After moving to the side and protecting her father’s corpse, Vere said, “You’re a disgrace to everyone who’s ever known you.”
Everywhere they moved, the Meursault blades changed from invisible to visible to invisible once again. Everywhere Vere and Modred swung their weapons, trails of colored vapor lingered in the air, either red or orange depending on where they were in the room.
He was swinging wildly now. Once at her, then at her father. At her father, then at her. After saving her father’s right arm from being cut off, she barely had time to bring her sword up to her side to keep her torso from being cut cleanly in half. Modred swung again, missed, and sliced through another pillar. More rock came tumbling down around them.
He swung at her. She defended. He swung at the king’s body. She defended. Booms of thunder sounded every time their invisible blades collided.
“Fine,” she said after a while, letting her sword drop to her side as she collected her breath. “He’s already dead. Do whatever you want.”
Modred was gasping for breath, trying to collect himself. At first, he thought she was trying to trick him into lowering his weapon. Then he saw her back away and his eyebrows raised.
“You have no pride about anything do you?” he mocked.
“Do it,” she said. “You can’t defeat me, so attack a dead man.”
He grinned and moved toward the king’s body.
“You don’t think I will?”
But her only response was to move another step backward.
He stood at the king’s side for a moment, wondering if he should actually go through with it. Then he shrugged and brought his hand up over his shoulder.
“Modred?”
He turned to look at Vere. She was twelve feet away and no longer a threat. Even so, she was gripping her Meursault blade as if she meant to use it.
Seeing recognition go across his face, she gave him a genuine smile. Then she brought her hand through the air from her right side to her left. A slash of vapor appeared on one side of another pillar, disappeared into it, then reappeared on the other side.
After a slight groan, the stone slid away and a third pillar came crashing down. Rocks fell all around her and she had to jump backward not to be crushed. With three of the four pillars in the room gone, the last stone column had no chance of supporting the entire ceiling.
There was a creak, a crack. Then, without further warning, the entire roof came crashing down into the room. Vere jumped back a second time, toward the doorway, to escape being crushed. Dust flew up everywhere, covering her face and also the Meursault so that its outline was finally visible.
Only when the dust cleared and the sound of rocks falling finally stopped did she step forward. Her father’s bed and body were completely buried.
“Help,” Modred said in a pained whisper. “Help.”
She circled the pile of rocks. Two feet away from the top of the king’s bed, where Modred had been prepared to cut her dead father to pieces, she saw his hands trying without success to move the rocks off of him. She reached forward and removed a boulder, exposing his head. His face was covered in blood. His arms and legs and chest were buried under stone and most likely were crushed. He would soon be dead, no matter what she did. Probably, he wouldn’t live more than another minute or two. She removed two more rocks.
“Modred?”
“Help, please.”
“Modred?”
He blinked back into reality, seeing her standing over him.
“Yes?”
“Don’t go too soon.”
She brought her sword down and sliced through his neck and the surrounding rocks.
79
“Will it always be this easy?” Minot asked, looking out at the destruction displayed by the holographic models of the battlefield.
Everywhere he and General Agravan looked, there were destroyed Solar Carriers, some crumbling to pieces, some drifting in space without any ability to fire, move, or defend themselves.
A Llyushin fighter raced past the window of Agravan’s Commander Class Athens Destroyer, followed by three Thunderbolts, which were firing dozens of laser blasts as they pursued it. A moment later, the Llyushin fighter erupted in blue flames and then exploded.
“No,” Agravan said. “Not always this easy. But do not discount our losses. More of our ships have been destroyed than I would have preferred.”
All around them, even though the Vonnegan fleet was going to win the battle and had suffered a fraction of the CasterLan losses, they could still look out any viewport and see an Athens Destroyer that was no longer functioning. Most of the damage had been done by the Crown. Although he would have it disabled soon enough, it wasn’t as quick and easy as simply sending down a missile because the Crown was vaporizing everything within its target radius. That meant his ships had to circle wide of the planet and land where the Crown couldn’t blast them away.
In response to seeing his fleet be destroyed one ship at a time, he had told his officers to move his Destroyer further away, directly behind the portal, where it would be protected.
Nothing was more important than Minot’s safety. Mowbray wouldn’t mind the losses that had been incurred to his fleet. After all, they had still been successful in taking over the CasterLan Kingdom and Mowbray had been the one who guaranteed the Crown wouldn’t be activated; Agravan would have used a different tactical approach if it had been up to him. The only thing that could make this effort be considered a defeat in the eyes of Mowbray was if something happened to Minot. Agravan didn’t like hiding behind the portal—it went against all of his sensibilities as a leader—but if that was what it took to guarantee the future of the Vonnegan Empire, he would do it.
“Have you given thought to which kingdom you might want to invade when you become ruler?” he asked Minot.
“Kingdom?” the boy said, his eyes full of innocence. “Why just one? I was thinking about every kingdom.”
