‘What’s that?’
Neville looked over his shoulder and saw one of his men pointing behind them. Neville squinted into the darkness but saw nothing.
‘You’re getting jittery,’ he said. ‘Secure your nerves and keep moving.’
‘No sir,’ the Marine said in a surprisingly concerned tone. ‘I saw something, it’s behind us.’
The young soldier’s conviction galvanized Neville and he turned around and aimed the heat detector behind them. Almost immediately the hairs on the back of his neck rose up as he cried a strained order.
‘Enemy rear!’
A roar of fear went up from the soldiers as the flashlights on their rifles swept behind them and illuminated the corridor, now filled with a murderous black tide of Hunters that tumbled toward them like thousands of black boulders streaming through a canyon.
‘Fall back!’ Neville roared as he opened fire.
The Marines let loose a blaze of plasma fire that thundered into the charging nanobots in brilliant flares of bright blue light and clouds of glowing red Hunters incinerated in the blasts.
*
Bra’hiv’s Marines crept silently down the corridor, the cold biting deep as Emma followed them through the shadows. Kordaz was still at their head, striding with brazen confidence and forcing the Marines to hurry from position to position behind bulkheads as they covered his advance.
Evelyn pulled her coat tighter about her shoulders and found herself looking over her shoulder repeatedly as though demons and ghosts were hovering in the darkness behind her.
‘You feel anything yet?’
General Bra’hiv was looking back at her from where he crouched behind a bulkhead, his plasma rifle clutched in his grasp.
‘Nothing,’ Emma lied as she peered ahead down the passage that led toward the outer hull where the Legion was presumed to have entered Arcadia. ‘They must be too spread out for me to detect them.’
The general looked back to where Kordaz was striding forwards. ‘He seems to know where he’s going.’
‘Yeah, but what’s he actually doing?’ Qayin muttered from further ahead. ‘I’ve seen the Legion chew through half a ship and turn it onto a million Hunters within days. We should have seen something by now.’
Emma struggled with indecision and looked over her shoulder again.
‘What is it with you?’ the General demanded of her. ‘Why do you keep looking behind us?’
‘I don’t know,’ Emma replied. ‘It must be the darkness, I feel like we’re being watched.’
A low whistle attracted their attention and Emma looked forward to see Kordaz stop once more in the darkness, the Marines taking up position behind him with their rifles pointing ahead. In the silence, Kordaz’s voice was deep but clear as he spoke.
‘They are here.’
‘They are where?’ the General hissed.
Kordaz turned to face them, and his red eyes glowed in the darkness like a demon’s as he extended his giant arms out to either side of him, his clawed hands almost reaching the opposing walls of the corridor.
‘Everywhere,’ he growled softly. ‘Don’t make a sound.’
Bra’hiv crept toward Kordaz from his position. ‘What the hell difference is that going to make?’
‘They’re not hunting us,’ Kordaz replied.
‘What?’
Suddenly a din of rifle fire echoed down the corridor toward them, mingling with the terrified screams of men. Bra’hiv whirled as he saw flashes of light from rifles flickering off the walls in the distance.
‘They’re behind us!’ Emma cried out.
From the silence in the darkness came a sound, like the scuttling of a thousand insects across a tin roof. Emma felt a frigid chill stiffen her limbs as she looked this way and that for the source of the sound but realized she was unable to track it. The Marines began pulling in without orders and formed a defensive circle in the centre of the corridor as they aimed their weapons outward.
‘With me!’ the General snapped at Emma and grabbed her hand.
Together they ran toward the Marines, the circle opening to let them in and closing behind them as the General squatted down in the centre and aimed his rifle directly at Kordaz.
‘What the hell is going on, Kordaz?!’
The Veng’en’s voice roared out above the sound of the advancing hordes. ‘They’re under threat and are attacking!’
‘Under threat from whom?!’
From the darkness surged a black wave of Hunters, a shimmering mass of metal that poured along the walls and the ceiling and the deck toward them from both sides. Emma gave a yelp of fright and shrunk back against the General’s side as she saw the vast swathes of machines thundering along the deck toward them.
