The Octonauts and the Random Role Reversal

Chapter Ten

"Captain! Captain!"

Instinctively, Barnacles turned from his spot hanging on the cavern wall where he was trying his best - and not really succeeding - to bandage up the injured fin of a dolphin, to see Dashi barrelling towards him, a yell on her lips and tears in her eyes. She wheeled to a watery halt in front of him, Shellington catching up moments later, breathing heavily. "They're trapped, Captain. They're trapped and running out of air and it's my fault."

The polar bear thanked the dolphin briefly, who swum away (with a mostly fixed fin) and turned to the dachshund. "Slow down, Dashi," he ordered calmly.

Dashi trod water like her life depended on it, the water around them getting gradually choppier as the chasm rumbled away to itself. "Tweak and Peso," she said tearfully. "I forgot to call them and they didn't want to worry me. They're trapped in a tiny cave way below us and -" she gestured wildly in a vague direction. "All the way over that way."

Barnacles raised his hands in a placatory fashion, one that he's used to employing in his usual role. "Firstly, Dashi, you're the captain. Not me."

"But I let them down!" she sung, almost a sob.

"You haven't let anyone down." He smiled, almost fully hiding the concern in his expression from her. Another vital captaincy skill, one that took a lot of practice to learn. One that she was definitely yet to master, by the looks of things. "And you're the captain. Right?"

She sagged, tired of treading water, and gripped onto the cavern wall like he was already doing. It tremored under their grip. "Right," she agreed dully, not sounding convinced.

"Now lets sound the Octoalert, and call the others," Barnacles said authoritatively.

"Hi," Tweak's voice replied on the other end once the alert had finished ringing and everyone was in on the transmission, Kwazii listening from the Launch Bay.

"What happened down there?" Barnacles asked, and waited as she and Peso filled him in on the situation.

"We're okay," Peso said, his voice crackly across the radio. "It's getting a bit cramped in here, and there's no space for Tweak to stand up, but all the creatures seem alright."

"You're telling me! I'm getting a crick in my neck!" piped in Tweak in mock affront.

"We'll get you out of there as soon as we can," Barnacles said reassuringly. "How much air do you have left?"

Tweak calculated for a moment. "Twenty minutes," she said eventually. "Give or take."

"Do we have spares in the Gups?"

"Nope. Well, we do, but I was getting around to fixing them up," said Tweak a little apologetically. "They're all out of oxygen at the moment. They need patching and filling."

"No problem," assured the current medic. "It's fine anyway, we have an engineer ready and waiting back at the Octopod to do exactly that. Isn't that right, Kwazii?"

"Wha -?" the cat yelped, and even Dashi managed a smile as they all heard Tweak groan exaggeratedly down the radio.

"Now we just need a plan," Barnacles said. He leant out from his hold on the trench wall, made direct eye contact with Dashi. "Captain, I think that means it's over to you."

She shook her head, kicking off the rock and looking miserably at her moving feet. "I - I'm not a captain. Not like you. I can't do it."

"It's your call, Dashi," stated Barnacles seriously. "It has to be. You are our captain."

Dashi tried to fight the rising panic as she trod water in the chasm, water that suddenly seemed blacker and rougher than ever before. "Uh..." she faltered, sharply aware that the whole crew were listening to her, that her whole crew was listening to her.

Barnacles pulled himself a little way up the rocky wall and met Dashi's gaze with his calm grey eyes. "Dashi. A good captain needs always to remember two main things. Just two, crucial things. The first is belief in your crew. You're captain, so, as I said, it's your call, whatever you decide. But we believe in you. I believe in you. And we're ready to support whatever you choose to do."

There were various affirmatives across the radio, and next to her Shellington gave her an encouraging smile.

"But the second and most important thing to remember is belief in yourself," Barnacles told her fervently, never breaking her gaze. "Being Captain is naturally a hard job at times, and you often feel guilty for leading your crew into potentially dangerous situations, and you have to make a lot of quick, tricky decisions on difficult missions. But, if you believe in yourself as a captain, you can bet that your crew is going to believe in you too."

"Okay." Dashi inhaled one long, deep breath, then straightened, kicking a little stronger at the murky water beneath. She had to try. "Okay. Kwazii, we're going to need you to fix up the air supply and get those spare tanks and helmets ready. We're going to need them fast."

"You got it, matey," Kwazii replied promptly.

"Tweak and Peso, sit tight. I'll come and get you out of there with the drill on the Gup D," Dashi continued in one breath. "Barnacles and Shellington, you need to stay in this part of the trench. Use the Gup B and E to get all the creatures you can out of here and help any who are hurt or sick. If there's any tremors or any signs that this chasm might be closing - get out of there."

Her crew replied unanimously, and not for the first time Dashi felt a sudden rush of love for her best friends in all the ocean. Somewhere, she found a smile as she looked around at her bobbing crew members. As the radio cut off and the Octonauts got to work, Dashi turned and looked almost shyly at Barnacles. "Did I do okay?" she asked quietly.

The real captain smiled widely. "You did more than okay, Captain Dashi."