Abyss Crew

2 - DSMV Virginia Outrider

The waters of the Pole were as dark as they were cold.

Such a chill could seep and ooze through the hull of any ship on God's blue Earth, and it could send a shiver down the back of any man of the sea, as rugged as he was.

Daring, full-hearted, red-blooded Virginians certainly were no exception, as rugged as they were.

The radar operator of the Outrider, a small bucktoothed fella, sneezed loudly. "No sign o' the wreckage cap'n," he said as he wiped his runny nose with his sleeve.

Captain Waylon Whitman was a tall man with broad shoulders and long thinly muscled limbs. His greying hair and mustache gave his lined face an air of quiet severity, and in his gaze, there was the alertness of an old wolf that had dodged the antlers of many a charging bull moose.

"What's wrong, Nielsen? Drunk outta your mind again?" he said with a smidgen of a smile in his baritone voice.

"No, sir, haven't had nothin' to drink since New York."

Whitman chuckled. "Haven't had the heart to touch a bottle since those uppity brits drank you under the table, huh?"

"I'd wager a nickel he still has bourbon to wash down his biscuits, cap'n," the pilot said with an audible smirk.

"Well, yeah," the operator said distractedly, "but that don't count as drinkin'. It's jus' breakfas'."

"Yeah. Takes a special kind o' drunk to be drinkin' before noon, don't it, cap'n."

"Sure does, Grant," Whitman said as he clapped his pilot's enormous shoulder. "But let's talk about Nielsen's alcoholism later, and let's focus on those mines, for now, awright?"

"Aye, sir," Grant said in a military tone as he straightened up.

Back when he was in the navy, Amos Grant had been nicknamed "Bull" by his fellow seamen, and for obvious reasons. He was one giant of a man, barrel-chested, with arms like tree trunks, and hands as strong as pliers. Whitman found him to be his best man by far, and he was certainly worth five times what he could afford to pay him.

"'nother mine dead ahead, skipper. One mile." Nielsen warned.

"Damn it," Whitman said through his teeth as his pilot changed their trajectory. "How many o' those're floatin' 'round here..."

Those were relics of the Northern War. The waters around the North Pole were swarming with all sorts of explosive devices that were still drifting, waiting endlessly for any unsuspecting ship that passed by...

"...like a goddamn knife on a couch..." Whitman said with disdain. "Ruskis sure knew what they were doin'. Forty years and there's still one o' these things for every single fool sailin' the Atlantic." He paused and glanced at his radar operator. "Well, let's hope not all of 'em."

"My friend Marty sure found one with his name on it."

"Oh, yeah?" Whitman said absent-mindedly to humor Nielsen.

"Yup," the little man said, his head bobbing to follow the sweeping line of his radar, his eyes unblinking. "Him and his entire crew. They was just a few miles from the coast o' Greenland, mindin' their own business, lookin' for some rocks, and then boom, no more Marty, an' no more Blue Ox."

"Wait," Whitman interrupted, eyeing the operator. "Blue Ox? As in Cap'n James Talbot's Blue Ox? That sub was a rusty piece o' shit."

"Yup."

"That guy bought more booze than fuel anytime he was at Far Coast."

"Saw him drinkin' from a jerrycan once," Grant added. "Don't know what was in it, an' don't think he did neither."