“Trilobite Six to Kraken Two. We have a situation.”

“Kraken Two. Go ahead.”

“Upon inspection Intrepid IV discovered a large hole located below the waterline on the starboard hull. Trilobite Six and 49 entered and began secondary interior assessment.” Stromberg paused. “A second hole was discovered inside the ship, destroying the door to the interior cargo hold.”

“What?” Allen did not sound amused. “That’s not possible.”

“Examine Trilobite Six video feed. It’s right there.” Stromberg tapped the camera. There was a long silence from Kraken Two.

“Tril… Trilobite Six, get yourself out of there. Evacuate rescue scene. Scene is unsafe for extraction. Cancelling MST and DSRR operations. Kraken Two.”

Stromberg had not felt clinging fear since Iraq. Now, the unmistakable sensation began to creep back over him. from a rock or sandbar would not have created an outside hole with the qualities the team had observed, and could not explain how another hole had been torn on the inside. In all his years with the DSRR, Stromberg had never seen anything resembling the wrecked Argonaut.

Stromberg spoke cautiously through the radio.

“These holes weren’t caused by explosives.”

The Intrepid’s radio stream hung with a stunned silence.

“I’ve seen the damage that explosives cause time and time again. These holes show damage patterns inconsistent with damage from an IED or professionally made explosive device.” Stromberg said over the radio. “Something did this. I don’t know who, or what, but something forcibly tore apart the walls of this ship. The same thing that punched a hole through this door made the hole in the outer hull.”

“Ken, don’t be stupid.” Dave answered. “This hull is built from seven inches of reinforced steel. No creature on Earth can break through the hull of a ship…”

MST communications are down. Repeat, MST communications are down. Trilobite Six, can you connect with MST Buffalo? Kraken Two.

“Trilobite Six. I’ll try.” Stromberg fiddled with his back-mounted radio, tinkering with the signal wavelength. Material Salvage Team radios always operated in the 809-830 MHz range, while DSRR squad communications were facilitated by an 831-864 MHz bandwidth.

Stromberg’s signal swept about from 809 to 830, without connecting or detecting a single signal. From the radio, not a single MST member was operating in viable range.

“Kraken Two, I can’t connect with MST squad. Did they confirm comm lines were intact before going down?” Stromberg asked.

“Affirmative. Captain of the Buffalo confirmed working communications with Kraken Two before descending. I didn’t contact the dive team before they went down. Communications don’t go through.” In Allen’s voice, Stromberg could hear a hint of panic.

The Material Salvage Teams aren’t ones to be trusted, Stromberg thought. What idiots wouldn’t solidify radio contact with surface command before descending a thousand feet underwater?

There was only one reason an entire Material Salvage Team would descend into the darkness, completely radio-blind.

Looting.

Within the Intrepid IV, Dave’s mind frantically tried to piece together logical possibilities. The Argonaut had been carrying valuable cargo and was hijacked by a large team of elite, professional pirates, who managed to disable the alarms and communications array with an EMP, blast the cargo hold, and take the entire crew hostage before scuttling the ship with an explosive charge mounted to the starboard hull.

Ken seemed certain that the hole was not blown with explosives. And the computer program triggered the automated distress beacon, so an EMP attack is unfeasible.

Katie hadn’t believed in monsters since she was a girl. During a four-month phase that began right after her third birthday, she had refused to go to her bedroom without her parents for fear of monsters. She feared that monsters would dig themselves up from under the ground, grab her, and throw her in the air before dragging her deep down under the earth and devouring her. And now, twenty years later, that same, all-too-familiar fear was creeping back over her… the subconscious, instinctive fear of a monster in her midst.

Something that easily ripped apart the steel hull of the Argonaut would have no problem obliterating the submarine, and the submarine would not have to be wrecked to kill them both. Any miniscule damage to the oxygen tank, the charcoal air filter, the electronics array, or the front window would spell certain death for anyone unfortunate enough to be trapped inside.

“Intrepid IV, get yourself out of there. Evacuate rescue scene. Scene is unsafe for extraction. Cancelling MST and DSRR operations. Kraken Two.”

The relief within the submarine was almost palpable.

“Let’s get out of here.” Katie said. She toggled the control stick upwards.

The cabin seemed to grow warmer, heating the air as if by induction. Something dark flitted before the floodlight before slinking back off into the deep.

“…Dave? It’s not responding…” Katie’s eyes flitted about the dashboard. When she saw the battery indicator, she froze. Her mouth sat agape as her lower lip began to tremble.

“The battery is…at…two percent,” she stuttered.

“I… we… WE CHECKED IT!!!!” Dave began to shout. “IT WAS EIGHTY PERCENT JUST A FEW MINUTES AGO…”

“What’s going on out there?” Stromberg’s voice over the radio was a comfort, if not a safety net.

“We’re… we’re out of battery. Our functions are shutting down…” Katie’s voice faded as the mechanics around her began to die.

Soft clicks accompanied the advance of darkness as the submersible’s secondary systems shut down. The light that had once been so comforting clicked off and died. With a bubbling hiss, the ballast tanks began to release the compressed air that had kept them afloat, filling themselves instead with water as the battery-powered purge valves died. The hull of the Argonaut loomed larger and larger before them as the submarine descended into blackness.

