Somewhere in the Barents Sea

The hands of fate, like time, are fickle and devious to the fragile beings of the world. And yet so many of these transient beings, throughout the length and breadth of their lives, have not seen it, have not felt it; they have not experienced the extent of the world's cruelty. So many countless scores of beings, man and fairy, skim over the years of existence to sink gently into a placid grave, ignorant of life to the last moment, without ever having been made to see all it may contain of perfidy, of violence, and of terror. Ignorance is an inebriating bliss, a chalice that many contrive to drink deeply from, and opposite it is the chalice of truth, with its bitter fluid making evident the reality of living. How many regret drinking the later, as opposed to the former? Many millions, all out of the same horror, faintness, and doubt that prey on us all; all having tested the waters of clarity, only to find that they are too scalding hot to bear. And yet there are others, a rare few amidst a sea of faces, that drink gladly and step into the tempestuous seas of life, facing its challenges and its terrors with determination and, more than anything, hope. In darkest hours, in deepest troubles, and through the most treacherous of paths, there are those who make that stand and do not falter, whose very hearts are of a different quality. They defy odds, defy the very nature of the brutal world, and move others to do the same. Inspirational courage, wondrous strength, and humbling selflessness mark their deeds. Coral Short had always seen the world through a clear lens, and never had she regretted knowing its truths. And now, in her darkest hour, she would find within herself the qualities that would change the world forever.

The pain that she felt was horrendous, startling, and inconceivable, and everything was blurred into a mass of colors that confused and terrorized. She heard the scraping of metal, the cracking of glass, and the ominous groan of the entire ship's structure as it was hammered by the wreck of the Thalassa. An alarm beeped, and she heard a cry in front of her, but everything was too distorted by the agony she felt. Weakness and terror preyed upon her in that moment, as in her temporary blindness it was easy to be afraid. But at the same time, within her heart of hearts, there ignited a fire, a passion, that shot forth into her mind and burned away the debilitating terror. Come on, come to your senses! She gritted her teeth, blinking away her tears and trying to sit up again. She could taste blood, and feel it running down her face. Get up!

With a rush of adrenaline the elf came to her senses; like waking up from a nightmare, only to be living a greater one. Everything took shape before her, giving all of the sounds and smells a face, and as they did she recollected all that had happened not moments ago. She was suddenly struck by the gravity of the crisis, by the absolute importance of what was happening. Not yet thinking straight, Coral stood and rested against a control panel, all the while speaking with a raspy, shaken voice.

"Assume level five protocols…we must make…" She coughed, and when she did she noticed the sparks of magic swirling around her. Though she did not know at the time, she had broken several ribs which had subsequently punctured her left lung. Thanks to her magic, it was healed before it could slow her down. Blinking away the final wave of tears from her eyes, and wiping the blood from her brow, she set her eyes forward and spoke desperately. "Riagán, Vera, are you alright?"

She got no answer, and when she clearly saw the forward section of the control room she noticed that both of them were slumped over in their seats. And beyond, through a cracked window, was the madness of the sea—wreckage floating around them, waves churning above, and darkness waiting below. Parts of the control room had been thrown about. Screens shattered and panels malfunctioned, and the ship itself was on an angle, its propulsion halted. The Sirona was adrift, but Coral did not care about that. She was terrified for her crew.

With a burst of motion that almost made her fall over, the elf rushed to their aid. They were in odd positions, like ragdolls tossed over unshapely furniture. Their safety harnesses had kept them relatively in one place, but the impact had been enough to slam them around nonetheless, and being closer to the impact point they had gotten the worst of it. Coral felt her heart in her throat, her pulse hammering and her mind screaming with worry as she approached. The first thing she noticed was that Riagán's helmet was all but shattered, its reinforced front obliterated by a sudden collision with the edge of a steel control panel. Blood covered his face, which was lacerated by shards, and each breath sent a spattering of crimson from his mouth. His magic was working too, but slower. Why was that? It was then that Coral realized that the Sirona was breached—that radiation was seeping into her compartments, imperceptible but so very present.

"D'arvit!" she rasped, looking about fearfully at the cracks in the window and the water dripping from the ceiling—water tainted with death itself. Further back, she could hear a steady flow of seawater, somewhere in the stern section of the vessel. She cursed again, but despite her fear and uncertainty she acted swiftly. Riagán was completely out cold, and with radiation in the air his magic was being nullified. Opposite him, Vera was slumped over her control panel, breathing irregularly—pixies had thinner skulls than other fairies, making a fracture very likely in this case. It was a dreadful situation, and Coral did her best. She put her hands on both of them, and using what magic she could muster she gave them everything, every last bit before the radiation, in its tiny amounts, obliterated her magic completely. It was then that she found the presence of mind to look up. What she saw made her heart sink. "Oh gods no," she whispered.

Above her, against the illuminated backdrop of the surface, was the Lepse. A massive tear was visible in its underside, and from it was pouring a cloud of discoloring liquid—pure nuclear waste. Coral gritted her teeth, feeling sick and demoralized at the same time. But yet again her strength came to her, washing away her weakness and filling her mind with thoughts about what could be done. Something had to be done!

