Chapter 12 - Silent Running
The drone’s sonar ping grew faster, a high-pitched whine echoing through the Osprey’s cramped steel frame.
""Hold on to her,"" Elias growled, flipping several circuit breakers on the overhead console. The interior cabin lights flickered and died, replaced by the faint orange glow of emergency dials. The main engine hum died down to an imperceptible purr.
""What did you do?"" Sarah whispered in the dark, her arms wrapped firmly around Lily.
""Cold drift,"" Elias replied, keeping his eye on the sonar screen. ""Shutting down the thrusters. The drone tracks magnetic signatures and engine cavitation. If we drift with the trench current, we look like a sunken shipping container.""
Outside the acrylic viewport, the black water seemed endless. A shadow slipped past their right side—a sleek, black torpedo-shaped drone with a blinking blue optical sensor, gliding through the abyss less than thirty feet away. Lily gasped, pointing at the glowing light, but Sarah gently pressed a hand over the child's mouth.
The drone circled once, its searchlight grazing the Osprey’s yellow hull, before tilting upward and racing back toward the surface.
May you like
""Drone lost the scent,"" Elias sighed, restarting the low-power thrusters. ""Look ahead.""
Sarah leaned toward the front glass. Emerging from the black ocean floor was the skeletal framework of the offshore habitat, illuminated by emergency red strobe lights. One of the habitat’s dome windows had already fractured, venting a stream of silver air bubbles into the void.
