Page 83 of Fallen from the Stars

“Careful. You might inflate his ego enough that he bursts out of my body. I can barely contain him as-is,” said Theo.

“Youshould be careful, Theodora,” Kane said. “I’ve finally found someone else who enjoys my company. Be jealous all you want.”

“You can’tspyon us…can you?” Larkin asked warily. “Since you can take over the Facility and all that.”

“Surveillance in the cabins is limited primarily to the hallways. I can access the cameras in the consoles within each room, but Idohave some standards. And if you should ever feel uncomfortable or uncertain, just saytenta—”

Theo laughed. “That’s enough, Kane. And to put you at ease, Larkin, he may be an advanced AI with a totally unique, life-like personality, but he doesn’t have any sexual desires. He’s not going to watch you — especially not during any private moments. Believe me, I was so weirded out when he was first installed that I refused to look into any mirrors or down at my own body for the longest time for fear of what he’d see.”

Kane snorted. “That’s ridiculous. Thirty meters.”

Larkin twisted around, swimming backward while she made a series of hand gestures to the kraken accompanying them — Dracchus and Vasil to either side of Larkin and Theo and four other kraken in formation just behind. They were called Calix, Donis, Orin, and Pythas; Theothoughtshe could link the names to the right faces, but she wasn’t one hundred percent certain. They each emitted a soft glow from their stripes, chasing away some of the darkness.

“What did you say to them?” Theo asked. Larkin had proven invaluable thus far for her ability to communicate with the kraken without words; Theo hadn’t realized during her trip to the facility that Dracchus and Vasil had been using a sophisticated sign language to speak with one another as she swam.

Larkin twisted to face forward. “Just telling them we’re close and to keep an eye out. They’ve got better eyesight under water than we do. The suits give us an advantage because of their high-tech scanners, but we can’t count fully on that.”

“Twenty meters,” Kane said.

A layer of dull yellow light flowed through Theo’s vision, settling over the seascape just below her and mapping every feature of the ocean floor out beyond her range of vision. It even extended down into the trench, though it didn’t reach the bottom. She couldn’t be certain if Kane was doing it through the suit’s interior display or her retinal implants, but she was grateful for it.

“Were the sub still at its last coordinates, we would see it by now,” said Kane. “We need to go lower.”

“It would make sense,” Larkin said. “Something that big can’t just disappear.” Turning to Dracchus, she moved her hands through several quick signs.

Dracchus nodded, swung his harpoon gun to hang over his shoulder, and passed the information on to the other kraken with hand and tentacle gestures — at least Theo assumed he did. Once he finished, he signed to Larkin and angled himself toward the trench. The rest of the party followed his example.

“What’d he say to you, Larkin?” Theo asked.

“That they’ve never been down there. He doesn’t know what we’re going to find.”

The darkness deepened as they descended. Though the diving suits’ external lights came on, cold fear slithered through Theo, making her heart race. Kane’s read-outs set the trench at thirty-five meters average width, but all she could see were the yellow-orange scanner projections of the rock walls; it was too dark to see with her naked eye beyond the limited range of her light. She glanced at Vasil and found some comfort in his closeness. The glow from his stripes created a strange, indistinct blue aura around him — kraken bioluminescence was not enough to combat this darkness.

“Breathe, Theodora,” Kane said. “I am watching for any danger. Just breathe and keep swimming. You are safe.”

Theo inhaled deeply and nodded. She trusted Kane. And Vasil. She envied Larkin’s bravery, confidence, and calm — the woman was a hunter, well adapted to high-stakes situations. Theo’s training had focused almost exclusively on how to crawl through access tunnels and ducts of varying sizes and how to fix complex machinery. Sure, the work was important, but she’d never had to face the unknown likethis.

“You can tap into Sam’s ability to scan for lifeforms, right Kane?” Larkin asked.

“Absolutely. I’ve been running it in the background, checking against the records from Pontus Alpha on known dangerous sea life,” Kane said. “Would you like the information added to your display?”

“Yeah, that’d be helpful.” After a moment, Larkin made a low whistling sound. “That’s some scary shit.”

“Not helping,” Theo sing-songed.

Larkin chuckled. “Sorry.”

“There is a surprising abundance of life here,” Kane said. “This planet is fascinating. The diversity of the native fauna and flora is unlike anything in my database.”

“Yourlimiteddatabase,” said Theo, smirking. “I’ll pass on the lifeform scan, thanks. Just going to focus on finding that submarine.”

They continued forward and down. Soon enough, the bottom of the trench — or rather Kane’s overlaid image of it — came into view. Theo’s readout marked their depth at five hundred and twelve meters. She tried not to think about just how much water was above her, or how far she’d have to swim to reach air and sunlight again.

I spent eighteen years in space. This is nothing… Right?

“The sub was following a set course that ran along a large section of this trench,” said Kane, briefly displaying a faint line of forward-leading arrows at the top of Theo’s vision. “It was an established route between Pontus Alpha and the Darrow Nautical Outpost, another military facility on the coast.”

Theo returned her gaze to the trench floor. “Guess we just keep going this way, huh?”

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