The suction continued to pull at Jet’s legs.
The intensity of it worsened her panic as she fought to climb at least partway off the hole before they could jam her inside it.
That grew harder to do as her squad struggled to climb off her from above.
That struggle went on for what felt like minutes, making Jet’s breath come in harder pants, turning her fear into full-blown terror as the water yanked harder on her legs.
The pipe in front of her tried to pull her legs down further, but she kept her hands flat against the walls of the higher section, holding herself out so she wouldn’t get stuck and end up getting all four of them killed.
Her arms were starting to shake from the exertion of holding them out of that hole.
Eventually, the weight on her lifted.
As soon as it did, Jet let out a breath.
She didn’t wait but immediately re-examined the pipe, knowing it was critical now that they find a way through.
They definitely didn’t have enough air to get back up.
Jet had serious doubts they would make it back up that pipe again anyway. They would likely just end up exhausting themselves, swimming in place as they fought both gravity and the strength of the current to reach the top bend.
No, the only way out was forward.
She focused on the L-shaped curve; she needed to find a way through.
She couldn’t bend her body enough to make the turn; even going feet-forward, she kept getting stuck on the wall of pipe behind her. She was still sitting there on the edge, using her hands to brace herself against the walls, when someone grabbed her shoulder and she looked up.
She could just make out the shadowed forms of the other three.
Anaze hung directly above her, bracing his body against the pipe with his arms, legs, and shoulders, holding up his own weight along with that of Tyra and Alice, to keep all three of them from smashing down on top of Jet’s head.
Jet looked up at him through the goggles as Anaze tapped her shoulder, then motioned towards her sword, tugging sharply on the taped grip of Black’s hilt.
Of course. The scabbard was in the way.
That’s why she couldn’t bend her back.
Jet felt her jaw clench, realizing how much she’d lost her ability to think in those long-feeling moments of panic.
Now she focused all of her will on getting out of the scabbard inside the narrow confines of the pipe. She fought to get the strap off her shoulder in the small space, then, when she couldn’t do that, she drew the knife still stuck in a smaller sheath near her oxygen tank and started to cut the damned thing off.
Both ends of the sword slammed against the walls of the pipe, making a hollow clanging sound as she sawed through the thick material. In a matter of minutes, she managed to cut all the way through.
The whole mess had been costly though, in terms of time.
Only six minutes of air left.
Twisting her body around, Jet pulled herself entirely out of the curve of the pipe with an effort, fighting against the suction pulling her down. Once she was free of the smaller pipe, she angled and finally shoved the sword and scabbard in ahead of her, watching both get sucked in by the faster-moving current. After a brief pause, she unhooked her oxygen tank too, and pulled it out from around her so it wouldn’t be in the way.
Anaze grabbed her arm as she did that, shaking his head, but she shrugged him off.
They had to get the hell out of there.
Six minutes wasn’t going to buy her enough time to be worth her getting stuck in the smaller pipe.
She had to hope she would catch up to the oxygen tank before she needed it.
Taking a last big hit of oxygen off the tube, she turned it off and released the tank into the smaller pipe, watching it disappear through the dark opening like the sword. Then Jet held her breath and shoved her feet and legs back inside the L-shaped curve.
She’d be totally blind going this way, but there was no help for that, either.
She barely had time to think before she managed to jam her legs and chest the rest of the way through the cramped opening.
Holding the lip briefly in her fingers once she was most of the way inside, she let go all at once and got yanked roughly down the narrow pipe.
She only prayed Tyra, Anaze and Alice would be able to follow her.
26
The Light
She was starting to panic again when she first saw the light.
No curves or protrusions caught hold of her oxygen gear or her sword; Jet was holding the same breath she’d sucked in from the oxygen pack before she jammed herself into the narrower segment of pipe.
Now her lungs were starting to burn for air.
She felt like she might black out.
She hadn’t exhaled her held breath, hoping to hold on as long as she possibly could, hoping it might prolong her time before she needed oxygen for real.
Also, she was desperate by then; she worried she might suck in a few lungfuls of water the second she exhaled, panic for real, and likely drown.
If she passed out from holding her breath, she’d drown too.
While she thought about this, about her dimming options… Jet saw that glimmer of light appear between her feet.
Everything changed fast after that.
Really fast.
Meaning, Jet saw the light…
…and then she was rushing towards it and light was all she could see.
She hit the open air so fast it made her yelp.
She let out another sharp gasp as her feet shot out the end of a pipe. Her lungs filled with air, as much in reflex as anything, and then Jet was in freefall, heading straight down with nothing below her to slow her fall.
Her arms and legs pinwheeled…
…right before she crashed into the surface of the water below.
She sank and sank before she reached the end of gravity’s arc.
Then she was kicking her way up, following bubbles, feeling a kind of elation run through her when she glimpsed nothing but flickering, water-filtered light.
Air. She would have as much air as she could breathe in a few seconds.
She was going to make it. She was going to live.
