She had no way of knowing which of the three flagships were loyal to her husband and which were loyal to Hector. She did know, however, that neither Julian nor Hector would agree with what was happening. Both men would have been outraged by the violence between vessels emblazoned with the Round Table insignia.
The HC Ballistic Cruiser took an incredible amount of cannon fire as its flanking maneuver failed, forcing it to move away from the fighting before it suffered a catastrophic systems failure. The two Solar Carriers resumed firing their cannons on one another.
Julian was dead and the Round table was falling apart. Margaret wiped tears from her eye.
8
The Round Table soldier glanced at Talbot while they waited for a communications officer to arrive. He coughed and casually tapped on the Round Table insignia on his uniform as if to remind Julian’s son which side he should be on. Lancelot acted as though she didn’t notice. It was clear Talbot wouldn’t soon forget the same soldier had recently pointed a weapon at him. After the soldier nodded to Talbot and then to a cache of blasters on the far wall, Lancelot reached down and took the man by his throat.
“What’s your name?”
“DeMichaelis.”
“Well, DeMichaelis, if you haven’t noticed, a civil war is beginning. See those ships?”
She pointed to a hologram of the battle in the corner of the control room. The soldier nodded.
Lancelot said, “Hundreds, if not thousands, of your fellow Round Table friends will die if that battle continues.”
DeMichaelis gave a look of disgust. “What do you care, Carthagen? I heard about what you did to the officers who went into the asteroid tunnels.”
Lancelot’s first instinct was to yank the man off the ground and throw him into the wall. Her arm flexed and her suit prepared for action.
Her second instinct was to collect herself and work on her patience as Vere had often suggested. Many of the stories Vere related to Lancelot involved her being young and quick to act rather than taking the time to think things through. In one story, Vere said she had accepted a game of chopping off a green knight’s head without thinking of the possible repercussions. She had almost paid with her own life. This thought made Lancelot take a deep breath, release her grip on DeMichaelis, and turn away from him.
The third idea that crossed her mind was that the soldier in front of her didn’t even know how to operate the control room’s console and someone else was arriving who did. That meant it didn’t matter what happened to him. Anyway, DeMichaelis had no regard for her even though she was trying to help, so why should she have any regard for him? The notion made it easy for her base instincts to take over.
She spun on her heels. Her hand grabbed at DeMichaelis’ neck.
“Don’t,” Talbot said. “There’s been enough bloodshed.”
“Has there?” she said, nodding in the direction of the hologram of the battle. “Tell that to them.”
He stared at her even though her face was obstructed by the fogged lens of her Carthagen helmet. They remained that way, saying nothing, as the holographic display showed the two sets of flagships unleash round after round of laser cannons on each other.
“What do you think?” she said to DeMichaelis, who wasn’t moving or speaking for fear of having his neck crushed.
The soldier remained silent, refusing to look at the holographic battle, only staring directly at her. His eyes were unwavering. Although she had lived most of her life in an asteroid, her time traveling across the galaxy in search of Arc-Mi-Die had given her enough experience with the lowlifes of the universe to know why he was staring at her. He was trying to maintain her attention so she didn’t realize what his hands were doing...
Her hands darted from the man’s neck to Talbot’s shoulders. Without speaking, she threw him behind her. With her lower arms she retrieved her Meursaults and slashed at him. DeMichaelis was cut in half with one blade and his arms were cut off at the elbow with the other. The invisible swords left a trail of mist through the air that momentarily became red where they passed through the soldier.
DeMichaelis lay dead on the ground.
“Wh—”
Before Talbot could ask why she had done that, Lancelot drew a vibro lance and drove it down into the ground at the very edge of a flashing ion grenade. The tip of the lance glanced off the edge of the explosive, sending it through the air. It flew to the doorway of the control room before erupting into a blaze of light and destruction.
“He was going to kill us?” Talbot said, his voice weak.
“He was going to kill me. You just happened to be here. A lovely group of associates you have on this planet.”
“It’s not usually like this,” he said softly, his eyes looking down at the ground.
Lancelot walked to the smoke-filled doorway and stuck her head out. A man was there, dressed in what she guessed was an engineer’s or specialist’s uniform because of the lack of armor and weapons.
“You must be the comms officer,” she said.
The man’s eyes grew wide at the sight of her alien armor and he stopped breathing. Before he could turn and run she grabbed him by the collar and yanked him inside the control room.
“What... what... what’s going on?” he stammered.
“Not much,” she said, knowing her helmet would make her voice sound ominous and cold. “We just need you to help us stop a civil war. That’s all.”
The man looked at her, then at Talbot, then back at her. Then he fainted.
9
The Crown, the five-barreled cannon capable of ripping flagships apart, was the tallest structure in all of CamaLon. Underneath it was the chamber that CasterLan rulers had resided in for centuries. Following Artan the Good’s death, the chamber had been converted into a museum that children could visit in order to understand why people had once thought kings and queens were necessary and why the Round Table had been formed.
