Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor (18 page)

‘Outside,’ Bra’hiv ordered the two Marines. ‘You weren’t here, understood?’

‘Yes sir!’ the two soldiers snapped in response and marched out of the room.

The door slammed shut behind them and the captive stared in horror at Bra’hiv and the captain.

‘You can’t do this!’ he whined, his eyes wide with shock and fear. ‘You can’t do this!’

‘We are doing this,’ Bra’hiv replied without emotion.

Idris watched as the general reached into his pocket and produced a metallic device that looked like two steel pincers with a black handle. Bra’hiv activated the device and it hummed into life as a bright blue spark crackled between the tips of the two pincers, a bright plasma glow that flickered in the low light inside the room.

‘You know what this is?’ he asked the man.

The man nodded frantically. ‘It’s a plasma torch.’

His voice had risen an octave while dropping in volume as though his throat was constricted.

‘The walls of this cell are sound proofed,’ Bra’hiv went on. ‘Mainly, it was done to allow confessions from convicts and gang members to be made without fear or reprisals from former allies, but now it serves another purpose. People outside can’t hear you screaming as your limbs are severed.’

The man’s face turned pale white and his voice trembled as though vibrations were rumbling through his lungs.

‘I don’t know anything,’ he blubbed.

‘We know that you were caught with Devlamine in your possession,’ Bra’hiv snarled. ‘We know that people are dying of Devlamine overdoses in the sanctuary, and we know that somebody is supplying the drug. Right now we have a major situation unfolding that requires us to recover all of the Devlamine aboard ship. Do you understand what I mean?’

The man, his eyes fixed on the crackling plasma torch, nodded frantically. ‘But I don’t know where it is.’

Bra’hiv’s features formed a cold smile.

‘Allow me to refresh your memory,’ he snarled as he lowered the torch toward the man’s hand.

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ the captive shouted in defiant rage. ‘This isn’t legal! You can’t do this!’

‘Supplying drugs is illegal,’ Bra’hiv countered. ‘Dealing them is illegal. Being armed in the sanctuary is illegal. We don’t have time for courts and due process here, and lives are at stake because of that filth you’re peddling down there to men with families and children. I don’t give a damn about your rights, your reasons or even your life because right now all I see before me is a cowardly dealer of death. I have no reason to care whether you survive this encounter or not, so to hell with you.’

Bra’hiv lowered the torch until the tremendous heat caused the hairs on the man’s hand to curl up and singe as a whiff of smoke puffed from his skin.

‘No, please,
no!
’ the man screamed as the pain bit deep. ‘I’ll tell you what I know! I’ll tell you!’

Bra’hiv held the snarling, crackling plasma torch inches above the man’s fingers as he leaned close and his gaze burned into the captive’s.

‘Who supplied you, Olag?’ the general growled.

Olag held the general’s gaze for a long moment, and then suddenly his face folded in upon itself and his shoulders trembled as he wept openly. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he looked away from Bra’hiv as he blubbed his response.

‘They told me if I spoke, they’d kill my wife.’

Bra’hiv leaned even closer. ‘You don’t tell me, I’ll
kill
you.’

Olag sucked in a sharp intake of air and managed to control himself.

‘Then do it, because I won’t risk her life for mine,’ he snapped.

Bra’hiv held the torch in place for a moment longer but it was Idris who spoke.

‘Tell me what you
do
know.’

Olag looked at Idris for a long moment, his cheeks still glistening with tears.

‘I don’t know who supplies the drug itself,’ he said. ‘All I know for sure is that there are three guys who control the growth of the crystals in the sanctuary. They have a farm that’s tucked away somewhere near one end of the forest and they keep it under cover. A couple of the guys reckon they have their kids play nearby to act as a watch.’

‘That’s the farm sorted,’ Bra’hiv growled at Olag. ‘What about the processed nectar, the source of the Devlamine crystals themselves? It must also be stored somewhere.’

‘I don’t know,’ Olag insisted. ‘They don’t tell me that, I swear!’

Idris thought for a moment.

‘These
guys
that you mention, how much access do they have to the rest of Atlantia outside the sanctuary?’

Olag sniffed mightily as Bra’hiv slowly drew the plasma torch away from him, his eyes still fixed upon the brutally bright weapon.

