The Savage Deeps, page 22
“He might be trying to see if you’re still running TCI.”
“Or he might just be trying to kill me.”
“Or both.”
I nodded. “Yes, there’s that.” I watched Johnny for a moment as he continued working on the wiring. “How have you been?”
“I feel good for a change, if that’s what you mean.”
“I guess it is.” I hesitated, then, “I’m happy you’re back too. I’ve missed you.”
“Well, I guess I had to stay away for a while. Let things die down. And my trip to the Chinese cities was useful, if not very productive.”
“It’s a start. Baby steps. What we’re proposing is a massive shift in politics. Hell, Seascape wasn’t exactly thrilled with the notion, and they’re American. They deal with the USSF every day too.”
“Tourism is a different beast though.”
Then I recalled my conversation with Cliff earlier, and I said, “I think we should wipe SC-1’s nav memory. Save the track we got on that mysterious warsub though.”
“Already done.” He tapped his forehead with a screwdriver. “Way ahead of you, partner.”
I let the silence linger on for a bit. I really had missed the man. He was my best friend—perhaps my only friend—because everyone else at Trieste aside from Kat and Meg was a work-related acquaintance. True, Johnny had started out that way too, but we had gotten to know each other very well while on our missions in TCI. And the memories of my father around Trieste meant people felt they knew me before they’d even met me. Then when they did meet me, they weren’t as genuine as perhaps they would have been otherwise. It was just hard to feel connected to people in that environment.
My father’s legacy. It had created a bizarre and enigmatic situation.
“I’m thinking of leaving in a few days,” I mumbled.
Johnny’s head was buried in the wiring. “To rescue your people?”
“I have to.”
“What they were stealing is that important?”
I nodded.
He sighed and withdrew his tools from the compartment, leaned against the console. “Then I’m coming too, of course.”
“Of course.” I offered him a small smile.
“Anyone else?”
“I do have someone in mind, actually.”
—••—
Back in my cabin, I found the secret PCD in the clothes drawer and signaled my informant on Impaler. It took over ten minutes, but finally he responded.
“Go ahead.” The voice was quiet and tinny.
“I need to know how Heller found out about the French captives.”
A pause. And then the male voice replied, “He got the information from a French captain. She found out through command channels apparently.”
I chewed my lip. And he had told me that the French captain had been missing for a while. Could it be the same person that I had taken to The Ridge? Renée Féroce? There was a possible connection between her and Heller—both seemed to be fixated on me.
“Do you know where the French are holding them?”
“No.”
“Can you find out?”
“I highly doubt it.”
“Can you get me any information on the French?”
“No.”
Then what good are you? I wanted to say. But I held my tongue.
—••—
An hour later I met with Robert Butte in my office. He’d been leaning over Grant in Sea Traffic Control, peering at his screens, and I called him over to chat.
“You’re back!” he said with a big smile on his face.
“Yes, it was an uneventful trip.”
“Where were you?”
“Prospecting. The fellows over in the mining division had a tip.”
He frowned. “Did it pan out?”
I nearly laughed at his use of the term, considering its origin topside had been for exactly what I’d claimed. “Not rich enough. Costs too much to mine that deep.”
He nodded and didn’t press me on it.
I said, “How were things here?”
He shifted in the chair before my desk. The chair was so small that he hung over it on both sides. He looked like a giant in it. “No issues. A few complaints from the aquaculture and mining people. You apparently requested more output.” He watched me pointedly.
“I didn’t request it. But yes, I relayed it to them.”
He swore. “That’s great. Fucking USSF.”
“Heller wants ten percent more across the board.”
Butte cursed again. “Doesn’t he realize we’re working damned hard as it is?”
“I don’t think he cares, frankly.” I paused and then, “Anything else happen worth noting?”
“A few more assaults. USSF sailors caused some property damage after heavy drinking in the Commerce Module.”
“Did they pay for the damage?”
My deputy mayor scowled at me. “Funny, Mac.”
“I try.”
“It would be great if we could get Heller to admit that his sailors are a serious pain in the ass.”
“Doubtful. He raised the quota on us. He doesn’t care. He just wants to take more and more, send it topside, and make himself look better.”
