The Round Table (Space Lore Book 3)

by Chris Dietzel

  “Damn,” Morgan said. When the first two Thunderbolts appeared from the portal and began shooting at her, she said it a second time.

  The tinder walls raised an inch, then lowered again.

  “Stop playing around back there and fix it!” she yelled.

  Rather than wait any longer, she turned the ship around and aimed it at the portal once more. A second away from re-entering it, two things happened. The first was that the tinder walls raised an inch, allowing her to see through a small slat of the cockpit window but also forcing her to swerve away from the energy field. The other thing that happened was another pair of Thunderbolts coming through the portal. Both Vonnegan pilots saw the Pendragon flying in front of them, swerved to avoid her, and instead clipped wings with each other, causing both to sail into the distance of space.

  The tinder walls lowered again and she took the ship back through to Greater Mazuma. This time, the Athens Destroyers were ready. A barrage of laser blasts came at the Pendragon within seconds. She was about to take the ship through the second portal, in which freighters were appearing rather than disappearing, when the tinder walls opened all the way up, forcing her to swerve past the portal and around for another pass. Thunderbolts were everywhere.

  Traskk reappeared in the cockpit doorway.

  Before he could sit down, Morgan yelled, “Lower them! Lower them!” and her reptile copilot jabbed a claw at the button to put the tinder walls back down.

  Just as they were in place and the ship’s systems signaled it was okay to pass through, the Pendragon disappeared into the second portal. The ship seemed to lag, then rush forward, the way it did every time they went through the energy fields. Right away, Traskk pressed the button and the walls rose again.

  There were three portals in front of them. A purple planet. Maybe twenty Athens Destroyers.

  There was only one place in the galaxy with three portals in front of a purple planet. Morgan didn’t need the ship’s computer to tell her they were at EndoKroy, the Vonnegan capital and site of Mowbray’s palace.

  Every Destroyer immediately began to turn toward her ship and lock their cannons on her.

  “Lower them,” Morgan said, yanking the steering column to the side.

  With the tinder walls down, the Pendragon disappeared back into the portal just as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the space above EndoKroy before any Thunderbolts could offer chase.

  As soon as they were through the portal and the tinder walls were back up, she saw a trio of Thunderbolts passing through the same portal they had just emerged from.

  “I guess there’s only one door left,” she said, turning the Pendragon toward the fourth portal.

  Right before they passed through, a laser blast rocked the ship and she had a fear that the tinder walls wouldn’t be able to lower into position and that they would all die. There was no time to react, however, and the ship vanished once more.

  Alarms immediately began to blare. Even before the tinder walls had a chance to rise, Morgan jerked the controls to the side, avoiding a Dracorian cargo cruiser that was moments from entering from the other side of the portal.

  This time, they were above a volcanic planet that had beautiful rings of space dust around it and a pair of small, crater-ridden moons. An Athens Destroyer began firing. A group of Thunderbolts appeared through the portal but a fraction of a second later collided with the cargo cruiser and were decimated.

  “Will this never end?” Morgan said.

  Beside her, Traskk was using the ship’s computer to calculate a way home based on all of the destinations they had found through the four portals.

  In front of them, a squadron of Thunderbolts exited from the Athens Destroyer’s hangar and began racing toward them.

  A zoomed-out display of the part of the galaxy they had appeared at was displayed in the air in front of them. On the far right side was a blinking dot that noted where their friends were gathered at the DorEca asteroid field. On the far left side was the Grand Galactal sector and the edge of Mowbray’s empire. At various places in the middle of the map were Greater Mazuma, EndoKroy, and the other spots they had appeared from. Interspersed with the portals they had gone through were a series of gray dots indicating other portals that could be accessed via alternate routes. A line of flashing green dots appeared, showing them the quickest way home.

  Before she could punch in the coordinates, a laser blast hit the front of the ship, and Morgan jerked the controls and began returning blasts of her own. Without front shields, the blast caused a small fire to break out next to Traskk. Alarms began to sound, signaling the ship’s structural integrity was in doubt.

  “Anything I can help with?”

  Morgan turned to see Vere standing in the doorway again.

  “How’s the book?” she asked, shaking her head and rolling her eyes. When Vere began to give an honest assessment of what she had been reading, Morgan put up a hand and told her to go back and read some more. Once Vere was gone, Morgan turned to Traskk and said, “What did they do to her in that prison?”

  The reptile only growled and dragged his tail dejectedly across the floor.

  More laser blasts were coming at them.

  “We have to get out of here,” Morgan said.

  Without waiting for more shots to hit them, she turned the Pendragon back toward the portal. As soon as they appeared through the other side, back at Greater Mazuma, she had to swerve to avoid hitting a freighter, then again to evade Thunderbolts’ lasers. Before she could take the first green dot, a portal that would take them closer to home, she had to swerve into the nearest portal to get away from a proton torpedo that was coming her way.

  A pair of Thunderbolts followed her but she was already turning the ship around and heading back toward them as their tinder walls were rising. Both were shot out of space before they could do anything.

