The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1) (13 page)

The platform that brought Traskk up from the inner workings of the ship plummeted back down into the darkness of the Griffin Fire’s mechanical underbelly. A moment later it rose again, this time with Pistol on it.

“The tinder walls are fixed,” the android said. “I suspect we will be leaving momentarily.”

He walked off without waiting for a response.

At the cockpit, Vere asked A’la Dure if everything was set and received the obligatory nod.

At the tables and seats outside the cockpit, Baldwin had buckled up across from Morgan, as far away from her as possible in case she had the overwhelming urge to smash his face again.

Through the ship’s intercom, Vere announced that they were getting ready to pass through the Tevis-84 portal and emerge outside of Edsall Dark’s orbit. They would be home in a matter of minutes.

Each of them pulled the harnesses over their chests and waited for the sense of pulling and pushing that came with transporting from one point in space to another.

They heard the tinder walls slide down over every accessible part of the ship. A series of beeps sounded, and then each of them felt as if they were in one of those spinning intergalactic carnival rides that pushed everyone back against their chairs. A moment later, the sensation changed and each of them felt as if they were being pulled toward the surface of a body of water that was in front of them instead of above them. That too only lasted a fraction of a second, the entire ordeal taking no longer than two seconds. Without needing the ship’s sensors to beep an acknowledgement, they all knew they had passed through the portal and that when the tinder walls slid up they would be able to look out the ship’s windows and see Edsall Dark.

25

 
“You let them go?” Minot said. “My father told you to destroy everything you passed in the CasterLan kingdom.”

General Agravan had left the deck of his Athens Destroyer to see how Mowbray’s son was getting along with his studies. There was no trace of accusation in the boy’s voice, only curiosity. Even so, if someone on the command deck had asked the same question, a bot would have carried their dead body away from their work station so a replacement officer could take over. The Vonnegans on his command deck were there to follow Agravan’s commands, not to question them. The boy had a point, though. Agravan had not completely followed Mowbray Vonnegan’s orders.

Standing over the boy at his desk, the general put a hand on Minot’s shoulder. With the helmet of his space armor off, the sharp lines of Agravan’s cheeks and jaw caused vast differences in how light reflected off the purplish tint of his skin, making his eyes and mouth appear ghostly at some moments and incredibly human at other times.

“That is true,” Agravan said. “Your father did give me those orders. But a good ruler, as your father is, knows to give orders that can be flexible, leaving a good general, which I am, to know the proper way to administer those orders.”

“When I’m ruler, I should expect my generals to interpret my orders rather than follow them exactly?”

“Not always. Sometimes, I carry out your father’s orders exactly as they were given.”

“And other times?”

“And other times, like now, I make decisions I know will ultimately benefit the Vonnegan Empire. I could have captured Vere’s ship and sent a communication back to EndoKroy to verify what your father would have wished done with them. But a good general has a sense of what their ruler wants. I am certain that your father, if presented with the pros and cons of the situation, would have ordered me to let her go and give her time to try and clear up the confusion.”

“But why?”

“It shows the Vonnegan Empire is not imprudent and rash. Yes, we have destroyed every CasterLan colony in our path, but when given the opportunity to settle the situation diplomatically, we accepted. The important thing to remember, however, is that it will all end the same way, regardless of what Vere does.”

Minot looked up with his big eyes and stared at Agravan. “What do you mean?”

“We show the rest of the galaxy that we are willing to listen to reason, but we also know there is nothing Vere can do to alter our plans. No matter what information she uncovers, the Vonnegan fleet will be arriving at their door in six days. And when we do, the inevitable will happen; we will crush the CasterLan Kingdom. Your father’s empire will double in size, and you, my young prince, will become the new leader on Edsall Dark. It is all as your father has planned, regardless of how we get there. That is how a good general works for his ruler.”

26

Having emerged from the portal, it would only be a moment before the Griffin Fire’s tinder walls were raised and Edsall Dark was in view. For each passenger, the prospect brought a longing but also trepidation.

