Undersea (38 page)

Ralla let herself slide back into reality, and slide down from his arms to stand on the deck. He refused to let her go. Thom looked down onto the top of her head, eyeing the blond, fuzzy lack of hair. Her eyes looked up at him and she shrugged. In turn, Ralla tugged on his ratty beard, and he shrugged. They shared a smile, but it faded from his face as his eyes focused on their surroundings.

“We need to get to the engine room,” she said. He looked confused and touched his ear with his finger. “We need to get to the engine room,” she shouted, and held up one of the rockets. He nodded and looked around. They found four more rockets and climbed their way out of the shipyard.

Sprinting, they made it to the rear of the ship, down some elevators, and to the corridors that led to the engine bays in little time. They came tearing around the corner only to skid to a stop half a dozen paces away from two guards. Somehow, the men had stayed at their posts during the fight. Thom could hear Ralla talking, but couldn’t make it out. Finally she raised the pistol at them, and Thom took that as his cue to raise the rockets up over his head and howl with an animalistic rage bordering on insanity.

The guards scattered.

“There are six engines,” she shouted at him, pointing. “You take the first three, I’ll take the other three. That last one is personal.”

Thom nodded as she ran off. He made it to the first door and realized they had a problem. It was sealed, and the door commands did nothing. They were locked out. He looked down the corridor and saw that Ralla had come to the same realization. She jogged over to him.

“Think these things will blow open one of the doors?” she yelled, holding up one of the rockets.

“It’s worth a try,” he tried not to yell.

Ralla placed a rocket against the lock’s small window and ran to the other end of the corridor. Sighting down the rifle, Ralla nailed the rocket after two shots. The resulting explosion wasn’t huge, but it was loud even to Thom. What mattered, though, was that it had blown the window open, and they were able to reach in and open the lock using the emergency release.

Ralla entered to detonate the engine while Thom set up their next two charges on the remaining starboard-side engine room doors. As he placed the rockets, he couldn’t help but notice that the last engine room on the far end of the corridor had a full lock for some reason.

What was obvious was their now diminished capacity to inflict harm on the engines. There was little chance of making back to the shipyard for more explosives. They’d have to get to the bridge and try to get control of the ship. Or more likely, die trying. It was odd, but under the fear and the panic there was comfort being here with her. Whether they died or not, at least he was here with her, and they were in this together. The thought shook him, though. Here they were, potentially minutes away from the end of the species, and he couldn’t get his mind off this girl. He forced himself to focus, and felt the explosion of her rocket more than heard it.

Ralla came out of the engine room followed by a billow of smoke. She handed him the pistol, then pointed towards the farthest engine room, the one with the full, and rather haphazard, lock. He nodded more in acknowledgement than understanding and watched her jog down the corridor.

As Ralla entered the farthest lock, Thom detonated his two rockets with six shots. After getting the first door open, he wedged a rocket under the round engine bell and stepped out into the hallway to shoot it. It took him half the clip, but it finally went off, taking the bell with it, and causing the entire apparatus to grind to a halt. It was surprisingly cathartic. The next one felt even better. Then he started across the ship to the far bay, only then realizing Ralla hadn’t appeared yet.

What if she was yelling for him?

He sprinted down to the last bay. The outer lock was jammed open, but the inner was sealed shut. Ralla was in the window banging on it, screaming. Behind her was water. Everywhere. Now he felt the terror he hadn’t felt on his own ship or in any battle. Worse fear than he had ever felt in his life.

The electronic lock controls did nothing. He lifted up the pistol and showed it to her. Through her own terror she nodded and moved away from the door. The water was up to her crawling up her body rapidly. Thom stepped back, hands shaking, and emptied the clip into the window. Now there were holes in it, but it stayed put. Bracing himself against the walls of the lock, he kicked at it. The tiny window, not much larger than his boot, finally gave way with an unsatisfying pop. Ralla came back to the window and stuck her head through.

“Don’t do that,” Thom said, “grab the emergency release.”

“There isn’t one!”

“What? How could there not be a...”

“There isn’t one; we were kept in here as prisoners, so there’s no release on this side. Are you sure there isn’t one over there?”