‘Two of them are engineers,’ he explained, ‘so they can move about pretty much wherever they like. My guess is that the supply isn’t coming from inside the sanctuary but from outside, somewhere in the ship.’

Bra’hiv backed away another pace and this time he shut off the torch as Idris paced closer to Olag.

‘Give me their names,’ he ordered.

‘I can’t,’ Olag moaned miserably. ‘They’ve already made it clear that they’ll take it out on my wife if any of them are caught. You don’t mess with these people, they’ll kill without hesitation.’

Idris, his hands behind his back, stared down without compromise at Olag as he spoke.

‘Due to you, I now have a number of my finest officers facing possible death because of what you’ve done, not to mention at least one dying man in the sick bay and others that will appear as soon as we stop this drug supply. Believe me, we will stop it, sooner or later. How little do you think I care about your survival, or that of your wife, when compared to officers who have risked their lives to protect us all?’

Olag stared back up at Idris, his resolve stiffening once more.

‘I will not sacrifice my wife to save my own life,’ he snapped.

‘I’m not asking you to,’ Idris replied. ‘I’m asking you to provide me with names. I will then ensure that your wife is placed in protective custody before any searches or arrests are made. Nobody will touch her until this is all over, understood?’

The prisoner looked back and forth between the captain and General Bra’hiv.

‘How can I trust you?’ he spat. ‘This bastard just threatened to cut off my limbs, kill me and make it look like a suicide!’

Idris shook his head.

‘None of it would have happened,’ he said. ‘I just wanted to let you know that we mean business. No matter how hard it becomes I
will
destroy this drug trade, and I
will
remove anybody from this ship who tries to slow me down, do you understand? My men will not torture you or anybody else, but I absolutely will authorise Maroon Protocol for anybody involved in the trade who does not redeem themselves by helping me shut it down.’

The captive swallowed thickly. Maroon Protocol, the procedure for marooning undesirables on foreign planets, was an age-old custom much feared by civilians who had often never set foot on another planet. The sort of things parents threatened misbehaving children with, or travellers told tales about over camp fires in the wilderness.

‘Tell me the names of your accomplices and where they keep their supply,’ Idris repeated, ‘or I’ll ensure you and your wife’s safety from the dealers by placing you on Chiron IV and damned well leaving you here.’

Olag closed his eyes, and then revealed the location of three homesteads in the sanctuary.

‘Get on it,’ Idris ordered the General.

***

‘Okay, this is how it’s going to go down.’

Qayin stood before a platoon of Marines from Bravo Company, formed of former convicts who had once been incarcerated on Atlantia Five, the prison hull Atlantia had once guarded. Beside him, Lieutenant C’rairn watched but did not intervene, giving Qayin space to command the men.

‘We work in groups of four,’ Qayin went on, ‘two to search each premises, two to stand watch in case anything goes wrong or anybody attempts to run.’

‘Why can’t we search in greater numbers?’ asked Soltin. ‘More chance of somebody getting away if we’re only four per house.’

‘We need to hit all three homesteads as once,’ Qayin explained. ‘The people talk and they talk fast – word will get around and stashes will be hidden before we can get to them if we take too long or advertise our presence.’

The exterior of the sanctuary was quiet, the interior mimicking night time. Qayin knew that the human body was at its weakest in the small hours before dawn, and the ship-time routine was based around the twenty-six hour cycle of the sanctuary, which itself mimicked Ethera’s day and night cycle. Used in order to allow crew the chance to maintain some sense of time when on cruises in deep space that might last months, now that same cycle gave Qayin and his team the chance to hit hard and fast against minimal resistance from the civilian population.

‘Alpha Company will be moving in from the for’ard hatch,’ Qayin went on, strolling up and down in front of the men as he spoke, the bioluminescent tattoos on his face glowing in the dim light. ‘We’ll come in from the aft entrance, further limiting escape routes for any dealers inside the sanctuary. Guards will be posted outside the exits also, just in case anybody manages to slip by us. Any questions?’

‘Just one.’

The lone voice at the back was that of Corporal Djimon, the towering mass of muscle standing almost a full head above the other Marines.

‘Yes, corporal?’ Qayin asked.

