Undersea (31 page)

Ralla moved her body to the beat, dragging her hands up her body, into her hair, and then tossing it around. The curls bounced to their own tempo. She eyed him seductively, beckoning him out onto the floor. He shook his head with a smile, and raised his half-full glass to her. She pouted, and he laughed, the sound lost in the music. With a pounce, she was in the booth with him, tugging at his clothes.

“Come on. Aren’t you having any fun?” Ralla shouted in his ear. He could still barely hear her.

“Of course. I’m just not much of a dancer. Trust me: I’m having a great time.”

He was. His friends, who had known him longer than anyone, hadn’t given a second thought to him being in the booth. Ralla slid back out, her hair covering her face. She started talking to her friends, ear by ear, and as she did their eyes darted over towards him.

“Uh oh,” he said aloud, though no one could hear it.

They turned on him en masse, crawling across the booth, Ralla in the lead with a mischievous smile on her face. Once dragged to the floor, he stood motionless, a mock frown on his face. As a group they had surrounded him, a knot of calm in the undulations of the dance floor.

Then, with a crack, his hands went up, a smile spread wide, and he danced. They cheered.

It was an odd feeling, being surrounded by so many people, yet forced to be alone with his thoughts. He looked down at Ralla, her curls now twisting around as she shook her head to the beat, and realized that even if she could hear him, there was no way he could describe how he felt. It’s not that she had wanted him out on the floor with them. It’s not that he felt any more a part of the group in their midst than he did in the booth. It was because it had seemed to her that he was moping about in the booth, and it looked like he wasn’t having a good time. Without being able to explain it, he could see how it would look like that. And that thought had driven her to drag him out. She wouldn’t let him mope, even when he said it was fine. She didn’t give up on him.

Thom knew there was no way to explain that to someone who’d had a life of inclusion. But that little moment had meant more to him than he could have put into words. When she looked up at him and smiled, he smiled back. That was the best he could do. He felt something then, and barely wanted to admit it to himself. But right there, from that moment, he would have done anything for her.

So as he wearily hung onto the last vestiges of consciousness, his thoughts went again to rescue. If she was alive, and there was an opportunity, any opportunity, he would get her out. As it so often did, his next thoughts went to how best to create that opportunity. Plans within plans within plans.

Thom dreamed of drums. The music and festivities in the club had spread to the deck of the Garden and Basket. Thousands drunkenly danced and poorly sang while music roared. People cheered from the balconies, stomping their feet in rhythm with the melody. He could see the huge drums in the center of the crowd. The pounding, the pounding, the pounding of the drums no longer matched the pounding of the thousands of feet. The music had changed, but no one noticed. It became dissonant, harsh. Around him the celebration continued, a nightmarish cacophony of sound against sound. Rising above it, a new strike on the biggest drum. It sounded different. Odd. Less a bang and more of a...

It wasn’t music. Those weren’t drums. He snapped awake. The alarm klaxon was unlike the one on the
Uni
, a sound he’d known by heart since childhood. Everyone onboard did. He looked down at himself, still dressed. The door to his cabin had barely hit its stops by the time he was halfway down the corridor, hopping as he put on his shoes.

Another explosion shook the ship, knocking him sideways into the bulkhead. An open panel tore his shirt as he fell to a skidding stop. Another explosion lifted him bodily from the deck, smashing him down and knocking the wind from him. The clamor of panic echoed through the corridors. By the time he made it to the bridge, his senior officers had arrived and were taking over their posts. One glance at the sensors showed how much trouble they were in.

The
Pop
patrol fleet easily equaled their numbers, but most of their ships were larger. As people shouted cries for orders, more explosions rocked the ship. The fear in the voices, the cries for help on the comm, the discord and chaos of it all crushed down upon Thom.

He wasn’t sure how long it took, no more than one break in the wailing klaxon, but his mind focused—filtering away, piece by piece, all the unnecessary sounds and stimuli. Suddenly there was nothing but his comm officer, asking for commands to relay to the fleet.

