Sleeper Seven

by Mark Howard

  Star had already lectured her on the differences between the Gen II's and III's, so Jess knew she could maneuver this one using the ring momentum only, since no active thrust was needed. As the ship was already in a hovering state, all she needed to do was orient the leading edge towards the exit, then tip the ship forward a few inches.

  The flaky touchscreen, however, misreading her input again, began to rotate the ship in the opposite direction. Overcorrecting, she swung the ship too far back, almost clocking a worker walking by on the way to the newly arrived ship. Halting the ship's movement, she watched in horror as the worker stopped and looked up from a tablet he was working on. Though he must have felt the rush of wind from the massive machine's movement, he appeared puzzled only for a moment, then continued on.

  Unwilling to continue her attempt at straightening the ship, Jess decided instead that she needed to get out, now. As she dialed up the small station-keeping thrusters in the rear, the behemoth tipped and began to slide down the tunnel towards the exit. Inside, the ring emitted a louder hum, as if to complain about the loss of equilibrium.

  Halfway down the tunnel, Jess checked her aft camera to see the worker with the tablet running back to the door along the wall. Attempting to increase the thrusters, Jess activated the wrong control again, and the ship careened into the tunnel wall. The screeching of metal on rock filled the tight space as it simultaneously lit up in a shower of sparks. Overcompensating again, she accidentally veered the ship towards the opposite wall, and girded herself for the impact. The ship, however, internally assessing its operator as being challenged, took control, and righting itself, it rotated to face the opening.

  Buoyed by the assistance, Jess tilted the ship further forward, picking up speed. A few hundred feet from the exit, however, her stomach dropped as another pair of headlights descended into the entrance ahead, blocking her escape.

  ~ 65 ~

  They couldn't have scrambled a ship that quickly, she thought to herself, and the idea that there was a sentry ship standing guard at the tunnel entrance seemed ludicrous. This must be just another ship coming in for storage, she surmised, and punching the rear thrusters, she tipped the ship another foot, slingshotting it forward.

  With no room for the ships to pass each other, once again Jess braced for an impact, but instead of a crash, the ship shuddered violently while the hum of the ring became deafening. Looking up, Jess saw the other ship right off her nose, but backing away just quickly enough to avoid a collision. Once outside the mountain, the other ship jerked upward, yielding the way, and she easily slipped by underneath.

  Cleared of the impediment, the shuddering stopped while the momentum continued to rocket her over the valley below. Speeding into the opposite ridgeline without any time to register a reaction on the console, she closed her eyes and felt a violent thrust upwards, as the ship took over once again, clearing the top of the ridge.

  In the open air, Jess finally had time to control the ship and bring her around. Whatever the disembodied version of anxiety was: a sizzling, jumpy feeling — minus the pounding heart and sweaty palms — she had it. Calming herself, she recalled what Star had told her about the built-in intelligence of these ships, and assumed the two had negotiated amongst themselves to avoid a collision.

  With dismay, Jess realized in the confusion of stealing the ship, she had forgotten to inform Star beforehand; at any moment the kill command might be transmitted, rendering the whole operation a bust. Considering this significant oversight, along with her inability to pilot the ship across the country in her present state, she decided she needed to pick herself up.

  It took several anxious minutes for Jess to maneuver the ship back around towards where she was camped. Just as she found her tent and parked the ship above it, a pair of high-powered spotlights appeared on the opposite ridge. There were two ships now, and they were clearly looking for her.

  As Jess returned to her body, the pent-up anxiety instantly manifested as a physical reaction: sweat poured out of her, and her body shook uncontrollably, as if she were experiencing a grand mal seizure, for a full thirty seconds before subsiding. Exhausted, she fumbled around in the dark for her phone to call Star. After unlocking it, though, her heart sank when she saw no dots of cell signal.

  "Shit! Shit! SHIT!" she swore, clumsily exiting the tent and chucking the phone into the brush. Sitting down cross-legged, she waited for them to find her — or for the disable command to hit her brand new ship hovering six feet above — whichever came first. It didn't really matter to her now; she couldn't care less if they detonated it directly over her head. The mission was a failure.

