Within the Water

by Kelly Fallows

  ‘But wait…’

  Here it comes, Ben thought as Duncan thought through the problem aloud.

  ‘If we need to be up there broadcasting to them, how are we also going to be broadcasting from the Ministries to the Republic as well?’ Duncan paused for a moment. ‘Oh no!’ he said turning to glare at Ben. ‘No, don’t you even think for one moment you’re going it alone. Oh no, that is not happening,’ he stated emphatically.

  ‘Dunc…’

  ‘No. This is a bad plan and you know it.’

  ‘Dunc…’ Ben tried again, pausing slightly to see if he was going to be allowed to speak, and only continued when Duncan made no move to interrupt. ‘You know this is the only way. Theo pointed it out: we need to broadcast simultaneously so they don’t get wise to what we’re doing.’

  ‘Ben…’

  ‘We need to cover all avenues, Dunc, or this is pointless.’

  ‘There’s some argument for it being pointless anyway,’ Duncan pointed out.

  ‘Do you really want to be the one to decide to keep the secret going?’ Ben asked,

  ‘If it means saving you from yourself, then yes.’

  ‘And you’d be able to live with that? Knowing that all these people are being used as puppets for entertainment. Their lives are being ruined for entertainment. They are pulling people apart and watching them claw their way through hell for fun. Can you really stand that, Dunc? Because I’d rather die trying to change it, than live with the knowledge that I did nothing.’

  Duncan held Ben’s gaze for a few moments before turning away. ‘No, I guess I can’t,’ he admitted quietly. ‘But you do realise what you’re asking me to do? To let you walk to your death alone? Because they’re going to have an army waiting for you up there.’

  ‘Not if they think I’m not going there,’ Ben said slowly.

  ‘And how are you going to convince them otherwise?’

  Ben just looked at Duncan, waiting to see if he’d take the hint. ‘It’s been ten years, Dunc, since any of that lot saw us and they’ll have worked out that we have to be at the Ministries to broadcast…’

  ‘So, any man wearing your distinctive coat and answering to Captain Daniels must be you,’ Duncan finished the thought.

  ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘Well, I’ve always wanted to be captain,’ Duncan tried for some humour.

  ‘Well, you’d make a great one… not as good as me, of course.’ Ben grinned.

  ‘Hmm, and don’t think you’re off the hook for going it alone; just how are you planning to get over to the West Waters anyway and…’

  Duncan didn’t get a chance to finish his list of problems as Sophie’s voice cut in, calling them on the comm.

  ‘Go ahead, Soph.’

  ‘We’ve got what looks to be a blockade.’

  ‘A blockade?’ Duncan repeated looking at Ben.

  ‘Bloody Carrington,’ Ben muttered. ‘We’ll be right up, Soph.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there,’ she acknowledged, signing off.

  ‘Looks like the rest of your fault finding is going to have to wait,’ Ben said, clapping Dunc on the shoulder as they got up and moved through into the control room.

  A minute later, Sophie came barrelling in, tapping away frantically on a portable computer before plonking herself down in her chair.

  ‘Well, Soph, what have we got?’ Ben asked.

  ‘A fleet of Republican subs. I think they think they can block us in,’ she said in some confusion.

  Duncan laughed, ‘And how do they reckon they’re going to manage that this time when they’ve never been able to before?’

  ‘Well, you can’t say they’re quitters,’ Ben joined in with his first mate’s mirth. ‘Just do as you usually would, Soph, and skirt around them.’

  ‘Right you are, Captain.’

  ‘Oh, and keep an eye out for Marius; he’s bound to be lurking in these waters somewhere, so keep a sharp eye.’

  ‘Marius?’ Duncan queried.

  ‘Yeah, something Kristoff let slip while you were off having fun with Estelle,’ Ben told him as they made their way back into the nav. room, secure in the knowledge that Sophie could slip them past the Republic’s blockade with her eyes shut and still have room to spare.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  ‘There is no record of Daniels or Greyson ever being stationed on the Fortune, and, what’s more, the Fortune was out of the water for a refit at the time in question!’ Rose very nearly crowed as she came through the doors to Nathan’s office.

