Atlantia Series 1: Survivor (21 page)

The security team marines turned and strode away. Idris relinquished his grip on the bars of the cell and stepped back.

‘Bra’hiv can’t do this on his own,’ C’rairn said. ‘He could have turned against Hevel.’

‘Bra’hiv feared that civilians would die in a firefight,’ Idris corrected C’rairn. ‘He maintained his position and did his job, and now he may be able to help us.’

‘Even if he finds Andaim alive,’ C’rairn said, ‘how the hell will that help us? Most of the time we’ve only been a few hours ahead of the Word. It can’t be long before we’re found, and then….’

C’rairn’s voice trailed off. Idris looked about him at the other cells where his bridge crew were crammed in. He managed to find his voice.

‘We will figure something out,’ he promised them. ‘It’s our duty to overcome adversity, just as we did when we escaped the colony, just as we have done ever since.’

***

Eve awoke to a chill around her legs. She opened her eyes and saw water wash gently around her and then recede as the tide dragged it back toward the ocean. She lifted her head and somehow found the strength to drag herself up the beach.

The sun had shifted in the sky, higher now and blazing down from the heavens as she crawled to where a chunk of scorched hull plating had thumped down onto the beach to form a rudimentary metal cave. She crawled into the tiny patch of shade it provided and laid in a foetal position for a long time as she stared out across the coastline.

She could see from the endless expanse of undisturbed sand that nothing had walked on the beach in recent hours or days. The wash of foliage and debris off the waters of the ocean reached only half way up the beach, the high–tide mark most likely caused by the gravity of the small moon she could see high in the hard blue sky, a pale patch of ghostly white staring back down at her.

A brief memory of the sand–coloured wastes below the ship while it had been in orbit above the planet served as an indication that there would be little chance of her surviving for long out here alone. The more temperate regions she had glimpsed as the sun rose over this isolated little planet would be many months’ march away and she had no idea what predators might haunt this world.

She recovered her breath and strength enough to get out from beneath the hull plating and stand up to walk slowly up the beach toward a low bluff. The dry, hot wind buffeted her hair as she clambered up the bluff and looked out across the wilderness.

The rocky, sandy firmament stretched away from her, flaring beneath the brutal sunlight. Patches of thorn scrub scratched an existence from the barren and unyielding soil, and ancient river courses long since desiccated wound their way like dead snakes toward the shoreline. In the distance a low ridge of rocky hills seemed to hover above the trembling horizon, the heat distortion making them seem closer than they really were.

She turned and looked out across the ocean. Broad, blue and empty, vanishing into a horizon devoid of life.

Evelyn sat down on the bluff, aware that she lacked even a source of drinking water, and wondered whether it might not have been better to have just been incinerated or drowned during the prison hull’s last moments. Better to have died quickly than to suffer the agony of dehydration out here on the lonely dunes.

She scanned the beach, shielding her eyes with one hand for some sign of life or even of useful wreckage, but there was nothing but aged driftwood and what looked like some kind of sea foliage washed up by the tides, torn ribbons of greenery strewn in untidy tangles by the surf.

Evelyn got to her feet and walked along the bluff, headed toward the largest pile of foliage she could see further down the beach. Maybe it was edible, something to sustain herself while she figured out her next move. She was half way there when she heard a strange sound from out across the wilderness. She turned, shielded her eyes again, and saw a flickering column of smoke and flame rising vertically from the distant hills.

She frowned, wondering if the noise had come from there, when from out of the rippling horizon emerged beasts. Her heart flipped as she saw them, moving fast toward her, thick hair trailing from behind their heads, legs racing and leaving drifting clouds of sand billowing in their wake as they charged far faster than any human being could ever run.

Eve whirled and dashed down the bluff, ran across the beach toward the clumps of foliage. The thick sand slowed her down but she stumbled and struggled onward, her legs weary from both fatigue and countless months of zero gravity as she staggered to the clumps of foliage and slumped down among them. She reached across and hauled the damp mess over her, felt the blessed cold wet sand against her skin as it cooled her.

