by Joseph Rhea
“Bleed over?”
“Remember, you are reliving past memories, and in doing so, your conscious mind is trying to exert itself, like when you try to wake yourself from a bad dream.”
“We are not here to answer his questions,” a male voice said. “He is here to answer ours.”
“We are getting to that,” the doctor said.
Jake ignored the people beyond the window and faced her. “Can you just keep me there? In my memories? In my past? Wouldn’t this interrogation go much faster if you stopped bringing me back here?”
The doctor looked at him then addressed someone behind him. “What do you think?”
“I would prefer to finish this as well,” Captain Steele’s voice said.
“But you know the danger.”
“Wait a minute. What danger?” Jake asked.
She held her gaze for a moment then looked down at him. “To put it in lay terms, you could lose yourself in your memories.”
“Lose myself?”
“As in, never regain consciousness. Live the rest of your life in the past.”
Jake took one last look at the darkened faces then turned back to her. “I don’t much like being here anyway,” he replied, “and if I did what you think I did, abandoned my crew, left them out there to die, then I don’t deserve anything better.”
The doctor looked back at Steele then nodded. “So be it.” He felt the cold metal against his neck one last time and then faded away.
Remember to breathe, a voice whispered again.
“What day is it?” Jake asked when he sat up in the bed in his ship’s Med Bay.
“Since we’ve given up any respectable form of time keeping, I will tell you that it is Day Fourteen of our descent into Hades,” Dr. Wood replied as he stared at a medical slate in his hand.
Jake stretched and tried to pretend that he knew what, or where, Hades was. Wood was behaving himself, for the most part, and was fitting in with the crew, again, for the most part. However, he did seem to enjoy reminding everyone that he was more educated than nearly everyone aboard whenever possible. AJ simply ignored him, but sometimes he got under Jake’s skin.
“So, I’ve been asleep for a whole day?”
“Most of a day, although I heard that you said you were going to talk to some investigators while you were asleep. How did that go?”
Jake grimaced but quickly turned it into a fake smile. He knew Wood was probably just playing with him, but he sounded condescending, as usual, and that was irritating. “It went pretty well, actually, but they were interrogators, not investigators.”
Wood smacked the slate against the wall several times then tossed it towards the chair on the other side of the room. It bounced off the cushion and clattered to the floor. “My mistake, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry for misunderstanding me, or sorry for destroying a valuable piece of equipment.”
“Slates are cheap. Plus, it was out of power—like nearly everything else on this ship.”
“Cheap for you, maybe, but not us. We can’t just go out and buy replacements, you know.”
“Look, Captain Stone, I’ll buy you a dozen slates if you can bring me safely back to Civica. Will this idea of yours work?”
Jake had almost forgotten about his earlier conversation with his engineer about turning the Rogue Wave into a large glider. Apparently Raines hadn’t informed Wood that they were still planning to go forward, not try to return to the colony.
He was just about to ask how the plan was coming along, when Ash poked his head in the door. “Captain! Good to see you back among the living. We’re just about to head outside. Want to come along?”
“Outside? Outside for what?”
Ash looked confused. “I thought this was your brilliant plan. Raines said—”
Jake slid off the bed and stood up. His back was stiff, but whatever Dr. Wood had given him for the pain seemed to be working. “The glider idea was mine, but I don’t remember saying anything about doing an EVA.”
“Oh, that,” Raines said as he passed by the door then stopped and peeked inside. “I did some thinking while you were asleep and figured out a way to increase our forward velocity during both ascent and descent.”
“We’re putting wings on the old girl,” Ash said with a wide grin.
“Fins, to be more precise,” AJ said from across the staging area.
Jake stepped through the door to see her entering the dive locker. “How…how are you doing?” he mumbled.
She glanced back over her shoulder, eyes darting between Ash and Raines. “Fine. And you?”
