Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 737(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 491(@300wpm)
“These 'bugs' were a thirty-million-dollar project,” he says. “If they’re good at finding intruders who squeeze through the slightest window—and they’re impeccable—then they ought to be able to find your lanky friends crawling around rocks in the open.”
I scan the rocks offshore in search of them with my own eyes first.
They usually spend the bulk of their day out at sea and come ashore to rest. That’s our best chance at spotting them.
“Keep your eyes peeled anyway,” I tell Shepherd. “Our best chance to see them is when they’re resting, or sometimes when they’re on rocks, breaking mollusks.” I mime the action before stopping cold.
Now I’m just embarrassed.
What is it about this man that makes me act like a complete idiot around him?
He knows what mollusks are.
And um, probably how a hungry otter gets breakfast.
“Understood—and thanks for the demonstration, Destiny.” His lips twitch into another almost-smile that makes my heart skip before I wrestle it back under control.
This is so bad.
“Is their endangered status recent? As in, the last forty years?” he asks. “I mean, out here or Alaska, it’s not too densely populated. They don’t have any natural predators that I know of.”
“How about humans?” I sigh because it makes me sad. “They were hunted for their pelts as traders came west and moved up the coast. Their population recovered a bit, sure, but more recently, pollution has been a massive problem.”
He nods grimly but doesn’t say anything more as I squint across the sun-spangled sea.
I stare at the churning waves, looking for any sign of precious, furry little faces poking out of the water or frolicking around the rocks.
“Did you work with them in your grad program?” he asks from behind me.
“A little. Not as much as I wanted, and not just otters. I was with tons of different research groups with a broad marine life focus, usually. The professors want you to gain a lot of broad experience before you really home in on any specialty. I’ve worked on protecting turtles, dolphins from fisheries, and I even did a stint in Hudson Bay with an international polar bear tracking group.” Though it’s a losing battle like everyone knows. “I guess the otters are close to home. They’ve always held a special place for me. What I’d really like to get involved with is preserving what’s left of our sei whales. They’re crazy rare now in local waters, but a few scientists I worked with swore they’re on the verge of a comeback—if they just had a little more help.”
“And what help would that be?”
I slide him a glance, slightly irritated he sounds so skeptical.
Not that I can blame him when so much conservation work feels like an impossible battle.
“Well, we just don’t know enough. 'Knowledge is power' isn’t just a cheesy catchphrase with animal research. It’s everything. If this drone tracking helps with the otters, underwater drones could be huge for the whales.” I hold my breath, waiting for him to call me an idiot.
Honestly, I don’t even know how technically feasible it is.
“That’s a big ask. Unmanned submersibles are the most expensive experimental drone technology around,” he says. But he doesn’t instantly swat me down. “I’ll admit, I don’t know much about sei whales except for the fact that they’ve been hunted extensively.”
“Yeah. They’re protected now, but very little is known about them, and that’s the problem. Especially their social dynamics. We need something capable of keeping up that can track their movements and study them without being as intrusive as research boats.”
“Meaning, the drones would have to follow a pod over a long distance,” he muses. “It could be done—but I assure you, the cost would make this otter tracking adaptation look like a church fish fry.”
“Right.”
“With that in mind, I’m not sure a conventional drone would be your best option. Even the best submersibles adapted for civilian usage still run on batteries, and any hint of adding more lithium to the ocean if something goes wrong is a net loss for everything down there.”
He frowns, thinking.
I’ll be honest, it’s weirdly adorable.
I mean, if you can call a man who’s built like a mountain cute.
“Well, what would you suggest?” I prompt.
“I said conventional. What you need is something that can work around the energy problem. A submersible that draws its power from the ocean itself,” he says slowly as if he’s magically pulling the idea from the ether. “The current motions might provide a small device with enough kinetic energy to power itself indefinitely. We’d still need a data link, too, but that would be easy enough to establish with an environmentally friendly power source.”
“Careful, Shepherd. It sounds like you’re really getting into this,” I tease, then freeze up.
He made it perfectly plain that we don’t have this sort of relationship.
He doesn’t do jokes, or even fun.