Without waiting, without calling out to see if anyone was inside, she entered the cave, into the darkness. Rocks ground together under her feet. One skipped across the cave floor when her toe poked it. In the darkness, it clattered against other stones, causing a raucous series of echoes.
One hundred feet into the cave, the last bit of sunlight disappeared and she had to pull her blaster from its holster and let its ion cell illuminate the way for her. After it began to glow, she continued forward, down into the depths. Water dripped. Pebbles scuffed. A slight howl of frigid air rushed toward her, numbing her cheeks.
The next thing she saw was the tip of a blade—the Green Knight’s axe. As broad a blade as she had remembered. As sharp as ever. And still green. She saw it before she saw the Green Knight because of the way it shimmered in the light offered by her blaster. The Green Knight took a step forward, and he too came into sight. In the dim light, his armor and cape seemed the darkest possible shade of green rather than the brilliant emerald color they had been in Eastcheap.
“It seems your word holds good,” the Green Knight said, his face hidden behind his helmet. When he spoke, his voiced boomed through the caverns, echoing like thunder.
He began moving toward her then, and all she could do was stand there and hope it all ended quickly.
The Green Knight, by Charlie Gallagher and Edward Gallagher, Ink and Digital
63
Hector navigated around the far side of the capital’s walls to the docking stations, where he parked his modified Llyushin fighter. Everyone was finally standing inside the capital they had been trying for so long to reach.
“What do we do now?” Baldwin said, but Hector was already leading the way—Morgan one step behind him and Traskk right behind her.
Pistol, having to choose between following them or sticking behind with Fastolf and Baldwin, began a quick pace to catch up. The remaining two men exchanged looks, shrugged, and followed as well. They entered into the massive structure of tunnels and hallways that connected every part of CamaLon to every other part. The space ports, the commercial district, the king’s chambers—all of it was accessible through the city center. A section of closed-in tunnels would open and give way to a view of the sky above. After another turn, the tunnel began again and any view of the sky was obstructed by metal walkways and ceilings.
Morgan had never seen the capital so quiet. Every walkway, normally bustling with activity, was empty of humans and aliens alike. She assumed this was because they were all taking cover in case the Vonnegan fleet destroyed Hotspur’s ships and descended into the streets to slaughter everyone on ground level.
“Where’re we going?” Fastolf said, doing his best to keep up with everyone.
“We have to get to the control room and see why they haven’t activated the ground defenses,” Morgan said. “At least then Hotspur will have a chance.”
Breathing heavily, Baldwin said, “I thought we were trying to prevent the war, not make it worse.”
Morgan stopped walking and took his chin in her hand and moved his face up toward the sky. “Look above you. The time for preventing war is over.”
Hector’s jaw twitched. His shoulders flexed. Without slowing down or turning, he called behind him, “You can’t make war worse than it already is. There are not degrees of making such a thing as war more or less severe.”
No one in their group could dispute that any talk of preventing deaths or even minimizing them was wasted effort by now.
For as many explosions and cannons that were going off in the space above the planet, it seemed as though Morgan and the others should hear deafening blasts as they raced through the kingdom. Every exploding ship, though, along with every detonated electron missile, only resulted in flashes of light with no noise to accompany it.
Hector’s energy platform kept him hovering at waist height toward the room they needed to get to. Morgan, Pistol, and Traskk were jogging to keep up. Baldwin and Fastolf began to lag behind.
They passed through a series of metal corridors that twisted left, then right, then left. Around the next turn, the ceiling opened to a view of the sky and the flagships above the planet.
“We’re here,” Hector said, his hover platform slowing down.
He pressed a button and a steel door raised, allowing the group into a small walkway. At the end, two CasterLan guards stood at attention, charged with deciding who would be allowed into the control room and who would not.
“We need to get in,” Morgan said.
The guards’ helmets turned toward Hector, whom they surely recognized and adored, then to Traskk, whom they surely feared.
“I’m sorry,” one of the guards said. “We are under strict orders not to let anyone through.”
“Vere CasterLan sent us,” Morgan said. “You will move or be removed.”
The guards turned toward each other, then seemed to deflate. Silently, both men moved aside.
“See? That wasn’t so tough,” Morgan said.
A blaster sounded. Traskk roared. Turning, they saw a pair of CasterLan soldiers with their blasters raised. A laser shot had hit the base of Traskk’s tail, making the entire area smell like burning flesh. Neither man had a chance to get a second shot off before Traskk’s tail threw them into the nearest wall. They were unconscious after slamming against the metal panels, but Traskk continued roaring and baring his teeth.
He would have done worse, too, if it hadn’t been for Morgan’s hand on his shoulder.
“Later. Right now, we have to get in there.”
The two guards who had decided to step aside saw what the Basilisk had done to the two other men and knew now they had made the right choice.
Hector’s hover platform moved him to the metal door they had been guarding. He punched in a number but nothing happened. He tried another number, but again, no result.
