Dark Life: Rip Tide (17 page)

As I paused to look back at the upside-down skimmer, Gemma surfaced next to me. A cloud covered the moon, making us nearly invisible as we treaded water on the dark ocean.

“There.” I pointed at the sub that was now circling back. I’d only seen it once before, but would never forget it—the sickly green narwhal. “It’s Fife’s sub.”

“He didn’t come all this way for us,” Gemma said.

I watched the sub circle the capsized skimmer. Probably looking for the driver. “He’s here to sink Drift,” I guessed.

“Why? They’re close to death now.”

“He must have heard that the Seaguard is searching the gyre.”

The top hatch flipped open with a bang and a dark figure clambered onto the small circular deck amidships.

“Hide in the pod,” I whispered to Gemma, and then added, “I’ll be right behind you.” Though first I was going to find a way to disable Fife’s sub to keep him from sinking Drift.

She vanished without a splash.

Swimming closer, I eyed the spiraled point that looked as if it could drill through rock. At that moment, the moon appeared from behind the clouds and lit up the ocean.

The man on the deck spotted me in the waves just as I recognized him—Ratter. Of course, Fife would send his dog to do the dirty work.

His guffaws broke the silence. “Here to steal this salvage from me, too?” He put his booted foot on the circular railing and laid a harpoon gun across his thigh.

Drifting toward the skimmer, I saw Gemma inside the upside-down pod. Air was trapped inside, and she’d flipped back her helmet to give me a questioning look. “Don’t you mean from Fife?” I yelled just to keep him talking while I assessed his sub. How was I going to damage it?

“Mayor Fife is busy getting himself arrested,” Ratter said with a snort. “Broke down right off about selling stolen goods. Too bad he can’t tell that Seaguard captain ’bout Drift, no matter how much she makes him cry.”

“But Hadal said Fife was behind it.”

“The stupid surfs will do anything if they think the order is coming from Fife—on account he might hold back their rations or something.” Ratter smirked. “You think that showboat could come up with a
simple
way to make money? Not a chance.”

“Simple?”

“Selling townships for salvage.” Ratter waved at his sub with pride. “It’s worked out real well for me.”

Realization poured into me like molten metal. Killing hundreds of people at a time in order to lay claim to their township—no, that
wasn’t
Fife’s style. Cruel. Brutal. Senseless. It was pure Ratter. “Fife had to know what you were up to.”

“Not a clue,” Ratter bragged. “And he says I can’t act.”

Lack of oversight.
The notion was so bitter in my brain, I could taste it. That was Fife’s real crime—letting an evil thug do his dirty work unchecked. Fife could have found out easily enough that Ratter was issuing orders in his name—like the order to take Ma and Pa hostage. The memory of them being forced onto that very sub stabbed me with grief.

“Why did you have Hadal kidnap my parents?” I gripped the skimmer’s bumper to keep from sinking since my limbs had grown too heavy to push through the water.

“Fife told me to bust up the deal.” Ratter leaned back against the circular rail. “An’ I figured snatching two settlers would save me having to bust up future deals. Didn’t know it would bring the Seaguard down on Rip Tide.” His eyes narrowed as if I were to blame.

“What did you do with them?” As much as I dreaded the answer, I
had
to know. “My parents—where are they?”

“How ’bout I give it to you straight, Dark Life?”

In the split second it took him to raise his gun, I splashed onto my back. A whoosh of air blew over my face as the harpoon whizzed past—one inch from my nose.

Ratter cursed loudly, which was followed by the double click of another harpoon being loaded. I dove and swam under the skimmer. Surfacing next to Gemma inside the pod, I flipped my helmet over my head, let the water spill out, and sealed it.

“Ty, he’s coming!” She pointed past me at the green sub, which was now plowing backward. I could make out Ratter through the large viewport beneath the pointed drill.

“Dive!”

We dropped out of the pod and stroked deeper as fast as we could. I knew what was coming. Sure enough, the green sub switched to full speed ahead and rammed the front pod with its point, boring through the side.

The control panels in both pods were sealed—water wouldn’t hurt them. But if the sub put a hole in both pods, the skimmer would sink. As it was, water poured into the first pod. Its weight would drag the back half down soon enough.

