Commander Esark’s voice chimed in from an overhead speaker, interrupting their conversation.

  “Captain, we’ve arrived.”

  “All right, thanks Thom.”, Jenker responded, before turning back to his guest.

  “Well, let’s go topside. I think you’ll enjoy the view. The Harbour is something else if you’ve never seen it before, or so I’ve been told.”

  The Urchin Gull had surfaced some half hour earlier after maintaining a cruising position just below the waves. Its upper hull and tower the only parts visible. The remaining bulk remained submerged.

  It was a well-armed ship with a dozen torpedo tubes for direct nautical engagements.

  Four missile launchers for sea-to-air and sea-to-land operations. A chaff dispenser designed to counter incoming ordinance by disrupting electronic guidance. Fore and aft gun batteries for defense during surface maneuvers.

  Not that these impressive armaments mattered one ion to Old Father Kraken, Mereque mused to himself. That monsters impossibly enormous dimensions made even the Gull seem like an ant when measured against it. He wondered if the giant octopus was even aware of them, humans were so small next to that thing.

  The ship’s most important feature in dealing with that humongous beast was its specialized hull. It diffused aquatic vibrations and friction drag, making it a smooth ride for those who crewed her. Quiet enough to travel unmolested most of the time.

  There were exceptions, of course. This last incident being a clear example of that. But in general, encounters between their submersibles and Old Father were far and few between.

  How they even developed such camouflage was another mystery to the spaceman. For that level of sophistication did not seem congruent with the technology he had observed so far.

  For that matter, the more time he spent with them, the more he was beginning to wonder if they even understood the mechanics of the tools they were using.

  Mereque followed Jenker as he got up, filing his thoughts away.

  Pulling his coat on, the captain led them out of his cabin and back to the upper exit hatch, through which they made their way above into the fresh air and the warm midday sun.

  A team of crewmen was already outside when they emerged, busily running about and performing their duties as they prepared to dock into Havenlocke Harbour.

  Mereque welcomed the fresh air. He had decided the ocean was not his favorite place since arriving here, but he had little choice in the matter—the world was far more dominated by water than land now, at least compared to when his people had left millennia ago. Even then, Earth's surface had been seventy percent ocean; today, he estimated ninety-eight.

  Despite the dangers, Ventrullis was struck by its beauty. Light blue skies blazed with the midday sun, while the endless sea and its cresting waves twinkled in a rhythmic dance before his eyes.

  Then, as he scanned the horizon—mind distracted by the sights—he realized there was nothing around them. He turned to his host with a questioning look, only to receive a playful chuckle as the captain barked orders to the nearby men, before turning back to him.

  “Just wait for it.”

  The spaceman was about to speak when a deafening roar drowned him out. His headgear shielded his hearing, but the others calmly stuffed small plugs into their ears, seemingly unperturbed by the commotion.

  All around them, the ocean lifted in huge swells that stretched kilometers in length, as if an immense, invisible force had spontaneously birthed a tsunami, displacing the waters with extraordinary mass.

  Mereque scanned the swells and realized his mistake—there weren’t several, but only one, encircling them in a complete ring at roughly ten kilometers out.

  That ocean wall rose skyward, its dramatic climb unchecked until it towered at least a hundred meters high.

  The Gull shook violently amid the waves, forcing Mereque to squat low to keep his footing.

  Just then, the ship halted abruptly as docking clamps locked on, holding it fast in place.

  Havenlocke Harbour rose, a submersible megastructure of interlocking towers and walls, its scale defying the ocean's wrath. Mereque marveled at the engineering—modular, resilient—yet a doubt crept in. The hulls gleamed with that familiar diffusion coating, silencing vibrations like the Gull’s. But the cannons atop the rings were crude, quadruple-barreled relics, their welds uneven as if patched from salvaged parts. The propellers on airborne vehicles whirred with basic efficiency, not the silent precision of the submersible drives. Were these Havenites masters of their tech, or inheritors from an older age? The black iron columns, talons grasping the sky, felt like echoes of a greater past—reused, not reinvented. If so, what dangers lurked in their blind reliance? A single failure could doom this floating haven.

