Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor (23 page)

‘Or a billion,’ he said. ‘There’s no reason we couldn’t deliver Devlamine in ordnance, maybe torpedoes, and then fire on them.’

‘They’d be destroyed quickly enough that they would not be able to pass signals on to warn other units of the Legion about what had happened to them,’ Meyanna went on. ‘And the resulting fires would burn up any chemical trails they had laid.’

‘It’s brilliant,’ Idris said. ‘Now all we need is to find what Devlamine is aboard ship and take control of it. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but we need to cultivate as much of that drug as we can.’

‘What about Salim?’

Idris thought for a moment, and then made a decision.

‘I’ve got an idea.’

***

‘Say what now?’

Taron Forge watched the Marine Lieutenant as he unlocked the doors of Taron’s cell.

‘You’re free to go, captain.’

Taron remained where he was, suddenly unwilling to leave the relative safety of his cell and uncertain of what the Marine had in store for him. He looked at the adjoining cell where Yo’Ki was likewise being released. She glanced across, suspicion writ large across her exotic features.

‘Just like that?’ Taron asked.

‘Just like that,’ Lieutenant C’rairn confirmed. ‘Captain says you’re no damned use to us and doesn’t want to waste our limited resources having to feed you both, not to mention your ship taking up space in the bays. So, get out of here.’

Taron stepped out of the cell and was even more surprised when C’rairn produced Taron’s pistol and handed it to him, the magazine fully charged. Yo’Ki’s weapon was also returned to her in likewise pristine condition.

‘What’s to stop your captain blowing us out of existence the moment we lift off?’ Taron asked.

‘We don’t care,’ C’rairn replied with the briefest of smiles. ‘But like I said, the captain doesn’t want to waste resources so he won’t bother shooting you down. Best for you to just get the hell off of our ship before somebody wastes a few calories and cuts your throat, know what I mean?’

C’rairn rested one hand on the sheathed knife on his webbing belt. Taron managed a grin, but he began walking.

‘Thank your captain for a wonderful stay won’t you?’ he suggested as he joined his co-pilot.

‘Escort them to the launch bay,’ C’rairn ordered the two Marines who had accompanied him. ‘Make sure they get aboard their ship immediately.’

Taron kept walking and ignored the two Marines who fell into step behind them and followed as they walked toward the launch bay, several minutes away across the ship.

‘I don’t like this,’ Taron uttered beneath his breath.

Yo’Ki shrugged.

‘I’m not complaining either,’ Taron said. ‘But, this ain’t right. Salim’s got hostages down there and we’re the captain’s only real bargaining chip so far as we know, and he’s just going to let us go?’

Yo’Ki glanced sideways at Taron and lifted one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

‘Sure, maybe we aren’t that important,’ Taron shrugged. ‘Kind of degrading, you know what I mean?’

Yo’Ki jabbed him in the ribs with one elbow but said nothing as they kept walking.

Taron led the way to the launch bays and walked out to see rows of Raython fighters parked beside each other along each wall, and at the far end of the bay the Phoenix waiting for them, her main ramp still raised as they had left it.

‘You see anything amiss?’ Taron asked Yo’Ki.

She shook her head, her long black pony-tail swinging and catching the light. All around them maintenance crews were swarming over the Raython fighters and three older bomber craft that Taron recalled were named Corsairs – an appropriate name considering the circumstances.

Yo’Ki tapped Taron in the side as they walked and nodded toward the Corsairs. Taron spotted instantly the heavy plasma weapons being loaded into their bomb bays. Each capable of delivering a two-megaton blast, sufficient to level several city blocks, the bombs would decimate Salim’s compound on Chiron IV.

‘They’re going for it,’ he uttered to his co-pilot. ‘They’re going to level the compound.’

Taron looked over his shoulder and saw plasma torpedoes being loaded aboard Raython fighters, increasing their air-to-ground capability instead of self-defence against Salim’s fighter screen. As Taron slowed and looked behind him, down the far end of the bay, he saw almost a hundred Marines hauling on their battle kit near a pair of shuttles.

