The Apocalypse Ocean

by Buckell, Tobias S.

  Tiago screamed as they plunged back toward the valley. They skimmed over trees belching exploding bubbles that slapped them about as they wobbled down toward a river of dirt.

  Drones swarmed the thrusters and explosions ripped through the aft hull. Without thrust or balloons, Saguenay plunged into the side of the valley, plowing through trees with explosions and throwing up a cloud of rock, rubble, and dirt that obscured anything on the screens.

  The world spun. The ship was rolling, shoving Tiago against the wall.

  Then it all stopped. They came to a rest upside down.

  Dust filled the air, and sparks drifted through air. “Thrusters down. But the core nose unit survived,” Nashara told them. “We can still kill wormholes with it if the generator holds up.”

  Tiago hung in his restraints, enjoying the solid feeling, even if he was upside down.

  Nashara appeared out of the gloom and hit the button near his chest. The straps all cut loose and he dropped, smacking his face into the ceiling. He stood, unsteadily, with blood dripping from his nose.

  She ripped Matty Mallette free of his restraints and carefully laid him down on the ceiling. “Matty?”

  He nodded unsteadily. “Just a hit to the head. Too dizzy, it’ll pass.”

  “I need you here in the cockpit. In case we need the Saguenay’s nose to kill a wormhole,” Nashara said as she pulled him back into the gloom and showed him the physical controls that controlled the League ship. Switches, levers, buttons, all of which would spin up whatever hid in the long needle of the Saguenay that could rip a wormhole apart.

  Tiago stood up, wiping his nose on a sleeve as she walked back his way to leave the cockpit. “Hey!” he protested.

  She stopped and handed him a very large pistol. “It’s got kick. Don’t fucking shoot Kay with it, or any of Thinkerer’s men. Use the bullets on whatever’s going to be coming inside. Pick a corridor, use the bulkhead for protection. Good luck, kid. Listen to Matty.”

  “That’s it?” Tiago asked, looking down at the freakishly large gun. It felt like he was holding onto a cannon. He was going to have to hold it in two hands. She was leaving him here?

  She misunderstood his bewilderment. “I don’t have any other spare pistols to give you.” She frowned and pulled a knife free of a sheath in her ankle. “Here, this might help, though.”

  He stood there, knife in one hand, overly heavy pistol in the other. “I meant: you’re just leaving me?”

  “Whatever attacked us is going to continue. I’m leaving the airlocks open so the fifty cals can continue shooting. The men on them are bungeed in. They should be okay, even upside down, for the next ten minutes or so. But we might well be outgunned and outmanned. I need to scout the situation out while you hold still. So find a spot and defend this cockpit.”

  She left.

  The two other men in the cockpit dropped out of the restraints, cursing as they hit the ceiling and tried to orient themselves.

  Matty staggered over. “Go see if the men in the airlocks need any help,” he said. “If any of them are dead, or wounded, shut the airlock and come let me know. Okay?”

  Tiago nodded, eyes wide. “Yes sir,” he said, and ran off.

  At the first two airlocks the upside-down gunners waved him away. They were okay. The third had untied himself and gotten facing the right way. But his gun was upside down, and he was fumbling with how best to grip the handles and trigger. Tiago saw something moving behind the man through the open airlock. He dropped the knife and raised the pistol with both hands.

  It was Pepper, walking through the forest of burned and broken trees. His trench coat was tattered, frayed, and he walked through the burning mist with no other protection. Blood streaked his forearms. His dreadlocks slapped his shoulders.

  Tiago raised a hand hello, and as he did so, a shadow moved. With deliberate grace, the form stepped into the light, sliding over the gravel and dust from Pepper’s side.

  “Watch out!” Tiago shouted, but even before the first word came out, Pepper spun, the tails of his coat spreading, two guns suddenly in his hands firing.

  The Doaq’s mouth dropped open, snapping at the shots and eating the bullets.

  “Shoot it!” Tiago shouted at the gunner. “Now!”

