The Round Table (Space Lore Book 3)

by Chris Dietzel

  He didn’t mind if the CasterLan security forces came and put him in chains. What was the worst that would happen? They would put him in a jail cell for the rest of his life. They might offer him to Mowbray in exchange for one of his prisoners. Scrope didn’t mind spending however many years he had remaining of his pitiful existence in a CasterLan prison. Compared to the Cauldrons of Dagda, that outcome would be luxurious.

  What he feared were Morgan and that giant reptile. He would never make it to a trial or a prison if either of them got their hands on him. He would never make it out of the room—at least not in one piece.

  The thought made his knees buckle, made him retch.

  It was the same queasiness that came over him each time he opened the windows in the king’s chamber and tried to convince himself to jump. So far to fall before he died! It was the same nausea he felt in his stomach when he picked up a blaster, pointed it at his head, and begged himself to be able to pull the trigger.

  Each time he wasn’t able to do one of these things, he cursed himself for his weakness. He taunted himself with things like, “If you weren’t so pitiful you could avoid them coming to get you. You could avoid it all”. Other times, he whined, “You make me sick; you can betray an entire kingdom but you can’t just kill yourself?” Around the room he stormed, ridiculing himself, shouting although there was no one else around to hear him.

  No amount of self-loathing could make him do it, however.

  Disgusted with himself, he turned to self-pity. The people had hated him and reviled him so much that they had abandoned their homes and left the planet rather than be citizens under his rule. His entire career had been for nothing. Everyone despised him.

  Now, it was going to be over. A group of CasterLan soldiers were on their way up to get him. Even if he activated the security panels and locked himself inside the chambers, it would only take them a short while to get inside. Hiding from them would only cause another brief delay. He didn’t have it in his resolve to kill himself. There was only one thing left to do, and so he settled on accomplishing his plan.

  Quite simply, he would kill Morgan and Traskk before they could kill him.

  He would never be able to wipe out the entire group of soldiers. Even the idea of somehow doing so made him laugh at his own ineptitude. He was a politician! He killed people by starting wars, not by fighting them. He had never looked someone in the eyes and ended their life.

  If he could just kill those two people, however, he would then drop his blaster on the ground and turn himself over to be jailed. It wasn’t how he had envisioned his life turning out when he first began working in the Edsall Dark diplomatic corps, but it was the best of a bad set of options. And it would keep Morgan and Traskk from torturing him.

  He heard a double beep, followed by a yellow dot of light flashing on the wall. The lift had reached the top floor. They had arrived.

  Hiding behind the curtains that lined most of the room, he stood in darkness next to the doorway. If he were lucky, he could avoid being seen by the soldiers and get off two quick shots at Morgan and Traskk before surrendering.

  Muffled voices could be heard on the other side of the door.

  “What if it’s a trap?” he heard Vere ask someone else.

  “I don’t care if it is,” Morgan’s voice replied from the other side of the door.

  From behind the curtains, Scrope could only see a gray hazy image of the closed door. Then he heard the door open and saw movement as the group cautiously entered the room. As soon as the last person walked through, he would jump out and find his two targets.

  His heart was thudding. Sweat trickled down his forehead and into his eyes.

  I can do this, he told himself.

  It was the last thought he had before a leathery set of claws tore through the curtain and grabbed him by the throat. Before he could aim at anyone, let alone pull the trigger, Traskk’s other hand ripped the blaster away and tossed it across the room. The Basilisk roared and bared his fangs. Foul-smelling saliva sprayed across Scrope’s face. He didn’t realize it, though. He had already fainted.

  57

  Morgan waited as patiently as her anger would allow while Scrope wake from his stupor. If she left the room, Traskk would ruin her chance for revenge by killing the traitor himself, so she remained within arm’s reach of him while he twitched in his fear-induced sleep. Meanwhile, the tall reptile paced back and forth from one side of the room to the other.

  They had been arguing about this for two years—ever since they had escaped from Dela Turkomann. Sometimes they relied on a translator to explain Traskk’s side of the argument, and sometimes he would simply roar and slam his tail against the ground to get his point across.

  “He’s mine,” she said to the Basilisk.

  In response, Traskk looked her straight in the eye and gave a guttural growl, revealing only the edges of his fangs. She didn’t need anyone to translate the gist of what he had said.

  Scrope’s eyes blinked in rapid succession, then fluttered open. Conscious and alert, his pupils darted around the room, finding Morgan beside him and Traskk approaching. As soon as he saw this, he groaned and whimpered. Worst of all, the CasterLan soldiers had left. He had no chance of being arrested or of spending his remaining days in a prison. He was never going to leave this room and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he muttered, his hands tugging on Morgan’s sleeve.

  She leaned down and grabbed him by the ear, then wrenched forward, causing the back of Scrope’s head to slam against the stone wall he was sitting against. He moaned and stopped begging.

  Traskk was standing over the traitor, saliva dripping from his razor-sharp teeth. Morgan positioned herself between them to keep him from killing Scrope before she could do it the way she had fantasized.