  ‘Indeed? Your spies have been busy,’ Nathan responded neutrally.

  ‘Hmph, you could show a little recognition, if not some excitement,’ Rose huffed.

  ‘When we have those disks firmly in our hands, then I’ll rejoice. What else did you find out?’

  ‘As I mentioned, the naval rosters had been overlooked and, so far, the only piece of information we’ve been able to directly verify is that Daniels served on the Watham until he was charged with mutiny, but it seems he was transferred to another sub for his execution.’ Rose paused for breath. ‘And – you’re going to love this, Nathan – he was transferred to the Serronous, which was subsequently lost with all hands after the executions had taken place.’

  ‘I suspect Carrington’s going to be resistant about giving another sub that name any time soon,’ Nathan smiled a predatory smile.

  ‘That man is just one mystery after another,’ Rose said, referring, of course, to Daniels and not Carrington.

  ‘Indeed, it makes one wonder why he was trusted with such a delicate task in the first place,’ Nathan reprimanded, none too subtly, but Rose just let it slide; she knew it was a fight she wouldn’t win now, so there really was very little point in trying to fight it. ‘What else did you find?’

  ‘Not much, except…’ Rose thumbed through the folder in her arms trying to locate the right document, ‘… ah, yes, we checked the records for that two-year period and, surprisingly, it was pretty quiet. There was a strike over at the Production Islands, the November Massacre, if you recall, and then there was a minor epidemic in the Colonies. Other than that, there was… oh yes, there was some vague reference in the archives about a sub being destroyed, the Sky or something.’

  ‘Sky?’ Nathan queried.

  ‘Yes, there wasn’t much on it, just a line or two in the file.’

  ‘That’s a peculiar name for a sub down here, don’t you think?’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Rose agreed with a shrug before the implications caught up with her. ‘You think this is linked with Daniels?’

  ‘A sub named Sky being destroyed, Carrington in a snit and Daniels turning up like a bad penny all the time, as they used to say. Yes, I think we’ve found the link. Get the Saint on to it; it’s top priority, I don’t care what else comes in, we need to know everything there is on the Sky,’ Nathan ordered.

  ‘Of course, Nathan.’ Rose hesitated, she had come to the end of her good news, but there was still more to be said. ‘Fahlen is getting close too; we’ve received information that he knows everything we know now and possibly more about this Sky business.’

  ‘Get the lower levels to feed him misinformation wherever possible, but I repeat the Sky is our top priority. Fahlen is a minor concern at the moment. It’s Daniels that holds all the power right now and so it is him we need to second guess.’

  ‘Speaking of which…’

  ‘Yes, Rose?’ Nathan’s question sounded much more like a threat, but Rose was determined.

  ‘What are we doing about Daniels? Surely he must have read the disks by now.’

  ‘We must assume he has, and therefore, as he hasn’t contacted us, we must assume he is hostile and is going to try to transmit the information throughout the Republic.’

  ‘But what good would that do him?’

  ‘I fea
r you’ve gravely underestimated your Captain Daniels, Rose.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘He’s not a man after profit, which I think Carrington knows, and a man who can’t be bought is dangerous, for he will do what he thinks is the right thing – for the greater good, if you will,’ Nathan sneered holding nothing but contempt for that manner of thinking. ‘He will transmit that information in the hope that it’ll change things for the better,’ he finished.

  ‘He’s not that naïve.’

  ‘Normally I would agree with you, Rose – only the truly naïve would follow through on such a plan – but Daniels isn’t naïve, he just has bleak hope even when he knows the situation to be hopeless.’

  ‘So he’s going to kill himself for hope?’ Rose asked incredulously, trying and failing to picture the Benjamin Daniels she knew in such a light.

  ‘That he will, Rose,’ Nathan agreed ominously.