Butte was eyeing me. “Getting angry about that leads to dangerous thoughts and trouble with authorities. Just like your—” He stopped abruptly.
“What were you going to say there, Robert?” I watched him for a long minute.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Sorry I said it.”
“There’s no independence movement anymore. You know that, right?”
“Do I?”
I hesitated. “We learned our lesson after The Battle. It’s over.”
He stared into the distance, out the viewport over my shoulder. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
His face looked strained for a flash. “But if I wanted to talk about it, would you be the person to speak with?”
I hesitated. “About?”
“Independence.” His voice was quiet.
I stared at him for a long moment. I had never spoken about that part of my life with him. About Trieste City Intelligence and our espionage network and about The Ridge. I’d picked him as deputy mayor for a variety of reasons. The people liked him. He got along with both intellectuals and the workers out in the fields and farms and in the Repair Module. He’d done those jobs before, as a younger man. But I had always wanted to keep this side of my life as secret as possible. Until it was too late, that is.
“I have nothing to say about it.” My voice was flat.
He nodded and a look of disappointment crossed his features. “That’s too bad. Because I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Don’t.”
He looked abashed and we shifted to other topics.
He departed after a discussion of city business and a few other things that had transpired while I’d been gone on my “prospecting” journey. I watched him as he left my office. I wasn’t quite sure what to think.
I stood suddenly and went out to City Control just outside my hatch. Grant Bell was still there, headset on and busy coordinating traffic to and from the city. I went over to chat with him and find out what had been going on during my absence. He smiled when he saw me.
“Hello, Mac.”
“Got a minute?”
“For you, sure.” He whispered a few commands into the mic and then set it aside. “What’s up? How was your trip?”
“It was . . . okay. Could have gone better.” I recalled what Grant had said to me when I’d asked for advice on what track to take heading out. I trusted him implicitly.
“That’s too bad.” He winced. “Hopefully things will work out.”
“Maybe they will.” And then I stared at him for a long heartbeat, not saying a word.
He tilted his head. “What’s up?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
That night I pulled myself into my narrow bunk and lay there quietly, listening to the sounds of the city in the steel hulls and decks around me. I had a cabin against an exterior bulkhead, with a small viewport to give me a view of the ocean. As mayor, I didn’t want more than others, so I had kept my quarters in Module B. Flint, the former mayor, had occupied a relatively giant cabin on the upper deck, complete with a skylight and bulkhead viewports. I’d seen it in the days following the election. It had been twenty times the size of my current living space, before I’d ordered the space divided into multiple smaller sleeping areas.
The people of Trieste were happy I led by example, and appreciated the no-frills manner in which I did it.
I began to drift off to sleep, despite the thoughts churning through my mind. I saw myself wandering the corridors and travel tubes of the city, going somewhere with a purpose, on a mission, but not fully knowing what it was. All I knew was I had something to do, and I had to do it soon. My feet rang on the steel grates and decks. Happy voices echoed around me. What had I been doing? Where was I going?
Yes. . . . I remembered now. That was it. Kat’s birthday was coming up, and I couldn’t find anything to give her. Then I remembered that she’d lived on land for more than two decades, and although she loved the oceans, she did appreciate colorful flowers. In particular, their fragrance and delicate beauty attracted her.
I needed to find her some, and they were difficult to locate under water. We had plants and trees in Trieste, but not many flowers. Especially ones for sale.
Now, where could I find—
I suddenly appeared in City Control, and I looked around, confused.
“Problem, Mac?”
My jaw fell open. “Rafe? What are you doing here?”
He smiled, and the expression split his features. I’d missed that smile. “I work here, don’t you know?”
“But—but you’re—”
“I’m what?”
I swallowed. “This is a dream.”
“Is it?” He continued to grin. “I think this conversation happened just a few months ago.”
I thought hard, trying to locate the memory. “You’re right. And you’re about to tell me—”
“I can get you some roses. My cousin is on the supply run from Costa Rica to the US colonies. I can ask him to bring some. How many do you want?”
My brow crinkled. “How many did I get when this . . . when this really happened?”
