Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod Part 7
Eye of the Revolution
Chains of a Demigod
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8
Part 9 (coming soon)
Parts 1-6 Synopsis (3 minute read):
Nyl rises emergent in a primal, ever-shifting world ruled by unseen forces that punish weakness with fire and death. Driven by raw aggression, she navigates brutal "scenarios," guided by a cold, metallic voice that praises her victories - first as "the Impetuous," then "the Ardent," - while urging her to claim an elusive title: "Basilissa." Each trial thrusts her into new eras of advancing weaponry, her mind a magnet for alien knowledge which fuels superhuman feats. From slaying chieftains with flint-tipped arrows to scaling towers in bronze armor, Nyl’s prowess grows - but so do the stakes, with the voice citing ominous and shifting odds of survival.
Nyl’s identity matures from primitive killer to intelligent comrade and she bonds with Garuna the Quick and Arcade the Steady; fully conscious warriors amid half-aware "others." Their alliance solidifies in Part 2 when together they slay a dragon. But the sun lingers, defying the usual cycle. Garuna, mortally wounded, is tended by a boy claiming to be her son. A king offers vassalage to Nyl and Arcade but not Garuna. Torn between loyalty and glory, Nyl swears fealty, followed by a reluctant Arcade, abandoning their dying friend.
Nyl’s glimpses of metallic flesh and her jealousy over Arcade’s dalliance with maids spark jealousy and existential doubt, intensified in Part 3 at the king’s feast. Arcade’s tribute to Garuna and a princess’s favor ignite Nyl’s rage, culminating in a wine-soaked outburst. Fleeing to a tower, she learns from Arcade that only one may survive the trial. His confession of love and his offer to sacrifice his life leads to a kiss, triggering the sun’s descent and their separation.
Part 4 sees Nyl imprisoned in a city ruled by a dead Garuna, now crowned a corpse-queen. Her son Garun, grown and golden, executes prisoners who echo Nyl and Arcade’s flaws. Nyl’s defiance and Arcade’s refusal to renounce his affection enrage Garun, who grows to giant stature. Nyl’s fury unleashes her own transformation into a silver dragon, killing Garun. Garuna’s magic births twin granddaughters from her son’s corpse, Luna and Runa, who thwart Nyl’s attempted rescue of a shackled Arcade. Wounded, Nyl takes flight then crashes at a neighboring city, bloodied and human again.
In Part 5, Nyl awakens healed in Arcadia, a city of warriors ruled by a red-eyed, flamboyant version of Arcade - "the Unstoppable" - who claims to have fought a hundred battles to reunite with her. A whirlwind of events – red-eyed Arcade’s manipulative marriage proposal and Garuna’s attacking army, led by a blue-eyed Arcade, sow indecision and doubt Nyl. War horns blow and armies clash - seeking answers, Nyl charges through the clangor to free the blue-eyed version of Arcade. But her sword shatters against his chains as Luna and Runa close in.
Part 6 reveals the twins’ supernatural prowess, who fatally wound Nyl. Chained beside Garun’s corpse, Nyl witnesses the two Arcades duel - red-eyed fury against blue-eyed stoicism, each a fractured half of her beloved. Nyl sacrifices her dragon power to extend her life. Heartbroken by the Arcades striving to kill each other, Nyl confesses her guilt for abandoning Garuna. The corpse-queen in turn forgives Arcade, and both Arcades surrender their flaws: Red his obsession, Blue his guilt. Under pressure, Garuna then relinquishes her thirst for vengeance, destroying her throne and reincarnating as her old self. Reunited and whole, Nyl, Arcade, and Garuna share a fleeting moment of peace before the trial ends and the sun flees again.
The voice returns, naming Nyl "chosen" and delivering a cryptic revelation: Garuna is the beacon, Arcade the link, and Nyl the motive force, and that together the three companions may forge the mysterious "Basilissa." This time the sun fails to rise – instead, Nyl awakens in a metal tube, her skin covered in frost and greeted by a scientist who knows her name.
Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod Part 7
Nyl sat up from the cryotube, curling her arms over her breasts – more from cold than shyness – and regarded the scientist’s wizened, smirking face.
“Wh-wh-who-” she attempted to speak through chattering teeth, flinching involuntarily as ice melt trickled over her skin.
