by Anya Nowlan
“If that’s all, ma’am, I think I need to go talk to the pool crew about fixing the chlorine levels in the water. Some of the aquatic shifters were complaining – apparently their private pool isn’t large enough and the dolphins threatened to jump overboard and demand to be hauled up after their daily swim if we don’t do anything about it.”
“Ah, the sweet drama of shifter cruises,” Amy chuckled. “That’s fine. But, before you go, only one question – who is manning the engine rooms for the midnight shift?”
The question was delivered innocently enough. Jorge cocked a brow but flipped through his trusty clipboard for a moment, before discarding it and picking up a tablet. After a second of searching, he nodded to himself.
“Jansson’s crew, it seems, ma’am. Is there a problem with that?”
“Not at all,” Amy said. “I remembered we had some trouble last cruise with the mid-trip maintenance workloads, I simply wanted to be sure we had the right men on the job.”
“Very well, ma’am,” Jorge met with a nod, excusing himself from the bridge with swift efficiency.
Amy pursed her lips, watching him go, before her attention returned to the lovely sunset.
Funny how something so pretty can seem so ominous, she thought, letting her hand run over her stomach as the red and golden sunset reached its final moments.
At the very last second before the yellow sliver of sun fell behind the blue and black ocean screen, Amy jerked forward. She gasped, a hand firmly on her stomach, drawing several looks.
“Ma’am, is anything the matter?” the officer manning navigation asked.
“N-no,” Amy stuttered, taking a quick breath and conjuring a smile on her lips to cover the shock. “I’m fine, thank you. Must be the shrimp playing tricks on me.”
That sparked a spirited round of conversation on the bridge. The shrimp in the evening buffet always seemed to come with mixed reviews.
Surrounded by the chatter, Amy glanced down at her belly. The smile that had been fake turned radiant as she felt it again – a kick. Two kicks, in fact. It was the first time she’d felt it and suddenly, what had been monopolizing her attention for so long had turned real. Something she could feel, not only rationalize to herself.
My babies, she thought, fighting back tears of happiness.
But as soon as the joy had filled her, it left again. Because it was then that she realized that the two men she had come to care deeply for were risking their lives that night and they didn’t even know about what they could have been fighting for.
I need to tell them… but how can I without blowing their cover?
Pursing her lips nervously, Amy brought up the security feeds again. She couldn’t see anything on the lower levels but she flipped through the rest of them, checking what was going on in the rest of the ship. The night was winding down in some parts while the party was only beginning in others.
They had agreed on a plan with Price and Prowler before the two of them had left her rooms. A quick overview of what they thought would happen seemed to match Amy’s own expectations. Their mission statement had said that the most likely outcome was that The Arctics were going to be holding some sort of a meeting between their military and research branches on The Pearl Princess.
The best thing to do would be simply to get the intel and let them leave without setting civilian lives in danger and on this much, Amy agreed with The Firm. The Renards hadn’t been so convinced, but they agreed begrudgingly. They told her that their assumption was that the meeting would take place on the maintenance decks as taking out a couple of techs was easier than piling a bunch of high terrorist executives into a suite somewhere where they may be noticed.
The only way for Amy to tell the twins anything at this point was if she found them on the ship and confronted them. But it would be the worst possible time, wouldn’t it?
It would. Tomorrow morning. After this is all done, she reassured herself, scanning the feeds feverishly.
She couldn’t leave the bridge because it would be the first place she’d hear if something was going wrong. If only she could be looking at all the feeds, her heart would have been a bit calmer in her chest…
They have to be okay. Everything has to go as planned. There’s no other choice!
It was only an hour later that everything went firmly and without question straight to hell.
Eighteen
Prowler
Prowler relaxed his breathing for a moment, trying not to move in his enclosed space. While he had never been particularly claustrophobic, being stuck in a small tin can for hours on end got even to the best of them.
Namely him.
Slicking his tongue over his teeth, Prowler slouched forward a bit, listening to the blissful silence below him. Absolutely nothing had been going on for hours now and he was beginning to think that nothing would.
Right as he was getting settled with that thought, a clink rattled through the microphone and Prowler scooched himself up a bit, frowning.
“Hey, who goes there? Mike, is that you?” the voice of the ventilation room tech called out.
The next moment, he was screaming bloody murder and then Prowler heard a sickening thud.
Great.
He tapped the button on his headset once, signaling the rest of his squad that something was afoot.
“Lynx One, mark copied,” came Dice’s response.
Prowler remained perfectly still. He was right above the main ventilation control room, the area that controlled the air supply for the whole cruise ship. Air got filtered and cleaned there and pumped into the rest of the ship. Along with the massive engine room, it was one of the hearts of the ship.
It only took a couple of seconds until Prowler heard another thud of a body hitting the floor. When he leaned forward to look through the tiny camera he had snaked through a gap in the connections between the interlocking units, he saw several men, clad in black, dispersing through the room.
The bodies of the two techies were getting dragged together, their throats slit and blood still dribbling down their chests. Prowler’s jaw set tighter. Keeping himself from busting out of the ventilation shaft and raining hell down on those Arctics fucks was becoming harder by the second.
