The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2) (11 page)

22

Scrope’s Llyushin transport raced toward the maroon and grey planet at the far edge of the Dan-Two-Ine system, his pair of Llyushin fighters following in formation. The planet got its color from the noxious gases that were constantly igniting and erupting into firestorms. The planet’s terrain, the grey parts, would have been some other color, maybe a vibrant green or yellow, but were instead covered with ash from everything that the firestorms burned. And yet, a large colony existed because a long time ago someone had thought the planet might make a safe place to hide.

“I would hate to live here,” the pilot said as they made their approach.

“Everything is in the eye of the beholder,” Scrope said, chewing on a seed from the handful he carried with him. “To us, it looks like the underworld of the ancient gods. To them, it probably seems much more like a home than Edsall Dark ever would.”

The pilot laughed at the absurdity of this idea. With a shrug, Scrope tossed another seed into his mouth, grinding it down with his back teeth.

Since the colony was first established, it had changed hands countless times, but always between warring tribes or battling warlords—never as part of some greater kingdom that was recognized across the galaxy. Currently, it belonged to the warlord Arc-Mi-Die, an alien without a species to call his own. His mother was a mix of four different alien species. Although no one knew who his father had been, he also must have been a mix of various species. The result was an enormous olive-colored alien with two mouths, four legs, four arms, a tail, and a surprisingly human face. Whether it was the worst qualities of each species’ genetics making their way into his personality, or perhaps simply an unpleasant childhood, he was also known for his temper and predisposition for violence. Even amongst the galaxy’s other warlords, Arc-Mi-Die was thought of as a brutal and ruthless barbarian.

“Why would Vere want this guy’s help?”

Scrope answered the question with a question of his own: “Since when can beggars be choosers?”

An alarm began sounding from within the transport’s cockpit.

“They’re locked onto us!” the pilot yelled.

Scrope put a hand on the man’s shoulder and said, “It’ll be fine. They’re just taking precautions. They won’t fire.”

“How do you know?”

Scrope’s only response was another seed in his mouth, followed by more chewing.

“Sir,” one of the fighter pilots next to the transport said across the radio, “our ships are locked onto. I suggest we—”

“We’ll be fine,” Scrope said. “Continue ahead.”

The alarm kept sounding in the cockpit, but no surface-to-space cannons fired, no single-man fighters raced from the planet’s surface to confront them. The trio of ships entered the planet’s atmosphere without being attacked.

“See?” Scrope said. “I told you. Nothing to worry about.”

As they raced toward the self-contained colony, the violence of the rest of the world became more noticeable. Swirls of dark clouds raced in circles across the ground. Every few seconds, one of the clouds erupted into flames, burning everything near it. As they looked out across the planet, thousands of such fiery cloud storms were raging. A section of the planet that was ash and dust became engulfed in flames. In another part of the planet, the dark maroon of the intense fire passed from one section of land to another. The area that was no longer in flames was nothing but soot. Nowhere on the planet, except within the colony walls, was there anything resembling life. Outside the containment field, there was only fire or the residue of fire.

And this was where Arc-Mi-Die called home.

“Yeah,” the pilot said. “Nothing to worry about.”

23

“We get within visual range to show them we’re serious,” Vere said. “But no matter what, we don’t power up our weapons systems. We don’t want them to get the wrong idea. Also, it goes without saying that we don’t fire on them. And we hope for our sake that they don’t fire on us.”

Traskk nodded, then made a series of hissing grumbles.

“I don’t know what to expect,” Vere said. “What would
you
do if Mowbray approached
our
fleet all by himself?”

Her reptilian friend didn’t like the scenarios playing out in his head and once again growled to let her know his feelings about the plan. He would have liked the plan even less if he knew that she had just had a dream—or a vision or whatever it was—of Mortimous telling her this was a mistake.

Looking down at the navigational display in front of her, she said, “We should be within range in four minutes.”

Traskk’s tail slithered back and forth against the floor as they approached the Vonnegan fleet. With all lights off in the cockpit, except for the blinking system and navigational controls, Vere’s hearing was more attuned to what was going on around her. She found her shoulders tensing each time she heard Traskk’s leathery skin slide one way and then the other.

