Idris knew the way, and not a few shortcuts alongside them. He also knew that it would be much faster to reach the Arcadia’s War Room from her keel than to access the main bridge, which was located atop the hull. Salim, being a pirate and not a Colonial Officer, would likely have no detailed knowledge of Arcadia and as such would simply assume that the bridge was the only point from which the frigate could be controlled.
Idris closed his eyes, trying to let them adjust to the darkness as in his mind he imagined the vast hull before him.
Using his hands, he began feeling his way forward and vanished into the darkness.
***
XXXV
‘Legion!’
The cry went up among the Marines and they threw themselves into firing positions as the Veng’en warriors charged toward them, followed by the rippling sea of nanites as they spilled from the interior of the assault craft and from two more Raiders that burst through the cloud layer far above.
‘Enemy high!’ Idris shouted.
A barrage of plasma fire blasted out from the Marine lines into the charging Veng’en as Evelyn looked up and saw Hunters falling like veils of black rain from the sky above them, dropped deliberately like lethal little parachutists to disrupt the Marines from within. She looked over her shoulder and saw more deploying far behind Arcadia as more Raiders broke through the cloud layers above.
‘They’re surrounding us!’ Bra’hiv bellowed.
‘Get back, under the frigate’s bow!’ Evelyn yelled at the panicking hordes around her. ‘Fall back!’
The crowds of slaves began crying out in horror as they fled beneath the Arcadia’s massive hull to escape the coming torrent. Evelyn grabbed Ishira and propelled her with Erin toward cover.
‘Get under there and stay in cover!’ she bellowed.
Ishira retreated with her daughter and father as the Marines fired upon the charging hordes of Veng’en. Evelyn whirled and aimed at the nearest of the lithe, frighteningly fast Veng’en and fired twice. The first shot was dodged as the creature leaped sideways but her second struck it high in the chest, just beneath the throat. As the plasma round smashed and burned its way into the Veng’en’s body clouds of glowing orange embers burst from its eye sockets and mouth as though it were aflame from within.
‘That’s not possible!’ she cried out. ‘They’re infected!’
The horrific realisation spread through the Marines as they saw the Veng’en close up. Their once-yellow eyes now glowed a dull, soulless red, the surface glinting metallic grey around a mechanical iris. Patches of metallic, powder-like skin merged seamlessly with natural scales as the Infectors within them consumed and replaced their bodies.
‘I thought Veng’en were immune?!’ Teera shouted above the din of gunfire.
‘They were!’ Evelyn called back. ‘Something’s changed!’
The Veng’en’s eyes were surrounded by metallic scales, the infection rooted far more deeply there than on other parts of their bodies. Evelyn knew that Veng’en blood was toxic to the Infectors, too acidic for them to survive long enough to take control of their bodies. But if they had found a new vector into Veng’en bodies, perhaps through the eyes or nasal passages, a way to the brain that avoided the bloodstream, then that evolutionary process may have resulted in Ty’ek’s crew being overwhelmed and consumed.
Almost immediately Evelyn thought of Kordaz, but she knew the Veng’en warrior had escaped Salim’s throne room.
‘We can’t get aboard!’
Evelyn turned as she saw hundreds of slaves pounding at hatches all across the Arcadia’s hull, hatches that had been open moments before but were now firmly closed. She looked up at the ship’s gigantic launch bay doors high above and saw them rumbling closed, and from somewhere deep inside the massive hull she heard the sound of enormous ion engines beginning to engage.
‘She’s preparing to take off!’ Teera shouted in alarm.
Evelyn whirled as a screeching sound attracted her attention and a Veng’en warrior loomed before her, his left arm already missing from a plasma blast but his terrifying red eyes aglow with the mindless determination of a machine. Evelyn ducked and rolled to avoid the vicious swipe of the Veng’en’s D’jeck, the finely honed weapon whispering through the air above her head as she rolled and aimed up at the Veng’en’s face and fired.
The plasma shot blasted the Veng’en’s head from his neck and sent it spinning through the air in a trail of smoke as the creature’s body plunged toward Evelyn. She rolled aside as it thumped down onto the ground, a flood of Infectors spilling from its wounds in a glossy black rush.
