Qayin did not move, his hand still clamped around Tyrone’s throat.
‘I don’t need to hide from anybody,’ Qayin shot back, his bicep slick with sweat as it bulged.
Tyrone gurgled as he tried ineffectually to dislodge Qayin’s iron grip.
‘Let him go,’ Sergeant Djimon ordered as he paced toward Qayin, ‘or I’ll have you serving slop from the brig for a month.’
Qayin glared at the sergeant, and then a bright white smile slid across his face and he opened his hand. Tyrone dropped like a sack of rocks onto the deck, his breath wheezing in his throat as he coughed and gasped for air.
‘You need the manpower,’ Qayin murmured back at Djimon. ‘You won’t put me anywhere.’
Djimon stopped just short of the giant Marine, his angular features devoid of humour or doubt.
‘I’ll put you on your ass,’ he replied, ‘Right here and now.’
Qayin did not move. Djimon remained silent and still. Qayin smiled again. ‘See?’
Djimon lunged forward and swung his fist as Qayin’s jaw. The big convict stepped back and to one side, twisted away from the blow as he sought to push the sergeant past him and counter strike.
Djimon ducked down and reversed his blow. His elbow slammed up into Qayin’s plexus and blasted the air from the big man’s lungs. The sergeant threw his arm up around Qayin’s giant head and with a heave of effort he hurled him over his shoulder.
The gathered Marines burst into shouts of encouragement as they scattered backwards from the fighting men, wagers and cries of delight filling the stale air.
Qayin slammed down onto the deck as Djimon spun on his heel and drove the edge of his boot toward Qayin’s thick neck, aiming to crush his thorax with one brutal blow. Qayin drove his forearm across the back of Djimon’s leg as he rolled aside, deflecting the boot just enough to avoid his throat as he ploughed his free fist up into the sergeant’s groin.
Djimon growled in pain as he doubled over, spittle flying from his lips as Qayin grabbed the sergeant’s collar and drove his boot up into the man’s stomach as he pulled hard. Djimon lost balance as Qayin hurled the sergeant over his head.
Djimon slammed onto his back on the deck as Qayin rolled and came up on his feet with a wickedly serrated blade in one hand. The weapon flickered in the low light as Qayin dropped onto his knees and placed the cold metal across the pulsing thread of an artery in Djimon’s thick neck.
‘See those stripes?’ Qayin snapped, breathing heavily and nodding toward Djimon’s rank insignia on his shoulder, ‘they don’t mean nothin’ here. Mark of Qayin’s making a comeback and there ain’t nothing you’re gonna be doin’ about it.’
Djimon glared up at Qayin. ‘You can go f…
‘Qayin!’
Every head turned to see General Ahmid Bra’hiv stood in the barracks doorway, his shaven head touched with steel grey stubble and his eyes icy cold as he glared at the Marines. As though a live current had been discharged directly into them the entire company leaped into motion and scrambled to stand at the head of their bunks, backs straight, arms by their sides and chins lifted, as still as statues.
Only Qayin remained, Djimon pinned beneath him with the blade pressed against his throat.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ Bra’hiv growled at Qayin.
‘Unarmed combat training,’ Qayin snapped back. ‘Sergeant Djimon has much to learn, general.’
Qayin got up, Djimon scrambling to his feet alongside the former convict as Bra’hiv stalked toward them.
‘Unarmed combat training,’ Bra’hiv echoed, ‘with a knife in your hand?’
‘I decided it was time to move the training to the next level,’ Qayin smiled brightly. ‘Never expect your enemy to be a nice guy.’
Bra’hiv surveyed the injured look on Djimon’s features and Qayin’s customised blade, and nodded slowly. ‘How apt. Give me the knife.’
Qayin did not move. ‘It was a gift, general,’ he replied by way of an explanation.
‘You’ve got until the count of three,’ Bra’hiv said, ‘or I’ll take it from you.’
Qayin did not move. The Marines kept staring straight ahead, but their eyes swivelled to watch.
‘One.’
Qayin did not move.
Two.’
Bra’hiv’s fist darted out with a flicker of motion, so fast that it could barely be seen, and two fingers rammed into Qayin’s eyeballs. The big convict lurched backwards and ducked his head down and to one side as he emitted a cry of pain and swiped blindly out with the knife. Bra’hiv ducked outside the weapon’s arc and as the blade flashed by he stepped in and rammed an elbow deep into Qayin’s exposed kidney.
