Lancelot (Space Lore IV)

Lancelot

Space Lore IV

Chris Dietzel

1

The brilliant white ring of energy floated in space, contained within a loop of three hundred and sixty massive interconnected cylinders. From a distance, each cylinder in the galactic portal appeared to be the size of a small Llyushin fighter, but anyone who approached closer for the first time inevitably gasped at their enormous scale. They were larger than a starjet. Much larger. Each was comparable to a King-class frigate.

The blaze of energy inside resembled a flat sun, with a metal frame around it. Its immensity caused some children on field trips to cry the first time they saw one close up, even if they had seen holographic versions in classrooms. It was easy to imagine drowning in the ocean of energy that stretched for miles and miles, an abyss of light. Many farmers and day workers refused to believe an object could actually be that large until they left their home worlds and got a chance to ride out into space and see one for themselves. For these people, the colossal starships that lifted off from landing pads on their way back out into space had to be the largest things ever made by human or alien hands. It seemed absurd that a Class-3 Frigate, larger than the fields that the shepherds tended their flocks on, could pass through the mammoth portal along with many other ships just like it.

The portal in the Cartha sector was no different, even though, for those living on Edsall Dark, the Cartha sector was considered to be a distant region of space. The Thurndorian sector was beyond the large swath of galaxy that had once been known as the Vonnegan Empire. Past that was the 16-D-10 sector, known for its pair of collapsing stars and vast asteroid fields. Only after a ship made its way to the far edge of that sector would it begin to approach the Cartha sector. Almost no one on Edsall Dark even knew of anyone who had visited that region of space before.

It was through this enormous energy field at the edge of the Cartha sector that an HC Ballistic Cruiser appeared. The ship’s black metal was reminiscent of the fleet Kaiser Doom had once taken into battle. After the flagship had completely emerged from the white light, its tinder walls slid away to reveal the vessel’s windows and ports. The ship adjusted course slightly and began heading toward the nearest planet.

A moment later, the prow of another vessel began to appear through the portal, a traditional dull silver matte flagship which was also differentiated from the HC Ballistic cruiser’s hard edges by its rounded command deck. As more of the ship came through the portal, it became clear that the second flagship was a Solar Carrier. It took an entire minute for the ship to emerge from the portal. After it was clear of the ring of energy, it too raised its tinder walls. The Solar Carrier adjusted heading to match the course of the first ship.

It did not fire its laser cannons at the vessel ahead of it. Nor did the HC Ballistic Cruiser unload any of its proton torpedoes, laser cannons, or any other part of its arsenal on the Solar Carrier. Instead, the two ships simply continued into the Cartha Sector.

Another vessel began to appear through the portal. This one had hard edges like the first ship, but was of a lighter variety of metal than even the Solar Carrier. The visible portion of the vessel steadily widened from being a point at the fore of the ship, growing thicker and thicker as more of the flagship emerged from the portal. An Athens Destroyer.

As soon as it was all the way through the portal, it too raised its tinder walls. Once the metal panels were up, the Destroyer adjusted heading slightly to point at the Solar Carrier ahead of it. The blue light of its engines darkened as more power was sent to its thrusters.

This ship also refrained from firing on either vessel ahead of it. Nor did the Solar Carrier try to evade the Athens Destroyer, set its own weapons systems to target the ship behind it, or even raise its shields.

Behind them, another Solar Carrier appeared through the energy field, then another Athens Destroyer, a Flying Fortress, a Havoc Gunship, a Hellship. Twelve flagships in all, two of each model. They were all roughly the same size as the others and contained similar weaponry, although each ship also had design features and capabilities, both offensive and defensive, that set it apart from the other ships in the formation.

After appearing through the portal, each vessel raised its tinder walls and adjusted its course to follow the ship in front of it. The result was a caravan of flagships that had formerly belonged to the most prominent kingdoms in the galaxy but which now were all part of one fleet.

The forces of the Round Table had made their way from one side of the galaxy to the other, but not to wage war. This time, they brought an offering of peace.

