Undersea (9 page)

“Leading them right to F211.”

“Correct. We’ve already notified the dome. A full evacuation is underway and we’re sending transports to assist.”

“How long will that take?”

“Days, if we’re lucky.”

“You didn’t really think...”

“We needed to be sure. I wanted you down here, with the sub, without a chance to talk beforehand. I needed to hear if your story was true, and it seems to be.” One of the techs who had been waiting somewhat patiently finally got Jills’ attention and waved him over. Larr followed, leaving Thom and Ralla a brief moment alone.

“Are you drunk?”

“And asleep, I think. You?”

“What? No. What the...” she said, flustered. She was sure she saw a slight look of amusement on his face. “So is this a thing for you? To get drunk when people need you?”

“To be fair, I get drunk when people
don’t
need me. I just happen to
be
drunk when you need me.”

“We.”

“You. I’m good here. I was pretty sure that guy wasn’t going to shoot me and I haven’t paid for a drink since I got back. So far, I’m doing all right.”

“Are you serious?”

“Are you?”

“That’s... stop talking to me.”

“You started it,” he said, still not looking at her. She walked, half stomped, towards the sub, arms crossed, wanting nothing more than to let out a scream.

Jills looked up at her, then over at Thom, and waved them both over.

“We want to try to lead them off the chase for a while. We’re going to send someone out in this sub, along with an escort, then ditch it. Someplace away from us and the bulk of our facilities on the floor. It’s going to take some time to get everything up to war-ready status, and hopefully this decoy will buy us some of that time. Thom, we’d like you to drive this sub.”

“A minute ago you were going to shoot me.”

“Mr. Larr says you are telling the truth, and I’ve never seen him wrong. You obviously have the most experience in this craft and while I don’t think one of the ship’s marines would have difficulty figuring it out, I wanted to offer it to you. Your ship needs your help; will you give it Mr. Vargas?”

“Nope. Can I go now?”

“Absolutely. Thank you for your time,” Jills said, turning back to the tech who was pointing at a portable readout.

Thom turned around immediately and headed for the closest lock. Ralla caught up with him in the corridor beyond and grabbed his arm. He stopped but didn’t turn, so Ralla moved around in front of him.

“What is your problem? You just had the Proctor of the Council ask you personally to do something for your community. How can you say no to that? Have you no thought for your future? Don’t you want more than piloting a transport for your whole life?”

Thom’s face went sour.

“More? Are you kidding me? More? Come here.” Thom grabbed her arm and started for the nearby bank of elevators. She followed without protest, but he didn't let go. Once inside, he slapped the touchpanel for a level several above them. He steamed, staring impatiently as the level indicators lit up, then faded out. Thom didn't wait for the doors to fully open before pulling Ralla out and down a dank corridor crowded with pipes and wiring. Within moments they entered a door, the shoddy sign above revealing the establishment's name as “The Landing.”

She immediately felt self conscious as every eye turned to her, and stayed transfixed. 

“You want to say that again? Tell me here, in this place, what more is. Don’t you think everyone in this place wanted more at some point? What more is there? I was nine years old when I watched my father drink himself to death. The best he could do was Mechanic 3rd Class. He had never been inside a cabin above Deck 12. You people talk about wanting more. Look at you! Have you ever worn clothes that were dirty because you had already spent your water ration? Have you ever been told that you can only get a promotion when one of your coworkers dies? How about eating the same crap from the same place every day, because that’s all you can afford?

“Look at you: your hair is perfect, your clothes are new, handmade. You want to talk to me about more? What more is there? This is what life is for us. We all know what you people are selling in the news and on the vids is just propaganda, but we want to believe it, so we do. We want to believe we’ll do well and get a better place to live and a better job. But what more jobs are there?

“We’ve been in this coffin for almost three generations. The people who had before have now, and the people that didn’t, still don’t. I know how it is, so does everyone. We just don’t need some well-dressed, condescending Yarder telling us we should work harder or do more for the community. We
are
the community. I don’t come down here and drink all day because I like doing it. I do it because
there is nothing else to do.
”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean...”

