Eden's Revenge (Eden Paradox Book 3)

by Barry Kirwan

  Gabriel allowed another smile. “Sure, you’re the man with the plan, Micah. Name it.”

  Micah folded his arms. “Kiss Petra.”

  Petra’s hands froze on the console. Gabriel laughed. “What?”

  Micah stared hard at him. “We’re all likely to be dead in the next fifteen minutes. Kiss her.”

  Gabriel’s smile caught. He turned to Petra, who was stone. “Petra, what’s he…?”

  Micah watched them as if in slow motion, happy that even if Genners were emotionally stunted, they weren’t stupid. She cracked, and tears raced down her cheeks when Gabriel placed his hands gently on her shoulders and turned her towards him. He looked her in the eyes, then lifted her chin gently, and kissed her once. Not truly a lover’s passionate kiss, but it hardly mattered. Petra buried her head into Gabriel’s shoulder, one hand around his waist, and with the other she reached out to Micah, who clasped it. The three of them stayed like that, Gabriel hugging her tight, whispering softly to her in Hremsta, until Chahat-Me reappeared with three suits, followed by the remaining Ossyrians, a predatory crouch in their stance, as if they were once again capable of a viciousness that had in former times made many species’ blood run cold.

  Good, Micah thought. Now we’re ready, now we’re a team.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Ground Assault

  Blake had almost forgotten what it was like to be in command of a tactical space vessel. The black, crab-like Hunter stole after the Raptors inbound to Esperia, the single rectangular viewscreen hunting its prey. He searched the growing disc of Esperia for the after-burner lights of the Raptor craft, used for rapid ground troop dispersal, imagining them full of deadly Q’Roth warriors. Truth told, he still did not know the Q’Roth mission objectives, or if Alicians counted in their number.

  Five orange lights blazed above cloudless Esperia as the Raptors braked for atmospheric entry. The Hunter accelerated, and he gripped the arms of the chair as he, Zack and Marcus tore towards the planet’s atmosphere with no intention of slowing down.

  “Four minutes,” Marcus shouted as the ship shook violently upon breaching the outer atmosphere. Four minutes till ground impact. Within a precious twenty of those seconds the Hunter’s outer corona glared orange on the viewscreen.

  “Integrity?” Blake dared to ask. He glanced at Zack’s Transpar, who gazed calmly ahead.

  “Barely holding,” Marcus replied, “but we’re closing on the three rear Raptors, they’re slowing down to avoid damage – we won’t be able to go back into space again.” He uttered a mirthless laugh. They all knew this was a one-way trip.

  “Catch them my friend,” Blake said quietly, turning to the Transpar, knowing he could hear far better than any human. The Hunter accelerated again, pushing Blake back into his chair. A keening noise rose steadily in pitch, and there was a flash of white as something tore off their outer hull and disappeared into their wake.

  That was when he saw the first Raptor, dead ahead, its two wings like curved swords, its box-like rear tapering to a stubby snout at the front. With its silver and ice-blue hull, the Raptor reminded him of the Trevally fish, a predator that hung out with sharks, often taking the first taste of blood that would unleash a feeding frenzy. “Prepare the grappler,” he shouted, but Marcus was already readying it for deployment.

  Blake fired the Hunter’s energy beam, but as they’d feared, the enemy ship slipstream diminished the pulse, or else the Raptors had new shielding; possibly a mixture of both. It meant he couldn’t take the Raptors out easily, and once they’d decelerated through the outer atmosphere the Raptors could work together and eliminate the Hunter, and then carry on with their mission. Marcus had been right: his gambit with the grapple was their only option to eliminate one or two of the Raptors, evening the odds for the ground troops in Esperantia.

  The Raptor immediately in front veered to starboard, revealing the lead vessel. “That one,” Blake said, pointing. “Chase it down, Zack. Marcus, be ready, we only get one shot.”

  The Raptor that had dodged sideways slowed, aiming to get alongside the Hunter so it could get a good clean shot. Just as Marcus had planned. Feigning the chase of the lead Raptor, Blake waited until the sidelong Raptor was nearly in optimum firing range. “Now!”

