‘I’m not here to judge,’ the General shot back. ‘In fact, I couldn’t give a damn. Get down on your knees and keep your hands behind your head.’
‘We don’t have time,’ he replied. ‘The Legion is on its way here.’
General Bra’hiv raised an eyebrow. ‘The Legion is down in the ‘tween decks and Kordaz with them.’
‘Kordaz wants me!’ Mikhain shot back in exasperation. ‘He knows everything that you do and he’ll stop at nothing to get his revenge. I came here to draw him away from the rest of the ship.’
Qayin stepped forward from the ranks of Marines, the towering convict’s bioluminescent tattoos glowing malevolently. ‘You sold me out and then expect us to believe you were coming down here on some kind of heroic one–man mission? We both know why you’re here – you were going to get aboard one of these craft and make your escape.’
Mikhain shook his head vigourously. ‘No, I’m here to face Kordaz. You can either stay here and risk being consumed by the Legion or you can get the hell out before they arrive.’
General Bra’hiv shook his head. ‘No can do, captain. There’s no way we’re going to let you out of here, either on foot or in one of those spacecraft. You’re going to the brig until we have re–established communication with Captain Sansin and the Governors.’
‘There is no damn time!’ Mikhain roared.
The Marines began shuffling nervously and looking over their shoulders, and suddenly Emma stepped forward and spoke clearly to the General.
‘He’s right,’ she said suddenly. ‘I can hear them.’
Bra’hiv glanced over his shoulder at her and then at the captain. ‘And just what exactly are you going to do when they get here?’
Captain Mikhain tried to think straight but his own nervousness was clouding his thoughts. In truth he had no idea what he was going to do, but whatever it was he was going to stand up and face Kordaz down. Running away was no longer an option.
‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Mikhain replied. ‘But it’s me he wants and you all need to leave. Get into cover, now!’
The general gripped his rifle tighter and Mikhain watched as he struggled with his decision. Mikhain was about to speak again when Emma suddenly pointed to the ceiling of the bay high above them.
‘It’s too late!’
Mikhain looked over his shoulder and to his horror he saw countless thousands of tiny black machines spreading across the ceiling, flowing like droplets of black oil streaming down a window.
‘Set up the microwave scanners!’ Bra’hiv yelled.
It was Qayin who responded as he observed the Legion spreading onto the flight deck. ‘That’s not going to work, they’re spreading out too far and wide, will never be able to hit enough of them once to stop them!’
Mikhain felt horror creeping like lice beneath his skin as he realized the Legion had already adapted to the microwave scanners that they had deployed to prevent their spread. They were moving fast, no longer in a thick, dense morass but scattered as widely as possible so that they spent as little time inside the microwave beams as possible and that as few of them were taken down by each beam.
‘Set them up anyway,’ the General insisted. ‘All around us! Seal us in!’
Behind Mikhain the bay door slid open, and he turned to see Kordaz stride onto the flight deck, the corridor behind him filled with the seething black mass of the Legion. The Veng’en’s glowing red eyes fixed upon Mikhain’s as he stood in the doorway, his huge frame almost filling it.
‘Captain,’ he growled in his thick, translated dialect. ‘I have waited a long time for this moment.’
***
XV
Mikhain took an involuntary step back as Kordaz advanced toward him, and behind him the Legion swarmed in, scaling the walls and spreading out like thick liquid oil across the deck. Mikhain cringed as he heard the scuttling of their metallic legs, like a billion grains of sand falling on a tin roof.
‘Scanners on full power!’ Bra’hiv yelled, and moments later the microwave scanners were omitting an invisible energy field around the Marines as they shrank back into a defensive circular formation with the General and Emma in the centre. ‘Captain, get inside the circle, now!’
Mikhain looked over his shoulder at the Marines as they crouched in their defensive formation, their plasma rifles pointing out into the bay. The temptation to take a few paces back and join them was almost overwhelming, but Mikhain forced his gaze away and stood his ground as Kordaz paced toward him.
