Chapter Text
Ryley stirred, his neck strained with a dull ache as he slowly returned to consciousness. The floor of the pod was cold and hard against his cheek, the old jacket he'd balled into a pillow doing little to cushion his skull against the titanium floor. He rubbed his eyes, the artificial light inside the pod illuminating everything in a sickly, sanitary white light.
Reality returned slowly. Snippets of his dream lingered in the back of his mind—his sister's familiar voice, his family's workshop on Mars, the machinery in the background that hummed in a different octave than the one he currently endured. He remembered her terse tone as they argued over something or another, her toothy, genuine smile she'd given him. "You're good at this, you know." Her words echoed in his mind, twisting his lips downward in a bitterness he couldn't quantify.
He reached over and grabbed his PDA, clearing his throat a bit as his eyes flicked over the lock screen. In the center of the wallpaper(solid blue, with a tasteful Alterra logo in the center, as dictated by the company employee handbook) sat a notification from the device's internal calendar:
Write your letter! Don't forget, stupid!
Ryley blew out through his lips. "Oh, shut up," he groaned, slapping the device onto the ground face-down. "I didn't forget."
Great, he thought to himself as he sat up, rubbing his face with a hand. Now I get to think about Charity all day. That's good.
He lowered his hand, the sight that greeted him not the one he expected. The pod, once a slightly disheveled mess of tools, samples and salvage, was reborn. Every item had a place: boxes he'd used to tote items back from wrecks were neatly stacked against one of the walls, tools or materials grouped in a seemingly arbitrary but still useful fashion. The tools he had been using were now in their own space, bits of screws and wires and bolts all corralled in an Alterra-branded coffee cup. It was almost livable.
His lips parted, his gaze shifted to the small ladder leading to the pod's roof. He stood, his movements curious in their hurry but each step a reminder of the aching in his limbs. As he reached the top he saw Ozzy standing there, looking out at the endless expanse of sea and away from the Aurora. The morning light from the northern sun lit him in a bright, yellow glow. His hair was tousled from the saltwater, his star-kissed skin and eyes like shades of amber honey a blunt contrast against the cloudless blue sky.
Ryley paused as he saw him, his breath catching in his throat. Telling himself his mind was still foggy from the dream about his sister and the weight of their reality, he finished the climb, his feet making gentle thudding sounds on the roof. Ozzy neither turned nor acknowledged him, his gaze somewhere in the water near the base of the pod. Ryley lifted his arms above his head, stretching his limbs with a deep breath through his nose and a roll of his shoulders.
“Thanks for fixing up the pod,” Ryley opened, offering a smile in Ozzy’s direction.
“No problem,” Ozzy replied, his voice soft and tried. “Just trying to make myself useful.”
Ozzy didn’t turn and look at him, but he didn’t do much of anything else either. Ryley shifted on his feet, his gaze lowering to the water as he tried to think of what to say.
“Uh,” he started before he could stop, “so, how’d you sleep?”
Oh yeah, Ryley thought to himself with a cringe, aren’t I just a smooth operator. Graduated Cum Laude from Aurelia Tech, one of the youngest Chief Techs in Alterra history, got the spot on the Aurora. And what do I have? ‘How did you sleep?’
Was he really doing this? Was he really cold-palmed and jittery right now? Was he really that hard-up for endorphins that he was about to attach his ego to the wellbeing of a complete stranger? And was the sane part of him about to just let it happen?
Oh God, he thought to himself, it’s too late. Why am I like this?
Ozzy shrugged, a deliberate raising and lowering of his shoulders. “Not great,” he admitted. “I just kept thinking about… everything.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Ryley replied, his gaze resting on a giant coral tube somewhere in the distance, its upper rim just barely over the surface of the water. A seabird delicately perched atop the rim, turning its head on its neck as it gazed into the pool below. “I barely slept, too. And when I did… I don’t know. I’m amazed I slept through your cleaning.”
Ozzy glanced over at him, his eyebrows stitching together and loosening again, before he looked back at the waves. “It’s hard to process all of this. Hard to absorb. One moment, we were just… living our lives, and now…”
Ryley nodded, his lips twisting into a bit of a frown. The way a wave lapped against the pod somehow reminded him of the way Charity’s wrist popped every time she rolled it, something in the flotation device making a thmp against the metal that reminded him of the sickening pthp of her joints. “Yeah.”
They stood there for a moment, the air between them not entirely tense, not entirely comfortable. But before Ryley could think too hard about how to occupy his mind, Ozzy broke the silence again.
