Chapter 2

KLARA YANA’S PENDANT

Klara Yana Hollanelea could feel her ama’s dekatite pendant burning into her chest. The terror almost paralyzed her.

How could Cu Zanthus have missed that detail during his briefing? Maybe I should have told Blackwood when she mentioned it.

So the chief sea officer would have seen the Broken Eye? Surely she would have recognized it – she clearly had ample knowledge of Dhavnak culture, based on what she’d been telling Vin in the corner. What else would she have recognized? That Kyle Holland, with Vo Hina’s symbol, could surely not be a male, either? Being Belzene, it probably wouldn’t bother the senior officer, but even the thought of letting that secret out made Klara Yana sick with fear. If only she could have been a female for this mission… just this once.

If Cu Zanthus hadn’t been watching when I boarded, maybe. Or if he’d given me more warning, instead of changing my assignment the moment I crossed the border…

But no. Anger at her boy of a kommandir would do no good now. She was Deckman Holland now, like it or not, and following the CSO’s lead was her best hope of getting out of this alive.

“It’s happening again. Xeil save us!”

Klara Yana thought that was the other woman, Strachan. Blackwood cut her off sharply.

“That’s not helping! Shut it.”

A light came to life, weak and murky, near where Blackwood had fallen. The deck lurched again, and Klara Yana clung to the bunk chain as water caught at her ankles. The light swung up. A torrential force of water was spraying into the compartment from above one of the torpedoes.

“Where are we?” Klara Yana said, staring in horror at the gushing water. “Inside the dekatite, or…?”

“We’re in shrouding,” Mahanner snapped.

“Like some sort of passage between the dekatite sources? Through the center of Mirrix?”

“We’re dead, if you don’t focus,” said Blackwood. The light swung back toward the hatch behind Klara Yana, sweeping over the locker. “Damage control kit, Holland. Now!”

Klara Yana’s eyes followed the light. A red canvas bag was stuffed under the locker, already half-submerged. She knelt in the cold water to pull the kit out, staggering on the slight angle of the deck.

“Mahanner!” barked Blackwood. “Seal the maneuvering room hatch.”

“The hole’s too big, ma’am!” Strachan shouted.

“For wedges, maybe, but not for shoring,” said Blackwood.

“We need to evacuate before sealing the compartment!” Strachan insisted.

“And let in whatever it is that ripped us apart last time?” snarled Blackwood. “It’s in our hands, Strachan. This doesn’t end like that. Not on my watch.”

“This is your fault, Holland!” someone else screamed. Klara Yana froze, the bag pulled out and clutched in her hands. “You have dekatite, don’t you?”

Rot in solitude, hoarder! she almost spat back. She curbed the words just in time. Not a good Belzene answer, nor even a Dhavnak female’s, but a typical young Dhavnak male’s, ingrained in her over cycles of playing the part. Apprentice Deckman Kyle Holland would never talk that way to crewmates he’d barely met two days earlier, though, no matter how badly they’d been treating him.

“N- No,” she made herself stammer. “I swear…”

“Vin!” CSO Blackwood exploded. “I will personally put my fist through your face if you don’t get ahold of yourself. Mahanner, close the hatch before the rest of the boat floods! Vin, Strachan, find the rubber lungs and mouthpieces. Anyone not willing to help, get out now. I’m not dealing with it.”

Anyone not willing to help? Is she serious? Surely, none of these sailors would walk away from a comrade in crisis. But what was she thinking? They were Belzene. Their sense of camaraderie seemed strained at the best of times.

Blackwood pulled something out from below one of the bunks – a long board covered in rubber or sealant. Klara Yana struggled back to her feet, hauling the bag with her. The water was just over her knees now. Her legs already felt frozen beneath the thin fabric of her coveralls.

As she got closer to the leak, where Blackwood was hauling herself up the sides of the torpedo tubes, it was harder to hear anything else. Someone shouted, but she couldn’t make out the words. She did hear the creak of the wheel as one of her deckmates locked the hatch, and knew the five of them were cut off from the rest of the sub now.

“Holland!” Blackwood called.

“I’m here,” she managed, sloshing up next to the senior officer. Blackwood’s headlamp swung down in her direction, wavering in the thickly spraying water. This close, the water poured down on Klara Yana’s head too, drenching her.

“Holland, I need a shole!”

What in Vo Hina’s mercy is a shole? She opened the bag, holding it as far from the spray of water as she could, feeling the contents within by hand. A screwdriver? No, how would that help? There was some sort of axe… maybe… a roll of tape… don’t think so…

“For Xeil’s sake, Holland, some time today!” Blackwood erupted. “This hole’s not gonna patch itself!”

A patch! She found it: a piece of metal wrapped in the same rubber gasket as the board, a little larger than a Synivistic Scripture. She held it up, choking as salt-saturated water poured into her face. Blackwood grabbed it.

