“I agree,” Pompey said without inflection, neither disappointed nor offended that those gathered were discounting the first two ideas. “The third option, the one I recommend, is to neither defend nor attack but to evade and lure the enemy into a series of traps.”
In the time since that first meeting, that was exactly what Philo, Pompey, Thidian, and the others gathered in the planning sessions did. They identified more than twenty bunkered sites around the city that were large enough to protect over a million Vonnegans each. Various other sites were identified as offering an even greater level of fortification against the approaching threat and could house between ten thousand and one hundred thousand Vonnegans.
It all sounded like progress until they were reminded that the population consisted not of thirty million or even three hundred million Vonnegans but nearly three billion. Those were the times everyone except Philo and Pompey momentarily lost their resolve.
There were brighter moments, though.
Thidian said, “If we can entice the mechs into the west corridor of the sewage system, it leads to a pair of emergency trap doors that will seal them inside. The room ties to the water system and can be flooded in less than one minute.”
“I don’t think the mechs will drown,” Philo said. “A normal mech would have a living pilot inside. It would take hours for the oxygen supply to run out. They could free themselves from the water trap before that. From the footage I’ve seen, these mechs are even less likely to be affected by water. They have no pilot that we know of and no sense of fear when being attacked.”
Thidian smiled. It was a ghoulish grin, even by Vonnegan standards. “It’s a good thing the primary power supply connects at a terminal directly above that trap. The mechs won’t be drowned; they’ll be standing in water with one million kilowatts of electricity flowing through it.”
Philo nodded. “If that doesn’t kill a mech, nothing will.”
They set about identifying other traps that would be equally deadly.
31
While the Vonnegans on Greater Mazuma worked to transform their planet into a series of complex traps to ensnare the Hannibal mechs and while available flagships and freighters transported as many children off the planet as possible, another strategy was being devised by an altogether different group of resistance fighters. A competition of sorts had emerged between local pirates, retired pilots, and other assorted daredevils.
It began after news spread of the Juggernaut’s persistence in continuing toward its ultimate goal and ignoring secondary threats. The Hannibal, it seemed, were undeterred by approaching ships and only slowed when confronted with a clear danger. A local pilot came back with news that he had flown within one mile of the ship and received no response from the Juggernaut. As a result, every other nearby daredevil wanted to see how close they could get to the colossal vessel before provoking some kind of response.
It helped by giving people on Greater Mazuma a little more time to prepare. It became each pilot’s goal to see if they could make the Juggernaut take them seriously. The problem was that without flagships or any significant arsenal, they would have to resort to extreme maneuvers to slow the approaching invader.
A retired Thunderbolt pilot unintentionally spurred the informal challenge by requesting the use of a fighter. The pilot had earned the nickname the Purple Hawk for his twenty-year career as a fighter pilot in the Vonnegan navy. Not many fighter pilots had a chance to retire. Eventually, each tempts fate one too many times. The Purple Hawk, named for the Vonnegan Warhawk banner that had invariably floated in space after he destroyed countless enemy vessels, was one of the few exceptions. Pompey, knowing the Purple Hawk’s reputation, immediately granted him the use of an available Thunderbolt and allowed him to do whatever he wanted with it.
The Purple Hawk didn’t let anyone down. With only one space fighter, equipped with weapons that wouldn’t harm the Juggernaut, he instead relied on flying so close to the enormous vessel and firing lasers at such short range that the Hannibal eventually had to respond. He got so close to the Juggernaut that he could have flown into the barrel of one of its giant laser cannons if that had been his goal.
From less than ten feet away, he would send a pair of laser blasts into the side of the Juggernaut, fly to the other side of the ship, and do the same thing. Initially, the Hannibal didn’t consider a single fighter to be enough of a nuisance to deploy their weapons. That changed when the Purple Hawk began firing shots near the back corner of the gigantic ship, near the thrusters. The Juggernaut immediately slowed, then opened four hangars. The pilot, knowing the mechs were about to appear and that he was no match for them, turned the Thunderbolt away from the Juggernaut, powered the engines to full, and raced away before the mechs could target him.
