The sea sponges near the floor looked like tropical kaleidoscopes, explosions of color in the faint filtered light.



"The pulse is working, but nothing else. engine wise anyway. desalinization unit is working about half the time. brackish as you call it."

The boat was rolling as a three foot swell passed through, the bouy slammed against the side. "Okay, well, let's get off the damn bouy at least."

"You don't want to pull the cable?"

Sil considered it. It was over 200 of fiber optical cable. But she had been so confident. No one was that confident and that wrong. More likely she was that confident and half wrong. She had a plan B. They always had a plan B. C and D too usually. "Fuck it, we leave it."

Scratched raised an eyebrow, but turned and started untying the bouy.

"Wait. Blow the charge, I don't want it just sitting up here. It's not a freebie. I just don't think the cable is clean." He could tell Scratch was dying to know more, but the pitch was making it difficult to stand still and the wind was picking up. They needed to get moving. They needed to raise the sails.

Scratch shrugged and went below. Sil heard him stumble and swear and then the distinctive thump of a fist hitting a bulkhead. A head emerge from a portal next to Sil's right arm. "Done."

Sil stood and tossed the buoy over the scansion. The bouy and the tie off bouy began to move away from Arbella. Sil waited until they were around the edge of rdif range and then stuck his head in the portal and called down, "blow it".

He pulled up just in time to see a small spray of seawater below the echoing boom of the explosives hit his ears. 200m of precious fiber, gone. Fucking fuck.

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