by Greig Beck
“Preparing for lift,” Briggs said as he leaned forward to give a thumbs-up to someone through the main view port.
The bathyscaphe lifted gently, and floated across the deck. The massive winch would lower them over the side, where they would disengage and then immediately begin their descent. Though they had propulsion, they’d just sink, allowing their weight to take them down. That was the reason it would take an hour to reach Alvin, but it also conserved battery power. On the way up, they’d ascend in a wide corkscrew using the main propeller.
Vincent crouched forward and could just make out the side of the ship as they were lifted over the edge, and then gently lowered to the water’s surface. He felt the small jolt as they settled, and then Briggs and Oshima went through the uncoupling procedures.
Briggs turned to him. “All good?”
Vince nodded. “All good, and good to go.”
Briggs turned back, and spoke into his headset. “We are initiating dive in three-two-one … dive.”
There was a venting of air, the sound of huge bubbles rising and the craft slowly sank. Immediately a blue glow enveloped them. Vince felt an odd sensation in his stomach – butterflies, he bet Regina would have said. But he knew it as something more primal. He suddenly wished he were with her now.
Briggs lifted a hand. “Vince, comm. link is up.” He pointed to a headset.
Vince grabbed it and put it over his head, aligning the bead with his mouth. “Alvin, do you read me?”
“Loud and clear, Argonautica; who am I speaking to?”
Vince liked that the woman’s voice still held good humor and optimism, considering what she’d been through. She must be tough – good, he thought.
“Coast guard, Senior Chief Petty Officer Vincent Kelly at your service. We chatted when I was topside. You can call me Vince.”
“This is not a naval exercise?” she asked.
“Yes it is, I’m just helping out, as …” he decided to hold back on what he knew for now. “… as this is a joint services rescue. In fact, my dive buddies today are naval lieutenants Briggs, pilot, and Lieutenant Oshima, copilot. I’m assuming I’m addressing Samantha Britt, aboard the Alvin submersible, is that right?”
“You are indeed, Vince. And you can call me Sam, everyone does. With me is Mr. Wade King, our pilot and engineer. And the other poor sap stuck down here is Mr. Andy McCarthy, oceanic geologist. We’re all okay, except a little shook up. Hey, tell me, how many of the crew of the Archimedes made it to safety? It all happened a little quickly.”
Vince put his hand over the mic, as Briggs half turned. Like Vince, he knew that there were only a handful of survivors. After the sinking, fifteen people were reported to have been crowded into two lifeboats, but by the time search and rescue arrived, one lifeboat had vanished. They’d eventually found its remains, although it had been almost obliterated. Oddly, there weren’t even any floaters. Vince’s gut told him why.
“I can confirm we have survivors, but let’s just worry about you for now. Please confirm your status.”
“We’re okay, but on the edge of the trench, and we have a loop of high density cable wrapped around our rear. We can’t push it off, wriggle out, or break it.”
“Okay, we think we’ll be able to cut through that. Tell me, what is your rotational axis?” Vince asked.
“Not great. Our hatch is underneath us.” Sam sounded morose.
Shit, Vince thought. Plan B was to link up with them via the universal hatch and simply pull them out. A rescue was always high risk at extreme depths, but if they couldn’t get to the hatch, if they couldn’t cut them free, or then roll them over to get at the hatch, they’d have to come up with something else.
“Okay, Sam, sit tight and we’ll see you soon.” He went to sign off, but then changed his mind. “Hey Sam?”
“Yes, Vince, I’m still here.” She chuckled. “Like where else?”
“One more thing. You said you saw something big before. Can you describe it for me?” Vince prayed it wasn’t what he thought it was. He heard a conversation going on in the background for a moment or two, before Sam came back to him.
“Was hard to make out. We had switched off the lights to save some power, and when we flicked them back on, something big, and I mean real big – whale size – shot over the top of us.” She sighed. “Vince, just before that, the sea bottom was littered with bodies, but after the shadow had passed over they were all gone, everything had been scooped up. Shook us up, whatever it was.”
