Atlantia Series 2: Retaliator

by Dean Crawford

  Meyanna settled into her seat and activated the microscope, carefully manipulating the controls as she focused in on Dhalere’s blood sample. Meyanna had inserted a small electrode into the sample that would ensure the bots entrapped within the blood would have a source of power. Sure enough, as she looked into the sample she saw the Infectors moving about, their tiny claws and motors scrambling for purchase in the thick blood.

  She inserted a syringe into the sample and withdrew a couple of dozen Infectors from the blood, and then moved them across to Evelyn’s blood sample. She focused in on the sample and then she froze.

  The blood already contained several live Infectors.

  Meyanna zoomed in on them, saw them suspended in the blood. Most were enshrouded in Evelyn’s white blood cells, the immune response destroying the bots. She could see them struggling to move as their tiny components were shut down as they were starved of the electrical impulses provided by the electrodes.

  Meyanna looked up at a display screen that showed Evelyn’s blood responding to the intruders, and almost immediately she saw a pattern that both she and the computers recognised: anaemia–immuno–reponse. As a convict wrongly imprisoned by the Word in an attempt to erase her from history, Evelyn had no medical records aboard the Atlantia. But the response of her immune system to the Infectors meant that she must, at some point in her life, had contracted a serious illness that made her dangerously anaemic.

  Meyanna recalled that Evelyn had spent much of her childhood on Caneeron, an icy world in orbit around the gas giant Titas. Low exposure to sunlight could, in conjunction with an illness, have made her suffer anaemia to the extent that her immune response to any iron–consuming infection would be far greater than usual.

  Meyanna felt excitement course through her veins. Most illnesses that caused anaemia and the associated blood–cell distortions were easily treatable, and a vaccination plan could be put into place within hours.

  She had it. If an enhanced immuno–response to anaemia could be cultured from Evelyn’s blood and tested in the laboratory, then in theory a vaccine for infection was at hand. She stood up, but then she looked down at Evelyn’s blood sample again. There should not have been any Infectors in it, for Evelyn had already been screened completely. Whereas Dhalere’s blood had been kept in secure containment, Evelyn’s had not because she was immune to infection and so her blood required no special conditions other than those to keep it fresh and viable for tests.

  Meyanna felt a chill ripple down her spine as she glanced at the sphere of Infectors in their magnetic chamber nearby, but the chamber was sealed and the sphere still in place.

  And then she remembered.

  Dhalere’s coughing.

  Infectors are so small that they could evolve just like a real bacteria or virus.

  Meyanna suddenly felt dizzy, her thought processes hazy as though she were looking at the world through a dream. She staggered sideways and slumped against a desk, fought to right herself as she stumbled across to the laboratory door and sealed it with numb fingers. Her hand drifted across to an alarm and she slammed her palm against it, saw the heads of her medical team in the ward outside turn to look at her through the sealed doors of the laboratory as she slowly sank to her knees beside them, her hands pressed against the glass.

  She reached up with one hand and fished a light pen from her pocket. She activated it and managed to scrawl a single word on the glass before her eyes rolled up into their sockets and she lost consciousness.

  *

  ‘Let me through!’

  Captain Idris Sansin had to be restrained by two Marines as he stormed into the sick bay and saw his wife slumped against the doors of her laboratory.

  ‘You can’t go in there! She’s sealed the laboratory and quarantined herself!’

  Idris fought his way past the Marines and hurried across the sick bay to the door, then dropped down onto his knees as he looked at his wife’s serene face. The side of her head was resting against the glass, her long black hair snaking down her back and her eyes closed. Idris could see the skin of her slender neck pulsing softly to the rhythm of her heart and he could see that she was breathing normally.

  Before her, written backwards on the glass in glowing ink, was a single word.

  EVOLVED

  ‘What happened?’ he asked as he saw the reflections of the medical team watching him in the glass.

  ‘She sealed the doors and hit the alarm,’ said the nearest man. ‘She was testing the blood of Councillor Dhalere, and I’m pretty sure she’s been running tests on somebody else too.’

  The captain nodded. Evelyn.

