The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1) (32 page)

After a minute, a burst of laser hit the metal panel right where Traskk was holding it, burning two clawed fingers. He knew, though, that if he dropped the atomized metal panel he and Morgan would both die from having hundreds of more laser blasts hit them, and so all he could do was roar and keep holding the panel as steady as possible.

Another blaster was empty and Morgan tossed this one aside too, then picked up yet another. At the same time, Traskk grabbed a fresh piece of blast-proof paneling.

“And you guys thought this was crazy,” she said, laughing as she fired.

69

Everywhere Hector and Pistol went, they passed
 
people who were running one way or the other. Some were in uniform, some not. Some ran with a purpose, others were simply driven by panic.

People were beginning to whisper that not only was Hotspur’s fleet losing the battle, they were being slaughtered. That meant it was a matter of time until the Vonnegan ships either began firing on the city from high above the planet or deployed troops to overtake the capital. No one wanted to be around when either of those things happened.

Hector’s hover platform carried him to another intersection of hallways. When he looked around he didn’t see anything. Up the next hallway he began. Everywhere he went, Pistol followed.

Finally, Hector stopped and said, “Do you have any idea where a secondary control room might be? A command center? Anything?”

“I do not.”

“If we get you to a terminal, can you plug into the capital’s system and check where it might be?”

Pistol’s face remained absolutely emotionless when he spoke. “We can try, but it is extremely unlikely that I will have access to anything so sensitive.”

“Any other suggestions?”

A circle of light arced around both of Pistol’s irises as he processed the information. “Nothing that is likely to produce an advantageous outcome.”

Hector nodded. He had been all over the city center. He had been in the main control room and knew enough to realize there were no portal controls there. He had been on almost every level of the upper tiers of the capital center, and yet he had no idea where a portal command center might be—if it even existed.

Out a window, he saw a Solar Carrier’s power go out. The entire ship went dark. A moment later, it began drifting into the combat zone. It wandered, powerless, for a few seconds before more cannons ripped it apart. Hundreds of men would never have the choice of receiving replacement bionic legs, or no legs at all. Their destinies had been made for them.

He sighed, then leaned forward. When he did, the energy platform that his torso rested on began to race up the next hallway.

70

As Vere made her way across the fields leading to CamaLon and the heart of her father’s kingdom, she thought about Occulus and A’la Dure and Galen and everyone and everything else from her past. She thought of the last six years—fun, but a waste compared with how it could have been spent. She thought of Occulus’s last words and also of A’la Dure’s and Galen’s.

You can be whatever type of person you want.

Be better.

The galaxy is an incredible place when you start to see how it works.

She couldn’t help but wonder what her father’s last words would have been if she had been there to hear them.

Above her, a line of orange fire streaked through the Edsall Dark sky as part of a mangled Athens Destroyer entered the atmosphere and plummeted toward the ground. In front of her, the gate to CamaLon got bigger and bigger as she approached. No bounty hunters were coming for her any more. Instead, there was an eerie silence that seemed inconsistent with the death and destruction going on everywhere over the planet.

Why hadn’t she come here sooner? What had been more important? Drinking? Thieving? Just because a man she had loved had chosen a life without her rather than one with her? Because her father, usually understanding and loving, had momentarily seen her through the eyes of a ruler rather than those of a father, had thought more of what might be better for his people than for his daughter? Because it had been so easy for him to forget about her mother and marry someone else?

Her eyes returned to the battle overhead. A line of Athens Destroyers took an amazing amount of cannon fire, three of the ships losing their structural integrity and two of them breaking into hundreds of pieces. But at the same time, another group of Destroyers moved into place beside the Solar Carriers that had been focused on the first ships and obliterated an entire row of her father’s armada.

The battle wouldn’t last much longer, and still the ground defenses weren’t providing support to Hotspur. Even if they did win, her father was already dead, as was Galen—the love of her life—and both Occulus and A’la Dure.

