The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2)

by Chris Dietzel

  Traskk was the first to see the pirate ship land on the Excalibur vessel. From inside his space armor, he let out a deafening roar. Only Vere and Baldwin had helmets with linked-in comms systems, and so they were the only two who winced at the angry Basilisk’s scream. Any pirate who was watching would hear nothing, would only see a bit of Traskk’s fangs through the transparent visor of his helmet. The three of them began jogging back toward Vere’s ship.

  Four pirates disembarked from the frigate and moved across the surface of the same Excalibur vessel to cut them off before Vere and the others could get back inside the Griffin Fire. Each pirate was in a mechanized space suit, the armor of which made them twice as tall and four times as wide as an average human. Vere couldn’t see who or what was driving the mechanized suits because the armor shell encased them completely, but she guessed none of them were human. Usually, the pilots of mech suits were aliens who had too many arms or legs to fit in any kind of traditional space armor, or who had wings that required a larger protective shell. A Quad-Lipe, with four legs and four arms, would fit inside a mech suit with no problem. For all she knew, the giant mechs walking toward her could be driven by tiny MaqMacs that were each smaller than a human infant. That didn’t change the fact that a group of the two-legged and two-armed tanks were standing between them and the Griffin Fire.

  One of the four mechs was a step ahead of the other three. As it approached, a series of small yellow lights blinked beside its chest. Vere tapped a button on her wrist to establish a comms link between the two parties.

  “Away you walk,” a computerized voice said in a tone that was even more robotic than Pistol’s. One of the mech’s arms raised to shoo Vere away from her own ship, as if the rough translation of the mech operator’s language might not be clear enough to understand. “Away you walk and hurt no one will be.”

  Vere had just enough time to turn off the speaker in her helmet before Traskk let out another roar. Baldwin, not reacting fast enough, put both hands up to his helmet and stumbled backward.

  Traskk stomped one foot on the surface of the Excalibur vessel they were on, then the other. Vere was certain that if his tail wasn’t bunched up in the suit behind him, it would be slithering rapidly back and forth, one of the many ways his species demonstrated their extreme displeasure.

  Baldwin took another step backward, but this time it was to allow Vere and Traskk to handle what was going to happen next rather than because of the deafening yell in his ears.

  “How about this?” she said to the four pirates. “You walk away and we’ll let you live.”

  She kept walking toward them as she spoke, making sure they could see her hands were empty. Even with a blaster in her hand, however, the mechs wouldn’t have had much to worry about. Without a blaster, they didn’t even bother arming their shoulder cannons.

  In fact, the four mechs let her walk all the way up to them. As she did, she noticed the optics of three of the four mechs were focused on Traskk and not on her, as if he was the only one who posed a threat. This made her chuckle.

  They were still looking at her friend when her hand arced through space, toward the nearest mech’s torso. Without black vapor to signify the Meursault blade, the other three mechs had no way of knowing their companion had been attacked. Confused, they each took a step backward. The gears of the one she had sliced in half were still turning uselessly. Then, the gears grinding to a halt, the top half of it fell forward and began to float away into space. The bottom half, two legs that were each as big as Vere, stood upright, with smoke coming out of them.

  The alien that was inside the top half, whatever species it was, began to yell in a language Vere didn’t understand. It would continue to yell for only a few seconds before the oxygen inside the suit completely escaped and the harsh environment of space silenced it.

  The shoulder cannons of the other three mechs clicked into place and began to charge. Traskk jumped forward, taking the one to Vere’s left. The mech was taller than the reptile and wider. The leverage benefitted Traskk, though, as he was able to grip underneath both of the mech’s arms and force them upward. As its arms went, so did the torso. The first laser blast from its cannon shot straight up and away, harmlessly sailing through space.

  The other two mechs took another step backward. In the time it took them to get a safe distance away and swivel their optics from Traskk and back onto Vere, she was already beside the next one. It let off a blast of its shoulder cannons but at the same moment, a slash of silver light erupted from the mech’s knees where the Meursault blade passed through. Instead of shooting her in the chest, both laser blasts hit the metal by her feet, deflected off the Excalibur’s armor plating, and sailed off into space.

  This mech thudded against the surface of the Excalibur vessel, then also began to drift away. Only its boots, still adhering to the ship, remained behind. Thinking that the mech might still try to shoot her as it floated away, she took two quick swings of her blade to cut off both of its arms and shoulder cannons.

  The next mech had its cannons aimed at her. A glow of energy signaled that it was about to fire when Traskk, still engaged with the last mech, wound his tail up and smacked the one that was facing Vere. Its legs buckled under the reptiles force, causing both cannons blasts to shoot straight up and away. The mech’s driver tried to make the unit stand upright again. Before it could, Vere was in front of it with her sword. After three quick slashes, the mech was cut into thirds and drifting out into space.

  Close by, Traskk was still forcing the last mech to shoot in a direction it didn’t want to go, but it was a matter of time until its operator regrouped and was able to get the mech balanced again.