The Veng’en’s eyes seemed more malevolent than ever, the deep red glow burning with ferocity as though they were filled with magma. Kordaz seemed oblivious to the Legion swarming around them, but Mikhain could not keep his gaze from sweeping left and right as the machines swept through the for’ard section of the bay. He looked back at Kordaz and realized that the Legion was no longer pouring through the bay entrance, their numbers limited to a few tens of thousands.
Kordaz came to a halt two cubits from where Mikhain stood. At such a short distance, the captain for the first time realized just how large and powerful the warrior was. In the past he had only been in close quarters with Kordaz when the Veng’en had been an ally or otherwise in chains and unable to strike. But now he was exposed to the full force of Kordaz’s size and power, with nothing between them to protect him.
‘You have not fled,’ Kordaz growled.
‘I have no reason to flee,’ Mikhain shot back with an anger he did not entirely feel.
‘You’re a traitor,’ Kordaz went on. ‘You know what you have done.’
‘I did what I had to do,’ Mikhain defended himself. ‘I know that you won’t be able to stand there and say that you would have done any different had you been in my shoes.’
‘You have no idea what I would have done,’ Kordaz rumbled back. ‘Just as you have no idea what I’m about to do now.’
Mikhain realized belatedly that the Legion had swarmed around them, giving them a reasonable amount of space but colonizing the deck, the walls and the ceiling far above. Completely surrounded, Mikhain had nowhere to run. Defeated and in danger of imminent death, Mikhain dredged what remaining courage he had from somewhere deep within.
‘Do what you will,’ he snarled. ‘But the last thing I would do to sully my reputation is run from a Veng’en.’
Kordaz leaned forward slightly at the waist and his eyes glowed into Mikhain’s. ‘That will be your last mistake.’
From behind Mikhain, the General’s voice rang out. ‘That’s enough, Kordaz. It’s not your call to make. Call off the Legion!’
Kordaz looked past the captain and his eyes narrowed, Mikhain witness to the intensely detailed replication of his physical features as his metallic eyes mimicked the movement of real flesh.
‘You’re not in command here,’ Kordaz growled at the General. ‘This is between Mikhain and I.’
‘He’s already under arrest!’ the General shouted back. ‘We know what he did and he will pay for it one way or the other. Kordaz, we have to be seen to treat our own people with the same kind of justice that the Galactic Council expects to see or this is all for nothing. If you kill him like you killed Djimon, then they’ll see us as nothing more than savages and we will all be blasted to oblivion by the council’s warships.’
Kordaz glared down at Mikhain, standing almost a full cubit taller than the captain. ‘He’s not worthy of your defence! Men like him will bring about your downfall.’
‘And men like us will uphold it,’ Bra’hiv called back. ‘Warriors like us, Kordaz. There is no punishment in death, no matter how prolonged the pain. If you kill him now it will be over, but then so will the rest of us. Let him go, let us deal with this and I’ll see to it that he suffers imprisonment for the rest of his life.’
Kordaz’s giant hands clenched and un–clenched at his sides, and his reptilian skin flickered with different colours as emotions rushed back and forth like violent tides. Bizarrely, the Legion around them seem to mimic Kordaz�
��s emotions, surging and recoiling like the tides of some horrible black sea.
From behind Mikhain a softer, gentler voice called out.
‘Kordaz, my sister once told me that she had never met a human being more humane than you,’ Emma said. ‘We can both hear the Legion, and we both know that it cannot be defeated by us alone. If Captain Sansin’s ploy to gain the assistance of the Galactic Council fails, then everything is over. Everything.’
Emma stepped forward from the Marines and to Mikhain’s amazement she walked directly through the protective shield of the microwave scanners, exposing herself to attack from the Legion.
‘Emma, get back now!’ Bra’hiv snapped.
Emma continued to move as though she had not heard the General, and within a few paces she reached Mikhain’s side and stood alongside him before the Veng’en warrior. Kordaz looked down at her in silence, seemingly enraptured by her presence.
