Atlantia Series 2: Retaliator

by Dean Crawford

  ‘No, but he is,’ she gestured toward the far wall of the hull. ‘Maybe we can get him to trust us.’

  ‘A Veng’en,’ Qayin said. ‘You kidding me?’

  ‘You got any better ideas?’

  Qayin shrugged as he unclipped his medi–pack from his webbing and handed it to her. Evelyn took the compact package and holstered her pistol as she crouched in cover and hurled the pack across the hold. The package hit the wall where she figured that the injured Veng’en was hiding and dropped with a distant thud to the deck.

  ‘You really think that it’s going to come out for a chat?’ Qayin asked.

  Evelyn shrugged and looked across at Bra’hiv. The general pointed forward and as one they broke cover and began moving silently toward the fallen Veng’en. Evelyn kept her pistol pointed out in front of her, her finger on the trigger and ready for the slightest evidence of a threat from their quarry.

  She reached the edge of the hull wall and peered around a stack of crates to a narrow passage between the crates and the hull wall.

  A figure was slumped against the crates, its legs sprawled before it and one hand resting on the medi–pack that Evelyn had hurled, but the pack had not been opened. In the glow from her flashlight she could see its chest heaving, hear its breath rasping in its throat. Its mouth hung limp, a long tongue drooping from its jaws. Humanoid, reptilian in appearance and wrapped in what looked like several magnetic gravity–suits, the Veng’en’s eyes reflected the flashlights in bright discs that glowed in the darkness.

  Beside it, on the deck, lay a plasma rifle.

  Evelyn lowered her pistol as she saw that the Veng’en was neither armed nor apparently aggressive, but its thigh was scorched where a spray of hot plasma shrapnel had landed on it. She edged closer, raised one hand palm–forward to the Veng’en as she eased toward it. The glowing eyes flicked up to look at her and despite their soul–less nature she could sense the hatred burning inside them.

  Evelyn looked at the Veng’en and realised what had happened.

  ‘We didn’t hit it hard,’ she said finally. ‘It’s exhausted.’

  The Veng’en reached out for the plasma rifle and Evelyn froze as it aimed the weapon at her. She could see its breath puffing in dense clouds from its massive chest and lungs, eyes glowing in the flashlight beams.

  ‘Stand down, ensign,’ Bra’hiv growled from nearby.

  The Veng’en turned its head and glared at the general and Evelyn leaped forward. The Veng’en turned back, the rifle whipping back toward her. Evelyn stuck out one boot and slammed it down on the rifle, pinning it to the deck as she trapped the Veng’en, her pistol aimed between its eyes.

  The creature radiated hatred up at her, and she waited long enough for it to be sure that there was no escape for it before she lowered the pistol and again raised her palm toward it. Slowly, she holstered her pistol once more, hoping that a Veng’en might recognise such a universal gesture of non–aggression.

  She slowly lifted her boot off the rifle.

  ‘You can try to kill me if you want,’ Evelyn said, ‘but it won’t help you.’

  The Veng’en glared up at her and then it spoke, its voice a series of shot, sharp barks deep enough that Evelyn felt them reverberate through her chest.

  ‘It doesn’t understand us,’ Qayin said. ‘No resonance translator.’

  ‘But it is talking,’ Evelyn said.

  She reached down and pulled the plasma rifle gently from the Veng’en’s grasp, the reptilian soldier’s arm slumping onto the deck as she retrieved the weapon.

  Bra’hiv, C’rairn and Qayin lowered their weapons as the general spoke into his microphone.

  ‘We’ve got a survivor,’ he signalled the Atlantia. ‘We need a medi–vac team here right now.’

  ***

  XI

  The Sylph’s sick–bay was far smaller than the Atlantia’s but reasonably well equipped. Two civilian doctors had been sent across from the Atlantia as an emergency precaution, and Evelyn followed the medical team as they pushed the gurney through the ship and into the sick–bay, transfixed by the Veng’en soldier strapped down onto it.

  At nearly seven feet tall the Veng’en cut an impressive figure. Evelyn had never seen one close up before, having only heard about them from bar room tales about the great battle actions fought by the Colonial Navy against Veng’en forces during the wars.

