Atlantia Series 1: Survivor (13 page)

‘Not with the hostages behind us,’ Qayin soothed. ‘We blow them all away if the captain’s troops screw with us.’

‘Suicide,’ Cutler snarled with a grim smile. ‘Better that than be left to rot in here.’

‘I like the way you’re thinking,’ Qayin replied with a wicked grin. ‘The captain will want his wife alive and we’ll make sure he can’t have her. Once we’re in the sanctuary she’ll be our guarantee of safe passage.’

‘Until what?’ Cutler challenged. ‘What happens if the Word finds us? The captain’s lost his stones and won’t fight. We should take the bridge and the ship for ourselves.’

‘You think that you got a say in this, Cutler?’ Qayin snapped.

‘It’s my life on the line too.’

‘Don’t worry about it. As long as we’ve got Meyanna Sansin, everything will be…’

‘Qayin!’ A convict burst into the control centre, his face flushed with panic.

‘What?’

‘Alpha! She’s got the captain’s wife!’

Cutler shot Qayin a look of wild dismay as Qayin stormed toward the convict. ‘What do you mean she’s
got
her?’

‘They’re running aft!’ the convict said.

Qayin cocked his rifle and turned to Cutler.

‘I’ll find them. As long as she’s still in our hands, the captain won’t dare try anything.’

‘This is heading south already, Qayin,’ Cutler growled. ‘It ain’t gonna work if we lose the captain’s wife.’

‘You got any better ideas, old man?’ Cutler swore under his breath but said nothing. ‘The convicts out first, Cutler,’ Qayin went on. ‘Keep the hostages behind you so that they can’t be grabbed by the captain’s marines, understood?’

Cutler nodded and followed the other convicts now rushing out of the bridge for the for’ard hatches. Qayin dashed in pursuit through winding, half–lit passages to the transfer bay at the bow. The convicts were amassed around the hatches and huddled against one wall with the hostages, their wrists bound and rifles pointed at their heads.

‘Open the hatch!’ Qayin yelled.

A pair of inmates slung their rifles over their shoulders and deactivated the hatch’s locks before spinning the locking wheels and pulling the door open. It swung open to reveal the docking tunnel, and at the far end an open hatch leading into the main hull.

The convicts backed away from the door, their weapons once again held ready as Qayin moved to stand in plain view in the hatch entrance. He peered down the tunnel, and glimpsed the movement of marines tucked either side of the Atlantia’s hatch.

‘We’ve got the captain’s wife and she’s rigged to blow!’ Qayin boomed. ‘And the hostages will remain behind us! Any of you try and pull anything, we’ll blow her to hell and take every last one of you suckers with us!’

Qayin’s mighty voice thundered down the tunnel. He stared at the amassed troops awaiting them on the far side for a long moment, and then he stood back and looked at his fellow inmates.

‘Get in there, all of you!’

The convicts flooded into the hatch, their boots hammering the deck as they plunged into the passageway connecting the two hulls. Whispers of excitement fluttered among them as they ran and Qayin slapped them on their backs one by one as they filed into the tunnel and vanished.

Cutler brought up the rear, his own rifle cradled in his grasp.

‘You better bring that bitch back here fast, or this will all be over.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Qayin grinned. ‘She’ll be aboard before you know it.’

Qayin slapped Cutler on the back, propelling him toward the tunnel as he turned to the cowering hostages.

‘On your feet, all of you, now!’

As Cutler entered the tunnel the hostages clambered to their feet, their weary faces lined with stress and their eyes downcast. Qayin turned and looked down the tunnel at the dirty little flood of convicts running toward the troops on the Atlantia’s side.

‘Unto doom do they flee,’ he uttered under his breath.

He saw Cutler running, the old man glance back over his shoulder. Something changed in Cutler’s expression, his eyes locked on Qayin’s, and in an instant the old man knew. He opened his mouth to shout a warning but it was far too late.

Qayin reached out and with one huge arm he hauled the hatch shut, the heavy door slamming with a boom that resonated through the passage. Through the thick glass viewing panel he saw the troops at the far side of the passage likewise slam their hatch shut, trapping the convicts inside.

The convicts panicked and opened fire, the bright plasma blasts hitting the distant hatch door in halos of wasted energy that spilled onto the tunnel floor. Their cries of panic filled the tunnel as the convicts turned and began running in a horrified mass back toward the prison hull.

