Endeavour (Atlantia Series Book 4) Page 16

  ‘And if Kordaz brings the Legion with him?’ Lael challenged.

  Idris bit his lip as he thought for a moment.

  ‘Then Kordaz will be killed,’ he replied finally. ‘Order Bra’hiv’s men to activate their microwave emitters to prevent any contamination.’

  *

  The blasts woke Qayin.

  He heard the impacts shudder through the gunship’s hull and reverberate through his body as he lay on the hard deck of the holds. He tried to sit up but his entire body ached with fatigue and his head pounded. He shivered in the cold, weak and vulnerable, and the hold around him spun and tilted wildly as he struggled to sit upright.

  The Devlamine.

  Qayin cursed out loud as he sat upright and then hunched over himself, unable to do anything but keep breathing. His body was nearing the limit of what it could take, and he knew that his blood loss and reliance on the power of Devlamine to keep him going was ushering him toward a painful death or a lengthy and equally painful withdrawal from the drug, but he knew that he had no choice. Slowly, each movement requiring an immense effort, Qayin dragged himself once again across the deck and reached the flasks of Devalmine. Carefully, he selected the correct flask and then, wincing at his own weakness of both before and now, he took the drug into his mouth before he slumped against the hold wall.

  His breathing became shallow as he lay at an awkward angle against the wall, the distant thumping of plasma blasts hammering the gunship’s shields seeming to accompany the slow beat of his heart. Qayin almost passed out, his body numb and feeling warm as he lost awareness of his surroundings, the Devlamine slower to act when taken orally than it had been through the intravenous line.

  Then, slowly, his heart beat accelerated and he felt the pain return to sear his limbs and his skin, only for it too to fade as his vision sharpened and he sucked in a deep breath of stale air. His hearing returned and he dragged himself up onto his feet, his pulse surging through his veins as he felt fresh energy power through his body.

  He turned to the hold doors but he could see already that they were locked. Kordaz, if he had known what was good for him, would likely have made an extra effort to seal the doors from the outside too, to prevent any escape attempt. The former convict turned on the spot as he surveyed the hold, seeking any possible means of escape or a suitable weapon.

  Salim Phaeon had been a pirate, a slaver and a smuggler, but back in the heyday of his reign of terror in the Tyberium Fields, Salim would have needed to conceal smuggled or stolen goods. Fact was, while he could plunder vessels in the remotest corners of the cosmos, it was back home where the market remained, where the money was. And that was also where the Colonial patrols operated.

  Qayin switched his attention to the deck plating and the hull walls, gambling his next move on the likelihood of Salim stashing at least a few weapons somewhere aboard his ship. Pirates, damnable souls that they were, were not above attacking their own especially if their target had been known to have recently successfully plundered a juicy trade vessel. Salim would have guarded against such attacks in any way he could.

  Qayin knelt down and examined the deck plating for any hint of concealed inspection panels or compartment. He crawled along the deck as he heard the distant impacts of plasma charges slam into the ship’s hull, but he could find nothing. He stood up, perplexed that Salim would have foregone such a basic and yet vital precaution against searches by Colonial vessels or indeed attacks by his own people.

  A sudden blast slammed into the ship’s hull and Qayin staggered sideways as the deck pitched violently beneath him. His hand reached out for anything to belay his fall and he slammed into one of the support braces with a dull thump that shuddered through his entire body. His vision starred briefly from the impact and he pushed off the pillar as he massaged his shoulder.

  And then he saw it. As Qayin rubbed his shoulder he felt the metal implant beneath the surface of the suit, the iron that in conjunction with charged plates below the deck provided the ship’s quasi–gravity, and then saw the dent in the support brace beside him.

  The support braces for the holds extended in a row from the front of the holds to the back, each one as thick as a man. They were evenly spaced, perhaps four cubits apart, and were constructed of immensely strong metal to support the loads placed upon such a craft when entering atmospheric flight from orbit. There was no way that an object with as little mass as Qayin could have dented such strong material.

