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Aberrant: 200X - Fathoms Deep In It...


SuperCav

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Britget hauls butt across the water, a large backpack filled with eqipment heading to a medium-size research boat out in the middle of nowhere. On a large side pouch, she takes some lunch she whipped together for her and deepwater to enjoy before taking their next dive.

The wreck of the Adamant Star - A small cargo ship that had recently sunk in the relatively shallow (for a nove) waters off the coast of Fiji. Not really of consequence except for the fact the sinking was fast... and now accident investigators want answers. Not to mention salvaging whatever can be salvaged.

Bridget slows up and coasts to the starboard side of the hull of the SS Inquisitive. She likes most of what she is. She's a medium-sized oceanic research ship, nothing too fancy, but her crew needs some work. They're young, inexperienced, and prone to mishap. Luckily none of them dive...

"Hey Austin!!! I'm here with the sammiches!" Bridget says with a wise smile. Some of the crew looks over and a good number of the men lock eyes on her white bodysuit style eufiber wetsuit. The high-visibility vest she has had a habit of wearing on surface runs has become a trademark of hers as well. Not that she usually needs the flotation device unless she's completely out of juice, not that some disaster like that would happen. Also having a inflatable life jacket a mile or so down isn't going to help very much when you hit empty.

She starts to walk up to the bridge area, she has a feeling he might be there.

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Austin was on the bridge, having just returned from locating the sunken ship. Normally he wouldn't dive alone, but he wanted to be sure before he and Britget went down together.

He smiled at her voice and called to her. "On the bridge."

He and the Captain of the Ship, Drake Lee, shared a nod. "Always nice to have both our primary nova agents onboard."

"It's good to be in the field, as opposed to behind the desk."

"So it's down there?"

"Right beneath us. We'll be taking the lines down in case we find something. I don't know what's on this ship, but it's important enough to get us out here fast."

Drake nodded. "You suspect something."

"Yes. And it is best to leave it at that. Remember the sheet i gave you earlier, keep it in mind."

With that he left to meet Britget.

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Bridget waves to Austin as he steps outside. "Hey! I brought the last of the gear and some pre-dive snacks!" She says setting down the requisitioned gear first before walking up. "It was an uneventful run, although I was delayed by a search for a missing swimmer... my RNLI instincts kicked in when I heard the call over the radio and looked around. The swimmer was alright though, but was swept out by a rip current. I stayed with them until the authorities showed." She says, scratching her head.

"So how's your day?" Bridget chirps, smiling from ear to ear as she hands over the large lunch bag to Austin... more like a small trash-bag sized seaworthy sealed tote with enough sandwiches to feed a small boat crew.

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He nodded. "Good call on the swimmer, since nobody was diving. Though if you're on an emergency run, check in first."

He dug into the sandwiches, as did several others present. "Today's been good. I found the wreck, She's beneath us. We'll dive after Mark sets up the gear we need."

Her other parce disappeared into one of the labs, to be reconfigured into a device measuring for a very specific material.

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"Like I said, situation resolved." She says, smiling. "I knew I wasn't on call... just a courier run." She scratches her head. "Gear? What sort of gear?"

Her curiosity is piqued. What sort of gear would be required outside of lifting bags, some mounting gear, and some other assorted gadgets?

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"Ah... good. Hopefully it won't be heavy. I only got enough clearance for one bag's worth of oil." She states dissapointedly. At the depths they'll be working in, air isn't an option because it's crushed at depth and it'll rupture the bags as they surface. So Oil, being uncompressible and more bouyant is used. Unfortunately some environmentalists curtailed the supply with injunctions after a previous salvage team at a different wreck spilled most of their supply when a couple bags got damaged during a lift.

"I might be of some use if we need only a little bit more lift... I can make myself less dense."

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"Cool..." She says, sitting on a crate, girlishly nibbling on her sandwich. "You know... when we started this a few months back... was I... everything you expected of me when you first asked me to join?" She says, leaning back against a support pole. "I mean... I've not really seen the bigger picture yet in regards to what we do, I just hope I've been to your standards."

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Austin nodded. That question could and WOULD be taken a number of ways by everyone who heard it. Thank God he'd had the prescience to move her over to logistics, a division he didn't technically control.

"You've done your job well Briget, I've had no complaints from others, or none of my own. OUr job is exciting and boring at the same time. We're exploring the last real frontiers on Earth, the Ocean. While novas can do this unassisted, you and I both serve as a safety net when we test equipment not meant for novas, but regular folks. The Ocean holds vast resources, and with some of the innovations we've already tested, we're that much closer to getting at them."

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"Yeah... just disappointed I can't get to the Final Frontier on my own... I can make do just fine... but God seemed to want a Nova torpedo, not a nova space cadet." Bridget sighs, not really one for the high-concept and high-purpose things. She's pragmatic. In the now.

"What I am interested in is the cargo below. Get this... the ship is a small cargo ship, fresh out of port on her maiden voyage. For some reason out here the ship just up and sank. The weather is clear just like now..."

She nibbles on her sandwich. "No survivors. That's the scary part. There's not been enough time for..." She clears her throat. "Well, if we want we can at least give the families peace."

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"Right. We should be on our guard. Are all the crew vetted with background checks and what not?" She says looking around at the ship. "I'm not one to wear a tin-foil hat but just saying."

