She heard Salim’s gasp of surprise and thought she noticed a ripple of panic on his features as the sound of work on the nearby frigate faded away.
‘Place him under arrest, right now!’ Salim roared out across the compound to his men.
Evelyn heard Sansin’s voice call back, deeper and with resolutely more force despite the distant between the two men.
‘You’ll do no such thing, Salim! Get your fat backside out here now or I’ll have this entire compound blown to damnation and to hell with myself or your hostages! Or are you afraid to do your own dirty work? Still not got the guts for a face-to-face, Salim?’
The captain’s voice rolled and echoed across the compound and Evelyn realised that the distant hiss and clatter of work being done to Arcadia’s hull had fallen entirely silent. Along with everybody else in the throne room she looked at Salim, who stared wide-eyed at the distant form of Idris Sansin. The pirate seemed to realise everyone was watching him and he suddenly roused himself into motion and began walking down toward the compound.
‘Captain’s keeping him off balance,’ Evelyn whispered. ‘Something’s going on but I can’t be sure what.’
She could see that one of the Marines was well over six feet tall, about Qayin’s height but she could not be sure if it was the former convict or not. Both Marines were equipped with full environmental suits, their features disguised.
Salim strode out onto the compound and slowed as he approached Captain Sansin. The captain stood in silence, his hands behind his back as he watched Salim. Idris ignored the pirate crowd around him and kept his gaze fixed upon Salim, despite being aware that the hundreds of slaves nearby were openly watching events unfold.
The pirate stopped a few feet from Idris, careful to remain out of arm’s reach.
‘A long time, captain,’ Salim said quietly.
‘Not long enough,’ Idris replied. ‘I’d assumed you were long dead.’
‘As I had hoped. I found that less Colonial forces attacked me when they thought that I no longer existed.’
Idris looked up at the towering bulk of Arcadia. ‘And what, exactly, do you intend to be doing with this frigate?’
‘Leaving the area, with all due haste,’ Salim replied. ‘We won her in battle, captain, and she belongs to us now.’
‘Her crew?’ Idris asked.
Salim shrugged his round shoulders slowly. ‘None survived,’ he replied finally. ‘But you know how these Colonial types can be – they don’t understand when they’re beaten.’
‘Unlike you,’ Idris replied. ‘It’s been very illuminating watching you grovel like a whipped dog on those prison videos. I’m surprised that you folded so easily, given how hard it was for me to capture you. I guess cowards run faster than heroes.’
‘I spent four years being abused by Colonial prison officers because of you,’ Salim hissed, keeping his voice down but unable to keep the anger from his tone. ‘They beat and whipped and used me like a whore, and every single second of it was down to you.’
Idris shrugged.
‘It’s no more and no less than you have done to others. No more or less than what you’re doing now.’
‘Give yourself up, Sansin,’ Salim snapped. ‘Hand yourself over and I’ll free your crew.’
‘I don’t believe that for a moment, Salim,’ Idris replied. ‘You’re not a man of honour and never will be. You’d cut your own mother’s throat if the price was right.’
‘For most, no,’ Salim agreed, ‘but to have your damned hide hanging on the wall of my compound, I’d give up almost anything. Your crew, for your life, and you have my word whether you believe it or not.’
‘Release my people and I won’t order Atlantia to bomb this compound into the Stone Age,’ Idris replied. ‘You don’t have any plays left, Salim.’
The pirate king frowned and chuckled as he looked around, at the hostages behind him in the throne room, at the ring of pirates surrounding them, at the countless Ogrin and the huge frigate Arcadia.
‘I think that you’ve overestimated your position, captain,’ he said. ‘There is no way back to Atlantia for you now. In fact I could have you shot this very instant and there would be nothing that you could do about it.’
Idris shrugged.
‘Enough talk then,’ he said. ‘Do it.’
Salim’s eyes narrowed and he called over his shoulder to one of the pirates. ‘Any explosives aboard their shuttle?’
The pirate, holding a small scanner in one hand and a pistol in the other, shook his head.
‘Nobody but the pilot still aboard, no shields active and no weapons detected. It’s clean.’
