Qayin could not be sure, but given the injuries Kordaz had sustained on Chiron IV before Qayin’s own eyes he could not have recovered on his own. The Veng’en ability to regenerate tissue damaged in battle was legendary, but that took both time and at least a chance of survival. Kordaz had been shot directly in the chest by a Colonial pilot, destroying at least one of his hearts and probably a lung with it, and Qayin knew damned well that the spot where the Veng’en had lain had soon after been blasted into oblivion by an orbital bombardment, probably by Atlantia.
Kordaz could not have survived his injuries or the blasts, and thus the only solution was that he had been infected by the Legion and that the machines had both saved him and rebuilt him, repairing the terrible damage he had suffered and in doing so turning him from a biological being into a sort of chimera of animal and machine, a true cybernetic organism.
Qayin shivered in the cold as another idea formed in his mind. What if Kordaz had not survived at all, and instead his warm corpse had been infected anyway? That would mean that Qayin was not sharing his ship with an angry Veng’en warrior but with an even less palatable presence: the Word in living form.
A hissing sound alerted Qayin to the approach of Kordaz and he hung his head as a hatch opened before him. Through the hatch stepped Kordaz, the light reflecting off broad patches of metallic flesh coating his chest as he advanced. Qayin kept his head down as he saw the warrior’s clawed feet slap down on the deck as he came to stand before him, and then one huge clawed hand gripped Qayin’s jaw and yanked it up.
Qayin allowed his eyes to open but feigned weakness as he looked into Kordaz’s red eyes, the once baleful yellow replaced now with something alien, devoid of emotion. Kordaz’s voice sounded electronic, coming as it did from the vocal resonator he wore about his thick neck.
‘I’ve waited a long time for this, Qayin,’ he growled, the sound of the Veng’en’s guttural dialect harsh over the translator’s monotone oratory.
Qayin summoned a response. ‘A long time for what? Revenge? Our people saved your life, Kordaz.’
‘Our people?’ the Veng’en echoed. ‘You mean the people you abandoned to die on Chiron IV, Qayin? The same people that would likely kill you on sight?’
Qayin grinned, his teeth white in the darkness and his bioluminescent tattoos pulsing like rivers of magma against his dark skin.
‘A misunderstanding,’ he replied, ‘a conflict of interests.’
Kordaz grabbed Qayin’s jaw and yanked it closer. ‘Your only interest is yourself, Qayin.’
The former Marine shrugged as best he could while suspended by his wrists.
‘Where are we going?’
Kordaz snarled something unintelligible as he shoved Qayin’s face away, maybe a Veng’en curse of some kind that the creators of the vocal resonator had chosen not to include in its vocabulary. Kordaz looked about at the countless manacle mounts set into the hold.
‘This is what you people are,’ he said finally. ‘Look at what you do to yourselves, and then you come asking us for help to fix your problems.’
‘I ain’t asking for nothing,’ Qayin murmured in reply. ‘Captain Sansin’s insane if he thinks the Veng’en will help him. They’re far too busy carving up defenceless human children fleeing Ethera, right?
Kordaz’s eyes narrowed.
‘Children grow into adults, and then they become like you,’ he said. ‘Our war was not against anything other than humanity in its entirety. My people took no pleasure in killing the innocents to protect our own younglings in the future.’
‘The future,’ Qayin grinned bitterly, ‘you say it like there is one.’
Kordaz stood before Qayin and breathed deeply, his chest inflating and the metallic surface reflecting the light.
‘I am alive,’ Kordaz said. ‘I was on the verge of death and yet here I stand, not just alive but stronger than before. You speak of how your people fled the Legion, just as my people now fight to keep it from our own homeworld.’ He leaned closer to Qayin. ‘I say, perhaps we have all been mistaken.’
Qayin’s regarded the warrior before him.
‘Wow, the Legion really did bite you deep, didn’t they? The Word’s come a long way if it’s managed to locate and infect the brain of a Veng’en. Must’ve been like looking for a needle in a haystack.’