2

Inside the HC Ballistic Cruiser leading the Round Table fleet, Julian Reiser, general of the expedition, scanned the emptiness of space from his command deck.

Any signs of resistance? he asked.

The officer sitting nearest to him at one of the displays answered in the negative.

Good. Bring up Brigadiers Warwick and Exeter.

Aye, sir.

As the officer worked to contact the Solar Carrier and Athens Destroyer commanded by the two senior officers, Julian continued to stare out into space. Without being conscious of it, he ran the thumb and index finger of his right hand across the coarse hair at his chin.

Once upon a time, his beard had been a bright blond that matched his hair. Now, it was more silver than gold. Of course, he also hadn’t always possessed the wrinkles that now surrounded his eyes or the faint grinding in his shoulders that occurred when he raised his hands over his head.

On the far side of the command deck was a reflection of what he had looked like years earlier. Talbot, the ensign sitting at the weapons system console, looked exactly as Julian had twenty-five years earlier. His hair was curly and bright, the color of fresh yellow fruit. His neatly trimmed beard was vibrant and healthy. Not a hint of seniority in that face. No scars from past battles.

Julian turned away before Talbot or anyone else on the deck caught him looking at his son. Even without Julian showing preferential treatment, the rumors were bad enough. Julian knew that the other junior officers whispered that Talbot was only there because his father had selected him for the mission. That was the only explanation for someone freshly out of the academy being assigned to the lead Round Table vessel commanded by the general in charge of the expedition.

In fact, there was some truth to that. Julian had personally assigned his son to the HC Ballistic Cruiser he commanded. And yes, Julian had ensured that his son would be posted to a position that would test him and train him, groom him into one day taking the same role his father now held. But the preferential treatment ended there. He didn’t acknowledge Talbot when they were both on the command deck unless it was to ask a question or give an order, the same as he would treat anyone else. In the last year, the only two times he had spoken to Talbot while they were on duty had been to put the ensign in his place, once for not answering quickly enough if the cannon batteries were operating at full capacity, and the other time to scold him for yawning toward the end of his duty shift.

In that regard, Julian was actually tougher on his son than he was on the other officers; he had never chastised any of them for doing the same things. Every commanding officer knew it was normal to grow complacent and allow weariness to fester during extended space voyages. People who lived their entire lives on one planet liked to imagine space travel as an assortment of spectacular views of suns and exotic planets. Occasionally that did occur, but the vast majority of time spent out in the galaxy presented nothing but emptiness. For weeks at a time, the only thing the crew saw were glittering dots amongst an otherwise infinite void.

For the most part, Julian ignored Talbot until they were done with their shifts because that was how Julian demonstrated that his son wasn’t being treated differently than anyone else, even though they all knew he was by simply being there.

The comms officer said, Sir, holo links open in three, two, one. Then he nodded to Julian right before the holographic images of two senior officers formed in the air in front of the main command deck viewport.

Both men looked the same age as Julian, but that was where the similarities ended. The first hologram was of a man with only short stubble on his head. He had bushy black eyebrows, and a set of vertical scars ran from his right nostril to his right ear. He didn’t blink except when he looked to his side and then back again. Other than that, every part of his face was still. Anyone who didn’t know him and hadn’t seen the fury with which he fought might have confused the emotionless officer for an android.

Julian nodded to the brigadier. Hello, Warwick.

Warwick gave a slight nod of his own.

The second man had a smile big enough for all three of them. Other than a tiny line down the middle of one eyebrow, he had no visible battle scars. Like Julian, his hair was turning grey, but Exeter’s hair was fading from red rather than blond. Now, though, only hints of crimson remained as if a fire were dying out and only embers lingered. The man’s jaw kept moving as he chewed on something, and each time an officer did or said something near him on his own ship, he gave them a friendly wink even though they weren’t being picked up by the communication feed that was projected onto Julian’s deck. Because of this, Exeter seemed to be winking at Julian’s crew for no reason.

Exeter, thanks for joining us, Julian said.

Although Julian was in charge of the mission, the three men treated each other as relative equals. Each had graduated from the academy around the same time. Each had seen his fair share of battles and had known only victory, never defeat. It was because of this that Julian didn’t refer to their rank and didn’t want them to refer to him as general.