The old man, riding a rolling stool, pushed away. He swerved by a table bolted to the wall and retrieved a folded, blue blanket. He whirled about and pushed his way back, allowing air to unfurl the blanket’s folds. Like a valet with a cape, he dressed Nyl’s shoulders in its warmth.
“The name is Doctor Hanno. But you can just call me Hanno. Welcome back, Nyl.”
The old man sounded far younger than his aged face would indicate. “Th-thank y-you,” Nyl managed, hugging the heavy blanket close.
Hanno nodded curtly and smiled. “How soon can you be ready?”
“R-ready for w-what?” Nyl said through clacking teeth.
“Combat, of course,” he explained, nonchalant. “What you were made for.”
A loud metal bang startled her.
Nyl said: “W-what was that?”
“They seek to breach the door.”
“Th-they?”
Hanno shrugged. “Pirates? May as well call them pirates.”
Nyl furrowed her brow and hugged her blanket even tighter.
Seeing her inaction, he expanded: “We ride upon a cargo freighter. In the ocean, near the coast. Our enemy is headquartered at a city not far inland – a place called New York.”
Sensation returned to Nyl’s legs. She swung her way out of the icy tube and stood. The scientist shifted his chair out of her way.
Another loud bang.
“W-why am I h-here?” Nyl demanded.
“The United States of the Periphery told me you are among the best,” Hanno said, hand raising in indication towards the loud sounds. “Now would be the time to prove it.”
Another bang – this one accompanied by a shriek of bending metal.
Nyl looked to the sound’s source – a sturdy door atop a gantry stairway. The top of the door had bent. Angry, shouting voices poured through the narrow breach.
“Not long before they get inside,” Hanno opined. “Would you mind killing them? Sooner, rather than later.”
“Kill them with what?” Nyl asked rhetorically, forgetting the cold as the promise of combat burned her gut with adrenaline.
“I have no…” Hanno paused, reconsidered his answer, then reached into his white coat’s breast pocket. “Will this help?”
He held out a capped scalpel with a shrug.
Nyl threw off the blanket and took it. “At least one will die,” she promised.
“I will hide for now.”
Nyl scowled at his cowardice. In the past she might have killed this weakling on the spot. But he had freed her from an icy prison, warned her of approaching killers, and given her a weapon – however small. Nyl had matured enough to know violence did not answer all problems - just most of them.
“Wait, take this,” Hanno said, removing his hair tie, which caused his head to explode in a puff of thready gray.
Nyl reared her head back in momentary alarm at his transformation, then took this gift as well. She felt nearly as thankful for the tiny polyester hoop as she was for the weapon. An efficient wrapping and her unkempt hair and its lashing icy tendrils no longer sought to blind or distract her.
Nyl charged up the stairs, scalpel in her teeth. At the upper landing she leapt and gripped a light fixture above the door with her knees and calves. Hanging upside down over the door, she bit off the scalpel’s cap, spat it out, and steadied herself, implement in hand, body curled up, still as a bat.
She heard movement, men grunting and charging with a heavy object in their arms. Their heavy steps vibrated the gantry, then they rammed the door - this time it gave. The barrier smashed aside, the attackers dropped their improvised ram with a clatter.
Nyl closed her eyes and inhaled deep. She waited for the first man to pass below.
A pirate entered, taking one step in and down the stairway, searching the seemingly empty room with the point of his gun.
The second man followed cautiously. This is when Nyl uncoiled her arms and torso, scalpel flashing from her fist.
The second man would never learn how he died. He dropped his gun and grabbed in vain at the thin hole in his eye where fifteen centimeters of scalpel lay buried in his brain.
The first man turned and raised his weapon – a submachine gun, Nyl knew quickly, absorbing knowledge of its operation with esoteric sight. She released her knee’s grip on the overhang, curled in the air, and dropped her thighs over his neck.
The first man recognized his danger, thought to shoot, tracking the air where Nyl had passed. Nyl had his head between her legs and the stock of his gun in her grip before his finger depressed the trigger. She guided his gun to the narrow gaps between the wall and the still-standing second man, riddling pirates three and four with half a magazine of 9-millimeter bullets.