Agravan didn’t bother with a reply other than to smile. He was too proud to do or say anything else.
80
“Any suggestions?” Morgan asked with a sigh.
If she had used that tone when she was serving as lieutenant aboard Hotspur’s Solar Carrier, he would have crushed her windpipe in his massive gloved hand. But since she was sitting on a planet in the early stages of an invasion, the CasterLan fleet all but destroyed, and Hotspur was stuck in the maintenance room of the Tevis-84 portal, she could talk to him any way she wanted.
“Send a ship to come get me,” Hotspur said. “I’ll lead the ground resistance from the capital.”
She looked at the hologram display. To her and the others in the room, it was horrifying. In front of their eyes, an entire kingdom was being destroyed. But to Hotspur, it was inconsequential, part of a play in which he was the lead actor. Behind her, Fastolf stood at attention and mimed orders, his impersonation of Hotspur, and for once she shared in his mocking tone.
She let her chin rest on her hands and shook her head. “There are almost no ships left. Even if we could spare one, it would get blasted out of the sky by the Vonnegan fleet before it was able to get to you and come back.”
Hotspur’s fist smashed a console in front of him. The feed of his holographic image shook and bounced before resettling. Standing alone in the small room right next to the portal, only feet away from the massive energy field that transported ships from one part of the galaxy to another, he looked for something else to take his frustration out on.
“I’m the leader of the combined CasterLan forces,” he growled. “Without me, the army will fall to pieces.”
“The army has already fallen to pieces,” she said. “And, I might add, it did so while under your leadership. The battle is lost. Your fleet is destroyed.”
She watched as Hotspur broke a chair in two pieces with a single punch.
“Then what do you propose?” he said.
“The Crown is our only effective defense. The Vonnegan ships have to disp
erse if they want to survive. But there are still ships coming through the portal.” She let this sink in before she added, “There is no way to shut down the portal, but we have to stop the rest of the Vonnegan fleet from coming through.”
He was silent then, waiting for her to continue, until he realized she had said everything she intended to say. When he connected the dots of her implication, he leaned close to the monitor, his face enlarging on the display in front of her. “Morgan, I know we’ve had our differences, but—”
“Trust me, Hotspur, it’s nothing personal. I would do the same thing if anyone else were in there. Even these guys.” She motioned behind her to Baldwin, Fastolf, and Traskk. Realizing that meant little to Hotspur, she said, “I would do the same thing if the king himself were there. And I would expect the same if I were there. We need to do what’s best for the kingdom.”
“But I’m the leader of the CasterLan forces. Edsall Dark needs me to command the ground fighting.”
“It doesn’t,” she said matter-of-factly. “It simply doesn’t.”
While she spoke, she entered a new target into the Crown’s system, and the five-headed cannon revolved slowly to move into position.
“Then I will die a hero,” Hotspur said, composing himself, straightening his uniform as best as he could.
“You attacked an innocent ship—”
“I was following orders!”
She ignored this and continued “—in enemy territory. You had to know war would result.”
“I was following my king’s orders!”
“It was your duty to question them if they could result in war and suffering, not to blindly obey them. You’re as much to blame for this war as the Vonnegan general. Your fleet is lost. Your king is dead. You won’t be remembered as a war hero, Hotspur. You’ll be remembered as a traitor to peace, a warmonger who craved battle and glory more than the lives of those you were sworn to defend… and entrusted to command.”
Another Athens Destroyer had begun to come through the portal. When Hotspur started to repeat the only thing he could think to say to defend himself, that he was needed in order to lead the ground resistance, she let out a deep breath and punched the glowing red button in front of her.
A burst of laser fire shot out from the Crown. The beam was wider than the Llyushin fighters and Thunderbolts still flying through the battlefield. The ones that couldn’t get out of its path were decimated and turned to scrap metal. The streak of energy passed by an Athens Destroyer that was making its way toward the planet. Then, as the next Destroyer was only a quarter of the way through the portal, the laser blast hit three of the three hundred and sixty support structures that formed the frame of the portal. All three cylinders exploded. With them gone, the ring’s form was broken.
The monitor that had displayed Hotspur went blank. The ship that was passing through the portal was sliced in half. All life in both sections of the ship would be gone. But the half of the vessel that had made it through only existed for another second because the portal’s energy field, no longer perfectly contained within the circle, erupted in every direction. The loose chain that had made up the portal was enveloped in white and blue explosions of energy and destroyed. Every nearby Vonnegan ship was engulfed in energy flares that either caused them to explode or else float uselessly in space. More than a hundred Vonnegan Thunderbolts were also caught in the explosion, as were all of the people—CasterLan and Vonnegan alike—who had been floating in space in their armor.
Morgan didn’t pause to celebrate. Instead, she began putting new orders into the Crown’s targeting system and began firing upon every other Athens Destroyer still within its range. The ensign who had been in the same seat watched without saying a word.