Rather than scold him as she would have Fastolf or Morgan, she tried to make conversation. “I had a dream about Mortimous,” she said.

She still wasn’t sure if it really was a dream. If it wasn’t, she had no idea what to call it.

Traskk’s tail stopped moving, and he turned to look at her. His tongue darted in and out as he spoke in Basilisk.

“Black robes,” she answered. “I couldn’t see his face, but I know it was him.” After he asked another question, she said, “I don’t know. Everyone says he’s dead. But he seemed very much alive to me. And”—she hadn’t mentioned this next part to anyone before—“Galen said he made a deal with Mortimous six years ago to send the Green Knight to find me.”

Traskk’s eyes narrowed as he gave a low hiss.

“I know,” she said. “But I had to go in alone.”

He still chided her when she reminded him about the cave because it hurt his feelings that she had gone in without him. It wasn’t that he thought she needed protecting; he had seen her defeat the largest thugs in Eastcheap when brawls had broken out. Not to mention, she had been the only person with the nerve to accept the Green Knight’s challenge when everyone else had suddenly become interested in whether the laces of their boots were tied. He simply wanted to be there—and everywhere else—that she was. It was the debt he owed her for having saved his life back when he was nothing but a young Basilisk without a home.

Inside the cockpit, a series of lights began blinking and a steady beeping began to sound.

“There they are,” she said, pointing out the front viewport of the Griffin Fire’s cockpit.

The Vonnegan fleet was so far away that she wouldn’t have noticed it if the ship’s sensors hadn’t alerted her. But the Athens Destroyers would get bigger and bigger until each one of them made her own ship look insignificant by comparison.

Traskk gave a soft hiss at the sight of the Vonnegan fleet. The claws on his feet began making nervous scratches on the cockpit floor. Vere loved him like a brother, but all of his little quirks—his tail sliding across the floor, his claws scratching against the metal—offered reminders of how much she missed the utter silence of her former copilot. Not only had A’la Dure never spoken, she had no nervous tics or any other peculiar mannerisms. If an android and a ghost had a child that grew up to be a remarkable copilot, that person would have been A’la Dure. It would take a very long time to stop thinking about her every time Vere got into the pilot’s chair.

Of course, if she were to tell Traskk any of this, even in a way that emphasized only how much she missed her friend, he would probably whimper and shuffle out of the cockpit. He might not talk to her again for months.

Awestruck by the approaching Vonnegan fleet, Vere gasped but said nothing. Traskk’s eyes bulged in shock and his tail stopped moving.

“What is that thing?”

She knew what it was, though. It was Mowbray’s Supreme Athens Destroyer, which dwarfed a standard Destroyer.

Traskk hissed and growled.

“Bring up the visual comms,” she said, trying to stay focused on the mission.

The Vonnegan fleet was still far in the distance, but already the individual Athens Destroyers were becoming distinguishable from one another. All of them were slightly smaller than the dozen Commander Class Destroyers that also made up the new navy. In turn, those twelve ships were half the size of the giant one at the rear of the sprawling convoy.

Traskk tapped a pair of buttons. Nothing happened.

“The visual comms,” she said again, leaning over to see which buttons he had pressed instead.

Rather than send a holographic image of herself from the cockpit of the Griffin Fire to the deck of the lead Athens Destroyer for Mowbray to see, the ship’s navigational computer was trying to communicate with a ship from its memory banks that was currently light-years away.

Traskk’s claws tapped at a series of buttons to fix his mistake. A display lit up, showing the Vonnegan Supreme Athens Destroyer was receiving their message. But when the ensign aboard Mowbray’s ship tried to open a communication channel, rather than seeing and hearing Vere, he heard a string of incomprehensible beeps and pulses and the same noises also began sounding throughout the Griffin Fire’s cockpit.

Her copilot’s tongue slithered around his mouth as he concentrated and tried not to get flustered. When a tiny blue light flashed in front Vere’s face, she knew the appropriate channel was open. She waited for the officer on deck to notify Mowbray. After a minute, the blue light turned to green and she knew her feed was actively being watched. Everyone on the deck of the Supreme Destroyer would now see and hear a hologram of her sitting in the cockpit of her ship. A moment later, a second light came on, and in front of both her and Traskk, a holographic image of a tall and slender man appeared.

