Starfall

by Melissa Landers

  He tugged on Doran’s sleeve and they bolted east, darting around every obstacle in their path. Kane knew there was nowhere to go, but he pumped his legs harder toward the tram station in hopes that Cassia and Solara were still there. He tapped his com-link to warn them, but then caught himself and tapped it off just as quickly. The link wasn’t secure. Whatever Arabelle had done to fix the system, it hadn’t worked.

  “Shut down your com,” he hollered to Doran. “Fleece is listen—”

  A tremor interrupted him, a light quaking that originated from somewhere deep below his feet. He kept running as the dome shook, causing everything inside it to clatter. He glanced out the fiberglass wall and wondered if a tsunami had struck. Fear choked him as he watched the ocean rise up, swallowing the dome and forcing jets of water though its leaky seals. He heard the unmistakable groan of metal giving way. The floor tilted, pitching him forward, and he scrambled to right himself as he finally understood what was happening. Fleece had detonated the support pillars.

  The ocean wasn’t rising—their dome was sinking.

  “Cassy!” he shouted, barely able to hear his own voice above the clamor of toppling furniture. They had to find a way out before they sank too low. “Cassy! Solara!” he hollered, and nearly cried with relief when he saw them half stumbling, half skidding toward him, propelled by the floor’s downward slope and dragging the unconscious guard between them.

  Kane took one look at the guard’s limp body and knew the man was a goner. His cheeks were no longer purple and he seemed to be breathing on his own, but what he needed to do was wake up and swim.

  “We can’t take him,” Doran shouted. “It’ll be a miracle if we make it out of here, and that’s without towing a hundred and fifty pounds of deadweight through the water.”

  Solara cast an apologetic glance at Cassia. “He’s right.”

  Though Kane agreed, he was glad someone else had said it first. He hated the idea of leaving an innocent man to die, but not enough to put his friends’ lives at risk. “It’s him or us. I don’t like it, either.”

  “We have to try,” Cassia argued. Water pooled around their boots, quickly rising to their ankles, and she lifted the man’s torso to keep his head above the surface. “We can’t leave him here to drown.”

  “Cassy, look.” Kane pointed at the dome wall, now half submerged. There was no finding an exit point now—they were sinking too quickly. Water gushed in at a thousand gallons per second through every possible opening, which meant the dome would have to fill up before they could escape. “Feel how heavy he is. He’ll weigh us down. If we try to save him, five people will die instead of one.”

  The water had reached their thighs now, and from all around, wooden chairs and planks began to float. Cassia grabbed the leg of an upside-down conference table as it swept by. She dragged it between them and then tried to lift the man onto it. “Let me rephrase,” she said, each word strained by her efforts. “He’s coming with us. So either help me or shut up.”

  Kane shared a glance with the others. Clearly, there was no arguing with her, so he hoisted the guard onto the table. “Fine, we’ll do everything we can. But if it comes down to him or one of us, he stays. Understood?”

  She dipped her chin.

  “We need to plan a way out.” He turned in a circle to get a feel for where the water was rushing in the fastest. Those breaks would provide an exit. He spotted a few fissures that weren’t wide enough to squeeze through and then noticed a new torrent of water flowing in from the station platform. It flooded the space with so much force he was submerged to the waist before he could blink. “Looks like the tram tube snapped in half. Once the pressure’s even, that’s probably our best bet.”

  Cassia tried to speak, but she was already covered to the chin. Kane guided her hand to the edge of the table and yelled, “Everyone, hold on.” He gripped the ledge at the exact moment his boots lost contact with the floor. The four of them held on tight as the table began to swirl in a tidal pool of current. Their floatation device had solved one problem and created another. Once the dome was fully submerged, they’d have to swim back down to reach the tram station.

  The higher they floated, the more amplified sounds became in their shrinking pocket of air. Metal screamed and wood groaned against the steady churn of water. The crystal-blue sea was now a cold, dark soup littered with debris that crashed into him at every turn. Salt stung his eyes and blurred his vision. Soon light began to fade, casting them in a ghostly glow. He stretched his neck to peer at the fiberglass ceiling, and what he saw made his heart slam against his ribs. The horizon was barely visible as a streak of blue through bubbles of leaking air.

