REPEAT: Adrift Homeless 1x03 "Like Mother, Like Daughter"

Sorry I've been quiet lately. I've been binge writing all weekend long, and I finally finished the new chapter. This isn't it. It still has to be edited. But 1x07 "Mrs. Roboto" is almost ready for release, and in the mean time we're gonna catch everyone up. Here's chapter 1x03. The other chapters are further down. in my blog. ANyway, ENjoy! I have to go to work, I finished with 2 hours to spare. Phew. The final page count is 32 pages for the chapter, 260 pages so far for the book. And that's just one of 5 I'm writing for 99geek.ca

1x03 “Like Mother, like Daughter”

Released on http://www.patreon.com/99geek in June 2017

“She designed these?” Emma asked, leafing through the physical blueprints the mayor had the guard in a suit spread out on the table.

Emma was trying to imagine her mother’s hand tracing along the pages. Her mother could have very well touched the exact same corners Emma was touching now. It was perhaps the closest to touching her mother that Emma would ever get for the rest of her life.

It was a weird thought. Hard for her to imagine her mother doing anything since the Suits came and took her away. The mayor was watching Emma, almost too curiously.

“They’re amazing aren’t they?” Maggie May urged Emma on, the squirrely Kat reading the blueprints over Emma’s shoulder. Someone else had come into the room, a stern looking narrow eyed man with small glasses.

“The dimensions on this thing are unimaginable,” Emma agreed with everyone else in the room. Even Kat was nodding her agreement though she said nothing. “It’s larger than life. And the way my mother solved anti-gravity with electric current and magnetism is ingenious. But all in all it’s a little sloppy,” she looked over the designs quickly to affirm her first instincts, “and it’ll never work.”

The stern looking man over Councilwoman Maggie May’s shoulder crossed his arms.

“What would you do different?” the world leader asked Emma with a bemused smirk on her face.

“I would start from scratch for one,” Emma said, pouring over the schematics again. “The power requirements are astronomical. I don’t care how much energy you’re generating, that’s going to put too much strain on your single generator.” She took a pen from Kat’s things and began scribbling on the schematics. This was her first time ever working on real paper. It was expensive and most work was done electronically these days. “I would need to reconfigure the entire internals of the ship, make room for multiple generators. Three preferably. Four if we have the money.”

“What if starting over isn’t an option,” the mayor of Hymalious City asked Emma, the older woman’s gray hair already sliding untidily from its bun.

Emma looked down at the schematics, and then back to the woman who had approached her. “You’re saying you already built this?” She couldn’t believe what she was being told. “The resources alone...” Emma trailed off as she flipped through the pages again, going over the floor plans of every floor. “Can I see it?”

“Well I mean, it’s not here.”

“Obviously,” Emma said. “I’d have to go into space, right?”

Councilwoman May smiled. “I think that can be arranged,” she told Emma. “It was a lifetime’s worth of work. Your mother’s life’s work.” This project had been the very reason Emma’s mother hadn’t been there to help raise her. This very project had ruined Emma’s life.

Suddenly, looking down at the blueprints spread out before her only filled her stomach with nausea.

 “Your power concern is very real,” Maggie May warned Emma. “Our engineers have been having increasing issues balancing energy distribution across the various systems.” The man behind Mrs. May shifted his weight uncomfortably and Emma wondered if he was in fact one of those engineers, if not even the acting chief.

“What other options do we have?” Mayor May asked. “Ones that don’t involve starting over from scratch.” Her smile turned into a frown. “We’ve spent quite a lot of money on our first attempt.”

Emma looked sheepishly down on the mess she’d already made of her mother’s schematics.

“Oh we have copies,” Maggie May assured her. “Both hard copies and digital mock ups.” Emma breathed a little relief.

“I can th-think of a c-couple options,” Kat stuttered, examining what was still legible.

“Only one practical fix jumps out at me,” Emma said, often making a habit of following her gut. “If I were in charge I’d install capacitors throughout the ship. Here, here, here,” Emma turned the page and pointed to a couple more spots, turning the page and pointing again, then turning the page one more time. “Here. Here. And here too. Probably a whole bunch of other places.”

“The capacitors,” Emma explained to the room, “would draw from the main generator during slow times, storing up to twenty-four hours worth of energy. The ship’s systems would then drain from the capacitors, keeping the strain off the main generator.”

“It has the added bonus,” Emma concluded as she put down Kats’ pen, “of allowing for reserve power across the ship even if something happens to the main generator.”

“It’s a s-sound plan,” Kat said to her friend, patting the other woman reassuringly on the back.

Maggie May shared a glance with her engineer. “Like mother, like daughter,” Maggie May said to her man who snarled back.

“With all due respect,” the engineer said to Maggie May. “This sort of show boat science is exactly what got us in trouble to begin with,” he insisted of the woman. “Gut instincts have no place in engineering.”

“Come Eggie,” Maggie May said to the man harshly, and Emma didn’t particularly like the way the man was talking about her mother. “None of this is Penman’s fault. She did the best she could designing something greater and more ambitious than any endeavor the human race has ever attempted.”

Emma noticed her mother’s signature at the bottom of one of the pages, and rubbed her thumb over it. “Did she leave me anything?” Emma asked the mayor. “A message or something?”

“I don’t think she saw the end coming,” Maggie May said with a shake of her head. “But we have cameras in nearly every facility that your mother worked in. I could have my people compile a string of clips of your mother at work. Maybe it will bring you some peace.”

Emma nodded. “Did she ever even think of me again?”

Mayor May grabbed at Emma’s hand. “She talked about you all the time,” Maggie assured Emma, and Emma didn’t know what to believe anymore. “Told everyone who would listen how smart you were. How you were going to surpass her someday. After everything she built for us, there was never any doubt that her best creation was always you. And it would always be you.”

“Then why didn’t you ever let her contact me?” Emma begged. Having not thought of her mom in years, it was like all the buried emotions were flooding back. Emma was doing everything she could not to cry again. She hadn’t cried since her twelfth birthday and she wasn’t about to start now. “Or even see me again?” she continued, closing her eyes to center herself.

“She didn’t want this for you,” Maggie said, leaning back in her chair. This was the first time, since meeting the woman that Emma noticed how old she looked. She had seemed, at first, filled with so much energy. “It’s why we didn’t come for you sooner. Why you weren’t informed of your mother’s death. She wanted to keep you free from us, far away where you wouldn’t get involved in all this. And after everything she’d done for this planet – and for me – I felt like I owed her that one favour.”

