“They’re going to try and block us,” she said.
Traskk growled an affirmative to this as well.
After coming out of the next set of spirals and pointing the Griffin Fire toward the portal, she gave thought to powering the ship’s engines into top speed and trying to squeeze past the flagships anyway, but envisioned one of two scenarios playing out. The first was that the pair of Destroyers would unload their cargo, trash, and all additional ships in an effort to block possible routes past them. If the Pendragon smashed into debris at top speed, it would be destroyed, along with everyone aboard. The second possibility was that more than thirty large cannons would be firing at her at point blank. One direct shot would cause catastrophic failure to at least a portion of her ship’s tinder walls. Before she had time to swerve and avoid the portal, her ship would pass through the energy field without the necessary protective barrier. In both cases, the end result would be the same.
Morgan had already managed to get into and out of the Cauldrons of Dagda, had gotten past Balor and the guards, freed Vere, and lost two friends in the process. She couldn’t let everyone aboard her ship—herself included—die now that they were so close to escaping.
Next to her, a sensor began buzzing. At the same time, Traskk let out a growl. Two more Athens Destroyers were approaching from the opposite direction. The dozen Thunderbolts firing at her were annoying enough. After the two new Destroyers released their accompaniment of fighters, there would be fifty or sixty ships to contend with, an impossible feat for any pilot of any ship.
“We have to get out of here,” she said. And then, as if there were any room for confusion, she added, “Right now.”
Instead of piloting the ship toward the blockaded portal, however, she turned the Pendragon in the opposite direction.
Without needing to be told what to do next, her copilot began tapping keys with the end of his long claws. A three-dimensional display of the other nearest portals formed in front of both of them, with dotted lines showing how long it would take to get to each. Morgan glanced at it for a moment, nodded, then changed course without asking for a second opinion.
Instead of speeding away from the two approaching Athens Destroyers, she flew directly toward them. With each second, the Pendragon gained more and more speed. By the time she was within firing distance of the two flagships, squadrons of Thunderbolts had begun to stream out of their hangars. The Pendragon was moving so fast that none of the Vonnegan ships came close to hitting it. By the time the Thunderbolts were out in open space and trying to lock onto the Pendragon with their weapons systems, the ship was already gone.
The only problem was that they were heading deeper into Vonnegan territory.
As if Traskk’s tail sliding back and forth across the cockpit floor wasn’t enough to let her know he didn’t approve, he also bared his fangs.
“It was our only chance,” she said.
Pistol and Vere appeared in the doorway.
Traskk turned and, in a series of hisses, told them what Morgan had done.
Vere shrugged and said, “Oh well, she probably knows what’s best.” Then she disappeared again.
Traskk and Morgan stared at each other, neither knowing how to react to the calmness Vere exuded.
Traskk grumbled a series of noises, which Pistol translated as, “He wants to know what happened to the real Vere and who this impostor is.”
Pistol’s eye socket and the synthetic skin around it were black and charred. The arm that had been lost in the fighting had loose wires dangling from the shoulder joint.
“She looks fine to me,” the android said. Then added, “All things considered.” Before turning and leaving, he also said, “Of course, I’m not programmed to make psychological assessments.”
“I’m not sure which of them I should be more concerned about,” Morgan said.
Rather than encouraging her dark sense of humor, Traskk growled, still unhappy with her decision to go further into Vonnegan space rather than try to escape from it.
“It was the best decision at the time,” she said again, but the Basilisk only grumbled.
38
Moments earlier, after lifting off from the Cauldrons, Vere had immediately noticed the Griffin Fire changing directions and trying to get to the portal as fast as possible. She also saw that the Pendragon’s trajectory had it heading toward a group of Thunderbolts instead of following the other ship.
Watching from a tiny holographic map in the back of the vessel, she said to Pistol, “Send the Griffin Fire a transmission of everything I’ve told you. Set it to automatically retransmit to every leader in every sector.”
“Yes, Vere.”
The android turned to the nearest console, then held his index finger in front of a terminal. The tip of his finger slid back, revealing the metal and wires of his inner workings. Moving his finger forward just a little, the terminal lit up, as did Pistol’s good eye. A moment later, his eye faded until it looked like a normal human pupil again, and he pulled his finger away.
“Did you send it in time?” Vere asked, seeing that the Griffin Fire was gone.
“Yes, Vere.”
From the time she had first come out of her discussion with Mortimous and realized what was happening, she had been relaying instructions to Pistol. Only listening to a few words here or there, none of it would make sense to Traskk or Morgan. It certainly had sounded like the ramblings of a lunatic when they had overheard her. Little did they know the impact her words would have or how clear she was thinking.
She patted the android on the shoulder and the two of them walked to the Pendragon’s cockpit. Traskk was sitting in the copilot’s seat, growling at Morgan. Then the reptile saw Vere standing in the doorway and told her that their pilot had lost her mind and had decided to travel further into Vonnegan territory.
Vere wanted to laugh. She could understand why Traskk was irritated, but after having spent two years in the worst prison in the galaxy, any place they went, even Mowbray’s home world, would be a pleasure by contrast.