  Qayin stood back and surveyed the braces, and almost immediately he smiled broadly in the dim light as he realised the extent of Salim’s ingenuity. The ship’s hull was supported by roughly twice as many braces as it would probably require, being a smaller vessel, and that could only mean one thing. Half of the braces were fakes, designed to conceal stolen, smuggled or illegal goods as Salim had traversed the core systems.

  Qayin moved closer to the dented brace and he quickly found what he was looking for: the edge of a panel, the entire height of the beam, the joint concealed perfectly against the hull wall and in shadow, further hiding its presence. Qayin eased around the edge of the panel and quickly found a mechanical lock, small and unobtrusive, looking more like a manufacturer’s stamp than anything else. Qayin pushed and prodded the mark and moments later the side of the supposed brace clicked and opened.

  Qayin stood back as he surveyed a tightly bound stash of plasma rifles and charges, ammunition pouches and cleaning implements for the weapons. Without hesitation Qayin yanked a rifle and two charges free from the collection, along with several ammunition pouches. He hurried to the main hatch and placed the charges against the hinges before setting the timers and dashing out of sight.

  A deafening blast wrenched the door sideways, the hinges simultaneously melting and being smashed aside as the heavy hatch was warped violently and then fell away from the bulkhead in a cloud of smoke and molten metal.

  Qayin jammed a magazine into the plasma rifle and saw the weapon light up as it hummed into life, and with a grin of relish he dashed across the hold and hopped through the smoking, ragged hole of the bulkhead.

  ***

  XXII

  The gunship shuddered as Qayin jogged with the plasma rifle cradled in his grasp, heading for’ard toward the cockpit. Sparks belched from overloaded circuitry as he rounded a corner and saw the open cockpit door before him, Kordaz sitting in the captain’s chair and guiding the gunship toward Endeavour.

  Qayin ran hard, his boots thundering on the deck plating as he rushed the cockpit and lifted the plasma rifle as he aimed at Kordaz’s head. The thundering boots alerted the Veng’en and he rolled out of the chair as Qayin fired.

  The plasma shot missed the back of Kordaz’s head and smashed into the control panel with a bright explosion that sent instruments and sparks spraying through the cockpit as Kordaz came up on one knee and one thick muscular arm pointed directly at Qayin.

  Qayin barely registered the flickering sliver of bright metal that flashed toward him, and then the D’jeck thumped into his chest and buried itself. Qayin came up short in the cockpit doorway as Kordaz leaped up with ferocious speed and smashed the rifle aside. Qayin reached out and tried to drive his thumbs into the Veng’en’s eyes but was shocked as he felt them cold and hard beneath his touch, more machine than flesh and devoid of emotion or fear.

  Kordaz’s huge hand grabbed Qayin around his throat and hauled him into the cockpit amid bright showers of sparks and flame from the smashed instrument panels. The view ahead was filled with the shape of Endeavour’s aged, crippled hull, black and foreboding as it loomed ever closer through the cracked screen. Through the haze of smoke Qayin could see the gunship’s automatic docking protocol activated, the ship flying on autopilot toward Endeavour’s landing bays.

  Qayin was slammed against the cockpit wall, Kordaz’s huge hand crushing his throat as the Veng’en reached out and grabbed the handle of the D’jeck buried deep in his chest. Qayin was mildly surprised that he could not feel a damned thing, hi
s nerve endings dulled by the Devlamine, until Kordaz twisted the weapon.

  White pain seared Qayin’s chest and his vision blurred and darkened as he struggled to maintain consciousness. He reached out with both arms and pushed with all of his strength against the Veng’en, drawing the blade out from his chest.

  ‘You’re far too puny,’ Kordaz sneered. ‘Just like all humans.’

  Qayin maintained his effort against the Veng’en, who twisted his grip around the sharply pointed handle of the D’jeck as he prepared to yank its serrated blade from Qayin’s body and tear his flesh to shreds in the process. Qayin saw Kordaz’s muscles tense as he made to pull the weapon out, and instantly Qayin stopped pushing and with all of his might he pulled hard on Kordaz.

  The sudden change in forces surprised the Veng’en and he was too slow to react. The blade slammed back into Qayin’s chest as the weapon’s wickedly sharp handle sank into the Veng’en’s body with an equal force. Qayin heard a screech as it smashed through Kordaz’s metallic chest and burrowed into the flesh beneath.

