Undersea (12 page)

The hole the shaft left in the side of the
Uni
was no less catastrophic. The entire starboard engine bay was quickly flooded, killing hundreds and shorting out the adjacent engine. The abundance of power on the port side of the ship, still in full reverse, sent the nose to port and the tail to starboard, pivoting the ship around and separating it temporarily from the diving and retreating
Population
. Chunks of debris fell to the depths as the two behemoths shrugged each other off.

“Damage Report!” Captain Sarras yelled. On the bridge there was pandemonium. Alarms were sounding at every station, people were yelling to be heard over the din. Adding to it all were the sounds of the ship dying around them.

“Flooding on Decks 12, 13, and 14, sir,” an officer yelled from his station. “I have reports of water on Decks 15 and 16. We have lost Shafts 5 and 6; 4 is badly damaged.”

“Ensign,” Sarras yelled over the comm, “all ahead, flank. Now!”

“Sir!”

“Engine room reports heavy flooding and fires, Captain. Water is flooding in from the damaged shafts. I have lost all communication with Engine Room 6.”

“Ensign, bring us about and out of here.”

“Sir!”

“Chief of Arms, those batteries had better be firing.”

“They are, sir.”

“We have structural alerts throughout the ship. The Basket is reporting five craft are loose and are dangerously close to breaking free.”

“Hold together…” the Captain said under his breath.

The two ships gradually began to put distance between then, trailing debris floating up or falling down to the sea floor. As they continued their turn, the defensive batteries started to fire on the left arm of the
Population
’s fleet. Drychem rockets lanced out, impacting the enemy ships. They scattered immediately, diving down to rendezvous with their stricken and sinking mothership. The
Population
, veering starboard, revealed her broadside to the fleeing
Universalis.
All along the side of the ship, portals snapped open.

“Captain, weapons warning. Enemy sub has gone hot. Correction, enemy sub has launched torpedoes. Weapons are active and tracking.” The officer’s voice had taken on a fever pitch.

“How many weapons, ensign?”

“I… dozens, sir. Impact in 20 seconds.” The ensign looked away from his station to look at the Captain, and every eye in the room followed.
It was subtle—Thom didn’t think most would notice it—but something had changed in the Captain. The look of fire was gone. He knew he had lost.

Sarras stood stoically for a moment. He hastened a glance at Jills, then back to the console.

“Mr. Lindl, fire countermeasures. All hands, brace for impact.” Head sinking to his chest, Sarras closed his eyes and gripped the console with both hands.

Part 2

I

Thom Vargas sat in a cramped, dark cockpit. None of the varied indicators, switches, buttons, or screens were lit, save the main one, and even it was set so low as to be barely visible. Off to his left, out the side viewscreen, a boulder loomed like a vertical cliff. He watched as a transport and two diamond-shaped escort subs cruised silently past just above him.

Tapping a button on the roof of the cockpit, Thom activated an invisible laser that pulsed straight out into the darkness. A moment later, his dimly lit console registered that it had sensed a return pulse. Instantly, Thom pushed the throttle forward hard, and the little craft burst from its hiding place, stirring up a cloud of gray silt. In front and beside him, four other attack subs of the same streamlined design all revealed themselves from cover and converged on the transport. All his dials and screens were now lit and feeding him information. The escort subs veered off from the transport, and came around to engage.

Thom pulled back on his controls and shot straight up at full speed. As he passed the thermal layer he rolled over, keeping his speed but now going parallel with the transport. His screens went blank as the battle below became obscured from his sensors by the thermal layer. The water-jet engine, nearly the entire back portion of the tiny sub, bucked and whined loudly in protest. After a moment he nosed the front of the craft over. His screens lit back up, and Thom saw that the escort subs had taken out two of his compatriots while taking minimal damage of their own. Of the two remaining attack subs, one was clearly in distress, with gasses escaping from the engine compartment.

