Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor (32 page)

Salim glanced at his men.

‘They know the meaning of loyalty!’ he shouted.

Around Salim the pirates began looking at each other, their weapons slowly lowering as they weighed up the odds and realised that following Salim Phaeon had gone from being the best game in town to the worst. One by one, they stood down.

‘Stand firm!’ Salim almost screamed. ‘We have Arcadia!’

‘You have nothing,’ Idris countered. ‘Nothing without us, anyway. We humans, pirates or not, have to learn to start working together or there’ll be nobody left at all.’

Salim scowled and raised his pistol to point at Idris.

Instantly, some sixty Marines aimed their rifles back at him, and to Bra’hiv’s surprise half of Salim’s pirates turned and aimed their weapons at their former leader also. The pirate king glared at his own people, his face twisted with hate.

‘You’re back-stabbing, slime-ridden scum, every last one of you!’ he ranted.

‘Charming as ever,’ Idris called out. ‘Stand down, Salim, or I suspect your own colleagues will shoot you.’

Salim fumed and seemed almost to hop on the spot, but he lowered his pistol and tossed it down onto the ramp. Bra’hiv felt a wave of relief wash over him as the pirates surrounded their former leader and then turned to watch Captain Idris Sansin. The captain cast his gaze over hundreds of former slaves and decided to consolidate his gains.

‘You are free, each and every one of you!’ he shouted. ‘You may go your own way, or you may follow us, but either way it’s time to get off this planet!’

A deafening crescendo of cheers burst out from among the crowds of slaves, loud enough to compete with the crashing waves near the cliffs and the buffeting winds that howled endlessly across the barren little world. General Bra’hiv finally lowered his rifle and deactivated the plasma magazine.

Nearby, Evelyn turned as a man with grey hair fought his way through the crowd toward them, and Ishira broke away and rushed toward the man. They collided in a deep embrace, Erin between them, and Evelyn felt a little warmth blossom inside her that briefly veiled the nausea and chills pervading her body.

‘That’ll be Stefan then, I guess,’ Teera said.

‘Don’t,’ Evelyn smiled in response, ‘you’ll be getting me all emotional.’

Teera raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘Speaking of which, I should imagine Commander Ry’ere will be on his way down to you before long.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Evelyn challenged.

‘That your boy will be pining for you.’

‘Will you cut that crap out?! He’s not
my boy
.’

‘Not yet, but it’s only a matter of time, right?’

The sound of ion engines cut through the blustering wind, and Teera smiled brightly.

‘Ah, that must be him now, racing down in his Raython to sweep you into his arms and…’ Evelyn turned to cut Teera off, but then she saw the smile vanish from her friend’s face to be replaced with a look of sheer terror.

The entire crowd turned toward the sound of the ion engines, and as Evelyn looked up she saw a large, blocky craft plunge down through the turbulent clouds, its engines glowing and casting plumes of heat down toward the ground as it swooped in and reared up. A boarding ramp beneath the cockpit area lowered even before it had touched down, and Evelyn felt fear creep cold up her spine as she saw figures leap with inhuman agility from the interior of the craft.

‘Enemy, front!’ Bra’hiv yelled.

Evelyn whirled as she saw dozens of Veng’en spring into action as they landed, plasma rifles cradled in their grip and blades flashing as they charged forward.

‘It must be the Veng’en we were following!’ Teera yelled. ‘They’ve doubled back!’

And then Evelyn realised that the Veng’en were not alone.

From within the assault craft’s interior plunged a black deluge of Hunters, the Legion pouring like metallic black oil to soak the planet’s surface in a writhing sea of killer machines.

‘Covering fire!’ Bra’hiv bellowed, and instinctively he looked up onto the scaffolding above for Qayin’s Marines.

To his dismay, he realised that they were gone. Bra’hiv glanced to his right to see the towering soldier fleeing toward the pirate fleet far to his left, his Marines in pursuit.

*

Salim Phaeon’s plasma whip lashed out and struck Idris Sansin across the chest as the Veng’en horde plunged from their craft and flooded onto the plain. White pain ripped across Idris’s body and he cried out as he stumbled and collapsed onto his back as all around him the crowd of slaves and soldiers scattered in panic.

He heard the pirate king’s screams above the din. ‘Seal Arcadia! Don’t let them aboard!’

