by S. E. Smith
“No,” Jenny gasped, throwing her hands out and pushing off the seat.
The loud screeching noise had stopped and a different sound surrounded them—this time of water gurgling. Jenny glanced out the front window of the escape pod and saw water pouring in around it. The moment the level reached the top of the two cylinders supporting it, a low hum started.
“Dolph! Open the door,” Jenny cried out, trying to figure out a way to stop what was happening.
“Jenny!” Dolph yelled.
Jenny stumbled back when the escape pod began to float. She couldn’t hear what Dolph and Kelia were saying. She frantically ran her hands over the panels next to the door but nothing happened. She reached out to steady herself when the locks holding the escape pod disengaged.
“Jenny, what do we do?” Juno asked, peeking up at her over his knees.
Turning, Jenny bit her lip and looked around. The console was beginning to flicker and light up. Weaving her way around the seats, she slid in front of the steering column.
The console looked pretty basic. There was a gauge that showed how much power the escape pod had, another gauge that gave depth, and one that showed the speed. There was also a separate screen that operated the lights and showed the oxygen levels.
Jenny pulled back on the steering wheel and released a soft, startled gasp when the escape pod tilted. She glanced at the floor where a single pedal stuck out. Looking at the depth gauge, she saw that the escape pod was beginning to rise.
“Juno, come up here and strap in,” Jenny ordered, glancing over her shoulder at the little boy.
Juno nodded and slid out of his seat. He hurried to the molded seat next to her and climbed onto it. He grabbed the straps of the harness and quickly pulled them across his chest and waist, clicking them in place.
“I’m ready,” Juno said.
“I wish I was,” she muttered under her breath.
She gave Juno a wobbly smile before inhaling and releasing a long, calming breath. This couldn’t be that much different than some of the boats she had driven. Heck, the controls looked more like a golf cart, and she had plenty of experience driving one of those after three summers working at the county golf course as a teenager.
The water pouring in was almost over the top of the escape pod by now. At the last minute, Jenny remembered she wasn’t wearing a seat belt and fumbled for the straps on her seat. She clicked the last one into place less than a second before the escape pod shot upward at a stomach-dropping speed.
Swirls of water and bubbles surrounded them, making her feel like they were caught in a waterspout. Her stomach dropped back down to her feet when the jet of water pushing them up suddenly released them. A sense of disorientation swept through her and she blinked several times trying to see through the bubbles that were slowly spreading out.
“Jenny, watch out!” Juno cried.
Jenny reacted out of instinct, pressing her foot down on the pedal as far as it would go and pulled back on the steering wheel. The escape pod instantly responded, reversing with enough force that the two of them would have been thrown from their seats if not for the seat belts. She turned the steering wheel, and the escape pod veered to the left.
The dark tentacle that Juno had seen heading for them missed the escape pod by a mere foot. Seeing it up close and personal made Jenny realize how enormous the creature really was, and the fact that it wasn’t alone. Nearly a dozen smaller versions of itself, if you could call creatures the size of a blue whale smaller, were battling with Orion’s men.
Her eyes widened when she saw a flash of red swerve under a thick tentacle. From this distance, she could see the sharp, ivory mouth of the creature snapping. Horror filled her when she saw the struggling figure of one of the warriors and a blue sea dragon wrapped in the long, sludge gray tentacle. The squid was pulling both of them toward its mouth.
“Hang on,” Jenny said, twisting the steering column hard to the right and flooring the escape pod.
“Watch out, there’s a tentacle coming toward us from above,” Juno warned.
“What do these levers do?” Jenny asked.
She nodded to the twin toggle levers. Juno leaned forward and grabbed them. He pulled them down and two arms shot out. A smile curved her lips when Juno emitted a short laugh of delight.
“We have arms too! If I push the button on top, they open and close like fingers,” Juno laughed.
“Well, I say we kick some butt and save a merman and his sea dragon,” Jenny said.
“I like that,” Juno replied, grinning at Jenny.