“So, um, what were you working on all night?” Ozzy asked, and the air felt just a little less tense.
“I managed to fix the repair tool,” Ryley replied, happy to have something to talk about. “We can use it to fix the radio and try to send a distress signal. Not that I think it matters,” he admitted with a slight tilt of his head, “but maybe we can receive some. Maybe there’s others out there.”
Ozzy looked at him, his jaw more set in a determined way. “I was wondering. I sent two distress calls: one when we crashed and the other later. Which did you get?”
“I suppose I got the second one,” Ryley considered, “but like I said, the radio’s busted. I could fix the lights and the Fabricator but the radio… Anyway, My PDA got it when I was messing on the west side of the shallows. I guess I was just close enough. But that kind of brings me to my next thing: I want to make a few Seaglides with the stuff I’ve salvaged. I probably don’t have enough but it’s a start. I’m… not a swimmer. Well,” he added, a dry touch of humor in his voice, “yet.”
Ozzy huffed in a bit of amusem*nt. “Okay,” he replied, his shoulders loosening a little. “That sounds like a plan. But listen,” he pointed an accusatory finger at Ryley, though his voice was gentle. “You need to eat something. I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”
Ryley shook his head. “The sooner I get the radio fixed, the sooner I–”
“ Ryley ,” Ozzy insisted, his voice firm. “You didn’t eat anything last night and you haven’t eaten this morning. I know it. I said I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer. So don’t argue with me, please.”
Ryley opened his mouth to do just that, but stopped in his tracks at Ozzy’s insistence. The vowels in the chef’s words were round and smooth, his consonants sharp and pitchy, every word floating on a lilt and staff that felt like a song in his ears. Something about the tone drilled into Ryley’s psyche and twisted his stomach in a tight, shameful knot. “Alright,” he relented, “I promise I’ll munch on some of that nutrient block after I fix the radio.”
“What’s with this big ray?” Ozzy asked, continuing their conversation as if the last two volleys hadn’t happened. He gestured down at the water where the rabbit ray from the day before, its large orange ears and bright blue spots, was sweetly floating near its favorite spot near the floaters. “I think it likes us.”
Ryley crouched, resting his forearms on his knees as he grinned at the rabbit ray. “Yeah, it’s been around a lot. There’s a lot of ‘em out there but this one keeps coming back. It’s got this little yellow spot on its haunch there. I’ve been calling it Helen.”
“Helen?” Ozzy repeated with a bit of amusem*nt. Helen sniffed around the tag on the floatation device again, taking it into its mouth as if nibbling at it.
“Yeah. It seems appropriate.” Ryley turned his attention to the critter. “Hey Helen. Are you the consumer? Only the consumer can remove the tag on the Alterra-brand Aquabouy Flotation Module MK2.”
“Is that really what it’s called?” Ozzy asked. “The big lifesaver?”
Ryley mm-hmm ed as he gripped the handle of the ladder and started down the side of the pod to the level of the waves, but kept above the water. He reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a fistful of flowering sea grass. With a bit of a flourish he tossed it onto the surface near where the ray sniffed; it eagerly accepted the treat, sniffing it into its mouth before disappearing into the depths with its treasure.
He oof ed as he climbed back up the ladder, his biceps aching and thighs burning with use, and rather than standing preferred to swing directly into the ceiling hatch and into the pod below, his palms squeaking lightly on the metal pipe ladder as he braked with them. The repair tool was easy to reach, the Fabricator open and its platform used as a shelf. Either Ryley had left it there last night before succumbing to exhaustion or Ozzy had put it there this morning, but in any case, it was close enough.
“The truth is,” Ryley said as he heard Ozzy come down the ladder behind him, “I would’ve had it fixed yesterday, but I couldn’t fix the board…” He pointed the tool at the radio and it whirred to life, its screen lighting with a quick calculated diagnostic. “Or the antenna or the power supply or the cooling system, but that’s because I couldn’t find another radio.” As he pulled the trigger, the motor whirred and hummed in his hand, a spark blinking brightly at the end of the barrel. He watched as the char on the case of the radio began to recede, as if being washed out by a soak in water, the smell of warming plastic lightly filling the pod as molecules stitched themselves back together. Ryley always tried not to think about how the repair tool worked, and truly, in this moment, it only mattered that it did. “I just hope we haven’t run out of time.”
Ozzy moved to stand behind him, careful not to put himself between Ryley and the light behind them. “I doubt it.”
