The Round Table (Space Lore Book 3) (7 page)

Balor reached down with one of his gigantic hands and picked Baldwin up in the air. In his scaly and dusty face, Morgan saw that her friend was already dead. The monster roared, then clenched the fist that held Baldwin’s corpse. As Morgan watched, Baldwin’s body broke into dusty chunks that scattered on the ground.

Knowing she was next, Morgan looked all around for something to protect her from the one-eyed horror that would be coming her way. Seeing the unconscious alien inmate by her feet, she yanked him up by the edge of his shell and held him in front of her just as Balor took two giant steps forward.

The alien she was holding as a protective shield went from having soft, fleshy skin where his shell didn’t cover him, to the stone skin of a Gthothch. As she held it, the alien in her arms was completely dehydrating, withering into a dried out husk. And after it was dead, Balor would swat it aside and do the same to Morgan.

14

Vere dug her foot into the ground, got her shoulders squared, then heaved forward as hard as she could. The Circle of Sorrow turned another few inches.

A tiny part of her was cognizant of the fighting and yelling all around her. However, it didn’t register as anything out of the ordinary. The same part of her was aware that she was on Terror-Dhome performing grueling labor at the Cauldrons. While she understood her circumstances, they were not a burden, a thing to dread.

The truth was she wouldn’t have survived one week at the Cauldrons if she hadn’t learned to block out everything going on around her, especially while she was pushing the Circle of Sorrow. And in fact, it hadn’t been her own doing. The entire journey aboard Mowbray’s shuttle on her way to being processed at the Cauldrons of Dagda, she had been filled with anger and regret.

“This one won’t make it a week,” the android in charge of registering new inmates at the prison had said upon seeing her.

She wouldn’t have either, unless Mortimous had come to her rescue.

“You’re here to get me out of this cesspit?” she had asked, seeing him that first hopeless night.

When he replied, she heard in his voice the same amused smile that she had grown to detest. “In a manner of speaking.”

It wasn’t her body that escaped the Cauldrons, but her mind. Mortimous set about teaching her how to calm her thoughts so he could appear to her more often. After receiving a lashing from a vibro whip for talking while she worked, Mortimous taught her how to communicate with him using her mind rather than her mouth. Eventually, he was able to teach her how to see far-off places she had never been to before. All those years earlier in the caves, Galen had been right when he had said there really was so much more to the galaxy than what people saw in everyday life.

All of this she did while her physical body continued to push the Circle of Sorrow each day. Eventually, she began to get fleeting impressions that the beings which Mortimous had made contact with years earlier were nearby. The aliens weren’t bound by time or space and because of that were unknown by almost everyone in the galaxy.

“What do you call them?” Vere asked.

“I don’t call them anything,” Mortimous replied. “Various people have given them different names, but no single word can be used to identify them. They are known by every word, and by no words at all.”

The more she listened to Mortimous, the more she understood that he wasn’t trying to talk in riddles or confuse her; it was simply that certain aspects of the galaxy weren’t as straightforward as yes or no and black or white.

“Sounds like the exact opposite of an old friend of mine,” she said. “He used to be fond of asking which one word could describe someone’s legacy.”

Mortimous laughed. “Everyone has their own insights on the nature of life. Even Occulus.”

Her eyes widened. “You knew him?”

“I know a great many people, Vere. I was just speaking to Occulus the other day and he asked me the same question.” Then shaking his head in amusement, “I think it was the millionth time he has asked me that.”

Years earlier, she would have thought Mortimous was lying, that there was no way he could be in contact with a man who had died in the Forest of Tears years ago. Now, though, she accepted the statement as being his truth. Everything she had seen in the last few years had taught her she didn’t know much about the way the galaxy actually worked. She had accused Galen of being misled, but everything she had once thought to be preposterous didn’t seem so foolish at all anymore.

She asked Mortimous for explanations. Some times he offered them. Other times he didn’t. Often, he provided an answer and she wasn’t sure which question, if any, he was explaining, and so she could only listen to try to make sense of what he said.

From the time she stepped out into the bubbling prison yard each morning to the time she was allowed to stop for her meals, she let her mind drift away while her body pushed the wheel in its endless revolutions.

