Edwin Tay was of Chinese descent and looked to be in his late thirties. He was shorter than the rest of the team but was clearly in charge. He was giving a steady stream of instructions as they smoothly moved the rover out and over the water, suspended by a long, thick articulating arm. He finally turned and motioned for one of his team to lock it in place just moments before the drone of the engines disappeared and the ship began slowing to a stop. Emerson caught his attention and waved him over.
“Mr. Tay, meet lieutenants John Clay and Steve Caesare. Our friends from the E&S team in D.C.”
Tay shook their hands. “Welcome aboard. I hear you’ve come to have some fun with our new rover.”
Clay laughed. “I’m afraid it’s a bit more boring than that. We just need some soil samples to take home. We were fortunate that you were in the area, especially with the new rover.”
Tay looked back at the craft, hanging suspended in the air and swinging slightly from side to side. “Yeah, she’s a beauty. Battery life is a little limited, but I suspect that will be improved in future versions. Even with that we’ve had her down to forty-three hundred feet without a glitch. Pictures as clear as cable TV,” he said with a wink.
“She’s a nice looking sub,” Caesare replied.
Tay quickly wiped his forehead. “We still need to run some checks, but we should be ready to launch within about fifteen minutes or so. In the meantime, we have a pretty decent galley if you guys are hungry.”
Clay put a hand on his stomach. “Sounds good to me.”
“Let’s go round something up then,” said Emerson, nodding his head back the way they came. “It’s almost lunch time anyway.”
Captain Emerson removed his hat and scratched the base of his hairline. His gray hair was cut short, a style many in the military never outgrew. He dropped his hat on the seat next to him and picked up his second cup of coffee for a drink before continuing. “Getting a bit of pressure to resolve this are ya? I’m sure Washington isn’t happy with that large a crew and sub sitting idle dockside. What’s it costing them, a million a day?”
“One point four actually.” Clay frowned.
Emerson grimaced. “I hope Langford is backing you guys up.”
“He’s pretty good about that,” Clay said, watching Caesare take a bite of his pork chop with raised eyebrows. The food was excellent. “Still he’s got Miller breathing down his neck with the cost, but he can only stand on procedure for so long. He made sure to mention the number a couple of times.” Clay reached for his own mug. “I suspect we’re looking at an anomaly here, but we have to go by the book. We haven’t found anything wrong with the sub or the satellites which means a site survey. If we find the soil rich in iron or other minerals we’ll need to file a report with a theory which means scientific testing and peer reviews. We may not have an answer for years.”
Emerson nodded. “If it comes down to a theory, they’ll ship out the next day. Nothing more that can be done until more testing bears something out.”
Clay took a bite of his salad. “So, anything interesting on the research front?”
Emerson shook his head. “Only on how we are becoming more and more commercial with each project. Corporations are driving it all with their friends in Washington beating their ‘in the interest of national security’ drums which means that anything connected to energy these days, especially the black liquid kind, is considered national security. Most of our projects in the last few years have been soil and drilling samples thinly disguised as marine research which really means looking for new oil reserves for the conglomerates.” He leaned back in his chair unable to hide his irritation. “I’ll tell you this, corporations have become the puppet masters behind the government.” Emerson exhaled heavily. “This is not the same Navy we started with, gentlemen.”
“Agreed,” Caesare said with his final swallow. “It’s not an adventure anymore, it’s just a job.”
Emerson laughed. “Maybe it’s time we reversed our motto.” He leaned forward again and picked up his fork. “Don’t get me wrong though, there are still some interesting things happening in the research area. Hell, just our ability to probe deeper with better systems like this new Triton generates a fair amount of excitement. The level of detail we’re able to track has the Navy talking about fields of underwater sensors and the idea of developing a living map, all live data and changing as it happens...pretty amazing stuff.”
“Sounds interesting.” Caesare emptied his water glass. “I wonder how much we’ll spend trying to weaponize it.”