“How fast you think we’re ascending?” he wondered aloud.
Carter shrugged in the near darkness. “Beats me. We don’t have to worry about the bends, at least.”
The pressure inside the submersible never changes, so decompression sickness was not a factor. Nevertheless, as a sub pilot, Jayden knew that it was not wise to ascend too fast. They could strike the bottom of their own ship, for one thing. They could come flying out of the water into the sky and land upside down, jarring loose the various oxygen and electronic systems. He had even heard of a fire starting in a sub that way, once, during his naval training. But since he didn’t actually know how fast they were rising, he was too scared to vent any air from the buoyancy tubes, which would slow their rate of ascent. What if they were barely rising as it was, and he let too much air out. He imagined coming to within fifty feet of the surface, the sunlit world above tantalizingly visible, only to begin sinking back down to the depths, slowly at first, then with increasing momentum the deeper they went, knowing that this time it was for keeps…
“Hay Jayden….you fall asleep on me?”
Carter’s voice jolted the sub pilot from his unnerving reverie.
“Huh? Nah, I’m with you.”
“Good because I’d say we’re not more than a couple of hundred feet from the surface. SCUBA depths!”
Compared to where they had just been, 200 feet was like being outside, but still in one’s backyard compared to halfway up Mount Everest. They were almost back to the ship.
Jayden stared at the depth gauge and found that he could now read it. The light around them was now dark blue instead of black or gray. A large school of silver fish cascaded past them. They were returning to the familiar world they knew and loved.
“We are going up fast,” Carter observed. In just a few seconds they were perhaps half the distance to the surface.
“I don’t see the bottom of any ships,” Jayden said. “At least we’re not going to hit anything.”
“Brace,” Jayden warned as he gripped onto a handhold above him to the left. They were sometimes used to aid in getting in and out of the sub. This was the first time he’d ever had to use one while underwater, and he wished he didn’t have to, but at least it was an option.
Sunlight burst all around them as fractured rays filtered through the ocean’s uppermost layers. Carter also held on and they looked upwards into the sun, so blindingly bright after so many hours in darkness. The blue sky appeared wavy and indistinct as they drew near the surface, and then water was washing over the bubble dome as they broke free of the ocean into the world of air once again.
“Hold on,” Jayden called out as their craft nearly came completely free of the water. As it levelled out mid-air, he saw two ships, one closer than the other by about a football field.
They landed back into the water with a great splash, both men jarring on impact.
“The good news is we made it back from the deep!” Carter said staring at the seascape in front of them.
“What’s the bad news?”
“The bad news is that ship closest to us? That’s not our ship, it’s the one our submersible friends launched from.”
“Great. We’re dead in the water,” Jayden said.
Chapter 8
The throaty roar of a small boat starting up should have been something to instill confidence into the two wayward submariners. Instead, it brought only dread and uncertainty.
“Looks like the support ship of our friends down there launched a little welcoming party for us,” Carter said flatly. He eyed the dead radio wistfully. “I’m not sure Deep Pioneer can see us, since the Transoceanic is blocking their line of sight.”
Jayden stared through the dome as the small boat whipped into a turn and began racing toward them, creating a white wake as it moved. He started to feel a little lightheaded and reached up to open the hatch. “Let’s pop this sucker and then we can send up a flare. They’ll definitely see that.”
Jayden undid the latches and then Carter helped him to push the hatch open, tilt it back and secure it in place. In spite of the oncoming threat, the cool, fresh air that washed over them was invigorating and refreshing beyond words after hours in the stale, systems-deprived submersible cabin. But there was no time to revel in the sensation. “Flares, flares, flares…” Jayden was well aware that all seagoing vessels, including submersibles, were required by the Coast Guard to carry distress flares on board. Jayden rummaged underneath the pilot seat and found what he was looking for: an orange plastic case. He hauled it out, unsnapped it and grinned as he eyed the contents.
“Well lookey here: one flare gun and, count ‘em… one, two, three, four flares!”
Carter plucked the gun and a flare from the case and loaded one of the red cylinders into the pistol. Standing in his seat, bracing with one hand against the open hatch, he held his firing arm up at an angle toward their support ship and fired. With a soft crack and a loud hiss, the bright orange flare traced a line of fire visible even in the broad daylight.
“No way they can miss that,” Jayden said, as the incendiary projectile arced high over both ships, lingered in the sky and then trailed back down toward the sea.
The sound of the oncoming boat’s motors was much louder now, racing toward their incapacitated craft. Jayden started to close the flare box but Carter put a hand on it. “Maybe we shouldn’t put these things away just yet.” He reached down, grabbed another flare and loaded it into the gun. Then he tucked the flare gun into the waistband of his pants, pulling his shirt down over it. “Put the case away,” he told Jayden, who snapped the empty container back together and stowed back beneath the seat.
The small boat arced into a turn, pulling up to them without slowing until they were oriented parallel to the sub. The action cause a high wake to nearly turn the sub over, drenching the open cabin and its occupants with icy cold seawater. It was the barest taste of what the Titanic survivors experienced, and yet both ex-military men found it to be excruciatingly uncomfortable.
“Don’t act adversarial yet,” Carter said. “We’re just two seamen who need to be rescued. As far as we know, that’s all this is.”
“Just two seamen in a floating nut?”
“Not the time for jokes, Jayden. Just act like you’re grateful for the rescue.”
One of the boat’s crew, a swarthy-complected man in his late thirties, called out to them. “Your sub lose power?”
“That’s right,” Carter answered.
“You’re lucky to be alive! The man said. Carter thought him to possibly be of Greek heritage, which put him on edge, making him recall a past adversary. Neither Carter nor Jayden said anything beyond nodding, so the crewman continued.
“Hop in and we’ll take you the ship.”
“What about our sub?” Carter asked.
One of the other crewman held up a bundle of rope. “We can tow it behind us. We’ll take it slow.”
Jayden couldn’t help but look at Carter even though it might seem odd. Who wouldn’t want to be towed and rescued from such a situation? But in this case, they were giving up control of their sub — with a safe from the Titanic that might contain a map to a priceless artifact — to an unknown group who had already demonstrated blatant disregard for their safety underwater. Did the boat crew even know what had transpired down below? Chances are they did, Carter mused, since the sub would have a comm system similar to their own in order to stay in touch with their support ship. Carter looked away hastily from Jayden at the boat crew. Everyone here was pretending, yet no one wanted to be the one to start the inevitable confrontation that would likely end badly once the reality of the situation was asserted.