Evelyn almost ducked as a nearby blast showered the crowd with debris and a ship rushed out of the distance and rocketed overhead, low enough that she felt a rush of wind as it blasted by and pulled up into a steep climb.
The Phoenix rolled over and dove back down, her powerful cannons firing in all directions at the Hunters as it lowered its landing struts and swept in to touch down. Teera’s Raython switched position and raked the ground leading to the Phoenix with plasma fire, scorching the soil and blasting Hunters clear.
‘Everybody on me!’ Bra’hiv yelled. ‘Marines to the rearguard!’
Evelyn dashed to Bra’hiv’s side as the Marines repositioned again, covering the side of the crowd opposite the landing freighter. The Phoenix touched down on the uneven ground even as her boarding ramp was lowering, and Evelyn glimpsed Taron Forge already there, his pistol drawn as he fired randomly at the nearest clusters of Hunters and waved frantically for them to board his ship.
‘Covering fire!’ Bra’hiv ordered.
The Marines fired by sections, rifles and flamethrowers blazing as they held the Hunters at bay and withdrew toward the Phoenix. Evelyn fired at anything small, black and metallic, and saw from the corner of her eye Ishira and Stefan with plasma rifles cradled in their grasp and firing a steady stream of blasts to either side of the crowd.
‘Get aboard the Phoenix!’ Evelyn insisted. ‘Go, now!’
The slaves poured past them into the freighter, and Evelyn searched desperately for some sign of Kordaz amid the terrified throng, but she could not see the Veng’en and she could not see Qayin either.
‘Where’s Qayin?!’ she cried out to Bra’hiv.
‘We can’t stay!’ the general replied. ‘Get aboard, now! That’s an order!’
Evelyn scanned the smouldering masses of Hunters, already being crawled over by their seemingly endless surviving brethren, and then she spotted a narrow course through their metallic corpses toward her own parked Raython high on the hillside.
Evelyn whirled and sprinted away from the Phoenix toward the gap. Bra’hiv’s bellowed commands followed her but she did not hear them as she dashed between heaps of metal corpses, glowing red-hot where plasma blasts had hit them and melted them to slag. Thick, acrid grey smoke clogged the air around her as she ran, aching in her lungs as she hit the slope and began climbing toward the parked craft.
The whine of Teera’s Raython followed her and she heard plasma blasts strike the ground close behind. She dared to look over her shoulder and saw Hunters streaming in pursuit from all directions. The Phoenix raised her ramp and blasted off into the skies above, packed with surviving slaves and the compound now devoid of humans. She ran harder, her chest heaving as she forged up the hillside and broke free atop the ridge.
Her Raython was still where she had landed, but almost immediately she saw the body sprawled across the ground nearby. Evelyn turned on instinct and sprinted toward it, fear clogging her lungs as she realised that it was Kordaz and that several Hunters were scattered across his body and around him, probably gusted up here when Arcadia took off.
Evelyn screamed as she smashed the machines off his body, stamping on them as they landed and firing her pistol at their damaged bodies until they no longer moved.
She slumped down alongside the Veng’en and looked at the massive wound in his chest. The flesh was blackened and scarred, wisps of blue smoke drifting on the wind. Kordaz’s eyes were open but his breathing was shallow and weak.
‘Can you hear me?’ Evelyn shouted above the wind, checking behind her to ensure they were not about to be overrun by more Hunters.
Kordaz’s mouth gaped and he tried to speak, but she could tell that he was too weak. As he stared at her, she saw small black specks drifting behind his eyes and with terrible certainty she knew that Kordaz was infected. She glanced at the dead Hunters around her and recalled that they often carried a small number of Infectors inside them, the better to spread the Legion into other species.
Evelyn tried to drag Kordaz toward her Raython, but his body was far too heavy to move even one cubit. She turned as she heard the Phoenix’s engines whine into the distance and Teera’s Raython turn to follow the freighter. Below, down the slope, she saw the remaining Hunters swarming toward her as Teera fired a few lasts blasts down upon them.
