Uther could sense Merlin trying to comfort him as he watched the family jealously. “Thank you, Merlin. Could you tell me about that mecha Vivian was piloting?”
Merlin nodded and followed Uther from the bridge and out of the ship. Camelot’s air tasted clean and pure and they no longer needed the masks to breathe carefully. The planet was perfect and untouched by man, the purple mountains dark and vibrant under the strange sun. A perfect place to start over. The D.R.U.I.D and Uther executed the last part of the colonizing plan with the remains of the ship. It was built to transform into a metal fortress once the codes were punched in and verified by someone of Constantine’s blood. Uther called Galois over to give him instructions.
“I cannot thank you enough, my friend,” Uther said as he opened the vault-like doors on the outside of the ship where he began to activate the colonial program. “I must confess, I was embarrassed over my fear back there. We would not be alive if you had not stepped in like you did. I owe you my life and the life of Camelot.”
“Ah,” Galois shrugged it off. “You’re under a lot of stress right now. This wasn’t supposed to be your job, you know?”
Uther understood. He pressed his hand to the scanner and the ship acknowledged his DNA. The locks and hinges on the outside of the ship clicked and hissed as they released. In a fantastic motion almost like a dance, the ship transformed itself joint by joint into a magnificent palace-like structure. Androids nearby, with Vivian in the lead in her giant mecha, came and immediately went to work finishing the task of building the structure.
Like a great dragon unfurling its wings, the palace rose up slowly. The D.R.U.I.Ds were ready for them and, using their machinery, added to the walls and brought out storage crates the size of small houses to finish. In the distance, Uther could see the empty city, prepared for his people long before their arrival. The first of many, no doubt. His people could live where they pleased. Supplies awaited them.
“All of this,” Uther motioned with a great sweep of his hand. “From this palace to the river there in the distance is yours for your courage and bravery in the face of danger, Galois. As a gift from your planetary king.”
Galois’s jaw dropped as he grinned at the mass of land he had just been given. “Whoa, really? Even the castle?”
Uther smirked and laughed. “Of course, you need somewhere to raise your family. You’re a lord now. Of this new planet. It’s ours. Our new home. We’ll make it work.”
They gazed out at the planet before them now. It was luck they had landed so hectically on a day so beautiful. In the distance were tall, purple mountains just waiting to be explored. Creatures they had never seen lived in the tall trees with blue leaves and thousands of terabytes worth of data waited in the new hall of records Uther had not even set foot in yet. The knowledge of the D.R.U.I.Ds lay in wait for him.
“It is as though the weather is welcoming you, my lord,” Merlin smiled. “It is celebrating its new king.”
Uther beamed, his courage slowly returning. He had a planet to settle, after all. “What will you call your land, Galois?” he asked.
“After myself, of course,” he joked. “This will be Castle Tintagel and the kingdom of Tintagel. No need to be shy about it.”
“Very imaginative,” Uther laughed in agreement. “Just like the big brute you are.”
The next few days and nights passed in starry beauty on Camelot before Uther had even realized so much had passed. The androids finished their work on Tintagel in a matter of days and soon every person on the ship had awakened and was embellishing settlements from the supplies of Tintagel. For years, the D.R.U.I.Ds on Camelot had worked to create the perfect cities for the people who were expected. As the immigrants moved in, the D.R.U.I.Ds were slowly pushed to the outer rims of the civilization to their own small cities. On a hill, far from Tintagel and Uther’s lands, a great arrangement of silver towers in a circle formation jutted up to the clouds. Uther recognized the pattern of post and lintel electronics from books about the alien race.
“What is that structure?” he asked Merlin one day as he, Galois, and his family were out on tera-bikes, surveying the rest of the land with a crew of engineers and officials he had appointed to land marketing. “I know it from studying the race of aliens my father cloned.”
