David realized that he’d acted so quickly in burning the egg sacs that the sacs could scarcely have been seen, despite the feed to
David had indeed acted so quickly to destroy the nest of eggs he’d found that no one could see them due the grainy feed. He urged Forbes to replay the video of his torching the bodies, to zoom in on the bodies, to see the egg sacs. “It’s the same as the alien life form in Kelly’s net,” David shouted into his com-link.
“Does appear fleshy and moving, yes,” said Forbes now of the sacs in the bodies that David had torched.
Entebbe added, “Possibly a collection of ball-like membranous… eggs, yes.”
“Kelly’s harvesting them! Taking them to the sub!”
“She’s our biological officer here to do biological studies; we’re well equipped for it.” Forbes was clearly upset with David. “What kind of trouble are you cooking up down there, Ingles?”
David heard Entebbe in the background, trying to explain about something he’d learned from having scanned Declan’s journal, but David hadn’t time to wait around.
He swam out of the Marconi Room and directly for Kelly, waving, so glad to see her alive, rationalizing that her bringing out this parcel of eggs was due to Swigart’s forcing her to help transport them to the sub. He didn’t want to believe his eyes; besides, where was Swigart? He still had not emerged from the ship.
“Are you all right?” he hopelessly shouted into his com-link to Kelly. “Where’s Lou? What’s in your hand?” But Kelly failed to reply. Instead she whipped out her laser cutting knife and sent a beam in an arc sweeping toward David, intending to slice him in half. Having anticipated the attack, David realized his danger in time to drop through a hole in the deck, risking his life in the quick move on the one hand, but on the other saving himself from the laser that tore into the Marconi Room and out the other side, the deadly beam going off into the infinity of sea.
“Lou didn’t kill her; she killed Lou!” he shouted to Forbes.
“She damn near killed you!”
“I can’t let her return to
He grabbed his own laser cutter, raised his eyes above the hole he’d dropped through and readied to fire, but she anticipated this and fired! Again he ducked below and this time the laser came dangerously close, slicing the worm-eaten wood around his head. He retreated into
On exiting at this spot, David saw her going for Max. If she entered the sub, he’d be stranded here and die within the hour as his OPFCs ran out. “She intends on getting to the surface any way she can, Captain. Quite likely planning to make off with Max and not even bother surfacing. Hell, she could land anywhere along the coastline in Max. My guess is Nova Scotia.”
“We might be able to limit the ship’s functioning from here,” began Forbes, “but I’m afraid it’s built too well for us—short of doing a full recovery, which would leave all the other divers stranded on the bottom to die.”
“If all this is true, Ingles,” added Entebbe, “you’re the only chance we have of stopping Irvin from taking control of the sub.”
David had snatched up a steel sheet, a discarded portion of a space heater ripped from one of the interior staterooms as the ship sank. Using the plate as a shield, he started after Kelly—or rather the thing she’d become. David approached the sub now from an entirely different direction that the creature could not anticipate. Taking aim, David sent his laser beam straight for her heart. The beam just missed her left shoulder as she swam, dragging the net filled with egg sacs behind her, a mother protecting its young.
When the laser beam shot past her, she whirled and fired back. David ducked behind the shield he carried, the beam burning through it just above his eyes. The steel plating slowed the laser cutter just long enough as it worked its way through, heating the metal to a glowing blue. David rolled away, dropped the shield, and came to a prone floating position to reduce her target area, and her next beam missed him by inches as a result. He fired back all in the same motion, his second beam striking her in the torso. It took but a moment for her and him to realize that the laser beam had penetrated her Cryo-suit. It was a dead on hit to the heart, piercing through her and imploding her in the dark sea water, exploding outward to destroy all vestiges of what she carried as well— miniscule black oil and pieces of those damnable egg sacs going in all directions and raining down to the ocean bottom.
He shut down his laser on witnessing the last vestige of the creature that had inhabited her hurled at extreme velocity, extremely lucky that an obsidian stone the size of a tooth zipped past his head without striking his suit or visor.
“You get all this, Captain?” he asked, knowing those above must be in shock over the turn of events below.
Forbes’ voice came back, trembling, “Got it… all on video, but I still don’t know what we just witnessed.”
“Read the damned journal, Captain.”
“Yes, yes, of course. Will do for sure. Dr. Entebbe has leafed through it. I think we know where your head’s been at now.”
Just then David got a weak vibration through his entire suit, and for a millisecond, he feared his own suit’s integrity had been compromised and he was about to implode, but this didn’t happen. Still the strange vibration persisted until he realized that it was an audio vibration coming in—too weak to be made out over the com-link but transmitting through the inductance mic in his suit. It had the feel of a distressed keening like a small piercing insect in his ear. Forbes picked it up too and asked, “What is that, David?”
“I don’t know, sir. I pray it’s not one of those damned creatures that’s somehow gotten into my suit.”
“No way,” said Entebbe. “You’d be dead if it bored the least hole in your suit.”
“It has the nature of a weak signal,” added Forbes. “But look here, David, you must get back to the sub and get back to the others; they’re all running low on air. We’re sending additional paks down now but they may not get there in time.”
“What if it’s Lou, sir? What if the signal is a distress signal Lou’s trying to put out?”
“You can’t take that chance, not now, David. Too many other lives at stake.”
“How can you say that? He’s your friend.”
“Friend or no, there’s more at stake here than Lou, and he’s likely dead, so that’s an order, Ingles. Get to the sub and get back to the aft section, pick up the others, and return everyone safely to
Then another sound, a human sound, weak but real came through David’s comm. A weak voice. Gibberish yes, but it was unmistakably Lou’s voice. “Lou! Where are you, Lou? Where?”
“Nee… he’p, Day..vid.”
“Lou, where the hell are you?”
“Rear of-of ship… where entered, below topmost deck. Stuck like an insect.”
“What happened, Lou?”
“She… that woman ran… rammed my head against a bulkhead, knocked my brains against my helmet. Woke up covered in debris, trapped here, left unconscious. Dunno how long.”
“I’m coming for you, Lou! Hold on!”
“She’s killed me, David. She… she’ll kill you, too.”
Forbes came on to say, “Lou! So good to hear you! Hang in there.”
“Afraid it’s all I can do.”
Entebbe came on. “Lou, save your strength. David—both of you, your air supply is getting dangerously low.”
David swam for Lou’s location as fast as he could determine from what the big man had managed to utter. “Heading toward your position, Lou!”
Gliding over the top of the deck, David dove along the hull, telling Lou, “Keep up some noise. Help me find you, Lou!”
From a wide-view lens via Max and sent to Forbes’ CIS room, David appeared as a speck, an insect, clawing
