‘You’re killing me!’ the man gasped in agony.
Meyanna worked her jaw and tried to find her voice.
‘I’m trying to save you,’ she managed to reply. ‘You’re sick from the drugs! You overdosed! Who gave you the drugs?!’
‘I’ll kill him,’ the man growled. ‘I’ll kill him!’
‘Who gave you the drugs?!’ Meyanna demanded.
The man scowled and swung a fist at her.
Meyanna ducked and as the clumsy punch raced past she lunged forward and drove her shoulder into the man’s belly. His breath blasted out of his lungs beside her as she barged past him and dashed for the laboratory door, one hand slamming into the locking buttons and deactivating the pressure seal.
The doors hissed open and the nurses plunged into the laboratory, one of them carrying an anaesthetic gun that he immediately fired straight into the patient’s chest. The main wailed as the projectile buried itself in his flesh, one hand grasping blindly for it, and then within seconds his legs quivered beneath him and he plunged to the deck just in time for the other nurses to restrain him in a well-ordered, oft-practiced drill. Within moments he was back on his bed, his wrists and ankles restrained and IV lines re-inserted.
‘What happened?’ Captain Idris Sansin burst into the sick-bay, drawn from the bridge by the sudden alarms. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ Meyanna replied, hugging herself as her husband’s hands gripped her shoulders. ‘He must have worked free of his restraints.’
Idris glanced at the now comatose patient. ‘This is getting out of control. Anybody on that drug who starts withdrawing is going to become dangerous.’
‘Have there been any more?’ Meyanna asked.
‘Not yet,’ Idris replied. ‘But it can only be a matter of time. Damn it, we need to know who’s behind this and recover their stash. It’s the only thing Salim Phaeon seems interested in.’
Idris held his wife close in an embrace, but then he felt her stiffen.
‘Don’t move,’ she whispered in his ear.
Slowly she took his shoulders and turned him around. Idris saw the entrance to the laboratory, and to his left the magnetic containment chamber that housed the…
‘It’s gone,’ he uttered in horror.
The chamber’s glass walls had been smashed by the patient’s attack on Meyanna, and the magnetic field had been disrupted by the impact. The Hunter, for so long lodged in the chamber, had escaped.
‘Don’t move,’ Meyanna repeated.
She eased past her husband, slowly, carefully. The laboratory doors were still open, the nurses having rushed in without realising that the chamber was breached. Right now, Meyanna did not care about the doors. Her eyes were fixed upon the blood stains smearing the laboratory deck.
There, on the tiles, was the Hunter.
‘What’s it doing?’ Idris asked as he spotted the machine.
The nurses behind them were silent and still now, aware of the escaped Hunter and likely pertified of what the tiny machine might do. Meyanna herself, however, had no real fear of the machine. Too large to self-replicate at the molecular level like the Infectors, and not small enough to infect humans itself, it was unable to cause much disruption aboard Atlantia on its own. What transfixed her attention now was the machine’s activities on the deck.
The Hunter was crouched over the blood the patient had trailed and it had extended a small proboscis from its nose that was visibly sucking up the blood before it. Meyanna approached silently, moving behind the Hunter as she reached behind her and picked up a plastic container from a desk, ready to trap the Hunter inside it.
The machine appeared unaware of her advance, and as she watched she saw it increase its consumption of the spilled blood. To her amazement, within a few moments the blood was dripping from its tail as though it had passed through the machine’s internals and been excreted.
Meyanna crouched down behind the Hunter and dropped the plastic box over it. The Hunter ignored her completely.
Slowly, the captain and the other nurses edged forward until they were all staring at the trapped machine as it sucked blood from the laboratory floor.
‘I thought that it would have run away,’ Idris said, ‘tried to hide and start messing with the ship’s electrical systems.’
‘Me too,’ Meyanna replied. ‘I don’t know what this means. I need that chamber fixed, and fast. The Hunter can chew straight through that box if it decides that it wants to.’
‘Get on it,’ the captain snapped at the nearby nurses. ‘Contact engineering and tell them I said to give you whatever you need.’
The nurses stumbled over themselves to carry out the captain’s orders as fast as they could, and Idris watched as his wife examined the Hunter.
‘It looks as though it’s extracting something from the blood,’ she said.
Idris looked at the Hunter, and then at his wife.
‘The Devlamine?’ he ventured.
Meyanna stared at the Hunter for a long moment as she recalled how the Legion had taken control of the human race back on Ethera years before.
It had been the Infectors that had replicated in silence through some eighty per cent of humanity before being commanded by the Word to attack, decimating humankind in a single, cruel blow. But the very start of the infection, the common vector that had gotten those first Infectors into society, had been Devlamine.
‘They recognise the drug,’ she murmured.
Devlamine, a street drug of unrivalled potency, had been the perfect vector because its crystalline nature had allowed Infectors to bury themselves and survive outside of their human hosts until the drug was consumed. They then, having gained access to the spinal cord and the brain of their host, were able to both control the flow of Devlamine in the body and also enhance its effects, turning the host into a virtual robot that they alone could control.
‘It’s stocking up,’ Idris confirmed, clearly thinking the same as her. ‘The Hunters must have carried Devlamine at one point too.’
Meyanna got to her feet as two engineers hurried with a sheet of plated glass and a pair of magnetic plates, giving the Hunter at her feet a wide berth as they moved to repair the damaged containment unit.
‘Hunters sometimes carried Infectors aboard and would deliver them hypodermically to victims,’ Meyanna recalled. ‘The Infectors would carry Devlamine into the victim with them and use it to control them regardless of whether they were already addicts or not. Our little friend here does not possess any Infectors, but it would still probably pick up the Devlamine as a matter of course if it detects any.’
Meyanna turned and looked at the patient now laying silently on the nearby bed.
‘We need that Devlamine,’ she said to her husband. ‘Not to give to the pirates down there, but to use as a draw for the Legion.’
‘What do you have in mind?’ Idris asked.
Meyanna almost smiled as a plan formed in her mind.
‘What if we could load an accelerant with enough Devlamine to draw in Hunters and Infectors?’ she asked rhetorically. ‘Then we could fire on them and incinerate them a million at a time.’
Idris thought about it for a moment, and as always he then thought bigger.
‘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.’
***
XXV
‘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.
&nbs
p; ‘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.
Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor Page 18