That was why she had survived while so many others had perished. Not because she was stronger or because her drive for revenge was greater, but because the other inmates around her dwelled on their circumstances while Vere allowed her mind to forget about not only the past and the future, but also the present.

All of the other prisoners had been preoccupied with what was going to happen to them, about the pain they would endure that day, about never seeing their friends or family again. That had broken each of them as much as the heat, the excruciating work, and the vibro whips. Vere never even noticed how dry her throat was or how many blisters covered her hands until it was time to stop for a meal. That was when she returned to her body.

She never allowed the wounds on her back, left by the vibro whips, to make her feel sorry for herself. She didn’t even think about Edsall Dark or all the people she knew who were now living under Vonnegan rule. All around her, prisoners were begging to be allowed to die while Vere didn’t utter a word or a complaint. All because of the things Mortimous had taught her—the same things that she had once scolded Galen for wasting his time with. Because of this, she was able to continue moving a heavy wooden beam that brought aliens twice her size to their knees. Days passed. Weeks. Months. Maybe even years. It didn’t matter as long as she could go to the places Galen and her mother had talked about.

There were still moments when the same thoughts and fears that burdened every other prisoner also came to her. These instances were rare, though, occurring only in the morning before work or at night when, exhausted, she crumpled on a cot to sleep. But as soon as she was asleep, Mortimous returned and the two of them talked about the beings that were not bound by time or space, about the first time he had seen them, about all of the other people he had helped as part of the Word.

It was during one such talk that Mortimous mentioned the round table for the first time. Vere didn’t know it then, but the discussions about the round table would one day change the entire galaxy.

15

“This is actually much easier than I thought it was going to be,” Cade said.

The man had almost blown himself up, along with the ship everyone was supposed to get away on, and now he was saying how easy the jailbreak seemed.

Quickly shook his head and sighed. “Don’t jinx us.”

Every pilot knew it was the kiss of death to tempt fate. Cade might as well have said he had no idea why the Cauldrons of Dagda were supposed to be so impenetrable.

Quickly had piloted every type of mission in almost every corner of the galaxy and knew why so many pilots, himself included, were superstitious. The universe had a funny way of making you remember the irony of your words at the most inopportune times. Not only that, his metal arm reminded him just how lucky he had been once before, coming within inches of death. Fortune only lasted so many occasions before it ran out.

As if to prove the point, a trio of blaster shots hit the front of the Griffin Fire. Looking at the holographic cockpit displays, Quickly saw the tiny image of three Vonnegan starfighters flying toward him. The group of Thunderbolts had come from an Athens Destroyer that was also approaching the planet. Cringing, he noticed the flagship was coming in at an angle that blocked the most direct path away from the prison.

“You were saying?” he grumbled across the ship’s comm system. Perhaps Cade would know to keep his mouth shut next time.

He did not get a reply.

Without waiting for another round of laser blasts to come his way, Quickly powered up the ship’s front shields, then brought the vessel into a slight turn so he was racing directly at the incoming fighters. He aimed the Griffin Fire’s front turrets and shot the same time the Thunderbolts fired their next rounds. One of the three Vonnegan fighters missed its target. The blasts from the other two ships were absorbed by the Griffin Fire’s shields, although they were weakened enough that an alarm began to chime next to Quickly’s head. At the same time, the lead Thunderbolt erupted into flames after getting hit with two laser bursts, then exploded. The two ships behind it immediately broke off in opposite directions.

Cade’s voice came across the comm speakers: “Anything you’d like me to do?”

“Just sit there and hope they focus their attention on me,” Quickly answered.

If the fighter pilots were smart, they would have ignored the Griffin Fire completely until they destroyed the Pendragon. It would have been easy enough; it was stationary and seemingly defenseless. But the pilots might not have gotten the message from the prison as to which other ship stationed at the Terror-Dhome spaceport was to be captured or destroyed. And anyway, it was only natural that pilots would focus their attention on the starjet that was attacking them than on some vessel that didn’t seem like an immediate threat.