  The man jerked into action. The sound of the gun right next to Tiago stunned him. A bone-jarring, jerking chatter echoing in the tight metal airlock. Bullets stitched along the ground toward the Doaq, which snapped its face toward the incoming onslaught.

  It opened wide and ran toward them.

  Tiago started swearing and fumbled with the pistol. He got the safety clicked off, held it up, and started pulling the trigger, adding to the stream of bullets headed at the Doaq.

  They didn’t seem to disturb it.

  But then Nashara came sprinting in from the side and struck the Doaq. They tumbled end over end in a cloud of dust until they slammed into a rock. Pieces of pulverized rock flew into the air.

  “Get to the cockpit,” Pepper shouted. “Get ready to trigger the Saguenay’s device.”

  The Doaq ripped free, stumbling back, and Pepper started punching it in the head while dodging the snapping maw.

  Tiago didn’t wait. He dropped the empty gun, picked up the knife, and sprinted for the cockpit. “It’s me, Tiago,” he shouted as he approached. Thinkerer’s men leaned around the thick door and waved him in.

  The screens were back on, dimly showing scenes from outside the ship. Tiago didn’t pay attention.

  “Pepper and Nashara say we need to get ready to fire the wormhole killer,” he panted.

  Matty’s eyes widened. “Oh, shit.”

  Tiago stepped back to look at the screens. Where were …

  There. Pepper and Nashara and the Doaq in a running battle. Bullets smacked the ground, leaving tiny clouds of dust. The Doaq was weaving between the two of them, trying to keep facing them both.

  It was a dance. The three of them swirling around each other almost too quick to see. But it was a dance with a purpose. The two of them were herding the Doaq. Tiago could see the pattern from up here on the screens. In order to keep facing them, the Doaq had to keep leaping and twisting. That easy grace it had was gone. Now it was a frustrated gymnast in robes, trying to stop either of them from getting behind it.

  Until …

  Until Pepper leapt in and grabbed an arm and spun. Nashara slid in and took a leg, Pepper let go and she continued the spin, taking it further and throwing the Doaq, mouth-first, right toward the spire of the ship.

  Tiago realized what Pepper wanted. The Doaq had a wormhole in its mouth!

  “Turn it on!” Tiago screamed. “Turn the wormhole killer on!”

  Matty started throwing switches and pressing buttons. A whine split the air ahead of them. Sparks ripped up and down the spire outside.

  The Doaq flew through the air, mouth opening wide and wider. It looked like it was going to try to eat the entire forward spire of the spaceship. And if that was a wormhole in the Doaq’s mouth, maybe it was possible. Maybe it would just open wider and wider, until it swallowed the entire Saguenay.

  But it couldn’t, it didn’t open that far. Just dropped as far as the creature’s feet.

  The Doaq fetched up against the spire, mouth impaled on it. But the spire didn’t come out the back of its head. It had swallowed it whole.

  “Fire it!” Tiago screamed. “Do it now. Do it!”

  He heard the slap of a button and on the screen the air shimmered and rippled. Distorted pieces of reality flung free of the spire as energies that Tiago would probably never understand were unleashed.

  The Doaq howled and grabbed the spire. It seemed to understand what was happening now. It struggled to shove itself backwards. An inch. Then a foot. Another foot. It was slowly pushing itself it back down the spire.

  More energy rippled around, and the Doaq’s body distorted. The arms scrabbled with a panic now. The mouth opened, as if trying to swallow the destructive energies foaming around insi
de the darkness.

  “More!” Tiago shouted.

  “That’s it. It’s either going to destroy the wormhole or not now,” Matty said.

  They stared as the Doaq writhed, spitted by its instrument of destruction. And then the Doaq turned inside out, spread into fragments that flew outward for a microsecond, before then being swallowed inward by the collapsing point of the failing wormhole in its mouth. The cockpit shook, knocking everyone to their feet.

  The flash of light burned Tiago’s eyes, and when it cleared, the whole spire of the Saguenay remained outside again.

  Minus the Doaq.

  Everyone stared at the empty space in front of the spire.

