‘Return fire!’
Bra’hiv, C’rairn, Qayin and Evelyn all opened fire at once, multiple plasma rounds zipping across the darkened hold and smashing across the starboard hull wall in a blaze of fiery light. Starbursts of plasma sprayed down into the gloom and she heard amid the din of the rifle fire a deep cry of pain.
Evelyn looked across at Bra’hiv and signalled where the enemy was. Bra’hiv nodded and with C’rairn he headed aft, hoping to catch their quarry in a cross–fire. Evelyn fired her pistol again, two rounds in the vicinity of where she had heard the cry.
‘It’s hunkered down,’ Qayin snarled, ‘nowhere to run.’
Evelyn moved forward and approached the hull wall as to her far left she saw Bra’hiv and C’rairn advancing one at a time, covering each other as they closed in.
A blast of plasma rounds raced up at Evelyn and she whirled aside into cover as the shots howled by and sailed off to hit high on the port wall of the hull. The spray of plasma was already becoming a fire hazard and she could smell smouldering plastics, a haze of blue smoke hovering in the air.
Bra’hiv settled into position, his rifle’s barrel resting across a steel drum as C’rairn covered him from behind. Qayin positioned himself alongside Evelyn as the general’s voice called out.
‘We have you surrounded!’ he boomed. ‘There’s no use in fighting. Come out with your hands in the air and we’ll take you into custody. You will not be harmed, is that understood?’
A deep growl reverberated across the hold and Evelyn realised that they were not being understood. The growl was neither animal nor human, and the sound of it sent a pulse of concern twisting through her belly. They were facing something that would fight to the death like a wounded animal, yet had the intelligence of a human being.
‘It’s gotta be a Veng’en,’ she yelled.
Lieutenant C’rairn glanced across at her. ‘Great. Now what do we do?’
Evelyn knew that the Veng’en were sufficiently war–like that their quarry would be likely to shoot itself rather than admit defeat or surrender to humans. She watched for a moment and then made a decision.
‘Qayin,’ she whispered, ‘give me your medi–pack.’
The big man looked at her and frowned. ‘You injured?’
‘No, but he is,’ she gestured toward the far wall of the hull. ‘Maybe we can get him to trust us.’
‘A Veng’en,’ Qayin said. ‘You kidding me?’
‘You got any better ideas?’
Qayin shrugged as he unclipped his medi–pack from his webbing and handed it to her. Evelyn took the compact package and holstered her pistol as she crouched in cover and hurled the pack across the hold. The package hit the wall where she figured that the injured Veng’en was hiding and dropped with a distant thud to the deck.
‘You really think that it’s going to come out for a chat?’ Qayin asked.
Evelyn shrugged and looked across at Bra’hiv. The general pointed forward and as one they broke cover and began moving silently toward the fallen Veng’en. Evelyn kept her pistol pointed out in front of her, her finger on the trigger and ready for the slightest evidence of a threat from their quarry.
She reached the edge of the hull wall and peered around a stack of crates to a narrow passage between the crates and the hull wall.
A figure was slumped against the crates, its legs sprawled before it and one hand resting on the medi–pack that Evelyn had hurled, but the pack had not been opened. In the glow from her flashlight she could see its chest heaving, hear its breath rasping in its throat. Its mouth hung limp, a long tongue drooping from its jaws. Humanoid, reptilian in appearance and wrapped in what looked like several magnetic gravity–suits, the Veng’en’s eyes reflected the flashlights in bright discs that glowed in the darkness.
Beside it, on the deck, lay a plasma rifle.
Evelyn lowered her pistol as she saw that the Veng’en was neither armed nor apparently aggressive, but its thigh was scorched where a spray of hot plasma shrapnel had landed on it. She edged closer, raised one hand palm–forward to the Veng’en as she eased toward it. The glowing eyes flicked up to look at her and despite their soul–less nature she could sense the hatred burning inside them.
Evelyn looked at the Veng’en and realised what had happened.
‘We didn’t hit it hard,’ she said finally. ‘It’s exhausted.’
The Veng’en reached out for the plasma rifle and Evelyn froze as it aimed the weapon at her. She could see its breath puffing in dense clouds from its massive chest and lungs, eyes glowing in the flashlight beams.
‘Stand down, ensign,’ Bra’hiv growled from nearby.