Inside the chamber, red lights began flashing, but the room had already been evacuated. A Trakdorian teacher had ushered her children out of the room as soon as the two sets of flagships began firing upon one another. The room was silent as Vere and Mortimous watched the violence unfold above the planet. Both wore robes with hoods pulled over their heads.
Vere shook her head and groaned. “This is what our effort has achieved? A civil war? Friend fighting friend?”
Mortimous watched the same battle, and yet his perspective was vastly different. “When I took a chance on you, you were thieving and drinking every day. Look how you turned out.”
The counterpoint did nothing to improve Vere’s outlook. “Do you know how many times you’ve told me that?”
“I do tend to repeat myself,” the old man said with a smile.
“We brought the galaxy together and yet they still fight each other. Maybe it really is hopeless.”
“Hopeless? How can you say such a thing after all you’ve witnessed?”
“Because I’m watching ships that belong to the same banner fire on one another. Down below, men and women with the same insignia on their armor are killing each other. Maybe the Word is right,” she said, referring to the aliens that had moved beyond an existence of space and time. “Maybe we’ll never learn.”
“All hope is not lost. Lancelot is here.”
“Yes.”
“Arc-Mi-Die is gone.”
“Yes.”
When Mortimous didn’t say anything else, Vere turned from the fighting above Edsall Dark and looked at her teacher.
“And your point?”
“Progress, my dear Vere. Progress.”
She shook her head and motioned at the giant vessels destroying one another. “If this is progress, I’d hate to see defeat.”
10
“You didn’t have to scare him,” Talbot said, rushing to see if the technician was okay.
“You’re trying my patience, son of Julian.”
Rather than dignify this comment, Talbot lifted the technician’s h
ead off the ground and lightly slapped his cheek. A moment later, the man’s eyelids fluttered open.
The comms officer squinted and asked where he was, but Talbot didn’t have time to waste. “We need you to contact the flagships. Can you do that?” When the response wasn’t forthcoming fast enough, he snapped, “Can you help or not?”
“Yeah,” the man said in confusion. Then, his senses coming back, “Yes, I can do that.”
Talbot reached his hands out, grabbed both of the man’s wrists, and pulled him to his feet.
They walked over to the main console while Lancelot remained on the other side of the room so as to not spook the man anymore.
“My name’s Talbot. What’s yours?”
“Grecco,” the officer said. Then, looking at Talbot instead of at the controls. “Julian’s son?”
“Yes.”
Grecco turned back to the controls without indicating if he had been loyal to Julian or Hector.
One by one, holograms formed in the air in a line until there were six. Each showed a senior officer staring straight ahead, with a glimpse of what was going on behind them on the command decks of their flagships. A separate hologram showed all six vessels still engaged in battle.
“This is Talbot Reiser, General Reiser’s son.” None of the six senior officers said anything. “I know I don’t outrank any of you. I’m not even an officer anymore. But at least three of you were loyal to my father. And the other three of you were loyal to a man who detested violence.” Three of the senior officers began to interrupt him but he spoke over them. “So I implore each of you to stop firing and talk this through. We can’t fight each other; we’re supposed to be friends. I’m sure we can come to an understanding.”
“They fired on us first,” Brigadier En-O-En said. “We wanted a peaceful resolution, but I can’t sit here and be attacked and not defend my crew.”
Captain Cornelious shouted, “You fired the first shot when your allies assassinated General Reiser.”
“I had nothing to do with that.”
“You didn’t complain when he was dead, though!”
All six men broke into shouting.
“Mute,” Lancelot said to Grecco.
The animated holograms still hung in the air but went silent.
Lancelot crossed the room and put a hand on Grecco’s back as she spoke to Talbot. “The longer this fighting goes on, the more of a chance it spreads to other planets and other sectors. We need to end it right here, right now.”
“I’m trying to talk sense to them.”
“From my experience, your kind doesn’t listen to sense. You only understand brute force.”
“Hey, don’t group me in with them, I’m trying to—”
Lancelot motioned for silence, then said, “The Crown. If they won’t stop fighting right now, we destroy them. That’s the only form of reason they’ll listen to.”
Upon hearing Lancelot’s plan, Grecco tried to get away from his chair and run but Lancelot’s hand held him in place.
“You can’t be serious,” Talbot said. “We can’t shoot our own people.”
“They already are,” Lancelot said, motioning to the hologram that showed the two rows of flagships firing upon each other.
“We can’t shoot our own,” he said again, this time without conviction.
“We end this fighting right now or there’s no Round Table, civil war spreads throughout the galaxy, and the Hannibal come here and destroy everything. Which do you prefer?”
Talbot groaned. In the Carthagen tunnels he had faced certain death and had watched officers who outranked him get cut down in battle. He had risen to the challenge because he had no choice if he wanted to live. That was one thing. This, deciding the fate of men and women who wore identical uniforms, was quite another.
Again, Lancelot told him that if they didn’t end this fighting immediately it was going to spread across the entire galaxy. She added that the deaths of hundreds of officers who were willing to fire upon their own brethren was nothing compared to the deaths of millions or billions of innocent men, women, and children all across the galaxy.
