The Sword In The Stone Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidence.

  THE SWORD IN THE STONE, Copyright 2018 by Chris Dietzel. All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Watch The World End Publishing.

  Click or Visit: http://www.ChrisDietzel.com

  Cover Design: Loic Denoual

  Cover Typography: TrueNotDreams Design

  Editor: D.L. MacKenzie

  Author Photo: Jodie McFadden

  Illustrations: This book contains concept art based on various aspects of the story. For each design, an artist was given a basic description and then allowed to create their vision of that scene, character, etc. Artist biographies can be found at the end of the book.

  By Chris Dietzel

  Space Fantasy

  The Green Knight - Space Lore I

  The Excalibur – Space Lore II

  The Round Table – Space Lore III

  Lancelot - Space Lore IV

  The Sword in the Stone - Space Lore V

  Avalon - Space Lore VI

  The Gordian Asteroid (short story)

  Dystopian

  The Theta Timeline

  The Theta Prophecy

  The Theta Patient (short story)

  A Quiet Apocalypse

  The Man Who Watched The World End

  A Different Alchemy

  The Hauntings Of Playing God

  The Last Teacher (short story)

  The Last Astronaut (short story)

  Satire

  The Faulty Process of Electing a Senior Class President

  The Sword in the Stone

  Space Lore V

  Chris Dietzel

  Copyright

  By Chris Dietzel

  Title Page

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  Art 1

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  Art 2

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  Art 3

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  Art 4

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  Art 5

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  Art 6

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  Art 7

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  The Adventure Concludes

  Acknowledgments

  About The Author

  About The Artists

  1

  Above the desert moon Dela Turkomann, the portal’s enormous ring of energy glowed like an imprisoned man-made sun. Years earlier, the same spot in the galaxy had served as the site of Mowbray Vonnegan’s greatest victory. Even with a batch of Excalibur Armada vessels running rampant through the battlefield, bringing chaos and destruction with them, the CasterLan Kingdom had been defeated. In the years since that battle, nothing about the portal nor the barren moon orbiting Mego Turkomann had changed.

  Between the orange sun that brought the solar system its warmth and the pale surface of the desolate moon and the bright white energy of the portal, three completely different types of vibrant color existed.

  The sun provided life, yet it threatened death. Only a few species could look directly at it without damaging their eyes. Everyone else had to put a hand in front of their face or use protective lens to keep the power of its rays from causing permanent injury. And yet, if it weren’t there, no life could exist in the solar system.

  The moon was the exact opposite. It relied on the sun’s light to appear as a stark shade of yellow. The far side of the moon appeared grey, ominous, and cold. No one would be injured if they looked at Dela Turkomann. And yet the moon provided no life because it contained no water. It teased the idea of survival but it too possessed the ability to extinguish any life that got too close for too long.

  In some ways the portal was a combination of the sun and the moon, and in other ways it was an entity of its own. It possessed the dazzling energy of the sun, causing some species to avert their eyes because of the portal’s blazing light. Like the moon, it relied on exterior factors in order to exist. If only one of the three hundred and sixty cylinders that formed the portal’s ring was removed, the entire thing would cease to exist. And yet the portal didn’t provide life the way the sun did or offer a tantalizing glimpse of the possibility of life the way the moon did. The portal was neither hope nor devil. It would kill in an instant if a ship passed through without its tinder walls in place, but it could also carry a vessel from one part of the galaxy to another. Because of this, it was a marvel, made by humans and aliens, that was in some ways greater than the galaxy’s most miraculous natural creations.

  It was from this portal that a Cat III cargo carrier appeared. The vessel was seven times longer than it was wide, with a flat belly and a set of five large engines to push the ship across space. Once through the ring of energy, the long ship’s tinder walls rose. After it was away from the portal, the ship turned slightly to begin moving in an elongated arc as it set a new course. In another few days it would reach another portal, disappear into it, and then be off with its load of materials to a further region of the galaxy.

  Approaching the portal from the opposite direction was a Hellship. The vessel, sleeker than other flagships, flew directly toward the field of energy. A Solar Carrier was behind it. Then an Athens Destroyer. In total, nine ships passed through the portal above Dela Turkomann: two Hellships, one HC Ballistic Cruiser, one Solar Carrier, two Athens Destroyers, one Flying Fortress, and two Havoc Gunships. They were what remained of the fleet General Julian Reiser had taken across the galaxy as part of the Round Table’s
campaign.

