My Captain Arlon Stoddard Adventures series now has twelve novels. It was fun to write them all, and I’ll admit that I do have some favorites among them.
Along the way I’ve written a few short stories and a couple of novellas. Both the novella “Ortanide Steppers” and the story “Sea Skimmers” have been out for some time now, but I’ve been tardy getting the further short adventures out.
The plan is to fix that this year.
In the meantime, this month’s free story is “Sea Skimmers”. I’ll leave it up for about a week. I’ve updated the afterword too, so I’ve included that at the bottom.
I hope you’ll enjoy this fun little adventure. To be fair, it’s on the long side for a short story – over 8,000 words/ about 35 pages – but a little short to be considered a novella.
You can check out the whole series at the Captain Arlon Stoddard page on the website. And keep an eye out for a new story “Arkevarka Chasers” available to purchase from April 26th.
Thanks for reading.
Sea Skimmers – blurb
Experienced Captain Ulliana Alvis loves skimming above the forty-five hundred kilometer stretch of the Tegh Sea. Her vessel the Mourave carries fifty passengers in safety and comfort. The calm of the water always reassures and moves her at once.
But safety can be an illusion.
A Captain Arlon Stoddard short story that pits the crew against cascading events and into a desperate attempt to save lives.
A great place to jump in if you’re new to the series, and a wonderful addition for fans.
Sea Skimmers
Chapter 1
Captain Ulliana Alvis could feel something wrong with the vessel, but neither of her pilots knew it yet.
They sat ahead of her, and a step below, working on their simple monitoring. In an almost lazy way.
The vessel’s compact bridge stood just two meters above the glassy smooth water. Brilliant sunlight glittered through lacy cloud ahead.
The sea raced by.
Ulliana had a doughy shagel on a plate on one armrest, and her new favorite cup filled with steaming maralsh on the other. She’d grabbed shagel at a new little bakery at the Hanfir terminal. Bustling place.
She’d purchased the cup in a street market in Eldro, bustling and crowded with merchants. Bright and glittering wares on tables, stalls festooned with silvery bird mobiles and paper lanterns, eateries steaming and crackling, and hawkers shouting out prices. As much a show for the offworld tourists as for the sale of actual wares.
The cup was a deep blue, with soft hints of green, like the ocean she spent her life traversing. Thick-walled ceramic, which always seemed appropriate in the shaking and shimmying of high-speed vessels. The cup was an inverted dome shape, with a big handle, and the upper edge was rimmed with a bright gold line.
The cup stood on a matching saucer, and the dark maralsh smelled heavenly.
Ahead of her, the pilots were working the controls. Everything on their wide console boards seemed nominal. Working fine.
Mertine Winters, head pilot, was an old hand on these vessels. Ten years Ulliana’s senior, Martine always had a ready smile and a story to tell. She had a granddaughter, Ellie, the same age as Ulliana’s niece, Nahl and a couple of times now they’d swept up the kids and headed to JalesWorld Fantasy Park to give all the parents a break and, and to spoil the children.
And Goff El was newer at the work, younger, and with a certain bravado that was refreshing, even if it needed keeping in check on occasion.
Both of them had been born and bred right here on Iadah.
The hums and whines of the ship had a near musical cadence. As if there was an orchestra aft, working on a new piece. Some kind of jazz-classical fusion. With machines.
Four meters of the thin forward windshield glass wrapped around the three of them in the bridge. The glass had specks of salt. Little glowing haloes left from the occasional drops of spray that managed to flick back at them from under the vessel.
The bridge’s interior was dark, with blue paneling in a similar color scheme as Ulliana’s cup. The ocean. Soothing and everywhere.
The air was cool, kept intentionally so, but not unpleasant. Someone, somewhere had imagined that a better work environment came from regulated air temperature somewhere around half that of the human body. Ulliana didn’t disagree, but it did make her look forward to a soak in a spa.
This was her eighth crossing four days. She needed a break. Soon.
A shudder came through her seat.
They were almost a third of the way across The Tegh, a four and a half thousand kilometer long sea, separated from the Golden and the Prosaic Oceans by narrow straits.
When the planet, Iadah, had first been colonized, someone had thought that one of the larger oceans resembled the Pacific Ocean back on old Earth and had then thought that naming this one the Prosaic was hilarious.
The joke had never worn off, not really. Another thing to enthrall the tourists.
The Tegh was the finger that connected Iadah’s two major oceans. A finger locked between mountainous country to the north, and deserts and swamps to the south. Iadah’s continents were fairly clumped. They had been described as more like Pangea in Earth’s history, than most other inhabited planets.
It always amused Ulliana that, after all these centuries, Earth still formed the touchpoint for comparisons about Iadah’s landscapes and culture. As if they still hadn’t found their own identity.
Ulliana had grown up on Iadah, and come home after a decade and a half away. There was nothing like home.
Nothing like picking up and connecting again with her sister and niece. Nothing like being able to take command of a slice vessel like this one.
Mourave was a seventy-meter long blade that barely touched the water. Her hull was ten meters across, and a fraction over three meters high through the central section. Essentially a wing with a pair of powerful turbines, Mourave plied the Tegh at almost the speed of sound, a couple of meters above the water’s surface.
Ground effect. Physics, exploited the right way, was a good friend to humanity.
Then again, physics ignored and subverted—as with the leap technology that carried other vessels between star systems—was also pretty handy.
The vessel looked like a narrow datapad, but scaled up a thousand fold. With the addition of a stabilizing tail fin at the stern, and four sharp prongs that stretched from the keel in kite formation, just touching the water.
She left barely any wake, but was always followed by a glorious, brilliant fountain of churned, aerated water.
