The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2)

by Chris Dietzel

  Westmoreland’s throat was raw and he coughed into his fist. The dry desert heat was dehydrating him, and no amount of water seemed to be enough.

  He croaked when he said, “She’s at the Excalibur. If she freed the armada, she would need every possible man and woman there to pilot the vessels.”

  Pistol entered the command tent, saw Morgan and Westmoreland, and walked over to them.

  “The latest Vonnegan coordinates have arrived,” he said, handing a device to Morgan.

  “Tell me what you think this means,” she said, handing the coded message to Pistol.

  The android’s eyes lit up for a split second, then he looked up from the display and said, “Vere wants some tea and would like us to accompany her.”

  Morgan closed her eyes and did her best not to say anything condescending. The android simply didn’t have it in his programming to make out the inner meaning of a code.

  A group of officers was standing outside the tent, waiting to get some of Morgan’s time to discuss the next round of war preparations.

  “Very well,” she said. “Send a message back to Edsall Dark. Have every man, woman, and android sent to the Excalibur, along with any free ships we have, right now.”

  Westmoreland nodded and took his cue to leave.

  He was halfway back to his transport when he saw a young ensign he knew and trusted.

  “Sir?” the ensign said.

  “Do me a favor.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Keep trying to get a signal to the Griffin Fire. If you get in touch with them, tell Vere I need to speak with her immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The ensign changed direction and disappeared into the communications tent. Alone again, Westmoreland continued across the desert, sand getting in every opening of his boots, until he made it to the transport’s ramp. The entire time, he could think of nothing but how ironic it would be if the Excalibur Armada was finally freed after thousands of years, and no one was around to use it when it was needed the most.

  54

  The Llyushin transport landed at the third deck of CamaLon’s main space dock without anyone there to meet it. With the fleet massing at Dela Turkomann and the new portal having been activated in the same area, Fastolf had never seen so many empty docks in Edsall Dark.

  After landing the transport, he called for a pair of medical bots to come to the ship.

  “You’ll be fine,” he said to Quickly, who had been mumbling here and there, going in and out of consciousness.

  Presently, the man was covered in sweat and making soft grunts in such a low tone that Fastolf couldn’t make out a single word.

  “You’ll be fine,” he reassured Quickly again as the bots approached.

  The ship chimed and Fastolf tapped the button that lowered the ship’s ramp. The two bots made their way to the main cabin. Both were standard issue T-MEC-3s, the same height and width as a normal human, but with a dull metal exterior, thick shoulder and hip joints, and an array of accessories embedded in their arms and legs.

  Fastolf motioned to Quickly. “Take care of him.”

  “Yes,” the bots said in unison, their robotic arms moving into position to scoop the body up and carry it to the nearest hospital.

  Vere’s orders had been extremely succinct. There was no room for confusion. After he made sure Quickly was cared for, Fastolf was to turn himself over to Cade and his security forces.

  That would never happen, though. Surely, she had to have known him better than to think he would go through with something as absurd as giving up his own freedom.

  After the bots were gone, Fastolf raised the ship’s ramp and went back to the cockpit. He looked out at the expanse of Edsall Dark’s capital, the place he had come to think of as his home over the past six years.

  “I’ve never wanted to see the inside of an Edsall Dark jail,” he said to himself. By the time security figured out who had arrived—and that they were supposed to have detained him—he would be long gone.

  55

  For the first time since arriving at the Excalibur, Vere, Baldwin, and Traskk all explored the ships together.

  Even without the asteroid carrying them through the solar system, the ships continued on in the same general direction they had been traveling, although they had dispersed slightly since being freed of the rock.

  Without the stone surrounding them, the full might of over nine hundred invincible ships could be appreciated. The Griffin Fire’s computer had tallied nine hundred and thirty-seven ships remaining. Four had self-destructed when the Excalibur asteroid broke into pieces. The other fifty-nine had been detonated over the millennia when other rulers had tried to free them.

  “I can’t believe you did it,” Baldwin said through the microphone of his helmet. It was at least the tenth time he had repeated the same sentiment.

  Traskk let out a growl of agreement.

  In order to fit inside a suit of space armor, Traskk had needed special accommodations that a human would never require. Two cumbersome cargo packs were combined, then added to the back of his suit. Inside, his tail was curled into a bun, which made him look like he was carrying enough supplies on his back to keep an entire squad functioning.

  Basilisks didn’t like anyone touching their tails. Not even other Basilisks. It was said the Basi-Murd War was triggered when King Rukknon the Haunted, ruler of the Murd-nons, intentionally stepped on the Basilisk ruler’s tail.

  Traskk was no different. He especially didn’t like it being curled into a ball, but for the chance to investigate the Excalibur Armada, free from their stone prison after thousands of years, he was willing to tolerate the discomfort and the embarrassment.

  Each ship was slightly larger than one of Vere’s Solar Carriers. But unlike the ships in her fleet, each Excalibur vessel was more brilliant and shiny than traditional starship metal. Each one possessed roughly the same number of cannons as an Athens Destroyer or a CasterLan ship, but she could only guess, judging from how advanced the sensors were and how indestructible the exterior shell was, that the weapons systems were no ordinary laser or ion cannons.

