“All right. Ready for flooding?”
“Briscoe’s got a pincer up, Bowman’s got thumbs up in the SeaPod, and I’m ready so go!”
It was all new to me but very logical and mostly aligned with my prior diving experience. I had rarely used a floodable diving bay but it seemed safe enough so I was comfortable with pushing the Flood button.
“It’s a go,” I said.
Five minutes passed before the yellow light on the wall changed to red. During that time, the floor under my feet had roared and vibrated with the flooding water’s flow but stopped abruptly when the red light illuminated.
“Opening pod bay door,” I said into the microphone.
Slowly and cautiously, I reached up and flipped open the safety cover and pushed the button.
“We’re out, yippee,” said Briscoe sounding euphoric. The last time I heard him that happy he was wearing the same type suit about to be accidentally dislodged from the hull of my mini-sub only to float lost at sea for twelve suspenseful hours. Nevertheless, he loved that life.
“SeaPod 1 leaving the bay,” Bowman said. A motor rumbled below me then whirred away into the distance.
The silence for the next few minutes was deafening. I expected something, anything from the SeaCom and then it came.
“Oh my God! I found the SeaPod. Wrecked down on the base of the crawler platform. Broken into pieces. Tangled in one of our tractor wheels,” said Bowman. “Divers get over here and help me find Edwards. I don’t see him.”
“Be right there, Dave,” Lt. Williams said. “Briscoe, where are you?”
“Right behind you, Lieutenant, coming up fast.”
“Yeah, now I see your floods. Follow me. I’ve got the SeaPod in sight. Heading down.”
More silence.
“The hatch cover is open bent backward. Edwards is not inside. The cockpit is flooded empty of life,” Williams screamed distorting the SeaCom. “Dave, can you point your floods down at me?”
“Just a minute, Lieutenant. Maneuvering around.”
“I see the point of impact on the crawler base right below the bridge’s viewport,” she yelled. “A few feet higher and it would have taken out our helm.”
That was the first time I had heard the bridge mentioned. I knew it had to exist but had no idea where it was located in the station. It resided in the crawler base a logical place for the driver near the ocean floor with a full view of the seafloor ahead.
“Ivy, activate the bridge’s forward floods,” Bowman’s voice crackled.
“Wow!” said Briscoe.
“What a mess. I don’t see the Captain but we’re not going anywhere until we pull this wreckage from these forward wheels.”
“Briscoe, can you move anything with your claws?” Williams asked.
“Unh. Argh! Damn!”
“No. It’s locked in tight. Looks like it’s going to take a bigger force than I’ve got and my power level is dropping.”
“Back off guys and let me grab it with my claw arms. I can try pulling it with my reverse thrusters. Maybe that’ll work.”
Seconds went by.
“We’re clear, Dave. Move in.”
“Got it in my grippers. Careful of my prop wash divers. Don’t want to blow you guys around.”
“See anything to grab onto, Briscoe?” Williams asked.
“Yeah. Got a handgrip bar in my pincers. You?”
“I’m hanging on to another one. You’re okay to go, Dave.”
Moments later the intercom crackled with Briscoe’s voice.
“Whoa whoa whoa! Stop, Dave. You’re about to pull the tractor wheel off its axle. It’s tangled in the SeaPod’s cables. Looks like it’s gonna take a cutting torch to break it loose.”
“Yeah, I was afraid of that,” Bowman sighed, “My SeaPod’s starting to act up so I’m breaking off and heading back to the bay. You divers take one last look, make some mental notes of what you see and the follow me in. I’ll inform you when I dock and the turbulence settles.”
“Roger that, Dave. Give us five,” Williams replied.
Even though I had no visuals of the action outside I could see them in my mind through their intercom conversation. I knew Bowman was motoring back to the bay and Briscoe and Williams were inspecting the crash site in Exosuits looking like storm troopers probing an X-wing Starfighter crash site but I needed more information to follow their discoveries. It soon came just as I wished.
“What’s that on the SeaPod’s hull, Briscoe? See it? Right below the big crack.”
“Yeah. Looks like some form of writing maybe with a red grease marker. Symbols look Egyptian like stylistic hieroglyphics.”
“We’ll take a look at them when we get the pod back in the bay later today. Now, for some reason my suit is prematurely losing power. I need to go in and check it. Ready to head back?” she asked.
“You bet. My suit’s getting cold. I’m gonna need a whole pot of hot coffee to take this chill from my bones. After you.”
“I’m buying,” she said.
Their return to the pod bay mirrored their departure quick and silent. I guess I must have nodded off sitting there by the floor hatch waiting for them. Only when a voice over the intercom shouted, “Hey open up in there,” did I jolt awake with a green Flood Pod Bay button blinding my eyes.
“Sorry guys. Coming.”
After securing the SeaPod and Exosuits in their racks then clearing the pod bay, we followed Bowman to a large table in the Quad 3 Mess Hall. Across the back wall recessed behind a cafeteria style serving line appeared to be a kitchen of sorts but it was closed and dark. On left end of the tray-slide railings, a steaming urn of perking coffee invited us to partake and nobody refused.
Bowman sat centered on one of many long dining tables visually searching the room for something. Occasionally he would sip from his coffee then look back at his tablet and type into its keyboard. Briscoe and Williams sat at the table’s end with me relating details of their dive. Nothing stood out as unusual other than the strange markings on the hull but after some discussion Lt. Williams remembered that they were the same as the hieroglyphs she saw on Lt. Dan Li’s empty Exosuit.
The SeaPod had broken into three pieces: the central bubble and the port and starboard hulls held together by wiring and cables as if something had split it down the middle. Briscoe assured me that from the looks of the damage to the tractor base it was the impact that did it but Williams wasn’t so sure: Edwards was an expert SeaPod pilot and wouldn’t have made such a fatal error.
She referred to the nearby Ivy console.
“Ivy, how much time has Edwards logged in SeaPods?”
“As a passenger or driver?” Ivy asked.
“Driver.”
“One moment, Susan Williams.”
A soft purring sound, which I now related to her computation mode, filled the silence.
“Over his five month tour of duty on station Captain Edwards has logged 304 hours in SeaPod 1, 396 hours in SeaPod 2, 105 hours in SeaPod 3 and 95 hours in SeaPod 4 for a total of 900 hours at the joystick. That averages to 5.96 hours per day over his tour. The highest of any driver on the second team. Does that answer your question Susan Williams?”
“Yes. Thank you, Ivy.”
“Why so many more hours logged in SeaPod 1 and 2?” I asked.
“Oh, those are located in the front-facing bays on our bow. They’re simply closer to the work area when we stop at a new location. The rear-facing aft bays are used mainly when obstructions or malfunctions block the main ones.”
She wrote something on a small notepad and then looked at us.
“So see? I highly doubt that with his experience he would nosedive a SeaPod into the crawler base.”
“You mean like you almost did, Lieutenant?” Briscoe asked grinning.