Patreon Short 18 - Tritonia's Team (Part 1/2) (Patreon)

Persephone is about to see the world’s best kept secret. But it’s not a secret from a new, terrifying enemy that will use any means necessary to get what it wants. As Persephone fights for her life, she meets new friends and finds some romance. She even gets trapped in a room with her new love interest...and Charlemagne.

Tritonia's Team - Part 1

by Zmeydros

(edited by Tiliquain and Journeymanic)

The bridge of the submarine was basically walls of screens. I'd never seen this much technology in one place. According to Charlemagne, the classified stuff was in the room behind us. As much as I wanted to go in there, I was surrounded by people who would be cross with me if I did. 

But that wasn't what made me the most annoyed. The worst part of this submarine was that it didn't have a periscope!

The only things keeping this bridge from looking like a secret military stock trading floor were the few screens I understood. One was showing our depth over time, another was showing the state of the electrical system, and the last one I understood was a map of where we were in the sea. The map only showed the sea floor, so I had no clue where we were, however. If Charlemagne had any reason to believe Alphonse or I would be able to read the map, I doubted she would have let us on the bridge.

Pepper was a couple feet to my right leaning on the railing that went around this center area of the bridge. The way she was looking at the screens suggested she knew how to interpret most of them. I wanted to pick her brain, but I was worried Charlemagne would immediately end our conversation.

Charlemagne called out over the intercom. "All hands, prepare for docking maneuvers."

I didn't really think about what that meant, so I kept myself busy by peering at a screen that I thought had sonar information. When the submarine tilted, I was wholly unprepared. As I stumbled, I fumbled for the railing with my right hand and ended up with a handful of Pepper's left ass cheek instead. She gasped and looked back at me as I finally caught hold of the railing with my left hand.

"I'm sorry, so so sorry. I didn't mean to--"

Pepper cut me off. "Sure, sure, I've seen you making eyes at me. I think you were just looking for an excuse."

"No, that's not it." My heart raced as I blushed. "I stumbled and was trying to grab the railing."

"You grabbed something, all right. I haven't been groped like that since college." Pepper looked at me incredulously, the pink tint on her cheeks and wry smile hinting at her enjoyment in teasing me.

Charlemagne saved me from our embarrassing exchange by announcing, "Final approach, ETA three minutes."

Wanting to make sure we stayed off the subject of my accidental grope, I asked Charlemagne, "Where's the periscope?"

"We have a state-of-the-art optical mast instead. Video from any of its five sensors can get piped to the screens here." Charlemagne said.

"Aww, I imagine it's better, but it doesn't feel like a submarine without a periscope," I pouted.

Alphonse said, "Yeah, it just feels wrong."

"I grew up on submarine movies, so I know your pain," Pepper said. "Unfortunately, all the new subs have optical masts." 

"I'm surprised they didn't start using optical masts sooner, periscopes limit where the bridge can be and lead to cramped command spaces," Charlemagne said as she watched the base come into view on the screen directly in front of her. At first, I thought it was just a bunch of giant pressurized gas canisters all stuck together, but then I realized those canisters had tiny windows at the end.

Charlemagne sighed. "You're about to see something that only a few hundred people on the planet know about. I would not be showing it to you if I had a better idea than taking you into custody."

Behind the pressurized sea habitat was what looked like a rounded cube of translucent glass. I wasn't sure it was a cube, though, because it went down into the bedrock. Alphonse, Pepper, and I gasped as we took in the full scope of it. It was bigger than the sub, the pressurized habitat, or any navy vessel I'd ever seen. The sides were at least two city blocks across, possibly more.

"Wh-what is that?" Alphonse asked.

"We call it 'The Repository,' because it has a vast number of Non-Prosaic Objects stored in it," Tritonia replied. Her core was strapped to my back, keeping it warm. I'd spent every hour since I got back from my checkup with Kirkii in close proximity to her. She'd even spent the night on her side lying against the wall of my bunk. Though she hadn't said it explicitly, I got the feeling she liked being in close proximity to people.

It was six in the morning, far too early to be up, but I was wide awake seeing that massive undersea structure. Wonder, fear, and a sense of discovery was a mixture stronger than black tea.

If getting up super early was the price of admission to one of the world's best kept secrets, I was willing to pay it. The fact I was a prisoner, however, made me a little less sure about that tradeoff. And nothing made me feel more like a prisoner than wearing a sailor uniform while everyone else was wearing cool navy blue and silver uniforms with diagonal button flaps and cyan trim.

Charlemagne grabbed a phone connected to the railing in front of her. Her uniform was nearly all navy blue except for cyan trim and four wide silver stripes that went around the sleeves of her military jacket. "All hands prepare to dock," she said over the intercom, before hitting a large green button on the base of the phone and saying, "POSC Repository, this is Alpha Charlie Echo five five nine requesting permission to dock."

"This is POSC Repository," a nasal male voice said on the other end. "Permission denied, base is in lockdown."

"Why wasn't I informed?" Charlemagne asked.

"Main airlock cycled ten minutes ago without cameras catching the cause. We are currently performing a security sweep," he reported.

"As your commanding officer, I order you to let us dock so the personnel on this sub can help with the security sweep," Charlemagne said.

"But that goes against the lockdown procedure," he protested.

"I *wrote* the lockdown procedure and you obviously haven't read every section, so--"

The guy on the other end cried out in surprise. "No! What the hell are you? Don't come any closer!" There were two loud bangs and then a hissing sound, like someone using a pressure washer. "NO! AAAAAAAHHHH!"

Alphonse and I looked at each other with terror-stricken faces. The warfighter in Pepper was overshadowing her fear, however. She looked itching to dispense payback to whatever had just killed that man.

Charlemagne turned to her left and addressed the communications officer. "Tell Kirkii we need her to manually dock us with the base ASAP!"

Turning to us, Charlemagne said, "Until we neutralize the threat, I need you two to follow orders as if you were part of my unit. My number one priority is to keep you alive and to do that I need your full compliance."

"We haven't had much of a choice ever since we got captured," Alphonse observed.

