Part 03: Uncharted Depths
It was strange. They were now alone with nobody to back them up... but in a way, they felt a great burden lifted as they walked away from the former WOOHP base. Of course, they didn't walk away with nothing to protect themselves with. WOOHP hadn't stood still in the technology department over the years, and they'd developed a few whoppers that, while not enough to turn the tide of a war, were plenty to cruise around in though they were hardly inconspicuous.
"I remember you guys scaring the shit out of me with one of these." Clover patted the dashboard of the massive WOOHP Leviathan that had been their protection and home for the last week. It was a mighty machine with a solid hundred foot tall spider-like frame, jagged and rough and shining with thick steel armor plates. On top of the spider's frame was a head that, thanks to Jerry's twisted sense of humor, resembled a demon head to combat the Imperium of Christ. The horns could be turned to acts as massive laser turrets, and the whole thing was powered by an internal nuclear reactor. Because it was so big, it had been a work in progress almost since the Imperium first took power. So there were VERY few. Far too few to turn the tide of the war against aliens with routinely superior technology. Besides, its bulk and firepower meant that it was also a danger to friendly fighters who stood too close to it or got in the way accidentally.
"Yeah, I think you peed yourself." Alex chuckled lightly.
"Hey, you watch a shining hundred foot demon head rise out of the water and see how well you keep bowel control." Clover shot back.
Alex started chanting teasingly. "Pee-girl pee-girl pee-girl!"
"Oh that's it!" Clover tackled Alex to the ground. It wasn't a serious fight Sam could tell, actually it was kind of nice. It was like sitting in a massive death machine version of her old living room in Beverly Hills. In a few minutes she heard Clover and Alex dissolve into lighthearted laughter, lying on the bottom of the Leviathan cockpit beside each other.
"Hold onto something girls, we're heading underwater again." Sam said. The Leviathan lurched forward as its forelegs dipped into the ocean, followed by the rest of its gigantic frame. Massive ocean waves swept outward as the giant metal body slipped under the surface, finally settling into the water and landing on the craggy ocean floor. The massive legs moved slowly through the water, carrying them forward again.
"So where exactly are we going now?" Clover asked curiously.
"As usual, I don't really care. We're free to go anywhere." Sam replied. "We just won't be able to stay in any particular place for long." She exchanged a knowing glance with Clover, who nodded.
"Why is that anyway?" Alex asked.
"Nothing." Clover replied. They hadn't told Alex about the alien pheromones in her body, for fear of freaking her out. But, Sam had come up with a way to travel undetected. Underwater, the pheromones couldn't reach any of the Zardexians on the surface. Of course they had to surface eventually to stock up on air, food, and supplies. But thus far they'd had enough time to do all that and get back into the ocean before the aliens caught up with them. And if they didn't one day... well they WERE riding in a massive killing machine.
"Lets go to Paris again. I've always loved going there." Alex said wistfully.
Sam shrugged. "Paris it is." She altered their course toward France, looking around as the ocean life around them scattered to make way for the large machine. She blinked when one fish slammed right into the windshield in front of her.
"Red light asshole!" Clover shouted jokingly at the fish as it swam away furiously. Alex laughed lightly and sat down on one of the seats in the back. Clover settled into the copilot's seat while Sam leaned back in her own seat, putting her hands behind her head as the giant death machine lolled onward under its own power.
"Hey... you think we could go look for the Loch-Ness monster?" Alex mused curiously.
"In this thing, we WOULD be the Loch-Ness monster." Clover replied. Alex chuckled lightly again, kicking her uninjured foot up.
Suddenly the Leviathan lurched forward with an ear-shattering squeal of steel-on-steel, the main body beginning to fall toward the ocean floor in front of them. "Brake! Brake!" Sam jammed her hands down on the emergency stops, bringing the hulking machine to an abrupt halt. It leaned forward from its momentum, but soon settle back onto its legs.
"What the Hell was that about?" Clover demanded angrily.
"We tripped over something..." Sam took it off autopilot and turned the demon head down, activating the spotlight on the front for deep-sea navigation. They spotted an incredibly rusty hunk of steel underneath them, sitting amid the ocean rocks like one of them. "We hit a sunk ocean-liner. It must be embedded pretty deep in the rocks to trip this thing up."
"Fantastic, we tripped over the Titanic. Can we get our foot out and keep going please?" Clover asked. Sam nodded and turned on the manual control for the Leviathan's legs. She pulled the leg up, accidentally dragging the ship out of the rocks with it. They could see corpses floating out of the ship to the ocean floor beneath them.
"Ewe, that's worse than stepping in gum." Clover quipped.
"I hope they don't get mad at us for disturbing their rest..." Alex gulped.
