Atlantia’s battle claxons howled as Andaim saw the launch bay doors open and Raythons blast out into the bitter cold of space amid whorls of vapour being sucked out alongside them.
‘Bring her about, port batteries to bear!’
Atlantia heaved into a turn to starboard as Defiance loomed before her, and Andaim checked the position of Arcadia and saw her off to their starboard side and moving in a mirror–image manoeuvre, bringing both of their broadsides to bear on Defiance’s stern.
The Raythons rocketed away from the frigates’ launch bays in streaks of blue–white flame from their ion engines as they soared toward the huge carrier. To either side of the carrier, the smaller Colonial cruisers began breaking up as they realized that they had been out–manoeuvred and that their sterns were exposed.
‘Reaper and Renegade squadrons away, commander!’ Lael reported.
A flare of bright plasma shots erupted from Defiance’s aft guns as she locked onto Atlantia’s position and opened up her batteries.
‘Brace for impact, shields full to port!’
Lazarus shifted the power supply to the port shields with super–human rapidity as the barrage rocketed in and Atlantia shuddered as the salvo smashed into her. The blows reverberated through the massive hull and the lighting dimmed and flickered under the immense power surges as Lael called out.
‘Sheilds holding, eighty seven per cent, all conduits secure!’
Atlantia heaved around and her port batteries came to bear on Defiance’s vulnerable stern.
‘Return fire!’
Atlantia shuddered again, but this time the noise was from her port batteries as she opened up and a blaze of massive plasma shots rocketed away toward the carrier. Andaim tracked them visually on the screen as he saw a second salvo racing in from Arcadia.
Defiance was already turning to engage the frigates, but she was far too slow to avoid the sudden blaze of over twenty massive plasma charges that smashed into her shields in a relentless blaze of brilliant impact flares that flared brightly enough that Andaim was forced to shield his eyes.
A chorus of cheers erupted from the bridge crew as the shots smashed into Defiance one after the other and a series of fires erupted around her engine bay.
‘Direct impact, hull breaches aft!’ Lael yelled in delight. ‘Her shields weakened just enough to let the last four shots through!’
Andaim whirled to the tactical display and saw Arcadia now passing beneath them in a perfectly coordinated ballet, Lazarus’s ploy working for the time being.
‘Take us in close to the cruisers!’ Andaim snapped. ‘I don’t want Defiance to be able to engage us with a full broadside without endangering their own ships!’
‘Aye, cap’ain,’ Lazarus replied as he got affirmation from Emma to continue.
Both frigates turned again, this time aiming for the smaller cruisers that were already bringing their guns to bear. Across the communications channels he heard the sound of the Reaper’s flight leaders calling out.
‘Reaper flight, fully engaged! There’s too many of them!’
Andaim looked up and saw a cloud of Raythons swarming from Defiance, rushing toward the Reapers and the Renegades, and moments later the two groups of fighters raced past each other in a blaze of plasma fire.
‘They’re out numbered three to one!’ Lael called, distress clear in her tones. ‘And we have Valiant and other craft in–bound and requesting to land!’
Andaim clenched and unclenched his fists and then he leaped off the command platform.
‘Lael, you have the bridge, and Lieutenant Scott has overall fleet command! Emma, keep Lazarus close!’
‘Where the hell are you going?!’ Emma yelled.
‘To make a difference out there!’
***
XXXIV
‘This way!’
Mikhain’s voice rang out above the howling gale as he stood with his back to the prison walls and shuffled across a jagged gap torn by debris through the narrow ledge upon which he stood.
Smoke billowed from the massive gash torn into the prison walls and spiralled up onto the blustery air, Mikhain forcing himself not to look up or down. The city was arrayed some three hundred cubits below, walking figures tiny specks far too small to pick out details. A scattering of cumulus cloud drifted by, curling around the surface of the prison spire and obscuring the dizzying drop beneath them.
Taron Forge and Yo’Ki followed close behind him, and behind them was Rench and his Donnassian miners, holding a plasma pistol liberated from a dead prison guard and pointed at Taron.
