Novum Chronicles: A Dystopian Undersea Saga

by Joseph Rhea Rhea

  “You mean the cook? He's your grandfather?”

  She smiled. “Actually, he's a class-5 engineer. He just cooks because he, well, likes to cook. I do too.”

  “An engineer? So, why did he want you to wake me? Is there a problem with the Wave?”

  “No. It's just that we're almost at our destination.”

  She tried to peek around him, but he remembered the clothing all over the floor and quickly moved his body in front of her.

  “As I recall, Moon said we were heading somewhere that was about twenty hours away. How can we be almost there?”

  “Wow. Have you been asleep all this time? To be honest, we all thought you were just hiding out in here. Although Ash bet me that you died in your sleep.”

  “I can't understand how I could have slept for twenty hours, but at least that explains why I'm so hungry. Wait. Who's Ash?”

  “Ash Fields. He's your navigator. His sister, Jessie, is our acoustics operator,” she said.

  “Well, I'm sorry your navigator lost his bet. How soon until we dock?”

  “About thirty minutes,” she said, then turned and jogged back down the hallway. “See you on the bridge.”

  After she disappeared around the corner, he stood there for a few seconds, trying to align his brain to the fact that twenty hours had passed while he’d slept. Then his stomach rumbled again, and he decided it was time to make it stop.

  When he climbed the stairs to B-deck, he was relieved to see that it was empty. He turned to his right and grabbed a bowl and utensils from the galley counter, then loaded up his bowl with something that looked like stew from a large pot on the warmer and carried it to the table.

  He looked down at his bowl and was about to take a bite when he noticed the smell—subtle hints of sage and rosemary, smells of his childhood that he had almost forgotten. He took a cautious first bite and was almost overwhelmed by the flavor. Months of living on protein paste and veggie crackers had almost made him forget what real food tasted like. He downed the rest of the bowl and went back for seconds.

  Halfway through that bowl, he heard a muffled giggle, then looked up and saw a young girl sitting on the bridge stairwell.

  “I think you'll fit right in with us,” she said.

  Jake looked at his half-empty bowl. “Is that because you all inhale your food like you haven't eaten in a week?”

  “No. It's because, like most of us, you seem to be looking for a home,” she said. “And also because you're a baritone. I can't even explain how badly we need more baritones.”

  “Who exactly are you?” he asked.

  “I'm Jessie. I run acoustics,” she replied.

  Jake took another bite of the stew. “Kind of young for that job, aren't you?”

  “I think I'm just the right age,” she said.

  Jake put down his fork. “So, tell me something, Jessie. We're not moving medical supplies, are we?”

  “I've never been anywhere near the border before,” she said. “Is it unusual to take supplies to the people who live way out there?”

  “No. To be honest, when I served under Captain Coal, we visited more border towns than I could count. Coal called them his bread and butter runs.”

  “What does ‘bread and butter’ mean?” she asked.

  Jake looked down at his bowl. “I have no idea.” When he looked back at the stairwell, he saw her bare feet heading up the steps. “Quite a crew,” he mumbled to himself.

  The older man he had met earlier, Norman Raines, rose from the lower stairwell just then. He had a towel draped over his shoulders, his hair was wet, and he was holding what looked like a cold pack from medical bay over one eye. When he removed it to grab a mug from a cupboard, Jake saw that the man had a black eye.

  “Hope the other guy looks worse,” Jake said.

  “Well, since the other guy is a sixth-degree black belt in a long-forgotten form of martial arts, I would bet that he looks far better,” Raines replied.

  “You know, you can adjust the rec room parameters so that you don't get hurt.”

  Raines put the cold pack on the counter. “That wouldn't be much of a challenge, now would it?”

  “So, if you are a class-5 engineer, can I ask why you're on a ship this small?”

  “It's a free world,” Raines replied.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you are free to ask.” Raines smiled, then glanced at Jake's bowl. “Like something to drink with that?”

  Jake nodded. Raines poured something from a silver canteen into a mug and brought it to him. The mug was warm, and when he looked inside, he saw a brown, slightly oily liquid.

  “Is this what I think it is?” Raines nodded and Jake took a cautious sip. The bitter flavor brought him back to his childhood.

  “I know a fellow who prepares the beans himself,” Raines said. “It's what they used to call espresso roast. Keeps in more of the oils and makes the flavor much stronger.”

  Jake took another drink. “My father drank coffee. Sometimes I would sneak a sip, but it didn't taste nearly as good as this. That was before the embargo, of course.”

