The laser worked fast to cut an entire section of pipe and the attendant weight of that section off Lou. As he worked, the blue light of the heated pipe creating a halo about the men, Forbes and others watched via their cameras. Lou’s com-link, vital signs, and camera had all returned once Lou could make the adjustments.
David saw no evidence of a jagged edge on the pipe, no rust to tear at the Cryo-suit.
So long as Lou remained calm and didn’t panic as Terry had, he would not die here within Titanic for lack of liquid air. He’d also not die of implosion, David realized, should he pull Lou from under the pipe. It appeared they were on the brink of success.
David felt some relief at seeing the big man struggling, putting up a fight. He lifted away the remaining section of pipe some ten or twelve feet in length and two feet in diameter. He managed to slide it off to one side, using the environment of the water to help him do so. As soon as the weight was off Lou, the Commander got himself free, coming out of the debris looking like a flounder shaking off its sea bed, as Lou’s movement—wonderful to see—sent up a cascade of what David had begun to think of as Titanic dust and debris. Lou was free but obviously still in some distress from the blow to his head; he might well also be bleeding internally.
Lou was in great pain, and he was telling David, “Get the hell outta here, Ingles! That’s an order! I’ll follow!”
“Not a chance, Lou.”
“I’m still your commander.”
“Shut up, Lou! I’m getting you back to Max.”
“There’s no way! Get outta here, now!”
“I’m taking you the hell with me, buddy!”
From above Forbes informed them, “You two have less than fifteen minutes of liquid air left in your paks!”
Entebbe added, “And no one’s ever pushed them to this limit! It’s coming up on four hours you’ve been on liquid air!”
“David,” continued Forbes, “the others are running low as well; they’ll all die on the aft section unless you get back there now, David!”
David snatched hold of Lou’s arm and wrapped it over his shoulder, his arm now wrapped about the other man in a protective hold, and the two divers kicked off from this place of death. “Be careful not to bump against those jagged edges ahead, Lou.”
“You’re a damn fool and a headline grabber, Ingles; just as I thought all along!”
“Shut up and conserve your oxygen. Let’s all get home.”
Lou nodded and both men examined the treacherous, overhanging and jagged debris and wires. “Steady as she goes,” muttered Lou. “But if I implode all over you, then maybe you’ll learn to take orders.”
“We’re getting out of here together, and we’re going to save those at the aft section to boot. So here goes! Now, Lou, now lean into me!”
When the pair of divers clinging to one another emerged from Titanic, caught by Max’s wide landscape lens, the divers heard a roar of applause and cheers coming from the control room above. Helping Lou find his bearings, David held onto the wounded man as they now swam directly for Max’s warm-looking lights. The thought of Max’s safe interior encouraged David to draw on strength he didn’t know he had, and those safe confines conspired to fill his thoughts with regrets for Mendenhall and for Kelly—neither of whom he could have saved.
Again as with a hundred times, he questioned the moment Kelly had become controlled by this awful parasitic organism.
Forbes shouted a final-sounding order in David’s ear: “Get to the others, now! You’re down to eight minutes.”
David was at Max and he slammed open her hatchway, and within moments, he and Lou were safely inside the lock, anxious to get to her controls.
“If the others have explored their section of Titanic without incident or problems,” said David to Forbes, “they’ll have used up less oxygen. So, Captain, did they have any laser knife fights over there or lose a diver to any misstep?”
“True, they have a bit more 413 left in their paks than you two, yes,” said Dr. Entebbe, “but not enough to gamble on, David.”
David knew that Entebbe was right. The size of the man, the amount of exertion, it all changed the formula. Still no oxygen meant a blackout in three minutes, death in twenty. This everyone knew—and at these depths no one knew anything for certain except that nothing was for certain.
David had helped Lou into the airlock, where within sixty seconds, the salt water was replaced by breathable liquid, which—as aquanauts, they could breathe in. Once inside Max’s safer confines, they remained under the watery OPFCs. In moments, David helped Lou to a rear seat, before he went for the controls. “Strap in, Lou. I’m going to open this baby full-throttle to get to the others! “Now, sir, now!”
David fired up the silently running sub, took it in an arch so tight and fast as to cause a powerful centrifugal G-force which was softened for the humans as they were suspended in the OPFCs within the sub. David hit full speed ahead, racing for the aft section where, according to Forbes, the other four divers awaited on deck. Hitting Max’s top speed, the others came quickly into view!
“A mile in a moment, Lou! There they are!”
“Love this sub,” Lou weakly muttered, likely suffering a concussion. “Max is the stealth bomber down here.”
Even knowing that David had arrived at the aft section so quickly, Juris Forbes shouted, “You’re down to four minutes; that’s a minute per to get each one aboard, and only two can enter at a time, David. Who’re you going to choose to live and to die, David?”
David grabbed two additional liquid air paks and shoved them into the trash expulsion tube, and he fired them at the waving, waiting team. “Tell them to conserve their air, Forbes!”
In a moment, Forbes said, “Jesus, well done, Davey boy!”
“And tell them the situation; two of them must transition to the paks just sent them, while the other two go for the airlock.”
“You’re within range, David; they clearly hear you now.”
“And I can hear them, or rather their pandemonium.” David barked orders at them in the manner Lou would if he weren’t going in and out of consciousness. “Damn it, all of you, decide now on who’s doing what! Indecision will get you killed!”
Staring out through the bubble, David saw that Lena and Will had swum for the extra air paks, while Fiske and Jens rushed the hatchway that would get them inside. So far, so good, but as exhausted as he was, David knew he could not let his guard down.
David knew the others to all be professionals. Both Will and Lena made the transition from the blown paks to the fresh ones, so that there was no fear of the diver having a sudden loss of suit integrity only to wind up like Jacob or Kelly.
Fiske and Jens, their usual bulging muscles masked by the shapeless Cryo-suits, made a lot of noise coming in through the lock, slapping each other on the back, excited from the fantastic dive inside and through Titanic’s aft section. They spoke of what they’d seen when suddenly their raucous laughter ended. David saw in his rearview mirror that they’d come up on Lou, unconscious from the concussion.
And their next chorusing question was “Where the hell is Dr. Irvin?”
“Dead… she’s gone. Long story. Strap in and I’ll tell you all about it while we make for the surface.”
“And Mendenhall, David, what about Jacob?”
“Yeah, where’s Jacob?”