by Logan Jacobs
“Do you trust me?” I interrupted and locked eyes with her.
“Yes,” she said.
“I got you, my beautiful space valkyrie,” I quipped and gave her my best Havak grin before I dove back under the water and hovered just below her feet. My eyes scanned the expanse of deep blue below me. I tried to calm my breathing as adrenaline spiked my bloodstream, and a voice in my head shouted at me to swim down and find safety.
“Shut up, ya’ pussy,” I said to that little voice and brought the Equalizer up to my shoulder.
It didn’t take long for me to see the dark shape of a forty foot long Great White as it slunk through the water. It caught either the sight or the scent of PoLarr and with a swish of its massive tail, it shot toward us at Mach speed.
When it was twenty feet away, I let go of the rifle with my left hand which moved to my suits regulator just behind my neck. I twisted the valve as hard as I could and felt a massive stream of bubbles shoot from the tank. I took as big a lungful of air as I could and began to kick right toward the swimming mouth full of razor teeth.
The big fish saw the bubbles and forgot about PoLarr as it changed directions in a flash and was soon hot on my tail.
I dove smack dab into the middle of a group of champions who fought a large centipede like fish with serrated mandibles that were easily eight feet long. I blew through the mandible fish’s mandibles and past the champions, and they barely had time to register what was happening before the Great White slammed into the middle of everything. Watery chaos ensued.
Mandible fish and Great White attacked each other with gusto, and half the champions fired at them with everything they had while the other half swam for cover. I was about to breathe a sigh of relief when I saw the dark purple Mako shape of Aurora flash by to my right.
The black-purple dark matter flickered once or twice then completely disappeared to leave nothing but the unconscious Aurora as she floated completely helpless.
“Oh for fuck's sake,” I sighed and managed to suck in my last lungful of air before my tank ran dry, and the bubbles stopped. I let the Eradicator fall to my side as I pumped my legs with all my might. The small propulsion jets in my dive fins gave me a quick boost of speed. I grabbed her by the collar of her wetsuit and yanked her toward me just as a fluorescent orange and blue moray eel flew past us.
My legs kicked harder as I began to drag Aurora toward the surface. Laser blasts sizzled past me. I stole a fast look back and saw a huge fur-covered champion who was close on my heels. He held onto a small propulsion skiff that propelled him through the water and also shot lasers, apparently. I tried to weave from side to side as I ascended but the drag from Aurora’s weight made my movements slow and predictable.
I saw the glow of the laser cannons on the skiff and prepared myself to feel the cauterizing burn of superheated light, but just before the shots fired the Great White cut down diagonally from above and caught the champion in its massive jaws. I heard a muffled scream and saw the guy’s bottom half twirl away trailing thick ribbons of green blood.
Just before Aurora and I broke the surface I saw that there was still a whole minute left on the clock. I had no air left and doubted we’d be able to survive very long on the surface.
We both came up from the deep with a splash, and I handed Aurora to PoLarr who grabbed on with her good arm. Aurora sputtered and water poured from her mouth but she stayed unconscious. I flipped my face mask open and gasped for air. My lungs burned, and the air tasted like heaven. I didn’t have long to enjoy it because forty yards away I saw the six-foot tall dorsal fin of the Great White slice through the surface like a blade of doom.
It moved away from us for a beat and then turned and homed in on our position.
“Marc,” PoLarr said, her voice breathless.
Without a word I swam behind her, pulled the Equalizer from her right holster, and then swam out ten feet in front of her.
The dorsal fin flew toward us with uncanny speed. I took in a deep breath and slammed my facemask shut before I dove under the surface of the water.
The Great White swam toward us, its hungry mouth slightly open. I saw the mangled torso of the hairy champion caught in the Great White’s teeth filled jaws. Several air tanks dangled from his utility belt and flapped against the inside of the massive shark's mouth.
The Equalizer came up in front of my face in a two-handed grip. My thumb pulled the hammer back.
The Great White swam faster, and its jaws grew as wide as the world.
“Smile, you son of a bitch!” I yelled and pulled the trigger.
The little torpedo shot from the gun and struck the air tanks.