A bit of sadness crossed Merlin’s face as he watched his people file into the circle and touch the electric-glowing stones with their android hands. “With the part of them that is machine, they may connect themselves with those towers and communicate with the ones on our home planet. Being clones, they have never seen it and can only catch a glimpse through that binary connection. It is technology from Avalon, my planet.”
“Could a human use it?” Uther wondered. “Have you?”
Merlin shook his head. “Not in some time. I am not like those androids. And no, you cannot use it. You are human with no android or Avalonian in you. They would be as standing stones to you.”
“It’s beautiful,” Morgause mused.
“Could we become like you?” Lot asked of the D.R.U.I.D.
Merlin searched Lot’s face carefully. “Why would you want to sacrifice that part of you which is human?”
“Humans are so limited,” Lot exclaimed. “Think what we could do if all we had to do to communicate with another planet light years away was just plug ourselves into a great circular computer?”
“Yes,” Merlin said flatly. “Imagine what humans could do.”
Above them, the moon Lothian loomed. Just below it, too small for humans to see, the twin colony ship floated silently where Vortigern watched.
3
Betrayal
Uther found himself traveling to watch the D.R.U.I.Ds walk to and from the circle often. At last, he had the courage to ask Igrain to come with him while Galois carried out the task of making plans to purge the land of the D.R.U.I.Ds and seclude them in their own plots of land and cities at Uther’s orders.
Igrain and Uther took two tera-bikes and raced each other across the open planes of Camelot. Uther had never been out this way and eagerly wanted to find what the D.R.U.I.Ds called the Humming Meadows. Camelot was small, but hosted many hidden miles of land they had not seen in the weeks they spent on the surface of the planet. He took expeditions every day and began to think they would never explore the entire planet. His people had moved, taking land as they willed, creating maps, duchies, and settlements.
“They say it is entirely wild flowers and a kind of blue bee attends all the flowers,” Uther explained as the wind rushed past them. “That’s why it’s called the Humming Meadow. Because of the bees.”
Igrain laughed excitedly over the noise. “I cannot wait to see wild Camelot flowers!”
This made Uther’s heart leap. Igrain was a warrior at heart, but moments like that reminded him she had more on her mind than weapons and combat. He had felt so bogged down by all of his duties recently that he’d almost forgotten what it was like to be excited. In fact, aside from the quickly dispatched excitement he’d felt on first seeing Camelot, he could not remember ever being excited. It had been that long.
“Watch!” Uther called as he sped his bike faster, the sweet-smelling grass parting for him and his speed. He drove the bike towards a large yellow lake. Perfectly clear but tinged by the sunny color of the odd plant-life that grew underneath, the lake appeared yellow from a distance. As he drew nearer, Igrain wanted to call for him to stop, but instead she watched in awe as his bike went right over the surface. He played with the gears and turned tightly to the left creating a great yellow wave that glittered in the sun and then came back towards her.
When he made a second pass by the shore where she watched him, she called, “You show off, Uther!”
He put on the breaks and set his feet down, pushing his goggles up to his forehead. “It’s so full of sodium and magna-rocks that metal like this doesn’t sink at all. Merlin said something clever about the polar opposites of this metal and the magnetic pull of the lake, but as
usual, I don’t see needing his ego-puffing sermons on the geological properties of the water.”
“And you have no idea what it all meant?” Igrain guessed, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Hardly,” he laughed, glad to see her enjoying herself. “I’m still learning how to give orders and shut him up.”
At this, a kind smile pulled her eyes into happy wrinkles. She let her eyes rest on him thoughtfully. Then, deciding she wanted to show off, she pulled her plasma pistol from her hip and said, “Watch this!” as she fired across the lake at some growth hanging from a tree.
To Uther’s amazement, she hit it dead on. The thing shook and trembled before falling to the ground.
“Right in the center!” he beamed. “You really are a sharp shooter. Galois was not kidding.”
She spun the gun around on her finger for his amusement before sliding it back into her holster on her thigh. “He knows he must always be honest when he discourses on my talents. But we’re both soldiers. We butt heads on everything. So, I have to make sure I am that good.”