Taron stopped where he was as he stared at a sight he had not seen for almost ten years: a fully armed, fully equipped and manned frigate and fighter squadrons preparing for open battle. Taron thoguht about the Davlamine that Qayin had promised was waiting somewhere below Atlantia’s decks, and of the huge demand for the drug elsewhere in the cosmos. If they walked now, the deal would be lost. And then he thought of the kind of people Qayin and Salim represented, the form humanity would take if they alone prevailed in the wake of the apocalypse.

Taron looked at the Phoenix, her sleek hull and powerful engines seeming to beckon him toward her, offering escape, a place where he wouldn’t have to care.

Yo’Ki watched him in silence, waiting.

‘Damn it,’ Taron uttered, and turned back toward the launch bay exit.

*

Captain Idris Sansin scanned the tactical display on Atlantia’s bridge as his crew hurried to perform their duties in preparation for battle.

‘Are the Raython’s fully fuelled?’

‘As much as they can be, captain,’ Mikhain replied. ‘The Corsairs are armed with plasma-bombs, full escort will be in attendance, and the Renegades are armed with extra air-to-ground ordnance to back them up.’

‘Good,’ Sansin replied. ‘Prepare the launch sequence, full tactical. I want every single one of those fighters and bombers off the deck and into planetary descent in double-quick time, no delays, is that clear?’

‘Aye, captain!’

Sansin looked up as a commotion near the bridge entrance caught his attention and he spotted Taron Forge and Yo’Ki confronting the two hulking Marines standing guard outside. Taron was jabbing his finger into one of the soldier’s chests and looked as though he was about to draw his sidearm when Sansin called out.

‘Let them in.’

The two Marines stepped aside abruptly enough that Taron almost fell between them. The smuggler walked onto the bridge with his co-pilot following silently behind as he strolled directly up onto the command platform.

‘What the hell’s going on here?’

‘None of your business, Taron,’ the captain replied as he studied a meterological chart of the weather on Chiron IV below them. ‘You have your clearance to leave. Get off my ship before I have you forcibly ejected.’

‘You’re going to launch an assault on Salim’s compound.’

‘And people say you’re slow.’

‘There are at least a thousand people down there,’ Taron snapped. ‘You hit them with plasma bombs when you can’t differentiate between friend and foe, the collateral will be unthinkable.’

‘You put us in this position,’ Idris reminded him. ‘This is what happens when you don’t cooperate. You’ve left me with no choice.’

‘You’ll kill your own people!’

‘Not your problem,’ Idris muttered without looking at Taron. ‘You’re still on my bridge. Guard?!’

The two Marines hurried onto the bridge as the captain gestured dismissively toward Taron without even dignifying the smuggler with a glance.

‘Remove this man from my bridge immediately.’

Idris moved to turn away, but was yanked back around by Taron’s hand on his shoulder.

‘They have a Colonial frigate down there,’ the smuggler said. ‘Atlantia class. It’s moored near the shoreline.’

All movement on the bridge stopped. Idris Sansin stared at Taron for what felt like an age before he finally managed to speak.

‘A Colonial frigate?’ he echoed, as though unable to believe what he was hearing.

Taron nodded once. ‘Captured a couple of months ago. Don’t ask me how, because I have no idea. It’s what they’re using to shield the compound while they repair the damage to the frigate’s hull. She’s operational, captain, but if you bombard the site you might damage her beyond repair.’

Idris turned and looked at Mikhain, who also seemed to be unable to believe what he was hearing.

‘We could double our strength in one fell swoop,’ the XO said finally. ‘Two frigates. We’d have more room, be able to employ better tactics, double our firepower in any single engagement.’

Idris nodded thoughtfully, but then he sighed.

‘We’ll have to hold off on the orbital bombardment and restrict the operation to airborne attack and a Marine landing.’

‘Didn’t you hear what I just said?’ Taron said in amazement. ‘You can’t launch an assault with so many people trapped down there.’

‘Like you said, collateral damage, but we’ll gain a lot more when we’ve taken Salim and his smugglers out of the picture.’

Taron looked about him on the bridge as though seeking support, but nobody was looking at him. Every officer was fully engrossed in their duties.

‘You’re no better than Salim,’ Taron uttered in disgust.

Idris whirled and stormed across to Taron, looming over the pirate with rage seeping from his pores.