‘How come you didn’t sense all of them?!’ Lieutenant C’rairn shouted at Emma.
Emma could not bring herself to reply as she cowered alongside Bra’hiv.
In front of the Hunters were three Marines, all shouting and firing desperately as they retreated before the hordes of machines.
‘Activate the scanners!’ the General yelled at the top of his lungs as he took aim and fired a round into the depths of the swarming horde. ‘Covering fire!’
Four of the Marines pulled out mobile microwave scanners and activated them, sending powerful pulses of energy toward the advancing Hunters. Emma watched in terrified fascination as the invisible beams of energy split through the hordes of machines, the Hunters flowing like debris–filled oil around the patches of energy and sweeping up across the ceiling as they threaten to colonise the passage above their heads.
‘We’re surrounded!’ C’rairn yelled.
‘I knew it,’ the General snapped. ‘Kordaz, call them off!’
The Veng’en did not reply, still standing with his hands stretched out to either side of him. The general took more careful aim at Kordaz’s head and bellowed one more time. A sudden scream shrieked out in the darkness and Emma yelped in sympathy as she saw one of the retreating Marines suddenly yanked sideways out his firing position and hauled feet–first down the corridor. In the dim light Emma saw a writhing black tentacle of machines wrapped around the soldier’s boots.
‘Covering fire!’ Bra’hiv bellowed again as he whirled back to protect the soldier.
The company’s rifles opened up as one and a salvo of brilliant blue–white plasma blazed down the corridor and illuminated the horrific wave of Hunters spilling into the corridor behind them, one tentacle extending out to the terrified soldier’s entrapped legs.
‘Get them off me!’ the soldier screamed.
The plasma rounds smashed into the tentacle of machines and clouds of vaporized Hunters blasted in all directions in glowing orbs of molten metal. The tentacle was severed half a dozen cubits down its length, and the soldier slumped in horror as the Hunter’s still attached to his boot suddenly swarmed upon him.
The soldier writhed and screamed as the machines rushed across his body, his arms batting and smashing at them as they attempted to tear into his body armour and the soft flesh beneath it. Suddenly, the machines stopped moving, completely covering the Marine but neither advancing nor retreating.
General Bra’hiv whirled back to Kordaz and in shock he realized that the Hunters had swarmed past the Marines, sweeping up across the walls of the corridor and the ceiling as they flooded by. Even more of them were coming from the far side of Kordaz, like a deep river of black that had burst its banks and was thundering downstream toward them.
Emma felt a fresh shudder of revulsion as she saw the black waves of machines crash together at the feet of the Veng’en warrior and then rush up him like a billion black ants climbing a gigantic tree. Kordaz remained rooted to the spot as the thunderous wave of Hunters swarmed upon him and utterly concealed the Veng’en within their metallic embrace.
‘They’ll kill him!’ C’rairn shouted and leaped to his feet as he took aim.
‘They’re not here for his life!’ Emma yelled. ‘They’re here to
take back what’s theirs!’
The swarm of Hunters had formed a pyramid where Kordaz stood, and that pyramid was undulating and rippling like some kind of gigantic insect nest.
‘Let’s go, now!’ Emma shouted. ‘While we still have a chance!’
Bra’hiv turned back to the Marine who had been entombed in the Hunters, and saw the soldier stagger to his feet, his features twisted with horror, revulsion and yet relief that he had somehow been spared.
‘Neville?’ Bra’hiv uttered in amazement. ‘What the hell are you doing down here?’
‘Mikhain sent me to cover your backs,’ Lieutenant Neville replied. ‘Said Kordaz might turn on you.’
The line of Bra’hiv’s jaw hardened. ‘I don’t think it’s our safety he’s concerned about.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ll tell you later.’ General Bra’hiv stared in amazement one last time at the horrific form before him and knew that he could not torch the Hunters without killing Kordaz at the same time. He turned and bellowed at the Marines. ‘Tactical retreat! Let’s get out of here, blow the hull wall and send them all out into space!’
