Mosaic (Breakthrough Book 5)

by Michael C. Grumley

  He checked the depth. Fifty-five feet. He could see the drill and both divers in the video feed, their outlines visible under the intense gaze of the Mystic’s headlamps. All around them, thousands of tiny specks were illuminated brightly in the water, partially obstructing the view and causing Ackerman to peer more intently at his screen.

  “Lot of debris down here.”

  “A lot of material was churned up in the explosion.”

  Ackerman nodded and eased the throttle back. A sudden drop in momentum caused Smitty and Odonnell to continue forward, grabbing hold of something to keep themselves upright. “Geez, that’s a strong surge.”

  Outside, Corbin and Beene checked their depth and raised the front of the drill, allowing them to ease the bit forward.

  “Don’t forget,” Smitty called into his headset, “that thing is magnetic.”

  “We remember,” Beene replied. Only minutes later, both men felt the sudden pull. They grunted and kicked their fins backward, fighting to slow themselves. Still visibly jarred when their enormous drill made contact, an impact sending a wide glowing ring rippling outward over the alien hull.

  “Everybody okay?” Ackerman barked.

  “Yep.”

  “Yeah,” Corbin added, shaking his stainless-steel helmet in the video. “Doesn’t get any easier the second time.” He checked his dive watch again. “I think we’re good to go.”

  Ackerman nodded and lightly pulled his joystick back again. “Roger that. Mystic is getting into position.”

  Aboard the Pathfinder, Captain Emerson and several of his officers crowded around a computer screen on the bridge. All were watching the same video feed from the Mystic, focused in on Corbin and Beene.

  “All right men. Let’s do it. In and out.”

  “Deploying legs.”

  From the left side, Beene pushed a button deploying four metal legs from the front of the drill, each with sizable silicone suction cups. They extended outward, and once touching the surface, began sucking air back through each leg, causing the drill to become rigid.

  “We are secure.”

  From inside the Mystic, Ackerman took a deep breath. “Let’s punch a hole!”

  69

  There was no question where they were coming through. Tay could see it immediately.

  A blinding white light exploded from a single point in the wall, high overhead. Instantly rippling out in all directions.

  Tay immediately shielded his light-deprived eyes and waited several seconds before peering up through parted fingers. Oddly, there was no sound he could detect through the wall. Just the blazing light.

  He looked down and found the water. Now with the light overhead, he could see some of the alien wall’s lower half shimmering in the blue depths, until curving inward and out of sight.

  More than that, Tay continued to scan upwards and side to side, fascinated at the inside of the enormous wall. He could see the shelves much better now. There were thousands upon thousands of them, with most appearing similar in size although some did look smaller. There were even sections where they seemed to be missing.

  Then all at once, it hit him. They weren’t structural, and they weren’t shelves. The outer wall was a giant shield around a much smaller ship. And it was a self-healing shield. He already knew that. But to be self-healing, especially after an impact, it needed extra material to repair itself. It needed more of whatever it was that the shield was made up of.

  That’s what the shelves were. They were extra material. Which meant when something hit the shield from the outside, the wall could expand to repair itself, using some of the extra metal available on the inside.

  Tay was awestruck. It was a brilliant design.

  And now Tay got his first full view of the smaller craft within. The actual ship. Submerged in the water by almost a third, the ship itself was not cylindrical like its shield. It actually looked…strangely ordinary. Its shape not round at all. Instead, it was almost boxy. Not displaying any sharp edges but still clearly rectangular. With the rear, or what Tay presumed was the rear, larger than the front.

  There were also several more markings, though none that he could make out from where he was. Lines maybe, similar to the door he’d already found. But all in all, the craft looked downright boring. Nothing like he was expecting.

  His eyes almost having adjusted, Tay turned back to the wall above him. He squinted at the center, where the light was most intense, at least two hundred feet above him and farther away than he expected. Without waiting any longer, he leaped off his ledge and splashed into the water.

  His legs and arms felt better, less painful. It was strange really. That while he was clearly beginning to notice early signs of mental exhaustion, his muscles felt surprisingly strong.

  Propelled by a wave of adrenaline, Tay swam hard, raising his face out of the water with each stroke and keeping his eyes on the shelves just beneath his fellow crew’s insertion point. He had no idea how long it would take them to pierce the shield again, but he was absolutely going to be there waiting when they did.

  70

  Dammit!

  Ackerman struggled again with the controls. The surge outside was getting worse, and he was having a hell of a time keeping the Mystic in place. They had to be in position when the wall was breached!

  He fought again to steady it and glanced forward to where Smitty and Odonnell were waiting in crouched positions.

  Repeatedly, the rear of the DSRV swung out, causing Ackerman to power forward to straighten it again.

  “Son of a bitch!” he growled, and glanced again at the other two while shaking his head. “Feels like we’re on a rollercoaster!”

  Both engineers nodded. There was nothing else to say. The conditions outside were deteriorating quickly. Just as quickly as their chances of rescuing Tay.

