The first presence approached her. She kept her breathing slow, allowing more of the Word’s essence to surround her. Using the advice Mortimous had given her, she brought into her mind an image of the Hannibal crossing the galaxy and defeating the Round Table. She saw the Juggernaut arrive at Edsall Dark and destroy not only CamaLon but also the Great Hall and the symbol of galactic peace she had worked to create.
If it wasn’t the Hannibal it would be something else. Creatures who build weapons of war will never allow peace to exist. It’s not in their nature.
The thought forced itself into her consciousness, regardless of how much she tried to quiet her mind. It was the type of skepticism that had plagued her all her life. At various points in her life she chalked it up to either self-doubt or to a natural sense of pessimism. It was the voice in the back of her head that said “What’s the use?” any time she came up against tough choices. It was the silent conversation that prepared her for inevitable disappointment.
No matter how much she tried to vanquish the thought, it persisted. Her concentration lapsed. With it, so did the negative critique of mortal existence, and she realized the thought wasn’t her own.
It was them.
They were communicating to her not through words or a language but through ideas, just as Mortimous had described. Her thoughts adjusted to what the Word envisioned so she could see the scene they imagined. Instead of the Juggernaut arriving to Edsall Dark and destroying the planet, a civil war broke out, caused by power hungry representatives and generals. She humored the idea for only a moment before shifting her thoughts once more.
Now, instead of the Hannibal getting to Edsall Dark, they were stopped in the Mardigan sector. Instead of the Round Table mired in dysfunction, it was altered in ways that allowed Vere’s original idea to flourish. The galaxy was no longer a collection of empires and kingdoms, it was an infinitely large collection of planets and moons and colonies, all getting along with one another. There were no wars, no rulers thirsting for more territory.
It would never work. It has never worked. People always find ways to revert back to their base instincts of kill-or-be-killed.
The image that the Word placed in her mind was of one planet feeling as though it wasn’t being represented fairly at the Round Table and then recruiting other nearby planets to break way and start their own organization to rival the Round Table. New alliances would be formed, invisible like the old ones, drawn across galactic maps to show where one territory ended and another began, where friends and foes existed.
“It wouldn’t be like that,” she said.
She caught her mistake immediately. It was too late, though. Her voice had broken the silence that allowed her to hear the Word. When she opened her eyes, the presences she had felt around her were gone.
68
While Swordnew piloted the Carthagen vessel, Lancelot worked in the back of the craft to figure out how best to use all of the equipment the two of them had taken from Orleans. The actual work of sorting was easy with her armor on. Objects that weighed two hundreds pounds were easily moved from one place to another with the aid of her mechanical arms and legs and the grip afforded by her mighty gauntlets.
As she worked, the hair stood up on the back of her neck and she knew an unannounced visitor was behind her.
“Hello, friend,” she said, her back to the cloaked guest. “Come to tell me what the old man has to say about our endeavor?”
It wasn’t Vere’s voice that answered her question, however, but Mortimous’.
“I’ll try not to take offense to that comment,” he said, clearly amused by proving her assumption wrong. “And I would note that we all grow old.”
Lancelot looked up the corridor to make sure Swordnew was still in the cockpit and wouldn’t be able to hear her talking to someone he wouldn’t be able to see or hear himself, which would be a good reason for him to think she had lost her mind and for him to abandon the mission.
Lancelot turned to greet Mortimous. “Not if I die first.”
“There’s that warrior spirit,” he said, but there was no enthusiasm. He added, “Not every battle can be won with sheer might.”
Forgetting that the difference between Vere and the old man was that he almost never clarified what he meant, she waited for an explanation. When he remained silent, she asked if he was referring to the upcoming battle with the Hannibal.
“The Hannibal, yes, but not only that. I will let you in on a little secret.” He leaned closer. Even so, every part of his face was still obscured by his hood. “I have never once fought in a battle or raised a hand against someone else.”
“Shocking,” Lancelot said, noting the man’s slender and frail frame.
“You jest, but do you think I have never had a conflict with someone else? I have had kings and emperors place bounties on my head that to this day make me blush at the amount they were willing to pay to have me killed, simply because they didn’t like my answers to their questions. Did I organize a battle against any of them?”
“No.”
“No, exactly right.”
Lancelot bent over and moved a Carthagen projection tube slightly to the side of the corridor so she didn’t step on it the next time she walked by. Standing upright again, she told Mortimous she was at a loss for what point he was trying to make.
“The fact that you are the galaxy’s best chance for survival and you don’t understand is very troublesome.”
The blood rushed to Lancelot’s face. Her instinct was to lash out, but she instead took a deep breath and remained calm. Back in Orleans, if anyone had spoken down to her like that, friend or not, she would have impaled them with a lance through the belly.
After she was sure she could keep her temper from erupting, she said, “And you wonder why I prefer Vere’s visits to your own.”
The two of them were silent for a while as Lancelot went back to work, this time rewiring some of the projection tubes so they were ready when needed.
