Shadows of the Son

by E L Strife

  “Four rooms still intact,” Tanner said in his ear.

  Sniffling hard and swallowing down the bile creeping up into his throat, Bennett clenched his fists and continued after Atana.

  Nearing the stretch of rooms, movement in the distance caught Bennett’s eye. A unit tilted on the edge of Borray’s Crevice. The deep ocean current rocked it gently back and forth. “I’ll get that one if you can free them.”

  He only glanced back long enough to catch Atana’s frightened look of disapproval and the trail of blood their new ocean friend left in her wake. Shit. “Better hurry; she’s hurt!”

  Seeing Atana whip around in the water to look, Bennett used the opportunity to bolt off to the isolated room. The door was twisted off-kilter, a corner dented, meaning the room was full of water. It was likely a recovery mission. But he was drawn to it by a feeling. It was something akin to the peace of resting with Kios. Someone was inside and alive.

  “Tanner, you got any stats on this room?” Bennett asked, swimming around its exterior, looking for a way in.

  “I don’t see where you’re at, B.” Keys clicked over the speaker. “Routing through your wristband.”

  Bennett reassessed the crooked door with his flashlight while he waited on Tanner. There was no way to open it from the front. On the backside, he noted the cracked plumbing panel.

  “I’ll have to pry the plumbing duct open. Can you message them that I’m going to pass a breather through?”

  A dolor tone double-beeped over the coms. “Can’t. Are you sure there’s someone in there?”

  “Yes,” Bennett said. Finding a loose beam, he picked it up. “Besides, it’s intact, and the SnatchLock was engaged manually. I can see it from the outside.”

  “Copy.”

  Bennett jammed the metal in the crack and pried. The creaking of peeling metal gave him hope. Making a hole large enough to fit an arm inside, he removed the beam and pulled himself to the hole. The cabinets which hid the plumbing had broken off. Bennett knocked five times on the outside in a pattern everyone knew, then stilled and listened.

  Bang. Bang.

  Relieved, he unclipped his last breather, holding it through the opening with his left hand, hoping the light of his wristband would guide the shepherd to him.

  A cold, feminine hand met his in the water, freeing the canister from his fingers.

  Bennett picked up the beam and jammed it back in the hole. “They took my last breather!” he called out to Tanner.

  “B, you’re running out of time. You have less than ten minutes of oxygen left on your tank, and it’s dropping fast!”

  Pushing with all his strength on the beam, he replied through clenched teeth, “I’m not leaving them after I just gave them hope!”

  “You gave them more time than you have!” Tanner countered.

  “I’ve almost got it,” Bennett defended as the wall of the room curled back.

  An invisible wave pushed against him, knocking the unit and Bennett into a slide. Gravel scraped loose, sending plumes of silt up into the water. Bennett lost his grip.

  “She’s going over!” He shouted as he kicked himself hard after the tail of the beam.

  “Get back here, B!”

  “Bennett? Where are you going?” Atana shouted frantically in his ear.

  He snagged the beam as the bunk room tumbled over the edge. The drag of his suit made his fingers slip again. Grunting in frustration, Bennett kicked hard and launched himself after it. “No shepherd left behind!” Especially not a fighter like her.

  “B—won’t survi—too deep.” Tanner’s transmission crackled out, and Bennett’s wristband flickered on with the stats of the shepherd in the room. The woman’s heart rate flashed, rapidly climbing.

  “Just you and me now.” Snagging the beam, Bennett planted his feet on the side as it fell. Gathering his breath, he wrenched on the beam, widening the hole. “That’s it.”

  His pry bar slipped free and fell away into the ocean’s depths. Bennett kicked himself after the room and clutched the peeled up metal wall. I’m not giving up on you.

  Home Station’s lights faded far above, leaving his shield and the flashlight on his harness the only source for sight. The pressure increased on his body as they sank. Whoever was inside had to be feeling it too.

  The eyes he saw through the hole peeked up at him pained with understanding. The shepherd nodded and waved him away.

  Bennett’s throat ached. His hands loosened.

  Wait, what am I doing? He grasped the metal. I’m supposed to be a fucking Prospector. He glared at his fingers. Burn, damn it!

