Sea Station Umbra

by JOHN PAUL CATER

  “So we’ll be using the two visitor bunks right?” I asked thinking ahead; I was already drowsy from the boring briefing. I was ready to dive down and start Operation Deep Force whatever that was but he had neglected to mention it.

  “That’s coming up, Mr. Cross,” he said placing the spec sheet back into the folder.

  Briscoe reached out and put his hand on the folder preventing its closure.

  “Wait. What about diving equipment? Do we have DSVs? Suits?”

  “Oh, of course. I neglected to mention that you’ll be spending much of your time away from the dome either in one of eight self-contained ADS Exosuits or one of four BenthiCraft three-person DSVs. There are also a few propeller-driven tugs for use with the Exosuits. Anything you’ll need we’ve got you covered.”

  The Admiral glanced at his watch.

  “Moving along it’s time to get to your new mission Operation Deep Force. That’s why you’re here. You’re it.”

  Sighing, he stared at us and went on.

  “Some very suspicious and frightening activity occurred recently aboard Discovery One. The Ivy guardian network in the station just like the one we have here recently reported some strange almost inexplicable situations down there. Now you’ve already seen that she tracks the number of people on station using biometrics. In the sea station, we always expect that number to be twenty or less depending on the divers away from the dome. Everything has been hunky-dory until recently.”

  Stopping his story, he motioned to a nearby crewman.

  “Can you please get me a coffee? My throat is parched.”

  “Yes sir,” the young officer answered, leaving his workstation for the nearby coffee center.

  “Black, sir?

  “That’ll be fine.”

  Rushing back, he placed a steaming cup by the Admiral and returned to his console. Couldn’t have taken more than fifteen seconds. This is a really tight ship I thought.

  Blowing over his cup the Admiral continued.

  “Two weeks ago she alarmed an intruder alert after finding twenty-one souls in the dome including the support crew of eight but there were supposed to be only twenty; an impossible situation since there were no visitors registered or intrusion alerts noted. The staffers searched through the station on her alarm and found no extra person. That in itself was not too unusual but the fly in the ointment was on the next day she reported only nineteen persons in the station. One staff member plus the intruder had vanished. In addition following a mandatory roll call and station inspection, her dire news was verified: There were only seven Exosuits in the airlock bay where there had been eight.

  “The staff took time out from their tasks in teams of two, some in Exosuits some in DSVs, searching the surrounding ocean floor for anything suspicious. After hours of searching, they found the missing Exosuit lying lifeless but powered on, ten meters out in a narrow crevasse. The interior of the suit’s clear face shield was smeared with blood and a black substance so they couldn’t tell who it was until they got it back inside. It also had strange hieroglyphic characters scrawled in red over the aluminum exostructure.

  “Now these men are scientists, interpreters, and nuclear specialists but when they returned the suit to the airlock and opened it, they freaked out. It was nearly empty; nothing inside but a handful of moist black sand, a watch, and a pair of diving boots.”

  The Chief and I looked at each other. I was caught up in the mystery but when he shook his head no and frowned I felt nauseous remembering the station was our new destination; we were about to enter a chamber of manmade horrors and live there for a month. What could possibly go wrong? I thought. It sounded to me like one of those stories told by old divers about Davy Jones Locker but I knew better. That was just a legend.

  “So what happened next,” I asked.

  “Nothing. But later they identified the missing crewman as Lieutenant Commander Dan Li, USN, access level Umbra-ZX. The X codeword appended to the Z is a compartmented access code meaning that he not only knows of the Z mission but can also see the intercepted data from the cables and knows its source. Interpreters all have the X appendage. Sadly, it was his first tour of duty on the station; worked there only five months. He specialized in decrypting and translating messages from the undersea cable but of course, he was thought to be a radiation encroachment specialist. We suspect that he decoded a message that someone didn’t want known. His body and workbook have yet to be found.”

