Fallen from the Stars

by Tiffany Roberts

  Dipping to the trench floor, the creature scrambled forward along the hull, tail undulating behind it — straight toward Theo.

  Fire flared in Vasil’s chest, blasting him into the creature’s path. For an instant, he saw Theo out of the corner of his eye; she was frantically manipulating the controls of the device she’d attached to the door.

  He jabbed his spear at the monster. It shifted its trajectory suddenly, causing the spear to glance off its head; Vasil felt it connect with hard bone through the shaft, jolting his arm. Before he recovered from his strike, the creature clamped its teeth over one of his tentacles.

  Pain lanced through him, crackling like lightning up and down the length of his tentacle. The creature whipped its head to the side, tearing Vasil’s flesh. But he would not allow himself to be dragged into the darkness. Twisting his torso away from the creature, he slammed the spearhead into the seafloor as hard as he could, using it as an anchoring point to fight the creature’s pull. The additional pressure in his wounded tentacle heightened his agony.

  Though Larkin, Dracchus, and the other kraken were close by, the creature’s thrashing tail held them at bay; they could not get close enough to help.

  Vasil lifted his head to look at Theo. She stared at him with wide eyes, her lips pressed into a tight line. Without looking away from him, she pressed a button on the device. Its small display glowed green.

  The sound began low — a powerful hum from Theo’s device that pulsed through Vasil’s body and rattled his bones. He tightened his hold on the spear and the sound somehow deepened while a second noise — more a high-pitched whistle or whine than a hum — joined in. The first resonated in Vasil’s bones, but the second was like a knife plunging into his brain. The pain was too great; he clasped a hand over his forehead and squeezed as though it would keep his skull from splitting open.

  The creature released its hold on his tentacle and flipped onto its back, writhing in the sand.

  Neck straining, Vasil swept his gaze over his companions. The other kraken were in similar states of pain, holding their heads in their hands and curling their tentacles, Calix and Orin doubled over. But not Larkin and Theo; the humans’ mouths were moving as though they were speaking, their expressions dominated by confusion and concern.

  Vasil struggled to pull his spear out of the ground; this was the one chance they had to strike the creature while it wasn’t darting through the water. The pain in his skull only intensified with his effort. Tiny, tingling bubbles filled the water, followed by a cloud of disturbed sand from the direction of the submarine. Vasil released the spear to cover both ears with his hands, squeezing his eyes shut.

  He did not know how long he drifted just above the trench floor in that agonized darkness before something brushed over his arm; his pain said it had been a thousand years, but it could not have been more than a few seconds. He forced his eyes open to see Theo over him, holding the spear in both her hands. Larkin was higher up, above the monster, with a fresh harpoon loaded. She fired it into the underside of the creature’s jaw, but it was not enough to cease its movement.

  Teeth clenched so tightly they seemed likely to shatter, Vasil forced himself upright. Theo met his gaze as he grasped the shaft of the spear behind her hands. That shared look was all they needed.

  She planted her feet in the sand, and he his tentacles, and they launched forward together, Vasil driven as much by his need to eliminate the threat to his mate as by his own pain. At any moment, his brain would surely explode, but he’d kill this monster first.

  The sound ceased an instant before the head of the spear plunged into the largest of the creature’s eyes. With Theo and Vasil’s combined weight and momentum behind it, the weapon sank deep; half the shaft slid into the creature’s head, pinning it to the trench floor.

  For several moments, Vasil and Theo remained in place on either side of the spear’s shaft. The creature stilled. Though the device’s sounds had stopped, Vasil’s head throbbed, and his body felt as though it were still vibrating. The pain in his tentacle had grown dull and distant, but he knew the reprieve was temporary.

  Theo’s eyes met his again; they glistened beneath her furrowed brow. Releasing the spear, she leapt at Vasil, wrapping her arms and legs around him. He returned her embrace and held her tightly, wishing he could feel her skin or run the tips of his claws through her hair.

