“You’re a traitor, Vortigern!” Uther shouted, his voice now released from the cockpit to the outside on psychic command. “You killed my brother when you saw he would lead these people. Did you kill my father too?”
Vortigern laughed and hoisted the blade-gun onto his shoulder to aim. “No, Uther, I didn’t kill your father.” He pulled the trigger. “But I should have!”
Excalibur leapt to the side and rolled away from the new barrage of missiles from Vortigern. Where had he gotten such a fantastic weapon? Uther landed and stayed crouched as he scanned the battlements and balconies for Vortigern. He seemed to have just vanished, nowhere in sight.
“Face me, little coward!” Uther yelled.
“Little coward?” a smooth, deep voice asked.
Uther wheeled Excalibur around to face a new foe. A tall, female-detailed Avamech stood before him, arms crossed and her feet pointed elegantly to the floor. Colored black with iridescent purple detailing, it glinted in the violent light. The colors and the voice told Uther who lurked inside.
“Mab,” he chided for her to hear. “You’re a D.R.U.I.D. You were supposed to serve the Camelot Project and the will of Constantine. You’re a traitor just as much as he is. And if you stand against me, I will have no choice but to terminate you.”
“Sir, wait!” Merlin’s voice begged. “She’s Avalonian and that is an Avalonian mecha. She can pilot it like no other. Perhaps you should pull out now.”
Mab laughed. “Maybe you should listen to the D.R.U.I.D. He speaks wisdom at last.” Her Avamech turned its head. “Oh, look! Another recruit for Vortigern no doubt!”
Uther followed her eyes and his breath froze in his throat.
“Galois?” he gasped.
Speeding towards Vortigern’s palace, already inside the city walls, a tera-bike rider hovered alone at lightning speed. The rider’s green cloak streamed behind him with Galois’s crest clearly visible even from Uther’s great height. He had no weapon on his bike or on his hip, but speed depicted his intent.
“What is he doing?” Uther shouted out.
“No doubt warning Vortigern of your coming.” Mab laughed softly. “A little late, but very noble none the less.”
Uther cried out in rage as he piloted Excalibur to pull back and punch Mab’s Avamech hard in the face where the pilot seat rested behind the windows. To his annoyance, he felt his own hand sting and his bones vibrate with the impact. It would be hand-to-hand combat on a mecha-scale.
“He betrayed me!” The rage fueled Uther even as the Avamech’s fuel began to drain in the ensuing fight.
Mab danced back out of the way of the palace and far from the city walls. She protected the city and her master at risk to her own life.
“I will finish this quickly,” Uther said through gnashed teeth. “I have other work to do.”
He fired one small rocket at Mab, which she barely dodged. She crouched down and then sprang at Excalibur, her foot out to kick as soon as it got near enough. Excalibur spun out of the way and came back around with an elbow into Mab’s back. She lurched and stumbled, causing stone from the nearby mountains to slide and clatter to the base.
“You hardly know the power of what you wield,” she said to him. “Give it back to Avalon and stay here on your own planet and fight with your own means.”
“I’ll learn soon enough what this Avamech can do,” he replied. “Already I feel a power in it that I cannot reach.”
Mab’s stance relaxed a little. “The Mist. That is what it’s called. Only a D.R.U.I.D can use it properly. It may kill you.”
“Why are you smiling, Mab?” Uther said casually. “You knew me. My father too. What made you run after Vortigern? You’ve become a traitor. You could have taught me, helped me.”
He kicked at her, but she caught his foot and pushed him away. “You keep saying that, I hear. Traitor to whom? Camelot has no king and never should. That is not what your father wanted.”
“How do you know what he wanted?”
Mab struck a defensive pose. “Perhaps I didn’t. Perhaps I just wanted to follow a real man. Not a simpering, whining, weak, captain’s son whose only thoughts are that of revenge and planet control!”
In a spree of charges and punches, the Avamechs were engaged again, rattling the stones and toppling trees as they summersaulted and leapt through the ones that were unlucky enough to be close by.