“Please forgive me,” Maggie May mumbled and Emma could tell the woman was being genuine. “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now.”

“How did she die?” Emma asked slowly, her voice cracking. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know.

“It was cancer. It spread fast.” The council leader let her words hang in the air, and Emma felt her heart sink in her chest. She didn’t know why she’d always assumed her mother would have died a hero, in some grand explosion or something. She didn’t know why she thought that would have been better.

Councilwoman May opened her mouth to talk again, “I bel—“ but there was a knock at the door and it opened, the man in a suit on the other side not waiting for Maggie May’s response.

“Mrs. Mayor,” he began to say.

The old council leader turned around, and she didn’t seem happy. “I told you not to disturb me unless there was another situation at the very least as extreme as the last one.”

The man seemed to pale before the council leader’s scrutiny. But he held his ground.

“There’s been another situation.”

*     *

CAUTION Slow Ascent! CAUTION Slow Ascent!

The same warning kept flashing on Nick’s dashboard, warning him that he hadn’t given the engines time to warm up. The engines had been cooled so long that it would have been preferable to wait and let them work themselves in with a bit of time, but time was something Nick didn’t have.

The lights in his cockpit flashed red and everything shook like the very gunship was going to tear apart. Alarms were sounding, blaring louder than the clanging of debris and rock outside his ship as the building he had been hiding his craft inside fell apart around him. All that extra weight on the hull wasn’t helping his ascent.

Engines at 13% and critical

“Come on,” he said, swearing at his controls. “Hold it togetha’.” The engines were overheating. They weren’t taking in enough charge and being pushed past their maximum.

CAUTION Slow Ascent!

“I KNOW!”

*

The gunship rose from the rubble slowly, like a demon rising from hell itself. The very ground beneath Alec’s feet rumbled and he grabbed at his new waitress friend to steady himself. She brushed him off her.

“What’s happening?” Steph yelled, her hair whipping in the wind. It occurred to Alec that she was watching her very livelihood fall apart before her eyes. Alec knew jobs weren’t easy to come by.

The large bartender, Steph’s boss, pushed past the two of them to approach the general. Alec watched as General Gilber pulled out a radio from somewhere in his jacket and used it to contact someone.

“We need immediate air support,” Alec heard him grunt into his handheld device. “I have the highest military clearance and I’m order’n a reallocation of forces to my location.”

“I ‘ad no idea that was down there,” Lankey insisted to the general. “Ye have ta believe me.”

“Yeh didn’t know about the first generation Mark I Blazkor gunship hiding in your basement?” the general repeated, and Alec had the strange sense like the military man didn’t believe him.

David stepped forward to join the men, yelling over the howling winds and blowing sands that only matched the roar of the gunships overheating engines and the loud collapse of Lankey’s bar.

“Why would someone knowingly build their bar on top of a working gunship?” David seemed to be trying to reason with the older general. Lankey pointed to the doctor in agreement.

“Is this what people used to do before someone invented a garage?” Alec asked rhetorically to no one in particular. He wasn’t even sure anyone heard him over all the noise.

Colonel John Adams, standing in silent defiance of the gunship, pulled out his pistol and began shooting loudly at the right engine. The bullets clanged off the metal but he kept shooting undeterred until his gun was out of ammo.

He then reloaded.

“What are you doing?” Gilber yelled at his man. “Pistol ammo won’t penetrate that hull.”

“He’s burning his engines too hot,” John said, and Alec could swear he saw a metaphorical light bulb go off over the man’s head. “I have another idea.”

The military colonel sprinted towards the nearest tall building, bashing through the front door.

“Where’s he heading?” Alec asked, watching John go.

“Don’t worry,” General Gilber said off-hand, returning to his radio. “He’s my best man. He knows what he’s doing.” Something was said in the radio that Alec didn’t hear, and Gilber started to yell. “I know most of our forces are at the border of the deep desert. Launch air support from Rebirth for all I care, they can be anywhere on the planet in ten minutes.”

*

Nicholas noticed the man shooting at him had stopped, and seemed to be making for a building.

CAUTION Slow Ascent

There was nothing more Nick could do from the pilot’s seat, the engine very much acting with a mind of its own. Sliding out of his seat, Nick stumbled over to the gunner station, and spun up the machine gun turrets. He tried to turn on the targeting computer, but the device didn’t immediately respond to the on switch. Hitting the monitor with his fist, the move blinked the screen to life. Like everything else on this rust bucket, the guns hadn't been spun in a very long time.

He opened fire with the lower gun, sweeping the lower floor of the building. While that gun fired, he spun up the upper gun as well. He’d only be able to aim one at a time, but he could point one and have it fire while he used the other.

*

“Shit,” John swore, bullets following him into the stairwell as he made it to the second floor. He tried to continue up but was cut off by another hailstorm of bullets from above. Getting off at the second floor, and into a brown run down apartment hallway, John broke into someone’s apartment. It was thankfully empty, TV screen left on, and towels over the windows to act as shade. John made for the longest hanging towel, and behind it he found a balcony.

It wasn’t high enough for what he needed. In fact, the second floor put him almost eye to eye with the pilot. John pulled out his gun again and fired a couple shots directly between the pilot’s eyes. The glass was strong enough to hold, but the second shot made a little mark.

John would have kept shooting, but the pilot moved to a different station and the lower turret swiveled to aim up at John. As it fired, John booked it across the balcony and jumped onto the neighbouring balcony. The apartment he’d just been standing in exploded with bullet fire and the deck collapsed behind him, the bullets tracing along after John as he ran.

The balcony he was on tore apart as the bullets wrecked everything around him. John barely avoided getting hurt by rolling over the railing onto the next balcony. Debris tore at his skin as he went and he was covered in a sticky mixture of dirt and sweat.

This new balcony was already creaking under his weight, and when the gunfire hit it, the thing immediately began to collapse. John spotted a boy no older than five inside the apartment complex, and the kid seemed about to cry. John barely jumped into the room with the boy in time, and realized the boy would most definitely get in the way of the gunfire. Grabbing the kid John smashed his shoulder through the front door into the hallway as the gunfire behind him tore up the boy’s dark shabby apartment.

