I was still a good distance from shore, and I kicked hard. My foot struck metal again and another loud ping shot through my suit, loud enough this time to make my head swim for a moment. Risking a glance back I saw… nothing. Absolutely nothing.
What the hell? There had to be something there. Some kind of machine or something that made the noise. A submersible of some kind? Could it be invisible? Was that even possible?
I stopped for a moment, tried to catch my breath. Swinging around to get a closer look, I floated under the water and scanned the area with the light from my helmet. All I saw was water, and one small, swirling area of sand that looked like a little dirt devil on the bottom of the ocean floor. But the humming sound was much louder. “I can still hear it, but there’s nothing to see. It makes no sense.”
“What is it?” Rachel asked.
“I don’t know. I think there’s something on the bottom. I can take a closer look, but I’d rather not.”
“Yes, female, do not,” Giram said. “Return to shore. You’ve been successful in your search. The scanners can collect data now.”
“Do you guys have technology to make something invisible?” I asked.
“Shit. Get out now, Mikki!” Rachel yelled and my heart leaped at the panic in her voice.
“Mate, evacuate the water,” Surnen repeated. His voice was calm, but even at this great distance I felt his…terror through the collars.
Shit. What the hell had I found? Whatever it was, I wasn’t going to get any closer. I wasn’t an idiot. “Okay, I’m not lingering. I’m out of here.”
“Hurry, Mikki. I don’t like this.” Rachel’s concern goaded me to push through the burning in my lungs, but as hard as I tried to move, I wasn’t gaining any ground.
“Something’s wrong.”
At that moment the humming noise grew in volume to a loud grind. Shit. The pull of the current became stronger and I kicked toward shore with every ounce of energy, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. In fact, I was being pulled backward toward the sand.
I didn’t panic underwater. Panic killed. But I was not happy about this. The invisible metal was creating suction behind me.
“Um, guys. It’s pulling me down.”
“What?” Rachel asked. “Kick. Swim. Do something!”
“Rachel, I’m fine. But I’m kicking as hard as I can, and I can’t get away from it. It’s pulling me to the bottom.” I tried to keep my voice calm, but it was tough to do between panting for air and fighting off Surnen’s panic. “Once I reach the bottom, I should be able to walk out of the current. I just have to ride it out.”
“Fuck. Gods be damned. Get me the governor, now! We need transport!”
“Can you see anything?” Rachel asked.
One of the Prillon warriors was still yelling, but Rachel’s voice was the only reasonable sound I could hear, so I focused on her.
“I can’t do anything, Rachel. I’m letting it take me. It’s strong. Like a rip. I have air. I’m fine.” For now.
“A rip?”
“A rip current? Riptide?” Was she such a city slicker that she’d never heard of a rip current? Actually I had no idea where she was from. When I met her, just knowing she was from Earth had been more than enough.
“Oh God. You have to get out of there.” She was losing her calm, but I couldn’t afford to lose mine.
The odd current pulled me down fast, and my feet hit something hard several feet above the sandy bottom. It was like I was standing on solid water. I could feel the object, but I still couldn’t see it. I lifted my foot, stomped down as best I could underwater. I knew the helmets had video recording of some kind, just like they had audio. “Can you see this? My foot? It looks like it’s in the middle of open water, but I’m pushing against something solid. It feels like metal.” I worked myself down to my hands and knees and knocked on it, rapping it with the knuckles of my space suit. The knocking sound pinging through something hollow was unmistakable. “See?”
“What’s that swirling in the sand around the edges?” Rachel asked.
I glanced over the edge to the sandy ocean floor about a body length below me. “Some kind of whirlpool effect, I think. It’s what’s holding me down.”
“Governor, she needs to get the fuck out of there now,” Surnen snapped.
“This is Hive tech, my lady.” Giram’s voice was grim. “The energy signatures are newly registered, but it’s Hive.”
“Hive?” I repeated.
“Hive?” Surnen snarled.