“I need to drop the beam for a second. You have it?”

“We’ve got it!” someone answered from beside Klara Yana. She almost jumped at the heavy Qosmyan accent. Shameful for an agent. She blamed it on the fear still pulsing through her.

“Mahanner?” said Blackwood. “I thought you were still back by the hatch! Where did Vin–”

“He left, ma’am,” the other sailor answered. “Him and Strachan both. Abandoned us.”

“What?” Klara Yana said. Her voice came out sharper than she intended. Miserable Belzene bastards!

“Quiet!” Blackwood growled. “It doesn’t matter now. See if you can find another light or two in there, will you?”

Klara Yana found a headlamp and strapped it around her head, then twisted the beam on. The light shone brightly, clearly designed to operate well even drenched in water. She watched as Blackwood looped her arm around a pipe and pulled herself up. Balancing herself, Blackwood pushed the shole upward to cover the hole. Klara Yana could tell the immense pressure of the water would be too much for the sea officer by herself. Freezing cold saltwater swirled at the level of Klara Yana’s hips now. Blackwood turned her face away, coughing.

“I can’t feel my fingers,” she ground out. “We have to–”

“We can use the beam, ma’am,” Mahanner broke in, holding up the board that Blackwood had pulled from under the bunk. “The two of us will push from below while you steady it.”

Something banged against the boat, hard. A deep, deafening whoomp passed through the walls and into their rapidly-shrinking space, echoing off the steel bulkheads before being absorbed by the water. The impact sent the boat swaying to the left. The water filling the torpedo room churned like a violent river. Klara Yana lost her balance, going under for just a second, before resurfacing with a gasp. She looked around frantically, but everything seemed fuzzy. Something was in her eye. She dug the heels of her hands into her eye sockets until her vision cleared, not realizing until the last horrible second that she’d just scrubbed the colored optics for Kyle Holland’s disguise right from her eyes. Gods! She looked down, straining to look for the tiny pieces of glass. All she saw was dark water lapping against her coveralls. Get through this first! Then figure it out.

“Holland!” Blackwood shouted raggedly. “Get back up here! We have to seal this! Now!”

“Coming, CSO!”

Klara Yana half-walked, half-swam toward the beam of Blackwood’s headlamp, shoving through the water’s resistance as quickly as possible. The submarine bucked again, but this time Klara Yana kept her feet. The water surged almost to her neck. The steady drone of water pouring into the compartment sent tremors of panic through her. After five cycles in the field, and being so close to the promotion that would help her track down her ama, this was how she’d die? Deep underwater in enemy territory, in some unknown part of the world, wearing a false identity and surrounded by strangers?

No. Think, damnit! What had Blackwood said right before they’d entered the compartment? Something in the boat reacted badly with the dekatite vein. She’d been lying. There was something out there. And, if Blackwood’s and Vin’s comments about having dekatite were true, it wanted Klara Yana’s dekatite pendant. The one her ama had given her. Klara Yana reached into her shirt and pulled out her necklace, feeling the round shape of the Broken Eye within her palm.

If I can somehow get it off the boat… maybe it will let us live.

She pulled the long chain over her head, then clutched the pendant as she climbed up the pipes by the wall to join Blackwood. The officer held the shole and was shoving it toward the leak again. Klara Yana couldn’t see the hole specifically, but it felt like the whole Trievanic Sea was pouring in from above. There was also, unmistakably, a deep, guttural howling that seemed to be coming in on the waves themselves, woven into the water as thickly as the salt. The boat shuddered again, and Klara Yana gripped the pipes, barely holding herself up.

“Hey!” Mahanner yelled from below. “I have the beam. You two press that shole up there, and we’ll get it covered. We can do this!”

Klara Yana was already up by Blackwood, and she shoved her hands toward the shole, the necklace still tight in her palm. She had no idea how she could possibly get the pendant outside through the insane pressure of that water. But it was the only chance they had. She had to try.

“You take the left side,” Blackwood grunted. “I’ll take the right.”

Mahanner’s beam now pressed into the center, and slowly, the patch forced up against that unbearable pressure. On the spot directly over Klara Yana’s head, the flow lessened. At her left hand, where she held the other end of the shole, water continued to spill in, increasing in pressure as the hole shrank. She shoved the pendant toward that gap, forcing herself to pry her fingers apart.

There was a growl above her, terrifyingly loud. Something grabbed her hand – something warmer than the freezing water, with a rough grip and a crushing hold. Klara Yana’s fingers were forced closed around the pendant before she could release it. The hard edges of the dekatite bit into her palm. The entire hull seemed to flicker, so fast and bright that her eyes barely registered it behind the saltwater covering them. Pain flared in her left hand. The unseen force still held her fast; it felt like her hand was being ground between two boulders. She screamed, although the saltwater spilling in gagged her almost immediately. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the flickering light dance over Blackwood’s form, illuminating her like a lightning bolt. The senior officer fell.

