The Round Table (Space Lore Book 3)

by Chris Dietzel

  “Okay.”

  “Good. So I’m going to need your help. All of the ships are focused on me. I need you to create a diversion.”

  “By breaking into another ship?”

  From Cade’s tone, Quickly imagined his friend had buried his face in his hands.

  “Yes, by breaking into another ship. I’m going to draw the Thunderbolts away, and you’re going to get one of the other ships powered up. Set the autopilot to take off and head toward the Athens Destroyers.”

  Quickly waited for a response, but there was only silence.

  “Cade? Are you there?”

  When Cade did respond, it wasn’t with words, but with laughter.

  “Cade, get a hold of yourself.”

  The howling died down after a few more seconds.

  “Quickly?” Cade said, still amused.

  “Yeah, what?”

  “There’s only one problem.”

  Quickly flinched at the explosion of light in front of the Griffin Fire. The black void of space was momentarily swapped out for the brilliant white of a proton torpedo exploding a short distance in front of him. When he blinked, everything was hazy shades of gray instead of crisp and distinct colors.

  “And what problem is that?” he asked finally.

  “I don’t know how to do any of the things you just mentioned.” The laughter erupted again, but this time Cade didn’t seem to be the least bit amused.

  “I’ll talk you through it. Just relax.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, you’re not—”

  “Shut up!” Quickly yelled. “Shut up. Do you hear me? Get your act together. Do you know what Morgan would do to you if she saw you babbling like that in her cockpit? You’re supposed to be a Security Officer. Start acting like it.”

  “I—”

  “You nothing. Be quiet. If you haven’t noticed, I have about twenty Thunderbolts all around me. My front shields are already down. My rear shields are almost down. If you want to trade places, I’d be more than happy to switch with you.”

  There was a moment of silence before Cade responded, his voice low and somber. “I’m sorry. What do I do?”

  “Find a ship a safe distance from the Pendragon. Sneak inside. The Vonnegan troops probably left at least one of the other vessels open when they were searching the spaceport. Make sure no one on the ground sees you. Morgan might have all the guards focused on her, but we don’t know how long that will last. Once on board, the ship’s computer can walk you through the autopilot process. You won’t have to know how to operate the ship, let the computer do it for you. Set it to take off and head toward space, then get out before it actually takes off.”

  “Quickly?”

  A pair of laser blasts hit the Griffin Fire’s side. Alarms were blaring inside the cockpit. Quickly thought the ship was going to break into pieces around him.

  “Just say whatever you want to say,” Quickly snapped.

  “There’s a group of Vonnegan guards near the spaceport entrance.”

  The Griffin Fire made a sharp turn away from the Athens Destroyers and raced back toward the prison spaceport. Six Thunderbolts came at him. He fired a pair of proton torpedoes—the final two remaining in the ship’s arsenal—and watched them speed ahead of his own vessel. One of the torpedoes was shot out of the sky, flashing an explosion that blocked the view between Quickly and the Thunderbolt pilots. The other one kept on ahead and hit its target.

  Quickly threw the controls forward, then back again so the ship swerved around the blast. As he came around it, he saw one of the Thunderbolts go directly into the blast. A fuel hose ignited and the ship exploded. Two others tried to swerve out of its way in the same direction. The ships collided, each one losing a wing and hurtling out into space without being about to change directions.

  The Griffin Fire was speeding toward the spaceport again. Scanning the ships there, he saw a Cirellian transport on the other side of the platform that would be perfect for Cade to break into. Twenty yards away, a group of ten Vonnegan troops was huddled by the entranceway, waiting for the Thunderbolts to destroy the Griffin Fire before venturing out across the platform. Quickly locked his blasters on them and fired. A pair of laser streaks shot down toward the entryway.

  Quickly changed directions again, heading back toward the Athens Destroyers for another run.

  The smoke cleared on the spaceport deck, revealing a smoldering heap of armor and helmets where the Vonnegan troopers had been.

  “There,” Quickly said to Cade. “Now, go have fun.”

  28

  “The raiders have trapped themselves inside the explosives room?” Le Savage asked.

  The officer in front of him smiled. “They have no way out, sir.”

  Le Savage watched a video feed of the room on the monitor in front of him. The raiders had moved two of the large containers and were indeed stuck in the area of the facility designated for explosives storage. As he watched, the three remaining raiders, along with Vere, were removing the explosives from the container they had positioned to block the entrance. One by one, the group removed red parcels and stacked them a few yards away from the storage bin that had contained them.

  “Does anyone know what they’re doing?” he asked.

  None of his officers risked a guess.

  Le Savage closed his eyes for a moment, willing the anger and frustration to dissipate. Before it could, his eyes opened, he grabbed the nearest officer by both lapels, and threw him over his shoulder and out the broken window. The officer screamed as he fell thirty stories and then splashed into the lava.

  Le Savage turned to the other officers in the control room and said, “I don’t want them trapped. If they are trapped inside, it means your guards are trapped outside! I want them dead or captured. Not trapped.”

