"ZIA, huh?" Sitting on a bullet ridden crate on a tiny boat in the middle of the Bay of Moray, Alyssa couldn't help but feel slightly sceptical.

"Do you want it in writing, Miss Vulpine? I'd give you my business card, but you know..." The ewe trailed off, eager to keep the back-and-forth from continuing. Her clothes were dry, but they smelled like seawater.

Alyssa had been at sea for so long she'd almost forgotten the name Alyssa Vulpine, her alias back on the coast. "Just the pass phrase will do. Why is six afraid of seven?"

"Is this necessary?"

"Yes."

"… Because seven is a prime number and prime numbers can be intimidating."

"Good guess."

Veronica Winters, or so she said she was called, drained the last of the big bottle of water Von Croy had given her. "Can I borrow some of your gas, now?"

"Knock yourself out."

ZIA Agent 'Winters' grabbed gas can and stepped over the two rails onto her own boat. Trusting Von Croy in the bridge, Alyssa followed her onto the other boat and followed her below deck. Once she was at the engine, Winters took the initiative of explaining herself.

"I was up north with a partner on a mission, checking out a tipoff about a deal happening on Mooro Island."

"You were up north, the mission went south, and now you're running even further south, is that about right?"

Winters lived up to her namesake by giving Alyssa a look that could freeze ox piss. "The mission was a trap. They made it all up to get Agent Savage into a position to capture him. As soon as they got theirs paws on him they took off, and I've been tracking them ever since."

"But somehow you found us. In the middle of the ocean."

Winters paused. "When I reported the situation to HQ, they told me about a similar incident occurring off the coast of Salamander. Two ZI6 agents were attacked, the perpetrators targeting an arctic vixen in particular. In this case they weren't successful."

"Other than retrieving the cargo they'd lost in the first place."

"Other than retrieving the cargo they'd lost in the first place. So, I chose to find you first, hoping to get some answers."

Winters had been speaking the truth so far, so Alyssa deemed it fair to return the favour. "You've heard of Charles Kroft, right? Trevelyan's successor? It was his men who attacked us."

Winters finished refuelling and planted the empty can on the floor between them. "Kroft being involved makes sense. He'd have the resources to pull off a fake deal."

On their way back to Von Croy's boat, a troubling thought struck Alyssa.

"You don't think the sunken ship was a trap, do you?"

"I doubt it. He wouldn't sink an expensive ship full of priceless cargo just to trap one fox."

Alyssa felt a sting of indignation but didn't act on it. She was looking for subtext where there wasn't any. She had to stop doing that. "So they found out I was looking for the Anesidora, saw an opportunity and took it?"
"It must have been pure coincidence that you happened to be in Bay of Moray. Otherwise they would have set up a fake deal for you as well." Winters paused just before stepping over the rails. "Then again, it could have been the other way around. But who they targeted first doesn't matter. What matters is why you were targeted."

That was a question neither of them could guess at, so they dropped the matter for the time being and re-joined Von Croy in the little bridge of their own boat.

The issue of locating the Napolitana had already been resolved by the time they'd crossed paths with Winters. The cruise ship was a tiny speck on the horizon, just close enough that they could keep an eye on it without being spotted themselves.

"Croft's men aren't stupid. They'll be watching the water at all times." Winters said. "I only made it because the sea got too rough to keep looking for my body. Not to mention that we'd be outgunned and outmanned."

"Outnumbered, outplanned." Von Croy was leaning against the panel next to the steering wheel, looking at a PDA. "What? I heard it from a musical once. Look, not to be the Donnie-downer of the group, but I don't see any way this could end well."

Winters stared through the window at the far-off ship. "I'm afraid he's right. We may have to consider holding back and calling in the cavalry."

"Bollocks to that." Alyssa said instantly. "The ship could take off any second." If that happened, Winters's partner, and the Swinton box, would be as good as lost.

"You got any better suggestions, Vupline?" Winters asked.

Alyssa looked downward. She couldn't think of any.

"Think about it." Winters went on. "We may have enough air to approach the ship from underwater, but it's still a two hundred feet ascent with no equipment. We can't sneak onto it without being seen."

Out of nowhere, Von Croy planted his PDA onto the weather-beaten table between them. On the screen was a zoogle image of a cruise ship diagram.

"Then we'll flood it."

Night fell soon after they finished setting up their plan. Under cover of darkness they drew the boat in closer, stopping one thousand feet from the Napolitina. As experienced swimmers, swimming that distance should take roughly ten minutes, fifteen at most. With only two BCDs, and Von Croy still sporting a bullet wound, the decision was made for him to stay behind. Von Croy had protested, reminding them that he was the most proficient at night diving. Winters in turn reminded him that she was the only one of the three with experience in handling explosives. She was going with Alyssa, end of story. They had to adjust the straps of Von Croy's BCD to fit the slightly smaller ewe, but once they did they were good to go.