  Gunfire chatter filled the cockpit. Tiago whipped around. The two men by the entrance were on their knees, sighting down the corridor and firing at a pack of wolves sprinting down the corridor toward them.

  Wolves? Tiago thought. What were wolves doing here?

  One of them opened its mouth wide. Too wide. It dropped low and behind it was nothing more than light-eating darkness.

  Tiago’s knees weakened. “Matty!” he shouted. “We’re under attack!”

  The wolves burst through into the cockpit, skidding and skittering. Matty and the other men spun, shooting them in their sides. Two of the wolves stopped moving, explosions of steam and sparks erupting from under their shiny skins.

  But the third leapt up and swallowed Matty. It happened so quickly. One moment he stood there, firing, the next, there was just the grinning wolf.

  The other two men jumped back, shooting uselessly as it turned to face them. It jumped up and wrestled them down, maw snapping them up in gulps. Jaws dislocating to accommodate the screaming, bulky men.

  One of the injured, limping wolves struggled to its feet and looked at Tiago with glowing blue eyes.

  Tiago held the knife up at it. A useless gesture.

  “Tiago!” It was Nashara. She sprinted down the corridor toward them both. She shot twice and the wolf snapped to face her, then started loping forward at her.

  The other one looked over, then back at Tiago.

  He looked at Nashara and held up a hand. Not sure if he was waving bye, or asking to be pulled free of this nightmare, and then the wolf jumped into the air.

  The long jaw extended, slowly growing larger and larger as Tiago watched it descend on him. There was nothing but blackness surrounded by teeth. Nothing he could see but that descending maw.

  That wave of blackness struck him as he stood there, swinging the knife in the air at it, screaming.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Kay ran recklessly down the mountain, tripping and falling several times. She’d heard the whoosh of another RPG round, and then a thud, and then howling. She hoped it had been the wolf-thing in pain and not Pepper.

  Tumbling down and rolling, standing and hopping, and running down even faster. The worst of the rain abated so she ripped her fire-protection suit off, glad to breath full, deep lungsful of air – even if it burned and seared her with leftover mist.

  She ran into League soldiers halfway down. Grim and serious men in green uniforms, they captured her and took her to their commander within minutes. The silver-haired but barrel-chested man looked up from a map he had open in his hand. He looked her up and down with a dismissive glance.

  Digging deep, projecting calm authority and the snap-crisp sort of pronunciation that would dig through his state of mind, she said “Sir, the Saguenay, the ship you’re trying to recapture, is up in a valley. I can lead you to it faster than you can meander this mountainside hoping to find it through sheer, stupid luck.”

  “How do you know about the ship?” he asked. She had his attention.

  “I was part of the crew that took it,” she told him casually.

  “You’re just a young girl,” he said with a frown.

  “And you’re an old man in a green uniform sitting on a rock.”

  They stared at each other.

  “I’m sorry, what?” he asked.

  “Oh – I thought we were just stating obvious facts to each other. It’s a fun game, but right now, the question is: will your team be able to get to the ship anytime soon? Or will you ignore me and end up wasting a lot of time and lives. How many men do you have here? Are they prepared for overwhelming combat odds against aliens with extraordinary skills and advanced technology?”

  The commander blinked. Who was in charge here? He was moving to catch up, realizing that his first impressions had failed him. “My men are good fighters, but what aliens are you talking about?”

  “Up in that valley are wolves with wormholes in their mouths, high-speed drones with some sort of energy weapons, and possibly, other things I can’t imagine. You will need to react quickly. The men you are hoping to chase, Nashara and Pepper, and the clockwork cyborg called Thinkerer, these are actually your allies. Not your enemies, as you’ve been told. They’re trying to stop the invasion of an alien force through a wormhole buried in the valley. Ally yourselves with us, and our worlds will survive. Delay, and you harm only yourself.”

  He looked up the side of the mountain toward Fire Valley.

  “Look,” said Kay, leaning in close and throwing everything she had into her voice. “The fate of this world, Sir, is in our hands. If not possibly the fate of other worlds if this gets past us. Now, are you going to follow me? Or dick around and screw us all?”

