Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Joshua Faraday bolted through the Aurora’s mess hall doors just as the speakers crackled to life.

“Attention all crew members,” Sam Chisholm’s voice commanded. “We’re approaching planet 4546B.”

Josh snorted. He could have read that from the mix of excitement and sadness on his fellow crew member’s faces. On the one hand, getting the chance to explore an alien planet was what most of them had trained for all their careers: studying through the night, canceled vacations, back breaking hours of internships, drill after drill after drill. On the other hand, the first thing they were going to see was probably a debris field, because eight months ago the Degasi, Alterra Corporation’s flagship, had vanished right here. Now the Aurora had been sent to suss out whether the pride and joy of the corporation had been hijacked – or destroyed.

“Estimated time of arrival: fifteen minutes. Everyone, prepare for entering orbit.”

Josh made a beeline for his best friend – tall, dark and handsome in a form-fitting white uniform – and threw an arm around him from behind. “Hey, babe. You look sexy today.”

“Shouldn’t you be in engineering?” Vasquez asked, turning but not moving out of the embrace.

“That’s the beauty of leading my own department: getting pre-notified of things. I just spent the night there and the drive core’s purring like a kitten.”

Vasquez gaze darkened. “So you have been cheating on me again with your machines.”

He shook off Josh’s hands, grabbed a tray from the stack and headed for the lunch counters with long, sweeping strides.

Josh ran after him, dodging a few familiar faces in a sea of tables. “Aww, Vas! Come on! You know I like putting my hands on those huge cylinders.”

He pulled a short, inch-wide rod from his tool belt and turned on the holo screen with a flick of his wrist. It showed the newest picture he’d taken: a one-man underwater vehicle with a center capsule for the driver and two thick, flat arms to the side that made it look reminiscent of an old-age UFO. He proudly turned the screen so not only Vasquez could see, but also Goodnight and Billy approaching from behind.

“Look at this, babe. Pressure proof up to two hundred meters and not a single glitch in any test simulation. I’m going to take her for a drive the moment we’re in orbit!”

“Congratulations, you’ve been showing me that for two weeks now,” Vasquez said dryly, getting that expression on his face that turned Josh’s cheeks into radiator panels and his belly full of bubbles. He hated that face, it always made him want to lean in and... do something embarrassing. Not that it wasn’t embarrassing already, but Josh would never tell Vas that. Yet, somehow he could never stop himself from doing things that made Vasquez give him that look and he was in real danger of blushing.

Thankfully, just then he caught a movement out of the corner of his eyes. Their resident weirdo had just entered the mess hall, boyish face schooled into complete impassivity as he headed for the trays. His red-and-black Mohawk swayed with each step, but the stone pendant against his throat was still. Josh grabbed the opportunity like a lifeline. “‘Destination’ must be a magic word. Look what kind of things it draws out of the woodwork.”

Vasquez followed his gaze. “Don’t be mean, güero.”

“I just don’t get what he is doing here,” Josh grumbled. He reached for the boxes of cutlery and got out a handful of spoons, passing them on to Goodnight and Billy.

“Thank you, Joshua,” said Goodnight in his perfectly calm therapist voice. Billy pulled a knife from his pocket and flicked it open. He never went anywhere without the thing, even though they’d been in space for five years, surrounded by much more handy technology.

Behind them, Red picked up a round, purple glob from a food bowl and sniffed it suspiciously.

Josh snorted. “Just look at him. We don’t need a molecular biologist on a rescue-and-recovery mission. He’ll be of no help whatsoever.”

“He’s here to pick up valuable outer-space field experience,” Goodnight threw in. “Can’t hurt to have seen a little, even in our day and age, where everything you want to know is at your disposal in 4D.”

“He grew up on Earth,” Josh protested. “For fuck’s sake, it can’t get any more ‘field’ than that.”

“Yes, but –”

Josh whirled and yelled across the brightly lit cafeteria: “Hey, Red Harvest. What’s a country lob like you doing away from his goats?”

Red sat down at an empty table close to the door and went to work with his spoon.

Josh turned back to his companions. “Seriously, what was Bogue thinking, letting a deaf-dumb Earthling onto a frontier mission?”

“He doesn’t like Sam. The Admirality doesn’t like Sam either,” said Billy and paused. “No one likes Sam.”

It was no secret that neither Alterra’s current CEO nor the United Academy of Pilots, nicknamed ‘the Admirality,’ were fond of Sam Chisholm’s centuries-old sci-fi TV show morality. Outer space held a wealth of resources for whoever could get their hands on them first. If some alien hobos couldn’t evolve fast enough to value what they were sitting on, whose fault was that other than their own? Bogue and his predecessors knew that, and the crew of the Degasi knew that when they had come here to assess the resources on 4546B. The First Directive, as Sam called his moral ideology – after some show he watched one too many episodes of as a child – was a romantic’s dream: there was neither love, nor peace, nor harmony in space. There was only chaos, and it was expanding rapidly. That’s the second law of thermodynamics for you. No one was dumb enough to fight the laws of physics except the Daring Pilot himself. It made him a good captain, a great leader – and a terrible subordinate.

Vasquez nudged Josh. “You grew up on Earth, too.”

“I moved to a science hub when I was five and got a proper education,” Josh objected. “Red Harvest went to a fucking school and then a university, where they teach you stuff with computers. Don’t compare me to that hillbilly.”

Vasquez shrugged, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He popped open the freezer display. “And does the reformed country bumpkin want Unlimited Adventure or Chemical Pleasure for lunch?”

Josh glanced downward. Rows of covered bowls filled the bottom of the freezer, containing mounds of wobbly, nutrient-rich, delicious goodness in all colors of the rainbow. Just what he needed after a binge like last night. Even better, it would power him through at least one more night of unadulterated engineering.

Vasquez’ smirk widened. “Both, then?” He leaned in. “And if you’re good and finish your food for once, I might let you have my dessert after.”

Josh’s face lit up. “I knew there was a reason I lo–”

The ship rocked violently under their feet, throwing them both into the display case.

Josh grasped for the glass, head whipping around. Alarms blared overhead and red light flooded the mess hall. The ship tilted to the side, which shouldn’t matter because of the artificial gravity, but something seemed to have damaged the inertia dampers. The overlap with the planet’s gravitational field sent everyone sprawling.

Josh stumbled backwards into the cutlery and went down in a rain of spoons.

“Something hit us! All crew, engage emergency protocol Alpha!”, Sam yelled overhead. The speakers crackled, then started to whine.

Billy hauled Goodnight to his feet. Further away, Emma and Teddy pulled themselves up with the help of tables and chairs.

“Red alert,” yelled Jack, massive frame hitting the entrance. His voice cut through the rising panic like a siren.

Frantically, Josh looked around for Vas and didn’t see him. He jumped to his feet, pulse pounding a mile a minute, but he couldn’t hear anything over the roar in his ears.

Another impact rocked the ship.

“Hull breach,” Sam’s disembodied voice informed them, somewhat calmer. He was one of those people who got more stoic the more other people panicked. “Oh damn, oxygen levels dropping! Life support failure on all decks. Aurora crew, head to emergency escape pods.”

The ship shuddered so hard, they must have been trundling.

“Vas!” Josh yelled. He grabbed the counter for balance, because that, at least, was nailed to the floor. His voice sounded scratchy with fear. “Vasquez, where are you? Vasquez!”

“Here.”

Josh whirled, relief flooding him. Vasquez sat up at the other end of the counter, holding his head, blood trickling between his fingers.

“Get your ass moving, Faraday,” Jack shouted, heavy steps drawing closer.

Josh’s head spun. The oxygen was leaching out fast. His lungs burned and he needed air. But he couldn’t – and wouldn’t – leave Vasquez here.

The ground was shaking so hard it rattled his bones in their sockets with every step he took towards his best friend. He clawed both hands into the slippery surface of the freezer lid in an attempt to steady himself. Inside, their different lunch choices had leaked together into a vivid mess of jelly.

“Faraday!”, Jack called, then cried out.

When Josh cast a glance over his shoulder, he saw that the bear of a man had been hit by a food cart. It swept the ground out from under his feet.

Josh grit his teeth and kept moving. “Hold on just one more sec,” he pressed out between clenched teeth, not quite sure who the words were meant for. Vas probably couldn’t even hear him over the sound of the alarms. But it didn’t matter – what did was Vasquez, hanging on to the foot of the counter hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.

A coffee machine came loose with a crack. Electricity sprayed from a knot of torn wires for a split second and the machine crashed into Josh’s side, knocking him off his path. Searing pain lanced through his rib cage. He cried out, gasping for air, each inhale sparking new waves of agony. His side throbbed, right under his heart. Josh didn’t dare to touch the spot and check, but he also couldn’t wait for it to stop.

He looked up, orienting himself. Chairs were strewn across the room, cutlery had fallen where people had been eating, and globs of perfectly good synthetic food slid across the floor with each lurch the ship gave, slicking up shattered plastic cups and broken bowls. Vasquez was still curled against the wall, fingers in his bloody hair. They were about fifteen feet apart now: his fall and the ship’s movement must have carried him further than he’d thought.

Jack, who hadn’t bothered to try standing up after his fall, crawled towards them on all fours.

Vas’ eyes locked on Josh’s, their usual dark chocolate color hazy and unfocused. Blood had seeped into his eyes, smearing the white. His mouth moved, but he didn’t make a sound.

Josh heard him anyway.

“Go, güero.”

“Not without you.”

That was when he noticed the shift in temperature. The mess hall was heating up like the inside of a boiler. Atmosphere, Josh thought numbly, eyes widening. We’re crashing into the planet.

He fought to stand up. Dark spots danced before his eyes. They needed to get out of here, right now.

In front of him, Jack had reached Vasquez and tugged at him.

Josh took one step and the ship jerked, sending him sprawling onto his injured side. He tried to catch himself on his hands, but his fingers slipped on a glob of Unlimited Adventure. Walking was impossible.

He tried to stay on all fours, gritting his teeth against the pain, when an arm wrapped around his shoulders. It was high enough not to put pressure on where the damned coffee machine hit him, but he cried out regardless. Something brushed his face, swinging through his vision: a blue stone pendant.

Josh couldn’t even struggle as he was hauled to his feet and dragged along. He could only keep his eyes on Vasquez and Jack making their way to the door. By now, the mess hall was all but deserted. The heat burned in his lungs. He had no idea where their other friends were, but he hoped they had made it out.

He didn’t remember much of the long walk, either, or which hallways they used. The closer they got to the life pods, the more packed the corridors became. Panic was written on every face he saw, even though it couldn’t have been more than ten minutes since the first impact.

“You take this one,” Jack said over the commotion, yanking open a round hatch in the floor.

“Vas?” Josh wheezed.

“Right over here,” Jack grunted, already beside a second pod. They were side by side, like torpedoes – if such things still existed.

Josh tried to follow, but the hands that had helped him out of the mess hall wouldn’t let go. This time, he struggled. “Lemme go!”

Jack pushed Vasquez’ long, slender frame into the pod.

“Vas!”, Josh yelled. It was drowned out as he was shoved inside the other pod, his legs collapsing the moment he hit the ground. He bounced off the ladder and fell to his side. Above him, a bulky frame moved, closing the hatch and sealing it from the inside.

Josh used the ladder to pull himself up. “Wait,” he rasped. Or tried to. It came out as a hoarse groan. Everything hurt.

A countdown flickered to life on the wall. Ejection in 5... 4... 3...

One last impact rocked the Aurora, sending him crashing headfirst into the wall. He hated that the last thing he saw before passing out was the fucking Earthling’s face, instead of the one he wanted to see.

Josh woke to the feeling of his skull splitting in two. He brought a hand to his face, not quite sure how it would help, and the ground crackled under his arm. He was lying on something. Probing carefully at his throbbing temples, he tried to remember what had happened without making it hurt more. The headache didn’t feel like a hangover, and not like dehydration either – and Josh was well acquainted with both those forms of pain. This was different. Less like personal negligence of his body’s needs and more like someone whacked him in the head with a submarine of the huge cyclops class a few times until his skull cracked. Then they pasteurized his brain for good measure, before pouring the whole mixture back in and sealing it with super tape.

Of course he couldn’t promise that this was exactly what it felt like, since Josh had never had that happen to him, but it sounded like a very close approximation.

He pried his eyelids away from each other. A blurry, red-washed, wrecked space about the size of two restroom cubicles swam into view. It was oval, with a yellow ladder in the middle leading from a round hatch in the floor to a second one in the ceiling. Daylight poured in from both sides, only from the bottom hatch it was a pretty shade of aquamarine and flickered on the various pieces of consoles and panels that had been ripped off the walls.

The scrap closest to him seemed to have hit him, if the small red crust on the edge was anything to go by. Yeah, Josh was definitely filing a complaint with engineering at headquarters for that. This wasn’t his damn work.

A shadow moved against the far wall and he realized with a start that he wasn’t alone.

“Vas?”, Josh croaked.

No reply. Weird.

Josh felt – and assumed he looked – bad enough that Vas would not ignore him because of his own stupidity. Especially if Josh was, as he suspected, bleeding from the head. Huh, that was a scary thought.

But the figure didn’t turn. He just kept jabbing his fingers onto the main panel, even though the screen remained stubbornly dark. That, Josh admitted, was a little worrying: Alterra’s ships were spiffed up with state-of-the-art technology, if not structural design, to withstand even the bloodiest of space battles. Which meant that whatever had happened here was bad.

Josh grabbed the wall and pulled himself to his feet. His knees wobbled, and for a moment he was worried they’d give out under him. “Let me do that,” he said, proud when his voice came out only a little slurred.

The figure didn’t react.

“Hey,” Josh said, a little louder, shuffling over with one hand on the wall. He touched the man’s shoulder.

He whirled, and suddenly Josh felt like he’d been slapped in the face because the guy before him was none other than Red Harvest. The country bumpkin. No wonder he hadn’t heard him, he wouldn’t even hear the sirens if the Aurora had been attacked in spa–

Everything came rushing back at once. The mess hall, the alarm, the impact. Vasquez!

For a moment, Josh stood frozen. Images formed in his head, memories from not-too-long-ago. Vasquez, on the ground. Vas, bleeding. Vas telling him to leave him behind.

Ice crept down Josh’s spine. He shoved Red away – what could a fucking biologist do here, anyway? – and drew the startup-command onto the black screen with his finger, then the override code, and then he hit the reboot-button. Nothing happened.

It can’t be the power. The lights are still on. Next possible problem: connection to the grid. Damaged, maybe torn?

Josh closed his eyes, flicking through his mental library of life pod blueprints, but his head was still throbbing and the thoughts were hard to grasp. He slammed his fist into the wall. The impact traveled up his arm, through his shoulder and right into the back of his skull. He groaned. “Oww.”

The pod looked as destroyed as it had before: loose panels, electricity sparking from ripped wires, a closed fabricator and medkit unit. A toolbox they couldn’t access without the system to open it for them. And in the middle: fucking Red Harvest, shooting him a nasty look.

Josh couldn’t care less.

At least the Earthling seemed to understand that without having it spelled out for him. He hopped onto the ladder.

“Hey,” Josh called. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Red wrenched the latch around and popped open the hatch. Light flooded in, clear and bright, followed by the deep sound of rushing water. He climbed out, nimble as anything.

Josh followed him a lot slower. With the way his legs were still shaking, even walking was a challenge.

He stuck his head out, breathing for the first time the atmosphere of the foreign planet. And he almost couldn’t believe what he saw: water, shining blue water as far as the eye could see. It was a deep royal blue in the distance, but a sharp crystal color in the gentle, bobbing waves lapping at the orange air cushions keeping the pod afloat. And in the distance loomed the Aurora, far away but still so huge she seemed like a mountain, scarred and burning. Black smoke poured from the gashes in her hull, the metal around scorched to charcoal, panels of steel rolled where she’d been hit. There were no lights behind the few windows: she was a beached whale, a carcass, half on her side to expose her white underbelly. There was no ‘up’ or ‘down’ in space, but it still looked vulnerable.

Josh’s heart clenched. He could only stare, in horror, at the destruction brought upon the ship that had been their home just hours ago. At the same time, he couldn’t help but be awed at the sheer magnitude of it: a kind of empty shock that expanded in his chest, hollowing it out like a carving knife.

His eyes slid over the waves, mostly blue, sometimes white-tipped. There was nothing, and Josh spun around himself even as his heart dropped. Not a single other life pod in sight. “No,” he whispered, “No, no, no!”

He dropped back into the pod, this time without regard for his knees. “This can’t be happening. This is some kind of scam.” He pawed at the walls, trying to hook his fingernails under the lid of the fabricator and pry it open with strength alone, but the enforced plastic didn’t budge.

Red came back inside, silent as a mouse.

Josh moved on to the toolbox. “Just you wait!”

He jerked the lid, trying to break the lock, with the same result as with the fabricator. At least until a second pair of hands slid into his view. The panic within Josh was coiling too high for him to be annoyed by that. He just pulled.

The material around the lock cracked, then burst apart. Lid falling open, a handful of things tumbled out. Basic gadgets, like a scanner, a hand-long staff that was another deactivated PDA, a small box of rations, a life vest and a handful of bars of different materials, from rubber to iron, ready for fabricator use. If they had a fabricator, which they didn’t. There were no weapons, no wires, and most of all: no nanobots.

Desperation tightened Josh’s throat. He threw out everything he couldn’t use, and the box was almost empty when he finally came upon something that would actually help them: a tiny, plastic-wrapped battery.

He jumped to his feet. “Communications!”

Red stepped into his path. He was holding the PDA Josh so carelessly tossed behind him.

Josh’s jaw twitched. “Let me through.”

He tried to push past, but under the tight white uniform, Red was surprisingly strong. He held up his free hand and formed a sign.

Josh slapped it out of the air. He’d made a point of not paying attention during the ship-wide seminar they all had to attend after Red joined the crew. “Out of my way!”

Red’s spine straightened and before Josh knew what happened, he slammed into the wall. An arm wedged over his throat, followed by clever fingers wrenching the battery out of his grip.

“You fucking son of a bitch!”, he yelled, struggling against the pressure.

Red stepped back.

Wheezing, Josh could only watch hatefully as he popped their only hope of ever finding Vasquez alive into the bottom of the PDA staff.

The device gave a lazy beep. Around them, the life pod’s lights flickered from red to white in time with the holo screen. In a matter of seconds, the PDA’s systems assumed control over the pod.

“Life support systems activated,” a computerized voice informed them. “Heavy damage detected to life pod’s internal systems. Estimated chance of survival: 0.1%.”

Josh clenched his fists and glared at Red. Yes, he could see how an active life support system was important, especially in a pod full of smoke, but his best friend could be dying out there. “I swear to any deity people still believe in: if Vas is dead before we find him, I’m going to kill you.”

Red stared back blankly.

-

About half an hour later Josh had yet to cool down. His grandma used to call him choleric, short-fused, quick to anger and burning like a peat fire: smoldering and smoldering until the fuel was exhausted, and sometimes that took decades when the flames hid below ground. He was not yet burned out, but he had a much better overview of what he had to work with, and it was nothing if not disheartening: the life pod was running on two percent of what could be considered a healthy performance, the repair kit needed a repair kit and they had to leave the top hatch open to clear out the smoke. The fabricator was still down, and even a genius engineer like Josh himself – graduation with honors and half a dozen competition wins, bitches – couldn’t repair tech this complicated without nanobots.

He could theoretically build a nanobot from scratch, out of wood, in his sleep, during a war and under water. He could even program it to the current industrial standards, if they gave him a PDA with all the basic coding blocks. All he needed was a microscope – which they didn’t have.

Another problem also became rapidly apparent: apart from the rations and two bottles of water, they had no supplies. And the ocean around them was salty, like any self-respecting ocean, and thus undrinkable.

But worst of all? The Earthling idiot was no help at all.

When Josh brought up the food situation – by pointing excessively at the ration bars and then the water bottle and pulling all sorts of faces – Red, sitting on top of the pod and gazing at the ocean, had just shrugged. When Josh typed it out on the PDA, the wild man had suggested they eat the fish. Actually, he had pointed at the fish, which Josh had assumed to be a suggestion.

He was mortified. What kind of barbarian even did that? “You want to eat, like, real animals? Gosh, I knew it. Down on Earth you’re all fucking backwards in the head.”

Red had made a sign with his hands, which prompted Josh to thrust the PDA at him. Then, as if being massively unhelpful wasn’t enough, the ungrateful fucker had just glared at him and repeated the sign. He’d flat out refused to type what he was trying to say. Angrily, Josh had stumbled back below deck and got to work on locating and repairing what he could, so the caveman’s incompetence wouldn’t get them killed.

Now, largely unsuccessful, he climbed to the top again and found Red Harvest gone.

For a second, his chest clenched. Not because he was worried, of course. Only because he didn’t want to be completely alone out here. Then he spotted the short dark Mohawk bursting out of the water, followed by their scanner. That thing would have been real helpful during Josh’s search, now that he thought about it.

Josh shook his head. “What the fuck am I even worried about. You’re a cross between a cro magnon and a fish.”

In the distance, the Aurora was still smoldering. Low fire raged around the edges, licking out of every hole and tear. Obviously the ship’s systems were down, but so far the flames didn’t seem to have reached the drive core yet. That special place where the magic of space travel happened. The details had been a bitch to learn, back at the Hub. Josh had no problem with physics, but starship engines had almost cost him an entire year in his studies. Cut to the chase, fire plus drive core meant the Aurora would blow up like an independence night’s firework soon. Just... how soon? And, more importantly, could they swim over there, in and out again with the supplies they needed without getting blown to bits?

“Oy!” he called at Red.

No reaction.

Josh cursed. “Why the hell do you have to be from Earth, and deaf?”, he yelled, snatching up a piece of debris and hurling it at Red.

The splash caught his attention – or maybe the fact that he almost got brained by a piece of broken panel.

Red whipped to face him and Josh, ignoring the glare he got, pointed at the Aurora. Then he moved his hand like he was holding a scanner.

Red rolled his eyes, fumbled with the dials and pointed the device at the wreck. The readings popped up on Josh’s new PDA.

“Ship down. Life support systems compromised. Fire detected inside decks one through five, status of deck three: unknown. Status of drive core: unknown. Radiation levels: fluctuating. Expected explosion based on current data: four hours, twenty minutes, thirty-two seconds. Expected radius: unknown. Calculated damage to the ship: total destruction. Current location: radiation levels increasing. Seek safety immediately.”

Josh spit out a violent slew of curses. Four hours were not enough. There was nothing around them but endless water, and the one place they could hope to find what they needed to save Vas was going to blow up in too fucking little time.

Josh spun around himself. Water, water and more water, in every direction. He suddenly regretted not having read the planet’s specifics in the mission details, thinking himself too good at improvising. If Vas were with them, he’d know exactly where the next patch of land was. He was always all over the briefings, that fucking teacher’s pet, and Josh wished desperately he were here.

He exhaled through his nose. “Get it together, you idiot.”

He turned back to Red, thinking. They were in the shallows now, he could see the sea floor through the bottom escape hatch, but 4546B had very little land. They could be weeks away from the next tiny dot of an island. No food, no water. And if they starved to death, he wouldn’t find Vasquez. Josh cursed again. “I didn’t survive a fucking starship crash to accidentally die from eating this planet’s version of a puffer fish! Or any other unknown biopolymer!”

His eyes tracked over the Aurora’s hull. Vas, if you’re out there...

The sound of splashing alerted him to Red hauling himself out of the water.

Josh typed out a message. “We’re going to loot the Aurora for supplies.”

Red looked dubious. He made a sign with his hands that Josh waved away without looking. “I really don’t give a shit. We don’t have a fucking choice.”

-

Except that getting to the wreck of the Aurora was harder than anticipated. The life pod didn’t have an engine, as it was designed to keep survivors safely in one place. Which Josh would also file a complaint about and maybe instantly fix on the next ship he got assigned to, because what the hell? If that pod had landed anywhere dangerous, they’d be stuck and dead before help could get even close.

Apart from being stuck, they also neither had a cyclops, sea moth or even a sea glide, nor any other vehicle. It was like the people who built this thing never even considered they would need a method of transport under water, or something. The only thing they found, after another half hour of going through everything Josh had thrown out in his rage, were two pairs of flippers and diving goggles.

They were brand new and stunk of rubber, the plastic clinging to Josh’s neck and sticking to his feet when he put them on. He sat on the edge of the pod and looked down with trepidation. It wasn’t that he couldn’t swim, he just didn’t like it. Also, diving into water he couldn’t stand in was a lot easier in controlled pools, where he could see the bottom and did not have to fear getting his foot bitten off by annoyed wildlife.

Red hopped off the life pod without hesitation, ducked under and popped back to the surface, nimble as a fish. He turned an expectant look upwards.

A curl of stubbornness twinged in Josh’s belly. He pushed off the pod immediately. Cold, heavy waves burst around him, soaking through his thin uniform. Goosebumps crawled over his skin. He was glad the overall clung to his body, working like a diving suit, and the water closest to his skin warmed a little. He tested his movement, searching for the catch. But it was just water, like home.

Josh pulled the goggles over his head. “What are we waiting for?”

He didn’t wait for a reply. Behind him, Red drew breath and dove under the surface, which was probably a good idea to see where he was swimming.

Josh shuddered as the water flooded around his ears and into his hair. He waited another second to test the seal of the goggles before opening his eyes. Then he nearly gasped in surprise. Bubbles floated past his face. Behind them, fish danced: huge yellow eyes peeped at him curiously, red and green spikes were fanned in his direction, blue air sacks puffed out and glowing appendages... glowed. Further below, the ground was sandy, littered with rocks from the size of his palm to massive boulders bigger than a hovercraft.

One of the peeper fish – his eyes were almost as big as his entire dark purple body – zapped by in front of Josh and wiggled happily at him.

Josh smiled a little.

Then Red swam into view, pointed at the fish and mimicked stuffing it into his mouth.

Josh pulled a face. Ew!

Technically, Red had saved his life, and Josh should probably thank him for that, but he couldn’t wait for this all to be over.

Red shook his head, Mohawk floating, and quickly took the first spot. He was a fast swimmer, and thus always in Josh’s line of sight, but there was so much to see he didn’t have to pay much attention to him as they swam.

More sand and rocks, littered with green kelp and corals in orange and red, passed below them. Withering limestone blocks squatted in between clusters of cubes of magmatic origin, interveined by crystallized residues that looked... interesting.

They could probably use some of this material for the fabricator, open up some new possibilities, Josh thought. He’d kill for something copper-like capable of conducting electricity.

As they reached the edge of the shallows, the water got colder. One look above made it seem like they hadn’t made much headway towards their destination, but that could be the sheer size of the ship warping the dimensions around it. She blocked out the sun: a mountain, impossible to scale, a beacon of human advancement on this planet without intelligent life.

Under the surface, the ground dropped away into cool, black darkness. No fish dared to approach the drop. Both of them hovered for a moment, looking out over the abyss. Silhouettes seemed to move before them, shrouded in murky water.

Already, Josh’s muscles were starting to protest. Exhaustion weighed his limbs down, and he was suddenly glad for the rigorous workout regimen Alterra imposed on all their exploration agents. He drew fresh air into his lungs and floated for a moment. But they couldn’t linger.

Another mile, said the scanner, and then they could rest on their ship.

He ducked back under. The moment the water closed over his head, a high-pitched screech reverberated through his body until it shook in his bones.

Red kept swimming, of course.

The scream sounded again from the abyss under them, and Josh’s blood ran cold at the sound.

He forced his protesting muscles to move, flinging his arms and legs out until he could grasp Red’s ankle.

The man jolted, twisting out of his grip. But one look at Josh’s face made him stop.

Josh gestured frantically for him to be quiet, pointing at his ear even as he kept looking around. Shivers crept down his spine. After the tranquil shallows, the thought that there might be real predators out here had all but slipped his mind. He should have fucking known better.

Red started swimming again.

Reluctantly, Josh followed.

The Aurora’s belly was coming closer. She’d washed up on a mountain in the deep: something to hold her high above the water like a fallen queen.

Josh’s heart started beating faster. They were almost there. They could make it!

Movement flickered at the corner of his vision.

He whipped to face it: a thing, rising over the nearby cliff. Barely ten meters before them and already it was hard to grasp, only visible because its body was snow-white and all but shining. It was bigger than any animal Josh had ever seen, with a long, snakelike body coiling behind it, like a dragon on ancient depictions in a museum. On its head rose a giant, flat horn, like a dinosaur’s, and four blood-red mandibles grew out the sides of its face, two on each, claw-tipped and perfectly placed to grab prey and deliver it to the lipless maw holding multiple rows of pointed teeth. The creature opened its mouth and shrieked again, so loud Josh had to cover his ears with his hands.

Then it charged.

Frozen in shock, the only thought in Josh’s head was, inexplicably: it has four eyes. Four soulless, pitch-black eyes.

He floated in the creature’s path, completely hypnotized, until someone grabbed his arm and yanked him to the side at the last minute.

The creature came at them with such speed that it overshot them, the parting water around it pushing them away as it barreled past.

Josh’s eyes met Red’s. Holy shit, the Earthling had saved him again. Despite him being the virtual embodiment of all Josh hated most – that being, planet Earth – and Josh’s utmost efforts to be a dick, Red had still kept him from becoming sea monster food.

He shook off his paralysis just in time to hear another teeth-rattling shriek. They couldn’t get eaten here. His parents had died on a fucking planet, they would be so pissed if he did the same. He belonged in space, just like them. And Vasquez too.

Josh swam.

Red immediately abandoned him for the relative safety of the soon-to-explode Aurora. Or, well, he swam a lot quicker, while Josh had to fight the twinges in his legs to keep up, which amounted to the same. The parable about the two runners and the lion crossed his mind: I don’t need to be faster than the lion, I only need to be faster than you.

Josh chanced a glance over his shoulder. The mandible monster was right behind him, cutting through the water like a sleek knife. Fuck, that thing was fast!

Its toothy maw opened again, rippling the water with another shriek.

Josh’s muscles burned. He tired more with every meter they swam. For now, the adrenaline pumping through his blood kept the pain at bay: the one in his muscles, as well as the burn in his throat from drawing hasty, salty breaths. He was pretty sure his leg was a hair’s breadth away from cramping, but he couldn’t pay attention to that now.

Red was three lengths in front of him when he suddenly disappeared from view.

Josh broke the surface in confusion.

A blackened hull breach loomed over him. The molten metal was clumped together around the edges. He had never seen this kind of destruction, or any weapon that could cause it. It chilled him to the core.

That moment, something sharp and pointed speared his calf.

It yanked him under water and Josh’s yell of pain came out as a gurgle. His skin grew warm around the bite. He was bleeding, his lungs burned and salt water corroded his throat. The water around him felt heavy like moist concrete, but he tried to jerk his leg out of the bite nonetheless.

His vision started to swim from the lack of oxygen. He couldn’t stop; he’d promised Vasquez he would find him, and find him he would. He wouldn’t give up, not with a spear through his calf and salt water in his lungs. He couldn’t, he had to– had to...

The fight bled out of him with the last flickers of oxygen. With every second, his movements became more lethargic. Soon he didn’t know if he was moving at all, but he must’ve been, or that thing would have already eaten him. Then it would be over, and the pain would be gone.

Josh pressed his eyes shut. Don’t stop struggling, idiot!

Suddenly, the mandible in his leg jerked and the creature screeched.

With a strength he didn’t know he possessed, Josh propelled himself out of its grip and broke the surface. Coughs rocked his body.

He blinked at the sound of metal scratching on metal and a new surge of adrenaline made him swim towards it. He pushed his hands above his head, touching something solid.

Josh clenched his fingers around the edge of the Aurora’s hull and pulled. He managed about three inches before his arms gave out. He was about to slide back into the water, into the mandible monster’s waiting jaws, when Red gripped his arm and pulled so hard Josh’s joint felt like it would pop out of its socket.

He cried out and the pain peaked, then abruptly cut of, leaving him to flop unceremoniously onto the floor of deck five, which was metal. Some service area, then, no personal quarters, he thought fuzzily.

Another splash. Oh, that was Red, hurtling debris at the monster.

It stuck its head out of the water, mandibles waving sluggishly, and lunged.

At the last second, Josh rolled out of the way. He barely managed to crawl further onto the ship, just enough so the thing wouldn’t be able to reach him. There he crashed to the floor.

The wrecked, halfway caved-in ‘ceiling’ arched over him and just breathing had never felt this good. I owe Red my life three times over by now. This is getting uncomfortable.

He stayed right there, flat on his back, fumbled the scanner from his belt with numb fingers and pointed it in the direction of the core.

“Time left to explosion: ninety minutes. Leave blast zone immediately.”

“We better hurry and find that fabricator,” Josh said out loud, even though Red couldn’t hear him. He almost got eaten just now, he was allowed a little post traumatic self-talk. Also, he liked his voice, raspy as it was.

Red’s face swam into view above him.

How was he still standing, Josh thought. “How are you still standing?”

Red took the scanner from his unresisting fingers and read the estimate. Then he pointed inside the ship.

Josh didn’t move.

Red bend over and karate-chopped his calf – or at least, that was what it felt like. Searing pain zapped up Josh’s leg. He almost jackknifed into a sitting position. “What the fuck?! Ow!”

The good new: his leg wasn’t bleeding that hard. Not enough to warrant passing out from blood loss anytime soon, although the wound appeared deep enough to need tending. And disinfectant. Ah, well, next time he stumbled past a med kit, he’d... oh, right. Med kit.

Red made another one of those impatient gestures.

Josh climbed to his feet. His knees wobbled. He was pretty sure he was going to fall over in about one second, but once he was standing, it was suddenly not that bad.