He smiled at her. He loved her this way: Shaved hair on the sides with bright, brown eyes, pistols on her sides, and straddling a tera-bike. He knew that back in their academy days they had been on opposite sides of the fence. She in combat school and him in logistics classes and the like. He had never been the fighting type. Now, with his new command, he wished he had been.
“I suppose someday I’ll have to learn to fight like you and Galois,” he said as he started his engine again. The light grass pulled away from the pressure of the hovering bike. “I never thought this would be me. I thought I’d just follow Constans around. I thought…” He couldn’t go on and still maintain his composure.
Igrain’s face softened at his plight. “No one expects you to be him, Uther. Or Constantine. It’s not like you’re king of the whole planet. You’re just going to help us get settled.” She waved her arm wide before placing it back on the handle bars. “All of this is open to us. We have cities to build. And bees to visit!”
She smiled and released the break, suddenly accelerating and blowing past him with a gust of wind and dirt. He watched her race away for only a moment. He didn’t want to lose her.
The couple sped around the empty meadows for much longer as the suns rose high and hung overhead. There seemed to be something magical in the fauna and flora that told them this was the best time to be out in Camelot. Everything was alive and buzzing with industry.
They raced over hills, scared flocks of creatures grazing, and up turned a flock of many a small colored bird. Uther guessed they were really far away from Fort Camelot now. The Humming Meadows had to be close. But something else blocked the way.
Uther slammed the gravity breaks on his hovering bike and Igrain did the same as their eyes alighted on the great city rising up out of the mountains ahead of them. Vortigern’s crest rose above it and a line of androids marched away. As they drew closer, fear gripped Uther’s heart as he saw that they were wounded and burned. Some were limping, sparking at the open wounds, while others were crawling away on their bellies.
“What happened?” Igrain called to them as they drew nearer. “Uther, can we not help them?”
“It was Vortigern,” one D.R.U.I.D explained through her own tears. “He said there was no room in Camelot for D.R.U.I.Ds. But that is not what the first Constantine said when he sent us here so long ago. I remember it! We are to have a land apart from the humans, he said. This is part of our land!”
It had been too easy for Vortigern to hide on a new planet. Uther had been heading east on the planet every day, marking the terrain, finding resources. He planned on searching east into the sunrise until he came up behind his own castle. But he made a grave mistake.
“This is my doing,” Uther said softly. “I should have looked for him. Murder, saboteur, traitor.” He glared at the floating crest. “Treason.”
Igrain exchanged a concerned look with Uther. “What is he doing?” she breathed.
Uther saw that the wounds on the D.R.U.I.Ds were done by laser weapons and energy swords. “He’s preparing to attack us.”
4
The First War
“We must get word to Lothian at once. Lot and Morgues will help us,” Uther barked at Merlin as he and the D.R.U.I.D examined the glowing maps in the dark of the astrodome. The central city where Uther’s army gathered simply called Fort Camelot after the planet they had been promised. The entire crew of the ship had awoken by this time and three weeks of planning and preparing had given Uther the strength he thought he’d need to defend himself and his father’s dreams for Camelot.
“Do you intend to kill Vortigern?” Merlin asked quietly as the other generals calculated how many war machines they would need to prepare for the battle.
Uther smoothed out his white uniform and the braids on his shoulders. “I intend to do what I must to save this planet. Vortigern has gone against everything we originally planned.” He stopped and rubbed his manicured beard. He kept seeing Igrain in the flowery fields. Whenever he thought of battle, he saw his dead brother. “I need Vivian. Get her for me.”
The ancient D.R.U.I.D would know what to do. She had been here since the beginning and was the only one who seemed to be able to pilot that mecha. He had seen her in it from time to time as though overseeing his progress. If there were more, then they could activate them and have more than a king’s chance to ruin Vortigern before he even got started.
