Chapter Seven: Dark Sea One

Ackbar had located another group of droid-bots with the sonar equipment. He targeted them immediately and fired until he had destroyed every last one of them. He was becoming quite adept at it, and he could tell that Basskin was pleased with his performance. If these droids were tasked with guarding the alien Base, then missing a single one could spell disaster for the mission.

"Bring us into our favorite nesting spot, Zarrob," Basskin ordered the Quarren navigator, "Easy as she does it...Captain Ackbar, you can relax your trigger-happy fingers for a couple of minutes while we initiate the docking procedures. Don't worry; we'll be camouflaged inside this little nook of ours. Besides, I think you may have been a bit too successful in wiping out the droid-bots. If too many of our little friends are destroyed, the Base will know that something's up."

"Yes, Admiral," Ackbar acknowledged, "I think I've managed to wipe friendship with these things off the agenda. It wasn't easy, though—it's pitch black down here."

He did as he was told and took his hands away from the panel while the Admiral directed the other crew members. He began to think about his conversation with Malika the other day at his home, about some members of the "criminal underclass" having been rumored to have come from "the Deepest Depths". He had really just been looking for something to say by babbling on about the myth, but he now wondered if it were true.

There were thieves that The Guard had been tasked with investigating who would seem to disappear into thin air, along with the loads of metal ore that they had stolen from the Quarren. Since many of these thugs were Mon Calamari, he could see why the Quarren might think that the Mon Cals were against them. It angered him that a few of his people could cause so much distrust among their Quarren brethren, but he knew also that some of the Quarren criminals were doing the same thing among his own people. Again, it all seemed to be part of a larger "divide and conquer" strategy rather than simple piracy. If he caught any of them, he felt as though he would like to treat the disgraceful ruffians to the same fate as the droid-bots. He also knew that he would need to restrain his baser impulses if they were to succeed in this mission; but how they were to do that exactly, he had no idea. He needed more information from Basskin.

"Admiral," he ventured, once the "docking procedures" had been completed, "Where exactly are we? Is this place at the very bottom of the ocean?"

"No, Captain, it's a natural rock shelf that has formed over the millennia. This ocean of ours is almost endlessly deep, and we have gone as far as we can go without becoming irretrievably lost in the darkness. This place was most convenient for the deep-sea builders to create their vile base."

"Sir," he inquired, "Have you heard about a criminal underclass which originates from the ocean depths? I was telling my son's young girlfriend about the rumors, and I now wonder if they could be true. Could a criminal gang be responsible for building this base...and maybe bringing in salvaged droids to run it for them while they do their dirty work up above?"

"I very much doubt it," Basskin replied, "although there are many unfortunate poor people among both the Mon Cals and the Quarren who are being used to commit certain crimes. I have seen no evidence, however, that these operatives have either the power or the technology to create such a technologically advanced structure. The droids that run it are definitely not salvaged, and from what we have seen are different from the Human-created variety. Personally, I've never cared much for droids, but I like these ones even less. Kallesto came up with the theory that the base is run by them but controlled remotely by some off-world group that we've never heard of before."

The Quarren navigator that Basskin had referred to as "Zarrob" had been listening intently to their conversation, he noticed. The being's pointed head-crest was taut and his black eyes were trained on them. Having completed his maneuvering duties, he walked over to Ackbar.

"I know your neighbors," he said to him softly, his beige chin-tentacles squirming slightly, "Salamar and Siska Ronnan, and their daughter Malika. I have heard that your son wishes to marry the girl."

He glanced at Bracken, but his son was busily concentrated on his console. The Admiral had left them for the moment in order to consult with Dr. Kallesto. Ackbar bobbed his head slightly, encouraging Zarrob to continue.

"I installed them in the house beside yours to protect them," he explained, "Your wife Yil may have mentioned me. I posed as a wealthy merchant looking to rent property to Mon Cals, but I am truly an agent for the Quarren Private Investigation Team. I have had many reports of both Mon Cal and Quarren people disappearing, with their families desperate to find them. My name is Tarnus Zarrob."

