A Show of Force (10 page)

“
Came out on target,
” Ensign Wells replied over the comms. “
Give us a few minutes to get you on the correct speed and trajectory.
”

“Take your time.”

The three of them sat in silence, all squeezed into a space originally meant for only two, surrounded by a shell that was designed to keep from collapsing against outside pressure trying to get in, rather than the reverse. It was a shell that provided precious little protection against cosmic radiation, if any at all.

“Does this seem like a really crazy idea to anyone else, or is it just me?” Naralena wondered, breaking the silence.

“No, it’s not just you,” Jessica said, laughing. “This is beyond crazy. Way beyond.”

“
Jump Sub One, Scout Three,
” Ensign Wells called over the comms. “
We are on the designated intercept trajectory with Kohara, thirty-five KPH closure rate. Jump point in one minute. Stand by for release.
”

“Jump Sub One, ready for release,” Jessica replied as she slipped her shoulder straps on as well. “Get secured,” she instructed.

“
You know, Jess,
” Captain Nash called over the comms, “
if anyone had told me that someday I’d be dropping my little sister into an inland sea a couple light years away, I would have thought they were crazy.
”

“Well, you know how much I’ve always loved water sports,” Jessica replied.

“
Just don’t drown, alright? I don’t know how the hell I’d explain this to Mom and Dad.
”

“Dying isn’t on my agenda, Bobert,” Jessica replied. “Besides, it’s damned hard to kill a Nash, remember?”

“
Jump Sub One, release in three……two……one……release.
”

Jessica pressed the release button attached to the ceiling above the front windshield. A loud grinding sound of a motor reverberated through the hull of the jump sub as the docking clamps gently pulled away from their docking collar, setting them free. She watched out the forward porthole as maneuvering jets fired along the topside of Scout Three, sending them drifting up and away from the jump sub.

“We’re free,” Jessica reported, both over her comm-set and to her two companions behind her. She glanced at the console in front of her. “Positive separation rate. Three meters and increasing. She leaned forward and peered up through the porthole at the Scout ship as it fired its deceleration thrusters and quickly fell back away and out of her sight.”

“
Fifty meters separation and increasing,
” Ensign Wells reported. “
You’re clear to jump, sir.
”

“Roger that,” Jessica replied. “Jump point in ten seconds.” Jessica armed the jump drive as the countdown continued. “Hold on, people. We’re about to get wet.”

“
Good luck, Jess,
” Robert called over the comms.

“See ya, soon,” she replied as she tightened her shoulder restraints. She glanced down at the console. “Cover up! Jumping in three……two……one…”

Jessica closed her eyes and covered her face with both hands again, tightening her muscles to prepare for the sudden jolt they would feel when they came out of the jump, thirty meters below the surface of Lake Tanner on the planet Kohara.

“…Jumping!”

The blue-white jump flash washed over the cockpit of the jump sub, lighting up the inside of Jessica’s eyelids, despite their being closed and covered. She remained tense, expecting the sudden jolt, but it didn’t come. Something was wrong.

Jessica’s hands dropped from her face and her eyes opened, immediately looking through the jump sub’s two forward windows. It was dark outside the sub. Something else was different. The gravity… “What the…?” A surge of adrenaline hit her as the situation became apparent.

Reflections of light from one of Kohara’s three moons glistened off the ripples in the water rushing under them, growing closer as they fell toward the water. “Brace yourselves!” she yelled.

The jump sub slammed into the water, not nose first as planned, but rather belly first. Jessica felt herself being crushed downward into her seat, a sharp twinge of pain radiating through her back. At the same moment, she was thrown forward against her restraints, the belts digging into her shoulders and eliciting further pain. Her head jerked forward, feeling like it was going to separate from her neck, as the force of the impact caused the sub to decelerate considerably.

And then it stopped. Jessica glanced out the forward windows again. They were floating. Not on the water, but through the air, but only for a moment. They immediately began to fall once more, slamming back into the surface of the lake only seconds later.

Again, pain shot in all directions… Through her back, shoulders, and neck. She tried to cry out in pain, but nothing came out. As they bounced upward again, she could see lights along the shoreline. The lights were rapidly moving toward them… She glanced at navigation display. They were headed right for the shore, and they were traveling far faster than they had planned.

