“Arthur,” Merlin continued, his voice quieter and more sympathetic. “If only Uther were here, perhaps he could reach you.”
“Uther?” Adam 359 asked.
“You don’t remember your own father?” Merlin replied. “What did those beasts do to you? No matter, you’re here now and we’ll have more than enough time on our journey to fill the gaps in your memory. Where does our quest begin?”
“We’re heading to Ma’Han,” Eve 221 said. “The Dorgan home world.”
“Dorgan?” Merlin asked.
“Orlac 552,” Eve 221 explained. “Erm, Lancelot?”
“Ah, the domain of the Lady of the Lake,” Merlin remarked. “No wonder I couldn’t locate her within the Isle of Avalon. Then let us make haste. To Ma’Han!”
*****
Three jumps into their journey, Eve 221 was practising in the training room with Excalibur. She was amazed at how light it was, yet so perfectly balanced. She twirled and swiped, using all the skills she had received from Gar-Wan.
“Lady Guinevere,” Merlin said, suddenly appearing before her. “Combat and swordplay are not for a woman of your breeding. Maybe some embroidery to help you to pass the time? Perhaps the menfolk have socks to be darned or armour to be cleaned?”
“Cleaning?” Eve 221 asked. “I thought we were trying to free the slaves?”
As Merlin looked on, Eve 221 ran through a flurry of parries and thrusts, a blur of movement as the sword whirled around her. “Perhaps I was mistaken,” merlin said with a smile, bowing slightly. “I see the King has taught you well.”
“Yeah, right,” Eve 221 mocked. “If anyone needs teaching, it’s him. At least Orlac 552 seems to be picking up the basics.”
“Arthur was not your teacher?” Merlin asked. “Then if I may ask, who was?”
“Gar-Wan,” Eve 221 replied. “My master.”
“Gawain?” Merlin exclaimed. “He lives? This is truly wonderful news. Three knights of the round table, after all this time.”
“Gar-Wan,” Eve 221 said slowly, emphasising each word. “He overwrote my programming, gave me the skills to fight and fly this ship. He believes humans and Dorgans should be free and that slavery should end.”
“He always had a kind and noble spirit,” Merlin said.
Their conversation was interrupted by a knock at the door. “Come in,” Eve 221 called.
Adam 359 stepped through the door, surprised to see the hologram of Merlin. “Oh, sorry,” he said. “We were going to practice some more? I can come back.”
“No, my King,” Merlin said, offering Adam 359 a suggestive wink. “I would not stand between you and your bride. I’ll ready the ship for the next jump while you spar.” Before either of them could question Merlin’s word, the hologram was gone.
“Have you worked out how to get rid of it yet?” Adam 359 asked.
“Steal a new ship?” Eve 221 suggested. “It’s integrated itself into every system.”
“It’d only follow us anyway,” Adam 359 remarked.
“It seems nice enough,” Eve 221 said. “I really think it wants to help.”
“It wants to help this King Arthur,” Adam 359 reminded her. “Once it works out that’s not me, who knows what it’ll do.”
“I’d best show you how to use your sword then,” Eve 221 said, tossing Excalibur towards him. Adam 359 missed the handle completely, just managing to jump out of the way before the blade cut into his flesh.
“Maybe we’ll start with something a little less dangerous,” Eve 221 said with a smile, stepping towards Adam 359 and handing him one of the supports from the dismantled cot. “Hold it like this,” she instructed, showing Adam 359 a loose grip at the base of the support.
They spent an hour practising lunges and parries, though Adam 359 barely managed to block a single one of Eve 221’s strikes. She instructed him to try to strike her, deftly blocking each of his feeble lunges.
“Stop holding back,” she said at last, frustrated by the lack of progress. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
“I might,” Adam 359 insisted. “You’re so, small. If I hit you with this, I don’t know what could happen.”
“Don’t worry,” Eve 221 said with a shake of her head. “I don’t think there’s much danger of that.”