Vince detected a slight tremor in her voice. “Okay, Sam, we’ll be with you in …” He checked his watch. “Thirty-eight minutes.”
“We’ll be here.” There was no good humor there this time.
Vince sat back, and Oshima turned in his seat. “You believe that, sir?”
“Yeah.” Vince nodded, his mind elsewhere. “Yeah, I do.” He stared out into the midnight darkness of the deep water. They were dropping in near silence. That’s good, he thought. But the bathyscaphe had all its external lights on. And that, he didn’t like.
“Do we need all the lights on as we go down?”
Briggs shook his head, and looked out into the black water. “Nah, usually just for amusement, as we get to see the show on the way down. But looks as empty as Coney Island in the middle of winter right now.” He flicked switches. “Going dark.” The outside lights went out.
“Good.” Vince said. “We can light ’em up when we get a little closer.”
Vince looked down and saw that his right foot was tapping nervously again.
CHAPTER 16
“Looks like an angel descending.” Andy McCarthy, marine geologist.
“We should have gone,” Cate said dolefully.
Jack put his newspaper down. “Maybe.” He recognized the set of her jaw, and knew what that meant – she was stewing over it.
“No maybe about it. He’s our friend.”
He nodded, and tried to look thoughtful. Bottom line was it had been her decision not to go with Vince, but now it looked like remorse was eating at her.
Jack hiked his shoulders. “What could we have done that he couldn’t?”
She folded her arms. “He is a coast guard officer, I’m a marine biologist and you’re a shark expert – both of us have already been down in a submersible when one of these things was in the area. He hasn’t.”
Jack nodded, deciding to just let her talk it out. Besides, he knew what she was like in one of these moods – there were no right answers he could give, only varying shades of wrong ones.
Her eyes narrowed as she stared down at the floor. He bet she wasn’t seeing deck wood, but something else, many miles away. She looked up at him.
“Might not even be a Megalodon. It could have been any number of things, right?”
“Sure, whale, especially orca; might have been a great white, and in that area you can get even tiger sharks up to twenty-eight feet – that’d be one helluva man-eater. There’s also the possibility of being hit by a rogue wave. They hit a ship, even a big one, at a wrong angle and it’s all over.” He bobbed his head. “Don’t sweat it. He’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, he’ll be fine.” She agreed. “I hope they can rescue those poor people stuck on the bottom. And I damn well hope whatever it was that sunk the ship stays away.” She gave him a crooked smile. “Wave or whatever.”
Jack smiled back. He didn’t dare mention that one of those poor people on the bottom was Cate’s old classmate, Samantha Britt. Her head would have exploded from guilt. He lifted his paper again.
“Vince’ll be fine; the guy is basically indestructible.” Jack said a silent prayer.
* * *
Vince stared out through the small view port beside him. The interior lights were off, and there was nothing but the glow of the electronics – the tiny red, green and white lights might have looked a little festive somewhere else.
Through the reinforced glass, there was nothing to see – no fish, no cephalopods, no whales, no nothing.
At 2000 feet the pressure was extreme, and the sunless world only reflected back the image of his pale face. He saw that there was condensation on the glass matching the perspiration he could see on his forehead. He lifted an arm to wipe it on his sleeve.
Briggs had just finished giving topside an update, and half turned to him. “Bottom coming up in five minutes, sonar is clear, and we are now right over Alvin’s ping.”
“Excellent,” he responded, and prayed it was all over quickly. He gazed again through the glass and this time an image of Regina formed. Her fiery eyes were only matched by her hot temper. But there was nothing like the way her cheeks dimpled when she smiled. He was older than her by a decade, and, right now, he wanted to be with her, just sitting in front of her and watching her smile. He continued to stare, not seeing the dark anymore.
They gently dropped for another few minutes, and Vince tried to block out the sounds of the reinforced steel hull popping and squealing from the pressure of the deep water. The temperature inside the Argonautica was around seventy-two degrees, but outside it was a bone-numbing twenty-five. Vince knew that the cold, dark, salty water found deep below the surface of the Earth’s oceans was usually oxygen poor, and the things that lived within the deep often had slower metabolisms, which allowed them longer lifespans.
