When they arrived at our location, they suited up and Irvine made the team assignments. He decided to keep Rinoa with him and let Seifer join Nida's team. The other two members of their party he didn't know all that well, but Rinoa assured him they were capable and professional. Irvine chose Myrna Lilliard as the third in his party, who was a pretty young thing, and sent Jong Fen down with Nida.
"Hogging all the ladies to yourself, cowboy?" Seifer mumbled as he stood beside Irvine on the deck of the ship. "Better watch yourself. You don't want word to get back that you've got designs on the commander's girl."
That statement really bothered the cowboy. How could he think Irvine was after Rinoa? Whether or not she and Squall were having problems, Irvine had no intention of chasing after her. "Trust me, pal. I've got enough women troubles as it is," Irvine told him. "Don't need another to complicate things."
"Good. Make sure you keep it that way."
Irvine's team was the first to go down. They decided it would be better to split up into shifts to avoid prolonged exposure to the chilly water. It didn't mean they'd get the job done any faster, but it would be easier on all of them if limited amounts of time were spent below the surface. Their client, Esthar's Naval Commander, Andreas Hijn agreed that this was a wise decision.
They located the sunken submarine on their first try. It lay on its side, the exposed portion smashed in as if something enormous had broad sided it. Indeed, there was a deep trench that indicated that the submarine had either been dragged or hit hard enough to cause it to slide along the ocean floor for fifty meters or more, Irvine couldn't really be sure due to limited visibility. Something had hit the sub and it had been hit hard.
It was an old diesel sub that Esthar used in training missions. Esthar had several new nuclear subs with all kinds of state of the art technology but they had retained a couple of the old diesels for training purposes because Galbadia still used the archaic model in combat. Though it was a time of peace, Esthar often conducted war games below the surface, the team in the nuclear sub representing Esthar and the team in the diesel representing Galbadia. It was then that a game of kill or be killed was played beneath, the first sub to fire upon the opponent and make the target the victor.
Irvine couldn't imagine why anyone would want to spend any significant amount of time in a hot dog shaped contraption that submerged itself completely in water. At least on a ship, he'd have a chance. On a sub, there were only two options should something go wrong, wait for rescue and hope you don't run out of air, or drown. Not a pleasant thought. It looked to him like the poor bastards aboard this sub hadn't even had a hope of rescue. What a way to die.
It didn't appear to him that the sub had been struck by a missile of any kind. There were no large holes or openings of on the exposed hull, only the deep crease in its side, and he wondered what might have caused a wreck like this. It didn't look like any training accident to him and it gave him the creeps.
Irvine signaled to Rinoa and Myrna that they would go ahead and attempt to enter the sunken vessel. Rinoa returned the OK signal and they began their search of a way inside.
It was Myrna that found an opening near the bottom of the hull. It was a puncture of some kind, an odd shape, more of a jagged tear in the steel than a hole, and Irvine doubted it had been caused by a missile. It was wide enough to allow them to enter one at a time and he signaled to his crew that he wanted to go in. As much as he didn't want to go inside, there were eighteen bodies awaiting a proper burial in Esthar and it was his job to retrieve them.
He motioned to Myrna to stay put and then to Rinoa that she was to follow him. He entered, taking his time so that his oxygen tank would not get caught up on anything on the way in. It was so dark inside his flashlight barely penetrated the blackness. Rinoa entered behind him and shone her own flashlight around, but it did little to illuminate the interior either. It gave Irvine the chills to witness a blackness so thick the light from the powerful flashlights seemed almost eaten up by the darkness. They swept their beams around slowly, searching for the bodies of the crew but there were none to be found. When the sub had been hit, this section had probably started to flood and the sailors had fled to higher ground. What the were looking for wasn't here. They would have to venture deeper inside.
The chill was starting to get to Irvine. They would have to surface soon or end up with hypothermia. Still, he wanted to find what they could while they were down there.
