Bryke

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  Bryke looked around, his heart plummeting as he looked in the direction the ice had gone. There was something here, something beyond the edge of his mind that he couldn’t see. But he had a terrible feeling that this fact was important. The more he looked around, the more that he was sure that there was beneath the waters. Every other minute, he thought he saw some shadow that disappeared in an instant.

  “It’s playing with us!” Bryke said with a scowl. As he let his eyes move around, he was sure that this time the shadow moved higher before it went away. “There it is!”

  He fired into the water, and as the bolt sank deep the shadow reappeared just above it.

  “It’s playing with us!” Bryke snarled as he tried to aim at the shadow.

  “Keep calm!” Terra said, looking around herself. “Back to back, if that thing comes, fire!”

  Bryke did so and he barely kept from gritting his teeth. There was something so unnerving about this, and he could barely keep from growling. There was something about that just made him want to attack, but attack what? They were stuck here, with no way to leave. If only they had a way to go!

  “GUYS! THE ICE FLOWS TO US! HOLD ON, WE’LL MAKE IT TO YOU SOON!” Jessie ‘s voice echoed over the water.

  “They're coming to help us! Oh no. That thing will kill them if they swim!” Bryke exclaimed, horror in his voice.

  “Oh, blackhole! STAY THERE! SOMETHING WILL GET YOU IF YOU SWIM TO US! JUST STAY THERE FOR NOW!” Terra called out.

  A louder splash from the right caused Bryke to whip around and shine his lights on it. To his horror, he saw ripples in the water.

  “GAG!” Terra bellowed as she fired at the center mass of the ripple. Once the blue bolt hit, a large square of ice teen feet wide formed from the shot that hit the island!

  For a second Bryke thought that she had hit it, but no. A moment later another splash was heard! “NOVA! I should have gotten it that time! How fast can it swim!? I mean I covered twenty feet down with that one!”

  “Great effort! We need to wait and hit it when it comes up! One single moment is all we need. We just need……. To…...,” Bryke trailed off as he absorbed what Terra said. He went still as he thought about what she had said meant. If that was true, then they had a chance. “Wait, wait? Terra? You can mentally choose what the ice becomes?”

  “You caught that? Yeah, I figured out how to a while back. But what good would that do to us?” Terra asked.

  Bryke felt his mouth grin wide. He was right, and that meant that they could escape.

  “Everything! Make another grid around us! But this time make four small boats out of ice at the end. Connect them to the main part by thin lines and when the lines break we float free!” Bryke exclaimed and Terra looked at him.

  For a moment as he looked at her, Bryke feared he was wrong. But then she grinned and laughed. “YEAH! That could work!”

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  Terra

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  Terra felt her grin widen as she turned around and aimed her rifle. “This will work! But just to make sure!”

  She thought about what she needed and fired, each bolt hitting her target. As the ice square around the island formed again, this time four boats formed at the edge of each. All on but the one pointing in the direction the ice had formed, each boat formed a small hanging block. “MOVE NOW! ”

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  Without another word, Terra ran toward the small boat without the blocks. But before she reached the ice then she thought about something. “LIGHTS OUT!”

  Within a moment, the lights on her shoulder went out. As she jumped for the boat ahead of her, she saw the lights from Bryke turn off. Behind her, she heard the feet of Bryke, and in moments he was airborne. Before they landed, they heard a crash as the block to the right fell onto the boat.

  Terra grinned at Bryke as the small boat broke away from the main ice block. “Like that? I figured the beast would miss us if we were just one of the boats that something landed on them!”

  “Smart, I just hope it works,” Bryke said softly as the boat carried them away.

  Looking out in the darkness, Terra agreed with him. But as they floated away, a terrible thought hit her. There was nothing that said that the monster that had been hunting them was alone. And that meant that there was a chance there were more of this thing out there. Looking around, she kept her eyes trailing over the darkness for anything.

  They needed to get to the other two, Jessie and Zevortro would help them handle these. They had to stand together, that was the only way to survive.

  Before she could speak, a loud series of splashes was heard behind them. Turning towards it, they saw the outline of something smashing around the island’s surface. Without reacting, Terra looked into the darkness as Bryke swore next to her.

  “That’s what was attacking us, wasn’t it?” Bryke asked in a whisper.

  Terra nodded, and then she winced. “Yeah. That’s it. We were lucky. But how long will this take to get to the others.”

  Terra looked around and tried to think of a plan, anything that might work. Her blaster rifle could make other ice floats, but would that let it know where they were? Or would it keep them alive? The one thing she knew was that there was a chance that if she did nothing, they might survive. But if she was wrong, they might die.

  “HEY! WE CAN SEE YOU!” Zevortro’s voice from behind them caused her to grin. Maybe they could stand together after all.

