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‘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. ‘TheNautilus? The crew?’

I give them the brief version: theAronnaxhas been destroyed, theNautilusis 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 workedover 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 theVaruna,’ 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 innoshape 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 toNautilus, do you read?’

The line hisses. ‘Nautilushere,’ Halimah says. ‘Are you okay?’

‘More or less. Hostiles have theVaruna. 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.