Kordaz’s fist flashed into motion as the Veng’en pivoted on one heel and drove his muscular arm forwards. Qayin let out a roar as the fist ploughed into his belly, the air blasting from his lungs as his stomach convulsed painfully. As his head dropped another fist smashed up into his nose and snapped his head back as his face went numb and his vision blurred. Blood spilled across his lips and tainted his tongue with a metallic flavour, as though the Legion were pouring into his body also.
Kordaz’s thick hand enveloped Qayin’s neck and squeezed, choking the breath from his throat. Qayin’s eyes bulged and he struggled to suck in air as Kordaz’s dull red eyes glared into his.
‘Your Legion brought me back from the dead, Qayin,’ he growled. ‘They saved my life, which is more than humanity has done for any Veng’en. I say that they’re infinitely more tolerable than any of you.’
Qayin gasped a response and Kordaz loosened his grip enough for the former criminal to speak.
‘That’s the train of thought that killed humanity,’ he gasped. ‘Once you’re infected, anything the Legion suggests is a good idea.’
Kordaz’s fanged jaw twisted in an approximation of a human smile.
‘That’s the thing, Qayin,’ he snarled back. ‘The Legion did infect me, and did a remarkable job of repairing the damage that you and your Colonial friends caused. Unfortunately for the Infectors, they were then destroyed by the cosmic rays breaking through Chiron’s atmosphere after you and Arcadia left.’
Qayin stared in amazement at Kordaz for a long moment. ‘You’re clean?’
‘I am uninfected,’ Kordaz confirmed, ‘but benefitting from a whole new lease of life.’
Qayin’s mind buzzed as he realised what the Veng’en was driving at. Chiron IV’s atmosphere had been under assault from its dying parent star, the savage solar storms tearing away the atmosphere and exposing the surface to lethal cosmic rays, radiation that no human being could withstand. Likewise, the smaller of the Legion’s machines, the Infectors, could also not withstand sustained blasts of even low energy microwave radiation. Cosmic rays, of a far higher power, would fry their circuitry and render them useless. But Kordaz’s leathery skin was sufficient to protect him from such a fearsome assault, his species adapted to the high energy sunlight on their home world, Wraiythe.
Qayin peered more closely at Kordaz’s patches of metallic skin and saw around the edges evidence of burning and scar tissue forming.
‘They got fried,’ Qayin said at last. ‘Damn me, they fixed you and then you got away from them.’
‘Veng’en skin is more resilient to radiation that that of humans,’ Kordaz explained, ‘or the Legion’s Infectors. They were dead when I awoke, although their effects are with me still.’
Kordaz blinked, his eyes that unnerving dull red. Qayin realised at last why they had changed colour.
‘Your eyesight,’ he surmised. ‘The radiation cooked it. You can only see because the Legion made changes to your eyes.’
A Veng’en could not show emotion in the same way that humans did, their features lacking the muscular flexibility that defined human expressions, but Kordaz’s skin flickered as it altered colour and flushed a deep red that almost matched his eyes.
‘Another loss for which I shall seek my vengeance.’
Qayin’s eyes narrowed.
‘You’ll never find them,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know where they’ve gone.’
‘Their frigates leave easily identifiable gravity–wakes,’ Kordaz replied without concern. ‘I have already laid in a pursuit course, and Salim Phaeon’s gunship is easily able to maintain pace with the Colonial vessels. As soon as they drop out of super–luminal,
I shall be upon them.’
Qayin let a broad smile blossom across his features.
‘This gunship against not one but two Colonial frigates and their entire compliment of Marines and Raython fighters? I’d give you odds of victory of about ten thousand to one.’
Kordaz’s skin rippled in various shades as the red faded away.
‘Indeed,’ he replied, ‘but it is not victory that I seek, my devious young friend.’
‘You want them to defeat you?’ Qayin almost laughed. ‘I think you caught a bit too much of Chiron’s sunshine, Kordaz.’
The Veng’en’s hand whipped to its belt and in a flash a plasma whip crackled the air, a bright blue–white snake of pure energy that hissed as it lashed out and sliced like white fire across Qayin’s chest. A crackle of burning flesh and wisps of blue smoke puffed from Qayin’s thermal suit as he screamed, a shriek born as much of surprise as of the agony that seared his flesh.
