Chapter Four

A blinding pain greeted his first awareness as Lee Crane reached for his head, pulling his hand away abruptly when it produced a stinging pain. A deep cough added to his headache as his eyes fluttered open and took in his surroundings. FS1 was bathed in red emergency lights, indicating the flying sub had lost main power. He swallowed hard and reached once again for his forehead, finding his fingers sticky and wet with blood. His cognitive resources now returning, albeit slowly, and ignoring his head trauma, he turned toward his silent co-pilot.

"Riley," he called followed by a cough he couldn't suppress. The putrid smell of shorted out wires and ghostly wisps of smoke hung in the air. He called again, but his shipmate didn't answer. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he leaned over to examine the young seaman. "Riley, can you hear me?"

When he didn't receive an answer, he turned his attention to the flying sub's stricken condition. The first order of business was to restore power, so he flipped switches and reset the controls, resulting in the desired effect as the emergency red lights gave way to complete illumination. Almost immediately, the radio came to life, producing a sharp shrill that curled his brow in pain. He screwed his eyes shut to manage the pain until it gave way to a brief fuzzy static sound, followed by Seaview's insistent hails.

"Seaview to FS1; come in, FS1!"

Lee coughed again and felt for his throat mic. "Seaview, this is FS1," he finally answered, hoping his voice didn't sound half as weak as he felt just now.

"Lee, its Nelson. What's your status?"

"We're… uh… we're on the bottom. Power's been restored. I'm a little shaken… Riley's unconscious."

"What happened, Lee?"

Crane chuckled humorlessly, but wisely avoided shaking his head. "The biggest electric eel I've ever seen," he replied a bit vaguely, with still not enough information to satisfy the curious and concerned admiral. "It was at least twenty yards ahead of us; we barely made out what it was… it was just beyond our floodlights. I uh… think we startled it, we got hit by an electrical current of some kind…"

He stopped to take a breath and closed his eyes attempting to focus.

"Captain, this is Dr. Jamieson. Tell me what you're feeling right now."

"Out of sorts," he answered quickly and honestly. He had had head injuries before, but this one felt decidedly different. With Riley still out cold, now wasn't the time to be coy with his answers; something was definitely wrong.

There was a short pause and then Harry's voice returned to the mic.

"Lee, we think you sustained a significant stun charge from the eel. Sonar is clear and it looks like the eel has moved on. Can you pilot her back to Seaview?"

Lee cleared his throat. "I'm feeling better, Sir. I need to get a better view of the fissure..."

"Negative, Captain," Harry interrupted sharply without delay. "You've got an injured crewman on board, and you're affected more than you realize. Let's just give Doc here a break and bring the flying sub back now," he added with a bit of pointed humor regarding Jamie's apparent concern over Lee's suggestion to move closer to the fissure and softening the blow of his initial scolding tone.

Lee glanced over at Riley, realizing that Harry was, of course, right as usual.

"Very well, Admiral," he relented, feeling stronger than before but knowing he still wasn't on top of his game.

With a long reach, he stretched toward the co-pilot's console and flipped a switch then adjusted his hands on the dual-stick yoke. Slowly he raised the yellow, manta-like sub from the seabed, feeling fortunate that their hard-landing had been in this particular spot where there weren't any jagged rocks to damage the hull. The flying sub stirred up a silty cloud as it raised high enough for him to add power and bank a turn toward home, then noted Seaview's vector and programmed the navigation.

"Seaview, I've got your vectors, I'm turning the craft over to automatic docking," he advised; his decision a wise result of a noticeable lingering fuzziness in his head. He did, however, continue to glide FS1, relinquishing controls only once the windowed submarine was in sight.

"We've got you, Skipper," Chip Morton's voice was heard. "Just sit back and let us do the driving."

Lee cracked a small smile that quickly faded in pain, before allowing his head to rest against the back of his chair and waited as FS1 was remotely docked. He closed his eyes for what he intended to only be a brief moment but was quickly drawn into a thick, warm blanket of darkness.

# # # # #

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was a bunk overhead. The next thing he recognized was the distinct, sterile smell of his least favorite part of the boat. Only then did he realize that someone was talking to him.

"Skipper? Can you hear me?"

Lee turned his head slightly. "Hi, Jamie," he greeted rather informally and then spotted both Harry and Chip behind the doctor. Suddenly, everything that happened aboard FS1 flooded back to his awareness, prompting him to nearly pop out of the bunk. Jamieson eased him back down with a gentle, but firm hand on his shoulder. Lee surrendered to Jamie's insistence to remain in bed, only then realizing that his chest was bare, with EKG electrodes still attached to a portable machine beside the bunk.

"How's Riley?" Lee asked, concerned for his co-pilot and not able to spot him from his current position.

"He's going to be fine," Jamie assured. "He sustained a moderate concussion, along with the stun from the eel."

Lee nodded slightly, the blinding headache he'd felt earlier had settled into a dull ache now, and he could barely feel the bandage square above his left eye. "He had the camera positioned to film the fissure; I think he took a good whack when we scared up the eel," he surmised, feeling somewhat better and having his wits about him at this point.

"We found the camera," Harry joined in, stepping closer to speak. "Fortunately, Riley caught the encounter on film."

Lee's brow tightened in interest.