Aboard, they had forty-eight passengers, seated in the cabin right behind the bridge. Two cabin crew keeping them fed and entertained. Trey and Kess. Very good at their jobs, those two. Ulliana always liked having them aboard.
The turbine intakes, the turbine systems themselves, and the jet nozzles occupied most of the vessel’s volume.
Nestled into the nooks and crannies of the cargo space lay canisters of spices, boxes of stem-grown circuitry, chiscuit treats for the tame marsupial darra in the Chelsa forest park, frozen zelape berries, collections of coins, process wine labels for the vineyard regions, personal effects, new shoes, bot lenses and perhaps eighty other products wrapped and cased and packaged for transport.
Mourave was sleek and efficient, and primarily a passenger vessel. The little cargo she carried was almost token.
As they sped along, they sometimes passed bigger cargo vessels, speeding by off the port side, heading for Hanfir, the major western trading point. Vessels twice the size, riding the same kind of cushion of air at similar speeds, but seeming to be languorous and slow.
A telltale alarm from the consoles bleeped.
Damage to a turbine.
Perhaps just a single blade. That’s what she’d felt.
“Captain?“ Mertine said. “We have a—
Behind them, the cockpit bulkhead wall exploded.
Chapter 2
Sitting at a slick wooden table in a quiet underground bar on a back street in Hanfir, Captain Arlon Stoddard, of the starship Saphindell, inspected his tankard of the local brew.
The tankard was an unusual pewter-ceramic blend, in the shape of a medieval castle tower.
The tower had a narrow windows and a thick-trunked vine that climbed up the side. Subtle tech in the material housed animations that made leaves on the vine appear to move. Tiny birds leapt from branch to branch. Mice and rats appeared within the windows, and a woman looked out, hazy, but with bright blue eyes and a tall hat. She stared back at Arlon.
The tankard had a conical roof, with a simple lever to open it to access the stout beer contained within. An animated lizard crept around the roof tiles.
Perhaps all of that was supposed to distract from the quality of the stout, but actually it was just fine. Tasty even, if a little over-aerated.
The bar itself was quiet. A dozen booths, with a few small square standing tables in on the floor, and a long counter with stools and glittering bottles on the shelves behind.
The barkeep was a young woman with dark hair and cyber enhancements. A ring of steel casing around her right eye with three tiny tubes stretching out and reaching into her forehead just above her eyebrow.
There were a few other customers. Most dressed in customary Iadah dark blue and green robes, with headdresses involving wraps of fabric and rows of vertical flowers.
One wearing something Arlon was more used to, the slacks, shirt and jacket of a officer of some sort. She looked like law enforcement. Pulse pistol at her hip, and a variety of comms systems built into the upper part of her jacket.
A luminescent greenish vapor hung near the ceiling, swirling with tiny vortexes in places. It was sufficient to light the place. Crisp melodic music filtered gently through the background, sounding like someone striking tuned icicles with a glass hammer.
It was nice to have a little break here, away from the caves. He and the crew had just spent three exhausting weeks on the small world of Lacco, attempting to track a renegade artificial serpent through a complex cavern system. They’d caught it, but not before it had done a lot of damage, taken numerous lives and, as the creator had intended, destabilized a local government.
Now for some rest. A break for everyone. Olivia and Marto were going to some old leapship museum north of Hanfir. Kilo was planning on spending time hiking to the pearl pools on the slopes of Mount Hanfrosfir, supposedly filled with life-enriching minerals and a species of tiny fish that would chew away dead skin cells.
Eva was going shopping in the apparently fabulous markets, and Holly was supposed to be joining Arlon in the bar soon. They were going to take in a show at the vaguely renowned Hoophola Theatre. Murder in the Shadows. It had good reviews.
Arlon sipped from his tankard. It was good, but perhaps a little strong. It might be wise to leave the beverage unfinished.
Holly was late.
He was wearing his informal uniform. Just simple dark gray slacks with a black jacket and a single layer shirt. Standard issue boots. From the jacket’s internal pocket he took out a datapad. Freshly knitted, it was warm in his hand. He placed it on the table and the datapad unpacked itself, widening and forming, with the display flickering to life.
“Holly?“ he said.
The display showed four sections. A registration on Saphindell, parked at the spaceport at the edge of the city. All good there. A feed from the Authority with any new concerns, mercifully blank. A dedicated line to the crew should any of them need to reach him, likewise blank. And a pane with his direct link to Holly.
Now busy with data and red figures and diagrams coming through.
“Holly?“ he said again.
“You’re there?“ she said. Her face replaced the data. Arlon waved to sweep the image to take up the whole datapad.
“I’m here,“ he said. “Problem?“
“Ship down. Local authorities are asking us to step in.“
Arlon picked up the datapad and stood. He stepped away from the table, leaving the tankard behind.
“Fill me in,“ he said.
“I’m at the door,“ she said. “Street level. Meet me and we’ll get transport back to Saphindell.“
“Ship down?“ Arlon was already heading up the stairs.
“Remember the skimmers we were talking about? Looks like sabotage.“
Chapter 3
Ulliana was in the water.
The crash gels had functioned. They’d blasted the cabin full of the acrid smelling stuff.
When you’re moving at almost a thousand kilometers an hour, two meters above the ocean surface, there’s not a lot of room for error.
And you need something that will protect frail human bodies against the impact.
The Mourave had a whole lot of tech built all around that. Even though the chances of a wreck were so slight, it was almost as if the safety mechanisms were simply window dressing. A redundant waste of time.
Except for now.
When things had gone wrong.
It all dated back to another ill-fated vessel centuries ago on old Earth. The Tyrranic, the world’s largest steamship which had ploughed directly into an iceberg and sunk with far too few lifeboats for those aboard.
