Emperor's Edge Republic (77 page)

“Could have trusted Rias,” she muttered.

“What?” Dak asked.

“Nothing, I was just thinking we better find Rias. I hope he’s... still in a position that a cure will be of use.”

“So do I,” Dak said. “So do I.”

• • • • •

Mahliki sat in the main navigation seat, Major Rydoth standing behind her. It seemed strange being in charge with a trained officer thirty years her senior two feet away, but she had been working the controls of her father’s submarines since she was a little kid. Besides, given what was at stake, she would have gnawed off his hand if he tried to take control. He kept jogging back and forth between navigation and the engine room, so he didn’t seem so inclined, but he was up here now, chewing on his fingernails while he watched the men in diving suits drop into the water and swim away.

“The hatch is closed, the batteries and cable have been dropped, and we’re ready to descend,” he said.

Mahliki nodded and pushed the lever that released the air in the ballast tanks. “Electrifying the hull again, and following them down.”

“If trouble shows up, are there any weapons left we can use besides that drill? You gave Starcrest the dagger, didn’t you?”

Meaning the drill would be completely ineffective now. She knew it all too well.

“We’ve got a couple of weapons we can try.” Mahliki touched a panel to the side of her seat, though the idea of firing Father’s charged torpedoes while he was out there didn’t sit well with her. That much electricity could kill human beings as well as vegetation. “He was holding them in reserve, not wanting to warn the plant beforehand.”

“Warn the plant. That will never sound normal.”

“No, I suppose not.” Mahliki turned the rudder and added a bit of thrust to follow the divers. With their belts weighted, they sank rapidly.

Maldynado was the first to land, his body weight and the addition of the generator bringing him down more quickly than the others. Mahliki tensed as his boots hit the green carpet of vines smothering the lake floor. Nothing happened. For the moment. Good. The more moments they had to work with, the better.

Sespian and Father alighted, too, and all three of them strode across the bumpy green floor to the area where the gray battery boxes had landed. The plant hadn’t disturbed them yet, either. Mahliki had envisioned them swallowing the batteries as soon as they struck down, and had almost suggested the men carry them by hand, but they were too big and bulky for that.

Father wasted no time. He pointed for the other two to space the boxes while he knelt and affixed cable to the first. Seeing the canvas knee of his suit touching those vines made her shift uneasily. All too well she remembered the enzyme that could seep from the plant’s pores and eat through clothing.

A shadow stirred at the edge of the viewport.

“It’s going to attack them,” the major said.

“I see it.” Mahliki grabbed the control stick for the torpedoes, lining it up with her target, as she had seen her father do before. She jabbed the button before she could second-guess herself.

“Whoa,” the major blurted as the sleek black cylinder darted away.

Mahliki had seen them shoot out before. She was more concerned about her aim—and her father’s modifications. If all the torpedo did was disappear into the stalks, then that sleekness wouldn’t help them.

It clipped the vine she had been targeting, and she groaned. She needed a cutting tool or something she could sweep out with, or maybe—

The side of the vine blackened, and the rest of the flesh followed. It fell limply out of sight. The torpedo itself disappeared between two stalks at the front of the forest, but seconds later, a flash of white with blue streaks of energy erupted. The brilliant light dwarfed the illumination from the running lamp. More importantly, it burned the green off a swath of plants. Blackened stalks disintegrated into the water, clearing a stretch several meters wide.

Down below, Maldynado looked toward the sub and gave a gesture of approval. Father kept wiring the batteries, but Mahliki thought he gave her a helmet nod as well.

“How many of those do we have?” Rydoth asked.

“Not that many. We should save them. Next time, I’ll try to steer the sub over and intercept any vines with the electrified hull.”

“Like that one?”

“Erg, yes.” Mahliki took them forward and down, blocking this new vine’s attempt to veer toward the men. It thumped against the side of the sub. “Wish this thing had more windows. Major, want to keep an eye out at the science station? Let me know if anything comes in from that side.”

He gave her an indecipherable look—one that probably meant he wasn’t used to taking orders from a kid—a girl kid at that—but he did head back there.

