Jack Du Brul - Deep Fire Rising

One of the men reached Tisa and cut off her charge with a flying tackle. Both tumbled across the deck. The second man rushed to her side. Mercer recognized the way he moved, so much like her lithe rhythm. Luc Nguyen.

Trapped in the armored suit dangling from the crane just inside the railing, there was nothing Mercer could do as Luc helped Tisa to her feet and tenderly wiped her hair off her face.

“Come on, Jim,” Mercer shouted, though he couldn’t be heard. “Do something!”

And Jim did. The argument reached a fever pitch. Charlie and Spirit were screaming. From under his untucked shirt, McKenzie pulled a snub-nosed revolver and pumped three shots into Charlie’s stomach. The bullets were hollow points and the spray of blood from his back was a hovering cloud of carmine mist.

Even inside the NewtSuit, Mercer could hear the triple blasts. He had no idea what he’d just witnessed. Spirit dropped to her knees next to her dead husband. Tisa appeared catatonic. Luc Nguyen left his sister’s side and padded over to Jim. The two embraced like long-separated friends.

The moment their backs were to her, Spirit leapt from where she’d fallen and raced at Mercer, her face a twisted mask of anguish and determination. One of the terrorists who’d boarded the Angel had reactions as quick as hers. He had his rifle up to his shoulder by the time she’d covered ten of the twenty feet separating her from Mercer.

Her strides were impossibly long, like those of a gazelle. She managed two more before the rifle cracked. The shot tore a chunk out of her shoulder and still she came.

The next bullet hit her square in the back and exploded out her stomach, carrying enough velocity to ricochet off the NewtSuit. Her mouth flew open and still she ran, born by momentum until she slammed into the ADS.

Spirit’s impetus pendulumed the five-hundred-pound suit over the rail with her clinging to its body. As soon as it cleared the ship, she mouthed, “Let go.”

At the apex of the swing, Mercer didn’t hesitate. He released the lock holding his pincer closed and the suit plummeted from the ship. Spirit lost her grip as they plunged into the water. Mercer fell through the layer of ash and dropped like a stone into the inky blackness, leaving Spirit to die in the ooze.

He was too stunned for several seconds to do anything but ride the NewtSuit as it sank ever deeper. When he finally broke free of his daze and activated the motors to arrest his descent, he found they didn’t have the power. The battered ADS was out of trim and negatively buoyant.

The fall seemed to go on forever, an endless slow-motion journey into the depths. The NewtSuit could take the pressure of a thousand feet, but Mercer knew the ruined visor would implode long before that. According to his gauge he’d already sunk five hundred feet. He hadn’t forgotten that La Palma was one of the steepest islands in the world. Its submerged buttresses would likely be even sheerer. For all he knew there was a mile of water under his feet.

He passed through eight hundred feet, a tiny figure outlined in the glow of his own lamps. He had been sure Spirit was the saboteur. Her New Age philosophy fit perfectly with the Order’s beliefs, and she had had the opportunity on the Surveyor and here. After being with C.W. for so long, she’d have known how to tinker with an ADS. But what had clinched it for him was how she’d been dressed during the eruption. Moments earlier she’d been arguing with C.W. Mercer had heard them in their cabin. She had run out as soon as she’d heard the blast. Charlie was taking his time getting dressed. He’d already put on his jeans and shoes. Mercer had been certain that was when she’d hit him, to prevent him from making the dive.

But he knew now that wasn’t how it was. She really had just run out. It was Jim who’d gone in when Charlie was dressing and bashed him with something. Her comment about him not being man enough to use C.W.’s suit hadn’t been made in a panic when she’d realized she’d damaged the wrong one. It was a possessive expression of love for C.W. She’d lashed out because she did have feelings for Mercer and hated herself for it.

He checked the gauge. A thousand feet. Around him was nothing but darkness.

Goddamned Jim McKenzie. He’d had more than enough opportunity and an obvious motive if he was a member of the Order. He’d done just enough to gain Mercer’s confidence. He’d stayed close enough to the center of things to make himself indispensable. He’d planned this setup since his admission on the Surveyor about a rogue signal activating the tower.

“Damn!” Mercer shouted aloud. The suit had an emergency lift bag. C.W. had referred to it as the antichute, joking that parachutes slow your descent, the antichute reverses it.

Mercer fumbled with the control pad in his right arm, lifting the safety catch off the antichute’s release button. He hit the switch and shouted with relief as the sounds of the bag inflating over his head filled the helmet. His descent came to a gradual halt.

But that was it. He didn’t start rising as he should have.

“Come on.” He hit the button again. The bag had deployed as far as it would. He’d damaged the cylinder of gas when he’d smashed away the engine back in the vent. Like someone trapped in the basket of a runaway hot air balloon, he started drifting with the benthic currents.

“No. No way.” Mercer put everything out of his mind. He spooled up the few working thrusters and took a compass bearing.

The Petromax Angel had been a mile from shore. Mercer factored in the angle of the undersea cliffs and estimated he was no more than a quarter mile from the island’s submerged flank. He checked the suit’s digital chronograph. He’d set the nuke thirty-two minutes ago, leaving him two hours and twenty-eight minutes before it detonated.

With the half-inflated bag acting as a sail, Mercer worked with the current as best he could and squeezed a half knot from the roughed-up ADS.

For the next thirty minutes Mercer wouldn’t let himself think about anything but keeping his body as still as possible and the pressure on the foot pedal constant, although thoughts of Tisa swirled at the periphery of his concentration.

The ash had yet to penetrate this deep, leaving Mercer almost fifteen feet of visibility even with his warped visor. The cliff seemed to build itself as he approached, first just a suggestion, then a solid segment and finally a towering wall that had no end. He reached out and touched one rocky projection, reassuring himself that it was real. Making it this far was a victory, but now the real work began. He checked his depth. He’d drifted down another two hundred feet, well past the suit’s limit.

The emergency bag afforded him almost neutral buoyancy, otherwise what he had in mind would have been impossible. He didn’t have the strength and the suit certainly didn’t have the flexibility. He jammed his foot against the cliff, searching for a toehold. Once he was reasonably stable he kicked upward, scrabbling along the rough stones for a place to grip with his pincer. His kick rose him eight feet but he fell back four until the claw found purchase.

He found another foothold and kicked upward again, gaining only six feet but losing nothing when his pincer closed around a narrow ribbon of ancient lava. Just two awkward lunges in the bulky suit already cramped his legs. Mercer checked his oxygen. He had plenty so he made the mix a bit richer, giving his muscles more of what they needed.

In short fits and starts Mercer scaled the cliff. Sometimes he’d gain ten feet with a single lurch; other times he’d lose five. It was frustrating and agonizing. His body ran with sweat and with his arms trapped in the suit he couldn’t wipe the salt from his eyes. His shoulders and thighs were on fire yet he steadily gained. And as he climbed higher the pressure on the gas in the lifting bag decreased. When it expanded it increased his buoyancy, making each halting leap that much easier.