Sea Station Umbra

Chapter 12. SeaPod 2 Recovery

In Pod Bay 1, we found Williams scurrying around the SeaPod checking seals and lights preparing for the dive. The stairs were rolled up to the hatch and, in the pod’s manipulator arm, a suitcase-sized object with a pair of long coiled hoses caught my eye.

“Must be the cutting torch,” I told Briscoe as I pointed.

“Used one before?”

“Yes, but not at a thousand meters.”

“I did once freeing a black box from a sunken Navy plane. Got some quirks at this pressure though.”

“I’ll let you do the honor then. Just don’t damage the wheel. We have to roll tomorrow.”

“Now, Marker, you know me better than that. And I promise not to damage your suit either.”

“Good then button me up and let’s go.”

As I dropped my legs into the half-suit now labeled CROSS, Briscoe went to the cutting torch, took the torch head in his hand and flicked the trigger. A loud pop echoed through the bay then a bright jet-blue flame spewed forward.

“Works fine,” he said twisting the valve extinguishing the flame.

“Coming, Marker. Raise your arms.”

Pulling the upper half down over me, he explained that I could do it myself using the hand pincers in an emergency but it was much faster with two divers. As he fastened and tightened the final seal locks I felt like a superhero knowing that I looked like a storm trooper; such a refreshing change over my past dives using huge bulky mini-subs. Now I was a human submarine again able to travel anywhere under my own power for hours at a time… as long as I had water.

Soon we were all in our places ready for flooding.

“Hey, who’s going to operate the flooding and door controls?” Briscoe squawked from his suit’s intercom. “There’s no one up there to do it.”

“Got the controls on my console Briscoe,” her intercom boomed. We use them for self-diving but they aren’t recommended for use without a spotter. Bowman knows we’re out. He’s our spotter. Plus Ivy always knows too. She watches the bays with her sonar.”

I watched her hands move over the console, then she paused.

“Ready for flooding guys? Make sure to lock your boots in the floor stirrups. Otherwise you’ll wash around in here. Show me a sign when you’re ready.”

I had done it once before training with Briscoe but the boot stirrups were tricky. Below each suit were two boot-wide pairs of locking rails that required a diver to kick the aluminum boots into them. Then the rails locked onto the boot grooves much like snow skis locking onto a skier’s boots. Pulling them out was trickier. A Michael Jackson moonwalk maneuver was required to release the boots and I wasn’t a good moonwalker.

Kicking my boots in until they locked I was ready for the flooding to begin. Seeing Briscoe’s arm go up I raised mine.

All at once, we were standing under a powerful waterfall ribbon of water passing over our helmets into the bay’s center near the SeaPod. There was no torrential flow; just perfectly metered ribbons of seawater meeting together reflecting off each other raising the water level in the bay.

Only my second time through the flooding sequence, I found myself holding my breath again as the water rose up over my faceplate and slowly covered it. It brought back a fear from my youth of going underwater unable to breathe and finally relinquishing my fate to the pain in my screaming lungs. I guess it was an autonomic reaction instinctive to life for self-preservation but to me it was from my childhood’s claustrophobic horror of the water surrounding me closing in for the kill. It had never happened to me before in the mini-subs but this was different: instead of a small viewport out the front like a small movie screen the Exosuit’s almost one-hundred-eighty-degree panoramic view put my peripheral vision into play, increasing my visual immersion. Diving for me had become an IMAX experience.

Another thing I noticed was the chill that raced up my suit’s interior tracking the bay’s rising water. I had read from the POD that the outside water temperature (which stays almost constant a thousand meters down) was forty degrees Fahrenheit only eight degrees above freezing. If it were not for the internal suit heater, I would go into hypothermic shock in ten or fifteen minutes. But even with the suit’s thick aluminum exoskeleton around me I still felt as if I were being dipped into a bucket of freezing ice water.

