Within the Water

by Kelly Fallows

  ‘I think I might,’ Carrington said walking over to a console. ‘Oh, and don’t get any ideas of this broadcasting, I shut down that facility hours ago,’ he added smugly.

  ‘She told you they’re worthless, why would we want to transmit?’

  ‘And why would I take the word of a criminal?’

  ‘Ah, but I’m a criminal with morals,’ Duncan responded with a grin, stalling for time.

  ‘Ha! If they so much as twitch, shoot them,’ Carrington informed the guards as he turned to the console to play the disks.

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  'So…’ Zhe finally got the first word of the sentence out; she'd been struggling for the last couple of days to bring up this topic in between sparing sessions, or when they were eating, or at any and every moment, but her courage always failed her. She counted it as a success that she'd even got a word out, but it had taken until they were almost on top of their destination to manage it.

  ‘Yeah, Zhe?’ Ben prompted when she didn’t follow up the opening, as he checked their course and the surrounding area. ‘Zhe?’ He actually looked up at her this time to see her staring down at her knotted hands. ‘I don’t bite, you know.’ He grinned at her.

  ‘It’s just that you said you’d been close to the surface before?’

  Ben nodded as Zhe didn’t seem able to continue without some acknowledgement from him first.

  ‘Well, I was wondering what happened? I mean how close did you get? What was it like? What was there?’ Zhe asked in a rush, all the permutations of the questions that she had thought of over the last couple of days all running into one.

  ‘I wondered when you’d get around to asking that, little darling,’ Ben told her, swinging around to face her and leaning back in his chair.

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘You deserve to know,’ Ben said simply, before settling back more deeply into his chair. ‘You know that Duncan and I were in the navy, and that we were dishonourably discharged. In fact, we were supposed to be executed on the original Serronous for inciting mutiny. This was back about ten years or so. Well, there was no mutiny, and Dunc and I certainly weren’t trying to incite one; although, given what we know now, it probably wouldn’t have been a bad idea, but that’s beside the point. What did, in fact, happen was that we went to the aid of a sub in distress: the Sky. She was in the West Waters and had been hit. The West Waters was a known naval training area, so it seemed odd that a sub should wander in there by accident as it’s on all the charts, but, at the time, we didn’t think too much of it or the fact that, for saying it was a known training area, we'd been there very little. So we went in, but, by the time we got to her, it was obvious she was sinking. I volunteered to go over and look for survivors; a pretty dangerous idea as the Sky had scant minutes left, but I was determined. So, Captain Greyson came as well – there was just the two of us – to look for survivors. But, whereas I was looking to save them, he was looking to finish them off.’

  ‘What?’ Zhe gasped, bringing Ben back out of his dark memories.

  ‘Again, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Anyway, to get to the point, one of the survivors spoke to me before he died of his injuries. Rambling, so I thought and I wouldn’t discuss it with anybody – the horrors were too fresh. Greyson and his mate – the Minister of Security, Carrington – decided that meant I knew the secret and had to be killed. I didn’t, not then. But now, looking back, what I took to be ramblings was the old man telling me there was life on the surface. Then followed the trumped-up charges for mutiny, and because Duncan stood by me and wouldn’t be dissuaded he got tarred with the same brush.’

  ‘But… how does that mean you know about the surface?’

  ‘I don’t, not exactly, but I reckon that the West Waters being a training area is a cover to keep people out. So, if they’re keeping people out, then they’ve got something to hide, and, as they need a convenient way to get to and from the surface, I think that they are hiding the entry platform there. Especially with the Sky being there; Carrington couldn’t have let it get too far into the Republic’s waters before they guessed the truth about the “show”.’

  ‘So, we’re going to go in and poke around?’

  ‘Already doing that, little darling.’ Ben patted the console. ‘Marius believed forewarned is forearmed. The sensors on this little lady are unparalleled. If there’s anything lurking out there, then we’ll find it.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’ Zhe looked around the control room as if that would bear out what Ben was saying, but, although he had been teaching her the basics these past couple of days, she still really couldn’t make head nor tail of most of it.