He laughed, and it was warm and genial and heartfelt. My heart thudded in my chest and I realized how much I missed him. He said, “You asked for two dozen.”
“Then that’s how many I want.”
“Done.”
“But Rafe . . .” I muttered, staring at the man. Behind him the bulkhead map of the Gulf and the Caribbean framed his face.
“What?”
“You’re not really here right now.”
He tilted his head. “Where am I?”
I stumbled over my words. “I sent you to Impaler. For training.”
“Yes. I need training if I’m going to work in Sea Traffic Control. Grant has been really good to me here too.”
“Everyone likes you.”
“And I’m enjoying it.”
“But I asked you to listen for . . . for information over there.”
He nodded. “I’ve been doing that. I’ve found out some good stuff for you too.”
“And I asked you to leak something to Heller for me. It—” A sob choked its way up my throat and I clamped down on it. “It didn’t work.”
“Did he kill me?” That smile was still on his face.
A tear rolled down my cheek. “Someone did.”
“Don’t worry, Mac. I want to help my city. Don’t blame yourself.”
“But it’s my fault, Rafe. I did this to you.”
He was shaking his head. A voice called to me. I looked around in alarm. He said, “No. I volunteered. Don’t you remember?”
“No. I don’t.”
“It’s true.”
The voice called to me again. I glanced around, trying to locate it. No one else was there. I turned back to Rafe.
He was gone.
My eyes snapped open.
The comm was beeping and I reached outside the bunk to flick the switch. “Go ahead.” My voice was husky. I’d keyed Voice Only.
“Sorry to bother you, Mac.” It was Grant Bell.
“No worries. What’s up?” Rafe had just mentioned you, I wanted to say. I leaned back and stared at the ceiling just inches above my face. On the other side was my clothes drawer.
“I’ve got an odd signature coming in.”
“What’s odd about it?”
“It’s a warsub. French. A big bastard. We don’t usually see this type here, that’s all.”
I chewed my lip. “Let me guess. Verdun class.”
There was a pause. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I had a run in with them.” I thought the situation over for a long moment. Surely they wouldn’t attack a US undersea colony outright.
Would they?
Would they be so brash?
I didn’t think so, but still. . . .
“What’s the distance?”
“An outer sonar array picked them up. They’re still eighty kilometers away. We have some time.”
“Speed? Depth?”
“Thirty-one kph, sixty meters.”
“Grant, contact Cliff Sim. Tell him to meet me in my office. I’ll be there in five. And . . .”
“Yes?”
“Better contact the USSF. Let Heller know what’s going on.”
“But what is going on?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a potential provocation. A missile boat being so close to the US coast.”
“They might need help.”
The thought our three torpedoes had caused tremendous damage to her hull and engine room occurred to me. They might have even considered it an act of war.
“If they do, we can offer it to them I guess. But their sailors are not to come over. Not with so many USSF here now.”
“I can detect a problem with their screws. They’re cavitating. Some sort of damage for sure. And the hull is creating a lot of noise.”
It’s because we put three holes in it, I wanted to say. But I settled on, “Carry out the orders, Grant, and thanks. Mac out.”
I punched the comm and lay back with my eyes closed. Shit. This was not good. They were here for a reason, a good one. They would most likely not leave without me, and the USSF—Heller, mostly—would not defend me.
I hit the comm again in sudden decision. “Butte, where are you?”
Seconds later his voice drifted to me. “I’m sleeping, Mac. You?”
“Grab a bag of your things. Meet me in the Repair Module.”
He immediately perked up. “Say again?”
“We’re going on a little voyage. I want you to come with me. Are you game?”
There was a long pause. Finally he said in a confused tone, “I guess so. Where are we going?”
“I’m going to open your eyes to a much larger world, Butte. Are you interested?”
The response came sooner than the last one had. “Of course.”
“Good. Meet me at SC-1.” I keyed off before he could say anything. My next call was to Johnny aboard the seacar. “I have a visitor on the way. Let him in. Don’t tell him anything, just say that I’ll be there soon. We’re leaving tonight.”
—••—
A second later, before I could lower my feet over the side and jump to the cold deck, the pressure alarm started to blare.
