Maelstrom: Mermaids of Montana 1: Intergalactic Dating Agency

by Jade, Elsa

  As they watched, a distant roar echoed across the submerged canyon, and abruptly, a slice of the subterranean sea began to drain. As the water retreated, it revealed more of the spiky pyramids, some of them nested against each other like fractal crystals or stacked point to point in a striking display of architectural might and balance.

  “It’s a city,” she breathed. “An underground, undersea city.”

  The retreating waves exposed high sea walls that sectioned off the spires in a great wheel. Across from them, shafts several times larger than the one they stood within began to pump out water, filling another section of the wheel. Water ran down the giant ropes of algae like a rain chain, filling the cavern with a luminous, dancing glow. A breeze, warm and moist, feathered past them, thick with an oceanic perfume.

  “The tower design is like something from an old Tritonesse myth,” Mael said. “But these aren’t the deep sea trenches of Tritona.” He stiffened. “And this isn’t a storybook citadel. This is the exodus ship.”

  “Holy…” Ridley leaned out over the ledge, staring down the sheer face of the canyon wall to the churning swells below. “All this is a spaceship?”

  “An exodus ship was meant to hold a piece of home, for a long time, across vast distances.”

  “The ark, yeah. But now it’s landed and buried.” She blew out a low, impressed whistle. “I’ve read about a supervolcano lurking under Yellowstone. Great place to hide strange energy readings. But where are all the strange people?”

  He dragged his gaze from the astonishing lost city-ship…to look at her.

  “Oh.” She rubbed a hand across the back of her neck where the short hairs prickled. “Right. I can’t believe it. This is where I come from?”

  If only the other Wavercrest women could see this. Tucking the gill under her arm, she fumbled for her phone and snapped a few quick pictures. No signal, of course, but she could at least show Marisol and Lana when they got back. If they got back… She throttled that ominous thought.

  Mael had his hands on his hips, staring down into the city-ship with a distant expression that somehow reached past the enormous cavern…farther even than the distance the ship had come. “The point of the exodus ships was to start a new life on a welcoming planet,” he mused. “But somehow they ended up here, on a closed world. There must’ve been a malfunction of some sort, or an accident that brought down the ship.”

  She studied the march of half-submerged pyramids across the cavern. “That biggest one in the center, it looks cracked. See that flaw all the way into the water?”

  “Maybe that forced them down. Or maybe it happened when they landed.” He shook his head. “They must’ve realized they couldn’t stay concealed, not forever, and they went out to start that life. Although the hydrothermals mostly seem in good working order.” He pointed out the other shafts. “Once they shielded the native limestone, the geyser activity in the area disguised their presence as they cycled the water.”

  “Like a hidden beating heart.” Wonder coursed through her, almost stronger than the waves that were finally subsiding.

  “What’s in the heart of the heart?” Mael stared across the cavern at the pyramid towering over the others. “And why do our enemies think it’s theirs?”

  She’d almost forgotten about the Cretarni. “This is why they came? This is why they lured you here with the fake IDA profile?”

  “Lured us…and you.” His eyes narrowed to icy slits. “Somehow they knew about the exodus ship, and I think they planned to use you as the key to the city. And we just unlocked it.”

  A jolt of alarm tensed all her muscles. She’d never been able to find a place where she belonged, and when she finally found her home, the place she’d actually come from, she’d inadvertently exposed it to its enemies? No, she would not let that be. “What could they want from a crashed, abandoned ship?”

  “Don’t know, but we do know they can’t have it. Interstellar salvage rights leave some abandoned or derelict property up for grabs, but as a descendant, you and the others would have a claim even before us.”

  She grimaced. “And how enforceable is that claim in a civil cold war waged out of sight on a closed world?”

  He shouldered the blaster rifle. “We get there first. We protect what’s ours.”

  With a grim nod, she palmed her pistol.

  The narrow ledge where they’d emerged from the emptied shaft was only one of a myriad ducts crisscrossing the cavern walls and connecting to the sea walls. More ducts traversed the open slices of the wheel, although most of those were submerged except in the emptied segment.