"As you said, the flying sub startled the knifefish," Harry explained, assessing correctly that the creature widely known as the electric eel was actually a type of knifefish and not from the eel family at all, "and he enacted his natural ability to emit an electrical current, which was the catalyst to FS1's crash, followed by a significant stun."

"It packed quite a punch for being so far away…" Lee noted incredulously. He was well aware that the electric eel was capable of emitting an electrical current to paralyze its intended prey from quite a distance, something every experienced diver venturing into the tropics was aware and was even a concern for aquarium keepers. However, the eel was a good fifty to sixty feet from the flying sub when they stirred it from its hiding place on the seafloor.

"From the brief shot we obtained from the film; I'd estimate it to be 20 to 25 feet in length. Now, if a knifefish in the natural can emit up to 860 volts, the equivalent to one ampere of current," the admiral explained in detail and quite specifically, "then you can imagine the increased voltage it was capable of emitting when taking into account its mutant size."

"In short, Captain," Jamie added, "you were quite fortunate to have survived at all, and before you ask, you'll be my guests here for the rest of the afternoon."

"Jamie…" Lee scowled in protest.

"At least until I've verified that your heart wasn't adversely affected by the shock you received."

Lee sighed. He knew that Jamie was only doing his job, and he had been zapped hard enough to knock him out… twice.

"Fine, Jamie," he relented, "but after you verify that my ticker is okay… how long before I'm back in the Control Room?"

Jamie ignored the soft snicker from the Admiral behind him and maintained his calm, professional demeanor. "I've already got a baseline EKG, and so far, everything looks good. Unlike our young friend over there," Jamie added, with a tilt of his head toward Riley, who was tucked into a bunk across sickbay, "you managed to escape a concussion. If you take it easy, I'll be able to release you to light duty. Just humor me for a few more hours, Skipper," he added sympathetically, fully understanding the seriousness of their mission and Seaview's need to have her captain at the helm.

Lee agreed with a slight nod while Jamie turned to see to Riley across the room. "What's our status, Chip?" Lee asked.

"We're stationary, sitting at 200 feet while we wait for the flying sub to be checked out and repaired," the blond replied.

"It looked like the fissure was open," Lee recalled, but not quite sure of his facts given the eel had interrupted their observation so suddenly.

"Yes," the Admiral answered. "We only had a brief look on film, and though I would prefer more study, I think you verified that the fissure is, indeed, open."

Lee nodded lightly. That was at least one questioned answered, his forehead tightening at the next question. "What about the seismic sensor we retrieved?"

"It's sitting in my lab," Harry answered. "I was just getting to it when Doc reported that you were coming to."

Lee rested his head a little deeper into his pillow. "I'm all right, Admiral, just a little tired," he offered while the soft hums of the cardiac monitor beeped out a strong, steady beat beside his bed.

Perceiving his friend could use some sleep just now, Chip stepped in closer. "I'd better head back to the Control Room," he announced releasing a small smile and allowing his relief to show through his normally unreadable, blue eyes.

"Thanks, Chip. I'll be there as soon as I can."

"Aye, aye, Skipper," the XO added, returning to shipboard decorum and imparting confidence that Lee would be back in command in no time. He stepped away, his smile fading immediately as he departed sickbay, anxious to return to the Control Room to monitor the potential menaces this dangerous part of the ocean presented.

Now alone, Harry stepped closer watching Lee carefully for reassurance that he wasn't adversely affected.

Sensing he was being sized up, Lee chuckled lightly. "I'm really all right, Admiral. Admittedly, the stun charge was more than I would have ever expected, but I'll be back on my feet in a few hours."

"I don't want you to push your recovery, Lee," Harry cautioned.

"I'll be fine," he reassured his friend and mentor.

Harry took in a deep breath, pursing his lips and making a conscious decision to accept Lee's self-assessment, expelling it and then smiling. "Well then, I'd better get back to the lab before the Captain of the boat starts demanding answers I don't have yet," he jested, smiling thinly, though his eyes twinkled with the humor.

Lee chuckled in return and expelled a silent breath as Harry departed. Soft voices drew his attention across the room, where Jamie was taking Riley through the standard concussion inquisition. Seaview's youngest seaman was only half-awake and not quite lucid. Lee grimaced in empathy at the headache Stu was complaining of and then closed his eyes to rest. He didn't want anything to derail his plans of being back in the Control Room this afternoon, so he allowed himself to take advantage of the down time and drifted off to sleep. He rested so deeply, that he didn't even notice when Jamie walked by to read the output from the heart monitor, before returning to his desk to update the medical files of his two patients.

# # # # #

Harry returned to his lab and firstly, checked in with the Control Room.

"We're tracking another large biologic twelve degrees off the port bow," the Exec reported, "other than that, it's quiet."

"Very well, keep me informed, Chip," Harry answered. The news of the pleasure yacht being attacked earlier could very well indicate that the creature they were searching for had settled to the bottom to digest. It was a gruesome thought that the learned admiral couldn't ignore.

"Aye Sir."

Upon receiving an update from Chip, he shipped the mic and turned to the duties at hand. He noticed another round of water samples on the table with Sharkey's initial time, temperature, and salinity readings already labeled; next to the samples sat the sensor Lee had retrieved. Rubbing an assessing hand across his chin, then decided to start the chemical analysis on his latest batch of water samples before diving into the mystery of why all of the seismic sensors had universally malfunctioned. Barring any unforeseen issues, he'd have an answer before Lee returned to duty.