Embers in the Sea

by Jennifer M. Eaton

  Holding the rock straight down and kicking, I drove myself back into the fight below. Another tentacle wrapped around my waist.

  I grunted and slammed the stone toward Green Goon’s beak while my hips lurched backward. David tore away one of the tentacles on his wrist.

  The rock crashed against the beak and Green Goon reared back, releasing me. The glistening stalagmites above shimmered, beckoning me toward the air, but David didn’t have any time. I swam down, slipped my good arm around his chest, and kicked upward. The glow dissipated as the creature floated away, motionless.

  We popped back into the air pocket and nearly crowned ourselves on the ceiling. David coughed, and I tried to keep him afloat.

  Maggie’s face appeared, floating atop the water again. “Your ship is seventeen strokes from here. Once you are in the open sea, you will need to swim,” Ruby said.

  David gulped before returning his attention to Ruby. “The pressure is over eight tons per square inch out there. We’ll be crushed.”

  Ruby raised a brow. Did she even understand what he meant, having lived in a high-pressure atmosphere all her life?

  “Is there a way to not-crush?” she asked.

  David’s gaze dropped to the swells sloshing around his shoulders. “That much ocean pressing down on us—I don’t know.” He sighed. “I don’t think there is a way.”

  Crap.

  Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap.

  Okay. Okay. Think Jess. Your planet. What do you know about it?

  I clenched my fists.

  Dangit! Absolutely nothing!

  Wait.

  “The pressure doesn’t smash the bubbles, right?”

  “They are always round, if that is what you mean.”

  “Maybe if we can hold the air in our lungs the entire time it won’t crush us?”

  David held his hand on the ceiling. “That might help our lungs, but our eyes will probably implode.”

  Well, that didn’t sound like fun.

  I bumped my scalp on the rocks above. What did we have left, minutes? Seconds?

  “Do you trust me?” Ruby’s voice echoed through what little of the chamber remained unsubmerged.

  Did we have a choice?

  I took a deep breath. My heart throbbed in my ears as David hugged me with one arm and covered my eyes with his free hand. Would that be enough to save my sight?

  A distant sense erupted in my mind, the awareness of David’s voice, but the roar of my own quickening pulse blocked out everything. Blind, I pawed my palms up his chest, neck, and found his eyes. It might not help, but I covered them. At least neither one of us would have to see what happened to the other.

  I kicked toward the sensation of the moving water. A scraping along my back told me we’d breached the exit from the chamber.

  The pressure hit my head first. My ears pounded, like death itself had reached inside and tried to pull out my brain.

  Holding tight to David’s eyes, I glued my other hand over one of my ears. He skimmed up my back and covered my other ear. A muffled oblivion took over as a million bands of elastic wove around me and constricted. I willed my skin to fight against the onslaught of pressure, tensing against the will of nature to see me dead.

  Seventeen strokes. That’s all that separated us from our ship. But in which direction?

  One of us needed to be able to see. There wasn’t a choice. We needed to know which way to swim. If I pushed David’s hand away, how long before the sea took my vision? Would I have enough time to find the ship and direct us to safety?

  A chill rattled me to the core. Blindness. What kind of photographer could I be if I couldn’t see? Was the risk worth it? Could I take the chance?

  I had to. I was the only one of us who could swim. My sight was a small price to pay to get David to that ship. If he didn’t fly Ruby to Mars, Earth, Dad, and everything I knew and loved would be gone. I gritted my teeth against a sob as my dreams drifted away in the currents. Real heroes don’t always have a happy ending.

  Please, God. Don’t let it hurt.

  I took my palm off my ear and fumbled for the warm, alien hand covering my eyes.

  21

  A thick, warm goop slapped against my back and coated me. David released me and drew my face into the crook of his shoulder. I kept my lashes scrunched closed, clutching him as we sank into warm, soaked mush. Where were we?

  Trickles of soft ribbons wafted through the sea about my ankles. Were we moving?

  Trust.