Twenty feet in front of me the giant Great White exploded. Chunks of bloody flesh flew out into the ocean and up into the open air. The rear half of the once mighty shark sank slowly down with a thick trail of blood clouding the water behind it like smoke.
A moment later, I felt the tingle of my molecules being blown apart, and I was teleported out of the watery abyss.
Chapter Five
I poured out of the mat-trans tube along with about fifteen gallons of salt water onto the floor of the gym. I undid the seals of my helmet and tore the uncomfortable, claustrophobic thing off my head and let it clatter on the ground. I looked up half expecting Artemis’ lips already to be on mine in our normal “hey you survived” kiss but she was in front of the tube next to mine where PoLarr and Aurora had materialized. My memory flooded back, sometimes it took a second or two after mat-transing, and I rushed over to help her.
My hands grabbed hold of Aurora and hooked under her armpits as I started to carry her over to a gurney Artemis had already set up next to the tube.
“Thanks, Marc,” Artemis said as she helped PoLarr out of the tube. I could see droplets of crimson blood drip from the sleeve of PoLarr’s wetsuit. The break must have been worse than I originally thought and had broken the skin. It was a testament to how fucking tough PoLarr was. She had to have been in excruciating pain but she treated the horrible wound as if it were a bad bruise.
“Artemis, I am fine for the moment,” PoLarr hissed through clenched teeth. “Please, check on Aurora first.”
“You are both in need of equal amounts of medical attention, PoLarr,” Artemis said with a stern yet compassionate voice. She’d make a hell of an Earth doctor if she ever decided to give up being our jack-of-all-trades medic, attaché, executive assistant, and co-trainer.
Artemis led PoLarr into our med-bay and sat her down on a table while I wheeled the gurney with Aurora on it next to her.
Grizz appeared next to Artemis, his face a mask of concern.
“How are they, Artemis?” he asked.
Artemis tapped a few buttons on her forearm mounted holo-display and green laser light played over both Aurora and PoLarr. I could see their vital signs appear on the holo-display as well as digital representations of their bodies.
“Aurora suffered some slight water inhalation and is physically exhausted,” she responded with her critical Dr. Artemis tone. “Some Blue Betty and rest, and she’ll be just fine. Oh, she’ll probably also need to feed a bit. But I’ll leave that up to her when she wakes up.”
A pair of robot arms descended from the ceiling with various bits of medical equipment in their sterilized titanium hands. In an instant, the hands had cut her wet suit from her body, covered her in a light green hospital robe, hooked up an IV of Blue Betty to one arm, and placed a clear oxygen mask over her mouth. I averted my gaze when the hands pulled the shreds of her wet suit off. Aurora was by no means shy, but it felt somewhat wrong to gawk at her while she was passed out.
Artemis then moved over to PoLarr. The green diagnostic laser hovered over her right forearm. She took a small pen-light device from the side of the bed and placed it right at the crook of PoLarr’s elbow. With the press of a button, a tiny red laser lit up the end of the device, and Artemis slowly and carefully traced it down PoLarr’s inner arm until it reached her wrist. She then ginge
rly peeled back the sliced wetsuit to expose PoLarr’s forearm.
“Oh, that looks bad,” I blurted out before I could stop myself. “But you have orange bones! That is fucking cool.”
A jagged piece of broken bone poked through the skin halfway down her inner forearm about a half of an inch. Little trails of purple blood trickled down her pale skin and dripped off of her index finger to pool on the med-bay floor.
“You’re lucky your wetsuit contained the blood and acted as a de facto compression tourniquet,” Artemis said as she examined the break closely. “Several of those sea creatures would have found you very interesting if they had caught the scent of your blood.”
“If that was them uninterested,” PoLarr said with a wince, “I’m very glad as well. I hate the water.”
“Can’t imagine why,” I said with a smile, a small chuckle and wink. PoLarr caught my eye.
“We should have gotten a bigger boat,” PoLarr said and winked back. Being able to share references with someone who had access to my pop culture soaked brain was pretty awesome sometimes.
“Farewell and adieu to you fair Spanish ladies,” I started to sing quite off key.