“I have plans for Camelot,” Uther panted as he stood up from Mab’s barrage of seemingly endless attacks. “It greatly involves you D.R.U.I.Ds.”
“I knew it, Uther. Slavery!” she cried.
Lunging into a dramatic punch that came up too short to hit Excalibur, Mab launched a form of light energy that blasted from her Avamech’s hand in a vibrant beam. Too entranced to move, Excalibur took the energy beam straight to the chest. Uther gasped and clutched his physical diaphragm where the beam had struck.
Coughing, he laughed. “Is that all? And if it is Avalonian DNA that it takes to find that power in this mecha, well,” he smirked, “I may be able to accommodate you there.”
“What?”
He heard the fear in Mab’s voice as he stood up. Clearly, she had not expected him to survive the Mist blast.
With a war cry like none other, Uther charged at Mab and with quick and graceful movements, kicked her down and pinned her to the shaking earth in just a few strokes. He drove Excalibur’s knee into her stomach and pinned her arms down. With his own strength, he butted his head into hers and fractured the pilot window. They were so close now that he could see her inside, panting and holding onto the controls for life. Her purple hair turned to a medusa-like mess and her eyes were streaming tears. He didn’t know if she winced in pain or cried from weakness.
“Well-played, D.R.U.I.D,” he laughed. “But you and your king lose this round.”
Grasping her forearm in Excalibur’s long metal fingers, Uther flexed and pulled, relishing in her scream as the mecha’s arms sparked and exploded at the joint he had just torn it from.
“Weak, am I?” he cackled as he tossed it aside into a group of now-smoldering trees. If he didn’t engage carefully, he’d burn down the whole forest as well as Vortigern’s city. “Uther Pendragon is no weak human to be beaten by D.R.U.I.Ds!”
“Uther, stop!” Merlin’s voice pled over the com-unit. “You came for Vortigern. Not his D.R.U.I.Ds nor his city. Your army has sacked the city. Too many have died already.”
Uther had to breathe a moment before he saw the sense in what Merlin said. Grudgingly, he pushed off of Mab’s broken Avamech and stood up, surveying the damage before him. His trooops had done their job well. Every turret had been leveled and the walls were nearly gone. Half the city now turned to ruble on the ground beneath the army of mecha feet.
“Do not oppose me, Vortigern!” Uther cried from Excalibur’s cockpit. “Where is he, Mab? Doesn’t he have an Avamech to pilot?”
“No,” she moaned from where she lay. “I have the only one. As it was meant to be. You ride my sister Vivian’s machine of war. It was a great mecha designed by one thousand and one Avalonians for a great ruler. A man who would take us out of slavery and out of Camelot and back to our planet Avalon. A man who would use its power to save his own people as well.”
Uther smirked and started back towards the palace. “I plan to save my people,” he said to her as he left her, smoking and destroyed. “I will save them by ruling them.”
In just a few strides, Uther made it back to the palace and began to look for his traitorous friend and Vortigern. This battle would be over sooner than he had hoped and he could put his next plan into action. Camelot needed order and someone to keep it. From the chaos that had consumed his own life, he would save the planet and every race, species, and person in it.
To his delight, Uther didn’t have to search long to find Vortigern or Galois. One last balcony remained intact after the fight and Vortigern perched on it with his massive weapon, searching the skies. Too pleased to oblige his enemy
, Uther ignited the thrust power under his Avamech’s feet and flew up to eye level with Vortigern. Malicious satisfaction and glee bubbled up in him to see both men jump from fright when the machine shot up before them.
“Both traitors standing so stupidly in the open with such an army at your gates.” He crossed his arms and began to hover as he spoke to them. “Vortigern, you tired out old man, I expect this kind of behavior from you — Ah!”
Vortigern had not been listening to the jeering young man. Instead he had aimed and fired with his strange missiles. Uther had to lurch ridiculously out of the way, killing all the grace and poise he had mustered to stand before his enemies.
“I was going to give you the option to surrender!” he screamed as he righted Excalibur in the air.