Idris rolled over, smelled the stench of burning fabric and looked down to see his uniform singed black and beneath it his skin charred where the whip had struck him. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and turned his head to see a hail of plasma fire zipping back and forth around him as the Marines and slaves opened fire on the charging Veng’en.

‘Captain!’

Lieutenant C’rairn dashed to Idris’s side and helped him up.

‘I’m okay!’ the captain insisted. ‘Support General Bra’hiv!’

Idris turned to see Salim Phaeon vanish into a thick morass of smoke, several of his lackeys running with him as they boarded Arcadia and raised the ramp behind them.

Pain and rage forced Idris to his feet and he ran low in pursuit of Salim, the roiling smoke provoking tears that ran down his face and blurred his vision as he sought Salim through the smog. Plasma fire crackled and hissed as rounds smacked into the frigate’s massive hull and impacted the rapidly rising boarding ramp.

He spotted Salim’s brightly coloured coat billowing in the wind as he dashed into the ship’s interior. Idris, his chest heaving and pain searing his skin, rested one arm against a scaffolding pillar as he fought for his breath before he dashed forward and jumped up, his hands grasping the edge of the boarding ramp even as gunfire raked the ground behind him.

Idris hauled himself upward, swung his legs desperately to clamber aboard before the ramp closed. He heard the hydraulic jacks whining shut and saw the upper seal rushing toward him. He strained and managed to hook one ankle over the edge and with a supreme effort he hauled himself upward and tumbled inside as the ramp slammed shut with a deep boom that echoed through the ship’s corridors.

Idris clung to the deck and waited for a moment in pitch blackness.

Salim’s piratical vanguard had vanished into the darkness, the beating of their boots on the deck and a dim flickering of flashlights fading into the distance as Idris peered into the impenetrable blackness of Arcadia’s interior, unlit now that the power supply had been cut off. Like all major warships of her age and class she was fitted with a massive central keel that ran from beneath the launch bay all the way to her stern. Service corridors ran alongside and over this central keel, and from them the rest of the entire ship could be accessed if one knew the way.

Idris knew the way, and not a few shortcuts alongside them. He also knew that it would be much faster to reach the Arcadia’s War Room from her keel than to access the main bridge, which was located atop the hull. Salim, being a pirate and not a Colonial Officer, would likely have no detailed knowledge of Arcadia and as such would simply assume that the bridge was the only point from which the frigate could be controlled.

Idris closed his eyes, trying to let them adjust to the darkness as in his mind he imagined the vast hull before him.

Using his hands, he began feeling his way forward and vanished into the darkness.

***

‘Legion!’

The cry went up among the Marines and they threw themselves into firing positions as the Veng’en warriors charged toward them, followed by the rippling sea of nanites as they spilled from the interior of the assault craft and from two more Raiders that burst through the cloud layer far above.

‘Enemy high!’ Idris shouted.

A barrage of plasma fire blasted out from the Marine lines into the charging Veng’en as Evelyn looked up and saw Hunters falling like veils of black rain from the sky above them, dropped deliberately like lethal little parachutists to disrupt the Marines from within. She looked over her shoulder and saw more deploying far behind Arcadia as more Raiders broke through the cloud layers above.

‘They’re surrounding us!’ Bra’hiv bellowed.

‘Get back, under the frigate’s bow!’ Evelyn yelled at the panicking hordes around her. ‘Fall back!’

The crowds of slaves began crying out in horror as they fled beneath the Arcadia’s massive hull to escape the coming torrent. Evelyn grabbed Ishira and propelled her with Erin toward cover.

‘Get under there and stay in cover!’ she bellowed.

Ishira retreated with her daughter and father as the Marines fired upon the charging hordes of Veng’en. Evelyn whirled and aimed at the nearest of the lithe, frighteningly fast Veng’en and fired twice. The first shot was dodged as the creature leaped sideways but her second struck it high in the chest, just beneath the throat. As the plasma round smashed and burned its way into the Veng’en’s body clouds of glowing orange embers burst from its eye sockets and mouth as though it were aflame from within.

‘That’s not possible!’ she cried out. ‘They’re infected!’

The horrific realisation spread through the Marines as they saw the Veng’en close up. Their once-yellow eyes now glowed a dull, soulless red, the surface glinting metallic grey around a mechanical iris. Patches of metallic, powder-like skin merged seamlessly with natural scales as the Infectors within them consumed and replaced their bodies.

