LAUREN

BANG.

A muffled vibration shakes my body, jerking me awake. My head throbs and I try to sit bolt upright, only to smack my head on something hard again. “Oooh.” I fall back again.

“Don’t sit up,” Marisol whispers at my side, in the dark. “No room.”

I squint, trying to make out where I am. Still on the bridge? No, it’s really dark and cramped. I can feel the heat of Marisol’s body as she presses her arm against mine. It feels…claustrophobic. “Where are we?”

“In one of the coffin pods.” She winces as there’s another loud bang and our pod shakes and shivers like it’s on a rollercoaster. “Bad news. The ship’s on fire.”

“What?” I stare at her, wide-eyed. “Already? They didn’t wait for us?”

“Well, um.” She bites her lip and looks miserable. “I was having a bad day and wanted to go back to hiding. Just for a bit. But you looked uncomfortable where you were, so I moved you and…” She winces. “I threw my tool.”

“Your tool?” My head’s ringing and I’m having a hard time following what she’s talking about.

“It’s a weapon,” she whispers. “Just in case.”

I pat her arm, because I know what that “just in case” is. Just in case aliens come back and try to take us captive again. “Gotcha.”

“And like…I think I hit something important. Because a bunch of stuff caught on fire.”

I think of all the flammable stuff in the cockpit. Yeah, I can see that happening. “Bad luck,” I murmur.

She clenches my arm, worried. “And you wouldn’t wake up. I didn’t know what to do so…I brought you here.”

“And here is…” My vision is still fuzzy and I rub my eyes, wishing I had my glasses. My vision gets better by the day, but it’s not perfect.

“Inside one of the pods,” Mari whispers. “I think we’re sinking now.”

“Of course we are,” I murmur, because that’s my luck. I’ve survived a kidnapping by aliens and being stranded on a wintry planet only to go down with the ship. Seems about right. “Do the others know we’re here?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen anyone.”

Between the distress beacon and Willa disappearing, I can kind of see that. It’s been a hectic day and I’m not supposed to be on here. I’m supposed to be “catching up” with the others once I finish my task. Someone’ll figure out eventually that I’m not there, but by then it will be too late. I press a hand against the lid of the coffin. “How did you get me in here?” I rub my bruised, aching forehead. All I remember is…ah yes, the bar. God, so stupid of me.

“Dragged you,” Marisol’s voice is ultra quiet, as if she thinks someone will overhear us. “What do we do now?” she asks, worried.

I have no idea. But I’m the one that always has a plan, so I need to think of something. I rack my brain, trying to think of how we can get out of this. If the ship’s on fire, it’s not like we can jump out. I think of all the explosives at the far end of the ship, on the bridge. Maybe those are what’s making the pounding noise that slams into our little coffin and makes the entire thing—and my insides—shiver. I inhale, but there’s no scent of smoke, just Marisol’s slightly sweaty smell and her frightened body pressing against mine. For a moment, my head throbs and it feels so tight and cramped in here that I want to kick my way out. It’s too small, too dark, too little room to breathe.

I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself. Okay. Okay. Being in this coffin is a good thing. We’re not going to burn to death. That’s a bonus.

But we’ve got to get out of here. I don’t know how long we can stay at the bottom of the ocean in this thing, but my guess is not that long. The air won’t last and we’ve stripped so many parts from the pod itself that I’m surprised that even the lid is staying on. One thing at a time, though.

I touch the lid again, and it feels cool. Either we’re well insulated or there’s no fire in the cargo bay. I don’t know which it is, though. I’ll have to risk it at some point of course, but for now, I want to think the rest of my plan through. “We need a way to get out of the ship.”

“Lo?” Marisol whispers in a trembling voice. “What can we do?”

Hearing her fear galvanizes me, oddly enough. Okay. She needs me to be strong and decisive, so I will be. “Let’s think this through,” I tell her, trying to sound calmer than I really am. “Did you move the coffin any? Or are we still in the cargo bay?’

“Still in the cargo bay.”

“And you said the way off the ship was on fire?” I think of the long ramp.

I can feel her nod. “I didn’t realize until everything was filled with smoke what was happening. By then it was too late. I thought about screaming but…” she sighs. “I hid instead.”

I pat her arm. “It’s okay. We’re going to get out of this.”

“All right,” she tells me in a calmer voice, as if me saying it has made rescue a sure thing.

So I just have to make it so.

“Are we in one of the coffins at the front or back of the bay?” I wonder how far we are from the explosions or if we’re sitting in a fiery inferno even now.

“Um…back, I guess.”

I try to think of what was in the area. Crates? Doorways? Hatches? Anything? “Any tools in here?”

“I didn’t grab anything but you,” Marisol says meekly. “No time.”

“It’s okay. I’m just trying to figure everything out. Do you hear any more explosions?” I twist and try to put my ear against the metal hull, but I can’t quite reach, and with Marisol shoved against me, it’s impossible.

