Quest for the Nautilus

by Jason Henderson

  “But we haven’t found her yet,” Gabriel whispered to Misty.

  “We’ll surface,” the Maelstrom captain responded to Nerissa. “And we’ll bring the prisoner to the platform of the starboard bow. Dr. David Nemo will deliver the Dakkar’s Eye across the gangplank. When we have assured ourselves that it is there, we will then send Dr. Yasmeen Nemo over.”

  Gabriel felt the ship rising. Misty felt it, too. “They’re surfacing,” she said.

  At the end of the corridor was an elevator, and they hustled to it and ducked out of the way as a pair of Maelstrom sailors exited and moved back down the way they’d come.

  “There’s so many,” Gabriel said. He knew there would be, of course. It was a ship full of crew—but in that moment he was painfully aware that with every step, they were one corner from getting caught. And that would mean doom for Mom.

  Inside the elevator was a schematic of the ship. Gabriel tapped it. “Level seven.”

  He let the doors close, and he and Misty waited as the elevator car moved.

  “Smoke ready,” Gabriel said, and each of them pulled their smoke canisters, looping a finger through the pin. The elevator door opened with a ding.

  One second to sweep the corridor with their eyes. What they saw was a long line of doors on the right and a long line of windows—probably imitation Nemoglass—on the left. But only one door had armed guards in front of it.

  In unison, they pulled the pins on their smoke canisters and rolled them toward the guards as billowing smoke began to fill the air. Before the guards could do more than crouch into position with weapons at the ready, Gabriel and Misty opened fire with their energy rifles. Arcs of energy twisted through the air and smacked into the guards. Gabriel winced again. We can’t get comfortable with these things. Just one bad heart on one of these guys and we’re killers, he thought.

  The two men staggered and went down. Gabriel hesitated. He should let them lay there, but pretty soon this whole place would be underwater. He gestured to Misty, and they dragged the guards to Mom’s cell door.

  Testing the door and finding it locked, he shouted, “Nitrogen.”

  Misty dropped and began to spray the door latch. Liquid nitrogen cools to −346 Fahrenheit, and at that temperature, metal turns to cottage cheese. After a moment, the latch was covered over in a slick, dense layer of ice.

  Gabriel backed up and kicked the door. As it flew open, Misty turned and sprayed the window right behind them.

  Gabriel bashed through the cell door. There she was, in that metal room, rising instantly from the little bed. Her mouth was open in shock. Gabriel stepped forward, reaching for her. “Mom, let’s go.”

  “What?” Mom’s mouth hung open in a shocked O, but a moment later she waved him toward her with a relieved cry, pulling him into a crushing hug. “How? How on earth?”

  “How?” he said, blinking tears back. “How could we not, Mom?” He sniffed and pulled away. “Now, seriously. We gotta move.”

  “Dr. Nemo? Here.” Misty stepped into the cell and grabbed Mom’s rebreather out of the pouch on Gabriel’s belt. “We brought you a rebreather. You’ll need it.”

  “Misty?” Mom shook her head. “I can’t believe he convinced you to do this.”

  “It didn’t take convincing,” she said.

  Mom took the device and slipped it on.

  They moved back into the smoky hall. Misty and Gabriel dragged the guards back into the cell and shut the door. It might let water in through the busted lock, but they’d be okay.

  With the three of them alone in the hall, Misty raised the rifle and pointed it at the windows. “Be ready for water.” Gabriel grabbed Mom and dragged her a few yards down.

  “What are you doing?” Mom asked as Misty aimed her pincer rifle at the sprayed nitrogen on the window.

  The glass shattered instantly. Water gushed through the portal in a hard-sideways geyser, and the corridor began to flood instantly. Water slammed against the door and sloshed back. Gabriel kept his hands up, warding off the geyser coming in from the window.

  “We need to go out the window,” Misty said. “Just wait for it to finish flooding.”

  They were forced toward the ceiling as the geyser disappeared under the rising water. Only their heads stuck above the surface. And then their noses, and they put on the rebreathers.

  The corridor was a vessel of water, a long, full metal box, very like a swimming pool with one way out: the window they had just busted.

