Undersea (22 page)

It was an eerie silence that accompanied them as they ascended to meet the
Population
. As they drifted up through crushing darkness, the
Pop
moved forward, its ominous dark shape looming malevolently above them.

Tegit’s men had their weapons strapped to their thighs. A collapsed carbine rifle on the left, and a pistol sidearm on the right. Cern and Thom had just the sidearm. Cern, though, clutched to his chest a black satchel, one of its handles wrapped around his wrist. A thin cable made out of some fiber Thom had never seen connected them all by the waist. Thom was at one end, Tegit the other, but the group lacked any real formation. They swam up, not wanting to use their suits’ motors out in the open. The neutral buoyancy gave them better control over where they landed on the hull. It had all seemed smart in the briefing, but in practice it turned out to be exhausting.

Thom felt a hand on his leg and looked down. They were observing comm silence, but the suits had short range line-of-sight laser transmitters. From below, he could see Tegit staring at him. His voice came over Thom’s helmet’s speakers, tinny and echoey.

“They’re moving too fast to have open bay operations. I think we should go to plan ‘B’ and just latch on where we can and wait for them to stop.”

“Sounds good,” Thom replied, knowing that it didn’t. Any decent fisherman could tell you that bigger the fish was, the slower it appeared to swim. And the
Pop
was a big fish. As fast as it seemed to be moving, Thom knew its actual speed would be brutal. Within moments they were close enough to see the error in their optimism. The textures of the hull, so distinct mere moments ago, became a blur in the blink of an eye. And somehow, they were going to have to get ahold of that blur.

They activated their suits’ propulsion units, and tried to minimize the difference in speed they best they could. Thom was the closest, with each member of the team down the line farther from the sub. The
Pop
appeared to slow as he accelerated, and he pushed upwards into the turbulent water churning around the hull. Thom nearly pulled his fingers out out of socket grabbing hold of the outer lip of one of the small bays near the keel. He couldn’t hold on, so he readied a magbolt as the hull slipped past him. Koin had confidently hung from the ceiling in his office using a single magbolt, made from the same material as the ship's electric motors. Thom had his doubts, but jabbed it against the hull, closing his eyes as the line went taught.

Being simultaneously accelerated to the speed of the
Pop
and slapped against the hull knocked the wind out of Thom. Down the line, each man hit with greater and greater force as the bolt held strong and the line went taught. Thom turned in time to see Sergeant Tegit, the last in line, slam violently into the hull knee first, certainly shattering it. He took small comfort in the fact that no one could hear the scream he saw through Tegit’s helmet. His relief was short-lived, though; the other men turned in time to see Tegit rebound and slam back into the hull, again and again. When the bouncing stopped, Tegit’s body was limp.

Thom felt every impact though the hull, and was worried that someone inside would have heard it as well. There was nothing to be done about it, though. The hull stretched out in every direction, like a sky, just darker than the world below it. They hung there, the sound of the water rushing by their only reminder of the world, buffeted by the force of it, like a piece of seaweed caught on the keel.

More than anything at that moment, Thom wanted a drink.

He must have passed out; when he came to, the clock inside his helmet said close to two hours had passed since they had left the transport. That meant he had been unconscious for almost an hour. Thom tilted his head down, and saw the row of men behind him, all trying to be as streamlined as possible, hanging onto the rope that secured them at the waist to the ship above. They were coming up on decision time.  He used his right foot to tap the man below him, who looked up after a second, disoriented. He had passed out too. Thom used his tongue to activate the laser transmitter.

“Send down to Sergeant Tegit, see if we can rouse him, find out what he wants us to do. We’re coming up on no return.”

“Copy,” came the reply. With the dark suits and poor audio, Thom had no idea who it was and he couldn’t remember the order in which they’d strapped themselves together. The man mimicked Thom’s procedure to the man below him.

It was several minutes before the reply came back up the chain.