  Laying her head across her folded arms, she began to sob, until she noticed a prickly sensation climbing up her back. Reaching up, she felt strands of her hair standing at attention. Immediately realizing her mistake, she jumped up and ran to the scrub brush. As she frantically searched for her phone, the spotlights from the search ships lit up the area: they had spotted the dim light of her thrusters, and were on their way over.

  Thanks to the lights, she found the phone next to a rock — screen shattered, but still functional. Bolting further away from her ship, she watched the dots of cell signal increase. Star answered on the first ring.

  "What's the good word?" she asked, as she walked barefoot through the foamy surf of a dark and deserted south Florida beach. Big Mama quietly hummed behind her above the gently cresting waves.

  "Go! Go! Go!" Jess shouted, running back to her own ship.

  "Got it. Safe travels!" Star yelled back, pocketing the phone and reaching down to grab her sandals before hoofing it over the wet sand back to Big Mama. She would be over Cuba in less than two minutes.

  Jess quickly collapsed her pop-up tent and awkwardly shoved it up into the hatch of the ship as the sleeping bag and other gear jostled about inside. She shut the hatch just as the two search ships rose from the valley below, blocking her way out. Catapulting the ship forward, she hoped to push them out of the way again. This time, however, the ship halted abruptly, like a roller coaster coming into the station, sending her reeling across the floor. Apparently the negotiation algorithm isn't on my side this time, she guessed.

  Seizing their opportunity, the other ships closed ranks and forced her ship, with a grinding shudder, backwards up the mountain slope. Grabbing the captain's chair, Jess pulled herself from the floor and buckled in, just as the ship angled sharply upward and oscillated wildly in place, futilely attempting to maintain stability while stuck between the two pursuers and a sheer rock face.

  She was trapped.

  ~ 66 ~

  Jess waited for...whatever was going to happen. And she waited. And suddenly she realized: They couldn't do anything. These were surveillance ships, not attack ships. They were waiting for the kill signal to hit her, which Jess knew — if Star was in position, as she should be — would never come.

  De-synching the thrusters, she fired each in turn, executing the pinwheel maneuver she witnessed on the government ship. Slipping free, the ship cartwheeled upwards a mile into the night sky. Synching the engines, Jess returned to horizontal, and looked below to see the powerful search lights growing larger as the pursuing ships quickly rose to meet her.

  Crossing her fingers that there was no major air traffic ahead, she tipped forward and sped off west into the darkness. Her primary goal now was to get out over the ocean, away from any populated areas. When she saw nothing but darkness below her a minute later, she checked the aft camera and was shocked to see the two sets of bright lights only a few hundred feet behind her.

  She tipped downward while angling left, but it was too late. Two jolts rocked the ship as they bumped her from behind. Attempting to turn right, she found the controls unresponsive: the ship only turned a few degrees before refusing to go further. Turning left produced the same muted result. As she furiously punched through the control screens looking for the problem, the ship began turning of its own accord.

  Flipping back to the c
amera view, Jess saw the two ships on each side of her now, just off her stern. Unmoving as they continued through the rolling turn, she realized they were somehow linked to her ship in a delta formation, and were forcing her back to land. Try as she might, she was unable to break free, and her furious efforts at extraction only delayed their ultimate goal to force her back around. She was overpowered.

  Slumping in her chair, she watched the lights from the shore come into view on the horizon as they turned her around. So close, she thought regretfully. Resting her head on the console, she tried to think of a way out of this mess. Hold on, she thought, they aren't physically connected to me.

  Attacking her console, she de-synched the engines and burst the forward thruster. The sudden jolt flipped the front of her ship upward, while the rear corners remained linked to the chase ships, who were still in level flight. Falling backward, her ship locked into place between the two pursuers, as the formation morphed from a triad to a trapezoid. Upside down now, Jess killed her forward thruster and opened up the rears, pushing the front of the formation angling downwards towards the dark sea.

