The Atomic Sea: Part Five: Flaming Skies

by Conner, Jack

  Almost seething in victory, Uthua reached for the Device, and Avery was forced back by the lashing tentacles and psychic barrage. Indescribable pain filled him, boring through every pore on his body, every synapse in his mind.

  Uthua reached out—

  Frederick rushed up at him.

  “No!” Layanna cried.

  Frederick leapt with a howl directly onto Uthua’s otherworldly back. Instantly, he plunged through the amoebic wall, past the organelles, and toward Uthua’s mortal form. Even as Frederick flew through the phantasmagorical substances, the acids ate at him, and his skin dissolved in tatters. His blood swirled throughout the sac.

  Closer.

  He raised his knife high, even as flesh steamed away from the arm below it.

  Uthua seemed to sense him. The near-Elder started to turn. He had time only for his eyes to widen, then Frederick grabbed the Collossum by the front of his head with his left hand, bones shoving through the flesh of his fingers, and stabbed the point of his blade beneath the corner of Uthua’s right jaw—stabbed it deep—then jerked the knife across his throat. Frederick tore open Uthua’s jugular and windpipe in one savage arc, ripping away muscle and tendon, vein and artery. As Uthua’s black blood flooded the sac, he threw back his head in a soundless scream.

  Frederick, grinning horribly, released him and slipped back. The acids took him.

  Uthua staggered, almost fell to his knees. The pain filling Avery faded, and he gasped.

  Weakened, his anchor to this world fading, Uthua wobbled on his clawed feet, one of his hands reaching toward his torn throat. His great, bulging, phantasmagorical sac shrank—shrank—tentacles faded and vanished into thin air—

  The lightning rod dropped to the deck, where it smoked ... and skittered downward ...

  Toward the sea. In moments it would be lost.

  One of Uthua’s last remaining tentacles stretched out—toward Avery. He would possess Avery just like he had Muirblaag and ward off the talons of death. Avery reeled back, but the tentacle was too fast.

  Jaws bunching, eyes blazing, Janx grabbed the lance before it could vanish into the ocean. Instantly smoke sizzled from his gloved fist. The glove burned away. The rod ate into his flesh. Heedless, Janx hauled himself upright, drew back his arm and threw the lightning rod with all his might. His eyes glimmered as he watched it fly. Time seemed to slow.

  Just like a harpoon, the spear sailed through the air, directly at Uthua’s broad back, whistling as it flew.

  Uthua’s sac was quite small now. The spear stabbed through the amoebic wall, plunged into the middle of Uthua’s mortal back and kept going until it punched out of the middle of his chest. A full two and a half feet stuck out from the amoebic wall in front. Blood and phantasmal flesh sizzled off of it.

  Screaming, Uthua wrapped his claws around the haft of the weapon. His claws smoked. Howling in agony, he toppled backward, landing on the deck.

  The spear’s tip stuck up, sharp and shining.

  Avery bent over, placed his hands to either side of the Device, and hefted it out of the trunk. It was heavy, even heavier than before, swollen with promise, and he could feel it moving beneath his gloves.

  He stepped toward Uthua.

  The near-Elder glared up at him, black eyes horror-stricken.

  “No ... no ...”

  “Hurry,” Layanna gasped. In her human form, she lay panting on the deck, water lapping around her ankles. “The Over-City ...”

  Indeed, the great mass of the floating city drifted toward them. If it drew close enough, it could turn its otherworldly weapons on them, more than their meager defenses could overcome, and retake the Device.

  Avery raised the sphere overhead, meaning to bring it slamming down on the spike that jutted from Uthua’s chest, activating the Device and ending the war. He started to do it when Sheridan cried, “Don’t!”

  She had come to stand next to him along the deck, her suit’s chest blackened but Sheridan herself otherwise unharmed. She looked pleadingly up at him.

  “Don’t,” she said again. “If not for the world, then for Ani. She’ll die if you activate it.”

  No, he thought. Don’t make me choose again. He had already chosen the world over Ani twice. But with each time, his will had weakened. And this time the issue was over her life.

  “Don’t,” Sheridan repeated.

