43 Chapter 43 Underwater Adventures (1/2)

”What the hell are you doing?” screamed Olivia, picking herself up as the ride smoothed out tremendously.

”Trying to keep us alive!” he growled as he steered the ship past an outcropping of rocks.

”Don't you know that you can't take a space ship under water??They're designed to handle air pressure pushing out, not water pressure pushing in!”She sounded like she was going to hyperventilate.Was she scared of water too?He remembered the first time he met up with her, and how she couldn't swim worth shit.

”Don't worry, that's only if we go too deep.I don't plan to do that.”

She grumbled to herself, but moved back to the bench seat and buckled herself in.

Glancing at one of the panels to his left, Dustin saw that the alien vessels that had been chasing them, had followed into the water, and were shooting missiles at them.Diving deeper, he kept a tight grip on the steering, while keeping a close eye on the pressure gauges.

A flash of something in front of him, caused him to jerk the ship to the right, and Olivia gave a short shriek behind him.

”Do you even know how to fly?” she complained, grabbing the bag and strapping it into the seat next to her.

Dustin ignored her as he veered further right, as a huge mouth, from some underwater monstrosity, tried to take a bite of the ship.He veered under the jaw and flew down the length of the monster.It didn't go down for very far, before it curved back up, and suddenly, he was out of the water, flying through a huge underground cavern.

Of the ships that had been following him, only one managed to follow him.However, as it paused just above the water, no doubt looking for him, the monster surged out of the water, and swallowed it whole.

Dustin didn't wait to be the next bite.There were some tunnels that looked vaguely familiar, that were large enough for the ship, but not for the monster.He darted for one, just as the water splashed from it, as it came for them.

As he paused in the tunnel, shining the ship lights over the walls and further down the tunnel, he caught his breath.He could hear small hysterical giggles coming from Olivia.She would never have survived, he's pretty sure.She freaked out way too easy.

Flying down the tunnel, he realized it was dug by one of the same tunneling worms that he had stolen the genetic material from, only much, much bigger.What could a worm of this size possibly eat?

Hoping the answer wasn't them, he made sure that the ship didn't brush the ground anywhere.He needed to find a dead end, so he could park without worrying about something sneaking up on them while he worked on the ship.

Turning around a bend, he pulled the ship up short.He was staring at the tail end of a worm so massive, he was afraid to sneeze.A tunnel on the side, became visible as the worm continued tunneling, and he wasted no time in darting down it.It angled down, then turned back, until they were heading back in the same direction they had come from.

He didn't fly for very long, before he came across a weird sight.There was water lapping at a pool, and sticking up out of the water, was the tail end of a worm, but it wasn't moving. In fact, it looked dead, with the skin sloughing off.There was a greasy slime forming on the surface of the water, and he decided this may be what he was looking for.

As he settled the ship down, Olivia piped up from the back.

”What are we doing here?I thought we were trying to get off this planet?”

”You're the one who told me that this thing has a self-destruct trigger if we fly too high,” he snapped, turning towards her.