If Alyssa didn't like scuba diving during the day, the experience was even more unnerving at night. For fifteen minutes they swam through cold pitch darkness, the beams of the torch illuminating a small patch of foggy, midnight blue water. The fact that it was Jack Savage, of all mammals, who was in danger, made her apprehension even worse.

The side of the hull came out of nowhere, a wall of steel panels infected with a rash of barnacles. Feeling her angst deflate, Alyssa tapped Winters's shoulder and pointed along the hull.

Step one: find the anchor chain.

To save on air they breached the surface, aiming their torches downward to avoid attracting attention. They treaded water along the ship toward the bow, the curved V shape of the hull ensuring that they wouldn't be seen by anyone above deck. Upon finding the chain dangling stiffly in the water, Alyssa put a paw on the chain and tested its friction. Climbable. Good.

Step two: choose a spot to plant the explosive.

They swam back along the hull, stopping at the stern all the way at the back of the boat. It was imperative that they were far enough away from the explosion that the pressure wave didn't kill them. Alyssa kept watch while Winters dived down. She looked up, but the hull's V shape kept her from seeing what the guards were doing either. Winters surfaced without the device, a remote detonator in her hoof. She pulled out her regulator.

"There's a lot of corrosion on the hull. Sophisticated as he pretends to be, you'd think Kroft would take better care of his ship."

They said no more of it. It wasn't their problem.

Step three: flood at least two compartments to serve as a distraction.

Von Croy's inspiration for the distraction had come from the Titanic movie of all things, specifically the part where they'd explained how many compartments the ship could take without foundering. Most ships nowadays were compartmentalised to lower their floodability rating. As a cruise ship, the Napolitina was one of them.

They returned to the anchor chain. With only her head and shoulders above sea level, Alyssa couldn't see Von Croy or his boat. She tried not to let that worry her. He was one of a handful she truly trusted, and the vessel was almost invisible in the dark. But the scar on her neck was proof that things can always go wrong.

Alyssa started to climb first. The pads on her gloves allowed her to grip the massive metal links that formed the anchor's chain. It was still tiring work, a hundred-foot climb to the hole from which the anchor's chain protruded with all their scuba gear weighing them down. Then there was a tight squeeze through the hole itself.

Once inside the compartment where the anchor's windlass was located, they were more than happy to discard the items they no longer needed. If all went to plan, they would be back here with Jack, who could fit through the hole even better than they could.

"Von Croy, we're in." Alyssa spoke through her headset.

"Are you going to pull the trigger yet?"

Alyssa quickly turned to Winters, who put a safety lid on the detonator and slipped it on her belt. "Not until we find Savage."

Armed with a silenced pistol apiece, they began their search.

If Alyssa wasn't in stealth mode, she'd have stated that she'd expected below decks to be dirtier than this. Either she'd been watching too many ghost ship films or she hadn't expected Croft to care about maintaining his home on the sea. Fluorescent lights cast an ambient grey light down a corridor of worn steel fixed with flat bolts, like an evil lair from the fifties. The air conditioning was on, chilling the skin not protected by her wetsuit. Alyssa was glad that she didn't have to worry about tetanus as they crept through the windowless passageways of the Napolitina.

Alyssa smelled cigarette smoke, the scent growing in potency as they continued down the corridor, They found the source four doors down, a lion with a rifle sneaking a smoke break in a storeroom. After using her body language to dissuade Winters from shooting him in the back of the head, Alyssa crept into the room on all fours and pinched his radio. By the time he realised it was missing, they would be on their way back to Von Croy's boat.

Alyssa didn't tell Winters why she had insisted on sparing the lion.

Taking cover in a small hold, they sat down and waited with the radio held between them.

It didn't take long for the radio to crackle. The speaker spoke in Spaininerish, but Alyssa knew enough to know what he was saying.

"Do you think Croft knows his lackeys are using this channel to solve crossword puzzles?"

Winters scoffed in response.

Fortunately, the irrelevant chatter didn't last long, and the conversation moved on to other things. Other than some whinging about spending more time keeping the upper decks looking fit for royalty, there was mention of an auction happening in a mansion over in the states, and a helicopter arriving to collect the artefacts destined for that auction. There was a request for an update on the prisoner. Where he was held, they didn't say. The mammal who asked about the prisoner sounded unusually agitated.