  The Over-City approached.

  Avery felt tears burn his eyes. His chest hitched. His throat closed up.

  Must I sacrifice Ani, too? I sacrificed so many people already—Holdren, Jaimesyn, Muirblaag, Byron, Frederick, the entire population of Azzara, Golna, Ayu. Must Ani follow them?

  He felt his will begin to waver.

  The Over-City drew closer—

  A shot rang out. Sheridan flew backward, into the shadows, blood bursting from her stomach. Avery spun.

  Ani, eyes watering, had planted herself on the deck, feet wide apart. In her hands she gripped Janx’s huge revolver. Smoke drifted from its barrel.

  “Do it, Papa!” she said.

  “Ani!”

  “Do it!”

  Avery looked to Sheridan. She lived. There was still hope for Ani. Still hope ...

  But Ani had made her decision. Avery’s choice now was whether or not to honor it.

  With all his strength, he smashed the Device down. He impaled it on the sharp lance of the spear.

  Halfway down, it stopped, as if clicking into place, and began to glow. Avery grabbed Ani’s hand and stepped back.

  Uthua screamed.

  The Device glowed brightly—brightly—as bright as the sun—

  “Turn away,” Avery said. He put a hand over Ani’s eyes and followed his own advice. Still the light burned the inside of his lids. Brighter and brighter ... hotter and hotter ...

  The world shook around him. Heat burned his skin. He crouched and held Ani tight.

  . . brighter ... .

  At last it faded. Cautiously, he opened his eyes. Uthua, twitching and blackened, his eyes rolled up in his head but still moving, slid down the slanted deck toward the water. Hildra kicked him in the head as he went. Insensate, he slipped beneath the waves and vanished from sight. The Device rested in the crack between two boards, wobbling slightly. The lance was gone. There was just the sphere now, no longer silver but gray and inert.

  But the invisible wave it had unleashed was already rolling over the sea, over the world.

  “Hildra,” said Janx, helping her up. His right hand was blackened, but he flexed it experimentally, and the fingers moved, if stiffly. It obviously pained him. Another moment and he would have lost the hand. Luckily he had had the glove to shield him. Hildra embraced him tightly, and together they moved toward Avery.

  Layanna, gasping, approached, too. She looked exhausted and infinitely sad.

  “It’s over,” she said.

  There was nothing left of Frederick. She had just lost her child.

  Now it was Avery’s turn.

  “Papa,” Ani cried tearfully.

  He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him. She dropped the gun to the deck, and it struck with a heavy thud.

  “Ani,” he tried to say but couldn’t. She had just doomed herself to save them all. No, he corrected himself. I’m the one that activated the Device. I’m the one to blame. His surge of feeling threatened to unseat him. He held her tightly and cried, unable to stop as great wracking sobs took him and he clutched her desperately, sure that she would somehow simply float away, just fade in his arms. She held onto him, crying as well. She had been so brave, and she was still, but she was afraid as well.

  “Get ready,” Layanna said.

  Avery almost couldn’t see through his tears. Layanna was gesturing toward the battle drifting toward them—no, beyond it. On the other side, the Over-City was smoking. Sections of it exploded. Others bucked. It was the extradimensional devices keeping it aloft, Avery knew. The Device had just rendered them inoperative.

  All at once, the O
ver-City dropped from the skies.

  Its thousands of tons clove through air like a juggernaut, taking out innumerable planes on the way. It seemed to fall forever. Avery knew that, in that moment or shortly thereafter, all throughout two continents the extradimensional weapons of Octung would be failing. Even as the Octunggen rushed to defeat their remaining enemies, their god-given guns and bombs and devices would be failing, stopping. They would be pausing, horrified, and soon, if not today, then tomorrow, their enemies would be wheeling, sensing vulnerability, and then converging for the kill, driving the Octunggen back and back. Avery hoped they drove the Octunggen all the way to Octung and beyond into hell.

  The Over-City smashed into the sea with more force than Avery could imagine. Water and flame fountained high in the air, making the clouds glow with fire. The impact was so huge that it took some time for the Over-City to actually, fully plunge under the surface, and after half of it had submerged the upper half broke up, dissolving into a million pieces.

