Emperor's Edge Republic (20 page)

Always.

The lieutenant had already disappeared, though the air tube leading back to the tug showed where he had gone. Sicarius headed off at a different angle, the knee-high vegetation stirring and wavering as he passed through it. Normal vegetation, Amaranthe told herself and followed him. Even though Sicarius had been busy chasing a blasting-stick-hurling assailant, she trusted him to have a good idea of where they had anchored the
Explorer
.

There weren’t any fish flitting through the water. Odd. Maybe they knew this plant was something to be avoided.

The submarine came into sight sooner than she expected, and she exhaled a long breath, the sound echoing in her helmet. The oblong hull appeared to be intact, its body resting on the lake floor. Maybe the damage had been internal only and Starcrest would be able to recommission it with minimal repairs.

Amaranthe’s relief and optimism didn’t last long. Sicarius halted before he reached the hull, his body growing still, his head unmoving. Her stomach shivered with uneasiness. What now?

She moved up beside him. Oh.

Several of those vines rose up from the lakebed and curled around the sub’s hull, grasping it like a lover. The carpet of seaweed had been hiding the plant’s tendrils as they stretched across the ground, she realized. Vines might be anywhere down here. Grimacing, she peered down at her own feet, the diving boots barely visible amongst the wavering seaweed. She lifted one and then the other to make sure nothing was grasping
her
like a lover. Nothing green anyway.

She touched Sicarius’s hand to draw his attention.
Think we can cut those off?

He drew his knife, not the one he had been sharpening, but the black dagger from the alien civilization, a blade that had never needed sharpening for as long as she had known him.
I will cut the tendrils. You find a place to fasten the winch hook.

Amaranthe nodded and took the big metal prong from him. While he waded in, she walked around the exterior, the winch’s thick cable trailing behind her. For all that she had spent many weeks living in the
Explorer
, she had never examined the craft from the outside—ninety percent of the hull had always been underwater. Its smooth surface did not offer many spots for hooks.

“Maybe the hatch,” she murmured, imagining it in her mind. Yes, there was a wheel on top of it for unfastening the lock and lifting the hatch.

The weights on Amaranthe’s diving belt did not make it easy to swim. She had to release a few of them so she could scramble up the side of the hull. That was the plan anyway. But when she tried to jump, her right boot didn’t lift off. A twinge of pain ran from her ankle to her knee at the failed attempt.

With that uneasy feeling returning to her stomach in full force, she bent and parted some of the seaweed. A green tendril two fingers thick had wrapped around her ankle.

“Sicarius?” she called, though her voice would not travel underwater. He was on the other side of the submarine somewhere, so she couldn’t wave for his help, either. “Well, your suit came equipped with a knife too, didn’t it?”

Yes, but she would have brought a machete if she had known this plant would be down here.

Switching the hook to her left hand, she pulled out her blade. At first, she tried to calmly slice through the vine. The knife cut its flesh, but barely. The thing proved harder to slice through than a branch of the same thickness.

“Stay calm,” she muttered and looked for someplace to put the hook, so she could use both hands. She shrugged and attached it to the vine. Then she laid into the vine with the vigor of a logger with a saw.

Her progress was slow, but not futile. The blade gradually cut in until she reached the halfway point. After this, she would have to make sure she didn’t stand still along enough for another one to grab onto her. At this thought, she lifted her other leg to make sure she could. Yes, good.

Motion behind her caught the corner of her eye. Sicarius?

No, another tendril, this one having risen several feet from the floor, its tip waving ominously, almost beckoning. It drifted closer. Dear ancestors, could it actually know she was a living being and could it be after her? No, that was preposterous. It had tangled up the sub after all. It probably had some inborn instinct to wrap itself all over everything.

Keeping an eye on the tendril, Amaranthe reapplied herself to cutting off the first one. The second one kept drifting closer.

The one wrapped around her boot snapped off. She yanked her leg away and ran several paces as quickly as the awkward suit would let her. But she had forgotten about the hook. With the vine no longer attached to her foot, it had slipped off and grown entangled in seaweed several meters away.