  Everywhere she looked now, there were laser blasts and Vonnegan ships; it didn’t matter which portal she planned on taking the Pendragon through or which direction they were heading. Instead of taking the portal she wanted, she had to take them into the one that got them away from the Athens Destroyers. Just as fast, another group began firing on them and she had to go back through a portal and return to the Vonnegan commercial district. The tinder walls could barely respond quickly enough as she looped and darted through one energy field after another. They were back at Greater Mazuma, then back at Grand Galactal, then back above EndoKroy.

  Through every portal, swarms of Thunderbolts followed. Every once in a while, a Thunderbolt that had followed her through a portal stopped pursuing and flew off straight into the distance. These were ships that hadn’t been able to get their tinder walls down in time and were now nothing more than aimless ghost vessels cruising to oblivion.

  Other Thunderbolts collided with cargo vessels trying to get through the portals. Some collided with each other or were accidently shot by the barrage of Vonnegan lasers.

  A second green dot lit up and the Pendragon was one more portal closer to home. Near a massive white sun, four times bigger than the Edsall Dark’s, they passed through another portal and a third green dot lit up on their display.

  Morgan turned to Traskk, smiled, and said, “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  In response, her copilot’s long tongue darted in and out in the grumpiest Basilisk manner possible.

  46

  From the top of his palace, Mowbray scanned the latest updates as they came in. It was taking longer than expected to assemble the fleet and depart for Edsall Dark. But this was only because so many Athens Destroyers had been put on alert to capture the Pendragon.

  Complaints had already begun to stream in to his diplomats. Cargo vessels from one kingdom or another had been damaged above Greater Mazuma and the various leaders were politely asking for reparations. This only made Mowbray chuckle because they were all asking to be reimbursed rather than demanding it. His name and power and reputation were to be feared.

  T
hree times he had seen the Pendragon appear from the portal above his home world and three times it had vanished just as fast. He couldn’t help but laugh, appreciating the sheer bravado of whomever was in charge of the mission to free Vere.

  Moments later, another update came through. This one wasn’t from some angry lord or baron, however, but from one of his generals. The Pendragon had gotten away from Greater Mazuma and was headed toward a different group of portals.

  No matter, he thought. As soon as the ship was gone, his generals would muster the fleet and follow the same path the raiders had taken. Wherever Vere went, his Athens Destroyers would also go. And then he would not only destroy Vere and the friends who had freed her, but the few remaining CasterLan ships that had escaped two years earlier.

  47

  Vere lurched from side to side every time Morgan sent the Pendragon into another series of spirals and turns. They were away from Greater Mazuma and EndoKroy, but the Vonnegan Empire was much more far-reaching than just two planets. For another three portal jumps, each time the Pendragon appeared, Athens Destroyers and Thunderbolts took aim at it. Every time a laser blast hit the ship, the wall behind Vere and the floor underneath her rattled as if they might come apart.

  All she could do was wait for the jolts and shaking to subside, then go back to the book she was reading. As a girl, her father had frequently mentioned a story about a prince who was willing to do anything to keep his power, even deception, betrayal, and murder. The prince achieved the crown he had been seeking, but he also ended up alone and afraid, and he knew all of his subjects would cheer from the streets one day when his death was announced.

  Even though it was the book her father had recommended to her more than any other, she had never bothered to waste a single minute on it. In fact, she had taken one look at it and told her father it didn’t seem like anything she would be interested in. Then she tossed it in the corner of her room, where it landed on top of a stack of other books she had no intention of reading.

  To her utter surprise, the same book happened to be sitting in a bin in the back of Morgan’s ship. She couldn’t help but wonder if Mortimous was having fun at her expense, but she took it as a sign, after finally escaping from the Cauldrons, that she should finally read it. Not to mention the fact that there was nothing else she could really do at the moment other than get in Morgan’s way. If Morgan or Traskk called on her to help, she was there and ready. If not, that was fine too.

  Galen, her first and only love, would have held the book in his hands and smiled at the seeming coincidence, saying the galaxy worked in funny ways. Mortimous would have said that coincidences were never actually coincidental. Her father would have grunted and said it was better late than never.

  The Pendragon went into another seemingly endless sequence of loops and turns. Vere held onto the table in front of her, pinning the book down with one hand, while Morgan did her best to evade all of the Vonnegan forces.

  Two years ago, Vere would have not only been incapable of sitting in the passenger section of a ship while they were under attack, she wouldn’t have imagined being able to read a book under such circumstances. Her mind would have forced her to think about everything except the words on each page.

  Paragraph after paragraph, she recognized what her father had liked about the book and why he had recommended it to her. She knew of so many rulers throughout the galaxy who had made the exact same mistakes as the book’s prince and as a result had ended up miserable and alone. She also began to see that her father had led his people in such a way that he wouldn’t suffer the same ignominious fate.