With the hole torn by the Thalassa in its underside, the Lepse had little chance of making it back to Murmansk. The thousands of tons of liquid waste in its hold, and the some six-hundred nuclear fuel assemblies it carried, would be sent to the bottom of the Barents Sea. It would spell disaster for the already damaged ecosystem, and spread throughout the region with effects far worse than the Chernobyl incident. The Arctic, Norwegian, Atlantic, and Greenland Seas would all feel its wrath in no time at all, and what about years later? It would be horrendous. The very thought of it sent a shiver of fear and disgust through Coral, as well as shame—if this was to happen, she would never be able to live with herself. She would sooner die that let it happen. What should she do?! What could she do? Questions bombarded her, and amidst their typhoon of uncertainty she suddenly found her answer. She found it naturally, gravitating towards it not out of self-preservation, but out of a sense of duty, selflessness, and hope. There was a way. Indeed, there always was. Looking up at the ailing Lepse, Coral Short took a deep breath. Then she looked to her comrades, whose situation was far worse than hers. She could not let them die, not in this place, not like this.

"I am sorry," she whispered to them. "I am sorry for this. Please, forgive me when all is done…"

In utter silence she took them one by one, starting with Riagán, dragging them from their seats and towards the back of the room. She laid them down gently and ensured they would not roll around, and then, without any hesitation, she took off Riagán's ruined helmet. All of them had LEP NBC suits on, making them generally resistant to harmful radiation, but that was useless if their helmets were fried. Coral took hers—which she had not donned until moments ago—and put it on the young elf, sealed it, and then made sure that Vera's was secure as well. After doing this she reached into a small compartment and retrieved a canister of rad spray. The substance was designed to provide temporary protection from mid-level radiation, though it would not be enough in this case. She emptied the whole can onto herself. Then she stood up and made her way aft towards the storage room, where reserve gear was located.

It was at this moment that the true harshness of fate, or maybe chance alone, was made clear to her. The entire rear section of the Sirona was flooding, and the storage room had been literally torn out by the collision, a tear in the hull letting the mighty sea suck everything out into the frigid deep. That breach had been sealed off by a heavy door, and Coral stared at it blankly, knowing then and there that everything inside was gone—the reserve helmet for her suit being one of them. It was so terrible that she didn't react apart from letting out a sigh. So this was the hand she had been dealt. This was it, her fate, her lot in life. There was no changing it now.

With the hope of sufficient protection gone, Coral went back to the cockpit and sat down in Riagán's seat, looking through the cracked window at the Lepse—at her duty, at her fate, and maybe even her demise. She looked at it and felt the culmination of all of her life's experiences, everything, all coming together at once. This was the moment, this was the very hour amongst countless, that would dictate everything. Her blue eyes did not blink, but there was fear in them for certain; it was impossible for one not to be afraid. But there was also courage, determination, and a fire that could not be beaten. No, she would not be beaten.

Between the two options she had—fleeing or staying—she chose to stay. No one else was there to do it, and no one else would come in time. She was it, the one chosen by circumstance to shoulder this burden. And she would do so, gladly, if it meant protecting the world she loved. With that goal in mind, the elf looked at the controls and smiled thinly. "Sirona, thank you for all your hard work, but there is one last thing we must do." One last mission.

Coral tested the controls and regarded the garbled diagnostics screen. The ship was damaged, but it had what she needed. I can do this, she thought, looking ahead with a fierce expression whilst her hands gripped the controls with deathlike firmness. It was not that she could not pilot the Sirona—she was almost as good as Riagán—rather it was the ship above her, the radiation slowly entering the space around her, and the sea, the merciless sea, enveloping her with its unyielding might. She was at the mercy of forces beyond her control, and yet her job was to withstand them. In spite of all that was against her, she carried on, regaining control of the Sirona and steering her towards the Lepse, which was taking on water fast.

Radiation was a terrible thing to humans, and many times so for fairies, whose natural purity and magic made them highly averse to it. Coral had never been exposed to radiation of this level before, and already she was feeling sick, even with the imperceptible barrier of radiation spray covering her exposed areas. Her stomach churned, her body trembled, and a cold sweat covered her skin. It was gradual, and when she came close to the Lepse, to where its leak was pouring waste into the water, it proceeded exponentially. She gritted her teeth, fighting against its effects with all of her spirit, keeping her hands steady on the controls and her eyes on her target.

"Come on, please work," she rasped as she tried to reactivate the Sirona's radiation capture field. It was actually undamaged, and went online without any delay, instantly beginning its work on the radiation escaping the torn hull of the human vessel—though not penetrating the metal hull to work on what was inside. It helped to reduce the amount getting inside the ship as well, but at such a close proximity to the source it was impossible to contain all of it. Coral knew that even at reduced levels the radiation was horrendous. And she had to stay that close, otherwise it would not work well enough, and then there was the tear itself—she had to mend it, otherwise it would all be for nothing.

