Atlantia Series 1: Survivor (14 page)

‘This way!’

Alpha stared in amazement as fourteen hostages, their faces drawn and weary and their gaits awkward, stumbled into the storage unit. Most of them shrank away from Qayin, hugging the walls as they spread out. Only the three marines maintained a manly bearing, their faces fixed in defiance. Qayin turned to Alpha, who was staring at him from behind her mask. Qayin’s grin faded as he shrugged.

‘What can I say?’ he uttered. ‘I’m a pragmatist.’

‘Bastard!’

Alpha turned and saw Cutler charging down the tunnel toward them at the head of twenty or so convicts, his rifle pulled into his hip as he opened fire. She hurled herself clear of the blasts as they exploded through the hatch, flying through the air to hit the far wall as the shots sprayed searing plasma bursts behind her. Qayin fired at the open hatchway but was forced to fall back as the convicts took up defensive positions in the corridor and opened fire en masse, showering the storage unit with blasts of energy.

‘Stay back!’ Qayin yelled at the hostages as they cowered behind beams and in tight corners.

The big convict fired several more rounds down the corridor and then grabbed the door. His immense bulk hauled the door shut as rifle blasts smashed into it and he slammed the locking mechanism in place.

He turned and looked at Alpha’s shattered escape capsule. ‘No more of those left?’

Alpha shook her head.

Qayin turned and saw Cutler standing on the other side of the door. There was no longer any rage on his features, no emotion of any kind that Alpha could detect. Instead, there was only a cruel delight.

‘Goodbye, Qayin,’ he grinned.

Alpha saw Cutler turn to one side and access the control panel that she herself had used to evacuate the chamber. He reached out and put his hand on the evacuation lever.

‘You pull that lever,’ Qayin said, ‘and you’ll rot in that prison forever.’

Cutler, the other convicts now amassed behind him, shook his head.

‘Like I said,’ Cutler smiled, ‘suicide is better than surrender.’

He yanked the lever.

***

The vents in the storage unit screeched as they opened and Alpha saw a halo of frosted air form in billowing clouds around the vents as the air was vacuumed out into oblivion. A freezing chill enveloped her in its embrace and she felt her eyes bulge as the air pressure plummeted and she was lifted off her feet toward the vents.

A vice–like grip clamped around her ankle as she saw Qayin grab her, his teeth gritted as with his other hand he gripped the security door handle, his muscles bulging and trembling under the load. Two of the hostages were yanked from where they crouched and slammed into the vents, screaming as the vacuum of space froze their skin and tried to drag them physically into the vents and out into deep space.

Alpha saw the air crystalizing before her very eyes, felt all sensation drain from her limbs in the bitter cold, and then the rush of air stopped as the vents suddenly slammed shut. The two hostages pinned against the vents dropped onto the deck. Qayin sagged as he collapsed to his knees and with a great blast of noise and flame one of the vents was blasted from the wall and spun across the unit.

Alpha, suspended in mid–air, saw heavily armoured marines tumble into the storage unit, their weapons trained before them, faces shielded and sealed against either vacuum or toxic fumes and their black uniforms weighted at fifty per cent gravity, making them nimble yet subject to the vessel’s magnetic quasi–gravity.

‘Hands behind your heads!’

Alpha twisted in mid–air as the marines aimed their weapons at Qayin, and with an effort she shielded the big convict with her body and shook her head vigorously.

Another blast and the security door was blown aside as an explosive charge detonated, and through the smoke Alpha saw Cutler and the convicts fleeing into the depths of the prison hull as the troops turned their full attention onto Qayin.

Alpha sprawled her naked body across Qayin’s, shielding him as best she could as the marines swarmed around them, weapons aimed down at her. She looked up into the eyes of the nearest man and saw something in his expression. The trooper raised his hand, holding his comrades back, and then he leaned closer to her.

‘Hello again,’ he said, his voice muffled by his breathing apparatus. ‘Officer C’rairn at your service, ma’am.’

He held out one black–gloved hand to her, and she stared at him for a long moment before she reached out for it. C’rairn gently pulled her to her feet. She looked over her shoulder at Qayin, and then at C’rairn.

‘Seriously?’ C’rairn asked, looking down at the huge convict.

Alpha nodded once. C’rairn shrugged and looked over his shoulder.

