Dark World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 9), page 40
“How could we have missed that?” she asked.
Looking at her in surprise, I could tell right away she was a woman of substance. She sounded educated and possibly opinionated. It made sense, as she was Kim’s friend. That didn’t bode well for Jason.
“I don’t know,” I answered her, “but something has to be down there with its lights on. I don’t think it’s a natural lava vent.”
“No…” Gwen said. “Not lava. It would be orange and steaming if it was.”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Jason said, pulling off his shirt and handing it to Gwen.
“What are you doing?” she cried. “Hold on—you don’t have to go out there! What if it’s boiling hot or something?”
“If I feel heat, I’ll swim right back.”
He didn’t invite me on his little adventure. He didn’t even bother to look at me. His eyes were all over Gwen, and I knew he was putting on some kind of mating-dance display for her.
It was all instinctual, and I could tell it was working. She looked both worried and excited. She followed him a few steps until her feet were in the waves.
My eyes went to Kim. A man will do damned near anything to impress a girl, and I’m no exception, but my reading of Kim was less certain. She looked excited, but also upset. She’d crossed her arms. I guessed she was more of a worrier than a daredevil.
I took off my shirt and handed it to her, along with my cellphone. She looked at these items in surprise.
“You’re really going out there too, Leo?” she asked me seriously. “I didn’t figure you for a crazy.”
I shrugged. “Someone has to pull Jason’s ass out of there if a shark takes a bite out of him, or something.”
She didn’t argue. She didn’t say anything. She just watched me closely as I splashed out into the surf.
Jason was already swimming smoothly, arm-over-arm, passing the breakers. I trotted out, soon finding myself wading, then swimming—but I didn’t dive right in. Something told me not to.
As I got closer to the bright, foaming spot, what surprised me most was that the water wasn’t hot. Quite the opposite. It was cold. Abnormally cold for Hawaii, even at night.
“Hey! Jason!” I called out.
He waved back at me over his shoulder. Then he dived directly into the bubbling region.
That was the last I saw of him. About a minute passed while I watched the sea with growing concern. Jason could swim like a dolphin, but this was the open ocean.
Getting closer to where he’d vanished, I began treading water. The cold grew worse, and I almost felt like shivering.
The bubbles and the green light were still churning. But overhead, the nebula that had appeared so mysteriously was fading away, turning back into brilliant individual stars again.
“JASON!” I shouted.
Nothing came back. The ocean was empty.
It occurred to me then that Jason might never come back. I steeled myself for what I had to do. In the military, we’d all sworn not to leave a man behind. I felt that old urge to risk my ass overcoming my better judgment once again.
Behind me, on the shoreline, I saw and heard the girls. They were thigh-deep now, about fifty yards or so behind me. They were shouting something, but the wind was up, and the waves were crashing all around. Their words were mangled into high-pitched noises.
It didn’t matter. They were freaking out, that much was clear. They knew Jason had been under for too long.
After sucking in about seven deep breaths, I plunged into the icy water, heading down toward the source of that green-white light.
Usually the ocean at night is pitch-black, especially on a moonless night like this one. But I found I could see fairly well due to the gleaming rays coming up from the bottom.
It was bright down here—even brighter than it’d looked from the beach. I found myself squinting into a glare as I got closer.
There was an oval region about twenty feet down. Something was lying there on the bottom, bubbling furiously. The bubbles kept me from seeing the source of the activity.
The light reminded me of the brilliance produced by arc-welding. Could something metallic be burning? I knew from the Navy it was possible to weld underwater, but I could hardly think of a reason why something like that might be happening here.
Instead of going directly into the bubbles, I swam low and circled around. Maybe Jason had gotten himself fouled on something. If I could see him and drag him out…
Then I spotted him, and I knew right away he was in trouble. His limp body was being buffeted by the released gases, but it stayed stuck to the bottom. I swam hard toward him and grabbed onto his ankle.
He was cold. Ice-cold. His right hand was touching the base of the disturbance. He was touching the object that was emitting the bubbles. His hand had to be caught on something.
I could see the base of the object now, a black surface with holes that emitted bubbles and beams of bright light. I didn’t stare into it for long, sensing it might burn my retinas.
Grabbing onto Jason as firmly as I could, I dug my heels into the seabed and pulled under his arms. He didn’t budge. I ran my own hand down his trapped arm, and I was shocked to find that his arm was encased in a chunk of ice from the elbow down.
His entire right arm was crusted with it. The bubbling block had somehow frozen him to it, and I figured that if I touched it I’d be stuck down here too.
I didn’t know if Jason was alive or dead, but I still had some air left in me. I’d been a good diver all my life, and I could swim for three minutes underwater if I had to.
Bunching up my muscles, I clasped my hands around his chest and heaved. My feet slid on the sandy bottom, and I almost touched the thing that had him.
I wished for a knife. If I’d had one, I would have hacked the ice, or even his wrist—but I hadn’t brought any gear. I hadn’t planned on any of this.
There wasn’t time to swim back to the bar to get help. If Jason wasn’t dead already, he’d be a goner for sure by the time I got back down here.
My body was running out of oxygen, but I got an idea then. Instead of just tugging, I wrenched his body from side to side, trying to get a chunk of that ice to break off.
I’ve always been a strong, broad-shouldered man. It only took a few seconds. Suddenly, he was free in my hands, floating.
Lungs burning, my blood pounding in my veins, I kicked hard off the bottom. Desperate for air, I pulled Jason up to the surface.
I had him with my arm across his chest, swimming with a side-stroke. Gasping and wanting to throw up, I dragged him toward the beach.
The girls came toward us, splashing and shrieking. They helped me drag him to the shore. People from the bar came out carrying lights.
“I called 9-1-1 even before you dove down,” Gwen said. “I can’t believe you got him out of there. What happened?”
“His hand was frozen—stuck to some kind of object on the bottom.”
“Frozen?” she demanded. “How could that be?”
I didn’t have any answers. We reached the sand, and I let Jason down. I began working on him, pumping his chest, turning his head to let the water out. I blew air into his lungs but not much went in. I put my hand behind his neck to prop him up and open an airway—
That was about when Kim started screaming. I didn’t even look at her as I was too focused on getting Jason to breathe again.
“His hand…” she sobbed. “Where’s his hand?”
That got my attention. I looked to see what she was talking about.
Jason’s right hand was missing. It was a clean cut, as if it had been done by an axe.
But I knew what had happened. His hand had been frozen to that thing down there. When I’d broken him free, his wrist must have been brittle enough to snap.
What could be so damned cold?
END of REBEL FLEET EXCERPT
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More SF Books by B. V. Larson:
The Undying Mercenaries Series:
Steel World
Dust World
Tech World
Machine World
Death World
Home World
Rogue World
Blood World
Dark World
Rebel Fleet Series:
Rebel Fleet
Orion Fleet
Alpha Fleet
Star Force Series:
Swarm
Extinction
Rebellion
Conquest
Army of One (Novella)
Battle Station
Empire
Annihilation
Storm Assault
The Dead Sun
Outcast
Exile
Demon Star
Lost Colonies Trilogy:
Battle Cruiser
Dreadnought
Star Carrier
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B. V. Larson, Dark World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 9)
