The central module also contained Trieste’s control center. It was a large room with consoles to monitor and control every aspect of the city’s engineering demands, from the nuclear plant to pressure control to water traffic surrounding our modules. My staff was there, light from their consoles shining up in their faces, headsets on, all murmuring commands over the comms to others around the city. Along one entire bulkhead was an expansive map of the Gulf and Caribbean region with all traffic in the area—generated from sonar information from our monitoring stations as well as from other vessels. There were three large blue stars on the map, each just off the coast of the States. These were the three underwater colonies of Trieste, Ballard, and Seascape.
My staff looked up as I entered, and their faces erupted into surprise and happiness. It made me smile. They wrapped up their work and rose to their feet.
“Mac!” called Joey Zen. She worked the Pressure Control station. “Where have you been?”
Kristen Canvel at City Systems Control marched toward me. “You can’t just take off like that!” I couldn’t tell if she was angry or not; her tone was harsh, but the smile on her face said otherwise.
I said, “I told you when I left. I put Cliff Sim in command.” He was our security chief.
“You also took our deputy mayor with you! Cliff doesn’t know squat about politics.”
I frowned. “Why? What’s going on?”
Braeden Staple shrugged. “Just the usual complaints from the kelp farmers. The repair module is also overwhelmed. Cliff doesn’t know what to do. He just delayed them all, saying you’d be back soon.”
I recalled that I had taken some workers from the repair docks to work the fields. The USSF had demanded more production from all sectors—we provided fish, kelp for methane and food, as well as many minerals from deep-sea mining ventures—and it had been the only way to help the aquaculture division.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“And where is Impaler? Have you noticed that there are no USSF troops here right now?”
“I did, actually.”
Grant Bell from Sea Traffic Control, still wearing his headset, said, “Impaler left here when you did. She was following you. All the troops boarded her just before. She still hasn’t returned.”
“I’m sure they’ll be back,” I muttered. But I didn’t say it with much conviction.
The others just stared at me.
“I guess we should just be happy for as long as they’re gone.”
“Agreed.” I gestured to my office. “I’ll be catching up on work.”
“Wait—where’s Deputy Mayor Butte?” Kristen asked.
“He won’t be back.” I said no more.
There was a long pause as my command staff looked at each other in bewilderment. Then I turned to leave and I heard, “Good to have you back, Mac!”
—••—
My office was mostly bare steel and bland, with gray rivetted bulkheads and a tiny viewport. There were no amenities. I remembered the other mayoral offices I’d seen on my trip to Seascape and Ballard. Mayor Winton’s had been significantly nicer, with painted bulkheads even, and Mayor Quinn’s at Seascape was simply opulent, complete with an oak desk.
A wood desk, underwater.
It was unheard of, but it spoke to the power of his city due to the tourism industry.
I sat at my metal desk and with trepidation, checked my mail.
I swore.
—••—
Hours later, I was still sifting through the messages and doing what I could to assist department heads and managers who were asking for—or demanding—assistance. Soon I came across a message from the repair dock; I knew immediately what it was about.
“Dammit, Mac!” an angry voice yelled on the recording from ten days earlier. His face was on the screen. Behind him were berths filled with seacars down for maintenance. Sparks were flying across the scene as workers crawled on hulls and worked on the vessels. The man was Josh Miller, in charge of the repair division. “You took ten people from my docks and now we’re overwhelmed!”
Sure enough, behind him each berth was full. Crew were only working on a few of the ships; others were just floating there, untouched.
Miller was wearing overalls with grease stains, there was a tool belt thrown across his shoulder, and his hair was, like most other people in the colonies, shaved to stubble. It made drying easier. He continued, “We’re important, dammit! If we fall behind on repairs, what do you think happens to our quotas? No machinery means less produce. Do the math!” Then he stabbed at the comm and the image turned blue.
I sighed. Politics. Miller just wasn’t aware of the other issues surrounding the quotas.
