Chapter 35
G reta shot through the kelp like a pink bullet.
Her tail powered hard, flexible, cutting sharp turns between the thick fronds with ease.
The rival was right behind her — bigger, stronger, faster in straight lines, but clumsy in the tight, swaying maze. She could hear him crashing through the vegetation, roaring with frustration every time she changed direction at the last second.
He lunged.
His claws sliced through the water where her tail had been a heartbeat earlier. She twisted hard, rolled, and darted left through a narrow gap between two massive stalks.
The rival slammed into the kelp, tearing fronds loose in a cloud of green debris.
She didn’t look back. She just swam.
Her gills burned. Her muscles ached. But fear and adrenaline kept her moving. Every time he got close — close enough that she felt the displaced water from his powerful tail — she juked .
Sharp left. Hard right. A sudden dive under a low canopy.
She was smaller, more agile, and she used every inch of it.
Still, he was gaining.
Each miss made him angrier, faster, more reckless. His roars vibrated through the water, promising pain when he finally caught her.
Greta’s mind raced faster than her body.
She needed an edge. Something. Anything.
Then she felt it — something strong and powerful pulling at her.
The current!
At the last second she veered hard, tail whipping, scraping past the edge of the current’s pull.
The swirling tunnel of disturbed water glowed with stirred-up phosphorescence. Dangerous. Unpredictable.
She’d almost swum straight into it.
“Yaarrrghhh!” the rival bellowed as he whipped toward her, eyes wide and crazed.
Fast as lightning, she twisted — just out of range of his powerful claws. He fell into the current and it yanked him sideways for an electrifying second before he fought free with a furious bellow.
Damn it!
He was closer now. Too close.
Greta raced away, eyes locked on something ahead — the dark, angular silhouette of the wreck, half-buried in the sand five hundred yards from where she’d first found it.
An idea sparked.
She didn’t slow to think. She just acted.
She arrowed straight toward the largest hull breach, torn open during their catastrophic attempted escape .
The rival was right on her tail now, claws outstretched, certain he had her.
Greta dove inside.
The metal corridors swallowed her. She moved like she had memorized every inch. Her smaller frame let her dart through tight gaps, twist around fallen beams, and squeeze through narrow breaches that the rival could barely fit.
He slammed heavily into the walls behind her.
The impact boomed through the wreck. Metal groaned. He was too big, too furious, too impatient.
She would rely on that.
Every time she slipped through a tight passage, he had to force his way after her, shoulders scraping, tail thrashing, leaving dents and torn plating in his wake.
“Come here, little pink bitch!” he snarled, voice distorted and ugly.
Greta didn’t answer. She just kept moving, leading him deeper, letting him believe he was winning.
She darted through a collapsed ceiling panel, slipped sideways through a ruptured bulkhead, then shot down a narrow side corridor.
The rival crashed after her, roaring, claws scraping along the walls and leaving bright sparks.
She was breathing hard now, gills flaring. But she could see her target ahead — the engineering bay.
The exposed power core. Still buzzing. Still damaged. Still dangerous.
She swam straight for it.
The rival thought he had her cornered.
He burst into the bay with a triumphant bellow, eyes bright with victory as he saw her hovering in front of the cracked crystalline core .
“Got you,” he growled, launching himself forward in a powerful surge.
At the last possible second, Greta dove aside.
The rival realized his mistake too late.
He slammed into the unstable power core at full speed.
The crystal cracked wider with a sickening crunch. Energy arced wildly. The rival’s eyes widened in sudden, animal panic. But still, he didn’t give up.
He swiped at her desperately as she beat a hasty retreat through a nearby hull breach, claws missing her tail by inches.
The core grumbled.
A low, ominous vibration rolled through the wreck.
The rival looked back.
His face went pale. “Oh, fu?—”
BOOM.
The explosion tore through the aft section like a thunderclap.
The shockwave hit Greta from behind, shoving her forward through the water like a ragdoll.
Metal screeched. The wreck convulsed. Debris and bubbles exploded outward in a violent storm.
She tumbled end over end, tail thrashing wildly, trying to orient herself as the world turned into chaos.
Darkness rushed in at the edges of her vision.
Then everything went black.