The Veng’en turned its head and glared at the general and Evelyn leaped forward. The Veng’en turned back, the rifle whipping back toward her. Evelyn stuck out one boot and slammed it down on the rifle, pinning it to the deck as she trapped the Veng’en, her pistol aimed between its eyes.
The creature radiated hatred up at her, and she waited long enough for it to be sure that there was no escape for it before she lowered the pistol and again raised her palm toward it. Slowly, she holstered her pistol once more, hoping that a Veng’en might recognise such a universal gesture of non–aggression.
She slowly lifted her boot off the rifle.
‘You can try to kill me if you want,’ Evelyn said, ‘but it won’t help you.’
The Veng’en glared up at her and then it spoke, its voice a series of shot, sharp barks deep enough that Evelyn felt them reverberate through her chest.
‘It doesn’t understand us,’ Qayin said. ‘No resonance translator.’
‘But it is talking,’ Evelyn said.
She reached down and pulled the plasma rifle gently from the Veng’en’s grasp, the reptilian soldier’s arm slumping onto the deck as she retrieved the weapon.
Bra’hiv, C’rairn and Qayin lowered their weapons as the general spoke into his microphone.
‘We’ve got a survivor,’ he signalled the Atlantia. ‘We need a medi–vac team here right now.’
***
The Sylph’s sick–bay was far smaller than the Atlantia’s but reasonably well equipped. Two civilian doctors had been sent across from the Atlantia as an emergency precaution, and Evelyn followed the medical team as they pushed the gurney through the ship and into the sick–bay, transfixed by the Veng’en soldier strapped down onto it.
At nearly seven feet tall the Veng’en cut an impressive figure. Evelyn had never seen one close up before, having only heard about them from bar room tales about the great battle actions fought by the Colonial Navy against Veng’en forces during the wars.
The Veng’en were recognisably humanoid in form, but their muscular legs were permanently crouched, like giant springs coiled to propel them into action at a moment’s notice. As comfortable in quadripedal motion as bipedal, they could move with frightening speed. Their chests were powerful and bulky to contain the massive lungs needed to absorb oxygen from the atmospheric moisture of Wraiythe, the densely rain–forested planet upon which they had evolved. A flat, almost featureless head that seemed pulled into a permanent rictus–like grin exposed sharp fangs. No lips or nose, just flat, wide oval nostrils and almost feline eyes, large for enhanced visibility at night. Leathery skin, light brown in colour and laced with black lines and swirls, camouflage that both mimicked the dappled shadows of the forest canopy and rippled with changes in colour depending on the Veng’en’s mood and surroundings. Teeth, angular and sharp, densely packed in double rows inside the wide jaw: the first row to puncture meat, the second to shear it.
A predator, born to hunt and to kill.
‘What’s happened to it?’ Evelyn asked the nearest doctor.
‘We’re not sure,’ came the reply, ‘but it looks like your initial assessment was correct: exhaustion. This ship isn’t exactly what you’d call the perfect environment for a Veng’en.’
‘I wouldn’t like to meet one that’s in good shape,’ Qayin rumbled from behind them.
‘Can we take it to the Atlantia?’
‘No,’ the doctor snapped. ‘We can’t risk cross–contamination. If this thing is infected it could bring the Word with it.’
The doctors manoeuvered the Veng’en into position and began administering medical attention.
The protracted wars fought against the Veng’en had given Colonial doctors the chance to study their enemy through the recovery of dead bodies and the treatment of injured prisoners of war. Thus the team knew well how to stabilise their ferocious charge, and within minutes lines were pumping a steady supply of nutrients and rehydrants into the Veng’en’s body.
‘They’re remarkably resilient,’ the doctor said. ‘It should recover quite well within…’
The Veng’en let out a sharp, angry bark that was loud enough to make Evelyn’s ears hurt. The doctor stumbled backward out of the way as the Veng’en fought to break free from its restraints.
Evelyn jumped forward and rested one hand against its muscular chest. The leathery skin felt oddly cold to the touch. The Veng’en glared at her, its stained teeth bared and its unnerving eyes wide. Evelyn conquered her revulsion and kept her hand on its chest, neither pushing it down nor herself moving away.
For a few moments the creature glared at her and then it slumped back onto the gurney, its gaze locked onto hers.
‘Are the vocal resonators here yet?’ she asked.
‘On their way,’ Bra’hiv confirmed from the far side of the bay, his features twisted with disdain for their captive. ‘The first civilian transport is bringing them across.’