  Kordaz growled in pain and hurled himself away from Qayin, the smooth–sided spike slipping out of his body as the serrated end remained in Qayin’s. Globules of blood sparkled in the cockpit lights as they floated away from the tip of the spike, and Qayin made a last desperate play for the plasma rifle that lay in the corridor outside the cockpit.

  He hurled himself out of the cockpit door and dashed to the rifle, grabbed at it with one hand even as he felt the strength in his legs failing him. He turned just as Kordaz smashed into him and they fell together, the heavy Veng’en slamming down on top of Qayin while trying to avoid the lethal spike poking from his chest.

  Kordaz leaned in, his deep red eyes filled with fury, spittle flying from his fanged jaws and the vocal resonator struggling to properly translate his words as he snarled.

  ‘You’re scum, Qayin, better dead than alive, but I think that I have a better place for you.’

  Qayin, helplessly pinned beneath the massive Veng’en, could not in his weakened and disorientated state figure out what Kordaz meant. Moments later, he understood entirely.

  Kordaz’s metallic chest seemed to ripple as he held Qayin down, and then from the very edges of the metal a thin line of black specks appeared, like black dust that clung to the surface and made their way down toward Qayin’s bloodied chest wound.

  ‘It is time,’ Kordaz growled, ‘for you to be purified.’

  Qayin struggled to free himself, but the Veng’en was far too heavy and the effects of the Devlamine Qayin had taken were fast wearing off. Kordaz watched Qayin with his soul less red eyes and emitted something that might have been a snigger of satisfaction. Qayin squirmed to get out from beneath the Veng’en before the Infectors reached him, and as he did so he glimpsed the view out of the cockpit.

  Qayin’s eyes flew wide and he ducked his head back behind Kordaz.

  The Veng’en did not have the time to see the view before he was yanked clear of Qayin’s body with extraordinary violence and flew backwards through the cockpit. Qayin saw Kordaz smash backwards into the smouldering control panel, then roll over as he saw Endeavour’s huge landing bay doors looming ahead, the gunship bouncing along the massive ship’s deck as it smashed out of control toward its pre–programmed destination.

  Kordaz reacted instantly, grabbed the co–pilot’s control column and squeezed the trigger hard.

  *

  Evelyn, her chest heaving and her breath sawing in her throat, followed the Marines out into the landing bay as she heard the shuttle’s engines, the craft having landed and the bay sealed once again to allow the escapees to board her. The elite troopers had fanned out and provided a protective arc around the Marines as they dashed toward the shuttle, Evelyn one side of the woman they had liberated and Meyanna the other as they struggled on toward the shuttle.

  ‘Get aboard, as fast as you can!’ Bra’hiv yelled.

  Evelyn kept moving, even as she heard Captain Idris Sansin’s voice cry out across the frequency.

  ‘All hands, prepare for impact! Endeavour, collision inevitable!’

  Evelyn’s eyes widened and she looked at Andaim in confusion as they stared at the silent landing bay, the huge doors sealed shut. Even as Evelyn looked at them a blast of energy smashed through the massive doors as an explosion tore through the landing bay. A series of plasma blasts shattered the walls of the bay and ploughed through the decks behind the Marines as they were hurled aside by the impacts.

  Evelyn ducked down as the huge landing bay doors ruptured and the atmosphere within the bays screamed out into space in whirling clouds of white vapour loaded with sparkling crystals of ice. As the immense doors blasted outward a large, rust–red vessel ploughed into the landing bay, its metal hull smashing into the decks amid a vast cloud of sparks as it crashed into the shuttle craft and shouldered it aside, its landing struts snapping like giant metal trees as the mass and momentum of the craft forced it downward onto the decks.

  Evelyn grabbed the woman and together they sprinted clear of the huge X–shaped gunship as it slammed hull–down and slid along under its own momentum, the metal decks of the bay crumpling beneath it like grey water and the deafening roar of metal under tension and powerful ion engines silenced as the last of the atmosphere was sucked from the landing bay out into the vacuum of space.

