“Makes sharks, moray eels, and sea snakes almost warm and cuddly, doesn’t it?” Yosh said thoughtfully. “But there’s something else we need to be considering.” At her raised eyebrow, his tone dropped. “That thing was armored, Michaela. Like I said, when it bumped your sub, it hit it hard. So, if the lights, ballast tanks, and propeller cage didn’t even scratch that armor, what did evolution design it to be protection against? That suggests that there is some even bigger and badder predator lurking out there.”

Michaela swallowed hard. “If there is, are we sure we even want to try and find it? I mean, damn it, we’ve lost one sub, and it’s going to take a week to repair the one we have. How do we armor it against something like the lobster monster, let alone whatever might be out there that preys on lobster monsters? Like, let’s say, that Big Mouth Thing that Kevina said she saw.”

On the monitor, the graph showed that the missing sub could only power its way to the surface from two hundred meters.

Michaela reached over with her good arm and turned it off. Unwilling to watch any longer.

“These are our friends,” she whispered. “And they’re dying, one by one. We are family. All of us, we held each other together aboard Ashanti. We made it work, loved each other, forgave each other, became brothers and sisters. And now we’re being whittled away.”

“Michaela, it’s just a string of bad luck. We’ll figure it out.”

“Will we?” she asked hollowly. “If they didn’t die in the impact, they’re down there, Yosh. We can’t contact them. We can’t find them. And if we could, with my sub damaged, we can’t even attempt a rescue.”

Kevina burst in the door, her frantic eyes searching the room. “Did you pull Kim off the watch upstairs? Order him down for any reason?”

“No,” Michaela told her, shifting her broken arm as she swiveled in the chair. “He said he’d stay up there until midnight.”

“Well, I just came from the landing pad. Kim’s gone. The glasses are still there, on their stand. Kim’s coat is hanging on the chair he took up. His cup is spilled, rolling around as the wind blows. He’d never leave that cup.”

“He’s got to be here somewhere,” Yosh said bluffly, rising. “Come on. Let’s go run him down. Probably stopped by the cafeteria to see what Bill had left over from supper.”

As they hurried out, Michaela fixed on the panicked expression on Kevina’s face.

Please. Not Kim Yee. Not today.

When Yosh got up to the landing pad, he accessed com, said the tea in Yee’s cup was still hot.