“Farewell and adieu to you ladies of Spain,” PoLarr finished with a laugh and then she sucked air in through clenched teeth. “It hurts to laugh.”
“Stop being stupidly charming and making her laugh, Marc,” Artemis chided me, but I caught the smile on her lips. “Okay, PoLarr, I’m going to have to set this before I put on the ultrasound cast. It’s going to hurt.”
“Pain don’t hurt,” PoLarr responded and laughed again. “We must watch Roadhouse sometime, Marc, because that line makes no sense.”
“Don’t worry,” I responded, “it doesn’t make any more sense in the movie either. But it sounds cool, and Patrick Swayze is everyone’s hero.”
Artemis placed a hyper-syringe on PoLarr’s neck and hit her with a dose of painkiller. She then took a hold of PoLarr’s wrist with both of her hands and braced her hip against the side of the bed. One of the robot arms gently took hold of PoLarr’s upper arm to keep it steady while the other hovered over the location of the break with a Nintendo Power Glove without the hand part looking cast thingy.
“Okay,” Artemis said with a deep breath, “On three. One. Two--”
And then she yanked PoLarr’s arm forward without warning. The bit of orange bone disappeared under the skin and in a flash, the robot hand had the power glove cast over the site of the wound. PoLarr clenched her teeth hard when Artemis pulled but didn’t cry out at all. Jesus, she was one tough badass bitch.
The Power Glove cast began to glow with a pale blue light and hummed quietly. After a moment PoLarr let out a relieved sigh.
“The concentrated ultrasound should have you good as new in about thirty-six hours, PoLarr,” Artemis said as she checked the readout on the cast, “and the hyper-violet light blasts will greatly reduce your pain level.”
“Already working, Artie,” PoLarr said. She leaned her head back on the angled bed. I watched the pain and stress leave her face as if washed away by rain. PoLarr had always been striking and very attractive, but this was the first time I noticed how young and innocent she looked as well. “I’m going to rest for just a bit.”
“Hey,” I said as moved over to her bedside, “you kicked ass and took many names today.”
“Thanks, Marc,” she replied through half open eyelids. “‘Smile, you son of a bitch,’ classic Havak.”
I leaned over and placed a soft kiss on her pink lips. She kissed me back briefly, like the soft flutter of butterfly wings, and then fell asleep.
I walked around the bed and over to Artemis who was still intent on the medical readouts for her two patients.
“You amaze me, you know that?” I said quietly next to her ear as I took her in my arms from behind and nuzzled into her neck. “As hard as we fight in the arena, we’d be nothing without you here to patch us up, physically and mentally. Plus, you’ve got a great ass.”
I squeezed her butt as I said ‘ass,’and she giggled and turned around in my arms so that her face with inches from mine.
“That’s why I have remunerated the large dollars,” she said with a small smile that lit her face up like a thousand-watt bulb. I let my hands travel up into her thick, brown hair, pulled her face close, and kissed her passionately.
“We are not remunerated with dollars or any form of currency, Artemis,” Grizz said with a hint of confusion. He’d been so uncharacteristically quiet, I’d forgotten the big lug had still been there.
“Euphemism,” both Artemis and I said in unison and then laughed.
“Ah, of course,” Grizz nodded. “An idiosyncratic annoyance that seems to never cease. Huzzah. Well done today, Marc. I thought for sure you were about to sacrifice yourself for Aurora and PoLarr in those last few moments.”
“If that’s what it took, Grizz,” I said as I glanced down at the two sleeping warriors. “I’d do it in a heartbeat. Thankfully, I seem to be a master of eeking out by the skin of my teeth.”
“Why would your teeth have skin?” Grizz asked. I raised my eyebrows in an answer. “Ah, yes, now I understand the euphemism. Teeth have no skin, therefore, you escape narrowly. Earth humans are strange creatures.”
“True that, Grizz. True that,” I responded with a shake of my head, and then it hit me what was missing. In all the commotion I hadn’t noticed a certain orange skinned beauty’s absence. “Hey, where’s Nova?”