"You don't believe in ghosts do you Alex?" Sam asked as she wriggled the Leviathan's leg to free the ocean-liner.
"Well there's plenty of evidence that they exist. Besides, we have to be more than bags of meat right?" Alex replied.
"Of course we're not bags of meat. We're actually bags of water." Sam smiled back teasingly. Alex huffed and turned away from her, hobbling away on her crutches as Sam finally managed to dislodge the ocean-liner from their war-machine's foot. Sam moved them carefully over the obstacle, then set the machine to autopilot again and leaned back in her chair.
"Think I should go apologize?" Sam asked.
"Duh." Clover retorted with a hint of her old arrogant self. Sam nodded and stood up, walking toward the small bedrooms that were put in for long missions. She peeked in the one Alex had claimed for her own on the first day, and found Alex lying on the small cot staring at the steel ceiling above her. Sam walked inside and closed the door behind her.
"I'm sorry I made fun of you..." Sam said softly.
"Do you think we're just bags of water...?" Alex asked softly.
"No, I don't."
"Then what do you think?"
"Really... I don't know." Sam walked up to the bed and sat down beside her, putting one hand on Alex's thigh. "I try not to think about death these days... I've been a little busy thinking about how to stay alive." Sam smiled slightly. Alex smiled back.
"I've been thinking about it a lot since Mandy died..." Alex turned her gaze back to the ceiling. "I mean... sure she was evil, and then turned a little crazy by the whole war and all... but... I..." She trailed off, blushing slightly. "I think if anyone deserves to live after dying... it's her..."
"Well... you'll get no argument from me." Sam replied. Alex stared at the ceiling blankly, more tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. "Hey... come on. I know..." Sam reached out and pulled her friend into a tight hug, stroking her back. "I'm sure she's somewhere... somewhere she deserves to be for what she did for all of us, what she was made to go through..."
"But the thing is..." Alex looked up at her from reddened eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. "When we were on the road alone... with nobody else around, no threats, no danger... just us... I saw what she was like when she wasn't crazy... she wasn't depressed... she wasn't evil..." She gulped. "All she wanted was to be loved, and accepted by her sister..." Alex stared at Sam, her lower lip quivering with barely contained emotions. "She was... beautiful..."
Sam just stared at her, letting Alex bury her face in her shoulder again. The redhead slowly wrapped her arms around her friend, leaning her cheek against the top of her head. Alex's shoulders shook as sobs wracked her body. Sam felt her tears moistening her shoulder.
Sam looked up when she heard Clover's voice over the intercom system. The Leviathan was designed to be manned by far more than three people. "Um... we're coming up on land Sam. You may want to get up here." Sam looked down at Alex again, who was looking at her.
"You rest here Alex... I'll go see what the problem is." Sam said softly. Alex nodded and moved away from her while Sam stood up and walked toward the door. She made her way back to the main cockpit, where Clover was standing with the periscope sight in front of her. Out the front window Sam could see more miles of water, with no land in sight.
"What's going on?" Sam asked.
"Are you sure those pheromone things can't be... ummm 'sensed' or whatever from above the water?" Clover asked.
"They shouldn't. Why?"
"Because we're being followed." Clover told her.
"What!?" Sam rushed up and pushed her aside, looking through the periscope. Sure enough, hovering above the water was a Zardexian ship like the one that they'd seen in Washington. It was pacing them perfectly, hovering so close to the water that it left ripples in its wake. "Damnit... how long has it been up there?"
"I don't know exactly. I decided to look around and called you the second I noticed it." Clover said. "Do you think it senses Alex?" Sam thought about it for a moment, then shook her head.
"No. This isn't the radar and sonar shielded Leviathan we used before. They probably saw the ship and decided to investigate." Sam replied.
"That would explain why they're not attacking." Clover realized. "How long do you think it'll be before they either leave or vaporize our asses?"
"I'd rather not find out. Clover, man the lasers."
Clover grinned. "Yes ma'am!" Clover took the co-pilots seat and rolled over to the laser controls, turning them on with the flick of a switch. The lasers powered up with a soft humming sound. "Yeah baby, that's what I'm talking about."
"We get one shot at this. If they send out an SOS, we're screwed." Sam told her.
"Just tell me where to fire." Clover replied. Sam bit her lip, staring at the ship. "Sam?"
"I don't know where the cockpit is... but reasonably, it'd be near the front of the ship..." Sam mused. "If we hit the engines, they could still call for help before they hit the water..."
"I think they're starting to notice our lasers heating up." Clover said as the image on her targeting screen began to waver.
