Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor (7 page)

‘Chironian spice rat,’ Dantin explained. ‘They’ve got the Ogrin well and truly addicted to them.’

‘That thing was a drug?’ Ishira asked.

‘Kind of, it’s full of sweet juice from the trees that it lives on here. It eats the fruits like a parasite, more than enough to go around. They’re lethal to humans, but these Ogrin can’t get enough of them.’

Ishira narrowed her eyes as she stared at the men gathered above them. ‘How come the Ogrin don’t just get it themselves?’

‘Because access to it is tightly controlled,’ Dantin smiled tightly, ‘and the Ogrin were never very good at handling plasma rifles. They’re totally at the mercy of these men.’

Ishira looked up at the men and as she did so they parted and another joined them from within the scaffolds. He was squat, his long, thick black hair pulled back from oily olive-coloured skin and pinned in braids down his back. Oddly effeminate make-up adorned his eyes, contrasting sharply with his thick and hairy forearms as he strode out to survey the new arrivals. A cold gleam in his eye told Ishira everything that she needed to know even before his voice broke out over the captives.

‘Welcome to Chiron!’ he boomed jovially. ‘You may thank us later for liberating you from the grasp of the Legion and bringing you here to our lair. Your lives are now saved, and they belong to us.’

Ishira couldn’t help herself. She strode out of line and glared up at the squat man.

‘Who are you, where is my family what the hell are you doing with my ship?’

A few captives working nearby drew a sharp intake of breath and for a moment it seemed as though the wind stopped blowing as the squat man stared down at Ishira. Then, a ripple of chuckles fluttered among the men behind him and a grim smile curled from his lips like a snake basking in the sun.

‘My my,’ he intoned, ‘where are your manners, my dear?’

‘Give me a plasma pistol and I’ll show you where I’ll shove my manners.’

The men behind the squat man burst out laughing. Their leader continued to smile but his voice crackled with restraint.

‘My name is Salim Phaeon,’ he replied. ‘Your daughter is safe, as is your father. As for your ship, well, we promise to take good care of it now that it’s ours.’

Ishira strained against her manacles as she tried to walk closer to Salim.

‘Like hell it is,’ she spat.

An Ogrin’s massive hand clamped onto her shoulder and drove her to her knees with such force that she thought she would be buried up to her neck, pinning her down. She kept glaring at Salim as he stepped down from his platform and strode to stand before her.

‘Then welcome to hell,’ he smiled without warmth.

In the distance Ishira could see Valiant, her hull gleaming in the brilliant sunshine as cloud shadows drifted across the landscape around them.

‘A fine craft,’ Salim observed. ‘Perfect for what we have in mind.’

‘She’s
mine
,’ Ishira hissed.

Salim stepped to her and tutted as he rolled his eyes in a parody of concern. ‘You really must understand, my young friend, that you do not own anything. You, all of you, are now mine and any resistance will result in consequences, you understand?’

Ishira strained against the Ogrin’s grasp.

‘Drop dead,’ she spat.

Salim lifted one podgy hand and clicked his fingers.

Up on the scaffolds the lounging men parted as two women in garish, revealing clothes that showed more flesh than they covered walked out, swaying their hips in a seductive manner with a smaller, similarly dressed woman pinned between them. Ishira gasped as she saw Erin, her hair brushed out and her soft skin covered in make-up as though she were some kind of living doll, her expression confused and apprehensive.

‘For our entertainment,’ Salim said by way of an explanation.

Ishira yanked her head to one side and sank her teeth into the Orgi’s hand on her shoulder as though she hadn’t eaten for a month. The giant gaoler screamed and tore his hand away and Ishira leaped up like a coiled spring at Salim. Her body rocketed toward his as she jerked her head back and smashed her forehead against the pirate’s nose.

Salim’s nasal cartilage collapsed with a dull crunch as the wire restraint brought Ishira up short in time to see Salim stumble backwards and collapse onto the ground, his face a bloodied mess. A rush of gasps and whispers fluttered across the prisoners as the pirates up on the scaffolds whipped pistols and rifles up to point at Ishira, plasma magazines humming into life.

The Ogrin’s giant, bloodied hand smashed across Ishira’s chest and hurled her to the ground as Salim, his eyes blackened with rage, hauled himself to his feet and drew a long, curved blade from his belt as he glared down at her.

