“I followed General Reiser for the rest of the day.”

  “And?”

  “And he met with a handful of representatives, a few more high-ranking officers, and a former ruler.”

  “Which one?”

  “Kaiser Doom.”

  Hector shook his head and groaned. “I didn’t even know Doom was on Edsall Dark.” Looking up at the stars, he asked what the two had talked about.

  “My sensors couldn’t pick up the audio. There was some kind of interference. The same thing happened when he met with Octo, Winchester, and one of the other representatives. I was able to hear bits of what he said to the others.”

  Hector closed his eyes for a moment.

  “And?”

  “To a general, Reiser spoke of another Round Table campaign that would take place after Arc-Mi-Die and the Hannibal were defeated. He spoke of sending ships to each corner of the galaxy to spread the message of the Round Table. To Representative Nil-Bak, he suggested—”

  “Enough,” Hector said, digging his index finger and thumb into his eyes to dull the pain that was forming in the back of his head. “I’ve heard enough.”

  “Anything else?” Pistol asked, not offended at being cut off from describing a day’s worth of work.

  “Do the same thing tomorrow, thank you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And with that, Pistol turned and left Hector to be alone in his backyard. As soon as he was by himself, Hector couldn’t help but wonder once more if it was too late. No matter what he did, whether he listened to Cash and Cimber or if he allowed the swell gathering around Julian to play out, things felt as if they were already out of his control.

  81

  It was an understatement to say that Arc-Mi-Die was excited to receive an update from M. Having given his new helper android free reign to select the location of the next Excalibur ship’s detonation, both of his ghoulish mouths broke into uncontained smiles at all the possibilities. Maybe a former kingdom’s capital. Maybe a hub of galactic trade. Of course, without any guidelines of appropriate targets other than a record of which planets and colonies had already been attacked, it was also possible that M would select a completely inappropriate target. Arc-Mi-Die imagined a waning city, depleted of its population, nothing of value to destroy. Or perhaps a colony that was completely empty and abandoned. In an odd way, even this scenario pleased the warlord. After all, if he was willing to destroy a barren colony for no apparent reason it would prove to everyone living under the Round Table’s banner that they were dealing with someone who not only ignored life and law, but who was a true lunatic.

  A control panel near him lit up, indicating that M was proceeding through each layer of security on its way to being allowed access to the final door where the Woghort guards stood in protection of the warlord. Arc-Mi-Die tapped his fingers against his chest, eager to hear which part of the galaxy would now owe their misery to him.

  The door to his chamber beeped. He signaled for the Woghorts to allow M entry, then watched as the metal barrier slid aside. One of the guards patted M down while the other stood in between the android and their boss. When the final layer of inspection and safety had concluded, both guards snorted and M made its way to the edge of the protective containment barrier surrounding Arc-Mi-Die. There, it gave a slight bow, as directed by the Subservient setting in its programming.

  “How did it go?”

  A dot of light circled M’s eyes as the android prepared its report. “An Excalibur Armada vessel successfully destroyed a colony on the moon, Terosh-48.”

  “Terosh-48?” Arc-Mi-Die shrugged, trying to think if he had ever heard of it before. “And that is where?”

  “In the Kerchin Sector, master. The area of space formerly possessed by Gerchin the Suspicious.”

  “Ah, yes. And? Don’t keep me waiting.”

  When it spoke, M’s face was perfectly still except for its mouth and jaw. Its eyebrows and nose didn’t move at all the way a human’s or alien’s would.

  “The colony of Terosh-48-Major was selected and was completely destroyed. It was the largest colony on the moon, with a population of one point two million life forms. It was also a center of mineral exploration. All industrial operations were also destroyed.”

  “Is that all?” Arc-Mi-Die said, both sets of teeth on display, his hands curling into fists.

  M’s eyes lit up a second time as the android tried to assess what part of the news had been unsatisfactory. The Woghort guards turned to face the new assistant so they would be ready if Arc-Mi-Die ordered them to drag it away and have it tortured.

  Arc-Mi-Die burst into laughter. “I’m just kidding. You did great.”

  M’s eyes stopped glowing. The Woghort guards turned back to face the entrance door again.

  “I don’t expect there has been any news of the Round Table’s reaction to this latest attack, has there?”

  “No, master.”

  Arc-Mi-Die chuckled and shook his head. “Those fools are going to have their precious Round Table drop out from underneath them and they don’t even realize it.”

  82

  On the opposite side of the Thurndorian sector from where Brigadier Desttro was amassing the Round Table forces, the Juggernaut made its way further through space. It eventually came upon Cerrus-Surres. Like Edsall Dark, the planet was awash with white clouds overtop green land and blue waters. Also like Edsall Dark, it was a place with varying terrains where all forms of aliens came together to live in relative peace. It was said that Cerrus-Surres had only become such a varied and beautiful landscape after being completely annihilated by a meteor tens of millions of years earlier. All life had been wiped away. But slowly, over time, it had returned to support even more dazzling spectacles than it had before. Life had given way to death which had given way to rebirth. It was one of the oldest stories the galaxy had to tell.

