“I will see your vengeance carried out, Minot,” Mowbray said, staring at the expanse of stars and knowing that one day, not a single one would be exempt from Vonnegan rule.
Orders were going out amongst the entire fleet that all Vonnegan ships were to hold their current positions. Once the hundreds of vessels had gathered, they would move into the assigned formations. Waves of twenty Athens Destroyers would approach the desert moon in four ranks of five ships each. Mowbray’s Supreme Athens Destroyer would be in the very center of the first rank. His generals had strongly advised against such a plan, but Mowbray wanted each and every one of the people aboard the CasterLan ships to see the size of his command vessel, to see that he wasn’t afraid of the rebuilt Solar Carriers, regardless of how many Vere had managed to scrounge together.
Additional Athens Destroyers came into view as the ships began aligning into ranks. With every minute that passed, the stars surrounding Mowbray’s viewport were blotted out by the sight of more and more Athens Destroyers. He had enjoyed hearing the seemingly random statistics that his generals had given him—the fleet of Vonnegan ships was so large that it took three hours for the entire fleet to pass through any one point in space—but now, gathered all in one spot of the solar system, he smiled again.
It was a fleet that would have made Murdoch the Conquerer, Malbad the Insane, Moredead the Staggering, and all of the other Vonnegan rulers before him proud. It was a fleet that was worthy of being considered the greatest in Vonnegan history. It was a fleet that would have been worthy of Minot’s command if the boy were still alive.
Mowbray’s eyes narrowed. Every reminder that his son had perished at the hands of the forces he was soon going to meet was a reminder that the galaxy was watching what was happening here. The only option in front of him was to make an example of the CasterLan Kingdom. To brutalize them. To rip their fleet apart.
Now, all three suns that were normally visible from Mego Turkomann were blotted out behind his Athens Destroyers. The beautiful purple and blue nebula of the Annwn system was no longer visible. Every star comprising the famous Qi-Mi-Die constellation—the archer with his bow pulled back and ready to shoot—was also blocked by his vessels. Everywhere he looked, another of his ships hovered in space.
His fleet would win this battle, then they would continue on and claim the rest of the CasterLan Kingdom. At that point, this thing they called a war would be over until the next kingdom fell under his grip. And then the next and the next after that.
“Move into formation,” Mowbray said from the window of the command deck.
No one was close to where he stood and he hadn’t said it loudly, but all the way across the deck, a senior officer nodded and bowed, then told the other Vonnegans around him to have Mowbray’s Supreme Athens Destroyer advance to the first rank.
The Solar Carriers would never know what hit them. Vere and her friends would pay for what they had done six years earlier. Most of all, they would pay for Minot’s death. Everything was unfolding just as he had planned.
70
As pixels, the approaching Athens Destroyers were nothing more than glowing dots assembled into vague outlines of ships. The officer in charge of each Solar Carrier could see a holographic representation of the approaching fleet of hundreds of ships anytime he wished. More than two hundred Athens Destroyers were displayed on the holographic map as a collection of dots, with one hundred supporting Vonnegan crafts following close behind. The dots had slowed outside the Tertiary Region, then begun arranging themselves into ranks of five ships, with two formations so closely aligned that it actually looked much more like four ranks of ten ships in each column. After the Vonnegan vessels were organized, the column of Destroyers began their approach toward Dela Turkomann.
It was one thing to see a computer’s three-dimensional representation of the approaching Vonnegan fleet. It was quite another thing to actually see the ships with one’s own eyes. Red blinking dots couldn’t show just how many cannons each Athens Destroyer had. They didn’t show that each ship was roughly the same size as a Solar Carrier. And they definitely didn’t show just how large a Command Class Athens Destroyer was, or how a Supreme Athens Destroyer made a Solar Carrier look like a personal transport in comparison.
“Oh my god,” one of the junior officers said from behind Westmoreland.
Only the first wave of ships was coming into view, but two things made that junior officer panic. These first ten Athens Destroyers were close enough to seem menacing on their own, but perfectly aligned, with nineteen more rows directly behind them, the mere sight struck fear in the hearts of every Solar Carrier crewman. Second, none of the officers aboard Westmoreland’s Solar Carrier, not even the more experienced ones, had ever set eyes on a Supreme Athens Destroyer before. It was three times larger than any ship around it, with more firepower than four Solar Carriers put together.
“We don’t stand a chance,” the wide-eyed junior officer said behind Westmoreland, staring without blinking at the mighty ship in front of them.
Westmoreland was a quiet and mild-mannered leader. He was patient and understanding. But he had also seen soldiers die in every possible fashion, and he knew that nothing killed a ship’s ability to fight quicker than the belief that they would inevitably lose the battle. A fight that might have taken two days to play out would be lost in ten minutes if one side believed they would eventually lose. It was one of the ways war chiseled away at the minds of its combatants. A soldier who was willing to face certain death in battle as long as he believed his kingdom would ultimately prevail was turned into a mere observer, all determination having fled his bones, if he came to believe a different flag would eventually be raised.