And it was LOUD.
The lights immediately flashed on—now a dazzling blue—and the alarm pierced the cabins and corridors of Module B.
“ATTENTION,” a calm voice said over the comm units. I recognized it—Kristen Canvel in City Systems Control. “We have a pressure drop in Module B. Everyone get your emergency gear, evacuate immediately. Go to the nearest escape airlock or moonpool. Beware the rising water on the moonpool deck. Modules A and C, be prepared to assist with evacuations.”
Luckily there were no children in this module; single men and women only.
I slung a bag over my shoulder, along with two items from my clothing drawer, grabbed my mask, tank and weight belt, and bolted from the cabin.
—••—
I helped direct people on my level to the airlock, though they already knew where to go. The timing of the pressure emergency—occurring right as the French warsub was closing on us—was not lost on me.
The moonpool was down on the seafloor deck, four levels below. I watched as people poured from their cabins and ran to the airlocks against the exterior bulkheads. Everyone was calm, there was no panicking. Instead, they had looks of determination on their features. Only a third of the people were in the modules at any time; the other two thirds were working or out engaged in other activities. Either volunteering or helping someone else out, or perhaps eating and enjoying an hour or two of recreation. But there were still a lot of people in the module. Thankfully we had time to get out, and we’d practiced it many times before.
I decided to go down to the moonpool, to see just how bad this pressure loss really was.
The blue lights were flashing in the hallway and the warnings continued to echo around me. Now it was Joey Zen speaking—she was in the Pressure Control division of City Control—and her voice was calm and soothing. Quite a contradiction to the flashing lights, I thought.
The steep ladder was metal grating and I looked down.
I couldn’t see the lowest level.
My heart nearly exploded.
Water was rising up the stairwell, sloshing around and foaming against the bulkheads.
So this was no drill, nor a minor incident.
The water was nearly up to the second level, which meant water had totally flooded the first. Pressure was decreasing rapidly.
An instant later the airtight hatch slammed across the ladderwell, blocking it from rising any further. It would keep the flooding contained, but if the pressure loss continued, the structure of the module might be an issue.
“Or he might just be trying to kill me.”
“Or both.”
I nodded. “Yes, there’s that.” I watched Johnny for a moment as he continued working on the wiring. “How have you been?”
“I feel good for a change, if that’s what you mean.”
“I guess it is.” I hesitated, then, “I’m happy you’re back too. I’ve missed you.”
“Well, I guess I had to stay away for a while. Let things die down. And my trip to the Chinese cities was useful, if not very productive.”
“It’s a start. Baby steps. What we’re proposing is a massive shift in politics. Hell, Seascape wasn’t exactly thrilled with the notion, and they’re American. They deal with the USSF every day too.”
“Tourism is a different beast though.”
Then I recalled my conversation with Cliff earlier, and I said, “I think we should wipe SC-1’s nav memory. Save the track we got on that mysterious warsub though.”
“Already done.” He tapped his forehead with a screwdriver. “Way ahead of you, partner.”
I let the silence linger on for a bit. I really had missed the man. He was my best friend—perhaps my only friend—because everyone else at Trieste aside from Kat and Meg was a work-related acquaintance. True, Johnny had started out that way too, but we had gotten to know each other very well while on our missions in TCI. And the memories of my father around Trieste meant people felt they knew me before they’d even met me. Then when they did meet me, they weren’t as genuine as perhaps they would have been otherwise. It was just hard to feel connected to people in that environment.
My father’s legacy. It had created a bizarre and enigmatic situation.
“I’m thinking of leaving in a few days,” I mumbled.
Johnny’s head was buried in the wiring. “To rescue your people?”
“I have to.”
“What they were stealing is that important?”
I nodded.
He sighed and withdrew his tools from the compartment, leaned against the console. “Then I’m coming too, of course.”
“Of course.” I offered him a small smile.
“Anyone else?”
“I do have someone in mind, actually.”
—••—
Back in my cabin, I found the secret PCD in the clothes drawer and signaled my informant on Impaler. It took over ten minutes, but finally he responded.
“Go ahead.” The voice was quiet and tinny.
“I need to know how Heller found out about the French captives.”
