“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that,” Fastolf said, a tiny belch sneaking out of his throat as he spoke. “It was an accident. It won’t happen again.”
“An accident?” Baldwin said, sounding confused.
Vere also repeated the question. When it was her time to do so, however, there was no confusion, only anger. “Allowing you to come here was an accident. Putting you in a situation where the health and safety of other people were at stake was an accident.”
“Vere—”
“Giving you any responsibility at all was an accident.”
“Come on, Vere, don’t—”
She motioned for him to be silent. “Taking you off Eastcheap with us was an accident. We should have just left you there. The rest of us were biding our time. You were the only one who belonged there.”
“You stole just as many wallets as me! You got into just as many fights as I did!”
There was a glint of victory in his eye. She would defend herself and then he would say that she was just as much to blame as he was. He would remind her of how, just a few nights earlier, she had put on a disguise so she could sneak around the taverns in CamaLon and continue her rebellious ways.
Instead, Vere closed her eyes and shook her head.
“Morgan was right,” she said. Opening her eyes, she shook her head a second time. “Morgan was right about you.”
“Vere, it won’t happen again. I’ll shape up.”
“No, you won’t.”
That was when he started crying.
She had seen him become angry a handful of times. Even when he caused fights in Eastcheap it hadn’t been because he was mad. Rather, the havoc and chaos had entertained him. Nor did he care when people commented on his weight. He actually embraced it, chalking it up as proof that he was leading a happy life.
Only when someone questioned his integrity or stopped humoring him did he become upset or frustrated. Upset because he had no integrity and thus couldn’t defend himself. Frustrated because he thrived on the attention he got from his behavior.
Even less frequently had she seen him truly apologetic. He was always saying he was sorry for something or other, but almost never meant it.
But she had never seen him cry. There was a part of her—the part that had learned how to become an expert thief through his tutelage, the part that for six years had been able to ignore the problems back on Edsall Dark—that wanted to put her arms around him and laugh this off as the misunderstanding Fastolf was trying to make it out to be.
But no. Quickly lay in the medical bay, unconscious and missing an arm. She glanced out of the corner of her eye at Baldwin and saw how furious he was. This man, who had never done a violent thing in his life, wanted to rip Fastolf’s fat head off. If Morgan were here, Fastolf would have received an instantaneous death sentence and already be cut into pieces on the floor of the ship. Vere knew there was no way that she could let this go.
“Do you know how lucky you are that I’m here and not Morgan?” she asked.
Baldwin, thinking she was going to forgive her friend, started to complain, but she held up a hand and he relented.
Fastolf, also thinking he was getting away with another error in judgment, laughed and said, “She’d probably bust up my pretty nose again.”
“No,” Vere said. “You’d be lucky if that was all she did. You’d be lucky if she only broke your nose a hundred times. No, she wouldn’t just punch you in the face. Honestly, she would kill you. What do you think happens to other CasterLan officers when they neglect their duty and people die on their watch?”
Except for Fastolf, the room fell completely silent.
“No,” Fastolf said in a pained cry. “Please stop.”
Not even Baldwin, still furious at almost dying on the asteroid, could say anything. Traskk would take Vere’s side in any fight, but he too had sat with Fastolf for six years of laughter and troublemaking, so he also kept quiet. His tail, covered in absurd looking space armor, sparked as it slid back and forth against the medical transport’s metal floor.
“Fastolf, Quickly needs more medical attention than the Griffin Fire can offer. You will take him back to Edsall Dark,” she said. “Baldwin, Traskk, and I will stay here and see if we can figure out some way to free the Excalibur Armada.”
“Okay!” Fastolf said, agreeing as fast as he could. “I’ll leave whenever you want.”
“That’s not all.” Vere wasn’t smiling. There was no trace of kindness on her face. “After you drop him off to the experts, you will turn yourself in to Cade.”
“What do you mean, turn myself in?” The question came out as a high-pitched whine.
Instead of answering, she only stared at him. He had no idea what she was thinking. Would she really have him locked away? Or worse, court-martialed?
“Vere, I—”
“You’ll do what I say. And you’ll do it right now. This is your chance to prove the type of person you are.” Turning to Traskk, she said, “Get Quickly from the Griffin Fire and bring him aboard.”
The giant reptile nodded and put his helmet back on.
Once he was gone, she turned to Baldwin and said, “See what this ship has in the way of medical supplies. Make sure it has enough to get Quickly back to Edsall Dark. Take whatever he won’t need and restock the Griffin Fire.”
He also nodded and left.
When it was only Vere and Fastolf left, she said, “You really messed up this time.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“Why do you insist on proving Morgan right? She said you would never get your act together.”
“This is the last time. I swear!”
He put his arms out to hug her but she stepped back.
“It is the last time,” she said.
Without offering an explanation, she put her own helmet back on and returned to the Griffin Fire, leaving Fastolf to cry by himself.
38
As Westmoreland watched from the top of the observation deck, a roar began. It was soft at first, barely audible. But it kept growing louder until the room’s decibel limit was met and the observation deck’s field of energy enveloped the area where he was standing. Outside, the roar kept increasing. Inside, where Westmoreland was, the booming reverberation was kept to a comfortable level.