“Oh well,” she said. “She probably knows what’s best.” After a shrug, she turned and left again.
Behind her, she could hear Traskk growl disapprovingly at her response. It didn’t deter her from returning to the silence that the back of the ship offered. A moment later, Pistol also returned to the rear of the vessel.
“Did they ask you to keep an eye on me?” she said.
Pistol pointed to the one eye he still had remaining and tried to make a joke. “Don’t kick an android while he’s down.”
She had been around him long enough to know exactly when and why his humor processing was used—after all, she had programmed him. This was why she repeated the question.
Pistol answered, “They did. They were worried about your state of mind after two years in that prison.”
“You know what the funny thing is? I’ve never felt better in my entire life.”
“That’s not funny as much as it is incredibly concerning,” Pistol said in his monotone voice, which made it difficult to tell if the comedic programming was still running.
Vere smiled and stared out the viewport, into the depth of black space before her.
“You want to know what I learned at the Cauldrons?” When Pistol nodded, she said, still looking out at the expanse of the galaxy, “There are an infinite number of galaxies and stars and planets in the universe. They’ve been around for billions of years and they’ll be around for billions more. And yet I’m only one person, and I’ll only live on two or three of those planets in just one of those galaxies. And only for a few decades.” She looked at the android and said, “That’s what I learned.”
The android’s good eye began to glow a light green, a ray of light scanning up and down Vere’s face. She knew exactly what Pistol must be thinking.
“Relax,” she said, patting him on the shoulder that still functioned. “I haven’t lost my mind and I’m not suicidal. In fact, I don’t think I’ve
ever seen things so clearly before.”
The android’s scanning system turned itself off, the green eye fading to normal. Unconcerned with where they were going, even if it was further into enemy territory, Vere rummaged through a pair of the Pendragon’s tool bins. With a collection of pliers, wrenches, and tweezers in hand, she turned and faced Pistol once more. The android nodded and sat down so Vere could begin working on him.
“I won’t be able to get your eye working again,” she said. “But I can at least clean up the damage and see how many of your systems are affected.”
“Whatever you can do would be appreciated.”
With a thin piece of metal, she began to scrape charred debris from his blackened eye socket.
“Do you remember the last time I lost an eye?”
She thought for a moment and then smiled. “On Folliet Bright, outside Eastcheap. The Pirellian gangster whose foot you stepped on.”
“In my defense, I did ask if he minded stepping aside.”
She smiled and said, “My friend, that seems like an entire lifetime ago.”
39
Deep in the heart of the DorEca sector, the largest asteroid belt in the known galaxy drifted in orbit around a luminous supergiant sun. Some of the asteroids in the belt were so large that they could be considered dwarf planets, with gravity and even smaller asteroids orbiting them. The field of giant rocks and constant scattering of debris made it nearly impossible for any pilot to enter the asteroid field and live to tell about it.
In another part of the asteroid field, great electrical storms raged from a nebula of gaseous clouds. The probability of passing through the belt was greatly reduced by the effect these constant storms had on ships’ systems. Vessels outside the asteroid field were said to have vanished, not because of hitting an asteroid but because the electrical storms had caused their navigation and sensors to provide incorrect readings that led to one mistake or another.
The same obstacles that kept ships from entering the asteroid field ensured that any vessels that did happen to make it into the rock belt were safe once they were in the calm eye of the center. It was said that the famous space pirate Sir Ovier Chuster had, hundreds of years earlier, spent his life safely hidden away inside the DorEca asteroid field. Of course, he also might have perished on his attempted entry into it. No one ever knew for sure.
It had taken CasterLan scientists weeks—and more than two hundred lost probes—to find a safe path inside the asteroid belt.
Following the tragic defeat at Dela Turkomann, the remnants of the CasterLan Kingdom had known that returning to Edsall Dark would mean death. Mowbray’s fleet would follow them there and finish off any Solar Carriers that had managed to flee the previous battle. No other kingdom would harbor them because they knew Mowbray would send his fleet to their kingdom.
They needed to find a place where the remnants of the CasterLan people and their fleet would be safe. The center of the DorEca asteroid belt was the perfect place to rendezvous. If it had taken a thousand probes or two thousand probes to find a safe route through the asteroid field, they would have done it because it was the one place in the galaxy where the Vonnegan fleet of Athens Destroyers couldn’t get them.
After passing through the portal above Terror-Dhome and connecting via two other portals, it was also where Quickly sought refuge after the mission to free Vere.
Slowing the ship as the first asteroids came into view, he waited for the security probes that were attached to some of the larger asteroids throughout the belt to identify the Griffin Fire as a friendly vessel. Once that happened, someone from the makeshift command center would send coordinates to Quickly so he could safely get through the chaos of the outer rim of rocks and into the calm middle of DorEca’s eye.