Sam examined the ship for a few more seconds before spotting a small bubble near the middle of the ship. Very slight, but the only thing that stood out other than the engines on the sleek looking vessel. "The dead center of the ship. 80 degrees from the front vertically, 10 degrees horizontally to the right. Fire, now!"
Clover's fingers rushed over the control panel, aligning the lasers within a second and sending a burst of brilliant blue light surging through the water. The liquid bubbled and hissed from the heat as it burst out into the open air, breaking straight through the dead center of the enemy ship. For a moment, the ship stayed in the air, but suddenly it plunged into the water with a humungous splash... right down on top of the Leviathan.
"Aw sh-" Sam didn't have time to finish the exclamation before the ship impaled itself on the demon's horns, effectively crippling any firepower advantage they might have had over an opponent. As well as making them stick out even more to any other Zardexian ships in the area. The impact shook the head violently, sending both Sam and Clover to the floor.
"Aww man..." Sam sat up, rubbing her back. "Well, we're safe for the time being... but now we can't fire our lasers. We have to find a place to get out of the water and get this ship off our heads. Especially if they have tracking devices in their ships." She grumbled.
"Hey... you don't think Zardexians can breathe underwater do you?" Clover asked. As if on cue the limp form of an alien ball floated down in front of the window, falling unmoving down into the depths of the ocean.
"Uh... I'd call that a no." Sam smirked.
"Whew." Clover sighed in relief. Both women looked at the door to the cockpit when Alex burst through on her crutches. Her eyes were still red, and her limbs were shaking in fear and weakness, but she had a wide, frantic look in her eyes.
"What's going on!?" Alex demanded.
"It's okay Alex, we just shot down a peeping tom." Clover told her with a slight smirk. "Now we have to get out and get his blood off our boat." Sam rolled her eyes. It was an unnecessarily crude metaphor, but fairly accurate. So she scanned the ocean for the nearest land.
"Looks like the closest land at the moment is Ireland." Sam stated. "So let's get going." She turned the massive ship toward the island and leaned back to wait for their arrival. Alex rejoined her friends in the cockpit, looking calmer than she had in the bedroom. They talked companionably about years past. Not the Hellish recent ones, but the... still fairly Hellish spy moments in their High School years.
They reached Ireland and the massive metallic spider-demon climbed out onto the land, parking next to a dense forest in the middle of the night with the moon high in the sky, lighting the world as it always did. Sam lowered the Leviathan down to its stomach and turned it off. "Okay, let's go survey the damage." Sam stated. The three girls exited the leviathan through a door on the front of the abdomen, turning to look up at the head. The Leviathan dwarfed the Zardexian ship, which was only a quarter as large as the mammoth war machine. It looked like it was fastened pretty well to the horns.
"Any ideas Sammy?" Clover asked.
"Maybe we could scrape it off like a wad of gum or..." Sam mused.
"That's scientific." Clover quipped.
"Oh shut up." Sam smirked.
"Whatever... you girls work it out... I need to sit down..." Alex hobbled away from the Leviathan with her crutches and carefully sat down on the grass, lying back and panting slightly from just the exertion of exiting the Leviathan. The blood-loss from her wound must have still been taking its toll on her. Though it was a long time to remain so weak...
"Clover, stay with Alex while I see if I can get that ship off of ours." Sam said. Clover nodded and turned to join Alex on the grass while Sam walked back into the Leviathan and took the elevator up to the cockpit. She sat down in the pilot's seat and strapped herself in securely, taking the controls. "Hmmm..." She tapped a few buttons. The lasers would still power up, though they wouldn't fire. "Maybe an energy pulse..." Sam took out her communicator. "Clover."
"Here Sam. Something wrong?" Clover asked.
"You and Alex had better cover your ears." Sam told her. The powered up the lasers until they were vibrating, then suddenly pressed the emergency shut-off, cutting off the laser energy from the main beast. The power dissipated outward from the horns, ripping the Zardexian ship into pieces and sending it plummeting to the ground.
"Mission accomplished I think." Clover called on the communicator.
"Is it wrong that that was really satisfying?" Sam asked.
"Naaahhhh." Clover replied. "Hang on a sec, me and Alex will come back up."
"Wait, I'll come down. I wanna take a look at the wreckage." Sam replied.
"Sure thing." Clover sent back. So Sam climbed up from her seat and took the elevator back down to ground level, walking out of the Leviathan. She found Alex and Clover hanging out near one of the larger pieces, where Alex was poking one the fleshy masses that used to be a Zardexian with one of her crutches. The body bent inward with a wet sound.
"Ewe... they're all bloated and squishy..." Alex moved away from the body quickly in horror.
"They DROWNED Alex, and spent over two hours submerged. What did you expect?" Sam asked as she walked up as well, more interested in the ship piece than the aliens that had occupied it. She poked through the pieces of the ship, looking for anything that looked like an intact component.