“I have confirmed this is not the only unit of this kind in the water,” Giram added. “You’ve only happened upon one of… ninety-four energy signatures in this cove alone.”
“Ninety-four?” I repeated. Holy shit. Why here? Why on an uninhabited planet?
“There could be a transport mechanism on the inside.” Rachel’s voice was muffled for a moment; then I heard, “Captain, run a scan on water displacement under the surface. See if they are sucking up water.”
“Why are you doing that?” Surnen asked Rachel. “Mikki, get to shore!”
It wasn’t a whaling ship, but whatever this thing was, taking water off this planet wasn’t good for the ecosystem here. I didn’t know what kind of creatures lived here, but they had a right to live freely, to survive on their own damn planet. I knew that whatever was happening to the water, it was happening right under my feet.
It had pulled me right to it, like it truly was sucking the water through a great big straw. But where was it going? How did water transport, and in such quantities? Two percent of the planet’s water had already been taken?
I had no intention of being stupid, but fighting a current was the easiest way to die and I had exactly zero chance of swimming up, away from this thing. Instead I felt my way to the edge of the platform, which appeared to be about ten feet wide, and used the downward pull of the water to sink to the ocean floor. I found what I was looking for on the bottom a few inches away, a rock twice the size of my fist. I picked it up and walked along the outer edge of the device, feeling my way with one gloved hand, until I felt a surge in water pressure pulling my arm toward the object.
Bracing myself against the hard side, I took position to throw the rock toward the intake area. If this was where the water was going into the machine, the rock was definitely big enough to throw a huge wrench in the works. At least, that’s what I was hoping. If I could block the suction somehow, I could swim away from this thing without having a heart attack. I really, really needed to start exercising more.
“Here goes nothing.” I said.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Surnen asked.
“Mikki? This is Maxim. You will return to shore and join the others for transport back to The Colony immediately.”
“I’m trying,” I replied. This thing—or ninety-four of them—was more than I could solve on my own.
With adrenaline pumping through me, I tried to throw the rock toward the strong pull of water.
A loud clang had me making a fist in victory as I pushed myself back, then a little farther, away from the main pull of the machine. The flow of water holding me here weakened, and I didn’t waste any time moving away. I sensed at once when I was out of its reach and began to swim toward shore. “It worked. On my way.”
The sound changed all of a sudden, a loud boom making me wince inside my helmet.
“Fuck,” Giram snapped. “There was an energy spike. Something is happening out there.”
No kidding. A whirring noise replaced what had been a quiet hum, and the suction returned several times as strong. So fucking strong I couldn’t gain any ground despite the fact that I was halfway to the surface. It was pulling me back. I used my arms, kicked, but I was caught in the suction. “It’s working harder now. It’s caught me, and I’m being pulled toward it. It’s sucking me in!”
“Find her exact coordinates and transport her out. Now!” Maxim snapped.
“There’s no transport beacon. The suit is not military grade.
”
I could hear voices arguing in my comms, but I was breathing hard, trying to fight the machine’s power. If it was sucking water from the planet and transporting it somewhere, I didn’t want to go wherever the water was going. Especially if it was being taken by the Hive.
Shit. This was going to be bad.
10
Surnen, The Colony
* * *
I stormed out of the medical unit, tossing a tray of supplies to the side in my haste. I’d been listening in on the mission to Valuri but focusing on Mikki. I didn’t really give a shit what Giram was doing unless it impacted my mate. Now I knew what an Atlan who let his beast take over felt like. Out of control. Wild. Feral. Insane.
No one should get in my way or I’d rip his head off. My mate was in danger, and I had to get to her. Now.
I’d been hesitant to let Mikki go to Valuri. On a male level I was a selfish bastard. She’d only been mine overnight. I’d had my hands on her for such a short time, my fingers itched to touch her again. My cock was hard with the need to bury deep inside her. My balls were full and aching to empty every drop of cum into her pussy. Mark her. Remind her and everyone else she came upon that she belonged to me. I needed her. Craved her like a drug.
