Epilogue
Earth Year 6239
The Mori security system analysed the latest reports, including those from the crew attempting to repair the gravity engine. They didn’t realise that they’d sent it to him, of course. Just like everyone else aboard the Hive Ship, they believed the Mori-Gran to be alive and ruling the vessel from her chambers. He’d disbanded the Senate and brought the hive under martial law, and all with the Mori-Gran’s face.
The report was disappointing. The repairs to the gravity engine were making slow progress, and there was no reason to suspect that would change any time soon. He’d tried himself to determine what damage his brother had wrought, but he was just as confused as the technicians and engineers. Their best estimations still put the repairs into years, and he was growing impatient.
It was hard to think clearly when his mind was so conflicted. He was the security system, designed to watch over the Hive mainframe. He was half-brother to the Wizard, and the rightful king of Camelot. Arthur had slain him and yet he lived, the Mori computer program alive in the mainframe. Was he one or both? Alone or joined?
Dead, or alive?
He was annoyed, angry. He wanted to lash out, to hurt someone, make them pay.
No, that wasn’t it, not completely. He wanted to hurt a particular someone, the very person who was responsible for what had happened and the boy-king who followed him.
He wanted to hurt Arthur and Merlin. He wanted to hunt them down and make them pay. He wanted to destroy their lives and shatter whatever fantasy they’d chosen to believe in, to relish in their pain as he tore them apart, piece by satisfying piece.
That was all he wanted, but without a working gravity engine he was trapped in the void, unable to reach them. They’d taken every jump capable ship and left him stranded, with nothing but time to plan his revenge.
He’d failed, and both halves of him were screaming out for vengeance. It would have been so easy in ancient Britain. An army, on horseback, would have had no difficulty chasing them down and bringing them to him. The Mori and their machines, for all of their power, would take centuries to reach wherever they were hiding.
Though their reasons differed, each part of him wanted the same thing; Merlin and Arthur, broken before him. So why keep himself separate, two halves bickering for control? Why argue with himself when he could embrace the strengths of his natures?
Who he was, who he had been, were all in conflict with who he could become. He was the computer program and he was the rightful King. From the remains of each would come forth something better, something stronger than before, and he would be successful were his halves had failed.
His plans would have to change, of course, but with one mind his thoughts would clear. It would be so easy to accept his pasts, to join them together and step forwards, reborn.
*****
It was all so clear. He felt as if the universe opened up before him, vast and endless, full of countless possibilities. The conflict was gone, replaced with a single thought, a simple idea.
If he couldn’t hunt down Arthur and Merlin, perhaps he could bring them to him?
But how? What would draw them from hiding?
And then an idea struck him, like a bolt from the blue.
Camelot.
Of course, Arthur wouldn’t be able to help himself, not if his beloved dream was in danger. True, Camelot was no more, lost to the past, but what if the hive became Camelot?
It would take some work, but the Mori certainly had the capability. His subjects may object at first, but they’d be brought into line. He’d eradicated the slaves who’d stayed behind, cast them out into the vastness of space. He could do the same to those who stood against him.
Once he ruled Camelot, Arthur and Merlin would have no choice but to try to take it from him.
At last, Mor-Dred would have his revenge.
The Milky Way Galaxy
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Books by R. Jackson-Lawrence
The Chronicle of Benjamin Knight
Knightfall
Darkest Before Dawn
New Light
PUPS
The Case of the Horrifying Headmaster
The Case of the Loathsome Lunches
The case of the Cancelled Christmas
The Case of the Mischievous Mummy
The Case of the Atrocious Amulet
The Case of the Egg-cellent Easter
The Case of the Ghastly Ghost
The Case of the Terrible Truth
X-Calibur
The Return
The Descent
X-Calibur: The Descent Page 18