‘Get away from it!’ she yelled at Teera.
The crowd of terrified slaves backed away, the noise from the Marines’ plasma rifles nearby deafening as Evelyn clambered to her feet and staggered back from the fallen Veng’en.
The nearby Marines were falling back, not from the charging Veng’en but from the Hunters swarming toward the Arcadia. Above the deafening roar of the frigate’s fusion cores and engines powering up were the screams of hundreds of terrified slaves fleeing the onrushing black wave of Hunters and the squeal and hiss of plasma rifles laying down fire against the Veng’en. A double blast thumped the air as two plasma grenades were lobbed into the morass of Hunters, a cloud of them vaporised into glowing embers that spiralled away on the blustering gale.
‘We’re pinned down!’ Evelyn yelled as loud as she could above the cacophony of battle. ‘There’s nowhere else to run!’
The sea of slaves and Ogrin backed away from the churning Hunters as Evelyn saw General Bra’hiv turn and run from his position, his Marines following suit as their defensive line was overrun by a tsunami of black metal, the sound of a million tiny legs like a waterfall of tiny stones.
‘Fall back!’ Bra’hiv bellowed, firing as he retreated and hitting a Veng’en square in the chest.
Evelyn saw the warrior fall and then be consumed as the wave of Hunters washed over it like back oil, millions of tiny metallic incisors slicing without thought into flesh, tearing it to pieces. The Veng’en looked as though he were crumbling in a sea of acid, limbs separated and vanishing, bones appearing bright white and pink from within red flesh and then disintegrating into power.
General Bra’hiv dashed to her side, his face flushed with the adrenaline overload of close combat.
‘The Atlantia’s hack hasn’t worked,’ he gasped. ‘We don’t have control of Arcadia and I can’t contact Atlantia!’
‘They must be under attack by the Veng’en and their signals blocked,’ Evelyn replied as Bra’hiv fired at two Veng’en crawling toward them, their legs already torn off by grenade blasts.
‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ Bra’hiv agreed. ‘There’s no other way off this planet except the pirate ships.’
‘We need Arcadia!’ Evelyn replied.
‘We need to survive!’ Bra’hiv insisted. ‘I’m pulling my troops toward the pirate ships, we’ll take what we can!’
Evelyn grasped desperately for a better solution but she knew that the general was right. Even as she admitted it to herself she saw Ishira, Stefan and Erin running toward the parked vessels on the far side of the frigate, where their ship Valiant was waiting. Even as she saw them, she spotted yet more pirate craft lifting off and blasting their way into the turbulent sky.
‘All right,’ she relented. ‘Teera!’ Her blue-skinned wingman looked up at her. ‘Get to your fighter! You’ll do more damage that way!’
Teera whirled and ran for her Raython as Evelyn looked at the Marine’s new defensive line and the assault craft still spilling Hunters onto the planet’s surface all around them.
‘How long?’ she asked.
Bra’hiv did not have to ask what she meant.
‘Five minutes and they’ll have us surrounded, and this will all be over.’
*
‘Reaper One break right!’
Andaim heard the command even as his Raython blasted from Atlantia’s launch bay. He shoved t
he control column over to the right and hauled back hard on it as a blaze of bright red plasma shots flashed by his left wing with what felt like scant cubits to spare.
His fighter shot from beneath the Atlantia’s bow and straight into a cloud of spiralling, rolling and twisting fighters all trying to get a bead on each other and open fire. Plasma blasts zipped back and forth in a hail of blue and red light as Andaim flew straight through the heart of the dogfight and spotted a stray plasma shot hit a Raython on its left wing and almost tear it completely off.
Andaim blinked, got control of his breathing and almost immediately his instinct for flying took over.
‘All Raythons, cease fire immediately!’
‘Do what?!’ came a chorus of replies.
‘You’re in disarray!’ Andaim insisted. ‘You’re as likely to hit each other as the enemy! Renegades, cease fire and re-group in sector one! Form pairs and re-engage!’