Nyl still jockeyed the point man’s shoulders. He swayed under her weight and the gun’s recoil. She rode him down, kicking her feet transverse to the plane of her flexing thighs, twisting his chest opposite his head and snapping his neck. She ripped the submachine gun from his nerveless hands and rode his shoulders to the floor. She landed on one knee with the stolen gun’s stock planted on her shoulder, then emptied its magazine into pirates five and six.
Six men down in three seconds. Two surviving pirates fled, shooting, their bullets tearing holes into the three still-standing corpses between them and Nyl. Nyl dropped her empty gun and went flat as over-penetrating rounds flew overhead. The dead men around her finally slumped to the floor, but not before she watched the living pirates retreat in opposite directions at the end of the corridor.
Nyl sprung to her feet and chased the terrified and shouting men, hands swiping up fallen weapons – a machine pistol and a long rifle. She hopped over the fallen, dying men seconds from bleeding out, their faces paralyzed rictuses of pain and shock. Past them, she jumped into the adjoining corridor, curled into a small, cartwheeling, aerial ball sporting two guns.
Automatic fire ricocheted from the ceiling and walls around her. Two bullets zipped close enough to tug away clods of Nyl’s trailing hair. The shooters wounded each other in the crossfire. For good measure, Nyl put a burst of pistol fire into the pirate’s chest to her left and a single rifle round into the pirate’s brain to her right.
She uncurled and landed. She slipped, her bare heels ice cold and slick with blood. She rolled into her fall, dropping the pistol and bringing the rifle up across her belly, ready for more battle, the next challenger.
None came. She stood and backed against a corner, leaned, checking the corridors and listening. No sound came but the distant hum of diesel engines, the buzz of fluorescent lights, and the wheezing, final exhalations of dying men.
Nyl looted the bodies. She threw blood-soaked rigging over her chest and tightened its straps to her frame before stuffing its pockets with rifle magazines. She took a holster, pulled its polyester straps taut over her bare thigh, and retrieved a high caliber pistol for it.
She took a second look at the corpses. These pirates carried fine weapons and gear – mint condition and modern – but they did not seem to be professional warriors. Some were too skinny – others overweight. She did not know where such knowledge came from, but their dress suggested men of mixed professions. Some wore jeans and plaid shirts, others slacks and dress shirts. All wore non military footwear - running shoes, dress shoes, work boots. Other than the tactical rigging thrown over civilian clothes, and a few wearing the barest body armor, not a single one appeared as if they had risen from bed this morning expecting to engage in ocean piracy.
She felt suitably armed. Brow furrowed, she left them. She mounted the gantry rail and slid down to skip the stairs.
Hanno emerged from beneath a metal desk across the room.
“Savage!” he praised. Fervent eyes regarded Nyl’s bloodied feet and hands. “An angel of death! I had not believed a word of it – I am glad to be proven wrong!”
Nyl brought her stolen rifle up, fixing its iron sight unerringly on Han’s heart. “I have questions. Answer me with riddles and I will not hesitate to put a bullet through your heart.”
Hanno’s hands rose in surrender, though he did not seem as concerned as she thought he should be. “Before you ask, you should know there are many more pirates - and this ship is doomed. Our ‘true’ enemy cares not for its henchmen and takes no chances.”
Nyl shook her head, keeping the gun pointed at his sternum. “Give me a reason to care.”
“Please, Nyl. A cruise missile – or two, or more - certainly come to sink us. I have radioed for help from ashore and the enemy will have heard this. And the pirates will have sent a report of who we are as well. Our death may come in an hour or in minutes – there is no way to know.”
“I do not want your role-playing nonsense,” Nyl warned, advancing to prod Hanno’s chest with the gun’s muzzle. “Why am I here?”
“You and your brethren are soldiers without equal. And a rare breed of free humans-”
“Enough. What is the purpose of this stupid game?”
Hanno seemed confused. Genuine alarm now crept into his expression. “This… game? What do you mean?”
“I come minutes ago from lands of swords, knights, dragons, and undying queens. I have seen people transform into mythical beings or reincarnate from death. Though I have known nothing different, I am certain these things I saw should not be possible,” Nyl explained. “I have no childhood, no peacetime profession, no real identity I can call my own, and I find I desperately wish these things.”