Looking at the display screen, Quickly saw the pair of Thunderbolts making a wide arc in an attempt to come up behind him. Instead of giving them time to do so, he brought the ship into another turn so he would be heading directly at them again. His front shields couldn’t take many more direct shots, but it was a better tactic than leading them on a chase and evading laser blasts. No matter how good a pilot he was, he would eventually get hit too many times and wouldn’t be any help to the mission.

The Griffin Fire was outfitted with superior weapons, stronger engines, and a more durable shield system. Even so, it took Quickly a split second longer to carry out each aspect of flying the ship than it did with the vessels he piloted most frequently. There was no one in the old CasterLan Kingdom who knew more about piloting Llyushin transports and Llyushin fighters. But even amongst those ships, no two vessels were exactly the same. Each navigation system responded somewhat differently. Each targeting system had its own ideas about what the primary target should be. That was why pilots fell in love with one ship and never wanted to fly anything else, because they began to know the ship in ways others could not.

Quickly had gone through test flights in the Griffin Fire, conducting simulations against various types of Vonnegan ships, but nothing could prepare him for the real thing. And when the real battle did start, as it just had, he found that his response times, while superior to the Thunderbolt pilots, were still a fraction slower than he demanded of himself.

Even before he was able to destroy another Thunderbolt on the next pass, he saw that three more ships were rapidly approaching. Behind them, another three.

“They’d better get Vere out of there soon or we’re all dead,” he said into the comm system.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Don’t do anything,” Quickly snapped. “Don’t give them any indication which other ship they should be attacking.” He flinched as another two blasts hit the Griffin Fire, rattling the ship’s frame. Two panels of the fake shell blew apart, revealing part of the actual ship beneath the false skin Morgan’s engineers had created. “I can’t keep all of these ships occupied at the same time. They’ll easily get you if you do anything to attract attention.”

Then, turning his focus to the eight Thunderbolts now swarming the skies around him, he swerved up, away from the planet and released an ion depth charge. Two seconds after it was released and the Griffin Fire was safely away, a wave of pale green energy rippled through the sky, destroying everything in its path. Three Thunderbolts were engulfed in the explosion. One instantly erupted into flames and blew apart. The other two left a trail of fire behind them as they careened into the planet’s lava seas.

The remaining five Thunderbolts all opened fire at the same time. One blast hit the Griffin Fire’s side turret, destroying it. Two more hit the front shields. Another large chunk of the false ship tore away, revealing more of the actual Griffin Fire. An alarm informed Quickly that the front shields could only take one more hit before they went down. Then the ship got hit again and the next alert signaled that the front shields were completely offline. If the vessel took another direct hit to that portion of the ship, it would almost certainly result in Quickly losing the vessel.

“This is easier than I thought it was going to be,” he mumbled in a mocking tone, then slammed the ship’s controls forward to begin another counterattack.

At this rate, even if they did manage to free Vere, he wouldn’t be around to see it. And once he was gone, the Vonnegan ships would easily determine that the Pendragon was the other vessel they were supposed to destroy. Vere, Morgan, and the others, if they were still alive, would finally get out of the prison grounds, only to find they had no way of getting off the planet.

16

“Sir?” the colonel said.

Le Savage did not bother to turn from the windows that overlooked the volcanic prison yard. “Yes?”

“The Athens Destroyer has arrived. A squadron of Thunderbolts is pursuing the raiders’ ships. One of the ships has already sustained heavy damage. They do not expect the battle to last much longer.”

“Very good,” Le Savage said.

As much as he hated smiling in front of his men, he couldn’t help himself after hearing the report. The ships at the spaceport would be destroyed by the time the next update became available. And as he watched the battle unfold in the prison yard thirty stories below, he saw that one of Vere’s friends was already dead and that the woman who appeared to be the group’s leader was soon going to be the next person that the monster killed with its lethal eye. In addition to this, he had a squad of troopers setting up an ion cannon on the other side of the doorway from which they had entered the prison yard. As soon as it was ready, his forces would wheel it into the prison grounds and destroy everyone remaining, regardless of who or what they were. It was a matter of time until the invaders were all dead.