The radio buzzed as its power supply returned and its components breathed into life. Ryley’s attention was pulled in the direction of the light on the case, its dark red glass turning light as the device croaked into action. With a slight exhale of relief, Ryley lowered his repair tool and lifted his hand to slap the play button. The radio crackled and fizzled as a pre-recorded voice called into the pod.
“This is Lifepod 6,” the audio spilled into the tight, cramped space. “I have a passenger. We’ve landed a kilometer from the crash site but there’s radiation between us and the rendezvous. Requesting immediate assistance.”
The radio then crackled out and went silent.
Ryley waited for the light to flicker back to life. He waited for more voices, for more sound, for answers , but nothing came.
“There’s a rendezvous?” Ryley asked after what felt like forever. He lightly thwacked his hand against the side of the radio. “Come on, man, where’s the rendezvous?”
The radio gave him nothing, its light staying darkened. With a groan, Ryley picked his PDA up from off the floor.
“God, it’s always something. Well,” he suggested, his voice filling the air that the radio left quiet, “let see about Lifepod 6. Those people might still need help, and if they do, they know where the rendezvous is. If not, maybe we can get the coordinates from their pod.”
“Why wouldn’t the rendezvous be the ship?” Ozzy asked. “It’s a pretty good landmark.”
Ryley shook his head. “My PDA has been complaining about radiation levels in the water coming from the drive core. If the Aurora was the rendezvous it wouldn’t be on fire. I’m not going there unless Captain Hollister calls me on the phone and tells me to.”
Ozzy nodded. “Think we can make it without Seaglides?”
“We?” Ryley asked, looking over his shoulder at him. “I don’t even have one. You don’t have to go.” With that, he stood, grabbing his PDA and opening the databank. “It’s not far, actually, only a few hundred meters to the northeast. I won’t be gone long.”
“Wait.” Ozzy’s tone was firm as he crossed his arms over his chest. “You promised you would eat first.”
Ryley looked over the edge of the PDA at him with an exasperated exhale. “Yeah, Oz’, I know what I said, but we’re kind of on a timer here. I don’t really feel like getting left behind on Fishworld, do you?”
"No, so how am I supposed to let you go?" Ozzy asked, his tone surgical in its sharpness, but not angry. "You said you're not a swimmer and you won't eat, and now you want me to let you swim 'several hundred meters' alone to God knows what, through God knows what? And then back? Assuming you live? Ayyo, no. Not without a glide.”
“Dude,” Ryley argued, though he tried to do it gently. “If we do that, we’ll be here all day. I don’t have everything and I still have to build it. I’ll just go, it’ll be fine.”
Ozzy looked at him as he plunked items into his PDA. His gaze felt hot and accusatory and Ryley soon had to lift his eyes, seeing Ozzy’s stare on him, a thoughtful look on his face. “What do you need?” the chef asked, his voice urgent and terse, but once again not angry.
“I need kelp seeds," Ryley replied. "PDA says it’ll make—what are you doing?”
Ozzy turned, reaching into one of the nearby totes stacked near the wall for his mask, soon reaching into another for one of their few knives. “I’m going to get them.”
“But—” Ryely lowered his PDA and dropped it on the shelf of the Fabricator. “You don’t have to.”
“I don’t care. And, hey, can you stop arguing with me?” Ozzy looked at him with a bit of a grin. “Beach party’s gonna feel like forever if you don’t chill. I’m going. That’s that.”
Once again, Ryley opened his mouth to argue, and once again Ozzy’s deep, boring gaze stopped him. He closed his mouth, the words he wanted to say leaving him in a sort of groan instead. “Fine.”
Ozzy donned his mask and made for the kelp in the nearby depths for the last things they needed, quickly leaving so as to not give Ryley any room to invent an excuse to stop him. He even kicked up the floor hatch in the pod so Ryley would know when he returned. Even so, Ryley had stood in one spot, uselessly watching as the shadow of Ozzy’s swimming form disappeared beyond the field of the open hatch. With an exhale, he shoved the anxiety out of his lungs and turned once more to the Fabricator.
The hum of the machine and the rhythm of his tasks was somewhat soothing, the drone of the laser-printer-like eyes of the apparatus obliging him with the major pieces of a Seaglide one after another. The internal mechanisms worked with efficiency and precision, lasering layer after layer to create the propulsion system. The internal components formed first, his trained eyes scanning the print for defects and imperfections: the motor, the battery housing, and the control circuits, which were followed by and wrapped in the outer casing.