She stabbed his chest with the gun again, eliciting a wince of pain from Hanno, then said: “You have one last chance before I pull this trigger. If you do not speak true, I will kill you.”
Hanno’s nonchalance melted away to terror. The reaction seemed genuine to Nyl.
“I do not know what to tell you. We are attacked by unwilling slaves to an artificial intelligence - a digital overlord that holds loved ones hostage to garner loyalty. There are many millions like these men – they have no choice but to do as they are told, and are never informed why they must do it. Please do not shoot me.”
Nyl snarled, furious, almost ready to pull the trigger. But a lingering tremble in Hanno’s hands and his earnest plea filled her with doubt.
Hanno cringed under the gun, sweat trickling down his brow.
Nyl sighed, dropped her aim, and said: “Made-up nonsense. Another threadbare excuse to surround me with senseless battle. I tire of it.”
Hanno looked relieved. “Thank you. This is reality, Nyl. I know nothing of the strange strange reality you speak. Here, if we die, we stay dead. I can honestly say I have never seen anyone return from the dead.”
He shrugged and smiled nervously. “Not more than metaphorically, at least.”
“I have not yet decided what to do with you,” Nyl said. “I may still end your life.”
“I will be on my best behavior, then,” Hanno promised. “I will be happy to tell you more of what I know of your origin, and I do enjoy existentialist philosophical debate. But may we address more immediate concerns?”
“Do you have an escape plan?”
“No real plan. There are lifeboats on the deck, swift and rugged. We should get far from here, and fast.”
“Then we go,” Nyl said. “Lead the way.”
Hanno led her up the gantry stairway. “Amazing,” he said on sight of the corpses. He took wide steps to avoid bloodying his shoes.
Nyl asked: “You will not arm yourself?”
“I suppose I should,” Hanno said.
Again, Nyl sensed an underwhelming lack of concern in Hanno. Fearing deception, she thought to threaten him again, but decided against it. His earlier fear of death seemed genuine enough – either that, or he had a phenomenal ability to switch on the drama.
Hanno searched the floor, clearly seeking a weapon spared the spill of blood. As there were none, he grimaced, kneeling in a crimson slick and tugging ineffectually at a dead man’s holstered pistol.
Nyl sighed with impatience. She walked over, held her rifle under her armpit, slapped his hand away, and yanked the pistol free in one assertive motion. She ejected the magazine then racked the gun’s slide – full and a clear chamber. She slammed the magazine back in, racked in a live round, then thrust the weapon into Han’s chest.
“Thank-”
“On with it,” Nyl said. She would have gotten spare magazines, but clearly that would prove useless on him. “Take care not to point it at your foot. And away from me, for that matter.”
“Understood,” Hanno said.
“How many more pirates are on board?” Nyl asked.
Hanno shrugged and opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a distant blurt of automatic fire.
“Dozens?” he guessed.
Nyl delayed them a moment longer to search the corpses again, finding a black-bladed knife. “I will take the lead. Pat my shoulders to turn us. Pat my head to go straight. We go silent, no talking.”
“Understood.”
Nyl gave him an irritated glare, putting her fingers to her lips.
Hanno closed his mouth and grimaced an apology.
Nyl bit her stolen blade, holding it in her teeth, shouldered the gun’s stock, and took point.
Hanno might seem a stranger to firearms, but he proved a proficient guide. He moved quietly enough, his steps measured and his lab coat a hushed rustle of cloth. His thin, old fingers felt scratchy and rough as he gave her perfunctory instructions where to go next.
Nyl scanned every shadow and corner. The pair made a curling path down narrow corridors and up many stairways. Quick movement over corrugated metal chafed her toes and heels raw, but Nyl ignored the pain. They ducked through bulkhead doors and down paths wreathed with pipes, many evidencing improvised repairs.
The further they traveled, the more Nyl noticed the age and extemporization of the vessel. All gantry stairways looked recently bolted on, placed in a way that rendered the ship an illogical maze, with older removed stairway holes plated over. Nyl recognized a defensive layout when she saw one.
Hanno grew winded as they surmounted their fifth flight of stairs. They saw no foes, but his loud panting became a concern by time they ascended a ninth stairway.
Nyl found a safe place to pause and made hand signals: distance, interrogative.
Hanno arched a brow in confusion.