Charlemagne's face may as well have been made of granite. I didn't know a human being could look that serious. "I don't want compliance because you have no other options. To keep you alive, I'll need you to respond quickly and efficiently. Thinking about whether you should follow an order while shots are being fired is a recipe for death."

"Understood," I said feeling a tightness in my neck.

With a gulp, Alphonse said, "Will do."

Charlemagne smiled. "Good!" Then she put a hand on Pepper's shoulder. "Pepper, I know you're itching to fight whatever's running around in our base, but you have never been here and are a liability if you go off on your own. You must be with a member of my unit at all times. Understood?"

"Yes ma'am!" Pepper said.

"Kirkii is getting into position," a woman with a headset and dark hair reported. She was on the starboard side of the room nearest Charlemagne.

"Outer airlock camera, main screen," Charlemagne ordered. 

The big screen directly in front of Charlemagne showed one of Kirkii's giant crimson tentacles grabbing the manual lever at the side of the base's airlock. Kirkii pulled the lever and the docking clamps opened.

"Commence docking with with POSC Repository," Charlemagne said.

"Aye aye, ma'am," a lanky guy on the port side of the room said.

I heard a dull clank and then a thud as the submarine docked with the base. 

Then Kirkii pulled another lever below the one she'd first pulled and Charlemagne called over the intercom, "Officer Abrams, meet me in the airlock ASAP."

"Sh-shouldn't we stay on the sub?" Alphonse asked.

"No one on this sub has clearance to talk to you, I'm sorry," Charlemagne said.

Tritonia said, "Ma'am, with all due respect, wouldn't they be a lot safer locked in their quarters on this submarine?"

Motioning for us to follow her, Charlemagne made for the airlock. "International law forbids me from leaving NPOs with individuals who lack the proper clearance." 

"So they have to come with us, even if it leads to their deaths?" Tritonia asked as we passed through a bulkhead and out of the bridge.

"The enemy blew past security and there's no guarantee they won't get on this sub," Charlemagne replied.

"We should arm ourselves before opening the airlock," Tritonia said gravely.

"Oh, I fully intend to." Charlemagne stopped at a heavily-reenforced door and pulled out her lanyard. After holding her ID up to the door and getting a soft beep, she typed in a six digit code and opened the door.

Guns, an entire cabinet full of them, was behind that door. Some were even attached to the back of the door. Charlemagne grabbed two P90s and handed one of them to Pepper who said, "Perfect guns for a submarine, lots of power in a small space."

"I-it's the Stargate Command gun!" Alphonse blurted out.

Pepper grabbed some extra ammo for her gun saying, "Yep!"

"Do we get guns?" I asked, unable to geek out and forget our situation. That didn't make seeing the P90 in person any less cool, however. The bullets sat sideways on its back in a plastic container and it was chunky with only a few inches of its barrel sticking out the front. The grip was smooth plastic that looked space-aged. It looked more like a sci-fi rifle concept than something that should actually exist.

"I can't hand weapons to prisoners and if you're unarmed, you're more likely to be captured than shot at. I want you to put your hands in the air if the enemy points a firearm in your general direction, understood?" Charlemagne said while she grabbed duty belts for herself and Pepper and they proceeded to fill them with ammo.

"Oh, okay," Alphonse said, his voice shaking.

"I hope they don't have orders to just shoot everyone on sight," I said.

Charlemagne grabbed two Glock 19 pistols and put them in a black single-strapped bag that she slung across her chest. "If things get dire, I will reevaluate our situation." She closed the weapons locker and started back down the cramped hallway. "Let's get our asses to the airlock."

The airlock was in the diving equipment room and the ADS 3000, the suit that had turned me into an anthropomorphic herm deep sea shark hybrid, was sitting in the center. I hoped that change wasn't about to lead to my early demise.

Officer Abrams walked into the room in full combat body armor looking like an action hero. He had chiseled cheeks, kind eyes, and a wide chin. In his strong hands was a P90, ready for whatever awaited us on the other side of the airlock. His helmet was the same navy blue as his uniform.

Charlemagne picked up the phone for the intercom and punched in a code before saying, "POSC Repository, this is Charlemagne. I need a sitrep."

A flamboyantly British male voice on the other end said, "Gillon here, base has been compromised by unknown hostiles which are not responding to conventional firearms."

"Please elaborate," Charlemagne said.

"They are like pitch black silhouettes, able to slip through non-air-tight gaps, and are lightning fast," he said.

"What's the status of the communications officer?" Charlemagne asked.

"He, and all five of the security officers perished before we armed ourselves with pickle units," he replied.

Alphonse and I looked at each other wondering what pickles had to do with anything.

Charlemagne leaned against the wall. "Did they enable you to hold the hostiles off?"

"They have the advantage of surprise and we haven't the faintest idea how many there are, but the pickle units are able to subdue them."

"Understood," Charlemagne said. "What's your ETA?"

"Three minutes," Gillon said.

"Please tell me you're bringing a few PIKL units with you." Charlemagne spelled out the acronym, making it less likely they were talking about pickles.

"Affirmative."

"Good, we'll be ready when you arrive," Charlemagne said.

Hitting the green button on the intercom, Charlemagne announced to the whole ship. "Lieutenant Doppler, you are now in command of this ship. Undock the moment we enter the base and hold at one kilometer. Arm yourselves with PIKL units, cut the power to the airlock, and post two guards in the dive room."

A firm female voice said, "Yes, ma'am."

Charlemagne ushered us all into the airlock and then she and Pepper grabbed their helmets out of lockers in the dive room. They put on their helmets and some body armor before joining us in the airlock.

"He said all five security guards are dead, shouldn't we be getting more of the crew on this sub to help us?" Alphonse asked.

"There's no tactical team on this sub and no one else here knows the layout of the base. Plus, we need the sub safe in case we need to stage an evac," Charlemagne said. "Alphonse and Persephone, I want you at the back of the airlock and low to the ground."

"Yes, ma'am," we replied.

Just as Pepper was closing the door, I heard the British dude yell, "WAIT! Do not--"

"Hey! Open the door!" I said.

Charlemagne had already depressed the big green button for cycling the airlock. "What?"

"The guy was yelling at us to wait," I said, my neck and back tight with worry as my heart raced.

