Chapter One
Tyrrhenian Sea, 250km south of Naples Sirenica Dive Monitoring Control Depth: 100 Meters They’d lost contact with the dive team over a half-hour ago. Reece Jordan looked up from her monitors and through the foot-thick tempered glass window. The one hundred meters of water above muted the sun’s radiance. At best, it illuminated the depths like moonlight through a cathedral’s windows. Her chair squealed as she shifted back to the screens. She did her best to ignore the sound. Everything creaked, squeaked, or shed rust flakes in an underwater habitat like Sirenica. On a bad day, her monitoring center sounded like a fleet of cars with worn-out brakes. A rap-rap-rap came from the open hatchway. Jordan didn’t look up. She knew her boss’ tics better than anyone. “Anything?” Dylan Sawyer asked. The woman’s short blonde hair clung to her scalp as if she wore a skullcap. Another perk of living in a high-moisture environment. Jordan shook her head. “Not a peep. I’ve got both ROVs on a search pattern.” The remotely operated underwater vehicles were the size of large dogs. They sported a pair of grasping claws on either side of a cyclopean camera lens. Each could operate long distances without a tether. But the ocean was a big place. “Shouldn’t have sent them down there in suits,” Sawyer muttered under her breath. “I told them we needed that fourth minisub up and running.” “Peterson would’ve said something if he felt uncomfortable.” That was an understatement. Peterson, Richter, and Lang had a combined fifty years of experience working under deep dive conditions. “Even three people can get the nark. At the same time, too.” Jordan nodded. Nitrogen narcosis could hit hard and fast at this depth. A too-quick depth change could fog the brain as effectively as chugging a bottle of Tennessee whiskey. She wiped a finger across her lips before catching herself. Jordan fiercely pressed her palm flat against the arm of her chair. Don’t you dare go down that path again, she thought to herself. But as God is my witness, what I wouldn’t give for a shot of Jack. Her monitor emitted a ping. “I’ve got something.” In an instant, Sawyer was up and looking over her shoulder. “Show me.” Jordan tapped a few keys. The monitor switched over to one of her ROV’s cameras. Her breath whistled out through her lips as the fuzzy image of two divers appeared on the screen. Peterson swam with a crab-like motion. His right arm curled around one of his fellow divers, dragging him forward through the water. The other man moved feebly, if at all. Dark streamers of some strange material rippled from the edges of the two men’s suits. “The hell is that?” Sawyer peered at the screen. “And what’s that black cloud trailing them?” Jordan swallowed. “It’s blood.” The picture finally snapped into focus. Both men’s dive suits looked as if they’d been stuffed into a shredder while still being worn. The torn edges rippled like streamers in the current, leaking bright red blood that looked as black as squid ink in the dim light. Peterson’s suit had been ripped open along one side. His left leg hung uselessly, as if broken. His dive fin had a wedge-shaped chunk missing. The other diver was in worse shape. The man moved only spasmodically, trying to assist his friend’s efforts. Deep slashes crisscrossed his body from scalp to thigh. “That’s Richter,” Sawyer finally said. “No sign of Lang?” “I’m not seeing anything.” “Dammit. How far are they from us?” A pause. “About two hundred meters.” “They’ll bleed out before they make it that distance. Can you bring them in?” Jordan took down a controller module from a nearby shelf. “I’ll get them home.” “That’s what I want to hear.” Sawyer stood and reached over to tap the intercom. Her voice took on a metallic reverberation as it boomed through Sirenica’s metallic interior. “All hands, we have a medical emergency! Clear the way to the sickbay. I need Dive Master Hanick and Doctor Lici down at the Moon Pool in five minutes.” “I can be there in four shakes,” Jordan added. “If you need another hand.” “The shape those divers are in? I could use you.” Sawyer left at a run. Her footsteps made a tinny echo as they receded. Jordan grasped the controller and plugged it into the network. Manipulating the joystick with finesse, she brought the ROV within grabbing distance of the two divers. One of the ROV’s manipulator arms appeared onscreen. She maneuvered the claw hand to clamp down on one of Richter’s tattered dive fins. Peterson gave her a weary thumbs-up as he let go of his friend and grabbed onto the ROV’s other arm. Jordan kicked the vehicle into gear, the speed set as high as she dared. She rotated the ROV’s camera to see Peterson clinging desperately to the metal arm. Richter lolled in the propeller’s wake like a rag doll. Up ahead, she made out the shimmering rectangles that marked the four moon pools on Sirenica’s bottom level. A glittering steel grate lowered from one, trailing