Endeavour (Atlantia Series Book 4) Read online

  ‘Qayin is a criminal and everybody knows it,’ Mikhain said. ‘Send orders for the doctors to keep him sedated for security reasons.’

  ‘That removes one problem,’ Djimon replied. ‘What about Kordaz?’

  The Veng’en represented a different problem to Qayin, but one nonetheless dangerous. The warrior was keen for human blood, driven by the need to avenge his abandonment on Chiron, and to Mikhain’s disbelief it now appeared he had been instrumental in allowing Evelyn, Andaim, Bra’hiv and Meyanna to escape from a Special Forces unit aboard Endeavour. Given that Captain Sansin’s wife was now safe as a result of Kordaz’s intervention, it seemed unlikely that Sansin would want the warrior incarcerated in a prison cell.

  ‘We question him as soon as possible and find out what he knows. Our best bet is to play Kordaz and Qayin off of each other. They’re already mortal enemies and it appears that Qayin was almost killed by Kordaz aboard the gunship. Ideally, we give Kordaz the chance to finish the job.’ Djimon did not reply but Mikhain saw the troubled look on his face. ‘What is it?’

  ‘This is all getting too complex,’ the XO replied. ‘The appearance of the Word and the clone of Evelyn, I don’t understand what’s happened aboard that ship and I don’t like any of it. If it were up to me, we would have obliterated Endeavour with them all aboard and removed all of our problems at once.’

  The Word. Mikhain himself was deeply uncomfortable with the machine being on board no matter what Evelyn or anybody else said. A digital creation with its own intelligence and thoughts, it represented the very thing that caused humanity to collapse and be conquered by its own creation. The fact that it still acted in concert with and in defence of humanity did not interest Mikhain–so had the Word on Ethera, and yet it still turned eventually.

  ‘The Word is in isolation and bathed in continuously transmitting and alternating jamming frequencies that prevent it from connecting wirelessly to anything aboard the ship,’ Mikhain replied, as much to console himself as the XO. ‘I too would like to see it simply destroyed, but right now that’s not a decision we can make without Sansin.’

  Djimon stopped in the corridor, the area around them devoid of staff as he spoke quickly but quietly. ‘Qayin must know by now that we took his holo–pass aboard Atlantia and used it to contact the pirate Salim Phaeon. It’s going to be the first thing he reports to Captain Sansin if he gets the chance. Let me get to Qayin first and silence him before he can make his play.’

  ‘And you really think that’s going to work?’ Mikhain snapped. ‘If Qayin is murdered all that will achieve is to increase suspicion over his death and who was behind it. We can’t bludgeon our way out of this, Djimon.’

  ‘We can’t sneak out of either,’ Djimon insisted. ‘We need to do something decisive while we’re still in super luminal cruise, while Atlantia can’t see us, while the general and Kordaz and Evelyn are locked down and unable to intervene.’

  Mikhain dragged a hand across his forehead. The simple truth was he could not see any way out of the situation without somebody having to be silenced, permanently. He knew that it was wrong and he knew that it was not the act of a professional Colonial Officer to condone the murder of a fellow officer, but he consoled himself that they were no less guilty than he was of the crimes that they had committed, and no less deserving of suitable punishment.

  ‘Do you think you can get to Qayin without being identified?’

  ‘I’m the XO,’ Djimon reminded him. ‘I can get right next to him, provided you allow me to get him out of the sick bay and into confinement in a prison cell.’

  Mikhain nodded. ‘That can be arranged.’

  ‘Do it,’ Djimon said. ‘I’ll ensure that Qayin is no longer a problem for us.’

  ‘Go, now. This is as good a chance as we’re ever going to get.’

  *

  Evelyn paced up and down in the interior of the tiny cell, the barred gates looking out on Arcadia’s brig, which contained just a dozen cells in total.

  The fact that she was here at all infuriated her, and her mind was full of images of Emma lying injured on Endeavour’s deck, of Qayin likewise injured and being hustled away quickly by Arcadia’s Marines with Meyanna at their side. It was as though Mikhain was treating them all as criminals and the excuse that he was concerned for the security of the ship somehow did not ring true.