She shuffled further down into the sand, peering back up at the bluff as she heard the big animals’ heavy footfalls thunder up to the bluff amid a cloud of drifting sand.

There were four of them, their muscular flanks the colour of dust and sand, each with a huge head swathed in dense coils of thick hair. The animals made gruff, groaning noises as their big yellow eyes surveyed the beach. Eve squinted at the four animals, fear pulsing through her veins, and then they descended the bluff onto the beach. The animals snorted and sniffed the sand, and Eve realised with sudden shame that in her haste and fear she had left a trail of vivid footprints leading directly to the foliage under which she sheltered. Their fearsome yellow eyes looked it seemed directly into hers, yellowing fangs bared as they padded toward her.

Evelyn leaped to her feet, draped in the dense foliage as she staggered away from the creatures toward the water’s edge. She heard a deep, guttural roar as she fled and heard the animals break into a run in pursuit.

Evelyn crashed into the waves, the foliage falling from her body as she waded in up to her hips and looked over her shoulder. To her surprise the big animals slowed as they reached the shore, their chests heaving and wet tongues hanging between their fearsome fangs as they watched her hungrily.

Evelyn began wading along the shoreline to her left, but the animals followed her every move, their thick manes rippling in the breeze but their eyes never leaving hers. She knew that she had no weapons, no possible way of fighting off predators as large and powerful as those hunting her now, and there was no way that she could remain in the water forever.

She stopped moving and the beasts stopped with her. One of them stared wild–eyed at her for a long moment, and then it flopped down onto the cool sand to wait for her. Evelyn slowly lifted one hand from the water and put it in her mouth. Saline. She cursed and looked about her. The beach vanished into the distance in both directions, much too far for her to swim underwater and escape these cruel animals.

To her right she saw a long, thick piece of driftwood edging toward the shore on the rollers. She waded across to it, the animals watching her but not following as she lifted the limb from the water. The tip was not sharp, and the wood likely far too soft to fashion into a useful weapon.

Eve took hold of the limb and dug it into the sand beneath the water as she sought some means of constructing a defence against the creatures on the beach. She cursed her ill fortune and was about to consider charging them head–on when something in the water caught her eye.

A rippling mass of opaque tissue was floating in the water, pulsing with odd colours as it caught the light. Long, shimmering filament–like tentacles drifted behind it, and caught within their veil was a small silvery creature with tiny black eyes. It took only a few moments for Evelyn to realise that the fish was dead.

She edged toward the opaque tissue and prodded it with the driftwood. It pulsed and shimmered but it did not flee. Evelyn slid the driftwood beneath it and lifted it from the water.

The tissue collapsed into a dripping, slimy mess as it left the water, draped across the end of the driftwood. Evelyn saw the dead fish drop back into the water, its jaws agape and its body as stiff as a rock.

She twirled the driftwood about, the tissue wrapping itself around the wood in a tangled mess. Evelyn turned and began to advance back toward the shoreline, the driftwood extended before her. She had no idea what was draped across the wood, but if it could kill a fish then it might be enough to scare a larger predator.

The beasts turned to face her, bright hunter’s eyes and cruel fangs untouched by fear as she strode out of the water, careful to never quite leave it entirely. The nearest and largest animal growled, its flanks quivering and thick, powerful legs coiling as it prepared to attack.

Evelyn, her breath catching in her throat as her heart raced in her chest, let out a piercing scream and lunged forward as she jabbed the driftwood directly at the beast’s nose.

***

A low whistling sound drifted around the periphery of his consciousness, dragging him from oblivion and into the light. Andaim lifted his head as he opened his eyes and drew in a sharp breath as he jolted awake.

He was slumped against a warped bulkhead, a support brace above his head bent ninety degrees and buried in the sand behind him. He looked down at his body and patted his limbs and chest in search of injuries. Although battered and bruised, he could feel no broken bones.

The interior of the aft bulkhead was a cavernous wreck of torn metal, twisted hull plating and the scorched remains of the starboard exhaust cylinder. The hull was half buried in the sand, smoke spiralling up from fried electronics and slag piles of molten metal cooling in the breeze.

