The Evergreen Files: Banshee; Book One
Chapter Sixteen

“It just doesn’t feel right. Sitting here, when they’re fighting.” complained Solomon to anyone who’d listen on the Bridge. It was clear he was the only one present who felt that way. Bridge crew, had gotten used to the safety of the room, warm heaters in the ceiling and at their feet. The coffee machine gently humming away in the corner. They had no intention of going into a combat zone, sleep in a metal suit, eat cold food from a can whilst bullets whizz past your head at any given moment. They worked and lived in almost luxury.

As ninth and tenth companies breached the hull of the pirate ship, they came across hostile forces instantly. The battle to get into the ship was short and bloody for the defenders, soon the ninth and tenth company had spread through the veins of the ship, like a cleansing cure, killing all the bacteria that freely flowed around the ship as pirates. Solomon watched on his screen the kill cam of the ninth company captain. He could see the darkened slightly corroded halls, hardly able to tell the difference between the blood or the rust that covered the walls like a rough paint job. Her weapon raised and trained at the end of the hall as the camera panned from left to right, checking the smaller conduit ducks for hidden enemies, Solomon could feel his own adrenaline pumping as his mind entered the combat setting, he licked his dry lips. “Door, right.” came the voice of Ellen, the captain of the Ninth. She shouldered against the wall, as two others moved to the opposite side of the door, mirroring her action, they shared a quick nod, and then kicked the door in. Rushing in, weapons raised, shouting at the top of their lungs.”Down! Down! Down!” they saw a wild haired man spin and run out of the far door, his white long coat billowing behind him as his steps echoed down into the darkness. “You two, after him!” ordered Ellen and she secured the room with her remaining four soldiers. The room seemed to be a savage form of operating theatre. Many large bright lamps stood over a long metal table that held a body, The body was pale blue and had sharp needle like teeth, its skin stretched thin over its almost exposed bones. “Nine-One to Command, are you receiving this?” came Ellen’s voice over the radio, “Loud and clear Nine-One” replied Solomon “That’s a Banshee on the table, make sure it’s dead.” he added quickly. Ellen responded by putting two bullets into the blue skull. Giving the order to make sure the room held no other enemies, they moved to the door that the white coated man fled through, the darkness engulfed them suddenly, almost like a thick fog. Solomon shuddered as the screen’s void bled coldness onto his bridge. It took a second for Ellen and her squad to flick their body torches active as well as their rifle lights. Training the light over the rusted walls, the light beam revealing only too little of it, spending extra time checking the small maintenance vents to hear a voice just inside the blackness of the corridor, bringing her flash light up, revealing the surgeon who had so recently fled. “Hold it, right there!” he spat, Solomon swore at the image he saw. The two soldiers knelt on the floor, facing Ellen with their hands on the heads. The man stood behind them, holding a pistol to each of their heads. “I know the deal. You finally figured it out! But I’m not going back! Too many fingers in pies!” he dribbled loudly. The darkness and his wild hair shrouded his identity, but Solomon recognised the voice, even through the slight static of the receiver. “Fredericks.” he uttered with disgust. “What are you talking about?” quizzed Ellen, asking both Fredericks and Solomon. “Come any closer and I’ll blow their heads off! In fact, yes! Come closer, I shoot, less fingers in pies!” he spat with desperation. Solomon watched him for a second and smiled before giving Ellen her orders. “Take him down, but I want him alive.”

Fredericks spat at the wall, letting some spit dribble down his chin, he chuckled. “Yessss... that’s it. You don’t ha-” a single gunshot echoed through the corridor, smoke spilled from the end of Ellen’s gun. Fredericks was thrown backwards clutching his shoulder, that now spurted blood. Within the instant of the mad man going down, the two kneeling soldiers sprung to action and restrained him, kicking the two weapons aside, the man cried and squirmed. Solomon watched from the bridge as Ellen’s medic stemmed the blood flow and made him ready to bring back to The Evergreen.

The two ships lay side by side, joined by two walk ways, almost like umbilical cords, feeding a steady flow of troops in and out of the two ships as needed. The taking of the pirate forced the attention of the bridge crew to watch the monitors, looking for any incoming contacts or keeping their eyes on the combat screens. Nobody noticed the planet below slowly growing in size as the two vessels had been caught in its gravity well and Merriden IV pulled ever so slightly. The Evergreen’s engines did not have the power to maintain both ships connected in orbit.