  A great wave rolled up from the impact, spreading outward in all directions.

  With each second, the wave grew larger.

  Larger.

  ... closer ...

  “Damn,” Avery whispered.

  The wave rolled beneath the aerial battle, which had begun to break up, the Octunggen fleeing in fear and confusion without the Over-City, without their otherworldly weapons. The wave rolled under Admiral Jon’s fleet, and huge warships bobbed up and down, saved by their size.

  The wave rolled ... bigger ... and bigger ...

  “Grab something!” Janx yelled.

  The wave towered over them, then hit. The whole world trembled. A great roar filled Avery’s ears. The horizon swayed and heaved. He tasted bile in the back of his throat. He gripped netting tightly with one hand and held Ani with the other. She screamed. He thought he did, too. Water poured across the deck in foaming, crackling bursts. Some fish with many eyes flopped along the deck and vanished. The wave rolled on.

  * * *

  The tumult seemed to last forever. When at last it faded, the deck was still there, or most of it, though completely swamped with water. Avery helped Ani to her feet and peered around him. Everything glistened and crackled. The sea hissed and boomed. Fog drifted across it, a living thing, coiling and twisting, taking strange shapes.

  Janx hauled himself up, one hand pressed against his chest, where he may have bruised a rib in the fight or the impact of the wave. He stared out over the misty water, perhaps thinking about Uthua. About Muirblaag. Hildra stood beside him.

  The Device was gone.

  Layanna approached Avery, looking dazed, her now-wet hair slicked back over her head. Avery crouched and whispered in Ani’s ear. She nodded, then stepped forward and took Layanna’s hand.

  “It’ll be all right,” Ani said solemnly.

  Layanna bit her lip, eyes gleaming.

  “Thank you,” she told the girl, and Avery understood it wasn’t in gratitude for her words. Ani didn’t reply.

  Together the survivors stared around them. The yacht had broken up, and most of the rooms below had all been torn away, leaving the deck to bob and pitch alone. The wave seemed to have carried them far away from the battle group and the battle, as there was now no sign of any ships or planes, not even flashes on the horizon. Avery assumed the battle had been over the moment the Over-City fell.

  “Is Uthua dead?” Hildra said.

  “No,” Layanna said. “He’s wounded, and I suppose we can hope something eats him while in his weakened state, but he lives.”

  Janx made a sound, and Avery turned to see him wearing a pained expression. Avery started to ask what was wrong, then realized it: Janx had just put a spear through the heart of his best friend. If he’d ever harbored any thoughts of Muirblaag returning to him, those hopes were dashed now. For Janx, Muirblaag had just died all over again.

  “I’m sorry about your girl,” Janx told Avery in low tones. “A godsdamned shame. Fucking Sheridan.”

  “Let me take a look at your hand,” Avery said.

  “Later. Right now I want to feel the pain.”

  “At least let me find you a new glove.”

  It might still be possible for Janx to avoid infection from the sea; the burn had sealed the ends of his environment suit and mostly sealed his skin, as well. Janx grudgingly allowed Avery to find the glove from another suit and attach it on to his own.

  Chittering, eyes wide, hair wet, Hildebrand emerged from hiding and cautiously approached Hildra, then stopped at her feet. Hildra grinned, bent and offered an arm, the good one. Happily, Hildebrand clambered up to perch on her shoulder.

  “He’s likely infected now,” Avery said. “He’ll be sick over the next few days, and if he lives he’ll be ... different.”

  “A fish-monkey, huh?” Hildra said. The idea didn’t seem to displease her. “Guess I’ll have to find you something to eat. You’ll need your strength for the fight ahead.” They moved off.

  Avery approached Layanna, who was crying softly. Avery held her, and she let him. Ani held her, too. It only made her cry harder.

  “I’m so sorry,” Avery said. “If I hadn’t hesitated ... Frederick ...”

  Layanna sniffed. “No. If you hadn’t hesitated, things likely would have worked out very differently, and not in a good way.”

  Avery felt tears of his own start to come. Ani ... He would have to watch her die all over again. She would have to die all over again. He didn’t think he could bear it.