He flew for half an hour, guessing that would be enough time for the four armored units to rejoin the main ship. Then he turned his Thunderbolt around and prepared for a second run. As he approached this next time, the Juggernaut immediately slowed and released the four mechs. As soon as the hangar doors began to rise, the Purple Hawk turned his ship around and sped away. At least temporarily, he had once again succeeded in slowing the momentum of the Hannibal as they lumbered toward Greater Mazuma.
His progress was observed from afar by groups of pirates who initially waited for the Purple Hawk to make a mistake so they could salvage his ship, take whatever remained of his uniform, and anything else collectors of galactic military memorabilia might want to purchase. But as the lone Thunderbolt zipped all around the Juggernaut, they noticed other crafts arriving on the scene. Space jets. Fighters. Small cargo runners. Any vessel with a crew that cared more about helping the Round Table and the Vonnegans on Greater Mazuma than about steering clear of the Juggernaut, began joining the Purple Hawk in taunting the giant vessel.
As soon as other ships began to arrive, the Purple Hawk wisely joined the pirates on the sidelines. He had been on enough missions to know that anyone other than a highly trained combat pilot shouldn’t be attempting coordinated maneuvers around an enemy vessel. He was immediately proven right.
The first pilot to join in the distraction of the Juggernaut was flying a Type III Ion Racer. When it had been built three years earlier, it had been billed as the fastest one-man vessel available in the galaxy. The pilot, following the Purple Hawk’s example, raced along the length of the Juggernaut, close enough that the energy coming out of his thrusters almost touched the Hannibal vessel. But unlike the trained Thunderbolt pilot, he ignored the array of giant cannons positioned around the Juggernaut’s perimeter, either because he wasn’t used to evading enemy weapons or else because he thought his Ion Racer would be too fast for the enemy to target him. The pilot was wrong. A thick stream of energy erupted from one of the Juggernaut’s side cannons, vaporizing the Ion Racer.
The next craft to arrive, a Journey-C space jet, flown by a former stunt pilot, looped and spiraled for no apparent reason. Unlike the previous pilot, this one was smart enough to not fly within the target area of the Juggernaut’s cannons. But unlike the Purple Hawk, he underestimated how fast the four mechs could be launched. The pilot of the space jet was in the middle of turning in an arc around the stern of the Hannibal vessel when the hangar doors rose. By the time the space jet was approaching the side of the Juggernaut, the gray mech was there, its scythe at shoulder level. The space jet turned to flee but the bolt of energy shot out faster than the jet could move and the ship exploded into pieces seconds later.
The next vessel was also a Thunderbolt but looked like it had been salvaged from a junkyard rather than handed over through official channels. Its pilot flew in such wide circles around the Juggernaut that the giant vessel wasn’t dissuaded from it path.
It was joined by another ship that was the same size as a Thunderbolt, but cobbled together from spare parts. This vessel took the opposite approach of the junkyard Thunderbolt, flying parallel with the Juggernaut at almost the exact same speed. With the relative trajectories
of the two crafts being identical, the pilot of the modified ship dared the fates by landing his craft on the Juggernaut. Seeing that the Hannibal were ignoring him, the pilot then lowered the ramp of his ship and, dressed in a suit of space armor, walked out onto the surface of the behemoth. Whether the Hannibal were offended by the pilot’s taunt or else perceived him to be a threat, they chose that exact moment to send full power to their engines. The modified ship that had been perched atop the moon-sized vessel disintegrated into hundreds of pieces.
Moments later, the Juggernaut slowed to its normal cruising speed again. No one could figure out why. Some suggested its design wasted too much energy if it traveled at faster speeds. Others guessed that it was part of the Hannibal’s tactic of terror—giving those who were facing impending death time to contemplate their mortality before their lives were taken from them.