  He looked over at Raines, who had just sat down at the far end of the table, drying his hair. “You know this stuff's been illegal for most of my life.”

  Raines put the towel back around his neck. “So are half the herbs in your stew. Locating banned food sources is one of my specialties.”

  Jake looked at his cup and then at the leftovers in his bowl. “Who would even risk growing these things anymore?”

  As he took another sip, Raines looked at him coldly. “Someone has to grow it for the Council members.”

  Jake almost spit out his coffee. “You know, eating a few banned substances is one thing, but implying that the colony leaders are actively breaking their own laws is...”

  “Going to turn me in, son?”

  “I would, but...” Jake downed the rest of his coffee in one swallow. “...your coffee's too good.” He smiled, then stood up and dropped his empty bowl and cup into the recycler. He then headed towards the bridge staircase.

  As Jake reached the top step, he saw that most of the bridge stations were occupied. AJ was standing at the bow command station at the far end, while Vee and a man he assumed was Ash was right behind her at helm and navigation. Jessie was sitting at the rear-facing acoustics console to his right. Only the engineering console to his left was empty. Nia was standing just forward of the chart table in the middle.

  “Approaching coordinates,” Vee called out. “Ready to disengage bubble drive.”

  Nia activated the low-light filters on the viewports. A moment later they all showed what looked like silver lines running fore to aft.

  “Ending supercavitation travel in three, two, one.” Vee said.

  The silver lines outside suddenly broke into millions of bubbles as the ship lurched to a near stop. Jake had to grab the edge of the chart table to keep from stumbling forward. “Bilge! How fast were we going?”

  All heads turned to face him. “Nearly fifty,” Vee said.

  “I lived on this ship for nearly a year and we never made it over forty,” Jake said.

  “The secret is balancing the bubble rate with the hull's natural fluid dynamics. If you—”

  “Approaching the outpost,” AJ interrupted. “Everyone resume your stations.”

  As all heads turned back to their consoles, Jake looked down at the dark-gray sphere being displayed on the chart table. At first glance, it looked like every other border outpost, but then he noticed the scale was all wrong. It was actually a much larger structure—nearly as large as some of the minor city domes—and whereas most outposts had numerous dock openings along the lower hemisphere, this one had a single opening on the side facing them. This was not the place listed on Nia’s flight plan.

  “Where exactly are we?”

  Ash stood up and faced him. He looked about the same age as Jake, but leaner and more muscular.

  “Two-eight-five, mark nine-five-z
ero, Sir. My name is—”

  “I know who you are,” Jake replied. “You're the guy who bet that I had died in my sleep.”

  Ash looked at Vee and furrowed his brow. “You had to tell him?”

  Vee batted her eyes. “I didn't have to, but...”

  Jake ignored them and entered the numbers in the chart table. A top view of Civica Colony appeared as a huge circle, two thousand kilometers in diameter, with Capitol City in the exact center. A line was drawn from the center to an angle of 285 degrees. A flashing dot appeared on that line 950 kilometers out. Jake moved his hands and the chart table zoomed to display a fourteen-hundred-kilometer-long, deep gash in the seafloor, splitting the far western side of the colony in half. He looked up at Nia, feeling a mixture of fear and irritation.

  “We're on the other side of the Rift!” He then walked forward and stood right beside her. “I honestly don't care what your reasons were for lying on your flight plan, but you should have told me you were planning a crossing.”

  “We crossed the Rift at its northernmost point, so there was very little danger,” she said. Before Jake could reply, she turned to AJ. “Take us inside.”

  AJ nodded. “Copy that. Tell me what you see, Jessie.” Jake glanced back at Jessie sitting cross-legged and barefoot in her chair. She had her headphones on and her eyes were closed. She seemed to be concentrating hard.

  “I'm getting a straight tunnel, about fifty meters long, then a narrow ninety-degree shaft, running straight up,” she said, then paused to adjust something on her console. “I'm trying to bounce a signal off the inside and see what's up there, but I think it's clear and wide enough for this ship.”

  Jake leaned toward Nia. “Our acoustics tech couldn't have gotten any of that information from this distance, and he was a ten-year veteran.”

  “Our Jessie has a condition called synesthesia,” Nia said.

  “It means my senses are interlinked,” Jessie said as she opened her eyes to look at Jake. “I see sounds. Baritones are blue, for example.” She then closed her eyes again and tweaked another control. “I see no other vessels in the area. At least nothing metallic or moving, so I think we're alone.”

