Within the Water

by Kelly Fallows

  ‘Yeah, fine – you?’ She dusted herself off and gathered up their fallen pistols.

  ‘Fine, let’s—’ Another blast interrupted him, but this time they kept their feet. ‘…get going,’ he finished.

  ‘You’ve got no argument from me,’ Sophie said as they ran full tilt down the corridor, with Sophie following Ben, blindly trusting him to get her out of this mess in one piece.

  ***

  ‘Get down!’

  Ben ducked almost instinctively on hearing Duncan’s command ring out, grabbing Sophie by her collar and pulling her down with him. The command came none too soon either, for barely had they hit the deck than a hail of bullets rang out.

  ‘Dunc? Weren’t we ambushing them not the other way around?’ Ben called out to his first mate over the gunfire.

  ‘Well, I thought it’d be more fun this way,’ Duncan called back.

  ‘Fun, maybe; productive, no!’

  ‘I never pegged you for a spoilsport, Ben!’

  ‘Do you mind if we get out of here?’ Sophie asked impatiently, shutting down Ben’s next witty reply.

  Ben nodded to her before shouting, ‘The little lady says we’ve got to move.’

  ‘Funnily enough, the ape with the shotgun agrees,’ came the reply, swiftly followed by an outraged exclamation, presumably from Ash objecting to being referred to as an ape.

  ‘Preferably before their aim improves,’ Sophie added, gesturing towards the source of the constant gunfire.

  ‘Or they get brave,’ Ben agreed, looking around for a possible exit route. ‘Here,’ he said pushing the assault rifle into her hands.

  ‘Ben—’

  ‘Just point and fire, aim really isn’t important in this case.’

  ‘And just where are you going that you won’t need this?’

  ‘Round the back way.’ Ben grinned at her. ‘They may have Duncan and Ash pinned down, but we can still move, and I want to take advantage of that before they pin us down too,’ he explained to her. ‘You just need to keep up appearances that we’re still here,’ he said gesturing to the rifle, ‘but don’t go mad; we’ve only got a limited supply for that one,’ he added, putting down the extra clips next to her.

  ‘Just don’t get yourself killed,’ she told him before turning to fire a burst down the corridor.

  Ben gave her a jaunty salute before running back the way they had come only a few minutes earlier, a map of the base firmly planted in his mind.

  He didn’t have to go too far before he found their attackers. He watched them carefully for a moment, just checking there were only two. It seemed that it was just bad luck that they happened to be in this area, as the explosions had sent everyone else running in the other direction to provide a defence, but it seemed these two were either lazy, which was unlikely given their current activities, or had realised their back door was going to be unprotected. It was rotten luck either way, Ben decided, but he needed to get rid of them before anyone came to investigate the sounds of gunfire.

  He cautiously stepped out from around the corner, being sure to keep low, and began moving towards the two guards when he felt a stab of pain blossom in his lower-left arm; looking down, he saw the telltale red of blood seeping out of the hole in his coat.

  ‘Damn!’ he cursed under his breath, moving back to his previous position. He gently probed the area with his right hand; the pain was bearable, and it looked like it had been a lucky shot into the flesh with no other serious damage done. But, still, he could feel his grip on the pistol weakening. He quickly tore off a piece of his shirt and wrapped it around his arm in a makeshift bandage before transferring the pistol to his right hand.

  This time he edged out slowly, barely going far enough for the shot. He aimed for the guard furthest from the firefight, hoping that, as he was further back, he wasn’t in the eyeline of the second guard. It seemed, on this, luck was with him. Unfortunately, at that exact moment, he fell from the fatal shot; there was a lull in the gunfire, which meant the second guard heard his collapse anyway.

  ‘What?’ he exclaimed as he turned from the body of his comrade to face Ben, who used those few precious seconds to shoot. This time, he only wounded the man, but wasted no time in taking his third shot as the guard struggled to regain his equilibrium.

  ‘Dunc!’ Ben yelled out after the guard joined his comrade on the floor.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Don’t shoot.’ Ben’s response was simple and to the point.

  ‘Guess this means I don’t get to be captain after all,’ Duncan grumbled good naturedly as Ben rejoined them.