Keep your cool. We’re here to observe, record and report back, he reminded himself, watching the unit of men clear the room and make sure there was no one else there.
Then, a couple of people in civilian clothing were brought in. One of them was still holding a glass of whiskey and another of them Prowler recognized as the guy Price almost knocked out the other night during the scuffle for Amy’s hand in the dance competition. Prowler’s stomach knotted. He could read more than a dozen Arctics below him, looking particularly smug about themselves.
“So, gentlemen, the air seems to be clear,” one of the commandos said, lowering his gun to hang at his side. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” one of the weedier looking scientists said, snaking something out of his pocket. “This was too delicate to hand over to the South American forces on the mainland, but I trust you know to keep it safe now. We have several more units back in the rooms, but this should get us started.”
“I thought you were going to bring everything right away,” the commando grumbled, tossing the narrow, silver tube into a bag on his hip. “We need to get out of here fast, before we hit international waters.”
“Patience,” the scientist said with a sigh, reaching his hand out to receive the glass of whiskey from one of his colleagues. “I told your boss the same thing I’ll tell you. We are not to be rushed. Our work is delicate.”
“Your neck will be delicate if you don’t stop fucking around,” the commando growled, the circle of warriors around the cruise-goers tightening.
Good, rip one another to shreds. Less for us to deal with, Prowler thought smugly, though his gaze kept tracking to the dead bodies left in a pile.
He hated witnessing deaths of innocent people. Especially when he wasn’t allo
wed to exact revenge for it.
“Down now, puppy,” the scientist growled. “My boss is Julian Rowen and I don’t think you want to mess around with him. So you’ll behave. One of my men will return to the room and bring back the rest of the stash and then, if you’re especially well-mannered, I might even give you the recipe.”
Rowen.
The name was disgustingly familiar. Julian Rowen was the jerk that had kept Dice’s girlfriend, now wife, Meredith locked up in his messed up Asian desert prison. Though Squad Nine had captured him, they had had a nagging suspicion that for some reason, The Firm had set him loose again.
The confirmation was neither welcome nor desired.
If Dice finds out about this, these guys are toast, Prowler thought, snapping pictures of each of the men.
“Fine,” the commando growled, confirming with another for a moment before speaking. “Send him.”
“Thank you,” the scientist said mockingly.
He was a young enough man, though the Hawaiian shirt didn’t look half as ridiculous on him as it had on Prowler or Price. Prowler’s guess was that the man was human, one of those bigwigs that had sold his soul for money to The Arctics. There were far too many of them these days, brilliant minds that were willing to forego their morals on the count of fat stacks of cash.
The Arctics had become one of the leading powers in the world in the fields of genetic mutation, medical regrowth and regeneration, as well as poisons and weapons development. The more Prowler thought about it, the sicker he felt.
The Firm really should have been doing more to stop these chumps, he couldn’t help but think.
While he and the rest of the elite teams seemed to constantly be busy blowing up one Arctics safehouse or another, they rarely seemed to get close to the research centers. Haygrove and the like were exceptions to the rule, it seemed, and even then most of the time it hadn’t been The Firm setting the squads up for success, but they themselves finding a way to kick some werewolf ass.
Generally, it seemed to Prowler that the less time spent thinking about it, the better. He’d long ago come to the realization that most of the world was begging for a bullet and that if he kept worrying about it, it would eat him up.
Still, now with Amy on his mind, the urge to rid the world of scum was all the stronger. If not for his own sake than hers, at least.
Prowler hadn’t noticed, but his hands had balled into tight fists as he listened to the scientist give orders to one of his companions. The man nodded and began for the door when it got flung open suddenly and a familiar face slipped in through the crack.
The fuck?
The white uniform the man was wearing left no question. He was an officer on The Pearl Princess and unless Prowler was mistaken, he’d seen the guy before with Amy as well. Usually sitting at her table during dinners. Scouring around in his memory, Prowler came up with a name. Jorge Ramos. Amy’s second in command.
That fucking rat.
“What’s going on?” the commando demanded, everyone’s attention on the fox shifter.
“We have trouble,” Jorge said, his face twisted in anger.
“Well, speak up then!” the scientist demanded.
“I think it’s the captain. I get the feeling she knows.”
“The captain? I thought we had her vetted – she’s a nobody,” the commando questioned with a frown.
“She’s a nobody asking questions about tonight’s maintenance shifts. I don’t think that’s coincidental,” Jorge growled through gritted teeth.
“Containment procedures, then,” the commando said, glancing from Jorge to the scientist and then back again. “We have no other way. We can’t allow anyone to leave this vessel if there is a chance that we could get found out. Doctor, empty the liquid into the air purification filters. Let this fucking cruise sort itself out without us spending too many bullets. And get that bitch. I want to know who is behind this.”
Two men nodded immediately and peeled off from the main group, the black-clad soldiers heading out of the door.
