Author's Note: YAY! Almost done! Or are we? How's that sequel sounding everyone?
~
Chapter Nineteen
Saved by Whales
~
Four Hours Later, Pacific Ocean
Virgil had finally escaped the enclosed atmosphere of the Earth's underground. She'd gone to hell and back, and brought everyone back with her. She flew up a few meters into the watery world of Earth, and then fell dead to the ground, once more a solid mass in an uncaring world.
The lights and electronics died immediately. Iverson toggled the switches and gears without success.
"Where'd our power go?"
"Well, we were powered by the heat." said Josh, flipping a few dead switches. "It's stone cold down here." There was a momentary pause as everyone sighed in disappointment. "Well, look on the bright side." Josh smiled sadly. "At least we're not going to boil to death."
Serge laughed. Iverson and the others merely smiled. Beck turned her chair around to face him with a cynical grin.
"You always look on the bright side?"
Josh looked up, a light kindling in his eyes. He nodded his head vividly and eagerly.
"Always."
Iverson turned to face the rest of his crew.
"All right now, lets assess: we've got no communications. We're probably eight hundred feet down, but we might as well be eight hundred miles. We're in an Unobtainium cigar tube with the sonar signature of a rock. We've got just enough power to make the ultrasonics burp, but no one's listening on those frequencies anyway, and...nobody even knows we're alive."
Josh rested his head on the back of his chair. His eyes considered the ceiling momentarily, then his gaze dropped back down to the expectant Iverson.
"Okay. Give me a minute on this one."
~
Off the Coast of Hawaii, the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln
Purcell had 'rented' out an armed aircraft carrier to obtain their fallen heroes, or what some believed was left of them. On board was Doctor Leveque's wife and two children, as well as some distant friends of Doctor's Zimsky and Brazzelton who had known about the operation at hand. Fortunately, they were not in the room at the time of Purcell's complaints resembling an annoying Shakespearean soliloquy.
"This is hopeless."
"Come on General, we've got to be getting close." Came the ever looming voice of the one person Purcell hated most. Rat had come along, why or how he didn't know. He was almost certain the kid had stowed away, but officials assured him that Rat had had permission to board. Something he'd noted to check into later. "We can't just..."
"Mr. Rat, even if they were still alive, there's no way they could contact us-"
A phone rang.
"Bridge."
Sounds like a good reason to look harder. Rat thought to himself.
The man who answered the phone looked over at the arguing pair.
"Skipper, Combat relays that our sub has something on the sonar."
"Where do they thing-"
"Bill, put it up on the hydrophone." Rat interrupted.
Bill did just that. They waited in eagerness for a few seconds before the sound resonated through the station.
"Whales, sir."
"They're a long way off their usual path," the Captain commented. "But that's not uncommon since that, uh...what are they calling it? Orbital wobble?"
"Yeah, that's what they call it." Purcell stated. He turned, his face solemn and dark. "Well, thank you very much Captain, but I think we're done here."
"General." He saluted. Purcell returned it and left the station, his frown deepening with every step. Rat watched him leave, angry and hurt. He'd let Josh down.
"J.O. This is the Captain. Stand down from SAR Operations."
~
Purcell stood and waited calmly with Stickley. He eyed Rat walking somberly across the landing strip as they awaited their chopper to land to take them home. It wasn't going to be a happy journey. Already Purcell feared telling Mrs. Leveque that her husband would not be returning home, or hearing from his own mouth that Doctor Zimsky would never be completing that next book deal. It seemed so wrong. And at the same time, he feared telling General Childs that his daughter had been lost in a mission that he could never know anything about.
How he would miss her bright, smiling, youthful face every day at headquarters, or hearing her perky voice come over the coms from the next space mission. Never again, he realized, watching the setting sun. Never again.
~
Rat stared at the rotating propeller on the chopper for long minutes. Everything was lost. He felt so useless. Of all things, Rat had failed at the one thing that was inexcusable. Failed at the one thing that was the most important. He had failed his friendship to Josh, his promise to lead them safely out of there. The promise Rat had made himself when Josh alone stuck up for him in front of the others, taking on Purcell, Zimsky, and even the doubts of his French friend, all because he had trust in him. He had failed. That was the worst feeling in all the world.
