The Tethys Report (The Rise of the Chirons Book 1)

by Rian Davis

  Why did I focus on Aleksandr, my newfound enemy? I know not. Perhaps it was like what the psychologists call the “cocktail effect” where people focus in on certain relevant stimulus. Maybe it was that my virtual processes focused on him because he was the biggest threat. I observed them coming and prepared my defenses.

  “Z4, I’ve got a plan. Can you read it?”

  “Yes of course. It is a rather good one save for the probability of your destruction. It is rather high. You propose to lure them in and attack them by attaching to their vessels. This would be foolish. You do not really have a good way to grasp onto them. And there is a big risk you could get smashed by them. Remember that these vessels are much heavier than you are.”

  “Can’t this Golem take a lot of blunt force?”

  “It can but up to a limit. You should do well not to test it.”

  “What do you suggest then?”

  “Let’s try talking.”

  “SOG doesn’t talk. They only kill unfortunately.”

  “Let’s try anyway. I can open a channel to them. They currently have communication devices that are meant for high-pressure water.”

  “May as well,” I said shrugging. “Patch me through.”

  “Greetings, this is Commander Jake—”

  “Ah, good,” said the voice. “You’ve verified the target. We weren’t sure if we should kill you or intercept you. Now we have an answer. Thank you.”

  Z4 turned the channel off.

  “That didn’t go well. Any other suggestions?”

  “Make them come to you. You see those holes on the bottom of the surface twenty meters out in aft direction?”

  There was a small cave of sorts. I could spy it through the darkness through some kind of radar signal that made a topographical map.

  “Yes, I see it. Should I go there?”

  “Yes. Go there and make your presence well known. The depression in the floor is enough to make them have a disadvantage. You should make them come out of the vessels to meet you without the benefit of their ship.”

  “What if they don’t all get out?”

  “I’m counting on that very situation.”

  “What? That sounds foolish.”

  “Trust me. I have a plan. But I’m figuring out now how to implement it. I don’t want to get your hopes up.”

  “Fine. Keep me in suspense. I’ll try to trust your judgment on this. I’m going now.”

  With the Golem’s forward thrust, I was able to head toward the small cave in the ground. I made it in ample time. The attack subs slowed. The first one still came for me the other two maintained a position above me.

  All around me, fish of various sizes, sea urchins, jellyfish, and trilobites were moving around in no particular rush. I felt utterly unprepared to take on the three vessels they sent against me.

  “Z4, what kind of weapons are on this thing besides just swinging my arms?”

  “You could use foul language.”

  “Something other than that too,” I replied. I was not amused.

  “Well then. The main weapon I could figure out so far was the electromagnetic gun. But that won’t help you in the water.”

  “Z4, you are literally living in the Golem. How can you not know if that is it or not?”

  “I haven’t figured everything out yet. It’s not my fault. I’m still learning the system remember. This is a strange experience for me too, you know. On the plus side, I no longer have hemorrhoids. The pain for that was apparently awful. Wait, there is the laser gun.”

  “Here they come,” I said. The first sub was ahead and closing fast. Less than five hundred meters separated us. The other two subs closed in as well but stayed a bit back—likely serving as backup.

  “What’s my range?”

  “On what?”

  “On the laser gun. How far can they be before I can shoot?”

  “About five hundred meters with diminishing returns the farther away the target is.”

  “I should probably wait then.”

  “That might be a promising idea.”

  “Are you sure the laser gun is the better weapon? Why not the electromagnetic beam?”

  “Down here, the electrical pulsed weapon may get scattered. The laser is powerful enough even to penetrate this dark, murky water.”

  “I got it. That attack submarine is moving fast. It’s now 300 meters out. Keep your eyes on the other subs too please. I will concentrate on the one that is engaging first.”

  “Good plan.”

  I somehow found how I could access the gun. It came directly from the tops of where my knuckles were. I suspected there was some kind of way to aim with it. I wasn’t sure how though.

  “Can we lock in on the target?”

  “I’m not sure how to do that yet. You will have to do it manually.”

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” I replied.

  “You do that.”

  “Three hundred meters. Let me know if that thing fires anything.”

  I extended my arm and aimed my first at the attack sub. Then a thought hit me.

  “What happens if that thing explodes in here? We’re at about a thousand bar. That’s the same as being ten thousand meters below sea level. With all this pressure around us, would that be a problem?”

  “Yes it would. We would likely feel the impact of any explosion. You had better make sure it is far away from us.”

  “Good thing I asked.” I fired the laser gun. Despite the interference from the water, a powerful light sparkle shot out of my hand. It lasted a little less than a minute but it went wide of the target by about twenty meters.

  “Damn, I missed. Wait it’s taking evasive action. Great! Just what I need. Z4, help me target this thing, will you? It’s a lot harder than I expected. Can you patch into my system and aid me with my aim?”

  “No, you have to do it yourself. I am focused on causing interference on their systems.”

  The attack sub, apparently aware of my actions, had taken evasive maneuvers, veering to the left.

