It wasn’t easy, getting on a commercial flight to Bermuda at such short
notice. It’s a popular destination, so lots of flights go out there, but
this is the beginning of vacation season, so most of them were pretty full.
Heath and Ramses deplane, and head for the exit. Ramses gets on the phone.
“We’re here, where are you?”
“I’m about an hour and forty-five minutes away,” Leona replies.
“What?” Ramses questions. “You were meant to wait for us.”
“I was worried I would lose the signal. I’m still worried. I need to come
back and scoop you up, but what if he gets out of range. I already feel our
psychic connection wearing off.”
Heath takes the phone. “Leona, have you been going in the same direction the
whole time?”
“Yes,” she answers.
“Then we have a good idea where they’re headed by now,” Heath reasons. “Come
back and get us. “You probably need to refuel anyway. We’ll leave as soon as
we can, and get back on the trail.”
“Okay,” Leona concedes. “I’m coming back.”
Mateo is about 600 kilometers from Bermuda right now, traveling on the same
bearing since departure. There’s nothing on the map out here, so either the
men who took him are trying to get to Cuba, or they’re going to rendezvous
with some other ocean vessel. All she knows is that they’re on a boat, and
she’s on a plane. She can catch back up to him, even after flying all the
way back to the island, but it’s going to break her heart if it turns out
she can’t find that trail again.
Heath may be wrong. Mateo’s abductors could turn to a different direction at
any moment. One thing that gives her comfort is that her husband feels okay
right now. He was not doing well yesterday, but he seems to have recovered.
He’s not happy, per se, but he’s not scared or sick anymore, so at least
there’s that. Like she was saying, though, they might lose their empathic
connection, either by moving too far away from each other, or just because
the temporal energy that they’re working off of is used up. One good choice
Leona made is to call up some help. She doesn’t know who they’re going to be
up against, and she shouldn’t try to fight them on her own. Angela and Marie
are still in Kansas City, moving forward with Operation Backup Twin, as one
of them decided to start calling it.
As calculated, Leona lands back on the road within two hours. They take a
little bit of time to replace the fuel cells, so they can be at optimal
operational capacity. Leona never does lose the psychic link, but she can
still feel Mateo getting farther away from her until the three rescuers get
back in the air. Before they get too close to the enemy, they drop out of
the sky, and transform into a boat. This is when they start putting on their
tactical gear, and checking their weapons. “So, the reason we stopped flying
is to be stealthy, correct?” Heath asks the group.
“Right,” Leona agrees.
“Why don’t we just go sub?”
Leona stops adjusting her thigh holster. “What? This is a sub?”
“Yeah, did I not tell you that?”
“Uhh, no.”
“Oh, yeah. This is a sub.”
“Put us down,” Leona demands.
Heath stops what he was doing, and engages the controls. They dive deeper
until The Olimpia is fully submerged. Blast shutters slide down over the
windows automatically, but Heath reverses them, under the assumption that
they won’t be going very deep.
“No, put them back down,” Leona says. “I wanna kiss the bottom of the ocean.
The closer we are, the more difficult it will be for the enemies to detect
us, if they’re expecting anyone at all.”
“Very well,” Heath agrees. He does as he’s told, and sinks deeper and deeper
and deeper, but then he stops.
“What’s going on?”
“This is as deep as we can go,” he warns. “It can only handle a couple
hundred meters. That’s pretty good for a vessel this size in the 24th
century.”
Leona sighs heavily. “Fine. Keep going.” She points towards the front. “That
way.”
They maintain their pursuit, hoping that the boat doesn’t see them coming.
Even if they do, though, what are they going to do about it? They probably
don’t have torpedoes, or anything. The element of surprise would be great,
but just being able to rise up to the bilge would be helpful on its own, as
Ramses suggests. They don’t get that chance, which disappoints him a little.
Mateo gets on the radio, and makes contact. “Olimpia, Olimpia, come in.”
“This is the Olimpia. Go ahead,” Leona prompts.
“I wanna show you somethin’.”
“Okay...”
“I’ll be with you in a second. I just need to get something from my cabin.”
A minute later, Mateo teleports himself into the Olimpia. “I don’t have much
time. I obviously didn’t tell them what I can do, so they can’t walk in to
find me missing. Surface so we can talk in person. And put away those guns.
I’ll explain everything.”
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