Ocean Black

CHAPTER TWELVE

Like almost everyone else on board, Kim Otsuka had been in the lab for what seemed an eternity, waiting without patience for word from below. Without being asked, she had settled in at the computer console next to the command station, linked into the telemetry circuits for the submersible, and initiated diagnostic programs to see if the interrupted signals could be traced to ship-board equipment.

Behind her, scientists and ship’s crew milled about, listening to the conversations with DepthFinder which were issuing from the overhead speakers. Dokey was on the computer next to her, the submersible’s electronic schematic on the screen, searching for potential solutions to problems he could only guess at. Next to him, Mayberry was also on a machine, attempting to track the sub’s ascent on his map by the verbal reports coming from Thomas, and calculating the rate of electrical usage.

On her left, Dane Brande, when she glanced at him from time to time, seemed close to detonation. His back was rigid as he sat on the edge of his chair, and a vein was throbbing at his temple. She was amazed that he could hold his temper in check sufficiently to maintain a level tone in his voice.

When Thomas reported the proximity of the other submersible, though, Brande came out of the chair, scattering the people standing behind him. He paced in front of the console, watching for non-existent data on the screen, the headset’s cord trailing after him.

“It’s right alongside you, Rae?” he asked.

Kaylene Thomas’s voice echoed on the receiver. “Not precisely, Dane. Hold on a second… it looks to be about six hundred feet below us and about twelve hundred feet to the north.”

“Shut down your sonar, wait ten minutes, then take another reading,” Brande said.

“Wilco.”

The wait was interminable. Otsuka finished the last of her diagnostic checks without finding one fault in the ship’s computer hardware or software.

After the designated time lapse, Thomas reported, “They’ve closed on us by about fifteen feet, Dane. They are using active sonar to track us.”

“I don’t like that a damned bit, Chief,” Dokey said, though not on the acoustic telephone. He had a headset in place, but had shut off the mike.

“Tell me why,” Brande said.

“The ramming had to be deliberate; with all of the space available down there, an accidental collision just doesn’t happen.”

“You think,” Mayberry put it, “that they want to eliminate evidence? Sink the DepthFinder?”

“It’s a damned good possibility,” Dokey said.

“It’s one we won’t take a gamble on,” Brande said. “Bob, what kind of energy can we spare?”

Mayberry leaned forward to peer at the numbers crowding his screen. “Not much, Chief. Hmmm. Go ahead and have her hit a five-minute burst at top speed. Then, I’ll do some more calculations.”

Larry Emry came on. “Svetlana is coming around.”

“How is she?” Brande asked.

“Groggy. Give her some time.”

Otsuka felt a mild sense of relief, but it was tempered by everything else that was taking place.

She tried to visualize the scene fifteen thousand feet down. The damaged DepthFinder rising at 100 feet per minute, struggling to reach the surface before her electrical and oxygen reserves were depleted. And below and behind her, the unknown sub attempting to close and finish the destruction. She wanted to cry.

“Dane,” Otsuka said, “I want to know what the vertical closure was.”

Brande nodded at her, and then turned on the boom mike of his headset. “Rae, do you know if the other sub is gaining on you vertically?”

“It was about seven feet, Dane, but we’ve lost some rate of ascent.”

“How much?”

Emry reported, “We’re now at nine-six feet per, Dane.”

“Okay, that’s still all right. What’s your present heading?”

Otsuka keyed in the command for a spreadsheet program, and when it appeared on the screen, began entering calculations, depths, and closure rates.

“Heading one-nine-eight currently,” Thomas reported. “We’ve been coming up in a spiral.”

“Forward velocity?”

“No reading on the instruments, Dane. I judge it at about five knots.”

“Go to one-eight-zero. Full power for four minutes, then change course to one-five-five for one minute, then cut the power.”

“Wilco.”

“Get that, Bob?” Brande asked.

“I’m mapping it. We won’t lose track of her.”

Brande leaned forward and tapped the intercom button for the bridge.