I wonder if Charity kept the message I sent last year, he thought to himself. She's gonna be so mad when she doesn't hear from me.
He shook his head and grabbed the casing from the small Fabricator platform, turning it over in his hands to inspect it before setting it on the chair beside him. With a few pushes of the console, the Fabricator began the next task: the control handle. Designed to be ergonomic and fit comfortably in the hand for users of either left- or right-dominance, the piece was sturdy and outfitted with buttons for power and speed control, a flashlight and a rudimentary navigation system. He heard a rumor once that the piece was originally intended to include a whistle and a flotation device—things, he always felt, would mar the silhouette beyond repair.
It's weird. I miss her, but I don't think her being here would make me feel better.
He thought about his dream, about the pieces of the Robinson Family Emergency Generator scattered about the workplace. Did they finish it? Or did they argue and give up like they always did? As he connected a few wires from the control circuit to the handle triggers, he couldn't remember. The dream had faded to almost nothing the moment he awoke, and trying to focus on it now was like trying to see a face in vapor long after it had gone. The tactile feeling of the buttons under his fingers, moving smoothly and responsively, made it seem even further away.
With a blip, he pressed the buttons on the control and started the print for the buoyancy compensator. Quite possibly the most critical component, it formed the sleek fins and adjustable buoyancy chambers that helped users maintain control and stability underwater. Without it, the device would thrust with half the efficiency and have twice the turning radius.
Could you imagine? He couldn't help but smile. I can't decide if she would hate it more than I do or somehow come out to everyone as one of those mermaid girls.
The beep on the Fabricator took him once again out of his skull. Grabbing the sleek, warmed metal and plastic housing of the compensator with one hand, he set the Fabricator for the final piece with the other: the navigation system.
He slotted the compensator housing into the main body, shaking his head as he focused on manually adjusting the angle on the fins until they were symmetrical (enough). The chambers were set to conforming settings, Ryley meticulously ensuring the sliders were consistently set. The more he focused on the placement of the wires and the width of the chambers, the less room he had to think.
His hands steadied as he looked his work over. Looking up at the print job on the Fabricator, he saw the instrument panel staring back at him: dark glass waited for illumination, its plastic buttons new and promising. Its Alterra-branded construction looked very much like his PDA. Dark as it was, there was nothing to see except for his own reflection, and he thanked God he couldn’t quite see the details.
“Good morning, Ryley!” His PDA shouted, starling him out of his thoughts. “It is 10 AM Universal Time Standard. Initiating daily physiological scan.”
Ryley turned to look at where the tablet laid on the ground. “What?”
The PDA beeped in dissatisfaction. “Error occurred. Please initiate physiological scan.”
“Physiological scan?” Ryley repeated. “What do you need that for?”
There was a moment of silence before the PDA beeped again. “Error occurred. Please initiate physiological scan.”
“I’m kind of busy,” Ryley muttered as if the device could hear him, his attention once again on the wires in the control handle. “You’re not going to keep doing that, are you?”
Alas, after the same interval as before, the PDA beeped. “Error occurred. Please initiate physiological scan.”
Ryley ugh ed and placed the Seaglide parts down before picking up his PDA.
“Initializing physiological scan,” it chirped, happily. “Attention. Scans indicate your blood glucose levels are suboptimal, and hydration is inadequate. Your high stress, lack of sleep, and poor nutrition are significant concerns. Remember: dehydration and malnutrition are leading causes of early mortality in survival scenarios.”
“For God’s sake,” Ryley groaned, placing the PDA back down before returning to his task.
“Inspirational anecdote,” the PDA continued, oblivious to his disengagement. “During the crash of the Veridian in 2164, the sole survivor managed to stay alive for 72 days by adopting a consistent sleep schedule and improvising nutrient intake using local flora. Though she eventually succumbed, her lengthy experience underscores the importance of proper self-care.”
Ryley muttered. “Please never bother me like this again.”
He wished he hadn’t spoken. “This scan will occur every morning at 10 AM Universal Time Standard,” it replied, as if staking him in the heart. “Regular observation of physiological data is key to survival.”