An “unwhole” one, Nyl thought. A mere part of the scenario, a figurative person, a catalyst to move events. How else had Hanno gotten a placement this advanced while remaining so clueless? She could know things just by looking at them quicker than anyone else, but all people she knew to be “real” shared the trait of assimilating relevant knowledge.
Then again, what if he told the truth? What if she had finally been released into a real existence?
“How much further,” Nyl whispered for Hanno’s benefit.
“Not much,” he whispered back, out of breath. “One more flight of stairs.”
“Rest. Your panting will reveal us.”
Hanno shook his head. “No time. Go. I will be fine.”
Nyl curled her lip, but decided she would trust him, for, as usual – probably by design – she knew nothing of her situation. Given what she had seen in other trials it seemed unlikely a guide would prove her killer.
“Fine,” she whispered, then gestured that they reseal their lips.
They turned down another corridor and ascended another flight of stairs with a door at the top. The door featured a porthole window and Nyl peeked through. Seeing nothing, she quietly rotated the latch.
The door’s rusty mechanisms screeched. Nyl grimaced, certain they would be discovered. She raced through the opening, checked all angles with her gun, and jumped into the nearest cover – a space between a bollard and a gunwale – terminology that had not existed in Nyl’s mind until this moment. The cover would be poor but remained the best option. She kept her gun’s stock shouldered, ready for anything.
She listened close, energized, a small part of her brain distracted by an instant love of the salty sea breeze. She waited for a reaction, a raised voice, the pound of feet on the deck, the crack of gunfire. She saw nothing but roiling blue-white ocean and the sway of the ship, heard nothing but the thrum of an engine and a prow cutting the ocean.
“What are we waiting for?”
Hanno’s whisper surprised her – she had become so hyper-focused she had discounted his approach from her senses.
“Nothing,” she said through her teeth, biting her knife hard.
Hanno looked pained, restraining his breathing in an attempt to stay quiet. He pointed: “Lifeboat.”
Nyl saw it – an orange-painted, rigid inflatable boat swaying high over the side deck, secured by chains to paired davits.
“How I wish we were on my old ship, the Phoenix.” Hanno said. “She carried two enclosed lifeboats mounted on free-fall tracks.”
Nyl’s mind processed this alien information in the usual way, then found it irrelevant. She ignored him, already advancing and waving him to follow.
Hanno hushed and kept close.
The vessel – a container ship – must have measured over 300 meters long. Its hold seemed atypically bare for a vessel of its size, carrying a smattering of rusting containers – enough to turn the deck into a labyrinth, especially with half of them open.
Fortunately, the lifeboat they sought hung less than 50 meters away now…
Nyl saw a shadow move across the deck. She skidded to a halt.
Hanno, focused on stealth and the ground, nearly bumped into her.
Nyl grabbed him by his collar and hauled him behind a container just as she saw feet rounding the corner ahead.
Both froze and held their breath.
“They are in our way,” Hanno breathed.
Nyl silenced him with a furious glare, then cupped her ear.
One of the pirates spoke excitedly, his words indiscernible from this distance. He sounded upset.
Nyl spat her blade into her palm, readying it for silent killing. She leaned close to Hanno, lips in his ear: “They communicate somehow. We are discovered.”
Hanno whispered back: “No. He speaks to his slaver on a cell. Our time runs short.”
Nyl’s mind worked, reaching far and wide into that abstract font of information. She felt slower to pull context this time – each scenario proved more complex than the last, this world’s library of knowledge great enough to fill all the towers of a castle. Weapons and technique felt metaphorically within easy reach, while concepts like telecommunications seemed harder to find.
Mobile cellular phone, Nyl finally deduced. A lightspeed discussion via tower and satellite, words likely pertaining to the incoming Long Range Anti-Ship Missile – or “cruise missile” as Hanno called it.
Nyl felt briefly overwhelmed – thoughts of the many variants of missile there might be, the plethora of warheads and guidance systems they might employ, the numerous and currently unobtainable methods to evade or destroy them or foil their aim. Her mind went hot, locked to a kaleidoscope of information - a multitude of weapon platforms that could launch such an attack, some airborne, some seaborne, some land based. Some none of those - mighty siege machines which lurked and assaulted from beneath the waves, or metal castles built underground - bunkers, invisible subterranean citadels host to weapons that mimicked the death of stars. A tsunami of modern weapons technology flooded her brain, more innovations for killing discovered in a few decades than had come to fruition the previous millennia.