Thom frantically searched the door and the walls for any kind of manual lever. He looked up, eyes wide. Water started to spill over the edge of the window, the level of water up to Ralla’s shoulders. She was oddly calm.

“Look, Thom, even if you figured out a way to open this lock, we’d flood the whole ship. Get to the bridge, save the Fountain. I won’t let you kill all these people just to save me.”

“What people? Ralla, they’re all gone. Haven’t you seen? There aren’t any people here. They’re all in our domes. Thousands of them. All of them. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. There is no one left on this ship
to
kill.”

Thom grabbed the edge of the window, braced his feet against the wall of the lock, and stared to pull. There was no movement. Water was spilling out of half the window now, and Ralla had to lift her chin to breathe above the water. Thom pulled harder. The edges of the window cut into his fingers. His blood mixed with the water. He kept pulling. Now there was less than a quarter of the window left that gushing wasn’t cold, rushing liquid.

“Thom, I...”

Twisting metal and a scream cut off her words. Something had given way in the back of the bay, and a tidal wave of water had rushed forward. What little air Ralla had was gone, the bay completely filled with water. Thom pulled with his arms, pushed with his legs, the adrenaline surging though his veins. Out of the water came a head as Ralla forced through the hole in a futile attempt to get air. The water squirted past her, filling her mouth and nose, not allowing her to escape from its grasp. She gave up, and Thom felt her cold hand on his as he continued to pull. There was no way he was going to leave. This was it. He wasn’t going to leave her again. Not to die like this, so close. Her hand relaxed, and slid away from his. Thom screamed. It was anguish at first, but it became a scream of rage.

Suddenly, with a snap the door gave way. Thom flushed into the hallway on a wave of water.

Now the sea, with its hand in the flooded bay, began its relentless attack on the
Population
.

Ralla’s limp body shot out into the corridor, crumpling against a wall, lifeless. Thom struggled to drag her from the current. He hadn’t moved her far before she started coughing. He dropped to her side as the water lapped at their feet. Opening her eyes, she saw him crouched over her, and closed them again, a half smile on her face. She was shivering badly, and her skin was a pale, ghostly blue. But as the water lapped around her head, she snapped awake, instantly alert. They both looked at the lock-sized hose of water flooding the back of the ship.

“We need to go. Now,” she said, adrenaline temporarily driving her mind and body past her touch with death. They got up and started running. “That whole wall could give way. I helped cobble it together. It’s not great.”

They made it to the elevators and got out at the main concourse. It was a clear run past the hanging gardens and abandoned food stalls to the shipyard wall. From there it was just a few flights of stairs and a corridor to the bridge. They hadn’t taken two steps when a loud bang knocked them off their feet. “That would be the wall,” she said flatly.

With low-pitched moan, the floor started to tilt down at the stern. Suddenly, they weren’t on the floor of the concourse; they were at the bottom of a hill that looked like the concourse.

“Go. We need to go,” she said, pushing him along. He gave up trying to help her and just tried to keep up.

The slope began to get worse. The rear of the boat was sinking, and fast. A garbage can rolled toward them. Then a table. Then a stampede of chairs and rotten fruit. The creaking in the former boats lining the space mimicked those Thom heard on the
Reap
only minutes before, but exponentially louder and deeper.

They ran up a path that wove in and around decorative grassy knolls and overgrown bushes, slowing their progress. Windows burst high above, showering them with glass as the frames contorted, the entire sub warping and bending under the strain. Plants and soil fell from their gardens, pelting Thom and Ralla with dirt. Legs burning with the strain, they kept at as close to a run as they could manage. To their right, an entire food stall tumbled past, rolling down the concourse, only to flatten itself against the aft wall. Everything had become a projectile. Behind them, water had found its way through and was pooling in the aft corners of the concourse.

Thom and Ralla fought their way forward and up, dodging the debris avalanche as they went. They climbed past the public terminals where they had sat months before, finally reaching the remaining food stalls. Trays piled on the inside of the stalls, waiting to be free and become airborne. The increasing angle had forced Thom and Ralla onto all fours, the looming shipyard wall now more a ceiling. Behind them the sea churned loudly, chasing and eating its way towards them.