  Gabriel nodded at Misty and she went first, swimming toward the portal. It was just big enough for her to swim through, and after Mom shimmied out, Gabriel was only barely able to get his own shoulders through, scratching one of them on a shard of plexiglass.

  Now they hung in the water outside the starboard twin, and Gabriel pointed toward the unflooded corridor they’d come in. They swam down, watching as security guards ran to and fro, visible through portholes in the corridor. No one thought to look outside to see them.

  They reached the Katanas, and Gabriel hopped on his after unfastening it. Mom got on behind him, putting her arms around him. They dropped as he turned on the engine, and then Misty whipped up behind him, and they flew away.

  They headed for the Nebula, still in danger. But Gabriel had his mom behind him now. Nothing mattered more than that.

  “We have Mom,” Gabriel radioed as they sliced through the water. Gabriel could see the Nebula growing closer as they neared it.

  “Copy. Copy!” Nerissa shouted with obvious joy. “Come on in. Uh … Gabriel, are you in touch with Obscure? Peter hasn’t checked in.”

  “He was supposed to go to the Nebula … Obscure? Peter?”

  After a moment Peter came on. “I’m here.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m still on the Obscure.” Peter’s voice was dull and distant. “It’s bad.”

  30

  OUT OF TIME

  MISTY, GABRIEL, AND his mom met the Nebula on the surface. The ship was moving fast, but Nerissa brought it down to about ten knots, just slow enough that Misty and Gabriel could bring the Katanas alongside. The Gemini would be on them at any moment.

  Crewmen gathered on the platform atop the Nebula and lowered a ladder, which clicked into place on the hull of the ship. Gabriel worked to keep the Katana under control as waves whipped against it and water splashed in his face. “Grab on,” he called. His mom didn’t wait. She let go of him and scrambled for the ladder, and soon she was being helped up over the top by the crewmen. Mom disappeared into the Nebula, safe for the moment.

  A moment later, Misty scrambled up, her Katana turning end over end and disappearing in the waves. She held on to the ladder and looked back at Gabriel. “Come on!”

  But Gabriel didn’t come on. He saw awareness flash across Misty’s face before he said it. “I have to go back for Peter.”

  Nerissa’s voice came through. “I’m not even gonna try to talk you out of that. Just hurry.”

  Gabriel let go of the Nebula and dove, calling ahead to the Obscure. The rebreather made his voice sound muffled, but it was better than trying to talk—and think—while bouncing across the top of the water. “Peter, what’s your status?” If it had been Misty there alone, it would be easy. She could send the Obscure to the depths to be repaired later, and she’d dive out.

  But Peter didn’t dive.

  “It’s bad,” came Peter’s voice in his earpiece. “It’s what we were afraid of. Uh, the engine is breaking down.”

  “Breaking down?” Gabriel throttled the Katana, diving a little deeper, cutting through the waves like a missile. The sonar panel at the head of the Katana told him the Obscure was about a mile away.

  “I have about a quarter flank speed. The engine is about to stall,” Peter said. “It’s not something we can fix with some glue and a windshield.”

  Gabriel tried to take that in. “Okay, head for the surface. I’m coming to meet you.”

  An alarm Klaxon erupted on the bridge of the Obscure,
audible over Gabriel’s headset.

  “What is it?” Gabriel shouted.

  “The Gemini,” Peter said. “They’re within a mile of us.”

  “That was really uncalled for, Captain Nemo,” came the voice of the Maelstrom captain on the Obscure’s bridge speakers. The voice was audible in Gabriel’s ear.

  “Peter, patch me through.” Fine. He would talk to the Maelstrom captain while he headed for Peter and the Obscure. What’s one more thing? He touched a button and flipped the channel they were on. “Who’s this?”

  “You know who this is,” came the voice of the Maelstrom captain.

  Gabriel groaned. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said, “and you know something? Your values are completely out of whack.”

  “But you’re not faster than us,” the Maelstrom captain said. “Think how little you’ve accomplished.”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “You manage to bring your mother back to your side and you’ve won yourselves, what, a few minutes?”

