Gudsriki (4 page)

But rapist ass meat, that she had a taste for. She butchered only the yummiest bits from each of the other men. It wasn't like she could drag their bodies all the way to Orkney.

She stood again, gave the laughing man's corpse one last kick, then set out eastward, gnawing on her last old slice of rapist jerky. Good riddance to it; a fine idea but too chewy. She was certain the new batch would taste better properly cooked. She cursed the lack of salt and vowed to check for the stuff in the remains of Caithness.

 

 

“I
AM
ready to relieve you, sir,” said Lieutenant Pytten.

“Are we really doing this, Pytten?” asked Lieutenant Bax.

“I am ready to relieve you, sir.”

Bax nodded, then looked angrily at the deck.

“I am ready to be relieved,” replied Bax, annoyed. “Be aware we remain stationary at 61.400N 1.200E on the sea floor. Our ship remains dead in the water, our captain remains deceased, we're all going to die when the bulkhead collapses in an hour, and you're still fucking following protocol like a fucking
peräeva
. Does that report satisfy your needs, sir?”

“I relieve you, sir.”

“I stand relieved,” he said sarcastically. “Attention on the bridge, Lieutenant Pytten has the deck.”

Bax saluted with mocking strength and pomp, then headed to walk out. “Glad we'll all die on your watch, you stuck-up freeloading oxygen-breathing guppy from—”

“This is Lieutenant Pytten, I have the deck. Ensign Hetulat,” said Pytten, “please escort Lieutenant Bax to the brig.”

Bax turned. “You fucking smeghead piece of—”

“Captain Turisas held a standing order that there would be no cursing on the bridge, Lieutenant.”

“We're all about to bloody fucking die you
pompous motherfu—”

“Now, Ensign Hetulat, if you please.”

Hetulat shrugged and took Bax by the arm.

“The one good thing about death, Pytten, is that you're coming with me! You hear me, Pytten? You're dead too! Brig or bridge, we're all fucking—”

The hatch closed behind them. Pytten looked around to the bridge crew. All were staring. Finally Commander Drake broke the silence.

“Admirable, Pytten,” he said, coughing. “Your composure is—is admira—”

He coughed again, blood staining his chest.

“Sir, your orders?”

“Last orders, Pytten. Last orders. The boat has an hour. I have less. You are hereby in command. Save us if you can.”

Drake closed his eyes, then his land eyes. Pytten leaned forward on the back of the tactical display. Everyone stared.

There was no hope. The nuclear blast on the surface had vaporized most of the UKI fleet they were monitoring, sending debris from the rest raining down on them. The damage was catastrophic. For two days they'd watched as the captain and now the commander slowly died. Pytten was junior officer of the deck when the shockwave hit. Turisas herself had ordered Pytten to take over when the officer of the deck was killed in the first wave of debris. With Bax off-shift and jailed, Pytten was now in command of the entire sub, for at least the estimated single hour before it collapsed. It was hopeless, but Pytten thought at least the crew could be granted hope. All they needed was a plan that would seem to have potential, and then they could die in peace. And if the plan worked, well, they'd cross that bridge when they came to it.

“Pursimies, can we sound general quarters?”

“Yeah, the system's still online.”

“Puuseppä, where is it likely we'll see the first full breach?”

“Deck ten aft; we've evacuated the area, but—”

“Pursimies, go ahead.”

Boatswain's mate Pursimies sounded the call. Pytten spoke.

“This is Lieutenant Pytten in command of the VA Saukko. With all locks compromised, we are trapped in the boat, which is soon to be crushed. The first breach will form in deck ten aft. I am ordering all crew to that berth.”

The crew looked to one another.

“We will remove all dangerous objects from that space and insert ourselves. When the breach forms, we will leave through it before the rest of the boat collapses on us. Your bodies were engineered for this. You will live.”

Pytten spoke with certainty. Having none in reality, the illusion was most critical.

“Move!”

The crew started and headed aft. Pytten with them. By the time the bridge crew arrived, surviving personnel were emptying the berth of its cargo. Food supplies filled the hall, stacked along the sides and coating the floor like weak tile.

