As much as Julian wanted to provide an answer, he couldn’t think of anything worthwhile.

  The old man said nothing else, and Julian was left with no option but to continue on his way in silence.

  45

  Cash knew why Hector liked to spend time in the Great Hall when there were no active sessions. Most people wouldn’t want to waste a single extra minute where they worked, especially when all they did was listen to hundreds of other people bicker and disagree on every topic. But Hector had confided that his favorite times in the Great Hall were when it was empty and quiet. In those moments, it was easy to keep believing that the idea Vere had fought for was still possible. That optimism in the face of unanimous dysfunction was one of the many reasons Cash held Hector in such high regard.

  With only the two of them in the Great Hall, Cash walked beside his friend as Hector’s energy disk carried him around the circumference of the table.

  “It’s still possible to get Julian to see our side,” Hector said, staring at the grain within the wooden wedges that formed the table.

  “I’m sorry, Hector, but we have to plan for the contrary. You saw how the last session went. He’s on Octo’s and Winchester’s side.”

  “I know him,” Hector said. “And I know that when he has a chance to consider my offer he’ll understand it makes the most sense.”

  Cash stopped walking. “What offer, Hector?”

  Hector’s energy transport paused in midair, then swiveled so he was facing Cash. It was clear from the tinge of regret on his face that what he was going to say wasn’t going to be something Cash would like to hear.

  “I offered him my seat at the Round Table. The people of Edsall Dark would have to agree to it but—”

  “You what?” Cash yelled, his eyes wide and manic.

  Without thinking he stepped forward and put his hands out. If it were anyone other than Hector saying such a thing Cash would have grabbed hold of their neck and shook the sense back into them. Instead, his hands rested on Hector’s shoulders, one flesh and the other metal and energy. He forced himself to take a pair of measured breathes before he asked Hector why he would do such a thing.

  Again, his friend gave a sad face, his eyes unable to meet Cash’s. “I’m tired. I’m no longer effective here. And I know Julian. You don’t see what he’s capable of but he could be great if you give him a chance.”

  “You’re wrong, Hector. I do know what he’s capable of.” Cash pointed a finger at Hector’s face. “That’s the problem.”

  “What are you two talking about?”

  Cash and Hector turned to see Cimber. The representative was heading toward them.

  “Nothing,” Cash said.

  As soon as Cimber joined them, Hector politely excused himself and the other two men watched him leave.

  “What’s his problem?” Cimber asked.

  Cash sighed. “Nothing. He’s just tired. Like all of us.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  Cash looked across the room to make sure no one else was there, not even any androids or cleaner bots, and that all the doors were closed.

  “We can’t let Julian claim the crown. The galaxy doesn’t remember the people who sit quietly and watch history unfold; it remembers those who shape history. Right now, Julian thinks he’s the one doing the shaping, but if it comes to it, you and I will have to do so ourselves.” And then: “Whether Hector likes it or not.”

  46

  Brigadier Desttro watched the footage of the three Round Table flagships engaging and then being destroyed by the Hannibal Juggernaut. Each time he got to the end of the battle, he reset the three-dimensional hologram, played it from the beginning, and viewed the entire thing from a different perspective. Over and over, the Juggernaut launched a plethora of projectiles that ignited into a new type of portal, a portal that could somehow sustain life without a ship’s tinder walls being lowered and that also didn’t need a ring of three hundred and sixty cylinders to contain its energy. Desttro observed the way that the portals formed a perimeter around each side of the three flagships, effectively trapping them before slicing them apart. The result was the same each time and yet Desttro kept watching the short-lived battle unfold.

  He did this from the comfort of his private quarters aboard his Hellship, the same vessel he had commanded as part of General Reiser’s campaign in the Cartha sector.