He rolled onto his back and smelled a strong waft of burning flesh. He turned his head and looked straight into the eyes of a man long dead, his flesh smouldering not a few cubits from where Andaim lay and his teeth bared in a rictus grin between shrivelled lips.

Andaim scrambled to his feet and away from the corpse, his legs unsteady as he surveyed the wreckage and the bodies of convicts strewn across the desert around it. He rubbed his head, recalling the aft section of the prison hull being torn away and plummeting into the deep sand dunes. He looked around for the rest of the hull, but at the speed and altitude from which they had fallen it could be tens of miles away.

The sun was descending in the sky and throwing long shadows across the desert. Andaim had no idea of where the nearest water was, only that if he didn’t find it within a few hours he would likely die. That was if he didn’t succumb to hypothermia in the night, all deserts prone to deep chills in the absence of the sun.

He scoured the wreckage, wrestling uniforms from the corpses of convicts as extra layers of insulation against both the searing heat of the sun and the cold of the night. He bundled them up and used the sleeves and legs to tie the bundle over his shoulders and around his waist. As he did so, his hand caught upon his holster and the pistol inside it. He breathed a sigh of relief as he drew the weapon and checked the magazine:
full
. Satisfied, he was about to seek out the highest dune that he could find when he saw a trail of footprints in the sand leading away from the wreckage.

He turned and followed the trail, anxious not to overheat himself in the desert heat.

The trail led directly to the highest dune. Andaim clambered up it until he reached the top and saw the desert stretch away from him. He promptly dropped back down out of sight and flat against the hot sand, waiting for several seconds before peeking over the top of the dune.

Strewn across the desert was another smouldering section of hull. A column of dirty brown smoke spilled from the wreckage and billowed up into the hard blue sky, visible for miles around. But what interested Andaim was the crowd of convicts staggering about as they recovered from their ordeal and foraged for weapons amid the debris.

Cutler appeared, and in his hand Andaim could see a pistol. He cursed under his breath. The entire prison had come down, and with it the armoury of correctional officer’s weapons. Though many would have been lost or destroyed, it was somewhat typical of a convict like Cutler to have sniffed a pistol out so quickly.

Andaim reached down for his own pistol as he prepared to head down and confront the convicts, when he felt the weapon yanked from its holster. He whirled to see Qayin point the weapon at him, having apparently watched him from the wreckage before following him with admirable silence up the dune.

‘That’s a shame,’ Qayin murmured. ‘I thought you’d burned up, lieutenant.’

‘Good to see you too.’

‘Looks like you’ve got yourself a problem.’

‘I’d say we both have.’

‘The prisoners will rally to me, not Cutler.’

‘Go ahead and prove it,’ Andaim challenged. ‘You really think they’ve forgotten what you pulled back on the prison hull?’

Qayin grinned without warmth. ‘This time I’ve got me some insurance.’

Qayin yanked Andaim to his feet and propelled him down the far side of the dune. The convicts turned to see Andaim’s body tumble down in a cloud of sand as he rolled to a halt, Qayin striding down the dune behind him with the pistol in his hand.

Andaim clambered to his feet and saw Cutler moving toward them, his convict’s fatigues scorched from the descent and numerous abrasions scarring his face. Andaim was shoved by Qayin to face the gathering convicts.

‘What’s the story?’ Cutler asked Qayin with a raised eyebrow.

‘No idea,’ the big convict replied. ‘Ain’t nobody followed us down that I could see.’

Andaim frowned, confused.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ he asked. ‘Hevel took the ship and marooned us here. Nobody’s coming back down.’

‘That’s what we thought,’ Cutler snorted and pointed to his left. ‘Then we saw that.’

Andaim turned, and in the distance he saw a fiery plume of smoke that was illuminated from within by a fiercely shimmering white glow. In an instant he recalled the prison hull’s aft section being ripped away during the descent. He realised that the fusion core must have been torn away with it, ripped off when the hull struck the distant hills. Now the searing flame–coloured light could mean only one thing: the fusion core was in plain sight on the hilltop, blazing its fearsome energy into the sky.