  “So what are we supposed to do down there, Admiral?” the Chief asked glancing at me as if I knew. I expected him to know; he had been here longer.

  “The crew aboard Discovery One does not have time for sleuthing. They have assigned tasks that can’t be interrupted by incidental happenings… unless it’s a full stop emergency of course. Then we lose tons of crucial data that cannot be reconstructed. They are screaming for help with Li’s unexplained disappearance. A thousand feet down is not a place to jump ship. Someone or something did that to him, and it’s still down there. The crew is afraid there will be more victims but none of them have the expertise or time to become investigators.”

  Briscoe scoffed.

  “And that’s what we’ll be doing? A missing person’s bureau?”

  “Hmm. Yes, in a way. But, you will have an expert witness to work with so I expect you both to become tech-savvy with Ivy’s operation and methodologies. She sees everything and is aware of all activities aboard the station. That capability has to be of crucial assistance.”

  Being somewhat of a computer expert, I was still mystified by Ivy. She was not just about computers; she was AI.

  Then wondering how we could possibly become overnight Ivy gurus I asked, “Is there an operation manual for Ivy?”

  “Yes. Four-hundred-plus pages of fine print. Designed by the artificial intelligence geniuses at Google AI she is version four or Roman numeral IV: thus her name. We’ve yet to find fault with her intelligence or logic. The manual is unclassified but the accumulated knowledge in her memory is Umbra-Z of course. We have a copy here and you’ll find another in the Discovery One. They’re identical so you’ll have a reference manual when you get there.”

  “That brings up another question,” I asked trying to fill gaps in my knowledge. “Obviously you have a Z facility here and another one thousands of feet underwater. Do they communicate… and if so how?” I caught myself sounding like a College Bowl host and laughed self-consciously as I finished the question.

  He must have seen it too because he chuckled and answered, “The answer is yes. The method: there are several ultra-high-speed laser links beamed from a floating laser buoy tethered over the station to one of our stationary KL satellites then relayed back to us here in Point Mugu. That explains all the antennas around the building.”

  He thought for a moment and added, “Well not all of them. Some are used for headquarters communications and others link to foreign news services. We have to stay abreast of world news to know where to send Discovery One next, what cable to tap and then inform them of the targeted-message context from the intercept. And since it can take a week or more to switch cables with travel maneuvering and re-tapping we have to get the news to Dr. Bowman as quickly as possible.”

  My ears perked up at hearing that name again. I knew about Clarke’s ‘Bowman’ but deep in my early childhood memories another Bowman existed. My best friend as a kid, Jeremy Bowman. He would be roughly my age but could he have designed and then been placed at the helm of Discovery One? I had to ask.

  “This Bowman guy. Is he about my age?”

  “Yes he is, Mr. Cross, why would you ask?”

  “Well you called him Dave Bowman earlier but I once had a childhood friend who built majestic deep-sea-laboratory sandcastles with me, lots of them, but his name was Jeremy Bowman.” Realizing how foolish that sounded I backtracked, “No, that’s just too much of a coincidence. Never mind.”

  “Well, Mr. Cross, it seems as though you may have found your long-lost friend. He goe
s by his middle name now but his given name is Jeremiah. Can’t say that I blame him either.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, “It is him. The kid who taught me to love and not fear the ocean. I guess he stayed true to his heart.”

  “Apparently he did.” He pulled a second sheet from the folder and placed it on the table between us. Another Top Secret Umbra document it was the Sea Station Umbra crew list titled Sea Station Umbra Crew List TS SCI UMBRA-ZX (NOFORN) listing the names, ranks, clearances, and duties of the current staff. [Touch the link to view the crew list.]

  I counted down to the second name and saw it there: Bowman, J. David, civilian, Umbra-ZX clearance, Station Manager. Suddenly his face and his last words came alive in my mind:

  “Matt Cross, listen to me. The ocean is only dangerous if you don’t love and respect it like a wild animal in captivity. There is nothing to fear.” I loved him for that advice. It changed my life and put me where I am today living my dream.

