Atlantia Series 1: Survivor (36 page)

Evelyn felt her legs turn to what felt like mist, buckling beneath her as fear seethed through her veins like ice. Behind her the bridge doors opened. She turned, and there she saw a thick morass of bots swarm into the bridge, the commingled sound of their millions of limbs like distant, rushing water.

She turned to Tyraeus and knew that there was only one remaining option for her.

Evelyn leaped over the tactical station and grabbed hold of a support pillar. She aimed her pistol at the bridge windows and fired several shots straight at them.

‘No!’

Tyraeus’s voice was drowned out as the plasma blasts fractured and then blasted the window out and the air screamed out of the bridge and into the deep vacuum of space. Around her a dense cloud of bots was sucked in a spiralling black vortex toward the shattered window, plunging into oblivion as Tyraeus sought a handhold nearby.

***

‘She’s charging weapons, sir!’ Jerren yelled.

Captain Idris Sansin whirled as he directed orders across the Atlantia’s bridge.

‘Evasive action, all turrets fire at will! Launch all fighters!’

A series of alarms blared through the ship as it suddenly lurched forward under power and pitched up out of plane with the Avenger. The captain saw the big cruiser’s hull ripple with blue–white flashes as plasma turrets opened fire, blazing salvos toward them.

‘Multiple launches to port!’ Jerren shouted.

‘Full ahead, hard to port!’ Idris yelled in reply. ‘Decrease our profile and brace for impact!’

The Atlantia’s thrusters surged her forward while turning her toward the incoming fire in an attempt to minimize strikes. She lumbered around, and Idris watched through the viewing ports as several plasma blasts sailed harmlessly by aft of her engines.

The hull shuddered as four plasma charges impacted her, distant rumbles audible on the bridge as the hull was bombarded.

‘Damage report!’ Idris yelled above the alarms.

‘Hull intact, plating damaged starboard–stern quarter, no leaks!’

Idris whirled, his fist clenched before him. ‘Return fire!’

The hull shuddered again as the huge cannons along the Atlantia’s hull thundered their response. The viewing screen showed the dozen immense plasma balls streaking toward the Avenger.

The battle cruiser dropped down, her nose diving beneath the salvo of shots, but six of them peppered her stern quarter and Idris thought he saw debris ejected from one of them.

‘Hull breach in her stern quarter sir!’ Lael yelled in delight.

‘How is that possible?’ Idris demanded. ‘She’s tougher than that!’

‘Not right now sir!’ Jerren shouted jubilantly. ‘Lack of maintenance maybe? Either way, her hull plating must have degraded somehow.’

Idris Sansin got out of his chair as a pulse of vengeance made itself heard more clearly with every passing beat of his heart.

‘Get behind her, away from where the bots are protecting her hull!’ he said. ‘Go for her engines!’

The bridge crew began labouring to turn the Atlantia around to break the Avenger’s line and get in behind her.

‘All power aft engines!’ Idris yelled. ‘Ignore her shots and go for the kill!’

The Atlantia heaved around, swinging her nose high over the Avenger’s hull as she made to reverse course and dive down to direct a salvo of blasts at the cruiser’s engines. Beneath her, the Avenger was rolling to one side to bring her biggest guns to bear on the Atlantia.

Like two giant whales dancing deep in the black depths of an ocean, the two battleships vied for position as from the Avenger’s hull poured a tiny flotilla of metallic specks that flashed in the light from the nearby star.

*

‘Stick together!’

Andaim’s voice called out over the intercom as he guided his Raython fighter out of the Avenger’s landing bay and accelerated away into space. He looked up and saw the Atlantia high above him, her huge bulk swinging around to bring her guns to bear on the Avenger’s engines.

‘Damn these things are fast!’

Qayin’s voice sounded almost panicked over the intercom as the little fighters raced out into space.

‘Keep your distance from each other!’ Andaim cautioned as he craned his neck to look behind him.

The long, tear–drop shaped canopy of the Raython afforded him a clear view of the craft controlled by the convicts. There was no sign of the orderly formations Andaim had seen in his career with the colonial forces. Instead, the fighters seemed to squabble for space as they fanned out chaotically.

‘Keep it together,’ Andaim said, ‘it’s easy to get lost out here.’

‘There’s the Atlantia!’ said one. ‘This is cool!’

‘Cut the chatter!’ Andaim said. ‘Check your plasma charges, engine temperatures and life support systems are all fully functional!’

