The Depths

by Nick Thacker

  “Carter, what happened up there —”

  “Don’t worry about it. Our CO is a very qualified captain, Jen.”

  “But the pressure…”

  “I understand you’re concerned.” He began to turn away, then stopped. “Here’s what I was taught. If something happens on an underwater vessel, and you’re alive long enough to know about it, you’re most likely going to be able to do something about it.”

  While it wasn’t exactly comforting, it did help calm Jen’s fears about being crushed to death in an underwater tube. Carter waited for them to ask more questions for a moment before turning again and walking toward the glass dome.

  They entered the tiny chamber, and Jen was confused. “It’s dark. I can’t see anything.”

  “Right. The captain will turn on the floodlights when they start searching for that docking station. Our technology is more advanced now than the docking station, and considering the fact that it’s unmanned, we’ll be able to find it best by simply using our eyes.”

  Jen heard a tiny click from outside the chamber, and suddenly the room was lit in an eerie yellow glow. The three of them turned to face the glass bubble at one end of the room and peered out.

  What stared back at them was one of the most amazing things Jen had ever seen.

  The research station, reflecting the sub’s floodlights, seemed to sparkle and shimmer, and the glistening of small marine objects and debris added to the effect. The station’s semi-translucent outer shell was reinforced with some kind of mesh, but it was impossible to tell just how thick the walls were.

  An unimaginable number of small polygons, about two feet in diameter, made up the shell’s outer layer, giving the dome its rounded appearance.

  The size was the next thing she noticed. It was massive—absolutely gargantuan. It rose from the depths below them as if out of nowhere, and it continued on up above their field of view. It must have been over twelve stories tall. The dome could easily house entire buildings. She wondered if it might have at one point in time.

  “Oh wow,” she said. Mark and Corporal Carter both stood mesmerized as well, neither having anticipated the sheer scope and magnitude of an engineering marvel like this.

  “Wow is right,” Mark said finally. “It’s a shame this has to be top-secret. The world wouldn’t believe something like this could exist.”

  The sub was facing the dome, but easing sideways through the water, keeping its nose and the observation room centered on the research station.

  “Captain Volstik will do a full turn around the station, locate at least one of the docking stations, and then his crew will maneuver for the docking. We’ll have a great view from here, since our docking port is topside, directly above our heads. Once we dock, though, we’ll have quite awhile before we can enter.”

  “Why is that?” Mark asked.

  “Well, we can’t know for sure, but we’re expecting this place to be flooded. It’s been sitting down here for over thirty years with no maintenance or upkeep. In order to completely pump it out with the equipment we brought, it would take weeks. We’re hoping, though, that it’s not entirely filled with seawater, or that some of the compartmentalizations the builders included are still doing their jobs and keeping part of the base watertight.

  “Whatever the case, we’re expecting to pump at least the first and second compartments in—that’ll take around twelve to fifteen hours—and having those levels dry should give us enough space to work and get what we need.”

  “Assuming we find what we need,” Jen said.

  “Right. And we will. Don’t worry, this will all be resolved soon, and we’ll get Reese back.”

  She wasn’t reassured, but at least she understood part of the plan. Enter the station, find whatever clues or pieces of the puzzle they could, deliver that to Nouvelle Terre, and get Reese back.

  Easier said than done.

  A voice crackled over the intercom, preparing the crew for docking. Jen looked out at the station stretched across the panoramic view, trying to find the docking port.

  “There it is,” Carter said. He lifted a hand and pointed toward the far edge of the dome, still not yet in full view.

  Jutting from its base was a rectangular port, pushed out like the entrance to a storm shelter outside of a farmhouse. They watched it roll toward them, the submarine making minute adjustments in her bearing as they closed in on the bay.

  Another message over the intercom crackled, ordering the docking crew to take over. Carter explained that once they got nearer to docking, the docking crew would guide the sub in by hand, using sensitive thrusters to correct and control their motions.

  Before they reached the station, however, a looming shape appeared in between the sub and the dome.

  The dark shadow slipped in front of their ship, obstructing their view.

  “It’s the other sub,” Mark whispered. His voice had dropped as if trying to hide from the black sea monster in front of them.

  “Damn. It is. They were trying to disable us; to get us to dock. That was the plan all along. They’ll probably dock on the other side now that they’ve got us where they want us.”

  “But I don’t get it. Why’d they shoot at the sub?” Jen asked Carter. “If they wanted to kill us, they’d have just sunk us in the first place. Now they just wanted to make sure we docked.”

  The captain burst through the doors of the observation chamber, his duties for the time being completed. He’d apparently heard Jen’s question. “Because they wanted to make sure we made it here, but that there was only one way off the station: their sub.”

  “Wait, you mean we’re—”

  “Yes. They fired a perfect shot, disabling most of what makes this ship a submarine. We can dive, and we’ll have air and food for weeks, but none of that matters anymore. Our maneuverability’s been blown to hell, and we can’t pump out the water from the rise tanks. We can’t resurface.”

  This cold truth settled over Jen and Mark. Carter knew this already, and he still gazed silently out the window.

  They were stranded at this research station under five miles of Atlantic ocean, and the only humans around weren’t their friends.