Andaim rolled his Raython over, light from the flaring sun flashing through the cockpit as he slipped into a tight formation behind a Veng’en Scythe fighter and fired once. His port shot hit the Scythe a glancing blow and it wobbled. Andaim kicked in left rudder and fired again. Both shots slammed into the fighter’s rear quarter and it burst open like a metallic flower that blossomed a bright ball of orange flame.
Andaim broke off and saw a dozen Raythons stream away from the fight with a handful of Scythes in pursuit, forming pairs once more as they swung around the Atlantia’s bow and turned back toward the engagement.
‘Now the Reapers to sector one, re-form and re-engage!’
Andaim watched as the Renegades rushed back toward the pursuing Scythes, and in paired formations opened fire. The Scythes were smashed aside as the Raythons burst back into the fight, staying in tightly knit pairs for mutual cover and maximum firepower as they engaged the Veng’en fighters.
Andaim climbed out of the engagement, high above it as he joined the Reapers and selected a lone Raython. He slid into formation alongside it.
‘Reaper One, port echelon Reaper Five.’
The pilot looked out of his cockpit over his left shoulder and saw Andaim in position off his wing.
‘Roger that, sir!’
‘Reaper Flight, engage!’
The squadron wheeled over the top of a loop and plunged back down into the fight, each pair of Raythons veering off in pursuit of a target as Andaim faithfully hung on to Reaper Five’s wing as the pilot pulled out of his dive into line astern with a Scythe and opened fire. Andaim kicked in some rudder as Atlantia’s hull rushed past at terrific speed beneath them and fired alongside Five.
The four plasma blasts converged on the fleeing Scythe and smashed into it with enough force to blast the craft into five separate pieces amid a flickering fireball that flared light across Atlantia’s hull and then vanished as the two Raython’s rocketed away from the frigate’s stern.
‘Whoa, that got ‘im!’ Five reported gleefully.
‘Break left!’ Andaim snapped. ‘Re-engage!’
‘Yessir!’
The two Raythons swept around a hard left turn and raced back into the fray, Andaim this time seeing Scythe fighters spiralling in chaos, all of them damaged or in the process of being shot down as the Raythons began achieving air superiority over their foe.
‘Atlantia, this is the CAG! Prepare to launch the Corsair bombers!’
A blast of static interference hissed in Andaim’s ears as the frigate’s communication sensors struggled to overcome the jamming coming from the Veng’en cruiser.
‘Two Corsairs on the cats!’ came the response from Mikhain. ‘But they’ll never reach the surface in time to stop Arcadia from lifting off. Our sensors show that the majority of our people are still on the surface!’
‘I don’t want our bombers to attack the surface,’ Andaim replied as he watched Reaper Five blast a Scythe fighter into blazing fragments with an explosion that briefly illuminated Andaim’s cockpit in an orange glow. ‘I want them to hit the Veng’en cruiser and break the jamming!’
‘Stand by!’
Andaim followed Reaper Five as they raced beneath the Atlantia’s massive hull and came up on the other side. The vast grey bulk of the Veng’en cruiser lay opposite, bathed in the fearsome glow of the dying star.
‘Corsairs launched!’ Mikhain called. ‘Sensors report massive electro-magnetic emissions from the cruiser’s mid-section.’
‘Copy that,’ Andaim replied. ‘Reaper Flight, on me!’
Andaim aimed his Raython at the Veng’en cruiser even as he spotted Raythons breaking away from the fight to join him and the two Corsairs race out of Atlantia’s launch bay.
***
XXXVI
‘I’m detecting ion exhaust from Arcadia, increasing by the second,’ Lael reported from her station aboard Atlantia’s bridge. ‘She’ll lift off within a few minutes.’
Mikhain stood beside the captain’s chair, his eyes flicking from one display to another. Atlantia shuddered as salvos from the Veng’en cruiser impacted her massive hull and the deck lights flickered and hummed as power surged through her electrical systems, the ship’s shields struggling to absorb the blows.
Two displays showed the scene on the surface, and it wasn’t good. Sensors with massive optical resolution showed the Arcadia’s form, and the shapes of three Raider assault craft nearby. Flickers of light betrayed the fierce battle on-going between the Veng’en and those on the ground, probably Bra’hiv’s Marines, while a dense mass of humanity swarming around the frigate likely denoted the slaves belonging to Salim Phaeon as they tried to board the frigate.