The lights in the control room flickered and then went out, leaving only the light from the few screens, which were being swiftly damaged by the radiation. Everything was being damaged for that matter, as with the protective seal of the vessel broken all of the delicate electronics were exposed. Coral knew that she too was being destroyed, ever so slowly, but that did not deter her as she deployed the Sirona's utility arm. The arm was equipped with a number of tools, one of them being a system that allowed for hyperbaric welding. That was not what she had in mind, however, as the tear was too wide and there was not enough time. Instead she deployed the memory foam; a substance crafted to temporarily seal breaches in ships' hulls. It would last for two hours exactly, and then dissolve completely. But applying it to the vessel as it rode upon the heavy seas, while also dealing with the crisis on her end, was not an easy task. One mistake, and the Lepse could collide with her from above. This made every second intense and unforgiving, and as she got within range of the ship's underside—and the leakage—all of the hardships came at her combined and without a shred of mercy. Radiation levels rose, the water became rough and unpredictable, and the human vessel, rising a falling with the waves, came within meters of colliding with her. The first of these was the worst, despite it being only a fraction of what was really out there. Coral felt nausea and fatigue sweep over her like a veil, and the constant pain grew and grew to levels that even she thought as nearly unbearable. But even still, as this agony struck her, she kept her eyes on her work and, after struggling a little, began to apply the metallic foam.

For ten minutes she did this, having to stop regularly to avoid getting struck by the ship. Her whole body felt like it was on fire, and despite her iron determination there were tears streaming from her eyes, flowing freely and glinting in the half light. Her hands were shaking and her vision was blurred, and whenever she blinked it felt as if she could not open her eyes again. It was appalling on so many levels. It was hell. Gliding along in a steel coffin, she was slowly being killed by the ship she was trying to save, and the irony was not lost on her. She smiled bitterly, and then was overcome by the need to vomit. This happened numerous times, each one worse than the last, and eventually she had nothing left to throw up. The sickness was overwhelming, yet she held on, by a hair's breadth, to the hope that her work bespoke. She could not, would not, fail again.

Suddenly there came a shrill beeping sound, followed by the shuddering of the entire vessel. Coral barely noticed it, so caught up in her work, but looking at her screen she realized that yet another system in the Sirona had failed. Like dominos the radiation was knocking down the ship's abilities, one by one, in an endless, irreversible row. Not even the Sirona, with all of its upgrades, could stand against it now. Yet as she piloted it, Coral was amazed by how well the vessel performed, how she held her course and did everything she needed her to do. These horrendous circumstances had yet to beat the Sirona, just as they had yet to beat Coral herself. She smiled, even though her body ached and her very heart was filled with fear. I can still depend on you. Nevertheless, though the Sirona was a magnificent vessel, she was so only by the virtue of the frail creatures who handled her. And Coral, the only one able to handle her, was getting frailer by the moment.

Another large wave sent the Lepse plunging down from above, and this time she only barely avoided a collision. The tear in the hull was almost fixed, and the radioactive waste was barely leaking out. But that final part was the hardest, rife with uncertainty and near-disaster. The whole while Coral's expression was the same—fierce, determined, and startlingly confident—though it wavered just a little as she applied the final layer of foam. "Come on…Just a little more!" Her words were dry and spoken with a rasp, as if she were starved and parched to the point of death. But her eyes, and her glare, were full of life, and they were a window into the spirit that had yet to be broken. Her body was shattering, but not that inner fire, not that core of iron that had made her who she was. Nothing could break it, not even this. Then, amidst the maddening currents and treacherous gloom, she completed her work. The tear was sealed, the radiation stopped, and the Lepse had a new lease on existence.

Coral Short sat back with a deep sigh, seeing the underside of the ship through the cracked window and knowing that it was safe for the moment. She steeled a glance back towards her comrades, who were still unconscious. "We did it. I am sorry to leave you two out of it…" she said tiredly. Her eyes drooped, and her body threatened to go into a state of shock. But somehow, despite impossible odds, she held on. She had to.

A deep muffled groan from beyond got her attention, and when she looked she saw the Lepse more clearly once again. She was low in the water, dangerously low, and each wave that struck her swept over her decks with frightening volume. Even with the hole in her hull blocked, she was still sinking; the threat of disaster still loomed, unchanged, only postponed. And yet again, when given the choice to flee, Coral did not. Even though flight would have been understood, even encouraged, she did the opposite: she charged into danger, into darkness, into the very clutches of death. She took the Sirona right up to the Lepse and, using magnetic clamps, attached to its hull. She applied the propulsion vertically, and set the submarine's buoyancy levels to their maximum, simulating an emergency surfacing. But instead of surfacing, the Sirona pressed against the human vessel, and by that influence kept it afloat.

