Undersea (24 page)

It all seemed to happen at once. Ralla slapped a hand down on the carpet. Simultaneously, she and twenty others leapt from their sleeping positions, and made the few strides to the unknowing soldiers faster than anyone thought possible. As she passed the light switches, she flipped them on. As her group impacted the shocked guards, half the room stood and rushed towards the doors.

The four guards were incapacitated before any of them realized they were being attacked. No sooner had they hit the ground than dozens of fists and feet swarmed their incapacitated bodies. And just as quickly as their ragtag assault had started, it started going horribly wrong. The pressure of the mass of the rioting crowd forced Ralla’s shock troops into the hallway before they had a chance to regroup as planned and arm themselves.

It didn’t matter. By the time the soldiers in the hallway, most asleep, figured out they were being overrun, they were covered in a horde of angry prisoners. Ralla herself had been carried into the hallway with the flow. She found herself face to face with one of the officers, whose panic-stricken look was not one concerned with his command or task, but of absolute fear for his life. The crowd kept coming; more and more people filled the hallway outside the ballroom, spreading in each direction. Ralla was stuck in between the swelling masses. She spotted Dija, who looked elated.

“I hit one!” she yelled, waving a fist. Ralla couldn’t help but smile, but it faded quickly as the simple attack savagely spiraled into outright chaos. The push into the hallway was relentless. More and more people tried to flee their prison. Ralla saw one of her commandos with a pistol. They made eye contact, and she motioned for the gun, which he handed over.

The noise it made as she fired it toward the ceiling was louder than anything she had ever heard. Her ears rang so loudly she couldn’t hear anything for several minutes. It had the desired effect, though; everyone froze long enough to look in her direction.

“We are leaving this place,” she shouted, her voice sounding distant in her head. “But we need to be organized. I want Teams A, B, and C out in the hallway. Everyone else, please stay where you are or move back inside, just for a few more minutes.” There were many faces furious to have to re-enter their prison, but enough did so that she could organize her fighters.

A few dozen of her team had fired weapons before, either in a simulator or as a hobby. This was her Team C. They were part of the 100-person push, and now stepped forward to confiscate every weapon they could find. There were more than enough, so four men from the initial assault crew got sidearms. They hefted them and pointed them like they had seen in vids.

The real soldiers, bloodied and battered, were being tied up in the hallway according to plan. The officer she seen a moment earlier was pleading with a gaunt man from Team C. She realized everyone looked a little gaunt, but this man even more so. His pleading was intense, near tears, upset in a way she would never had expected of a soldier. The gaunt man told him to be quiet, and poked at him with his rifle. Ralla stepped over just as the officer burst into tears.

“
Please, please!
My
brother!!!
” He pointed vigorously towards the crowd still stuffing the doorway. Her stomach sank. Many in the crowd faced inwards and were looking down. She strode over, the eyes of everyone in the hallway on her. She pushed people aside, the sick welling up inside her. When she got to the center of the mob, what remained of the guard was nearly unrecognizable as a person.

She looked back at the officer, who got up slowly, then ran over when his captors didn’t try to stop him. He fell to his knees and grabbed his brother’s corpse, blood soiling his khaki and jade uniform. Sobbing was the only sound as quiet spread from the circle to the crowd beyond.

Ralla felt her own tears come and did everything she could to fight them back. Not here. Not now. Not with all these people. She watched the officer, no older than her, cradle his younger brother’s corpse. His tears created tiny clean spots in the blood on the mangled face. She couldn’t stop it; her tears flowed. Her breathing sped up, her teeth clenched. These were not tears of sadness, or even remorse, though she was sure that would come later. No, these weren’t the emotions afire within her.

Dija had forced her way to Ralla’s side, and now looked at her questioningly, focusing on her wet cheeks. Ralla looked around to her soldiers, who looked back at her with the same questioning look shared with Dija. They were all good people. She knew all their names. The men and women still inside the ballroom, good people to a one. These weren’t people who would kill. Not without extreme pressures and stress. This boy had died because of her and not because of her. He died because of the situation, and that wasn’t anyone in this hallway’s fault, or this prison. Everyone had been frozen by Ralla’s tears. Dija asked the question they were all thinking.