‘You will learn your place,’ he sneered, ‘or others will suffer!’

Salim turned and the curved blade flickered in the sunlight as he threw it. The blade flashed through the air and thumped into the chest of a skinny looking man with thin, grey hair and a pallid expression. The blade buried itself to the hilt in the man’s scrawny chest and he stared down at it with an expression of bewilderment.

‘No!’

Ishira’s cry rang out as she watched the man’s legs crumple beneath him as he collapsed, his eyes rolling up in their sockets as his heart bled out inside his chest.

‘This is what will happen,’ Salim roared, wiping blood from his face, ‘upon every act of insubordination. This is how we punish those who oppose us! Those closest to you will take the punishment, and that punishment shall be death! Get them to work!’

Salim’s last was directed at the Ogrin, who jerked the prisoners into line and forced them to march toward the towering bulk of the cruiser nearby.

Dantin hauled Ishira up to her feet, his features stormy with anger as nearby the dead man was cut from the line.

‘Now do you understand?!’ he hissed. ‘Stay quiet, before you get anybody else killed!’

Ishira turned as she saw an Ogrin drag the dead man’s body away by the ankle and hurl him over the edge of the cliffs. High on the scaffold she saw Erin led out of sight by the pirate’s consorts, her features twisted with despair.

***

The scramble claxon burst through the field of Evelyn’s awareness like a hammer through glass, shattering the blissful oblivion of sleep as a bright, unwelcome light flickered into life above her head.

A data panel mounted scant inches from her face revealed a scramble order, flashing red as a priority command from Atlantia’s bridge. Evelyn groaned and dragged one hand across her eyes in an attempt to wipe the sleep from them. She rolled over, and in the dim light she reached down and pulled from beneath her pillow a small cache of what looked like miniature stones wrapped in a clear gel. Carefully, she reached into the gel and broke the seal. A rich, thick fluid seeped out as Evelyn sucked it from the gel and let it settle under her tongue.

For a moment nothing happened as the fluid was absorbed into her body, and then suddenly the lethargy and the weariness faded away like a dream interrupted. Evelyn flopped onto her back for a moment, staring up at the flashing red icon on the screen as she felt the drug hit her bloodstream and begin powering through her nervous system, and then she reached out without looking and hit a switch on the wall of her bed.

The side of her bed slid automatically open to reveal a tiny living space. A pair of long, slender legs, the skin tinted a pale blue, landed alongside Evelyn’s bed as her room-mate Teera dropped from the bunk above and turned to look down at her, all bright eyes and excitement as she pointed at the small cabin’s data screen.

‘Scramble Alpha Flight, that’s us!’

Evelyn ran a hand through her hair as she rolled out of the bunk and stood up, one hand reaching out without thought for the flight suit hanging ready on the wall.

‘I’m on it,’ she yawned.

Evelyn hauled on her flight suit and caught the flask of energy-fluid that Teera tossed her as she quickly dressed, the two women moving about each other in the tiny cabin with well-practiced precision.

‘Didn’t you get any sleep?’ Teera asked.

‘Do I look that bad?’ Evelyn replied as she glanced in the steel mirror on the wall and saw her bleary-eyed countenance peering back at her. The effects of the Devlamine were starting to blow away the cobwebs of sleep, a distant supernova light glowing ever stronger somewhere deep in her tired eyes.

‘We always look good Eve,’ Teera soothed, ‘you’re just less good today than normal.’

Evelyn zipped up her flight suit and yanked on her boots as she drained half of the energy-drink and tossed it back to Teera.

‘Let’s get out of here.’

Teera led the way as they exited their cabin and jogged down the corridor outside, the usually bustling passageways more quiet than normal as the crew got their heads down during the long-range cruise. The captain’s brief had been that Atlantia had sufficient reserves for a four-day super-luminal leap, and with two days still remaining that meant something had come up.

Even as they jogged, a tannoy broadcast an emergency alert claxon and the voice of the ship’s Executive Officer snapped and echoed through the ship.

‘All stations, alert-four, alert-four.’

A minor alert level then, Evelyn recalled. Something in the path of the ship or an un-planned emergence into sub-luminal cruise.

