Chapter Eighteen: Caught on Tape

"Jeez, I've always thought the ocean was kinda eerie," said Gina. "I mean, it can be pretty and all, but other times it feels like something out of a horror movie." Given that their unmanned submarine was picking up nothing aside from sand and darkness, with only the faintest outlines of dark shapes in the distance, eerie was putting it mildly.

She and Dr. Xu watched the screen as she directed the sub across the seafloor. "At least we aren't down there ourselves," said the doctor. "Having to deal with all the sharks and squids and whatnot."

"I think I'm more worried about what we don't know about," Gina said. "Like I said, Echo's gotta have something protecting this satellite. The best we can do is find it and see what's what."

"That is, assuming he really is using the satellite to hack our systems," Xu pointed out. "That's still just a hypothesis. We don't actually know for sure yet."

Gina gave her an exasperated look. "Oh, really? Now you're having doubts? Where were those before we flew all the way out here?"

She shrugged. "I'm just saying. It's entirely possible that's the case, likely even. But until we can see the thing with our own two eyes, we can't afford to make any assumptions. Except, of course, that his co-opted satellite is guarded."

"Well, that's just a given." The sub had been going for a while now, but there was still no sign of any debris. Hopefully, this hadn't just been a wild goose chase. It was entirely possible that the satellite had been removed from this spot, or been buried by sediment over time.

Among the things they saw, or rather, didn't see, was any kind of sealife. Even if a satellite had crashed here from orbit years ago, this spot should have been teeming, or at the very least shown some sign of life. But there was just nothing. Not even any small fish or arthropods flitting in and out of sight.

Suddenly, Dr. Xu placed a hand on the controller. "Hang on…go back a bit, I thought I saw something." Gina did so, scanning the bit of seafloor they had just passed. However, there was nothing there but more sand. "Huh. I was sure there was something…"

"What did it look like?" Gina asked.

"I-I'm not sure," said Xu. "I thought it was a bit of metal at first, it seemed to glint. But it might have just been a fish. One with reflective scales or something." She looked down into the waves off the boat. "Which would've made it the only fish we saw down there. Something about this feels…off."

Gina had to agree. "This has felt 'off' since we first dropped this thing in the water," she said. "Remember how I said that the ocean was eerie? This spot is eerie in a whole different way. Let's just find this thing so we can get a plan together." She raised the sub slightly higher in the water to get a better look at their surroundings.

Just as she was about to resume her original course, Xu suddenly cried out. "There it is again!" she shouted, pointing to the screen. This time, Gina had seen it too: the slightest flicker of something shiny darting out of camera range just before they could make sense of it. "Didn't look much like a fish to me."

"Maybe some sorta drone?" Gina suggested. "Whatever it is, it's definitely watching us. Let's hurry up and find this thing before it figures out we're here."

Slowly, but not quite as slowly as before, the sub continued to putter through the sea, as both of them kept an eye out for whatever that shape had been. Unfortunately, the sub's camera only faced forward, so they couldn't watch behind them and see where they were going at the same time. Every so often, Gina did a one-eighty to make sure they weren't being followed, but there was no sign of whatever was following them. Most likely, it was a good deal more agile than their outdated equipment.

"Would this be an acceptable time to start believing in mermaids?" asked an uneasy Xu.

"Compared to all the stuff we've seen?" asked Gina. "I'm surprised you don't already."

A few miles later, the sub then came to a dropoff, a cliff's edge leading out to open water. "That's odd," said Xu. "I looked over all sorts of topographic scans of this area, and there shouldn't be a trench here."

That was all Gina needed to hear. "In that case…" She had the sub dive down into the chasm, speeding along the wall until it reached the new bottom. "Nothing good's ever at the bottom of a trench. I have a feeling a certain someone's been hiding down here. Shall we?"

Onwards the submarine drifted, along the floor of this apparently hidden trench. Down there was not much different than up top, with very little to be seen aside from sand and shadows. However, as was to be expected, the shadows were a good deal more intense down here where fewer sunlight could reach. "This place doesn't look natural," Xu noted. "It's like something just gouged out a section of the seafloor."

"Isn't that what all trenches are like?" asked Gina.

"You know what I mean. In my expert opinion, we're closer than ever to finding our satellite." Given the distance between the walls of the subterranean chasm, they appeared to be reaching its other end. And if the satellite was anywhere, it was there.

Yet again, something darted by the camera. Just at the top of the screen, it was a pure white shape, moving fast enough that they only got a slight glimpse of it. But a slight glimpse was all they needed to confirm that this was what had been stalking them. "That…that wasn't a fish, was it?" Gina said.

"Not a mermaid, either," Xu replied. Although it had gone by in an instant, it had been just visible enough for them to tell it had something of a humanoid build. Despite how out of place that was for the bottom of the ocean, Gina had a sneaking suspicion what it was. Which only confirmed this was where they were supposed to be.