‘That’s the spirit, captain!’ Rench shouted. ‘You keep walkin’ and get us out of here, and we’ll get you to your fleet.’
‘Captain Sansin’s back there and so is Evelyn and her wingman!’ Mikhain protested.
‘They’ll live!’ Rench snapped back. ‘You won’t, if you don’t keep moving!’
The narrow ledge circled the exterior walls, and through the thick smoke Mikhain could see the elevated walkway through which they had walked to enter the prison. Undamaged by the drone’s impact, the walkway’s transparent surface revealed that it was unmanned, the Oassian and Morla’syn guards not yet having reached the prison’s heights in response to the crisis.
Behind Taron were a line of pirates and Donnassians, some of them wounded but all of them hurrying to reach the walkway and escape their precarious perch. Mikhain kept moving, the smoke causing his eyes to stream as the gusting wind threatened to pull him off the ledge to plunge to his death far, far below.
‘There!’ Rench gestured with the pistol. ‘Get overhead the walkway and we’ll blast our way inside!’
Mikhain nodded and saw several humans running through the walkway now, those fortunate enough to have been incarcerated close to the impact site and to have also escaped the fearsome fireball that incinerated half of the cell tier.
Mikhain edged his way along and was almost overhead when something grabbed his shoulder. He turned and saw one of the prison guards snarl at him from where it had crawled out of the huge gash in the building, its flesh smouldering from where it had burned and its eyes filled with rage and pain.
The Gaollian’s hand bore down on Mikhain’s shoulder with immense strength and then with a cry of fury it ripped Mikhain off the ledge and his legs swung out over the abyss. Mikhain screamed as he grabbed the guard’s arm with both hands just before it released its grip on his shoulder. The guard shook its limb violently as it tried to shake Mikhain off, and then it saw Rench aiming a pistol at its face.
‘Don’t make him do it!’ Taron warned.
Mikhain grunted as he was suddenly hauled back in and the guard clasped him to its chest with one arm. Its skin smelled stale and acrid, and its breath stank as it snarled at Taron.
‘Back inside, or I’ll drop him.’
Taron grinned, genuine amusement on his features as he glanced at Rench and his pistol. ‘I think I speak for us all when I say that we’d rather jump than go back inside. Release him, or you’re done.’
The Gaollian sneered at Taron as it glanced into Mikhain’s eyes.
‘Humans,’ it snarled, ‘wherever you’re found, chaos follows.’ The guard looked at Rench. ‘I’ll trade you the man for the pistol.’
Rench chuckled. ‘No deal, but you can drop the Colonial – we don’t need him.’
Mikhain’s eyes widened in horror as Rench took aim and fired once. The plasma blast hit the guard in the face and Mikhain jerked his head away from the fearsome heat of the shot as he was suddenly released. In an instant he knew that he could not reach out for anything to prevent his fall and he saw far below him the city, bright and clean in the sunlight as he felt his guts levitate within him and he plunged from the prison ledge into thin air.
Mikhain cried out in horror as he fell through the smoke billowing from the crash site and then he landed hard. His legs slammed into the upper surface of the walkway and he crumpled were he lay, his heart racing and his breathing laboured as
two plasma shots smashed into the walkway just ahead of him.
He looked up and saw Rench blast the ceiling of the walkway, and the transparent panels melted and folded inward as acrid white smoke fizzed from their edges. Mikhain reached out and hauled himself to the damaged panels, then braced himself against the wind before he stood up on the surface of the walkway on legs weakened with fear and jumped into the hole.
The cold wind vanished as Mikhain landed inside the walkway, then staggered out of the way as Taron Forge jumped in behind him, followed by Yo’Ki and a stream of swaggering pirates and miners all keen to get to their ships. Rench lumbered down last, the pistol still firmly in his grip.
Rench aimed at Mikhain. ‘Move, now.’
Mikhain knew that he had no option but to obey, and even as he turned to run down the walkway he could see countless prisoners escaping the burning building and fleeing toward the walkway’s punctured ceiling.
