The Monster Missions

by Laura Martin

  “I bet you could come up with something,” Garth whispered in my ear, and I glanced over at him, eyebrow raised. “Give up on figuring out the lock for Elmer’s cage, and figure this problem out first.”

  “What are you two talking about?” Kate said, jamming her head in between us.

  “Probably how nosy you are,” Max said.

  “I think Berkley could figure something out,” Garth said so loudly that I cringed and shot him a dirty look. “What?” he said in mock confusion. “You and I both know you could. You’re great at that kind of stuff.”

  “You’re welcome to try,” Weaver said with a smile. “Lord knows we could use all the help we can get.”

  “See,” Garth said, proudly clapping me on the back. “You can thank me later.”

  “I wouldn’t hold your breath,” I muttered as everyone dispersed back to their regular chores. I stayed in front of the tank for a while longer, watching the young sea monsters swim. Maybe Garth was right; maybe I could figure out a way to collect the poison. And, who knew, maybe that was the weapon that could save my family. If nothing else, it was something to get my mind off the fact that we were still light years away from figuring out a solution to the bigger sea-monster issue. Elmer lunged against the front of his tank, but I gave him a level stare, eyebrow raised.

  “You don’t scare me, sir,” I said. “And don’t think I’m giving up on a lock for your tank, because I’m not. I’m going to stump you yet.”

  He flicked a tentacle in a way that seemed to say that he wasn’t too impressed with me, either, and sulked to the back of his tank.

  I spent the next week trying to figure out how to get poison from a sea monster without getting poisoned by a sea monster. It was a tricky bit of business, much trickier than an octopus-proof lock, which I still hadn’t given up on. Whenever I got frustrated with one project, I’d turn to the other, and by now I had an entire bucket of locks that Elmer had successfully mangled. Weaver’s stash of junk was good, but it had its limits, and I found myself longing for the bits of junk and clutter that were always so readily available to me as a scavenger. Of all the stuff we’d bring up from the bottom of the ocean, only about forty percent of it ever ended up being usable. The rest was usually unceremoniously dumped back into the water for the next salvage crew to dredge up.

  “Why do you look like you just ate some bad fish?” Garth asked one day as he slid into the seat next to me with his breakfast.

  “I miss scavenging,” I said, putting my newest lock attempt down in disgust.

  Garth paused to peer down at it before looking up at me. “Poison collector or Elmer lock?”

  “The fact that you can’t tell shows just how well this is all going,” I said.

  “Sorry,” Garth said. “But you really miss scavenging? I thought it was just me.”

  I smiled. “I think maybe we miss it for different reasons. I’m missing the choice bits of junk we used to bring up.”

  “See,” Garth said, throwing his hands up in mock exasperation, “that’s why you were a crummy scavenger. The point was to find useful stuff, not junk.”

  “Ha-ha,” I said. “You know what I mean. Weaver’s stash of odds and ends is better than nothing, don’t get me wrong, but it’s pretty limited.”

  “You’ve probably used half of it making locks,” Garth said, turning my newest attempt over in his hands before looking up at me hopefully. “Do you think they’d let us go out on a scavenging mission sometime? Just a little one when the dive team is off hunting down some obscure monster?”

  I shook my head. “Probably not. The Britannica has more important missions than finding junk that’s more user-friendly.”

  “I guess that’s true,” Garth said grudgingly.

  “Remember that charybdis yesterday?” I said. “That ship, what was its name again, the Maria? It would have gone down for sure without us.”

  Garth nodded. “Weaver said that was an adolescent; the adults are twice that size.”

  I let out a low whistle. “Can you imagine?”

  “Unfortunately, yes,” Garth said with a shudder as the rest of the group headed our way with their own breakfasts.

  “What’s up with you two?” Max said, sitting down next to Garth.

  “Missing our old life,” I said. “Specifically our access to lots of junk.”

  “Weaver’s stash isn’t enough?” Kate said around a mouthful of breakfast.

