The Sword In The Stone Read online

  He turned and looked behind him, the way someone would if they were enjoying a view of the stars and the galaxy instead of plain grey metal.

  What J had come to understand about the warlord was the mentality his master had. Arc-Mi-Die had created this lair for himself so he wouldn’t be found, but a part of him considered it to be a sort of prison that he would one day free himself of. Because of that, even though he delighted in terrorizing the galaxy, he also blamed everyone and everything for his having to be in a room without any sunlight, without any access to fresh air or a glimpse of the sky.

  “But we won’t do any of those things,” Arc-Mi-Die said. He turned and faced J again. “I want you to send the Round Table a message. Tell them I easily could do those things I just mentioned and even worse. Tell them I won’t if they turn over half their fleet to me, along with androids to fly the vessels. But now, I also want every planet, moon, and colony that used to be part of the Vonnegan Empire. If they give me all of that, I promise to stop terrorizing the galaxy.”

  “Is that all, my lord?”

  Both of Arc-Mi-Die’s mouths broke into huge grins. Both sets of arms came together to form a pair of clapping hands. “You know what?” Both of his eyes glittered with crazed energy. “Let’s go ahead and blow up a colony as well. Just for good measure.”

  “Very well, my lord.”

  J turned and began walking back to the door. He knew, just as Arc-Mi-Die did, that there was no way the Round Table would agree to such demands if they had balked at far lesser terms. But he also knew that Arc-Mi-Die already realized that and was planning for them to either become stuck in another cycle of indecision or else issue a rejection that would allow the warlord to feel as if his next attack was their fault and not his.

  What the android couldn’t figure out, not even with his advanced reactionary processing, was what the warlord’s ultimate goal was, what endgame he was working toward.

  6

  Old habits died hard. Even though she was alone in the cockpit of her Type III Burst shuttle and even though her armor served no purpose while piloting the craft, Lancelot wore her entire Carthagen suit. Even the helmet.

  In the weeks since leaving the Orleans asteroid field, she had travelled to many different parts of the galaxy. She had visited the planet where she was born and where her father had been forced to flee. However, having little recollection from her early childhood, she had no idea what city she was from on the planet. There was no one on Tertiary-Go she could ask. It had been twenty years since she had been on the ocean-covered world. She had no frame of reference, only vague memories of mild weather and pretty clouds and the constant sound of waves. Regardless of which floating city she visited, no part of the planet seemed familiar. Somewhere on Tertiary-Go, her mother and father had fallen in love and Lancelot—Arc-Mi-Joan—had been born. Wherever those things had happened, they weren’t part of the existence she now knew.

  In total, she had remained as a visitor on the planet for less than two days. Part of the reason she left was because it may have been the place where she was born and the place her father had lived, but it wasn’t her home. But the other reason was because she realized that each floating city’s constant bobbing up and down made her nauseous, and no setting within her armor, no matter how advanced it was, could counteract the queasiness in her stomach.

  As she reboarded the shuttle, she had needed to put a hand against its side to brace herself from the sea sickness of the swaying cities. She knew, as she fired up the engines, that she would never return.

  The problem was that if Tertiary-Go wasn’t going to be the place she considered home and neither was the Carthagen asteroid field where she had just spent the last twenty years of her life, she had no idea where home was. Her lungs burned when she was honest with herself because that was when she admitted that the shuttle she was flying felt more like her sanctuary than any planet or colony in the galaxy. That confession was particularly depressing because it wasn’t as though the ship had been a part of her life on numerous adventures. It was nothing more than a vessel she flew because it had been there when she needed to get away. The place she was most comfortable in the entire galaxy was a ship she had only piloted for a few weeks. She had enough self-awareness to realize it was the second place—her private chamber within the asteroid was the first—that she gravitated to because it guaranteed she would be alone.

  Her only occasional visitors were Mortimous and the cloaked woman. When one of them did appear, they didn’t seem to think Lancelot’s circumstances were bad at all. To the contrary, they seemed to think the shuttle was a fabulous place, a step up from serving the Carthagens.

  “But Lancelot,” the woman under tan robes was fond of saying. “You used to only be able to take off your helmet in your private chamber.” She said this even though Lancelot still wore the helmet when it wasn’t necessary. The woman added, “And you were stuck with the Carthagens. Now, you can go anyway in the galaxy you want, and you can wear the helmet or not. Whatever you please.”

  The woman’s positive outlook was infuriating in a way that exceeded the frustration Lancelot felt each time Mortimous answered questions by asking ones of his own.

  While it was true that Lancelot could theoretically go wherever she pleased, she instead went from one destination to another with a clear purpose driving her.

  In the heart of the Plusodien Sector, Crantive-8 was a colony placed on a desolate grey planet. One of the only nice things anyone had to say about Crantive-8 was that it was the planet of a thousand different hues of grey. The mountains, the frozen lakes, the tundra—all of it was one shade of grey or another. Yet all of it managed to distinguish itself from the adjoining terrain. The result was a planet that looked like an artist’s sketch of a planet rather than a place where creatures should ever think about living.