Vere wanted to arrive so she could get the entire ordeal over with. She had left her home planet deliberately, and as soon as all of this was over with she planned to leave again. This time, forever.

Beside her, in the co-pilot’s seat, A’la Dure wanted to do whatever would make her friend happy. If that meant helping Vere face old ghosts, she would tag along. She had never been to Edsall Dark, had only heard stories about its grandeur. She certainly wouldn’t argue about exchanging the dirt and filth of Folliet-Bright for the majestic landscapes of Vere’s home world. At the same time, though, she didn’t like seeing how the trip was transforming her friend from someone who laughed and smiled all the time to someone who brooded and argued.

Outside the cockpit, Morgan wanted to begin solving the puzzle of why the king would order such an attack. While she was scared of no one, she wasn’t looking forward to the confrontation with Hotspur once she got there. She had been his second in command before going behind his back to try and stop this impending war. He wouldn’t forgive that, and she wouldn’t back down from him. Only one result was possible.

Baldwin wanted to get back to his family and to his mentor, the king’s primary doctor. Taking care of the king’s health was the most important role a physician could have. Baldwin was missing out on the opportunity in order to convince a thief and a hoodlum to return home. At the same time, he wasn’t convinced Vere would be effective at preventing the Vonnegan army from destroying the planet. She hadn’t given him much to be hopeful about so far, that much was clear.

Like A’la Dure, Traskk had heard stories about Edsall Dark but had never been there. That was reason enough to enjoy the trip. Knowing that there were people out there who wanted Vere dead, knowing that he would get a chance to kill anyone with such intentions, was the icing on the cake. Part of his Basilisk mind couldn’t help but be slightly apprehensive, though. After all, he still didn’t know the extent of what they were getting into. And he didn’t look forward to seeing the Green Knight again. Something about the giant warrior had unsettled him, and it had nothing to do with how unnaturally large he was.

Occulus was excited for Vere to claim her destiny. He knew she was capable of great things. He knew that up until now she had been gliding through life. Now was her time to seize her destiny. He was dreading, though, the moment when she found out who he was. It was inevitable that while they were on Edsall Dark she would find out that he had been good friends with her mother. She would realize that was why he had befriended them at Eastcheap, and then she would never trust him again. He had grown to like her every bit as much as he had liked Isabel; the prospect of earning her distrust made his chest feel heavy.

Pistol cared about getting to Edsall Dark every bit as much as Fastolf, which was to say not at all. The android didn’t have a preference where Vere went or what she did. And Fastolf, drunk as ever, barely realized where they were.

Hearing the tinder walls rise, Baldwin started to say, “There’s no place like—”

But before he could finish, the ship lurched sideways and a great jarring passed through the vessel’s steel frame. Alarms began sounding all throughout the ship. Only five feet from where Morgan was sitting, an explosion blew out a panel of switches and lights. The ship shook again. When Occulus unbuckled his safety harness in order to look outside and see what was happening, the next blast knocked him off his feet and threw him backward. If Traskk hadn’t caught him in mid-air, he would have flown across the room and been seriously hurt. A second set of alarms began sounding.

Over the ship’s intercom, Vere said, “We’re under attack. I repeat, we are under attack.”

27

 
“It will be fine, mother,” Modred said.

He stood with Lady Percy in the dying king’s chambers. In the sky above them, the Tevis-84 portal appeared as large as a moon but only because it orbited the planet much closer than either of Edsall Dark’s actual moons.

His mother cried all the time recently. He thought it was because she was scared of everything that was happening, but when he said, “She’ll never make it here; every bounty hunter in the solar system has seen the price on her head and they’re all racing to get rich,” it only made her sob again and rest her hand on the king’s forehead, as if soothing him with a touch would make him better when nothing the doctors could do was working.

“But—”

“But nothing, mother. We have to be strong now. The people are depending on us. We’re the ones who have to lead now. We’re the ones who have to make the tough decisions. And so we make them.”