“Fine,” he said. They hadn’t talked since the crash. Hadn’t discussed the kiss. He felt the distance between them filling up with unanswered questions, raw emotions that couldn’t be expressed, let alone talked about with other crew members nearby. He fought to sound normal as he walked towards her. “So, what’s this about bolting wings onto my boat?”
She shook her head. “Again, they are fins, and obviously, we’re not bolting anything to the hull.” She pulled two metal devices out of a bag and held them up to him. “Norman built these. We’re going to use them to reshape the hull.”
Jake knew what she was talking about, of course. The hull of the Wave was alive, in a sense, in that it was made of billions of cells that were formed as one piece when constructed. Like all ship hulls, it had the ability to repair damage and even reshape itself at different speeds to reduce drag. What AJ was planning was more complicated: using an electric current to manually reshape parts of the ship. To essentially grow wings out of the existing hull. “You do know that no one has ever tried reshaping a hull underwater. It’s always done in dry dock, in a controlled environment.”
Ash patted him on the shoulder as he walked past. “Don’t worry. We’ll be careful.”
“I’m not worried about you being careful,” he said. “I’m worried that there’s not enough cellular material available to stretch into wings. If we have to go deep at some point, I don’t want any thin spots on the hull preventing that.”
AJ looked at him. “This was your idea, remember? I double checked Norman’s calculations, and I agree that we need this modification to make your idea work.”
Jake looked at the wall and counted four hardsuits. “Then I’m coming with you.”
AJ sighed. “All right then, let’s get suited up.”
A half hour later, they dropped one by one out of the bottom lockout hatch. This was actually Jake’s first EVA outside the Rogue Wave, and he was taken aback by how huge his ship looked from underneath. “Is everyone’s com working?” he asked.
“We tested our communications while suiting up, remember,” AJ said.
“I know,” he replied, looking around at the vast ocean surrounding him, “but we’re all alone out here. We need to be extra careful.”
“You’re not alone, remember?” Jessie’s voice whispered in Jake’s earphones. “Our isopod friends are probably out there watching you guys right now.”
Ash growled. “Thanks for reminding me, sis.”
She giggled. “You’re welcome.”
“Speaking of our friends,” AJ said. “I assume that you’re monitoring the area?”
“I’ll let you know if anything comes towards us. So far, the only sounds I am picking up on acoustics are your four heartbeats.”
“You can hear our hearts beating?” Jake asked.
“I can even hear my brother passing gas right now.”
“I am not!” Ash yelled.
“Please, everyone,” Raines said, “can we just get on with this?”
“I forgot,” AJ said, “Norman doesn’t like open spaces.”
“Well, I like open spaces,” Jake said, “but I’m all for getting this done as fast as possible. So, where are we putting these wings?”
Raines’ suited figure began moving to the port side of the ship. “Midsection, directly off the thrusters. And they’re not wings, just fins to give our vertical motion a stronger
horizontal component.”
“I’m still going to call them wings,” Ash said as he followed. AJ went next, with Jake taking up the rear.
“I still think we should have tied ourselves together,” Jake said.
“Don’t trust your hardsuit’s buoyancy compensator?”
Jake looked down at the blackness below him. “I don’t trust anything automated when my life is dependent upon it.”
Fortunately, the port-side hull modification took less than a half hour. Raines and Ash placed the two devices against the hull about five meters apart, then AJ entered a command from a remote she was carrying. The hull between the devices immediately began to bulge then stretched away from the ship, forming a perfect wing, or fin as Raines called it. When they removed the devices, the fin remained behind. Even though Jake understood the physics of the process, he still couldn’t resist reaching out and knocking on the fin to insure that it was, in fact, solid.
They formed a single line again and headed underneath the ship to the starboard side. When they reached it, Jake was about to inform Jessie of their progress, when her voice yelled in his ears. “I just picked up a signal.”
“I’m not farting,” Ash said.
“No joke,” Jessie said. “I’ve got a large signal moving directly towards us.”