  He thought about the chances of Mowbray sending a communication, asking how his favorite prisoner was doing. Or worse, actually stopping by Terror-Dhome for a visit so he could see for himself. If either of those things happened, it wouldn’t matter if Vere and her friends were trapped in a room where they would eventually die of starvation or by accidently blowing themselves up. All that would matter was that they weren’t on the prison grounds where they were supposed to be.

  Heads would roll. Le Savage wouldn’t put it past Mowbray to make prisoners of all the officers who had been at the Cauldrons when the jailbreak took place, the warden included. Le Savage might even have the honor of pushing the Circle of Sorrow until he collapsed. An involuntary shudder ran through him.

  He realized his officers were still staring at him.

  “Do you hear me?” he said, taking a step toward them. On the monitor, the raiders were still moving the highly volatile explosives from the storage container and placing them on the ground. “Blow the entire prison up if you have to. But resolve this immediately.”

  The officers nodded and, in a display of self-preservation, left the room so Le Savage couldn’t throw them out of the window next.

  29

  “Careful,” Morgan said, receiving another bundle of explosives from Traskk, who in turn had received it from Pistol. Placing the red package on the ground, she kept an eye on Vere to make sure she didn’t do anything stupid.

  The Vere that Morgan knew was quick-witted and sarcastic, but the woman in front of her seemed too calm given their situation and had offered no criticism of their attempted escape plan.

  The entrance into the explosives depot was already blocked, but Morgan had them empty a second container. After the explosives had been removed, she had Traskk climb on top of it, hook up a set of four cables from the room’s pulley system, and used the device Pistol had found to lift the second storage bin into the air, moving it to the side and placing it directly on top of the first one, only inches from the cable system and the ceiling.

  She knew there were cameras capturing everything they did in the room. Her hope, though, was that the people in the control room would think she was simply trying to obst
ruct the entrances even more.

  “Everyone inside,” she said, pointing to the storage bin on the ground. Once they were inside, she closed the container door.

  Everything went dark. Almost immediately, a swish of black vapor sparkled around them as Morgan withdrew her Meursault blade. First, she cut a hole in the ceiling of the bin they were in. Then she reached higher and cut out a hole from the floor of the container that was stacked on top of them.

  “Everybody up.”

  Pistol had no problem jumping so his one remaining arm grabbed hold of the second level. With his one remaining arm, the android pulled himself up. Morgan looked at Traskk to determine who should go next.

  “A round table,” Vere said to herself with a chuckle. Then, to Morgan, asked, “How much longer do you think until we get out of here?”

  Morgan sighed and patted her friend on the shoulder. Then she nodded to Traskk as she told Vere to go next. Vere jumped as high as she could, just enough to grab hold of the opening above her, then felt Traskk pushing her feet upward to help her join Pistol in the second crate. Traskk went next, jumping to the next bin with ease.

  Once Morgan had also pulled herself up, she told them what would happen next. There were cameras recording every inch of the room they were in, but none of them would be able to see inside the blast-proof containers. Anyone watching would assume she and the others were either scared and hunkering down or else were stupid enough to think they could hide inside the containers and not be found.

  Morgan had a different idea, though.

  It was obvious they couldn’t go down. Cutting through the floor would have only dropped them into the lava. Cutting through any walls would give them access to the same corridors where dozens of Vonnegan troops were amassing. The only option had been to keep going up, toward the space deck.

  With the container’s access panel closed, everything was pitch black. None of them could even see their hands. But then a faint sparkle of black mist appeared again, swirling in tiny movements. A slash of black vapor tore through the second container’s top. Two more slashes caused a chunk of metal to fall inside the bin at their feet.

  There was less than a foot of space between the top of the container and the explosives room ceiling. None of the cameras would be positioned to provide a view into that narrow of a gap.

  Since Morgan wasn’t able to jump high enough to do what was required next, Traskk moved into place and held his tail up diagonally. Morgan walked up his tail until she was able to reach the ceiling, then slashed through it the same way she had cut through the storage bin itself.

  Traskk jumped from the storage bin’s floor up to the opening Morgan had made for them, then let his tail hang down, giving the rest of them a way to climb up.

  After Pistol was already up to the next level and it was only the two of them remaining in the storage bin, Vere tapped Morgan on the shoulder.

  Morgan grimaced, sure she was going to hear something else about a round table or some other nonsense. Outside the bins, on the other side of the wall, she could hear troopers shouting at each other as they tried to find a way into the room.

  “Thanks for coming to get me,” Vere said.

  “No problem. But we aren’t free yet.”

  30

  Later, when Vere had time to look back on what had been happening, she would learn another valuable lesson: there were times when the best course of action was to be calm and leave her body for a more peaceful state of mind, and there were times where she had to focus entirely on her immediate surroundings.

  For the last two years, almost all of her time had been spent doing two things: pushing the Circle of Sorrow and speaking with Mortimous. Every muscle in her body was conditioned to push, brace, re-center, then push again, over and over. Every part of her brain was accustomed to focusing on her breathing and the sense of internal quiet she required in order to see Mortimous.