  What Crantive-8 was most commonly known for, however, was its gambling, debauchery, thieving, and other illicit behavior. In the years since Lord Plonnenst turned his kingdom over to the Round Table, it seemed as though every questionable character found their way to the colony within the grey planet in order to satisfy whatever ill habit they possessed. If you were avoiding paying a debt, wanted to place a wager on just about anything, or wanted to hire a bounty hunter, Crantive-8 was where you went.

  Lancelot was going there for a completely different reason.

  Her shuttle descended toward the planet, entered the clear containment field that surrounded the colony, then changed directions slightly to head toward the spaceport. The landing bay wasn’t filled with shining transports or standardized ships. Instead, vessels of all sorts were arrayed. Almost none of them resembled the original crafts that had come off the shipyards. Instead, they had all undergone continual upgrades, modifications, and repairs. Some of the work was done to alter a ship after it had been stolen so the original owner wouldn’t be able to find it. Some alterations were to fix ships after run-ins with pirates and gangsters and other types.

  She guided the shuttle to an open spot, set the ship’s security protocol, then lowered the ramp. At the bottom of the walkway, at the floor of the spaceport, a winged alien, the size of a human child, fluttered over to her.

  “Your ship will be gone when you get back unless you pay someone to watch it.”

  “Thanks,” Lancelot said, her voice metallic and void of emotion through her helmet. “But I initiated the security sequence. It’ll be fine.”

  The winged alien hovered in the air a dozen feet from the newest arrival to Crantive-8. Upon hearing what she had to say, he burst out laughing in a series of squawks.

  “Buddy, the thieves here can steal any ship unless you pay someone to watch it.”

  Lancelot had been about to leave the spaceport. Instead, she stopped and considered what she had been told. The truth was she didn’t know anything about spaceports like the one she had just landed on. Growing up in an asteroid ensured that there were many things she was unfamiliar with. She could tell, th
ough, from the way the alien spoke that he believed what he was saying.

  “Buddy,” she said, not intending for the word to sound the least bit friendly, “if I pay you to watch it, my ship could also get stolen, and I would also be out of the money I paid you to watch it.”

  “True, true, very true,” the alien said. His wings fluttered faster and he turned and began to fly away. “Oh well, I tried to warn you.”

  Lancelot faced her shuttle and assessed the situation. It was very possible that the alien was right and that the ship might not be there when she got back from her errand. Raising her four hands, she touched the handles of each of her four weapons. Both Meursaults and both vibro lances were in their sheathes on the back of her armor. Those four weapons were the only things she cared about. That was part of the reason she touched them, because of the comfort it offered. The other reason was to warn anyone watching her from a dark corner of the cavernous spaceport that she wasn’t to be messed with.

  Finally, she turned and began walking away from her shuttle. If someone took the ship she had arrived on, they wouldn’t be taking anything that couldn’t be replaced. Yes, it was the closest thing she currently had to a home, but after leaving the asteroids she had lived in for twenty years, giving up a ship after a short time of travel wasn’t a big deal.

  “Each loss is easier to move past.” That’s what the cloaked woman had told her once.

  Maybe that was true.

  There were a hundred other vessels parked in the same spaceport. If someone took her shuttle, she would either find the thieves and get it back or else take one of their ships. Or, if she had to, she would steal a random vessel.

  She was only a hundred feet away from her shuttle, close to the alleys behind the spaceport, when a pack of Gorillians appeared around the corner, saw her by herself, and began walking directly toward her.

  The Gorillians varied in color from tan to light brown to dark brown, but each had short, thick legs and arms that were long enough to drag across the ground and that were just as thick as their upper legs. Each had short, coarse hair that covered every part of their body. They snorted to each other through upturned noses. None of them realized that Lancelot’s helmet had translation software installed that would let her know exactly what they were saying.

  Through the speaker inside her helmet, the computerized voice turned one of the Gorillian’s grunts into, “Another dumb sucker.”

  Another grunted back, “That armor looks like it could be sold for a good price.”

  “Hello, gentleman,” she said to the six Gorillians. “I’m looking for a pair of Turgdorians. Can you point me in the right direction?”

  Once they were within ten feet of her, the Gorillians moved to her sides and began circling her. All of them, except for the one she assumed to be their leader, thought her question was hilarious and snorted in amusement.

  “No?” Lancelot said. “Haven’t seen any Turgdorians recently?”

  The Gorillians continued to circle her. Their leader was the only one who remained in front of her, assessing her armor and how much he might be able to sell it for.

  A series of snorts was translated into Lancelot’s helmet as, “After we kill it, let’s find whatever ship it arrived on and sell that too.”

  Another of the Gorillians growled a question to the others, to which she answered, “It’s Carthagen armor. If you had ever been near the Cartha sector, you would know that.”

  While she had enjoyed the small advantage of listening to them without them knowing she could understand them, her patience was wearing thin.

  One of the Gorillians pounded his chest with his oversized fists. Another stomped the ground. She guessed these were things that were supposed to intimidate her.

  “I’m hoping you can tell me where I might find a pair of Turgdorians,” she said again.

