|First Conference in the Unknown|

UNKNOWN|C.S. Zephyr|UNKNOWN

As everyone scrambled to their posts after the brief, Vardan left Paulina in charge of the helm and went down to the moon pool. After making his rounds and talking to some crew members, Vardan reached the moon pool. The prototype deep see sub was docked but there was no sign of the man in charge, other than a pair of legs sticking out of the control panel inside the sub.

"Yo Chauncey, still alive?" Vardan asked while poking the leg with a wrench that was laying about.

*BANG*

A loud noise rang out as the person under the panel slowly dragged himself out.

"Oww, note for future endeavors, install padding to the sub." A disheveled man mumbled, rubbing a bump that was forming on his head. "Yeah I'm alive. No way in hell are you going to lose me. What happened that made you pull the sub back so fast?"

The man asked Vardan as he straightened himself out.

Vardan gave a depreciating chuckle to himself then brought his friend up to speed.

"WHAT!?! ANOTHER WORLD?!?" Chauncey yelled as he shook Vardan relentlessly.

"Jeez, yell any louder would you? That's only a speculation at this point, we have to wait for the first wave of recon reports to come in."

"Then what do I do in the meantime? The only thing I'm good at is controlling the prototype sub."

"Don't worry kid, I got a job for you. Go to UVC(unmanned vehicle control) site HB, there i want you to work with the people there and investigate the waters underneath us. Once we ensure that the area is safe, you can start optimizing the sub however you see fit."

"Well, at least that's something, but there's a catch, isn't there?" Chauncey sighed and braced himself for what was coming.

"You know Chauncey, being that observant is going to bite you in the ass later." Vardan grinned. "But yes, once you have a stable sub, send the blueprint to the 3d MPA (3d material printer assembly). I want you to establish a team of miners, if we can't get contact with the others, your mining sub will be the life blood of the ship."

"Shit man." Chauncey exclaimed. "Give me a bigger responsibility will you? Well, I'll do my best old man."

"You better kid, our lives depend on it."

Vardan patted his shoulder and smirked as he walked away to finish talking to the crew around the ship.

|ADMIRALS OFFICE|CONFERENCE

"Well, it has been a couple days since the incident. Does anyone have any developments regarding our predicament?" Vardan asked, looking at his various head officers.

A tall, unenthusiastic man rose and gave his spiel.

"Our flyboys are slowly expanding their patrol groups, right now, all I can say is that there is nothing but ocean surface for the nearest 645 kilometers from the ship."

He shrugged his shoulders and grumbled.

"There's nothing going on! The only bit of action we saw was when we first went through that thing."

"Calm down Piff." Vardan told the man while rubbing his temple. "I understand that everyone is on edge and that we need something firm to stand our feet on, but until then don't decide to take out the prototype jets out for another 'test flight'."

"Yeah yeah, just wanted to stretch these bones of mine." Piff responded while yawning.

"Alright, Kitakaze! How have the sonar maps been developing?" Vardan turned his attention to a light blue haired petite woman wearing headphones.

"...Developing well...Mapped...300km radius...Around ship..." Kitakaze whispered. "Strange water...Very strange..."

"Whats strange?" Vardan asked "If you are just now bringing it up, it shouldn't be that important, right?"

"Unsure...Admiral." She shook her head then made a face. "Sofi detected...No fish...Strange...Ocean not deep...100m to 900m deep...Should have fish...but find none..."

"That can't be good." Vardan thought out loud. "But would that mean that there is no immediate underwater threat? Do you think we should deploy the mining sub and start collecting minerals?"

"Don't...Know... Kita thinks should be no problem...but only in 200m or less water..." She spoke a little louder.

"Speaking of minerals, Tim, how is our supply doing? How long can we last as is?" Vardan turned and looked at a large fit man who was browsing through a list.

"Sir. With our current supply and our greenhouses, we can last about a month at full service. If we start to ration the supplies, we can extend our supply up to 15 months. Depending on how heavy you want to ration the supplies." Tim explained.

"Hmm, start a ration plan prioritizing a high quality of life for 3 months, but also keep a reserve of rations for worst case scenario that can last 5 months. I highly doubt that we won't find land in the next couple of weeks."

"Understood, I'll push the ration plan into service in about 5 days."

"Head Counselor Turry, how is the situation with the crew?" Vardan turned his head to a large dark skinned man buried under piles of papers.

"Couldn't be better Var. Most of the crew are happy with the way things are being handled. A couple pilots are developing an itch to go back into the skies." Turry responded as he shuffled papers around. "This could also be a good time to have our ground base forces develop plans for deep water combat, such as rapid deployment and boarding simulations."

"Alan, you got that?"

"Yeah I got it, just sent the orders to the captains." A tanned, medium build man responded. "That should be everything for now, not much we can do without more information from the recon birds."

"I agree, you heard him folks, return to stations and prepare for further instructions. Quarter master Fred, ready up the crew members who are polyglots, we will need them if we find and meet non hostile subjects. Conference adjourned."