Atlantia Series 2: Retaliator

by Dean Crawford

  Djimon glared up at Qayin. ‘You can go f…

  ‘Qayin!’

  Every head turned to see General Ahmid Bra’hiv stood in the barracks doorway, his shaven head touched with steel grey stubble and his eyes icy cold as he glared at the Marines. As though a live current had been discharged directly into them the entire company leaped into motion and scrambled to stand at the head of their bunks, backs straight, arms by their sides and chins lifted, as still as statues.

  Only Qayin remained, Djimon pinned beneath him with the blade pressed against his throat.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Bra’hiv growled at Qayin.

  ‘Unarmed combat training,’ Qayin snapped back. ‘Sergeant Djimon has much to learn, general.’

  Qayin got up, Djimon scrambling to his feet alongside the former convict as Bra’hiv stalked toward them.

  ‘Unarmed combat training,’ Bra’hiv echoed, ‘with a knife in your hand?’

  ‘I decided it was time to move the training to the next level,’ Qayin smiled brightly. ‘Never expect your enemy to be a nice guy.’

  Bra’hiv surveyed the injured look on Djimon’s features and Qayin’s customised blade, and nodded slowly. ‘How apt. Give me the knife.’

  Qayin did not move. ‘It was a gift, general,’ he replied by way of an explanation.

  ‘You’ve got until the count of three,’ Bra’hiv said, ‘or I’ll take it from you.’

  Qayin did not move. The Marines kept staring straight ahead, but their eyes swivelled to watch.

  ‘One.’

  Qayin did not move.

  Two.’

  Bra’hiv’s fist darted out with a flicker of motion, so fast that it could barely be seen, and two fingers rammed into Qayin’s eyeballs. The big convict lurched backwards and ducked his head down and to one side as he emitted a cry of pain and swiped blindly out with the knife. Bra’hiv ducked outside the weapon’s arc and as the blade flashed by he stepped in and rammed an elbow deep into Qayin’s exposed kidney.

  The convict gagged as he dropped onto one knee, and Bra’hiv caught the wrist that held the knife and twisted it over upon itself. The blade fell into Bra’hiv’s hand as he twirled it expertly over and held it in place beneath Qayin’s throat.

  ‘There’s only one gang aboard this ship, Qayin,’ Bra’hiv snarled, ‘and it’s mine.’

  The general lifted a boot against Qayin’s side and with a hefty shove sent him sprawling onto the deck as he turned and glanced at Djimon, whose angular features were creased with a grin.

  ‘What the hell are you smiling at?’ Bra’hiv snapped. ‘Ten years in the Marines and you got yourself decked by an untrained drug dealer?’

  Djimon’s smirk evaporated as Bra’hiv stepped back, the blade still in his hand as he shouted at the two men.

  ‘Get in line, both of you, now!’

  Djimon stepped smartly toward his bunk as Qayin got to his feet, barely contained rage radiating from his scowling face as he slowly strode to his bunk and stood to what passed for attention in his world. Bra’hiv looked them over for a moment before speaking.

  ‘Bravo Company, from this moment onward any indiscretion by Lance–Corporal Qayin will reflect upon every man in the unit. If he is insurbordinate, every man shall pay. If he is disobedient, every man shall pay. If he so much as farts without my say so, every man shall pay. Is that clear?!’

  Forty Marines replied in instant chorus.

  ‘Yessir!’

  ‘We have new orders! Your training is to be curtailed. Within a few hours, we will come alongside a vessel of unknown origin that has been detected emitting a distress signal. Once the fighters have formed a defensive shield and the captain has made certain that the Atlantia is under no immediate threat, it will be Bravo Company’s job to board the vessel and find out what’s on board. Alpha Company will support.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir,’ Djimon snapped, ‘I think that’s a mistake. Bravo Company are amateurs and untrustworthy.’

  Bra’hiv smiled without warmth. ‘And one of ‘em put you on your ass, sergeant, so what does that say about your professionalism and skill?’

  There was a moment of silence, before Qayin’s voice broke through.

  ‘What species was emitting the distress signal?’