A pair of pirate ships located near the Purple Hawk, much too far away for the Juggernaut to bother with them, decided to get in on the action next. Neither looked particularly fast, but both were sturdy and well-armed. Seeing what the other nearby pilots were doing, they couldn’t resist trying their luck.
Neither flew as close to the Juggernaut as the Purple Hawk or the pilot that had stood on the vessel before dying, but they also didn’t fly in wide arcing loops like the pilot of the junkyard Thunderbolt. Both, upon getting within firing range, released unusual weapons favored by pirates and other criminals. One released a magnetized depth charge filled with corrosive fluid. If it hit the Juggernaut, the canister would spray the ship’s hull with a substance that melted metal. Before that could happen, a thick stream of laser erupted from one of the Juggernaut’s cannons, destroying the depth charge. The other pirate vessel fired a pair of precision-drill torpedoes. These were designed not to destroy ships but to puncture holes in their sides so boarding parties could raid them and either plunder their contents or steal the entire craft. But before the torpedoes could reach their targets, dozens of tiny projectiles dispersed from the side of the Juggernaut. Each erupted into a circle of energy at different points around the Hannibal ship. The pair of torpedoes disappeared into one portal then reappeared from a portal facing the pirate ship that had fired on them. The ship’s captain was able to keep his own projectiles from hitting him but both sets of pirates, discouraged, learned not to try anything else and backed away from the approaching invader.
The Purple Hawk watched the scene unfold. He and the other pilots had accomplished their goal of temporarily slowing the Juggernaut. In his Thunderbolt, he tried to think of anything else he could do to slow the enemy.
32
Quickly’s home was unlike anything Lancelot had seen. Despite the fact that she too had lived in a cavern for most of her life, the two living areas couldn’t have been more dissimilar. Hers had been hollowed out in gray and brown asteroid rock. All of the light in the Carthagen tunnels had been generated by artificial sources. There had been no water, trees, nor animals. Lancelot’s home had been a barren chunk of rock in outer space.
In contrast, the walls and ceiling of Quickly’s home were coated with tiny crystals. A single candle reflected off every surface to produce enough light to bathe the room in a bright prism of colors. A natural underground stream flowed beside the main room. White moss covered parts of the floor. The table in the center of the room looked to be made of the same crystals as the walls, but sanded smooth. The result was a piece of furniture in the middle of the living space that seemed to glow and make the walls and ceiling even more bright than they already were.
With her helmet off, Lancelot looked all around at the dazzling display of life and light.
“It’s beautiful,” she said as she and Quickly sat on opposite sides of the table.
“It’s why this planet is worth living on,” a woman’s voice said from behind Lancelot.
Quickly smiled and said, “I’d like to introduce you to my wife, Enid.”
Only then did Lancelot realize she hadn’t given her own name.
“Lancelot,” she said, extending a hand to her hosts.
Quickly turned to his wife and told her that Lancelot had been sent by Vere. The woman’s good cheer faded, replaced by a grunt and a frown.
“I’ll leave the two of you to talk,” Enid said. Then, turning to Lancelot, she added, “Don’t be too long. A storm is approaching. Your ship won’t be in one piece if you leave it where it is.”
Without waiting for a response, Enid left.
“You’ll have to forgive her,” Quickly said. “She assumes if someone is coming here it’s because they’ll try to convince me that I’m needed on some mission or another.”
“That’s exactly why I’m here.”
As if Lancelot hadn’t spoke, Quickly said, “What she doesn’t understand is that it doesn’t matter if there is an urgent mission or not. I’m not leaving. This is my life now. I’ve told her that a thousand times but she always gets this skeptical expression and tells me I’ll give in. She doesn’t realize how stubborn I can be.”
At a loss for what to say, Lancelot remained silent. On the floor, the tiny stream continued to flow beside her feet.
Quickly said, “So, you’re talking to Vere? I assumed she was dead.”
