Chapter 5
820 Words
3: Keelin
Keelin
Keelin had only tried this move twice before, both on sims. The first time, she’d miscalculated, fireballed her craft, had her trainers chewing her out for weeks. The second time, she analysed, calculated, pulled it off. And had her trainers berate her for hours to find out how she’d rigged the system, how she’d fooled them.
They never admitted that she hadn’t cheated. They told her the move would never work outside the sim, even though they also swore that the sim was exactly like the real thing.
Keelin hoped it was as realistic as they claimed, or this was going to end very badly.
She cut power to the rear booster, re-routed excess into fore-topside. Data screamed an overload warning. The craft buckled, threatened to split.
She shoved the nose down, hard as she could. Heard Piran scream as the closest trailing Ion filled the sensors, felt heat from its body against her own. Proximity flared, would’ve stopped the move if she hadn’t already disengaged it.
The Ion missed them by a hair’s breadth.
The Proteus slammed nose-first into the water.
It wasn’t a graceful entrance. The force threw Keelin into her seat. The water pressed against the hull, against her flesh.
“What the hell was that?” Piran said, his voice shaking.
Keelin forced herself to breathe, knew the water covering her body was only an illusion. “Wasn’t about to let them take us.” She glanced around. “We all okay?” Because a good pilot always checked on their passengers.
Deva sat with eyes wide, pale fingers clasping the terminal in her lap. Ryann had her head back, swallowed, calmed herself. Brice looked bored. Piran trembled.
About what she would’ve expected.
“I take it the Ions can’t follow us,” Ryann said, only a hint of a wobble in her voice.
Keelin shook her head. “Only work in atmosphere.”
“But they’ll be monitoring the sea. They’ll be waiting for us to emerge.”
“Yep. So we stay down here for a while. Air tanks are full, so we’ve got hours.”
“You sure about that?”
She shot Piran a glance. “What?”
He shuffled in that seat, like he’d soiled himself. Better not have done, or he’d be cleaning the mess.
“Might want to check the data,” he said. “We’ve got a leak.”
He turned away, mouth twitching. Like he was afraid she’d hit him. Tempting, but not for this.
Keelin read the data. And cursed.
“The annoying git’s right. One tank ruptured, second’s got a dodgy seal. Running on emergency air.”
“Which means what?” Deva asked.
“Five bodies on board, probably half an hour. If we breathe slow. Got masks too, gives us each another fifteen.”
“So we need to surface in under an hour,” Ryann said. “Ions have a longer range than that, don’t they?”
“Fully powered, couple of hours plus.”
Piran muttered something Keelin didn’t catch—no, didn’t want to. His moaning wouldn’t help the situation.
She glanced over other readings, pulled up sensors in turn. Underwater, the Proteus was sluggish, but easy to control, and letting the craft drift beneath the surface didn’t take much. So she looked further.
“Close to the island. Rock ahead. Has to be the base of the volcano.”
Piran flapped his arms, didn’t do more than cause a draught. “Then turn around! Last thing we want is to wind up on that place!”
Keelin shook her head. She zoomed in the front sensor feed, marked it for Piran—and for the others. It would show up on Deva’s terminal too. “We’ve got a way out,” she said.
“What are we looking at?” Ryann asked.
“Cave.”
“So?” Piran’s forehead creased.
“It’s an opening.”
“Don’t see how that helps us.”
Keelin resisted the urge to slap him. “For someone so bright, you’re b****y stupid at times. Readings say the cave goes back a long way, far enough that the sensors can’t probe any further. Volcano’s riddled with tunnels. Have to come out somewhere.”
“And, what, you reckon you can get us through? What if it’s too tight?”
“Reverse.”
“What if you get us stuck?”
“You think I’m not going to be careful? You reckon I want to hurt my Proteus?”
“And what if we do get out? If Kaiahive has a base on the island, they’ll spot us, right? Probably got craft and people patrolling the whole place.”
“We don’t have an alternative,” Ryann said. “We can’t surface in the open, and we’ve got limited air. That cave is our only chance.”
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