Cut Off (46 page)

On the sub's top, one of the aliens went still, facing them, lit by flickering orange. It gestured exaggeratedly to the others.

"Incoming!" Sam said.

She pulled the trigger. Her gun jolted her back, its shot roaring above the engine. In response, a laser beamed from the sub, crackling through the smoke in the air, followed by an ongoing flurry of shots as the alien's comrades joined in. Ness installed himself behind the rails and fired back. The beams lanced through the night crazily, skewed by the motions of the yacht. The sub provided a much steadier platform. A laser slashed into the ship, smoldering the canvas, smoke trailing across the deck. Another beam struck the railing and held long enough to melt a quarter-sized blob of solder before it blinked off. Sam's fourth shot spun an alien off the deck and into the sea.

A glaring white point lifted from the sub. It climbed high into the air, hung at its apex for a single second, then leapt forward. Someone shouted, possibly Ness himself. The rocket sizzled over the yacht, the heat of its engine baking Ness' skin. It struck the water behind them and vanished in a bloom that lit the sea for hundreds of yards. A hot wind rushed over the yacht. Tristan raced to the jib with a tub of water and sloshed it over the smoldering canvas. Lasers diced the air around her.

"We have to get closer!" she shouted. "So they can't use the missiles without blowing themselves up, too!"

She'd no sooner said this than a second launched from the sub, arced upward, and streaked toward them. Ness threw himself flat. The rocket spun past, its smoky contrail corkscrewing behind it, and impacted into the water just behind and to starboard. The burst rocked the ship, the heat stinging Ness' eyes, the boom ringing in his ears. The engine coughed, burbling, then quit. Blue lights cut through the sudden quiet. The sub began to outpace them.

From the cabin, Sprite screamed a litany of obscenities. The engine sputtered, then revved back to the fullness of its power.

Ness gestured jaggedly to Sebastian. The alien nodded. A third rocket whoomped from the vessel, climbing, stalling. As it peaked, Ness and Sebastian fired a skein of blue lines, lashing wildly as the yacht rolled. The rocket jumped forward, crossing right through one of the bolts. The explosion flowered to all sides, pummeling the submarine's deck, washing it with fire.

Ness dropped, struck down as much by his blindness as by the hammer of the shock wave. He pressed his forearm over his eyes. Sam and Tristan were yelling back and forth with Sprite. Ness felt the boat tip beneath him and slapped his arm to the deck to hold on. The inverted colors of the burst floated in his vision, but he could see the world, too, at first in charcoal shapes, then in increasing levels of resolution.

"Are you not hurt?" Sebastian signed to him.

"I made the mistake of looking where I was shooting," Ness signed back. "I take it everyone's alive?"

Sebastian shook his head. "Not on the submarine."

The smoke was even thicker yet, but they were close enough that Ness didn't have to use his binoculars to see the top of the sub had been scorched empty by the blast. The sub sped on unperturbed. Through gaps in the smoke, the mainland loomed nearer.

"We board," Sebastian said. "I will look as their own."

"You sure you're ready for that?"

"I am sure."

"Then let's tear this mother down." Ness ran down the deck and swung into the bridge. "Take us right up beside the sub. Me and Sebastian are going in."

Sprite's teeth flashed. "Aye aye, Captain!"

Ness returned to the prow. The other three were there, all eyes on the sub. "We're going to seize the sub. Sam, I'd like you to cover us from up here. Tristan?"

Tristan swept her hair from her face. "There's no use for me up here."

The yacht edged closer. The smoke around the sub cleared, dampened by the constant spray from the tower. Guided by Tristan's hand signals, Sprite maneuvered the yacht to the side of the submarine and eased down the throttle, matching speed. The sub's back was barely clear of the water. One slip, and they'd be cast into the sea to pray they weren't about to be chopped to chum by the yacht's prop.

Ness moved to the railing, gazing down at the dark platform six feet below them. Before Ness could sign that he was ready, Sebastian was flying over the side. Ness laughed and tossed himself over.

Sebastian landed with a whump, tentacles slapping the damp hull for support. Ness hit the deck in a crouch and toppled to the side. A gentle claw snapped around his arm, arresting his fall. Tristan landed, pitching forward and catching herself on her palms.