  Evelyn glimpsed a handful of unfortunate Marines tumble out into the void as Endeavour’s limited emergency–power systems began to react to the hull breach and a set of emergency doors dropped from above. Evelyn grasped the deck with one hand as with the other she maintained a grip the woman as the doors ground their way down and the gunship’s huge hull crashed past them.

  The gunship slammed into the rear–wall of the bay, its bow smashing through the wall entirely as the craft came to a rest, its stern high in the air and its engines smouldering as they shut down automatically as the landing cycle completed.

  The emergency bay doors slammed down and sealed themselves, and then Evelyn saw vents belching vapour once more as the atmosphere was reintroduced to the bay. She sucked in a lung full of air and glanced about her. Marines were scattered everywhere, some slumped comatose on the deck, others nursing wounds and attempting to hold their rifles as they stared in shock at the gunship now filling the landing bay.

  ‘Bravo Company, report in!’

  Bra’hiv’s voice was tense and wracked with frustration as he surveyed the damage.

  ‘Nine men missing or down,’ C’rairn calculated as he struggled to his feet and surveyed the damage and debris.

  ‘All arms, re–group immediately!’ Bra’hiv ordered.

  Evelyn hauled herself to her feet and saw Andaim with Meyanna across the bay, both of them stunned but on their feet. Evelyn turned to the woman with her and slowly she helped her to her feet. The woman was shivering in the cold, her hair matted and thick with per–fluorocarbon, her eyes still searching but unseeing behind her mask.

  The Marines dragged themselves into a defensive formation around their general, Meyanna and Evelyn as she guided her charge inside their guns. Nearby, the elite troops had formed a silent vanguard with Lieutenant Riaz and were waiting patiently to see what happened next. Inside the Marine’s formation were three injured soldiers, all of them unconscious.

  ‘The shuttle’s useless now,’ one of them called. ‘We’re trapped!’

  Evelyn looked at the shuttle and saw instantly that the gunship had crushed its cockpit, flattening it and without any shadow of doubt killing the pilot. She turned and looked up at the form of Salim Phaeon’s gunship, and she could see already that its bow was crumpled beyond recognition, the hull fractured in multiple places and all manner of dangerous fluids spilling from ruptured pipework.

  ‘The gunship’s a fire hazard,’ she said. ‘We need to get out of the bay!’

  The gunship had ploughed through bulkheads and hatches, warping them and sealing them shut. The only way out of the bay was up and through the damaged gun
ship itself, to where the cockpit area had punched through the bay walls.

  ‘Move fast,’ Bra’hiv ordered. ‘We’ll have to hope that we can get through and that the whole damned ship doesn’t blow us to hell while we’re at it. Let’s go!’

  Evelyn watched as the Marines hurried along beside the crashed gunship’s hull and located an access hatch one–third the length of the hull back from the cockpit. The demolitions team quickly attached plasma charges to the hatch, and moments later Evelyn shielded the masked woman’s body with her own as the hatch blew outward. The metal panel tumbled through the air amid a cloud of smoke as the Marines poured into the hatch with their weapons aimed ahead of them.

  Evelyn made to stand, but a strong hand belayed her. The woman was gripping her arm and shaking her head. Evelyn knelt down alongside her.

  ‘We have to,’ she said. ‘We can’t get off this ship through the bay. We need to find another way out.’

  The woman’s face was stricken with fear and she was trying to make her voice work, her jaw gaping as she rasped and coughed.

  ‘We can’t stay here, whatever we do,’ Evelyn insisted. ‘Come on, let’s move.’

  The woman reluctantly took Evelyn’s hand and they followed the Marines aboard the gunship.

  The interior was dark, lights flickering erratically as Evelyn’s eyes adjusted to the gloom. Sparks flew from blown panels as the Marines moved systematically through the ship, all of them turning right toward the cockpit and away from the corridors that led to the holds.

  Evelyn watched as they hurried through the ship toward the cockpit, acutely aware of Riaz’s Special Forces team following in silence behind her and of whispered exchanges between the lieutenant and his men that she could not quite make out. A sudden flurry of shouts carried to her from somewhere for’ard and with the Marines she hurried her pace until she reached the cockpit corridor.