  Then the sky slipped away.

  He felt someone squeeze his hand, and he glanced over to find Cassia watching him with a question in her eyes. He knew her well enough to understand what she wanted, to make amends so that if they died today they would go as friends. But he shook his head, refusing to let her quit. If she wanted his forgiveness, she would have to survive and ask for it.

  The ceiling rose up to meet them as the dome tanked underwater, sinking toward the ocean floor with alarming speed. Kane watched the pocket of air shrink. He shouted, “Dive for the tram chute. It’ll get dark fast, so hold hands and stay together.”

  “I changed my mind,” Solara hollered, clasping Doran’s palm. “I want my wish now.”

  There wasn’t time to laugh. Raising his face to the ceiling, Kane filled his lungs and then dipped below the water, dragging the unconscious guard with him.

  At once, noises dulled, taking on a sinister tone as the dome continued to groan under pressure. Kane kicked his legs while blinking to acclimate his eyes to the salt. Soon he was able to squint well enough to see a dim path toward the tram station. He swam with his free arm, but each forward momentum was lost as the guard’s body jerked him backward. Cassia caught up and helped tow the weight, which resulted in a clumsy tug-of-war that slowed them down even more. Panic rose in his chest, and she seemed to sense it because she shook a finger at him. She pointed at his hand and then at her own, communicating that they should work together. They tried again, this time syncing their movements, and before long they were able to make some headway.

  Doran and Solara had overtaken them by so far that Kane could barely make out the shadowy outline of their legs. He swam harder, hoping Cassia would match his pace. His lungs made him buoyant, so he released half a breath to help him sink deeper. He hoped there was a pocket of air inside the tram station, because he wasn’t even halfway there and already his chest burned.

  When they made it into the station, everything turned black. Without sunlight he could no longer see Cassia to sync their breaststrokes. He didn’t even know if they were swimming in the right direction. The sensory loss made his urge to breathe nearly unbearable. Pressure filled his face until his head felt ready to explode. His hope faded until he detected a new sound, different from creaks and groans. He heard voices shouting—and if they could shout, then they could breathe.

  There was air in the station.

  Drawing on all his strength, he kicked upward, pulling the heavy body with him. He was so desperate to breathe that he would’ve let go if the anchor weren’t his only link to Cassia. Just when he didn’t think he could swim any farther, his face broke the surface and he drew the sweetest lungful of his life. He gulped it in, one breath after another, until his body was sated enough to notice the details around him. He heard Cassia surface and gasp, and then the echo of Doran and Solara speaking from somewhere farther away. Still blind, he felt below the water for the guard’s neck and hauled him up. Kane scissored his legs to stay afloat, but he was tired, and keeping the man’s head above water was hard without the leverage of something fixed to hold on to.

  “Cass—” he said, cutting off as his mouth filled with water. He spat it out and spoke in a rush. “I can’t.”

  “Let me help.” She wriggled closer to relieve some of the burden, but she sputtered a
nd coughed as the weight dragged her under.

  “It’s not enough. He’s too heavy.”

  “Stay where you are,” Doran called. “We’ll come to you.”

  The sound of splashing carried through the darkness, growing nearer until an arm struck the top of Kane’s head.

  “Sorry,” Solara exhaled into his ear. “I can’t see my hand in front of my face.”

  After some awkward feeling around, the four of them were able to support the man’s head. A loud crack from below reminded Kane that every yard the dome sank was another yard they’d have to swim before reaching the surface.

  “We have to hurry,” he said. “We’re going down fast.”

  “Which way?” Cassia asked. “I’m all turned around.”

  Doran swore. “Me too. We need a—” He cut off and went quiet. The next thing Kane knew, brightness appeared from Doran’s palm. He’d switched on his data tablet. “Not sure how much battery is left,” he said, rotating the screen until its glow revealed a half-submerged tram sign, “so we’d better move.”

