The nightmare she now lived was insidious, eating at her, consuming in its horror and impossibility: Jaim and Varina had to be alive. Somewhere a couple hundred meters down, trapped inside a dark and broken submarine. Their ballast tanks punctured, or the valves broken off, or otherwise disabled as the creature tried this hold and that in an attempt to crack its prize open.

The worst part was knowing that if the sub had been functional, it should have surfaced. Should have sent a distress beacon. It wouldn’t have mattered that the creature couldn’t have crushed it; eventually the monster would have tired of the constant battle against the craft’s buoyancy. The struggle to keep it submerged would have eventually worn the thing out. When it let go, the sub would have risen.

Physics were physics.

That had been hours ago.

Kel and Tobi Ruto had been flying circles in the seatruck, glassing the ocean in all directions for a bobbing yellow submarine.

Which means that Jaim and Varina are down there. Fully aware that they are encased in their tomb.

Sitting at her desk, her broken-and-aching arm in a sling, Michaela ran the figures. Assuming that Jaim and Varina still had power and directional maneuverability—but with their ballast fully compromised—with a full charge in the batteries they should be able to elevate the submarine’s nose and power their way to the surface from a maximum depth of around a thousand meters. Having its own power supply, the emergency transponder would broadcast their location even if the sub’s powerpacks were totally depleted.

But they didn’t have full power. Given elapsed time since submerging, and the draw on the batteries, the sub could still surface from three hundred meters. As the clock ran out, the depth from which the sub would be able to power its way to the surface grew shallower and shallower.

Much more concerning was the oxygen supply. With two people—assuming full power—the sub was capable of reprocessing oxygen through the scrubbers for a little over twenty-four hours. Without power to run the fans and reprocessing filters and scrubbers, Varina and Jaim had about six hours. Maybe seven.

Michaela glanced at the clock. “This isn’t happening. Not after all that we’ve been through. They’ve got two kids, a daughter and an infant son.” She raised her eyes, as if toward the heavens. “Come on. Give us a break! Don’t put us through this shit!”

The white ceiling overhead remained featureless, blank, and as unfeeling as the distant stars.

If the lobster monster had compromised the sub’s power, Varina and Jaim would be down there, somewhere, on the verge of losing consciousness as CO2 saturated the air.

She looked up as Yosh walked into the office. “Anything?”