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He tightens his grip on my neck. ‘What’s that, Dakkar?’

I babble like I’m trying to tell him something important. I sense him leaning in. It’s human nature – he wants to know what I’m saying. I judge my timing and angle. Then I use the only weapon I have. I snap my head backwards and hear the satisfying crunch of Caleb’s nose breaking.

He screams and loosens his grip – just for a moment, but it’s enough. His wet fingers lose their traction on my throat as I twist away from his poison palm and limply topple out of the boat.

I take a gulp of air before my head goes under. My limbs are soggy noodles, but I manage to keep my chest upright for buoyancy. I bob to the surface long enough to hear the hiss of a Leyden gun from theVaruna. Dave yelps.

Caleb growls and dives into the water after me. Two shots from Gem’s M4A1 zing off the back of his wetsuit. Caleb grabs me by the hair and starts dragging me after the pontoon, which is rapidly getting away from us.

‘They told me to bring you back alive,’ he says. ‘But if I can’t do that …’

Out of the corner of my eye, I see him raise his free hand. The injector needle protrudes from the inside of a ring slipped on his middle finger. It reminds me of the gag handshake buzzer Dev used to torment me with when we were little. I don’t want that to be my last thought.

Gem fires another shot. It ricochets off Caleb’s hooded forehead and splashes a few inches from my ear. Hewett yells, ‘Stop firing!’

I try to struggle. My body won’t obey me. Caleb sneers. The blood from his nostrils makes him look like he’s got walrus tusks.

‘You’re more trouble than you’re worth,’ he decides.

He pulls back his hand to slap me with his poison buzzer ring – but help comes from an unexpected direction. Right next to us, a mass of sleek blue-grey flesh explodes out of the sea, and Caleb is body-slammed into oblivion under the weight of a six-hundred-pound bottlenose dolphin.

The resulting waves push me under. My sinuses fill with salt water. I’m sinking, flailing my weak limbs.

Then the dolphin slides underneath me, gently nudging me to the surface. I wrap my arms around his dorsal fin, which is marked with a prominent dark streak.

We break the surface. My first word is a cross between a choke and a sob. ‘Socrates?’

I have no idea how he found me, or how he knew I needed help, but his familiar clicks and squeaks leave me no doubt what he is saying.I tried to warn you, silly human.

I lay my face against his smooth, warm forehead and start to weep.

We don’t let Caleb drown.

If we’d put it to a vote, I’m not sure he would’ve had enough support, but Dr Hewett insists we fish him out of the water. Then Kiya and Dru haul him off for interrogation.

The rest of the LI attackers we strip of their weapons, constrain with zip ties and set adrift in the pontoon. Dr Hewett assures us they’ll get picked up soon enough – by the Coast Guard if they’re lucky, by their schoolmates if they’re not.

‘Land Institute doesn’t reward failure,’ he says. ‘We must get underway.’

Tia Romero stares at him in disbelief. ‘Sir, we’ve been attacked. We have wounded. We should call the Coast Guard ourselves.’

Hewett gives her a pitying look. ‘The authorities can’t help us, Prefect. We would just put them in danger, too. Finish your modifications and start the engines. TheAronnaxwill not be far behind.’

Tia doesn’t look happy about it, but she hurries off to comply.

House Orca has their healing work cut out for them. Meadow, Eloise, Cooper and Robbie Barr all suffered fleshwounds from miniature harpoons. Franklin thinks they’ll be okay, but they’ll need stitches.

‘Completely unnecessary,’ he complains, holding up one of the six-inch hooked projectiles. ‘If you’re going to shock somebody unconscious, why spear them, too?’

I don’t have an answer. The fact that Land Institute would develop a Leyden gun that causes unnecessary pain doesn’t surprise me, though.

The rest of our crew suffered only minor injuries. Franklin urges me to go to the sickbay so he can run some tests, make sure the poison is really out of my system. I assure him I’m fine.

He doesn’t believe me. Neither do Nelinha and Ester, but the last thing I want is to be confined in a small room belowdecks, attached to a bunch of monitors. I need open air and the sea. I need to watch Socrates swimming alongside our boat, happily chattering at me. After everything else that has happened today, my abduction has left me trembling with shock, terror, shame and rage. Sea-snake venom isn’t the only poison I’m trying to flush out of my system.

The Cephalopods run around finishing Dr Hewett’s alt-tech modifications. The pulse-dispersion unit is installed to block radar and sonar. Projection modules are fixed around the hull for dynamic camouflage. From the rail where I’m standing, I can’t see any difference in the ship’s appearance, but the Cephalopods look excited. They talk to one another breathlessly about specs and parameters like they’re discussing magic spells.

‘Can you believe this?’ Nelinha grins at me as she passes by. Getting zapped by Dru’s gun hasn’t slowed her down at all. If anything, it seems to have charged her batteries. Her smile fades, however, when I don’t respond. She rests a hand briefly on my shoulder. ‘You sure you’re okay, babe?’