We’ll be at Cartha-6 in approximately two hours, Julian told them. Seeing as how we don’t expect any resistance, I’d like to send down a small party to personally deliver our message. If nothing else, it will give us an excuse to get off these ships for a little bit.

Sounds like a good time, Exeter said, his back teeth still grinding at whatever was in his mouth.

Warwick, still unblinking, said, I’d like to lead the rendezvous party.

I was thinking we would all go, Julian replied. Gather up some of your officers and when we get there, the three of us will go down and deliver our official greetings from the Round Table.

As he spoke, he glanced out of the corner of his eye to see if Talbot was looking his way. He had no way of knowing if his son would want to be one of the officers to accompany the party that would land on Cartha-6. What he did know was that it would look like he was playing favorites if he did bring his son along.

Their eyes—father’s and son’s—met for a split second, but then Talbot’s attention darted back to the weapons systems displays in front of him.

Focusing back on Warwick and Exeter, Julian wondered how his two friends would handle the same situation if they were in his shoes. Understandably, Talbot would be mortified if his father actually asked the question out loud in front of everyone. Anyway, Julian knew what their answers would be even without asking. Neither of them would have selected their son to accompany them to the planet’s surface because neither would have assigned their child to the same vessel they were in charge of in the first place. It was only Julian who had decided it was a good idea to bring his only son across the galaxy with him as he set about politely asking each planetary system to join the Round Table.

3

In front of Hector, a room full of aliens and humans of every variety gathered. They were the representatives from throughout the galaxy who had been appointed by their people to sit at the Round Table. Although he too was part of the group, he was one of a few who didn’t actually sit during the proceedings. For Hector, this was because he hovered on top of an energy disk. For the Looselawsug, a gelatinous alien without a skeleton, it was because a chair wouldn’t allow him to see what was happening. For the Sherwee, a member of an alien race that couldn’t survive in an environment hospitable to most living creatures, it was because she had to be in an encased chamber of helium in order to live.

The actual table, the wood rings and accompanying wedges, had grown beyond Hector’s wildest imagination. Now, he had to squint in order to make out the alien sitting on the far side of the table from him. Maybe it was a Kraknour. Were those six arms he saw or four arms and two antennae? Maybe it was a Lowry-Low. As much as he strained to identify the alien’s species, all he saw at that distance was a blur.

In the years since the Round Table had formed, more and more kingdoms had joined. At first, the table had been able to accommodate representatives from a dozen kingdoms. Even before the first formal session, however, an additional ring had been built around it to double the number of representatives. As more and more kingdoms and planetary systems joined the Round Table, the group of humans and aliens who gathered at it grew exponentially.

The main reason for this was that not every kingdom was the same size. It was argued that there had to be some sort of system to reflect that. After all, it wouldn’t be fair if the Dur-Schiell Kingdom, made up of only two inhabited planets, had the same number of representatives as the Kerchin Kingdom, which had ruled over twelve planets. That didn’t even factor in the former CasterLan Kingdom, which had possessed twenty-five inhabited planets within its borders, or what had been the Vonnegan Empire, which had encompassed over one hundred planets during its peak.

Only two years after its inception, the first modification was made to how the Round Table would work. Instead of each kingdom having one representative, each inhabited planet and colony would have a member. It was the only way to ensure balance.

Overnight, the Round Table grew from sitting twenty-four representatives to having over four hundred. Immediately, the people living on the moons sought to have representatives of their own. Their argument, which was deemed valid, was that it wasn’t their fault they lived on a celestial body that revolved around a planet rather than a celestial body that revolved around a sun.

Because of this, the Round Table now had to accommodate over nine hundred representatives. There was no hall or chamber on Edsall Dark large enough to fit such a table. The new system required so many chairs that a circular seating arrangement was thought to be a waste. The circumference of a table able to accommodate almost one thousand seats required a room wide enough to park a Nebulon II cruiser. Rows of seats would be much more practical, especially from the vantage point of the carpenters who were working at a feverish pace to cut and sand the wedges and rings for the expanded table.