“It’s not your fault. You just don’t know any better.”

Thom sat down on a stool and the bartender slid him an ale. Ralla, still overly aware of all the eyes, sat a few stools down. When the bartender looked at her, she pointed at Thom’s drink. He poured her one but kept his hand on it. Ralla understood, and took out a few credits.

“Here’s five. Keep the change.”

“It’ll be 20, actually,” he said coldly. She looked about to protest, but silently handed over the money. The other patrons at the bar turned back to what they were doing. Ralla knew she should have been upset with how Thom had just treated her. Passive acceptance had never been her thing, but here, in this place, who could argue with him? Everything he said had been true. Everyone knew it. No one said it. That was how their society functioned. Thom hadn't exactly opened her eyes to that fact, but his impassioned speech had certainly reminded her of something she often chose to ignore.

“I’m sorry I offended you,” she said over her beer. Thom said nothing. “I am not going to disagree with you. I won’t patronize you like that. Please let me just say two things, and then I’ll leave you alone.” Again, Thom said nothing. “I won’t pretend I know what it’s like to be someone down here. But please believe that what you said had meaning for me all the same. Maybe someday I can show you that. So if I can empathize with you, at least on some small level, let me say this: Your father, everyone your father knew, and everyone in this bar now, never had the opportunity you passed up. I can’t speak for any of these people here, but unlike them, you just made a choice to be here. They haven’t. Maybe none of these people will own a cabin overlooking the Basket. But you. You just turned down the Council Proctor, the Council, and the entire
Universalis
. And if you don’t think
that
would lead to more, well Thom, you deserve to be stuck down here.”

Ralla stood and downed the remainder of her beer. The bartender watched as she pointed at Thom’s ale and slapped another 20 credits on the bar. Flashing a half-smile at the bartender, she left.

X

Thom braced himself against the swaying cockpit. The attack sub hung in a sling just above the Dockyard pool. He motioned to the tech, and suddenly he was weightless. The bow hit the water first, and he pushed the throttle to its max. The engines hit the water a moment later and the sub shot forward, pushing him back into his seat. The hull loomed over him like a menacing dark cloud. A transport sub, his escort, lay motionless ahead. Thom throttled back as he approached.

“Comm check,” Thom said into the headset in his drysuit.

“Comm check,” a voice answered back. He got close enough to see two men inside the larger sub. “Lead on Vargas. Heading 078.”

Thom found the heading and throttled up to 60 percent, about what the techs had figured would be the maximum speed of the escort transport. He watched the monitor, and noted the sub was falling a little behind, so he dialed back on the throttle a little more. The
Uni
slowly shrank on his screens, and soon it was just the two subs moving at a good clip away from everything. The open sea beckoned.

After nearly half a day’s travel, the sea floor dropped away rapidly where the continent-less continental shelf ended and the deep ocean began. It was rare anyone came out this way. There were fish, of course, but they were larger and there were fewer of them, making them harder to catch. The sea floor may have had materials galore, but at such a depth, even the
Uni
itself couldn’t get near them. It was, for all intents and purposes, a wasteland. And the perfect place to set up a decoy. The sensors in his suit told Thom his sub was broadcasting its message, and not for the first time that day, he hoped it would be a while before anyone would come to check it out.

They continued out into the open ocean, the two subs tiny specks in a vast sea of nothing. Every few hours they rose and sank to check if anyone was following or approaching them in the different thermal layers.

As designed, by the third day Thom was running low on water and rations, and the recirc pumps in his suit were in need of a recharge. He signaled the transport.

“OK, let’s call it. I think this is far enough. There’s a current here that’ll keep dragging the sub away from the
Uni.
I’m gonna slow up here and head over to you.”

“I think we should keep going. Are you really out of your rations already?” a voice returned on his comm.

“The longer we stay out here the more likely it is they’ll get to us before we can get back. Also, I’ve been in the same seat and the same suit for three days. I’d like to get out.”

“So... you’re going to jeopardize the safety of the entire
Universalis
for want of a bath and a nap?”

