Avalon

by Chris Dietzel

  None of that mattered to Talbot. Almost the entire journey from Edsall Dark to ID-1D-0067, the star where Arc-Mi-Die had been hiding, he had been thinking, not about whether or not the moveable containment field technology would work, but about the woman who had shown up with the warlord’s head in a satchel.

  He had experienced crushes before. In primary school, he had been shy any time the girl next to him looked his way. In the academy, he found himself less concerned with the physical training requirements and war strategy than with the girl assigned to his study group. Those infatuations now seemed trivial and childish. His feelings for the woman pretending to be a Carthagen were something else entirely. As far as he was concerned, anything she said or did was right and just.

  While the cruiser had soared through two portals and through long stretches of empty space, all he could think of was seeing her again. He remembered what it had been like when she took off her helmet, her long blond hair falling down over her shoulders. He remembered her smile. Almost every waking moment was spent counting down the time until he got to see her again.

  “Impressive, huh?”

  Talbot snapped out of his daydream and blinked back into being aware of where he was. The pilot was glancing at him.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  The pilot rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to the sun. “The star. It’s impressive, isn’t it?”

  It was. Even for a guy who was head over heels in love with a women he had just met, he could appreciate the immense beauty of the thing in front of him.

  ID-1D-0067 was a brighter orange than the sun he saw everyday on Edsall Dark. It was also many times larger and more volatile. Streaks of flame lashed out as stellar flares erupted from every part of the aging fireball.

  “Never thought I’d fly into a star,” the co-pilot said.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” the pilot said with a disbelieving shake of the head. “Let’s hope this actually works.”

  52

  Lancelot helped Swordnew disassemble the last components of the console that had been in the Dauphin’s chamber.

  After a while, the other Carthagen paused and said, “What would you have done if the Dauphin were still here and had refused to help you?”

  The question brought about equal parts amusement and sadness in Lancelot. Amusement because the elders wouldn’t have been able to stop her. She had come to the Cartha sector to get this technology because it could potentially save billions of lives. Nothing was going to keep her from her goal. But also sadness because there had been a time when the Carthagen elders had controlled every part of her life and she had allowed them to tell her what to do. Looking back on those days, she was all too aware of how much of a fool she had been. She had prided herself on her strength but three old Carthagens had used her for their own selfish reasons.

  The reason she appreciated the things Vere and Mortimous had to say was that they helped her work toward becoming a better person, not just a better warrior. They helped her understand the true measure of greatness and of what was good and decent.

  Swordnew paused in his work until she answered.

  “But they aren’t here,” she said.

  “But what if they had been?”

  She answered Swordnew’s question the way she thought Vere might if Lancelot had been the one to pose it. “The universe has a funny way of ensuring things work out the way they’re supposed to. I didn’t need the Dauphin’s technology until just recently, and it wasn’t until a few days ago that the last of the elders died. This is what’s supposed to happen.”

  Swordnew piled pieces of the console and associated equipment into each of Lancelot’s four arms. With her hands full, the thought crossed her mind that Swordnew could chose that exact moment to draw his weapons and try one final time to get payback for all the occasions she bested him in the duels. He didn’t pause, however, before also bending over and picking up two large pieces of the gear. He saw her staring at him and asked what she wanted.

  “Nothing, just thinking.” And then, with a kindness in her voice that would be filtered out through the Carthagen voice modifier, added, “Thank you for your help, Swordnew. I appreciate it.”

  He nodded but said nothing as he turned and began toward the tunnels that would lead to the Carthagen hangar.

  She had thought better of trying to convince Swordnew to ride in the same ship as Quickly. The decision had been easy after Swordnew remarked three different times that he had gotten used to killing every non-Carthagen he had come into contact with. She envisioned going to sleep aboard the Llyushin transport and waking up to find Swordnew holding the pilot’s severed head. Better to let them ride in separate ships while the Carthagen warrior got used to the idea of being around other species.

  Even though she knew she had been an imposter who didn’t belong in the asteroid field, it had been difficult for her to leave. She couldn’t imagine how difficult it must be for Swordnew, the last of his race, to depart from Orleans. She said little as they loaded the Carthagen transport with the equipment they had taken, mainly because she knew if someone had tried talking to her when she was going through the same thing she would have looked for any excuse to start a fight.

  They walked down one of the outer tunnels to the exterior of the asteroid. Beyond the cave opening was nothing but space. If either of them were without their helmets they would perish in the cold and airless environment. With the armor on, they were fine to pass through the clear barrier and began walking on the outer surface of the enormous rock.

  As they made their way to one of the many projection tubes—the devices that helped create the Carthagens’ holographic illusions—she considered the idea that the lack of any family, her father’s death, and having to hide behind a suit of armor all her life had always seemed like a burden. But seeing Swordnew’s melancholy at leaving his home, she knew her early years had also been a good thing because they had made her into who she was. Like everything else in the universe, there was something good to be found out of something unfortunate. Her life of hiding behind false armor, the constant duels the elders had held, and everything else, had made her capable of facing any situation and dispatching nearly any opponent with ease. She would never have preferred to go without a father or a normal childhood, but it had turned her into a person capable of fulfilling a cosmic purpose.