Amaranthe waved her knife at the upright vine and angled around it so she could grab the hook. As she bent to pick it up, the first vine reared into the air, its stump pointing toward her, the cross-section revealing a dark viscous green interior. Amaranthe stumbled back as that stump seemed to stare accusingly at her. Whatever this thing was, it wasn’t natural. Not a chance.

As soon as she snatched the hook, she raced for the sub and tried to clamber up the side. Starcrest should have incorporated more handholds on the hull. The stupid rivets might have been serviceable if she weren’t wearing the gloves and oversized boots, but—

“Oh, right,” she grumbled and grabbed one of the vines attached to the hull. So long as it didn’t try to grab her back...

She hauled herself up to the hatch, which hung at an odd angle, one of the sturdy hinges warped. Well, if that was all the damage the exterior had taken, Starcrest shouldn’t be too distressed. She pulled the hatch shut—it squealed like a dying pig but complied. She secured and attached the hook to the handle and hoped it would hold up against the stress of being used for lifting the sub.

A hand gripped her shoulder. Amaranthe turned, expecting Sicarius, but it wasn’t a hand at all.

She shrieked and lashed out with her knife. It didn’t bother the thick green vine at all. It simply curled closer to her helmet, a tendril threatening to wrap around her neck.

A flash of black came down from above.

Sicarius’s dagger sliced through the vine as if it were a blade of grass. He grabbed the severed end—which was still gripping Amaranthe’s shoulder with alarming vigor—and tore it free. He cut it again. The severed vine floated away. Sicarius landed in a crouch on top of the hull.

Thank you
, Amaranthe signed.
I did battle with one over there, and my knife wasn’t nearly as effective.
She hoped her shriek hadn’t carried through the water for Sicarius to hear.

Nor was the lieutenant’s
, Sicarius signed.
I regret my delay. I saw him in trouble and moved away to help him.
He nodded toward the other side of the submarine. The lieutenant stood on the lakebed, eyeing the seaweed at his feet. He noticed them looking, though, and pointed at the hook and cable.

Amaranthe gave him a ready sign, then smiled at Sicarius through her faceplate.
Saving a stranger’s life? That was very heroic of you. We’ll turn you into a noble man yet.

Would a noble man tease a woman for screaming at the touch of enemy foliage?

Absolutely not
, Amaranthe signed. So much for shrieks not carrying underwater...

Then I shall pass on your label.

She might have kissed him, but with a pair of faceplates between them, it didn’t seem very feasible. She swatted him instead, and Sicarius returned to cutting the sub free of the vines. A necessary task. Amaranthe wagered the evil things would prove stronger than the winch if they were still attached. Fortunately, with that knife, he finished shortly.

The lieutenant must have signaled someone above, because the cable attached to the hook tightened. Amaranthe reluctantly dropped off her perch and back into the seaweed. She hoped they did not chance across any more hidden vines on the way back to the tug, though having Sicarius beside her, his knife in hand, made that prospect less alarming.

She signed,
We should be done before afternoon, don’t you think?

Yes
.

I made an appointment. With a doctor. To check on... things.
Amaranthe rolled her eyes at herself. Someday she would learn to speak bluntly with him, to say exactly what she meant. But this wasn’t that day.

Good
, Sicarius signed.
I will go with you.

That’s not necessary. I don’t think any doctor is going to feel comfortable examining a woman when her assassin lover is looming in the corner, fondling his knives.

Sicarius slanted her a sidelong look.
I can wait outside.

Fondling your knives in the front room? That might upset the desk clerk.

They had reached the tugboat, but Sicarius lifted a hand, keeping her from dumping the rest of her weights and swimming up to the ladder.
You seem certain that I am the target of this assassin, but it’s possible
you
may be the target.

The bit about the vixen and the kit sounded more like you and Sespian than me and... I don’t have any kits.

Yet. Her visit to the doctor would hopefully give her more information on that, though between the assassin and the twitchy marine who had fled, Amaranthe wondered at the wisdom of having a child with Sicarius, at least having one soon.

I will go with you to the appointment
, Sicarius repeated.

