Atlantia Series 1: Survivor (10 page)

Idris rubbed his temple. ‘That was two years ago. I though those things were for temporary use only?’

‘They are, back home,’ Dhalere replied. ‘But the Word’s orders for her were strict – it was never, ever to be removed. Not even on the day she died. She was to be conflagrated and buried wearing that mask, for all time.’

Idris looked briefly at Hevel. ‘Why?’

‘Who knows?’ Hevel replied. ‘The assumption is that she’s real bad news and people just stay away from her.’ Hevel frowned as he looked at C’rairn. ‘How did she survive the explosion? The entire high–security wing was wiped out, no survivors. She may have detonated a device herself.’

‘We don’t know that,’ the captain replied, ‘but we’d very much like to find out.

C’rairn shook his head.

‘I saw her, sir,’ he said. ‘Close up, and I mean right through that mask. The look in her eyes scared me half to death, like an animal, no soul. But she risked her life to get me out of there.’

‘How did she do it?’ Hevel asked.

‘There are hundreds of bodies down there in the cell block, all just floating around. She must have climbed up the control tower and taken off one of their arms or something and tucked it inside her uniform, because when she came back down and I saw her for the first time she already had blood on her. I thought she’d already carved somebody up and I was next, but when she leaned into me she slid the severed arm out and just started hacking it up.’

‘We heard you screaming,’ Dhalere said.

C’rairn nodded.

‘If she’d asked me to sing camp–fire songs I would have done, but she couldn’t speak. She just looked at me, and I got it right away. I started screaming, blood was flying everywhere and the seat was inverted so the cameras couldn’t quite see anything. Genius, really.’

‘Why?’ Idris asked. ‘Why would she protect you?’

‘I don’t know. Until today, I’d not been anywhere near her. But she put her hand on my shoulder at one point, squeezed it and winked at me. She knew what she was doing sir. Whatever she might be she ain’t no cold–blooded murderer.’

Idris stood back from C’rairn and looked at Andaim. ‘She killed four convicts back there, but if they attacked her it would be self defence. We need her if we’re going to get those hostages out.’

‘We can’t talk with her,’ Andaim said. ‘She can’t speak.’

‘No,’ Idris said thoughtfully as he turned to his communications officer, ‘but she can communicate. Arrana, wind back the footage of Qayin talking to us.’

Aranna accessed the video feed and wound back the footage, Qayin’s face filling half the screen. Behind him, as he spoke, they could see Alpha Zero Seven standing in silence, watching. Captain Sansin’s voice echoed through the bridge from the recording.

‘How many of my people do you have?’

Qayin’s grinned in response on the monitor.

‘The only way you’ll find that out is if they walk across with us, or we finish sending all the pieces of them.’

Idris pointed at the screen as he saw Alpha Zero Seven move her hands slightly. ‘There.’

Alpha’s bunched fist opened to reveal first her index finger, and then she closed it before opening it again to show all five fingers.

‘Fifteen,’ said Aranna. ‘They have fifteen of our people, just like C’rairn said. She took your bait, captain.’

Andaim shook his head. ‘No. This was before the captain offered an amnesty to anybody willing to bring the hostages back alive.’

‘Yes it was,’ Idris murmured, ‘which makes me wonder why she would have any interest in helping us. She’s a convict in the middle of an insurrection: most of them think that we would shoot them on sight if we could.’

‘Wouldn’t we?’ Hevel asked.

‘Alpha Zero Seven, she took down four of the convicts all on her own, is that right?’ the captain asked.

‘We think so,’ Bra’hiv replied. ‘Some sort of dispute inside the prison.’

‘If she was in the high–security wing during the blast, then how did she make it into the prison hull?’ Hevel asked.

‘The security wing has a life–preservation policy,’ Bra’hiv explained. ‘In the event of a major disaster of any kind that compromises hull security, the convict housed there are able to access survival pods and be ejected into space. Their capsules have a short lifespan, enough for them to have a chance of making it back aboard the prison hull.’

Idris nodded.

‘Are they all kept in isolation for the entire period of their confinement?’ Andaim asked.

‘No,’ Bra’hiv explained. ‘They’re in cells, but especially high–risk prisoners are placed in stasis for as long as the vessel is in transit, sir,’ Hevel replied. ‘They’re easier to contain if they’re out cold for the journey, but the process is complex and expensive, so it’s only reserved for the most dangerous inmates.’

