Chapter Two
"Report, Mr. O'Brien," the tall captain inquired upon his arrival into the Control Room.
"Proceeding at Full Speed as ordered, Sir. Meeting all checkpoints on schedule," the young lieutenant replied.
"Very well, steady as she goes," Lee replied, checking the boat's current position at the chart table. It had been a full day since they had emerged from the ice and had subsequently been informed of the recent ship wrecks, the last only a week prior. Seaview was now in route to Dr. Sterling's doomed sea lab. Though it was possible a fissure could have opened up elsewhere, this was their best option to begin the search.
"Aye, sir, steady as she goes," O'Brien repeated.
Lee acknowledged with a nod and scanned the situations lights briefly before turning back toward the Officer of the Deck. "I'll be in the Wardroom if you need me."
"Aye, sir," Bobby replied before turning back to his duties.
Lee made his way to the Wardroom, silently pondering the irony of the situation. Cara Sloane had used the Wardroom and the crew's mess to distribute an hallucinate through the salt supply. Her goal was to confuse the crew as they experienced hallucinations of sea monsters so that the voyage would continue once they reasoned there was no real danger, and it had worked. By the time he had realized that the overgrown creatures on their radar and outside Seaview's windows were indeed real, they had reached their destination. He heaved a silent sigh, remembering that Miss Sloane, the beautiful blonde scientist with eyes for no one else but Dr. Sterling, had perished in the doomed sea lab. Such a tragedy, he thought just as he reached the Wardroom door.
He took his seat at the empty Captain's Table, expecting Chip and Harry at any moment, as the steward left a glass of water and offered him coffee. Dinner in the Wardroom was more formal in that the meal was served, unlike the buffet style at breakfast and lunch. As such, he had time to contemplate the tragedy of the destruction of the sea lab.
"You must be in deep thought," noted a familiar voice, as Chip took a seat across from him.
"Just thinking about Sterling… and Miss Sloane," he answered regretfully.
"Yeah, I've had the same thoughts," Chip admitted.
"Have you seen the Admiral?" Lee asked, plastering on a thin smile in an effort to shake the broody mood.
"No. I imagine he's still in the lab."
Lee nodded, just as the subject of his inquiry strode through the door.
"Lee, Chip," Harry greeted, taking his seat as the attentive steward placed a cup of steaming hot coffee in front of the admiral.
"I was wondering if we'd have to send a detail to pry you out of the lab," Lee jested in a good-natured joke.
Harry responded with a raised eyebrow and sipped on his coffee, not feeling that the playful jest needed a response from him; however, the twinkle in his eye told the table's occupants that he wasn't offended.
"I've been working on modifying the laser to a setting that might stun the sea creature, rather than destroying it," he explained instead.
Lee's brow tightened as he put down the coffee cup, abandoning the brew before even taking a sip. "But why, Sir? Surely you don't believe we can contain the creature?" he asked in bewilderment.
"Just long enough to get some living samples from the creature for study," Harry qualified. "We've postulated, but really haven't determined, just why a fissure originating from the earth's core could have produced such a growth mutation."
"We have another mystery as well, Sir," Lee added, biting his bottom lip in thought before continuing. "The last time the fissure was opened, the area was marked by violent eruptions…"
"And you're wondering why the seismic sensors we left haven't recorded them," Harry finished.
"I was wondering the same thing," Chip added.
"That's just one of the mysteries we have to solve," the admiral stated matter-of-factly just as the salad plates were placed before the officers.
Chip reached for the salt, and then shook his head at the déjà vu the move elicited, but then proceeded to shake the contents onto his salad. The action was met with soft chuckles from the table before the light mood was interrupted by Chief Sharkey entering the Wardroom, his presence signaling the folder he was carrying was official.
"Skipper," he addressed, presenting the folder to Seaview's Captain.
Lee put down his fork, abandoning his first bite of salad and opened the folder. He perused the contents quickly and then checked his watch, calculating the boat's ETA silently.
"Very well, Chief," he responded without emotion, though his eyes broadcasted new concern.
"By your leave, sirs," Sharkey offered in Navy decorum and exited the Wardroom.
Lee handed the folder across the table to Harry, explaining its contents as he did so. "There's been another incident… this time a pleasure yacht."
"A pleasure yacht?" Chip exclaimed in disbelief. "What was a pleasure yacht doing in the shipping lanes?"
Harry nodded disgustedly, placing a radio photo of a newspaper clipping in the center of the table for Chip to see.
"Apparently, the photo was leaked to the press and someone thought it was a good entrepreneurial opportunity to take thrill-seekers out to the area," he explained with ample disgust in his voice as Chip studied the fuzzy black and white photo taken from the rescue helicopter showing a small raft surrounded by incredibly large tentacles rising to the surface.
"There were twenty souls on board," Lee added solemnly, "and only five survivors," he finished as all three men experienced remorse for the ill-fated yacht. After a long moment of silence, Lee raised his eyes toward the admiral. "I'm not sure live samples are worth the danger, Admiral," he asserted regarding Harry's desire to stun the creature for cell and blood samples.
"I understand, Lee, but hear me out. The report states that the squid attacked the boat, but it was reported as very sluggish… slow in its movements. It may be nearing the end of its life-cycle," he postulated, proposing that its mutant growth had unnaturally spent the life of the squid.
Lee considered the new information, then nodded as he made up his mind. "Supposing you're right, how long will it take to readjust the lasers to full strength if we have to destroy it, or any other mutant creature we run across down there?"
"I can write an algorithm that can change between the settings in less than thirty seconds," Harry answered.