“Vere,” Mowbray said.

Vere nodded. “Mowbray.”

“There’s no need to come out and meet me halfway. My fleet will be above your planet in a matter of days.”

“Mowbray, listen, this isn’t necessary. It’s senseless.”

“Senseless? My son’s death was senseless.”

“Your army was invading my father’s kingdom!”

“Your father’s fleet destroyed an innocent crew in my space.”

She took a deep breath. There was no use going back and forth like this. When someone wanted to make war, they wouldn’t let reason bog them down. No matter what she said, in Mowbray’s eyes she would be responsible for killing his son.

But no matter what he said about the cause for that invasion, she couldn’t let him send his fleet to conquer her father’s kingdom. He had been set on doing it six years ago, and his resolve was even greater now. It hadn’t mattered then that a terrible mistake, an act of treachery, had caused Hotspur to destroy that ship in Vonnegan space. Now, and until the end of time, it would still be the only excuse he needed to kill and conquer until there was no such thing as Edsall Dark or the CasterLan Kingdom.

“Mowbray, please reconsider. There’s no need for the rest of the system to get caught up in this. These are innocent people who just want to be happy with their families. My father was being poisoned. The general who carried out his orders never should have been allowed to pursue that ship through the portal. Those things happened, but we can stop this all right here. You and I, we can stop this.”

While they spoke, the endless line of Athens Destroyers grew bigger and bigger.

Mowbray’s eyebrows raised in confusion. “Are the subjects of an unjust ruler innocent if they allow themselves to belong to that kingdom?”

Vere said, “I’d be happy to discuss the philosophy of kingdoms and their rulers some other time. Right now, I implore you to call off your fleet.”

“My son deserves justice. And justice is vengeance.”

She bit her lip and, out of sight of the video feed, dug her fingernails into her other arm. If she repeated that his son had only died because he was part of an invasion party, Mowbray would only mention once more that the Vonnegan fleet had only been there because a ship full of innocent workers had been killed by a CasterLan vessel in Vonnegan space. It was a circle with no end, and so she instead said that they should settle things between them.

“Just the two of us,” she said. “There’s no need for everyone else to die.”

When Mowbray smiled, only his mouth moved. His eyes remained fixed on the holographic image of her hovering in front of him on the deck of his Athens Destroyer.

“It’s an enticing offer, Vere CasterLan,” he said, and she let out a long sigh, already knowing he was going to refuse. “But nothing will keep me from wiping every trace of the CasterLan Kingdom off the galactic map. You aren’t the CasterLan dynasty; you are only a single person. I could kill you and nothing would change. I must destroy the very idea of the CasterLan Kingdom.” His smile got bigger. “And I can only do that with much death and destruction.”

“Mowbray, please—”

“The planet known as Edsall Dark will still exist. But anyone who refers to it with that name will be put to death. Instead, it will be named after my son. It won’t take but a few years before people forget it ever had a different name than the one I gave it.”

“The people will never bow down to viciousness,” she said.

“Oh? I guess the history books have it wrong then. I guess Iqur the Horrible didn’t really bring the seven Nebulous systems together through sheer force and brutality. I suppose Halexedion the Great didn’t really build a vast empire of over thirty solar systems through nothing more than a tireless army and a desire to possess as much of the galaxy as possible.”

The Griffin Fire was alongside the closest Athens Destroyer now. She had never been this close to one of the Vonnegan ships before. It was roughly the same size as one of her Solar Carriers, but flying so close to it in a ship that was a fraction its size was humbling. And there were hundreds more in the distance.

She thought to tell Mowbray that none of those empires still existed. But of course he already knew that as well. More important, he didn’t care. Iqur the Horrible and Halexedion the Great hadn’t sent their armies all around space because they thought the solar systems they conquered would forever be ruled under their name. They had amassed a collection of systems knowing that one day someone else would take them. They had done it simply because they cared only about the glory of the moment.