Atlantia Series 2: Retaliator

by Dean Crawford

  RETALIATOR

  © 2014 Dean Crawford

  Published: 6th June 2014

  ASIN:B00KSRUITI

  Publisher: Fictum Ltd

  The right of Dean Crawford to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  www.deancrawfordbooks.com

  Also by Dean Crawford:

  The Atlantia Series

  Survivor

  Retaliator

  The Ethan Warner Series

  Covenant, Immortal,

  Apocalypse, The Chimera Secret,

  The Eternity Project

  Independent novels

  Eden

  Holo Sapiens

  Revolution

  Soul Seekers

  Want to receive notification of new releases? Just sign up to Dean Crawford's newsletter via: http://eepurl.com/KoP8T

  Contents

  Title Page

  I

  II

  III

  IV

  V

  VI

  VII

  VIII

  IX

  X

  XI

  XII

  XIII

  XIV

  XV

  XVI

  XVII

  XVIII

  XIX

  XX

  XXI

  XXII

  XXIII

  XXIV

  XXV

  XXVI

  XXVII

  XXVIII

  XXIX

  XXX

  XXXI

  XXXII

  XXXIII

  XXXIV

  XXXV

  XXXVI

  XXXVII

  XXXVIII

  XXXIX

  XL

  XLI

  XLII

  XLII

  XLIV

  XLV

  XLVI

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  REVIEWS

  We should have known better.

  We know that there are few survivors, few of our kind still clinging to life.

  They say that when the end came some embraced it willingly, shrugged off their lives like old skins and allowed the Legion to infilitrate their minds and their bodies and become one with the machine. Most, however, did not. Most fought, and died, trying only to remain who they were.

  The Legion, the instrument of the Word, our governing law, took life across all of the colonies. Worlds fell; Ethera, Caneeron, Titas; the mining settlements and the outlying systems and the uncharted clouds of asteroids and meteors beyond consumed by the monstrous and insatiable thirst for knowledge and power that is the currency of the Word. The greatest creation and achievement of our human race turned vengeful deity, the destroyer of worlds.

  We now know that there are several forces at work within the Legion, an immeasurable swarm of mechanical devices ranging in size from as big as insects to as small as biological cells. There are the Infectors, the smallest and most dangerous, for it is their mission to infiltrate the optical nerves, the brain stem and the spinal cord of human beings, turning them into mere instruments dancing to the macabre hymn of the Word’s destructive passion. Then there are the Swarms, the clouds of tiny but voracious feeders who break down all and any materials into the raw ingredients for more of their kind: metals, plastics, even human tissue, consumed en masse and regurgitated into further countless devices, all of which evolve with startling rapidity as though time were running for them at breakneck speed. Finally, there are the Hunters: bigger than the rest and with only a single purpose – to find and to kill intelligent biological life wherever it is found in the cosmos.

  We are the last of our kind, and despite the horrors that we witnessed when we fled the only star system we could call home, we now know that we must return. There is nowhere else to run to, nowhere else to hide, for if we do not make our stand now then we condemn our children or their children after them to face what we could not. We must fight back and step by step, system by system, we must take from the Word that which was ours and liberate ourselves from the living hell that we have created and endured.

  The Atlantia, a former fleet frigate turned prison ship, is the last home we have. Our crew is comprised of terrified civilians, dangerous former convicts and a small but fiercely patriotic force of soldiers and fighter pilots for whom there is no further purpose in life other than to fight for every last inch of space between here and home.

  Our lives may become the last that will ever be lived, and thus we tell our story in the hope that one day others will read of it and remember our names.

  Captain Idris Sansin

  Atlantia

  I

  ‘Break right!’

  The voice of Commander Andaim Ry’ere bellowed into Evelyn’s ear through the microphone in her helmet and she shoved the Raython’s control column over and hauled back on it.

