After Callisto Tenzing pulled Phoenix from the water, he slung his fins and dive mask to the floor of the catamaran. With limited space, he needed as much room to work as possible. He dragged his friend to the back of the boat and laid him on his back on top of the rear storage compartment, using the lid as a makeshift operating table. He scrounged up one of his extra T-shirts, ripped it in half, and tied it around Phoenix's severed arm. As his shaky fingers slid away from his handiwork, he knew he had done everything he could. The tourniquet would hold, but the damage was done. He only wondered if Phoenix would pull through.
Time. Time. He had to move fast.
But he froze in horror. He couldn't take his eyes off the blood.
It was everywhere. On his hands, his wetsuit, and his bare feet. Dripped and splattered on the storage compartment lid where Phoenix lay motionless with his chest rising and falling. But what twisted his stomach the most was the blood smeared across the white floor of the speedboat like a thick red wine.
Callisto stumbled backwards, shaking and hyperventilating. He bumped into the gunwale and almost fell overboard but caught himself before tumbling into the sea. With a trembling hand, he pushed up from the edge of the boat and righted himself. As he stood there taking in the tragic scene, a sobering realization struck him. He had rescued his best friend, but he had done it without thinking. He reacted with raw, blind instinct. No will or emotion involved. It was something that had to be done, and he did it.
Callisto tore his gaze away from Phoenix's leaky stump of an arm and forced himself to face the water. His stomach retched; a spasm of nausea determined to escape. The back of his wrist flew to his mouth. He crammed it back, pushed it down. Not now.
Pull it together.
He couldn't lose it now. Not when everything was on the line.
Even though he was an aircraft mechanic, he was still a sailor. Every member of the United States Navy underwent basic first aid and field emergency training, but he never thought he would have to use it. His fingers raked through his hair and scraped over his scalp, his nails digging into the back of his head.
What about Nova? Where was she? Was she gone? Dead? Eaten?
He hadn't seen the shark coming as they swam to the surface, but the powerful collision of predator and prey jarred him to the core and sent him rolling in the water with Phoenix.
Life-changing moments seldom happened for Callisto. He lived on a mega-carrier positioned in the Sea of Cortez, spending his time performing repairs and tune-ups on F-49 Comet's. The same fighter jets Phoenix and Nova flew at Mach three. They were the daredevils and the heroes. The most adventurous thing Callisto ever did was scuba dive, and he only did that because they talked him into it three years ago. So, if he ever did anything brave, anything that risked his own life, it was not on purpose. His daily mechanical routine of tightening nuts and bolts, analyzing data, and making necessary repairs made him accustomed to accomplishing tasks. He knew how to run diagnostic checks on airplanes using the most advanced computer systems in the world. But he wasn't a medic; he was a mechanic. He was calculative and precise, and worked well under pressure with commanding officers breathing down his neck for him to act fast, molding and shaping him for the threat of war. Maybe that's why he reacted the way he did? His training flowing from him like second nature.
Nova burst to the surface like a buoy pulled under and turned loose.
Her body bobbed from the wave action, angled away from Callisto with one leg visible, the other not. The back of her head was half submerged.
He searched for the shark but realized it must be under the boat or circling in the distance. The sunken trawler lay beneath Nova, discernable in the depths, a silky column of blood stretching from the bottom to where she floated.
Callisto's instincts kicked into overdrive.
React. Do. Go.
Without hesitation, he stepped up on the gunwale and dove into the trough of a wave, his body slipping beneath the water in an instant.
As he swam, Callisto became certain he had missed something and made a critical mistake that could cost Nova her life. It occurred to him he could have fired up the boat and reached her faster, but he didn't consider that option before diving in. He shook off the doubts, trying to slow him down. This was not a time to second guess himself. Besides, he had made the right decision because reeling in the anchor would have wasted precious time.
To compound matters, he forgot to bring his dive mask and fins.
But he forged on, slicing through the swells, his bare feet chopping the water, torso coiling up and springing with each stroke of his arms and kick of his legs.
His lungs gasped for air.
Without fins, his forward motion felt slow and methodical. Without his mask, salt water stung his eyes and blurred his vision. But he had to save Nova, and he had to get back to Phoenix before he bled out.