"Hello, what have we here?" Clover asked rhetorically from another of the larger pieces. Sam looked to see Clover examining what looked like a floor with some strange markings on it. There was a ring of glass around the markings, like a tube, but of course the glass had shattered and was laying randomly about the field. "What do you think Sam?"
"I'd say a prison cell if it wasn't made of glass. Can you find the top to it anywhere?" Sam asked. They scoured the field for anything that looked like the top of the tube. Alex meanwhile was leaning against the outer shell of the Leviathan, sitting on the grass and looking up at the brightening dawn sky.
"Girls, I'm gonna go inside and have a bite to eat." Alex called to the two scavengers.
"Sure, we'll be up in a minute." Sam replied. Alex went inside while Sam and Clover resumed their search until finally...
"Aha, found it!" Clover called, grabbing one of the materials and flipping it to its back to reveal an indent the same size and pattern as the lower part of the tube. There were more markings on it, and two holes with wires sticking out. Perhaps where mechanical arms had operated once. "Looks like a holding cell... maybe this is where the arms held people." Clover suggested, pointing to the holes in the ceiling.
"No... no it isn't..." Sam muttered in awe, staring at some of the symbols. One of them was clearly recognizable, though very different from the ones they were used to on Earth. A DNA strand. "Clover, I think it's a genetic reconstruction machine. Like the one that let The Rev infiltrate Earth in the first place." Sam said.
"What... these things are standard issue?" Clover asked alarmed.
"It looks that way... and with it, they can look completely human..." Sam confirmed. They both stared at the top of the machine that could make their lives very, very complicated from this point onward. The Rev had looked and acted fairly human... though there were some traits missing from him. Like compassion for one, and good sense for another.
"Come on, we need to get back into the ocean. We've let Alex stay up here exposed to the air too long." Sam stood up straight. Clover followed her back to the Leviathan silently to resume their underwater trek to France. Things just kept getting worse and worse it seemed... where was the light shining through the darkness that storybooks always talked about?
Sam wasn't comfortable again until the massive Leviathan again sank beneath the waves, a giant one hundred foot robot vanishing without a trace. Sam looked down in surprise when the communicator on her belt started beeping quite loudly. Clover and Alex looked at her curiously.
"Sounds like we have a call from home base. Excuse me while I take this." Sam stood up and walked into the back, ducking into her bedroom and locking it before opening her communicator. "Sam here."
"Sam, we have some news about the venom Alex was injected with." Pam stated. "You were right, it IS kind of a biological beacon. But it's also a powerful sedative." Sam stared at her, then sighed.
"How... how powerful?" Sam asked nervously.
"It starts off pretty weak, causing minor weakness and relaxing the victim's muscles. But it gets stronger at an exponential rate... until it becomes fatal..." Pam trailed off.
Sam stared at her blankly, her heart sinking deep inside her chest. She tried not to let it show as she spoke again. "Th... thanks... we have some new information too." Sam stated. "It looks like the Zardexians have their genetic alteration technology on board every ship in their fleet." She stated.
"How could you possibly know that?" Pam asked in awe.
"We shot one down with the Leviathan." Sam smirked. "Don't get excited, it was a fluke I'm sure won't be repeated. The point is, be careful about any strangers bearing gifts."
"I... I understand." Pam nodded. She hesitated for a moment before speaking again. "Sam, why did you have to go with them? Why did you have to stick me with this Hellish job?"
"Alex needs me." Sam replied. "But I do intend to come back... once we either find a cure for Alex, or it passes out of her system naturally." She smirked. "God knows how long that'll be though."
"Maybe." Pam smirked back. "I'll be seeing you around Sam, you take care of yourself." Despite her words, for some reason Pam didn't seem all that sincere to Sam.
"We'll be fine. We're underwater almost all of the time. We're like one hundred foot ghosts." Sam stated. Pam's expression remained carefully cold and almost scarily mask-like. Sam had quit her position pretty much right when the war had properly started. Was it going so badly as to drain her spirit in just one week? "The same goes for you. Be careful... fight the good fight... and give 'em Hell."
"Why ask me to do something you know is impossible?" Pam asked. Silence passed between them like an uncomfortable specter until Sam nodded slightly.
"Sorry... I've got to go." Sam said just before cutting communication. She knew she'd left Pam in a pretty much hopeless situation... and Alex was in a similarly hopeless one... but she just didn't want to think about it. She put away her communicator and turned to walk back out to the cockpit and join her spy partners. The war would continue without them, and they would have to be extra careful from now on. She could only hope Pam was wrong about the venom being fatal... though in her heart she knew she wasn't.
