Kraken Orbital (24 page)

I
’m just going to have to go with
the flow. I can always turn back and swim back this way if I get
stuck. I have no idea how good I am at holding my breath but I’ve
dug on some dumps for planets with thin atmospheres. So I guess the
skill might be transferable.

‘
Okay. I can
do this.’ I remember my training. What little we got at the mine,
incase we ever found ourselves in a collapsed section or anything.
Breathe in as many times as you can. Hold each one in for a few
seconds.
That would get as much oxygen
into your blood and muscles as possible. Then before submerging,
take one final but slightly less deep lung full of air, so there
would be less pressure on your lungs under the surface.

I
g
et as far as I can over to the
stairwell, until my neck is just above water, and follow those
stages. One breath. A second. A third for luck. Then a gentle
intake and I throw myself under the surface. At least the water is
still warm. This would be far less bearable if it was cold. I think
back to those river rapids I had foolishly plunged into back on the
surface of the planet. Hopefully this would go a little bit better
than that.

I open my
eyes as soon as the water fully washe
s
over my head. It stings for a little while but I get used to it
pretty fast. I use my grip and arm strength to pull down on the
stairs and dive even deeper. My lungs hurt more and more with every
further inch down that I dive. The pressure increases and my ears
start to pop too. I fight my cowardly reaction to swim back up and
get out.

I need to
press on and get this done. I finally reach the bottom of the
stairwell where I notice an air pocket above my head, in what
was
once clearly a light casing. I take
the opportunity in a heartbeat and push down hard with my legs to
reach it. Even though I had only been down here a few moments, it’s
good to fill my lungs with air once more.

It
’s darker down in the lower
section. But there’s still enough light to get the job done. The
light casing I just about fit my head into masks a vent shaft that
runs along the ceiling of the lower hall. If I can pull myself
through, it might be an easier way past the flooded
section.

The entrance
to the vent, which I am certain is
big
enough to climb through, is covered by a grate and what’s left of
the light housing. I raise up my right hand and grab onto the metal
grate. The gaps in the grate are only enough to get my finger tips
into but I’m strong enough to hold my weight like this. I start
tearing at the light fitting, what was left of it at least, and
throwing the rubble down into the water. It’s just the odd sheet of
metal, two parts of a fluorescent light bulb, and a few damaged
electrical terminals.

Once that’s
gone I start tugging at the grate itself until that becomes
dislodged from its housing too. I let that sink to the bottom of
the flooded hall too and start pulling my way through the narrow
and dark hole over my head. It takes some effort on some of my
muscles that I don’t often use to pull myself through the small
gap. I have to grip the sides of the vent housing in different ways
and slide my torso in first. Now to wriggle my chest and shoulders
to pull my body and legs through. Good thing the water helps me
feel a little lighter.

Once my
entire body is in and I’m feeling as calm as I can, the space began
to feel just that little bit bigger and I can start to move through
it. The gap I have created by pulling the grate down is more narrow
than the shaft itself anyway. I can just about roll my shoulders to
gain momentum.

It’s dark in
the vent shaft and I have to feel my way around. The metal it is
made out of is solid enough and doesn’t creak or
groan as I expected it would when I began to move around.
It doesn’t bow under my weight either which makes the mammoth task
of getting around inside of it that small amount easier. All I can
see ahead is a reflection of light cast through the water,
reflecting up from the corridor below at the next grate in the
section of the vent.

I make a
b-line for it as fast as I can. Even though I’m out of the water
and out of the cold, I still want this to be over. I’m only in an
air bubble after all and eventually the oxygen will run low and
breathing will become more and more difficult.

Chapter 17

Drowning

With as much
effort as I can muster, I keep rolling my shoulders and shifting
the weight of my body about my knees, and move forward. The surface
of the vent is smooth but my disgusting leather apron sticks to
it
regardless.

Looking down
through the grate in the next section of the vent immediately makes
me feel less claustrophobic
. But I almost
throw up when I see the body floating in the water below. I hadn’t
seen it before.
Was it because
I just frantically made it to the air pocket and then the vent
afterwards? Or was it that the person had just drowned and floated
down the desolate hall?

In the light
that danced through the currents of water, I c
an make out the uniform. It’s a guard from the mine. No
doubt about it. But before I can make any further assessment of it,
the body of what I now realize to be a young woman, starts to
convulse. She violently wretches back and forth, twisting from the
middle down to her knees and back again. Her eyes spring open and
immediately, with a deeply horrifyingly pleading look upon them,
lock onto mine. Wide. Pale blue and scared.

I ball up my fist and immediately start
slamming them down hard on the vent cover. I would have watched
them die before. I killed them myself. But that was a different me.
That me was gone. I killed him too. I was going to save her. Just
like I was going to save Lucy.

With all
th
e fury and passion inside of me I bang
harder and harder upon the cold metal grate until it became
dislodged and sunk to the bottom of the abandoned hall. I swing out
an outstretched hand to the desperate girl and grab her palm with
mine. I feel the life in her. I feel the struggle and the need in
her. Just with that fraction of skin contact.

I
c
an see her pain and her fear. I grip as
hard as I can as the water fights hard against me and pull her
slowly relaxing palm towards me.

I
’m not strong enough. I feel, to
my horror and hers, her grip relax completely around my tired and
brittle fingers. Her body goes limp but I have just enough time to
pull her head closer to mine.