Mikhain turned to the tactical display and saw the Veng’en cruiser manoeuvring to avoid Atlantia’s guns while trying to bring her own to bear. Her lumbering size was no match for Atlantia’s manoeuverablity at close range, but the cruiser’s massive guns were a lethal threat to the frigate. If Mikhain missed a beat or was deceived by a feint on the Veng’en commander’s behalf, then a single broadside could smash Atlantia into instant submission and perhaps even complete destruction.
‘Helm, two degrees up and five left,’ he snapped. ‘Keep those guns at bay.’
‘Aye sir.’
Mikhain glanced at a third display, a holographic image of the Raythons engaging the Scythe fighters as they swarmed around the Atlantia’s hull. Roughly even in number, the Raythons were now inflicting a terrible toll on the Scythes, wave after wave being blasted as they launched from the Veng’en cruiser.
And then a thought crossed his mind: even despite their combat experience, the Raythons should not be so easily dominating the Veng’en Scythes.
‘Communications,’ he asked, ‘are you receiving any transmissions at all from the cruiser?’
‘Nothing sir,’ Lael replied. ‘No broadcasts, no transponder codes, nothing.’
‘What about the Scythes?’ he asked.
Lael frowned as she scanned her instruments. ‘Nothing that I can see but we’re being jammed.’
‘I don’t want to know what they’re saying,’ Mikhain urged, ‘just whether they’re communicating verbally at all?’
Lal spent a moment adjusting her controls and then she looked up again. ‘Negative sir, ther are no broadcasts at all between the enemy fighters, coded or not. What does that mean?’
Mikhain listened to the low-volume broadcasts coming from the Raython fighter pilots as they engaged the Scythes, constant calls of warnings, victories, damage reports and new contacts being shared by the pilots in their fast-moving, high intensity environment. He felt his blood run cold as he realised why the Veng’en were attacking them, why they would be engaging in a ferocious battle without speaking a single word to each other.
‘They’re infected,’ he said finally. ‘They’re under the control of the Legion.’
‘That’s not possible,’ Lael replied. ‘I thought that the Veng’en were immune to infection.’ ‘We must have been wrong,’ Mikhain snapped as he whirled to the tactical support officer. ‘Enhance t
he optical sensor arrays, I want maximum resolution right now!’
‘Aye sir!’
Mikhain watched as the optical images zoomed in dramatically to the scene on the planet below, to the point where he could pick out individuals running, could see the light from plasma shots zipping between black-fatigued Marines and the scaly brown figures of Veng’en. And there, behind the Veng’en, a roiling black sheet as though a sea of oil was spreading toward Arcadia.
‘Zoom out, two per cent,’ Mikhain ordered.
The display view widened, and around the docked frigate Mikhain saw a thick ring of black contracting toward Arcadia and the humans trapped beside her.
‘Hunters,’ Mikhain whispered as he watched the wave of nanites advancing across the compound. He could see that the wave was cutting off the survivors from the ranks of ships parked to the north of their position, pinning them in place around the Arcadia.
‘If she launches with those damned pirates aboard, we’ll lose the best chance we have of defeating the Veng’en,’ he said. ‘They might even attack us.’
‘We don’t know that,’ Lael pointed out. ‘Likely they’ll just run like hell out of the system and jump to super-luminal the first chance they get.’
Mikhain turned away from the screen, his mind racing. There had been no contact from the captain and it was clear that the unexpected Veng’en attack had caused chaos on the planet below. No longer in control of the situation and with the pirates clearly in control of Arcadia, Sansin had exhausted his options. Worse, the Arcadia might not escape the Legion entirely. If even a handful of Infectors managed to get aboard before she launched then she would be a plague ship, lethal to any human vessel she encountered until her entire hull had been swept clean by microwave scanners.
Mikhain looked one last time at the Veng’en cruiser and then at the Arcadia. Salim Phaeon was almost certainly aboard…
Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor Page 26
