Deep Blue - The Descent

21: A Change of Plans

At 7:00 a.~m., just as Nick had requested, a tone repeated at a very comfortable, non-jarring 65 decibels as the lights of Nick's quarters slowly rose to full strength.

Nick's eyes slowly opened upon hearing the alarm.

"That's more like it.", he said aloud with a smile.

"Good morning Lieutenant Commander Sheppard.", Syndi said loudly, speaking over the continuing alarm. "It's 7:00 a.m., Doctor Marshall and Commander Kennedy are in the moon pool area."

The alarm continued to repeat making some of what Syndi was saying hard to hear, and growing annoying quickly.

"Thank you Syndi.", Nick called aloud.

The alarm continued for another several moments before Nick responded, "You can shut off the alarm now."

"I'm afraid I can't do that Lieutenant Commander.", Syndi replied.

Nick's good morning was rapidly heading in the opposite direction.

"You can't do that?", Nick asked with growing frustration stacked on top of confusion.

"Just turn it off.", he said more firmly with the alarm ringing in his ears.

"Lieutenant Commander, you very specifically asked me not to turn off the alarm until you got up.", Syndi said in that innocent sort of "Why don't you understand this, it's what you asked for." Kind of way.

"She was right.", Nick thought to himself as painful as it was to admit. That was exactly what he told her.

Nick threw the covers off with one quick sweep of his arm, slowly sat up, rotated his legs off the bed and slowly, very deliberately, rose to a standing position at which point -- the alarm stopped.

He hung his head and softly nodded with a slight grin.

"Thank you Syndi."

"You're welcome Lieutenant Commander.", the A.I. responded in a very satisfactory, "mission accomplished" tone.

Nick made his way down the dimly lit corridor to the moon pool his mind was already racing with a thousand different thoughts as it did any morning before a mission. He ran through the preflight checklist, start up procedures for the M.A.N.T.A., the low level vibration sensations he felt as the Cavitation Drive accelerated to it's record breaking speed. He watched his previously trip to bottom like a mental movie set to high speed playback. For most people the journey looked relatively mundane, even boring; just a lot of black on one side and rock on the other. But Nick made the same trip just two days earlier. As an experienced test pilot, he made note of key landmarks, identifying boulders and biological growths. He ran past those same landmarks in his mind now, only at about twenty times the speed.

He remembered every creak, pop and groan that the ship made on its descent and precisely where the M.A.N.T.A. was when they cried out. But even with all the tiny details running through his mind, there were still another thousand or so at least, that were missing. Things he didn't know about because the actual mission, as far as Nick knew, was still being finalized.

Nick didn't like last minute changes to a mission, but what he liked even less were entire missions that were put together at the last minute.

The large circular door rolled opened revealing a moon pool bustling with activity. Several of the robotic arms above the central pool were connected to the M.A.N.T.A. by hoses that seeped clouds of gas that fell to the water like dry ice fog. One of the arms disconnected from the ship with a depressurized pop and hiss as it completed it's process.