Atlantia Series 2: Retaliator Read Online Free Page A

Avenger, about what happened to your family, and that you nearly died. I’m not about to send you into another Legion–infested ship if you’re not ready.’
    Evelyn almost blushed, her green eyes blinking as shadows passed like ghosts behind them.
    ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘Just got a lot going on.’
    ‘Dismissed,’ he ordered her. ‘Get some rest, understood?’
    Evelyn saluted crisply and marched off the bridge.
    The captain gestured to Andaim, the commander following as the captain ascended a tight spiral staircase to a massive viewing platform that dominated the upper deck of the bridge. A circular dome of armoured and ray–sheilded glass afforded a spectacular, panoramic view of the universe.
    Outside the viewing platform the vast asteroid field was vanishing from view as the Atlantia began accelerating away, building up toward the tremendous velocities required to traverse the cosmos in any reasonable period of time. Within a short while she would be moving at close to half the speed of light, fast enough for her mass–drive to engage and propel the Atlantia to super–luminal velocity.
    ‘Evelyn’s not herself,’ Andaim said.
    ‘Who is, these days?’
    ‘She’s hiding something,’ Andaim pressed. ‘I don’t know what, but it’s bothering me.’
    The captain sighed and rested one hand firmly on Andaim’s shoulder.
    ‘She’s on our side, which is enough for me right now, and she’s under a lot of pressure with the flight training and everything she’s been through playing on her mind. Give her some space, Andaim, understood?’
    The commander nodded.
    ‘Can she be relied upon, do you think, if we encounter the Legion?’ the captain asked.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Andaim said. ‘But right now along with Bra’hiv, Qayin and a handful of Marines she’s the only human being aboard ship who has ever seen the Legion up close and personal. We, for better or worse, were too far from the apocalypse when it consumed Ethera.’
    ‘We need her,’ Idris replied. ‘Keep her alive Andaim, whatever happens, okay? There’s an awful lot hinging on what she does.’
    ‘What does that mean?’ Andaim asked.
    ‘People know her, know what she did aboard the Avenger to protect the civilians, to protect us,’ the captain said. ‘Evelyn has become a sort of talisman for them, even a legend. Make her your priority, commander. I know how you feel about her – I’m sure it won’t be a problem for you.’
    The captain saw the commander manage to suppress his surprised expression as he whirled away and marched off the bridge.
    ***

III
    Evelyn made her way down in the elevator banks toward the Atlantia’s hospital deck, located deep inside a heavily armoured section of the hull near the sanctuary. The sanctuary, or garden as the crew called it, was a central core of the ship that rotated to provide natural gravity and was filled with a lush valley that provided the crew with a place reminiscent of home, Ethera. Built for the prison crew who had once served aboard her as an antidote to the long tours far from home, it now served as the accomodation for the civilian survivors of the apocalypse.
    The Atlantia had once served as a ship of the line, a frigate of the Colonial Navy. She had, so Evelyn had heard, seen action against the Veng’en at Mal’Oora, a major pitched battle that had resulted in what could only be termed a draw: both forces had limped away, neither having achieved their objective of complete domination despite horrendous casualties. Many decades later the Atlantia had been recommission as a prison ship, her hull converted into the paradise of the sanctuary for serving officers to stay and many of her plasma magazines turned over to an enlarged hospital quarters, sick bay and administration offices to cater for the ship’s staff and her wayward charges.
    Until the Word’s grotesque mutation and unleashing of the Legion.
    Evelyn knew that the Word, a creation of quantum physics, was in