Only days earlier, her life had consisted of avoiding this planet, drinking and stealing and fighting along with people who didn’t care about one kingdom or another. Now, two of those friends were dead. Her father’s kingdom was being taken over. And she was there to witness it firsthand.

She continued walking across the field until she arrived at the massive gates that divided the wilderness from the capital. Although she wasn’t sure if they would consider her an enemy or an ally, she certainly did expect guards at the gate. No one was there, however.

“Hello?” she said, passing through the open gate and making her way into the capital. The guard post was vacant. No kids or anyone else were around either. Everything was perfectly silent.

She passed by the area where she and Galen had played hide and seek so many times as kids. She passed by the area she had walked every morning with her mother. Every place she went, instead of the activity and people she associated with that place, there was only silence and emptiness.

“Hello?” she said again, but once more there was only quiet as the battle raged above, and she shuddered at the sight. This was what her father’s kingdom would be like if everyone were dead and CamaLon were a ghost town.

With that thought in mind, she quickened her pace, heading for the lift that would take her up to the top of the city center. Someone there should be able to tell her what was going on.

71

General Agravan stood at the main window of the command deck of his Athens Destroyer. His ship had taken some direct hits but nothing that the blast panels and shields couldn’t withstand. Fourteen of his Destroyers were out of action, nine of them complete losses—all personnel aboard assumed dead. But that was only one side of the story.

The other side was that only a few Solar Carriers remained. Already, more than thirty of the CasterLan flagships were decimated. Six more were still functioning, but for the purpose of battle they were also lost.

Mowbray had been wrong about there being no fighting at all, but Agravan preferred it this way. A victory without bloodshed inspired no one. What would Minot have to be proud of if the CasterLan army allowed their invaders to take over the kingdom without a fight? Minot’s reputation needed to be built on conquering defiant peoples, not on accepting the surrender of weaklings. This way, everyone would see what the Vonnegan fleet was capable of. Everyone would see that even a kingdom as mighty as the CasterLans had no forces capable of withstanding the Athens Destroyers.

“It is glorious,” Minot said, standing next to him on the deck, watching the same death and destruction.

“That it is,” Agravan agreed. “And soon, it will be yours.”

Whereas Mowbray had been wrong about there being no resistance at all, he had been right about the CasterLan defenses not being utilized. How Mowbray knew such a thing would happen was beyond Agravan’s grasp. It was part of what made Mowbray such a cunning and effective leader; he always knew more than anyone else. The proof was in front of the Vonnegan fleet as they destroyed Solar Carrier after Solar Carrier without any of the famous CasterLan defenses being initiated.

“Captain Murrow,” he said, not turning away from the window.

“Yes, General.”

“It’s time to mop up the remains.” In the space between the two fleets, hundreds of men in space armor drifted, waiting to be rescued. “Release the fighters.”

The captain nodded and punched in a series of commands on his display panel.

Deep inside the ship, a notification sounded. The side hangars of each Athens Destroyer opened up. From within each one, dozens of Vonnegan Thunderbolts, the single-manned attack fighters of the Vonnegan army, lifted off and joined the fight, swarming the already overwhelmed CasterLan fleet.

72

“We’re almost there,” Morgan said, peeking through the gap where Traskk was holding yet another panel so every blaster shot could be reflected back and forth. His fingers had been hit by lasers four more times. Each time this happened, he roared and bared his fangs as if he were going to attack everything around him. With every angry bellow, Morgan cringed and refused to look his direction for fear that acknowledging what was happening might prompt the Basilisk to start ripping the closest living thing to pieces.

Each time she peered around the edge of the blast panel, more and more laser shots were absorbing into the control room’s door rather than bouncing off of it. She had emptied four blasters into the door and was now on her fifth.

“Two more Solar Carriers without power. It looks like the Thunderbolts are in the battle now, too.”