A pause. And then the male voice replied, “He got the information from a French captain. She found out through command channels apparently.”
I chewed my lip. And he had told me that the French captain had been missing for a while. Could it be the same person that I had taken to The Ridge? Renée Féroce? There was a possible connection between her and Heller—both seemed to be fixated on me.
“Do you know where the French are holding them?”
“No.”
“Can you find out?”
“I highly doubt it.”
“Can you get me any information on the French?”
“No.”
Then what good are you? I wanted to say. But I held my tongue.
—••—
An hour later I met with Robert Butte in my office. He’d been leaning over Grant in Sea Traffic Control, peering at his screens, and I called him over to chat.
“You’re back!” he said with a big smile on his face.
“Yes, it was an uneventful trip.”
“Where were you?”
“Prospecting. The fellows over in the mining division had a tip.”
He frowned. “Did it pan out?”
I nearly laughed at his use of the term, considering its origin topside had been for exactly what I’d claimed. “Not rich enough. Costs too much to mine that deep.”
He nodded and didn’t press me on it.
I said, “How were things here?”
He shifted in the chair before my desk. The chair was so small that he hung over it on both sides. He looked like a giant in it. “No issues. A few complaints from the aquaculture and mining people. You apparently requested more output.” He watched me pointedly.
“I didn’t request it. But yes, I relayed it to them.”
He swore. “That’s great. Fucking USSF.”
“Heller wants ten percent more across the board.”
Butte cursed again. “Doesn’t he realize we’re working damned hard as it is?”
“I don’t think he cares, frankly.” I paused and then, “Anything else happen worth noting?”
“A few more assaults. USSF sailors caused some property damage after heavy drinking in the Commerce Module.”
“Did they pay for the damage?”
My deputy mayor scowled at me. “Funny, Mac.”
“I try.”
“It would be great if we could get Heller to admit that his sailors are a serious pain in the ass.”
“Doubtful. He raised the quota on us. He doesn’t care. He just wants to take more and more, send it topside, and make himself look better.”
Butte was eyeing me. “Getting angry about that leads to dangerous thoughts and trouble with authorities. Just like your—” He stopped abruptly.
“What were you going to say there, Robert?” I watched him for a long minute.
He shook his head. “Nothing. Sorry I said it.”
“There’s no independence movement anymore. You know that, right?”
“Do I?”
I hesitated. “We learned our lesson after The Battle. It’s over.”
He stared into the distance, out the viewport over my shoulder. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
His face looked strained for a flash. “But if I wanted to talk about it, would you be the person to speak with?”
I hesitated. “About?”
“Independence.” His voice was quiet.
I stared at him for a long moment. I had never spoken about that part of my life with him. About Trieste City Intelligence and our espionage network and about The Ridge. I’d picked him as deputy mayor for a variety of reasons. The people liked him. He got along with both intellectuals and the workers out in the fields and farms and in the Repair Module. He’d done those jobs before, as a younger man. But I had always wanted to keep this side of my life as secret as possible. Until it was too late, that is.
“I have nothing to say about it.” My voice was flat.
He nodded and a look of disappointment crossed his features. “That’s too bad. Because I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Don’t.”
He looked abashed and we shifted to other topics.
He departed after a discussion of city business and a few other things that had transpired while I’d been gone on my “prospecting” journey. I watched him as he left my office. I wasn’t quite sure what to think.
I stood suddenly and went out to City Control just outside my hatch. Grant Bell was still there, headset on and busy coordinating traffic to and from the city. I went over to chat with him and find out what had been going on during my absence. He smiled when he saw me.
“Hello, Mac.”
“Got a minute?”
“For you, sure.” He whispered a few commands into the mic and then set it aside. “What’s up? How was your trip?”
“It was . . . okay. Could have gone better.” I recalled what Grant had said to me when I’d asked for advice on what track to take heading out. I trusted him implicitly.
“That’s too bad.” He winced. “Hopefully things will work out.”
“Maybe they will.” And then I stared at him for a long heartbeat, not saying a word.
He tilted his head. “What’s up?”
