The crew chief nodded nervously. ‘Yes ma’am.’
The general pointed at Evelyn. ‘You, come with me!’
***
XXXII
‘All fighters are aboard, all hatches and bay doors sealed.’
‘Full power!’
Captain Idris Sansin felt the Atlantia surge forward as her engines engaged. The Sylph’s remains dominated the viewing screen ahead, her massive shattered hull entombed in a cloud of debris obscured the Veng’en cruiser from sight.
‘The Veng’en fighters are not yet aboard her,’ Mikhain reported, ‘but it’s only going to be a couple of minutes.’
‘That might just be enough,’ the captain replied. ‘Helm, plot our trajectory and lock in the leap coordinates. Bring our starboard batteries to bear on the Veng’en as we pass.’
‘Aye sir.’
‘Tactical, charge all batteries.’
‘Aye,’ Mikhain replied, ‘at eighty per cent and climbing.’
‘Fire as they come to bear,’ Idris ordered.
The Atlantia accelerated swiftly under full thrust, climbing over the massive flaming debris field left by the Sylph. The Veng’en cruiser emerged from the gloom, her fighters swarming toward their landing bays as she hurried to prepare to pursue the Atlantia. Her vast upper hull loomed below the Atlantia as the frigate rolled to bring her starboard guns to bear upon the cruiser’s exposed upper hull.
‘She’s vulnerable,’ Mikhain announced. ‘Her landing bays are open!’
‘Fire now!’ Idris yelled. ‘Everything we’ve got into those open bays!’
The Atlantia’s huge plasma turrets thundered their salvos, the ship reverberating with the blasts, and Idris saw the enormous charges race toward the Veng’en cruiser’s hull and smash into open landing bays with tremendous explosions that shattered her superstructure around the vulnerable ports.
‘Direct hits astern and to her port hull!’ Mikhain shouted. ‘That’ll learn’em!’
Explosions ripped through the cruiser’s stern as the unprotected bays bore the brunt of the barrage, fires tearing through the damaged sections of the ship as enormous hull plating panels were blasted from their mounts to spin into space.
Veng’en fighters vanished inside the fireballs, obliterated as they tried to land, and the cruiser’s lights blinked erratically as power lines were severed and entire bulkheads vaporised by the immense force of the blasts.
‘We can finish her!’ Mikhain shouted. ‘Turn her about and…’
‘Belay that!’ Idris snapped.
The Executive Officer stared at the captain in dismay. ‘She’s vulnerable sir, we can finish her!’
‘She’s twice our size and her guns are still operational,’ Idris replied, keeping his voice level. ‘One good salvo from her at this range and we’d be finished. Maintain full power and leap as soon as we’re able, I don’t want her to get another broadside off.’
‘Aye sir,’ the helmsman replied.
The Atlantia sailed overhead the Veng’en cruiser, still heeled over ninety degrees on her side. Below, the Rankor rolled, struggling to bring her own main guns to bear and return the barrage. The cruiser vanished from sight as the Atlantia began building velocity and accelerated away.
‘Range increasing,’ Mikhain reported in a monotone voice, clearly distraught at having been denied the opportunity to defeat a major opponent in open battle. ‘We’ll be clear of their guns range by the time they can manoeuvre enough to make a shot.’
‘Divert all power to main engines,’ Idris ordered. ‘How long before we can leap?’
‘Three or four minutes sir,’ the helmsman replied. ‘Less once the power’s re–routed.’
The captain turned as the bridge doors opened and Bra’hiv marched in with Evelyn at his side.
‘About time,’ Idris said, hiding his relief at seeing them both alive. ‘How was your vacation?’
‘It was Dhalere,’ Bra’hiv reported, ‘she was infected. Evelyn was right, sir.’
‘We know,’ Idris replied. ‘What happened over there? Where is Andaim?’
Bra’hiv related what had passed aboard the Sylph, and the captain’s face fell further with every passing word.
‘Qayin is gone?’ he echoed, glancing at Evelyn.
‘Caught in a blast during our escape,’ Evelyn replied, her voice tight. ‘There was nothing we could have done.’
