Undersea (16 page)

“She didn’t. We can start back home now if you want, or we can see if we can stay the night and start back in the morning.”

“Let’s stay. It will be like a mini vacation.”

“Ha!” Ralla snorted, not saying in the single syllable how pleased she was for the extra time.

“A pseudo-vacation?”

“How about a night away from home that doesn’t involve sleeping on the floor of  a sub?”

“Perfect, just want I always wanted.”

Perfect, indeed, she thought.

IV

Thom awoke on the floor, his face just barely not smushed against the wall. It took a moment for his brain to warm up and register the fact that wasn't where his face was when he fell asleep. He rolled over and looked at the bed along the other wall, and definitely remembered crawling into it last night. Had he rolled out of it? That would be a first; he usually woke up in the same position he fell asleep in. The clock in the wall said it was 03:20. Ralla said she had wanted to talk to him later, but hadn’t returned from talking to her mom. So he had called it an early night without even a drink.

As he crawled to his feet, his brain registered the sound of the explosion at exactly the instant the floor beneath his feet failed him. This time he hit the floor hard, his head clanging against the deckplates in a way that would have been humorous under different circumstances. He dressed quickly.

In the alley outside, people were emptying out of their rooms wearing expressions that ranged from confusion to panic. He knocked on the door to the cube next to his, the one where Ralla had put her things. No answer. Opening the door, he found a nearly identical room to his own: sparse, stark, empty.

There were no alarms, but he could hear shouting in the distance. It was faint, but unmistakable.

Then weapons fire. Thom’s blood ran cold. In the tiny plaza, really just an open space where several buildings had their front doors, techs and scientists milled around trying to decide what to do. Thom took off at a fast jog towards the main lab. Bursting through the front door, he made his way to the middle but found it empty. Turning to leave, movement caught his attention. Through the glass floor he watched a submarine pass silently under the station. It was not a sub from the
Uni.
He left at a full sprint.

There was more weapons fire, louder this time. Either he was moving closer to it, or they were moving towards him. Or both. Wails of panic filled the silence between the bursts of weapons. He hit the Mess door at full speed, finding Ralla pleading with her mother as they crouched behind an upended table. Both looked at Thom as the door boomed into the wall. Ralla’s mom looked from one to the other, and then walked briskly towards Thom.

“Thom Vargas, I’m Awbee Fratl Gattley,” she said, like it was a greeting at a fancy dinner. “Please get my Daughter back to the
Universalis
.”

“Mom, NO!” Ralla begged, getting to her feet. Awbee strode past Thom and headed directly towards the lab.

“I’ll see if I can get the sub ready; you get
her
,” he said, motioning over his shoulder. Ralla ran out the Mess after her mom. Thom ran other way and burst out the back door of the building. His momentum plowed him directly into an armed and uniformed man who was caught so off-guard he hit the metal deckplates and was knocked out cold. Thom didn’t recognize the uniform, and didn’t care.

He picked up the rifle, which was not similar to the one he had fired in training. The sidearm, though, was a dead ringer. Slinging the rifle over his shoulder and readying the sidearm, he continued through the alleys in the general direction of the transport. His pace was slower, not figuring he’d be so lucky twice. Peeking around the edge of the last building, he saw a clear path to the transport, bobbling in the water untouched. Around the pool he could make out heaped drysuits and handprops, at least a dozen. He started back towards the lab.

As Thom forced his way through the panicked frenzy gripping the inhabitants of the station, it occurred to him how poorly people, in general, handled crisis. Around him, with no thought other than “escape,” they ran in every direction, clogging logical escape paths and ignoring others.

Fish, he realized, for all their lesser abilities, at least knew how to react. Danger! Flee! Stay together! All with a purpose. All without speech. Well now Thom had a purpose, and for it he didn't need speech either. But first, he had to get back to the lab.

 Hearing voices from around a corner, he pressed himself against a wall. The door beside him was open, and he slid quietly into what must have been a small office, judging from the debris covering the floor. The struggle to get whoever was in here out must have been substantial. He crouched in the corner, gun aimed at the door. He watched as a rifle barrel nudged the door back open.