  By the time she drew back, the others had gathered close by. Vasil kept a hand on Theo, unwilling to let go, as he looked over their companions. All five kraken — Dracchus included — bore fresh cuts and wore disoriented expressions. Only Larkin and Theo seemed to have been unaffected by the harsh sounds that had come from the device.

  Any serious wounds? Vasil signed.

  Dracchus shook his head and gestured toward Vasil’s tentacle, which had been shredded where the creature had bitten down.

  I will be fine, Vasil signed. He saw Larkin’s lips move.

  Theo shifted to look down at his wounded tentacle and frowned. She spoke rapidly. Vasil looked to Larkin for explanation.

  She is not happy you are hurt, Larkin signed with her hands; human signs had seemed far more limited by their anatomy when Vasil first learned of them, but he’d realized their depth as he’d grown familiar with them during hunts with Randall and Larkin.

  Tell her I am fine. We need to go in, he replied, pointing to the sub for emphasis.

  Theo remained in place, staring at him.

  He cupped the side of her mask and offered her a smile. Her return smile seemed forced, but she swam toward the door, nonetheless.

  Vasil followed, but his movement faltered when he saw the side of the sub; the cylindrical tool was attached to the metal in the same spot she’d placed it, but everything else was different. The buildup and dirt that had clung to it were gone, much of it piled on the trench floor below, leaving the hull fully visible. Theo grasped the device’s handle and twisted it in the opposite direction from what she had before. It came loose, and she returned it to her bag.

  The outline of the door was clear now, marked in some places by chipped, fading yellow paint.

  Theo gestured to the fresh rubble at the base of the door. Vasil dropped to it and began scooping it away as she opened a hidden panel beside the door markings. Dracchus helped him; they made short work of the task.

  Once they’d finished, Theo gestured for them to move back. They obeyed, and Vasil kept his eyes on her as she worked at the controls, his chest tight and skin hot despite the chill of the water. After all they’d been through, he couldn’t bear the thought of her coming to harm, and he did not trust this submarine any more than he trusted anything else in the fickle, dangerous sea.

  He wished he could talk to her, wished he could know what she was thinking.

  A deep rumble came from the submarine. Theo swam backward toward Vasil, eyes locked on the door, as loose sand drifted off the top of the vessel’s hull. He took gentle hold of her arms and guided her away, shielding her with his body and giving the sub his back. She turned in his grasp to peer around him, and he looked over his shoulder to watch along with her. Unease pooled in his gut.

  With a resonating clang, the door slid upward, opening a crack. A torrent of bubbles burst from the opening, temporarily obscuring the door. Vasil instinctively turned his face away and shifted his body to protect Theo.

  There came no deafening boom, no searing pain across his back, no wave of super-heated displaced water. All he felt was a hand on his cheek. Theo’s hand.

  He looked down into her eyes. She smiled and dipped her head, indicating something behind him. Vasil turned to see the door rising. It opened on a brightly lit room similar to the entry chamber at the Facility, though smaller in scale. He stared in wonder as Theo slipped out of his arms and swam toward it.

  She waved for him to follow.

  Vasil clenched his jaw and obeyed, stooping to collect the container with her tools before following her inside.

  He had a sense of what
this sub was, what it meant — and what had happened to the humans on board. Thanks to holograms uncovered by Arkon and Aymee, Vasil knew the Facility hadn’t been the only place where kraken had killed humans. This had to be the submarine from which fleeing IDC soldiers had sent a final, desperate distress call.

  He only hoped the evidence of what had happened within had long since rotted away.

  Chapter 17

  The chamber’s vibrations as the water inside drained were more pronounced than those of the pressurization chamber at the Facility. Though Theo knew the potential causes for the difference — the foremost being centuries of disuse and neglect — it was still disconcerting. Whatever Kane’s analysis said, they were still entering the unknown here. Anything could go wrong.

  “What about the others?” she asked. Vasil, Larkin, and Dracchus had accompanied her into the chamber, and once Dracchus had entered, there’d been no room for anyone else. “They’re going to come in behind us, right?”

  “Dracchus told them to wait and hide,” Larkin replied. “They’ll keep watch in case another one of those creatures shows up.”