"Oh shit!" Alphonse grabbed his head.

I hugged him saying, "We'll get through this, okay?"

He nodded, looking as terrified as I felt.

"Abrams, Pepper, get ready to dump your mags. If we can't kill these hostiles with bullets, we can at least slow them down," Charlemagne said before handing out earplugs to me and Alphonse. "Gunfire inside an enclosed space will ruin your hearing faster than being in a heavy metal band."

We had our earplugs in by the time the airlock door cycled.

On the other side of the door was a very cramped diving equipment room, but I barely registered it because the moment the door swung open, a shadow moved across the opening. It was a shadow that had volume! Somewhere between an anthropomorphic balloon and a shadow. The room flashed as all three P90s fired at the shadow. Even with earplugs, it was deafening. I watched in fascination and worry as the shadow reached toward Abrams and emitted a sharp hiss, like pressurized air being released.

Pepper rammed her shoulder into the creature ruining its shot.

Seeing her fight so fearlessly, so heroically, was so damn sexy that I briefly forgot we were in the middle of a fight for our lives.

The creature regained its footing and pushed Abrams so hard he smacked the side of the airlock with a sickening crunch. Abrams gasped in pain and crumpled to the floor, an open gash across the side of his chest under his left arm. The creature had sliced him open where his body armor was the least protective. Before Abrams even hit the floor, the creature was already moving to attack Pepper. She hit it hard with the butt of her gun and knocked it back, but it still managed to point the index finger on one of its four-fingered hands at her face.

"No!" I cried out as I realized she was going to end up just as dead as Abrams.

Three eye-searingly bright flashes blinded me. Each was accompanied by a loud bang, which sounded like a mixture of a gunshot and zapping metal in a microwave. The creature slumped, shrinking toward the floor until it was just a pile of midnight black fabric. There were two more bangs, but I had my head turned away from the creature because all my eyes could see were after-images of the first three flashes and I was afraid of damaging them further.

"I can't see!" Alphonse reported.

"Neither can I," I said.

"Or me," Pepper added.

The same English-accented voice we'd heard over the intercom said, "Give it a couple minutes, you should recover because you weren't looking directly at where the creature was hit."

Behind where the creature had been standing was a man wearing a uniform similar to Charlemagne's. I couldn't make anything else out while my eyes were still recovering, though.

"Poor Abrams," Charlemagne said.

"Hey! I'm not dead and I'm losing a lot of blood and this really really hurts!"

"Apologies, sir, for prematurely assuming that you'd expired." Gillon's voice got closer to me as he spoke. He unzipped something and pulled out another thing that clanked like a can of air.

Abrams groaned as Gillon did something to his wound.

"Sorry about that, I needed to prepare you for the trauma sealant." Then it sounded like he was applying shaving cream to Abrams.

"Hey, Pepper?" Abrams said.

"Yeah?" Pepper replied.

"Thanks for saving my life."

"I'm just glad you're alive, buddy," she said.

We all expressed the same sentiment and then Charlemagne said, "I'm assuming there's more hostiles?"

"Yes, an unknown quantity," Gillon said.

"The moment Gill has stabilized Abrams, we need to move," Charlemagne said. "Pepper, grab all the conventional weapons so we can lock them up."

"Yes, ma'am," Pepper said as she started fumbling around with impaired vision.

Finally able to see something other than bright purple, I watched Charlemagne put on a backpack with a heavy cord that went to something that was half rifle, half news camera.

"Is that a laser?" I asked.

"It's a Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser, to be exact," Charlemagne said.

"I thought y'all were crazy and talking about deadly pickles or something," Alphonse said.

"Yeah, if you hadn't said the letters earlier, I would have been even more confused." I went to take out my earplugs.

"Leave them in until we know the base is secure," Charlemagne said.

"Thanks, Gill, that's much better." Abrams said.

Gillon's sharp pointy mustache, slicked down black hair, and piercing eyes looking through rose-tinted wrap-around sunglasses made his big triumphant smile look out of place. He would have made a perfect, old school Bond villain, or a butler. I couldn't decide which. I'd never seen anyone look more British in my life.

"Twas my pleasure, sir. Just be mindful of your cracked ribs." Gillon replied before grabbing one of the combat lasers and bringing it to Abrams. "If I prop you up in the corner, would you be so kind as to guard the airlock? It is currently unsafe to move you to the infirmary."

"Sure, I think I can manage that," Abrams said.

"Splendid." Gillon carefully moved Abrams into the corner near the intercom. 

The intercoms in this base were odd, it was a new digital system, but the old analog system from the sixties had been left in place just below it, without anyone bothering to remove the handsets or buttons. I'd seen this sort of thing in a lot of retrofitted buildings, but didn't expect to see it in a top secret base.

The lockers, the shape of various fixtures in the room, and the colors, were all from the sixties. Well, someone had tried to cover it with a cheery yellow-beige, but the previous color scheme still showed through since they hadn't added enough coats of paint. The area outside the airlock was a cylinder twelve feet wide and about sixty feet long. On the opposite end of the cylinder was a heavy wall and door labeled, "Hyperbaric Chamber."

Charlemagne took her P90, along with all the ammo and the pistols she'd grabbed for us, and walked up to a locker. "Pepper, take Abram's P90, and all his ammo, and put it in here. We don't want the enemy using our armaments against us."

"Gillon, are the hostiles made of a carbon composite?" Tritonia asked.

"Yeah, it has to be something pretty strong because they are near-impossible to puncture."

"We're being attacked by balloons?" Alphonse put his head in his hands. "What is my life?"

"More like malevolent pool toys," I observed.

"That's a perfect nickname for them!" Charlemagne said as she closed the locker.

Gillon opened it back up, saying, "They get through thin steel pretty fast. I recommend removing the ammo and hiding it."

Wanting to be useful, I said, "I'll hide it in some of this diving gear."

"Yeah, I'll help too," Alphonse said.

"Before we get too carried away, everyone needs eye protection." Gillon handed everyone sunglasses that matched his own from a bag he'd slung over his shoulder. When I put them on, they sat oddly on my shark snout, but I was still able to look through them just fine.