“Okay,” he said, testing his oddly numb leg. “Let’s just hope that’s not poison,” he mumbled to himself. “Alright, hillbilly. Fabricator or functioning repair kit. Whoever gets there first is a good boy.”

Red’s expression didn’t change from completely unimpressed, but he apparently understood the gesturing and face-pulling enough to walk ahead with the scanner, into the bowels of their crashed starship.

The trek was like walking through a wreckage – which was exactly what it was. Nothing could compare to the empty destruction around them. Maybe a battlefield of old would come close, right after the war, with the ground drenched in blood and still steaming, the sky overhead endless and gray. There were no corpses here, of course: no plants or papers, only metal, molten and deformed. Nothing organic had survived the heat of breaching the atmosphere, turning to ash and smoke until only steel jutted out like bones into the corridor-windpipes and veins of the ship.

There were a few fabricators installed all over the decks, even in private quarters, but most of them were designed for specific purposes: a hot espresso and a sandwich in the common rooms, a new batch of petri dishes and test tubes in Billy’s sparkly clean lab, skin grafts and transplant organs in medical. The only all-round technical fabricators and repair tools were in the engineering bay, deep down in the belly of the ship... right next to the damaged drive core.

Josh walked with the scanner thrust out in front of him. The acid fumes constricted their throats and made their eyes water as they carved their way through the debris. On the screen, the radiation levels rose steadily.

The direct route, leading through the cargo bay, was submerged in water. Neither of them felt capable of diving straight back in after encountering that monster, so they decided to take a detour past the bridge.

The closer they got, the thicker the smoke became. It poured from the entrance of the completely burned out bridge, and they couldn’t see a thing even with their diving goggles on, until they reached the door.

Soot coated the walls and all the furniture. The screens, taking up most of the walls, had cracked in the heat. Shards had rained down across the floor. Of course the few holo screens had left no residue, but Josh was pretty sure they too had been completely obliterated. There had been enough sensitive tech here to cause several small explosions.

Red tapped his arm and made a sign Josh actually recognized, because it was one of the first they had to learn. ‘Captain.’

Josh’s throat tightened. Sam had been up here when they crashed. Right here, screaming into his comm, while the rest of his crew fled into the life pods.

Red made a questioning gesture. ‘Do you think...?’

Josh shook his head. “We have to assume he made it out,” he said aloud, not that his companion would hear, but he ignored the quizzical look that got him.

Inside, he knew better. Sam had been known to routinely do the impossible – that was why the Admirality had put up with his antics: he was too good to withdraw the license from – but no one, not even Sam Chisholm, could survive that.

With every step they put between the charred bridge and themselves, the hallways cleared. One single air purifier seemed to be working still, blinking in panic as its battery ran low.

The vehicle bay’s destruction rivaled the bridge’s. There had been no one down here at the time of the crash. Josh was the head of the department by default, being the most senior engineering specialist on board, but he hadn’t had his own team. Instead, he had to share with the science department, and since there was not much to do en route to the last known location of the Degasi – now also the last known location of the Aurora – that Josh couldn’t do on his own, Billy was happy to monopolize their shared personnel. For ‘material research,’ which most likely meant one of those terrifying man-eating plants he loved so much.

For the last half year, after all the major exploration vehicles had been completed, Josh’d had the entire engineering department all to himself to build... more vehicles. Not that it mattered now. The huge bay, that had been specifically emptied to hold the remains of the Degasi – or what could be found of her –, looked like it was holding a wreck already. Multiple ones.

Parts of prawn suits and sea glides were strewn all over the floor, ripped from their hinges and supply cords. Sea moths’ front screens were cracked; their grabbing hooks twisted beyond recognition. Oil, most of it burning in low, green-tinged flames, ran across the metal between heaps of dead nanobots and broken tools. And in the middle rested Josh’s beloved cyclops: a three-story submarine that had taken a year to assemble and outfit. It had staff quarters and deep dive modules for long explorations, and even a fucking greenhouse, although that had been a flight of fancy. Now the cyclops’ sleek form was cracked down in the middle like a cookie stick and Josh’s heart ached at seeing his former pride and joy.

He squashed the feeling. They were here for more important things.

He headed for the huge doors at the back that lead to the heart of engineering, where the parts were meant to be disassembled. As soon as he threw them open, his skin started to prickle. The air felt charged – and not the good kind, either.

“Drive core destabilized,” the scanner warned, flashing red. “Radiation levels exceed tolerable range for all known humanoid organisms. Leave area immediately. Time to explosion: fifteen minutes.”

A countdown appeared on the screen, together with a chart and further readings.

“Fuck,” Josh cursed. He showed Red the results. “Fifteen minutes! That’s barely enough to make it out of the ship if we barrel through the wall!”

Red cocked his head, waiting.

They hadn’t found a repair kit yet, but any second longer they spent here would put them further into the blast zone when the Aurora’s core exploded. Blowing up was a horrible way to die. And it would mean a very swift end to his search for Vasquez, or any of the remaining crew.

Josh clenched his fists. “We can find some other way to repair our stuff. Or make new stuff.”

He jabbed his finger at Red, then himself and then the door. Together, they ran back into the vehicle bay.

They’d barely made it outside the engineering department when pain lanced through Josh’s skull, so sudden he stumbled over his own feet. His hand flung out to grasp the door of its own accord. He fell to his knees, held up by one arm. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Red lose his balance as well, and that was the last thing he noticed because his vision blurred like a fogged window pane. White streaks spread in front of his eyes, swirling like a vortex and melding into untraceable forms. Blue spots danced in the glow, two left and two right, close together, like eyes. They pulsed in time with the throbbing pain, their color brightening to a crystal clear turquoise and then Josh’s ears popped. A voice droned through his skull like a jet engine.

“What... are... you?”

Before he had time to process what happened, the pain snapped off like a light switch, leaving him dazed and shivering on the floor.

He couldn’t move. Or maybe he just didn’t want to. It was hard to tell, his head felt stuffed with cotton. Not painful, but full.

Next to his cheek, the scanner blinked. The numbers didn’t make sense. He didn’t care. Then he forgot what numbers were, for a short while.

A groan echoed through the vehicle bay.

Josh rolled over and bumped into Red, which finally broke the stasis in his head.

Red knelt on the floor, heaving dry. His face was as pale as the uniform, frozen in wide-eyed shock that had Josh exhale in relief. At least he wasn’t the only one going crazy. He wanted to lean over and maybe pat his shoulder, reassure him, somehow. Help him to feel less like throwing up.

Instead, he spotted the countdown again and a blast of ice water hit his veins. “Red,” he croaked. “We’re out of time.”

Red didn’t react. Josh elbowed him.

On the screen, five minutes were just running down into four and a handful of seconds. Even if they started running now and didn’t stop until they hit the water, they would never make it out.

Josh buried his head in his hands. The low-key panic swimming in his gut boiled higher. Coming here had been a mistake. One he’d had to risk, of course, because the alternative was failure to save his best friend – and everyone else – from this godforsaken planet, but now they would be blasted into a million tiny pieces. “Oh fuck! Fuck, fuck, fucking hell!”

Red yanked Josh’s arm.

Three minutes and twenty-two seconds.

Josh shook off his grip. “What?”

Red pointed behind them, through the vehicle bay, and Josh scowled.

“We won’t ever make it in time, idiot!”

Red rolled his eyes.

Josh threw his hands in the air. “Fucking hell, make a run for it if you want, but that’s not gonna help us get back into those blasted, sea monster infected waters, where we’re going to get eaten instantly without a real mode of trans... port.” He trailed off, looking around the vehicle bay with wide eyes.

There had been about twenty complete sea moths here, before the crash. All of them were damaged, but some less than others.

Josh sprung to his feet. “Find a sea moth,” he yelled, pointing frantically, before dashing to the nearest pile of forgotten tools. His hands shook.

Two minutes, forty-six seconds.

He pulled at the hidden cupboards, unsure if they would open for him. But the crash must’ve damaged the structure enough because a handful of repair tools and accompanying boxes fell out at him. He activated the nanobot control and grasped the box that started to rattle.

Both in hand he returned, in a full-on sprint, to Red, who had managed to find a sea moth that looked fairly unscathed except for the large crack down the front and the debris it was covered in.

One minute, fifty seconds.

Josh emptied the dust-like bots over the sea moth’s hull and punched a quick code into his tool.

It took the bots less than thirty seconds to identify and get to work on patching up the problem, which always reminded Josh a little of singeing a piece of paper over an open flame, only backwards.

He waved at Red without lifting his eyes from the reparations. “Open the doors!”

Once done – a quick repair like this impacted the structure’s durability, but it would do for now – Josh threw the box into the sea moth and pulled it over to the submerged dock, which was really only possible because the vehicles were built to be ultra light.

Red burst through the surface.

Fifty-three seconds.

Together, they yanked the sea moth down the ramp and into the water.

“Get inside!”, Josh yelled, the beep of the scanner counting down incredibly loud in his ear. The vehicle was made for one pilot only, barely managing to fit them both, but the lid closed, and as soon as he heard the click of the lock, Josh gunned the engine.

It gave a sputter.

Josh’s heart skipped a beat. “Don’t you dare! Fucking thing, don’t you dare!”

They lurched forward, engine howling. Josh barely took the time to sink through the docking bay doors and navigate the stone formations the Aurora had landed on before aiming downwards and speeding them into the lightless depths as fast as possible.

The giant stranded ship creaked above. On the screen, the countdown hit zero.

Chapter Text

They were too slow. Josh knew before it even happened. Before the warning beep that preceded the shattering boom of the explosion, ripping through the water. It slammed into them, sound and pressure, catapulting their sea moth into the deep. Like stone and debris, they hurtled down the steep slopes, and all Josh could do was clutch at the console and dig his feet into the floor, thinking We’re not fast enough.

He didn’t let up on the speed once, though. Drive cores didn’t just go boom and were done with it; they geared up for the real blast.

A shriek cut through the water right beside him. With a yelp, Josh jerked the joystick away and barely avoided crashing into a bloody red mandible. It snapped against its counterpart behind them, swishing like a blade.

“Fucking hell, not you again!”

In the reflection on the windshield, the dragon-like white body wove through the water and gave chase. Now that it wasn’t hindered by the surrounding rock formations, it adjusted to their speed in a matter of seconds. And it looked very angry. Its massive body curved over their tiny little sea moth –

The Aurora exploded. With a bang that illuminated the pitch-black depths around them, the insides of their beloved ship melted apart in one fiery, radioactive blast. The shockwave caught them like thunder, slicing through the mandible monster and whipping against the windshield hard enough to make it crack.

They were propelled sideways like errant confetti thrown at a party, both of them hanging onto the pilot’s chair with white knuckles. Caught in a tailspin, the current carried them further and further away from the Aurora.

Red grunted. It was the first sound Josh had ever heard him make. He almost didn’t catch it, because he was groaning in pain.

Splatters of red misted the water. The sea moth rocked. Above them, the body of the mandible monster floated, twitching weakly. They needed to get out from under it before the weight dragged them into the deep.

Josh thrust the repair tool at Red. The nanobots crawled after it, along the sea moth’s inside wall, like lost puppies.

“Warning: pressure exceeds depth module capacity.”

“Damn, not now,” Josh cursed. The mandible monster undulated, screaming in pain and anger.

He felt an answering twist in his belly. Not this time, he thought vengefully, cut off the engine for a brief moment and bit his lip through the curling sensation of falling. It was barely more than a few inches, but it was all they needed. He hit the gas again, full speed. Claws scratched uselessly at the hull, sliding off as the creature sunk.

Then they were off, towards the shallows, and away from the ship that had been their home for so long.

-

Keeping up the neck-breaking speed would ruin them soon. They were already too heavy for the tiny sea moth, and Josh had to fight the controls for quite some time to gain at least a little bit of altitude. Closer to the surface, the pressure eased and the handling became smoother, but it also made them visible in the light. He wasn’t sure he wanted to be visible. The thing had survived the blast – injured, yes, but definitely not dead. But they couldn’t risk running out of energy altogether and having to abandon the sea moth. Getting out and towing it back would be their death.

Josh’s injured leg throbbed. He hadn’t been thinking much about it, but whatever had kept the pain at bay was flushing slowly from his system.

Only when they broke into the Shallows, horizon a splotchy pink of dusk, and the monster didn’t come after them, did he take a relieved breath.

The gravel-littered sand dunes slipped by below, quiet and peaceful. They navigated through swarms of happy, colorful fish and bushels of swaying kelp. It felt unreal, this tranquil paradise, undisturbed by the horrors that lurked beneath the drop. But one look back at the darkness behind was enough to spark icy shivers.

Josh couldn’t help but notice that through the whole ordeal, they had seen neither another life pod... nor any survivors. He tried to ignore the churning in his stomach until he didn’t feel like throwing up any more.

-

Thankfully, they made it back to the life pod without any further incidents. A few of the peepers, the ones with the huge eyes, bumped into the sea moth and bounced off without harm. Josh got the feeling they were not particularly smart fish.

The sky had turned a bruised purple when they arrived. Planet 4546B was part of a larger solar system, its day-night cycle similar to Alterra’s company standard, but the change from light to dark seemed to stretch forever.

Josh gathered up all the nanobots he could find and popped open the windshield. Together, he and Red swam to the life pod.

Back inside, Josh took control of the scanner again and ran an analysis on the broken fabricator. It was an all-round type: less specialized than the ones on the ship, but designed to serve all kinds of purposes until their sorry hides could be rescued. He was pretty sure he could print an organ if he really put his back into the modifications.

The wire connections inside hadn’t survived the crash, but they had copper, and, to his immense relief, the battery and motherboard were still functional.

Josh sicced the nanobots on the fabricator and waited, while Red... well. One thing could be said for the mute: he was surprisingly amiable company, mostly because he didn’t utter a word. Also, he was never offended at Josh cussing like a space ranger.

The repair tool beeped.

“Okay, done,” Josh said. Then, in some kind of peace-offering: “Wanna dry your clothes?”

He wormed out of his uniform and bundled it up under the fabricator to quick-draw the moisture from it. Red followed his example.

Afterwards, they used up a few of the supply bars to make fresh water, antiseptic, and disinfectant to tend to the gash on Josh’s leg and the scratches scattered over Red’s entire body. Nothing looked infected, at least not to the untrained eye, but they wouldn’t really know until tomorrow. So they bandaged what they could, folded out the seats into narrow bunk beds and settled down to rest.

“We’re going to need more raw materials,” Josh said to himself, flopping down onto his side – the one that had not been banged up by the coffee machine. But he was out like a light before he could even begin to contemplate where to find them.

-

Josh woke to a splitting headache and Red moving in the near-dark.

“Where are you going?” he slurred, then groaned to himself. Yeah, as if asking ever worked.

Red climbed the ladder one-handed, a bundle of unknown cloth in the other, and slipped out the top hatch. A splash followed, and then a second one.

Josh’s stomach gave a nasty rumble. The first stripes of silver rose up over the horizon, and the sky was dim with washed-out grays. He rolled out of bed with another groan and briefly contemplated fabricating himself an aspirin before thinking better of it. Right now, they didn’t have the resources to make more batteries, so he couldn’t use up the scarce energy they had. Instead, he made a cup and a pot out of aluminum – using up the last bar of it – and purified some water. The battery thing would become an issue soon. But before that, he needed to restore communications.

He first checked the sea moth again for stray nanobots. They were useful little buggers, but they could also do a lot of damage when left unattended – as he had learned, painfully, on more than one unpleasant occasion.

“And of course, the comm is the one really fucked up thing,” Josh sighed. The entire front panel had broken off, spewing wiring out of the rectangular opening like the guts of a dead animal. “Thank fuck for repair blueprints.”

He reached in with both hands and got the mess out of its casing as far as possible, then sorted through it like he had learned way back in first year. Survey the situation, get all the variables. Make lists. No, lists are not for losers. Josh actually made two now: one for what he could repair by hand and another for the things he needed a fabricator for.

“Okay, baby. Let’s do this.”

–

His heart beat loud in his chest when he surfaced a little while later, having connected the last few wires according to the blueprint and turned the button. A warning light flickered to life, red like the orientation lights in a starship bay. Like blood.

Josh turned the dial on the side and got a wash of static. “Please work,” he whispered. Kept turning.

A growl rang out, interspersed with nasal beeps.

He slapped the side of the console. “Come on! I can’t program a fucking new chip for you, stupid machine. The scanner said you were fine, don’t give me this crap!”

He turned it off and on again and the static crystallized into something clearer, almost forming words, then definitely forming words.

“Three recorded messages. First message from life pod three,” the console crowed.

“Goody? Goody, where are you? Can you hear me? Say something, damn it, hello, anyone? Goodnight, fucking hell, this is the third time I’m trying to hail you, answer me!”

That was Billy Rocks shouting at him. Josh fist-bumped the air.

“Goody, wherever you are... I’m at... at... I’ll attach the coordinates –” he had, they flashed on the tiny display, scattering into pixels halfway through because of the damage to the screen, “– I’m on the water. There’s water everywhere... I swear if you’re dead I’m going to kill you. Please, if you hear this... anyway. I can see the Aurora burning. She exploded, I think the core got hit.”

So he was close.

“I’m alone, and there is something out there circling my life pod. It’s... I’m not sure. I’ve only seen a little of white and red.”

All blood drained from Josh’s face.

“And I think there’s more than one. But I’m running out of water and food. I have to try to get to the ship for supplies. I know it’s dangerous, but staying here is no longer an option. I’m sorry, Goody. I lo –”

Josh jabbed the ‘transmission’ button. “Billy? Billy, can you hear me? This is Josh, do not go out there! I repeat, do not leave your life pod, Billy!”

The console beeped at him. “Signal from life pod three lost. Approximate time: 2234.”

Josh’s whole body went cold. That was fourteen hours ago.

–

Josh missed Red’s return a while later. He was hunched in the corner by the fabricator and re-fabricating everything they could spare into repairs for the sea moth. Even the communication console’s lid had been re-used. His fingers were shaking in haste. It was only when he noticed the distinct smell of fish that he looked up, turning his face right into a slimy bundle dangling from a looped wire. Real fish. Real animals. The kind humankind hadn’t eaten in more than a hundred years.

By now, he was so hungry, he almost didn’t care. But his stomach gave a lurch, unhappy with the thought. “You’re eating those alone,” Josh declared. “Later, anyway.”

Red cocked his head, walked past him and uncoiled the fish chain. The first one was a peeper, its big, yellow eyes glazed in death.

Josh didn’t want to think about how the Earthling had even killed the thing. He merely grabbed his PDA and transferred the messages over to Red’s, now that he was in range.

Red’s PDA vibrated against his hip. He ignored it, placing the fish under the fabricator and scrolling through the cooking options.

“Look at the message, you wanker,” Josh growled, jabbing him with an elbow. “I even took the effort to have it transcribed.”

That got him a glare. Probably more for the elbow than the words.

Red scanned the message from Billy, and then the second one that came from Jack. It wasn’t exactly a message, merely an automated SOS signal from pod four. Then his eyes caught on the third transmission, the one that also had Josh’s heart beating thunderously in his chest.

“This is Leni Frankel of the trading ship Sunbeam. Aurora, do you read? Aurora? Over.” A sigh. “Still nothing. Damn Alterra ships: run out of drive core stabilizer, send for help and then no one picks up the phone. Aurora, this is trading ship Sunbeam. It would take us three days to reach your position, do you still need our assistance?”

Technically there had been two messages, but due to their common origin, the PDA had combined them.

“Aurora, here Sunbeam again. We just picked up a massive debris field at your location. We... oh deities, we didn’t know. We’re en route to you now. Our planetary long-range scans suggest there is an island close to your last known position. Coordinates attached. Over.” The voice turned distant. “Broadcast this to all the survivors. Just cover the entire planet.”

The transmission cut off.

Red looked up in disbelief and Josh couldn’t help a tiny smile.

“We need to find the others,” he said slowly, accompanied by the tentative gestures he had looked up earlier in the PDA’s records. Hopefully, they said ‘find’ and ‘friends.’

Red frowned. For a second, Josh was sure he’d done it wrong, but Red aimed a flurry of signs at him he couldn’t hope to follow.

He shrugged helplessly. “I’m not that good at it, man.”

Rolling his eyes, Red grabbed the PDA. ‘We need to get to the rendezvous point right now.’

Josh blinked. “Are you serious?”

‘Very serious.’

“Yeah, but – wait.” Josh’s eyes widened. “How did you know what I was saying?”

Red stared blankly at him. The same moment, the fabricator beeped, and they both turned on instinct. The fish on the thin pad was fried into slimy-looking, gold-tinted crisps.

Red inspected it before carefully prying it open with his fingers. The brittle skin crackled and burst right behind the gills, and white-ish meat glittered at them. Apparently satisfied, he shoved the rest of his haul under the fabricator at once.

Josh snorted. “You’re as deaf as the fish,” he mumbled, “But how... anyway.” He grabbed Red by the shoulders. “We need to find our friends first.”

With his free hand, Red shook the PDA. ‘Rendezvous point first.’

“We can’t leave here without our friends! Our crew!”

Red took a bite out of the fish and chewed. Somehow, he could look put-out without changing his facial expression once. ‘Rendezvous first.’

“Haven’t you read the other messages?”, Josh cried. “We know where they are, we have the coordinates, and Billy said he was attacked. They might be in danger and we’re their only help. We need to get going right now!”

‘We meet with Sunbeam,’ Red typed, holding the fish between his teeth. ‘Search together.’

“No,” Josh said resolutely, gesturing for emphasis. “They are in danger right now and the Sunbeam will takes days until they get here. Didn’t you hear?”

Red pushed the rest of his meal into his cheek, blowing it out like a chipmunk’s. Behind them, the fabricator beeped again.

Josh turned to stare at the mound of fried fish, then back to Red, and something bubbled hotly in his belly. “How can you just stand there and stuff your fucking gills when our friends might be starving to death!?”

Red cocked an eyebrow at him. Then he pointed, slowly, and made the sign Josh had taken the time to memorize earlier: friends.

Josh clenched his fists. “They were not only my friends. They were yours too.”

Red shook his head.

Before he could turn away, Josh grabbed his arm. “Have you seen that monster? The blast didn’t even kill one and Billy said they were two at his location. There could be a whole swarm out there, like killer whales on Earth. You should know that, you’re from there, you –”

With a violent twist of his arm, Red wrenched out of his grip. He turned his hand over Josh’s wrist and slammed him against the wall so hard it punched the air from his lungs. He held him there, signing with his free hand. ‘Your friends.’

Then he pointed at the PDA, which still displayed his previous message. ‘We meet with Sunbeam. Search together. Easier with more people.’

It wasn’t actually a bad argument – the more they were, the easier it would be to keep the mandible monsters occupied – but it meant leaving Billy and Goodnight and Jack and most of all Vasquez out there fighting for their lives. Maybe alone, most likely without food or water. Which was just not going to happen.

Josh glared. “You are one heartless son of a bitch.”

Red’s black gaze bored into his. He let Josh go to type again. ‘They bullied me. You did also. I’m waiting for the Sunbeam.’

He climbed the ladder, quick as a monkey, and was gone with a splash ere Josh could even think about following.

“Fine,” he screamed at the hatch. “Stay here and wait to be rescued like a baby! I don’t fucking need you to find my friends! And I’m going to bring them back to safety, and then we’re all getting off this fucking planet and not thanks to you!”

He snatched the repairs for the sea moth and a handful of fish out of spite. Not because his stomach was so empty it was starting to cramp, or anything. They probably tasted awful, but his grandma always said hunger was the best sauce.

“I’m going to rescue them without your help,” he muttered. “What can a fucking Earthling like you do, anyway?”

–

Fixing up the sea moth, now that he had all necessary parts, took no time at all. Red didn’t return. Josh wasn’t sure where he had gone, on a planet covered in water, but he took his absence as confirmation for their current status of ‘not talking.’ In all honesty, he didn’t give a crap. He climbed into the sea moth and logged in Billy’s coordinates. Pod three was closer than Jack’s.

The machine slid through the water effortlessly and perfectly silent, now that it was in shape again, and the sands of the Shallows disappeared under him as he turned West, replaced by a thick, green wall.

He’d seen documentaries on kelp forests, on Earth and other planets, late at night on the science channels when he was too tired to study but too high on caffeine to sleep. This one was a deep, grassy green. Attached to the towering stems were clusters of tiny, yellow fruit that looked like coils of bubble wrap. The plants swayed peacefully, until Josh, who couldn’t see more than a handful of feet at a time, bumped into a seal with an underwater mine for a tail.

It gave an angry snarl and exploded.

Josh yanked the joystick to the side, barely avoiding being rammed by the creature’s gray blob of a body. He couldn’t get away fast enough from the greenish slime that splattered all over the sea moth’s wind shield. “Whoa!”

Cursing, Josh turned the vehicle around itself a few times, trying to get the current to wash it off. Of course, it stuck like glue.

“Awesome,” he sighed. He brought the sea moth to the surface and jumped out to clean up. The oily stuff clung to his hands. “Damn!”

In the end he had to use the flipper to wipe it off, while cursing up a storm. That’s what he got for not including wipers in the design.

He caught a glimpse of orange out of the corner of his eyes. Turning, he scanned the waves. The Aurora was looming in the distance, smoking like an active volcano. A little closer, something white bobbed to the surface: the top hatch of a pod.

Josh brought his sea moth over and dove to the bottom. He didn’t need to go far: the rest of the pod lay nestled in the kelp. It was an exact copy of theirs: completely white on the outside, with a red stripe on the hull and orange air pillows all around to keep it afloat. Only now, they were shredded. The pod itself had a dent in the side the size of a small car, and a huge, gaping hole. Both hatches were missing. Another difference was the number: where he and Red had been catapulted to relative safety inside pod seven, this one read ‘three:’ Billy’s pod.

Josh’s heart started to pound harshly in his chest. Suddenly feeling extremely watched, he looked around. He couldn’t see anything but the immediate vicinity – swaying green kelp and a few rocks – and from the surface, the shape of the Aurora. He suddenly wished he had a scanner to make sure he was alone. Mental note: design adjustment number two.

He could feel his pulse in his throat by the time he maneuvered the sea moth close enough to peer into the gaping hole in the side of the pod. He didn’t really want to look, but he had to. He had to know. And Goody had to know, if...

Josh switched on the search lights. Brightness flooded the interior, bouncing off a ripped fabricator and a broken cupboard. It flickered over the equipment strewn over the floor, between bumps of shards and metal. Apart from the shattered machinery, the pod was empty. Billy was not here.

Josh exhaled in a rush. He backed up the sea moth and something glittered on the ground beside the pod; reflected light, like the sharp scale of a silver fish: Billy’s knife. With the leather grip and everything.

His stomach turned to ice. Billy never let go of his knife. Everyone on the damn ship knew that. It being here with the man himself gone, right after sending a message about being attacked –

A shriek cut through the water, high-pitched and growly and very familiar. Only this time, it was echoed by another, further away.

Josh’s calf gave a painful throb. More mandible monsters. He couldn’t see them yet, but he sure as hell wouldn’t wait for them to find him.

He brought the sea moth around the pod to use it as a shield and then employed the mechanical arm to pick up the knife. Cradled between three metal fingers, he noticed for the first time the dark spots on the wrapped leather, black in the middle and red around the edges.

Josh’s stomach turned. With shaking fingers, he logged in Jack’s location.

–

It took him two hours to find it. Everywhere he turned, more swaying stems stretched towards the glittering sea surface. He would worry about getting lost, could he not follow their example and just rise above to orient himself. The Aurora was a pretty fucking obvious landmark on the entirely flat sea.

Down at the bottom, even the incessant beeping of the locator was no help. It insisted Jack’s pod was right here, but all he saw was more kelp.

“Fucking kelp. Where the fuck are you, man?”

In the past two hours – that now turned out to be a colossal waste of time – Josh had been through his entire inner blueprint library, searching for a way to juice up the system and allow for maximum accuracy on a planet without positioning satellites, but to no avail. He couldn’t find anything remotely helpful. Maybe the crash had messed with his head.

But he was a Faraday, and a Faraday did not give up under any circumstances. Especially not when one of his friends was in danger. If method A didn’t work, he would swiftly move on to method B: in the case of a faulty scanner that meant pulling out his inner detective and look for clues manually.

He didn’t want to even think about Jack having met the same fate as Billy – You don’t fucking know that, his brain protested. You don’t know that for sure! – but if the pod had been destroyed, he wouldn’t find it in the kelp. And there would be evidence.

Josh brought the sea moth as close to the ground as possible and sat there like a crab in a shell. The bottom of the underwater forest looked much like the Shallows, except for the lack of corals. Instead, handfuls of lilac snails with suction-cups for feet clung to the boulders. But everything looked just as pretty and peaceful. Hovering over the exact spot Jack’s pod was supposed to be, Josh thought his hunch incorrect.

Then he spotted a scrap of metal.

“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath. Back in the Hub, his teachers had always been quick to praise him for his good instincts. Now he wished they had been wrong.

He steered the sea moth closer, squinting in dread. But it was just a single scrap, curved and white like a sea shell, with unpainted gray metal on the inside. It could have been from any pod, or even a shard of debris from the Aurora that the explosion had catapulted out here.

Rows of teeth burst into Josh’s vision and he yelped. His mind immediately yelled shark. The thought was confirmed when a sleek, menacing looking creature snapped at the windshield and then zapped towards the scrap of metal like a small torpedo. It circled it once, ducked to the ground and snatched it up, quickly retreating into the kelp.

“Oy,” Josh called. He accelerated straight at a bushel of green, burst through and narrowly avoided bouncing off a small boulder.

The shark thing nickered at him and hid in the boulder’s shadow, where a variety of metal pieces had been assembled. He added the shard he had just found to the mess, fixing it meticulously, like some of those tropical birds on Earth did with bottle caps and stolen jewelry.

Only instead of building a den, this creature decorated its cave entrance. Or would have: he didn’t look all that happy, and that was probably because the entrance was wrecked. Grooves as deep as Josh’s hands were carved into the stone. Something huge had tried to squeeze through here and only marginally succeeded.

Josh stared into the black hole below him. Deep down, he knew he didn’t have a choice. “Oh, fuck me.”

He activated the flood lights and angled the joystick downward.

The cave was deep, cold and empty of life. The debris-collecting shark didn’t follow him inside and he was kinda glad for that. Slimy fungus coated the tunnels, speckled with the occasional non-light coral or limestone residue, and the scratches on the wall led deep into the cave system, where the light leached out into grayscale. Eventually, the sea moth’s light could only illuminate the immediate vicinity, and everything else was cloaked in darkness and silence.

Unease stirred in Josh’s gut. He couldn’t help but feel watched again. It was like playing a horror video game, or walking through a haunted house alone at midnight.

The light cone lit up a fork in the road, where his tunnel split into two. Cold water blasted at him from the left path, a warm current from the right.

Josh puzzled over this. “Thermal energy close to the surface, maybe? Jack, please tell me you didn’t fall into an underwater volcano.”

The scratches on the walls were getting shallower the more the tunnels, both seeming to bend sharply downwards, widened. The thought came unbidden: if someone falls in here, they will never find back to the surface on their own.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He pressed his eyes shut. Realization, this time, came as an icy trickle.

Josh activated the locator again and it pointed him directly at the wall. Yep.

He cursed again. If his grandma could have heard him at any time during the last few hours, she would come down here personally to wash out his mouth with the bitterest soap she could find.

He really didn’t want to dive in there. Either tunnel. But if Jack was lost in the caves somewhere, Josh had to find him.

He picked the warm water at random and continued on his way.

It wasn’t far. The tunnel was actually shaped like an “L,” going downwards first and then straightening out again quickly. As soon as Josh got close enough for his search lights to reach the bottom, he saw the destroyed pod. Well, half of it. Half a pod, like a cracked shell, with a magnificent ‘four’ written on the side... and no signs of human life.

Frantically, Josh scanned his surroundings. Then he went back and checked the other tunnel, just to be sure, but that one ended in a dead end. More debris, no Jack.

“No, no, no. Not true, not happening, not fucking true!”

His vision flickered.

Josh blinked, reaching blindly for the sea moth’s light control – maybe a glitch. Not the battery, fucking hell, let it not be the battery – when a familiar voice boomed in his skull like it was trying to blow it up from the inside. The words sank through his brain to choke his throat.

“Come... here. To... me.”

The air in the sea moth seemed suddenly utterly devoid of oxygen. He curled both hands around his neck, gasping, and whatever was in his head suddenly let go. Like tentacles withdrawing through his nose, the presence retreated, and nausea washed into the hollow it left behind.

Josh was so dizzy he could do nothing but close his eyes, let his head loll against the cool windshield and breathe.

He didn’t even notice passing out.

–

“Red!” Josh screeched, stumbling over his own feet in his effort to get into the pod. His arms were jelly. He had no idea how he’d made the trip back, or how long it had took. When the nausea left the panic had set in, blocking everything out.

The sky was dark when he heaved himself through the bottom hatch. He’d parked the sea moth right below it, because he couldn’t stand to be in the water. He needed to be outside, and dry. Fucking ocean planet.

PDA-light illuminated Red’s face on the bed. He stopped reading when Josh came in, keeping his face carefully guarded.

“The message,” Josh gasped, sealing the hatch. “You heard it, right?”

Red cocked his head, a question on his face.

Josh rolled his eyes and leaned against the wall. His breath still refused to slow down. He fumbled for the controls to make his seat a cot too, throwing aside the bottle of water and the plate of fried fish that sat on top of it.

