The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1) (33 page)

“I was ordered not to.”

“By who?”

“Modred.”

“Well, you have new orders.” The blaster was still aimed right at the man. “Activate the Crown right now.”

The young man looked past her at the big goof, the doctor, and the Basilisk. Each of them also had blasters, although they weren’t pointed at him. With the mood Traskk was in, however, just having the ensign look at him with that dumbfounded expression was enough to make him slam his tail against the ground and hiss. Immediately, the ensign forgot about the blaster that was being pointed at him and focused his fear on the reptile across the room.

“I know it’s difficult to disobey an order,” Morgan said. “But sometimes, it’s the smartest thing you can do.”

She was saying it to the ensign but she wished Hotspur were there to hear it as well. This entire battle, all of the death and destruction going on, could have been prevented if Hotspur had only questioned his orders to attack a seemingly random ship rather than carry them out with glee.

When the man still didn’t say or do anything, she moved her index finger to the tip of the blaster’s trigger. This got the man moving. He turned in his chair and began punching in a series of commands. Baldwin and Fastolf watched a set of monitors to see what was going on above the planet.

“Activating the Crown,” the ensign said.

After a few seconds, a humming noise began. After a minute, a click sounded, then an incredibly large engine began to thrum, a noise that engulfed the control room as if they were standing right behind a Solar Carrier as it prepared for take off.

The humming and the gigantic motor continued, followed by the grinding of metal on metal. A rumble went up through the floor.

The ensign added, “The Crown will be ready in three, two, one.”

“You know what to do,” Morgan said, watching the monitors that showed just how badly Hotspur’s fleet was doing.

Hundreds of floors above them, atop the king’s quarters and higher than any other point in the capital, the five giant barrels began to inch sideways, the entire structure rotating slowly until one of the points of the Crown was pointed up toward the battle.

73

 
“Fire!” Hotspur yelled. A second later, after the Solar Carrier unleashed another blast, he yelled again, “Fire!”

As he watched, his ship’s cannons released volleys of laser blasts at the swarming Vonnegan fleet. Another Athens Destroyer was turned to floating space debris, but was immediately replaced by another, and still there were more ships appearing through the portal. He had given up on asking his captain for updates on how the rest of the fleet was doing. Sector 3 was gone. Sector 2 only had two CasterLan ships remaining. And in Sector 1, he was beginning to take on heavy fire.

The battle had already been going badly enough when it had just been the Destroyers versus his Carriers, but then the Vonnegan general had dispatched squadron after squadron of Thunderbolts. The tiny Vonnegan fighters—dark gray, shaped as if a team of engineers had tried to place a Y on top of a Q—swarmed over every damaged and crippled Solar Carrier. Hotspur had ordered his own fighters to be released, but the limited number of W-model Llyushin fighters were outnumbered ten to one by the Vonnegan ships.

Through it all he promised that if he did somehow live through this battle, he would choke the life out of Modred. He could crush the brat’s pitiful little neck with one hand. The thought made him smile.

“Fire!” he yelled. For some reason, the cannons of his Solar Carrier stopped sending out blasts. “Fire!” he screamed again.

“I’m sorry, sir,” his captain said. “We’ve taken too much damage. Our cannon systems are down.”

They were a sitting target and everyone knew it. A pair of Vonnegan fighters zipped past the deck, each firing a pair of proton torpedoes. An explosion rocked the ship and alarms began sounding everywhere, but the structure held up. The hull wasn’t breached and they weren’t sucked out into space.

Hotspur’s captain walked up beside him. “It was an honor serving with you, sir.”

Hotspur looked at him, saying nothing, then shook his head and turned to watch the battle once more.

Right then, a burst of light appeared in the sky, so bright and brilliant that everyone on the command deck had to close their eyes, and even after they reopened them, everything was hazy and blurred until their pupils recovered.

