I shrugged. It was hard to explain, but over the course of the last two full shifts, I had found myself gravitating to windows from which I would have a perfect view of the blue planet enveloped in white clouds. It was a pretty world.
"Maybe I'm just itching to explore something new."
"Hm," Adred grunted, finishing his drink and waving at the drone to bring another round.
I drank mine down and suppressed a shudder. This stuff was vile. "Well, what do you think my chances are of Father allowing me to go down there?"
"First, we don't even know yet if we'll be sending scouts down," Adred said. "Second, null. He's not going to allow you to go until we figured out what kind of diseases we're dealing with." He shrugged. "We're not even sure yet the planet is worth exploring."
I crossed my arms over my chest, mulling his words over. When I forfeited my right to become a high ranking officer in the Galactic Union's military forces, I lost the right to sit on the council that would decide if D-1/4-5289d11 was worth the credits it would cost to explore it further. Not that this was something that fell into the realm of responsibility in my father's fleet anyway.
The fleet was supposed to patrol, to make the Galactic Union's reach known, intimidate and provide stability for its members, not explore alien planets.
Since we came across it though, it was up to the council to decide whether we would use this stop to explore or send scouts out later.
"Will you vote for it?" I asked, wondering if he would vote for exploration.
"It doesn't matter to me one way or another," he squinted his eyes at me. "Since it seems to matter to you though, I will consider it."
"Thank you. I'll owe you one."
"You owe me more than one," he winked.
"Don't I know it." I smirked.
After we finished our drinks, we went into the officer's mess hall to grab a bite to eat and separated once my father called me into his office, undoubtedly to chew me out over my stunt with the XT4J earlier. I grinned. I always liked a good powwow with him.
Ididn'tunderstandwhyI just stood there, unmoving, staring at the water as it slowly returned to the calm surface it had been before something hit it.
Dripping wet and freezing, there was no sense in standing there unless I was begging to catch a cold.
At first, the ripple in the water was so small that I barely noticed it, but it grew steadily until I realized that I was staring at somebody swimming.
"Hey!" I called, waving my arms and jumping into the air to make my five-foot-two frame taller. "Over here!"
The ripples stopped, and a head turned my way. Still thinking that there was a strong possibility that my mind had been playing tricks on me and the object that had hit the water was nothing more than a downed helicopter, I kept calling out to the stranger, who I assumed to be the pilot, who was lucky enough to have gotten out of the craft.
Unfortunately, during my frantic waving and jumping, I forgot that I already stood at the very edge of the pier, and with my next hop, I overstepped, my foot landed on thin air, and I lost my balance.
For one moment, I felt suspended in time, as if my body and gravity were giving my mind plenty of time to prepare myself for the inevitable plunge into the ice-cold lake water. But then it happened way too quickly. One moment my arms windmilled, getting more entangled in the blanket I had snatched off the couch before coming out here, and the next instant I was falling toward the deep, dark water.
At first, I felt nothing as my body was pulled under the surface and I began my slow descent to the bottom of the lake, but then my entire body was assaulted at once by needle sharp pinpricks all over. My mouth opened in an involuntary scream but thankfully, as soon as I tasted the water, I closed it before taking the instinctive deep inhale to prepare for a scream, otherwise I would have probably died right then.
The blanket's weight pulled me deeper into the water, no matter how hard I kicked and flailed my still cartwheeling arms in an effort to disentangle myself from the blanket that was turning into a shroud, entrapping and suffocating me.
Nothing had ever felt as heavy as that blanket or hurt as badly as the freezing water. Even though it wasn't my first time diving into its frigid embrace during the winter months, but the last time one of my friends had dared me was more than twelve years ago. Plus, I had never been as encumbered as now.
My feet hit the squishy ground, and I automatically bent my knees to catapult myself back up, but again, the blanket stopped me. Becoming frantic now, I fought to free myself while my lungs began to burn with the need for oxygen exaggerated by the panic clawing at my mind.
I managed to get one arm free while the heavy material continued to pull me to the bottom of the lake.
With sudden clarity, I realized that despite how sad and shitty my life had become during the last few months, I wanted to live it. I wasn't ready to join my grampa yet, no matter how much I missed him.Damnit, I cursed the blanket as I finally managed to free my other arm, only to find myself in a new predicament. While wrangling with the blanket, I lost contact with the lakebed and with near absolute darkness surrounding me from all sides, I had no idea where up or down was.
I blindly kicked my legs and moved my arms, only to have my hands hit hard ground, and I realized I had swum down instead of up.
My mouth twitched, my lips wanted desperately to open and gulp in air. My lungs burned, demanded oxygen, not seeming to understand that instead of the vied for O2, they would receive dirty lake water and drown me.
My hands began to flail in earnest as my limbs became heavy with fatigue, and I blinked my eyes a few times, trying to focus. Never had I experienced this kind of need, this kind of burning, and I found myself swallowing water as my lungs closed automatically.