C’mon, girl! Don’t freeze up now! This is where you separate the men from the boys and the women from the little girls! Think! Act! You’ve been through the drills! Do something!

She knew there was no choice.

The water rushing up around her knees, she went over to the winch and powered it up. It worked. Thank God. She released the clamp, dropping the wrecked Exosuit into the water where it filled and sank out of sight. She swung the winch back and clamped her own suit, set the auto-drop feature.

There. That wasn’t so hard.

The water was up to her hips now.

The warning lights were still flashing, the sirens and buzzers shrilling so loudly that she could barely think. The moon pool and wet porch were invisible beneath the rising torrent of water. Great gurgling bubbles rose up. She reached for her suit.

(NOW IS THE HOUR OF YOUR DESTINY)

(LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER’S VOICE)

The habitat was hit again.

And again.

Javonivic was tossed into the water, swept this way and that. She smashed up against a bulkhead, then was pulled away in the direction of the moon pool. The water there was gushing and foaming, a great whirlpool forming and drawing everything towards its epicenter like the drain of a tub. Air tanks and water bottles, life vests and swim flippers, lengths of hose and mylar-covered operations manuals…in fact, everything that was not tied down was being pulled towards the effervescing eye with incredible suctioning force.

Javy included.

(ALICE)

(I’M COMING FOR YOU ALICE)

Javy tried to grab hold of things, bulkheads and steel racks and benches bolted to the deck plates, but everything was slick and greasy. The whirlpool was rotating her around and around and she could not get her bearings. The alarms whined in her ears, water sprayed in her face. She was a trained swimmer, sleek and well-muscled and athletic. She fought with everything she had until her limbs felt like lead, but it was no good.

Exhausted, defeated, she fought no more.

The maelstrom spun her around and around in ever-decreasing circles. She would be sucked down and drowned and maybe, in the final analysis, that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

She kept her head above water but that was about it. She was tapped and weary, both physically and psychologically. The water sluiced and foamed and she accepted her end. And then, just as she neared the epicenter and felt the tidal pull from below, the whirlpool ceased and water was not drawn out of the Entry Lock, but forced into it. A tidal wave of force came from below and she was suddenly riding a column of water that dashed her against a bulkhead and sank her into the depths.