Sea Station Umbra

Chapter 14. Starboard Side Out

Five minutes later, we entered the mess hall and raced through searching for the ladder leading to the docking bay. Seeing no arrow pointing downward, we panicked.

“Chef Saunders? You in here?” I yelled.

A faint voice from behind the kitchen answered.

“Yep, back in the pantry kissing my ass goodbye.”

We followed his voice to a door behind the kitchen leading into a large dimly lit room. Pallets of large plastic containers covered the floor throughout the area. Above one tall pallet stack, a stenciled down arrow partially obscured by boxes showed through.

“We need down into the bay, Chef. Now!” the Chief yelled.

Heeding our urgency, he grabbed a corner of the blocking pallet and lifted it, sending boxes flying across the pantry but freeing the hatch.

Within minutes, we were suited up ready to dive.

I turned to the Chief and asked, “How do we get out of here?”

He walked to a wall panel labeled EMERGENCY FLOOD and pushed a button, then rushed back to the stirrups to lock himself in. The emergency flood process was faster but much rougher that the one I was accustomed to. Fortunately, only a minute later the bay door opened to the ocean inviting us outward. As I kicked out of my stirrups, I noticed a row of small tools lining a rack on the wall. Quickly I snagged a hacksaw in my pincer and followed the Chief out of the bay.

“Don’t forget to go left, Chief,” I said, “This is a starboard side out.”

Remembering the station layout in my mind, I knew the monopole should be below us about fifty feet to our left. Only a few yards in front of me the Chief propelled over and down to where the monopole should be.

“There’s the ROV Marker. Looks dead in the water. Think we can move it in time?”

I checked the time display in my HUD. We weren’t close enough for it to be ticking backward but I panicked when I read the time 15:56:00, only four minutes until all hell broke loose.

“Don’t want to chance it, Chief. I’ve got to do something now.”

“W-What are you gonna do Marker? Don’t do anything foolish.”

“Chief, hide and watch a master at work,” I yelled.

I propelled ten feet over and beyond the ROV until I was upon its umbilical but safely beyond the effects of the monopole. With the hacksaw firmly in my pincer, I began to chew through the thick cable one stroke at a time. Although sparks were flying, I knew my aluminum exoskeleton suit would route the electricity harmlessly around my body. I kept pulling and pushing on the hacksaw until the blade finally broke through and the umbilical fell free dangling in two loose ends. My helmet HUD clock read 15:59:30 as I dropped the hacksaw and turned back to Briscoe with only seconds to spare.

I could hear him laughing through his intercom.

“Hope Bowman didn’t count on that ROV coming back, Marker,” he said. “You know, you’re a mad genius in a diving suit but I think you just saved us. Thank you.”

Awkwardly, he held up an arm and I slapped it down creating a loud clang through my suit.

We floated for minutes above the ROV waiting to confirm its disconnect.

“Hey, Marker, my HUD clock says it’s 1602 hours and we’re still alive. Let’s go home and get some sleep.”

“I’m not sure if I remember what that is but I’m willing to give it a try.”

After purging the bay, we racked our suits and began to climb the ladder into the pantry. Before I could reach up to open the hatch, it unlocked and dropped down missing my head by only inches.

Bowman reached through and gave us a hand into the pantry room now lit with brilliant fluorescents.

“Hey guys you saved the station. Thank you. I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”

“Merci beaucoup,” said Saunders, standing behind him grinning from ear to ear.

Looking confused, the Chief tilted his head.

“Is Saunders really a French name, Chef?”

“No,” he snickered, “not really. But I was once a French Chef and I used that a lot.”

Their interchange of humor signaled to me a relief of tension in the station. Even Bowman was changed: he laughed off the loss of the Sea Rover as unavoidable and then excused himself to start preparations for the cable transfer trip. I did notice though that our discovery of the monopole weighed heavily in his mind. He didn’t want to leave it unattended for fear of more accidents on future missions. In addition being a scientist, he felt it was a great find: an extant theoretical entity worthy of further investigation. I even heard him mention that it exhibited black-hole properties and its physical proximity really bothered him.

Walking with him back to the core, he suggested we stop by the mess for coffee. The Chief had never refused coffee and I was game so we all grabbed a mug and sat discussing plans.

Bowman’s plans had changed by our discovery and its threatening implications but he still had to move the station by tomorrow. TPCI and FRMS divers were heading out shortly to start pulling in sensors and another support crew of maintenance divers would be working on the tractor wheel spoke repair. In his mind, he was set for the move.

Then he asked about our plans.

At the top of ours, a simple plan was to sleep for hours in our rooms away from anything loud, traumatic, or wet.

Bowman agreed and apologized not realizing that we had not yet slept since arriving. His assignment to us before sending us up to our racks was to return with a solution for the monopole mystery: should we leave it, ignore it, take it with us, or even report its discovery to headquarters.

Another loud crash and jolt interrupted me from my sound sleep throwing me from my bunk. From outside my door I heard the klaxon echoing through the hallway. Awaiting Ivy’s message I flipped on my bunk light and checked my watch. It was 10:35 p.m. in my mind but 2235 hours station time. I had slept for six hours and surprisingly I was alert and rested but my body ached all over from muscling around in the Exosuit.

“Station alert! Station alert!” Ivy loudly announced. “An object has impacted the crawler’s structure under Pod Bay 3. Impact under Pod Bay 3. Station dome integrity unaffected. Repair crew requested. Report immediately to your stations.”