The Round Table (Space Lore Book 3) (30 page)

In the darkness of the tunnels, the energy platform that his upper body rested upon was a disadvantage because its glow revealed exactly where he was at all times. The rest of his soldiers could glide through the shadows and darkness; Hector was his own lighthouse beckoning anyone nearby to take notice. He took comfort in knowing, however, that any Vonnegan trooper who saw that light would shoot at him and not at his squad.

The trench machine they had been following had already changed levels. Looking at the display on his wrist, Hector guessed the Vonnegan troopers were already five minutes back in the direction they had come. All he had to do was have his forces dig a hole through the wall created by his trench machine and then he and his soldiers could begin racing through the tunnel created by the Vonnegans.

The digging took less than three minutes. He saw in his soldiers the same nervous energy that he had possessed when he was their age. Back when he had legs and most of his academy classmates were still alive.

Even with his hover platform enveloped in a haze of dust, the glow of his platform made it more likely to be noticed. Because of this, he refused to let his soldiers go ahead of him. Instead, he moved close to the underground wall, his squad on the other side of the tunnel.

It took almost no time to catch up to the Vonnegan troops. It was easy to know how much further they had to go because of how loud the trench machine was. The trencher also masked any noise Hector and his soldiers made as they sneaked up behind the Vonnegan troopers.

Ahead of him, he saw a group of roughly fifty Vonnegan troops, all in heavy armor, following close behind the trench machine that was clearing the way for them. None of them had any idea that Hector or his soldiers were behind them. Hector’s giant cannonball shoulders fell slightly, knowing he was about to slaughter a group of fighters who were only there because they were fighting on their ruler’s behalf. They all had families and homes. And yet, they would all just as quickly kill Hector and his soldiers if they had a chance. None of it made sense. It was the essence of what made war so insane.

The only thing that gave him the resolve to move into action was knowing with all of his heart that this really would be the last time a battle like this would have to be fought. The round table would ensure that.

With one fist holding his staff blaster, he raised the other fist in the air, knuckles pointed at his men. Soldiers came up behind him. As soon as he dropped his fist, they would rush forward and begin the attack.

That was why he tilted his platform forward a fraction of a second before he dropped his hand. As his soldiers knew he would be, Hector was the first one to pull the trigger of his blaster and the first to race up to the enemy.

The soldiers beside him all fired theirs as well. A moment later, the attack was over without a single enemy blaster having been fired. Fifty Vonnegan troopers lay dead on the ground. The trench machine, oblivious to the fact that no Vonnegans were following it any more, continued burrowing a hole toward the capital. Hector let it go.

Turning to face his troops, he told them they had all done a good job. Before they could celebrate the first victory of the day, however, the tunnel ceiling creaked, then caved in. A force of dirt and stone, as strong as a crashing wave, pushed against all of them.

Everything went dark. A loud roar sounded in all of their ears.

When the dust began to settle, Hector realized what had happened. A second Vonnegan trench machine had been digging a hole almost directly above the first. Someone from Vonnegan command must have been alerted to the attack that Hector had led and told the second trench machine to close the distance between the two tunnels. The weight of the machine had caused the roof of the first tunnel to collapse.

Still in a daze, he saw a dozen of his soldiers were gone, crushed under the weight of the trench machine and the ceiling that had caved in. His head cleared in a moment, soon enough to realize that if there was another Vonnegan trench machine, there must also be another squad of Vonnegan troopers…

That was when blaster fire erupted everywhere. Screaming. Chaos. Vibro blades glowing into life. Half of Hector’s forces were dead and more were joining them with every blaster shot.

“No,” he screamed. “No!”

Without bothering to try and coordinate a counter attack, he raced forward and began slicing down Vonnegan troopers with the glowing blade of his staff. When three Vonnegan troopers clung to his weapon, he released it and picked up one of the soldiers, throwing him against the tunnel wall hard enough that the purple armor cracked. Another he punched with so much force that the trooper’s helmet caved in. The third he pounced on top of and let his energy disk disintegrate the top half of the enemy.