Jenny glanced at him before refocusing on where she was going—which was away from those long, ugly, and dangerous tentacles. Spying a gap between the wiggling limbs, she pressed the steering wheel forward.
Jenny saw the warrior slice through the tentacle that had imprisoned him and finally break free. Architeuthis still held the sea dragon.
“The warrior is free, but the sea dragon isn’t. You have to hurry, Jenny!” Juno said in an urgent voice.
Jenny’s heart thundered in her chest as she weaved the small craft through the mass of tentacles that were larger and longer than some of the redwood trees back home.
“I’m going to come up under the tentacle. I want you to pick the crap out of it with those hands. Hopefully, it will release the sea dragon,” Jenny instructed.
“I hope so, too,” Juno agreed.
Jenny ignored the snapping claws of the mechanical arms. Kids were a natural when it came to video games. She would just have to trust that Juno would be able to clamp down and they could hold on long enough for the tentacle to uncoil and the sea dragon to get away.
Pressing the escape pod to go as fast as she could, Jenny swerved in an arc and came up from underneath. She maneuvered the escape pod so that it was between the sea dragon and the mouth of Architeuthis. Once she was close enough, Juno stretched the arms out and clamped both of the clawed hands around the feeding tentacle of the squid.
“Press the lever forward to put as much pressure on it as you can. I’m going to try to pull the arm back,” she instructed.
“It’s hard to hold on, Jenny,” Juno complained.
“You have to, honey. We can do this,” she said.
Personally, she wasn’t so sure. The engines of the small pod were straining against the strength of the squid. She could hear the groaning of the metal arms. A flashing light, followed by an alarm sounded, but Jenny didn’t have time to check what it was for.
Through the glass, she could see the tentacle starting to uncoil. The sea dragon that had stopped fighting a few minutes before must have felt the change as well because it began snapping its tail and pushing with its front legs again. Out of the darkness created by the ink, Jenny saw the warrior appear with a glowing sword. The man repeatedly struck at the squid’s tentacle imprisoning the sea dragon. Bright red blood rose in a cloud and Jenny saw the tentacle unfurl like a rug rolling across the floor. The sea dragon kicked out and the warrior swung onto its back.
Jenny was about to tell Juno to release the clamps when the little boy squealed in terror. Out of the darkness, a smaller squid emerged. The creature struck the escape pod, ripping the arms from the vessel and sending it spiraling out of control.
A cry of dismay was ripped from Jenny as they spun around. Before their dizzy ride was finished, dark tentacles wrapped around them from behind and they were jerked down and away from where the main battle was going on. Jenny looked out through the front. In the growing distance, she could see Orion swinging the trident in his hand. A powerful funnel of water pushed back a line of squids trying to encircle him.
“There are too many of them,” Jenny whispered.
“Father needs the full power of the trident. Dolph said that is the only way Father can control the creatures,” Juno whimpered.
Jenny’s lips parted as flashes of images suddenly merged together. She dropped her right hand to her side and rubbed the outside of her pocket. She felt the telltale lump of
stone picked up on a beach far away in what felt like a lifetime ago.
“Juno, do you know what The Eye of the Sea Serpent looks like?” Jenny asked, reaching into her pocket and wrapping her fingers around the stone.
“Yes, it looks… It looks just like that,” Juno replied. “How did you get the eye, Jenny?”
“Never mind that, we need to get it to your father,” she said in a grim voice.
Chapter Thirteen
“Kapian, drive them away from the city,” Orion shouted.
“We are down three warriors and five sea dragons,” Kapian replied.
“Your Majesty, look!”
Orion turned to see an injured warrior on a bleeding sea dragon struggling to get to him. Both man and beast bore the wounds from the squid’s suckers. Orion turned his gaze to follow where the man was pointing. One of the escape pods was barely visible through the turbulent and ink-stained water. Thick tentacles were wrapped around the vessel, pulling it down toward the edge and into the deeper water.
