“I’ve no idea, but this can’t be good.”
The hab heaved up again and this time it was accompanied by a loud groaning sound.
“This is stupid.” Kate said. “Let’s turn the drive on and make some slack. Williams will be doing his committee thing. There is no way he can make a decision in under an hour.”
Morrison took one step back from the console and waved at it with his hand. “You want to drive?” he asked Kate.
She got up off the floor just as the deck heaved again and fell down on the mattress. “Yes, I do.”
She rolled over, got up and joined Morrison at the console. She quickly got to the drive system page and set the drive ascent rate to twice what it was before. They heard the drive motors spin up.
The Pheia gradually rose in the water. It was rising faster than the cable from the barge and so it created some slack.
They all stood in the ops room waiting. The hab seemed to be stable again. “You think that’s enough?” Kate asked. She was looking at Morrison.
“Yes, probably. We only need a few feet of slack.”
Kate altered the ascent rate to the normal setting and let out a breath. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The sound the hab had made brought back memories of the accident. She was sure it had been one of the tunnel sections getting wrenched further from the cylinder.
On the surface, Babin had already decided the Pheia could not take the strain of the wrenching it was getting and had told the winch operator to hold the ascent and pay out some cable. She wasn’t specific about the amount of cable so the operator let it run out for a while then shut off the winch and locked it.
Babin was about to get on the comm system and let the Pheia know they would need to re-engage the drive system when the next wave rolled by.
The combination of the Pheia moving up and the winch line being let out had caused a loop of cable that extended down below the bottom of the Pheia. As the next wave hit, the surface barge rose up over the wave pulling the cable up rapidly. The bottom loop of the cable came up under the crew cylinder and caught on the gas cylinders on the outside of it. The energy in the wave was enormous. As the barge rose up over the wave, the cable pulled taut. The crew cylinder was pulled violently up snapping the support cables that held it to the other half of the Pheia. As the crew cylinder rotated up and away it snapped off the upper tunnel completely so that the crew cylinder was connected to the ops cylinder by only the gas and electrical connections at the top.
The wave passed by and the barge descended into the trough behind it. The cable went slack again and released the crew cylinder which floated at 90 degrees from the ops cylinder. As the cable went slack, the Pheia adjusted its attitude so both cylinders were out at an angle joining at the top to form a pyramid shape.
Everyone in the ops cylinder was lying on the floor which was at a crazy angle. The console was emitting several different alarm sounds. The force had pulled the ops cylinder sideways enough to unbalance them all at once. Stephens had hit his head on the way down and was sat on the floor with his hand covering a gash that was bleeding through his fingers.
Morrison was first up and quickly pulled up the system status screen on the console. There was so much red it was hard to find anything that was OK. “Jesus,” he said.
Kate stood next to him. “Any leaks?” she asked.
“I have no idea. Look at it. It’s all red.”
Kate pushed him out of the way and quickly went through the system screens. “No. We’re OK. The gas rates look good.”
“Are you sure?” Morrison asked over the sound of the alarms.
“Yes. I spent a lot of time learning my way through this stuff. We’re OK for now.”
Kate tapped a couple of buttons on the screens and shut the alarms off.
She was truly frightened for the first time since they had left the surface. The other problems had been like puzzles to solve, and for those there had been enough time to think.
This felt very different. This could be the end if there was anything seriously wrong with the ops cylinder.
Kate looked at Morrison hoping like hell he had some ideas. “So?” she asked.
Before Morrison could answer the console alarm sounded again.
Kate scanned the screens. “The drive system is out.”
Before Morrison could respond the comm link came alive from the surface.
“Are you folks OK? Over.”
Morrison was closest to the mike and pressed the talk button. “We’re fine. We got yanked around pretty hard and we had a lot of alarms. Don’t know the extent of the damage yet. We had the drives running when it hit and the cylinder is at quite an angle. Over.”
“This is Williams, by the way. We have some big waves up here. We are not sure if we can stay on station or not but we will stay as long as possible. Babin says we cannot afford to risk the winch getting damaged by another big wave so we need to let out some slack and have you float. Can you do that?” There was a pause. “Sorry. Over.”
Kate looked at the screens. “The drive system looks like it’s dead,” she said to Morrison.
“We’ll figure something out,” he said to her, then pressed the talk button. “Negative on the drive system. It’s out. We’ll assess what we have operational and get back to you. Over.”
There was a long delay before Williams came back. “Understood. We will do what we can from up here. Let me know if anything changes. Over.”
“Roger. Out.”
Kate had moved to the portal. The Pheia’s lights lit up the wall. “Oh crap” she said. “We’re sinking.”
Morrison hit the talk button. “Surface. We are sinking slowly. Pay out cable. I Repeat. Pay out cable. Acknowledge.”
A different voice came over the speaker. “Understood. Paying out cable now.”
From the accent, Morrison thought it was Leclerc. That was good. He would understand without a lot of conversation.
Stephens and Washington were at the portal with Kate. Stephens turned to face Morrison. “We need a lifting bag.”
“Or an anchor.” Washington added.
Morrison looked at Kate. She shook her head. “There is nothing like that on board.”
“OK, we’ll go with what we brought down.”
Stephens and Washington were already suiting up. Washington paused before he put his helmet on. “I hope you have a plan boss,” he said to Morrison. He didn’t wait for a reply. He stepped down the ladder, secured his helmet, and submerged out of sight. Stephens followed him a few seconds later.
“Good luck,” Kate said to Morrison as he pulled on his suit. He looked back at her. She seemed calm.
“You OK?” he asked.
“Yes. This is fun.” She tried to smile but couldn’t. “What do you want me to do?”
“Shit. I nearly forgot.” Morrison dug into the big kit bag and pulled out a small waterproof plastic case and a headset. “Here,” he said, handing it to Kate. “Put the headset on and turn the radio on. You should be able to hear us if you stand near the window.”
Kate took the radio and put on the headset. She turned the unit on and pushed the talk button. “Can you hear me?” Morrison nodded and Kate heard Stephens and Washington both say “Roger.”
Morrison got into the water.
Kate watched him disappear and then walked to the portal. There was nothing to see except the wall which was moving slowly past in the wrong direction. At least it wasn’t moving very fast but the Pheia had gotten much closer to the wall.
Under the Pheia, the divers swam down to the cage. Williams dumped the gas from the lift bag clipped to its top and unclipped it. “Got the bag boss.” he said over the comms.
“Roger,” Morrison replied as he pulled a spare lifting bag from the bottom of the cage.