Chapter Twenty-Two
That night I pulled myself into my narrow bunk and lay there quietly, listening to the sounds of the city in the steel hulls and decks around me. I had a cabin against an exterior bulkhead, with a small viewport to give me a view of the ocean. As mayor, I didn’t want more than others, so I had kept my quarters in Module B. Flint, the former mayor, had occupied a relatively giant cabin on the upper deck, complete with a skylight and bulkhead viewports. I’d seen it in the days following the election. It had been twenty times the size of my current living space, before I’d ordered the space divided into multiple smaller sleeping areas.
The people of Trieste were happy I led by example, and appreciated the no-frills manner in which I did it.
I began to drift off to sleep, despite the thoughts churning through my mind. I saw myself wandering the corridors and travel tubes of the city, going somewhere with a purpose, on a mission, but not fully knowing what it was. All I knew was I had something to do, and I had to do it soon. My feet rang on the steel grates and decks. Happy voices echoed around me. What had I been doing? Where was I going?
Yes. . . . I remembered now. That was it. Kat’s birthday was coming up, and I couldn’t find anything to give her. Then I remembered that she’d lived on land for more than two decades, and although she loved the oceans, she did appreciate colorful flowers. In particular, their fragrance and delicate beauty attracted her.
I needed to find her some, and they were difficult to locate under water. We had plants and trees in Trieste, but not many flowers. Especially ones for sale.
Now, where could I find—
I suddenly appeared in City Control, and I looked around, confused.
“Problem, Mac?”
My jaw fell open. “Rafe? What are you doing here?”
He smiled, and the expression split his features. I’d missed that smile. “I work here, don’t you know?”
“But—but you’re—”
“I’m what?”
I swallowed. “This is a dream.”
“Is it?” He continued to grin. “I think this conversation happened just a few months ago.”
I thought hard, trying to locate the memory. “You’re right. And you’re about to tell me—”
“I can get you some roses. My cousin is on the supply run from Costa Rica to the US colonies. I can ask him to bring some. How many do you want?”
My brow crinkled. “How many did I get when this . . . when this really happened?”
He laughed, and it was warm and genial and heartfelt. My heart thudded in my chest and I realized how much I missed him. He said, “You asked for two dozen.”
“Then that’s how many I want.”
“Done.”
“But Rafe . . .” I muttered, staring at the man. Behind him the bulkhead map of the Gulf and the Caribbean framed his face.
“What?”
“You’re not really here right now.”
He tilted his head. “Where am I?”
I stumbled over my words. “I sent you to Impaler. For training.”
“Yes. I need training if I’m going to work in Sea Traffic Control. Grant has been really good to me here too.”
“Everyone likes you.”
“And I’m enjoying it.”
“But I asked you to listen for . . . for information over there.”
He nodded. “I’ve been doing that. I’ve found out some good stuff for you too.”
“And I asked you to leak something to Heller for me. It—” A sob choked its way up my throat and I clamped down on it. “It didn’t work.”
“Did he kill me?” That smile was still on his face.
A tear rolled down my cheek. “Someone did.”
“Don’t worry, Mac. I want to help my city. Don’t blame yourself.”
“But it’s my fault, Rafe. I did this to you.”
He was shaking his head. A voice called to me. I looked around in alarm. He said, “No. I volunteered. Don’t you remember?”
“No. I don’t.”
“It’s true.”
The voice called to me again. I glanced around, trying to locate it. No one else was there. I turned back to Rafe.
He was gone.
My eyes snapped open.
The comm was beeping and I reached outside the bunk to flick the switch. “Go ahead.” My voice was husky. I’d keyed Voice Only.
“Sorry to bother you, Mac.” It was Grant Bell.
“No worries. What’s up?” Rafe had just mentioned you, I wanted to say. I leaned back and stared at the ceiling just inches above my face. On the other side was my clothes drawer.
“I’ve got an odd signature coming in.”
“What’s odd about it?”
“It’s a warsub. French. A big bastard. We don’t usually see this type here, that’s all.”
I chewed my lip. “Let me guess. Verdun class.”
There was a pause. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I had a run in with them.” I thought the situation over for a long moment. Surely they wouldn’t attack a US undersea colony outright.