  The Hunter sheared sideways and accelerated, narrowly missing the slowing Raptor. Marcus fired the grapple harpoon and snagged the parallel Raptor’s main engine housing. Blake held tight in his chair as the Hunter slewed violently, handcuffed to the Raptor in a deadly spiral dance.

  Zack’s Transpar stood, his glass arms lengthening down to the console. His feet morphed outwards like crampons, anchoring him to the floor.

  The scene in front of Blake spun wildly, as the two ships careened downwards, trailing after the lead Raptor. Blake knew better than to watch the main viewscreen when in a spin; it was too disorientating. He called up an ‘outsider view’, the holo showing the Hunter and the tagged Raptor spiralling towards Esperia. The chained Raptor fired wildly, trying to hit the Hunter or the grapple connection. But Zack worked the thrusters and the coupled momentum to their advantage; the Raptor couldn’t get a clean shot. Blake saw two other Raptors falling back to engage, and Zack executed Marcus’ stroke of genius. The Hunter pumped up its main engine and shot downwards after the lead ship. The other three Raptors, fearing for their leader, moved in to intercept in an offset pattern that meant they would not hit each other in the crossfire.

  “Sixty seconds,” Marcus shouted.

  Blake chewed his lower lip. It was getting close, but he couldn’t give the instruction; only Zack’s calculative powers could pick the perfect moment. After five agonizing seconds Zack pulled a hard turn and jettisoned the grapple.

  The suddenly released Raptor spun out of control and hit one of the other Raptors, shattering its engines before both ships exploded into fireballs of burning debris. Blake heard a shrill whine as Zack strained the engines to their limit, bringing the ship out of a deadly tumble. An explosion in the next compartment threw Blake out of his chair.

  “Main engines offline, thrusters still working,” Marcus confirmed.

  Blake got to his feet. No more fancy manoeuvres; only one course now. He turned to Zack. “Well done, my friend. Now run that sonofabitch down,” Blake said, pointing again to the lead ship.

  Energy beams strafed the Hunter, and explosions echoed from the outer decks as the other two remaining aft Raptors fired non-stop. But the Hunter’s slipstream vortex diluted their weapons-fire, and Marcus successfully targeted two enemy homing missiles, nearly gaining another kill as the Raptors got too close to their own missile detonations.

  “Thirty seconds!” Marcus shouted.

  Blake returned to the main viewscreen, now stabilised, and watched as Esperia’s desert landscape filled it, the Acarian mountain range clear as a scar on a man’s face. A small patch glinted in a valley – Esperantia.

  The Raptor in front bucked this way and that, but its pilot was no match for Zack. Blake knew many in mankind’s last city would be staring upwards, witnessing the screeching chase bearing down on them. Abruptly the Raptor, evidently realising its fate, swung about and fired point blank on them – Blake respected that. The viewscreen whited-out, and the sound of metal tearing off their ship made him wince. Then there was the unmistakeable grinding sound of the two ships colliding, and a heavy clunk as the Hunter’s forward grips clamped onto the Raptor. Blake recalled Kilaney’s counsel: if you don’t want to miss, touch your enemy, then kill him.

  “Goodbye, Boss, it’s been an honour.”

  Blake whirled around to see Zack move towards him, as if to embrace him, like they’d never done. But instead, the Transpar’s features blurred, its body becoming fluid. It advanced on him before Blake could react, enveloping him completely in a warm liquid cocoon that quickly hardened into an external shell that felt very dense. Blake could see clearly, but could neither feel nor hear anything external, only his heart beating once, slowly, reverberating like a dru
m through his body. The blood swished around his arteries, into his head. It didn’t make any sense, unless…

  With an effort Blake turned his head and stared forwards. The screen in front of him splintered in slow motion, cracked and then burst apart. Shards showered past Blake at the speed of falling snow, a few glancing off the hardened glass case tightly wrapped around his head and body, though he felt nothing. The hull ripped slowly apart, revealing the Raptor’s glowing fore-section, the cockpit and its two pilots – Alician, he realised – eyes wide with fear. There was a bump and they were tossed upwards from their seats like toys. The Raptor’s hull warped and buckled, a metallic ripple sweeping towards the pilots who raised their arms in slow motion, unable to defend themselves against the compression wave that pulped them both at their mid-section, their necks and eyes suddenly going slack. Behind them a Q’Roth warrior was running, again in slow motion, straight towards Blake. Still unable to move or speak, Blake watched the warrior, in an incredibly brave move, dive over the crumpling metal and shoot across the compacting ship straight at him. The warrior’s serrated foreclaws stretched out for Blake’s head but glanced off his protective shell – what was left of Zack’s Transpar. The warrior’s trapezoidal head with its six bleeding vermillion eyes hit Blake’s face straight on, ruptured and split in two. Blake got to see what a Q’Roth brain looked like up close.