“We do not have enough men to spare to save them. We must choose between the lives of a few or the lives of thousands,” Kapian said.
“It is the new Queen and your youngest son, Lord Orion. They fought to free my stag,” the warrior said in a weary voice.
Despair hit Orion hard. Kapian was right—save the lives of two and risk the lives of thousands? As a ruler and a warrior, his duty was to his people and his kingdom… but, as a father and husband, his duty was to his family. Never before in his life had he been forced to make such a devastating choice.
“We draw Architeuthis away from the city. If she goes, the others will follow,” Orion ordered in a thick voice, his gaze on the disappearing escape pod.
“Orion! I did not mean…,” Kapian started to argue.
Orion turned his head and stared at his Captain of the Guard with eyes devoid of emotion. A chill had crept through him as he watched the squid slide over the edge of the precipice and sink down into the darkness along with his heart. With the responsibility of power and leadership also came sacrifice.
“NOW!” Orion snapped, pulling on the reins of his stag and turning toward the colossal squid. “Attack!”
“Juno, we have to get this stone to your father,” Jenny said, frantically pressing the foot pedal.
The escape pod strained to break free before the lights began to flicker. Jenny’s gaze swung down to the console. They were almost out of power.
“No, no, no, no, no!” Jenny groaned, leaning her head down until her forehead rested against her hands on the steering wheel.
“What’s wrong? Why are the lights going out?” Juno asked.
Jenny lifted her head and looked out at the growing darkness. In the flickering light of the escape pod, she could see that they were descending along a long wall of rock. In frustration and rage, Jenny turned the steering wheel and pushed the pedal down one last time. Shock coursed through her when the escape pod suddenly rotated. The sound of a loud shriek echoed through the vessel. The tentacles holding them jerked for several minutes before falling away one by one.
“What just happened?” Jenny whispered.
She looked up through the top of the glass sphere with wide, confused eyes. The scraping of the suckers had etched deep grooves into the glass. The tentacle took its sweet time falling away.
Juno unhooked his seatbelt and climbed up on his seat to peer through the glass. Jenny undid her strap and cautiously stood up. She climbed up on her seat as well to see what was going on—and wished she hadn’t when the eerie round eye of the squid stared lifelessly at her.
“I think you crushed it,” Juno said, jumping on his seat to try to see more of the creature.
“I think I did more than that,” Jenny replied.
When she rotated the escape pod, she did it at the perfect moment. Not only did it trap the squid between the escape pod and the cliff, but it happened at a point where the rocks protruded. From what she could see in the dimming glow of the outside lights, the creature’s head was impaled on several long, sharp rocks.
“Uh-oh,” Juno said when the last of the lights flickered.
Jenny looked down at the console. She climbed down off her chair and tried to press some of the buttons, hoping there was some kind of battery backup or emergency power. When nothing happened, she hit it with her fist.
“Ouch!” she muttered, rubbing her bruised hand.
“I don’t think hitting it will make it work,” Juno said, sliding down until he was sitting in his seat again.
“It’s worked before, once or twice in the past, on a few things—my classroom stapler, the mouse that had been dropped a million times, my electric toothbrush. Never mind,” Jenny muttered when she saw Juno’s confused expression. She sank down into the seat and stared moodily at the console. “I’ll think of something.”
“Father will come for us,” Juno said.
Jenny could hear the uncertainty in Juno’s voice. They had both seen the same situation up above. She leaned back in her seat and stared up at the darkness. A small red light was reflected in the glass, its glow cast by the emergency light. There was no telling how long it would last.
Jenny began to shiver as the cold started to sink in. Until that moment, she had forgotten that without power there would be no heat—or oxygen. Fear gripped her, and she closed her eyes against the burn of threatening tears. She had no idea how deep they were or how far they were from the city. It felt like they had fallen down forever. The fear grew when the escape pod made a strange creaking sound and shifted.
“Jenny, look!”