Kordaz’s powerful hand grabbed Evelyn and pulled her close. Even above the roar of the Raython’s engines and plasma cannons, she heard the Veng’en speak with the last of his strength.
‘Beware, Qayin.’
Kordaz slumped back onto the ground as his eyes rolled up into their sockets. Evelyn stared at the Veng’en for a long moment, and then a terrific blast smashed into the dock below her. She whirled in shock as the massive plasma barrage hammered into the ground and excavated a huge crater, the debris rocketing upward into the sky as the shockwave hit her and hurled her backwards.
Evelyn tumbled over and slammed into the ground, then struggled to her feet and dashed for her Raython as from the skies above a rain of massive red plasma blasts burst through the clouds and smashed down into the ground.
The shockwaves battered the air about her and rang in her ears as she vaulted into the Raython’s cockpit and hit a row of switches concealed beneath the control panel. The fighter’s emergency launch sequence initiated, the cockpit closing and shielding her from the deafening noise outside as the controls glowed into life and the engines spun-up under emergency generator power.
Evelyn did not even fasten her harness as she grabbed the control column and throttle and hauled the Raython into the air. She pointed the nose at the sky, away from the shower of giant plasma rounds as she threw the throttles open and the Raython accelerated away from the cliff tops and toward the boiling clouds above.
As she climbed, the Raython shuddered as the shockwaves continued to pound the fighter, the entire pirate compound vaporised behind her in a massive inferno of flame. Evelyn saw towering thunderheads soaring into the skies, the aurora as bright now in daylight as it had been at night, and she knew that any forms of life on Chiron IV were now doomed.
***
XLII
Idris Sansin dashed through Arcadia’s corridors as he sprinted toward the War Room, his footfalls echoing through the empty ship. He slowed as he reached the heavily fortified chamber than contained the War Room and managed to get his breathing under control as he eased his way around the corner.
The War Room was unguarded, much as he had hoped that it would be. An outsider like Salim Phaeon would have little knowledge of the interior of a Colonial warship, other than the holding cells that he had likely often frequented.
Idris hurried across to the entrance and accessed the control panel set into the wall alongside the double-doors. He entered from memory his security codes, those designed specifically to allow the captain of any Colonial vessel access another vessel’s War Room, and to his delight the double doors hissed open.
Idris stepped inside and came up short as he stared down the barrel of a rifle.
‘Greetings, captain.’
Salim Phaeon’s little black eyes glared back at Idris, a smile spreading across his evil features as he gestured to the secondary bridge around them where four of his piratical henchmen lounged with pistols all pointed at Idris. ‘I knew you would find us here.’
One of the pirates got up lazily and rested the barrel of his pistol against Idris’s head.
Idris swallowed. ‘How did you know? How did you get in here?’
Salim shrugged as he examined the tips of his fingers. ‘It’s amazing what you learn when you do business with the son of a famous Colonial Commander.’
Idris briefly closed his eyes. ‘Taron.’
‘Indeed,’ Salim replied. ‘Not quite cut from the mold of his father, wouldn’t you agree? Taron pushes a hard bargain but I knew that your people would try to take control of Arcadia as soon as we left Chiron. I felt that the access codes to her War Room were a suitable trade for Taron’s life.’
‘That doesn’t seem to be the case here though, does it captain? In fact, I believe that Taron’s ship has already left Chiron IV and yours is about to be blown to hell. We disabled the Boarding Protocol from here, and the rest of my men have the main bridge under their control.’
Salim nodded to one of his men and the pirate casually flipped a switch. A display screen flickered into life and showed Atlantia heavily engaged with a massive Veng’en cruiser. Idris could see with barely a moment’s glance that his ship was on the verge of being destroyed.
‘How long, do you think, captain?’ Salim asked. ‘Before her hull fractures and she is lost? In that orbit, she’ll burn up within a few hours. Such a shame. The only thing preventing your people from using Arcadia to save the day is the Veng’en jamming.’
Salim grinned again and walked to a console before him.
‘Would you like to say goodbye?’ Salim asked. ‘We’re linked so that we can get a signal through.’