In front of them, an Athens Destroyer that had been firing on them was nothing more than the steel outline of a ship. All of its blast panels, all of its windows, radar dishes, cannons, everything, had been destroyed in one burst.

It took a moment, but Hotspur quickly realized what had happened. It hadn’t been a flash of light. It was a massive laser cannon. The laser that had raced past their ship and into the Destroyer had been degrees larger than all of the cannons of three Solar Carriers combined. It was larger even than the engines that powered the Solar Carriers.

Another burst of light rushed past Hotspur’s ship. All of the fighters, both Vonnegan and CasterLan, that were in its path, were instantly vaporized. The second enormous laser burst hit the next Athens Destroyer in the formation, and this one also became nothing more than steel beams and floating debris.

“It took long enough,” he said, but the captain next to him still had no idea what was happening.

Someone down below had activated the Crown.

Another shot rushed past his ship, obliterating yet another Athens Destroyer. The men behind him began celebrating. Their cheers only lasted for a split second, however, because Hotspur’s Solar Carrier was one of the few remaining in the battle and nearly all of the Vonnegan ships had turned their attention to it.

“A little too long, I suppose” he muttered, as a laser blast rip through another part of his ship.

A pair of Thunderbolts raced past. Each let off a complement of proton torpedoes which exploded right in front of him. The command deck windows exploded. He and everyone else who had been controlling the lead Solar Carrier were sucked out into space.

The battle was lost.

74

The first lift took Vere up over a hundred levels above ground. At its top, she ran across a hallway to where another lift would take her up to the next tier. As she zoomed skyward, she saw that someone had finally activated the Crown and that Athens Destroyers were being obliterated, one after another.

One such ship was halfway through the portal, only the front portion of it visible, when one of the Crown’s laser beams devastated it. Every part of the ship that had been through the portal was turned to a skeletal mass of scrap metal. The second half of the ship continued through the energy field, perfectly untouched by the destruction. But even the people in the rear of the vessel would die immediately once the ship’s tinder walls were destroyed and the energy coursing through the portal caused all of the living matter inside to perish.

The Crown was too late, though. Her father’s fleet was already in ruins. And maybe even worse, now that the Crown had begun firing, the Vonnegan fleet was dispersing. That meant it was a matter of time until Athens Destroyers made their way toward the planet so they could target Edsall Dark’s colossal weapon and prevent any further losses.

As she was taken up toward the next tier of CamaLon, she saw an Athens Destroyer descend toward the spaceport, where it would surely unload a battalion of troops to begin taking over the city.

She was running out of time. Or had she already run out of time? What was left for her to do? Her father was already dead. The war had already started and was largely finished. Did it matter that she was finally racing home?

At the top of the second tier, she ran toward the third and final lift that would take her up to the king’s chambers and other restricted areas of the capital. Running around the corner of a hallway, she hit squarely into the back of Pistol. The android, made with stabilizing mechanisms vastly superior to human equilibrium and balance, barely moved when she bounced off him. But he also didn’t turn and attack her because he registered who had run into him before turning around.

“What are you guys doing?” she asked.

Hector was on the other side of Pistol. The two of them had been looking at a holographic display of some sort. Hector’s hover platform swiveled so he was facing her.

“Trying to figure out if there’s a secondary control room,” he told her. “One to shut off the portal.”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “I hate to say it.”

Hector nodded. “I was afraid of that.”

“You’re injured,” Pistol said, a small light appearing in his right eye and shining on the gash across her neck.

“It’s nothing. Just a badge I have to bear.” She looked up the next hallway, then behind her before asking, “Where are the others?”

“Getting into the control room,” Pistol said. “If Fastolf can fit through the doorway.”

“The Crown is firing on the Vonnegan fleet. I assume they got in.”

“Good,” Hector said. “What’s our next move, then?”

She glanced at the same display they had been looking at, which showed the floor plan of the upper levels. Their options were limited.

“If there is a way to shut off the portal and it isn’t in the main control room, I would guess it might be near my father’s chambers.”

