Down in the Underworld

Chapter 35 - It’s weak, but it’s a signal

As the sub settled into an uneasy routine, the Anhinga was slowly catching up on Spectra’s small submarine, followed by the small fleet of subs that had left Royale with them. Now back on his own submarine, with his own crew, Fury was glued to the small screen in front of him. The signal operator, Frag had called him over a few minutes earlier when she’d noticed an odd signal coming through. It was nothing like she’d ever seen before, but Fury knew instinctively what it was. He’d seen something like it before, and knew it was for a C3-42, but then who did he know of who had one of those? Off the top of his head, no one, but then who were they chasing? The Ghost? She might have one, it would make total sense if you were working alone to be riding in one of those. Small, fast, easy to modify. It made sense.

‘How far?’ he asked Frag.

‘Maybe, an hour? It’s not moving that fast.’

‘Those things never did hit top gear, but then they didn’t need to, recovery vessels…’ Fury answered quietly, as though speaking to himself.

‘Do you think it’s that thing that has Phoenix?’ asked Magenta, turning aroung in her chair to look at her Commander.

‘Could be, I mean there’s a fair chance,’ answered Fury.

‘So, do we tell Lady and the others, or break of from the pack and just go after her or what?’ 

‘We can’t just take off,’ said Fury, but he didn’t sound confident, which was not like him.

‘Then what? We just let her get away with our friend? Dragging her further into shit town?’ Magenta was flabbergasted, but Fury was thinking three moves ahead.  

‘Look, there’s nothing I’d like more then to go after that little floating crackpot sub, but right now I have to weigh up the outcomes here, there’s more at stake here than just our crew. And what if she sees us coming and does something to Phoenix?’

Magenta looked stricken, but nodded her head sadly.

‘I know, trust me I know, I better call this in,’ Fury added, not a small part of him glad to not have to make a decision on his own when his friend’s life was in the balance.

It took him a few tense minutes to get on to Lady, who it seemed was trying to manage every crisis at once.

‘What is it?’ she blurted out when they’d finally been able to track her down.

‘We have a signal, I think it’s the Ghost,’ Fury answered deadpan.

‘Shit that’s a curve ball,’ Lady replied before she could stop herself, ‘what do you want to do?’

‘If it was just me an’ her I would go after her, engines on full you know, but there’s too many moving parts here, and she might hurt Phoenix if she knows we’re onto her, plus there’s Demise too and that machine, we need all the pieces of it, and right now we have one.’

‘I guess there’s flaws in any plan …’ Lady trailed off, ‘how would you feel about following her to Demise and then trying to get all the pieces plus your crew member back at once? Or we could always follow them all back to Londinium.’

‘I don’t like any of it,’ Fury answered, but he knew one option at least stood a better chance of success, ‘but let’s follow her to her rendezvous with Demise, take them on here, on our turf, underwater and underworld.’

‘You got it,’ Lady answered, ‘I’ll spread the word to prepare for a good old-fashioned showdown.’

‘Tell the older subs to keep to the back though yeah? Otherwise it’ll be like the Rebel fleet facing off against the Death Star,’ Fury added.

‘I’m all over it, Sagan and the mechanerds are creating some surprises for us, but if it comes right down to it, I’ve got that piece of the machine to bargain with.’

‘You wouldn’t give it to them!?’ Fury asked in alarm.

‘Hell no! but I would destroy it,’ Lady said seriously.

Lady thought she could almost hear Fury smiling as she hung up the line, but she knew they were running out of time.