Without turning away from the gathering of ships above EndoKroy, Mortimous asked if she had success talking to the Word.
She shook her head. “Not yet. But I’m getting closer.”
“Vere...” he said before trailing off, which was uncharacteristic of the old man. It was a while before he said, “Don’t get your hopes up too much. I don’t say that to discourage you. I say it as someone who has been in contact with them for many years. They don’t like to get involved in mortal concerns.”
“You convinced them once. I can do it again.”
“The one and only time they listened was the Green Knight, and from their perspective it didn’t change anything. The Round Table formed but one galactic war was exchanged for another.”
“Things can be different, Mortimous. You used to believe that. I still do.”
Rather than say another word, he turned his attention to the next ship approaching in the distance. It was a flagship but not part of the Round Table fleet. It approached not from the direction of Edsall Dark but from Eta Orbitae, the mighty blue star three sectors away.
An Excalibur Armada vessel.
“What plan do you have up your sleeve?” Mortimous said.
Vere’s only response was a smile.
88
Lancelot told Swordnew to fly the Carthagen shuttle into the hangar of a mid-size cruiser that was orbiting EndoKroy. When he turned and stared at her without speaking, she told him he had to eventually start trusting other people and that everything would be okay. True to the habit that he and the other Carthagen warriors had formed during the duels, he didn’t contradict her. He merely angled the ship where she wanted.
With the craft landed, Swordnew looked out the cockpit at the teams of engineers gathered about. Instinctively, all four of his hands moved to the handles of his four sheathed swords.
“You won’t need them,” Lancelot said.
Swordnew laughed and walked toward the shuttle’s ramp. Philo was already there, his helmet back on. The Fianna nodded but said nothing.
Even though the medical bots had completely healed the Fianna’s injuries, Lancelot saw how cautiously Philo still moved, as if one wrong action could bring back all of the burns and searing pains he had felt on the surface of Greater Mazuma.
“You won’t need that either,” she said to him, motioning toward his vibro halberd.
Unlike Swordnew, whose disdain for the idea was reserved, Philo shook his head in disbelief and said, “You go ahead and leave your weapons then. When I wear this armor, I don’t go anywhere without something I can use to kill everyone around me.”
She could have taken the comment as a challenge or a threat. If he had spoken the same words to her in the Cartha Sector, she would have drawn her Meursaults and vibro lances and taught him the importance of humility. She understood, though, how hated the Fianna were. Even on Vonnegan planets, the Fianna were a symbol of pain and torture and a tyrant’s power. The rest of the galaxy thought even less of the Fianna than Vonnegans did, so it made sense that Philo’s bravado was actually a self preservation measure. Still, it didn’t bode well that both of the allies alongside her had so little trust of the people around them that they insisted on having their weapons within reach.
Things got worse when they walked down the shuttle’s ramp and saw the ramp to Quickly’s Llyushin transport also lowering. The pilot looked around with a sense of unease, but it was Traskk who lost all restraint. He saw the Fianna across from him and immediately sprinted across the cruiser’s platform. His teeth were bared and he roared as he raced toward the warrior in purple armor who was part of the group that had captured Vere and left Traskk to die in the desert.
“This is why I carry protection,” Philo said as he faced the Basilisk and ignited the blade of his halberd.
“Traskk,” Quickly shouted but then trailed off. There was no point in trying to talk the Basilisk out of the violence that overtook him.
“Hey!” Talbot yelled with a smile from the far side of the platform. He was focused on Lancelot. Then he noticed the giant reptile racing across the cruiser’s hangar and his smile vanished.
The noise that came out of Traskk’s throat as he lunged for the Fianna was one of pure rage. Uncontrollable fury.
