Chapter 24: Knights of the Round Table

Will stepped into the engine room about half an hour after lights-out. Two people were already waiting for him.

"You're late," Sonia said, looking at him with an irritated gaze.

"Sorry, I had to take an extra shift to make up for oversleeping," Will said as he turned to look at Rain, who was leaning against the wall nearby. The young man’s face was pale, possibly from the cold in the room. "You okay?"

"I've seen ‘something’ in Esther," Rain said, lowering his gaze to the floor. He looked like a child lost in confusion. "Your hunch was right, Sonia."

"Can't you two believe what I say just once without needing proof?" Sonia muttered, her tone laced with frustration.

Will recalled the face of the girl he had seen on the ship’s deck on the day Sonia slapped him. He remembered the words she had said to him.

‘I want to keep learning about this world, because I want to change it.’

At that moment, he was willing to do anything to make her dream a reality.

Her will and determination were pure, untouched by anything else. It was something Will realized he had long forgotten.

What had been his childhood dream when he was Esther’s age?

Will was certain it must have been something foolish—like flirting with girls at the military academy or aspiring to climb the ranks like his family.

He was starting to understand why both Rain and Sonia were willing to risk so much to save this child.

"Then what do we do next? If it's inside Esther, what can we even do?" Will finally spoke up.

Both of them fell into silence at Will’s question.

"’We have to kill her to kill it,’" Sonia said, turning to look at him. "’That's the only way.’ Is that what you're trying to say?"

"No, that's not it. Everyone already knows that," Will quickly denied, the moment Sonia's furious gaze locked onto him. "What I'm asking is how we can get it out of Esther without killing her."

The room fell into silence once again.

Will let out a sigh. "Then why don't we start with what we know about our enemy? What do we actually know about the ‘thing’ inside Esther?"

Both Will and Sonia turned to look at Rain.

The dark-haired boy felt their gazes on him. He let out a quiet sigh before beginning to speak. "At first, she was acting normal. But then, all of a sudden, she changed—her way of speaking, her expressions, even her eyes. She started talking about herself in the third person. I think there's a possibility that it is latching onto Esther like a parasite..."

Rain hesitated as if about to say more, but then changed his mind. He lowered his gaze to the floor once again.

"What’s wrong with you? Keep talking," Sonia said, completely unfazed by his discomfort.

"Her left eye… she only opened that side when it started glowing amber," Rain continued in a faint voice. "I think that’s where it is attached to her."

"Are you saying we should gouge out Esther's eye?" Sonia asked loudly.

"It's just an observation. I'm not even sure if it would solve anything," Rain admitted.

"Then what do you suggest?"

Rain looked at them with his uncovered right eye, the other half of his face still veiled by dark strands of hair.

"Do nothing," he said. "It doesn’t seem like it wants anything more than to observe human daily life. We just treat Esther the same way we always have."

The room fell into silence once again.

"Who could just do that?" Sonia murmured, her voice barely audible. "Especially after we were nearly killed by it…"

"But if we keep doing nothing like this," Will pointed out, "and if that ‘thing’ really can’t take full control all the time, Esther’s going to feel awful if you keep distancing yourself from her."

It was something he had noticed for a while now. No matter what Sonia’s post-shift routine had been before, she was now using the first half-hour after her shift for these secret meetings in the engine room with the three of them. She called it a ‘strategy meeting to prepare for the impending danger’—a meeting that currently revolved around how to deal with the ‘thing’ that might be residing inside Esther.

Will could see it clearly: Sonia was distancing herself from the blonde girl, even if it wasn’t something she was doing intentionally or because she wanted to.

Sonia stared at Will in stunned silence, as if only now realizing the truth of his words.

"That’s… true, I suppose," she admitted. "But are we really sure nothing bad will happen if we just keep acting normal?"

It was Rain who answered, still staring at the floor.

"I’ll handle it," he said flatly. "If that ‘thing’ tries to do anything, I’ll kill Esther myself."

"You?" Sonia looked at him in disbelief. "You won’t be able to do it. Especially if it can control minds."

"It didn’t work on me last time," Rain replied, his voice devoid of emotion. "This is the best plan we have for now—until I talk to Heisenberg about a procedure to remove Esther’s eye. Otherwise, you’ll have to be the one to gouge it out yourself. So which will it be?"

Once again, the room fell into silence.

Rain waited in silence for an answer, but when none came, he quietly turned and walked out of the engine room.

Seeing this, Will let out a yawn. “Let’s call it a night. I’m getting sleepy.”

Sonia absentmindedly nodded in agreement as she followed him to put her winter coat back into the locker.

“You should come up with a name,” Will said suddenly.

She blinked in confusion. “A name for what?”

“For our group. Right now, we’re like a team of superheroes banding together to save the world. How about The Guardians of Washington?”

Will trailed off when he saw the puzzled look on Sonia’s face.

“It’s from an old-world comic book. You probably haven’t seen it,” he explained. “It’s about people with special powers fighting to protect the world from villains. Some of those books are really rare and ridiculously expensive now.”

Sonia’s expression shifted into one of disdain. “You’re such a kid.”