“Bridge,” Alvarez-Sorenson said.

“Connie, we want a heading of one-eight-zero at ten knots.”

“You’ll get some buffeting,” the first mate replied. “We’ll be taking the seas broadside.”

“Just do it, please.”

“Immediately.”

Dokey leaned over and looked at Otsuka’s screen. “I was doing that, too, but you’re faster.”

“What have you got, Kim?” Brande asked.

“There’s a lot of variables, Dane,” she said, “plus we don’t know the condition of the other sub. But I think they’ll catch up with Kaylene between seven and five thousand feet of depth. And that’s if Bob allows two more five-minute runs at full-speed.”

“I can give you three,” Mayberry said. “More than that, we don’t get her to the surface with any power left.”

“Let’s all re-run the numbers,” Brande said. “Double-check it. We don’t want mistakes made under pressure.”

They took their time on the recalculations, but both Mayberry and Otsuka came up with the same dismal results. Dokey ran his own set, but it agreed with what they already had estimated.

“Maybe,” Mayberry said, perhaps to be optimistic, “the other sub is also damaged and merely trying to reach the surface as fast as possible.”

Brande went back to his microphone. “Rae, take another sonar reading.”

Three minutes later, Thomas said, “He’s not gaining on us right now, and in fact, I widened the gap by ten yards. However, he turned to follow us when I hit him with the sonar.”

Otsuka thought she detected a much higher degree of anxiety in Thomas’s voice.

Brande said, “Goddamn it!” On the acoustic, he said, “Rae, jettison your tow.”

“I really don’t want to do that, Dane. Find me another option.”

Otsuka thought about it and said, “What we have, Dane, is Sneaky Pete.”

Brande considered the implications for thirty seconds. “Go, Kim.”

“I’m flying him,” Dokey said.

“Whatever,” Otsuka told him.

Brande keyed his mike. “All right, Rae, hold on to Sarscan for a few more minutes. We’re coming up with a possible alternative.”

Otsuka moved to the fifth computer console and set it up, hooking in the joystick control board, while Dokey and half-a-dozen willing deckhands retrieved one of the Sneaky Petes from its cushioned shelf on the port side.

The small robot was about five feet long, and its three angled propellers made it highly maneuverable. Strictly a search vehicle, it mounted only video and still cameras, and it was controlled and powered by a thin tethered cable from the host vehicle.

“I want two reels,” Dokey said.

Each reel contained five thousand feet of cable, and after one reel was emptied, operation had to be suspended while the cable from the other reel was connected.

Two people attacked the reels, which were on their own castered platforms, released their tiedowns, and started pushing them toward the big doors.

When the doors were opened, mist and spray filtered in. The sea was much louder than Otsuka had realized, and the Orion was pitching more now that she had changed course.

It was probably the fastest deployment the MVU crews had ever made, especially in hostile seas. Sneaky Pete was in the water, descending, within fifteen minutes.

She activated his video, and the screen filled with a greenish vista containing a school of bonito. She angled the translation stick forward, and Sneaky began his dive. She added full power, to pull cable off the reel, and turned him to the south.

Bob Mayberry had brought up the ship’s sonar, and he now had a waterfall display showing on his screen. “Got Sneaky,” he said.

“How about the subs?” Brande asked.

“Still way too deep, Dane.”

Dokey came back in from the stern deck and stood behind her. He was soaking wet.

“I’ll take him now, Kim.”

“And die from cold. Go change clothes.”

“Kim….”

“There’s plenty of time.”

She hoped that was true.

Dokey turned and headed for their cabin.

An hour and twenty minutes later, with Dokey seated at the controls, Brande was talking him into position using the Orion’s sonar, which was picking up vague and intermittent contacts with both subs, and oral reports from the submersible. DepthFinder had lost her ability to calculate longitude, but Thomas was giving them latitude and depth.

Otsuka sat in a chair drawn up next to Dokey and listened to Thomas’s voice on the speaker. “Depth now six-one-four-four, Dane. I’d like to use the video.”

