Recap.

Thulani takes a job with Joberg’s biggest new station in search of an opportunity to broadcast evidence of the council’s corruption to the city. Keeping his plans secret from Olivia and Nandi, he hopes to finish his plan and get back to his old job before they find out.

Thulani swept the studio for the third time.

"I think the floor is clean," Samuel said, glancing back from his desk. The bald, obsidian-skinned man clipped video footage together on his computer.

"Yeah,” Emmanual, the intern, agreed, leaning on a cubical wall. "Lower positions like us are paid more to be available than to waste time sweeping the floor all day.”

Thulani froze. Paid to be available? Everything about that felt wrong, even if he hardly made any money. As a pod tech, there was always work to do, and if not, a foreman or manager would find something unpleasant if they found you sitting around.

"Frankly, you're giving me anxiety," Samuel joked.

Thulani shook his head. "This is crazy; in my old job, if there were nothing to do, they'd write you up if you didn't look busy. We never had a slow day.."

"Welcome to media," Emmanual said, slumping into an office chair and opening a textbook. The intern worked part-time as part of his secondary school's licensing program.

"Speak for yourself," Samuel disagreed. "I'm always busy. Once they find the spot for you, things will never slow."

"So what was operating a maintenance pod like?" Emmanual asked, closing his book.

"Dark," Thulani leaned his broom against the cubicle and sat on a desk. "Cold, cramped, free."

"Free?" the young intern asked. "You liked it."

"Oh yeah." Thulani folded his arms as he reminisced about his pod. "I know all those things sound horrible when isolated, but when you're alone, adrift in the darkness, there's a certain serenity you'll never find anywhere else."

"Are you good with a mech claw?" Emmanual's eyes widened.

"Claw, torch, saw, welder — You switched hand attachments for the needs of your job, and I'm not bad with any of them."

"If you like it and have so much experience, why switch to media?" Samuel asked, his eyes locked on his screen.

Thulani discerned a certain degree of challenge to the question.

"The raid," he said simply. "I lost friends to the violence."

The media techs looked at each other. Emananual's face glowed with curiosity, but tactfully, they didn’t pry.

"I held my manager as he bled out," Thulani said.

"That's horrible," Samuel said, shifting back to look at Thulani.

"Not as bad as when I attacked a man with a utility knife to save my other friend," Thulani reminisced, staring at the ground. "I can still feel the shock up my arm from when I cut into him."

Thulani suddenly became aware of the silence and looked up to find the techs staring at him. He shook himself out of his memory. "I had to get away from it, you know, a change of scenery."

"Of course," Samuel said, though Emannual just gawked.

"Hey, Emmanual, could I peek through your textbook if you take a break?" Thulani asked.

"You want to learn about studio lighting?" Emanual asked. "This is boring as kak."

"I'm hoping to learn media systems and video editing," Thulani explained.

"Skip the book then," Samuel said from his desk. "You've got even better. Pull up a chair; I'll show you how to edit."

A door opened, and Thulani instinctively leaped to his feet. Sitting around still felt wrong.

Milani entered, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor. The director's hips swayed in her pencil skirt as she approached. Her eyes narrowed, and her painted lips pursed as she sighted the trio.

Despite his previous claims of being paid to be available, Emanuel buried his face in his textbook to look busy.

"Samuel," Milani said, crossing the room to her editor.

"Yes, Ma'am," Samuel said, rolling back on his office chair and swiveling to face her.

"Sabrina Millis has moved her concert up a week,"

"What?" Samuel asked, growing tense. That means it's —"

"In three days, yes, I can do the math." Milani waved a tablet. "That means her interview is tomorrow morning. Put all your projects on the back burner and draft a template for the interview."

"Ma'am, I'm working on the post-raid clean-up report." Samuel's voice hiked. "That's due in two days; I can't drop it."

"Looks like you're putting in overtime," Milani said.

"Anything I can do to help, Ma'am?" Thulani asked eagerly. A department was more prone to skip steps or skirt security policy when stressed.

"Go help lighting set up for the interview," the director said, not sparing Thulani a second glance, as something on her tablet consumed her attention. "Only give me three days to cover an event the entire city will be watching," she muttered in frustration.

