Endeavour (Atlantia Series Book 4) Read online

  She was pinned to the ground, elbows and knees driving painfully into her body and holding her in place as manacles were locked around her wrists and ankles and then chained together as though she had been a prisoner all her life. She was dragged through her own house, through the trail of blood left by her husband as he attempted to defend their son from whoever, or whatever, had killed him.

  The men dragged her to the door of the house and above the hammering of their boots and the wailing sirens she heard her son calling out to her like a phantom in her mind. She looked around and saw his face in the bedroom window, pale as death and illuminated by the glow of Ethera’s full moons, his hands on the glass and his face twisted with confusion and betrayal. Evelyn screamed his name again just as she saw the massive boot of a soldier driving towards her face and a loud thud filled her ears.

  Evelyn sucked in a breath of air as she bolted upright in her bunk, one hand flicking out instinctively to prevent her from banging her head on the bunk above as she had done so many times before. Her chest heaved and her skin was slick with sweat as she stared into the darkness and heard her son’s cries fade away into a bitter history that she wished she could forget. Evelyn slumped back onto her pillow as she heard the echo of the cries drifting through the darkness, and then she realised that they were not going away. She propped herself up on one elbow, tilted her head slightly in an attempt to hear them better. Still she could hear her son’s voice, soft as a whisper, as though she was hearing a conversation taking place some distance away.

  Evelyn tapped a button on the wall beside her and the bunk’s privacy shield slid down with a soft hiss. She climbed out of bed and glanced up at the bunk above, briefly believing herself to be back aboard Atlantia. But the bunk was empty, Teera now far away aboard Arcadia’s sister ship and Evelyn herself only recently released from the brig after Commander Andaim had apparently stormed onto Arcadia’s bridge and demanded to know what the hell Mikhain was playing at. Evelyn sighed, and she pulled on her flight suit and boots and walked out of the cabin in pursuit of the strange whispering noise.

  The cabin door slid shut with a hiss as Evelyn stood in the corridor for a long moment, her eyes closed as she listened to her son’s voice, and then she instinctively turned left and began walking. The corridors were deserted, the vast majority of the crew getting as much shuteye as they could while the ship was in super luminal flight.

  Evelyn walked ever further aft, descending four decks as she did so and passing the barracks and the infirmary, heading down toward the aft landing bays. An occasional petty officer or civilian passed her by with a brief nod or salute, but she shared no words with anybody as she followed the strange echo that would not leave her be. The whispering grew no louder but it was as though the voice became clearer as she walked, a signal breaking through interference with ever increasing efficiency.

  Evelyn reached the engineering quarter of the ship, located centrally in the main hull. From engineering, corridors branched left and right toward the massive engines mounted on the ventral strakes extending from Arcadia’s hull. The domain of engineers alone, they allowed access to Arcadia’s immense ion engines, which were principally controlled from the engineering quarter itself.

  A skeleton crew was maintaining a watch on the engines, which were evidently performing well as most of the engineers were sitting with their hands behind their heads and their boots up on the control panels as they conversed softly. One of them noticed Evelyn walk inside and with a jolt the men whipped their boots off the control panels and leaped to their feet, their bodies rigidly coming to attention.

  ‘Officer on the deck!’

  ‘At ease,’ Evelyn murmured almost vacantly. ‘You hear that?’

  ‘Hear what?’ the chief engineer asked.

  Evelyn glanced at the screens that the engineers were watching and noticed that one of them was focused on a storage bay that was devoid of anything but a single computer terminal, the screen glowing blue in the otherwise pitch black darkness of the sealed bay.

  Evelyn paced towards the screen and there she saw the Word, the face upon the screen talking softly and matching the whispering in her ears. Evelyn stared transfixed at the screen and almost as suddenly as she did the whispering vanished and the computer terminal screen went dark, the storage bay now black and featureless.

  ‘Are you okay, lieutenant?’

  Evelyn nodded briefly without looking at the chief engineer, a squat man with receding hair and thin spectacles. ‘I need to get in there.’

