‘Hold 4 is here,’ Jane Milford said and tapped the Smart Board with a pointer. Using the remote, she expanded the image on the screen, closing in so that the two major parts of the massive ship slipped away over the edge. About three hundred feet south-west of the hold, a narrow line snaked west then turned sharply north. It was a fissure in the ocean floor.
‘We can’t put down anywhere within a mile west of this crevasse. If we do, we run the risk of the hold going through the ocean floor, and if that doesn’t happen, the fissure could fracture and send out smaller cracks in all directions. That, as you appreciate, would be catastrophic.’
‘Like being close to a magnitude seven earthquake, I reckon,’ Lou commented, staring fixedly at the image on the screen.
‘Correct,’ Milford replied.
‘OK,’ Kate said, shifting in her seat. ‘We obviously have to land to the east of the fissure, but as close to the hold as possible.’
‘That’s right. However, that presents us with two further problems. First, we estimate we can set down no closer than 300 yards east of the crack. Second, we have to cross the fissure to get to the hold.’
‘How on earth do we do that?’ Kate asked, turning to Derham, then back to the commander.
‘We have to thank the science guys back at Norfolk Base,’ Derham replied. ‘The team who devised the LMC suits have made a super lightweight telescopic bridge.’
‘How wide is that?’ Lou pointed to the crack in the ocean floor.
‘About a hundred feet.’
‘What!’
‘The bridge is made from nano-carbon,’ Milford explained. ‘It’s about a thousand times stronger than steel but it weighs less than ten thousandths of a steel equivalent. The bridge collapses down into a unit that can fit into a rucksack-sized container one of us will carry on our back.’
‘But the time factor is still a problem,’ Kate responded.
‘Yes, it is,’ Derham replied. ‘A serious problem.’
‘What about the hold itself?’ Lou asked. ‘It strikes me we could lose precious time if we have problems getting into it.’
‘That’s also correct.’ Milford pressed the remote and a schematic appeared. ‘This was lifted from the original plans and remodelled into a 3-D graphic.’ They watched as the CGI rotated slowly showing the hold from every direction.
‘The lock is a very simple mechanism, as you’d expect. There’s an outer door, an airlock and an inner door. The lock itself looks pretty heavy-duty; again, you’d expect that.’
‘Too right. There were plenty of valuable items on the Titanic,’ Kate commented. ‘Some of the wealthiest people of the day went down with her; they had cash, bonds, jewels.’
‘And a lot of it would have been locked away for safe keeping in security boxes in holds like this,’ Lou added.
‘It’s a miracle that this one has survived intact,’ Derham said, looking to Milford.
The commander nodded. ‘It’s bound to be fragile, though. Which, of course, presents us with yet another potential danger. Once we get inside the hold, the change in pressure and the disturbance to what is, after all, a century-old rusted metal box is impossible to predict. OK…’ she added and glanced at her watch, ‘it’s 17.25; just over four hours until launch. I suggest we get some sleep. It’s going to be a long trip and I don’t see us getting much rest once we’re underway.’
‘I wish I was coming with you,’ Derham said.
‘You’re not?’ Kate asked, surprised.
‘My orders are to stay up here to liaise with the group commander, Rear Admiral Stockton, on the Brooklyn. The three of you will go out to the cargo hold.’
‘I’ll be there to hold your hand,’ Milford quipped.
35
Commander Milford had been in the sub going through system checks for an hour before Kate and Lou arrived.
The two scientists were kitted out in their thermal suits in an antechamber aboard the ship. This was hooked up to JV1 by a concertinaed walkway a little like the movable bridges used to connect airliners to airport gates.
They then entered the sub, the door sealing behind them with a hiss. Milford nodded to them without breaking her stream of chat with the control room on the Armstrong. They could hear Captain Derham’s voice over the comms finishing up the checklist with the commander.
Buckling themselves in, they watching the screens as the displays shifted and listened in as Milford severed the cables to the ship and turned the submarine through 180 degrees close to the keel.
Descending one hundred feet beneath the ship, the commander turned the nose of the sub downward. ‘Engaging main thrusters,’ she said through the comms.
‘Copy that, JV1.’
They felt a slight nudge as the submarine began to accelerate and watched the water darkening rapidly on the monitors. Within a few moments the view of the ocean had become a featureless black.
‘Accelerating to fifteen knots,’ Milford reported. ‘Depth 4,500 feet.’
Kate and Lou had become acquainted with some of the controls and displays during their first trip to the Titanic, so they were able to identify speed and depth figures on the main displays close to the pilot and duplicated on the smaller screens in front of them. They watched as the speed increased and JV1 passed through what submariners called the bathypelagic region and on into abyssopelagic, the transition coming at about 6,000 feet beneath the surface.
For the next five minutes the descent was remarkably smooth. But then, at a depth of 12,050 feet and less than 600 feet from the ocean floor, the sub started to shake. A loud cracking sound reverberated around the inside of the vessel. Kate shot her hand out, grabbing Lou’s wrist.
‘Nothing to worry about, guys,’ Jane Milford called back to them. ‘Just a bit of a rocky…’
The sub plummeted. It felt very similar to being in an airliner hitting severe turbulence.
Kate couldn’t stop a small scream and she gripped Lou’s wrist so tightly she broke his skin with her nails. He yelled and went to pull it away but Kate wouldn’t let it go. She was staring directly ahead, eyes glazed with fear.
The sub slowed dramatically and started to rock from side to side. Another loud cracking sound reverberated around the inside of the machine.
‘You guys OK?’ It was Jerry Derham in the control room of the Armstrong.
‘We are now,’ Milford replied. ‘Just hit a nasty patch. I think it was a vortex of some sort. I didn’t pick it up on the sensors in time. We’re fine.’
The touchdown was almost anticlimactic; a soft thud and a brief shudder and they were on the floor of the Atlantic, 12,600 feet beneath the waves. They heard the sound of the engines descend in pitch. Milford unstrapped her safety harness and came round to the rear of the small sub just as Kate and Lou were getting up from their seats. Lou was rubbing his sore wrist.
‘Oh, stop being a baby!’ Kate said, grinning.
‘That’s rich!’
‘That had to be the trickiest landing I’ve ever had to make,’ Milford declared.
‘Did I hear you say we hit a vortex?’
‘Yeah, we just clipped the edge of it, thank God. They present just about the biggest danger down here, apart from a hull breach. OK, I don’t think we should waste any time. If you feel up to it, let’s get suited up and out there.’