Kordaz stepped back, the plasma whip writhing and humming as he examined his handiwork.
Qayin’s uniform smouldered as a black line of cauterised flesh puffed coils of smoke up into his face, tainted with acrid odour of burning skin. Kordaz nodded in apparent satisfaction as he regarded the former convict.
‘It is your defeat that I seek, Qayin,’ he said finally. ‘For when what is left of you kneels before me and begs for his life in front of Captain Sansin, it will be their human weakness, their compassion even for scum like you, that will see them fall. You are my victory, Qayin.’
Qayin looked up at the Veng’en and opened his mouth to shout the first insult that crept into his mind, but he was silenced as the whip snarled and flashed toward him once more and everything was lost to the pain that seared his body.
***
X
‘Delta Company, status report?’
Captain Idris Sansin stood upon Atlantia’s command platform with his hands behind his back as he listened to General Bra’hiv, the Marine’s face filling a display screen to one side of Atlantia’s main viewing panel, where Endeavour was visible against the impressive backdrop of hydrogen clouds.
‘The bridge and landing bays are secure, along with the main passage between them,’ Bra’hiv replied. ‘My men are currently ray–shielding the passage to provide extra security and deny access from other areas of the vessel. At this time we have no indication of there being any forms of life aboard, only the remnants of what we believe to be the crew.’
‘Remnants?’ Idris asked.
‘You’re going to have to see that for yourself, captain, because it’s hard to put into words. I don’t know what the hell happened here but it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before. I’d suggest bringing Doctor Sansin over too, to get her take on things.’
‘Stand by,’ the captain said. ‘We’ll deploy shortly. See if you can get the ship’s heating and lighting activated, check the ship’s logs for crew entries that might hint at what happened and keep scanning for signs of life. There were a thousand souls aboard that ship, they must have gone somewhere.’
‘Aye, cap’n.’
The communication link to Endeavour was cut off by Lael as Idris turned to survey the tactical display. Both Atlantia and Arcadia had moved into position off Endeavour’s port bow, and from their vantage point it was clear to see the damage the vessel had suffered to aft, her stern a shredded mess of ragged metal enshrouded with debris.
‘She took a hell of a beating.’
Mikhain’s voice reached Idris as though from afar as he surveyed the wreck of Endeavour and wondered what she might have encountered to have wrought such extensive damage. The Arcadia’s captain was visible on another communications link nearby, his gaze directed at Endeavour in much the same way.
‘From what, though?’ Idris wondered out loud. ‘Sensors suggest the damage to her is several decades old, so whatever she came across did this and then left. It doesn’t make much sense.’
‘There’s not much evidence of Endeavour fighting back either,’ Mikhain added. ‘An optical scan of her defensive cannons suggest no evidence of them ever having been fired in anger. If she was attacked, she didn’t have much time to do anything about it.’
A nagging sense of danger tugged at Idris’s instincts as he looked at Endeavour on Atlantia’s main viewing screen. Like most captains, Idris hated not knowing the most. A mystery was one thing, but a mystery that had taken the lives of countless human souls was something that Idris desperately needed to understand and to solve–and most importantly to prevent happening again.
‘Pull Arcadia back to ten thousand cubits,’ he ordered Mikhain. ‘I want you to ride shotgun from a safe distance in case something shows up. It’s harder to hit two widely spaced targets than two sitting closely together.’
‘Aye,’ Mikhain agreed. ‘Patrols?’
‘At twenty thousand,’ Idris replied. ‘Take command of them from the CAG, then share the load between all of our Raython squadrons on rotation. I don’t want a ship of any size sneaking either in or out of this area without my knowing about it.’
‘Roger that, Arcadia out.’
Idris turned and glanced at Lael. ‘You have the bridge.’
Lael stared at the captain as though she had been slapped, her green eyes wide and her cropped metallic–blonde hair catching the light from data panels behind her. The long–serving communications officer was ranked sufficiently to hold a command position in the captain’s stead, but the look on her face betrayed that it had never happened before.
