Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor

by Dean Crawford

  The two Raythons streaked through space, the fleeing spacecraft ahead leaving a faint ion trail behind it as it raced clear of Chiron’s gravitational field. Evelyn kept one eye on her display as she waited for the Atlantia to reappear. Against the vast blackness of space, even a large vessel like a frigate was essentially invisible unless illuminated, and even with the veils of stellar material glowing all around them the Atlantia would be just a speck until the last moment.

  ‘Got her!’ Teera yelled.

  The Atlantia reappeared on their displays, far ahead but almost right in front of the fleeing craft’s path.

  ‘Prepare to intercept!’ Evelyn snapped.

  There was only one thing that their quarry could do and that was alter course to avoid the frigate, which would keep her inside Chiron’s gravitational influence for a little longer and give the Raythons a further chance to intercept and get in close.

  ‘There she goes, breaking left!’

  Evelyn laid in a fresh intercept course as she turned left, Teera just ahead of her, and the Atlantia also altered course to close in from the far side of the engagement. Evelyn spotted new contacts appearing as more fighters were launched by the Atlantia to aid the chase.

  ‘You’re not going anywhere now,’ Evelyn grinned.

  Her grin vanished as she saw their quarry reverse course in a tight, aggressive turn and race back toward her.

  ‘They’re engaging again!’ Teera called.

  A flash of plasma burst past Evelyn’s cockpit and she saw the spacecraft bank heavily and turn as it raced past her canopy.

  Evelyn hauled the Raython over into a hard turn in response, disbelief in her voice. ‘They’re closing for a fight!’

  To her amazement the craft turned rapidly with her Raython as she looked up out of her canopy and saw it matching her position, vying to turn more tightly and get in on her tail. A bolt of plasma fired straight up at her from turrets mounted on the craft’s upper fuselage caught her unawares and she yelped with fright as she rolled the Raython and jerked it out of the line of fire.

  ‘Weapons hot!’ Evelyn yelled. ‘Engage!’

  She saw Teera’s Raython rushing down upon the craft as Evelyn kept it busy.

  ‘I’ve got her,’ Teera replied as she settled neatly down in the turn behind the ship, which flashed by above Evelyn.

  Evelyn reversed her turn, rolling to keep the two spacecraft in sight above her as she moved to support her wingman.

  ‘Firing now,’ Teera called.

  Evelyn waited for the shots from Teera’s Raython, but nothing happened. The spacecraft broke hard right but Teera’s Raython continued silently on out into space.

  ‘Teera, what’s wrong?’ No answer came from the Raython. ‘Teera, respond!’

  Silence filled Evelyn’s cockpit and then a burst of plasma fire smashed into her Raython as the freighter’s turrets opened fire. Sparks flashed through the cockpit to the sound of warning alarms and the acrid stench of burning circuitry as Evelyn pulled hard right to throw off the freighter’s aim.

  ‘I’m hit!’ she yelled.

  One of her engines flamed out even as she scrambled to shut off fuel lines and isolate fires while throwing the fighter about in evasive manoeuvres. She craned her neck back and saw the freighter following her, plasma blasts flashing by as it tried to hit her again.

  ‘Atlantia, Reaper One, respond, ETA?’

  ‘Reaper One, Renegade Flight, ETA three minutes.’

  Damn, not quick enough.

  Evelyn broke hard left as she shut off the damaged engine, and then on an impulse she threw the throttles wide open and kicked in a boot full of rudder. The Raython yawed violently and span on its axis to point back at the pursuing freighter.

  Evelyn saw the ship track through her sights and she fired twice, her senses heightened by adrenaline mixing with the Devalimine coursing through her veins. Two plasma rounds leaped from her weapons, one flashing past the ship but the other striking it square on the bow with a bright flare of dissipated energy as the ship’s shields absorbed the blow.

  The freighter rushed overhead, forced to overshoot as Evelyn’s remaining engine slowed her down dramatically in her new orientation, and she felt the vibrations from the craft’s engines as it roared by. She flipped the Raython over once more and tried to pursue, but with one engine out it was useless.

  She was about to call it in when a new voice emerged over the radio.

  ‘Renegade three and four in position.’