“What? Suddenly can’t read lips any more, genius?”

Red winced. It should have been satisfying, but somehow it wasn’t.

“Yeah, I caught on to your little secret. Otherwise you wouldn’t have understood half the stuff I said before. The fact that you look this skeptical without me even signing anything makes it pretty clear.”

He didn’t mean to sound quite that vicious, but thankfully Red couldn’t hear his tone. Josh had no desire to revisit their earlier argument. All the energy he’d set out with was gone, leaving him aching and shaking and weak.

Red rolled his eyes, but seemed to accept it. He waved two fingers beside his head. Josh assumed Red wasn’t calling him an idiot, and instead indicated having heard the weird voice again, too.

“Okay, good. So I am not crazy, something is talking to us in our heads. Or maybe I’m just not losing it alone.” He noticed a packed bag and the sea glide piled up at the foot of Red’s cot. “Wait, were you planning on leaving without me?”

Red’s face closed.

“You were, weren’t you?” Josh sat down on his cot. “You son of a bitch. You fucking son of a bitch!”

Tapping the PDA, Red turned the screen around. The countdown showed fourteen hours until arrival. That must be the Sunbeam. ‘They come.’

“That doesn’t mean we can leave our friends behind!” Josh yelled. “They were our crew, our people! I can’t believe I have to say this again. Do you even care that I found nothing? That Billy and Jack are probably dead or dying or hunted or starving out there?” He didn’t get it. He really didn’t. “I don’t get it. How can you be such a cold-hearted bastard?”

‘You. Me,’ Red gestures. ‘Two people.’

Followed by a string of word-signs too fast for Josh. His face must have shown it, because Red repeated them, slower. When it became obvious that the meaning didn’t translate, he rubbed the fingers of one hand together in an all too universal gesture. ‘Money.’

“That makes no sense at all. What the hell would money do for us right now?”

Red pointed at the fabricator and suddenly, it clicked.

“You mean resources.”

‘Two people, little resources. We no help.’

“We can’t stop trying!” Josh shouted. “Vasquez is out there!”

‘You’re reckless. Put your life on line alone. Not me.’

“I did! I almost died down there in the caves looking for Jack because you didn’t come. And I know for a fact that you liked Jack. I only got out due to coincidence and it was dark outside, too, so I almost didn’t find out at all.”

Which probably had a lot to do with how untethered he felt, both fueling and emphasizing the panic. But no matter how they looked at it, in the end it had been Josh on his own out there. “I risked my life to find our friends. What the hell have you done?”

Red’s eyes narrowed. ‘You could not feed yourself for one day outside of a canteen.’ If he didn’t need his hands to sign he would be counting off on his fingers: ‘You almost died from dehydration. You would have definitely died had I not forced you to repair the life-support systems before communications.’ He jabbed his finger at Josh, eyes alight with fury. ‘I saved you from the monster. I dragged you into my life pod when we got shot down. And all the time I have known you, you have done nothing but insult and humiliate me because you thought I couldn’t hear you!’

He leaned over Josh on his cot, effectively backing him into the wall. He looked furious.

Suddenly, Josh was awfully glad Red didn’t have a knife, or any other weapon. But with the anger in his face now, Josh somehow doubted he needed a knife. Despite them not touching, he felt caged. His heart was beating a mile a minute. For once, he had no idea what to say.

Red’s nostrils flared, as if smelling the fear. ‘Tomorrow, we go to rendezvous point. Meet up. Then find others. No detours, got it?’

Josh could only nod.

–

The next morning started with rain and silence. Red was up early doing stretches, while Josh just laid there, muscles aching from exhaustion. He watched the sky brighten to a muted white through the escape hatch.

Red cleaned up the pod and checked their supplies again.

When Josh couldn’t justify lazing around any longer, he rolled out of bed with a groan. His whole body gave a twinge, from head to toe, and his joints felt stiff as nails. Just staying upright hurt, and even more so when he realized he’d have to endure it without a single drop of coffee.

Red’s expression was flat and stony when he showed Josh they had about six and a half hours left. They logged in the coordinates of the rendezvous point: the Aurora’s last known location, Sam trying to stabilize her orbit before they went down. On the planet’s surface, that drive would take them approximately four hours, squeezed into a tiny sea moth together.

At least they had the sea glide Red fabricated. Technically that was just a handheld, sonar-capable engine they could hang onto to be towed through the water, but it would be useful in emergencies.

Red drove, while Josh kept his eyes and ears out for said emergencies. But the ocean was calm, as was the kelp forest they had to cross again, despite the clouds above piling higher and higher.

–

Three hours later, the Aurora was smaller than Josh’s palm behind them, and the water, despite not being very deep, was too murky to see further than a couple of feet. They were navigating out the other side of the kelp forest and into open, desolate waters.

Josh tapped Red’s arm and pointed above.

Red kept them barely below the waves, close enough to the surface for the rain to prattle on the windshield.

In the distance, the clouds seemed to thicken like coils of cord, bunching from the sea to the sky like the massive anvil cloud formations back on Earth: gloriously fluffy in an almost silver shining gray, poofy like sheep and housing the most violent of summer storms.

“Can we get around that?”, Josh typed out on his PDA. He’d given up on signing since they were both squeezed on half of the single captain’s chair and his shoulder was pressed to Red’s.

Red tilted his head but didn’t change course.

Okay, then. With a stab of irritation, Josh turned his attention to his PDA fully. Nothing was happening, so he might as well read up on all the information Red scanned out of their pod’s surroundings. After their run-in with the mandible monster, he knew better than to relax.

They entered the mound of fog and clouds and like with every fog, it became invisible once they were actually in it, only showing its full effect a few meters ahead.

With a sudden, unexpected crunching sound, the sea moth ground to a halt.

Red tugged at the joystick. The crunching happened again, and a third time, and they didn’t move an inch.

Josh knocked Red’s hands away. “Stop that, you’re just making it worse, idi–”

He broke off and let go of Red abruptly. Feeling a faint warmth in his cheeks, he pointed outside. “I’ll see what I can find.”

They seemed to be halfway out of the murky water, so he just slid the windshield open and dove out – only to yelp in surprise when he faceplanted onto sandy ground. Sputtering, he pushed himself to his knees. The water didn’t even lap halfway up his thighs.

Disbelieving, Josh stood up and looked down at Red, who watched him with raised brows.

Josh took a step to the side and then another, finding solid ground every time. Sure, it could be a sandbank, or a rock formation below, maybe even a volcano about to blow up in their faces – although the computer would probably warn them if that was the case – but the Faraday-instinct kicked in again. The waves felt different: slower, more insistent as they tugged on his calves, pushing, or... running up against something.

Josh followed the direction of the pressure and the water receded again, lapping at his shins and ankles until there was only gritty, wet sand.

He barely listened to the splash of feet behind him. He dashed forward onto dry ground. The dirt clung to his naked feet, grinding between his toes, and he threw his arms in the air because they were on land. The Sunbeam had been right: on this godforsaken planet, there was land. “Wohoo!”

Suddenly, the fog stirred. With every step further inland, it cleared away, until the wind swiped the lasts wisps and they found themselves on a rocky shore that bled into a meadow, only a few feet away. Before them, on the cliff overlooking the water, a pitch black, rectangular tower jutted into the sky.

Josh’s jaw dropped. “That’s a building. There’s a fucking building on this planet.”

Behind him, he heard Red stumble out of the mist and inhale sharply.

They shared a glance, and just like that they ran for cover. Diving behind the closest rock reminded Josh of dozens upon dozens of emergency drills before: crouch here, keep your front covered, line of sight to the target, who the hell is attacking you and how can you take them out? He ducked behind a dwarfish shrub. Billy’s knife was still on his belt, eagerly leaping into his hands.

Nothing happened.

The eerie quiet that blanketed the entire island was only broken by the rush of the waves. There were no birds. Not that the calm couldn’t be an illusion. Peace is always an illusion, Vas used to say, armed with just the historical example to prove it. He’d been infuriating that way, and most of the time Josh hadn’t even seen the movie adaption of whatever long-ago fallout his best friend was gushing about.

Red peered over the boulder beside him and pointed the scanner at the building. It whirred.

“Analysis of foreign structure complete,” the machine bleated. “No life forms detected. Internal structure scan not possible.”

Josh jerked the device out of his hand. “Yeah, just broadcast where we are, why don’t you!”

“Unknown culture of origin. Unknown material. Material structure likely to be artificial. Carbon deterioration analysis suggests time of construction approximately one thousand years ago.”

With a hiss, Josh dialed down the volume. Red looked a little sheepish as he took the scanner back, and in turn showed Josh the ETA of the Sunbeam. Fifteen minutes.

Red pointed at the building and Josh hesitated. Just because no one came out to greet them or shoot them or both didn’t mean no one was home. They could be surrounded by enemies right this moment, and they didn’t even have a real weapon. With his knife, Josh would look extra stupid if they were really about to be gunned down.

But the Sunbeam’s scanners needed to find them, too, lest they assumed everyone had been killed and didn’t even bother to land. The cleared area in front of the building was the only place the long-range scanners were reliable to detect them. They didn’t really have a choice.

Josh nodded at Red. “Let’s do this.”

Together, they inched towards the structure. The closer they got, the harsher the sunlight seemed to become, and the black coating of the building deepened. Lines etched into its surface, parallel groves at perfect ninety-degree angles and wide as a finger, flickered in pale green, as if the material was streaked with rare minerals. On the side, it had an arched opening big enough to fit two trucks, leading into the dark interior. It was made of the same material and design used on the outside, only with more green shimmering. Apparently whoever build this thing did not believe in doors.

Neither Josh nor Red dared to approach the building directly, but Red suddenly stopped in the grass to pick something up. It turned out to be a flat tablet of unidentifiable material, with four handles – one on each side – and a glowing rune in the center.

To Josh’s astonishment, Red shoved the tablet into one of his bags.

“What’s that for?”

Red slammed his fist into his open hand as if pressing a stamp to it. ‘Proof.’

The PDA buzzed in Josh’s hand, distracting them both.

“Survivors,” Leni Frankel shouted, her voice crisp and far less static-y than the last time they’d heard her. “We see you! Stay where you are, we’ll be with you in a minute.”

Both Red and Josh turned their faces skyward, but the cloud cover was only just lifting to reveal clear blue beyond.

Suddenly, there was a red flash: the burning blink of a starship breaking through the outer layers of the atmosphere. The crew was probably sweating now – not as much as they had inside the Aurora when her internal temperature controls had shortened out, though.

“Gosh, I can’t imagine what it must have been like –,” Captain Frankel broke off, composing herself. “Don’t worry, survivors. We will bring you home.”

Josh had no intention of going home just yet, but even he couldn’t suppress the wave of relief that rushed through him at the sight of the approaching starship. Everything he needed was now in range: provisions, quarters, food and water and most of all – safety.

A low machine hum jerked him from his hopeful musings. “What the hell?”

The alien building moved. The whole structure tilted, elegantly, without the shuddering hitches of heavy machinery he knew from home. It just leaned, until the top was pointing at the Sunbeam.

Scattered mumbling floated through the speakers. Captain Frankel spoke, but obviously not to them: “What do you mean there’s a building down there?”

The sound now shook the surrounding sand, growing louder and louder until it reminded Josh of a lion’s roar. Like a machine gearing up. The curl of dread that had almost settled stirred again in his stomach.

“These readings,” Captain Frankel yelled. “Someone, explain to me what this –”

A glowing white energy beam erupted from the top of the building.

“What is tha –”

The crackling beam hit the drifting form of the starship dead on, and the Sunbeam exploded like a target in a video game. The transmission cut off abruptly. Red and Josh could only stare in horror as debris sprayed in every direction, smoke and ash trailing behind the pieces as they tumbled towards the planet.

Beside them, the alien building – a cannon, a fucking cannon – settled into its previous, resting form, powering down with a softer whir.

Red stared.

Josh stared too, dumbly. He felt frozen, hovering just outside of his body, doomed to watch the destruction and unable to do anything. Just like when he had been in their position, only that the Aurora was six times the Sunbeam’s size, and this little ship never stood a chance. Guess we found what shot us out of the sky, he thought in a moment of frantic panic. Then the cold of shock melted away under something hotter. We can’t get help. Whoever comes here will have this happen to them.

“Uninhabited my ass!” Josh roared. Weapons like this weren’t left unattended. He ran for the building. “I’m going to kill you, you motherfucking murderer!”

Even though whoever was in there couldn’t have aimed at the Sunbeam without seeing her, Josh didn’t give a shit about them seeing him coming. His vision was bloody as he headed straight for the entrance, driven by the pounding of his own pulse and the knowledge that whoever pressed the red button was responsible for the deaths of his friends. Not only Sam way back on the bridge, but also Jack and Billy and probably others: everyone who died on this fucking planet only did so because of this alien.

The giant door gaped before Josh, bigger than he had originally thought. It was about twice as high as he was tall. He ran straight in, completely fixed on the electric green glow within – so much he didn’t see the blueish shimmer until he slammed right into the force field. Heat sizzled over his skin, sudden enough to block the pain for the first few seconds. Then the burn set it. Josh stumbled backwards with a yell of pain.

It only managed to fuel his rage. He kicked the force field, which felt like hitting granite. He wanted to run at it again, but his skin prickled like pins and needles.

“Come out here you fucking coward!” he yelled, shaking his knife. “Think you can hide in there forever? I’m gonna find a way to kill you, even if it takes that long!”

His throat hurt from screaming. He whirled on his heel. “Red, help me! – RED!”

The Earthling stood off to the side, that tablet in his hand which he picked up earlier, trying futilely to rub it again the wall.

“Err, Red?”

He slowly rotated the tablet.

Josh shook his head. Maybe he finally lost it.

With a faint click, the tablet stuck. A flicker at the corner of his vision made Josh turn again, and the tunnel leading into the building suddenly seemed... sharper.

Red walked towards him – without the tablet – with an outstretched hand.

“What?” Josh asks, stepping to the side. “You blind now, too? I’ll let you run into a wall.”

The Earthling didn’t spare him a glance. He just strutted past Josh as if nothing had happened, and only stopped with both feet on black alien stone. A smirk spread over his face. He turned to his companion, mimicking a key turning in a lock.

Josh blinked at the tablet. “Pretty fuckin’ stupid of them to leave that just lying around,” he hissed, but gripped his knife harder. “They won’t get a chance to regret it.”

–

Josh had never killed a man. He never thought he ever would, though he had known it was a possibility when he joined Alterra’s exploration team. Space was the final frontier or some shit, the place where the battles where fought. Space was full of rage – and now he understood why.

He hastened down a corridor that seemed way longer than the length of the building on the outside. It had already looked massive, but now he’d fallen into one of those dreams where he ran and ran, without ever reaching his destination. Relying on his engineering expertise and instinct, he headed towards the center of the building.

The whole structure seemed to consist entirely of corridors. There were no rooms spreading off to the sides, or if there were, they were closed and locked and someone had thrown more keys away.

He ran out of steam before even making it anywhere, but the rage carried him forward. The hallways widened with every side passage that joined, converging like veins close to the heart. At one point, the green glow emanating from the lines in the wall grew brighter.

The PDA beeped at him. “Data download available. Do you wish to download the data from Unknown Building number one?”

“Hell, no,” Josh snarled. They’d come this far, they could make it the rest of the way without some weird alien virus screwing up their systems.

On the whole way, they didn’t see anyone. There weren’t even windows. The narrow green corridor ended in an electrified green force field with a weird box that required a cube with a specific ion signature. They tracked it with their scanners and pilfered one from another room.

When the field shimmered out of existence, it gave way to a cavern as vast as a cathedral. In the very center, a humongous command console squatted, sleek and black like the walls, and the perfect height to sit on. But instead of a chair close by, there was a menacing looking, blocky machine with a red button in the middle. Again, there was no one in sight.

“Come out, you fucker,” Josh yelled. His voice slammed back into him from all four walls. These were the kind of acoustics that hurt. “Wherever you are, we’re going to find you!”

Silence.

“If you won’t come on your own,” Josh threatened. “Maybe you will when we blow up this baby.”

He approached the console and smashed the button – or tried to. Another, smaller force field blocked him. It wasn’t the same one as the door: this one felt more like jelly, and Josh’s hand was already halfway through when he realized he couldn’t pull it back.

His eyes widened. He yanked at his wrist, but it was stuck, with his fingers just hovering over the red button. He couldn’t even move them. “Fuck!”

The top of the console slid open and a mechanical arm with an intimidatingly thick needle at the top emerged. It bobbed in front of Josh, like some kind of snake sea monster.

He pulled harder, but his arm wouldn’t budge. The force field sucked at him like quicksand.

The needle thrust into his arm without mercy.

Josh jerked. “Ow!”

There was a crackling sound and then gibberish droned from invisible speakers all around them. His PDA took a second to belatedly translate.

“Attention! Infected individuals may not deactivate planetary quarantine. Attention! Infected individuals...”

The force field spit out Josh’s hand. Since he was still pulling, he fell onto his ass with a thud. “What the hell?!”

The needle folded back into the console. Everything went dead quiet.

Josh jumped to his feet and kicked the machine, one hand cradled protectively around his arm. “Show yourself, asshole!”

A hand brushed him.

Josh, wound up as he was, almost decked Red. “Fuck! Don’t do that! What the hell is wrong with you?”

Red thrust the scanner at his face, running it over him.

For a moment, Josh thought about pushing him away, but in the end, he didn’t. The scan ran much longer than the usual few seconds it took to ascertain a human organism’s health.

“What the fuck is going on?”

The Earthl– Red frowned at the display.

The longer it took, the more queasy Josh became. The feeling that something was wrong tightened like a clamp around his insides. When the scanner eventually beeped, he couldn’t suppress an exhale of relief. It was short lived as Red’s gaze flew over the results, eyebrows drawing tighter with every line.

Josh shifted his weigh from one foot to the other, a hair’s breath away from ripping the damn thing out of his companion’s hands. “What, what is it?”

Red tapped the screen. A mechanical voice blurted: “Full bodily scan complete. Time: four minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Detected: unknown bacterium in host system.”

Josh’s eyes widened. The voice was not done.

“Origin of bacterial organism: unknown. Pre-analysis suggests infection potential of 99.9% on the Q-Scale of alien diseases capable of effecting the human body.”

“Ninety-nine point nine,” Josh repeated dumbly.

“Transferability to other known organisms: 100%,” the computer continued, “Routes include: ingestion, droplet transmission and open wounds. Predicted damage and symptoms of infection include but may not be limited to: skin discoloration, blood discoloration, internal organ deterioration, internal bleeding, pulmonary tract inflammation, spinal disintegration, bone structure damage and death due to cerebral damage or internal organ failure.”

The artificial voice had no inflection, but Josh shivered nonetheless.

“Present system configuration and portable survival database do not include records of bacterium or effective antibiotics. To ensure continued survival, seek immediate attention from a medical professional. Repeat: survival can only be achieved by seeking –”

Josh flicked the screen, sick to his stomach. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t eaten in a while, because it would have come back to bite his ass right about now. Without the relief of retching, he could only slump against the console. It was cold against his thin, still damp uniform, pressing ice-like into his skin. But he didn’t move away. With cold came clarity: things started to make a terrifying amount of sense: the cannon, the bacterium, the message. Quarantine. The fact that they hadn’t seen an alien in the entire damn base.

He rubbed his forehead. A numb feeling spread out from the touch, replacing the nausea. “Fucking hell.”

‘This changes nothing,’ the PDA bleated at him.

Josh looked up at Red. “Yes, it does.”

Red typed furiously. ‘Bacterium is an organism. We can synthesize known antibiotica and try. One always works. Alien bacterium knows no immunities.”

It sounded... strangely hopeful.

“Didn’t you hear? No, of course you didn’t.” Josh felt tired all of a sudden. “This thing has been here for a thousand years. That’s a long fucking time for a quarantine.”

Vas, he thought suddenly. He could be... no. He’s most likely infected already. Maybe even in a later state. He could be hurting, with absolutely no clue why. Josh’s stomach turned. And if not, I’m going to infect him if I get anywhere near him.

‘We call more help,’ Red typed. ‘Other ship.’

“And they will get shot down.” Josh patted the console. “Only someone not infected can deactivate it. We both are, with a 99% infection rate. If I have it, you definitely have it too.”

A quick scan confirmed it.

“Unless we’re smarter than an entire alien species, who were advanced enough to engineer all of this,” Josh gestured to their surroundings, “We’re fucked.”

Red frowned. ‘We don’t know their research.’

“It doesn’t matter,” Josh snapped. “Look around: the whole population was wiped out before they managed to synthesize an antidote.”

He flopped to the floor, head in his hands. Breathing was getting difficult, but he couldn’t tell whether that was the pulmonary tract inflammation at work or the sheer panic.

“We’re going to die.”

Chapter Text

The air was icy. It was creeping in through his wet uniform. Outside, in the sun, it hadn’t been as noticeable, but surrounded by the lifeless stone walls built by an alien culture that had gone extinct a thousand years ago, there was no escape. Josh curled a little tighter around himself.

He was leaning against the command block in the middle of the control room of the over-sized gun that had shot down the Sunbeam and trying not to think about anything that had happened in the past hour. His breath was rasping in his throat – due to the pulmonary infection, of course, and not any kind of belated reaction to the fact that they had been infected by an unknown bacterium and were going to die, after surviving the crash of their own starship, on a planet where everything wanted to kill them on sight. After losing all their friends and being unable to deactivate the planetary quarantine. Fuck, now he was thinking about it again.

Josh inhaled against the lead weights that pressed down on his chest. His muscles ached from the cold. Idly, he wondered if he could synthesize alcohol with their fabricator or if the safety settings would prevent him from it, just like it would prevent him from making a gun. Not that it mattered, he’d find a way around the code.

Ah, ethanol. Back in his youth, it and Josh had been quite intimately acquainted. He’d ditched his love because the company frowned upon it – the Bogues, they said, never touched an alcoholic drink in their life, and all employees were expected to emulate this kind of restraint. Josh had always suspected it had more to do with the fact that addictions were costly and Alterra wanted their worker bees to spend their money on equipment or special training, rather than distractions.

It hadn’t actually taken that long for Josh to realize he didn’t miss it. A week ago, he’d even have proclaimed that he would never, ever be at a point again where he’d want a drink, rather than a screwdriver. But fuck it all, out here, it wasn’t like he’d live long enough to see his brain and liver deteriorate, anyway. Maybe if he drank enough, he’d even forget, for a little while, that they were dying. Better yet, forget that Vas was dying.

Or forget Vas.

Josh frowned. Suddenly, being plastered didn’t sound inviting any more.

A rustle in the darkness jerked him from his thoughts. His hand shot to his knife, eyes locking on the open doorway. A shadow appeared, cast in eerie green light from the corridor that made his dark skin glow. It was Red.

Previously, when Josh had his sudden epiphany about their swift and painful end – not a breakdown, it had definitely not been a breakdown – the Earthling had kept his distance, which just screamed ‘Alterra cadet training’ to Josh. Standard procedure in such a case would be to talk a person down, obviously. Which, for Red, was understandably difficult.

In the end he had simply typed out that he was going to take a look around, had taken his PDA and wandered off, leaving Josh to deal with his not-breakdown on his own. That was probably explicitly against training. Whatever. It wasn’t like anyone would care. Or even know.

Josh wondered whether the Aurora’s sudden drop out of communication had raised any red flags yet. After all, the Degasi had vanished in quite the same way: from one moment to the next she’d been impossible to hail. Nonetheless it had taken Alterra’s board of directors – a Bogue family gathering, actually – six months to send reinforcements. Because ships made contact with previously unknown species all the time, and getting damaged while working out a pecking order through armed conflict was always a possibility. They had been waiting, and right now, they were probably waiting for the Aurora.

Oh, she was damaged, all right. A starship on the bottom of the ocean, haha.

Red glanced up from his screen, quickly scanned the room and then marched right up to Josh. Josh let his head loll to the side and avoided eye contact, hoping it would be sufficient to communicate that he didn’t want to talk. Or whatever the Earthling wanted now. He wouldn’t do it.

Red kicked his shin.

Josh yowled and jerked away. “Ow! What the fuck? Leave me alone!”

‘Get up,’ said the PDA.

“Why? It’s not like we’re not going to die if I move my ass.”

‘I’m not dying.’

Josh blinked. “What?”

Red rolled his eyes and made a gesture that probably meant Don’t Interrupt the Computer, Idiot. ‘– in here with a prick like you. Stop moping and get off the floor.’

“Very funny,” said Josh and demonstratively wriggled into a more comfortable position. “I’m not moving. What’cha gonna do about it?”

‘Leave.’ Red said promptly, hooked the tablet under his arm and turned on his heel to march back to the door.

Josh watched with mild curiosity, wondering whether the Earthling would actually do it or… no, he would. Josh hadn’t collected nearly enough good karma with him.

To his surprise, though, Red stopped in the doorway and turned. From the expression on his face, Josh gathered that he’d just recalled something important, because he wasn’t looking straight at Josh. More like frowning thoughtfully at the ground. Then he started typing again. ‘What about the brain messages?’

The PDA’s voice was faint, almost impossible to make out. Josh leaned forward. “What?”

‘That could have been the aliens.’

“Or just some weird hallucinations from the foreign proteins we’ve been eating all week.”

They hadn’t really talked about the brain messages. Had avoided it beyond confirming that they’d both had them, even. Probably out of some preconceived notion that it would be weird to talk to someone else about the voices in your head; after all, neither of them belonged to a telepathic species. Then again, the building they were in right now wasn’t supposed to exist either, and the technology surrounding them was more advanced than even cream-of-the-crop Alterra tech. Telepathic means of communication weren’t out of the question as a future invention, maybe the aliens had gotten there first. Which would also mean some of them must have survived. And if they managed to find those aliens, they could slowly strangle the life out of them for doing this.

Josh sat up straight.

Red, probably heartened by the reaction, cocked his head. ‘You think it was the aliens?’

“Doesn’t matter,” said Josh. He rolled his shoulders, winced when they cracked, and pushed himself to his feet. His joints screamed in protest, but he ignored it, until something snapped with a sickly sound. Weirdly enough, it had been his ankle. He lifted his foot and rotated it, but there was no pain.

Josh twirled the knife – Red with his martial arts uber skills that surpassed any hand-to-hand combat training Josh had ever had surely didn’t need it – and brushed off some imaginary dirt. “Here’s what we’ll do.”

Red shot him a dry look.

Josh ignored it. “We’re going to find them, force them to deactivate this fucking gun and then we’re going to fuck them over for doing this to us in the first place.”

He made a vicious slashing motion with the blade. He wasn’t as good as Billy, but hearing the steel cut through the air nonetheless brought a smile to his face. “We have nothing to lose.”

Worry flickered across Red’s face, but it was gone too quickly to mean anything. He made a gesture, interrupted himself and used the PDA. “Killing them will not make it better. That’s why vigilante justice is illegal.”

Josh shrugged. “Fuck righteousness. I want revenge.”

Apparently, that was good enough for Red to be on board. ‘How do we find them?’

Josh blinked. The planet they were stranded on didn’t have a satellite network for global positioning and-or tracking. Fuck. Then he remembered the data download the PDA had offered him from the tower’s systems when they’d stormed the building.

He grinned. “Data. One sec.”

Grabbing his own PDA from its loop on his belt, he stormed past Red into the hallway. He scrolled through the recent alerts until he got in range again and clicked ‘confirm’ this time. A yellow bar ran over the screen, filling up quickly. Either the compatibility was better than he thought, or someone had taken care to make it so.

The screen only flickered a few times under the strain of downloading alien data, before informing him that decryption had started. A file with on-the-fly translations was immediately available, but likely contained errors. The system had also compiled a summary from keywords it had found.

Steps sounded on the stone floor. Instead of going for his weapon again, Josh ignored it. It was Red, anyway.

Instead, he found what he was looking for, and breathed a sigh of relief. He flashed the PDA at his companion in triumph. “Looks like this platform is not the only one. Communication logs show the building had regular exchanges with five other facilities.” He frowned, scrolling further in hope for details. “One’s a power plant, then there’s something called a conservatory...”

His face fell. “All of them are under water. Deeper than three hundred meters, going by the quality of the messages. Our sea moth can’t handle that much pressure.”

‘Then we adjust.’

“We’d need to go back to the life pod to do that. The fabricator unit is there.”

‘Do you have anything better to do?’

Josh barked a sharp laugh. “Good point.”

Red made a shooing motion, and, when Josh didn’t move, mimed kicking him in the butt.

“Eyy,” protested Josh, but started walking. Out of the corner of his eyes, he was sure he saw Red smile.

They followed the biggest corridor all the way back to the entrance. Easy, since it was almost completely straight. The force field had, thankfully, not reingaged. They made it onto the beach without any hassle.

Outside, the sun was shining and the wind had picked up, but even that didn’t manage to dislodge the fog that seemed to surround the island like a cloaking shield.

Once they were outside, Red began stroking the wall again; this time until he could peel the stone tablet they’d found out of the socket.

‘Key,’ he said, by way of explanation, at Josh’s skewed look.

Then he led the way back to their sea moth. They piled into the much too small pilot’s seat together. The drive back to the pod, despite being equally crammed, was a lot more pleasant than the initial trip: Red still wouldn’t let Josh drive, but at least they had a common goal now.

–

Night had fallen, cloak-black and star-bright, when they arrived. Even in the pale glow of the last burning scraps of the Aurora that were still floating, the white of the hull and orange of the air buffers shone in the night. They were pretty much a beacon that was impossible to miss, should any of the predators they’d encountered go for a nice midnight snack in the Shallows.

But after having gotten through the kelp forest unscathed a second time, luck seemed to be on their side: their onboard scanners couldn’t pick up on anything dangerous in the limited radius they had access to. Admittedly, that didn’t say much, but it was enough to allow them some peace of mind while they parked the sea moth, got out, and swam to the pod.

Josh used the handles of the ladder to clamber up the side, pulling himself onto the thick, air-filled cushion. Then he made his way to the top, while Red just took a deep breath and dove for the life pod’s bottom hatch.

In the distance, the Aurora’s wreck still sent billowing smoke towards the sky. From here, it looked like mountains: round domes and sharp peaks; a massif, seeming farther away than it actually was. A stone giant.

Definitely not possible on this flat blue planet on which the only landmass seemed to be a tiny island with a big gun.

His alien encounter fantasies had definitely looked different before this mission, Josh thought glumly.

There was no wind, but cold seemed to emanate from the water’s surface. He shivered and let the shudder run down his spine, concentrating on the way his skin prickled, before deciding Red had had enough time to get inside and if he hadn’t closed the bottom hatch yet and they drowned, it was definitely the Earthling’s fault.

Josh climbed on top of the pod, turned the wheel for the top hatch and it opened with a satisfying hiss. From inside, clattering floated up to him, followed by a beep and the tell-tale sizzle of the fabricator unit.

He gripped the inside ladder, used his weight and gravity to slide down without touching the rungs, and made a beeline for the communicator.

Before he could get there, though, he was intercepted by Red’s arm. He looked along the muscled limb – wow, how had Josh never realized how ridiculously toned the Earthling was? Ah, right, he was busy looking at his shortcomings – and found a worried frown directed at him.

Josh patted the arm. “It’s okay, I won’t lose my cool again.”

His companion didn’t look very convinced, but retreated back to the fabricator nonetheless. He was frying fish again.

“Is that from yesterday?”, Josh asked, horrified. “Do you know what happens to dead animal bodies if you leave them lying around?”

Red’s eyebrows drew together. He was squinting at Josh’s lips, probably because it was so dark in here. Josh repeated the words a little slower, since he didn’t know the appropriate gestures for ‘food poisoning.’ Though he was really making progress on ‘what the fuck’ and ‘do you think you’re doing.’

Red held up a metal box – aluminum, so that was where it went – without a lid. Inside was a pressed cube. It took Josh a moment of hard staring to realize that it was a fish-cube. Literally a fish, pressed and dried.

“Ew. I guess that works. But I really don’t want to know how you got that idea.”

He continued his way to the communicator, heart beating harder with every step. But as soon as he got it open, his hope sank. No blinking diode, no new messages.

He connected his PDA anyway and scrolled through the log. Maybe someone had tried to contact them and the device had malfunctioned. It was pretty banged up, after all. Despite Josh being a genius with nanobots. And his hands.

But there was nothing. Niente. Nada.

“Fuck,” he muttered. Then he realized he was turned away from Red and he couldn’t ‘hear’ him, and promptly followed it up with a string of more creative curses.

Suddenly, the machine pinged. Josh nearly toppled backwards onto his ass in surprise, barely managing not to drop it.

Behind him, Red rapped his knuckles against the pod’s wall – Josh hoped it was the pod, because if he found out Red was knocking on their precious fabricator, he’d wring his neck – in his version of a concerned noise.

Josh opened the channel. A blurb of gibberish spewed from the speakers, interspersed with a wash of static that didn’t quite sound like a transmission issue, and more like an array of deliberate grinding noises. Howling in the distance, even coming through the speakers, made Josh shudder involuntarily. The message ended and his PDA buzzed.

‘Translating now… Translation ready.’

▄▐▀▬▌▐▄ject▐▀▬▌▐▄-yed. Mode: ▄▐▄
patr ▄▐▄ Tar▬▌▄ nted ffff▄▐: 2.

Josh’s forehead creased in a frown. Was it just him or did that gibberish not make any more sense than before? Maybe it was some kind of broadcasted message from the quarantine enforcement platform or something, to warn the other aliens?

He saved it and decided to send another SOS signal instead.

A plate descended into his field of vision, held by a hand that, again, lead up a very muscular arm to a wary face.

