Defenders of Destiny, book one, the Discovery of Astrolaris

by Brenton Barwick

  Chapter Twenty

  Salvage Operation

  Suddenly, through the water spray, Joseph recognized their pursuer’s round head. He was instantaneously filled with euphoria.

  “Wait, it’s the robot!” he exclaimed, incredulously.

  As they stopped, the crest of the robot’s head rose from the water a few feet away. The water spilled off of it as it rose up into the air until the top of its feet were level with the surface of the water.

  The family quickly clambered onto the top of the foot.

  “It must have heard my wish,” rejoiced Sharianna.

  “Robo-ship, open the airlock,” ordered Joseph, filled with elation.

  Percy wagged his tail and barked a happy hello when they opened the door from the airlock to the hallway, completely oblivious of his near death experience.

  With Dad at the helm, the robot again slid beneath the waves of the Pacific.

  “Where to now, navigator?” Dad asked, looking at Joseph.

  Mom interrupted, “I think we had better get some food from somewhere. We left the coconuts and mangos on the beach…”

  “And most of my shells,” interjected Sharianna as she pulled several beautiful seashells from her pockets. “But not all of them.” Her smile looked a little out of place on her tear-streaked face.

  “And my backpack,” added Joseph.

  “My point is,” continued Mom, “even if we ate all the junk food, it would only last a couple of days.”

  Joseph examined the map, “What about Guam, or Saipan? The map shows them as American possessions. That’s where we were going before the robot showed up.”

  “Is there any fast food there?” asked Sharianna.

  “I doubt it,” answered Mom. “Besides, even if we hid the robot and went in on foot, I think if we showed up in some small village store to buy food they would ask a lot of questions.”

  “I heard they have American restaurants in Japan,” proposed Sharianna hopefully.

  “I think they might still be looking for the UFO that flew over Tokyo,” cautioned Dad.

  “Hey, what would they call an unidentified object in the water?” posed Joseph.

  “What?” inquired Mom.

  “A UFO.”

  “Why is that?”

  “An Unidentified Floating Object.”

  “Was that a joke?” jabbed Sharianna.

  Dad pulled out his wallet and counted out the small bills. “Seventeen dollars. You kids have any money?” he asked hopefully.

  “I have the credit card,” offered Mom. “I think this qualifies as an emergency.”

  “Yeah, I think it does,” replied Dad.

  “I think Hawaii is the logical choice,” concluded Mom. “I’m sure they will take the credit card.”

  “Japan is closer,” argued Joseph.

  “We don’t just need food,” countered Mom.

  “What else?” inquired Dad.

  Mom sniffed the air. “I think a change of clothes would be a good idea.”

  “And some shampoo,” added Sharianna.

  “And a razor,” laughed Mom as she rubbed the stubble on Dad’s chin.

  “Joseph found something even sharper than a razor, didn’t you Joseph?” commented Dad.

  “Yes, the kitchen knives,” he replied, as he pulled the small knife from the sheath he had fashioned from a piece of green bamboo and attached to his belt.

  Mom continued, “On second thought, we can skip the razor, I kind of like it,” she pulled on his chin and gave him a kiss. “Although the fresh clothes and the soap wouldn’t hurt.”

  “Hey!” protested Dad, feigning injury. “Hawaii, here we come!”

  They proceeded rapidly in a northeasterly direction across the bottom of the East Mariana Basin. They zigzagged in a random pattern, all the while heading in an overall easterly course for Hawaii. At, or near, the point of each zig and each zag they came up near enough to the surface to get a reading from the GPS.

  Joseph looked up from the map, “Hey, it’s now yesterday,” he declared.

  “What?” asked Sharianna.

  “We just crossed the International Date Line.”

  “Are we going to go to Honolulu?” asked Sharianna. “It’s the capitol, you know.”

  “No way,” asserted Dad. “Not unless we want to encounter the whole fleet of nuclear subs all at once. Honolulu is on the island of O’ahu and overlooks Pearl Harbor, which is one of the largest U.S. Navy bases in the Pacific.”

  “Joseph, what is the next largest city?” queried Mom.

  “Looks like Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawai’i.”

  “Is it on the coast?” asked Dad.

  “Yeah. It is on the east side of the island. If we go around and approach from the west, we can probably avoid the submarines,” suggested Joseph. “Especially if we circle around and keep to the bottom – it is 17,000 feet deep there.”

  “Thanks, Navigator,” acknowledged Dad. “Any suggestions on how we get to shore without being seen?”

  “If the Hawaiian Islands were created by volcanoes then I’ll bet they have pretty steep drop-offs into the ocean, right?” asked Sharianna. “Like the last island. We could get pretty close while staying deep. Then, while staying close to the drop-off we could come up to a safe depth, go out the airlock in our spacesuits and speed in to shore.”