  Warily eyeing the conduits that had drained that section of the wheel—and could just as quickly fill it again—she tried to calm her racing pulse. “Why do underwater people need walkways?”

  “Not walkways. Canals, carrying water to power the ship. And not just water but air too. The exodus ship would’ve carried many specimens from Tritona, including those from the surface.” He frowned. “None of which could be freed into an established ecosystem here. They must’ve been in bad shape to land on a closed world with sentient beings already in residence.” His voice faded, as if he didn’t realize he was still talking. “I wonder if we’ll find what happened to them.”

  Just another loss for his people, the circumstances of the city-ship forgotten, even by its descendants. She always blamed others for abandoning her; to discover that she’d done the same, even innocently, stung.

  As she was hesitantly reaching out to touch his shoulder, he turned away, missing the sympathetic gesture. “We can enter the city there, in the open segment.” He traced a tangled line through the air, marking the proposed path. “That central tower should hold the ship’s controls. We’ll just follow the maze of canals.”

  Her gaze fell, locking on the water beneath them. “Or we could get in right down there. If we dive.”

  The weight of his assessing stare was almost worse than the frightened churn in her guts that matched the waves. Almost. “The long way gets us there.”

  “The short way gets us there hopefully before the Cretarni.”

  “Or I could go—”

  “No. Not alone.” She glared at him. “Don’t say it again.”

  After a long moment, he said, “Strip down. We leave everything we don’t need.”

  She had no idea what she needed. Or…that wasn’t quite true. She knew one thing she needed.

  She kept her focus on him as they took off their outer layers—a relief, really, in the almost tropical confines of the cavern—and took only what they needed in their packs and his battle harness pouches. When she focused on Maelstrom as he unveiled his sleek and brawny magnificence, she thought of what she could’ve been if her ancestors hadn’t been sent away…

  But then she would’ve been consigned to the deeps with the other noncombatant Tritonan women. That wouldn’t have felt right either. Was there no place she belonged?

  “Open the gill,” he told her.

  When she unfolded the little bag, it expanded in the moist air, filaments of artificial alveoli fluttering.

  He gave it a gentle shake to finish inflating it, then held the mouthpiece to her lips. “Bite down.”

  Staring up at him, she did. The tab was softer than the silicon mouthpieces she was used to and molded itself securely to her palate. She tried not to choke.

  Mael’s gaze was steady, but she could see him longing to question her again.

  So she turned away from him, tucked the gill protectively close to her chest, and stepped off the ledge.

  As dives went, it wasn’t the farthest she’d dropped. Not even close. And yet it felt as if she fell forever. The water slammed like concrete against the soles of her feet, a brutal reminder to watch her form. Too late, but she managed to clamp her butt cheeks and steel her jaws before the mouthpiece ripped out from between her teeth.

  An instant later, Mael was plunging through the water at her side.

  She only felt his presence, didn�
�t see him because her eyes were clenched shut.

  Until he gripped her arms and spun her. “Breathe, Ridley!”

  She gasped…

  And the salty-sweet tang of the water rushed over her tongue. No, not the water itself, just the air filtered through the water.

  She gazed at him in shock. This is what he breathed all the time.

  His iceberg eyes were wide and fiery with some emotion—fear, for her.

  He wouldn’t let her drown, wouldn’t let her down. She took another breath as they hung suspended in the water, then reached out to match his hold.

  His biceps flexed under her fingers. “You’re doing it?” Underwater, his voice had a deeper hum that seemed to vibrate pleasantly through her.

  She tried to ignore the sensation as she nodded, unable to answer aloud with the mouthpiece in. Instead, she pointed.

  He gave her another searching glance then twisted toward the spires. Etchings in the rock glowed with the luminous algae as if summoning them. The way he’d twisted put his broad shoulders right under her palms, so she grabbed tight and held on as he rocketed them toward the sunken bones of the city.

