Two crewmen quickly attached the ladder to the escape trunk, while Brigger supervised the assembly and installation of the power hatch operating equipment. It took only a few minutes before the lieutenant launched the SEPRIB emergency beacon, a signaling device that would transmit an automated radio distress call the moment it reached the surface.
Locking eyes with Devon, he gave the younger man a professional nod. “Hernandez and Smith, you’re both up first. Godspeed.”
Devon nodded and saluted the lieutenant as another crewmember opened up the lower hatch leading up to the Nashville’s aft escape trunk. The small compartment functioned like an airlock, allowing the crew to get away from a disabled submarine, albeit only two at a time. After putting on their outer suits and placing the small desalination kit in a pouch attached to his belt, Devon helped Smith up into the narrow chamber first, before climbing the ladder and wedging himself into the tight alcove.
After hearing the lower hatch close up below him, Devon quickly started pulling the lever to partially flood the cramped chamber. Escape training procedures stressed that the pressure inside the escape trunk needed to equalize with the outside pressure of the water around the stricken submarine.
Smith started to cry as the water inside the trunk began to rise. “Oh my god, we’re dead. We’re dead!”
“Calm down,” Devon said. “We’re nearly there.”
Both men were literally hugging each other as their escape suits expanded like pufferfishes. The SEIE had built-in positive buoyancy, allowing it to go nearly as fast as two hundred meters per minute while making the ascent back to the ocean’s surface.
The next few minutes felt like a blur as Devon managed to get the outer hatch open, revealing nothing but a liquid darkness all around them. Smith kept screaming as their SEIE suits began to propel them through the hatch, while at the same time Devon caught a glimpse of the rescue beacon.
Devon looked up, and his eyes widened in surprise as a gigantic, ghostly sea creature loomed just above them. The rescue beacon had landed squarely on the gargantuan being’s translucent underside. For a brief second, Devon saw a flash of bioluminescence as a light bluish glow emanated from the creature’s body, just before the escape suit made him shoot upwards like an undersea bottle rocket, narrowly missing a collision with one of the multiple, man-sized segmented limbs the organism was using to propel itself along the depths.
The shock of seeing such a colossal beast made him breathe out the remaining air in his lungs, preventing a catastrophic internal injury as the pressure around him decreased with each meter of ascent. Devon heard more distant echoes akin to popping corn coming from below him, and he knew then that the creature had detected them, and resumed its attack on the Nashville, finishing off her remaining crew before they could escape.
He was just about to black out when the top of his suit breached the surface of the water. Dusk had already darkened the low swells of the Arabian Sea, and it seemed like he was all alone in the middle of a vast liquid expanse when Smith’s suit popped up above the smooth waves a few meters away to his right.
“Smith,” he cried out as he began to use his arms to paddle towards the other surviving crewman, but the inflated limbs of his suit made it harder than usual.
It took several minutes until Devon was able to get close and grab Smith’s suit by his collar. “You okay? You okay?”
When he unzipped his own hood and was able to stare at his crewmate, Devon realized the awful truth. Smith made a slight choking noise before his eyes rolled up and the young submariner died.
Devon cringed as tears began to form in his eyes. “No, no!”
Even as Devon threw off the other man’s hood, Smith was unresponsive. It was clear that the machinist’s mate had held his breath during the rapid ascent, and his lungs had evidently ruptured, causing pulmonary overinflation syndrome followed by an embolism.
Devon held on to the other man’s corpse as he started to cry. A cascade of guilt swept over him, making his whole body tremble in the water. Just as he began to think of what to do next, Devon felt a sharp pain in his left calf muscle.
He tried to move his leg to shake it off, but he began to panic when a sudden, irresistible weight began to drag him downwards. Devon only had time for a short scream before the sharp end of a translucent raptorial claw pulled the rest of his body underwater.
9
BUCKLED DOWN INSIDE the passenger section of the AgustaWestland AW139 helicopter, Gordon Gietz closed his eyes, hoping the headache would go away. Water droplets pelted the side windows as the chopper flew into a misty gray raincloud before zooming back out into the clear.
He had managed to arrive in Dubai just hours before, only to learn that the diving support vessel he was supposed to board was already at sea. The company quickly put him and another diver on a helicopter heading out into the Gulf of Oman in order to rendezvous with the ship.
Gordon felt a slight nudge on his left elbow. He opened his eyes and turned to see his fellow diver sitting beside him, grinning madly while listening to heavy metal on his headphones. Don O’Keefe was a couple of years younger than him, and he still had the youthful enthusiasm of a rookie tender as he gestured at Gordon to look out the window.
Shaking his head slightly, Gordon tightened his jaw and closed his eyes once again. The only time he’d had any rest was on the flight over, and he was still exhausted. Maybe I’m getting too old for this, he thought.
O’Keefe had a wild mane of sandy blond hair jutting out from beneath his knitted beanie hat. The constant rumbling of the main rotors forced him to shout since Gordon had muted his own headset. “Didn’t I tell you? It’s my first time ever riding in a chopper, man!”
Gordon heard his partner’s muffled statement and nodded while keeping his eyes closed. “Good for you, now can you just shut the hell up and let me sleep?”
“Up to you, dude, but you’re missing the landing part. It’s happening right now!”
Gordon blinked his eyes open once more. O’Keefe was right. They were now hovering just above the elevated landing pad jutting out from the bow of the ship. The DSV Skandi Aurora had a red painted hull and an elevated forward deck, resembling a postmodern version of the forecastle, while her aft deck was considerably closer to the waterline, in order to facilitate the saturation diving system.
The rough seas below, combined with the heavy tailwind, forced the helicopter pilot to abort the first landing. For several long minutes the chopper continued to make slight adjustments while hovering, before finally managing to put its wheels down onto the slick helipad.
Turning around, the helicopter pilot jammed his thumb towards the two men. “Hurry up, and keep your heads down. I’m not turning the rotor off.”
Gordon quickly unbuckled himself from the restraints and took the headset off before grabbing the two duffel bags sitting by his legs. It took him a few extra seconds to locate the latch to open the passenger door. By then O’Keefe had already gotten off and was heading down the steps onto the roof of the ship’s bridge. Gordon grimaced as he stooped low, careful to avoid the chopper’s still spinning top rotor blades. The AW139 helicopter lifted off again the moment he cleared the pad as the adjoining door on the roof deck opened up and a smiling, paunchy man wearing a windbreaker with the corporate logo stepped out to greet them.
Matt Mullins held his right hand out. A thirty year veteran of saturation diving, he had ultimately worked his way up to becoming a supervisor, tasked with remotely leading and coordinating the divers from the ship’s control room. “Sorry the boat had to leave early, guys, but they sort of pushed the schedule up ahead. Lots of things happening as we speak.”