  Nothing happened.

  It was infuriating.

  Slowly, the glow in his fingers brightened. Metal heated, and Bennett pulled, straining his muscles until they shuddered from the force. The panel curled back. Reaching inside, Bennett shook the anger from his mind and the flames from his hands.

  The shepherd took his offering, and he pulled them free. Wrapping an arm around her waist, Bennett shoved off of the sinking room. He kicked his fins hard, knowing they were both running short on time. His legs burned with exhaustion, but he didn’t stop. After so much loss, he wouldn’t until they made it, or he ran out of air.

  Chapter 27

  CRESTING THE EDGE of the ravine, the woman held tight in his arms, Bennett saw Atana release the third room’s occupant. Their ocean friend carted the shepherd up to the light, a trail of blood tainting the water behind her. In the corner of his mask, a red LED blinked rapidly. Bennett had seconds of air remaining.

  “One left,” Atana said in his helmet, positioning herself in front of the last door.

  He raced by with the woman he’d rescued. “I don’t have enough air, I’m sorry.”

  The woman of the ocean returned and gestured for the shepherd in Bennett’s arms. But the shepherd gripped him. Closing her silvery eyes, she rested a thumb to Bennett’s forehead and a host of bubbles released from her lips. Then she double-tapped his mask and drew in deep. Slipping the breather out, she offered it to him.

  Bennett took the item in hand, knowing time was precious for them both.

  The sergeant reached for the woman of the sea, and they disappeared in the portal's light.

  Two green bars illuminated on the side of the breather. Bennett had ten minutes at best with the temporary fix. He peeled his mask off and popped the unit in his mouth, trying not to think about the shepherd’s unusual behavior.

  Squinting through the water, he swam to Atana’s position. She had connected to a video feed still transmitting from the girl’s room. He couldn’t hear what Atana was saying, but she signaled three fingers, then two. She placed Skitter’s door-breaker over the handle, spreading it between the edges of the frame. Grasping the wheel, she turned it. The frame spread until it split, and the door burst open.

  She and Bennett pushed into the room. Water flowed inside. The shepherd swam towards them, air bubbling out the opening. They tugged her free and started back toward the port.

  A bent beam fell in frooonnnt of them. Then chunks of concrete sank from above in a mask of silty clouds.

  Level Eight’s coming to join Nine! Atana shouted in his mind. They corralled the shepherd away from a slow shower of tumbling rock. Glace’s Oscillation Tide!

  An I-beam swung from above, attached above, by a mass of knotted cables. Bennett grabbed cloth and tugged the women out of the way. It crashed into a pile, thundering as it tumbled toward the shepherds.

  Debris rained down as they fled. The shepherd’s heart rate jumped, sending her wristband flashing in the water. The path back to the port filled with a rush of metal and rock.

  Atana and the shepherd suddenly careened sideways into Bennett, crushing the breath from his lungs. His arms folded around them. At the mercy of their momentum, the three slammed into a bent sheet of steel.

  The hit sent a dull ache through Bennett’s back. He grunted and immediately regretted wasting the air. They settled on a sandy shelf.

&nbs
p; But the way Atana curled up as she lay over his legs made him worry. He hadn’t seen what hit her. Bennett touched her shoulder. Are you okay?

  Fine, she said. Yet in his mind, her voice sounded strained.

  Bennett inspected the female shepherd the best he could without his mask. She’d tucked her knees to her chest, but her attention was above them, not on any part of her. Hyperventilating. He held a hand to his chest and then gestured his palm toward the ground. Calm down.

  The shepherd struggled but slowed her breathing.

  We need to find a new way out. Atana drifted to a crouched position beside Bennett and sent out a burst of blue light, her body like visual sonar. It illuminated the mangled structures around them and a narrow path back up to the dunk tank.

  The flash also illuminated a wave of metal and stone rolling right at them, not from the eighth level destruction, but pieces of the reserve bay.

  Bennett lifted his shield and drew the women inside on instinct. His body shuddered as his shield took hits from pylons, steel framing, and mangled aircraft. Warped thuds and clangs sent pulses through the water. The shepherd screeched loud enough that he heard it through the raucous barrage. The female shepherd convulsed.