The convict gagged as he dropped onto one knee, and Bra’hiv caught the wrist that held the knife and twisted it over upon itself. The blade fell into Bra’hiv’s hand as he twirled it expertly over and held it in place beneath Qayin’s throat.
‘There’s only one gang aboard this ship, Qayin,’ Bra’hiv snarled, ‘and it’s mine.’
The general lifted a boot against Qayin’s side and with a hefty shove sent him sprawling onto the deck as he turned and glanced at Djimon, whose angular features were creased with a grin.
‘What the hell are you smiling at?’ Bra’hiv snapped. ‘Ten years in the Marines and you got yourself decked by an untrained drug dealer?’
Djimon’s smirk evaporated as Bra’hiv stepped back, the blade still in his hand as he shouted at the two men.
‘Get in line, both of you, now!’
Djimon stepped smartly toward his bunk as Qayin got to his feet, barely contained rage radiating from his scowling face as he slowly strode to his bunk and stood to what passed for attention in his world. Bra’hiv looked them over for a moment before speaking.
‘Bravo Company, from this moment onward any indiscretion by Lance–Corporal Qayin will reflect upon every man in the unit. If he is insurbordinate, every man shall pay. If he is disobedient, every man shall pay. If he so much as farts without my say so, every man shall pay. Is that clear?!’
Forty Marines replied in instant chorus.
‘Yessir!’
‘We have new orders! Your training is to be curtailed. Within a few hours, we will come alongside a vessel of unknown origin that has been detected emitting a distress signal. Once the fighters have formed a defensive shield and the captain has made certain that the Atlantia is under no immediate threat, it will be Bravo Company’s job to board the vessel and find out what’s on board. Alpha Company will support.’
‘With all due respect, sir,’ Djimon snapped, ‘I think that’s a mistake. Bravo Company are amateurs and untrustworthy.’
Bra’hiv smiled without warmth. ‘And one of ‘em put you on your ass, sergeant, so what does that say about your professionalism and skill?’
There was a moment of silence, before Qayin’s voice broke through.
‘What species was emitting the distress signal?’
Despite his defeat at Bra’hiv’s hands the former convict remained astute enough to think straight, and it remained clear to the general that no matter what happened Qayin was still the unspoken leader of his gang by virtue of his intelligence alone.
‘Veng’en,’ Bra’hiv replied.
A muffled exhalation of curses rippled through the gathered Marines.
‘Why would we go to help someone like the Veng’en?’ Tyrone asked. ‘Soon as we show up they’ll shoot us down. Dudes don’t like us much.’
‘Dudes don’t got much choice,’ Djimon replied, mocking Tyrone’s voice.
‘Precisely,’ Bra’hiv agreed. ‘We don’t know what has become of them, but no distress call from deep space can be left unanswered, just as we would hope that ours would likewise be responded to. Every man must be ready to go at a moment’s notice, full battle gear, combat suits weighted at fifty per cent gravity for high mobility. Weapons and ammunition will be issued prior to boarding the shuttles. You’ll all rendevouz at the armoury in oh–two hundred hours. Any questions?’
‘How come you’re not sending Alpha Company in the lead?’ Qayin challenged the general. ‘I thought that the captain would want his
best
men for this job?’
The Marines chuckled. Former convicts all, Bravo Company had developed a strong antipathy for and rivalry with the Colonial Marines of Alpha Company.
‘You
are
the best men for this job,’ Bra’hiv replied, ‘because you’re expendable.’ A silence descended on Bravo Company. ‘I’m kidding: you’ve never boarded a ship before for real – it’s a good chance to put your training into practice. Oh–two hundred at the armoury. Any man that doesn’t show will spend a week in the brig. Dismissed!’
Bra’hiv turned and marched away, Djimon and his men following as Bravo Company’s Marines looked at each other.
‘Expendable?’ Tyrone growled. ‘You mean that they want us to die?’
‘They don’t want us to die,’ Qayin muttered. ‘They want to use us as bait, to see what’s inside before sending in their better trained men.’
‘That sucks.’
‘Better than being cooped up in the brig,’ Qayin corrected. ‘Best we can do is show that we’re not second best and do it better than Alpha Company would. Agreed?’
***
Evelyn jogged down a corridor toward the flight deck, her path illuminated by pools of blood red light. Her flight suit, encased in a paraphernalia of oxygen hoses and straps, felt tight and reassuring against her skin as she followed a line of other pilots out into the Atlantia’s for’ard launch bay.
