Beta: RubyWings91
I have a shorter chapter for you all today, it was originally going to be longer, but I became a bit unsure of where I wanted it to go so I decided to take a bit more time on it and just split them in two.
SIGNAL
I walked through the corridors of our new underwater base, my movements echoing with every step I placed on the floor. I breathed in deeply, the scent of salt water faint, but ever-present in the air. It had only been a few hours after the habitat had been set up, in a flat clearing that Kevin and I had found while exploring, nestled up against a squat cliff with plenty of room to grow.
In the time since the base became operational, the crew had wasted no time in moving in, transporting everything we would need to survive from the ship here. Not only were supplies brought over, but all of our wounded too, they had been placed in a special medical wing where their injuries could be tended to. The only things that hadn't been taken from the ship were the tools and supplies needed to do the repairs in order to get it flying again.
I turned down a corner, the soft fluorescent lighting barely casting a shadow upon me as I moved between parts of the structure. I looked at the empty hallways, noting how each direction looked the same. If I didn't know where I was going it would be easy to get lost.
More than a few times, I'd found myself back in my old base in the crater, alone and isolated once again. It didn't matter whether they were just flashbacks or me forgetting where I was - it felt real every single time. I couldn't help it; seeing the cylindric rooms and halls of this place was all it took to take me back there, to that struggle to survive all on my own, dying from an unknown disease while monsters hunted me. I'd tried to leave it behind, tried to forget about the past and remain in the here and now - but there's no escaping one's memories.
Approaching a bulkhead, I turned the latch on the front, culminating in a hiss as the large metal door swung inward. Stepping past the thresh hold, I found myself in Kevin's personal lab where he had already set up shop. It wasn't set up much differently than the lab on the ship had been, with the only difference being the multitude of samples the man had already picked up from the outside. There were signs of life strown all over the lab in Petri dishes and test tubes, there was an aquarium set up against the wall, and there was even a fully functioning alien containment unit in another room connected by a hallway.
Speaking of the life of 4546B, I could see Kevin sitting at a table on the other side of the room, hunched over a microscope as he examined one of those puddles of slime they found.
Entering the room, I silently worked my way over to my friend. "See anything interesting?" I ask casually, leaning up against the table.
"Hmm, nothing that the scanner couldn't tell me," he looked up with a smile on his face. "But there's just something different about seeing something on a picture vs seeing it with your own eyes."
"I can tell, you've been pretty eager to get here since we first left for this planet. Now that we're here you must be barely able to contain your excitement?"
"You're telling me," he laughed. "The life on this planet is just so fascinating, I could spend a lifetime studying it and never get bored," Kevin sighed, a sad look etching across his face. "When I was younger, all the kids used to pick on me for being such a nerd. They couldn't understand why I would rather examine an insect than be into sports or something. I was the weird little kid who had no friends, a freak that they would just as soon forget existed than talk to."
When he was done, it felt like all the positivity had vanished from the room like a storage locker full of titanium. Kevin sat in his chair, looking distraught and disconnected from the world, his eyes staring at something I couldn't see as he relived his past. Of course, it helped that I knew where he was coming from, we both had bad experiences that we would rather disappear, but if there was one silver lining to knowing someone else went through a bad event as well - it meant that you weren't alone, it meant you had a shoulder to lean on.
"Hey, it's all right," I said encouragingly, rubbing my hand on his back. "No one here sees you as a freak, and while I can't speak for everyone else, I can guarantee you've got at least one friend on this planet," I smiled at him.
He smiled back, using his coat sleeve to rub at the corner of his eye. Thanks, Ryley, that- that means a lot."
"No problem," I replied.
"Hey, uh, do you want to see these guys?" Kevin asked, pointing to the microscope as he leaned back, inviting me to come to take a look.
I smiled appreciatively but shook my head. "Thank you but no, that's really more your thing," I told him.
He shrugged his shoulders impassively, "alright, suit yourself, you've got no clue what you're missing."