  On the screen in front of him, the Gemini had entered the circle and was racing toward the Obscure from several miles away. Gabriel flipped back to Peter. “Are you surfacing?”

  “Ugh,” Peter responded. “Elevation is damaged. I don’t know … I don’t know. Uh, maybe it’s just the software. I’m gonna try and bring it back up.”

  Good. That calm in his voice is him working the problem.

  Work the problem.

  The sonar told Gabriel he was within a quarter mile of the Obscure. In a moment he would …

  … see it. The black ship with its swirls of mother-of-pearl emerged into view as it moved slowly from his left to his right up ahead.

  A message from the other channel. He flipped back.

  “Your choice is to turn around and surrender the Eye to us,” the Maelstrom captain said, “or we will seize it.”

  “I don’t think that’s gonna work,” Gabriel said. He was coming up fast on the underside of the Obscure and dove down, dropping under the dive room. He grabbed the carabiner line from the body of the Katana and hooked it as he swept under and slipped off and the Katana whipped away from him to trail behind. He slapped the iris and waited for the lock to work. It seemed to sputter, and for a moment, he wasn’t sure if it would even open, but then it snapped back, and Gabriel swam up into the dive room.

  Waiting for the dive room to empty was agony; he opened the door when the water was at his shins, then ran sloshing into the personnel room toward the bridge. He flipped back. “I’m aboard, Peter.”

  “Welcome aboard.”

  The lights along the corridor were shimmering in and out. They were losing power. He unlocked the door to the bridge, his eye catching a plaque next to the door, OBSCURE, put there when they had launched from Nemobase. For the first time he felt it in his bones, and it ached. They were losing more than power.

  Gabriel burst through the door and ran to Peter, slamming him in a hug before turning to take in the bridge. Under flickering lights, he saw alarm messages all over the view screen. Power was down to 15 percent. Engine barely online. Oxygen production was dead.

  What. Have. I. Done.

  But it was worth it. His mom was safe. And they—

  “Still no elevation,” Peter said. “I don’t know what you want to do…”

  “We’re gonna get out of this,” Gabriel said. As much to himself as Peter. Think. Work the problem. The engines were the main problem. He snapped his fingers. “What if we used the dinghy and tow cables?”

  Peter was still trying to reboot the elevators. “Dinghy doesn’t have tow cables.”

  “No, but we can ride it out in front and then cable it from the Obscure.” He shrugged. “And then…”

  “Tow the Obscure?” Peter said. “Sure, but the Maelstrom…”

  An alarm rang out.

  “Torpedo in the water!” Peter cried.

  “Really?” Gabriel flipped the channel on his headset and shouted at the Gemini, “You’re going to blow up your prize?”

  “Fifteen seconds to impact,” Peter said urgently.

  “Countermeasures,” Gabriel shouted.

  “Countermeasures, no, offline,” Peter said.

  “Evasive, Peter, careful.”

  “Salvage is a skill we’re pretty proud of,” the Maelstrom captain said. “We think when you’re on the bottom there will be plenty of time to collect.”

  “No,” Gabriel shouted. “Detonate, detonate, call it back, Captain. I promise you, you don’t want to damage the Eye.”

  “Do you really think we’re going to listen to you now?”

  Peter’s voice cut through the air. “Two sec—”

  Then a sound he had never heard before—a distant snapping and groaning in the ship as the whole vessel rocked. Gabriel grabbed on to the side of Peter’s station.

  Peter sounded out what Gabriel was afraid of. “Hit, hit, Gabriel, we’ve been hit. And I think it dinged the Eye, because I’ve got a lot of heat coming from the passenger compartment.”

  “Flooding,” came an automatic voice from the speakers. “Flooding.”

  “Uh … and the back of the ship is filling with water.”

  Gabriel ground his teeth, thinking. “Peter, where is the—” He looked up at the sonar screen. The Gemini was sweeping around and away from the Obscure, and in a moment, they would come in again for another hit. The alarms continued blaring.

  It can’t be, it can’t be. In his mind was a chessboard, and his finger was inching toward the king. He had taken the pieces he needed—his mother was safe—but it was time to admit it. In his mind, the king was falling, about to clatter on the board.