  Traskk turned to the only other person in the room—Vere—and said something in Basilisk. Then he smacked his own arms, legs, and tail, still shiny and green after their recent regrowth. Morgan knew what the reptile was telling Vere: “He did this! I deserve justice.”

  “Please,” Scrope said, gurgling on his own snot.

  Morgan smacked his head against the stone wall again, then faced Vere. “He’s mine. I gave him my word that I’d kill him. You appointed me leader of your combined military forces. If I do it, it’s justice for everyone who died above Dela Turkomann.”

  Scrope was crying now.

  For a moment, Morgan thought Vere might try to claim the right to kill him for herself. After all, she was the one who had been taken prisoner. It was her kingdom that had been lost as a result of Scrope’s treachery.

  But instead, Vere gave a half-hearted smile and said, “I don’t care. If the two of you can’t figure out who should kill him, maybe he should go free.”

  Scrope’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, Vere! Thank you! Everyone will know how merciful—”

  But before he could finish saying anything else, Traskk’s face darted closer to the cowering prisoner and gave another roar, spraying more saliva on Scrope’s face.

  “You can’t be serious,” Morgan said, turning her attention from Scrope to Vere. But Vere was already heading out the door. “She’s leaving?” Morgan said, scratching her head.

  Traskk let out a confused grunt.

  Morgan stared at the doorway, waiting for Vere to return. After realizing that she wasn’t going to, Morgan smacked the wall above Scrope’s head with her open hand. Flakes of mortar fell on his head.

  Not only did Vere want to give away her kingdom, she didn’t even care enough about the man who had betrayed her to ensure he was duly punished. Morgan and Traskk could let Scrope go free and apparently Vere wouldn’t mind at all. It was enough to make Morgan’s face turn red with fury.

  Returning to the original conflict, she said to Traskk, “We could kill him together.” Even she wasn’t convinced, though. When Traskk didn’t respond, she added, “I said I would kill him. I gave my word.”

>   The Basilisk stepped forward and put a massive clawed hand on her shoulder. His tail came around and tapped her other arm, then both legs. If she had a tail, he would have touched that as well. The message was clear: he was reminding her of all the appendages he had lost at the hands of the traitor. Scrope had personally cut off the reptile’s tail, arms, and legs and left him to die. Traskk was only alive because he had burrowed deep under the sand in a desperate bid for survival. Morgan knew this, of course, because she had been the one to rescue him. But now, seeing the way Vere had simply left, and hearing her own argument, Morgan sighed.

  “Fine,” she said with a nod. “But don’t make it quick.”

  Traskk’s tongue darted out, the Basilisk version of a smile.

  “Please, don’t leave me,” Scrope said, seeing that he was soon going to be alone in the room with the giant reptile.

  The last thing Morgan saw before she left the chambers was Scrope attempting to crawl behind the same curtains he had been hiding behind, the final craven act of a disgraced man.

  Then the door closed behind her. She was only a few paces down the hallway when Scrope’s screaming began. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she actually heard limbs being torn from his body.

  58

  Men, women, and aliens in CasterLan uniforms dispersed from the Solar Carriers and began spreading out around the capital. One team worked in the control room to run diagnostics on the Crown and on the other Edsall Dark offensive and defensive measures. Another team worked their way through all of the other key parts of CamaLon, scanning for booby traps but never finding any. Inside the command center, another team began monitoring the space around the planet and the portal.

  When alarms began going off inside the command center, the lieutenant on duty looked to the ensign for an answer. A sensor had been triggered from the other side of the portal.

  The ensign looked down at the information displayed in front of him, then said, “Sir, multiple ships preparing to appear through the portal.”

  The lieutenant didn’t have to ask if they were CasterLan ships; the alarm wouldn’t have been triggered if they were.

  “Who is it?” the lieutenant asked.

  “Still trying to determine, sir.”

  The room went silent as the ensign worked to identify which fleet would be coming through the energy field.

  “Ensign, I need to know if we’re going to be under attack.”

  “I’m working on it, sir.”

  But still no answer.

  “Ensign, are they Vonnegan ships?”

  Silence. Everyone in the room was perfectly quiet.

  “Ensign, should I send orders to activate the Crown?”

  The ensign was tapping information into the console quicker than he could speak. One alarm quieted but another was still beeping.

  Unable to wait any longer, the lieutenant took three quick steps over to the comm unit and said, “This is Lieutenant Pierce in the command center. Begin activation of the Crown.”

  A voice came through the speaker: “Activating the Crown, sir.”

  The first ship came through the portal. It was made of a metal that was much darker than either Solar Carriers or Athens Destroyers. The front of the ship forked into a pair of lookouts. The bottom of the ship was lined with an array of cannons.

  Another ship, identical to the first, passed through the energy field. Then another.

  “Kaiser Doom’s fleet!” the ensign said.

  “Power down the Crown,” the Lieutenant said into the comm.

  The worst thing that could have happened was Kaiser Doom being alerted that the Crown had been ready to fire on his ships.

  One after another, Doom’s HC Ballistic Cruisers passed through the portal and began orbiting Edsall Dark. Everyone in the room watched the ships in awe. Except the lieutenant.

