Once the ships were nothing more than smoldering remains, the King-Class Battlecruiser turned its attention back to the nearest Solar Carrier.
82
Quickly used his good arm to hold the biomechanical forearm that had been attached to him. Using his good hand to steady it, the android-like arm moved in small circles.
“Very good, sir,” the medical bot said as it watched.
A figure moved to the doorway and Quickly stopped everything he was doing.
“Any discomfort, sir?” the medical bot asked.
“No,” Quickly said, not taking his eyes off the man in the doorway of the medical bay. “Please, give me a moment.”
The bot turned and left without needing to be told anything else.
Hector’s energy platform carried him into the room. The man was so broad that Quickly and another person the same size as him could stand side by side and they still wouldn’t be as big as Hector.
“How’s the new arm coming along?”
What was Quickly supposed to say to that? He knew Hector’s legacy. He also knew—it was impossible to miss—that when the hero had lost his legs and had been given the chance to have replacements, he had forgone the android attachments in favor of the energy disc.
“Fine. Thank you for asking,” Quickly mumbled.
He had a difficult time making eye contact with the CasterLan legend but Hector seemed not to notice.
“Do you have a way off the planet?” the man asked Quickly.
“I think so. My transport should still be in space dock 3. We can leave whenever you like.”
Hector smiled. “Not for me. I meant for you.” When he spoke, the muscles in his arms rippled, an unconscious sign to display he needed no one else’s protection.
Quickly frowned as he tried to make sense of what he was being told. “You aren’t leaving? If our side doesn’t win”—his tone, and Hector’s expression upon hearing it, made it clear that neither man expected a victory at Dela Turkomann—“the Vonnegan forces will be here in a day.”
“This is my home,” Hector said. “I would recommend, however, that you get yourself aboard your transport and get out of here as soon as you can.”
“What about you?”
Hector’s energy platform swiveled so he was already facing the doorway and preparing to leave.
On his way out, Hector said, “The woods and mountains suit me just as much as the capital. If the CasterLan flag is ever raised here again, I’ll return. If it doesn’t, I’ll spend my years on a different part of Edsall Dark, where the Vonnegan forces won’t bother me.”
And with that, the broad-shouldered man left the room. After a couple more exercises to test his new arm, Quickly did the same.
83
She had to give Mowbray credit; he didn’t seem the least bit concerned by the fact that the sharpest blade in the entire galaxy was ready to slice through his neck.
“It’s like I told you, Vere CasterLan. If you kill me, my forces will destroy every single one of your people. Any Solar Carrier found drifting into space will be boarded and the few survivors executed. My forces will continue on to Edsall Dark, where they will kill every single woman, child, and senior citizen they find.” When he saw the disgust in her eyes, he added, “I don’t prefer for that to happen, but I’m not opposed to ensuring the rest of the galaxy fears me, even in death. Death is certain; all shall die. But if I happen to die today, General Vion will ensure everyone on Edsall Dark meets the same fate. The choice is yours.”
She thought about everything he said. She thought about the Excalibur ships in space, wreaking havoc everywhere they went.
As she watched, a pack of Athens Destroyers moved as fast as they could to get out of the way of an Excalibur Armada ship, only for two of them to collide in the process. The rest avoided the indestructible vessel, which continued harmlessly through space until the CasterLan officer in charge of its remote engines could power one engine down, causing the ship to turn in an extremely wide semi circle. It would be a couple minutes before the ship was a threat again. The momentary victory was short-lived, however. The next Excalibur vessel came barreling through space behind the one that the Athens Destroyers had managed to evade. This one impacted the very middle of the Vonnegan cluster. As it did, it self-destructed, wiping away any trace of itself and four Athens Destroyers and damaging three more Destroyers beyond repair.
On the far side of the battle, another Excalibur ship that had missed all of its targets on its first pass through the Vonnegan fleet had finished making a wide turn and was heading back through the middle of the fleet. This time, the Athens Destroyers didn’t have a chance to move out of the way and five of them became space ash.
Any Vonnegan ship that was next to the decimated ships became the focal point of the Solar Carriers and was also destroyed. Any Vonnegan ships that became clustered because of their disorganization were also targeted by both the Solar Carriers and the squadrons of Llyushin fighters.
On both sides of the battle, the neat formations that had signaled the beginning of the conflict were now no longer discernible. Instead of orderly columns of Athens Destroyers, ships pointed in every direction, spread out over three times as much space as when they had arrived. Instead of a bell formation, the Solar Carriers were moving wherever they could get a reprieve from the gangster Ballona’s space-to-space missile batteries, Arc-Mi-Die’s armored rafts, and everything else.
Two more Excalibur ships entered the battle, both moving at a fraction of the speed of the first few. Vere couldn’t remember how many were still remaining. Maybe only two or three. These two ships stayed side by side as they approached a cluster of Athens Destroyers. Once the Vonnegan flagships chose a direction in which to flee, one of the Excalibur ships arced toward the main cluster while the other continued forward, disrupting more of the fleet.
