Read Online Atlantia Series 1: Survivor by Dean Crawford - Free Book Online Page A

listened for a moment.
    ‘I’m talking to you, scum! Do you have any idea what will happen to you when the Word finds us and…’
     
    ‘If they find us, captain,’ Qayin replied, ‘which won’t happen before we’re all pulled down into the planet’s atmosphere. Do you want to live, or die?’
    A long silence and then the gruff voice replied.
    ‘I’ll do whatever I have to do to ensure the safety of my passengers and crew.’
     
    ‘Including murder?’ Qayin asked. ‘Surely, that would make you no less criminal than us. I’m surprised we have so much in common, captain.’
    A ripple of low chuckles wafted around the control centre.
    ‘We have nothing in common, Qayin,’ came the reply.
    ‘We are in danger,’ Qayin shot back. ‘We are in crisis. None of us wants to die. We have much in common and we must work together. We don’t like it. You don’t like it. Our hostages sure as hell don’t like it but it’s happening.’
    Qayin stood up and strolled across to Governor Hayes’ grisly severed head. He picked it up by the hair and carried it across to one of the observation monitors, gesturing to one of the convicts as he went.
    ‘Open the feed,’ he said.
    The monitor flickered into life and Qayin thrust the decapitated head into view. A gasp of disgust whispered down the channel.
    ‘You’re animals,’ came the captain’s response. ‘You don’t deserve to live.’
    ‘That’s what the governor thought when he cleansed the cell block,’ Qayin replied as he tossed the governor’s head aside and beckoned Alpha across to him. She walked across the platform to his side. ‘Got somebody for you to meet. You don’t give us what we want, we’ll put her to work on the hostages.’
    Qayin stood to one side and Alpha moved to stand in front of the screen. Another gasp of disbelief.
    ‘Her? They were terminated!’
     
    ‘All but one,’ Qayin replied. ‘And she’s already killed four of my men. I’d like to say I control her, but in truth, she’s got her own agenda. You did fire plasma charges at her escape capsule, didn’t you captain, after the blast? We saw them.’
    Another long silence and then Qayin spoke loudly.
    ‘You have one hour, captain, or I’ll broadcast what she does to the hostages live across the whole damned ship.’
    ***

VIII
    Captain Idris Sansin sat in the commander’s chair on the bridge, watching the surveillance monitors arrayed before him. Two showed the tattered remnants of the tethers between the prison hull and the Atlantia, two more the only intact passage which was currently guarded by twenty of his best marines on permanent rotation under Bra’hiv’s command.
    ‘Status report?’ he asked his first officer.
    Andaim, a young lieutenant and fighter pilot upon whom Idris had found himself relying in these troubled times, called out his reply from across the bridge. ‘All life–support systems active, repairs ongoing to the hull, but we can’t access the prison hull from here. The only way in would be via shuttle, maybe through the damaged stern section.’
    The captain dragged his weary frame out of his chair and strode to the aft section of the bridge. There, a spiral staircase led up to a viewing platform, a smaller room surrounded by windows that afforded the captain a broad view of his vessel.
    He climbed the stairs and stood inside the platform, examining the spectacular panorama arrayed before him.
    Below him was the Atlantia’s main hull, a long and angular construction typical of ship–of–the–line frigates of Colonial design. Strictly speaking the Atlantia was an out of commission warship assigned to the prison service, stripped of many of her weapons and with a large portion of her hull given over to accommodation for the families of both military and correctional officers attached to her. Almost three hundred men, women and children lived in the sanctuary, protected by a hundred or so sworn military officers. Another hundred or so correctional