Vanguard | Post-Apocalyptic YA

Part 9: Picked Up, Knocked Down

I'm not going to be able to pull off my plan without help so I get to work.

As usual, I find my mechanic Dunstan tinkering in our docking bay. "I need you to make me a remote," I say without so much as a greeting.

"To do what?" he grumbles without even looking up from his workbench.

Although I wasn't expecting it, I'm still thankful that his first question isn't 'why', so I continue. "Submerge a pilotless Skipper. Can you do it?"

"Aye. Anything's possible," he answers as he tightens a screw in the gizmo in his hands.

"So then you can make it resurface it, too?" I ask with rising excitement.

"Nah. That's impossible." He dashes my hopes in one fell swoop.

I throw my hands up in confusion. "But you just said the opposite!"

He turns toward me. 

"Did I? Well, it's just a meaningless saying. Look here. Making it go down is easy. All I have to do is flood the ballast tanks in spite of the engines being off. It's just a question of installing a secondary power source to the valves. Extra water means less buoyancy resulting in a heavier craft and, well, you get the idea. But to get it up again, you'll need to get rid of the water with compressed air. The problem is, these crafts are made to generate that while the engines are on."

He turns back to the jumble of panels and wires in front of him and I think over what he just said while watching him work. All pilots have to go through basic engineering training, but it was never my best subject. While what Dunstan is saying makes sense, it doesn't fit with what I personally experienced on that fateful fishing mission with Ray. Even though my craft stalled and the engine cut-off, the Skipper continued to float toward the surface. If the engine indeed needs to be running to empty the tank, then I shouldn't have been able to make it to the surface.

I carefully word this as a hypothetical question to my mechanic, while leaving out the parts about breaking the rules.

When I finish, he nods. "Aye, that's true, but you're forgetting the fail-safe."

"What fail safe?"

He slams a screwdriver on the table and rubs his eyes with his grubby hands. "I swear, I'm going to take away your license if you keep this up, Will. The fail-safe that releases the compressed air when the engines turn off, of course. It's what makes your submarine be able to dock the way it does here without you needing to manually release the pressure. It's convenient, but it was designed that way so that pilots don't get stuck on the bottom of the ocean if they experience any type of mechanical malfunction."

I cross my arms. "Can't you install a supplemental compressor?"

"Maybe." He shrugs. "Do you have access to a fully stocked hardware store?"

I shake my head.

"Then no," he says.

"Who the hell thought it was a good idea to design the Skippers like this?" I ask, my escalating anger becoming increasingly harder to hide.

He smirks. "I believe that was your father. Do you want to ask him how to get around the problem?"

I shake my head again, but this time it's in disbelief. "All right. Just make it be able to sink. We'll figure out the rest later."

"Very well," he agrees before turning back to his current project.

I'm energized by the prospect of being able to pull this off, but the feeling is countered with apprehension about the other hurdles I'm still facing. I decide to head to the gym to release some of this stress and perhaps be able to think more clearly again.