  Her life was a culmination of miraculous events that had led to her being the most fearsome and capable warrior in not only the Cartha sector but all the known galaxy. Just as she was learning to appreciate the responsibility that came with that ability, an invader approached that threatened everyone.

  “I know it seems difficult right now,” she said to Swordnew. “Leaving this asteroid field, I mean. But not too long from now you’re going to look back and wonder why you didn’t leave sooner. You’re going to see other planets and other types of aliens—the wonders of the galaxy—and all the angst you have inside you is going to turn to regret that you stayed here so long. After that, if you’re like I am right now, that feeling will morph into astonishment at the connectedness of the universe.”

  She thought he might have a snide remark or tell her that just because she had one set of experiences didn’t mean he would feel the same way. Instead, he grunted and went about uninstalling the projection tube from the rock.

  After he was done, he stood up, tube in hand, and said, “For now, just keep the human pilot away so I don’t kill him and we’ll be okay.”

  She left him to take apart more projection tubes while she went back to the Llyushin transport to check on her pilot.

  “How’s it going?” Quickly said.

  “Great. I think the two of you are really going to hit it off.”

  53

  Thidian and the other half million people gathered in the ancient aqueduct felt the entire tunnel system shake when the first skyscraper came down. They were in the southwest quadrant, three stories underground and dozens of city blocks away from
the mechs’ current position, but the entire tunnel shook and parts of the ceiling cracked, covering them in dust.

  Some of the children cried. Most of the adults looked at each other in alarm, imagining what must be going on above ground. On opposite ends of the shelter, a middle-aged man and a teenage girl both went into fits of panic and began to scream until those nearby held them and forced them to be quiet. Thidian was sure the same scene was unfolding in all of the other underground refuges around Greater Mazuma.

  “What was that?” a woman close to him asked.

  Only four people near him could actually see the holographic display in Thidian’s hands and the images it showed of the battle raging above ground. Everyone else had to receive updates via word of mouth as Thidian or one of the others next to him offered bits of information.

  “One of the high-rises in the northwest quadrant was toppled,” he said, and a few of the people near him turned and told those who they were packed shoulder to shoulder with until the update filtered through the entire cavernous room.

  “It’s okay,” he added, hearing murmurs of alarm in those around him. “Pompey has laid traps for the mechs. He’s intentionally triggering some of the skyscrapers to fall after he lures the enemy near them. Many more buildings will come down but it will be okay.”

  The people around him repeated this but none of them seemed to share his optimism. He was sure that by the time his comment had been passed to groups on the opposite side of the aqueduct, his statement would be altered into a different message.

  On the display in his hand, Thidian watched as hundreds of portals blazed all around the busiest parts of the financial center. Each was a fraction of the size of the ones that floated in space, but all large enough for the mechs to pass through so they could jump anywhere in the city within seconds. It wasn’t a scenario he had ever discussed with Pompey, and he hoped the general had a contingency plan for such a development.

  As he watched the holographic feed in his palm, a pair of resistance fighters appeared from a hideout two blocks down the street from one of the mechs. They fired a pair of shots and then began to run away. A moment later, another pair of fighters appeared from the opposite direction, also two blocks away. They did the same thing. The mech was given the choice of remaining where it was or chasing in one direction or the other.

  Thidian squinted to see as much detail as possible. He couldn’t find two of the mechs and assumed they were back aboard the Juggernaut while the damaged mech was being repaired. With only two of the mechs remaining on the planet’s surface, they refrained from giving chase to nearby threats. Instead of turning on its hover transport and moving down the street, one of the mechs disappeared into the nearest portal. The other mech moved into a portal beside that one. Both were gone from where they had been. Instantly, both reappeared further down the street, one from a portal directly in front of the fleeing Vonnegans. The two resistance fighters froze in their tracks. Before they could bring their blasters up to fire, they were sliced in half by the giant Hannibal scythe.

  But the mech was also exactly where one of the traps had been set.

  “Brace yourself,” Thidian said, loud enough that hundreds of people near him could hear. “More skyscrapers are about to come down.”

  54

  Dindraine had graduated from the Vonnegan military academy two weeks before Mowbray was killed. She knew all about the theory and strategy of war. She knew the importance of effective communications and of supply chains. There was no way for her to know, however, about the realities of war until she saw it firsthand, and the glimpse she got was utterly terrifying.