As he drew near Nova, the strangest feeling surged through him. Not fear or doubt, but something else. Determination? Bravery? He couldn't be sure. All he knew was he could not care less about the shark. Saving Nova consumed every fiber of his being. If he died, so be it. He remembered the first time she strutted across the deck of the mega-carrier, her dark hair falling to her shoulders, her demeanor hardened, smile debilitating—an image he couldn't quite hold on to as he approached her motionless figure floating in a soup of blood and water.
She was a few feet away, held afloat by her buoyancy vest, which she originally inflated with air on her ascent while saving Phoenix. When the shark released her, the device caused her to rocket to the surface.
Callisto sloshed through the crimson mixture, reached her, and nudged her arm. Thankfully, the dive wasn't deep enough to require a decompression stop. One thing he didn't have to worry about was nitrogen bubbles forming in her bloodstream. But that was the least of his concerns.
Nova hadn't moved since she emerged, so Callisto touched her neck and checked for a pulse. The moment his fingers grazed her pale skin, he wrenched his hand away. A wail burst from within him, repulsion shuddering through his pounding heart and quivering limbs. The sight before him seemed surreal, like he was in the middle of a grisly daze. A horrific nightmare.
Her leg. Her right leg. It wasn't there.
Why hadn't he expected this? It was a great white shark that attacked her. Did he really think he would find her body intact?
Her body?
A wave of denial washed over him, hardening his resilience. He didn't know she was dead. Not yet. He had to cling to hope.
Callisto looped his arm around her waist and turned in the water. With the sun shining overhead, he aimed for the boat and began the swim for safety. His one-armed effort was slower than dog paddling—trudging over a cresting wave, collapsing into a sinking valley—doing it all over again.
His head pivoted on his shoulders, scanning the area for the great white. He spewed seawater from his mouth and nose, fixated and determined, a gritty resolve forcing him onward. He dialed in tight. Halfway there.
Callisto glanced back. Nova's blood trailed behind them, connecting to the spot where she had emerged. His muscles burned to the point of locking up and shutting down, but he kept straining against the sway, towing Nova's body like a dead weight.
He stroked with one arm. Kicked. Stroked with one arm. Kicked. Each splash reverberated in his ears. If he could hear his pitiful efforts, then the shark could, too, a wounded prey floundering like an alarm klaxon blaring in a sea of quietness.
Every splash and every drop of blood in the water would draw the shark closer.
Finally, Callisto released Nova and thrust his body upward for the edge of the boat, pulled his throbbing legs out of the water and tumbled aboard. He mustered his remaining strength, leaned over the gunwale and grabbed her buoyancy vest. This time he felt so drained of energy his arms and legs quaked, threatening to cramp up with more intensity.
Nausea washed over him. The world around him wavered. He almost blacked out.
Nova seemed like a lead weight, like she had strapped an air canister on her back before jumping into the water, the comparison from a memory of his first dive lesson with Phoenix.
Callisto strained, lifting Nova's body out of the water, but she slipped from his grasp and splashed out of reach. He lunged for her floating figure and latched two desperate fingers onto the strap of her vest, summoning the last reserves of strength left in him. Adrenaline swelled inside him. The rush flooded his muscles, enabling him to heave her body from the sea.
Her ankle dangled above the water. She was almost clear of danger.
Then, beneath the surface, a huge shape made his head turn to the side—a distraction in his peripheral vision.
Amid a nearby wave, as if through cobalt tinted glass, the nightmarish jaws appeared, gaped open wide, lunging for one last bite.
Callisto had come too far and risked it all. The savage nature of this terrifying creature would not deny him. In one last act of resolve, and with a gut-wrenching groan that started as a low growl and ended in a high-pitched scream, he tugged Nova's remaining good leg into the boat and collapsed in a heap.
They had escaped the shark, but Phoenix and Nova were still on the brink of death.
Callisto sprang into action. After tying the other half of his torn T-shirt around Nova's thigh, above the shark bite, he fell into the captain's chair and aimed the vessel toward his friends' only hope of survival—the mega-carrier, the U.S.S. Fortitude.