  The sleek, arrow–shaped fighter heeled over and soared between a pair of vast tumbling asteroids dimly lit by the distant infernal glow of a red dwarf star. Pale light flickered and danced through the cockpit and shadows raced past the Raython as it shot through a narrow gap between the asteroids and rolled out onto a new heading.

  Evelyn’s heart pulsed like a war drum in her chest and she felt prickly heat tingle on her skin as certain death flashed by with scant cubits to spare. Her gaze snapped from the chaotic view of tumbling asteroids outside her cockpit canopy to a holographic display projected before her. The signal flickered weakly on her tactical display, filled with complex images of the asteroid field and a larger object ahead of her Raython, just outside the debris field.

  The cockpit was tight, digital screens glowing with green light and a thin blue line illuminating the edges of the closed canopy. Evelyn’s helmet cradled her head in a snug grasp and a secondary display projected onto the retina of her right eye pertinent flight information: velocity, bearing, orientation to galactic plane, fuel remaining and range to target.

  Andaim’s voice snapped in her ears again.

  ‘Stay sharp! Vector three–five–niner, elevation two–zero, quadrant alpha. We’re almost on them! You keeping up?’

  Evelyn’s mind raced as she performed simultaneous functions; calculating angles and trajectories, operating the Raython’s complex targeting computer as the vessel flashed through the asteroid field at near–suicidal speed and rocking the controls back and forth to prevent a collision with the massive chunks of rock flying past.

  ‘I’m on it,’ she growled.

  Evelyn yanked the Raython hard left and then hard right, sweeping across the surface of a particularly large asteroid and seeing from the corner of her eye the surface pitted with craters and clouds of dust as though bands of weather were drifting through an atmosphere. A handful of smaller asteroids collided with its surface nearby in bright blasts of molten rock, immense energy released in tectonic eruptions. The blasts illuminated the cockpit like distant lightening across darkened skies.

  ‘Stay out of sight,’ Andaim ordered her. ‘Don’t let the target’s sensors pick you up.’

  Evelyn focused her mind on keeping asteroids between her and the huge target ahead, using the tactical display to orientate herself and stay on target. Huge, dark rocks rushed past her cockpit and tendrils of dust glowed and flashed by as though reaching out for her.

  ‘Almost there,’ Andaim said.

  Evelyn rolled the Raython over a complete rotation, the dim red light from the dwarf star blocked by pitch black shadow and then filling the cockpit again as Evelyn rolled out and aimed directly for the target.

  An alarm sounded in the cockp
it like a claxon and sent a bolt of alarm through Evelyn’s body as she sucked in a deep breath.

  ‘We’re being painted by enemy radar!’ Andaim yelled. ‘Counter measures, evasive action!’

  Evelyn hauled the Raython into a tight turn as she flipped a switch on her throttle that activated a temporary burst of emitted electronic interference, enough to fool the weapons of the target vessel as she raced toward it.

  Asteroids flashed past the Raython and a peppering of smaller debris and dust rattled against the fuselage as it shot out of the debris field and into open space. Ahead a vast spaceship loomed against the star fields, its metallic hull glowing a dull and dirty grey in the light from the distant star.

  ‘Target locked,’ Evelyn said, ‘cannons charged, counter measures active!’

  The gigantic, scarred hull rushed up toward her.

  ‘Negative on target,’ Andaim snapped. ‘Abort!’

  ‘I can get her,’ Evelyn shot back. ‘Just a few more seconds…’

  ‘Abort now!’

  ‘Target in range.’

  The hull of the huge vessel rippled with a series of bright blue–white flashes and Evelyn felt her heart skip a beat as a salvo of fearsome balls of energy flashed at terrific velocity toward her. She had no time to react before the first of them smashed into her Raython fighter in a blinding flare of light.

  The flare vanished as Andaim’s voice reached Evelyn.

  ‘Sortie aborted,’ he intoned. ‘Mission failure, return to base immediately for debrief.’