Still there were Vonnegan blasters firing everywhere around him. Hector’s soldiers, while returning fire, were dying, one after another.

“No,” he screamed again, racing toward another group of Vonnegan troops.

79

“Still no report of any activity in zone one of the battlefield,” Pistol said.

Vere shook her head. “I know, I know.”

Every time the main command center sent a communication, which was every ten seconds now, it included the same glaring fact. No one had seen or heard from the Gur-Khan since the previous night. That entire region of their defenses had been left unprotected.

Traskk hissed that the Gur-Khan had never intended to fight alongside her other allies. Instead, they had demanded one entire portion of the battlefield just so they could betray Vere.

All she could tell him in response was, “Well, I hope you’re wrong. Let’s not lose faith in them yet.”

The next update came through:
No contact with Gur-Khan. Wall extremely vulnerable.

It was the same thing, over and over.

Vere pressed her fingertips into both sides of her forehead and groaned. It was as if the generals on the other side of the wall thought she wasn’t paying attention to what was going on, as if she had somehow missed the previous hundred updates as they had been passed along. She was the one outside the wall, not them. It was her planet and her people’s homes that would be destroyed today if things didn’t go as planned, not theirs.

Yet another update:
Kaiser Doom’s general threatening to move all troops over to zone one.

If his forces did move from where they were, it would just take valuable soldiers from zone two and weaken that area. Mowbray would readjust and the entire line would be compromised.

“Tell him to keep his forces where they are.”

The next update:
Gerchin the Suspicious demanding reassurance that his forces are not at risk because of the empty zone one.

Not at risk? They had arrived to Edsall Dark with the knowledge that there would likely be an all-out war. Already, shots had been fired in space, every part of the fields of Aromath the Solemn were ablaze with explosions and laser blasts, and there were reports of skirmishes in the underground tunnels. Not at risk? Everyone was at risk—that was why they were here.

“Tell him everything will be fine.”

The next update was from one of her own generals:
Recommend bringing limited number of Solar Carriers down to guard zone one.

Was he crazy? Having the skies swarming with Thunderbolts and Llyushin fighters was one thing. For the most part, they negated each other, ensuring neither was effective at attacking the other side’s ground troops. But if Mowbray saw Solar Carriers descend toward the planet’s surface, he would be forced to call in his Athens Destroyers to do the same. Even if Vere won the battle, all of CamaLon and much of Edsall Dark would be obliterated.

“Absolutely not,” she said, turning from the screen.

When Pistol began to read the next alert, she held up a hand for him to be silent.

“Tell them,” she said, “that I’m very aware of the situation. Remind them they are on the safe side of the wall. I’m here, where the fighting is, and I’m sure the Gur-Khan will do what they promised.”

Pistol nodded. Instead of vocalizing the message, his eyes began to glow, and the message was sent directly from his internal system to the command center.

This only satisfied the leaders and generals for another two minutes. After that, more alerts began to come through at an even faster pace. These communications all noted the progress that Mowbray’s mechs were making. At first, it had appeared that only a dozen such armored units were trying to cross the field. But as each wave was destroyed, another swerved around it and advanced. Now, waves and waves of armored mechs were moving across the fields. As many laser cannons as the allied forces were firing, it didn’t appear to be enough to shoot every mech in every part of the rolling hills. And the Llyushin fighters weren’t able to offer air support because the Thunderbolts were keeping them busy. To add to that, almost all of the mechs had changed course and were now moving toward zone one of the battlefield, where there was no resistance at all.

Without anything else to aim at, the cannons in zone three stopped firing. Meanwhile, the cannons in the middle of the battlefield had to choose between the armored mechs in front of them or the ones to their right. If they focused on the mechs coming straight at them, it would be a matter of time until the unchallenged mechs in zone one came up and breached the capital wall or else swept the Round Table defenses from the side. If they instead focused only on the untouched mechs in zone one, the middle mechs would get too close and tear them apart. But if they split their focus between both groups, they wouldn’t have enough firepower to prevent every mech from both zones and two thirds of the battlefield would be compromised.