  Through blue-blooded smears Blake stared as the Hunter worked its way through the Raptor, its momentum crushing the smaller ship. Marcus’ body flew forward like a rag doll, gashed by the jagged hull, mashing his body… Blake closed his eyes.

  Zack, what have you done? But he knew, though he had not known it was possible. Marcus had asked him what Level the Transpar had been, but they had never known, only that the Tla Beth had fashioned him from an impervious flow-material. Transpars were technically ‘evidence’ used in Tla Beth courts, and as such had to be permanent, almost indestructible. He recalled that Vasquez had once commented that if they could somehow replicate the material, it would make impregnable armour.

  Blake heard the hammer-strike of another heartbeat and surmised that the process had quickened his mind, so that everything around him appeared to move slowly. That would also make sense for a being whose primary function was to be an unbiased witness: events could be observed and absorbed in good time, dispassionately.

  Blake opened his eyes to find the fused ships, what was left of them, burying themselves into a crater of hard rock. Solid stone and bedrock ignited and split apart with the power of their impact. He thanked Zack for managing to miss Esperantia.

  Closing his eyes again, he thought of Zack at his wedding, of heady nights in Thai bars during training, of firefights and battles when they lost count of saving each other’s lives, and inevitably of Kurana Bay. The glass Blake was encased in, the Transpar’s body that Blake now knew had enveloped him just before impact with the Raptor, wouldn’t let the tears he felt inside form. He guessed Zack wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. Goodbye, my friend, may you rest in peace at last.

  He opened his eyes. Everything had stopped moving. It was dark but there was light from somewhere behind him, so he figured he was in an open crater. Flames licked all around him, but still he couldn’t move. Blake guessed the protective casing would wait until things cooled down.

  There was no urge to breathe, but he wanted to get out of the crater. The two remaining Raptors would be executing their mission, whatever it was. He became impatient, though he knew it would do no good, that he would be released as soon as it was safe; no point surviving the crash only to be burned alive.

  After a few minutes some movement returned, but he was like a man covered in thick glue. He fell over, then crawled to Marcus’ mangled body and smashed head, and sat for a while cradling the boy, stroking his matted, burned dreadlocks. One eye socket was burned out. Blake closed the other. Glenda, take care of him. He laid the boy’s remains down with tenderness, then stood up, able to balance this time. Sunlight glinted down towards him through twisted metal, revealing the smoking crater’s rim, thirty metres above. He began to climb. As he passed Marcus’ station, he noticed something glinting blue, trapped in the carnage. It was the blade from Marcus’ halberd. He prised it free. The shaft had snapped in two, but the nano-edge shimmered. “Thanks again, Marcus,” he said, picking the active half up as he resumed his ascent, Zack’s residue dripping from him with every step like morning dew.

  * * *

  Virginia, Ramires, and six youngbloods sprinted toward the still-smoking Raptor just landed in Pentangle Square in front of the Monofaith, as four Q’Roth and a tall, slender woman leapt down from its aft hatch. Virginia noticed straightaway the woman’s air of confidence, as if she was about to go for a stroll – Alician for sure.

  Two teams of Vasquez’s heavily armed militia converged from opposite sides of the plaza. The blonde in the midst of the Q’Roth held up a silver ball above her head, then let it go.

  “Down!” Ramires yelled, but only he and Virginia hit the ground fast enough. A carpet of emerald flame lasered outwards with a sharp wasp-like buzzing sound across the plaza, cutting all the other youngbloods and militia in two. Virginia watched in horror as her brothers’ and sisters’ heads and torsos toppled to the ground, sliced in two at their waists, twitching and arching, gurgling noises coming from bursting throats, hands and arms reaching out in spasm before stilling.

  Not like this!