Qayin spun the locking wheel closed, sealing it tight. He saw the look of utter disbelief on Cutler’s scarred old face that mutated into a grotesque howl of rage. The old man reached the hatch and hammered on the viewing panel, his mouth agape as he screamed at Qayin.

Qayin turned to the hostages and jabbed his thumb aft. ‘Move, now!’

The hostages turned and shuffled in the indicated direction.

‘Faster!’

Qayin slammed the butt of his rifle into the back of the nearest officer and sent him flying through the exit.

***

Alpha turned away from the door and set the camera in the air to point across to the wall of the storage unit. There, set into the wall, were the two capsules that she and her deceased fellow convict had used to survive the blast in the high–security wing. One was damaged beyond repair, the screen shattered.

Alpha pushed off the wall and grabbed Meyanna, dragging her toward the undamaged capsule.

‘What the hell are you doing?’ Meyanna protested.

Alpha spun Meyanna around and shoved her backwards into the capsule. Meyanna’s face fell as she understood what Alpha was attempting to do.

‘No,’ she gasped, and then: ‘What about you?’

Alpha pulled the restraints loosely about Meyanna’s ankles and across her waist and then looked up at the captain’s wife. She was older than Alpha but attractive, and had a gleam of intelligence in her eyes that all academics shared. The prison physician, Alpha recalled: she had met her briefly for a routine medical after the mask had been fitted, to make sure that it was not causing her what had been termed
undue discomfort
. She remembered what the captain’s wife had uttered without interest after a cursory examination.
She’ll live
.

Alpha turned her back to Meyanna and hoisted the capsule’s lid up off the floor. As heavy as it was in normal gravity, the lid flipped up easily and Alpha pushed it into place. Still connected to the ship’s power supply, the capsule re–activated and the lid sealed shut.

Alpha opened a panel on the front of the capsule, and with a few simple commands had re–charged the capsule’s oxygen supply and batteries. She closed the panel and stood back, turned to a larger panel on the wall beside the capsule and entered a launch command.

She heard Meyanna’s voice through the capsule window, muted by the thick glass.

‘What about you?’

Alpha looked at the capsule and its occupant one last time and then she hit the launch button.

The capsule hissed as it sank back into its docking cavity, and a shield door slammed shut as it sealed the cavity off from the storage unit. Alpha heard a clunk as ejection bolts fired, saw a puff of vapour inside the cavity as the air was sucked out into space, and then saw Meyanna’s face shrink away as the capsule was ejected.

Moments later, Meyanna’s eyes still fixed on Alpha’s, she saw the capsule turn as Meyanna fired the thrusters and propelled herself for’ard toward the safety of the Atlantia.

The security door clanged and Alpha turned as she heard a dull crunch. The dead convict’s arms twisted awkwardly and a shard of bone punched through the dead man’s skin as his limbs were broken. The door shuddered, then the corpse slipped from its position and the door swung wide and six convicts tumbled into the storage unit, their rifles raised and pointed at Alpha.

*

‘She’s away!’

Jerren’s voice was charged with a volatile mixture of exhilaration and disbelief as the bridge crew watched the capsule being ejected from the storage unit, a tiny white speck shining in the light from the nearby star as it turned and began drifting through space toward the Atlantia.

‘She got Meyanna out,’ Captain Sansin uttered.

Her turned, as did every other man on the bridge, to the monitor that still showed the footage from the camera in the storage unit. Several armed inmates stood with rifles aimed at Alpha’s diminutive, naked form. The masked woman stood her ground, making no effort to conceal herself.

‘They’ll finish her off,’ Hevel said, his face touched with a maniacal hint of excitement.

The captain shot the councillor a strange look.

‘Are our troops in position?’ he asked Jerren.

‘They’re manning the hatches now sir, and the shuttles are in position aft of the prison hull.’

‘What about the convicts?’

‘Most of them are trapped back in the prison hull again sir,’ came the reply. ‘It worked – they kept the hostages behind them.’

‘Where are the hostages now?’

‘We can’t account for them,’ Jerren replied. ‘And, sir, we cannot find Qayin.’

‘He’ll kill them,’ Hevel sneered. ‘Qayin will kill them all!’