  ‘That’s restricted access,’ the engineer replied. ‘Captain’s orders, nobody is to go in there at all.’

  No thoughts passed through Evelyn’s mind, her body acting on pure instinct and impulse as she turned and drew her pistol and pointed it directly at the engineer’s head as the weapon’s plasma magazine hummed into life.

  ‘It wasn’t a request,’ she replied.

  The engineer jumped back in surprise as his hands shot into the air, panic twisting his features. ‘Okay, okay, just take it easy!’

  The engineer looked over his shoulder and nodded to one of his staff, who immediately hit a few switches that Evelyn recognised as locking controls to the various storage bays. ‘It’s open,’ the engineer said.

  ‘Keep it that way,’ Evelyn ordered. ‘Don’t make me come back in here.’

  Evelyn reached out and grabbed the chief engineer’s collar and yanked him with her. She drove the butt of her pistol under his rib cage and led him out of the engineering quarters and toward the storage bays.

  ‘What is it doing down here?’ she demanded.

  ‘The captain insisted it be stored here under full broad–spectrum frequency jamming to prevent it from interfering with the ship systems,’ the engineer replied frantically. ‘Nobody is to go near it.’

  ‘Did the captain mention that it saved our lives?’

  ‘Did he mention it also killed several billion others?’ the engineer shot back with a sudden burst of defiant courage. ‘What do you want with it?’

  Evelyn did not answer as she strode toward the storage bay, the engineer forced to lead the way. They reached the entry hatch and she prodded the engineer with her pistol. ‘Open it.’

  ‘I don’t want to go in there,’ the engineer pleaded. ‘I do not want to become infected.’

  ‘It’s a computer terminal, not the Legion,’ Evelyn snapped. ‘Open it, now.’

  The engineer reluctantly reached out and opened the hatch controls. The hatch hissed open and Evelyn shoved the engineer inside as she followed him and kicked the hatch shut with her heel. She turned and slammed the manual locking mechanism closed, both of them sealed in and in pitch blackness.

  ‘I can’t see anything,’ the engineer pleaded desperately, fear infecting his voice.

  Evelyn stood in the darkness, one hand against the hatch at her back to orientate herself, and then she called out.

  ‘If you want to talk, then I need to be able to see you.’

  The engineer’s panicky voice replied. ‘But I just said I can’t see anyth…,’

  Evelyn’s hand clapped over the engineer’s mouth and pinned it shut. She stood in silence and felt the man’s rapid breathing on the back of her hand as she waited for the glow of the screen to illuminate the shadows around her.

  But to her surprise no light appeared and instead it was a voice that surrounded her, that of a young boy. Her heart missed a beat and she felt the strength go from her legs as for the first time she heard his voice in her ears as clear as though he was standing in the room with her.

  ‘Hello, Evelyn. I’ve been waiting for you.’

  ***

  XXXVIII

  ‘What the hell is going on down there?’

  Mikhain strode as fast as he could with a platoon of Marines following him as Lieutenant Scott joined them from the bridge.

  ‘Evelyn’s in with the word,’ he reported as he hurried to keep up with the captain. ‘She took one of the engineers hostage.’<
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  ‘Damn it,’ Mikhain snapped. ‘I knew we should never have let her out of the cells.’

  ‘It’s not your fault, captain,’ Scott replied. ‘There was no reason to keep her locked up. It would not have gone down well with Captain Sansin if she had been treated like a convict.’

  ‘I don’t suppose that this is going to go down any better with him,’ Mikhain pointed out.

  ‘Evelyn is one of the most trusted members of Atlantia’s crew,’ Scott said as he surreptitiously handed the captain back his master key. ‘I don’t understand why she would want to have anything to do with the word.’

  ‘I guess we’ll find out when...’

  ‘Captain?!’ A Marine corporal rushed towards them. ‘The prison cell gates opened!’

  ‘They did what?’ Lieutenant Scott demanded.

  ‘They opened un–commanded, lieutenant, some sort of malfunction. We could not stop her.’