Ratter must have figured the same thing, because his sub dropped away from the skimmer and sped into the depths.

I gestured toward the surface, and we broke through the waves together. As soon as she caught her breath
Gemma said, “We have to stop him. He’s going to sink Drift.”

“Yeah,” I said grimly. “But we have to save the skimmer first. Or we’ll have no way to radio for help.”

The front pod was nearly filled with water now and seconds from sinking. I entered the rear pod and flipped onto my back to study the upside-down control panel. As soon as I pressed the icon labeled 180, the back pod rolled over in the waves and sent me tumbling to the floor.

Gemma wiggled in while I righted myself and settled onto the pilot bench next to her. But before we could even exhale with relief, the weight of the flooded front pod dragged ours under. As the skimmer plummeted, we furiously searched for the button that would separate the two sections, finally flipping random switches until one of us smacked the right icon. With a hydraulic pop, the link between the pods snapped open. The front fell away, and we regained control over the rear.

We sped into the darkness, only to gasp simultaneously when the pod’s head beams suddenly revealed Ratter’s sub with its drill bit buried to the hilt in Drift. When the drill retracted, it left a gaping hole just above the township’s bumper.

Fear clawed at the back of my throat. As soon as Drift filled with water, it would sink despite the upwelling, and everyone aboard would either drown or freeze.

“We have to cut the anchor chains,” Gemma said, scanning the console. “Does this half of the skimmer have extendable clippers?”

“No.” I watched Ratter’s sub surge forward to drill yet another hole into the township. “It’s got nothing that will stop him or free Drift.”

“Then what can we do?” Panic sharpened her tone.

The only idea I had was a lousy one, but I’d try anything at this point. I climbed over the bench to the back port. “It’s too late for Drift. Even if we cut the anchor chains, the township has taken on too much water. It won’t float to the surface.”

“So where are you going?”

“To trick Ratter into cutting a chain on one of the hatches so those people can escape.”

“Escape to where? Ty, you don’t even know if they can swim.”

“Yeah, but trapped inside Drift with the ocean pouring in, they have no chance at all.” I sealed my helmet. “While I’m out there, take the pod topside. See if you can reach anyone with a boat.”

I didn’t wait for her response, just filled my lungs with Liquigen and pushed through the port. As soon as I slipped into the water, Gemma tilted the pod upward and sped out of view.

I couldn’t waste even one second on fear. I turned my crown lights on bright and swam down to Drift, fighting
against the upwelling to reach one of the hatches. Ratter had looped a chain from the door’s lever handle to a handgrip, where a padlock held the chain tight. A metal cutter would do the job—not that I had one. But with luck, Ratter wouldn’t be able to see that from the inside of his sub.

When the green sub circled Drift, I turned my back to it and made gestures, pretending to cut through the chain. At first I thought Ratter hadn’t seen me, but then the sub flew backward like a retreating squid. I held my position, knowing the chances of this working were slim. More likely I’d get ground into tuna burger.

The green sub gunned for me, flying through the water with its drill bit churning. I didn’t budge, even though every cell in my body was screaming,
“Move!”
I stayed in place until the last second, and then kicked up and out of the way.

The drill rammed the hatch, spewing metal as it dug in. I darted down, snatched the end of the chain, and tossed it onto the drill bit. Just as quickly, I got out of the way, swimming above the green sub for a good view of the action. As the spar rotated, the chain wound around the shaft until the links got caught in the base. The resulting clanks should have been enough of a warning, but Ratter was either oblivious or, more likely, too stubborn to pay attention to the drill’s ugly stutter.

Revving the sub’s engine, he tried to drive the spar in farther. But he only ground the chain deeper into the
drill’s base until the links shattered and the chain fell away from the hatch.

I cheered silently, only to stop short when the drill gave out a metallic screech that fried my nerve endings. I peered down to see that the drill had stopped dead—its bit buried to the hilt in the hatch door.
Serves him right,
I thought,
since he bought the lethal contraption with blood money.

