For a surreal moment the ship actually rose thirty feet above the pack ice, until the quadruple 2,200°F exhausts boiled the ice sheet into gas, as gravity plummeted the twenty-five-ton sphere through a rapidly forming void, the sudden drop approaching free-fall speed.

The g-force collapsed me like a folding chair, and somehow I found myself on my knees, straddling Lara. Lying on her back beneath me, she seemed to be enjoying the ride.

Thirty seconds passed, and still the sphere plummeted. Unable to hold myself up any longer, I dropped to my elbows, my face inches from Lara’s.

Slipping her hand behind the back of my head, she pulled my face to hers until our lips met again, only this time it was her tongue sliding inside my mouth. Gravity held us together another forty seconds until the rockets throttled back.

The shaft that had been evaporated beneath Oceanus filled with water, slowing the sphere’s descent. Released from the g-force, I separated from Lara, as stunned by her kiss as she had been by mine when I mistook her for Andria.

Lara winked. “Now we’re even.”

Turquoise-blue light transformed the chamber into a living aquarium as Oceanus abruptly splashed down below the ice shelf into an emerald sea.

I regained my feet, spellbound. I can’t even remember if I helped Lara to her feet, so overwhelmed were my senses by the beauty now surrounding us as we submerged.

Breathtaking is not a word I use often, but this … this was breathtaking. The underside of the Ross Ice Shelf appeared as an endless ceiling of billowing azure clouds. Having melted as a result of their rapid descent, a tidal wave of freshwater was washing below into the subzero salt water, refreezing before our eyes into a permanent cascading waterfall. All the while, Oceanus continued to sink, the habitat paced by medusa jellyfish, which rode the sphere’s current into the depths, their four-foot pink-and-peach bodies fluttering like the delicate fringes of a frilly Spanish bolero jacket.

As we sank into deeper water the light diminished, turquoise fading into shades of purple. GOLEM activated the habitat’s underwater lights—twin beacons searching for the seafloor.

Touchdown occurred at 1,286 feet. Coral beds were crushed into submission by the habitat’s four support legs, the steel fuselages still steaming as they sank, anchoring Oceanus to the bottom.

“Ike?”

Andria’s voice doused me back into reality.

Mission standards had forced her to lose the blue highlights in her onyx hair, but there were no codes that could alter the way her athletic physique filled out that burnt-orange jumpsuit. Andria kept the front zipper containing her well-endowed cleavage collar high to prevent any false messages from being sent.

Staring at her, I was suddenly aware of the other crewmembers. They were there to witness the show, having anticipated the moment since learning I was coming aboard.