“The first battalion is through with the simulation training, sir,” one of the generals announced on the tiny com-unit. “Shall we initiate the paratroopers?”
“Of course,” Uther replied. “How is the medical unit? Were you able to retrieve everything from the detached ship in orbit?”
An immediate reply. “Coming along splendidly, sir, and yes. The research the D.R.U.I.Ds have made on this planet is astounding as well! Our medics and scientists have been working with great enthusiasm. Cloning the original DNA of the D.R.U.I.Ds has allowed us cell reproduction and simulation like you wouldn’t believe!” The general’s voice grew in pitch with excitement. “And the communication technology they have built is faster and stronger than anything—”
“Thank you, general,” Uther grumbled as he shut off the communication.
Over the last few days, weeks maybe, Uther had put his men into overtime and overload with research and development. A hospital had been built within the boundaries of his fort and war machines had been excavated from the older settlements that the first Constantine had had built but that had never been inhabited. So far, his little city had expanded to three times its original size since he discovered Vortigern’s threat. He refused to let his people suffer for one selfish man’s traitorous plans. His city would prevail.
“You summoned me?” a low, smooth voice asked behind him.
Uther turned to see Vivian, tall and imposing in her soldier uniform, weave her way around the many glowing and beeping consoles.
“Yes, Vivian,” he leapt right into his reason for calling her. “That mecha you saved us with. Are there more here on the planet?”
She nodded slowly. “The D.R.U.I.Ds built them to quicken the production of your great city as you see.” Written plainly in her mysterious eyes was the rest of the truth. Uther waited for her to go on, but she didn’t, her lips pursed closed.
“How are they piloted?” he asked, growing impatient. “We need them for the imminent battle.”
At this, Vivian narrowed her eyes and frowned. “It is not written thus,” she said. She looked up and down the clear screens separating her and Uther where the battle strategy was playing out and statistics were being solved. “You are only half the army. Why do you fight Vortigern?”
Now he became frantic. “Listen, D.R.U.I.D, we have only hours—maybe—before Vortigern’s army is here. I simply want to defend what is mine. After Vortigern is neutralized, we can go over what needs to be done.”
“Our land,” Vivian said firm
ly. “The first Constantine promised us land. The mecha are ours. We are to receive part of this planet. Can you promise that after your victory?”
Uther paced away from her and Merlin, nervously pulling his hair back with both his hands. “Of course, I can. I just need the mecha now to defend us all.”
When he turned around, Vivian stared right at him with violet eyes. He couldn’t find any emotion in them. After all, she was mostly machine, right? How would she know if he upheld his end of the deal? Surely a way existed to shut them all down and just be rid of them if he needed to. Lot made the right choice to take Morgues to Lothian where they could start from scratch. No D.R.U.I.Ds.
“The mecha is a war machine like no other,” Vivian said at last. “Merlin knows this. He also knows what was written.” She reached up and touched the screen with one finger. Everything went blank and the moaning of the power grid dulled out. They were in near blackness. All the voices stopped talking at once.
“I will show you the mecha,” Vivian said.
In the huge hanger, Vivian led Uther, Merlin, and a group of soldiers of rank to the edge of the large open door used for freight ships and air craft carriers. Below them sparkled the lake they had nearly crashed in where Vivian had appeared and saved them with the mecha.
“The hanger that first was built sank into the lake,” she explained and pointed. “Underneath this great city of hovering buildings and floating gardens is the first city and the first base. The lake swallowed it up. The mecha still rest there at the bottom with the greatest one ever built being Excalibur.”
“That’s the one!” Uther said, excitedly. “Bring me that one and I shall find the rest easily if they are where you claim.”
Merlin stepped forward. “That mecha can only be piloted by the one who programmed it. It reads not the hands nor the voice of its pilot, but something deeper. Something only the blood of Constantine has.”
A New Home: A Sci-Fi Arthurian Retelling (The Camelot Project Book 1) Page 4
