Laser light flickered as the tiny drones weaved their complex dance, slowly but surely creating the seamoth before her. She had draped herself over the side railing of the mobile vehicle bay watching as her hard work unfolded before her. The seamoth, all sweeping curves, finally dropped into the water. The splash was just big enough to brush over her feet, but Dae was already moving and dropping into the water.
It had stabilized itself simply sitting in the middle of the water the lights on the inside causing a slight glow to the vehicle.
"The Seamoth is a fast, safe mode of transport, but remember that swimming is good for your glutes and endorphin levels." Karen said as Dae got close enough to reach out and touch it. She bit back a sharp retort and instead swam over the hatch. For a moment she was confused, as there was no handle or button, but the moment she pressed her hand to the top it quickly folded open a strange and shimmering blue barrier sparking into being. Dae lowered herself down and felt a slight tingle as she passed through the barrier, and then she was in the seat of the little submersible suddenly dry. The hatch closed overhead the moment her weight fully settled on the seat, and the barrier flickered out.
"What was that?" She asked her voice overly loud in the small space.
"You have entered your personal seamoth."
"No, Karen. I mean the blue light. And why did it open when I touched it? Does it open for anything touching it?"
"The seamoth is fitted with Alterra sealing technology. The seamoth has connected to this system providing biological information so that the sealing technology and hatch have been keyed to your dna."
"So," she muttered putting her hands on what equated to the steering wheel and felt the cabin brighten slightly as a response. She almost didn't feel the engine as it purred to life. "How do I…" She pressed slightly forward and the craft shot forward. She yelped and dropped the controls which instantly caused the sub to coast to a stop.
It took a little while, but Dae began to get the hang of piloting the seamoth. Eventually she found herself racing it along the shallow water, twisting and diving to avoid the coral tubes that dotted the landscape. It was so fast. She let the little sub dip further down into the creep vine forest thrilled by how easy it was to dip down into the depths. A quick flick of a switch and she had light bursting forth illuminating the flash of a stalker as it darted past. A familiar shriek was the only warning she had before a different stalker crashed down onto her ship from above, only to harmlessly skid off. It didn't even leave a scratch on the enameled glass. She grinned at the fish and did a small victory dance in her chair.
"That's right, you can't even touch me in here!" She called to it. "Stupid toothy fish! Your water death planet isn't getting me today!" She paused a moment as it slid away into the green tinged water. "My insults are getting pretty weak." She muttered steering her seamoth back toward Henry. "Oh, you need a name too." She patted the steering wheel in her hands. "How about…..Seamore?"
Dae tried to ignore the fact her only speaking companions consisted of a lifepod, a PDA, and now a submersible. She nodded to herself coasting to a stop a few feet away from the bottom of Henry.
"Okay Seamore, I've got to hunt for food and water for a while. But once I'm done we can go find Officer Keen." She muttered. It took a quick press of her hand and then she was pushing herself up and out of the sub back into the water.
Hunting had become almost commonplace for Dae. It didn't take her long before she had found and cooked a multitude of fish, including making a few bottles of water from the bladder fish. It wasn't until the lazers stopped spitting out food that she heard the soft beep that signaled her radio had caught something. She was up and next to it before she knew it.
"This is Avery Quinn, of trading ship Sunbeam. Aurora, do you read? Over." She felt her breath catch. "Nothing but vacuum. These Alterra ships. They run low on engine grease, they send an SOS; you offer to help, they don't pick up." Dae felt what little patience she had snap. Anger flooded her mind so much so that she heard her teeth creak with how tightly she grit them together. "Aurora, I'm out on the far side of the system, it's going to take more than a week to reach your position, do you still need our assistance? Over. I'll try them again tomorrow. See what the long-range scans pick up in the meantime." Quinn seemed to be talking to someone off mic. "Damn charter's going to have us wasting our profit margin running errands for Alterra."
"Assholes." She muttered darkly gathering up her food and water. Dae grabbed her seaglide for good measure and slipped back into the water. Seamore was waiting looking sleek and nice holding himself perfectly still where she had left him. She pulled herself through the blue light and got comfortable before twisting about until the little blue marker appeared on her HUD.