  “The balance of power has changed,” she said, floating in space between two of the ships.

  Baldwin and Traskk followed close behind. They were near the exterior portion of one of the ship’s command decks. The three of them drifted alongside the giant vessel.

  Baldwin gave a happy sigh. “I still can’t believe it. The self-destruct sensors must have been advanced enough to register different kinds of impacts. The sensors must have been able to tell the difference between people drilling and random space objects pelting it. That’s why it never self-destructed when meteorites hit it. I guess your proton torpedoes hitting the stone had the same effect.”

  Vere didn’t say anything. If an advanced civilization of aliens had encased the fleet in stone simply because they could, she guessed they didn’t care about torpedoes or drills or anything else. She wouldn’t admit this to Baldwin or Traskk, but her guess was that it didn’t matter who came along to free the ships or what technology and equipment they brought with them. As long as that person wanted to free the armada, the stone would keep them locked away. Whoever was willing to destroy the entire fleet was somehow worthy of possessing it.

  In the time after the asteroid’s disintegration and the message she had sent to Westmoreland, the three of them had gone out on reconnaissance trips, exploring parts of the Excalibur Armada with the same relentlessness that Vere had when trying to free them. The only difference was that now she no longer felt urgency or panic.

  Traskk grumbled something as he ran his gloved hand across one of the ships. Vere relayed the message for Baldwin’s benefit: “He says he can’t believe these ships have been encased in stone for thousands of years. They all look brand new.”

  It took a while, but their initial enthusiasm slowly turned to dismay. And for very good reason.

  “It’s no use,” Baldwin said, slapping one of
the ship’s smooth metal panels. “There aren’t any doors. If we drill a hole to try and get inside, they’ll just explode like they always have.” He threw his arms in the air. “There’s no way inside to pilot these things. They’re finally free, but they’re just as out of reach as they’ve always been.”

  Vere smiled behind her helmet. “I wasn’t expecting a door.”

  Baldwin turned so he was facing her while he floated in space. “You weren’t?”

  “Of course not.”

  She had read the same textbooks as Baldwin. All of them had agreed that if you combined the exposed parts of each vessel, you would end up being able to see every single inch of the ships. The engines had been exposed at one section of rock. At another, the side of a ship was open to space. The parts of each exposed ship had been depicted as a complete vessel in her textbooks, and yet none of those illustrations had shown any doors. The only reason Baldwin expected something different now was because he was so excited at seeing the ships free from the asteroid.

  “It’s all been a wasted effort then?” he said.

  Traskk looked back and forth between the two of them as they spoke.

  The smile in her voice was audible when she said, “It’s not a wasted effort at all. We don’t need to get inside the ships for them to help us win this war.”

  Now all she needed was for Morgan and Westmoreland to send help as she had requested. As soon as one other ship passed by and saw the Excalibur asteroid was gone and the armada was floating in open space, every pirate, warlord, and local ruler would send their forces to try and recover as much of it for themselves as they could. If reinforcements from Edsall Dark didn’t arrive soon, there wouldn’t be a legendary fleet around to defeat the Vonnegan forces with.

  56

  Every three minutes, a pair of communications were supposed to take place. One was for the Griffin Fire’s cockpit, where Ensign Spring would say, “Vere CasterLan, General Westmoreland asked me to get in touch with you. What are your next plans?”

  The other message to be sent was supposed to go to Edsall Dark, telling them to immediately dispatch all available citizens aboard every space-faring vessel so they could rendezvous at the Excalibur.

  Instead of taking place every three minutes until both were received and confirmed, neither message was sent. In place of using the comms devices he had been ordered to, Ensign Spring sat at the table and remained perfectly silent. No one else in the tent knew about the secret orders Westmoreland had given him and so they didn’t know Spring was neglecting his duties.

  It was indeed true that Mowbray had spies and saboteurs everywhere. Even those willing to ignore direct orders from their mentor if it meant collecting the riches Mowbray had promised.

  57

  Scrope made his way back out through the labyrinth of corridors and security checkpoints he had been required to pass through in order to have a meeting with the gangster Ballona.

  “Have a good day,” he said to the second set of guards as he walked by them.

  Bubbles of mucus appeared from the upturned noses of the round and heavy aliens as they snorted in disgust. Neither guard had his ion knife charged any more. With the guards holdings what appeared to be dull metal weapons rather than glowing blades, they resembled prehistoric savages instead of the last level of security for one of the galaxy’s most notorious gangsters.

  As he passed the android that had made him drink the unknown concoction, Scrope said, “Don’t forget to take yourself in for routine maintenance. Don’t want your circuits to go bad.”

  The android’s faded copper body remained motionless. Its head, though, swiveled toward the diplomat, its glowing black eyes pointed at him, and said, “You will be required to drink that each time you visit.”

  “Don’t worry your pretty, bulbous eyes,” Scrope said, still walking. “I don’t plan on ever coming back.”

  On his way through the next steel door, the pair of enormous, gray aliens, each with only one large eye in the center of their face, moved aside without saying anything.

  “Marvelous job frisking me earlier,” Scrope said as he passed them. “Really wonderful dedication in carrying out your duties.”