“How are we going to get all these people back to the ship?” one of the voices asked. He sounded young—not much past school, if that.

“Probably take them in shifts. Or maybe they’ll send another sub. What I want to know is why all these people are way up here. There’s nothing around here for half a hemi.” The other voice sounded to be the same age. They started speculating as to the purpose of the dome as they walked away. When he could no longer hear them, Thom sprang from his spot, peeked out from the door, and continued inexorably towards the center of the station.

In the otherwise abandoned lab Ralla was yelling at her mother. To her credit, Awbee seemed to be gathering files from her terminal and saving them to memsticks.

“There’s at least a dozen of them,” Thom said, startling Ralla. “They’re spreading out through the station. It doesn’t seem very organized. I’m not sure they expected to find the station here.”

“Can we get to the sub?” Ralla asked.

“I think so, but we need to go now while they’re still trying to round everyone up.”

“I’m not leaving my people. You two take the data and get back to the
Universalis
.”

Ralla stepped in front of Thom and pulled his head down so she could speak in his ear.

“Getting her off this station is the
only
priority. Get it? Last night she showed me what she’s been working on, and it’s more important than you could imagine. We
have
to get her back to the
Uni
, no matter what.” Ralla released him, and he looked over at Awbee.

“Let me be clear, Mrs. Gattley. I’m leaving with both of you, and that is the end of the discussion. How soon until you’re done?”

“I’m as done as I can be. If they destroy this station…” said Awbee, looking around the lab.

“I don’t think they have any idea what this place is, though I suppose that could go either way. We’re going straight to the sub; you two need to stay right behind me. OK?”

The two woman nodded.

“Thom, give me the rifle. Or the pistol, either one,” Ralla said flatly. Thom looked at each weapon, then handed her the pistol.

“Sweetie,” Awbee said, resting a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “What if he needs that?”

“No, mom, what if
I
need it.” Shrugging off her mother’s hand, Ralla clicked off the safety and checked the charge, all in one fluid motion. She nodded to Thom to proceed.

They moved as a unit from edge of building to edge of building though the narrow “streets” of the station, making it to the Mess in no time. There was no one else around. Behind them, in the distance, they could hear voices and occasional screams. Then it was out though the Mess, retracing Thom’s steps back towards their sub. While moving along the edge of the building across from the Mess, they encountered a patrol of two uniformed men.

It took Thom just a moment too long to duck back behind the wall, and all hell broke loose. The soldiers immediately started firing and shouting for backup. They backtracked along the wall to try to go around, and came under fire from another patrol. Cut off from their sub, they crouched down against the wall, Thom shooting blindly around the nearest corner, Ralla down along the building the other way, keeping them covered.

The rifle made a “blump” noise as it accelerated its charge out its long barrel. The ammunition spread out on impact, punching holes in the orangey-yellow plastic walls, but creating a small explosion when hitting the metal support beams. The pistol sounded like a higher pitched version of the rifle. Above them, the plastic ripped and tore as the soldiers tried to fire at them through the walls.

Suddenly, Awbee cried out in agony and slumped forward onto the floor, hitting her head hard on the deckplates.

“Mom!” Ralla yelled, diving to her side. Blood gushed from Awbee’s left leg. Ralla handed Thom the sidearm as she went to work making a tourniquet out of her belt. The older woman was alive, but unconscious.

Thom entered full adrenaline panic mode. The noise of the tiny explosions, the shouts from soldiers—all the chaos of battle seemed far away. They couldn’t go forward, and going back meant they’d be trapped. He peered the best he could around the corner, and still couldn’t see where the two soldiers had taken cover. He did see the effect his firing had on the wall he’d hit. Ralla looked up at him, terror in her eyes. He handed her back the pistol, swung the rifle over his right shoulder, and picked up Awbee. He put her over his left shoulder, unslung the rifle, and fired a stream of shots into the wall in front of them. The plastic tore away under its own tension, half melting in the process.

