Evan Currie - Heirs of Empire

Gaston blinked. “I don’t understand.”

“I believe that we should christen this ship after the weapon that bore his name,” she said sadly. “One of the Armati that was lost to history, before we came here … I suppose it is probably lying out there somewhere, alone in the dirt and waiting to be rediscovered.”

Mira smiled softly, wistfully. “I like to think that our wayward brother found worthy hands and made his own mark on history … or perhaps will, someday yet to come.”

She looked around the deck of the black ship and nodded, liking the idea more and more. The whispers in the back of her mind seemed to agree, and she imagined she felt a shiver run through the weapon strapped to her side. Mira’s hand dropped unconsciously, caressing the ancient weapon as she remembered the single moment of clarity in her fight with Corian.

She should have died then, she knew. Armatis were powerful weapons, versatile like few things in the known world, but they could not simply vanish from one place and appear in another.

Or, at least, she had never heard of one doing so until that moment. Until her weapon saved her life—apparently of its own accord.

There is more to my Elan and the others than even I knew. She was now certain of that, and she was equally determined to learn more. However, for the moment, there were more pressing matters.

Mira looked around at the crew, some close enough to be paying attention, and some not having noticed the conversation. It mattered little. It would get around to them all soon enough. Rumor traveled faster than reaction jet after all.

“From now on, as the captain of this ship,” she said boldly, attracting attention, “I christen her after the weapon whose creator she was named for … From today on we sail the Excalibur .”

Gaston considered it for a moment, then finally nodded.

Excalibur. He liked that.

“Ready the quantum-rail drive,” Mira ordered, eyes rising to where the God Wall climbed up and out of the atmosphere. “It’s time to see what’s on the other side of that wall.”

“Aye, aye, skipper,” Gaston said enthusiastically.

The Excalibur was, for the moment, the only ship in the empire that could cross a God Wall. Hell, it could reach the Great Islands themselves!

And now Gaston and the ship had a captain who would do just that .