Seeing the elevator at the end of the hall, John ran for it, passing dim lights in a brisk run down the drab hallway full of graffiti. The boy struggled under his grasp, scrambling to get away, but John knew the area still wasn’t safe and the guns were right behind him. They were tearing through the entire building! Suddenly fire above must have snapped a cable because the elevator dropped right before John’s eyes. Another cable was rushing up, clearly weighed down on the other end. Behind him bullets were closing in as outside the gunship continued to climb.

John had one chance.

He leapt into the elevator shaft, the kid still under his arm, and he grabbed the cable with everything he could muster. It yanked on his shoulder hard enough to nearly yank it out of its socket, and they began their fast acceleration towards the roof.

Too fast. He’d have to get off, have to let go. It was going to hurt.

“Hold on,” he said, the floors whipping past. Letting go of the rope and angling his body for the nearest open floor, he closed his eyes and turned his body to roll on impact. He was able to use his momentum to protect the child as he smacked against the polished floors heavily and landed on what must have been floor seven or eight.

It hurt, exactly as much as he’d expected it to, almost enough to knock him unconscious. He made a sound that almost sounded like an ow. The kid pulled against him, pushing him to move.

“Do it again!”

*     *

“I can’t make heads or tails of any of this,” Tameka complained, throwing her datapad of translations across the room. Jack watched her with what looked like growing concern on his face. The fact was she couldn’t concentrate since sending off that anonymous message. Had it gotten through? Were they able to stop her mother’s plans?

“You have to get me out of here,” she told Jack, aware that he was still watching her. “You know this base better than I do.” She was going to say more, a certain memory resurfacing from when they were kids and would play together and he would rescue her from her mother’s evil fortresses at least in their imagination.

Tameka wasn’t able to start however as Dinah entered the room with another of her mother’s soldiers. They were both in armoured military gear. The Blazkor combat uniform was a mix of pressed beige military attire with black armoured shoulders, elbows, and knee pads. The uniform also had a bullet proof chest piece built just under the thicker fabric.

“What do you two want?” Tameka asked suspiciously.

“It’s not me,” Dinah said. “Mother Davi’s wants to see you in the war room.”

Tameka didn’t even know they had a war-room. She also continuously forgot the creepy way everyone in this base referred to her mother the same way Meka did.

Mother.

“She thought I needed an escort to get there?” Tameka asked, acutely aware that both Dinah and the other soldier had their weapons drawn.

“Meka,” Jack said quietly. “You think she knows?” Tameka gave him a look, hoping he would be more careful as to not give anything away. They didn’t know what this was about.

“Mother Davi’s knows all things,” Dinah said, making room between her and the soldier for Tameka to lead the way.

“Mother Davi’s knows all,” the soldier repeated, as if it was some kind of twisted mantra.

“Mother Davi’s knows all,” Jack said from beside Tameka. She looked at him again, this time with more than a little concern. Whose side was he on exactly? Would he have her back if things got messy?

They marched their way down bustling dirt corridors as rebel soldiers passed in a hurry, all dressed in similar combat gear and arming themselves with weapons as if for war. Alarms were blarting all over the station insisting that the situation was not a drill.

“I know you guys have been here a long time,” Tameka muttered as they came to a crossroads, “But I don’t actually have a clue where I’m going.” The soldiers they’d already passed must have numbered over a hundred easy. How much of a force had her mother been stashing away here in the deep desert?

Dinah jabbed Tameka with the barrel of her gun, and pointed their sacred leader’s rebellious daughter to the right. “It’s just in there,” she said.

“Thanks,” Tameka muttered, rubbing the spot on her back where Dinah had jabbed her. She stepped through a narrow doorway, ducking her head so as not to hit it on the frame.

The war room was a large operations center with a big 2D green wire map of the planet against one wall, and that was where Tameka’s mother stood, scrutinizing the map closely. Behind her were rows and rows of computer stations where a large handful of people scrambled to control what must have been numerous arms of their rebellion.

“Tammy!” her mother yelled across the loud noise of the room. Her mother was the only person to call her that, and she hated it. Every time she heard her mother’s nickname for her, Meka felt a shiver run down her spine.

“Bring her to me,” she said sternly to Dinah. Tameka’s rival grabbed her by the arm and dragged her closer to her mother, Jack following dutifully behind her. Why wasn’t he defending her? Didn’t he care about her at all? Didn’t he care how she was being treated? She tried to turn to see him but Dinah jostled her to keep her focused on her mother.

“I wanted you to see this,” her mother gloated to her, looking back at the map. “Finally. Blazkor’s moment of triumph.” It almost seemed like her mother was mumbling to herself. “Three generations in the making.”

“Your moment of triumph?” Tameka asked, not liking the sound of that.

“I know about your transmission,” her mother warned her. “And as you’ll come to see, it didn’t even do you any good.”

Tameka looked around the room, Dinah too distracted now to jostle her. Everyone seemed focused on her mother, or on the map. “I don’t know what it is you’ve done to brainwash everyone here,” Meka accused her mother. “But I can see through everything. I see you, and how all of this is just about you.”

“Tammy,” Mother Davi’s said with a tut. “I’ve done nothing to brainwash anyone in this base. From the moment they were born they have loved me, right down to every Blazkor man woman and child.”

“Mother,” a soldier at a station called for her attention. “Re-enforcements are two minutes from the wall.”

“Oh goodie,” Suma Davi’s said, rubbing her hands together as her attention returned to the screen. “Watch as our reinforcements make short work of your new friends.”

*     *

Sara smacked into the door of the cafeteria hard, almost barreling over a construction woman just getting off her shift. Laughing, Sara turned around expecting to see Dennis behind her, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Oh come on,” Sara complained, crossing her arms as Dennis rounded the corner. He was both out of breath and sweating. “And I was in a flight suit. You’ve really let yourself go.”

It was really easy to let yourself go out there in space. All the men had gained weight up there, and some of the women too. They didn’t need to be fit to fly a plane, but Sara liked being able to hold her own outside the cockpit. If the need ever arose.

“What you even wearing that thing for?” Dennis asked her, eyeing her flight suit.

“I like to be prepared,” Sara said. It was rare that she ever took it off while on board the Rebirth. She glanced at herself in the reflection on a window out into the stars, and she thought she looked good in the thing. It was a little clunky, but it made her look like she could really kick someone’s ass.

Their flight leader John didn’t need a flight suit to look like he could kick ass. Sara often liked to imagine she could keep up with him, be his equal. But then he’d always do something extraordinary and remind her he was forever in another league. His was a world of supermodels, and porn sex. He wouldn’t be interested in her world of beer, old movies, and maybe a sloppy BJ before she passed out drunk.

