More bubbles hissed as his flesh vaporized.
Trask recoiled in agony, loosening his grip on the spear gun.
I stripped it from his grasp, took aim, and fired.
The spear drilled through his chest, and crimson seeped from the puncture wound. Behind the mask, his eyes rounded.
Wong had switched to his bailout. He scooped up the knife and finned toward me.
I yanked the spear from Trask’s lifeless body and reloaded. I cocked the gun as Wong closed in with the knife.
I took aim and fired.
The spear darted through the water, piercing his mask, skewering his brain. Blood filled the mask as his body went limp. He floated through the water, drifting to the bottom.
I returned to the fissure where I had dropped the satchel. I picked it up, then I hauled ass to the Triton.
Just as I had suspected, Trask and Wong had severed the power cable from the external battery pack.
With the skids on the soft seabed, there was only a few feet of clearance below the bottom hatch of the lockout trunk.
I squeezed underneath the sub and pulled myself up into the lockout. I loaded the satchel aboard and pried my helmet off. A breath of air filled my lungs. I was just about out of oxygen from the pony bottle.
The drysuit and the residual heat from the water feed had buffered the cold exterior seawater to some degree. But I was trembling at that point and damn cold. I sealed the hatch behind me, then opened the hatch to the main compartment. Red auxiliary lighting illuminated the helm station.
In a relieved breath, Jack said, "Am I glad to see you. Those jackasses cut the power."
"I know. They cut my umbilical as well."
"We lost feeds to the cameras. I was a little worried you weren’t coming back. What happened?"
"Let's just say Wong and Trask won't be rejoining us.”
Flynn and JD were pleased by the outcome.
“I knew those son-of-a-bitches were no good,” Flynn muttered.
We shared a brief moment of victory before facing the next battle.
"I need a minute to recover," I said. "Someone needs to go to the Neptune before it drifts off. Looks like they’ve got it set on autopilot right now to maintain buoyancy and position. But with this weather, there's no guarantee it's going to stay in the same place."
I assumed there was no one else aboard the Neptune.
The mini-subs were equipped with state-of-the-art autopilot systems, but leaving the boat unattended was a risky proposition.
"I'll get it," Jack said. "You stay here and warm up. I'll bring the Neptune alongside, then you guys can transfer over, and we’ll head back to base. Did you get everything?”
"Affirmative," I said.
Jack pulled on a wetsuit and prepared for the dive. Without main power, there was no warm water, no gas support, nothing. He’d have to make the swim with a bailout bottle. The only thing that functioned on the Triton under auxiliary power was the life-support system, CO2 scrubbers, comms, and a few interior controls.
No propulsion.
"How far is the Neptune?" JD asked.
"I’d say 30 to 40 yards.”
Jack considered it. Before donning his mask, he said, “I shall return.”