Ryley gritted his teeth and continued to attach the wires, his mind trying to drown out the insatiable nagging of the PDA. The Fabricator continued to whirr, a constant hum in the background as he meticulously finished the last few pieces of the Seaglide, forcing his thoughts onto his companion rather than his sister or the wickedly grating voice coming from his stupid, dumbass corporate-assigned device. Despite his obvious reservations about the water, Ozzy had willingly jumped into the depths, trusting Ryley to do his part – without complaint, even. Ryley couldn’t afford to lose his focus now. Ozzy had been through enough. Was doing enough. He'd been the one who saw people die, not Ryley, ostensibly people he knew or worked with or otherwise had been in a lifepod with for like half a day, and yet there he was, braving the depths once again for some detritus. Swooping in, really, where he wasn’t asked, and was notably refused, but did it anyway. With a smile.
The components clicked into place, the wires aligned perfectly within their grooves. His hands moved with practice, driven by both necessity and the need to keep his hands and mind occupied. Every connection had to be perfect. Every component had to be secure in its place. Everything needed to be tested. Twice.
Just as he finished securing the last wire, there was movement in the hatch and Ozzy climbed back into the pod, dripping wet. Sitting on the floor of the pod with his legs still in the water, he removed his mask and held up the kelp seeds. They glowed just as triumphantly as his smile.
“Ay, I got what we need,” Ozzy said, his voice breathless but filled with satisfaction.
Ryley’s heart swelled with relief and happiness. “You’re amazing, Ozzy. Seriously.”
"Yeah, I am," Ozzy replied with a bit of a chuckle. He offered the seeds over, that grin not leaving his lips. "Those big fish down there, they're something else, but they ain't nothing I can't handle."
Ryley took the seeds dutifully, not minding their algae-covered slick. There was more than enough for their purposes. "You're the best."
Ozzy shrugged, but it was clear his smile was genuine, his pride evident. "Just doing my part. Looks like you're almost done with the one. I'm going Fabricator to start two." His word choice was intentional, part of the melodic flow of his diction, the lilt and camber of his words rising and falling in pitch, with tempo, the consonants so sharp and the vowels so soft it was almost an auditory whiplash, but one of contrast and complement rather than dissonance, like a seemingly discordant tune that resolved on the last note.
Before Ryley could say anything, Ozzy stood and moved to the machine. He opened the Recent Files menu, finding the least recent Seaglide file and pressing the button. The Fabricator once again whirred as its components started their duty.
"What accent is that?" Ryley asked, not being able to help himself.
Ozzy laughed lightly, a sound that told Ryley it wasn't the first time he had been asked that in the last eighteen months. "Caldera IV," he said with pride. "A little blip on the map on the outskirts of Cygnus. But I could ask you the same thing. You're not from Terra Nova."
Ryley got to work finishing the first Seaglide, his PDA open to instructions for turning the seeds into a lubricant as he worked. "No," he replied honestly. "I'm from one of the Mars colonies."
Ozzy replied with a noise someone who had just been introduced to the concept of body odor might make. "Eugh. A Solar System boy."
"Oh, come on!" Ryley responded, a laugh bubbling from his chest. "Don't knock the originals. You've heard of mine. I never heard of yours."
Ozzy laughed with an undercurrent of playful indignation. "That's your loss, da, not ours."
Ryley turned to his friend with an amused shake in his head. Finishing his maintenance, he closed the latch on the outside of the Seaglide, the spent kelp seeds in a small pile of his workspace. He watched Ozzy shift comfortably in the space, the green stripe up the sleeve and across the back of his suit a natural complement to his olive-toned skin. But more than his demeanor, more than his charm, more than his bravery, Ryley noticed his damn smile. It made him feel a flutter inside him, like there was a reason, beyond the distraction, to keep assembling, to keep wiring, to meticulously ensure the Seaglide worked. Like its cargo was precious.
Seriously hard-up for endorphins, huh, Robinson? he chided himself.
Ozzy began to pass him the parts the Fabricator was printing and Ryley placed his completed Seaglide down to start on the second. With their partnership, an assembly line of sorts as they exchanged empty chatter, the second Seaglide was assembled even more efficiently than the first. It wasn’t long before they were set to leave for Lifepod 6.
The two of them gathered up their meager gear: masks, breathers, tiny useless knives, Ryley's multitool, their brand new Seaglides. The plan was, hopefully, a simple one: swim just beneath the surface for as long as it seemed feasible to do, moving together as one kept an eye on the depths, the other with an eye on their scanner or PDA. Their destination was several hundred meters to the northeast, past the deep kelps that surrounded the shallows their pod resided in.
