Free Atlantia Series 1: Survivor by Dean Crawford

the prison wing were secondary features, not a planned…’
    ‘I get the picture, Andaim,’ Idris snapped. ‘Do we have any idea who did this?’
    ‘Not yet sir.’
    ‘What about the survivor?’ Idris asked.
    ‘We have no idea how that was possible, sir. All of the convicts incarcerated in the high–security wing perished either in the blast or immediately afterward when their escape capsules were….’
    ‘Destroyed,’ the captain finished the sentence for his officer. ‘Councillor Hevel has much to answer for. And yet, despite everything, there she is.’
    He pointed to a monitor, one of several that lined the observation platform to relay imagery from the bridge to those above it. The monitor was filled with a still–image of the masked convict, Alpha–Zero–Seven, her metal face staring into the camera.
    Andaim shivered. ‘Who is she?’
    ‘Her file is almost non–existent. No criminal record until five precessions ago, when she apparently murdered her family,a crime serious enough to silence her and send her out to Atlantia Five to permanent isolation and biological stasis.’
    ‘Castaway protocol,’ Andaim nodded. ‘Only heard of one other case in the history of the Word.’
    ‘My guess is that she’s somehow behind all of this,’ Idris said. ‘I don’t pretend to know how, but she got herself out and she’s on the rampage. You saw what happened. Qayin and his thugs didn’t have a clue what to do until she showed up, probably didn’t have the guts to start torturing hostages. But this one, she’s capable of anything and they know it.’
    Andaim swallowed, and the captain could see the fear leeching from his pores as he spoke.
    ‘I don’t suppose…’
    ‘We’re on our own out here and we need to think out of the box,’ Idris replied, wondering whether the lieutenant would suggest what Hevel had.
    Andaim tensed, then lifted his chin and with it his resolve. ‘What would you have me do, sir?’
    Idris offered his first officer a warm smile. Fact was, Andaim was afraid and Idris could see it as clear as the bright star flaring in the heavens directly above them. Yet he was ready to do his duty, or at the very least willing to give it a try.
    ‘The convicts want out of the prison and into the Atlantia, specifically the sanctuary. I think that it’s fair to say we cannot allow that to happen.’
    ‘Then we must liberate our people by force,’ Andaim said.
    ‘Oh, how I wish we could,’ Idris said. ‘But the risks of a close–quarters fight against an armed and numerically superior enemy turn the odds against us. The warders in the prison could not hold out against a small portion of the convict population. How would we fare?’
    It was not Andaim who replied, but Hevel as he mounted the stairs to the observation platform, Dhalere alongside him.
    ‘Then we have no choice, captain.’
    ‘No choice?’
    ‘We must prioritise those that we can protect at the expense of those we cannot.’
    Idris turned to face the councillor. ‘Are you again advocating abandoning the hostages?’
    ‘I’m not advocating anything,’ Hevel insisted. ‘If we do not act soon we shall sit here and watch Qayin and his thugs start slicing our people into chunks. Do you have any idea how much panic that will cause here, among the crew, among the passengers?’
    Andaim jabbed a finger at Hevel’s chest.
    ‘Do you think being seen to walk away from our own officers, at a time of great need, will shed us in any better a light?’
    ‘They do not need to know,’ Hevel said in a whisper, glancing down into the bridge to ensure that they were not overheard. ‘The hostages will succumb far faster if we cut them loose than if they were left to Qayin.’
    ‘And if you were there?’ Idris challenged. ‘Would you be so ruthless?’
    ‘I would do what had to be done.’
    ‘Would you?’ Idris uttered. ‘Somehow I doubt that. Those men over there are not just correctional officers. They are husbands, sons,