  Like everyone in the 16-D-10 sector, inhabitants throughout the Thurndorian sector had been told to evacuate for their own safety. As a result, the capital of Cerrus-Surres was almost empty, as were the many other cities spread out across the planet. Like those before them, many of the people who still remained were the ones who couldn’t find or afford a spot on one of the transports. There were also small communities, away from the cities, that stayed because of their religious beliefs. These people believed the Hannibal were sent by some divine power. They also believed, because they considered themselves to be righteous, that they would be saved when the Hannibal pronounced their judgment upon the rest of the planet. Elsewhere, inside the cities, there were hundreds of people who had been locked away in jails and who weren’t given a chance to take up valuable space on the departing vessels.

  Everyone else was gone.

  When the Juggernaut arrived, it remained in orbit above the planet. As it had done with the other places along its path, it instead raised four hangars and allowed the mechs to descend to the planet surface. This time, however, along with the mechs were hundreds of tiny projectiles that rocketed toward the surface along with the four metal demons.

  The grey mech angled toward a field where a shepherd was watching his herd of shrep graze. The force of the mech’s hover platform scared the animals, sending them further across the plains. Rather than give chase, the shepherd, a Trungdorian with leathery skin, a man who had lived his entire life on Cerrus-Surres, simply looked up at the behemoth hovering over him. Without a word spoken between them, the mech brought his scythe down and cut the shepherd in half.

  Ignoring the simple-minded animals, the mech then faced one of the many canisters that had fallen to the planet. The projectile ignited into light, forming a circle of energy twice as large as the mech. The machine moved forward, into the energy, and disappeared. It reappeared a split second later, on the other side of the planet, from the energy provided by another of the projectiles. This time, it hovered in the middle of a city, looking for other signs of intelligent life.

  On another part of the planet, the white mech hovered above a town square. Its internal sensors scanned for dwellings with people hiding inside. The mech ignored one building, a two-story stone structure that it had found to be empty. Facing the next dwelling, it pulled back the string of its ion bow and sent an arrow of energy through a wall on the third story. An old couple, married fifty years, were struck as they hid under their bed, seemingly out of sight of the invaders.

  Occasionally, as the mech made its way through the streets, one of the ion arrows would ignite a fire and flames would creep across the floors and walls until entire buildings were engulfed, then entire streets. Men and women of various alien species that had been hiding in bunkers and hidden rooms were forced from their homes and went screaming into the streets where they were struck by ion arrows.

  After eliminating every sign of life in the town, the white mech turned to face one of the canisters that had been sent down from the Juggernaut. The capsule burst into a circle of energy that the mech passed through, only to appear from a portal elsewhere on the planet.

  All four mechs performed searches on every corner of Cerrus-Surres, their work made quicker by the ability to teleport from one place to another. The prisoners in the jail were killed. The men and women in the streets were struck down. So were the zealots in the forest who sang about being spared during the judgment. Small animals and simple wildlife was spared. All advanced life was wiped away, regardless of how well it tried to hide or whether it offered prayers.

  83

  Brigadier Desttro looked at the latest map of the sector. Intelligence updates showed that the Hannibal were half way across the Thurndorian sector and would be upon his ships in less than three hours.

  In a group session, he had run through a series of attack plans with the commanding officers from each of the other flagships. Each tactic he reviewed was based on possible formations they might use and the types of weapons they could deploy. He stressed that their plan of attack would be based on reacting to what the Juggernaut did and what it didn’t do. The three flagships destroyed in the Cartha sector had gone into battle without consideration to the foe they were facing.

  “We will not make the same mistake,” he told the room.

  Instead, basic signals would be relayed to each ship, telling them when to keep their distance, when to utilize their squadrons of space fighters, when each flagship’s unique arsenal should be unleashed, and even when one portion of the fleet might need to stop attacking altogether and retreat to a safer distance.

  He ran through a holographic mock battle while the officers listened and watched. The first simulation was based on how the Hannibal had approached the three flagships. The only difference was that instead of facing a pair of Athens Destroyers and a Solar Carrier, Desttro’s entire fleet was there.

  Once the first simulated battle was over, he had the computer reset to show the Juggernaut engaging in alternate strategies and told the officers gathered in the room how he wished for the Round Table fleet to react in each varying scenario. He wasn’t one for micro-managing a battle. Instead, he offered the general guidance of how the attack might unfold and the overall strategies he would want employed. Each commanding officer was responsible for the specifics of what their crew did and how they did it.

  The last thing he told them was, “You all know just as well as I do that we’re dealing with an enemy we know little about. The primary goal is not to destroy them but to show them they will not get by us. We want to turn them away peacefully if we can. But if we can’t, we will not let them get closer to the next Round Table colonies.”

  He scanned the group of faces, some young and surely ambitious and competent if they were commanding a flagship at such an age. Others had grey hair, wrinkles, and decades of experience.

  He told them it could very well turn into a battle that lasted a day or an entire week, but that in the end he wanted the Juggernaut repelled and he wanted everyone to get back to their families.