“The Seaglide has a top speed of 11 meters per second,” Ryley told him as they huddled in the shallows, Ozzy getting used to the feel of the buttons and the pickup of the motor. “In a best-case scenario, we could theoretically make it to Lifepod 6 in less than two minutes.”
Ozzy replied with an amused huff. “Theoretically. Think there’s something out there that swims faster?”
Ryley felt his skin grow a bit cold as the waves lapped just under his chin. He remembered the way those large, white fish stalked the kelp forest, how big those manatee-looking-things on the opposite side of the tube corals that nestled his pod looked. God. Prey fish looked huge to him. Even bladderfish, when slipping through his fingers, really slipped through more of his palm or his arms or could probably take his head off if they got up to mach 3. “Definitely,” he said, his thin tone belying the anxieties he tried to play off. “But the pod is only like eighty meters down. It shouldn’t be too deep.”
And the things shouldn’t be too big , he thought to himself with a bit of a swallow.
The look he and Ozzy exchanged was clear. They would have to rely on the propulsion of the Seaglides, as well as their trust in one another, to make it to the pod safely. Their shared expression was not a comfortable one, the prospect of swimming over ‘god knows what, through god knows what’, as Ozzy so helpfully pointed out, settling into their stomachs. But it was their only lead. Every minute they waited was another minute the rendezvous continued without them.
They set off, Ryley’s PDA perched in the handle of his Seaglide, Ozzy’s attention turned to the depths as they swam side-by side. Ryley tried to ignore the hooting calls of the nearby manatee-things and the snarling of the large, algae-stalking fish. The close bottom of the shallows gave way to the deeper floor of the kelp forest, the water growing colder, murkier, and darker with every passing moment. Every shadow that lurked at the edges of Ryley’s vision made his skin crawl, his nerves growing tighter and more taut with every eclipse of the hazy light that turned out to be a bubbling coral or a box from the fallen Aurora . At their modest depth of 5 or so meters, he could barely see the bottom let alone the creatures that stalked it. It seemed so … barren, down there, the colorful reefs of the shallows and the dense grasses of the kelp forests a distant memory. The cloudy water looked so empty. And yet he could hear something… groaning. It was a deep sound, loud, one that shook the bones of his chest as it washed over him. Off in the distance, just at the edge of his vision, danced a deep, dark movement far too close to their depth for his liking.
They were three quarters of the way to Lifepod 6 when Ryley stopped dead in his tracks. The groaning returned, louder this time, coming from his left. And when he turned, he saw it —them— whatever: longer than cyclopses and wider than prawns were tall, half-shell, half tentacle, or maybe mostly tentacle, and organ pipe, brown grass and glowing coral. The tubes on its sides thrummed in a fleshy, bulbous way that reminded him of a heart valve or a feeding leech, and sounded a low, cavernous echoing call into the water around them. It was so big. So barely visible. But still so loud. And close. Too close. Close enough for a tentacle to touch him if it wanted. His breath sunk into his stomach as he swallowed a whimper, wondering how in the hell he managed to sneak up on it or it snuck up on him or whatever.
Ozzy reached out and touched his arm, and when he looked over he saw Ozzy gesturing for the surface. Ryley didn’t need coaxing. He kicked for the sky, his air tank grateful for the break as he took a breath of salty air. Ozzy surfaced beside him.
“Hey,” he started, reaching a hand out as if to steady Ryley as they bobbed in the surf. “What’s wrong?”
Ryley didn’t even know where to start. He thought about the creatures’ tentacles, trailing freely and elegantly in the current, which could reach out and ensnare them in an instant. Their calls, deep and resonant, sounded like a warning, igniting some alarm bell in him as ancient as evolution. He glanced nervously at where the leviathans were in the water, their pods still visible in his mind’s eye. Every detail—their size, the glow of their bioluminescent mushroom-cap-gills and swollen yellow pods, the tentacles, the horrible lurching of their flesh like some kind of bubbling, writhing tar—was overwhelming.
“It’s just, uh,” he stammered, his mouth desperate for an excuse, “those things are really big.”
Ozzy looked in the direction of Ryley’s gaze and then back at him. “The big mooing elephant squids?”
“Yeah,” Ryley agreed, though it suddenly felt stupid.
Ozzy’s features softened, if only a little. “I’m guessing there wasn’t a lot of ocean on Mars.”
Ryley shook his head. “A few pictures.”
Ozzy smiled, his tone gentler than Ryley expected. "I think it's okay. See how they're just sort of doing their own thing, real slow? And they're real close to the surface too. I bet they're grazing."
