Chapter 26: Farewell

Mahn drifted in and out of consciousness as he lay outside the Bridge door. His body was on fire but not in a feverish sense, the heat he felt in his body was similar to a hard work out. His muscles and tissues burned with exertion, working to heal themselves, hurrying to knit together the damage that had been suffered. The mutagen in his body was repairing him at an alarming rate.

He had dozed off, feeling happy now that Bower and Nadia were going to finally capture the bridge when he heard a hunter's scream. He looked at the door to common area and he could see a hunter's head looking at him through the partially opened door. That door had been locked tight by Bower just minutes before. Twenty feet separated them, so he began to doubt what he was looking at.

Mahn stared at the hideous beast and it stared back.

Am I actually seeing this or am I dreaming?

Mahn closed his eyes, shook his head, opened his eyes again and he saw the hunter was still there. The creature had a misshapen head. It was flat and small like a feline's, eyes further apart than a humans. It was dark, a charcoal black on the face and top of the head with the familiar pale skin all around and the red eyes that glared at him hungrily.

A female?

Now that he was waking up a little more, Mahn saw that it was struggling to get through the door and that several other hunters outside the room were pulling and prodding the door trying to get it open. They were coming through.

Oh shit.

Mahn reached up to the com unit over his head and shouted a warning to Bower and Nadia, "They are coming through!"

Blackface got it's shoulders through the narrow opening, one of arms clawing and pulling itself the rest of the way through the door.

Although his body was wracked with pain, Mahn leaped to his feet and hobbled into the bridge. He locked the door behind him. This door would only buy them a few minutes. The hunters would find a way to get through the bridge door as well.

Mahn didn't hear either of his friends so he quietly made his way up the stairs.

Gallo stood, picking Bower up like he weighed nothing and latched both hands around his throat squeezing. Bower clawed at his face, kicked him in the nuts and yanked as hard as he could on Gallo's arms but it was all futile. His larynx was being crushed.

Gallo was terrifyingly powerful, insanity fueling his strength to super human levels.

"I guess you're not worthy of succeeding me," Gallo appeared genuinely disappointed, "Or joining me."

Bower was getting light headed. His vision was clouding.

Suddenly, he was released. The hands around his throat fell away and Bower saw Gallo reaching behind himself gasping in pain.

Bower hit him as hard as he could in the mouth. He landed a solid punch that knocked Gallo on his ass. The murderer landed on his side unconscious and then Bower could see that Nadia had thrown her knife deep into Gallo's back.

"Bower," Nadia called to him weakly.

He rushed to her side. Horrible thoughts of losing her ran rampant through his mind even as he tried to think positively. He had just managed to gain her trust and affection. Losing her now would be so unfair and unjust that the entire cosmos would be held responsible. "Just relax," He soothed, coughing, "I'm going to fix you right up."

"We've already crashed," She whispered.

"What?"

"We've been on Pandorum all this time."

He gently rolled her onto her back and carefully bandaged her. He was relieved to see that her bleeding had already slowed on its own considerably. She was going to make it.

Thank God.

"Bower," She reached for him.

He caught her hand and kissed it.

"You're not listening," She smiled at him patiently, "We're here. We've already landed."

"They are coming through!" They heard Mahn's voice over the intercom.

Bower looked up above them out the large windows of the helm. At first the strange glowing sea life swimming past the windows of the bridge didn't seem real. It took him a couple of seconds to comprehend what he was seeing. They were underwater, deep underwater. A large school of small, brightly glowing fish swam directly overhead barely visible against the dimly light surface far above them.

It was the most beautiful thing Bower had ever seen.

"We've been on Pandorum this whole time?" He asked wondrously.

"I guess this thing really does land itself," Gallo coughed, blood dripping from his mouth. He released the empty clip from the firearm and slapped a fresh one into the weapon clambering the round and aiming at Bower, "Doesn't float too well though does it?"

Bower felt Nadia's hand tighten around his own.

"You should see the look on your faces," Gallo said smiling, "Since you won't let go of your fear. I'm going to help you. This is where I will push you through to enlightenment." He aimed the weapon at Nadia.

Bower shielded her with his body, his back to Gallo.

He looked down at her, into her eyes expecting a round to slam into him at any time. Silently, desperately he tried to mentally convey his feelings to her, knowing that he wasn't going to get a second chance.