"That should do it…" Coral rasped as she put the Sirona onto autopilot, making it so that it would maintain its upward thrust. That left her nothing to do but wait—wait until the Lepse made it to Murmansk, until the lingering radiation made the autopilot useless, or the arrival of reinforcements. The latter was what Coral wished for, as she had sent out a distress signal the moment things had started to go wrong. Even without communications, the others could find her, and surely they were coming. They had to be! But there she was, alone, wasting away whilst the tempestuous environment hammered the Sirona again and again. Atlantis was an hour away, and by the time any help arrived the Lepse would have reached port or sank to the bottom. Coral knew that she was on her own, despite her hope that she wasn't. Such isolation, in the gloomy control room of the battered submarine, was maddening. She did not want to die in such a place. She did not want to die like this.

Then run away, save yourself while you still can.

If she fled now, it would be more possible for her lethal radiation poisoning to be treated. The temptation came to her smoothly, seductively, but she swatted it aside. Still, the thoughts persisted, even as the heavy blows against the ship and the groaning of metal distracted her. Being attached as it was, the Sirona was bashed around and hammered by blow after blow, nonstop. They were jarring, frightening, as if they would split the ship in half. Coral feared this, and those temptations played on that fear. Within her battled the polar opposites of her yearnings: the primal instinct of self-preservation, and the acquired resolve to seek the greater good at her own expense—survival against sacrifice, selfishness against selflessness. Another crash shook her to the core, and yet again she felt like vomiting. Again she stood firm, determined to accomplish her mission. She focused on what she was fighting for, telling herself that it mattered. She thought of the ocean she had traversed to get there, the dolphins that had glided with her and the pod of whales that was not all that far away. She thought of all the beautiful things she had seen over the years, all of which were threatened by humanity, and told herself that if she acted selfishly, they would pay the price for her cowardice. She had to protect them, and she was, moment by moment, in everything she was going through. This comforted her, but it did not eliminate the fear. Fear was inescapable, indestructible, for anyone who clung to life. And she clung to life with a death grip, holding on as if dangling from a ledge above a bottomless void.

Sitting motionless in her seat, Coral had nothing to do but wait it out. She thought of her husband, and for the first time since the mission had begun she thought of Holly. Holly! That name pierced through her like a hot knife, and the memory of her face, her eyes, and her smile all blinded her for a moment, like a flash of lightning in the night. Sorrow filled her in an instant. There was a promise between them, and yet now, as she held onto life by a single thread of determination, Coral knew that it may be too late. To break her promise, to forsake her daughter, was an agony that outmatched the physical pain she was going through, and it served to make her cry out in a mixture of anger and sorrow. Her cry went unheard, and her sorrow, however potent, was real to no one but her. Hers was a lonely tragedy, surrounded by metal and water, set upon by radiation, and shadowed by the monsters of human creation.

Coral remembered the last time she had spoken to Holly, only hours ago. She remembered the happiness, and the hope, in her daughter's voice when she had made that promise to her, and she could envision, so clearly, the look of her smile and her wondrous hazel eyes. Her voice, echoing like a song, was preserved in memory as well.

"Don't leave me too. Please, promise me that you will stay…"

Tears glistened in Coral's eyes as she remembered, and before the frightening scene of the insane ocean beyond, she spoke sadly, brokenly. "I am so sorry…I promised…" This was the worst feeling she had ever experienced, worse than all of the pain and the fear combined. It was being caught like this, between her loves in life—her daughter, and her passion for the world. Had it been otherwise she would not hesitate to give her life for the latter, but now, as she sat alone in the gloomy Sirona remembering her beloved daughter, she was paralyzed. What was her life worth? To Holly it was everything. Holly had no one else to call family, and no one as close to her. They had shared so much, survived so much, and had always loved each other unconditionally. How could Coral throw her life away without Holly even knowing? The thought of Holly doing the same terrified her, and that was how Holly must feel about her. Coral knew that if she died, it would hurt Holly more than anything else possibly could. It would break her heart, and threaten her very life. And yet the consequences of abandoning her mission were astronomical! Truly, this was the cost of living a life like hers; the consequence of living a double life. This was the price Coral had to pay, and how steep it was!

These thoughts, so potent and vivid, made everything around Coral seem far away. The ailing ship, the crashing waves, the shadowy depths, the danger, and everything else—all of it mattered not, when put up against those thoughts, those memories, and those dreams. Holly mattered more than all of them. She was everything.

"Holly…" she whispered, seeing not the madness before her but instead the young elf she was proud to call her daughter. She was so proud indeed, and so tragically sorry.

Then the Lepse rose up on a massive wave, taking the little Sirona with it, and down they crashed together. Everything shook and many things fell apart, leaving Coral in an even worse situation. But the time was ticking, and the human ship was surviving, thanks to her effort. There was not much farther to go. Coral swallowed her emotional agony and held on for dear life. At that moment more systems failed, including the radiation capture field, leaving her unprotected from the radiation still in the water and that which still lingered on the Lepse.