Once the area was empty, they filed in. The bulkhead was shaking, concave to the pressure outside. The crew was afraid. Pytten had no idea how much force would enter the berth when the water broke in. A Cetacean body is made to survive the depths and the pressure. Pytten was certain of that. But of the explosive force, of the metal bulkhead soon to shatter, of the hundreds of other things that could go wrong, there was no telling. In the end the idea was more about a swift painless death than an excruciating crushing end.

They stood in the berth, silent. The sound of the wrenching, horrible pressure on the weakening bulkhead grew louder and louder. If Pytten had anything to say, it had to happen before it grew any louder. And there was one thing left forgotten.

“All hands accounted for?”

“All hands!”

Pytten breathed out.

“Save for Lieutenant Bax,” said Ensign Hetulat.

Pytten stopped breathing. The bulkhead burst. A jagged hole erupted in the metal and peeled open, disgorging the ocean into the room, filling it in seconds. Pytten looked around. Everyone seemed alive. Pytten shoved vocal cords aside in favor of underwater vocalization implants and called out in a series of shrieks, “Swim to the surface. I'm going back for Bax.”

“This breach has compromised the superstructure! The Saukko will be crushed in seconds!”

“I'm in command. Skipper leaves last. Get out now!”

Pytten swam back for the door and took a deep breath of dirty saltwater, then opened the hatch.

Water carried Pytten fast back into the walls of food packaging, then down the hall away from the brig. The force was too strong to fight. Pytten could only wait until the area was flooded. The bulkhead was already twisting and crunching in on itself, space was growing thinner.

When the area was finally flooded, the corridor was only half a meter across, jagged and broken. Pytten swam.

Through section after section, Pytten swam as the bulkheads grew ever smaller and sharper. By the time the brig was in sight, the metal of the sub was warped and twisted beyond recognition. The hatches were all broken off their dogs. The brig was open and filled with water.

Bax's fist struck Pytten in their sea eye, collapsing it inward. Pytten was blind on the right side.

“I came back to save you!”

“You came back to die with me!”

“Bax, we can both escape if you come with me now!”

“I can escape without you.”

Bax struck again, this time piercing Pytten's right sea eye completely. Bax swam out as Pytten struggled in pain. The bulkheads took another jarring stab inward and knocked Bax on the head, rendering him unconscious.

Pytten saw it happen. It meant only an easier tow of the belligerent bastard. Hands around Bax's flipper, Pytten drew him out of the brig chamber and toward the collapsing corridor. It was crushed completely. The water was growing hard to breathe, now filled with noxious debris and oil. Only the corridor forward was still swimmable. Without thinking, Pytten swam toward it with Bax in tow.

The bulkheads drew closer and closer. Only a quarter meter remained, slowly crushing inward as Pytten swam past. Finally they emerged into the sonar bay. It had held its shape fairly well. The rubber walls were closer than before but still intact. There was no way out.

Pytten's eye hurt worse and worse as the toxic water irritated it. There was blood loss, dizziness, pain. Pytten had no choice, though, and started to work, looking with one left eye, to spring the sonar release dogs.

One by one they gave way, some sticking badly, but Pytten forced them open; their lives were at stake. There was no choice. They opened.

Suddenly the sonar bulb rocketed off the front of the sub, towing them with it in its wake. Freezing water hit Pytten's eye and stung even worse. The pain was enough to pass out, but they were free, and Pytten swam, forcing through the current upward toward the light.

A hand grabbed Pytten's. Pursimies. He took Pytten's hand and towed them upward toward the surface. They broke the membrane of flotsam and inhaled the thin, radioactive air. Pytten changed back for vocal cords.

“Status!”

“All present and accounted for! And alive!” laughed Pursimies.

There was laughter all around. And hands, everyone was slapping Pytten with their fins, on the back, on the head, on the arms. Among them was Bax. Pytten tried to think of something to say, anything appropriate.

“Bax, you're still under arrest.”

“Pytten, you're still an asshole.”