‘Nobody has explained how the Devlamine came to be aboard in the first place. Few members of the crew have been off-ship since we left Ethera over two years ago, and as a military vessel the drugs would not likely have been aboard beforehand. Thus, somebody among the crew who has left Atlantia during our voyage is responsible for bringing drugs aboard ship.’

‘When we apprehend the dealers we’ll find out who brought the drugs aboard,’ Qayin said. ‘Kind of what we’re here for don’t you think, genius?’

Djimon did not react to Qayin’s flippancy, letting his words carry the accusations he harboured.

‘I’d have thought that only a user or dealer would recognise Devlamine in its crystal form if they’d seen it. Somebody with a history of dealing, for instance.’

Qayin grinned, his teeth bright against his dark skin.

‘And somebody like that would also be pretty good at rooting out the same problem,’ he replied. ‘We’ll deal with who’s done what when we find them. Right now our job is to search every homestead inside the sanctuary on our list, clear them of any drugs and arrest the possessors. No hesitations, but weapons cold for those searching the premises. Call out the occupants before entering and keep them under guard. I don’t want anybody else panicking and opening fire on us, okay?’

The Marines snapped to attention and Qayin turned to the lieutenant.

‘Let’s go.’

C’rairn turned and opened the sanctuary’s entrance chute, and with military precision the Marines jumped inside one after the other, accelerating away as the sanctuary’s motion and gravity pulled them in.

*

The light was not the same as it was on Wraithe. Even the stars were not in the same places.

Kordaz lay across the broad beam of an Etheran pine and stared up at the night sky. Though he knew that it was an elaborate illusion and that the entire sanctuary was a construct of human ingenuity, if their skills could be called that, Kordaz could still reflect that the human condition was no different to his own species, the Veng’en. Deep in space and far from home, both species tried to replicate something of their homeworlds to ease the loneliness of the void, to break the monotony of grey corridors, darkened bridges and harsh electrical lighting. The Veng’en deliberately cultivated dense vegetation to clog the interiors of their battle cruisers, the corridors filled with mist and vapour just like the jungles of home.

The wind whispered through the trees, cold compared to the hot, humid breath of Wraithe’s vast tropical forests. Kordaz had taken to wearing a thermal layer over his scaled skin since Captain Sansin had allowed to him make his home in the sanctuary, but apart from that he remained much as he had on Wraithe, the trees his domain. Food, disgusting as it was, was provided by the crew and the civilians with whom he shared the sanctuary, though he saw them little. That he was feared and hated by the human inhabitants of the sanctuary was without doubt – the Veng’en and the humans had been at war for decades before the apocalypse that virtually eradicated humanity, each inflicting terrible atrocities upon the other in a seemingly endless series of territorial disputes and major fleet actions.

Kordaz knew well that his people were war-like, born to survive in the dangerous jungles in which they had evolved, but even so humans were shockingly adept at violence and combat, ingenious in their ability to surprise at the last moment when their defeat seemed imminent. Yet also they proved ridiculously empathetic toward their fellow man, often discarding certain victory in battle rather than abandon their own on the field. Many gains had been made by the Veng’en over the years simply through the act of abduction of senior human officers and negotiations for their release.

Kordaz glanced down through the forest canopy, through black veils of leaves toward distant homesteads set near the edge of a plain filled with crop fields. The peace of this place seemed at odds with his mental image of humanity and that shared by his fellow Veng’en. Veng’en schooling had taught them that humans routinely raped and pillaged each other’s towns, often delighting in eating the young of their enemies. Kordaz now suspected that some of those stories may have been somewhat enhanced by the retelling, especially as he knew of several human younglings living in the nearby farmsteads that were clearly doted upon even by humans with no family ties to them and…

A scent drifted across Kordaz’s olfactory and he instinctively tensed, ready for combat. He lay still, his face still staring up at the stars, but his eyes swivelled to the east and his ears twitched.

Kordaz’s eyes were big, baleful and currently almost filled with an “X” shaped iris that was fully expanded to draw as much light as possible toward the centre of his eye. The adaption allowed for better night vision in misty conditions within the jungle, directing and focusing light in the centre of the eye to better detect movement. Now, in the clear conditions of the sanctuary, Kordaz could see almost as clearly as in daylight on Wraithe.