  Andaim Ry’ere’s calm tone startled Evelyn and she glanced down at her display to see two more Raythons streaking by far ahead, cutting the freighter off once more. She looked right and saw several Raythons rushing toward her, the fighters marked by blue boxes projected onto her canopy.

  Evelyn looked at the freighter and she knew that it could no longer escape as a warning salvo was fired across its bow to explode in bright flares of blue-white light.

  ‘What took you so long?’ she demanded of the CAG with a smile.

  ‘It’s fashionable to be late,’ Andaim replied. ‘Cover Reaper Two, immediately.’

  Evelyn switched her attention to Teera’s stricken Raython still flying out into the void in a straight line as though nobody were at the controls. She pursued the Raython, calling for Teera to respond, until she drew alongside and got a good look at the fighter.

  Teera was still inside, her head slumped forward in her cockpit, which was covered in what looked like some kind of energy field.

  ‘The freighter must have dumped something on her,’ she reported back. ‘Teera’s not responding. Deploy a rescue vehicle. I’ll hack her fighter’s control computer, slow her down and shut down her engines.’

  ‘Copy that,’ Andaim replied. ‘We’ve got things here.’

  Evelyn glanced over her shoulder and saw the distant speck of the unknown freighter being circled by several Raythons as, further away, the Atlantia closed in. Over the radio, she heard Captain Idris Sansin’s voice broadcasting on all channels.

  ‘Unidentified craft, stand down and prepare to land or we will blow you into a thousand pieces!’

  ***

  IX

  Evelyn’s damaged Raython wobbled as she guided the craft in for a landing, the fighter drifting into the landing bay and hovering above the deck on its magnetically-opposed landing pads as she nursed it over its landing spot and set it down.

  As she began shutting the fighter’s systems down other fighters landed around her, with Teera’s Raython being eased in under remote control via Atlantia’s technical crew as a medical team and several dozen armed Marines stood-by in the sealed bunkers lining the bay to receive the craft.

  The landing bay emergency lights remained on and the bay doors stayed open, forcing the rest of the pilots to remain in their cockpits as, escorted by two more Raythons, the freighter they had pursued eased into the Atlantia’s landing bay.

  She was larger than Evelyn had assumed during the fight, her fuselage scorched with plasma damage both old and new. A few dents and nicks marred her hull plating, the long nose at her bow and broad viewing screen growing into a larger mid-section. The two horizontal strakes either side of the main hull held her four ion engines and she could see the plasma turrets that had fired at her and Teera, their barrels scorched black by the heat.

  The freighter extended three heavy-duty landing pads in a tricycle pattern, blasts of vapour flaring from her exhaust nozzles as her pilot balanced her, and then the landing struts sank down as they took some of the weight of the ship against the magnetically-charged decks and she landed.

  From the bunkers, Marines in atmospherically-sealed battle suits rushed across the deck and surrounded the freighter, plasma rifles aimed up at the ship as behind it the last two Raythons landed and the huge bay doors rumbled shut.

  Evelyn saw the atmosphere being reintroduced into the landing bay, and then the lights turned green and she instantly hit the switch to open her canopy as she tore off her harnesses and leaped out
of the cockpit. The temperature was bitterly cold in the wake of the vacuum of space, but tolerable now that massive deck vents were billowing hot air in trembling clouds to re-heat the internal atmosphere.

  The ground crews swarming to the Raythons with boarding ladders and refuelling hoses never even got close to Evelyn as she vaulted down onto the deck and hurried across to Teera’s Raython.

  The Marines guarding it remained at a safe distance as technical crews scanned the strange energy field bathing the fighter’s nose and canopy.

  ‘What is it?’ Evelyn demanded.

  One of the technicians glanced at her, saw that her shoulder insignia outranked his by a good margin, and replied instantly.

  ‘We don’t know. Scanners don’t recognise the material at all, although it is negatively charged and attracts to the surface of the Raython.’

  ‘What about Teera?’

  ‘Lieutenant Teera is alive and appears to be asleep.’

  ‘Get that thing off her,’ Evelyn ordered.