Mahliki navigated around the clearing, using the craft’s electrified hull to keep back any vines that encroached, but some of the ones matting the lake floor were starting to shift about. A tendril drifted up behind Sespian, angling toward his boot. He was busy placing the last of the batteries and didn’t seem to notice it.

“Look out,” Mahliki said, though he couldn’t hear her. On impulse, she flicked the sub’s running lamp on and off.

All three men’s helmets tilted up. She wasn’t sure if they could see through the viewing port and into the cabin, but she pointed behind Sespian, nonetheless. Maldynado, placing batteries on the other side of the circle, saw the vine and pointed too.

Sespian spun a circle and spotted the tendril when its tip was inches from his leg. He swiped down with the dagger. Fortunately it was a thin vine, and it only took a couple of slashes to hack the end off. It drew back, its severed tip wavering at his eye level, and hovered there. More of the vines were standing up all around the clearing.

“Hurry up, Father...”

As if he heard her, Father bounced along the bottom more quickly than he could have walked, arms stroking to add speed. The wire reeled out behind him. He only needed to connect the last two batteries. And then... then they got to find out if this field would work to drive away the vines. If it didn’t swallow them first.

Mahliki tapped a finger on the torpedo controls. She didn’t want to fire anywhere close to her team, but it would be a way to quell the plant for a while. Maybe if she could convince the men to float up to the top, she could target the ground beneath them.

But Father hooked up the last battery, creating a ring around their work area. He waved to the others, then bent and hit whatever switch he had made for the boxes. Without waiting to see if anything happened, he moved on to the next. Sespian and Maldynado, on the opposite end of the circle, turned theirs on, though they had to stop to deal with more intruding vines. None had attacked Father yet, but Mahliki kept an eye on him—since he had given Sespian his dagger, he didn’t have a weapon capable of stopping the plant.

One reared out of the matting behind Father, more than one. Three vines veered toward him at the same time.

“He needs help,” the major called.

“I see it.” But she couldn’t launch a torpedo, not with Father right
there
. She nudged the
Explorer
forward, hoping to intercept the vines before they snaked around him.

Father flipped some final switch and bounded forward of his own accord. His helmet tilted up—he had noticed her coming—then twisted to peer over his shoulder. He saw the trouble. Good. He jerked a wave to Maldynado who was fiddling with a final battery on the far side. Sespian ran toward Father, his dagger out. Something rose up and tripped him though. Mahliki chomped on her lip. She wasn’t going to get there quickly enough.

Maldynado flung an arm up. The circuit was complete. Mahliki held her breath, expecting some grand explosion of light and electricity. But Father was waving to get everyone’s attention and pointing up. Maldynado fiddled with his weight belt, then rose from the lake bottom. Father rose as well.

By now the submarine had reached the far side, and Mahliki shifted it to block those three vines. Father had something in his hand. A controller? A fine wire attached it to one of the batteries. He was waiting for something. Oh, Sespian. His boots were still on the ground as he worked to pry free the vine that had grasped him. Maldynado swam down, waving the wand from the generator on his back. He stabbed the vine attacking Sespian and a blue streak of lightning shot out.

“Huh, it
does
work underwater,” Mahliki said.

Sespian patted Maldynado on the arm, and they rose from the bottom together. Father did something with the controller. Ah, there was the surge of energy. She didn’t see much, but the effect on the plant was immediate. Everything on the ground around the battery circle, and inside it as well, grew black and started to disintegrate. The affected area stretched out nearly fifty meters in every direction.

Father landed near the middle and pulled a big black box out of his own pack. Sespian and Maldynado touched down on either side, facing outward, ready to protect him. The ground was bare of the plant though, with small black debris drifting away on the current. At a wave from Father, Sespian knelt and started digging with the dagger. Would he be strong enough to cut into that film? Mahliki waited, not certain if she would be called over to help drill. While Sespian dug, Father set up his final weapon. She didn’t know what it was, another battery of a sort, but he had warned her he would have to attach it to some special connector on the submarine so it could utilize the engine’s power.