She pressed her fingers against a red bar of light next to the third lift. A blue light blinked and the door opened. As soon as all three of them were inside, the door slid shut and they were being zipped upward.

They rode in silence, Vere collecting her thoughts, Pistol not talking unless spoken to, and Hector always happy to have quiet. Far below them, she could see the ground and the fields she had walked across only minutes earlier. It seemed an impossibly long distance from where she was now.

At the top of the third tier, there were only a few options where they could go. But the place Vere most wanted to see was her father’s chambers, where her father had most likely been when he died, and where his body most likely was still resting. Lacking a better idea of what to do, that was where she went. Hector and Pistol followed a few feet behind.

Vere swiped her fingers through a bar of light to be allowed entry through a series of smooth, metal doors, but at the last door, Hector’s energy platform dipped toward the ground until he reared backward. When he tried again, the energy that kept him hovering at hip level began to flicker and he faltered toward the floor. He moved backward and told Pistol to stick his arm through the doorway. The android’s hand passed through, but then his fingers immediately became limp, dangling like a failed puppet show.

“A Treagon barrier,” Hector announced. “We can’t pass through with you.”

Vere nodded. “Head back the same direction we came and see if there might be any other rooms with controls to shut off the portal. You’ll only have a couple minutes before Vonnegan troops begin flooding the hallways.”

“Understood,” Hector said.

The way he looked at her and smiled made her afraid he was going to say something like, “Your father would be proud.” But instead he merely swiveled on his energy platform and took off down the next hallway with Pistol right behind him.

She watched them go, then turned back toward the door. This one, unlike the others, had an old fashioned knob. All she had to do was turn it and walk through.

In front of her was a wide, circular array of windows that looked out on every direction of the planet. It was a room she had been in countless times while growing up. But now, unlike when she had been here last, her father’s bed was in the very middle of the room. His body, she saw, was still atop it. His skin was gray and it hung off of every bone. Just as she had feared, he was obviously dead.

She began walking toward what was left of her father when she saw a figure in the shadows, his back to her, looking out the windows.

The man’s hand looked empty, but on either end of his closed fist she saw parts of a crossguard and handle. And she knew then that even though she couldn’t see the blade, it was her father’s Meursault sword.

“Hello, Vere,” Modred said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

75

Hotspur watched as he floated away from his Solar Carrier. Looking back, he saw the open crevice where the final proton torpedoes had broken through the last bits of armor plating and shields.

In his space armor, he could survive out in the void of the galaxy until his oxygen supply ran out or until one of the fighters came by to blast away survivors as they floated in space.

Something gripped his arm. Looking to his side, he saw his captain was there next to him. He too had his space armor on, but he hadn’t trained in it long enough. Even though he still had a limited amount of emergency oxygen to keep him alive, the man was gasping for air as if he were suffocating. As he did, he clawed at Hotspur for help.

What did he think Hotspur could do for him? The man’s panic was his own fault. Not only would flailing his arms and legs use up the limited amount of oxygen in his space armor much faster, it would also alert the nearest Vonnegan fighters that an officer had survived and should either be shot or taken prisoner. Hotspur didn’t want to be around when that happened.

With one hand, he steadied the distance between himself and his captain. This made the captain momentarily calm down, feeling that Hotspur was in charge. But instead of assisting any further, Hotspur punched the man in the gut. The captain let go of Hotspur’s uniform and brought his knees to his stomach in a zero gravity fetal position.

Next, Hotspur faced himself where he wanted to go and pressed a button on the wrist panel of his suit. Each set of space armor had a single nitrogen burst in the boots that would allow its owner to get positioned for rescue. In open space, the wearer could travel for light-years on the strength of one small nudge, until he or she came close to another gravitational force. Of course, the limited amount of air available in his side pouches only ensured his ability to breathe for a couple of minutes, so anything after that would be a dead man coasting through space for millions of miles in a protected shell.