*
‘Stick together!’
Andaim’s voice called out over the intercom as he guided his Raython fighter out of the Avenger’s landing bay and accelerated away into space. He looked up and saw the Atlantia high above him, her huge bulk swinging around to bring her guns to bear on the Avenger’s engines.
‘Damn these things are fast!’
Qayin’s voice sounded almost panicked over the intercom as the little fighters raced out into space.
‘Keep your distance from each other!’ Andaim cautioned as he craned his neck to look behind him.
The long, tear–drop shaped canopy of the Raython afforded him a clear view of the craft controlled by the convicts. There was no sign of the orderly formations Andaim had seen in his career with the colonial forces. Instead, the fighters seemed to squabble for space as they fanned out chaotically.
‘Keep it together,’ Andaim said, ‘it’s easy to get lost out here.’
‘There’s the Atlantia!’ said one. ‘This is cool!’
‘Cut the chatter!’ Andaim said. ‘Check your plasma charges, engine temperatures and life support systems are all fully functional!’
There was a moment’s silence as his lawless pilots hunted for the correct instruments amid a dazzling array of dials, monitors, switches and holographic displays.
‘Use the command switch on your control column,’ he went on, ‘and select the Avenger as your target!’
A barrage of questions flooded the intercom.
‘Which one’s the command switch?’
‘Where is my plasma charge?’
‘My stuff says I only have half of my fuel.’
‘What does the big yellow and black lever do…?’
‘Don’t touch that!’ Andaim interrupted. ‘Unless you want to eject!’
Another long silence and then Qayin’s voice cut through the chatter.
‘Turn on your weapons using the red hat–switch on your control column,’ he rumbled, ‘then point at anything that’s not the Atlantia and blow it to hell.’
‘Right,’ came a response, ‘I can dig that.’
A ripple of affirmations crossed the intercom, and Andaim saw the other fighter’s wings sweep forward slightly, projecting their pulse cannons like a pit viper baring its fangs.
‘Let’s go,’ Andaim snapped.
He rolled his fighter over and pulled toward the Avenger, craned his head back and saw the other fighters wheeling in a crazy display like a flock of intoxicated metal birds as they followed him.
‘Stay fast,’ Andaim advised, ‘and never try to shoot out the plasma guns, they’re too powerful. Attack the engines, and stay on the opposite side of her to the Atlantia. I don’t want half of you being blasted by our own side.’
The fighters’ wings flashed in the bright sunlight as they rocketed back down toward the huge cruiser. Andaim noted that most of the ship’s aft lights were extinguished.
Andaim’s cockpit was plunged into shadow and then flooded again with sunlight as he rolled it over and pulled in alongside the cruiser’s huge hull. Vast expanses of metal flashed past on his right side and he saw a plasma cannon flash as it blasted charges up toward the Atlantia. Too close for the cruiser’s guns to target him, he flashed past beneath the cannon as he saw the glow from the engines appear ahead.
To his surprise a debris cloud flashed into view, smouldering deck plates torn from the Avenger’s hull spilling junk from its interior into space. Andaim pulled up and away from the damaged section of hull and craned his neck back over his right shoulder to look into the breach.
‘Guys, the Avenger’s aft quarter is already damaged. Aim to hit her there and aft of that spot.’
‘Roger that,’ Qayin replied, sounding more like a fighter pilot with every passing second.
Andaim pulled away from the hull, plasma flashes erupting around him as the Avenger’s smaller cannons picked him up and tried to track him. He threw the Raython into a hard left turn, defying the cannons’ aim as he turned back and aimed at the engines.
He fired a blast of plasma charges and pulled up, saw them smash into massive power lines and rupture them in bright explosions that flashed past his cockpit and ejected fuel into space in vast glistening clouds.
‘All fighters, attack now!’
He needn’t have bothered giving the command. He heard a series of whoops and yells and looked behind his seat as he rocketed up and away from the battle. Behind him the Avenger’s vast expanses of hull were peppered with bright explosions as the fighters following him flashed past, firing as they went.
Blasts of plasma erupted in response, pursuing the fleeing squadron, and Andaim heard a scream over the intercom as one of the Raythons was hit square on the tail and blasted into a million glowing fragments that blossomed brightly before fading away into oblivion.