TO BE CONTINUED
It was strange. They were now alone with nobody to back them up... but in a way, they felt a great burden lifted as they walked away from the former WOOHP base. Of course, they didn't walk away with nothing to protect themselves with. WOOHP hadn't stood still in the technology department over the years, and they'd developed a few whoppers that, while not enough to turn the tide of a war, were plenty to cruise around in though they were hardly inconspicuous.
"I remember you guys scaring the shit out of me with one of these." Clover patted the dashboard of the massive WOOHP Leviathan that had been their protection and home for the last week. It was a mighty machine with a solid hundred foot tall spider-like frame, jagged and rough and shining with thick steel armor plates. On top of the spider's frame was a head that, thanks to Jerry's twisted sense of humor, resembled a demon head to combat the Imperium of Christ. The horns could be turned to acts as massive laser turrets, and the whole thing was powered by an internal nuclear reactor. Because it was so big, it had been a work in progress almost since the Imperium first took power. So there were VERY few. Far too few to turn the tide of the war against aliens with routinely superior technology. Besides, its bulk and firepower meant that it was also a danger to friendly fighters who stood too close to it or got in the way accidentally.
"Yeah, I think you peed yourself." Alex chuckled lightly.
"Hey, you watch a shining hundred foot demon head rise out of the water and see how well you keep bowel control." Clover shot back.
Alex started chanting teasingly. "Pee-girl pee-girl pee-girl!"
"Oh that's it!" Clover tackled Alex to the ground. It wasn't a serious fight Sam could tell, actually it was kind of nice. It was like sitting in a massive death machine version of her old living room in Beverly Hills. In a few minutes she heard Clover and Alex dissolve into lighthearted laughter, lying on the bottom of the Leviathan cockpit beside each other.
"Hold onto something girls, we're heading underwater again." Sam said. The Leviathan lurched forward as its forelegs dipped into the ocean, followed by the rest of its gigantic frame. Massive ocean waves swept outward as the giant metal body slipped under the surface, finally settling into the water and landing on the craggy ocean floor. The massive legs moved slowly through the water, carrying them forward again.
"So where exactly are we going now?" Clover asked curiously.
"As usual, I don't really care. We're free to go anywhere." Sam replied. "We just won't be able to stay in any particular place for long." She exchanged a knowing glance with Clover, who nodded.
"Why is that anyway?" Alex asked.
"Nothing." Clover replied. They hadn't told Alex about the alien pheromones in her body, for fear of freaking her out. But, Sam had come up with a way to travel undetected. Underwater, the pheromones couldn't reach any of the Zardexians on the surface. Of course they had to surface eventually to stock up on air, food, and supplies. But thus far they'd had enough time to do all that and get back into the ocean before the aliens caught up with them. And if they didn't one day... well they WERE riding in a massive killing machine.
"Lets go to Paris again. I've always loved going there." Alex said wistfully.
Sam shrugged. "Paris it is." She altered their course toward France, looking around as the ocean life around them scattered to make way for the large machine. She blinked when one fish slammed right into the windshield in front of her.
"Red light asshole!" Clover shouted jokingly at the fish as it swam away furiously. Alex laughed lightly and sat down on one of the seats in the back. Clover settled into the copilot's seat while Sam leaned back in her own seat, putting her hands behind her head as the giant death machine lolled onward under its own power.
"Hey... you think we could go look for the Loch-Ness monster?" Alex mused curiously.
"In this thing, we WOULD be the Loch-Ness monster." Clover replied. Alex chuckled lightly again, kicking her uninjured foot up.
Suddenly the Leviathan lurched forward with an ear-shattering squeal of steel-on-steel, the main body beginning to fall toward the ocean floor in front of them. "Brake! Brake!" Sam jammed her hands down on the emergency stops, bringing the hulking machine to an abrupt halt. It leaned forward from its momentum, but soon settle back onto its legs.
"What the Hell was that about?" Clover demanded angrily.
"We tripped over something..." Sam took it off autopilot and turned the demon head down, activating the spotlight on the front for deep-sea navigation. They spotted an incredibly rusty hunk of steel underneath them, sitting amid the ocean rocks like one of them. "We hit a sunk ocean-liner. It must be embedded pretty deep in the rocks to trip this thing up."
"Fantastic, we tripped over the Titanic. Can we get our foot out and keep going please?" Clover asked. Sam nodded and turned on the manual control for the Leviathan's legs. She pulled the leg up, accidentally dragging the ship out of the rocks with it. They could see corpses floating out of the ship to the ocean floor beneath them.
"Ewe, that's worse than stepping in gum." Clover quipped.
"I hope they don't get mad at us for disturbing their rest..." Alex gulped.