Charlemagne handed me a bunch of P90 ammo and Alphonse an armful of pistol ammo. As we hid the ammo in boots and wetsuits and under towels, a young Japanese woman with straight shoulder-length hair, high cheekbones, and an athletic body entered the room. Looking me over, she said, "Whoa! What a neat hybrid!"

"Th-thank you?" I said.

The backpack battery for the laser looked a bit big on her. "I'm Tsubumi, nice to meet you!" She reached out to shake my hand. Her accent was very light, almost unnoticeable.

I took her hand and shook it, her vise-like grip was intimidating. "Nice to meet you too, I'm Persephone."

She seemed the least shaken by the situation out of all of us and was still smiling as big as ever as she took her hand away.

Charlemagne pointed at the door. "Boom, I need you to guard the door."

"Yes, ma'am." Tsubumi saluted enthusiastically and then turned toward the door.

Charlemagne asked, "Where are the others?"

Tsubumi looked back to say, "They're--

"Eyes front," Charlemagne said.

"Oh! Sorry!" Tsubumi's head snapped forward to look down the hallway. "They're guarding the control room."

"Good!" Charlemagne said.

"All done," I said as I hid the last ammo clip.

The overhead lights went out and then, up on the wall, an emergency light that should have come on clicked uselessly instead.

"We lost power to the lights, but I can still hear life support systems," Gillon said in the dark.

My pointy ears easily picked up the steady whirr of the pumps and ventilation fans Gillon must have been talking about.

"Shouldn't that emergency light be on?" Alphonse asked.

"Yes, but we also shouldn't have lost both the main and auxiliary lighting circuits," Charlemagne said.

There was a tiny bit of light coming from the hallway that Tsubumi was watching. The light must have been from a working emergency light.

I made my hands and my neck firefly yellow to provide some dim light.

"Hey, if you show more skin, we'll be able to see better." Pepper nudged me.

I blushed heavily thinking about stripping in front of everyone.

"We will not be doing that." Charlemagne was rummaging in a nearby locker. "Got them!"

She handed everyone a military-grade LED flashlight.

"Okay! Let's move!" Charlemagne said pointing the way with her flashlight beam. Boom, you guard the rear. Gill, you take point. Pepper, get behind me. Persephone and Alphonse, stay between Pepper and Boom and keep your heads down."

Everyone took their places and we made our way through a cramped pressurized cylinder that served as a hallway and was connected to the center of the cylinder we had just left. Heavy bulkhead doors with a single porthole at eye-level branched off from this hallway. Looking through the portholes, I saw that six of these closed-off cylindrical rooms were living quarters lit only by emergency lights. The other two appeared to be for storage.

As Gillon opened the bulkhead at the end of the hallway, Charlemagne stood guard and said, "The most guarded secret in the world is behind this door."

Once the door was open and we'd recovered from the bright light on the other side, Alphonse, Pepper, and I all gasped in awe. The chamber ahead of us could easily fit an entire McDonald's in it. The lighting came from every bit of the ceiling, which arched upwards rising twenty feet over our heads. The entire room was made out of the same translucent material we'd seen on the outside: beige, but when you stared into it, you saw a grey-green-blue color. Marbling that other material were fingernail-thin stripes of silver-grey. The pattern reminded me of obsidian. The floor was the same material as the rest of the room, but with more silver marbling. Along the curved back wall, two groups of seven man-made bulkheads were on either side of a circular bulkhead that matched the rest of the room and had a smaller circle inlaid in it where one would normally expect a handle to be.

In the center of the room was a rounded-square pillar that displayed a language I'd never ever seen before in purple text.

"Is this an alien ship?" Alphonse asked.

"Not quite," Tritonia said.

Gillon, Tsubumi, and Pepper were all scanning the room to look for pool toys while Charlemagne said, "No time to explain, and I'd like you to sign some paperwork before I answer questions like that."

Now that there was plenty of light, I saw everyone hooking their flashlights on their belts and did the same.

"To the control room?" Gillon asked.

"Yes, lead the way," Charlemagne replied.

"What's through the center bulkhead It looks different," I said.

"Can't tell you because we don't know." Charlemagne walked just to Gillon's right side, but stayed behind him. As we walked past the central pillar, Charlemagne touched it and said, "Librarian, have you ascertained what the hostiles' goal is?"

The voice was soft and feminine, but had a bit of a growl to it. "I believe they want to gain access to my matrix and an NPO adjacent to me in section gamma-zeta-five."

"No activity on other levels?" Charlemagne asked.

"Not as of yet."

Charlemagne bit her lip as she thought for a moment. "Are you in danger of being compromised anytime soon?"

"It will likely take twenty minutes until they reach me," the Librarian said. "Hardened steel does appear to slow them down some."

"Okay, we'll send someone to protect you very soon," Charlemagne said.

"That would be much appreciated," the Librarian replied coolly.

"Can you restore power to the habitat lighting?" Charlemange asked.

"Affirmative, the heretics destroyed a junction box and caused a short. I'm working to route power around the damaged circuits."

"Heretics" seemed out of place, I wanted to ask why she'd used it, but things were moving too fast for me to ask questions.

"Good!" Charlemagne said, "Gillon, we need to get to the control room ASAP!"

Gillon ran toward the bulkhead just to the left of the center bulkhead and went to use his card and a code on it before saying, "That's bloody brilliant! They cut through the latch!" He pulled the bulkhead open.

"Hustle!" Charlemagne said.

The hall had bulkheads as far as the eye could see. About one in five was man-made. The man-made ones were a plethora of different models with high security locking mechanisms, old and new, defunct and current. It looked like someone had bought out all the military surplus stores in the USA and just used those parts at random. Gillon pulled the third bulkhead on the right open to reveal a room which was just a bit bigger than the submarine's bridge had been. It had only two thirds as many screens, however, and they hung above a jumble of surplus computer equipment which was strewn across heavy metal desks. 

Alphonse shrieked when he saw a pool of blood surrounding a curly-haired guy with round glasses and a Hawaiian shirt. Some of the blood was from a wound above his right eyebrow. That wound made me feel uneasy. It looked like it went right into his skull.