There were two doors to choose from. One fore and one aft. Irvine chose the one closest to the front, reasoning that there would have to have been someone at the controls. He beckoned to Rinoa and together they turned the valve that opened the door. It opened easier than Irvine had imagined it would.
If Irvine could have sworn, he would have when they entered the control room. The bodies of two young men rested against the bottom, their faces bloated and pale under the weak light of their beams. He shuddered, and this time, not just from the chill.
The young man closest to them, his eye sockets were empty black pits, and his mouth was opened in a silent scream. Worse than that, it appeared that his tongue was missing. It was the most horrific, gruesome thing Irvine had ever seen, even compared to some of the victims of battle he'd been privy to. He could not tear his eyes away from those two black holes where the young sailor's eyes should have been. He doubted that drowning had been the primary cause of death in this instance.
Rinoa was just as horrified as Irvine was. She could no more move forward to retrieve them than he could. She seemed paralyzed as she hovered weightless by the door. Without warning, the young man's hand lifted up from it's former resting point. It slowly reached out for Rinoa and his body twisted, floating weightlessly from the floor, bringing him to his feet. His head hung against his chest and Irvine could no longer see the holes where his eyes had been. The hand stretched forward, inch by inch . . .
Rinoa reeled back and bumped into the wall behind her. She was on the verge of panic and she motioned to Irvine that she wanted to go up. Irvine didn't blame her one bit. An eyeless, bloated zombie was not something he wanted to play with fifty feet beneath the ocean, especially when he'd left my best rifle up on the ship, and even if he had brought it, it's effects would be largely ineffective.
The dead man had stopped reaching for Rinoa and began to drift back
to the floor as slowly as he'd risen. Irvine realized that it was
just the current making him move and felt a profound sense of relief.
Nevertheless, it had disturbed him enough to make him want to go back up
too. He pointed to the bodies and indicated that he'd take the closest
one, and Rinoa was to take the other. She gave him a reluctant nod
and Irvine noticed that she tried not to look at the boy's face as she
fit the harness around his body.
That night Irvine had trouble sleeping. It wasn't being away from home that bothered him, nor the gentle rocking of the boat. He kept seeing that young sailor's face every time he closed my eyes, the image of death burned on the back of his lids. He kept seeing his empty eye sockets and the open mouth frozen in a perpetual cry of agony. He shuddered and turned over on the bed and tried to think of good things. Selphie's perfume. Ma Dincht's Blackened Balamb Fish. Seifer calling Zell chicken-wuss. A cruise through the mountains on my motorcycle. Fujin beating the crap out of Raijin. The beach. Rinoa in a bikini.
Rinoa in a bikini? A nice thing, but not something he should have been thinking of. He knew Squall would have killed him if he knew Irvine was fantasizing about his girlfriend, especially when Irvine already had one of his own.
They had retrieved six of the eighteen bodies by sun down, and they hoped to retrieve the remaining twelve by sun down the following day. None of them wanted to draw it out any longer than needed. It was too ugly and too sad. The sooner they could finish, the better. There were other reasons for wanting to finish quickly. The sheer horror of those boys faces was enough to make them want to do their job and go home.
"Irvine?" came a soft whisper in the darkness and Irvine lifted his head from the pillow to see who it was. Rinoa stood in the door way clasping an elbow with her hand. Her face was pale in the dim light, and she appeared a ghost in his doorway. For a second, it looked as if her eyes were empty black sockets and it made Irvine start a bit, even though he knew it was just a trick of light.
"What's wrong?" he asked, worried that something bad had happened.
"I couldn't sleep."
"Neither could I."
"I hate to ask you this, but do you mind if I lay down next to you? I'd feel a lot better if there was someone next to me."
Irvine didn't want to say yes because it meant if Squall found out, he was in big trouble, but the truth was, Irvine needed comfort too. "Sure," he said reluctantly and threw back the covers.
She climbed in and turned her body so that they lay face to face, but not too close. She had her space and Irvine had his. A good, platonic arrangement. "Why can't you sleep?"