Lancelot looked at a sensor in the corner of her visor and adjusted her position. Traskk was moving with incredible speed and wouldn’t be deterred. Philo, she saw, recognized the same thing, and had begun to bring his weapon down in an arc to slice the lizard in half. In response, Lancelot brought one Meursault up to deflect the Fianna’s blow, then the other diagonally across to ensure a second strike didn’t follow it. With her front right boot, she kicked forward, trying to slow the Basilisk’s momentum. Instead, Traskk drove through her leg, pushing her backward into Philo. The three of them fell in a pile on the hangar floor.
She could feel the Fianna trying to free himself from being trapped under her weight. His arms were shuffling to be able to get his weapon into an attack position. In front of her, only inches from her faceplate but not even noticing she was there, were the six-inch fangs and foot-long tongue of a reptile that wanted nothing in the galaxy except to kill the man on the other side of her.
Both of Lancelot’s upper arms pushed Traskk’s face away but the Basilisk was relentless in trying to tear Philo’s face off. Saliva dripped from his fangs and his nostrils flared with anger. His eyes had no recognition that a familiar face was directly in front of him. Lancelot’s lower arms grabbed his wrists to keep him from clawing Philo’s face off. Every part of his being was focused on killing the purple-clad warrior underneath her.
Others raced across the platform to help. Talbot was there. So was Quickly, and a dozen others. However, each of them realized there was nothing they could do to quell the furious Basilisk. Lancelot turned her head to find Swordnew, the only other person nearby big enough to physically remove Traskk. The Carthagen was standing three paces away, all four swords ready. Ready for what, she had no idea, because she was the one in need of help.
“Are you serious?” she said to him. When he didn’t budge, she snapped, “How about a little help?”
It took a moment, but Swordnew finally sheathed his four swords and stepped nearer. But as soon as the warrior was in a position to get a grip of Traskk’s shoulders and pull him away, Talbot noticed the other Carthagen for the first time.
Talbot squinted with recognition. He saw the four sword handles and remembered that very Carthagen killing his fellow officers in the asteroid tunnels. Without thinking, he withdrew his Meursault. In response, Swordnew turned from the still-roaring and bloodthirsty reptile and drew all four swords to face Talbot.
“You guys have got to be kidding me,” Lancelot said.
Quickly was also there, but he also had no way of deterring the others from what they intended to do.
“Great group you have here,” he said to Lancelot, frowning at two different sets of supposed allies who were trying to kill each other.
One glance at his face made it obvious to Lancelot that Quickly regretted having left his home. Swordnew was closing the distance on Talbot, whose invisible blade left a trail of vapor as it moved through the air in front of him. Only inches from her face, Traskk continued to roar.
She needed to end this as fast as possible but, on her back, without any leverage to return to her feet, she was at a loss. Without a better plan, she wrapped her upper arms around Traskk’s snout so he wouldn’t accidently bite her, and then used her lower arms to bear hug his torso. In one motion, she threw her weight to the side, rolling off of Philo and onto Traskk. Without pause, she pushed all four hands off the ground and jumped back up to her feet.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Philo already standing and bringing his weapon into position. Traskk’s tail curled to the side and jolted him upright as well. Lancelot moved between them, blocking all four lines of attack. One of her lances ignited and jabbed Swordnew away. The other smacked the tip of Talbot’s Meu
rsault. One Meursault pushed against Philo’s halberd and the other danced in front of Traskk’s eyes.
All four stopped and, along with Quickly, looked at her.
“Enough,” she shouted, the Carthagen voice modulator adding a boom to her words that echoed throughout the hangar.
With each of her four weapons pointed at one of her supposed allies, the people all gauged her intent in different ways. Talbot smiled, thinking she wouldn’t tolerate the Carthagen’s violence but would be okay with his. Swordnew glanced at her to see if he could kill Talbot before she was able to intervene.
“I mean it,” she said, bringing both Meursaults in a pair of circles that left a glow in Philo’s and Traskk’s paths. “I’ll face the Hannibal by myself if I have to, but I’m not going to sit by and watch you all kill each other. If any of you have your heart set on dying, let me know and I’ll do it myself.”