Thulani’s lips twitched up into a slight smile as he headed for the lighting storeroom. Ducking through a hatch, he caught sight of an intern sliding a poster into a glass display. Behind the pane, Sabrina Millis beamed in vibrant print, her red dress edited to shimmer with luminescence.

Charity concert: In their memory. A title read in bold letters.

Thulani pictured the hundred who would attend the performance in person, dwarfed by the thousands watching from home.

He reached into his pocket, fingers tightening around the thumb drive hidden within. This was it! He had found his opportunity to be heard.

********

Thulani spun his hatch dial and entered but stopped short when he saw three people in the place of his expected two.

Floyd, Thulani's former coworker, turned, his eyes wide, sweat beading on his brow.

"Hey, guys?" Thulani said, his gut tightening as the atmosphere in the room buffeted him like a crashing wave.

"Oh, good, he's here," Nandi snapped, venom lacing her words. "We can ask him ourselves."

"What's going on?" Thulani asked as his heart skipped a beat.

"We were hoping you could tell us," Olivia said, her lips drawn in a frown.

"Floyd came in to check on you," Nandi said. "Said you've been missing from work for a week."

A cold sweat crept up Thulani’s back, and he instinctually stepped back.

"Where have you been, Thul?" Olivia asked, her eyes pleading for a reasonable answer. "What are you doing if you're not at work?"

"I — ugh,"

Floyd narrowed his eyes, trying to read into his friend.

"They didn't tell you?" Thulani asked, turning to Floyd.

"Tell me what?" Floyd asked.

"With the bay flooded, I was temporarily transferred to Echo Dock," Thulani begged Floyed to play along with his eyes. If there was any good time to manifest telepathic powers to ask a bro for help silently, it was now." If Thulani could pull some tech freelance work and get his job back, there would be no reason for the girls to know he quit in the first place.

Floyd narrowed his eyes, understanding Thulani's plea but weighing whether to honor it.

Thulani swallowed.

Floyd's face softened. "Oh, I didn't realize they sent you with Tshilidzi's group!" He turned and shrugged apologetically at the girls. "They've been so bad at communicating with us since the attack."

Olivia visibly relaxed.

"Yeah, what did you think? I'm just blowing off work for fun?" Thulani directed at Nandi. "I have a kid on the way; I've been working overtime."

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Nandi glared at Floyd suspiciously, but the pod tech smiled innocently.

"Hey, you're already here; why don't you stay for dinner?" Thulani asked. "We can host him, right?"

"Of course," Olivia said. "Give me a minute to find something to supplement dinner."

"Naw, I can't," Floyd declined. "Thanks, though."

Thulani walked Floyd to the door when Floyd turned back.

"Step outside for a minute," Floyd muttered.

Thulani stepped out to the circular balcony that ringed his level.

"The hell are you doing?" Floyd demanded. "They patched and drained the bay in less than a day, and there is no Echo Dock transfer."

"Floyd, I don't want to involve you," Thulani said.

"Damn, man, a little too late, considering I just lied to your girl and your sister."

Thulani gritted his teeth.

"Tell me you're not seeing another woman, Olivia, and your baby deserves better than that."

"What? No, of course not."

"So what are you doing?"

Thulani sighed and gripped the raid. "You know what I'm doing."

Floyd thought about it briefly, and then his eyes widened. "Thul, no, that's even worse!"

"I'm so close, Floyd; I'm going to expose the council."

"You're going to get killed."

Thulani shrugged. "I shouldn't be alive after what happened. Maybe I was spared to do justice."

Floyd groaned, then lightly pounded the rail. "All right, man, what do you need?"

"What?" Thulani stammered.

"I'm not going to let you do this yourself."

"Yes, you are," Thulani insisted. "Because you're not wrong, this can backfire, and I won't risk you."

"What about the girls? Olivia is going to depend on you when this baby comes."

"I'm still working on that," Thulani said, frustrated. "In the meantime, my plan is not to get caught."

Floyd nodded. "Okay. But use me if you need me. I don't like watching you make stupid choices."

"Thanks, tjommie."

Floyd proffered a fist, and Thulani bumped knuckles.

"Hey, the way you've described Nandi, I expected her to look like a troll squid."

"She does!" Thulani exclaimed.

"Nah, man, she's kind of cute." Floyd looked over his shoulder at the sealed hatch. "Would you be opposed to me asking her out?"