  I shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Well, you know,” Kate said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “I’ve always heard that he has a secret stash somewhere on board.”

  “That’s a legend,” Max said. “I heard that one at the same time someone told me that Wilson sings French opera on the toilet and that Tank once battled a kronda monster and won.”

  I snorted, sending my recent sip of water spewing across the table. I spluttered and coughed as Kate pounded me on the back. “Opera?” I finally choked out. I heard the click of toenails behind me as Tank leaped onto the seat beside me and gave my face a worried lick. “I’m fine,” I told the little dog as I handed over a bit of my breakfast, which he snarfed happily.

  “Sorry,” Max said with a rare smile. “Sometimes I forget you guys are new.”

  “Really?” Kate said, eyebrow raised.

  “Really,” Max said, turning his back on her in an obvious brush-off. “You could always ask him about the secret stash,” he said. “You never know, maybe you’ll debunk a myth.”

  “Maybe,” I agreed, taking another bite of my breakfast.

  I walked into the large-specimen room a half hour later to find Weaver inside one of the newly empty tanks with a scrub brush and a bucket of soapy water. The tank’s previous occupant, a bakunawa, had been released the day before.

  “Good morning,” he said, his voice echoing slightly off the glass walls of the tank. “I thought I’d get an early start on this, as we may need the tank sooner rather than later. Why don’t you begin dicing up the squid?”

  I nodded but hesitated, shifting from foot to foot as he went on scrubbing. He noticed a moment later and paused, setting the scrub brush back in the bucket to consider me.

  “What’s on your mind?” he said.

  “Have you made any headway in collecting the hydra’s poison?” I said.

  Mr. Weaver sighed and shook his head. “That idea might not end up panning out,” he said. “They are just too lethal, and one slipup could end a life.”

  “Well,” I said, “I’ve been working on a few ideas, and while the stuff you’ve let me use from the storage closet is great and everything, there are still some things I need that just aren’t there.”

  “Oh?” Weaver said.

  I nodded. “I know we can’t exactly waste time on scavenger missions, but is there anywhere else on the ship where spare parts are stored? I promise I won’t take anything without running it by you first.”

  He considered me for a second. “You heard about my secret stash, didn’t you?”

  “Maybe,” I said, glancing down as I felt my face flush with embarrassment. “I also heard about singing opera on the toilet, though, so I wasn’t sure if it was true.”

  “Oh, Wilson?” Weaver said with a grin. “That one’s completely true. The man can sing like you wouldn’t believe. Here,” he said, and something jangly and silver came flying over the top of the aquarium. I caught it and looked down to find the thick ring of keys he carried with him at all times. They were what he used to open each of the specimen tanks as well as the supply room and his own classroom, and while I’d seen them plenty of times, I’d never actually held them before.

  “The tiny one with the blue dot on it is for the door that takes you behind the tanks in my classroom,” he said. I quickly found the key he was talking about and held it up. I’d been helping to clean and feed the occupants of those tanks for weeks now and knew the door well. It was built seamlessly into the wall of tanks: three of the tanks actually swung inward on a hinge. Essenti
ally Weaver’s classroom was a small room—made almost completely of aquariums and tanks—situated inside a bigger room that allowed him to service all those tanks from behind. It was kind of ingenious. Behind the tanks was a narrow three-foot hallway that wrapped around the room and functioned as Weaver’s office, workroom, and storage.

  “The bank of drawers next to the bait sink is where I’ve kept leftover bits of this and that over the years—anything that doesn’t fit in that tiny storage closet Captain Reese lets me use. Why don’t you paw through it and see what you can find?” he said.

  I glanced down at the keys, feeling excited but also a tad guilty. “Are you sure you don’t need me here?”

  “The squid that needs chopping can wait,” he said with a smile. “I won’t be done for another half hour or so anyway. Have fun.” I hesitated for another half second and then nodded and rushed from the room. My mind buzzed as I hurried down the hall and took a left toward the classroom. I was almost there when the alarm went off, freezing me in place. I shut my eyes tight as I waited for the announcement, praying we weren’t about to be swallowed again.