‘This is not you, Kordaz,’ Emma said softly. ‘You and I both know it.’
The Legion around them suddenly began to scuttle and dance, and then wave surged towards Emma. Kordaz whirled and raised one gigantic arm and the Legion stopped where they were and retreated once more.
‘Yes,’ Emma said softly, ‘they want me dead should I turn you. You control them, Kordaz. As incredible as it seems, the fate of humanity now lies in the hands of a single Veng’en.’
Kordaz stared at them for what felt like an age and then suddenly he struck forward, one giant leg landing alongside Mikhain as one huge arm swept across and smashed into the captain’s chest. Mikhain felt as though he’d been hit by a meteor as his breath was smashed from his lungs. He lifted off the deck and flew through the air clean over the surrounding circle of the Legion. Mikhain hit the deck on his back and rolled over, his vision starring in his eyes and his breath rasping in his throat as he struggled to draw air into his battered lungs.
‘Emma!’ Bra’hiv bellowed. ‘Get into cover, now!’
Emma hurled herself clear of Kordaz and scrambled into the Marine’s defensive circle as the gigantic Veng’en spread his arms wide and let out a deafening roar, the throaty yet warbling warcry of his people soaring across the flight deck as he spread his arms to either side like a giant reptilian tree.
‘He’s lost it!’ the General yelled. ‘Take him down!’
The Marines whirled to aim their weapons at Kordaz and Mikhain scrambled to his feet and shouted with every last ounce of breath in his lungs.
‘The bunker! Now!’
General Bra’hiv looked across at Mikhain and suddenly realized what he was getting out. Mikhain pointed to the bunker where launch crews hunkered down in a sealed environment as the flight deck atmosphere was evacuated during launch cycles and the Raythons, Corsairs and shuttles blasted off into space.
The general turned back to Kordaz and aimed his plasma rifle, but Emma hit out at the weapon and knocked it out of alignment.
‘No!’ She yelled. ‘He’s not attacking!’
The Legion were rushing upon the Marines but swerving around them, flowing like a black metallic river around the microwave shield as they rushed upon Kordaz.
‘Marines, retreat to the bunker now!’ Bra’hiv ordered.
Mikhain dashed away toward the bunker and jumped down the steps as he heard a blaze of plasma fire behind him, the Marines opening fire on the surrounding ring of the Legion and blazing a trail through them. Emma and the General both carried microwave scanners before them, the Legion falling back from the invisible beams as though parted by an invisible hand. Behind them, standing tall in the centre of the bay and with his arms still extended to either side, Kordaz stood as the Legion rushed upon him once more.
Mikhain dashed into the bunker and immediately sealed the flight deck entrance doors, preventing the Legion from escaping the bay. He looked up and saw the Marines and Emma dashing toward him, and behind them half of the Legion following them in a black wave.
His hand hovered over the bunker closing mechanism. Mikhain reached out for the buttons, his finger a hair’s breadth away, and then he clenched his fist and pulled it back. Moments later, Emma and the General burst into the bunker with the Marines rushing in behind them.
‘Seal it shut!’ Bra’hiv shouted.
Mikhain sealed the doors of the bunker closed just as a cloud of Hunters hit the surface of the bunker outside, and his view through the windows was obscured by the metallic black bodies as they swarmed upon the thick glass.
‘What about Kordaz?’ Qayin snapped.
‘He’s given us a chance to escape!’ Emma said. ‘That’s why he hit Mikhain toward the bunker! This is it!’
Mikhain looked out onto the flight deck and saw Kordaz once again consumed by a towering pillar of Hunters, only his arms extending out from either side as he stood rooted to the spot.
‘They’re holding him to ransom,’ Emma whispered as she realized what the Legion was doing. ‘We surrender, or he dies.’