  Yet the mindful aspect of her time at the Cauldrons was the only part she actually focused on each day. The extended periods of serenity, contemplation, and learning had become a safe haven from the misery of the prison. So much so that she had relied on avoiding her immediate surroundings in order to live another day. Now, though, she had to find the balance between the two.

  Hugging Traskk’s tail with her arms and squeezing with her knees, she worked herself up toward the ceiling.

  As she did, she thought how wonderful it was that Mortimous had finally helped her answer one of the many questions that had plagued her over the years. A round table. She hadn’t believed Mortimous when he had first suggested the idea, but after talking with him at length about the possibility, she too had become convinced that it was the solution she had sought all along.

  All the preventable suffering and unnecessary wars... The round table would solve all of it.

  As she climbed, Vere wondered if it would make as much sense to her friends once she explained it to them, or if they would think she had lost her mind out at the Circle of Sorrow.

  31

  Half of the Griffin Fire’s shields were gone, and the other half wouldn’t last much longer. The ship was out of proton torpedoes. There were too many Thunderbolts to keep track of. Quickly didn’t have nearly enough firepower at his disposal to damage either of the Athens Destroyers hovering above the planet, but now he was headed directly toward them anyway.

  Without shields protecting the back third of the Griffin Fire, he couldn’t fly in a straight line for longer than two seconds without the ship’s engines being vulnerable to enemy fire. The result was an endless series of maneuvers that must have made it look as if the Griffin Fire’s pilot were out of control or intoxicated. He swerved, did half turns, half spins, over and over, all in a desperate attempt to avoid the constant eruption of laser blasts around him.

  Because of this, the Thunderbolts began firing at will. Any time one of them was facing the same general direction as the zigzagging Griffin Fire, they let off one shot after another. Quickly’s flying was so erratic that the Vonnegan pilots sometimes accidentally shot each other while trying to keep him in their sights, but every once in a while a blast would also strike the underside or top of the Griffin Fire.

  All of this was in an effort to give Cade as much time as possible. When the lucky shots began to hit the Griffin Fire more often than he dared allow, Quickly finally jammed the controls forward until the ship looped back toward the prison colony and its spaceport, then turned the engines up to full speed to put some distance between himself and the Vonnegan fighters again.

  Around the far side of the prison, the spaceport came into view. A moment later, the individual ships parked there could also be seen.

  “Come on,” Quickly muttered, hoping Cade had managed to sneak into another ship, set its autopilot, and get back out, all without being noticed.

  He saw it then—the Cirellian transport—beginning to lift off from the spaceport. But Cade was nowhere in sight. If he hadn’t been able to climb back out of the ship before it took off, he would be stuck inside a vessel programmed to carry out a suicide mission.

  With the Thunderbolts trailing far behind, Quickly had the luxury of briefly slowing the Griffin Fire enough to get a better look. The Cirellian transport’s engines were glowing bright yellow. The ship began to rumble.

  It was three feet off the ground when Cade appeared from the door at the side of the ship. His foot caught on the edge of the opening and he went tumbling, feet over head, then collected himself and started running again, back toward the Pendragon and to safety.

  “That’s my boy!” Quickly shouted, smiling.

  The Cirellian transport was ten feet off the ground now. Twenty feet. Thirty. Then it was adjusting its direction, facing toward the Athens Destroyers.

  Quickly ignored it and turned his attention back to Cade just in time to see a group of three Vonnegan troopers appear from the spaceport entryway. Although he had slowed down enough to check on Cade’s progress, Quickly was still flying much
too fast to turn toward the guards and do anything to divert their attention.

  “Come on,” Quickly muttered, willing Cade to run faster.

  In unison, all three troopers raised their blasters, pointed them at Cade, then squeezed their triggers.

  32

  Le Savage was the last person in the prison to find out that Vere and her friends weren’t still in the storage container that was stacked above the one blocking the main entrance.

  Under strict orders to get in that room and apprehend the raiders, a crew had burned a hole through the first container, hoping the entire time they didn’t accidently ignite one of the explosives in the room, then climbed up to the second one.

  On the monitor, Le Savage could only see the armored guards open the container door; he didn’t have a view inside the metal crate. When one of the guards reappeared, he simply shrugged.

  Not being able to stand it any longer, Le Savage shouted into the comm system, “What is it? Stop standing around and tell me what you found!”

  The only ranking officer in the group touched his wrist so the microphone in his helmet was activated.

  “They aren’t here, sir,” the captain said.

  “Where are they?” Le Savage asked, his throat burning from screaming so much.

  “They aren’t here.”

  “I know that,” Le Savage shouted. “You just told me that.” If the captain had been in the control room, Le Savage would have sent him flying out the window and down to the magma below. “Tell me where they went.”

  “There’s a hole in the top of the second storage container and another through the ceiling. I’d say they went up one level and are working their way back to the ships they arrived on.”

  “Captain Cicada?”