Ryley listened, nodding as the logic slotted into satisfying spots in the gaps of his understanding. Even so, his chest felt tight. "But we don't know anything about them. What if they're not harmless?"
Ozzy looked from him and back to the water. He dipped his face underneath before rising again. “They don’t really seem to care about us.”
“They don’t see us yet,” Ryley countered.
“Okay, well, they don’t really seem to care about anything. They’re just cows. It’s fine, da.”
Grazing? Ryley asked himself. Oh God. We didn’t have farms on Mars either. Am I supposed to tell him that? Am I supposed to tell him that doesn’t help? How am I supposed to know what a cow is? I'm not. I don't -– what the f*ck is a cow? What if I think I know what a cow is but I'm imagining something with smaller teeth and fewer tentacles. What if a cow has tentacles? Why else would Ozzy say it's like a cow? Oh my god I’m freaking out. This sucks. I can't believe I'm doing this right now. I don’t have time to–
“What if,” Ozzy continued, his voice light, “we swim over them. See on your PDA,” he reached over and pointed, taking Ryley’s attention off the water and to the screen. “We’re almost there. We can swim over them and go down where 6 is once we’ve crossed. They’re looking down so we’ll stay up. We stay calm, we stick together. Sound good?”
Ryley couldn’t tear his eyes away from the massive leviathans below. With their dark-blue carapaces, eerie glow and trailing tentacles, they looked like they could either be creatures of gentle whimsy or horrifying aposematic fury. Despite Ozzy's reassurances, Ryley felt a knot of fear tightening in his ribs. Even so, he knew, deep in his chest, that he had to do this.
What if there were people still inside Lifepod 6, he wondered?
Did he really have a choice? Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, there were several options before him, but cowardice was not one. And, it seemed increasingly likely that the shallows they called home were as close to dry land as they would see for a while. They would run out of space. Out of food.
He'd have to go down there eventually.
Ryley finally nodded, steeling his resolve with a clearing of his throat. “You're right. Yeah.”
“All set?” Ozzy asked, lightly squeezing Ryley's shoulder with his fingers.
“Yeah. I'm good.”
He wasn’t. But he had to say so.
They dove back beneath the surface, their Seaglides humming softly as they swam over the creatures, their backs just below the surface of the waves. The slow, rhythmic movements and low, groaning calls filled the water around them, shuddering his bones and shaking his ribcage. Ryley kept his eyes on the screen, desperate to not notice the large width and the tentacles and the coral growing on them or the tentacles or the bubbles coming from their backs. Or the… tentacles.
Lifepod 6 got closer. Ozzy kept a steady pace, staying close to him, something Ryley tried to focus on rather than the fact the could be swallowed whole by the creatures he was trying to swim over. The yellow, glowing bulbs on the sides of the creatures softly glowed, their siphoning holes expanding and retracting rhythmically with their calls. It was … majestic, somehow. Ryley thought he could see Ozzy smile at him when their eyes met. With every glance, Ryley felt his nerves begin to settle.
Eventually, the murky depths below gave way to even murkier, deeper water beyond. Barely visible at the bottom of the clouded, blue water and nestled in sand at the bottom of the seafloor lay their prize: Lifepod 6. Once again he needed to dive into god-knows-what. And with one last breath above the surface, he pointed his Seaglide towards the depths.
The pod came into view slowly. Just as before, damage that wasn’t evident from above became more and more so the closer they came until eventually, reality settled into Ryley’s bones:
They’re dead. Or not here.
Not here or dead.
Oh god I hope they’re not here.
Much to his relief, or not really, as he navigated around the pod it seemed like nothing, and no one, was there. There was no evidence of anyone or anything, no damage aside from the hole in the top, no signs of struggle. Nothing, it seemed, but a spent flare sitting mostly unburied in the sand.
From the corner of his eye, Ryley saw Ozzy lift his arm and wave dramatically, a PDA clutched in his hand. He began to surface and Ryley followed, trying to not internalize how deep and murky and endless the expanse of water they moved through seemed. Soon the surface welcomed him and he took a gasp of fresh, salty air. Ozzy surfaced almost immediately after, the PDA still clutched in his fingers.
“This thing’s got a log,” he suggested.
Ryley nodded. “Go for it.”
Ozzy hit play on the audio file and the water-logged speakers of the PDA crackled with sound.
“What are you doing!?” A woman’s voice sputtered.
“You were gone so long I thought you drowned.” Returned another.