  Evelyn knew that Kordaz was incarcerated in the same brig further down from her cell, but unlike her he was manacled to his bed to prevent him from overpowering the guards and his gate was shielded by microwave scanners. She walked to the barred gates of her cell and attempted to peer down the corridor and catch a glimpse of the warrior.

  ‘Kordaz?’

  She heard nothing but silence in response, and she wondered how much of the warrior’s mind remained and how much had been conquered by the tiny machines coursing through his blood. She understood in part why Mikhain was being so cautious–ultimately it was not just the Word in the computer that had been brought aboard Arcadia, but actual infectors inside Kordaz’s body. Dead they might be, or so the warrior claimed, but having the tiny machines in such close proximity to the original incarnation of the Word was about as dangerous as it could get and besides, Kordaz had undoubtedly known the location of the Word before Evelyn and the Marines had encountered it. It was the only reason why he would have chosen to crash the gunship so spectacularly into Endeavour’s landing bay despite the obvious danger, why he would have chosen to board the ship at all: the Word’s command. Just has Emma had been drawn to the computer terminal, unable to resist its pull, so had Kordaz. What Evelyn could not decide was whether Kordaz was a victim or a threat.

  The security gates at the entrance to the cells opened with a clattering noise and Evelyn shrunk back into her cell as she heard boots approaching. She was surprised to see Captain Mikhain appear at the gates of her cell, flanked by two Marines.

  ‘What the hell am I doing here?’ she demanded.

  ‘It’s nothing personal,’ Mikhain assured, ‘but were all playing catch up and right now I’m not sure what to do about you, the woman you call Emma, the Word or any of this.’

  ‘And imprisoning us is supposed to make us feel better about it?’

  ‘I’m interested only in the safety and security of this vessel. Your personal feelings can come later.’

  Evelyn managed to swallow her frustration. ‘What do you want?’

  Mikhain spoke quietly as soon as he had sent his two Marine guards back to patrol the entrance to the brig, beyond earshot.

  ‘I want to know everything about you,’ he said. ‘It can be no coincidence that we found the Word aboard Endeavour, a ship almost one hundred years old. Nor can it be a coincidence that one of the crew looks identical to you. You were a prisoner aboard Atlantia Five, and we assumed that because of your high security status we had no data records detailing your past or any of the crimes committed that led up to your arrest. In fact, as far as I’m aware we have no details of your prior life before your arrival upon the prison ship.’

  ‘Stop pulling my chain and get to your point, captain?’

  ‘We don’t know that you are who you say you are,’ Mikhain replied. ‘As I understand it you’ve always claimed that you are innocent of any of the crimes for which you were incarcerated, that your husband and your child were murdered by somebody else.’

  Evelyn’s anger was bludgeoned aside by a grief provoked by memories that she rarely allowed into her mind and she turned away from the cell gates, as though by doing so she could somehow avoid the recollections.

  ‘It’s true,’ she whispered in reply. ‘I never did find out who killed my family.’

  ‘Maybe that’s because you were looking for somebody that did not exist,’ Mikhain suggested.

  Evelyn whirled and flew at the gates as she shoved a hand between the bars in an attempt to grab Mikhain’s collar. The captain jerked back just out of reach, her fingernails brushing his uniform as he raised an eyebrow.

 
; ‘You can see where my concern lies, can you not?’ Mikhain continued. ‘The Word ravages Ethera in its entirety and virtually the whole of the core systems, and yet somehow we managed to escape while having only a single infected person aboard the ship? If I was as intelligent as the Word I would have put a sleeper agent aboard as well, a back–up in case the infected crewmember in command was compromised.’

  Evelyn stared at the captain in disbelief. ‘You’re going with that? You think that I’m an agent of the Word, even though I’m clearly not infected?’

  ‘I didn’t suggest that you were infected,’ Mikhain pointed out. ‘I do however intend to send Meyanna down here to test your blood and that of Emma. My suspicion is that we will find them to be genetically identical.’ Mikhain leaned closer to the cell gates once more. ‘I think you’re a clone, Evelyn, and if you indeed are then there is only one force that I know of that would be capable of creating you.’