"You don't want to do that," Thulani warned. "For your sake. She pretends to be nice, but she's actually a hammerhead."

"A hammerhead with an ass." Floyd whistled.

"Gross," Thulani said. "Do what you want, but if you break her heart, I'm obligated to bust your kneecaps."

Floyd barked with laughter. "Nothing serious or anything, maybe just coffee."

"Yeah, ask her." Thulani scanned the dwellers and bridges below him. As much as he wished he could focus on friends and family, he had seven days to figure out how to plant his video in the citywide broadcast.

*******

Recap. POV Lekota.

Mandla and his crew are cornered just outside of the control room. As Lekota bypasses his final hatch, he prepares to take control of the Vortex Rider.

"Very well," Petty Officer First Class Lekota said into the door comm. Speaking to the interloping Jobergian commander hadn’t yielded a proper surrender, but that didn’t matter.

Crouching beside him, Seaman Tlhong manipulated levers and wires in the exposed panel, controlling the hydraulics.

A muffled cry sounded on the other side of the hatch, followed by muted gunshots. His other team had made it through the smuggling hatch.

"Almost there!" Seaman Tlhong cried.

Lekota pounded the hull twice with a hammerstrike. "Ah roo hah!" he called.

He beat the wall again; his men took up the cry this time. "Ah roo hah!"

Fire suppression sprinklers blasted the hall, causing a few startled cries and obscuring visibility. The enemy must have overridden the system to confuse his men. Or, there could be a fire on the other side of the door.

"Ready!" he called and hammered the wall again.

"Ah roo hah!" The men screamed over the hiss of sprinklers. One carrying a steel riot shield took the lead position. Men stacked up behind him.

Lekota shivered as water and chemicals soaked the wetsuit under his armor plates.

Thump, thump. His fist struck steel.

"Got it!" Seaman Tlhong manipulated an element in the hatch, and the wheel spun, unlocking the portal.

"Ah roo hah!"

"Get to the control room!" the Joberg commander's voice sounded as the door cracked.

The lights went out, probably overridden from the control room, and the door swung open.

Lekota cursed at the darkness and spraying sprinklers, ducking for cover as his men spilled through the hatch and into the gloom. He half expected them to trigger a tripwire or to be met by heavy counterfire, but neither sounded through the corridor.

"Lights!" Lekota shouted, flicking his rifle-mounted flashlight on. Powerful beams flashed to life behind and in front of him.

Lekota joined the press, nearly tripping on the high threshold as he surged into the black wardroom. Red smoke choked the air, contesting with freezing water and darkness. The corsair cursed, trying to take in the room. Motionless shapes materialized in the blended haze. Almost two dozen corpses decorated the floor. Anyone of them could have been a hidden enemy waiting to strike. They needed to check them, but flashes from the control room sent rounds down the corridor at his men.

"You!" Lekota pointed at two of his men. "No one goes out this door.”

Motion in the fog made him spin and spotlight two figures crawling through the smuggler's hatch.

They called out in protest, dropping their rifles on their slings and showing their hands. Lekota recognized them as men he sent through the smuggler's hatch. He turned and almost tripped over a fallen freezer so riddled with dents and holes that he nearly didn't recognize the industrial appliance.

Bullets, smoke, spray, darkness, screams, and gunfire blended into a cacophony of chaos.

Lekota stumbled to the chokepoint into the control room. His men stacked on the walls near the corridor as the enemy kept a continuous spray of hot lead flying down the hall.

"We can frag 'em." Petty Officer Third Class Ngwenya proffered a grenade, pin still dangling, securing the spoon.

"Not yet," Lekota called. "We need to try and save the control room. Get a shield up front and push!"

His men called back for shields, and Lekota listened. From the sound and flashes defusing in the spray and smoke, the enemy kept two Viktor R4s firing in a short burst. He could easily outgun them.

"Get four SS-77s laying down suppressive fire, now!"

Machine gunners switched out his riflemen on either side of the wall.

"Go!"

Four men peeked around the edge of the hatchway, and their weapons roared, fire light defusing through smoke and water in strobing flashes. Lekota smiled as brass rattled to the ground at his feet.

A shield-bearer pushed up beside him, six riflemen in a line behind him.