Kneeling next to the guy was an anthropomorphic Florida mouse, about five-foot-eight, in a cyan and navy blue POSC uniform. I could tell he was a Florida mouse because of the white under his chin and the yellow-brown to grey shading of his fur. He was still holding the shooty part of his PIKL unit in his hands. The dead guy's hands were sprawled out while the rifle part of his PIKL was lying next to his right arm.

Next to both of them was a pile of pitch-black fabric that had been their assailant.

"God damn it, Septimus! Why did you let them get Bart!?" Charlemagne grabbed the mouse by the shoulders and lifted him to a standing position so she could glare at him.

"I didn't let them do anything! He was dead before I could even pull the trigger!" Septimus whimpered.

Charlemagne growled and pushed him backwards before stooping down next to Bart and trying to take his pulse while examining the hole in his head. "Fucking shit!" She stood back up. "Alphonse, do you know anything about maritime communication systems?"

"What? Huh?" Alphonse said as he looked up from the dead body.

"Do you know anything about maritime communication systems?" Charlemagne repeated.

"Yeah, why?" Alphonse asked.

"Sit at that desk and help me get in touch with the strike team." Charlemagne pointed at a mesh rolling chair just in front of the desk with the most screens attached to it.

Alphonse was stuck looking at the dead body.

Charlemagne snapped her fingers in his face. "Please focus. I need you in that chair."

As Alphonse got into the chair, Charlemagne said. "Everyone else, find a way to stop the hostiles from reaching the Librarian. Now!"

"How?" Tsubumi asked.

"I don't know," Charlemagne said.

"If we flood sections beta-psi through gamma-theta, multiple ancient bulkheads and seawater would be between them and the Librarian," Tritonia said.

"Yes, do that!" Charlemagne made a shooing motion with her hands.

Pepper was behind me while the other three were in front. Bulkhead after bulkhead went by until we reached a fork. As I noticed odd shadows against the wall, there was a violent sucking sound and those shadows became pool toys. Five of them. 

Pepper shot one of them right away with her laser while Tsubumi shot another one. The other three advanced on us and Gillon barely got one of them before it got him. Then he yelled, "Scatter!"

In that moment, I saw one of the pool toys throw a grenade. There was no way we were going to scatter fast enough.

Before I could even fully turn away from the grenade, Tsubumi moved with inhuman swiftness and backhanded the grenade with the back plate of her combat glove. It flew back at the pool toy that threw it as she grabbed my hand and pulled me with her, away from the explosion.

She was running so fast that I lost my footing and was being dragged along by her. The grenade exploded just as we started down the left fork. It was the loudest sound I'd ever heard, even with earplugs in.

We all just ran down the hall until there was another fork. The explosion had slowed the pool toys down, but I knew they'd be in pursuit soon enough. My heart was pounding and my throat hurt from how hard I was breathing to keep up with my feet. Tsubumi went down the left hallway with Septimus while Gillon went down the right one. I followed Gillon because I didn't want him to be alone.

Gillon looked behind himself briefly. "Good, let's get you a weapon." Then he went back to running at top speed.

I followed him down the hall until he stopped at a man-made bulkhead. Opening it with his ID and a code, he stepped inside. After I followed him in, he closed the door behind us and locked it. It was a long skinny room that had man-made lockers on one side while the other side had forty-eight small door. Two thirds of them looked just like the center door in the large room we'd seen earlier, the other third were man-made or repaired with man-made materials.

Gillon went up one of the non-man-made doors in the third row up and said, "Librarian, I'd like to check out 7847-263-6 for twenty-four hours with the option for an extension."

"Oh! That's a great idea!" Tritonia said, her core still slung against my back.

The Librarian's slightly growly voice came from everywhere at once as the door opened. "Your request has been approved. Please take care when using this item."

"Will do!" Gillon said as he reached into the foot-wide cubic chamber behind the door and took what looked like an ordinary telescoping presentation pointer off of a little stand. He held the pointer in his left hand and pointed it at the far wall, which was about ten feet away. "All you do is aim at what you want to hit. Make sure there are no friendly objects or people between you and the wall or in a three-hundred-and-fifty-seven foot span from the end of the pointer. And then pull the tip toward your target."

He pulled on it and then it extended all the way to the wall faster than I could see. 

Gillon said, "Goes through anything in its way and only has recoil on the backstroke." 

He braced himself and pushed the end on the wall and it unextended in a flash. 

Handing it to me, he said, "We call it the Over-Extending Presentation Pointer and I think it will give those pool toys a very bad day."

I was holding an NPO in my hands! I stared at it, utterly fascinated that an ordinary-looking object was capable of being so dangerous. "Thanks!"

"No trouble at all, madam," he said with a twinkle in his eye before going to the third weapons locker from the door and using his ID and a code to get it open. He pulled out two more power packs for the PIKL units and then closed it. Handing me one of the power packs, he said, "If you'd be so kind as to carry this, we can now go meet up with Boom and Septimus."

As I grabbed the pack, there was a buzz and then an electric discharge sound from the door that drew our attention. Gillon tried to open the door, but the RFID pad he used to read his ID had its light off and didn't respond. "Oh, bloody hell!"

Looking at the door, my concern turned to joy. "Oh! You're so lucky that you guys built everything out of surplus parts. This is a second gen Anysys interlock."

"You can override it?" Gillon raised an eyebrow.

"Do you have a torx screwdriver?" I asked.

"Yes!" He went over to a locker and got a gorgeous blue and yellow canvas bag utterly stuffed with tools.

"Perfect!" When I bent my knees and leaned over the lock, Tritonia slipped so she was hanging awkwardly under my right arm. Taking her off, I said, "Sorry Tritonia, I gotta hand you to Gillon."

"That's fine, thanks for carrying me this whole time," Tritonia replied. 

"I'm just glad I didn't get us killed," I said.

Taking Tritonia, Gillon said, "Hello again, dear."

"Hello, father." Tritonia sounded happy.

"Father?" I asked.

"I'm not sure what else to call him. He's responsible for my existence," Tritonia said.

"Indeed, I was responsible for copying the mind that became Tritonia," Gillon said.