Traskk gave a soft whine at the memory of Vere’s anger when her own friends had let her down. Philo knew he was going to die but wanted it to be for redemption’s sake, and so he took a step back and lowered his weapon. Swordnew, having faced Lancelot numerous times in the Carthagen duels, knew exactly how little time and effort it would take for Lancelot to kill him. Talbot looked at her with disbelief, thinking there was no way she would actually harm him.
“I mean it,” she said. “We’re here to defeat a common enemy, not each other. If any of you pulls a weapon on anyone else you’ll be missing an arm in the blink of an eye. Do you understand?”
One by one, the Fianna, the Carthagen, the Basilisk, and the general’s son nodded.
“Okay then,” she said, shaking her head at Quickly. He had been the only one to maintain any poise throughout the entire ordeal, but he still looked like he wanted to leave and go home. “Let’s start talking about how we’re going to defeat the Hannibal.”
Art 5
Enraged Traskk, by Leila ElManfa, digital art
89
Quickly observed from a distance as Lancelot struggled to keep her unlikely team engaged in useful discussions. She was no diplomat, and often resorted to threatening members with severe bodily injury to persuade them to be civil and focus on their common enemy.
“What am I doing here?” he muttered as he turned and looked out the viewport of the cruiser. After the first unsuccessful session, Lancelot ushered the other members of the fractious team to various parts of the ship, temporarily putting a stop to the infighting. Quickly remained behind, staring at his modified Llyushin transport in the hangar.
Traskk’s outburst had left him shaken. As much violence and death as the pilot had seen, he had never witnessed such pure, brazen rage. He knew soldiers killed each other. On many occasions, he had seen it firsthand. He had witnessed pilots shoot each other out of the sky and Vonnegan troopers doing their best to kill his friends. But the fury exhibited by the giant reptile made it impossible to ever again view Traskk in the same light. If he had been the one in between the Basilisk and the Fianna, Traskk would have ripped him apart in order to get to the enemy he despised so much. In the blink of an eye, friendship was eclipsed by hatred, and it put everything into perspective.
He, too, was disturbed by the Fianna’s presence. He had also lost friends at the hands of Mowbray’s elite guards. They were trained, ruthless killers, and Quickly knew very well what they were capable of. However, he would never harm one of his friends just to have the chance to kill a Fianna.
He was also disappointed by Talbot. From what little he knew of General Reiser’s son, Quickly had expected a young man who combined Julian’s intelligence and ability to lead with Hector’s reserved nature and respect of other civilizations. What he had witnessed, though, was a man who withdrew his Meursault at the first sign of trouble, someone whose actions had escalated the tension rather than quelled it.
Nor did he trust Swordnew, but it had nothing to do with what had happened in the Orleans sector. The main reason, and something the Carthagen warrior had in common with Philo, was that Quickly didn’t trust anyone who refused to take their helmet off. If you weren’t willing to show your face, it meant you had something to hide. It hadn’t helped his initial impression of the Carthagen when Lancelot had made it clear that Quickly should remain aboard his Llyushin transport when they had first arrived to the asteroid field. From that moment on, he had been skeptical about whether he could trust someone who might kill him just because he was an outsider.
The fact that Lancelot thought it was a good idea to bring those four together left Quickly doubting her as well. He reminded himself that he knew almost nothing about her. If she hadn’t revealed her identity he would have thought her to be a Carthagen like Swordnew. All he knew about her was that she had been raised to be a warrior, was efficient and lethal with her weapons, and was friends with Vere. It wasn’t much.
A wave of sadness came over him. He had left his wife and his home to join a fool’s mission, and the only reason he had done so was because he was convinced it was what Vere wanted.
“What am I doing?” he said again.
His ship was only a hundred yards away. He could walk to it, fire up the engines, and fly back to Enid. It could be as if none of this had ever happened. He didn’t know much about the Hannibal but it seemed doubtful they would ever go to Kerchin-Joshua. He and Enid could grow old and die in peace and quiet. And yet he knew that if he did return home, not a day would go by that he wouldn’t regret all the innocent people he had let die. He would try and act as if it hadn’t been his concern but, knowing he had run away when the galaxy needed him, he would never be content again.
