Free Eighth Fire by Gene Curtis Page A

wheel controlled the
depth.
    “I’ve got it now, let’s give it a try.” He
moved the car toward the nose of the sub.
    Ten feet from the sub, an alarm sounded.
“Collision alert! Collision alert! Collision alert!”
    Mark said, “Turn that alarm off! I’m doing
this on purpose. This is an emergency.”
    The car veered to the right just five feet
before contact.
    “Hey! What’s going on? I need to push that
sub.”
    “Collision avoidance function active.”
    “Disable it!”
    “Unable to negate collision avoidance
function.”
    LeOmi hit the dash. “What good are you
then?”
    Mark said, “Go back to normal control and
take us back to shore.”
    “Manual function disabled. Ascending.”
    Back on shore, Mark was the first one out.
“Put about twenty pounds of rocks in your pockets and get back in
the car.”
    The potato sized stones were plentiful and
hot. Mark had to hold his cloak away from his body to keep from
being burnt. LeOmi didn’t seem to mind how hot the rocks were. She
beat Mark back to the car and looked impatient when he got back
in.
    Mark said, “I’m driving. I want to be right
over top of that submarine, but not in the water.”
    The car moved out over the water and
stopped. Mark split his oxy-cap with his utility tool and handed
LeOmi her half. “That’ll let us breathe underwater for about twenty
minutes, twenty-five minutes max. Just keep it under your tongue.”
He turned to the dashboard. “Car, I want you to stay right here
until we get back. Do not move for at least an hour. Can you do
that?”
    “Standby function active. Timer set for
sixty minutes.”
    He turned back to LeOmi and said, “Let’s do
this,” opened his door and was out with a splash.
    The first ten feet of descent were extremely
hot, but the water cooled quickly after that. Mark and LeOmi
reached the sub at about the same time and made their way to its
center access area. Small boulders were piled over about ten feet
of the back end of the sub tapering off toward the boat’s
midsection. The conning tower on the overturned sub was completely
surrounded by the rocks. The good news was all they had to do was
roll the rocks away and let them fall down the side of the hill.
Still, Mark didn’t think they could clear enough away in twenty
minutes to make much of a difference.
    He felt an overpowering desire to get busy
moving the rocks and to disregard everything else. He wondered why
he felt this way; it didn’t make sense. This wasn’t the way he had
ever felt in any critical situation he could remember in his entire
lifetime.
    He moved into position next to LeOmi. They
both started rolling the smaller rocks away and worked together on
the larger ones. It took ten minutes, half their air supply, before
they cleared one side of the inverted tower. They still needed to
clear out enough rubble to be able to reach the hatch, and Mark
thought they might have a chance at making it in time. Neither of
them noticed the larger submarine floating sixty feet behind and
ten feet above them.
    Ten minutes later it was obvious to them the
oxy-caps were running out. They had barely cleared a space large
enough to get at the hatch. Mark turned the wheel until it wouldn’t
move anymore. He tried to open it and it wouldn’t budge. He slid
out of the hole they’d made in the rocks and immediately LeOmi went
in. Mark’s oxygen supply was completely exhausted now and he didn’t
know how much longer he could hold his breath. He knew LeOmi had to
be in the same predicament.
    He grabbed one of her legs and pulled her
partially out of the hole. As soon as he let go, she pulled herself
back in. He brought to the front of his mind himself holding his
hands at his throat and then swimming for the surface. He knew
she’d pick up his thoughts. He also knew she’d hold out until the
last possible second, or more. She was almost as stubborn as Cap’n
Ben.
    Mark started to take his cloak off to shed
the weight in the pockets that held him