“Defense pattern Oval 1. Weapons free,” Thom said calmly. The officer, only a few years out of school, looked relieved at getting an order. The next sound Thom heard was his weapons officer. “Focus fire on the command ship,” Thom said, tapping the sensor screen in front of him, selecting the largest vessel and placing it in red rotating brackets. “All offensive weapons open fire.” The weapons officer nodded and relayed the message. After a moment’s pause the hull shuddered as the heavy cannons fired in unison. The thin, long projectiles lanced out, their heat and speed vaporizing the water in front of them. The sensor screen visually represented the sounds of impacts on the enemy hull. Several of the enemy craft broke off their attack to cover their main ship. “Torpedo boats, area-of-effect fire between
Reap
and enemy fleet.” His orders were instantly relayed.

The voice of the officer of the deck filtered its way through to Thom’s brain next.

“We have flooding on Decks 1, 2, and 4, and injuries reported throughout.”

“Get Soli to take charge of the damage crews, using whatever men he has free. Anybody that can still man their station is to do so. We can patch up the cuts and scrapes later.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than a series of rapid explosions sounded through the hull. Outside the viewscreen the dark green-blue world lit up as the volley from the torpedo boats created a wall of steam and bubbles and fire between the two fleets. All craft beyond the wall temporarily disappeared.

“Blow ballast. Get us above the layer. All craft follow. Formation Delta Z-Down.”

Screaming air burst into the tanks and the
Reap
leapt vertically. Any conversation was impossible in the noise, the ship wailing in protest at the sudden movement. Everyone braced themselves the best they could. The fleet always traveled close to the layer for this very scenario, and had run countless drills during their transit. Thom could see around him everyone settling down. This was routine. They had done all this before. Maybe not with a real enemy, but the motions were the same. He hoped the men and women on the other ships were feeling something similar.

The steam wall lasted less than a minute, but it was long enough for the fleet to get above the layer and return to neutral buoyancy. The piercing whistle of air was replaced by deep gurgles as the ballast tanks partially refilled with water. The other ships formed up around the
Reap
. The pilot tipped the big ship forward, and instinctively Thom’s right hand shot up to press against the ceiling to steady himself. The view out the viewscreen messed with the mind, barely changing as the deck angled more and more. The sensors showed the rest of the fleet, already minus several craft, forming an inverted “V” with the
Reap
at its point. The tilt continued, and soon Thom needed to brace himself against his console with his left hand. He could hear objects falling forward on the bridge. Mugs and pens clattered towards the bow. A tablet slid from the central table, crashing forward into the viewscreen and shattering.

Then he saw them. The enemy fleet had taken the respite in combat to form up. As he had hoped, they showed a lack of experience. The smaller ships formed a shell around the largest ship. In their commander’s mind, a protective shell. They had kept neutral buoyancy, and were rising to meet the
Reap
by pitching up towards them. The ships faced each other head on, but the
Reap
was uphill. Thom didn’t bother to wait for them to clear the layer.

“All craft, full volley. Target 1.”

His order made it to the fleet almost instantly. The cannons on the
Reap
fired first, their steaming lines not forming so much as appearing fully formed. They impacted the lead ships first, passing through the light escort subs as if they weren’t there, leaving imploded bubbles in their stead. The projectiles hit the main enemy ship in a tight grouping, punching a hole clear through the outer hull and pulling a rush of seawater in with it.

On either side of the
Reap
, the remaining corvettes fired their rockets—slower projectiles with much more sizeable warheads. Their solid fuel vaporized the water behind them, leaving huge rising white contrails. The barrage hit the forward-most craft, the impacts each firing off a shaped charge, sending molten metal through a tiny hole in the hull, melting everything in a cone away from the impact site. Two more subs started sinking immediately.

The torpedo subs, on the outer tips of the “V,” loosed their weapons last. They fired a mix of slow-moving but massive high-explosive and area-of-effect ordinance. The HE’s exploded near and between the remaining enemy craft. Huge white spheres expanded outwards from the explosions. The resulting shockwaves crumpled the hulls of the small scout subs already trying to flee the carnage. The AOE torpedoes took care of the incoming shots fired off by the enemy small subs in their panic.

“Back us off, ensign.”