  They began a clumsy, unsynchronized swim until Cassia directed their movements by calling “Stroke” in two-second intervals. Once they found a rhythm, it didn’t take long to reach the tram station, where the corridor ended in a T. Doran shone the tablet at each tunnel, revealing nothing but watery darkness. The tram’s connective tubing had cracked in both directions, but which tunnel was shorter: the left or the right?

  “Be back soon,” Doran told them, then clamped his teeth around the tablet and disappeared beneath the water.

  Darkness enveloped them once more, intensifying the sounds of the dome breaking and shifting. It was torture staying in one place, and even harder resisting the urge to call for help on the com-link. Kane reminded himself that if Necktie Fleece knew they were alive, he’d come back to finish the job.

  A pinprick of light from beneath the water announced Doran’s arrival. He heaved a breath that dislodged his tablet and then scrambled to catch the device. Holding the screen toward the left tunnel, he said, “It’s our best bet. The break’s not too far, but there’s no more air after this.”

  Anxious to move, Kane hauled the guard toward the left tunnel, savoring the last pocket of air until his forehead bumped the ceiling. He readjusted his grip on the man’s collar. “Everyone, grab a sleeve.”

  The group drew a collective breath and dipped underwater. Kane used his boots to kick off the ceiling, propelling them forward into another synchronized swim. The light from Doran’s tablet danced with each breaststroke, but it was enough to keep them on a straight path as they followed the tram tracks.

  Doran was right—a break in the tube appeared. As Kane swam into open water, he glanced up where the hue transformed from deep indigo to vivid teal, finally leading to pale blue at the very top. His elation warred with panic. The goal was within view, but still so far away. As he clawed toward the sunbeams high above him, he created a mental game of it: everything would be fine if he could just touch the light.

  The drag behind him increased suddenly, and he glanced down to find Cassia’s hand had slipped from the guard’s sleeve. She grabbed on to it again, only to slip once more. Kane tried to catch her eye, to tell her to let go, but she dodged his gaze. When his vision began to blur, he knew he was in trouble. He felt a tug at his shoulder and glanced at Doran, who pointed at the surface. Kane faced up and squinted at the captain swimming toward them with a metallic rope in one hand.

  Through the haze of dizziness, Kane recognized the rope as the shuttle’s tow cable. If one of the crew could reach that cable, it would pull them all to the surface. But he was only seconds from blacking out. They needed to form a longer chain and send one of them to the top.

  Continuing to kick upward, Kane pried Doran’s fingers from the guard’s shirt and pointed from the tow cable to Solara’s arm. Doran caught on quickly, and they created a human link with the guard at the bottom. Kane watched as Doran and Renny reached out to each other, and just as dark spots danced in his eyes, he saw their hands link.

  At once, the drag eliminated, and then they were launching up through the water so fast he nearly lost his grip on the lifeline. But he held tight, and an instant later, his face met the blessed assault of two suns.

  Kane sucked in a ragged lungful of oxygen before releasing Solara and dropping back into the water, where he bobbed to the surface again. Cassia appeared beside him, and while she caught her breath, he pulled the guard’s head into the light. The man began to stir, eyes closed as he choked on the water he’d inhaled. Kane rotated the guard to the side and hammered his back, one fierce pound after another.

  The crew swam close to lend a hand, each supporting the man’s torso as he coughed and sputtered awake. No sooner had he opened his eyes than his chest lurched and he vomited all over the lot of them. For a moment, there was only stunned silence. Then peals of laughter broke out, chortles that were weak from exhaustion but filled with the purest kind of joy—that of being alive.

  From her bench seat inside the hyperbaric pressure chamber, Cassia held an oxygen mask over her face and peeked at Kane sitting on the opposite bench. He pretended to sleep with his head tilted back, arms folded, and legs crossed at the ankles, but his shallow breathing gave him away.