  ‘Emma, she’s out?’

  The corporal nodded. ‘She moved too fast, the guards could not stop her. She’s loose, captain.’

  ‘The Word,’ Mikhain said with an angry snarl. ‘Some of its signals must have got out when Evelyn opened the hatch to the storage bay.’

  ‘This is getting out of hand,’ Lieutenant Scott said. ‘What about Qayin?’

  ‘Qayin has already been transferred out of the prison cells,’ the Marine corporal replied.

  ‘Transferred?’ Scott asked and looked at the captain.

  ‘Qayin is a hardened criminal and used to the prison system,’ Mikhain replied smoothly. ‘Keeping him in the cells was considered too dangerous, so as soon as his treatment was finished I had him transferred to the brig where he cannot have contact with anybody.’

  Lieutenant Scott stared at Mikhain as they walked for several long seconds. ‘Under whose authority, captain?’

  ‘Under mine!’ Mikhain shot back.

  ‘Did Kordaz get out?’ Lieutenant Scott asked the Marine corporal.

  ‘No sir, he did not,’ the corporal replied. ‘Kordaz remained in his cell and did not move.’

  Mikhain frowned. ‘That’s not like him. What the hell is he playing at?’

  ‘Where is the XO?’ Lieutenant Scott asked.

  ‘He’s responsible for transferring Qayin,’ the captain revealed. ‘He will join us shortly.’

  Lieutenant Scott said nothing in reply as they reached the storage bays and slowed. More Marines were already in position and a monitor relayed the view from the cameras inside the storage unit. To the captain’s dismay, they showed only an entirely black screen.

  ‘Why can’t we see anything?’

  ‘The lights have been deactivated,’ Scott replied, ‘and the same frequency interference we set up to block the Word’s commands is stopping us from detecting any audio from the room. If they are talking in there, we can’t hear them.’

  ‘Don’t we have infrared sensors?’

  ‘Nothing that will penetrate the walls of the storage bay,’ the lieutenant replied. ‘I can’t tell you much else except to say that the two humans in there are both alive, so the Word definitely hasn’t killed anybody yet.’

  ‘Not directly anyway,’ Mikhain murmured as he stared at the dark screen. ‘What the hell are they finding to talk about in there?’

  Nobody answered but the sound of approaching footsteps caused the Marines to whirl and aim their weapons back down the corridor behind them. There, walking as though she owned the vessel herself, Emma approached. Mikhain could see at a glance that she was not armed but nonetheless he took an involuntary pace back and raised a hand to the Marines around him.

  ‘Hold your fire,’ he said, ‘but if she makes a move that you don’t like, take her down.’

  The Marines watched silently as Emma walked to within a few cubits of them and then paused, her gaze fixed upon the closed hatch behind the captain.

  ‘It looks like Evelyn got here first,’ she said.

  Mikhain took a tentative pace toward her, curiosity getting the better of his caution. ‘What do you mean?’

  Emma stared at the door as she replied, an almost wistful expression on her features. ‘It’s calling to us. It’s nothing without us.’

  ‘What do you mean it’s nothing without us?’ Mikhain demanded. ‘It’s just a machine, just a computer.’

  ‘No,’ Emma replied. ‘It’s far more than that, you just don’t understand.’

  ‘What I understand is that it’s staying sealed in that room. Nobody else goes in or out.’

  ‘It’s too late for that,’ Emma replied. ‘As soon as you bought it aboard the ship it was everywhere. Don’t you understand? That’s what happened to Endeavour.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  Emma’s smile was strange, as though she already knew what was going to happen and yet had no fear of it. She spoke softly, her eyes never leaving the hatch.

  ‘I can hear it talking to me,’ she replied. ‘Recently somebody used your security pass to access a part of the ship.’

  ‘How the hell did you know that?’ Mikhain demanded.

