The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2) (23 page)

Vere’s shoulders slumped. Her chin fell down toward her chest. “There’s no way to free these ships?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Vere. Only you can decide whether or not to face the Vonnegan fleet.”

“We’ll be decimated.”

“There are always options to war.”

“What? Let them enslave us?”

“Is everything so black and white?”

Her mother tried to smile again. This time, though, her mouth barely moved. Then she turned and began walking away again.

“Mom.”

Isabel stopped and turned once more.

“Is Galen where you are?”

This time, her mother had no problem smiling. She nodded and said, “And many others, too.”

The sensor on Vere’s arm was one continuous beep now. When she looked down, she saw the oxygen level was past the red line.

Turning on the microphone in her helmet, she said, “Traskk, I need you to come pick me up. My coordinates should be in the Griffin Fire’s scanner.”

When she looked back at where her mother had been, there was only stone and metal—the Excalibur and the armada it held. Just as she expected, her mother was gone.

She tried to sit on the nearest rock but stumbled.

“Traskk.”

Dots of light began to appear everywhere she looked. The space all around her started to spin in circles.

Looking down at her oxygen sensor, she kept hoping that one of the pouches had malfunctioned, that she wasn’t really out of air. She began patting her sides, her hips, her shoulders—everywhere a tiny oxygen pouch was located in between the layers of the armor. The oxygen sensor didn’t budge, however.

A terrible thought began to form in the back of her mind: this had all been a hallucination due to a lack of oxygen. She would wake up in the Griffin Fire’s medical bay and be told that she had been found unconscious on the asteroid. That would at least explain seeing someone who had died over a decade ago.

It wasn’t a hallucination, though. Somehow, this really was happening. But this too brought anguish because it meant that the armada would never be used in combat. A fleet of Athens Destroyers was on its way, Morgan and the others were getting ready to face it, and yet Vere was on this asteroid trying to solve a legendary mystery that had stood for thousands of years. A legend that would continue to stand.

“I’ve been so foolish,” she tried to say, but her voice cracked and she began to cough.

Her face burned. Her fingers curled into balls, her fists shaking with anger. Everything Morgan had said was right. Vere had been wasting her time here. Her people needed her now more than ever and instead of being there for them, she had raced off to recover a treasure. A treasure of might rather than riches, but a treasure nonetheless. Her fleet would be destroyed. Nothing would stop Mowbray from arriving at Edsall Dark and doing whatever he pleased with the CasterLan Kingdom. And when it happened, everyone would know Vere had decided to go on a fool’s quest rather than fight for her people. She would be known, and rightfully so, as Vere the Absent. Vere the Buffoon.

52

Baldwin paced back and forth outside the Griffin Fire’s cockpit in the small area where passengers sat, ate their meals, and passed the time.

“Enough is enough,” he said. “When she gets back, we’re leaving.”

Traskk didn’t bother with a growl because he knew Baldwin didn’t have any say in when they left or not. Not only that, Traskk didn’t have much of a say in it either. If he was adamant enough, maybe he could convince Vere to give up this foolhardy mission. But he knew better than anyone just how stubborn she could be. The Vere he knew wouldn’t leave this asteroid until she decided she was ready to leave.

“The Vonnegan fleet is going to be here any day. And where is our leader? On a rock!”

Vere’s voice came in over the Griffin Fire’s comms unit: “Traskk, I need you to come pick me up. My coordinates should be on the Griffin Fire’s scanner.”

Traskk glanced at Baldwin out of the corner of his eye, then began prepping the ship for takeoff. A moment later, there was a slight lurch and Traskk was turning the ship toward the flashing dot on the display in front of him.

He saw Vere in the distance. Moving to the side of a ship that was protruding from the stone, he angled the Griffin Fire toward her, then lowered it to the ground.

“Traskk,” she said into the ship’s comms, then she stumbled and fell to the ground.

Baldwin walked to the rear hatch and began throwing on pieces of space armor as fast as he could. The ramp lowered while he was still putting on the lower half of his suit. Vere was just outside. Even with her helmet still on, he could see she wasn’t breathing.

He calculated how much longer it would take to finish putting on the protective gear against the risk of Vere going without oxygen for that same amount of time. Grinding his teeth, he stepped through the wall of energy dividing the sealed and pressurized Griffin Fire with the vacuum of space. Immediately, his bare legs felt like they were freezing while his head and arms were temperature controlled.

He was within arm’s reach of her when a giant clawed hand pushed him aside. Traskk darted down the ramp, yanked her off the ground with ease, then ran up the ramp again, all in less than five seconds. All without any thought of whether or not to put on a suit of space armor.

Baldwin got back to his feet and sprinted back to the ship. Once they were both back inside, he closed the ramp and took Vere’s helmet off. She still wasn’t breathing. He put an oxygen mask up to her face. Almost immediately, her eyes opened and she gulped for air.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

Pushing him away, she held the oxygen mask to her nose and mouth and got herself to her feet. Stumbling for the first few steps, she stomped away, toward the cockpit. As soon as she got to the pilot’s seat, she punched a control panel. The cover fell off and sparks flew. Traskk growled a question, but she didn’t answer him.

She took off the gloves of her space armor and threw them behind her as hard as she could. They sailed through the doorway and out into the passenger area, where they almost hit Baldwin. Traskk didn’t say anything else.

With the rest of her space armor still on, she got the ship off the ground and guided it far enough away from the asteroid that she could see the entire Excalibur from end to end. Next, she began punching in a set of commands with her index finger, almost cracking the crystal display on one of the controls as she did so.

Baldwin was at the cockpit doorway. “What’s going on?”

