Jack watched curiously as John worked on the pad and was startled when a large hatch suddenly thudded underneath him. John turned and smiled, stepped over to the previously locked platform, and hooked one of his fingers through a latch that usually accepted a special hook designed to allow the sailors to lever open the heavy trapdoors. But John did not need such tools. His mechanical muscles registered the weight without concern as he wrenched the massive door up and heaved it away to rest against the far wall, revealing a far deeper hold beneath them. As Jack came up to stare down into the twenty-foot-deep cavern below, John smiled at him.

“Wow.” said Jack, steadying himself against an instinctive vertigo.

“Welcome to the bowels of the HMS Dauntless.” said John.

Jack stared into the dark hole beneath them, aware that it extended back under his own feet. Trying to remain calm, he stepped discreetly back from precipitous drop, saying, “What happens if someone comes down here while we’re working?”

“Once we are down there no one will be able to come looking for us.” replied John as he started to carry the boxes, one by one, to the edge of the hatch, “the more sensitive areas of the ship are sealed by a network of armor-plated doors, each with a code lock. Access is strictly controlled and monitored. Even if the captain opens this door or any of the other ones that we will be going through in a while, an alarm sounds automatically on the bridge and in the captain’s cabin.”

Jack looked slightly horrified at the comment and had to stop himself for looking for an escape route, but John’s easy smile and relaxed attitude calmed the US officer.

John went on, “The doors we are going to go through are also made of two-inch-thick blast-resistant steel and have permanent surveillance cameras mounted on either side of them, recording twenty-four hours a day.”

Jack looked no more comforted at the addition of this good news, but John carried on talking as he moved the crates, “Of course, we have access rights rather better than those the captain enjoys.” He paused to look at the major, his smile broadening, “No alarms will be going off tonight, trust me, and the cameras have just entered a ten-hour-long loop.” Of course John’s own internal monitoring devices had also entered a loop as soon as the hatch above had closed, telling the AI satellites above them that John had gone to bed and was even now lying, in the dark, asleep in his cabin.