“Are you all right?” she whispered, her voice carrying in the silence.

Ralla sniffed once, and fiercely wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. Through gritted teeth, she growled,

“No. I’m
pissed
.”

Checking the charge on her gun, she started off down the long empty hallway. And the thunder and the fury followed.

The communicator vibrated in the pocket of Thom’s coveralls. He tapped it and placed it to his ear.

“Thom, it’s Tegit. Huth filled me in, what’s been going on since you left?”

Thom filled him in on their progress so far, and the massive war fleet being built in the bow of the ship.

“You were right to get charges up there.” His voice was wet, punctuated by coughs that were wetter still. “We should make that our priority. If they hit the
Uni
with that many ships...”

“Are you OK? We weren’t sure you’d wake up.”

“I took a few bad hits when we first tied on, past that I don’t know. I don’t think I can walk.”

“OK, we’ll figure it out. I assume Huth told you about our other objective.”

“Yeah. I can’t say I’m surprised.” Even in his condition, the annoyance in his voice was obvious. “How much more time do you need?”

“We were going to go for another hour, and then start kicking in some doors.”

Thom dropped the communicator away from his ear. There was a new sound, a deep rumble. Thom realized it had been there for a few moments, but now had gotten loud enough to be noticed. He looked over at Cern, who had noticed it as well. He brought the communicator back up to hear Tegit in the middle of a sentence.

“Sergeant, there’s something going on up here. I’ll contact you in a moment.” Thom clicked the communicator off. They were about a quarter of the way down the port side of the ship. After finding nothing on a few of the interior corridors, they had come back out into the concourse area to find a live terminal. They could feel the deep rumble in the deckplates, as if half the engines had been set to full forward, the other full reverse, but there had been no change in the motion of the ship. What they could make out of the actual sound, they heard more of as they passed open hatches towards the inside of the ship.

“Did you ever watch nature vids in school?” Cern asked.

“No.”

“We had to watch these vids from back when there was land. There were these wide open spaces with land as far as you could see. Like being on the bottom but having sky instead of ocean. There were these animals that would run together in big packs, like schools of fish. I remember some of the vids would have the cameras right down there with them, and you could hear their feet on the ground. That’s what this sounds like.”

“I don’t think they have animals on board, Cern.”

“ I mean it sounds like a whole lot of people running.”

“OK...”

“I mean a
lot
of people.”

Thom stepped through the hatch and drew his sidearm. Cern did the same. The corridor was a narrow one, cutting across what looked to have been an older model cruise ship, one of several on this side of the concourse. They could see the far end of the hallway, tiny in the distance. They cautiously made their way, checking each intersecting corridor. The rumble was getting louder. In the center of the once-cruise ship was a wider passage that ran lengthwise. Thom peeked around the corner and his eyes went wide.

It was a good thing she saw him when she did. If it weren’t for the fact that he was on her mind, she wouldn’t have even registered his face. It took her army nearly the entire distance from when she saw him to the intersection where he stood before they came to a halt. Even still, the people in the back were jostling to keep moving. When it finally seemed like they were going to stop, Thom stepped out of the side corridor, beaming.

“What are you doing here?” Ralla asked, jogging up to him. Her smile was making her eyes do that squinty thing. Thom felt a burst of adrenaline as he saw her arms start to go up as if to hug him.

Then Cern stepped out into the main corridor.

“Cern!” she said, her voice a mixture of emotions Thom couldn’t read. Her arms dropped to her side. “How... what are you... How did you get here?” she sputtered, hugging Cern lightly.

“We snuck on board. I came to rescue you,” he said, kissing her hard on the mouth. Thom bristled.

“I brought an extra suit,” Thom said, and immediately regretted it. Ralla pulled away from Cern long enough to nod an acknowledgement that he had said something, and then Cern went back to kissing her. She stepped back.

  “Did you guys see the shipyard thing?” she asked. They nodded. “Was there still a big sub down the end?”

