The Excalibur (Space Lore Book 2) by Chris Dietzel

light behind it as it raced around the sun and began to head toward them.
    “Here you go,” Quickly said, tapping another button.
    The screen magnified. The entire object wasn’t red, only the ships that glowed from the tremendous heat put off by the largest blue sun in the known galaxy. The asteroid itself was still a mass of brown and grey rock, but the glowing red ships shone so brightly that the entire asteroid seemed to glow.
    The Army in the Stone. The Gordian Armada. The Excalibur Armada. It was here.
    Their only hope for defeating the Vonnegan fleet.

10

    Peto’s ship arrived at the cloud planet, Desho-Win, where every city was elevated miles in the air, high above the ferocious storms that raged on the planet’s surface. But his Llyushin transport and his two Llyushin fighter escorts were still approaching Desho-Win’s atmosphere when a pair of Trans-Ion D fighters raced toward them.
    Both fighters let off a pair of laser blasts on either side of Peto’s ship.
    “Don’t return fire,” he told the fighter pilots alongside him. “They missed on purpose.”
    His own pilot said, “The fact that they are firing at all should trouble you more than if they hit us or missed us.”
    A light came on in the cockpit. When the pilot tapped a blinking yellow button, a holographic image of a scaly-skinned alien with a huge mouth appeared.
    “You are hereby ordered to turn around and return to Edsall Dark,” the alien from Desho-Win said.
    “We are here as emissaries of Vere CasterLan, leader of—”
    Another pair of laser blasts sailed just past the ship, causing Peto to flinch.
    “Permission to return fire,” one of the fighter pilots said, but Peto ignored him.
    “I know who you are,” the alien said. “And you are ordered to leave our space immediately. The Vonnegan fleet is approaching and we do not want any association with your kingdom when they get here.”
    Peto started to speak, but before he could say anything else, a single laser blast hit the Llyushin transport as an even clearer warning.
    “Don’t fire back,” he yelled at the fighter pilots on either side of him. Then to the Desho-Win alien, “Okay, okay.” The alien’s hologram image disappeared.
    “On to the next planet?” his pilot asked.
    “Yeah, I guess so.”

11

    Although Morgan’s ship was too far ahead for Vere to be able to spot it from the Griffin Fire’s cockpit, she could see on the displays in front of her that the Pendragon was beginning to drift away from the course that would have taken it directly toward the approaching Vonnegan fleet. Instead, Morgan piloted her ship slightly to the side, in the direction of the desert moon, Dela Turkomann. Rather than follow a similar course to one of the planets or moons within their sector, Vere kept the Griffin Fire pointed straight ahead, toward where the Vonnegan fleet would arrive in a matter of days.
    Traskk was beside her in the copilot’s seat, his tongue slithering back and forth across his lips, a rumble of displeasure coming from deep in his throat. He had agreed to come along on what he considered to be a foolish mission, but only because he would go anywhere Vere went. He had also agreed not to tell anyone else where she planned to go, but only because she had made him promise before she revealed her plan.
    No one in their right mind would fly toward the entire fleet of Athens Destroyers, let alone by themselves. Especially not when they were the leader of the CasterLan Kingdom and the person Mowbray blamed for his son’s death more than any other.
    “You’ll just have to trust me,” she had told him, but he had flicked his tongue anxiously then, too.
    Now, with Morgan’s ship going toward Dela Turkomann, she increased the Griffin Fire’s speed.
    “Full power to the engines,” she said. When Traskk hissed a question, she replied, “No shields. No weapon’s systems. Send everything to the engines. I want to get to Mowbray as fast as possible. If this