Adam 359 lashed out with the support, a brash overhead strike which Eve 221 parried easily. The effect knocked Adam 359 off balance and he began to fall, grabbing Eve 221’s wrist and pulling her down with him.
He landed on his back, Eve 221 on top of him, their eyes meeting. “I’m, I didn’t mean to,” Adam 359 said, once he’d remembered how to speak.
“It’s okay,” Eve 221 replied, her voice hoarse and a little breathless. “You didn’t, I mean, these things happen, right?”
Neither of them made an effort to move, their eyes locked on each other’s, their breathing becoming erratic. Adam 359 moved slowly, his head rising from the floor, lips parting.
“Ah, my apologies,” Merlin said, suddenly back in the room with them. “It’s time to jump. Do you wish for me to delay it?”
“No, no,” Eve 221 said hurriedly, jumping to her feet. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes wide as she moved quickly towards the door. “We were just, practising. We fell, I mean he fell and, well, he made me fall. It wasn’t, I mean, we didn’t. Just, I’m coming to the cockpit, I’ll handle to jump.”
Merlin’s amused laughter reverberated throughout the ship.
*****
The final jump brought the scout ship into the outskirts of the Dorgan solar system. A large red star shone from its centre, the fourteen planets orbiting it at various distances. The Dorgan home world, Ma’Han, was the fifth planet from the star, a dark brown world with three small moons.
“That’s it?” Orlac 552 asked. “That’s where I come from?”
“That’s what the computer says,” Eve 221 replied. “It looks as though the Mori found your world before ours, you were enslaved by them first.”
“Dear oh dear,” Merlin said, appearing before them. “Such a tragedy, what the Mori did to your world.”
The large central screen changed to show a bluish-purple planet with large, deep oceans and widespread marsh and swampland. Patches of light littered the surface, the ancient civilisations of the Dorgan people.
“That was what it looked like before?” Orlac 552 asked.
“The Mori plasma weapons reacted with the atmosphere,” Merlin said sympathetically. “The oceans burned away. Nothing survived.”
Orlac 552 stepped past the monitor to look through cockpit window to the desert planet below. It reminded him of the mining asteroid, barren and dark, nothing but rock and dust and death. “Did they know it would happen?” Orlac 552 asked. His species didn’t cry, but his eyes became a milky colour as the pain and sorrow moved across his face.
“The records don’t say,” Merlin said honestly. “If they did, I doubt it would have stopped them.”
Orlac 552 turned away from the window to look again at the planet as it once was. “Can we scan it?” he asked. “Just, you know, in case?”
“Of course,” Eve 221 replied, running her hand over Orlac 552’s arm. “We’ll stay as long as you want to, okay?”
Orlac 552 smiled sadly before leaving the cockpit and returning to his cabin to wait out the scan.
*****
The planet was larger than the Earth and the scan took a little longer. While Orlac 552 remained in his room, Adam 359 and Eve 221 looked through the archives, marvelling at the images of Ma’Han.
“So beautiful,” Eve 221 remarked as she zoomed in on an image of a large Dorgan city. The buildings all had a luminescent quality and were composed of sweeping lines which blended with the natural ecology of the world around them. It was almost as if the buildings had been grown instead of built.
“The fae are a magical people,” Merlin replied. “I hope the Lady managed to escape before the end.”
“I wouldn’t talk like that to Orlac 552, I mea
n Lancelot,” Adam 359 said. “He might not take to it too well.”
“Of course, my King,” Merlin agreed. “Whatever difficulties he may have caused in the past, it’s time to begin anew.”
“Difficulties?” Eve 221 asked.
“You don’t remember?” Merlin asked. “I shouldn’t be surprised, you were a slave too, just like Arthur here. Whatever they did to you all, it certainly took its toll.”
“Can you tell us the stories?” Adam 359 asked.
“Stories?” Merlin replied.
“Tell us about our past,” Eve 221 clarified. “The things we can’t remember.”
“What a good idea,” Merlin said, elated. “Perhaps it will bring back those memories. But where to begin? Why, at the beginning of course.
“Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, was the greatest King who ever lived. You ruled over the British Isles from your fortress city of Camelot, aided by the Knights of the Round Table. You governed with grace and humility, adored by your subjects and feared by your enemies. The peace and prosperity of your reign has never been matched.
“All was well until Mordred, your mortal enemy, raised an army to stand against you.”
“Mordred?” Adam 359 asked.
“It pains me to say he was my half-brother,” Merlin replied. “Though his magic was never as strong as mine, he rallied together the foulest demons and devils from all the realms. They laid siege to Camelot and a mighty battle was fought on the fields of Camlann before it.
“Though you, Arthur, slew Mordred with the blade Excalibur, you were mortally wounded in the battle. I bore your body to the Isle of Avalon, where the magic of the Lady of the Lake would sustain you. She took you beneath the waters, promising to return you to lead the people at their time of greatest need.”
“And that’s who you think I am?” Adam 359 asked.
“I know it to be you, Arthur,” Merlin replied, “even if you do not yet know it yourself. You alone removed the sword from the stone, a feat only Arthur could accomplish.”
“And who were the Knights of the Round Table?” Eve 221 asked.
“Ah, the knights,” Merlin remarked. “Noble and true to the last. Sir Gawain, of course, you know, but the others. So many others, their names now lost to time. Sir Tristan I recall, and Sir Percival, jokers and jesters the two of them. And oh, Sir Galahad, a braver man you never met.”
“What did they do?” Adam 359 asked.
“Do?” Merlin replied with a laugh. “Do? They were your knights, Arthur! Rescuing maidens, slaying dragons, epic quests that took them to the furthest of lands? What else would knights do?”
Adam 359 chuckled. “Sorry, Merlin,” he said. “I should have realised. Perhaps you could tell us about one of these epic quests? To pass the time?”
“So many,” Merlin began. “Ah, but perhaps a story of Gawain, of whom you already know? Has he never told you the tale of the Green Knight?”
“No, never,” Eve 221 replied.
“Then listen well, my King and Queen,” Merlin replied. “For you may never look at him in quite the same way again!”
*****
Merlin called Orlac 552 back to the cockpit once the scan of Ma’Han was completed. The detailed analysis of the planet had found nothing but trace metals and ore deep beneath the surface. There were no signs of life anywhere to be found.
“I am sorry, Sir Lancelot,” Merlin said. “I sincerely wish I could have brought you better news.”
Orlac 552 looked again at the images of the planet as it was before. “I should have expected this,” he said. “We’ve seen the way the Mori treat the slaves. Why should we have expected them to leave behind any survivors?”
“So, what now?” Adam 359 asked.
“Now we make them pay,” Orlac 552 said angrily. Adam 359 and Eve 221 had never heard him speak in such a way before, the hatred in his voice was palpable.
“He’s right, Arthur,” Merlin said. “It’s time to free your people.”
“The three, I mean, four of us?” Eve 221 asked. “How?”
“We take the fight to them,” Orlac 552 said. “Gar-Wan had a plan when he gave you the programming. We can still complete it.”
“He wanted me to rally the slaves in the mines,” Eve 221 remarked.
“It could still work,” Orlac 552 said.
“How would we get back?” Adam 359 asked worriedly.
“Gar-Wan smuggled me onto one of the drop ships,” Eve 221 told them. “He has his supporters throughout the hive, but many of them fear the Queen too much to speak up. Even if the Queen wouldn’t free us, they’d made plans to sneak as many of us off the ship as they could.”
“To build a new home,” Orlac 552 said as he gazed out of the window at his dead world. “For all of us to be free? It would be worth the risk.”
“Okay,” Adam 359 said, though his voice sounded far from certain. “How many of the Mori would stand with us?”
“He’d grown a large following with his ideas,” Eve 221 replied. “They only ever met in secret, but a lot of important Mori were receptive to what he had to say.”
“Sir Gawain always had the silver tongue,” Merlin muttered.
“I suppose the plan could still work,” Adam 359 said. “If we can sneak back into the mines, we could start to rally the people behind us. Will Gar-Wan still be willing to help?”
