Chloe wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Her only thoughts were of her brother. “Anything on the locator yet?”
“Oh, sorry,” Izzy said as she turned her attention to the console in front of her. “Yes, I’m getting a positive ping on Gordy’s GPS. It looks like the signal is right in the vicinity of Typhon.”
Chloe bit her lip. Please be inside that base, Gordy. Please.
With both negative buoyancy and her powerful thrusters, the Sedna quickly closed the distance. The submersible’s powerful searchlights soon revealed the outlines of the undersea habitat less than fifty meters ahead.
“The ping from the locator is even louder now,” Izzy said. “I think we’re close.”
Chloe started to ease up on the throttle as the conjoined hyperbaric chambers loomed in front of her. “Try to get an exact fix.”
“Hang on,” Izzy said as she stared intently at her console. “Try moving us up a bit and to port, say about fifteen feet.”
Chloe used the controls to activate the Sedna’s side thrusters as the submersible began a shallow ascent while orbiting the base.
“There!” Izzy exclaimed, pointing towards the crimson hulled module just a few meters away from the Sedna’s nose. “There’s a light coming from the main access hatch of that thing, look!”
Chloe leaned forward. Sure enough, there was indeed some dim illumination coming from the hatch’s porthole. Using the submersible’s forward thrusters, she brought the Sedna a little bit closer, within range of her mechanical arms.
Izzy quickly activated and extended one of the mechanical limbs, and began tapping along the sides of the escape pod’s hull.
After a few seconds, they both saw Gordon’s face pressing up against the small transparent porthole, looking up at them. He grinned when he saw his sister and gave an okay sign with his right hand.
Chloe nearly leapt out of her chair. “Gordy! Oh my god, he’s alive!”
LIGER MUTTERED A SERIES of curses from where he sat in the pilot’s chair of the Deep Dog. The submersible’s cockpit was a transparent ball surrounded by a U-shaped hull, with multi-directional thrusters along the rear and sides. Although there was an additional chair for a second crewman, Liger wasn’t in the mood to share the cockpit with anybody else, so he piloted the Deep Dog alone, while the rest of his team rode shotgun along the outside.
Bloody corporate drone, he thought as the submersible continued to dive deeper, heading straight towards Typhon. If Sandor didn’t order the Queequeg to turn around and pick him up, we could have finished this bit already.
Glancing to his left and right, he stabbed the microphone button so that the two remaining divers on his team could hear him. “You blokes okay so far?”
Pete Poole and Stu Baker were equipped with hard-shelled atmospheric diving suits, or ADS. Looking like armored astronauts, both men answered with an affirmative, as they continued to hang on along the opposite ends of the Deep Dog’s side hull.
Liger could hear strained emotions coming from Poole’s reply, but quickly dismissed it as he continued to pilot the submersible even deeper. Pete may be cracking, but I’ve still got Stu, and he’s more dependable anyway since he wants the money as much as I do.
He was tempted to activate the submersible’s external lights, but Sandor had already warned him that Chloe’s crew might attempt a possible rescue since they believed her brother might have somehow gotten inside Typhon. Down here, there’s no calling for help, so if I do find her, then I’ll have to get rid of her too.
Poole’s voice came over the intercom circuit once more. “Are you gonna turn the lights on, mate? I can’t see anything now.”
“No,” Liger said tersely. “Sandor thinks there might be another submersible down here, so we don’t want them to know we’re coming.”
“If we’re going to do anything nasty, I want no part of it, Clive. I’ve told you this already.”
“Can I get his bonus money instead?” Baker quipped.
“Shut it, you two,” Liger said. “Pete, just go find the eggs and bring them back to me. Stu and I will handle our unwanted guests if they show up.”
“But I don’t even know what these eggs are supposed to look like,” Poole said.
Liger frowned. “As I told you during the briefing, they should be in a hand canister. You’ll just need to go inside the main building and retrieve it by following the locator ping. Stu, I want you backing me up.”
“Affirmative,” Baker said. “I’ll hang on until you can get me close.”
“Fine, just don’t arm those bloody things until—” Liger cut himself off as a cluster of dim lights in the dark abyss came into view just ahead of the submersible. “Wait, I see them. Okay, prepare to release your umbilicals.”
“GOING HOT,” IZZY SAID as she activated the extendable arc welder jutting out from the Sedna. She deftly extended the burning tool to cut through the holding clamps along the sides of the escape pod. The two women had been unable to find a way to release the hyperbaric escape chamber remotely, so they’d decided to improvise.
Chloe kept the Sedna steady, despite the strong currents. She would occasionally glance at the porthole, gesturing at Gordon in order to keep his spirits up. “Looks like he found a submarine escape suit inside, and he’s putting it on, just in case.”
Izzy had both hands on the manipulator controls as she continued to burn through the restraining brackets that prevented the escape pod from separating. “Gordy sure knows what he’s doing. I wonder who he got that from?”
Chloe suppressed a grin while concentrating on the controls. Even though the Sedna had a built-in stabilization autopilot, she continued to use manual settings since the risk of a mistake was too great, and she trusted in her own abilities more than the software. “He’s been a sat diver for five years. He ought to know safety procedures like the back of his—”
Hearing a loud thump, both women turned sideways and screamed as a diver in an armored suit landed on top of the Sedna’s hull, and began tearing at the submersible’s shell with its two manipulative arm claws.
45
FOR WHAT SEEMED LIKE an eternity, Gordon had wondered whether someone—anyone—would be looking for him. The odds were extremely low that he had somehow survived the carnage when the sea monster attacked, and yet by some means was able to live through it.
It felt like death had tried to take him a million times over, yet he still lived.
The moment he saw his older sister outside, just beyond the porthole of what he’d felt would be his tomb, brought tears of joy to his eyes. Of all the people he’d hope to get rescued by, Chloe was the one who pulled through. He could hardly hide his elation when they began cutting through the restraining clamps that prevented the entire chamber from floating up to the surface, yet he somehow felt secure, for his older sister had always been there for him.
But his high hopes of being rescued were suddenly dashed when someone wearing an ADS suddenly appeared on top of his sister’s submersible craft and began to wreck the hull. Gordon cried out in frustration and terror, only able to watch helplessly as the Sedna began to drift away.
Gordon quickly placed the sealed hood over his face as he zipped up the red SEIE suit over his entire body. “Chloe! Chloe! No!”