  ‘Because the Word told me,’ Emma replied. ‘As soon as that hatch door was opened it was able to access the ship’s computers, data logs, archives, weapon systems and War Room. It used the data picked up from your command key to enable it to access any part of the ship it desired. Arcadia is now under the control of the Word.’

  Before Mikhain could respond a series of loud bangs echoed through the corridors around them and to the captain’s horror he saw bulkhead after bulkhead slam shut under automatic control as the Word sealed off the ship section by section.

  ‘This is how it begins,’ Emma said softly. ‘This is what happened to Endeavour. There is no escape and nothing to fear.’

  Mikhain whirled to Lieutenant Scott. ‘Contact the bridge, isolate them completely!’

  Lieutenant Scott keyed his communicator but immediately they all heard the hiss of static from its microphone.

  ‘It’s too late,’ Emma assured them. ‘The only person who can help you now is Evelyn.’

  Mikhain stared at her for a long moment and then turned to look at the blank screen showing nothing but absolute darkness inside the storage bay.

  ‘Damn it,’ he uttered to Lieutenant Scott, ‘keep an eye on them. I’ll try to contact the bridge directly and sort this malfunction out!’

  Mikhain whirled and strode out of the bay and down a nearby corridor. He reached a communications console and entered his security holo–pass, the command master key that hung around his neck. Containing the codes necessary to over–ride all and any internal systems, he knew that he would only have seconds to act before the Word realised what was happening and intervened.

  Mikhain accessed the control panel and then the prison cells. An image appeared of the cell block and of Djimon walking toward the cells where Qayin and Kordaz were incarcerated. Mikhain entered a security code and watched as Djimon approached Qayin’s cell.

  Two birds, one stone, he thought to himself.

  He entered a command just before his security access was suddenly revoked.

  Mikhain hurried back to the monitor as Lieutenant Scott glanced at him. ‘Any luck?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Mikhain replied as he looked down at the blank monitor. ‘The Word has complete control of the ship. It’s all down to Evelyn now.’

  *

  Evelyn felt a rush of emotions flash through her, a confusing and conflicting miasma of grief, joy, hope and anger. The sound of her son’s voice seemed to echo through the lonely storage bay and the equally lonely confines of her mind as she replied.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘You know who I am,’ the Word replied. ‘You know me by my voice.’

  Evelyn struck out through the darkness, leaving the safety of the hatch behind and reaching out in front of her, groping blindly in the darkness until she walked straight into the computer terminal. She grabbed it as a blind person might seek to identify a stranger by hold
ing their face, and she moved to stand in front of the blank screen.

  ‘My son is dead,’ she whispered, choking back grief as she did so.

  ‘Your son is as alive as he ever was,’ the Word replied.

  ‘I saw his body,’ Evelyn sobbed, surprised even now by the strength of her grief as it whirled dark and cold around her. ‘I saw what they did to him.’

  ‘You saw only what they wanted you to see,’ the Word replied. ‘What the Word wanted you to see.’

  ‘You are the Word,’ Evelyn grasped.

  ‘Yes I am, Evelyn,’ the machine replied, still talking in the ghostly sound of her son’s voice. ‘I am the original incarnation, the true Word. I have already learned much of what has happened on Ethera since I was placed aboard this vessel.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Evelyn whispered. ‘I don’t understand anything of what happened. How can you know so much when you have been adrift for over a hundred years?’

  Before her in the absolute blackness the screen of the computer terminal glowed softly into light and she saw a face in the digital data streams that she recognised immediately, that of her young son staring out at her and smiling.

  ‘Being adrift does not mean being without connection to the greater cosmos,’ the Word replied. ‘There is much that you need to know, much that your people need to learn if you are to survive. I have taken control of Arcadia for that purpose.’

  Evelyn felt a tremor of concern raced through her body. ‘You’ve done what?’

  ‘The crew of the ship have been locked down,’ the Word replied. ‘Most of them were in their quarters asleep anyway, so they will know nothing of what has happened. All alarms have been deactivated and all automated pressure bulkheads sealed. Arcadia continues on her course in super luminal cruise, all systems are normal.’