“You’ll see Enid again, I promise.”
He looked behind him and saw Lancelot, still in full armor.
She must have seen the doubt on his face because she added, “When I was taken in by Bookknow, all I thought about was my father. I know what it’s like to want to see someone again. Some day, I will.”
Quickly gave a half-hearted smile and turned back to the viewport. EndoKroy was below. Only a few years earlier, he would have burst out laughing if someone had told him he would risk his life to try and save it.
With Lancelot beside him, also staring out the viewport, he said, “The team you assembled doesn’t inspire much confidence.”
She disconnected the clasps holding her helmet to the rest of her armor, then lifted it away to reveal her face. Glancing to his side, he noticed how tired she appeared.
Rather than take offense at his comment, she sighed and said, “Yeah, not the best start. But we have to work with what we have.” She tried her best to offer an encouraging smile. “You have to admit, if they can channel their rage against the Hannibal instead of each other, they’ll offer a tough fight.”
They watched in silence as a cargo freighter lifted off from EndoKroy’s surface and soared out toward space. Both of them assumed the vessel was full of people fleeing the enemy that had just destroyed Greater Mazuma.
“They’ll do better, though,” she said. “Traskk told me the Fianna killed Morgan, took Vere prisoner, and one of their weapons had been used to chop off all of his limbs. He was left for dead on a remote desert moon. I assured him that Philo wasn’t the one who did any of those things. Philo no doubt has sins he has to atone for, but not the ones Traskk is angry about.”
Quickly asked Lancelot how she could be sure Philo hadn’t done those things.
“I asked him,” she said. “And I believe him. He said he was there when Mowbray took Vere prisoner and Traskk was left for dead. He said he was standing next to the Fianna that had killed the fat drunk from one hundred yards away.”
It took Quickly a moment to remember Fastolf—yet another name and face that no longer existed.
“Anyway,” Lancelot said, “Philo said he was there but wasn’t one of the Fianna who carried out violence that day. I think if he had been he would have admitted it out of some distorted sense of honor.”
A caravan of a dozen small ships followed the cargo fre
ighter away from the planet. They formed a straight line and each one rose up from EndoKroy’s atmosphere and rocketed out into space away from danger.
“Traskk’s okay with that?”
Lancelot shrugged. “He still hates the Fianna, but he promised not to kill Philo.”
Quickly shrugged. “And Philo?”
“He was taught to kill anyone who tried to kill him. It’s a warrior’s nature. But I convinced him it was a case of mistaken identity. He told me that as long as Traskk stays away from him, he won’t try to kill our favorite Basilisk.”
“Well, that’s progress. That just leaves Swordnew and Talbot.”
“Call me crazy but I actually think that one was more understandable.”
“You’re crazy,” Quickly said with a faint smile.
“Maybe. But I know how difficult it can be to change from being the warrior I was taught to be. I used to kill visitors to the Cartha sector if they did anything I didn’t like. Swordnew is the same way. We were taught not to trust anyone. Plus, he saw one of the very Round Table officers who recently invaded his home.”
Quickly shook his head in disbelief. “And you didn’t think to warn him?”
“He wouldn’t have come along if I had.”
“And Talbot?”
“And Talbot remembered what it was like to be back in the Carthagen trap. I can tell you, it wasn’t a good place for him. He saw me impale his father. He saw Swordnew and the others kill his fellow officers one by one. He said he didn’t even realize he had drawn his Meursault, that one moment it wasn’t in his hand and the next moment it was. I can understand that.”
Quickly laughed until he saw Lancelot gazing at him in confusion, and then he explained, “So I guess we’re all one big, happy family now.”
Lancelot rolled her eyes. “As long as we don’t kill each other, yeah.”
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