Will felt his face grow hot. “Don’t mock other people’s interests! You like listening to radio chatter from other ships, don’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, comic book boy,” she said dismissively, hanging up her coat and shutting the locker before heading toward the exit.

“How about the Knights of the Round Table?” she suddenly suggested.

Will blinked in confusion. “Huh?”

“The English legend. This room is round, right? Just like the round table in the story where the knights held their meetings, and—”

She stopped mid-sentence when she turned back and saw Will trying to stifle his laughter.

“What the hell are you laughing at?” she snapped.

“Oh, nothing… fairy tale girl,” he teased, unable to resist.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The two bickered all the way back to their rooms, arguing over whether fairy tales or comic books were the more childish obsession.

And that was how the first meeting of the Knights of the Round Table came to an end.

…

Will sat slouched on the safety chair beside the torpedo tubes, resting his chin on one hand. He tried shaking off the drowsiness creeping in from a lack of sleep. Sonia’s late-night meetings weren’t helping, but more than that, it was everything else weighing on his mind.

“Are you even listening to me, Will?”

He turned to face Thomas Da Costa, his squadmate and roommate. Thomas was a twenty-seven-year-old man with a broad, stocky build—mostly from excess fat, though he still maintained enough muscle mass to avoid being discharged from the military. He was dark-skinned, kept his black hair cropped close to his scalp, and was an insufferable chatterbox. Between that and his snoring, it was no wonder he’d been assigned as Will’s partner. Not that Will really minded. He actually liked having a roommate who could carry a conversation—just not when he was this sleep-deprived.

“What?” Will dragged his mind back to reality and turned to his roommate with a bewildered look.

“You’re zoning out again. What’s on your mind?”

The thing that could kill all of us on this ship, Will thought but didn’t say. Instead, he shrugged. “Just thinking about how the afternoon shift always makes me sleepy.”

“That’s what happens after lunch.” Thomas huffed in exasperation, his round cheeks puffing out like a balloon. “So you weren’t listening to a word I just said, huh?”

“Not a single one. What were you complaining about?” Will admitted without hesitation.

“That damn captain of ours barely made it out of the Pharaoh’s Tomb last night!” Thomas took a sharp breath, his irritation evident.

“For a second, I thought we were under attack by some giant sea monster,” Will muttered. He had woken up at two in the morning from the force of the ship lurching downward, rolling right off his bunk. Commander Hector had made an announcement over the radio this morning, stating that Captain Holland had engaged an enemy submarine the night before, though he hadn’t given any details about the battle.

“And what exactly is wrong with the captain getting us out of there safely?” Will asked.

“He ran, that’s what! He took the ship and bolted through the damn stone pillars of the Pharaoh’s Tomb! What kind of lunatic does that?!” Thomas nearly shouted. “If Commander Hector were in charge, we’d have loaded up torpedoes and sent that enemy sub straight to the bottom of the Sunless Ocean.”

Will knew a thing or two about submarine warfare. It was essentially a battle of information—hiding your own position while locating the enemy’s. Once the fighting started, neither side would move recklessly, as any noise could give away their location to the enemy’s hydrophone operators. That meant captains didn’t even use sonar during battle, leaving them blind to their surroundings.

So Holland activated sonar and piloted the ship through the graveyard while dodging torpedoes? Why the hell would he do something that dangerous?

Unless… he was absolutely confident in his ability to navigate through the pillars while evading enemy fire at the same time.

Maybe Holland really was that skilled. Will had grown up around high-ranking officers in the government—some of them legendary captains who had sunk dozens of enemy vessels. But he had never heard of Holland before. It was strange. They had chosen Hector, a decorated war hero from the conflict against the New Soviet Empire, as commander. And yet, for the largest deep-sea exploration mission in a century, they had picked a civilian captain who wasn’t even part of the U.S. military.

Still, if Holland could handle a ship like that, then maybe the government had made the right choice after all. Will found himself reluctantly impressed.

“You’re related to Commander Hector, aren’t you?” Will asked, glancing back at Thomas. “Have you ever heard of Captain Holland before?”

Da Costa fell silent, lost in thought. "Never heard of him."

"Think about it," Will pressed on, trying to keep the conversation going to fight off his drowsiness. "If he’s a captain skilled enough to maneuver a submarine through enemy torpedoes, he’d have some sort of battle record or reputation, right?"

Da Costa nodded in agreement. "Yeah, unless Holland just got ridiculously lucky last night. Or the enemy was just that incompetent."

"No way. No submarine captain would try to run in an underwater battle—it’s suicide," Will argued, seeing the skepticism still lingering on his friend’s face. "You have to admit, if Holland managed to escape unscathed, it means his ship-handling skills are top-tier. The kind of skill that should put him at the head of an entire fleet—maybe even as an admiral. So why the hell have we never heard of him before?"

"He could be a military contractor," Da Costa suggested. "One of those mercenaries who take on missions for the government overseas. Maybe Holland is the leader of some elite group that has experience navigating the Sunless Sea."

"They’d pick a mercenary to captain a century-defining expedition?" Will frowned. "Hector would’ve been a better choice."

