The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2) (34 page)

“Humor me,” he said, not taking his eyes off the newly freed ship as it crossed space. “I’d like to see how this plays out.”

“All of your ships will be destroyed,” she said. When he didn’t respond, she added, “This is your last chance.”

Still, he only stared at the legendary vessel. As it appeared out of the opening of the Solar Carrier’s bell formation, it began taking incredible amounts of cannon fire from the Athens Destroyers in front of it. It absorbed or deflected every blast, depending on the type of armament shot at it. Every laser blast was harmlessly deflected. Every ion blast dissipated into the metal. Nothing that Mowbray’s fleet could do would hurt the Excalibur ships.

“Final warning, Mowbray.”

She observed him out of the corner of her eye. He watched the Excalibur Armada ship proceed toward the Athens Destroyers, undeterred by the dozens of proton torpedoes launched at it, the hundreds of cannons firing on it, or the swarm of Thunderbolts zipping all around it. Mowbray didn’t blink. He merely observed.

The Excalibur ship angled toward a group of three Athens Destroyers. The three ships powered up their engines to begin evasive maneuvers, but it was taking them too long to get the necessary force and momentum behind them. Without ever having fired a single shot of its own, the Excalibur ship crashed into the side of the middle of the three Destroyers. A second later, it erupted into a brilliant burst of light. The ship and the Destroyer it ran into were both completely gone, no trace left that they had ever existed. The Destroyers on either side of the main blast were useless metal skeletons. All of their shields, weapons, navigational systems, life support systems, even the tinder walls, were completely gone. Large chunks of the metal frame that gave the ship its stability were also blown apart. A fourth Athens Destroyer in the row was also impacted, although not enough to obliterate the entire vessel. It was able to keep moving, but a chunk of its side was missing. Inside the ship, there was most likely a complete loss of life. Even if there were survivors aboard the ship, they wouldn’t last long. If the craft tried to turn, land, or do anything at all, it would break apart and the few Vonnegans who might have survived the initial blast would certainly die.

“Mowbray?”

He turned to her then. She expected him to nod and agree to her terms. She expected him to call off her ships and the Excalibur Armada she had somehow freed. Surely he would do so before more of his precious fleet was decimated in front of his eyes. She expected him to ask for a way out of the confrontation so he could save face with his people and with the rest of the galaxy. But instead he did something she didn’t expect at all.

He smiled.

He smiled and then said, “Thank you for the offer, Vere CasterLan, but I’ll take my chances and let the battle play out.”

She knew in that moment that he had noticed what she didn’t want him to see. Looking back at Fastolf’s dead body in the sand, for the second time in a matter of minutes she felt as if she were losing control of the situation.

78

Morgan watched the Excalibur ships with a combination of amazement and awe, but also mixed with anxiety and unease. It was an incredible thing to see a vessel capable of withstanding so much firepower. The Excalibur ships were everything that the legends had said they were. But she also knew what Vere knew.

There was no one piloting the ships.

They had never been able to get inside the vessels. No one had figured out how the weapons systems worked, or the navigation systems or anything else. As Vere had said when she presented her plan to Morgan and Westmoreland, just because the fleet was finally free of its stone encasement didn’t mean they would magically open their doors.

Morgan salivated at the idea of how advanced the weapons systems inside each ship might have been. If the civilization that had built the ships had discovered a way to make them invincible and found a sensor and self-destruct system advanced enough to wipe away any trace of the ship once it was tampered with, there was no telling how remarkable their cannon systems were. She imagined black hole bombs, cosmic mines, and vortex clusters—weapons that military researchers had pursued for hundreds of years but had never been able to figure out. Because Vere and the others had never been able to get inside the ships, there was no telling what the Excalibur vessels were actually capable of.

Even after the armada had been freed, Morgan had thought that spending time and resources to investigate the asteroid was a waste. Her opinion changed when Vere described how the fleet could still win the war. First, just seeing that the ships were in her possession would be enough to make most other armies surrender or flee. If that didn’t work, it would strip the opposing fleet of all of its courage and morale when they saw the newly freed ships absorb everything the Vonnegans had to send at it. And right when they were beginning to question their plan of attacking the CasterLan Kingdom, the Vonnegans would see how easy it was for the Excalibur ships to destroy multiple Athens Destroyers without ever firing a shot.