She was nearly to the surface when she heard a surprised shout muffled by the intervening water.
It came from directly above her…
…Right before the heavy splash of another body hit the lake, not far from Jet.
Smiling as the meaning of the sounds penetrated, especially the shout, Jet expended those last few kicks up to the surface.
She breached, gasping.
She blinked to focus her eyes, still breathing hard, treading water as she looked around at the lake… when another sound jerked her eyes upwards. She found the pipe coming out of the rock wall right as another person shot out the end of it, some twenty meters over her head.
That second person let out a familiar-sounding shriek.
Then they were dropping like a stone, shrieking again on the way down before they crashed into the water’s surface.
That was three.
Luckily, Jet didn’t have to wait long to know if they’d all made it.
The fourth person to emerge from the pipe didn’t make a sound.
She shot out and then down in a perfect arc, feet forward, arms clasped neatly around a narrow chest. She went into the water in a perfect line, leaving almost no splash as she disappeared beneath the surface.
Not far from Jet, Anaze breached, sucking in gulps of air, his black hair plastered to his head. Once he’d recovered enough to slow his breaths, he looked around the lake too. Seeing her watching him, he grinned at her, giving her a thumb’s up and then going back to treading water with his hands and arms.
Another head surfaced a few meters away.
Tyra.
The last person to breach, Alice, held something in her hands.
She switched the object to one hand while Jet watched, gripping it in fr
ont of her with long fingers as she swam directly towards Jet, mostly using her legs and her other arm.
Her narrow face looked grim.
“You trying to kill me, mammal?” she grunted, swimming closer.
When she reached Jet, she thrust the thing she held towards Jet’s chest.
“You might be needing this.”
It was Black.
Jet grinned, unable to help herself.
Taking the sword from the other woman’s hand, she laughed as she looked at it; she couldn’t help it.
Even in here, Alice called her a mammal.
Still grinning at the older woman, Jet knotted the cut loop of the scabbard’s strap and slung it around her neck and shoulder. Then she motioned towards the far shore with a jerk of her head.
“Come on,” she said.
She didn’t wait, but began to swim… awkwardly, since the sword and scabbard no longer rested flush with her back. Anaze swam next to her, using the same modified version of breast-stroke that she did, keeping his head above the water.
They were followed by Tyra, who swam more or less the same way.
It was the stroke every skag human learned if they learned how to swim, the same stroke they used in the ocean and the Sound near the settlements outside Vancouver. No one wanted to put their face in that water; they all swam like dogs, their heads in the open air.
Only Alice swam differently. Readjusting her goggles, she put her head down and aimed her body with clean strokes towards shore.
The way Alice swam was a lot faster.
She was already a few body lengths ahead of all of them by the time Jet began to watch her, fascinated by the precision of her arms and legs.
She might need to have Alice teach her that.
Past Alice and up ahead, Jet could already see the white outlines of the strangely shaped pipes and looming water-purification equipment she remembered from the one and only time she’d been down here before.
She’d been exploring that day, looking for a way out mostly, wondering if the canals might be her best option.
It was pretty strange to think she’d just used the same strategy to break back in.
“You really do know where the generators are, right?” Anaze asked from where he swam on her other side. “You weren’t just saying that to placate Laksri?”
Jet grinned at him, then glanced at Tyra, who grinned back.
“Of course I do,” Jet said, tilting her head, Nirreth fashion. “I’m the queen of the Rings.”
Anaze exhaled a half-humorous snort.
Tyra threw back her head, laughing for real.
“Shut up, all of you!” Alice whispered, pausing long enough to look back at them, treading water as her sculpted mouth turned in a downwards frown. “I hear you noisy, baby mammals even through the water! Shut up!”
At that, Tyra and Jet couldn’t help themselves.
They cracked up for real.
When Alice let out a disgusted sound, turning over to her stomach and stroking away from them with swifter pulls of her arms and harder kicks of her legs, even Anaze snickered a little, watching her go.
27
Mission Parameters
Once they were all back on solid ground, they didn’t waste a lot of time.
Those who still had their oxygen tanks strapped to them––which turned out to be Anaze and Tyra––unhooked them along with the narrow breathing tubes.
They left the tanks and the goggles on the floor behind the water-cleaning machines, and did their best to wring out their hair and clothes. Jet and Alice also both re-tied their hair, if only to make it less-obvious they were soaking wet.
There wasn’t much any of them could do about their clothes.
Or their lack of shoes.
Once they had the tanks and goggles off, Tyra, Anaze, and Alice all unhooked their weapons packs. They pulled out their still-dry guns, checking to make sure they were loaded and ready to fire. They left the shoulder packs with the rest of the discarded equipment.
Once everyone was armed and more or less recovered from their journey down the pipe, Jet motioned for them to follow her again.
Leading them through the maze-like, water purification equipment, she brought them to the room’s only exit on the opposite side of the cave.
She paused at the edge of that same opening, looking up the dimly lit passage. Gripping her sword in one hand, she held it down and slightly behind her, motioning for the others to stay back while she checked to make sure the tunnel was clear.