Thousands had perished, and only the legend lived on.
So now, everything had an array of safety settings to keep people alive.
Inertia fields to dampen any change in velocity. Crash gels to stop people getting knocked around. Personal buoyancy cells to keep the passengers and crew from going straight to the bottom.
Or to keep them alive if the vessel sank with them still aboard.
Ulliana’s vision sparkled around her. It was almost like looking through a tunnel.
The water was freezing. She wasn’t within a buoyancy cell.
She’d been ejected from the bridge. Knocked unconscious? Around her neck, a small buoyancy sac was deflating. From the collar of her uniform. It had kept her mouth and nose up and out of water.
Around her, the water churned.
“Hello?“ she said. “Mertine? Goff?“
No response.
If she’d been ejected, surely they had.
Her head throbbed. Had she been hit?
Where was the ship?
How much time has passed since the accident? She needed to get in action.
Her vision was opening wider. The sides of the choppy, fuzzy tunnel were spreading out.
“Mertine!“ she called.
Around Ulliana the ocean was roiling, with a regular swell. Not large, but enough to lift and drop her.
She kicked around so she could scan. Just horizon all around.
Spinning made her head ache more. She put her hand up to her temple and came away with blood. Now she could feel it flowing down her cheek. Warm. Tacky.
Then, the ship.
There.
In the water.
People in the water too.
The Muorave looked wrong. Bent. Broken. Part of it tipped up from the waves.
It was so far away. How could she have gotten so far from it?
Worry about that later.
Help the people.
Ulliana began kicking her way over.
Chapter 4
Eva was waiting at the field when Arlon and Holly arrived.
Saphindell stood low on her undercarriage, long and slim and sparkling. A tall robotic arch was stretched up across the vessel, spraying water and suds examining the hull with lasers.
“I told them not to do it,“ Eva said. “But they’ve gone right on ahead with this clean and polish.“
Eva was wearing a bright teal flight suit, with matching teal boots. She had her hair a matching color as well, and curled into tight ringlets.
“The ship looks good,“ Holly said.
The sweet scent of soapy detergent hung in the air. The arch robot hissed and clanked.
“Yeah,“ Eva conceded. “You’re right. We’ve got a problem? Ship down? I figure we take the Erm2 flitter.“
“We need capacity for more than fifty people,“ Holly said, looking at her datapad display. “Fifty-three. “
The Erm2 was their newest addition to Saphindell’s little flotilla of tenders and flitters. Black with orange trim. A central fuselage with stubby wings, and internal Voith coils so it could hover, and a powerful blast engine for quick launch to space.
It was a little speedster, really, with capacity for the six members of his crew, with an additional ten seats.
Even if they went over rating and loaded up, they would still be unable to carry the complete complement.
“Point is,“ Eva said, “We can be on site in fifteen minutes. Full parabolic flight. We can drop rafts and supplies. Lend more assistance.“
“Leave Holly and me on site,“ Arlon said. “Return for more supplies.“
“Fifteen minutes is a long time in the water,“ Holly said.
“Let’s discuss that on the flight,“ Arlon said. “Are we ready to go?“
“You bet,“ Eva said. “As soon as I saw they wanted to clean Saphindell, I unloaded the Erm2 and a couple of single seaters.“
“Good. Let’s get in the air.“
Chapter 5
There was something in the water with them.
Something alive.
It brushed by Ulliana’s leg.
She had been thrown a good sixty meters from the craft. The passengers were closer.
There should be rescue buoyancy devices ejecting from the hull. Rafts and personal flotation devices.
Ulliana saw some floating around. Half-inflated. The passengers seemed to have little awareness of them.
Panicking.
Were the cabin crew? And the pilots?
Were people still trapped inside the hull? Ulliana tried to make a head count, but there was too much movement. She was too far off.
“Keep calm,“ she shouted, treading water for a moment. “Find yourself a flotation device.“
People were shouting. Screaming.
Maybe twenty of them. Another thirty still inside?
Again, something brushed by her leg. A fish.
Hopefully nothing worse. Nothing hungry.
The Mourave looked as if about a third was under water. The stern was up above the waves.
Despite her lightweight construction, it was still denser than water. It might take a while to go down, but it certainly would, assuming the air bled out.
Ulliana took a few more strokes. Stopped again.
An uninflated raft bobbed just a couple of meters from her. A bright orange ball the size of a bed pillow. It had white stripes and green dots.
Easily visible, though the lights that should have been flickering on it clearly hadn’t been activated.
She’d trained with them plenty. Knew exactly how they worked. A simple inflation system with locator beacons, a generator, guidance and a tiny motor. With a compact food synthesizer that could extract the raw materials from seawater, the raft could keep people alive as it slowly motored itself toward the nearest shore.
Ulliana grabbed it. The thing was so dense in its packed configuration that it was amazing that it floated at all.
She tugged on the activation latch.
Nothing happened.
It was a straightforward system. Designed to be easy. Designed to that it would even detect someone incapacitated and activate on its own.
She remembered the training, with one of the tutors just lying in the water next to one of the balls.
It had popped and expanded itself into a circular raft which then opened up part of the sidewall and swallowed water. The tutor had drifted in, as if being scooped up. The raft then pumped out the water.
And this one was dead.
It didn’t matter.
There were others.
Mourave had an abundance of life saving equipment.
From the group of struggling passengers came a scream. Louder than the hubbub. Panicked.
Pained.
“Look for the rafts,“ Ulliana called. She abandoned the one she’d found and began swimming again.
But the scream hadn’t been just panic.
It was pain.
Something had a woman. Some kind of tentacle.
With teeth.
