It was going to take about two days of travel to reach their destination, plus another two days for stopovers where the the internal pressure would need to be increased before diving deeper. That meant four days, roughly, where the crew was constantly busy, and the passengers had nothing to do but plan and wait. The actual diving part wouldn't take long, but the necessary stopovers took a lot of time because of checks and pressurization. It wasn't so much the submarine that needed that time, but the people needed to adjust to the air pressure. It would take at least as long on the way back up.

Once the plan was set, it was just a matter of sorting out what exactly they were going to be doing on those missions. Disguises were relatively easy in a culture of religious fanaticism, since there were apparently spare robes stored near the sacred bath, and a side door that led to some unused back alleys helped the team heading for the generator get on their way without being seen. Ironwood was surprisingly severe in his stance that he would not accept any deaths among the locals because of actions taken in the course of the mission. He stopped just short of saying that it would be better for them to die instead. He hadn't said that, since it would defeat the entire purpose of the mission if they all died.

And so that's all that was on Yang's mind as she tossed a football back and forth in the conference room with Joanna. They both had misgivings about the mission as a whole, but they understood that the society they were going to was twisted and awful. A city whose populace was segregated by gender just seemed so wrong to her. But then she found out that she wouldn't be allowed to leave the few rooms for the passengers without an escort because she was a woman. Submarines were apparently segregated societies too. Not that she especially wanted to see the rest of the submarine, since the conference room was the biggest open space in the whole ship, but having limited access to everything else made her want to see it.

Weiss had taken full advantage of the guided tours, though. She was almost constantly out and about investigating the many rooms and systems of the Nautilus, and always came back with a mouth full of things to tell her friends about. Yang was pretty sure it was safe to say nobody else cared nearly as much about the submarine itself, but at least a few of the others tried to show interest. It was all too big and complex for Yang, whose engineering interests didn't get any bigger than a mid-sized car. There was more engineering in one small compartment of the Nautilus than there was in any vehicle Yang had taken apart with her father, and most of it had a far greater chance of killing her if something went wrong.

Very quickly, anyone who didn't care to talk about submarines just went away whenever Weiss showed up, which Yang thought was kind of funny to see. Ruby and Blake were good listeners, but it seemed a bit different this time, like they were actually trying their best to absorb the information. Marrow and Elm engaged in the conversation from time to time, surprising everyone with their knowledge on the subject, and Yang realized that was exactly why Ruby and Blake were paying attention. Ace Ops were all capable in battle, but they were also wellsprings of information. They had to know a lot about a lot of things, and so Ruby and Blake had to as well.

Amaranth was also there, but Yang had yet to mentally change the girl's designation from background character to side character. It was sometimes a struggle to do that when she didn't know how long a person would be around. For example, Yang remembered Ilia was a person, but she hadn't retained anything about that girl's relationship with Blake or even her last name. She was sure Ilia was a Faunus, but didn't remember seeing any ears or a tail, unless she was remembering her hair wrong. At least it was better than before, when she only remembered people she didn't know as black silhouettes. Robyn was significant enough, and Yang had been spending time with Joanna already, that the two of them were being committed to long term memory, but she did literally just meet Fiona and May. She'd just met all of them, really, but that was also all that she'd done with Fiona and May. Pelka as well, though being a Dragon Faunus from the distant past made her more memorable. She knew they were people, but it took time and effort to turn a person from just some random person to an actual acquaintance, and she was handling it one at a time. Joanna was cool. She found a football on a submarine. That had to count for something.

Robyn stepped into the room behind Yang, coming out of the sleeping quarters they had access to, just as Joanna threw the football back to Yang. Robyn reached in and caught it. "Glad to see you two are settling in." She threw the ball back to Joanna and headed for the opposite door.. "I'm gonna go see how deep we are."

"Weiss just left again." Yang said. "Told us that we had reached three thousand feet, and in about three hours we'll start our first stopover. There's apparently something that we get to see that she is absolutely over the moon about. A deep sea platform, whatever that means."

