“Right, mate. Steady now.”
Causey eyed his nearest phone-talker. “To maneuvering, make turns for all-back nine knots.”
“Maneuvering acknowledges turns for all back nine knots, sir.”
“Very well.” The thrumming deck confirmed the submarine’s movement.
“Are you in motion?”
“I’m just getting started.”
“There you go. I see some sediment being kicked up. Your work lights just got dimmer.”
“I see it, too.” Causey turned his gaze from the laptop to a jury-rigged speed gauge his electronics division had set up near the watertight door. “We’re at two knots.”
Cahill nodded.
As Causey watched the luminous circle under his submarine grow, the sluggish journey went awry. “It looks like I’m tracking to your left.”
“You are. Don’t maneuver, though. I’ll adjust.” The Australian extended his arm and raised his voice. “I’m using me outboards to move five meters down the ravine.”
The Indiana’s commander watched the leftmost monitor follow the ravine’s lip, which seemed to move northward as a camera under the Goliath slid southward above it.
“Bloody hell.” In the central laptop’s display, Cahill staggered and then recovered.
In the leftmost laptop, a cloud of sediment billowed underneath the camera. “Are you alright?”
Cahill released a nervous smile. “Never better. The waves above us are getting ornery, shoving us around a bit down here. That was bound to happen, I imagine. At least mud’s quiet when you hit it.”
As the glowing sphere grew, it outlined the silhouette of the tilted submarine. Causey thought he was watching his ship steaming in a slow-motion video. “We’re playing a patient man’s game.”
“No kidding. Keep it steady. No rush. I’m moving another two meters to the left.”
After a seeming eternity, Causey discerned his propulsor, rudder, and stern planes. Then he watched his ship’s growing size steady as the moving lens matched its speed towards the Goliath. When the rover settled over the cargo ship, the Indiana’s size expanded again.
“Alright, commander. Slow it down. Make turns for four knots.”
The Indiana’s commander relayed the order to his engineering team. “Time for even more patience.”
“Coming left another half meter.”
Mesmerized, Causey stood in quiet, trusting awe of the gentle dance between the hefty undersea vessels.
“Make turns for two knots, now.”
Causey relayed the order to his engineering staff, and then seconds later he rocked back on his heels for balance as the deck halted.
“I’ve got you! All stop!”
“To maneuvering, all stop!”
“Maneuvering answers all stop, sir.”
“Very well.” The rightmost monitor showed hydraulic rams rotating against the Indiana’s hull while the leftmost laptop became the blackness of the ravine’s lip fusing with the Goliath’s burdened keel.
“And now I’ve got you pressed into me cargo bed. Yeah… it’s much better than before. This could work.”
“I’ll shift my water and people like last time and keep pushing air into the ballast tanks.”
“It takes a while to blow them dry with reduced air, doesn’t it?”
Causey appreciated the Australian’s attempts at small talk instead of dwelling upon the dangers around them. “Forever.” He grabbed a phone-talker and told him to have the executive officer shift water and people about the engine room to reverse the leverage towards the cargo ship.
Cahill furrowed his brow and reminded Causey of an offhand comment he’d made during their slow transit. “Commander, you said you had an idea to speed things up?”
“If you’ll let me send you the feed, I’ll show you. I’m already working on it.”
“Alright.” Cahill reached his arm forward, and then the screen with his image went black while his Australian accent remained audible from the computer. “Go ahead and send the feed.”
Causey pressed keys on the central laptop, and a view of the two divers in his forward compartment’s upper level appeared. Within the white cones from their flashlights, inflated garbage bags rose into the hull’s insulation. The Indiana’s commander aimed his jaw at the diving officer standing beside him. “How far along are they?”
“They’re filling their eighteenth bag, sir.”
“Sixty gallons per bag displaces almost five hundred pounds. So, that’s about four and a half tons of buoyancy.”
“I admit I haven’t done the math, sir. I can see that they’re not able to fill them completely since they need a lot of slack in the necks to tie them down.”
The exchange gave the Indiana’s commander a thought. “Damn it. Hold on. How completely are they filling them?”
“I’m not watching those details, sir. I’m just watching to make sure my guys have air, don’t get stuck in there, and don’t get the bends. Senior chief’s in communication with them.”
“We’ll check with him later. We first need to consider what happens when we change depth. The Goliath needs the freedom to do that with us aboard.”
His brows raised in realization, the burly diver agreed. “When we go deeper, the bags will compress and make us heavier.”
“Exactly. I’m not sure if Mister Cahill will be able to adjust for that.”
“He’d better, or else we’re not coming home.”
“We’ll remind him of that before he’d take us down.”
The Australian accent issued from a laptop. “I stand reminded, gents. In fact, I’m putting an alert in me system right now to warn me before we got below seventy meters. We’ll see the same effect of compressed air in your ballast tanks, which I normally don’t consider because they’re usually flooded. So, yeah, I’m not taking you deeper unless I have to.”
Causey leaned forward. “Much appreciated, Mister Cahill.”
“It’s a great point, mate. I’m glad you brought it up. Now that we’re talking optimistically about me being able to carry you, I’m also going to set an alert at fifty-five meters so that I don’t give your divers the bends.”
“We’ll get them back into the tunnel if we go shallow, but I appreciate the precaution. Which takes us to the worst part about the garbage bags — the makeshift balloons.” Causey recalled basic physics effects. “It’s going shallow that’s concern. We’ll get lighter, which will be great until the bags pop. Then we’ll become instantly heavier, and they’ll make a lot of noise.”
Lieutenant Hansen shared the governing equation. “Pressure times volume before a change in depth equals pressure times volume after a change in depth. If pressure goes down, volume expands, and boom. Shit, sir. I apologize. I should’ve thought of this. The bags in the lower level are at about one hundred and five pounds per square inch. On the surface, they’ll still be under about twenty feet of water, so at about twenty pounds.”
“Do the math and check it twice.” Causey looked to the laptop and watched one diver shut a valve in the hundred-pound air line while his buddy pulled a floating garbage bag from the header and then knotted it sealed like a balloon. “We’ll have to remind the divers about this.”
“Before I run the numbers, I’m more curious about the ballast tanks, sir. May I?” Lieutenant Hansen reached for the laptop and flipped the view to a hose running under the Indiana. “Shit, that doesn’t look good. Senior chief, has the external team reported in since we were loaded?”