She adjusts her suit, remembering the time she decided to change her look after joining. The publicity she got on her arrival stateside after rescuing a fishing ship. A little uncomfortable, and the look, while it sells action figures and posters just doesn't seem like her.

"So... nervous?"

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"Too true." She says, regaining some courage.

"So... when do you wanna start?" She says wolfing down the last of her meal. "Should be interesting to catalog just what happened down there and why there was no survivors."

She hops off her crate and stretches out. With her flexibility it's even more so. "I'm sure that the pay isn't what I'm here for."

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Mark returned a few minutes later with a pair of harnesses. "If you see the green light come on, you're near the target. it will begin to flash. The faster it flashes the closer you are. You'll be diving in full covering suits, just in case."

That right there told Austin alot, it was something chemical or biological, if they were worried about contact.

"The comm in your helmet has a range of 100 yards. The beacons can reach us here, activate them if you find the target, and begin ascent."

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"I would assume then that what you mean by ascent is with the package, correct?" Bridget says, making sure the details are clear in her mind.

She takes her covering suit and puts it on. She's not liking what she's wearing. A baggy suit would completely mess up her buoyancy. Until she finds a switch that causes the eufiber sheath weaved into the suit squeezes to her body. She attaches the helmet to the suit.

"Austin... are you recieving?"

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...Hmm... waiting for me... Then again, this isn't a race. She thinks before jumping in. She vents any remaining air in her suit, and fills a ballast tank built into a backpack on the harness. She starts to sink with DeepWater at her side.

"So, take it slow, or get there, DW?" She asks over coms. "What's your call on this?" She says as they drift deeper. There is still quite a lot of light from the surface, and one can barely see and outline of a large mass in the water.

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"Understood." She says, levelling off her drift once she comes parallel to the mass. She starts swimming foreward, not really advancing ahead or falling behind.

When the two reach the foot of the dark mass, a light lowered from the deck of the ship earlier is turned on from a control on Bridget's harness. What they see is shocking. A massive hole, under the waterline of the cargo ship, roughly two meters wide and tall. Around them is scattered debris. Cargo crates, shipping containers, other assorted material discarded overboard when the hull landed. "Well... that's what killed her." Bridget says, shining a handlight on the edge of the hole. "That's odd... come check this out." She says pointing at the metal on the edge of the hole. "Definately not metal fatigue. It's too smooth. Also the steel is slightly bowed out... you can see it if you put your head against the hull. It's not deep enough where air pressure would have done it. Whatever made that has to have come from inside the ship."

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"Odd. Then why is it the debris is radiating from the hole? If this ship sank the debris should be scattered all about, this... this seems too orderly." She says, walking up to the hole. "I wanna investigate what's inside here. With your permission."
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The cargo hold looked a shambles. Cargo containers and shipping containers strewn about. some opened and lighter objects hit the ceiling of the stricken vessel. As SuperCav and DeepWater move further in, they see more crates, stacked as if they weren't moved by whatever happened and the vessel sinking.

"Okay... that's not logical. A ship of this size and these crates should rattle about on landing when the ship sinks. This... This is odd." She walks around, then notices an open crate, with the opening pointing curiously at the hole behind them. As Supercav looks closer, Deepwater sees a light begin to eminate from the crate... and it's getting brighter with a very electrical sound.

And SuperCav is in front.

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"Umm... I don't think we wanna touch that right now... I think we're about to make it ANGRY!" SuperCav says moving to the side just before it fires off into the waters outside the downed ship, through the hole. The sheer pressure of the water being displaced and the super speed caused by whatever fired caused supercavitation, slamming Bridget into a nearby bulkhead from her being too close.

Bridget shakes off the shock of the blast, but it hurt like hell. "Ohhhh.... Like I said... we'd better not make that... angry. I think it's stuck on shoot."

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"Y... yeah I'd wager so." She says, coming around the side and gets ready to go into the crate to pull out whatever shot that. She notices some black inky substance gushing from her side.

"Dammit! MY lift bag's oil supply got breached. Lovely." She says, detaching the gear and tossing it aside. "Looks like it's your lift bag and me. You just hook the lift gear to it and I'll go up with it. You've seen my little trick before, right?"

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  • 1 month later...

She smiles. "I can reduce my density to the point where I believe I can match the bouyancy of the bag that got breached. One problem... I... sorta... get bigger. All that dispersed mass has to go somewhere. Luckily I won't be busting out my suit or anything." She sighs. "If all three of us set up a way to pull it up, we probably won't have much trouble taking it up for further examination... we'll have to disable the power to this thing... or find an off switch... why don't they use energizers anymore?"

She swims to one good anchoring point and hooks a D-Ring up form her suit to the device. "Ready when you are, unless you can pull a Sherlock and figure out what the bloody hell this is."

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"It's something we could be silenced for. Us and Our Entire crew." He switched over to the main channel. "I need everyone up top into the research lab on the starbord side."

"but Austin.."

"No buts, I want everyone there. Contact me after you're there."

He waited, taking twenty minutes and telling Bridget to do what she needed to do. "We're ready." "Good."

He switched to the private channel. "Let's go, slowly. Once we get it up we can let the Navy deal with it."

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"Rodger that..." Bridget says, slowly expanding in size as the remaining lift bag is filled. Carefully controlling her growing buoyancy to match Austin's needs. "I think I know what you're talking about too... How hooped are we now?" She says with a look of concern on her face. Of all the life-threatening situations she has been in during her life she feels genuinely afraid for her life.

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