  The kraken had survived the seas for over three hundred years, and their camouflage was amazing, but Theo couldn’t help thinking about the monster that had attacked them. Would Calix, Donis, Orin, and Pythas be able to hold off another such beast on their own?

  I just need to trust them to do their job and focus on doing mine.

  She nodded and turned her attention to the information streaming through her retinal display. As Kane had mentioned earlier, the submarine seemed to be operating normally; there were no posted alerts save for a few blocked intakes, no recorded errors in any of its systems. The low power state it had shifted to after coming to rest here had kept everything in working order for centuries.

  “At least we know the part we need is functioning,” Theo said. “Just need to grab it and get back to the surface without getting eaten.”

  Larkin chuckled. “You killed one sea monster today, you should be good to take a few more.”

  Something brushed over Theo’s calf, calling her attention to Vasil. Her eyes dropped to his ravaged tentacle. Blood oozed from the wound, misting the descending water. She clenched her jaw against the fresh wave of worry, fear, and fury that surged inside.

  As though sensing her turbulent emotions, Vasil lifted a hand and cupped her jaw, turning her face up toward his. Once the water had fallen below her mask, he said, “I will be fine, Theo. It will heal.”

  “That thing almost tore your tentacle off! What would you have done then?”

  He shrugged. “Grow a new one.”

  Theo glared at him. “Not funny.”

  “But it is accurate, according to the research data,” said Kane through the comms.

  “What?”

  Larkin lifted her hands and removed her mask. “It is true. They can regrow limbs.”

  Theo pressed her lips together and glanced at Vasil’s tentacle again. With the water almost fully drained, the wounded limb lay on the floor unmoving. “I’d still prefer they remain intact.”

  “It will be fine, Theo,” Vasil repeated gently. “You need not worry.”

  Theo snorted, flicking through the holographic controls on the suit’s wrist piece to release her mask. She yanked it away from her face once the seal broke. “Yeah, and had it been my leg shredded and bleeding, I’d totally tell you not to worry, too.”

  Vasil’s pupils dilated for an instant before shrinking back down to horizontal slits. “But I would worry because you are not kraken. I will heal. Things could have been far worse than they were. I will happily put your worries at ease once we are safe at the Facility again.”

  “Are you trying to shut me up with the promise of sex?” she demanded, brows low.

  He tilted his head, a thoughtful expression settling over his features. “Yes.”

  Theo raised a hand, pointing a finger at his face. “Well I… I… I’m going to hold you to it, damnit.” She lowered her hand and shook her head. “Is there anything I can do for it?”

  “The bleeding on all our wounds will have stopped by the time we leave.” Dracchus’s deep voice echoed in the small chamber, making it seem like he took up even more space. “What was that sound?”

  “It was from a tool I brought along,” Theo said.

  “It is dangerous. It rendered six kraken useless in an instant.”

  “Yeah, well, it also saved six kraken, didn’t it?”

  “It’s what stopped the creature, Dracchus,” said Larkin.

  Dracchus grunted, keeping his eyes on Theo. “Explain it, human. I need to understand what it is.”

  “It’s called a sonic jackhammer,” Theo replied. “It’s used to clear buildup under water — the sound waves break up all that gunk and grime and basically shake them off.”

  “Why was the sound painful to us while Larkin and yourself seemed unaffected?”

  “I may be able to answer that,” Kane said through the diving suit’s wrist piece. “The tool in question utilizes sound frequencies outside the range of human hearing. Many sea creatures are sensitive to the lowest frequencies because those sounds travel best through water, but kraken hearing range is increased on the other end of the spectrum as well.”

  Dracchus’s brow furrowed; though the change was relatively tiny, it communicated his lack of understanding without question. “Speak pl—”

  “There are very low and very high sounds humans cannot hear, but you can,” Theo said. “It didn’t harm us because we couldn’t hear it.”

  “Next time, have him explain it that way.”