  The sound system crackled and then Captain Reese’s voice came over the line. “All available crew please report to your superior for instructions. We are under attack.” And that was it. The alarm stopped blaring, but the flashing red light made it clear the emergency wasn’t over. We were being attacked, but by what? Usually Captain Reese gave specifics when it came to a sea-monster attack, but she hadn’t said anything this time. Why? Kate was suddenly careening past at a full sprint, Max close at her heels.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “Didn’t you hear? We’re under attack,” Max yelled over his shoulder. “Come on! All recruits are supposed to report to the hub.” I dashed after them as they went sliding into the front of the hub. I skidded to a halt behind them and gasped. The entire place was in an uproar, with everyone seeming to yell at once while Captain Reese stood in the middle of the chaos giving orders, her face tight and strained. What was going on? I wondered. Then I saw it—through the panoramic front window of the Britannica, a huge black submarine came into view.

  “Pirates,” Max breathed beside me. “I was worried about that.”

  “Pirates?” I said, turning to stare in disbelief at the large skull and crossbones painted on the side of the strange submarine.

  “What’s going on?” Garth said, coming to stand beside me. “Captain Reese looks more stressed than when we were swallowed. What can be worse than being swallowed?”

  “That,” Kate said, pointing out the front window as the black submarine fired something cylindrical and black. It hurtled through the water toward the Britannica and the crew erupted, shouting orders. There were also a few terrified screams.

  “Pull up, hard!” shouted Captain Reese above the mayhem, and the crew rushed to comply. Everyone stumbled and grabbed on to something as the nose of the sub suddenly veered upward, sending the floor into a steep climb. I was lucky enough to be close to one of the wall benches and grabbed on. I noticed a small cream-colored blur as Tank slid past, his nails scraping uselessly at the metal floor. Max reached out with his foot and stopped his slide long enough for Kate to grab the little dog and tuck him safely under her arm.

  A moment later I felt the entire submarine shudder as whatever it was hit us.

  There was a flurry of activity as the crew checked various monitors. The Britannica leveled out momentarily, and I could see the black sub turning to track us.

  “Pirates,” Garth croaked beside me. “I never thought about underwater pirates!” Captain Reese must have called out another order, because suddenly the Britannica plunged downward, sending anything not bolted to the floor sliding the opposite way that it had just come.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Garth said. My ears popped in protest at the quick change in pressure, and I winced.

  “Why don’t we just outrun them!” I heard Wilson yell above the fray.

  “We can’t,” Captain Reese replied, her voice tense. “The dive team is out on a research mission. We’ve called them back, but until they are safely inside the hatch, we can’t go anywhere.” The pirate submarine fired at us again. The Britannica turned hard, but the missile still made contact, sending a tremor through the metal under our feet.

  “You four, with me,” came a harsh bark behind us, and we turned to see Hector motioning us to follow him. Since there didn’t seem to be much we could do in the hub, and we knew better than to argue with Hector, we followed, Kate still holding a very disgruntled-looking Tank under her arm.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as the Britannica rocked hard to the left, and we all threw our hands out to steady ourselves on the narrow passage walls.

  “Damage control,” Hector said over his shoulder. “That first missile nicked us, and we’re taking on water.”

  “Nicked us?” Garth said. “You don’t nick a submarine. You sink a submarine.” Before he could say anything else, Hector had thrown open a door, and we all hurried into a storage room I’d never seen before. Instantly my feet were wet, and I looked down at the six inches of water that had already accumulated. Three of the sub’s engineers I recognized from the incident with the megalodon and the busted hatch were there, desperately trying to weld large swaths of metal over the small hairline leak in the side of the Britannica.

  “I take that back,” Garth said. “Maybe you can nick a submarine.”

