Her options were limited. Outside of Folliet-Bright, the only people she knew were the same shady characters she had run across during her search. Most of them wouldn’t be friendly if she saw them again. There was only one place she could go and she knew it.

  Traskk had said something but she hadn’t paid any attention. The floating hologram of his words began to disappear as she looked back up at him.

  I’m happy to go wherever you want.

  The sight of the words made her shoulders sink. The Basilisk was staring at her with the tip of his tongue flicking up and down in what she guessed was a reptilian smile. There was something universal about happiness, about the affect that being wanted and needed did to someone. She saw in Traskk’s eyes the disappointment she was bound to cause.

  “I wish I could,” she said. Already, Traskk began to offer a hiss of complaint. “But where I’m going, I have to go alone. I’m sorry.”

  A sad gurgle escaped the Basilisk’s throat. He reached out and took hold of her wrist with one of his clawed hands. If anyone else did the same thing, they wouldn’t have known their hand had been chopped off until the Meursault’s vapor lingered in the air in front of them. With Vere’s old friend, however, a reptile she herself had immediately become fond of, she touched Traskk’s hand with one of her own.

  “This is a journey I have to complete on my own. But I promise you that you’ll see me again.”

  The words made the Basilisk’s eyes widen with hope. His tail tapped happily against the floor.

  The last piece of armor she affixed was the tinted visor of her helmet. When she put her helmet on the next time, every part of her face was hidden behind reinforced black glass.

  After everything else was done, three of her four arms were mostly grey, along with her chest plate and her front two legs. Her forth arm and her hind legs were bronze. Her helmet was a combination of the two colors, along with some gold. For all she cared the armor could be yellow or orange. As long as it functioned the way it had, as long as it allowed her to fight the way she was accustomed, she didn’t care what color her armor was.

  She stood and began to put her helmet back on. Before she could, a pair of reptilian arms engulfed her and squeezed. Startled, not having been hugged since her father was alive twenty years earlier, it took her a moment to realize what was happening. A moment later she put all four arms around him and returned the gesture.

  He let her go and hissed a question. Is everything you said about Vere true?

  “Yes.”

  Even the part about her visiting me in my dreams?

  “Especially that.”

  Pleased, his tongue flickered again.

  With her Meursaults and vibro lances in their sheathes, she scooped up J’s head and put it into a satchel, then moved toward the Griffin Fire’s ramp.

  “I’ll see you again,” she said at the ship’s edge. “Thank you for all your help.” She took a step down the ramp before pausing and turning. “And Traskk? There’s nothing to be sad about. In her own way, Vere is still with you. You don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be.”

  Without waiting for a response, she turned and continued down the ramp.

  It took a while to walk amongst the other hangars before she found the shuttle that J had arrived in. When she did find it, it was surrounded by a group of four mercenaries. Two were human and two were Watchneens. Next to them, a group of combat bots hovered five feet off the ground. It was safe to assume that these were the people J had hired to protect his ship while the android was away.

  “You,” one of the humans said as Lancelot approached. “You know where the android is that left this ship? It only paid for one day. We need more or we’re gonna steal it ourselves.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Lancelot said, still walking across the platform toward them.

  The blasters attached to each combat bot clicked into place and swiveled to target her.

  “Oh yeah, why’s that?” the leader said.

  “Because I’m taking it.”

  All four mercenaries laughed. “You are?”

  But even as they chuckled and enjoyed the joke, she stepped forward faster than they could retreat. All eight combat bots fired, hitting her shoulders and sides. Jumping to her right, she ignited both vibro lances. The weapons tore straight through the bots, turning them to scrap.

  The two humans and their two Watchneen accomplices pulled out blasters of their own. Her new armor didn’t have the same blast-proof coating as the original Carthagen plating. Depending on where the laser blasts hit her—new armor or old—the blasts either deflected away or were absorbed.

  The result was the same, though. The last thing any of the mercenaries saw was a pair of slashes arcing through the air.

  Lancelot continued past the motionless bodies, withdrew J’s head from the satchel, and held it so its eyes faced a scanner positioned next to the ramp door. A click sounded and the ramp lowered. She was on her way.

  Reconstructed Carthagen Helmet, Jason Pennock, pencil

  70

  The Juggernaut came upon 16-Tuero after everyone who had a way to leave the planet had already evacuated. Durect-Duher was one of the few people left on the colony of 16-Tuero-6. One of the only other people in the same pocket of civilization was his son, who still didn’t understand anything bad was happening. Durect-Duher didn’t want the boy’s last hours to be filled with fear. Better for the child to walk through the streets with his father, oblivious of the approaching death.

  In the little bit of time he had left, the farmer made it his mission to go through the streets of 16-Tuero-6 and tear down every banner containing the Round Table insignia. If they were going to abandon he and his son, Durect-Duher wasn’t going to let any sign of their supposed protection remain where he lived. The Round Table’s promises meant nothing to him; they were hollow words belonging to officers who got scared at the first indication of trouble.