She had asked Baldwin to watch the monitor above them and report on what was happening in the battle, but each description was so discouraging that she didn’t want to hear any more.

“It’s a matter of time until Hotspur releases the Llyushin fighters to counter them,” she said.

In the academy, Hotspur had been worshipped as an idol, a military leader who craved being at the front of every battle. Now, though, she saw him differently. His leadership style was built on intimidation rather than respect. His desire for glory above all else led him to be reckless and had single-handedly jeopardized the entire kingdom. But he was also the only person keeping the Vonnegan fleet from descending to the surface and changing CamaLon from the capital of the CasterLan Kingdom to yet another Vonnegan territory, along with the rest of Edsall Dark.

The next time she peeked at the blast door, all of the lasers were absorbing into the door.

“Okay,” she said, “Move back.”

Traskk let the panel of Hector’s ship fall flat on the ground. Fastolf and Baldwin went down the hallway and around the corner while Morgan and Traskk set explosives.

“Your hands gonna be all right?” she asked as they placed the charges against the door.

His response was an irritated growl.

A moment later, the two of them went running around the same corner where Baldwin and Fastolf were, just as a blast sounded and a rush of hot air blew by all of their faces.

When they looked down the hallway again, the door was gone. It took a while to make sure, though, because of all the smoke in the air.

Fastolf started to walk toward the door but Morgan grabbed him by the shoulder, keeping him hidden around the corner. If she were in the control room, she would wait for the people who were outside to start walking down the hallway before she used the smoke as cover and blasted them all away.

“You in there! Drop your weapons.” She waited a minute but no one said or did anything. “I have an extremely angry Basilisk here whose been shot four times in the last couple minutes, and he’s ready to tear the faces off anyone he finds in there. If I was you, I’d put my weapons down and leave right now.” Still no response. The only other thing she could think to yell was, “Hello?”

But no one responded to this either. She shrugged and nudged Fastolf to go ahead and be the first one to walk down the hallway if that was what he wanted. She had to admit he was perfect for it: with Fastolf in the lead, she and Baldwin were completely obstructed from sight.

After realizing why she had kept him from going initially, Fastolf wasn’t eager to move now. He cringed and looked for an excuse to stay where he was.

Gesturing at Baldwin, he said, “Make him go first.”

Baldwin looked offended and opened his mouth to protest but couldn’t think of anything to save himself.

“Sorry,” Morgan said, pulling on Fastolf’s sleeve. “It’s nothing personal.”

“If I do this, you promise to never tear my ear off or break my nose again?”

She sucked air in through her teeth. “You drive a tough bargain.”

For a moment she looked like she were actually weighing if it was worth it to have him go first if it meant not being allowed to hurt his face again. But then she nodded and said he had a deal.

The fool that he was, Fastolf actually closed his eyes as he made his way down the walkway so he wouldn’t have to see a laser burst come at him before he died. As he walked, Morgan and Baldwin followed close behind with Traskk bringing up the rear.

“Hello?” Fastolf called out.

Behind him, Morgan said, “If anyone is in there, drop your weapons and we won’t hurt you.”

At the spot where the door had been, Morgan leaned around the side of Fastolf’s belly and looked inside the control room. She had expected resistance, a group of CasterLan soldiers who had sworn to hold their post at all costs, their blasters ready to fire. Maybe an array of tables turned on their side to act as a makeshift barricade. Instead, as her eyes adjusted and began to see clearly through the dissipating smoke, she only saw a single lowly ensign, no weapon in sight, sitting in front of an array of switches and monitors. When Morgan and the others entered the control room, the ensign only looked at her, then went back to doing his job.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

The man, younger than her by at least five or six years and probably fresh out of his training class, looked at her, unsure of what he was supposed to say. She made it easy by pointing her blaster at him.

“Don’t make me ask again.”

“I’m monitoring the battle,” the meek response came back.

“Why aren’t you activating the ground defenses to help Hotspur?”