Avalon

by Chris Dietzel

  It didn’t help his nerves or Traskk’s that the humming of the mechs’ transports always seemed to be nearby. Each time they came to an intersection, they expected to see a mech waiting for them with its giant weapon pointed in their direction. There never was one, however.

  “Stay alert,” he told Traskk. “They could be doing this on purpose so we drop our guard.”

  Around the next corner, the humming seemed to grow louder. Talbot ran to the edge of the next intersection. Traskk joined him. Talbot had his Meursault in one hand and a small laser cannon attached to his other gauntlet. Traskk, his tail, claws, and fangs all hidden underneath his own suit of space armor, hissed a long series of complaints at needing to wear the bulky suit.

  The thrum of the mech’s hover transport grew louder. It had to be right around the corner.

  “Ready?” Talbot whispered.

  Traskk’s clenched fists twitched in anticipation. The hum was only feet away.

  Talbot considered running and taking the previous intersection of corridors in an attempt to sneak up behind it, but from the way the mech had stopped just before coming around the corner it was obvious it knew exactly where they were and would be ready for them. He turned and nodded to Traskk. The Basilisk nodded back.

  He held up one finger, then two, then, as the third began to rise, he jumped out with the invisible blade of his Meursault trailing a vapor of light from behind him and the barrel of the blaster pointed out from the other arm. Traskk let out a deafening roar that the speaker in Talbot’s helmet thankfully muted.

  Talbot pointed his blaster right in front of him. The first burst of laser almost slipped from his cannon before he realized what was happening and jerked his arm away.

  Quickly was there in a pilot’s suit. Seeing the barrel of a blaster pointed at him, Quickly reflexively put his hands out to ward off the shot even though such an act would never deter a laser. Beside him, a small speeder continued to hum as the engine idled.

  “It’s me,” the pilot said, as if it weren’t already obvious. “Don’t shoot.”

  Talbot sighed and lowered his weapons. Traskk stomped the ground, frustrated not to be able to release the murderous tension flowing through him.

  “What are you doing?” Talbot said.

  “I thought you guys needed help.”

  “You’re supposed to be running interference in your ship.”

  “My transport is gone.”

  Talbot considered this, then looked back at the speeder. He asked what Quickly’s plan was.

  “To find you guys,” the pilot said. “What’s your plan?”

  “To find Lancelot.”

  Quickly shook his head. “And what’s her plan?”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out.”

  “Whatever it is,” Quickly said, “I guess she altered them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Beside him, Traskk growled the same question.

  Quickly held out a sensor. “She and Swordnew turned around. They’re coming back this way.”

  125

  Vere also walked the halls of the Juggernaut. She saw Lancelot and Swordnew briefly confront the reddish brown mech. She observed Talbot and Traskk aimlessly making their way through the hallways before stumbling upon Quickly. Most often, however, she watched how the mechs used the constantly shifting array of hallways as well as the hundreds of Hannibal portals that had returned to the ship to transport themselves all around her friends.

  That was why Lancelot and the others constantly heard the mechs no matter where they went. The portals were constantly collapsing, moving to other sections of the ship, then reigniting. The mechs were jumping from spot to spot, always close by but never engaging. Like the people wandering the Juggernaut, she wasn’t sure why the mechs took this approach, but she did know it wouldn’t last forever.

  We have to help them, she thought. They’ll die if we don’t do something.

  As she watched, Lancelot and Swordnew stopped and talked, then began back in the direction they had come. The white mech was three corridors away, tracking their progress.

  They can defeat the Hannibal but they need our help.

  She observed the gray mech traveling diagonally behind Lancelot and Swordnew. Any time it wanted, it could send a wave of energy at them with its scythe. The rust-colored mech had been dragged through a portal and was gone. She assumed it was being repaired.

  My friends won’t last long once the Hannibal decide to attack. We can still win. We can improve the Round Table. But you have to help.

  She waited and waited but got no response. No matter how much she tried to communicate with the Word, they didn’t reply. It was almost as if they were done listening and had already given up.

  126

  After making their way back in the general direction of the opening that Lancelot had cut into the Juggernaut, they still hadn’t encountered the mechs again. Lancelot stopped in the middle of an intersection that was slowly revolving to close the path in two directions while also opening a new hallway in two other routes. While they had seen glimpses of the mechs, there had only been one confrontation.

  “Show yourselves!” she shouted. “Stop cowering and face us.”

  She looked in all directions for one of the mechs to appear but none of them did. Although she could still hear a mech’s hover platform around one of the corners, it didn’t move forward or attack.

  “I’ve had enough of this,” she said as she reversed the grip on both Meursaults.

  “What are you going to do?” Swordnew said.

  “We’ve been through miles of this ship and seen nothing but the same hallways and revolving intersections. No rooms, no aliens.”

  “So?”

  “So the only place we haven’t looked is behind these walls. There has to be something in between each hallway even though there are no doors. We’re about to find out what it is.”