  Unable to break free, she hoped instead this game of chicken would shake them loose. The chase ships attempted to stabilize the formation by turns, but succeeded only in twisting the group to the right or the left. Finally, the two ships coordinated a simultaneous burst of their rear thrusters, pushing further into the dive, and angling them away from the water at the last second. Now, however, they were inverted, righting Jess in the process.

  Jess, having fun now, had already anticipated their maneuver, and immediately reversed her new switchblade trick, dropping her rears to zero and pushing her forward thruster to max. Flipping her ship out front once again, she synched all three engines and opened them up, once more sending the group plummeting towards the sea.

  Too low this time, the pursuing ships couldn't compensate, and Jess braced herself against the console. Eyes closed and teeth gritted, she felt only a slight bump as they plunged into the dark water. She opened her eyes to see a wall of green seawater shooting by no more than six feet beyond the ship's hull. Loosening her death grip on the console, she switched her view to the forward camera to observe a bright white orb a hundred feet or so ahead of her ship. This ball of sizzling light, a high-tech Moses, was rending apart the seawater like a hot knife through butter, allowing the ship easy passage.

  She watched, entranced, as the orb began to grow in size, until a low double-tone sounded from the console opposite her. Flipping her display to the other console's screen, a graphic of the triad of ships appeared, with an elongated bubble — the envelope — surrounding them. Highlighted in yellow, the graphic contained a bar graph within it, displaying 45%. As she watched, the number reduced to 40%, prompting the console to issue the low double-tone once again. Glancing at the panels above and below for confirmation, it was clear to Jess the seawater was slowly closing in.

  Flipping back to the navigation panel, she noted their current depth of 2,700 meters and pressure of 268 atmospheres. Based on the percentage of envelope remaining, she quickly calculated the critical point to be approximately four thousand meters. Flipping the console to the aft cameras, she sat back and waited for her pursuers to lose their nerve and break off, as the tones became louder and more insistent.

  When the indicator reached fifteen percent, however, beads of sweat formed on her forehead as Jess began to lose her nerve. Sitting forward, she intently watched the screen, willing the chase ships to break their hold on her ship. Five percent came and went as the wall of rushing seawater encroached to within a foot of the hull. Flipping to the engine management screen, she held her fingers above the console in order to fire the thrusters the moment her pursuers disconnected, or when the envelope threshold crossed below one percent. But they were still on her, reminding her of the tenacity of the North Korean jet pilots, who were willing to die in order to capture or to kill her.

  Beginning to panic, Jess was about to engage the thrusters, when suddenly, as the indicator passed one percent, a calm came over her. Deep within, she heard the same soothing voice, or remembrance — she couldn't be sure which — but it said to her: Run into the fear. Removing her hands from the console, she sat back in the captain's chair, tightened her harness, and took a deep breath.

  The warning chimes increased in frequency until they merged into a constant tone, before ceasing entirely. A boom suddenly rocked the ship, and Jess scanned her console to find not only all of her thrusters, but those on the other ships as well, firing wide open, slowing their descent. This maneuver, executed beyond human control, was from the ship's own systems, coordinating amongst themselves in a last ditch attempt at self-preservation. They had come to the consensus opinion that the human pilots, abandoning their responsibilities, had intended to self-expire.

  "No." Jess calmly stated. Reaching forward, she shut down her engines one by one, before cutting power to the ring itself. Solidifying around her, the thickening silvery mass instantly became a tremendous anchor, inexorably pulling the trio downward. The seawater flew past the panels as they sank like a stone into the darkness.

  The algorithms of the chase ships, taking into account this unexpected new variable in their equation, furiously recalculated contingency b-tree pathways for a total of seven-hundred and nine milliseconds, before shutting down their six remaining thrusters. Even the machines, now, had accepted their combined fate.