  Despite his defeat at Bra’hiv’s hands the former convict remained astute enough to think straight, and it remained clear to the general that no matter what happened Qayin was still the unspoken leader of his gang by virtue of his intelligence alone.

  ‘Veng’en,’ Bra’hiv replied.

  A muffled exhalation of curses rippled through the gathered Marines.

  ‘Why would we go to help someone like the Veng’en?’ Tyrone asked. ‘Soon as we show up they’ll shoot us down. Dudes don’t like us much.’

  ‘Dudes don’t got much choice,’ Djimon replied, mocking Tyrone’s voice.

  ‘Precisely,’ Bra’hiv agreed. ‘We don’t know what has become of them, but no distress call from deep space can be left unanswered, just as we would hope that ours would likewise be responded to. Every man must be ready to go at a moment’s notice, full battle gear, combat suits weighted at fifty per cent gravity for high mobility. Weapons and ammunition will be issued prior to boarding the shuttles. You’ll all rendevouz at the armoury in oh–two hundred hours. Any questions?’

  ‘How come you’re not sending Alpha Company in the lead?’ Qayin challenged the general. ‘I thought that the captain would want his best men for this job?’

  The Marines chuckled. Former convicts all, Bravo Company had developed a strong antipathy for and rivalry with the Colonial Marines of Alpha Company.

  ‘You are the best men for this job,’ Bra’hiv replied, ‘because you’re expendable.’ A silence descended on Bravo Company. ‘I’m kidding: you’ve never boarded a ship before for real – it’s a good chance to put your training into practice. Oh–two hundred at the armoury. Any man that doesn’t show will spend a week in the brig. Dismissed!’

  Bra’hiv turned and marched away, Djimon and his men following as Bravo Company’s Marines looked at each other.

  ‘Expendable?’ Tyrone growled. ‘You mean that they want us to die?’

  ‘They don’t want us to die,’ Qayin muttered. ‘They want to use us as bait, to see what’s inside before sending in their better trained men.’

  ‘That sucks.’

  ‘Better than being cooped up in the brig,’ Qayin corrected. ‘Best we can do is show that we’re not second best and do it better than Alpha Company would. Agreed?’

  ***

  VI

  Evelyn jogged down a corridor toward the flight deck, her path illuminated by pools of blood red light. Her flight suit, encased in a paraphernalia of oxygen hoses and straps, felt tight and reassuring against her skin as she followed a line of other pilots out into the Atlantia’s for’ard launch bay.

  ‘You sure you’re ready for this?’

  Andaim’s whispered question was loud enough for only Evelyn to hear.

  ‘Meyanna says I’m okay to fly now, right?’

  ‘On my request,’ Andaim replied. ‘She wanted you grounded for twenty four hours, but this is more important.’

  ‘If you’re happy, I’m happy,’ Evelyn intoned, glad to be back in her flight suit again as they crossed the busy flight deck. Despite the mental and physical strain of flight training, Evelyn was desperate to succeed and earn her coveted wings, to become a fully fledged member of the Reapers.

  Crowds of technicians hurried back and forth across the landing bay, clearing the flight deck, and the sound of ion engines running up filled the air with the whine and screech of heavy metal under tension.

  Arrayed before them were twelve Raython fighters, elegant, dangerous looking single–seat interceptors. Some, those bearing the markings of the Reapers Squadron, were native to the Atlantia’s complement. Those of the Renegades had been pilfered from the Avenger some months before. With wings curved at the rear but hoo
ked forward at the tips, where their plasma cannons resided, and their fuselages slender and pointed, they looked like gigantic steel birds of prey.

  ‘Scorcher Flight will take point,’ Andaim said as the Reaper pilots gathered around him for their final briefing, using the Reaper’s call sign. ‘Razor Flight of the Renegades will form the outer circle in case anybody comes calling.’

  ‘Do we have any idea what kind of vessel it is yet?’ Evelyn asked.

  ‘We won’t know until the Atlantia breaks out of super–luminal,’ Andaim replied. ‘Let’s assume the worst – that it’s a Veng’en cruiser looking to draw in prey, and hope for the best – that’s it’s a crippled merchant ship desperate for help.’

  A distant alarm claxon echoed across the vast bay and Andaim checked his HandStat, a luminous military watch and organiser implanted beneath the skin of his left hand, before shouting out above the whining engines.