Suddenly the water noises roaring around my suit ceased. The bay had topped out leaving only a few shrinking overhead bubbles. Those soon disappeared as Lt. Williams opened the pod bay door to the ocean replacing the door’s white surface with the infinite darkness of the midnight zone.

“Going out,” said her voice through my suit’s intercom. A spinning turbulence that vibrated my suit signaled her departure as she flashed the SeaPod’s floods and left the bay. Briscoe unlocked his boots and drifted upward and outward toward the darkness as he activated his forward floods.

“Coming, Marker?”

“Right behind you, Chief,” I answered trying to kick out of my stirrups. On the second try they released leaving me spinning in the bay’s currents still churning from their departures. Now I just had to remember how to navigate the suit as Briscoe has taught me. All by voice command, he had said. Just tell it what to do, he had said.

So I said, “Quit spinning.”

Nothing happened.

Then frustrated I repeated louder, “Cease spinning dammit.”

Still nothing happened but I knew I was getting dizzier with each revolution.

Next, I said, “Forward one knot,” and to my surprise, my suit’s propulsion motors activated and accelerated me across the room crashing into the far wall.

Fortunately, I was traveling so slowly the impact did no damage to anything but my ego. I was a clueless fool wanting a mini-sub’s comforting joystick for control. Yet now I was spinning out of control in the vortex on the other side of the room and still getting dizzier by the moment.

“Where the hell are you, Marker? I hear you giving weird voice commands but I still can’t see you. Don’t think it knows ‘cease spinning dammit’ but it made me laugh. In my mind’s eye I saw you twirling in the bay to the Blue Danube,” Briscoe said, his voice growing weaker with each word.

“Not funny, Chief. I can’t remember how to control this thing.”

“Heads-up display to your upper right. Read its voice command list. Stop always works in any emergency. Just be sure to—”

I figured his intercom must have gone out of range but I wanted to hear his last words. First, I had to stop my sickening rotation.

“Stop!” I commanded.

In one motion, the inertial navigator spun up the motors to stop my spinning.

“Thanks, Chief, that worked,” I said, not knowing if he could still hear me.

For the next few moments after my dizziness faded, I memorized the voice commands before saying anything else. But I knew the words were there on display if I needed them.

“Rotate to port ninety degrees,” I tried first.

That command turned me counterclockwise toward the open bay door facing into the darkness ready to proceed.

“Forward one knot,” came next. I already knew that command worked; it had just slammed me into the opposite wall.

Gently the suit’s propulsion motors edged me from the sanctuary of the lighted pod bay into the dark ocean blacker than a moonless midnight. I looked down and saw the lights from the SeaPod and Briscoe moving slowly downward toward the crawler base under the Pod Bay 1 where Edwards had crashed.

“Where is it?” Briscoe’s voice crackled weak from his distance but growing stronger.

“It’s supposed to be wrecked on the front port wheel right under Pod Bay 1. Remember?” Williams replied.

“Yes. I saw it there before but it’s not where I remember it being. How could it have moved? It was intertwined in those wheel spokes.”

“Let me turn my floods toward it. Give you more light. Must be there somewhere.”

My voice-controlled approach went perfectly using the heads-up vocabulary list at first then I relied on memory for the final maneuvers. I arrived with them still hovering over the crawler’s front wheel.

“I’m here, Chief. Above to your starboard.”

I could see his floods point upward toward me as he leaned back looking up.

“Got you in my view, Marker. Join me down on the floor. The SeaPod’s wreck is gone from the wheel. Must have drifted off.”

“Heading down. Give me a sec.”

Moving down toward the ocean floor I found the Exosuit’s backpack propulsion system gave me a freedom I had never before experienced. At first, I was leery of its simplicity; after all I was accustomed to diving in a fifty-ton structure needing a large diving ship for support. Now there was nothing between my body and the unthinkable crushing pressure at a thousand meters depth but a jointed aluminum shell a half-inch thick weighing in at around three-hundred pounds fully equipped.