“Not just now,” Mayberry cut in. “You’d need the lights, and I don’t want that draw.”

“Try the sonar,” Brande told her.

A few minutes later, Thomas said, “Not good. He’s directly aft, fifty yards away.”

Dokey glanced at the sonar, then at Emry’s chart on the screen next to him.

“I need her to turn left, Chief. Ten degrees.”

“Turn left by ten points,” Dane ordered.

“Turning now,” Thomas reported.

“Right there!” Dokey yelled.

The screen showed Sneaky Pete’s view. It was a dark, empty sea, illuminated by the halogen floodlights. Otsuka estimated a range of visibility of perhaps thirty yards. At first she didn’t see it, but then DepthFinder emerged from the murk, headed directly at the ROV.

“We’ve got you on-camera,” Brande reported. “Maintain your heading.”

“You look good,” Dokey added.

Otsuka didn’t think so. As the ROV approached, quickly at a combined closure rate of fifteen knots, the lights and camera picked up the evidence of the collision. The starboard side of the sub was heavily damaged, with fiberglass chunks protruding from what once had been a sleek hull.

Dokey didn’t slow down Sneaky Pete a bit. He angled back the descent and passed directly over the on-coming submersible. Her tail fins disappeared from view at the bottom of the screen, and Dokey nudged the nose down again.

Seconds later, the alien sub appeared on the screen.

“It’s one of AquaGeo’s,” Dokey said.

“I think we knew that,” Brande said.

“Yeah, but now we’ve got her on video tape, Chief.”

“And film,” Otsuka said.

“I don’t think so,” Dokey said. “We aren’t likely to get the film back.”

The AquaGeo sub, like DepthFinder, was not moving under power, but coasting upward on buoyancy. As they watched, the twin propellers began to rotate.

Alarmed, Otsuka said, “They’re going to catch her!”

“How do you feel about a quarter-million dollars, Dane?” Dokey asked.

“Spend it!” Brande said.

Dokey picked out the port propeller as his target and dove Sneaky Pete into it.

The screen went black.

DepthFinder reached the surface with its typical urge, as a result of her momentum, to fly clear of the surface, then bounced back.

Svetlana Polodka could tell that the weather had gotten worse since they first submerged. The thirty-ton sub rocked and pitched in the waves. It made her roll back-and-forth in her seat.

“I want to get out,” she said.

It was something she had to do.

“Won’t be long now, Svet,” Emry told her. “Hang on for a few more minutes. It’s raining out there.”

She did not really hear him. She was aware that she was not tracking well, that concentration was difficult. It seemed as if only minutes had passed since they had launched, but she knew that could not be right.

She did not worry about it.

There was something about another submersible, but she did not remember the details. It seemed strange that another submersible was on her mind. Maybe she was supposed to be aboard it.

She did know that she was sick. Her stomach was rebelling, churning. She had a terrible headache. Her head throbbed, pain racing between her temples. It was caused by the stale, dry air of the sphere’s environment.

She knew that.

“I must breathe,” she said.

She turned to look at Emry. “Please. I will die if I do not breathe.”

Emry looked at Thomas.

Thomas’s face was very white in the dimness. The dimness came and went.

“Let’s just crack the hatch open,” Thomas said.

“I will do it,” she yelped and then scrambled up out of her seat.

Emry settled back to let her pass, but held up both of his arms to steady her. She got her feet up on her seat back, felt Emry’s hands gripping her calves. Stood up and found the hatch wheel with her own hands.

She spun the wheel, the locks released, and she shoved it open.

The wonderful ocean air rushed in. It was accompanied by big splashes of cold rain drops that felt very good on her face. Even the saltiness was welcome. She stuck out her tongue to taste it.

The sub was pitching back and forth, shunting her from side to side. She shook one foot free of Emry’s grasp, got her toe hooked on the steel rung, and pushed upward.

A large waved rolled under the sub; it heeled, and she banged into the side of the hatch, spreading the sealing grease over her sweater.

