by Jean Kilczer
“They don't want the plant to burn down, General,” I smiled, “not even by the Pit.”
“Ain't that a shame.” He swept rifle fire across a wall. The dried wood sparked and burst into flame. “Then maybe they should retreat to the Pit.”
“Uh oh.” I heard the deep drone of a vehicle. “Some kind of heavy truck.”
“A wall-smashing heavy truck,” Ara Saun said.
The last Rebel threw himself through the bottom door.
“Our turn.” Ara Saun went to all fours. “Let's go!”
“C'mon,” I called to Huff and ran to the floor door. Huff followed. “Go, buddy!” I told him.
He held back. “You go first, my cub.”
“Goddammit!” Ara Saun yelled. “One of you fucking go! The fucking building's burning down.” He pushed me and I fell through the open door. He must've pushed Huff, too, because he landed on my back.
The wind was knocked out of me. A sharp pain raced across my chest and I gasped in a breath. Had I broken a rib? I tried to get to my knees, but pain blazed as I tightened my muscles.
“What's wrong?” the general called.
“My ribs.” I gasped in a shallow breath. “I…I can't breathe.”
“We can't stay here,” Ara Saun said.
I screamed as he lifted me over Huff's back. Pain blazed like the fire above. Huff crept down the crawl space, sobbing. I ducked as my head scraped cross beams.
“Hold on, my cub,” he said. “I would not hurt you for all the dire flappers of the North Sea. I would die in the Pit before I would hurt you.”
I wanted to reassure him, but breathing was difficult and took all my attention.
“Jules!” Joe called through the open link. “What the hell's happening?”
I drew in a slow breath and took out the comlink, but I couldn't speak. “I…”
Ara Saun, behind us, grabbed the comlink from my hand. “This is General Abriel Ara Saun. We're escaping through a crawl space that leads to an underwater grotto somewhere offshore.”
“Is Jules all right?”
“He's with us, but I think he broke a couple of ribs.”
“You think a couple?” I squeezed out.
“He can't talk now,” Ara Saun told Joe. “Neither can I, right now. I'll contact you later. Over and out.”
“Wait!” Joe said. “We have skiffs and four fifty-foot boats, with your two. We can pick you all up with the skiffs, and take you to the boats, then we'll make a run for it.”
“A real Dunkirk,” Ara Saun said. “I'll keep the link open. Once we get out of this crawl space, we can decide where to meet. Jules will have to wait in the grotto for your scuba gear. I presume you have scuba gear?”
“You presume right, and survival suits to get him to a boat. After dark,” Joe said.
“After dark,” the general agreed.
“How's Jules holding up?” Joe asked.
“He's probably had better days, but he's, ah, he's hanging on.”
That was an understatement as I clung to Huff's back.
“Who are you?” Joe asked Ara Saun. “You speak like a Terran. Are you a Rebel Slattie?”
“We'll discuss heritage over an earthbrew sometime, boss. Don't judge my race by your friend Huff, if you don't mind. Over and out.” He stuffed the comlink back into my pocket. “You hold onto this. The advantages of wearing clothes. C'mon, trolls, let's move it,” he shouted ahead to his people. “With the gods on our side, we'll beat back the Cultists in the water and make it to a ship.”
“Blessed be the Ten Gods,” Huff intonated.
And Great Mind's inclinations on which of his children to favor this day, I mentally added.
Chapter Six
The shaft slanted down as we went deeper. It was black as coal, but Slatties have good night vision.
We came to a wooden airlock that kept the deep grotto air pressure from being forced through the narrow shaft and losing the air into the Cultist's plant. It was tedious, waiting as the Slatties went through two at a time, but finally our turn came. I heard the general close the door behind us. He slipped past Huff and me in the wider lock, and slid open the door on the grotto's side. I felt the air pressure increase as the door opened, but not by much.
We couldn't have made this passage if the grotto was deep. The change in air pressure would open these makeshift doors. I wondered if the grotto was below thirty feet. If so, and if we stayed very long in the pressurized air, it would be a decompression ascent to the surface.