  “I can give you a little help now. Wait. I have to study how to assist you first.”

  “How long does that take?”

  “Approximately two nanoseconds. Done! I can help you with that. Targeting now.”

  “Wait. Can we target them so as to render it inoperable rather than killing them?”

  “I don’t know. I can try.”

  “Please do.”

  “Here they come again for another attack.”

  This time with Z4’s help, I was able to hit the port side of the attack sub. It merely disabled the propulsion system of the attack sub—but only on one side. The helpless submarine spun around in circles until it stopped its engines altogether. The mangled submarine’s propulsion systems made quite a racket.

  “I’m picking up an incoming signal—it’s massive,” Z4 said.

  “More attack subs?”

  “No. Something else. Something bigger—far bigger. The first one looks like it’s a creature of some sort. Oh dear—I believe that is the phrase I used.”

  “What is it Z4? What’s coming?”

  “It’s the megalodon—and it’s closing fast.”

  I looked around the landscape. To the visual eye it was just a dark nothingness with crabs and trilobites scurrying across the ground and lion’s mane jellyfish floating around along with countless fish. There were no caves or big rocks to hide to give cover.

  “Oh my god. I can’t hide here. They know where I am. If I move, the megalodon will spot me. If I stay still the submarines will target me. What do I do? Here come the two attack submarines.”

  “The megalodon is closing at five meters per second. That is very fast. It will be here soon. It’s at two hundred meters now.”

  “I’m sensing some movement from the submarines. They must have sensed the megalodon too. The damaged submarine is trying to spin back to the spot where they were launched using a zig-zag approach.”

  “It’s two hundred
meters out. You’ve got to hide or do something. I don’t think even the Golem can withstand the bite of that thing.”

  “One of the submarines is firing a torpedo at us. It’s locked onto us.”

  “What do I do Z4?”

  “Shoot it with your laser beam. Use the tracking device.”

  I did, aiming at the torpedo just as it was picking up speed. I hit it and missed. I did, however, hit a large fish of some sort next to it which caused both the torpedo to explode and the hapless fish. The impact was close enough to the firing submarine that it was damaged according to my readings. This Golem suit was terrific in many ways, but it was bewildering too. It invaded my mind in a way I wasn’t ready for, and the way it expanded my senses beyond the usual senses of the body was exhilarating. I could sense not only in space but also time, anticipating the movements of my adversaries. This helped me aim better. It was done through “unconscious” processes, much like walking or breathing. In short, I had become a new life form with new capabilities.

  “I still don’t have the hang of it,” I said. “But I got the result I wanted.”

  “You’ll pick it up,” said Z4.

  “The megalodon is very close now. One-hundred-fifty meters.”

  “Do the attack submarines know about it?”

  “Yes, they almost certainly do. They’re probably trying to determine what kind of threat it is. But they don’t want to leave their focus off you.”

  “They’re fools. That megalodon will kill us all.”

  “Fools they be. They don’t seem to care. They want you dead. That’s their priority.”

  I had to move fast before they got a good lock on me. I moved away from all of them towards a sharp incline in the lake’s bottom. The slope was something I had just discovered, and it was about twenty meters from my current position. It would make me more exposed for a while.

  “I’m going to move away from those subs.”

  “But the megalodon? What about that? You’ll be moving right towards it.”

  “Trust me. I think I have learned how to control the movement on this beast.”

  “They’re not taking the bait. The remaining two attack subs are holding back. One is firing at you. Watch out!”

  I inched towards incline between me and the oncoming megalodon using relatively fast propulsion. Even the megalodon seemed puzzled and slowed down a bit. I checked the controls. The torpedo was behind me about thirty meters and closing fast. I shifted the movement of the Golem downwards, scraping the bottom as I went. There were several bottom feeders in my way. None of them gave me any trouble. I was able to make my way into a crack at the bottom just before the megalodon sailed past me. Its attention was drawn toward the torpedo which was very close. It struck just short of the megalodon, causing me to bounce out of my hiding spot.

  “Hopefully that megalodon will reach them before it reaches me,” I said.

  “You are the smaller target though. I don’t know if that will be important. Being a former physicist when I was more psychical in nature, I wouldn’t know what a megalodon does.”

  “There’s no information in the ancient Chiron files?”

  “None that I can tell. I’m still sorting. Apparently they loved to eat many kinds of food, especially meat and—“

  “OK. That’s interesting but let’s save it for later. I don’t care about that now.”

  “Very well. Look. The megalodon is closing on the wounded submarine and ignoring the other two for now.”

  “I noticed. The two attack subs are closing on us as well.”

  “I noticed that too.”

  The megalodon quickly reached the wounded submarine. With its powerful jaws that had the force of two thousand tons it bit the tail of the submarine. With the pressure of the environment and the force of the jaws, the entire submarine imploded like an over-ripe grape. There was were two massive explosions due to the unfired torpedoes inside.

  “What’s going to happen with these explosions with all this pressure?” I said. For the most part, the Golem was able to absorb the shock very well. I was worried about the base. I thought about the people back there still inside. “Will it affect base?”