  Chapter 17

  Mael’s mind spun in all directions even as he sped in a straight line toward the innermost pyramid, orienting on that delicate crack like an echo of lightning trapped in plasteel. She wasn’t freaking out. She’d found her place and found a new power as well.

  The archaic Tritonesse towers seemed menacing to him. They were a place out of time as well as a place he didn’t deserve to be. If not for the war, he would’ve never been in any position of authority alongside Coriolis or the other dominant Tritonyri. And he’d certainly wouldn’t consider himself ready to claim a mate.

  Of course, if not for the war, he wouldn’t be here at all. To thwart their old enemy, he would do whatever was necessary.

  With every muscle in his body, he thrust for the outer curve of the nearest smaller pyramid, nestled against the hulking companion behind it in a protective barbican placement. A circular opening was framed in glowing algae, making a clear enough target, and he slid them through the portal with room to spare even with Ridley clinging to his shoulders.

  Once inside the tower, he glimpsed a silver gleam above them and propelled them higher. They broke free into open air once again.

  Ridley wheezed out a breath as she spat the gill mouthpiece into her hand. “I didn’t freak out! I didn’t black out. I’m not screaming.”

  “You are screaming a little,” he said, trying not to grin. And trying not to focus on her mostly naked body.

  “With joy!” She spun herself in the circle. “Wait, we didn’t come up high enough to be out of the water.”

  “It’s an air pocket, all the trapped bubbles contained in this part of the tower. With the hydrothermal energy plus airlocks, they could pump air and water wherever they wanted.” Hooking her under the arms, he boosted them both up onto an exposed shelf. Above them, walkway ducts continued toward the center of the towers.

  With an impatient sweep of her hand, she shoved back the wet spikes of her hair, scattering droplets across her bare shoulders. “I wish we knew what they wanted.” More gently, she squeezed the gill back into its pouch.

  “Whatever it is, it’s yours.”

  She gazed at him. Once again, the algae’s phosphorescent radiance darkened her eyes, making her alien to him. “And Marisol’s and Lana’s. And whoever else of us survived. Whatever it is.”

  “You have at least part of your inheritance back already,” he noted as he settled the rifle against his spine. It wasn’t as pleasant as having a half-naked Ridley there.

  Very slowly, her lips curled into a dawning smile. “I guess I do.”

  By unspoken agreement, they climbed on foot toward the barbican of the highest spire. Ridley had the gill tube slung around her neck, the mouthpiece dangling close. The ancient machinery of the sunken city continued its churning, watery breaths, powered by the molten core of the world and oblivious of its empty heart.

  The streamers of algae here were thick enough to be almost incandescent, the light pulsing. Overgrown from their tidy channels in the walls, they’d formed dense tangles. Tritona was trying to restore the ancient Tritonesse gardens that had once teemed with life. Maybe a sample of this heirloom could help.

  “One moment,” he called to her. With his blade, he neatly excised a twist of the algae and stored it in an empty pocket on his utility belt. As he smoothed the tangles back into place, his fingers caught a hard edge underneath. Curious, he lifted aside the soggy streamers to reveal the corner of a metallic panel set into the plasteel. “Hold on. Might be a comm here. If it has residual power…”

  He cut away another section of algae obscuring the panel. The plasteel arched over the high, round portal of the barbican, which would’ve been easy enough to reach if he’d been floating. Now, confined to the walkway, he had to tug awkwardly at the wet mass. Fortunately, the chunk sheared off the smooth plasteel.

  He took a step back to see the enormity of the bared arch, the tough material untouched by the centuries. “Not a comm,” he said with regret. “Just the ship’s identification plate.”

  Ridley stepped up beside him. “That’s writing, isn’t it? I mean, alien writing, obviously, and I can’t read it. What does it say?”

  He ran his fingertips over this piece of Tritona’s history. Maybe he could find a way to return it to its long-forgotten home, a reminder that there is always hope. “The ship was called the Atlantyri.”