  Atana snatched another breather and popped it in the shepherd’s mouth. We have to get out of here.

  Bennett had a lot of power, which up to this point, he’d labeled it a bad thing. He studied the women and pondered his solution. Think you can keep her safe from me?

  Huddled beneath him, Atana snugged the woman to her and closed her eyes. Blue ribbons of light surrounded them.

  His orb brightened and pulsed as it expanded. The water warmed. When Bennett saw the blood-tainted water near Atana’s shoulder, his panic turned into anger.

  Bennett’s muscles tensed until they quivered with rage, his veins swelling with molten gold. His growing light heated and stirred the water. It lashed out—a vortex of aureate whips, thrusting debris aside. When the path of escape became visible again, he pushed hard off of the floor, launching them towards the glowing lights of the station above.

  Breaking through the top of the pile into open water again, Atana squeezed his arm. Tamsharks found us.

  A shadow circled them at a distance. Then another.

  Bennett kicked harder. His breather blinked red. Started flashing.

  Tiny green sensors winked as they picked up the sergeants in the glowing ascent shaft. The iris opened overhead, and arms reached in pulling the three out.

  Bennett spat the canister from his teeth and drank in the air, waving over an approaching nurse with a gurney.

  Dropping to the floor, Atana tugged the breather from the woman’s mouth and patted the shepherd’s back. Only after the woman had coughed out water and sucked in a breath did Atana rip her mask off and rest back on the floor, gasping.

  Beside them, the shepherd they’d rescued stammered ‘thank you’ repeatedly through chattering teeth. Strings of brown hair clung to her face and neck as they hoisted her quaking body onto the stretcher.

  Tiisan stumbled out of the airlock, dropping to his knees across from them. He gently picked up the head of a woman, her body covered in fine iridescent scales. “Ilyrami.”

  Bennett and Atana sat in shock with the other shepherds as he lifted her flailing body—gills flared and painted with dark green blood—into his arms like they were old friends.

  “Dashu,” Tiisan directed, emptying a small vial of pink fluid into her mouth.

  The woman squirmed harder, coughing water up on Tiisan’s chest.

  “Good girl.”

  Her tail disappeared with the scales, replaced by human legs and light ash-brown skin.

  Atana started to crawl toward them, eyes focused on the wound in Ilyrami’s side. But Bennett stopped her.

  “Tiisan’s on it.”

  Sitting down beside Bennett, Atana leaned against the wall and peeled back the torn shoulder of her wetsuit. A single finger lit with blue fire, and she ran the tip over her ripped flesh. Tiny streams of smoke and steam curled up from her cauterized skin.

  When her eyes met Bennett’s, he saw the shimmer of pain inside. But her jaw was locked tight, and her face gave nothing away.

  Tiisan freed the pitchy tangles from Ilyrami’s face, stroking them behind her. “Can someone get me a couple of towels, please? And another stretcher.”

  “Beynar?” Ilyrami rasped.

  Tiisan sighed and braced his head to hers. “I’m here.”

  A shepherd working in the dunk tank shut and locked the sea hatch.

  Bennett lifted his wristband. “Tanner, status?”

  Atana sat forward, waving at the shepherd initiating depressurization on a screen by the door. “Survivor report?”

  The man crouched between her and Bennett then looked at each of them in the eyes. “Sixty-seven. Three passed in transit. Skitter revived one in Seven A. Many are still in critical condition due to the temperature and water in their lungs.

  “We’ll clean sweep in the morning for pieces if we catch the last two.”

  “Last two?” Despite his fatigue, Bennett popped up and started peeling off his suit. “We haven’t caught them all?”

  Atana struggled to her feet and yanked the tank from her shoulders.

  Standing up before them, the shepherd adjusted the shotgun over his shoulder. “Took off their wristbands, I hear. Went rogue and cut out their trackers too. Every entrance and exit now has posted guards, dunk tanks included.” He spun at a shout from Tiisan and left to help escort a stretcher out of the dunk tank.

  “Tanner?” Bennett called out again, wondering why his sergeant hadn’t responded yet.