The Marines re–formed into a defensive semi–circle in front of Bra’hiv and Emma and then began retreating away from the towering pyramid of Hunters. Emma forced her legs to move as she backed away from the horrendous sight of Kordaz utterly buried among the savage machines.
The light from the Marine’s weapons sliced through the gloom and gradually the pyramid of machines was lost to the shadows as, incredibly, it rose up into the ceiling.
‘Full retreat!’ Bra’hiv called. ‘They’re going for the air conditioning vents!’
The Marine’s defensive circle broke and they began hurrying back along the corridor toward the major bulkhead and blast doors.
***
XIV
‘Where is Kordaz?!’
Mikhain stood upon the command platform and listened as replies came in from the Marines deep within the ship. The connection was distorted and crackling with static.
‘He’s been grabbed by the Legion – they’ve taken off and we can’t keep up,’ Bra’hiv replied. ‘The Legion did the last thing we expected and moved outside of the hull and back in ahead of us. He’s on the move and wherever he goes the Legion is following!’
Mikhain whirled and pointed at his tactical officer. ‘Scan the ship immediately, locate any large moving heat source you can and relay the information directly to the main screen.’
The tactical officer obeyed immediately, and Mikhain turned to a schematic of Arcadia appearing on the main screen. Moments later a small red disc of fluctuating light moving forward through the vessel from the starboard hull.
‘That’s them,’ Mikhain said as he observed the moving orb on the display. ‘They’re moving for’ard.’
‘It’s heading for the bridge,’ the communications officer said, Shah’s tone a little more than concerned. ‘It’s coming here. The Legion wants control of the bridge!’
Mikhain stared at the blob for only a moment longer, and he knew with a deep certainty that it was not the bridge that the Legion necessarily sought. Kordaz was in its midst, and despite his every sense saying that it was impossible it appeared that the Legion was following the commands of Kordaz and not the other way round. Somehow, Kordaz had become The Word, and with all that he knew about what Mikhain had done on Chiron IV, there could be no doubt as to his intentions. Kordaz had nearly killed Qayin during one such act of revenge, and Mikhain had not nearly the strength of the giant former convict.
‘It’s not the Legion,’ he said finally to the crew around him. ‘It’s Kordaz, and Kordaz wants me.’
‘What do you mean he wants you?’ Lieutenant Scott echoed.
Mikhain watched the angry red spot moving through the ship’s corridors toward the bridge.
‘Kordaz blames me for what happened to him on Chiron IV,’ Mikhain explained. ‘We can’t let the Legion or Kordaz onto the bridge – we need a diversion.’
Lieutenant Scott glanced at the schematic and shook his head. ‘There’s no way we can intercept Kordaz now, we don’t have the manpower and Bra’hiv’s men are too far behind.’
Mikhain agreed. He turned to face Lt Scott. ‘I will be the diversion. Send a ship wide call for the captain to make his way to the aft flight deck, and set battle stations. I want you to make your way to the War Room and seal yourself inside along with two senior officers, in case the bridge becomes compromised in my absence.’
The War Room was a secondary bridge deep within the ship and a place where in the event of the main bridge being compromised during a boarding in battle, Arcadia could still be controlled by its original crew without the boarders knowing of their presence.
Lieutenant Scott shook his head. ‘No, that’s a bad idea. If the Legion gets into the War Room then they could take the ship from there.’
‘The Legion doesn’t know about the War Room and likely neither does Kordaz. If they change direction upon the command call going out, then we will know that it’s me they seek rather than to control Arcadia.’
‘That’s a hell of a risk,’ Scott pointed out. ‘And what if they cut you off before you can reach the flight deck?’
‘That’s a risk I’m going to have to take,’ Mikhain replied. ‘The longer we deliberate over it the more chance there is they’ll cut me off. Have all crew evacuate the flight deck and lockdown the rest of the ship.’
Scott frowned. ‘What are you going to do when you get there?’