Nadia stared back, her face full of fear.

The gun roared.

They both flinched in unison.

The round hit the glass overhead, ricocheted off and punched harmlessly into the wall plate. The glass creaked and groaned as a small crack formed.

Bower and Nadia both looked back at Gallo and saw him with one of Mahn's swords stuck into the side of his head. Still smiling, Gallo slowly sunk to his knees then fell over dead, his blood spreading quickly. Mahn had nearly split his skull in half.

For the second time in his life, Bower had never been so happy to see another man.

"Sorry I'm late," The stocky man said.

Nadia laughed softly.

"If you weren't so badly wounded, I'd hug you," Bower told him, smiling back. His smile vanished when he realized something wet was dripping down onto his head from the cracked glass. It was ice cold.

"They are coming in," Mahn told them, "They are probably right outside the bridge door by now."

"We've got worse problems than that," Nadia countered. She was watching the crack overhead, wincing as she sat up to get away from the dripping water.

"There's no way," Bower said simply. He was staring at the glass in disbelief.

"I locked the bridge door of course," Mahn assured them, "But they can still pry it open just like they did to the other one."

"If we can find out where Gallo hid the codes, couldn't we use the ship's computer to kill them? I mean, he made it seem pretty easy as he was using it to try and kill us," Nadia limped to the nearby Captain's chair, one hand over her wound.

"Structure wise, this is impossible," Bower said. He was trying to get his mind around how a round from such a light weapon could crack glass that was designed for atmospheric entry and to withstand the constant vacuum of deep space.

Mahn leaned against the wall looking exhausted.

"I don't see anything on the computer so far," Nadia told them.

Bower turned to the flight log and saw 241 years. The flight was a 123 year flight so theoretically, they had been submerged in the ocean of Pandorum for over one hundred years. That explained why some of the dead on board had been so ancient looking, how the dust all over the ship was so thick, how the reactor had gone offline by itself and how the glass on the bow had possibly become brittle after over a century of salt water damage and crushing water pressure.

The water was trickling in. Not dripping anymore, it was trickling.

"We've got to get to the cryopods," He told them. He pried the freshly loaded handgun from Gallo's stiff fingers, "Both of you follow me."

The glass split even more, the water trickling down in several different spots in the glass. Small angry webs of fracture were quickly spreading over the entire surface with sharp clicking. The windows were groaning under the massive strain, making a haunted sound of torture.

"Move!" Bower yelled.

They headed down the stairs to the door and Bower opened it, weapon at the ready with Nadia and Mahn behind him, helping each other along. Blackface was kneeling at one of the dead hunters, gorging itself. It snarled viciously at them. Another hunter was just making it into the room at the common area door.

Bower shot Blackface in the head.

He trained the weapon on the other hunter as it shrieked at them, "Move! Go! Hurry!"

The two wounded made their way through the common room to the cryopod room.

Bower guarded the door watching the hunter. It began to feed on Blackface's body. He heard the glass shatter and could feel the pressure and the temperature changing as the ice cold water gushed into the room overhead.

Mahn climbed into Payton's pod. Nadia was getting into his.

He saw the hunter recoil in fear as the bridge door buckled under the massive weight of the ocean. Thin streams of water squirted through at high pressure around the edges of the door.

Bower hit the open button on Cooper's pod, then quickly typed in the emergency launch code for Mahn's pod. It moved upwards into an air tight chamber in the ceiling. The pod would be sealed within the chamber then launched at high velocity away from the ship.

Cooper's pod didn't open.

He saw the overhead door seal behind Mahn's pod. With a loud popping and hissing, the pod was launched. Mahn was safely on his way to the surface.

The terrified hunter bolted for the common room door leaping over another hunter that had reversed direction and was trying to get back into the main corridor.

"What's wrong?" Nadia yelled over the loud roar of the water fountain in the next room.

Bower turned to close the door to the cryopod room. As the door slid closed, he heard the Bridge door give and a massive wall of water flooded through the security area and into the common room. The display on the wall blinked the emergency message in large red letters, 'HULL BREACH!'

He hit the open button on Cooper's pod.

It wasn't opening.

What the fuck?

He felt butterflies of panic in his stomach.

"Hurry!" Nadia screamed at him.

The cryopod room door at his side buckled inwards, water spraying from the seams, drenching him in an instant. It was going to give at any second.

