Ohre (Heaven's Edge) Read Online Free Page A

suspicious. Just because nothing stirred the waters did not mean they weren’t below, watching us. But if there was truly nothing here, I had to wonder why.
    Qeya’s hand squeezed mine and energy traveled from the sensitive nerves in my fingertips and up my arm. I turned to follow her pointed gaze, noticing the increased pulse of the scanner in her hands. With my infrablue vision, I saw what her eyes couldn’t. I saw past the flat seabed to the caves underneath it and wondered just how deep this ocean went. Did it extend to the core? And as I was beginning to doubt we’d ever find Pioneer , or that at least it would be best to turn back and try again tomorrow, Qeya threw her body erect before me and froze. I righted myself quickly and followed the direction of her outstretched hand, where the scanner was now flashing wildly.
    Her glowing golden eyes were wide with something that smelled like fear as she spoke into my mind, “ Look… ”
    The seabed that had been bare several strokes back was now littered with sea grass. Before we came across the grass, I had begun to wonder if this was another dead sea after all. But grass meant food, which in turn meant life. Hopefully we wouldn’t find any on this trip. When I followed the trail further, I realized it stretched on into the distance into an endless forest. Just below us, I could make out the silvery shell of the Pioneer , no bigger than the end of my thumb from up here. When I looked up to check the scanner, Qeya was already looking back at me, waiting for instruction.
    “ Let’s go, ” I whispered the thought into her mind. She led the descent.
    Water pressed against us from all sides the deeper we kicked toward the fallen Pioneer . I could see the strain in her limbs as she struggled to push past the growing pressure. My kind craved the skull-pounding weight of the deep and I grinned as I swam ahead, pulling her with me.
    It was hard to tell how bad damage to the hull was just yet, but I was confident we could easily gain entry. The shuttle wasn’t my main concern, though. Rather the bubbles I kept seeing in the waters around us, and though she couldn’t see them yet, the abandoned dwellings hidden in the forest.
    So there’s life below after all, or least there used to be.
    I didn’t realize she’d heard my thought until she looked up at me strangely and then pretended she hadn’t.
    Qeya reached for the latch on the outside hatch until I grabbed her hands. Her eyes blazed and threw scythes into mine, no doubt for daring to challenge her strength. I released her before reaching for the hatch myself. Even with my doubled strength it wouldn’t budge. When she saw me activate my wristblade, a flurry of bubbles were left in the wake of her kicks to escape the blast she knew was coming.
    This was one invention of mine I was proud to claim. Old Brien used to say I was a fool for taking scrap metal apart and piecing it together again. Turns out my troublemaking had some benefits.
    The Royals liked my inventions so much, they made their own version of my wristblade. Not my fault they were weaker and tended to shut down after a season. It was their fault for not putting a filthy miner in charge. My wristblade had evolved over the seasons and I was in the habit of adding and modifying its many features. The hidden blade was only one weapon and the blaster another personal favorite of mine. But the power pulse I used to bust us out of Second Deck last season. At this depth, it seemed the best choice to reverse and use to drag Pioneer to the surface. I felt a boost to my malehood when the Royal Princess backed off. She had seen what I could do.
    In the water, everything was different. I couldn’t move as quickly as I could on land. When I brought my two middle fingers to touch my palm and the tracer hidden against my skin, the propulsion forced me to kick hard, just to keep from careening back into Qeya. I’d used some of my last personal stash of chole dust to power