Salim watched Idris for a moment longer.
‘Then to hell with you, Sansin,’ he spat.
Salim reached down and drew the plasma whip from his belt, activating it in one fluid motion as he swung it over his head and down toward Idris’s chest. Captain Sansin leaped to one side and rolled as he hit the ground, the glowing whip humming through the air and missing him by inches as he came up on one knee and brought his hands out from behind his back, a small device contained within them.
Salim’s quick eyes spotted the device and panic struck him even as he reversed the direction of his whip in an attempt to strike out at Idris’s hand.
‘Shoot him, now!’ he roared at his men.
The pirates moved to take aim but they didn’t even come close to firing before Sansin depressed a button on the device and ducked his head down.
A deafening blast split the air all around them and Idris saw from the corner of his eye the large generator banks began to explode one by one in a violent expanding fireball of flame and black smoke, scrap metal shooting through the air.
The pirates surrounding them dove for cover as Sansin pressed a second button on the device in his hand.
Across the compound the Phoenix’s boarding ramp hissed open and amid the blasts of flame and noise dozens of Marines pounded down the ramp and opened fire into the crowds of pirates surrounding them.
***
XXXIII
Evelyn leaped up even as the shockwave from the first blast hit the throne room, and the Ogrin instinctively threw themselves away from it as pirates and captives alike ducked aside for cover.
She ran hard, crossing the throne room in two bounds as she hurled herself into the nearest pirate and drove her shoulder deep into his abdomen. The pirate doubled over as he was hurled into a wall, the breath driven from his lungs as his head cracked against the unyielding metal. Evelyn grasped the pirate’s pistol and yanked it from his hands before driving the butt into the side of his head. The pirate slumped as Evelyn turned and swung the pistol to bear upon the two Ogrin.
She opened fire, the first shot smashing into an Ogrin’s chest in a spray of burning flesh and blue-white plasma. The creature roared in agony as it toppled into its companion, both of them crashing onto the ground in a heaving tangle of limbs.
Kordaz rolled aside from the collapsing Ogri and darted away toward the exits, one hand covering his injured chest as several pirates shouted commands and tried to open fire on the fleeing Veng’en.
Evelyn fired two random shots into the pirates nearest her, sending them diving for better cover, and then she whirled and took careful aim at the Marines. She briefly registered looks of absolute panic on the soldier’s faces as she aimed and then she fired. Her shot smacked into the metal chains pinning them in place, and the chains melted in a pile of glowing slag as the soldiers hauled themselves free and scattered with war cries across the throne room.
Evelyn rushed across to where Ishira was shielding Erin from the carnage as the Marines ploughed en massa into pirates and wrestled them to the ground, the screams of mortal combat deafening with the blasts coming from the generators outside.
‘With me!’ she shouted at them as Teera leaped to her feet.
Taron Forge and Yo’Ki were already moving as the Marines took control of the throne room, and Evelyn looked at the unpredictable s
muggler with renewed enthusiasm as she saw the soldiers pouring from within the Phoenix and laying down heavy fire against Salim’s pirates.
‘I knew there was more to you!’ she shouted above the din.
‘We’re even!’ Taron snapped. ‘And we’re out of here!’
Before she could reply, Taron and Yo’Ki dashed out of the throne room and began making their way toward the Phoenix.
‘Let ‘em go!’ Teera yelled. ‘They’re not worth the effort!’
Evelyn turned as several Marines, now heavily armed with an assortment of weapons liberated from pirates now sprawled comatose on the floor all around them, formed up on Evelyn and watched her expectantly.
She shook herself from watching Taron Forge vanish and called her orders to them.
‘Form an advance guard!’ she ordered. ‘Get everybody out of here, hybrids and other slaves included, and get them to Arcadia!’
‘We’re not going back in shuttles?!’ a Marine asked in confusion.
‘I don’t think that’s what the captain has in mind,’ Evelyn called back. ‘We’re here to take Arcadia with us! Who wants to fight the Word with two warships instead of one?!’
