BWA!

  As soon as the first warning horn sounded Dan found himself on his feet. He didn't even know how he moved. One moment he was asleep on his bed and the other he was standing up putting on his uniform.

  BWA!

  Even while he was busy with his clothes, Dan was still keeping his attention on the horn blaring from the outside, counting their numbers as his heart beat faster and faster. The internal warning system was also working, but he ignored it as best as he could, focusing on counting the foghorn.

  BWA!

  Three… He counted as he ran out of his room. His clothes were still in disarray and unbuttoned.

  BWA! BWA! BWA! BWA!

  As he ran, he kept on counting. Once the horn had sounded for the 7th time, his heart ran cold as he awaited the final note in this foreboding symphony. And it didn't disappoint, the final long blare sounded as if trying to split the night. Long and continuous

  BWWAAAAAAAAA!

  Seven short blasts followed by one long one. The universal signal for a General Emergency Alarm. It could mean anything, from a fire to colliding headfirst with an iceberg. It meant that a serious emergency had to be dealt with, and in this world, Dan feared what could be considered such.

  Dan reached the bridge in record time, his heart beating so loud in his chest that he could barely hear anything else. Once on the bridge, the first thing Dan saw was Freddie looking quite distressed as he kept on interacting with the board and steering lever.

  "What's the situation," he asked, hearing fast footsteps getting closer and closer. Seems that he might have been the first into the bridge.

  "I don't know!" Freddie half grumbled, half shouted, it was clear the short man was quite confused and anxious too. "The first alarm wasn't by me. It went on its own, I thought it was just some technical issue at most. Who would have thought that the Voyager would then start moving on its own, it's moving at top speed, I tried to stop it but couldn't. I could only sound the alarm, hoping that someone would come and help."

  "Moving on its own..?" Dan murmured before shouting, "Let her be, don't interfere."

  "What do you mean?" Freddie asked in confusion.

  "Captain, what's the matter?" Dan didn't even have time to answer before Keith ran onto the bridge. Her eyes were red and her clothes were messy, it was quite clear that she hadn't had much sleep before she got awakened by the alarm.

  "The Voyager is moving on her own," Dan answered while heading to the screen that was linked to Keith's skill. He didn't care about watching what he said in front of Freddie, keeping the fact that the Voyager was alive was at the back of his mind at the moment, "She must have sensed something. Your linked skill doesn't show anything, see if you can catch whatever it is that set her off on your side."

  "She sensed something?" Dan heard Freddie repeat to himself but he didn't have time for that.

  "Big girl, what's wrong?" he asked into the void, not even bothering to keep his words low.

  Only then as he focused on feeling for the Voyager's auras around him, did he notice something he would have noticed much earlier if he wasn't in a half-panicked state. The Voyager's auras were agitated. The dark heavy aura was fully active, that only happened once before, when the Behemoth appeared on their first day in the world.

  Dan felt the aura pulse, as if it had just noticed him, before rushing towards him like a tsunami, it enveloped him in a second. As soon as he was cocooned in the mix of auras, Dan felt the familiar consciousness of Voyager. A mix of anger, fear, worry, panic and finally relief assaulted his mind as he tried to understand what the Voyager was sending.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "Voyager calm down, it's going to be alright." He fought against the onslaught of emotions as he tried to help her calm down.

  It took a bit, but it seemed that being connected to Dan helped her, as her thoughts became less and less chaotic. Finally, she linked him to the cameras she had under her control. After orienting himself with the new senses, he realised that he was being shown the view from the rear cameras.

  Knowing that the Voyager wouldn't show him that for no reason, he put all his focus on finding what was wrong there, it didn't take him long to find the problem. Around half a nautical mile or so the water was being agitated by something, as if a huge swarm of aquatic creatures were making their way after them. Above the water, something that looked like wispy mist was hovering, as if emitted by the creatures.

  "Keith, astern," Dan said, "Something's after us."