“Put the flare down!”
“I was going to get someone’s attention.”
“It isn’t a safety flare! Stop waving it around like that! You’ll catch the–”
And the audio ended with a clatter, a cacophony of noise that prompted Ozzy to scramble for the stop button.
Ryley inhaled slowly as his jaw clenched, his stomach gripped in a fist. “Damn. That… That really sucks.”
“We could still find the rendezvous coordinates on here,” Ozzy suggested. “Could probably take it back to the pod and search it. That’s not nothin’, yeah?”
Ryley nodded. “No, yeah, you’re right. It just sucks we were too late.”
And judging by how buried the flare was down there, Ryley decided, they had been too late for a while. And the log told them nothing, least of all where the rendezvous would be.
Ozzy opened his mouth to speak but before he could say much, Ryley’s PDA beeped loudly from where he clutched it in the handle of his Seaglide. "Emergency: A quantum detonation has occurred in the Aurora's drive core. Supercritical state imminent. Seek shelter immediately.”
Ryley looked from the device to the Aurora . “Oh sh*t.”
“What does that mean?” Ozzy asked, his eyes widening. “What do–”
The Aurora, with its long, white carcass gleaming in the sun, shuddered and shook as a high-pitched ringing echoed through the atmosphere. The PDA in his hands began a shaky, inconsistent countdown, the voice growing more and more distorted as the water around them started to vibrate. Their attention snapped to the far eastern side. It was too late.
The explosion was instantaneous, a brilliant flash of light that shone over the water for miles, glittering over the surface and illuminating the depths. Debris shot out in all directions as a shockwave of pure force shattered through the water. Ryley and Ozzy were knocked back as the explosion sent a wall of water into them, bubbles and sand and debris and foam clouding their masks and making it impossible to see—or hear—anything except the chaos as the water threw them backward like weighted ragdolls. A searing heat washed over him in an instant as the pristine waters of 4546B were pumped with burning fragments of the Aurora and metal and glowing wreckage of all toxicities. His PDA blared a radiation warning incessantly, ringing in his ears almost as shrilly as the disintegration of the drive core.
His training and instincts kicked in. He managed to orient himself and looked around for Ozzy. Through the murky, debris-filled water, he saw his friend struggling to stabilize himself and maintain his hold on the Seaglide. Ryley quickly swam over, grabbing Ozzy’s arm and pulling him close. The look in Ozzy’s eyes didn’t need a translation; Ryley felt his other arm gripped tight as Ozzy’s fingers found purchase.
As the initial shockwave subsided, the water began to settle and Ryley and Ozzy once more returned to the surface. Even so, Ryley knew, they had to return to Lifepod 5 as soon as they could. The game had changed. They needed new gear, they would need to think of something for water, they had to—
His thoughts broke with the surface of the water around him as Ryley took a breath, and once again he turned to Ozzy to speak, but once again, his PDA, vibrating incessantly with all manner of notifications and report alerts, had other plans.
“Playing pre-recorded distress call from Lifepod 4…” It announced, and Ryley thanked God Or Whoever that the Aurora had quieted enough to hear the speaker over the tinnitus that was settling into his skull.
"This is Rian Danby, Medical Officer on the Aurora. I'm injured and... I need help. Please, anyone..."
The desperation in Danby’s voice was palpable. Ryley checked the listed coordinates on the screen: 375 meters closer to the aurora, and just as many meters farther from Lifepod 5.
“Ayyo, we have to help him,” Ozzy said, his voice insistent. “He’s hurt and he’s closer to the Aurora than we are in 5.”
Ryley looked at the PDA and then at the direction of the lifepod, then once again at the PDA. If it was too late to help him now, then tomorrow was out of the question. Either the radiation would get him or his injuries would, Ryley decided with a swallow.
“We can’t leave him there, Ryley,” Ozzy pressed.
Ryley looked once again towards the northeast, where Lifepod 4 was waiting and nodded, gripping the handles of his Seaglide.
No. They couldn’t leave him. They couldn’t just let a man die from exposure of his injuries or irratiated water. They couldn’t just turn back now. Where would he be now, he wondered, if he had so much as entertained cowardice when he heard Ozzy’s cries for help?
Ryley didn’t know where the confidence in his tone came from. “We’re not going to leave him.”
His friend took off first, his Seaglide scooting just under the water’s surface as they moved through the choppy, agitated sea.
Ryley followed soon after, not giving selfishness a second thought.