The door to the ramp at the top of the tower was open. Sebastian led the way down. Inside, the lights were flickering. The air stunk of Swimmers and smoke. At the bottom, Sebastian moved into the central hallway bisecting the top level. Blue flashed from the dimness. An alien slumped across the floor. Sebastian scuttled ahead, then beckoned. Ness and Tristan jogged out from the ramp.

"It is standard standard," Sebastian signed. "Control room first. Then room by room."

He turned and ran, passing the vacant galley. He swung down to the control room, Ness and Tristan trailing twenty feet behind. Sebastian burst into the chamber, silhouetted by the monitors, then came to a stop, tentacles raising in confusion. Behind him, an alien emerged from the shadows and leveled a pistol at the back of Sebastian's head.

Everything in Ness' vision disappeared but the claw, the gun, his friend. He planted his feet, gesturing broadly at Sebastian with one hand while leveling his pistol in the other. Sensing his motion, the Swimmer twitched. Sebastian threw himself to the side. Ness fired. The alien pitched forward, its laser burning through a gap between two of Sebastian's limbs. Sebastian shot the Swimmer as it fell, but it was already dead, smoke curling from a hole in its head.

"A good shot," Sebastian signed. He slung himself into the chair before the monitors and began to bring the sub to a stop.

Ness moved into the room and turned to cover the door, Tristan moving to the other side. As it turned out, the rest of the vessel was vacant. Once they had cleared it, they headed up top. The sea air tasted sweet. The yacht looked less sweet: burnt sails, a scorched and dented side from the second missile strike, slashed rigging swaying from the masts. Its idling engines fluttered in and out.

"That's just great," Ness said. "We prevent a second Panhandler, and all we've got to show for it is two busted ships."

"Wrong," Tristan said. "We've got a
fleet
."

Sprite leaned his elbows on the railing. "Only if we patch these babies up. Right now, they're more messed up than I am."

Tristan gazed to the north. "San Diego's only a few miles from here. Naval base. One of the biggest ports on the West Coast. We could try to fix them up there."

Ness laughed. "It's either that or say hello to your new home in Tijuana."

"San Diego's my vote." She slitted her eyes. "We'll have to be on watch. Last time I was there, a real asshole had seized the throne."

Back in the control room, they discovered the submarine would no longer start. With much swearing, they lashed the sub to the yacht and towed it to the coast north of the border. During the long, slow ride, which threatened to burn out the yacht's engines more than once, Sebastian tapped into the sub's network and discovered the ship was carrying a sample of the virus sealed in a semi-opaque plastic tube.

As soon as they made it to shore, Sam rigged another charge. Sebastian wrapped it around the tube and set it in the sand. They retreated down the beach. Sam thumbed the button. One last boom rolled across the night.

"I never thought I'd say this," Sprite said. "But I think I've seen enough things blow up today."

"Is that the last copy?" Tristan said.

"According to their records." Ness lifted his eyes from the smoking crater to the clear stars. "But the aliens don't have one big network. They're fractured."

"Like us."

"Thank goodness we're still busted up," he said. "Otherwise, they'd have released that thing and finished us off a long time ago."

Unwilling to trust that the yacht was entirely seaworthy, they located an old ranger's station on the beach and spent the night inside it. In the light of day, Sebastian took a look at the sub and declared he could have it running by noon. He was wrong; it took him until nearly 3 PM. But with the sub able to operate under its own power—and its weapons system active—they entered San Diego with far greater confidence, tying up at a commercial pier.

Sam threw herself at fixing the engine on the yacht while Sebastian got busy on the sub. Ness and Tristan provided security and supply runs. Sprite spent a lot of time walking around the docks and downtown. Ness assumed that was to rebuild his strength and acclimate to the strap-on wooden peg he insisted on using even now that they were in a city full of hospitals with prosthetics. He was proven completely wrong when Sprite returned one evening to announce that he'd met with a local tribe, who'd been watching them, and had negotiated a treaty and free passage through the city on the grounds they were accomplished alien hunters.

