The Green Knight (Space Lore Book 1) (36 page)

A burst of laser fire shot out from the Crown. The beam was wider than the Llyushin fighters and Thunderbolts still flying through the battlefield. The ones that couldn’t get out of its path were decimated and turned to scrap metal. The streak of energy passed by an Athens Destroyer that was making its way toward the planet. Then, as the next Destroyer was only a quarter of the way through the portal, the laser blast hit three of the three hundred and sixty support structures that formed the frame of the portal. All three cylinders exploded. With them gone, the ring’s form was broken.

The monitor that had displayed Hotspur went blank. The ship that was passing through the portal was sliced in half. All life in both sections of the ship would be gone. But the half of the vessel that had made it through only existed for another second because the portal’s energy field, no longer perfectly contained within the circle, erupted in every direction. The loose chain that had made up the portal was enveloped in white and blue explosions of energy and destroyed. Every nearby Vonnegan ship was engulfed in energy flares that either caused them to explode or else float uselessly in space. More than a hundred Vonnegan Thunderbolts were also caught in the explosion, as were all of the people—CasterLan and Vonnegan alike—who had been floating in space in their armor.

Morgan didn’t pause to celebrate. Instead, she began putting new orders into the Crown’s targeting system and began firing upon every other Athens Destroyer still within its range. The ensign who had been in the same seat watched without saying a word.

The first ship she targeted had been positioned behind the portal. Where there had been an energy field that allowed vessels to jump from one point in the galaxy to another, there was now only empty black space. There, completely unprotected, was a Commander Class Athens Destroyer with nowhere to hide. It was already heavily damaged from the portal’s explosion, but she was glad to finish it off. She sent a blast directly into the Destroyer’s hull. Every part of the ship was turned to charred metal. Everyone aboard it was gone.

On one display in front of her, she saw an Athens Destroyer landing at the far edge of the Edsall Dark spaceport and a battalion of Vonnegan troopers begin disembarking, readying to invade the city. Baldwin and Fastolf stood behind her, ready to help if she needed it, but she was her own one-person command center.

“Attention, everyone,” she said into the capital’s public address system. “Vonnegan troops have made their way down to Sector 2 of the space docks. Any and all men and women capable of fighting are needed there.”

Another Athens Destroyer was approaching the spaceport, but as it did, it got within the Crown’s targeting radius. She aimed one of the five cannons at it, then watched as a beam of laser tore through the middle of the ship. The steel frame could no longer support the front half of the vessel. It broke in two, both pieces plummeting toward CamaLon’s commercial sector.

Morgan made another announcement. “Any remaining ships capable of space combat, please take off immediately. Ground support will be provided.”

On the first display, she watched as a group of nearly one hundred CasterLan soldiers combined with twice as many civilians, all with blasters, to fight the group of Vonnegan troops trying to get off their ship.

On the next display, she watched as four Llyushin fighters and seven random vessels, took off from the space docks to face what remained of the battered Vonnegan fleet.

Only then did she allow herself to lean back in her chair, her head lolling backward with both fatigue and triumph.

Fastolf and Baldwin were still behind her, neither of them knowing what to say other than to tell her she did a hell of a job. Traskk, she noticed, was gone. On one of the displays in front of her, she saw him dart past a crowd of CasterLan forces and tear into a group of ten Vonnegan troopers armed with nothing but his claws, fangs, and tail.

Content that she had done all she could do for the time being, she closed her eyes and allowed herself a moment of peace.

81

Minot’s hand was clasped around General Agravan’s ankle. It would continue to be locked there for ages.

Although both had been wearing space armor, neither Vonnegan would survive. In fact, Agravan was already dead. When the command deck of his Athens Destroyer had been torn apart and lost pressure, everyone aboard that portion of the ship had been sucked out into space. The general’s space armor had a gash ripped into its side as he was pulled past a section of jagged steel on his way out of the ship. He had died within seconds of being exposed to space.

Minot, though, had survived longer.

Upon being sucked out into the cold vacuum of space, the future heir of the Vonnegan Empire had grabbed
 
the first thing he could find. That happened to be Agravan’s ankle.

In shock, he refused to let go, even as the two of them drifted further and further out into open space.

He had seen the majority of Solar Carriers turned to scrap. He had even seen a fair number of Athens Destroyers break into pieces or become engulfed in explosions. And yet the war had never seemed like a truly real thing to him. Since he was old enough to read he had been told he would one day become the ruler of the Vonnegan Empire. He watched his father strategize ways to expand that empire. He learned from Agravan how to one day conduct his own conquests of other kingdoms. Through it all, he had never thought, even for a single moment, that the wars and battles and invasions were anything more than a game. If he had, he would have realized he was one of the pieces being moved into place. A very important piece, yes, but a piece all the same.

As the oxygen in his space armor began to run out, the terrified boy, still clutching his mentor’s leg as they wandered away from Edsall Dark and into the expanse of the galaxy, could only keep thinking one thing to himself over and over.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

82

Vere looked at the rubble covering her father’s remains. Her Meursault blade slipped from her fingers and clanged on the ground.

An incredible burst of light flared in the sky, so bright she expected to see a sun in the midst of a supernova, and she saw someone had destroyed the portal. Edsall Dark was now cut off from the rest of the galaxy. There would be questions from the other kingdoms that would need to be answered. Each portal was in someone’s territory, but it was against galactic law to do anything to any of them. Intentionally destroying a portal was unheard of. She would have a lot of explaining to do.

But at least the Vonnegan army couldn’t send more ships to her father’s planet—what had been her father’s planet. And the ships that remained in the sky were being repelled by a combination of fighters and blasts from the Crown.