Apparently they weren’t worried about getting found out anymore. Both pulled on gas masks before they left and Prowler fumbled, looking for his own on his gear belt out of reflex.
“But, I still have people on the upper decks!” the scientist protested, horror painted over his face. “We will lose them as well! You don’t understand! This gas is far more potent than the one we used on the airplane trials!”
The airplane trials? Oh shit!
Prowler knew exactly what they were referencing. A couple of years ago, Shifter Squad Six had dealt with a whole airplane full of football jocks getting hyped up on a noxious fume released in the cabins while the plane was at cruising altitude. It turned them all into bloodhungry savages and if it hadn’t been for Shifter Squad Six being on that flight, they would have torn one another to pieces.
There had been at least one more confirmed case of something like that happening and Prowler was sure a couple of the airplane disappearances and sudden crashes over the last few years had ties with The Arctics as well.
If they released anything similar into the ventilation system here, Shifter Squad Nine would suddenly be dealing with a whole cruise ship full of potential killers, half of whom were shifters. There was no time to waste.
Prowler tapped the transmission button on his headset and spoke into it, trying to keep his voice low. Sweat was snaking down his back as he tried to back out of the ventilation shaft, knowing that his chances of remaining undetected were slim to none because of the noise it might make. Even if he had managed to sneak out, he couldn’t hide the talking and the location he was in was only going to amplify it.
“Lynx Five, come in Lynx One. Targets are planning on releasing a noxious gas into the ventilation system and take out the whole fucking ship. Same protocol as the airplane incident. We’ve been made, all of us,” Prowler whispered into the comm.
His hope to remain undetected lasted exactly a second, if that. At least two men looked up at the ducts above them immediately, baring their teeth. Prowler could hear the growls as he scooched backwards, trying to get out of the space above the ventilation room.
“Lynx One, copy. All units, containment protocol. I repeat, containment protocol.”
It was just a fancy way for Dice to say that he wanted every single Arctics agent on the ship dead. Which, in a way, was exactly what it meant for The Arctics as well.
When the first barrage of bullets tore through the ventilation shaft Prowler was in and made it grumble and creak precariously, Prowler was beginning to wonder whether he’d be the one doing the killing or being on the receiving end of it.
Lock and load, he thought, and as he was pulling his breathing mask over his face, the shaft gave in after a few good shots hit the connectors and he came tumbling down from a height of fifteen feet, right smack dab in the middle of a pack of werewolves.
Nineteen
Amy
“Captain, we have reports of a disturbance happening on the lower decks,” the young officer manning the radio station called, frowning. “Seems to be contained in ventilation controls. Reports of… gunfire? Maybe an explosion?”
The bridge got quiet suddenly as Amy looked up, already getting out of her seat. Her first instinct was to undo the strap that kept her gun around her inner thigh, but she kept herself from being quite so obvious.
“Alert security,” she started, pausing for a moment. “And tell all the evening hosts to get the guests to their rooms. Now.”
“But ma’am, it could be nothing,” the officer seated behind navigation controls commented. “Shouldn’t we check it out first? No need to cause a panic over nothing.”
“Did you not hear me?” Amy snapped, dread pooling in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t want to see anyone in the hallways that is not an officer of the ship. Get everyone in their rooms, now.”
The last words out of her mouth were more a hiss than anything else. The officer that had questioned her got
pale in the face and returned his attention to the controls immediately, trying to appear as small as possible.
While at any other time, Amy would have agreed with him, she knew that tonight was not the night to test her luck. With Shifter Squad Nine and The Arctics going head to head, it was clear that those reports weren’t about ‘nothing’. Someone was getting their ass handed to them and she had to hope to god that it wasn’t Squad Nine bearing the brunt of the damage.
What can I do to help them? she thought feverishly, calling up the security feeds again.
She flipped through them quickly and her blood ran cold when she saw two armed men making their way through the corridors, their pace fast and their assault rifles drawn. From their trajectory, it seemed that they were headed straight for the bridge, thankfully avoiding most of the passages taken by the guests and sticking with the crew hallways.
Amy winced as she watched a young sailor step out of his cabin at the wrong moment, right into the path of the soldiers. One shot to the chest brought him collapsing on the ground, clutching the gaping wound in his chest.
She knew the boy. He was a shifter. All Amy could hope for was that someone would find him in time. The right kind of someone.
With her heart beating in her ears, Amy tried to figure out the path that the men were most likely to take. She took a soothing breath as she stood up straight, looking at the four people on the bridge with her.
“I need you all to get down, under your panels,” she said, walking to the only door that led onto the bridge.
She hiked up her skirt and with a chorus of gasps marking her actions, pulled out the handgun and extra clip she kept tucked away against her inner thigh. All throughout the mission so far, she had hoped that she would not need to use it.
Guess I always knew I would be wrong on that count, Amy thought bitterly.
“Captain, what’s going on?” the man from navigation asked, finding his voice once more.
“We have terrorists onboard. Let security know that they’re heading for the bridge. Get everyone in their rooms. Hurry. This is not a drill,” she said, trying her damndest to keep her voice calm, conversational.