“Oh, yes, sorry,” Artemis began, “just as the match was beginning she got called to do a live viewing reaction segment for FNE.”
“A what for who?” I asked quite confused.
“FNE?” Artemis answered with another question. “The network you did the Trillium Vou interview for? Forge Needlecast Entertainment? They broadcast all the matches throughout the mega-verse. Since Team Havak has gained quite a fan following, they wanted Nova to come in and watch the match live on camera to get commentary and reactions.”
“Like interstellar live Tweeting?” I asked rhetorically as I thought about Nova in front of a camera, “Nova would hate that.”
“She was not enthused,” Grizz affirmed. “I do not blame her. Personally, I hated that aspect of the Crucible. Wait, why would birds be involved?”
“Twitter?” I asked even though I already knew the answer. “It’s an Earth social network. Not important.”
“Hah!” Grizz exclaimed. “Your species would be much more advanced if you ceased to spend your time developing social networks for avians.”
As if her ears had been burning, Nova strode into the gym. She indeed did not look happy. She walked right up to me, kissed me hard on the mouth, then punched me even harder in the arm.
“Oww!” I yelped. She could hit really hard. “What was that for?”
“Smile, you son of a bitch?” She fumed. “Were you nuts? I was scared out of my mind, and I don’t get scared. Ever. Having to watch and not participate is torture.”
“Not if you do it right,” I whispered under my breath. There had been so much tension since the match ended I couldn’t help myself. Sometimes my jokes were for my own benefit.
“How did the viewing go, Nova?” Artemis asked brightly.
“See for yourself,” she pressed a button on her holo-watch and our view screen blazed to life.
It showed Nova in a chair behind a small desk with two other champions flanking her. They all watched the underwater match from several angles. It was at the point where the big shark had slammed into us from above.
One of the champions laughed at our misfortune. Without a word, Nova punched him in the face and threw him over the desk.
“Not funny now! Huh, hornswoggler!” TV Nova yelled and head-butted the other champion who’d tried to grab her by the shoulder. There was a lot of shouting. Several stagehands attempted to break up the fight. One of them got tossed into the air and hit the camera which got knocked to the floor, went all static-ey and then blank.
“Hornswoggler?” I asked as I tried very hard not to laugh.
“It’s Paladinian for motherfucker,” Chaz said from behind me.
“What the fuck?” I yelped as I spun on the little blue guy. As soon as I saw him though, my anger and surprise faded, and I just wanted to give him a hug. So, that’s exactly what I did. “Hey, Chaz, you little nugget. Where’d you come from?”
“Yes,” Artemis sighed angrily. “Where did you come from?”
“Oh, I never left the other day,” Chaz responded with a big smile.
“What?” Artemis asked.
“Yeah, you guys seemed busy, so I just hung out with the janitor bots and watched you,” Chaz said as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“For two days?” Grizz asked doubtfully as he looked down on the short sleeve, wide tie clad munchkin.
“Sure,” Chaz said with confidence and glee. “The dust made for a great pillow. You should try it sometimes. Oh, Marc, maybe you and I could have a sleepover?”
“That would be fun,” I said earnestly.
“No, it would not,” both Nova and Artemis said at the same time.
“Yes, it would,” I said quietly to Chaz who nodded his head in agreement.
“Oh, Marc,” Nova said as she recovered from the thought of Chaz and I bundled up in the janitor’s closet, “As I was being… escorted… from the FNE studios, Trillium Vou mentioned that she would like another interview ASAP.”
“You look very good on camera, Marc,” Chaz said as he looked up at me with admiring eyes.
“Why thank you, Chaz,” I responded proudly. “I concur.”
“Oh Jesus,” Artemis huffed, walked over to the command center, and tapped a few buttons and pulled up a calendar. “I’ll let Trillium know you’re free tomorrow late morning. You need some time to rest after that match.”
“Would you like a back rub?” Chaz offered.
“Um, maybe later, Chaz,” I said to try to make some peace. “In fact, buddy, how about you do me a huge favor and send a personal message from me to Darry to say thank you. Without his modifications, we would have been so much sauteed shrimp scampi today.”