The crew swam for Harlin Colony.

 

 

T
HERE
WAS
a vast red blur, dim but somehow too bright. It spread to every corner of his peripheral vision, farther to the right and left and top and bottom than he even knew he could see. He tried to close his eyes to it, but it remained, and his eyes hurt like hell. He tried to look away from it, but he only felt pain in his neck and heard a horrible grinding noise. But the visual… that was only a minor nuisance compared to the smell.

It was rot, a powerful rot of wet flesh. A hot stink that seeped deep into his head. He thought to pinch his nose, but he couldn't move his arm. Just grinding and more pain. He tried to at least wrinkle his nose, but he couldn't feel his nose, only more pain. Pain and red and rot and no body part working. He felt something heavy, an immense weight on his legs, which were similarly immobile and seemingly seized up trying to hold up the force upon them. Had he been crushed?

He replayed his last memories. Varg stabbing him in the heart and cutting off his face. Well, that explained most of it. He'd come to without a face and thus without the benefits of having a face. No eyes, or at least no lenses for them. He suspected he still had retinas; that would explain the blur. And the stink was forced raw into his nasal turbinates. Everything was exposed.

He tried to sit up. More grinding gears. More pain. Something else was very wrong. He called out.

“Varg?”

It didn't sound like he said Varg. It sounded like water bubbling up through gravel with a side order of retching. Veikko found himself dismayed and somewhat concerned.

“Morning, Veikko,” said Skadi.

Thank fucking Odin,
he thought. Skadi was there. Everything would be okay. He moved instinctively as if to hug her but suffered the grinding again.

“Don't try to move. Most of your body was burned off.”

“Where am I?” he asked. The words were barely understandable.

“Don't try to talk either. I couldn't find your face.”

He sat silently trying to feel his body. He couldn't help but try to move, if only to adjust himself. From what little he could feel beyond the pain, he was moving slightly but not the right way. It was as if he were miswired, as if the muscles pulled on the wrong bones. And that force—he was pinned under something heavy. Or more accurately, he was stuck holding it up. The weight was inconceivable. He didn't know how he was holding it at all, let alone injured.

“You're in Valhalla. What's left of it.”

“But Valhalla was nuked!” he tried to belch out. It hurt to speak, cut through his tongue.

“Yeah, your plan didn't go so well. Nukes flew all right; wave bombs too.
A
s,
H
s,
N
s, a whole alphabet of missiles and bombs, but nothing hit here. Here's fine. The Ares is alive and well and active.”

“No!”

“Yes, actually. Very yes.”

“Pelamus?”

“I watched the detector logs. Looks like Varg killed him for you right before he died himself.”

“Varg's dead?”

She looked over at the comm tower. “Unless he could survive a neurotoxic dart and a really nasty fall without Niide.”

Veikko found himself hurt by the news. Varg had just killed him, but he couldn't hold a grudge for it. He'd wanted Varg on his side more than anything. He should have just explained it all better, more slowly. He hadn't thought Varg would be back from Mars so fast. He must have never even gone. He should be on Mars, he thought. He never should have died.

But there was hope in that sentence. Niide, she'd said.

“Get me to Niide.”

“Oh, Niide already patched you up on Orkney. This is you fixed.”

“I'm broken.”

“No, you're just half-assembled. See, Niide put you in his latest body, that big experiment he's been wanting to try on us all. You're actually in the most advanced fighting body ever created; you should be honored.”

“I can't—”

“No, you can't do much of anything. I made sure he left you immortal but immobile. And made sure he didn't give you a new face. I didn't want to see your face, ever again.”

“Skadi—”

“Don't say my name either.”

She sat in silence, looking over Veikko's horrific form. All the parts were there but in a puddle. A Gigeresque mass of organs and muscle and mechanics strewn about the rocks, and down into the hole she'd cut earlier.

“W team?” asked the horror.

“Varg killed 'em. He just came back and killed everyone, everyone you didn't. Good thing too, for you. I had to use their spare viscera to keep you alive till Dr. Niide. Bound your wounds with your own kids' intestines.”