‘I thought Veng’en were immune?!’ Teera shouted above the din of gunfire.

‘They were!’ Evelyn called back. ‘Something’s changed!’

The Veng’en’s eyes were surrounded by metallic scales, the infection rooted far more deeply there than on other parts of their bodies. Evelyn knew that Veng’en blood was toxic to the Infectors, too acidic for them to survive long enough to take control of their bodies. But if they had found a new vector into Veng’en bodies, perhaps through the eyes or nasal passages, a way to the brain that avoided the bloodstream, then that evolutionary process may have resulted in Ty’ek’s crew being overwhelmed and consumed.

Almost immediately Evelyn thought of Kordaz, but she knew the Veng’en warrior had escaped Salim’s throne room.

‘We can’t get aboard!’

Evelyn turned as she saw hundreds of slaves pounding at hatches all across the Arcadia’s hull, hatches that had been open moments before but were now firmly closed. She looked up at the ship’s gigantic launch bay doors high above and saw them rumbling closed, and from somewhere deep inside the massive hull she heard the sound of enormous ion engines beginning to engage.

‘She’s preparing to take off!’ Teera shouted in alarm.

Evelyn whirled as a screeching sound attracted her attention and a Veng’en warrior loomed before her, his left arm already missing from a plasma blast but his terrifying red eyes aglow with the mindless determination of a machine. Evelyn ducked and rolled to avoid the vicious swipe of the Veng’en’s
D’jeck
, the finely honed weapon whispering through the air above her head as she rolled and aimed up at the Veng’en’s face and fired.

The plasma shot blasted the Veng’en’s head from his neck and sent it spinning through the air in a trail of smoke as the creature’s body plunged toward Evelyn. She rolled aside as it thumped down onto the ground, a flood of Infectors spilling from its wounds in a glossy black rush.

‘Get away from it!’ she yelled at Teera.

The crowd of terrified slaves backed away, the noise from the Marines’ plasma rifles nearby deafening as Evelyn clambered to her feet and staggered back from the fallen Veng’en.

The nearby Marines were falling back, not from the charging Veng’en but from the Hunters swarming toward the Arcadia. Above the deafening roar of the frigate’s fusion cores and engines powering up were the screams of hundreds of terrified slaves fleeing the onrushing black wave of Hunters and the squeal and hiss of plasma rifles laying down fire against the Veng’en. A double blast thumped the air as two plasma grenades were lobbed into the morass of Hunters, a cloud of them vaporised into glowing embers that spiralled away on the blustering gale.

‘We’re pinned down!’ Evelyn yelled as loud as she could above the cacophony of battle. ‘There’s nowhere else to run!’

The sea of slaves and Ogrin backed away from the churning Hunters as Evelyn saw General Bra’hiv turn and run from his position, his Marines following suit as their defensive line was overrun by a tsunami of black metal, the sound of a million tiny legs like a waterfall of tiny stones.

‘Fall back!’ Bra’hiv bellowed, firing as he retreated and hitting a Veng’en square in the chest.

Evelyn saw the warrior fall and then be consumed as the wave of Hunters washed over it like back oil, millions of tiny metallic incisors slicing without thought into flesh, tearing it to pieces. The Veng’en looked as though he were crumbling in a sea of acid, limbs separated and vanishing, bones appearing bright white and pink from within red flesh and then disintegrating into power.

General Bra’hiv dashed to her side, his face flushed with the adrenaline overload of close combat.

‘The Atlantia’s hack hasn’t worked,’ he gasped. ‘We don’t have control of Arcadia and I can’t contact Atlantia!’

‘They must be under attack by the Veng’en and their signals blocked,’ Evelyn replied as Bra’hiv fired at two Veng’en crawling toward them, their legs already torn off by grenade blasts.

‘We’ve got to get out of here,’ Bra’hiv agreed. ‘There’s no other way off this planet except the pirate ships.’

‘We need Arcadia!’ Evelyn replied.

‘We need to survive!’ Bra’hiv insisted. ‘I’m pulling my troops toward the pirate ships, we’ll take what we can!’

Evelyn grasped desperately for a better solution but she knew that the general was right. Even as she admitted it to herself she saw Ishira, Stefan and Erin running toward the parked vessels on the far side of the frigate, where their ship Valiant was waiting. Even as she saw them, she spotted yet more pirate craft lifting off and blasting their way into the turbulent sky.