‘Arrest this man, but don’t harm him.’

Qayin was hauled to his feet and manacled as in the distance Cutler’s men were chased down by the marines in the nearby passage to the sound of shouts and energy pulses. Another officer, bearing the shoulder insignia of a lieutenant and with his dark eyes fixed upon Alpha’s, spoke into a microphone.

‘Bra’hiv, cease fire and pin the prisoners between yours and the Atlantia’s troops. We need to get them back in their cells, right now.’

The gunfire ceased immediately.

Officer C’rairn reached down to his utility belt, filled with pouches, and from one he pulled a thin silver rectangle of material that unfolded seemingly endlessly into a thermal blanket. He reached out and wrapped Alpha in the blanket, covering her body.

Through the slits in her mask, Alpha watched C’rairn work to ensure that she was properly covered. As he adjusted the blanket on her shoulders, she reached out and grabbed his forearm. She squeezed it once, firmly.

‘I hear you,’ C’rairn smiled. ‘Just be ready. The rest of the crew isn’t going to see you like I do.’

*

‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’

Hevel’s whisper was just audible to the captain as he watched the shuttles touch down in the Atlantia’s landing bay. The shield doors closed behind them and the bays filled with air and warmth again, the warning claxons falling silent and the bay lights turning from red to white to properly illuminate the two craft.

‘So do I,’ the captain murmured in reply as several marines opened the access doors to the landing bay.

Idris followed his marines into the bay as the shuttle’s rear ramps lowered and the hostages were marched off by Bra’hiv’s men. Among them was a masked woman wrapped in a thermal blanket, apparently unafraid of the troops and weapons arrayed around her, and beside her a giant convict, his gold and blue hair swaying as he walked with his huge muscular arms clamped in manacles that seemed too feeble to contain him.

‘What the hell?’ Hevel uttered in horror.

Captain Sansin watched as the liberated hostages were led quickly away within a protective shield of armed guards, leaving just Alpha Zero Seven and Qayin surrounded by their escort. Beside the captain stood his wife, who had rapidly dressed in a trooper’s fatigues after docking her escape capsule and joining her husband.

The marines around the captain did not move, their weapons trained on Alpha Zero Seven as she walked toward them, but he could feel the rising tension as she and Qayin approached. The featureless mask betrayed no emotion and her strides were controlled, fearless beneath the shapeless thermal blanket that was wrapped around her, her bare feet tiny on the metal deck. Alpha Zero Seven, flanked by Officers C’rairn and Andaim, walked to within a few feet of the captain and then stopped. Idris was momentarily surprised by her diminutive size, but the blood stains smearing her mask and the soft skin of her neck reminded him of what she was capable of.

Qayin looked past the captain at Hevel and a grin fractured his features.

‘Brother,’ he growled. ‘I’d say it was a pleasure, but it isn’t.’

Hevel said nothing. Idris watched Alpha but she did not move, as though she were a statue, the mask hiding all emotion.

Idris stepped toward her, staring into the shadows behind the mask.

‘You seek amnesty,’ he said, uncertain of how to speak to this bizarre and dangerous woman.

To his amazement Alpha shook her head, and then turned and nodded toward Qayin.

‘You seek amnesty for
him
?!’ the captain gasped.

Qayin smiled brightly. ‘What can I say? I don’t know where I’d be without her.’

‘He tortured my people!’ Idris protested. ‘He threatened my wife and…’

‘I
had
to,’ Qayin snapped. ‘If I didn’t make it look like I was willing to kill, then none o’ those suckers would have followed my lead. We got your wife out of there, captain. We got
all
of your people out of there. The least you could do is cut us a break.’

Captain Sansin moved to stand in front of Qayin and had to crane his neck up to look the convict in the eye.

‘I didn’t see any evidence of
we
, Qayin,’ he snarled back. ‘You would have abandoned her just as you abandoned your fellow convicts in that passage.’

Qayin’s right eye twitched. ‘What have you done with them?’

‘They’re back under lockdown,’ the captain replied. ‘My quandary now is whether to leave them in their cells or just detach the entire linkage and let them sail off into space to die.’

‘They’re men, not animals,’ Qayin said.

‘You could have fooled me.’

The captain turned to look at Alpha. ‘As for you, I’m at a loss.’