  Both growled, but neither moved from their post.

  At the end of the corridor, Scrope paused before passing through the next door and said, “Maybe put some lotion on those hands so they aren’t so rough,” then he winked at them and disappeared.

  The android that had conducted the initial scan seemed to be powered off. Scrope didn’t waste any witty banter on it as he continued back toward the Llyushin transport.

  The final door was in sight. On either side of it, the pair of armored Turgdorians that had prodded him with the broad side of their daggers were both still standing there.

  “You don’t want to search me on my way out too, do you?” Scrope said, giving the guard to his right a friendly pat on the shoulder.

  The Turgdorian gave a deep rumble of irritation and tightened his grip on the weapon that was sheathed there.

  “How’d it go?” the pilots asked in unison when Scrope reappeared.

  As they had been told to do, both the transport pilot and the fighter pilot were standing within arm’s reach of their vessels. If either had attempted to go anywhere else, one of Ballona’s henchmen would have killed them.

  “Couldn’t have gone better,” Scrope said, smiling. “We have Ballona’s full support. She’s sending two thirds of her ships into the battle for us. They’re going to start getting the armored rigs ready for combat later today.”

  The pilots shook their heads and laughed.

  The transport pilot asked, “How are you able to convince these warlords and criminals to join you?”

  Scrope smiled. “A good diplomat can accomplish anything he puts his mind to. You just have to know how to negotiate, and to talk to people on a level they understand.”

  58

  Peto watched as the pair of sterile medical bots moved Quickly’s body from a metal table to a platform that was hovering a couple feet off the ground. The pilot was still unconscious, still with only one arm. Once the bots had his body in the middle of the platform, it began to move across the room, toward a cylinder that was twice the size of a single-man speeder. In the middle of the cylinder, a panel slid to one side, permitting light to pour out and envelop the room.

  From the other side of the glass, Peto watched in fascination. Without consciously thinking about it, he rubbed at both of his shoulders as he watched the proceedings. He knew just how lucky he was to have all of his own limbs after the disastrous expedition to recruit more help.

  The platform moved to the edge of the cylinder’s opening. A conveyer extended from within the bright opening, extending until it reached Quickly’s body. One of the medical bots moved next to the platform, pressed a button, then watched as the pilot’s body moved across the conveyer and disappeared into the white light. After Quickly’s body was completely inside the cylinder, the conveyer stopped moving and retreated back into the machine. The other medical bot pressed a series of buttons on a control panel. The light that was emitted from the cylinder changed from white to light blue. A minute later, the light had intensified to a blue as dark as Edsall Dark’s deepest lake.

  The bot that had been standing near the hovering platform signaled for the empty bed to move back into the corner of the room. Then, noticing Peto outside, it tapped a button on its wrist. A speaker clicked on the wall above him to indicate it was active.

  “The first round of light cleans the entire body,” the bot said, motioning for Peto’s benefit with one metal hand. “The next round cleans deep inside the wound.”

  As Peto watched, the dark blue light that engulfed Quickly’s body changed again, this time to a vibrant purple.

  The bot’s robotic voice said, “When he is done, he will be as good as new.”

  Peto nodded. Personally, he wouldn’t use the words “good as new,” but he got the point. Quickly wouldn’t c
ome out with a new arm made of human tissue. He certainly wouldn’t have an exact replica of the arm he once had.

  Even before bringing Quickly to the regeneration room, the medical bots had established that the severity of the wound made an android arm more practical than trying to form a replacement arm made of biological material and then having Quickly undergo the prolonged physical therapy afterward. Instead of flesh and bone, he would have metal, wires, and a protective coating. The new arm would be stronger than the old one, five times more resistant to damage, and could even be held in flames for the entertainment of friends and family. Most important, Quickly would have no problem getting behind the controls of another starship.

  Not as good as new, Peto thought. Better. Especially when Quickly was lucky to be alive at all. If just one of the meteors had struck a few inches to the side and impacted Quickly’s head, neck, or chest, nothing could have saved him.

  “Good work,” Peto said to the medical bots.

  Then he departed for the next round of discussions for the upcoming battle.

  59

  Only a moment after the first call from Ensign Spring should have come over the Griffin Fire’s comm’s system, a Burst-3 Strain Frigate, a vessel popular with pirates, appeared in the distance. As it got closer, it did a wide circle around the collection of famous ships, then immediately called for any other nearby vessels in their criminal confederation to come to their coordinates.

  All pirates were always greedy, but the leader of the first pirate ship was greedy enough to be stupid. In front of them were over nine hundred legendary ships—more vessels than any pirate would ever know what to do with. They could have been content trying to steal as many of the Excalibur Armada vessels as possible, but they saw Vere’s modified craft and wanted that as well. A smarter captain would have targeted the unoccupied, defenseless Griffin Fire and left Vere, Traskk, and Baldwin floating in space until the oxygen in their space armor ran out. Instead, he had the Burst-3 Strain Frigate come alongside the same Excalibur ship that Vere had landed on. This one error was the galactic equivalent of a thief ignoring a stack of gold bars in order to pick up a small silver coin.