“What are you wearing?” she asked Dennis, turning the focus on his tight t-shirt and ill-fitting short shorts that weren’t able to meet in the middle over his large gut. He was not in the same league as their flight leader, or even Sara for that matter. “No one wants to see all that.”

“I’ll have you know this is official military brand fitness attire,” Dennis said with misplaced pride. “You should have received a pair too.”

‘I thought that was our laundry day uniform,” Sara admitted, remembering the folded t-shirt in her locker.

“Whatchoo even wanna be prepared for?” Dennis asked, still a little out of breath. “This is deep space. Nothing ever happens out here.”

She waved for him to follow her into the cafeteria. “Well I won,” she said, “fair and square. Means I gotta pick out the grossest thing on the menu, and you gotta eat it.”

“Don’t know why I agreed to this,” Dennis muttered, though Sara had come to find she could get him to agree to anything with nothing but a smile and a flutter of her eyelids.

“Maybe I’ll do your body a favour and choose a salad,” Sara mused to her friend, who slapped her shoulder hard.

“Nicole from sanitation was jiggling this gut the other day,” Dennis said in his defence, “and she insisted it added to my character.”Hi

“Oh honey,” Sara said with pity. “We really need to get you into some kind of routine.”

“She says she’s been promoted,” Dennis said, and Sara was sure he was about to go on, when suddenly he was interrupted by a chime on the intercom.

“Any available pilots report to the launch bay,” a female voice said over the intercom. “Available pilots, please report to the launch bay.”

“Race you there,” Sara joked to Dennis who didn’t seem at all amused at the prospect.

“You go on ahead,” Dennis muttered to Sara. “I still have to get changed. I’ll be right behind you.” Sara nodded to him and took off down the narrow ship corridor, passing by two nurses carrying an expensive looking microscope to their lab. She was careful not to jostle them too much as she passed.

“Excuse me,” she said to them, sprinting off again, hopping over three steps like they were nothing and coming to a civilian elevator. Most the civilian districts were closed, but they had begun to move in rich business owners and it seemed some of them had been having a dinner party. Sara got in the elevator with about seven well-dressed civilians all with quarters on different floors.

“Flight deck,” Sara said to a young boy nearest the panel. The kid searched for the number, but military floors didn’t have numbers like civilian decks. His mother reached over and hit the correct button.

“Priority military one,” Sara said, the elevator recognizing her priority command and erasing all other selections on the panel. Everyone in the elevator groaned.

“Sorry about that,” Sara said to the other people in the elevator. “You heard the lady over the intercom. It’s an emergency.”

“We understand,” one woman in an elegant dress said. She seemed to be in her forties, and her husband looked at her like he hadn’t expected her to talk. “I have nothing but respect for women in your line of duty,” she said to Sara with a smile. “In fact there was once a time I had planned to join the air force myself. Leave everything behind.”

“You can’t be serious,” her husband said in protest.

Another woman pulled on Sara’s sleeve. “I have a brother who was always saying he was destined to be a pilot,” she explained to Sara. This woman was young, looked like maybe one of the other civilian’s daughters. Maybe just turned sixteen.

“That’s nice.” Sara said.

The girl shook her head. “Ye don’t understand. When he enlisted, they wouldn’t let him in the air force. Instead they assigned him to the front lines. As a rifleman.”

Sara had heard such stories before. No one ever wanted to be a grunt, but some people just didn’t have the aptitude for anything else.

“He’s never even fired a gun before,” the girl said, her eyes wide. “He’s only going to trip over his shoelace and get shot in the arse or some dumb thing.” The girl started to weep. “He should be here. With his family.”

“Write up a recommendation letter,” Sara told the young woman. “Place it directly into my mailbox and I’ll make sure it gets where it needs to go.” The elevator chimed, and Sara pushed passed everyone to get off. “Excuse me,” she said. “Pardon.”

“Good luck out there,” one man said, and Sara couldn’t help but notice the man’s short shorts were far better fitting than Dennis could ever hope to pull off. “We depend on you soldier.” He saluted her.

Sara returned his salute, giving him a big wide smile. “It’s Ensign,” she corrected him under her breath, “might wanna ask someone their rank next time before you salute them.” The door began to close. “You’re all so pleasant, have a good day now!” The door finished closing and Sara turned away, her smile gone.

“Fakking civilians.”

She sprinted off down the corridor to the fighter launch bay. The launch bay was huge, with the capacity to hold many times more squadrons than they had been equipped, along with room for larger ships.

“Ready my bird,” Sara yelled to a number of engineers who spotted her and sprang into action cutting her G32 Enderman loose from its mag-locks. Everyone could tell which one was hers because she painted it navy blue with red tips.

“Dennis said he was right behind me,” Sara told one engineer who handed her a helmet. “Prepare his fighter. Trust me. He’ll be here.” The engineer nodded her cute little head, and scurried off waving for others to help her set up a second ship. Sara seemed to remember that engineer had been Nicole, though she had only heard people talk about her, and they’d never actually been introduced. She had gotten quite the promotion indeed.

Another engineer ran over to her, pushing a ladder along with him. She hopped onto the ladder and climbed it even as the man continued to push it into place against her fighter. Engineers were scrambling all over her bird, fueling it up, filling the oxygen, and reloading its guns with ammo.

Sara stepped gracefully off the ladder and dropped gleefully into her cockpit. Feeling the familiar warm leather seat against her butt, she fastened her helmet into place. Grabbing at the yoke, it felt good in her hands. She shook it around a little and couldn’t help but let a smile creep along her face.

“How long do I have before launch?” Sara asked the engineer leaning in to help fasten her straps.

“We’re to launch as soon as possible,” the man told her, but she knew that could still be more time than you’d expect. He looked at the oldest man on the ground who seemed to be running a test on the engines. Sara flipped on her main computer and pulled up the rear camera on her main display. The cockpit consisted of a large canopy she could see through with a limited projected HUD. For most her functionality she had the main display over her flight yoke, a flat screen with a full computer operating system that gave her access to all her systems in one place.

On the screen she could see the senior engineer give the thumbs up.

“Thirty seconds,” the man fastening her in said with a smile to her. Her heart skipped a beat. That wasn’t a lot of time to prepare at all.