Idris paced slowly up and down the bridge.

‘What is it?’ Andaim asked.

‘And this woman, Alpha Zero Seven, she was the only convict aboard to be masked in that way?’

Dhalere nodded. ‘It’s very rare, sir. Only psychopaths are fitted with masks, and she’s clearly one.’

Idris did not reply, still pacing the deck.

‘Sir?’ Andaim asked.

‘I want a team to go out into the debris field and locate the source of the blast,’ the captain announced.

‘We don’t have time for that,’ Hevel protested. ‘We’re on the verge of being pulled down out of orbit and…’

‘I’m aware of that!’ Idris growled at the councillor. ‘But I feel certain that Alpha cannot have placed the charge that destroyed the security wing. Somebody else must have done so.’

Hevel blinked. ‘Why?’

Idris grinned without warmth. ‘That’s what I’d like to find out.’

‘Captain, the last thing we should be doing is worrying about the prisoners. Our own people are in grave danger.’

‘Yes they are,’ Idris agreed, ‘and if one of them were responsible for endangering us all by attempting to blow up half of this vessel, I’d want to know who that person was. Wouldn’t you, Hevel?’

Hevel stared at the captain for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yes, of course.’

‘As soon as you’ve found the detonation device or identified what it was, I want to open a channel to Qayin,’ the captain said to Andaim, ‘and give Alpha the chance to communicate with us again.’

Hevel gaped at the captain. ‘You want trust the most dangerous prisoner on the entire vessel?’

‘She’s the only survivor,’ the captain said. ‘She also can’t have tried to blow the prison hull up because she was in stasis the whole time, so she’s the only one I can be sure isn’t responsible for what happened.’

‘The prisoners are ruthless,’ Hevel said. ‘None of them can be trusted.’

‘Can’t they?’ the captain asked. ‘Yes, they’re desperate but then so are we. Let’s use that against them. If we can get Alpha to communicate then we can maybe figure out a way to get our people out without compromising the Atlantia’s security.’

‘How?’ Bra’hiv asked, his features taut with anticipation.

The captain gestured to the prison hull’s ruined stern.

‘Why not let us keep them busy at the front while you and your marines go in at the back?’

Bra’hiv nodded. ‘That’s good enough for me.’

Hevel’s eyes narrowed.

‘And what if the deception works, captain? What will we do with the prisoners then? I do hope that you’re not considering bringing them here to Atlantia?’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,’ Idris snapped, and turned to Bra’hiv. ‘Take a shuttle and be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice to access the prison hull. Twenty men should be enough. The prisoners will be anxious to escape and they might be forced into making a mistake. Get to the hostages if you can, and bring them home.’

Bra’hiv left the bridge and the captain turned to survey his monitors.

‘Let’s see who’s in control now, Qayin.’

***

‘You’re insane. They’ll never do it.’

Cutler watched as Qayin worked, rummaging through discarded weapons damaged in the blast in the prison hull.

The bodies of the dead haunted the silent prison, floating like ghosts in the half–darkness as Qayin unloaded the power cell from a rifle and pocketed the fist–sized magazine. He threw the un–loaded weapon up into the darkness above him, the rifle flying straight up in silence and vanishing into the shadows until it clattered against the distant ceiling.

‘They’ll let us in,’ Qayin said, ‘they’ve got no choice.’

Qayin unloaded another rifle and tossed the magazine to Cutler. The older man caught it easily and stuffed it into his already bulging pockets.

‘We don’t have enough men to fight trained troops,’ Cutler cautioned, ‘and what will it achieve anyway if they have enough firepower to cut us off?’

‘The hostages will guarantee our safety,’ Qayin muttered. ‘All we need is the distraction, enough to get us all aboard the Atlantia without them opening fire on us. They can’t cut us loose without dooming the hostages, so they’ll want to get into the prison and liberate them. We’ll use that against them.’

Cutler leaned in close to Qayin. ‘And what about Alpha? I don’t trust her.’

Qayin yanked the magazine from one last rifle and stuffed it into a pocket. ‘If she goes behind our backs, she’ll regret it.’

Cutler snorted and shook his head. ‘She doesn’t care about anybody but herself and…’

‘So you all think,’ Qayin cut across him.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Qayin and Cutler strode toward the control tower, pushing floating corpses out of their way as they went.