With a nod of the head, Westmoreland signaled for his security officer to escort the young man off the command deck and relinquish all of his duties to another officer. Hopefully, if the same reaction was happening on other Solar Carriers, and he was sure it was, the generals in charge of those vessels were taking similar measures.
If not, this could quickly become a painful and short-lived battle.
71
The Vonnegan fleet of Athens Destroyers weren’t the only ships arranged in formation. The Solar Carriers were in what Morgan called a swinging bell formation. Three ships took the lead, one in front and the other two to either side and slightly behind it. Further back, each rank was progressively wider, with the next row having six ships, the subsequent row having twelve, and so on. The idea was that they would be able to face an onward assault, with three primary ships taking the brunt of the assault, while also being in position to sweep left or right if Vonnegan ships broke from their formations and tried to outflank the CasterLan forces. After conferring with Westmoreland and the others, the swinging bell formation was adopted unanimously.
The ships were massed on the far side of Dela Turkomann so that the Athens Destroyers would have to circle around the desert moon and turn their backs on the portal. In so doing, Mowbray’s forces would be opening themselves up to the armies that Scrope had recruited. Vere smiled, hoping she would get the chance to see Mowbray’s reaction when the first Excalibur Armada battleship appeared. Would the entire Vonnegan fleet turn around and head back the way they came? Would they focus all of their weapons on the first Excalibur ship to make its way into the battle, only to watch in horror as it absorbed everything they could send at it? She couldn’t wait to find out. A grin stretched from one side of her face to the other when she envisioned all the ways the Vonnegans might react.
Vere would have to observe from the surface, however, as she, Traskk, and Morgan remained at the command center on Dela Turkomann. Outside the tent, the Griffin Fire, Pendragon, and a pair of Llyushin Transports that were no longer needed in space were all parked in the sand.
Just before the Vonnegan fleet got within striking distance, the three of them had draped a cover over the tent that blocked ships’ sensors from detecting life forms inside it. With no mechanical or electrical equipment
to be detected either, Mowbray would be convinced that no one remained on the moon’s surface. A message that Vere had pre-recorded would be sent to Mowbray’s ship, inviting him to discuss a way to avoid the battle. The vacant desert moon would be the perfect neutral meeting place. A Llyushin transport would still be sent from a Solar Carrier toward the planet’s surface as a decoy. This would serve to see if Mowbray ordered one of his ships to destroy it. If an Athens Destroyer targeted the transport with its cannons, Vere and the others would know that diplomacy was no longer an option—if it ever had been.
Assuming Mowbray did agree to meet her on Dela Turkomann, Vere had no idea what would happen when the two of them met. It was unlikely that Mowbray would put himself in a position to make an assassination attempt possible. He would take his precautions, as he always did, to negate any possible method of killing him.
What else could happen? They might, somehow, actually come to some understanding and avoid the fighting altogether. There was almost no chance of this, she knew, but she could hope. Or they could watch the battle between their two forces unfold in space while both of them stood on the moon’s surface and acted as spectators. She doubted she would be able to stand there and watch that happen. Morgan and Traskk were just as unlikely to agree to be bystanders in the affair. More likely, she and her friends would attack whatever force Mowbray had with him and the two sides would kill each other while the starships in the space above the moon did the same thing, only on a more epic scale.
“I still think I should be up there with my soldiers,” Morgan said, staring up at the array of Solar Carriers.
Vere was also watching the ships above them—the two fleets facing each other from opposite ends of the moon’s horizon.
“I need you down here,” Vere said. “You should be honored.”
Morgan’s only response was a snort and a frown.
In the darkest corner of the tent, where the most shade was, Traskk rolled over in his sleep. In ancient times, Basilisks had earned a reputation for intimidating their enemies by being able to take naps before battle. The opposing forces couldn’t help but have their confidence shaken when they found out the warriors they were going to face were so nonchalant about what was going to happen that they could get some beauty rest beforehand. Traskk didn’t expect anyone above Dela Turkomann to be scared by his nap; he just wanted to find a way to make the time go by so he wasn’t impatient for the fight to take place for longer than he had to be.
“I hope this all goes according to plan,” Morgan said, still looking up at the sky.
“Trust me, so do I.”
72
The two fleets faced each other but held their fire. Each time one of the Vonnegan Thunderbolt fighters departed from an Athens Destroyer, the Solar Carrier crews were sure it was going to fly directly at them and that the battle was going to begin with a single proton torpedo. But then the Thunderbolt would fly toward the moon’s surface, circle the area where the command center had been, then return to its Destroyer.
Periodically, the cannon systems on a pair of Athens Destroyers would power up and the officers aboard the Solar Carriers would hold their breath, waiting for the general’s order to establish their front shields. But the cannon didn’t fire and the defensive order wasn’t necessary.
A trio of Thunderbolts departed from Mowbray’s Supreme Athens Destroyer. The men and women aboard the Solar Carriers tensed up, ready for the first laser blast to signal the beginning of war. But the three fighters carried out the same flight path as the previous small ships, descending down to the seas of desert below, then making their way back up to the Destroyer.
“Steady, everyone,” Westmoreland said.