"Whose mind did you copy?" I asked.

"Apologies, but we need to get out of this room and provide backup," Gillon reminded me.

I got out a torx screwdriver of the proper size and unscrewed the cover over the latch mechanism. Then I clipped three wires and stripped the ends of two of them. To my surprise, the webbing between my fingers didn't hamper me at all. It went so smoothly, I had no trouble explaining what I was doing as I went. "There's a major security flaw that got them to scrap this whole product line. They routed the control box power right through the latch and all you gotta do is hotwire the solenoid with the twenty-four-volt line." I touched the two ends together and then used the electrical pliers to twist them and make a circuit. The latch immediately popped open.

As I pulled the door open, Gillon shot through the open space causing three bangs so far down the hallway that they didn't even sound that loud. He had a satisfied lop-sided smile as I stepped through the door. About a thousand feet down the hallway was a deflated pool toy.

"Nice shot!" I said.

"Yeah! That sounded like it was far away," Tritonia added.

He said, "If we could fight them all at range, we wouldn't have nearly as much trouble."

Pointing at the carbine the pool toy had dropped, I said, "Actually, I think they can shoot us back now."

"Gordon Bennett! We need to get a move on!" He started running back to the fork where we'd split from Tsubumi and Septimus.

A man-made bulkhead as big as the entire 10-foot-high-arched hallway loomed over Tsubumi who was lying on her back while Pepper stood guard. We ran as fast as we could. There were three destroyed pool toys four hundred feet away from them with M14 carbines lying next to them. They'd come down a hallway that branched off of ours and caught her by surprise.

Tsubumi had a bleeding hole in her abdomen and another in her left thigh. Gillon knelt down next to her. "Pepper, did you dress these wounds?"

"Yes, but I had to do it quick because I didn't know if we'd get surprised again," she said.

An open first-aid cabinet was on the far wall and first-aid materials were scattered around Tsubumi.

"Well done, madam. I think she might just live because of you," Gillon said as he started using the first aid materials to improve Tsubumi's dressings.

"You sure she'll be okay?" Pepper asked.

"She's lost a lot of blood, her prognosis would be better if she were conscious. We need to get her to the infirmary to deal with the internal bleeding." Gillon was working more frantically now. "I think she has a nick in her femoral artery."

"Shit!" Pepper said.

"You took out three of the enemy and dressed her wounds, Pepper. You did all you could," Tritonia said.

"I know. I just feel like an idiot because they got her while I glanced back at her to watch her flip the switch to start flooding the chamber," Pepper said.

"She was facing away from her attackers?" Gillon asked.

"Yeah," Pepper frowned.

"That means both bullets went straight through. She's very lucky," Gillon said. "Where's Septimus?"

"He ran off to do something he barely explained. I think he's guarding another junction?" Pepper shrugged. "There was way too much going on."

Gillon tried to speak, but Pepper yelled "HOSTILES!"

Gillon hopped to his feet and I dashed for Tsubumi's PIKL unit. That pointer was fast, but their lasers could fire multiple shots in a row. Putting on the pack, I grabbed the rifle and aimed it down the hallway. Gillon and Pepper shot two of them, but out of the corner of my eye, I saw two shadows that looked out of place. Each had a hand and part of an arm sticking out and were in the middle of throwing grenades!

I screamed "Grenades!" and fired at the one nearest us. Time slowed as my heart beat so hard I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. It seemed like it was going to take eons to change my angle so I could hit the far one without hitting the junction box it was hiding behind. As the hand started to release the grenade, there were three bright flashes. The grenade fell and rolled down the curved wall. Everyone hit the floor and the first grenade went off, then the second. I heard shrapnel hit everything around us.

Everyone got back to their feet to look for more hostiles and, as I was doing that, a pool toy reached out from the wall toward me and grabbed my leg. Its other arm was reaching toward my head with an extended pointer finger. I screamed and tried to get away, but its grip strength was threatening to break my ankle. I closed my eyes not wanting to watch as it put a hole in my head.

Pepper gave a deep guttural battle yell and the blasts from her laser made my ears ring despite my ear plugs as she blew chunks out of the pool toy's skin.

When I opened my eyes again, I was alive and Pepper was standing over me like a possessive guard dog.

My ears were still ringing as Gillon yelled, "I need pressure!"

Pepper knelt next to Tsubumi who now had a gash on her arm that was bleeding. Gillon had two gashes on his right arm. I went over to Tsubumi and followed orders while we switched off who was watching for more pool toys. Tritonia was a sounding board for Gillon's ideas about how best to treat Tsubumi's injuries while lying against Tsubumi's side so she could report changes in Tsubumi's heart rate and breathing. Through our combined effort, we had Tsubumi stabilized in about ten minutes.

Gillon asked for a gurney over the intercom and Septimus showed up with one ten minutes later. Then we walked down the hallway taking note of every shadow.

The infirmary was the size of a ballroom and was full of state-of-the-art medical equipment including an MRI machine, which we put Tsubumi in the moment we got there. Everyone was quiet as Septimus ran the machine. None of us wanted to say how bad Tsubumi looked as her pale, nearly bloodless, body lay there getting plasma from an IV.

When Gillon surveyed everyone, we found Alphonse was a match for Tsubumi's blood and he willingly gave it.

Abrams was brought in not long after. He patched up better than expected, but Charlemagne took his shift guarding the infirmary so he could get some rest. 

Abrams spent his time resting in the hospital bed next to Tsubumi watching her with a worried expression on his face. The way he looked at her gave me a strong suspicion they knew each other well.

While waiting for Gillon and Septimus to finish their conversation about Tsubumi's condition, Pepper grabbed my left hand and squeezed. My webbing felt strange while my hand was being held like that. I hadn't given it much thought, but no part of me was the same as it had been before I nearly died at the bottom of the sea. It was nice to connect with someone, for someone to be interested in me enough that she wanted to hold my hand and comfort me.

When Alphonse was done giving blood, he saw me and Pepper holding hands and blushed looking unsure what to say.

I held out my right hand to him. "Come here."

He took my hand and stood next to me. "I hope she'll be okay."

"Me too," I said.