  It seemed obvious to her, as she flipped each page, that the prince should have sent a message out to the rest of the galaxy, just as she had done hours earlier. Two years ago, the idea of such a message would have seemed crazy, even to her. She still wasn’t sure if her change in mindset was due more to her long discussions with Mortimous or to her wretched two years at the Cauldrons of Dagda. Certainly, if the prince in the book had become a pupil of Mortimous’s and had been tortured, he would have chosen a completely different path for himself than one of deceit and conquest. In that regard, Vere saw her time at the Cauldrons as a positive thing, a turning point. Two years earlier, the old sage and her very own mother had both tried to warn her that the Excalibur Armada wouldn’t save her kingdom and yet she had ignored them both, choosing instead to follow her own pride and distorted ideals. In the end, the Cauldrons had made her stronger, not only physically but also mentally.

  She was excited to see how her friends and the other rulers around the galaxy would receive the message she had sent. No doubt, there would be people who thought she was insane, leaders who would think she must be playing some sort of game, aliens from other sectors who wouldn’t trust her, and rulers who might suspect it not to be from her at all but from Mowbray. She was confident, though, that the nature of the universe would win out and that her message would eventually be accepted for what it was. Only time would tell, however.

  After a while, the Pendragon stopped its erratic flying and Vere figured they had gotten away from the last of the Vonnegan forces. Rather than return to the cockpit, she closed her eyes and slept.

  When she awoke, she wasn’t sure how many hours had passed. Pistol was still on the other side of the room, holding a small handheld device hooked up to one of the Pendragon’s computers. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and walked to the cockpit. But before she could congratulate Morgan on getting away or thanking both of them again for risking their lives to come and free her, she looked out the windows and saw that they were surrounded by asteroids.

  “It feels so unnatural to have it set to autopilot,” Morgan said to Traskk.

  Then the asteroids parted and Vere saw a small detachment of Solar Carriers. The remnants of her kingdom.

  48

  As soon as he heard Vere had escaped from the Cauldrons of Dagda, Scrope knew she would be coming for him. It might not be that day or the next day. It might not be for a week or a month or a year. But she would return to Edsall Dark, and she would bring the others he had betrayed as well. Morgan. That giant reptile.

  Every hour, Scrope sent a request to Mowbray for a contingent of Vonnegan troopers to protect CamaLon. However, the messages either weren’t getting to their intended recipient or were being ignored. He was going to be on his own, without any troops to defend Edsall Dark’s capital. Vere and whatever CasterLan forces remained could land anywhere they wanted and simply walk into the king’s chambers and say Mowbray’s appointed leader was no longer in charge. Without anyone to repel the CasterLans, there would be no prolonged siege, no bombing campaign, not even any negotiations.

  They were going to come back and reclaim the planet that had been the centerpiece of the CasterLan Kingdom and Scrope was helpless to stop them. He had spent his entire life climbing the political ladder for just the right chance to seize power. When that opportunity had come along, he had gladly taken it. His former leader was gone. Her allies were gone. He was in charge now. He was! The ruler of the Vonnegan Empire could have appointed anyone to watch over the planet and yet he had chosen Scrope.

  But what did he have to show for it? An empty capital. A planet without an army. A throne without anyone to defend it. A chamber without anyone to command.

  He could spend his remaining time trying to figure out how to use the Crown, the enormous five-barrelled cannon atop the king’s chambers. It was strong enough to destroy an Athens Destroyer or Solar Carrier with a single blast. But he also knew that the arriving CasterLan forces could evade the Crown by approaching from the far side of the planet and sending in ground forces. They would be able to march right into the capital while Scrope sat at the Crown’s controls, helpless.

  He could flee, just as everyone else had done two years earlier after the Vonnegan forces were victorious at the battle above Dela Turkomann. But he hadn’t betrayed everyone around him and spent his entire life climbing from one position of power
to another just to abandon everything he had worked for. And although Mowbray refused to send military assistance, the Vonnegan ruler also wouldn’t forgive the appointed leader of Edsall Dark if he ran from his post. Part of Scrope was terrified of the thought of what Morgan and Traskk would do when they found him. The other part of him was terrified of what Mowbray would do to him if he fled from the planet.

  In the end, all he could do was send another message to the Vonnegan ruler. And another after that. As many as it took. Hopefully, Mowbray would finally agree to send him a complement of troops to defend the planet from Vere and her friends.

  49

  “We’re here,” Morgan said once the Pendragon had landed at the CasterLan spaceport inside the DorEca asteroid field.

  Instead of waiting for Vere to thank her, Morgan simply pressed the button to lower the ramp and made her way down to the platform. It had been a difficult mission and all she wanted was a good meal and some rest.

  People and various alien species made their way from each part of the spaceport to greet them and to see if Vere was actually alive. She had managed to survive at the Cauldrons longer than anyone else in history, but no matter how great her legend had become, there were plenty of naysayers who thought the rumors surely had to be false. Once it was confirmed Vere actually was aboard the ship and she too appeared on the platform, word began to spread and even more people congregated to get a look at her.

  A few people congratulated Morgan, telling her they couldn’t believe she had actually broken into the Cauldrons of Dagda and gotten someone out.