  Evelyn shivered as she considered the consequences of what Mikhain was suggesting.

  ‘That’s not possible,’ she murmured, her entire body feeling numb.

  ‘You are immune to the infectors,’ Mikhain reminded her. ‘We have no actual evidence of your existence prior to you being sentenced for the murder of your family. As far as we can tell, you never actually existed.’

  ‘My family existed!’ Evelyn shouted. ‘I had a life, on Caneeron!’

  Mikhain stared at Evelyn for a moment longer and then without another word he turned and strode away down the corridor.

  ‘Where is Captain Sansin?!’ Evelyn shouted after him. ‘What have you done with the Word, and Emma?!’

  Mikhain said nothing, and she heard the gates to the cells rattle open and the captain leave her alone again in the silence.

  *

  ‘What’s her condition?’

  Meyanna glanced at the screen filled with data on Emma’s condition as she lay sedated on the sickbay bed, and realised how much she disliked Djimon’s monotone voice. The XO loomed alongside her, a phalanx of Marines guarding the sickbay entrance nearby.

  ‘She’s alive,’ Meyanna replied with deliberate vagueness.

  Djimon forced a tight smile onto his angular features. ‘We’ll she survive?’

  The blade that Kordaz had buried in Emma’s chest had been the first thing that Meyanna had removed, carefully using calipers to separate the flesh before drawing the weapon from her body to prevent the serrated blade from tearing her chest apart. The fearsome weapon had lodged itself barely a finger’s width from Emma’s major arteries–any closer and she would have died within minutes.

  ‘Despite the depth of the wound there will be no lasting damage and I’ve ensured that there is no infection of the wound.’

  Djimon nodded as though satisfied and then turned to glance at the more massive body lying in a bed nearby, the dark skin and bright blue and gold hair vivid against the white sheets.

  ‘And him?’

  ‘I’ll get to him later,’ Meyanna replied without looking at Qayin’s bed.

  ‘I want him in isolation as soon as possible. He’s a threat to the security of the ship and should be in a prison cell, not lying here in the sick bay.’

  ‘There is a guard on the sick bay,’ Meyanna informed him. ‘He’s not going anywhere.’

  ‘You don’t know what he’s capable of.’

  ‘I know what he’s not capable of,’ Meyanna retorted, ‘and right now he’s barely able to breathe on his own.’

  ‘Good, that will make my job all the easier.’

  Meyanna glared at the XO. ‘What job?’

  Before Meyanna could react the Marines marched into the sickbay and positioned themselves either side of Qayin’s bed.

  ‘You can’t just walk in here and take a patient of mine from the sick bay!’ Meyanna protested.

  ‘I am the XO,’ Djimon snapped back, ‘and I can do pretty much anything I like. I’m having the Marines take him out of here and place him in secure confinement until the captain says otherwise. If you have a problem with this then you can take it up with him, but I can assure you he considers Qayin to be as big a risk as I do.’

  Meyanna watched helplessly as Qayin was wheeled out of the sickbay, and for the first time she realised that she did not feel safe aboard Arcadia.

  ***

  XXXVII

  Lieutenant Scott hurried down Arcadia’s corridor and attempted not to make contact with any of the staff moving past him. With the ship in super luminal flight many of the crew had been stood down to prepare for the inevitable conflict that would come as soon as they were caught by the Morla’syn destroyer. Right now, however, Scott was more concerned about the situation aboard Arcadia than he was the pursuing warship.

  He was approaching the barracks, the home of Alpha Company’s Marines. Always guarded, he would not have been allowed in were not for the captain expressly providing him access and forewarning of his arrival. Scott arrived at the barracks and immediately the two Marine guards made way for him, neither of them making eye contact and staring straight ahead as he passed between them. Whether that was an act of discretion or disgust, Scott could not tell.

  The barracks were empty, the entire company deployed aboard ship or in the mess halls chowing down while they could. Scott moved silently through the empty rooms and quickly found what he was looking for.