  Vere walked behind it and jabbed her sword through its chest. The blade of her Meursault burst through the mech’s torso. Without air for the Meursault to cut through, the blade seemed even more invisible than usual. The only way Traskk knew what had happened was from the sparks shooting out of the mech’s chest. A moment after Vere withdrew the blade, the mech’s gears ground to a halt and it remained perfectly still, neither drifting away or crashing to the surface of the ship they were standing on.

  With the area cleared of danger, Baldwin stepped forward. It took all of Vere’s self restraint to keep from saying something sarcastic.

  Instead, she looked at the pirate’s frigate, still stationed next to the Griffin Fire, and shouted that the three of them needed to get flying right away if they wanted to live.

  Traskk saw the same thing she had seen. Three of the cannons on the frigate’s side were beginning to glow. One of the other pirates was charging the ship’s weapons and was going to destroy the Griffin Fire.

  60

  The other CasterLan officers had gone back to their other ships. Sitting alone in the comms tent on Dela Turkomann, Ensign Spring bided his time. Obviously, he wouldn’t be able to get away with ignoring Westmoreland’s order forever. He would hold out as long as he could. Then, at the first sign of trouble, he would board one of the Llyushin transports on the desert surface, take it, and flee.

  An hour earlier, Westmoreland had stopped by to see how things were going.

  “No contact yet, sir. They might not be near the Griffin Fire.”

  “Well, keep trying. How about with Edsall Dark?”

  “No luck with them either. The storms coming off Mego Turkomann might be interfering with the signal.”

  “Nothing is ever easy,” Westmoreland said.

  “No, sir, it’s not.”

  For the next hour, he had sat in the tent by himself and planned all the ways he would spend Mowbray’s reward. His daydreams were broken up by Westmoreland reappearing, this time with a pair of lieutenants.

  “Ensign Spring to the Griffin Fire, do you copy?” Spring said, knowing Westmoreland would never look at the comms system to see the switches weren’t properly set and that no attempt at communication had actually taken place.

  “Any luck?” Westmoreland asked.

  “No, s
ir.”

  One of the lieutenants strode over to Spring and looked at the array of devices in front of him. “What seems to be the problem?”

  “Comms must be affected by Mego Turkomann, sir,” Spring said.

  Already, he was moving past this conversation with the three more-senior officers and was planning his escape. As soon as he convinced them he would recalibrate the system and try again, he would wait for them to leave, then get aboard a transport and leave.

  “That’s funny,” the one lieutenant said while the other one still stood by Westmoreland on the other side of the tent. “We aren’t having any issues aboard the Solar Carriers.”

  “Maybe it’s the proximity to the moon,” Spring suggested.

  Westmoreland looked up from the display he was reviewing with the other lieutenant. “That doesn’t make any sense. Mego Turkomann is the source of the interference, not Dela.”

  “Let me try,” the lieutenant next to Spring said, taking a seat beside him and offering a big smile. “I started off in exactly the same role you’re in now.”

  “What luck,” Spring said.

  Rather than return the lieutenant’s smile, he bit the inside of his mouth. All he wanted was to switch the device to the correct signal so they wouldn’t realize his treachery. With the lieutenant next to him, however, there was no way that was possible.

  Westmoreland and the other lieutenant also moved across the tent to stand behind Spring and see if the comms could be fixed. It was a matter of time until they realized Spring was either completely incompetent, which they knew he wasn’t, or that he had some motive other than helping the CasterLans.

  Before he knew he even intended to do so, he stood up from the desk and began walking toward the tent’s exit.

  “I’m not feeling well,” he said. “Probably too much heat. I’m going to get some water.”

  “Ensign Spring.” It was Westmoreland’s voice, and something in its tone was not as friendly as it had been when he had taken Spring aside and given him this task.

  Spring stopped and turned to face the general. When he did, he saw that one of the two lieutenants had already crossed the room and had a hand near the blaster on his hip.

  “Yes, sir?” Spring said, feeling as though the Llyushin transports were no longer stationed just outside the tent but were millions of miles away.

  “Come back and join us, won’t you?”

  The funny thing was that now Spring’s throat really did seem to be impossibly dry. “Water. I need water.”

  “We’ll get you water in just a minute.”

  The lieutenant took him by the arm and ushered him back to the desk.

  The other lieutenant said, “Oh, here we go,” and flicked a switch.

  A second later, a holographic image of the Griffin Fire’s cockpit appeared in front of them. Vere CasterLan, the leader of their kingdom, was sitting in the pilot’s seat. The lieutenant, not knowing who Ensign Spring had been ordered to contact, stammered a greeting. Beside him, all the air left Spring’s chest.

  “What do you want?” Vere snapped, flashes of light visible through the Griffin Fire’s windows.

  For a moment, the lieutenant was speechless. He was actually talking to the leader of the CasterLan Kingdom. His family would never believe it.

  “Shields at full,” Vere shouted to her copilot.

  At first, the lieutenant didn’t understand what she meant because he had no idea where she was or what she was doing. Then he realized she was under attack and that the flashes of light were laser bursts meant to destroy her ship.