  Sometimes Durect-Duher walked around with his boy sitting atop his shoulders so they could reach one of the banners that was supposed to be out of arm’s reach. Other times the father and son would order a nearby helper bot to remove a Round Table banner from the exterior of a second or third story structure. The two would laugh while the bot’s programming worked to figure out a way to accomplish the task. They walked all of the streets they called home, and it was a nice way for Durect-Duher to spend his final day with his boy.

  In the evening, a ship appeared directly over top them. He knew it must be the Juggernaut because even from the edge of 16-Tuero’s atmosphere, it resembled a moon rather than a space vessel. A disc-shaped shadow cast down over the entire colony.

  Durect-Duher squeezed his son’s hand. “Time to go home.”

  “Yes, dada.”

  16-Tuero-6 was a small colony. By the time the farmer got his first glimpse of the four mechs descending toward the planet, he and his son were already back to their house.

  “Go play in your room. I’ll be right there.”

  Without complaint, his son did as he was told.

  Durect-Duher watched as, still miles above the planet’s surface, the four mechs split apart from one another, each heading toward a different colony. None of them started toward 16-Tuero-6 on their initial approach. That would come later. Two of the other nearby colonies, 16-Tuero-3 and 16-Tuero-9, were close enough that he could see the fogged containment field providing a barrier against the planet’s natural, toxic environment. As he watched, 16-Tuero-3 began to fill with black gas, and Durect-Duher knew the few people still living there were in the process of being killed. He didn’t see a similar type of gas spreading through the other nearby containment field, but he wasn’t naïve enough to think that colony was being spared. More likely, the people who had remained behind were simply dying in a different method.

  A minute later, the black mech rose from the colony it had been at and hovered toward a colony further off in the distance. Another mech, the color of a dirty white undershirt, finished extinguishing life in what Durect-Duher assumed was 16-Tuero-1 and moved atop its hover platform toward 16-Tuero-5, directly next to the colony where Durect-Duher and his boy called home.

  Through the wall, he could hear his son playing a game by himself. Such innocence. Part of Durect-Duher was glad his child would never have to see the darker side of the galaxy—people abandoning their neighbors, pirates taking advantage of anyone they could find. The boy had managed to live a life free of treachery, deceit, even disappointment.

  “Dada, you coming?” the young voice called.

  “I’ll be right there,” he said, still watching from the window.

  Another mech was approaching from one of the distant colonies on the planet. It faced 16-Tuero-6 and Durect-Duher knew his time was up.

  “Dada?”

  “I know. I’ll be right there. Just give me a minute.”

  The mech, he saw, was a reddish brown, the color of farm equipment that had been left out in the rain too long. The approaching monster was taller than a two-story building. The platform it travelled on hovered ten feet off the ground, which made the mech appear even larger than it was. It had an ion sword in its hands. The blade was at least five times longer than Durect-Duher was tall.

  This was the thing that was going to wipe out all remaining life where he lived. This was the thing that was going to take his son’s life.

  Anger welled up inside him. It wasn’t fair. Death was here because a general, sent by the Round Table, had invaded a sector in some far-off region of the galaxy. Durect-Duher cared nothing about any of that. All he cared about was his land and his crops, and, most especially, his son.

  Before he knew what he was doing, he opened his front door and walked outside. The mech was one street away, hovering above the homes, scanning for life.

  Durect-Duher saw the ripped and burned remnants of a Round Table banner on the ground. He picked it up and shook the crumbled cloth in the mech’s direction.

  “Is this why you’re here?” he yelled. “Because of this stupid thing?” He spit on the remains of the blue, red, and yellow cogs, then tossed it on the ground and stomped on it.

  The mech swiveled on its hover platform, then moved toward the farmer. As it travelled, it kept its ion sword perfectly upright, perfectly inline so it ran across the middle of its helmet, one robotic eye on either side of the blade.

  Durect-Duher put his boot on the Round Table banner and dug his heal into the ground. “You’re stupid,” he yelled. “You’re wasting your time on the wrong people.”

  Directly in front of him, the mech seemed impossibly large. The gusts coming off the bottom of the hover platform kicked up dust from the street. Durect-Duher squinted to keep site of the monstrosity in front of him. Its ion sword was large enough to destroy an entire home with one blow.

  The mech didn’t speak. It didn’t announce who it was or why it was there. It merely scanned the torn and destroyed Round Table banner with a thin yellow laser, its metal eyes rotating and taking in its surroundings as it did so.

  “Just get it over with already,” the farmer yelled, stomping the banner again.

  But the mech didn’t bring its long blade down on him. It didn’t cause any destruction at all. It simply continued past Durect-Duher until it got to the end of the street. There, it rose toward the sky on its way back to the Juggernaut.

  “I don’t understand,” Durect-Duher mumbled.

  In the distance, he could see the remains of another colony. This one, instead of being blanketed in black gas, was engulfed in flames that were trapped by the colony’s containment field. Everything inside the colony’s artificial atmosphere would be burned alive. Only his colony was left untouched.