  ‘We don’t know what it will do to her if we remove it, or us,’ the technician replied. ‘We can’t just rush over there and yank it off and…’

  Evelyn stormed past the technicians and broke through the Marines to grab one of the fire crew’s hoses. The fireman shouted in protest at her but Evelyn ignored him as she strode closer and aimed the nozzle at the energy field on Teera’s fighter and opened it up.

  A blast of thick fire-retardant foam blasted the nose of the Raython and the glowing material flickered as it was lifted by the force of the flow and slid sideways, tumbling like a fabric that was somehow alive as it folded over upon itself and then tumbled from the Raython’s nose and slithered down toward the deck. The bay’s zero-gravity allowed it to hang in mid-air, suspended amid a galaxy of foam droplets.

  Evelyn shut off the hose and dropped it as she dashed to Teera’s cockpit and hit the emergency release handles embedded into the fuselage wall. The canopy hissed open just as Teera lifted her head and stared bleary-eyed at Evelyn.

  ‘What happened?’ she mumbled.

  Evelyn looked back at the medical teams. ‘Get over here, now!’

  She jumped down as the medics rushed up to the fighter, and immediately stormed past them toward the freighter looming nearby, encircled by armed Marines.

  ‘Get that thing open, now!’

  General Bra’hiv pulled his helmet off and waved her down.

  ‘Easy there lieutenant, the ship could be infected by the Legion and we don’t know who or what is aboard and…’

  ‘I don’t care!’ Evelyn snapped. ‘You get them out here and let me crack their head for…’

  Evelyn was interrupted by a loud hiss of escaping air as from beneath the freighter a boarding ramp descended on hydraulic rams. She drew her plasma pistol and activated it even as Bra’hiv took up position, ready to confront whoever or whatever walked down the ramp. Evelyn positioned herself behind the general’s right shoulder and took aim to cover him.

  The ramp hit the deck with a loud metallic clang, and the clouds of released vapour swirled for a moment and then dissipated as the sound of boots marched down the ramp and a voice called out from inside.

  ‘How many of you are infected?!’

  General Bra’hiv opened his mouth to speak, but Evelyn’s voice rang out.

  ‘None. Get out here, now!’

  A long silence hung in the air in the wake of Evelyn’s shout and then a pair of boots appeared through the vapour, followed by a long pair of legs casually striding down the metallic ramp. As Evelyn watched, a tall, swarthy man with tanned skin and a casual set to his shoulders descended the ramp, a plasma blaster in one hand and caution writ large on his features as he hesitated.

  The man looked about him at the armed Marines, the landing bay packed with Raython fighters and the hustle and bustle of a busy Colonial frigate.

  General Bra’hiv aimed his rifle directly at the man. ‘Drop your weapon and get down on your knees!’

  The man stayed where he was. A pair of icy grey eyes fixed upon the General’s. ‘I’m not going anywhere or doing anythin’ until I know what’s going on here.’

  ‘You’re under arrest, that’s what’s going on,’ Bra’hiv snapped. ‘Get on your knees now or I’ll order my men to fire.’

  The grey eyes flicked across the gathered Marines but again the man did not move. His reply rang out clear across the landing bay.

  ‘Yo’Ki!’

  In an instant the freighter’s plasma turrets activated with a hum of energy as two more popped out from concealed panels beneath the spacecraft’s hull and swung around to point at Evelyn, General Bra’hiv and the gathered Marines.

  The man’s features twisted into a sly grin as he looked at the general. ‘One shot and I’ll have my ship blast this entire landing bay into molten slag, understood?’

  Bra’hiv growled under his breath alongside Evelyn and then called back. ‘You’re not in a position to make threats!’

  ‘Yes I am,’ the man replied. ‘But I have no desire to hurt anybody. You pursued me, remember, and I assumed that this was a vessel infected by the Word. There are enough of them about, former Colonial rigs filled with those little machines tearing up the cosmos. You’re going to arrest me for trying to save my own life?’

  Evelyn stared at the man for a long moment, and then she lowered her pistol and holstered it. The man noticed her move and gestured to her.

  ‘Now, that wasn’t so tough was it?’ he asked. ‘The lady here knows where I stand.’

