Merlin

The blinding lights faded and I blinked back tears. Merlin bowed in our direction. Nemura appeared and offered a translucent hand on his shoulder. Behind them, the mechanical arms retreated back to their slits in the dome of The Black Cathedral.

All traces of the Caxton Manuscript were gone.

“Unfortunate that I should be seeing you here, Lady Greymoor, under these circumstances,” Merlin said. “I much preferred our fireside chats and parties.”

“Save the lip service, Merlin,” I folded my arms. “You’ve already fucked us. Why don’t you tell the captain here what we both already know.”

“Where did the relic go?” Ulysses mumbled.

“Disintegrated,” Nemura answered. “Of course, the actual contents of the Caxton have been folded into The Black Cathedral’s network. The Federation never willingly deletes important data.”

“You liar!” Ulysses bellowed. He drew the sidearm in his pocket and unloaded a clip into the terminal. An energy field caught the rounds and dissolved them. “Return it to me!”

“No need for brutish gestures.” Merlin shook his head. “My apologies, Pirate King, but the Federation is unwilling to part with the Caxton at this time.”

“Your Federation compatriot promised us the Caxton and Winchester Manuscripts,” Ulysses roared. “She lied.”

“I haven’t lied,” Nemura grinned. “Not once, in fact. I am, after all, incapable of lying.”

“She hasn’t,” I shook my head. “This was what I was afraid of.”

“She specifically said you wished for the Caxton to be in our possession!”

“Humans,” Nemura sneered. “They always love to hear what they want to hear. All I said was that we preferred the Caxton Manuscript in the hands of the Sunless Fleet in ninety three point two four percent of all possible scenarios. Why did you think our intention was to let you keep the relic indefinitely?”

“And the Winchester?” Ulysses demanded. “Where is it?”

“I merely offered to take you here,” Nemura shrugged. “I never claimed to hand it over to you.”

“You needed someone to steal the Caxton,” I said. “Question is, why?”

“I can answer that question, my lady,” Merlin said. “Since you have played into our hands, I will be charitable and explain the full scope of the game.”

With a wave of his hand, the lights inside the dome dimmed further. The symbol of the Federation appeared behind Merlin. The Möbius strip unfurled and decomposed into individual particles. With another wave, the particles reconstituted into the universal sign of infinity.

“The Prime Matrix has long been the goal of the Federation of H,” Merlin explained. “In popular culture, it is referred to as a peace project. In truth, the Prime Matrix is a matter of mathematics, statistics, history, human psychology, and economics with a singular objective, to predict the future.”

“But the Federation already predicts the future,” I frowned. “Even this escapade of yours was the realization of a Federation model, was it not?”

“I’m happy that your time spent with the unlawful has not dimmed your senses,” Merlin smiled. “You are indeed correct. The Federation already runs predictive modeling. Forecasts. What we are interested in, however, supersedes the current capacity of our forecasting models. It is something far more… ambitious.”

“So you want the Chalice of Time for yourself,” I surmised. “Even if she’s a deceptive bitch, Nemura has essentially revealed that you now hold both the Caxton and Winchester manuscripts in your possession.”

“To the contrary. We are interested in the Chalice’s destruction.”

“Destruction?” Ulysses snarled.

“The work of the Prime Matrix is converging on what we’d like to call ‘temporal certainty,’” Merlin explained. “In other words, we are not interested in predicting the future. We are interested in seeing the future.”

A dread filled my spine and I tried to remain expressionless. The memory of my premonitions hung like a ghost. I felt like unsuspecting prey delivered to the beast. I possessed exactly what Merlin and the Federation seemed to covet.

“Why destroy the Chalice then?” Ulysses asked. His enraged countenance dissolved into distress.

“The Chalice distorts any attempt at calculating temporal certainty,” Merlin sighed. “It is erratic, pure entropy, introducing unpredictable elements, such as yourself. It should at the very least be left undiscovered and should, in the best scenario, be removed from any equation.”

“My people need the Chalice to return home,” Ulysses begged. “We’ll search for it. We’ll use it and then you are free to do with it as you see fit.”

“I’m afraid not,” Merlin said. “The Chalice’s properties remain unknown even to the Federation. We are not willing to risk that it disappears into a different timespace at the moment of its activation. This is not a negotiation, Pirate King. This is where you stand.”