Mikhain led the way to an adjoining spire, inside which were elevators that would take them down to the landing bays. Crowds of escaped prisoners were crowding the elevator bays, fighting and screaming as they sought a space on the next ride down.
Rench shouldered his way into the bays and fired into the air, the screaming pinched off as the convicts instinctively ducked down and covered their heads, fearing the guards had caught up with them.
‘VIP entourage,’ Rench snapped as he strode toward the nearest elevator and gestured with his pistol for the occupants to vacate it.
The pirates behind Mikhain swaggered past and crowded inside the elevator as Taron grabbed his arm and shoved him inside with them, just about managing to fit in himself before he shut the door and selected a near–ground level exit.
The elevator began to descend immediately, soft music playing through speakers behind them. Mikhain felt mildly odd as he stood quietly with the convicts and awaited their destination.
‘Where are all the Morla’syn guards?’ Mikhain asked.
‘Hopefully not waiting for us when we get down there,’ Taron replied. ‘But I think they’ve got other things on their minds. You saw their fighters climbing out of the city?’
‘When I wasn’t being dangled by that guard, yes,’ Mikhain confirmed.
‘I think that the Legion is already here and they’re scrambling to confront it.’
‘Your only concern is the spice,’ Rench growled from behind them as he jabbed the pistol into Mikhain’s back, ‘and yours is getting our ships past the fleet, understood?’
Mikhain stared at the transparent door of the elevator and wondered briefly if anybody was watching their descent. If Taron was right and Oassia was now under direct threat of invasion, then escaped convicts would likely be the last thing on the council’s mind. But if the pirates started blasting everything in sight as they made for their ships then that might change.
‘We need to sneak out of here, not start blasting Oassians.’
‘You speak for yourself,’ said a burly pirate from behind him. ‘I’ll be getting out of here any way I can.’
A murmur of agreement fluttered among the escapees, but Mikhain spoke with quiet conviction.
‘Good for you, and where will you be going once you get away? The Legion is spreading faster than anybody realized and has already colonized maybe twenty star systems. Oassia will fall next if we don’t make some kind of stand here.’
‘Like hell,’ spat a woman with a thick scar running down one side of her face, the old mining torch wound partly concealed by vividly coloured tattoos reminiscent of Qayin’s glowing facial artwork. ‘You go make your stand, boss, I’m outta here.’
‘Like I said, there’s nowhere else to go,’ Mikhain insisted.
‘Then I’ll make me my peace with the Legion and go down in flames,’ she sneered back to a snigger of support from her cohorts.
Mikhain turned to face them, standing virtually chest to chest with Rench in the packed elevator.
‘Wouldn’t you rather go down in flames while blasting the Legion to hell?’
The woman bit her lip, controlling her anger poorly, and for a moment Mikhain thought that she might lash out at him. Instead, Taron intervened.
‘We’re not here to fight your war for you, Mikhain. You get us past the blockade, we’ll set you free to die any which way you please. Get over it.’
Mikhain peered at Taron with a curious eye. ‘You saved close to a thousand lives back on Chiron IV. What changed, Taron? Getting nervous about your chances out there against the Legion?’
Taron did not take the bait, smiling instead.
‘The only time the Legion’s bothered me is when you and Captain Sansin show up. The sooner we part ways, cap’n, the happier I’ll be.’
The elevator reached the designated floor, the door opening and the pirates and miners spilling out like a dirty little flood into a painstakingly clean foyer alongside the space port. Mikhain could see rows of spacecraft parked nearby, most of them belonging not to civilian carriers but to the pirates, ranks of Morla’syn infantry guarding them.
‘This could get rough,’ Taron observed as he spotted the guards. ‘That’s why they didn’t come up to the prison, they’re under orders to guard the ships.’
‘You won’t get past them,’ Mikhain replied. ‘They’ll take one look at you lot and open fire just for the hell of it.’
‘Bring it on,’ said the scarred woman.
Rench jabbed the pistol at Mikhain once more. ‘You’re the Colonial officer, why don’t you get all creative and think of something?’