Her sweater?

It was yellow. She did not recognize it.

Hooking her elbows through the hatch and on the deck, she levered herself out of the sub, got her knees under her, then stood up and gripped the edge of the sail.

God, it felt so good.

The rain pelted her, stinging a little, but she did not mind.

Below, she heard Emry telling Kaylene Thomas, “I’ll go up with her.”

Drinking deep gulps of the fresh air, she spun around, almost dancing. The deck bucked under her.

There was the ship.

It was so close, and getting closer.

Her vision tunneled, and her head seemed to contract.

Darkness encroached, then ebbed away.

It was going to be all right.

Mark Jacobs was on the bridge with Overton and Debbie Lane. Dickie Folger had the helm, and Jacobs and Overton both leaned against the forward bulkhead, peering through windshield, scanning the misty day for something.

“There!” Overton exclaimed. “Off to the left!”

Jacobs saw running lights, barely flickering in the distance.

“Come port a few degrees, Dickie,” he said.

A few minutes later, the ship took form.

“That’s her,” Overton said, “the Orion.”

Jacobs recognized the silhouette. “You may have been right, Wilson.”

“Of course, I’m right. My instincts are good.”

Folger eased back on the throttles as they closed the distance to the research ship.

Jacobs noted that the area under the big yoke on the stern of the ship was vacant. He also saw that there were a lot of people on the starboard and aft decks. They were all concentrating on something forward and starboard of the ship.

He followed the track of their interest and soon spotted the small submarine bouncing in the troughs.

“Let’s stay back a little, Dickie. It looks as if they’re about to recover their submersible.”

“Sure thing, Mark,” Folger said and took a slight turn to the north.

“There’s somebody on top of the sub,” Overton said.

Jacobs could make out the figure, dressed in yellow. It seemed to be weaving about, but that might have been the result of the rough seas and the way the submersible was being tossed around.

And as he watched, the figured slumped, pitched forward, and went over the sail. The body bounced once on the deck, and then slid into the sea.

The minute he saw Polodka collapse forward onto the sail, Brande ripped off his slicker.

When the submarine lurched and threw her over the sail, he stepped over the railing, leaned forward, and dove into the sea.

Otsuka yelled behind him, “Dane!”

It wasn’t one of his best dives. He hit the surface of the sea almost flat, and an on-coming wave slapped him off-course, rolling him sideways. He went under only a few feet, kicked his shoes off, and emerged on the surface swimming hard, knifing his hands into the water, pulling until his muscles hurt. His shod feet flailed behind him.

The water was cold, but after a few seconds, the sensation died. The sub was twenty yards in front of him, but Polodka had slipped off on the opposite side, and he angled to the right, to pass around the bow.

His clothing was immediately water-logged, and he fought their weight as well as the eight-foot high waves. He had to pause a moment and toe his shoes off. The sub appeared and disappeared as he rose and fell in the troughs, struggling his way up to a crest, then falling over it. The rain peppered the surface, and his mouth filled with water when he breathed. He spat it out and concentrated on making his strokes as powerful as possible.

It took him three minutes to reach the DepthFinder, and he swam clear of the bow, twenty feet away, so as not to be smashed up against it.

On the other side, he found an empty, tempestuous sea.

Mayberry was up in the sail now, and he yelled, “Over there, Dane! She went down there!”

Brande aimed for the spot where Mayberry was pointing. A wave rolled over him, shoving him toward the sub.

He kicked hard, pulling water with his hands, fighting for a clear breath. Forty feet took forever to traverse.

“There! There!”

Brande filled his lungs, ducked his head under, rolled his legs up, and dove.

Without a mask, his vision was blurry. The overcast day didn’t allow much light to penetrate.

He kept kicking, driving himself downward, looking to his left and right.

She wasn’t there.

Driving downward.

Svet. Come to me, sweetheart.

Down.

And at last, he had to reverse direction. He bobbed to the surface, gulping air.

Then dove again.

He went as deep as he could go ten times, but he never saw her again.