Atlantia Series 2: Retaliator

© 2014 Dean Crawford

Published: 6th June 2014

ASIN:B00KSRUITI

Publisher: Fictum Ltd

The right of Dean Crawford to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.

www.deancrawfordbooks.com

Also by Dean Crawford:

The Atlantia Series

Survivor

Retaliator

The Ethan Warner Series

Covenant, Immortal,

Apocalypse, The Chimera Secret,

The Eternity Project

Independent novels

Eden

Holo Sapiens

Revolution

Soul Seekers

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• Title Page
  
• I
  
• II
  
• III
  
• IV
  
• V
  
• VI
  
• VII
  
• VIII
  
• IX
  
• X
  
• XI
  
• XII
  
• XIII
  
• XIV
  
• XV
  
• XVI
  
• XVII
  
• XVIII
  
• XIX
  
• XX
  
• XXI
  
• XXII
  
• XXIII
  
• XXIV
  
• XXV
  
• XXVI
  
• XXVII
  
• XXVIII
  
• XXIX
  
• XXX
  
• XXXI
  
• XXXII
  
• XXXIII
  
• XXXIV
  
• XXXV
  
• XXXVI
  
• XXXVII
  
• XXXVIII
  
• XXXIX
  
• XL
  
• XLI
  
• XLII
  
• XLII
  
• XLIV
  
• XLV
  
• XLVI
  
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  
• REVIEWS
  

We should have known better.

We know that there are few survivors, few of our kind still clinging to life.

They say that when the end came some embraced it willingly, shrugged off their lives like old skins and allowed the Legion to infilitrate their minds and their bodies and become one with the machine. Most, however, did not. Most fought, and died, trying only to remain who they were.

The Legion, the instrument of the Word, our governing law, took life across all of the colonies. Worlds fell; Ethera, Caneeron, Titas; the mining settlements and the outlying systems and the uncharted clouds of asteroids and meteors beyond consumed by the monstrous and insatiable thirst for knowledge and power that is the currency of the Word. The greatest creation and achievement of our human race turned vengeful deity, the destroyer of worlds.

We now know that there are several forces at work within the Legion, an immeasurable swarm of mechanical devices ranging in size from as big as insects to as small as biological cells. There are the Infectors, the smallest and most dangerous, for it is their mission to infiltrate the optical nerves, the brain stem and the spinal cord of human beings, turning them into mere instruments dancing to the macabre hymn of the Word’s destructive passion. Then there are the Swarms, the clouds of tiny but voracious feeders who break down all and any materials into the raw ingredients for more of their kind: metals, plastics, even human tissue, consumed en masse and regurgitated into further countless devices, all of which evolve with startling rapidity as though time were running for them at breakneck speed. Finally, there are the Hunters: bigger than the rest and with only a single purpose – to find and to kill intelligent biological life wherever it is found in the cosmos.

We are the last of our kind, and despite the horrors that we witnessed when we fled the only star system we could call home, we now know that we must return. There is nowhere else to run to, nowhere else to hide, for if we do not make our stand now then we condemn our children or their children after them to face what we could not. We must fight back and step by step, system by system, we must take from the Word that which was ours and liberate ourselves from the living hell that we have created and endured.

The Atlantia, a former fleet frigate turned prison ship, is the last home we have. Our crew is comprised of terrified civilians, dangerous former convicts and a small but fiercely patriotic force of soldiers and fighter pilots for whom there is no further purpose in life other than to fight for every last inch of space between here and home.

Our lives may become the last that will ever be lived, and thus we tell our story in the hope that one day others will read of it and remember our names.

Captain Idris Sansin

Atlantia

‘Break right!’

The voice of Commander Andaim Ry’ere bellowed into Evelyn’s ear through the microphone in her helmet and she shoved the Raython’s control column over and hauled back on it.

The sleek, arrow–shaped fighter heeled over and soared between a pair of vast tumbling asteroids dimly lit by the distant infernal glow of a red dwarf star. Pale light flickered and danced through the cockpit and shadows raced past the Raython as it shot through a narrow gap between the asteroids and rolled out onto a new heading.

Evelyn’s heart pulsed like a war drum in her chest and she felt prickly heat tingle on her skin as certain death flashed by with scant cubits to spare. Her gaze snapped from the chaotic view of tumbling asteroids outside her cockpit canopy to a holographic display projected before her. The signal flickered weakly on her tactical display, filled with complex images of the asteroid field and a larger object ahead of her Raython, just outside the debris field.

The cockpit was tight, digital screens glowing with green light and a thin blue line illuminating the edges of the closed canopy. Evelyn’s helmet cradled her head in a snug grasp and a secondary display projected onto the retina of her right eye pertinent flight information: velocity, bearing, orientation to galactic plane, fuel remaining and range to target.

Andaim’s voice snapped in her ears again.

‘Stay sharp! Vector three–five–niner, elevation two–zero, quadrant alpha. We’re almost on them! You keeping up?’