"A lot on my mind," Irvine said. He didn't want to admit that he was spooked.
She sighed and settled her head into the pillow. "I kept seeing that boy. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him reach for me." She shuddered and Irvine reached out to pull her closer. He don't know why he wanted or needed her close to him, it just felt right, and he was surprised to find she felt right in his arms.
He let her go after a few seconds. He felt guilty. In need of comfort or not, he knew he didn't have any right to take advantage of the situation. But Hyne Almighty he was attracted to her. On more than one level. There were things about Rinoa that Selphie couldn't offer him. After four years, Selphie hadn't changed a bit. Rinoa, though at times as dramatic as Selphie, had matured a lot and she'd left behind much of her girlishness in that time. Selphie could be so childish, and Irvine won't couldn't deny that Rinoa wasn't sometimes that way too, but not to the extreme that Selphie was. Four years ago, Selphie's childish wonder at all things 'cute' was attractive to Irvine, but a man grows tired of hearing about the wonders of teddy bears, stickers and the pursuit of love, peace and happiness.
There were other things too. Rinoa was content with silence. Selphie was not. Every moment of the day had to be filled with excitement and action. Selphie still took delight in blowing things up, just like a ten year old boy with bottle rockets. She talked before, during and after sex. In fact, her chatter never ever stopped. She even talked in her sleep. And Irvine couldn't get her to eat a meal that didn't include sweets of some kind. Candy, ice cream, fruit loops. At least Rinoa had sense enough to eat balanced meals.
Irvine decided right then and there to end things between he and Selphie. It wasn't that he didn't love her, he just needed something different. He had come to realize that he needed someone who could grow and change with me, someone who appreciated the things he did. He knew that it would probably break her heart, and he knew she probably wouldn't even see it coming. He would probably seem like a jerk to her afterwards, and maybe he was being a jerk but he couldn't see himself being happy with her any longer.
And he had to stop thinking about Rinoa. She wasn't available and didn't want to be. Add to that the fact that she was his best friend's girl and officially off limits all the way around.
Beside him, Rinoa sighed. "What are you thinking about?" she asked.
"You'd shoot me if I told you," he replied and rolled over turning his
back to her. "Try to get some sleep. We have a long day tomorrow."
All the bodies they'd found were the same. Mouth wide open, minus tongue and eyes. Whatever killed them must really have had a taste for it because they seemed to be the only things missing. None of the extremities had been nibbled on, no fingers or toes, each one missing only the tongue and eyes. It seemed bizarre to Irvine. He didn't understand how something could have gotten into the sealed compartments. There were no gaps or holes, and there was no sign of any kind of life inside the closed off sections of the sub, so it wasn't as if a school of carnivorous fish with a taste for human delicacies had wandered in had had themselves a snack.
The whole situation was disturbing. This was no ordinary maritime accident, that much was clear, but when questioned, Commander Hijn became evasive and would find an excuse to avoid the SeeDs.
When Nida became ill with decompression sickness, a build up of nitrogen bubbles in the blood stream, Irvine was forced to pull a double shift to cover him. He didn't like the idea, since he'd be risking the same thing plus hypothermia, but he agreed in favor of getting the job done and getting away from the gory and disturbing bodies.
"Sure you don't want me to go in your place?" Rinoa asked as he pulled on the neoprene wet suit. Concern lined her features and her brown eyes expressed a kind of fear that Irvine hadn't seen there in a very long time.
"If we have time, you can go later," he suggested, placating her. He had no intention of letting Rinoa go down again if it wasn't necessary.
"Irvine, be careful down there," she said, hugging herself. "I have a bad feeling about this."
He nodded in agreement.
"Ready to go, cowboy?" Seifer asked. "There's still six of 'em down there. Let's go get 'em and go home."
"I'm with you on that."