  ‘Let’s go!’

  Evelyn whirled and ran to her Raython, then felt a tingle of melancholy as she read the name beneath the cockpit.

  LT. M. D. G’VELLE

  Until they earned their wings as fully battle–ready pilots, the names on the cockpits of the Raythons bore their original pilot’s monickers, men and women long lost to history and the wrath of the Word and its Legion.

  Evelyn climbed aboard and settled into the cockpit, a dazzling array of instruments coming on–line before her as technicians swarmed across the fighter and unplugged deck–power and locking clamps. Evelyn strapped in, fired up the internal power unit and closed the canopy. Andaim’s voice crackled over the intercom.

  ‘Reaper flight, call in on launch readiness.’

  She heard the voices of her fellow pilots echoing across the airwaves one after the other as their Raythons came on–line and they began starting their engines.

  ‘Reaper Four, launch ready.’

  ‘Reaper Six, launch ready.’

  ‘Reaper Nine, launch ready.’

  Evelyn flipped switches in a sequence long since committed to memory, and as her Raython’s ion engines engaged she felt the entire craft hum and vibrate as though alive around her. She keyed her radio.

  ‘Reaper Two, launch ready.’

  The Raython’s taxied out one after the other, retracting their undercarriage and instead hovering over the magnetically opposed taxi–way as they positioned themselves for launch. Each hovered into place over a large panel in the deck that opened out onto a thin crevice that ran the length of the bay. Linking magnetically to the nose of the Raythons, beneath the deck an immensely powerful magnetic harness attached to an electro–magnetic ram would launch the fighters one after the other, accelerating them to attack speed and flinging them out into space.

  Evelyn slid into place alongside Andaim, Reaper One, and watched as ahead the technicians vanished from the launch deck. She knew that as soon as the Atlantia slowed to cruise velocity the bay doors would open and the catapults would fire.

  She checked over her instruments one more time, ensured that everything was as it should be, and then looked across at Andaim. Commander Ry’ere looked back at her and gave her a thumbs–up.

  She smiled and nodded back, and hoped that this time she would be up to the challenge.

  *

  ‘Prepare for deceleration,’ Lael called out across the bridge.

  Captain Idris Sansin gripped the edge of his seat as he stared at the viewing screen ahead. The old tensions returned, mostly in his right shoulder where he gripped the seat and tilted his head slightly, an old habit as though he were trying to avoid being slapped.

  He had gone into battle three times in his career in this manner, the abrupt and dangerous burst out of super–luminal and into immediate combat. Things happened fast in space, no matter how carefully things had been planned: the old admiralty rule said that if you had time to blink, then there was sufficient time for things to go wrong.

  ‘Ten seconds.’

  The captain glanced at a monitor that showed the Atlantia’s flight deck now packed with Raythons lined up on the catapults, heat haze billowing from their engines toward massive extractor vents high up on the bay walls. Still filled with breathable air, the atmosphere in the bay would evacuate naturally when the bay doors opened, helping to drag the first wave of fighters out into the face of whatever awaited them.

  ‘Five seconds!’

  The officers manning the tactical stations leaned forward over their consoles as though preparing for a race, their hands poised to activate ray–sheilding and plasma turrets, radar sweeps and counter–measures: every technology aboard designed to thwart an ambush attack.

  ‘Two seconds! One second! Power down!’

  The Atlantia surged and the captain felt his restraining belt press against his stomach as the frigate plunged out of super–luminal. The blackness ahead flared bright white and then a spectrum of colour rippled like a kaleidoscopic rainbow as the light spectrum realigned itself and a dense starfield leaped into view.

  The captain’s practiced eye picked out the faint object near the centre of the viewing screen, one that moved a fraction against the stationary backdrop of the galaxy.

  ‘Tactical on–line!’ he bellowed. ‘Launch all fighters!’

  *

  Evelyn saw the launch bay doors drop away as a rush of air billowed in tumbling clouds of vapour out into the abyss of space. Her eyes barely registered the movement before she felt the Raython leap into motion and she was slammed back into her seat.

