Starforge unsec space bo.., p.51
Starforge (UNSEC Space Book 3), page 51
“Depends on how close we are to the center. What’d the Liaison say about that?”
It took Sweets a second to realize the question had been directed at him, and he pulled his focus back from the sky. “Only that the center of the complex below the control center should have lesser currents. It didn’t say anything about how wide that area would be, though … Liaison?”
“You are nearing-approaching that location-attraction,” the AI’s warbling tones answered. “I can say with certainty-confidence that your warsuit-armor, Sweets-Candy-Infiltrator, is capable-ready for the current-force at your current-precise location.”
“Almost a pun,” Jake said. “But I’m guessing your suit is better underwater than ours, given who built it. Will ours handle it?”
“Probably,” Anna said. “But we aren’t spoiled for choice. Let’s get to the end and find out.”
The crashing of the waves cutting over the next panel became all the more evident as they neared the end of the current segment, and before long Anna was crouched at the edge, peering down into the water.
“Can’t see much,” she said with a shake of her head. “But it’s deep, and I don’t see anything that’d get in our way.” She rose and pointed at the next segment. “These panels are thick enough that the bottom of that thing is still submerged. Maybe we can use it to pull ourselves along the underside.”
“Does your grapple work underwater?” Jake asked, glancing in Sweets’ direction.
“I think so,” he answered.
“You are correct-accurate,” the Liaison clarified.
“So yes.”
Jake nodded. “If it can pull you, it might be able to pull all three of us. Worst case scenario, we dive in …” There was a pause as he took a breath. “And then you just tow us using the grapple while we hold onto your armor.”
“That could work.” Anna looked up at the control center, then back down at the waves. “If nothing else, we can do that.”
“So I should go in first,” Sweets noted. “Take point, or whatever.”
Anna appeared to consider it for a moment before nodding. “Yes, you should. Your suit is best suited for it. I’ll drop second once you’re situated, and Jake—”
She glanced in his direction, but he beat her to it, speaking before she could finish. “I’ll go last.” He was, Sweets noticed, clenching and unrolling his hands in slow fists. “And I’ll be okay,” he said, apparently noting that they’d noticed. There was a hint of stress to his voice, but his tone was level. “We’ve got thrusters. Just like piloting a sub.”
And certainly easier than walking a live quantum warhead across a seabed, Sweets thought, but left the comment internal. The last thing Jake probably wanted at the moment was to be reminded of that terrifying excursion across the bottom of North Shore.
Instead he just nodded. “We got this.” Anna motioned with one hand at the edge of the platform, waiting for him to take the lead.
Here we go. He stepped up to the edge, peered down at the water … and with a little hop, stepped off. Time to see what this armor can do in its element.
The surface rose up to meet him as he dropped … and then his feet sliced through a rising swell with only a hint of resistance. Current tugged at him as his body sank into the remarkably clear water.
Then his downward descent stopped, though he hadn’t done anything. A notification flashed from his hud, informing him that he was now neutrally buoyant. Handy.
It wasn’t doing anything to keep him from moving laterally however. Already the current was sweeping him away from the segments, and he shoved his hands back. Thrust seemed to come from every part of his suit, pushing against the current and easily countering the force of the waves.
“Sweets?” It was Anna. “You good?”
“I’m good,” he answered, twisting in the water and looking around. “Just getting my bearings. Current’s pretty strong, so be warned.”
“We can see you. It looks like you’re holding position.”
“Not sure how.” The water around him was shockingly clear. He shifted his weight as another wave of current rolled past and slid to one side accordingly. “Liaison?”
“The warsuit-armor is reading-analyzing small muscular-biometric changes and dissecting-analyzing them to respond-react to your needs-demands.”
“So like an advanced version of a skinsuit,” he said, focusing his gaze on the underside of the next platform and sliding through the water toward it.
“Correct-accurate.”
“Sweets? We good to jump?”
“One second.” His outstretched fingers brushed against the side of the next segment, meeting resistance and giving him an anchor of sorts. Stationary once more, he took a quick look around. The water was clear, almost vivid through his suit, though whether that was enhancement or just how it appeared naturally he wasn’t sure. Beneath him it dropped away for what had to be hundreds of feet, but it was far from empty. He could see other platforms like the ones they’d used to cross the channel arrayed further down, along with strange vertical hoops interspaced in patterns he couldn’t identify. Water shimmered and curved as it flowed through them. He could see other devices as well, strange and unknown in purpose. Alien signs and alerts flashed and shone, the text a mystery.
Wildlife flitted through the resort as well, oddly-shaped fish moving in schools through the currents. Plant-life stretched toward the sun, though only in what looked like designated locations, something he found puzzling until he spotted a small, curved drone flitting about doing what looked like maintenance and cleaning work.
Fourteen thousand years unoccupied, and it’s still clean and being maintained. Older than the oldest pyramids, and it looks like it was built a few years ago.
Still, there didn’t appear to be anything nearby that would bother Anna or Jake, and he looked upward once more. “You’re good, I think. Just be ready for the current.” A splash sounded before he’d finished speaking, Anna’s angular armor breaking through the surface in a pillar of bubbles. Some of them persisted, and he realized they were from her thrusters, her suit working hard to keep itself stationary.