"You don't believe in ghosts do you Alex?" Sam asked as she wriggled the Leviathan's leg to free the ocean-liner.
"Well there's plenty of evidence that they exist. Besides, we have to be more than bags of meat right?" Alex replied.
"Of course we're not bags of meat. We're actually bags of water." Sam smiled back teasingly. Alex huffed and turned away from her, hobbling away on her crutches as Sam finally managed to dislodge the ocean-liner from their war-machine's foot. Sam moved them carefully over the obstacle, then set the machine to autopilot again and leaned back in her chair.
"Think I should go apologize?" Sam asked.
"Duh." Clover retorted with a hint of her old arrogant self. Sam nodded and stood up, walking toward the small bedrooms that were put in for long missions. She peeked in the one Alex had claimed for her own on the first day, and found Alex lying on the small cot staring at the steel ceiling above her. Sam walked inside and closed the door behind her.
"I'm sorry I made fun of you..." Sam said softly.
"Do you think we're just bags of water...?" Alex asked softly.
"No, I don't."
"Then what do you think?"
"Really... I don't know." Sam walked up to the bed and sat down beside her, putting one hand on Alex's thigh. "I try not to think about death these days... I've been a little busy thinking about how to stay alive." Sam smiled slightly. Alex smiled back.
"I've been thinking about it a lot since Mandy died..." Alex turned her gaze back to the ceiling. "I mean... sure she was evil, and then turned a little crazy by the whole war and all... but... I..." She trailed off, blushing slightly. "I think if anyone deserves to live after dying... it's her..."
"Well... you'll get no argument from me." Sam replied. Alex stared at the ceiling blankly, more tears beginning to stream down her cheeks. "Hey... come on. I know..." Sam reached out and pulled her friend into a tight hug, stroking her back. "I'm sure she's somewhere... somewhere she deserves to be for what she did for all of us, what she was made to go through..."
"But the thing is..." Alex looked up at her from reddened eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. "When we were on the road alone... with nobody else around, no threats, no danger... just us... I saw what she was like when she wasn't crazy... she wasn't depressed... she wasn't evil..." She gulped. "All she wanted was to be loved, and accepted by her sister..." Alex stared at Sam, her lower lip quivering with barely contained emotions. "She was... beautiful..."
Sam just stared at her, letting Alex bury her face in her shoulder again. The redhead slowly wrapped her arms around her friend, leaning her cheek against the top of her head. Alex's shoulders shook as sobs wracked her body. Sam felt her tears moistening her shoulder.
Sam looked up when she heard Clover's voice over the intercom system. The Leviathan was designed to be manned by far more than three people. "Um... we're coming up on land Sam. You may want to get up here." Sam looked down at Alex again, who was looking at her.
"You rest here Alex... I'll go see what the problem is." Sam said softly. Alex nodded and moved away from her while Sam stood up and walked toward the door. She made her way back to the main cockpit, where Clover was standing with the periscope sight in front of her. Out the front window Sam could see more miles of water, with no land in sight.
"What's going on?" Sam asked.
"Are you sure those pheromone things can't be... ummm 'sensed' or whatever from above the water?" Clover asked.
"They shouldn't. Why?"
"Because we're being followed." Clover told her.
"What!?" Sam rushed up and pushed her aside, looking through the periscope. Sure enough, hovering above the water was a Zardexian ship like the one that they'd seen in Washington. It was pacing them perfectly, hovering so close to the water that it left ripples in its wake. "Damnit... how long has it been up there?"
"I don't know exactly. I decided to look around and called you the second I noticed it." Clover said. "Do you think it senses Alex?" Sam thought about it for a moment, then shook her head.
"No. This isn't the radar and sonar shielded Leviathan we used before. They probably saw the ship and decided to investigate." Sam replied.
"That would explain why they're not attacking." Clover realized. "How long do you think it'll be before they either leave or vaporize our asses?"
"I'd rather not find out. Clover, man the lasers."
Clover grinned. "Yes ma'am!" Clover took the co-pilots seat and rolled over to the laser controls, turning them on with the flick of a switch. The lasers powered up with a soft humming sound. "Yeah baby, that's what I'm talking about."
"We get one shot at this. If they send out an SOS, we're screwed." Sam told her.
"Just tell me where to fire." Clover replied. Sam bit her lip, staring at the ship. "Sam?"
"I don't know where the cockpit is... but reasonably, it'd be near the front of the ship..." Sam mused. "If we hit the engines, they could still call for help before they hit the water..."
"I think they're starting to notice our lasers heating up." Clover said as the image on her targeting screen began to waver.