  Even with the use of portals, it had taken weeks for the vessels to cross from the edge of the known galaxy and return to the sector where Edsall Dark was located. This was because the outer sectors had fewer portals than the hubs of civilization, places that had once been known as the Vonnegan Empire and CasterLan Kingdom. At their furthest point from Edsall Dark, Reiser and his soldiers had flown for days without coming across another jumping point. Now, though, they were able to leap three sectors in a matter of hours.

  As they approached the portal, each ship lowered its tinder walls. One by one, the caravan of flagships disappeared into the glowing white light for one last time.

  When they appeared next, they would finally be home.

  2

  Portia tugged on Hector’s arm, coaxing him through CamaLon’s busy markets. For as far as they could see, tents lined either side of the street. Inside each was a vendor selling trinkets, art, or some other galactic creation. While the products varied from one spot to the next the noise and the bustle of people was constant. A grey alien, as wide as it was tall, let out a beckoning holler from the long trunk protruding from its mouth, letting those nearby know that his blankets were the nicest anyone would be able to find in the entire sector. In the next tent, a human-sized reptile hissed that the fruits he was selling had been flown in from Durtha-Major only hours earlier. A worm-like creature, ten feet long and less than a foot wide, a dozen short arms on either side of him, stated that his paintings were considered masterpieces back on his home world.

  “Come on, silly,” Portia said. “I swear, we’d already be back home if you weren’t so slow.”

  She said this even though Hector’s energy platform gave him the ability to move across land faster than a trained sprinter. To his credit, Hector did not remind her that he had wanted to remain at home and that she had been the one to demand he get some fresh air. Letting her have her fun, she walked behind him and put her full weight into his back, pushing as hard as she could so he would keep going further down the street. Of course, he could have refused to budge an inch. He hadn’t, though, because he wanted only for her to be happy. As such, he went where she wanted.

  “I painted each one with my own hands,” a Chilock with six arms said of the artwork on display.

  “I prepared the candy only two hours ago, and it has the finest sugar from Tursa-Minor,” a human woman said.

  “I wove the fabric myself,” a MaqMac said with the aid of a voice box that translated its beeps and blurts into Basic.

  People bartered with one another. Children ran through the street as they laughed and played with one another. Small animals kept to the edges of the street, fascinated by the goings on but also ready to dash for cover if anything startled them.

  “It’s so... loud,” he said, a frown on his face, as if he had never been to the market before.

  Portia squeezed his arm and laughed. “They seem quiet and respectful compared to the bickering Round Table representatives you’re used to.”

  Rather than answer, he merely nodded and looked at all the ordinary people who were perfectly happy even though the elected representatives, who were supposed to be governing the planets and colonies under the Round Table, were unable to agree on anything.

  As they walked, they passed a guy who wasn’t shopping or talking or doing anything other than staring up at the sky. Both Hector and Portia ignored him. But at the next booth, two other people were doing the same thing. At the next intersection, a dozen people were staring up at the sky.

  This had become popular ever since Arc-Mi-Die had sent an Excalibur vessel to hover in a holding position over CamaLon. Most had come to accept the ship, located twenty miles above the planet’s surface. True to their dysfunction, the Round Table representatives had been unable to agree on whether or not to negotiate with the warlord and also on whether to try and destroy the Excalibur vessel that was threatening them.

  Every time Hector passed a group of people with their faces pointed toward the clouds, he grunted. If the representatives couldn’t agree on a threat directly above them, the Round Table was useless. As Cash, was fond of saying, “They should either destroy the ship or not, but just make a damn decision already.”

  Noticing that more people were looking up at the sky than usual, Portia tapped a Gthothch on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me, my husband is shy and wanted me to ask you what’s of interest up there.”

  Hector felt his cheeks turn red. He had led men and women into battle and had become a legend in the process. He had stalked the blood tunnels underneath the fields outside CamaLon in an attempt to eliminate every Vonnegan trooper he set eyes upon. He was unanimously loved for putting the well-being of others before himself and it had led to him being named Edsall Dark’s representative at the Round Table. But even with all of those accomplishments, it embarrassed him to no end when Portia put him on the spot for her own amusement.

  Both of the Gthothch’s stone eyebrows rose when he turned to see who Portia was referring to. Hector’s eyes and the Gthothch’s were at the same height, but the alien’s thick stone legs ended with a pair of feet that touched the ground while Hector’s torso rested on an energy disk that hovered a yard above the street.