The safe shallows were a strange tapestry of beige sand spattered with splashes of colors and the flash of neon fish. Dae avoided the huge coral tubes that twisted and dipped through the landscape, some of them even reaching above sea level.
"I should be happy." She told Karen and Seamore softly. "Someone is coming to get all of us. But...making light of all these deaths…" She trailed off, not sure what she could say that would express the magnitude of all that had happened. The Safe Shallows tapered off into the mesas that made what she called the Red Grass. True to its name the grass swayed gently in the currents, while sand sharks lurked below lashing out at anything that moved near them. It was a strange mix of gentle beauty and terrifying danger.
"How did we end up here?" She muttered to herself running a free hand over her neck. Without warning a roaring sound pierced her sub, causing Dae to jerk Seamore to a stop. The sound was loud, but felt muffled somehow as if it were still further away. It wasn't the same as the snarls that ripped from the sand sharks. Distantly the roar sounded again, a bit louder. Goosebumps shivered over her skin at the sound.
"That's not a good sound." She muttered the most primal parts of her screaming at her to run. To go back the way she had come.
Instead she hesitantly eased Seamore forwards the gentle whine of his engines sounding strangely loud in the resulting silence of the roars.
"Everything's okay." Dae she told herself. "I'll find Officer Keen and then we can figure out what to do. I won't be alone anymore." She told herself.
One moment it was relatively quiet, the next a horrible roar was shaking her sub as a large red a white mandibled beast clamped down around Seamore.
Dae screamed looking into the beady eyes of the monster as those jaws crushed down which sent alarms reeling as small sprays of water hit her body. The beast roared, like something out of a horror vid, and she found herself freezing in place for a moment as the landscape whirled by behind the creatures head.
Dae's hands came back to life before she did harshly jerking the wheel to the side. Seamore's engines roared to life, all the while those black eyes bore into her it's inner jaw lashing at the glass. Seamore suddenly caught traction, just enough to rip the sub sideways out of the massive jaws of the creature. It made a horrible frustrated sound as it slid past, its body huge and muscled. Easily larger than anything else she had seen so far on this waterlogged planet.
Heart pounding, and water rising she quickly gunned her ship forward, heedless of where she was going so long as the sound of that creature stayed behind her.
"Please," She whispered to the universe as that horrible roar sounded way too close. "Please, please, please, don't let me die here." The words tumbled out of her mouth as Seamore's engines whined piteously, those alarms echoing the racing of her heart.
The red grass flew by, all the while the roars sounded behind her promising death in the form of crushing mandibles. She only hoped that Seamore was fast enough. The grass gave way to a landscape of sand, nearly featureless and hazy. Sand dunes rising and falling underneath her ship. Some buried instincts caused her to swerve slightly to the side as she noticed another huge muscled creature in the distance.
The world slowed. Behind her she heard another roar, and a crash that sent sand spraying over the front end of her submersible. The other form that she had swerved to avoid had twisted to look over toward them. The sand underneath her sub dipped sharply, and she followed the dip, sweeping low into what almost looked like some sort of crater site. Green light shimmered over a darkened cave opening. It looked big enough.
That was enough for Dae, who directed her speeding vehicle towards the hole. A horrible scrape sounded as she darted through the opening, her sub jerking to the side from the impact. She dropped the controls letting the sub spin itself to a stop. There was a huge thud and Dae curled in on herself tears threatening to fall as she heard the frustrated roar once more. Watched out the opening as the huge beast thrashed outside, having lost sight of its prey.
She didn't give herself time to panic, to let the horror overtake her. She simply took a deep breath and pushed out of the seamoth taking stock of the crushed exterior. Bubbles fluttered upwards to collect on the roof of the cave. She pulled out her repair tool pressing it to the metal. The device sprung to life in her hands buzzing enough to make her hands feel almost instantly numb, but the smart metal did its job and began reforming. It wasn't long before it looked good as new. She slid back inside.
"All systems online." Seamore chirped to her. She twisted him around, away from the entrance clicking on his lights. The cave was a winding tunnel. Behind her she could still hear the faint sounds of the large creature.
"Not…." Dae's voice faltered and she forced back the tears that tried to escape. "Not going that way right now." She ground out. "Deeper into the cave it is."
She tilted Seamore deeper underground careful to stay away from the walls.
