Chapter One

Note from the Author:

I hope you enjoy this draft, pre-edited sneak peek at the upcoming novel Lost Fleet. Stay safe, wash your hands, and be kind to each other!

-Chris

Chapter One

Present Day

Kate Kingsbury hovered a few feet above the rocky bottom, her hands lightly clasped at her waist. Her body rose a few inches as she sipped a breath, and it sank ever so slightly as she blew a steady stream of tiny bubbles out through the regulator in her mouth. She twitched her ankle and propelled herself a few feet around the huge reef, keeping watch on her client while still giving him his space to feel alone in the water.

She finned closer to the coral and slowed her breath, hovering perfectly motionless as she watched a tiny cleaner shrimp make its way across the rock. A movement at the corner of her eye startled her. In a split second, even before her body could begin to react, the shrimp darted into a hole, feathery corals retreated into their sheaths, and the whole rock, filled with activity just a second before, now appeared barren and dead. A few yards down the reef, her client thrashed, a thick column of bubbles streaming toward the surface.

Kate kicked hard. The man’s mask sat askew near the top of his forehead, half filled with salt water. His second stage dangled over his shoulder, its mouthpiece tipped upward and free flowing air from his tank into the open ocean. His arms flailed around his face.

At forty feet beneath the surface, a panic attack could drown a man in seconds.

Kate gave her buoyancy compensator’s air dump a tiny tug, and she dropped two feet. Then she clenched her own second stage tight between her teeth and sucked her lungs full of air. Her body rose back to the man’s level. She kicked hard toward him, her arms extended. Slipped her arms between his. Swept them away from his face. Wrapped her legs around his waist and pinned his arms down to his sides. She tried to make eye contact with the man, but his eyes were squeezed tight. She grabbed his mouthpiece, flipping it to stop the free-flow of air, then she jammed it into his mouth and pinched his nose with her fingers to force his breath through his mouth.

She dumped the air from his vest, and they both dropped to the ocean floor. When he’d finally taken three strong breaths, she relaxed her hold on his arms and helped him adjust his mask then clear it.

The two divers knelt on the ocean floor, eyes locked, while the man slowed his breathing and his heart rate dropped back to normal. Kate glanced at his pressure gauge. Nine hundred pounds of air. Her own gauge read almost eighteen hundred. He’d lost a lot to the free-flow.

She held her left hand flat and touched her right thumb to its palm — the signal to ascend to the surface. He shook his head, pointing back to the reef. Raising the pressure gauge in front of his mask, Kate pointed to the reading and repeated the sign with a little more force.

He pointed to her gauge, then to the bright yellow octopus strapped to the left side of her chest and shrugged.

She shook her head, grabbed his inflator, and squeezed two puffs of air into his vest. She pulled him up from the bottom, and pointed  toward the bottom of the boat forty feet above them.

In the half hour since they’d dropped into the water, the bright sunlight at the surface had faded to a pale glow. Kate guided her client to the mooring line, and he started up, glaring at her through his foggy mask. Every few feet, Kate tugged the air release at the bottom of his vest, dumping air to slow his ascent. At fifteen feet, she gripped the mooring line with one hand and his vest with the other, forcing him into a three minute safety stop to allow the nitrogen that built up in their systems while they were in deeper water to filter out as they exhaled.

One minute into their stop, Kate noticed him straining to breathe. She grabbed his console and shook her head as she dropped it back at his side. Pulling the yellow octopus from her chest, she handed it to him, counting the seconds until her timer beeped and she could drag this schlub to the surface and get him off her tank.

Ten minutes later, Kate had rinsed and stowed all their gear, handed her client two bottles of water, and settled him into a deck chair. He waved his phone high above his head.

“Don’t hurt your shoulder. We’re too far out.” Kate fought to keep the sharp tone out of her voice.

As he opened his photo app, she dragged Captain Steve Welch down into the salon of his dive boat, the Island Hopper Too.

“Did you know?”

Steve cocked his head to one side, looking just a little too ignorant to be genuine. “Know?”

“He couldn’t even clear his mask. He ran out of air. He has no business being underwater. I’m not taking him down again.”

Kate reached for a folder on the counter, but Steve snatched it up before she could grasp it. He flopped into the banquette. “Fine. I’ll call the last dive off. He’s probably not ready for a night dive.”