Looking down hundreds of yards, he saw the newly constructed Solar Carrier’s engines fully ignite. A burst of smoke and dust flew up through the top of the dry dock as any debris from the ship’s construction was blown away. The dust shot up into the air, the only path it could go, flowing around the clear energy field of the observation deck and getting vacuumed by the giant, industrial air movers at the ceiling.
When the dust cleared, a tremor ran through the entire facility. The men beside Westmoreland braced themselves against the nearest handrails while the old general stood firm like a statue. He had been to enough maiden flights to be prepared for the force of the Solar Carrier as it lifted off the ground inside the confines of the shipyard where it had been constructed.
As the group of men watched, the Solar Carrier ambled upward until it was level with them.
“Oh my,” one of the officers muttered, dazzled by his reflection on the sparkling clean vessel for a split second. The ship would never be this clean again.
Then it was above them. And still the CasterLan flagship continued onward and upward. Once it was completely clear of the dock, it turned, the engine’s roar became slightly lower, and it began flying toward the designated rendezvous zone.
The last Solar Carrier that would be ready in time for the battle had just taken off.
The men beside Westmoreland were in awe of what they had helped create. It was one of the symbols of the CasterLan Kingdom. It was synonymous with great battles and with their very way of life. Westmoreland, however, did not share their enthusiasm. Knowing the vessel wouldn’t be enough to match the fleet that Mowbray was bringing, he could only close his eyes and hope that Vere had found some way to keep the ba
ttle from taking place—or that he would be dead before the Vonnegan army began deciding who would be executed and who would be imprisoned.
Watching the Solar Carrier fade away into space, he knew there was no way to free the Excalibur Armada. He was going to die, as was everyone in the CasterLan fleet.
39
From the cockpit of the Griffin Fire, Vere, Baldwin, and Traskk watched the medical transport lift off from the Excalibur asteroid and begin flying back toward Edsall Dark. Not even Fastolf, as incompetent as he was, would be able to mess up the autopilot controls that Vere had programmed into the ship. All Fastolf had to do was ensure Quickly received medical attention once he arrived back home.
After the ship had disappeared and it was only the three of them still on the Excalibur, Vere left the cockpit and began putting the helmet of her space armor back on.
“What are you going to do?” Baldwin asked, looking exhausted from being out on the rock himself and from the near-death adrenaline rush.
“I’m going to live out there,” she said.
She wasn’t really, but Baldwin and Traskk knew what she meant; she was going to spend every waking minute out on the asteroid looking at the Excalibur Armada or at the craters left by ships that had self-destructed.
Traskk gurgled a question and she shook her head.
“No, I’ll go out alone. You stay here with Baldwin in case I need anything from the ship.”
This too made Traskk hiss with displeasure. Although she was doing her best to maintain a calm demeanor, Vere suspected that Traskk could detect, with his highly tuned Basilisk senses, that she was actually beginning to panic. As much as he wanted to help, he didn’t want to irritate her, so he hugged her and tightened the seal on her helmet with his claws.
If she was going to find a way to do something no one else had done, she knew she would have to do it alone. Her recurring dreams told her that much. Anyway, being alone amongst the stars and the legendary ships would give her time to gather her thoughts. Being around others, even the giant reptile she adored, couldn’t offer that.
For two hours, Baldwin and Traskk sat in the Griffin Fire’s cockpit watching Vere on the ship’s holographic displays. The entire time she was out on the asteroid she did nothing but walk. She strode past one Excalibur ship to a crater where one had been before exploding and then to another ship. She never stopped to inspect anything, merely ran her fingertips across whatever was in reach, taking in as much of the asteroid as possible before she had to return.
When she did walk back up the Griffin Fire’s ramp, all she said was, “Refill,” and then stood there silently as Traskk replaced the oxygen packs in her armor. Then she nodded and walked back down the ramp for another two hour trek. Once she was back out on the asteroid, Baldwin and Traskk went back to watching her from the cockpit.
“Think she’ll find a way to free them?”
Traskk gave a soft growl. Without understanding Basilisk, Baldwin could only guess what his answer had been. He assumed it was the same as his, that he hoped she could find a way but knowing there was almost no chance she would. They both wanted to believe, but so had every ruler who had come here over thousands of years to claim the armada for themselves. After all, there was a reason it was referred to as the Gordian Armada in other parts of the galaxy and had ruined many other rulers.
“Again,” Vere said when she arrived back at the ship two hours later, standing in the pressurized hold, and again Traskk refilled her oxygen supply. As soon as her space armor had another reservoir of air, she turned and walked back down the ramp.
After another two hours, she appeared at the top of the ramp and began taking off her space armor. First her gloves, then her helmet.
Traskk hissed a question.
As she continued to take off each part of her space armor, she said, “Not stopping, just changing suits. This one needs a bath.”