  “Less chitchat, more work,” Hector snapped. He turned to me and Max. “You two grab the hose out of the closet in the dive room, attach it to the drain in the floor, and bring the other end back here. We need to start getting this water pumped out of here, or it won’t matter if we get away from those blasted pirates.” He turned to Garth and Kate. “And you two go grab the hand pump. I believe it’s in the storage closet next to the captain’s room. Now go!” We went, practically colliding as we all tried to fit out the door at once.

  “Leave the dog!” Hector bellowed, and Kate looked down at Tank in surprise, almost like she’d forgotten that she was holding him, before plopping him down in the water and dashing out the door after Garth. I followed Max through the quivering halls of the sub, all the while trying not to think about what was happening to make the floors tilt like that. It only took a minute to attach the hose to the dive-room drain and drag it back to the small flooded room. Garth and Kate arrived a moment later with the pump. It was big and clunky and took two people on either side to work the handle back and forth, and it wasn’t long before my hands were raw. I didn’t mind, though. I was glad to be doing something, anything, as the Britannica continued to jerk this way and that.

  The crack in the submarine was patched in about ten minutes, and we started to make some actual headway on removing the water. It felt good, since up to that point the water had just kept creeping higher up our ankles to our calves, despite the fact that we were pumping so hard and fast that my blisters were getting blisters. Satisfied the leak was patched, the sub’s engineers grabbed their tools and practically flew out of the room, most likely headed toward another breach. The thought made my insides roll, but I just kept pumping, trying to take reassurance from the cool metal under my hands and the bulldog that was alternately picking up one foot and then another, as though if he got just the right combination, he’d be able to free himself from the freezing cold seawater. I’d stopped feeling my own feet a long time ago, or I probably would have been doing the same.

  The water was down to an inch or two when we heard an earsplitting bang, and the sub jerked hard to the left. Everyone lost their footing and went down, even Hector, whose veteran sea legs almost never wobbled. As we scrambled to our feet, Hector held a hand to his lips, motioning for us all to be quiet. We did what he asked, listening hard for whatever had made his face go tight like that.

  “Kate and Berkley, go check the dive room,” he instructed. “That sounded like something just happened with the hatch.” Max quickly stepped i
n to take my place at the pump next to Garth while Hector took over the other side single-handedly, his thin arms pumping with a strength I hadn’t realized he still possessed. I didn’t have time to marvel, though, as we hurried for the door. “And girls,” Hector said, and we paused to look back. “I have a bad feeling about this. Be careful.”

  Kate nodded and slipped out with me at her heels. The hallway had its own inch or so of water, and I felt my stomach flop as I noticed that it was coming from the front of the submarine. I said a silent prayer that the engineers were getting it patched up as we sloshed back toward the dive room. We were about to round the corner when Kate stopped so abruptly I ran right into her. She stumbled and shot me a look as she held her finger to her lips. I nodded and followed suit as she pressed herself against the wall and crept closer to the dive-room door. I heard it then: voices, and not any that I recognized. I had been around long enough to know that no one on board talked with the harsh rasp I was hearing now.

  “Put down that harpoon gun or your buddy here will lose his other ear,” someone snarled, and I swallowed hard as Kate turned to me with wide eyes.

  Pirates, she mouthed. I nodded. We’d been boarded, and from the sound of the scuffle and the shouting, the dive crew had been ambushed. That thought alone was unnerving, as I’d seen them make short work of a two-headed aphant without breaking a sweat.

  “Someone has to tell the captain,” I hissed as quietly as possible. Kate nodded, and together we slipped back down the hallway. As soon as we were far enough away, we broke into a dead sprint, the icy water splashing up around our feet as we flew back. Rounding a corner at top speed, I ran directly into someone. I barely stifled a scream as Hector shot out a hand to keep me from falling.

  “I was just coming to make sure you two were all right,” he said. “What’s happening?” Kate skidded to a stop beside me, and between the two of us we managed to splutter out what we’d heard. Hector’s face was grave as he listened, his eyes sparking angrily.