Bower dove into Nadia's pod, crowding in, she was pulling him in as far as he could go. He typed the emergency launch code just as the cryopod room door burst.

They were battered from the icy water. It rushed into the pod, slamming into them, then swirling them around.

The airtight pod door slid closed, not allowing any more water in but there was a lot of water already trapped in the pod with them. His face was barely clear of the water level but as the pod lifted up into the ceiling, the water splashed around, dunking him under repeatedly. Nadia was kicking and twisting behind him, clawing at his shoulders. He turned from the small pod window, facing her and saw that she was having trouble keeping her head above the water. He grabbed her and lifted her higher than him. She coughed violently.

He was on his toes and still was having trouble breathing without sucking water into his lungs. His hearing kept cutting off as the water sloshed over his head.

"We need to get out of here!" Nadia yelled. She was panicked.

"Hold on," He coughed.

The dim yellow glow of the pod's control console gave very little illumination, but it was just enough for them to see.

Bower heard the air lock door close beneath them. They would launch within seconds. "Get ready," He spit water out of his mouth, "The waters going to get really rough when we launch!"

There was a loud pop then a strange hissing as the pod lurched violently upwards, the force of the launch driving them downwards underneath the surface. He fought the urge to panic, planting his feet firmly and used his legs to push them above the water level. Both of them were coughing and choking.

"Not like this! We can't die like this!" She cried.

He tried to lift her higher, "Hold on!"

They were coughing and frantic, both of them aware that they could easily drown within the safe confines of the cryopod.

It was still pitch black outside the pod window. They had a long way to go and his legs were tiring under the constant downward pressure.

Bower let her go, searching around them for the breathing mask. She sank below the water but clawed her way back up coughing and spitting. He tried to put the mask over her face.

"No!" She protested, "No, I can't!"

He was able to force the mask over her face, "Just breathe!" He yelled to her.

The mask would seal itself and release a small amount of gas designed to put the wearer to sleep. It would then regulate her breathing. Nadia sank peacefully under the water, breathing calmly. She looked like an angel.

Bower took in as deep of a breath as he could manage, and sank below the water level, resting his cramping legs. He kept his eyes closed and tried to remain calm, massaging his legs for the work ahead.

After his lungs began to burn, he planted his feet and pushed himself up, sucking in just as much water as air. Coughing and spitting, he saw that there was some light outside the pod window. They were almost there. He fought for several more drawn-out seconds, then saw bright sunlight from the pod window.

Almost there.

The pod shifted as it broke the surface of the water tossing him and Nadia around. It landed and immediately rolled with the door upwards, automatically correcting itself to allow the passengers to be able to exit. Bower pulled the heavy emergency release handle and the door shot away from the pod and he was bathed in sunshine for the first time in almost a century. He breathed in deeply the clean air of Pandorum.

They made it!

He lifted Nadia up, cradling her in his arms and gently removed the mask. He stared at her, surprised. The salt water had removed the grease and grime from her face. For the first time, he saw her clearly. She was even more breathtaking than he imagined. Her eyelids fluttered, she looked at him with her lovely blue eyes. Her gaze studied the bright blue sky, billowy white clouds of Pandorum and she smiled at him.

"Just breathe," He assured her, smiling. He kissed her lightly, "It's safe to wake up now."

NOTE TO THE READER: I am aware that there were many changes made, titular or otherwise (I know that Tanis was the name of the planet they were going to in the movie but I changed the name to Pandorum). I felt that the younger hallucination version of Gallo, the idea of ODS (Orbital Dysfunctional Syndrome) and the deceitfulness of Leland, weighed the movie down so I changed them. I felt that ODS (Pandorum) as a psychosis nearly ruined Bower's character particularly during the final scene where he was so busy fighting hallucinations, Nadia was nearly killed. Also, the idea of the entire Earth being overpopulated and suffering worldwide food shortages yet still managed to scrape together funding for such a massive scale colonization mission to another planet, made no sense. What's the point of going to another planet if humanity so thoroughly ruined Earth? I took that part out too. I hoped you enjoyed the rewritten version of this story as much I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for all the positive comments and also the negative, yet constructive criticisms. Be good humans. :)

P.S.

I am currently rewriting the sequel. I will post it shortly but I am also working on rewriting another story that I loved when I was younger. Please check it out and comment when you have time.