Oppai grabbed a handful of the scattered pages, and smeared them against her face.
“You see this?!” he screamed. “This is one of my mining facilities. It was lost a month ago. You see this?!” he asked, grabbing another handful and pressing her face hard between the pages and the table. “This is a convoy that went missing, losing three weeks’ worth of materials.” He dragged her along the table, her face sweeping up stray pages as it moved. They stopped in front of a group of maps. From her sidelong viewpoint, they were just blue pages. “Every one of these stations is gone, and it’s your fault. Your ship is taking everything from me. And if they were quiet about it before, they aren’t anymore. This morning one of my fleets came back decimated. A result of an unprovoked attack by your people. I guess they don’t value your life as much as you hoped they would.”
“You know, Governor,” she said, the pressure and the table slurring her words. “I don’t know if you really believe this crap you’re spewing, but I know I don’t care anymore.”
Oppai tossed her to the ground and strode over to the shelves of timeworn books. From the top shelf, he brought down an antique globe. It must have been made from before the floods, as it showed the pristine land masses she knew from her school years. For a moment, she was back in the schoolroom talking to the girl she had thought of as a young her. The reverie was short lived. Oppai slammed the globe down on the table above her, then hauled her up to look at it. He grabbed her head, and made her look at the globe.
“Show me where the weapon is. SHOW ME!”
Ralla looked away. He shook her violently. It was too much. The labor, and the dread, and the heat for so many weeks. It proved too much. She just wanted him gone. She let her eyes dart towards the globe. Just for a second. They fell on the pole. It was nearly involuntary, and she looked away immediately.
Oppai released her and without the support she fell to the ground. He laughed as he walked towards the doors.
“Thank you, Ms. Gattley. Guards,” he said opening the doors wide. “Bring her to the bridge.”
As the guards approached, Ralla had a brief moment to herself, in awe of what she’d done. Of what it would mean to her people, her ship. Her eyes moved slowly up from the floor, up the thick and blocky table support, up the rippled enameled edge, up the brass stand of the globe, and finally to the cracked and tarnished sphere itself. Her eyes locked on where her eyes had flashed a moment before. At the pole.
The s-pole.
OK, mom, she thought. I just bought you a month. Maybe more. Make it work.
Mrakas Gattley’s cabin was well lit, as usual. The amber tones of the wood floor and white walls contrasted sharply with the obvious and pervasive tone of the people in the room. There were over a dozen. Two were nurses, tasked with keeping their sick charge alive. Then there was Awbee, uncharacteristically doting at her former husband’s side. Cern and Larr stood off near the balcony, watching in silence. The rest were aides, milling about, talking on communicators, checking notes. The Captain stood rigidly by the door. As Jills and Thom entered, there was a moment’s pause as the energy shifted towards the Proctor. Aides asked him rapid-fire questions, then darted off to make more calls. Thom expected at least a scowl from Cern or Awbee, but got neither. In fact, he got no recognition at all. In the bed, propped up on two thick pillows, were the living remains of Mrakas Gattley. His sallow, ravaged body a mere husk of what it had been. His eyes darted from person to person, eerily alive as the carcass around them decayed into oblivion.
One of the aides got Jills’ attention; the Proctor acknowledged, and stepped into the center of the room. The various conversations silenced.
“Mrakas,” Jills said with a nod. The eyes on the elder statesman closed, and his head dipped with the barest of nods. “We have little doubt what this message will contain, so please prepare yourself. The computer has finished compiling it, so I’ll have the techs play it if everyone is ready.”
Around the room there were somber nods. With a crackle, the highly compressed voice of Governor Oppai filled the room. Thom looked for speakers, but could see none.
“I have only done what I have had to do,” the disembodied voice chastised. “I have only done what you have forced me to do. I have asked you to back off, and you have not. I have asked you to end hostile actions against the people of the Population, and you have not. Well,” the voice dropped away, and in its place there were the sounds of a short struggle. Clothes rustling as one person struggled against captors. The voice that returned was still Oppai, but it was different. It lacked the polished sounds of someone giving a speech. There was an edge to it, anger. “Say something,” Oppai growled. The terminal weariness in Ralla’s voice cut Thom viciously. Whatever thrill he momentarily had hearing her voice, the pain in it, and what was surely about to happen, filled him with impotent anguish.
“Please don’t do this. It’s not too late for peace,” she said. Awbee gripped the pale hand of Mrakas.
“Peace to your people means the subjugation of mine. The people of this ship don’t want it, and neither do I. We will fight until there is no more threat from the great ship Universalis. And now that threat comes in the form of a tremendous doomsday weapon, designed to drain our seas and wipe out everything we have spent decades building.”
“No. That’s not...” Ralla’s voice grew more distant as her unseen and unheard captors pulled her away from the microphone. They could hear her still struggling in the background.
“Ralla here has given me the location of your weapon, and now we will destroy it.”
In the distance, just loud enough to make out, Ralla shouted one final thing.
“They’re coming from the northern hemi!” There were more sounds of a struggle.
“And to show you I am serious…”
A scream of terror chilled the room, followed by a single gunshot.