"Thirty seconds may be too long, but let's proceed and I'll make my decision once we reach the area and I've assessed the risk," he replied, asserting his right as captain of the boat to pull the plug on any decision he deemed unsafe for Seaview and its crew.
Harry pursed his bottom lip at Lee's protest. He knew to expect resistance to the idea, and it wasn't often that he didn't get what he wanted as a Navy admiral and Seaview's creator. He blew a breath out, letting go of a knee-jerk reaction to argue (and win) his point, then relented completely. In all fairness, it was exactly what he hired Lee Crane to do; make decisions based on the facts at hand, and not pander to an admiral's wishes like a "Yes Man". Still, he would make the argument that what they learned from the creature was worth a certain risk… to a certain degree, and he fully expected Seaview's Captain to come around to the idea. This expectation not derived from his rank as admiral, but from the long-standing and well-tested relationship he and Seaview's Captain had built. There was a level of trust between the two that, coupled with their experience, had produced many successful outcomes to otherwise unwinnable propositions.
The remainder of the meal was spent with very little conversation, with the officers clearly affected by the recent loss of life and the possible repercussions that meant for their mission.
# # # # #
"Helm, slow to one-third," Lee ordered, walking away from the inertia navigator with a print-out indicating Seaview's present location. He studied it as he made his way to the chart table, reconciling the check-points to their present position and satisfied that his dead-reckoning had produced the expected results.
Chip entered the Control Room from the aft hatch, and quickly made his way forward.
"We're about to enter the fifty-mile radius of the fissure," Lee explained to his executive officer.
"Aye, Sir," he acknowledged, moving to the mic hanging on the edge of the chart table. "Bow look-out detail to the Nose," he ordered before shipping the mic. "I've got two men on the detail, as ordered, Skipper."
"Good," he replied solemnly. "If our last visit here was any indication, we should expect to see mutant creatures at any time."
# # # # #
"Anything, Ski?" Lee asked, standing behind the sonar operator and studying the green display screen for himself.
"Nothing unusual, Skipper," he replied, his attention fully engaged on his screen, even as he answered.
"Hydrophone?" the captain inquired.
"All quiet, Sir," Patterson reassured.
"Very well," he replied, the entire Control Room taking their cue from their Skipper and adding even more diligence to their duties, while in the Nose, Chip briefed Riley and Phil regarding the bow-lookout duty in the Nose.
Seaview was traveling dead slow at 200 feet and were cut-off from communications with the outside world at this depth. The current mood on board was marked with concern and laced with due diligence, echoing the danger of the sub's inevitable run-in with unnaturally large species if, indeed, the fissure had been reopened. Not the least of their concerns, a squid so large it had sunken four ships.
"Captain, I've got something," Ski called, adjusting his equipment as he spoke.
Lee crossed the deck swiftly, leaning over to assess the green-hued bogey on the sonar screen.
"Assessment?" the captain asked.
Ski analyzed the information then reported, "Definitely a biologic, Sir… and big," he added quickly engaging in eye contact with his superior officer before studying the screen once again.
Lee nodded, agreeing with Ski's report and looking toward the bow. "Bow look-out, see anything?"
Riley and Phil both studied their assigned quadrants, but the floodlights from Seaview's bow only reached thirty feet onward, everything after that was just a dark, black, inky sea.
"It's a whale," Patterson declared, handing the secondary headset to the captain.
Lee ignored the soft, padded steps descending the spiral staircase announcing the Admiral's arrival, devoting his entire attention to identifying the creature. He listened intently, while Nelson assessed the situation in a glance and advanced to the listening station.
Harry positioned himself next to Lee, quickly taking in the bogey on sonar and correctly assessing the non-mechanical attributes as a large biologic.
Lee nodded in silent agreement and pulled the earpiece away from his ear. "A whale," he confirmed; the unmistakable sound of the creature's song known well to the fully-trained hydrophone operator.
"Got it!" Riley reported from the bow, as a shadow past across Seaview's path.
Harry and Lee both moved forward, to catch the large creature which wasn't in a hurry to swim along. As it swam they estimated its size a daunting seventy-five feet in length.
"A blue whale," the genius admiral identified, "by the looks of her, a naturally matured female," Harry surmised.
Lee nodded. No one questioned whether the admiral's supposition that the whale's size was natural and not a young whale that had mutated to this size, since everybody knew that Admiral Nelson's knowledge was undisputable regarding the large mammals. Suddenly, the blue whale changed directions, making an abrupt, but lazy ascent, presumably headed for the surface to breathe through its blowhole.
Lee relaxed his shoulders slightly then refocused both himself and the Control Room with his next words.
"All right, men, stay with it," he ordered, ensuring the crew remained attentive to their duty and the potential dangers these waters represented. Even if upon arrival, they found the fissure had remained closed, they were still in search of an unnaturally large squid, capable of destroying Seaview and all hands aboard.
# # # # #
Lee tore his searching eyes away from the Seaview's windows; the sea was calm, and sonar would detect a creature even before the Look-out could spot it. He headed to chart table to verify their ETA, Harry lingered only a moment longer and joined him.
"I've managed to cut the time down to an eighteen second delay between settings," Harry informed Seaview's captain.
Lee picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser end on the chart in front of him. "Under the right conditions, that may be acceptable," he conceded in thought, "but, Admiral, I can't make any promises," he added respectfully and almost apologetically.
"Of course, Lee," Harry assured, the deaths of so many people weighing heavily upon both men. The curious admiral, however, also knew that if there was something to be learned from the mutant creature, that it behooved them to take advantage of the opportunity as it presented itself. Nevertheless, the ultimate decision was Captain Crane's.