“Whoa,” she said over the comms, even as she gave him a thumbs up, kicking slightly to keep her position in the water. “That’s a strong current. Cuidado, Jake.” A second later there was another splash as Jake sliced through a wave, spreading his arms and legs and firing his thrusters a moment later to halt his downward course.
“I’m good,” Jake said after a second. “The suit’s doing a good job. That is a strong current, though.” The stream of bubbles from his jets intensified as another wave swept past, pushing him back. “I don’t think I’ll need a tow, though.” Both he and Anna leveled out, “swimming” through the water with their arms at their sides and moving past Sweets’ position. Jake let out a whistle as he looked down. “Wow. Wish we could have seen what this place looked like when it was being used.”
Sweets nodded, laying his body horizontal and sliding through the water along with them. Unlike their own suits, which had clear thrusters firing from small ports in the plating, his own armor didn’t seem to have any visible means of propulsion, the water simply slipping around him like the scaled skin of the suit itself was pulling the water past. He could barely feel the eddies and tugs of the current as they moved down the shadow of the last segment, though Jake and Anna both were visibly being pushed by each one.
“Control, this is trio.” Anna was calling the EEV again.
“Control here. Status?”
“We’re wet and swimming. Should be on our way to the entrance shortly.”
“Solid copy. We’re ready here.”
“Any update on that signal?”
“Negative. Still noise.”
“Understood. Neres out.”
They were over halfway down the length of the panel now, passing above another set of rings. Sweets eyed the faint shimmer of the water around it, the way it seemed to bend in a matching ring. Some sort of accelerator funnel?
Part of him wanted to drop and find out. But there wasn’t time. And from the direction the shimmer appeared to be rippling in, it wasn’t a direction he wanted to go anyway.
“Well,” Jake said over the comms as Sweets looked back up. “Anyone want to bet on whether or not that’s our destination?”
Ahead of them the park changed, the “seafloor” rising up and curving to form what looked like a coliseum beneath the water, easily the size of a stadium. Save that the interior wall of the far side looked smooth. More of it came into view with each passing second, revealing that the smooth, circular walls stretched all the way down to the bottom of the channel, though here and there Sweets could see openings to the outside, flanked by more of the rings he’d noted, aligned with the curve and propelling the water to make—
“A whirlpool!” Jake said just as Sweets had worked it out. “It’s a giant whirlpool.”
“And right beneath the control center,” Anna said, slowing and stopping as they reached the end of the panel, the rim of the bowl just a few dozen feet below them. “So I’m guessing what we need to get up there is down … there?”
“Correct-accurate,” the Liaison confirmed, its warbling tones driving home the alien oddness of the tableau below them. “The controls-access to the lift-conveyance that will take-ferry you to the center lie-reside there.”
A flash lit Sweets’ hud, identifying what looked like a small plinth residing in a circular indentation at the very center of the bowl. “It’s in the middle,” he said.
“Why there?” Anna asked. “In a whirlpool?”
“Eye of the storm,” Jake answered. “No current there.”
Sweets nodded, bobbing in the current. “It’s probably similar to how water parks on Earth have restaurants and shops near the wave pools and tube floats. A nice, easy access point.” Anna turned her visor toward him, and he followed up. “You know, if you’re amphibious.”
“Just curious,” Jake said, turning his body in the water to look at Anna, “but have you ever been to a water park?”
“No.” Her reply was direct. “Amusement park yes, water park no. Putting that aside, either of you have ideas for how to get down there?”
Sweets peered down through the water, catching sight of spiraled imperfections moving outward from the bottom of the bowl toward the edges. Raised bars that looked a lot like handles.
Yes! “Simple,” he said, opening his palms and willing himself to drop, while trying to keep the grin from flavoring his words too much. “We go with the flow.”
The current caught his feet, pulling them to the side with a yank that immediately swept him away from Jake and Anna at high speed. He let out a whoop as he dropped into the bowl proper, one hand sliding over the smooth surface and keeping his whole body from pressing against it. He let out another yell, already a quarter of the way around the bowl from Jake and Anna and still picking up speed.
Earth never had anything like this! He twisted, letting his shoulders and heels slide against the bowl, his body sideways, and pointed back at Jake and Anna. “You coming?”
To his surprise Jake let go first, descending into the current just as Sweets reached the far side of the bowl. The speed of the flow swept Jake to the side, flipping him head over heels before his thrusters compensated and he leveled out amid a muffled—but not panicked—shout. Anna followed a moment later, diving headfirst and slipping into the flow with ease.
“Hold on,” Anna said as the three of them spiraled downward. “When did you go to a waterpark, Jake? And why?”
“The care facility took us every year,” Jake said, his voice only slightly strained. “I didn’t ride all the rides, but I try did a few.” Ahead of Sweets was one of the rings, and he guided himself through it, shouting with glee as it rocketed him forward in a burst of speed. Another was nearby, and he angled himself through it, diving headfirst deeper into the bowl as he picked up even more speed.
