"Then we need to find the source. A Soul Tick doesn't originate from an Argyle. Something introduced it into this city. Something brought it here, and if there's one infected host in that harbour, there are more."
Lt. Kayla's lips parted for a second before pressing into a line. "Cadet Reed. We cannot just-"
A faint tremor rippled through the base.
Within a fraction of a second, the four lieutenants jolted to their feet, every fibre of their being leaning towards identifying the fading ripple.
Lt. Zamri focused inwards, her eyes widened, and she gasped. "BRACE!"
A terrifying tremor struck, and the base lurched sideways.
I was hurled back, airborne for a fraction of a second before I struck a table behind me and grabbed the surface with both hands to hold on; everything not bolted to the floor was already in the air.
A chair flung across the room. Lt Nomi slid across the room, and Lt. Kayla instinctively hunkered down to stop herself. Lt Jamie latched onto the ceiling with a strange tendril that wrapped him upwards. Lt Zamri floated into the air.
Nico was hurled to the back. He hit the doorframe shoulder-first and dug his fingers into the wall.
A deafening chime echoed, and the air itself twisted into a wave of pressure that collapsed right on top of us with a force that bypassed hearing entirely and settled straight into my bones,
I had just enough time to drag in a breath.
The second wave hit.
A sickening vertical lurch took my stomach, my grip on the table loosened, and I slammed into the wall. My heart raced, I looked behind me, and Nico was down on one knee in the doorway, one hand locked onto the frame, jaw set hard against whatever he was feeling.
The lights cut out completely. There was one full second of blackout till the alarms blared, and the emergency lights turned on, throwing the room into a harsh shade of crimson.
Before the situation could make any sense to me, a third impact came.
This time, the base itself shuddered. The shaking worsened, resonating through the walls and the floor all at once. The base answered with a groan and recoiled backwards; the sound of enormous forces pressing against each other through reinforced steel and enchanted glass reverberated.
I whacked onto the floor and immediately pulled myself upright against the wall.
"It's Deep Singers." Zamri's voice was taut with tension. She darted out the door. "Northern perimeter. Multiple contacts on the barrier."
"How did they find the base?" Nomi asked sharply and reoriented herself.
"Let's go." Zamri's eyes cut to Nico and me, "You two, stay close. Neither of you moves alone."
Before we could even respond, Zamri was already at the door, and Nomi was two steps behind her.
Both Lieutenants raced down the hallways, their figures obscured by the flashing light; the sound of their voices was swallowed immediately by the alarm's pulse and the continuous low groan of the base's structure.
Jamie and Kayle followed suit.
Nico and I exchange a hurried glance.
We ran.
The corridor was nothing like it had been a minute ago.
Dozens of personnel poured through it from every direction, boots hammering the floor, someone shouting numbers into a handheld communicator, two officers hauled a pressure kit between them at a dead sprint. The blaring alarms drove everyone forward, constant and relentless, and intermittent alerts filled every gap between footsteps and voices.
[Divum]
Another impact hit, the wall to my left buckled inward half an inch and snapped back. I darted down the halls, and Nico flickered forward.
At the far end of the corridor, Kayla, Zamri and Jamie were already assembled. No preamble. No discussion. Jamie was tightening a harness across his chest with quick, practised movements. Kayla's hands were already raised.
Zamri breathed out once, slow and deliberate, and the air around her hands moved, splitting into bubbles.
The bubbles gathered, thickened, and split into two masses that crossed the space to Kayla and Jamie in under a second. The film wrapped each of them from the feet up, fast and seamless, pressing against skin and fabric and contouring to every angle like a second surface pulled taut.
Nomi shouted at us from the right. "Reed, Sylwyn. Control room. Keep up."
We hurried behind her, and the moment we pushed through the door, a wave of nausea struck me.
The room was in chaos.
Screens everywhere, half of them flashing amber, a quarter red. Officers moved between stations without pausing, voices clipped and overlapping, numbers called and confirmed and called again. The floor was vibrating. Not from the alarm. From something outside pressing its weight against the hull with the slow, enormous patience of something that didn't need to hurry.
My eyes settled on the other cadets who had clearly rushed her, unsettled and confused, standing at the rear, pressed against the back wall. Nico and I quickly took our place within their group.
Nomi walked to the centre of the room, and the noise dropped.
"Barrier damage, northern perimeter. Structural stress on sections four and seven. Possible ingress in the lower eastern compartments." An officer reporte.
Nomi walked up the front and observed the situation. "Gate valves nine and eleven, close them now. Open twelve and fourteen. Balance the pressure differentia. Move. Now!"