A cheer went up among the Marines as they ran from the throne room and opened fire on pirates who were retreating from the battle raging across the compound, hoping for cover within the throne room. Caught between a blaze of plasma fire, they began scattering for their ships instead.
‘It’s working! They’re running!’ Lieutenant C’rairn shouted from the compound below as he led his Marines toward the throne complex. ‘Let them go and head for Arcadia!’
The Marines began breaking away from the fight and running toward the frigate, and as Evelyn sprinted for the nearest access point she heard Salim screaming to his men as he fled toward the frigate.
‘Seal the ship!’ he bellowed. ‘Don’t let them aboard!’
*
Atlantia’s bridge was deathly silent, every member of the command crew standing by at their stations and waiting for a signal to appear on the frigate’s sensor arrays and reveal Salim Phaeon’s compound. Andaim stood on the command platform in front of the captain’s chair, his hands behind his back as he slowly paced up and down, sub-consciously mimicking Idris Sansin’s own habit.
‘Sensor sweep,’ he said, his voice calm and yet easily heard across the entire bridge.
‘Negative,’ Lael replied moments later. ‘Still no discernible data from the site.’
‘How long have they been gone?’ he asked Mikhain.
‘Less than an hour,’ the XO replied.
Andaim tensed his hands behind his back. The shuttle would have taken little more than thirty minutes to descend to the surface, and perhaps another ten to circle in and land at the compound. That left over twenty minutes gone where anything could have happened, including Salim Phaeon deciding to take no chances and blasting the shuttle out of the sky before it could land.
Andaim glanced at the Atlantia’s internal tactical display and checked once again that all fighters were ready for launch, Renegade Flight sitting on the catapults in the launch bay ready to go, two Corsair bombers standing-by and Reaper Flight right behind them. Two shuttles of Marines were also waiting, and all of Atlantia’s plasma cannons were fully charged for an orbital bombardment if the captain’s plan failed and…
Meyanna Sansin rushed onto the bridge, her features flushed with anxiety.
‘It’s Qayin!’
‘What is?’ Andaim asked.
‘He’s the dealer, he’s the source,’ Meyanna replied. ‘Half of his Marines are acting with him. You need to arrest him right now. Where is he?’
Mikhain looked at the commander, and Andaim’s expression darkened.
‘He’s already well beyond our reach,’ he replied as he turned to Mikhain. ‘Damn it, we need to let the captain know and…
‘Contact, surface elevation two hundred and eight cubits above mean sea level!’ Lael called out as her panel lit up and the tactical display on the bridge changed.
Andaim whirled as he saw a small, circular patch of the planet’s surface suddenly shimmer and data start streaming onto the screens as Lael zoomed the Atlantia’s sensors in on what had previously been nothing more than a blurred and pixelated patch of coastline.
‘It’s Arcadia!’ Lael confirmed. ‘Military registration codes and Identification Friend or Foe transponding on normal frequencies!’
‘I’ve got gunfire,’ Mikhain added. ‘Multiple discharges!’
‘Activate the sensor hack!’ Andaim called. ‘Launch Renegade Flight and back them up with both Corsairs and one shuttle of Marines!
‘Aye, captain!’ Mikhain called and relayed the command.
Andaim turned and saw on a live feed screen Atlantia’s launch bay door drop and two Raythons accelerate in a blur as they shot out into space, two more already lining up on the catapults behind them.
He whirled and saw the optical sensors trained on the Arcadia and the pirate compound far below. He could see the indistinct black shapes of Marines firing on fleeing figures, the signs of complete chaos and confusion, and he smiled.
‘It’s working,’ he said. ‘Salim’s pirates are breaking up under the assault!’
‘Sensor hack engaged!’ Lael called. ‘Synchronising now!’
Andaim waited, and then he saw Lael’s face fall.
‘What is it?’
‘Synchronisation failed!’ Lael called, a faint tremor in her voice. ‘We’re being jammed!’
‘I thought that Salim’s systems were down?’
Lael scanned her displays desperately, but it was Mikhain who called out next.
‘It’s not them jamming us! New contact, bearing oh-five-seven, elevation four two!’