Briggs spoke softly over his shoulder without turning. “Time to light her up.” He flicked switches and the spotlights came on. “We should be able to see Alvin anytime now.”
Vince craned forward. “And they should see us.”
* * *
Blip.
“Yes!” Andy pointed up at the top of their glass bubble. A speck of light in their universe of darkness was growing overhead and descending toward them.
Blip.
“Argonautica, we have you showing on our proximity sonar.” Sam grinned.
“Looks like an angel descending,” Andy said through his smile.
Blip.
“We should light up, also,” Sam said. “They’ll be looking for us.”
“Then let’s give ’em the full fireworks.” Wade flicked switches up, turning on all external and internal lights, plus their spotlights.
Blip.
The world around them was illuminated in a halo of brilliant white light. The seabed was empty now. But all three of Alvin’s occupants were transfixed by the descending bathyscaphe.
Blip, blip.
Wade frowned and turned.
Blip, blip – blip, blip.
“Another signature,” Sam whispered with a rising sense of dread.
“Is it maybe picking up an Argonautica echo somehow?” Andy asked hopefully.
“Has to be,” Wade said. “Maybe bouncing off the hull of the Archimedes. It can happen.”
Blip, blip – blip, blip – blip, blip.
“No, it’s a distinctly unique signature all on its own.” Sam stared hard at the sonar. “And it’s not bouncing off the Archimedes, it’s coming from over the edge of the trench. It was shielded by the cliff wall.” She turned, teeth clamped and the words hissing from between them. “It’s coming up out of the abyss.”
“Oh, please, no.” Wade wiped his brow and pushed the mic closer to his mouth.
“Ah, Argonautica, Vince, we read another signature coming up out of the trench. We have no eyes on it. We advise caution.”
“Caution?” Andy said. “How? It’s like they’re in a weather balloon and we just sighted an incoming F16. They aren’t going anywhere quickly.”
“Could just be a whale?” Wade shook his head. “Let’s just stay calm.”
“Wade, turn off our lights.” Sam shut her eyes for a moment. “Vince, we’re going dark again. You should too. Keep your eyes open. I wish … just … good luck.”
* * *
“We see it, Alvin.” Briggs’ eyes were still calm. “Strap in everyone.”
Vincent knew they were already strapped in, and what Briggs was really saying was hang-the-fuck-on-tight.
“Jesus, this thing is coming right up outta the trench. It was hiding in the sonar shadow all the time.” Oshima exhaled loudly through his nose. “Fast, too damn fast.”
Ping … ping … ping …
“Closing.”
“On us, or the Alvin?” Briggs asked his crewmate.
“Us.” Oshima responded.
Ping … ping … ping …
“Okay.” Briggs half turned. “Now would be a good time to lend a bit of that expertise in anomalies, Senior Chief Petty Officer.”
Vincent sat forward. “Go dark.”
Briggs immediately shut all the lights down.
Ping-ping-ping-
“It’s closing,” he said.
“Sharks usually come from below in an ambush attack. We can’t outrun it, so we need to hug the bottom … or even better, hug the Archimedes.”
“I like it; we can do what the shark did, hide in a shadow.” Briggs’ lips compressed. “Starting all engines, and putting her in a hard dive.”
The thrum of the engines rippled through the solid steel craft. Vincent knew those vibrations would carry out into the water, but there was no other option.
Oshima checked the sonar. “It’s gone … I think,” he said, relief heavy in his voice.
“Keep going down,” Vincent said.
They headed toward the wreck of the Archimedes, but even with the engines on full, it was agonizingly slow. Vince felt his heart in his chest, but tried to swallow down the impatience.
“Do you think it lost interest when the lights went out?” Briggs asked hopefully.