“The access codes have been changed,” he said.
Morgan asked the two guards if they knew the code but both men shrugged.
Fastolf raised his blaster. Morgan started to yell something, but before she could, a single streak of blaster fire erupted from his weapon and hit the access panel, bouncing off and zipping just past Morgan’s face.
She turned and gave him the same look she had given him at Eastcheap before she had bludgeoned his face and nearly ripped his ear off. Without even realizing he was doing so, he backed away with his palms out, apologizing over and over.
“The door is blaster-proof,” Hector said.
“I see that,” Fastolf said, still backing away from Morgan even though a Basilisk and one of Edsall Dark’s greatest warriors were in between them.
“We need to find a way in,” Morgan said. “Hotspur won’t last another hour if we don’t give him some support.”
Hector, always looking for an alternative to more war and destruction, said, “We need to turn off the portal.”
The two of them spoke while everyone else waited to be told what to do.
Morgan asked, “Is there a way to shut it down remotely?”
“I have no idea. I’ve only ever heard of it being done from the substation on the side of the portal.”
They all looked up at the Tevis-84 portal and at the Athens Destroyers that were still coming through it. If what Hector was saying were true, someone would have to get to the portal and enter the one cylinder out of the three hundred and sixty that acted as the portal’s control room. It was the only way to keep more Vonnegan ships from coming through.
It was a misnomer that a portal could be “turned off,” but everyone knew what that meant. Once a portal was ignited and the galactic energy harnessed within the metal ring of cylinders, nothing could turn it back off. What could be done, though, was to reroute the portal, linking it to another portal somewhere else in the galaxy. If the setting were changed, the Vonnegan ships would stop appearing above Edsall Dark after passing through the Tevis-84 portal and would instead begin appearing wherever the portal’s coordinates had been se
t.
Morgan looked at the group, then back at Hector. “If there was a way to do it from inside the capital, where would the controls be?”
“Maybe up in the top echelon of the city center,” he said. “Near the king’s chambers. It would need to be in a secure location where only the king’s most trusted advisors would have access to it.”
“I’ll take Traskk and find a way into this room so we can get the defenses going. You take Pistol and see if you can find a way to turn off the portal.”
Then, realizing she had given orders to someone who was not only her idol but who had vastly outranked her, she blushed.
“It’s fine,” Hector said, his energy platform already spinning him around. “Hotspur taught you well.”
Then, without giving her time to accept the compliment, he flew down the corridor and disappeared, the android racing after him.
Fastolf cried, “What about me?”
Morgan turned and looked at the man who had just nearly shot her face off with a blaster and cringed. “I guess you’re with us. But if you fire that thing near me again, it’ll be the last thing you do.”
64
The Green Knight was within arm’s reach of her. He stood with his axe in hand, staring with eyes that must surely be there but that Vere still couldn’t see. A cold breeze of air rushed past the knight, as if escaping his clutches.
“Are you prepared for the business between us?” the Green Knight said, gripping and regripping his axe so the blade spun in slow circles. “Seven days ago you took what was yours. Now you must yield the same.”
“You really like to hear yourself talk, don’t you?” Vere said, staring into the empty black void of the knight’s helmet. “I guess this is it, huh? The day of doom? Fine, get it over with.”
The Green Knight’s voice boomed: “Your word holds good!”
She looked for the nearest large rock and bent so her head rested against it, her neck exposed. “Whatever. Just do this.”
“You make no more demur than I did,” the knight said, “when you hacked off my head with one blow.”
“Just do it,” Vere growled. “Just shut up and do it.”
“You will not beg for your life?”
Vere turned toward the Green Knight, feigned a cheerful face, then turned back to the stone that her head was resting on.
“Brave,” the Green Knight said.
“Trust me, your praise would mean more to someone else.”
Behind her, she could hear the Green Knight’s grip tightening on the axe, heard his armor rustle as he heaved the weapon over his head.
Then, nothing.
Only when she turned her head slightly to look at the Green Knight did he begin to bring the axe down. Immediately, Vere pulled away from the stone, and the Green Knight’s axe paused in midair. Cursing herself under her breath, she forced her head back down on the stone.
“I moved not a muscle when you struck,” the Green Knight bellowed.
“I’m sorry,” Vere said. “I didn’t want to. Do it again. I won’t move.” She hated herself for being in this situation. For taking the knight up on his challenge without thinking of what it might entail. For spending six years in that dingy bar in the first place. “Just get on with it!” And then, more calmly, “I’ll honor my word.”
The axe creaked as its owner gripped the handle with all of his strength. And then she heard the Green Knight wind up once more. This time, Vere didn’t bother glancing up to see when the axe would hit its mark. And still the Green Knight didn’t bring the axe down.
“Damn you, just do it! I’m tired of your game.”
“Hmm,” the Green Knight said.