Chapter 6
The Erm2 was practically a space vessel itself. The size of a local transport, it was equipped with a simple leap drive that could take it from one system to the next. Slowly, but slowly in the context of side-stepping the speed of light was still pretty fast.
A couple of weeks to traverse light years, when Saphindell, the Erm2’s mothership in effect, might take under a day.
Eva, Holly and Arlon sat in the cockpit. Eva piloting, Holly in the copilot’s seat and Arlon behind in the jump seat.
The air reeked of vinyl and glue and leather. The craft was still too new.
In moments they were in the air. Eva turned the nose high and kicked in the parabolic jets. The acceleration pressed them back into the seats.
They would fly a sprinting arc over the atmosphere and plunge back in to arrive close to the site of the wreck.
“Mourave is a ground effect transport,“ Eva said. Somehow she always seemed to be able to talk even with the crushing effects of gee forces.
Arlon kept his eyes closed. His chest felt as if it was compressing flat.
“The ocean there,“ Holly said. “The long one. The Tegh?“
“Technically a sea,“ Eva said. “But it’s pretty huge anyway. Sausage shaped, and it’s like a highway for their vessels. High efficiency, high reliability.“
“Hence the thought of sabotage?“
“Yes.“
Arlon had, as was his habit, examined the maps of the planet before they’d arrived. Two major landmasses occupying most of the northern and western hemispheres, with two oceans across the south and east, divided by a long narrow ridge of mountain chains thousands of kilometers long, and a few hundred kilometers across. In places that chains narrowed to mere isthmuses with mere kilometers separating the oceans.
And the Tegh, an elongated sea smeared like a dividing line between the landmasses, connected to the oceans through narrow straits.
At a glance, the planet looked off-balance. There had even been some initial documents suggesting that it had been constructed. Fanciful thoughts of an army of construction machines grading and piling rubble and scouring out the basins. All debunked.
“Lifeforms, though,“ Arlon said. It was a strain to talk. The acceleration would only last a few minutes and then the Erm2 would become ballistic as it sped along above the atmosphere.
“Lifeforms?“ Holly said.
As with most worlds humans colonized, Iadah had an extant and active biosphere. The rules and guidelines around colonization meant that co-existence was a must.
The alien lifeforms had more right to the planet than the humans.
“Big oceans,“ Arlon said. “And the oceans are always the last places to be explored.“
“You said it,“ Eva said.
“But there’s something, isn’t there?“ Holly said. “You looked it up?“
The acceleration might have been easing. Through the forward windshield the outside view was changing from daylight to dark. The starfields of space.
“Cetaceans,“ Arlon said. “fish, mollusks and so on. The usual things you expect from microscopic diatoms on up to things bigger than a snarg or a blue whale.“
“Snargs were those things on Bandolera?“
“Mm-hm.“ Some kind of animal, birdlike, similar to a penguin, but forty meters long. Filling an ecological niche, but from a different evolutionary source to Earth’s whales.
Arlon took shallow breaths. The acceleration continued. It always seemed to take longer than it should. As if time stretched.
“What did you look up?“ Eva said.
Every new planet opened on the frontier offered endless room for research. There were more topics available than there were students and post-grads ready to come and look. By a factor of at least a thousand.
“A few reports of sea monsters,“ Arlon said.
“Well, you know what we make of those, don’t you?“
“Yes.“ Generally it was some local lifeform more interested in minding its own business. Never something unexplainable. Never something with malevolent intent.
“What was in the reports?“ Holly said.
“Small fishing vessels seeing multi-humped animals scything through gentle seas. A few wrecks with damage to the hull that looked like claws. Tentacle suckers. Perhaps teeth.“
“Fisherfolk?“ Eva said. “Fairy tales. Prone to exaggeration.“
“Without official research on what’s in the oceans here, we simply presume that the ecology is similar to elsewhere.“
“Remember Bargwana?“
“I do.“ A year back the crew had found themselves on a mountain plateau with a significant population of yeti. Hard to find, living off fungal growths and small animals and birds like ptarmigans and snow rats. It was like a legend come true.
“So there’s something big in the ocean?“ Holly said.
“Could be,“ Arlon said.
“Big enough to bring down a vessel like the Mourave?“
“I think so.“
“So not sabotage?“
“We can’t rule that out yet.“
The acceleration began to ease. They were out of the atmosphere now. Stars shone through the windshield.
“They must have alert systems aboard,“ Eva said. “Sensors that can detect movement. Anything ahead that might hamper their flight.“
“You would think so.“
“I know so,“ Eva said. “I’m a pilot and there’s no way I would board and fly a vessel that travels at almost the speed of sound just a couple of meters above the surface.“
“Nor would any sensible crew member or passenger,“ Arlon said.
“A combination?“ Holly said. “Perhaps someone sabotaged the detection systems and just waited for the inevitable.“
“Which would leave them time to cover their trail,“ Eva said.
“Yes,“ Arlon said.
“Shutting off the drive now,“ Eva said.
Weightlessness surged through them. Arlon’s stomach lurched.
“Let’s talk about this after,“ he said. “When there’s a full inquest.“
“Copy that,“ Eva said.
The view changed as the Erm2 passed through the crest of its parabola and began its rapid descent. Back into the atmosphere.
Arlon got out of his seat fast. Used to zero-gravity, he was well-practiced. From a locker in back of the cockpit, her pulled out a full set of ship overalls.
He stripped, dumping his slacks and jacket. They floated off. Holly swung around and grabbed them from the air.
“Twenty-seconds,“ Eva said.
Arlon slipped into the overalls. They were ready to go, with tools and comms built into the design.
“Ten.“
The overalls zipped themselves up. They gripped him at the wrists and ankles.
He grabbed the back of the jump seat and yanked himself around. Belted in.