Yet, as he stared at those spinning propellers, something happened. A spark ignited in the technologically advanced brain of the young man who had thought he'd lost everything, and soon realized that it was all just a little further away then they'd expected. He turned and bolted down landing strip, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"It's whales! It's whales! Hey! General! Stick! It's whales! The ultrasonics! They're singing to them! You gotta find the whales!"
~
A few specialists took a chopper and flew it over the strongest resonance point where the whales were breaching and singing.
"Alpha X Ray, this is November Echo six one zero. I'm changing-" What they suddenly saw amazed them. Not just one or two, but ten to twelve pods were dancing and spiraling in the water, all around one designated point! "Hold on, I'm seeing those whales now. Whoa!" One jumped out of the water just a few yards from them. "Okay, ball's in the water. This is neat. Those whales are circling something." They pulled up to get a better view. "Hold on. We've got a strong echo here. Depth eight hundred feet. There-there's something down there. There's definitely something down there."
~
Some divers broke the water surface and sunk a few yard below to get a better observation of the process taking place. One looked to the other and gave a thumbs up. Nothing could go wrong now as Virgil broke from the shadows of the underworld forever to greet once more the light of day, and the kiss of the sun.
~
Virgil
Everyone was now huddled at the back of the craft as Virgil journey straight up toward the surface. No one could be happier now to know that they were going home at long last.
"I told you pulsing the ultrasonics would work." Josh grinned at the others.
"Do you ever get tired of being right?" Beck smiled.
"Yes." Josh admitted. The others chuckled. "So what's next?"
"A shower." Beck smiled. "Then back to NASA, I guess."
"Home." Serge stated afterward with a longing smile. "See the kids. I'm taking a week...no a month...two months off of work."
"Two?" Josh raised surprised eyebrows.
"Yeah. Spending time with the kids, and I'll probably consider early retirement from this day on." Everyone laughed.
"I have a book deal to make." Zimsky smiled, now fully conscious and aware of his surroundings.
"Two, wasn't it?" Braz asked.
"Two. Yeah. I was thinking that I'd have some help on that one." He turned and smiled at Braz. "Interested?"
Braz grinned, slightly embarrassed. "Naw." he snorted.
"Well I mean come on, I'm going to have to have someone tell me the ingenious plan behind this ship. How else am I going to-"
"Oh so you can take more credit for-"
"What are you talking about, you know I..."
The argument persisted, but the others ignored it, as they had so wisely learned how to do in the days prior to their homecoming.
"What about you?" Serge asked with a hopeful grin. Josh smiled, considering.
"Deep-dish pepperoni pizza, green peppers, onions, extra mushrooms--than a shower, a few weeks in the classroom...the Paris."
Serge smiled.
"Ah! You remembered!"
"Remembered what?"
"Your promise."
"Oh, yeah."
"Back to the classroom?" Beck asked. Josh nodded. "NASA could use a few good men, you know."
Josh looked up and saw the hint in her eyes. He only hoped no one noticed the reddening in his features.
"Yeah." he sighed. "Unfortunately so could my freshman geophysics students."
They both sighed, trying to hide their disappointment. Serge and Bob tried to hide their own as well. There was a moment of silence, before at last Beck began talking once more.
"You know what makes me really, really angry?" everyone considered her thoughtfully then. A frown, dark and dangerous, passed through her features, making her seem older and more mature than she should be. But they assumed that they had all been changed that way. After what they had been through, it would be awkward if they hadn't changed. "No one's every going to know about this? Not so much what we've done, but what could have happened."
"Who risked their lives for the world." Zimsky stated.
"Who risked their lives for us." Serge added.
Josh smiled. This sounded like a job for a friend of his.
"Unless of course, it all got out."
Beck eyed him.
"That's unthinkable."
Josh grinned mysteriously. That grin that Serge knew spelled youthful trouble.
"Yeah..."
Author's Note: Oo la la! What's next?