“Ralla Gattley is dead. This is the way you choose it. I...”
Jills signaled the audio dead. Each person handled it differently. Jills and Larr looked somber, their faces ones of pity towards the Gattleys. Cern was in shock, and stumbled back to lean against the balcony’s railing. Awbee buried her face in her husband’s chest.
Thom, though, showed neither pain nor anguish. His face looked puzzled. The only one to notice was Mrakas, and they made eye contact. It was as if, in that moment, a shared secret passed between them. With a tiny motion of his head, Gattley got Thom to the bedside. A pale hand slid from under the covers, and loosely gripped Thom’s forearm. The skin felt plasticy to Thom. A gentle tug was all Mrakas could manage, but he got Thom to lean in.
“She’s not dead. You know it, too. Get her back for me. For us.”
Mrakas let go of Thom, and let go of life, sinking back into the deep of his pillows and beyond.
Awbee cleared the room with a single glace. The hard-edged scientist had disappeared. In her place was a woman who had married a man who had died. Cern fled to deal with his grief. Jills corralled the Captain, Larr, and Thom into the Council Chambers. They had all heard Mrakas’s last words, but didn’t speak of it.
“Either there will be time to deal with Ralla’s death later, or there won’t be. Either way we can’t spare a moment now.” Jills said after taking his usual seat. “Ralla’s outburst of how close they are is a dire sign.”
“I don’t believe that’s what she meant at all,” said Larr, already recovered from what had happened in the other room. “No, I think Miss Gattley is far cleverer than I gave her credit for.”
“Explain.”
“Well, of course they’d be coming from the northern hemisphere. There’s no other way to get to the n-pole. This isn’t useful information, really. We’d already be at full alert. Besides, we’ve got scouts spread throughout the hemisphere; we’d see them coming from a day away. So the timing of their attack wouldn’t really matter. Hours or days, we’d be just as ready. Ralla must have known that she’d only be able to get out a short sentence. No, I think she
did something rather heroic.”
“You think she lied to them.”
“I do. If we were at the s-pole, such information would be useful, letting us know we had some time, a reasonably known amount of time, to fortify our defenses. So somehow she sent them to the wrong pole, and this was her way of telling us. Clever girl. Such a shame.”
Jills pondered the new information.
“Either way, I don’t think it changes much. All she’s done, if you’re right, is buy us a little more time. Captain, I’m temporarily re-tasking personnel and marines to assist with the Fountain project.”
“As long as I can get them back when the unpleasantness starts,” the Captain replied.
“Of course. This is our ‘All Hands’ moment, gentlemen. Miss Gattley has given her life for us. Let’s not let it be in vain.”
The meeting broke up, but Thom remained, staring at the table.
“Thom,” Jills said, after gathering up some pads. “I know this has been a rough few hours, but please don’t take what Mrakas said as anything more than the wishful hopes of a dying man.”
Thom looked up, as if he hadn’t heard what had been said. Jills moved to the seat next to Thom.
“This is it, Commander. The fleet we’ve cobbled together is the last of the ships we’ll be able to build. Even if you can capture more mining facilities, we just don’t have the time. We have two smaller fleets patrolling southwest and northwest of our bearing, but at best they’ll only slow down the Pop fleet. We need you now more than ever to raze their domes and convoys, and if you encounter the Pop, to attack and retreat, attack and retreat, all the way back up here.”
Jills entered some commands into the table surface, and a blue globe appeared on its surface.
“It might buy us a few more days, and a few days may make all the difference,” he continued. “If Ralla did buy us the month it would take for the Pop to get from the northern hemisphere to the s-pole and back up here, then we may have a chance. From what Awbee has told me, it’s possible by that time the grown berg will be big enough to stay put on its own. If it is, and we lose the Fountain, then there’s a chance, a tiny chance that the berg will start the new cap on its own. Not soon enough for any of us to see it, but maybe the children of whoever survives this fight will. It’s really just a few days that might make the difference. We need you to be those few days, Thom. And then, when the Pop makes its final push against us, we’ll all fight here, together. OK?”
“I’ve got some time before I need to depart, right?”
“No more than a day, I’d hope.”
“Then consider me off your clock for that time. Something’s bugging me about that transmission, and I think Mrakas heard it too. He just died before he could tell anyone what it was. If I can’t figure it out by the time I need to leave, then so be it. But if I’m right, if Mrakas was right, and she’s alive, then we owe her—I owe her—something.”
“Thom. If that ship gets within half a hemisphere of the Fountain, we’re going to do everything we can do blow it out of the sea. You understand that, right? It doesn’t matter if she’s alive; there is nothing we can do.”
“A day,” Thom replied, and left without waiting for approval.
It took only three hours. Thom found Koin in his workshop, teasing a piece of carbonweave with pliers and a torch into some particular shape. He had noticed Thom’s entrance, but said nothing. Thom waited patiently for him to finish. After several moments, the carbonweave, blackened from the constant heat, bent how Koin wanted it, and the tech seemed pleased.
“What can I do for you, Thom? Sorry… Commander?”
