Atlantia Series 1: Survivor (2 page)

On an impulse she fired her capsule toward it, just as several of the other capsules around her did the same, their puffs of crystalised gas sparkling behind them.

***

Her capsule began to move, drifting through the chaotic cloud of debris as she sought a course toward the vessel. She aimed for a gap between two large chunks of hull plating drifting left to right in front of her when something slammed into her capsule with a dull clang.

She looked out to her right as she saw another survivor collide with her, and for a brief moment she saw a face staring out at her from within: twisted with malice, shouting something at her, pink mouth agape and eyes poisoned with fury.

She spun down and away from the impact, rolling and tilting so that she could no longer see where she was going. She fired her controls and heard the gas hiss from exhaust vents, saw the planet revolve back into view just as her capsule slammed into the hull plating. The impact caught the top of her capsule, the edge of the hull plating smashing into her screen with a sharp crack that fractured it in jagged splinters.

She tumbled end over end and she glimpsed the other capsule being hit even harder and blasted back the way it had come, spinning violently as the man inside fired wild blasts of gas to try to regain control again. She saw the blasts suddenly fade away, could make out the face of the man trapped inside screaming and beating his hands against his screen as his capsule, emptied of oxygen, tumbled away toward the void of space.

Her screen made a tiny cracking sound and she saw the fractures begin to spread cracks from the point of impact. They splintered outward from the centre, the fluid pressure inside and the perfect vacuum of space outside conspiring to bring about her demise.

She aimed once again for the vessel outside the debris field and fired another burst of gas. She began to move painfully slowly forward again but several of the other capsules were now far ahead of her, trailing sparkling crystals as they accelerated toward salvation.

Her capsule rattled as tiny fragments of debris peppered its surface like rain drumming on a window, and she saw the angular fractures on her screen jerk outward to the sound of tiny cracks. The warmth inside the capsule was now an enemy to her, the contrast with the freezing vacuum of space liable to make her screen ever more brittle.

She glanced at the timer:
5.12
.

Half a dozen capsules ahead of her were streaking toward the vessel as they broke free of the debris field that she could see was trailing from the vessel itself, the stern a mess of metal girders ripped and twisted as though by some kind of explosion, the hull plating torn open like a giant metallic flower.

She gauged the distance to the hull and the position of the other capsules, and with a renewed sense of dread she realised that she could never catch up with them.

From the large vessel something flashed. She saw a bright plume of blue flame and then a trail of vapour as something streaked toward the onrushing capsules, a ball of fearsome blue–white energy. Plasma charge. The object flew into the centre of them and detonated with a bright flash of light. She squinted, turned her face away as the explosion radiated outward and felt her capsule shudder as the shockwave slammed silently through the debris field.

To her horror she saw several of the survivors ahead of her spinning out of control as they spewed gas from countless punctures, the metal capsules melted by debris from the blast. The capsules spun past outside of the debris field, their occupants either already dead or in the process of freezing to death as their blood boiled in their veins, their faces twisted with the rigor of agony.

A capsule tumbled past, its screen shattered and a face staring out at her, white as a sheet and with globules of blood pulsing from its eyes, ears, nose and mouth in gruesome red fountains that froze instantaneously in the vacuum.

She eased past it as another plasma charge was launched from the vessel ahead. Capsules scattered to avoid it before it detonated. She remained inside the debris field, sheltered from the blast that thudded into her capsule as the shockwave sent chunks of metal spinning around her.

Her screen cracked loudly and she saw fine, hair–like tendrils of per–fluorocarbon escaping out into the void.

4.05
.

Debris smashed into her but she did not make any attempt to correct her orientation. She felt two more thumps reverberate through the tiny vehicle as detonations smashed through the leading capsules and sent their fatally wounded occupants spinning into oblivion.