“Sweets’ reaction is more the normal reaction,” Jake added as they dropped. “Once this is all done, you should try one.”
Sweets passed a set of closed doors in the wall of the bowl, then another, more forming a ring around the outside of the whirlpool. Makes sense. If you want to go to other parts of the park, you could just let the current carry you to the right door. There was probably more to it, but it was a sound theory.
He was approaching the bottom now, and he adjusted his course, aiming for the rungs set into the floor of the bowl. The current wanted to pull him outward, and he reached, flexing his fingers again. A thin, rippling distortion seemed to appear in the water between his palm and the nearest rung, like an invisible line, and he grinned. Gravity grapple!
At a tug the grapple began to retract, reeling him in on a curving course. A few seconds later the rung was within his reach, and he wrapped his fingers around it, legs trailing behind him as the current fought to pull him back out. Now that he was stationary the current felt a lot stronger. Need to get further in.
He aimed one hand at the distant plinth, flexing his fingers, but the hud simply flashed a notification at him in alien text. “The target is too distant-remote,” the Liaison explained.
So the magic has limits. Fine. The center of the bowl was a few hundred feet away. He shifted his aim to the rung nearest to the center, watching as the same alert came up.
“The target—”
“I got it,” he said, cutting the AI off. “Working out what is.”
“Understood-comprehended.” A moment later an array of the nearest rings began to flash on his hud. “These are—”
Sweets latched onto the nearest one without hesitating, his other hand giving him a little boost as he pulled himself past the rung and up to the next. The current was a little less intense, but a glance at the next rung in line gave him an idea, and he flipped, shoving his feet under the rung to lock his body in place while he turned to look back at the outer edge of the bowl.
A moment later his eyes caught sight of a familiar blue spiraling down along the outside of the bowl. “Hey Jake, want to do something cool?”
“If it is anything that ends this quicker, please,” came the reply.
“Then hold out a hand. I’m going to grapple you.”
“Is that sa—you know what? Don’t care.” A hand extended out in Sweets’ direction. “Do it!”
And … grapple! A shimmering line linked the space between them, a sharp jerk making itself known against his arm as he “caught” Jake’s mass.
“Whoa,” Jake said as the tether began reeling him in. “All right, that feels weird. Like my hand is stuck to something in another gravity field.” Sweets angled his arm downward, adjusting Jake’s course, and in a few seconds Jake was close enough to the rearmost ring to grab it. Sweets let go, looking up and searching for the next set of armor.
“Anna?” he asked. “You up for it?”
“On the next pass,” came the reply, and he finally caught sight of her armor just as it slipped out of view to one side, still riding the current. “I’ll be low enough then.” He nodded, twisting to track her and readying his free hand. The trip around the rim of the bowl wasn’t long, and soon he was pulling her in, letting her go as she grabbed the rung Jake was still clinging to.
“How you doing?” she asked Jake as she floated next to him, both their legs out and clearly being sucked against by the current.
“I’m good,” Jake answered. “Let’s do this.” His visor tilted toward Sweets. “Lead the way, and thanks for the assist.”
Sweets nodded, then worked his feet out from under the rung, fixing his gaze on the next in line and pushing off toward it. The current caught him, but the rungs’ spiral pattern inward was bending in the same direction, so he let the current do some of the work, pushing him over just in time for his fingers to grab the next step on their inward course. A quick tug and a shove, and his course continued inward, Anna and Jake trailing behind him.
“Glad they had these,” Anna said as they moved inward. “The currents here are pretty fierce.”
“They were built-installed for the young-juvenile or aged-infirm,” the Liaison cut in.
“Ah,” Jake said. The currents around Sweets were lessening now, the eye of the whirlpool approaching. “So we just used the kiddie pool.”
Sweets gave the observation a faint smile as he pushed himself off one of the last rungs, grappling to the plinth at the very center and pulling himself in. No current tugged at his body as he reached it, the location the very center of the eye. He looked up, catching sight of the circle of light far above them that marked the surface and a faint shadow beyond it that had to be the control center. “Okay Liaison, now what?”
“Now I will guide-instruct your use of the control system.” The side of the post lit up by Sweets’ hand, displays appearing in the water covered in alien text. “I will identify-highlight the controls you need to utilize-interact with in order to reach-ascend to the control center.”
Jake let out a chuckle as he arrived at the plinth, in time with the first interaction highlighting on Sweets’ hud. “The AI can’t control the system directly, but it can tell a person what to do, even if they don’t know what they’re doing.”
“I don’t think its creators ever planned for a non-Sha’o to use it,” Anna replied as she floated up to the plinth. She stared as Sweets made several sweeping motions with his arms, moving icons around. “Those controls don’t look meant for arms like ours.”
“They were multi-limbed,” Sweets said as he tapped several controls in quick order. Beneath them the small depression around the plinth began to glow. “This good so far?”
“Correct-accurate.”
He tapped several more commands, the display flashed … And with no warning the three of them began rising through the water, plucked by some unknown force that seemed to pull at him from all directions. In seconds they reached the surface, but instead of crashing through it the water bulged around them, distending outward and cutting off behind as they lifted into the air, rising inside a perfect sphere of ocean.