The submersible sank slowly, helplessly, into the soft mud of the ocean floor.

Katie screamed.

Back inside the Argonaut’s belly, Shang, Stromberg and Nekimbe trudged down the central hallway, opening doors and searching rooms for corpses. Most of the rooms turned up nothing- no evidence, not even bodies.

Although the atmospheric diving suit was strong enough to withstand pressure levels that could crush a pickup truck into a suitcase, Ken Stromberg felt more vulnerable than he had felt ever before. Something that easily ripped aside layers of reinforced, tempered steel would have no problem tearing the suit, with him inside, to shreds.

“Kraken Two, Intrepid IV is down.”

“Down? What…?”

“Their mainframe battery died. They’re lost. Their radio contact’s cut.”

There was a pause from the other side of the line. In a split instant, the mission had gone so far downhill that all other objectives lay secondary to the rescue of DSRR’s own operatives.

“Were… were you able to connect with MST? They are lowering a winched crane pallet. It’s capable of lifting the sub. How much oxygen do they have?”

“No clue.” Even if the MST salvage pallet could access the sub, the rescue attempt would be meaningless if they had run out of air. The second the sub ran out of oxygen, it would become an airtight underwater coffin.

“I’ll manually connect with MST members when they get here,” Stromberg said. “I’m guessing they’ll go for the cargo hold. I’ve heard they have a propensity to pocket things that look valuable.”

“Got it.” Allen said. “Just keep this in mind. If you can’t reach MST and get their attention, the crew of Intrepid IV is dead.”

Stromberg pulled the suit through the gaping jaws of the cargo hold. Small shipping crates lay scattered across the floor of the hold, with boxes of provisions and supplies sitting open and destroyed. Things that looked like food had rolled across the floor and intermingled with other things that looked like toys, and packaged kitchen utensils, and hundreds of other objects that nobody would ever need or use anymore. Not one thing seemed to be in its place.

Nekimbe’s floodlight scoured the walls of the hold as the strewn crates cast ghostly shadows upon the floor. For a ship as moderately sized as the Argonaut, the ceiling of the cargo hold seemed as immense as a cold metal cathedral.

From the port wall of the cargo hold, a dimly glowing red spot brightened to a glimmering light as an acetylene cutting torch sheared through the reinforced steel. The line moved downwards, towards the floor. More red spots soon appeared, growing in intensity as the flames burst through the steel. They pulled together, drawing lines that connected to form an enormous blob-shaped polygon. As the glowing yellow lines connected, a deafening grating noise rang throughout the cargo hold as the colossal steel plate dislodged and fell from its mounting. Half a dozen flashlights swung their beams about the cargo hold as their bearers clambered into the ship.

Stromberg flickered his light towards the MST crew, the universal signal for distress. The new, black-suited rescuers approached as the leader signaled to Stromberg to form a radio talk group. The leader held up six fingers.

“600 MHz? That’s illegal…” He did as he was instructed. 600MHZ transmission was reserved for military operations, and use by civilian or non-military purposes could be fined. To him, it didn’t seem that there were many men enforcing the laws beneath the sea.

The radios paired signals with Nekimbe and McAllan.

“Who are you?” The man sounded European, maybe Polish. “DSRR?”

“Yes. The name’s Stromberg. I desperately need your help.”

“With what? Doesn’t the mighty DSRR have ‘everything handled’”? Through the radio Stromberg could hear the chuckles of his team members. More of them had climbed into the ship. Outside, an enormous grated steel platform and crane apparatus dangled from reinforced steel wiring that stretched to the heavens above.

“We ran into a problem. We lost a support sub outside the ship and we need the crane pallet to rescue the crew.”

“I’m afraid that can’t be done. We were instructed to salvage this hull, and the crane isn’t to be used for anything else.” The team leader stood directly between Stromberg and the path to the crane. “We have orders.”

“And I have mine,” Stromberg replied. “The lives of two rescuers rely on your crane. They’ll be running out of oxygen shortly. Their battery pack died, and their sub sank. They’ll be in the mud by the starboard hull.”

“You should have called in a support crane of your own, then.” He responded, petulantly.

“Look, Damon…” One of the MST operatives behind the leader responded in protest.

“Shut up.” Damon snapped at his subordinate.

“If you don’t help us they will die, and their blood will be on your hands and your hands alone.” Stromberg pleaded.

Damon stopped, and whimpered like a child asked to clean his room. “We can get them out. Boys, make a collection of everything worth taking home and pile it by the opening.” A unanimous murmur of approval sounded from the crew as the swarm dispersed towards the crates of the cargo hold.

The leader gestured to Stromberg to follow. They walked towards the opening the MST squad had cut as the platform crashed into the hull of the ship, controlled by a man standing behind a waist-high control panel. Damon stepped across the inch-wide void onto it. Stromberg followed suit, and held onto a cable for support.

“Nekimbe, finish searching this ship. Go with McAllan and clear the rest of the rooms.”

Nekimbe saluted in approval as the crane lifted up, above the opening. As the crane operator cleared the gunwale, Damon turned to face Stromberg.

“Many of these men have nothing. Some of them survive only on what they take from these ships. You’re not to speak of what we do.”

“Understood.” Stromberg answered, with an air of obedience he was unfamiliar with.

“When we find these idiots, they’d better be alive.”