Chapter 4: Probing Action

Twenty minutes after two in the morning, I was sitting in the new mini-sub sipping a travel mug of coffee and nibbling on a granola-like food bar. Ohmu sat hunched over compactly on her knees in front of me conserving both her power reserves and the available space in the small cylindrical compartment. The sub’s interior was in almost total darkness and I was wearing my goggles to see. I already missed the large vision bubble from the old mini-sub.

I was also using the goggles to view various streams of data on its overlay. One small window kept me updated on the slow deployment of the undersea cable as we crawled along just above the seafloor. Another window was scrolling information on the island we were approaching. I learned that Española Island was the oldest of the Galapagos Islands and was slowly eroding back into the sea.

‘Old’ was an exaggeration in this case as the island was barely four million years old or extremely ‘young’ in geologic terms. It was mostly flat, low, and covered with volcanic rubble. The trees and plant life were mostly spiky shrubs and tough sharp grasses. It was also ringed mostly with a rocky coast that would have meant a tricky climb.

Luckily, our target was not the main island itself, but instead was the smaller Gardner Islet off its northeastern coast. It was barely a kilometer long and had a small, thirty-meter hill in its center. The northeastern face of this ‘high’ point was where the cable would eventually terminate and where we would install the microwave relay station. From that location, the relay would enjoy a line-of-sight view to Santa Cruz Island, the large central island of the Galapagos archipelago over a hundred kilometers away and just a short twenty kilometers from the launch complex.

When I first saw the plan, I was confused by how the signal could reach that hundred-plus kilometer distance and still remain line-of-sight. After all, from the thirty-meter starting elevation, the horizon was only twenty kilometers away. What I discovered, was the target point on Santa Cruz Island was on top of the eight hundred and sixty-meter-tall ancient volcano known as Cerro Crocker.

That peak was more of an overgrown eroded ‘hill’ of volcanic rock. It not only had a line-of-site view to the small islet we were currently heading for, but also to Baltra Island where the launch complex was located. I learned that after today’s mission, my next mission would be to travel to Santa Cruz Island aboard the mini-sub and trek inland twelve kilometers to Cerro Crocker. There I would climb to its summit while carrying a backpack of anti-detection gear.

Today’s mission was a good practice run for that one, although the later mission would be an order of magnitude harder. One of the reasons for the increased difficulty was that Cerro Crocker was not empty like our target islet today. Instead, its summit had an enemy radar installation and a high magnification tracking camera system for observing the nearby launches. Naomi had said that mission would include ‘challenges’ and that we’d get to those details ‘later’.

A few hours later, the map display in my goggles was indicating that we were just a half kilometer from our target beach on the northwest face of Gardner Islet. The last part of our route was to thread the narrows between that smaller islet and the larger Española Island. The channel was just a few hundred meters wide but at least it was deep enough to allow the mini-sub to remain submerged.

I noted the cable deployment was proceeding well. The quantity display showed that we had under twelve percent cable remaining. But the prediction function still showed we would end up with around three percent extra when we arrived at our target cove.

It was still dark when we arrived at the cove. I readied my gear, zipped up my wet suit, and put on the shallow depth version of the underwater respirator. This system was basically like the respirator I had worn on the surface in the past and did not require the bulky tanks like the scuba system. I’d only be using it for a few minutes while exiting the mini-sub and demounting the data cable spool.

We settled to the sandy bottom a few dozen meters from the beach of the cove in about two meters of water. The sub’s interior began to flood and soon, the top hatch opened, and I swam free. Ohmu climbed out of the hatch behind me and handed me our small bag of gear before closing the hatch behind herself.

I made my way to the rear of the small vessel where I pulled the two large levers which decoupled the cable spindle assembly. The spindle was somewhat neutrally buoyant, so I just had to push the spool away from the sub a bit. Once clear, I punctured its internal buoyancy bladder and the spindle sank to the bottom of the cove. It and the remaining undersea cabling would remain here with only a smaller, shorter data lead heading with us up to the plateau.

Ohmu had gone ashore and had already dropped our gear bag at the base of the short rocky cliff above the beach. She returned to the water to help me get the cable’s shore lead deployed. This was a shorter length of cable that unspooled from the interior of the spindle like a retractable extension cord. It was just long enough to reach the flat ground above the cliff. Using that, we would not have to cut or splice the armored undersea cable and risk damaging the delicate fiber inside.

She walked the lead’s far end up to the base of the cliff while I stood on the beach guiding the wire and making sure it did not catch on any rocks. While I waited for Ohmu to navigate up the rocky face up to the flatter landscape above I took off my goggles and looked at the still-dark skies. They were beginning to grow lighter towards the east which meant morning twilight was approaching quickly.

I could just begin to make out details of the small cove. It looked just like the scouting photos the seagull bio-drone had recently taken. In better times, the cove would be a perfect place to anchor nearby and frolic on the secluded sandy beach.

“What time is it?” I asked.

—It is 4:41, John. Sunrise will occur in an hour. I would recommend you retrieve your stealth suit when you complete the deployment of the underwater energy storage unit. —

The voice had been Ohmu’s instead of my smartwatch. I looked to where she had been climbing the cliff, but she was no longer in sight. That meant that she had reached the top of the short cliff but must be close by to still be in range of my implant. The rope she had carried up with her came falling down.