"Hector is better! Holland never even fought in the war against the Red Army!" Da Costa shot back defensively.

Will let out a tired sigh. "You’ll defend Hector no matter what, huh?"

Just then, a knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Will straightened up and got to his feet. "I’ll get it."

When he pulled the torpedo room door open, he found Sonia standing outside.

"What is it?" Will asked, confused.

"I have something to show you," she said, gesturing for him to follow before turning and heading toward the stairwell leading to the third deck.

"Hey! I’m on duty right now!" Will called after her, but she didn’t even glance back.

He turned to Da Costa, who was watching with an amused grin.

"I’ll cover your shift today," Da Costa offered, "if you give me half of your food rations for a week."

"Deal. Thanks, Thomas." Will didn’t hesitate, immediately hurrying after Sonia.

"Just helping a buddy out with his love life," Da Costa’s laughter followed him down the hall.

…

Will let go of the stair railing and straightened up in front of the radio control panel, where Sonia was already waiting for him.

"What exactly do you want me to see?" he asked.

"Just wait a second." She glanced down at the floor, and when Will followed her gaze, he noticed a pair of legs sticking out from beneath the control panel—Matthew’s lower half.

"How’s it going?" Sonia asked.

"The wiring is the same as the standard display connections used on submarine control panels, so I don’t think there’ll be any issues," came Matthew’s muffled voice from beneath the panel. "Just need to connect the cables to an unused display, and we’re all set."

"What is all this?" Will asked, thoroughly confused. What had Sonia gotten into this time?

"Here, hold this." Sonia shoved a small black box into his hands just as Matthew pushed himself up from under the panel.

"All done, Lady Sonia," Matthew announced.

Sonia reached out and flipped a switch on the control panel. An empty monitor flickered to life, displaying an image—an exact replica of the radio control panel in front of them.

"What the hell is this?" Will turned to Sonia—only to realize that, on the screen, the image was turning toward her as well.

"The device you’re holding is a camera that transmits a live feed to a receiver on the ship, which then displays it on the monitor," Sonia explained. "The soldiers who attacked our ship used these cameras to send real-time battlefield footage to their command center in the rear lines."

"It’s a highly useful piece of equipment," Matthew added, nodding in agreement. "It allows commanders or unit coordinators to receive live updates directly from the battlefield, cutting out the need for verbal reports and allowing them to issue immediate orders. The Egyptian military is more technologically advanced than I expected."

"You took this off a corpse, didn’t you?" Will asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I took it from the pile of belongings of the dead, thank you very much!" Sonia shot back. "The point is, this lets me see exactly what you see when you go outside on missions."

"Holland approved the system as well," Matthew chimed in, still tidying up the wiring. "So I rigged up a receiver for the camera and added it to the control panel. The radio system already had unused screens, so it wasn’t difficult to install."

"I haven’t tested the signal range yet," Sonia admitted, "but Matthew estimates it should work within a three-kilometer radius around the ship. That camera is already linked to the receiver."

She turned to Will, her short red hair brushing past her eyes.

"I want you to keep it."

Will looked down at the tiny camera in his hand, feeling a rare moment of gratitude for Sonia’s concern.

"And make sure to give another one to Rain," she added. "That way, if something like that whale fight happens again, I can complain about how useless you two are—with visual evidence."

The warmth in Will’s chest vanished as quickly as it had come. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of excitement.

"This really does make us feel like a superhero team," he mused. "In comics, some heroes have a support girl relaying intel over the radio, just like this."

Sonia shook her head. "Comic book nerd."

Matthew, now finished packing up his wiring tools, stood up. "You do realize this means extra work for you, right, Sonia? You’ll have to monitor the camera feeds and relay situational updates. Too bad the control room doesn’t have any spare screens—I would’ve set up another receiver there." He sighed as he made his way down the stairs to the third deck.

"Understood~" Sonia replied cheerfully, her mood noticeably lifted. Will was fairly certain she was already hooked on her new "toy." When she turned back to him, her face practically screamed, Aren’t I a genius?

"I get why you did this for me and Rain," Will admitted. "But honestly… I don’t really want to use this thing."

"Huh? Why not? It’s useful," Sonia asked, genuinely confused.

Will hesitated, struggling to put his thoughts into words. "You know how dangerous the Sunless Sea is, right?"

"Yeah? And?" She still didn’t get what he was trying to say.

He glanced at the tiny camera resting in his palm. "I don’t want you to see me die."

Sonia’s expression shifted. Without a word, she reached out and flicked off the switch on the control panel. The monitor went dark.

"Why do you think we formed the Knights of the Round Table in the first place?" she asked.

"What, to plan how to kill Esther?" Will quipped, dodging just in time as Sonia’s fist came flying toward him.

"To protect everyone on this ship, dummy." she corrected, only slightly less annoyed than before. "We’re the last line of defense. We do whatever it takes to keep everyone alive. Don’t forget that."

Will held her gaze in silence. When he didn’t respond, Sonia raised her hand again, ready to smack him.

"What now?" she huffed.

"You’ve definitely read superhero comics before but are too embarrassed to admit it, haven’t you?"

She punched him instantly.