  Every Marine aboard Arcadia and Atlantia was given a locker, a tiny vertical space in which to store what meagre belongings they had managed to bring with them. In his hand Lieutenant Scott held the captain’s security pass–a digital master key that allowed the captain to open any lock or door aboard the ship. Used in times past to root out criminal activity aboard ships, such passes were always carried around the captain’s neck for safekeeping.

  Lieutenant Scott paused before the locker he had been told to access and stared at the name upon it for several long seconds. It felt something like a betrayal, even though he was only following the captain’s express orders: Scott knew the devotion and ferocity in battle of the Marines, and that they had saved lives even when heavily outnumbered and outgunned. Most all the crew held the soldiers in the highest respect and it felt alien for Scott to be doing what he was doing. He reached up and slid the access key into the locker, and the locker clicked as its seal opened. Scott looked left and right down the silent barracks before he pulled the locker door open and peered inside.

  The contents of the locker were sparse: a few pairs of neatly folded clothes, spare boots and a small lockbox that Scott guessed contained trinkets from home–virtually every member of the crew carried them when on cruise. Stuck to the inside of the door was a holo–image, a flat picture that contained extraordinary stereoscopic depths, as though one were looking through a tiny open window into another world. The image was of a tall, stern looking man and a slender, waif–like woman standing on a stony beach. Behind them, huge mountains smashed across the horizon and the image shimmered and moved–a visual trick that gave further life to the otherwise static picture. In front of the two adults stood a young boy, his floppy blond hair and shy smile virtually unrecognisable compared to the XO’s stern, humourless countenance.

  Lieutenant Scott checked over his shoulder again before he began carefully sifting through the contents of the locker until he found what he was looking for. Tucked inside the trinket box was a slender voice recorder that was also equipped with a camera. Carried by many officers aboard ship, usually to dictate complex orders or to help memorise details of such massive vessels for future reference, the recorders were also used to send messages home–the messages were compiled later and beamed back to Ethera or the Admiralty to be dispersed to their waiting recipients.

  Scott grabbed the recorder and quickly accessed its contents. Never allowed to leave the ship, the recorders were also devoid of any security measures in order to allow officers and commanders to check the recorders for disagreeable content. Lieutenant Scott accessed the most recent files and saw immediately still images of the
captain, Mikhain. Scott pulled out his own recorder and activated it, and instantly the two devices detected each other. Scott accessed the XO’s files and began the rapid process of copying the contents of the XO’s recorder to his own. It took only moments, and Lieutenant Scott quickly put the XO’s recorder back inside the lockbox and closed the locker, having ensured that everything was exactly as he had found it.

  Scott turned and marched from the barracks, the two Marines once again making way for him without making any eye contact as he passed between them. His orders had been explicit–copy the contents of the files and bring them immediately to the captain. Ordinarily Scott would have complied in full with these orders, but what he had seen on the frozen image of the first recording bothered him immensely even though it was only a holding page taken from somewhere within the file. The image had shown Mikhain in the War Room of either Atlantia or Arcadia, a section of the ship accessed only during time of immense distress such as boarding or a major hull breach. To the best of his knowledge, Scott could recall no time recently that the War Rooms aboard either Atlantia or Arcadia had been deliberately used except under the orders of Captain Sansin.

  Lieutenant Scott entered the elevator banks that would take him up to the bridge and as the doors sealed shut he pulled his recorder out and examined the contents once more. As the elevator began to move he accessed the file that bothered him and alone in the elevator he listened and watched as the XO’s recording of Mikhain played, and with every word Lieutenant Scott realised just what a dangerous game the captain was playing.

  *

  Evelyn screamed.

  The scream echoed around the confines of her skull and she distantly felt her knees crack as she dropped to them in the darkness, dim light casting an ephemeral glow upon the body of her young son, his corpse smothered in blood that had drenched his bed sheets. The same scream repeated like a distorted echo as she saw her husband’s body likewise strewn across the bedroom floor in their house, lacerated with the frenzied blows of a blade that now lay on the floor nearby. The house was dark, shadows upon shadows grim and foreboding, and yet before she could even absorb what she had encountered it was filled with flickering lights and the sound of men crashing through doorways and glass panels.