I
t
ake in a long gulp of air and
instinctively pushed my lips against hers and blew hard into her
lungs. Something must have worked because she snaps out of it and
starts convulsing again. No more time to think. I slide out of the
vent and back into the oddly comforting embrace of the still warm
water.

I grab the
th
rashing and scared body, pull it close
to me and start to swim frantically down the hall. The effort is
immense but I think the new me has a Hell of a lot more bravado
than the old me. She is thin with a boyish frame. No curvy features
but she was still pretty. I wish I could tell her to relax but I
can’t. She’s fraught with panic and her body still thrashes around.
I wish she would calm but instead she just keeps
fighting.

It
’s not helping. I finally reach
the end of the hall where I come upon a locked door. The same
spinning lock as all of the others held two partitions of a large
cargo door locked together.
My
access card
! I let go of her with one
hand and calmly reach for it in my pocket. I hold it against the
door and with a surge of relief it opens.

The water
drain
s out from the flooded hall
immediately and the current washes the two of us through the gap
and out into safety.

I cough and
splutter
hard. So does the girl I have
saved. But at least I
have
saved her.

Chapter 18

Lost

I’m breathing
hard and in pain but I still stand right up and pull the frightened
girl to her feet. She doesn’t seem right though. I guess that much
is to be expected. She coughs harder than before to the point blood
starts rushing from her mouth and nostrils. She wore the same
uniform Lucy did. The same one I do. I’m getting some information
out of her if she likes it or not. In a ritualistic return to form,
in spite of the new man I want to be, I don’t even care if she is
near death.

‘Why are you here?’ I bark at her
insensitively. Almost threateningly.

‘You don’t
get it do you?’ She asks hauntingly. With pale and wide
eyes.

‘Are you here
for me?’ I shout even louder this time. ‘I’m not going back!’ I
reach out an accusatory finger to her and snarl through every
word.

‘You can’t go
back.’ I don’t have an answer this time. I don’t know what she
means.

‘None of us
can.’ She fill
s in for my absence. ‘Not
from here.’ Her words send more shivers racing down my already
aching and worn out spine. I still have nothing for her. I had no
reply. No answer.

Water still
gushe
s out from her mouth. Every time she
speaks. But she stands relaxed and poised. Like nothing is wrong.
Her skin is drenched with water, saturated and wrinkled like the
surface of a date. I’m starting to get a sense of her. Of
everything. But like Kolt before this, it’s a truth I want to
ignore. Something I think I had realized some time ago. But one
that I just can’t face yet. Not even now. Not even looking at her
pale and dead skin. Her colorless complexion and lost distance in
her eyes.

‘
You just
haven’t figured it out yet have you?’ The dead woman
persist
s. I can only hope, even though I
know even before the thought crosses my mind that the thought and
the hope too was hollow, I could but hope anyway that this was
another of the meaningless visions I have seen here. That excuse is
starting to wear thin.

‘Then tell
me?’ My attitude loses
it’s edge
immediately. I change from aggressive demands to pleas and
begs.

‘
Tell
yourself.’ She sa
ys, smiles, and walks
back through the now open doorway behind us. Back to the hallway I
thought I had saved her from. I can see, now that the room had
emptied of the water that filled it, the burst pipe atop the
ceiling filling it once again. She moves beneath it and casts her
eyes, her cold and fearless eyes, back to me for one final time. As
the door closes between us I can see the faintest hint of a smile.
As the door closes for her to relive her death over and over again.
As a ghost, a specter or a poltergeist. Whatever term might best
fit. And I still can’t deal with it.

I still
c
an’t bring my conscious mind to accept
what it, and I above it, already know to be true. A vision. It must
have been. The concussion or the blood loss. And I ignore it like
all the others before it.

Drenched.
Confused and miserable. But I’
ve finally
made it. The airlock door is behind me. And Lucy will be behind it.
I trudge over to the access panel in the centre of the parting
doors and hold my access card to it. But for the first time aboard
the ship, it has no effect. I’m too confused, impatient and ill to
bother trying to figure out what was wrong with it. So I just start
hammering on the door with balled fists as hard as I
can.

Lucy must
have heard me. Because not long after did the door start to part
from the joi
n in the middle. And there
she is stood as gorgeous as ever. I can see her through the second
door of the airlock. And she looks, I am glad to see, as happy to
see me as I am to see her. The old me would have fought the smile
back. But the new me doesn’t want to. She waves at me and smiles as
I half fall into the airlock and the door closes automatically
behind me.

I start
pulling at my dirty and wet apron until it finally comes apart and
falls to the ground. My
armor is torn and
broken beneath it but I can’t stand to wear the cover all any
longer. I try so hard to fight the pain back. But I can’t. I hope
for the sake of it that there are some pain killers in here
somewhere. I really need them right now.

Lucy comes
over to the glass door that still remains locked as the air
purifiers and jet sprays start to work. I can see the look of
concern wore blankly on her face before I lower my eyes to the
floor. I can’t look at her. Not when I look like this. I just about
see her hands pressed against the glass
as she crouches down to my balled up level. But I still
don’t want to see her. Must be that new found bravado kicking in
again.

I’m almost
dreading the door opening. Dreading having to explain why I look
such a mess to the woman that I curiously love. But I have to deal
with it eventually. The incessant droning of the air purifier
finally ceases and the water it has sprayed all over me has dried
sufficiently. The door opens and I feel her soft, tough and gentle
at
the same time, hand on my back. I
place my hand over hers and through the wincing pain I manage some
kind of hello.