  “I don’t understand,” he said again.

  “Dada?”

  He turned and saw his son at the door of their house.

  “I’m coming,” he said, still watching the mech fade into the sky as it went back up into space.

  71

  Talbot had no specific place he needed to be and no particular time he needed to be there. Since returning to CamaLon, his life consisted of walking through the streets, talking with his mother, staring up at the sky, and otherwise allowing the days to pass in peace and quiet. If Julian weren’t so busy he would tell Talbot that he needed to find some sense of direction. It was that need to do something, however, that had gotten Talbot to join the academy in the first place. It had also gotten him assigned to Julian’s campaign in his first tour of duty. If not having a sense of direction prevented him from doing things he didn’t actually want any part of then he was fine with wandering aimlessly.

  He was halfway between the historic area of CamaLon and the street where vendors sold their produce and trinkets when he felt a hand tap his shoulder. He turned to see Octo.

  “Have a minute?” the representative said with a smile.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Octo laughed. “I feel old enough already. I don’t need men half my age calling me sir.”

  Julian’s associate motioned for the two of them to continue walking. Once they were away from the noise of the market, he asked Talbot how everything was going.

  “Fine. Why, what did my father say?”

  A scenario played in Talbot’s mind where Julian was desperate to find someone willing to give his son a job. The last thing he wanted was to work in some stuffy Round Table representative’s office, reviewing official documents all day.

  Octo cocked his head sideways, confused then, deciding he wanted no part of whatever was going on between father and son, simply laughed.

  “I was just curious to see how you were getting along after everything that happened in the Cartha sector. Terrible business that happened there.”

  “I’m fine,” Talbot said, trying to offer his own smile but too confused by Octo’s appearance for it to be convincing.

  “What are you doing these days?”

  Again, Talbot suspected he was being set up to take a job he didn’t want or deserve. “Just enjoying the quiet of being home.”

  Octo patted him on the back and chuckled as if Talbot had told a joke. “That’s grand. It really is. I’m glad to hear that.”

  They turned a corner, began to head back toward the market. They passed an Olgonquan selling ten different varieties of fruit grown in the fields outside the capital wall. The alien had dull red skin that was perfectly smooth.

  “I wish I could spend my days walking the streets too,” Octo said. “I really do. Problem is, there’s just so much stuff going on with the Round Table.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Your father is incredibly busy as well.”

  “Oh?” Even Talbot realized he didn’t sound interested.

  “Very busy. Which brings me to why I wanted to speak with you.”

  “Sir—Octo—I’m sorry, I’m not looking for any kind of job. I’m not sure what my father said but—”

  “Job?” Octo stopped walking, his eyebrows arced in confusion.

  That was the moment Talbot realized he had drastically miscalculated the situation.

  “No, no,” Octo said. “I wanted to see what you thought of everything the people are saying about your father.”

  “What are they saying about him?” Talbot knew he sounded stupid asking such a question.

  Rather than being taken aback, Octo merely laughed again. “Why, they’re saying he’s the one person who can get the Round Table working the way it should. They’re saying the man who has the Sword in the Stone should take his rightful spot as leader of the Round Table.”

  “But my father didn’t find the sword. You did, or your bots did, and you gave it to him.”

  Octo shook his head and smiled. “A small triviality. And not one that’s important. What is important is that everyone sees the support Julian has.”

  “Support?”

  Octo brought his fist up and gave Talbot a friendly nudge on his shoulder. “Of course. And I’m sure he would want his son there by his side when he’s crowned. It would look so much better for the people if they saw you there by his side.”

  Talbot squinted as he tried to make sense of what he was being told. If the people had seen father and son clinging to the edge of an asteroid they would surely reconsider putting all of their faith in someone who had been of the precipice of death. But beyond that, Talbot didn’t understand why it would matter if he stood next to his father or not. What difference could that possibly make in the grand scheme of things?

  When Talbot didn’t say anything, Octo gave a smile that contained the beginnings of impatience. “So, can your father count on you to be supportive?”

  “I guess so,” Talbot said, still not sure exactly what he was agreeing to.

  “Good man,” Octo said. “Well, that’s all I wanted to discuss. Have a wonderful day.”

  As Talbot stood in place, still wondering what they had been discussing, Octo walked away.

  72

  As Hector’s assistant, Pistol had access to the corridors of the Great Hall. He did not, however, have permission to enter the offices of specific representatives unless their doors were open. This was a problem because the door to the room that Winchester and Octo had found for Julian to use was almost always shut. The best Pistol could do in monitoring Julian’s activity was to remain in the hallway and catalogue everyone who went in to speak with General Reiser.

  At the end of the day, he watched Julian appear in the doorway, talk for a minute to two representatives in the hall, then depart for his house. Pistol followed at a distance of more than a hundred feet so Julian wouldn’t realize he was being trailed. After General Reiser got back to his house, Pistol turned and walked back to Hector’s residence. Once there, Portia was the one to open the door.