Chapter 29
Chapter Twenty-Nine
REYES
The distraction plan gives me eleven minutes in the bay.
Dutch says eight.
Maren says Kevin’s last response pattern allows twelve if he commits to the decoy.
I plan for six.
I stand at sub bay access with a repair kit at my feet, a salvage case in one hand, and the emergency pod schematic open on the wall display.
Marta stands to my left in a bay suit with her hair braided tight and her face too pale under the emergency lighting.
Holden stands to my right with a tool harness over a shirt that was never meant to meet hydraulic fluid, a tablet in one hand, and no trace of protest on his face.
He volunteered. That may be stupid.
We need hands. Marta knows bay systems. Holden can read labels, carry parts, hold lights, call timestamps, and follow directions without pretending a crisis is a seminar.
Dutch stays on perimeter and decoy timing because someone has to watch Kevin without being in love with the reef, guilty about the walls, or inside the bay with a wrench.
Maren stays in containment control with Kevin’s live feed, basin behavior models, and the power to tell us when the water starts thinking back.
Nobody likes the distribution. That makes it fair.
Maren’s voice comes through my earpiece. “Decoy sequence starts in thirty seconds. Outer east lighting array and low-frequency vibration emitter. Random pulse intervals. No launch tones. No bay assist lights.”
“Copy,” I say.
Dutch adds, “No one gets poetic in the bay.”
Holden looks at me.
I look back. “That means you.”
“I’m wounded.”
“Later.”
Marta checks the seal on the access hatch for the third time. Her hands are steady. I watch because hands tell the truth before mouths file it down.
“You good?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “Functional.”
The bay monitor shows Kevin near the outer approach, holding his position.
Farther east, the decoy lights flicker to life along an empty section of basin infrastructure.
A low-frequency pulse moves through the water, faint on the monitors but visible in the motion of small organisms scattering from the fake signal.
Kevin doesn’t move.
For five seconds, nobody breathes correctly.
Then his body angles toward the east array, attention shifting away from the bay approach.
“Movement,” Maren says. “He’s responding.”
“Not committed,” Dutch says.
“I know,” she says.
I pick up the repair kit. “Opening bay access.”
The hatch releases. Cold, wet air rolls out, smelling of salt, metal, ruptured systems, and something organic that doesn’t belong in machinery.
The sub bay was never dry in the clean-room sense, but now it feels invaded.
Water drips from damaged seals. Alarm lights reflect off wrecked vessel hulls and broken cradle arms. The bay beyond the maintenance ledge is still mostly sealed from us by pressure-rated barriers, but the service access is open to the physical truth of what Kevin did.
The truth is everywhere.
Luxury sub L-3 hangs crooked in its cradle, stern crushed inward, thruster housing folded like foil.
L-4 has rolled half-sideways against a broken support arm, forward glass webbed with stress fractures.
Maintenance craft M-1 is pinned against its rack, drive assembly torn open.
M-2 lists with its steering fins sheared off.
Bits of casing and wiring drift in the shallow bay-side service trench, caught in slow circulation.
The emergency pod sits recessed behind its damaged shield, amber status light blinking.
I step in first.
The floor is wet. My boot slips half a centimeter on the first step and corrects.
“Timer starts,” Dutch says.
Marta goes to the pod access panel. Holden stays with me as we cross toward L-3. We need the auxiliary ballast regulator from one of the destroyed luxury subs. The emergency pod’s ballast system is damaged, and ballast is the difference between a vessel and a coffin with ambition.
“L-3 regulator is closest,” I say. “If intact, we take it. If damaged, M-1 secondary assembly.”
Holden nods. “Understood.”
“Don’t touch sharp edges. Don’t step near hanging cradle arms. Don’t put weight on anything that looks like it has opinions.”
“That last category seems broad.”
Maren’s voice in my ear: “Kevin’s moving east. Distance from bay increasing. Still within response range.”
“No one relaxes,” Dutch says.
At L-3, the damage is worse up close. The claw marks on the hull are not claw marks, technically.
Pressure scoring from appendages, ridged contact points, armor edges.
But the marks are the size of my forearm and deep enough to expose layers of composite beneath the luxury finish.
Kevin didn’t simply break the vessel. He read it by force.
Holden stops beside the hull. For one second, his face changes. This is the first time he has seen the damage without the distance of a monitor or report language.
“Auxiliary panel,” I say.
He comes back. “There.”
I cut the panel release. It sticks. I use the manual pry tool. The panel pops open with a wet mechanical cough, spilling a thin sheet of water onto the ledge.