  Being on solid ground did not suit him well. Within hours of the ships landing on Edsall Dark, Desttro had requested another deployment. Of the commanding officers who returned from the campaign, he was the only one who wanted to immediately go back out amongst the stars. The others were content to stay on Edsall Dark or go home to whatever planet they were originally from and reunite with their families. Brigadier Desttro wasn’t that type of officer, however. He knew he would never have a family, and the only place he wanted to be was in outer space. Sitting around on Edsall Dark would only drive him stir crazy.

  He understood that the rest of his crew wouldn’t necessarily share his outlook, and he had no expectations that they would also want to go back out to space so soon. Of his own ship’s crew, roughly one-fifth of the nearly six hundred personnel wanted to remain aboard the Hellship.

  “I love serving under you,” his senior comms officer had said, “but I need time with my family.”

  “You don’t have to explain,” Desttro had said. “I understand.”

  He was allowed to ask if any of the crewmembers of the other returning flagships wanted to join him. From the remainder of the personnel who had gone on the Cartha campaign, another two hundred people signed up to go back out to space and get away from the city and from normal life. It was enough of a crew to get the Hellship to the Round Table outpost in the former Vonnegan Empire. There, Desttro got the rest of his personnel.

  It was from that former Vonnegan outpost, near Greater Mazuma, the old commercial center of the Vonnegan Empire, that Brigadier Desttro orbited in space, watching the Juggernaut face the three flagships. It was also where he received an alert that General Reiser was trying to contact him. He pressed a button and a hologram of Julian’s face appeared to the side of Desttro’s desk.

  “Desttro, how are you?”

  There was a delay as the feed transmitted through portals to its destination.

  “Julian, good to see you again.”

  It was the way senior officers spoke to one another after facing death together, the formal nature of rank seeming silly after what they had gone through.

  Julian, in a fashion uncharacteristic for him, remained silent, staring into the comm link until Desttro asked how he could be of service.

  “You saw the battle with the Hannibal?”

  “I did,” Desttro said, not bothering to mention how many times he had watched it.

  “The enemy will be making their way across the rest of the 16-D-10 sector. We expect, based on their course, that their intention is to continue toward Edsall Dark.”

  Both of them knew what that meant. The only thing in between the center of the Round Table and the sector where the Hannibal currently were was the area of the galaxy formerly controlled by Mowbray Vonnegan.

  “I had a feeling of that,” Desttro said.

  “The Round Table has agreed with my assessment that we must confront the enemy as soon as possible.”

  “Yes.”

  “We will send all of the flagships in the Vonnegan sectors to converge on one location.”

  “That makes sense,” Desttro said without emotion.

  “I would like you to lead the fleet. I’ll send you the resources necessary to ensure success. You’ll have twice as many ships at your disposal as I took into the Cartha sector.”

  Desttro’s mind went to work, guessing at the different ship allotments he might receive and the benefits to each. A fleet made up us mainly Athens Destroyers and Flying Fortresses would have vastly different capabilities than one made up of mostly Hellships and HC Ballistic Cruisers.

  “Let me know as soon as you have the exact ship count so I can begin planning,” Desttro said.

  Julian nodded and said, “I’ll have it to you shortly. As soon as the fleet meets at the rendezvous point, you will make your way to the edge of the sector. The Hannibal still have to pass through the rest of the 16-D-10 sector. You’ll meet them in the Thurndorian sector before they get to the planets that used to be part of the Vonnegan Empire.”

  “Of course.”

  Julian’s image disappeared. The moment it did, Desttro went back to re-watching the same battle he had already seen unfold a hundred times.

  47

  Omega-NB was a sparsely populated colony in the middle of the 16-D-10 sector. It was known for mining and not much else. Bots outnumbered people ten to one and did the parts of the mining work that were considered too hazardous for the humans and aliens.

  A MaqMac looked up in the sky when he noticed the sun was going away even though it was the middle of the day and there were no clouds. On Omega-NB, there were never storm clouds, nor any eclipses.

  A nervous squeak escaped from the MaqMac’s little mouth. A giant vessel hovered above the planet. It was the object responsible for blotting out the sun. The MaqMac gave another anxious squeak.