‘Maybe the Veng’en cruiser’s stopped off somewhere?’ Teera called over her shoulder as she ran. ‘It’d be great to get some real fresh air!’

‘Don’t get your hopes up,’ Evelyn replied. ‘Pretty much every planet I’ve landed on so far has been more dangerous than staying aboard ship.’

Teera laughed Evelyn’s warning off. Teera was younger than Evelyn by several years, with short-cropped blonde hair and bright blue eyes that matched her skin: the pale blue tint that mimicked the bloodless skin of Caneerians was a legacy of being the fifth generation of humans brought up on Oraz, a moon that orbited the blue star Rigelle in an outlying system. Despite Teera’s youth she had earned her wings and joined
Reaper
Squadron a short time before Evelyn, and had built up a small but impressive tally of combat victories.

They jogged together out onto Atlantia’s flight deck, where two sleek Raython fighters were mounted side-by-side on powerful magnetic catapults that ran from the for’ard bay toward huge launch doors that were currently closed. Technicians swarmed over the two fighters, cables snaking from internal circuitry and the fighters’ ion engines glowing blue as their internals were kept spun-un for a swift emergency launch known as Quick Reaction Alert, or QRA.

‘Evelyn.’

Evelyn turned and saw the CAG walking toward her through the throng. Teera nudged Evelyn in the ribs and whispered to her.

‘Your beau’s here!’

‘He’s not my beau!’ Evelyn snapped back, but Teera was already making her way toward her fighter.

‘You’re up,’ Andaim said as he reached her side. ‘Two alert Raythons will be ready on the cats once you’re launched.’

Evelyn knew the drill. In fact all pilots did, so there was no need for Andaim to brief her.

‘Shouldn’t you be on the bridge overseeing tactical?’ she enquired demurely.

‘You know I like to be down here among the Raythons,’ Andaim replied. ‘The bridge always feels detatched from the action.’

An awkward silence filled the space between them despite the noise of the engineers and the whining ion engines. Andaim opened his mouth to say something, and then he hesitated as though he’d already forgotten what it was.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Evelyn said. ‘They call it a scramble for a reason, y’know?’

Andaim blinked and nodded.

‘Of course, get going. I’ll be in touch from tactical, okay?’

Evelyn briefly felt as though she were being mothered, but a tingle of warmth filled the pit of her belly. She turned and jogged away from the CAG so that she could better conceal the smile on her face, and then climbed the steps to the cockpit of her Raython. Her name was emblazoned in stencilled letters beneath it and a gold diamond painted just after: her designation as a section leader, awarded for meritous combat performance and leadership. She levered herself into the cockpit as the aircraft’s crew-chief helped her with her harnesses, other maintenance crew hurriedly unplugging power lines as they swarmed around the fighter.

‘Reaper One, radio check.’

‘
Five by five
,’ Teera replied as she closed her canopy.

Just before her cockpit closed Evelyn heard the tannoys announcing the drop out of super-luminal cruise, and wondered what was awaiting them outside in the cold vacuum of space beyond the huge bay doors barely two hundred cubits ahead. With no time for a briefing, she and Teera would be updated seconds after launch.

Her cockpit came alive as she activated the avionics and started the engines as the ground crews rushed away and huddled down in sealed bunkers close by. The Raython hummed with restrained energy as her ion engines came fully on-line and Evelyn completed her pre-take off checks. She made sure her plasma cannons were charged but not activated and ran her throttles up to launch power, then settled back and glanced at a series of warning lights high up on the launch bay walls as the voice of Atlantia’s communications officer buzzed in her earphone.

‘Sub-luminal cruise in three, two, one… disengaging!’

The huge bay seemed to shudder and the light became briefly polarised as the Atlantia surged out of faster-than-light travel and decelerated in the blink of an eye as the mass-drive disengaged. In a flash the lights on the bay wall turned from green to red and ahead a sudden billowing mist of escaping air was sucked into oblivion as the launch bay doors lifted.

Evelyn’s Raython surged forward as the magnetic catapults threw the fighter down the launch bay, her body slammed back into her seat under the tremendous acceleration as she threw the throttles wide open. Running lights flashed past her in a blur and the huge launch bay doors whipped past scant cubits above her head as her Raython hurtled beneath them and was flung out into the blackness of space.