Looking up at him, at the food, after the day they’d just had, made Josh feel a twinge of… guilt. He took the plate, but instead of eating the vaguely fish-smelling lump, he held Red back before he could retreat.

Red made a questioning gesture. He pointed at the message.

Josh shook his head. “Not about that.”

Okay, now Red looked seriously worried. And maybe a little bit irritated.

Josh swallowed. “I just… look.”

He stood up. He couldn’t be sitting on the floor for this, he needed to be eye-to-eye. Even though he probably didn’t deserve that kind of courtesy. “Look,” he said again, then ran a hand through his hair. “I was a jerk.”

Red raised a brow. That gesture didn’t need a PDA to translate.

Josh let out a frustrated noise. “Yes, really, and I’m sorry for… being that. The jerk.”

The eyebrows wandered higher and higher at his words – until they abruptly settled back into their normal, half-pissed-at-you position. Red shrugged. ‘Okay.’

Josh boggled. “What? How can that be ‘okay’? How… how can you even stand to work with me?”

In all honesty, that was a question he’d been unwilling to ask himself a few times already. Especially recently.

Red sat down heavily on his cot, put the plate aside so he wouldn’t jostle it and pointed at Josh, then at himself, and made a swirling motion. ‘You, me. In this together.’ Both hands now. ‘Me, adult. Can control my feelings. Does not mean I do not hate you for what you did.’

A hard, angry look passed over his eyes. Then it was gone, and Red shrugged again. ‘Eat.’

Josh’s stomach clenched. This was more like what he’d expected. He hadn’t expected it to hurt so much, though. He looked away, but couldn’t find anything to stare at that wasn’t the communicator or the fish-lump. “I guess that’s fair. Thank… uh. Thank you for the food.”

Not knowing what to do, he remained standing while he ate – with his fingers – and watched while Red finished up, grabbed his PDA and ducked out the upper hatch, the screen already lit with one of the data files they’d downloaded from the platform. He didn’t come back in.

Torn, Josh eyed his cot. Should he join Red, if not physically then at least in working through the material? He wouldn’t be much help in trying to figure out the chemical and biological properties of the bacterium – if that was even in the data they had access to – but maybe he could read some of the other files to find anything that could help?

On the other hand, he was not a scientist. He might miss something Red wouldn’t. And he was tired to the bone.

In the end, Josh went to sleep. Which was definitely not the coward’s way out – he just needed all his strength tomorrow, to figure out how to find the aliens. Yeah, that was it.

–

Red was already gone the next morning, providing he’d even been in again. Josh groaned, rolled out of bed and felt the first twinges of a headache behind his eyes. He ignored it and was content to crawl to the communicator now that Red wasn’t here to see him.

No new messages, except for more gibberish. This time it was so indecipherable that even the PDA just gave him black boxes. Josh checked a second time just to be sure before, feeling much more maudlin, giving up. Had he made a mistake in assembling the communicator again?

Even geniuses made them; he had no problem admitting that. Hard work, his school teachers used to say, was what honed the rough lump of talent into the sharp diamond of excellency. Back then, Josh had replied he didn’t have time for diamonds, but there was another hard thing he needed to polish. Regularly.

He’d gotten detention, but he hadn’t learned. Until he joined Alterra and unexpectedly found himself the ‘baby’ on a team of equals. The expendable one. Glossing over his screw-ups had been the one surefire way to get fired, and finding and fixing them had been Josh’s main occupation for about three years.

Out in space, one mistake could kill a crew, was what his teachers said then. And fuck, were they right.

Josh looked around for a screwdriver and his gaze fell upon the empty plates they’d used yesterday. His stomach gave a gurgle. Maybe he should find some breakfast first.

As if on cue, the top hatch gave a hiss. Sunlight flooded the pod, and Red climbed inside. He spotted Josh, held up the PDA and pressed a button.

Josh’s own tablet chimed with a new message. “Seriously? Dude, I’m right here.”

Red gave an impatient hand-wave.

“Alright, alright.”

The message was another summary of the data they found, but this one wasn’t computer generated. The computer would have used complete sentences and references. ‘Alien research facility at’ – coordinates in a system Josh couldn’t place – ‘likely to contain information on the bacterium.’

Josh shook his head. “That’s almost a mile deeper than we can go,” he said, remembering to turn just in time so Red could see his mouth.

Red stuck a hand in Josh’s face. Or, well, extended it over the PDA to scroll down, where it said ‘Depth module’ in bold, black letters.

“Yes, technically that would help the sea moth handle the water pressure, but there’s just one problem,” said Josh. “We don’t have a depth module.”

‘You’re an engineer.’

“And that means I can just pull decades of specialized tech and programming out of my ass, or what?”

‘Genius.’

“What the hell are you trying to imply?”

Red crossed his arms in front of his chest and tapped his foot. ‘Can you or can you not?’

Josh cursed. “Yes, what the hell. I can make a depth module from scratch, maybe, with a bit of resources and a fuckton of luck.”

Red gestured to their pile of assorted first-aid and survival-kit leftovers.

“Not enough.” Josh shook his head. “We need titanium, and lots more energy.”

Speaking of which. The sea moth’s battery had taken quite the battering – ha! – yesterday. The trip to the island had taken hours. He was amazed it hadn’t given out on them yet, but that was just a matter of time. They needed to find a way to recharge soon, or they’d be as useless as overturned turtles with their stumpy legs wriggling helplessly in the air. Dying.

Josh shoved the thought aside. No thinking about death allowed.

Red was still looking expectantly at him.

Josh threw up both arms. “Fine, depth module. How hard can it be?”

He grabbed the PDA and searched for the schematics – please, be in the survival pack, please be in the survival pack – and scanned the plans. Okay, harder than he thought. “Fucking damn. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Red snorted.

Ignoring him, Josh pulled up a mental list. “We need titanium, preferably condensed. An ingot, if we can put that together somehow. Glass, enameled glass, plasteel, magnetite, some ruby. Should be right there on the ground for us to pick up. Not.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Red typing again. No voice came forth, though, and Josh frowned. “Are you making a list?”

Red wasn’t looking at him, so Josh had to worm around him to take a look at the display. Yes, he was.

“Sometimes you are really, really weird,” Josh muttered, then realized he’d said that out loud. “Sorry.”

Thankfully, Red hadn’t been paying attention.

Josh went back to his own PDA and set their available scanners to the first of the material signatures, then stared intensely at the device for a few moments. “Okay. The easiest way for us to get titanium is apparently – oh, no.” A hard grip seemed to suddenly squeeze his lungs. “To salvage scraps of the Aurora and extract it from there.”

‘Yes.’ Red pressed his lips into a thin, hard line. ‘Back to the wreck?’

Ice dripped down Josh’s spine. “No!”

The Aurora would be the obvious choice, and they’d have their pick of suitable pieces there, but his stomach turned over just thinking about it. He cleared his throat. “I mean, no. We can’t transport enough material in one go and it’s too dangerous.”

‘Everything is dangerous.’

“Half of the Aurora basically came raining down, anyway,” Josh continued without pause. His beautiful ship. “Let’s go to the kelp forest.”

‘Not enough.’

“It has to be. If it isn’t –” Josh closed his eyes in pain. “Then we can use the remains of the other life pod.”

Red looked confused for a moment, then his expression darkened.

Josh ground his teeth. “We need to get to the research facility.”

For our friends. For revenge.

‘I know.’

“Good. Then let’s get going.”

–

This time, they went together. Really, this common goal thing was making things so much easier. They crossed the Shallows; unlike the first day, without an eye for the waters around them, nor for the beauty of the fish that flitted like butterflies or circled around them like lazy dragons. They only paid enough attention to it all to check for predators.

They’d also need to hunt for food once they came back. Josh added it to his mental list, then focused on the sea glide’s sonar readings.

Red navigated them to the kelp forest easily, already familiar with the general geography. Being together, they even outnumbered anything that might try to come for them – although, technically, they were still one sea moth that could be swallowed whole by the white dragon monster. Reaper leviathan was what the aliens’ data had called them. Somehow, that rung even more menacing than “mandible monster,” and that said something.

Josh directed Red to the larger trail of scraps he’d found the first time around – or more likely, the trail the scrap collecting shark had put together – to grab what they could.

They’d fitted the sea moth with a second pair of grabbing pincers for that purpose, and strapped a net to the belly of the small submarine like a kind of pouch.

Once they’d found a suitable spot, Josh would hop out and use the sea glide, which afforded him greater mobility, and grab as much as he could.

Before them, the entrance of the cave came into view. The scrap shark was nowhere to be seen, but the heaps of torn metal had grown substantially. A little bit of sand had collected on the bigger pieces.

Josh smiled a little. “Looks just as chaotic as last time, but he must’ve liked it this way. That, or he got eaten by something bigger.”

Red blinked. ‘What?’

Quickly, Josh summarized his last encounter with the animal, amused at his stunned face. Eventually, Red’s lips twitched, too. ‘Animals are smart.’

“Yeah. Ready?”

Josh grabbed the scanner and an oxygen tank – cobbled together from the sea moth’s old attachment – and hopped out to show Red what to look for. He started with the scraps at the cave entrance. From what he could see, the biggest piece seemed to be at the bottom. It must have landed right there, for it was too heavy for the junk shark to have moved it. Unless its jaw strength far surpassed Josh’s imagination. Which he definitely didn’t want to think about. Especially not while he was floating right over its nest, with nothing but a sea glide and his own squishy bones.

He scanned the first piece, but he already knew the alloy. He was weighing whether it was worth transporting or not when he spotted something glinting off to the side. It was a shard of glass. The Aurora’s windows hadn’t been made of glass, so this piece must have come from… the bridge, the rec-room, one of the private quarters? Had it been a holographic gaming board, once? The screen for someone’s beloved family photos?

A place that was no more, his thoughts grumbled. They just needed the glass.

While Josh was distracted, Red maneuvered past him, into the cave, where the trail of possibly reusable bits continued. He turned on the flood lights and Josh followed him in, down and down, clinging to the sea glide with one hand and scanning with the other. He was so absorbed he didn’t see the grooves at first, until one long piece of scrap lead right up to it, and his chest seized up.

He’d fallen back a little and swam automatically faster, urgent with the need to catch up to Red and warn him.

But there was a horrifying crunching sound before he could get there, and he paddled around the last bend and found the sea moth there, sitting against the gravel with Red inside, face pale and eyes wide. He was staring at the rest of Jack’s pod. Josh could see he was piercing it together, everything that happened from the moment of the crash until his air ran out.

Then he started looking around frantically.

Josh shook his head. Red couldn’t see his expression behind the diving mask but he hoped the notion came across. No body.

Abruptly, Red turned away and put a hand over his face. Josh was struck with the thought that he would have made fun about it, before, or maybe he would have just ignored it, made vaguely uncomfortable at being reminded the Earthling had feelings, too.

He was still uncomfortable, but the past few days had brought grief, and all his memories of it, to the forefront. He banged a hand onto the outside of the sea moth and then dove around to examine the part where Red had scraped along the wall in his shock.

Out of nowhere, blazing heat shot up his leg. Josh yelped in pain, a cloud of bubbles taking away his vision momentarily and stroking through his hair, and he managed to jerk back until he could feel nothing but cool water, all around him like a soothing balm. The sea glide’s scanners beamed, warning him from the hot current streaming by, rising from the tunnels that led into the deep.

Fuck. He hadn’t remembered this because he’d been in the sea moth before, safe and sound. Relatively. At least from scalding currents.

He yanked at his pants and wanted to scream. In the flood light, his leg was flaming red. Every movement and every touch on the sensitive flesh stung like a thousand needles.

Josh put a hand onto the windshield to steady himself.

From the inside, Red knocked on the glass. He made a motion like a cut over his throat. ‘Abort?’

Josh grit his teeth and shook his head. They couldn’t go home without the materials. The faster they got them, the better. Because the bacterium–

The sea moth shuddered under his grip. Its lights flickered, once, both on the inside and outside, and then it dropped out from under his palm and hit the collected pieces of scrap on the ground with a crunch that echoed in the water like a miniature shock wave.

Josh paled.

The battery, fuck! It had ran out, and now they were stranded, hundreds of meters below the surface. With only one oxygen tank. Even with his swimmer’s lungs, Red would never make it. If he did, if he managed to get out, they’d still have to make their way home, through predator infested waters, without the sea moth. Maybe they could share the oxygen? Would it even last them to the surface, with two drowning pairs of lungs? What if the hand-off failed? What if they got lost on the way back and never made it out, like… like Jack?

Josh suppressed the panicked string of thoughts in his mind and dove for the sea moth and this time, he felt the water warm rapidly and heeded the warning. He slowed, backing away, and used the faint light from the sea glide to illuminate the dark.

Red waved a hand at him. Hopefully, that meant he was unhurt, but he still looked pale. At least he seemed to be aware of their situation.

With a start, Josh realized Red couldn’t leave. He’d cook himself if he dared to set foot into the hotter current.

Fuck, fuck, Josh cursed inwardly, embracing the irritation at the fact that he couldn’t do it out loud. Anything was better than the panic.

Maybe he could make it back to the pod and find some way to recharge one of the batteries, and then return. Would the oxygen in the sea moth last long enough? He’d need a power source, too. Something reliable. Usually he’d have picked the fabricator, but now that the thing itself was running on battery and not attached to the Aurora’s grid any more, which in turn had been draining energy from the core that generated more heat and electricity than they could ever really use–

Josh’s racing thoughts ground to a halt. Heat!

He could almost feel the firing neurons realigning themselves in his brain. He looked around frantically. What did he need? A generator, and a transmitter cable, and of course the nanobots – which were currently in the sea moth, with Red.

Josh spewed another savagely creative curse, and this time he didn’t care that it made his vision swarm with bubbles.

Okay, first, he’d need to find a transmitter cable. And wiring, which he could take from Jack’s pod. He’d deal with everything more problematic later on. Thankfully, their PDAs hadn’t been affected by anything recently – Josh had just managed not to cook it, too, although it would probably have survived the temperatures – and since Red had his on his person, in the uniform’s designated pocket spaces, they could still communicate.

Josh told him the frequencies he’d need to set the sea moth’s scanners to find parts he could use for the generator, but it didn’t work as well. Most of the pieces were down in the hot current, and he nearly boiled his hand off – or that was what it felt like – when he tried to grab the one furthest from the edge.

Red was there with the pincers immediately, barely long enough to reach him, and they were moving sluggishly. He had to lean onto the joystick to get it to move at all, and digging – well, nudging – the piece out took a while. When he was done, he clumsily handed it to Josh.

Josh bit the inside of his cheek at the touch of the hot metal and turned it over. He could use this. He could make something from this, if he was careful. The generator wouldn’t yield much power and it would take the sea moth a long time to recharge, but it was something, at least. It should be enough to keep the life support going before Red suffocated.

But first came the hard part: getting the nanobots out without cooking the sea moth’s passenger like a poached egg. With the electricity down, he wouldn’t even be able to pump out the water that made it in, too. This would have to be quick.

Josh fired up his PDA and got the nanobots ready. They swarmed to the edge of the windshield, which opened like an old car’s trunk.

Red made an ‘ok’ sign and then sprung the hatch. At least these hydraulics worked. The nanobots bubbled forth in a cloud of gray particles. Some drifted away in the current immediately, others were smart enough to cling to the walls, or attach themselves to each other and the sea moth.

Josh held out a hand and they clumped around it, once they cleared the hot zone. Their touch stung against his burnt skin, but he bit the inside of his cheek. Nothing to do but suck it up. The adrenaline coursing through his system helped.

The sea moth’s windshield slammed shut again. Only a minimal amount of water had made it through, but when Red tried to lower his feet into it, he jerked back, dropping his PDA. He tried to reach into the water to get his PDA, but Josh saw him immediately draw his hand away. He hunched on the pilot’s seat and glared at Josh. Josh could sympathize: that position looked very uncomfortable. He needed to work faster.

He ordered the bots to assemble the generator first. If that didn’t work, they’d be fucked anyway. They got to it in a swirl of machinery.

Inside the sea moth, Red had begun to look pale and sweaty. Right, along with the electricity the inside air conditioning was shot, and the insulation could only do so much while constantly being cooked from the outside.

The nanobot program beeped at Josh. Fuck, there was a piece missing – not even from the inner workings, but from the casing. He needed more metal. But Red was in no condition to wrestle the sea moth any more, with his limited air supply. He looked ready to faint. Josh’s own oxygen tank felt a lot lighter than it should, too. And the sea glide’s battery… no, he wouldn’t think about that. Dammit. Josh made gestures and knew they were the wrong ones, but he couldn’t waste any time.

There had been more scrap metal on the surface. He grabbed the sea glide, turned on the engine and let it tow him back through the tunnels. He wasn’t fast enough. Frantically, Josh began to paddle.

He heard the screech before he got to the cave mouth: one of the scrap sharks must have returned and found their home ransacked. Maybe even outright stolen. It spotted him the moment he made it through and bared its rows of sharp, tiny teeth.

Sorry, buddy, not sorry, Josh thought. He didn’t have time for this. He grabbed the closest piece of metal.

The shark gaped at him – or at least did something equivalent, like a double take – and Josh used the moment to draw the piece towards him. Startled by the audacity, apparently, the creature screeched again and came straight for him.

Josh kicked the piece away into the kelp as hard as he could. Enraged, the shark dove after it.

Fuck, yeah, stupid wildlife!

Josh scooped up another piece and ducked back into the cave. The sea glide vibrated in his hand, sonar and display flickering. Its flashlight dimmed.

‘Shit,’ Josh cussed. He clenched down on the handles, feeling the device sputter between his fingers. The light dimmed a little more, then flickered once and turned off. At this rate, everything that would ever spill from Josh’s lips would be curses, he thought manically.

He hooked the sea glide into his tool belt – now he’d be the one towing it – and took out his PDA, which at least still had enough juice to illuminate the immediate vicinity. Behind him, he heard the shark shriek at the cave entrance. Would it come after him?

Josh clutched the piece of metal he needed and began to paddle as fast as he could. Which wasn’t very fast. His muscles vividly remembered their trip to the Aurora a few days prior and protested after a few minutes, and just like back then, his legs started cramping. He gritted his teeth.

His eyes flickered to the wall and ice dropped into his stomach. No grooves. He took a wrong turn. Fuck-shit-goddamn!

Or, wait, did he? Josh’s heart started beating hard in his chest. Adrenaline rushed through his veins. Was he right or would he need to go back? If he was, and he went back anyway, he’d waste precious breaths of Red’s life. Not to mention his own. But if he continued in hopes that he was right and wasn’t, they were both definitely doomed. Fuck, of all times!

With a pounding heart, Josh decided to keep going. He nearly fainted with relief when he found the next fork in the tunnels and the telltale scratches on the wall. Following them with one hand against the rough stone, he made his way back to Jack’s pod, then down, closer to the heat, until the sea moth’s white surface glinted in the light.

Josh dove as close as he dared. He could barely make out anything but the general shape of it in the darkness, and when he waved the PDA, there was no movement on the inside. Son of a bitch!

A rush of anxiety bubbled through Josh. He needed to be quick. Nanobots first, to finish the generator.

While they were busy, Josh got to work on manually connecting the pieces of cable he’d found into a functioning, halfway safe, transmitter cable.

Don’t be dead, don’t be dead, don’t be dead you fucking Earthling. Red, I’d even swear to a deity, the litany in his head sang.

The nanobots beeped, informing him the task was completed. Under this followed a list of lost bots, ordered by number-code: all the ones that were still drifting in the water, and would forever, since he couldn’t collect or piece them back together again.

Instead, Josh jumped to attach the cable and then lifted the generator, which was surprisingly heavy. Its metal surface would heat up and power the mechanism inside.

He took the other end of the cable and attached it to the sea glide. Then, blood rushing in his ears, he threw the generator down to Red. It landed on the stones with a crunch and rolled a bit, before wedging itself against a piece of Jack’s pod.

Josh tapped a command into his PDA. Nothing happened. No lights, no beeps, nothing.

Josh’s stomach sank.

He checked the sea glide, and after a painful moment a battery symbol popped up on the screen. ‘Charging: 0.1%’

From the sheer rush of relief, all Josh’s limbs gave out. Now he only needed to attach the cable to the sea moth’s charging port on the outside. Easy peasy. Not.

He looked around for something to use as a poking stick or something, but there was nothing. He’d utilized any and all scraps that were big enough. Now there was nothing left except for random bits of plasteel. Could he do something with that?

Shit, no. He was running out of time. There was only one way.

Josh eyed the charging sea glide. Five percent. The generator was even slower than he’d anticipated. He looked down at the sea moth and Red’s still form. By now, the oxygen in the sea moth’s cabin must be dangerously low.

Swallowing harshly, Josh took the sea glide in both hands and maneuvered it closer. Then he took a deep breath and his oxygen tank gave a warning beep. The flow slowed.

A minute, Josh’s thoughts warned. Fuck it all to hell.

He activated the sea glide’s engine and aimed it straight at the sea moth. The water warmed quickly, but hitting the hot current still felt like bursting into flames. His muscles locked up, all over, and his face burned.

His outstretched palm hit the sea moth. The hull was searing hot, but he hooked two digits into the charging port’s cap and yanked it off. Then he pulled the plug from the sea glide, stuck the cable into the port and reversed the engine.

The sea glide gave him a battery warning but did as told. In Josh’s chest, the pressure built. His lungs screamed and his throat felt raw. This was what lobsters must have felt like, once upon a time, when people still ate animals.

In the distance, blurry, he could make out the sea moth powering up. Her lights went on – or maybe there were just dark spots in front of his eyes that made it look like that. Desperately, Josh sucked at the mouth piece. But his tank had nothing more to give.

Instinct kicked in. Suddenly getting to the surface – air, breath, life – was the only thing that mattered. No matter how much he wanted to wait for Red to wake up and be fine, he turned the sea glide and let it pull him up and up and up. It felt like ages until there was light again, his head was swimming and he barely knew which way he was going.

Something snarled to his left and Josh ignored it, tearing through the kelp. He could see the sunlight flickering on the waves. Almost there!

The sea glide stuttered in his hands.

An icy prickle of fear sparked over Josh’s skin. His lungs were burning with the pressure, it was all he could do not to open his mouth. Except it was opening. His body was so desperate for air it just didn’t care any more; he tried to suppress the reflex but he couldn’t: his lips parted and he gasped. Water rushed into his mouth and nose. He tried to struggle but it was too much.

His head broke through the surface. It was the last thing he was aware of before everything went black.

–

Josh woke up to a smear of half-darkness and a shadow moving by the opposite wall. Could be Vas, he thought, and something pinged in the back of his mind. Déja vue, he thought, before reality smacked him in the face and he remembered where he was, and how he got here. Well, not exactly how he got here, but at least why he felt like he’d grilled in some vacation planet’s gleaming sun too long.

He’d drowned. He should have been dead.

He doubted Red had found his battered and bruised body, built him an exact replica, and transferred his consciousness.

Josh blinked. On the other hand, that was one way not to die from an unknown bacterial infection. As if on cue, something deep in his guts gave a painful twist.

Groaning, Josh keeled over, missed the edge of the cot by a generous handful and flopped to the ground with a muffled thump.

Red stopped what he was doing – probably the vibration had alerted him, rather than the sound, or maybe he’d set a movement alert on his PDA, like a creepy stalker boyfriend – and he came over. He gripped Josh’s face in one hand without preamble and, using his PDA as a pointer, shone the light right into his eyes.

“Oy!” Josh yelped and flinched, blinking rapidly against the colored spots dancing in his vision. “What the hell?!”

Utter relief flashed across Red’s face. It was quickly replaced by a deeply unimpressed stare. He pulled up the PDA and he must have pre-typed the messages because it only needed one click for the voice to ring out. ‘You were unconscious for two days.’

Or maybe Josh just wasn’t keeping track of time correctly? The world felt fuzzy, a little soft around the edges.

‘How are you feeling?’

Josh stopped blinking and thought about it for a moment. Then he noticed Red’s face was one huge, purply-green splotch and almost broke out in a fit of giggles. He turned away, and the splotch was still there, but Red’s neck was no longer attached to it.

Josh rubbed at his eyes. “Am I a lobster?”

Red’s face, at the edge of his vision and less shot with random colors, creased into a frown.

Suppressing more laughter, Josh waved a hand. “Hungry, hungry first. How did I get here?”

‘Sea moth,’ said Red. ‘I woke up, found you, and went here. Forgot the charger.’

“Are you blushing?” Josh asked. “Are you embarrassed? Your head looks funny. Funnier than normal,” he added after a moment.

Red squared his shoulders. ‘You saved my life.’

Josh knew that kind of face, funny look notwithstanding. Red was gearing up to throw feelings at him. Josh quickly made the same hand-wavy motion again. “S’okay.”

‘In the culture of my people, this now means you own my life,’ the PDA informed him.

Apparently Red was throwing feelings at him anyway. This was worse than anticipated. Josh sat on his hands to avoid making a ‘begone-demon’ sign.

‘But since you’re a dick, we’re not doing that.’

Stunned, Josh looked up.

Red shot him a wobbly, half-thing of a smile. ‘Let’s just call it even?’

Josh stared. Warmth flared in his chest and he didn’t know what to do with that. So he just stared some more. Eventually, though he felt very uncomfortable doing it, he held out a hand. Thankfully, Red looked equally uncomfortable shaking it.

Once the emotions were dealt with, Josh leaned back against the cot. He’d be too happy to just drift off again – his body was so done with this shit, seriously – but his stomach was still empty. He was about to ask Red for food when the other man held up a hand. ‘I found something.’

“Edible?”

Red handed Josh a PDA. He squinted at it, but no, it wasn’t one of theirs. It was the emergency PDA from life pod six. Josh’s skin prickled. Vas’ pod!

For a moment, hope beat hard in his chest. Maybe Vas was alive. Maybe he was well!

‘There was a pod, but it was empty,’ Red’s PDA told him, cutting his hope short. ‘No people, middle of the sea. Just the PDA was there.’

Which, yeah, that was to be expected. Because if there had been anyone, they would be here with them. Or Josh would be where they were. But why hadn’t they taken this PDA with them?

He flicked his wrist and the screen appeared. There were only a handful of different logs, apparently it hadn’t been used much. But at least it had been used – someone had been alive long enough to do that. The open communication was the same gibberish as they’d received, too:

▄▀ Subject▐▀des–▬▌▐▄▐▄. M▄▌▌:
▐▄▄▀ol. Targ▌▄unacc▐▀frrrrr –▬▌▐: ▐▀.

Josh was about to click out of the tab and find whatever else was on there when Red held a hand over the screen. ‘You don’t want to read that right now.’

“Of course I want to.”

It wasn’t like he had a choice, either. This was the first real lead he had on Vas since they crashed. Heck, this PDA had been left behind as if on purpose, like a message in a bottle. Josh pushed the hand away.

But Red looked wary, and his eyes tracked Josh’s movements like he expected him to start a fight again.

Josh considered the PDA. He wanted to check. He wanted to find every hint he could and go out looking immediately. But Red had had this for two days. By now, he must have fine-combed through every piece of data he could get his hands on, looking for the same clues. If there was any hint, anything at all, about where Vas could have gone – or Emma, or Goodnight – and whether they were alive, he would have taken measures to contact them. Or maybe even find them. Wouldn’t he?

Unease spread through Josh’s chest. Red had been the one who’d insisted on postponing the search for their crew to meet the Sunbeam. Was finding the alien research facility more important than their friends’ lives, too?

No. Josh shook off the thought.

Red might have his priorities in a different order, but he wouldn’t lie. Josh had to trust him. Only trust would get them out of here alive.

As far as they knew, Vas, Emma and Goodnight were out there somewhere, with no hints to their location, and on the way to a very painful, bacteria-induced end. Josh and Red were the only ones in possession of the necessary data to find a cure. And for that, they needed to get to the alien research facility as soon as possible. Chasing phantoms would get them nowhere.

When Josh made no further move, Red gently tugged the PDA out of his hands. Josh let it slip from his limp fingers.

Red pointed at the cot. Then he got up to fetch something from the fabricator unit that turned out to be another plate of fish-goop. He’d been hunting, then.

Josh took the food gratefully and, with Red’s help, managed to get back up onto the cot. He gobbled his meal down as fast as he could. After, Red handed him a bottle of water and made him drink it, and when he was done, Josh could already feel his strength returning.

With it, though, came the bone-deep ache. His body was burning all over.

Josh shifted, trying to find a suitable position, but it was impossible. “Do we have –”

‘Here,’ said Red, handing him a tub of ointment. He must have synthesized it, using up more precious materials.

Josh didn’t have it in him to complain. With a grateful sigh, he rubbed it onto his burns. His skin looked reddish and ugly, gearing up to give him hell once it really started healing, but the cold water he’d been in right after had definitely helped.

‘Sleep,’ said Red.

Josh could do nothing but comply.

–

He felt a lot better the next day: no headaches, no chest aches, no creaking joints. He was itching all over, yes, but that just seemed annoying rather than painful, especially after another round of ointment. There was only a weird kind of echo, like pain that should be there but wasn’t. It was the same sensation painkillers sometimes caused to let his brain know that it should be feeling something but it was currently unable to process the sensation. But Josh had lost two days already, he couldn’t idle any longer.

It was still Red who went out into the Shallows with the rest of the list of materials they needed, at the top of it being copper and food. Weirdly, Josh had never been really aware of how much sheer sustenance human bodies required, until acquiring it became a constant life-threatening effort.

He considered going out to join Red, but now that they had a potential power source, he was not going to risk losing it again. The scanners of the pod – modified a little, which took him half the day – sadly told him there was very little geothermal energy to be found in the immediate vicinity. The closest was the cave system.

To get all that energy to their life pod, Josh either had to go back there and in to find a different route with an entrance that was maybe a little closer to their pod, or he could fabricate some more transmitter cable from their own scraps and just connect it all up.

The first option sounded less time consuming. There should be an entrance close by if the readings he got were correct. It was a leak of warm water, and he was confident he could find a suitable spot to put their generator. Also, he didn’t want to spend a second longer in Jack’s cave than he absolutely had to.

He got to work on making cables, and the second half of the day was spent working out an insulation mixture that wouldn’t corrode within a few days. He couldn’t fully replicate either the alloy or the insulation Alterra used, although he’d done enough specialization seminars to know the processes involved in producing both. He was simply lacking the resources. But they could go for the next best thing, it would still work.

Once done, Josh threw together an update for the generator itself, which he hoped hadn’t given up the ghost yet. If not, he’d take the chance to lower it a little further into the hot water streams, in hopes of getting a semi-decent output.

The fabricator threw the proverbial towel halfway through. With a heavy heart, Josh used the battery in his PDA to replace it.

Using the last light of the day, he set up the receiving end – an energy containment unit – under their pod. He was busy loading up the sea moth’s pincers with cables when Red suddenly popped his head out of the water and yanked off the oxygen mask.

‘Going out?’

Josh confirmed with a thumbs-up. “Better to get this done as soon as possible. My PDA died for the fabricator.”

Red frowned.

Josh waved his confusion away. “Nevermind. Point being, we need energy, preferably yesterday. I can probably manage to set this up in under two hours and be back for dinner.”

‘You want to go alone?’ Red asked.

Josh grinned confidently. “I have a half-charged sea moth and burns all over my body, what could possibly go wrong?”

‘Don’t try backwards parking on your own.’

“Why the hell would I– oh, fuck you!”

–

The sun was already setting when he’d managed to fetch the generator and the old cable from Jack’s cave; it was much easier from the inside of a working submarine.

Finding the other entrance was a little trickier, since it was closer to the Shallows and the kelp was high enough to pool on the ocean’s surface like strands of hair on a pillow. The ground was sandy, changing with every strong wave, and the sharks were looking at him funny. Maybe they had some kind of communication system or something – no. They were just sharks. They were definitely not communicating or anything. But maybe...?

The scanner beeped and Josh pushed the thought aside. He thumbed the joystick until the beeping became more frequent, following its direction to a slim chasm in the ground that was definitely not enough to fit the sea moth. Fuck, there was no way he was getting in there.

Disgruntled, Josh parked outside and got to work on updating the generator. This time he had been smart enough to keep the nanobots on the outside, so he could watch from relative safety while they patched in the update and attached the new transmitter cables. Then he used the pincer arms to bring the generator to the chasm, and, after a moment, decided that throwing it might not be the smartest idea. They’d already been lucky the first time.

What to do, though... oh! His face lit up.

He tied the old cable around the generator and used it to lower the box into the chasm. Without his PDA he couldn’t keep track of the heat properly, but he just kept going until he hit the end of the rope and then tied the old cable to a rock to secure it. This… would probably come back to bite him in the ass. Hopefully he would be long gone by the time that happened.

Josh finished tying off the generator and turned the sea moth around. He caught a glimpse of something red and purple and menacing that looked like someone had fused an android with a rainbow shrimp and gave it too many arms, when suddenly his air supply cut off out of nowhere and he was surrounded by water. An awful, howling clicking noise cut through his head.

Josh was entirely too familiar with drowning by now, but finding himself under water so suddenly made his brain freeze in shock. He struggled instinctively, aiming towards the surface. His foot hit something hard – the sea moth!

He dove for it and opened the hatch. With the power on it was much easier to crawl inside and close it, as well as pump out the water that got in. Josh gulped for air, halfway on the pilot seat. He twisted around himself, searching frantically for the creature he’d seen – and there it was! It was a lot further away than he remembered. He must have scared it.

With some distance between them, it looked a lot less like a shrimp and more like an insect wearing a long, flowing supervillain-coat. Some movie tropes never seemed to change.