  The Veng’en were recognisably humanoid in form, but their muscular legs were permanently crouched, like giant springs coiled to propel them into action at a moment’s notice. As comfortable in quadripedal motion as bipedal, they could move with frightening speed. Their chests were powerful and bulky to contain the massive lungs needed to absorb oxygen from the atmospheric moisture of Wraiythe, the densely rain–forested planet upon which they had evolved. A flat, almost featureless head that seemed pulled into a permanent rictus–like grin exposed sharp fangs. No lips or nose, just flat, wide oval nostrils and almost feline eyes, large for enhanced visibility at night. Leathery skin, light brown in colour and laced with black lines and swirls, camouflage that both mimicked the dappled shadows of the forest canopy and rippled with changes in colour depending on the Veng’en’s mood and surroundings. Teeth, angular and sharp, densely packed in double rows inside the wide jaw: the first row to puncture meat, the second to shear it.

  A predator, born to hunt and to kill.

  ‘What’s happened to it?’ Evelyn asked the nearest doctor.

  ‘We’re not sure,’ came the reply, ‘but it looks like your initial assessment was correct: exhaustion. This ship isn’t exactly what you’d call the perfect environment for a Veng’en.’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to meet one that’s in good shape,’ Qayin rumbled from behind them.

  ‘Can we take it to the Atlantia?’

  ‘No,’ the doctor snapped. ‘We can’t risk cross–contamination. If this thing is infected it could bring the Word with it.’

  The doctors manoeuvered the Veng’en into position and began administering medical attention.

  The protracted wars fought against the Veng’en had given Colonial doctors the chance to study their enemy through the recovery of dead bodies and the treatment of injured prisoners of war. Thus the team knew well how to stabilise their ferocious charge, and within minutes lines were pumping a steady supply of nutrients and rehydrants into the Veng’en’s body.

  ‘They’re remarkably resilient,’ the doctor said. ‘It should recover quite well within…’

  The Veng’en let out a sharp, angry bark that was loud enough to make Evelyn’s ears hurt. The doctor stumbled backward out of the way as the Veng’en fought to break free from its restraints.

  Evelyn jumped forward and rested one hand against its muscular chest. The leathery skin felt oddly cold to the touch. The Veng’en glared at her, its stained teeth bared and its unnerving eyes wide. Evelyn conquered her revulsion and kept her hand on its chest, neither pushing it down nor herself moving away.

  For a few moments the creature glared at her and then it slumped back onto the gurney, its gaze locked onto hers.

  ‘Are the vocal resonators here yet?’ she asked.

  ‘On their way,’ Bra’hiv confirmed from the far side of the bay, his features twisted with disdain for their captive. ‘The first civilian transport is bringing them across.’

  The general had fought in close–combat with the Veng’en on at least two occasions in his career, long before the uneasy truce between the two species. He viewed them with a distrust that was clear to see. Evelyn kept her hand in place and her gaze upon the Veng’en as she waited.

  ‘The link to the bridge is active,’ C’rairn reported. ‘The captain can see us.’

  Evelyn saw a monitor flicker into life in one wall, the captain’s face appearing to watch them.

  ‘Is it alive?’ he asked.

  ‘And kicking,’ Andaim replied. ‘It was hiding out down in the hold.’

  ‘The shuttle is on its way,’ the captain replied, �
�and Councillor Dhalere insisted upon being aboard. They’ll be landing any moment now.’

  Bra’hiv keyed his communicator.

  ‘Djimon, despatch the civilians toward the hold to begin transferring the supplies there to the shuttles, and reactivate the Sylph’s escape capsules just in case. We may have to leave in a hurry, understood?’

  ‘Roger that.’

  A few minutes later and several civilians appeared outside the sick bay doors. Evelyn saw Dhalere among them, her eyes fixated upon the prisoner.

  ‘What is this, thing?’ she uttered in horror.

  ‘Prisoner of war,’ Bra’hiv replied as he snatched the vocal resonators from her hand, two slim bands with a speaker attached to them.

  ‘It should be killed,’ Dhalere gasped, recoiling from the sight of a Veng’en so close.