  “It won’t be good. We may crack some of the ice and push a hole through. I don’t know what would happen then. It can’t be good for base. I just don’t know the exact effect yet.”

  “The megalodon is attacking one of the subs now! Looks.”

  I did. It was rather a pleasant sight to behold. The megalodon made straight for the sub to my left. It fired a torpedo. But the torpedo was fired in haste and it missed widely. The megalodon was too fast and nimble. It swerved around and bit the tail of the attack sub, which simply imploded from the enormous pressure from inside the subglacial lake.

  “That’s one left,” I said.

  “The other attack sub seems to be retreating. Wait. What’s it doing?” Z4 said.

  “It’s sending a signal of some sorts. I’m detecting something strange.”

  “Two more objects approaching—fast.”

  “More megalodons? Here?”

  “No. Two—oh poppycock.”

  “What’s poppycock? Is it worse than a megalodon?”

  “No. Never mind. The two objects are…Pliosaurus—two of them. Bring that up on your system.”

  “Oh my god. They’re both that? Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Predator X. Both are coming your way. They must have known how to summon them or get their attention. It’s strange they weren’t attracted before to the commotion.”

  “I can’t dodge the megalodon and those two while fighting off the attack sub.”

  “I’ve got a better idea. Lead them to the megalodon.”

  “Do you think they’ll fight each other.”

  “Yes. They’re both on the top of the food chain. We know nothing else that hunts them.”

  “How soon until they reach us?”

  “About one minute. They’re moving fast. Their bite is four times as powerful as Tyrannosaurus Rex. Watch out!”

  “I’ll try. Thanks for the information too. If it was five times the bite, I would have been really worried. Four times—what a relief.”

  “What are you saying? You’re babbling aren’t you?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  I moved the Golem diagonally towards the megalodon which was still chasing the last attack sub. But it was moving as if it were unsure it was really worth the trouble, perhaps already seeking new prey. Or maybe it sensed the other two predators coming.

  “I want to get right behind the megalodon.”

  “Right. Good plan. Just don’t let it turn around and bite you.”

  “None of these creatures are supposed to exist. They went extinct over one hundred million years ago.”

  “Tell that to them,” Z4 replied.

  “You tell them. That’s your job. There’s nothing left of you to eat if they don’t like what you have to say. Me on the other hand—”

  I moved to within range of the megalodon which was spinning around to face the two new opponents. They were both closing fast. Either they were after me or the megalodon. There was no backing out now.

  I reached out and grabbed the tail fin of the megalodon as it was turning. It was a mistake. The thing’s powerful body twisted suddenly. I nearly got acquainted with those powerful jaws—perhaps the most powerful that ever existed, save for the Predator X.

  The megalodon angrily chased me. But now it faced its two new opponents. One charged immediately for the megalodon, going for its tail like I did. The megalodon did the same but bit at the torso. It was able to attach just at above the legs of the first Predator X.

  That worked until the other Predator X got ahold of the megalodon’s tail. This time those powerful jaws came down hard. The megalodon twisted in fury and pulled its powerful body to the side. It hadn’t let go of the first Predator X though, and the thing was still turning its body weakly.

  I was barely able to stay between
the two colossal bodies without getting hit. I knew I did not want to call attention to myself and my best plan was simply to float away when I had an opening. Z4 was able to stay below the fray, safe and hidden.

  One of the massive tails of the second Predator X whipped me unexpectedly from the side and I was shoved into the open.

  Luckily, they didn’t discover me at first. The megalodon was keeping them both busy. It had squeezed its own formidable jaws on the first Predator X and must have caused massive damage to the torso. It released the jaws and the wounded Predator X simply limped away while twisting to the left.

  It was now a contest between the unwounded Predator X and the megalodon. The attack submarine was further away and likely licking its chops. I was now able to lock in on the communications of the sole remaining attack sub. I could make out that it was sending off messages related to its two doomed comrades and what to do about the situation—especially me. I didn’t have time to figure out what was going on with Jen. I was able to sense that she was still at the landing area though. That was a relief. If she had gone to the surface, I wouldn’t have been able to track her.

  “Z4, why do you think they are keeping Jen at the landing area?”

  “Who knows? Maybe they want to use her as a ransom.”

  “Yes, I guess you’re right. They don’t really have a use for her other than as leverage. But still it seems strange. It’s as if they’re all waiting for me to come in.”

  “In any case, they probably want the suit.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I know you don’t know much about COG. They’re terrorists and they want to hasten war to bring about their ultimate ascension.”

  “Sounds like a real nice bunch. Watch out!”

  The megalodon had just twisted away from the Predator X and seemed to be headed straight for me. I had been slowly moving away from the two massive beasts, hoping to keep a low profile.

  I quickly moved towards the ground again, and the megalodon followed. It was hampered this time by the Predator X who made a chomp at its tail. The megalodon was again distracted. I decided to make my way quickly out of there, noise be damned.