Mortimous didn’t care about her teasing, however. During his first visit to see her in the asteroid field, she had drawn her weapons and threatened him. Everything since then was an improvement.
“Vere is trying to persuade the Word to assist you.”
“And you?”
“I already tried.”
“And?”
“And they weren’t interested.
“Wonderful.”
The rejection did sting, though. The most advanced alien species in the galaxy, a race of beings that transcended both time and space and who understood much more of how the universe worked than humans ever would, didn’t think she was worth helping or the Round Table worth saving.
Mortimous, sensing her defeat, shook his head and said, “They helped me once before—with Vere. We made progress, just not enough.”
“Tell them it’ll be different this time.”
But she knew what Mortimous would say, that he had already told them exactly that. When she lifted her head to repeat her plea, the sage was gone.
69
When Quickly wasn’t sleeping—his modified Llyushin transport set to autopilot—he was thinking of home. More accurately, he was thinking of returning to Kerchin-Joshua and telling his wife he was stupid for leaving.
Any time he allowed himself to think of the future, images of the past replayed in his head. The battle against the Vonnegan Empire. Losing friends. Death everywhere, on a scale he could barely comprehend. They were thoughts that followed him to his sleep, causing him to wake from nightmares in a cold sweat. Back home when that had happened, Enid would scoot closer to him and tell him it would be okay. They would lay there in silence and listen to the air playing music as it blew across the crystals that lined their home’s ceiling and walls. Now, he woke without anyone to comfort him, without anyone to say the horror was over.
He had been a fool to leave Enid. His hand reached down to activate the comms system so he could contact the other ship and tell Lancelot he had c
hanged his mind. Before he could, a display showed she was contacting him.
“Yeah?”
Lancelot’s voice was still being modified by her helmet, which he guessed meant the other Carthagen still didn’t know who or what Lancelot really was.
“Change of plans,” she said. “We’re going to the Mardigan sector first.”
He thought about asking why. He thought about saying he was going to return to Kerchin-Joshua. After a moment, he merely shrugged and agreed, closed the comms channel, and went back to thinking of Enid.
70
A lump formed in Pompey’s throat as he watched the black mech get hit with thousands of times more power than it would take to incinerate a Vonnegan. The holographic displays in his command room were powered by a backup generator and were the only thing in the city that wasn’t affected by the power surge.
The tiny monitor bot that had been tracking the mech’s movement was completely fried to the point that not even a millimeter of charred wire still existed. Pompey had to wait a couple of seconds for another monitor bot to race down the tunnel and locate the mech to resume monitoring.
The holographic feed that Pompey saw showed no movement of any kind. If he wasn’t sure the bot was working and a live feed being transmitted, he would have thought the hologram had frozen. The black mech was standing motionless on its hover disk, exactly as it had been, only now the transport rested on the ground, also perfectly motionless.
Pompey had been in enough battles to know it was never good when military leaders got their hopes up. Generals should rely on what had or hadn’t happened, not on expectations. It was impossible, though, to see the black mech and not become elated that one of the traps had worked. From what he could see, the mech was unable to operate at all. That left only three enemy units, and with the amount of traps left on Greater Mazuma, they should be able to disable those as well. It would be a prolonged fight and many people would lose their lives, but the planet and Vonnegan society would continue.
The bit of hope Pompey had allowed to build up inside him came crashing down when the mech’s transport powered back on and began to lift its passenger off the ground. The mech wasn’t completely deactivated; it had been recalibrating its systems. Functional again, it looked left, then right, then back to center. Its arms moved, first at the elbow, then at the shoulder as its systems came back online.
It was joined by the other three mechs, which must have received some kind of distress signal. The ancient tunnel wasn’t large enough for all four mechs to travel side by side so the white and gray mechs went first, with the black and rust mechs following. A pair of portals floated in front of both lead mechs and behind both rear mechs in case another trap was set and they had to get away.
The lump in Pompey’s throat turned from one of hope to one of dread. There was only one trap remaining between the mechs and the group of Vonnegans huddled in the ancient aqueduct. It was an idea Thidian had proposed and one that Pompey had initially rejected because of how extreme it was. It could just as easily kill everyone hiding underground as destroy the mechs. Pompey had only agreed to the ploy once Thidian made it clear he intended to be among the civilians in that aqueduct and wouldn’t be unnecessarily risking lives.
The design was based around another skyscraper being intentionally leveled. But instead of it crashing down on a mech in the street, the entire foundation it was built upon would be detonated and the high-rise would fall through the street level and crush whatever was in the tunnel beneath it.
The problem was that the tunnel collapse would also block the only way in and out for those hiding in the makeshift shelter. If the fighting was prolonged or there were mass casualties elsewhere on Greater Mazuma, the thousands of people gathered inside Thidian’s underground shelter would be trapped without enough food or water to survive for an extended time.
