‘There is nothing to fear from any infection by the Legion at this time,’ he assured the crowd, ignoring Idris. ‘Our objective here is to understand what the humans have aboard their ships and act accordingly so that…’
‘I said, how did you know to use microwave shielding on your ships to prevent infection?’ Idris repeated, calmly but with enough force to overpower the councillor.
‘We have our own scientists too, captain,’ Rhy’ll replied. ‘They have made advances of their own.’
Idris took a pace closer to the councillor.
‘The Legion has not reached the Oassia system yet and your ships, by your own admission, have not penetrated far toward Ethera for fear of spreading the infection. Yet you now also claim them to be impregnable to the Legion? Both statements cannot be true, so you must have learned from somebody else how to protect your vessels and to implement the technology so quickly. I ask you again: how can this have been done?’
Rhy’ll shuddered and an appendage pointed at Idris.
‘It is you on trial here, captain, not the council.’
‘I thought that we were here to plea for assistance, not be on trial,’ Idris countered, ‘and in any case in a trial the accused is warranted a defense. Have other humans entered the Oassia system before us?’
Rhy’ll shuddered yet again as though agitated by Idris’s persistent questioning and his bioluminescent lights fluttered and weakened.
‘You have lied to us, Captain Sansin. If what Governor Gredan says is true you have concealed the presence of the Legion aboard your vessel and it is now docked just ten planetary diameters from our planet.’
‘Which a moment ago was a safe distance according to you,’ Idris countered. ‘Where are the humans who told you about the Legion’s weakness against directed microwave radiation?’
Rh’yll ignored the captain as he looked at the Morla’syn guards.
‘Sentries, have Captain Sansin and his escort transported to the holding rooms. Ensure that they are given every courtesy while the council passes judgement on their fate, and order the Colonial frigates to begin sending their people down here for asylum. They shall be offered safe haven until this is all decided.’
The towering Morla’syn soldiers moved in with their weapons at the ready. Idris ignored them and spoke louder.
‘Where are the other humans that entered the system, councillor?’ he demanded. ‘What have you done with them? What are you hiding from us, from your own people?!’
‘This council is adjourned,’ Rh’yll called, and even as Idris opened his mouth to protest further the hovering microphones zipped away from him and his voice was silenced, dwarfed by the vast expanses of the amphitheatre.
‘Governor Gredan,’ Rh’yll called, still with access to the microphones, ‘would you and your colleagues accompany the councillors and I? There is much that we must discuss.’
Gredan’s face melted into something approaching ecstasy, pride bursting from every pore. With grandeur, he bowed over his prodigious waist.
‘We would be honoured, councillor.’
‘You’re making a mistake, Gredan,’ Idris snapped as he was forced off the podium by the Morla’syn guards, the watching ranks of dignitaries already standing up and walking, crawling or slithering toward the exits. ‘They’re not telling us everything! Don’t let the people down here!’
Gredan cast Idris a sideways look.
‘You’re done, Sansin,’ he sneered. ‘We have asylum, which means our people are off your damned ships. This is a government matter now.’
***
XXIV
‘I don’t like this at all.’
Ishira Morle directed her harshest glare at Commander Andaim, who merely grinned back at her.
‘This is the only way. Gredan and his motley crew trust only you because you’re also a governor, voted in by the people. The best way to get a look at that fleet is for you to pilot the craft that takes the first wave of asylum seekers down there.’
‘They’re not going to let us plot a course anywhere near that fleet,’ Ishira pointed out.
Andaim affected a look of mock offence. ‘You don’t think I’ve got that covered?’
‘And should we be sending people down there at all? We don’t know that we can trust the council.’
‘We don’t have much of a choice,’ Andaim said as they walked toward Ishira’s freighter, parked inside Atlantia’s bays. ‘We can’t run without leaving Idris and the others behind, and we can’t refuse the help we’ve come here begging for. We’re lucky they haven’t boarded us and taken control.’