‘Keep moving!’ Andaim shouted. ‘Never fly straight and level for more than five seconds!’
The fighters split like wheeling birds as Andaim looked up and saw the Atlantia diving down toward the Avenger’s aft section, her pulse cannons blasting rounds at the bigger vessel and her own hull peppered with flickering fires. Plasma rounds flashed between the two ships as though they were giant storms hurling lightning across the void between them.
‘She’s taking a beating!’ somebody shouted, seeing the damage.
‘Leave the engines to Atlantia!’ Andaim commanded.
The fighters swept past beneath the Atlantia’s diving nose, the huge frigate plunging downward as Andaim rocketed along the Avenger’s hull, which was now titled ninety degrees over as it fired round after round toward the Atlantia.
Plasma flashes flared brightly before him and he swerved his fighter to avoid the big guns, smaller rounds flashing past him like shooting stars as he rocketed along just above the cruiser’s surface.
An alarm sounded in his cockpit and he looked down at a holographic display. There, images of the Avenger and the Atlantia locked in their lethal dance were portrayed, along with multiple new targets emerging as though from nowhere ahead of him.
‘I’ve got new targets,’ Qayin reported. ‘Fighters from the Atlantia?’
Andaim looked to his right and saw a cloud of flashing specks racing toward them from the Atlantia as Bra’hiv and his men rushed to assist them.
‘Negative,’ Andaim reported, ‘they’re at right–two quadrant, in–bound. New targets are dead–ahead.’
‘What the hell are they then?’
Andaim was about to reply when Bra’hiv’s voice cut into the intercom.
‘Atlantia, Blue Flight to Andaim, pull up! All fighters get away from the Avenger now!’
Andaim looked ahead and against the blackness of space he saw a great cloud of metallic specks lifting off the Avenger’s hull and clumping together in tight swarms.
Andaim fired two shots at the swarms and saw the plasma charges blast into them, melting countless billions of bots as though a galaxy had exploded. The bots had formed clouds that now reached out toward the fighters. Andaim hauled back on his control column and rocketed up and away from the swarms, the other fighters following him.
He heard a scream as one of the fighters plunged through the nearest swarm and emerged coated in black bots.
‘Eject!’ Andaim shouted. ‘Eject now!’
The Raython fighter seemed to come apart at the seams, torn into pieces by countless bots gnawing through hull plating, power lines and the cockpit canopy. The cries of the pilot degenerated into a strangled groan as the bots plunged onto and through his body and the fighter crumbled and vanished into a cloud of debris.
‘All fighters, stay clear of the Avenger’s hull!’ Andaim shouted. ‘The bots won’t be able to travel far away from it or they’ll freeze!’
Andaim pulled his fighter over the top of a large arc and looked out of the top of his canopy down upon the Avenger’s hull. The black masses on the hull were moving aft, swarming toward the damaged sections of the ship.
&
nbsp; ‘Bra’hiv!’ Andaim called. ‘Order the Atlantia to target the swarms!’
‘Negative,’ Bra’hiv replied without emotion. ‘She must be disabled first or we’re wasting our time. Target the landing bay immediately and destroy the shuttle and the fusion core!’
‘Eve is still on the bridge!’ Andaim yelled. ‘We can’t leave her there!’
‘One life,’ Bra’hiv countered, ‘or several hundred, lieutenant?’
In his cockpit Andaim cursed and hammered a fist against his cockpit canopy, but he rolled the Raython over and swung her around toward the Avenger’s bow. A cloud of nanobots rose to meet him and he opened fire, plasma charges racing away from his fighter and bursting through the blackened, glistening cloud in a blaze of light that smashed it into countless billions of glowing orange embers.
Andaim yanked the Raython up before it collided with the remnants of the cloud, rolling as he guided the fighter over them. The cloud flashed past above his canopy as he rolled the Raython into plane with the Avenger and saw that the landing bay they had used was once again open.
‘Target in sight and in range,’ he said over his intercom. ‘All fighters on me. Hit the landing bay now!’