Evelyn’s mind raced as she performed simultaneous functions; calculating angles and trajectories, operating the Raython’s complex targeting computer as the vessel flashed through the asteroid field at near–suicidal speed and rocking the controls back and forth to prevent a collision with the massive chunks of rock flying past.

‘I’m on it,’ she growled.

Evelyn yanked the Raython hard left and then hard right, sweeping across the surface of a particularly large asteroid and seeing from the corner of her eye the surface pitted with craters and clouds of dust as though bands of weather were drifting through an atmosphere. A handful of smaller asteroids collided with its surface nearby in bright blasts of molten rock, immense energy released in tectonic eruptions. The blasts illuminated the cockpit like distant lightening across darkened skies.

‘Stay out of sight,’ Andaim ordered her. ‘Don’t let the target’s sensors pick you up.’

Evelyn focused her mind on keeping asteroids between her and the huge target ahead, using the tactical display to orientate herself and stay on target. Huge, dark rocks rushed past her cockpit and tendrils of dust glowed and flashed by as though reaching out for her.

‘Almost there,’ Andaim said.

Evelyn rolled the Raython over a complete rotation, the dim red light from the dwarf star blocked by pitch black shadow and then filling the cockpit again as Evelyn rolled out and aimed directly for the target.

An alarm sounded in the cockpit like a claxon and sent a bolt of alarm through Evelyn’s body as she sucked in a deep breath.

‘We’re being painted by enemy radar!’ Andaim yelled. ‘Counter measures, evasive action!’

Evelyn hauled the Raython into a tight turn as she flipped a switch on her throttle that activated a temporary burst of emitted electronic interference, enough to fool the weapons of the target vessel as she raced toward it.

Asteroids flashed past the Raython and a peppering of smaller debris and dust rattled against the fuselage as it shot out of the debris field and into open space. Ahead a vast spaceship loomed against the star fields, its metallic hull glowing a dull and dirty grey in the light from the distant star.

‘Target locked,’ Evelyn said, ‘cannons charged, counter measures active!’

The gigantic, scarred hull rushed up toward her.

‘Negative on target,’ Andaim snapped. ‘Abort!’

‘I can get her,’ Evelyn shot back. ‘Just a few more seconds…’

‘Abort now!’

‘Target in range.’

The hull of the huge vessel rippled with a series of bright blue–white flashes and Evelyn felt her heart skip a beat as a salvo of fearsome balls of energy flashed at terrific velocity toward her. She had no time to react before the first of them smashed into her Raython fighter in a blinding flare of light.

The flare vanished as Andaim’s voice reached Evelyn.

‘Sortie aborted,’ he intoned. ‘Mission failure, return to base immediately for debrief.’

The remaining flares of light flashed silently past the Raython as Evelyn cursed and pulled up, the Atlantia’s huge hull rushing by below her. Andaim’s voice sounded weary as he spoke.

‘You’ve got to learn to control everything at once,’ he said. ‘If those cannon charges had been live rounds you’d have been fried alive.’

Evelyn craned her neck around her seat to see Andaim watching her from the rear of the Raython T2 twin–seat training aircraft.

‘I couldn’t have gotten any closer,’ she replied. ‘Once we were out of the field, we only had seconds to lock on and open fire.’

‘That’s right,’ Andaim said. ‘But you were so focused on targeting the Atlantia’s guns that you forgot to open the throttles when you cleared the asteroid field. That cost you a couple of seconds, enough for the Atlantia to get a fix on you. Game over.’

Evelyn sank back into her seat and shook her head in self–disgust as she turned the Raython around toward the frigate, the traffic controller’s voice sounding distorted in the cockpit.

‘Charger Flight, tactical training session four–seven is over, join the pattern for final approach. You’re number one to land.’

Evelyn flicked switches in her cockpit and lowered the landing struts as she slowed the Raython down and deactivated the weapon systems. She brought the fighter around in a shallow descending turn toward the Atlantia’s stern, where a landing bay was opening low on her keel, lights flashing to guide her in.

‘Charger Flight, finals to stop, three greens,’ Evelyn called.

The Raython eased slowly into the landing bay and Evelyn saw in her cockpit mirrors the giant bay doors close behind her. The bay ahead was devoid of life but half a dozen Raythons and a pair of shuttles were parked on the deck, well clear of the main landing strip.

The Atlantia’s lower flight decks were separated into three distinct sections: the landing bay at the stern, maintenance in the middle, and the launch bay beneath the bow, each separated by massive bulkheads and blast doors. A flashing rectangle of light illuminated her parking spot, and she guided the fighter over it and it settled onto the deck, magnetic clamps fixing it in place. As she shut down the engines, she saw vents high on the bay walls bleeding atmosphere and heat in clouds of vapour back into the bay and a series of glowing red lights arranged around the upper rim of the bay changed to green.

Evelyn opened the Raython’s canopy and pulled off her helmet as she unstrapped and climbed from the cockpit, crewmen hurrying across the bay to service the fighter. She could hear the craft’s engines clicking as they cooled as she climbed down onto the deck, her magnetically charged boots and suit replicating gravity to pull her down toward opposingly–charged electromagnets beneath the deck.