Submergence [Solo]

[Camille Gabriel]

Submergence

The legionnaire hovered in a world of darkness. Water clamped its freezing hands around her body, threatening to squeeze the air from her lungs. Sensation faded from her limbs as the cold enveloped them, pain replaced by a curiously detached tingling. It was, Camille summarised, as close as she had ever been to nonexistence. Not death, no, that was still pleasantly distant. This was far closer to simple nothingness, to that endless void that waited before birth. There was, in that, something soothingly primal. Here, a few feet beneath the frozen waves, she could forget the world.

It felt good to forget. Tau-44 waited above her, rebels and insurgents waiting to pick at Gallia's underbelly while the Crown turned its attention elsewhere. Contact with Komatsu was still a good few hours away, the Foreign Legion Capitaine no doubt busy preparing for her transition to Kusarian smuggler. Time enough for her to make a dive or two, if she could endure the weather.

Ice packs floated above her, veins of ice stretching across the ceiling of her world, the stained glass of some great natural cathedral grand enough to rival any of the terrestrial temples of her home. It was beautifully intricate, thin panes of ice filtering Borneo's sun to solitary rays that pierced the black water. Even that light faded quickly in the depths, leaving Camille hovering between the glowing ice above and endless black below. From above, she imagined she might as well be a moth trapped in amber. It wasn't a pleasant thought. She tugged the secondary line at her waist, feeling the answering hum of the winch mounted atop the ice. A second slap to the control halted the tugging motion. It wasn't much, but it would keep her safe enough for the moment.

The gentle rasp of her own breathing hung in her ears, amplified by the hiss of the rebreather fixed to her back. Goosebumps danced across her arms in stalwart defiance of the wetsuit she wore. Despite the cold, Camille preferred the wetsuit to the sealed environment suits. The latter felt too much like a prison, with its limited view ports and internalised air supply. It all felt too detached. Here; shivering against the cold, it was impossible to forget where she stood. She glanced at the display fixed to her wrist. Two minutes, and she hadn't even begun her dive. Already, she had delayed longer then she should have. The hole cut into the ice above her would not remain in place forever, nor could she ignore the cold indefinitely. The thought of being trapped beneath the ice until she froze or drowned sent a shiver up her spine that had nothing to do with the cold. If she was going to dive, it would have to be now.

She had a record to break.

She focused on her breathing; calm settling over her, as it always did, stilling her shivering limbs. Oxygen flowed through her, reinforcing her muscles, sharpening her mind for what was to come. There was nothing now but her and the ocean. She felt the currents swirling past, the gentle caress of the faded sun as surely as the pulse of her heart, slowing as her breathing settled. With a final glance up at the icy cathedral she released the regulator from her lips, letting it float away in a trail of bubbles that shot to the surface like deep-sea creatures seeking the light. Her rebreather followed a moment later, secured to the same line that ran from the hole above her to the ocean below. It would be waiting for her when she returned. A translucent orange ‘30’ flashed into existence over her wrist when she tapped the dive computer. A depth gauge, programmed to count down the metres to her target.

Finally, content with her preparations, Camille re-orientated her body, head down, the tips of her fins intersecting a ray of light, released her grip on the line, and dived.

Suspended on her wrist, the display flickered to '29.'

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Dulce et decorum est.
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