I considered my response, and then called the man back. He was on the screen in a few seconds, from a different angle this time, though I could still see some of the same ships floating behind him. There were new vessels there as well now too—many of these hung in harnesses over the water. There was no room for them.
“Josh,” I said.
“You’re back.” His voice was hard, his face lined and angry.
“Yeah. I hear your concerns, trust me. I agree with you. But you have to realize that yelling and getting angry isn’t going to solve much.”
He snorted. “It’s pretty clear to me though.”
“And it’s obvious to me too. I understand the issue.” I sighed and leaned back. “The quotas went up ten percent.”
He paled. “What?”
“The USSF demanded more.”
“Then get more workers—”
“I did. From you. I couldn’t bring any more from the mainland.”
“But we don’t have enough—”
“Exactly. We don’t. Which is why I had to transfer a few people.” I hesitated and he mercifully remained silent while I considered. “The good news is that our quotas might come down a bit now.”
He frowned. “But you just said they went up ten percent.”
“But Impaler has disappeared. Heller too. No one knows where they are.” I tapped a pen on my desk. “I’ll move a few people back to the docks from the kelp farms. Send me five names. You’ll get them before tomorrow.”
His face lit up. “That’ll really help. Thanks, Mac.”
I leaned forward. “No worries. And listen to me for a second—screaming and yelling isn’t going to get your point across as effectively as plain talking with some logic behind it. We’re better than that.”
He sighed. “Sorry, Mac. I’m just passionate about Trieste.”
You and everyone else here, I wanted to say. “I know.”
He offered a slight smile. “Thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.”
I nodded and cut the transmission. Damn. Now I would have to call Rebecca Hartley in aquaculture and give her the bad news.
But the positive was that with Heller gone, the increased quota might no longer even exist.
Being a politician was a tough gig. I used to be a spy. Hell, I still was one, but politics and managing were more delicate skills. Spying and espionage were clear. There was no dealing with emotional and overly sensitive people.
Still, I understood Miller’s passion. I held it too.
—••—
An hour later I decided to visit my security chief, Cliff Sim. His office was just down the corridor from City Control. He was everything that a security chief should be, I thought as I marched in and saw him at his desk: He was gruff, big, and tough. He was a former USSF soldier and understood the importance of discipline and the chain of command. He was loyal and trustworthy—so much so that I’d left him in charge during my recent trip to The Ridge. There were no viewports in the office; like mine, his was basic and gray. He likely thought a port might allow someone to spy on him.
“Hi, Boss,” he said as I entered.
“Cliff. Good to see you.” I sat across from him. “You’re not surprised I’m back.”
“I’ve known for hours.”
That startled me, but I should have expected it.
“How was your trip?” he asked.
“Great, actually.”
He eyed me. I noticed the scar that cut through his eyebrow as he studied my facial expression, which I kept stony. He said, “You’re back.”
I frowned. “I think we’ve established that.”
“Without Robert Butte.”
“Yeah. He won’t be returning.”
Cliff looked away as he processed that. He lowered his voice. “Dead?”
“No. Just . . . sent away.”
“I see. Good choice.” Cliff had known about Butte’s traitorous activities with Captain Heller. In fact, he had monitored the man at my command, and he’d gathered video evidence of Butte traveling to Impaler to inform on my activities. “And Heller?” he asked, voice even lower.
“Won’t be back. Ever.”
His eyes went wide momentarily. It was more emotion than he usually showed. I wasn’t worried about anyone overhearing us. Cliff routinely swept my office for bugs; I knew his office would be safe.
“Interesting,” was all he said.
“Tell me what happened while I was gone.”
He nodded and gave me a detailed summary of the demands and complaints of the city’s divisions, the routine city maintenance that crews had completed, and finally news of the depressurization incident that had forced me from the city a few weeks earlier. He had located the cause of the failure in the pressure equipment that had led to the module’s environment plummeting to only one atm. It meant the ocean had flooded in through the moonpool and into the upper decks.