  ‘Besides, those ledgers Devonport was carrying, well, they make for some mighty interesting reading once you break the code.’ He tapped the ledgers where they sat next to him on the console; Zhe had seen him poring over them every night, but hadn’t realised he'd cracked the code. ‘I’m only a little way in,’ he continued, ‘but I think they give the coordinates we need. It seems Carrington likes his little trips to the surface a little too much and is more than happy to bill the Republic for the expense.’ Ben grinned at that little nugget; he was pretty confident they’d find the platform. However, just what they found on it was another matter entirely.

  ***

  ‘What’s that?’ Zhe asked as she jumped at the strange beeping sound, nearly losing her grip on the vial she had been rolling between her hands, as had become her habit on this journey.

  ‘Proximity alert,’ Ben told her, going over to the panel in the mess and tapping a few keys. ‘Looks like we’ve found it,’ he said, grinning over his shoulder at her.

  ‘Ah, good?’ Zhe’s apprehension came across in her tone, which turned her statement into a question.

  ‘Definitely good news, Zhe, especially as we’re running out of time. We’ve only got a few hours left before our deadline and we don’t want to keep the others waiting.’

  ‘No, we don’t,’ Zhe agreed, her thoughts straying once again to how the rest of the crew were doing and if they were okay.

  ‘They’ll be fine, Zhe,’ Ben told her, slinging an arm over her shoulders, ‘just as we will be.’

  Zhe just gave him a watery smile and a slight nod; not wanting to contradict him, but not sharing his certainty. That sense of foreboding was getting stronger and stronger. She had the definite feeling that going up against the Republic was going to have dire consequences for them all.

  ‘Right, time for the fun to start,’ he declared, giving her shoulder a final squeeze before bounding off into the control room.

  ‘Wait, we’re just going to cruise up and dock with it? In plain sight?’ Zhe nearly screeched as she looked over Ben’s shoulder at the monitors.

  Ben winced at the sudden volume in his ear, ‘Not so loud, little darling.’

  ‘But they’re going to see us!’

  ‘And how else are we supposed to gain access to the platform? The only way is by docking with it.’

  ‘But gaining access to the platform doesn’t mean anything if we can’t transmit the files,’ Zhe informed him with heat. Ben had begun to notice that the more stressed Zhe was, the more she became less like the timid slave he had first taken aboard his boat and more like a fiery young woman. Over the last few days it had been creeping in at other times too. She’s remembering whether she wants to or not, he thought almost sadly, knowing that in her heart Zhe was afraid of who she might be.

  ‘True, which is why they’re only going to see me,’ Ben told her.

  ‘What? Where am I going to be then?’ she asked in confusion.

  ‘Hiding in the smuggling compartments, with the disks, so that, once they’ve searched the boat and found nothing, you can move into the complex itself and find the radio room,’ Ben explained.

  ‘But… I can’t,’ Zhe’s tone was tinged with desperation and more than a hint of panic,
which was why Ben had left it until now to mention this possibility – sending her into a panic for days beforehand wouldn’t have been helpful to either of them.

  ‘I believe you can, Zhe; I know you can.’

  ‘But even if they don’t find me, how will I know where to go?’ she asked desperately.

  ‘Well, I’d try here first and then maybe here,’ Ben told her pointing to the monitor displaying the sensor’s image of the complex. ‘These two places look to be where their radio signals have been coming from.’

  ‘But how?’

  ‘You didn’t think I’d send you in there without a little help did you?’

  ‘I… er… no?’ Zhe stammered in confusion; the enormity of the task was weighing down on her.

  ‘Zhe… Zhe… listen to me. You are going to do just fine. They are after me, and once they find me they’ll stop looking for anyone else. I’ll keep them all distracted, and you’ll have free rein to get to the radio room and transmit. Just don’t forget to comm. Blue to let him know, so he can co-ordinate everything. Okay?’

  Zhe nodded dumbly.