Ness frowned at the highrises fronting the piers. "Think it was wise to tell them that? Might draw attention."

"We already had
that
," Sprite said. "Our options were to let them know we're too dangerous to mess with but that we mean them no harm. Or to act like total sneaksters, make them suspicious and afraid, and get their trigger fingers itching." He looked Ness up and down. "You might know a lot about aliens and running around and blowing things up. But you don't know much about people, do you?"

"Most times, I consider that a blessing."

"Anyway, I told them a few stories. Couldn't help myself. Now they want to meet you."

Ness rolled his eyes. "There's nothing I'd rather do less."

"Okay, if you want to be antisocial about it." Sprite clocked his peg against the pier. "Then again, I suppose it will only add to your mystique."

Treaty or not, Ness didn't like the idea of what the locals might get up to if they saw the sub, let alone Sebastian. Yet either Sprite had convinced them to stay off the docks, or they dropped by for a look and decided it wasn't worth the fight, because they left the visitors in peace. The connection even proved useful once their food began to dwindle.

Sam had the yacht functional within two weeks. While Sebastian continued to work on the sub's engine, she began patching and welding its battered top. Ness was highly skeptical she'd be able to contribute to the repair of an alien submarine—if anything, she'd probably muck it up worse—but according to Sebastian, she proved most useful.

Another few weeks, and he was ready to take it for a test spin. Ness and Tristan watched from the pier as it pulled into the bay and slipped below the surface.

Tristan laughed and shook her head. "Crazy what you can do when you just decide to do it."

"I know," Ness said. "Guess you could say the same about everything in the last few months."

She smiled, watching the last of the bubbles froth to the surface. "Now that our fleet is functional, what's our next move?"

"
Our
next move? You want to come with us?"

She stuttered with wry laughter. "Have I made the mistake of overstaying the party?"

"Thing is, it's always just been me and Sebastian. I'm not sure what he'd think about adding another member to the band." Ness rolled his lip between his teeth. "I figured you'd want to get back to Hawaii. What makes you want to hitch your wagon to us weirdos?"

"I've been surviving for years. Simple. Easy. Quiet. But the plague and what came after—it warped something in me. It left me so angry, but there was nowhere for that anger to go. Every little thing that came up, it was like smashing a grape with a mallet. I wound up isolating my brother, holding him back when he should have been growing into the new world." Her gaze seemed to reach all the way to the horizon. "Not long before we met, the aliens took my brother's girlfriend up into the mountain. He came to me to get her back. The instant I stepped into the darkness of the tube, I found myself."

"I'll talk to Sebastian." Ness smiled with half his mouth. "Assuming he doesn't drown down there."

Once Sebastian returned the sub to the pier, Ness hopped aboard and headed down the ramp. In the control room, Sebastian turned from the monitors, limbs raised giddily. "It swims!"

"You're a miracle worker," Ness signed back. "Sam, too."

"They are good. All of them. We are fortunate."

"They are pretty good." He picked at the skin around his cuticle. "Question is, are they right for us? Or is it time to part ways?"

Sebastian tipped his long head. "If they are good, why would we part them?"

"Because we've always been fine on our own."

"We were never alone. There was the Collective."

Ness glanced down. "That's the other thing. You can't just replace the Collective. They knew so much about the Swimmers. The sub. The Way."

"It is not to replace what is lost. It is to strengthen what is weakened. Perhaps you resist this because you feel guilt of their death."

"Of
course
I feel guilty!" Ness gestured. "Why wouldn't I? If not for me, they'd still be here."

"Yet you are not to guilt. They died in pursuit of that which burned at the heart of their inside stars." Sebastian stood from his chair to face Ness straight on. "Things die.
All
things die. If the greatness they are a part of is to survive, they must be replaced by those not yet dead. This is how the body outlasts its parts. This is the Way."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "You really think this is a good idea?"

"These people appeal to my judgment. Inside, I feel rightness."

"Well, I'm not about to argue with rightness." Ness dropped into a chair. "You realize you'll be the only alien in our little crew. The odd man out. No pun intended."

Sebastian gazed at him. "You know your puns make more confusion than sense."

"So we've got two boats and a new crew. What's next?"