  Even as he said that, he was brought back to what he was being shown by the Voyager. His vision went even further back as he saw a ghostly light floating a few meters above the water, surrounded even more by the weird mist. The light too was after them, it just was way further than one nautical mile, outside the range of Keith's skill.

  "I got it," Keith shouted a few seconds after Dan had pointed her to where to search. "Seems to be a swarm of different creatures. My skill didn't register them at first for some reason. They feel weird to me."

  "The feed changed," Freddie seemed to have decided to leave whatever questions he might have had to later as he updated them on Keith's skill on the screen. His voice cracked as he continued, "We are being followed by a herd of grey dots. I don't know what grey means but there are hundreds of them after us."

  Dan could feel the blood drain from his face. The situation was weird and he didn't know what to do about any of this. He could feel himself start to panic as his thoughts started wandering. At that moment, Voyager cut the vision to him, having shown him everything she wanted to. She then sent him a feeling of loss tinged by worry and confusion.

  It was that that brought him back and grounded him, stopping him from spiralling further into his panic. Voyager needed him to be there, and not just her. Everyone in his crew and their families needed him to be level-headed and able to lead them to safety. Not falling into fear whenever the situation went a bit sideways.

  At that point, many had joined them on the bridge, even some of the family members of the crew. Dan gave them no mind as he considered how to turn things around. His mind sent back an empty page though, he had no idea what he had seen meant. He did the next best thing then, he shared the info he had with the people there. One person would never be as good at thinking of a solution as many working together.

  "The swarm isn't the only thing after us," he started explaining loudly to the people there. At that moment, he saw no difference between the crewmen and their family members, they were all in the same boat. "Far behind us, something else is following us too. There's some weird mist and amidst it, a light is floating a few meters above the water."

  "A Ghostly Lantern..." Dan heard someone murmur. Turning to the source of the voice, he saw Natalie, Freddie's sister.

  "What did you say?" Dan asked, he felt that the way she said those words was as if she knew something.

  "Ghostly Lanterns. They were mentioned in Legends of the Ocean that you brought back from the shore." The lazy neurolinguist kinda blanked out at first to his question, but started her explanation once she noticed everyone looking at her, "It's a legend about how when a floating ghostly light appears amidst black gloomy mist, it would mean the death of whatever was in its way. The book talked about how a group of people watched from the shore as such a phenomenon destroyed a ship. All the crew were eaten and the ship turned into drifting debris."

  Dan felt the bridge fall into deep silence as Natalie's words sank in, and he could understand it, the situation was bad. They were literally being chased by an ocean legend, anyone would panic when they heard that. Just as he was about to try and take everyone's minds from that, he realised that someone beat him to it as a voice sounded,

  "So that's the situation," Dan turned to see Marcus standing at the door, the man must have heard what Natalie said as he entered, "Now let's try and come up with a solution. One thing about legends is that they are exaggerated, don't let it get to you. Now come on, give some suggestions about what we could do."

  "The grey dots aren't that much faster than us," Keith was the first to break the silence, "At the speed they are moving and how fast they are closing the distance between us, I would say that we still have an hour at the very least before they catch up to us."

  "That means we have an hour to act," Marcus's calm voice sounded again, "Don't panic yet, just think, it might be whatever, but it could also help us."

  Dan watched as people fell silent, their panic and fear replaced by a controlled worry and deep frowns. Dan nodded to Marcus in thanks when their eyes met before he too started considering how to deal with the current situation.

  His mind scanned fast through all that had happened to them ever since they got to Talia, trying to find anything that could be of help.

  Just as he was about to give up, his eyes fell on Robert and he remembered how his right-hand man told him to go hunting for monsters or even pirates as regret started filling him. Maybe if they had gone for that, they wouldn't be in this situation. They even had a perfectly stationary target the day before.

  It was then that something flashed through his mind and an idea started forming.

  "The Swarmers!" he shouted, "We can use the Swarmers!"