Talbot rubbed his eyes, then let his hands fall back to his sides.
“Unmute,” he said to Grecco. Then, to the six holographic faces, “As Julian’s son, as someone who knew and respected Hector, I order all of you to cease firing immediately.”
A Vonnegan captain of an Athens Destroyer laughed and said, “Kid, I’m fighting for the honor and vision of your father. I respected General Reiser, but if you think you can order me to do anything just because you’re his son, you’re out of your mind.”
Unflustered, Talbot said, “Any vessel that doesn’t disengage from the battle will be targeted by the Crown.” He gave them a moment to consider this before adding, “This is your only warning. Cease fire immediately if you want to live. We cannot allow civil war to spread throughout the galaxy.”
Captain Cornelious laughed and said they were fighting on behalf of Talbot’s own father. Brigadier En-O-En said nothing but he did end the comms feed, which caused his holographic face to vanish. Talbot noticed on the hologram of the battle, however, that the brigadier’s Solar Carrier had engaged its thrusters and was backing away from the battle. The Athens Destroyer and HC Ballistic Cruiser beside it followed suit, continuing to fire as they backed away. The blasts decreased as the flagships drew farther away.
On the other side, the three flagships continued to fire.
“Captain Cornelious, stop your cannons right now.”
Cornelious, rather than respond with words, responded with actions. His Solar Carrier’s engines ignited and he began straight ahead, toward the retreating vessels. His Solar Carrier continued to unleash beams of laser as closed the distance.
“Captain,” Talbot said again. “Don’t do this.”
The comms feed went dark. The captains of the other Athens Destroyer and the Havoc Gunship told Talbot they were standing down unless fired upon again. Only Captain Cornelious continued ahead, set on the path he had chosen.
“Fire,” Lancelot said to Grecco.
The technician’s shoulders tensed even though he didn’t enter the command into the console. Lancelot’s hand squeezed his neck and the technician let out an involuntary cry.
“Fire,” she said, “or you’re partly responsible for the civil war.”
On the holographic feed of the battle, Brigadier En-O-En’s Solar Carrier was backing off, as were the other two flagships with him. Two of the three opposing flagships were stationary, which gave enough space between the two sides for both to feel safe. The only exception was Captain Cornelious’ Solar Carrier, which was chasing down the retreating flagships.
“It’s okay,” Talbot said to Grecco. “You don’t have to fire.”
The technician’s entire body relaxed. Lancelot began to protest but Talbot said, “You don’t have to fire. Just show me which button to press.”
Grecco looked at the son of General Reiser, then up at the holographic image of the captain fighting for the Reiser name, then he let out a long breath.
“This one,” Grecco said. “The targeting is automatic, all you have to do is—”
Before Grecco could say anything else, Talbot reached over and pressed the button.
A whirring noise sounded in the walls. Somewhere below the surface of the planet, the generator was funneling tremendous amounts of energy through a chamber that would lead into one of the five barrels of the Crown. A moment later he saw a streak of light appear on the holographic feed. The thick stream of laser ripped through Cornelious’ Solar Carrier. The flagship broke into two large sections, each of which became engulfed in flames as explosions racked the vessel’s inner workings.
Lancelot released her grip on Grecco. Rather than get up and run, the technician sat motionless, watching the symbol of the former CasterLan Kingdom, now one of the many pieces of the Round Table, explode above the very planet it was meant to protect.
“There,” T
albot said. “It’s done.”
11
Following the confrontation with Brigadier Desttro’s Round Table forces, the Hannibal proceeded into the Mardigan Sector, the former center of the Vonnegan Empire. There, the Juggernaut’s first destination was Proseidan-H, a small moon colony that had once been controlled by Mowbray Vonnegan. It took the four mechs no time to extinguish the few lives on Proseidan-H.
Hour later, farther into what had been Vonnegan territory, the Juggernaut arrived at Terror-Dhome, the lava planet containing the Cauldrons of Dagda, the prison where Vere had once been an inmate.
The prison was still considered the most feared place in the galaxy, even though the guards no longer ensured the average prisoner only lived a few days. No longer were prisoners beaten and killed. No longer did they perform manual labor designed to break their spirits and bodies. It was also no longer populated with dissidents and those who had crossed Mowbray. Instead, the Round Table sent inmates there who had managed to break out of other galactic prisons or kill guards or other inmates. The guards tried to keep the peace among prisoners of various alien species. Some of the inmates were strong enough to rip steel panels in half, others had poisonous skin or venomous saliva, and many of them wanted to kill everyone else around them.
The warden of the Cauldrons wasn’t considered a butcher, as previous officers in his position had. Penn Pierre had been educated in the finest schools and prided himself on using new and innovative ways to rehabilitate the people sent to his facility, no matter how barbaric and unending their list of violent deeds.
He received news of the Round Table defeat straight from CamaLon. The same string of updates told him about the Juggernaut entering the Mardigan Sector and of the destruction at Proseidan-H. He was told in no uncertain terms that the Hannibal were likely to arrive at Terror-Dhome next.
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