‘And this Veng’en, you have it in custody?’ he demanded.
‘He’s in the holding cells as we speak,’ Bra’hiv confirmed. ‘But he’s on our side, captain, if you can believe that.’
‘I don’t like having a Veng’en within light years of us,’ Mikhain uttered, ‘let alone aboard the same damned ship.’
‘Andaim needs medical help,’ Evelyn said, ‘he’s on his way down to the sick bay now. Where’s Meyanna?’
The captain sighed, his broad shoulders sinking even further as he replied.
‘Infected,’ he said, ‘and quarantined inside her own laboratory. She’s been unconscious for hours and nobody can go in there. If we don’t find a solution within a short while the entire laboratory will have to be cleansed using the microwave scanners.’
‘That’ll kill her,’ Bra’hiv said.
Idris nodded in responsebut his eyes were fixed upon Evelyn. The general turned also and looked at her, and he understood immediately.
‘You’re immune,’ Bra’hiv said. ‘You could go in there with her.’
Evelyn nodded.
‘Yes, but I’m not a doctor. I don’t know what I could do to help her.’
‘Anything is better than nothing,’ the captain said. ‘She’s dying, Evelyn. Before long we’ll lose my wife and the best physician we have aboard this ship. I don’t want her to become another Dhalere or Hevel.’
‘Nor do I,’ Evelyn replied, and then she hesitated. ‘But I know somebody else who could help her.’
‘Who?’
‘Kordaz,’ she replied. ‘The Veng’en in the holding cells.’
‘I don’t want that murderous scum anywhere near my wife and…’
‘All Veng’en are immune to the Infectors,’ Evelyn interrupted him. ‘Their saliva and blood contains bacteria that attack the Infectors and destroy them.’
‘Good for them,’ Idris snapped. ‘Either way, I don’t want a Veng’en near Meyanna. He could use her as a bargaining tool, hold us to ransom, anything.’
‘He just shot down two of his own kind,’ Evelyn said, ‘to defend us.’
‘What does that say about his morals?’ Mikhain asked. ‘He’ll switch sides just as soon as it suits him.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Evelyn insisted. ‘Captain, if you want your wife and Andaim back we have to act fast.’
Idris looked at Evelyn for a long moment.
‘And would you trust the Veng’en with Andaim’s life?’
Evelyn lifted her chin, her green eyes clear as she replied. ‘I’d trust him with my own and Andaim’s life. I already have.’
Idris clenched his fists and his jaw, and then he heard a claxon sounding throughout the ship and Lael’s voice echoing through countless tannoys as she spoke into a microphone at her console.
‘Super–luminal leap in thirty seconds.’
The alarms continued to ring as the ship closed in on its leap velocity, the captain and those around him instinctively reaching out for something to hold on to.
‘What’s the status of the Veng’en cruiser?’ he asked Mikhain.
The XO looked at his console.
‘She’s locked into a pursuit course sir, but she’s a long way behind. They won’t follow us into the leap for a while yet.’
Idris thought for a moment.
‘She’ll be able to follow our wake,’ he said finally. ‘Our gravitational waves will leave a clear trail and we don’t have time to leave counter–measures.’
The Atlantia’s velocity through space–time as a massless object did not free her from an effect on the fabric of t
hat space–time. Gravitational waves, like concentric rings expanding outward from a stone tossed into a lake, rippled the surface of space–time and could be detected by highly sensitive antennae carried by most military vessels.
The Veng’en would be able to follow the Atlantia and determine her velocity and trajectory based upon an analysis of those waves.
‘Ten seconds.’
The captain sighed, knowing that he had little choice. The situation had evolved beyond his control; too many variables to consider, too many lives to protect, too many problems to resolve. As fast as he found solutions to one issue so two more sprang up in its place. Never before had he wielded so much power and yet felt so powerless in the absence of an admiralty and an entire battle fleet to support him.
‘Five, four, three, two, one.., leap.’
The bridge deck darkened slightly as the Atlantia’s mass–drive engaged and the ship rocketed into super–luminal velocity. Idris felt himself tugged to one side, his hand grasping a railing tightly until the acceleration surge passed and the bridge returned to normal.