“I don’t hear anything at all,” she confesses. “Maybe the ship sank and the fires went out?”

I don’t know if I find that reassuring. If it did, that means whatever oxygen is in this small coffin is all we have…and there are two of us sucking it in. Even now, every breath feels more and more claustrophobic and like there’s not enough air to go around.

“I think I’m going to have to open the coffin,” I tell her.

“Okay,” she says with a nod.

“It might kill us both,” I warn her. “There might be no air out there. It might be nothing but water. Or it might be nothing but smoke and we’re going to die if we can’t get out. I’m just telling you because I know it’s dangerous…but I do know we can’t stay in here.”

Her eyes seem to get a little wider in the dark. Her hand clutches my arm tight. “If you think it’s best.”

“I don’t know if it’s best,” I admit. “But it’s what we’ve got to work with. I’m going to push the lid open and get out. You try and hunch down so if there are flames…” I pause, swallowing hard. “If there are flames or it’s super heated in here, it’ll hit me and not you.”

“Thank you for being so brave,” she tells me in an admiring voice.

I want to tell her that I’m not brave. That I’m just as terrified as she is, but one of us has to act. I just give her another pat on the arm. “Be ready. I’m going to do this on the count of three.”

Before I lose my nerve.

“One, two,” I say aloud, and then take a long, deep breath just in case it’s my last. “Three.”

I push at the lid even as Marisol scrunches down behind me.

The lid doesn’t budge easily. I brace my knee against it and push and it finally moves. As it does, something sticky and black melts and leaves long strings behind, as if glue is melting from between the lid and the coffin itself. Some sort of seal, then.

Melted.

I push the lid aside and peer out. It’s smoky in here, and the air feels stiflingly hot, but there’s oxygen. It’s not an inferno. Not yet. I can hear something burning in the distance, and the dry heat of the air makes my throat tickle. I cough, sitting up. My head throbs with heat and somewhere in the distance there’s a low roar. Flames? I wonder, even as I crawl over the side of the coffin. “Stay put,” I tell Marisol like she’s a two-year-old instead of a woman my age.

When my feet touch the ground, though, I realize what the roar is. It’s water, ankle high and coming in to flood the ship. The water’s surprisingly warm, but I don’t know if that’s from the heat of the fires elsewhere or if it’s my cootie or what. At any rate, it’s not welcome. I gaze around in frustration as the pouring, roaring sound grows louder. We won’t have much time before the entire ship fills up. I’ve got to figure out a way out.

Smoke pours out of the entrance to the cargo bay. Not through the rest of the ship, then. That’s no good. I gaze around the room helplessly. The water’s filling up even now, and as I watch, one of the coffins by the wall lifts up, bobbing slightly. Fuck. It won’t take long now for this to completely flood and then I’ll drown.

Think, Lo, think. I wade forward, scanning the large chamber. There’s got to be a way out. Somehow. Somewhere. This is a cargo bay. Okay then…how do they get the cargo out? I scan the walls and my gaze locks onto the hatch Mardok warned me about earlier. What did he say? Something about a latch being busted? No, wait. It was something about components and stripped parts and if I touched it wrong it’d bust the entire wall open…

That’s exactly what I need right now.

“I know what to do,” I tell Marisol, sloshing through the water back to the side of her coffin. I point at the hatch. “That wall. Remember what Mardok said? You were in the room, weren’t you?”

She nods and her eyes widen. “It’ll come apart and knock us out of the ship. Do you think it’ll work?”

“One way to find out,” I tell her grimly. “But I don’t know if it’ll work, or even if it does, if we’ll be sucked away from each other.”

“I’ll help,” she says, and starts to climb from the pod.

“No,” I say, and stop her before she gets out. “There’s no time to argue, but if this is dangerous, one of us needs to survive. You climb back in the pod and pull the lid on. Even if we’re both sucked out into the ocean”—I shudder at the thought of that dark, green water with the strange, tentacled creatures in it—“then you have a better chance of living if you’re protected.”

“But—”

“No buts, Marisol. Please. Let’s just do this, okay? Every moment we waste arguing is another inch that the water rises.” I gesture at my legs, now wet up to the calf. “If it gets much higher, the pressure might be too much for us to blow whatever hatch there is in here.”

She hesitates, pleading in her eyes. “I don’t want you to die.”

“Me either.” I grab the lid of the coffin and start to drag it over her pod again. “So let’s get this done and see if we both make it out, all right?”

I think for a moment that she’s going to protest more, but she nods and slides back down into the coffin, helping me drag the lid back over her. When it’s on, there’s a little hiss of air and then it seals itself again. Well, that’s something at least. The bubble of glass atop the pod is too covered with ash and soot for her to see out—that makes sense, as it was pitch black in there—and I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I should clean it off for her.

No time. She can sightsee when she’s safe.