  He got to his feet and looked past Meyanna to where she had been working at her bench, the microscope still running and a series of sealed dishes containing what looked like blood arrayed beneath it.

  Idris glanced across at the sphere of captive nanobots, and saw them still imprisoned in their magnetic gaol. Think, man! He looked again at his wife and he knew that the only thing that could have happened was that she had been infected somehow, even though the captive Infectors were securely housed.

  Dhalere was the carrier aboard the Atlantia and was now aboard the Sylph.

  Meyanna had taken Dhalere’s blood that morning.

  Evolved.

  ‘It’s airborne,’ the captain uttered to himself in amazement. ‘The Legion, it’s out inside the laboratory.’

  ‘That can’t be possible,’ the doctor said. ‘The Infectors cannot survive for long outside of a human host, we’ve known that for months.’

  ‘Dhalere was their host for months and we knew nothing about it,’ the captain replied. ‘They had the time and the reason to adapt just as any normal living organism would do. They’ve evolved to survive outside of a host for longer and Dhalere must have used that ability to somehow infect my wife before she left. It’s the only reason that Meyanna would have isolated herself in this way despite knowing that without treatment she would be doomed.’

  Idris looked at Meyanna and then at the dishes beneath the microscope.

  ‘How did she know though?’ he asked the doctor. ‘How did she figure it out?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re a damned doctor!’ Idris roared at him.

  ‘Yes,’ the doctor replied. ‘But I am not a detective. Your wife was clearly overcome before she could share whatever she had discovered, and we cannot go in there without ourselves being infected. There is only one way to resolve this. We will have to cleanse the entire laboratory with microwaves.’

  The captain’s jaw tightened but he remained silent.

  ‘Your wife will not survive that process, if the Infectors have infiltrated her brain stem.’

  ‘I’m aware of that, doctor.’

  A tannoy clicked and Mikhain’s voice echoed through the sick bay.

  ‘Captain to the bridge, immediately. The Veng’en are charging their weapons and hailing us. Our time’s up.’

  Idris looked at the tannoy vacantly as though hoping that somebody else would answer for him.

  ‘We have no time left, captain,’ the doctor said. ‘We must act now.’

  ***

  XXVI

  Evelyn stared in horror at Dhalere’s trembling form. Her arms were outstretched by her sides, but that was the only thing that was visibly human about her. From her feet to her head was a roiling mass of black Infectors shimmering in the red light, only her eyes and lips visible.

  The Marines held defensive positions around the hatch as Bra’hiv snapped at Kordaz.

  ‘Call them off, now!’

  The Veng’en soldier sneered at the general, his weapon pointed at Dhalere.

  ‘It is your councillor who is infected,’ he shot back. ‘She followed me down here and now she’s controlling the Infectors.’

  Qayin looked from one to the other and then shrugged. ‘Let’s just kill ‘em both and be done with it.’

  ‘How come they haven’t infected you, Kordaz?’ Evelyn challenged
the Veng’en.

  ‘Because I am immune to them,’ Kordaz replied. ‘Veng’en saliva and blood destroys the Infectors before they can reach major organs.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Evelyn asked.

  ‘Veng’en do not bow to threats,’ Kordaz snarled back. ‘Like you, the Infectors cannot harm me.’

  ‘I can,’ Bra’hiv growled, the Marines’ weapons now all pointed at Kordaz. ‘Either you lower the weapon or we’ll blow you to hell.’

  ‘She is armed!’ Kordaz roared.

  Evelyn looked at Dhalere but her hands were empty and crawling with Infectors, the councillor’s eyes welling with tears.

  ‘Get… them… off… me..!’ she pleaded.

  Evelyn glanced at Kordaz one more time and then she turned to Bra’hiv. ‘Cover me.’

  ‘What the hell are you going to do?’ Bra’hiv uttered.

  Evelyn lowered her pistol and holstered it as she turned to Dhalere. Loathing swelled in a nauseous ball inside her stomach as she looked at the seething mass of Infectors swarming across the councillor’s trembling body.

  Then, slowly, she paced toward Dhalere.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Qayin hissed.