  She wished they could talk. She hadn’t thought anything could hurt worse than Kane’s words from last night, but to watch him nearly die had shaken her to the core. Her heart was bursting with all the things she needed to say to him. But that wasn’t a conversation to have in front of the crew, and at the moment Solara sat beside them trying to comfort Doran, who hated tight spaces and seemed to be fighting a panic attack with both eyes clenched shut.

  “Just breathe,” Solara murmured to him, her voice muffled by the mask.

  He fisted his T-shirt and caused more water to pool on the floor. There hadn’t been time to change out of wet clothes. The old-fashioned treatment for the bends—a side effect of diving deep and resurfacing too fast—worked best if administered quickly, so they’d kicked off their boots and taken whatever towels were tossed at them before crowding inside a small metal capsule resembling a submarine. As for the guard they’d rescued, he was in the infirmary having the water evaporated from his lungs.

  Cassia felt a fullness in her eardrums, a sign that recompression had begun. She moved her lower jaw to clear her ears. Once they popped, she reached over and patted Doran’s knee. “Almost done.”

  The treatment ended, and they ducked through the chamber door to find Renny on the other side, greeting them with a smile and a change of clothes from the ship. Cassia had never been so happy to see her boring canvas pants. Modesty forgotten, she stripped off her wet things and changed right there in the infirmary. The rest of the crew did the same.

  “Where’s Belle?” she asked after zipping up. Arabelle had piloted the shuttle and pulled them from the ocean, so a hug was in order.

  Concern flitted across Renny’s face. “She’s lying down in her bunk.”

  “Another headache?”

  He nodded while absently flexing his fingers. He did that sometimes when he was nervous and fighting the impulse to steal. “It’s worse this time. She can barely see.”

  “Probably a heat migraine,” Cassia said. It could happen quickly under two suns, especially to a light-skinned redhead like Arabelle. “I’ll bet she was dehydrated, too.”

  “Yeah, that’s probably it.” Renny didn’t sound convinced, but he waved the crew over. “Come on. I want you to meet someone.”

  He led them toward the wet lung station, where the guard they’d saved was lying in bed with a mask strapped over his face and a layer of bandages encircling his throat. An older man stood by his side, tall and rail-thin with a receding semicircle of gray hair clinging to his scalp. His weather-beaten skin marked him as a laborer, but he wore formal slacks and a dress shirt. He leaned down to shake the guard’s hand, and a look of mutual respect passed between them. The guard’s boss, perhaps.
>
  As soon as Renny stopped at the guard’s bedside table, he snagged a roll of medical tape and smoothly tucked it in his pocket. “This is Prime Minister Ahmad,” he said, indicating the older man. “He wanted to thank you personally for what you did.”

  The prime minister shook all their hands. When it was Cassia’s turn, she noticed his palm was callused, not what she expected from a politician.

  “I can’t tell you how grateful I am,” Ahmad said in a voice even rougher than his hands. He glanced at the guard, and emotion welled in his eyes. “This man is like a son to me. We used to mine ore on Hephaestus before we immigrated here. He loaned me the credits so I could afford the transport fare.”

  The guard’s face colored. He seemed uncomfortable with the attention, and clearly Ahmad knew it, because he shrugged and offered the crew a grin. “Anyway, look at me now. Prime minister of the fastest-growing settlement in the fringe. A few years ago we started with a hundred crates of imported eggs from Earth. Now we raise more tuna than they do. Who’d have guessed it?”

  “Was the tuna your idea?” asked Kane.

  Ahmad nodded. “They used to farm delicacies here—mostly lobster and crab—to freeze and ship to the tourist circle, but there wasn’t enough of a market for it. After the investors pulled out and our old prime minister moved back to Earth, I took up a collection among the settlers who wanted to stay. We worked out a deal to transfer the charter and then ordered our first shipment of tuna eggs. The rest is history.”

  As Cassia listened, she glanced out the window at the merchant dome in the distance. She’d once considered it a fetid and disgusting place, but her memories turned sweeter now that she knew the whole story. She couldn’t believe a group of settlers had accomplished so much in such a short time.