One of the ship’s controls beeped three times. Each beep was louder than the previous one. Traskk knew what the noise meant, but before he could do or say anything, the first proton torpedo was launched.

“What are you doing?” Baldwin yelled, running up between Vere and Traskk.

Seven more proton torpedoes followed the first one. The Griffin Fire’s entire payload.

Baldwin and Traskk watched in shock as the eight projectiles raced toward the Excalibur in a line.

“No one will waste their time with them again,” Vere said under her breath.

Baldwin’s mouth hung open as he watched the torpedoes make their way, impossibly slow, toward the famous asteroid.

“No,” he said. “You can’t.”

“I know now why it’s here. It’s not for us to free. It’s a joke, a waste of time. It’s a fool’s quest. Well, I won’t be made a fool of.”

The first projectile reached the rock and exploded. The next immediately followed. One after another, the eight proton torpedoes hit the Excalibur, all in the exact same spot.

“You can’t do this,” Baldwin said.

Without turning to look at him, she replied, “It’s already done. Not only won’t I become the next victim of this supposed treasure, no one else will ever carry false hope for it again.”

Bits of rock blew away from the main body of the asteroid. One of the ships that had become exposed immediately self-destructed, sending a wave of energy toward the Griffin Fire. After the eighth explosion, deep into the rock, the integrity of the giant asteroid was compromised. As the three of them watched from the Griffin Fire’s cockpit, bits of stone began to crack away from the Excalibur as it continued to hurtle through space. Another chunk of rock dislodged. Another ship self-destructed.

“No,” Baldwin said, almost pleading, watching the object of his childhood fascination being destroyed right in front of him.

A quake of energy ran through the asteroid, creating giant fault lines in the stone. Another ship self-destructed as two enormous pieces of stone cracked away and disintegrated.

As it continued racing through the solar system, tiny bursts of what looked like lightning appeared in all the places where the Excalibur was crumbling to pieces. Bits of rock exploded away from the main body with bursts of lightning in the stone each time a new crack appeared.

“No,” Baldwin said again, this time only a whisper.

The lightning grew more fierce, brighter and more rapid. Vere had to squint to see what was happening. Little by little, the flashes of lightning caused what remained of the asteroid to crumble away into dust.

“Oh my god,” Baldwin said, seeing what remained.

Traskk’s bulbous eyes became even larger.

Vere couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t even blink.

The Excalibur asteroid had been completely destroyed. A few of the ships had detonated as the rock broke into pieces. But all of the other ships were still there, completely unscathed.

The Excalibur Armada. The Red Army. The Gordian Armada. Whatever people wanted to call it, it was right in front of them. Over nine hundred ships, more advanced and impenetrable than any vessel known to man. And they were floating in space, directly in front of the Griffin Fire.

Her mother’s word echoed in Vere’s head.

The rock is worth an armada ten times the size of this one, because as long as it is here no blood will be shed.

Isabel had been insistent that the armada wouldn’t win the war for the CasterLan Kingdom, and yet now the vessels were available to be used. Whether it was her mother’s warning or the disbelief that ships which had been entrapped for thousands of years were now finally free, Vere continued to stare at the hundreds of starships in front of her without speaking.

“What do we do now?” Baldwin asked, his mouth still open.

The Excalibur Armada will not win this war for you.

How couldn’t it, Vere wondered. The vessels were right in front of her. They were here for the taking. An act of frustration—attempting to destroy the entire Excalibur asteroid—had turned into her salvation.

“What are we going to do now?” Baldwin asked again.

It took a moment for Vere to find words again. When she finally spoke, she said, “Now we win a war.”

The Excalibur in Pieces
, by Tim Barton – Digital Art

53

The encrypted communication came in over Westmoreland’s secure line. After decoding it, he read the text three times. Each time he did, his eyes narrowed a little bit more. Taking a deep breath, he put the handheld display back in his pocket and went in search of Morgan.

Various tents were set up on a patch of Dela Turkomann’s desert surface. Around the perimeter was a collection of Llyushin transports, the Pendragon, and three other CasterLan ships.

He found Morgan in the corner of the command tent, digging through a bin of supplies. “You’ll want to read this,” he said.

“What is it?”

Instead of telling her, he handed her his device and let her read it for herself.

The text seemed straightforward enough:

LET’S ALL GET TOGETHER FOR TEA. WE NEED TO HAVE A MANDATORY GROUP MEETING, NOW!

“It’s from Vere,” he said.

After she had also read it a couple times, she said, “A code.”

The wrinkles around his eyes became more pronounced when he nodded. “She’s at the Excalibur. And she doesn’t want anyone else to know what she’s talking about...”

Morgan was well aware of how many spies Mowbray had on his payroll, each acting as if they were still loyal to Edsall Dark and to the CasterLan Kingdom, but each looking for any information they could find if it meant they could become a little richer.

“Who else received this note?” she asked.

“Just me. She would know I would immediately tell you. I’m not sure how many other people should know.”

The hair on Morgan’s arms stood straight up and a shiver ran through her spine. “There’s only reason she would send a coded message from that asteroid.” She had to calm herself before she added, “You really think she found a way to free the Excalibur Armada?”

“It’s the only explanation.”

Morgan shook her head. A week earlier Vere had been in CamaLon’s entertainment district, drinking and thieving like old times. Now, she was using discretion to get the upper hand on Mowbray. Would wonders never cease?

“The only problem,” she said, “is that I have no idea what the code means. She freed the armada. Okay. Is she saying she wants everyone sent there or that the ships are on their way? It would have helped if she were just a little bit more specific.”

Westmoreland’s throat was raw and he coughed into his fist. The dry desert heat was dehydrating him, and no amount of water seemed to be enough.