“Tegit is still unconscious. He may be dead for all we know. What do you want to do, Vargas?”

The adrenaline came on in a wave, being carried in from his chest by panic. He looked at the clock. If they didn’t leave soon, they wouldn’t have enough air to get back to the transport. Even if they did sneak on board at this point, without the
Pop
stopping, they’d be as good as trapped on the ship, stuck too far from their transport.

“Hey Ralla, I’m here to rescue you. By the way, any idea how to get home?” he said to the inside of his helmet. He shouldn’t have come. He shouldn’t be here. He was perfectly happy being a fisherman. He was good at it. The hours were good. The responsibilities were negligible.

No, that wasn’t true. But this? Tegit could be dead, and the lives of the other five guys were in his hands. He was the only one who could disconnect the magbolt. His body ached from the swim and the constant hammering into the hull. He could pull the bolt, and get back home in a few days. Only two people had expected him to do this. Cern was here; he must know what had happened. The mission was a failure. They already had a man down. They had planned wrong from the beginning with this open water assault. It was stupid. Some other team could come next time, to get in when the ship was stopped. They could send someone else to get Ralla. Someone qualified. Someone competent.

Ralla. He saw her face. Not the face he saw last, covered in blood and taken over with
the look
. The face he saw was laughing at one of his idiotic jokes. Her eyes pinched closed when she laughed. His mind drifted to one of their walks through the Yard, to giving him a hug after he had said something sweet. Her hair smelled of some fruit he knew only by scent, but really wanted to taste. It was how she looked at him. Not as some lazy fisherman, not as some below-decks nothing, but as a person, as someone who could be with someone like her.

Then came the memory of her bloodied on the deck. Of the fear behind her eyes and the men surrounding her. Something started to form inside him. It started deep in his chest, like he could reach in and hold it in his hand. It was unfamiliar, this thing. But he knew it by its name, and its name was
rage
.

Thom looked back down to the marine below him, who was still waiting for an order.

“I have to stay. I’m staying. There is someone on board this ship I have to rescue. This has nothing to do with your mission, so you can go if you want. If you leave now, you can get back to the transport and back to the
Uni
. If you come with me, I have no idea what will happen. But I promise I will do everything I can to make sure we get home and before that, mess up this ship something good.”

There was a pause.

“This someone a she?” came back the tinny response.

“Yes.”

“You’re risking all this for a girl?”

Before Thom to respond, the marine continued.

“When I meet her, she better be worth it. I take it you want me to ask Hollus and the rest to come with us?”

“Yes, and thank you.”

The marine turned to face the person below him. Guilt now entered the mix of emotions as the water rushed noisily by. He couldn’t remember the marine’s name.

Her head throbbed worse than she could would have thought she could tolerate and she could feel her face had puffed up. It was already sore; doubtless it would only get worse. Smiling was the worst, but she was thankful for reasons to smile nonetheless. A steady stream of supporters had come over to tell her they believed her. She lay propped up against the wall while a makeshift receiving line of people filed past, shaking her hand, thanking her, comparing her to her father.

Others, though, still sitting throughout the room, looked at her with distrust in their eyes. No malice or hatred, at least not directed at her, that she could see. But certainly no warmth.

Perhaps the biggest change had been in Dija. The quiet bookish introvert had completely disappeared. She had been replaced by an effective and efficient organizer, taking over Ralla’s role as unofficial leader, making sure the wounded got what they needed, that food lines stayed organized, and disputes were mediated.

There had been no new arrivals for several days, but Ralla was sure Dija could have found places for them and made it all work. The younger woman was a natural, and her new confidence had had an almost physical effect on her. She looked people in the eyes, stood up straight, and spoke with authority. She still asked Ralla questions throughout the day, but it seemed like she had everything under control. Dija had insisted Ralla rest a bit, and with the flow of people all wanting to voice their loyalty and support, Ralla had little time to do anything else.

But as she sat there, thanking people and shaking hands, her brain had shifted from plans of mere survival of these people—her people—to a plan of escape.