Klara Yana spat out the water as best she could, violently coughing the silt from her lungs. Mahanner’s beam was still steady, despite their loss of Blackwood’s strength. Klara Yana yanked her closed fist back, pulling with every ounce of strength she had. After a heartbeat of agonizing pressure as the joints in her elbow and shoulder protested, she finally broke the creature’s grip. Something hissed, almost at her ear. Her hand throbbed with pain, and she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to force the fingers apart again, but she was free. She used the hand to redouble the force against the shole. The flow of water became a cascade… then a torrent… then suddenly, it ceased altogether. Outside, the unearthly howling went on, muted now.

“Holland!” yelled Mahanner. “Grab the beam. I need to dive under and get a wedge placed so it holds. Don’t release it, whatever you do.”

“I’ve got it!” she choked out.

Her fingers finally unfolded and the pendant fell free, dangling on the chain now looped around her wrist. She had no choice but to leave it there as she put all her strength on the beam. The dark gray of the dekatite sparkled in the light of her headlamp – not just the pendant, but the chain, too; tiny links of dekatite made up its entire long length. She gritted her teeth and turned her head to look for Blackwood, sweeping her light across a room of deep waves. She finally saw her body, floating back by the locker. Her heart stuttered. Out of everyone on this submarine, CSO Blackwood was the one who didn’t deserve this. Unlike her comrades, she’d stayed and fought. And unlike Klara Yana, she’d done it without hiding her gender. Someday, Klara Yana thought, maybe that could be me.

Someday. When women were allowed to serve in Dhavnakir’s military. When privileged positions, like her ama’s former role as ambassador, were commonplace for females, rather than practically unheard of. But Klara Yana didn’t have until ‘someday.’ Her ama was a political prisoner now, of one of the very countries she’d negotiated with, and the Dhavnak government either couldn’t or wouldn’t get her released. Klara Yana couldn’t ask, not at her current rank. But just one more promotion – one more big mission – and she’d have access to those records.

So here she was. Half-drowned in an enemy submarine surrounded by monsters, missing a piece of her disguise, and holding incriminating evidence that she was responsible for the attack. But she’d gotten the intel she’d been sent for. The dekatite veins, the arphanium pipes, Kheppra Isle, all of it.

Now she just had to get out alive.

It felt like forever, but Mahanner finally surfaced again. Klara Yana immediately yelled, “Get CSO Blackwood, sir! She might still be alive!”

The dark man nodded and dove across the compartment, coming up right at Blackwood’s side. Klara Yana released the board, relieved when it didn’t budge. She swept up her necklace before Mahanner could turn and catch sight of it, and pulled the chain free of the pendant. She unzipped her coverall just long enough to stuff the pendant into the soaked fabric holding her breasts flat. The chain, she kept in her right hand.

“She’s alive,” Mahanner said, “but unconscious.”

“Xeil be praised,” said Klara Yana. She took off her headlamp. “Catch!” Mahanner caught the light. “Get over here and help me get her out of the water.”

“On my way.”

She dove under, the same way Mahanner had, but hurriedly kicked toward the left wall – the portside bulkhead – as soon as she was submerged. She tried opening her eyes, but they burned in the salty, pitch-black water. So she did it by feel, brushing her aching palm over chains, metal frames, and vinyl mattresses with the threadbare sheets still on them. By the time she’d rid herself of the dekatite chain, her lungs were begging for air. She kicked herself back to the front of the compartment – the fore – and burst to the surface with stars spotting her vision.

“By the moons,” she gasped.

“Get lost?”

“I must have gotten turned around! I couldn’t even see your light.”

“Calm down, kid. You’re OK now. Help me with Blackwood.”

Together, they managed to get Blackwood on top of the flat locker by the maneuvering hatch – normally taller than Klara Yana, but now only a half-hand above the lapping water.

“There’s some sort of… injury… on her arm,” grunted Mahanner. “What happened up there? It looked like some sort of energized shock or something. Was it that thing that kept hitting the boat? That… what was it?”

“No clue,” said Klara Yana. A shiver shook her, rattling her words. Mahanner’s mention of an injury reminded her of the sharp pangs still coursing over her own left palm, excruciating in the undercurrents of icy seawater. Was her blood leaking out in the water? She kept her fist submerged, not daring to look in front of the other sailor.

Klara Yana could just see Blackwood’s wound beneath her shoved-up sleeve. It was on the bottom of her forearm and resembled a lightning bolt, etched in something much darker than blood. Something dark gray, almost metallic.

When Mahanner wasn’t looking, Klara Yana opened her palm for a quick glimpse of her own wound. Although it was slightly distorted by the tight grip she’d had on the pendant, the shape of the Broken Eye was unmistakable. Burned into her palm… with dekatite.