  She jabbed the invisible blades down into the floor they were both standing on. Her intention was to draw a square in the panel like the one she had cut into the side of the Juggernaut. But as soon as the swords punctured the floor, a laser blast sailed past her, missing her helmet by inches. She spun to see the white mech, its ion bow aimed at her, ready to fire a second glowing arrow.

  Without thinking, she dived to the side, barely evading the next shot. Their problem was that they couldn’t close the distance between themselves and the mech without making themselves easy targets, and if they ran the mechs could once again follow them.

  “What do we do?” Swordnew said as he backed away.

  Knowing that she would die if she charged and would continue to waste time if she retreated, Lancelot let out a battle cry. The white mech adjusted its aim and fired again. Swordnew tried to evade the shot the same way Lancelot had but he was a fraction too slow. The ion arrow missed his torso but hit his upper right arm, disintegrating it upon impact. The force of the impact threw him into the nearest wall and he let out a grunt of pain.

  “What do we do?” he said again, more urgency in his voice this time.

  Knowing Swordnew would follow, she turned to run away from the mech. As soon as she did, however, she was forced to stop in her tracks. The black mech was there, its hand outstretched, the contents of its cylinders already mixing to form the toxic cloud of death.

  She spun again, just it time to see the white mech fire once more. The ion arrow hit the broad side of one of her Meursaults and deflected into the wall beside her. Swordnew glanced at her in astonishment. Little did he realize it had been nothing but sheer luck that had saved her.

  Swordnew looked back and forth between the two mechs. The white mech sent an ion arrow that barely missed Swordnew’s helmet. In the other direction, the black mech’s poisonous cloud had reached the Carthagen and was melting the back of his armor. Both Lancelot and Swordnew were forced to move closer to the white mech in order to stay away from the toxin.

  The white mech fired again.

 
Lancelot blinked, realizing she hadn’t been hit. Glancing to her side, she saw Swordnew was untouched as well. Smoke was coming from the ceiling above her head, along with a dark scorch mark. The mech had missed badly.

  Confused, she stood in place, wondering what new game the mechs were playing with her. Then the white mech spun and she realized why it had misfired. Philo was on its back. One of his arms was holding himself onto the mech. The other was repeatedly jabbing the energized blade of his vibro halberd into the mech as it tried to spin and face its attacker.

  Seeing her chance, she rushed forward, both Meursaults and lances ready. One lance impaled either of the mech’s ankles. The force of the blows made it stumble and fall off its platform. It landed on the floor with a bang. Before it could get up, she was on top of it, darting up the length of its body until she was standing on its shoulders.

  The machine had no neck, only a place where its head attached to its upper body. She brought both swords down in opposite angles toward the same point. Sparks flew. The mech gave a sort of mechanical grunt. Then its head fell away from the rest of its body and rolled one time, end over end, toward Swordnew.

  Before she could celebrate, a tremendous force sent her hurtling thirty feet through the air until she hit the revolving wall at the next intersection. The wind was knocked out of her and the displays inside her armor told her that a blast had just struck her with enough force to exhaust almost all shielding capabilities of the back half of her armor. Getting up to her feet, she saw the gray mech standing at the end of the hallway, its scythe ready to send another wave of energy at her.

  “Ignore it,” she yelled to Swordnew. “Finish the white one before they can repair it.”

  The gray mech sent another blast at her. She was able to jump over it but just barely. As soon as she landed she was sprinting toward the remains of the white mech. To her left, she saw the rust-colored mech approaching. She ignored that one too and raced toward the white one.

  Swordnew drove his swords into it over and over but without Meursaults, the damage wasn’t significant. As she neared it, she threw one of her vibro lances like a javelin. It sailed through the air with such speed that it resembled a laser streak. She aimed it at the gray mech, which was behind the black mech, so it would have to defend itself rather than take free shots at her and Swordnew as they destroyed what remained of the white one.

  At the fallen mech, she drove both Meursaults down through its chest so far that only the handles stuck out.

  “Watch it,” Philo yelled.

  It took her a second to realize where he was—trapped underneath the enemy. Rather than try and push it off him, she jumped to the side and began cutting short strokes into the white mech’s upper torso. After a couple of seconds, she saw part of Philo’s space armor and stopped. He did the rest, using his vibro halberd and the strength of his space armor to rip through the insides of the mech and free himself.

  “Nice of you to finally show up,” she said.

  “Next time, don’t run so fast.”

  The words seemed odd only because he was wearing the smiling demon mask of the Fianna under the helmet of his space armor, so instead of being scolded it looked like he had said it with a ghoulish grin.

  The reddish brown mech reappeared. It was atop a repaired hover transport and all of the damage Lancelot had inflicted was repaired.

  “We need to get out of here,” she said.

  “We need to make sure the white mech is dead,” Philo answered.

  He returned to slicing it apart with the blade of his vibro halberd while Lancelot figured a way to get past the other three mechs. The toxic cloud coming from the black mech had paused at the white mech’s feet as if it didn’t want to spread further and damage an ally. The gray mech, she noticed, was gone.

  Not gone. Of course not. It had circled around and was now on the opposite side of them. Their path was blocked by it and by the black cloud on their other side. Swordnew walked past her, thought about picking up the remains of his lost arm, then scoffed and stood upright again.

