.

That still left Zero strapped to the bed, awaiting an automated vivisection. Her orders told her to give in and die, but the outrage said otherwise. She could still move her left arm, but was terrified of getting the paralysing drug on herself. It took an hour of twisting and turning, scraping her tender flesh against the restraints, before she could escape the examining bed.

Finally she stood free, pulled off the sheath and turned to the frozen medic. "And I know