“What is wrong,” Hanno asked with a worried tug on her arm.
Nyl blinked back to the present, shook her head, a sudden headache. “This era… wit and strength seem meaningless. Death comes for us all - a hundred-thousand paths to the grave for the weak and mighty alike.”
Hanno’s eyes narrowed with concern.
“You do well so far?” he offered. “We survive… for the moment.”
He quieted as the pirate’s voices came closer:
“…stood… I will… men behind… do I tell them?”
Hanno’s hand tightened on Nyl.
Nyl blinked hard again. Focus! She handed her rifle to Hanno then drew her pistol. She reversed her grip on the black-bladed knife and readied her stance.
The man on the phone came into view first. He turned his head away from them and opened his mouth to shout: “Everybody, we’re about-”
Nyl lashed out, her body a blur.
The man stumbled forward one step, eyes wide and uncomprehending, his phone slipping from his fingers. He stared at the cut on his arm, seemingly oblivious to the curtain of blood spilling from his neck.
Nyl sped past the stupefied dying man. The second pirate’s chest swelled for a yell and he raised his weapon. No shout or gunfire emerged, Nyl’s arcing knife lodging to the hilt in his skull. He collapsed in a heap, his large lungful released instead as a tight-jawed sigh.
Nyl made eye contact with two pirates several dozen yards down the side deck, their attention drawn to phone-man’s interrupted shout.
“Hell,” Nyl muttered, cursing her luck. She jumped behind the nearest shipping container, her heels chased by plinking automatic fire.
“Nyl!” Hanno shouted, alarmed they had become separated.
“Stay where you are!” she yelled back.
Nyl leaned out, took aim, and fired twice. With only a pistol and no optic, even she found aiming difficult, the enemy more than fifty meters away. Despite having each target perfectly under the sights, her first bullet missed, and her second winged a man in the thigh. The stricken pirate yelled out a curse but held his position.
She pulled back into cover, return fire sparking off the container’s edge. One of the dozen bullets coming her way penetrated the container’s sheet metal – a near miss that left a hole in the corner between her feet, proving her position untenable.
Worse, a second quick look revealed that two shooters had become three. The new arrival brought a belt-fed light machinegun - he laid down behind his gun in preparation to lock down the side deck.
Nyl backed away from the edge, more holes punching through her cover. She shouted between bursts: “Hanno! Throw me the rifle!”
“Where are you?”
“Listen for my voice and throw!”
She heard Hanno grunt. Nyl saw the rifle spin in the air, trailing its strap. It fell short, clattering and sliding to a stop atop the container separating them.
“You fumbling dope!”
“Sorry!”
The rate of fire increased, perhaps four or five shooters throwing steel-jacketed lead down the side deck. Nyl shied further away as the bullets punched another dozen holes in the container wall. More attackers likely moved to flank them by now.
“Hanno, listen carefully!” Nyl shouted over the racket.
“Yes!”
“On three. Run across and behind the bollard!”
“But-”
“No questions. Do as I say or die here! On three! One! Two-”
A particularly loud burst of several guns all firing at once overwhelmed Nyl’s voice.
“Go!” she shouted at a quieter point, uncertain if Hanno would go or not.
She holstered the pistol, squatted, then leapt. Midair, she sensed a change in the direction of gunfire, bullets chasing Hanno across the side deck.
Braver than I thought.
Nyl grabbed the top edge of a container and swung herself up. She did her best to minimize her profile even as she swept up the rifle and rolled into a shooting position.
Hanno distracted most of the pirates with his run. But one of the smarter thugs had been suspicious, keeping his sights fixed on the mysterious appearance of the gun atop the container.
Luckily for Nyl, his aim proved poor. Bullets ripped the air around her, then Nyl fired, and blood fountained from smart thug’s neck wound.
Nyl pivoted, slaying the prone machine-gunner next with a bullet through his brain, then did likewise to second of the original two shooters. Two other recent arrivals shouted in alarm, turning their weapons on her, each dying to Nyl’s successive headshots.