Would they?
Would they be so brash?
I didn’t think so, but still. . . .
“What’s the distance?”
“An outer sonar array picked them up. They’re still eighty kilometers away. We have some time.”
“Speed? Depth?”
“Thirty-one kph, sixty meters.”
“Grant, contact Cliff Sim. Tell him to meet me in my office. I’ll be there in five. And . . .”
“Yes?”
“Better contact the USSF. Let Heller know what’s going on.”
“But what is going on?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a potential provocation. A missile boat being so close to the US coast.”
“They might need help.”
The thought our three torpedoes had caused tremendous damage to her hull and engine room occurred to me. They might have even considered it an act of war.
“If they do, we can offer it to them I guess. But their sailors are not to come over. Not with so many USSF here now.”
“I can detect a problem with their screws. They’re cavitating. Some sort of damage for sure. And the hull is creating a lot of noise.”
It’s because we put three holes in it, I wanted to say. But I settled on, “Carry out the orders, Grant, and thanks. Mac out.”
I punched the comm and lay back with my eyes closed. Shit. This was not good. They were here for a reason, a good one. They would most likely not leave without me, and the USSF—Heller, mostly—would not defend me.
I hit the comm again in sudden decision. “Butte, where are you?”
Seconds later his voice drifted to me. “I’m sleeping, Mac. You?”
“Grab a bag of your things. Meet me in the Repair Module.”
He immediately perked up. “Say again?”
“We’re going on a little voyage. I want you to come with me. Are you game?”
There was a long pause. Finally he said in a confused tone, “I guess so. Where are we going?”
“I’m going to open your eyes to a much larger world, Butte. Are you interested?”
The response came sooner than the last one had. “Of course.”
“Good. Meet me at SC-1.” I keyed off before he could say anything. My next call was to Johnny aboard the seacar. “I have a visitor on the way. Let him in. Don’t tell him anything, just say that I’ll be there soon. We’re leaving tonight.”
—••—
A second later, before I could lower my feet over the side and jump to the cold deck, the pressure alarm started to blare.
And it was LOUD.
The lights immediately flashed on—now a dazzling blue—and the alarm pierced the cabins and corridors of Module B.
“ATTENTION,” a calm voice said over the comm units. I recognized it—Kristen Canvel in City Systems Control. “We have a pressure drop in Module B. Everyone get your emergency gear, evacuate immediately. Go to the nearest escape airlock or moonpool. Beware the rising water on the moonpool deck. Modules A and C, be prepared to assist with evacuations.”
Luckily there were no children in this module; single men and women only.
I slung a bag over my shoulder, along with two items from my clothing drawer, grabbed my mask, tank and weight belt, and bolted from the cabin.
—••—
I helped direct people on my level to the airlock, though they already knew where to go. The timing of the pressure emergency—occurring right as the French warsub was closing on us—was not lost on me.
The moonpool was down on the seafloor deck, four levels below. I watched as people poured from their cabins and ran to the airlocks against the exterior bulkheads. Everyone was calm, there was no panicking. Instead, they had looks of determination on their features. Only a third of the people were in the modules at any time; the other two thirds were working or out engaged in other activities. Either volunteering or helping someone else out, or perhaps eating and enjoying an hour or two of recreation. But there were still a lot of people in the module. Thankfully we had time to get out, and we’d practiced it many times before.
I decided to go down to the moonpool, to see just how bad this pressure loss really was.
The blue lights were flashing in the hallway and the warnings continued to echo around me. Now it was Joey Zen speaking—she was in the Pressure Control division of City Control—and her voice was calm and soothing. Quite a contradiction to the flashing lights, I thought.
The steep ladder was metal grating and I looked down.
I couldn’t see the lowest level.
My heart nearly exploded.
Water was rising up the stairwell, sloshing around and foaming against the bulkheads.
So this was no drill, nor a minor incident.
The water was nearly up to the second level, which meant water had totally flooded the first. Pressure was decreasing rapidly.
An instant later the airtight hatch slammed across the ladderwell, blocking it from rising any further. It would keep the flooding contained, but if the pressure loss continued, the structure of the module might be an issue.