  “Beene! Corbin! How we looking?”

  Less than thirty feet away and awash in the Mystic’s bright lights, Corbin slid himself forward along one of the drill’s legs. He could feel the gyrations vibrating outward through the metal. When he got close enough, he peered intently at the drilling spot.

  “We’re making a dent. Probably a good eight to ten inches!”

  Ackerman nodded. “Anyone want to take a guess at how thick the thing is?”

  It was rhetorical. Their best guess was two to three feet. But no one knew for sure. Ackerman cursed again and powered forward hard, now swinging the small sub around and pointing directly into the surge. With one hand on the throttle and another on the stick, he jockeyed to keep themselves in a position from which they could advance when the time came. If it came.

  Far above them, Emerson and his officers watched their own screens helplessly. The picture from the Mystic’s front video camera was erratic as Ackerman struggled to control the craft, causing the video to jump around wildly.

  Optimism suddenly shifted when Ackerman swung the Mystic into its new position. He was trying to reduce the surface area of the sub, which was smart. But it also meant he would have to come in hard to seal the hole once exposed. But too hard and that would be the end of it. That rubber skirt was strong, but it was no match against the sudden force of a thirty-nine-ton submersible.

  Less than a quarter mile away, the reaction from Captain Kauffman felt very similar as he stood aboard the Scranton. But rather than a look of concern, he and his men shared one of inquisitiveness.

  “What the hell is that thing?”

  A few shook their heads, but no one answered. They’d never seen a drill that powerful have so much difficulty against any material.

  “Their man is trapped in that?”

  Kauffman frowned. “Evidently.”

  His operations officer shook his head. “This is insane. We should be the ones down there. Those idiots can barely keep it under control.”

  “I’m impressed you think you could do better, given these conditions.”

  His man scoffed. “Hell yes, I could.”

  Kauffman grinned, hi
s eyes still fixed on the screen. “Sure about that?”

  The man stared at the back of his captain’s head but said nothing.

  “Well, one thing’s for sure,” his executive officer breathed. “If they manage to punch through, trying to seal that hole is gonna be a bitch.”

  Folding his arms in front of him, Kauffman nodded in agreement. “Getting through is the easy part.”

  71

  “We’re almost through!”

  Beene could see the subtle, brief wobble in the drill head just moments before it abruptly plunged forward several inches. Instantaneously, an increase in the drill’s pitch confirmed the breach, leaving him and Corbin scrambling away from the wall.

  “Go!” roared Ackerman as he nodded to his men at the front of the Mystic. “Start flooding the skirt!”

  The men wasted no time. Smitty leaned forward and furiously hit a few keys on a small electronic panel attached to the inside hull, close to the sub’s concaved nose cone.

  Ackerman jammed the throttle forward and called into his headset. “Get the drill off!”

  Ready at the back of the drill, Corbin yelled for Beene to get clear. He watched his partner push further away from the drill’s housing and kick hard against the current, putting as much distance between himself and the machine as he could.

  In one motion, Corbin held up a gloved hand and punched the button to reverse the drill’s motor. Then he pushed off, diving backward below the incoming trajectory of the Mystic.

  The sound was sudden and excruciating. In fewer than twenty rotations, the entire electrical drive inside the motor’s housing was thrown into full reverse. And like the first time, the massive change in torque ripped the motor fiercely from its interior mounts, taking thick chunks of the heavy frame and housing with it. Several sections of the drill’s body exploded outward into giant bits of bent and twisted metal. And in one violent motion, the recoil jerked the drill back and away from the wall.

  Inside the Mystic, squinting into the bright light on his monitor, Ackerman kept the throttle forward and aimed directly for the only thing he could make out in the glare. The fuzzy outline of one small and perfectly cut hole.

  Even at full speed, the small sub suddenly slowed—fighting another storm surge—before quickly recovering and charging forward again. With gritted teeth, Ackerman waited until they were less than twenty-five feet away before pulling back hard on the throttle.

  The Mystic’s large, single rear prop abruptly stopped before reversing itself, clawing violently at the water behind in an attempt to slow itself. But the last-minute correction was not enough.

  When they reached ten feet, he shook his head and yelled to his men. “Hold on! We’re gonna hit!”

  Outside, the nose of the sub approached the wall with its round, black hydraulic skirt extending forward and its wide base outstretched. Resembling a giant inversed lampshade, from under the thick rubberized sealing lip flowed brown wisps of hydraulic fluid.

  The impact came with a deep, hollow thud, throwing all three men violently forward. Each fruitlessly searched for something to grab, before tumbling to a stop and immediately scrambling back to their knees.

  “Check the cone!” Ackerman yelled, crawling back into his seat.

  Odonnell complied, leaving Smitty to scurry back to the console.

  “I think we’re okay!”

  “Good. Smitty, get ready!”

  Ackerman throttled forward again, pushing the Mystic’s nose, and the skirt, hard against the immense wall in front of them. “Go!”