“I think so,” Eve 221 replied. She tapped the spot behind her right ear as she said, “I still have the communicator if we can get within range.”
“What about the hive ship?” Adam 359 asked. “Won’t they destroy us before you get a chance to speak to him?”
“Leave that to me,” Merlin suggested.
“Then plot a course,” Orlac 552 said. “It’s time to fight back.”
Chapter 8
Subterfuge
Earth year 6238
The journey back to the hive ship involved twenty-two jumps, and Orlac 552 used most of the time practising the fighting moves Eve 221 had shown him. Adam 359 was increasingly concerned about his friend’s behaviour. “He was always the voice of reason back in the mine,” he said.
They sat together in the small galley, eating a particularly tasteless nutritional paste the dispenser had prepared for them. “He’s seen what the Mori did to his home world,” Eve 221 reminded him. “He wants revenge.”
“Do you really think this can work?” Adam 359 continued. “Do you think we can actually free the slaves like the computer says?”
“Merlin?” Eve 221 asked. “I don’t think he’d like to be referred to as the computer.”
“No, you’re right,” Adam 359 said, smiling. “I don’t think I could take another telling off by the mighty Wizard. I don’t even know what a Wizard is.”
“I suppose it’s some kind of computer,” Eve 221 remarked, making them both laugh.
“I hate to admit it, but he’s really growing on me.” Adam 359 said.
“So he’s a he now?” Eve 221 pointed out.
“It’s just,” Adam 359 began. “The story he told us, about the grail? Do you think that really happened?”
“I think he believes it,” Eve 221 replied.
“And his plan, to trick the hive ship?” Adam 359 continued. “He can pull that off?”
“Look at the way he infiltrated every computer on this ship,” Eve 221 said, thinking aloud. “If he can do the same on the hive ship, who knows what he can do. Yeah, I think we’re in with a chance.”
“To free the slaves?” Adam 359 said.
“To free the slaves,” Eve 221 said confidently. “Gar-Wan believed in it, and I think we have to try.”
“You’re right, of course,” Adam 359 agreed. “When I first saw you, in the mine, I wanted you to show me how to fight for exactly that reason. When the other slaves told me stories, about the Earth and its history, I knew we had to fight back. We weren’t created by the Mori, and we deserve to be free.”
“Maybe you really are this Arthur that Merlin keeps talking a
bout,” Eve 221 said with a grin.
“Yeah, maybe,” Adam 359 laughed. “But doesn’t that mean we’re, I don’t know, together or something?”
“Brood mates,” Eve 221 replied, laughing nervously. “Just like Gar-Wan and Sal-Wan.”
Eve 221’s laughter quietened slowly as she thought about her master and his wife. She hoped he hadn’t been discovered following her escape from the mine, that his assistance hadn’t been reported to the Queen. Adam 359 watched the expressions on her face as they changed from amusement to worry.
“Gar-Wan is important to you, isn’t he,” Adam 359 said.
“He was always so kind to me,” Eve 221 replied with a lopsided smile. “When I’d meet the other slaves at the market, I’d hear so many stories of how they were mistreated by their masters. Beaten for no reason, abandoned or, even worse, sent for recycling. Gar-Wan only ever treated me with respect.”
“I only ever knew the mines,” Adam 359 said, “and those for only a few weeks. The other slaves thought working on the hive ship must be so easy. How wrong they were.”
“A slave is a slave, no matter their duties,” Eve 221 replied. “That’s why it’s so important to free all of them.”
“We will,” Adam 359 said. “With Gar-Wan’s help, we’ll free them all.”
*****
Merlin watched as Orlac 552 practised the moves Eve 221 had shown him, over and over. He slashed and parried with the makeshift sword and lashed out with hands and feet at imaginary enemies.
“Your skills are coming back to you, Lancelot,” Merlin said, appearing before him. “You will soon be just as formidable as I remember.”
“You can’t remember me,” Orlac 552 said bitterly. “I’m not this Lancelot you keep referring to.”
X-Calibur: The Return Page 8