  Greenfield took the list and slid it to Briscoe.

  “See any friends there you recognize, Mr. Briscoe?”

  He pulled it closer for reading studied it a few seconds then slid it back.

  “Nah. I got all I can handle sitting next to me.”

  “Well then I’ll leave you in good company, Mr. Briscoe.”

  Greenfield checked his watch again.

  “I must be going now. There will be a CH-60 Seahawk helicopter waiting for you on the helipad at 2100 hours tomorrow night. Be there in wet suits with your personals in a small waterproof bag and wear your watches. Nothing else and no flashlights. You’ll be well provided for once you reach the station.”

  I panicked realizing that wet-suit diving could only take us to thirty meters or about one-hundred feet down. We would need to travel much deeper to ten times that depth to reach the station, an impossible task without assistance especially in the dark.

  “Wait. Am I missing something? We can’t make that dive with wet suits much less in the dark.”

  Smiling, the Admiral said, “Let me finish.”

  He sighed and continued, “At a predetermined point over the Pacific about two-hours out you will be dropped into the water under the cover of darkness. That should be no later than midnight. You’ll carry a small low-power sonar pinger provided to you. Using your life vests, you will float awaiting a pickup from a surfacing three-man BenthiCraft mini-sub sent from the station below. The transfer has to be quick to evade foreign satellite photo-reconnaissance but your profiles will be smaller than the surrounding waves so you’ll be invisible from space considering the lack of light.”

  “Oh, that’s a comforting thought,” said the Chief. “I don’t like waves bigger than me especially at midnight.”

  “Not to worry, sir. It will be a precisely timed transfer. You shouldn’t be in the water for more than ten minutes.”

  “Ten long cold sickening minutes in waves bigger than me,” he groaned. “What could possibly go wrong?”

  Laughing, I noticed him looking sickly. My hero diving instructor, my life’s mentor had always been prone to seasickness and he had no qualms admitting it. But once he was under the waves he was one of the best divers in the Navy. It was just those few minutes going from the surface to ten feet under that bothered him.

  Off to my side the Admiral was packing up the folder tidying the pages and readying it for the vault.

  “Well, gentlemen, my time with you is done. I’ll alert Bowman to your arrival tomorrow. Remember 2100 hours sharp at the helipad. Your CH-60 pilot and crew will be informed that you are part of a search and rescue training mission, that you will be safely found and the bird must disappear as quickly as possible after the drop to avoid disclosing your location. Got it?”

  “Yes sir. We shall be there,” I answered comforted by the Chief’s confirming nod.

  Standing at the vault Greenfield stashed the folder and locked it. Then he turned to us with an extended hand.

  “Welcome aboard Operation Deep Force. I certainly hope you can find out what in the hell’s going on down there and fix it. The station’s bordering on chaos right now but that won’t last long. Soon it will be a full-blown mutiny if we let it continue. We’re counting on you. Carry on.”

  With that, he turned and left the room.

  Sitting with the Chief in silence, I gathered my thoughts. It had been only six short hours since I reported for my normal workaday life at MBORC and I was exhausted. In that time, my comfortable structured existence was shattered. Now homeless again with nowhere to go and no place to sleep I felt alone, abandoned. I was a kid again looking forward to another day at the beach with Jeremy.

  “Where you staying Chief? Got room for another?” I asked. I knew he had been on base a few days and with his resourcefulness would have settled in.

  Smiling he answered, “Yes I’ll always have room for you, Marker. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall motel across the street but it has soft beds a TV and a pretty good coffee shop. I asked for twin beds thinking you might be as lost when you arrived as I was. The town has really changed since we were here last. Let’s go. I’ll show you around.”