“Uther, please, don’t do this!” Galois called up to him. “We’re all like brothers. This colony needs us to work together to establish a home here.”
“I was!” Uther growled back. “This man whom you stand beside left us, remember? He killed Constans! How can you stand beside him like this? Against me, your friend?”
“I stand here for justice. Bring him back and establish a court. Our laws and courts have not even been created yet and you take this man’s life into your own hands. Look at your people down there. Dead and suffering for following him. If you want to rule, you must learn to look beyond appearances.” He caught his breathe, tearing his eyes from the smashed, bloody field. “We are few, Uther. The human race cannot afford a civil war right now!”
Excalibur’s great hand chopped like lightning down onto the balcony in Uther’s anger. Vortigern leapt back, dropping his weapon and stumbling away just in time. Galois, however, stayed to plead with Uther just a moment too long. The floor crumbled under him and he pitched forward into thin air. Scrambling with his hands, he clutched onto the piping and supports in the broken floor.
“You would have me believe he had some noble purpose in killing Constans?” Uther boomed, flexing his arms. He turned to Vortigern, who now cowered near the palace wall on what was left of a steady ground.
“Hear me, Uther!” Vortigern cried. “Constans was a bad man. He wanted Camelot for himself. He saw his father and you as competition and would have had you killed had I not done it first. He knew how much your father loved you over him. He could not risk losing a new planet to a younger brother.”
Uther only paused in his assault to laugh. “I do not even need to hear more to know that you are lying. Vortigern, you were just the old man who never achieved your dreams while my father was. A sad, old man pitting young men against each other.”
“Uther, help me!” Galois cried from where he hung, his strength waning.
“If you had not killed Constans what would you do? Heartlessly play us against each other like knights in your chess game?” He could not even hear Galois anymore.
“Uther!” Galois called.
“You are the heartless one, boy!” Vortigern sprang to his feet and ran more nimbly than any other old man to the edge where Galois stood.
“No!” Uther shouted. He charged Excalibur at the two men, his eyes finally seeing Galois. The Avamech’s feet hit an adjoining building of the palace. The reverb ruptured the walls and caused the whole place to quake.
With a cracking roar, the last tower of Vortigern’s palace crumbled away and cascaded down onto the remains of the balcony taking everything left away to the ground, meters below. Uther could not see Vortigern or Galois in the mountainous pile of rubble.
10
Conquest and Doom
Excalibur seemed to be frozen to the spot. The Avamech would not budge no matter how Uther screamed at it in his mind to run away from the pile of debris. Looking onto his display, he saw that his fuel light blinked red and his psych-meter flashed as well.
“It appears you are traumatized,” Merlin’s voice said.
“Get this thing to move!” Uther demanded, hot tears burning his cheeks as they fell against his will.
“I’m not in it, I cannot.”
“Then what do I do, Merlin?” Panic edged its way into his chest and the psych-meter began to flash faster now. “What does that mean?”
Merlin hummed in thought. “The only thing I can think of is activating your Avalonian DNA. That will damage the process you have undergone a little though. I think.”
Uther’s breath quickened, he panted so fast now his brain began to spin. “Merlin, I just want away from here.” Somewhere under that rubble laid Vortigern. Buried next to Galois.
“The Mist will help. Reach to the back of your mind and simply will Excalibur to take you away. Avalonian DNA works best with will.”
Trying as hard as he could to calm his mind and find that spot in his head where the DNA rested, Uther envisioned the mountains behind him that bordered Vortigern’s land. The secluded spot would be a good place for him to unwind from the battle and gather his thoughts together to greet his men.
Focusing his eyes, he felt lighter. Excalibur flew of its own accord. And something felt different. The Avamech was out of his control and he couldn’t feel his body at all. And the temperature inside rose so fast, he could feel it begin to burn him already.
“Now get out, quickly,” Merlin said.
To his supreme relief, the pilot bay window popped open and he nearly got ejected onto the hard mountain ground by the sharp angle. He panted and rubbed his burned wrists and ankles. He looked up as if to chide Excalibur and gasped when he saw the change. The once white and blue machine faded and changed to a void black and burnt red. Its face even seemed more ominous than before.