“Ready to go,“ he said.
Eva adjusted the controls. The Erm2 shuddered. In moments, whipping tongues of bright yellow and blue plasma shot across the windscreen. Weight began to return.
“Six minutes,“ Eva said. “We’ll be on site.“
Chapter 7
Ulliana needed a weapon.
Something was tearing through the survivors.
Something carnivorous.
Ulliana swam hard. Something bumped her. She kicked it away.
There were more rafts. Unopened. Not activated.
Other jetsam too. Personal effects. Broken and shattered pieces of Mourave. Personal flotation devices.
Little inflatable jackets and neck rings.
The air was charged with splashing and screaming. The wails of the dying.
They were hundreds of kilometers from the nearest land. The Tegh was dotted with islands and little clustered archipelagoes, but this stretch, through the central part, was deep and wide. Four hundred and eighty kilometers across.
“Get to a raft!“ Ulliana called to them.
Mourave’s stern still pointed up. The vessel was settling slowly. By its very nature, it was slick and smooth. Wouldn’t it be useful if there was something they could use to climb aboard? Scramble nets or a rubberized coating. Cleats or dimples they could grab hold of.
They wouldn’t even have to be part of the flight-profile, just something that appeared in this sort of situation. Like the crash gel. Built in to smart material on the external surfaces.
She would put that in her incident report.
Assuming she survived.
She was less than twenty meters from the nearest passenger now. A child. A boy. Perhaps twelve or thirteen. Looking around. Both scared and fascinated.
A few meters beyond him, a woman was thrashing. She vanished under the water. Surfaced again. Spat out water.
Between the pair of them another uninflated raft bobbed.
Ulliana kicked hard. Stretched out. She swept by the boy.
Reaching the raft, she grabbed it. There was a dent near the latch.
Ruined?
No time to think about it.
She tossed it back to him.
“Pull the latch,“ she said. “It’s a life raft.“
Without waiting, she turned again.
The woman had vanished.
Bubbles swirled up in the spot.
Ulliana dove. Swam down after her.
Chapter 8
The Erm2 came in high and fast, braking hard. Eva had the nose up, presenting the broad flat keel and undersides of the wings to the air, braking them even further. The hull creaked a little, and the Voith coils hummed.
“People in the water,“ Holly said. “The Mourave looks like it’s capsized. Still partially afloat.“
“There are other vessels inbound,“ Eva said. “But we’re the first on site.“
“E.T.A. on them?“ Holly said.
“Nearest is thirty-eight minutes out.“
Arlon widened the display on his datapad and pulled in the feeds from the Erm2’s underside cameras.
People in the water.
Struggling. Animals in with them.
“Rafts,“ he said. “Drop everything we have now.“
He was up and out of the jump seat already.
“Put us in a hover right over the water,“ he said, moving from the cockpit into the cabin.
“Copy that,“ Eva said.
“We need an accurate count on passengers and crew. Checked and triple-checked.“
The Erm2 hummed and shivered as it descended.
The cabin looked cramped and tiny. Ten seats in two rows of five, with an aisle through the center.
Arlon reached to the cabin door and activated the lever to open it up. The mechanisms clanked and whirred.
Taking too long.
Time was precious here.
“Cables and ropes?“ he said.
“Locker in back of the cockpit,“ Eva said.
Holly joined Arlon in the cabin and she pulled open the large locker.
Filled with survival gear. Exactly right. Pods and tethers, medical kits and rescue robots, food supplies and thermal clothing and blankets.
“Six rafts away,“ Eva said.
The cabin door folded up and slipped out of the way. From below came screams and shouts. The sound of splashing water. The groans and gurgles of the crashed vessel’s hull.
“I’m going out,“ Arlon said. He took one of the tethers and attached it to a loop on his overalls.
Holly pulled a cylinder of plastic from the locker.
“Suit,“ she said. “Dry. It’ll protect you from the water. Maybe whatever is in there.“
“Take a pistol too,“ Eva called back. “There are some in the lower shelf of the locker.“
“I need both hands,“ Arlon said.
“I know. Take off your jacket.“
Arlon did so and Holly tapped the plastic cylinder to his lower back. The cylinder made a popping sound and immediately Arlon felt taps and brushes as the suit formed up around him. Across his back and over his arms and down his legs. It was cold and firm.
In moments he was covered, neck to ankles.
Holly popped a comms bead against his ear.
“Go,“ she said. “I’ll be out right after you.“
Arlon stepped to the edge of the cabin’s doorway.
So many people thrashing around.
And other things. Organic. Slithering tentacles.
He jumped out.
Chapter 9
The water darkened around Ulliana as she swam down. Bubbles swirled.
Movement ahead though. Something lighter.
The woman she’d seen dragged under.
Ulliana kept kicking. Her uniform fought her. It wanted to keep her afloat. Standard stupid-smart fabric response. Keeping air in folds and cavities in the weave.
Then, the woman was right there. Looking at her. Wide-eyed and panicked. Stretching her arms out toward Ulliana.
No way to speak with her. Not underwater.
Ulliana just kept swimming down. Pulling hard. Her muscles ached. Her head felt fuzzy.
Just reach the woman. Get her back to the surface.
Ulliana stretched. Her fingertips grazed the woman’s hand. Slipped away.
The tentacle below was still pulling her down.
And there were more tentacles creeping up around the woman’s legs. Thinner things. Tiny.
Spikes on the tips.
Ulliana stretched again.
Caught the woman’s wrist.
Right away it was easier to move. Ulliana pulled herself hand over hand down the woman’s arm.
Moving around, Ulliana looked into the woman’s eyes. Tried to reassure her with a look.
The woman nodded, and Ulliana patted her shoulder.