I slosh my way back to the wall, trying to recall exactly what Mardok told me. There’s a coffin bobbing against it, floating in the water, and another one is sliding its way toward me. I push it aside, a little unnerved at how easy they are to move now. Damn water. I cough again, fanning a hand to try and clear the smoke. There’s not enough air in here. Not enough air and too much water. What a mess. “Whose bright idea was it to explode the spaceship?” I mutter to myself as I feel along the wall, looking for a latch or a handle of some kind. There’s a bar with alien writing on it, and it leads into a gap in the wall that looks like it’s been worked on—or scrapped—recently.

I place my hands on it. Please work.

Please don’t kill me.

Please don’t let a sea monster be out there waiting to eat me.

Please don’t let me drown.

So many requests, but I won’t know unless I push this hatch open. I suck in a deep breath, because I know this is suicide, but I do it anyhow.

The bar creaks, metal groans, and then I’m jerked outside in a rush of air and water as the vacuum sucks me out into the ocean.

I can’t help it. I scream. Or I try to, but there’s nothing but water and current. My mouth and lungs fill up with saltwater and I choke, trying desperately to breathe, but there’s nothing to breathe. There’s also nothing to hold on to as I’m ripped through the water, carried along by the current. I reach out, but there’s nothing to grab, nothing to hold on to.

I’m going to die.

I claw at the water, flipping back and forth in the endless deep. I don’t know which way is up or down. I fight against the suction of the water and open my eyes, squinting out into the brine. It burns and stings, but I see something move past my head. An enormous air bubble. Oh god, it’s going the other way. I flip over in the water and there’s sunlight far above—so far above. Frantic, I swim forward, my lungs and nose burning. It’s hard to swim with all these leathers on me and it’s so damn cold. I keep swimming, though, because the sunlight looks so close and yet so far.

Black creeps in at the corners of my eyes and I try to take another breath. Whoever said drowning was peaceful lied to me, because all I want to do is breathe and I can’t. Please. Please. Please. The light’s so close but I can’t reach it, and it feels like the current is still fighting me.

Why am I fighting so hard? Why don’t I just give up? Let the water envelop me and sink into it. End all this struggle. The thought is a surprisingly easy one to latch on to. If only I could take a breath, I could think clearly, but I can’t. There’s no air.

My limbs grow heavier and it just becomes too much effort to reach the sunlight. It doesn’t matter that it’s so close now that I can practically touch it. Too little, too late. I’ll save all that sunlight for someone else. I’ll just close my eyes and—

Something grabs a handful of my hair and yanks me up.

Pain lances through my scalp and I flail weakly. My head breaks through the water and then there’s air on my face, bitterly cold compared to the strangely warm water. I cough and sputter, saltwater pouring from my nose and my mouth.

Marisol leans over her pod, her eyes wide. She’s still got handfuls of my hair snagged in her fingers. “Are you alive?”

Choking and coughing, I nod and try to suck in enough air to please my burning lungs. Everything hurts. Everything. It feels like Marisol pulled my hair out by the roots, but that’s twice she’s saved me now.

She releases my hair and shoves a hand in my face and I weakly grab on to it. “Get in,” she tells me. “Hurry.”

The air feels colder than the water does, but I remember the things that live in this ocean. I hold tightly to her as she does her best to haul me into the pod. It takes a lot of effort from both of us to drag me into the pod and by the time I collapse onto the bottom, I’m exhausted and wheezing. My lungs still feel like they’re heavy with salt water, and brine is in my eyes, my nose, and my pores.

“Are you okay?” she asks, worried.

I give her a weak thumbs up.

She settles back down against me, not caring that I’m cold and wet, and takes off her jacket, offering it to me. She elbows me in the face as she does, but that’s okay. My teeth chatter and I strip off my sodden fur parka and use hers as a blanket. “Y-y-you’re okay?”

“I’m okay,” she agrees and pulls the lid back down over us. It gets dark immediately, but it also gets warmer. I’m fine with that. “My pod immediately went to the surface. One of the others did, too, but I think the rest didn’t have lids on so they filled up. There’s no sign of the ship, either. I waited and waited, but I think when we were jettisoned, it pushed us far out to sea.” She hesitates for a moment and then adds, “I can’t see the shore.”

“It’s okay. Thank you for saving me,” I cough out, and I mean it. I’ve been babying Marisol because she’s been frightened, but she’s shown a staggering amount of bravery in the last while and I’m going to be forever grateful to her. “I…didn’t think beyond this,” I admit to her. “I don’t have a plan for getting us to shore.” A cuss word bubbles up inside me, but I end up just coughing out more seawater.

She pats my shoulder absently. “Don’t worry. If we’re near a shore of any kind the waves will carry us toward it. I think.”

I nod weakly, and then I’m too tired—or too waterlogged—to stay awake. I close my eyes to relieve my aching, splitting head. I just need to rest for a moment, I think. Then we’ll come up with a plan to get back to shore.

Just a moment.