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  Jessie

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  As Zevortro waved, Jessie looked around, trying to find anything. The way that more ice floated towards them and the scream of Terra before bothered him so much. They were on top of a deep water that moved, and had an ecosystem down there! And something had gone up looking for food! Counting the thing that flew over their head before, and that said the ‘land; had life too. And that wasn’t even counting the fact that the chances of more creatures coming out of the whole they made up there. For all he knew, a hive or something was attacking the others!

  “So, any idea where to go once they get here?” Zevortro asked with a note of anger in his voice.

  Jessie looked at him and shook his head. He could go and scout around, but go where? There was no simple way to get out. If he went the way the current went, he might find something. But on the other way, the source of the current might be the answer. Any one of the walls could have an opening and he might never find it in the dark. The more he looked around, the more he was sure that the people who made this relied heavily on Augmented Reality. His nanites had noticed something there, but his eyes couldn’t see anything. He had once read a research file when he had been raiding a company. About how eyes that see different spectrums see augmented reality differently. How they could see more than races with normal vision did. If that was true, then these people were different from many races in the Federation.

  “None, we’ll talk with them once they get here. I can scout around fast. Give me an hour and I might have somewhere we can go. Maybe,” Jessie said as he looked around.

  “What about going up?” Zevortro asked as he looked at Jessie and then into the ceiling.

  “Too dark. I can’t see anything, and if I guess wrong I’ll just run into something. Bad way to die,” Jessie said bitterly as he looked at Zevortro. He saw the look in Zevortro’s eyes and Jessie had to wonder just what Zevortro thought about the Power. Few people even knew it was real, but after everything the last few days most of the deckhands knew the truth. And some of them, even the passengers would try and figure out how to get their own. But the thought of someone like Jones getting a Power was scary.

  “HEY!” Bryke’s voice caused them both to look up.

  Bryke and Terra were coming towards them, twenty feet away on a boat made of ice. As they watched, Jessie zeroed in on Terra who was looking behind them.

  That caused him to scowl, as Terra would have noticed anything that was tracking them. And that meant that the thing that had attacked them was still after them. Without a thought, he jumped up into the air, and with a burst of movement, he had ‘dashed’ to them. He landed softly next to them, and Bryke’s mouth dropped open in shock.

  “How, why? How did you do that!?” He asked, his voice horse.

  “So,” Terra said as she put her right hand on her waist. “You finally showed what you can do.”

  “Wait, you knew!?” Bryke exclaimed in shock.

  “I helped her out a few years back. It wound up being something that lasted a year, but it was something right. We said goodbye, and here we are,” Jessie explained as he shrugged. “So ready to be carried away to safety?”

  “Wait, what?! That’s why you’re here!? I ain’t going to be picked up like some princess type and….!” Bryke began on for the sounds of something breaking to their left to cause him to go silent, his mouth open.

  “That’s one of the other boats! It must have been hit by the thing hunting us!” Terra exclaimed in shock.

  A loud splash from their right caused Bryke’s mouth to close with a snap. He looked back at Jessie with a scared look in his eyes. “I’m ready to be carried away from here now.”

  “How many decoys did you make!?” Jessie demanded as he looked around.

  His augmented vision only let him see ten five feet in the dark, and the others were farther away than that. He had to hope that she had made more than just two boats.

  “Four of them! And I made it so that we fell onto outs after the decoy weights fell onto the other boats!” Terra said as she looked around, her rifle aimed at the water.

  Jessie’s eyes shot wide as he comprehended what his friend said. There was only one way that was possible in the short time they had to get here. And that showed him she could do something that he thought was impossible.

  “Wait, what!? You can mentally make the ice do anything you want as it forms!?” Jessie asked the wonder and shock in his voice almost making Terra look back at him.

  “Yeah, I can. And how will that help us?” Terra asked fear and anger in her voice.

  Jessie just looked at her and then shook his head, activating a strain of nanites within him. Bouncing a short-range data pulse to the rifle, he sent the data to Terra’s Augmented Reality Nanaites.

  “WHOOH!” Terra exclaimed in shock.

  Jessie only nodded as he carefully moderated the data he was sending. “I’m sending you data from my targeting nanites through the rifle. Just aim it and shoot, think about making more decoys! Once you have five of them, then we’ll escape! And make each one drop a decoy weight, and have each weigh different amounts! Let’s see if this thing can think or reason!”

  Terra stayed silent, aiming and firing without questioning how he had done this.

  Bryke however looked at him in shock. “What about when we escape from here!?”

  “Simple, I’ll just carry both of you! I once did this carrying four people and two of them were Heavy Gravity worlders. You two? This’ll be easy!” Jessie said with a grin.