Ulliana felt like she needed a breath, so the woman must be really struggling.
Continuing down, Ulliana reached for the tentacles.
Grabbed the first one. It was squoodgy in her hand. She ripped it away from the woman’s back.
The tentacle fought back.
Wait. She had a blade. A standard compact tool that she always carried.
Reaching to her belt, she felt for it.
Missing.
No time to worry about that.
Ulliana wrenched at the tentacle. The spike twisted at her.
She used the tentacle as a fulcrum to turn. She got her feet in against it and kicked.
The tentacle tore. Came away in her hand.
Not so hard.
Almost there.
Ulliana tossed the tentacle. Grabbed the woman’s jacket. Pulled in again.
As Ulliana reached for another of the tentacles, something grabbed her leg.
Wrapped around.
A tentacle.
Fatter than the one she’d ripped off.
It pulled her away.
Ulliana kicked at it. Got nowhere.
The tentacle dragged her down.
Chapter 10
Hitting the water was a shock. Arlon gasped. Even with the special suit, the water was still icy cold.
They weren’t really so far north. He’d figured it would be warmer.
A cluster of capsule rafts floated around him. Bright yellow. The ones Eva had dropped from the Erm2. Arlon grabbed the nearest one and thumped on the activation panel.
Right away it hissed and folded open. It began assembling itself.
He kicked to the next. Activated it too.
Then he headed for the nearest person.
“Tethers coming,“ Holly said through the ear comms. “Get ready.“
A bang came from the Erm2 and a spray of weighted tethers fountained from the side. Right by the cockpit door.
Thin cord strips, they were multi-colored. The soft weights at the ends carried them high over the area.
Arlon reached the nearest person. A boy, perhaps twelve or thirteen.
He was exhausted. Groggy.
Arlon grabbed him. Hauled him back toward the nearest of the rafts.
Then Holly was in the water with him. Swimming on toward another survivor.
The hull of the crashed vessel creaked and shuddered.
“It’s going down,“ Holly said.
“Yes it is,“ Arlon said. “We need that count.“
The Erm2 was drifting around nearby. Hovering on auto. Eva stood in the doorway.
“Grab the tethers,“ she shouted. “Passengers from the Mourave. Hold onto the lines.“
Something organic slipped by Arlon’s leg.
He hoisted the boy onto the raft. The raft itself shifted and adjusted, almost slurping the boy up.
Other people were pulling themselves along the lines. Some were climbing into rafts.
“Captain?“ Eva said through the ear comms. “We have a count of forty-five. Should be fifty-three.“
“Do we have a submersible?“
“It’s already launched. Football-sized thing. I’ve got it making a spiral of circuits. Good sonar on the thing too.“
“Thanks. Things are working here, getting people aboard. I’ll go into the hull. See if anyone’s trapped in there.“
“I don’t recommend that,“ Eva said.
“Likewise,“ Holly said. “Let the submersible do that.“ Holly pulled an exhausted man along. Someone who was already in one of the rafts helped her to get him up and out of the water.
“We’re short by eight,“ Arlon said. “That’s significant. And that hull doesn’t look as if it’s going to stay afloat long.“
“But when it does go down,“ Holly said, “you don’t want to be inside it.“
“Neither would anyone else.“
“Fair point.“
This was their job. Their mandate. Despite their primary role as neutral investigators, with something like this, they had the resources to step in and help.
And often, the backwater planets they visited lacked the resources Arlon and his crew could bring to bear.
“I’m firing you breathing apparatus,“ Eva said. “You should have worn it in the first place.“
“Copy that,“ Arlon said.
“And we have readings on three people under the water. The submersible is putting tethers on them. We can bring them right up.“
“Good work. Five to go.“
Were they still inside the hull?
A bright silvery package arced overhead, flashing red lights on it.
“That’s your package,“ Eva said. “Be careful.“
“Yes, I…“
Something swirled up behind Holly.
A tentacle.
At the same moment something grabbed Arlon’s leg.
And dragged him down.
Chapter 11
Ulliana grabbed for the woman.
Couldn’t reach.
The woman jerked. Shuddered.
A stream of bubbles ran from her mouth.
Drowned.
That would be Ulliana herself soon too. She was running out of breath.
The tentacle had a rigid grasp on her. Why oh why had she lost her helper tool? Its little blade would make short work of the tentacle.
There were more tentacles on her now. Thigh. Hips. Up her back.
She’d lost her ship. Lost passengers.
What an end to her career.
An embarrassing end.
There was something else in the water too.
A thin, bright line.
Artificial. A cord.
Right in front of her.
Ulliana’s hands were still free. She reached. Got her hand on the cord.
It tugged against her.
She got her other hand on it. Pulled herself along.
But it was pulling her the wrong way.
Leading her away from the woman.
Even if she’d drowned there was still a chance. And, worst case, her family would still want to have her body returned.
Ulliana brought her legs up. Pulled the cord down.
Where had it come from? A rescue vessel?
Not worth worrying about now.
She reached down with both hands on the cord. Brought it around under her feet. The cord caught on her right boot. She had to jiggle it.
She got the cord around and under. Got it against the tentacle.
She pulled back. Hard. Up. Around.
It was weird, but she could feel the cord biting into the tentacle. Cutting.
Tearing.
A sudden jerk.
She’d cut through it. Amazing.
But the cord caught on something.
Ripped from her grip.
And she could feel herself beginning to pass out.
That was going to be fatal.
She wouldn’t be able to hold her breath any longer.
Chapter 12
As he went down, Arlon stretched for the breathing apparatus package. He got his hand on it.
And the package slid away.
Something had his leg. Twisted around like a rope, or a giant hand.
A tentacle.