“Is it an isopod?” AJ asked.
“Based on the signature, I would say yes, although it’s a pretty small one. Less than fifty meters.”
“That’s not very small,” Jake said. “How long?”
“ETA, fifteen minutes, if it doesn’t change speed.”
Jake looked at Raines. “If we can’t do this one faster, we have to abandon it.”
Raines looked at Ash. “We’ll make it work.”
Ash swam quickly to his position while Raines placed his device on the hull. When they both gave a thumbs up, AJ activated her remote. As before, the hull began to deform. Ten minutes later, it was less than half the size it needed to be.
“This is taking too long,” Jake said, looking at the clock on his heads-up display.
“Power’s at maximum,” AJ said. “Maybe we should abort.”
“Pull on it, Ash,” Raines said.
“What?”
“You can coax it out faster by pulling on the midsection of the fin.”
Ash left his device behind and moved to the middle. When he tried to grab the fin, his hands slipped off. “I can’t get a grip. The surface is too—”
A piece of the fin suddenly shot out from the hull, knocking Ash backwards.
“Power surge,” AJ yelled. “Sorry, Ash.” She looked at Jake. “I’m shutting it down. We need to abort.”
“We are aborting, Jessie,” Jake said. “How long until the…” He saw Ash’s body floating steadily away from the ship, no movement from his arms or legs. “Ash, are you okay?” No response. “Ash!”
“Might have knocked the wind out of him,” AJ said.
Raines was already moving towards him, trying to reach out to him. “He’s wearing a high-pressure hardsuit. Nothing could knock the wind—oh my!”
Jake saw what Raines did: a growing cloud of blood floating in front of Ash’s chest. “Let’s get him inside!” he yelled, even though he knew his navigator was dead. Hardsuits were like ship hulls: one crack at depth and they implode. Most likely, there would nothing recognizable inside Ash’s suit when they opened it.
Still, they had to do something. He grabbed the fin in order to pull himself towards Ash’s location, but then a sudden burst of light from behind made him stop and spin around. There, floating not more than twenty meters away, was an isopod. It was far larger than he imagined, glowing red like a lantern, and its huge black eyes seemed to be looking right at him.
“What do we do?” AJ’s voice whispered in his ear. Before he could answer, the isopod shot one of its smaller, front legs right past him, grabbing Ash by the torso.
“Stop it!” Raines yelled, grabbing hold of Ash’s arm. Without thinking, Jake tried to grab the creature’s outstretched leg, but it was too late. Ash was yanked away from Raines’ grasp and flew by Jake so fast, his boot struck his helmet, knocking him to the side.
“Ash!” AJ yelled, but just as quickly as it had appeared, the monster backed away into the darkness, pulling Ash’s lifeless body with it.
Chapter 12
Jake was the last to climb the ladder up into the narrow dive lockout. When he sealed the lower hatch and watched the pressure reading on the wall display drop back to one atmosphere as excess air was sucked out, he closed his eyes and tried to think of what he was going to say to Jessie.
“Captain?” AJ asked.
“I’m all right,” he sighed. “I just…”
“I’ll tell Jessie,” she said.
“No. I’m the captain. It’s…it’s my responsibility.”
“I’m your first mate,” she said. “And on a Guild ship, alerting next-of-kin is my responsibility.”
He shook his head. “This isn’t a Guild ship, so it’s my job. Besides, I owe Ash that much.”
When the top hatch finally opened, Vee was there to help them out.
“Where’s Jessie?” AJ asked when she removed her helmet.
Vee shook her head. “On the bridge, of course. Why?” Then she looked down and saw no one else coming out of the lockout. “Where’s Ash?”
Jake removed his helmet next. “I’m afraid there was—”
“Thank goodness you guys are back,” Jessie said as she jogged down the stairs. “That isopod-thing knocked out the bridge power again. I couldn’t see or hear you—” She froze when she reached the bottom of the steps. “Where’s my brother?”