The captain gripped the bridge railings more tightly as he surveyed the monitors. ‘Wait until I give the order. Nobody moves until we know where the hostages are.’

*

Alpha stood in silence as the lead convict, his teeth stained yellow and black from decay, edged toward her, his rifle pulled tight into his shoulder and the barrel pointed squarely at her chest.

‘Now then, missy,’ he sniggered, ‘best you lay down on the floor for old Tammer, eh?’

She remained silent and still. Tammer stopped moving, smart enough to keep the barrel of his rifle out of her reach.

‘I said down, now!’ Tammer screamed at her.

She did not move.

One of the other, younger convicts behind Tammer handed his rifle to the man next to him and walked up alongside Tammer.

‘I don’t think she’s taking to you so well, Tammer,’ he smirked. ‘Cover me.’

The armed convicts moved to keep their weapons trained on Alpha as the younger man approached her.

‘No sense in fighting us,’ he soothed. ‘Better to play along than be dead, right?’

She kept her head facing forwards, but her eyes swivelled to watch the approaching convict. He reached out and his hand clasped her right arm.

‘Easy now,’ he said as he reached out for her with his other hand.

Alpha made to move away from his touch, and he jumped forward.

Instantly she jerked her head back and then slammed it forwards into the convict’s face, the metal mask smashing his nose sideways across his cheek as a cloud of blood globules spiralled away from him. The convict growled and staggered sideways and then the other convicts were upon her in a frenzy.

She felt herself tumble backwards, her feet off the ground as they all charged in at once and grappled her down onto the deck. She landed hard beneath their weight, the metal deck cold and painful as it dug into the flesh of her back.

She tried to fight, but she was hopelessly outmatched as they gripped her arms and legs and stretched them out, pinning her on her back with her legs spread.

Tammer smiled as he set his rifle aside in mid–air and strode until he was standing between her legs. He reached down and unbuttoned his fatigues.

‘Now then missy, you’ll thank me for this one day,’ he chortled as he shuffled himself free of his prison uniform and knelt down between her legs. ‘Hold her tight, lads,’ he warned the other convicts with a chuckle. ‘We don’t want her to miss anythin’!’

She remained still as he leaned over her, one hand supporting himself beside her head as he dropped down and his lips closed around one of her nipples. He groaned as he sucked hard on it.

‘Hurry it up, Tammer,’ one of his companions snapped. ‘We all want some!’

Tammer licked her nipple and looked through the slits in her mask as he pushed himself against the cleft between her legs.

‘Say hello to old Tammer, missy,’ he breathed.

A shadow passed over Alpha and Tammer, blotting out the light, and suddenly the old man was lifted away from her and he screamed in pain as his hair was pulled rigid against his scalp.

She saw Qayin’s towering form loom over them as the big convict reached up with his other fist and drove his knuckles deep into Tammer’s throat. Tammer’s thorax collapsed with a crunch as the old man gagged and choked. Qayin hurled the old man aside as the convicts released Alpha and leaped away from Qayin.

‘We was bringing her to you,’ one of them said.

‘Change of plan,’ Qayin growled.

He grabbed Tammer’s pulse rifle from where it hovered and fired it in one smooth motion, the charge bursting from the barrel and hitting the convict square in the chest. A blackened, sizzling cavity smouldered in his body as his face fell limp and he slammed to the deck in a cloud of blue smoke.

The convicts began screaming as Qayin fired again. Alpha turned and grabbed the nearest man to her, then smashed her face mask into his nose with all of her might. The convict tried to pull her hair but she butted him repeatedly and his eyes rolled up into their sockets as his arms fell limp.

She yanked the rifle from his shoulder and turned it on the convicts as they screamed and scrambled to bring their weapons to bear on Qayin. The last two fell together, their bodies twisting in violent spasms as super–heated plasma charges seared their flesh and they fell to the deck.

Qayin moved over to each of the fallen inmates and fired one last blast into their bodies before he turned and looked at Alpha.

‘Did Meyanna get away?’ he asked.

She nodded, her rifle in her grasp and pointing at Qayin. The big convict looked down at the weapon and then his dark eyes flicked up to meet hers. Alpha took a pace toward Qayin, and then she flipped the rifle up and deactivated the magazine with a flick of one finger.

Qayin grinned at her and turned, shouting down the corridor behind him.