82

While the business with Evgeniy Cardoso was rumbling on, the aquanauts of the colony were preparing to launch the first submarines. Everyone is tired and irritable, having worked overtime for a month to get a submarine bay up and running alongside the rooms you'd mandated. They stare at you with red-rimmed eyes as you come to inspect the work.

Off an unassuming corridor in the base, a chute has been drilled straight down. Three freezing-cold freight elevators lead one after the other deep into the ice. At each changeover, you pass through two solid airlock doors before heading further down. Everywhere is lit with bare L.E.D. strips which cast the rough foam-on insulation in stark relief. You pass into the main launch chamber. The submarine hangs from a hoist above a pool of water that connects somewhere below to a series of ice-bound lakes that apparently lead to the moon-wide ocean. Several people flit about wearing huge insulating coats, as the temperature here is barely above zero. Marcel Temaru is dressed in one of his usual flower-print shirts. He sits in front of a bank of old-style screens. Marine technology tends towards the robust over the cutting edge.

"We're ready to launch," he says. "But luck isn't always our friend. The unmanned systems aren't responsive enough under all this ice. We can't afford to lose the only sub we have working."

You know where this is going. Someone will have to control the submarine. Marcel puts himself forward and is chosen for the voyage as the one with the most experience with submarines.

You take command at the control center. Most of the other colonists watch the live footage on walls throughout ♜ˢˡⁱᵖᵖᵉʳʸˡⁱᵍʰᵗʰᵉᵃʳᵗᵉᵈ♜. Marcel climbs into the metal cylinder, bids farewell, and secures the hatch.

Next