There were two chambers they had yet to explore. In the first they found two more bodies, meaning that the remaining four would be in the last chamber. Irvine tried his best to ignore their faces, but he didn't need to see them to know that they too were missing pieces.
Irvine motioned to Seifer that they should go up and come back for the last four. Seifer gave the OK signal and headed for the exit. When they reached the first chamber and approached the opening, there was a sudden surge in the current that lifted the pair up and Irvine was pushed against the roof. The body attached to his harness pulled at him and he was forced to grab onto a pipe to keep from being pinned against the opposite wall. Seifer too was having trouble and braced himself against a duct of some kind.
The swell died down and Irvine let go of the pipe and glanced over at Seifer.
O. U. T. Seifer spelled in sign language. N.O.W.
Seifer was spooked. He was not a man easily roused by danger, and nearly unflappable in even the worst situations, but he had never so badly wanted to go home. There was something terribly, terribly wrong, and the former knight had no intention of falling victim to whatever had killed the crew. He sensed that whatever was out there was still hanging around, maybe even close by just waiting for a chance to suck their eyeballs out.
Before he and Irvine had a chance to slip out through the tear in the hull, something slammed into the submarine and Seifer collided with the opposite wall hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. For a moment he could not breathe as the downed sub shuddered around him. His eyes were riveted to the gap that formed their exit. A shadow, dark and massive passed over the gap, blocking out all the light the hole provided. One single scaly tendril wormed it's way inside the sub, and writhed against the roof for an instant then withdrew.
And then, as quickly as the shadow had appeared, it vanished and light spilled in from the opening.
Seifer motioned to Irvine, who was recovering from the jolt and he made a gesture Seifer didn't understand. He waved his hand around in a circle above him and pointed to the exit. G.O. he spelled.
Seifer nodded and fought against the current to the opening in front of him, a little reluctant to leave, but even more reluctant to go. Whatever was going on outside, he wanted out. To hell with the bodies, and to hell with the mission. He was thinking only of self preservation. The crew in the final chamber were already dead, and Seifer wasn't willing to die to find them. If they'd been alive, that would have been different, but they were already gone. It didn't seem worth his life, nor anyone else's.
Seifer slipped out through the hole ahead of Irvine. Irvine gave pause for a moment and pointed to where they'd left Jong.
The young SeeD's mask had been ripped off and his mouth gaped open in a wide, terrified scream. No eyes in his face, no tongue in his mouth. He floated weightless in the water in front of Seifer, and he couldn't bring himself to move. Never in his life had Seifer ever wanted to scream so badly. Never had he ever felt so claustrophobic. He started to freak out, sucking great mouthfuls of air through the aspirator, unable to control his breathing, all the while realizing that fifty feet from the surface was not a good place to freak out.
Seifer grabbed their fallen comrade and began the painfully slow ascent to the surface. Seifer thought surely they'd die before they got there, that whatever had gotten Jong would get them too. He didn't know what it was and didn't care to find out. He didn't even want to think about what it might be or where it came from. Escape was all he cared about, escaping and going home.
When they breached the surface unharmed, Seifer did not feel relieved. He wouldn't feel safe again until he was back at Garden with his feet on solid ground.
Seifer yanked his mask off. "What the hell was that?!" he cried.
"I don't know, but I think we should get out of here."
"I second that," he said, panting.
Together we swam for the ship, half expecting the thing from the deep to suck one or both of us under and rape their skulls as it had nineteen other people. Seifer wasn't aware that he was chilled, but by the time he climbed aboard the Lonely Pandora, He shook so hard he could barely stand. Irvine too was having difficulty and he sprawled on the deck as soon as he'd removed his oxygen tanks.
Naturally, there were a lot of questions, but neither were in any shape
to answer them. Commander Hijn hauled them into the decompression
chamber, even though it probably wasn't needed. He made no comment
about their fallen team mate, and that bothered Seifer. He knew more
than he was telling us, and he planned to find out.