The thing didn’t seem to have a body, except for those purple arm-like appendages that ended in long spikes. Its torso just fused into a fluorescent, blue-ish body without legs that was almost see-through. Or, ugh, no, not almost. It was completely clear, those were blood vessels, and that was a heart, oh fuck. Sudden vertigo made Josh tilt.

Then the creature vanished into thin water.

Josh rubbed a hand over his face. What the Sam?

Purple exploded over his field of vision. Two mouths snarled at him, one small one over the other, both with the first two canines hanging out. Blue, shimmering planes on the side of its massive, alien-elongated head pulsed with electricity. Were those eyes? Sensors? And fucking shit, did that thing just teleport?

Josh didn’t get a chance to contemplate the question, because from one shocking moment to the next he was in the water again. His lungs squeezed painfully. He stretched his arms out for the sea moth and hit the hull again. A screeching yowl rang out beside him and he flinched, bringing his hands up to protect his face on instinct, and a slash of pain cut through his forearm.

Panicked and hurt, Josh kicked his feet out as hard as he could. He hit something that felt vaguely squishy, and kept kicking. The third time, his feet only hit empty water.

He clutched the sea moth and fumbled for the hatch. His fingers slipped on the driver’s seat as he pulled himself up. At least the machine had managed to conserve the air bubble inside. Heart racing in fear, panting hard, he peered out. The creature had retreated again, but its body was angled towards him.

Josh dove for the control panel and clicked the only button he could think of.

‘Sea moth perimeter defense system active,’ a computerized voice informed him. ‘Warning: energy is low. Blast capacity: 1.’

One shot. Josh tapped the screen. “Hold.”

He eyed the creature in the distance. As expected, it only took a moment until it vanished. Water ripped around it, which Josh hadn’t been able to see a moment ago. A second later, it popped up in front of him.

“Fire!”

Electricity sizzled over the windshield, followed by an explosion of yellow right in front of him. Blood, definitely. Well, this planet’s version of it.

The creature froze. Then it threw its head back and howled. The sound cracked like thunder against the walls of the sea moth.

Then the water rippled again and it teleported away.

Josh grasped the joystick.

‘Warning: Energy is low.’

“I don’t care,” Josh growled, engaged the engines and sped away as fast as he could, leaving nothing behind but the cable that slowly unrolled from the sea moth’s pincers.

–

“Red, Red! Where the hell are you?”

Josh tumbled into the pod without taking the time to dry off, not even his hands, and almost slipped on the ladder on his way down. His knee banged against the metal painfully and he winced, but kept going.

Red was by the fabricator refining materials, but turned it off immediately when he became aware of Josh’s presence. His eyes fell on the gnash on Josh’s arm and he paled. A flurry of gestures appeared in quick succession, which all boiled down to ‘What the fuck happened?’

Josh rubbed the cut absentmindedly. It was bleeding, but the wound was shallow. Instead of treating it, the encounter with the alien creature tumbled from his lips in an array of words that looped and knotted around themselves into a jumbled mess, even by his standards.

But Red seemed to understand enough to reach for his PDA.

Josh waited.

No reply came forth. Red turned the screen towards him, where a picture of the creature flickered in all its red-purplish-glory.

Josh flinched, stumbling against the ladder again. “Ow. Where the hell did you get that?”

‘Warper,’ the PDA read, right under the banner that marked the document as translated without a confirmed language conversion key and listed the source data. The first paragraph yielded no useful information beside that the things existed on the planet, but further down it said–

“Quarantine Enforcement Units?” Josh exclaimed. “That can’t be right! Tell me there’s a translation error somewhere!”

Red scowled. ‘I’m a biologist, not a linguist.’

“It says those things are genetically engineered, for fuck’s sake! Half-organic, half-mechanical cyborgs specifically created to hunt and exterminate infected organisms!”

Red nodded grimly. Apparently he had no problem believing it.

Well, the encounter had definitely been freakish and scary enough. That thing could fucking teleport. Josh couldn’t remember a single animal on any known world that was capable of teleportation. It was impossible, so this…

Further down, there was a sound sample. Josh clicked it out of curiosity, expecting the same screeching howls, but instead a very familiar, static-dispersed clicking noise poured from the speakers.

He went cold.

The sample didn’t come with a transcript, but he had a feeling he knew what it would look like. The same blocks of gibberish and… “They’re capable of communicating,” he said tonelessly.

‘There is more than one,’ said Red.

“No, you don’t get it,” Josh said urgently. “They have a radio system. They are organizing themselves. Half-machines, of course! What did that last message say?”

He turned around himself, looking for Vas’ pod’s PDA, while Red pulled up their own logs. He’d thought the gibberish was too unintelligible or maybe of too bad quality, but there had been some overlap. He found what he was looking for and let out a cry of triumph.

Then he held up the messages side by side and his stomach sank. Next to each other, it was almost too easy to decipher.

“Subject destroyed,” Josh mouthed, starting to shake. “Targets unaccounted for: two.”

He met Red’s eyes in horror. His companion was pale as a corpse. ‘They are looking for us.’

Josh’s eyes widened. He’d picked the chasm because it had been closest to their life pod. The logical thing would be to search the immediate vicinity.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “I led them right to us.”

‘No, you don’t get to do this again,’ Red communicated, crossing his arms in front of his chest. ‘Explain, now.’

“I set the generator up too close. It’ll only be a matter of time until they find us,” Josh said miserably.

Red’s forehead creased in understanding. He went to the communication console and checked the messages. But the communicator couldn’t do a better job at translating than it already had, and there was only gibberish with sometimes words or half-words in between. The rest was lost in strings of ones and zeroes, or however computers worked for those lunatic aliens who’d put a whole planet under quarantine and made robots to kill anyone and anything that was infected. Like their friends.

Josh fell heavily onto the closest cot. “Oh fuck, shit.”

None of the other pods had been lucky enough to have gotten stranded in the Shallows with them. They were scattered, and most of them had crashed into deeper waters. So far, Josh had been operating under the assumption that the reaper leviathans were the most dangerous predators out here. But they weren’t. Damn, they weren’t at all.

The crew wouldn’t even have needed to get out to swim to the surface. The fucking Warpers could not only teleport themselves but also others, as Josh had just experienced himself.

What if they had been bleeding? Josh had been injured during the crash, and he’d had his own seat. The life pod with Goody, Emma and Vas had been a two seater as well – at least one of them hadn’t been strapped in when they were going down. And… Vas had been the last one who was shoved into the pod.

Target destroyed. It could be some random animal that had gotten itself infected. Or it could have been Vas. Josh’s guts clenched.

A hand landed on his shoulder, startling him from his thoughts.

In front of him he found Red’s grim face. His eyebrows were drawn together and his teeth bared in an expression that Josh could only describe as ‘predatory’ - and not in the entertaining way. ‘We’re going to find them and we’re going to kill them.’

Even without a sound, the gestures were menacing.

Josh clenched both fists around the edge of the cot until his knuckles turned white and cold. He nodded. “They’re going to pay.”

Red pointed at the PDA, where the Warper-document was still open. ‘Scan?’

“I don’t think we can get close enough to–,” then the proverbial penny dropped, and his jaw with it. “You want us to use the scanners to find the Warpers? That’s… actually kind of genius. Except they might hear it.”

Josh tapped his ear.

On the other hand, they hadn’t been attacked right here before. So at least their SOS signal seemed to be invisible to the cyborgs. But all it took was one wrong frequency, and they were fried jelly.

Maybe…

Josh chewed his lower lip thoughtfully. Could they use the noise the fuckers were already emitting to find them? It would take some triangulating, if he could find a third anchor point beside their pod and the generator. The Aurora was probably out; there was no way any of her systems were still operable. They would need to set up something, or – wait.

Josh stumbled to the communicator and keyed in the coordinates of Billy’s pod. Second trickled by.

‘Connection confirmed.’

“Oh, yeah,” Josh mumbled. He programmed a quick visual interface with the map Red had managed to compile from the data they’d downloaded from the enforcement platform and began triangulating. Or, he let the system do it.

One red dot flickered to life, then a second, and a third. They formed a loose circle around their pod’s location and they were moving. Slowly, as dots, but probably with decent speed in the water.

Josh cussed a blue streak, this time in full view of Red. The other man made a rude hand gesture, and Josh felt weirdly understood for a second.

He rubbed a hand across his face. “We need to get away from here.”

Which would have been pretty damn hard even without those fuckers being able to teleport them. He wondered if he could stop it. The technology was so advanced it would override anything he tried on the fly, but there had to be some pretty serious limits to what it could do.

‘How?’, asked Red.

“That’s what I’m asking myself right now,” Josh bit out. Fuck, he was out of ideas. Except, maybe…

He ran through specs, thinking about his sunken baby’s heavy shielding. The sea moth’s perimeter defense system had at least taken the Warper by surprise and distracted him enough to teleport away, which allowed Josh to escape. If he could replicate that and give them a bigger shield bubble… it wasn’t impossible.

Josh looked around. Correction, it was pretty much impossible.

They didn’t even have enough material for a second sea moth. Heck, getting the generator set up was a fucking endeavor. A whole cyclops would be… never happening. Especially not with their methods of collecting, as they were limited to finding materials by eyesight and hauling them back in a net attached to the belly of their sea-moth-turned-marsupial. It would take them years.

Red nudged his foot to gain his attention. ‘What?’

Josh sighed, rubbing his eyes again. He typed out a short explanation on the PDA, concluding that they would need to think of a different solution.

Red frowned. ‘But you could do it with enough parts?’

Josh shrugged. “Maybe. But we don’t have any parts, so it doesn’t matter.”

‘Use this.’

“What?”

Red stomped his foot. The sound and vibration traveled along the pod’s hull and tickled in the soles of Josh’s boots.

He gaped. “The life pod?”

‘We’ll need to collect some stuff, too,’ Red acquiesced after a moment. ‘Re-use everything we have.’

Josh was still too stunned to collect his jaw from the floor.

‘You can do it.’ Not a question this time. ‘I’ll get you what you need.’

“You can’t put yourself in danger for–”

Red interrupted him with a sharp rap on the PDA’s side. ‘Both in danger. No difference. Only thing that counts is being faster.’

Red was convinced he could do this.

A rapidly expanding bubble of warmth exploded in Josh’s chest. Along with it came a whisper of trepidation. Building a whole cyclops from nothing but a life pod, a sea moth and a lot of spare parts… well. It wasn’t like making the impossible possible hadn’t been their theme ever since surviving the cannon blast and crash. They should have been dead before ever making it here.

One more miracle, then.

“Alright.”

Chapter Text

Josh went to work on the specs that same night, trying to do the best he could. Even with all the materials they had, they wouldn’t be able to construct a fully functional cyclops according to Alterra standards.

It was only his past work with those types of vehicles that made the task manageable. His original baby – on the bottom of the ocean, now – had taught him what adjustments to make so he could cobble together a working submarine with a bunch of nanobots, a fabricator and his own two hands. He was grateful for the experience, now that he was out of other options.

Once the morning dawned, Josh threw himself into it.

He immediately encountered the first issue: the Shallows, where their pod had landed, weren’t deep enough for the cyclops he was going to build. Oh, he could construct it, but what good would that be if he wasn’t able to maneuver it where they needed to go? So Josh, keeping a close eye on the circling Warpers, drove out towards the Aurora until he reached the last corals before the drop. They couldn’t avoid the Warpers’ search pattern, in the long term. But if they were lucky, they’d get a head start.

As far away from the drop and potential mandible monster – reaper leviathan – attack points as possible, Josh erected a building platform. With his hands and a welding torch, while the fabricator and the nanobots charged. It took him a day, and by sundown, their pod didn’t have a top any more.

While he was busy, Red took the sea moth out to gather resources from the deposits they’d discovered on their kelp forest tour. They’d both agreed that scrapping the small sub would have to wait until the last possible moment, in case they needed to make a hasty escape.

Weirdly, all the while he was gone, Josh couldn’t help but think about him. He worried when he rubbed lubricant onto the cylinders and constructed the hydraulics, and he feared the worst had happened when he stubbed his toe on a coral or a scrap piece and had to sit and let the pulse of pain ebb while wolfing down lunch on his own. He had no idea where the sudden anxiety came from, after all they’d spent most of their time together at each other’s throats. Well, Josh had been at Red’s, mostly. Guilt squirmed in his gut. He tried to squash it down – with mixed success. Why was it so prevalent, all of a sudden? Maybe because Red was his only company out here and he’d saved Josh’s life multiple times. Or maybe because he was finally coming to see him as less of an enemy and more of a– a friend? Huh?

Uneasily, Josh decided not to dwell on it. Red had gone out and come back a few times, always on the mark like clockwork, and his anxiety slowly settled, allowing him to focus more on the actual work.

‘Scrapper,’ he thought, settling down in the shine of a tiny floodlight to adjust the depth tolerance and, of course, the speed modules. Considering the planet’s size and the approximate location of the facility they were trying to get to, they would need to be fast – and not to be squished flat like bugs under a shoe when they dove deeper than a mile.

Eventually, the telltale gurgle of water caught his attention, and he looked up to see the windshield of the sea moth break through. Red waved at him, then lifted a pincer with a huge scrap of metal.

Josh jumped to his feet, eyes wide with awe. “Holy shit! Where did you find that baby?”

He reached over the edge of the platform and grabbed it, hauling it closer. The metal was heavy and smooth, definitely of the same thick composition they’d need for the outer hull. It had a distinct orange color marking on the side, like their life pod, but seemed bigger than anything left from Jack’s accident.

Josh felt the blood drain from his face. The excitement went as quick as it had come, leaving a sucker punch of sick, cold feeling in his chest.

Red refused to meet his gaze. He submerged the sea moth again and sped off fast enough the surface rippled.

Josh’s PDA beeped. ‘We need the material, right?’

A bubble of something hot rose in Josh’s belly, like jelly left out to boil for too long, accumulating spices until it burned off the tongue at the first lick. Of course what Red had done had been the logical decision. As always, fucking hell. But damn, why couldn’t that Earthling ask, first? These were their friends, their crew. Josh would at least have liked to be there before they cut up their life pods!

‘Right,’ he typed back, trying not to let the burst of frustration out. Red was right, even if he hated it. Survival had to come first.

When Red came back later, he brought the rest of Billy’s pod.

–

Day three came with a wash of rain – the first they’d been subjected to without a roof over their heads – and since they’d used the rest of their own pod the night before, they needed to camp out on the building platform. They’d managed to deconstruct the cushioning into rudimentary sleeping mats and used the blankets to bundle up, but the ocean was nonetheless bitterly cold in the night. The water seemed to be oozing ice, sucking all the warmth out of them. Their position was too exposed, too. The blinking dots on the screen were only hours away now, but they weren’t moving in a cohesive circle. They followed a different statistical algorithm, as if they were trying to cut off the swimming pattern of a fleeing animal, rather than an intelligent creature.

The first night, Josh and Red shared the watch. The second one, Red told Josh to sleep through because he needed to be able to focus. Since Josh was halfway through assembling the engine that would either be their ticket to depths unknown or blow up in their face, he agreed.

He almost wished he hadn’t when he woke up the next morning to the sound of a hacking cough. Red was curled up under the second blanket, bags under his eyes, and looking very startled when Josh suddenly appeared in front of him. Josh ignored the scowl, slapped a hand to Red’s forehead and let out a curse. Fuck.

He jabbed a finger at the mound of blankets he just vacated. “Go to sleep, Red!”

Red shook his head mutely. ‘I can help.’

Josh slapped his forehead again, just because he couldn’t backhand Red outright – he didn’t want a kick to the squishy parts – and glared. “I need the parts of the sea moth today.”

Technically not right away, but Red didn’t need to know that.

‘I can hunt food.’

“If I see another cooked fish right now, I swear I’ll puke,” Josh spat.

Red’s scowl deepened, muscles tensing, prepared for a fight. Except it disappeared a moment later. His shoulders slacked like all energy had been yanked out from under him. He just shrugged and sluggishly moved over to huddle up where Josh had slept just a moment ago. Wow, Josh thought. He must be feeling bad if that was all the protest he was going to put up. He decided to attribute the chilled feeling in his lungs to relief, rather than dread. Definitely not dread.

“Yeah, you lay down. And stay the fuck there.”

Josh moved to the edge of the platform, where the cyclops’ underbelly floated, thrice as long as their pod but sleeker, like the casing of a bullet. He hopped in, relishing the metallic clank. The machine never sounded like this in the hangar or an engineering bay, where they were put together on dry land. At least like this, he could save himself a lot of test run troubles. If something was leaking, he’d know right away.

Josh grabbed his welding torch and the mask, set up the nanobots, and went to work.

–

He finished on day four. Which was a fucking galaxy record, if he was correct. Shitty situation or not, the couldn’t help a little swell of pride. He was now officially the fastest organism to ever put together a deep sea submarine for two people from scratch. And no one but him and Red would ever know about it.

Life could be so cruel sometimes.

Josh adjusted the last few bolts and screws from the top hatch. There were two entrance points in total, one at the top for personnel, and a bigger one on the bottom in the back room, where the cots were, through which they could technically launch a sea moth. Except they didn’t have a sea moth any more.

In fact, they didn’t even have a platform any more. Josh had needed the metal. Thankfully by then the main body of the cyclops had already been completed and Red could move there, so there was that.

With a final click, Josh yanked the hatch shut. Satisfaction curled once more through him: a proud, giddy warmth in his belly that came from finishing another project. He’d done this. Maybe no one would ever know, but he’d done it – with his own two hands, with sweat and tears and entirely too much plant-based lubricant. Yay.

He leaned his forehead against the ladder step he was still clinging to and closed his eyes. A smile spread over his lips. He couldn’t fight it. Nor did he want to. There hadn’t been a lot to smile over, these past few days; Josh would take what he could get. Knowing he could still build things, with his own two hands, was a comfort he hadn’t been aware he’d needed.

Josh looked at his dirt-smeared hands; hands that were always in the guts of some machine or other, and remembered Vas visiting him in the engineering bay, flashing his radiating smile; lean, long body completely at ease, handing him tools while he worked. When Josh was done and crawling out from whatever engine he’d been stuck in, he used to fling himself, dirty hands and all, straight at Vas, who’d laugh and throw towels at him, trying not to get oil all over his own uniform while Josh chased him around.

‘Greasemonkey’, he’d shout, laughter betraying any attempt at outrage. ‘Wash your hands, güero, don’t get it all over me.’

Josh’s chest squeezed. His gut twisted, all the happiness and pride gone, replaced with a nagging emptiness. Why did the memory feel so distant, when it had only been a few weeks?

Fuck, no. They didn’t have time for this. He shoved the thought aside, no matter how much he wanted to hold onto it, and turned to look into the cockpit, where the systems were warming up. Holoscreens flickered under the enormous, curved windshield. The engine was already humming, running through its first self-checks. They had some real power under their metaphorical hoods now. According to his calculations, they’d be fast enough to sweep the entire Shallows and kelp forest within a few days or so – a search that would have taken weeks with a sea moth and a tiny base. Now, they’d have an actual chance of finding their surviving crew mates.

Footsteps clanked on the metal, approaching him.

Josh turned, grinning at Red. “Ready for a test drive? Gotta warn you, though, any faster and we’ll be breaking the sound barrier.”

Red rolled his eyes. He was still looking a little pale around the edges, but he’d insisted to be out and about again mere hours after lying down, and threatened bodily harm when Josh tried to stop him.

Josh’s grin faded. “Look. I was thinking, maybe if we postpone going down we could–”

He was interrupted when Red’s eyes suddenly widened and he doubled over with the force of another coughing fit. He wheezed into his palms, gasping for air, as his body shuddered.

Josh winced. “Wow, that’s one nasty cold. You okay?”

Of course Red couldn’t hear or see him right now, but he straightened again, wiping his hands on his pants. It left a red print on the white fabric. Colds didn’t do that.

Realization made Josh’s eyes grow wide. “Oh, shit,” he balked, jerking away.

Red stared at him in stunned silence, then another cough shook his body. His eyes rolled back, exposing the white, and he tumbled into the wall.

Josh jumped to catch him on reflex. “Red! Hey, fuck, don’t die on me!”

He propped the other man up against the wall and found him blinking hazily, eyes glassy.

Gritting his teeth, Josh hooked his hands under Red’s arms and dragged him back to his cot.

Red looked thankful to be horizontal. He turned his face into the pillow as soon as he was down, completely out for the count.

Fuck, fucking shit goddamn hell, this was bad. And Josh had no idea what to do. Helpless, he threw a blanket over Red and dimmed the lights, then fled into the cockpit. He stood at the command console – no chair, this time, it was a fucking waste of space anyway. After a moment’s hesitation, he keyed in the coordinates for the research facility.

Screw the test drive. They were out of time.

–

Their path led them north, north west, following a map that had been assembled from all data they were able to get their hands on, as well as the onboard scanners. Josh had made sure they had a stack of batteries at their disposal. They’d used and recharged everything they could find, even from Billy’s pod, which should give them a pretty good chance of surviving this trip. Probably. Theoretically? At least if they managed to find warmer waters again, there was an onboard generator.

But first, it got colder and darker. The vegetation thinned, and the rock formations gained deeper groves. They were pretty far away from their former home base now. Not much moved out here: only the plants, fluorescent in the half-light of the evening, drifted in the current when they passed by. Eventually, even those disappeared, leaving only bleakest night and a ledge that dropped straight down into darkness.

They were so deep the light from the surface barely penetrated. The water was pressing down on them from all sides, heavy as a mountain, relentless, crushing. Or at least that was what it felt like to Josh.

He brightened their headlights for a moment, trying to peer into the depth while simultaneously checking the map again. They weren’t half as deep as the facility supposedly was, yet, but the coordinates were right. The outline of a massive cave entrance was just barely illuminated in front of him.

Josh’s stomach dropped at the sight of it. Not again, he thought miserably.

Damn. At least this one was wide enough he could navigate the cyclops through, if he was careful not to bump anything.

Once inside, it felt like not only the water, but the walls were pressing down on them as well. He wasn’t usually claustrophobic – that would have been hell on a starship, any startship – but this came damn close. Fuck, Josh hated fucking caves.

A movement caught his attention, snapping him out of his discomfort; in the headlights, a pale, long, undulating body detached from the wall. It had a mouth overflowing with teeth, but it was barely as big as a dog. It barked at them – the sound didn’t make it through the hull – and then scurried away into the darkness.

Josh cast a glance at the cutaway on the side screen and turned on the sonar. He didn’t want to hit anything accidentally, even if that meant alerting more alien wildlife to their position.

The cave ran deeper and deeper, but rarely dipped sharply. It was also impressively evenly sized, almost circular from bottom to top. Lava tunnels, maybe. Perhaps they were diving straight into a volcano and didn’t know it. Those things were never as inactive as geologists wanted you to believe. Josh’s stomach clenched, but he powered on.

Red joined him not much later, sitting down on the floor behind him, wrapped in a blanket and with a PDA on his lap, like a kid watching a late-night program in the corner furthest from the door. He seemed much better. Maybe the outbreak of the symptoms were episodic, or maybe his immune system had just gotten over the cold. Josh didn’t know, and couldn’t guess, and wouldn’t care as long as Red just stayed better.

The deeper they got, the more appetizing they seemed to look to the local wildlife. They attacked the cyclops from the dark, springing suddenly into the cone shaped by the headlights. Most of the time they were lone predators with no concept of see-through glass, bouncing off harmlessly. Other times, whole swarms of white-ish, colorless beasts came at them. Josh ignored them all. Mostly because of their size advantage, which was enough to brush aside the majority of attackers. In addition, they also had the perimeter defense system, which flickered with electricity any time another living being came too close, zapping them with a healthy dose of ‘get lost.’

Then the tunnels started closing in. Josh noticed it first when there was a sudden beep from the monitor next to him, alerting him that the diameter of their chosen tunnel had halved while he was busy not ramming anything. Now the change became obvious enough that he could see it with his own eyes. He scanned the tunnel but couldn’t manage to get a clear reading to the end. Josh hesitated. In exchange for their neck-breaking speed and defense capabilities, they’d had to sacrifice a lot of maneuverability. Further in, he wouldn’t be able to turn around, and moving backwards put them at an extreme disadvantage. Not to mention that he’d have to operate solely from the displays.

Josh contemplated using some of their weaponry – since he would never be stupid enough to build a vehicle that didn’t have at least two torpedoes for defensive purposes ever again – to blast a chunk off the wall to make their way through, but what if it was a dead end? Then they’d have to go back anyway, and he’d have wasted precious ammo as well as probably caused considerable damage to the cyclops’ outer hull. Fuck.

He was still contemplating when a greenish glow flickered in the dark in front of him, coming rapidly closer. Josh blinked, rubbing his eyes, and slowed their advance.

It was a river. Well, a current that was somehow contained to the bottom of the tunnel, and it was glowing.

‘Algae,’ supplied Red. ‘Wherever it comes from, it must be rich with nutrients.’

The current wound its way deeper into the tunnel, twisting and turning with the bends. Josh followed it – there was no other direction they could go, anyway – supposing that since it hadn’t flooded the whole system yet, there must be a way out on the other side.

‘The aliens called it the Lost River biome,’ the PDA added on Red’s behalf.

As soon as he’d said it, the river widened, and with it the tunnel, thankfully. Its shape changed from roundish to split, like a chasm. In front of them, the underwater current flowed over a drop and straight down, like a waterfall. He couldn’t exactly see it flowing, or moving at all, but they were under water: everything was fucking flowing.

Josh maneuvered them over the drop and down, bringing them next to the waterfall. The algae-rich, vivid green current sank beside them, thick or cold enough to form a water body under water. Well… it wasn’t like their lives hadn’t been super weird recently.

On the screen, their pressure sensors spat out one line of code after another. Josh hadn’t taken the time to program interfaces for most of the equipment, confident that he and Red were the only ones who would ever have to use these systems. He stared at it, mentally calculating the depth and cubic meters of water above them as he listened to the creaking of the hull. So far, their cyclops was holding up. Another point to Josh Faraday.

The waterfall reached the bottom, hitting the ground and splaying out and then further down in a dome-like pattern, over what looked like a stone, from above.

Josh had been so focused on not hitting the ground that he’d scarcely taken the time to look around, and when he did now, his jaw dropped in astonishment. They were in a cavern. A huge, stretching cathedral of solid rock, illuminated solely by the green river and the plants that grew on its banks, dappled with shadows from smaller moving creatures and clouds of what looked like dust. Fish ducked around the underwater fields of flowers, dipping their mouths into the current. Bigger fish wormed and twisted around them, the predominant shape of long, winding bodies persisting even here, where the sun had never reached. Tree-like structures of plants grew from the river, gnarled roots anchoring them to the stone while shell-like bulbs clung to them like blossoms. This wasn’t just an extension of the caves – this was a whole ecosystem! And fuck, for as horrifying as the journey had been so far, even Josh couldn’t not admit that it was utterly breathtaking.

Josh eased them away from the waterfall and further towards the bottom. He managed a solid descent before he realized that the stone the current was crashing onto wasn’t a stone at all: it was the largest skull he had ever seen in his life. Easily four times their size, a massive row of teeth grinned at them from an empty maw. It was so huge, their cyclops could fit completely into its menacingly opened jaws.

‘Terrain scan complete,’ chimed the PDA and Josh jumped.

He whirled to glare at Red. “What the fuck?”

‘Analysis shows exceptionally high concentrations of organic and fossilized material.’

“Gee, thanks. Wouldn’t have seen that coming,” Josh muttered. He turned the headlights higher and let the light sweep over rows upon rows of curved ribs. This thing must have been massive. Josh hoped fiercely that there were no living specimens left.

‘It is too big to have gotten down here on its own,’ said Red.

Josh scanned the skull and found that he was right. Even if that thing was ninety percent head – which it wasn’t, there were at least a dozen ribs, perhaps more – it would never have gotten through the caves, except if there was a much wider entrance somewhere around where they couldn’t see. Immediate area scans let him doubt it, though.

‘The scan says that skull is over three million years old,’ Red said. Even the computerized voice sounded awed. ‘Suggesting the fossil has gotten to this location due to the shift of the geological formation of its surroundings.’

Josh gulped. Wow.

‘Indentations and abrasions in the bones suggest samples have been taken. The aliens were here.’

Immediately, Josh’s awe was replaced by anxiety – and a little bit of relief. “We’re on the right track.”

‘Warning: Predator alert.’

“What? Are you saying some of them might be– oh, fucking shit.”

He’d caught a flicker in the distance and immediately killed all the lights. The engine rumbled and stuttered to silence. They didn’t need to paint a big red target cross on themselves, after all.

At first he thought it was a reaper leviathan again. The form was the same: eel-like and white. It glided through the water in one long, fluent undulation, drawing closer and closer. Its skin was shiny, fluorescent as seemed to be the norm down here, and under it, a long spine and ribs glowed in the dark.

Josh turned away to swallow a rush of bile. What the fuck was it with this planet and its inhabitants’ need to show their internal… everything through their skin?

‘The data calls it a Ghost Leviathan,’ Red informed him. ‘Not aggressive, as long as they don’t notice you.’

“Means hella aggressive as soon as it spots you?”, Josh asked. “Yeah, the prize for the most helpful advice ever goes to… unknown alien dataset number one.”

He set the engine to stealth mode. It would take up a freaking heck of energy, but four days hadn’t been enough to equip them with a decent camouflage module instead, so going soundless had been their only option. But, he supposed, being vaguely white should suffice to be mistaken for a normal cave creature going about its day.

He brought them above the river and followed it, and the ghost leviathan thankfully turned around and disappeared into the darkness it had come from. The river lead them into a different area; one that could only be described as an underwater valley, including the trees. Or was it coral structures? The anemones clinging to the walls? It looked idyllic in either case, especially with the lazily drifting creatures that looked drugged out of their minds as they floated past. They didn’t seem to take any interest in the passing cyclops, but then again, they didn’t look like predators.

In the distance, Josh spotted a different glow – one he recognized. He steered the cyclops towards it and an alien structure rose out of the blackness.

“Hey, Red, look at that,” he called. “We found it!”

But upon coming closer, another problem emerged in the glow. The day of skeletons, Josh thought, stunned at the sight of another massive fossil draped over the alien building. It dwarfed it, even – the alien facility seemed to be just a cube, made of the same unidentifiable material, with glowing lines shining and flickering on the outside. The fact that it had been torn off its fortifications, including the chunks of rock the former anchors had been sunk into to hold it, and almost been tumbled into the river, was worrying. It also meant this massive creature, which had crashed into it hard enough to split its own skull, wasn’t as ancient.

Josh could only gape at the destruction, feeling dread slowly seep through him. This was their only promising lead. If it had been flattened by a dying animal… he clenched his fists.

One of these days, he’d build a fucking time machine. What the hell. He was a fucking genius and a stubborn motherfucker to boot, there was no way he wouldn’t figure it out somehow.

‘Scans indicate an unobstructed doorway on the other side,’ Red said.

Josh took up the joystick again and maneuvered the cyclops around the building, nearly getting their sides scraped off by a protruding rib in the process. They made it around and found the door, but it was… small. A lot smaller than the one on the enforcement platform. It was protected by a double force field, one behind the other, with only a small space in between, like a hallway. The first force field had a different signature: it rippled from time to time and they were able to see through it. It took Josh one scan to figure out that it had been especially designed to keep water out – or maybe air inside. There was air in this building, he determined after another second. It was breathable. Wow.

Behind the first force field and before the second, a second keyhole glowed in the wall. This one emanated a strange, blue-ish shine.

Red dug out their green tablet. Josh had made sure they’d be able to transfer items from the inside to the outside and vice versa when he’d built his new baby, watching as Red slotted the tablet into the pincers on the inside before shutting the smaller hatch and flooding the chamber with water.

But when they reached the pincers through the first force field and tried to insert the tablet into the keyhole, it wouldn’t work.

“Fuck. Fuckity, fuck, I knew it,” Josh hissed. “Just our luck.”

‘What are you doing?’, asked Red.

“Scanning the area. Maybe they left another key lying around like the fucking idiots they apparently are. Or we have a problem.”

‘We have torpedoes.’

“That we do.”

Josh pulled up the scan data from the building, but couldn’t expand on it since he also had to keep an eye on their surroundings.

“But I don’t think those are going to help much against material that managed to contain that alien death ray without damage.”

‘We could try to break through the door.’

“That’s a shield,” Josh said flatly. “It’s generated. Best case scenario, we get in and it closes behind us. And then we’re trapped, unless we find a way to construct a torpedo we can take inside.”

Which didn’t sound like such a terrible idea, now that he thought about it. The gears in Josh’s head started to turn. He had no idea – yet – where they’d find the materials, but they were surrounded by rocks and an apparently very fertile river that managed to support all kind of life despite being freezing cold.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Red jerk and bang his head against the wall. Josh whirled, light flickering on the edge of his vision. He turned back to watch the windshield again – larger predator, maybe, or an attack on their shields? – but instead of sizzling out, the brightness stayed, growing brighter and louder. Oh, fuck, he knew this feeling.

Josh stumbled, pressing his hands over his ears. But it didn’t help. His vision blurred into spotty, dancing nothingness. It howled in his brain.

I am… who you seek. I can… help you.

The light dimmed, leaving Josh with a blur of colors dancing in front of his eyes.

When his vision cleared, Josh found himself in the hallway. He’d stumbled past Red, somehow, who was sprawled on the floor in front of him.

“Fuck, fucking hell, fucking stop,” Josh groaned, unable to hear his own voice just yet.

Red was quicker to be back on his feet. ‘What did it mean, being what we seek?’

