by Joseph Rhea
“Final shaft,” Jessie called out. “Straight up from here. I see no more obstructions, and I’m getting a surface return at forty-six meters above us. Looks like a standard air-sea interface.”
Vee slid her index finger along the control to fill the ballast tanks with a small amount of compressed air, making the Wave positively buoyant. “All right, going up slowly. Give me distance in two-meter increments, and watch for surface changes.”
The final trip up was uneventful, but as they approached the top of the shaft, the water outside began to glow so brightly that Juno had to turn off the low-light filters on the bridge viewports. Jake was wondering why any dock would be so well lit when they broke surface, and he saw the sun shining in a blue sky.
Everyone except Nia jumped up and looked out of the viewports on all sides. It looked as if they were sitting in the middle of a small lake, surrounded by an overgrown forest with a few small rocky outcrops in the distance. Either this was a dock with recreation-room-quality simulations, or they had emerged into the middle of the dome itself.
“Let’s get back to work, shall we?” Nia reminded them.
When everyone sat back down, Juno said, “Take us to shore, Vee.”
“I’ll try to make an acoustical map of the terrain,” Jessie said. “Don’t want anyone getting lost out there.”
Raines added, “I’ll head down and help the Range brothers prep the jumper.”
Ash chimed in. “I’ll plot our way back out of here, just in case we need to leave in a hurry.”
Leave in a hurry? Jake repeated to himself, and then Raines’s previous comment—”No one’s home”—finally sank in. Drown it! We’re here to steal something!
Chapter 05
Jake didn’t say anything, of course. First, he was outnumbered on the ship eight to one. Second, he was just the ship’s owner and could easily tell the authorities later that he had no idea what his renters were up to. Third, well, he really needed the credits.
Vee steered the Wave to a natural-looking beach and gunned the thrusters to ground her. She then volunteered to stay on the bridge to monitor communications while Jake and everyone else headed down to C-deck. Through the observation corridor viewports, he watched as Raines and the divers prepped the jumper, while Ash crawled up into the small cockpit and sealed the hatch. When one of the divers opened the inner pressure door, Ash powered up the two large legs and walked out of the small drop bay and into the larger cargo bay, where they attached a large sled to the back.
Jake jogged down the corridor and then followed the jumper down the door ramp and out into the brightest sunlight he had ever seen. As he stepped onto the rocky beach, he realized that he could actually feel heat emanating from the sun. Had Capitol City’s sun once been this bright, he wondered? Was Capitol City so much older than this dome that its sun was actually fading?
He took a deep breath and realized that with all the trees and bushes crammed into this single dome, the air was probably far cleaner than anything he had breathed before.
Then something dawned on him. “Why isn’t the air in this dome under pressure?” he asked the group. “The water pressure outside is around two hundred atmospheres. Since we didn’t pass through any sort of lockout, the pressure inside should be the same.”
“I should be the one asking that question,” Juno said, shaking her head. “The only thing that makes sense would be a well-hidden lockout system in the tunnel.”
“You mean, there were water-tight doors in the entrance shaft,” Vee said, “but they were spaced far apart. Once we passed a certain point, the door behind us would seal, and another in front of us would open?”
“Exactly,” Jake said.
Jessie turned to the group. “I’m sorry, everyone. I should have done my job better. I should have been able to detect something.”
“Which means we’re probably trapped in here,” Jake said. He was liking this trip less and less.
“Not necessarily,” Juno said. “The lockout could be automated. I think we’ll be okay as long as we don’t set off any alarms.”
Nia stepped up beside Juno and addressed the crew. “Okay, I’m giving us one hour to locate the object, bring it back to the cargo bay, and get out of here. I think we should split up into teams of two and start a spiral search pattern centered on this lake.” She looked at Jake. “That is assuming that you would be willing to help us. If you would prefer to stay on the ship…”
“I’ll help,” he said, “if only to make sure we get out of here before the owners come back.”
“We’re not stealing anything, Mr. Stone,” she said, but he didn’t believe her.
When the crew separated into four groups of two, he found himself teamed up with Juno, which wasn’t a bad thing. A dome in the middle of nowhere, filled with a dense, overgrown forest just didn’t make sense to him. In his experience, things that didn’t make sense usually ended up being bad. Having a levelheaded person nearby could be to his advantage. The fact that she was attractive didn’t hurt, either.
Moving through the forest was surprisingly difficult, and more than once, he wished someone had thought to bring along a big knife to hack through the heavy brush and hanging vines. The humidity was also higher than he was used to, and after a half hour of searching, he began to regret not staying on the ship with Vee.
Just then, Vee called on Juno’s radio. “Something’s coming up the shaft below us,” she yelled. “It’s moving fast, and I don’t—”
Her transmission was cut off, and a second later, Nia’s voice answered, “Everyone hold position. Radio silence.”
Static filled the speaker, and then nothing. They stood there for several seconds, waiting for instructions. Then Vee’s voice again, “It’s airborne!”
Jake looked up. Through the tree canopy, something rose from the general direction of the lake and then angled off to his left.
“Follow it,” Nia said from the speaker, “but don’t get too close.”