Ishira signed and looked at the freighter as she approached. Valiant was a mining vessel that her father, Stefan, had owned since his teenage years. Inherited through the family, the freighter was an ungainly chimera of long–range haulier and rock mining vessel. Four hefty, pivoted landing claws supported a long, barrel–shaped fuselage that tapered toward a series of four stacked ion engines. Ventral strakes gave the ship some aerodynamic qualities for atmospheric flight, and folded back in bays along her length were long robotic arms designed to manipulate and explore rock formations deep in the Tyberium Fields, vast expanses of asteroids orbiting the Etheran system’s outer limits.
As they approached Stefan Morle walked out to greet them, oil stains already marring his prosthetic arm and a broad grin plastered across his face.
‘Are we ready to go then?’ he asked.
Stefan was never happier than at the helm or the engine room of Valiant and it showed. He cleaned his right hand with a rag he held in his metallic left hand, then tossed it cheerfully to one side.
‘We’re ready,’ Ishira replied unhappily. ‘Where are the civilians?’
‘The first group are already aboard,’ Andaim replied. ‘Gredan insisted that we send no military escort with you, and that the Morla’syn had it all in hand.
‘Gredan’s getting in way over his head,’ Ishira said. ‘And how come Captain Sansin isn’t calling the shots down there?’
‘I don’t know,’ Andaim said as more civilians appeared on the flight deck. ‘Maybe he’s letting Gredan in on the act to rein in his attempts at a power grab.’
‘That’s the thing,’ Ishira agreed, ‘we don’t have any power now, but Gredan won’t see it.’
A young girl broke from the ranks of humans, Donnassians and lumbering Ogri, her long brown hair flying as she dashed to Ishira’s arms and was swept up into her embrace.
‘Are we safe now mom?’ Erin Morle asked as she hugged her mother’s neck tightly.
Ishira glanced at Andaim over her daughter’s shoulder and sighed.
‘Safer than we were, I hope,’ she replied as she set Erin down. ‘Get aboard and strap in, okay honey?’
Erin dashed off up the freighter’s ramp, Ishira watching her.
‘She’ll be fine,’ the CAG promised. ‘Are you going to stay down there with them? The captain asked you to stay aboard Atlantia, and I don’t want you to leave, but it’s up to you. You’re also a governor after all.’
Ishira snorted and fastened her flight jacket.
‘You think I want to be part of Gredan’s self–congratulating roadshow? It’s no longer a board of governors anyway, it’s just Gredan and his plans for future power.’
Andaim nodded and leaned in close to her, dropping his voice as the civilians filed past and up Valiant’s ramp.
‘The long–range passive sensor array we modified has been installed aboard Valiant, and will autonomously transmit short–burst data streams on different frequencies back to Atlantia that will be extremely difficult for even the Morla’syn to detect let alone monitor. As soon as you’re into the atmospheric descent, deactivate the array so that the transmissions aren’t detected by ground based radar. You’re merely the conduit for the information stream – Valiant won’t be transmitting anything unusual, it’ll look just like normal radiation from her engines, or so Lazarus says.’
‘Roger that,’ Ishira agreed, and the
n shook Andaim’s hand.
‘Come back,’ Andaim urged. ‘We may need you here more than you realize.’
Ishira turned and strode up the boarding ramp with her father, who hit the close button as they reached the top and stood to watch the ramp rise up.
‘You know that they might not let us leave,’ Stefan said quietly above the murmur of conversation deeper inside Valiant, coming from the several hundred civilians aboard. ‘Once we’re all down there.’
‘Can’t do much about that,’ Ishira replied, and saw her daughter waiting for her in the cockpit. ‘Right now, Oassia is our best bet for a future, right?’
Stefan nodded.
‘On the face of it, but then why are they hiding things from us?’
The ramp slammed shut and hissed as the seals activated. Ishira checked that there were no breaches and then turned for the cockpit.
‘Let’s find out, shall we?’