  The lights came on in the room, making the holographic Juggernaut and flagships harder to see. The meeting done, the commanding officers stood and went back to their own vessels. There, they would no doubt hold meetings with their essential crews to instruct them on everything they had just been told.

  In the hours in between Desttro’s final instructions and the appearance of the behemoth, each ship’s crew ran through drills of how to react to each possible scenario. By the time the Hannibal arrived, all personnel would be as ready as they possibly could be to take on the Juggernaut.

  84

  Durect-Duher was in a state of shock that led to denial. He fully realized that he and his son were alive, as was his neighbor. From what he could see and from the news that his neighbor brought him, it was confirmed that every other colony on 16-Tuero was gone. He knew these things, yet he didn’t really believe them. He and his boy had been visited by the Hannibal and their four mechs and somehow they were still alive. Looking across the landscape at the smoke that engulfed the other visible containment fields on the horizon, it made no sense.

  He and his son wandered the streets of 16-Tuero-6, not understanding why they were still alive. He had no compass of where he should go and no reason why he was still putting one foot in front of the other. Every once in a while his son would complain and Durect-Duher would realize he was squeezing the little hand too hard and relax his grip. Minutes later, he would be doing it again.

  As he walked, his son talked nonstop. Durect-Duher didn’t reply to anything that was said, didn’t even know what his son was saying. He was in a haze of incomprehension that blocked out much else.

  All he could think about was seeing the mech, yelling at it, and having it move past him. Hundreds of times, he replayed exactly what had happened. The Hannibal had arrived. Their four mechs had descended upon the colonies of 16-Tuero, the same way they had stopped at every other planet and outpost of civilization. Yet, instead of destroying every sign of life on 16-Tuero-6, the way they had at everywhere else, they had left without killing the farmer, his son, or his neighbor.

  As his feet retraced the familiar streets of 16-Tuero-6, his senses gradually came back. The reddish-brown mech, looking as if it were stained with a combination of rust and blood, had hovered above him with its enormous ion sword. He had screamed at it with the torn and burned remnants of a Round Table banner in his fist. Instead of striking him down, the three-story tall mech had gone back to the Juggernaut.

  At first he didn’t understand how he had been so lucky. He kept muttering thanks to the galaxy. He believed once more, as he had when he was a small child, that miracles were possible. Just as fast, he remembered the dead who were scattered across every other colony on the planet and his stomach churned. His legs buckled and he cursed himself for cheering for his own life when so many others hadn’t been as fortunate.

  Slowly, as he walked back toward his home, Durect-Duher came to realize life would continue. Not just in the grand sense that he would grow old and get to see his son mature into an adult, but in the immediate. In their kitchen, he made a snack for himself and his boy. His son went to sleep for his afternoon nap. There would be a next day and a day after that.

  A barrage of questions flooded him. When would people start to return to the colony? Would they ever come back? After all, if they did return they would have to see the faces of the three people they had left for dead and the corpses of those who had died. The shame might be too great. What would happen to all the colonies on 16-Tuero that were little more than ghost towns? Who would go about removing the dead? What would happen to the homes and schools and offices that had been there? Would they be resettled or would people choose to live elsewhere, some place that hadn’t been the site of mass killings?

  The torn remnants of a Round Table banner blew against the window, temporarily reminding him of the symbols he had destroyed before being blown further down the street. A flood of realizations washed over him. He wasn’t alive because he was lucky. He was alive for the very reason that he had shown the giant mech the remains of the tattered Round Table banner. The giant machine had seen the contempt he had for the symbol and it had left him alone. It was the only possible explanation. In that moment, he understood that if he was alive because of that, others could be as well if they did the same thing.

  He ran down the street and banged on his neighbor’s door. “My son’s sleeping. Can you keep an eye on him for a little bit?”

  His neighbor was an old Vonnegan man with wrinkly purple skin. “Sure. What’s going on?”

  Durect-Duher was already running further down the road. “I need to let the rest of the Round Table know about the mechs,” he yelled over his shoulder as he raced to find a building that would have a communication system capable of reaching other sectors.

  By sparing him, the mech had unwittingly reminded the farmer of how precious life was. He had already understood that because of how fickle his crops were but it was an easy lesson to forget. After all, his livelihood was tied to whether seeds sprouted—what better reminder was there of how important all life forms were? What he had forgotten, what the leaders of the Round Table had surely also forgotten, was that decisions were tied to life and death. Choices were made. In each, paths between living and dying were navigated.

  At the colony’s administration building, he tried the doorknob and found it locked. Rather than worry about niceties, he kicked the door down. The first room contained stacks of boxes and supplies. Another room had a table and chairs. Toward the back of the building, he found what he was looking for.

  He made sure the communication console was plugged in, then looked for the power button. A whisper in the back of his head told him there was no way a simple farmer would understand how to work a cross-galactic communication system. This voice, he knew, was to be ignored if he wanted to save anyone else. And anyway, the holographic displays that formed in front of him told him exactly what he needed to do based on his intended goal. After swiping his hand through the air to select the options he wanted, the hologram changed colors and showed a voice wave that spiked to show audio was being recorded.