The idea was that there would be no seat better than any other, Hector had argued.

The same idea applied to the notion proposed by a Trachnodorian. Build levels of smaller Round Tables, the worm-like and swamp-colored alien had said. Not one large Round Table but many manageable tables, one above another.

The idea didn’t sound outlandish, but Hector knew what would happen. Someone would get it in their head that a seat at the highest floor of the Round Table was more prestigious than a seat at the ground level of the Round Table. Again, Vere’s original idea that no one should be given higher status than anyone else was maintained. One giant table was constructed.

As a result, the CamaLon spaceport was expanded and then converted into a colossal meeting hall. Inside this Great Hall, as it became known, carpenters worked for weeks to build a table large enough to seat over nine hundred people. Vere’s original idea for the Round Table was kept alive, but as a result Hector hovered at a table so gigantic that he couldn’t clearly identify who was sitting on the other side.

He placed his hands on the edge of the wood in front of him. We have to remember, he told everyone gathered in the hall, that the Round Table was never meant to become a force for invading other peoples.

As he spoke, translation software changed his words into dozens of different alien languages so that everyone could understand him. He could hear a computer emitting the squawks and claps understood by the Erucian representative beside him.

Hector continued, When the idea of the Round Table came about, it was meant to be a path for each kingdom to come together. It was supposed to end intergalactic conflicts by uniting each sector. It was not meant to be a tool for threatening any planet or kingdom that has not yet joined our alliance.

A winged and feathered alien, roughly one hundred seats away from Hector, let out a series of screeches.

From the speaker in his ear, Hector heard a calm computer voice say, But the Round Table is meant to unite everyone. What about the kingdoms that refuse to join? Shouldn’t their people have a chance to live in the same freedom as those we represent?

Hector was about to say that it should be up to the citizens of each kingdom to decide what happened to them; if they weren’t passionate about the Round Table and were happy with the way they lived, then that was their choice. But before he could say anything, an alien with no physical body, only a silvery envelope of energy, began to hum.

A second later, Hector heard the alien’s translation in his ear. The Round Table cannot sit by and watch as people in other kingdoms remain under the chains of their rulers. The Round Table was created to unite the entire galaxy. Not just part of it. All of it. We have a responsibility to do just that.

Now, I— Hector started to say.

But before he could tell everyone assembled that the mission of the Round Table had never been to start some crusade across the galaxy but to instead show each kingdom that peace was possible, two other aliens began to speak.

One of the two was a tiny Feedorian who chose to speak in broken Basic rather than his native language. As a result, the translation software had a difficult time trying to figure out when it should and shouldn’t try and interpret as the winged alien offered his opinion. The other alien to speak was a Lerrk that grumbled and growled and sneered and who spoke loud enough to drown out the Feedorian.

The monotone translation began in Hector’s ear. We would be letting the other kingdoms down if we didn’t send our support. Don’t we want them to be free of the rulers who refuse to join us? It’s not the people’s fault that their rulers are stubborn. Leave it to General Reiser to show them that the Round Table won’t sit idly by and let enslaved people remain that way.

A tiny MaqMac blurted out a noise that was translated simply as, General Reiser!

Hector shook his head. That wasn’t the purpose of the Round Table. It wasn’t why Vere had put out the call for other kingdoms to join her cause five years earlier. A dull pain throbbed in his shoulder, reminding him of what he had lost. He knew better than to rub at the sore spot. It didn’t actually exist except in his head because his shoulder, as well as his entire arm, had been lost in the blood tunnels beneath Edsall Dark when he had been fighting for this very cause. In its place was his gravitronic arm, with metal spheres where his shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints would have been, a stream of energy holding each together. Five multi-cylindered metal appendages, each flowing with the same gravitational energy that kept his shoulder and elbow in place, acted as fingers. The new arm gave him the same strength he was accustomed to. It also, like his energy disc, reminded people of the impacts of war in a way that an engineered replacement arm, made of human tissue, could not.