The reptile handed her a new suit and she immediately began putting it on. Once she was gone for another walk across the Excalibur, he took the previous suit to the ship’s ion bin. Closing the lid, he pressed a button that filled the bin with light that would clean anything they put into it.
When another two hours had passed, she walked up the Griffin Fire’s ramp once more and leaned against the side of the pressurized hold.
“Again.”
“You should take a break,” Baldwin said. “You’ve been going at it for a long time.”
She cocked her head at him and narrowed her eyes. “Again.”
Traskk did as he was told. A minute later, she was back out on the asteroid.
“She’s pushing herself too hard,” Baldwin told him. “She’s going to get so tired that she makes a mistake and kills herself.”
Traskk gave a low growl, then moved the Griffin Fire to another position on the rock so Vere didn’t waste time walking back and forth to the ship and could explore a new section of the asteroid on her next trip.
The next time she appeared at the Griffin Fire, Traskk stood between her and the exit hatch, refusing to let her go back out until she had water and sustenance in her. Without speaking, she gulped two big glasses of water and tossed a sandwich into her mouth, then put her helmet back on.
As she began down the ramp again, Baldwin called out, “Don’t exhaust yourself. And don’t forget you’re on an asteroid that’s moving thousands of miles per minute.”
She continued down the ramp without acknowledging him.
Each time they watched her from the ship’s cockpit they saw her walk by each ship and each crater without inspecting it, as if some solution would present itself if she allowed it to. And each time she returned to the Griffin Fire they held out hope that she might tell them she had discovered something that would free the ships. She never did, though. Instead, she arrived without words or a smile, nothing but the determination to keep going back out on the Excalibur until the Vonnegan fleet arrived or until she died. Whichever came first.
“I’m telling you, if she keeps this up she’s going to make a mistake and kill herself.”
Traskk’s tongue darted out and he gave a growl.
Baldwin put his hands up. “Hey, don’t kill the messenger. I’m not hoping that happens. I just know how people get when they’re exhausted.”
All across the galaxy, there were two ways people died in outer space that made up almost ninety-eight percent of all fatalities. The most common was some form of catastrophic ship failure. Traveling in space was not the same thing as taking a speeder across Edsall Dark’s rolling fields. If a starship’s oxygen supply was leaking and the pilot was too far away from a space station or dock, he would eventually die. Or, if the oxygen leak occurred within the ship, the vessel could erupt into a brief but brilliant explosion. O-rings in engines could be faulty and explode. Tinder walls could be faulty. A random screw could warp too much, causing a panel to dislodge from the rest of the ship, which in turn could rip any number of coils or tubes supplying the ship with energy or a stable living environment.
The second most common way to die out in the galaxy was for people to leave the relatively safe and secure surroundings of their vessel and go out into open space. Even with space armor on there were countless numbers of ways for people to lose their lives. Oxygen reserves could run out before they were able to get back to their ship. They could accidently drift away from the object they were exploring and not be able to get back. They could be overcome with claustrophobia and, in a delirious panic, take their space armor off even though it was the only thing keeping them alive. The temperature controls on their suit could fail, in which case they would either burn up or freeze to death within seconds. And that’s not even accounting for the less likely ways to die while wearing space armor. There are meteor showers—Baldwin could attest to that. There are gravitational anomalies. There are starships flying through the galaxy at much too fast a speed to swerve if they happened to be on the same trajectory as a random person floating in space.
“She�
�s pushing herself too hard,” he said again.
Traskk nodded and said something in Basilisk.
Baldwin said, “Ship, turn on displayed translations.”
Traskk repeated his comment. The Griffin Fire translated his words into Basic, then projected them as a floating hologram in front of Baldwin.
She’s the most stubborn person I’ve ever met in my life.
Baldwin shook his head in agreement. “It must be an awful feeling, knowing the Excalibur Armada is here for the taking, but not being able to do anything about it.”
Traskk’s tongue darted in and out of his mouth as he spoke. A second later, the Griffin Fire projected his words in the air.
On Basilerk, we have a saying about the Excalibur Armada: Water and oxygen are vital. Flowers look pretty, but can be deadly.
Baldwin thought about it. Basilisks were vicious warriors. They were born into violence and spent their life surrounded by fighting. They were not, by any standard, thought to be poetic. When he couldn’t figure out what the saying might mean, he shrugged and asked.
A moment after Traskk gave a hissing response, the words appeared in the air.
Figure out what is important and focus on that. Do not be tempted by things you might regret.
Baldwin nodded, impressed. “Have you ever told Vere that?”
Traskk laughed. The words appeared.
Are you crazy?
40
Back on the ship and more tired than she ever remembered being, Vere fell onto one of the Griffin Fire’s cots and closed her eyes. Part of her wanted to laugh at how absurd it was that while the largest fleet to be assembled during her lifetime approached her kingdom, she was on an asteroid trying to figure out a puzzle no one else had ever been able to solve. For the same reason, she wanted to cry. The times when the anger and frustration welled up inside her, she wanted nothing more than to destroy the entire asteroid. At least that way she would be the last sucker in the galaxy to be enticed by the armada that dangled in front of everyone.
The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2) Page 14