A chorus of whoops and yells filled Andaim’s earphones as he raced toward the Avenger’s open landing bay and locked his weapons onto it, searching for the tiny shuttle parked inside with its lethal fusion core aboard.
A hail of plasma fire rocketed up from the Avenger’s hull toward him and he rolled the Raython over a parabolic manoeuvre designed to make his little fighter as hard to track as possible. The fearsome plasma blasts shot past, zipping by his wings and casting flashes of blue light into the tiny cockpit as they raced by.
Andaim rolled out and pulled level with the onrushing landing bay, his aiming reticle buried deep into the target as his finger moved to the fire button on his control column.
And then his heart skipped a beat.
The landing bay was empty.
The shuttle was gone.
‘All fighters, abort!’ he yelled.
Andaim hauled his Raython up, the Avenger’s huge hull racing past beneath him as he climbed away and rolled the fighter violently to avoid the plasma fire following him up.
‘What do you mean it’s gone?’ Bra’hiv asked. ‘Now what do we do?’
Andaim’s guts plunged as he realised that they no longer had the fusion core.
***
XLII
Evelyn hugged the pillar in the bridge as she saw the clouds of bots swirling toward the ruptured viewing port. They tumbled in a glistening black morass and she heard the howl of oxygen being sucked past her diminish as the bots plugged the damaged port.
Tyraeus’s immense bulk crashed to the deck with a loud thud and Evelyn saw the open bridge doors beckoning her. She turned and dashed for them, the passageway beyond now devoid of the hideous bots, but the doors slammed shut in her face.
She whirled and aimed her pistol at Tyraeus but he was already upon her. One metallic fist closed around her wrist and squeezed with unimaginable force. She screamed, her cry caught in her throat as the pistol was twisted from her grasp and clattered to the deck at her feet.
Tyraeus glared down at her with his bizarre, rippling face, his eyes fashioned from concentric rings of bots. Incredibly, a thin layer of them mimicked a blink as he stared sightlessly into her eyes.
‘You are one of us,’ Tyraeus growled, his voice a sickening chimera of machine and the memory of a man. ‘You shall become the Word.’
Evelyn sank to her knees, grasping her arm as pain surged through her bones as Tyraeus twisted his grip. Tears flooded down Evelyn’s cheeks and she heard the faintest groan of agony escape from between her lips as Tyraeus looked down at her, the bots forming his features shifting to portray an expression of pity.
‘We shall get to them later, but for now we shall begin with your friends out there. Can you see them, Evelyn?’
Tyraeus shifted his bulk out of her view, and through the remaining viewing ports she could see the battle raging outside as fighters rushed in and hammered the Avenger’s hull with shots, the blasts reverberating through the ship as some of the Raython fighters were consumed by rippling balls of bots and disintegrated into balls of flame and debris that showered the cruiser’s vast hull.
The Atlantia was plunging down behind the Avenger, her hull speckled with fires and trailing sparkling clouds of debris as she sank out of sight, her plasma cannons blazing.
‘They seek to disable us, of course,’ Tyraeus warbled. ‘But we will repair the damage. They, on the other hand, will not survive when I detonate the fusion core you have planted aboard this vessel.’
Evelyn stared up at Tyraeus, who cast his grim smile upon her.
‘Yes, Evelyn. Hevel was not the only mole aboard your ship. He was a victim. I know all about the weapon you have created, and I can assure you that we have nothing to fear from it here. My people will be disposing of it even as we speak.’
Evelyn felt fresh pain wrench through her as Tyraeus lifted her bodily off the deck and dragged her to the nearest viewing port. Her metal mask slammed against the deep glass panel as she was pinned there by Tyraeus’s hand.
‘Watch,’ he commanded. ‘Watch as every last one of them is blasted into history. And then I shall make you watch as we hunt down every last man, woman and child on the surface and bring them back to this vessel.’
Evelyn squirmed as she heard Tyraeus chuckle.
‘Yes,’ the commander said, ‘we will not kill you, Evelyn. I will not have you miss the suffering that I have planned for you and your people. Every last one of them will be turned in front of your very eyes, their bodies violated by bots until nothing of them remains.’
