The storm had lasted for six hours. The Rio Grande had went into lockdown to weather the storm. Because of the forecast the final match of the global games had been postponed. The Natnet crew were working around the clock to get their S.S.R.V. back into fighting readiness.

Natalie was speaking with the captain of the Rio Grande. “Repairs are proceeding as scheduled. We should be ready to deploy as soon as the storm lifts.”

“Excellent miss Nielson. You’ve always been reliable where it counts. Also, congratulations on making it to the finals. I’ll be rooting for you.”

“Thank you captain. We’ll do our best.” With that the video call ended. Natalie sat down in her chair and looked at the trophies adorning the room. This will be the first year Natnet had participated in the finals since Natalie’s grandfather had passed away. Natalie felt a great sense of pride in her divers. She felt they were some of the best divers in the world.

As she was reminiscing on the trials they had faced Natalie heard a knock at the door. “Enter.” She said, the door opened to reveal Jamal who was coming to give Natalie his report. “Scrapper and River Dancer are both fully operational, Tatsunoryu should be ready within the hour.”

“Thank you Jamal. Is there anything else?”

“Unfortunately, yes. The cost of repairs has been higher than expected. We may have to cancel some diving contracts until after the finals.”

“Well, isn’t that Terrific? Our operating budget is already tight this year. We can’t afford to lose another contract.”

“Sorry to say this Natalie. But its either cancel those contracts or go into the final round with sub optimized rigs. We can’t afford any more major repairs before the finals.”

“And if we pull out of the finals we may lose our sponsors.” Natalie sighed with weariness.

Jamal and Natalie were silent for a moment before Jamal asked, “What did you want to do?”

“We can’t have our divers going out in unsafe S.S.R.V.s, let’s wait to see how expensive the repairs are before deciding to cancel the diving contracts.” Jamal nodded and was about to leave the room when an alarm sounded. “Crews to battle formations, repeat, Crews to battle formations. Hostile detected.”

Outside the Rio Grande

A shape was moving in the water heading right for the Rio Grande. It was a massive sea turtle with a long neck and mile long tentacles in place of its hind flippers. This enormous creature is called a Kraken and it is the most feared creature on the planet.

The Rio Grande prepared its defensive measures with cannons deployed along the broadside. The cannons open fired on the massive beast. Undeterred the beast made aggressive maneuvers on the Rio Grande. As its long tendrils wrapped around the Rio Grande the crew made for the combat vehicles to battle the Kraken.

The captain of the Rio Grande was barking orders as the crew scrambled for a full assault. “Get those planes in the air and have the combat S.S.R.V.s dive immediately!” The planes were lifted up to the main deck as the flight crews tried to prepare the runway in the storm.  The combat S.S.R.V. were deployed.

The Kraken tried to peel the outer layer of the Rio Grande with its beak. As it was biting the Rio Grande the Kraken was tightening its tendrils unaware of the combat S.S.R.V.s that were bearing down on it. The S.S.R.V.s began to fire their weapons at the beast. The Kraken turned its head and let out a roar.

The Kraken let loose with its tentacles as it tried to swipe at the S.S.R.V.s with its tentacles. Some of them were able to get out of the way. They resumed fire on the creature, torpedoes zoomed thru the water as the collided with the hard shell of the Kraken. The creature snarled as it chomped down on one of the S.S.R.V.s smashing it to pieces.

The planes finally got into the air. The made their first loop before firing missiles at the Kraken. “Remember stay out of range of the tentacles.” The captain said over the radio.  The battle was chaotic as the Kraken lashed out at its surrounding. It smashed several planes and S.S.R.V.s as it waved its tentacles around. Pieces of the Rio Grande were smashed as decks flooded with water. Eventually the Kraken had enough of the assault, and it swam away. Leaving the badly damaged Rio Grande behind the Kraken let out a final roar before submerging to the depths.

The battle was over, but the crisis was only beginning.

Inside the Natnet hanger

“Elvis, you got to hurry! Those decks are flooding up quickly.” Natalie said urgently. Elvis responded

“I’m rolling out now! Scrapper ready to dive.” With the verbal prompt given Scrapper began the dive as River Dancer was being prepared for the dive.

Scrapper navigated the damaged hull of the ship and using its tools began to repair the damage. It was a race against time to prevent too much of the ship to retain water. While Scrapper was dealing with the damage River Dancer was evacuating the deck of personnel. Some men were trapped under some rubble that River Dancer was clearing away “Hold on I’m almost there!” Said Suri over her intercom as she worked diligently to save the people.

Once the rubble was clear the personnel were evacuated into submersible pods that would take them to the surface. River Dancer moved to the next portion of the Rio Grande and repeated the process of moving rubble out of the way to save the people trapped by it detaching the escape pods from her belt so that the people could fill them.

After an hour of intense search and rescue Suri had managed to save 600 people from the damage. She then went to join Elvis to work on repairs. “I evacuated everyone I could, Elvis how are things on your end?”

“Don’t you worry little darling. Major components have been repaired now we just need to patch the main hull.”

“Let’s get to it then!” Scrapper and River Dancer patched the hull of their section after which they went to assist other diving crews on other parts of the Rio Grande.

The crisis finally over the captain spoke over the intercom “attention all personnel, return to your work stations the crisis is over. Thank you for handling the crisis professionally.”

The people of the Rio Grande had survived the encounter with the Kraken, but the bad news would come tomorrow.