The next voice they heard sounded different. Less tinny. That was it was coming from the hallway outside.

Winters silenced the radio, and they both took cover behind the boxes in the storeroom.

"Check that room. I'll watch the door, make sure he doesn't slip by you."

The door opened with a mild scraping sound. Alyssa could see the top half of the door come into view, and then the tips of the horns of the bovine who entered the room. Alyssa readied her weapon. On the other side of the room, Winters did the same. She hoped there were indeed only two mammals, and not one or two extra that had stayed silent, waiting outside with machines guns. A small vixen would be reduced to pink mulch in one controlled burst.

The bovine moved further into the room. Alyssa could hear him checking everywhere, including behind the boxes. He was getting closer and closer to her box. Alyssa listened carefully, trying to use the volume and direction of his breathing to determine the location of his head. She would have to aim for his eyes, his throat or into his mouth. Those targets were her best shot of taking him down quickly.

Then she saw Winters take out her remote detonator and press the button.

Alyssa felt the slightest vibration beneath her feet. So did the bovine. He cursed in his mother tongue and spun to face his companion outside. "What the hell was that?"

"Sounds like we hit something!"

With no warning whatsoever, the lights went out. Everything went black.

"Ah shit! The engine room must have been hit!"

"Or the rabbit cut the power. Come on, he may still be there!"

The bovine ran out, slamming the door behind him.

So, Jack had escaped. Of course he had.

By then, Alyssa's natural night vision had adjusted to the sudden loss of light, and she spotted Winters again.

"Without a map of the ship, I don't know if that was me."

Alyssa gave a quick call to Von Croy, and told him to watch out for any rabbit stowaways that may have already escaped the ship.

"Will the ship sink?" Alyssa asked Winters once the call was finished.

"So long as that's the only compartment flooded, it shouldn't."

"Then let's call it a happy accident and get moving."

There was about thirty seconds of chatter on the radio as the situation was reported to Kroft, who they guessed was somewhere above deck, either on the bridge or somewhere close to the helipad. The voice that responded was Fenglish and excessively well-spoken even as it cursed and ordered someone to get down there and fix it.

"Is the merchandise safe? I swear if anything has happened to those artefacts, I will have you all scraping barnacles with your hides!" His subordinate assured him that the damage was nowhere neither either cargo bay. This seemed to calm down Kroft enough to

Winters fixed the radio to her belt. Together they left the room and began their search for the first cargo hold. If the layout of the Napolitina was anything like the Titanic, it should be located close by, within the bow. They sprinted through the long passageway, stopping at a stairwell in search of a map. They found it fixed to the wall beside the stairwell door and determined the location of every cargo hold in the ship. There were precisely two. One at the bow, and the other in the stern.

The radio called their attention with a spurt of static. The speaker had just spotted an approaching helicopter.

"As soon as it lands, I want that helicopter guarded by five armed mammals at least! I do not want that damned rabbit sneaking onboard!" Kroft's subordinate asked about bringing 'merchandise' up to the deck. "Do it! I do not want to keep my clients waiting!"

The subordinate responded that after they found the emergency glow sticks, it wouldn't take long to retrieve the Fenglish and 'sacred' artefacts from the hold in the stern and bring them up to the helipad.

The stern.

Alyssa held her breath. She knew where to go, now. But Jack was still somewhere on this ship. It was good that he'd escaped. At least he wasn't trussed up in some dank storeroom, being tortured or worse.

Then again, being tortured probably wouldn't have fazed the fuzzy little git.

Winters tapped on the engine room on the map. "Those punks could be right about Savage cutting the power. We should search there."

"Or he could be in the cargo hold."

"What?"

"Think about it. He's tiny, and the hold would be the perfect place to hide. I want to go check it out."

Winters looked at the map. "We can't stay undetected forever."

"I know, but there's something I need to find."

"What?"

"It's- it's classified."

"Is that really true?"

"Yes."

Winters curled her lip. "Fine. I'll head to the engine room. You find what you're looking for. I'll give you fifteen minutes."

"Fine."

Winters took off, disappearing around a corner.

Jack would understand. He was one of a pawful of mammals in the entire world who would know the importance of that box. But Alyssa still felt like a piece of shit.

She darted forward in the other direction. The distraction the detonation had created must have worked better than she could have imagined, for she encountered little trouble on her way to the stern. Save, of course, for the two guards who were smart enough to keep patrolling the long passageways the stretched all the way along the ship.