  ‘Careful or I’m liable to lay this one at your feet as a failed mutiny,’ Ben told him gesturing to his bloodied arm.

  ‘Crossfire?’ Duncan winced.

  ‘Good old-fashioned friendly fire, but don’t worry, I’ll live.’

  ‘Crippen may want to amputate just to be certain though,’ Duncan joked.

  ‘Hmph, we’ll see about that.’

  ‘Well, how about we actually get back to him so as he can make his diagnosis,’ Ash butted in before the two of them could start again.

  ‘Told you he was in a hurry,’ Duncan said.

  ‘He’s not the only one,’ Sophie added.

  ‘Right you are; let’s get moving then.’ Ben led the way. ‘You got any charges left?’ he asked.

  ‘All out.’

  ‘Grenades? Surely Ash you’ve got some grenades left.’

  ‘Yeah, I got some.’

  ‘Good, I think we’ll need to close the door behind us when we leave.’

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Zhe hung back as Estelle approached the door, with Melanie close on her heels; her heavy distrust of Estelle making her unable to let her get more than a foot away from her at all times. Zhe, for her part, was more concerned with the location of their shadow. He had been a near constant throughout the trip across the western sector, only disappearing twice, which Zhe was certain had something to do with the other shadows they picked up. A trail of dead bodies is one way to mark your way home, but she couldn’t say she liked it.

  A voice demanding a password brought Zhe back to the present, although she was still acutely aware of the shadowy presence five feet beyond her right shoulder.

  ‘Password? Really?’ Melanie mocked under her breath, but with still enough volume to carry to Zhe’s ears.

  ‘A rather effective means of keeping trouble out,’ Estelle smiled back before reaching forward and tapping out a series of complicated knocks on the door.

  There was a pregnant pause before the door swung inwards. The opening did not provide much in the way of clues as to what lay within, but that didn’t seem to bother Estelle, who forged in heedless of the dark. Melanie, once again, was hot on her heels, which left Zhe making up the rear of their party. To say Zhe was shocked when the door closed swiftly behind her would’ve been an understatement. She had expected it to linger for as long as possible to allow their shadow in. She looked straight over to Estelle to gauge her reaction, but she was just smiling contentedly.

  ‘Now what?’ Melanie asked impatiently as they came to a halt in what looked to be a kitchen, of all places.

  Zhe glanced around the room; it was a perfectly ordinary kitchen and certainly nothing like what she had expected.

  ‘Oh relax,’ Estelle chided as she threw her cloak over the back of one of the chairs and picked up the kettle. ‘Tea?’

  ‘We don’t have time for this.’

  ‘Then we will have to make time,’ Estelle said simply as she went about making tea, looking quite at home.

  ‘Where is Theo?’ Zhe asked as she graciously accepted the tea, taking a seat at the table and making sure to keep a good watch on the two visible doors.

  ‘He will be here as soon as he is able.’ Estelle reassured her.

  ‘We are in Ca
nnon’s ward,’ Melanie said suddenly, ‘what does she think of you using her tech?’

  ‘We have a standing arrangement,’ Estelle said obliquely, steel running through her words. It was clear that she was getting tired of Melanie’s questions and constant insinuations.

  ‘Who answered the door to us if Theo isn’t here?’ Zhe asked quickly, forestalling what was certain to be a caustic reply from Melanie.

  Unfortunately, Estelle’s impish answer of, ‘That’s secret,’ only seemed to stir things up more.

  ‘Another one?’ Melanie shot back.

  ‘From you, my dear, I shall do my utmost to keep everything a secret,’ Estelle taunted.

  Zhe had a vision of the whole thing descending from a verbal tussle into a very real physical one. A stray thought, of whether she would remember enough of her fighting abilities to keep them apart, wandered into her mind at that idea, but it was gone again before she could really pick at it. After all, how can you remember what you’ve never known, she thought quizzically.

  ‘Having fun, I see,’ commented a figure leaning lackadaisically in the doorway, while watching the scene of Estelle and Melanie squaring off against each other in the centre of the kitchen.

  Zhe, having had the benefit of seeing him when he arrived and well before he spoke, took his “sudden” appearance without a flinch, but the same could not be said of the other two. Estelle recovered fastest.