‘Leap complete,’ Lael reported as the helmsman spoke.
‘Stable at one point oh four luminal velocity, sir.’
Idris looked at Evelyn again and although he clenched his jaw and his fists as he released the railing he nodded.
‘Do it,’ he said. ‘Take the Veng’en, get in there and find a way to cure Meyanna.’
The captain turned to Mikhain. ‘Have the crews re–arm, refuel and repair all of the fighters for deployment when we drop out of super–luminal.’
‘Aye sir,’ Mikhain replied, ‘but what the hell are they going to do against that cruiser when it shows up?’
The captain did not reply.
***
XXXIII
‘We need your help.’
Kordaz stood inside the barred cell and stared out at Evelyn and the Marines standing around her, expressions tense and weapons held at port arms, Djimon glaring at him.
‘I already helped you,’ Kordaz replied, ‘and you threw me in here for my troubles.’
‘General Bra’hiv feared that you would be attacked by the crew or even the civilians if you were seen,’ she explained. ‘They’re not used to seeing a Veng’en warrior wandering around.’
‘How do you think it feels for me?’
‘No better,’ Evelyn acknowledged. ‘But right now our biggest problem is the threat presented by the Infectors. Andaim is still in a coma and the captain’s wife is also infected. She is the chief medical officer aboard this ship.’
Kordaz stared at Evelyn. ‘What do you expect me to do about it?’
‘She found something,’ Evelyn explained. ‘As we’re both immune to infection, and the only hunter aboard this ship is now safely in containment, we can enter the sick bay and try to discover what Meyanna learned before she was overcome.’
‘What’s in it for me?’ Kordaz asked.
‘Your life,’ Djimon rumbled from behind Evelyn.
Evelyn glared at the sergeant before she went on.
‘Your own people would kill you on sight,’ Evelyn replied. ‘Though they won’t admit it they’re fighting the same war as we are, just in a different way. There is nowhere for you to go, nowhere for you to hide. If you want to spend the rest of your days sitting inside this cell feeling sorry for yourself then go ahead. Or, you can come with me, make yourself useful and at least have the freedom of this ship, such as it is.’
Kordaz’s yellow eyes narrowed.
‘Do you really expect me to believe that your captain would allow me or any Veng’en to walk freely aboard this ship?’
‘Not any Veng’en,’ Evelyn said. ‘His wife needs our help and I said that I could not do it without you. I told him that I trusted you and therefore so does he.’
Kordaz glanced at Djimon. ‘Then why the armed guard?’
‘For you, Kordaz,’ she replied. ‘Left alone, I don’t doubt that at least one member of the crew or civilians would take the first shot they could get. Now, are you with us or not?’
Kordaz let out a hiss of irritation and then moved to the cell door. A Marine stepped forward and opened it and the Veng’en stepped out, his claws clicking on the metal deck beneath them.
‘Where are they?’ he asked.
Evelyn turned and led Kordaz through the ship, the Marines forming a protective guard around them. Passing crewmembers and civilians cast wary glances at the towering Veng’en as they moved through the ship, not a few looking as though they might attempt to at least spit in Kordaz’s general direction, emboldened by the presence of the Marines. Only Evelyn’s fearless stride alongside the Veng’en gave them pause, and she herself recalled that just a few short months before she too had walked these very corridors and been regarded with revulsion at best and outright hostility at worst.
They walked into the sick bay, their Marine guards making way for them as they passed through a wall of microwave scanners that protected the entrance and then sealing the doors behind them. Lieutenant C’rairn and Djimon both donned earpieces so they could speak to Evelyn and Kordaz without entering the sick bay.
The ward had been emptied of patients, the sick moved down into the sanctuary instead to prevent any furthering of the infection. Ahead, the glass doors of the laboratory were protected by a second set of microwave shields.
‘The decks above and below are also shielded,’ C’rairn told her, ‘as are the walls of the entire sick bay. Any Infectors that are loose are contained within this bay because all patients were scanned before they were moved. It seems that the infection broke out only in Meyanna’s laboratory and she contained it before it moved any further.’