Thom and his team had passed the three-hour mark, and all six of them still hung from the bottom of the
Population
, now committed to getting aboard. After that was anyone’s guess. Thom was starting to question his decision; electric jabs of fear tried to chip away at his new-found drive. Each time he would picture her face, and his purpose would be refreshed.

Perhaps there was some way to force the lock open.

Suddenly, they were blinded by light. The bay lock they were dangling from started to open, the light driving their eyes closed after so many hours in the near total darkness. The
Pop
must have slowed down enough to begin operations. A few moments passed before a cargo sub dropped into the water and without delay descended away from the hull. There was no time to worry about what may lay inside the bay. They had all trained for this next step, and would do what had to be done. He looked back, and the marine behind him gave Thom the agreed upon hand gesture to show that everyone was ready. Everyone but Tegit, he was sure.

Thom activated his suit’s thrusters using the pad on the back of his left hand, and it was enough to push him forward under the opening. It was like lying on his back at the bottom of a pool, the view even more distorted by the moving water. From what he could see, there were no people in the immediate area around the opening, though he knew he couldn’t see far. He bent at the waist, letting the thrusters in the suit and the current of the water push him past the lip of the hull and propel him up enough to get his chest out of the water. He hit the lip hard with his stomach, the armor of the suit absorbing enough of the blow that it didn’t knock the breath out of him. Thom struggled to swing a leg over, but as soon as it was out of the water, he was able to roll on his back on the bay floor and remove his pistol. The bay was empty. One by one the men exited the water. They helped Cern with his satchel, and hauled the lifeless Tegit onto the deck.

The bay was similar to the one Ralla and he had entered months earlier. There were two other subs nearby, both cargo subs, their rear holds open and awaiting goods. Thom motioned to the men, and they silently carried Tegit into the nearest one. They all toggled their helmets, the sound of the masks slamming open echoing through the bay.

Tegit was in bad shape, but alive. His face was caked in dried blood, and he didn’t respond to repeated attempts to wake him.

Thom was unsure what to do at this point. They couldn’t bring his body with them as they searched the ship. But could they risk leaving him alone? He looked around at the men, all visibly exhausted.

“Options? Go,” he said, motioning to the marine whose name he couldn’t remember.

“One of us needs to stay with him.”

Cern’s face wrinkled.

“What would that accomplish?” Cern replied. “So both of you can be captured? We strip him and leave him somewhere where someone will find him. They won’t know he’s not one of theirs who had an accident.”

“We can’t leave him here,” Soli snapped back. Soli!
That
was the marine’s name. Soli was small, but moved fast and seemed all muscle. The hulking marine Lo just shrugged his big shoulders.

The last, the taciturn Huth, said nothing, but continued to prod Tegit.

“Huth?” Thom said, getting the man’s attention.

“Well, my two weeks of medic training I guess make me the most qualified here to make a judgment. His left knee and right femur are totally busted. My guess is, his ribs are cracked or something, too. If you listen to his breathing, there’s a pretty creepy wheeze going on. His pupils are different sizes, too. I don’t remember what that means, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t good.”

“Is there anything you can do for him?” Cern asked, though not with much apparent empathy.

“No idea. I can reset the leg. We can make a splint on top of the armor. For the rest, I don’t know. If he’s bleeding internally or something, I don’t think he’ll make it back to the
Uni.
”

“All right, look, we’re not leaving him here,” Thom said, surprised at his commanding tone. “Even if we dump him in their med bay, at some point they’re going to figure out he doesn’t belong here, and I doubt that’ll end well. And we have to assume this cargo sub is going to be used for something. If not, we’ll use it to get out of here. That is, if we don’t find something better. Huth, make up the splint. Lo, Soli, I want you to scout around, quietly. See if there is some place nearby we can store these two for a few hours. Cern and I will look too. We’ll meet back here in 15 minutes.