  At the edge of the hologram, a reptile’s giant claw reached over and tapped a series of commands into a panel beside Vere’s seat. Both of them, pilot and copilot, were wearing space armor. Another human male was shouting something that neither Spring nor the lieutenant could understand. The light outside the cockpit came into focus. It was a frigate in the middle of recharging its weapons systems.

  The holographic image of Vere winced as another burst of light flashed by her side.

  “I need the shields right now.”

  The reptile growled and poked one finger at a time, making sure he got the command right. Vere gripped the ship’s throttle and slammed it forward. Another flash of light. An explosion. This time just behind where the ship had been.

  “That was close,” Vere said to her copilot. Then realizing a comms channel was still open, she added, “Say something or I’m closing this link.”

  “Ma’am, I’m here with Westmoreland. I’m—”

  Another burst of light. “Speak fast.”

  She turned the ship just in time for another laser streak pass by the Griffin Fire.

  Westmoreland stepped forward so that he too would appear on the image in Vere’s cockpit. Seeing him, Vere asked how much longer it would be until the ships arrived at the Excalibur.

  “We’re sending them right now,” Westmoreland said.

  As the words were spoken, he reached down and put a hand on Ensign Spring’s shoulder. Westmoreland was an old man, slender, and yet the hand that gripped Spring’s shoulder felt impossibly strong, like it could rip the Ensign’s arm right out of its socket.

  Vere punched the console to her side. “Just now? You mean no one is on their way out here to help us?”

  The hand on Spring’s shoulder gripped even tighter.

  Vere’s copilot growled something that no one in the comms tent could understand.

  “I see them,” Vere said in response. “Two more ships approaching.” Then, to Westmoreland, she added, “I need every available ship, every available engineer, every man and woman to my coordinates. Now!”

  Spring gulped for air. Looking behind him at the tent’s opening, he doubted there was any chance he could sprint for the exit and get away before he was blasted in the back.

  “They’ll be there,” Westmoreland told her.

  A warning sensor sounded in the Griffin Fire’s cockpit. Vere threw the ship into a spin. A string of laser blasts flew past the window. Vere pulled back on the controls as hard as she could. As Westmoreland and the others watched, the stars outside the Griffin Fire’s cockpit revolved as the ship kept turning upward until it was flying in the opposite direction and heading directly toward the vessels that were attacking it.

  Traskk growled.

  “Proton torpedoes, now!” she yelled.

  Traskk hissed something and Vere cringed. No one in the comms tent had any way of knowing the copilot had just told her they were out of proton torpedoes because she had used them all to destroy the Excalibur.

  Without looking toward the video feed, Vere shouted, “I’ve freed the Excalibur Armada but there won’t be any ships for us if you don’t send help right now. As in, this very second.” Spit was flying out of her mouth as she screamed.

  Then a burst of light flashed in front of the cockpit, the Griffin Fire was jolted to the side, and the holographic image of Vere and the Griffin Fire’s cockpit disappeared.

  Ensign Spring was alone with Westmoreland and the two lieutenants again. Every part of him wanted to run for the desert and get to one of the Llyushin transports. The general’s hand on his shoulder, along with the pair of lieutenants with blasters strapped to them ensured that would never happen.

  Westmoreland cleared his throat and said, “Lieutenant Brigande, contact Edsall Dark and relay Vere’s message. Make sure they understand the urgency of the situation.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And Lieutenant Throttle, I want you to take Ensign Spring to my Solar Carrier. Tell Security he is to be locked up until this battle is over. After that, I’ll decide what to do with him.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Westmoreland turned and left. As did any chance Spring had at ever being a free man again, or of spending Mowbray’s reward.

  61

  When Morgan saw the message come up on the screen in front of her, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The Ensign that Westmoreland had assigned to communicate with bo
th Edsall Dark and Vere had been a traitor. As such, precious time had lapsed in which no help had departed from their home world to assist Vere with getting the Excalibur Armada on its way to the site of the upcoming battle.

  Morgan had given thought to how they might continue to keep as few people as possible from knowing what was happening. After all, before war there were spies and turncoats everywhere. Ensign Spring had just proven that much. It was inevitable that Mowbray would eventually find out about the freed ships. The trick was in delaying the discovery for as long as possible. Seeing as how the command had already been sent out for everyone on Edsall Dark to head toward Vere’s coordinates, she didn’t know how that would be possible.

  She also thought about where the Excalibur Armada was, near Eta Orbitae, and where she was, on the surface of the desert moon, Dela Turkomann. The fleet of Solar Carriers were already in position above her. She was tempted to order some of them to go through the portal and assist Vere.

  “It’s too risky,” Westmoreland said when he entered the command tent and heard the proposal. “Even if you sent some of our Solar Carriers to Vere’s position, they would never be able to get there, learn how to pilot the ships, and return with them in time to face the Vonnegan fleet. And plus, you would be without some of our flagships. Every one is going to count.”

  She nodded, knowing he was right.

  “Okay,” she said. “Make sure everyone knows this is an order: Any remaining personnel remaining at Edsall Dark should get aboard a departing vessel and leave as well.” She bit the edge of her lip. “The only problem—”