After climbing two nearly vertical stairwells, they made it onto the curving corridor that led to the bridge as the bodies of two
Pop
officers slid past them. Blood seeped through their uniforms.

The boat’s incline passed 50 degrees, and another body slid towards them. It was the Captain. Having lost her rifle to the water in the engine room, Ralla braced herself and took the sidearm from Thom. She checked the clip and motioned for them to continue. Thom made the mistake of looking back as the body of the Captain picked up speed and fell, tumbling to a bulkhead ten stories below. He looked over at Ralla, but she had no intention of looking down, the determination on her face more sure than Thom had ever seen. They climbed forward, shuffling along using the “V” of the floor and wall as best they could. Eventually, the curve and angle of the ship allowed them to use the wall as the deck, and they broke into a lopsided run. As they neared the bridge, two more bodies lay sprawled against the deck. The doors to Oppai’s chambers were open. Ralla peaked around the corner and saw down through the cabin, the far wall littered with books, broken bottles, and glasses. Farther was the shipyard. To her amazement, the lock in the shipyard floor was still open, a cascade of water filling the bay. Turning, she looked up into the bridge.

Oppai stood near the front, bracing himself between the main table and the pilot’s chair. Behind him, filling the viewscreen, was the textured dark of the Fountain. They were moments from collision. Oppai locked eyes with Ralla, an eerie smile on his face. Thom pushed off from the actual deck, grabbing the far doorframe and swinging himself up onto the bridge, lying with his back against the wall. Ralla leapt up and did the same on the near side. Oppai did nothing to stop them.

As he sat up and reached for the table, Oppai produced a pistol. Thom rolled under the consoles just as Oppai fired at him. He yelled in pain as the bullet embedded itself in his right arm. Ralla fired back, hitting Oppai in the shoulder. He tumbled forward as Ralla shot again, hitting him in the leg. He fell over the table, hitting the rear wall of the bridge where Thom had just been. His battered leg dangled over the doorframe, hanging in space, the next wall below him the wall of water creeping up the shipyard. Thom used his good arm and the edges of the consoles to pull himself upwards towards the ever-rising bow. Oppai was dazed by his fall, but recovered quickly.

“Stop!” Oppai screamed. Ralla had kept the gun trained on him, but in holding it towards him, she hadn’t notice how close his feet were. His foot jolted out and knocked her hand upwards. She fired again, the bullet embedding itself harmlessly in the wall. She struggled to roll towards him to get a better shot, but he sat up and brought his pistol to bear. At point blank range he shot the gun from her hand, taking three of her fingers with it. She cried out in agony as blood spurted across bridge.

Thom had made it to the pilot’s chair, and glanced at the controls. The throttle and steering were destroyed. The bow thrusters had been jammed to fire down, the aft thrusters up, in an attempt to fight the buoyancy variance between the two halves. The ship was still creeping forward with enough mass that impact with the Fountain would still be catastrophic. At her yell, he spun around in his chair.

“We’re still moving forward,” Oppai said, as if reading Thom’s mind. The Governor trained his weapon on Thom, hopping slightly on his good leg while bracing himself against the table in front of him. Ralla, her face contorted in pain, tried to move towards him, but he swung the gun towards her. “It may be slow, but it will be enough. The mass of this ship will fold your Fountain like a twig. My people will be safe. I’ve won.”

“Your people?” Thom replied, fighting the nausea as he looked down past Oppai into the shipyard so far below. “You’ve killed your people.”

“You’ve killed all our people,” said Ralla. Oppai, for a moment, looked confused.

“Your people died in those domes. The ones you left there. They died. There wasn’t enough food or air. You killed them.”

“You’re lying.”

“I saw them. I tried to help them. Every dome I could, I brought food, I helped them fix the circs. I saved your people, you maniac. The ones you tried to kill.”

“No. I did what I had to do to save them.”

“No, you killed them and you’ve killed us all,” Ralla spat. “That Fountain is the only chance our entire species has of survival and you’ve destroyed it.”