Kola Bay, North of Severomorsk, Russia

The sky was a uniform grey above the dark waters of the Barents Sea, the latter only interrupted by the whitecaps as the waves rose and fell in their universal fashion, the ranks of undulations stretching into the apparent infinity of the sea. These waves crashed loudly against the rocky hillsides and cliffs that lined the shore, casting spray into the air which would then settle upon the rocks and freeze in the icy wind, leaving a treacherous surface that glistened with deceptive beauty. Beyond the shore were the hills of the mainland, patched with snow and the irrepressible arctic vegetation, and further still were the telltale signs of human civilization. It was April, and the spring had yet to come to the northern tip of the continent; it was below zero, to say the least. This cold environment seemed endless as it stood on the brink of the vast sea, and truly it was a harsh place, filled with dangers and rare in comforts. It stretched into the distance, which was hazed by a coming snowfall, and the air was filled with the scent of the ocean and the sound of its mighty voice as it rebelled against the stubborn shores—it rebelled and won patiently, ever so slowly, against the stone and the earth, eroding it over the ages.

The Kola Bay cut in between the looming hills of the tundra, winding inland towards Polyarny, Severomorsk, and Murmansk. It was to this familiar scene of refuge that the battered Lepse arrived. She limped towards the bay in a ponderous, deathly fashion, moving at a third her usual speed and sitting low in the water, looking as though she would be swallowed at any moment. Though the Barents Sea was behind the ship, the waves still hammered against her sides and the wind still howled madly, as if they were determined to follow her to the ends of the earth, as merciless and inescapable as thirst to a desert wanderer. These two forces reluctantly died down when the floundering vessel reached the protection of the bay's mouth, and it was only then that her captain, Vasiliy Krasovsky, let his tired gaze falter. He sighed, wiping his bearded face with his right hand, and spoke with a hoarse voice that was so quiet that none of his colleagues heard him.

"We've made it…"

Vasiliy stood on the bridge with his crew, soaked and thoroughly disheveled, looking to all as if they were a modern rendition of Davy Jones' undead crew. The battle with the sea had taken its toll upon all of them, though more so psychologically than anything else. They had braved the cold and the fury of those waters before, for many days at times, and they had faced their fair share of grueling work at their stations during the sudden and frightening squalls that it threw at them. Not one of them was a green sailor, not even close, but as all men of the sea they feared and respected its power, its mystery, and its extraordinary character. This time, unlike all of the other voyages they had made, they had come close to feeling the very deathblow of the ocean. In fact, they had all been certain that they would not make it; that their odds were slim at best, and that the unforgiving waters would not leave room enough for margins. It was this brush with death, this horrendous encounter with doom and oblivion, that shook them all to their centers and left them numb to the world.

For Captain Krasovsky it was no different. He had felt unbridled fear as the Lepse had nearly overturned, and though he never once gave up trying to save her he had nevertheless recited his prayers—for deliverance, forgiveness, and perhaps another chance. He had thought of his family, his wife and his three sons, and for the first time in his career he had realized just how far he was from them, for the sea was an entirely different world compared to where they waited for him. When the Lepse had been failing and the massive waves kept coming, he had experienced a surreal moment. There he had stood at the wheel, staring out into the gloom and the madness, feeling his fragile world sway and shatter in a way he had never experienced before. An appalling sense of loneliness had overcome him then, a feeling of hopeless isolation that numbed his very soul. To be surrounded by such insanity, with death hanging over his head like a knife on twine, was a terrible thing. And to meet his end in such a place, so far away from those he loved, was his greatest nightmare. Now it was over. Land was in sight, and the Lepse was going to make it with all hands back to Murmansk. He breathed deep and slowly, calming his frayed nerves and easing his troubled mind.

There were a number of vessels in the bay, and besides the usual container ships and icebreakers, there were numerous warships at anchor, evidently out to practice maneuvers. Captain Krasovsky sighted the fleet's flagship, the battlecruiser Kirov, which was looming to starboard alongside the carrier Baku. He had been unable to communicate with the mainland for the latter part of the voyage, as the Lepse had been literally falling apart. Now that he was able, he immediately had a message signaled to the Kirov, detailing the situation and requesting assistance. In fact, the message didn't seem to be all that necessary, as just the sight of the ruined ship coming in was enough to make the officers aboard the nearby warships raise the alarm. Though he was still rigid, the promise of assistance helped ease Vasiliy's tension a little. Help was on the way, thank god.

His first mate had been standing at his elbow the whole while, and only now did he say something to his captain. He spoke in a shaken tone, as those who brush with death often do. "That was a devil of a storm out there. Not seen one like that in years. And those waves! Дерьмо! It should have had us back there!"

Captain Krasovsky only nodded, though internally he pondered it. Making it back to port was nothing short of a miracle, and truly there was no easy way to explain what had happened out there. One moment they were rolling over, the next they were facing the wind and, as if given a push, put on a level again by a force beyond their knowledge. The long battle through the swells afterwards was equally as improbable. The Lepse had been finished, and yet she had survived, remaining afloat despite the water in her hold and the seas flooding her decks. It was absolutely ridiculous, but Krasovsky figured that it was good that way. It was much better to be utterly confused than dead, and even better to be able to see one's family again. He gladly accepted the miracle for what it was.

