‘Grab hold of something!’ Evelyn shouted.
Kordaz staggered through a pressure hatch as Evelyn aimed her pistol at the onrushing swarm of hunters racing toward her and fired four shots in quick succession. The blazing bolts of plasma smashed into the hordes, melting them in their hundreds, but the immense force of the hunters behind was too great and they rolled over the blasts and closed in on Evelyn with frightening speed.
‘It’s too late!’ Kordaz yelled.
Evelyn holstered her pistol and jumped through the hatch just as the first plasma round from the Veng’en cruiser ploughed into the Sylph and blasted her bridge into oblivion. She heard a scream of tortured metal and atmosphere being vacuumed from the ship in a howling gale as the blasts smashed into the upper hull.
The atmosphere around her was dragged past in a screaming torrent that tore at their uniforms and Evelyn’s hair. She gripped the side of the bulkhead as the writhing mass of hunters reached the very edge of the hatch. For a moment she stared directly into hundreds of tiny glossy black eyes, round and without souls, above sharp mandibles as long as her fingernails and dense metallic black bodies. The writhing mass of hunters stretched out toward where she crouched, buffeted by the gale like a windsock in a hurricane, and she saw a single hunter land on her boot.
Then the escaping atmosphere and plunging temperature dragged the hunters en masse away from them, sucking them toward the freezing oblivion of space.
‘The hatch!’ Kordaz growled.
Evelyn dragged herself backward against the force of the wind and hooked her foot behind the hatch door as with the other she kicked the latch off. The heavy hatch door slammed shut in a flash, sealing the landing bay deck off from the damage.
Evelyn gasped in relief as she slumped on the deck, and she felt the ship trembling beneath the blows as the Veng’en cruiser hammered her with salvo after salvo.
‘We’ve got to move,’ Kordaz rasped.
Evelyn got to her feet, and as she looked down she saw the tiny lone hunter still clinging to her boot. On an impulse she reached down and grabbed the tiny machine. The hunter did not respond, suddenly dormant as it recalibrated to the absence of its fellow machines.
‘You should destroy it,’ Kordaz said.
‘No, we can study it, it might be useful.’
The Sylph shuddered violently and the lights flickered as the hull was hit by another salvo of blasts. Evelyn held the hunter in one hand between her finger and thumb as with the other she propelled Kordaz toward the landing bay.
The Sylph heeled violently over as a distant, deep groan of rending metal echoed through the ship. Evelyn staggered sideways and slammed into the wall of the corridor as she made her way through the landing bay hatch. A series of ceiling tiles smashed down toward the deck and a spray of sparks floated in glowing globules as they were blasted from fuse boxes as excess power surged through the ship’s systems.
‘Move!’
Evelyn saw Bra’hiv and Djimon standing guard outside the shuttle’s rear ramp as she hurried across the landing bay with Kordaz limping in pursuit.
‘The ship’s going to collide with the Veng’en cruiser!’ Bra’hiv shouted. ‘Get aboard now and get the hell out of here!’
The general and Djimon turned and dashed aboard the shuttle as its engines whined into life, and Evelyn sprinted the last few paces to their Raython fighters. Her eyes took in the open cockpits, the detatched ground power lines and the flashing beacon high on the fuselage that indicated the ion engines were spun up ready for starting.
‘You take this one!’ she yelled to Kordaz above the crash of explosions ripping through the Sylph.
Evelyn dashed past Andaim’s fighter and clambered up into her own, feeling suddenly at home as she slid into the seat and hurriedly buckled herself in. She reached down to a small storage compartment and dropped the dormant hunter into it, then locked it shut. She looked across and saw Kordaz slump into Andaim’s Raython and yank his harnesses into place.
Evelyn pulled on her helmet and closed her canopy, watching as Kordaz struggled to get his head into Andaim’s helmet. The Veng’en scowled and tossed it out of the cockpit as he closed the canopy.
‘Scorcher Flight, do you copy?!’
‘Scorcher Two,’ Evelyn replied to the shuttle, ‘we’re aboard and right behind you. Go, now!’