  The launch bay lights flashed past in a blur as she threw her throttles to the firewall and the open landing bay entrance flashed past above her as her Raython was blasted out into space. She glimpsed through her canopy the underside of the Atlantia’s immense for’ard hull rushing past above her, and alongside she saw from the corner of her eye Andaim’s fighter flick right as it cleared the bay.

  ‘Reaper One and Two clear!’ he called out.

  Evelyn heard Mikhain’s response coming from the Atlantia’s bridge.

  ‘Target, bearing right two–zero degrees, elevation negative one–five, range sixty thousand cubits.’

  Evelyn rolled right and followed Andaim as he turned onto the new heading, and she saw instantly the distant shape of a vessel hanging in space. Far from the light of the nearest stars her hull was entombed in shadow, black against the blackness, barely visible but for the stars it silhouetted.

  Lael’s voice echoed over the intercom.

  ‘It’s colonial!’ she yelped, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. ‘It’s not Veng’en.’

  Evelyn maintained a battle–formation with Andaim, separated by several hundred cubits as they closed in on the vessel: close enough to remain in mutual sight, not so close that they could both be taken out with a single shot.

  ‘I’m not seeing any sign of life,’ Evelyn said as she scanned her instruments. ‘No running lights, no nothing.’

  ‘Scan is showing no signs of biological life either,’ Andaim replied. ‘Stay sharp. Activate weapons.’

  Evelyn flipped up a clear–red plastic shield on her instrument console and set the switch beneath it to “Live” before closing the lid again. Her plasma cannons glowed into life, waiting to be fired.

  The vessel ahead loomed closer and Evelyn began to pick out details on its surface, dimly illuminated by the distant light of billions of stars.

  ‘Looks like a merchant vessel after all,’ Andaim said.

  The ship’s hull was stained a dirty grey brown, streaked with bright silvery threads where countless micro–meteorite impacts had scoured the paint and dirt off to reveal bare metal beneath. That she had travelled far was clear not just from her location but her condition, and she had likely done so under ion power for much of that time.

  ‘I’ve got the distress signal again,’ Evelyn said, ‘still transmitting.’

  The signal remained the same, broken as though left in a hurry, indistinct and warbling as the computers translated the language. The hull loo
med up as Evelyn and Andaim slowed their fighters down, other Raythons now joining them as in the distance she glimpsed bright, fast–moving pin–pricks of light as Renegade Flight rocketed out into deep space to form a protective perimeter.

  The merchant vessel was simple in its construction, as so many of them had been. Built in space for use only in space, it was only loosely aerodynamic in shape and profile to reduce the damage from micro–meteorites. A long, smooth cylinder with tapered edges, the only obtrusions from its surface countless hydrogen scoops, like the blisters on the skin of an Etherean whale. At its stern the engine bay protruded from the tapered hull, fitted with a pair of ion engines that now trailed crystalised dust in sparkling clouds behind the vessel as it drifted slowly through the emptiness of space.

  ‘She must have expelled her fuel,’ Andaim said as he flew alongside her hull and past the lifeless engines. ‘That’s a hell of a mistake to make this far from home.’

  Evelyn followed Andaim’s fighter around the stern, easing the Raython over as she passed through the cloud of fuel crystals and out onto the vessel’s starboard flank.

  ‘She’s only moving slowly though,’ Evelyn said. ‘So she could not have been running from anything when her fuel expired. She’d still have momentum.’

  ‘Doesn’t add up,’ Andaim agreed as he flew alongside the vessel’s darkened bridge.

  There, beneath the bridge windows, Evelyn could see markings.

  ‘Sylph,’ she read out over the intercom. ‘She’s called the Sylph.’

  *

  ‘The Sylph,’ Lael echoed, and tapped in a few commands.

  Upon the bridge viewing screen, which now showed the shadowy vessel and the fighters cruising alongside her, the captain saw new data overlaid by Lael. A schematic of the Sylph appeared, data on her performance envelope beside it as Lael read from her screen.

  ‘The Sylph, named after a spirit or ghost of the air, a privately owned vessel, part of a mining fleet. Mostly accommodation and cargo purposes, her keel was laid down sixty orbits ago. She was working the Tyberium fields when the Word attacked.’