  Wet choking noises drew him.

  Blinking, heart fluttering, he neared the recess along the gunwale where Ani’s shot had flung Sheridan. There the traitorous admiral still was, moving faintly, clutching the netting with one gloved hand. The other clutched her abdomen, and red flowed between her fingers. Her face was bone-white. She could not last long, not without the attention of a fully-equipped operating room.

  She coughed. Blood flecked her lips.

  Avery hunkered over her. Unsnapped her helmet to let her breathe fresh air before she died. Surprising himself, he tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. She smiled weakly at him. He didn’t hate her, he realized. She had only been trying to serve humanity in her own way. To his great shock, she was not a villain, but quite noble, even if the means she had attempted to achieve her ends were not.

  “You’re ... a fool,” she said. She sounded very weak now. It must have cost her a lot to hang on during the wave. The glow in her eyes had faded.

  “It’s been said before,” he agreed, smiling sadly. “Mostly by you. Please, Jessryl. Tell me. How ...” His throat hitched. “How do I cure Ani? What combination of injections—shit.” It hit him. Everything belowdecks was gone. Including the vials. “Damn ...”

  Sheridan stared at him. For a long moment, she said nothing. She looked disappointed in him.

  “What?” he asked. “What is it?”

  She didn’t answer right away.

  “You are a fool,” she said.

  Slowly, it dawned on him. When he realized what she must mean, he rocked back on his haunches.

  “There never was any poison, was there?”

  “It ... was only a mild nerve toxin,” she said, her voice weak. “I had to administer it each day.”

  “The treatment ... it wasn’t the antidote at all. It was the toxin!”

  She smiled faintly. “It should wear off after a few ... days.” She clutched at his hand, and her grip was feeble. She looked deeply into his eyes. Sad amusement flickered across her face. “What do you think I am ... a monster?”

  Then her eyes closed, and she sagged backward.

  Avery crouched over her for a long time, listening to the sound of the sea heave and hiss all around him. Ani took his hand.

  “Does this mean ... ?” she started to ask. Tears were in her eyes. She couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.

  “Yes, Ani,” he said. “You’re going to live.”

  They embraced tightly.

  * * *<
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  To the west, a moon rose over the waves. Those aboard the yacht gathered to watch it mount the dark, cloud-whipped skies. To the north a school of floating, glowing squid drifted over the boiling surface, casting their colorful lights in all directions, making the fog seem to glow in a rainbow of hues. Ani exclaimed in delight.

  Janx led them in funeral dirges. Avery feared the dirges were for them. They couldn’t last long. There was no food, and the air in the environments suits would give out shortly. A whale breached the surface in what Avery thought of as the east, although he was no longer sure, and spat toxic water high into the night. The spray glittered majestically. Before it sounded, the whale groaned in mourning, adding to Janx’s dirge.

  It was after midnight, when all three moons shone down on the sea, that Hildra, sitting watch, woke them. Murmuring, they grumbled and rose.

  “What is it?” Avery said, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.

  She pointed. Ahead, the fog parted, and he gasped. A great bulk heaved toward them out of the poisonous, moon-lit vapors. It was, to his shock, the hull of a Ghenisan whaling ship, scored and covered in barnacles.

  “What is it, Papa?” Ani asked. “What is it?”

  “That, little girl,” said Janx, “really is home.”

  Avery searched for a name on the side of the ship, half expecting to see the word Maul. But no, of course it wasn’t, it was a ship he’d never heard of, the Verignun. It was the most beautiful name he’d ever heard.

  Ani squeezed his hand tightly. Layanna smiled. Janx shouted, calling up to the people aboard. They heard him, and the decks began to stir. Someone called back, and a lifeboat lowered toward the sea.

  * * *

  It was only then, as Avery was hauled up toward the ship’s deck, that he turned back to face the heaving waters and frowned, recalling Sheridan’s words. The ocean roiled, churning and mysterious. And below its surface, somewhere far below, were beings best left unthought-of. Would they be stirring now, in all their boiling blackness? Would they be looking upward, toward the surface?