  AJ nodded again. “That's what we want. Let's do this, Vee.”

  They slowed as they approached the opening, and Jake noticed Vee’s hands sliding over her helm console as though she had spent her entire career on the Wave. They approached and then entered the opening on the side of the spherical structure.

  “No navigation markers. Hit the exterior lights,” AJ said. Small, but very bright lights appeared all over the Rogue Wave’s hull, lighting up the tunnel as they passed through it.

  “Looks like no one's home,” Raines said from behind him. Jake glanced back and saw him standing next to his engineering station, a large steaming cup in his hand. They reached the end of the tunnel and the Rogue Waves thrusters reversed, bringing the ship to a complete stop. In the overhead viewport, Jake could see another opening directly above them.

  “How does it look, Jessie?” Vee asked.

  “It's like a maze up there,” she replied. “I'm seeing at least six sharp turns, plus several weird dead ends. I'll know more once we get inside.”

  “All right, just guide me through, Jessie. One turn at a time.”

  Jessie began calling out distances and maneuvers while Vee piloted the Wave through the underwater tunnel. In some places, there appeared to be less than a meter clearance on all sides, but somehow, they made it through undamaged. “Final shaft,” Jessie said. “Straight up from here. I see no more obstructions, and I'm getting a surface return at twenty-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. This baby has a glass roof and I don't want to hit anything that might crack it.”

  As they approached the top of the shaft, the water outside began to glow so brightly that AJ had to turn off the low-light filters on the bridge viewports.

  “Why would anyone make a hangar so bright?” Jake asked.

  The bridge of the Rogue Wave broke the calm surface of a small body of water and bright sunlight streamed through the viewports. Everyone except Nia jumped up to look at the rare sight of a sun shining in a blue sky. They were sitting in the middle of a lake, surrounded by an overgrown forest with a few small rocky outcrops in the distance.

  “Let's get back to work, shall we?” Nia suggested.

  “Take us to shore, Vee,” AJ said. As the Rogue Wave approached a natural-looking beach, Vee gunned the thrusters and grounded the bow on the sand.

  “Excellent, Vee,” Nia said. “If you don't mind, I'd like you to stay on the bridge to monitor communications.”

  “Aw!” Vee said.

  “Don't worry. I'll bring you back some rocks,” Ash offered. She playfully slapped his shoulder.

  “I'll go down and help the Grange brothers prep the Jumper,” Raines said.

  “We'll all go with you,” AJ offered, then nodded to the others to follow. As Raines, Jessie, and AJ headed to the stairs, Ash got up to follow but paused briefly next to Nia.

  “I plotted our way back out of here,” Ash said, “just in case we need to leave in a hurry.” Nia nodded and then followed Ash to the stairs.

  Leave in a hurry? Jake thought to himself, and then Raines’s previous comment—No one’s home—finally sank in. Drown it! We’re here to steal something!

  Genesis 03

  Jake didn’t say anything as he followed the others down to the cargo bay. 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, he really needed the credits.

  As he entered the main cargo bay, he saw Raines and the Grange brothers in the rear section, attaching a metal sled to the Jumper. He was relieved to see his cot and dirty clothing had been moved to the back corner. He watched Ash walk up to the Jumper's nose and then step onto the lift platform that pulled him up into the small glass cockpit. Moving cargo with a Jumper had been one of Jake’s first jobs back when he started working for Coal, and Stacy had been his instructor.

  AJ opened the front loading door and bright sunshine began streaming in. When it dropped all the way down, Ash powered up the Jumper and walked out of the ship, pulling the sled behind him. Jake was about to head out when he saw the Grange brothers pull two rifles out of one of the crates, check the ammo packs, then sling them over their shoulders. They nodded in unison to him as they follow the Jumper out of the ship.

  “I think I'm going to regret this,” he mumbled as he headed 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 feel the 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,” AJ 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 be
tter. I should have been able to detect something.”

  “Which means we’re probably trapped in here,” Jake said.

  “Not necessarily,” AJ 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 AJ 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 AJ, 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.

  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.

  “Since we're alone, I need to talk to you about something,” AJ said, breaking the silence between them.

  “Should I be nervous?” he asked.

  “After we left Capitol City, I checked up on you. Seems that six months ago, you went against your former captain's orders, and as a result, one of the crew was killed.”

  “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “That would make you a mutineer, possibly a murderer. However, the records were sealed so I wasn't able to learn any more details.” She stopped walking. He reluctantly stopped as well.

  “Do you think I'm a danger to your crew?”