The tall sandy haired man walked along the concourse, keeping a blue eye on everything and everyone around him. This is insane. Reaching the transport terminal, he purchased a ticket with a meticulously forged ID, one that he would discard as soon as he was on the transport. What are they thinking? After taking his seat on the transport, he removed a small chip from the back of his watch and placed it on the ID, wiping the details from it. Laurence Munro no longer exists. What a god damn waste. The transport launched from the Macronesian terminal and set out towards Broken Hope, another holding of Alexander Bourne. He sat back and waited for the accident he knew was coming.
Half an hour later, the transport shuddered violently, as one of the drive impellers gave out. Passengers around him started to scream in panic, but he knew exactly what was happening. Moving toward the rear of the craft, he got into one of the escape pods, strapped himself in and hit the release button. There was a jolt as the cylindrical pod detached itself from the transport and began propelling itself away. A glance through the viewport showed that several other passengers had followed his lead. Unstrapping himself, he got to work.
The pod was a variation on a similar model found in the UEO, and in almost all sea-going passenger vessels. Designed to keep one person alive long enough to be rescued should a parent vessel become disabled, they were made up of a locator beacon, a power supply, a heating system, a water filtration system to extract oxygen from seawater, and an oxygen tank that kicked in should the filtration system shut down. They were designed to be robust and foolproof. However, foolproof didn't mean sabotage proof. Producing a multitool from his pocket, the man proceeded to open the access panel used for maintaining the survival equipment. Firstly, he shut down the locator beacon and reconfigured it to transmit in bursts at a highly-guarded frequency. He then removed an electronic compass from his pocket, and established the direction in which he wanted to go. By throwing his body around the pod's cabin, he eventually managed to turn it to the correct heading. His last act was to start the pod's oxygen tank venting slowly through its external valve. If the pod's filtration system shut down, then he was wasting what little reserve oxygen he had. However, he needed to give the pod some motion in the direction he wanted to go, and this was the only way. Restarting the locator beacon on its adjusted frequency, he closed the access panel, strapped himself back in the chair, and tried to get some sleep. He had a feeling he would be needing it.
Captain Beth Dupres stood on the bridge of her ship, known to most manifests as the cargo freighter Arctic Dream. On more exclusive lists, it was known as the UEO Intelligence Courier Black Fox. Captain Dupres was not in her best state of mind. Less than four hours ago she had received orders to make a pickup of an agent from extremely close to Macronesian territorial waters. Having pushed her engines hard, she had managed to get to the rendezvous on time, though there had almost been some trouble with some Macronesian Border Patrol Cutters. Her crew were on edge at being so close to the Macronesians; this was really something for one of the UEO's warships to handle. However the communiqué from Admiral Volkov had been explicit; this pickup was of the utmost importance, and Black Fox was the closest ship that suited HQ's purposes. Given the disturbing and unbelievable rumours that had started going around the mercheant fleets a few days ago, Captain Dupres was curious as to what or rather who was so important as to delay the delivery of gathered intelligence back to UEO HQ.
She turned to her Executive Officer. "Found him yet, Phil?"
"Yes, ma'am. Bearing 020, range 3000 metres." Phil Mansell had been recently assigned to the Fox after her previous XO had had to return home due to family problems. Though he was young, Mansell had shown himself to be highly professional, never letting his emotions show when he was on duty.
"Very well. Helm, come left to 020, bring us to grappling range." Her helmsman responded in the affirmative, and slowly the large freighter moved in on the pod. When they had come to within 200 metres, the helmsman spoke again. "Captain, answering all stop, ready to commence grapple."
"XO, fire the grapples and bring the pod in to airlock 3. I'm going down to meet our guest."
"Aye, Captain." On hearing the acknowledgement of her order, Beth moved to the rear of the bridge and dropped down the ladder there. Walking forward three sections, she went down two more decks before reaching the airlock. Looking out of the viewport next to it, she saw the small cylidrical escape pod being drawn slowly toward the airlock. Hull hit hull with a jolt, and there was a hissing sound while a watertight seal was established. There was a pleasant tone signifying a good seal, and the airlock hatch eclipsed open. After a moment, the hatch on the pod opened slowly as well.
The tall sandy haired man standing in the hatchway drew himself to attention and saluted. "Lieutenant Commander Lucas Wolenczak reporting, Captain. Request permission to come aboard?"
Beth found her eyebrows raised in surprise. Since very few people actually knew what Lucas Wolenczak looked like, there was no way for her to immediately verify the man's story, but it would explain a lot. After a moment, Beth recovered from her shock and returned the salute. "Permission granted, Commander. I'm Captain Beth Dupres, Intel Courier Black Fox. It's a pleasure to meet you." The two shook hands, then Beth turned and started walking aft toward the crew quarters. "At least now I know why I was diverted. I had no idea we'd be having a celebrity aboard."
Lucas smiled at the compliment as he fell in step beside her. "Hardly a celebrity, ma'am. I'm curious though. Where did the order to pull me out come from?"
"It was coded as coming from the Secretary General."
"I see. Do you have any idea why I was pulled out?"
The older officer looked at him incredulously. "You don't know?"
He shook his head. "All I know is that for no apparent reason I was pulled out of a deep cover op I had been in for almost a year, which had taken several years before that to set up. What's going on?"
Beth shook her head in amazement. "I think deep cover ops are going to be the least of your worries for the near future, Commander. There have been rumours going around about it for a few days now. I'm surprised you haven't heard."
Lucas still had no idea what she was talking about. "Heard what?"
"The crew of seaQuest is back."
Lucas stopped dead in shock.