"So you think there's a third level?" Fox said, a smirk threatening to break through the mask of his face.
"Yeah, we've got evidence and everything," Runningbear said.
Fox had been right. He'd made his peace with Runningbear and while they weren't exactly friends, Runningbear was willing to dish. More than willing. He seemed bound and determined to convince Fox that the Consortium was up to something. By playing the skeptic, Fox got him to spill every detail the conspirators were finding.
"You've got one blurry photo of what appears to be a hatch opening at the top of the lift," Fox said. "I don't think that's enough evidence. Not enough to go to the Captain with, certainly." Fox had hinted that if the conspirators found anything significant, he'd go to the captain on their behalf. It guaranteed, he hoped, that they would come to him first, rather than trying to forward something to...whoever. Hornbeck claimed to be in contact with military intelligence but Captain Lannister couldn't get any verification and with Hornbeck, who knew?
"You don't believe us," Runningbear groused.
"I am not saying that," Fox said. "I'm a cop. There's a difference between suspecting something and being able to prove it in a court of law. We need more than one photo."
"We'll keep trying," Runningbear said. "You know, there was a time I thought these people were all right. But the more suspicious stuff we find, the more freaked I am getting. What if they want to do experiments on us or something?"
Fox chewed on his lip, biting back a laugh.
"There is this one room, on the map, that's not named but there's a whole bunch of chemical symbols attached to it," Runningbear said.
Medical Gel Manufacturing, Fox thought, and if you knew how to read that map properly, you'd already know about the third level.
Fox sighed. "Okay, I have a lead for you, even."
"Yeah?"
"There's a door at the end of the bottom corridor. I went by there the other day and somebody was coming out."
"What was inside?"
"I couldn't see," Fox said. "It was too bright."
"Bright?"
"Yeah, the room was completely lit up, like bright white. You guys should try to check that out."
Runningbear nodded.
Fox caught sight of Nara in the lounge doorway. "I gotta go," he told Runningbear and headed towards her. Once they were part way down the hall and the lounge door closed behind him, Fox burst into laughing. "God, I had no idea how much fun this investigation was going to be."
"What now?" Nara asked.
"They've discovered a secret third level of the ship." Nara scrunched her eyes. "I know, I know," he said. "It's on the map. The flight deck and upper storage. Where we can't go, you know, because we aren't certified."
Nara shook her head. "But that's on the schematics."
"Yeah, but you've got to understand, our maps, our places, are mostly two dimensional. We don't think about up and down. It probably never occurred to them to tap up a level on the map, or ask the system to explain."
"Did you plant my hint?" she asked.
He nodded. "I did."
The lower hydroponics room was conveniently mislabeled in English and the bright lights of the room would screw with the camera app, so they figured it was the best place to send the spies, far away from anything they could get themselves into trouble over.
Truthfully there wasn't much they could get themselves into trouble with. Fox wanted to steer them away from the exercise rooms. Yuddhar, which translated as wrestling or fighting, was a common exercise in the Consortium. So was something called Shastraveda, which translated somewhat literally as martial arts. Two of the three exercise rooms were equipped with cabinets full of melee weapons. Fox shuddered to think what the conspirators would make of that, or what trouble they could cause with knives and staffs.
The primary reason non certified personnel weren't allowed on level three had to do with the fact that there were several airlocks. But the odds that the men would be able to override the clearance to get up there and then some how accidentally open one of those airlocks was remote. If they got into the gel manufacturing or water purification areas, they could ruin the current batch of whichever and no doubt piss off the workers in those areas, but it the real harm would be minimal. Still directing them away from those investigations seemed prudent, and sending them on wild goose chases elsewhere was turning out to be a lot of fun.
#####
Runningbear sat in the lounge, sipping on a cup of Soma Achai. The tea, whatever the hell was in it, helped his cravings a lot. He looked up to see Bankim, the head of their security, come in. He looked in a foul mood, as always. Runningbear at least had an excuse, he was going through withdrawals. What was that guys problem?
Runningbear was starting to like some of the healers. They seemed like alright sort of people. But that didn't mean he liked the rest of them. Especially their military. They might say they are our friends now, but the next time we disagree on something? What then?
He wasn't the only person who had noticed Bankim's mood. "Bad day, huh?" the server said as he handed over a cup of coffee.
"Bah," Bankim barked. "I've got a rear hatch down for maintenance and not enough man power to stand a guard. Tried to talk to the captain..."
"Since when do you stand guard over a maintenance issue?"
"It could be overridden, you know."
