Legacy Lost

idiot. This is your game. Play it.
    “Sometimes we can drive them crazy enough to surface,” she says. “Then Freya likes to make faces in their little hole at the top. That really drives them mad.”
    “Triton’s trident! How have you not been caught?”
    Nalia materializes. “Who says we haven’t?”
    “You’ve been caught by the humans? Does your father know?”
    “Oh yes, of course he does. Because I tell him of all the illegal things I do.” She rolls her eyes. “No, we’ve never really been caught. Freya came close though. Sometimes she misplaces her intelligence.”
    Freya materializes long enough to stick her tongue out at them. Nalia laughs, removing all doubt that it’s his new favorite sound.
    Then a loud, foreign pitch startles him, one that seems to promise impending doom. He accidentally releases his tentacle and, in a shaved second, he’s falling behind the vessel. “What’s that sound?” he shouts to Nalia, trying to keep up, not caring if the humans on board can hear him.
    “It means there’s another ship somewhere around here. An enemy one.” Her face is full of dread.
    Grom’s gut wrenches. “Let go! Don’t be stupid. Please!”
    “I can’t! Freya’s stuck on the ladder.”
    Indeed, Freya wriggles within the confines of the ladder, as if it’s a living thing keeping her trapped. Nalia is right. Freya really does misplace her intelligence. It would be a simple thing to free herself, if she would just calm down long enough to think it through. But he can see the panic settle in, the calm leave her eyes. She’s working on survival instinct alone.
    Then Grom sees it. In the distance, a huge shadow moves toward them. No, toward the human death ship. With speed, with confidence, with purpose, as if the two vessels were connected by a rope and their coming together were as natural as high tide.
    Only, the other ship is much, much bigger—and there is nothing natural about this gross imbalance.
    Freya sees the shadow too—and loses what little control she has left. She cries out, and her wiggling becomes more frantic, only serving to make her more stuck. Finally, Nalia reaches her, just as the sound of the alarm from the other vessel reaches them through the current. With one sweeping motion, Nalia shoves Freya’s fin through the last rung of the ladder, bending the tip at a painful angle. But even Freya recognizes the necessity of it, and nods her thanks to her friend as she swims from the metal monster.
    Then another sound, metal against metal, resonates through the water. Our death ship is firing . Grom watches with horror as a cloud of fire lights up the front, then disappears, leaving only a trail of a shadow snaking from the ship. Unable to look away, he holds water in his lungs, not breathing out until he sees that the missile missed the other ship.
    Which is worst case scenario.
    “They’re going to fire back!” Grom shouts to Nalia and Freya, who are still too close to the ship. “We have to get out of here!”
    “Yelling at me won’t help anything!” Nalia points down. Freya’s bent fin is making it impossible for her to keep a steady direction. Nalia bites her lip. “Leave us, Grom. There’s no reason for us all to die.”
    He rolls his eyes and swims toward them. Grasping Freya’s other arm, he jerks her forward and gives Nalia a hard look. “Let’s. Go.”
    Nalia nods. Grom tamps down a feeling of admiration when her expression changes from hopelessness to determination. Together they drag Freya, one of them on each of her arms, but it feels like slow motion, as if the water has thickened, as if the ocean itself is working against their escape.
    A dull thud in the distance lets them know that the other ship has fired. And they are still too close. Freya screams and writhes from Grom’s grasp to turn, to see it launching toward them at the speed of death. Grom considers knocking her unconscious. But there’s no time.
    Impact. Heat. Suddenly the whole world seems pushed forward. Even Nalia screams. Grom decides he never wants to hear that sound again. Gritting his teeth, he pulls both of them toward the seafloor. “Get down!” he orders. “Lie flat.”
    They do as they’re told. Debris, sharp and heavy, showers down on them like bits of fallen prey. A rush of heat swooshes over them, between them, finding even the smallest spaces to fill. A hand grasps his. He doesn’t need to look down to know it’s Nalia’s.
    When the loud ends, and the