Directly ahead of Thom, or below him, depending on your perspective, was the transport, cavitating hard in an attempt to make a getaway. Thom adjusted his angle of attack so the nose of his craft was aimed slightly in front of the fleeing transport. Gravity now assisting, Thom’s sub became a missile, slicing through the water at  speeds that would have made a less experienced pilot panic. As he got closer, it looked like he had lined up perfectly, with the transport moving forward into his sights just as his weapons came within range. He turned on his weapons systems and fired off a series of shots, all impacting along the spine of the transport a moment later. The transport slowed to a stop, and Thom shot by, buzzing the cockpit and showering it with a cloud of silt. Dialing back the throttle, he keyed his comm.

“Good work everyone, back to the barn for a debrief. Last one in has to swim in the pool.”

Behind him, the three stricken attack subs powered back up, and came around to follow him. The transport and escorts formed up and did the same.

Twenty minutes later they came across a meandering undersea canyon, like someone had taken a knife and drunkenly carved a line in the sea floor. The mini fleet dove over the edge and twisted through the canyon at high speeds, as if daring each other to go faster. After a few minutes, the canyon broadened out and the floor dropped down and away. There in the center was the
Universalis
, partially buried in silt.

The little light that reached this far down showed the carnage of battle. The aft section looked as if some massive beast had crushed and ripped away at the fragile hull, pulling structural girders, bulkheads, piping, wiring, and flooring with it. Exposed decks collected the same silt to match the rest of the hull. Tiny bursts of bright light shown like stars all around the damaged sections. Dry-suited welders, doing their best to hide the telltale signs of their profession, chopped and cut at the carnage. The bow and most of the forward sections were deep into the sea bed.

On closer inspection, small valleys, too smooth and regular to be erosion, had been dug into the sea floor leading underneath the giant sub. Occasionally, a small sub with no running lights would enter or exit the
Uni
via one of the small valleys.

Thom extricated himself from the cockpit of the attack sub, the hull still dripping onto the white bay floor. Around him, the other pilots were doing the same. The larger escort subs, with their crews of three, were waiting with open cockpits for rolling stairs to be brought over by the bay crew. After a few minutes, everyone was assembled in front of Thom. No one looked pleased.

“OK, what could you have done better?” Thom asked, pointing to a young pilot on the left of the group.

“I think I needed to get closer to the deck when someone was on my tail,” he said cautiously. Thom nodded and pointed at the next person over, a middle-aged recruit from the maintenance corps with graying hair and a lanky figure.

“I drystalled my motor in a turn. So... not that, I guess,” he replied. Thom nodded again and moved down the line. Each of the pilots listed his screw-ups. Thom said nothing until they were all finished.

“All true. There were larger failures. Two, really. Anyone know what they were?” Thom scanned the group for an answer. He pointed to a tall, burly pilot of one of the escort subs. “Deebee, think you have an idea?”

“We lost the transport?”

“Exactly. In your effort to get the attackers, I was able to sneak past you and take out the target. He was so far away there was nothing you could have done even if you had seen me, which you didn’t. Mark your targets. That’s why there are three of you in there: one to drive, one to watch, and one to shoot. Transport,” Thom said, scanning the group for the transport pilot. “When you’re trying to flee, don’t just go in a straight line. Veer off. Weave around. Drive like a fish would. I knew exactly where you were going to be. But that’s not the other big failure—just wanted to mention it. OK, what’s the other one? One of you guys?” he said, pointing at the attack pilots.

“Don’t die?”

“Thank you. Don’t die. That’s pretty much the first rule around here, as far as I’m concerned. Now cheer up. This was just your first of many combat exercises, and you did a lot better than most of the other classes. The vids of the battle will be on the shipnet for you to watch. I’d advise watching everyone else’s too. And what’s our motto?

“Sure beats fishing,” they all said in unison, not altogether unconvincingly.

“Sure does. See you next week.”