Thom could hear the tone in the marine’s voice. Contempt mixed with amusement. For a brief moment, he had the feeling the marines were going to leave him there. Thom started to make a mental calculation if he could make it back to the
Uni
with the water and supplies he had remaining. Probably not.

“Stopping here,” Thom responded. He throttled back and killed the engine. The current was fairly strong, and he felt the sub immediately start to move with it. He flooded the cockpit, and he immediately felt the cold of the water pressing in on him, even through the suit. He released the canopy and his restraints.

The transport sub had passed over him and was now drifting in formation with the attack sub, just a short swim away. The rear hatch opened, revealing amber light from the flooded lock—a bright oasis in the otherwise featureless dark of the sea. The lights were warm and the space looked inviting to his weary eyes and cramped body. He pushed off gently from the sub, and started to swim towards the transport.

Suddenly, panic. The transport shot forward and full speed. They were actually going to do it. They’re actually going to leave me here, Thom thought. He was close enough to get tossed slightly from the wash. The attack sub had drifted further away. He keyed his comm, making a mental note of the words he probably shouldn’t use, when three attack subs, identical to his own, shot down from above, narrowly missing him. Their wash pushed him even further. Now he just floated, spinning slightly, watching as the attack subs pounced on the transport. They must have come from the layer above. Perfect timing; they hadn’t checked the layer in hours. Careless. The marines deftly tried to avoid the incoming fire, but could only do so much. One of the marines had taken his time to get to the turret on top of the transport and had just started firing back.

Why had it taken him so long to... Thom froze in mid thought. They weren’t in their suits. They had gotten lazy, gotten out of their suits. Why not? It was dry, the sub was big. In order for the marine to get to the turret he would’ve had to pressurize and empty the rear lock to get to the turret. Getting into his suit would have taken too long. This would mean the death of them all. They’d have no way of picking him up now unless they beat all three of the attack subs. And if anything happened to their hull, they’d drown instantly.

Thom spun around and started pawing his way towards his derelict sub. He could feel explosions in the water as the torpedoes detonated near the hull of the transport. The current and drysuit conspired to make for slow going, but he finally pulled himself into the cockpit and closed the canopy. Pumps automatically started draining the water, and the console started to light up. Before the water level was halfway down, he could see the main screen and the battle unfolding around him.

The transport was still alive and seemed to have taken out one of the attackers; one enemy sub looked adrift and powerless. Pulling hard in circles at full power, the transport was kicking up a lot of wake, both masking its location to the three torpedoes hunting in the water and giving it a somewhat better shot at the following subs. Oddly, they weren’t taking advantage of their better maneuverability, just trying to keep up with the transport and avoid shots from the turret when possible. The turret’s mini-darts left visible trails in the water, convenient for aiming, but at enough distance they could be dodged.

Thom got a ready readout from the panel and slammed the throttle to its stop. The sub leapt forward into the fray. The transport was spiraling down towards the thermal layer below, and Thom dove to follow. He avoided the wakes of the transport and following attackers, choosing instead to head down the center of their descending corkscrew. He timed it just right, pulling up and placing one of his sub’s drychem rockets directly into the side of the trailing enemy. No guidance, no maneuverability, the rocket was a motor and a warhead that went in a straight line from one sub to another. The explosion caused the enemy sub’s port engine pod to rupture and tear off. The sub immediately entered a violent spin, careening off and down into the dark depths, trailing debris and bubbles.

The other sub took notice and broke off its attack in an attempt to get a bead on Thom. It pulled away from the corkscrew course, pulling up and around. Thom, instead of aiming up to meet it, turned the opposite way and cut his throttle. Now stationary, he used the maneuvering thrusters to spin the sub. His gamble worked, revealing the port side of the still-turning enemy sub. Thom fired off the other three rockets, along with its two small torpedoes. The rockets and torpedoes gained speed, impacting the enemy sub before it had a chance to pull away. There was a brief white explosion, which collapsed in on itself, leaving just debris to fall to the ocean floor, and bubbles to rise to the surface.