bubbles as if in welcome. She clicked a button labeled AUTOMATED ROV RETRIEVAL PROGRAM. Jordan’s chair made another plaintive squeal as she slid out of it and dashed down to the lower levels. She took the short, steep metal stairs two at a time, heart pounding in her chest by the time she arrived at the Moon Pool Room. While the circular space wasn’t particularly large, it was cavernous by the standards of any undersea habitat. Wavy turquoise reflections danced across a domed ceiling. The sharp scent of salt mixed with the heady fumes of motor oil. A minisub lay beached on the far side of the room, parts scattered like fresh guts across the floor. Wheezy rattles came from the dive platform motor as it pulled up a quartet of chains from the pool. A jumble of black, yellow and red shapes appeared in the water below. They surfaced amidst a cascade of foam. The ROV sat in the middle, its unblinking eye staring as if in amazement. The two divers that accompanied it lay crumpled and bleeding on the steel grate on either side of the vehicle. Sawyer stepped onto the closest segment, Dive Master Hanick right beside her. The big man’s bald head gleamed in the pool’s bright lights as he lifted Peterson’s head out of the water and removed the man’s face gear. “Eyes open,” Hanick said. His German accent cut his words into harsh commands. “Stay awake, verdammt!” Peterson’s eyes refused to focus. His voice sounded slurred, as if drunk. “Couldn’t get away, Otto. Couldn’t get back…” The man’s eyes closed. Hanick looked up in alarm at the dark-haired woman who joined them on the platform. Without ceremony, she jammed her fingers into a gap of the suit at the base of Peterson’s neck. “Still getting a pulse,” she said. “Barely. He’s bleeding out.” “Tell us something we don’t already know, Doctor Lici,” Sawyer said, as she managed to lift Peterson’s wrist from where it still wrapped around the ROV’s arm. Lici ignored the jibe. She pointed from Sawyer to Peterson’s biggest wound. A deep, pulsing gash on the left calf. “Put pressure on that. Now! Hanick, grab the largest bandage you can find from the emergency cabinet and wrap it as best you can. Then carry him up to sickbay, I can infuse him there.” Hanick grunted assent. He set Peterson’s head down and lumbered over towards the cabinet. Lici beckoned to Jordan with a wave of one hand. “Come on. There’s another one over here.” Jordan stepped onto the ankle-deep platform. It swayed slightly under the jostling of a half-dozen people. Her skin instantly goose-pimpled as her shoes absorbed a chilling dose of forty-five-degree seawater. The two women trudged around the side of the ROV. Richter lay sprawled out on his back, one diving fin still caught in the vehicle’s clench. Blood oozed from more than a dozen deep cuts. The wounds turned the briny foam around him a sickening shade of pink. Lici moved to raise Richter’s mask and then touched her fingers to his neck. Satisfied, she next looked down to the man’s thigh. A strange bulge protruded from the suit’s black rubber. Jordan moved up next to her. She stared as the bulge gave a strange pulse. “I need to see what that is,” Lici said. “Can you roll him over a bit?” Jordan knelt and wedged her hands under Richter’s body, shifting it to one side. Lici pulled a utility knife from her belt and squatted at Jordan’s side. She felt around under the foam to make sure that she’d cut suit and not flesh. “Ouch!” the doctor exclaimed, as she pulled her hand back. A drop of blood welled out from the ball of her index finger. Jordan looked up, alarmed. “Are you all right?” “Just poked myself.” Lici returned to her work. Satisfied, she made a single slash with her knife. The bulge exploded in a meaty splat of iron-rich blood. Lici fell back with a gasp of surprise. Richter’s leg simply fell apart like a roll of raw beef. Now released from its rubber-sealed pocket, the pressure of the femoral artery continued to spurt its liquid red cargo in ever-weaker pulses. Jordan recoiled from the sight, her eyes wide and staring. Shock turned to horror as she felt a heavy hand grip her shoulder. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. No, no, no! I don’t want to see, I don’t want to see! She heard shouts from Sawyer, from Hanick. They sounded impossibly distant as the grip on her shoulder turned her inexorably around. Richter had been a handsome man, with chiseled, even features. The blood that cascaded down those same features made him look like a statue that vandals had hosed down with scarlet paint. His eyes weren’t blurred like Peterson’s. They blazed with a dying, incandescent glory as he spoke. “I saw…” he whispered. “Down there. It was full…of stars.” That final energy flickered out. With a shudder and a splash, Richter fell back against the grate. His eyes stared sightlessly at the ceiling above and into the void beyond. |
AuthorPlease see my 'About and Contact' Page. Archives
December 2022
Categories |