Deep Blue - The Descent

40: Out of the Fire

"How is that even possible?", Nick asked.

"Syndi, drop the sonar image on the main screen.", Doctor Marshal ordered.

The view of the giant ship on the main screen which was already fully obstructed by the murky water, blinked away and was replaced by what could only be described as a brightly colored orange wall on the sonar display.

"That's above us?", Jordan asked.

The doctor nodded, "Yes. Syndi how much time do we have?"

The A.I. responded, "The mass will impact Deep Blue in 2 minutes and 25 seconds."

"No rock is that big.", Nick argued.

"It's not a rock.", the doctor confirmed calmly as he leaned back slowly in his chair. "It's an avalanche. A big one. It must have started higher up the wall now it's working it's way down."

"So we use the M.A.N.T.A. and the escape pods.", Nick quickly suggested. "You said there were four."

"We lost one when we lost the Southwest wing.", the doctor said pointing to the sealed door of the crushed corridor. "Besides, there's no 'piloting' those. They simply detach and shoot straight to the surface. We'd launch directly up into the path of what's coming down."

"That sounds like a short trip.", Nick joked.

The doctor nodded in agreement, "We've got to get our guest outside. If we can do that there's a chance his -- people will pick him up and move him to safety."

"What about us?", Nick inquired.

Jordan turned and headed toward her quarters, "I'll grab the M.A.N.T.A. suit. I'm pretty sure we're gonna need it."

"I'll see what I can do about Eugene.", Nick replied. "There's got to be some way we can get him out of that tube."

As Nick entered Lab 2 he noticed the shaking had finally begun to subside. Either that, or he was simply getting used to it. With the current "low light" order in place in the lab, Eugene's flashing necklace cast a strobe-like effect throughout the darkened room which gave Nick a staggered stop motion appearance as he ran to the observation tube.

Dirt and sediment flowed in from the open lid at the top of the tube. Eugene was conscious but sat almost motionless at the bottom of the tank. With the tube open, he was exposed to the lower pressure of 15,000ft and it was quickly taking a toll on his body.

"Ok, so how do I get you outta here?", Nick said as he placed a hand on the curved glass of the tank causing a holographic control panel to appear adjacent to his hand. The panel provided various readouts and data and a cluster of buttons and controls. None of the data made any sense to Nick, but he scanned the labels on the controls looking for anything that might help raise the creature out of the tube.

There were buttons for "vital signs", "environmental analysis", and "biological scans" but nothing that would indicate "eject" or "forced evacuation of the tube".

"Come on, there's got to be something here.", Nick said as his frustration grew. That's when his eyes focused past his hand, into the chamber itself. He spotted tiny bubbles rising from the tank floor. The bubbles were coming from the tank's aeration system that provided the tank with oxygen.

"Syndi", Nick called out. "Can the flow of bubbles inside the tank be controlled?"

"Of course Lieutenant Commander.", the A.I. answered. "It must be controlled as to allow the proper amount of oxygen to flow through the water in the tank."