We emerged into the dark of a cavernous grotto. Some sort of alien algae grew on the limestone walls and emitted a greenish glow that defined the air space of the cavern. A small lizard scurried into a crack in the wall at our appearance. The air smelled heavy and damp, and was laced with salt. Below, a pool of water led to the open sea.
I eased off Huff's back and he helped me to sit down without tightening my muscles. The weight of a truck still pressed on my chest.
Around us thirty-five or so silent Slatties climbed onto rocks, their weapons drawn from arm holsters.
I began to shiver in the cold dead air and couldn't stop. Huff gently wrapped me in his furry arms and stroked my back.
“I will remain where you remain,” he said and sighed. “I will protect you from the enemy and from the Sea Goddess Kalira who sometimes devours one of our people and throws his bones onto the sand for birds to peck.”
“Thank you, my friend.” But my concern, as I unholstered my stingler, was for more than sea goddesses. The Cultists might have put out the fire and followed us, or, if they knew the location of the grotto, they could attack from the pool.
I fished out my comlink and turned it on. “Joe?” I said hoarsely, “are you there?”
“I'm here. Where are you?”
“We're in the sunken grotto. Do you see any blue-banded Slatties on the surface? Those are the Cultists.”
“No. We've been searching the surface. So far, nothing.”
The general reached for the comlink. “Let me talk to him. This is General Ara Saun. I'm sending three of my people to the surface to guide you in with dive gear for your team member, Jules.”
“Good,” Joe responded. “One of our team members is an expert diver. She's ready with extra gear. She'll accompany your people back to the grotto.”
“Give me the link,” I told the general. “Joe, tell Sophia to bring a depth gauge and a decom computer. This might be a decompression ascent to the surface.”
“She's already taken them. How are you feeling?”
“I've felt better. I'm getting cold.”
“Joe, let me talk to him,” I heard Bat say. “Jules, it's Bat.”
“Hi, Bubba.”
“I want you to stay as warm as possible and not move around any more than you have to. OK?”
“I'm trying, doc. Huff makes a good blanket, and as far as moving, statues move more.”
"We'll have a cup of hot earthbrew waiting for you, pain killers, and… Oh, the Slatties just surfaced! Red armbands, right?"
“Those are the good guys, Bat. Tell Sophia to follow them down. Is it night yet?”
“It's getting on to dusk.”
“She'll know enough to take a couple of dive lights.”
“She just went over the side with three lights and a gear bag clipped to her weight belt.”
There was a pause.
“Bat! What's happening?” I asked.
“She's following the Slatties down.”
“I hope she hasn't turned on a light. The Cultists might be out there by now.”
“No, she hasn't.”
“Did she take a weapon?”
“A stingler. She told me to tell you something before she went over the side.”
“I love you?”
“No. That she'll be your alarm clock. Does that make sense to you?”
I smiled through chattering teeth. While we were on planet New Terra, she had teased that she wanted me to say “I love you,” every morning, lik
e an alarm clock. “It makes sense, Bat.” I handed the comlink to the general. “Stay safe, my love,” I whispered.
“I hope that wasn't meant for me,” Ara Saun teased.
“It'll be a cold day in Hell, General…or in the Pit.”
“Speaking of which!” The general drew his weapon as Slattie heads appeared in the pool. “Cultists!” he shouted. “Take cover.” His people crouched behind rock formations and fired at the enemy, who were at a disadvantage, being in the open pool. The general went down on all fours and ran to a higher vantage point.
Cultists ducked and swam underwater to rocks, leaped onto them, and took cover. Blue laser flashes lit the cavern like strobe lights. There were probably twice as many Cultists as Rebels engaged in the firefight.
Huff helped me to a depression in the rocks and eased me down to sit in a flat protected space. I leaned back against the rock and drew my stingler. This time I would not hesitate to kill. It was a matter of survival.
“No, oh Sophia!” Huff said as he peered over a rock and waved. “Go down good!”
