Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor

by Dean Crawford

  ‘CAG, how long until those sensors are down?’

  Andaim’s reply came back distorted and broken.

  ‘… inbound… heavy fire… stan.. –by…’

  Mikhain turned to the tactical officer, Ensign Scott. ‘Power up the starboard batteries for a ground bomnbardment,’ he ordered.

  Ensign Scott stared back at Mikhain for a long beat. ‘The captain said that was a last resort and…’

  ‘That was before the Veng’en attacked us!’ Mikhain snapped. ‘We’re fighting the Legion now and we can’t afford to take any chances. Charge the batteries now or I’ll find somebody else to do it in your ‘stead!’

  Ensign Scott turned back to his instruments. ‘Aye, cap’ain!’

  Mikhain turned back to the image of the Veng’en cruiser, saw the tiny specks of the Raythons racing toward her, and hoped to hell that they got to her before he was forced to destroy Arcadia.

  *

  Idris Sansin hurried through the pitch-black darkness, one hand running along the surface of a massive heat-exchange pipe that he knew traversed the length of Arcadia’s hull. From his memory of the Atlantia he knew that the corridor alongside the pipe ran for a similar length and was unobstructed but for bulkheads spaced at precisely eighty six cubits, roughly a hundred paces for an old man. He smiled at his own imagining of himself in the darkness. Truth was he was only fifty five and probably had a good few years in him yet, but in the mirror the stresses and strains of command had aged him, his hair greyer and his skin more deeply lined that he deserved.

  The thump and whine of plasma fire from the battle raging outside the hull faded into the distance as he hurried along, and then found what he was looking for. A bulkhead of different dimensions to the others, bulkier and with double instead of single doors. Built into a crossmember of the ship’s architecture, the heavy frames denoted to Idris a position directly beneath the launch bay. Many times in the past, as part of his duties, he and other officers had been required to survey these deep and lonely sections of Atlantia and had been able to hear the roar of the old Phantom fighters as they launched during normal operational cycles just a couple of decks above.

  Idris reached up, searching for manual access panels that lined the ceiling. Designed for emergency access from a burning launch bay in the event of fire, they were designed to normally be used by deck crew escaping downward but were equally able to be opened from below. Idris found one, strained against the handles until they began to turn, and then carefully lowered the panel down. He took a few deep breaths and then used the same handle to haul himself up, managed to get a hand up into the access chute and then a boot onto the door handle, and with a final push climbed up into the chute.

  Idris took a few more moments to catch his breath and then he hauled the panel closed beneath him and reached out into the darkness above his head. He found the panel to the deck above fairly quickly, off-set from the one he had just used to prevent crew members from jumping down through two decks at a time and injuring themselves. Idris cranked the handle and the hatch opened, a faint glow of light and a cool breeze drifting toward him.

  He climbed up and peeked over the edge of the deck to see Arcadia’s massive launch bay, the doors wide open. He heard a loud rumble and saw the bay doors beginning to close. Around the bay, lights flickered on as power was engaged somewhere within the ship.

  ‘Damn it.’

  Salim was already preparing Arcadia for launch, and time was running out. Idris hauled himself out of the deck panel and left it open as he stood up to survey the bay. And then his breath seemed to clog in his throat.

  Idris stared behind him into the depths of the launch bay and saw there two neat rows of Raython fighters, several shuttles and four Corsair bombers. He gasped in amazement, utterly bewildered. All of the craft seemed pristine in condition, barely used, and he wondered again how the hell Salim Phaeon and his mercenary little bunch had been able to overwhelm Arcadia in open combat. He recalled the pirate’s boast of how he had defeated Arcadia’s captain. There were no signs of combat aboard the ship, and as far as he was aware nobody had laid eyes on the crew.

  Over a thousand souls, unaccounted for.

  Idris felt certain that they were not among the ranks of Salim’s slaves – so many Colonial officers and enlisted men and women would not have buckled so easily. But then, where the hell were they?

  A loud, reverberating hum shuddered through Arcadia’s hull as though the ship were coming alive beneath his feet, and Idris turned and began running through the launch bay toward the War Room.