  If it were a flagship of the Round Table, the vessel would have had to be minutes away from landing at Omega-NB’s spaceport to appear that large. But the MaqMac could tell, from having seen thousands of cargo frigates approaching the mining facilities, that this vessel was still out in space. The fact that it was so far away, and yet able to cause an eclipse, made every other creature take note of the vessel as well. Nervous calls echoed from each corner of the mining facility.

  The MaqMac beeped a series of concerned noises to his nearby associates, each of whom were covered in layers of dust. All of their bulbous black eyes widened and most of them yelled and ran for safety, not knowing why the enormous ship was there.

  The vessel, which no one on Omega-NB knew was being referred to as the Juggernaut, didn’t fire a single blast. Instead, four mechs launched from its open bays and descended toward the planet’s surface. With so few living creatures amongst the masses of bots and cranes and trenchers, it would have been impractical for the white mech to search through each of the mines for aliens so it could fire ion arrows. The same went for the reddish brown mech and its giant ion sword. These two remained fifty feet off the ground, atop the hover platforms that carried them wherever they needed to go.

  Only the black and matte grey mechs went all the way down to the colony’s surface. They landed on opposite sides of the mines. The black mech held out the hand that gripped his scale. The cylinders resting on either side of the device clicked open. From one cylinder, gas seeped out. From the other, boiling black liquid bubbled. As soon as the gas drifted far enough to contact the bubbles, a chemical reaction was triggered. The gas and the bubbles fed off each other, generating more energy than either could produce separately. A cloud formed around the dark mech and began to disperse in all directions.

  The thick charcoal colored cloud swelled and swirled as if a thunder storm were inside it. As long as the mech held the scale out, the cloud expanded until it finally reached the closest buildings and machines.

  A MaqMac that was hiding under a trencher held his hand over his mouth and nose but it didn’t matter. As soon as the black cloud wafted under the piece of mining equipment, the MaqMac gave a strangled breath, gagged, then went still. The black cloud swirled and washed over another building, then another. Before long, half the colony was covered and every living thing, even the aliens with breathing masks on, were suffering the same fate as the first MaqMac.

  On the other side of the colony, the gray mech held out his scythe. The hover transport that the mech stood upon began to rotate in circles. Slowly at first, then faster and faster. Revolution after revolution, the transport picked up speed until the mech was a blur. Sickly green and yellow emanations began to stream from where the scythe was cutting circles through the air. Jagged streaks of lightning shot out in every direction. Some bolts were the color of rotting flesh, others the color of a dying sun. After one bolt struck a trencher, the machine’s metal began to rust and crumble away as if it experienced a thousand years of exposure in a matter of seconds. When another flash hit a group of MaqMacs hiding under the dilapidated trencher, each of them uttered cries of agony as their skin rotted away from their faces and hands.

  The two mechs dispersed their brands of death across the landscape until every bit of life was extinguished. Once nothing was moving or breathing, their hover disks lifted them back off the ground where they rejoined the other two mechs, and then all four turned and went back to the Juggernaut’s hangars.

  48

  Lancelot, still flying Thrice Won’s Ronan, followed J’s transport all the way across the St. Jebastian sector to the edge of the Folliet sector. She made a point to keep as far away from the craft as possible while still ensuring the Ronan could track the android’s course. The move was Lancelot’s only hope of not alerting the android that someone was following it. No matter how far away she stayed from the other ship, however, she knew Arc-Mi-Die’s assistant must be getting suspicious. After all, an unidentified vessel just happened to be on the exact same course and speed for millions of miles, passing one portal and dozens of moons, planets, and colonies.

  Part of Lancelot kept waiting for J to respond in one fashion or another. Her hands lingered by the Ronan’s controls in case the android launched an array of cosmic mines or changed course to elude the vessel following it. Another part of Lancelot expected the android to call for assistance and for dozens of Arc-Mi-Die’s goons to arrive in a motley crew of fighters and attack vessels. Neither happened, though. Instead, J kept flying through the St. Jebastian sector without changing course.