Sam examined the ship for a few more seconds before spotting a small bubble near the middle of the ship. Very slight, but the only thing that stood out other than the engines on the sleek looking vessel. "The dead center of the ship. 80 degrees from the front vertically, 10 degrees horizontally to the right. Fire, now!"
Clover's fingers rushed over the control panel, aligning the lasers within a second and sending a burst of brilliant blue light surging through the water. The liquid bubbled and hissed from the heat as it burst out into the open air, breaking straight through the dead center of the enemy ship. For a moment, the ship stayed in the air, but suddenly it plunged into the water with a humungous splash... right down on top of the Leviathan.
"Aw sh-" Sam didn't have time to finish the exclamation before the ship impaled itself on the demon's horns, effectively crippling any firepower advantage they might have had over an opponent. As well as making them stick out even more to any other Zardexian ships in the area. The impact shook the head violently, sending both Sam and Clover to the floor.
"Aww man..." Sam sat up, rubbing her back. "Well, we're safe for the time being... but now we can't fire our lasers. We have to find a place to get out of the water and get this ship off our heads. Especially if they have tracking devices in their ships." She grumbled.
"Hey... you don't think Zardexians can breathe underwater do you?" Clover asked. As if on cue the limp form of an alien ball floated down in front of the window, falling unmoving down into the depths of the ocean.
"Uh... I'd call that a no." Sam smirked.
"Whew." Clover sighed in relief. Both women looked at the door to the cockpit when Alex burst through on her crutches. Her eyes were still red, and her limbs were shaking in fear and weakness, but she had a wide, frantic look in her eyes.
"What's going on!?" Alex demanded.
"It's okay Alex, we just shot down a peeping tom." Clover told her with a slight smirk. "Now we have to get out and get his blood off our boat." Sam rolled her eyes. It was an unnecessarily crude metaphor, but fairly accurate. So she scanned the ocean for the nearest land.
"Looks like the closest land at the moment is Ireland." Sam stated. "So let's get going." She turned the massive ship toward the island and leaned back to wait for their arrival. Alex rejoined her friends in the cockpit, looking calmer than she had in the bedroom. They talked companionably about years past. Not the Hellish recent ones, but the... still fairly Hellish spy moments in their High School years.
They reached Ireland and the massive metallic spider-demon climbed out onto the land, parking next to a dense forest in the middle of the night with the moon high in the sky, lighting the world as it always did. Sam lowered the Leviathan down to its stomach and turned it off. "Okay, let's go survey the damage." Sam stated. The three girls exited the leviathan through a door on the front of the abdomen, turning to look up at the head. The Leviathan dwarfed the Zardexian ship, which was only a quarter as large as the mammoth war machine. It looked like it was fastened pretty well to the horns.
"Any ideas Sammy?" Clover asked.
"Maybe we could scrape it off like a wad of gum or..." Sam mused.
"That's scientific." Clover quipped.
"Oh shut up." Sam smirked.
"Whatever... you girls work it out... I need to sit down..." Alex hobbled away from the Leviathan with her crutches and carefully sat down on the grass, lying back and panting slightly from just the exertion of exiting the Leviathan. The blood-loss from her wound must have still been taking its toll on her. Though it was a long time to remain so weak...
"Clover, stay with Alex while I see if I can get that ship off of ours." Sam said. Clover nodded and turned to join Alex on the grass while Sam walked back into the Leviathan and took the elevator up to the cockpit. She sat down in the pilot's seat and strapped herself in securely, taking the controls. "Hmmm..." She tapped a few buttons. The lasers would still power up, though they wouldn't fire. "Maybe an energy pulse..." Sam took out her communicator. "Clover."
"Here Sam. Something wrong?" Clover asked.
"You and Alex had better cover your ears." Sam told her. The powered up the lasers until they were vibrating, then suddenly pressed the emergency shut-off, cutting off the laser energy from the main beast. The power dissipated outward from the horns, ripping the Zardexian ship into pieces and sending it plummeting to the ground.
"Mission accomplished I think." Clover called on the communicator.
"Is it wrong that that was really satisfying?" Sam asked.
"Naaahhhh." Clover replied. "Hang on a sec, me and Alex will come back up."
"Wait, I'll come down. I wanna take a look at the wreckage." Sam replied.
"Sure thing." Clover sent back. So Sam climbed up from her seat and took the elevator back down to ground level, walking out of the Leviathan. She found Alex and Clover hanging out near one of the larger pieces, where Alex was poking one the fleshy masses that used to be a Zardexian with one of her crutches. The body bent inward with a wet sound.
"Ewe... they're all bloated and squishy..." Alex moved away from the body quickly in horror.
"They DROWNED Alex, and spent over two hours submerged. What did you expect?" Sam asked as she walked up as well, more interested in the ship piece than the aliens that had occupied it. She poked through the pieces of the ship, looking for anything that looked like an intact component.
