A towering shadow shifted behind her. Mack moved Maia aside and walked in.
“You can go,” Kau said to his wife.
“What’s wrong with the generator?” Cyan looked up at Mack.
“Couldn’t find anything specific,” Mack said. “Seems to be happening more. I’ll check the cooling systems. Might have to call mainland engineering in to have a look.”
“Anything yet?” Cyan rested her hand on Kau’s shoulder.
Kau shook his head.
“Dammit. I’m suiting up.” She headed out.
CYAN SHADED HER eyes as she stood on the curved dive entry deck of the partially submerged Rori Underwater Research Facility, built for the scientific study and genetic manipulation of rori — Māori for sea cucumber — for their water filtering abilities. From the air, RURF had the shape of a puzzle piece: two circular areas at bow and stern and the entire deck constructed of long teak planks. The center housed solar panels arranged like flower petals above the generator, pumps, cooling systems, and everything mechanical to do with running RURF. Comms, the lab, kitchen, and their quarters, edged the perimeter. Ballast tanks lined the underside, ocean water pumped in and out to stabilize the platform on the sandy bottom, cooling the equipment and providing air conditioning. Every year scientists and engineers from all over the world visited RURF, a foolproof engineering marvel until now.
Twenty-two meters out, a dark blue circle of calm water separated Cyan from her husband, Dr. John Blake.
Whooping helicopter blades blew golden strands of blonde into her face. “This can’t be good.” She pulled her hair into a ponytail and hurried to get her gear on.
The chopper landed on the pad, deposited four men in uniform, then took off again. Cyan hadn’t even zipped her wetsuit when one of them approached.
“Dr. Blake!” he said.
She ignored him and tugged on the cord behind her, using the helicopter noise as a good excuse to pretend she didn’t hear him.
His footsteps rattled the boards under her bare soles. “Dr. Blake. I’m Captain Richards.”
Cyan huffed and turned around. “Captain, I don’t have time… What are you doing here? Never mind. Talk to Mack, he’s in charge of whatever’s going on with the generator. I’m going in.”
“No, you’re not. Ensign Smith is. I have orders to—”
Kau’s curly black hair came up the stairwell, followed by the rest of him. “What’s going on?”
Cyan checked her tank, put her vest over the top of it, then latched it into place. “Kau did you call these guys? Maybe Mack did?”
“He’s still working on the generator.”
Richards stepped in front of her. “Dr. Blake, at zero, eight, thirty-seven hundred hours your husband set off a sensor at Shelf 9. We were deployed immediately as that’s a violation of—”
She stopped fidgeting with the regulator and gauge hoses. “What are you talking about? Besides being physically impossible, we never go past the third shelf,” she lied.
Within the last few weeks, they’d noticed more productive filtration coming from the sea cucumbers the deeper they went. They’d needed more specimens to study the anomaly. That’s why John had gone down to Shelf 5, a restricted area only because of its sixty-meter depth.
Underwater caves and lava tubes branched off the main vent of a dead volcano and then ascended onto dry land shelves further inside. The shelves contained breathable air, making it optimal for human exploration.
Richards’ team carried and rolled big black cases and trunks to the dive entry deck. They set them down near her gear and prepped equipment onto a frame she’d always wondered the purpose of. It appeared these men had more familiarity with RURF than she did.
One of them, Ensign Smith she presumed, already had on an NZDF issue black wetsuit. “Oy, why’s your gear strapped to nitrox if you ain’t going past thirty meters?” he said.
Cyan pointed at Kau and lied some more. “He brought me the wrong tank. See, we’re all in a bit of a rush to get to John.”
The other two Defence Force members pulled a large helmet from a box and attached it to Smith’s odd, hybrid atmospheric suit. It sealed with a click and a hiss. Before she could ask, Ensign Smith stepped into the water carrying a large pack, blasting up plumes of creamy sand and silt.
Asshole.
“Where’s your operations room?” Richards said. “My men need to link the A/V.”
“Captain, I don’t care who you are, we’re not switching John’s feed to yours.”
Richards reached for his sidearm. “I have orders to—”
“John’s is still down,” Kau said. “I think it’ll be okay if they use it.”
“Thanks a lot, Kau.” She’d said it sarcastically, but he likely just saved her ass.
“Sorry.” Kau shrugged and lowered his head.
“Show these men to comms. I’ll be there soon.” Cyan glanced at the sword and writing on their uniform patches.
The men followed Kau below. She peered over the deck and watched Ensign Smith approach the blue hole, leaving a milky ocean behind him.
“Come back, John,” she said. His diving skills ranked in the pro level, and they’d stored plenty of nitrox tanks on the shelves for deeper dives, but she worried anyway. Cyan stepped away when dark water caught her eye. The sunlight and waves distorted everything under the surface, so she squinted and lay prone with her head over the deck.
Ensign Smith’s landing had shifted the cover of hundreds, maybe thousands of black sea cucumbers, Holothuria leucospilota. Cyan had never seen such a dense population before and wondered how far they spread around RURF’s platform. Long white strands, their innards, or Cuvierian tubules, undulated below. Like her, they saw Smith as a threat and went guts out, a self-defense mechanism. She’d see the ensign eviscerated before doing that to herself. Dozens stuck to his boots and legs. No wonder he made such massive silt clouds. Cyan headed for the engineering room. She needed to calm and think straight, not that she’d get that from Mack.
The Aussie was up to his neck in a panel box when she arrived.
“Is that a good idea?” she said.
His head banged gray aluminum as he backed out. “Ouch.” He rubbed his skull in quick circles. “You told me to look into it, and that’s what I’m doin’.”
“So, what’s the story with the pumps?” Cyan leaned against a post.
“I can’t figure. Says they’re functional. Pressure’s right. We’re still running on stored battery power though, and the cells won’t last more than a day or two. We’ll have to shut down energy suckers like the lab. And pray clouds don’t roll in.”
“You call someone out?”
“Thought I heard a choppy topside. No way it’s those engineering dills. So, who’s here?”
“Military. But not like I’ve seen before. There’s a long sword on their insignia. Innovative and Agile or something it reads at the bottom. You were Anzac. Know it?”
Mack scratched the stubble on his chin with the wrench in his hand. “Hmm… Special Ops Forces. What those diggers want with RURF?”
“It’s something in the blue hole they’re after. They’ve already sent a man down.”
“I’m sure they’re just here to rescue John.”
“Captain Richards said they came because John triggered an alarm on Shelf 9. Why would they have alarms down there?”
“They’ve had control since its discovery. RURF’s crew’s the first non-military they let go near it,” Mack said. “How far down you think their secret project goes?”
“I don’t know. Deeper than we can venture with our gear.” Cyan took in a breath then exhaled. “Honest, I don’t give two fucks what’s down there, Mack. I just want John back.”
“And you trust these diggers’r gonna do that?”