  “Ensign, I need a quicker response next time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Vere entered the command center. Looking at the displays, then up at the holographic image of the sky above Edsall Dark, she saw the same collection of ships that had taken everyone else’s breath away.

  “They’re here already?” she asked. “Good. More fleets should be on their way.”

  She smiled, told everyone to keep up the good work, then walked out again.

  59

  Having moved outside to CamaLon’s exterior gate, Vere watched the various ships appear through the portal. Kaiser Doom’s fleet was already above Edsall Dark. Baron Von Wrth’s ships were now appearing as well. One after another, the ships burst forth from the ring of light before entering into orbit around the planet. Cruisers. Carriers. Armored Rafts. A collection of the galaxy’s greatest killing machines.

  At the same time, it was both exhilarating and unsettling.

  “I hope I’m doing the right thing,” she said, thinking of her mother and father and how they had raised her, and also of Mortimous and all the lessons he had taught her.

  Then, closing her eyes, she calmed her mind long enough to see a vision of the old man she now considered to be her teacher. The cloaked figure gave a nod, and she knew she was on the correct path. Two years after trying to recruit the galaxy’s other leaders into a union and failing miserably at the task, she was once again trying the same approach. This time, however, instead of asking for their help in fighting a war, she was asking for their friendship and partnership.

  Above her, in the king’s chamber, she was sure that either Morgan or Traskk had gotten their revenge on Scrope. Neither of them would let something go until they felt they had evened the score. What they didn’t realize, though, at least not yet, was that revenge could become an endless cycle if you let it. They felt wronged and so they wanted to kill Scrope. Someone loyal to Scrope would need to avenge his death. There was always enough hate to go around if you let it.

  It was yet another thing the Cauldrons of Dagda had taught her. She had so many reasons to yearn for revenge. Her kingdom was in shambles. Many of her friends had been killed in battle. She had spent two years in a place she wouldn’t wish upon any enemy. If she tried to get vengeance for all of it, she would spend the rest of her life fighting and collecting on debts that could never be fully repaid. Unless she just let go.

  That was exactly what she planned to do. Once again, she was trying to recruit the galaxy against Mowbray, but only because it was the one path by which the planets could have enduring peace. She hadn’t returned to Edsall Dark to latch onto the remnants of her father’s kingdom. She wasn’t enticing Mowbray to return with his fleet so she could watch him die. Nothing about what she was doing involved pride or ego or power. She had returned to her home planet, luring Mowbray to do the same, because it was the path to absolution.

  Look what the lust for power had done so far. Hotspur started a war because he wanted glory in the battlefield, and now he was dead. Scrope betrayed everyone he knew because he wanted more power, and now he was also dead. Mowbray, led by the need for more of everything, was heading toward his death and didn’t even realize it.

  None of it was worth it. With Mortimous’s guidance, she saw that a different course was possible, the one Galen had tried to show her years earlier.

  In the total history of her planet, her life thus far was but a blip. In terms of the entire galaxy, her life was almost nothing. It was a single atom, a single grain of sand, infinitesimal and inconsequential compared to all of the trillions of other lives that had been lived around the billions of stars and planets. There were better ways for her to spend the rest of her years than by sending troops into battles that weren’t necessary or by clinging onto a kingdom that didn’t need her.

  She understood now how Hector must have felt after seeing the horrors of war firsthand. Instead of letting it fill him with anger and a lust for revenge, he had simply walked away and lived his life. She wondered if he too was following the Word.

  After this, no matter what happened, she would be done with fighting. Looking back, she felt f
oolish for all the times she had started brawls back in Eastcheap and later on with Morgan. One last battle was inevitable. She knew that. Even Hector, who praised the idea of the round table, must know that one final conflict was going to play out. After that, however, the round table would take care of everything. That much she was sure of.

  “Amazing thing to see, huh?”

  She turned and saw Quickly standing just behind her, watching the same line of ships come through the portal.

  “It’s either amazing or terrifying,” she said. “I haven’t decided which yet.”

  “You know, two years ago we felt lucky to have a warlord and a gangster agree to fight for our cause. Now we have some of the most fearsome fleets in the galaxy, with more on the way.”

  Vere watched the portal’s energy, contemplated its purity and power. As long as the ring of cylinders existed around the gateway, the energy would be contained. As soon as just one of the cylinders was removed, the portal’s immense energy would dissipate into space. Brilliant for a moment, then gone. In a way, it was like the round table she was having built.

  Both were the same shape. Although they were in quite different forms, both contained immense power. Would her precious table bring everyone together or would it be like a portal with not enough cylinders and break apart, leaving behind a void of chaos and disorder?

  “You nearly died on one of my foolhardy missions two years ago,” Vere said.

  Quickly patted his metal arm. “You don’t have to remind me. But this time is different.”

  “How do you know?” When she didn’t get an immediate answer, she added, “Morgan...”

  He smiled and nodded. “She’ll come around. Everyone will come around. They just need to get used to the idea.”

  Another fleet had begun to arrive through the energy field. Neither Vere nor Quickly could identify who the vessels belonged to. Each ship was wider and shorter than any other flagship vessel they had seen, with hulls curving in a semicircle. However, anything other than Athens Destroyers was a welcome sight.