They slammed into the water a third time, bouncing upward yet again.
We’re skipping along the surface!
Jessica realized. Her mind raced as the sub reached the top of its airborne arc.
We’re headed for shore… And fast!
She glanced at her display, looking for a way out. As they began to fall toward the water again, her fingers danced across the touch screen display, calling up the docking thrusters control page. She manually fired the nose attitude thrusters that had been installed to aid in rendezvous and docking with the Scout ship. The nose of the jump sub was pushed downward by the tiny jet of thrusters spewing out of the topside of the jump sub’s nose.

This time, instead of slamming belly first against the water and bouncing upward, the nose of the jump sub pierced the glistening water and slid under the surface, diving downward toward the bottom at high speed. Jessica again was thrown forward against her restraints as she flailed her hands about, trying to grab onto the sub’s maneuvering controls. Alarms filled the cockpit, and the surface proximity warnings began to blare. She finally managed to grab hold of the diving planes control, but it was too late.

The jump sub slammed into the bottom of the lake, driving deep into the soft mud. The sound of the impact was deafening; twisted metal and alarms, and then the sound of gushing water. Jessica felt wetness at her feet, then the feeling of cold water hitting her back from above. She was still leaning forward, hanging from her shoulder restraints.

“Mask up!” she ordered as she reached for her face mask and pulled it down over her head. She hit the activation switch, and the mask pressurized and sealed to her face. “Sound off!”

“I’m good!” Naralena cried out of the mask’s underwater comm-system. Terror was evident in her voice.

“Sarge?” Jessica queried. The water was already at her waist and rising fast, but the sub was resting at a considerable nose down angle, which put her in the deep end. “Sarge!” Jessica reached down to her side and pulled the release handle along the right side of her seat, disconnecting the dive pack that she was strapped to from her seat back. She fell forward slightly, landing with her left side against the display console. She twisted around as Naralena also released her dive pack from her seat, fell forward, and landed against the back of Jessica’s seat. Behind her, Sergeant Weatherly was not moving, and he didn’t have his mask on.

Jessica quickly scanned the inside of the cockpit. Everything was out of place, giving the entire cockpit a slightly twisted appearance. Water was spewing forcefully from several places along the seam between the top of the sub’s hull and the walls and ceiling that the engineers had added. “Avakian! Get Weatherly’s mask on him!” she barked as the rising water reached her chest.

“Sergeant!” Naralena cried out as she reached back over her seat and grabbed the sergeant’s face mask from the wall next to his head. She shook his shoulder with her left hand.

The sergeant began to move his head, opening his eyes slightly, dazed by the impact. Naralena looked down, and saw a metal brace that had come loose at impact. The sergeant was bleeding badly where the brace had punctured his abdomen. “Oh, my God!” she exclaimed as she pulled his mask down over his head and activated it. The sergeant’s mask inflated, sealing to his face. She shook him again. “Sergeant!” She looked down again, this time noticing that the brace had also pushed his right leg over, pulling his hip out of its socket. “He’s injured, Jess! Badly!” she turned to face Jessica, whose face was about to be covered by the rising water.

Jessica could see Naralena as the water rose along her face mask.

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to get him out!” Naralena continued.

Sergeant Weatherly opened his eyes and began to cry out in pain inside his mask. The water was already covering his injured leg and was climbing rapidly.

“Is his mask on?” Jessica asked.

“Yes! Yes!” Naralena answered. “He’s awake, too!”

“Get ready to open the hatch!” Jessica ordered.

“But the sergeant…”

“I can’t do anything until you’re out of my way!” Jessica barked. “So get ready to open the hatch as soon as the water reaches the top!”

“Of fuck! It hurts!” Sergeant Weatherly cried out.

“Sergeant! Shut up and listen!” Jessica barked over the comms. “We’re flooding, but we’re all masked up, including you, so we’re good! You got that?”

“Yes, sir!” the sergeant replied.

“What happened?” Naralena asked as she stood up to get her hand on the hatch controls.