At the end of the passage she ascended a set of narrow stairs, finding herself on the primary deck. Whereas the lower decks were clean if rugged, the decks up here were absolutely spanking. The rails were polished, and the floorboards were so shiny she could see her reflection even in the gloom of a powerless ship. Remembering the corrosion Winters had spoken of, his forced posh accent, and the complains of his crew, Alyssa started to understand the nature of Trevelyan's usurper. For a mammal who depended on appearances to build his reputation, it was little wonder that Kroft was trying to expand into art dealing.

She could hear the thumping of a helicopter coming from the stern and knew that she had to hurry. If that box reached the helicopter before she reached the box, she would never find it again.

While passing a square swimming pool, she heard footsteps and took cover beneath a sunbed. If it weren't for the wooden side table beside the sunbed, she would have been spotted by the two guards that turned the corner and strode down the deck right past her. Their rifles rattled slightly as they walked.

When it was safe, she continued down the deck, almost reaching the stern before finding another staircase dropping back down below. She wondered how Jack and Winters were doing.

"Winters, how's the search going?" She asked through her headset.

"I'm almost to the engine room. There're a lot of guards here. If I don't find him soon, I'm pulling out."

"Okay. I'll meet you back at the anchor."

Upon reaching the cargo hold, she thought for a terrible moment that she was too late. Further down the compartment she could see several mammals picking up the boxes that had been retrieved from the Anesidora. Hiding behind other boxes, Alyssa began making her way down toward them, crawling so low that her stomach was sliding along the floor.

There were four mammals in this hold. She'd killed every last one of them if she had to.

Then the floor tilted. The Napolitona screamed out its agony. Alyssa curled up and crossed her arms over her head as boxes fell all around her. One hit her in the square of her back, leaving a bruise that she would feel in the morning. She was lucky it was a small box. When the boxes stopped moving, Alyssa regained her bearings and realised that her feet were very slightly higher than before. The ship groaned all around her, and she realised what must have happened.

The corrosion at the bottom of the hull. It had weakened the metal to the point that when Winters detonated the device, it had caused far more damage than they had intended. The damage had spread, enabling the seawater to enter enough compartments to overcome the ship's ability to stay afloat. They maybe had hours, minutes even, before the Napolitina foundered.

"Oh, bugger. What did I do now?"

There were moans coming from behind the collapsed boxes. The guards had had the misfortune of being in the part of the hold where the boxes had been the most clustered. Alyssa stayed low as she came closer, finally seeing them lying stunned on the floor amongst the boxes. One was been pinned beneath a box as big as a wardrobe. Kroft's voice screaming from their radios, demanding answers as to what was happening.

She looked past the guards. Then she saw it. The black box bearing the Swinton Crest. She ran to it, passing right between the guards in her haste, and to her great relief found that it had been broken open in the fall.

Inside was a rectangular sheet of thick paper, like parchment or papyrus. It looked ancient, perhaps hundreds of years old. The symbols looked like nothing she had ever seen, but she guessed they were some sort of hieroglyphs.

Honey was just the mammal to go to with this. It was doubtful that she knew what this meant, but she may find someone who could.

The boat suddenly shook. The black box slid into her knees. She felt the weight and realised what a twit she was. If she attempted to carry this through the sinking ship, across the water and back to Von Croy's boat, she may as well be carrying an iron ball and chain. Taking the paper on its own, into the sea, was even less of an option.

She got an idea. It wasn't a crazy idea, but she wasn't going to enjoy implementing it.

After the disastrous consequences of losing Cheryl, the Red Queen, without a trace, ZI6 had taken up a new policy of equipping each field agent with a tiny tracker that would not trigger metal detectors but could be located anywhere on the planet. Alyssa had one on her person right now.

The armed mammals behind her could recover any second, so she got out her diving knife and cut open the sleeve of her wetsuit all the way up to the shoulder. She hesitated over the part of her skin where the tracker had been injected. This was going to hurt, and she didn't want to even think about it being submerged in saltwater-

You got any better suggestions?!

Alyssa clenched her teeth and dug in.

Grimacing at the smell of her own blood staining her fur, Alyssa tucked the tracker between the foam and the box case, pushing it deep down out of sight, and closed the box.

She hid behind a box that had slid down against the wall and watched as the guards sluggishly got up. By the time they realised what had happened to them, she was long gone.

Alyssa ran down the passageway, turned a corner and stopped to take a breather. She tapped her headset.

"Winters, I found what I was looking for, but we have a problem."

"You felt it, too? I don't know what happened, but the engine room just exploded!"

So that's what that jolt was. "We're sinking, aren't we?"

"Good news is, I found my partner. He was behind the lights going out just as I thought."