In the dim light provided by the craft, a dark shape appeared in the distance. At first, it appeared to be a rock, jutting up out of the seafloor. Wordlessly, Gina moved the sub closer, both her and Xu holding their breaths. Once they were close enough that the light could shine on the object, a metallic glint showed that this was not a regular rock formation. This was the missing satellite.

And not only was it the missing satellite, but it seemed to be active. Cords drawing energy from it, or providing energy to it, ran from within, and its dish had been modified to point skyward. More of these white figures darted around in the distance, likely standing guard. "There it is," breathed Dr. Xu. "I can't believe we–"

Both women jumped as the sub was suddenly struck by an unseen force, spinning around before it landed in the sand. No sooner had it come to a stop than one of the figures stared it down, extending an arm towards it. There was a flash of light, and the camera feed was cut off.

All of that had happened in under a second. Stunned by what they had witnessed, Gina and Xu both took a moment to process what they had just seen. "Was that…?"

"I think so," Xu replied. "Can you rewind it a bit?"

Gina did so, getting a good look at what had destroyed their sub. As she had suspected: it was a Rhinestone. It looked exactly like the ones BAINE had fought before, able to move around underwater just as adeptly as on land. "Welp, that settles it. Echo has taken control of this satellite."

"And not only that, but he knows we're looking for him," Xu said worriedly. She gazed out into the ocean, as though expecting a horde of Rhinestones to emerge then and there. "I think we should get back to shore."

"Good idea," Gina replied. "We need to get word to the Director as soon as possible–and hopefully come up with a plan to handle this."

Xu hurriedly packed up their equipment, heading inside. "Hopefully the other two are making some discoveries of their own…

January 9, 2018. BAINE Headquarters.

Once more, Rhodes found himself staring at the algorithm Valdain had designed. This very network had allowed Echo to infiltrate their systems, which was how he had remained one stop ahead of them all this time. Like a case of writer's block, he found himself unable to move his fingers, unsure of how best to tackle the problem in front of him. "What is wrong?" asked Valdain, seated at his side. "I thought you said you knew what to do."

"I mean, I know broadly what to do," Rhodes replied, staring at the screen. "We'll need to locate which satellites, if any, Echo has managed to infiltrate. But how do we go about doing that when we don't know how he did it, without alerting him at that? You designed this algorithm, didn't you? Isn't there something you can do?"

Valdain took Rhodes' spot before the console. "I designed the algorithm to detect warp signatures, not spy on ourselves! Mr. Echo has taken the system beyond its intended function, to the degree that I fear the slightest modification will alert him that we are onto him."

Rhodes sighed, slumping down in his chair. "And yet, he can modify these things with us none the wiser."

"True, but that is only because he has found a way to bypass our readings." He pulled up a page showing the diagnostics of the various satellites–none of them showed anything out of order. "If any of these had detected any sort of unsanctioned tampering, we would have been alerted right away."

But they weren't, which would seem to imply that none of the satellites had been tampered with. And yet, the fact that Echo knew their every move showed that he clearly had some way into their systems. "Is there any sort of way he could've gotten in without being detected?" Rhodes asked.

"Yes, many," Valdain replied. "However, without the aid of Gem technology, it would be very difficult for him to…" He paused, slowly turning to face Rhodes. "But then, why would he not utilize Gem technology, when he has access to it in spades?"

"That definitely seems like something he'd do," Rhodes said, intrigued. "You're saying we have a way to detect that?"

Valdain was now furiously typing. "In a sense. If I am correct, whatever Echo has done to infiltrate our network required attaching some sort of transmitter to one or more of the satellites. However, considering something like that surely would have been detected, he no doubt found a way around that."

By now, Rhodes was beginning to pick up on what he was saying. "Like manually manipulating the satellite's self-diagnostics system!" He excitedly took the Koh'i'Noor's place at the keyboard. "Here, just a little adjustment, compensating for exterior factors, and…"

Reading from all the different satellites making up the network appeared on-screen. A combination of factors such as external and internal damage, power, and interference all added up to a total percentage of integrity for each one. Most of them numbered in the upper nineties, and none dipped below eighty. But one of them stood out among the rest.

"Satellite number fifteen is clocking out at a hundred and three percent," said Valdain. "I believe we have found our culprit."

Something had clearly been attached to the satellite in question–though as for how, they would figure that out later. Now, they needed to figure out what was to be done. "I imagine Echo'd probably know something was up if his bugged satellite suddenly blew up," said Rhodes. "But…maybe we could use that to our advantage."

"How so?" Valdain asked.

"Well, once we take number fifteen up there offline, he'll know we're onto him. At that point, he'll probably pack up and leave wherever he's hunkered down. But if we move in at just that moment, we can take him by surprise!"