“Yeah, half the size of the
Uni
’s entire dockyard,” Cern said, his eyes locked on Ralla.

“OK, good. We’re going to take it.”

“OK. Wait, what?” Thom said, still distracted by everything. This hadn’t gone nearly as he’d hoped. As if annoyed at their slow uptake, she waved an arm at the impatiently waiting army of dirty, angry civilians that had so far gone unnoticed by Thom and Cern. “Oh,” Thom said, still trying to catch up.

“But thank you for your suit,” she said, patting him almost patronizingly on the arm. On the last pat, she squeezed it subtlety and shot him a conspiratorial glance. He was more confused than ever. “Are you guys here alone?”

Like latches on a lock, this question caused everything to click into place in Thom’s brain. He pulled the communicator out of his coveralls.

“Lo, Soli, recall at once. Egress in 15. We are leaving. Huth, ready Tegit for transport, Cern and I are coming to get you.”

“Are we blown?” Tegit responded, his voice sounding even weaker than before.

Thom looked down the corridor at the thousands of faces that went farther than he could see.

“Not yet, but this place is gonna get loud.”

He turned to Ralla, who was giving him a look he had never seen before. She looked... impressed.

“We have an injured man. We’re going to need a few minutes to get him to the shipyard.”

“Do you want help?”

“I think it would be better if we do it for now. We sort of blend in. Can you give us a few minutes’ head start before you wake this place up?”

“Thom...”

“OK, hold on. Here...” Thom reached into Cern’s coveralls and removed a communicator. “Take this. We’ll keep you updated.”

She nodded, flipping the thin communications device over in her hand. Thom grabbed Cern by the arm and started jogging back the way they had come. The rumble started up before they had made it to the concourse.

Soli and Lo arrived almost at the same time as Cern and Thom, all winded and sweating. The storage bay was still dark.  To avoid any mishaps, Thom shouted for Huth as he flipped the breaker for the overheads. They buzzed, casting a dull orange glow on the carcasses of old submarines.

“Cern, grab two more sets of coveralls from the supply closet,” Thom barked as they entered.

Tegit was pale, sweating, and in the same place they’d left him. Huth looked worried. There was blood on the deckplates.

“I don’t think we can change him into coveralls. I think the suit is the only thing that’s keeping some of his bones inside.”

“OK, hold on.”

Thom weaved his way across the bay to the supply closet just as Cern was exiting.

“I think these will fit them,” he said, holding up two pairs of the blue coveralls.

“Change of plans,” Thom said, brushing past him.

Lo and Cern, being the strongest of the group, carried Tegit between them as they rushed down the passageway. The sergeant couldn’t help but keep his eyes closed, his face a contortion of pain. Thom took point and Soli, with the satchel on his back, took up the rear. They passed two groups of mechanics, who didn’t know what to make of the scene of four men in hooded coveralls carrying a bloodied fifth. Each time, Thom yelled out “Emergency, emergency,” and their path was cleared.

As they crossed the concourse, after an uneventful elevator trip, the alarms started going off. The ominous angry wail pierced the silence. By the time they had made it to the elevator in the new wall, people started to spill out of cabins above, shouting at or to each other in confusion.

But that was nothing compared to what was happening in the shipyard. It was a full-on firefight, with armed members of Ralla’s army on the port side near a bank of elevators and a few hundred
Pop
soldiers dug in on the opposite side of the bay. Ralla’s group had excellent cover behind storage containers, but they were pinned down. The elevators continued to open, spilling out more and more people as the word hadn’t gotten upstairs that there was no place to go. The doors were not in the line of sight of the
Pop
soldiers, nor were the growing groups of civilians, but that wouldn’t last much longer.

More containers and subs blocked direct access to the dug-in
Pop
troops, but Thom was able to lead his team around the edge of the bay towards Ralla’s people. He found her crouched behind a pallet of plastic piping, which was doing a fine job absorbing the incoming fire by melting. She slammed a new charge into her pistol as Thom waddled up. It took her a moment to register who it was, his face hidden in the darkness of the coverall’s hood. Incoming fire sizzled as it hit the bulkhead behind them.