  *

  ‘Get out there!’

  Sergeant Qayin’s voice roared above the sound of battle as he crouched down near the Phoenix’s boarding ramp and opened fire on the Veng’en plunging toward the mass of panicking slaves packed against Arcadia’s hull.

  The Marine’s of Bravo Company formed up around him, rifles blazing into the Veng’en horde. Dozens of the warriors switched direction and ran with fearsome speed toward the Phoenix, their bodies riddled with the Legion, chunks of metal flashing amid leathery skin.

  ‘Keep them back!’ Qayin bellowed. ‘Defensive positions!’

  The Marines obeyed with fluid and fearless speed, fanning out and covering each other’s positions in a staggered semi-circle as they laid down a ferocious field of fire against the Veng’en.

  Qayin dropped to one knee, raised his rifle and fired twice into a charging Veng’en, saw the flesh from the creature’s massive chest blast apart in a smouldering cloud and drops of molten metal spray like glowing blood from inside as the warrior tumbled to the ground and his comrades ran over his body in their headlong charge.

  ‘Maintain positions!’ Qayin roared, firing again. ‘Hold the line!’

  The big man looked to his left in time to see a lithe, tall man with dark hair dashing toward them and firing as he went. Behind Taron was Yo’Ki with a flashing blade in one hand and a pistol that seemed too big for her in the other. Even as Qayin watched Yo’Ki fired into the face of an attacking Veng’en warrior, blasting his head from his shoulders as she turned sideways and drove the soul of her boot into the dead creature’s chest. The Veng’en’s headlong charge was arrested in time for the woman to drive the length of her blade deep into another Veng’en’s belly and then yank it free along with a torrent of blood.

  Taron Forge whirled and fired at the stricken Veng’en, blasting him away from Yo’Ki before the Infectors surging through the creature’s body could infect his co-pilot. Together, in perfect and violent harmony, the pair fought their way toward the Phoenix. Taron glanced at Qayin and shouted above the din of combat as he reached the ramp.

  ‘Glad you could make it!’

  ‘We’re not out of this yet!’ Qayin yelled in reply. ‘Pull out the drums!’

  Qayin watched as Taron and Yo’Ki retreated up the ramp into the freighter, firing as they went, and then Taron reached down and yanked free a series of thick straps attached to the hull wall. Twenty massive blue drums were instantaneously freed from their mounts and tumbled down the ramp toward Qayin.

  Qayin leaped aside and out of the way as the drums rolled out across the barren earth and he shot a dirty look up at Taron.

  ‘Good doing business with you!’ the pirate yelled. ‘Have a nice day!’

  Taron hit the a button and the Phoenix’s ramp whined as it wound up and closed behind Qayin.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’

  Qayin slung his rifle over his shoulder and dashed to the furthest drum, a two-hundred litre sealed unit with a pressure valve and a hose atop the lid. Qayin hauled the drum upright and pulled the hose around as he looked up.

  The Veng’en were still coming, sprinting across the fallen bodies of their comrades with frenzied disregard for the hail of plasma fire screeching past and into them. Behind the Veng’en a black sea of Hunters swarmed toward the Marine’s position.

  ‘Fall back!’ Qayin yelled.

  Half of Bravo Company got to their feet and re
treated as the other half maintained position and kept firing. A Veng’en broke through and leaped through the air to land on a young soldier. Qayin felt a pinch of regret as he recognised Soltin’s face locked in a rictus of pain as thick talons sank into his flesh and savage teeth ripped into the back of his neck. A large, sculptured blade sought to slice the soldier’s spine straight out of his body. Qayin heard Soltin’s screams of agony even above the battle, but he waited.

  The other half of Bravo Company leaped up and dashed back as those who had retreated first took up position around Qayin and covered them. Qayin held his nerve as his soldiers dashed into position even as behind them the Phoenix’s engines wound up and the freighter lifted off into the sky.

  ‘Get down!’ Qayin yelled.

  The Marines crouched down as a searing blast of exhaust washed over them and then smashed into the charging Veng’en. The Phoenix’s plasma cannons opened up and hammered the running horde as it departed, blasting Veng’en aside in their dozens and melting huge swathes of the advancing Hunters into smouldering, glowing lakes of molten metal.