‘I’m not,’ Meyanna said behind her husband. ‘She saved my life. The very least you could do is cut that monstrosity off of her face.’

Alpha’s masked head turned to look at the captain.

‘I don’t know,’ Idris said. ‘She could…’

‘That’s not possible,’ Hevel interrupted. ‘She was masked for a reason, by the Word, to prevent her from corrupting others!’

Hevel lurched forward and reached out for the thermal blanket covering Alpha. He tore it from her shoulders. Alpha stood naked but for the mask sealing her face. The captain looked down at her naked body, tiny amid the hulking marines with their heavy weapons pointed down at her, and for a moment he felt a tremor of pity.

‘Leave her be,’ he ordered.

‘She’s a convict!’ Hevel shouted.

‘And a victim,’ the captain growled back.

Hevel scowled but he stepped back from Alpha. The troops too backed away, their circle expanding outward from Alpha as she drifted slightly off the deck. She hovered, entirely naked once again, her features concealed behind the mask and her skin forming pimples in the cold air. She showed no sign of shame or embarrassment as the men stared at her body.

Officer C’rairn knelt down and picked up the blanket, draping it over Alpha’s shoulders once more.

‘Now,’ the captain responded, ‘we put her in the one place where she won’t want to do any damage. We need to be able to talk to her.’

Hevel looked at the captain. ‘You’re going to take off the mask? That’s an insubordination of The Word!’

Idris nodded as he replied and pointed to C’rairn. ‘Take her to the sanctuary! And don’t give her any clothes for now. I don’t want her able to conceal any weapons.’

*

The troops walked fast, Alpha drifting in mid–air with her hands and ankles bound in steel restraints. Gloved hands, rough against her skin, guided her left and right through various passageways, most of which looked much the same: functional, dull grey metal, harsh ceiling illumination.

She glimpsed more appealing corridors to her left and right from time to time, probably crew’s quarters, more comfortable than the course she was being led upon. She figured that they were using service corridors to prevent her from seeing too much of the rest of the Atlantia.

The troops escorted her to a large, heavily armoured door. She waited in silence as two men, rather than open the large door, instead opened a smaller side panel. A tubular, smooth sided tunnel gaped into darkness at her as one of the troopers extracted a concave shaped cradle that fitted smoothly into the tunnel.

‘Get on it,’ the marine called Bra’hiv ordered her.

Alpha saw in her mind’s eye a fleeting image of the capsule in which she had been trapped, and for the first time since she had awoken she hesitated.

‘Put her in!’ Bra’hiv growled.

Strong arms removed her restraints and lifted Alpha off her feet. She felt herself tilted horizontal and had to force herself not to struggle. The troopers lowered her into the cradle, the plastic surface cold against her skin, and then they backed away as without another word she was slid into darkness and the panel door slammed shut behind her.

It happened in a breath–taking rush. The air was sucked from the shaft in a deafening roar and she opened her mouth to scream as she realised that she was being sucked out into space. Visions of convicts bleeding from eyes frozen solid by the chill vacuum of space flashed through her mind as her scream was trapped deep in her throat and she coughed.

She rocketed down the shaft, sliding on her back as the deep blackness within the tunnel consumed her and she reached out to try to hang on to the surface, but it was slick with some kind of lubricant. A bright light shot into view and she hurtled through the air and plummeted down into a tangle of vines and foliage.

A waft of warmth rushed across her skin, the air fresh and clean, touched with long–forgotten scents of rain and lush foliage. Despite herself Alpha gasped, her chest swelling and her breasts rising as she sucked in a lung full of the wonderful aromas. The sound of rushing water filled her ears, her back wet where it lay on soft, sodden soil as she looked up and saw a bright, perfectly blue sky peppered with white clouds.

She sat up and stared about her, realising that there was natural gravity here.

She was sitting on a large mound of soft soil and grass, probably placed there on purpose to protect the landing of whatever goods were sent down here from the rest of the ship. The tunnel from which she had been fired was in the centre of a soaring cliff, the hatch that sealed it hissing shut, virtually invisible against the rocks.

Alpha got to her feet, felt dampness on her cheeks and was mildly surprised to realise that she was crying. The air was touched with vapour and she looked to her right to see a waterfall plunging from great cliffs above her into a deep, clear pool. The cliffs extended away from her toward what appeared to be a vast, forested valley.