The server made a dismissive noise. "Why would anyone see a maintenance sign and then override it?"
"If they were trying to get into other parts of the ship undetected?" Bankim respond. "Bah, you're no better than the captain." He stomped off.
The servers both laughed. "Paranoid old git," one said.
Runningbear put his tea down. He thought of all the things that Hornbeck and the others were discovering. A third floor. Rooms not labeled. Something was fishy on this ship and he had just been given a way to discover the truth once and for all.
######
"Danavedahey," Dan said. He reached for his translator collar, to better converse, but he wanted to at least attempt a small thank you in the Consortium tongue.
Kavinda, who was teaching the class, bowed. A melodious string of sounds came out of his mouth, but all Dan caught for sure was something about pleasure. It's my pleasure, I think.
"You are progressing well, Dan," he was saying as the translator collar cut in. Dan had grown so used to the collar, he'd learned to tune out the actual words the speaker was saying and focus instead on the words coming out of the device. Now that he was attempting to learn the language directly he found it disconcerting again.
"Thank you," Dan replied, "but I feel like it will take forever."
"Nonsense, it will take less time than you think."
There were four other people in the class. Dan found the educational style they used almost as fascinating as the language. They met in a small circular room with bench seating along edges. It was entirely immersion, they removed their collars at the beginning and they spoke no English for the next hour and half. Portion of the class were done together, with Kavinda leading the group. A lot of it was on the slate, in an individual and interactive format. He paired pictures and scenes with words and short phrases. He worked at his own pace and the program went back over areas where he struggled.
It was mid afternoon. Now that they had class assignments, they also had lunch and dinner ones. The two messes could barely accommodate the entire combined crews of nearly six hundred at once, so it made sense to serve them in three separate groups.
Dan ate with the early lunch crew, then had language class. Now he had free time for the next couple hours until his early supper. After supper they could gather in the lower lounge or return to their quarters for the evening.
Dan headed for the lower lounge now. He found a drink and went over to where a half dozen of men were watching some news broadcast from earth.
"What now?" he asked.
They were showing footage of a submarine, a Consortium orbital hopper floating in space above it, only half as long but wider and heavier looking.
"They caught the bastards," Madsen growled.
"What bastards?"
"The bastards that did this to us," Thornberg, an ensign Dan knew vaguely, explained.
"That's the Chinese sub?"
"Sure enough," Madsen said. "One of their subs forced it to the surface."
Dan sat and watched as the top hatch was forced opened by Consortium marines, in shiny red armor and armed with stun sticks. One by one they dropped inside. Before long they were hauling men out. Some were stunned but many looked to have surrendered voluntarily. They were a mess. Emaciated, covered in sores, with patchy hair. Clearly, they had not avoided radiation poisoning.
"Damn, they don't look so hot," Thornberg said, a note of empathy in his voice.
"What can they expect, now that they are in custody?" The news anchor was asking a reporter.
"Well, the Consortium will treat their radiation damage, as they are treating the American crew. And then they will charged as accessories to the same crimes that Liu Xian was charged with."
"But can't the argument be made that they were just following orders?"
"It can, but the way the Consortium legal systems works, I am told, is that will be taken into account during the sentencing stage, when they assign the appropriate punishment."
"Meaning?"
"They will be found guilty but then given a lighter sentence, how much lighter depending on where they were at in the chain of command and what personal actions they were involved in."
The news flipped back to United States politics. The president was weathering a firestorm of criticism over the trial of the CIA six, as they had been dubbed. So far no impeachment proceedings had been begun. A small group of liberal senators were pushing for an investigation into how much the current administration had known about the black ops. A larger group of conservative senators were trying to push for immediate impeachment hearings for allowing U.S. Soldiers to be tried by a foreign court. Legal experts were wrangling with the dilemma, could a president be impeached for two separate crimes? Or did the two sides have to agree on what he did wrong first?
"Bah, liberal media," Thornberg muttered and ordered the view screen changed. Now that they had a portal between networks, they could get a wide variety of channels from earth. Thornberg pulled up a conservative media network.
Dan shot him a dirty look. Didn't even ask anyone else what they wanted to watch. He was too wiped to argue the point.
"God damn it, do we have to watch news all the time?" Davies said as he and Clower came over. They had a short argument with Thornberg over it, but when it became clear that nobody else cared to side with him, Thornberg stomped off to watch in his own quarters.
Dan's relief quickly soured as they choose instead a reality show about some hillbilly family that Dan found personally offensive. He, too, dismissed himself back to quarters.