He stood and waved for her to come down. Mahliki let air out of the tanks to descend again, nudging the nose in Father’s direction. But too much air was pumped out of the tanks, and the craft lowered more quickly than expected. The steering grew sluggish and unresponsive as well. Instead of turning toward Father, the submarine picked up speed and traveled straight ahead, toward a rocky outcropping beyond the battery circle.

“What the— Major, can you check the ballast tanks? Is something going on back there?”

Even if it was, the steering shouldn’t be affected. It wouldn’t be controlled from back there. Mahliki scowled, trying to compensate for both problems. With her focus on the control panel, she didn’t notice the major coming up behind her until something moved at the edge of her vision. It moved
fast
.

She started to turn, but it slammed into the back of her head. The pain of a sledgehammer blow rang through her skull, and she pitched forward. She tried to catch herself before tumbling out of the seat, but her limbs reacted too slowly. Everything seemed to be happening slowly as she clunked to the deck and banged her head one final time.

Chapter 30

M
aldynado liked the plant zapper, as he had dubbed the generator with its long metal fork. He almost regretted when the gray boxes were activated, forming that field that destroyed all of the greenery around. More vines waved in the far distance—in the dark water, the visibility was poor, but the powerful submarine lamp helped illuminate the surroundings. He had an urge to trot over and zap a few more of them for fun, but Starcrest might yet need his help. Things looked to be under control—he had just waved the submarine down to help with some final task—but one never knew. Besides, Maldynado had a feeling he might get zapped himself if he tried to step over the battery line. If that electricity could shrivel a tree-sized plant into ashes, he didn’t want to know what it might do to a man’s love apples.

Sespian tapped him on the shoulder and pointed at the
Explorer
.

Odd, it wasn’t coming close, the way Starcrest had gestured for it to. It was dropping quickly and veering toward a large rock outcropping that had been revealed when the plants had been seared away.

“What’s Mahliki doing?” Maldynado wondered, though Sespian wouldn’t be able to hear him underwater. He could sign the question, but doubted he needed to. They must all be wondering the same thing.

Starcrest’s waves had grown larger and more urgent, but the submarine cruised past him without slowing. It was about to cross over the battery line. Maldynado didn’t quite know how that thing worked—would something swimming above it be as affected as something walking close to it?—but was sure the vessel disappearing into the lake depths,
or
smashing into those rocks couldn’t be a good thing.

Sespian jogged in that direction, and Maldynado bounded after him, pushing at the water with his hands to gain greater momentum. Starcrest dropped a copper cube he had been holding and halted Maldynado and Sespian with a raised hand before they could get near the circle. Right. Shriveled love apples.

The submarine crossed over the line, no more than a few feet above the ground, and great sparks and streaks of lightning flew from the dark hull. Maldynado didn’t know if it indicated damage—it sure looked impressive—or simply a meeting of two electrical fields, but he doubted it was good either way.

The craft’s running lamp flicked out. Darkness swallowed the lake bottom.

Maldynado hadn’t realized how much they were depending on that light to see what they were doing. A great crunch and scrape came from the rock outcropping. He stared, trying to pick out the submarine in the gloom. It was clear what had happened, but he couldn’t tell if the craft had been breached. Were Mahliki and the engineer in danger? There weren’t any more diving suits in the cabin. Of course, the surface ought to only be twenty or thirty feet up at this point in the harbor, so they could swim up before running out of air, but only if they were conscious and weren’t pinned by wreckage.

Maldynado’s thoughts took him forward again, but he halted, remembering the barrier. How were they supposed to get over there to help?

Sespian tapped him again and pointed. Starcrest had recovered the controller he had used to turn on the batteries. Yes, of course. He ought to be able to turn them off again. Maldynado didn’t know what would happen with the plant—with
them
—without that protection, but there was no choice. They had to check on the sub.

Indeed, Starcrest was already running for it. When he bounded across the cable without any of his favorite parts being zapped off, Maldynado assumed it was safe. He raced after Starcrest. Sespian charged along beside him.