  The commander looked around wearily, then pointed at two men. “Bring mortars,” he ordered. “You, head back to Theascots, tell her to bring her squad forward and meet up on the ridge. And have her send back someone to explain that we’re following a local scout to the ship’s location. They’ll want to converge on it. Let them know friendlies are in the area. Go.”

  He stood up with a grunt and folded up the map.

  “Well, then, young lady, you have yourself a detachment of the League’s best fighters. If you’re blowing smoke up my ass, or trying to walk us into an ambush, your life is about to get pretty fucking hairy. But we do know the Saguenay headed up in this direction.”

  Kay nodded. She ached. She was bruised everywhere, her left ankle throbbed from a fall. And for a split second, she considered the fact that she should just point the League in the direction of the ship and let the collision of League, Xenowealth, and Thinkerer take care of the Doaq and its impending invasion.

  But then she wouldn’t personally see it all through with her own eyes.

  She turned around and waved them along. “Let’s move.”

  #

  It took longer to get them up the mountain than she would have liked. The mortars were heavy. Ammunition was being carted up along with them. But they struggled on behind her.

  At first they were wary, but as the climb continued, they fell into focusing more on the problems of carrying their equipment along with them.

  On the crest she could see that the battle had lulled somewhat. The fires raged around the destroyed trees and among metal wreckage on the streambed. The Saguenay had been shot out of the sky and rested on the other side of the valley. It had plowed and rolled through fire trees until coming to a rest. More fires raged around it.

  Kay saw two familiar shapes loping their way around the trees toward them. “There,” she said to the man nearest her. “Wolves.”

  A three-man fire team dug a machine gun’s baseplate into the dirt and mounted a heavy gun on it. Another team huffed along the ridgeline, moving over a couple hundred feet to get a different angle.

  The wolves were a hundred feet away, mouths dropping open, when they opened fire. Just as before, they opened their maws further, swallowing the bullets and speeding up to a full run at them.

  Just as the nearest wolf leapt for the machine-gun crew, Pepper flew from behind the nearest tree. He struck the wolf and snatched it out of the air. The sound of rent metal filled the air and the sparking, twitching corpse of the wolf was thrown clear back down toward the valley to tumble lifelessly among the fire trees.

 
; Turning to face Pepper, the other wolf snarled. And as it exposed its side the two machine guns ripped into it. Startled, it jumped away, crawling on forelegs to try and retreat to safety. Pepper walked down the hill and caught up to it. He stomped its head in with a boot until there was nothing but a mangled mess. All that remained was a one-foot-wide black disc in the ground. A tiny wormhole, just lying there.

  Pepper walked up to the League soldiers.

  “Hello, Pepper,” Kay said.

  “Hello, Kay,” he looked around at the weapons approvingly. “I’m happy to see you brought some new friends along with you.”

  The commander of the men walked forward. “I’m Commander Apherton, League Forward Team Crimson Zee. Any other day we’re supposed to shoot you on sight for crimes against the League. But I just had a wolf with what looked like a wormhole in its mouth try to kill me, so I’m guessing the girl wasn’t lying to us, and we have to put that aside for now?”

  Pepper looked at Kay with a microgrin, just for her. Amused that she’d once again chosen truth to get her way. “You should pay very close attention to what she says,” he told the commander.

  Very funny, she thought. But said nothing.

  “We killed the Doaq,” Pepper said. “I thought you would like to hear that.”

  Kay nodded, but found that she had nothing. Where was the triumph? She dug around inside herself for it, but there was nothing there. Not even grim satisfaction.

  What did that mean?

  This hadn’t been for nothing. They’d done something important here. They’d changed the balance. They’d killed the nearly unkillable.

  She’d done it.

  And that was it.

  Pepper was still talking. “We’re holding off the automated defenses it put in action. Of course, Commander, we wouldn’t turn down your help. But I’m really out here trying to find Thinkerer. Is he with you?”

  Kay stopped and thought. “I haven’t seen him since we split. When the wolves attacked us and you told me to run.”