The room was scattered.
While the officers and Nomi worked towards securing the base, my eyes drifted to the observation window, but the ocean that I expected to be dark and lightless was somehow glowing.
I instinctively took a step forward and spotted the figures lurking in the distance.
Bioluminescent pulses ran along their silhouettes in slow rhythmic waves. That was the first thing I registered. The second was their size. Each one was gargantuan, akin to a whale. But despite their size, the deep singers moved through the water with unnerving ease.
There were three visible from the windows.
The nearest one opened its maw and released a sonic pulse. A concentric ring of compressed water expanded outwards towards the base.
Three figures appeared in the water in front of the window, impossibly small against the scale of what surrounded them. But the mana rolling off of each created its own waves.
Beside me, Nico had drifted forward toward the glass, and so had the rest of the cadets. All of us were there now, pressed close, watching.
Jamie raised his hands, and a large magic circle opened in the waters before him. Sinuous dark tendrils reaching outwards through them, clashing against the sonic pulse, absorbing the impact entirely.
The nearest Singer reacted immediately, releasing another pulse that turned the water white for a fraction of a second. Two of Jamie's tendrils tore apart mid-reach and four more extended to replace them.
Beside him, Kayla pressed both palms flat against the hull's exterior, and her magic spread outward from her hands like frost across stone, fast and continuous, a golden reinforcing layer clung to the base's surface.
Zamri heaved backwards with both arms extended. The mana around her swirled, turning slow and then faster, and the water around the nearest Singer responded. A spiral formed, pulling the creature into its grasp.
The second Singer reacted.
It swung toward Zamri and released a pulse directly at her. The compressed water crossed the distance in an instant and hit her full-on. The impact pitched her back, but not before her magic could respond.
A torrential current swept towards her. Zamri controlled the overlapping currents to push herself back to the front seamlessly.
The first Singer drove hard against the pull. Its tail carved enormous arcs through the water, its body rolling and torquing against the current. But Zamri's vortex tightened another degree, and another.
Jamie swam towards the third Singer.
Guiding his tendrils to reach its flank and wrap around its massive frame. The creature rolled to shake them loose, and two snapped clean away. Six more extended immediately.
The Singer released pulsed point-blank.
Kayla waved, and a golden barrier collided with the sonic wave, fizzling it out.
Jamie pulled his tendrils tighter, fully covering the third Singer till it could no longer move. Without its tail moving, the gargantuan creature began to sink towards the ocean floor.
Zamri shifted her arms, and the mana around her surged outward. She widened her vortex and pulled in the second Singer, who lurched as the spiral's reach found it.
With the two caught. Neither could break free.
Jamie rushed forward, a cluster of summoning circles surrounded the vortex, and dozens of black tendrils slithered forward. The water stilled, and the tendrils wrapped the Singers completely, slowly forcing them down to the sea floor.
We watched in awe as the fight ended.
Inside, Nomi's voice rang out; she repeatedly called out orders. While she carried internal repairs, Jamie turned his tendrils downward and spread them across the base's understructure, bracing the stress fractures in the support columns from outside.
The floor under my boots stopped shifting.
With the crisis averted, everyone in the room heaved sighs of relief. Colour returned to their faces, and the air simmered down.
A few minutes later, Zamri, Jamie and Kayle came back through the exterior hatch one after another.
Jamie was the first one to rush up.
"Outside structure is stable. The Southern support column took the worst of it. My summons are holding it, but not indefinitely. Six hours before we need repair crews out there."
"Inside held," Nomi said. "Minor ingress in the eastern lower block, contained before it spread. Section seven lost two instrument panels. Secondary comms array is down."
Jamie nodded and looked at us, then signalled back to Kayla.
Kayla nodded, "Cadets. Till we fully repair the base. You are all required to go to the surface. Your presence here will only hinder the work."
I looked to Zamri, but she nodded the same.
But one thing had slipped my mind.
Mira was the one who stepped forward and brought it up. "What about Montgomery?"
My eyes widened slightly, I glanced at Nico. He looked straight ahead.
Zamri's eyes moved to the two of us from across the room. Her eyes narrowed with a meaningful glance.
Don't.
Kayla took in a breath.
"Cadet Burns is quarantined and presenting with active symptoms. He remains in the isolation ward under medical supervision."
"But he should"
"That is the end of that conversation. We cannot risk contamination right now. Trust me, he'll be evacuated in due time. For now, all we need you to do is follow orders. Is that clear?"
Mira went quiet.
Kayla took her silence as a response and looked over our group.
"All of you. Follow me."