"Jean-Tane, you still there? Over."

Polly's machine input voice came back rather than vocals over the speaker, "He tilted his head back 'just for a minute'. He's out cold, Holly and Gisèle are putting on the couch in case we need to wake him up."

"Alright, I'm coming up on ground zero and I'm not seeing any sign of the Xolidarity. I should be able to see the sails at a fairly good distance, no?"

"Altitude?"

"800 meters."

"And clear skies. They shouldn't be over the horizon at the speeds they manage, plans?"

"I'm going to descend when I get to the distress call location. Launching my antenna drone now."

"Thank you, Dolly. I'm, not sure what. Or what I'm trying to say."

"I'm scared too, Xister."

"Your threads say otherwise."

"I have a long history of intense focus in crisis situations. And you're monitoring my CPU now, too?"

"I'm monitoring all your vitals right now. You come back to us in one piece."

I pinged her with a heart emoji and added, "This time," in reference to the time I was dismembered in the back of a truck. "On approach, one kilometer. Altitude 300 meters. Night optic enhancements on. Ha, wait, I have that natively now. Nevermind, I'm sticking to the manual."

That's when I started seeing debris, "Polly, there's some material scattered at this location. Scanning, it's not ship polymer, it's a plastic cargo container, one meter cubic, and it looks like it was burned. Entering the water, flotation baffles on."

Polly sent regular pings to signal she was still receiving me without interrupting my status updates as I inspected the carton.

"The Xolidarity crew would have eaten this for fuel and material already. Markings are melted, trying to open it. I'm going to have to cut it open. I'm wrapping it in a floatation ring in case the air inside's been keeping it up."

I'm not sure whose cycles were going more haywire, mine or Polly, but I felt Gisèle and Holly connect to our group and Holly, immediately sensing the tension, cut through it with a smooth and reassuring, "Jean-Tane's sleeping like a baby. Even if we wake him up he won't be terribly bright for at least a few minutes."

I laughed softly, "Between the lot of us I'm sure we'll do fine. I'm cutting into a debris crate now."

I checked the visual transmission then cracked the crate open after a deft plasma cut along the seam.

"This is Australian Navy rations."

We all fell silent.

Gisèle spoke first, "I just did a lookup on the Australian Navy, they have eight subs, but still, how what? Is there a sign of the ship gone down?"

"I'm taping the crate shut and dropping a beacon on it. I'll swim about this local area seeing what else I find."

A few minutes of brisk motoring about I found two more crates in terrible condition, and no tell tale signs of oil or diesel leak. I added beacons to each crate and said, "So. I'm going to jet up for a higher vantage point and scan the horizon."

Polly said, "We can narrow it down for you, there's a transponder for an Australian fishing boat to the northwest of you, it appears to be moving at 6 knots, a bit slow for such a vessel, and why would an Australian fishing boat be in the French Polynesian exclusive economic zone?"

"I'm in the air, staying low, coordinates please?"

I locked in the directions and started off barely over the tops of the waves. As soon as I caught a glimpse of a silhouette against the sky I engaged my stealth protocols and switched channels.

"Testing, reading me?"

Polly responded, "Reading, no visuals."

"Cloak engaged, and that's not a fishing vessel. Zooming. That's the HMAS Darwin."

Gisèle explained, "Destroyer class. Do you see any escorts?"

"No, just them."

"I wonder if there's more Aussie ships poking around our waters."

Holly mused, "They wouldn't happen to be towing the Xolidarity, would they?"

"That's a negative, and I'm going to submerge and get close to see if I can detect any prisoners. Radio silence for the duration."

Polly pinged an affirmative and I went underwater, coming at the vessel from the port side. I could see the tear in the hull from 100 meters out, even underwater at night. I got up next to the ship and mag clamped onto the hull, and inspected the hole. Forward cargo and full of rations crates like the ones I'd found at ground zero. I detached my antenna and slid it into the hole in the hull and sent a ping on the quiet channel we used with the Syxen earlier that evening, and waited a few seconds for a response. Then tried again. No response. I reset my antenna and dropped back underwater, waited for the hull to clear, and slowly propelled in the opposite direction until we were three kilometers apart before I surfaced again. It took me another few minutes to get back into range of my antenna drone.

As soon as I pinged Polly said, "I took the time to package up the Australian Defense Minister's emails for delivery to the Express, Independent, and the Sun. What's news?"

"Well first off, don't. And second, no response from any prisoners if any, and there's a hull breach in the forward, port side. Pictures incoming."

In unison the three Syxen on the other side of the communication said, "Torpedo."

"Independent study?" I asked.

Holly laughed lightly, "We must have all had it on our mind. Or data bill will be insane."

"That's 74 unaccounted for," Gisèle noted.

"What do we do?" I asked.

"I have our Defense Minister's private phone number?" Polly offered.

"Let's not advertise you're spying on our government officials, just yet at least. Wait, there was a Coast Guard vessel on their way to meet the Xolidarity, no?"

Polly brightened up, "Yes, here's the coordinate."

"My power was eaten up by stealth mode and underwater operations, I'm going to intercept them and let them know about the Darwin. They'll call the appropriate people."

"And I keep my phone number list secret. Still, I could try to start a run on the Australian dollar?"

"Please no."

"What would your biological side say?"

"Crush their dollar, see it driven under, and hear the lamentation of their bankers."

She pinged back a heart emoji and assured she wouldn't, given that she estimated only a 22% chance of success. And it's biologicals that take revenge, Syxen reassess threats and plan forward to make sure it Never. Happens. Again.