Aquamarine
Author: Balddall
CHAPTER ONE: CRIMNSON CRYSTAL
“Hey joey, Buck, have you seen my lighter? The damn things gone missing again” I called out to my buddies at the end of the corridor of our submersible.
“Haven’t seen it” chimed Buck
“Don’t look at me!” joey worriedly replied
“Joey, what’s in your hand?” I asked sarcastically
“m-m-m- my IPod!” he quickly exclaimed
“And what are you doing with it?” I asked
“Porn.” He replied
“Really? how can you do porn?” I asked
“Yes” he simply replied
“Give me my lighter” I blandly demanded
“Damn it!” he said
“What’s so important about this lighter to you anyway?” he asked as he chucked it to me
“It was given to me by my grandfather” I replied
The lighter was a flick lighter and had a vicious looking dragonequess etched into the side of it, the work of my grandfather.
“I’m sorry man, I didn’t know,
Also why do you have a lighter on board of a highly pressurised, highly explosive environment of a deep sea vessel” he said to me as I turned away to walk into the visual feed room.
“it’s ornamental, I haven’t refilled it yet”
I walked into the corridor and turned to the right, inside the room was about twenty different screens, each holding a different visual feed.
We were positioned 38,000 metres below the surface of the pacific ocean, our government in Australian marine aquatics and marine rescue, apparently were tracking a small object that entered the atmosphere at 1305 military time, I was a cadet on board this craft, a mix up with the rest of my group sent me onto this craft instead of into the returning craft back to the mainland, I had to spend my time with these two “experienced” sea men.
I had gotten a chance to view the schematics to this craft, it was large, about twenty metres long and five metres wide, but what was really interesting was the fact that the outer hull was made of diamond, allowing it to dive to extreme depths.
“hey Dallas, what’s the time?” buck called out
“not a bloody clue” I replied
“hey buck, what’s behind this door?” I asked from outside the keypad locked door with a yellow biohazard sign upon it.
“that’s for us to know and for you to never find out” he chipped in
“that’s the precious cargo” joey chimed
Buck smacked joey on the head
“hey, shut up” buck angrily said
I remembered that I was in fact wearing a watch, the time was out though.
“Time to hit the hay boys” I said
“it’s not even time yet, look, you get to sleep and we’ll go after we do this” buck said
I walked down the corridor and into the sleeping quarters, I fell into a hammock and was out cold.
“do you think we should?” joey asked
“we don’t have a choice, he will know too much when we unload the cargo” buck replied
“how will you do it?” joey asked
“cleanly, we don’t want to have to clean him off the walls just yet” buck replied
“come on, time to sleep.” Joey said
“be with you in just a minute” buck replied as he locked the main computer
Just because I’m asleep doesn’t mean I can’t hear the two.
They each had their own cabins, I was opposite to joey while buck was asleep further down the hall, away from the computers and the bio hazard door.
I grabbed my pack off the wall and slowly made my way into the corridor and crept down to the biohazard door, I unsheathed my carbon alloy blade and eased it under the key pad, to my surprise it had come off with little force, the wires weren’t too complex to figure out, the green wire was connected to the key pad while the red and black wire had a circuit stopper, very much like that of a torch, the door’s bolts clicked back into the door itself as I connected the two wires.
The door swung open silently, that was until I had knocked one of the brief cases onto the floor, the glass vials smashed across the floor with great racquet, I grabbed the last one and stowed it away in my pocket, at the end of the room was a locked case with large purple lettering; Top Secret, Authorised Eyes Only.
I guessed that was me, because in about 12 seconds I would be dead.
“Hey! What’s he doing! Joey, Get him out of there now!” Buck screamed at Joey.
Joey unholstered his handgun, and rapidly approached the open door, I hid behind the door as he entered, he went to look behind the door as I forced his nose into the back of his head with my hand, he lay in the various liquids, bleeding, dead or unconscious, I wasn’t sticking around, but where would I go? There was 38km of water above me and 2km of water below me.
I slammed the door closed as I placed Joey’s body behind the door and retrieved his weapon and magazines, he hadn’t time to put on body armour, still, he wouldn’t have needed it.
I could hear Buck approaching the door, I looked at the locked box and placed a round into each lock, unfortunately, this was his LTL weapon (less than lethal) it fired gas propelled tranquiliser darts, I pried at the locks as they continued to hold on, Joey had a key on his necklace, he had the key to the case, once it was opened, there, inside the box lay a small pink crystal, slightly larger than a pearl, it was washed but not cut, it looked like a pink sapphire, but what made it really attractive was that dark but peaceful glow it resonated, it looked like it would have fit on a large necklace.
It made my hand numb and my eye sight focused more, it was strange, I had never felt this way before, I felt, well, Evil.