"It's a platform. In the deep sea. I thought that was obvious." Joanna cut in, explaining what seemed to her like it should have made perfect sense.

"Well, I'm going to see Ironwood and Nemo about it." Robyn knocked on the sealed door, which shortly opened to reveal Marrow waiting on the other side. Robyn gave him a curt nod. "I want to speak to General Ironwood and Captain Nemo."

"Oh, okay, come on. They're on the bridge." She stepped out of the conference room, and Marrow sealed the door behind them again. "I'll get you there, and I guess leave you with the general. You'll be fine without me, right?"

"I will."

The headed off to the bridge, and Robyn noticed that Marrow looked just a bit dejected. She knew she was rather rough around the edges when dealing with Ironwood's specialists, and none of them had given her any good reason to like them, but in light of recent events, the least of which was Ironwood's newfound trust in her, she realized she wasn't exactly being fair to them. At least to Marrow. He seemed to be a genuinely good-minded person who wanted to help others, and he just thought serving with the Ace Ops was the best way to do that. She might disagree, but maybe it was true for him personally. Ironwood's plans, and many of his soldiers, rubbed her the wrong way, but she had to agree that these Relics and the reestablishment of global communications were very high priorities. She decided to try and be a little nicer to Marrow. Seeing his tail droop like that was killing her.

"Marrow... Amin? Was it?" He perked up when she said his name. "Listen, don't get me wrong, I understand you're trying to help people in your own way and we've had some differences in opinion regarding that... way. But I don't question your intention, okay?"

He glanced over his shoulder at her, looking away again almost immediately. "Uh... yeah. Thanks." There was a moment of awkward silence, but then he stopped walking and spoke again. "I know General Ironwood's moves in the past year or so haven't been very popular, even compared to usual, but his first concern is the safety of Atlas. Mantle is generally included in that, but there are things on Atlas that he feels, when it comes down to it, Mantle can be sacrificed to protect. That isn't to say he wants it to come to that, and he'll fight tooth and nail to keep it from coming to that, but if Atlas falls, a lot more than just Mantle goes with it."

She figured it was something like that. It made sense, and the idea of agents of Salem infiltrating Mantle made it all the more understandable why he had instated martial law. She still didn't like it, and of course she didn't have to like it to live with it, but the more she thought about it the more she realized it was a valid method to combat a valid concern. The apprehension of Neopolitan had shown her, however, that Ironwood might have a blind spot. The enemy could get into Atlas just as easily. But then, if they were in Atlas, they were definitely in Mantle, and that was something she couldn't deny.

Shaking her head in frustration, Robyn agreed in spite of herself. "I do have to properly thank him for letting me in on all of this. It's... opened my eyes. And as much as I hate to admit it, it's put some things in perspective. I get that Atlas comes first for him, and likewise Mantle comes first for me. We shouldn't be at odds because of this, we should both be the guardians of our respective cities. But he also has another role, working to protect all of Remnant, which means he has an obligation to Mantle as well. I don't know the answer to his problems. I wish I did, and I wish I could really help him, but for now... I'll help Mantle by helping Ironwood save Remnant."

Marrow shrugged. "I don't think he expects you to put Atlas before Mantle, but he does expect everyone to put all of Remnant before Mantle. Just in his mind, Atlas is the thing stopping Salem from destroying all of Remnant. Of course, I'd rather not have to make the choice. Also, you're running in the election, right? You can count on my vote, just saying." He gave her finger guns.

"Uh... right, the election..." Going by their mission schedule, election night would be less than a week after their return. It never occurred to her that one of the Ace Ops would put a vote in for her, though. "You'd really vote for me?"

"Over Jacques Schnee? All of us would." He stopped and corrected himself. "Okay, I've been reading some psyche profiles, including political stances, Amaranth thinks leaders should be appointed by a representative senate rather than a small council, so she won't vote anyone for the council. And Raven comes from a culture of survival of the fittest, where the strongest leads, but she's not even a registered voter, so you don't have to worry about her."