A day ago I hadn’t even known of her existence, but now, my existence revolved around her. The collars would permit nothing less. I wasn’t in love with her, not yet. But she was mine, and I was fiercely possessive. Protective, and yet I’d let her go. Ever since my parents died, I’d closed myself off. My heart. My mind. I’d vowed to never again let another in. I’d followed protocol and put my ass in the testing chair, but hadn’t expected anything, or anyone, to come of it. It had been required. The hope of a match? Slim.
So slim I’d pretty much forgotten the possibility. Until yesterday. Until I’d let myself become weak and vulnerable. But now… hearing that Mikki was in trouble, feeling her every emotion from the fucking bottom of an ocean on another planet? I was wild. What I’d felt for my parents and then their loss was nothing compared to this… this ferocity I had for Mikki.
“Get the fuck out of my way!” I yelled, racing down the corridor. The stripe on the wall changed from green to blue to red, indicating I was making headway across the base to the transport room, yet it felt like I would never get there. Mikki was down there, underwater with a Hive mechanism of some kind. Stuck. Caught.
She was captured by the Hive, in a trap of sorts, even unintentionally. If they got their integrated hands on her…
I listened to the voices of the crew on Valuri through the comms unit embedded next to my NPU. “Someone needs to get out there and help her,” Rachel practically shouted. “Do we have rope?”
“Giram, call on your beast and just pull her away,” I said. He was Atlan. He could just go out there and get her. Surely the water would part for him or something.
“Doctor, I can’t swim and neither can my beast,” Giram admitted. It seemed we had found his weakness.
Gods, mine too. I couldn’t swim either. There was water on Prillon Prime, but it wasn’t used for amusement like on Earth. Water was drunk. Bathed in. Looked at. Prillon Prime’s oceans harbored very dangerous creatures, and I’d never even considered the idea of getting in it.
“I can swim,” Rachel said. “I’ll go get her.”
“I forbid it,” Maxim snapped. “You are not strong enough to pull her from whatever that machine is. If Mikki can’t get herself free, all you’ll do, mate, is get yourself caught as well.”
“Where the fuck are you, Surnen?” Trax shouted. “Fuck, get to transport or I’m leaving without your ass.”
I came upon a sharp turn in the corridor, all but rammed into the wall, then pushed off and pivoted to continue on. “Thirty seconds,” I breathed. “Get the transport ready so it will start as soon as I step onto the pad.”
“Always late. I’ll go now. You catch up.”
“NO!” I bellowed. Warriors even bigger than me stopped in their tracks and pressed themselves against the wall to let me pass. “I must get to her. How could this happen? Protocols were in place.”
“We weren’t expecting the Hive, Doctor. Not on an uninhabited planet like this one,” Giram replied.
“I don’t give a fuck,” I practically growled. “The Hive should always be taken into account. Every scenario, every incident. They should never be taken for granted.”
“I’m caught, but I’m fine, Surnen,” Mikki said. “I’m just hanging out here, waiting.”
Her voice had that sharp bite I was accustomed to, but she wasn’t bickering with me. She was fighting an unknown machine that held her trapped beneath the water. I sensed calmness in her, but fear as well. She had oxygen; her sensors hadn’t indicated otherwise. There was only so much. Her supply of air would run out eventually. And this was her first contact with the Hive, even if only tangentially. This was perhaps worse, for we knew nothing about what they were doing with the planet. Why they were using the water. Where it was going. Where she’d go if she was pulled into the transporter beneath the sea.
“You’re not fine,” I snapped. “You should be here on The Colony in my bed. Tied to it so I know you’re safe.”
“Tied to it?” she snapped. “Is this part of your protocols? Is it tradition to be tied to a bed like that? Because I might need to find a new planet.”
“It should be,” Maxim said, his voice coming through clear but grim and determined. “If you go near that water, mate, that is where you will find yourself as well.”
“Hey!” Rachel replied.