One of the Griffin Fire’s displays lit up, indicating a probe was scanning the ship. With the electrical interference caused by the storms, Quickly couldn’t locate the probe or even be certain his ship’s systems weren’t misinterpreting solar flares for a scanner. However, a moment later, the ship’s computer chimed that it had received new coordinates. Quickly had the ship fly itself through the asteroid field on autopilot, following the exact course given to him, rather than trying to do it himself.
“Trust me,” a buddy of his had said, a pilot who had already gone through the deadly obstacle course. “You’ll think you can do it yourself. You’ll think you know better than your ship’s computer. You’ll hate giving up control of your craft. But thinking I was smarter than the scientists’ path almost got me killed.”
If it weren’t for those words still lingering in the back of Quickly’s head, he would have attempted to pilot the Griffin Fire through the asteroid belt himself. The fact was that he did think he could do it—no good pilot would think a computer could do a better job than they could—and he did hate giving up control of the craft he was piloting. It had been an extremely grueling trip, however. Reminding himself of how long it had been since he slept and that he was currently nowhere near his best as a pilot, he took his hands from the controls and watched as the Griffin Fire began to accelerate slightly, then bear left into the asteroid belt.
An obvious gap in the asteroids was directly in front of him. If he were flying, he would have taken the Griffin Fire in between the largest of the rocks. But as the computer guided him left of both celestial monsters, he saw an electrical storm form where he would have flown. The Griffin Fire would have been immersed in enough voltage to kill all of its systems. After that, it would only take a second or two for it to drift into a giant rock and explode.
“Whatever,” he muttered, the side of his mouth curling down.
As the ship came around the farther of the two enormous asteroids, a field of thousands of smaller asteroids came into view. A collision with any of them would impact the Griffin Fire with the force of a laser blast, tearing the ship apart in an instant. And yet the vessel continued straight toward them.
“What are you doing?” he said, looking at the control stick, which obviously wasn’t going to answer back.
Individual pebbles came into view. Too many to count. And still the Griffin Fire kept getting closer and closer to them.
“Come on.”
His hands reached down to take hold of the controls. Before he could change the ship’s path, taking it up and around the rocks, the ship turned on its own accord and began a loop around the rocks from the right side instead of over it. Looking back to his side, he saw through the cockpit viewport that if he had turned earlier and gone up instead of around, he would have collided with an asteroid that had been hidden behind the largest rock and was orbiting it.
Quickly rolled his eyes in annoyance.
Each time an obstacle presented itself and Quickly thought about how he would have taken the ship through the asteroid field, the Griffin Fire turned a different way, showing him how unmanageable and unsafe the journey was without a proven course through it. Every time he thought the autopilot was going to kill him, it made an adjustment and got him further through the maze of rocks.
Finally, half an hour later, he was in the very middle of the asteroid belt, where a force field had been established. Within it: the entire CasterLan fleet—what remained of it, at least. Gone were the days when they had one hundred Solar Carriers, another one hundred frigates and light cruisers, and swarms of Llyushin fighters. Now, in the middle of the DorEca asteroid field, there were fewer than twenty Solar Carriers and even fewer frigates. If the fleet ever left the safety of the asteroid field and faced the Vonnegan forces again, or if Mowbray’s ships decided to force them out of hiding, the CasterLan forces would cease to exist.
Crestfallen at the ragtag band of ships in front of him, he let the autopilot land the Griffin Fire for him even though he was past the last asteroid and free of danger.
On the makeshift platform, hovering next to a Solar Carrier, a figure was waiting for him. The man wore a Llyushin pilot’s outfit and, within the safety of the containment field, ha
d a helmet under one arm.
“How many times did you want to fly a different route than what the computer had programmed?” Surrey asked, smiling.
Surrey was the one who told him he would never make it through the asteroid field unless he let the computer pilot the ship for him. And now he had a smile from ear to ear, seeing from Quickly’s slumped shoulders that he had been right.
“It’s good to see you,” Quickly said.
Gesturing at the DorEca asteroids, Surrey laughed and said, “Showed you it’s better to give up control sometimes and live instead of being stubborn and dying, huh? I had the same problem myself. You’re trained to think you always know better than the dumb autopilot. But I guess this is the one time when that’s not the case.”
Quickly shook his head. “Just get it over with and say I told you so.”
Surrey laughed, then asked if Morgan and the others were on their way.
“You know,” Quickly said, looking back at the Griffin Fire and how much damage it had incurred, “I hope they are, but I don’t know for sure.”
Surrey began to say something else, but Quickly wasn’t listening to his friend any more. Only then, after he had landed and was on solid ground again had he remembered the encrypted message that had been sent over from the Pendragon before he passed through the portal. Now that he remembered it, it was all he could think about.
Finding a Safe Path, by Tim Barton - Digital Art
40
Mowbray looked out at the purple sky. Every building across the horizon reflected the same evening color, making the entire landscape look like a royal tapestry of skyscrapers. Being the capital of the Vonnegan Empire, the sky was filled with vessels of every type, some coming and others going. Out of sight, on the far side of the nearest moon, the navy yard was assembling more Athens Destroyers.
The Round Table (Space Lore Book 3) Page 12