Evelyn nodded as she surveyed the scene through the thick glass doors.
Meyanna lay slumped against the doors, her long black hair sprawled across the deck behind her, and the word evolved was written in glowing ink on the glass beside her head. Evelyn saw the sealed examination dishes and the microscope, and the magnetic chamber containing the captured Infectors condensed into a hovering grey sphere.
‘She was examining the samples,’ Kordaz said, ‘and somehow she breathed them in.’
‘Which would have allowed them to enter her bloodstream through her lungs,’ Evelyn agreed. ‘But if she had made a mistake and infected herself, would the examination dishes not be unsealed or broken somehow?’
Kordaz did not reply. Instead, he reached out and opened the laboratory door as Evelyn knelt down and cradled Meyanna’s head in her hands. The captain’s wife remained comatose as Evelyn bundled a pillow from one of the empty beds under her head.
‘She will awaken soon,’ Kordaz said.
‘How do you know?’
‘They always do, when new people arrive. It’s a chance to spread the infection further.’
Even as Kordaz replied, Meyanna murmured as though coming awake from a dream. She lifted her head, her eyes drooping with exhaustion and her skin pale. The Infectors would be multiplying, taking iron from the haemoglobin in her blood to replicate in order to overcome her motor control and brain stem.
Meyanna squinted, the laboratory lights bright in her eyes, but although her expression was confused Evelyn could see the cruel gleam in her eyes.
‘You,’ Meyanna whispered.
Evelyn knew that she was not being addressed by the captain’s wife but by the insidious voice of the Legion, the Word. It knew her now by sight, the same Infectors that had infested Dhalere’s body now coursing through Meyanna’s having brought with them some of their previously acquired knowledge.
‘Fame at last,’ Evelyn uttered.
Meyanna clambered to her feet, her black hair hanging in twisted ribbons across her face as she glared at Evelyn. It seemed as though the Word was remembering, recalling information. She glanced at Kordaz, the towering Veng’en staring down at her without emotion.
‘What is this?’ she spat. ‘A Veng’en standing side by side with a human?’
‘Bette
r than side by side with you,’ Evelyn replied. ‘Meyanna learned something about you, didn’t she?’
The Word grinned maliciously. ‘Yes she did.’
‘Wer’re going to find out what that something was.’
‘Yes you are,’ the Word agreed, ‘just as soon as the Infectors in your bloodstream reach your brain stem and replicate.’
Evelyn glanced at Kordaz, who finally spoke.
‘The Infectors, they’re airborne.’
The Word grinned again. ‘Floating into your lungs and your bodies with every breath that you take.’
Evelyn feigned fear as she realised that Dhalere’s Infectors clearly were not aware of Evelyn’s immunity when she left the Atlantia. Evelyn swallowed and let her eyes well with tears. ‘How?’
The Word smirked at her.
‘Because we’re smarter that you,’ it replied. ‘Infectors are unable to survive long outside of human hosts, their power supply drawn from the electrical impulses generated by your brains. Iron is used to construct them and it degrades rapidly. We simply found a new way: to use biological cells as shields, moisture as a protective bubble to transport Infectors from one person to another without the need for direct physical contact, much like a common cold virus. All biological cells are membranes filled with water.’
‘Doesn’t the iron degrade faster in a fluid?’ Kordaz asked.
‘Yes,’ the Word replied. ‘But it needs only a cough to pass it from one human host to another. The time spent in transit is minimal. The adaption would have occurred earlier, but on your home planet of Ethera the populace was infected before we took control. Here, aboard the Atlantia, things were different and a new means of infection was required.’
‘How long?’ Evelyn asked.
‘For you to be overcome?’ the Word replied rhetorically. ‘Minutes, at the most. We have only recently evolved the ability to transmit as an aerosol, through Councillor Dhalere, but rest assured that it will become the new means of infection among your entire crew.’
Evelyn let the fearful expression she wore fall away. ‘I doubt that very much.’
Atlantia Series 2: Retaliator Page 23
