He seemed to sober. “Yeah. Guess I’m not sure who or what I’m going to be when this is finished.” His eyes started to lose focus, and with effort, he got control again. “I’d die for you, you know.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what love’s all about, Talina.”

45

Michaela and her team had chosen the Pod’s location based on the original Donovanian surveys conducted by ships like Tempest and the ill-fated Impala before she vanished on her second spacing to Donovan.

The reef where Ashanti’s shuttles had dropped the Pod registered as being particularly high in metals during the remote-sensor planetary scans. If the models were correct, the strata had been pushed up from the mantle, first by the impact, and subsequently by the quakes and altered tectonic pressures left in the impact’s wake.

The Maritime Unit should be sitting on some of Donovan’s oldest rocks. Perhaps strata that dated back to just after the formation of the planet. From comparisons against baseline data derived from Impala’s initial survey, Michaela hoped that Varina Tam—their expert in planetary evolution and physical oceanography—could begin to assemble a tectonic model for Donovan. Tam hoped to identify, date, and track the movement of the crustal plates and how they interacted to form Donovanian seas. From there—working in tandem with Lara Sanz—it had been hoped that they would start the process of piecing together a history and theory of the planet’s oceans and marine phenomena. Now Kevina Schwantz would step into Lara’s shoes as the backup marine geologist.

Today Michaela and her team would take both submarines, working in tandem, with Michaela and Casey in the second sub providing cover as Jaim Elvridge piloted the first sub in accordance with Varina’s instructions. As Varina began her mapping and sample collection transect from the surface down to two thousand meters, Michaela and Casey—armed with the new compressed-air-driven torpedo—would stand guard and keep watch for any threats appearing out of the deep.

In the event that any large predators like the BMT approached, it would be Michaela and Casey’s job to first threaten, and finally—if no other option presented—to shoot the thing with the explosive torpedo Kel and Tobi had cobbled together.

If the torpedo had no effect, the two subs would link up with the grapples, blow ballast, and retreat together to the safety of the Pod’s Underwater Bay.

At least, that was the plan. The agreement was that anyone perceiving a threat—be it from some leviathan down to jellyfish—could call off the mission. On that they had total unanimity.