She saw no one. She couldn’t hear anything, either.
Which, truthfully, was a little odd.
Even so, she knew there were cameras down here. They might be switched off, or they might not be. From what Laksri and Richter told her, surveillance within the Palace walls was relatively spotty and inconsistent.
Also, because of the chaos outside the walls, they might be monitoring them less than usual; or they might be monitoring them more, for that same reason.
They had no choice but to press forward.
Taking another breath, Jet glanced behind her at the other three, reassured when she saw them standing directly behind her with weapons raised.
Not wanting to waste any more time, she began leading them up the narrow tunnel.
The journey remained eerily quiet.
All four of them were barefoot, so they made almost no noise as they walked up the tiled passageway. Jet heard the occasional sniff and exhaled breath, but mostly the soft slap of their feet as they moved rapidly up towards the higher sub-basements.
She recalled the map inside her head, reminding herself where everything was.
The generators were located two floors up from the main water reservoir where they’d come in. There was a security station on that same floor, but again, Jet had no idea if it would be manned, given everything going on. They might have pushed everyone back into the main residency area, where the heavier security grids were located.
Still, Jet had to assume they would take pains to keep the protection grid up.
They might not even know Isreti was dead.
Anaze said most of them denied the initial reports, claiming they had to be false, that there was no way a human could have killed their Prince. They’d been using the Green Zone television stations to broadcast the same.
As for the Loran Stone, the library stood at the very top of the compound, not far from the residence area of the Royals. Jet knew Laksri didn’t want her going for that stone on her own, but Jet wondered if maybe she should do it anyway.
Given what it symbolized, wouldn’t the stone be the very first thing Isreti’s people tried to hide and protect, if they knew Laksri and the others were about to storm the gates?
They might even try to destroy it.
They were fanatics, so who knew what they might do?
From what Trazen told her, Isreti’s diehard loyalists would see Nirreth working side-by-side with humans as nothing less than blasphemy, a total affront to their entire way of life. If they knew Laksri intended to institute longstanding peace and cooperation with the human race, many of them would willingly die to keep that from happening.
They’d likely rather see the Loran Stone pulverized into powder than in the hands of a “race-traitor” who would hand any part of their Empire to an inferior species.
If the stone was really as important as Trazen and Laksri said, she should try to save it, shouldn’t she? Maybe she should even grab it before they took the generators off-line, since that would definitely alert the Nirreth they were here.
Making a snap decision as they reached the landing on the second-floor sub-basement, Jet stopped in the hallway, turning to the others.
“I’m going for the stone,” she said, speaking in a low whisper.
“What?” Tyra whispered back. “Jet, no. You heard Laks. That’s suicide.”
“They might take it out of here if the alarms go off.” Jet looked at Anaze, and could see him thinking about her
words. “You know I’m right,” she said, still looking at Anaze, before glancing at Tyra again, then Alice. “If they really need that thing, like they said, we should get it first. Then come down here and shut everything off.”
“What if we did both?” Alice said.
Jet turned, looking at her. “What do you mean?”
Alice shrugged her muscular shoulders, her gun held at her side.
“You and me go for the stone. Leave the boy and Tyra down here. The alarms go off from the stone. That’s their cue to shut the whole thing down.” Alice looked at Anaze. “You good with machinery, boy?”
Jet almost smiled when she saw Anaze grit his teeth.
She knew it was the “boy” thing.
“I can figure it out,” he said, conceding her words with a nod. He looked at Jet. “She’s right. Normally I would say we don’t split up, but this makes sense. The faster we do this the better.” He hesitated then, meeting Jet’s gaze. “But I think you should let Tyra go with Alice, Jet. You stay down here with me.”
Jet felt her jaw harden.
Before she could speak, Alice let out an annoyed exhale.
“No!” she snapped. “We are not having this conversation again. Mammal with sword came in here. She’s already in danger. And I need her to get me to the stone.”
Anaze opened his mouth, but Alice smacked him sharply in the middle of the chest.
“Shut up! No more stupid male crap. She knows where the stone is. We’re going.” She looked at Jet, ignoring where Anaze rubbed the part of his chest Alice slapped, giving her an incredulous look. “You ready, mammal? Or you need to hit him, too?”
Grinning at Alice, Jet shook her head.
“I’m good.” She let her expression grow a bit harder when she looked back at Tyra and Anaze. “Don’t be seen. Wait for the alarm. When you’ve finished, run up there…” She pointed up the tunnel. “First right at the top, then Anaze will know the way out. We’ll meet you behind the big fountain. Anaze knows what I mean.”
She glanced at Anaze directly and that time he only nodded.
Even so, she saw a faint hardness touch his lips, right before he glanced at her mouth.
The Complete Alien Apocalypse Series (Parts I-IV Plus Bonus Novella): An Apocalyptic, Romantic, Science Fiction, Alien Invasion Adventure Page 92