A rapid succession of messages continued to come across the comm system. Some offering sensible suggestions, others proposing tactics that, if enacted, would mean utter defeat for everyone she knew. The few times she acknowledged them, it was always to reiterate her belief that the Gur-Khan would fulfill their duties.

No matter how adamant she was, though, doubt began to creep into the back of her head. Rather than her own internal monologue, the skepticism took the form of Morgan’s voice. She imagined her friend reminding her that they had relied on other armies to assist them two years earlier and it had ended in disaster. She imagined Morgan telling her that it had been absurd all along to leave one entire portion of the battlefield to a mere ten fighters. Most of all, Morgan would say, it was crazy to keep believing in a bad plan even as reality demonstrated that armored mechs were encountering no resistance on their way toward zone one of the capital wall.

She closed her eyes and steadied her breathing. Almost immediately, the sounds and activities of the forward command bunker faded away, replaced by the void of nothingness. A moment later, she got the feeling that another presence had joined her. Mortimous had appeared. As she kept herself centered, she sensed that additional presences were also there. Were they members of that alien race, so advanced they existed beyond time and space, or were they other searchers like herself, Galen, and her mother?

Mortimous nodded and answered her question even before she could ask it: “You are doing the right thing, Vere. Trust in your instincts.”

“But what about two years ago?”

Mortimous chuckled. “By what stretch of the imagination did you think Arc-Mi-Die and the gangster Ballona were your allies? You deceived yourself into believing they were there to help.”

“And now?”

The wise old man’s smile could be heard when he spoke. “And now you are deceiving yourself into believing the forces that have arrived aren’t actually here to help.”

“How am I supposed to know what’s right and what’s wrong?”

“Calm your mind,” he said. “When you are at peace, the answer will be clear.” Then, pointing at her, he added, “What does your heart tell you now?”

“That the Gur-Khan will be here. That they will help.”

Mortimous smiled, then began to fade away. As he did, his voice lingered: “Very good.”

When she opened her eyes, she was back in the forward command bunker, where her body had been the entire time.

A new message came through the comm system:
What do you want us to do?

New message:
We have to do something?

New Message:
If we don’t do something soon, the battle will be lost.

As she watched, the cannons in front of her began alternating between firing at the armored mechs straight ahead and the ones to her right in zone one. Mechs were crashing to the ground when their hover fields failed. Others blew up into pieces while still floating just above the ground. But there were just too many of them. They were getting closer and closer. And even some of the ones that had been destroyed had a limited number of Vonnegan troopers in heavy armor who got out of the machine and used it for cover as they began firing at the Round Table forces. Everywhere she looked across the field, there were streaks of laser blasts, explosions, and the roar of battle.

New message:
They’re going to breach the wall in a matter of minutes if we don’t do something.

New message:
If they get to the wall in zone one, they’ll wipe out the other two zones in quick fashion.

New message:
Are you there?
We have to do something!

Pistol looked at her expectantly.

“They’ll be there,” she said, looking to where the Gur-Khan were supposed to be. “They’ll be there.”

80

At least for Quickly, the firefight over the fields of Aromath the Solemn wasn’t so much a battle for life and death, as it was an annoyance. There was nothing that dozens of Thunderbolts could do to him that he couldn’t handle.

The problem was that while he wasn’t afraid of any of the Vonnegan pilots, no matter how good they might be, there were too many of them for him to do much else than destroy them one by one. Each time he tried to pull away from the battle between Llyushin fighters and Thunderbolts in order to assist the Round Table forces on the ground, a pair of Vonnegan fighters would follow. Instead of being able to dive down toward the ground and send some proton torpedoes at the waves of armored mechs that were making their way across the battlefield, he had to immediately swerve away and begin planning for how to put two more Thunderbolts out of commission.