“I can do thirty seconds,” she said, more to assure herself than anyone else around.

“You’d better do your pre-flight checklist,” The engineer said before closing her canopy and stepping down off his ladder. Dennis’ light pink fighter was being set up right beside hers, and the engineer she had just been talking to looked at it with concern.

Sara leaned forward and flicked the switch for the external speaker. “He’ll be here,” she assured the engineer. “Trust me.” The engineer gave her a thumb’s up even though her external speakers also had a mic.

Sure enough, Dennis stumbled into the launch bay and collapsed to his knees in a huff and a puff. “I’m here,” he said between heavy breaths.

A couple male engineers grabbed him under his armpits. “I’m alright, really,” Sara could hear Dennis say as they lifted him to his feet. “I could really use a moment here, boys, yeah?”

“Twenty seconds to launch,” one of the engineers said angrily to Dennis. They shoved a helmet on his head and tried to get him to climb the ladder.

“By the moonstar,” Dennis complained, as the automatic process was beginning to take over. Dennis scrambled into his fighter just in time as the track clasped onto their landing gear and began to taxi their two birds towards the launch tunnels.

“Fifteen seconds till launch,” a voice said in their helmets.

Sara watched Dennis try to get settled and couldn’t help but laugh. “Better get comfortable quick,” she warned him over the radio. Like a roller coaster, the launch tunnel was straight down from there.

“Shit,” Dennis swore into the radio, finally seeming to get his straps in place and hitting his canopy to shut. The launch tunnels were tight fits and his canopy was not closing fast enough. Reaching up, Dennis grabbed the canopy and pulled on it with all his weight, bringing it down just in time as they passed into the tunnel.

Sara could hear Dennis breathe a sigh of relief, and then that breath was whisked away again as they dropped into the tunnel that led them around and between the floors of the ship before launching them with all that momentum out into deep space.

“Five,” a countdown voiced in her head as she was pressed heavily against her seat, and her fighter twisted and turned along the track.

“Four,” she was jerked another way and could barely hold onto her yoke. This was her favourite part.

“Three. Two.” Sara laughed into the radio and she could hear Dennis groan as if he was going to throw up.

“One.” The voice in their helmet said, signaling that she’d hit the final straightway. Sara powered her engines to full.

“Afterburners to max,” she said to Dennis on the headset as she was pressed only more violently against her seat. Her fighter passed the cold metal confines of the large ship Rebirth, and shot itself like a bullet from a gun into the deep void of space.

“We have launch,” Sara said into the radio to inform control. She checked her three o’clock to see that Dennis had joined her in their two-man formation. He confirmed his launch through the radio.

“Your objective,” a voice said into their helmets, “is to fly air support over Hymalious City and provide cover for General Ed Gilber and Colonel John Adams.” Sara wasn’t sure she’d heard that right, but thankfully Dennis quickly clarified.

“What sort of trouble has Colonel Adams gotten himself into this time?” Dennis asked over the comms. Sara didn’t know what it was, but she knew John could rely on her to save his ass.

“I’m plotting a risky entry vector into Rommerian atmosphere,” Sara told Dennis, working out her calculations on the main computer and sending her conclusions to Dennis’ display. “It’ll be a little rough but should shave a couple minutes off our ETA.”

“I’m trusting you not to get us killed,” Dennis told her, in what she supposed had been his best attempt at support.

“Thanks,” Sara said half-heartedly. “Just stay close and try not to deviate more than,” she quickly checked her math, “a couple degrees.”

Hold on John. She was coming.

*     *

Nick scoured the views from both his upper and lower guns, but couldn’t find the soldier anywhere in the building.

CAUTION Slow Ascent

His gunship had almost reached a height high enough to fly over the rooftops. Nicholas supposed it didn’t matter what the soldier was up to anymore. Sitting back down in the pilot’s seat, Nick began to give the engines a bit of forward thrust.

*

John reached the roof of the building as the Blazkor gunship passed by just underneath. It was now or never. Taking a step back John began to run along the edge of the roof, matching speed with the gunship and jumping off. As he jumped, the turret snapped into place and began to spin. It fired just over his shoulder while he was in midair, and he landed onto the top of the gunship with a heavy thud. He rolled along the top of the gunship and almost flew off the other side but he was able to grab onto a pipe and hold on tight.

The turret was too slow to track him, but it was steadily turning around. Quickly drawing his pistol, John fired off four shots at the turret, his last shot clipping a hydraulic hose that spurted hydraulic fluid across the top of the gunship. The turret, without its needed hydraulics, drooped and powered down just as it had turned to bare on John’s position. John sighed in relief, then held on tight as the gunship began to twist and turn.

The pilot was trying to shake him.

*     *

“Your gunships are coming up to the city walls now,” a soldier called to Tameka’s mother who squealed with joy.

“This is my favourite part,” she said, and Tameka was starting to wonder if this whole thing had been her favourite part, from catching her daughter’s betrayal to each and every win she was gaining for her cause. Her mother enjoyed any chance to gloat.

 “Before you came along, my resistance wasn’t capable of getting past the Hymalious defense cannons.” Suma said, crossing her arms. “But now your railguns on the Mark IIs should have no problem hitting the defense cannons beyond their effective range.”

*     *

“How far down does this go?” Emma asked Maggie May, who had led them to a private wing of Prime Central. An elevator there was taking them to somewhere beneath the station. Emma hadn’t even been aware there was anything beneath the station.

The council leader only smiled to Emma as they reached their destination and the doors opened to a large command center. Maggie May stepped off and immediately made for a large hologram of the entire city of Hymalious in the center of the room.

“Please tell me the jamming is holding,” Councillor May begged her people as she took a place amongst them.

“The jamming bubble is in place,” a young cadet said from his station near the large map. “They shouldn’t have had any opportunity to broadcast the plans that we know of.”

“Well at least that’s a bit of good news,” Maggie muttered, waving for Emma and Kat to join her. “Come come. You can see better from here.” The two girls approached the center of the room, and Kat seemed to be mesmerized by the large hologram.

“It’s so expensive,” Emma said, unimpressed.

“We’re saving the world from here,” an irritated looking little twerp in glasses said from a console nearest to the map. “We need the best everything.”

A woman from the corner of the room made a yell. “We have two gunships coming at the wall from the south east.”

“Are the automated turrets online?” Maggie May asked her people. Emma could see the two red blips on the holographic display, and she could see the turrets closest to those blips rise and move into position.