  ~ 67 ~

  As the envelope indicator reached zero percent, it became eerily quiet — the eye of the hurricane. Jess continued to breathe deeply, no longer concerned with the chase ships. Sixteen seconds later, the envelope collapsed completely.

  The seawater smacked into the hulls with a thunderous crack, rocking the ships. The chase ship's pilots, who were also now dead in the water, hurriedly init'ed their ship's systems into single-user recovery mode using a red USB key at each Captain's console. Back up and running, they detached from Jess' ship with two loud clunks, and manually blowing their thrusters, ascended towards the surface.

  As for Jess, she sat quietly as her ship, free now, sank further down. Deep groans and concussive metallic pops rocked the cabin from all sides. The fore and aft cameras were the first to go, screens frozen on the last green pixellated image captured before their lenses collapsed. Heavy thuds issued from the left rear of the ship, as one of the thrusters went dark on the console. Additional thuds from the other corners indicated the remaining thrusters had met their fate as well.

  A final jolt, accompanied by a terrible, metallic ripping sound, reverberated through the cabin as the viewing panels turned from jet black to light gray. The ambient lighting faded as the red dots of emergency lighting appeared on the floor, and the darkness allowed Jess to witness millions of previously invisible, tiny particles streaking upwards against the viewing panels. After a minute of detached fascination, her zen-master spell was broken, as she realized with horror that the ship had breached the seafloor, yet continued to sink with alarming speed deep into the silt.

  Turning her attention back to the console, Jess found the ring still operable, and brought it back online. As it spun up, the reassuring low hum returned to the ship, as did the ambient lighting, greatly calming her nerves. The engine console, though, was toast — the thrusters were not only all offline, but no longer even appeared on the display. Same for the camo console. The hull seemed to be intact as Jess detected no obvious leaks, but the majority of the subsystems were critically impaired.

  The powerup of the ring had halted any further downward movement, but the ship wasn't rising either, and without any thrusters, she was stuck. Out of ideas, and knowing that time was short, she decided to escape, leaving her body behind. Placing her head on the console, she exited, wondering with trepidation if this would be the final resting place for her physical form.

  Once out, she called the image of Big Mama to her mind, pulling herself to it until the ship resolved around her. Star, hunched over a console, glanced u
p with a start.

  "Oh, shit!" she exclaimed, rushing over to search the area. Jess, confused, moved away from her to the far side of the cabin. Halting her search, Star looked up, confused, until sighting Jess again.

  "Who is that!" she barked.

  Utilizing her parlor trick, Jess shot a jolt of electricity through her nervous system, giving Star a quick glimpse of her form.

  "Holy Guacamole! Jess! You scared the piss outta me, I thought there was a fire. Anyway, neat trick, girl! But hey, what's up? Something gone wrong?"

  Recalling what Terry had taught her, she attempted to form some etheric speech organs. "Bottom," she croaked out. "Water... Stuck... Help."

  "What? Your bottom-water's stuck? Jess, honey, I can't hear you, it's all garbled."

  Jess, for her part, felt like Lassie all of a sudden. Smacking her etheric head, she slid over to the Captain's console and began typing.

  "STUCK EMBEDDED IN SEAFLOOR UNDER PACIFIC ENGINES GONE HELP WHAT DO I DO"

  Star, hearing beeps from her console, ran over and read her message.

  "OK. Slow down first. Are the thrusters out?"

  "YES NOT EVEN ON SCREEN"

  "OK, that's bad honey. Is the ring online?"

  "YES STUCK IN SILT BUT STOPPED SINKING"

  "All right, now that's not so bad. Now remember what I said, with that one, you can use the ring all by itself. Spin it up, then adjust the flow pattern inside using the nozzle icon, it should propel you out. Oh crap — but you don't have the envelope, do you?"

  "NO"

  "Well, it's gonna be slow going, just make your way out best you can. Listen, gonna be honest, I don't know how much time I have here, I already see a patrol on the way, so I can't say how long I can hold out here before they scramble a coupl'a ships. Good luck, honey."