There was a moment’s silence as his lawless pilots hunted for the correct instruments amid a dazzling array of dials, monitors, switches and holographic displays.

‘Use the command switch on your control column,’ he went on, ‘and select the Avenger as your target!’

A barrage of questions flooded the intercom.

‘Which one’s the command switch?’

‘Where is my plasma charge?’

‘My stuff says I only have half of my fuel.’

‘What does the big yellow and black lever do…?’

‘Don’t touch that!’ Andaim interrupted. ‘Unless you want to eject!’

Another long silence and then Qayin’s voice cut through the chatter.

‘Turn on your weapons using the red hat–switch on your control column,’ he rumbled, ‘then point at anything that’s not the Atlantia and blow it to hell.’

‘Right,’ came a response, ‘I can dig that.’

A ripple of affirmations crossed the intercom, and Andaim saw the other fighter’s wings sweep forward slightly, projecting their pulse cannons like a pit viper baring its fangs.

‘Let’s go,’ Andaim snapped.

He rolled his fighter over and pulled toward the Avenger, craned his head back and saw the other fighters wheeling in a crazy display like a flock of intoxicated metal birds as they followed him.

‘Stay fast,’ Andaim advised, ‘and never try to shoot out the plasma guns, they’re too powerful. Attack the engines, and stay on the opposite side of her to the Atlantia. I don’t want half of you being blasted by our own side.’

The fighters’ wings flashed in the bright sunlight as they rocketed back down toward the huge cruiser. Andaim noted that most of the ship’s aft lights were extinguished.

Andaim’s cockpit was plunged into shadow and then flooded again with sunlight as he rolled it over and pulled in alongside the cruiser’s huge hull. Vast expanses of metal flashed past on his right side and he saw a plasma cannon flash as it blasted charges up toward the Atlantia. Too close for the cruiser’s guns to target him, he flashed past beneath the cannon as he saw the glow from the engines appear ahead.

To his surprise a debris cloud flashed into view, smouldering deck plates torn from the Avenger’s hull spilling junk from its interior into space. Andaim pulled up and away from the damaged section of hull and craned his neck back over his right shoulder to look into the breach.

‘Guys, the Avenger’s aft quarter is already damaged. Aim to hit her there and aft of that spot.’

‘Roger that,’ Qayin replied, sounding more like a fighter pilot with every passing second.

Andaim pulled away from the hull, plasma flashes erupting around him as the Avenger’s smaller cannons picked him up and tried to track him. He threw the Raython into a hard left turn, defying the cannons’ aim as he turned back and aimed at the engines.

He fired a blast of plasma charges and pulled up, saw them smash into massive power lines and rupture them in bright explosions that flashed past his cockpit and ejected fuel into space in vast glistening clouds.

‘All fighters, attack now!’

He needn’t have bothered giving the command. He heard a series of whoops and yells and looked behind his seat as he rocketed up and away from the battle. Behind him the Avenger’s vast expanses of hull were peppered with bright explosions as the fighters following him flashed past, firing as they went.

Blasts of plasma erupted in response, pursuing the fleeing squadron, and Andaim heard a scream over the intercom as one of the Raythons was hit square on the tail and blasted into a million glowing fragments that blossomed brightly before fading away into oblivion.

‘Keep moving!’ Andaim shouted. ‘Never fly straight and level for more than five seconds!’

The fighters split like wheeling birds as Andaim looked up and saw the Atlantia diving down toward the Avenger’s aft section, her pulse cannons blasting rounds at the bigger vessel and her own hull peppered with flickering fires. Plasma rounds flashed between the two ships as though they were giant storms hurling lightning across the void between them.

‘She’s taking a beating!’ somebody shouted, seeing the damage.

‘Leave the engines to Atlantia!’ Andaim commanded.

The fighters swept past beneath the Atlantia’s diving nose, the huge frigate plunging downward as Andaim rocketed along the Avenger’s hull, which was now titled ninety degrees over as it fired round after round toward the Atlantia.

Plasma flashes flared brightly before him and he swerved his fighter to avoid the big guns, smaller rounds flashing past him like shooting stars as he rocketed along just above the cruiser’s surface.

An alarm sounded in his cockpit and he looked down at a holographic display. There, images of the Avenger and the Atlantia locked in their lethal dance were portrayed, along with multiple new targets emerging as though from nowhere ahead of him.