Thom changed out of his drysuit and made his way to the Garden for some lunch. He found Ralla waiting for him at a table in front of Eerre’s cafe, digging through a pile of papers as she sipped at a thick-looking black beverage. She looked up and smiled as he approached the table. He liked how her eyes squinted a bit when she smiled.

“How’d class go?”

“Each group seems worse than the last.”

“Well, give them some time. A few months ago these guys were farmers and fishermen.”

“A few months ago
I
was a fisherman.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Sadly,” he replied. Thom scanned the cafe for a moment until he made eye contact with Eerre, who nodded at him and headed back towards the kitchen. “Anything new?” he asked, motioning towards the papers.

“They think they’ll be able to finish a new landing deck in a few weeks, but only because they’re flattening out the whole area instead of rebuilding it. The corridors and hull repairs are coming along more slowly. It seems like every time they patch one leak they find a new one.” She dropped her hand to the table, obviously weary and agitated, splattering the papers on the table with a bit of the black liquid from the glass she was still holding “The ship is old, Thom. It was old before this mess. It was old before we were born. I don’t know what...” Thom interrupted her by putting his hand on hers. It was as if his hand had opened a valve that let the aggravation flow out. She sighed, and smiled at him. “Sorry. Thanks.”

Eerre arrived with their food, plates of fruit and vegetables with strips of grilled fish in a thin bread wrap. After clearing a space, the two ate ravenously.

“Are you around tonight?” he asked between mouthfuls. “Want to catch a vid? I think they're showing
It Came from the Surface 2
, and I know how much you loved the first one.”

“I hated the first one.”

“Everyone hated the first one. I thought that was the point?”

Ralla smiled apologetically.

“I wish I could. This,” she said motioning to the covered table, “is just part of what I have to make it through today. Another time?”

Thom raised his hands in defeat. “Another time, Councilwoman,” he said with a smile. She opened her mouth, full of food, and then stuck her tongue out at him. He replied in kind.

Out of the corner of his eye, Thom could see Eerre smiling and shaking his head.

“I’m actually headed to one of the elementary schools after this. Want to come?”

Thom cocked his head in question.

“I’ve been doing it for a few years now. The teachers like having guest speakers. Give the kids ideas about what they want to do with their lives, that kind of thing. I love it. This will be my first time as a real Councilmember. Who knows, maybe I’ll inspire one of them,” she said with a smirk. The joke was lost on Thom, who shrugged.

“I don’t think I’d give them the message you’re hoping for,” he said into his sandwich. The atmosphere at the table suddenly cooled. Ralla nodded and finished her food. She stood and gathered up her papers in silence.

“Ralla...” Thom said finally. She waved him silent, then put her hand gently on his shoulder and left.

II

Ralla took the elevator up four levels, and made her way to Starboard Elementary 3, or See3 as they called it. The “school,” one level outward from the innermost cabins, was really just a collection of cabins opened up and connected to fit the dozen or so students from each grade. She was not surprised to see a classroom nearly identical to the others she had visited, and to her own almost two decades earlier. The teacher saw her in the doorway, and quickly wrapped up her lesson. Ralla had a brief moment of panic as she forgot the teacher’s name, then almost laughed out loud at herself when she noticed it written above the front board. Ms. Itters started to introduce her, and Ralla noticed with no amusement that the teacher was actually younger than she was. That was a first. She felt oddly old.

“OK, kids. Say hello to Councilwoman Gattley,” Ms. Itters said in the same voice teachers have spoken to young children since the dawn of education. The kids parroted Ralla’s name after saying “Hello.”

“Hi, kids. As Ms. Itters just said, my name is Ralla Gattley. I’m a junior member of the Council. Can someone tell me how many Council members there are?” A few hands went up. Like she always did, she picked a girl.

“Eight plus the Proctor?”

“Correct. Good job. I take it Ms. Itters has taught you some of this already.” The children nodded. “OK, how about a tough one? How old is the
Universalis
?” This time, only boys raised their hands. She picked one that looked especially enthusiastic.