  “If we went early in the morning, just before dawn, we would be hidden and anyone seeing us come up from the beach would think that we had been out for an early morning swim,” added Mom.

  “In our street clothes?” questioned Joseph.

  “Okay, an early morning stroll along the beach,” corrected Mom. “Anyway, then we would have a whole day to get the food and other shopping done that we need. We could even find a nice seafood restaurant in the evening and be back at the robot that night.” Mom smiled as she thought of all the great shopping there must be along the beach.

  “Remember, we can’t carry that much back with us when we swim back to the robot,” asserted Dad, in an attempt to preempt the big shopping spree.

  “I know, I thought if we all had backpacks, we could carry the stuff we need under our spacesuits, like Joseph did when we went to the island,” suggested Mom. “I’ll only buy what we need…unless there is a really great deal.”

  “We had better take something to put the spacesuits in once we get to the beach,” concluded Dad.

  “I still have my backpack,” suggested Sharianna.

  “Okay, we’ll spend the night at the bottom, then we’ll park the ship up on the shelf in the morning, in shallow water,” agreed Dad.

  “Everybody ready?” asked Dad, before opening the airlock the next morning.

  “How far is it to the beach?” asked Sharianna.

  “I don’t know, but we can’t risk going into any shallower water,” replied Dad.

  “Let’s stick together, and we’ll be fine,” instructed Mom.

  “We’ll go straight up to the surface so that we can get a reference from the shore; that way we’ll be able to find the robot tonight. Then we’ll go under the surface to the beach.”

  “If we can’t find it we could call it to us again,” said Sharian-na.

  “Oh, yeah, I can see the headlines now: WITNESSES SAW A GIANT MONSTER-ROBOT RISE UP FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN,” teased Joseph.

  The sun was barely beginning to illuminate the buildings on the shore as they sped along, a few feet below the surface, toward the beach.

  “Now we really look like tourists,” complained Sharianna, as she looked at the new clothes that Mom had bought. “Why do we all have to wear the same goofy Hawaiian shirts and shorts?”

  “Because we are in Hawaii and we are tourists,” replied Mom.

  “And they were on sale,” added Dad.

  “We can do some other shopping later,” Mom whispered in Sharianna’s ear.

  Dad got a map from the city tourist information shop. “Let’s take the bus tou
r out to Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.”

  “No, I think I have seen enough volcanoes for one trip. Thank you,” asserted Mom.

  “I’ll go with you,” offered Joseph.

  “Make sure we meet back here by seven o’clock at the latest,” instructed Dad.

  “I’ll stay with Mom,” elected Sharianna.

  That evening they met back at the tourist information shop. After dinner at the wonderful seafood restaurant that Mom and Sharianna found during their shopping expedition, they went for a stroll on the boardwalk along the beach. When they looked out from the boardwalk toward the place where they left the robot, they noticed a flat-decked salvage ship with two huge cranes in the distance.

  “What’s going on out there?” Dad asked a man who was manning a kiosk on the boardwalk. Dad tried to keep his voice sounding mildly curious, but inside he was frantic.

  “Some treasure hunter thinks there is an old wreck out there with a lot of gold on it; he’s been scanning the shelf for weeks. I wonder if he finally found something?”

  “I think we had better get out there quick, before they get their cables on the robot,” whispered Joseph, as they walked down the steps to the beach.

  “It’s not even dark yet,” groaned Sharianna. “And look at all the people – someone will see us for sure.”

  “Over there, we can put the suits on under the pier,” suggest-ed Dad.

  They quickly put on the spacesuits, out of site of all the people playing on the beach, and made their way toward the water’s edge, while staying under the pier. They could see the people on the beach every now and then between the pylons.

  As they neared the water, they realized that two boys were playing in the rocks near the water’s edge, under the pier.

  “We should have bought swimsuits,” lamented Mom. “That way we would blend in as we entered the water.”

  “Follow me,” instructed Dad, as he waded out into the water. He went behind one of the large pylons and disappeared, followed by Sharianna, Joseph and Mom.

  “Hey, where did they go?” exclaimed one of the boys, after a few minutes.

  As they got near the place where they left the robot they could see it lying on its back on the bottom, right where they left it. However, they could also see two divers working on getting a cable around the neck – they already had a cable around the feet. The divers seemed completely occupied with their task, so the family quickly jetted toward the robot.