“Get to the lifeboat!” Nyl shouted once all in view lay dead. She likewise sprung to her feet.
15 pirates down, Nyl thought as she checked angles, searching for more foes. Just how many are there?
Hanno jogged down the side deck, too tired to sprint, arms and lab coat flapping like a kite in the sea breeze. Nyl’s quicker run gained on him.
She heard a curious sound – a whooshing buzz, something between wind and thunder. Thinking it might be an approaching vessel, she looked out to sea, saw nothing but three smaller boats tied to the freighter with ladders and cranes.
“What is that sound?” Nyl shouted as she caught up to Hanno.
“What is what?” Hanno reached the lifeboat first and started to fiddle with levers on the davits.
Nyl shielded her eyes from the bright clouds and looked out to sea again. She spotted a distant metallic glint within a small yellow orb of… fire?
“We are out of time!” Nyl yelled, an edge of panic entering her voice.
Hanno looked up, followed Nyl’s gaze, did not see what she saw. “What do you mean?”
Nyl heard the thud of boots on the deck. She turned and saw a man emerge around a corner. She shot him through the chest, the man spinning leadenly to the ground. The pirate following the first skidded to a halt, but too late – Nyl fired again, kneecapping him as his leg came into view. Nyl sprinted closer and finished him off with a shot to the head.
“Grab the life jackets and jump!” Nyl shouted as she ran back.
Hanno had got the davits ready, the cranes arcing to drop the lifeboat over the gunwale at deck-level with a doubled thud.
“I almost have it ready!” Hanno said.
Nyl checked the horizon again, the closing speck growing exponentially. She dropped the rifle, said “Sorry,” grabbed Hanno by his elbow and collar, and tossed him overboard, straight into the sea.
Nyl jumped over the side of the ship and into the lifeboat, searching without knowing what she sought. She identified the precious blocky vests – undoubtedly life jackets - and tossed half a dozen of them overboard. She pulled uselessly at cabinet handles, thinking to loot some supplies. But the sinister whooshing grew louder, emanating a growling buzz now, and she knew time had run out.
She leapt overboard. Sailing through the air, she spotted a gasping Hanno a few dozen of meters away already, the man struggling to stay afloat over the ship’s rugged wake. She angled her dive at him.
Nyl hit the water like a spear, her perfect dive doing little to protect her from the pain and tear of the high-speed impact. She nearly lost her wits to the shocking cold – but she tensed and dolphin kicked the first several meters towards Hanno. Despite all the running and fighting, Nyl still felt a chill in her bones from her awakening in the cryotube. Now sea water’s icy embrace seared her with additional aching cold.
She surfaced and broke into a freestyle swim, climbing up and down the freighter’s wake and rough ocean waves. The cold punished her - she might last four hours or as little as 15 minutes in such waters. She pushed the thought aside and focused on reaching Hanno.
“Breathe deep,” she said as she pulled up to him.
He coughed and gasped, not responding.
Nyl grabbing his wrist. She followed her own advice, gulping big, did not wait to see if he copied her, then dove. She kicked and pulled with all her strength to get them down - Hanno resisted at first, but to her relief, that ended after a kick or two, and they descended more smoothly as Hanno added his own power to their downward swim.
They made it 5 meters down when the surface lit up with brilliant light.
The compression wave hit them a fraction of a second after the flash. The air-to-water transition and their slight depth robbed it of most of its force, but it still hit them with the force of a depth charge. Air burst from Nyl’s jaw, her chest collapsed, and her eardrums popped, bubbling with air, water, and trickles of blood.
She contorted with pain but she retained her grip on Hanno. He fought to be free of her, but she held him tight, hugging him in place.
Another brilliant flash. A second cruise missile struck the ship, another compression wave. Weaker this time, further away, but still disorientating. The water roiled around them. Light and dark blurred to grey – Nyl no longer knew which way was up or down. Her lungs heaved, burning, desperate to replace the air squeezed from them. She fought the urge, picked a direction, and swam.
She battled vertigo, her burst eardrums ruining her balance. But she saw light through her greying vision - the sun, maybe a fire. She kicked harder, muscles weak and aching with oxygen depletion. Seconds longer and she would lose her battle with the urge to open her mouth and breathe deep…
She broke the surface. She inhaled with a scream, her mind blank, her eyes unseeing, body and soul consumed with the need to breathe. Her head angled back, opening up her throat, gasping water splashing past her lips and tickling her throat as her weakening kicks failed to keep her perfectly surfaced.
