At first there was nothing. Then, in the far distance a distortion appeared, like a portal to another dimension opening in the deep. Kurt knew it was the swirling water and the tiny sedimentary fragments being forced aside by a pressure wave. Behind the distortion, a shape began to form, emerging out of the darkness.
Huge, wide and bulbous, it was the curving nose of an approaching submarine. Not a small submersible like the Angler, or even a svelte attack submarine, but a monster of the deep, grinding toward them, its bow a wall of steel.
It was cruising slowly, perhaps a hundred feet off the seafloor.
“They’re trying to run us down,” Emma said.
“No,” Kurt said. “They’re just following the same debris trail we did.”
“Then we should get out of the way.”
Kurt shook his head. “Moving now would give them our location. As long as we remain still, we should appear no different than a rock formation or part of the wreckage.”
As Kurt spoke, another ear-splitting pulse came forth. The NUMA submersible rang like a bell and still Kurt held his ground.
A swirling cloud of sediment swelled forth, beneath and in front of the approaching vessel. It made it seem like the behemoth was riding on a cushion of dust.
“Hang on,” Kurt said.
The disturbance hit the Angler and the small submersible was spun around and swept to one side.
Kurt used the thrusters to straighten the sub out and watched in awe as a mountain of rust-colored steel passed over them, filling the view from one edge of the canopy to the other. It passed by slowly, almost endlessly. The submarine crossing above them was as wide and long as the cargo vessel floating on the surface.
Finally, the propellers came into view.
As they neared, the Angler was pulled off the bottom by the turbulence and drawn toward the spinning props. It was swept in close and then spat out behind the passing leviathan, tumbling in the submarine’s baffles. Kurt fought to control the ride, but had little power against what was essentially an underwater tornado.
The Angler spun and rolled and banged against an outcropping of rock. Several warning lights blinked on. And then everything went black.
Up on the Reunion, Joe and Captain Kamphausen watched the events live until the video feed suddenly cut out. Without sound or commentary, it was hard to tell what happened. The last image caught on tape was a shot of the churning brass propellers.
“Did it hit them?” Kamphausen wondered aloud.
Joe picked up the microphone. “Angler, what’s your status?”
He waited a few moments before making another attempt. “Come in, Angler. Kurt, are you there?”
When he received nothing in response, Joe put the microphone down and played the video one more time, studying the blast of sediment and the last, ominous view.
“I don’t think the props got them,” he said. “A close call, nothing worse. But the communications line must have been cut.”
“Why didn’t he move?” the captain asked. “He just sat there like a deer in the headlights.”
“Kurt doesn’t freeze up,” Joe replied. “He must have felt it was safer to stay put. A tactic I would agree with. It’s very surprising that a vessel that large would be traveling that close to the seafloor.”
Joe checked the last burst of telemetry data from the Angler’s control systems in hopes of gaining more insight. What he saw concerned him. A list of warning lights had come on right before the line was cut.
“Battery pack,” he said, reading off the labels. “Pumps. Gyrostabilizer. They must have hit something pretty hard for all of those systems to go out at once.”
Kamphausen offered a grim look. “What exactly does all that mean? Are they drowning?”
“I doubt it,” Joe said. “The Angler has a strong hull, so I’m assuming they’re dry. But they may be facing the submariner’s worst nightmare.”
“Worse than drowning?”
“Being marooned alive on the bottom,” Joe said. “With electrical problems and the pumps off-line, they may not be able to surface.”
“Is there any way we can help them?” Kamphausen asked. “Or do we just have to wait and see?”