Above the ocean 20 miles away, three massive Navy Sea King helicopters known as Salvor One, thundering straight at us, filling frame. Reverse, as they barrel over camera toward a lone ship . . . the Benthic Explorer. Inside the Explorer, Bendix, the crew chief, gives them clearance to land and gives Leland McBride, the Drilling Operations Supervisor, a heads up.
The first Sea King settles onto the helipad, disgorging a contingent of Naval officers, technicians, and a squad of armed seamen. A pantomime in the rotorwash, we see the Benthic Petroleum "company man" Kirkhill greeting Commodore DeMarco, the on-scene commander. Insided the Explorer bridge, McBride and Bendix watch the invaders swarming the deck below.
The second Navy Sea King churns through the rain under massive thunderheads. The sea below is whipped by the storm. The leader of the SEAL team, Lieutenant Coffey, makes his way out of the Sea King. Panning along booted feet, four pairs of black military size twelves line up, onto... a pair of Charles Jourdans fives under shapely ankles.
Revealing the four-man team of Navy SEALs. And a slender woman in her early thirties, dressed conservatively in a skirt and jacket. Meet Lindsey. She's a pain in the ass, but you'll like her. Eventually. She's holding on grimly, sitting crammed in with the SEALs and a bunch of gear, getting tossed around by the storm. The SEALs are dressed alike in fatigues. They are muscular, finely-tuned and extremely dangerous special-forces types.
Minutes later inside the Explorer, a video screen shows divers working below seventeen hundred feet, in total blackness around some sort of installation on the bottom of the ocean. They move through the harsh floodlights in dreamlike slow motion, looking like space-suited figures with their helmets and umbilical hoses.
Back on the bridge, we see the Navy contingent crowding the control room, DeMarco, Lindsey, McBride, Kirkhill, and the Navy SEALS. Commodore DeMarco needs for those divers to go below two thousand. Gerard Kirkhill, a corporate man, assures him they can.
The platform's designer and chief engineer, Dr. Lindsey Brigman, is furious at the notion of her rig being commandeered for the mission. However, Benthic Petroleum, the rig's financier, has already agreed to cooperate with the Navy. Lindsey and Kirkhill exchange words, then she walks away with disgust.
Kirkhill instructs Bendix to get Bud on the line. While transmitting, Bendix remarks to McBride that if Bud goes along with this, they're going to have to shoot Lindsey with a tranquilizer gun.
Underwater, total darkness, 1700 feet below. Deepcore II, an island of light in the vast blackness. One of the divers calls for another diver's help.
In a bubble-like dome port window we see the rig foreman, Bud Brigman. He's talking (via headset) with the two divers working outside... 'Catfish' De Vries, and Lew 'Bird-Dog' Finler.
Bud turns from the window and crosses the drill floor. The working heart of the rig. Thunderous mechanical roar. The drill crew, in hardhats and mud- plastered overalls, tend the massive spinning turn-table in the center of the chamber. The semi-automated system requires only five men to operate. The others are Lupton McWhirter, Dwight Perry, Jammer Willis, and Tommy Ray Dietz. Bud hears his name called above the din by Jammer, yelling to Bud he has a call from topside, that new company man, Kirkhill.
As Bud leaves, he asks Dwight perry to square away the debris, the place is starting to look like his apartment. Perry chuckles and sets to the task cheerfully. Bud exits, ducking his head through a low watertight hatch. Bud tromps down the narrow corridor, his work boots gonging on steel.
He enters his office, a tiny cubicle with stacks of paperwork, dust- gathering tech manuals and waterstained Penthouse fold-outs. He picks up the phone... punches down a line. Kirkhill asks him to be calm and delivers the news. Bud's expression, darkening, as he listens, erupts furiously.
The control module is a long narrow cabin like the inside of a Winnebago, packed with instrumentation. At the end is a small bay with multiple viewports. Allen 'Hippy' Carnes, who stands by the window twiddling his joysticks and jamming to music, is remote piloting the rig's ROV, Little Geek. His pet white rat, Beany, crawls contentedly around his shoulders.
Outside, at a 'Christmas tree' pipe installation, a lone diver can be seen welding. He is accompanied by a large submersible, Flatbed, and by Little Geek. Catfish is irritated by Allen's music blaring on the com system.
Flatbed's pilot, Lisa 'One Night' Standing, can be clearly seen behind a bubble canopy. She controls a hydraulic manipulator arm, assisting the diver, Arliss 'Sonny' Dawson, in his work. Little Geek hovers around them like a tiny helicopter. One Night moves the Flatbed arm to Sonny and hands him the pipe.
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