Van Terra III: Blackout [PREVIEW]

Chapter Four ~ Burning Blood, Drowning Lungs

The world was whipped away from Jasper the moment she dropped into the water. She barely kept the air in her lungs, barely kept her mind from fracturing. She knew somewhere in the back of her mind that the pipe would take her toward the edge of the prison and then straight down, but she had no idea which way was up, which way she was facing. Her eyes squeezed shut tight against the pressure of the water.

She could tell when the direction switched, though, and her stomach climbed into her throat at the sensation of plummeting.

Her lungs were burning, begging for fresh air. She was only thirty seconds into the journey. Halfway through the pipe.

In the cold and disorienting dark, Jasper reminded herself what she was fighting for. The team was waiting for her. Starr was still alive. Skybreaker was still planning to break the Janus System.

One moment she was shooting through the water, the next she was drifting aimlessly.

Jasper forced her eyes open and looked up. Far above her, glimmers of the setting sun danced at the surface. She couldn't go up yet. She had to get out of range.

Her own blood clouded the water around her as she forced her arms to move, to carry her away from the Shark Tank. There weren't any actual sharks in Kronos' oceans, but there were other predators. Things that would come her way if they caught the scent of her blood.

She was rapidly running out of energy. And oxygen. Jasper kicked harder. Put all the power she could muster into her strokes. Moved up, moved forward. Counted the time.

Finally, she dared to move up to the water's surface. She broke it, sucked in a deep breath, and immediately went back under, bracing herself for the potential onslaught of bullets or blaster beams, swimming as fast as she could in case an attack came. But there was nothing.

Well, not quite nothing. The prison's alarm was blaring in the distance, cutting through the evening air and warning everyone around that something had gone wrong. Jasper turned herself to face the prison and poked her head out of the water again, briefly, just long enough to watch a few flying cruisers lift into the air. They'd be armed with snipers and heat scanners, but as long as Jasper stayed at least a few feet below the surface, they wouldn't be able to find her.

There was just the issue of, well, breathing.

Jasper continued to swim away from the prison. The search party would expect her to head directly for the nearest shoreline, even though swimming that far was impossible. Even Sarena had been exhausted just going between the prison and the floating platform that was relatively close.

Instead, she went at a different angle, instead in the direction of well-trafficked ship routes, areas not only filled with cargo ships but leisure vessels and fishing trawlers as well. People getting as close to the prison as was legally allowed. They might search for her over there, too, but once she was lost in traffic, finding her would also be all but impossible.

The reason the same area was used so heavily by a wide variety of watercraft was because currents in the area meant that part of the sea was relatively safe, compared to other regions that saw more storms and rough waters. It also meant that once Jasper couldn't see search craft in the sky, she could float for a while, rest, and let the currents take her in roughly the right direction.

Jasper swam and made quick stops at the surface and threw frantic glances at the sky for nearly an hour before she finally felt safe enough to shift into a back float. Night was falling, too, which meant searchlights would be needed to see her. Those would be relatively easy to avoid.

The fast-sinking sun also made the world even colder.

On the bright side, an abundance of thermal vents in the water kept the oceans relatively warm, even when Kronosian winter set in. Unfortunately, that didn't stop the night air from biting at Jasper's skin. Shivering, she reminded herself that she didn't have much farther to go. She just needed to stay afloat until she could commandeer a small watercraft. Hopefully, she had enough remaining strength to overpower a few people. Long enough to tie them up and take their boat to shore. She might've been able to trigger the electrokinesis again, but at this point, the pain might make her pass out, too.