“This must be g-getting real time telemetry from a satellite in orbit,” Kat suggested, seeming more interested in the technology in the room than what was actually going on.

“They’re still outside our range,” someone complained in the room.

“We’re not outside theirs,” Maggie May said as the red blips slowed their approach. Suddenly there was a flash of light and three of the turrets disappeared.

“So much for having the best everything,” Emma commented to the scrawny guy with glasses. “Now they have a door,” she said to the mayor who nodded her agreement.

“Wh-what does that mean?” Kat asked confused.

“It means we now know how they plan to leave,” Maggie said to the two girls. She turned to her men. “Get all available ground units to plug that hole with as many anti-aircraft weapons as they can find.”

“All available units have been moved on deployment to the edge of the deep desert,” the twerpy short man in glasses said with a grimace.

“Who are you?” Emma asked, already not liking the man.

“Billy,” the man said offering Emma his hand. “I’m head of IT and Communications.” She ignored his hand.

“By the Moonstar,” the council woman muttered in frustration. “We can’t let them get away with the plans. God knows what Suma Davi’s would do with them.”

*     *

David couldn’t believe his eyes.

“What is your man doing?” David asked as he could see John jump over the roof onto the top of the gunship flying over their heads.

“His job,” Gilber said, raising his radio to speak into it again.

“Looks like they brought an escort,” Alec said, joining David to point to two more gunships swooping in on their position.

“What are you still doing here?” David asked angrily, pulling away from Alec and looking behind him to see that the barmaid Steph had taken cover behind a street lamp. “Get out of here. Run!” Alec stepped away from David and made for Steph.

“I don’t think they’re here for an escort,” General Gilber said gruffly, his attention on the new gunships to join the battle. They pointed their guns down at the street and fired their loud single shot cannons into groups of people running for their lives.

“Find cover!” Gilber yelled, grabbing David roughly by the shirt and dragging him behind a jeep. One of the cannons on the hovering gunships fired at them, and only barely missed.

“They’re not an escort,” Gilber muttered to David. “Suma Davi’s sent them as a distraction.”

“Who’s Suma Davi’s?” David asked, horrified at the events around him. “What the hell is going on here?”

The cannons from the gunships above rained molten death down upon them, blowing out a nearby building and shooting down on the street where people were running to clear the area.

“There are families in those buildings!” David screamed, reaching out and grabbing a woman with a stroller and pulling them behind the cover just as cannons fired down on their position. The jeep rocked from the hit, and David was ready to move again if it seemed about to explode. Gilber, however, stood his ground.

“Incoming Air support,” Gilber said into the radio. “This is mission leader. Focus on the Mark I. I repeat, follow Colonel Adam’s location beacon. Ignore the other gunships.”

“Are you insane,” David said, starting to piece together what Gilber had just done. “You’re leaving these people to die!”

“These people aren’t my mission!” Gilber yelled at David who tried to reach for the radio. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m one of these people.”

“Give me that,” David said, struggling against the general. He managed to get his fingers on the talk button and pressed it down. “Belay that order,” David yelled at the walkie. “Target the other ships!”

“Would you stop,” Gilber insisted with frustration, raising the radio over his head. Now David just plain wouldn’t be able to reach.

“Repeat orders,” a woman’s voice came in through the radio.

David punched Gilber across the jaw, possibly breaking every bone in his knuckle while doing it. “As an officer of the Hymalious City military you have a responsibility and a duty to protect the innocent people you serve,” David yelled at Gilber, straightening his posture and praying to god the General didn’t decide to punch back.

Gilber rubbed his jaw. “You surprise me doctor,” the general said roughly. He pulled a fresh cigar from his pocket and lit it.

“What are you even here for,” David asked Gilber, “if not to protect the men women and children of this city.”

“Alright,” Gilber said to David, hitting the talk on his radio. “Yeh convinced me. Flight leader, this is mission leader. Change in orders. Ignore mission critical. Aim for the Mark IIs. I repeat, protect the civilians.”

*

“Roger that,” Sara said into her radio. “New orders received and confirmed.” She switched on her targeting computer and armed two warheads. “We’re thirty seconds out and counting,” she said both as reassurance to the mission leader, and a warning to Dennis.

“Warheads armed,” Dennis said back through the radio.

“We’ll criss cross,” Sara told him. “I’ll get the gunship on the right, you get the one on the left.”

“Over,” Dennis said, and Sara sure hoped he understood. This was only going to work if they each pulled off their moves just right. The building below them soared past at a blur as they sped across Hymalious City trying to stay as low as they could. Sara saw the Mark I gunship making a break for it, but ignored it like she was ordered to do.

“Hold on John,” Sara muttered, swearing to herself that she’d be going after him on her return vector. Her targeting computer got a target lock on one of the Mark IIs.

“Target is lock,” she told Dennis, waiting for him to say the same. The distance to target was closing fast, and they were going to blow right past.

“Payload away,” Sara said, launching her missiles, able to wait no longer. Her missiles connected directly with her target ship and it exploded spectacularly, raining flaming debris onto the street below.

“Payload away,” Dennis said far too late. His missiles went wide and exploded into the side of a building. Then, when he crossed to pass her, he almost collided with her and Sara had to spin her bird almost into the side of a building.

She gave her Enderman some thrust and flipped her ship over the roof of the building and out above the city.

“Dammit Dennis,” she swore at him, making a lazy U to rejoin him for another pass.

“I’m sorry,” Dennis said, and she could tell he meant it. “It’s really hard to control these things in an atmosphere at those speeds.” She had been really pushing her bird, and knew she’d been asking a lot of him as well.

“I’m gonna strafe the remaining target with machine gun fire,” Sara said, acutely aware that she only had two missiles left. “Then I’m heading after John. You have two missiles left. You think you can take this thing out on your own without me?”

“I got it,” Dennis muttered into the radio.

“You can go as slow as you want this time,” Sara promised him. “I’m making my run,” she pushed her thrusters to max, and came at the gunship at full speed. Hitting a switch on her dashboard to toggle to machine guns, she pulled the trigger and open fired straight down the hull of the remaining Mark II Blazkor Gunship.  She was careful to release the trigger as she got to the engines, so as not to hit any civilians on the street below

The gunship’s upper railgun turned on her ship and fired as she passed, just missing her cockpit. Her machine guns weren’t going to do nearly as much to a gunship in atmosphere as it would in space, where the pressure of the vacuum would happily do the rest. She had two warheads left, but she had to save them. She still had to deal with the mission critical.

