Deviation by A.J. Maguire Read Free Book Online Page A

effort.
    "Did we just submerge?" Keats yelled through the comms.
    "Just sit tight," Hedric responded and glanced at Myron again. "They'll be waiting for us to come up."
    "Then it's a good thing we're full up on oxygen," Myron directed the Lothogy further down, hurrying through a series of commands that finished the transformation from airborne ship to mariner.
    At the last moment before contact with water Hedric had shut down the ion drives, encapsulating them in their onboard docks at the rear of the ship. He heard the smooth grind of motors as propellers took the place of the ion drives. There was a jolt and a sudden push as the propulsion went to work, and Hedric let go of the breath he'd been holding. The under water systems were still in the initial phases of testing. Myron had only used them once before, in a highly controlled area where if anything had gone wrong he could have bailed without getting hurt. Hedric was somewhat disconcerted that the pilot had made such a drastic move, but in light of the trap Borden had laid, it seemed the best option.
    Another large sea creature flashed into life via the hologram system, this one with a distinct dorsal fin, and Myron turned the ship. The hologram disappeared a moment later but Hedric knew there would be more to come. The ocean was more dangerous than space these days, crowded with sea life - most of it large enough to take the ship down.
    "I think it's safe to say that Mesa found something, Captain," Myron spoke but his attention stayed on the console. "Something that wasn't just MRD's or whatever."
    "Agreed."
    "Any idea what it might have been?"
    "None at all."
    "Brilliant. Let's get killed for knowledge we don't have, shall we?"
    Hedric ignored the comment and began to check the systems. The inbound communications screen twitched to life, filling the cockpit with static just before his mother's face appeared. She looked horrible, and not just because of the disarray of hair and haphazard gown hanging from her shoulders. Her usually serene face was lit with anger and worry.
    "Uh-oh," Myron said.
    "I gave strict instructions," Celeocia glared out at them from the screen. "And I gave them for a reason."
    "The deviation couldn't be helped."
    He'd nearly lost the ship and all of his men, her further censure did nothing to improve his mood.
    "Never mind that," she waved a dismissive hand. "How much fuel have you got?"
    Hedric glanced at the controls, "Seventy-one percent ion, eighty-five percent petrol."
    "It might still work," she said, but it looked as though she was speaking to one of her controllers. "I'm sending an updated flight path to you but you're cutting it close. Tell your pilot to quit being fancy and just do as he's told."
    Myron grunted, half amused and half offended.
    "Adjust your angle by fifty-three degrees," she continued as though she hadn't heard. "And by all that is holy, Hedric, don't deviate again."
    The screen went blank and the communication was severed.
    "Fifty-three degrees takes us down," Myron frowned at the empty screen.
    "Then take us down."
    "But we're reaching the threshold. Any further and the pressure could make a nice Lothogy sandwich out of us."
    Hedric unbuckled from his seat and shoved himself to his feet. "Keats said the hull was safe under water."
    "I said it was moderately safe to a depth of two hundred feet," Keats appeared at the top of the ladder. "We aren't equipped for this type of dive, Hedric. Get us to the surface. Now."
    "Our orders say down, we go down. The Priestess knows what she's doing." He felt the tilt of the ship and knew Myron had adjusted.
    "The priestess has a serious lack of respect for the male gender," Keats glared down from the top of the ladder, his scrawny form half shadowed in the dimness. "And I, for one, am not going to be led to my death by a spiteful woman. Now turn this ship around!"
    Hedric leapt up the ladder, forcing Keats to take three steps backward. "I'm still Captain of this vessel and I say we