“What?” I started to get up, but pain hit like an axe across my chest and I fell back.
“It is good as in OK,” Huff said. “She went under the surface. I think she saw me wave.”
“Oh, God. Huff, can you meet her at the pool's edge? Do you think she knows the Cultists have surrounded it? They must have followed her and the three Rebels here to the pool.” I leaned my head back. “Oh God, Sophia.”
“I do not know all that, my Terran cub, but I will meet with her.”
“Huff!” I grabbed the fur on his back leg. “Be careful.”
“I will care for me well.”
“Damn these ribs!” I gently probed the right side of my chest. Yes! More than one broken, I concluded. Spirit. Syl 'Via. Spirit!
It is a battle that will be lost and won, Spirit sent, but we cannot foretell the future.
Do you see Sophia? I asked.
Yes. That was Syl 'Via. She remains underwater, Jules. She is aware of the danger.
“Thank Great Mind,” I whispered. Do you see Huff approaching her?
Huff has slid into the pool, Spirit sent. He is guiding her to a safe passage out of the water.
Thank you, Spirit! Are they out of the water yet?
They are now, he sent, and making their way to you from behind rock formations.
Huff suddenly leaped the rock where I hid, and almost landed on me.
“Jesus and Buddha!” I muttered.
Sophia threw herself over the rock and slid down. She dug in her feet to stop herself before hitting me.
“Soph!” I cried. “Are you all right?”
She nodded. “I was going to ask you the same question. The mudcroakers followed me and the three Rebels down.”
“I thought so. Thank you, Huff for bringing her safely here.”
He nodded his snout, a gesture he'd learned from me. “I am welcome.”
Sophia lifted her sonar visor. Her eyes gleamed and appeared wide with the layered lenses for underwater sight. “Babe,” she whispered, took my head in both her hands and touched her forehead to mine. “I thought I lost you.”
Water dripped on my face and jacket from her dive suit, but her gloved hands, and her body, were warm with the suit's heating filaments. She pressed the purge valve and the compressed air, used to maintain neutral buoyancy, hissed from the valves of her suit.
“We've got to get you out of here and into the boat.” She unclipped a gear bag from her weight belt, unzipped it and pulled out a dive suit, a small artificial gill unit, a throat mic, and other equipment. She unzipped my jacket.
“Soph, the Rebels need every man they've got. They're outnumbered by about two to one.”
She sat back on her heels. “Yes, they are. And if they have to make a break for it, do you think you can run with broken ribs, Mister Superstar?”
“It won't be a cake run.”
She gently eased off my jacket. “The wounded are not asked to decide on flight or fight, if it comes to that.” She glanced around from behind rocks. “Which it well might, considering the numbers.” She pulled off my boots and gloves. “Anyway, Bat wants you on the boat where he can treat you.”
“I can't argue with Bat.” I smiled. “He might give me a shot just to shut me up.”
I eased into the dive suit with her help, hooked fins to my weight belt, slipped the artificial gill unit on my back, and inserted the layered lenses. I always hated those things. I strapped a knife in a sheath to my left arm, fitted the throat mic and sonar visor, and took one of the lights. The straps around my chest hurt and I could only manage shallow breaths.
Sophia stuffed my jacket, boots, and woolen hat into her waterproof gear bag and clipped it to her belt. I holstered my stingler in my thigh sheath. It was waterproof, but useless underwater.
With this gear, we could stay down for about one day, if need be, and if we had fresh water, which we didn't, and a place to relieve ourselves, which we didn't.
“Soph, how deep are we?” I asked.
She checked her gauge. “Twenty-four feet. It's not a decom ascent, if that's what you were wondering.”
“I was. Huff, do you intend to stay here with the Rebels, or come back with us?”
He shook his head. “Jules, my cub, I have heard you say that you could not love your mate…”
Sophia frowned at me.
Huff nuzzled my face with his furry cheek. “Loved I not honor more,” I told Sophia. “I'm afraid for you, Huff. If…if the battle does not go well, consider retreating. There's honor in living to fight another day.” Tears slid down my cheeks.
