Page 41 of Music of the Ocean

There was a long silence. The water hummed with distant vibrations from the city’s heartbeat, from the massing of Federation craft overhead, from the ancient heartbeat of the planet itself.

“I have existed longer than your Federation has. My life spans millennia,” Indigo said softly. “I have watched the cycle repeat. Intrusion, infection, extermination, a brief peace, and then intrusion again.”

Saxby sucked in water. “That’s the first time you’ve put it like that.”

“When boiled down, that is what happens here. And each time, my task was to observe, guide, and ensure the planet’s survival. Not once, in all those millennia, did I ever want to claim someone in such in intimate fashion. Not once, not until you. As I said, you are my music.”

“I’m not that special.”

Indigo stepped closer, so close their faces nearly touched.

Saxby swore the water between them danced with an electric current.

“No one chooses to be special. But you are so much to me. You matter to me. You matter to the ocean. You matter.”

Saxby opened his mouth, but Indigo silenced him with a gesture. “You are not replaceable. You are mine, and I want to be yours. And the planet knows what I know. Even now, it is aligning its defenses around you.”

Indigo gestured at the walls, and the luminous display shifted to a new map displaying a web of brilliant lines radiating outward, tracing the labyrinthine tunnels and chambers of the reef city. At every junction, motes of light clustered and swarmed, organizing into patterns that looked almost like arteries and nerves.

“You are the planet’s signal to them.” Indigo’s voice softened but lost none of its intensity. “The proof we can think, adapt, anticipate. That we can love.”

Startled, Saxby forgot and sucked in air, making himself cough violently.

“Yes. I said love.” Indigo gently patted Saxby on the back. “I can already feel you in my heart.”

“I… I… I…”

“Shh. Be calm. I don’t expect a declaration from you. It is too soon. But understand this. If they hurt you, they will die. That is what you are to me and to the ocean.” Indigo’s breath stirred the water around Saxby’s face, and a tentacle wrapped around Saxby’s wrist. “You are everything.”

Saxby stared as the alarms reached a fever pitch when ships hit the water.

Signing, Indigo turned from Saxby and pressed his hand to the wall again. Around them, walls dilated, extruding slick, armored membranes, changing the chamber from open and illuminated to sealed and opaque.

The city’s outer perimeter glowed with shifting bands of light. Along the city’s skin, lines of defense appeared, thousands of tiny autonomous drones detaching and spiraling away in tight clouds.

The chamber’s walls flickered as the holodisplay zoomed out, overlaying the city’s reef with a tactical map of the ocean above.

A grid of angry red symbols, each pulsing with a distinct code, stretched across the water column. In orbit, the Heathglow’s silhouette glared sharp and predatory.

The first shuttle hit the ocean at high velocity.

“They are using the coordinates where the shuttle went down,” Indigo told Saxby.

The shuttle released several robotic probes that dropped countermeasures that were clouds of reflective strips and microelectronic devices that fanned out.

“Those are signal jammers,” Saxby said.

“I know.”

“They’re sending data back to the ship, Indigo. Disable those probes like you did the other ones.”

Surprised, Indigo glanced at Saxby. He wanted the probes disabled? Joy made his tentacles wiggle.

“They have a rotating frequency shield.” Indigo’s fingers flew across the screen. “They are continually changing the energy resonance of the probes’ deflector shields, so I cannot scan the shield harmonics and tune into their weapons to bypass the shielding. Smart.”

“You need to calibrate your disruptors to match,” Saxby said hurriedly. “That’ll allow you to pass straight through the shield and disable the probes.”

Indigo paused, fingers hovering over the interface as he tilted his head at Saxby. “You are helping me?”