The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2) (35 page)

When the last of the ships had passed through the portal and arranged itself with the others, Mowbray offered a polite smile, not bothering to display his teeth.

“Is that it?” he asked. “I was expecting more than that.” When she didn’t answer, he added, “It certainly looks impressive—this little show of force coming to your rescue—but add all of those ships together and they don’t equal five Commander Class Athens Destroyers. Five of my best vessels can match all of those ships in firepower. That leaves two hundred and eighty-seven Vonnegan ships to face your approximately one hundred ships.” He smiled again. “Not exactly a three-to-one ratio, but almost.”

“Last chance, Mowbray.”

As composed as he tried to remain, he couldn’t help but let his eyes roll in a show of disdain. Vere looked around, wondering why the Vonnegan leader was so confident. His ships were still focused on avoiding the raging Excalibur vessels that were aiming themselves at his fleet and causing chaos. His fleet was so intent on dodging the Excalibur ships that almost none of them fired on the Solar Carriers anymore. And two additional forces had just shown up. Yet Mowbray was more confident than ever.

“I was just going to say the same thing to you,” he said. “This is
your
last chance. Turn your fleet of Solar Carriers over to me. Make yourself my prisoner. Do both of these things and I won’t destroy every CasterLan life above me and in front of me.”

Then, having issued his ultimatum but without actually giving her time to respond, he simply nodded his head one time. She knew, even before whatever next happened, that he was issuing his own signal.

She didn’t have to wait long to understand what he was doing. Someone in one of the Destroyers had been watching the proceedings on the moon’s surface, the same way Westmoreland had been. They had then sent out a communication, the same as her lead Solar Carrier had. And once the command was issued and received, Mowbray’s smile grew larger than she had ever seen it.

Both Arc-Mi-Die’s and Ballona’s forces turned from facing and targeting the Vonnegan fleet and instead faced the Solar Carriers. A second later, both forces began firing at her ships. And for a third time, she realized she had lost control of the situation. Not only that—she may have just lost the battle as well.

80

 
“Scrope, what’s going on?” Morgan said between gritted teeth upon seeing the forces he had assembled turn against the Solar Carriers. “There’s a mistake.”

Scrope had been staring up at space the entire time, watching the battle unfold and waiting for something. But now he looked at Morgan and even before he said anything, she knew. She knew he had betrayed them. She knew that while Peto had been working to gather any friendly forces he could find to help Edsall Dark, Scrope had been making deals to help himself.

As if to confirm this very thought, Scrope moved from standing beside Pistol and strode to the protection of the Fianna.

“A good politician can accomplish anything he wants,” he said.

It wasn’t the words he uttered that drove her to a rage, although that would have been enough. It was the way he winked at her after saying it. Without thinking, she withdrew the Meursault blade Vere had given her six years earlier. A trail of yellow vapor dissipated along the invisible blade’s path through the desert air.

A panicked gurgle escaped from Scrope’s throat and he dashed further behind the Fianna who was nearest to him. Morgan took a step forward. The two closest Fianna let their halberds move from a perfectly vertical position to a diagonal attacking stance. Both blades changed from dull metal to glowing energy.

“I don’t care about Mowbray,” she said to them. “Give me that pitiful excuse for a human. That’s all I want.”

But the Fianna must have been ordered by Mowbray to protect his new ally. They remained in their attacking stance, motionless. Traskk growled, bared his fangs, and joined Morgan’s side. Another Fianna moved forward, changing the position of his weapon to match the two in front of Morgan.

“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” she said to Scrope, too angry to return the wink he had sent her.

Safely behind the Vonnegan ruler’s royal guard, Scrope’s bravado returned. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But maybe you’ll enjoy serving me once I become the new ruler of Edsall Dark.”

The only fashion by which she acknowledged this comment was to scan the Fianna for a way through them so she could kill the politician they were protecting. Scrope saw her eyes darting every which way and positioned himself so he disappeared behind one of the guards.

His voice called out, “Don’t just stand there. Get her!”

The Fianna ignored him, however. They only took orders from their king. Morgan and Traskk stood facing the three Fianna in front of them. Glancing across the sand dunes, Morgan saw Vere had also withdrawn her Meursault blade and was holding it to Mowbray’s neck.

81

A pair of Llyushin fighters zipped around one Athens Destroyer, fired a pair of proton torpedoes at another, then raced over toward Arc-Mi-Die’s forces. Behind the two fighters were five Thunderbolts. The Thunderbolts let loose an endless barrage of lasers at the CasterLan ships as they made their way through the battlefield.

When they got to Arc-Mi-Die’s forces, an errant shot from the Thunderbolts hit one of the warlord’s converted fighters. Without effective armor to protect it, the fighter blew apart.

The tactic of the Llyushin fighter pilots was clear: test the loyalty of forces that weren’t known for being able to maintain an allegiance.

A moment later, Arc-Mi-Die’s King-Class Battlecruiser stopped firing at the Solar Carrier it had been targeting and began unloading its cannons on every ship in the vicinity that wasn’t part of the warlord’s forces. One of the Llyushin fighters erupted into explosions before breaking into pieces. Three of the five Thunderbolts exploded.

The other Llyushin fighter turned and began speeding toward the gangster Ballona’s forces to try the same thing on the opposite side of the battlefield.

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.