Unlike before, Pompey didn’t hesitate in activating the trap once the mechs got to the designated point. Instead, he slammed his hand down on the controls, then watched the holographic displays as the Kormac building, a two-hundred story building directly above the mechs’ position began to crumble. The entire structure collapsed through the ground and into the tunnel below. It only took nine seconds for the bottom three floors of the Kormac building to fill the section of tunnel that had been occupied by the mechs.
It was too long, though. The mechs escaped through the portals again.
Pompey cursed. His eyes darted to the holographic display of tunnels to find where the mechs had transported. Two of them were further along the path, just outside the aqueduct where Thidian and the others were hiding. The other two mechs vanished through a pair of portals, then another, then reappeared through the same portals as the others.
All four mechs were only feet away from thousands of Vonnegans who were hiding for safety.
The mechs moved forward. The one carrying the long ion sword sliced through the metal wall between it and the masses of people. Another hologram, this one located inside the safe zone, gave Pompey a view of what was going to happen. He couldn’t watch, though. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried as hard as he could not to think of the poor souls who were being massacred.
71
Unlike the steel doors that had fallen as part of the water trap and gone unheard, Thidian and all of the other two hundred thousand Vonnegans hiding in the ancient aqueduct heard the Kormac building come crashing down through the ground beside them. Only a few people in the room knew of the Kormac trap, but everyone realized something major had just happened.
Dozens of children began to cry. Nearly everyone reached out and embraced someone close to them. Thousands of voices whispered pleas to be saved, for someone or something to prevent the Hannibal from coming through the door.
Thidian blocked out as much of this as he could and remained focused on the tiny holographic display in his palm. Two dots had evaded the Kormac trap and were just outside. A moment later, two more dots joined the two already there, and the city planner knew his time was coming to an end.
When the ion sword cut through the steel door, everyone around Thidian began to scream. With only one way in and one way out and everyone shoulder to shoulder, there was nowhere to go. The only possible direction anyone could try to run was toward the mechs, and no one wanted that.
The steel door crashed to the ground, crushing the twenty people gathered closest to it. The first mech through the doorway wasn’t the owner of the ion sword. It was the black mech, its hand outstretched. The scale’s cylinders clicked and began to emit their deadly toxin. The already loud collection of screams rose to a deafening chorus of terror.
Their worst fears were coming true. As people all around him jostled for somewhere to go, Thidian closed his eyes and hoped death would be quick.
72
Philo stumbled across the street. The weapon he had killed so many with was nothing more to him than a walking stick as he hobbled away from his bunker.
“Dindraine,” he muttered, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Without knowing where she was, there was no way she would be able to hear him. His throat burned and he guessed the residual power of the laser blast had done more than melt the back of his scalp and wreak havoc with his equilibrium.
From the wreckage all around him, a metropolis torn to pieces, he doubted the battle was going well. He knew a lot of the high-rises that were now rubble had been intentionally leveled as part of the traps Pompey and Thidian created, but the extent of the damage far exceeded those structures. It looked like one or more of the mechs had focused exclusively on slicing apart everything within sight. Long burn marks slashed through each structure where waves of laser had cut lines through the buildings. Others had been partly vaporized and no longer had outer walls.
Everywhere Philo looked, Vonnegan soldiers lay dead on the ground or in the charred remains of their exposed bunkers. He passed the legs and helmet of the Purple Beret who had challenged him to a fight. The torso of the sol
dier had been incinerated. He saw an ion tank that was reduced to a shell of flaking metal and the spot where a missile battery had been positioned but which now was nothing but a deep crevasse in the ground.
At none of these places did he see the remains of a mech. With his mind working better than his body, he was able to guess that if the streets were quiet it was because the Hannibal had defeated the first lines of defense and had moved underground to exterminate the large pockets of people hiding there.
He admired Pompey’s and Thidian’s planning and he hoped their plans succeeded, but if the mechs had already defeated the ground forces, it didn’t seem likely that a series of underground traps would be successful.
If the battle was lost, if it really was just a matter of time until the mechs returned to the surface to wipe out the last remnants of Greater Mazuma’s population, Philo would never have a chance to redeem himself for the crimes he had committed. He was going to die a murderer, without having done anything meaningful to make amends for his actions.
His only hope to make things right, at least for one person, was to find Dindraine before the mechs returned to the surface and convince her that he not only meant her no harm but that he understood why she had pulled the trigger. Maybe then, if she saw that he didn’t have the Fianna’s mindset for cruelty, would she understand he was no longer the brutal enforcer he once had been. It wasn’t much, but it was the only shot at redemption he had before the four Hannibal mechs ended both of their lives.
“Dindraine,” he mumbled again through his jagged and burning throat. “Don’t worry, I understand.”
But even as the words left his throat he was cognizant enough to know the sentiment was worthless. Don’t worry? What was there to worry about? He could barely even talk. His weapon was a crutch. If he did find her, not only wouldn’t she feel threatened, she could easily shoot him a second time.
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