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“That’s why Linda and I are going in Maybe we can also find some information about this ship’s purpose Once we take a look at the other side of the hold, we’ll suit up” They were recording Little Geek’s feed, so even if they didn’t notice anything of use now, they could scour the video for clues later
She turned the ROV toward the port side of the ship, careful to avoid the cables and pipes that had been jarred loose by the explosion and sinking Seeing the effort put into designing and building this unusual vessel, along with the time and money spent to construct the prison on Jhootha Island, it was even more obvious that the people responsible for Project C had virtually unlimited resources at their disposal
Little Geek reached the opposite end of the hold, and now they had enough video to siure out as going on Linda turned the ROV around to follow its umbilical back the way it had come
As Little Geek h to cause a pipe hanging by a thread to detach from the tank and plummet to the bottom
The video feed went black An instant later, it was followed by the sound of an enormous explosion that rocked Nomad Eric was secure in his pilot’s seat, but the rest of them were thrown to the deck
Juan, whose ears were ringing froht?”
They all said they were okay
Eric backed away froe to Nomad We’re lucky that the detonation occurred on the other side of the ship” Then Juan heard him say into his radio headset, “Yeah, Max We’re fine down here It cae No, we don’t know yet We’ll keep you posted”
“Run the video back,” Juan said to Linda
She rewound the recording unti
l it showed the pipe falling
“I’ll zoom in on the bottom to see if we can tell what it hit”
She ran the video in slow motion until they could see the steel pipe bounce on the deck and careen into the exterior bulkhead It hit a red box no bigger than a carry-on suitcase, and that’s when the video went blank
“That red box wasn’t just lying there,” Juan said “It looked like it elded to the hull”
“Some kind of self-destruct bomb?” Linda wondered