One of those alien mollusk-analogue animals that lived in these kinds of oceans. Seas.
Exactly what they’d talked about. Lifeform.
Something carnivorous. Trying to get at the survivors.
Only natural.
Arlon patted at the oversuit, looking for a blade in the overalls.
There on his left thigh.
He wiped his hand back and forth and the oversuit created a bubble he could reach through. He got the knife and slipped it out.
There were more tentacles on him now. Strong. With lots of suckers. Gripping and pressing.
It was real uncomfortable.
He reached down and around and swiped at the first one that had his leg.
As he cut at it, something jabbed his right calf. Like a blade itself.
He spun around. His right leg felt numb. Huge. As if it was swelling up.
There were more tentacles around.
Spikes on the end of them. Black and barbed.
He swiped at the nearest one. Cut the tip off.
Swiped at the next.
But it darted back.
And forward again.
Stabbed his hand.
Arlon dropped the blade.
Chapter 13
Arlon’s hand throbbed. There was black ichor at the point where the barb on the tentacle had stabbed him.
The water swirled.
He was still going down. Dragged by the tentacles.
He twisted around. Groped with his left hand.
Felt the tentacle. He dug his hand in.
Twisted. Ripped at it.
The tentacle jerked away.
He kicked. Jammed at the tentacle with his boots.
Managed to scrape it away.
Something new moved in front of his face. He just about swiped at it, but it was suddenly familiar.
The Erm2’s little submersible. Little jets on the side powered it closer to him.
A panel opened on the side and a tube wound out. With a bite grip at the end.
His right hand was still throbbing. Arlon reached with his left. Grabbed the tube. It unreeled as he pulled on it.
He stuck the bite grip in his mouth. Breathed.
Not as efficient as the breathing apparatus package would have been, but at least he was able to take a breath.
“There’s someone below you,“ Eva said through the ear comms. “Two of them. I know you can’t respond. They need air too. The breathing apparatus package is near you. It’s sinking. Unlike the submersible, it has no controls. It’s just sinking. I’m taking the submersible from you to go grab it. It’ll bring it to the three of you. They’re about three meters down. Equalize. I’m coming down with more blades to try to stop your little sea monster too. We have thirty-six in rafts already, most of the rest are close or already climbing in. We’re still missing three, as well as those two below you.“
Copy that.
Arlon took a breath and pulled the tube from his mouth.
The tentacles banged and bumped at him.
Arlon kept kicking. He turned and swam down. It grew darker as he descended, but he could still make out shapes.
Lots of dark lines. More tentacles.
What was this thing?
Chapter 14
Something pressed in against Ulliana’s mouth.
She swiped at it.
Right at the edge of passing out. Almost immediately she saw that it wasn’t a tentacle.
It was artificial.
A little submarine robot. With a tube. A bite grip at the end.
She grabbed it. Stuffed it into her mouth.
Breathed.
Sweet, succulent air. It was a little of a head rush for a moment.
Rescue.
Ulliana blinked.
There were still tentacles holding her.
She looked around. The woman she’d gone after was nearby.
Hair billowing like a fountain. Arms hanging out drifting.
Eyes closed. Mouth open.
Ulliana grabbed the submersible. It was only the size of a little footstool.
She turned it so that the forward lenses were facing the woman. Ulliana took a breath. She pulled out the tube and gave the submersible a push toward the woman.
The tentacles jerked on Ulliana, pulling her down again.
The submersible sped away.
Easy to picture it checking on the woman and working on her, before returning to Ulliana for another breath.
Then there were people around her.
A man. A woman.
Not passengers or crew.
The rescuers?
Chapter 15
Arlon surfaced, dragging an unconscious woman.
No.
Dead. Drowned.
He’d had to hack away at tentacles that had her snared.
Eva had arrived. Swimming fast. Blades and breathing apparatus.
“Hustle,“ Holly said in his ear. “That thing’s just riled up now.“
Arlon looked around.
The Erm2 was still hovering just above the water’s surface. The Voiths hummed. The water below shimmered and churned with the effect of the field.
A raft stood right up against the open cabin door. A woman in uniform was helping people out of the raft, into the Erm2.
Farther off, another raft was lying shredded and ruined.
Tentacles slashed at it.
Other things lay in the water.
The seats from inside the Erm2’s cabin? Of course. Tossed out to make space for all the survivors.
Arlon kicked. Dragging the woman, he pulled for the rafts.
Holly showed up next to him. She had a tether.
“Take it,“ she said. “It’ll reel you in.“
“Numbers?“ he said, taking the tether.
“Fifty-two.“
“Of?“ The tether tugged on him.
“Fifty-three. One unaccounted for. I think that Eva’s gone down for the last one.“
“She helped me out down there,“ Arlon said.
There were moans and groans, but the screaming had stopped.
Arlon let go of the tether as he reached the raft. He grabbed the slick, inflated surface and pulled around.
Arms reached out and hauled the woman up and away from him.
Another person in uniform. Male.
“She drowned,“ Arlon said. “She needs—“
“Got it. We’ve found your emergency kits aboard. We’re on it.“
Arlon turned. Holly was right there again. She had a man who looked drained. Together they hoisted him up onto the raft. Someone helped get him right over.
“Eva?“ Arlon said.
No sign of her. The tip of the crashed vessel still stuck above the water. Chunks of jetsam floated around.
“Still down there,“ Holly said. “Get aboard.“
“I’m going back for her. She might need some…“
He trailed off as Eva bobbed up thirty meters off.
Blood splashed in the water around her.
Someone else came up with her. Lying face down in the water.
Arlon swam for them. Kicking hard.
Chapter 16
A cluster of the tentacles appeared in the water around Eva and the woman.