  Evelyn kept her eyes fixed upon Dhalere’s as she walked one slow pace after another toward the mass of Infectors, their little metallic bodies whispering as though alive as they swarmed. Like grains of black sand running both up and down like a fluid, the Infectors writhed and coiled as Evelyn approached, seething back and forth as though blown by turbulent winds.

  As the Marines watched in fascinated awe Evelyn approached to within arms’ reach of Dhalere’s petrified body. Evelyn, her heart racing in her chest, mastered her revulsion and reached out a hand, pushed it toward the black sea of nanobots, and with a rush of motion the black morass parted and swarmed away from her.

  Evelyn heard gasps of disbelief as the Infectors flooded away from Evelyn’s touch, her hands running across Dhalere’s clothes and forcing the Infectors away like a light sweeping through the darkness and banishing it.

  ‘What the hell?’ Bra’hiv uttered in amazement.

  Dhalere gasped, her eyes wide as the Infectors swarmed away from Evelyn and slunk back into the darkened shadows of the generator room. Evelyn watched them flee and then she looked at Dhalere. The councillor stared wide–eyed at Evelyn and then pointed over her shoulder at Kordaz.

  ‘He killed the crew of the Sylph,’ she wailed. ‘He has them locked down here.’

  Bra’hiv looked around him at the bodies littering the deck.

  ‘They’re all infected,’ Kordaz snapped back, and then looked at Evelyn. ‘Ask yourself, how could I have infected your friend Andaim while I was strapped to a gurney?’

  Evelyn looked from Kordaz to Dhalere, but none of the Marines were paying any attention to the two captives. Instead, they were looking at her.

  ‘How the hell did you do that?’ Djimon asked.

  Several of the Marines were looking at her with some suspicion, as though it were her they needed to fear.

  ‘I’m immune to the Infectors,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know why. The captain’s wife is studying my blood to try to figure out how it works, so that we can all be vaccinated against them.’

  Qayin blinked, his bioluminescent tattoos rippling with light. ‘You’ve been immune all this time and you didn’t think to tell anybody?’

  ‘I knew that there was a carrier aboard,’ Evelyn replied. ‘I knew that if everybody was aware that I was immune then I would become a target for that carrier, a threat to the existence of the Legion inside their body. I couldn’t afford to lose the opportunity to pass on my immunity.’

  Qayin looked at Evelyn and then at Dhalere, and his shrewd mind put the last pieces of the puzzle together.

  ‘Kordaz hasn’t been aboard the Atlantia yet,’ he growled.

  Qayin switched his aim to Dhalere.

  Evelyn whirled and shouted. ‘Don’t shoot!’

  Kordaz dropped onto one knee as he aimed at Dhalere, but the councillor hurled herself across the generator room as she pulled her pistol from where she had concealed it beneath her clothes and aimed at Kordaz.

  The two weapons fired simultaneously and the plasma blasts zipped past each other in the dull red light. Kordaz rolled to one side as the Councillor’s plasma shot burst at his feet and showered him with molten plasma. Evelyn saw Dhalere slam into the metal wall of a nearby generator as Kordaz’s shot burst against the wall behind where she had been stood only moments before. The Councillor vanished into the shadows.

  ‘Don’t shoot!’ Evelyn yelled again.

  Djimon’s Marines tracked Kordaz with their rifles.

  Kordaz scrambled for cover as Evelyn ran to shield him with her body, just as the first shot caught the Veng’en high on his thigh in a burst of fiery white light. The Veng’en roared in agony as Evelyn hurled herself down alongside him.

  ‘Don’t shoot, damn it!’ she screamed. ‘He’s not infected!’

  ‘He shot the Sylph’s crew!’ Djimon roared back at her.

  Bra’hiv raised his clenched fist and the Marines held their positions and fell silent as the general called out.

  ‘Councillor, come out with your hands up! We can help you!’

  A chuckle erupted from the darkness and Dhalere’s voice called back.

  ‘It’s already too late for you and your people, general,’ she said. ‘You’ll never make it back now.’

  ‘Evelyn will clear us a path,’ Bra’hiv replied.

  More chuckles, cruel this time. ‘Evelyn and Kordaz are immune only to the Infectors. There are others here. Many others.’