  Jenker clapped his shoulder. “Impressive, eh?”

  Mereque nodded, masking his unease. “Very. How long has it stood?”

  “Centuries,” Jenker replied proudly. “Our ancestors built it to endure.”

  Ancestors, inheritors—or worse, scavengers? He wasn’t so sure.

  Regardless, all had not been lost to whatever catastrophe had befallen the world—as he had feared.

  Civilization endured. People endured.

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  The evidence was sprawled out before him.

  He suppressed the strong emotions boiling inside as dampness crept into one corner of an eye. Relief and joy threatened to overwhelm him—he imagined bawling like a newborn babe at the sight, had he not the ability to precisely regulate his physiology, thanks to surgical enhancements gifted long ago.

  As the water sloughed away from the buildings beneath, they slowly revealed themselves: towering pillars pointing toward the heavens, connected by smaller modular rectangular pieces that formed the Harbours walls.

  The towers bobbed some fifty meters high once fully exposed, while the surrounding barrier stood perhaps half that.

  Later, with more time to assess, Ventrullis would count thirty-two in total—two concentric rings of eight segments each, with two towers between them, sixteen per circle.

  The spaceman soon spotted other ships anchored within the Harbour—many smaller, but a few larger than Captain Jenker’s vessel.

  As the waters rushed further outward from the city, the noise began to subside—surprisingly, none crashing in on them as Mereque half-expected. Instead, much of the energy fueled the lifting of the entire structure, a simple yet practical wonder of engineering executed on a gigantic scale.

  Visible across the Harbour was the Havenites' eight-armed sigil, standing prominently on the tallest watchtowers and repeated on every outbuilding and docked ship.

  Large double- and quadruple-barreled cannons pointed skyward atop the two concentric rings, while the outward walls bristled with varied weapon turrets. The inner faces featured guard stations and smaller gun embankments.

  The structures shared the Gull’s distinctive exterior finish, as did every other ship present—more than a hundred in total, with space to accommodate three or four times as many.

  Only the towers stood apart: gigantic black iron columns of hard-angled, impossibly thick steel, like humongous talons reaching toward the distant clouds.

  Between the ships stretched a vast network of interconnecting patchwork tunnels and free-floating structures and walkways, linked in a shifting complex pattern that provided access to the docked craft, support facilities, and outer rings of the Harbour.

  A propeller-powered airborne vehicle passed overhead after a few minutes, surprising him with the thick black smoke trailing from its engines.

  Smaller utility vessels darted through the waters between the ships and buildings, weaving deftly around and under the connecting passage tubes.

  Soon the entire Harbour bristled with the life of a thriving city.

  Havenites emerged from sealed decks below, appearing everywhere—some shirtless in the warm sun, others piloting giant hydraulic-powered loaders or clad in Heavy Bell diving suits, working submerged on the underbellies of the stationed craft.

  People called out in recognition—friends, family members, brothers-in-arms, and more. Others offered less friendly stares. Some seemed even hostile.

  Suspicion and uncertainty were at play here, Mereque reminded himself.

  Outside of Jenker and the Gull, these people saw him as a stranger. Emphasis on the ‘strange’.

  Their return was no small occasion.

  Many eyes were fixed on them as the spaces between the ships grew busier with the emerging population.

  Several house-sized drum-shaped structures floated over to them.

  They disgorged more official-looking figures. Not regular workmen, but professional veterans and officials of evident rank, distinguished by their dress.

  Havenlocke Harbour was unlike anything the spaceman had ever seen. Not because its technology surpassed that of Leopold Seven—far from it. But because the antiquated yet remarkably functional engineering performed so reliably.

  This was the capital city for these people. Assembled from a nomadic collection of modular parts. Creating a unique submersible megastructure.