Alyssa grinned. She wondered what Jack thought of their bungled detonation. She could picture him giving an exasperated sigh on hearing Winter's explanation of what had happened. Maybe even giving a disapproving shake of his handsome striped head.

"We're still meeting at the anchor chain, right?"

"If we can."

Alyssa continued up the passageway, retracing her footsteps toward the stairs. The ship was sinking so slowly she couldn't even feel the floor tilting further, but with more water filling the stern she knew it would soon pick up the pace. She tried not to worry about Kroft and his men. She had seen an entire fleet of lifeboats while sneaking along the primary deck. Unless they gave her a reason to shoot them, they should all get off this ship alive.

She reached the staircase and returned to the primary deck. Two of the lifeboats were gone already. She listened for the helicopter and confirmed that it was still on the stern.

Forget the helicopter. Whether the box made it to the helicopter or went down with the ship, she could get it back.

She didn't even think about jumping overboard. Mammals kill themselves from that height. Instead she continued along the deck, intent on getting back to the anchor chain.

Back at the pool, she heard a slight change in the helicopter's rhythm. She saw it rise up and to the right, away from the ship. It was a black bodied Bull 104 that quickly melded with the night sky and vanished, taking Kroft and the Swinton box with it.

The ship shook and groaned, and Alyssa felt the floor list beneath her feet. It was time to go.

And then, out of nowhere, she heard gunfire. Pain lashed her matching, matching the pain of the cut in the other. The bullet that grazed her punched a hole in an overturned sunbed. A buffalo with a bloody, bandaged hoof was charging in from the starboard side. A large revolver was in his hooves, firing at his small target. Alyssa fired back, her shots going wide as she retreated, taking cover around a corner. She glanced at her new injury. Great another scar for the collection. Hopefully her fur would cover up this one. She heard the heavy footfalls of the buffalo as he approached.

"You're Skyefall, aren't you?" He yelled harshly. A bin rolled past Alyssa as the ship tilted further. "Good ol' Theo promised a six-figure sum if we brought you in alive! Five figures will have to do!"

"Screw that to infinity." Alyssa hissed. She had to grasp a window frame with one paw so she wouldn't slide out of cover. Water was beginning to pour out of the pool. The ship's bow was rising, lifting from the water as the water pulled the stern down.

The buffalo rushed around the corner, bullet aimed for her skull. Alyssa dropped to the floor, the bullets barely missing her, as she fired at his leg. The buffalo crumpled to the floor. There was nothing he could do but slide down. His massive body hit Alyssa's on the way down, knocking her off course.

She ran out of floor. She fell through the air for an instant. Then she hit freezing water.

The water tasted like chlorine, and she knew she had fallen into the listing pool. She tried to find the surface, but the water roiled as the pool continued to tilt at a faster rate. Her lungs ached. Her blood mixed with the chlorine. She didn't know which way was up.

All at once the water moved in one direction, pulling her out of the pool. She fell through the waterfall and hit a now horizontal wall. Rolling out of the deluge, Alyssa scrambled to her feet, slipping once on the slippery surface. She uttered the lord's name in vain. During her brief stint in the pool, the ship had raised itself until it was vertical, the bow reaching out to the sky. Lifeboats surrounded it, the passengers ignoring Von Croy's boat as they paddled to get as far away from the stricken Napolitina as possible. Alyssa looked straight down. At the moment she was more than a hundred feet up. The ship moaned as it sank deeper, the water churning and bubbling beneath it.

Alyssa rode the ship down to ninety feet.

Eighty feet.

She had to avoid the churning water at all costs.

Seventy feet.

Sixty feet.

Please, God, let Jack and Winters have made it.

Fifty feet.

Alyssa dived.

She hit the water hard, escaping injury only thanks to her technique. Her wounds stung from the salt. She kicked upward, feeling the cold in her arm where she had cut the wetsuit open.

When she surfaced, she saw Von Croy driving the boat toward her position. Panting, she swam toward it. She could hear the sea bubbling violently as the Napolitina continued to sink, but she didn't look back. Von Croy did a one-eighty and stopped, letting her swim to the stern.

When she got there, Jack Savage was waiting for her. Sopping wet, some cuts and bruises on his face, but smirking all the same.

He held out a paw. Alyssa smiled back at him and took it. Winters stood behind him, holding a hoof to her bleeding thigh. Her face was emotionless, but Alyssa was sure she was relieved as well.

When she was out of the water, she realised that the churning had stopped. She looked back. The Napolitina was gone, slipped beneath the surface to complete its descent to the bottom of the Bay of Biscay.

Alyssa squeezed the water out of her ears and followed Jack and Winters into the bridge.