“We came in nearly parallel to the surface,” Jessica explained. Her end of the cockpit was now completely underwater, and dark, requiring her to fumble around to find the lever on the left side of her seat. “And way too damned fast! We were skipping off the surface and headed for shore.”

“How the hell did that happen?” The sergeant wondered as he struggled to keep the pain from overpowering his senses.

“Somebody fucked up, that’s how!”

“Oh, God,” Naralena exclaimed as the water climbed up over the sergeant’s face. She was now standing on her seat, her head and shoulders in the hatchway.

“Relax, Avakian,” Jessica urged. “Nothing’s changed. We exit the sub just like we planned. Then we get the sergeant out. Understood?”

“Aye, sir,” Naralena replied, her voice trembling. The water was at her neck and climbing. “Oh, God, Oh, God.”

“Enough with the ‘Oh, Gods’, already!” Jessica ordered.

“Sorry, sir,” Naralena replied as the water climbed up over her head. She bent her head backward to see the underside of the hatch. The water was bubbling over her face as it reached the bottom of the hatch, finally stopping with a small air pocket splashing along the hatch’s underside. “We’re full,” she announced as she released the hatch’s locks. She pushed upward on the hatch, releasing the air pocket into the lake, allowing it to make its way toward the surface. She quickly moved upward through the hatch and then turned to the side, still holding onto the rim so that she could turn around and look back inside. The inside of the sub’s cockpit was dimly lit by the waterproof emergency lighting, and she could see Jessica’s seat lay back so that Jessica could slide aft toward the sergeant.

Jessica moved over Naralena’s seat and pulled the lever, releasing the seat back and pulling it forward to give her room. She squeezed up over the seat back so that she could reach the sergeant. “How are you doing, Sarge?” she asked over the underwater comms.

“I’ve had better days, sir,” the sergeant replied, his voice trembling as he fought back the pain. Jessica reached into the utility pocket of her suit and pulled out her small dive light, shining it on the twisted frame that had dislocated the sergeant’s right hip and then impaled his abdomen.

“How bad is it, sir?” the sergeant asked.

“Good news is you’re not bleeding that bad,” Jessica replied, trying to sound hopeful. “The bad news is that the frame broke free and is impaled in your right side.” She looked at the sergeant, staring at his eyes through their respective face masks. “There’s not enough room to slide you off that thing,” she told him. “Even if there was, you’d probably bleed out before we got to the surface.”

“How deep are we?” the sergeant wondered, his voice still trembling.

“I don’t know. Twenty or thirty meters, maybe. We’re close to shore, so it can’t be that deep. The only way we’re going to get you out alive is if we can find something to cut you out.”

“Fuck,” the sergeant replied, solemnly. He looked at her eyes again. “Where the hell are you going to find something to cut me out with, sir?”

“Hey, we’re in the middle of civilization. We’ll find something.”

“I’m underwater, sir,” the sergeant reminded her.

“You’ve got at least two hours of air in your bottle, sergeant,” Jessica said. “That’s plenty of time.”

Sergeant Weatherly looked at her like she was crazy.

“Come on, Sarge. There’s got to be a dock nearby. Some kind of boat repair shop or something.”

“Yeah,” the sergeant replied, trying to convince himself she was right. “Or something.”

“I’ll go topside and take a quick look around.” Jessica turned to head up, but the sergeant grabbed her wrist.

“You’re coming back, right?”

Jessica turned back to look at him. “Damn right, I am.” She smiled at him. “Besides, I’ll leave Naralena behind to keep you company.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant replied, obviously relieved.

Jessica turned and ascended through the overhead hatch out into the lake above, floating up past Naralena. She flipped back around and opened a compartment on the top of the sub, just aft of the hatch. She pulled out a pair of swim fins and quickly placed them on her feet. She then turned to face Naralena. “I’m going up to take a look around and assess the situation,” she told her over the underwater comms. “Keep him company.”

“Yes, sir,” Naralena replied over the underwater comms.

Jessica looked upward. The water around them was pitch black, filled with the contents of the lake bed that had been stirred up by their impact. Without any frame of reference, and no view of the surface, she had no way of knowing her depth. However, she did know that the average depth of the lake within one kilometer of the shore was about thirty meters, and she was quite sure they were no more than two kilometers out, if even one.