  Oh, I’m so sorry. His family had made this ship. Everything they knew had gone into it. He had helped design every rivet and swirl.

  And it was time to go.

  “We need to head for the escape dinghy.”

  Pause. Then Peter cursed and looked up.

  “What?”

  “The escape dinghy was hit,” Peter said.

  The Obscure was shaking now, and a rumble passed through the ship. The lights went out.

  Then came back on in dim red. Gabriel’s mind reeled. “That’s … that’s okay. But you and me, we gotta get off the ship.”

  Peter’s eyes grew wide as he glanced at the bulkheads. His body seemed small in the red light. “Oh, Gabe,” Peter answered hoarsely. “I don’t know.”

  “Hey,” Gabriel said. “We work the problem.” The ship shook under him. “Now we can’t use the dive room.”

  “You think I’m diving?”

  “I know you are, but we have flooding, so we can’t go through the passenger compartment, so we can’t get to the dive room.” He looked up and pointed at circular shield at the top of the bridge. The same one he, Peter, and Misty used every day. It was an iris decorated with the letter N and encircled in metal handhold bars, with a ladder leading up to it. “We’re going through there.”

  “Through the ceiling?”

  “Have you ever used a rebreather?” Gabriel let go and ran to the panel by the door.

  “Don’t you mess with me,” Peter said. Then he looked at the sonar screen. “Gemini is coming about.” Gabriel handed him a rebreather when he looked up.

  “Put it around your neck and—what’s our elevation?”

  Peter took it and slipped it over his shoulders. “One hundred and sixty feet.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “Too deep to go to the surface.”

  “What do you mean? It’s not crush depth,” Peter said.

  “Yeah,” Gabriel said, “but have you ever done compression stops?”

  Peter started shaking.

  At about nine hundred feet, the sea pressure could kill a person, but at 160, that wasn’t a real concern. The problem was that a diver needed to come to the surface slowly—no faster than thirty feet per minute. Otherwise gases in the body would cause bubbles and injure or kill you. Just one of those things about diving.

>   “Okay, okay, okay.” Gabriel pinched the top of his nose. “Kill the alarm, please.”

  Peter hit a button and the alarm died. Now they were shaking in the sea, the bridge rumbling under their feet.

  “Nebula?” Gabriel shouted into the ceiling as he flipped to their channel. “Depth a hundred and sixty feet, you need to pick us up.”

  “Copy,” Nerissa said. “We’ll put ourselves right off your starboard bow.”

  “Good,” Gabriel said. He took a breath and turned to Peter. “Okay, listen. We’re gonna need to flood the bridge and go outside, and then we don’t go any higher—we just swim, uh, west. And then the Nebula will come get us.”

  “Flood the … Gabe, I can’t.” Peter’s voice was strained.

  Gabriel touched a lever, and the controller section of Peter’s station popped out. He walked over to the ladder and scrambled up a couple of rungs. He showed Peter the remote. “Come up. I’ve gotta open the door.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “They’re gonna fire on us any second, now we gotta climb this ladder and gotta grab on to the bars on the ceiling.”

  Peter looked up. “I know, I just … it’s water.”

  Gabriel held out his free hand. “Peter. I’ve got you.”

  Peter scanned the whole bridge, still next to his station. And then he nodded to himself, fast. He ran to the ladder and grabbed Gabriel’s hand as Gabriel pulled him up. They climbed, and Gabriel grabbed on to the bars, swinging around to the side of the ladder. “Come on, grab on.”

  Peter scrambled up the ladder, holding on to the bars and hanging with his tiptoes on the rung.

  “Steady?” Gabriel said.

  “I’m goin’ nowhere, man,” Peter said.

  Gabriel clicked the remote, and the door at the back of the bridge shot open. Water came roaring in as Gabriel put his rebreather in his mouth and Peter did the same.

  A new alarm rang out, and Peter looked down at his station, his voice muffled by the rebreather. “Torpedo in the water!”

  “Hang on,” Gabriel shouted.

  “Time to impact…,” Peter answered, watching his station as the water roared over it. “Sixty seconds.”