She turned slowly and she glimpsed the vessel ahead of her, looming large now. A bulky, ugly secondary hull with the damaged stern tethered to what looked like a frigate ahead of it. She let herself drift as though dead, surrounded by the shattered remains of other capsules destroyed by the weapons. Faces twisted in agony screamed silently as they died, or stared lifelessly through frozen eyeballs as they spun past, streams of per–fluorocarbon spiralling in frozen amber globules from them.

3:28
.

She waited, feeling the warmth slipping away from the capsule as it began to run out of fuel. The survivor protocol was obviously a last–ditch attempt to preserve life, and such a small capsule could not provide a long reprise for its unfortunate occupant.

Her capsule slipped out of the debris field and into plain sight, its beacon still flashing.

She saw the bright flash of the plasma charge as it left the vessel and accelerated directly toward her. She grabbed her controls and fired herself directly toward the damaged rear section of the hull, toward the gaping flower of shredded metal, and she kept her finger on the trigger for several seconds as a blast of gas pushed her clear of the field.

She accelerated away and then glanced at her timer.

1:17.

She released the trigger and braced herself as the onrushing plasma charge zoomed to the edge of the debris field where she had been just moments before and detonated. The blast rocked her capsule and it tumbled end over end away from the shockwave as she heard shrapnel hammer on its surface like hail on glass. An alarm sounded and she saw her screen fill with cracks and splinters as she was catapulted forwards and a sloshing, sucking sound warned her that the hull of her capsule was breached and that her per–fluorocarbon was leaking into space.

She saw the hull of the vessel looming before her, its darkened interior black and dangerous. She grabbed her controls as a terrible cold filled the capsule, the icy grip of space itself creeping in to freeze her to death. She fought to orientate the capsule as the last of her precious air supply was used up.

0:32
.

The giant hull was bare metal, scratched and stained, its markings eroded away as though by relentless weather on an endless journey through the cosmos. She guided the capsule with the last of its fuel as it plunged toward the hull’s surface, and instinctively aimed for the coffin–shaped holes lining its side.

As she closed in she spotted amid the darkened tangle of twisted metal a searing blue–white light, as though a star had become trapped in the web of wreckage nearby. She looked at her timer.

0:12
.

The hum of the generator and pumps on her capsule faded away as the last of her fuel was expended and the oxygenation of her per–fluorocarbon ceased.

The nearest blackened hole rushed toward her and she felt herself suddenly accelerate as something pulled it in. The screen gave a last ear–piercing screech of tortured glass and then it was torn outward by the intense vacuum and she felt the touch of absolute cold freeze her skin and yank at her eyeballs as in a terrifying rush all of the remaining warmth was sucked from the capsule as the screen failed and shot away from her.

The protective amber fluid around her was sucked violently out in a rush that pulled her head toward the vacuum, the dense fluid freezing instantly as it exited the capsule and tumbled in frozen chunks to bounce off the cold metal hull.

Her eyes clouded for an instant as though she was enveloped in fog as her eyeballs began to freeze and then a thud reverberated through the capsule as it slammed into the side of the hull, pulled in by powerful magnets that ringed the hull’s receptacle. Total darkness consumed her, and then a hiss of pressurisation filled her ears and air was pumped automatically into the capsule. Her lungs convulsed and she coughed out a thick bolus of per–fluorocarbon that spilled like syrup into the interior of her mask and drained slowly out across her chest.

Raw, cold air filled her lungs for what felt like the first time and she coughed and wretched, barely any sound escaping past the mask as though she were still entombed in the fluid. Her eyes watered and she shivered in the cold air washing across her skin, as though she were a new born plucked from the womb of a damaged mother.

The capsule’s surface clicked loudly as latches came undone under automatic guidance. More clicks as the lines into her arms were retrieved automatically and suddenly the capsule opened wide and the lid fell slowly away and hovered above a black–tiled floor slick with water and foam.

She hung there for a moment, still strapped in and with blood dripping from the crooks of her arms. Her limbs twitched and her chest convulsed as she sucked in huge breaths of air and pressed the wounds on her arms closed to prevent the blood from pooling in the veins as she looked around.