Mikhain turned to Taron and tugged the collar of his uniform demonstratively. ‘You know that devotion to shoulder insignia you complained about?’
Taron glanced thoughtfully at the Morla’syn guards. ‘Your chances aren’t much better than ours.’
‘No,’ Mikhain agreed, ‘but I can deceive them, whereas you cannot.’
Taron’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
*
‘Help!’
The Morla’syn officer turned his big head as he saw a Colonial officer stumble out of an access corridor and onto the landing pads, his uniform ripped and smothered in grime, his hair in disarray and panic poisoning his features.
Half a dozen other infantry turned to watch the human stagger toward them, pointing behind him and running on one injured leg.
‘They’re coming!’ the man screeched. ‘They’re behind me!’
The officer strode forward and activated his plasma rifle. ‘Who’s behind you?’
‘The convicts!’ the man yelled. ‘They’re all out! The prison’s been hit, didn’t you see?!’
The officer glanced at the smouldering wound high on the prison spire’s flank, but his orders had been clear: guard the privateers’ spacecraft and don’t let any of them escape the planet.
‘How many?’ he demanded as the human reached him, his chest heaving with exertion but his uniform clearly that of a senior Colonial officer.
‘Twenty, maybe more,’ the man gasped. ‘They’re killing anybody who stands in their way! Don’t let them out here!’
The Morla’syn officer straightened and with one hand he propelled the Colonial officer behind him as he called out to his men.
‘Defensive positions! They’ll try to reach their ships!’
The Colonial officer staggered away from them and to the Morla’syn’s disgust he cowered behind the landing pad of one of the pirate freighters. Humans, he observed with distaste, the harbingers of war and yet those most afraid of it. He turned back to the landing bay entrance and crouched down, ready to fire upon anybody and anything that came through the doors.
He was about to send a few of his men forward to secure the bay when he heard the distinctive sound of a plasma pistol activating behind him. He whirled just in time to see the blast that hit him in the chest and hurled him to the ground.
Mikhain fired three more shots from Rench’s plasma pistol, hitting the Morla’syn soldiers in the back where they crouch
ed with low–energy rounds designed to stun, not to kill. The remaining guards whirled to return fire, and as they did so Mikhain heard a dreadful war cry and saw the pirates pour onto the landing platform. Caught out both from behind and from ahead, the Morla’syn panicked and began firing wildly in all directions.
The Donnassians plunged into the Morla’syn and overpowered half of them within moments. Mikhain watched as Rench ripped a plasma rifle from a Morla’syn guard’s hands and used the butt to smash him unconscious. The huge miner turned the rifle around and opened fire on the remaining guards as his comrades rushed forward.
To Mikhain’s surprise the ramp to Taron Forge’s pirate ship, Phoenix, lowered beside him as plasma blasts burst all around. Mikhain fired two more shots before he ducked onto the ramp and dashed up inside the freighter. Taron and Yo’Ki sprinted toward the craft and thundered up the ramp as Yo’Ki hit the emergency seal button and the ramp slowly began to raise.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’ Taron yelled as he doubled back on himself at the top of the ramp and dashed toward the cockpit.
Mikhain followed, Yo’Ki shouldering him briskly out of the way as the two pirates threw themselves into their respective seats and began starting the freighter’s engines.
Mikhain was himself a former Colonial pilot and he knew that most craft required several minutes to warm up and for internal instruments to self–calibrate, but the speed with which the Phoenix came on–line and her engines began to hum with energy stunned him. Within sixty seconds both of her ion engines were spun up, and moments later the freighter lifted off the pad and turned under Taron’s expert control before it blasted away from the pad and climbed out into the bright blue sky.
Mikhain glimpsed through the cockpit windows the Donnassians and pirates dashing for their craft below them, the bodies of the defeated Morla’syn littering the landing pad.
‘Head for Arcadia,’ Mikhain said.
‘You’re not on your bridge so stop giving orders,’ Taron replied without looking at the captain. ‘I’ll head where I damned well please.’
Defiance (Atlantia Series Book 5) Page 23