“Hi Chief. What’s the problem.”

“There you are,” Briscoe said turning toward me. His intercom blasted my ears.

“Yep. Got here as soon as I could.”

He pointed his arm toward the base as he rotated shining his floods toward the wheel.

“I know you didn’t see it last night but there was a SeaPod stuck in the spokes of that wheel right there.”

“In those bent spokes?”

“Yes. I hadn’t noticed that before but they are bent. So that’s where it was. I thought so.”

Over our heads, Williams had moved SeaPod 1 to shine its forward floods down on the wheel.

“So where the hell is it fellows?” she asked, her intercom booming through my ears.

Briscoe awkwardly bent over in his suit and retrieved a small rock from the silt. Then raising it over his head he dropped it and watched it drift downward. It fell several inches away from his drop point toward Discovery One’s aft.

“The current carried it that way,” he said pointing toward the rear of the station. “Must have broken loose last night when we felt that big bump.”

Watching from above, she questioned him.

“How could that have happened, Briscoe? You and I tugged on it. And even with all our horsepower we couldn’t break it loose. How could a current do that? It would have moved the whole station.”

“Let me look over there again, Lieutenant,” he said.

“Come with me, Marker, I need your eyes.”

Following him back to the crawler’s base, I noticed a tiny object reflecting my floods. That wouldn’t have been too unusual on the street but reflecting from the deep-ocean floor covered with silt it was nearly impossible.

“What is that shiny thing, Chief?” I asked pointing downward.

He reached down and grasped a short metal rod between his pincers. In the light from the hovering SeaPod, I could see it. About a quarter inch in diameter and four inches long it was hollow and had discolorations at one end. He held it up to his floods and turned it over examining it.

“Hmm,” he finally said, “I’ll have to take it inside to examine it but if I were a betting man I’d say it’s a cutting rod just like the ones in the cutting rig on your SeaPod’s robot arm.”

“Lieutenant?” he asked, “Are you still holding that cutting torch in your claw?”

“Let me look.”

Glancing up, I saw the manipulator arm move its claw to the front of the bubble and then return to its cradle.

“Yep, still got it. Need it down there?”

“No. And I don’t think I will. The SeaPod has already been cut loose.”

“What? You sure?”

“Not positive but I’m holding a cutting rod right now. Unless you dropped it someone else did.”

“Put it in your pouch and bring it in. See anything else? How about the wheel? Is it usable?”

“Marker, examine the wheel for structural damage. I’m going to look around here for more debris. Maybe find some cutting slag.”

On his departure, I moved back to the massive tractor wheel, forced to walk with an unnatural robotic motion. Now that I had filled the suit’s ballast and achieved negative buoyancy, I could stroll the ocean floor as long as my movements matched the swivel joints’ restrictions.

Out the corner of my eye as I stared up at the mangled spoke I noticed a small flickering bluish light off in the distance moving with an erratic pattern but definitely moving.

“Hey guys,” I called out, “I see a faint glow moving in the distance out forward from the crawler base. Anyone else see it?”

“Is it blue?” Williams asked.

I turned to face it and lost track of the bogey. “Now it’s gone. Just dimmed out.”

“Kill your floods, Marker” Briscoe said from somewhere near me. “Too much light pollution to see it.” I couldn’t see him but his intercom signal was loud and clear.

Quickly scanning the heads-up vocabulary, I found the command:

“Floods off.”

Immediately I submerged myself into total darkness with only my helmet’s dim help-screen glow and Briscoe’s floods hitting my eyes.

“It’s back. Still moving randomly but growing larger… and yes it is blue.”

Williams’ intercom squawked.

“All right everyone kill your floods. I want to see this light.”

I had experienced the blackness of the midnight zone before but there was always a visual anchor near me: a comforting shadow or glow. Now there was nothing but a tiny flickering blue glow out at the edge of my perception.