  The remaining flares of light flashed silently past the Raython as Evelyn cursed and pulled up, the Atlantia’s huge hull rushing by below her. Andaim’s voice sounded weary as he spoke.

  ‘You’ve got to learn to control everything at once,’ he said. ‘If those cannon charges had been live rounds you’d have been fried alive.’

  Evelyn craned her neck around her seat to see Andaim watching her from the rear of the Raython T2 twin–seat training aircraft.

  ‘I couldn’t have gotten any closer,’ she replied. ‘Once we were out of the field, we only had seconds to lock on and open fire.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Andaim said. ‘But you were so focused on targeting the Atlantia’s guns that you forgot to open the throttles when you cleared the asteroid field. That cost you a couple of seconds, enough for the Atlantia to get a fix on you. Game over.’

  Evelyn sank back into her seat and shook her head in self–disgust as she turned the Raython around toward the frigate, the traffic controller’s voice sounding distorted in the cockpit.

  ‘Charger Flight, tactical training session four–seven is over, join the pattern for final approach. You’re number one to land.’

  Evelyn flicked switches in her cockpit and lowered the landing struts as she slowed the Raython down and deactivated the weapon systems. She brought the fighter around in a shallow descending turn toward the Atlantia’s stern, where a landing bay was opening low on her keel, lights flashing to guide her in.

  ‘Charger Flight, finals to stop, three greens,’ Evelyn called.

  The Raython eased slowly into the landing bay and Evelyn saw in her cockpit mirrors the giant bay doors close behind her. The bay ahead was devoid of life but half a dozen Raythons and a pair of shuttles were parked on the deck, well clear of the main landing strip.

  The Atlantia’s lower flight decks were separated into three distinct sections: the landing bay at the stern, maintenance in the middle, and the launch bay beneath the bow, each separated by massive bulkheads and blast doors. A flashing rectangle of light illuminated her parking spot, and she guided the fighter over it and it settled onto the deck, magnetic clamps fixing it in place. As she shut down the engines, she saw vents high on the bay walls bleeding atmosphere and heat in clouds of vapour back into the bay and a series of glowing red lights arranged around the upper rim of the bay changed to green.

  Evelyn opened the Raython’s canopy and pulled off her helmet as she unstrapped and climbed from the cockpit, crewmen hurrying across the bay to service the fighter. She could hear the craft’s engines clicking as they cooled as she climbed down onto the deck, her magnetically charged boots and suit replicating gravity to pull her down toward opposingly–charged electromagnets beneath the deck.

  She signed the Raython back in to the crew chief’s log and stormed away.

  ‘Getting angry won’t help you much,’ Andaim said as he caught up with her. ‘You have to get past this if you want to earn your wings.’

  ‘I had it,’ she snapped. ‘I damn well had it.’

  ‘You did,’ the commander admitted. ‘If you’d accelerated to attack speed before acquiring your targets you would have neutralised the cannons just in time, clearing the way for a flight of Corsair bombers or your wingman to shoot the plasma lines and finish the job. You know what to do, it’s all just practice.’

  Evelyn sighed, shaking her long auburn hair loose.

  ‘Things happen so fast. It’s like my brain can’t fit everything in quickly enough to keep up.’

  ‘Like I said,’ Andaim offered reassuringly, ‘it’s all practice. Another few flights and you’ll be pulling it off. Trust me.’

  Andaim had an easy going nature that belied his experience as the Commander of the Air Group aboard the Atlantia, something for which Evelyn was eternally grateful. He had flown for the Colonial Forces before the apocalypse in the older Phantom fighters before the introduction of the newer, more advanced Raythons. Tall, with thick black hair and a jaw that was slightly too wide for his features, he oozed a calm confidence in the cockpit that Evelyn lacked.

  ‘I feel like an amateur,’ she confided as they walked into an elevator that would take them up to the crew rooms.