Jake handed his helmet to Raines and motioned for Jessie to follow him to the dive locker. When she walked in behind him, her eyes were already filled with tears. She came to him and wrapped her arms around his metal suit. “He’s gone, isn’t he? He’s dead.”
He put his arms around her and patted her head. “I’m so sorry, Jessie. There was an accident with the fins, and then one of those creatures came. It happened so fast. There was nothing…nothing any of us could do.”
She cried for several long minutes, and he just stood there, holding her. He remembered his aunt doing that for him when he was told that his parents wouldn’t be coming back from their trip across the colony’s border. Maybe we aren’t meant to be out here, he thought to himself, but then quickly changed his mind. That line of thought only lead to defeat, and he refused to give up.
Finally, Jessie looked up at him. “I need you to get us out of here, Captain. We all need for your plan to work. If we don’t get moving soon, I think we will all end up like Ash.” The mention of his name brought tears to her eyes again, and she buried her head in his chest. When he tried to hug her, she howled in pain. “Please take that thing off. We need you on the bridge, sir.” Without another word, she wiped her face and then turned and left the room.
Raines and AJ entered a few minutes later. They quietly helped each other out of their hardsuits and rehung them on the wall. The empty spot where Ash’s suit would have been stored looked strange. More than just vacant, it was hard to even look at.
All three of them headed up the stairs without speaking, and when Jake stepped onto the bridge, the entire crew was there, even Dr. Wood and Jane. He looked at Jessie. “I understand if you want to have some sort of eulogy for Ash…”
“Actually,” Jessie said, “I think that we all just want to get out of here.” Jake was suddenly aware that if his ship couldn’t be made to work as a glider, if his plan failed, it would mean more than being forced to come up with another idea. It would mean that Ash’s death had been for nothing.
“I understand,” he said, then remembering her earlier words, he addressed the whole crew. “It’s time for us to get moving. Everyone to your stations.”
Raines stood at his engineering console and addressed the rest of the crew. “This is important, everyone, so I need your full attention. Since
we don’t have nearly enough energy to run everything on the ship at once, we have to make absolutely sure that we don’t overload the system. Therefore, only one bridge console can be operated at a time from now on.”
“In other words,” AJ said as she moved forward and sat down in Ash’s chair, “when you get a command to do something, you power up, do the thing, and then power back down as fast as you can.”
“What happens if we accidentally overload the system?” Vee asked.
Raines frowned. “We lose everything. Power, heat, air.”
“We’re that bad off?” Jessie asked from her acoustics chair.
“We’re that bad off,” AJ assured her. She looked at Jake. “Guess we are as ready as we’re going to be, Captain.”
Without hesitation, Jake walked forward to the command station and then turned to face his crew. “Engineering, blow all ballast tanks. Take us up.” Raines powered up his station and pressed a few buttons. The bridge swayed as the Wave began to ascend through the water column. When he powered down his station, Jake turned to Vee at Helm. “Bow up twenty degrees, or as much as you can coax out of her.”
Vee nodded as she powered up her console. “Moving battery sleds aft.” Jake leaned towards the bow as the deck began to slope to the stern. A few seconds later she turned her console off. “Batteries are locked in the full aft position. Showing a pitch of eighteen degrees.”
“It’s going to be quite difficult walking like this,” Dr. Wood said from the stairwell. Both he and Jane were standing back there, holding on to the rails.
“Get used to it,” Raines said. “We’re either going to be sloping forward or aft for the remainder of the trip.”
“Whatever gets me home,” he said then carefully descended the stairs.
When he was gone, Jake looked at AJ and whispered, “You seriously haven’t told him yet?” She just smiled. He shook his head then asked, “Can you tell yet if we have any forward velocity?”
AJ powered up the navigation console and watched the display. “I can’t believe it. We’re moving. Not fast, but we are moving.”