Leaving Ratter grinding his gears, I swam around Drift and alighted on the bumper. Surfs crowded the window in front of me, gesturing desperately. In the glare from my crown lights, they looked blue lipped and colorless, bundled in blankets and wearing life vests. The boy on Nomad, frozen and silent, flashed through my mind.

I’d gotten a hatch unchained, but these people were already half frozen. How could they possibly muster the energy to swim to the surface? And that was assuming that they had Liquigen.

A dark-haired girl, not much older than me, moved to the front of the crowd. Even though she looked nothing like Hadal, the way the adults let her pass made me think she had to be his daughter. When she gestured to the floor, and I saw that the seawater had climbed past their knees, my guts twisted into a hard knot. If the township took on much more, it would drop like a rock into the depths. We were out of time.

Frantic, I pointed at the tube in the base of my helmet and then tapped my chest to indicate my lungs. She nodded and spoke to someone behind her. He passed her a Liquigen pack, which she held up. I gestured at the crowd around her to ask if there was enough for all. Again she nodded.

Suddenly the bumper tilted and the people inside tumbled past the window. Panic hummed in my ears as I swam downward, peering into each window, trying to find them again. They had to evacuate now. If Drift sank to the seafloor, even with Liquigen in their lungs they couldn’t swim to the surface without diveskins to keep them warm. No one could.

Then I saw that it wasn’t the climbing water that had caused Drift to roll to its side, but the added weight of Ratter’s sub, which now hung off the township, bucking with his efforts to free the drill. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to burn out the sub’s engine. But Ratter was the least of my concerns. As I studied the situation, my doubts split off, multiplying like amoebas. Evacuating an entire township past a banging hatch with a lethally sharp drill bit poking through would be dangerous in the extreme. But at least the hatch was ideally situated—at the bottom of the township. There was no time to waste.

Catching hold of the now-vertical bumper, I climbed hand over hand until I faced the lowest window, where
the girl waited for me. I pointed downward and mimed opening the door to the air lock, but none of the people inside understood what I was trying to say.

The girl turned and shouted at someone behind her. She held up a finger, telling me to wait. Did one of the surfs aboard know sign language? It was almost too much to hope for.

The group parted, allowing someone through…. Someone in a diveskin.

Pa!

I slammed against the viewport, forgetting for a second that it separated us. Pa shouted something over his shoulder, and the surfs backed away, letting Ma through. Like me, she threw herself at the window, and then settled for pressing her hands to it.

Despite their smiles, I realized that my parents were as blue lipped as the surfs and my joy at seeing them suddenly faltered. The situation was as dire as before. No, it was worse. The water inside Drift was higher than ever. We didn’t have time for a reunion now, not if we wanted to have an actual one on the ocean’s surface.

Signing to them rapid-fire, I warned them about Ratter’s bucking sub, the drill bit, and the slamming hatch. Ma translated aloud for the surfs.

Pa decided that taking the hinges off the hatch from inside the air lock was the best option. Once Ma explained
the plan to the girl, she had the others find him the tools he’d need.

“Ty,” I heard Gemma say through my helmet’s speaker. “Can you use this?”

Kicking away from Drift I shot my sonar into the dark water around me, searching for the pod. Before I could find it, I sensed something massive descending on me, twisting in the upwelling current. An old fishing net. I stroked out of the way, not wanting to get tangled up.

“I attached the top of the net to the skimmer,” Gemma said through my helmet. “If any of the surfs can’t swim, maybe they can use the net to climb up. Or, if they hang on, I could pull them to the surface.”

Brilliant. I swam past the long net until I was caught in the skimmer’s head beams. I shot her a quick thumbs-up and dove for Drift once more. Catching hold of the bottom, I dragged the net alongside the window to show the people inside. The girl made climbing gestures. When I nodded, she smiled faintly—as if I’d just given her a smidge of hope.

I swam down to where Ratter’s sub hung beneath Drift. Just as I realized that the sub was suspiciously still, a harpoon tore through the water and missed me by a hair. I darted up again to take cover behind Drift. I scuttled farther along the rim, then peered over to see Ratter in an ill-fitting diveskin hovering outside the hatch, harpoon
gun in hand, waiting for the surfs to show. A tether line attached him to his sub.