  ‘You can do this, Zhe. You are a strong, intelligent, fiery young woman who can do anything you set your mind to. Tell me you can do this.’

  ‘I can do this,’ Zhe muttered weakly.

  ‘Zhe.’

  Zhe looked up into Ben’s face at his entreaty; she didn’t know how he could trust her with this and she knew it was a matter of trust. This meant a great deal to him and he wouldn’t give it to her if he didn’t think she could manage it, but still her mind churned over all her inadequacies and inabilities.

  ‘I believe in you, little darling.’

  Zhe nodded, hearing his conviction. ‘I can do this,’ she told him in a stronger voice. She had put all her faith in this man, so that’s what she was going to keep doing. She just prayed that whoever she was before would come to her aid for this because, alone, she knew she would fail.

  ‘That’s my girl, Zhe,’ Ben told her with an encouraging smile. ‘Now let’s do it.’

  ***

  ‘Ah, isn’t this nice?’ Greyson asked oozing an air of smugness as he sat relaxed in an elegant high-wing chair, sipping on a brandy. He was in full dress uniform and looked quite at ease in the admiral brocade.

  Ben stood in his shirt sleeves in front of him in the dark wood-panelled library; he had been stripped of all his weapons except his sabre. Greyson had allowed him the small honour of maintaining his dignity by not demanding it, or so he had said with his infernal smirk. Ben was concentrating on doing everything that was in his power to maintain his calm façade and not launch himself at the man who had taken everything from him. He had assumed that, had it been anyone of rank here to greet him, it would’ve have been Carrington, but not this eel.

  ‘A brandy certainly wouldn’t go amiss,’ Ben replied, forcing a grin onto his face; he had to draw this out to give Zhe as long as possible, but it would be pure torture.

  ‘Of course, where are my manners?’ Greyson rang a little silver hand bell that sat on the table next to him.

  ‘Back within the water perhaps?’

  Greyson laughed loudly, ‘Good one, Daniels, good one. Ah, you always did have a good sense of humour. No sense of self-preservation of course, but a good sense of humour,’ Greyson said as a slave came in and at the flick of Greyson’s hand poured Ben a drink.

  ‘Yet I managed to survive; is that not indicative of a sense of self-preservation?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Greyson stopped his chortling. ‘It was really rather inconsiderate of you not to die then.’

  ‘I do most sincerely apologise.’

  ‘But it really is of little matter now. You are here and I have the disks,’ Greyson said waving the disks lightly in the air. They had, of course, been removed from Ben’s person as soon as the Requin had been boarded and he had been dragged off into this charming room, with the last person he ever wanted to be near again. ‘I must say, it was rather foolish of you to come here Daniels, especially alone.’

  ‘No one else was going to die because of me.’

  ‘Ah, yes, your lieutenant friend, what was his name? Tro… Trun… Tr…’

  ‘Tucker, Duncan Tucker,’ Ben supplied.

  ‘Ah yes, Tucker. That really was a pity; an excellent seaman and first-rate fighter too.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ben agreed tersely.

  ‘Shame he didn’t share your miraculous escape; by the way, how did you do it? We waited until we had confirmation of your execution before firing.’

  ‘The devil didn’t care to keep me.’

  ‘Ha! There’s that sense of humour of yours again.’

  ‘You know, Carrington was certain you’d go to the Ministries, but then he never knew you as well as I did.’

  ‘A former friend makes the worst of enemies.’

  ‘Ah, such good times we had; we had so much in common.’

  ‘We are nothing alike,’ Ben couldn’t help but retort.

  ‘Really? Our tastes always seemed to run the same course, particularly in women,’ Greyson smirked.

  Ben gritted his teeth, ‘So I heard.’

  ‘You must miss her terribly,’ Greyson mock consoled, ‘I know, why don’t you see her now, she’s right here. Absolutely loves the sun she does.’ Greyson delivered his killer blow with a victorious smile.

  ‘That won’t be—’ But Ben got no further in announcing his wish to never see her again, because, at that moment, she walked through the door.

