One of Lancelot’s spikes had been driven straight through his foot and into the ground, pinning him in place.
“Lancelot,” he started to say, then brought his sword up to deflect another strike.
Before he could do anything else, the Carthagen’s other lance struck Julian’s wrist with enough force that even through his CAB suit, the muscles in his hand seized and he opened his fist. His glove relaxed and his lance fell to the ground. Before he could pick it up, a streak of brown vapor came soaring through the air and one of Lancelot’s Meursaults cut off Julian’s right hand without him even having seen the blade.
“Lancelot,” he started to say again. Knowing the battle was over, he dropped his sword, listened to it clang as it hit the ground.
The gesture didn’t stop the Carthagen warrior from continuing his next strike. He drove another lance into Julian’s left foot and brought a Meursault blade down, severing Julian’s left hand.
Already, Julian could feel himself growing dizzy from the loss of blood.
Lancelot stepped forward, slowly and with purpose, turning the blade of one of the Meursaults so Julian could see more of the weapon than just its handle. He poked at the neck of Julian’s CAB, piercing the armor with ease.
Julian could feel himself losing consciousness. The blade was at his neck, already slightly through the soft flesh below his jaw.
“Lancelot, please let them go. My son is there. Please let him get back to his mother.”
The words actually caused Lancelot to poke Julian’s throat harder with the sword, making him gag.
There was outrage in Lancelot’s voice when he said, “You brought your son with you? Are you insane? I knew you were short-sighted, but I didn’t think anyone could be that stupid.” Then, the blade jabbing further into Julian’s neck, he added, “What kind of a father would possibly think it was a good idea to take his son into battle with him?”
The last thing Julian was able to mumble was, “I agree. I completely agree.”
Then darkness came over him.
48
Talbot, Exeter, and the other officers were either in the most complicated and intricate system of tunnels ever devised or something else was terribly wrong. After riding on the transport barges for almost two days, they still had no idea where they were, had no useable map of the tunnels, and were no closer to getting back to their ships or to Julian.
Worse, Warwick was drifting in and out of consciousness. Every time he slipped away, Exeter was sure his friend had finally died. Each time the brigadier woke up, he was wracked with pain and most of the time didn’t know where he was or who was with him.
Exeter was at a loss. Continuing to ride through the tunnels was pointless, but every time they stopped, the Carthagens would appear from hidden compartments further down the tunnels and begin shooting at them again. The CAB suits were able to absorb most of the laser blasts but they wouldn’t hold up forever. And if Carthagens were able to sneak in close with their vibro lances and other armor piercing weapons, the same thing that had happened to Julian, Warwick, and Groth would happen to the rest of them.
Exeter knew he had to do something, he just didn’t know what.
“Full stop,” he said, then stepped off the lead barge and walked toward the tunnel wall before giving his next orders. “We’re setting up a defensive perimeter here. All officers, ready your rockets and stack any large stones you can find into a perimeter wall.”
Looking back at the direction they had just come, Exeter added, “I’ll provide cover fire down the tunnel to protect barge two. Talbot will provide cover up ahead for barge one.”
He saw, through Talbot’s visor, a momentary look of hesitation. Maybe the kid was going to say there were surely more qualified shooters among the other officers and that one of them could better provide cover while he picked up stones. Instead of saying anything, however, Julian’s son nodded and charged the cannons on either shoulder of his suit.
Officers in CABs began picking up the largest stones they could find. There was no way they would have been able to lift them if they weren’t wearing their combat space armor. In the CABs, however, they lifted boulders that weighed many hundreds of pounds with ease and began building a pair of walls.
A laser streak sailed over the heads of the officers near Talbot and faded into the distance.
“Carthagen down at the very end of the tunnel,” he said, then let loose a pair of his own blasts. “I think I scared him off.”
A moment later, Exeter sent a blast down the other end of the tunnel.
“Disappeared as soon as I fired,” the brigadier said. “We’ll never hit them from this distance, but we can at least hold them off until we have our defenses set up.”
His plan was to build a reinforced safezone, protected by stone and barges, that would be able to repel any of the Carthagen’s blasts and force the aliens to move close enough that the Round Table officers would be able to slaughter them.
Again, Talbot fired down the tunnel. A moment later, Exeter fired as well.
“He was closer this time when he appeared,” Talbot said.
“Mine too,” Exeter replied. “It’s almost as if they’re coming out of the walls rather than coming up the tunnel.”
A second after he said this, a noise caught his attention and he looked to his side. Part of the rock wall beside them had slid apart. A Carthagen in full warrior armor was perched and ready to strike with two vibro scimitars.
Exeter turned as fast as he could, making his CAB swivel in the same direction he was looking. If he could get his shoulder cannon focused on the Carthagen at this close of a range there was no chance the four-legged and four-armed beast could survive.
It was the last thought Brigadier Exeter would ever have.
49
Talbot heard the same noise as Exeter and instinctively turned toward the cave wall as well. He also saw the Carthagen directly beside his senior officer, ready to strike with his vibro scimitars. Before he could fire, the alien leapt directly at the brigadier. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, including Exeter’s and Talbot’s response.