  Chapter 15

  “THE AIR ISN’T TOXIC; YOU should be good to go.”

  The young crew member, Lieutenant Johannes, turned to face Carter and Jen. “Actually, it seems pretty healthy. It’ll feel thinner, like you’re standing on top of a mountain, but it’s completely breathable.”

  “Are you surprised?” Carter asked.

  “No, I guess not, at least about this. I mean, we were prepared for the worst, but without anything to breathe the air down here there would be no way for it to go bad. We did think we’d have to pump the water out, but with the sub’s structure almost compromised, it’s great we don’t need to keep you on board for that long.”

  The captain scoffed from inside the sub’s docking hatch. “Well, you can have all the air and dry ground you can find. I’m happy staying right here.”

  “That’s the plan, Captain,” Carter said. “Keep working on the sub; try to restore surfacing capability. We’ll see what we can find, and we’ll be ready to go in less than twelve hours.”

  Jen saw Mark emerge from the sub’s hatch, stepping around the large captain. “We ready to go?” he asked Jen. He took a quick look at the other three civilians in the room who had recently joined them, Dr. Sanjay Pavan, Lindsay, and her understudy, sizing them up. Pavan looked concerned, but otherwise stoic. Lindsay looked a little more distraught, but still holding things together.

  Erik looked as if he hadn’t registered anything that had happened in the past twenty minutes. His gaze was steady, looking at the skipper, intense but not intimidating, intrigued but not frightened. When Jen met his eyes, he tried his best to give a confident nod.

  “All set,” she said. “I’ve got the papers from Storm’s lab and the toolkit I packed beforehand. Although I still wish we could go without those guns…”


  Carter and his team had each outfitted themselves with British-made assault rifles, sidearmed with a pistol and a hunting knife. They were dressed in fatigues, a suit of body armor covering their torsos.

  “Don’t worry, Jen. This is just a precaution. As I said, we’re out in twelve hours. If the sub’s not ready to go by then, we stay inside until it is.” Carter’s voice was confident, as if there was no doubt in his mind what answers lay ahead. She knew he was a career soldier, gifted in tactical and strategic management, but this particular mission wasn’t like anything they’d ever done before—he’d said so himself.

  When they’d docked at the research station, the preliminary team had disembarked first, checking the small docking chamber’s air for the necessary amounts of nitrogen, oxygen, and trace gases that made up breathable air. They had yet to open the hatch connecting the docking chamber with the rest of the dome, but a specialized imaging camera had determined that there was no wall of water on the other side, waiting to crush them when they opened the door.

  As a secondary objective, the small camera was also deployed to seek out any infrared heat images—or, as Carter had explained, other people. The other sub hadn’t been seen docking, but Carter’s team wanted to be as careful as possible before exposing unarmed civilians to a strike team.

  The sub’s captain and his twelve crew members would stay back, repairing the ship and getting it ready to leave. There was routine maintenance to see to, as well as the damage that had been dealt by the two torpedoes fired on them. The mechanic on board was optimistic, however, and diagnosed the issues as small setbacks that could be mostly fixed within eight to ten hours.

  Mark joined Jen in front of the chamber hatch, behind Carter. Carter and his team waited until the sub’s hatch was closed and sealed, and then Saunders and Hog Nelson stepped forward to open the airlock door.

  “Ready when you are, boss,” Saunders called out.

  “Go for it,” Carter said, as stoic as ever.

  The remaining team member, Gary Mason, raised his rifle and pointed it toward the hairline crack between the door and the thick steel-reinforced wall.

  Jen heard a pop, followed by a loud hissing sound, and the two marines pulled open the heavy door.

  The whooshing sound resided, and Mason pushed forward and through the entrance. He looked left and right, then nodded once. The rest of the marines, followed by Carter, the scientists, and finally Jen and Mark, entered the newly-opened research station.

  Jen found herself in the middle of a vast hallway that stretched both directions in a curving arch.

  “This must be the outer compartment,” Carter said. “They built in failsafes in these airlocks; redundant doors that can close in case of a water breach. This hallway will have reinforced locks at intervals from here to the main entrance chamber, and there will be another just like it from the other docking station.”

  “Which way do we go then?”

  “Left. I think the main power grid is controlled by a small room at the north side of the base. We docked at the south station, so—”

  Suddenly a deep boom reverberated through the round hallway.

  “What the…” one of the marines jostled for position, ready to fire on the approaching enemy. But nothing came toward them around the bend in the hallway.

  “Oh, shit—” Mark grabbed Jen’s arm and pushed her out of the doorway. A blast of heat barreled through, spreading and dissipating down the hall. The soldiers dove to the floor, but Carter wheeled around to the wide-open hatch they’d entered from.

  “That was an explosion! Help me get this door,” he shouted. Mark jumped up again, helping the man with the thick door. Jen turned to look out just as the door slammed shut. All she saw was fire, followed by—

  “Hold on!” Carter yelled. They heard another dull crash as water smashed against the hallway wall. The whole dome seemed to bend as if warping in on itself. The floor shook, and Carter and Mark fell back to the hallway floor.