Andaim felt something icy run through his veins as he turned and saw a new, large contact on the tactical displays. Data streams from the oncoming contact filled the side of the screen.
‘It’s Veng’en!’ Mikhain shouted, now truly alarmed. ‘Sheilds are up, weapons are charging! It’s an ambush!’
Andaim felt his mind swamp with indecision, and for several long seconds he stared at the screen and did not move.
‘Commander?’
Andaim turned, wide-eyed as Mikhain stared at him expectantly. A single line drifted through Andaim’s mind: If you’re in danger of freezing, do something, anything, rather than just stand there looking dumb. Say something!
Words spilled from Andaim’s mouth as though of their own accord.
‘Re-task the Raythons to Atlantia’s defence!’
Mikhain nodded and relayed the order, and suddenly Andaim’s brain re-engaged itself.
‘Hold back the second Marine troop in case we need them!’ he shouted. ‘Stream all power to the plasma cannons facing the Veng’en cruiser and hail them on all frequencies!’
Lael nodded as she frowned at her screen.
‘It’s Commander Ty’ek’s former vessel, captain,’ she informed him. ‘The one we were following. I thought that they were on our side now?!’
Andaim could not answer her and he saw the look in Mikhain’s eye.
‘I told the captain that following them was a bad idea,’ the XO snapped. ‘You can’t trust a Veng’en as far as you can throw them.’
‘Scythe fighters deploying from the Veng’en cruiser!’ yelled a tactical officer from across the bridge. ‘She’s moving to engage!’
‘Launch all Raythons in response!’ Andaim fired his order back. ‘But do not fire until fired upon!’
‘Too late!’ Mikhain shouted. ‘All batteries on the cruiser firing now!’
‘Brace for impact!’ Andaim yelled. ‘Return fire and get them on screen!’
Andaim hurled himself into the captain’s chair as the main viewing panel changed from an image of Salim’s compound to one of the huge Veng’en cruiser looming toward them, her starboard hull rippling with bright red flashes as her plasma cannons opened fire as they came to bear.
The Atlant
ia shuddered as the blows hammered into her shielded hull, each blast louder than the last as they battered their way up Atlantia’s flank toward her bridge. Alarms and claxons rang out as the immense energy of each strike overwhelmed the shield generators and caused short-outs and electrical fires to spring up across the ship.
‘Fires on decks three through five!’ Lael called out. ‘Sheilds holding but power is down by twelve percent!’
‘Return fire, all batteries!’ Andaim yelled.
A deeper ripple of thumps reverberated through Atlantia’s hull as her massive cannons responded and blasted a salvo of huge blue-white plasma charges across the bitter vacuum of space between the two vessels. Andaim saw the blasts smash into the Veng’en cruiser’s hull in flashes of light that flickered and flared like lightning.
‘Direct hits!’ Mikhain called out. ‘The jamming is preventing us from assessing the damage to their hull!’
‘Renegade Flight fully engaged!’ Lael added. ‘They’re outnumbered two to one!’
‘Get the Reapers out there!’ Andaim shouted as he realised that a thin veil of blue smoke was drifting through the bridge as circuitry was being overloaded. ‘All power to starboard shields, bring us about!’
The helmsman obeyed instantly, Atlantia turning slowly but far faster than the much larger Veng’en cruiser could manage. Andaim saw that the viewing screen was now showing a shower of plasma shots zipping between the tiny Raythons and Scythes fighting for their lives between the two massive warships.
‘Reaper Flight launching!’ Mikhain informed Andaim. ‘Four Raythons on orders to hold back and defend Atlantia.’
‘Good,’ Andaim replied. ‘Helm, full power, bring us right in front of her. I want all our weapons to bear upon her bridge and as few of hers able to respond.’
‘That could expose our people on the surface to bombardment,’ Mikhain warned. ‘If we can see Arcadia, then so can they!’
‘Then we had best be quick about it!’ Andaim snapped back. ‘If we don’t win this battle real fast then there won’t be anybody left to stop a Veng’en bombardment!’
Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor Page 24
