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.
He already had the most prestigious position for someone in his line of work. Perhaps Mowbray would next appoint him as the ruler of some newly conquered planet.
Knowing this, there was no way he could possibly hide the grin that stretched from one side of his face to the other.
17
Morgan continued to hold the dead alien up by its shell because it was the only thing protecting her from Balor’s desiccating eye. From around the edge of the makeshift shield, she saw the monster reach for her. When it roared and stumbled, she gritted her teeth and gripped her sword in preparation for the one chance she would have at cutting the creature’s eye o
ut. If that wasn’t enough to stop the flow of its deadly toxin, she would shrivel up and die.
It was the only option she had. Even if she were able to use her Meursault blade to cut off the monster’s arms or legs, as soon as it looked at her she would whither away and die. She took a deep breath, waiting for Balor’s enormous hand to pull the remains of the shelled alien away from her.
A curious thing happened then. Balor stepped away from her. When she peeked around the side of the dried up shell that had once been a prisoner, she saw Traskk, four stories high, holding the back of the monster’s head. He had gotten there either by jumping all the way up or by using his claws to climb the giant’s back. Either way, Traskk was safely behind the monster where it wouldn’t be able to see him. Not only that, the reptile had a tight grip on both of the giant’s misshapen ears and was pulling and twisting in whichever direction he wanted Balor to look. Instead of gazing down at Morgan, the monster was forced to turn away when Traskk squeezed its ears.
When Balor started to reach up to grab at whatever was behind it, Traskk pressed the point of one claw into the monster’s ears. It only needed to feel the pressure one time to understand that it had to follow Traskk’s lead. With a whimper, it immediately dropped its mighty hands down to its sides, and it soon realized that as long as it went where Traskk wanted it to go and looked in the direction Traskk wanted it to look, it would avoid the pain.
Traskk could have used his ion axes to cut two enormous slices into the sides of Balor’s neck. The amount of blood squirting out of either side would have left half the prison yard covered in crimson. He didn’t want to hurt the giant more than he absolutely had to, however.
He knew the giant had already killed Baldwin and would just as soon have killed Morgan if given the chance, but the Basilisk had two reasons for not wanting to kill the monster of the Cauldrons. First, the monster didn’t know it yet but it was going to help them escape. And second, Traskk had a soft spot for the creature.
He knew what it was like to be amongst people that were afraid of him just because of how he looked, because he had claws and fangs instead of fingernails and teeth. He mainly sympathized with Balor, though, because Traskk’s mother had once read him a bedtime story about the monster of the Cauldrons.
No one knew how old Balor was or if there were other members of his species somewhere else in the galaxy. As far as anyone else knew, he was all alone. And for as long as he had lived, everything and everyone he had looked at had died.
“Imagine how lonely that life must be,” his mother had told him ages ago. “He can never make friends. Everything he likes dies when he looks at it. That type of cursed life could make a monster out of anyone.”
Traskk grew up thinking of the monster of the Cauldrons not as a rampaging beast but as a prisoner just like all the other inmates at the facility. But Balor would be a prisoner anywhere he went. All the giant wanted was to be left alone so his lethal eye didn’t kill people. Instead, he was forced to roam the prison yard, indiscriminately taking lives as he went.
As gently as he could, Traskk guided the monster away from Morgan and toward the perimeter wall where the guards were firing down from high above. The Basilisk, still clinging to the back of Balor’s neck, patted it to let it know it was doing a good job.
He guided the monster back to the same entrance where he and Morgan had entered the prison yard. A group of security forces was there, setting up a cannon. Two Vonnegan troopers were anchoring the weapon into a heavy base so that when the weapon was fired it wouldn’t be propelled backward. Two other soldiers were loading ion cells into the weapon so it could begin firing. Even with their armor on, all it took was one look from Balor and all four guards were dead seconds later.
Traskk patted the giant on the head and relaxed his grip on its ears. Balor raised his hand again, but this time Traskk didn’t dig his claws to keep the one-eyed giant from moving. He could tell, from the way the giant moved, that it didn’t have bad intentions. Traskk let Balor’s hand, which was almost as large as Traskk himself, stroke his new friend’s scaly skin. No one, not even Traskk’s mother, would have believed the contented sound that Balor made then. Instead of roaring or groaning, the only two noises the monster had made since arriving at the Cauldrons, the giant offered a low purr.
Traskk climbed down from the giant’s back, then gently pushed it forward into the tunnel. The opening was barely large enough to accommodate the beast, and Balor didn’t like being in an enclosed space, but he did so because his new friend urged him ahead. Traskk watched the giant lumber away, down the hallway. If any more Vonnegan ground forces were dispatched, they would be killed by their own monster.
