Atlantia Series 1: Survivor

by Dean Crawford

  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.

  ***

  XXV

  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 smou
ldering 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.

  ‘The core is intact,’ he said. ‘That’s our chance. If Captain Sansin can regian control of the Atlantia, which I’m sure he’ll try to do, then he’ll want to get that core back. If we can get to it they can pick us up at the same time.’

  Cutler stared at Andaim for a long moment, and then he began to laugh. The convicts around him chuckled, some of them casting sneers at Andaim as they did so.

  Cutler strode toward Andaim to stand toe–to–toe with him, his features twisted with malice as he spoke.

  ‘And what, lieutenant, makes you think that any one of us wants to go back to that wreck of a ship?’

  Andaim’s jaw hung slack as he tried to speak.

  ‘You want to stay here?’ he finally gasped.

  ‘Well give the man a bone,’ Cutler replied. ‘You’re smarter than you look. We got a planet here that can support us. We got debris that we can fashion into homes, a fusion core that can become a power source, and best of all? Nobody knows that we survived. As long as we’re believed dead, nobody’s going to find us.’

  Andaim shook his head. ‘Look about you, Cutler. There’s nothing out here.’

  ‘There’s nothin’ up there either,’ Cutler replied. ‘And there sure as hell won’t be once the Word arrives, ain’t that right boys?’

  The convicts rumbled their agreement, their gazes turning dark as they watched Andaim, a physical embodiment of everything that they had fought against and a society that had rejected and punished them not just once, but for all eternity.

  ‘This isn’t going to work,’ Andaim said.

  ‘Not with you here, no,’ Cutler replied and then raised his voice so that everybody could hear him. ‘I’d say food’s a little scarce on the ground here boys, what say we make our dinner march with us?’

  The convict’s chortled with grim humour as Cutler tossed a set of manacles at Andaim.

  ‘Seriously?’ Andaim uttered. ‘This is your idea of a plan?’

  ‘We’ll take the core for ourselves,’ Cutler announced both to Andaim and to the convicts. ‘Along with any other technical equipment and weapons we can find in the debris. As long as nobody alerts the Atlantia to our presence, we’ll be safe. Then we’ll seek out somewhere more habitable to enjoy our stay.’

  Qayin’s voice rumbled above the chorus of agreements.

  ‘And which way are those more habitable climes, Cutler?’

  Cutler did not reply. Instead, he raised his pistol and pointed it at Qayin’s head.

  ‘Nobody’s asking you, Qayin,’ he snarled.

  ‘I’m asking you,’ Qayin shot back. ‘You don’t got a plan, do you? You’re all bluster and boasting.’

  ‘Least I ain’t no traitor, Qayin.’

  The convicts rumbled threateningly, some of them wielding slivers of metal sheared from the debris during the crash, makeshift handles of torn fabric wrapped around the ends, fashioned by the ever resourceful prisoners. The crude blades flashed in the bright sunlight.

  ‘Seriously?’ Qayin grumbled. ‘You’re still going with that?’

  ‘You walked,’ Cutler shot back. ‘You left us on that prison hull to die and saved yourself. So much for the Mark of Qayin, it’s now the mark of a coward.’

  Qayin snarled at Cutler, who gestured with a flick of his pistol toward the weapon Qayin held in his hand.

  ‘Drop it, or I swear I’ll put a shot in both your heads right here and now. Neither of you are necessary, Qayin.’

  ‘Do it,’ Andaim whispered harshly to Qayin. ‘We can’t do anything right now.’

  ‘There ain’t no we,’ Qayin growled back at him.

  The giant convict stared at Cutler for a moment longer and then he raised his hands and deactivated the pistol.

  ‘All right, Cutler,’ he said. ‘Have it your way.’

  Cutler stepped forward as Qayin dropped the pistol at his feet and stepped back from it. The convict picked the weapon up and grinned cruelly as he called behind him.

  ‘Fasten them up boys!’

  The convicts rushed forward and manacled both Andaim and Qayin. As soon as they were restrained, Cutler looked out toward the towering pillar of smoke and flame.

  ‘Let’s go,’ he shouted.

  As then convicts moved off, Andaim whispered to Qayin.

  ‘This is insane. Even if he recovers the core and controls it, what the hell does he intend to do with it?’

  ‘Protection against the Word,’ Qayin guessed. ‘He’s set on staying here and letting the Atlantia sail away or be defeated.’

  ‘That core is useless without something to contain it and direct its energy. Right now, it’s a greater danger to us than to anything else.’

  Qayin had no reply for the lieutenant, and so remained silent. They walked for hours as the sun sank toward the horizon behind them, the skyline a trembling sea of molten metal and the endless desert stark against the bright sky. Andaim, his head swimming and aching with dehydration, managed to maintain a steady pace as the hours wound on but he heard others behind him stumbling and struggling to walk as the heat drained them of precious fluids.

  ‘You’re killing us, Cutler,’ Andaim croaked as they walked. ‘Just a sure and fast as the Word will when it finds us all.’

  Cutler did not reply, marching
ever onward beneath the blazing sky.

  The sun was sinking toward the horizon, the cloying heat fading when Andaim smelled the odour of water drifting upon the air across the lonely deserts. Trees, their leaves strange and long and their trunks layered, sprouted forth in a sprawling oasis of green as the little caravan was led toward the water.

  Andaim struggled up a low sloping dune and before him a spectacular sight unfolded. A vast, shallow river valley dominated the desert canvass, green water sparkling in the sunlight and surrounded by dense ranks of trees on both banks.

  The convicts stared at the oasis in awe and then began running down toward it as Andaim glanced over his shoulder. Qayin hawked up a globule of phlegm and spat it out into the sand at his feet.

  ‘How the hell did he manage that?’ he asked.

  Their captors shoved them in their backs and they were forced to descend the other side of the dune and join the animal trail that led toward the oasis.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Andaim replied, ‘but you can bet that everything else that lives here will be at that watering hole, and I’m not keen to find out what predators survive on this planet.’

  ***

  XXVI

  The beast snarled at Evelyn as she jabbed the driftwood at it, its fangs bared and its eyes screwed up in fury.

  She had not realised just how massive the predators were until she had gotten close to them, each creature twice as long as a man and standing high enough to reach her hips. Thick claws on their feet were likewise bared, and they were trying to flank her on either side but seemed reluctant to enter the water. Each time they moved alongside her she backed away into the waves and they were forced to retreat.

  Evelyn’s arms ached with the effort of holding the driftwood out in front of her with the sodden mass of venomous tissue dangling from the end, and her legs were weak with fatigue and a lack of proper sleep. She needed water and rest, but she knew damned well that as soon as she showed any sign of weakness the beasts would be upon her in a frenzy of fangs and claws.