She was inside a containment unit, probably a storage depot of some kind alongside the engine bays. Magnetic trolleys were scattered across the floor and metal boxes of all kinds were strapped to racking that lined the walls. That there had been a raging fire was obvious, much of the plastic and metal scorched or even melted around her and the air thick with the smell of smoke and electrical fires. Automatic fire–retarding systems had come on–line sometime during the blaze, blasting the fire with chemicals that now floated in globules on the air in the zero–gravity conditions.

Her hair hung damp and thickly bound in per–fluorocarbon, plastered across her mask as she parted it with her fingers and took in the scene around her. Emergency venting doors had been closed, probably after the blast that had destroyed the rear of the vessel: during fire, which was as lethal in zero–gravity as it was under planetary conditions, the usual practice was to evacuate the air from the affected sections of the ship, thus starving the fire of oxygen. Then sprinklers cooled any remaining electrical fires before the damaged hull was sealed off and air re–introduced to parts of the hull affected by the fire but still stable, allowing for repairs to begin.

She could see that the fire had burned out quickly and the remains of any people caught in the blast would have been vacuumed out into oblivion as soon as the hull was breached or the air evacuated through the blast doors, which were now sealed shut.

Now, scoured of life and all but emergency power, the interior of the hull was a mess of floating water and foam and shapeless tendrils of smoke. High on one wall a single red light blinked on and off, scarlet light interspersed with complete blackness.

She coughed again, no sound breaking free from her dry lips. Her body shook from the cold, her skin raised in bumps as she reached down to her waist and loosened the straps holding her inside the capsule. They dropped slowly away and she held on to the capsule’s frame as she crouched down and pulled her ankles free from their restraints.

She made to step out of the capsule but her legs failed her.

But she did not fall. She floated free of the capsule, hanging limp in mid–air as she willed her legs to respond. Her thighs quivered, her ankles jerking spasmodically as she tried to control them. Her muscles began to twinge and tingle as the life began to flow back into them, her blood oxygenating them and long–neglected nerves and tendons twitching as they tried to convey messages from her brain.

She floated amid the clouds of foam, swatted them aside from her mask as she tried to seek a source of warmth. The sound of creaking braces echoed through the superstructure around her as she drifted slowly through the storage unit, a few feet above the floor. Sealed off from the ship, the damaged section would have only minimal life support, enough to sustain anybody who was trapped inside for long enough to effect a rescue.

She was about to move when a loud clang echoed through the hull around her. Moments later, she saw an automatic door hiss open on the opposite side of the unit, and then the cover of a survival capsule fall slowly down to thump onto the floor as per–fluorocarbon fluid spilled in amber spheres onto the air.

A man floated free of the capsule, thick–set and with his torso smothered in webs of scars and tattoos that denoted both gang kills and prison slayings. His big, craggy bald head swivelled to look her naked body up and down as a grim smile spread like an infection across his face.

She pushed herself against a broken computer terminal that was floating lazily amid the foam, sending it toward the rear of the storage unit and propelling herself toward the sealed access hatches. The man shoved himself free of his capsule and drifted toward her, flying through the air with his arms outstretched.

Her body was shivering violently as she drifted through the debris. The bald convict floated toward her, both of them converging toward the hatches. She reached out to stop herself at the bulkheads. The metal was cold to the touch and slick with retardant foam, her hands numb with cold as they slid down its surface. She knew that within minutes she would succumb either to the bitter chill or her pursuer’s grip.

A heavy looking bulkhead door, sealed from the other side, blocked her way as she dragged herself down to hover in front of it, her feet barely an inch off the floor. A small glowing red light told her that power was available to it and she searched for an input panel.

She glanced over her shoulder to see the man almost upon her, a guttural laugh spitting from his twisted lips and his manhood already standing proud of his body like the rudder of some disgusting, pale–skinned ship.