  Even though the mechs hadn’t reached her yet, that didn’t stop her from cursing over and over as panic began to take hold. After the first skyscraper fell and shook the ground, she had begun to cry. If anyone other than the dead Fianna were in the bunker with her they would have told her to get a grip on her emotions. Part of her wanted to jump out of the hiding spot, drop her weapon so the mechs knew she meant no harm, and run away as fast as she could. Maybe a one-person ship was still at the closest spaceport. Maybe she could get away from Greater Mazuma and from the death that was nearby.

  It wasn’t realistic, of course. Every ship that could get away was already gone. If she did make it there, the spaceport would be empty. More likely, one of the mechs would cut her down before she made it through three city blocks. Worse yet, one of her fellow resistance fighters would see her trying to abandon her post and shoot her dead. Everyone who survived would remember her as a traitor.

  It wasn’t killing that was hard. She had no problem shooting Philo in the back of his head and would gladly do so again. The frightening part was the thought of the same thing happening to her, of being alive one moment and not the next. Or worse, being struck down and not dying—gasping for breath in the streets, losing blood, looking over and seeing one of her limbs missing, being all too aware of what was going on.

  It didn’t help that the ground shook a second time when another high-rise fell. The sound generated by the mechs’ hover platforms was also unnerving. The buzzing of the Hannibal portals in all directions added to her paranoia. She had lost track of how many times she thought about either curling into a ball and hoping the mechs would leave her alone or jumping out of the bunker and fleeing.

  Maybe, she thought, one of the fighters in a nearby bunker was considering the same thing. If she left her bunker and joined them in theirs, they could come to an agreement together. But of course their first question would be about Philo. No one would believe it if she said he had run away. She could say the Fianna had told her to go to a different bunker but that was also unlikely, as the Fianna wouldn’t defy orders.

  She wanted to believe everyone detested the Fianna as much as she did. And maybe that was true. But if there was ever a time that the Vonnegan people could forget what Mowbray’s henchmen had done it was now.

  Without warning, a wave of tremors shook the ground so hard that the false ceiling above her fell on her head and part of the wall beside her began to collapse, covering Philo’s right arm and leg with dirt and making Dindraine cough away the dust.

  The quake had been stronger than the others, so intense that it overwhelmed her senses and kept her from recognizing whether a sound had accompanied it. Another skyscraper had come down, this one much closer than the others.

  Above her, she heard the roar of a pair of Thunderbolts race past her. They flew in between the buildings, firing lasers at one of the mechs before darting off again.

  The appearance of the Thunderbolts made her huddle in a ball with her arms over her head. Although she hadn’t been in the planning sessions with Philo, Pompey, and Thidian, she knew enough to recognize that another of the traps was going to be triggered. And with it, the intentional destruction of more high-rises.

  A second later, the last reverberations of the previous quake still lingering in the ground, another tremendous jolt wracked the bunker. And then another one after that.

  55

  Pompey had been in enough combat situations to know there was no need to panic. Even if the tide of the battle turned, he needed to stay the course he had set. That wasn’t to say he was rigid in his thinking and would only consider one approach. He knew what he wanted to do and when he wanted to do it. However, there was flexibility in how the available traps and resources were employed.

  It didn’t matter that most of his planning had become futile once the Hannibal sent down the hundreds of mech-sized portals, giving the four killing machines the ability to jump from place to place with ease. He certainly wasn’t going to give up and order the resistance fighters to retreat. That wasn’t a possibility. But it did mean trying to adapt to what the enemy was doing.

  “Bring in two more of the Thunderbolts,” he said into his comms device.

  The Vonnegan fighters were stationed on the far side of the planet. He hadn’t wanted to use them until later in the conflict, but the appearance of the portals an
d the fact that only two of the mechs were currently fighting changed his mind.

  It helped that Greater Mazuma was half the size of planets like EndoKroy and Edsall Dark. Although the Thunderbolts had nearly half the globe to travel, they did so at nearly eight thousand miles per hour, arriving to the battle-ridden part of the cityscape in mere seconds. The two mechs that were on the surface—the white and gray ones—had destroyed four more combat bots, a pair of Vonnegan resistance fighters, and a battery of ion missiles when the familiar roar of ion-sonic engines could be heard in the distance.

  In space, it was easy to forget how fast the Thunderbolts were because most spacefaring combat vessels had a similar ability to get into and out of battle in a matter of moments. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be worth the metal used to build them. Ships traveling thousands of miles per hour looked relatively slow in space because of the greater distances and because they were flying alongside other ships at comparable speeds. But in the skies of Greater Mazuma, where people were used to seeing escort bots and transport barges carrying citizens where they had to go, the pair of Thunderbolts looked like shooting stars coming for a fight.

  The pilots had a variety of possible orders to carry out, all depending on what Pompey told them to do. Upon receiving a coded message, the two pilots brought their fighters in high above the city, a safe distance from any mech hiding between the skyscrapers. They didn’t reduce power to their engines for more precise targeting of their weapons systems. Pompey wanted them in and out without sustaining any damage so subsequent Thunderbolt pilots would have the confidence to do whatever was ordered of them.