For the first time in a long time, Ishira settled into the captain’s seat at the controls of Valiant, and before her through the windshield she saw Atlantia’s flight deck, the ranks of Raythons parked ready for flight, two more on the catapults on the for’ard deck ready to be scrambled.
Erin sat in the co–pilot’s seat, the harnesses too large for her slight frame. Ishira looked down at her, and Erin smiled confidently and grasped the back of Ishira’s hand.
‘It’ll be fine mom,’ she promised, ‘you’ll see.’
Ishira smiled back, conveying what she hoped was a picture of calm, and then she strapped in and began her pre–start checks. The process of getting Valiant started for flight after being cooped up on the flight deck for so long came back quicker to her than Ishira would have thought, and within a few minutes the ion engines were warmed up and all on–board systems working normally.
‘Let’s see what’s out there,’ she murmured to Erin and then transmitted to Atlantia. ‘Valiant, civilian transport, ready for visual departure.’
‘Copy Valiant, cleared for departure, call when clear of the bay.’
Ishira acknowledged the call and then deactivated Valiant’s magnetic clamps. The freighter lifted gently off the deck as she watched the ground crews hurry to their bunkers and the doors seal shut, and then moments later the main flight deck doors rumbled open as the atmosphere in the bay was evacuated in a rush of white vapour and ice crystals.
Ishira took a deep breath and then eased the manoeuvring throttles forward. Valiant cruised overhead the parked Raythons and along the flight deck, tracking a line of flickering lights that guided her out of the bay and into the bitter cold vacuum of space, Atlantia’s massive bow extending above and ahead of them.
Ishira turned left to clear the frigate’s bow and saw the massive form of Arcadia looming close by, her vast hull glowing a dull orange in the light from the distant star.
‘Morla’syn,’ Stefan said as he pointed at two huge destroyers looming just outside of weapons range, watching over the two frigates. ‘They’re hanging back, but close enough to attack within moments.’
‘If they don’t trust us, then why offer the civilians asylum so quickly?’ Ishira asked. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
‘Andaim’s right to be suspicious,’ Stefan agreed.
Ishira turned Valiant toward the bright, pearlescent orb of Oassia as she spotted four fighter craft streaking away from the nearest destroyer toward them.
‘That’s our escort,’ she said as she identified their transponder codes on her displays and matched them to the ones transmitted from Atlantia. ‘Let’s hope they’re not too trigger happy.’
The Morla’syn drones soared in from starboard and broke into two pairs, two taking the lead as two more positioned themselves directly behind the freighter, ready to shoot her down should she deviate from her course.
‘You think that those sensors will do the job?’ Stefan asked in a whisper.
‘We’re about to find out.’
As the fighters around them accelerated to cruise speed Ishira advanced the main throttles on Valiant’s ion engines with one hand, while with the other she activated the passive sensor array, hoping that the advance in energy emissions by the engines would conceal the sensor’s transmissions.
She saw a small light on her console inform her that the sensor was active, and she waited pensively for several moments for some reaction from the Morla’syn fighters, but they continued to cruise toward the planet at a steady velocity.
‘Steady as she goes,’ Stefan murmured.
Ishira nodded but did not reply and gradually they settled down into the cruise. Oassia slowly grew larger in the cockpit windscreen, the flare from her bright surface filling the view ahead ever more until its blue glow mixed with the orange and green cockpit lights in a kaleidoscopic array of color.
After almost an hour they were close enough to the surface to begin preparing for orbital entry. Ishira began the pre–entry checks as Stefan consulted the fuel gauges.
‘All’s good, plenty to get us down and back out again to Atlantia,’ he said after a few moments. ‘Ion engines are fully fuelled too.’
Ishira nodded and then something caught her eye, high up over the planet’s horizon, almost entirely concealed by the blue glow of the atmosphere. The sunlight was coming from behind them and it was reflecting off something metallic in high orbit far away.
‘You see that?’ Ishira asked.
Stefan peered at the object, his old eyes not as sharp as his daughter’s, but it was Erin whose young eyes identified it.
