Perhaps the most ironic testimony to mankind’s fear-driven desire to drive the huge marine reptiles to the brink of extinction and beyond came in the form of a popular kids’ breakfast cereal. “Kronosaurus Crunchies” consisted of crispy “people” clusters with soft red centers. On top of that, the cereal made tiny squeaks as it was chewed. Hence the company’s popular tag line, “Kronosaurus Crunchies – they scream when you crunch ‘em!”
Admittedly, Garm mused, he’d eaten a few bowls of the stuff. It wasn’t half bad and came in handy when circumstances dictated a serious sugar rush was in order. Plus, the galley stocked it . . .
Month after month, the war for earth’s oceans raged. Within a year, it was estimated over 500,000 of the dangerous reptiles had been eradicated. Coastal attacks had been reduced, but were far from eliminated. The siege continued. Then, problems began to crop up.
As Kronosaurus numbers dropped, targets of opportunity became less frequent. In addition, the surviving animals appeared to be learning by observing, or perhaps sensing, the deaths of others of their kind. Some compared it to great white sharks fleeing an area after Orcas killed one of their kind. A few researchers promoted the theory that pliosaurs had the ability to genetically pass on knowledge to their offspring. Whatever the case, the creatures grew more cautious, breaching and spouting less often and remaining at the surface for shorter periods of time. To reduce spiraling costs, the President authorized their newest combat drones to finish the job, while special teams of beachcombers were discretely assigned the distasteful task of finding and destroying Kronosaurus imperator nests before the young could hatch.
The autonomous drones found their task more difficult than anticipated. The pliosaurs’ protective counter-shading made them difficult to spot from the air. When viewed by satellite they blended with the sea, reducing the ability to target them over a vast expanse of ocean. Their body temperature was also problematic. Although they possessed a core temperature higher than that of the surrounding water, their peripheries were a match, making them all but invisible to infrared and thermal targeting systems.
Wiping out the nests was more successful. Tens of thousands of the two-foot, spherical eggs were dug up and crushed or burned, and catching the occasional mother Kronosaurus hauling herself out of the surf under the cover of darkness was a nice bonus. But soon, even locating nests grew difficult. The pliosaur cows, as if sensing the threat to their young, did something unheard of among marine reptiles: they changed their nesting sites. Remote and often uninhabited islands were randomly chosen – some so tiny and obscure they didn’t even appear on maps. The predators appeared determined to endure.
With aerial surveillance continuing to drive costs, and with drone kills only marginally effective, the military decided to increase the role of their submarines. The Navy was given the green light. Their hunter-killers would track the monsters down and bury them in their own backyards. Armed with the latest hardware, the subs were successful: at least according to news bulletins. Their state-of-the-art rocket-propelled torpedoes were lethal. Traveling at speeds no marine life – or ship for that matter – could match, once they locked onto a target’s sonar, they stayed on it until detonation.
Unfortunately, cumbersome nuclear attack submarines, designed to hunt and destroy other subs in deep water, were ill-suited for chasing smaller, more agile adversaries around the coastline. The costs associated with each confirmed kill were astronomical and every battle was a game of Russian roulette. Sub commanders soon discovered pliosaurs could turn and attack in the blink of an eye, oftentimes while pursued by the very same sub’s torpedoes. Losing a multi-billion dollar war machine for every Kronosaurus put down was a financial equation no Navy accountant could balance.
Inevitably, the Coastal Defense Force, or CDF, with its own breed of anti-biologic submarines, was born. Forged in the fires of humanity’s fury and quenched in the blood of untold thousands, the ORION class and its predecessors were the country’s ultimate solution to the pliosaur menace. With a minimal crew, they tirelessly patrolled the waterways, from the surf all the way to the fringes of the US’s Exclusive Economic Zone. Any animal that violated those waters was chased off or eradicated, with confirmed rogues mercilessly hunted down and destroyed.
The moment he’d laid eyes on the Gryphon in dry dock, Garm Braddock knew Destiny’s plan for the remainder of his life. What happened to the rest of the world was beyond his control; they could go to hell in a hammock as far as he was concerned. His course was set. There would be no white picket fence in his future. No wife or children. He would be Gryphon’s captain, and she his iron mistress. On the bridge of his own command, he would track down the deadliest predators in all Creation and confront them on their own terms.
He was going to kill every lizard he could find. And when the end finally came, he would leave the world the same way he came into it.
Bathed in blood.
CHAPTER
2
As the last of the toothy salmon skirted Gryphon’s armored nose, Garm surveyed his primary bridge crew. Their stations were situated directly ahead of his position, spread in a tight arc across the twenty-five foot chamber that occupied the upper half of the sub’s bow, and facing the curved, foot-thick transparent titanium barrier that ran the width of the chamber and served as their observation portal. Unless they were in combat mode, the heavy ceramic-composite shielding that covered the observation portal was kept raised. The ever-changing seas beyond made for a pleasant distraction, even if it did make it seem as if they were prisoners inside the world’s largest fish tank.
