Undersea (5 page)

VI

Ralla awoke, shivering slightly. The coarse fibers of the emergency blanket scratched her skin. It took a moment to register that this meant she was not wearing her clothes. She looked around the sub, and saw them draped on the seats across from where she lay, along with the clothes Thom had been wearing earlier. She looked towards the cockpit and saw Thom hunched over the terminal, wrapped in the other blanket. Past him, the bay was flooded, and the lights created an eerie greenish-blue murk.

“How long was I out?” she asked as she pivoted upright.

“Not long. Less than a half an hour. I promise later you can see me in my underwear so we’re even.” She fought a losing battle with a smile, but quickly regained her composure.

“What have I missed?

“I can’t raise the
Uni
. From what the dome computer is telling me, there’s one hell of a shit storm going on outside.”

“We’ll get to that. What’s happening in the dome?”

“Seems like your early warning saved a lot of people. By the time the water started coming in, most people were already inside. Seems like a few saw us, and did the same to get to higher ground. Their central tower has most of the survivors, huddled around office space and such. It seems like the air pressure is pretty intense, but there are no other leaks so the water has stopped rising.”

“Casualties?”

“Most are listed as MIA, but they know there’s still a few hundred in the mine. Seems like the shaft door sealed shut like it was supposed to when it sensed water, and now there’s too much water above it to get it open. Dozens probably got swept away by the water, and just couldn’t get to a building. I activated the pumps in the lock here, and that seemed to have bought them a little time, but there was nothing I could do.”

“Who’s attacking us?”

“Well, that’s the scary bit. From its size and general shape, it can’t be anything but the
Population
.”

“Seriously?!” she asked rhetorically as she bolted from the floor to look at the terminal. It had a feed from the dome’s central computer that showed an enormous mass hovering just above the canyon, directly over the dome. Size and shape were almost, but not quite, a dead match for the
Uni.
She slumped down into the co-pilot seat.

“OK, I have some good news and some bad.”

“What?”

“The
Population
is sitting right on top of the canyon. So we can't go up. Apparently they've been shooting down every shuttle and transport in the area, so we can't go back out the way we came in."

“No one's putting up a fight?” Ralla asked. Thom stifled a laugh.

“Seriously? I worked with a guy who joined the marines. He told me most days they just sat in their barracks drinking and playing cards,” Thom said. Ralla’s eyes went wide.

“Well, what do you expect? There hasn’t been war in decades. We haven’t even heard from the
Population
for, what, 20 years?”

“But why? Why now?”

“Don’t know, don’t care, and at the moment neither do you. Here, look.” Thom leaned to one side so she could get a better look at the terminal. “If you continue past the dome in the direction we were headed to get here, the floor drops out and there's a thermal layer. We have about this much open water to cover before we can sneak down into that other layer. Then we churn it through the canyon and hope they don't have anything fast enough to catch us. Then at top speed it's half a day or so to the rendezvous with the
Uni
. As long as no one sees us while we’re in the open, we’ll be invisible under that thermal layer. I can’t imagine they won’t have plenty else to do.”

Ralla leaned back and closed her eyes.

“I know you’re…” Thom started, but she waved him off.

“No, you’re right. We can’t stay here. We have to at least try to make a run for it and warn the
Uni
. Think we’ll make it that far?” she asked him. He shrugged. “Captain Sarras you aren’t.”

“Clearly. There are some drysuits in the foot lockers. I think we should put those on so we can move around.”

Ralla looked down at her blanket as if noticing it for the first time. She had a fleeting and, given its timing, rather inappropriate thought that she wouldn't mind seeing Thom out of his.

The door imbedded in the main lock pivoted upwards, as the transport rose slightly from the deck. It slid sideways while rotating 180 degrees, and was soon positioned just at the edge of the lock, with the open sea just beyond.