  Ridley jerked upright. “Atlantis? It was…is a real place?”

  He swiveled to stare down at her. “You remember it?”

  She shook her head, flinging off droplets of water. “It’s not a memory, exactly. On Earth, Atlantis is a myth. It was the story of an ancient lost civilization.” She snorted out a breath. “Okay, so maybe not so much a story as garbled history. It was said that Atlantis sank beneath the waves.” She wrinkled her nose. “Except I thought the myths were much older than the start of your war, and I’m sure none of the stories placed Atlantis in a dried-up primordial ocean at the bottom of Montana.”

  He nodded. “Wise of them. A hidden city isn’t very hidden if everyone knows it’s there.”

  “Atlantis in Yellowstone.” She let out a soft, wondering laugh. “If I hadn’t already seen a spaceship and a guy breathing underwater, I’m not sure I would’ve believed this. Gonna bring in even more tourists now.”

  “I think the Tritonesse will be equally shocked to discover this history,” he told her. “But no one can know about it until you and the other descendants stake your claim here. It’s one thing for the IDA to establish outposts with transgalactic approval and at least a plausible deniability of terrestrial origin. Since this city was built before those rules were enforced with no closed-world zoning, the challenges will be difficult.” He frowned. “No wonder the Cretarni wanted to sneak in here rather than wait for official approval.”

  “They didn’t come here for a history lesson or to establish a theme park,” she mused. “There must be something more valuable than undersea moss.”

  “What do your myths say about Atlantis?”

  She narrowed her gaze, her lips pursed thoughtfully. “I never really had much time for imaginary stories,” she confessed. “What I thought was imaginary. When I was a kid, real life seemed hard enough to understand. I guess it was just the usual stories about treasure and tall, beautiful people and benevolent wisdom.” She shrugged. “You know, all that fantasy crap.”

  “From harsh experience, I’d say the soil-suckers are less interested in beauty and wisdom, which leaves us with treasure.” Reluctantly, he dropped his hand from the old panel and stepped back. This wasn’t the time to reclaim his world’s history, not when its future was still uncertain.

  Warily, they ascended the central tower. Though they’d entered through that air pocket, as they climbed the spiraling corridor, round windows of transparent plasteel showed water just outs
ide.

  When Ridley clutched the gill sack to her chest, Mael touched her shoulder to distract her. “Not freaking out?”

  “I feel all upside down and sideways, but not freaked.” She glanced up at him. “If we were swimming, it wouldn’t seem weird at all.” A tentative happiness brightened her gray eyes. “I think my Wavercrest Syndrome is cured.”

  Just being here had fixed her. Not that she’d ever been broken. When he lowered his hand, she tangled her fingers through his, stopping his retreat.

  A glint of tears turned her eyes silver. “Now we just have to save Tritona.”

  When she said the words, her grip tight on his, the end of his mission seemed within reach, never mind the lightyears separating their worlds or the centuries isolating their bloodlines.

  Hand in hand, they climbed to the very peak of the tower.

  But as they went—the coil tightening within the pyramid—the dread inside him constricted too, cutting into his breath as if Ridley’s panic had infected him. Each spiral brought them…nothing. No comms or other interfaces, just a few scavenged panels where tech had been. No sign of what happened to the ship or the survivors. No life besides the glowing algae.

  More barren than Tritona.

  The round windows at the apex of the tower were not sealed, but they were above the waves and had an unimpeded view of the huge cavern. The waters flowed through the segments of the wheel in a constant tide, but this beating heart was empty.

  “Except for the algae, it seems like there’s nothing left,” Ridley said, disappointment dulling her tone. “Like the IDA outpost, but with even less dust.”

  The failure seeped through him in a toxic sludge. “Nothing left but the rock and the water.”

  “And the myth of the name.” She swept one hand down the curve of the window, as if needing the hard arc of plasteel to ground her. “I can’t believe an Atlantis ark is real. Like, what else am I supposed to believe? The Loch Ness monster?”