And this time, he did bring the axe down. When he did, most of the blade hit stone, impacting with so much force that it cracked the boulder in half and sparks momentarily lit up the dark cave. A bang, louder than any explosion she had ever heard, sounded next to her ear where the blade hit rock. The echo repeated over and over throughout the Green Chapel. The pain was worse in her ears than in her neck, which was bleeding. Feeling her skin, she noticed that only a corner of the blade had brushed against her neck, slicing a small cut across the skin.
Slowly, Vere pushed herself off the crumbled rock and stood upright.
“Is that it?” she asked, not taunting, but unsure of what had really happened.
“One strike acquits you,” the Green Knight said. “You have paid what you owed.” The knight pointed at her throat where the blood was coming out. “A mark has been earned. Do not forget it.”
The knight let his axe hang by his side. Then, when the blade was resting against the ground, he propped his elbow against the other end of the weapon.
“I’m really free to go?” Vere said, not bothering to press her hand against her neck and stop the trickle of blood.
The Green Knight took a step backward, blending into the shadows and darkness of the cave. When Vere blinked, she couldn’t be sure which parts were the knight and which parts were the rocks behind him.
Further back in the cave, from the pitch black void she had explored so many years earlier, a voice said, “It’s a large galaxy, but not so large that your actions don’t impact those all around you.”
A pale hand reached out of the darkness and touched a section of the Green Knight’s axe. The voice sounded familiar. Vere’s eyebrows furrowed as she tried to remember where she had heard it last. Then all of the blood rushed to her cheeks and burned her face.
“Galen?”
65
Morgan, Traskk, Baldwin, and Fastolf ran through a series of corridors until they got to the alternate control room access door. There were two guards there as well. Either because Hector was no longer with them or because Morgan was in too much of a hurry to explain, these guards were not willing to step aside from their post. Within moments, however, both were unconscious on the ground after Traskk got through with them.
The secondary door also had new access codes. After telling Fastolf he better not do anything stupid, Morgan confirmed these doors were also blaster-proof.
After that failed attempt, they took a lift to the next level, searched for the ventilation system that might lead to the control room, but all of the access points were in rooms that were also locked and protected by blast panels.
“We’re getting nowhere real quick,” Morgan said, slamming a fist against a wall.
Above her, a monitor showed one of the CasterLan Solar Carriers being peppered with cannon fire until it broke into dozens of pieces. In that one instant of the battle, she knew that hundreds more people had just died. At the same time, another Athens Destroyer came through the portal.
The monitors changed views every three seconds on an automated loop. Every feed of the battle showed the same thing, though: soldiers in space armor—from both armies—saved from the wreckage of the ships they had been on and now hoping upon hope to be rescued as they floated in space. In one instant, a laser cannon sent a blast from an Athens Destroyer. In the next instant, a dozen men in space armor were no longer there. No part of their suit remained. No part of their bodies. Every single bit of them was vaporized by a blast that hadn’t even been intended for them but had been targeting a Solar Carrier.
The view changed again.
A trio of Solar Carriers was targeting a single destroyer, which was already racked with holes and structural failures. As the flagship exploded into fragments, the blasts engulfed the Vonnegan troopers who had managed to escape the vessel. The deliverance they had achieved for themselves was quickly extinguished and their destinies caught up with them once and for all.
The screen changed views again.
“This is hopeless.”
Traskk agreed with a soft growl. Baldwin closed his eyes and exhaled.
Fastolf leaned with his back against the wall and tried to take a sip from the flask he kept hidden in his pocket. Finding it empty, he tossed the intricately designed container to the ground.
“I stole that f
rom a guy eight years ago,” he said. “Pompous fool must have paid dearly for it.”
For no better reason than that it was there, Fastolf withdrew his blaster and shot the flask. A line of laser fire erupted from his weapon, hitting the expensive container and deflecting into the air. He immediately cringed when he realized the exquisite object was coated in protective metal. Seeing the laser streak away, he expected Morgan to come after him with closed fists.
She stared at the singed flask, then at Fastolf’s blaster, then back at the flask.
“Morgan, I’m,” Fastolf started to say, but instead of killing him, she laughed and patted him on the back.
As she ran toward the primary control room door, Traskk right behind her, she yelled, “If this works, not only will I not kill you. I’ll buy you a drink.”
66
Vere ignored the Green Knight, who still had his back against the cave wall, and took another step into the depths of the Green Chapel.
“Galen?” she said again.
She saw an outline, only a few feet deeper into the shadows. Someone waiting in the darkness. Someone who had been there the entire time, watching the proceedings between herself and the knight. With her blaster still on the rock where she had been prepared to have her head chopped off, there wasn’t enough light to make out a face.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, somehow sure it was him even though she hadn’t heard his voice or seen him since before leaving Edsall Dark.
“It’s good to see you,” he said, his voice soft and calm. “I’ve missed you.”
“Where have you been?”
The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1) Page 23