  Evelyn gauged the angle of the freighter’s plasma cannons and determined that they could not shoot directly at her without hitting Taron. She stepped out from behind the general with her hands in the air.

  Evelyn strode forward and up the ramp toward the man, and stood before him for a moment. He could have been twenty years old or forty, it was hard to tell. Lean and with a casual stance that belied a good degree of physical fitness, the pilot looked the image of restrained violence. His disregard for the danger he was in, and for what he had done to Teera, angered Evelyn even more.

  ‘Here’s where I stand,’ she said.

  Evelyn dropped her hands and swung a bunched fist straight across the man’s jaw, the impact a dull crack that echoed across the landing bay. The pilot fell backwards and slammed onto his back on the ramp as Evelyn pointed down at him.

  ‘Try using the damned emergency comms frequencies next time! You nearly got my wingman and I killed!’

  The man stared up at her as he massaged his jaw, and an annoying smirk curled from his lips as he slowly got back to his feet.

  ‘Shut down your weapons,’ Bra’hiv ordered the pilot.

  ‘Call off your men,’ he replied past Evelyn.

  A voice came from behind them. ‘You don’t give orders on this ship, captain.’

  Evelyn turned as Andaim appeared at the foot of the ramp and surveyed the scene, his flight helmet tucked under his arm. He took one look at the new arrival and seemed to make a decision.

  ‘General, order your men to stand down for now,’ he suggested.

  The general scowled but Evelyn could see that the CAG no longer considered the pilot much of a threat. Bra’hiv waved his men down and they lowered their weapons. The pilot’s grin broadened.

  ‘I knew you’d all see sense,’ he murmured, and then he called back into the interior of his ship. ‘Shut her down, Yo’Ki!’

  Moments later, the humming plasma turrets whined down and the pirate captain holstered his pistol and pointed at his own chest.

  ‘Captain Taron Forge, at your service.’

  Evelyn blinked. ‘Forge?’

  Taron rolled his eyes. ‘An unfortunate legacy.’

  Andaim stepped up and looked Taron up and down. ‘I’ll be damned, the son of Tyraeus Forge, one of our finest fleet admirals.’

  ‘Ex-admirals,’ Taron reminded the CAG. ‘The damned fool vanished during the apocalypse.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Evelyn said as she re
called her encounter with a man who was no longer a man but a hideous cannibalisation of man and machine.

  ‘You’re not going to make my day even worse and tell me that my old man’s still alive are you?’ Taron asked.

  Before Evelyn could reply, Andaim took a pace closer to Taron. ‘We’ll be asking the questions, and you’ll be coming with me.’

  Andaim reached out for Taron’s arm. In an instant, Taron gripped Andaim’s forearm and turned violently, hauling Andaim aside. The CAG crashed down onto the ramp and Taron’s plasma pistol flashed into his hand with near-magical speed and aimed down into the CAG’s face.

  Evelyn stepped forward, but this time Taron’s grin was cold.

  ‘You only get one opportunity like that, sister,’ he snapped, and then looked back down at Andaim. ‘I don’t take orders, expecially from a damned Colonial Officer. I’m here because you wanted me to be, because you pursued me. Any of you try telling me what to do one more time I’ll blow this ship’s landing bay apart just for the hell of it, understood? Now, you answer me a question: what the hell do you want?’

  It was not Andaim that answered, but Captain Idris Sansin, flanked by a squad of Marines.

  ‘We want to know what’s going on out there, and you’re going to help us,’ he boomed.

  ***

  X

  ‘Are you kidding me?’

  The Executive Officer, Mikhain, dragged one hand across his forehead as he marched up and down in his tiny cabin. He glanced at Ensign Scott, a young man he had taken under his wing over the months. Idealistic and devoted to the Colonial cause, he like many younger crew members understood Mikhain’s concern over Captain Sansin’s methods and sympathised with the direction he wished to take.

  ‘I’m not, sir. Taron Forge has been given temporary quarters aboard ship, captain’s orders. In return the captain wants information from him’

  Mikhain struggled to comprehend what Captain Sansin was hoping to achieve.

  ‘First a Veng’en hitch-hiker and now he’s entertaining a damned pirate?’