Nigel Thompson - Pheia

The Pheia had been drifting closer to the wall as it sank. Kate watched the wall getting very close to the portal. She keyed the talk button. “Hey guys. The hab is now almost in contact with the wall.”

The divers all looked up just in time to see the weight stack under the ops cylinder strike the wall and give off a big cloud of dust. The Pheia stopped descending and started to rotate out from the wall as the weight stack stuck on a small ledge.

Washington swam down to the others, and between them they made a loop of cable above the pinnacle. Morrison took two cable clamps from his tool pouch and quickly attached them to the cable making a fixed loop. “I hope this holds,” he said.

Kate held on to the console as the Pheia tilted over as it rotated out from the wall. It was at almost 45 degrees when the weight stack slipped off the ledge that was holding it up. Kate fell over as the cylinder righted itself and started to sink again.

The divers held the loop of cable out between them and sank down over the rock pinnacle. The cable drifted down over the top and stopped when the pinnacle widened out.

The Pheia sank slowly down. Washington swam up to it and put his hands on the edge of the weight stack. He pushed his feet out onto the wall behind him and pushed hard. The hab moved out slightly. “Help me,” he said over the comms.

Morrison and Stephens swam up and helped push. The mass of the hab was hard to shift but they moved it out enough to clear the pinnacle as it passed by.

They let go and watched the Pheia sink slowly down now clear of the wall. The ops cylinder was almost upright but the crew cylinder stuck out at a crazy angle. The two parts were held together by a collection of gas lines and electrical conduits.

The loop of cable below the Pheia rose up past the bottom and came taut as the hab sank below the pinnacle.

A great cloud of dust filled the water as the cable pulled tight around the rock. Morrison held his breath and watched the cable. It stayed put.

Kate felt the Pheia stop moving. She expected more of a jolt but it wasn’t moving very fast when the cable stopped it. “Way to go guys,” she said over the comm system.

The Pheia hung against the wall by the cable, the dust suspended in the water above it like a cloud.

“Morrison to surface. Hold that cable. Pheia is stable.”

“Roger. Winch stopping,” came Leclerc’s voice.

Morrison watched as the cable stopped moving. “Well done guys, ” he said, then spoke to Washington. “Did you get the gas lines shut down?”

“I closed all the valves on the cylinders around the crew cylinder but when I got done I realized that doesn’t do any good if the lines rupture,” Washington said.

Morrison nodded and Washington continued: “I don’t see any leaks but some of the pipework is pretty mangled. It’s not going to last long if anything moves much.”

Morrison swam out to the far end of the crew cylinder. It was angled at about 45 degrees now. He was wondering why the weight stack at the bottom of the cylinder hadn’t pulled it back into the upright position.

As he swam past the end of the cylinder he saw why. Only one plate was left. The others had been torn off when the winch cable had pulled the cylinder sideways. The one remaining weight ring wasn’t enough to completely counter the buoyancy of the cylinder.

The winch cable was still moving. He pushed his talk button. “Morrison to surface. Secure the winch. Confirm. Over.”

After a short delay he felt the cable stop moving and he heard Williams’ voice. “The winch is already stopped. What is the problem?”

“Let me talk to the engineers. Over.”

Babin’s voice came back immediately. “Babin here. Over.”

“The crew cylinder has lost most of its weight stack. It has one ring left. It’s at about 45 degrees and held to the ops cylinder only by the gas and electrical connections. The sling cables to the ops cylinder are OK, but the ones to the crew cylinder are mostly slack. I don’t think it’s safe to haul like this. We have no way to shut off the gas lines and if they break we’re screwed. We need some way to stabilize the structure. Over”

“Understood. Are you OK for a while? I need to discuss this with Leclerc.”

“Roger. We’ll go back inside for now.”

Morrison made swimming signs with his fingers to the other two divers and they headed back inside the hab.

(750 Feet)

Williams stood at the rail of the surface barge. The sea had flattened out again over the past few hours. The sky was clear and the sun shone brightly. The engineers were still discussing what to do with the Pheia and he had nothing left to contribute.

He had sent a report to the Pheia about the engineering discussions, but there was little to say. Kate had told him she was playing trivial pursuit with the divers and was winning. It was hard for Williams to image the scene in the Pheia, or what remained of it. Morrison’s account of the cable event and the loss of the weights made it sound as though there wasn’t much left. Babin had told him she thought it very unwise to try to bring it up any further with anyone inside and Williams had rather uncharacteristically said: “Duh.”

The tentative plan was to wait for the sea to become flat calm, then winch the Pheia up to a depth of about 150 feet, then have the divers swim out. That would take two days. Now the Pheia was nearer to the surface, the pressure changes were more significant as the hab rose out of the depths. The last thing anyone wanted now was for the team on the Pheia to get bent, but it was hard to be patient. If the gas lines between the cylinders ruptured there would be no option but to try to get the divers out and have them swim up, but Williams knew that wasn’t really an option. They could send down more tanks of gas but they would suffer from the cold way before they had gas issues.

Williams heard something and turned to see Subramanian, Babin and Leclerc coming towards him. Subramanian handed him a cup of coffee and asked how he was doing.

“I’m fine. I’m worried about them.” He pointed down over the railing at the sea.

“You do not look fine.” Subramanian said. “Have you slept?”

“Yes, of course.” Williams lied. He’d had little sleep for the past few days and none the night before. He could tell it was affecting him and it was no surprise that others could see it too. He just needed to tough it out for two more days and he could sleep for a week.

Babin moved in a little closer. “I don’t want to alarm anyone but we do still have another problem that we need to work.”

“What’s that?” Williams asked, sounding dejected.

“As Leclerc and I understand it, the Pheia is hanging from a loop of winch cable which is over some sort of pinnacle on the wall.”

“Yes, I know that.” Williams said. “What’s the problem? Will that stop us winching them up?”

“Not exactly. As the winch cable comes up, it will probably pull the loop off the pinnacle. We might need the divers out there to watch. The issue that we are concerned about might occur after tension is applied, because of the weight of the Pheia. Morrison has clamped the cable into a loop and those clamps will cause a couple of crimp points on the cable. We can probably haul it up like that but if there has been any abrasion of the cable by the clamps it might not handle the strain.”

Williams stared out at the horizon. It was a beautiful day. “So what do you suggest?” he asked.

“We need to get the Pheia neutrally buoyant. Then Morrison can pull off the clamps and inspect the cable.”

“And if it’s damaged?”

“We think he can re-clamp the loop so that the damaged parts are in the loop itself. We sent extra clamps with him for exactly that situation.”