As he went back to examining the puddle, my eyes wandered over to a nearby desk. Sitting in a tray in an inch of water was a pale, grotesque eel-like creature that had been cut almost cleanly in half. I grimaced as I looked upon the foul carcass, it was slimly and reminded me of far too much of the Bleeder. We had encountered this little monster while we were exploring, Kevin saw something vanish into a nearby crevice and wanted to check it out. I told him to be careful but I honestly don't think he heard me. The next thing I knew, something launched from the crack and attached itself to him, tightening around his arm as he flailed about in the water while screaming in pain. I swam to him as fast as I could and tried to help, I was able to get him to hold still long enough for me to take out my knife and cut the creature off.
"How's the arm?" I asked as an afterthought, looking from the eel to Kevin.
"What?" He asked, turning his attention away from the microscope as if he'd barely heard me. "Ohh! Uh, it's fine," he told me, rubbing at the afflicted appendage. "Some minor bruising but it'll heal."
"Glad to hear it," I told him as he went back to his project. Resting up against the table, I sat there for a few seconds in silence, before finally moving into action as I pushed away. "Well, uh, I'm going to take off now."
"Alright, see you later then," he bid me farewell, his eye still glued to his slime.
"See you, pal," I said as I patted his shoulder before heading out, closing the bulkhead behind me.
Leaving the lab behind, I crossed my way back through the base and soon found myself in front of my quarters. Pushing through the door, I retreated to the privacy of my cabin. I looked around at the multipurpose room that would be serving as my sleeping chambers for the time being; it wasn't that much aesthetically different from my space on the ship, with a bed, a bench, and a storage unit to put my stuff. However, I was able to find some loose posters lying around while we were unpacking the ship, which I'd used to liven the place up a bit. I also had an aquarium, just like the one in Kevin's lab, filled with some Deepers, Boomerangs, and even a Spadefish.
I walked over to my bed and plopped down on top of the sheets without a care in the world. So much had happened in the past twenty-four hours, hope was at an all-time high for us when we finally came into orbit around the planet, and then it vanished in an instant when that flare hit us. Even after everything, I was still reeling a bit, it felt like some sort of cosmic joke, we had come so far only to falter at the finish line, and we were struggling to pick up the pieces.
One of the nearby posters caught my attention, it was the one with the kitten hanging from a branch, a space helmet on its head. Hang in there the words read, causing me to let off a soft laugh from the back of my throat. "Easy for you to say," I commented dryly. "You haven't been stranded on an alien ocean planet...twice!" As I all but laughed at the absurdness of it, my gaze fell onto my aquarium where I was able to see the fish swimming around. The ones that mainly caught my eyes, however, were the Deepers, as much as I hated this world, I couldn't deny the beauty of it, and the Peepers especially held a certain charm to them that just couldn't be ignored. I looked back to the poster one last time, then back to the aquarium again, and sighed - okay, maybe it had a point.
A knock came at the entrance to my room. Looking up, I found a crewman standing there trying to get my attention. "Commander Abigal requests your presence in the scanner room, sir," he told me before he made his leave.
Getting up, I cast one last look at the tank before I headed out of my room. I was once again traveling through the newly constructed base, passing working crewmates as they set on their own personal tasks. I passed by the med bay where all our wounded had been brought, I paused by the entrance and stood there for a moment, watching as everyone who was hurt in the crash was tended to. Over in the back, I was able to make out the form of Captain Hill. He was laying on a cot, his arm in a cast, and bandages covering his entire body. He was awake now, so I had considered stopping by to check on him and see how he was doing after the incident... but, I decided to save that for another time.
Moving on from the med bay, I continued towards the scanning room, near the heart of the station. Arriving in the rounded room, I found the commander standing over the large hologram that dominated the entire space, Lidia at her side.
"...Origin came in from the base of the mountain, it would be a long and possibly dangerous trek, but it's worth the risk." I heard Lidia finish as I came in, catching the tail end of whatever she was saying.
"What's going on?" I ask as I include myself in the conversation.
"Ahh, Ryley, you're here, perfect timing," she said as she made room for me in front of the hologram.