The general had fought in close–combat with the Veng’en on at least two occasions in his career, long before the uneasy truce between the two species. He viewed them with a distrust that was clear to see. Evelyn kept her hand in place and her gaze upon the Veng’en as she waited.
‘The link to the bridge is active,’ C’rairn reported. ‘The captain can see us.’
Evelyn saw a monitor flicker into life in one wall, the captain’s face appearing to watch them.
‘Is it alive?’
he asked.
‘And kicking,’ Andaim replied. ‘It was hiding out down in the hold.’
‘The shuttle is on its way,’
the captain replied,
‘and Councillor Dhalere insisted upon being aboard. They’ll be landing any moment now.’
Bra’hiv keyed his communicator.
‘Djimon, despatch the civilians toward the hold to begin transferring the supplies there to the shuttles, and reactivate the Sylph’s escape capsules just in case. We may have to leave in a hurry, understood?’
‘Roger that.’
A few minutes later and several civilians appeared outside the sick bay doors. Evelyn saw Dhalere among them, her eyes fixated upon the prisoner.
‘What is this,
thing
?’ she uttered in horror.
‘Prisoner of war,’ Bra’hiv replied as he snatched the vocal resonators from her hand, two slim bands with a speaker attached to them.
‘It should be killed,’ Dhalere gasped, recoiling from the sight of a Veng’en so close.
Bra’hiv ignored Dhalere and handed the bands to Evelyn. She slipped one of the bands around her neck. The other she slid around the Veng’en’s much thicker neck, wary of the sharp double rows of teeth bared in her direction. But the Veng’en did not attack her, the big yellow eyes watching her every move without blinking.
Evelyn activated the band on the Veng’en’s neck and then her own.
‘Can you hear me?’ she asked.
Evelyn heard her own voice come out along with a bizarre croaking, a deep rumble that sounded as though she were choking on something. The resonator about her neck detected her speech patterns and translated them into Veng’en, emitting them not from her vocal chords but from a speaker embedded within the band itself.
The Veng’en glared at her for a moment and then it replied.
‘All of you will die,’ it snarled.
‘You’re welcome,’ Qayin muttered as he gestured to the medical equipment around the prisoner.
Evelyn ignored Qayin as she spoke slowly to the Veng’en.
‘We’re not here to harm you,’ she said. ‘We detected a distress signal coming from this ship and we homed in on it.’
The Veng’en’s leathery face assumed a scowl. ‘It was for my own kind. Not
yours
.’
The Veng’en took the last word, twisted it and shoved it in Evelyn’s face with as much force as it could muster.
‘None the less, we responded,’ Evelyn replied, not letting the Veng’en’s natural rage provoke her. ‘What happened here? How did you come to be aboard a Colonial merchant vessel?’
The Veng’en lay in silence and did not look at her. Evelyn sighed.
‘This isn’t helping,’ she said. ‘We came here to help you and you opened fire on us. Why send a distress signal if you did not want help?’
The Veng’en turned its face to her once more. ‘What makes you think I wanted
your
help?’
‘The fact that you were half–dead,’ Evelyn replied, ‘freezing to death down there in the hold.’
‘That,’ the Veng’en replied, ‘was because the hold was the safest place to hide.’
Evelyn felt a fresh chill ripple down her spine. ‘Hide from what?’
The Veng’en let out a long, almost sad sigh.
‘You humans, you think always that you are the smartest race, the cleverest of life forms,’ it rasped. ‘You brought this upon us, upon us all.’
‘Brought what upon us all?’ Evelyn pressed.
‘You call it the Word.’
The captain walked closer to the monitor screen. ‘Ask it what it knows of the Word.’
Evelyn relayed the question and the Veng’en coughed.
‘Everything that you do,’ it growled. ‘The Word breached our system perimeter a few months after your worlds fell. Wraiythe still stands, but our people have fought and lost many times already. They will likely perish before the next orbit is complete.’
A silence filled the sick bay as everybody heard it confirmed that the human race was no longer the sole victim of the Word’s rampage across the cosmos. Other species were facing the same threat of extinction as the Word spread its tentacles and infected every biological form it encountered.
‘We’re here to stop it,’ Evelyn said.
The Veng’en turned its head and looked at her as a burst of noise erupted from its throat, a barking din, and for a moment Evelyn though that the vocal resonator had malfunctioned. Then she realised that the Veng’en was laughing.