Log 0064—Day Cycle 41
At some point last night I fell asleep at the desk, utterly exhausted. Today I feel only marginally better.
Today we built the Prawn Suit in the Moonpool. It's by far the most advanced thing I've put together down here, including the Nuclear Reactor, which has been around for centuries. A Titanium-Lithium shell coated in Aerogel, with Enameled Glass for the cockpit, and lined with Lead for good measure to protect against radiation.
It has two arms with three large fingers on them that can manipulate objects with surprising dexterity. They're attached directly to a storage bay, so I can pick things up in depths that I can't go out and grab it myself. They can also be changed out for more specialized tools, which we're going to need. I've found blueprints for three so far—the Drill Arm, which can break into hardened outcrops of materials, the Torpedo Arm, which can hold up to six torpedoes in twin launchers, and the Grappling Arm, which shoots out a spiked hook trailing behind a tough cable that can drag the Prawn Suit along, or use it to swing from ledges.
The Moonpool did the hard work making all that stuff – my job was to modify it to suit my needs. First, I constructed a fairly simple rotating device for each arm. On the right arm I kept the base manipulator arm and added the torpedo arm. For the left, I also kept the base manipulator arm and added the Grappling Arm. I also built a new Repair Tool, Scanner, and Laser Cutter and fused them to separate arms with a simple toggle switch looped into the cockpit controls. If it works, I should be able to use those tools from inside the Prawn Suit.
Amanda had some ideas for further upgrading the Prawn Suit. We don't have a Cyclops, but we do have the data on making a Thermal Reactor for it, which we might be able to adapt to the Prawn, but we need something that's thermoelectric, and a high conductance polymer, neither of which we have encountered. Even better would be if we could upgrade the light jump jets on the Prawn, but we'd need better alloys to make it work without blowing up. Something like Nickel would be ideal, but not a trace of it.
…
Just making the modifications wiped me out for the day. I don't have much time left. I need to make my attempt tomorrow.
Log 0065—Day Cycle 42
Today is the day. Amanda has been very positive and supportive recently, which is a change. It makes me worried… I must be in even worse shape than I thought.
…
On second thought, no, I realize just how bad of shape I am in. I woke up today and the pustules had spread to my face. They're also filled with bright green pus now. They're very sensitive to the touch, and popping them is extremely painful, and not very helpful. I took a scan of myself and the results were bad. It's an unknown, waterborne bacterium multiplying in my blood stream, no matter what I do on the surface. My immune system is fighting it, but not very effectively.
On that cheery note, time to go.
Log 0066—Day Cycle 42
I took the Prawn and started the descent. The only illumination came from the wispy pale tendrils of the forest of Blood Kelp, the occasional passage of an Ampeel, and the lights from the Prawn. I haven't seen the Reaper yet, but I've armed the Torpedo Arm with six Vortex Torpedoes. Sticking with Alterra's policy of limiting liability, they are strictly non-lethal, creating a small gravitational distortion that should keep any hostile life trapped for long enough to get away. Hopefully.
Once I entered into the cave system proper the biome shifted some. It was still like the Grand Reef, but here in the Deep Grand Reef there's a roof overhead and it's darker. There's a new type of creature out there, too, a true deep-sea Jellyray. It's completely translucent and bioluminescent.
There's also a strange sound coming from up ahead, a sharp, barking sound. I'm worried.
Log 0067—Day Cycle 42
Ow. I found what was making that sound. It was an enormous monster, half squid and half crab. Ugh… okay. It has eight legs and two pincer arms, but unlike a normal crab they're reversed in size – the legs are bigger and longer, the pincer arms are shorter and smaller. The top half is really two layers; the outer layer is a translucent, bulbous sac kind of like a jellyfish, and the inside is a hard brown-green body like a squid. It can walk on its legs or suck in and push out water to swim around. It also has four big eyes over a clawed mouth.
When it saw the Prawn it moved in immediately, latching onto it before I could bring the Torpedoes to bear – it's a lot faster than it looks. The impact knocked over the Prawn and slammed me into the hull. It started scratching at the hull with its pincers and I managed to punch it with the manipulator arm, but then it freaked out and emitted some sort of electrical pulse. The entire Prawn shut down – Power Cell, lights, oxygen filtration, everything. I could only barely see the Crabsquid's pincers scratching the glass as the Prawn settled into the ground, could only hear the sound of it clawing away at the thin shell protecting me and my own breathing.
After a few moments it seemed to lose interest and wandered off, and a few moments later the Prawn rebooted. Once online I started to move forward, and once again the Crabsquid moved to attack. This time I was ready and hit it with a Vortex Torpedo, which bothered it enough that I could get past it.
I'm out of range of it now, I think, taking a moment to pull myself together. My head still hurts, but it's a little better now. I have to keep moving. Up ahead it looks like the cave opens into a larger cavern with more Anchor Pods, gradually sloping downwards.
Log 0068—Day Cycle 42
Things have gone from bad to worse. I moved forward into the larger cave system, and there was the Degasi Sea Base. Unfortunately, five Crabsquids came in behind me and are blocking the exit, including a huge one almost twice the size of the others. I shot a couple with Torpedoes and they're keeping their distance for the moment, but I only have two shots left, not enough to fight through.
I'm trying not to panic by talking.
The base is their biggest one, complete with several Multi-Purpose Rooms and a Moonpool. It hasn't been used in a while, with green algae growing on most of it, though it's hard to see because the there's no power going to the… wait, it doesn't have spotlights, unlike their other bases. I wonder… this gives me an idea.