‘It’s you who gave us no choice,’ Idris snarled. ‘You could have informed us about the frigate’s presence beforehand and allowed us to overwhelm Salim’s people with the element of surprise on our side. You could have given us information about numbers of opponents, weakness in their defensive structure, potential allies among their prisoners. But no, you sat here and whined about how you wouldn’t do anything unless we gave you an incentive that was worth your while!’

The bridge fell silent as the captain raged into Taron’s face.

‘I just gave you that frigate,’ Taron muttered in reply.

‘Too little, too late Taron,’ Idris went on, and drove a finger into the pirate’s chest. ‘We now have no other way of bringing our people back but to launch a full-scale assault on a man who happily uses children as human shields. The longer we leave it, the harder it will be and the greater the number of casualties on both sides, no thanks to you!’ Idris turned his back to the pirate. ‘You’re no longer welcome here because you’re no longer a human being. You’re a pirate and a criminal Taron, nothing more, and you have no place among us!’

Taron hovered for a moment as though uncertain of whether to storm out of the bridge or beg for the lives of people he did not even know. The smuggler glanced at his co-pilot, Yo’Ki, who raised a silent eyebrow at him. Taron rolled his eyes and placed his hands on his hips.

‘Perhaps there is something that we might be able to do to help?’

‘What could I possibly want of you two, Taron?’ Idris uttered without looking up.

‘I’ll fly down there and see if Salim can be convinced to free at least some of the hostages, but I’m not guaranteeing a damned thing, understood?’

The captain concealed a quiet smile as he intently studied a tactical display and kept his back turned toward Taron.

‘How can I trust you to do anything to help us?’ Idris growled.

‘I’m damned well here, aren’t I?’ Taron snapped. ‘Don’t pull my chain, captain. I can just as easily take off and leave the system.’

Idris, his hands behind his back, turned to face the smuggler.

‘Guards, stand by,’ he ordered as the nearby Marines activated their plasma rifles. ‘Captain Forge is displaying frightening indications of goodwill.’

***

The glow of the lights was a white halo that cast the darkened crest of the hillside into sharp relief, low clouds drifting by in a sullen sky and the glowing aurora visible between them, rivers of ghostly green light amid the frigid darkness above.

Kordaz eased his way up the hillside, the chill in the air bitter and his bones aching with the cold. The thermal suit he wore did little to protect him, continuous motion his only ally against hypothermia as he clambered over rocks and around thickened tufts of hardy grass.

From the distance he heard the muted clash of metal upon metal, the sound of mechanical engines and human voices echoing around him as he climbed the last few cubits to the ridgeline and then paused. He calmed his breathing, cautious of the clouds of vapour he was billowing out onto the cold air and of how easily they would be illuminated by the distant lights. Darkness was his only defence against capture, and he had little doubt about how a motley gang of pirates and smugglers would deal with a Veng’en intruder.

Carefully, Kordaz peered over the ridgeline and immediately his breath was taken away by what he saw.

The vast frigate was mounted on immense cradles forged from a mixture of the natural bedrock and shaped steel braces, box-like constructions containing row upon row of metal ovals capable of bearing the frigate’s tremendous weight. Illuminated by countless arc lamps blazing like a galaxy of white stars, scaffolding had been erected around the frigate’s lower hull, upon which countless workers slaved with welding torches. High above Kordaz other workers could be seen atop the frigate, swarming like ants across a whale’s back as they conducted extensive repairs.

Kordaz scanned the compound and identified power conduits and cables, all snaking away to a bank of powerful generators erected near what looked like some kind of makeshift castle mounted against a steep hillside opposite, replete with banners and flags. He scanned the ship again and saw only faint illumination coming from within.

The fusion cores must have been deactivated to allow some of the repair work to go ahead, and therefore the power for the lights, power tools and shielding devices being emitted by the frigate was coming solely from the generators. Ten in all, each the size of a large house, they would themselves be powered by smaller fusion cores.

He cast his gaze back up to the towering frigate. Among the workers strode hulking figures that Kordaz recognised as Ogrin, a dim-witted species enslaved centures before by the Veng’en and others. Obedient and unchallenging, the Ogrin were routinely abused by their captors and forced to work endless hours, their huge strength and unchallenging nature much in demand, especially outside the core systems where such factors as right-to-dignity laws championed by the Etheran government were given short thrift.