  At that moment, another diver appeared who was bringing the end of the cable up from the other side of the robot. He looked up and saw them as he clipped the hook onto the cable. They were still about a hundred and fifty feet from the robot. He quickly motioned to his two companions, who looked with incredulous eyes to see a man and a woman with two teenagers speeding straight through the water in their matching Hawaiian shirts and shorts, each wearing a bulging backpack, without any scuba gear. The first diver began swimming for the surface, while the other two swam in an effort to intercept the family.

  “Robo-ship, open the airlock,” commanded Joseph, as they raced toward the ship.

  Suddenly, they saw the slack go out of the cables as the robot was hoisted slowly off the ocean floor.

  “Hurry, get into the airlock,” ordered Dad, as he turned to face the divers who had come to cut off their escape.

  The divers suddenly stopped and looked at each other incredulously when Dad turned around and faced them with his fists up, as if he were in a boxing match.

  Dad took the opportunity to drop down into the airlock and push the button to close the door. As the door closed, the faces of the two bewildered divers appeared above it. Sharianna smiled sweetly and waved goodbye.

  “We’ve got to hurry,” asserted Dad nervously, as he waited impatiently for the water to drain out of the airlock so that he could open the door to the hall. When the door finally opened they rushed into the control cabin.

  Above them they could clearly see the hull of the salvage ship. They could also see the two divers swimming toward the surface.

  Dad and Joseph jumped into the captain’s chairs and Dad began to pull away.

  On board the salvage ship the winches groaned and the crane booms bent toward the water. The barge began to list as the tips of the cranes dipped beneath the waves. Men yelled as they hung onto whatever they could grab. “The cable is breaking!” screamed one of the crane operators, when he heard the pinging sound as each of the strands that made up the huge cable stretched and broke in rapid succession. Suddenly, there were enough strands broken that the rest gave way all at once. The whole ship swung around in an arc wildly as it pivoted on the remaining cable. The men continued to cling to their precarious handholds.

  “Wait!” yelled Mom, as she saw the ship above suddenly lurch onto its side and then swing around wildly as the cable around the robot’s neck broke.

  Dad reversed his direction, creating some slack in the cable.

  The barge suddenly slapped back down onto an even keel.

  Dad tried to grab the cable that was still around the legs of the robot.

  “Let me,” offered Joseph.

  Dad flipped the control switch and Joseph quickly grabbed the cable with both of the robot’s hands and pulled it apart as if it were a piece of yarn.

  Joseph then piloted the robot toward the drop-off and de-scended down into the depths of the ocean.

  The divers witnessed the incredible underwater drama in stunned incredulity as the robot disappeared into the dark depths.

  “Do you think they will report this to the military?” asked Sharianna.

  “I don’t know, but we’re not waiting to find out,” replied Joseph, as he reached the ocean floor and headed in a very fast northerly direction across the Northeast Pacific Basin, toward the Bering Sea.

  “Good piloting. I think we should still move in a random pattern,” cautioned Dad.

  “That was close,” sighed Mom.

  “That was exciting!” exclaimed Sharianna, as she threw her suit on a chair and took off her backpack.

  “I think I may have squashed the bread,” confessed Joseph, as he leaned forward in the captain’s chair.

  “I’ll take over for you while you take off your spacesuit and backpack,” suggested Sharianna sweetly, as she saw an opportunity to pilot the ship.

  Joseph realized her designs, but relinquished his seat never-theless. He picked up Sharianna’s suit and backpack and headed for the cargo bay.

  Sophia’s heart was still pounding as she followed Joseph into the cargo bay.

  Dad joined them as they were hanging up the spacesuits in the hallway closet. “I’m real proud of you son; I think you can probably handle the robot better than me.”

  Joseph was beaming from this compliment – he knew his dad was sincere and it made him feel good. “I guess it’s from playing computer games. You know, the controls are almost the same.”

  They returned to the control cabin and Sharianna continued their random zigzag pattern for a few hours, without returning to the surface for a GPS reading.

  Mom yawned, “I think we ought to stop for the night. I’m looking forward to that shampoo we bought today.”

  Sharianna set the robot on the bottom for the night.

  Joseph awoke early the next morning and rubbed Percy behind the ears. “I think we should get going,” he whispered.

  Joseph made his way into the control room without making any noise and sat down in the captain’s chair.

  “What are you doing?” whispered Sharianna quietly from the doorway.

  “I’m going up to get a GPS reading,” he replied softly.

  Sharianna sat in the other chair. “Okay, let’s go.”

  At the bottom, they could only see as far as the lights, but as they rose toward the surface, the ocean changed from pitch black to a kind of twilight that slowly got brighter as they neared the surface.

  Joseph recorded the GPS reading on the map. They
looked up to see a large, long shadow silhouetted against the light above.

  “Another submarine,” speculated Sharianna fearfully.