Theo scrunched up his face to receive the bullet. He was exhausted now, his leg, slick with blood twitched as the nerves inside his upper leg died and misfired to one and other. The Pirate smiled maliciously as he squeezed the trigger but was met with a click as his gun was empty. Shrugging, he smiled once more at the cowering boy in the puddle of blood. Slapping a new long clip of ammunition into his waiting pistol. “Uh-gah!” cried a voice from outside the blown doorway, the executioner lowered his weapon with a tensed brow. The voice came again, “Boss man is coming in hot! Looks like the idiot’s done it again!” Uh-gah took his eyes off Theo for a second as he glanced back through the door to see the hidden man, “Done what again, exactly? He’s done an awful lot, boy! Be more specific!” he spat before turning his gaze back to Theo who now was trying to move his leg to place some torn cloth around it as a make-shift tourniquet. “Rammed another ship.” came an almost resigned but annoyed voice of somebody knowingly delivering bad news into a punching fist. Uh-gah shouted his annoyance and barked his orders, and the room had cleared of all but three. Theo, Uh-gah and the hidden man who had revealed himself to stand with Uh-gah, as his personal communicator strapped roughly to his back. “The boys upstairs want us all ready to receive him.” muttered the other man, afraid of speaking out as he knew it usually ended with pain. Uh-gah nodded in acknowledgement and sent the radioman outside to join the others, “I’ll deal with this filth.” he smiled venomously.

Theo rolled his head, his vision was blurred and his body weak. It was easy for Uh-gah to bind his hands, throw the rope over something overhead and haul Theo’s limp bleeding body up. Now suspended, arms stretched above his head, Theo was truly helpless.

The Evergreen’s proximity alarm activated, forcing eyes upon the screens. Solomon gave the orders to disengage from the pirates and full thrust to avoid the collision with the planet, “But sir, we still have people over there!” cried out one of the tactical officers who monitored a squads shoulder cams. The atmosphere on the bridge had tension cutting through reality, everybody had been tense since the discovery of Doctor Fredericks. They had reports of five more missing people and Fredericks when they had found ‘his’ body.

Had they all defected to the pirates?

Had Fredericks killed them to cover his tracks?

He had always been such a kind man, always ready to help. He could not do enough for his patients. He was The Evergreen’s chief medical officer, and now, now he was a blubbering muttering mess, seemingly insane. The crew had no idea of the experiments he had performed for the Pirates. What he had unleashed upon the planet below. What was now loose aboard the Pirate ship.

The deck plating shuddered with the tension created by the gravitational pull of Merriden IV and the duo of ships began to slowly spiral. And Solomon’s problems didn’t end there.

“Sir! I’ve lost three from Ten-Seven, no contact reports, the visuals are still good, they’re stationary and on the floor. Sending medical and reinforcements to investigate to corridor fifteen-B Port side.” Barked out another tactical officer. “Contact, contact! Man down! Squad Ten-Ten, proceed to room marked Six-Nine-Two. Ten-Two is in need of assistance!” called another tactical officer. Solomon rubbed the back of his head as his stress levels excelled beyond their highest deal-able level. “Get Kyril in here!” he ordered. The klaxton began blearing and the red warning lights flashed throughout the ship as the shuddering became more and more prominent. The bottles inside Solomon’s chair clanked together, a spark flashed behind him somewhere with a crack and fizzle. “Get everybody back aboard, we need to disengage!” shouted Solomon over the warning sirens, but the tactical officers were already relaying the order before he gave it. They knew their job, they knew the situation. They had to disengage from the pirate ship, and to do that, they had to pull every soldier back. They couldn’t leave anyone, it would be a death sentence. The Pirate ship had no functional engines left.

They entered the atmosphere. It was too late.