With his binoculars he could see that the Kirov was lowering several boats, and even from a distance he could tell that everyone in them was suited up in protective gear. No doubt they were terribly afraid of the radioactive waste sloshing around in the Lepse's hold, and though the harmful radiation was mostly sealed away from the upper deck, they were right to take every precaution. With the boats inbound, the captain's thoughts naturally drifted towards the state of his ship. He had no doubt in his mind that the Lepse had seen her final voyage, and he could already envision her laid up in one of the scrapping yards in Murmansk. But she was too irradiated to be scrapped. No, she would likely sit at anchor for years, doomed and yet given time to rot in the cold arctic water. Her fate was assured, but not in a timely fashion. Regardless, Captain Krasovsky knew that this would be his final command, not because of failure—he had done everything in his power in terrible circumstances—but because of the realization of his own mortality. He was getting old, while the sea was as strong as ever, and to continue his struggle against its natural fury would only serve to wear him out like the old Lepse, or perhaps even take his life. This horrible trial had been too much for him, and now all he wanted was to be safe on land with his family. He would live a more peaceful life and support them, and he would never command a vessel again; that life, and all of its temptations, bore none of the allure it used to. The passion for the sea had set sail with his youth, as had his love for perilous adventure. There was only the sedentary life now.

Stretching his limbs, and feeling his years in every fiber of his being, the captain eyed the bridge of his ship and reminisced, remembering the years he had spent on her, and the years before he had spent on other vessels. Then came the sound of the Kirov's boats and the hail of their officers. Vasiliy put on his hat, assumed the demeanor that suited a captain, and went to meet the boarding team. When he stepped out into the cool air he was immediately greeted by the sight of the men climbing aboard via the starboard ladder. The officer in charge was the first aboard, and he was quick to greet Vasiliy. Dressed in an olive-colored OP-1 defense suit and wearing a PMG gas mask, he looked like one of the liquidators of Chernobyl, and he certainly acted like it, glancing about with evident unease due to the imperceptible but deadly hazard that filled the ship's hold. After greeting each other, the officer walked with the captain and spoke quickly, eager to get off the ship.

"The Ayanka will tug you the rest of the way."

The weary captain nodded silently.

The officer's puzzled expression was evident even from behind his gas mask. "It is an astounding stroke of luck that you made it back at all." He spoke with a solemnity that conveyed his awareness of the treacherous seas and those who had been lost to it. "I have never seen such a lucky ship, or a luckier crew."

Captain Krasovsky frowned, stopped in his tracks, and looked out towards the raging sea he had left behind—the sea that had almost taken him away, forever, and yet had been denied its prey. Like looking into a profound mystery, he gazed in silence. "Perhaps," he said after a while. "But I have a feeling that luck had nothing to do with it at all…"

The officer shrugged, looking altogether stoical in his restrictive radiation gear, and left to see to his duties. Captain Krasovsky kept gazing into the tempestuous ocean, remembering what it was like to sit in its jaws and feel its unfathomable might. So captivated was he by these vivid memories that he failed to notice that the Lepse had suddenly dropped a few meters deeper, as if she had taken on more water. Neither did he notice a shadow moving past her starboard side beneath the frothy swells. A moment later, like a wisp of smoke in a steady gale, it was gone, completely unnoticed by the humans whose fates had been tied to it. They would never know what had happened that day. They would never know the name of the one who had saved them all.

Barents Sea, Directly North of Kola Bay

There was no light in the cramped control room apart from the steady glow of the few remaining screens, and they were garbled to the point of illegibility, made useless by the enduring yet imperceptible presence of radiation. The sensors did not work, the thrusters were failing, the hull was leaking, the communications were utterly fried, and about a million other little things were going wrong to boot. The complex masterpiece that was the Sirona had done its best, and though it was falling apart at the seams it was still going, moving through the frigid water and resisting the force of the currents with a seemingly bottomless tenacity. It was the sort of machine that worked until it was utterly destroyed, and that was also reflected in her pilot. Coral Short, or at least what was left of her, still held on fast to the controls, still carrying her ship and her friends onward to safety. This was all she could do, and all she was capable of, for the moment at least. Her body was weak, her mind frayed, and yet in spite of being in such a devastated state, her spirit was as hot as ever, filled with determination and courage through all of the darkness that had risen. Even as the wretched effects of severe radiation poisoning began to set in, Coral kept trying, trying, and trying, and by that astounding perseverance she succeeded.

