Nigel Thompson - Pheia

The wave passed by and the barge descended into the trough behind it. The cable went slack again and released the crew cylinder which floated at 90 degrees from the ops cylinder. As the cable went slack, the Pheia adjusted its attitude so both cylinders were out at an angle joining at the top to form a pyramid shape.

Everyone in the ops cylinder was lying on the floor which was at a crazy angle. The console was emitting several different alarm sounds. The force had pulled the ops cylinder sideways enough to unbalance them all at once. Stephens had hit his head on the way down and was sat on the floor with his hand covering a gash that was bleeding through his fingers.

Morrison was first up and quickly pulled up the system status screen on the console. There was so much red it was hard to find anything that was OK. “Jesus,” he said.

Kate stood next to him. “Any leaks?” she asked.

“I have no idea. Look at it. It’s all red.”

Kate pushed him out of the way and quickly went through the system screens. “No. We’re OK. The gas rates look good.”

“Are you sure?” Morrison asked over the sound of the alarms.

“Yes. I spent a lot of time learning my way through this stuff. We’re OK for now.”

Kate tapped a couple of buttons on the screens and shut the alarms off.

She was truly frightened for the first time since they had left the surface. The other problems had been like puzzles to solve, and for those there had been enough time to think.

This felt very different. This could be the end if there was anything seriously wrong with the ops cylinder.

Kate looked at Morrison hoping like hell he had some ideas. “So?” she asked.

Before Morrison could answer the console alarm sounded again.

Kate scanned the screens. “The drive system is out.”

Before Morrison could respond the comm link came alive from the surface.

“Are you folks OK? Over.”

Morrison was closest to the mike and pressed the talk button. “We’re fine. We got yanked around pretty hard and we had a lot of alarms. Don’t know the extent of the damage yet. We had the drives running when it hit and the cylinder is at quite an angle. Over.”

“This is Williams, by the way. We have some big waves up here. We are not sure if we can stay on station or not but we will stay as long as possible. Babin says we cannot afford to risk the winch getting damaged by another big wave so we need to let out some slack and have you float. Can you do that?” There was a pause. “Sorry. Over.”

Kate looked at the screens. “The drive system looks like it’s dead,” she said to Morrison.

“We’ll figure something out,” he said to her, then pressed the talk button. “Negative on the drive system. It’s out. We’ll assess what we have operational and get back to you. Over.”

There was a long delay before Williams came back. “Understood. We will do what we can from up here. Let me know if anything changes. Over.”

“Roger. Out.”

Kate had moved to the portal. The Pheia’s lights lit up the wall. “Oh crap” she said. “We’re sinking.”

Morrison hit the talk button. “Surface. We are sinking slowly. Pay out cable. I Repeat. Pay out cable. Acknowledge.”

A different voice came over the speaker. “Understood. Paying out cable now.”

From the accent, Morrison thought it was Leclerc. That was good. He would understand without a lot of conversation.

Stephens and Washington were at the portal with Kate. Stephens turned to face Morrison. “We need a lifting bag.”

“Or an anchor.” Washington added.

Morrison looked at Kate. She shook her head. “There is nothing like that on board.”

“OK, we’ll go with what we brought down.”

Stephens and Washington were already suiting up. Washington paused before he put his helmet on. “I hope you have a plan boss,” he said to Morrison. He didn’t wait for a reply. He stepped down the ladder, secured his helmet, and submerged out of sight. Stephens followed him a few seconds later.

“Good luck,” Kate said to Morrison as he pulled on his suit. He looked back at her. She seemed calm.

“You OK?” he asked.

“Yes. This is fun.” She tried to smile but couldn’t. “What do you want me to do?”

“Shit. I nearly forgot.” Morrison dug into the big kit bag and pulled out a small waterproof plastic case and a headset. “Here,” he said, handing it to Kate. “Put the headset on and turn the radio on. You should be able to hear us if you stand near the window.”

Kate took the radio and put on the headset. She turned the unit on and pushed the talk button. “Can you hear me?” Morrison nodded and Kate heard Stephens and Washington both say “Roger.”

Morrison got into the water.

Kate watched him disappear and then walked to the portal. There was nothing to see except the wall which was moving slowly past in the wrong direction. At least it wasn’t moving very fast but the Pheia had gotten much closer to the wall.

Under the Pheia, the divers swam down to the cage. Williams dumped the gas from the lift bag clipped to its top and unclipped it. “Got the bag boss.” he said over the comms.

“Roger,” Morrison replied as he pulled a spare lifting bag from the bottom of the cage.

Stephens had grabbed the small bag of tools they had left in the cage which was empty now.

Morrison gave the thumbs up sign and they all swam out from under the Pheia towards the wall ascending as fast as they could swim.

At the top of the Pheia, Morrison and Stephens attached the lift bags to the top of the ops cylinder and inflated them. The bags were small but when both were inflated the Pheia slowed down noticeably. It was still sinking, but the rate was very slow.

Morrison looked out over the side of the Pheia. The surface had paid out a lot of line and the line was quite heavy. He thought it was probably pulling the Pheia down but he couldn’t ask them to pull it up; not while the sea was still heavy. One more yank on the ops cylinder and the Pheia would be split in two completely. That made him think. “Washington. See if you can shut off the gas connections to the crew cylinder.”

“On it,” came the reply.

Stephens was next to Morrison. “What next boss?”

“I want to pull up the winch cable and see if we can secure it to the wall.”

“How the hell are we going to do that? It’s probably too heavy to swim with.”

“Right but let’s give it a shot.”

They swam down to the bottom of the Pheia leaving Washington to work on the gas lines.

When they reached the cage, the cable was still a long way down below them.

Morrison swam down with powerful kicks, Stephens right at his side.

When they reached the loop in the cable they were nearly a hundred feet below the Pheia. Morrison grabbed the bottom of the loop and started swimming towards the wall. Stephens grabbed on just behind him and followed.

They reached the wall easily. They only had to pull the cable sideways. The weight wasn’t a problem yet.

“Look for a pinnacle” Morrison said. “Let me have the cable. Go left. I’ll go right.”

They split up and swam in opposite directions. Morrison dragged the cable along. It was awkward but not as hard as he thought it might be. The wall was blank. There were a few hollows and some small protrusions but nothing to hang the cable on.

Stephens was about forty feet from Morrison. “Got something below me boss. Move fast.”

Morrison reversed direction and swam towards Stephens descending rapidly as he did so.

When he reached Stephens he could see a big pinnacle a few feet below them. It was coming up towards them as the Pheia sank and they sank with it. The surface barge was still paying out cable and the loop Morrison had grabbed was now quite a way up from the actual loop in the bottom of the cable. He and Stephens swam in towards the wall with the cable and prepared to loop it over the pinnacle, which was just below them now.