  ‘Damn it,’ Qayin growled from where he crouched near the hatch, ‘somebody scan for other heat sources down here!’

  ‘We don’t want to leave you Dhalere,’ Evelyn tried again. ‘This isn’t what you want!’

  ‘How would you know, Evelyn?’ came the response. ‘Maybe you’d enjoy life among the Legion. Why don’t you ask some of your friends?’

  Evelyn looked up from where she was shielding Kordaz and saw figures shuffling into view. The crew of the Sylph groaned, wept and whimpered in unspeakable pain and suffering as they limped in a tight knot out of the shadows toward the Marines. Dhalere was concealed among them, the Sylph’s crew a grotesque human shield.

  ‘Do you like what it’s done to them?’ Dhalere shouted.

  The councillor fired at the Marines from behind the miserably shuffling bodies, the shot from her pistol hitting a Marine straight in the face and blasting his skull into a billion flaming fragments.

  ‘Take her down!’ Bra’hiv yelled.

  The Marines did not have time to fire before C’rairn’s panicked voice called out. ‘Don’t fire!’

  ‘What?’ Qayin shouted.

  ‘We’re surrounded!’ C’rairn shouted, his gaze fixed to a scanner in his hands.

  Evelyn looked up and saw the ceiling above them filled with a swarm of hunters rushing forth in a silent morass of black. The Marines scattered as the hunters plunged down like a waterfall upon one of the troops.

  The young Marine screamed and dropped his rifle as his hands reached up to protect his face, but they never reached it as his scream was silenced in an instant. The torrent of Hunters splashed across his skin and devoured it upon contact, his youthful face collapsing and his skull folding in upon itself as it was consumed as though by toxic acid. His hair fell in a cloud as his legs collapsed beneath him and he sank to his knees, his hands vanishing and his arms dropping off at the shoulders as they were chewed through. His crumpled legs vanished into a sea of hunters flooding onto the deck and even his plasma rifle sank into the churning flood of bots.

  Evelyn drew her pistol and fired at the plasma rifle’s magazine.

  The second shot blasted the magazine, which exploded in a fearsome blaze of light that shattered the swarm of hunters and melted them in their thousands even as more came tumbling through the generator room from behind Dhalere. The f
lood swamped the blazing pool of plasma and enveloped it.

  ‘Fall back! Flame throwers!’ Bra’hiv yelled.

  The Marines opened fire with flames of liquid fire that drenched the onrushing hunters in writhing coils of burning fuel, melting them in their thousands.

  ‘Watch your backs!’

  A Marine screamed as one of the Sylph’s infected crewmen grasped him with bony arms and bit deeply into his neck, Infectors swarming like black blood into the wound. Qayin fired and blasted the Marine and his infected assailant, their heads fusing in a mass of cauterised flesh and bone as they collapsed into a heap.

  Evelyn aimed at Dhalere and fired twice.

  The first shot killed a young female Sylph crew member, setting fire to her hair as she collapsed and sending her wildly thrashing corpse flying sideways into another infected crewman. The second shot hit Dhalere high in the chest beneath her arms as she fired indiscriminately into the Marines.

  The blast spun her and the pistol fell from her grasp as she collapsed onto the deck, her scream of agony piercing even above the din of gunfire as the Marines finally regained the offensive and blasted the last members of the Sylph’s crew and relieved them of their suffering.

  The generator room fell silent, only the hiss and stench of cooked flesh filling the air as Evelyn looked across at Dhalere. The councillor’s beautiful features were twisted with horror and her dark eyes welled with tears as she screeched at Evelyn, for a few moments back in control of her own voice.

  ‘Please, kill me!’

  Dhalere’s face folded in upon itself in pain as she doubled over and then suddenly her screams were silenced. The councillor sat upright again, her chest smouldering but rapidly filling up with Infectors that plugged the hideous wound. Dhalere’s tortured face relaxed as the Infectors stimulated her brain to block the pain from her wound, and she climbed to her feet, her eyes glowing a faint red through the hazy smoke as she raised her arms to her side and screeched with hellish joy.

  ‘Kill them! Kill them all!’