Nemo and his fellow inmates at Kalpani Penal Colony are the slave labourers on a 300 ft long ironclad submarine – Nautilus. Once finished, Nemo and a crack crew will escape on it. But when Director Crawley arrives to demand the Nautilus be moved to Bombay to be armed – today – Nemo must leave. Now. With whoever he can muster as crew
When the Nautilus is spotted by Company soldiers in the Gulf of Kutch, it must make the open sea. Just as they are almost away, the Dreadnought appears. Nemo must give the crew a reason to stay, more than being punished if they flee and are caught. If they secure the Halvar treasure, they can buy influence, power and anonymity. They work together and evade capture, but there’s a dangerous stowaway onboard, and on the dark sea floor, something lurks…
After fighting off a gargantuan squid and cross examining their Company soldier stowaway, the crew of the Nautilus must take on food and water. The only non-company territory they can reach is Karajaan. There, the Rajah recognises Nemo as Prince Dakkar, and reveals to him the complicity Nemo’s father had in his lands becoming controlled by the Company. When the Rajah betrays them, they must escape Karajaan before the Dreadnought arrives.
Almost at the point of starvation, they reach an island. They gorge on fruit. Nemo, Humility and Blaster, searching for water, are captured in a net trap, about to be retrieved by Captain Mogg and his squalid officers – survivors from the shipwrecked Ariadne – when Casimir rescues them. They make it to the Nautilus, but a monstrous eel wraps itself around the vessel. Its electrical charges maim the Nautilus, and alert the Dreadnought. Is this the end?!
The giant eel suddenly releases the Nautilus when an eerie red glow appears. The Ring of Fire. A range of underwater volcanoes. The Nautilus will not rise, even as the temperature does. Worse yet, Blaster discovers a crate of guncotton that will blow if it’s not cooled. One by one, the crew fall sick with an illness from the island. With everyone else onboard unconscious, Humility must fight off succumbing to a comatose state, and save them from certain death.
Humility is rescued by Nemo. When she revives, she remembers seeing an entrance which could have been man made. Benoit brought them here – the map he took from Karajaan is a map to Atlantis. Nemo allows one dive only. When they reach the space beyond the entrance, it seems constructed, but there are no clear signs of human made remnants. There are, though, hungry crinoids. As Benoit is swallowed up by them, he hands to Nemo a mysterious stone.
The Nautilus and the Dreadnought both become lodged in the Arctic ice. Nemo offers to tow the Dreadnought out, if he can use their forge to repair their broken U-bolt. It’s the only way any of them will survive. Millais, in fact Nemo’s childhood friend Billy, knows that Nemo is headed, ultimately, for London and the Company’s offices.
When it’s revealed that Nemo is playing with the lives of the crew, he is confined to his cabin and Boniface turns the Nautilus around. When they hit magnetic north and lose any sense of direction, then are attacked by metal-eating bugs, Nemo must show that he knows who his crew are, and must reveal himself to them, if any of them are to survive.
They reach the Pillars of Halvar. The place, and the treasure, are real. But when the gold, silver and gems are lost to the sea, Nemo feels he has brought the crew of the Nautilus to the ends of the world for nothing. But Ranbir rallies them – the Company has made them all suffer, and millions more. It must be brought down.
The Nautilus crew spread sentiments of uprising and rumours that the East India Mercantile Company is going under. When the stock price plunges, a shareholder meeting is called for tonight. Nemo and the crew have three hours to become the largest shareholder, so they can dissolve the Company forever.