  The Gorillians growled at her insistence and by the fact that she wasn’t terrified by their displays of might while she was surrounded. The one that had slammed both of his fists against his chest now also barred his fangs. Before he could do anything else, Lancelot reached out with one of her longer, upper arms and grabbed the Gorillian by the throat.

  No human would have a hope of moving a Gorillian. Without the armor she was wearing or a CAB suit equivalent, the alien would have laughed the gesture away before killing her. She guessed each of the beings surrounding her weighed half a ton, all of which was muscle. With the aid of the Carthagen armor, though, things were different. The Gorillian gagged under the force of her grip.

  Lancelot jerked her hand toward the ground, pulling the Gorillian forward and off balance. With the shorter arm on her same side, she punched its neck, then drove her knee up through its sternum. By itself, the force of her punch would have sent the Gorillian stumbling sideways. Combined with the knee and with a push Lancelot gave, the alien stumbled backward without any hope of staying on its feet. It crashed into a series of crates beyond the perimeter of the other Gorillians, where it disappeared under the collapsed stack of crates. The entire attack had taken no longer than a split second.

  The leader growled a set of commands. Before the Gorillians could carry them out, however, Lancelot withdrew both vibro lances and both Meursaults. Two streaks of metal extended from the lance’s handles and ignited with energy. Two streaks of silver vapor formed where the invisible swords cut through the air.

  There were five of them and she only had four weapons. It was the kind of basic math that every criminal and every member of the galactic underworld cared about. Pirates, basic goons such as these Gorillians, only attacked when they outnumbered their target. Realizing this, Lancelot lunged forward, driving one of the lances through the chest of the Gorillian’s leader. Without pause, she withdrew the blade and re-centered it toward another of the criminals. The leader, more muscular than the rest, clutched his chest and grunted in agony, then dropped to the ground.

  “There we go,” Lancelot said. “Now there’s a blade for each of you.”

  Still alive, the leader tried to growl instructions to the rest of his gang but was unable to do so because of the injury and the pain flooding over him. A moment later, he was quiet and motionless on the ground.

  Lancelot scanned the other aliens around her. “It looks like you’ll need a new leader. I suggest you focus on that instead of on me.”

  The remaining four roared and dove for her at the same time. A pair of silver vapors passed through the air to either of her sides. One of the long energized lances pointed in front of her while the other pointed behind her. The Gorillians diving at her from either blindspot were cut clean in half by the Meursaults. The aliens in front of and behind her had their shoulders impaled by her lances, which made them offer a second roar, this one of pain rather than of violence.

  She thought about telling them she would let them go if they agreed to leave in peace. It would have been nothing more than wishful thinking, though. Aliens like these wouldn’t go away for long. Instead, they would find weapons and wait for her to return to the spaceport. Knowing this, she withdrew both lances, adjusted her aim, and then impaled both Gorillians a second and third time, stabbing them with the vibro lance as if it were a ten-foot long knife. Both aliens dropped to the ground and went motionless.

  Dead Gorillians littered the ground in a circle around her. The sound of crates shifting to her side caught her attention. The alien she had first grabbed by the throat was getting back up to his feet. Before he could collect himself, she took two steps toward him and grabbed him by both shoulders. Gorillians were pure strength and weren’t used to being outmuscled. Lancelot’s suit held the alien in place no matter how unhappy the alien sounded and how much it tried to push her away.

  “Stop fighting unless you want to end up like your friends.”

  The Gorillian ceased its growling and looked at the ground behind her. Every bit of fight went out of it and it began to make soft yelping noises that young Gorillians probably made when looking for their moth
ers.

  “You can still get out of here alive,” she told him. “Just tell me where I can find the pair of Turgdorians.”

  The alien’s head rolled left and right as he tried to deal with the loss of his gang. Snot bubbled out of its wide nostrils. He whimpered an answer and Lancelot’s gloved hands released their grip.

  For a split second, the Gorillian seemed to assess whether or not it could tackle Lancelot and use its weight and brute strength to kill her. She didn’t blame it for envisioning this scenario; she would have done the same if she were in its situation. Seeing his dead companions, the notion vanished as fast as it had arrived, and the alien walked away, slouched forward, its knuckles dragging as it walked.

  After it was gone, Lancelot turned and began heading in the direction of the bar where the Turgdorians supposedly hung out.

  7

  With the Excalibur vessel destroyed and its debris obliterated before it could fall on CamaLon, the great vessels that comprised the Round Table fleet landed outside the city limits where there was room to accommodate them all. The fields beyond the capital wall, which, years earlier, had been the sight of one of the most violent ground battles in galactic history, became a parking lot for enormous flagships.

  Dozens of ground transports took the crewmembers from their ships and carried them back to the main CamaLon gate. On board a transport taking personnel from the HC Ballistic Cruiser, Julian, Talbot, and dozens of officers all sat and watched the capital wall grow larger as they approached.

  The Cruiser was the last flagship to land, and so the hundreds of people aboard each of the other vessels were already rejoining their cheering families in the city. By the time Julian and Talbot walked down the ramp of the transport that hovered four feet off the ground, there were thousands of people gathered by CamaLon’s gates and the main city square located just within the towering wall.