“I’m strapped in. Go for it,” Ralla said, closing her eyes again. Then she thought better of it and turned to look out the front viewscreen. Thom pushed the throttle forward hard against its stop. As the little sub rocketed forward out of the lock, Ralla caught a glimpse of the battle still raging overhead. Small fighter subs battled it out in the distance. Often a brief flash was the only thing that would mark the resolution.

The hull of the sub rang as if struck by a hammer. The stern sank several inches before the computer corrected for it.

“What the hell was that?”

“I think the
Pop
is shooting at us. Hold on,” Thom said, and immediately jerked the joystick. The transport turned sharply to starboard, then to port. Another hit; this time they rolled clockwise. “They hit an engine pod.” Thom struggled to right the craft. Another hit, this one dead center. Ralla looked up and could actually see where the hull was now convex from the impact.

“How are they doing that?”

“I don’t care. We’re only…” but he was cut off. Another hit on the opposite side, spinning them again. This time, with no way to correct, the little sub augured its way into the sea floor, digging its own shallow grave in the silt.

Thom was aware of cold across half his face. The right side of his face was cold. He tried to open his eyes, but only the left responded, and he soon realized why. His face was pressed against the viewscreen, ground zero for a web of spider cracks radiating outwards. The other side of the viewscreen was mud. Bluish mud.

His body was contorted such that his face was pretty much the only point holding his weight. He righted himself, and rubbed the chilled half of his head. As he stood, he noticed he was knee deep in water. Even through the suit it was frigid.

Ralla hung from the safety harness, arms and legs dangling in a way that was almost humorous. The sub on its side, gravity was doing its best to pull her towards the “floor,” which had been the starboard bulkhead. The harsh emergency lighting cast long, sharp shadows. Thom sloshed out of the water and patted Ralla on the hand.

“Ralla. Ralla!”

She awoke groggily, and looked around the sub. Her eyes focused on the damaged viewscreen. Then the water. Then at Thom.

“OK.”

“Yeah. I’m gonna unbuckle you. Hold on to my shoulders,” he clicked the release, and she dropped to the slanted floor, slid a little, and then braced herself with one foot on the floor and one on the side of a footlocker.

“Do we have any power?”

“I don’t know, I just woke up. I think my head did the damage to the viewscreen,” Thom said, aiming his right temple at her.

“Seems like," she replied, surprising herself with how little genuine concern was in her voice. Using the seats and armrests, she pulled herself to a porthole that was now effectively the roof. “I can see the bow of the
Pop
. I don’t think she’s moving.”

Thom pulled himself up to an adjacent porthole, and surveyed for himself.

“Can you see anyone coming our way?” she asked.

“No, but we’re further out than I’d thought we’d be. We’re probably pretty close to where the floor drops off.”

“Well maybe if you hadn’t been drunk we would have made it,” Ralla said coolly. Thom turned around. Ralla had dropped back to the now-bottom of the sub, and stood defiantly.

“What?”

“You heard me, pilot. You were drunk. You probably still are. And because of that, we're trapped here.”

“Whoa, whoa. Are you being serious right now?”

“When I get back to the ship I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you spend the rest of your life washing dishes or cleaning toilets or whatever else a drunk can do without causing anybody any harm. You’re not even fit to be a mechanic on a sub like this, you shouldn’t even touch a ship like this. You…”

Thom’s face went hard, and his voice went eerily quiet.

“Perhaps before you say anything else you should realize that I’m the only other person in the sea that knows you’re alive.”

“Was that a threat? Did you just threaten me? Do you know who I am?”

“The better question is if I’d care even if I did. Now you can continue to squawk at me like a privileged little bitch or you can sit down, shut up, and let me see if I can get us out of this muck.”

“Good. Do that.”

“I don’t like you anymore. You are not cute when you’re scared,” Thom said as he reached for the helmet for the dry suit. Before she could respond, he had sealed and pressurized it, muffling all sounds down to below a whisper.

Three days had passed. The helmet had only lasted on his head a few hours, but they hadn’t spoken since. Ralla had tried to siphon power from the emergency batteries to run one of the radios. Just getting the wiring run had taken a day and half, but the end result was just draining their dangerously low power reserves.