  ‘Simms said you wanted to see me my…’ Selena trailed off in shock at seeing her first love standing right before her eyes; a man she thought dead and lost to her for ten years. She couldn’t take her eyes from him; even as her hand drifted up to clasp her necklace, the rest of her seemed immobile.

  Ben was equally in a state of shock; drinking in the very sight of her like a dying man parched for water. He took in every detail: the way her golden hair still cascaded down her back, the colour to her cheeks, her elegance and grace, and sheer beauty. The ten years had taken their toll on her, but, for Ben, this only increased her beauty.

  ‘Ben?’ Selena came back to her senses first and took a step towards him as if to embrace him, but sadly made it no more than a few feet.

  ‘Uh, uh-ah, my dear. Propriety! Shouldn’t you greet your husband first?’ Greyson snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her tightly to him.

  ‘But… what… you told me he was dead,’ Selena floundered, before stating the only thing that made sense to her at that moment.

  ‘And so I thought he was, but, being as slippery as an eel, he wriggled out of my little trap and escaped his execution to become a pirate of all things, my dear.’

  ‘Trap? Execution? I don’t understand.’ She looked frantically between the two men. ‘You said…’

  ‘Come now, my dear, you didn’t really believe it had been an accident, did you? It was plain as day to everyone else that he just needed to be got out of the way and you, my dear, were just a nice little perk.’

  ‘What?’ Selena seemed incapable of articulating anything else.

  ‘Really, my dear, how do you think we afford to live up here in the sun? When no honest man could,’ he goaded.

  ‘You knew?’ Ben spoke for the first time since Selena had entered the room.

  ‘No, I thought you’d died on a rescue mission, the… Sky!’

  ‘No, you knew about Within the Water?’ he demanded.

  ‘Well, I mean, Ben, what could I…’

  Ben just stared at her, unable to immediately comprehend what was going on. That she didn’t know of his trumped-up charges and execution he could well believe; she was an innocent and would have believed what his “friend” and captain had told her of his demise. Even her marriage to him, he could understand and forgive. However, for her to have known of the horrors inflicted
on her fellow human beings for entertainment, and to not only stand aside and see it done but to profit from it! The horror he felt, at what she had done, was indescribable. He looked at her anew, the unnaturally browned skin from what he presumed would be exposure to the sun, the lavish cut and material of her dress, the excess of jewels and gems – all of it knowingly made from the suffering of her own people. He felt physically repulsed.

  ‘How could you?’ he whispered.

  ‘Ben, I…’ She stepped towards him as Greyson’s arm fell from around her waist.

  ‘No. I don’t want to hear your justifications,’ he told her coldly, stepping back out of her reach.

  ‘But, Ben, you love me,’ she cried, dropping the necklace she'd been grasping tightly in her hand and reaching towards him.

  ‘I loved who you were,’ he corrected.

  ‘You swore we'd be together forever, just the two of us,’ she said, pulling the necklace pendant into view to show the stylised “b” and “s” that had been their symbol, and matched the one carved into the hilt of Ben’s sabre, ‘it was your promise.’

  ‘A bright promise to a woman as beautiful inside as she was out. You’ll want to take care of that face now my dear, for when its beauty has faded, you’ll have nothing but a haggard appearance that reflects what’s within,’ Ben told her, his tone cold and indifferent just as the mask he now wore in contradiction to the tight grip of his hand on his sword.

  ‘Ouch, now that’s a trifle harsh,’ Greyson cut in with a grin, having enjoyed the spectacle played out before him with great relish; crushing people’s hope was his favourite pastime.

  ‘I salute you Greyson and to the victor the spoils.’ Ben raised his glass to him in toast; turning away from the woman he once thought the most kind and beautiful creature, who was now no more than an empty shell.

  ‘Come now, my dear, no need to cry; he isn’t long for this world at any rate,’ Greyson consoled his wife, who had dissolved into tears at Ben’s harsh words.

  ‘Your world is one I don’t care to remain in Greyson,’ Ben told him.