“Have you heard the stories of people who joined the Word?”
The pilot shrugged and said, “That they vanish until one day someone claims to have seen them again?”
Lancelot gave a nod. “Vere told me that one time she saw her long lost friend in a cave underneath Edsall Dark. She also saw her mother on the surface of the Excalibur asteroid.”
“Well,” Quickly said, “Vere’s mother most certainly is dead. The surface of the Excalibur?” He tapped the fingertips of his human hand against the metal of his other arm. “Odd place to see a ghost.”
“I see Vere in the same way. She visited me in my old home even though there was no realistic way to get past the Carthagen detection system. And yet, somehow, she did. She has also been in my cockpit even though no one else was aboard when I took flight. It goes against what I grew up believing, and yet I’ve seen it with my own eyes so I know it’s true.”
Quickly gave a small grin and shook his head, clearly disbelieving what he was hearing. Lancelot imagined returning to her ship and having to endure Vere’s remarks that they would never defeat the Hannibal if Lancelot was unable to recruit a decent team.
“I know how pilots are,” Lancelot said, refocusing her argument. “You only believe what you can see.”
Quickly couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you always generalize so much?”
“You wouldn’t be a very good pilot otherwise. The best pilots rely on what they can see for themselves instead of what computer sensors and displays can show. Why do you think that is?”
Instead of answering, Quickly merely smiled and passed a hand through the air to signal she could feel free to answer her own question.
“I saw three types of people in the Orleans asteroid field,” she said. “Those who believed what they saw. Those were the best pilots because they kept themselves and their passengers alive by sensing the reality of what was there and what wasn’t.”
If someone from the Round Table’s Cartha campaign had been there, they would have remarked that believing what they saw had resulted in three flagships avoiding false asteroids and ramming into real ones. Of course, she kept that to herself.
“Then there were the traders. They were always living in the world of what-ifs because they had to try and convince you that what they were selling was worth more than it actually was or that you needed something you weren’t originally interested in. Their entire existence was based around creating something out of nothing.”
“And the third type?” Quickly said.
Lancelot leaned closer. “Warriors. Those who believe what they can see but have to plan for what they can’t see.”
“There’s one huge flaw in your theory.”
“What’s that?” Lancelot said, forcing herse
lf to remain patient even though they were running out of time.
Quickly smiled and leaned back in his chair. “It ignores the thousands of other professions in the world.”
It was true, of course. Lancelot could have admitted that she had only ever encountered three types of people in Orleans because no one else would try to contact the Carthagens. Instead, she admitted the lapse with a smile of her own.
Quickly looked around the room. “If Vere is real, maybe she’d like to join us.”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“That’s a shame.”
Under the table, Lancelot squeezed all four hands into tight fists in an attempt to relieve the irritation that was building up inside her.
Quickly, maybe sensing her impatience, smiled and said, “Do you know why I’m here?”
“Of course,” Lancelot said, and then, unable to keep from smiling, added, “Vere told me.”
“Oh yeah, what did she say?”
“She said you had witnessed too much death, that you felt like your luck was running out.”
Quickly closed his eyes and sighed. When he reopened them he said, “Be thankful you weren’t there during the battle for the Round Table. You wouldn’t believe the amount of casualties I saw all around me. I was flying next to a couple other Llyushin fighters and in the blink of an eye I was the only one left. On the surface, I saw both sides decimating the other. It’s impossible to live through something like that and not feel like you’re tempting fate. I knew as soon as that battle was over that if I tried my luck even one more time it would be the death of me.”
“You didn’t survive because you were lucky; you lived because you were a better pilot.”
“No,” Quickly said. “It was all luck. That was what made me so sure I needed to get away. I’ll never forget the things I saw that day. I’d be a fool if I lived through it and thought my destiny was any better than those who died. It isn’t better, it just hasn’t caught up with me yet.” He tapped his metal arm and added, “My luck was already running out before that battle took place.”
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