Atlantia Series 3: Aggressor Read online

  ‘You’re making him promises with a gun to his head,’ Andaim cut in, hoping that the soldier would hear him. ‘Good luck with that.’

  The Marine peered up at Salim through the veil of his suffering. Andaim knew that Devlamine, once entrenched in a victim, required truly hellish agony to remove. Few had lived to describe their ordeal, and those that had painted a canvass of agony so awful that most were unable to coherently describe it without breaking down, even years after beating their addiction.

  The Marine shuddered again as he spoke.

  ‘Give me a fix,’ he gasped, ‘and I’ll tell you all you need to know.’

  Salim glowered down at the Marine. ‘Tell me now, or your suffering will end real fast!’

  The Marine smiled back through gritted teeth. ‘Go ahead. Either way, I’ll feel better.’

  Salim cursed and drove a boot into the Marine’s stomach as he turned and aimed his pistol at the screen.

  ‘If you’re not gone within twenty four hours, I’ll start executing hostages!’ he screamed. ‘Devlamine is the only currency that will save their lives!’

  Salim fired and the plasma shot blasted the viewing screen and cut the transmission off. Andaim’s shoulders sank as the tension lifted from them, and he glanced over his shoulder to where Captain Sansin was standing with Mikhain well out of sight in the shadows of the bridge.

  ‘The drug’s use is more widespread than we feared,’ Andaim said. ‘Even the Marines are using it.’

  Sansin strode to the command platform, his hands behind his back. Mikhain emerged also, his face swollen with anger.

  ‘You should have let me handle this,’ the XO uttered to Sansin. ‘Now they’re after a Devlamine supply too.’

  ‘It’s something to bargain with,’ Idris replied. ‘We didn’t have that before.’

  ‘You’re actually thinking of going along with it?’ Mikhain gasped.

  ‘We need our people back.’

  ‘You’ll be condemning countless hundreds of other hostages to drug addiction,’ Mikhain snapped back. ‘You know damned well that there are slaves down there, lorded over by that pig Salim! It’ll give him that bit more control over those people, keep them enslaved to their drug supply and…’

  ‘I know what he’ll do with it!’ Idris shouted. ‘Be quiet!’

  The XO stared at the captain as he paced up and down on the bridge for several long moments, the crew watching him.

  ‘Salim allowed us the chance to gather supplies,’ he said to Andaim.

  ‘An olive branch of sorts,’ the CAG replied. ‘He wants to give us what we need and see us leave as soon as possible.’

  ‘Do we have any idea what he’s building down there?’ Idris asked Mikhain, all the anger suddenly gone from his voice.

  Andaim was always impressed by how Idris conducted himself. His rage at Mikhain’s playing constant Devil’s advocate was only ever in the moment, and he always returned to his normal calm self as he sought a solution to the many problems that he faced.

  ‘It’s big,’ Mikhain replied, somewhat deflated. ‘Probably as large as Atlantia, but he’s doing a good job of blocking our sensors so we can’t get a good look at it. Even the optical scopes are seeing nothing but distortions, so Salim’s directing his shielding directly at us.’

  It was a common tactic to use lasers with randomly changing frequencies and wavelengths to distort the light from ground-based installations when viewed from orbit, twisting the images into meaningless ripples of light that took powerful computers many days to unravel.

  Idris nodded. ‘We need somebody to go down there and take a look.’

  ‘Only way to be sure,’ Andaim said. ‘I could maybe take a Raython and try to get below the aurora without being detected.’

  ‘Too risky,’ Idris said. ‘Salim will cheerfully cut the throats of a hostage or two if you’re spotted.’

  ‘It needs boots on the ground,’ Mikhain said. ‘Bra’hiv might be able to figure out a way to get somebody down there.’

  ‘Do it,’ Idris agreed. ‘Send a signal to Salim that we’ll be sending shuttles down to the opposite side of the planet to gather supplies. Make sure it has a flight path that gets reasonably close to Salim’s compound.’

  Mikhain whirled away as Andaim approached the captain.

  ‘We’re going to have to launch an assault, eventually,’ the CAG insisted. ‘Salim’s not going to give up without a fight.’

  ‘I know,’ Idris replied. ‘But right now we need to keep him thinking that he’s got us over a barrel. Military options are what we use when every other possible course of action has been rejected or has failed.’

  Andaim nodded. ‘We still have the Devlamine angle. If we can find the source we might be able to barter a deal out of them.’

  ‘And we have Taron Forge,’ Idris added.

  ‘I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him,’ Andaim muttered.

  ‘That’s what I’m counting on.’

  The captain drew Andaim close and spoke to him so that nobody else aboard the bridge could hear.

  ***

  XIX

  The cell was small, no more than ten feet by eight, with bare walls of steel grey metal devoid of seams or edges. A small seat occupied one corner of the cell, the door barred and the access panel closed, a lone man, stocky and bald, trapped within.

  ‘How long has he been in there?’ Idris asked as he watched a monitor in the observation room that showed the interior of the nearby cell.

  ‘A few hours,’ General Bra’hiv replied, ‘and I can tell that he’s sweating about something.’

  ‘Has he had any visitors?’

  ‘Two,’ Bra’hiv confirmed, ‘one from his wife and another from his lawyer, or a civilian who’s playing the role at least.’

  The Atlantia’s brig was small, capable of holding no more than twenty prisoners aboard ship under high security conditions and armed guard. Most all military vessels had them, but it had always been exceedingly rare for the cells to be occupied by anyone from the ship’s compliment – most captives were enemy combatants or captured criminals. Idris had watched many a Veng’en trapped like a caged animal in such cells via the concealed cameras that monitored the unfortunate occupants, but now he was looking at an ordinary man very much out of his depth.

  ‘Bring him out,’ Idris ordered. ‘And make him feel like he’s the most wanted man on the planet. I want him to fold and fast.’

  General Bra’hiv left the observation room, and moments later Idris watched on the viewing screen as two Marines burst into the cell. The captive startled as the soldiers rushed in screaming down down down and roughly manacled the man. They hauled him out of the cell, his legs virtually dragging on the ground behind him as the hefted his body down the corridor outside.

  Idris remained silent and still as the man was dragged past the observation room and into an interrogation room just down the corridor. He waited for a few moments until the soldiers would have strapped the captive into a seat, and then he opened the observation room door and walked down the corridor outside. General Bra’hiv emerged from the interrogation room and waited for the captain.

  ‘He’s ready,’ Bra’hiv announced, speaking loudly enough to ensure that he was being heard by the man in the room behind him. ‘How rough do you want this to be?’

  ‘As rough as it needs,’ Idris replied. ‘If he doesn’t talk, he doesn’t survive. I take it that your men will dispose of him without fuss?’

  ‘Nobody will even know he was here,’ Bra’hiv replied. ‘We’ll make sure it looks like a suicide.’

  A voice cried for help from within the room and was instantly muffled. Idris strode with Bra’hiv into the interrogation room to see the captive strapped into a steel seat, a Marine on one side of him holding a rifle and a Marine on the other with one gloved hand shoved over the captive’s face.

  ‘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.

  ***

  XX

  ‘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 attemp
ts 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?’