“It will have them quaking in their boots,” Vere had said with a smile.

Morgan and Westmoreland had to agree with the assessment. The only problem, which Vere had also already figured out, was how to get the Excalibur Armada to the battle and ensure they detonated at the correct moment. That was why Vere had requested every available ship to rendezvous at the Excalibur. Even if those leftover Edsall Dark ships weren’t capable of fighting in the approaching battle, they had engines which could assist in the victory. As soon as the ships had begun to arrive at the site, crews of workers went about removing engines from CasterLan ships and attaching them to Excalibur ships.

The important thing was to attach them without drilling. They had to be attached with vises or welded on to avoid detonation.

Everyone with any knowledge of ships, engines, factory work, open space work, anyone at all, assisted however they could. Around the clock they worked like this. The final touch was mounting a small remote-controlled drill in the same fashion the engines had been attached. The engines would guide the ships to the correct spot. Once the ship was in position, the drill would be activated. As soon as it began its attempt to penetrate the Excalibur metal, the ship it was attached to would detonate.

“We don’t have the ships’ weapons,” Vere had told Morgan and Westmoreland. “But we have its armor. It can take anything the Athens Destroyers dish out. And we can make them detonate whenever we want. Each ship’s explosion is more powerful than our entire arsenal of proton torpedoes.”

It wasn’t the best plan—the best plan was finding a way inside the ships and having advanced weapons at their disposal—but it was better than facing the Vonnegan fleet at a three-to-one disadvantage.

Unfortunately, only sixteen of the Excalibur Armada ships could be outfitted in time to make it to Dela Turkomann by the deadline. Sixteen ships to bet the entire battle on. Sixteen legendary vessels to save the kingdom.

The first two had already arrived and caused extensive Vonnegan losses, including Mowbray’s Supreme Athens Destroyer. But there were only fourteen remaining. And, by Morgan’s calculations, there were one hundred and ninety-three Destroyers left, not to mention the other one hundred Vonnegan ships. Fewer than one hundred Solar Carriers, along with the hodgepodge of forces that Scrope had mustered, would have to do the rest.

If Mowbray didn’t concede soon, it might not make any difference if they had any Excalibur ships or not.

When Morgan saw the way Mowbray smiled at Vere, however, she knew something was wrong. The Vonnegan ruler would never concede, and it wasn’t only that he had seen through their elaborate ruse. Mowbray had a secret of his own.

79

“You’ll take your chances?” Vere said. “Your people are going to lose their lives because you think it’s amusing to watch your fleet get destroyed? You’re insane.”

He turned to her then, taking his purple eyes off the battle for the first time since the initial Excalibur ship had appeared.

“On the contrary, Vere CasterLan, I’m quite rational.” He smiled again. “And observant.”

She was beginning to detest his smile. Her hand tensed up. It was all she could do to keep from reaching for her Meursault blade and slicing Mowbray’s head clean off. The next time he laughed, she wasn’t sure she would be able to keep from killing him even if it meant the Fianna cut her, Morgan, and Traskk into pieces.

“The Excalibur ships haven’t fired any shots,” he said.

“They didn’t need to. Just one of them destroyed your own personal command ship without needing to fire a single cannon.”

“But why would you sacrifice it rather than use its weapons? After all, you just wasted a perfectly good starship. And,” he added, the grin appearing again, “how many more ships can you afford to sacrifice?”

Vere had no response. She had tried to pressure him into surrendering and he had called her bluff. Had she been too persistent? Had that made the Vonnegan leader suspicious? She would have to switch to a different tactic and see how confident he was then.

“You don’t have endless resources,” he continued. “No ruler does. How many of your people were you able to get to the Excalibur in time? And how much do they know about the ships you were able to free? Obviously, they don’t know enough to be able to use their weapons.”

As they both watched, the third Excalibur Armada ship was making its way through the bell formation, which itself was slowly drifting apart as the battle raged on. Now clear of the Solar Carriers, the third vessel headed straight for the next row of Athens Destroyers.