Mikhain ground his teeth in his jaw and clenched his fists by his side. ‘What I should have done a long time ago. You have the bridge, XO.’
Mikhain whirled on one heel before Scott had a chance to reply and he marched off the bridge as briskly as he could. The Marines guarding the doors parted for him as the doors opened and he strode through, and even as the doors were closing behind him he heard the ship’s tannoy burst into life with Shah’s voice.
‘Captain to the aft flight deck, all sections on lockdown alert, battle stations!’
Mikhain accelerated his pace, hurrying towards one of the small shuttles that would transport him through the ship. He clambered into a pod and sat down as it began to accelerate, and on his wrist–com he saw a data message appear from Lieutenant Scott.
Legion following you. Hurry, and good luck.
Mikhain gripped the safety rail of the pod and watched the lights of the transport tunnel flashing by overhead. A small screen before him on the panel showed his position in the ship, and he could only estimate where the Legion was. Travelling at such a pace, he could see immediately that he would reach the flight deck before they would.
The pod slowed and Mikhain prepared himself to jump out the moment it came to a halt. The pod hissed as its brakes engaged and it slid in alongside the platform, and Mikhain immediately hurled himself out and began running for the flight deck access doors. His boots echoed down the corridor, devoid now of other personnel as the lockdown took force. He felt his heart beating in his chest and was mildly surprised to see images from his past flash before his eyes as though he were entering the last moments of his life. Time seemed to slow down, regrets and hopes and fears and dreams drifting through his mind and his legs running it seemed of their own accord as he raced to the flight deck and slid to a halt beside the access panel.
There were two shuttles inside the bay, either of which he could use. If he could just slip away and out of immediate guns range, then he might be able to set a course for Oassia and jump ship once he reached a spaceport. He knew it was a hell of a long shot but he had no choice – whatever happened now, his time as a Colonial officer was over.
Mikhain entered his personal security code and the door slid open. He hurried inside into the cavernous flight deck, filled with parked Raython’s and shuttles, and then he immediately slid to a halt once more as he saw a platoon of Marines awaiting him with their rifles all pointed in his direction. General Bra’hiv was at their head,
his cold gaze directed at Mikhain down the barrel of his plasma rifle.
‘That’s far enough, captain,’ Bra’hiv snapped.
Mikhain stared at the General’s plasma rifle and instinctively put his hands in the air beside his head.
‘What the hell’s going on? You said that you were behind the Legion!’
The general stepped forward from his men. ‘Must’ve got confused. You’re under arrest, captain.’
‘Under arrest for what?’
‘On the orders of Captain Idris Sansin and the Board of Governors,’ the General explained. ‘We know everything about what happened on Chiron IV, about you selling Kordaz out to the pirates.’
Mikhain felt a flush of anxiety tingle down his spine and weaken his legs as he realized the extent of the General’s knowledge, and now that of the men who surrounded him. Lieutenant Neville was alongside the General, his own weapon pointed at Mikhain. He briefly considered denying all knowledge of such an event, but the certainty with which the General spoke meant that they must have conclusive evidence of some kind, something which could not be refuted. At such a crucial juncture, Idris would never have condoned his arrest without being absolutely certain of his guilt.
Mikhain knew that the imminent meeting with the Galactic Council was behind the decision to arrest him. Governor Gredan and his do–gooders on the governing body must have decided that they could not risk having somebody like Mikhain in command, which meant that somebody must have approached them with the evidence that condemned him. Mikhain briefly closed his eyes as he realized who must have been behind it.
‘I did what I had to do to protect Atlantia,’ he said finally, and felt a surprising wave of relief wash over him as he spoke. ‘Kordaz was the enemy, we all knew that. Salim Phaeon was also the enemy and yet Captain Sansin at the time was willing to negotiate with pirates. I had no faith in his command, no faith in a Veng’en warrior’s desire to stand by humanity and felt sure that once down on the surface Kordaz would ally himself to the pirates and represent a greater threat to us and the pirate’s hostages. It was my decision and I stand by it!’
Defiance (Atlantia Series Book 5) Page 10