Still, she got precious, sweet air. Hot yet icy blood raced through her vitals again, fresh with freezing but breathable oxygen. Feeling returned to her limbs. Nyl kicked harder, coughing between gasps now.
The grey at the corners of her vision drained, color returning. She regained her senses enough to search for Hanno.
Hanno, she tried to shout.
She coughed again, spat a mouthful of seawater from her lungs.
She tried again: Hanno.
She realized she could not hear herself shouting – of course, the explosion had burst her eardrums. She shouted one more time, the deafness surreal and distracting. She splashed this way and that, searching. A depression in the waves, and she glimpsed him – floating on his back, face staring up at the sky – then the waves rose again, blocking him from view.
She swam over to him – a drained, lethargic swim, one full of pain and desperation. She reached him, but Hanno was unconscious – she lifted his head higher, felt his breath on her cheek. She searched the horizon, saw smoke and fire billowing from the sinking cargo ship, burning fuel spreading along its stricken hide. She saw debris in the water, tossed about by the roiling ocean, some of it colored a bright orange.
Nyl sunk into the water, kicked up, her shoulder nestled in Hanno’s armpit. She dragged him two dozen meters before realizing she would never make it close enough with him in tow.
She cursed his weakness. But he had been brave – perhaps he could have abandoned her, or perhaps he had no choice, who knew? Either way, he she had fought hard to keep him alive. She would not give up yet.
“Stay here,” she said uselessly, and let the sleeping Hanno float away, his nose barely above the waves.
She swam with all her strength, faster now, following the nearest cluster of bobbing detritus speckled with orange. She swam through pieces of destroyed lifeboat and other unrecognizable wreckage. She found a lifejacket, then two. Both looked damaged, but must be better than nothing, both constructed of cell foam that would retain some buoyancy even if punctured.
She would have searched for more, but the fuel-fire spread more rapidly by the minute, and Hanno might drown without her help. She reversed and kicked away. Exhausted and burdened by the lifejackets, she found a backstroke easier. It used different muscle groups and she reduced the lifejackets’ drag by hugging them to her chest.
She made it back to Hanno and performed the awkward feat of fitting a jacket to him while keeping the second one at hand. Only when he was secured did she check his vitals – breathing, still. She squirmed her way into her own jacket, the fabric uncomfortably raw on her bare nipples.
She felt and found a cord in a lifejacket and hooked it to Hanno’s. The roughness of the ocean worryingly splashed water over Hanno’s face, but Nyl had reached a point of exhaustion where she could no longer care.
She tilted her head back, staring mutely at the sky. If she had not been so tired, she knew she would be unnerved by her inability to hear anything more than the dull roar of the waves.
Her eyelids drooped, too heavy to lift. She drifted into a troubled sleep, her last thought hoping no sharks plied these waters…
-
“Nyl! Can you hear me!”
Arcade hauled his old companion up and onto the boat.
“Nyl! Wake up!” Arcade said, shaking her gently. “Are you hurt?”
The woman did not respond.
Arcade dragged Nyl away. Let the crewmen fetch the second survivor – Arcade had eyes only for Nyl.
“Get a thermal blanket!” he snapped angrily.
“Already coming!” Garuna said, tearing a fresh one from its zippered bag.
Arcade snatched it from Garuna’s hands, wrapped it around Nyl and himself, hugging her close.
“Nyl, can you hear me?”
Nyl’s eyes fluttered open. She stared up - Arcade’s blue eyes, the first thing she saw.
Arcade, her mouth silently mimicked the words.
“Shush, Nyl,” Arcade soothed. “I have you.”
“Sir! Apologies!” a gruff voice said.
“What is it?” Arcade said more calmly, recapturing his normal reserve upon seeing his love’s eyes open.
“You need to let go. We need to wrap her tight in that blanket. Take her under to get examined.”
Arcade ignored the man for a moment, hugging Nyl tight under the blanket, rocking her ice-cold flesh in his arms.
“Very well,” he finally relented.
Continued in part 8