  As the Zaxvoyan would later learn, the Harbour was normally secured to the ocean floor.

  The large towers served as locks, anchoring and releasing it from deep moorings embedded far below the surface.

  At the bottom of the ocean, where it normally retreated in times of emergency, a massive rock shelf protected the city from the unwanted advances of Old Father Krakens’ mountainous arms.

  The Habour could also become mobile beneath the waves—with limitations—or be brought up to the surface (as it was now).

  The docking area for the city, a crater-sized space, was reinforced with countless interlocking columns and enormous steel support beams.

  This was the method these people had developed thousands of years ago to survive in this chaotic world.

  Mereque found it inspiring.

  The amount of dedicated effort this community of nautical people would have had to commit themselves to was monumental.

  He could appreciate their tenacity. More than that. He could relate to it.

  They were committed to not just living at sea. But conquering it.

  Building a thriving society in an otherwise hostile environment where facing monsters had become part of life.

  He suspected they were all descended from the same stock of humanity. The Havenites and his own people.

  Though he had little to go on, there were clearly connections.

  Maintenance crews were soon descending upon them. He watched them carefully.

  A maelstrom of activity soon followed.

  Hundreds of eyes gazed on in passing wonder at the giant foreigner among them.

  He wasn’t accustomed to the attention, but he couldn’t blame them. He was two feet taller than any average man amongst them.

  For the most part, he saw a cautiously curious crowd. But he could also count an uncomfortable number of fearful and suspicious faces turned his way.

  Jenker stayed close to him, a comforting presence Mereque quietly appreciated—he was truly a stranger in a strange land.

  There was little waiting around; the Havenites were industrious and disciplined, wasting no time on their duties.

  Not long after arrival, a delegation of higher-ranking personnel approached with haste. They landed in a sizeable aerial vehicle powered by four propellers, flanked by a half-dozen heavily armed single-rotor black helicopters—a design Mereque recalled from ancient vehicle archives on Leopold Seven.

  The escorts hovered overhead in eerie quiet, bristling with missile racks, quad-mounted chain guns, and what appeared to be primitive laser weaponry on their undercarriages.

  Three figures stepped out, accompanied by a score of masked guardsmen in sealed helmets—elite soldiers by their bearing, clad in plated dark navy-blue body armor and gripping weighty fully automatic rifles two-handed.

  All were large men, clearly in prime shape, no doubt incredibly strong and capable. Yet every one of them stood almost a meter shorter than Mereque.

  It was habit—the Zaxvoyan automatically assessing threats around him.

  Decades of training and experience had wired it into him.

  Systematic. Instinctive.

  He could manhandle the lot, had he chosen to do so.

  Tension coiled as the delegation advanced.

  Of the trio who disembarked, two were men. One of very advanced age. The other middle aged, with greys just starting to show.

  While the third was an older woman, yet still younger than them both.

  What struck Mereque as unusual was that he realized this was the first woman he had seen among the Havenites up to this point.

  “Oh, shuck me a slipknot. Seclock, Lassovo, and Abbess Rensa? That’s half the Admiralship right there. Hang onto your caps. Here we go.”, the captain muttered under his breath.

  “Captain Dammad!”

  The younger of the two men from the delegation was moving quickly, approaching with intent in his step. Black-haired with just the temples beginning to change color to grey. He had to shout to be heard above the sounds of the rotors coming from behind them.

  “Admiral Seclock! Welcome aboard, sir!”

  The Havenites on deck all saluted sharply as the man marched towards them.

  “Captain. I take it this is the stranger who saved you.”

  It was a statement more than a question.

  “Yessir!”, Jenker replied.

  Steely eyes locked onto Mereque.

  “Why isn’t he in chains?”

  At Admiral Seclock’s words, the deck of the Urchin Gull fell silent.

  The only sounds to break it were the twenty rifle barrels being trained on him.