  After a quick blue-plate-special lunch and two large slices of warm apple pie for dessert, we wandered the town skipping the girlie places (we were too old and too married for that) and found a movie theater back on base aptly named the Station Theater. It was dark and empty but it kept our minds occupied for the better part of two hours with an encore showing of, of all things The Abyss. Just what we needed to take our thoughts off our upcoming mission. The Chief left several times during the movie to visit the head claiming he had too much coffee but I believed he was throwing up; he came back each time wiping his mouth with a tissue. Several times, I wanted to join him but thinking that might look funny I just threw up in my mouth.

  After the movie when we returned to the Chief’s room, there was a note about a package waiting in the lobby.

  “That’d be our wet suits,” he said bluntly.

  Turns out, he was right. Wet suits plus two small watertight bags filled with toiletries, special slots for our ID badges and two small belt-clip sonar beacons. Digging deeper we laughed as each of us pulled out a black business card with bold white lettering. Welcome to Discovery One it read. Then J. David Bowman, Station Manager. Somehow, that simple card eased my anxieties and lessened my fears. Not sure why but it did.

  “Looks like a DV kit for distinguished visitors,” I mused. “Wonder how many of these he gives out a year and I wonder if we really are welcome.”

  “We’ll have to tread carefully at first to see his mood. In my opinion, no one on station is above suspicion. Sounds pretty spooky down there to me.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “I just can’t imagine that story about the empty dive suit and missing diver. Must be more to that story than we heard.”

  “Yeah,” he said glancing up from the card, “I know I’m going to dream about that tonight.”

  “And probably for the next month too,” I added.

  “Hey I’m going to hit the shower or do you want to go first?”

  I grabbed the TV remote from the dresser and flipped to an old movie.

  “No. I’ll be fine with this if it doesn’t put me to sleep. Took one this morning. Oh and don’t steam it up too much in there. I’m already sweating. Wish the AC had a little more oomph.”

  Entering the bathroom, he glanced back and said, “Hey, Marker, beggars can’t be choosers,” and shut the door behind him.

  Chapter 9. Discovery One

  Two hours into the flight, our pilot informed us we were nearing the drop point. Through turbulent winds, we had flown over black nothingness since our departure and Briscoe sitting in the jump seat next to me complained the whole way. He hated the instability of helicopters and their tendency to slide sideways bringing his stomach into his throat (which had happened more than a few times). Only thirty more minutes and the rescue drop-line crewman would open the side door and shove us out if we didn�
��t go willingly, he joked. No drop line for us though. The crewman explained that during the fast-drop procedure they were instructed to use the chopper would stop in mid-flight only ten feet above the waves, hover for five seconds while we jumped and then speed back to home port.

  With only minutes to spare the Chief pulled what looked like a checklist from a sleeve pocket and read from it.

  “Life vest?”

  “Check,” I said.

  He patted his.

  “Sonar pinger clipped on belt?”

  “Check.”

  “Kitbag clipped on belt?”

  “Check.”

  “ID card in kitbag?”

  “Check.”

  “Watch? Time?”

  “Check. 2325 hours.”

  “I also have 2325 hours. Should be dropping soon,” he confirmed then wadded the list and threw it to the floor.

  No sooner had he spoken those words than the crewman slid the side door open. The sound of the rotor’s roar with waves crashing a few meters below us was deafening. A cold humid wind rushed through the cabin telling me the time was now. Briscoe stood, approached the door, and grabbed a hanging hand strap.

  “C’mon, Marker,” he screamed barely audible over the thunderous clamor.

  The crewman nodded and motioned me over to join the Chief then mouthed my fate.

  “Here’s your stop.”

  Waiting for his signal, we stood hanging on the straps ready to jump. There were no lights under our fuselage; only a brief green or red flash reflecting from the waves when the navigation lights on the tail blinked. I can’t say I wasn’t scared.

  The Chief had once said to me, “My life is under the surface of the ocean not on it,” and I agreed. I was not happy, about to jump feet first into a thousand-meter-deep unknown mystery. He had also said, “The first step is the hardest,” and I was feeling that now.