‘You sure you’re ready for this?’
Andaim’s whispered question was loud enough for only Evelyn to hear.
‘Meyanna says I’m okay to fly now, right?’
‘On my request,’ Andaim replied. ‘She wanted you grounded for twenty four hours, but this is more important.’
‘If you’re happy, I’m happy,’ Evelyn intoned, glad to be back in her flight suit again as they crossed the busy flight deck. Despite the mental and physical strain of flight training, Evelyn was desperate to succeed and earn her coveted wings, to become a fully fledged member of the Reapers.
Crowds of technicians hurried back and forth across the landing bay, clearing the flight deck, and the sound of ion engines running up filled the air with the whine and screech of heavy metal under tension.
Arrayed before them were twelve Raython fighters, elegant, dangerous looking single–seat interceptors. Some, those bearing the markings of the
Reapers
Squadron, were native to the Atlantia’s complement. Those of the
Renegades
had been pilfered from the Avenger some months before. With wings curved at the rear but hooked forward at the tips, where their plasma cannons resided, and their fuselages slender and pointed, they looked like gigantic steel birds of prey.
‘Scorcher Flight will take point,’ Andaim said as the Reaper pilots gathered around him for their final briefing, using the Reaper’s call sign. ‘Razor Flight of the Renegades will form the outer circle in case anybody comes calling.’
‘Do we have any idea what kind of vessel it is yet?’ Evelyn asked.
‘We won’t know until the Atlantia breaks out of super–luminal,’ Andaim replied. ‘Let’s assume the worst – that it’s a Veng’en cruiser looking to draw in prey, and hope for the best – that’s it’s a crippled merchant ship desperate for help.’
A distant alarm claxon echoed across the vast bay and Andaim checked his HandStat, a luminous military watch and organiser implanted beneath the skin of his left hand, before shouting out above the whining engines.
‘Let’s go!’
Evelyn whirled and ran to her Raython, then felt a tingle of melancholy as she read the name beneath the cockpit.
LT. M. D. G’VELLE
Until they earned their wings as fully battle–ready pilots, the names on the cockpits of the Raythons bore their original pilot’s monickers, men and women long lost to history and the wrath of the Word and its Legion.
Evelyn climbed aboard and settled into the cockpit, a dazzling array of instruments coming on–line before her as technicians swarmed across the fighter and unplugged deck–power and locking clamps. Evelyn strapped in, fired up the internal power unit and closed the canopy. Andaim’s voice crackled over the intercom.
‘Reaper flight, call in on launch readiness.’
She heard the voices of her fellow pilots echoing across the airwaves one after the other as their Raythons came on–line and they began starting their engines.
‘Reaper Four, launch ready.’
‘Reaper Six, launch ready.’
‘Reaper Nine, launch ready.’
Evelyn flipped switches in a sequence long since committed to memory, and as her Raython’s ion engines engaged she felt the entire craft hum and vibrate as though alive around her. She keyed her radio.
‘Reaper Two, launch ready.’
The Raython’s taxied out one after the other, retracting their undercarriage and instead hovering over the magnetically opposed taxi–way as they positioned themselves for launch. Each hovered into place over a large panel in the deck that opened out onto a thin crevice that ran the length of the bay. Linking magnetically to the nose of the Raythons, beneath the deck an immensely powerful magnetic harness attached to an electro–magnetic ram would launch the fighters one after the other, accelerating them to attack speed and flinging them out into space.
Evelyn slid into place alongside Andaim,
Reaper One
, and watched as ahead the technicians vanished from the launch deck. She knew that as soon as the Atlantia slowed to cruise velocity the bay doors would open and the catapults would fire.
She checked over her instruments one more time, ensured that everything was as it should be, and then looked across at Andaim. Commander Ry’ere looked back at her and gave her a thumbs–up.
She smiled and nodded back, and hoped that this time she would be up to the challenge.
*
‘Prepare for deceleration,’ Lael called out across the bridge.
Captain Idris Sansin gripped the edge of his seat as he stared at the viewing screen ahead. The old tensions returned, mostly in his right shoulder where he gripped the seat and tilted his head slightly, an old habit as though he were trying to avoid being slapped.
He had gone into battle three times in his career in this manner, the abrupt and dangerous burst out of super–luminal and into immediate combat. Things happened fast in space, no matter how carefully things had been planned: the old admiralty rule said that
if you had time to blink, then there was sufficient time for things to go wrong.