Quickly fired twice at it before swerving down into a gut-wrenching dive, leveling off as his equilibrium returned. He raced through another hallway, fired once more at the walls just as Lancelot had instructed, then prepared for a mech to appear from one of the portals he was approaching.
The Hannibal didn’t let him down. Not only the gray mech appeared but also the white one. An ion arrow exploded beside him. His legs came away from the speeder and only his hands kept him planted on the machine. He was completely out of control for two seconds before he managed to pull himself back down onto the transport. Gunning the engine, he flew between the legs of the gray mech, outracing the scythe that slashed at him.
He was about to swerve around the portal that the mech had appeared from when Philo and Traskk also emerged through it. One of the Fianna’s arms was missing. The other hand reached for the back of the gray mech and fired one blaster shot after another.
Quickly raced through a sequence of turns that took him back to the same intersection. There, he approached the white mech from the side, shooting the corner of its helmet and forcing it to ignore his allies. Traskk continued an attack on the gray mech while Philo turned to the white one. The former Fianna drove himself into the back of the gray mech’s knee as hard as he could.
Quickly fired two shots at it, then swerved right for another pass. The mech punched Traskk, sending him flying through the air and into the wall. The Basilisk immediately jumped to his feet again. Quickly throttled down the speeder enough so the his friend could jump onto the back of it. The speeder lagged under the reptile’s weight, forcing Quickly to send more power to the engine. They turned two more corners. As soon as the white mech came into view, Traskk leapt as high as he could.
Quickly missed most of what happened next because he had to focus on keeping control of the speeder after hundreds of pounds of muscle suddenly abandoned the craft. Just before turning the next corner, he turned and looked back and saw Traskk clambering up the white mech, the claws of his feet and hands digging into the mech as he climbed up its torso and began attacking its face.
On Quickly’s next pass, both Traskk and Philo gave up their attacks and darted away, Philo through the nearest portal and Traskk along a passageway. It wasn’t until Quickly began to turn the next intersection that he realized why they had left. The black mech was there, its dark cloud of deadly energy spreading through the passageway.
Quickly leaned to the side, fired a pair of shots at it, then raced down another hallway.
138
Swordnew lay on his side. Any movement, even breathing, caused waves of pain to spread all the way up to his eyes and down to his feet. He had hoped his body would go into shock so the suffering might subside but it wasn’t to be.
And yet, the knowledge that he was dying and that nothing could save him didn’t diminish his spirits. Quite the opposite. An overwhelming sense of satisfaction made him smile. The Dauphin had raised him to be a warrior, all the while knowing his life’s quest was a sham. Because of Lancelot, however, he was going to die an actual warrior instead of only pretending to be one.
He wasn’t done yet, though. As long as he was alive, he wanted to help in any way he could. With a groan, he got his three remaining arms under him and tried to push himself back to standing. The pain was so intense he thought he might black out. Each gasp of air was a struggle.
He had no idea where the Juggernaut was in relation to EndoKroy but he hoped they were giving the defenses enough time for the rest of the plan to unfold. His people were gone, but his purpose was as it always was—to defend life. Even if he wasn’t defending Carthagens he was still defending billions of lives. He gathered his senses and searched the floor for his swords. He could only find one. It was okay, that would suffice. Weapon in hand, he limped to the nearest glowing panel.
“Attack the wall,” Lancelot had said. He would do just that.
139
Talbot watched how Traskk and Philo fought with complete abandon and disregard for themselves. He admired their ferocity. The Basilisk let out a constant string of hisses and roars as he leapt toward any enemy within sight. The former Fianna was jumping through one portal after another in pursuit of the mechs, knowing full well that he could be jumping into a trap. The way they fought was effective, but it wasn’t anything Talbot wanted to emulate. They fought to kill while Talbot did so to stay alive and to keep his allies alive. With his Meursault in one hand and the cannon blaster mounted to his other hand, he relied more on strategy and tactics than on sheer aggression.
For more than a minute he crouched beside a portal while fighting raged around the next corner. An onlooker might think he was cowering but he had a plan. And because it was so different from the chaotic tactics employed by Philo and Traskk, it might catch the mechs off guard. He waited, without moving, for a mech to appear, knowing the enemy would be focused on the people they viewed as immediate threats. That would help him go unnoticed so he could attack with stealth.
The plan worked to perfection. In the distance, he could hear laser blasts and roars. Instead of racing toward it, he remained exactly where he was. A moment later, the white mech appeared through the portal. As soon as it did, Talbot jumped up, took the Meursault in both hands, then slashed at the mech’s hover transport. A second slice of the blade took out a large triangular section of the transport, which crashed to the floor. The white mech tried to spin atop the platform but it could no longer stabilize itself.
Talbot rushed toward it again. The white mech tried to fire an ion arrow at him but couldn’t control its aim because of the erratic movements of the hover transport. Unable to control it, the mech stepped down to the floor.
