New Terra: A Journey Born

Prologue

Defiant grunts with disapproval, her joy, and curiosity about matters beyond their service had always been something that annoyed him. Knights were soldiers through and through and the last defenders of humanity after all. And she was always talking about the stars, the histories, and all manner of things a soldier should let those who knew peace time discuss.

"A Knight believes in accepting the charts and designs of those they protect...."

Defiant clips back with annoying protest, "Yes, I know Leonard; a Knight also pledges to stand watch even in their sleep on the battlefield. But if I recall correctly, you have fallen to sleep several times on watch duty in the Caldon mountains."

Jeremiah can only offer a chuckle as his two friends go at it. They do this all the time, and while Defiant won't admit it, he knows that Leonard believes her much better than him despite outranking her. He always wanted the three of them to have the utmost potential gained from their ambition, and the Knights were a military force, so Jessica's wide-eye view had no real place in the steps needed for promotion. And therefore, Leonard saw it as nothing but a childish hindrance to her reaching her true potential and serving New Humano best. She was oblivious to Defiant's feelings, however, likely placing his stuffiness and uptight nature as simple Leonard being pompous. One of the reasons she teased him was by refusing to refer to him by his Knight name.

"I didn't fall asleep. I was merely resting my eyes after having to watch your sectors while you two spent half the patrol discussing what to eat when it was finished."

Jeremiah raises his fist as they approach the rounded edge of the path, with still a tiny climb to go and no noises detected so far; the others are confused. That is until he stepped slightly to the side, allowing them to see fresh prints in the small track of sand and dirt, left recently by something which had touched the ocean recently considering it had not rained, but the track prints sand was dark with moisture.

"Steel yourselves, full suit, and only shoot when fired upon." He orders sternly despite having just been enjoying the conversation moments before with a bit of laughter.

All three Knights press their neck plate in, causing their helmets to rise from under the collar of their armor. Surrounding the head in four durable layers of titanium with a flexible diamond interior plate, the suit's visor offers just enough visual openings without risking any shatter of the steel and nickel-weaved glassed impeding or harming the Knights. Defiant rotates his Light Rifle from his back, kept hidden until that point by his Knight cape, and clicks the sword-shaped rifle on. As it hums to life with a slight glow facing back towards his main forearm, confirming it is ready, Raven's Titanium carbon alloy blades slip out from her suit's forearms, and she takes hold of their edges with her gauntlets. The blades were sharp enough to slice even diamonds with enough force, thanks to the blade edge being laced with diamond and gold chips.

Jeremiah pulls his sword from its sheath strapped to his back; the long blade was made from the remnants of the sword belonging to the Knight of Old Terra known as Shield. It was the weapon given to the Fourth Knight upon achieving the rank and was made of old nanotechnology and reportedly forged in a nuclear reactor that had gone into meltdown. The nanites within the sword continuously cleaned and hardened it, following a stream of lines through it and giving it its iconic glowing blue veins against the blackness of its metal. Each Fourth Knight named the blade upon receiving it, and Jeremiah had chosen to call it, Humanity's Hand. And he had seen combat against foes of major threat in it, though not as himself. As stated, the first time picking up the sword resulted in the mind molding with it and seeing the memories of combat that was enacted involving the sword—turning an already lethal war weapon and its user into one and spreading the experience of that combat and the lessons learned to another generation.