"I want to know what the hell ate your crew and my team mate!" Seifer demanded, standing before the stoic Commander, not caring that his tone was insolent or that his behavior bordered on insubordination.
The five SeeDs sat in the cabin, all eyes on Hijn. He was cornered and he knew it but he wasn't talking.
"Commander," Rinoa said, "nineteen people are dead. If you know what killed them, you have to speak up. Otherwise, consider yourself in breach of contract."
Of all of them, Rinoa was the most composed and the most level headed given their situation. Even Nida was spooked enough to keep his peace while Seifer raged, and Irvine was still too upset about Jong to deal with it. All poor Myrna could do is cry in her cabin.
"It would scare you out of your wits if I told you the truth," Hijn said. "None of you can even comprehend what is out there right now."
"Do you think we're stupid to understand?" Seifer spat.
The commander glared at Seifer. "Son, you are coming dangerously close to angering me."
"You've already pissed me off, and trust me, you don't want to get on my bad side," Seifer said as he fingered the handle of his gun blade. He was having a difficult time keeping his temper in check, and he wasn't sure he should even bother. It would have given Seifer great pleasure to see the man squirm, or better whipped within an inch of his life, but the former knights days of rash violence were over.
"Sir," Rinoa interjected, "You requested our help. We can't give you our best when we don't know what it is that we're dealing with. We may be a bunch of mercenaries, but I guarantee we're not stupid. Whatever it is that you know, I ask you to tell us now."
"The only thing you need to know is that there was a training accident and the only reason you're here is to assist in the retrieval of our crew," Hijn said. "Everything else is classified."
Irvine exchanged glances with Rinoa and shrugged. They were getting nowhere with the commander, and it didn't look like he would change his mind.
"Then I am afraid we can not continue to provide our assistance," Rinoa said. "I will not let any more of my team be sacrificed for this mission."
"I'll see to it that you get back to Garden as soon as possible," Hijn
said. "I will arrange for your transport first thing tomorrow."
Irvine had no problem with Rinoa joining him that night. Squall could go to hell, for all he cared. He needed someone beside him to remind him that he was still alive. This time, he held her close, glad to feel her warmth beside him. He noticed her hair smelled like wild flowers.
Irvine lay awake most of the night while the rest slept, keeping an ear out for any noise that was out of the ordinary. All he heard was the sound of the sea gently lapping at the side of the boat. Ordinarily this sound would have lulled him to sleep but now it held the promise of death. Somewhere out there lurked a brutal evil, the likes of which this world had never seen before. He didn't even pretend to think they were any match for it. Whatever it was, it was big and it was fast and it killed with out prejudice. Maybe they were sitting ducks, just waiting for it to strike.
Some time around dawn, Irvine decided it was time to get up. I'd had enough of laying there listening to Seifer snore, and it was doubtful he'd get any sleep before everyone else woke up. He climbed from the bed, careful not to wake Rinoa, who'd tossed and turned most of the night, restless with what might have been nightmares.
Commander Hijn was on deck already. He leaned against the railing, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
"Morning Sir," Irvine greeted him.
He responded with a silent nod and stared out at the great ocean beyond. "I've put in twenty years of service in the Esthar Navy, son. Would you believe me if I told you there are things in this world that defy explanation?"
"I'm not a stranger to stuff like that," Irvine replied and leaned against the rail. "Hell, things that defy explanation is something I've gotten used to."
"Hmph. Well I suppose you have," he said and tossed the cigarette overboard. "You SeeDs are an interesting bunch."
Irvine nodded and wondered where the commander was going with this. He kept his silence, hoping that he'd share some of that classified information with him.
"You spend twenty years of your life working for an organization, and you think you know it inside and out. Then one day, you wake up and realize that you know nothing about it," Hijn said solemnly. "The stakes are different, the personal cost of things have changed and you're forced to make sacrifices you should know better than to make."
Irvine didn't understand what he was talking about. He adjusted his hat and leaned against the railing, peering over the edge at the sapphire waters below. Had to wonder if that thing was down there, maybe right below them. That thought spooked the cowboy, so he took a step back and waited for the commander to continue.
