Becoming annoyed, I entered after them and ordered them all to hug the walls. They did so readily enough, and I activated the system that opened a big hole in the floor. The floor, in fact, almost disappeared.
One light trooper girl was caught by surprise. She dropped into the darkness with a squeak of dismay.
“She’s all right,” I told the others. “It’s not all that far down. No biggie if you don’t break a leg or anything.”
Soon, we had lines cast down to the bottom. I descended with Barton’s lights, who were as skittish as a herd of cats in a shower stall.
“Come on everyone, get down here. Relay my video to Graves, will you Kivi? Natasha, why don’t I have drones telling me what I’m getting into?”
“I’ve been trying to send them ahead, sir, but they keep dying.”
“Dying? What are you talking about?”
She came near and picked one off the wet stone floor. It was as dead as a doornail.
“See? No power. No juice. I think there’s some kind of field active down here, a light EMP effect that’s killing them.”
“Huh… it’s not dangerous, is it?”
“Not to humans, or our shielded gear. Not that I can tell, anyway.”
“Okay, Harris? Get your heavies down here.”
He’d been listening in on the radio, of course, but staying real quiet. Now that I mentioned him directly, he finally spoke up.
“Don’t you think it would be best if the lights thoroughly scouted the basement first, sir? It could be hard to haul a heavy trooper out of this hole if—”
“Get down here, Harris. That’s an order.”
He muttered bad words under his breath as he lowered himself and his platoon of armored men into the dank chamber with the rest of us. I left Leeson’s troops up topside in reserve.
“Okay, Barton, look into every nook and cranny. Kivi and Natasha, you’ve got the ball. Find something interesting for me.”
They spread out and began scanning every meter of the place. Everyone was tense and the walls were constantly splashed with bright lights. There was no lighting down here, other than what we’d brought with us.
At last, Barton called out. “I’ve found something here, sir. It looks like an exit. This slanted pathway was cut through the rock at a downward slant.”
“Where does it lead?”
I asked. Walking to her position with Natasha in tow, we examined the find. A round set of heavy pressure doors had opened at a touch, and beyond that…
“Holy moly,” I said, looking down into a pool of lapping water. “Is that the bottom of the ocean? Is that what I’m looking at, here?”
We were down pretty far, about a hundred meters at this point, and it looked like a shaft filled with water led slanted down to a second door.
“Two hatches, one at either end of a water-filled tunnel,” Natasha said. “It has to be an airlock that leads to the open sea.”
“What did these Wur freaks do?” Harris demanded. “Just walk in and out of here along the seabed?”
“That’s what it looks like,” Natasha said. She walked into the dark water and let it lap over her boots. “But there’s something strange about this tunnel. It goes down into the water at about a thirty degree angle, but there’s an energy field involved here. Something strong. That’s what interrupted my buzzers.”
Harris had his lips pulled back to expose his gums and his big teeth. His expression was one of alarm and anger mixed together.
“Huh…” I said, not liking this anymore than Harris did. “Okay, I need a volunteer to go down into this here water-tunnel, to see what’s what.”
Everyone around me averted their eyes. Every rock and grain of sand was more interesting than I was right now.
“What about the ghosts?” Harris asked.
“Are you guys shitting me?” a voice asked. I turned around and realized it was Cooper. He was in his stealth suit, and I’d almost forgotten he was sneaking around down here.
“Your offer is accepted, Cooper. Get down there and do some scouting.”
“Sir?” Natasha said as Cooper sloshed out into the bubbling seawater. He was cursing something awful with every step. “Cooper isn’t wearing any armor. The pressure out there—even at a hundred meters—it could kill a man.”
“Then he shouldn’t have smarted off. Proceed, Cooper. And turn your stealth suit off so we can at least find your body afterward.”
He removed his stealth mesh and stood there, looking kind of skinny and unhappy. “You’re always thinking of the little guy, Centurion. Thank you, sir.”
“Anytime. Get moving.”
We all watched as he first walked, then waded into the water. Pretty soon, it was up to his neck—then he was gone.
He could breathe, of course, as he was wearing a spacesuit. Switching to a vid feed, I watched as he kept on going. Oddly enough, he didn’t switch to swimming after the first dozen steps. Once the water went over his head, I’d kind of expected him to start floating—but he didn’t.
“Odd…” Natasha said. She was watching the action as closely as I was. “He’s not experiencing as much buoyancy as he should.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“It’s weird. It has to be the field I detected.”
“Uh-huh. Keep walking Cooper! I didn’t say you should turn around yet.”
Naturally, Cooper had been listening in. He sloshed forward, making kind of slow-motion steps. Soon, he was beyond the shaft, or tunnel, or cave—whatever it was that led down into the deeps. He was out in the open, walking on the bottom of the sea.
He found the second door, and he opened it. That caused a stir, as we expected the seawater to rush in. The whole point of underwater airlocks was to only open one door at a time—but nothing happened.
“The water isn’t surging up