*

Dennis had a clear lock on the Blazkor gunship as Sara finished her strafing run, but he didn’t expect the railgun shot that just missed her to also be on a clear trajectory for him. It clipped his right wing and immediately his yoke started to pull against his grip.

“I’ve been hit,” he reported into the radio, and he could hear Sara swear.

“Dennis,” she said his name over the radio with disappointment. “You’re just full of suck today.”

“I got this,” Dennis said, trying to compensate for the rotation with his thrusters. “The fire is causing the engine to overheat. If I could just take this thing into orbit—“ he trailed off, but they both knew that without oxygen the fire would be snuffed right out. He’d then be able to limp back to the Rebirth.

“You need me to come back around and clean up after you?” Sara asked. Even without seeing her, Dennis could tell from the tone of her voice that it wasn’t something she wanted to do.

“I got this,” Dennis insisted. He had a job to do.

The Mark II gunship fired on him with its railgun, and he allowed himself to give into the spin of his ship, dodging the shot as it exploded into a residential building. Dennis then had to pull up with his yoke, and use all the energy in the thrusters he had left to barely avoid crashing into the very same building.

The side of the building was crumbling down on him, and he had to swing his fighter to avoid getting pegged with debris. Hitting his afterburners he launched his fighter over the building, but with his bad engine it spun out hard and almost crashed into the roof.

Hitting the engines for another burst, he gained some altitude over the city in a maneuver that must have looked most peculiar to anyone watching. At this point his fighter was spinning like a Frisbee through the air, and with no other choice Dennis cut all power to the engines and let his fighter stall out. Soaring along on momentum, his G32 Enderman continued to spin until he was facing directly down on the Mark II gunship.

His engines may have been off, but his targeting computer was still on. Hitting the maneuvering thrusters, he tried to hold his ship steady against the force of gravity as long as he could, and just as he thought he was about to lose it the targeting computer chimed.

“Payload away,” Dennis said into the radio, squeezing the trigger and watching his last two rockets streak the short distance to explode with the Mark II.

“Direct hit,” Dennis said, breathing a sigh of relief, and pulling up on his stick, setting his thrusters to max to try to right his trajectory. After all, he was pointed directly at the ground with almost no altitude.

“Come on,” he begged his bird, pulling on the yoke so hard he was worried he might snap it right off. The fire on his wing had gone out, but he still couldn’t activate the busted engine until he had just the right trajectory. And his maneuvering thrusters were still running on empty, not having time to recharge after his last maneuver.

For a second he almost wondered if he’d have better luck lowering the landing gear and trying to make an emergency landing, but he banished the thought from his head.

He could see the rooftops of buildings as his fighter passed between two, and he finally got the nose of his craft in the right position. He powered on the engine and fired all rear thrusters and afterburners, shooting his craft up into the sky.

“I’ve regained control,” Dennis announced to anyone who might be paying attention over the radio. “I’m still limping though. Gonna head back to the Rebirth.”

“Roger that,” Sara’s voice came in through the helmet. “Well done Dennis. I knew you had it in you. I’ve got it from here.”

*

John could feel the gunship speeding up. It was too bad there was no way into the cockpit from above. At least none that he knew of.

“John,” a familiar voice said in his head. He had an earpiece in his ear that connected to his radio. “John can you hear me?”

John pressed his hand against his ear. “I can see the wall from here,” he told her, spotting the edge of Hymalious City rapidly approaching from the horizon.

“I’m right behind you,” Sara said, and John looked back. Sure enough there was a speck dodging and weaving through the buildings, quickly closing the distance between them. Not quickly enough.

“I’m not going to make it in time.”

John looked at where Sara’s fighter was, and how far he was from the edge of the city. “You can get a missile hit from there,” he told her with his hand to his ear. “It’ll be more likely to miss, but the computer will allow it.”

There was silence on the other end.

“Did you read me?” John asked into the radio. “Sara?”

“If I hit it from here I won’t be able to catch you in time,” she said at last.

“Forget about me,” John said back at her, the wind buffeting him against the metal of the gunship. “Your duty is to the mission.”

*

“Nicholas,” Mother’s voice came through the radio on Nick’s dashboard. “You should be far enough through the jamming to receive radio transmissions.”

“I’m reading you Mother Davi’s,” Nick said into the radio, his heart jumping with joy. Their sacred mother was talking to him! Directly!

“Prepare the files for wireless transfer,” the sacred mother said through the radio. “Be ready to send as soon as you cross the threshold.”

“Yes Mother,” Nicholas said clearly into the radio, finding the plans in his robes and plugging them directly into the console. He was eager to do her bidding.

He passed over the city walls.

“I’m engaging the transfer now,” he told the sacred mother over the radio. He spotted a nearby canyon and steered his ship towards it. “Transfer will be complete in thirty seconds.”

*

The pilot of the gunship soared down into the nearby canyon, turning sideways to scrape against the rocky wall as he entered the crevasse. John squeezed himself against the top of the gunship, but could barely hold on as sparks exploded around him, and rocks ripping at his flesh.

“Argh,” he groaned in pain, the gunship leveling out, only to spin again. “He’s trying to lose me,” John said into his radio.

”It’s okay,” John heard Sara’s voice, and looked behind him to see Sara’s fighter dodging and weaving right on the gunship’s tail. “I’ve got you.”

“Let go,” Sara said to John, and he dutifully did as he was told.

“Payload away,” Sara said into the radio as John whipped away from the gunship and missiles soared past him to collide with the Mark II and explode in a spectacular fireball. What was left of the gunship spiraled off into the canyon wall.

John was in free fall now, the ground of the canyon rapidly approaching. Wind was blowing past his face as his limbs splayed out in a lame attempt to slow his descent.

“Sara,” he begged her through the radio, really wishing he’d thought to do this with a parachute.

Suddenly there was a roar of engines, and Sara swooped in from parts unknown and smacked John against the nose of her fighter.

“I told you I’ve got you,” Sara said into her headset, cheering as she leveled off her fighter and pulled them out of the canyon.

John groaned and Sara made a face. “That might have been a little harder than I’d intended,” she admitted to him. “It looked like that hurt. Did that hurt?”

She opened her canopy and helped him inside, though he had to practically peel himself off her hull. His entire body felt like a bruise.