All around him, officers who had trained for battle all their lives but had never actually seen it firsthand were beginning to tremble and sweat.
Westmoreland was afraid that one of the younger members of his crew would panic and fire a cannon without the order having been given. He knew how soldiers fidgeted and panicked before battle, their wits defeating them and their instinct for survival often overriding their training. Gripped by fear, someone might think for a moment that it was better to fire before being fired upon.
He had given a strict no-fire command two other times already, but decided to repeat the order. “Only fire on my command,” he said, the order going out to not only the men and women in front of him on the deck of his Solar Carrier, but also to the generals commanding the other Carriers as well.
As long as he was in charge of the ships, no Solar Carrier was to fire on a Vonnegan ship until he put out the order to do so. That didn’t mean that someone with a family back on Edsall Dark, someone fresh out of the academy and with no actual combat experience, wouldn’t become spooked at whatever it was the Thunderbolts were doing and open fire.
If they did, everyone aboard the Solar Carriers would get a good look at the full might of the Vonnegan fleet. Just one laser blast from a CasterLan ship was all it would take for all two hundred Athens Destroyers, all three hundred Vonnegan ships, to begin unloading every heavy cannon in their arsenal. The CasterLan fleet would be decimated before the cavalry could arrive.
73
After sending scouts to survey the moon’s surface and not detecting any life forms or devices, Mowbray decided that it would indeed be a pleasant treat to see Vere face to face. Rarely did a conqueror get to be within arm’s reach of the ruler whose kingdom he was getting ready to defeat. He owed it to young Minot, killed by Vere’s forces, to confront the person who was ultimately responsible for his son’s death.
At the same time his shuttle, full of his personal guards, launched from his Supreme Athens Destroyer, a Llyushin transport departed from one of the lead Solar Carriers. Both ships were accompanied by a complement of their kingdom’s fighters. Six Thunderbolts roared alongside the Vonnegan shuttle. Two Llyushin fighters raced ahead of the transport and two more followed behind it.
The transport was supposed to have Vere aboard, but on the chance the Vonnegan fleet planned to destroy it and kill the CasterLan leader before the battle even began, Westmoreland had the ship set to autopilot with Scrope and Pistol aboard it.
Both vessels made their way beyond the protection of friendly ships and headed down toward the moon’s surface. From inside the tent on Dela Turkomann’s surface, Vere could hear both sets of ships approach. She didn’t dare look out the flap, though, to see what kind of ship was approaching first or where they would land because the masking effect of the bio-tarp could be compromised, alerting Mowbray that a possible trap was waiting for him. Closing her eyes, she forced herself to be patient by reminding herself that this would all be over soon enough, regardless of what happened next.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Morgan said, standing in a different corner of the tent.
Traskk growled in agreement.
“It’s just your officer’s sense of responsibility talking,” Vere told her. “You wish you were up there, where the Solar Carriers are. They’re in good hands; you’ll do more well down here.”
The wind kicked up as the ships’ engines came close, creating an enormous sandstorm. Even with the tent sealed from the inside, sand somehow managed to find a way into every corner of the area—into their eyes and hair, under their clothes.
After the ships were on the surface, there was a moment of calm in which Vere and the others inside the tent could hear the slight drum and buzz of millions of grains of sand scratching down the sides of the tent and settling once again on the moon’s surface.
A whirl of noise approached.
“Second vessel coming in,” Morgan said, closing her eyes and pulling her shirt up over her nose and mouth.
Vere did the same. Traskk closed his eyes and brought his tail up so it wrapped around his nostrils and jaw.
The second storm began and ended as soon as the first. After it was over, Vere and Morgan knew both sides of the battle had landed their ships somewhere near the command tent. Finally
willing to take a peek outside, Vere unzipped the edge of the flap to see exactly where the ships were. A gust of sand blew in her face, forcing her to keep the tent sealed until the golden particles had settled.
“I just want to know how many ships are out there and where they are,” she grumbled.
“Two ships,” Morgan said, pointing at nine o’clock and then at three o’clock. “One there and one there. I’d guess Mowbray’s Thunderbolt escorts were ordered to circle the area after they ensured his ship made it safely to the surface. As soon as they did, our Llyushin fighters did the same thing.”
“You can tell all of that from the sound of the engines we just heard?” Vere asked.
Morgan shrugged. “You spend your entire life around starships, you get a sense for these things.”
Finally, there was stillness and quiet. The sand had settled.
“What we do this day,” Vere said, “will decide the fate of everyone we know.” She unzipped the tent flap. “So let good fortune look down upon us.”
Sun burst inside. She squinted from the light. Morgan and Traskk did the same. In front of them, off in the distance, Mowbray’s awkward looking star-shaped shuttle began to lower its ramp. To her right, the Llyushin transport was parked slightly further away and was also lowering its ramp.
Unsurprisingly, Mowbray was not the first to appear from his ship. Of course, he wouldn’t have put himself at risk like that. A ruler who had defeated so many planets and realms over his lifetime would never survive very long if he were willing to present himself as an easy target. Instead of Mowbray, two of his Fianna guards came down the ramp first.
The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2) Page 24