  “Be still!” Ramires hissed at her in Hremsta. The flame layer hovered above them, still fizzing, and Virginia knew he was right – they were still far enough away that the raiders might think they were dead. Through heat-hazed air she saw four Alicians leave the Raptor and head into the Monofaith, accompanied by two of the Q’Roth warriors, leaving one pair and the blonde.

  “I take the warriors, you take down the woman,” Ramires said.

  That was fine with her; that bitch was dead meat.

  “Vasquez,” Ramires whispered to his wristcom, “we need a distraction, fire a shell right in front of the Monofaith.”

  Virginia surveyed her target and calculated the distance, the time, the wind direction. Six seconds. Her muscles tensed, she lifted her abdomen slightly, dug the toes of her boots into the ground, and placed her palms next to her chest. The Q’Roth and Alicians had just entered the Monofaith’s wooden archway doors when the shell hit. Virginia sprang forward as soon as the woman’s head swivelled to see the blast of dirt, like an upside-down volcano. One. She took the giant silent strides like she’d been trained to, straight towards the woman, who had lifted something silver and stubby in her right hand. Two. In the corner of her eye, she saw Ramires cut left to go around the other side of the Raptor to take the Q’Roth warriors from an oblique angle – God he ran fast! Three. She unholstered her pulse pistol, felt its warmth in her hand. Four. She took aim, still running. The woman’s head turned and saw her. Five. Virginia fired, but the woman had flung herself backward in an arc, twisting in mid air. Virginia’s right leg caved beneath her as a stab of heat lengthening up her torso and down to her right foot told her she’d been hit. She tried to get off another shot but her right hand instinctively went down to the ground as she pummelled headlong into the dust.

  Virginia tried to roll but a boot connected with her cheek, and she tumbled to a stop, a deft hand snatching the pistol from her. The right side of her vision was blurred, but she sprang up onto her good foot, the other dragging on the ground. She wiped blood from her chin, and unsheathed the dagger from her belt.

  The longhaired woman in front of her had a smile on her face – something about it told Virginia it was always there, mocking life. Virginia spat blood into the air then leapt forward with the dagger in a feint followed by a thrust. Dammit, the woman was fast too, clearing the rapid, deadly sweeps and lunges by millimetres, as if dancing, or simply walking out of the way. Virginia heard the sound of Ramires’ kiai shout and the ring of metal, then the sound of a nanosword slicing through tough flesh. Good,
kill them Ramires!

  After a vicious knife thrust that Virginia felt sure would strike home yet again failed to find its target, pain exploded in her right elbow. The other woman had neatly snapped it, the compound fracture spattering drops of Virginia’s blood onto the woman’s cheeks. Virginia’s dagger skittered into the dust.

  Virginia found herself on her knees. Sorry Gabriel, not going to plan. She tried to kick off and lunge at the woman but a foot struck her chin and flung her down. She struggled for breath, arcing her back in pain on the floor.

  Metallic clangs and Ramires’ shouts echoed around her; he’d obviously caught the first Q-Roth warrior by surprise, the second was going to be more troublesome. Virginia knew she had to distract the woman, give Ramires more time. Through gritted eyes she saw the bitch standing above her, looking down. She spoke, her voice serene.

  “We wondered how the Genning had gone. Not that impressive, really. Can’t beat a bit of Q’Roth DNA, you know.” She walked away, toward Ramires and the Q’Roth.

  Virginia crawled with one hand and one foot toward her dagger, sending bolts of pain shuddering throughout her body. She glanced up and saw the woman standing with her back toward her, studying the fight, head cocked to one side, as if watching a vid. But then her head turned slightly, listening. Virginia made one last stretch and gripped the dagger’s hilt. She thought of Gabriel, of them entwined in each other’s arms, of his laugh so few ever saw or heard, and struggled to her knees for stability. The woman was still listening. Virginia’s semi-functioning arm aimed, retracted, and then… stopped. The dagger slipped from her fingers. The breath went out of Virginia and she smelled burned flesh. The woman had turned, a small weapon in her hand, a sliver of smoke rising from its stubby barrel. At least her smile was gone. Virginia’s neck slackened and her head dipped down, and she saw the cauterised hole in her chest where her heart should be. Gabe, she thought, and died.