He dabbed them with a paw. “Now you will make my eyes leak, too.” He licked my face. “Go with the blessings of the Ten Gods. You too, mate of my Terran cub,” he told Sophia. “I will cover you with my fire until you are both safely underwater.”
Sophia kissed his cheek. “Go with Great Mind.”
I grimaced as she helped me to my feet. We stayed low while Huff fired stream after stream over the rocks where the Cultists hid, and made our way to the pool behind the cover of a limestone formation.
We slipped under, into dark water, put on fins and lowered the sonar visors. I could hardly kick against the water. Sophia took my arm and did most of the work as she led me toward a tunnel and out to the open sea.
We flicked on our dive lights and I drew in a breath. The water was crystal blue, with swathes of indigo and sapphire. A school of red fish flashed by, close enough to our lights to show their true colors. The moon was a broken sphere overhead, with a shaft of silver to light our path.
I jumped as we approached the underwater base of a glacier and our lights turned it into fantasy veils of cobalt and frosted white.
Sophia and I looked at each other but said nothing in our mics, hushed by this gift of the sea.
Why this incredible beauty? Was it just the natural result of frigid climes, or had Great Mind conjured with ice and water to produce a hidden masterpiece.
We finned our way past alien forms of jellyfish with shimmering lights that laced their oblong bodies as they pulsed by, and strange red many-legged starfish that moved sluggishly away at our approach, like a slow dance.
Where did the violence and stupidity of a civil war fit into this realm of transcendent wonder?
I felt the beat of large bodies and swung my light. Six Cultists, their blue armbands waving in the water, were approaching.
Sophia's grip on my hand tightened. Their weapons were as useless as ours underwater, but they had teeth and claws. We unsheathed our knives for what it was worth. I knew they wanted to take us alive and present us to Lord Aburra for his sacrificial altar. I vowed I would kill Sophia and then myself before I'd let him cut out our hearts or livers with fire knives while we still lived.
A pressure of giant bodies. Muffled trumpeting underwater. Granbor and his Druid family appeared out of the blue fantasy, plowing toward the Cultists, who broke ranks and fled
before the great-bodied sea mammals.
Sophia and I surfaced so we could speak to the Druids. They followed us up.
“We owe you,” I said.
“Yes, you do,” Granbor commented. “And you will owe us more. Two of your boats were chased out to sea by the Cultists so they could capture you and your mate here.”
“What about the other two?” Sophia asked.
“They were burned with weapons by the savages.”
I held my breath. “What about our people?”
“They escaped on the two boats.”
I glanced at Sophia and we both breathed a sigh of relief. “Can you help us to find them?” Sophia asked. “Perhaps let us hold onto you?”
“That is not possible,” Granbor said. “We would have to remain on the surface to find your boats, and we would be at the mercy of the Cultists' weapons in air.”
“Maybe we should head for the beach,” I told Sophia.
“That would be a good thing, Terran,” Granbor said, “but not this beach.”
“Then which one?” Sophia asked.
“Further along this coast, there is a human structure, made by two Terran scientists who said they were here to study the flora and faunae and meant us no harm.”
“Are they still here?” I asked.
“They told us they would return, but they never did. My people liked them. A father, and a daughter who never stopped talking.”
“Oh my God,” I said. “Gabby and her father, Sophia, Doctor David Wallace.”
“Yes,” Granbor said, “those were their names. We have wondered about them.”
“Doctor Wallace was killed on another planet, Granbor,” I told him, “in another star system.”
He gazed up at the stars. “How strange. And the offspring Gabby?”
“She returned to Earth to work at a laboratory.”
“May the Ten Gods hold his soul in their hearts.”
“I think they do,” I said. “So they built a hut here,” I asked, “somewhere on the land?”
“We will take you to it. You can rest there, as Terrans do, within structures, and you can stay warm, as Terrans like to do.”
“Do you know,” Sophia asked, “how the battle went in the grotto?”