"So, are you and Pepper, uhh..." he trailed off.

Pepper looked a little self conscious as she said, "No idea."

I chuckled. "Same here. Just kinda happened."

"I think holding hands is a good response to all the shit we've been through, regardless," Alphonse said.

"Agreed." I gave his hand a squeeze.

Pepper leaned against my side. Something about the way she did it made me feel very warm and I couldn't stop thinking about how her well-muscled arm felt against mine.

Charlemagne came into the room and saying, "Could one of you switch with me? I gotta use the restroom."

"I will," I said. I still had the PIKL unit equipped.

Pepper followed me toward the door saying, "I'll guard along with her, if that's okay."

"Sure, probably better to have two anyway." Charlemagne walked past us into the room and then we walked out front.

Alphonse went over to Tsubumi, who was getting a transfusion of his blood, and asked, "Do you think she'll notice if I hold her hand?"

Septimus said, "Probably not, she might be in a coma."

I listened to their conversation curiously from the doorway.

"Septimus." Gillon shook his head. "Don't be so macabre. There's plenty of science that says she very well could notice. Go ahead, Alphonse. I think it will do some good."

Septimus just picked up his conversation with Gillon where they'd left off. They were rattling off item numbers like mechanics on the phone with a parts supplier. The numbers matched the format of the item number for the pointer Gillon had given me, so I assumed they were talking about NPOs they could possibly use to help Tsubumi's recovery. Septimus seemed to want to try something new and Gillon wanted to go with one they'd used before.

Standing out front with me, Pepper said, "So, what did you do before you became a professional thief?"

"I sold security systems while being an amateur thief," I said.

She laughed softly. "That's too perfect."

"I know," I said.

"Is there anyone you're going to miss if you have to stay hidden from the world?" she asked.

"Are you trying to ask me if I have a girlfriend?" I teased.

She blushed bright pink. "Well, do you?"

"I'm poly, so it wouldn't matter, but no, I don't have anyone back home. I took the job to steal the ADS 3000 because I was trying to recoup what I'd lost when my last girlfriend double-crossed me," I said. "How did you know I like girls?"

"Honey, please, the way you held my hand back there, and the way you grabbed my ass this morning, either would be proof enough on its own," she said.

"I didn't mean to grope you, I really didn't." I blushed feeling suddenly shy.

"Well, either way, I liked it." She stepped closer to my side.

Confusion welled up in me as I looked at the patches of brown and tan on the backs of my webbed hands. Something didn't add up. "How can you be into me? Like, if you're a lesbian, I'm not completely a girl, and if you're straight, I'm not completely a guy, and if you're one of those awesome people that thinks my downstairs doesn't have to match my gender, there's one last problem: I'm more of a sea monster than a human."

"If we weren't wondering whether we were going to live to see tomorrow, I'd cool my jets, but given our current situation I gotta say it. She leaned in and whispered in my ear. "You're the most gorgeous woman I've ever seen, period. If we'd met at a bar, I would have started hitting on you the moment I laid eyes on you."

My body just moved on its own. I'd been afraid for my life, and the lives of everyone on this base, for the last three hours. I needed joy, I needed to feel alive, I needed her lips. The kiss surprised both of us at first, but then our bodies relaxed and we risked several seconds of not watching our surroundings to enjoy that bit of intimacy.

When our lips parted, we stared into each other's eyes for a moment and I ran my the tips of my webbed fingers across the side of Pepper's neck. She reached down, put her hand on my ass, and groped just as hard as I had done to her. The moment I started to gasp, she let go and stood at attention leaving me there to stew in the sudden burst of arousal she'd given me.

That kiss distracted me from the dismal reality of our situation for the next twenty minutes. We kept sharing glances, both of us wanting more but not willing to risk being caught off guard by Charlemagne or a pool toy.

Charlemagne started giving out orders inside the infirmary. "Alphonse, I want you to go to the control room with Abrams, get in touch with the strike team, and update them on everything that's happened. Abrams, you are to go with Alphonse and guard him until I get back to the control room."

"Yes ma'am," Abrams said.

Alphonse was looking at Charlemagne like she was out of her mind. "You're going to leave me alone with the communications equipment?"

"Abrams will be there and he's somewhat familiar with it. You are far more knowledgeable, however. Plus, I'll be back to assist you if you need it." Charlemagne walked out the infirmary and addressed us. "Persephone and Pepper, we're going to be doing a sweep of the base and to do that, I can't be worrying about you two getting lost. So, I'm going to put you in the crew quarters until the sweep is complete."

"Shouldn't we stay here and guard the infirmary?" Pepper asked.

"An NPO far beyond your clearance is going to be used to improve Boom's condition," Charlemagne said. "I will personally be guarding the infirmary until the procedure is done, then I will come and get you so you can take over for me. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am," Pepper said.

"Understood," I said. "Will that NPO guarantee Tsubumi's survival or is it a last ditch effort?" I frowned, worrying about her.

"The first time we used it on her, she was almost this bad, and it brought her back to full health, so I'm hopeful." Charlemagne smiled faintly.

"That's good," I said.

"Very," Pepper concurred.

"Persephone, I need you to give your PIKL unit to Alphonse, and while you do that, I need to have a quick chat with Septimus and Gillon." Charlemagne walked back into the infirmary. 

Taking off the PIKL, I walked over to Alphonse to hand it to him. He set it down next to the wall and motioned for me to follow him. Then he led me to the far corner of the room and we stood between a couple hospital beds. 

He whispered barely loud enough for me to hear him, "Do you think I should try to tell our families we're still alive while I have the communications stuff to myself?"

I shook my head. "No, we better not press our luck just yet. Take your time and do a good job so you earn their trust first. If we both do that, we'll have more options if we need them."

He frowned. "I know you're right, it's just, I don't know if I'll get another chance."

I put my hands on his shoulders. "You breached their security once, you can do it again."

"But we might die," he said.

"True, but we'll never get much freedom if we're caught in subterfuge this early on." I touched my forehead to his. "No dying, okay?"

He nodded. "I'll do my best."

"Good!" I gave him a nice firm hug and then walked back to the door.