The Evergreen fell, fire and smoke billowing out from it’s smouldering skin from its re-entry through the protective layer of the planet, The Pirate ship and The Evergreen still spiralling around one and other, eventually, the boarding passages that held the two together in an embrace snapped, breaking and splintering, sending both ships wild in opposite directions. The Evergreen shuddered and groaned as the heavily reinforced metal bent and became warped from the intense heat and pressure of the fall. All engines fired at full thrust to stabilise the ship first, and once it stopped spinning, all engines aimed at the ground fired as much as they could to slow the ships decent. Solomon watched the distance counter to the ground fall rapidly, shaking his head in disbelief, he stumbled from his chair, ran to the view screen and stared at the ground harshly, as if his very glare would strike fear into the planets surface and stop it colliding with the falling vessel. Kyril fell into the room, gasping for breath, “Everybody to the boats! Go, go!” Screamed the withered old Captain, “Eve, clear all routes to the emergency escape pods!” He grabbed Solomon by the scruff of the neck and forced him from the bridge. After the crew had cleared the room, Kyril sealed the door, with himself still inside. Solomon gasped for breath and heaved himself to his feet, only to realise what had just happened, erratically breathing again, Solomon ordered Eve to open the bridge door, “My apologies Lieutenant Commander, I have orders from the captain to keep the bridge sealed, at all costs. I do hope that you understand.” Solomon swore and beat his fists against the door, tears streaming down his face. “Kyril, you bastard! Don’t do it! Let me in!” he cried out, his voice shrill and broken. A small voice came through the door, only a whisper. “It’s okay, lad. It’s my choice. I never did like the idea of somebody or something else choosing my death. The cancer chose its time. So I chose one sooner. I’m going out on my terms. This is my final chance to make my truest choice.” most of the bridge crew had cleared the corridor and made their ways frantically to the escape pods, the deck plating rumbled and groaned. The smell of acrid burning and melted metal, electronics and rubber perfumed the air. A small number of bridge crew remained with Solomon, trying to pull him away, he cried out louder, trying to claw his way through the metal door to try and save the man he looked up to so much. “Now, go, Sol.” came Kyril’s voice through the metal. Solomon’s shattered mind, splintered by his broken heart gave in to the pulling. The shock took over the man’s muscles and they were limp. Dead weight. It took five crew to carry him through the falling ship to the pod.

Kyril braced at the helm station, pulling up on the controls with all of the strength that his failing body could call upon, he could see the speed slow and the distance to the surface lessen it’s aggressive fall, but it would only buy minutes for the escape pods. The ship would smash in to the surface.

The cloud blanket below made it seem almost peaceful if not for the roar of the engines and groan of the deck plating. “Eve, locate a reachable concentration of Pirate vessels.” demanded Kyril, still pulling against the helm, “Captain, there are a concentration of Unknown vessels in the vicinity of Forgod. No Gryph vessels can currently be located in that area. Six vessels have been counted.” explained Eve in a soothing voice, Kyril appreciated that, it took his mind off the very real death that sat in front of him. “Brilliant. Let’s go and give them the middle finger. Put a marker on the screen, please.” requested Kyril politely, and an orange blip appeared just to his left, he tried to angle the Evergreen best he could in that direction, almost breaking his arms in the proceeding turbulence. The blip eventually lined up to his instruments just as the Evergreen broke through the cloud bed. The safety of the cotton blanket of clouds soon fell away to reveal a harsh war-zone below. Fires could be seen and their plumes spread wide. Wreckages of ships and armour could be seen, even from this height, Kyril couldn’t have known it, but he had just passed over the remains of Red Sector Zero-One, The Gryph had quarantined the base, formed a perimeter with tanks and soldiers where they were still waiting for the metal walls to arrive to be installed when the pirates came and commenced strafing runs with high explosive shells to decimate the forces below.

The curve of the island was on Kyril’s left, he looked at the beach longingly, calling back to his days as a young officer on leave, spending long days soaking up the sun on the golden sand with his wife, he took a moment to remember her smile, which lifted his mood a little, soon he would see her again. The beach ran north to a steep cliff of harsh rocks where atop stood a large stone fortification, billowing smoke from most of the defence windows. From this vantage point, Kyril could see scorch marks and impact craters in the walls from an attack. This was the Gryph fortress Forgod, slightly north of the capital of Merriden IV, and now it had fallen. He could make out the six large ships hovering above the structure and surrounding city, smaller transports coming and going from each to inside the fortress or towards the war torn streets. “Eve, is there any form of combat taking place at Forgod City?” Kyrils voice was strained with effort, trying to keep the ship on its current course. Eve spent a moment to analyse the distant area for radio waves, heat signatures and life signs. “Negative Captain. No combat is currently taking place, but there is a lot of activity and movement. They appear to be trying to mass to intercept the distressed vessel we have broken away from.” Kyril nodded absently as he steadied the Evergreen best he could, but still she descended towards the unforgiving ground.