  ***

  Fahlen, blissfully unaware of Nathan’s plot to misinform him and his slip down the ranking of enemy targets, made his way swiftly to the top floor of the Ministries. He breezed past the clerk in Carrington’s outer office, who barely had time to rise from her chair in protest, and knocked on the door to the main office.

  ‘Enter,’ Carrington’s voice rumbled through the door.

  ‘You requested my presence,’ Fahlen said as he entered, bowing slightly to the seated chancellor.

  ‘How strange,’ Carrington commented without looking up from his papers. ‘There I was thinking that I’d summoned you. Amazing how a single communication can so easily be misunderstood.’

  ‘My apologies, Chancellor,’ Fahlen replied in a humble tone, bowing a deeper bow to the head of the Republic.

  At length, Carrington looked up from his papers and stared a long, hard stare at the man in front of him. Gone from his features was any trace of the jovial man he had been at the Jigs Day celebration a week ago. Instead there was, plain to see, a man who had clawed his way to the top and had no intention of letting his seat of power slip away from him.

  ‘It has come to my attention, Fahlen, that you believe that you can play me. You seem to hold some notion of my being a jolly, bumbling fool, much like Devonport, I suspect. So, let me be clear – I am the big fish here, and if you attempt to discredit me, play me or in any other way work against me it will be your funeral. Am I understood?’

  ‘Of course, Chancellor,’ Fahlen didn’t waste his breath on denials and platitudes; it was quite clear that he had underestimated the man and overestimated the effect of the shock of hearing that Daniels was still alive. Oh, that still had Carrington rattled, Fahlen could see that, but not rattled enough to allow Fahlen the free rein that he had previously been enjoying. Now it was apparent how this had come about, not from a lack of ability on the chancellor’s part, but a lack of interest in how things were run down here. Quite simply put, he didn’t care until it jeopardised his comfy life above.

  ‘Now, where is Daniels and where are my disks?’ asked Carrington, satisfied that Fahlen had been put in his place, and moving onto the more important matters.

  ‘We believe him to be in Abantos still, Chancellor.’

  ‘And the disks?’

  ‘Still in his control.’

  ‘And what justification do you have for these suppositions?’

  Fahlen gritted his teeth at the insinuations the chancellor was making and his manner of interrogating him; he knew he had to keep calm. ‘Daniels hasn’t attempted to pass the blockade at the edge of the Abyss. As for the disks still being with him, Nathan would have wasted no time in gloating if he had them,’ Fahlen replied, summarising the situation.

  ‘What are his chances of gaining access to the information stored on the disks?’

  ‘High, unfortunately. If he can gain the cooperation of an expert hacker, which we have reason to believe he will or he would not have risked Abantos, then he will have access. The encryptions were never designed to keep anybody out indefinitely.’

  ‘No one thought that anyone would be that careless with them.’

  ‘Indeed, Chancellor.’

  ‘I believe that he also has the ledgers?’

  ‘Yes, although they won’t make much sense until he has accessed the disks and even then the entries are coded. It is unlikely he will have either enough time or attempt to devote such time to understanding them. The disks will be his focus,’ Fahlen told him confidently.

  ‘We will see if that is the case,’ Carrington commented noncommittally. ‘So, it is a case of damage limitation then.’

  ‘We still have opportunities to catch him, Chancellor.’

  Carrington threw him a sharp look. ‘Daniels is not a man who is easily caught,’ he stated, ‘and, given the lack of results our efforts have produced so far, we will focus our energies on damage limitation.’

  ‘Of course, Chancellor.’

  ‘The question is what is he going to do with the information when he unlocks it and how much will it really tell him?’ Carrington pondered out loud. ‘Which episodes did he get?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘That isn’t entirely clear. It would seem that there were several of the commentary files, so he will have a good deal of Rupert’s ranting, but not entire episodes,’ Fahlen explained, hesitating slightly before adding the last item they knew for certain that the disks contained, ‘It would also appear that it contained the opening for the anniversary episode.’

  ‘What!’ Carrington exploded. ‘So, he has everything then! Christ, Fahlen, why didn’t you just gift wrap the whole thing for him?’