Two blades flew into action as the Carthagen leaped at Exeter, the warrior’s vibro scimitars igniting while he was in mid-air. Exeter turned to fire, but not nearly fast enough. The Carthagen landed beside the officer and without any pause jumped forward once more, leaping toward the opposite cave wall from which he had appeared. A panel of what had seemed to be solid stone slid to the side. The Carthagen landed in the newly open hole. Just as fast, the stone panel slid shut and the warrior was gone.
Everyone who had been picking up rocks dropped them and aimed their weapons down either direction of the tunnel, waiting for the next attack to begin.
“Exeter?” Talbot said, taking a step toward him.
Something about the brigadier’s CAB suit looked strange, and it was only when Talbot took another step forward that he realized what it was. The head was missing.
Looking down, he saw Exeter’s helmet, his head still inside, lying on the cave floor a few feet away from the CAB’s feet. The suit of armor and the stabilizers inside it would ensure that the suit’s wearer wouldn’t lose his balance and fall over... even if he were dead.
Talbot wished for nothing more than to be back on Edsall Dark. His father had been in charge but had been badly injured and was either a prisoner or dead. Then Warwick had been in command but was now gravely injured. Then Exeter had taken over. Now, he was dead as well.
Before he could think of who would be in charge next, streaks of laser appeared from both ends of the tunnel, showering the CABs.
“Down,” Talbot yelled, not thinking about protocol or the chain of command or anything else other than staying alive and trying to ensure those around him did the same. “Ion grenades at scaling marks,” he said, then waited.
A CAB on either side of the defensive perimeter launched ion grenades down the tunnel. The first was fired a hundred yards into the darkness where the
projectile disappeared into the shadows until it erupted in a blue flash of energy. The next exploded a hundred feet closer. The next exploded another hundred feet closer and the fourth even nearer. The tactic would either flush the Carthagens toward them so they were within firing range and be easy targets for the CAB’s laser cannons or it would push the Carthagens further back where they wouldn’t be a threat.
“Again,” Talbot said. “This time with napalm rockets.”
Only two of the officers had CABs that were armed with the specialty weapon and so Lieutenant Marv-Lel and Ensign Ruin stepped forward. A projectile flashed down either end of the tunnel. Seconds later, after a moment of silence and calm, a blast erupted that shook the entire cavern. Brilliant yellow and orange fire exploded with a thunderous echo, momentarily making the inside of the asteroid light up like daylight. A wave of dust came rushing at them. The light from the napalm rocket faded, and they were returned to the darkness of the cave. Another projectile was fired in both directions, only closer to where the barges and CABs were located. Again, the cavern was illuminated for ten seconds, giving Talbot and the others a perspective of the tunnel they hadn’t glimpsed before. As the light faded, each CAB was completely covered in gray dust, the tunnel was filled with smoke, and even less could be seen than when they had begun. But at least there was silence, and no more Carthagens attacking.
“Everyone, switch over to alternate vision if you haven’t already,” Talbot said.
Inside his own helmet, the screen changed and instead of smoke he saw a perfectly clear view of the tunnels in a different color spectrum. Thankfully, that part of his suit’s sensors still worked.
He was just about to apologize to whomever should have been in charge—there were lieutenants present who were higher in the chain of command—when a flash of light appeared in front of him and he felt a gentle ping against his suit of armor. Then another and another.
Somehow, the Carthagens had already regrouped and were beginning to fire laser blasts back at them.
In a matter of seconds, the same tunnel that had been almost completely without light became illuminated with hundreds of streaks of laser, all of which reflected light off the dust floating around them. The effect made the rocks and walls glow yellow.
“Down,” Talbot yelled. If the series of ion grenades and napalm rockets hadn’t repelled the Carthagens, their shoulder cannons wouldn’t either. If they insisted on standing and fighting, they would keep getting picked off one by one.
Everyone around him was yelling. Talbot cursed himself for giving any order at all because now the other officers, even the ones who were more senior than he was, expected him to give the next command. He had no idea what to tell them.
Hundreds of laser blasts ricocheted off the barges, their armor, and the cave walls. It was a matter of time until they were all dead.
Then, all of the laser fire stopped simultaneously and the cave was cast back into darkness and silence.
“What happened?” Ensign Ruin asked in his thick Tynor accent, lifting his head to look down the tunnel.
The entire cave was still. Dust lingered in the air but slowly drifted back down to the floor. The only light came from the barges and from their suits.
Talbot looked down the tunnel in both directions. “I have no idea.”
50
Bowcast, Swordnew, and Curveddeath each stood in a row in front of Lancelot. The other Carthagen warriors fell in to a second rank behind them.
“Who told you to engage them?” Lancelot asked.
Curveddeath said, “They had come to a complete stop.”
Lancelot took a step forward and with one of his upper arms reached out and took hold of the armor around Curveddeath’s throat. “Your orders were to keep them moving through the tunnels.”
Swordnew and Bowcast lowered their gaze.