Ackbar remembered Yil mentioning Zarrob to him as the Quarren landlord from whom the Ronnan family was renting their home. He had wondered how a family of seaweed vendors, no matter how hard they worked, could possibly afford to rent a home in such a posh area of town. He and Yil were only living there themselves courtesy of the Shod family's great wealth. Yil's father owned a large global ship-building business which had been passed down to him from his parents.

"From what were you protecting our neighbors, Master Zarrob?" he queried.

"Salamar's brother, the aqua-nomad Kabba Ronnan, had salvaged a rather strange-looking 'fishing' vessel, and we were investigating him. We believe he was not involved in anything but simply found the craft—floating rather conveniently in the port just outside his make-shift home in Foamwater City. We have found other, similar craft with no identification numbers floating around near the slum areas of both our cities and yours. The poor people snatch them up immediately. I knew something about Basskin's work, and I consulted him about these mysterious craft. He immediately hired me to work aboard his bathysphere on this mission of his, and I accepted the job. I delegated the task of watching Kabba to my assistant, and I placed Salamar's family in the home of my underwater polo team-mate, who happens to be the Chief of the local police in Coral Depths City."

"Chief Liogga," Ackbar confirmed, "He was our neighbor before he was transferred to the Coral Bay area for an investigation."

"Exactly," Zarrob continued, "I had tipped him off about these mysterious vessels, because he had been asking me what I knew about certain thefts involving unidentified crafts. Now, however, with the attacks, we have had to put the investigation on hold. I believe the crafts all come from this base, Dark Sea One."

Ackbar stared at the Quarren before bowing his head in gratitude to him for sharing this information. It was worrisome that the family of the girl that Bracken intended to marry might be involved in the activities of this so-called "criminal underclass" which was ostensibly being manipulated by a bunch of remotely-controlled droids. He and Zarrob were given no more time to discuss the issue, as Basskin had returned with Dr. Kallesto and the Quarren Ambassador Quid'aihl Mirrtra.

"All right, people, listen up!" Basskin barked, "We don't have much time. This is our third trip down here, and now that the attacks on our cities have begun, it will likely be the last opportunity we have to infiltrate the base and shut it down."

"How on Dac will we possibly do that, Admiral?" Mirrtra asked irritably, "We're practically blind down here and the pressure outside the craft will kill us if we try to swim over to the base. And what precisely are we going to do to shut it down? Will these robots simply let us dance in and flick the 'off' switch? I do hope you naval nit-wits have a plan of some kind."

"We're going over in one of our shuttles, Ambassador," Kallesto answered the diplomat, "and I'll be leading the team while Admiral Basskin is on stand-by aboard the bathysphere. Our plan is to throw a 'monkey wrench' into the system. I've been studying the surreptitious scans we've made of the inside of that thing, and I believe we've pinpointed where the main computer is located. The Admiral and I believe that the computer is the control mechanism which is central to all the activity that's been going on down here. The commands to the droids are all coming from there—it's deep within the center of the base."

Ackbar did not know what a 'monkey wrench' was, but he assumed it was a Human reference to a glitch or virus of some kind that would throw the computer's processes into chaos. He did not want to be pessimistic, but he shared the Ambassador's concern that the actual "plan of action" did not seem particularly well-orchestrated. He also knew, however, that Basskin and Kallesto had learned a great deal in their research during their last two trips to 'Dark Sea One' and so he supposed that they would all need to put their faith in the oddly-matched pair.

"Enough chatter, Ambassador!" Basskin commanded, "We need to get moving, because we can't stay down here indefinitely. In addition, we only have a small margin of time to work within before our infiltration is detected. Captain Ackbar, you will accompany Kallesto to the base along with the Quarren agent Zarrob and his team. Mirrtra, Bracken, and the others will stay here with me and aid you as best we can from our location, using our scans to guide you. We will keep communication to a minimum, and only in coded messages when you are in need of them to find the main control room. Are there any questions?"

"Just one, Admiral," Zarrob announced, "if we find some of our missing people down here, are we permitted to rescue them?"

"Only if it can be done without jeopardizing the mission," Basskin replied, "Remember, people, your main task is to shut down the controls...if some civilians need to be sacrificed in the process, then that is the price that we will pay."