As Alphonse donned the PIKL unit, Pepper said, "We're going to be all alone."

I blushed. "Yes we are, but we probably shouldn't--"

Pepper laughed and slapped my shoulder. "You're adorable."

I took a deep breath. "I was thinking this wasn't the time."

"Tell you what, if we get through this, I'll invite you over to my quarters for dinner."

I smiled. "I'd love that!"

"It's a date, then!" she said.

"Do you even have quarters? We just got here," I said.

"No idea, we could end up roomies for all I know. But, whatever the arrangement ends up being, we'll find a way to have a nice dinner date together, sound good?"

"Sounds perfect." I kissed her cheek.

"So happy to be dating again, it's been too long." She beamed.

"Won't Charlemagne frown on you dating a prisoner?" I asked.

Pepper shrugged. "I don't think you're a prisoner, you saved our lives."

"Indeed, right now you and Alphonse are part of my team," Charlemagne said as she walked out the door.

"We are?" I asked, wondering how much of our conversation Charlemagne had heard.

Charlemagne started leading us to the crew quarters. "Remember when I said I'd reevaluate the situation if things got dire? Well, that's where we are."

"Will I get one of those awesome POSC uniforms?" I asked.

Charlemagne sighed. "Let's just take this one step at a time, okay? This is uncharted territory."

"Fair enough," I said.

"I'm not going to lock you two in the quarters, but I'm going to order you to stay there unless I summon you. Understood?"

"Understood!" Pepper and I said as we entered the main room that all the hallways branched out from. Voices echoed quite expansively in this room.

"Hey, Charlie, just in case we all die, level with me. Is this an alien ship?" Pepper asked.

"Calling me Charlie already, are we?" Charlemagne turned to look at Pepper with raised an eyebrow.

"S-sorry." Pepper grimaced.

"Alien ship, no. Alien structure, maybe." Charlemagne opened the bulkhead to the crew quarters area.

"Look, I don't want to die wondering what the truth is. Can you give me a teensy bit more info?" Pepper asked sweetly.

"It depends on whether the Atlantians built this place or not. You see, much of the technology fits with their style, but the language and other details, like the use of rounded rectangles and large arches, doesn't fit." Charlemagne's toned ass looked so fantastic in the lighting of the habitat's pressure cylinder hallway that I didn't think about what she'd said at first. Pepper had gotten me excited and my mind was very happy to have a distraction from the fact that more of those pool toys could be afoot.

"Atlantis was real?" Pepper balked.

I blinked and then my eyes widened as I stopped staring at Charlemagne's ass and fully realized what they were talking about.

"Yes, but it wasn't an island, it was a flotilla of ships that could all be interlinked and become a city when they got to their destination," Charlemagne said. "The city changed shape often because the ships shuffled around while they were traveling from port to port."

"What were the ancient Atlantians like?" I asked, a wave of awe hitting me, making me feel like I was floating toward the crew quarters instead of walking.

"Bart liked to call them technohippies. They were more free in their personal lives than any culture in existence today and their technology helped them have the closest thing to a utopia I've ever seen," Charlemagne said as she opened the door to the crew quarters nearest the cylinder with the airlock. "Could I have your flashlights, I should put them back where they belong before I forget."

We gave her the flashlights and she took hers off of her belt before saying, "Okay, I'll be right back." She went into the room with the airlock and put them away.

When she came back, Pepper asked, "After we live through this, can we see your files on the Altlantians?"

"My word of mouth is something that can be plausibly denied. Showing you evidence you can use to prove the existence of the Atlantians before you've been given the proper clearance is something else entirely." Charlemagne motioned for us to enter the crew quarters. "I recommend closing the bulkhead and upping the pressure by a tenth of an atmosphere to guarantee a good seal. Less likely for you to get ambushed while you fraternize, that way."

We looked at Charlemagne with our mouths half open.

"Oh, the look on your faces!" She laughed and then gave us a stern look. "I understand the sort of thinking that happens when one mortality is in the balance. And I know what it's like to have a brand new crush. But please don't do anything that compromises your awareness of your surroundings. I don't want to find your corpses naked and entangled when I get back."

The strength of Charlemagne's cock block was legendary. My mind was now all business. "You said upping the atmospheric pressure would keep us safer?"

"Yes, you'd know immediately if the seal on your door was broken," Charlemagne said.

"How do we do that?" I asked.

Charlemagne entered the quarters and walked toward the kitchen area. Across from the kitchen was a bathtub with a shower and a tiny room I figured was the toilet since its lock indicated whether it was vacant or not. At the far end there was a small eating area in the center with two sets of two bunks on either wall with cargo nets to stow personal items above them.

Opening the lid on the little brownish-grey box mounted next to the refrigerator, Charlemagne revealed an antiquated interface that reminded me of one of those old alarm clocks that had numbers that flipped down as it slowly turned. "After you secure the door, just flip this one tenth higher."

"Oh, okay!" I said.

"Thanks!" Pepper said.

Charlemagne went over to a storage cabinet under the right lower bunk bed and pulled out a heavy bright red binder from the late sixties. It said, "SEALAB III MANUAL" on it in silver letters.

"Wait, SEALAB III, wasn't that cancelled due to a diving accident?" Pepper asked.

"That's the story that was given to the media, the project was actually expanded," Charlemagne said, handing Pepper the manual. "I'm trusting you two with this knowledge. Do not make me regret it."

"That's why everything here looks like it's from the late sixties/early seventies," I mused.

Charlemagne nodded. "Yep, they wanted a completely human-controlled part of the base that people could live in while exploring The Reposit--Why is the airlock cycling?"

Now that I was focusing, my long pointy ears could pick up a lot of nuances in the sounds, like a steady hiss from the diving equipment room, and then the outer airlock door creaking open. The lights went out and the bulkhead door swung closed with a loud thunk. Then there was a solid ker-chunk as a drop lock fell into place. It was dead silent, there was no whirring from pumps and ventilation fans, no sign that life support systems were functioning.

END OF PART 1

I’d like to acknowledge my first $20 patron, Navajo Demar, for helping make all this possible. Thank you! Thanks to all my other patrons as well. Every one of you rocks!