"We will have to coordinate our findings with those of the other team," said Valdain. "Assuming they found something in the depths, that is."

"We'll have to wait and see," Rhodes said. "For now, Mills'll wanna hear this." He stood up, exiting the room to tell the Director the good news.

January 23, 2018. Undisclosed Location.

"Drop 'im."

At Bridge's command, Hester pulled the trigger. Through her scope, she saw the Rhinestone's entire upper body blown to pieces, which then dissolved into light. Its fellows, turning towards the sound of her rifle, were then ambushed by the rest of her team.

They had been working this circuit for days, fighting off the occasional Rhinestone, but this was the most they had encountered so far: around fourteen of them. While not a lot by the usual standards, this many of them congregating in one place meant that Echo had something to hide.

The Rhinestones never knew what hit them. Unable to react in time as Fireteam Victor emerged from their hiding spots, taking care to aim for their gems–a Rhinestone with its gem intact could regenerate within seconds. Vargas' lasers tore through the largest majority of them, leaving broken shards of plastic in his wake. All in all, they barely had enough time to fire back before each one had been destroyed.

Farouk surveyed the area while everyone kept an eye out for any stragglers. "They weren't exactly trying to hide," he noticed. "It might just be me, but I think I'd like my space robot minions to stay out of sight if they were guarding a place potentially valuable to my plans."

"Maybe it just wasn't valuable, then," said Rook. "Maybe he just placed a random battalion of these things out here to keep us busy. I wouldn't be surprised if he already knew what we were up to."

Nudging some of the shards with his boot, Luke couldn't help but feel that something was off. "Then why not send them after us directly?" he wondered. "Echo's not exactly the subtle type. If he wanted us dead, he'd make sure we were dead."

Once he was satisfied there were no other Rhinestones in the area, Daniel lowered his weapon. "We're clear," he reported. "Everyone get ready to enter the craft."

"Roger that." Hester slid down the side of the hill she had been perched on, which the Gem ship in question was jutting out from. The others joined her, with Vargas forcing the long-since-corroded doors apart. Expecting the unexpected, they all filed inside.

To nobody's surprise, the ship had been stripped clean, just like all the others. "Well, great. Looks like they were defending yet another dead end," said Ichigo. "Ah, well. Cross it off the list, and let's move on."

"Hang on." Rook walked further into the ship, noticing that not quite everything was gone. "What if the reason those Rhinestones were out in the open like that was because they weren't protecting something, but retrieving something?" The ship's console appeared to be in working order, if rather bare-bones due to being stripped down to its essentials. "Can we get this working again?"

After examining the computer for a moment, Daniel then went back outside. Nobody was sure what he was thinking until he brought in several shards from the fallen Rhinestones. "Let's hope these have enough juice left in them," he said. While Gem technology was very advanced and deceptively complex, all the years of partnering with Rhodes gave him just enough knowledge to jury rig a connection.

It was shaky, but the computer hummed to life, displaying what was likely the last image it had processed. "Okay, so, what's this supposed to be?" asked Ichigo. It looked like a starmap, though none of them were exactly adept at reading those.

Luckily for them, Farouk had just enough experience to decipher it. "I think these are Homeworld's coordinates," he said, pointing out a planet at the center of the image. "Whoever this ship belonged to must've been trying to contact them."

"Which means Echo has this information now," Hester noted. "Honestly, if his plan is to take the fight to Homeworld, I support him. Let them both wipe each other out."

Luke wasn't as enthusiastic about the idea as she was. "How would he get there, though? Unless he's planning on building his own ship…"

"Maybe he is," Daniel said. "We know he's stealing ship parts to build something, and with that nuke…he might be planning on attacking Homeworld directly."

"Then why fight us?" wondered Farouk. "We don't exactly see eye-to-eye, but Homeworld is a threat to all of humanity. He seems smart enough to put aside his differences and lend us some support. Or vice versa."

"Unless…he isn't planning on going to Homeworld, but bringing Homeworld here." Ichigo looked rather shaken by this thought. "Like, issuing a challenge to them directly. 'We're still here, come get us,' something like that."

Rook laughed, but he didn't find it funny. "You really think Echo's that insane?" Nobody answered. None of them were really sure. He had made it abundantly clear that he wanted all Gems, Crystal or not, extinguished. For all they knew, he very well could be willing to endanger the whole Earth to satisfy his thirst for revenge on Homeworld.

"Let's move on, shall we?" said Daniel. Nobody said anything as the console was dismantled, making sure it couldn't be used again for whatever Echo had planned. Similarly wordlessly, they regrouped in their jeep, moving on to the next location.

It was only speculation, they tried to remind themselves. But even though it was unlikely, they all couldn't help but feel that they had come closer to the truth than they were comfortable with.