  ‘Theo!’ she cried, walking over to the young man to give him a hug. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, as always.’ He grinned returning her hug. ‘So, what’s the big emergency?’

  ‘We have need of your expertise.’

  ‘Really?’ he replied, waggling his eyebrows.

  ‘Theo,’ Estelle mock scolded, swatting him on the arm. ‘This is serious.’

  ‘Then I shall endeavour to do my utmost to be serious,’ he told her donning a mock serious face.

  Zhe smiled; watching this, she rather liked Theo: he reminded her a lot of Ben and Duncan just a little less battle weary.

  ‘We need you to help break some encryption on some disks,’ Estelle told him, which produced a flurry of questions that went completely over Zhe’s head and, by Estelle’s expression, hers too.

  ‘You’ll need to discuss that with Melanie here,’ she cut in at last, gesturing to the woman.

  ‘Melanie? Melanie Graves by any chance?’ Theo questioned turning to Melanie.

  ‘Yes, you know me?’

  ‘Only your work, which is fine stuff I must say. You work for Kristoff, don’t you?’

  ‘And you for Cannon,’ Melanie returned the insinuation.

  ‘Ah Cannon’s no problem; nice woman, actually, and she doesn’t mind me doing a bit of freelance work here and there,’ Theo waved it off.

  ‘That’s fortunate for you, Kristoff would have my head.’

  ‘Then why are you here?’

  ‘Repaying a debt,’ Melanie answered cryptically causing Theo to look to Estelle.

  ‘Not to me.’ Estelle shook her head.

  ‘Wait then, why are we here?’

  ‘Repaying an old debt,’ Estelle told him.

  Theo raised an eyebrow, ‘Didn’t realise we had any.’

  ‘Only the one.’

  ‘No way! He’s here?’ Theo exclaimed in obvious excitement.

  Estelle just smiled and nodded.

  ‘Where? Can I meet him?’

  ‘Get this job done and then we’ll see what we can do.’

  ‘Right.’ Theo nodded, suddenly all business. ‘What do you need?’ he asked Melanie.

  Zhe tuned out Melanie’s response as she studied Theo. She guessed he was in his late teens – he certainly had the exuberance of a young man – and he wasn’t overly tall for a man, but still taller than her. What she noticed the most was the way that his eyes sparkled when he was enjoying himself and he certainly had the right disposition to enjoy life.

  Estelle noticed Zhe’s appraisal of the tech, and came over to stand next to her as Theo and Melanie hunched over a portable screen on the table between them; speaking in rapid fire sentences that seemed to overlap one another.

  ‘Handsome, isn’t he?’ she observed.

  ‘Indeed, and he knows it,’ Zhe replied.

  Estelle laughed quietly, ‘That he does, but he’s a good man.’

  ‘And very excited to meet Duncan,’ Zhe fished for information.

  Estelle looked at her knowingly, ‘Yes, Duncan is something of a legend here now. He did so much for all of us, without asking for anything in return.’

  ‘A truly good man,’ Zhe observed.

  ‘Yes, it’s a pity that there aren’t more like him.’

  Zhe smiled at that, thinking that she knew at least one other and allowed the conversation to lapse with them each lost in their own thoughts.

  ‘You’re a quiet one, aren’t you?’ Estelle said after a lengthy pause.

  ‘I have nothing to say.’ Zhe shrugged.

  ‘But so watchful, it makes me wonder why you didn’t raise the alarm about Joseph,’ Estelle commented. ‘Yes, I know you saw him,’ she added with a smile in response to Zhe’s look of surprise that she didn’t cover quite fast enough.

  ‘There didn’t seem to be much point,’ Zhe told her.

  ‘Well, in case you had any concern on that score, you needn’t worry – he was there for our protection.’

  ‘Yes, I saw that too.’

  This time Estelle did laugh. ‘What an amazing creature you are, Miss Zhe.’

  Again, Zhe merely shrugged; she certainly didn’t feel amazing, but rather more confused than ever.

  ‘Will you not tell me a little of your past?’ Estelle enquired, intrigued by the enigma in front of her, who was so full of contradictions.