The shuttle’s two ion engines flared with a white glare and the craft lifted off the deck and soared toward the landing bay doors. Flashing red lights illuminated the rim of the doors and they opened slowly, revealing the deep blackness of space as the atmosphere within the landing bay was sucked out in whorls of ghostly white vapour.
Evelyn flicked switches on her instrument console, engaging the Raython’s ion drives as she opened a channel to Kordaz’s Raython. Despite his lack of head gear, the signal would still reach him, broadcast instead through speakers in his cockpit.
‘Switch over and go easy on the throttle, these things are pretty damned quick when…’
Andaim’s Raython lifted up off the Sylph’s deck and turned, its ion engines flaring brightly as it blasted its way past and rocketed out of the bay.
‘… they get going.’
Evelyn blinked and disengaged her magnetic landing claws, the Raython drifting free of the deck as she retracted the undercarriage and shoved the throttles forward. Her fighter surged forward as the landing bay flashed past in a blur of flickering lights and she burst out into space.
Behind her, she saw the vast hull of the Sylph glowing with multiple fires and just beyond it the huge Veng’en cruiser and its swarm of attending fighters.
***
XXXI
‘She’s going to impact the Veng’en cruiser, captain!’
Mikhain’s voice was tense with excitement, the sight of an unexpected victory within their grasp as the Sylph pursued the cruiser.
‘If she holds together,’ Idris replied. ‘Prepare to make the leap!’
Lael’s hands flashed across her console and she looked up.
‘New contacts, bearing two–two–four, elevation zero. Two fighters and a shuttle away from the Sylph, sir!’
Idris snapped his gaze to the Sylph’s ravaged hull and saw three tiny specks rocketing away from her.
‘Range?’
‘Six thousand cubits!’ Mikhain replied.
Even as Idris watched, he could see the Veng’en fighters wheeling away from their parent cruiser to pursue the three craft.
‘They won’t get here in time,’ Mikhain added. ‘The range is too great.’
Idris whirled and pointed at the helmsman. ‘Bring her about, full to port!’
The helmsman responded instantly, the Atlantia beginning to heel over and turn back toward the Sylph as the captain turned to Mikhain.
‘Fire in support of them and launch the alert fighters!’
The Executive Officer relayed the orders, his eyes fixed on the Atlantia’s main viewing panel where three small blue boxes tracked the positions of the allied craft, and sixteen red ones the Veng’en fighters pursuing them.
‘Ty’ek’s hands are tied,’ Mikhain said, ‘he can’t engage us until he’s destroyed or disabled the Sylph. It’s genius.’
‘It won’t take him long,’ Idris said as he watched the Veng’en cruiser accelerate away from the battered Sylph. ‘He’s faster than the merchant ship. He’ll swing out wide and come back to destroy her and then he’ll come for us.’
Two bright points of light rocketed away from the Atlantia’s bow.
‘Reapers Five and Six clear,’ Mikhain reported. ‘We should launch more.’
‘No,’ the captain said. ‘Whatever happens now, we have to leap before the Sylph is destroyed.’
*
‘Ranger One, I’ve got multiple contacts astern and closing fast.’
‘I see them,’ Evelyn replied as she glanced at her holographic SAD and saw the red specks of the pursuing Veng’en fighters.
‘They’ll catch up with us in no
time,’ Kordaz replied. ‘The shuttle is too slow.’
Evelyn scanned her own display and for a moment realized how much she missed having Andaim on her wing or in the back seat of the T2 training Raython.
‘Any contact with the Atlantia?’ Evelyn asked.
‘Nothing, they’re still being jammed. No, wait. Two fighters in–bound.’
Evelyn spotted the two Raythons on her display but she shook her head.
‘They’re not going to reach us before the Scythes,’ she replied as she looked over at Kordaz’s fighter. ‘We’re going to have to do this on our own for a while, Kordaz.’
In the faint starlight she saw the Veng’en turn to glance at her from within his cockpit.
‘They will kill us all,’ he replied.
‘Then let’s do something about it,’ she replied. ‘Ranger One, keep going at full throttle, we’ll stay back here and try to cover your tail.’
‘Roger that.’
‘Kordaz, don’t try to engage the Veng’en directly,’ Evelyn advised. ‘If one slips past us it can attack the shuttle and this will all be for nothing. Stay close to Ranger One and pick them off as best you can. I’ll run interference.’
