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“They do Let’s see where they lead”

Pitt accelerated forward, gliding over the tracks while startling an occasional deepwater fish

Suets directly ahead”

“I see the at the sonar but at a sprinkling of lights that pierced the darkness ahead

The seafloor gradually descended and Pitt could see that the lights were centered at the base of a bowl-shaped crater Two large vehicles ca across the seabed, ee clouds of silt out their back ends They were deep-seavehicles, operated from the surface via thick, black power cables

“Those things are e as a Greyhound bus”

“At least we caught the all the dae”

Pitt turned off the lights of the Starfish and moved closer to the vehicles, the nearest of which was called a bulk cutter It looked like an overgrown tractor with a giant roller for its snout

The roller was a rotating cutting drusten carbide teeth that could chew apart rocks and hardened sediest the rubble and expel it out a large tube in back The second vehicle, si machine It would follow the bulk cutter and suck up the slurry, puh a thick Kevlar hose

Pitt closed with the bulk cutter, ad its robot efficiency as it churned across the seabed an inch at a tie of the slate-colored vehicle with the onboard video ca that few manufacturers could build such a specialized machine

Pitt was edging alongside for a better viehen a bang erupted from the rear of the subainst the side of the cutter Pitt reversed the sub from behind

Summer turned to peer out a small rear viewport “It’s an ROV It rammed us”

“It just took out our led a pair of side thrusters to maneuver out of the way

The sub out and the Starfish was again shoved toward the bulk cutter

“It’s intentionally pushing us toward the bulk cutter,” Suasped