Up in the sky, near the portal, he thought he could see flashes of lights, maybe the beginning of a battle breaking out.

“And,” he added, “we are the ones who know what is best for this planet and this kingdom.”

When Lady Percy only cried some more, Modred threw his hands in the air and went in search of someone who could tell him if the bounty hunters had been successful yet.

28

Even before the tinder walls had slid back open, the holographic displays in front of Vere and A’la Dure told them what was happening. A ship had been waiting there, ready to attack as soon as they passed through the portal above Edsall Dark.

It was only one ship, not an entire armada, but with its weapons readied and with the Griffin Fire vulnerable, the damage had been quick and substantial. The ship’s communications dish was nothing more than space debris floating off into the distance. Their primary missile bay was inoperable. Attempting to fire a proton missile would probably destroy Vere’s own ship.

A’la Dure punched a button and the metal walls that protected the ship’s occupants through the portal disappeared in a flash. In their place was the black of the galaxy littered with billions of faraway stars. The sight was immediately replaced by flashes of laser sailing past the Griffin Fire as Vere jerked the controls left and then right.

A display popped up in front of her, showing the surrounding space. Edsall Dark was in front of them. The portal was behind them. But in between them and the giant circle of energy was a small sphere, almost the same size as her own ship, with four curved wings, two big and two small. When she magnified the image, she saw that the ship attacking them was completely disproportionate to the Griffin Fire. While her own ship had a small cockpit and small wings—the majority of the ship devoted to its engines, living quarters, and storage—the bounty hunter’s ship was almost entirely a spherical cockpit and wings without any room for anything that wasn’t designed for attacking other ships. To assist with this, the ship had a rotating cockpit that adjusted to remain locked on its target even while the engines and navigation adjusted to correct the ship’s path and keep it following its target.

Another bounty hunter. Vere knew what that meant: the first attack hadn’t been an isolated incident. Rather than hiring a single assassin, someone had put a price out on their heads for any bounty hunter with the skills to collect on it. They were going to keep getting attacked until they made it safely into Edsall Dark’s capital.
 

“I’ve never seen a ship like that,” she said, and A’la Dure nodded.

All across the galaxy, it was the bounty hunters who were driving forward innovations in ship weaponry and structure because they were the professionals who always needed to be one step ahead of every other killer. Their real-world alterations constantly exceeded the leading edge ideas that scientists created designs for. Gravitational claymore mines, dark matter napalm, and cloaked proton torpedoes had all been created by bounty hunters who needed a better way to capture or kill so they could collect a reward before their competitors.

The pilot of this ship had found a way to not only move the ship’s cockpit so the pilot could keep a steady visual on the target, he had also designed the engines to shift around the main body of the ship. Rather than rely on shifts in thrusters to make wide turns like every other vessel, this ship could change directions immediately. The result was a ship that was able to dart all around rather than arc into different directions the way the Griffin Fire had to. A’la Dure set the Griffin Fire’s automated cannons to target the ship but none of the blasts even came close to hitting it because it was in a completely different part of space by the time the laser bursts went to where it had previously been.

Traskk burst into the cockpit.

“Get to the turret,” Vere yelled. Morgan was behind the giant reptile. As much as Vere hated to give the woman any credit, she added, “And get Morgan into the underbelly turret. We need all the help we can get.”

Baldwin started to ask if he could help, but Fastolf took him by the shoulder. “This is above our pay grade,” he said with a laugh, escorting Baldwin to a table with a deck of cards on top of it. “This way, you can’t do anything that would get your nose busted again.”

Reluctantly, Baldwin sat down and followed Fastolf’s lead.

Without needing to be ordered to do so, Pistol went into the mechanical room to monitor the ship’s circuits. Occulus stood by a window, trying to get a glimpse of the elusive ship that was attacking them.

At the back of the Griffin Fire, Morgan dropped into the same turret she had been in earlier. From where she sat, she could hear Traskk growling what must have been the equivalent of Basilisk curse words as he repeatedly shot and missed the agile ship.