  ‘Chancellor, I fail to see…’

  ‘Of course you do,’ Carrington said contemptuously. ‘Rupert’s commentaries reveal that it is all a show for entertainment and he has the banner stating a hundred years of it! What can he possibly not know now?’

  Fahlen chose to remain silent after Carrington’s outburst, not wanting to have that rage directed at him any more than it already was.

  ‘So, we can assume that he will try to broadcast this to the entire Republic,’ Carrington said after he had regained a grip on his temper. ‘He will have to come here then. Not even Abantos has a powerful enough transmitter to get to the whole Republic; that’s one thing we did manage to have enough foresight to prevent, but precious little else.’

  ‘Then we shall be ready and waiting for him,’ Fahlen declared.

  ‘Yes, we shall, but not too obviously though; we need to lure him in and only when we’re certain he can’t escape do we spring the trap. He will not get away this time.’

  ‘I shall see to it personally, Chancellor,’ Fahlen said, bowing and turning to leave.

  ‘Oh, and, Fahlen, you will cease all investigation into the Sky Affair and Admiral Greyson. He is beyond reproach.’

  ‘Of course, Chancellor,’ Fahlen stated, smirking only once his back was to Carrington. ‘The Republic stands.’

  ‘The Republic stands,’ Carrington echoed absently from behind his desk.

  Let him think he’s scared me off, Fahlen thought to himself, as he strode down the corridors. Let him believe I am weak and we shall see who falls.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  ‘We clear then, Soph?’ Ben asked, referring to the Republic’s blockade, as Sophie and Melanie joined them in the mess for a bite to eat.

  ‘I’m hurt that you think so little of my skills that you have to ask,’ Sophie said with a tone of mock hurt.

  ‘A thousand pardons, my excellent little pilot, I shall never again question your epic skills,’ Ben cried with a flourish.

  ‘Hmph, until tomorrow,’ Ash scoffed from the sidelines with a sly grin.

  They were all working hard to put the images they had seen on the disks out of their minds. Simon, in particular, had taken them very hard, but then, for him, it was more personal. It seemed he had been a direct victim of the show
as one of the “Displaced”, as they were labelled. He had been taken from his impoverished family in the Colonies, and put through school and college – supposedly by a wealthy benefactor, who had then died suddenly – leaving Simon with no way to support himself in the world he'd been educated into and was forced to return to his family home, which didn’t really welcome him back with open arms. To know that his life’s struggles had been solely for someone else’s entertainment made him so angry and, at the same time, sick to his stomach. When he had said to Blue that everything was going to change and the impact from these disks would be unimaginable, he didn’t realise how close he had got to the truth. He felt as though the water had opened up below him and he was being swallowed whole, like he had fallen into one of the air bubbles the captain was talking about in the Abyss – bubble dragons – that thought made him smile at last as he remembered Sophie’s laughter at that name.

  ‘Care to share, lad?’ Blue’s voice broke into his thoughts.

  ‘Bubble dragons,’ Simon just blurted out the first thought that came to mind and then realised that technically Blue had been the butt of that particular joke. ‘Ah, what I meant was…’ The rest of his explanation got lost in the general laughter around the table, which then doubled as they registered Melanie’s look of complete bewilderment at what had turned seemingly sane people into complete lunatics in an instant.

  ‘It’s a case of superstition meeting science, Mel,’ Sophie was at last able to gasp out.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah, you see…’ The rest of the explanation was lost to the shrill whistle issuing from Sophie’s portable computer.

  ‘Oh, what now?’ she sighed, looking down at the screen as she shovelled in another mouthful of rice.

  ‘Soph?’

  ‘A perimeter warning, Cap,’ she told him swallowing heavily.

  ‘Perimeter, Soph? Someone’s outside the hull?’ Duncan asked incredulously.

  Sophie frowned, still tapping away, but answered absently, ‘I set up a moving perimeter to watch out for Marius… or any other surprises. It’s just strange he’s so close to the barricade, though.’