  Eventually, the Type B Strain transport passed by Folliet-Dark and its surface full of active volcanoes, each emitting a thick plume of smoke that blocked any visibility of the planet’s surface. Ten minutes later, the Ronan passed by the same spot. As it did, the transport was already passing by the next celestial body, Folliet-Old, a planet whose entire surface was formed of the same type of rock found in a nearby asteroid field. That fact led scientists to believe Folliet-Old was the first planet in the sector and might have been billions of years older than anything else nearby. A few minutes later, the Ronan passed the same ancient planet.

  Finally, the transport reached Folliet-Bright and its combination of sparkling deserts and clear blue water. Instead of passing the planet, Lancelot watched in her ship’s display as J set a course to land on one of the nearby space docks. Rather than do the exact same thing, Lancelot slowed the Ronan slightly but allowed it to continue past the planet. She did this for half an hour to try and reassure J, who had surely taken note of the other vessel trailing behind him, that the shared course had indeed been a coincidence. After twenty minutes, Lancelot jammed the controls sideways and set a course for the Ronan to race back toward Folliet-Bright as fast as it could go.

  As she approached the planet, Lancelot had no way of knowing which of the five spaceports J would have landed at. The best guess she could make was based on the information the ship’s navigation tracker had provided. It showed that J’s transport had been headed on a course between two of the less popular districts. Lancelot headed in that general direction, ignoring the other three landing pads.

  “I have a feeling it’s that one,” the cloaked woman said from behind her. Lancelot turned to see where the woman was pointing, saw it was the colony at the far right corner of the main colony, and adjusted the flight path.

  Lancelot hadn’t even known the woman was there. Instead of questioning the comment, she nodded and went toward the same spaceport. She was going to say thanks but had a suspicion the visitor had already vanished again.

  The colony on Folliet-Bright was the same as many other stops on Lancelot’s quest to find Arc-Mi-Die, which was to say it was filled with the dregs of society. In a corner of the spaceport, a human man begged a pair of muscular, sand-colored aliens to leave him alone, telling them that he would pay them as soon as he had the money they were owed.

  “Excuse me,” a winged Trydactl said. It was only three feet tall but it flew off the ground at an elevation so it could be face-level with Lancelot’s clouded visor.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m not trying to scam you or trick you, I swear.”

  “Okay.”

  “I just wanted to let you know your ship won’t be here when you get back. No ship will be at this spaceport for long unless you hire some sort of protection to watch over it.”

  She could tell from the Trydactl’s tone and from its body language that it was telling the truth. She also guessed, from the way it was already beginning to drift away, that it wasn’t looking for the job of protecting her ship, was just trying to be friendly.

  “I appreciate the tip,” Lancelot said. “But I don’t need the vessel anymore.” With one of her upper arms she withdrew a small finger-sized device from a pocket and held it out to the alien. “This will unlock it for you.”

  The Trydactl’s head cocked to one side. “I don’t understand. I’m not trying to take advantage of you.”

  “I know,” Lancelot said. “And I appreciate it. Take the ship. I don’t need it anymore.”

  “But what would I do with it?”

  “You could fly it to Crantive-8. There’s a pilot there who would probably pay a fortune to get it back.”

  Without waiting for a response, Lancelot turned and made her way to where the spaceport ended and the main part of the colony began. Aliens of all shapes and sizes made their way down the streets. Some weren’t tall enough to come up to Lancelot’s knees. Others were twice the height of her Carthagen armor. Some had smooth skin and others had exoskeletons or scales or feathers. A human woman, old and fat, lay in the middle of the street with an empty bottle in her hand. Most people walked around her but every once in a while someone wouldn’t be paying attention and would accidently kick or stumble over her. Lancelot ignored all of this and walked toward the main streets.