  Smitty was already typing, reversing the two hydraulic pumps on either side. And now extracting the fluid from the filled rubber skirt to quickly create a vacuum inside the outer ring.

  He watched the small screen in front of him. “Pressure is building!”

  Ackerman looked down, searching his seat until he found his headset. Ripped from his head during impact, it had been left dangling from the right edge of his seat. “Beene, Corbin. Can you see anything?!”

  “One second.”

  The SEAL divers waiting nearby swam back to the Mystic’s port side. Pulling themselves forward along the side of the hull, soon they reached the vessel’s nose.

  “About four inches to port!” replied Corbin.

  Inside, the whirring of the hydraulic pumps abruptly stopped and was replaced by a loud mechanical groan.

  “Sealing!” yelled Smitty. He glanced up when a thump was heard, followed by a powerful hissing sound as air was pumped into the skirt’s chamber.

  It was then, and without warning, that the small sub swayed forcibly to one side.

  “We’re still getting pushed around!” Ackerman barked. He jammed the stick to the left, engaging the port-side thrusters. But nothing changed.

  They were now almost completely perpendicular to the currents, and even full power to the thrusters could no longer keep them in place. The water was simply too strong. The suction was now all they had.

  Ackerman growled. “This ain’t gonna hold very long! When can we open the cone?”

  “Eighteen seconds!”

  72

  After having drifted part way back into position, the Mystic swung again. This time harder.

  The nose was almost pressurized, but Ackerman was already planning for the worst. The DSRV was just too heavy…and broad. With its side fully exposed to the storm, the rubber skirt would never be able to hold the entire vessel in place. And if they lost the seal, the building pressure would be nothing short of explosive.

  He jumped from his seat and hurried forward again to join the other two at the nose. Both men were now unlatching and pulling a heavy metal cone inward.

  “Beene, Corbin,” Ackerman cried to the men outside. “Get away from the sub!”

  “What?”

  Ackerman kept talking while he helped his men pull the cone open, then lift the heavy titanium ring from the deck. “I said, get away from the sub! This thing is not going hold long, and you don’t want to be near it when it fails. Believe me.”

  All three men froze at the sound of a piercing squeal on the other side of the nose. The thick rubber was straining.

  “What do we do?”

  The chief stared solemnly at his men and glanced at the titanium ring. He knew what it meant.

  “If this thing holds and keeps the hole from closing again, but then our seal fails…Tay dies.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If that hole stays open, there’s nothing to keep the water out. Seawater will pour in and flood the damn thing!”

  “Crap.”

  Odonnell nodded somberly. “Drowning Tay.”

  “Eventually. Our only other option…is to close the cone and try to disconnect ourselves. And hopefully, we can do it slowly enough that we don’t break the pressure seal. And rip off the front of this entire sub in the explosion.”

  “Jesus.”

  The chief shook his head. He knew then they never should have gone forward with this mission. Never should have risked it. The storm surges were now far too strong, faster and more powerful than any of them had expected. The skirt…simply would not hold.

  The sudden reality of their situation appeared like a ghost from the depths.

  As soon as the skirt failed, they were all going to die. Ackerman, Smitty, Odonnell, and eventually, even Tay.

  73

  Alison. Them trouble.

  With a drawn face, Alison Shaw nodded silently behind her mask. Holding onto Sally’s dorsal fin, they surged back and forth in the underwater swells. Something was clearly wrong. She could see Corbin and Beene trying to get away from the sub.

  “Chris, what’s happening? What’s wrong?”

  Chris’s response in her ears sounded frantic. “I think we’re in trouble, Ali. It’s something to do with the sub. They can’t keep it in place. They’re trying not to lose the seal! Hold on!”

  “Patch me into them!”

  There was no answer.

  “Chr
is!”

  ***

  Inside the hull, Ackerman and his men steadied themselves against another forceful surge and watched nervously as the Mystic’s stern swung even farther out. From the front, the rubber skirt wailed again in protest.

  Ackerman’s voice grew solemn. “Close it.”

  “What?”

  “I said close it.”

  “Are you sure?!”

  “Drowning Tay solves nothing. Close the nose!”

  Smitty and Odonnell looked at each other.

  “You heard me.”

  All three knew what it meant. It was the only thing they could do. They were leaving. Leaving Tay with nothing…and closing the hatch in a desperate attempt to stay alive. It was the only protection possible when the skirt failed, and the pressure blew. And even then, it might not be enough to save them.

  “Close it,” Ackerman repeated.

  Before they could react, a voice came through over their headsets.

  “Guys, it’s Chris!”

  The chief frowned. “Not now.”

  “Alison wants to talk to you. She wants me to patch her through.”

  “We’re a little busy, Ramirez!”

  “I know, I know. But she says it’s urgent.”

  “This isn’t a party line!” roared Ackerman. “Things are going from bad to worse down here! Unless you’d like to come down and hold this goddamn sub in place, I suggest you get off the line!”

  There was a long silence before the men heard Chris’s microphone click off the line.