“Follow it?” he whispered, but Juno was already moving, weaving through the trees and bushes at a near run. He had difficulty keeping up with her, but a few minutes later, he found her crouched near an opening to a large clearing. He dropped beside her and looked out.
“It’s a salvager,” Juno whispered when he saw the mechanical beast dropping its load of what looked like wet junk at the far side of the clearing. Then the thing lifted straight up and headed back toward the lake. He looked around the clearing at the numerous piles of debris scattered here and there.
“This is someone’s salvage yard,” he whispered back.
“And a nicely hidden one, at that,” Juno added. “The owners have several of those robots running day and night. We think they’re just automatons, programmed to locate metallic items on the seafloor and deposit them here.”
“That’s why it didn’t respond to our presence,” he guessed.
“Right. From what we were told, the owners stop by once a week to go through the stash.”
“When are they due back?” he asked.
“In about six hours, if our information is correct. And if we’re lucky.”
“Cutting it kind of close, aren’t you?”
“We had some difficulty securing a good ship,” she replied, implying that the Wave hadn’t been their first choice.
Vee radioed confirmation that the machine had reentered the lake, prompting Juno to stand up and head into the clearing. The rest of the search party began appearing at spots around the circumference, with Ash in the jumper entering last.
“So what exactly are we here to pick up?” he asked.
“You’ll know when I know,” Juno answered over her shoulder as she headed toward Nia.
“Is everyone accounted for?” Nia asked when they approached. Juno did a quick head count and was about to reply when Nia ran toward one of the debris piles. “There it is!” she exclaimed.
Jake and the others turned and looked at what she was standing next to. It was an oval o
bject, about two meters tall and maybe three wide, covered by a bunch of spikes of various lengths. It had that distinctive, shiny-black and always-clean look of a Pre-Fall device, but the design was like nothing he had seen before. Not that Pre-Fall technology was found every day, or even every year, but that’s why it was so valuable. It was also why people like Captain Coal risked their lives, and their families, in search of objects like this.
“Let’s get it loaded,” Nia said.
As everyone began moving other pieces of equipment out of the way and adjusting the sled to carry the object, Jake walked over to the newest pile in the clearing to check it out. It was mostly things he recognized, like drop weights, a bent forearm from another jumper, assorted bits of tubing, and torn metal. He pulled a sheet of wet fabric out of the way and found something he had never seen before: a small, maybe meter-wide sphere made up of interlocking pieces of different colors and textures.
The sphere certainly didn’t look at all like Pre-Fall technology, but if it wasn’t, then where did it come from? He touched the surface to see if it was frictionless, another Pre-Fall clue, but it felt rough and oddly warm, almost body temperature. When he lifted his hand from the surface, his fingerprints were left behind on the metal, and they began to glow. “Drown it!” he cursed as he tried desperately to wipe his prints off with his sleeve. He managed to remove the prints, but the odd glow remained.
Some sort of meta-metal, he guessed, designed to absorb heat. Before he touched anything else, he turned and walked back to the others, who were just finishing moving the object onto the sled. “Thanks for the help,” Juno said, beads of sweat running down her forehead.
“Yeah, sorry,” he replied.
Nia sent the Range brothers ahead to scout the way back. For the first time, Jake realized they were both armed with rifles. “Specialist,” Nia had called them.
The jumper started up and headed in the direction of the lake. This time, Ash didn’t steer it carefully through the trees. Instead, he used the two large loader arms to tear out bushes and knock down trees, clearing a path straight toward the Wave.
When they were halfway back, Ash had to stop when he ran into a large vine-covered sign in their path. Part of the sign was visible, and it read, “Garden.” When some of the others grabbed it to move out of the way, Jessie asked, “I’m surprised this place isn’t guarded.”
Raines pulled vines away from the other half of the sign and said, “Maybe it is!”
Jake looked up and read, “Zoological Garden. What’s that?”
“Ever hear of a zoo?” Raines asked.
Jake nodded. “Sure. In stories.”
“Same thing,” Raines said as he surveyed the forest surrounding them. “Apparently, this whole place was once a zoo.”
“Shut off the jumper!” Nia said.
Juno made a hand-across-the-throat gesture to Ash, and the jumper powered down. In the silence that followed, they all heard it—low growling sounds coming from all directions. And the sounds were getting closer.
Chapter 06
“Let’s get out of here!” Nia yelled. “Come on, double-time it!”
Just as Ash fired up the jumper, something huge leaped from the bushes and flattened Jessie to the ground. Everyone froze for a moment but then grabbed rocks, sticks—anything they could find—and threw it at the creature. It looked like a mutant cat of some type, but larger than two men. It stood with one clawed foot on Jessie’s motionless chest, bared its huge fangs at the humans surrounding it, and let out a bone-shaking roar.
Ash leaped down from the jumper, screaming his sister’s name. Juno grabbed his arm and pulled him back, keeping him from committing suicide. “Jessie!” he yelled again, but she remained motionless, hopefully just stunned and not dead. Jake had barely met these people, but he did understand family, and these people—even those who were unrelated—were acting as a family.
“What can we do?” he yelled after throwing another rock at the cat. He hit it squarely on the shoulder, but it didn’t seem to notice. They needed the Range brothers back, but they were nowhere in sight.