The ion cannon was there, ready to be used. Traskk had just taken up a position at the Vonnegan heavy weapon when a laser blast shot straight through the thickest part of his tail. With a roar, he grabbed the handle of the cannon and dragged it out of the doorway and into the prison yard. Aiming it almost straight up in the air, he pressed the trigger. Nothing. A second time he pressed the trigger and still nothing happened.
Hissing, he looked at the fuel cell and then at the cables. With a click, he locked the tube leading from the ion cell to the cannon into place. The entire platform that the cannon rested on began to rumble and hum with the force of the energy building up inside the weapon. Lining up his shot, he pressed the trigger again. A great ripping stream of energy blew out from the cannon and streaked up the length of the wall. As strong as Traskk was, not even he could have held the cannon in place if the soldiers hadn’t anchored it to the base platform.
The ion blast hit the prison wall about three-quarters of the way up the structure. A chunk of rock and steel, almost as large as a Llyushin fighter, was incinerated. Cracks began spreading out from the damaged area. Traskk moved the cannon’s sight a little, then fired again. Another blast erupted against the wall, slightly higher and to the right from the first blast.
All of the marksmen were shooting at him now. A laser blast hit his arm. Another hit his foot. Each time his skin sizzled from the lasers and pain seared his recently regenerated limbs, he bared his fangs and slammed his tail against the ground, then sent another ion blast up the wall. Then another.
“Watch out,” Morgan yelled.
He turned and saw her standing in the middle of the yard. He ran toward her, and when he was halfway there, he felt the ground shake as if the entire prison would fall into the lava. When he turned back, half the wall was gone, turned to a massive pile of rubble on the ground. The entrance, where he had been standing, was buried under tons and tons of rock.
Pistol, having lost an arm sometime during the fighting, came up to them.
“The good news is that we’re safe now,” he said, referring to the lack of laser fire from atop the wall.
Morgan knew what he was going to say next, even before he said it.
“The bad news is,” the android added, pointing to the rubble obstructing the entrance, “that was our only way out.”
“Well,” she said, gesturing at Vere, “at least that gives us time to figure out what’s going on with her.”
In the middle of the prison yard, Vere was still pushing the Circle of Sorrow.
18
“Vere, you can stop pushing,” a voice called out. It wasn’t in Basic, but in some other language she used to know but couldn’t remember from when or where.
Rather than turn to see who was speaking, she dug her foot into the ground, resting her fingers against the thick beam of wood, then heaved forward with all of her strength.
“Vere, stop.”
This was a different voice. A woman’s. In Basic.
She didn’t stop pushing, though. During the fighting, she had come back into her body just long enough to see that her partner, the Ignus Moris, was gone. She was left to push the Circle of Sorrow by herself. No matter. Having slipped back into her conversation with Mortimous, she was no longer concerned with what was happening to her physical body. Far
more important were the things he had to tell her. That was why she took two deep breaths, then grunted and pushed. The Circle of Sorrow moved another few inches forward.
She was detached from her physical body so often and for such extended periods of time that she wasn’t even aware of the reputation she had earned around the galaxy for surviving at the Cauldrons as long as she had. It was one thing to manage to keep living at the prison for a record amount of time; it was quite another to spend all of that time pushing the Circle of Sorrow. Ewan the Resilient had earned notoriety for surpassing one year at the Cauldrons, but none of that time had been spent at its most grueling mechanism for punishment. Not only had Vere managed to survive for longer than he had, she had done so at the Circle of Sorrow. All because of Mortimous and the invaluable things he told her.
Prior to Vere, no one had lasted more than three weeks at the Circle of Sorrow, a record held by the Giant of Acronoor. Everyone had agreed that if the record were to ever be broken, it would be by someone even taller and heavier than the giant, who was three times the size of a human and weighed half a ton. After three weeks of the task, the giant had slowed until he was routinely being whipped. After a dozen lashings from the vibro whips, the giant stumbled, fell, and never got back up to his feet.
That was why people whispered about her in every spaceport and bar. At Eastcheap, where she had cut off the Green Knight’s head years earlier, every patron agreed that the seat she had used back then should remain empty in her honor. The most common reason for fights in Eastcheap these days was when a new customer unwittingly sat in that chair and ignored the warnings to move.
“Vere, stop pushing that damn wheel.” It was the second voice again.
A clawed hand, green and covered in scales, rested on her shoulder. She didn’t shrug it off or acknowledge it in any way. Instead, she pushed as hard as she could until the Circle of Sorrow moved slightly forward again.
The Round Table (Space Lore Book 3) Page 6