‘I’ve got new targets,’ Qayin reported. ‘Fighters from the Atlantia?’

Andaim looked to his right and saw a cloud of flashing specks racing toward them from the Atlantia as Bra’hiv and his men rushed to assist them.

‘Negative,’ Andaim reported, ‘they’re at right–two quadrant, in–bound. New targets are dead–ahead.’

‘What the hell are they then?’

Andaim was about to reply when Bra’hiv’s voice cut into the intercom.

‘Atlantia, Blue Flight to Andaim, pull up! All fighters get away from the Avenger now!’

Andaim looked ahead and against the blackness of space he saw a great cloud of metallic specks lifting off the Avenger’s hull and clumping together in tight swarms.

Andaim fired two shots at the swarms and saw the plasma charges blast into them, melting countless billions of bots as though a galaxy had exploded. The bots had formed clouds that now reached out toward the fighters. Andaim hauled back on his control column and rocketed up and away from the swarms, the other fighters following him.

He heard a scream as one of the fighters plunged through the nearest swarm and emerged coated in black bots.

‘Eject!’ Andaim shouted. ‘Eject now!’

The Raython fighter seemed to come apart at the seams, torn into pieces by countless bots gnawing through hull plating, power lines and the cockpit canopy. The cries of the pilot degenerated into a strangled groan as the bots plunged onto and through his body and the fighter crumbled and vanished into a cloud of debris.

‘All fighters, stay clear of the Avenger’s hull!’ Andaim shouted. ‘The bots won’t be able to travel far away from it or they’ll freeze!’

Andaim pulled his fighter over the top of a large arc and looked out of the top of his canopy down upon the Avenger’s hull. The black masses on the hull were moving aft, swarming toward the damaged sections of the ship.

‘Bra’hiv!’ Andaim called. ‘Order the Atlantia to target the swarms!’

‘Negative,’ Bra’hiv replied without emotion. ‘She must be disabled first or we’re wasting our time. Target the landing bay immediately and destroy the shuttle and the fusion core!’

‘Eve is still on the bridge!’ Andaim yelled. ‘We can’t leave her there!’

‘One life,’ Bra’hiv countered, ‘or several hundred, lieutenant?’

In his cockpit Andaim cursed and hammered a fist against his cockpit canopy, but he rolled the Raython over and swung her around toward the Avenger’s bow. A cloud of nanobots rose to meet him and he opened fire, plasma charges racing away from his fighter and bursting through the blackened, glistening cloud in a blaze of light that smashed it into countless billions of glowing orange embers.

Andaim yanked the Raython up before it collided with the remnants of the cloud, rolling as he guided the fighter over them. The cloud flashed past above his canopy as he rolled the Raython into plane with the Avenger and saw that the landing bay they had used was once again open.

‘Target in sight and in range,’ he said over his intercom. ‘All fighters on me. Hit the landing bay now!’

A chorus of whoops and yells filled Andaim’s earphones as he raced toward the Avenger’s open landing bay and locked his weapons onto it, searching for the tiny shuttle parked inside with its lethal fusion core aboard.

A hail of plasma fire rocketed up from the Avenger’s hull toward him and he rolled the Raython over a parabolic manoeuvre designed to make his little fighter as hard to track as possible. The fearsome plasma blasts shot past, zipping by his wings and casting flashes of blue light into the tiny cockpit as they raced by.

Andaim rolled out and pulled level with the onrushing landing bay, his aiming reticle buried deep into the target as his finger moved to the fire button on his control column.

And then his heart skipped a beat.

The landing bay was empty.

The shuttle was gone.

‘All fighters, abort!’ he yelled.

Andaim hauled his Raython up, the Avenger’s huge hull racing past beneath him as he climbed away and rolled the fighter violently to avoid the plasma fire following him up.

‘What do you mean it’s gone?’ Bra’hiv asked. ‘Now what do we do?’

Andaim’s guts plunged as he realised that they no longer had the fusion core.

***

Evelyn hugged the pillar in the bridge as she saw the clouds of bots swirling toward the ruptured viewing port. They tumbled in a glistening black morass and she heard the howl of oxygen being sucked past her diminish as the bots plugged the damaged port.

Tyraeus’s immense bulk crashed to the deck with a loud thud and Evelyn saw the open bridge doors beckoning her. She turned and dashed for them, the passageway beyond now devoid of the hideous bots, but the doors slammed shut in her face.