  ‘Least you could do, you traitorous bastard!’ Qayin yelled as the Phoenix pulled up and accelerated away toward the turbulent skies above.

  The black sea of Hunters swarmed in as the last of the Veng’en were cut down, and Bravo Company huddled protectively around Qayin and the drums as his men looked at him expectantly.

  ‘Now what?!’ one of them yelled.

  Qayin aimed the hose at the Hunters and took a breath.

  ‘Now we hope that the captain’s wife is as smart as she thinks she is!’

  Qayin yanked the pressure valve open and a blast of red-brown fluid sprayed out toward the Hunters.

  ***

  XXXVII

  Taron Forge pushed the throttles forward and the Phoenix surged skyward as he pulled back on the control column. Beside him he saw Yo’Ki activate the ship’s heavy weapons and lay down a ferocious bombardment onto the Veng’en and the swarming nanites before their ship climbed out of range.

  The freighter shuddered and pitched as the turbulent winds battered its hull. Taron guided her upward and the Phoenix punched gamely through a layer of ripped cloud and rocketed toward the heavens.

  ‘Positive climb, landing struts away,’ he called. ‘That was a close one.’

  Yo’Ki was silently performing her take-off checks. He saw her peer at him from the corner of his eye but she said nothing. Instead, she finished her checks and then folded her arms and placed one small boot on the control panel as she stared out of the windscreen at the vast blue sky shimmering with aurora.

  Taron watched her for a moment, his hands controlling the Phoenix without conscious thought. Years of working and fighting together had given him the chance to detect Yo’Ki’s moods as though by clairvoyance, and he sensed her discord as clearly as if she had slapped him across the face.

  ‘What now?’ he uttered, a hint of exasperation in his tone. ‘We just got out of there by the skin of our teeth. We’re free.’

  Yo’Ki said nothing and did not look at him.

  ‘Right,’ Taron said, ‘because that’s not enough for you I suppose? You think that we should be playing hero and picking those losers up, right?’

  Silence reigned in the cockpit, only the soft beeping of instruments and the hum of the ship’s powerful ion engines giving life to the atmosphere.

  ‘They’re not going to survive,’ Taron insisted. ‘Even if they do get off that rock, they won’t make it much further. You heard what their idiot of a captain said: they’re travelling toward Ethera. I bet they don’t make it past the outer core systems before they’re zapped, or eaten, or whatever the Word does to people these days.’

  The sky outside the Phoenix was already dark, the first stars visible and the veils of light around the star Chiron glowing across the starfields like a veil. The ethereal glow played across Yo’Ki’s skin and reflected in her dark eyes. Outside, Taron could see the curvature of Chiron’s surface, cloud banks covering swathes of land and aurora shimmering in the upper atmosphere around them.

  ‘They don’t have a future like we do,’ Taron added for good measure.

  Yo’Ki’s head slowly turned toward him and she raised an eyebrow.

  ‘What, you don’t think we’ve got a future?’ Taron challenged.

  Yo’Ki inclined her head toward the starfields now glittering before them.

  ‘Where?’ Taron gave voice to her question. ‘How the hell should I know? You think there’s a better future for humanity on Ethera? For humans?’

  Yo’Ki looked away again at the stars and Taron sighed and shook his head.

  ‘They blew it,’ he said. ‘Humanity destroyed itself with its own ingenuity and people like Idris Sansin can’t seem to realise that it’s over. They’re just committing themselves to the same damned stupidity that got humanity where it is today.’

  A warning sensor beeped for attention and Taron accessed the ship’s tactical display. A holographic image glowed into life before them on the control console, the Phoenix depicted as a small green dot climbing away from Chiron’s surface. Nearby, two more massive ships were in orbit and surrounded by a cloud of smaller fighters. Taron frowned and zoomed in on the two large vessels.

  ‘Atlantia,’ he identified it, ‘and a Veng’en cruiser.’

  Yo’Ki leaned closer to the display and Taron could see the discomfort on her features.