“You saved my life,” John said, as he took a position precariously on her lap and the canopy closed over their heads. There wasn’t exactly much room in her cockpit. “I owe you one.”

Sara pulled off her helmet and sat it down beside her. “I can think of one way you can pay me back,” she told him, leaning in and kissing him.

John pulled away, or tried to in their tight quarters. “I’ve told you before,” he said, careful not to hurt her feelings, “I don’t want to sleep with a co-worker.”

“But the only people you ever deal with is the people you work with,” Sara tried to reason with him, having heard all his arguments before.

“Well that’s why I’ve never had a real relationship,” John admitted to her with a sheepish grin.

Sara reached passed John for what he could assume was the radio. “I’ve got Colonel Adams safe, and can confirm direct hit on mission critical. We’re going to take the long way home and expect a royal red carpet celebrating our return to the Rebirth.” She shut off her radio.

“Now it’s just you and me in here,” she told him. “No cameras. No strings. No one has to know what happens in here but you and me.”

She grinned at him, “So with at least an hour stuck in here, what are you going to do with me?”

John didn’t take long to decide. “I suppose this,” he said, leaning in and kissing her back. She was right. What had he been fighting so hard for? They were two consenting adults.

“That’s what I thought,” Sara said, happy it seemed to be finally getting her way. “Now take off your pants.”

*     *

Gilber lowered the radio. “They did it,” he said with relief. “They stopped the threat.”

“Good,” David said, passing the general to assist people on the street. “But there’s people who still need us.” He crouched down with one woman who had a painful looking burn on her arm. Ripping off a piece of his shirt, he tried to wrap it best he could.

“I didn’t bring any of my supplies with me,” he said to the general who was following him around without actually bothering to help.

“There are paramedics on the way,” the general told David.

“Well then where are they?” David asked impatiently, looking around as if to make a point. “We’re here now. We’ll do what we can.”

“Help!” someone yelled, and David ran to a collapsed restaurant where a man had been impaled by a wooden beam from the ceiling above.

“Don’t move,” David said, trying to keep pressure on the bleeding gash.

“I’m trying to make you an offer,” Gilber insisted of David.

“Well I don’t want to hear it,” David insisted. “Hold here,” he told the general as he tried to find something to cut the beam with. “Now’s not the time for talking.”

“I want to know what’s going to happen now my bar is all gone,” Lankey yelled out at them from the street.

“Seriously?” David muttered. “If you’re not going to help couldn’t you all just go home.”

“I have business opportunities for the both of you,” Gilber insisted from his place holding the man’s guts in. This seemed to catch Lankey’s attention, and he stepped into the burned out restaurant to join them. He even leaned down to touch a man on the shoulder, almost as if he was helping but without actually doing anything.

“We have a ship,” Gilber explained, “high in orbit. Behind the moon.” He looked to Lankey. “We could use an establishment up there that serves alcohol. And someone to run it.”

He then looked to David, who was proceeding to saw his way through the wooden plank in the man’s side with a dull knife. It splintered and gave way, allowing the man to lie down without removing the plank which would only open himself up to more bleeding.

“Let me guess,” David said. “You need doctors up there too.”

“Yes,” Ed Gilber admitted to David. “But what I see in you is a lot more than just a doctor.”

David straightened from where he had been trying to bandage the man. “I’m not interested,” David said, refusing to let himself be enticed by any military offer. It would go against every principal he stood for.

“At least take a look at what I’m offering you before you refuse,” Gilber insisted of the doctor.

“Ah,” David said. “But I’ve already refused.”

“Just take a look,” the general insisted. “Please.” He let go as David finished, and placed his hand on the bandage to make it easier for David to tie off a knot. “If you still don’t want to accept my offer, I’ll put military spending towards your health clinic.”

David wanted to refuse the general again, but he had to stop himself. His mind was spinning with what he could do with unlimited pockets like that. The people he could help.

This time the offer was too sweet.

*     *

“Your ships all went boom,” Tameka taunted her mother, watching her parent’s face not change nearly as much as she’d hoped.

“The transfer hit a hundred percent just before the final gunship disappeared off our radar,” one of her mother’s soldiers told her with a nod. “We’re decrypting it now. Everything seems to be in order.”

Tameka’s mother laughed and danced around the war room. “Oh what happy day,” Suma said, laughing again and grabbing one of her soldiers to tango with.

“She’s insane,” Tameka muttered to Jack, who didn’t seem to agree. His face was stern, unthinking.

“Don’t any of you see it?” Tameka shouted across the war room. “My mother’s off her rocker!” Tameka started to tear up. “How can you all be okay with this.”

“They’re all under my control,” her mother said. “I already told you, Tammy, they were born to love me.”

“What does that mean,” Tameka asked between sobs. Dinah grabbed Tameka to hold her steady.

“Exactly what I’m saying,” Suma told her daughter. “You heard about your grandfather’s war crimes didn’t you? His experiments into genetic modification?”

“Well my father took that research and implemented it in what he called the final stage of Blazkor evolution,” she explained. Suma stepped up onto a soldier’s console, and he slid back in his chair, watching her respectfully and dutifully. “Every person in this base has been genetically engineered to be loyal to the woman they love. And that’s me!”

“That’s impossible,” Tameka said, yanking her arm away from Dinah. She rushed to Jack’s side. “Help me Jack,” she yelled at him. “Snap out of it.” She slapped him across the face, but still he seemed emotionless. Unwavering. “Come on Jack, I need you to get me out of here. I depend on you. I need you.”

“Come on Jack,” Tameka’s mother said, mocking her daughter as she slowly made her way around the room. “Help me Jack.”

“Beat her to within an inch of her life, Jack.”

Suddenly Jack was a flurry of motion, backhanding Tameka across the war room into the large map against the wall. Before she could even get up he was on top of her, Kneeing her in the ribs until they cracked, and punching her repeatedly in the face.

She couldn’t defend against him, ruthless as his attacks were. Even if she’d had time to get her arms up, she could never raise a fist against her best friend.

“I’m sorry,” Jack said, as his fists continued to rain down on her face. She could feel a tooth loosen. Feel her Jaw dislocate. Her nose break, and then break again. Through the blur of blood as her vision faded to black, she thought she saw him shed a tear.

“You’re not sorry,” her mother’s voice could be heard somewhere far away. “Put your back into it!” It felt like Tameka was underwater. And then the hits came harder and she passed out.