Page 5

“Oh yeah. Nothing like needing to escape to make you want to learn to fly.” Marshall chuckled. It would be far too stupid to hope to become friends with him, but not being enemies would be just as good.

“So you signed up to fly, but instead you’re diving into deep water, as far away from the sky as possible.”

Marshall gave her a cocky grin as they descended deeper into the water. “Yeah, but once I saw what it was like down here, I couldn’t complain. It’s like nothing I could have ever imagined.”

“Same here. That first dive was mind blowing.” Autumn wondered what the hell was wrong with her. First her loneliness created hottie hallucinations, and now she was chatting with one of the pilots as though getting to know people had always been so smooth and easy for her.

Before Autumn could say anything else, a boom slammed against a steel metal door and resounded in the cockpit. Overlapping the sound, the world around them shook, hard.

“What the fuck was that?” Autumn didn’t enjoy this vibration nearly as much as the revving of the engine. This wasn’t a buzzing sensation that filled her chest with excitement. This shaking threatened to remove the flesh from her bones and crack her teeth as they snapped against each other. She’d never experienced something like this while underwater before.

“Hang on a minute.” Marshall was all concentration and focus as he centered his chair in front of the three consoles that dominated the cockpit. He flicked switches and tapped buttons. Autumn could hardly keep up with the speed he moved, chair flying along its designated paths while his fingers and head never seemed to stop.

Autumn’s breath sped up. She closed her eyes and counted backward from ten, forcing her mind and body to create the illusion of calm. Her blood still roared a little too loudly in her ears, but she opened her eyes to see the front screen had turned from a deep dark gray to a world of colors.

Autumn stared, transfixed by the scene in front of her.

Before she could say anything, another sound shot like a gun through her skull. The water collector tilted to her left, almost lifting her from her seat as she was held in place solely by the belts that crossed over her chest.

“Marshall?” Autumn asked, the tremble in her voice not becoming of a soldier, not even a grunt. But she didn’t fight her way off that damned planet to die on another one in the middle of an ocean filled with sea monsters.

“It’s all right, Walton.” Marshall’s voice carried a calm that might have washed over Autumn if the water collector didn’t then list to the right. Another almighty crack rang around the small cockpit and echoed in her brain.

Autumn reached down and held onto the seat. Her fingers curled around the edges of the thinly covered metal. She stared in front of her, trying to let the rainbow of beauty wash over her. Even as fear fought against her minimal composure, she couldn’t deny how the purple coral filled with pinprick holes intrigued her, or the way she ached to move in time with the waving seaweed. It all but shone in a green like she had never seen before. Vibrant and rich, it caressed the thick clear glass she looked through, and for a moment Autumn entertained the idea that the weed lived, and the buzzing in her ear was its call for her to join it.

This did not bode well for her sanity.

First the naked alien hottie and now a death wish to embrace a moving water plant.

Autumn gasped as a splash of red swam in front of the glass screen. She leaned forward, eager to see more of what had just passed her sight. The belt held her in place, and while her fingers flew to the buckles, they hesitated, thumbs resting too lightly on the buttons to trigger their releases.

“Did you see that?” Autumn looked over.

“See what?” Marshall looked up from the screens. His eyes widened when he looked at Autumn. “Are you okay?”

“No.” Autumn wondered where the fear had gone. She certainly wasn’t okay—something had snapped inside of her.

The sudden calm frightened her even more than the panic.

“Red, bright red. It moved directly across the front. Fast, too fast but long, really long. Did the sensors pick anything up?” Automatically, she turned to her station and started clicking buttons to see if she’d missed something on the sensors.

“Red?” Marshall furrowed his brows and looked skeptically at her.

But then it flashed again, this time heading in the other direction. Moments later another bang against the ship from the left, but seconds later one echoed from the right.

Autumn’s head rocked back and forth as though she were one of those stupid things the kids found at the historical pits. The plastics were eaten away even as the springs continued to move back and forth, turning the half-rotten heads in to things of nightmares.

“You saw it, right?” Autumn called out as she held tighter to the controls on her computer.

“Yep, I saw it. I’ve heard about them.”

“What the hell are they?”

“Fish, Walton. These are real fish.” She could have sworn Marshall’s words held excitement and glee as he spoke. Fish? That wasn’t like any of the fish she had seen in the historical archives. But she had to concede that fish, all sea creatures really, had died out long before she had been born.

“I’m getting us the hell out of here. Now hold on.” Marshall pressed more buttons and pulled levers to add to the intermittent tapping on the screen.

“I’m calibrating the sensors to see if we can get a clear image of the…fish.” Autumn stumbled over the word because it was still uncomfortable on her tongue.