“Well, here we go. For shits and giggles.” sighed Kyril as he changed the course of his beloved Evergreen to its final approach of the collision.

“It’s all for shits and giggles, until someone giggles and shits, captain.” said Eve, “It’s been an honour living with you Kyril.”

Uh-gah ran through the blood spattered corridors of Forgod’s main building, many bodies of fallen Gryph soldiers littered the floor, pooling blood beneath them, he cursed his heavily built body for its weight, never managing to run for more than a minute without feeling like collapsing, but forever useful in his favourite sport – brawling. Shielding his eyes from the blinding sun as he emerged from the large wooden doors that now sat bent and splintered upon their ancient hinges, he took a moment to adjust himself, and catch his breath. His radioman straddled a small beaten stone wall built just outside the main entrance, waiting patiently, enjoying the sun. “So.” called Uh-gah, “Where is the useless bastard?” the radioman smiled a toothless gummy gap and replied, pointing to the black scorched ship falling from the sky, heading in their general direction. “I think the mad man’s trying to land it near us and show off his crashing skills, like he did on Vienu Three, remember he nearly set the whole forest on fire?” Uh-gah nodded and consciously brushed his hand across his right leg, where he had burnt some skin in that particular landing. The darkened ship came closer. Uh-gah stared at it harder. “I don’t think that’s Zhou... it’s the wrong shape...” he said slowly, scratching his chin. The radioman looked at him menacingly and eagerly, thinking of the loot they could plunder from this new arrival heading straight for them. Reckoning that they hadn’t heard that Forgod had fallen to the pirates and was heading for what they believed was safety. Little did they know, that Kyril had murder set within his eyes, and a fire burning upon his heart. Commanding Eve to play his favourite song, and thanked her, for her years of service he was truly grateful, before shaking the ground of Forgod with an eruption of fire and earth. The explosion that ensued could be seen for miles, The tremors threw even the crew off their feet whom had landed in their escape pods half a mile to the south of Red Sector Zero-One. Solomon lay motionless. His eyes locked in an eternal stare. Unfocused. Unreachable.

The Evergreen was gone. And so was Kyril. Hopefully, everybody else got off, but there was no way of telling. Then Somebody remembered in the escape party. “What about the Pirate ship?” they called. “We still had some people on there!” cried another. Solomon remained motionless. His body and mind numb. Lyra checked his pulse every so often to make sure he was still alive.

The fire at Forgod subsided, the black smoke billowed into the sky, thick as ink and tar, truly a mesmerising sight to behold, it seemed impossible that something so dark and devoid of life and colour could float effortlessly, covering the ground in shadow. Lyra stood limply, staring at the pillar of smoke through tear filled eyes. Her face had become streaked make-up tear lines, her muscles shivered, not from the cold, the air was mild and the alien sun beamed with delight, not taking notice of the war torn planet.

Over the horizon, The city of Forgod burned, skeletal spires still reached for the skies, their windows blown out, the glass shattered and blown over the city, the battle that once raged through the streets had quickly came to an end as the pirates bombarded the Gryph positions, destroying their armour and defences, Forgod fell quicker than most of the various other positions, because the enemy hit Forgod harder than everywhere else. The Banshee threat could be kept under control in the eastern region with the Gryph Sonic Canisters that they deploy to keep the Mares away from their populated areas. Somehow the Banshee’s learned to avoid the Sonic Canisters. The Banshee’s only pushed attacks three times in total throughout the war before they gave the canistered areas a wide berth. But what’s worse, is that they found a way out. They erupted like a violent water spout over the landscape. Tearing the local population limb from limb, creating more for their horde. Soon, their numbers were in the tens of thousands. The last fortified position that they hadn’t taken now burned from the crashed star cruiser. The mainland of Merriden IV was lost. A swarm of predatory infectious entities now engulfed the once calming grasslands and rolling hills. Even the Mares fell to the disease. They created something entirely new and terrifying. Something that could hunt faster and more ferociously accurate.

Zhou’s ship fell without grace, or a manageable vector, ever increasing speed on the decent of fate. The falling long vessel fell in to the ocean, just a few miles off the coast of the mainland. The ship, engulfed in the foam and liquid of the ocean sank to the cold dark depths of the planets crevices.