One of the early colonial efforts he had a hand in was to install sensor relays that would monitor currents, ocean temperatures, and seismic activity, with the goal of predicting weather patterns and natural disasters. The relays he placed were hundreds of miles from the shore and designed to give enough warning to the colonists if evacuation efforts were needed.
Every couple of days, the network would report large shifts in current activity, which should have been impossible. Usually, it was localized to one relay at a time but would move from one sensor array to the next down the line. Due to the depth, the arrays had no cameras of their own as visibility was close to zero, and the flood lamps needed to see if anything would attract the interest of larger sea creatures.
Without his recommendation, the EPED had deemed the planet habitable without doing a full oceanic survey.
Netto felt around the malfunctioning sensor array and found several broken sonar emitters. They all faced the same direction, deeper out in the ocean, away from the shoreline. He reoriented himself. He couldn’t open his eyelids, his eyeballs to weak to withstand the water pressure.
He messaged Zeph at the surface.
Netto unfastened the emitter modules.At least they’re replaceable.There was nothing he hated more than underwater welding. Anytime he turned the plasma torch on, it boiled the water around it and made a noise he could feel under his skin.
His fingers brushed around the array, feeling for damage, finding grooves carved into the side of the metal.What could have done this?
Netto scanned his vicinity. Creatures lurked around him, displacing the water.
He gritted his teeth and replaced the emitters he could get out easily.
Something huge shifted at the periphery of Netto’s senses. It felt like a mountain was plowing through the water. The relay cycled the new emitter modules, bringing them on at full power and blasting the area with a sonar noise he couldn’t hear. Whatever roamed out there did not seem to appreciate the sound.
Netto pushed every one of his systems into overdrive, hoping to get anything on the creature before it left his bubble of awareness. Half of his tech didn’t even work down in the abyss. He hissed through his teeth in frustration as all he could image was the tail of the creature.
He didn’t dare chase after it, because if it got away, he’d never hear the end of it from Zeph. A job unfinished and a creature escaped? Unacceptable. Worse, he had no idea of its capabilities, and the boat was right above him.
Netto turned back to the job at hand and finished repairing the module. The signal it released continued to strengthen as he set it to match the others. When it was done, he connected to the tech and checked for updates, and when none appeared, he ran a full series of diagnostics.
Something appeared in his bubble again. Netto flushed the module with power, draining his own personal resources, in hopes of completing it faster.
If he had to pull away because something attacked him, or worse, attacked the scow above, he could potentially break the sensory device, and he and Zeph would be back to square one, but this time without the tools or the tech on hand.
The pressure built until he powered down his hearing devices, he didn’t want his personal technology erupting from the sound.
76% complete, 77% complete... Something thrashed nearby and it sent him and the tech flying back in the water. He strengthened his grip on the long, corded chains.
‘There’s something down here,’he sent the message to Zeph, hoping it would reach him despite their almost non-existent connection.
79%.
‘We know.’The message popped up in his head. Netto held himself back from destroying the machine under his hands. He registered movement around him, frenetic movement, but he focused on Zeph’s words.
A hundred things came to mind, a thousand ways to respond.‘Is she okay?’
84%. Zeph didn't answer immediately and every minute he remained down below was another minute out of his control.
‘Yes.’He barely got the message, the wireless connection between them repeatedly losing and regaining signal. Netto agonized over every millisecond as his mind whirred through multiple worst-case scenarios. 90%.
The surrounding area cleared before the module regained complete strength. The lesser creatures that flitted around the periphery moved farther away. Netto knew this break in the armored belt meant that creatures could have gone beyond the barrier. Some of those creatures were predators to the very marrow of their bones. 96%.
At least he could stop any new ones from getting through. The sea monsters continued to flee.
100%.
Netto disengaged himself with one last feel of the tech, running his hands over the thick grooves along its outer casing. Whatever creature destroyed it wasn’t bothered by the powerful sonic waves and those waves even bothered Cyborgs. They could rattle everything loose, including his mind. The wires strummed as he focused on them.
He made sure to memorize them. Once he had the image branded under his fingers and blueprinted in his head, he released some of the oxygen in his suit and shot to the surface.
He had been down there for hours, first to adjust his system to the increased pressure, then to discover what had really happened to the tech. Netto kept his eyes closed as he swam out of the abyss and into the dark zone, constantly equalizing the pressure throughout his system.
Serpents swam around him. He was still too deep to open his eyes. He had seen true blackness before and there was nothing comforting about it.