  Bra’hiv ignored Dhalere and handed the bands to Evelyn. She slipped one of the bands around her neck. The other she slid around the Veng’en’s much thicker neck, wary of the sharp double rows of teeth bared in her direction. But the Veng’en did not attack her, the big yellow eyes watching her every move without blinking.

  Evelyn activated the band on the Veng’en’s neck and then her own.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ she asked.

  Evelyn heard her own voice come out along with a bizarre croaking, a deep rumble that sounded as though she were choking on something. The resonator about her neck detected her speech patterns and translated them into Veng’en, emitting them not from her vocal chords but from a speaker embedded within the band itself.

  The Veng’en glared at her for a moment and then it replied.

  ‘All of you will die,’ it snarled.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Qayin muttered as he gestured to the medical equipment around the prisoner.

  Evelyn ignored Qayin as she spoke slowly to the Veng’en.

  ‘We’re not here to harm you,’ she said. ‘We detected a distress signal coming from this ship and we homed in on it.’

  The Veng’en’s leathery face assumed a scowl. ‘It was for my own kind. Not yours.’

  The Veng’en took the last word, twisted it and shoved it in Evelyn’s face with as much force as it could muster.

  ‘None the less, we responded,’ Evelyn replied, not letting the Veng’en’s natural rage provoke her. ‘What happened here? How did you come to be aboard a Colonial merchant vessel?’

  The Veng’en lay in silence and did not look at her. Evelyn sighed.

  ‘This isn’t helping,’ she said. ‘We came here to help you and you opened fire on us. Why send a distress signal if you did not want help?’

  The Veng’en turned its face to her once more. ‘What makes you think I wanted your help?’

  ‘The fact that you were half–dead,’ Evelyn replied, ‘freezing to death down there in the hold.’

  ‘That,’ the Veng’en replied, ‘was because the hold was the safest place to hide.’

  Evelyn felt a fresh chill ripple down her spine. ‘Hide from what?’

  The Veng’en let out a long, almost sad sigh.

  ‘You humans, you think always that you are the smartest race, the cleverest of life forms,’ it rasped. ‘You brought this upon us, upon us all.’

  ‘Brought what upon us all?’ Evelyn pressed.

  ‘You call it the Word.’

  The captain walked closer to the monitor screen. ‘Ask it what it knows of the Word.’

  Evelyn relayed the question and the Veng’en coughed.

  ‘Everything that you do,’ it growled. ‘The Word breached our system perimeter a few months after your worlds fell. Wraiythe still stands, but our people have fought and lost many times already. They will likely perish before the next orbit is complete.’

  A silence filled the sick bay as everybody heard it confirmed that the human race was no longer the sole victim of the Word’s rampage across the cosmos. Other species were facing the same threat of extinction as the Word spread its tentacles and infected every biological form it encountered.

  ‘We’re here to stop it,’ Evelyn said.

  The Veng’en turned its head and looked at her as a burst of noise erupted from its throat, a barking din, and for a moment Evelyn though that the vocal resonator had malfunctioned. Then she realised that the Veng’en was laughing.

  ‘Least they’ve got a sense of humour,’ Qayin muttered.

  ‘You can’t stop it,’ the Veng’en snapped at Evelyn. ‘Nothing can stop it. You’ve created the most dangerous form of life in the universe and now we all pay the price for your damned creativity.’ The Veng’en raised its head off the gurney to glare more directly at her. ‘If I were not lashed down I would tear out your throats.’

  Evelyn held her ground.

  ‘We already defeated the Word,’ she informed the Veng’en.

  ‘I doubt that.’

  ‘The Avenger,’ she replied. ‘Commander Tyraeus Forge.’

  The Veng’en’s eyes flickered in recognition of the name of a man who had defeated the Veng’en numerous times in battle. The creature’s eyes narrowed to thin slits.

  ‘If Forge is dead, then the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’

  ‘Forge was infected and he tested us in battle. He failed and was destroyed along with his ship because not enough of the true man remained. The Word can be defeated.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Heat,’ Evelyn replied, ‘cold. Microwaves, fusion beams. Any number of temperature based weapons can push it back long enough for it to be contained.’

  ‘You cannot prevent the infections,’ the Veng’en uttered. ‘The Legion will always find a way.’

