All four hostiles are out cold, spread-eagled on the floor, goofy grins frozen on their faces like they really enjoyed that millisecond concert before Gem shot them in the heads with rubber bullets. Their Leyden harpoon guns are all burning and smoking.
‘Well, that worked,’ I note.
‘WHAT?’ Gem asks.
I point at his ears, reminding him about the cotton. Then I rush to untie our friends.
‘Hello, there,’ Ophelia grumbles. ‘Lovely to see you again. Thank you so much for the grenades.’
‘Sorry about that.’ I pull my dive knife and saw through her zip tie.
‘Quite all right,’ she assures me. ‘The Nautilus? The crew?’
I give them the brief version: the Aronnax has been destroyed, the Nautilus is banged up but okay, and the base has been cleared （for now）， thanks to our robot dragonfly freedom fighters.
Luca giggles, his tone slightly hysterical. ‘Oh. Chiudete gli occhi! Now I get it! I think I may be blind!’
‘It should pass,’ I tell him, hoping I’m right.
Franklin retches. ‘I can taste the colour turquoise. Is that normal?’
‘Ana, are you okay?’ Tia asks. ‘Your bandages are soaked with blood.’
‘You should see the other guy.’ I don’t mention that Tia, Franklin, Luca and Ophelia also look like they’ve been worked over by the local gang of dolphins. ‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get here sooner.’
‘You kidding?’ Tia winces as I snap her restraints. ‘We were prepared to hold out for at least a month.’
‘Well, we could come back later …’
‘Now is good. Thanks, Captain.’
‘We need to get to the Varuna,’ Gem says, clipping Franklin’s zip tie.
‘Yeah.’ Franklin smacks his lips, probably trying to clear the taste of bile and turquoise. ‘They took Dr Hewett. He was responding well to treatment, but he’s in no shape to be moved.’
‘They’ve also taken our best research and tech,’ Ophelia adds. Without her steel-framed glasses, she looks a bit like a mole dragged blinking and disorientated from a nice dark tunnel. ‘They must be stopped. Go!’
‘None of you are in any shape to fight,’ I fret. ‘And Dev could be coming in from the lagoon any minute.’
‘Are your Leyden guns still functional?’ Ophelia asks. ‘Leave us some of those.’
Gem donates his Leyden rifle to Tia, his Leyden pistol to Franklin, and his remaining grenades to Luca.
Luca beams. ‘I love grenades! Thank you!’
I hand Ophelia my pistol. This leaves me with just my dive knife and Gem with his SIG Sauers, but that will have to do.
‘What about our friends here?’ Gem gestures at the four unconscious guards.
‘Oh, not to worry.’ Tia gets a wicked glint in her eyes. ‘I’m personally going to give them the pink-ducky treatment. Now get going!’
As Gem and I race through the front corridor, I try the comm on my drysuit collar. ‘Dakkar to Nautilus, do you read?’
The line hisses. ‘Nautilus here,’ Halimah says. ‘Are you okay?’
‘More or less. Hostiles have the Varuna. They’re making a run for it. They have Dr Hewett on board. Gem and I will try to intercept. Do you copy?’
‘We – Say again –？’ The comm goes dead.
‘Mine is out, too,’ Gem says.
With the amount of abuse our suits have taken today, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Even if Halimah got the gist of my message, the Nautilus is in no shape to give us any assistance. We’re on our own.
We burst onto the dock of the lagoon. The sunlight blinds me. I haven’t been outside in the surface world for over a week. There’s too much sky. The horizons are too wide. The colours are too bright.
The rev of a boat’s engines shakes me from my paralysis. The Varuna is pulling away from the dock.
Gem sprints after it. He takes a flying leap and lands on the transom. My jump is not as graceful. I slam into the aft railing, which doesn’t do wonders for my wounded side. Gem grabs my arm to keep me from falling overboard.
‘Thanks,’ I grumble.
‘Take a gun.’ He offers me one of his SIG Sauers. I have never seen him let anyone touch one of his precious twins before.
I start to protest. ‘Gem –’
‘Please,’ he says. ‘Just do it for me.’
I take the gun.
The Varuna picks up speed, heading north for the wide new gap that the Aronnax’s weapons blasted in the atoll’s ring. From where we stand, I can’t see anyone else on board. I hope that means the boat is lightly manned. I like small numbers, like one or two.