White Space

13

 "She went where?" Anisim asked, seemingly unable to wrap his head around what he'd just heard. Yemon and Jaleel flagged down the engineer from one of his elevated platforms where he was busy resetting a winch when they'd arrived.

 "Mount Kratos." Yemon repeated. He didn't really feel like going through this dance again. He looked over at Jaleel and saw the same thing on his face. "Look, we don't know why or how, but this is what we've found. We've mapped the whole thing out with Accacia. We've just finished. The data from Alpha team's computer coincides perfectly with the data from Yin's ship. Too perfectly. And Alpha's submarine is still transmitting. It's stopped, but it's still online."

 "Slow down. So you're saying that your team went to this underwater mountain. But why?"

 "We don't know. All we know is that Yin had gone the same place the night she left. At least that's what we could extrapolate from the spotty tracking data we have from her ship and from Alpha's trajectory. But it looks like a clear match. It cannot be a coincidence."

 "But why would she do that?"

 "It is clearly connected to the explosions on the development site in the center of the icefield."

 "Yeah, okay. But still..."

 "But something was..." Yemon tried to put the facts in order in his head. "Something was... Dislodged from the ice at the same time. Probably by the blast. There's a third signal."

 "A signal? But that's—"

"We don't know what that might have been. It's faint, we've almost missed it entirely. All we know is that Yin went to follow the trail. And then it leads to Mount Kratos.

 "And why is your team also there? They didn't go after Yin, did they?"

 "No. Look, Accacia will have most of the details. She'll be able to tell you. From what we could gather at the scene they got in some kind of confrontation and it seems they had to flee or...." Yemon trailed off for a few seconds, trying to come up with an explanation on the spot, but it eluded him. "We don't know why they had to leave with their submarine or what they were up against. All we know is that they crashed their ship into the elevator suite. But the signal shows they did leave, so they most likely took their sub. And we're going to follow them."

 Anisim sighed deep. He shook his head. Yemon could tell he did not like the plan at all. Too bad it wasn't his place to make these calls. "Alright, fine, give me half an hour to prepare your hunk of junk." He told them and slowly made his way up a small metal ramp next to the pool of water that led to the ocean's depths through a set of sluicegates. He tapped away on the terminal screen on the pedestal and the old submarine was taken to the side by a metal arm while the military sub appeared in a circular outlet on the opposite wall, ready to be grabbed and hung up above Anisim's head. After watching this well-oiled system work for a few seconds, Yemon turned to Jaleel.

 "I want you to gather some food for the trip. We're going to rely on autopilot for most of the way. We'll eat and catch some sleep. We have no time to waste. I'll come help in a second."

 As Jaleel left, Anisim approached again, wiping his hands on a piece of cloth. "It's not my place to meddle or nothing, but about the comms outage—"

 "Yeah, what about it?"

 "Look, I'm not an expert on radiation and all that, but I've been maintaining everything on this station for decades." He said, scratching his dirty chin with his dirty hand. Yemon wondered for a second if any kind of dirt transfer could still take place between the surfaces at this point. The man was dirty as hell. "It's true that the radiation messes with the comms. Yeah. Big time. But there's only been a handful of complete blackouts over the years, and they never lasted more than an hour or so. Something to consider. That's all I'm saying."

 "Hmm... I'll keep that in mind, Anisim. Do you think it could have affected our communication with Alpha team, though?"

 "Surface to surface comms? Not a chance. It's not the 1900s."

 As Anisim left to focus on preparing their submarine, Yemon stood there for a little while, wondering about the whole mess. Somebody was definitely not telling the truth. And their teammates could have been in danger. This mission was not shaping up very well.

---

Helping Jaleel with the food was a struggle, but they made great progress after Yemon was able to make him leave at least half of it. The hungry giant protested for a little while, but the chain of command wasn't something he could argue with in the end. Yemon understood him perfectly, though. The kind of food Narayanan brought in was better than what they'd seen for years. Usually, people like himself can only have these nice things on Earth, and they got to vacation there about once every few years.

 On their way to the submarine with their massively reduced volume of haul, they literally bumped into Accacia, who ended up having to help them by gathering some of the stuff from the floor.

 "You're already leaving, then." She said, while piling some things into Jaleel's arms.

 "Yeah, we kinda' need to go, ma'am. They are our comrades." Jaleel said, keeping food packets in check with his chin.

 "Also, we're the only ones who remain. We have to. It's our job." Yemon said.

 "Yeah, so you've told me, but I thought at least you'd... I don't know, I think we'd just feel safer with armed soldiers around." she said.

 "We'd feel that way too." Jaleel said with an embarrassed smile plastered across his face.

 "What do you mean?"

 "All the guns are locked away on the ship." Yemon said with a grim expression.

 "Come again?" she said, blinking in bewilderment.

 "Yeah, now you know. I thought we shouldn't advertise the fact that we're just as empty-handed as you all are."

 "But what are you going to do then?"

 "We'll see. We have tools in the sub, we should be fine. If there was a real confrontation at the development site, well... We'll see. We're great at being ready for anything. We're Combat Search and Rescue."

 "Alright, but stay in touch. In the meantime, I'll have Anisim try to get the door open. He should have some kind of magic he can work. Sometimes I think he can talk to the station. And it talks back to him. And there's no AI on board here."

 "It'd be nice to see a miracle like that now."

 Accacia nodded and turned to walk away.

 "Dr. Stephenson... Accacia."

 "Yes?" she turned back.

 "Keep an eye on Navin. I'm sure now that he's hiding something."