“Ya think?” she snarled. “Did you not even ask him about his experience?”

Steve looked around the room, clearly avoiding Kate’s stare. “I may have suspected his questionnaire was not entirely complete. I may have realized he’d need more than just a few simple checkout dives.” He sighed as his gaze finally rested on Kate. “I knew he’d be more than Justin is ready to handle. So yes, I’ll admit I tricked you into taking this charter.”

Kate glared at her friend.

“Kate, you’re a great dive instructor. You’re great at everything you touch. You just keep avoiding touching things.”

“Why waste my magic on mediocrity like him?” She pointed out the window to the man waving his phone in the air again.

“Kate, you saved that guy from drowning.”

“Maybe he wouldn’t have panicked if he’d been with Justin.”

“Or maybe Justin would have been down there and had no idea what to do.”

Kate raised her eyebrow.

“Look, you’re great at this but that’s not all. You need the work. Danny’s pension doesn’t get you far enough. The only reason Serenity runs is because Chuck forced you to let him rebuild her engine. The only way you eat the last week of every month is because Babette makes you plates, and makes excuses as to why it’s on the house. You won’t take what you’ve earned. You’re broke, you’re starting to piss off your friends, and I’m tired of tricking you into doing something you’re great at.”

Steve pushed himself up, grabbed two water bottles from the galley fridge, and climbed the ladder to the cockpit.

“At least I spend more on food than on beer…” she muttered at his feet disappearing through the hatch. Kate scrambled up onto the deck and trailed him to the helm. She pointed out a cluster of thunderstorms off to the south. “Those look like they’re headed this way, don’t they?”

Steve fired up the Garmin and tapped the weather radar icon, then called to their passenger. “Buddy, we’ve got weather coming at us. We can’t stay for your third dive.”

“But I need a night dive for my certification.”

“You got boat and deep today. You’re in town all of spring break, right? Maybe if the weather clears up, you can go out later in the week.”

“I paid you for a night dive. I bought a light.”

Steve’s shoulders sank. “I can’t control the weather, man. I’ll make it right when we get back, but right now, we need to get going. How about you two watch sunset from the bow, and Kate, you can pull us off the buoy while you’re up there?”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Always trying to make work sound like fun.” She dropped her arm around his shoulder and whispered in his ear. “But seriously, thanks. I know I’m a pain in the butt, but I do appreciate you. I appreciate Chuck. I appreciate everyone. I’m still trying to figure all this out. Thanks for being patient with me.”

“We’re all trying to figure things out, Kate.” He took a long pull off his water.

She squeezed his shoulder, then slipped along the railing and leaned over the wide bow to draw in the mooring line. As she stretched the hook toward the buoy, a thick streak above the northern horizon caught her eye. She dropped back to the deck.

“Steve!” Her stomach heaved as she pointed. In the distant sky, the setting sun glinted off the fuselage of a bright yellow and blue airliner. A trail of black smoke marked its path, its nose pointed toward the sea in a slow deadly spiral.

Ten minutes later, the Hopper Too flew northeast across the surface of the ocean, its hull bouncing on the light chop. A soft vibration at Kate’s wrist heralded their return to civilization.

Almost immediately, the solo diver’s phone began to whistle and ping as the text messages that had queued throughout the afternoon bounced off of satellites in space and back down to his phone. The man sprawled on a low bench in the Too’s cockpit, his thumbs flying across the small screen.

Kate pulled her own phone from her pocket.

Nicholas Lewis

1 Message

Kate pressed her thumb to the bottom edge of the phone, and the message unfurled on the screen.

Surprise! Hope you’re not busy tonight. Landing at 7:15 on AzureAir 3782. Drinks? Let’s catch up.

The clock at the top of her screen read 7:23. Kate’s breath stopped. Her phone clattered to the sole as she stared at the black smoke billowing from the horizon over their port gunwale.

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Thanks for checking out this draft preview of Lost Fleet. I’m posting a new chapter every weekday, but the further we get, the more likely we are to run into spoilers! If you haven’t read the first two books (Lost Key and Lost Relics), you can pick them up from Amazon in either eBook or paperback format, or read them for free with your Kindle Unlimited membership!