‘I understand.’
Evelyn pulled up, the starfield wheeling past as she looked out of the top of her canopy and saw the flotilla of Scythe fighters streaking toward them. She rolled out, heading back toward them, and wasted no time in opening fire on the densely packed fighters.
Her pulse cannons were blinded out by a salvo of massive plasma blasts that rocketed overhead as the Atlantia’s cannons fired in support. The huge shots flashed toward the Veng’en fighters as they scattered in disarray, three of them blasted into oblivion as they were smashed aside by the salvo.
A blaze of red plasma rocketed back from the remaining Veng’en fighters and flashed past Evelyn’s canopy as she dove down and hauled the Raython into a tight turn as the Scythe fighters flashed past overhead.
‘Reaper Two, fully engaged!’
The Raython whipped around the turn, the Veng’en fighters hurling themselves across the starfield around her in a confused circus as they tried to re–establish formations. A single craft zipped into view ahead and Evelyn locked onto it, tracking it for a split second before firing her cannons.
The bright blue shots flashed away and struck the Veng’en craft astern, blasting it into several pieces that tumbled in a cloud of escaped gases and burning fuel. Evelyn shouted out in glee as she pulled up to avoid the debris.
‘Splash one!’ she yelled.
‘Stay closer together!’ Ranger One’s pilot snapped at her. ‘You’re stronger as a pair.’
Evelyn yanked her control column to the left and saw the shuttle just ahead of her, Kordaz circling it and firing at Veng’en fighters as they rocketed past in chaos. She focused on another target and pulled into line astern before firing twice and pulling up immediately.
The shots smashed into the Veng’en craft and blew one side of its fuselage clean off as the rest of it vanished into an orange fireball that flared brightly and then was consumed by the cold vacuum.
‘Splash Two!’
Evelyn’s Raython was hurled sideways as a shot smashed into her fuselage and sent the fighter spinning out of control. Two Veng’en fighters rocketed past her, their cannons blazing as they overshot her tumbling Raython.
‘I’m hit!’ she shouted, a pulse of panic bolting through her body.
Alarms rang in the cockpit and a flashing warning light told her that her starboard engine was aflame and leaking both fuel and coolant. She reached up and yanked the fuel shut–off valve, then unclipped the throttle handles and pulled the one on the right fully back.
The Raython’s alarms were abruptly cut off as she fought for control, jamming her left rudder pedal fully down as she kept the port engine’s throttle wide open to regain momentum. Counter–thrusters on her Raython’s nose acted in place of the Raython’s atmospheric rudder, balancing out the thrust from the remaining engine.
‘I’m outnumbered here!’ Kordaz growled over the intercom.
Evelyn saw the shuttle jinking left and right as the cloud of Veng’en fighters swarmed around it, each trying to take a shot. Evelyn aimed her Raython at the nearest of the attacking fighters and opened fire, catching it a lucky strike on the nose and sending it cartwheeling away into space.
‘Splash three,’ she called.
‘Splash four,’ Kordaz mimicked her kill–calls as his Raython hammered a Veng’en fighter with multiple blasts and it exploded in a flickering blaze.
Evelyn heard a crackling in her earpiece and then a new voice broke through.
‘Renegade Flight, in–bound to engage!’
The two Raython interceptors flashed through the cloud of Veng’en fighters at attack speed, their own cannons blazing as they took down two more of the enemy craft.
‘We’re hit!’ Bra’hiv yelled.
Evelyn saw the shuttle’s hull trailing a dense cloud of vaporised gases and torn metal, its surface scorched where Veng’en blasts had hit it.
‘I’m on it,’ Evelyn replied.
She directed her Raython straight toward the shuttle, matching its velocity as she swung in alongside the damaged craft and then shut off her remaining engine. Evelyn re–routed the Raython’s power to its bow and stern thrusters and then began scanning the starfield around them.
Two Veng’en craft arced high above the shuttle, reforming their attack formation for mutual cover as they wheeled over and dove down toward the shuttle.