Idris said nothing as Salim opened a communication link with Atlantia. Another screen flickered into life and there appeared an image of Mikhain, the transmission broken and cluttered as the ship was battered by the Veng’en cruiser. The XO’s face was flushed with stress and his forehead beaded with sweat.
‘Salim!’ Mikhain snapped. ‘We need assistance, right now!’
‘My my, Mikhain,’ Salim purred in response. ‘You cry for my help?’
‘People are dying!’ Mikhain snapped. ‘You’ve nothing to lose by helping!’
Salim sighed.
‘True,’ he agreed, ‘but then I have nothing to gain either. I thought that you would like to bid farewell to your captain,’ Salim said.
The pirate king waved Idris to join him. Idris walked to stand alongside the fat little man, and saw the dismay in Mikhain’s eyes as the XO saw his captain a captive on the only ship that could save them.
Idris lifted his chin, sucked in a breath and managed a smile.
‘Disengage from the battle, XO,’ he ordered. ‘You can’t save everybody, so now it’s time to save yourselves.’
Mikhain’s features were twisted with indecision, a feeling that Idris had come to know well over decades of command.
‘There is no easy option, Mikhain,’ Idris added, feeling the XO’s pain. ‘We’ll never win every battle.’
‘But what about the war?’ Mikhain asked.
Idris smiled. ‘It’s your war now, XO.’
Salim affected an expression of sympathy as he looked at the Executive Officer on the screen. ‘Maybe that younger fellow should have remained in command after all? It’s been nice knowing you, Mikhain. You probably only have minutes to live, so I’ll wish you good luck. Oh, actually, no I won’t. May you and your entire crew rot in hell.’
Mikhain’s anguish suddenly transformed into a grin that radiated out of the screen at Salim.
‘You first,’ he hissed.
Salim’s podgy features twisted with confusion and then a series of deafening plasma blasts screeched out in the War Room and he whirled to see his henchmen cut down in a blaze of rifle fire.
Idris squinted and flinched as a plasma blast raced past him and smashed into the pirate holding a gun to his head. Idris ducked as the stricken man was flung onto his back on the deck, his back a smouldering mass of cauterised tissue and burning clothes.
Four heavily armed Marines burst into the War Room, their weapons firing controlled bursts that cut one of Salim’s men down with brutal efficiency as Lieutenant C’rairn led them from cover to cover, the giant form of Corporal Djimon following him. Idris shielded his eyes against the blasts and then spotted Salim as he fired randomly at the Marines. They ducked down for cover, and Salim dashed past them and vanished into the corridor outside as C’rairn and his men kept firing at the remaining pirate.
Idris scrambled to his feet and ran in pursuit of Slaim, bursting through a cloud of acrid smoke. He hurled himself against the far wall of the corridor as Salim fired at him with a pistol. The blast zipped by Idris with scant inches to spare and scalded the skin on his neck. The captain winced as he hugged the wall of the corridor and peeked out.
Salim was already running, heading for the elevator banks. Idris pushed off the wall and ran in pursuit, the sound of battle within the War Room fading behind him. He could hear Salim’s footfalls ahead, but Idris was unarmed and he knew that if he got too close Salim would kill him at the first opportunity.
Idris reached the elevator banks and Salim fired from within one of the elevators. The plasma shot smashed into the wall beside Idris’s face and he ducked aside as white-hot plasma sprayed past him in glowing globules. The elevator door hissed shut and Idris leaped out to see the elevator’s deck indicators climbing.
Salim only had one play left, and that was to seal the bridge and get Arcadia as far away from Chiron as he could before attempting to regain control of the ship. Idris knew that even if the pirate managed to do so it would be useless – an Atlantia Class frigate required a minimum crew of a hundred people and Salim was aboard with barely a dozen men, half of whom were likely already dead. Most likely, Salim would set a course for other hidden lairs in order to swell his numbers aboard Arcadia with more slaves and the pirates that controlled them. Aboard a ship as large and powerful as Arcadia, Salim would become the undisputed king of all pirates, able to wander and plunder at will.