Curveddeath’s feet twitched as if he were going to move away from Lancelot’s grip but he wouldn’t or couldn’t go anywhere. “Yes, Lancelot. I’m sorry.”
“Tell me, which one of the invaders did you kill?”
“The one they call Brigadier Exeter.”
“All of you,” Lancelot said, releasing his grip on Curveddeath and motioning to the other warriors, “will carry out my orders as I give them.” He stepped forward again, the faceplate of his helmet almost bumping against Curveddeath’s. “Unless you would like to challenge my authority.”
They were not in the Dauphin’s chamber and so the elders were not there to prevent Lancelot from harming one of the other Carthagens. Each of the warriors knew what would happen if any of them disobeyed Lancelot again.
“I’m sorry, Lancelot,” Curveddeath said again, his faceplate trained directly at the lead warrior. “I was only concerned for the Carthagen people. How will you explain to the Dauphin that you have ordered us not to attack anymore?”
Lancelot had been turning to leave, but paused when the question was put to him. For a moment, he understood the irritation the Dauphin felt when Lancelot questioned them. The difference was that none of the elders could do anything about it, whereas he could and would rapidly defeat Curveddeath and any other warrior who questioned him again.
Knowing he had more important issues to attend to, he merely said, “I will deal with the Dauphin as I see fit. You will carry out my orders. This is the way of things. This is how we Carthagens have managed to defy our own extinction. And it is how we will defeat these invaders—not through force, but through cunning. Do you understand?”
It wasn’t only Curveddeath who answered. It was the entire room of warriors.
“Yes, Lancelot.”
51
From the officers’ meeting room on his Hellship, Brigadier Desttro looked at the holographic projections of the seven remaining brigadiers. Julian, Warwick, and Exeter had departed for asteroid 001-Orl-6399. Brigadier Maceus had died when her Flying Fortress collided with a hidden asteroid. It was up to the remaining eight brigadiers to figure out what should be done.
From their respective ships, each had a clear view of the asteroids that surrounded the fleet, but they had no idea which ones were real and which ones were sophisticated illusions. They also had no way of knowing which parts of the supposedly empty space actually had additional invisible asteroids waiting to collide with them.
Being half Gthothch, Desttro’s brown skin had the texture of granite. Formerly an officer in Kaiser Doom’s kingdom, the brigadier was used to solving most disputes with brute force. Part of his growth as a Round Table officer had come from serving under General Reiser and seeing how effective alternate means of conflict resolution could be. Although it pained him to admit it, he knew that the Round Table’s campaign would have been an utter failure if he were in charge because he wasn’t capable of the diplomacy that seemed to come naturally to Julian.
In his low, gravelly voice, he asked the other officers how much longer they thought the Round Table fleet should remain in their current position. “I know orders are orders,” he added, “but we need to be practical and consider the possibility that no one who entered that cave will be coming back out. Every hour we wait here, we’re increasing the odds of being hit by an asteroid we can’t even see.”
Brigadier Bulwark’s skin alternated between black and white as she spoke. “We could send another squad down into the tunnels. Or, we could regroup, leave the Orleans asteroid field altogether, and check in with Round Table command for further instructions.”
Ver-Non-Ven reminded everyone that leaving the asteroid field seemed to be the only hope they had of reestablishing communications with the rest of the galaxy.
Although their collective tone revealed they didn’t like the idea, they each agreed that it made more sense to get the ships away from the asteroids and reestablish a link with Edsall Dark than it did to jeopardize the lives of more officers. The next question was obvious: how much longer should they wait?
“It’s been two days,” a half-human and half-Orguankin brigadier named P
hoteous said. “I say we give them another two days and then we reverse course and leave the same way we arrived.”
The other officers agreed.
“In that case,” Desttro said, “the good news is that in two days we’ll be able to communicate with the Round Table again.”
He didn’t add, nor did any of the other officers need to be told, what the bad news was. Julian and the others would be left without any reinforcements. If they were still alive in those tunnels, there wouldn’t be any help waiting for them when they got back out.
52
Even after two more sessions, the hundreds of Round Table representatives were no closer to agreeing on how best to deal with the threat that Arc-Mi-Die posed. Aliens of every species had their own viewpoints. Some had family who lived on remote and isolated colonies that would make perfect targets for the warlord. Others had lost loved ones years earlier when the Vonnegan Empire had destroyed every colony in its path. A few declared that even if their own families were at risk, they still wouldn’t negotiate with a warlord because other criminals would be emboldened to try the same thing.
The room’s translation software provided a steady stream of these varying opinions into the ears of every other representative.
“We have to do something,” Cash whispered into Hector’s ear. “This is never going to end.”
Hector frowned. “What are we supposed to do?”
Beside him, Cimber offered a continual stream of sighs and groans. Across from them, he saw Winchester and Octo whispering to each other and wondered if they were experiencing the same concerns. From the way Octo smirked at something Winchester said, Hector got the impression that they were more amused by the dysfunction than troubled by it.
Cimber stood and yelled, “Can we please try and have some semblance of an orderly debate?” Half of the Great Hall stopped and stared at him. “Now, who’s turn is it to speak?”
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