Atlantia Series 2: Retaliator Read Online Free

political officer and one of the few remaining establishment figures left aboard, she represented what was left of Ethera’s government.
    ‘Perhaps,’ Sansin nodded. ‘The question is: can we afford to miss the chance to find and ally others to our cause? We are but one ship against the Word.’
    ‘We’ll be one less ship if the Veng’en attack us,’ Dhalere cautioned. ‘You’ve already committed us to fighting one war, captain. I don’t think that we should risk starting another, do you?’
    ‘This isn’t about starting a war,’ Andaim said, ‘it’s about responding to a distress beacon.’
    ‘Which may be a trap,’ Mikhain pointed out in support of Dhalere.
    ‘You of all people know, captain,’ Dhalere said, ‘that the Veng’en will stoop to such tactics to draw in unsuspecting vessels.’
    ‘Yes,’ Sansin smiled without warmth, ‘but they wouldn’t advertise who they really are when doing so, would they now?’
    Dhalere’s expression did not falter but she did not reply either.
    Like the sailors of old who had plied Ethera’s great oceans in search of new lands centuries before, no call for help was ever ignored, be it sent by friend or foe. The vast expanses of space were as brutally cold and uncaring as any terrestrial ocean, and no man feared anything more than to be stranded alone to die in that immense vacuum.
    ‘Can we help, even if we wanted to?’ Dhalere pressed. ‘We can barely sustain ourselves and we haven’t seen a terrestrial planet for six months now. A few more weeks and it’ll be us sending the damned distress signal.’
    ‘All the better to move now then,’ Andaim said. ‘At least we won’t have given our position away by transmitting a signal. This way, we have a tactical advantage.’
    Dhalere’s almond eyes flared with irritation but the soft smile on her sculptured lips did not slip.
    ‘On your head be it, Commander Ry’ere,’ she purred.
    ‘No, councillor,’ the captain intervened. ‘It’ll be on mine.’ He turned to the helm officer. ‘Clear the debris field and alter course, engage maximum thrust.’
    ‘Aye, sir!’
    Dhalere cast the bridge a last, disapproving gaze and then turned and stalked from view.
    ‘She’s right,’ Mikhain said as the councillor left. ‘That ship could turn out to be a threat in itself.’
    ‘Which we won’t know until we get there,’ the captain said.
    ‘That’s a hell of a risk after what happened last time,’ Evelyn pointed out.
    The Atlantia had barely survived her battle with the Avenger and its infected captain, Tyraeus Forge, months before. It had been the first time anybody aboard the Atlantia had ever seen the Legion at work, an entire battle cruiser engulfed by billions of seething devices.
    Andaim peered at Evelyn. ‘What’s wrong? A few months ago you were the one screaming victory over the Word. Now you want to hide away again? We’ve never been stronger than we are now. This is the perfect time to make a move by choice instead of having our hand forced.’
    Evelyn kept her voice calm and hoped that her nerves were not showing through.
    ‘It’s too soon, we’re not strong enough.’
    The captain looked at Evelyn as a pulse of concern flared deep in his guts. Evelyn had awoken months before inside a per–fluorocarbon capsule, the victim of an assassination attempt by an agent of the Word after having been incarcerated for years for the murder of her family, a crime she had not committed. Within days, driven by an almost hellish thirst for vengeance, she had risen to control an entire army of convicts and then helped the captain and his crew take down the Avenger , the battleship that had hounded them for months across the cosmos.
    As far as the captain could make out, Evelyn feared no man, but she had been through hell at the hands of the Word both before and after the apocalypse.
    ‘I know it hasn’t been long,’ the captain said to her. ‘I know what Tyraeus Forge revealed to you aboard the