"Switch!" Lekota screamed, his voice lost to gunfire as he smacked a machine gunner on the shoulder. The automatic gunfire died, and Lekota's lineup stormed the corridor. He grinned as no return fire followed.

Lecota wiped water from his face and laughed in the smoke and water.

"Clear!" came the call from the control room.

Lekota advanced, his R4 at the low ready. Riflemen piled in behind him. He entered the control room with his advanced team, aiming at the sonar room hatch. His hands tightened on his weapon, unwilling to accept victory until he flushed the enemies’ bodies.

"There's an escape trunk in the sonar room," Lekota shouted. "Can we manually bypass the hatch with the control panel?"

"Aye, sir." A rifleman slung his rifle and rushed to the control panel.

"Check for traps and check the bodies!" Lekota called to the men who poured in after him. "And sweep the room behind us!"

The sprinkles cut off abruptly, and the lights flickered back in as his solder at the panel manipulated the controls.

Lekota blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light. Droplets dripped from the ceiling onto another dozen bodies. Lekota identified Captain Molfe staring sightlessly at the ceiling. The spray had cleaned blood away from the gash torn in his throat.

Around him, men checked each body in pairs.

"Door?" Lekota barked.

After an input to the panel, the wheel to the sonar room spun, and the hatch swung open. Blue concealment grenade smoke poured out of the opining.

"Go, go!"

A team rushed into the small sonar chamber.

Lekota's heart hammered in his head, the thrill of victory gleaming in his eyes.

"Clear!"

A rifleman exited the wardroom, carrying the smoking grenade out toward the wardroom. As the air cleared, a lower petty officer approached him with a report.

"All five pressure suits gone," he reported.

Lekota nodded, suppressing a smile. To many Corral Corsairs had died too rightly call this a victory. "So they've fled. They can only survive out there so long in a suit. Give me guards on the dock and every escape trunk; they will not reenter this vessel.

"Aye!" the crew called.

"Ship status," Lekota called.

A seaman scanned the systems. "We're missing visuals on over half the cameras. We have a flooded and sealed corridor. We don't have any of our breach pods. Torpedo tubes are empty, and the cav turrets are currently deployed."

"Why are the cav turrets deployed?" Lekota asked cocking his head to look at the terminal.

"My guess is in case any breach pods returned."

"Get me someone on the radio. If there are any signs of survivors at the Eel Fang, now is our chance to get them."

"Negative, sir," a sailor called from the sonar room. "We don't have any vessels registering on the sonar."

Lekota cursed.

He stepped to the comms panel and turned on the subside com. "This is Petty Officer First Class Lekota; we have secured the control room and driven the enemy from the ship. I want everyone from the Vortex Rider crew to move to the nearest decomp chamber or escape trunk and ensure they remain sealed. Do not let anyone reenter this vessel."

That should prevent the enemy from making it back on the sub, but he had other concerns.

"Anyone from the Eel Fang head to the pod bay with an escort. We'll take accountability there. I hope you made friends because anyone without a voucher gets flushed. There could be more enemies among us."

Lekota took a deep breath and finally felt the first semblance of control since the alarm went off.

"Unseal the hatches and retract the cav turrets. If there are any survivors out there, we wouldn't want to scare them away."

Lekota looked at a sailor and stiffened abruptly. "Francois?"

The able seaman took a loose approximation of attention. "Yes, chief?"

Lekota frowned — the lack of discipline in Francois' stance itched like a salt rash. Francois was known for defiance. Lekota's lip twitched, but he stowed his irritation. "I didn't realize you joined us. When did you get here?"

"Got stuck in the ballast chamber. Just caught up to you now, sir."

Lekota frowned. He knew the enemy had defectors, and he would have assumed Francois was among them.

"Carry on," Lekota dismissed, stepping up to the control panel to evaluate the reports.

Francois stepped away, and two men followed him.

"Wait!"

All three halted abruptly.

Lekota approached the other two. Both were dark-skinned; one was tall and boxy, and the other short and athletic. The shorter one wore a water knife on his right hand, a specialty weapon.

"I don't know you two," Lekota studied each in turn.

"Eel Fang," Francois cut in. “They were stuck with me in the ballast chamber."

Lekota narrowed his eyes and nodded. "Take them to the pod bay for accountability."

"Aye, sir."