  A wave of energy came at them and Lancelot tackled Swordnew to keep him safe. When they got back to their feet, Philo was gone again.

  It took her a moment to find him. He was racing toward the rust-colored mech. He sidestepped the long ion sword, got within striking distance, then sliced its chest with his vibro halberd. One strike didn’t do enough damage to the mech to incapacitate it, however. The mech let go of its sword with one of its hands and grabbed Philo.

  Lancelot held her breath, sure she was going to see the mech break Philo in half. Instead, it reared back and threw the Fianna through the air as if he were a rag. The mech didn’t toss Philo in a random direction, though. It threw him directly into the cloud of toxic energy being released by the black mech.

  “Philo,” she yelled, still turning, trying to figure a way to escape the remaining three mechs.

  “It’s open,” Swordnew said, motioning to a wall behind them that had been revolving but was now far enough along its next revolution to reveal a path to escape.

  She looked that way, then to Swordnew, then to the cloud that had enveloped Philo.

  “Philo?” she said.

  She waited a moment, hoping for a response. When she didn’t get one, she nodded and both she and Swordnew began to run again.

  127

  Traskk and Talbot climbed on the back of Quickly’s speeder. There was barely room for them and their weight made the rear end of the machine sag toward the floor. The machine moved slower with their combined weight, but they were still able to travel faster through the vast set of Hannibal hallways than if they were running. Each time the speeder went around a corner, their weight caused the rear end to scratch the floor and kick up a shower of sparks.

  As they sped through the passageways, Traskk and Talbot kept a look out for anything that might sneak up behind them. The thrum of the speeder’s engine made it impossible to hear whether the mechs were nearby, which only put Traskk even more on edge. He let out a never-ending string of growls and hisses and his tongue flicked in and out, leaving smudges of saliva on the inside of his helmet.

  They headed directly toward where the sensors said Lancelot was located. The speeder slowed again and Traskk held onto the guardrail beside him, expecting Quickly to make another turn. Instead, the speeder came to a stop. He and Talbot both turned to face the pilot and see why they were no longer moving.

  A black cloud of sizzling energy was in front of them. It had spread from floor to ceiling and from the left wall to the right. The toxic cloud wasn’t touching any of the surrounding walls. Rather, it stopped short of every illuminated panel so only a few inches of safe space existed on either side.

  “Not enough space for us to go by,” Talbot said.

  Without saying anything, Quickly nodded and guided the speeder into a U-turn, then began heading back to the previous intersection. He turned left and then left again so they were heading along the same route as before, only one corridor away from their original path.

  It was also blocked by a cloud of black energy.

  Quickly guided the speeder to the next side passageway. That course was also obstructed. The next path was as well.

  “What do you guys want me to do?” he said after coming to a stop at the fourth such roadblock.

  Traskk looked over at Talbot, who in turn was staring ahead at the square-shaped cloud of black gas.

  “Do you have a tool or spare part?” Talbot asked.

  The pilot nodded to a small compartment underneath where Talbot and Traskk were sitting. They got off the speeder and Talbot withdrew a wrench, then walked toward the black energy. At its edge, he extended his arm so the wrench disappeared into the cloud. When he pulled his hand back, the half of the wrench that had touched the black energy was gone. The dissolving metal continued to spread down to the part Talbot was holding and he was forced to drop it. The piece of metal that clanged on the floor was a quarter of the size of the tool h
e had held up to the black cloud. Eventually, even that part deteriorated.

  Talbot walked back to the speeder and said, “Well, we aren’t going to try and race through it.”

  Quickly asked why the Hannibal would obstruct these corridors but not the others. Neither Traskk nor Talbot had an answer they wanted to share. Most likely, the mechs knew it would be easier to finish off the other three trespassers without interference from Traskk and the others.

  Talbot stared at the black cloud, lost in thought.

  “They’re nearby,” he said, meaning Lancelot and the others.

  According to the displays in their helmets, Philo was the closest, maybe only a hundred yards away. But when they called his name, he didn’t reply.

  Traskk told them they were wasting time, then waited as his hisses were translated into the helmets of the other two men.

  Quickly shook his head and sighed. “I can keep trying different intersections.”

  Without speaking, Talbot and Traskk got back on the rear of the speeder. Quickly pulled the controls to the side so the speeder turned around once again. The next moment, they were speeding around a corner and racing through the oversized hallways.

  128

  Philo was sure he looked as bad as he felt. Almost all of his armor was gone and much of his skin was badly burned. The only reason he was alive was because he had been wearing space armor on top of his Fianna armor. With two layers of protection, the black mech’s poisonous cloud hadn’t been able to kill him right away.

  The space armor was completely gone by the time he dragged himself out of the energy cloud and much of the Fianna armor was dissolving as he wore it. He had expected to be killed by one of the other mechs as soon as he was free of the toxin. Instead, the hallway was silent except for the low crackle of the cloud floating an arm’s reach away. The three remaining mechs must have guessed he would die and had given chase to Lancelot and Swordnew.