Ash suddenly broke free from Juno’s grip, but instead of going after the cat, he climbed back into the jumper. For a split second, Jake thought the man was being a coward, climbing up to safety. Then he realized that Ash was using the only weapon they had available, the jumper itself.
The big machine roared to life, and Ash pivoted it around to face the cat, both arms spread wide. The cat responded by sinking its long white teeth into Jessie’s shoulder. She screamed, and Jake was sure he was watching her die, when something human-like darted from the bushes and hit the side of the cat. The cat let go of Jessie and let out a muffled roar, just before it collapsed on its side.
Next to where the cat had been kneeling, a young woman with matted red hair stood naked and covered in blood. Like the others in the group, Jake just stood there, not sure what to make of what had just happened. Ash moved first, jumping down and running to his sister’s aid. He knelt beside the strange, blood-covered woman and grabbed his sister’s head. “Jessie,” he pleaded and then turned to Jake and the others. “Help me! She’s dying!”
Nia was there next. “Put pressure here,” she said, pointing to Jessie’s shoulder. “She’s not going to die,” she told Ash, massaging his neck to calm him.
Juno was next to them now, but she remained standing, surveying the bushes. “We might all die if we don’t get out of here right now.” She looked right at Jake and then pointed to the jumper. “Can you drive that thing?” He nodded, even though he had never set foot inside one before. How hard could it be? Juno turned and called to the whole group. “Everyone on the sled.”
It took him a second to realize what she was planning, and another to realize how much of her plan depended on him. He knew there wasn’t time to debate the merits of that plan, because he could already hear more cats roaring in the distance.
He started to move but then realized the strange woman was still standing next to the dead cat, still covered in blood. But whose blood was it? For the first time, he noticed the small hole in the side of the cat’s ribcage and the bloody hand of the woman. Did she really stab the beast through its heart with her bare hand?
“Move it, Stone!” Juno yelled.
“What about her?” he yelled back as he headed toward the jumper. “I think she just saved our lives.”
“I’ll get her,” Juno said. “Just get us out of here.”
He climbed up into the cramped cockpit and strapped himself in. Luckily, the controls were standard, and within a minute, he got the robotic walker turned around and heading for the Wave in a fast gait. He pushed the speed as fast as he dared, trying to balance the need to get back to the ship with the equal and opposite need to not have his passengers go flying off the sled he was pulling. Fortunately, the jumper was equipped with a decent brain, and it was able to monitor the terrain and compensate for it far better than he could have alone.
When the final stand of trees fell before him, revealing the lake and the Rogue Wave beached there, he let out a whoop. The Range brothers were there, looking startled as his jumper ran right past them, toward the Wave’s loading door. He didn’t stop until he stepped onto the ramp and had pulled the sled into the back of the cargo bay.
He hit the off switch and slid down through the small hatch below his feet. When he emerged from the jumper’s belly, he saw Juno sealing the front door while Nia yelled into a comm panel, “Vee, get us moving!”
Ash picked up his sister, who looked pale, and started toward the side doors. Someone had applied a bandage to Jessie’s shoulder to slow the bleeding, but it wasn’t enough. “There’s a lift in the back,” Jake called out as he pointed toward the rear of the drop bay. “It’s faster than the walkway, and no stairs to climb.” He ran ahead and pressed the call switch. The lift door opened just as Ash caught up with him. “There’s no medic on board,” he said as Ash passed him, “but the medical bay’s surgical bed is fully a
utomated. Just lay her down and stand back.”
“We’ve got it,” Juno said as she and Raines passed by him with the new girl in tow. She was still covered in what he now realized was the big cat’s blood, but Juno had draped her jacket over the woman’s shoulders.
The floor lurched as Vee gunned the thrusters in reverse, pulling the Wave off the beach. Since the lift was occupied, Jake ran forward to the side doors. After jogging up the stairs and down the length of the observation corridor, he bypassed med bay, where everyone else was, and headed straight up to the bridge. Vee was up there alone.
“I need Ash,” she yelled, a panicked look on her usually serene face.
“He’s looking after his sister,” Jake replied, trying to calm his own voice. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know,” she said, turning back to her console. “What can you do?”
“Just tell me what you need.”
She turned back to him. “What I need is to get us out of here. To do that, I need Ash to plot me a course back through that maze. Then I need Jessie to guide me through the tight places again.”
He was feeling oddly calm when she finished, because the answer was obvious to him. “We don’t need either of them,” he said as he ran up to the navigation console.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He quickly found what he was looking for. Luckily, Captain Coal had required that all of his crewmembers learn the basics of how to use each of the bridge consoles. He said you never knew when you might be called on to replace someone.
“I asked what you’re doing,” she repeated.
He pressed the final sequence before responding. “Ash plotted our return course through that maze when we got here, remember?” He pointed to her console. “I just loaded it into your auto-helm.”
She turned and looked at her console. “Got it.” She entered the command to activate the program, and the ship lurched as the thrusters engaged, spinning the ship around. At the same time, the ballast tanks refilled with water, making the Rogue Wave sink below the surface.