“But how did they flood? The airtight hatches—”
“They sabotaged that system too. Some closed, some didn’t.”
I sighed. I hadn’t seen my living compartment yet.
He noticed me mulling that over. “Don’t worry. It’s all cleaned up.”
I blinked. “Great work.”
“I had a volunteer crew do it in their off time. They understood the importance.”
“And the culprit?”
He paused. “French. Infiltrated a day before. Left using the same method.”
“Let me guess. Through a moonpool.”
“You got it.”
I swore. It was a big problem for the undersea colonies. People were free to come and go as they chose. Some entered through the docking module where they parked their seacars. Some, however, swam up to the city, leaving personal scooters or vessels drifting outside, and entered through a moonpool, which each module had. The moonpools were at seafloor level and since the air pressure within exactly balanced the pressure outside, the water couldn’t rise into the city. It was an easy way to sneak in. In fact, I had used it multiple times to infiltrate other cities throughout the world. English, French, Chinese.
“There’s no way to stop that,” I said.
“No. Not unless you want to close the moonpools and make everyone enter through one common module.”
“Not going to happen.” I wasn’t even going to entertain that. We were not a police state. We’d just have to do a better job at monitoring sea traffic approaching Trieste, and keep the moonpools under video surveillance. I considered how to broach the next subject. “Listen, Cliff. I have a problem. I left someone behind.”
He tilted his head. “Where?’
I hesitated. Cliff was totally loyal to us, but he didn’t know much about the independence movement. In the past, he had mentioned his interest in helping, but I hadn’t taken it any further than that. Until now. “Back at our base in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.”
He hesitated before a simple, “I see.”
“It’s Jackson Train. He’s trapped.”
“But he died in the battle last year. We never found—” Then his forehead flattened. “You’re full of surprises, Boss.”
“Thanks.”
“And I have to say, nice going. I’m impressed.” He had obviously put two and two together and now realized what I’d been doing and what had happened to Captain Heller.
“Thanks again. However, someone attacked us.” He listened to the story in rapt attention. He remained quiet as I told him about the Swords, The Ridge, and the mysterious vessels. At that point, he broke in.
“Sounds like that other ship you mentioned to me.”
“The dreadnought.”
“The one that can’t exist.”
I frowned. “Why do you say that?”
“It’s too big. It’s too fast. I just can’t buy it.”
“Did you hear about Norfolk?”
He blinked. “Of course. We all have. Seawall broke.”
“It was the dreadnought.”
There was a long stretch as he stared at me. “How do you know?”
“Admiral Benning.”
Cliff swore again. “Things never seem to settle down.”
“No, they don’t.” I glanced around the sparse office as I thought about my next course of action. There was a sealed hatch in there; I knew that it led to a corridor with a series of prison cells. They were rarely used, however, for people in Trieste were there to work hard and not cause trouble. There was drinking, of course, and the odd issue that resulted from it, but it was rare. The USSF caused most of the problems in the city, not her citizens. “Tell me,” I continued, “did Doctor Lazlow come to see you?”
“Yes. A few hours ago, right after you arrived from your trip. I watched him exit your seacar and come straight here.”
My forehead crinkled and I gestured to his video screens. “You saw it there?”
“I did.”
“Good. And did Lazlow tell you what he needed?”
“I set him up in the research module. Seemed appropriate. He said he wanted to review some sonar records.”
“He’s an acoustician. Thanks.”
“I hope he can help.”
“He already has,” I muttered. Cliff raised an eyebrow at that, but I didn’t say more about the man. “I ordered our Swords to dock at the storage module.”
“I noticed that too.” I couldn’t help but laugh. But before I could ask him, he continued, “I’ve secured the module, posted guards, and the moonpool there is closed. No one will be able to get to them.”
No wonder he was my security chief. He was not only effective and professional, he was intuitive. I said, “I need your help now, Cliff, more than ever.” He listened to my request without saying a word.