  ‘Which is what interests me,’ Evelyn replied. ‘You have been aboard this vessel for a long time. You’ve been fighting the cold which is why you’re weakened. Why did you shut off the power supply to all but emergency systems and basic life support?’

  The Veng’en’s bared fangs twisted into what Evelyn feared was a gruesome attempt at a smile.

  ‘There was nothing to fear aboard this ship until you came aboard,’ he rasped.

  ‘I told you, we’re not here to hurt you and…’

  ‘You already have!’ the Veng’en snapped. ‘You’ve turned on the heating systems, have you not?’

  ‘Yes,’ Andaim replied, having slipped on his own resonator band. ‘We’re going to transfer supplies across to our ship.’

  The Veng’en slowly shook his head.

  ‘The Legion is aboard,’ he snarled. ‘It’s in the engine rooms, huddling for warmth around the nacelles and exhaust systems. Only way to keep it there was to shut off the heat everywhere else.’

  Andaim’s face fell as he whirled to the image of the captain on the viewing screen.

  ‘Quarantine the ship and shut off the heating!’

  Bra’hiv turned to Qayin.

  ‘Head aft to the holds, get those civilians back into the shuttles and start shutting off bulkheads as fast as you can!’

  Qayin whirled without question and dashed off the bridge.

  ‘That’s what I meant when I told you that you’d all die,’ the Veng’en snarled at Evelyn. ‘The Word will take you, and now there’s nothing left to stop it.’

  ***

  XII

  ‘Seal the damned landing bays!’

  Andaim dashed onto the bridge with Evelyn in hot pursuit as C’rairn and two other Marines dashed to carry out the commander’s orders. Evelyn looked up to the engineering console where the Marine named Kyarl was manipulating the controls. Even as she did so she felt a fresh rush of warm air billowing into the bridge.

  ‘The general said to shut the heating down!’ Evelyn yelled at him.

  Kyarl backed away from the console and unslung his rifle from his shoulder as Evelyn heard the pulse chamber hum into life.

  ‘Cover!’

  Evelyn hurled herself behind the captain’s chair as Kyarl opened fire on her, the plasma round blasting the surface of the chair and sending a halo of super–heated shrapnel flashing past her.


  Evelyn leaped up, resting her pistol across the back of the captain’s chair as she returned fire. Her shots blasted control panels behind the engineering station as Kyarl ducked down out of sight, Evelyn’s shots joined by several others as Andaim and the other Marines returned fire.

  ‘Come out, Kyarl!’ Andaim yelled. ‘It’s over! There’s nowhere to run!’

  Evelyn felt a shudder of fear as she realised that the Marine must be harbouring Infectors, the tiny devices controlling his brain and his body.

  ‘Don’t shoot him!’ she yelled. ‘We need him alive!’

  ‘He’s infected!’ Bra’hiv bellowed back. ‘He needs to be incinerated!’

  Evelyn dashed out from behind the captain’s chair and ran in a low crouch to the front of the engineering panel, then ducked down. She was roughly on the opposite side to where Kyarl had been standing, and she called out to him.

  ‘Kyarl, I know you’re not in control of yourself. Fight back, Kyarl, fight against it.’

  A sniggering chuckle rattled out from behind the panel and the young soldier’s voice replied.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you’re human, Kyarl,’ Evelyn replied, ‘you’re not a machine, not yet.’

  ‘Better to be a machine than like you,’ Kyarl said. ‘Weak, soft and powerless before your own creation.’

  Evelyn saw Bra’hiv and Andaim working their way around the sides of the bridge, flanking Kyarl’s position.

  ‘There’s no other way out of this, Kyarl,’ Evelyn insisted. ‘You’re cornered.’

  ‘No,’ Kyarl replied, ‘you’re cornered and there’s no way out for you.’

  ‘You’re outnumbered,’ Bra’hiv snapped, ‘and surrounded.’

  ‘No, general,’ Kyarl said. ‘You are.’

  It was the sound of Lael’s voice that replied, bursting from the bridge tannoy.

  ‘We’ve got movement in the engine bays,’ she said urgently. ‘Heat signatures growing there, about a half–dozen spherical masses on the move.’

  Evelyn felt horror pulse cold and clammy through her veins as she realised that the Word was aboard the Sylph and was coming back to life.