That was true. Her only real opponent in the running was Jacques Schnee. Nobody really liked him. People were only going to be voting for him because they were scared of losing their jobs, or losing access to utilities and necessities. His campaign strategy was basically just city-wide blackmail, and it was working on a lot of people. They were terrified, and she was losing control of popular opinion. Fear was keeping them from making the right decision. Somehow it had all twisted around, and the little people, the victims, the downtrodden, they were huddling frightened in the dark, voting for Jacques in the hopes he wouldn't turn off their heaters. And the big people, the warriors, the soldiers, the ones who had all the power and weren't afraid of losing everything, they were the ones who would vote for her. Of course, she knew plenty of people who promised to vote for her regardless of what Jacques Schnee did, but on the other hand she knew several of them had already told her they couldn't continue to support her campaign because of the repercussions. So in the end, who would be on her side? Ironwood and his people? Anyone else? She didn't like the outlook of that.

"I guess... I just wish more people could see the big picture. Then we wouldn't have to worry about the possibility of Jacques Schnee on the council."

"If everyone saw the big picture, Jacques Schnee wouldn't be a problem because he would know better." Marrow shrugged. "Or the average person might decide that Salem is right. We'll find out once Amity is up."

"Yeah... I still need to explain to my voters why I've started working with Ironwood. I think most of them will understand, especially after Amity is up and broadcasting, but a lot of them support me to begin with because I was standing up to the general. Working with him... might just be enough to change the tide against me."

"Politics is a fickle thing, I guess. Try not to be a fickle politician, and you'll be alright." Marrow nodded down the corridor. "Come on. Let's go." Marrow led her the rest of the way to the bridge and stopped at the entrance. She stepped in, and Marrow returned to the conference room.

Taking in the narrow and cramped command center of the submarine, Robyn didn't have to look hard to find General Ironwood. She headed straight to him, stopping just off his right. "General. I wanted to ask about this stopover. I'm told it's a deep sea platform. What does that mean? Just a landing pad for submarines?"

Ironwood looked over his shoulder. "The deep sea platform? Well, sufficed to say, it's like an outpost, but instead of out in the wilderness it's on the edge of a continental shelf. They have the resources to prepare us for a deeper dive."

"They? There's people down here?" That shocked her, but considering the capabilities of the Nautilus, it didn't shock her that much.

Just ahead of Ironwood, leaning over a sonar station, Weiss was taking in a lesson from the sailor manning it. She looked up and offered Robyn an answer. "He just finished telling me. There's seven people on the platform. They've been down there for almost two months. It's really cool that we're able to do stuff like this now. It's like something out of a movie."

"The really advanced sci-fi movies are only a couple decades ahead of reality." Captain Nemo said, giving Robyn a wink that she wasn't sure if she appreciated. "In our lifetime, we could be building cities on the ocean floor. Your lifetime, at least."

Robyn wasn't much for sci-fi movies, or movies in general. She was much more of a practical person who preferred to spend her time in reality. "I haven't seen any movies with underwater cities. Usually it's just stuff about space, and they never have any believable way of getting there anyway."

"Well, that's-" Ironwood started responding to that, but was interrupted by Weiss.

"General. Captain. Come take a look at this." She waved them over, and they both joined her in looking over the sonar officer's shoulder. She pointed to something on the screen. "What is that?"

Robyn positioned herself so she could get a good look at the screen as well, but she couldn't make heads or tails of the image. "Isn't the platform still hours away?"

"It is." Nemo confirmed. "No, whatever that is, it's moving."

"What the hell dives three thousand feet?" Robyn was starting to get worried. "Grimm?"

Nemo nodded. "Could be. Could be a whale. It's going to be more than twenty miles off our port when we pass it, assuming it keeps its distance."

The officer at the station gave the captain a worried look. "Sir? The size?"

"...It could be a very big whale."