Once & Future (Once & Future #1)(66)

The signal cut out.

Killed. On purpose.

“His sense of drama is getting stale,” Val muttered.

“The Mercer ships are landing,” Gwen said. “We’ve sealed the castle doors. Jordan is outside on watch. Hopefully she’s waking people up and gathering her knights.”

Merlin knew that the Lionelian tournament knights had been training for this all year. He also knew that they were dehydrated, exhausted, and didn’t stand a chance in a full-blown fight against a Mercer attack force outfitted with the best killing machines money could buy.

“What now?” Merlin croaked.

Gwen and Lamarack exchanged a glance. “We evacuate the planet,” she said. “Go.”

Lam took off, with a quick kiss of her hand.

“Evacuate?” Merlin echoed. “How are we going to do that with a tiny ship that was far from spaceworthy in the first place?” His voice sounded pinched and hysterical in his own ears. His guilt reached a fever pitch. “Error isn’t even close. How are we supposed to get to her with Mercer forces pouring through the city?”

The cannons boomed, and everyone jumped. “I thought those were ceremonial,” Kay said.

“They work in a pinch,” Gwen said. “We have to keep the invading forces distracted for long enough to get off the ground. Lam and I have it all worked out.”

Gwen grabbed a candle in a stamped tin holder and approached the wall of tapestries in the dining hall. Most of them showed pictures of knights on horsebots. Not exactly traditional, but Merlin had grown to love the anachronisms of this place as much as everything else.

Jordan appeared, pounding down a flight of stairs, looking so red and strained with exertion that Merlin thought she would tip over on the spot. “Are you quite all right?”

“How did you even get inside?” Kay asked.

Jordan knelt before Gwen, her loyalty spotless even under such stress. “I had to get to my queen. I swung over the mercury moat on a hidden rope and scaled the castle walls by starlight.”

“Of course you did,” Merlin said, rolling his eyes.

Gwen ignored the jab. “I didn’t want it to come to this, but with the ships landing, we have no choice. There is another ship in our colony, Merlin.” She pulled aside a tapestry—one of the previous queen at her coronation—and revealed a metallic door that looked strangely like the ones on Error. “You’re standing inside of it.”

Kay spun to her, his face gratifyingly blank. “The castle is a spaceship?”

“The towers, crenellations, and most of the fa?ade were added later,” she said, which explained Merlin’s observations about the additions to the odd metallic base of the castle. “The core of the building is a generation ship that the original colonists converted.”

“But it hasn’t flown since Lionel was established seventy solar cycles ago,” Val said.

“You want me to revive it with magic!” Merlin shouted, hoping he could still save the day, even though he was the one who’d put them in so much danger in the first place.

“We need you to save your strength. Besides, the ship has to fly on its own if we’re to have any real chance.” Gwen’s eyes skipped over him, to Kay. “Let’s have the only person in this company who’s lived in a spaceship since birth take a look at the machinery.”

“What?” Kay asked. “No.” Gwen’s brown-eyed stare was weighty, a weapon that bludgeoned Kay better than any words. “I can’t fly your castle!” he insisted.

“Sounds like a personal problem,” Val muttered.

“You three,” Gwen said, her gaze picking out Val, Merlin, and Kay. “Come.”

Jordan frowned openly at Gwen’s choices. “My queen, I could help—”

“I need you to lead our people to safety. We have precious little time. Mercer will have to drain the mercury moat before they invade, but that still only gives us minutes,” Gwen said, cutting off the knight with a hand to the back of her neck. She set her forehead against Jordan’s. “Today is the death of our dream, old friend. We can’t let everyone die with it. Get our people to the evacuation points.”

Jordan gave a deep nod and rushed away.

Gwen pulled open the hidden metal door, revealing a set of stairs. The rest of the party descended into a set of close chambers that Gwen navigated with quick, nervous steps, the light of her candle throwing shadows on the metal walls, while the cannon fire above grew apocalyptic. Gwen finally stopped and shoved a box of tools in Kay’s hands. The hope on her face was the most aching thing Merlin had seen since Ari’s death. “Please,” she said.

“I can’t promise anything, spaceship-wise,” Kay said carefully. “Error is the biggest thing I’ve ever flown. And I’m not going to say a word against her, but… she’s no castle.”

“More like a flying broom closet,” Val said.

Gwen pointed Kay in the direction of the main console. It looked like all of the computers Merlin had seen over the course of a very long lifetime had been melted together. “The principles are the same,” Gwen promised.

“Yeah,” Kay said. “But doom is in the details.”

Twenty minutes later, Kay was swearing at a wall of metal. Gwen and Val had disappeared to check on the castle attendants and get a progress report.