She looked back down at where her father’s body had been. Even the bed was covered by rocks. It was almost as if he were already buried.

Galen’s words came back to her.
Your father’s not dead, Vere.
She closed her eyes.

In this very room, she had listened to her father talk about the qualities of a just ruler. She had looked out the windows as he talked about how being leader of the open and empty fields was just as important as being the leader of the busy commercial district.

As a little girl, she had played games of hide and seek with him. Although they had promised to never leave the king’s chambers, he had always managed to find her and she had never been able to find him.

Galen’s words echoed in her head again.

This time, her eyes burst open and she scanned the room. The middle of the room was covered in rubble. A few of the surrounding walls had also come down.

She rushed to the first place where the wall was damaged and ran her fingers over every crack and joint, then dashed over to the next and did the same. If anyone were in the room with her, she would have felt foolish doing this—letting hope outweigh the certainty of the body she had seen with her own eyes—but alone, she had no such qualms.

At the fourth section of stone wall, where a finely stitched tapestry had once been but which was now gone after the destruction, her fingers found a small notch in the stone. When she pressed a thumb against it, a click sounded, and the entire section of wall moved out a tiny fraction from the rest. With her weight behind her, she pushed it to the side.

A wave of odor rushed out of the secret room, making her gag. The tiny room was dark, and when she stepped forward just enough to lean inside, her foot bumped up against something. Nudging it, she felt how soft it was. That was when her heart skipped a beat and she fell to her knees.

Thousands of years earlier, Zeutan the Explorer had built the room on the chance that his half brother would attempt to have him killed. The only time her father had used it, she realized now, was during their games of hide and seek. Her father must have suspected his wife or her son of a similar intention and hidden there.

With one hand, she pushed the door open further so more light could get inside. With her other hand, she touched her father’s face and let his head come to rest on her lap.

“Father,” she said.

His skin was still warm, but he was as frail as the body double who had been poisoned by Modred. Somehow, he looked even skinnier and more sickly than the dead body that had taken his place in his bed.

“Oh, father,” she whispered, crying.

Looking around the tiny compartment, she could only imagine how he had spent his final week. A great king, her father, had been hidden in a room so small he couldn’t even lie down or extend his arms all the way. There was no food or water. What little had been in there had quickly been used. Looking in the emergency room, she saw tiny bugs’ legs scattered all over the floor. There were no bugs, though, and she knew her father had resorted to eating whatever he could find.

He had waited there, hoping she would come back, hoping that someone would come and save him.

 
“I came back,” she said. “I never should have left in the first place, but I finally came back.”

Her father resembled a skeleton more than he did a king. His eyes and cheeks were sunken in. His hair, where there was still hair, thin and white.

“We won,” she said, pointing up to the sky. “The Vonnegan fleet was defeated.”

All she wanted was for him to open his eyes or squeeze her hand. She knew, though, that the time for miracles was over.

“I killed Modred,” she said. “We’ll find anyone else who might have been responsible for this.”

Squeezing his hand, she tried to imagine him being pleased with what she said. She had come back home and killed the man who had poisoned the king. She had been here as the Vonnegan fleet was defeated. And yet she suspected that if her father were alive these wouldn’t be the first things he would want to hear about.

“I followed through on my word,” she told him. “I gave my word and didn’t back down. And I saw Galen again.”

A tear trickled down her cheek until she wiped it away.

It would have been so much better to be able to tell him these things when he was alive, to let him know the type of person she was capable of being, that she wouldn’t always run away from her problems.

“Oh, father,” she said again.

Looking up, she scanned the small room where he had decided to hide and wait for her. In the cramped quarters, without anything to keep him hydrated, he might have died even before the body double had succumbed to Modred’s poison.

Your father’s not dead, Vere.

A scene formed in her mind. Her father had remained in that room, unknown to anyone else, even after the body double had died. Day after day, Modred had been there, waiting to take over the kingdom, and day after day, Vere’s father had waited in secret for his daughter to save him.

Your father’s not dead, Vere.

He had been alive as recently as when she was in the cave with Galen. She believed this. Somehow, she knew it was true. Only a little bit later, though, he was dead, and she suspected he had held out every bit of willpower to remain alive just long enough to know she had come back. Upon hearing her enter the room and begin fighting Modred, Artan had been able to die in peace.

She tried to imagine him in that little room. No light. No toilet. No place to lay down.

Staring into the tiny space, a shiver passed through her. Then, as she looked at every part of the hiding spot, a pattern began to form. No, not a pattern. Words.

In one place they said,
Vere, I never wanted to hurt you
.

In another, it was written,
I only thought that if Galen wasn’t around, that you might want a life of diplomacy instead.
 

And in another,
Please forgive me, Vere. I never meant to hurt you. It was a lapse I’ve regretted every day since then.

At another
, In destinies sad or merry, true men can but try.

For almost every hour of every day he had needed to be perfectly quiet. But the few times Modred left the room, her father had written messages to her.

Please, don’t remember me that way, Vere. Remember the father who played games with you and laughed with you, not the one who said something he regrets. Not the one you might find in this room one day.

All around the secret compartment there were messages about how much he had loved her mother but had also been lonely after she died; messages about being proud of Vere no matter where she was or what she was doing; messages about knowing she was capable of great things.

She thought to say she would make him proud. She thought to tell him that everyone in the CasterLan Kingdom would remember him as a true king of the people. But when she looked down to speak, she said none of it, only smiled as another tear made its way down her cheek.

She sat there on the ground with him, his head in her lap, until she thought of what she really wanted to say.

When she was ready, she started, “These are all the things I’ve wanted to tell you the past six years,” and she kept talking until after the last bit of the sun had gone down and all that was left were the outlines of mountains in the distance.