  ‘I’m afraid to disappoint you, but there isn’t much to tell; I’ve been a slave all my life until very recently.’

  ‘Indeed?’ Estelle’s surprise was plain to see in her expression and tone, which caused Theo to look briefly over at them before Estelle waved him off. ‘I would never have placed you as a slave, my dear, and certainly not for your entire life.’

  ‘And yet it is a fact.’

  ‘Yes,’ Estelle agreed sadly. ‘Then may I ask how you came to be with Duncan? But please, of course, don’t feel you have to answer; I’m being terribly nosy!’

  ‘You’re fine. I was slave to the man who was carrying these disks, and when they took the disks they also took me on board,’ Zhe explained; she really didn’t mind Estelle’s curiosity, but was careful to edit out any important details from her reply.

  ‘Ah, I see.’

  ‘You could say they gave me back my life,’ Zhe murmured to herself.

  Seeing that Zhe had drifted off into thought, Estelle decided against anymore prying questions, but that didn’t stop her mind from careering on ahead as the two of them stood quietly side by side.

  ‘Right,’ Theo said decisively some minutes later, pushing away from the table and bringing both Zhe and Estelle back from their thoughts.

  ‘Ready to get started?’ Estelle asked.

  ‘I think so; I think we’ve got everything we need.’

  ‘Possibly,’ Melanie interjected.

  ‘Yes, “possibly”, but I think more likely “probably”,’ Theo said. ‘So, it’s just the disks,’ he added holding out his hand to Zhe.

  ‘I go where they go and, as there are no computers here, we have to travel first,’ Zhe told him.

  ‘True, but not very far.’ Theo grinned. ‘Follow me into the “inner sanctum”.’

  Estelle rolled her eyes at his antics and gave him a shove towards the stove, ‘Come on you, let’s get moving; time is of the essence here, as we keep being reminded.’

  ‘Right you are.’ He gave a jaunty salute, turned to the stove
and pulled it away from the wall to reveal a passageway. ‘Hope you’re not scared of the dark,’ he quipped before heading inside.

  ***

  ‘Heigh-ho, anyone about?’ Ben announced his presence on the comm. line in his usual cavalier attitude.

  It was all Zhe could do to not start jumping up and down, and grinning like an idiot; as it was, she gave a slight flinch at the unexpected sound in her ear. They had all agreed, prior to her leaving the Coelacanth, that there would be radio silence until they could be certain they weren’t going to be overheard, which left it to Ben to be the one to instigate open comms again.

  ‘Damn good to hear your voice again, Captain,’ Blue responded, the relief plain to hear in his voice. He and Simon had begun to wonder if any of their crewmates would return from the hell of Abantos after Zhe disappeared from their sight as well.

  ‘It’s always good to be missed,’ Ben quipped before moving onto more serious matters, ‘What do things look like from your end?’

  ‘The doc and I are playing lookouts, while Zhe disappeared into a building in Ward Seven with Duncan’s old friends,’ Blue gave his report efficiently, but hesitated slightly before adding, ‘I take it Sophie, Dunc and Ash are with you?’

  ‘Yup, they’re all here. You should be seeing them just about now,’ Ben told him and, sure enough, no sooner had he finished speaking than Simon spotted them.

  ‘There,’ he said to Blue pointing at the screen, ‘definitely a sight for sore eyes, you lot are.’

  ‘Glad to oblige you, Crippen,’ Dunc replied, grinning up at the cameras.

  ‘What was Zhe’s status when you last saw her?’ Ben asked.

  ‘She looked fine, Cap; she entered the building of her own free will, but that was over an hour ago,’ Blue informed him.

  Zhe listened to all of this in silence, torn over what to do. As much as she wanted to announce her presence and current safety into the comm. line, she still wasn’t certain who her friends were in the room. Estelle and Theo both seemed to genuinely want to help Duncan and, by extension, her, but Melanie was harder to read. She seemed to be on their side, but there was a definite hardness about her that Zhe couldn’t quite bring herself to trust fully. Not that Melanie had done anything at all to suggest she would double cross them. Then there was the matter of the disks; depending on what they found, that could seriously alter the situation and Zhe had a strong sense of foreboding that, whatever was on them, it was going to cause lots of trouble all by itself.