She had detached from the Lepse and retreated as stealthily as she could, narrowly avoiding an encounter with an Akula-class submarine, the Bryansk, while she was exiting the bay. From that point onward things seemed to be clear, though she could not tell with her systems all ruined by the radiation. Her body was ruined too. There she sat, practically leaning on the controls as her body's strength depleted. It was all she could do just to steer, and there was so much more required of her. She was beyond sick, feeling the need to vomit so often that she had gotten used to it, to the point that it felt normal. A blasting headache boomed in her head and made every motion difficult, and she knew that she had a terrible fever as well, so hot that it was indescribable. Dizziness and fatigue came and went in regular waves, and none of the wounds on her body healed at all, nor did they even clot properly. She would cough often, in terrible fits, and every time she could taste blood in her mouth and see it on her hands. She would wipe that blood away on her uniform, streaking it crimson, and then try to resume her work, doing her best to navigate while her whole body trembled. Sweat poured down her face in glistening rivulets, and whenever she wiped her brow she consequentially touched her hair, only to feel it come loose in her open palm, clumps at a time. Strands of that lustrous auburn hair covered her lap, fallen like dead leafs from a stunted tree. And like an uprooted tree she was, visibly deteriorating against the forces around her, her beauty and life drying up so swiftly that it was visible to the eye with each passing minute. It was horrific, and yet she did not think about it at all. She did not even look at herself, not because she was afraid of what she would see, but because she was too focused to do anything else. The one thing that had not changed was her eyes—they still glinted with that fierce temper, that bottomless character, and stared ahead with unflinching resolve. She put her everything into it, and then somehow more, all for the purpose of the thoughts in her head. She was thinking about Holly, and like a beacon she guided her, through the gloom of the stormy sea and towards salvation. Nothing else could have instilled more power in her than the image of her beloved daughter; her familiar eyes, her beautiful face, her dazzling smile, and her unforgettable voice. Like an enormous gemstone mounted on a pyramid in a flat desert, basking in the blazing sunlight, it was all Coral could see and adore amidst her world of devastation and darkness. She clung to it, and it was by that action that she clung to life itself.

It was clear that the way back to Atlantis was too far and difficult for the poor Sirona to travel, but Coral was hoping to get as close as she could. She knew that help was coming, it had to be, and so she would meet them as quickly as she could. Regardless, her ship had a transponder that made it traceable in any environment, and unlike everything else it was heavily protected in its own shell from the radiation. Please…please come for me, she thought, gritting her teeth. She needed them, but not for herself—her fear was for her friends, who still lay unconscious behind her. If anyone was to survive, it would be them, and that's what she wanted. They were young, brilliant, and had yet to even fall in love. They had so much before them, so many wonders and dreams to realize, and Coral knew from experience how precious that was; how irreplaceable, how wonderful. As their captain, she owed them her best, and as their friend, she owed them every ounce of her courage and strength. She would see them through, and they would live on even if she did not. Their journey had just begun, whilst Coral had walked the earth for hundreds of years. She had seen almost everything, felt what it was like to be loved and to love, and lived the life that she had dreamed of. And she had Holly—the pinnacle of her pride, the greatest thing in her life. Death terrified her, but at least she knew that her life was well lived, and that she had done everything she could. Still, she could not leave Holly behind, not unless there was no other way. Despite what her rational mind said to her, she wanted to survive too.

The Sirona made it a little farther through the dark waters of the Barents Sea, and then she suddenly lurched, her power reducing and her speed falling like a stone. Coral, covered in her own blood, could only growl in frustration as she lost control of the ship. The Sirona banked to the side, got swept by a current, and nearly spun into a rock. When Coral, through admirable strength of mind and body, managed to regain a semblance of control, she saw something else to make her heart beat faster. A massive shadow was ahead of her, moving steadily through the water like an enormous pillar of black metal. And that's what it was. It was a human submarine. Coral cursed the Sirona's broken sensors and went into a dive, all the while seeing—and even hearing—the approach of the massive vessel. The sandy bottom of the sea was there to meet her, and she settled on it hastily. Then, with a few flicked switches, she shut down nearly every remaining system in the Sirona. The ship's stealth ability was gone thanks to the damage, so she had to do it old-school, making it silent and lifeless like the many rocks around her. It was not a moment too soon that she did this, because the human submarine was right on top of her, cutting through the water with its massive bow. Coral looked up at it, and she held her breath as she saw the warship gliding past her, not twenty feet away.

Being so close to such a ship, so close to discovery, made her heart beat fast and her pain increase, but she remained silent and motionless, eyes wide as she watched the ship pass by. It was so close she could read the name on its side, K-278 Komsomolets. The Russian submarine, at three hundred eighty-five feet in length, took its time passing, and it was a terrible, intense moment for the elf in the little Sirona. She could hear its propellers, the groan of its metal, and in her mouth she tasted fear. There was nothing worse than being discovered by the humans; it would lead to catastrophe on a scale that no one could mitigate. The Komsomolets passed and started to fade into the shadows, but then she came about, moving slowly by with purpose. Coral stared, feeling panic start to make its way into her mind. Had they noticed her before she went silent? Did they know where she was? There was no way of telling for sure, but the humans aboard were curious about something, and they were acting on it.