Talbot didn’t give it time to collect itself. Before its second foot could touch solid ground he was already lunging toward it with the invisible blade of the Meursault. He took off a section of its foot and then cut into its knee joint.
It tried to back away so it could take aim with its ion bow but he didn’t let it. A moment later he heard a second humming and turned to see the black mech appear through the same portal. A cloud of sizzling energy washed toward him as if pushed by a mighty wind. He gave up attacking the white mech and sprinted away as the cloud followed close behind.
At the next intersection, Quickly shot past on his speeder and shouted, “You okay?”
“Doing great,” Talbot said, looking for any sign of Lancelot.
Instead, he saw Philo being crushed under the gray mech’s boot and raced to help him.
140
Every time Lancelot thought they were finally getting the upper hand on the mechs, she realized the tide of the battle was once again turning to favor the Hannibal. She had gotten past the layers of portals outside the Juggernaut and cut a hole into the giant ship only to be chased through miles of oversized hallways. Presumably, they had defeated the rust-colored mech, but Swordnew had been mortally wounded. Philo had also been seriously injured. Now, she had once again permitted herself to think they might have the upper hand and was once again brought back to reality.
She turned a corner and saw Talbot incapacitate the white mech’s hover platform before setting his attack on its leg. It should have been an uplifting moment but it was followed by a yell further down the corridor. Philo was being crushed underneath the gray mech’s boot. Traskk was trapped by a black cloud of energy that was creeping toward him. The white mech was off its hover platform but had managed to swing an arm and knock Talbot thirty feet across the corridor into the far wall.
She had three options, three people who needed her help, and no time to consider the repercussions of her choice. Her instincts took over and she reacted without thinking. Philo was already injured and without his primary weapon but he was also inside a suit of space armor that should protect him from being killed by the mech’s weight. Talbot might have been jarred, but he had a fighting chance. Traskk had nowhere to go and was helpless against the black cloud that encircled him.
The Basi
lisk roared when, with no room to move backward any further, the black energy burned the tip of his tail. Saliva sprayed from his snout as his anger echoed through the hallway.
“Hang on,” Lancelot shouted even though she ran away from him and disappeared around the closest intersection of corridors.
There, she turned one more time, so she was directly in line with Traskk’s location, only one hallway over. Her Meursaults cut an opening into the hallway. Without pausing, she rammed a shoulder into the square she had sliced, knocking it away, then jumped into the newly formed space that existed between the two hallways. Circles of light moved all around her, each floated toward a different part of the ship. Other than that, the space between the hallways was a void. As if sensing her presence, the lights moved out of her way as she raced toward the far wall.
“Watch out,” she shouted, hoping Traskk could hear her through the panel.
She jabbed the pair of Meursaults into the wall and cut another square. The Basilisk was there, small cuts in his back where her swords had nicked him, but he ignored them and jumped away from the black cloud that had burned half his tail and part of his feet and hands. He cooed in appreciation but she didn’t pay attention.
The hum of a mech’s hover platform grew louder. She turned and saw large shadows approaching from the first hole she had cut into the wall on her way in to help Traskk. The mechs had her trapped.
141
Philo’s time was over. The Vonnegan people might never know how much one Fianna had sacrificed to atone for his sins, but his final redemption was near.
His halberd and right arm were gone. But worst of all, and the most immediate threat to his well-being, was the gray mech crushing him with its tons of weight. Indicators inside the space armor flashed red, alerting Philo that the reinforced suit couldn’t withstand much more pressure. The metal lining creaked. Helpless, unable to go anywhere, he imagined the suit would give out all at once and he wouldn’t have time to be in any pain.
Then it was over. The sensors inside Philo’s helmet stopped flashing. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t because he was dead.
The mech had stepped off of him and moved toward the closest portal. Philo lifted his head and turned to the side. He saw the black mech do the same.
Quickly raced by on his speeder. Not seeing anything to target, he offered a confused look and continued around for another pass. Talbot jogged over to him and extended an arm to help Philo get back up to his feet.
“What happened?” the former Fianna said.
“I don’t know.”
They looked around and saw Quickly approaching for another pass. With Swordnew gone, only Lancelot and Traskk were unaccounted for. Philo saw the panic flash in Talbot’s eyes when he came to the same assessment.
“We have to find them,” Talbot said, already running down the next hallway, listening for any sound of them.
142
Traskk stepped inside the compartment that Lancelot had cut into the hallway. It was the only place he could go to escape the black mech’s deadly cloud. But on the far end of the room, at the other opening Lancelot had cut into the wall, he saw the shadows of the other two mechs looming, waiting. As if to confirm their situation, Lancelot told him they were trapped. He hissed as he scanned the room, but he had no plan he could offer other than for her to cut a hole into another wall and continue to do so in hopes they could outrun the mechs.
All around him, circles of light moved along the panels that made up all of the oversized halls within the Juggernaut. Outside, the mechs waited. They could have fired ion arrows or unleashed the black energy cloud into the confines of the room but they chose not to.