"When you were down there, did you see it?" he asked, looking at me, his expression revealing nothing of his intentions.
"No, sir. I didn't see it, but I know it's big," Irvine replied.
"I can't tell you what it is, son. All I can say is that you SeeDs
best be prepared for what is coming," he said and then left Irvne alone
with just the rail between himsef and the vast ocean beyond.
"Squall, you can't be serious!" Rinoa said into her cell phone. She'd decided to contact Garden and update them on their situation, and to let them know they would be coming home without completing their objective. They'd all agreed that no one wanted to continue the mission.
Squall was not having any of it. "I'm sure it's not as bad as it seems. Just finish the job and come home."
"But Squall, the thing ate Jong. If you think I'm going back down there you're nuts!"
"Did you see it?"
"No, I didn't see it but I don't need to see it to know that we don't stand a chance against it!" Rinoa cried into the phone. She was furious with him for failing to believe the situation was as bad as it was.
"Rinoa, if you don't complete the mission, I'll have to place all of you on suspension."
Rinoa glanced at Irvine and made a face. Then she held the phone away from her ear and extended her middle finger against the mouth piece. Seifer and Irvine chuckled.
"Go ahead, suspend us, but it won't make us go back," she said. "This is one mission I'm not willing to die for."
Seifer snatched the phone away from her. She smacked him on the back of the head, but he ignored her. "Listen Puberty-boy, we're all in agreement here. We're not going back down there."
"He says we're supposed to stay and finish the job, whether we like it or not," Rinoa said as she took a seat beside Irvine. She was so angry with Squall, she could almost feel the smoke pouring from her ears. He wasn't getting the fact that there was some creature down there and it wasn't friendly.
"So I gather," Irvine replied and propped his feet up on the table. "What should we do?"
"I don't care!" Seifer cried into the phone. "You want the job done so badly, get your ass out here and finish it yourself. We are going home."
"Squall's being a real jerk," Rinoa muttered and crossed. "It's as if he doesn't care if I get my eyeballs and tongue sucked out by the thing from the deep."
The ship began to rock then, slowly at first, then faster, as if a storm were coming. Rinoa peered out the window to see a clear, blue sky above and no threat of foul weather on the horizon. Rinoa glanced at Irvine and her face drained of color when the ship lurched forward then tipped to the side. Across the room, Seifer was thrown to the floor. The phone flew from his and and slid underneath the table in the center of the room.
"What the hell is that?" he asked, steadying himself as he got to his feet.
"I don't know, but you better sit down," Irvine suggested as the boat cantered about in the waves.
Rinoa retrieved the phone and spoke into the mouthpiece as she sat on the floor. The ship lurched again and a chair slid across the floor and smacked into her thigh. "Squall, do what you can to get us out of here. We're in danger," she said and then hung up without hearing his reply. "Is a storm brewing?" she asked, glancing at the window.
Outside, the swells had grown from a light chop to massive walls of water that threatened to capsize the ship. The waves pounded the sides of the ship and foam sprayed across the deck, washing over it as if the sea intended to claim them for it's own. Rinoa was beginning to feel nauseous from the rocking.
"It's that thing, isn't it?" Seifer said.
"Everyone, out on deck!" Nida cried as he clung to the doorway to keep from falling over. "You guys have to see this to believe it!"
The three SeeDs glanced at each other. Rinoa didn't want to see it any more than they did, but amazingly, all three got to their feet and stumbled out onto the deck. It was slick with water, and Rinoa had trouble not toppling over with each swell.
Seifer was the first to see it. "Holy Hyne," he murmured and pointed. Rinoa followed his gaze, and she saw it too and felt a deep, gripping horror swell within her breast.
A/N: Gave myself the heebie jeebies writing this. Did it
creep anyone else out? Anyway, I hope this is getting better.
Review please!