D'arvit! I don't need this! Coral thought angrily as the submarine made another pass. Meanwhile her body continued to deteriorate, and the Sirona, sitting half submerged in sand, kept leaking. These proved to be the most intense and most wretched moments of the whole ordeal, for she was at the end of her rope, and yet she still had to hold on while utter destruction loomed above her. It was hard, so very hard, but the thought of Holly helped her through it, just as it had before. If only Holly knew how much strength her mother found in her; if only she knew that Coral, at that very moment, was surviving because of her.

Seconds, and minutes, progressed in silence. The human submarine made another pass, and when it faded into the darkness it did not come around again, instead disappearing like a beast of legend. It had taken ten minutes, but the humans were gone, finally. Coral could breathe regularly again, and move around without fear of being detected. She was so terribly weak, but she had enough strength to try to bring the Sirona's propulsion system back online. But when she tried, nothing happened, and when she tried again all she got was a brief, precious blip of life from the ship before it died again. It was enough to make her bang her fist on the control panel, and she spoke desperately at the inanimate vessel around her.

"Come on, Sirona, just one more time! For me!"

Another three tries yielded nothing, and in fact several more things broke in the process. The Sirona was now nothing more than a resilient metal shell with a barely operational oxygen recycling system, stuck in the sand at a depth of seven-hundred feet. The darkness was oppressive, making the looming expanse of the sea beyond a mysterious, nightmarish place. Coral stared at the blank screen before her, and despite the urge she did not panic. Instead, with an air of solemnity, she sat back and let out a tired sigh.

"It's alright, Sirona, I understand…We've both been through a lot…together…"

How true it was. Through hell and back they had traveled, into the inferno and all of its hopelessness and then straight up towards salvation, though only to be trapped in a gloomy purgatory on the bottom of the sea. There they had to wait, like a wayward soul, for release by the forces beyond their control, in this case the arrival of any sort of assistance from Atlantis. Coral hated this, and yet she found not enough anger and frustration within herself to get riled up. Instead it was easier to accept it, like an inevitable change in the weather, for indeed there was no sense in quarreling with it. Natural forces are not quarrelsome, after all. You cannot quarrel with the wind that irritates you by blowing off your hat, nor could you quarrel with the sun that beats down on you, or the heat of a sultry day. What happened was not out of spite for her, but just the natural progression, in this case the natural deterioration of an unnatural contrivance. Coral let her tension subside as much as possible, all the while staring out into the blackness. She did not like the view. It made her feel so alone, so trapped, so utterly hopeless.

You don't have to be alone.

Coral was drawn, by that very thought, to her command chair further back. She moved shakily, precariously, from the pilot seat, holding on to every surface to avoid falling on her face, and she proceeded determinedly to her objective, driven by passion and need alike. She made the last effort of the journey to get up the few steps to the captain's chair, and then into the seat itself. All of the screens and controls around it meant nothing to her, and she gave not even a glance to them. Her eyes were always on the same thing, which even in the gloom she could see, as if the connection she had to it made it glow with an otherworldly light. Her husband was there to greet her, as was Holly, both present by the lifeless squares of paper they were printed on; and yet so much life they gave! Coral reached for them, like a dying being for a last drink of water, and nearly fell over grabbing hold. Then she held them close so as to see them well in the dark, and in silence she observed every detail, every line, every glimmer, that was visible in the pictures—every memory they immortalized. When all else was fallen, and with hope at its last redoubt, she found comfort, and faith, in these images of the past.

Water dripped on her from above, one drop at a time, but she did not notice. She could not feel anything at this point, being beyond the threshold of pain and awareness. Even her mind, despite its fierce resolve, was beginning to slip, and this was evident in the way her surroundings, and her terrible circumstance, became unnoticeable to her. All that was to remain was what mattered most, in that dark moment; that which she held dear was what stayed with her, whilst everything else slid down the declivity of oblivion. Those pictures were all that mattered to her, and the memories they helped dig up made her smile in a sad, broken fashion. Life was such a wonderful thing, so precious and so fleeting in all of its blessings.

Coral Short fell into the hands of unconsciousness a few moments later, whisked away by the forces of trauma and decay. After pushing through so much hardship, so many trials, she finally let go, unknowingly, of the strength that kept her going. There was no shame in it, for even the strongest wither, and even the mountains crumble. It was remarkable, how far she had gone, how well she had performed, and it was not in vain either. Nothing of what she had just done was in vain, not a moment of it. By her strength, her courage, and her spirit, she had finished her mission, saved her crew and the humans aboard the Lepse, and protected the world from a catastrophe. One life on a scale against all of that was minuscule, and yet to some it was too much. For Holly, it would never be justified.

The Sirona lay on her side in the depths, in darkness and decay, and all was still within her. When a fleet of LEP ships arrived, they found the captain, Coral Short, motionless in her chair with two photos clutched in her right hand so tight that they could not be removed. She was covered in blood and filth, her hair falling out and her skin ruined, and tears streaked down her face—tears of blood. And yet, despite all of this, there was a smile on her face, shining through all of the terror and the darkness like a single flame in a void of nothingness. Which is better, to curse the darkness or to light a single candle? In her final moment of consciousness, despite how terrible everything was, Coral had found a reason to light that little flame.