It seemed she would have a bodyguard whether she wanted one or not.

Having double-checked that the sub was ready to move, the lieutenant joined them. Amaranthe kept her response to a quick,
As you like
, then swam up to the ladder.

Up on deck, she was tempted to toss the helmet aside with an unceremonious clunk. How she kept ending up back in these awful diving suits, she wasn’t quite sure. Before this feeling of anarchy could take root, she spotted a stack of towels. She selected one and wiped the helmet clean of water instead, then started to wind her air hose neatly back around its reel.

A private jogged up. “I can handle that, ma’am.”

“I’m glad you had that knife,” the lieutenant told Sicarius as the men removed their own gear. “What’s it made of?”

“An unknown material.”

“Unknown?” The officer’s brow furrowed. “Who made it?”

Sicarius gave him a quelling stare.

“Don’t mind him,” Amaranthe said, adjusting the hose on the reel—the private was letting it wind in crookedly. “It’s not at all uncommon for him to save your life and then utterly ignore you.”

“Oh.” The lieutenant lifted a hand and whispered to her behind it, “Technically, he’s not ignoring me. He’s glaring at me.”

“That too.”

“I hope the team going down in the harbor has something similar,” the lieutenant said. “Those vines were definitely... grabby. My diving knife barely made a dent.”

Amaranthe had been in the process of removing her boots, but she froze at his words. “The other team.”

Sespian, Maldynado, and Basilard had gone with Mahliki that morning to get root samples. Sicarius met her eyes, his face unreadable, but he had to be thinking the same thing. If the vines had been difficult to deal with here, they would be a nightmare in their originating location. And the other team didn’t have a special knife.

“Lieutenant,” Amaranthe said, hose reels forgotten, “if you could urge your men to get that boat off the bottom as quickly as possible, I’d appreciate it. I’m going to talk to the captain.”

Sicarius was on her heels as she jogged up the steps.

• • • • •

Sespian buckled the weights onto the belt of his already-heavy canvas diving suit and tried not to think claustrophobic thoughts as he eyed the brass helmet waiting for him. Hyperventilating at the bottom of the lake wouldn’t be good. Hyperventilating on the deck of the ship wouldn’t be good, either, not with all these burly marines strutting around, making preparations for his team. Mahliki’s team, he reminded himself. He wasn’t an emperor any more, and he certainly wasn’t in charge of this mission. He wasn’t even sure how he had gotten himself invited along. The construction workers were breaking ground over on the build site.
His
build site. He ought to be there, watching with a critical eye as the foundation was poured for the president’s new residence.

Next to him, Mahliki didn’t appear at all intimidated by the prospect of this mission as she tugged on the oversized boots.

“Have you done this before?” he asked.

“Gone out in diving suits? Oh, yes. I grew up in a submarine and for a time thought I would specialize in marine biology. I even took some classes on marine pharmacology when I was home last planting season. It’s fascinating, and being down in the ocean, it’s amazing.”

In other words, she wasn’t nervous at all. Sicarius wouldn’t be, either. Sespian wondered why he hadn’t inherited some of his father’s fearlessness. Probably because he had spent most of his life indoors. If he were more experienced with adventuring, he might feel less daunted. After all, Maldynado and Basilard were tossing jokes and reminiscing as they donned their gear.

“I do admit to being the teensiest bit nervous about this setup though.” Mahliki lifted one of the tubes attached to her suit. “Everything is self-contained on our suits back home. There’s a tank and a device that provides air, and you simply wear them on your back when you go down.”

“A... magical device?” Sespian wasn’t an expert on diving technology, but he didn’t think they could make self-contained units in Turgonia yet.

“Essentially. I’m not all that comfortable having to depend on strangers, but that’s what we’ll be doing with this surface-supplied air.” Mahliki shrugged and released the tube. “At least we’re not going that deep. The fellow who put out the anchor said we’re at forty-five feet.”

“I’m sure the marines can be counted on to keep you safe. In fact, if it came between choosing who to save...” Sespian pointed at Mahliki, himself, then Basilard and Maldynado, “you would be their first choice. None of them would want to answer to your father.”