Evelyn swung the nose of the Raython up to point at them, her Raython vertical alongside the shuttle as it fled, and squeezed her trigger. A trail of plasma rounds sprayed up toward the diving Veng’en craft and scattered them, one of them catching a glancing blow and veering away toward the Veng’en cruiser.
Renegade Flight flashed past and blasted a Veng’en Scythe, their combined rounds obliterating the craft into a swiftly vanishing ball of flame. Evelyn barely had the chance to register the hit when her cockpit was suddenly illuminated by a brilliant light that forced her to squint as the photo–reactive shielding on her canopy was briefly overwhelmed.
The Sylph’s huge hull flared like a newborn star as its engine’s fusion cores exploded with tremendous violence, blasting her stern apart like a gigantic metal flower, the petals propelled into the black void ahead of a rapidly expanding cloud of debris. The Rankor’s cannons stopped firing upon the merchant ship as the Sylph’s hull broke into multiple pieces, all trailing flame, gas and debris as they crumbled.
The shockwave hit Evelyn a moment later, her Raython shuddering and vibrating as the impact of the blast sent it reeling once more. She fought for control, saw the Veng’en fighters likewise tumbling erratically through space, and then as she regained control she saw the Atlantia looming large before her as it emerged from the gloom.
‘…all fighters recover immediately, repeat: recover immediately!’
The sound of Lael’s voice in Evelyn’s ears sounded like music as it broke through the Veng’en’s jammers.
‘Atlantia, this is Reaper Two, roger that!’
A ripple of plasma fire burst from the Atlantia’s smaller guns, cutting into a pair of Veng’en craft that strayed too close to the huge frigate and smashing them into flaming fireballs that streaked like shooting stars across the void and vanished just as fast.
The remaining Veng’en Scythes wheeled away and fled toward their parent cruiser as Evelyn saw the shuttle dive toward the Atlantia’s stern, trailing debris.
‘All craft, Atlantia leap in sixty seconds!’
Lael’s call galavanised the pilots. Evelyn re–routed power to her remaining ion engine and arrested her headlong charge toward the Atlantia, guiding the Raython alongside the massive hull as she saw Kordaz guiding Andaim’s fighter in pursuit of the shuttle.
Renegade flight positioned themselves protectively to port and followed Evelyn as she flew her Raython astern of the Atlantia and
saw the guide lights flashing in the open landing bay.
‘All craft, Atlantia leap in thirty seconds!’
Evelyn flew directly into the bay and extended her undercarriage at the same time as she activated the electro–magnets on their bases. The Raython jerked down onto the deck as behind her Renegade Flight touched down in a tight formation and the landing bay doors descended.
The doors had barely closed when Evelyn felt the Atlantia surge into motion, all of her gigantic ion engines going to full power at once as she accelerated toward leap speed.
The landing bay environmental lights switched from red to green as the atmosphere was reintroduced to the bay and the temperature stabilised once more. Evelyn opened her canopy, unbuckled herself from her seat and leaped down onto the deck as the shuttle, its stern enveloped in a haze of smouldering blue smoke, opened its rear ramp and Bra’hiv jogged out.
‘Is everyone okay?’ Evelyn called out across the bay above the whine of ion engines shutting down.
‘We’re fine,’ Bra’hiv replied, then turned to his Marines. ‘Get Andaim to the sick bay and then get Kordaz into the holding cells.’
‘Kordaz just saved your lives!’ Evelyn protested.
‘It’s not to punish him,’ Bra’hiv snapped. ‘It’s to protect him!’
Evelyn looked to where Kordaz was levering himself gingerly from his cockpit, ground crew staring at the Veng’en with a volatile mixture of fear and hate.
‘This isn’t over yet!’ Bra’hiv yelled at his Marines as they deployed from the shuttle. ‘Protect Kordaz.’
Evelyn turned to the nearest crew chief as he approached her damaged Raython, and grabbed his arm.
‘In the cockpit, there’s a Hunter bot,’ she said. The crew chief’s eyes widened and he made to shout something. ‘It’s fine, it’s dormant!’ Evelyn snapped. ‘Just get it contained in a magnetic chamber and send it to engineering, okay? They can study it there.’
Atlantia Series 2: Retaliator Page 22