  Trust? I slid my hand through the thick, gelatinous goo cloaking us. The material quivered.

  Alive.

  Oh. Crap. We were inside Ruby! Did she swallow us?

  Trust.

  Trust. Okay. Okay. Yup. Trust. Got this. No problem.

  Oh, sweet Lord I’m inside a giant talking jellyfish!

  My torso jarred as if we’d hit something and I collided against David.

  My mind whirled, lost in blackness and struggling not to breathe.

  David released me, and the goo slid between us, squeezing. A deep throb filled my eardrums, adding to the resonance of my own erratic heartbeat.

  I thrashed. David!

  Jess, you’re fine, she won’t hurt you.

  Don’t leave me!

  His essence slipped away.

  Alone, inside a … what exactly was I inside? My arms flailed. I thrashed. I had to get out. I couldn’t stay here!

  The goo sloshed against my cheek. Gentle, consoling.

  A flash of red pulsed through my closed eyelids. Blinding, like when Ruby had shown us her real form swimming outside the boundaries of my fake bedroom.

  I’m scared.

  Trust.

  I gulped back my tears. I really didn’t have a choice in the matter, but more than anything else, I needed to breathe. My head pounded. Maybe if I opened my mouth just a tad, I could get a little bit of air. It’s H2O, right? If I breathed in a little water, maybe I could get a little bit of that O?

  “Don’t do it.” Mom’s voice filled my ears. “Hold on, sweetheart.”

  “Mom?” The word slipped from my mouth before I’d realized what I’d done. Liquid salt, then soft, fishy goop poured into my mouth. I gagged and slapped my hand over my nose and lips. My chest stung. Salinity from my tears mixed with the sea.

  I coughed into my hand, forcing my palm against my lips to keep more ocean from filling my lungs. My vision fogged over.

  Jess! A warm hand gripped my shoulder. I got you!

  The squishy goo around me released, and I swirled into the cooler sea. The pressure squeezed my temples for four booming heartbeats before releasing me into soft, tepid, unpressurized waters.

  David released me. Open your eyes.

  I coughed into my hand again. David pushed off the ground and floated away. Where are you going?

  We need oxygen.

  My sight sparkled and blurred before a tiled floor focused below me.

  The ship. We’d made it! But it was still filled with water!

  I kicked back from the gaping hole beside me that led into the sea, propelling myself away, but that was the last bit of energy I had to give.

  Air: such a simple concept. Invisible. You don’t even think about it. But I’d never take it for granted again—not that I would have much longer to regret as my lungs burned, begging for a breath.

  The sea tickled and hummed around me. Lights flashed, dimmed, and evened out.

  The tether between David and me tingled. Swim up.

  I tried to lift my arms, to propel myself up, but my body refused to respond.

  The illumination dulled to gray. My head tilted back as the need to sleep encompassed me.

  A hand pressed over my mouth and nose. Kick your feet, Jess. You need to kick your feet.

  Everything shimmered and sparkled, creating a world all my own. I kicked, spiraling in a realm of lost, drifting nothing. I angled my back as I floated toward the surf
ace.

  Beside me, Dad blew some bubbles from his regulator and pointed at a school of yellow striped fish as Mom chased them through the warm Caribbean Sea just off the beach in Jamaica. Our one and only big splurge vacation.

  Love. Family. Home.

  The sweet essence of Mom’s touch enveloped me. A hug from beyond. So long, too long since I’d felt her love.

  “It’s okay,” her voice shimmered through the sea. “I’m here.”

  Whiteness flashed around me as my eyes shot open.

  “It’s okay, Jess, I’m here!” David screamed, holding my jaw above the churning sea.

  I coughed, struggling in the few inches of oxygen drifting along the ceiling of the ship. The ease of Mom’s presence shrank into a panicked flailing of my arms.

  “Breathe,” David shouted. “Just breathe. We’re going to be okay.”

  Air. Beautiful, sweet air. But how?

  “It’s from the emergency oxygen stores. I’m using everything we’ve got to force the ocean out of the ship.”