"Hello, what have we here?" Clover asked rhetorically from another of the larger pieces. Sam looked to see Clover examining what looked like a floor with some strange markings on it. There was a ring of glass around the markings, like a tube, but of course the glass had shattered and was laying randomly about the field. "What do you think Sam?"
"I'd say a prison cell if it wasn't made of glass. Can you find the top to it anywhere?" Sam asked. They scoured the field for anything that looked like the top of the tube. Alex meanwhile was leaning against the outer shell of the Leviathan, sitting on the grass and looking up at the brightening dawn sky.
"Girls, I'm gonna go inside and have a bite to eat." Alex called to the two scavengers.
"Sure, we'll be up in a minute." Sam replied. Alex went inside while Sam and Clover resumed their search until finally...
"Aha, found it!" Clover called, grabbing one of the materials and flipping it to its back to reveal an indent the same size and pattern as the lower part of the tube. There were more markings on it, and two holes with wires sticking out. Perhaps where mechanical arms had operated once. "Looks like a holding cell... maybe this is where the arms held people." Clover suggested, pointing to the holes in the ceiling.
"No... no it isn't..." Sam muttered in awe, staring at some of the symbols. One of them was clearly recognizable, though very different from the ones they were used to on Earth. A DNA strand. "Clover, I think it's a genetic reconstruction machine. Like the one that let The Rev infiltrate Earth in the first place." Sam said.
"What... these things are standard issue?" Clover asked alarmed.
"It looks that way... and with it, they can look completely human..." Sam confirmed. They both stared at the top of the machine that could make their lives very, very complicated from this point onward. The Rev had looked and acted fairly human... though there were some traits missing from him. Like compassion for one, and good sense for another.
"Come on, we need to get back into the ocean. We've let Alex stay up here exposed to the air too long." Sam stood up straight. Clover followed her back to the Leviathan silently to resume their underwater trek to France. Things just kept getting worse and worse it seemed... where was the light shining through the darkness that storybooks always talked about?
Sam wasn't comfortable again until the massive Leviathan again sank beneath the waves, a giant one hundred foot robot vanishing without a trace. Sam looked down in surprise when the communicator on her belt started beeping quite loudly. Clover and Alex looked at her curiously.
"Sounds like we have a call from home base. Excuse me while I take this." Sam stood up and walked into the back, ducking into her bedroom and locking it before opening her communicator. "Sam here."
"Sam, we have some news about the venom Alex was injected with." Pam stated. "You were right, it IS kind of a biological beacon. But it's also a powerful sedative." Sam stared at her, then sighed.
"How... how powerful?" Sam asked nervously.
"It starts off pretty weak, causing minor weakness and relaxing the victim's muscles. But it gets stronger at an exponential rate... until it becomes fatal..." Pam trailed off.
Sam stared at her blankly, her heart sinking deep inside her chest. She tried not to let it show as she spoke again. "Th... thanks... we have some new information too." Sam stated. "It looks like the Zardexians have their genetic alteration technology on board every ship in their fleet." She stated.
"How could you possibly know that?" Pam asked in awe.
"We shot one down with the Leviathan." Sam smirked. "Don't get excited, it was a fluke I'm sure won't be repeated. The point is, be careful about any strangers bearing gifts."
"I... I understand." Pam nodded. She hesitated for a moment before speaking again. "Sam, why did you have to go with them? Why did you have to stick me with this Hellish job?"
"Alex needs me." Sam replied. "But I do intend to come back... once we either find a cure for Alex, or it passes out of her system naturally." She smirked. "God knows how long that'll be though."
"Maybe." Pam smirked back. "I'll be seeing you around Sam, you take care of yourself." Despite her words, for some reason Pam didn't seem all that sincere to Sam.
"We'll be fine. We're underwater almost all of the time. We're like one hundred foot ghosts." Sam stated. Pam's expression remained carefully cold and almost scarily mask-like. Sam had quit her position pretty much right when the war had properly started. Was it going so badly as to drain her spirit in just one week? "The same goes for you. Be careful... fight the good fight... and give 'em Hell."
"Why ask me to do something you know is impossible?" Pam asked. Silence passed between them like an uncomfortable specter until Sam nodded slightly.
"Sorry... I've got to go." Sam said just before cutting communication. She knew she'd left Pam in a pretty much hopeless situation... and Alex was in a similarly hopeless one... but she just didn't want to think about it. She put away her communicator and turned to walk back out to the cockpit and join her spy partners. The war would continue without them, and they would have to be extra careful from now on. She could only hope Pam was wrong about the venom being fatal... though in her heart she knew she wasn't.
TO BE CONTINUED