Evelyn, her face pinned to the viewing port, saw the reflection of the bridge in the glass before her. The helm was behind her, not too far. If she could get Tyraeus to release her, then she could…
‘No, Evelyn,’ came his voice from behind her. ‘I will stand here now until this battle is done and you will witness every last death, especially that of the captain and his pathetic little crew.’
Evelyn saw a fighter spiral out of control, trailing flame and debris as it crashed into the hull far away, a distant flash of flame sucked into the oblivion of space as the battle raged. The fighters darted in again and again, but their weapons were of no use from such range and those that strayed too close vanished into the clouds of bots swarming just above the hull.
‘It is over,’ Tyraeus said as the Atlantia’s huge hull sank behind the Avenger, and then she saw in the reflection of the glass the commander turn to look at his crewmen. ‘Prepare to launch the shuttle!’
Evelyn felt desperation fill her soul with a chill as she realised that there was nothing she could do to stop Tyraeus from blasting the Atlantia and fatally damaging the ship. Tears blurred her eyes as she stared into the deep star fields and wished that miracles were real.
A robotic, rippling voice replied to Tyraeus from somewhere behind her.
‘The shuttle is gone, commander.’
Tyraeus turned his head, the bots mutating again to mimic rage.
‘What do you mean it’s gone?!’ he demanded.
As Evelyn stared into the star fields a flash of bright grey and white light flared into her vision and she blinked as she saw a shuttle craft hove into view in front of the bridge ports and turn about, its aft quarters pointing at the bridge. She stared in disbelief as the boarding ramp opened onto the vacuum, a cloud of vapour puffing from its interior.
There, wearing an environmental suit, was Cutler, his cold little eyes easily recognisable despite the harsh light and deep shadows cast by the nearby star. He looked at her and she thought she saw the faintest glimmer of recognition and surprise in his features. Then she saw the hatred within them as he looked past her and directly at Tyraeus.
Evelyn heard Tyraeus’s gasp, as though he were sucking in air even though he no longer needed to breath.
‘No!’
Cutler leaned down and heaved a big container over onto its side. Cutler’s expression of deep surprise was reflected in both Evelyn’s and Tyraeus’s grotesque features as Cutler looked at Evelyn and his cold little eyes twinkled with grim delight.
Evelyn heard Tyraeus’s scream and felt the pressure vanish from her neck. She hurled herself clear of his grip and dashed across the bridge for the exit.
‘Destroy him!’ Tyraeus roared, and pointed at the shuttle.
The bots plugging the damaged viewing ports flooded out into space in a black column toward Cutler and the shuttle, a blast of air escaping once again as Evelyn reached the bridge doors and opened them. She looked back and saw Cutler heave the lid of the containment unit open as the snaking, glistening coil of bots rushed toward him.
Tyraeus turned and charged across the bridge after her, his black and rippling features twisted with outrage and his hands reaching out for her. Evelyn hurled herself through the bridge doors and sealed them shut, then turned and ran for her life.
*
Cutler saw the bots swarming toward him just as he saw Evelyn leap through the Avenger’s bridge doors and Tyraeus slam into them from the other side.
He waited until Tyraeus turned and that hideous mask of a face stared through the bridge windows straight into Cutler’s eyes.
Cutler smiled.
He heaved the lid of the containment unit open as the undulating snake of bots reached out for him, rolling in tight coils to prevent themselves from freezing in the vacuum of space, and a blast of pure fusion energy seared the bots into a molten wind of particles as the fusion core’s blazing rays melted the Avenger’s bridge windows and filled its interior with a flaming Armageddon of glowing metal and burning machinery.
He saw Tyraeus dash across the bridge toward him, but the blazing beam of energy sliced through his metallic frame as though it did not exist, smashing him into a billion fragments of debris as it tore through the bridge and beyond.
The blast of energy propelled the shuttle away from the Avenger like an engine, but Cutler did what he could to sweep the bridge with the awesome power of the fractured fusion core, slicing through hull plating as though it were paper. Explosions rocked the for’ard hull of the big cruiser, and to its aft quarters Cutler saw the Atlantia’s plasma cannons shredding the Avenger’s engines in violent flashes and explosions that flared as brightly as the nearby star, blinding him.
Atlantia Series 1: Survivor Page 29