Idris knew that he could wait for C’rairn and the other Marines to back him up, but he also knew that Atlantia was in critical condition and that every second counted. He also knew that Salim would not fail to wait for him at the bridge deck and blast him should he take an elevator up.
Idris thought for a moment and then he began unzipping his uniform.
*
‘Fires on decks twelve through nineteen!’
Lael’s voice cried out above the din of battle as Atlantia was pounded by another broadside from the Veng’en cruiser.
‘We’re losing power to the cannons!’ Ensign Scott yelled. ‘Plasma lines are ruptured aft of the launch bay!’
‘Divert all power to remaining shields!’ Mikhain snapped.
The tactical officer scrambled to re-route the power from the weapons to the shields as Mikhain turned to the tactical display and watched the huge form of the Veng’en cruiser loom into position, ever closer to the Atlantia’s battered hull.
‘They’re charging main guns,’ Ensign Scott said, no longer shouting as a tone of resignation poisoned his words. ‘One more salvo and we’ll lose everything, captain.’
Mikhain glanced at the screen showing the surface and then at the Veng’en cruiser. Lael’s voice reached him as though from afar.
‘There’s nothing more that we can do, captain,’ she said.
‘Where is Arcadia?’ Mikhain asked.
‘Four thousand cubits, quadrant four, elevation minus three,’ Lael replied. ‘She’s leaving orbit!’
‘Are their any remaining people on the surface?!’
‘None that we can detect, captain,’ Lael reported. ‘But our sensors are out of action.’
Mikhain gripped the rail surrounding the command platform and sucked in a deep lung full of air that spilled from his body laden with the regret and dismay that poisoned his innards.
‘Helm,’ he ordered. ‘Full power, take us out!’
‘Aye, cap’ain!’
Atlantia surged as her engines engaged and she accelerated away from the Veng’en cruiser even as the massive vessel’s starboard batteries opened up with a brilliant crescendo of bright red plasma charges. The salvo of shots rocketed toward Atlantia and plunged past her stern as she accelerated out of their way.
Mikhain watched as the lethal barrage plunged down and vanished into tiny red twinkles of light racing down toward the compound far below, and felt as though his humanity were plunging down toward unknown depths with them.
His first command action, and he had failed.
&n
bsp; ‘Captain?’
Ensign Scott’s voice reached Mikhain as though from a great distance as the din of battle vanished to be replaced with a deep silence upon the bridge. The only sound was the tinkling of scorched circuitry and the distant wail of alarms echoing through the huge frigate.
‘Yes?’ Mikhain asked vacantly.
‘Orders, sir?’
Mikhain stared blanky at the tactical display and then he focused on Arcadia as she climbed away from the planet’s surface toward orbit. Salim would be aboard her, the frigate the perfect escape vessel if Mikhain could take control of her. If not, he had another idea.
‘Target Arcadia,’ he hissed with sudden rage. ‘Hit her with everything we have left.’
‘She’s battle-ready,’ the tactical officer replied. ‘We’re in no better shape to engage her than we are to turn back and…’
‘Hit her, now!’ Mikhain yelled. ‘Maximum combat speed, a full broadside as we pass!’
Nobody on the bridge moved.
‘Why, captain?’ Lael asked. ‘What purpose would that achieve?’
Mikhain clenched his fist by his sides as he replied.
‘I want the Veng’en to attack her instead of us,’ he hissed in reply. ‘They’ll pursue us, will they not?’
He gestured to the image of the compound on Chiron’s surface, the image flaring with blinding flashes of light as the Veng’en broadside ploughed into it and churned the earth into an unrecognisable, burning field of destruction.
‘They have destroyed the human presence on the surface and now they’ll seek to finish us off,’ he went on. ‘Let’s give them Salim instead and make good our escape, shall we?’
The helmsman smiled. ‘Aye, captain.’
‘Wait,’ Lael said.
Mikhain turned as the communications officer scanned her instruments and flipped several switches.
Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor Page 30
