“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.