  ‘They’re heavily engaged,’ Taron said. ‘Nothing we can do for them.’

  Taron accessed the super-luminal navigation system and began plotting a course. Yo’Ki turned her head to examine him again and he managed to avoid looking at her as he spoke.

  ‘They’re doomed and so are we if we join them,’ he said. ‘They’re on their own. This is my ship, I make the rules and I decide what happens. We’re not going back and that’s final.’

  Yo’Ki said nothing.

  *

  ‘Cover!’

  Qayin ducked as the wave of Hunters swelled before them like a giant black wave, threatening to crash down and consume them as one. The rust-coloured spray soaked them as they rushed in, and Qayin felt the strength go out of his legs as the vast wall of machines filled the field of his vision with impending, horrific death.

  ‘It’s not working!’

  The Hunters swarmed over the Marines to the sound of horrified screams as the wave of their assault broke and blasted into the soldiers with the weight of tonnes of metallic mass. Soldiers threw their hands over their heads and ducked down in horror and for a moment Qayin saw Ethera in his mind’s eye: his mother, somebody he had not thought about in months, years maybe. His father, or what little he remembered of the drunken old man who had often reminded Qayin that he was a mistake that could not be reversed. His life flickered before him like a broken movie reel illuminated only by patches of light, and then even as he stood with the hose in his hand drenching the Hunters with fluid, so they smashed into and around the drum and he felt them hit him with enough force to send him sprawling onto his back.

  The machine’s metal legs scurried over his body and face, entirely swamping him, and he smelled their metal bodies and hot circuits mixed with the stench of the fluid he had been spraying over them and he realised that it was over. He closed his eyes and waited for the unimaginable pain of his body being consumed by a million tiny pincers and…

  He opened his eyes again.

  The machines were no longer on his face but were still crawling all over his body. He dared to look down and saw them hungrily scooping the fluid into their mandibles as though gorging themselves. Around Qayin the other Marines, some weeping openly with fear, starting crying instead with relief as they realised that the drums of fluid were working.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ one of them gasped.

  Qayin looked over at the drum and saw that it was lying on its side and no longer dispensing the fluid.

  ‘Get on your feet!’ he bellowed at the Marines. ‘Start spraying t
hat stuff wherever you find these little bastards! Draw the Hunters away from our people!’

  The Marines bounded upright, brushing the Hunters off of themselves as they began manning the drums and rolling them toward the slaves pinned back against Arcadia. Qayin grabbed his rifle and backed away from the seething, roiling mound of Hunters all squabbling to reach the soil drenched with the fluid.

  ‘Flamethrowers!’ Qayin roared.

  Two Marines carrying heavy cylinders on their backs and long-barelled weapons immediately rushed into positon as another Marine sprayed more fluid over the Hunters, the last of them flocking in toward the Devlamine-drenched soil.

  ‘Light ‘em up!’ Qayin shouted.

  The flamethrowers burst into life and in an instant the entire seething mound of Hunters was consumed by a raging fireball of flame and smoke as the fluid ignited. Qayin staggered back and shielded his face from the inferno as he heard a strange shrieking noise, as though the countless machines were screaming in pain. The flames roared and the sound transformed into the whine and crackle of burning electrical circuits.

  ‘Get to Arcadia!’ he shouted to the Marines above the rumbling flames. ‘Cut the Hunters off before it’s too late!’

  The Marines formed up, every pair of soldiers labouring to push the drums ahead of them as they rushed toward the Marines of Alpha Company and the hordes of terrified slaves. The Arcadia’s massive hull was shuddering now as its huge engines began turning, and Qayin saw chunks of scaffolding tumble from the dizzying heights above to smash into the sodden earth around the panicked hordes in the valley below.

  He looked to his left at the vast number of abandoned vessels just waiting to be taken and the boxes of heavy weapons arrayed around them, and then at Arcadia, the desperate slaves and fully-engaged Marines.

  ‘You paid your dues, Qayin,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Time to leave.’

  He turned to grab his rifle from where it lay, and then hesitated as he realised that the weapon had vanished. Qayin turned and saw Kordaz standing with the weapon in his grasp and aiming it directly at Qayin.