Page 100 of Song of the Abyss

Daios should be there with her. He could have figured out a way to get into that room so he could join her. Then, whatever she wanted to do, he could do with her.

“I’m getting them out,” she said, her voice ringing true and strong through the connection. “No matter what.”

“What do you mean you’re getting them out?” he growled. “You just set the explosives. We could see that you put a timer on them, Anya!”

But she didn’t reply. She just heaved that axe over her shoulders, turned to the tank with the awake undine, and brought it down on the glass. The depthstrider inside flinched, but then it looked at the small indent on the glass and it seemed to know what was happening.

Arges stirred, his blue tail looping closer to him as he pushed himself closer to the screen. “She’s going to break it out of the glass.”

“It’s going to kill her,” Daios growled.

“I don’t think so. It looks like he understands what is happening.” Arges pointed to the other of their people trapped inside the other tube. “That one is still asleep, though.”

“Anya,” he said, hoping that Bitsy would throw his words at her again. “Stop what you are doing. There are only two of them and an entire city for you to save. Maketes is speaking with Ace, but they need more time.”

“Tell them they have thirty minutes,” she grunted as she slammed the axe into the glass again. The spiderweb of cracks fractured around the edges. Not quite a break, but enough for the depthstrider to hit it from the other side as well.

“Thirty minutes?” He looked over his shoulder, hearing Maketes repeat the words into the translator and then shaking his head as he read it from the device himself.

His yellow finned brother’s eyes were wide with panic before he said, “We can’t be ready in thirty minutes.”

“Did you hear that, Anya?” Daios shouted, as though she was right in front of him and he could rage at her. “There isn’t enough time for them to get there.”

“There is.” She let out a little yell this time as she slammed the axe down. The spiderwebs grew larger, this time with water leaking out of the small holes between them. “I already calculated it with Bitsy. Tell Ace to use Alpha’s safety ships. They can be activated remotely. The explosion will be far away from the housing of pretty much everyone, so only people close to the blast will be affected. They’ll get out just fine, and anyone around here deserves to be stuck.”

Something about that struck him as odd. The way she said the words, it all felt wrong. Thirty minutes was shorter than how long it had taken her to get to the safety pods herself.

All he could hear was a high-pitched shriek in his head, and time seemed to slow. He looked at Maketes. His brother was completely lit up, repeating the words to Ace and then waiting for the translation of what they said to come through. Apparently that was fine. They could make this work even if Ace had to hack into Alpha’s system again.

Mira and Arges were saying something to his mate, but he wasn’t listening to their words. All he knew was that he felt like he needed to lie down. Because he knew what she was saying. She’d told him before going in there and he’d been too stuck in his ways to hear what she was saying.

Bracing himself on the edge of the moon pool, he croaked, “You’re not getting out, are you?”

Everyone froze. Even Byte tilted his head just slightly before relaying the words to Anya, who had lifted the axe one more time over her head. She seemed to hesitate, that heavy weapon held over her head.

Then she said, “I don’t know if I’m getting out of this one, Daios. My family was the one to do this. There’s an old human saying, Mira can explain it to you. A captain goes down with his ship. I have to make sure that happens.”

The axe flew through the air and struck the glass hard. The projection suddenly whirled as the water caught Anya up and she was tossed back against the table where the dead female was. Sharp objects rained down on her head from the table and she hissed as one of them sliced through her pant leg. The bright bloom of blood was all he could see until a webbed hand came down on the wound.

Again she made a pained noise, and he could see the depthstrider had grabbed her too hard.

“Anya,” he said, his voice cracking. “You have to listen to me. Get out, now. The depthstrider will do what he must.”

When the depthstrider did nothing other than keep his hand on her leg, she reached up and took Bitsy off her head. Anya turned the projection toward herself and he could see the sweat dripping down her face. There was a grease smudge on her nose and black blood dripping through her hair from the dead body above her. Her eyes were a little wild, perhaps with fear.

“I love you,” she said into the camera, with a smile that he knew was fake. “Ace can find me. I’ll keep Bitsy on. There’s still a chance, Daios. Just a small one, but... Find me? Even if I’m not alive.”

“Anya!” he shouted, but then the connection went black.

Byte struggled to reconnect. He could see the blue and green text flying where he tried to make Bitsy listen, but then... nothing. There was no connection. No projection of what Anya was doing.

Nothing at all.

He let out a sound of rage that burst from his chest as anger unlike anything he’d ever felt thrust through his entire body. He slammed his fists down on the floor, denting the metal as he bared his teeth at the others.

“I’m going to get her,” he snarled before turning to the water.

“You don’t even know where she is!” Mira shouted.

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