‘The mask,’ Qayin said. ‘The silence. You all assume that she’s crazy enough to do anything: that she’s off her head, lethal.’

‘You saw what she did to Jehan and his pirate crew,’ Cutler shot back. ‘She was naked and unarmed. Sixty seconds later, she’d killed them all.’

‘I didn’t say she wasn’t a fighter.’

‘What then?’

‘I knew her before she got masked.’

Cutler looked across at Qayin. ‘How’d you know her, if she’s masked?’

‘Her eyes,’ Qayin replied, ‘the shape of what I can see. It’s her all right.’

‘When did you know her?’

‘Back on the colonies,’ Qayin said, counting the number of power cells he had shoved into his pockets. ‘She weren’t no convict back then.’

‘What the hell was she then? A soldier?’

‘A journalist.’

Cutler stopped walking. ‘You’re tugging my chain.’

‘Visited me in Beya Prison, back in the day,’ Qayin explained. ‘She was doin’ research, wanted to know a lot of details about the man I was sent up for killin’.’

‘And?’

‘I tol’ her what I knew and she listened a damn sight more than my dear brother ever did,’ Qayin replied, and glanced across the lonely, haunted prison block. ‘I got busted for the murder of an elected official, some up–town suit who’d figured out how the Word first broke out and started infectin’ the population.’

Cutler watched Qayin in silence for a moment before he spoke. ‘You know how it started?’

‘Maybe,’ Qayin shrugged. ‘My crew was running devlamine street dope out of Ethera’s spaceport, doin’ a fine trade of it too. Then this guy shows up and stings us, but he doesn’t arrest us. Says he’s with a government department and that our shipments have been infected with nanobots or something. I told him to do one.’ Qayin sighed. ‘Two weeks later and half of my buyers are turning up wanting more devlamine, selling their damned houses, can’t get enough of it. Real weird, you know, like they were on the verge of overdosing days after first trying it.’

‘You have it checked out?’

‘I went back to the suit,’ Qayin nodded. ‘He took a sample, said he’d get back to me. Next day he was found shot to hell down southside under the keel of a merchant ship in the docks. My gen–print all over him, the murder weapon tossed nearby, you name it. How I ended up here.’

‘And Hevel never helped?’

‘My dear brother tol’ me I’d had it comin’,’ Qayin explained, ‘which was probably right. Said it was all excuses, which weren’t right. Last time we laid eyes on each other I broke his nose. That kind of ended any legal rep’ I could trust.’

‘And Alpha?’

‘Visited me in Beya, seemed like she was chasing it all up,’ Qayin said. ‘She figured the drug had been modified to contain nanobots that entered the body and were programmed to stimulate the pleasure regions of the brain. Jus’ like a drug, except that there was no downer – people jus’ wanted more and more. The bots would build up, and then take over the body and brain. Brilliant, for freaks who like that sort of thing.’

Cutler guessed the rest. ‘Same thing happened to her as to you, right?’

‘Few weeks later and she’s up for a double murder,’ Qayin confirmed. ‘I never saw her again, until now.’

‘You sayin’ she’s innocent?’

‘I’m sayin’ she’s dangerous to know,’ Qayin replied. ‘That prison block got blown up because o’ her, I reckon. But right now we gotta make allies of our enemies, y’know what I mean?’

They reached the control tower, the seat where Officer C’rairn had been tortured still hanging in the air and splattered with blood, globules of which orbited the chair in gruesome little red orbs.

Qayin slowed down as he looked at the chair, and then he grabbed a convict’s corpse and pulled off his uniform before emptying the power cells from his pockets and folding them up in the uniform. He ordered Cutler to do the same and then pointed at the control tower.

‘Take these back to the command centre and arm the men, then wait for me there.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Cutler asked as he tied the sleeves of the convict’s uniform around the cells and pushed it through the air toward the tower door.

‘I want to check see if there’s any explosives in that tower, or maybe some of that crowd–control gas they used to use on us.’

Qayin waited until Cutler was gone and then he looked at the chair hanging upside down in the cell block amid its constellation of dark blood. He turned and looked up at the control tower to see a bulbous black eye staring back at him.

Slowly, he moved toward the chair and leaned down, peering up into the seat through the rippling clouds of blackening blood. The seat where C’rairn had been strapped was unmarked, as expected, but still…