“Possibly,” Vince said, not feeling confident. “But once we hit the bottom, everything goes off, and we lay dead. I hope that—”
The impact threw them all to the side.
“Christ!” screamed Oshima. “Came up at us from behind the cliff face.” His arms strained on the U-shaped wheel, and his lips were pulled back in a rictus of fear.
The next impact threw them forward in their seats and they only stayed in place due to their belts. The next turned their world upside down. Lights blinked, alarms screamed again, and this time something began to hiss.
“No, no, no.” Briggs’ hands moved fast across his consoles, and both he and Oshima shouted instructions to each other.
“Where are we?” Briggs asked hurriedly.
Oshima looked up and out of the view port and then back down at his console. “We are still descending, but we’ve been given an almighty shove over the edge of the subterranean cliff.” He looked at Briggs. “We’re coming down in the trench.”
“Well then, let’s shove us right back.” Briggs pushed forward on the stick.
Bo-ooom.
The entire body of the Argonautica rang like a giant bell and they were rolled in the water. Oshima yelled curses as things hissed and fizzed all around them.
Vince groaned and felt an agonizing pain in his ribs. He hoped they were only bruised from the straps holding him in place. He looked up, and forgot about his ribs. He felt his blood freeze, and the gorge rise in his throat. All he could do was point.
A thin line was running down the center of the small curved glass window.
Oshima followed his gaze, and his eyes went wide. “Holy shit; we need to surface, ASAP.”
“No, we’ll never make it,” Vince said. “Stick to the plan – fire those engines up, and get us in as close to the Archimedes as you can. Then we play dead, got it?”
“Let’s do it.” Briggs pushed the stick forward and the heavy craft turned slowly in the water. He turned about. “Where’s that big sonofabitch?”
Oshima shook his head. “It was on sonar, then vanished. I think it has gone deep again.”
Vince felt his stomach drop – it was obviously going to take another run at them. He looked at the hair-like line on the glass, and ran through the statistics he remembered from Cate and Jack – the jaws of an average great white shark can exert a bite pressure of up to 1.8 tons, but this monster, with its size and pure muscle mas
s, would be able to exceed that by at least a dozen times.
As expected the next attack hit them from below. They lifted in their seats, and Vince had an odd sensation of weightlessness for a few seconds as the entire craft tilted, and then shook violently in the water, as if it were a bone in a dog’s mouth.
“I have no control,” Briggs shouted.
“It’s got hold of us,” Vince said softly.
The weightlessness vanished and they felt themselves moving, fast.
Oshima looked down at his console just as the cabin was filled with the smell of smoke and singed electronics.
“It’s taking us down.” Oshima turned to his partner, his eyes wide. “It’s taking us fucking down.”
Vince just held onto his seat. They were heading down the cliff wall into the forbidding abyss, descending rapidly. The depth numbers in front of the men started to race higher and higher.
Perhaps the Megalodon was taking them to its home in the pitiless void of the trench depths, Vince thought.
They were still just within the crush tolerance of the Argonautica, except for one thing. Vince looked up toward the front window – sure enough, with a plinking and popping sound, the crack in the ultra-thick glass was growing longer. When its two ends touched top to bottom it would fail.
With a sound like a gunshot, a hair-thin line of water burst from the glass. Unfortunately for Oshima, who was right in front of it, it passed through his head as cleanly as a laser. He was thrown backward in his seat, and then the water beam continued on to destroy everything in its path.
Vince racked his mind, trying to think of something, anything, he could do to save them. He remembered what Scott Markesan said about his light scaring the Megalodon beast off, and yelled with everything he had.
“The lights – switch on – all – the lights!”
They continued to descend but Briggs’ hand slowly reached toward the bank of external light switches. As the internal pressure hammered inwards, Briggs screamed and Vince’s vision began to blur as his eyes were pushed inwards. The veins on the pilot’s temples were standing out like rope as the air in the Argonautica went from one atmosphere to hundreds in seconds. Vince put his hands up to his head as an agonizing vice crushed at every inch of his body and rammed at every orifice in his skull.