  “But-but, the pressure. There’s still a hole in the ship. How?”

  “Ruby pushed me ahead to stabilize the ship, but I needed to leave the hole open to get the water out. Believe me, the ship is not happy about what I’m making it do.”

  I puffed, treading until the water level dropped and my feet hit something—the back of my chair. The molten metal stretched and flattened into a stand. A solid surface never felt so good.

  David stepped from the platform atop his chair to mine and swaddled me in his arms. Warm air wafted through the room; sweet, delicious heat. The damp hairs on my arms lifted as my skin covered in bumps. My hands trembled. My body quaked.

  “I have you,” David whispered. “We’re okay.”

  Were we?

  The ocean receded below the front window. Ruby flittered in the sea, casting a red glow in the room.

  “Do we leave her?” I asked.

  “Like hell.” He jumped down from the back of my chair, splashing in the water that still covered his seat.

  “But they took Silver. We can’t expect her to leave him behind.” I coughed and rubbed the burn within my chest.

  David sunk his hands into the gelatinous console. “One problem at a time. I’m not even sure if I can get the ship running. We sank here, remember?”

  No.

  Well, yes, but I’d forgotten. Getting back to the ship had been our only focus. The thought of still being trapped hadn’t even crossed my mind. “You mean we’re stuck?”

  He swirled his arms through the console. “Nothing’s working. I have less power now than when we first got here.”

  I climbed down into my chair. “There has to be something—”

  My bare heel slipped on the back of my seat and splashed into the foot-deep wading pool that used to be the deck. I stumbled toward David and into the console. My right hand sank into the dull goop as I tried to break my fall.

  The walls shimmered. The lights throughout the room brightened.

  David’s eyes widened. “What did you do?”

  I shook the goo off my hand. “What does it look like? I fell.”

  “Power, propulsion, secondary energy stores … we’ve got it all!” He helped me back to my seat. “I think your little friend rigged the ship.”

  “What?”

  “It appears he wanted to make sure I didn’t leave without you.” He pointed to the glowing corner of the console. “A bio-synced lock. When you manipulated the interface everything came on.”

  “But how?”

  “Edgar.”

  My heart fluttered. He was okay! “Where is he?”

  David tapped the wall. “He’s not on the ship. He must have realigned all the systems, and then he took off.”

  The water between our seats rose into the air, gyrated, and bubbled into Maggie’s form.

  “We must depart,” Ruby said.

  “No,” I said. “Not without Edgar. He’s probably out there searching for us.”

  “But my people are coming.”

  Stupid bad guys. Why couldn’t anything ever be easy? One thing for sure, I wasn’t leaving my little buddy behind. “But what about Silver? Are you just going to abandon him?”

  Ruby’s apparition shrunk and looked away. “He’s dead.”

  “What?” David and I asked in unison.

  “They send away the babies because they are innocent. Returning is a death warrant. We are not allowed to intermingle. At all.” She lowered her gaze. “I just hope it was quick.”

  I reached for her shoulder, but my hand sank right through her liquid form. “You’re going to leave all by yourself? But you’ll be all alone on Mars.”

  I cringed as the words left my mouth. Earth’s fate depended on her coming with us. I should be trying to convince her, not telling her to stay. But I couldn’t imagine leaving everything I knew behind to live on a world where I’d be totally alone. The isolation. It would be like torture.

  “You don’t understand,” she said. “I hate them. I hate all of them. They lied to us and kept us apart, and then they took away the one being who made living in this ocean sufferable.” She hugged her shoulders. “I want to get as far away from here as I can.”

  I guess I couldn’t argue with that.

  David waved his hands over the console. A drip ran from the edge of his wet bangs down the side of his face. Watching him and soaking in the determined set of his features made me feel safe. Real. Alive. What would I do if anyone took him from me?

  A hum vibrated through the ship. I leaned over the back of my chair as the last of the water leaked through the hole in the floor. The tiles pinched, flexed, and elongated. The two sides twisted together before laying out flat and re-tiling as if nothing ever happened.