  ‘So did I, once,’ Andaim said as the doors closed and the elevator hummed upward. ‘So did every fighter pilot. Flying a Raython is a complex business, and you guys are doing it from scratch without the benefit of a couple of years’ prior flight training on slower craft. Proficiency is not going to just fall into your lap.’

  Evelyn had spent six months learning to fly on the Atlantia’s shuttles and in a pair of simulators built from two crashed Raythons, display screens and powerful hydraulics replacing the real sensation of both atmospheric aviation and space flight. Invaluable in preparing the twenty or so students enlisted into the Colonial Forces to fly, the simulators had weeded out those who were simply unable to handle a Raython. Evelyn, along with seven others, had been deemed up to the job and passed on for active flight training.

  ‘It’s been six months,’ Evelyn complained, ‘and we’re not even battle ready yet.’

  ‘You’re six months closer to it than you were when you started,’ Andaim replied. ‘Just stay with the plan, okay?’

  Evelyn looked at him. ‘Why do you insist on having an answer for everything?’

  ‘It’s my job,’ he grinned back. ‘Anything else you’d like to know?’

  Evelyn opened her mouth to answer, but the elevator doors opened onto the crew room and Andaim walked out. She followed him to where pilots, all wearing flight suits patched with their squadron identities, were variously gearing up for sorties or pulling off their flight gear for debrief. A few of them nodded at her in greeting, but most were too wrapped up in their pre or post–flight thoughts to chat.

  The Atlantia was home to two squadrons of Raython fighters: the Renegades and the Reapers. In addition, she had four shuttles and three functioning Corsair bombers, all of which had been liberated from the hull of a Stellar–Class Colonial battleship, the Avenger, many months before during a battle that had seen many former convicts elevated to the status of junior officers, some of whom were now serving under General Bra’hiv’s command as Marines.

  Evelyn shrugged off her flight suit and dressed in her officer’s fatigues as she ran over her latest failure in her mind. Speed of thought. Andaim had once referred to the limits of what a human being could achieve in terms of multi–tasking as their saturation point. Too much
information, too fast, and the brain momentarily shut down, unable to function until it had a moment to recalibrate everything, to file into memory what it had learned and continue on. That point, if reached in battle, was invariably lethal. If a student routinely reached saturation point in training then the pilot was deemed unable to perform their duties and was removed from the service.

  Evelyn had reached saturation point twice in her training: once more and she would be up for review before the captain, a man not known for his tolerance for failure, even now when they were so desperately short of manpower and machines. Back in the day on Ethera, student fighter pilots would have been of a much higher calibre than those training now aboard the Atlantia. Second best was all they had access to, and Evelyn felt sorely aware of her incompetence.

  ‘You’re dwelling on it,’ Andaim said as though reading her mind. ‘Don’t. Remember your three A’s.’

  ‘Assess, adjust and advance,’ she replied wearily as she opened her locker and rummaged inside.

  She felt rather than saw Andaim watch her for a moment.

  ‘You’re not on your game right now and you haven’t been for weeks. Are you okay?’

  Evelyn remained hidden behind her locker door, partly to hide the smile at Andaim’s concern for her welfare and partly to hide the deceit that shadowed her. The captain’s wife and ship’s senior physician, Meyanna Sansin, was busily conducting tests in an attempt to understand Evelyn’s immunity to the Infectors, the minions of the Word responsible for turning humans into living puppets. The constant blood tests, scans and examinations had run her down a fair bit, but nothing like as bad as her incarceration of years before had done. Nobody else knew about her immunity, the better to protect her from any threat of extermination by anybody else infected by the Word aboard the Atlantia. She suspected, unlike everybody else, that there was at least one person carrying Infector bots aboard the ship. To conceal such knowledge from somebody like Andaim, who had protected her and helped her so closely when she had been plucked from the hell of the super–max prison that had once been Atlantia’s charge, was one of the most difficult things she had ever been required to do.