Eva grabbed her and turned her over.
There was a wound on Eva’s face. A cut from her temple to the hinge of her jaw.
Arlon still had the blade she’d given him.
He slashed at tentacles. They were greenish. As fat as his thigh. Some of them stretched up two meters above the surface.
“She’s breathing,“ Eva said.
“You’re hurt,“ Arlon said.
“Scratched.“
Arlon’s hand ached from where he’d been stabbed. And his leg hurt too.
He slashed again.
Eva was fading, that was clear. Glassy-eyed. Dazed even.
Arlon reached the woman.
She was in a captain’s uniform. He flipped her around.
She gasped.
Looked right at him.
“We need the ship,“ Holly said. She slashed at one of the tentacles. “We need to be out of this water.“
The tentacles bent around. Reaching for them.
“It’s… coming,“ Eva said. Barely a whisper.
Arlon tugged the woman around.
Eva was right. The Erm2 was heading for them. The raft had detached, but the cabin door was still open.
The man who’d helped him get the woman onto the raft stood there.
In a uniform too.
A pilot.
The Erm2 came right in. Humming and shivering a little. The nose bumped up against tentacles. They darted away as if scalded.
“Come on,“ the man in the cabin doorway said. “Give me your hand.“
He lay right down on the floor, reaching out his hands.
Arlon pushed the captain toward him.
The man lifted her, and there were more people behind helping.
Water sluiced from her. Then she was in. Up and safe in the Erm2.
Holly kept slashing at the tentacles. Eva was groggy. Arlon supported her.
Slashed at tentacles himself.
Was it just Arlon, Holly and Eva left in the water?
“Count?“ Arlon said.
“She was the last,“ Holly said.
“We have fifty-three aboard,“ the man leaning out from the cabin said. “Room for three more.“
That was hardly true with the size of the Erm2, but Arlon wasn’t about to argue.
“Thanks.“ Arlon moved Eva around. The man grabbed her. Pulled her up.
“You next,“ Arlon said to Holly.
“You. You’re hurt.“
“Captain goes last,“ he said.
She gave a shake of her head, but reached around. They dragged her up.
One of the tentacles lanced at Arlon.
He ducked. Twisted. Slashed at it.
Defending himself.
This creature had more right to be here than he did. By far.
And still, this was survival.
Then hands had him. Lifted him from the water. He felt heavy and soggy.
He tumbled onto the Erm2’s cabin floor.
The door hissed and clacked, folding closed.
Eva looked down on him as he lay on the floor. There were people all around. Breathing. Shivering.
Jammed in.
Fifty-six in a space meant for sixteen.
The woman he’d brought up. Sitting against the cabin wall with two other sodden people next to her. A medical survival pod next to her with wires and electrodes attached to her head. Her eyes were open and she was breathing in a slow rhythm.
They’d gotten to her in time.
“Fifty-six aboard,“ Eva said. “All alive. Now, let’s take a look at your hand.“
Chapter 17
The Erm2 shook.
“Who’s flying?“ Arlon said.
“Martine,“ the man who’d pulled him from the water. “She’s a pilot. Knows what she’s doing.“
“You should go help her, Goff,“ the woman Eva had pulled up said. In the captain’s uniform. “We could use the space in here.“
“Captain,“ Goff said. He stood and made his way around people.
“Fly low,“ Eva said. “Head for land.“
“Will do,“ Goff said.
Arlon sat up.
“Arlon Stoddard,“ he said.
“Ulliana Alvis,“ the captain said. “Thanks for your help there.“
She looked around the cabin. “We had multiple failures. And a creature.“
“It’s being documented,“ Eva said. “The submersible is still down there. It’s—“
“Enough,“ Holly said. “We got everyone safely aboard. Right now, you and Arlon are hurt. And others. We need to look after the people. We can examine the issues around the wreck at our leisure.“
Arlon nodded.
“Fifty-six?“ he said.
“Fifty-six rescued,“ Holly said. “Fifty-six survivors.“
“Everyone,“ Ulliana said. “You saved everyone.“
Arlon held out his hand. “All in a day’s work,“ he said.
Ulliana snorted. But she took his hand and shook it.
“I’m glad you were around,“ she said.
Arlon smiled. “I am too,“ he said.
There were a lot of pieces to put together over the incident, but there was one key element.
They’d gotten everyone safely out of the water.
That had to be good.
Afterword
I love the principle of ground effect in aircraft, where the proximity to the surface reduces drag. It’s a cool property, though in practicality, perhaps not useful for day-to-day travel. You’d need a pretty-flat surface over long distances, with nothing in the way.
The Russians/Soviet designed some of the crazy-looking planes that have been developed to exploit the principle. I’m thinking of the old Ekranoplan A-90 Orlyonok and the Bartini Beriev VVA-14. But there have been various attempts over time to develop safe and economic aircraft. Most recently, it seems, the Regent Viceroy Seaglider is an electric ground effect taxi, developed, I understand, for short harbour ferry routes.
Thanks for reading Sea Skimmers. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I have a great time writing the Captain Arlon Stoddard adventures. I get to hang out in those space adventure stories I loved so much as a teenager, only these are the ones I get to make up.
Feel free to drop by and say hi at seanmonaghan.com. I’d love to hear from you. I do occasional updates and drop in free fiction from time to time. When I can figure out a mailing list, and how to do giveaways I’ll get that happening too.
It’s pretty awesome these days with indie publishing that I can connect with readers.
Cheers
Sean
April 2026
If you wanted a copy to keep, Sea Skimmers is available in ebook directly from the website – seanmonaghan.com – and also from the usual places for ebook, and in print from Amazon – click this link to go choose your favorite retailer.
Sean Monaghan - Writer 