Deep Blue - The Descent

13: Mission Report

Nick sat at the tiny desk in his quarters. The glow of the holographic display of his computer illuminated his features as well as the towel that was draped over his shoulders. His hair was still slightly damp from his recent shower even though the rest of his body was dry due to the fact that this was the same position he'd been in for the last fifteen minutes. In that time he'd tried multiple times to contact Nathan in the "research ship" at the surface, but so far his calls had gone unanswered.

While Nathan's lack of response had Nick a little concerned, the thought he was really struggling with was how he was going to report back to the Admiral that his multibillion dollar ship was now tattooed with a large blast mark, a destroyed robotic arm, a scuffed up wing tip, not to mention being peppered with crystal fragments that remain embedded in the outer skin -- if not deeper.

He was trying to find a way to present all that information, without having to include the bit about picking up an unknown element from the bottom of the ocean.

So far, he was failing -- horribly as minute sixteen ticked by.

"Screw it.", he thought to himself hitting the record button.

"Begin report. 3.6.2065, Lieutenant Commander Nicholas Sheppard reporting from the Deep Blue station following the initial Cavitation test dive."

First the good news. It always helps to start off with good news.

"The initial extreme depth test of the M.A.N.T.A. was a success -- mostly. I successfully took the M.A.N.T.A. to a depth of...let's see...thirty four thousand, nine hundred and thirty nine feet. I believe that would be a new world record."

Nick paused for a moment to let that sink in.

Then he took a deep breath and continued, "The initial test of the Cavitation Drive was mostly successful. The drive fired up perfectly with acceleration that I've never experienced in any submersible. However, while the Cavitation Drive was active there was a severe decrease in maneuverability. The controls became very stiff and sluggish."

Now came the first slice of bad news.

"The sluggish controls, combined with the dramatic increase in speed resulted in a -- minor collision with, well -- with the surrounding landscape."

Yeah, that really didn't sound all that much better in his head either. He was supposed to be this awesome test pilot, but awesome test pilots don't usually go around running into things with the vehicles they are testing.

"Damage to the M.A.N.T.A. seems to be superficial with only minor scrapes along the tip of the left wing."

Oh, and let's not forget the vibrations.

"Also, as the speed increased there was a low level vibration coming from the drive. I was able to run the drive at approximately ten percent of it's full capacity before the vibration became a larger concern which resulted in my decision to shut down the drive. This brings up the biggest problem, it was non-responsive to the shutdown command. I was required to power down the entire ship in order to stop the drive."

Nick was sure that statement was going to go over well with the engineers. He can hear them now, "Doesn't he know there's a proper procedure for powering down the M.A.N.T.A.?! He can't just go around shutting down the vehicle whenever he wants to!"

Engineers. They're always so good at flying their vehicles -- on a computer, and have no idea what it's like to get behind the stick.

"It's probably worth noting that there were no problems with performing a cold start at depth with the vehicle."

Oh, how he wanted the report to end right there, wishing that's all there was left to say. He'd like very much to just sign off now. Problem was, he knew that with the amount of damage the M.A.N.T.A. sustained from that point blank explosion it wasn't going to be a good idea to set her back in the water without a much closer examination. That, and he hadn't thought of any way to explain the char pattern or demolished robotic arm. It was around this moment that Nick had the realization of the very long, awkward pause that he was now leaving in the report. He had to say something, and now.