Thom had tried to get the thrusters working. There was access to several of them from inside the ship, but two were buried in the mud and another had been blown off in the attack. The remaining thruster, after two days of work, would only run at 2% speed, doing nothing.

The emergency blankets had stayed dry, so at night or when they got too cold to work, they were able to bundle up. For sleep, they took turns bracing themselves on the one set of seats that wasn’t hanging from the ceiling. The other slept on the floor.

Thankfully, the water level hadn't risen, likely due to the leak being buried in the muck.

Their clothes had dried enough to put them on as another layer. The air in the sub was warm enough to stave off hyperthermia, but not by much. The
Population
hadn’t moved, but they could see nothing else from their viewpoint.

At the end of the third day, while they ate another dinner of emergency rations, Ralla broke the silence.

“I don’t want to die here, Thom,” she said it softly, just above a whisper. They shared a look in the cold and the wet. He nodded. The silence stayed, but much of the tension had left.

“Well, at our current rate of power consumption, the air processor will let us breathe for two-to-three weeks after the food and water gives out,” Thom said dryly. Ralla closed her eyes and smiled.

“Thank you.”

“Look. An idea came to me yesterday. Let’s get some sleep, and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

“OK. You want the bed?”

“You can take it; the sofa’s just fine.”

The next morning, over a breakfast of mealbars and water, Thom laid out his plan.

“I assume you agree we can only go back to the dome as a worst case scenario.”

“So you heard the same stories from the war that I did growing up.”

“Right. I like the number of fingers I have now. Without better knowledge of the dome, I can’t imagine how we’d get back in other than the lock or the hole they created, which I hope is patched by now.”

“OK, well, that’s about as far as I got, too.”

“Well, there’s another possibility. Can we assume there are a similar number of people on the
Population
as there are on the
Uni.
”

“After all this time, I don’t know. I couldn’t even guess.”

“More than 100?”

“Certainly.”

“More than 10,000?”

“Sure.”

“More than 100,000?”

“Yeah, I guess. What’s your point?”

“OK, how about 100,002?”

They tore up the emergency blankets, and insulated their drysuits the best they could, then ate a few more ration bars and stowed the rest of them and the remainder of their fresh water into a waterproof satchel. The rebreather gear was still strapped in behind the seats. They helped each other suit up and strap weights to their ankles.

“Comm check.”

“Comm check,” Ralla replied. “Look, what if we miss or the
Pop
moves while we’re floating?”

“Then we rise to the surface and die of compression sickness or radiation poisoning.”

“How do you know we won’t get CS when we get to the
Pop
.”

“I don’t.”

“I think I liked it better when we weren’t talking.”

“Well, we’ll be in the suits in the water for the rest of the day at least, so you can not talk to me then. Ready?”

“No,” she said as she nodded. Thom dialed in a series of commands to the pad next to the hatch and almost immediately, water began rushing in. Even through their suits, the water was frigid, the sound deafening. They shared a look through the glass faceplates of their helmets, and as the water passed their knees, Thom could see the distress in Ralla’s face. By the time it reached mid-thigh she was in full-blown panic, torn between fight and flight, pawing at her helmet erratically. Thom wrapped his arms around her, pulled her tight, his own rapid breathing not any example of calm.

By the time the water had reached their heads, she was still shaking. But as the last of the air left the sub, he gently pushed her away from him so he could look into her faceplate. It was partly fogged up; she was breathing too fast for the rebreather. He rapped his knuckles on the glass, and she focused on him in between breaths. With his other hand he pushed his own helmet backwards, and at the same time pushed his head forwards so his mouth touched the glass. Making a seal, he blew out a breath, revealing all his teeth and flapping tongue.

After a moment’s stunned silence, Ralla’s still-ragged breath turned to laughter. She caught her breath, hugged him, and keyed her comm.