Inside: wiring, crushed stabilizer line, intact regulator housing.
“Light,” I say.
Holden positions the lamp. The evaluator, the man Maren doesn’t talk about, the one who left.
Men who leave don’t usually volunteer to stand in a flooding bay holding a light for someone else’s repair.
He’s here because the only currency he has left with her is showing up where he didn’t before, and he’s spending it in the one place it might get him killed. I don’t trust easy. I trust that.
I reach in and start disconnecting the regulator. Three bolts. Two couplings. One pressure clip. The first bolt turns clean. Second resists. Third has warped under impact.
“Marta,” I call.
“Pod access panel open,” she says. “Emergency ballast line is damaged at the coupling. Housing cracked but not shattered.”
“Confirm compatibility on L-3 auxiliary regulator.”
Holden reads the part number from the tablet. “Abr-7K auxiliary. Pod spec requires Abr-7K or 7M with adapter.”
“Good.”
“Kevin’s slowing,” Maren says.
My hand stops.
“Slowing where?” Dutch says.
“East array boundary. He hasn’t reached the emitter.”
Kevin doesn’t go to sounds because they happen. Kevin goes to sounds because they mean something.
“Continue,” Dutch says. “Window still open.”
His voice is flat. That means he hates it.
I turn the warped bolt. It screams against the tool, then gives.
The sound carries too loud in the bay.
From inside L-3’s crushed stern, something moves.
Holden freezes.
I lift one hand.
Marta looks over from the pod.
The sound comes again. Soft. Wet. A shift inside the torn thruster housing. The bay wreckage has become habitat already.
I ease the regulator halfway free and set it in the case. “Holden,” I say quietly.
“Yes.”
“Back three steps. Slow.”
He does.
The torn thruster cavity is dark. The lamp catches broken casing, shredded insulation, and a little pool of collected seawater inside the housing. Something pale unfolds from behind the damaged assembly.
Small. Not comforting.
Flexible plates slide over one another. A sensory fan opens, trembles toward the light, then toward the vibration still humming through the bay structure. The creature is no longer than my hand, but its body is wrong in the same way as the corridor specimen.
“Jesus,” Marta whispers.
“No sudden movement,” I say.
Holden remains three steps back, lamp still trained where I need it because apparently the man can follow a useful order under biological insult.
The creature shifts toward the regulator case.
“Maren,” I say. “Small specimen in L-3 thruster housing. Responding to light or vibration. Maybe heat.”
Her voice changes. Full focus. “Fan orientation?”
“Toward the regulator case.”
“Dim the light. Don’t cut it fully. Move the case away from the housing. Slow.”
I dim the lamp with my thumb. Holden lowers his light to match without being told.
The sensory fan curls.
I slide the case six inches away.
The creature follows one inch.
“Mineral deterrent?” I ask.
“Not in the bay unless you want Kevin’s attention back,” Maren says.
The small creature lifts half its body out of the housing.
“If it reaches the regulator?” Holden says, quietly.
“Then we don’t use that regulator.”
“I have a blank seal case,” Marta says.
“Slide it,” I say.
She takes a flat sterile case from her kit and slides it across the wet floor. It stops beside my boot.
The creature turns toward the sound.
I lift the regulator case and move it behind me. Holden shifts with the lamp. The creature follows the closest vibration, not the regulator. Less intelligent than Kevin. Still too intelligent for my preferences.
I nudge the blank case with my boot.
The creature darts toward it.
Holden inhales once.
The creature crawls halfway onto the blank case, sensory fan trembling along the edge. I step back, regulator case in hand, and gesture Holden away.
“Leave it,” I say.
“Kevin’s turning,” Maren says.
The bay goes colder.
“Direction?” Dutch asks.
“Back toward the approach,” Maren says. “Not fast yet.”
“Reyes,” Dutch says.
“I have the part.”
“Then move.”
Marta’s already at the pod. Holden follows with the light. Behind us, the small creature remains on the blank case. It can keep it. I hope it writes a review.
At the emergency pod, the damage is the kind I hate most.
Ambiguous.
The pod hull is intact, but the shield impact bent the launch assist frame.
The ballast coupling is cracked. Propulsion secondary is offline.
Navigation is green. Comms are green. Manual release is damaged but not destroyed.
The hull seal shows stress but no breach.
The cradle alignment is off by four degrees.
Four degrees can kill people if the door is small enough.
I drop beside the ballast housing. “Regulator.”
Holden hands it to me.
Marta holds the lamp this time. “Kevin?”