“An alien?” Josh suggested, without even knowing what was coming out of his mouth. But the thought made a lot of sense. “You were fucking right, it’s an alien.”

‘They’re waiting for us.’

“Of course they’re fucking waiting, what else were you expecting? They shot our ship out of orbit to get us.”

Josh planted his hand on the wall and used it to haul himself to his feet. He headed right back to the cockpit, reaching for the controls and almost falling into them. Catching himself on one of the handles, he used his free hand to point all the cyclops’ scanners at the alien facility’s door lock. Would blowing it apart, he wondered, help them, or would it just flood the cube with water, which would be quite the opposite of helping, at the ambient pressure? Not to mention the air bubble that would smack them right in the cyclops.

“But they fucking messed with the wrong species. We’re going to find them and then hell have mercy, I tell you.”

‘That’s an old metaphor,’ said Red’s PDA.

“Do you have running subtitles on, now?”

Red didn’t reply. Probably because he was just that kind of a little shit. Josh decided not to care, since the scanning results popped up on the screen and he found what he was looking for. The shape of the tablet required was the same as theirs, so there must be something else than the physical key-fit-lock mechanism. A signature, maybe. A nifty little file on the tablet. If it was the latter, they were pretty much screwed.

Josh scrolled through the rest of the data and felt a surge of elation. “Don’t make me give you my grandmother’s history lesson. Give me the tablet.”

‘Your grandmother should have spent more time on teaching you manners rather than history.’

Against his will, Josh felt his lips twitch. “Wow, someone’s turned chatty. The tablet, where did you put it?”

Red tapped his shoulder and handed him the tablet. He must have reeled in while he was down, and its eerie green light left a streak across Josh’s still not fully recovered vision. ‘What do you want with it?’

“I’m gonna shove it down my throat until I can’t see it any more, killing myself in the process.”

‘Faraday.’

Josh turned. “Did you just call me by my last name?”

‘Lieutenant.’

“Fuck,” Josh cursed. “I so regret not outranking you. Have I told you that before? Where are the nanobots – Red, give them to me!”

Red held the box out of reach. ‘Tell me what you’re doing and you can have them.’

“Isn’t it obvious?” Josh waved the first tablet they’d found. “I’m making us a blue one.”

Sighing, Red gave him the bots.

Josh had, of course, worked with alien technology before. He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about it, though, and he never had. Not even Vas, and Josh had told him about the first time he got illegally drunk and peed himself in his grandma’s closet at fourteen – as well as about all other entries on the definitely-not-my-proudest-moments scale, but never about anything classified. He had a sneaking suspicion Goodnight knew, due to his dubious and possibly evil therapist powers and ridiculously high security clearance. Perhaps Sam, too, because he was Sam. He had his sources.

It had been one of the earliest assignments of his career, and back at the time, he hadn’t been aware he’d helped Alterra acquire technology that would allow them to take over another planet. He hadn’t been told the details, just been handed the tech to play with, but if he was honest with himself, he knew he’d have done it anyway. It was that fresh-faced, bushy-tailed ensign-phase: thrilled to start his career, frothing at the mouth for recommendations that would finally get him off-base and onto a real ship, and finally having his genius recognized – who didn’t want that, at one point or other in their lives?

Point being, Josh had some experience in toying with technology that had been dreamed up by a brain that was decidedly not human, and was prepared for nothing to make sense at all. So when he went to work on the tablet, he wasn’t disappointed. Thankfully, this highly advanced species’ creations had been very compatible with their own tech so far, which was either one hell of a coincidence or deliberate, and Josh wouldn’t even try to tempt fate by figuring out which.

In this case it was, in fact, the signature that didn’t properly overlap. Hierarchical restrictions, probably. Keeping alien life forms like them out could be another reason.

But they’d never met someone like Joshua Faraday, keycode cracker extraordinaire. He was baseline human, and Earthlings – as a species this time, not the hillbillies back on the mother planet – were known across the galaxy for their creativity and resourcefulness. Plus, in the case of the Bogue family, for their ruthless conquering of those resources. Also, they’d never met a Faraday. He was headstrong and tenacious by default.

Josh had the tablet fully deconstructed and re-constructed to match the different pattern with the help of some kyanide – a leftover from previous magma discharge – in under three hours. Not that that mattered any more. Secluded from the outside world, as they were down here, the animals wouldn’t suddenly stop glowing just because beyond a billion tons of rocks over their heads some flaming gas ball rotated to the other side of the planet.

“Done!”, Josh exclaimed, proudly presenting the tablet to Red.

Red’s fingers flickered over the control panel to vent the pincers’ chamber so he could open the inner door. ‘Give it here.’

While he was busy with the transfer, Josh got up, wiped his hands on his uniform – by now, the anti-stain-coating on the surface had taken a real hit, and it was beginning to accumulate a layer of grease – and took over the steering again. It was his turn, dammit. Red had had enough fun with the sea moth before.

Checking their surroundings again, Josh realized they had a second problem. The entrance window was barely two meters wide and high, which was far too small for their cyclops. Even if it hadn’t been, there was air on the inside: not the appropriate surroundings for a submarine. But bridging the distance swimming would kill them, either because they’d freeze within minutes or the pressure would flatten their rib cages, folding the bones together at the bends like bread sticks, and completely crushing their lungs and hearts in between. Which wouldn’t even take a few minutes. Neither seemed particularly ideal.

Josh cocked his head, thinking. If he could maneuver the cyclops in a way that would allow the belly to poke through the force field…

“Hold onto something,” Josh barked over his shoulder. He hoped Red still had that speech-to-text analysis running. At least he couldn’t say he didn’t warn the guy.

He gripped the command platform’s railing in a vice grip and keyed in his commands. The cyclops jerked, jumped under their feet, and slowly began to roll over. Metal clattered behind him, followed by a dull thud that told Josh Red had hit the wall. The other man let out a woosh of air.

Around them, the hull shuddered and stopped with a creak, precariously turned halfway onto its side. Josh couldn’t see the hatch through the window, and their sensors were placed in such a way the surrounding stone would be blocking him from scanning the entrance, but he saw the edges of the force field and anchored the cyclops so it wouldn’t move on them. Then he crawled to the hatch, passing by a scowling Red.

If he hadn’t managed to bring them through into air-filled space, they were fucked. Like, the freezing, rib-crushing kind of fucked.

He hesitated. Red shot him another dirty look, but motioned for him to continue.

Josh placed a hand on the hatch and started turning the wheel, disengaging all the seals keeping them alive. He wasn’t aware of holding his breath when he started to push, lightly, but it all came out in a rush when the hatch opened and no gurgling rush of water came forth.

He reached into the space beyond and found only open air. They were parked pretty much in the center of the doorway. No leverage.

“Okay, fuck,” he said. “Here we go.”

Jumping through brought a pretty sudden tilt of gravity with it. He lost his balance on the lip, tumbled out of the cyclops and landed in a heap of limbs. Since the corridor leading to the second force field was also tilted, thanks to the facility itself having been torn off its hinges, he kept right on slithering, and barely managed to stop his momentum before crashing into the barrier. Which wouldn’t have been pretty, if the one on the enforcement platform was any hint to go by.

Groaning, Josh clutched the floor.

Red wasn’t lucky enough to find a groove to hold onto and slid right on past him, hitting the shimmering barrier with a crunching sound. He jerked away, mouth opening in a silent cry of shock.

Josh dove for him immediately, grabbing his arm. He hauled Red out of danger, before hoisting himself up on his knees. Breathing heavily, their eyes met, and Josh grinned.

Red held up the blue tablet.

Josh’s grin widened. “Go ahead, buddy. Stick it in.”

Red rolled his eyes, dropped his body into a weird, flattened starfish position and crawled to the wall.

Josh watched him for a moment, trying not to laugh. Then, with a click, the tablet fit into the wall and the force field – thankfully only the second one – flickered out of existence.

“Time to explore,” Josh said, reaching for the knife in his boot.

He slithered further into the corridor, feet first, letting gravity pull him on the tilted surface. Pieces of fallen wall littered his way. Some he managed to dodge, others scraped painfully over half-healed bruises before he landed at a break in the corridor, where the building righted itself. Apparently only the upper part had been broken and there were further rooms, carved into the rock, which weren’t visible from the outside.

“More of a crunch than a tear,” Josh said to himself.

There was no one to be seen. Which didn’t necessarily had to mean anything, but Josh was pretty sure if there was someone here and waiting for them, they’d have received a warm welcome by now. Very warm. Positively toasty. So hot, in fact, that it would have roasted the flesh right off their bones, with the help of some kind of miniature cannon blast, or something.

He gulped against the sudden lump in his throat and looked carefully around, just to be sure. Nope, still alone.

Josh didn’t know whether to be relieved or a little bit disappointed. On the one hand, not having to fight with his ribs still twinging from the gravel-covered corridor was a plus. But on the other hand, it meant they were in the wrong place – or, in fact, further from the right place than before.

His PDA lit up in his pants. ‘Alien broadcast detected. Warning: hazardous materials.’

Josh frowned. That hadn’t happened last time, had it? Maybe he’d missed it.

He shot a questioning glance at Red, but Red was already on his feet again, walking in the other direction with their scanner thrust out in front of him. He got to an opening in the corridor and turned to peer inside, then stopped dead.

Josh climbed to his feet. “What is it?”

Red hadn’t seen. But he turned and beckoned him over with wide eyes.

Gripping the knife tighter – he’d gotten used to its comforting weight quite quickly – Josh ran over, feeling a surge of adrenaline spike through his veins.

But it only took one step through the doorway to make him, too, stop in his tracks.

The hall was huge. Bigger than the old cathedrals he’d seen on pictures of Earth, bigger than the Aurora’s vehicle bay, and maybe even as big as Alterra headquarters’ mess hall. From his position by the door, Josh could barely see the opposite side.

To his right and left, the walls were lined with tanks. They were of all sizes, with translucent windows, and every single one had something floating inside of it. Closest to them were mostly animals; dead-eyed and motionless. Prepared and preserved, his brain chimed in, once it had gotten over the shock enough. “What… what the hell is this?”

‘A museum,’ Red’s PDA replied. ‘No, an archive.’

If so, it must’ve contained hundreds upon hundreds of specimens. Struck with awe, Josh let the flashlight cone dance through the room, until it caught on a smooth black table in the center, over which hung a massive shadow. Suddenly, the hairs on the backs of Josh’s arms rose. He lifted the light – and froze.

Above them, suspended from the ceiling, hung a Warper. Cables extended from its tube-like, glassy body, each of which was thicker than Josh’s arm.

Both he and Red stared up at it, almost petrified in horror – until they realized it hadn’t immediately jumped down to blast them into oblivion. This one was only half-finished; head hanging low, eyes black and dead. Inactive. The PDA’s translation had been correct: it was a half-organic and the aliens had been working on it when they had been so rudely interrupted.

“Holy shit,” Josh muttered. “I didn’t see that coming.”

‘Data download available.’

Josh jumped. “What the fuck, no, what the hell?” He jabbed the ‘reject’ button. “I don’t want to read a single line about this butcher’s cabinet of curiosities! Those things aren’t even legal any more.”

Which would turn around pretty quickly if Alterra decided that making money off freak shows was a good idea. Then again, in a galaxy inhabited by more than 256 humanoid species, humans themselves were probably one of the weirdest: no scales, no fur, no tails, no horns, and those were only the obvious physiological differences. The ones that set them apart from the ‘normal’ inhabitants of the Milkyway.

Well, apparently they were no longer alone in the ‘weirdest brains’ category either, because this right here was some high level mad professor shit. An evil genius trying to patch together some kind of super organism to enslave whatever species or sub-group the film was targeting. Josh shuddered. “I don’t want to be here. It’s cold.”

Red ignored him, PDA in hand, and Josh saw him accept the data download he’d just refused.

He shook his head. “For shame, Red.”

Red waved a hand. ‘This is the research facility. All of this – probably research.’ He cast a glance at his PDA and then up at Josh. ‘You go check the perimeter.”

“What? Why me?”

‘You’re the muscle.’

Startled, Josh barked a sharp laugh. Before, a comment like that would have made him bristle, especially coming from the man in front of him. Back when he’d been itching for a fight. He’d had enough of those recently, thank you very much.

So he just accepted the tickle of amusement. He didn’t have time to think about any possible implications right now – figuring shit out and becoming a better person or whatever had to wait until they were off this fucking planet. Being the muscle was fine, he was, in fact, the one with the knife, so it was logical that he should be the one to take a look around.

“Give me the scanner,” Josh said. “Might as well use the opportunity.”

He turned his PDA to flashlight mode – now that they had power, he could actually use that feature, and could leave the actual flashlight with Red – before he carefully began to inch his way around the Warper. Even though it was powered down he kept his distance. Couldn’t be careful enough. If there had been a last hiccup of energy, some kind of switch, a loose connection –

It twitched; a tiny movement, the moment Josh passed it, and he whirled on his heel, knife thrust out in front of him.

But the Warper was perfectly still. Like it had never been alive in the first place.

Josh scowled at it. It still didn’t move. Must have been a trick of the light, Josh thought. He peered behind the creature and found more tables and tanks, lined up in the middle, but thankfully no more cyborgs.

On top of the closest table sat a box, containing a specimen that was nothing more than a skull and a handful of crushed bones. Josh pointed the scanner at it and watched the load screen roll through, then moved on, veering off to the side to take a look at the wall – because frankly, he’d seen some green and leaves, and determined that was less dangerous than being anywhere close to the Warper.

The displays contained plants. He scanned the first two and was moving to the third when he saw the readings and frowned. “What do you mean, still alive?”, he mumbled, and slapped the scanner. “Those things have been here for a thousand years, they’re definitely dead.”

‘The plants appear to be held in artificial stasis.’

The fuck. Josh shuddered. Once upon a time, humankind had done that to themselves, too. Hundreds of sleeping, frozen people had been send out, ship after ship, to explore alien worlds, back before they’d managed to transcend light-speed capabilities and opened up the galaxy. Sometimes, people still found those colonies; drifting, seemingly dead. Sleeper ships, aimless in the endless, dead nothingness of space. Creepy.

He looked around the plant corner some more, until he reached the end of the long hall, where another important-looking table was set up. Important-looking because it was situated perpendicular to the others, and contained five smaller, sealed tanks. Inside each, a big, round-ish lump rested on a cushion, almost like… an egg?

Josh squinted at each one, trying to determine whether it could actually be an egg or just a lump of rock. The final table answered his question: one of the eggs had been split apart, sharp shell scattered everywhere.

‘Creature egg, possible species: leviathan class,’ the PDA said. ‘Remaining markers indicate that this young belonged to the same species as the skeleton found on top of the facility.’

Josh blinked. Interesting.

He was about to send the results over to Red – providing he managed to establish a connection without an overarching network to help – when another movement made him jump. Everything in him drew up in a breath and he whirled.

Behind him, a tiny animal scurried past on four legs, walking sideways like a crab. It stopped for a moment to peer at Josh, then made a clicking sound and continued on its way.

Josh came back to himself with a jolt and darted after it. “Hey, wait, I need to scan you!”

Before he could even aim the scanner, the animal turned around. Two red diodes glowered up at Josh, who flinched.

Not an animal. Another robot. Up close and in the light, its spider-thin, metal legs and the disk-like body were easier to make out.

Josh crouched to inspect it and the robot hissed, flung out a clawed leg and scratched Josh right across the face. He could barely jerk back fast enough to avoid getting his eye scratched out. “Awggh!”

He slapped a hand over his nose, lost his balance and fell back onto his ass. “Ow, what the fuck?”

The robot’s slight clicking steps came closer and Josh slashed at it with a knife. He must have hit something because he heard a louder clank of metal and the steps retreated, as quickly as its tiny feet could carry it – up the wall and right into the closest corner, where it squatted before the diodes turned off.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Josh yelled. “You stay right there, you freaky little… whatever you are.”

He stomped his foot for good measure – maybe the things noticed vibrations – and immediately made his way back to Red. Through the plant section again, of course. Because he didn’t think he could stomach what he was able to make out on the other side.

Red looked awful: exhaustion had etched deep lines into his face, sickly purple colored his eyelids and his cheeks were hollow, gaunt. The bruises from their trip were showing, marks of the hell they’d just been through. Which was a pretty accurate description, considering how long they’d been down here. At least there was no more blood. Josh knocked his boot against Red’s. “Nothing there. Update?”

‘They worked on the bacterium here,’ said Red. ‘But apparently the aliens didn’t find it on this planet. They came across it on another world but couldn’t find a cure, so they brought it with them to continue their research in a safe environment. It was contained in this place before, until the leviathan outside crashed into it and damaged the facility.” He shook his head. “All systems were shut down immediately: they terminated all research and all living specimens–”

Thousands of test subjects, from the look of the tanks. Josh shuddered.

‘But a single specimen escaped.’

“One always does.” Josh had seen enough movies. It only ever took one.

Red nodded grimly. ‘And thus, Khaara spread over the world.’

“Khaara?”

‘That’s the name of the bacterium.’

“Fair enough.” Josh shrugged. It sounded menacing, but knowing what killed him didn’t make the fact that he was dying any more palatable. “Have they left any hint how to beat it?”

Red’s forehead creased. ‘I’ve been looking at this for, what, twenty minutes? There are over five hundred pages here and most of that is not even translated yet. Sit your lazy ass down and help me.’

Josh blinked, then pressed his lips together. “Fine. But we’re not doing this here.”

‘What?’

“The cyclops is warmer and there are no dead eyes staring at us from all sides. Also, no robot crabs.”

Red acquiesced.

–

Half an hour later, Josh plopped down next to his companion in their cyclops’ tiny bedroom slash vehicle-bay-for-one, the heating powered up to a cozy level and snuggled into his blanket with something that should be a smoothie but still tasted vaguely like fish. “Okay, what are we looking for exactly?”

Red, on his own cot, opened a local chatroom on his PDA. ‘You asking me?’

“You’re the biologist, dude,” Josh replied, out loud. “And I’m not chatting with you from two feet away.”

Red shot him a dry, unrepentant look, and kept chatting. ‘Find everything on Khaara. That should be a start.’

“Khaara, got it.”

Josh typed it into the search bar and took a gulp of his smoothie while the algorithm did the work for him. The page flooded with results. “Holy shit. That’s… more than I expected.”

Red didn’t reply. Josh looked up to find him already engrossed in the material, so he just sighed, pulled up the most promising piece of text and hoped at least the translation software had made some horrible errors that would turn out to be hilarious every now and then.

–

He surfaced some time later to a chatroom alert. ‘Found something?’

“Not really. No, I’m still not chatting, you’re literally right here. I had an idea.”

‘Oh no.’

“Fuck you. You’re not going to like it anyway.”

‘Then don’t tell me and get back to work.’

“I was thinking...”

‘What did I just type?’

Josh huffed irritably. “No, listen. The Warpers were made, that’s where the terrifying insight into their internal workings, meaning those horrifying translucent bodies, come from. But we haven’t thought about the mechanical part, have we? They are part machine, too, and machines are driven by orders. By code. They store and process information based on their programming.”

Red looked intrigued. ‘Get to the point.’

Josh gestured behind him, towards the hatch. “We have a Warper in there. It’s unfinished, but maybe it works. We could power it up – or maybe catch a new one and –”

‘Are you insane?’

“Let me finish, dammit! I say, we catch a Warper, rip its brains out, and pry Vas’ and Emma’s and Goody’s location right from its cold, dead motherboard!”

‘You are insane.’

“It’s called visionary.”

Josh puffed his chest out and Red’s eyebrows drew together, into an expression that was somehow both exasperated and unwillingly curious. ‘How would you even catch one? How do you keep it from teleporting? How do you keep it from teleporting you? What if they can self-destruct? What if it telegraphs our position to all the others?’

“Uh.”

Josh… hadn’t thought of that. Either of that. And no actual idea how he would do two of those things. No, three. Sullenly, he sank back into his blanket. “Stop being so logical. What have you got, anyway, party pooper?”

‘Search for Enzyme 42.’

“Sounds ominous.”

‘Just do it.’

Josh did as instructed. The resulting list was remarkably short: only one document. Red had marked it as important. He clicked it, and the chat window pinged at him again.

‘The Precursors – that’s what the aliens called themselves – did intensive research on Khaara, right here, to find a vaccine, because their home worlds were completely quarantined off. Apparently there have been 143 billion confirmed deaths.’

Josh’s jaw dropped. “And we never even heard of it before? That’s… Red, that’s an entire universe, not even one species, out there, that we know nothing about!”

Red kept typing. ‘Eventually they found an organic substance, produced by some or maybe just one of the local species, that successfully combated the symptoms of khaara and killed the bacterium. They named it Enzyme 42.’

Josh’s heart skipped a beat. And not due to the fact that apparently humans weren’t the only species rubbish at naming things. He squished down the sudden giddiness, forcing his body to calm. “So they did find a cure.”

‘Yes and no.’

“I hate that game. Just tell me what the bad news are.”

‘The research was in its infancy when this facility was attacked. They never managed to actually synthesize it, and after khaara started to spread... Air, water, it got everywhere,’ Red’s face was pained. ‘It killed 90% of all life on the planet, within weeks.’

Josh resisted the urge to smash his tablet against a hard surface. The edge of his cot, maybe. His own skull? “Fuck.”

Red nodded. ‘This close to the outbreak, the scientists that were here probably died first. I don’t think they got very far in the other facilities, either.’ With a flick of his wrist, he made coordinates pop up on Josh’s screen. ‘It’s called Primary Containment Facility in the data. They probably held the captured species there that produced the enzyme. Maybe even test subjects. We need to go there.’

Josh worried his lower lip between his teeth. “Would that do any good, or would we just walk into an even more khaara-infested zone?”

‘Just from the description it is the most technologically advanced building on the planet. They have equipment there. I could try to synthesize it.’

“You.” Josh cocked his head. “These aliens devoted years of research to this before the virus escaped. Do you really think you can manage to cook us an antidote while spitting blood?”

Red met his gaze dead on. ‘I won’t know if I don’t try. Besides, you have anything better to do?’

Josh snorted. “Gotta hand it to you, Earthling: you have guts.”

Red’s eyes widened, but then he caught Josh’s smile and his mouth curved, abashed.

Josh held up his PDA. “I’m still for catching a Warper. But you want to go here?”

‘Yes, but it’s too deep.’

“Huh?”

He was right. They were about a mile under the sea now. Their cyclops could handle the pressure, and maybe a little more. But the primary containment facility had been erected at two and a half miles below. That much more? Unlikely.

Josh let his head fall back against the wall with a thump and sighed heavily. Annoyance curled in his gut, together with a weird kind of pain that turned piercing so suddenly he jackknifed off the bed. Gasping, he folded over himself, arms clutched around his middle.

Red jumped to his feet but Josh waved him away. Rough breaths rasped through his throat; it was all he could do to keep breathing through the sudden, stabbing feeling of his guts ripping in half.

As soon as it ebbed a little, he spat a curse. “Oh, fuck, what was that?”

He… might be leaking fish-smoothie into his blood now. Would he even feel that? Would he have made it two minutes, if his intestines were leaking? Sweat gathered on his brow. The pain swelled again, like a pulse humming alongside his heartbeat, and this time it grew so intense that white spots flickered across his vision.

“No,” he gasped, recognizing the signs. “No, not again!”

“Find me. Find me. FIND ME!”

The voice was louder than ever before. It swelled like an engine roar right next to his ear, and his guts gave a twist. His brain felt like it way frying in his skull, and freezing over at the same time. As suddenly as it had entered, the presence left him, sliding out of his consciousness in a slick glide that left a horrible, sick feeling behind. His guts turned in sympathy.

Josh’s world tilted to the side. He hit the cot, and everything went black.

–

Josh woke to the taste of something dying in his mouth. He licked his lips and then wiped his face on his hands, before sitting up groggily, disoriented. He hated this. “I hate this.”

Red’s face swam into his vision. Josh’s breathing eased immediately. He wasn’t quire sure when seeing the Earthling’s face had stopped being an annoyance, but he didn’t give a shit. His companion was alright and Josh was relieved. End of story.

Except Red was looking pretty worried. ‘We need to move.’

Josh straightened and immediately listed to the side. “What? Why?”

‘Ghost leviathan. I saw him.’

That was really a good reason to move. “Good reason,” Josh complimented, patting Red’s shoulder. He might have miscalculated a little, hitting his cheek instead. “What do we do?”

‘Find the containment facility,’ said Red. He had a funny voice. Wait, that was the PDA. ‘They might have a laboratory there. I’ll try.’

Josh tried to frown. Try what?

Wait. Red had been working on his tablet the whole time he’d been driving. That had probably been research and not just aimless doodling. It would have all been theoretical, since he hadn’t known about the enzyme then… oh, the enzyme. The cure.

‘No catching the Warpers?’ Josh asked dryly.

‘Since you have no idea how to do it, I think finding the aliens and finding the cure are our first priorities,’ Red confirmed, completely oblivious to his tone – obviously. ‘Providing there are still some aliens alive.’

He looked away. A sad expression crossed his face, and all of a sudden, it struck Josh that his companion was a good decade younger than him. He wasn’t even well into his twenties and he’d already had to go through all of this. As if surviving a starship crash hadn’t been enough, he’d gotten infected by an alien virus, nearly lost his life to various alien predators and, above all, was stuck with the probably biggest idiot of the entire crew. Whose life he’d saved, three, four – how many times?

Josh nodded tightly. Fuck it. He didn’t have time for the guilt that was slowly but surely festering in his guts. He could deal with the remorse or regrets or even the character growing epiphany shit once they got out of here, safe and healthy. Maybe he could make Red his own submarine or something, whatever he wanted. But right now, they were still stuck dying at the bottom of fucking nowhere and the only way out was forward. “We need to tweak the cyclops a little bit. Give me an hour.”

Well, it would probably be more like ‘a few hours,’ if the way his head was throbbing was any indication. He got out his toolkit and the fabricator and pulled up the cutaway and inner schematics. There were a few spots he needed to reinforce, but most of their outer structures, like the propellers, would just have to suck it up. He was fairly confident they could.

If he ever got off this planet, he thought dryly, he was going to take Vas back to the heart of their civilization. The Moon space station – not even close to any actual moons, actually – or maybe even right back to Earth. Okay, no, not Earth. Too many bad memories. The only thing that place really had going for it was no deadly alien bacteria… which, then again, sounded like a big plus right now. They’d find a place and settle down.

Vas would like that. He always enjoyed being planetside more than going off on adventures into the big black unknown. There was plenty of adventure to be had with people, he’d said once, when they were lounging on Josh’s couch in his quarters and marathoning through the ship’s movie database. While decidedly not doing what Goodnight and Billy were doing two rooms over; that thing they were doing that more often than not caused them to be behind on the weekly movie reviews sessions the crew had set up.

Maybe, if Josh had spent more time listening to others on things that weren’t engineering related, things would have gone different. There was something to be said about adventure, now that he’d had it: the idea of it was always less painful. So if he got back, he’d give the listening thing a try. Let other people make the decisions. Heck, he might even thank Red for that, if they both made it out, somehow.

If.

A pang of sadness spread through Josh.

For any of that to happen, he had to find Vas first. If he was still alive. After, they’d have to get off this fucking planet without getting shot down, and after all of that, Vas still needed to return Josh’s feelings.

Although, that last one was a rather unimportant detail compared to the others. He could hate Josh for dragging him out to the edges of the universe, for all Josh cared – because he knew Vas would never have boarded the Aurora were it not for Josh – but at least then he’d be alive enough to do that. Josh could live with that. He could. He… thought he could. No, he would – he’d take rejection and heartbreak over being dead at the bottom of a fucking ocean any day.

The stinging in his chest got worse and worse. This time, it wouldn’t stop; traveling upwards until he had to cough. Violently, the first burst of air forced its way out his throat. More followed. His hand came away spattered with droplets of blood. It wasn’t much, just a herald of what was to come, and dread sank into Josh’s core. Fuck.

He went back to work, but now the khaara symptoms he hadn’t been willing to acknowledge before were getting worse with every step. His vision seemed to blur on its own and his eyeballs throbbed more with every minute he had to stare at the blueprints. Halfway through the alterations, his hands started shaking and wouldn’t stop. Bruises appeared on his skin; some because he wasn’t very careful when handling heavy equipment, but most came from simple touches. Gripping tools had his palms black and purple and aching on the inside. Red’s fingertips were blue from tapping on the screen.

Both of them wobbled on their feet whenever they had to get up: for water, or food, or to relieve themselves. Neither of them tried to hide it anymore.

At least Red hadn’t coughed blood again. It really did seem to come in episodes.

Josh wiped his hand on his stiff, salt-crusted uniform. “All done.”

Red, who was camped out in the space originally designed for the pilot’s seat, sent him a geological scan of the area in response. ‘The facility must be in this cave system. According to the estimates, it covers up to a third of the planet. The caves, I mean. It’s a safe bet.’

Josh checked the graphs. He silently suspected that they wouldn’t have time to find another entrance anyway and Red was sparing him the information. He nodded an affirmative.

Red started up the engines and under their feet the cyclops rumbled to life. Josh stowed his tools away, got up and went into the cockpit. “Let me.”

The other man hesitated. ‘I want to drive.’

“You don’t even have the training to handle this thing.”

Red’s eyes widened, causing Josh to grin. Gotcha!

“Yeah, be amazed. I know everyone’s vehicle clearances. Now shoo.”

Reluctantly, Red let him take over, but he kept control of the sensor readings. ‘Follow the river.’

Josh maneuvered them above the lurid green current and they continued on their way through the tunnels, past more glowing wildlife and swaying, bioluminescent plants. As predicted, they found themselves being led deeper, and deeper, until they reached another drop. This one had a strange, muted orange glow coming from below. The water was too muddy to see where exactly the source was. Yet, the readings suggested the water temperature had changed from freezing cold to boiling hot in a few hundred meters. It wasn’t hard to guess.

“Down there?”

Red nodded. ‘There’s a bigger cavern.’

Josh let them sink slowly. The glow grew brighter the deeper they got. Then the mud cleared, parting to reveal, finally, the source of all the light and heat: a bed of molten lava, barely half a kilometer below them. Melting and cooling happened so quickly its surface seemed to pulse, from orange to black and back. Sleeping volcano his ass, Josh thought. More like slow effusion.

“The insulation won’t hold up,” Josh said slowly.

‘We are close. We just need to find it,’ said Red.

“In the murk?”

‘Scanners?’

“Have you seen how fucking big this cavern is? That would take a year!”

Red stared at him. ‘It might take a while.’

“That’s exactly what worries me,” said Josh. “Ah, fuck. No way back now.”

He pushed the joystick, angling them downwards, when a screech tore through the water. Both Josh and Red startled, before leaning over the command platform’s railing to get a better look out of the windshield. A blueish, silver glow flickered across the clouds of particles around them: a shimmering, undulating body. The ghost leviathan!

Its massive head burst through a cloud of dust, shook off the last wisps of it, and aimed right at them.

Red drew in a sharp breath of shock, then doubled over coughing again.

The ghost leviathan wound towards them at neck-breaking speed.

Josh immediately forced the cyclops back into silent mode. Then he gunned the engine. They sped into the closest cloud.

Even though the cave was illuminated by lava, once in, he could barely see the immediate vicinity. They shot forward anyway, gaining speed.

A stone pillar appeared in front of them; an enormous needle hanging from a ceiling they couldn’t see, and Josh yanked the joystick hard to the left to evade. More blood vessels popped in his hands. He tried to keep the pressure up regardless, but fuck, it hurt.

“Red,” he grunted. “Red, you need to start looking. I’ll take care of the other guy.”

The ghost leviathan was faster than anything Josh had seen move before, out of its own power. The fact that they had spotted it before it came too close was the only thing saving their asses right now. They could pick up speed while it caught up to them, and fuck, this wasn’t the speed test Josh had been hoping for, but now that they were moving, he felt for the first time how small and mobile they were; how fast they could go. Especially compared to that massive predator, which was, despite its size and speed, still heavy. Lumbering, next to the cyclops. Josh felt a swell of pride, mixed in with the panic.

They darted behind a pillar. It was part of a small, protruding rock formation, which they circumvented to peer around the other side.

The leviathan had now reached them, and with the ambient light, they could really see it for the first time. Its head looked like that of a hammerhead-shark, with four eyes grouped around a round mouth opening in the middle of it. Its body was divided into parts, almost like segments, and what Josh had thought a part of its glowing form before was, in fact, a thick layer of glowing slime encasing the body. Beyond the slime followed translucent skin, and behind that – a little blurry – a mass of tissue and organs Josh was too far away to really see.

But wow, the things evolution came up with, bored in the dark.

Even though the ghost leviathan was too long to maneuver as easily as they did, it was persistent. And its senses must have been superior to theirs because it found them, unerringly, as they darted from hideout to hideout. Its howls followed them, like a vanguard.

Time for some more active measures. Josh keyed a code into his screen.

‘Torpedo standing by.’

Red knocked on the cockpit wall behind them, but Josh ignored him, keeping his eyes on the ghost leviathan. “Just a little closer, baby.”

It roared again, doubling over to snap them out of the water.

Josh fired.

The torpedo exploded against the deep sea giant’s mantle of slime in a cloud of yellow. The ghost leviathan threw its head back and screeched, shaking its body. Then it righted itself and locked in on them again.

Josh ground his teeth.

‘Torpedo standing by,’ the systems informed him. But using them now would just be a waste of ammunition.

At least it seemed to distract the creature for a moment, and a moment might be all they needed. Josh flicked an eye to their energy meter. They were running on a third of what they’d started out with, but thanks to the onboard generator, that shouldn’t be a problem in this heat. As long as they weren’t using more energy than they could produce.