Seconds passed and then Williams’ intercom blared out a cackling laugh before she spoke.

“It’s an anglerfish! That’s its photophore you’re seeing. We call them the fireflies of the midnight zone. See them all the time down here. She’s just fishing for a meal and not very far away either. They’re less than a foot long.”

I breathed a sigh of disappointment thinking I had discovered a link to the recent mysterious events. It was just a fish but an unusual one that I had never seen.

“Floods on.” I commanded.

Briscoe still behind me in the distance blared, “Turn off those floods, Marker. I’ve got something very strange over here.”

“Floods off. What do you have Chief? And where are you anyway?”

“Over here, Marker, under Pod Bay 2.”

I spun around searching for him but saw nothing.

“Flash your floods so I can find you.”

The flash was only momentary but long enough for me to see that he was standing over something, kicking up silt with a boot and looking down. Keeping his location in my mind I moved slowly through the darkness until I finally saw the glow of his helmet’s display illuminating his distorted face. In his expression, I found something I seldom saw from him: a wide-eyed stare of confusion mired with awe and wonderment.

“Whatcha got there, Chief?”

“L-look, Marker,” he murmured, his voice shivering, barely audible through the intercom. His arm was extended downward to a glow buried in the mud and silt. Not a blue glow but one of a million colors all happening at once.

I backed off and stared down with him for moments trying to reconcile what I was seeing. It appeared to be a point glowing from under the floor, brighter in the center and fading in brightness for six or seven inches out. Outside the ring, the floor returned to a black nothingness.

“What in God’s name is that, Chief?” I asked unable to turn away.

“Don’t know. Maybe a translucent magma fissure. Maybe a bioluminescent creature but it won’t budge when it kick it. I’m mystified yet weirdly awed by it.”

“What are you guys talking about down there?” asked Williams. “I can’t see you anymore. Can I turn my floods back on? My sonar’s not accurate enough to hold this distance in the darkness. ”

“Yes. We’re over under Pod Bay 2. Watch for Marker’s floods. He’ll guide you here.”

He motioned for me to turn around and light up my floods.

I spun around and said, “Floods on,” expecting her to lock on to my visual.

Slowly she turned the SeaPod toward us.

“Gotcha, Marker. Coming.”

Watching her approach over our location, I noticed the SeaPod drift slightly off course downward toward the crawler base.

“Everything okay Lieutenant?” I asked.

“Oh hell no, Marker. I’ve lost control again. Just like before.”

“Reboot!” I yelled. “Remember? Flip the breaker!”

“Trying….”

The light over our heads went dark. I could feel a turbulence in the water and through the intercom hear the water rushing by her SeaPod but had no idea where she was. I began to pray wanting to push the loading bar across the screen again. Suddenly her floods flashed back to life and I saw the SeaPod veer off heading away from the station only feet before hitting the massive tractor structure.

“Whew! That was close, Marker,” said the Chief. “Well done.”

With a crackling sound, the SeaPod’s intercom reactivated.

“Thank you again, Marker. Do you have any idea what’s wrong with this damn machine?” Her voice was trilling coming in breaths.

I turned back toward the Chief, looked down at the glowing visually churning spot, and answered:

“Yes, Lieutenant. I think we’re standing over it. Do not attempt to return to our location. There’s something here in the mud that we don’t understand. It may be affecting the SeaPods.”

As I warned her, I glanced up to my heads-up display noticing a flickering in my peripheral vision. The display was cross-hatched with visual noise making it unreadable.

“Is your HUD working okay, Chief? Mine’s on the fritz.”

His eyes rolled up to the inside of his helmet and then bewildered, he looked back at me.

“Mine’s the same, Marker. What’s going on?”

“Let’s get the hell out of here, Chief, before our suits fail. Whatever that is it’s dangerous. Affecting everything electronic. Go. Go. Go!”