‘For how long, captain?’ she managed to ask.
‘For as long as it takes,’ Idris smiled as he stepped down off the command platform. ‘Don’t let it go to your head.’
Idris walked toward the bridge exit, aware of the rest of the command crew’s gaze upon either him or Lael as he was joined by Andaim. The CAG had joined him aboard Atlantia from his patrol at the captain’s request.
‘Lael?’ he asked in a whisper.
‘Why not?’ Idris shrugged. ‘She’s a capable and exemplary officer, and the increased responsibility will do her good.’
‘A proper, well trained Executive Officer would do you good, captain,’ Andaim pointed out. ‘You haven’t chosen one yet and Mikhain’s been captain of Arcadia for weeks now.’
‘Are you the XO now?’
Andaim grinned, not taking offence at the captain’s challenge.
‘Just being a sounding board, captain. Lael’s a great officer but she’s not up to an XO role and we both know that. Just sayin’.’
Idris knew that the young commander was right. Mikhain had been one of the most senior officers aboard Atlantia in terms of both rank and experience, and it was hard to find anybody who could suitably fit the role in his place. Idris’s first choice would have been Andaim, whose combat experience, training as a fighter pilot and general command knowledge provided the perfect background for an XO position. But Andaim was fully employed as Commander of the Air Group and besides, Idris knew damned well that Andaim would never willingly leave the cockpit of a Raython. Even now he had managed to slide himself into a flight lead spot, heading up the support patrols behind Evelyn and Teera.
Truth was, right now Idris could not think of a single officer whose attributes were up to the role of captain, and that was why he’d given the bridge to Lael. Somebody, somewhere, would need to take up the mantle under his tutelage and be mentored until they could reliably become Atlantia’s Executive Officer.
They walked together down to the sick bay, where Meyanna Sansin was busily tending to injured crewmen and sick civilians. Her long brown hair was pinned back behind her ears, her attention completely focused on the task in hand.
‘We need you,’ Idris said simply as they moved to stand alongside her.
Meyanna finished wrapping a bandage around the forearm of an injured technician with some kind of burn on his skin, before she stood up and looked at her husband.
‘So do a couple of hundred other people,’ she uttere
d. ‘There isn’t a qualified medical team on Arcadia, so we’re having to treat double the number of patients aboard Atlantia.’
Meyanna looked a decade younger than her actual years, but the strain of running both the sick bay, the laboratory and acting as a councillor to the ship’s civilian contingent was clearly taking its toll, to her husband at least. He could see the tiredness in her eyes and felt certain that she looked thinner than she had done just a few weeks ago.
‘This is important,’ Idris insisted.
‘More important than whom?’ Meyanna challenged as she gestured to the ranks of patients filling the busy wards. ‘I’m too busy.’
She stormed off toward her laboratory. Idris glanced at Andaim, who raised a questioning eyebrow.
‘I may have upset her this morning in front of the other councillors,’ Idris admitted.
‘You might want to smooth things over,’ Andaim suggested. ‘You can’t afford to alienate your only ally down there, especially as she’s your wife.’
‘You want to come?’ Idris asked. ‘She likes you, and might listen.’
‘I’ll wait here.’
Idris sighed as he glanced at the injured crew around them and then he marched into the laboratory after his wife.
The interior of the laboratory was filled with experiments dedicated to two pieces of high technology. One was a Hunter, a small machine armed with powerful pincers held in stasis within a magnetic chamber. The weapon of choice of the Word’s Legion, it was virtually harmless alone despite being utterly lethal when deployed in their millions. Nearby, also encased within a chamber, was a shimmering veil of an ethereal material liberated from the pirate Taron Forge–one that was used to render biological beings unconscious and electrical systems redundant. Forge had used the veil to capture and plunder merchant ships, although nobody knew of the material’s true origins. Idris glanced at the veil, often referred to as “the pirate shroud”, and sought a new course of conversation.
Endeavour (Atlantia Series Book 4) Page 7