But there were just too many Athens Destroyers. Even as another Excalibur Armada ship self-destructed, taking four more Athens Destroyers with it, and even as the Solar Carriers reduced one Vonnegan ship after another to wreckage, Vere’s forces remained vastly outnumbered.
A pair of Solar Carriers were pelted with proton torpedoes from Arc-Mi-Die’s forces. Initially, the Solar Carriers’ shields held. After two minutes of taking damage, one of the Solar Carriers lost all of its power and drifted away from the battle. The other had an explosion rip apart the front portion of the ship. When the next two proton torpedoes hit the same area, the already struggling vessel underwent a series of internal explosions before erupting into pieces.
The same thing happened on the other side of the battlefield, where the gangster Ballona’s forces were also targeting the CasterLan ships. Her forces were more undisciplined, though, and instead of focusing on one or two Solar Carriers at a time, her mercenaries sprayed the entire opposite side of the battlefield with missiles and blasters.
And although the Excalibur ships were causing havoc, making dozens of Vonnegan ships swerve here and there rather than confront the Solar Carriers, there were still a hundred more that were able to focus on the CasterLan flagships and tear them to pieces. One by one, Vere watched Solar Carriers erupt into flames and explosions.
She thought about killing Mowbray where he stood, but she knew that if she did the Vonnegan forces would continue on to Edsall Dark. They would kill anyone who still remained there, innocents who didn’t care about war. People who just wanted to grow old with their families and be happy. She would be sending all of them to their deaths if she killed Mowbray. She knew it, and his smile told her he knew it too.
Then she saw something else, which not only caused her to drop her sword to her side, but also made her heart sink.
Arc-Mi-Die’s forces had focused their attack on a single ship. Westmoreland’s Solar Carrier. Proton torpedo after proton torpedo hit the vessel. One volley of cannon fire was followed by another. As she watched, the Solar Carrier went from leading the battle to becoming another casualty of the war.
&n
bsp; 84
It was true that Westmoreland had been in more battles than anyone else in the CasterLan Kingdom. It was true that he had battled and been victorious against countless other armies and against every group of galactic scoundrel known to man. But it was also true that everyone, no matter who they were, eventually lost if they gambled too many times.
“Full shields, one-two,” he said to the officer over his shoulder.
Behind him, officers were scrambling to stabilize the ship. Every time an alarm was acknowledged, signaling that a portion of their Solar Carrier had experienced a breach and had to be sealed, another alarm began. Slowly, sections of the vessel were becoming uninhabitable.
Another proton torpedo hit the front of his ship. He watched a chunk of the Solar Carrier, entire floors where people worked and lived, float away into space.
“Shields lost, sir,” an officer behind him said.
A moment later, another officer said, “We are down to forty-one percent of the ship being inhabitable.”
He thought about trying to turn the ship around and moving to the back of the battle. At least from there, he could continue to command the action.
Before he could entertain the thought, however, the first officer added, “Catastrophic structural failure detected on the D-Frame,” and Westmoreland knew that the Solar Carrier would likely break into pieces if he tried anything other than flying straight forward or backward.
He thought about calling off the fleet altogether. At least then they could fight another day. Would the soldiers all around him regard him as a savior for allowing them to regroup, or would they think of him as a coward? He knew what Hector would have decided; the man would have refused to be in the battle in the first place. The thought made Westmoreland rub a hand through what remained of his gray hair as he closed his eyes for a moment.
He couldn’t order the fleet away. He had his orders. He had accepted the mission. Vere and Morgan were still down on the desert moon. The Excalibur ships were still running wild in the midst of the Athens Destroyers.
He thought about his life spent in space, about all the missions he had been on, all of the planets and species of aliens he had seen.
“Space armor helmets on,” he said and the officers around him who didn’t yet have their helmets on paused in their other duties to do so.
I’ve never cared for these things, Westmoreland thought as the restrictive armored capsule came down over his head.
Then another volley of proton torpedoes came racing at the command deck and, watching them, Westmoreland knew it didn’t matter if he were wearing space armor or not. His time was up. The Solar Carrier he was aboard was so thoroughly obliterated that the other Solar Carriers nearby didn’t have to worry about moving out of the way. There wasn’t even a burned out shell of the flagship left for them to avoid.
85
Morgan watched in horror as Westmoreland’s ship crumbled into pieces following a final round of explosions. In that instant, she determined what she would do.
First, she would kill the two Fianna in front of her. There were nine of them and only one of her, but with the Meursault blade in her hand and with Traskk next to her, she thought she could do it.
Then, hastily and without being able to savor the moment as she would like, she would kill Scrope. Without time to waste, she would inflict whatever type of death she could, be it her sword through his chest, his head lopped off, or whatever other opportunity arose.
If Vere hadn’t yet killed Mowbray by then, Morgan would dash across the sand, put a blade in his back, then board her ship.
Once aboard the Pendragon, she would get to one of the Solar Carriers and command the battle the way she should have been the entire time. Yes, they were outnumbered. And yes, they now had to face Arc-Mi-Die’s and Ballona’s forces as well. But this was what her life had been leading up to. At the academy, she had been the top student in her graduating class. She had been the youngest officer to ever serve as a lieutenant under Hotspur. She was the youngest officer to ever lead the combined CasterLan forces. Regardless of how many Athens Destroyers and other Vonnegan-allied ships were up there, she was sure she could do something to change the tide of the battle.
