Chapter 10: Drop

Joe scrubbed furiously at her body at four AM the next morning.

She had felt it might be safer to deploy the sub in the morning, not making too much of a fuss about it. If the lights were watching them, the cover of night would camouflage them a bit. So they would be pushing off at five, before the sun even rose.

Which was why Joe was showering at four being careful about her healing tattoos that only she and Ilia were currently aware existed.

The manned subs could only spend 8 hours submerged. Unlike the unmanned subs, they had a life support system that drained on the battery decreasing the time they could spend underwater.

However, that also meant that Joe would be spending 8 uninterrupted hours in Kai's presence. The last the thing she wanted to worry about was if she smelled bad. So Joe, who always showered at night, had opted to shower that morning as well.

There was a specially designed suit on her bed. It was light green, cover all style specially designed to keep her warm. Of all the life support systems on the sub, central heating wasn't one of them. The sub would keep things just warm enough, but it wouldn't exactly be warm. So the heat preserving suit was a necessity.

After washing her entire body, excluding her hair because she had washed that last night and didn't want to get into the sub with wet hair, Joe climbed out of the shower.

She pulled on her blue swim suit, a pair of soccer shorts and a tank top, then pulled the green body suit over herself. She was to wear a pair of black boots, provided, with it. There would be a dehydrated meal waiting for them in case they got hungry on the voyage.

All in all, it wasn't going to be a terribly uncomfortable experience.

Except that Joe would be spending 8 hours in complete darkness.

Alone with a guy that she prayed didn't think she smelled bad or noticed that she had scrubbed herself raw.

Thirty minutes later, Joe went up on deck where Kai and the maintenance crew who would be dropping the sub were already waiting. Josh was below deck in the sub room, ready to guide them from there.

Below the ship, Joe knew Adara, Flavian, and one other merman she hadn't met named Dorian were waiting to accompany them down. Kai assured her they were his best.

They wouldn't go directly up to the lights. If it was an organism they hadn't yet encountered making that pattern, which was very possible, they didn't want to frighten it. And if it was something more sinister, approaching it might cause it to do something harmful to them, like open fire.

So they would be hitting the sea floor a few miles away from it then approaching as silently as the sub could manage.

"Good morning, Kyma." Kai greeted her as she approached. "Are you prepared?"

His hair was wet and Joe knew he hadn't gone swimming last night. Did that mean he was just as nervous about spending all that time with her and had bathed religiously too? She hoped so. Him being nervous would greatly decrease the nerves she felt.

"Climb down through the hatch there." a maintenence man told her, pointing to a hole in the top of the sub.

The simulator was extremely accurate as far as the controls went. But the interior was a bit different.

The entrance was a circular hatch they climbed down into a pit beneath. The controls were in front of a window on the ground. They would reach them by laying down on their bellies and looking forward. Two other windows were placed on either side but they were circular and smaller than the main window. The manned sub also had arms but Joe didn't anticipate using them since they were just going to be looking.

Kai gave her a hand off the ship and onto the sub.

She climbed down the tiny ladder and into the belly of the metal tank. A moment later, Kai climbed on top of it and passed down the backpack that had their food, water, and some stuff to entertain them on the trip down.

The bottom of the sub was smooth and padded for comfort. A flip of the switch would turn off the control panel letting them lay out without worry about hitting anything.

At the moment, the lights were on and shades were on over the windows. That would let them see until they needed to turn off the lights.

Joe took the back pack, then sat down on the ground.

The inside was shaped like a 'P', looking down, the stem being where the ladder was and the control panel being at the top.

She heard Kai say something to the maintence men, then climb down himself.

He shut the door from the inside and she heard the maintenance men sealing them in from the outside.

"Check, one, two. Can you guys hear me okay?" Josh's voice filled the sub.

Joe leaned down and pressed the familiar green button. "Loud and clear, Josh."

"We'll be dropping you soon. We're going to finish doing our equipment check from here. Get comfortable. It's a long way down."

"Roger." Joe released the button and sat back.

Kai had laid out along the bottom and was reaching for the controls, doing a quick check that everything was working properly. The maintenance men would have already done that but it didn't hurt to do it again.

"What did they give us for entertainment?" Kai asked without looking at her. Being a merman, he was largly impervious to the cold of deep sea, but he had put on one of the green suits anyway.

Joe opened the backpack. "Four bottles of water," she said pulling them out and setting them aside, "a pack of dehydrated brownies, beef jerky, and two books."

"What books?"

"Human-merfolk relations." Joe read. "And a romance book."

"The relations one is mine." Kai said. "They must have given you the romance book."

"Just for that, you can have the romance book." Joe set it on his back as she repacked the bag. "This is yours?" she turned the human-merfolk relations book over in her hand. It looked well used. She turned it over and read the summery out loud, "'Need help understanding your fishy friend? Not quite seeing eye to eye with that two-legger? This complete guide to human-merfolk relations can help both species with that difficult process of melding together. Co-written with Dr. Huings and Pacific merman Galen, this guide will enabled a landed merperson to mix well with any human he meets and assists any human with understanding the oceanic humanoid mythic. Covering such topics as initial meeting, becoming friends, and even love, this guide is a critically acclaimed help for all human-merfolk relations.'"

Joe lowered the book and looked at Kai who had sat up and set the romance book aside.

"I bought that on my first landing." he said. "It's actually quite helpful."

"Oh, yeah?" Joe turned it over, wondering if she should give it a read.

"It's where I first learned that you humans speak a lot." he said. "I used to drive my superior humans crazy because I wouldn't say anything to them. The first thing the book told me is that you humans prize your spoken communication."

"It prevents a lot of misunderstandings." Joe smiled a bit. "Do you mind if I read it?"

"Go ahead." Kai said.

Josh's voice came over the comm. system again, "Alright. Are you two ready to dive?"

Joe leaned back over and pressed the button. "Drop us."

"Dropping in 3...2...1."

Gravity lurched a bit as the crane holding the sub released. Then they jerked as the sub hit the water.

Kai reached over and set the sub to submerge.

Joe leaned down comfortably on the pad as he flipped a switch, turning the control panal off.

She opened the book up and began reading. She was a bit surprised to see Kai do the same with the romance novel, sure he wouldn't actually want to read it.

But she was a bit happy that he did.

It was rather comfortable, lying there together, just reading.

She smiled and turned her attention to the print before her.

'Chapter one: Understanding Each Other'