The arm allowed no sensation of pain, but when this discussion arose in the Great Hall he always experienced a burning sensation where his old arm had been.

Everyone in the Great Hall had been selected by their people to act as the voice of reason, and now these very representatives were calling for the same types of unnecessary confrontations that had plagued the universe since the beginning of galactic travel. It was the Round Table’s mission to ensure peace throughout its member planets, moons, and colonies, not to ensure every kingdom across the entire galaxy joined. Kingdoms would join when they were ready. Not every ruler and every citizenry would be prepared to immediately accept the Round Table just because others had. These things would take time and patience.

That was what Hector wanted to tell the Lerrk and the MaqMac and the others who endorsed General Reiser’s mission. Before he could, though, a fur-covered Ren asked the status of General Reiser’s forces. A human male, middle-aged, with a shaved head and eyebrows that came down to obstruct the tops of his eyes, said that General Reiser had entered the Cartha sector without encountering any resistance. The Round Table would soon seat more representatives. A Toaden said General Reiser was doing a marvelous job and that the mission of the Round Table was being carried out to perfection.

But that’s not the mission of the Round Table! Hector wanted to yell.

Before he could, a woman, half-human and half-Trorian, asked about the scientists Arc-Mi-Die had kidnapped and whether there were any updates on their whereabouts.

An Ignis Moris, sitting in a seat designed to withstand his fiery skin, asked about the search for not only the missing scientists but for the warlord as well.

Hector closed his eyes and sighed. The representatives had already turned their attention to the next topic.

4

For months, Arc-Mi-Die hadn’t seen daylight. He remained in a room with no windows and no direct access to the outside world. For years, no one but his guards and androids had actually seen him with their own eyes. The warlord knew that extended periods of confinement could lead to a disconnect with reality, to a mental breakdown from which he might never recover. It didn’t matter if it was an involuntary or voluntary confinement; the result was the same: he would slowly go insane. His isolation was far from being a punishment, however. Rather, it was his personal wish and the only way he knew he could execute his ultimate plan.

After the battle at Dela Turkomann, in which he had double-crossed Vere and the CasterLan Kingdom, Arc-Mi-Die had set about becoming the most feared and notorious warlord the galaxy would ever know. It was a formidable challenge, mainly because of how dastardly others before him had been.

Two thousand years earlier, Prince Geng-Ess-Hawn, having been defeated by his brother and losing his rightful kingdom, set about destroying everyone and everything that flew the Hawn banner. With only a small band of Trulsilisk mercenaries, Geng-Ess-Hawn brought about the deaths of millions of people, destroyed all sentient life on three colonies, and eventually brought about the end of an entire kingdom.

A thousand years later, the warlord Chase Rungallion had become the galaxy’s most wanted man after kidnapping the children of the CasterLan, Vonnegan, and Doom rulers. The androids he used for the job accidently killed all three children, and Chase still owned the record for the largest galactic ransom ever offered for a single person.

Arc-Mi-Die wasn’t interested in ransoming children and he wasn’t concerned with bringing about the end of some relative’s kingdom. He would achieve infamy for a plot that no other warlord would even entertain.

It had taken a few years for Vere to get out of the Cauldrons of Dagda and for the combined forces of what would become the Round Table to defeat Mowbray. In all that time, Arc-Mi-Die worked in the shadows to further his plan. He still laughed when he imagined the expression on the face of the Round Table general who had been dispatched with a complement of Solar Carriers, Hellships, and Havoc Gunships, when he had arrived at the Dan-Two-Ine system. Their mission had been to bring the warlord to justice for his betrayal years earlier. The joke was on them. Arc-Mi-Die had long since departed from the volatile maroon and grey planet he had once called home. Only later would he find out that a young pirate with grand ambitions of his own had claimed the abandoned colony for himself. It was that pirate’s profoundly terrible luck that within weeks of doing so, the newly formed Round Table fleet showed up looking for a warlord.

No one outside Arc-Mi-Die’s organization had seen him since then. The Round Table fleet could look as long as they wanted but they would never find him. Only when he was ready to begin the next phase of his plan would they remember to curse his name. And even then, they