Juno’s breathless whisper pulled her eyes open. Staring up at the glass ceiling, another reflected light had joined the red one. A confused frown creased her brow. She sat up and looked down at the floor. A soft, faint-green light with reds, yellows, and blues swirling inside glowed from the Eye of the Serpent. She must have dropped the stone without realizing it. Bending over, she picked it up. It felt warm in the palm of her hand. She closed her fingers around the stone and thought for a moment.
“Juno, can you breathe underwater like your father?” Jenny asked in a hesitant voice as an idea began to form in her head.
Juno started nodding his head. “Of course,” he replied.
“If your dad had both Eyes of the Sea Serpent, could he send the squid away?” she asked, looking at the small boy.
“It would complete the trident. All sea creatures will listen to Father if he has the full power of the trident,” Juno said in a confident voice.
“If… If there was a way out of the escape pod, could you take the Eye of the Sea Serpent to Orion… to your father? Could you do it without being caught by one of the squids?” Jenny demanded.
“I’m very small and very fast. The squid won’t even see me,” Juno replied.
Jenny could tell the little boy was getting excited. Was it right of her to ask such a small child to do something so dangerous? She stopped to debate the idea. If she didn’t and they stayed in the escape pod together, they would both die from lack of oxygen. At least in the water, Juno had a chance of survival.
Shivers began to rack her body. Jenny didn’t know if it was caused by the cold or fear—or a combination of the two. Juno was wearing less clothing, but he didn’t appear to be affected by the cold the way she was. It made sense that if they lived under the water, their bodies would adjust to the thermoclines they were likely to experience.
“We need to find a way to get you out of here without flooding the escape pod,” Jenny said, pushing up out of the seat.
“There is. Each year we must go through a training course. Father says it is to keep us… Well, he says something, but I just liked climbing in the escape pod and riding in it. This last time, Coralus took us, and he showed us how to get out if we needed to. Coralus is a lot more fun than Father. He let me drive and play with the arms. That is why I knew how to do it,” Juno said with a grin.
“Can you show me what you need to do to get
out?” Jenny asked.
Juno nodded and slid off his seat. Nearly ten minutes later, Jenny gave the boy the multi-colored stone and a huge hug. Tears burned her eyes, but she refused to let them fall. She must be brave for both of them at the moment.
“Your skin is like ice!” Juno said, rubbing his small hands up and down her arms.
“Ye… Yes, I’m a lit… little… co… cold. I… I need… you to… find… your father,” Jenny forced out between her chattering teeth.
“I will. I’ll bring him back. He will know how to fix the escape pod,” Juno promised, sliding the Eye of the Serpent into the pocket of his pants.
Jenny watched the boy kick off his boots. All he wore were a pair of pants made out of the strange fabric and a vest. She was about to stand when he suddenly threw his arms around her neck and held onto her as tightly as his small arms could.
“I love you, Mother,” Juno whispered.
Jenny buried her icy face against his neck for a moment, unable to speak. Leaning forward, she brushed a kiss across his cheek and stood up on trembling legs.
She walked with Juno toward the back of the escape pod. In an emergency, two hatches could be opened—one at the top and one at the bottom. She decided it would be safer to use the one on the bottom. She feared that a sudden shift in weight could cause the escape pod to become dislodged from the ledge where it was precariously perched along the cliffside.
Not to mention, it would be impossible for me to close the hatch with the water pouring in, she wearily thought.
Her hope was that the compressed air in the escape pod would prevent the water from coming in from the bottom, something like the air trapped in a diving bell. She bent over and pulled the locking mechanism. Drawing in a deep breath, she twisted the release handle and paused. She nodded to Juno that she was going to open the hatch.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
Juno nodded. “I’ll be back,” he promised.
“Be safe,” Jenny said.
She turned the lever one more turn and pulled it open. The icy water that poured in around her ankles took her breath away. Juno held his arms by his side and stepped into the icy depths. The moment he was clear, Jenny did her best to close the hatch again. By the time she was able to get it sealed, the water was almost up to her knees.