They were still on silent mode. Fuck.

Suddenly, Red tapped his shoulder. ‘Entrance,’ the PDA chimed. When he’d had time to type that or correct the spelling in their erratic flight pattern was beyond Josh, but he followed the indicated direction with his gaze and saw a flickering green rectangle set in the stone. Another water-blocking force field. The fact that the Precursors had managed to keep that technology working under this level of pressure was impressive.

Josh slowed the cyclops behind another stalactite of stone that just brushed the lava lake, melted where it met the surface.

The entrance was on the opposing rock formation, which must be a chunk of the actual cave wall. Although he couldn’t spot anything further than about fifty meters away; there might be more emptiness hiding in the steam. In any case, it was too narrow for them; set too deeply into the rock. They couldn’t get to it like they had with the research facility. Maybe they could get close, but there’d still be a wall of water between them and the force field, and the moment they opened the doors it would flood in, pressing the air out of the cyclops and either cook the flesh off their bones in the boiling heat or instant-fry them in the explosion of steam. Perhaps they could use their torpedoes to–

Red leaped for the joystick and wrenched it to the right. The cyclops dropped out from under them and Josh squeaked in shock.

Above them, the maw of the leviathan appeared, gaping wide open where their cyclops had been a moment ago. It shrieked in frustration and turned, but since it didn’t have the mobility to lick its own tail, it needed to do so in a long, undulating arc.

Josh followed the movement with his gaze, then looked at their remaining power cell. From there, his eyes moved to the opening to the cave. So close and yet so far. They didn’t stand a chance.

“Red,” Josh said, making a decision. “Grab everything you can carry and get to the hatch.”

Chapter Text

Red wanted to argue. Josh could see it right there on his face, but then he must have caught the look on Josh’s own and turned, without further hesitation. He hastened back into the other room with both hands on the walls to steady himself. He was wobbling ever so slightly on his feet with every step, but at least he was upright.

Josh gunned the engine. The cyclops shot forward on a collision course, dropping his guts into free fall.

They got close fast; within moments, the ghost leviathan’s body took up most of his field of vision. It bared its teeth, aware of their movement, but couldn’t turn.

Josh focused on the inset facility gate. Fuck, they still weren’t fast enough. Maybe they wouldn’t manage to reach the necessary speed at all. But in that case, he suspected he’d be too dead to care.

The cyclops picked up more speed. Below them, at the bottom of the windshield, the chasm full of lava bubbled at them: round orange bulbs growing and splintering; gasses sizzling and dissolving under the massive water pressure. Even in direct contact with the water, the surface was too super-heated, too scorching, to solidify.

It was awe-inspiring and terrifying at once. What were they, compared to the sheer power of a planet’s molten core?

They were still gaining speed with every meter. Good. Josh readied himself for the inevitable crash.

Behind them, the ghost leviathan screeched so loud the sound traveled like a shock wave, pinging off the cyclops’ outer hull to make the whole thing shudder and shake, vibrating all the way through his bones. He must have managed the turn now, Josh thought manically, and was giving chase. Which meant they were stuck in a dead end. His fingers started to tremble.

‘Warning! Fifty meters until impact. Evade obstacle.’

Josh pressed on.

‘Warning! Forty meters until impact. Autopilot disengaged. Evade obstacle manually. Warning! Thirty meters until impact–’

Space slipped rapidly between his fingers, bleeding away. Josh tried to mentally calculate how much space he’d need but his mind blanked. There was nothing but the stone wall and the rush of his heartbeat in his head, louder than a spaceship’s thrusters next to the mad, mad plan that had a lot higher chances of going wrong than going right. But they had to make it. They didn’t have a choice.

‘– Twenty meters until impact. –’

Josh twisted the joystick and threw his whole weight against it. Metal creaked beneath him, the alloy groaning under the sudden shift of pressure, and gravity tilted harshly as the cyclops pivoted onto its side, speed hitting their broadside like a wall. They tipped over, back against the stones, baring their belly to the beast.

‘Ten meters until –’

The computer didn’t get to finish; a deafening crush drowning out its words. The impact was hard enough to make Josh’s ears pop; the cyclops shrieked as it scraped into the stone, as all the points of pressure where the material was not made to withstand it. For a terrifying second, Josh thought he could hear water rushing in, when it got too much, but then the whole submarine bent, folding like a piece of paper.

All systems shorted out and darkness fell over them. But they weren’t dead. Oh fuck, this might just work.

Josh’s heart gave a painful throb, adrenaline both paralyzingly cold and searingly hot in his veins, and he scrambled to his feet.

The ghost leviathan growled, teeth glinting through the windshield. It had more than the mandible monster, no, reaper leviathan, and it was coming at them with its maw wide open, sure in its victory. Ironic, that its shining body was the only thing left to illuminate the cockpit and thereby give Josh enough light to escape. He clutched the command console, fighting his own screaming muscles. Pain shot through his body, from so many points he couldn’t even count them. Even without the generous aid of khaara, his body would be one big bruise tomorrow. If he lived to see tomorrow.

He stumbled out into the short hallway, where Red was waiting with one hand on the hatch. It was the only thing keeping him upright. He had strapped their oxygen tank to his back, but anything else he’d grabbed – food cubes, the nanobots, leftover tools, their blankets wrapped around them in a makeshift bag – was scattered across the room.

Josh ignored it all, grasped the hatch’s handle – and hesitated. They had mere seconds until the ghost leviathan would swallow them whole, but what if he miscalculated? What if he hadn’t managed to maneuver them through the force field? What if they got sprayed and cooked by boiling water the moment he opened the door? Josh stared at his hands. He couldn’t. He couldn’t – it was one thing to get eaten by a massive fucking creature, but if they died because he screwed up, then… then… He couldn’t do it. Fuck, he couldn’t. He was a fucking coward.

And then Red’s hand was beside his, pulling at the wheel.

Air rushed into Josh’s lungs, one last, blissful lungful, and he hung onto the metal, straining to give it all he had left. For a second, the door didn’t budge. Oh fuck, oh fuck, Josh’s thoughts yelled, I’ve stuck it shut.

But then: the sickly sound of grinding metal. They managed to wrench it open.

The ghost leviathan’s growl ceased with another crunching sound, and the whole cyclops trembled under them.

Josh grabbed Red’s arm and shoved him on reflex, then flung himself out of the door after him. He could feel the cyclops being dragged away under his feet. He tumbled through the shield, a wash of warmth spreading over his body, before faceplanting straight on the rocks. His shoulder exploded in pain, radiating outwards through his whole body. His muscles froze. Tensing up in pain, he couldn’t see, couldn’t move.

Behind him, the cyclops splintered. The ghost leviathan let out a triumphant howl.

Josh stared at the rock wall – floor? – and waited to get his breath back. And for the world to be more than a blur of pain.

He didn’t know how long he laid there. The feeling of Déja vue came over him again. He was sure he’d crushed his shoulder blade. Something in the area twinged every time he inhaled. Another hotspot formed over his ribs.

Ha, hotspot. That brought him back. He’d been on vacation with Vas only once, and neither of them had been looking for one, but there’d been that one alien tourist who hadn’t known the base. So Vas had taken it upon himself to find her a spot to communicate with her family. They were on one of the old internet lines, or something comparatively outdated, and it had taken ages. Not that that had stopped Vas.

Fuck, how long ago had that been? If Josh ever made it out of here, he’d make it his personal mission to make more of these stupid memories with the man.

The first outside thing that registered to Josh was Red’s breathing. It was right beside his ear. Josh rolled over to look at him and a tickle of wetness ran down his cheek. Was that blood?

Panic swelled tight in Josh’s throat and he struggled to sit up. As soon as the pressure was off his back, the throbbing in his shoulder started to ebb. He felt around his face, pressing at his mouth, and his fingers came back clean. It was just water.

Before he had time to be relieved, the ghost leviathan’s face appeared behind the force field. Josh jerked away, grabbing Red and hauling him along instinctively. He realized, logically, that the creature was too big to get to them – heck, even its head alone wouldn’t fit – but fear still beat hard in his throat as he stared the behemoth right in the face. A piece of metal hung from the corner of its mouth.

The ghost leviathan howled in frustration, apparently just having realized the size issue.

Red twitched. His eyes flew open. Quick as a flash, he made a chopping motion in the direction of Josh’s wrist – only that all strength deserted him before his hand connected. He slumped in Josh’s grip.

Josh shook him. “Hey. Oy, Red, wake up!”

Red blinked slowly. Then lucidity returned to his gaze and he sat up, looking around with wide eyes.

They were lying in the entranceway to the facility. The bedrock around them was rough and dark, but only a few feet behind them, the aliens’ building material began to form the ceiling, walls, and a small staircase leading down into a circular hallway. Somehow, its glow seemed brighter than in the facilities Josh had seen before, like the live surface of an early holoscreen. The building was active.

Josh saw Red put the pieces together as well, but neither of them had the energy left to do more than acknowledge that fact. He exchanged a glance with his companion and they rose to their feet in unison. Josh drew Billy’s knife, Red picked up the scanner and the few things that had fallen in their direction when the ghost leviathan pulled the cyclops out from under them, and they descended into the hall.

The first thing that struck Josh was how big it was, for an empty space that only seemed to be a branching-off point. Five darker corridors extended to their left and right, and even those were huge: the diameter of the hallway was easily twice the size of those within the enforcement platform.

Red tapped his arm, PDA shaking in his other hand. ‘Split?’

Josh shook his head. “No, we stay together. If we find something, I don’t want either of us to face it alone.”

Not that either of them would have a chance to survive on their own, anyway. Ha. A week ago, it wouldn’t even have occurred to him to admit it – especially not to Red. Now, Red just nodded tightly and didn’t comment.

Josh headed towards the first corridor. Down here, the hallways were a lot warmer than on the ocean’s surface, which was a relief. Josh wasn’t sure he’d be able to stand another icy cold facility on top of every single one of his already aching bones.

Unlike the other buildings, this one seemed much more unremarkable. They checked the first and second hallways to their right together, but those contained only more labs, with less specimens. A few caches with plants, held in suspension, next to what looked like sleeping quarters, but only because there were so many identical ones. No humanoid would ever think of laying his head down there, but then again, the aliens obviously didn’t have the same standards for comfort. Or ethics.

The third corridor changed things. For one, it was very short. It ended in another hangar-like cavern with a high ceiling and a flat, water-filled rectangle on the bottom. There were two ledges, one in the front and one in the back, hanging over the water. It shimmered light-blue, but it was impossible to see through. Maybe the lighting? The only thing they could see on the surface was a reflection of the domed ceiling.

There was no one here. Josh’s stomach sank.

This had been their last hope. Now they were trapped two and a half kilometers below the ocean’s surface, just above a frothing volcano, in an alien facility, without their cyclops, which had just gotten eaten by a deep-sea monster after Josh himself totaled it against a cave wall. His breathing quickened, but he wasn’t aware of it until Red gripped his wrist.

Goosebumps rose all over his skin, even the blue parts – and oh, fuck, the blue parts. They had come here to find the aliens and find a cure, and the facility was empty.

Maybe the alien brain messages had just been programmed into some computer as a lure or something. For all they knew, the aliens intended to bring everyone down here to die. A species that implemented a planetary quarantine and gave its enforcers the technology to reach into people’s brains were just sick enough in the head to do it. Josh and everyone on the Aurora had the fucked-up luck to stumble into their path, and now they’d wasted their very lives to get here, in hopes of finding a way to save them all, and they were going to die, like this, and–

Red shook him again and Josh jolted, startled.

‘You panicking.’

“I’m, I’m not,” Josh stuttered, half the words coming out as a wheeze.

Red’s eyes found his, lower lip trembling. ‘I am.’

Then he was definitely more self-aware than Josh. But now that he’d admitted to it, it was easy to see: the bone-white cheeks, the flickering behind his blown pupils, the racing thoughts painting fear across his features. His stillness, for once, seemed more like a fragile attempt at remaining calm. During this entire ordeal, Red had been the level-headed one, and he was desperately trying to hold onto that.

Josh returned the grip of his hand. Somehow, Red’s panic was making his own less urgent. They couldn’t both be out of commission again. That had happened too many times already, mostly thanks to the fucking alien brain messages. A smaller, quieter part of him was shaken at the sight of Red – steady, unshakable Red – like this. He was the steady rock in this shitstorm, and Josh hadn’t noticed how much he’d come to rely on that unmoving calmness until it was slipping away on breaths that wheezed faster and faster, chasing, stumbling over each other, until they coiled in his throat.

“Breathe,” he ordered. “We’ll keep going until we can’t any more,” he said, rubbing his thumb into his companion’s heated skin. “That’s what we can do.”

Red’s gaze skittered from Josh’s hand to his shoulder and away into the room. He tried to shake off Josh’s grip, but he didn’t have the strength for it. Fuck, he used to be so strong.

Then his mouth opened, forming words. Josh had to squint to read them. When he managed it, a part of him wished he hadn’t.

‘I don’t want to die.’

Josh swallowed hard. He… had no idea how to answer that one. Carefully, he tugged the scanner out of Red’s limp fingers. “You’re not going to die. We’re here to fix that, remember?”

Red’s mouth curved down, and he dropped his head into his hands, effectively shutting Josh out.

Josh let go. “Alright. You sit down here and take a rest. I’ll take a look around.”

Red didn’t react, but he didn’t seem on the verge of passing out from lack of oxygen like just a moment ago, so Josh aimed the scanner at the room and activated it.

Sadly, it was still linked to Red’s PDA, so it was that one that chimed at him. ‘Readings suggest the tank supports a diverse and healthy ecosystem.’

Josh frowned. “After a thousand years of being abandoned? I don’t think so.”

The data they’d found suggested that some of this planet’s species had an incredibly long natural life span – if they didn’t get caught or eaten by stranded humans. But a millennium was pushing it.

Red looked up, checked the transcript on the screen and bit his lower lip. It came out bloody, but he didn’t seem to notice. He peered at the water’s surface, momentarily distracted. ‘It was a containment facility,’ he said. ‘Whatever they contained must have been in there.’

A thought struck Josh, like the prick of a sea urchin under his foot. “The species that produced the enzyme? Do you… do you think it had offspring?”

A violent flare of hope exploded in his chest. For a split second, he saw it mirrored in Red’s eyes. Then the other man looked away again. He didn’t want to give them hope, lest they be disappointed again.

Josh knew the feeling. “Alright,” he said. “Sit down. I’ll dive in and check what we’re working with, here.”

‘Not alone,’ Red said immediately.

“You’re in no shape to swim.”

‘What if it is a predator?’

Because predators were usually an important part of healthy ecosystems. Josh gulped. “That’s precisely why you’re staying. If we both bite the metaphorical puffer fish here, this won’t have been worth anything. You... might need to finish this mission on your own.”

Josh refused to meet Red’s eyes. He didn’t want to see the stricken look he just knew he’d find there. Instead, he stared at his hands.

‘You said you don’t want us to face it alone.’

“That was before we had to swim again.”

‘I should come with you.’

Red got to his feet, and Josh stopped him with an outstretched hand. “Nope, no way. You’re staying here.”

‘Don’t order me around,’ Red hissed. Or at least that’s what his pulled-back lips and bared teeth would have made Josh hear.

He felt his hackles rise. Excellent. Something other than existential dread. “Can you even hold your breath right now, with how much you’re coughing?”

Red crossed his arms in front of his chest. ‘You’re not much better.’

The salty taste hadn’t left Josh’s mouth since the crash, but that didn’t mean he wanted to be reminded of it. “We only have one oxygen tank, anyway,” he said curtly. “You’re staying. Don’t make me make that an order.”

A curiously fearful expression flickered over Red’s face. ‘You don’t actually outrank me,’ he signaled. Then, slower: ‘I don’t want to see you die.’

Josh wondered how he could ever have called Red emotionless. He turned away, fiddling with the oxygen tank and pretending he hadn’t seen the last couple of signs. Then he shot the other man one last, warning look. “Stay on land.”

He leaped into the water.

The rumble of hitting the surface swept around him, bubbles stroking over his face, followed by surprisingly cool weight. Definitely cooler than outside, over the lava lake – if it had been that temperature, he’d have been fried before he could even scream. Fuck, he should have checked that before he jumped in, but he hadn’t thought about it at all. Was that khaara? The bacterium affecting his higher reasoning?

At least it was warmer than the water surrounding the Lost River. It felt like the Shallows, outside, and after an initial rush of shivers it was balm on Josh’s aching body.

The bubbles cleared, revealing a tank that was much bigger than Josh had assumed.

From thick cables, anchored at the edges of the basin, hung a square slab of alien stone, about five meters below him, blocking his view into the deep. The actual walls of the tank were so far away they were blurry and hard to make out, even though the water seemed crisp and clear.

A chirping sound drew his attention. It echoed like a bird call, distorted for his human ears. To Josh’s left, a shadow moved. He whirled to face it on instinct, bringing his arms up to defend himself in case it was a Warper or reaper leviathan, but it was a limb. A blackish, dark-brown, claw-tipped appendage that was as big as one entire mandible monster. Behind it, a massive shape rose, forming a wide, antennae-sprouting head. A head that was easily five times as high as he was, and its four eyes were as big as his chest, each.

Josh flinched hard.

The creature was larger than anything alive he’d ever seen, including the ghost leviathan, which had ripped through their cyclops like it was a twig. For this beast, it would be a toothpick and nothing more.

It didn’t fit onto the platform, of course. If it had a body to match its head, it wouldn’t even fit if it squeezed really hard. But it hooked its claws over the edge, pulling itself up to regard Josh with disconcertingly intelligent eyes.

Josh’s temples gave a dull throb.

Have you come… to play? Others came… but they played alone. Now they’re gone, and instead, we have you. Finally.

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

We are curious. Will you swim with the current, or against it, like the others tried to?

Aliens. Holy shit, this alien and its hecking brain messages. Josh could only do so much to stay still, although it didn’t hurt nearly as much as the messages before. Maybe it was the proximity. Still, he was dizzy, tilting in the water.

How are you alive, Josh wanted to ask, but couldn’t.

The creature – her, he assumed, since it was a female voice, now clearly identifiable as such, at least to his ears. Although that proved nothing. He knew at least six species with females that had deeper voices than his own. Seven if he counted the weird clicking language of that one species from the Ethel system – chirped again, sounding happy.

Josh shuddered. So it had been an alien, just the wrong alien.

The Sea Emperor Leviathan pushed itself backwards, sinking away from the edge of the platform. Its body floated by, long and massive, and where the previous leviathans’ bodies ended in a single tail, the Sea Emperor’s – because he recognized it from the data, there was nothing else she could be – split into three, four, five… holy shit, seven tentacle-like appendages that were dotted with glowing, roundish pins that protruded from its skin like reverse-suckers.

Josh floated there in frozen shock at her sheer size, until the whole body had swum by and disappeared beyond the platform. Only then did he manage to shake off the paralysis. It was replaced by a pull in his mind, like the point where they had been connected was still live. He could sense her: her surprise, her happy, child-like curiosity, and a thrum of underlying worry.

Once he dove after her and cleared the platform, he found the deepest drop below he’d ever seen. Mostly because the tank was lit, even at the bottom, and the presence of the massive Sea Emperor Leviathan still seemed to dwarf it.

She swam a circle, then made her way all the way to the bottom.

Pulled by an invisible string, Josh followed her, although he was back to swimming on his own power, so it took a while. Bubbles rose steadily from his oxygen mask whenever he breathed out.

Upon coming closer, he saw that the ground was sandy, like in the Shallows. The plant life seemed similar, too, as did the creatures. He spotted a peeper swimming right at him, just like they’d done with the sea moth – and just like back then, it just kept swimming until it hit his mask, bouncing off of it.

Even a scrap shark lurked at the bottom, playing with a piece of shell. It didn’t pay Josh any mind as he swam by, absorbed in its game. A swarm of smaller fish hovering nearby seemed far too nonchalant with their natural predator so close. Weird.

A contraption came into view at the bottom of the tank. It was a stage, made of black alien stone, with a pedestal in the front, and five huge, rippled eggs arranged in a circle before a console. Behind them, one of those alien arches loomed, akin to the one they’d seen in the other facilities before. Neither he nor Red had been able to figure out what they were used for, and had dismissed it as decoration. Why would they put one in a sea creature’s containment tank?

Josh lingered beside the console to inspect it, but it was deactivated. His head gave another twinge.

My young need to play. Outside of this cage.

Josh looked around. The tank was definitely too small to house another five Sea Emperors. But the little ones hadn’t even hatched yet. The other aliens – the evil ones – had been obliterated by khaara a thousand years ago. She must have been in here, along with her eggs, for at least that long.

The thought made a heavy sorrow descent over Josh’s heart. He felt for her, all of a sudden: why she’d lured them here, why she’d put them through that kind of danger. She’d been caged probably all her life; of course she’d do everything she could to spare her offspring the same fate.

An echo of the same heaviness rung true in her voice when she spoke next. The others built this passage to the outside world. I asked them for this freedom, but they did not hear me.

She pointed a long claw at the arch behind him. Open it, and I will give you freely what the others could not take from me.

It took a moment to click, but then Josh gasped. Enzyme 42! The aliens had used this facility to hold the species they suspected to be capable of producing it.

Certainty flooded his mind. It wasn’t wholly his own; more like a knowing smile, and hope surged through him. Maybe it wasn’t all lost! Maybe – just maybe – there was a way for them to make it out of here alive!

He took a closer look at the console. There seemed to be only one, and he had no idea what to do. He looked up at the Sea Emperor, who was watching him, and shrugged. She had no reason to understand the gesture, but maybe his hesitation gave her a clue.

An image popped into his mind. It hurt a little to look at it, but it was… a cube. A green, glowing cube.

Josh frowned. He’d seen one of those before, in the other facilities. They had been lying around like toys, or put up on side tables, like ugly, forgotten lamps. This one wasn’t isolated, though: there were shadows behind it. One of them was holding the cube. With a start, Josh realized it was a memory, and he gaped at the Sea Emperor in shock.

Then his chest throbbed and he coughed. Red misted the water.

When trying to draw in air from the oxygen flask, it scratched in his raw throat, and he had to cough again. Fuck, he thought, and began to flounder. Surface. He needed to get to the surface!

The Emperor gazed after him, not looking worried, and when he reached the platform and continued on, she rose from her perch by her eggs and went back to circling them, like she had probably done for a thousand years.

Josh broke through the surface and almost head-butted Red in the face.

The man jerked back, making motions with his hands that were probably his version of abortive noises.

Josh climbed out of the water, yanked the mask from his face and let the coughs wrack his body. He fell to his knees with the force of them, and the blood splattered past his palm and onto the tiles. “We,” he gasped, squinting upwards, “need to find one of those cubes.”

Red cocked his head, then reached for his PDA and flicked his finger at it. Even in the dim light, he looked better. Much better than when Josh had left him. He showed Josh the picture of a green cube, exactly like the one the Sea Emperor had shown him. ‘What happened? Did you find anything?’, the PDA asked.

Josh nodded, swallowing against his raw throat. “Could say that. Get up, I’ll tell you while we go looking.”

Confused, Red reached for their things, but then waited until Josh began summarizing all that had happened before taking a step towards the entrance of the facility again. They reached the hall from which the other tunnels branched off, while he was finishing up, feeling better than before.

Red motioned towards the tunnels they’d checked before. ‘Have you seen one?’

“I… don’t know?”

To Josh, all facilities looked the same. Bare walls, cool air, black stone run through by green veins.

“I’ll check the tunnels we already had, you wait here,” he told Red. “No solo actions without a weapon, got it?”

Red rolled his eyes.

“I mean it,” Josh said, and made off into hallway number one.

He checked every room meticulously – walked around the cabinets and tapped spots that looked weird on the wall. The stone was warm to the touch, reminding him again of how deep they were, how close to the planet’s molten core. Miles and miles below the surface. The hallways were a lot hotter than the Sea Emperor’s tank room.

Different biological optimums, would Red probably say. Biologist and all.

Josh’s PDA beeped. ‘Found one. I need your help.’

Josh frowned. But since he was already on the way back, he hastened his steps. When he reached the entranceway, the room was empty. Unease crept up Josh’s spine. He darted into the tank room to check, but since he still had the oxygen flask strapped to his own back, he kind of doubted Red had just jumped into the water.

It was then that he heard the scuffling noises. It came from the next corridor, an unexplored one. Of fucking course. Cursing, Josh broke out in a run.

He didn’t have far to go.

The corridor made a sharp bend to the right, probably to compensate for the rock formation ending to their left; with the last corridor in between. Josh saw the yellowish-green glow before he rounded the corner. Definitely a cube.

A hissing sound came from the glow, followed by the sound of metal on stone, in between grunts of something decidedly human.

Josh flung himself around the corner, and there was Red, illuminated by the cube, and all but buried under plate-sized creatures. At first, Josh couldn’t quite place them – they looked like crabs, only in silver – before it clicked: it were the same ones like the one in the cabinet of curiosities, the species cache. It had attacked him then, but he’d been able to fend it off with his knife.

Red didn’t have a knife. And this wasn’t just one metal crab, it were at least a dozen. They came from all sides, including the ceiling. One was sitting right on top of the cube and the lamp – eye? –in the middle of its body, glowed in the same color.

Power source, Josh’s instincts supplied. He whipped out Billy’s knife and slashed the one that was pulling at Red’s knee, then kicked a second one out of the way. “Damn it, Red, I fucking told you–”

Red noticed him then, having neither heard nor seen Josh’s approach, but he only spared Josh a quick glance before he went back to kicking and punching, throwing his body around to get them off him. He was a talented fighter, Josh realized, distracted by his lightning-fast, fluid movements. It figured.

The tiny crab-like machines were not big targets and even harder to hit in an already dim room with changing lighting, in addition to being crazy fast. Red had gotten two hits in and was already panting. He brought his knee high to stop one from jumping on him, grabbed another off his body and slammed it into a third.

Josh was so transfixed by the sight, he didn’t notice the clicking above him. More robots poured from the walls, dropping down right onto his head. Josh yelped and stumbled.

One hit his arm, and fuck, those thing were heavy. Crying out in pain, he tripped over his own feet and then the ground was rushing up to meet him and he landed right on the injured limb. Pain flared through him, and Josh whimpered, curling up on himself.

The tiny machines rushed him, tugging and biting at his arms and legs. He frantically grasped for his knife, but it wasn’t there any more. He must have dropped it. Another jab of fiercely sharp claws hit his already aching ribs. Josh kicked out as hard as he could. Pain exploded wherever the metal made impact, even just being touched was agony.

His foot met resistance, harder than he’d anticipated. A bigger threat?

Blinking through the pain, he found the world a hazy blur. Looming over him was a shadow, a familiar one: Red, shielding him, favoring his leg.

“S’ry,” Josh mumbled, tasting blood on his hot, swollen lip. At least he’d taken out two crab-machines with his fall.

A robot sprang at Red and he evaded, trying to grab it in its jump. But he was fighting against high tide, they were surrounded by lumps of whirring, destroyed tech. The small machines were starting to circle them; a pattern Josh noticed, and he saw at a glance that Red did, too.

His whole body tensed, gaze flying across the walls. At once. It would be all at once. Fuck!

For a fleeting moment, Josh caught the look of shocked exhaustion on Red’s face, before the onslaught began. He could barely lift his arm anymore, shaking all over. They swarmed first him, then Josh.

All at once, and shit, those tiny claws hurt. They dug deeper and deeper, hitting the same wounds over and over, pressure on his injured arm and throbbing ribs. One latched onto his ear, trying to crawl over his face. No, not face. His mouth and nose.

Alarmed, Josh tried to yank it off, but it drove its claws into his cheeks and held on. The location, more than the pain, made him instantly panic. Adrenaline kicked in, finally, giving him new strength. They couldn’t die here. They had fought the mandible monster and outsmarted the ghost leviathan. They’d lost almost everyone they knew, they’d braved the endless ocean on the surface, the bottomless night of the caves, and survived, with nothing but the resourced they managed to scrounge. They couldn’t stop now, so close to the end.

Josh pushed back against the machines, forcing himself to keep going until he managed to sit up, agony be damned. Noises fell from his lips, unheeded: grunts of pain, threatening hisses, whimpers, all the sounds a cornered animal made when it was wounded and helpless, yet consumed by survival instinct. There were three or four bots left, attacking him from all sides – but where they had numbers, Josh had something better: a ridiculously hard head and the infamous Faraday stubbornness.

He brought his foot down heavily on the first one, still floor-bound, and smashed it flat against the stone. He kept his elbow on it, grasped the flailing metal leg and pulled, and he kept pulling until he heard a snick of the hinge and it tore lose. He did the same to a second limb, then hurled the whirring disk of a body away into the darkness.

One down, two left to go.

Red was lying prone on the ground barely a foot away from him, with a bot on his face. It had already started squeezing.

Josh grabbed it one-handed and ripped it off him.

Red gasped, body curving, and stared up at Josh. The little machine’s claws had left cuts on his cheeks, where it tried to hold onto him, leaving his face blood-smeared.

Feeling the last of his mercy burning away at the sight, Josh smashed the robot onto the floor and wrenched its legs off, leaving it lying there as he went for the last one, which was clinging to Red’s arm. Well, not any more.

Red groaned.

Josh knelt over him, running a hand down his chest. He couldn’t feel any injuries, thank fuck. “I told you not to go alone!”, he yelled hoarsely. “Shit!”

His eyes grew hot, probably a belated reaction or something, and he swallowed against the lump in his throat.

Red tried to lift his arm, but it flopped back down almost instantly. He couldn’t gesture, but he opened his mouth. After a terrifying moment of wheezing, a sound came out. “Do… what you… can.”

Josh’s jaw dropped. Yes, it hadn’t been the right pronunciation, nor speed, but those had undeniably been words. “What the fuck?”, he asked. “No, seriously, what the fuck? You’re deaf, how the hell can you speak?”

Red’s lips twitched weakly. “Vibrations.”

Then he passed out.

“Shit-fuck-goddamn,” Josh cursed. He glared at the cube. “That is all your fucking fault!”

It didn’t reply, of course. The broken machines around him whirred. A few were crawling. Josh grit his teeth. The fight was over, but he wasn’t down. He needed the cube; needed to get it to the tank. And then they were getting out of here. As long as one of them was still breathing, they needed to keep going. There was no more time to waste.

–

Josh made a makeshift sling for his arm. He didn’t know enough about medicine to know if he needed to put pressure on it, but it wasn’t bleeding, so he wasn’t in danger of bleeding out, which meant… no? There might be some flawed logic in there, he couldn’t tell past the throbbing in his head. Concussions could do a number on a guy.

He managed to wrestle the oxygen tank off his back and Red onto it, halfway, one arm slung over Josh’s shoulder. He was smaller than Josh, certainly not as broad, and starved to boot – they both were – but he still felt heavy, and it hurt more than he expected. Josh’s injured arm stung, and he could barely use it: it was little more than dead weight, and his fingers prickled disconcertingly every time he tried to move it.

Slowly, inch by inch, he dragged Red back towards the Sea Emperor’s tank. His face and neck were dripping with sweat by the time he reached it: it ran down his temples, gathered on his upper lip and trickled lower, drenching his uniform. He was losing water fast, and with their cyclops and most of their equipment gone, he couldn’t even distill any more. It was only the adrenaline that was keeping him going, for now.

Ha ha, Josh thought deliriously. Let dehydration be the thing that kills us.

Maybe the pain was making him light-headed. More than ever before in his life, he wished for medical attention. And more than ever before, realizing some wishes would never come true was a fucking bitter pill to swallow. Not that wishes that did come true had done any better for him.

He’d wished for less of a belly, once. Now he could see his ribs through his shirt. Which was distinctly wrong; he was a grease monkey, for fuck’s sake. Being lean like a stringbean was always Vas’ job; at least on his tall form, it had looked somewhat healthy. It highlighted the line of his shoulders, and his neck, and his arms. Josh used to joke that a stiff breeze would knock him over. Now he’d give anything to be able to make that joke again.

He couldn’t think about it right now – he had something more important to focus on. He reached the side of the pool and carefully lowered Red down onto the stones. Then he pressed his fingers against Red’s neck, feeling for his pulse. He was pretty sure his companion was sleeping now, so he wiped the blood from his face with the rest of his torn-up upper uniform half, turned on Red’s PDA’s light in the hope it would deter anything from approaching him, and went back to get the cube.

Leaving Red like this felt awful, though. He would have preferred to wait until he woke up – but he knew they were both running on fumes. He could feel it, deep down inside himself: his body had reached its limit. He couldn’t go on. Like with the fuel of a commercial transporter that only lasted halfway to its destination, to lessen the chance of a shuttle being stolen, he needed to get them as far as he could with what he had left. If he slowed down even a little, stopped for one moment to take a breath, he wouldn’t get up again.

It should frighten him, to know that he was dying. But maybe he was still too keyed up from the fight for real fear. Or his body had just realized that there wasn’t anything he could do but push on. A sense of emptiness had settled inside him – there was just nothing, like tunnel-vision without the tunnel.

Whatever it was, he needed to keep going. He reached for the cube, took it and headed back.

–

Red was still out cold, but Josh knew he couldn’t wait. He hooked the cube into the sling, right beside his arm, balancing it precariously as he slid into the water. If he got really unlucky, it would slip out of his hands before he got down to the console. He hoped it wouldn’t; digging it out from the swaying short kelp would kill his oxygen supply.