"Why?"
"Earlier today, we received a transmission ping from one of the other ships," she told me.
"We did?" I exclaimed, a glimmer of hope filling my voice that we weren't the only ones left. I looked at the map in front of me, I could make out the underwater mountain, as well as a small ping upon its surface that I assumed represented us. And further away, at the bottom of the mountain, there was another blip, blinking softly as if to say come find me.
"Yes, we did," she replied, her voice echoing my own. "It showed up a few hours earlier, we've tried hailing them on our short-range radio, but so far they haven't responded.
"Do you think something's wrong?" I asked her, but given this planet, something going wrong would be almost definite.
The commander shook her head in defeat. "That's the thing, we don't know. Without being able to contact them, we have no way of telling if they're okay."
"How far away is this other ship?"
It was Lidia who answered this time. "They're roughly three-hundred meters away from our position, three hundred and twenty-seven, to be exact, and at a depth of twelve hundred meters."
The commander spoke up again. "Since we can't reach them, it was my intention to dispatch a party to check on them. We only have two seamoths in operational status, so I have selected both you and Lidia to undertake this mission."
"Very well, commander," I said nodding my head.
She looked at me with hopeful eyes. "Please, if you find any more of our people, bring them back to us, we can't lose anyone else."
"I'll do my best," I replied.
...
Later, Lidia and I reconvened by the moonpools where our seamoths were parked, making our final preparation before we departed. We both had the same tools and equipment that Kevin and I were given earlier. Only, since now we were heading into unknown territories, we had also each been given a stasis rifle and repair tool as well.
Standing in the moonpool, I stepped up to the submarine I would be using. I gently ran my hand over its white hull, the metal was cold to the touch, hard and unfeeling. It had been so long since I'd last had to use one of these, I had to be honest, I was kind of nervous. Opening the hatch, I took a deep breath and entered the vehicle, the system coming to life when it sensed my presence.
Welcome aboard, captain; all systems online.
I felt a shiver run down my spine when it said that, I'd never thought I'd hear those words again.
All at once, the above clamps holding the seamoth in place retracted, letting the machine freefall as it plunged into the water below. The white surroundings of the moonpool gave way to the darkness of the outside, that all-encompassing loneliness overtaking me once again. But it only lasted for a moment, as Lidia's seamoth quickly plunged down into the ocean not far from my position.
She soon maneuvered over to where I was, her voice appearing over the radio as she came into view. "The ship's signal originated from that direction," she pointed as a marker popped up on my HUD. "We'll stick together the entire way, moving in a straight line towards the ping. Now listen, because the crash destroyed all the mark IIII seamoth depth modules we had on hand, at one point we're going to have to leave them behind and finish the last stretch on our own."
"Got it," I said as I turned on the headlights, letting the glow from their high beams illuminate the area and cast out the shadows around me. "Let's find this other ship."
Sorry for the long wait... again, but hey, you know I said it wouldn't take me ten months to get a chapter out, and... technically that's still true, it only took me seven to put this one out... that's still an improvement... right?... Okay look, here's the deal, aside from the Dark Depths, I also have two other stories that I'm consecutively working on at any given time, and more recently I've been focusing on the other two a bit more, which is why I haven't given this one as much attention. Don't get me wrong, I'm invested in all three of these stories that I'm working on, but I can only ever focus on one at a time, which means that the other two have to get put on the side.
However, I do have a silver lining to give to you all, more recently, I've come up with a new system for how I handle my writing. Before writing up a full chapter of any size would usually take me at least a week, as my writing schedule used to be sporadic and at random times, and I would also tend to be flighty as well, where I would only put down a few lines and then I would get up and go do something else. But my new system is a much-needed improvement over my old one. Now by how much you may ask, well I was able to whip up this whole chapter... in just under forty-eight hours. Now I don't want to jinx it or anything, but if I can keep this up, expect new chapters a lot more frequently.
But that's it for now, I'll see you all next time with a new chapter, one that I hope you'll enjoy.
Please favorite, follow, and review, bye.