All she needed was for Vere to give her the signal.
Looking over at the CasterLan leader, however, Morgan didn’t receive a nod of the head, a wink, or anything else. Vere was facing Mowbray, listening to something he was saying. Then, instead of cutting the Vonnegan ruler’s head off and opening the way for Morgan to do the same with the Fianna, Vere did the exact opposite thing.
She lowered her sword back down to her side and dropped her head in defeat.
86
A lone Llyushin fighter soared past one Athens Destroyer after another. Off in a distant part of the battlefield, another Excalibur ship detonated. The blast was so strong that it not only wiped out the five Athens Destroyers near it, but the wave of residual energy hit the Llyushin fighter, causing the pilot to have to reset his sensors and limp back toward the Solar Carriers.
In another part of the battle, two more Llyushin fighters were trying to get a squadron of Thunderbolts to chase them into the vicinity of Ballona’s forces. Once there, they hoped the modified fighters and cargo loaders would become unnerved by the crazed shooting of the Vonnegan fighter pilots and return fire. Instead, five of Ballona’s fighters joined the chase, angling in beside the Thunderbolts, and all ten ships unloaded blaster fire at the Llyushin fighters until both were gone.
In yet another part of the fighting, a pair of gravity mines erupted in front of a Solar Carrier. The flagship was much too large to be destroyed by the ensuing vortex, but the vessel’s general didn’t appreciate the true purpose of the gravity mines until it was too late. The next time the Solar Carrier tried to fire a proton torpedo of its own, the projectile was immediately sucked into the temporary gravity field, which was at the head of the Solar Carrier, where it exploded. The ship’s own proton torpedo destroyed ten levels of its front frame.
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An overwhelming rage engulfed Morgan when she saw Vere lower her blade from Mowbray’s neck.
“What are you doing?” she screamed.
As Vere and Mowbray began walking back toward the command tent, Vere refused to look up from her feet and make eye contact with Morgan or any of the others.
“What are you doing, Vere?” Morgan yelled again.
When the two leaders had rejoined the others, Morgan couldn’t take it anymore. She yelled and lunged at the Fianna in front of her.
By the time her sword came slashing through the air, however, the guard had disappeared from where he had been standing. Then she was moving backward, the glowing edge of the Fianna’s halberd racing toward her from the side.
Traskk turned and looked at Vere, then looked at the two other Fianna who had moved away from the main group and were in an attacking position. If he turned and helped Morgan, he could easily help her kill one Fianna together, but their backs would be turned to the other eight. It would be their last mistake. Without ever making a sound, the glowing halberd would cut them clean in half.
Moving to the side, seeing Scrope hiding behind the guards, Traskk roared and stepped forward. The blade of the closest Fianna’s halberd also came to life before racing toward Traskk’s face.
He jumped backward before the blade was halfway to him. The Fianna, rather than stopping the weapon’s movement, used it to swing himself into one complete circle with the weapon outstretched. By the time the guard was facing Traskk again, both of them were already a dozen yards away from Scrope and the rest of the Fianna.
Even with her Meursault blade, Morgan was in a standoff with the armored guard in front of her. Her blade could cut through the long staff of his vibro halberd, but any time she attacked, he would be in a new position and could use the longer reach of his weapon to counterattack. If she lunged at him, she was fairly confident she could kill him, but at the expense of being killed herself. Under nor
mal circumstances, in a one-on-one fight, that was all that would concern her. But knowing that there were still eight more Fianna changed her priorities. She would take no glory in sacrificing herself to kill just one enemy; she would only sacrifice herself if she could take out every last one of them.
Changing tactics, she began to wind back with her sword again, but once more the Fianna moved and slashed at her and she had to backpedal.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Traskk was in a similar situation. He could pounce on the one guard in front of him and clamp his fangs down on the Fianna’s neck, ripping his head off in the process, but only after taking considerable damage in the process. And the other guards would all have a chance to kill the Basilisk before he was able to regroup. Without a weapon of his own, only his tail, fangs, and claws, Traskk was no match against eight glowing halberds.
Moving closer to him, Morgan began twirling her sword in circles, a trail of yellow vapor following the invisible blade everywhere it went.
Seeing that he and Morgan were at the same crossroads, Traskk did the one thing he could think of: he wound up his tail and, instead of attacking the guard facing him, hit the Fianna in front of Morgan.
The guard grunted and flew ten feet through the air before crumpling on the sand. Even with his armor on, it was likely that his ribs and back were broken from the force of Traskk’s mighty tail. That didn’t keep Morgan from taking two long strides and bringing her sword down across the guard’s waist. When Morgan raised her weapon again, the Fianna’s legs and hips were cleanly separated from his torso. His dark red blood soaked into the desert. To his credit, the guard made no noise as Morgan had come upon him or as he died.
The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2) Page 28