“If it were protocol, you’d be safe right now instead of using up all the reserve oxygen in your suit,” I told Mikki. “You’re below fucking water on a strange planet that has never been visited. There is no protocol for that.”
“I have three hours of oxygen remaining,” Mikki replied. “I have my feet braced. I’m not going into the machine, whatever it is. There’s no fucking way I’m being transported by the Hive.”
Those words only ratcheted up my panic threefold. I knew what it was like to be transported by the Hive. So did every other fighter listening in. “We will get you out of there, and then you are never leaving our quarters again. Never!”
“Surnen,” Mikki said. “I’m fine. We’ll figure this out. If you’d stop shouting, we could—”
“Do not diminish this,” I yelled back. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I can’t. I won’t survive. Rules are instituted for a reason. Strict regulations and protocols ensure issues are analyzed and risk assessed. They were supposed to keep you safe, but they haven’t.”
“I’m not at risk, Surnen,” she countered. “And don’t you dare say the match was based on protocol and regulations.”
The transport room door slid open, and I jumped all the steps to the raised platform to stand beside Maxim, Trax and three more warriors carrying equipment. The hum and vibration of imminent transport was loud in the room, heavy beneath my boots.
“Now!” I shouted, looking to the tech. Why hadn’t we left yet?
“Helmet,” he replied, and Trax handed me mine. The others already had theirs locked into place. I twisted mine into place and nodded the moment the lock clicked.
From one blink to the next, we were on Valuri. My body ached, the twist of transport stabbing in my skull, but I only blinked and ignored it, took in the initial crew around me. I spun about, my feet now in soft sand, and looked out at the ocean. It looked peaceful. Calm. Tranquil. It was a different color than the images I’d seen of Mikki’s water on Earth, but the reddish hue was appealing, nonetheless.
Yet beneath the surface…
“Where is she?”
Everyone pointed in the same direction, just to the right of where we stood.
I started toward her, running made difficult in the soft sand, but Trax grabbed my arm, stopped me with a strong yank. “You can’t just rush into the water.”
“Watch me,” I snarled, trying to shrug off his hold.
&nbs
p; “Surnen,” he said, gripping my shoulder. “An actionable plan is being put in place.”
I shook my head. “Actionable? No. We don’t wait. We go now. I won’t let this happen again. This can’t happen again.” Shrugging off his hold, I moved toward the water only to be stopped by Trax’s arm around my waist.
“Stop.”
“I can’t. I can’t lose her. I can’t go through this again.” I shoved him away and ran.
He followed me, frowned. “What are you talking about? Again?”
“My mother,” I breathed. “I won’t let Mikki die, too.” I couldn’t breathe. The suit was too hot. Too close. Too tight. Fuck!
I ripped the helmet off my head and threw it to the sand. “Mikki!” The water was around my ankles when Trax tackled me.
“Put your gods-damned helmet back on.”
“I can’t breathe.” I rolled him off me and waded deeper into the water, shouting for my mate. She was out there. Dying.
“Giram!” Maxim yelled something at the Atlan, but they were behind me. Mikki, my Mikki, was in front of me. Dying. Leaving me alone.
“Surnen, stop. That’s an order.” Maxim yelled the command, but I was deaf to anything but the pounding in my chest, in my head. She was going to die because I hadn’t stopped her. Because I let her go on this mission. Because I didn’t follow protocol.
Mikki wasn’t approved for this kind of work. She should never have been transported here. Never.
I’d failed her. Just like my fathers had failed my mother.
“Mikki!”
My ribs felt like they were collapsing, squeezing me until my heart could no longer beat, my lungs unable to fill with air. My vision blurred with tears as I fought to hold on to hope, knowing I was going to lose her just like I’d lost everyone else.
I’d be alone again. I didn’t want to live without her. I couldn’t go back.
I walked deeper into the water, the waves lapped against to my chest. “Mikki!”
“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?” Trax appeared as if out of nowhere, and this time he wasn’t alone. Giram had gone beast, the huge bastard’s arms wrapped around me, clamping my arms to my sides.
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