As we rotated our suits to leave, I realized we might lose our location once gone. The glow was almost impossible to see unless we were standing directly over it with our floods off. I looked up at the SeaPod drifting not far away.

“Lieutenant? Can you drop that cutting torch kit on the floor so we can find it?”

“I’m afraid to come any closer, Marker, but I can drop it out here. Not a long walk for you. Can you see my floods now?” Williams asked her voice stronger now.

“Yes. Drop down to the floor and release it there. I’ll head toward your lights retrieve it and bring it back here using the Chief as a return beacon. I think I can see you both at the same time.”

“On my way,” she said. “I’ll watch for your lights and drop it near you.”

“Activate your floods, Chief, and move away from that thing a few meters but keep your eye on it. I’m going to drop that kit down there so we can find it later; it’ll serve as a visual marker in this damn darkness.”

“Good idea,” he said reaching his left arm across to his right arm’s suit cuff. His pincer dropped into a small indentation causing his suit to flare with floods. “I’ll be here.”

“What did you just do, Chief?” I asked, curious about his motion.

“Turned on my floods.”

“How?”

“Oh I must have forgotten to tell you. There are a few buttons in your left sleeve cuff that control some basic suit functions if your voice control fails. Big letters over them indicate their functions. The top one’s for floodlight control, bottom one’s for suit stabilization… same as the Stop voice command.”

“Now you tell me. Thanks a lot, Chief.”

I turned back and saw Williams hovering the SeaPod near the floor not far away like an awaiting rescue helicopter.

“Coming, Lieutenant. Hold for me.”

Skipping over the ocean bed to her floods, I felt like a NASA moon walker jumping three-foot bounds at a time. The only difference I found was the gentle deep ocean currents carried me a few feet sideways with each leap so I dogged it, jumping off course with each step compensating for the lateral drift. Soon I was there, standing only yards under the SeaPod hovering above me so close I could hear the motors’ rumble and see silt swirling around my boots.

“Drop it,” I said. “I’ll get it.”

The manipulator arm with the kit unfolded and reached out resembling a spider offering a strange gift, then its claw opened releasing the kit into a slow topsy-turvy drop to the mud. As it hit, a small cloud of silt billowed up all around but was quickly dispersed by the SeaPod’s turbulence flitting it away in all directions.

As she lifted off the drop site, I saw my chance and went in after it.

“Got it!” I shouted. Then turning back to Briscoe I noticed his floods were dimmer that when I left him.

“Are you okay, Chief? Your floods are dimming.”

“Yep I realize that, Marker. Don’t know why but my power meter’s dropping, too. May be a short in my circuitry somewhere. I don’t notice the dimming so much because the glow below me is brightening.”

“Hold tight I’m coming,” I answered worried there might be a connection.

In the twenty seconds it took me to return Briscoe’s floods we so dim they were almost useless but I could still see him standing there near the glow, illuminated from below like he was standing over a stage’s footlight.

“Here. This should mark it.”

I dropped the torch kit directly over it blocking some of the light but expecting anything to happen.

“Good pitch, buddy.”

“Now let’s get you away from here before you’re powerless. I think that thing is draining your power.”

“Aw don’t be ridiculous, Marker. That cannot happen. There’s no way,” he said, his intercom weaker now.

“Let’s go in, ridiculous or not, Chief. Even my power meter’s dropping, now.”

We successfully reached our destination minutes later after half-walking, half-motoring back to the base of Pod Bay 1. Since his suit’s propulsion motors had failed to provide him with the required lift to reach the awaiting bay still open and lighted for our return, I managed to grab his suit and lift him with me. Soon after that, Williams docked SeaPod 1 on its docking pad, again forcing us to use the stirrups against the wild eddy currents in the docking bay.

Williams’ purging of the bay was fortunately uneventful. I was thankful because I didn’t know much more stress I could take. I needed a checklist of things to worry about now with the introduction of another anomaly in my previously orderly life. It was just too much happening too soon. And nothing was what it seemed.