I attached our bag of gear to the end of her rope along with a rope of my own. Next, keeping tension on my rope allowed me to keep the bag off the sharp pumice boulders as Ohmu pulled it up. When she had it safely at the top, I donned my mask and returned to the water. At the mini-sub I pulled the release which dropped the aquatic ESU. I pulled the small energy storage unit away from the mini-sub a few meters and opened its attached compartment, exposing its coiled power lead.

Back at the mini-sub, I opened the exterior crate and retrieved my shrink-wrapped stealth suit. With that bundle in one hand and the power lead in the other, I waded back ashore pulling the power cable behind me as I went. Keeping the ESU below the surface in the shallow cove meant that it could easily be replaced covertly if need be, down the road.

Before I switched outfits I made one last trip to the mini-sub and returned with a large crate that contained the microwave relay station and antenna.

“Are you ready for the relay crate?”

Ohmu’s rope came falling back down as I heard, —Yes, John. Send it up.—

The larger crate ascended the rocky cliff the same way as the gear bag had. When it had reached Ohmu I got busy switching outfits. I had gotten the stealth suit on and activated just in time as it was now bright enough to see without the goggles. We were not too concerned about our movements on the beaches as the area had a large population of sea lions the same color as the wetsuit.

I told Ohmu I was heading up and she reminded me to tie myself to her rope for safety. The large pumice rocks were both a hazard and a benefit. They provided plenty of hand- and foot-holds but I did not want to slip or fall and deal with their sharp edges. Soon I had made it to the top of the rugged cliff. Going back down should not be too difficult if I could backtrack the route I had followed on the way up.

At the edge of the drop, I began pulling the power lead I had brought with me up the face and coiling slack cabling at my feet. I would need about twenty meters of lead up here if I judged the location Ohmu had chosen to mount the relay station correctly. When I had a few dozen coils at my feet, I made my way to where Ohmu and the gear waited. I followed the data cable laying the power lead alongside.

When I arrived at her location, she was busy attaching anchor struts to an exposed ledge of pumice. In the brightening light, I saw that her neutral gray color had been replaced with a mottled green and grey digital camouflage pattern. Before I dug into the crate to help assemble the relay, I spent a moment looking towards the horizon to the northwest. When I failed to spot the far island, Ohmu reminded me to use the small telescopic sight we had brought. I found it and trained its sensor in that direction.

Watching the scope’s magnified image in my goggles’ display, I slowly panned the device back and forth across the horizon. There! I spotted the distant cinder cones on Santa Cruz Island. Ohmu was monitoring the display data as she worked and noted the bearing. I put the scope away and got to work helping her with the microwave relay.

There was a bit of a breeze but not enough to affect the wide parasol shade I set up overhead to hide our activity from any passing satellites. I pulled the sturdy tripod mount from the equipment crate and assisted Ohmu in attaching it to the anchors she had bolted to the rock ledge. Once that was in place, we attached the power lead and data cable to the integrated connectors in the base of the mount.

The next item was the horn antenna, which we attached to the tripod mount. The assembly now was a meter and a half tall and the horn was high enough to clear the rock ledge and scrub plants. Ohmu spent some time using the optical scope as a boresight to align the horn with the distant Cerro Crocker peak on Santa Cruz Island. The last thing we did was run a quick diagnostic on the unit.

“I am in high bandwidth contact with Naomi back on Nautilus, John. The undersea cable is intact. Let us get this unit hidden, police up our gear and depart.”

The sun peeked over the short hill behind us as we got busy with the last part of the installation. This was a series of small, rock textured camouflage covers to disguise the horn and the mount. With those installed, we loaded the tools and extra gear into the crate and started back to the cliff. While we went, Ohmu and I hid the cabling and anchored it to the rocks and larger scrub with clips and pins. I doubted the installation would survive a cyclone, but fortunately, the Galapagos had not experienced a cyclone in recorded history.

I made it down the cliff without mishap and together, Ohmu and I lowered the crate to the beach. She followed down herself but left the camo-colored rope attached to the top just in case we needed it in the future.

Back on the beach, we spent some time anchoring the cable and power leads to larger boulders and outcroppings. I dug a shallow trench in the sand near the waterline and we buried as much of the cable as we could under sand and small rocks, hoping that it would help protect the cables from wave action.

We hid the crate with our tools under a pile of pumice boulders and our job was done. Ohmu covered me with the parasol while I stripped out of the stealth suit and put on the wetsuit. She then waded into the water to inspect the cable spindle unit and the ESU.

The cove did not see much wave action, but we wanted to make sure that both were anchored by ballast to remain intact. My part of the job was to transport underwater rocks and fill net bags which she used to further anchor the equipment in place.

An hour later we finished that chore and returned to the mini-sub. My respirator had run out of air fifteen minutes earlier and I had to resort to using an umbilical attached to the mini-sub’s supply. I had even managed to doze off for a few minutes as I floated next to the sub waiting for her to finish. She gently woke me by touching my arm and we reentered the mini-sub. When we had it sealed and dewatered, I slumped back against the rear bulkhead exhausted. Ohmu handed me a large water container and a pair of ration bars and began guiding the sub back to Nautilus.

I did sleep a bit on the two-hour crawl back to the larger submarine. Once we had made it back and had our gear cleaned and stowed, I took a long shower. This revived me enough that I decided to stay up and maybe have a nap later in the afternoon. It was now an hour before lunch, so I reviewed images of my next mission, the relay installation on Cerro Crocker.