Their reaction made him uncomfortable at first. He and Lancelot were trapped. There was only one reason he could think of for the mechs to behave this way. He hissed his observation to Lancelot.
She nodded and said, “Yeah, they don’t want us to damage the walls anymore. It’s a standoff.”
He asked what was so important about the walls that the mechs needed to protect them.
“The mechs aren’t Hannibal, they’re just guards. Those circles,” she said, gesturing all around them at the lights that were traveling throughout the ship, moving in different directions. “Those are the Hannibal.”
143
Vere had come to the same conclusion as Lancelot. It was easy to think that the Hannibal, the alien race that had crossed much of the known galaxy and destroyed everything in their path, would appear as hordes of hideous barbarians. It would have been understandable for the officers aboard the Round Table flagships that had faced the Hannibal to imagine armor-clad invaders with claws and fangs.
They were none of those things, however. They were, as far as Lancelot and Vere could see, circles of white light, resembling smaller versions of the hundreds of portals they used to protect the Juggernaut and for their mechs to hunt enemies. Saliva didn’t spray from their mouths as they growled. They didn’t have bloodshot eyes that reveled in taking lives. As far as anyone could see, they had no arms or legs or nervous system or bone structure or any of the traditional components that made up much of the advanced life around the universe.
By observing them, by watching how they reacted to Lancelot and the others and the way they used the portals not only for offensive measures but for defensive as well, Vere made other calculated assumptions about the Hannibal. The Juggernaut was so large, not because it was meant to intimidate all who stood before it, but because it was home to their entire civilization. Every single floor, ceiling, and wall that Lancelot and the others had come across was full of the life forms. A smaller vessel wouldn’t have had room for all of them. They weren’t conquerors, the way ancient stories portrayed them. They didn’t control vast territories of space. Their entire empire was their vessel.
She thought back to the first message the Round Table had received from the Hannibal, after Julian Reiser entered the Orleans asteroid field. The Carthagen elders had known of the Hannibal and tried to warn the Round Table fleet that the foreign enemy might take notice and judge the Round Table as a threat that needed to be eliminated.
It was an understanding of the enemy that offered little comfort. The Hannibal were still menacing EndoKroy, ready to destroy it. They would still travel to Edsall Dark afterward and eliminate all life on that planet as well. The only thing delaying them was Lancelot and her allies.
We can end all of this, Vere thought, hoping the Word was listening. We can end this battle and future battles. We can turn the Round Table from a good idea to an actual functioning reality. But they—she looked at a trapped Lancelot and Traskk—need our help. Please help. Please.
144
Talbot ran in one direction. Quickly jammed the throttle forward on his speeder and rocketed off in the other direction. Both of them wanted to find Lancelot and Traskk as fast as possible. According to the sensors on his speeder, his two friends weren’t in any of the hallways.
The craft’s engine thrummed as Quickly maneuvered around a corner, then sped across an illuminated corridor until he came to a revolving intersection that blocked his path. There, he pulled back on the controls, sending the speeder into a steep climb.
The signal was getting closer but it still made no sense. It told him Lancelot and Traskk were floating in the space between two hallways. He expected to see them around the next turn. Instead, the gray and white mechs were both there, both facing the wall.
As he raced toward them, he realized they were staring into a hole that had been cut into the side of corridor. Both mechs ignored him as he raced by. At the next intersection he turned left, then left again. The black mech was there, facing an opening in the wall like the white and gray mechs had on the opposite side. The signal he had of Lancelot and Traskk’s coordinates began to make sense.
They were trapped between the two hallways.
The black mech, like the other two, ignored him as he sped by.
“I found them. You guys on you
r way?” he said into the speaker of his helmet.
The dots inside his visor that represented Talbot and Philo were slowly making their way toward him.
Talbot’s voice came back: “Be there in a minute.” Even from only two corridors away, the transmission was garbled by static from the Hannibal interference.
Quickly looped by for another pass. Again, all of the mechs ignored him. He knew he could shoot any of them with the blasters attached to his speeder but they were too small to harm the mechs. He needed a more destructive option and only one existed.
Throttling the speeder up to full power, he angled it directly at the black mech, then locked the controls in place. He fought against the G forces that kept him laying in the speeder until his weight slid to the side and he felt a momentary rush. Hitting the floor, his momentum sent him tumbling dozens of times, side over side.
The spot where the black mech had been became a huge fireball created by the speeder hitting it at terrific speeds. He tried to focus on it but his head was spinning and everything was a blur. He heard shouting, saw a laser blast, but in his stupor none of it made sense.
145
Lancelot looked back and forth between the two openings she had cut into the walls of the Juggernaut. It was clear from the way the mechs kept their distance that they were trying to avoid provoking her into killing more of the Hannibal.
“Can you understand me?” she called to them. “Let my friend and me go and we won’t harm any more of them.”
Beside her, Traskk offered a low hiss but she reached a hand and touched his arm to let him know everything would be okay.
Avalon Page 35