The pilot reversed the engines, sliding them up and backwards away from the crippled enemy fleet. The remaining small subs that had surrounded the enemy command ship had turned and fled down and away from the fight, having never crossed the layer. Thom could hear excitement in the voices of his crew, but he knew it wasn’t over. He stared out the viewscreen, down across the murky expanse, past the wreckage of the smaller ships, locking his eyes on the still advancing command sub. It was half-again as large as the
Reap
, a relic of the last war. Thom had never seen one outside of old vids. The considerable damage to its hull was visible even at this distance. Bubbles streamed from holes peppered across the bow, drifting upwards towards the
Reap
. The hole punched by the main
Reap
cannons was large enough that light leaked out. Water no longer seemed to be rushing in, evidence that the emergency locks still worked.

“Fire again.”

“Cannons are reloading, sir.”

“Fire again, dammit.”

“Ten seconds, Commander.”

“Ensign, flank speed to stern,
NOW
.”

The officer did as instructed, throwing Thom forward across the central table. The “V” rapidly elongated as the
Reap
tried to gain distance. The lumbering enemy craft finally cleared the layer, and warnings of weapons lock buzzed ominously. The old sub had none of the advanced weaponry of the
Reap
. No cannons or rockets, just old-fashioned torpedoes and a lot of them. They were still close enough to watch as a dozen outer doors slid aside, revealing the rounded heads of the weapons beyond.

“Torpedo subs, AOE!” he shouted, knowing it was too late.

With bursts of compressed air, the enemy torpedoes launched in sequence. Almost simultaneously, the cannons on the
Reap
punched another ultimately meaningless hole in the front of the enemy hull. The torpedoes fanned outwards, pre-programmed to attack different targets.

“Blow ballast, evasive maneuvers and countermeasures!” His cool had gone; he hoped his panic wasn’t too apparent.

The craft lurched upwards and backwards, but it wasn’t enough. With only a few seconds needed to close the distance, all dozen torpedoes found their mark. Two of the three remaining corvettes disappeared in a puff of steam and fire. Three of the torpedo subs did the same. The remaining craft either dodged the weapon, or took a non-lethal hit. Four of the torpedoes had been designated for the
Reap
. One was confused by the countermeasures and powered harmlessly away. Another bounced off the hull, a dud. The other two impacted along the keel, just below the bridge. Thom was punched downwards and smashed face-first onto the central table, cracking the glass and destroying the interface. The rest of the bridge crew, all strapped in, got knocked around but avoided serious injury.

Flooding alarms added their disharmony to the din. Flat on his stomach, blood obscuring one eye, Thom stared out the front viewscreen and watched as the holes in the enemy sub went dark, the interior lights winking out. It started to sink below the layer, sliding out of view and into the gloom.

“Report!”

It had been two solid days in her cell since she had finished work on the sewers, and Ralla wasn’t convinced she’d ever get the smell out of her hair. The long tepid showers every evening helped some, but her hair had clumped into a tangled nest of nastiness.

Once past the initial rankness of the job, the work itself hadn’t been too bad. Grueling, for sure, but the hose did most of the work. She thought fondly of the final moment near the stern, when she looked back up the length of the ship, standing at the farthest point from where she had been the first day. Every chamber clean, the overwhelming nature of the job became an emotional moment of accomplishment. It had been the hardest weeks of her life, but having survived... no, thrived at the worst Oppai could throw at her, she felt strong. Stronger than she had in her entire life.

Well, emotionally strong. She was pretty sure she had slept for at least a day straight after she had finished, and even now every part of her body ached. But inside, despite her surroundings and situation, she was actually, surprisingly, happy.

So when the guards came the next day, she was more curious about her next task than fearful. But the fear would come, and quickly.

The two guards, the same that had chaperoned her to and from the sewers, said nothing during their long walk aft. They took two different elevators. Ralla almost expected to arrive near where the sewer ended in some sort of cruel joke to clean it all over again but backwards. Instead, they entered a tall, wide corridor that ran the width of the ship. Ralla had never seen it, but it was clear what it was for, having been in a similar corridor on the
Uni
. It was the main passageway that connected all the entrances to the multiple engine rooms housing the ship’s propulsion drives. They walked across to the port side, passing the floor-to-ceiling doors that she knew could slide open to reveal the generators and motors, one for each propeller. Each motor and generator had its own room, sealed from the others in case of attack or malfunction. Twice they passed open doors, and the heat and racket from the machinery washed across them. The engine rooms were bathed in light, bright enough that the engineers could see every part of their motorized burdens.