Bokelskere.no

So how had the most utterly reliable race of bodyguards in Galactic history wound up somehow managing to build what had to be an astonishingly powerful empire, judging by the size and power of its warships, without the Federation ever suspecting a thing? The fact that the Galactics hadn't had a clue as to that empire's existence was abundantly clear to him. If a primitive bunch like the human race had provoked such a . . . definitive response, then surely something like this "Avalon Empire" would have had the Council in a state of outright panic if the Federation had even dreamed that it existed, and the attack on Lach'heranu would never have come as such a complete and total surprise to her.

That was the most burning question, he reflected, although he had a few thousand others to go with it. For one, why should the Ternaui call themselves the "Avalon Empire"? For another, why should they be willing to risk revealing their existence, which they had obviously taken great and successful pains to keep the secret from the Federation, to come to the aid of the human race?

And why in Hell, he thought, with a sort of detached calm that resulted from far too many shocks in far too short a time, as his cutter approached the huge ship's main boat bay and he finally saw the name etched across the hull in letters two hundred feet tall, should a bunch of aliens name their flagship "Excalibur"?