Refusing Excalibur by Zachary Jones

Author:Zachary Jones [Jones, Zachary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookbaby
Published: 2016-05-11T16:00:00+00:00

Part III

Guardian

Three Years Later

Chapter 15

“Have I told you this plan is crazy?” Fara asked from the pilot’s console.

“Only every day since I proposed it,” Victor said, sitting in the captain’s seat in the center of the Alexander’s bridge.

“Well, now that we’re actually executing your plan, the craziness of it has not diminished in the slightest,” Fara said.

Victor shrugged. Just because a plan was crazy didn’t mean it wouldn’t work. The Alliance needed a way to quickly break the Mohawker blockades around the jump points leading into their home system.

Through the hull cameras, Victor could see the dimly lit interior of the hollowed-out asteroid, and the thirty frigates, destroyers, and cruisers clutching its walls like a colony of nesting bats.

The asteroid had been mined out centuries ago, leaving a vast empty chamber connected to the surface by a single shaft that had been widened by Alliance engineers to allow starships to enter.

Not visible were the jump drives embedded in the rock. They would enable the asteroid to jump to the Mohawk system, and right into the hopefully stunned faces of the Mohawker fleet.

A chime on his comm got his attention. It was a message from the Waynesburg.

“Good morning, Captain Quill. What may I do for you?” Victor asked.

“You’re awfully relaxed for someone about to go on a suicide mission,” Harlan said.

Victor grunted with amusement. “I’m simply confident this will plan will work. There’s no way the Mohawkers will see this coming.”

“No, I doubt they could. Is your ship ready, Captain?” Harlan asked.

“As ready as she’ll ever be, thanks to the refit your father gave her,” Victor said.

“A reward for the years of good service,” Harlan said, “Since every other ship reports ready, I think I’ll send word to the tugs to get this rock moving.”

“Roger that, Harlan. I’ll see you on the other side,” Victor said. “Drinks on me when this is done.”

“I’ll hold you to that, so don’t get yourself killed, Victor,” Harlan said before closing the connection.

Victor settled back in his seat, trying not to fidget with anticipation. He was about to extract a final justice from Quintus Marsh for killing his brother.

Marsh was a distant second to Magnus Lacano on Victor’s list, but the Lysandran emperor’s time would come. It was just a matter of dealing with this particular problem first.

King Marsh had always been the Kingdom of Mohawk’s greatest weakness. It was more from fear of him that his forces fought the Alliance. Taking him out would end the war. Or at least that’s how Victor had explained it to the high councilor. He couldn’t exactly claim to being objective.

“We’re moving,” Fara said.

Outside, a fleet of tugs pushed against the asteroid with millions of tons of thrust, adding barely centimeters per second to its velocity.

By far the greatest challenge had been simply moving the rock to the jump point, and, even then, the tugs needed to fire their drives constantly to keep the thing in position.

Once the asteroid gained enough momentum to carry itself into the jump

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