  Theo turned her face away from Dracchus to hide her smirk. Vasil leaned closer to her and placed a soft kiss on her lips, letting the contact linger for several seconds. For that brief time, everything that had happened outside the sub faded away, and it was just Theo and Vasil enjoying one another’s nearness, relishing the feel of one another’s lips.

  When Vasil drew back, he shifted his attention to Dracchus. “I believe this is the underwater vessel Arkon spoke of. The one he and Aymee learned about in the Broken Cavern.”

  Dracchus frowned and glanced at the door that would allow them deeper into the sub. “You are certain?”

  “Almost.”

  “Broken Cavern?” Theo asked. “What’s that?”

  “The Darrow Nautical Outpost,” Larkin said. “That’s what it used to be called, anyway. It’s an old submarine pen on the coast.”

  “So, what’s the story? Why did they mention this particular sub?”

  “The humans on board were attacked by kraken during the uprising,” Vasil said.

  “Oh.” Theo turned to face the door. Unease warred with her excitement — the two feelings spread outward from her chest slowly, a tingling and a chill of equal strength. This place was unknown to her; it was new, mysterious, and terrifying, but the thought of delving inside was as thrilling as it was frightening.

  She drew in a steadying breath. “Okay, Kane. Open this door so we can get that part and get the hell out of here.”

  “Absolutely,” Kane replied. “But…I must warn you, what you will find on the other side of this door is…unpleasant.”

  Dracchus shifted closer to the door and swept Larkin behind him. “What do you mean unpleasant?”

  Vasil pressed closer to Theo, slipping a tentacle around her leg; his touch seemed more comforting than protective.

  The light over the door frame turned green, and the interior door slid open, smooth and quiet. Theo peered around Dracchus’s broad frame. The hallway beyond him looked pristine; the walls, floor, and ceiling, each a slightly different shade of gray, were free of blemishes and signs of aging.

  The three bodies lying within the corridor were the only exceptions to the cleanliness — rather noticeable exceptions.

  “Our ancestors made sure none of the humans from the Facility escaped to tell what had happened,” Vasil said.

  “I can see that,” Theo replied. The
powerful sensations that had been coursing through her only moments before were suddenly gone, leaving numbness in their wake.

  Theo stepped around Dracchus and crouched beside the closest body. It lay on its belly, head turned at a sharp sideways angle, lower jaw unhinged in a huge, terrified scream. Only bones remained — bones in a stained and faded uniform with its back ripped to shreds. Black and brown stains marred the floor beneath the body, undoubtedly the result of the flesh rotting away over the long years.

  Kane had shown her some of the holos — the mistreatment, the revolt, the brief-but-violent war on humans. The kraken had suffered, and this had been the retribution they delivered.

  “Sometimes I wonder,” Larkin said as she stepped into the corridor, “if the locked rooms in the Facility have the same thing inside.”

  “Bodies, yes, but most of their ends were not quite so sudden or violent,” Kane said. “There was communication between the survivors hiding inside those cabins for a few weeks after the kraken attacked, but eventually…lack of food took some. Suicide several more. Those rooms have been locked ever since.”

  “Can you open them?”

  “Why would you want them opened?” Kane asked.

  Dracchus held his gaze on the skeletal remains, his expression brimming with undisguised disapproval. “To give the dead to the sea, as has always been the way.”

  “We can do the same for these before we leave,” Larkin said.

  Dracchus nodded.

  Vasil moved to Theo’s side as she stood up.

  “It was a different time,” he said softly. “A different world…and different people. But we can do what little is in our power to make amends.”

  “I know.” Theo gently patted his chest, offering him a smile, before drawing in a deep breath and turning her attention toward the end of the corridor. “All right, Kane. Show me the way.”

  “But of course,” Kane said. Her retinal implant flashed on, presenting the overlaid blueprints of the sub in her field of view — displaying every pipe, vent, wire, and part hidden within the walls, ceiling, and floor. A faint pathway appeared before her, marked by arrows which slowly marched in the direction she was meant to follow. She walked along the markers, occasionally glancing to the side to examine the tech readouts Kane provided for various components. The wet, dragging sound behind her told Theo that Vasil followed.