“A good trick,” Mowbray said, watching the inevitable destruction of more of his fleet. “But my generals will adapt.”

It was true. As she watched, the waves of Athens Destroyers stopped focusing their cannons on the approaching Excalibur ship, choosing instead to continue sending barrages of laser fire at the Solar Carriers while they began powering up their engines to avoid the incoming vessel. No longer was the invincible ship showing how much abuse it could take because the Vonnegan fleet wasn’t wasting firepower on it. Instead, it flew straight ahead, untouched. As it did, though, each wave of Athens Destroyers broke apart from their formations to avoid it. One after another, the ranks of Vonnegan vessels maneuvered around the Excalibur ship while also trying to avoid colliding with each other.

Two Athens Destroyers, both breaking from their row to avoid the Excalibur ship, collided side to side with one another. At first, the cannons of one ship got stuck in the armor crease of the other ship. There was a groan of metal inside both vessels as they tried to compensate with the force of the other ship colliding with them. Then the cannons tore off the side of the first Destroyer, along with some of its exterior plating.

Two other Athens Destroyers collided with so much force that the ion batteries in part of their weapon’s system ruptured. Both ships were engulfed in blue energy and destruction, each drifting away as useless shells. The entire time, the fleet of Solar Carriers fired their cannons at everything in front of them.

“Is that what you mean by adapting?” Vere said, flashing the Vonnegan ruler a mirror image of his annoying smile.

Mowbray’s lips curled with strain and irritation. As he watched, the clean lines of his ship formations broke into utter chaos. Athens Destroyers careened in every direction, some up, some down. Some away from the fighting. Some straight toward the Solar Carriers before being hit with a barrage of cannons. One accidently fired a laser burst into another Athens Destroyer directly in front of it. All of them were trying to accomplish the seemingly simple task of avoiding the Excalibur ships. But with so many vessels all around them, not to mention the swarms of Thunderbolts and the few Llyushin fighters that had been allowed into battle, nothing was simple. Especially not when nearly one hundred Solar Carriers were emptying one volley of laser cannons after another into the Vonnegan fleet. A fourth Excalibur ship was appearing through the loosening bell. Then a fifth.

“How many more do you have?” Mowbray asked.

“Are you willing to watch your fleet get annihilated in order to find out?”

When he didn’t answer, she held one finger in the air, then two fingers. Mowbray looked at her, confused.

A second went by and nothing happened. Another second. Still nothing.

Vere knew Westmoreland was monitoring a feed of their discussion on the moon’s surface. But it was possible that the battle had taken all of his attention and he had missed her sign.

The seconds ticked by and still nothing happened. Mowbray saw where she was staring—the portal—and matched her gaze.

A trickle of sweat ran down her forehead and into her eyes. Her clothes were soaked with sweat. Her fingers began to twitch. Had the armies that Scrope bargained with decided to return home? Or had they not been able to resist attacking each other? Perhaps Westmoreland had lost Vere’s feed and hadn’t seen the signal at all?

Just when she thought about giving the signal a second time, a pair of war frigates came through the portal, one after the other. Then the King-Class Battlecruiser. Then dozens of miscellaneous fighters. Arc-Mi-Die’s forces came through the energy field and assembled diagonally behind the fleet of Athens Destroyers at an angle that kept them safe from any errant shots from the Solar Carriers.

Ballonna’s forces came through next. The war-ready cargo loaders, the space-to-space missile batteries, the fighters. Each ship flew past the rows of Destroyers, positioning itself diagonally to the other side of Mowbray’s fleet from where Arc-Mi-Die’s forces were.

Mowbray watched all of the ships appear through the portal. He paid careful attention to how they formed up on either side of his Athens Destroyers. As Vere watched, she saw what he meant about staying composed no matter how the situation unfolded. As additional forces streamed through the portal and gathered around his fleet, he didn’t even blink. He didn’t yell in outrage. His long fingers didn’t curl into fists. He merely watched the proceedings as if they had no bearing on his fleet or his discussion with Vere.