  I’d never get tired of watching alien technology. But I’d wasted enough time, already. “What about Ruby?”

  David ignored the vision of Maggie beside him and stared through the glass. The real Ruby pulsed, glowing a soft pink around her shimmering red center.

  “I’m opening the lower hatch. I think you can get through.”

  Maggie’s face remained stoic beside me as Ruby’s form drifted below the window.

  “Did you remember to leave water in there?” I asked.

  He nodded. “This is the only compartment that isn’t flooded, except for a few necessary systems that need to stay dry. I didn’t have enough oxygen for the rest of the ship.”

  In other words, no emergency supply if something happens to our air. Great. The way our luck was running, we had about thirty minutes to live.

  Maggie’s face animated beside me. “I am within,” Ruby said. “The sea outside is trembling with the energy of my people. Many of them. We need to go. Now.”

  I grabbed David’s arm. “Edgar.”

  He stared at me before turning away. He gulped and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  He lifted his hands and the ship shot straight up.

  22

  A long strand of green, bulbous seaweed slapped against the window and fluttered before breaking free. I tried to remember the surface: the danger we faced, and how an entire planet’s existence counted on us, but it didn’t stop the burn building in my chest.

  Edgar had booby-trapped the ship—made sure I was aboard before David left. The little guy loved me, and how did I repay him? I left him for dead. What kind of friend was I?

  The ship slowed.

  “We’ve got company,” David said.

  Dozens of beacons loomed above us, sparkling in green, blue, yellow, and orange. The glow breached the cabin, basking us in their radiance. Spectacular—if they weren’t a bunch of homicidal squid with a taste for landlubbers.

  “Can’t we just go around them?”

  “Not if we want to get through that rift. There’s only one way out to the open sea.”

  The ocean to our right brightened as five more creatures appeared.
Then the left became alight with more glowing rift dwellers.

  The muscles in David’s neck tensed. The bottom left of the console pulsed in a shade of fuchsia I hadn’t seen on an Erescopian ship.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  David sucked in his lips and then let them slip free. “A gift from Edgar.” He ran his hand above the pinkish glow as if testing the heat of a fire. “He found a way to syphon about ten gallons of water into the cyclers, and then expulse them at atom-enhanced speed.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  He glanced at me. “Do you know what a gun is?”

  I gaped, and my gaze darted back to the encroaching luminaries. So beautiful. I wanted to get home, but did I want to get away that bad? “Will it kill them?”

  David grimaced. “I don’t know.”

  The beings distorted and blasted toward us, like staring through a camera lens and zooming in at high speed.

  Ruby turned away from the screen. “They are never going to let me go.”

  David’s hand hovered over the fuchsia brilliance. Our tether thickened. Pulsed. His thoughts riveted through me in a jumbled mess: billions of people. Jess’s father. Mars. Failure. My fault.

  Multicolored beacons blared through the room. I shielded my eyes and leaned closer to the glass. Something moved behind the lights. Something smaller. Dull. Maybe a lot of somethings. One spun within the shifting tendrils, a blue glow highlighting its watermelon-shaped form.

  No. Way.

  David’s hand wavered over the pink goo in the panel.

  “Wait!” I grabbed his wrist. “They’re not going to hurt us.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I pointed to the window. “Look. They’re right on top of us, but they haven’t attacked.”

  Ruby spun back toward the glass. “She is right. Why haven’t they … ” She covered her face with her hands.

  “What’s going on?” I asked her.

  “So many,” she whispered. “So many.”

  One of the dull somethings glided to the front. It wafted close to the window, hovering like a clear, floating oval.

  I jumped from my seat. “Silver!”

  Ruby cast her gaze downward. “No. Another male.” She brought her attention back to the sea, focusing deeply on the Uptider hovering before her. A smile burst across her face. “Do you know this creature?” She held out her hand and the liquid bubbled from her palm and formed a ten-legged spider.