Conflagration of Innocence
A fireball blossomed up from the surface of the North Atlantic Ocean, framing the moons silvery glow with that of a merrily burning inferno. Gunshots and the sound of dying naval personnel carried across the once calm waters of that stretch of ocean, to echo on the walls of a lighthouse. It was an old structure, that looked for all the world like it had not seen use in decades. It had not...In fact the last man to use the inexplicable tower had made sure that no-one could use it ever again. Or so he thought.
A figure pulled himself up from the crashing waves and onto dry land, coughing and spluttering as his lungs rid themselves of the seawater that had managed to find its way into them. His hair, a dark brown, was cut in a fashion typical of US Military personnel. His eyes, green with flecks of brown present closer to the pupil, bore a haunted visage as if he had just seen a ghost. In truth he had seen something far worse. It was 1981, and Ronald Reagan had just been chosen as the new US President. The USSR was at America's throat, and the world waited in fear of an escalation to the conflict.
Francis "Paddy" Paddock, of the 1st Marine Combat Engineers had seen what he assumed to be the beginning of the end. The breakdown of negotiations, the start of the war between Russia and America. He lay face up on the cold stone of the slipway that led up to the lighthouse entrance and shivered uncontrollably. Images of nuclear weapons falling on his country flew through his mind, along with the screaming faces of his comrades aboard the ship that had now begun the process of sinking beneath the waves.
On any normal day his training would be telling him to get up immediately. To gather his strength and do something! It was a testament to his disciplined nature that he was capable of standing at all after the suddenness of the attack. A torpedo that had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and blew a hole in the bottom of the cruiser. It had to be Russian, who else could stand a chance at sneaking up on an American cruiser and blowing a chunk out of her hull?
Francis rolled onto his stomach and propped himself up to look around. A lighthouse so far out to sea? How...why? His clothing consisted of black combat boots, military cargo pants and a black BDU jacket over his black T-shirt. He wished bitterly that the issued uniforms could have been warmer, but that was the military for you. They gave you shitty uniforms and expected you to make good use of the pockets to warm your hands. A drop of salt water slid into his eye, and he rubbed at it for a second before he returned his gaze to the lighthouse.
Well, it was the only structure for miles around in the featureless ocean. It was the obvious choice for protection and shelter, so that was what he set himself on. He got up falteringly, weaving like a drunkard. Tottering slightly, he made his way forward.
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The interior of the foreboding lighthouse was damp and murky, like the very air was swamp water, sickly and cloying. Francis, walking more steadily now, stopped in front of the Bathysphere. His first though way this could not be what it looked like. As a marine, he was trained to work closely with the US Navy, and as such he knew a submersible when he saw one. But it couldn't be, why would there be a submersible in some shitty lighthouse in the middle of the ocean? More importantly, where would it go if he hopped inside and started it up? He stood, mulling over the pros and cons of the two choices he had. Stay stranded in the lighthouse until either the Russians came with a clean-up crew to kill or capture any survivors, or Americans came to rescue him.
Alternatively he could go where the sub would take him, taking into account the possibility that this old hunk of junk could de-pressurise in the deeps and kill him just as surely as a Russian bullet or hypothermia from overexposure to the elements. If in fact this did lead anywhere. He took a step forward and spun the wheel that opened the spheres pressurised hatch. It was slightly rusty...he frowned. Maybe this contraption had indeed been used recently, or more recently than the state of the lighthouse would have led him to believe. All this way out at sea and it was only slightly rusty. That meant that someone had oiled this regularly at some point in the not so distant past.
He swung the door open, and as the hinges protested he took his first look at the interior. It chilled him to the bone, for no apparent reason. Maybe it was just the fact that he had no weapon if something went wrong, or maybe it was just the afterglow of the deep sense of despair he had experienced when he had seen his ship go down, but it gave him the willies. He dispelled the sense of impending doom by falling back on his training, as he done so many times before. He surveyed the interior of the Bathysphere with the practised eyes of a military combat engineer. He was trained to fix tanks, Light Armoured Vehicles and the like. This gismo was older than sin but he felt confident in his abilities to use it, even if it had been damaged in some way over the years.
With a sigh he made himself as comfortable as he could and started systematically examining the workings of the Bathysphere. He managed to remove some panels with his Swiss Army knife and had a peak inside, and began piercingly wishing that he had managed to save some of his gear before he abandoned ship. He missed the reassuring weight of an M16, the strain of a full pack on his shoulders. As those thoughts swirled through his brain, his questing gaze met something interesting. A section of piping that had been removed, forcefully by the look of it, with some sort of mechanical instrument, most likely a wrench. Whoever had been here last clearly wished the secrets of the submersible to remain secrets. "Well fuck me anyway," Paddy gripped purely to himself.
The sound of his voice echoed around the lighthouse, and Francis shuddered. He could handle fire-fights, he could handle explosions...hell he could even handle military cooking. What he didn't like was walking into the unknown like a fool. Well, it wasn't exactly like a fool, he was making this decision for all the right reasons. The Russians could begin sweeping the lighthouse any minute, searching for survivors. If he was found then he would remain as a prisoner of war, or worse they would just shot him straight up. "Fuck that anyway," he reiterated with a slightly different meaning in mind. Whatever he had to do, he would do to get this submersible working and below the waves before they got here.