“I’m not here on official ship business, so if you have something important to do, please don’t let me keep you from it.”
“Well, that’s just polite of you to say. Don’t worry about me. I pretty much live in here now. And with the production ramped up on the, um, project?”
“Project is fine.”
“…I actually don’t have a lot to do. Most of the hard work is being done upstairs by the industry boys. I’m playing around with a new kind of ablative armor for the hull. We’d need a lot more carbonweave than we have now, but it’s something anyway. What can I do for you?”
Thom filled him in on the audio cast, and his and Mrakas’s feeling that something wasn’t right. He told him of Mrakas dying. The tech seemed upset.
“That’s too bad. Mrakas Gattley was a good man. Though, I guess we’ve all been expecting this for a while now. They couldn’t exactly keep his health a secret when he’d be walking the halls. I just wish I could have done something for him. But, you know, I’m good at things, not people. People’s a different department,” he said with a forced smile. “Let’s hear this audio.”
Thom keyed into console on the table, and within a few moments the audio filled the lab. When it was finished, Koin played it again, this time leaning back in his chair, pondering.
“Well, I can’t say for sure, but you guys have a sharp set of ears.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s something missing, though I can’t be positive.”
“What’s missing? Seriously, it just sounded off to me, and I don’t know why. If Mr. Gattley did, it died with him.”
“Listen to it again.”
Koin selected the gunshot portion using the console. The audio ran from the gunshot to when Oppai started speaking, then looped back. It played several times before Koin stopped it again. Thom still had a blank look on his face.
“Listen to the other sounds in the background. All the equipment hum? I’d bet a week’s pay they were on the bridge. Ours sounds exactly the same. The only other place that would sound like that would be the mainframe room, and I can’t think of why they’d be in there. I’ve never even been to ours, and I’m a tech. So if their bridge sounds like ours, how much would you assume its consoles and metal and all sorts of other official looking things are pretty much the same?”
“When I was on the Pop it sure didn’t seem like they had the resources to change much in the looks department.”
“Good. And they were standing close, right? You can hear her struggle as they bring her towards the mic. You can hear her voice as she gets pulled away from wherever the microphone was. Maybe on his head, or held in his hand. So we hear the gunshot, and then...”
“Him speaking.” It took a moment, but understanding swept across his face. “Just his voice.”
“Exactly. If they were that close, why can’t you hear her slump to the ground. Sorry, that’s morbid. But really? You can hear them roughing her up, why not her hitting the deck after being shot? Are the guards really still holding her? And why no bullet sound? It was obvious it was a projectile weapon from the sound. We would have heard the bullet, after it easily passed through her, hit something on the other side. But that’s not the most interesting part,” Koin said, a smile edging up the corners of his mouth. “Listen towards the end.”
He cued up the last few sentences of the cast. Oppai was rambling about vengeance. Using the console, Koin tweaked the audio. Oppai’s voice became muffled, muted. The background noise became louder. It was unmistakable.
“She’s still fighting them,” Thom said, convinced.
“That sure sounds like the exact same angry struggle from the first part. If the audio continued, I bet we would have heard her make some sort of noise. I bet that’s why it ends where it does. Like I said, I can’t be positive. There are a lot of unknowns and assumptions here. But without proof otherwise, I don’t see why it’s not possible that...”
“Ralla could still be alive.”
Back in her cell, Ralla did the best she could to sleep. Her ears rang from the noise of the gunshot, and her jaw hurt where Oppai had crushed it against the table. Both wrists were bruised from where the guards had held her. She was, however, still alive and in better shape than the guard she had bitten.
Ralla wasn’t surprised when they came to get her for work the next day
, though there hadn’t been breakfast or dinner.
She settled back into the grind of welding and fear. But when the time came for the guards to take them back to their respective sleeping areas, they didn’t come. Instead the “B” team arrived, half her team’s number and even more emaciated. While all were tired, they couldn’t stop working. The water level was rising too quickly. Worse, the engines were driving hard, making it too loud to hear and nearly too hot to breathe.
The strain on the hull torqued their wall of death, and new leaks and cracks were forming by the second. Ralla toiled into the night with the combined and exhausted crews. It didn’t occur to her until hours later that everyone she knew had every reason to believe she was dead. She thought of Thom, of her father, her mother, even Cern. Her fellow laborers seemed resigned to work and die here. But in the tiny parts of her brain not occupied by stress, fear, exhaustion, and the task at hand, she was now more resigned than ever to escape, by any means necessary. This room was a bad place to die. She’d rather die trying to escape. What did it matter if she did? She was already dead.
VII
They were eight days out by the time they reached their first target. It was a huge farming dome, one of the first casualties of the Pop’s aggression. Nearly the size of the Garden itself, the low, wide dome glowed in the darkness from much distance.
The new Reap fleet was a fraction of the size of its former self: a single corvette, four torpedo subs, but more than a dozen small attack subs. The corvette had been modified with mounting harnesses so the attack sub pilots wouldn’t have to queue up for the Reap’s own tiny docking bay to land and use the facilities.
Undersea Page 26