The Sea Emperor was waiting for him, her iridescent blue eyes shining in the ambient lighting that seemed to come from nowhere. She followed him as he descended towards the alien arch, keeping herself low to the ground. When he reached the console, she sat down in a curl of tentacles.

He held up the cube so she could see it, and then patted the console. The cube fit right into one of the indentations on the surface. He put it there, watching in weak fascination as the console swallowed it up, sliding one panel shut over the power source.

Buttons and codes came to life under his fingers, like a display on a black background, and this time, Josh welcomed the twinge of the Emperor’s voice. He was so weak, it barely registered as pain, anyway.

I thank you. Through the passage you have opened, my young can leave this place.

Josh raised a brow, but she wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze rested behind him.

An eerie, bright light glinted off her dark body. It was a lot brighter than before.

Frowning, Josh turned around – and found himself staring right into a vortex. The alien arch was lit up from the inside with a swirling nothingness of light and distorted reflections. It rippled the water around it, seeming to drag its immediate surroundings out of reality to bend physics itself into a spiral of colors.

Josh flinched, turning away to shield his eyes, and saw purple spots from the brightness of it. He looked up at the Emperor to find her eyes sparkling. The thick skin and bone plates that made up her face were barely able to form any expression at all, but she looked… happy.

It was gone in an instant.

But first, they need to break free from their shells. They must feel the time is right.

No better time than right now, Josh thought blearily. Also, no better time to die. He held out his hands, looked up at the Emperor and waited, hoping that even though she couldn’t be familiar with human body language, it looked suitably demanding.

She rose in response, straightening, and her massive claw hit the platform beside Josh. Help them, and I will help you.

That wasn’t the deal, Josh seethed. He wished he could fling that into her face, but at least some of his frustration must have come across, because amusement pinged against his consciousness.

My young have been ready for a long time. They only need a little.

However little they needed, it could be too much for him to give. He didn’t have anything left. Neither of them had, and if he did this now, what would stop her from changing the terms on him again once he’d done as she asked? And if it just kept going, until they were both completely burned out? Anger bubbled up inside Josh.

He turned away. A cold, dark feeling followed.

The Emperor nudged his mind again. What you seek hides in the shells, protecting my young. Free them and it shall be yours.

She took her claw off the console and lifted off, swimming another circle. It was the only thing she could do. Josh wondered, briefly, what she was feeding on, down here. Then he eyed the circle of eggs, knowing, even as his stomach sank, that he would do it. This was an opportunity to save them, he couldn’t just throw it away out of pride. It wasn’t like they had much of a choice.

He pulled out his PDA and scanned the eggs. Numbers and names appeared on his screen, followed by contents and percentages that looked familiar from the raw materials. A blueprint of the console followed, reminding Josh of the injection systems of a drive core, but it definitely wasn’t that. These were living beings. Josh was not even remotely qualified to handle, not to mention fix, a living, breathing creature.

He needed Red.

–

“Red, Red, wake up!”

Josh, dripping with water, grabbed his companion by the shoulders and shook him.

Red didn’t move. In fact, he was completely still and motionless, and coldness clung to his uniform, as if radiating off him.

Ice dropped into Josh’s stomach, churning. He shook Red again, watching his limp hands flail with the motion. Nothing happened.

“Fuck,” Josh whispered.

With shaking fingers, he felt for a pulse, trying to find it on the clammy skin. But there was nothing.

Josh’s stomach tightened. No, fuck, no. He pressed his ear into Red’s chest. For a long, breathless moment, he heard nothing. His own chest squeezed, clenching around something he didn’t dare acknowledge because that would make it too true to be bearable. They were too fucking close, Red couldn’t be, not like this, not here–

A deep, sluggish thump.

Josh flinched, wondering if it had been a trick of his mind. His ears trying to give him false hope. Another thump.

He slumped, shaky with relief. “Red.” He nudged his companion. “Wake up. Please.”

It took a lot more gentle encouragement and two more tries for the pulse until Red finally showed a reaction. His face scrunched up, then he slowly blinked an eye open, hindered by his lashes sticking together. He lifted a hand to feel his own face and there was black smudged around his fingernails; he didn’t seem to be able to stop shivering.

Josh forced himself to smile. It was a weak thing. “One last mission, Earthling,” he said, enunciating every word clearly, because he wasn’t sure how well Red could lip-read in this state. Or if he was even all there.

Red squinted, then groaned, before pushing himself up on his elbows. Somehow he’d underestimated the force of the movement, though, and overbalanced, dropping right into Josh’s lap. He was icy cold.

Josh wondered if people were even supposed to be able to move, in that kind of state. But he had to ask.“Can you swim?”

Red shot him an annoyed look.

“Bad news, then. I have to get you down there.”

Josh pulled out his PDA in explanation and showed Red the scans. Red frowned at them for a long while, scrolling through the data, before looking up at Josh in utter disbelief.

He could sympathize. “We need to help her babies to hatch. If I am reading this correctly, there’s a dose of chemical compounds needed that usually occur in the soil of the Shallows at their natural time of hatching. That will trigger it. But I ain’t a biologist and have no idea how to do this.”

Red tapped the PDA. ‘Different species.’

“They have the enzyme.”

Red’s gaze sharpened.

“Yeah,” Josh said. “Enzyme 42. The ones the aliens were looking for. I guess the babies weren’t ready or something, or the mother was stopping it, but she said right now it’s in the shells and once they hatch, it’ll be in the water.”

‘She said that?’

Not technically. She’d said it would be theirs, whatever she meant by that. Josh relayed her words to Red and saw his eyes dim.

“I know it’s not reassuring,” Josh said. “But it’s our only chance.”

‘Our last chance,’ Red corrected, pointing at the bloody spots on their uniforms. Then he gestured behind Josh. ‘Only one oxygen tank, but I can’t get down there alone.’

“We’ll share.”

‘Can you swim for both of us, with one arm?’

Josh gritted his teeth. “No choice but to try.”

He helped Red to the edge of the pool, half-kneeling and half-walking, before handing over the oxygen tank. Since Red was the one less mobile, he should have it. He protested, of course, but Josh ignored him, lowering himself gingerly into the water.

Then he hooked one hand into Red’s utility belt and pulled him in, splashing droplets all around them.

He held on while Red grudgingly fitted the mask over his face, and kept holding on once they dived. The thought of losing him down here, with no other way to get air, made a queasy feeling squirm in his stomach. Without his usual mobility, he wouldn’t even be able to get back to the surface in time – not to mention that Red would be stuck down there, too.

They hadn’t even made it all the way to the floating platform’s surface when Josh had to stop Red for air. Red gave a nod and handed him the mouthpiece.

Josh took it – it wasn’t like they weren’t already dying from a mutual bacterial infection, anyway, and took a breath, before handing it back. Red nudged it between his own teeth and gave him a tired thumbs up.

Okay, down the platform now. Josh motioned for him to grab onto Josh’s utility belt, in turn, and used his one more mobile arm and legs to paddle them over to the edge.

He felt the exact moment Red spotted the Sea Emperor. His companion went stiff as a board; his eyes were probably round as saucers behind the mask.

But he didn’t stop once. Tough as nails, Josh thought, admiringly. If he could go back in time, he’d… well, he’d make sure the Aurora never went on this fucking mission in the first place. And right after that, he’d kick his own ass for being such a dick to the guy and get him a drink. Or a jelly ball.

The Emperor shot them a look as she glided by, but didn’t say anything. Josh’s head stayed pain-free, but somehow he had the feeling she approved, anyway.

The station at the bottom came into view. Josh steered them towards it as best he could. When Red offered to swim for them, he declined. They needed his strength, more than Josh’s.

He also felt the moment Red saw the alien arch, and how close they had to get to it, although again, he took it in stride. After seeing the weirdest this planet had to offer, a vertical, glowing, rippling surface was probably nothing to be alarmed about, any more. Or maybe they were just lacking the energy.

Josh lungs were burning by the time they arrived. He tugged Red down beside the console, grabbing the edge with one hand and Red’s utility belt with the other to hold them in position.

Red bent over it curiously, then reached for his PDA, overlaying the screen with a visual translation interface. He pushed a button and translated again, then another, and the alien’s black surface looked like before.

Above them, the Emperor let out an aching rumble, like the cry of a whale.

When Josh looked up, he found her hovering. She’d lowered herself onto the sand again, spraying grains that formed slow, billowing clouds; limbs curled underneath her massive body as she observed them with ever-curious eyes.

‘I haven’t seen anything like this before,’ Red typed onto his PDA, fingers hesitant on the display, like he didn’t know what to do.

Josh could sympathize. Even more so thanks to the past few weeks, when he’d had nothing but scraps to work with. But Red was – and had always been – one of Alterra’s best and brightest. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t be here in the first place. Which would have been better for him.

Red’s eyes, when he looked up, were feverish and glassy. Josh’s stomach clenched. No rest for the wicked, apparently, or the dying.

‘Can you work with this?’, he asked, typing it out while Red steadied himself on the computer block.

Red nodded slowly. ‘Yes. But I need your PDA.’

Josh handed it over without hesitation, and then paddled backwards to make some space. He couldn’t exactly let go, since neither of them could risk floating off while they were still tied to the same oxygen tank, but this way he wasn’t quite so underfoot.

Red pointed both their tablets at the alien screen to translate while his fingers flew over the displays, rapid fire, creating lines upon lines of new code as he played with the dials and frowned over pieces of text. Just watching, Josh lost track of what he was doing about two minutes in, and he wondered if this was what other people felt like when they watched him work. This was probably the moment Red would send him off to gather food, or something like that, were there still in their life pod. He supposed that was fair.

Just as Red took care of him then, Josh could take care of Red now. It was a shitty situation to be making up for assholery, but better late than never. He took over the oxygen tank, sticking to little sips of air, and kept them right where they needed to be until Red blinked a couple of times and came back to reality.

‘Almost ready,’ he signed.

Below, the last translated line flashed. ‘Hatching enzymes standby.’

Red shot Josh a short, slightly panicked look. Then he took a deep breath, steeling himself. He pressed the last button and closed his eyes.

Beneath them, the machine geared up with a subsonic whir that vibrated through the water. Startled, Red let go of the console. Josh caught him, adjusting his grip and easing them both away from it while keeping a close eye on the proceedings. He couldn’t see much, though. His guts tightened.

A sharp, crisp cracking sound drew his attention. One of the eggs ripped along the ridges of the shell, splits forming, splaying out like branches on a tree or maybe the fingers of a hand, fanning out, dividing, growing smaller and smaller until the first limb broke through: a clawed arm. With an insistent push, the body followed, bursting out into the water and revealing a miniature, soft-skinned Sea Emperor Leviathan. It was tiny, compared to its mother, and yet its body, from antennae to tentacle-tip, was longer than Josh’s.

Another egg cracked, then another, sounds rippling against the whir of the machine until all five young had fought their way out, shaking the calcified debris of the shells and the softer inner materials off them. Flapping their limbs, they propelled themselves through the water in an uncoordinated flail, ending with most of them head-down, tails waving all over the place, so completely unlike their mother’s easy grace.

Josh took the mouthpiece from Red and inhaled, before handing it back to watch the literally alien, yet still wonderful, miracle of life transpire.

It was only a moment, but by the time he was watching again, most of the babies, like newborn horses, had found their balance. They spared the humans a cursory glance, sparkling with curiosity, before darting off to approach their mother.

She was leaning over them, eyes bright with happiness. Chirping sounds rang out, overlapping, like aborted whale calls, but hitting different notes. They echoed, in the water, before the young joined in with their own voices, filling the rush of the waves with their song.

Josh grabbed Red’s hand, held on, and squeezed. Red looked up and smiled, honest-to-god smiled, not even sarcastically.

Above them, the baby sea emperors rubbed themselves against their mother’s forehead, touching her with their tiny bodies, before spinning around to head straight for them.

Josh tensed, ready to flee – or maybe fight – the newborn, possibly ravishingly hungry predators. Red squeezed his hand and held him in place.

The little ones didn’t pay them any mind as they swum past, towards the alien arch, sliding into the glow. Around them, the vertical surface rippled and bent, and then, suddenly, they were gone.

My young swim for the Shallows. I… thank you. Their freedom… is my end.

The Shallows? That was too far away – wait. The Warpers. The aliens had teleporter technology, real, actual teleporters.

Josh looked up sharply, but the Sea Emperor’s head hung low. She was sinking, unable to hold herself on her massive claws any more – as if her young had taken all her strength with them when they swum towards freedom. But her voice sounded so calm. At peace.

I wonder about it. What is it like, to go to sleep, and never wake up?

She met first Red’s, then Josh’s eyes. Maybe the next time we meet, I shall be an ocean current, carrying soils to a new reef. Or a creature so tiny, it can jump the gaps between grains of sand.

A chill ran down Josh’s spine.

The Emperor raised her claw, pointing at the now useless incubating machine. My young have left behind what you seek.

Josh frowned. Which was… nothing? As far as he could tell, there wasn’t anything but pieces of egg shells. But Red nodded eagerly and, since they were still joining hands, tugged him along as he swam over. He halted over the first one, reaching down into the biggest piece of shell. His hand came out dripping golden slime. It coated his fingers, adhesive when he rubbed the tips together, and almost fluid when he left it alone, running over his hand on its own.

The egg was filled with it, almost flowing over.

Red let go of Josh, took his PDA and scanned it, eyes widening when the results popped up. ‘Concentrated Enzyme 42.’

Josh stomach felt like it was dropping into freefall. He stared at Red’s hand, unbelieving. This was supposed to cure khaara? How was that supposed to work? And would it, at all? The eggs and mother had been here for a thousand years, what if the enzyme had lost its potency in that time?

He was about to tell Red about his concern – well, concerns – when Red pulled off his glove, brought his hand to his mouth and licked a stripe right across his palm.

Josh flinched in horror.

Red rolled his eyes – probably a wry comment about his aversion to eating any kind of animal product – and held out his hand to Josh. ‘Eat.’

‘You sure?’, Josh signed back.

Red thrust his hand more insistently at Josh. Well, he supposed he had nothing to lose. And if Red keeled over dead in a few seconds, he owed it to him to do the same. Or maybe give him a friendly ass kick in the afterlife for ditching him in the dumbest way possible. Determined, Josh dipped his hand into the egg shell and took a mouthful of the concentrated enzyme.

The effect was immediate. He felt like he could breathe again – well, next time he got the oxygen tank – and the pain he had almost ceased to notice began to recede. He swallowed another mouthful. The enzyme didn’t have a taste, just a weird consistency on his tongue as it coated the inside of his mouth. It dissolved slowly, sticking to his palate, if he didn’t manage to swallow it quickly enough.

Red, meanwhile, had taken up his scanner and pointed it at Josh. Barely ten seconds later, his face lit up like a drive core for her maiden voyage. ‘Vital signs stabilizing. No remaining signs of active bacterial infection.’

Josh gasped. A bubble rose from his mouth, hitting him in the nose. Relief felt the same inside his belly, bubbling and tickling, until his chest wanted nothing more than to expand with a roaring breath of relief.

He lunged at Red, throwing his arms around him. His shoulder screamed in protest at the movement, pain lancing down his arm, and he cried out. More bubbles poured from his lips. Gesturing frantically, Josh reached for the oxygen. Fuck, with how good he’d felt all of a sudden, he’d completely forgotten about his injured arm. And, he suspected, the other damages to his system incurred through khaara weren’t miraculously gone, either.

Red patted his shoulder – the good one – comfortingly, but with a slightly mocking glint in his eye. He pointed to the alien arch. ‘Shallows?’

That was what the Emperor had said. Josh looked up at the massive structure and swallowed, then nodded. Being stuck two-and-a-half kilometers under the surface, without a cyclops or any other way out, they didn’t exactly have much to lose.

He held out his hand to Red again. By now, they were both covered in the yellow slime; it was ridiculously adhesive. Neither of them cared.

They swam towards the arch and right into it. The water rippled, growing warmer, and the light became brighter and brighter until suddenly, closing his eyes against it didn’t help any more, until it became the brightest light Josh had ever seen. In the middle of it, he heard voices, speaking a language he couldn’t understand – clicks and vocals and consonants and moans, breaths, music, tribal songs from Earth, but that couldn’t be his thought, he’d never heard tribal music. It felt like being on drugs, like bad painkillers, like a hallucination in glazing heat. He had no idea which way was up or down, or if he even wanted to leave.

The green whirl disappeared from one moment to the next, spitting them out into dark, rough waters. Josh turned reflexively, and it was like staring into the sun: the gate was behind them, and still active. They could go back through this, he thought fuzzily. If it went both ways. Holy shit, he’d just been teleported.

Red squeezed his hand, calling for his attention. He gestured towards the surface. It wasn’t too far over them, barely twenty meters or so. The sun was playing merrily on the waves, the water was suffused with the sound of the rushing surf, and Josh couldn’t suppress his grin. They’d made it. Both of them. Fuck, they’d made it.

As they bridged the last few meters, Josh’s heart felt lighter and lighter. It was beating hard in his chest from exertion still, and his arms were shaking with the strain, but he was alive, and Red was alive, and they were cured.

Red broke through the surface first, ripping the mask from his face, eyes bright as he threw his head back and let out a soundless whoop that dissolved into equally quiet laughter. He looked so happy, so giddy and bright, like he wasn’t even capable of feeling it all without making some embarrassing noises.

Josh turned to face his companion, grinning from ear to ear. He had something to say to him. “You were amazing in there, Red. Shit, I… I just wanted to say that. You saved us, and probably this whole planet.”

‘Not all on my own.’

“Nah, I brought us down there, but you kept me alive to do that,” Josh admitted, “And the rest was all you, too. I.” Josh cleared his throat. “I… I don’t think I ever had a friend like you.”

Red raised a brow. ‘Don’t get ahead of yourself.’

Josh sputtered – even more so when Red just shot him a teasing grin. ‘Okay. What now? Out of the water?’

“Yeah, I think so. I feel like I haven’t been dry in years.”

‘It was only a week.’

“Week, schmeek. Years. Whatever.”

‘Dry off first, then find our people.’

That… would be a serious problem without a fabricator, the nanobots, or a way to make food. But right that moment, Josh felt nothing but a sense of pure elation. They’d made it out. They’d find a way to fix everything else, with a little bit of time. Ancient Earth humans were able to do it, and while Josh didn’t have much love for the place, he could admit that making it through thousands of years of evolution without knowing what fucking fire was required some spectacular bullheadedness. With Josh’s genius and Red’s competence in literally anything else, they’d have themselves a rocket ship in no time.

Suddenly, the sound of a screech, akin to chalk on a chalkboard – horribly outdated in the times of whiteboards and holoscreens, but still present in most movies, as disturbingly many species used to have some form of chalk use in their history – rang through them, and they both jumped. Goosebumps rose on Josh’s skin. He knew that sound!

He looked around erratically, trying to make out the source of it, and only then noticed that they were right below the gun. The beach extended to their right, and on the left, cliffs rose, which they hadn’t been able to see before since they’d been coming from the Aurora’s crash site. Not too far away from them, the entrance gaped, suspiciously dark. The green glow was gone. Someone had opened the door.

Red tugged at Josh’s arm, and Josh immediately knew he’d put the pieces together as well.

Another screech shook through them, and something else in Josh’s head clicked. He turned wide eyes on Red. “Warper!”

Red understood immediately. He started to swim.

Josh dove after him. The sounds had come from the other side of the platform. As they came closer, he could finally see movement: a head, attached to shoulders, bobbing in time with the waves crashing onto the cliffs. Human. Pulled by the water, the person’s arms flailed, but he couldn’t get away. The Warper, purple and menacing, far-too-many appendages waving, was herding him right up against the rocks. One more meter, maybe two, and the force would flatten the poor fucker.

Who Josh knew, just knew, with that certainty of long familiarity. That uniform, that mop of hair, those gangly limbs. Too slim by half, but he’d looked that way on a good day before. Josh’s stomach swooped into a somersault.

The Warper lashed out; blood spraying.

Any joy Josh might have felt at seeing Vas again evaporated into sheer panic at his pained cry.

Red threw himself forward. Josh barely managed to catch him by the ankle, throwing his whole weight into holding him back. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? You’re not even armed!”, he yelled, knowing fully well Red only caught the last few words after turning in surprise. His eyebrows drew together.

Josh reached for his boot, pulling out the knife. The weight of it in his good hand, stout wrapping against his palm, would have made him feel good once. Now he just felt sick to his stomach, and he wanted it to be over.

“Let me do this,” he said to Red. “Besides, now that we have the chemical structure of the cure, you’re the only one who can synthesize it.”

He also had two working arms, but Josh just gave him a lopsided grin, tossed Red his PDA and started swimming without waiting for a reply.

The Warper rounded on Vas. A strange, blueish glow emanated from its half-translucent body, reflected by the sharp edge of the quarantine enforcement platform.

Josh aimed right for it, knife first, and crashed into it right as it opened its mouth. He’d thought it would try to bite him, but it didn’t. The mouth just opened wider, hydraulics whirring, hailing a rain of tiny, teeth-life projectiles at him. They caught his arm, each one cutting the skin and digging into his flesh like arrowheads.

Crying out in pain, Josh let go. The knife had sunk too deep, so he had to leave it behind in the body of the Warper. At least it had made a deep gnash in it’s body, and viscous fluid seemed to be leaking around the cut. It whirled to face Josh, eyes blinking. It shuddered once, then gave a beep and turned its attention back to Vas.

Josh gaped.

Right, he wasn’t infected any more. He was of no interest to the Warper.

The whirring started up again, sending a shiver down Josh’s spine. Vas, his thoughts cried frantically. He needed to save him. He needed– had to–

Josh didn’t even know how he managed to catch up to the Warper. Maybe because they’d been so close to the cliffs already, maybe the pull of the waves helped him, but one moment he saw nothing but Vas’ pale, shocked face, then another volley hit him and there was nothing but pain. They cut up his sides, his arms, his legs, a myriad of nicks and cuts, entry points and slices where they punched through on the other side. A streak covered his thigh, pulsing with pain, and another lay right over his belly, where he could barely feel it, but he knew the pain would come. Blood leaked from the wounds, warm against his skin. Josh let out a whimper, swallowed by the rushing of water, and was just glad it hadn’t gotten his lungs.

But it should have.

Stiff with dread and pain, Josh turned, and there was Red, between him and the Warper, like Josh’d thrown himself in front of Vas. His eyes met Josh’s, dazed, and he tried to lift a hand in sluggish gesture, but there wasn’t much left of it. Or of him, in general. Blood misted the water, smearing all over his uniform.

The Warper let out a grumbling sound. Its long, spear-like arms rose, as if gearing up for a final attack. Then its body jolted and locked, one last, confused sound coming from its maw, before it tilted to the side and sunk.

“Joshua?”, Vas wheezed.

And fuck, Josh had longed to hear his voice again for what felt like an eternity. But now, he couldn’t tear his eyes off Red. Red, who was floating motionless on the surface, slumped, eyes closed.

“No,” Josh stammered, diving for him. The current pulled at him, trying to draw them apart, but he managed to grasp the trailing edge of a piece of uniform and yank him closer. He pressed a hand to his throat, but couldn’t feel anything, they were both still slick with enzyme slime.

Fuck, he needed to get out of the water. But right here, the alien stone was too thick, too high. Maybe closer to the beach? Fuck, fuckity fucking fuck.

It felt like they were swimming through molasses, and it seemed to take an agonizingly long time for him to get onto the platform. Red was limp in his arms, and even though Josh’s entire body was on fire, he could do nothing but look ahead and paddle. He felt glacially slow. Behind him, he heard Vas’ splashing and his short, pained gasps. But he’d survive – Red had made sure of that. At the price of his own life, if Josh didn’t save him. Which he would.

He grabbed the platform one-handed and got his knees up to look for purchase along the sides, sticking his feet into the first groves in the stone he found. He couldn’t use his hurting arm – he would have, pain be damned, but his muscles wouldn’t cooperate – but he managed to climb up halfway and drag Red with him, using his chest for balance.

Then he turned Red over. His eyes were closed but he seemed to be breathing, albeit barely. Dark purple shadows lined his eyes, and there was blood in the corner of his mouth, which Josh had fiercely hoped never to see again. He shook his friend.

“Red, Red, wake up!”

Pain flared up in his injured shoulder again, and Josh gasped, bit down on his lip, determined to breathe through it. “Fuck, Red, please, please open your eyes!”

He turned Red’s head to the side, opening his mouth. A trickle of water came forth, not much. He was so still.

Josh pressed his fingers to Red’s neck, tracking his pulse. It was getting weaker and weaker. Panicked, he tried to pull up the rest of his first aid training, but there was only screaming in his head.

He turned Red’s head back, leaning down, and fit his mouth over his cold, still lips, breathing into him. Then he stared at Red’s chest, waiting for a reaction. But there was none.

Josh sat up, put both hands on Red’s chest and started compressions, burning arm be damned. His hands slipped again. The water hadn’t managed to wash the slime off, and now it clung to them like oil. It didn’t stop him. Frantically, Josh resumed reanimation. But what had always been enough for his machines failed him now, of all times.

“Fuck, fuck-shit-goddamn,” he cursed, bringing his mouth to Red’s again. Fuck, if he would only breathe.

Josh pushed on his chest again, counting manically in his head. Three-four-…

“Güero?”

Josh’s head jerked up, hand immediately going for his knife. But it wasn’t there; it had sunk with the Warper. Good thing it was just Vas sitting in front of him, dirt-caked and disheveled, eyes wide. “Güero, what, what – you’re bleeding.”

He reached out a hand, fingers extended towards Red’s face, and Josh yanked him away by the wrist. “Don’t touch him! You’re infected!”

He probably shouldn’t have shouted. Vas backed away, looking slightly panicked. “I – I know. We don’t know what it is, nothing we tried could cure it and Emma, Emma –”

Josh paled. “Emma?”

No, he couldn’t, couldn’t– Josh shoved the thought aside. Red was lying before him, lifeless, helpless. He jabbed a finger towards the slime-covered oxygen tank. “See that yellow slime? Lick it.”

Josh breathed into Red again.

“What?”, Vas asked above him, sounding confused. A bright, clean tear track cut over his gaunt cheeks, next to older, similar marks. He must have been crying a lot. “Joshua–”

“Look,” Josh said, pumping Red’s chest. “Three, four – we found a cure. It was from the Sea Emperor babies, it combats the bacterium, just eat it before it’s too late.”

He glanced up briefly, catching Vas’ gaze, hoping some of the urgency would transmit through his own.

Vas nodded slowly and scooped up a handful, and Josh turned his attention back to Red.

By now, the panic was threatening to choke him. They didn’t have any of the equipment to keep him suspended, nothing to induce a coma, definitely no way to operate, to sew his guts back together, to keep him breathing. He couldn’t save him.

The realization came all at once, and it was brutal. On its heels came everything else, everything he’d shoved down in order not to deal with it. It bubbled up in his belly and rose into his throat, and he didn’t have the strength to stop it; all the hurt, all the fighting.

“Güero,” Vas called, worried. His voice was drowned out by the rush of denial in Josh’s ears. Fuck, he couldn’t deal with this now. He needed to focus, he needed to keep going, but he couldn’t, because Red was still not breathing.

“Josh, listen to me!”

He was shaking all over, body heaving with sobs, as he clutched his friend’s shirt and buried his head in it. The world was too bright, all of a sudden. Maybe even too loud with the incessant rush of water. Tears wet his face, hot around his eyes and into Red’s uniform, warm still from the skin beneath, leached in the water but definitely still there. It just set him off harder, the pain was everywhere. Fuck, it should have been him.

“Joshua!”, Vas yelled, right in his ear.

The sound cut so sharply Josh turned his head away.

“JOSHUA, LISTEN TO ME.” He was grabbed by the shoulders roughly, yanked into a sitting position. “Alterra is coming, Josh. We managed to set off an SOS signal. They picked up on it!”

The words, at first, barely made it through his consciousness. Nothing mattered but Red; keeping the air flowing in his lungs and the pressure on his chest.

“The Rose is coming for us.”

Alterra’s Rose was the flagship of the explorer fleet and even bigger than the Aurora. Much better staffed, too, and juiced up with all the latest technology, from medical experimentation to major terra-forming capabilities. She currently flew under the command of the frighteningly successful Commodore Matthew Cullen. Emma’s husband. Ex now, because she was–

The Rose was under way. Coming here. With her perfectly trained medical personnel and med bay.

Hope bloomed in Josh’s chest, so hard it nearly knocked him off his knees. “When? Vas, when!?”

“In a few minutes.”

So they really had a chance. Oh, oh fuck. Josh’s entire body shook with relief. Then something else occurred to him and his eyes snapped to Vas. “How did you deactivate the gun? You were infected.”

Vas frowned. “What?”

“The quarantine enforcement platform.” He waved a hand behind him. “The thing that shot the Aurora out of orbit.”

Vas went white as a sheet. “We were shot?” Then his eyes widened. “Was that the beam we saw? We didn’t get here in time to meet the Sunbeam but–”

Josh straightened. “How much time until the Rose gets here?”

“What – I don’t know! Five, maybe ten?”

“FUCK!”

Now that he was paying attention to it, he could feel the low, subsonic hum in the air: the sound of heavy machinery powering up. It was growing louder. Icy panic shot through his veins.

From the look on Vas’ face, he picked up on it, too. “Josh?”

“Red. Keep him alive,” Josh ordered. “CPR, breathing, chest compressions, whatever you do, keep it going.”

“Wait, Josh, what is happening? Please, sit down. You’re still bleeding, the Rose is almost here, they’ll help us, they’re armed–”

“We’ll be too dead for that if I don’t turn off the gun,” Josh said, suddenly calmer than he’d felt in his entire life.

Then he ran.

It felt like flying, without khaara weighing him down. There was an ease so elating to all of his movements, Josh would probably have been happy if it weren’t for the fact that he was about to see another crew and ship – and friends – die to the Precursor aliens’ hubris.

He sped down the corridor on thumping feet that matched the harsh beating of his heart. Every breath rasped in his lungs, burned in his wounded throat, pulled at the myriad of entry points from the Warper’s attack. Josh tasted metal on his tongue and kept going. Adrenaline propelled him forward. He couldn’t stop even if he’d wanted to.

Even from far away he heard the whine of the cannon. An alarm started blaring, stinging in his ears. Pulsing, reddish light flooded the corridor, and a garbled alien voice spat out rhythmic noises. In his pants, the PDA translated, but it was too loud to understand the computerized voice. Josh knew what was going on, anyway: it was a countdown.

He clenched his teeth and kept running, just straight down, down, as the numbers sped by. Was it at ten, or already at five?

He reached the control room, walls widening suddenly to more green glow cut through with red. The control panel sat in the middle, silent and untouched. Josh lurched toward it.

But he had miscalculated his move. His foot came down wrong, still wet, and he slipped on the enzyme slime clinging to him. His body crashed to the floor.

Pain tore through his belly, a long rip of it, starting from the vicinity of his navel and cutting all the way around his stomach, to the bottom curve of his ribs. Josh cried out, the world a blazing white agony and clutched his guts. Warmth ran over his hands, positively poured, wetting them up to his wrists. Or maybe it only felt that way; he didn’t get a lot of sensation from his ripped, frayed nerve endings. Still, he knew instinctively that it was bad. Don’t look down, his thoughts warned, running in circles around that simple command. Don’tlookdon’tlookdon’tlook.

The oncoming shock was counteracting the adrenaline still circulating in his bloodstream. He had to move before it immobilized him.

Josh pawed at the cover with blood-slick fingers, shoving his hand in to push the button. The forcefield activated immediately, encasing and trapping his hand. Reflexively, he tried to pull it back, but the menacing needle was quicker, rising from the top of the console like a hypnotized snake.

For a terrifying moment, Josh feared he wouldn’t be able to do it. That interacting with Vas, however briefly, had infected him again.

The needle sunk into his arm. He didn’t have the strength to cry out.

The countdown broke off and silence fell.

Around him, the red light dimmed and the intense hum that had vibrated all the way through Josh to shake his aching bones quieted. In the distance, a horn rang out: the same sound he used to hear when a new ship left the yard. Was it a warning bell, or a last salute?

Then, all of a sudden, the lights went out. Darkness fell over Josh. Before, it would have been enough to make him panic: What else could he have broken, or set off? This time, though, he could only feel an almost-painful, gut-punching relief. He’d made it, he just knew it. Matt would be able to land, or achieve orbit. He’d fetch Red and Vas, get them into a medical bay, save their lives. They would go home and live. He hoped they stayed together. Vas could use a friend, now that Josh was gone – and Red was the best friend he’d ever had. Even for how shitty he’d treated him. For what little time they’d had to really get to know each other.

Fuck. He deserved at least a hundred apologies from Josh, when they weren’t in the middle of dying. Old Josh would have sooner thrown himself off the Aurora before admitting to any kind of weakness, but it was the truth: Red had saved his life, even when he didn’t have to. Kept a level-head and stuck with him when he didn’t have to do that, either. Josh wished he’d have had at least a little bit more time to make it up to him.

More time, that was what it boiled down to, in the end. More time with Vas, more time with Red, more time to make some memories.

Josh sank down the side of the console, hands pressed over his guts. His heart lurched, then stuttered. At least he could take solace in one thing: finally, he could save Red’s life right back.

A slight, very distant, shine of daylight illuminated the corridor.

It was growing steadily brighter, rushing at Josh like a cyclops at medium speed. Fatigue spread through his body.

As his vision faded, he heard one last time, the whisper of an old, old voice, stroking gently along his thoughts: What is a wave, without the sea? A beginning, without the end? They are different, but they go together, always. Now I fall among the sand, and you soar among your stars. We are different. But we go… together.