Thom made eye contact with Ralla, then stepped through the hole he’d made in the wall into a tastefully decorated living room. Thom stepped on and crushed a low green plastic coffee table, lost his footing, and crashed over the sofa behind it. He shot out the next wall, and then they were out onto the next street. He spun as he saw the two original soldiers and fired a few shots in their direction. They dove out of the way and out of sight down an alley.

Two more paces and a few more shots and they were through the next wall littered with terminals and desks, apparently an office. He stepped up to a solid jog. More shots and they were through the next wall. He could smell the burnt plastic as it clung to his hair and clothes each time they passed through one of his gun-made punctures.

It didn’t take long for the
Pop
soldiers to figure out what he was doing, and soon they were firing at them through the walls. The shots impacted around them, causing Thom and Ralla to duck involuntarily. One more building, a storage area, mostly empty. That next wall gone, and then the transport was in sight.

They had barely made it out of the final building when the alarms finally started to howl, red lights flashing along the walls. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Thom realized this wasn’t an alarm for the invasion. They were sealing the station. Ahead, the lock was closing. The forward lip jerked up a few inches from the deck around it. It wobbled for a moment, the internal gearing and motors struggling with their first motion in two decades.

“Go go go
go
!” he shouted over his shoulder. His legs were weak from the running and the extra weight of Awbee hanging across his shoulder. He threw away the rifle and got ready to do whatever he had to do get the elder Gattley on the other side of the lock. The watertight drawbridge was already at knee height. More steps, he thought. Keep running, keep running.

By the time he reached it, it was at waist height. He flopped Awbee onto the rising surface, and pushed her down below the line of gunfire. As the floor rose, her limp body started to slide down the increasing incline towards the pool. One problem at a time. He turned around and felt his heart stop.

Ralla was still in the building. She had been covering them. Thom looked frantically around for his discarded rifle. It had slid against the wall. Screaming for Ralla to hurry, he dove for the gun. The charge was nearly depleted. Ralla heard him and started running; Thom fired into the hole he had created in the building wall, and then towards the spaces between the buildings and the outer walls as he saw soldiers appear there. The rounds hit the permiglass, scoring it and causing a puff of smoke, but little else.

Ralla was running. Running and shouting. With the noise of the gunfire, the alarm, the grinding of the lock behind him, he couldn’t make out what she was saying. Then she pointed. The lock door was now head height. His head height. There was no way Ralla would be able to reach the edge by the time she got there. He leaped up and hung with one arm. The mechanism struggled for a moment, and then started to lift him off his feet. He motioned with the rifle for her to hurry. He fired off the remaining shots, wildly hitting the dome and buildings. Useless now, Thom dropped the empty rifle, holding out his hand ready to grab Ralla. Just a few paces away now, almost there.
Almost there.

The look that crossed her face when she was shot was unmistakable. Thom took solace in the fact that it was a look of surprise for now, but he knew the pain would follow. The impact from the round knocked her forward, face first onto the deck. As she fell, she shouted, “GO!”

He wasn't sure how he didn't immediately run to her. It would have been so easy. He only held on with a few fingers, but he was already higher than he could jump even before she had gotten hit. To let go now would mean all three of them would be captured. She looked up at him, face bloodied. He could tell by her look. In the clamor he couldn’t hear her, but her mouth formed two words: “Save her.” Her face showed no fear, no pain, just resolve. If he let go he knew she would hurt him. Worse yet, she would hate him. Rounds started to impact the underside of the lock as it lifted him farther and farther away from her.

He nodded once, then swung up, getting a leg on the edge and pulling himself over. As the door passed 45 degrees, he stretched his neck up to peek over. She was surrounded by soldiers, grabbing her and pulling her to her feet. Her eyes locked on his. He knew he only had a moment, knew that he had to tell her something. That he’d come get her. That he didn’t want to leave her. More rounds started impacting around his head, hitting the lock and the ceiling above. He said the only words he could say, the only words that would sum up what he needed to tell her. Three words:
I love you
.