The Marines and Mikhain all looked at the General, his gaze affixed to the horrific sight of Kordaz pinned within the towering pillar of machines intent on tearing him to shreds. In the moment of silence they all heard Arcadia’s tannoy suddenly burst into to life.
‘Subluminal cruise in five, four, three–’
General Bra’hiv stared at the machines for one moment longer and then he slammed a clenched fist down onto the control panel before him.
‘Open the bay doors, launch protocol!’
The light in the bunker became suddenly polarised as Arcadia was dragged out of super luminal flight. Mikhain slammed one hand down on the emergency launch button that controlled both the magnetic launch catapults and the massive launch bay doors. In an instant there was a roar from one side of the bay as the enormous doors suddenly lifted and the air in the entire flight deck turned misty and opaque as the vapour within it was frozen.
In a raging torrent of whirling vapour the atmosphere within the launch bay was hauled out into the chill vacuum of space and the hundreds of Hunters scratching against the glass of the bunker were sucked out along with it.
Mikhain peered through the glass and saw the pillar of Hunters around Kordaz hauled out in one glistening black mass, the Vengen’s body trapped within them as it tumbled out into the void. Mikhain watched it go, unable to take his gaze away from the Veng’en’s terrible fate. A hand flashed past in front of him and slammed down on the emergency close button, and the bay doors rumbled shut almost as fast as they had opened.
From vents high in the ceiling of the bay fresh, warm air billowed in trembling clouds into the bay and the brilliant red lights warning of the vacuum outside switched to green as the atmosphere was reintroduced and the temperature once again stabilised outside.
General Bra’hiv stared at the now closed bay doors for a long moment before he finally turned and with one hand grabbed Mikhain’s collar from behind and pushed him against the console.
‘Captain Mikhain, you are hereby being placed under arrest on the orders of Captain Idris Sansin and the Board of Governors, for charges of treason and accessory to murder.’
Mikhain did not resist the General as he placed the manacles around his wrists behind his back, unable to tear his eyes away from the now closed bay doors.
***
XVI
‘Subluminal speed in five, four, three, two…’
Captain Idris Sansin gripped the guard rail around the command platform as he listened to Lael counting down, and then suddenly the light in the bridge was polarised as Atlantia was dragged from super luminal cruise. The screens around the bridge flickered briefly and then suddenly data began streaming in. Idris glanced immediately at a screen showing Arcadia in close formation alongside Atlantia as the Morla’syn fleet rocketed out of super luminal cruise alongside them.
‘Signals and communications not possible,’ Lael reported immediately. ‘They’re still jamming us.’
‘Position?’ Idris asked the helmsman.
The helmsman glan
ced at his instruments and his eyes widened. ‘We are approximately ten planetary diameters from Oassia.’
Idris turned as the main viewing screen flickered into life and before him he saw the broad open expanses of a water world. Like a perfect blue marble suspended in the black velvet of deep space, and illuminated by the warm orange glow of an ancient red dwarf star, Oassia was everything that one would expect the galactic capital to be. Only ten per cent of the world was covered in land, the rest of it a gigantic ocean with graceful polar caps and reefs and ribbons of cloud.
‘They bought us directly into the system,’ Andaim said with some surprise.
‘Signal the Morla’syn immediately,’ Idris ordered.
Lael sent the signal and the bridge descended into silence as they awaited a reply.
Idris could see the Morla’syn destroyers moving into position, tactically dominating the two frigates as their smaller sister ships formed an outer ring, one at each point of a triangle that surrounded the entire formation.
‘Our signal has been blocked,’ Lael reported. ‘I suspect they are talking to the Galactic Council before we are able to.’
Idris nodded as he looked at the image of the destroyers surrounding them. ‘Getting their version of the story in first, no doubt,’ he said.
‘We are tactically out of position and pretty much defenceless against any form of attack now,’ Andaim reported as he scanned his displays. ‘There’s absolutely no chance of them allowing us to launch fighter screens.’
Defiance (Atlantia Series Book 5) Page 11