  “It’s a holiday of sorts,” the Gthothch said, the sound of marbles rattling in his throat as he spoke.

  Portia smiled. “A holiday?”

  Hector was more serious: “There’s no holiday today.”

  “A day of celebration then,” the Gthothch said, shrugging and turning his focus back up to the sky. “General Reiser is supposed to arrive back home today with the fleet.” His eyes glanced at Hector. “Surely, you knew.”

  Hector shook his head. He had known Julian was bringing the fleet back but not to cheers. He had to force himself to keep his tone unchanged. “The people think his return is a triumph?”

  Everyone around him in the market turned and looked at him. Portia squeezed his hand. The Gthothch didn’t bother to answer.

  A half human, half Lerrk boy, young enough not to know who Hector was, said, “Of course, mister. General Reiser freed a bunch of sectors and allowed them to join the Round Table. Of course he’s a hero.”

  The boy’s red eyes sparkled when he smiled and his teeth, sharper than any human’s, were on display. Other than the boy’s eyes and mouth and hair, which was coarse and pitch black, the kid could almost pass as being human.

  “Allowed them to join?” Hector wanted to ask but was determined to keep his jaw locked shut.

  Beside him, he felt Portia’s hand squeeze his right arm, the one that was still flesh and bone. On the other side of him, the gravitron arm he had received following the fighting in the blood tunnels rumbled with a soft energy, the metal fingers curling into a fist.

  “They call him the Terror of the Cartha Sector,” the kid said in awe as he gazed up at the sky, “for how the leaders were afraid of the mere sight of him.”

  “Is that why the Carthagens destroyed three of his ships and hundreds of his crewmembers?” Hector wanted to ask. Instead, he felt the muscles in his real arm constrict, felt a vein bulge from his neck.

  Seeing something in her husband’s eyes, Portia squeezed his arm again, then said, “Come on, honey.”

  But Hector didn’t move from where he was hovering.

  “Have they taught you about Vere CasterLan in school?” he asked the boy. When the only response he got back was an empty stare, Hector added, “She’s the one that people should be celebrating. She’s the one whose name should be shouted from the top of the perimeter wall and out every window. Vere gave up a kingdom in order for peace to exist across the galaxy. Where’s the cheering for her?”

  The Gthothch turned its attention back to Hector. Made of rock instead of blood and flesh, it was probably four or five times heavier than any human.

  “You more than anyone should know the ceremonies and the tears that followed the establishment of the Round Table. Well, now the people celebrate ag
ain. What’s wrong with that?”

  Portia squeezed Hector’s hand a third time. “Come on, silly. The people have a right to be happy.”

  Again, Hector allowed himself to be pulled further down the street. A couple seconds later he turned and looked back. The stone alien and the half Lerrk boy had returned to looking up at the sky.

  “This isn’t good,” he told Portia when they went around the next corner and were beginning to leave the market. “The people shouldn’t celebrate a general that way. He’s not some kind of savior of men, the way they think he is. No general is.”

  Hector, by Azimuth, digital art

  3

  In the years back when Vere’s father had ruled, only one portal had orbited above Edsall Dark. In the time after Vere returned home, there hadn’t been any portals because the existing one had been destroyed and the newly built portal had been purposefully constructed above Dela Turkomann, away from Edsall Dark. The Round Table’s formation changed all of that.

  Now, in addition to the portal above the desert moon, a pair of new portals had also been constructed directly above Edsall Dark. It had cost a fortune to have them built, but the clear necessity made their creation one of the few things the representatives had been able to agree on. Hosting the actual table that the Round Table representatives sat at, which effectively made CamaLon the most important capital in the galaxy and thus made Edsall Dark the most important planet, brought with it three times more commercial traffic into and out of its spaceports.

  Other planets had specialized names for their portals. The one orbiting the fiery planet CryBurn4 wasn’t named for the planet, the red storms of heat that swirled across its surface, or even the glistening diamond moon that revolved around it. Instead, the energy field was known as the Ashamon portal after Isaiah Ashamon, the man who had first landed on the planet and lived to tell about it.

  Such was the case with the Tevis-84 portal that used to be above Edsall Dark and whose name had originated after a group of Tevin scientists who had conducted eighty-three unsuccessful experiments concerning the gravity anomalies found in caves beneath the planet’s surface before the fateful eighty-fourth experiment was a success.