“You’ve doomed us,” Ulysses muttered towards Nemura.

“You’ve doomed yourself,” Nemura pointed at me. “You should have listened to her.”

“Not how I saw myself being validated, but I’ll take it,” I shrugged. “What now?”

“You are now free to return to your ship,” Merlin said. “You will depart from The Black Cathedral and never return. I would also suggest advising the captain here that firing upon Federation vessels will not yield him digital copies of the relics that he is seeking.”

“You heard him,” I nudged Ulysses. “We should leave.”

“I’ve been a fool,” Ulysses grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah, you can tell me all about it later. Let’s just get out of here.”

“Captain,” Lucia’s voice buzzed through the communicator. “We have a situation brewing.”

Ulysses didn’t respond. I cursed and snatched the communicator from his wrists.

“Lucia, this is Elaine,” I responded. “What’s going on?”

“...Where’s Ulysses?”

“He’s next to me,” I said. “He’s uh… a little upset that we were duped.”

“Right,” Lucia didn’t sound shocked. “We’re starting to suspect as much. You better get back onboard.”

“I’m bringing him back,” I growled. “Hold on.”

I pushed the despondent Pirate King out of the great hall. It was strange just dragging a man twice my size behind me, but for Ulysses’s pride and dignity only the eyes of the Federation of H watched us embark empty handed on the long walk of shame back to Circe.

“You might have failed them this time,” I tried to say. “But your people sound like they still need you, Ulysses. Time to clear your head and get in the game.”

Nothing. The Pirate King was unresponsive.

We, or rather I with heavy baggage behind me, somehow made our way back to the airlock. Lucia stood at the opening, motioning for us to hurry up.

“What’s wrong with him?” she asked.

“Stake your hopes and dreams on artificial intelligence, and this is what you get,” I rolled my eyes. “Talk to me, what’s going on. There were no windows aboard the station.”

“They came out of nowhere,” Lucia breathed. “Better that you see for yourself.”

Lucia helped me carry Ulysses back to the bridge. Stephen, Vladimir, and Emiko were there. They were huddled around Circe’s command console. Red points blotted out the screen.

“Caerleon?” I asked. “They’re here?”

“They’ve been hailing us,” Emiko muttered. “No one’s fired a shot, but they have ships on standby from here to the edge of the system.”

“Yeah, and while we’re talking about crises,” Stephen pointed his thumb at Ulysses, who sank into his chair and said not a word, “anyone want to tell me what’s up with him?”

“Forget about him,” I said. “How did the Caerleon military–”

I answered my question before I finished. I laughed. I slapped my hands on the nearest thing next to me, which happened to be Ulysses’s shoulder. I had been gloating, privately of course, to myself that I had seen through Nemura’s lying facade.

Yet, here I was, no more susceptible to an AI’s deception than anyone else.

“Of course,” I cackled. “That decrepit piece of junk.”

“Has she lost it now too?” Stephen asked.

“Merlin, a hierarchy member of the Federation, must have signaled our arrival,” I explained. “I had wondered why he had told me the truth about destroying the Chalice. He must know that Arthur is after it. I guess this is why. He intends for us to take that truth to our graves.”

“Where’s Nemura?” Lucia asked.

“Gone,” I shrugged. “Looks like we played directly into their hands.”

The mood on the bridge seemed to turn to despair. Lucia hung over Ulysses, trying to shake him awake. Stephen and Vladimir exchanged uncertain looks. I, on the other hand, detected a slight spring in my step, a quiver of excitement. I sauntered across the bridge to the front window.

There they were. The might of the Caerleon military had arrived on full display. Thousands of ships, and I still spotted Noble Interception in the crowd. Knight Captain Lionel’s Reapers came into view. It was the royal entourage, ships from all walks of the imperial court. It felt familiar to see them, unfamiliar to be on the receiving end of their guns.

One ship stood out above all the rest. Unlike the preferred silver plating of almost every other vessel, this one was matted with gold. Its bulbous shape basked in local starlight. It was radiant, beautiful, but above all arrogant. The ship prided itself on shining like any star in the night sky.

This was Excalibur, the crown jewel of the prince of the Caerleon Imperium.

It was Arthur’s ship.

Fucking. Finally.

“Answer the hail,” I grinned. “Let me talk to the bastard.”