‘It’s a spaceship,’ she said, and looked at Ishira. ‘Galactic cruiser, I think.’
Stefan reached across the cockpit and grabbed a pair of binoculars, the electronic zoom and internal computer capable of resolving objects thousands of cubits away. He lifted them to his eyes and rested them on the back of Ishira’s chair as he let the binoculars focus in on the remote object.
Ishira heard her father’s breath catch in his throat as he surveyed the distant craft.
‘What? Is it a cruiser?’
Stefan shook his head as he lowered the binoculars from his eyes.
‘It’s not a cruiser,’ he said finally. ‘Andaim was right: it’s a battle fleet.’
***
XXV
Evelyn walked alongside Captain Sansin, Mikhain behind them with Teera and ranks of Morla’syn infantry stomping around them, long pale fingers caressing the triggers of their bulky plasma rifles.
‘This is going from bad to worse,’ Evelyn whispered under her breath as they walked. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
Idris shook his head, his eyes flicking this way and that as they walked along the transparent elevated walkway toward a silvery tower piercing high into the perfect blue sky. Above and below them airborne traffic flowed in orderly lines, metallic paintwork glinting in the bright sunshine.
‘They’re hiding something from us,’ he replied. ‘Gredan, Ayek and Vaughn are walking blindly into whatever Rh’yll has planned.’
‘The Council are supposed to be allies,’ Evelyn whispered. ‘They’re not supposed to be treating us like prisoners. Since when do we need an armed escort?’
‘Show of force,’ Mikhain murmured from behind them. ‘For their own people as well as us. I don’t think humanity is well respected in this quarter of the galaxy right now.’
‘There are only two thousand of us aboard both ships,’ Evelyn replied. ‘What do they think we’re going to do? Invade?’
‘They may still believe us to be infected,’ Mikhain pointed out.
‘No,’ Idris replied immediately. ‘Rh’yll’s people knew to use microwave scans to ensure we’re not carrying the Legion. We’ve probably been checked multiple times since we landed and didn’t even know about it. That’s probably why we had to wait on the landing pad before General Veer and the councillors came out.’
‘If they already know how to check for the Legion,’ Evelyn said, ‘then they might already know everything that we do. Our knowledge will h
old no value to them.’
‘And yet here we are, not dead yet,’ Mikhain said. ‘If they don’t care for us alive, and don’t want us dead, then what the hell are they doing? Maybe Gredan’s right – maybe they will provide our people amnesty and asylum.’
Idris did not reply, deep in thought as Evelyn glanced across the city to her left and right. The elevated walkway was almost a thousand feet above the city, the occasional patch of cumulus cloud drifting by beneath them in the otherwise clear air. The city sparkled beneath them in the sunlight, the vast expanses of ocean glittering beyond a beautiful azure blue all the way toward the milky horizon. A freighter taking off from a spaceport to Evelyn’s left caught her eye as its ion engines powered up and it climbed into the hazy sky above, everything occurring in silence due to the thickness of the walls of the walkway.
Evelyn could see dozens of spacecraft parked in open bays in the spaceport, and as she walked so one of them naturally caught her eye. Her heart leaped in her chest as she recognised the sleek lines of a pirate ship, a slender hull flanked by two engines in strakes either side of the main hull, a wedge–shaped cockpit at the front, tripod landing pads beneath her and a long ramp extending down from beneath her for’ard hull to the pad below.
‘Captains,’ she whispered softly. ‘Ten o’clock low, the near side of the port.’
Idris glanced across in front of Evelyn. She watched his expression and saw little emotional response but for the slightest widening of his eyes. Idris said nothing and continued looking directly ahead as they approached the towering spire before them.
‘Going about his business?’ he suggested mildly.
‘Here?’ Evelyn asked.
‘Maybe he fled for some reason,’ Mikhain said from behind them, having seen the same spacecraft.
Evelyn peered more closely at the freighter far below and saw barriers erected around the craft and what looked possibly like armed guards standing nearby.
Defiance (Atlantia Series Book 5) Page 17