The first ship she targeted had been positioned behind the portal. Where there had been an energy field that allowed vessels to jump from one point in the galaxy to another, there was now only empty black space. There, completely unprotected, was a Commander Class Athens Destroyer with nowhere to hide. It was already heavily damaged from the portal’s explosion, but she was glad to finish it off. She sent a blast directly into the Destroyer’s hull. Every part of the ship was turned to charred metal. Everyone aboard it was gone.
On one display in front of her, she saw an Athens Destroyer landing at the far edge of the Edsall Dark spaceport and a battalion of Vonnegan troopers begin disembarking, readying to invade the city. Baldwin and Fastolf stood behind her, ready to help if she needed it, but she was her own one-person command center.
“Attention, everyone,” she said into the capital’s public address system. “Vonnegan troops have made their way down to Sector 2 of the space docks. Any and all men and women capable of fighting are needed there.”
Another Athens Destroyer was approaching the spaceport, but as it did, it got within the Crown’s targeting radius. She aimed one of the five cannons at it, then watched as a beam of laser tore through the middle of the ship. The steel frame could no longer support the front half of the vessel. It broke in two, both pieces plummeting toward CamaLon’s commercial sector.
Morgan made another announcement. “Any remaining ships capable of space combat, please take off immediately. Ground support will be provided.”
On the first display, she watched as a group of nearly one hundred CasterLan soldiers combined with twice as many civilians, all with blasters, to fight the group of Vonnegan troops trying to get off their ship.
On the next display, she watched as four Llyushin fighters and seven random vessels, took off from the space docks to face what remained of the battered Vonnegan fleet.
Only then did she allow herself to lean back in her chair, her head lolling backward with both fatigue and triumph.
Fastolf and Baldwin were still behind her, neither of them knowing what to say other than to tell her she did a hell of a job. Traskk, she noticed, was gone. On one of the displays in front of her, she saw him dart past a crowd of CasterLan forces and tear into a group of ten Vonnegan troopers armed with nothing but his claws, fangs, and tail.
Content that she had done all she could do for the time being, she closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment of peace.
81
Minot’s hand was clasped around General Agravan’s ankle. It would continue to be locked there for ages.
Although both had been wearing space armor, neither Vonnegan would survive. In fact, Agravan was already dead. When the command deck of his Athens Destroyer had been torn apart and lost pressure, everyone aboard that portion of the ship had been sucked out into space. The general’s space armor had a gash ripped into its side as he was pulled past a section of jagged steel on his way out of the ship. He had died within seconds of being exposed to space.
Minot, though, had survived longer.
Upon being sucked out into the cold vacuum of space, the future heir of the Vonnegan Empire had grabbed the first thing he could find. That happened to be Agravan’s ankle.
In shock, he refused to let go, even as the two of them drifted further and further out into open space.
He had seen the majority of Solar Carriers turned to scrap. He had even seen a fair number of Athens Destroyers break into pieces or become engulfed in explosions. And yet the war had never seemed like a truly real thing to him. Since he was old enough to read he had been told he would one day become the ruler of the Vonnegan Empire. He watched his father strategize ways to expand that empire. He learned from Agravan how to one day conduct his own conquests of other kingdoms. Through it all, he had never thought, even for a single moment, that the wars and battles and invasions were anything more than a game. If he had, he would have realized he was one of the pieces being moved into place. A very important piece, yes, but a piece all the same.
As the oxygen in his space armor began to run out, the terrified boy, still clutching his mentor’s leg as they wandered away from Edsall Dark and into the expanse of the galaxy, could only keep thinking one thing to himself over and over.
&n
bsp; It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
82
Vere looked at the rubble covering her father’s remains. Her Meursault blade slipped from her fingers and clanged on the ground.
An incredible burst of light flared in the sky, so bright she expected to see a sun in the midst of a supernova, and she saw someone had destroyed the portal. Edsall Dark was now cut off from the rest of the galaxy. There would be questions from the other kingdoms that would need to be answered. Each portal was in someone’s territory, but it was against galactic law to do anything to any of them. Intentionally destroying a portal was unheard of. She would have a lot of explaining to do.
But at least the Vonnegan army couldn’t send more ships to her father’s planet—what had been her father’s planet. And the ships that remained in the sky were being repelled by a combination of fighters and blasts from the Crown.
She looked back down at where her father’s body had been. Even the bed was covered by rocks. It was almost as if he were already buried.
Galen’s words came back to her. Your father’s not dead, Vere. She closed her eyes.
In this very room, she had listened to her father talk about the qualities of a just ruler. She had looked out the windows as he talked about how being leader of the open and empty fields was just as important as being the leader of the busy commercial district.
As a little girl, she had played games of hide and seek with him. Although they had promised to never leave the king’s chambers, he had always managed to find her and she had never been able to find him.
Galen’s words echoed in her head again.
This time, her eyes burst open and she scanned the room. The middle of the room was covered in rubble. A few of the surrounding walls had also come down.
The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1) Page 28