  The speaker rustled before his voice popped through. “Sorry, B. Command’s got me monitoring a lot of stuff.”

  “What is the status of the bombs?” Bennett asked.

  “Found the remaining three. EOD is still looking, just in case. Krett diffused the ones they found. I guess he knows their metal.”

  Atana cursed and paced a circle. “It’s like they’re mocking me.”

  Bennett met her gaze with understanding before he returned his attention to Tanner. “Where were the two runners last logged?”

  Atana stepped into the airlock to pick up her clothes. Bennett promptly joined her.

  “Level Five near the laundry services duct. And Level Four. They found a bloody tracking chip by the geothermal generators. Most of the crews are searching Level Four because of the threat to the life-support systems.”

  “Level Five it is. We’ll be on them in three. Bennett out.”

  Chapter 28

  BENNETT COULDN’T HELP his awareness of Atana’s skin next to him. The bright white of the airlock’s LEDs made her body glow in a way her Nova spark could not. Nearly dry from his heat, Bennett skipped using a towel to jump right into his uniform. He knew he shouldn’t look, but he did.

  She slipped her feet in the legs of her leather pants. Gray lace stretched perfectly around her delicate parts, hugging them in a way that accented her agile curves. The light in the chamber touched every inch of her mocha skin—a sight he could drink every day for the rest of his life. The rawness of his desire to feel her had his thoughts crashing into one another. He wanted her scarred skin to know something it hadn’t before: tenderness.

  His lips parted with a heavy breath as he reached for his shirt. Atana deserved to be respected, not treated like a meat possession. Azure bordered on that enough. Bennett silently cursed his lust into submission and pulled his shirt over his head. Kicking his feet into his boots, he laced them with practiced speed.

  When she picked up her top and corset, he saw her spine stretch, highlighting the scars which slashed up and down her back.

  Atana twisted around, opening her mouth as if to ask a question. Her eyes darkened. “Why are you staring?”

  Bennett stood and turned away, running a nervous hand over his neck. “How did you not run out of air?” he blurted.

  Leather shifted behind him. At
the sound of a zipper, she appeared beside him, lifting her wristband. “Heart rate forty-two beats per minute. Oxygen saturation sixty percent. I trained myself to use specific muscles only and make everything else sleep.”

  The airlock opened to the hallway, and they hustled out.

  Why did you look? she asked, turning left down the main path instead of into the stairwell on their right.

  Shame tugged hard on his heartstrings. “I—curiosity, I guess. Where are you going?”

  She checked over her shoulder and pointed to her forehead. Places I hide when I don’t want to be seen. Silencing her wristband, she took his elbow and pulled him into a janitorial closet. The dim lightbulb flickered on above them.

  It was a small room not meant to contain more than one person. Bennett struggled to keep space between them. Stumbling over a jug of green cleaner, his chest planted against hers before he could brace himself.

  Atana caught him, resting him back on his feet with steady hands. On her face was a warning, but her inspection of him smoldered with amusement.

  He felt a sudden urge to kiss her. But embarrassment overcame him. And Code, universal law, the mission. And the scents of dirty water and floor polish. And images from the last hour: water tainted with blood, dismembered limbs, dead cold faces stretched in fear.

  “Hey.”

  Hands squeezed his sides. Bennett looked up.

  “Focus.” She pointed to a panel over the mop sink.

  He didn’t give himself a chance to think about it. Life was easier when he just did what he was told. Climbing up onto the steel basin, Bennett freed the latch. The door fell open, exposing a dry cavity in Home Station. He extended a hand and hoisted Atana up beside him.

  She gave him a funny smile and pulled herself, headfirst, into the shaft. What kind of curiosity?

  Bennett braced her feet and caught himself staring at her plump backside. After a silent scolding, he grabbed the ledge and hauled himself into the cavity. The type that gets me in trouble.

  Atana squinted as he stood beside her, narrowing the light from her eyes. She gave him a once-over. Tell no one of this habit of mine, and I’ll keep your secret. Atana tapped him and scurried over a truss into a warm shaft, radiant with orange coils and spinning fans. The heat grew the deeper they went. Atana pushed on a panel beside a fan. It stretched open like the pop rivets didn’t exist.