“What happened to Excalibur?” he asked. Remembering the com-unit in his ear, he switched it on since he no longer had the system from the Avamech to communicate with. “Merlin, what happened to my mecha?”
“I’m afraid I cannot see it now, the transmission has been shut off. Would you like me to send a party to retrieve you?”
“Yes,” Uther breathed.
He turned and began to run down the mountain away from the strange war machine as the heat pulsed off of it like a roaring fire. No one must see it now. No one must know. He stopped and felt his face with his hands. Not his hands. Galois’s hands. Galois’s face.
“Merlin!” he called into the unit. “Don’t send the men. I—”
A hissing sound interrupted him. Excalibur’s outer armor heated to such a high temperature on the outside that it melted the rock it sat on top of. Slowly with horrifying grace, it sunk into the mountainside.
“No!” Uther ran back the few steps he descended and watched helplessly as his prized weapon sank up to its hips in molten rock. It seemed to halt its descent then. Quickly, the rock cooled so the Avamech remained in the rock, trapped in the mountain.
“Merlin!” Uther growled into his com-unit. “What is going on?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. I can’t see the machine anymore.”
“That’s because it’s in the mountain!”
“I’m sorry?”
Uther growled again. He paced quickly then stopped. He had won his battle but lost his best spoil of war. He had killed Vortigern though. And Galois had been there too. He was dead. Uther had no doubt in his mind that he was dead. No one could have survived that fall and the collapse.
Had he killed his best friend? No, surly Vortigern intended to push Galois to his death.
What now? Well, the spoils of war, he thought. A smile crept over his face, just a moment ago so pale with fear and pain. The blush brought to life images and fantasies in his mind that needed tending.
“Merlin, I won’t be back this evening. Tell the men I’m off planet for treatment or something.”
“Sir?” A little warning in Merlin’s voice caught his attention. It wasn’t so much a question as a dare.
“We’ve won. See to clean up and re-incorporating these men into our cities and military. If Galois wanted courts, we’ll start with prisoners of war.” He cleared his throat and the glee in his
voice was unmistakable. “Galois has died. Igrain must be comforted. And I have a victory to celebrate.”
Merlin waited just a few seconds before he realized that Uther had flicked the tiny com-unit from his ear. Perhaps he had made a mistake?
Turning around in his lab where he had been watching the whole battle, he stared at the large glass orb full of red liquid: Uther’s DNA kept safe and growing in case they needed it. His biology was now more Avalonian and Galois now than himself. This leftover bit would no doubt come in handy when Uther wanted—no, needed—to be himself again.
Merlin touched the glass in thought. With these genes he could re-create Uther if he had to. He could tamper with the design, make a better man. That idea brought a rush of ideas to his mind. The horror of creating a human life seemed beyond him. But so many of his people had been altered or merely created by humans. Was there a difference?
***
In the skin of Galois, Uther took a tera-bike to the hangar and from there, he boarded the little transport that carried his friend to his death on this planet. Lot was there, waiting for him.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you,” he started quickly. “But I am a soldier, a man in Uther’s army—”
Uther clapped Lot on his shoulders and smiled. “Don’t worry, I admire a patriot. I won’t forget this, Lot. Let’s get to Lothian.”
Eagerness consumed him to take the transport back to a woman who would rejoice at seeing her husband alive and knowing the war was over.
The only surprise in Uther’s journey from Camelot to Lothian came after he landed the craft. A small army of guards led by Morgause greeted him. Morgause’s face crumbled into relief when she saw him and she ran into his arms. Uther stood for just a moment too long with his arms held out in confusion. Slowly he brought them around her and stroked her hair.
“Why are you in battle garb?” he asked her. The two laser pistols at her side were more than a little discomforting. “The battle is over, of course!” he laughed and held her out at arms’ length.
A New Home: A Sci-Fi Arthurian Retelling (The Camelot Project Book 1) Page 8