  Jen’s cheek was up against the cool concrete, her eyes squeezed shut. She could almost feel the immense pressure of the sea—five miles of deep-black saltwater—pushing in on her, the only thing separating it from her a twenty-inch thick wall. Without opening her eyes, she reached out to find Mark’s hand—any hand—and waited for the shaking to stop.

  “What happened out there, sir?” Mason was sitting, his back up against the interior hallway wall. “Did you see anything?”

  “Yeah. It blew up. It’s gone. The sub, I mean. It’s completely gone.”

  Lindsay Richards gasped, and Dr. Pavan sucked in a quick breath of air. The three marines were seated next to each other, their eyes intense, ready. They held their guns in their laps, but their hands were tightened over the stocks, their fingers near the trigger.

  “There was a wall of fire and then a bunch of water. I can’t believe we got the door shut in time,” Mark said.

  “But why?” Jen asked. “How?”

  “It must have been the other sub—the one that disabled us before,” Carter answered. “There’s no other way. No sub would just explode like that. They must have known we were inside the station and then opened fire…”

  Things had gone from terrible to much, much worse. Jen’s mind was reeling, trying to make sense of the events of the past twenty-four hours. Reese, Dr. Storm, now this—

  “We need to keep moving; we can’t stay here. That other sub—whoever disabled us and blew up our ride—isn’t going to just head home. We’re too isolated out here. They saw us dock, and they’ll probably be heading to the other docking station now. The airlock behind us won’t open again since it’s been compromised.” Carter’s voice was back to its normal stoicism.

  Jen wondered if it was a façade, if he was as frightened as she was.

  “We’ll get to the power station at the main entrance and see about getting some lights on. Since we haven’t seen any sign of leaks so far, I’ll assume we can still get power to the main complex. Come on, let’s go.”

  He didn’t wait for the group to stand up.

  Chapter 16

  THE GROUP OF SOLDIERS AND civilians jogged in silence around the circumference of the great underwater dome. Mark couldn’t help but marvel at the amazing technology required to create such a monstrosity this far under the ocean’s surface. Even the math seemed too miraculous to be true. There was no way modern technology could effectively build the walls thick enough using just steel or concrete; he knew they must have been some sort of alloy or a combination of materials.

  Back on the sub, he had seen a schematic of the research station. The hallway they were in now ran around half the circumference of the upper section of the dome—Level Three, if he remembered correctly—connecting the two docking stations to the main entrance and power grid. The entire structure was split into fourteen levels, numbered from the uppermost level to the lowest, each using the nomenclature of French colors. He also knew the docking stations—two each, both capable of docking two submarines at once—were situated on the trench side of the dome, one toward the southernmost end, the other farther north, connected by this hallway on one side of the circular dome.

  The dome around the research station was designed to withstand the immense pressure of five miles of seawater pressing down on it. Between this hallway and the ocean was an open space of about five feet where the air pressure was maintained and controlled. Outside of this, separated by another thick wall, was another open space, built for redundancy and added support. Finally, the outermost layer of the dome was a series of hexagon-shaped frames, each with a width of about two feet, that connected to each other and formed the outer structural support.

  He tried to imagine what it had been like to build this place. The sheer manpower required must have been staggering. It seemed solid, too. If he hadn’t known better, he wouldn’t have believed they were underwater right now. It was a real shame this place was kept secret for so long.

  Jen was running next to him, her gait stead
y and light. They were no longer holding hands, and Mark realized they hadn’t held hands or had any physical contact whatsoever since they’d split up over a year ago. While they were still on speaking terms, the relationship was still strained and awkward. They had mostly tried to keep things light around Reese, not talking about the separation or “the situation,” as they called it.

  Mark thought back to that fateful night, about a year and a half ago. They were both completely absorbed in their work and found themselves sharing time with Reese like a relay team. Jen mostly worked during the day at the university and would come home in the early afternoon to swap out with Mark. She would hang out with Reese while Mark worked, and they’d start the process over again each day, their lives dancing around each other without connecting.

  His work had been demanding more and more of him. Reese was almost eleven years old and had begun acting out in all new ways, and Jen had started working more closely with Dr. Storm on his research.

  Mark didn’t drink—had never tasted alcohol in his life—but he found himself going out more often with the guys after work. They would grab a few beers and vent for a few hours before heading home, usually well after midnight. It became part of the routine, and Mark knew Jen didn’t care one way or another. She was too caught up in her work to notice, or so he thought.

  He pulled up to the house at around 2:30 AM and saw that the kitchen light was on. He entered and saw Jen sitting at the table; she’d waited up for him. They argued, it escalated, and it ended with Mark’s leaving and staying at the office for the night. He considered coming home the next night, but instead just e-mailed that he thought it was better if they “took a little time…”

  That was the catalyst. Two days later, when Reese was at a friend’s house and Jen was supposed to be gone at a conference, Mark was visited by a female acquaintance who’d approached him at the bar. She had been outgoing to say the least, and Mark was turned off by her attempt to play the “troubled mysterious” role. When she followed him home that night, he’d considered calling the police. His personality got the best of him, however, and he invited her in to talk.