At the helm was Ensign Connie Ho. Even with her conservative hairstyle and aversion to makeup, the diminutive helmswoman was fit and attractive. She was also a formidable cage fighter. As several of her more amorous shipmates had already discovered, once she set foot on a vessel she was manning, she was not to be trifled with.
Ho was a recent addition to Garm’s roster. She’d been tossed out of the Navy after she beat the snot out of a drunken officer who thought “Sorry, not interested,” translated as “Please grope my ass.” When the bouncers pulled her off the guy, she had him on the ground, cradling his mashed testicles, while she unloaded one right hand after another into his face. Not bad, Garm thought, considering the fat bastard was three times her weight. Once he read that, coupled with Ho’s documented ability to guide a Boomer sub safely through falling pack ice, he snatched her up. The Navy may have rejected her, but on Gryphon she fit right in.
Next to Ho, and manning sonar, was her verbal sparring partner, Ensign Adolfo Ramirez. Unlike Gryphon’s helmswoman, Ramirez had come straight from the Academy. Tops in his class, he was one of those guys blessed with 20/10 vision and owlish hearing. Surprisingly, and despite his Don Juan mustache and reputation, he hadn’t gotten himself into trouble like their new helmswoman had. What he did have on his back was a love of the dice, a bitter ex-wife, and, until Garm advanced him an off-the-books short-term loan, pending jail time for being behind on child support.
You couldn’t ask for better motivation.
On fire control was Lieutenant Commander Kyle Cunningham. One of Garm’s closest friends, Cunningham was a general goofball and the only member of the crew that was married – for the most part happily. Garm and Kyle had gone through basic training and the academy together. Cool under fire, and with the self-described ability to “shoot a torpedo up a dolphin’s ass at 500 yards”, Kyle was every captain’s choice for Combat Systems Officer. As an added bonus, his mother-in-law jokes were priceless.
Last, but not least, was Ensign Heather Rush manning communications. Alert and efficient, albeit with a rather subdued demeanor, the willowy, freckle-faced blonde had followed Garm from ship to ship and assignment to assignment. Although he rarely caught her staring and she’d never expressed any overt interest, it was popular opinion she carried a torch for the well-built submariner. Why else would someone who couldn’t even swim volunteer for the most dangerous submarine
assignment in the world?
Garm exhaled, running thick fingers through his close-cropped coif. His hair was chestnut-colored like his father’s, but he had his mother’s pale blue, almond-shaped eyes. Women – and there had been many – said those eyes made him look like an overgrown husky: cuddly and huggable. Men compared him more to a wolf: dangerous and unpredictable. An amalgamation of Irish, Norwegian, and Japanese ancestry, Garm had been blessed with the best possible genes his assorted forebears had to offer. Back in high school, disgruntled linebackers from rival football teams used to call him “The Hybrid” – although never to his face.
Garm closed his opal orbs and listened. If he tried really hard, it seemed he could just make out the mercurial rush of seawater, racing along their near-frictionless hull. But that was impossible. With Gryphon’s high-tech acoustic cladding, they were all but soundproof. A moment later, his eyes and ears pricked up as his sonar tech sucked in a breath.
“I think we’ve got one, sir,” Ramirez said, removing one of his headphones. He stroked his mustache with his free hand, but his hunter’s eyes remained locked on his sonar screens. “Reading is 3,000 yards off the port bow, bearing zero-five-zero. Per SOP, deactivating OMNI ADCAP sonar. Fathometer readings indicate target is a large biologic, holding at two hundred feet. Checking organic profiles.”
Garm shifted, sensing his chair’s shock-absorbing pneumatics compensate for the strain. He eyed Ramirez’s back, watching for the telltale rigidity that inevitably preceded confirmation of one of his sightings.
Ramirez went ramrod straight. “Contact confirmed: designate pliosaur.” he said. “Based on the readings, a very large female, sir. Probably the one that killed those fishermen a few days ago. I think she’s feeding.”
“Nice work, ensign,” Garm said. After the ups and downs of their sixteen-day patrol, it would do him and his crew good to finish up with a big kill. Not to mention, if it was a confirmed man-eater that size, it would bring them all a hefty bonus. “Helm, what’s our status?”
As Ho turned sideways in her chair, Garm smiled. The feisty helmswoman had this chameleon-like way of looking at him with one eye while keeping the other on her screens. “We’re cruising at three hundred feet, sir. Speed is twenty-five knots. Approaching a strong cross-current. Setting maneuvering thrusters to compensate.”
Garm gave a desultory nod. “Reduce speed to ten, five up to periscope depth and extend photonics mast. Communications, let me know once we’ve got satellite overview. In the interim, helm, match target’s depth and plot an intercept course. Let me know when we have visual. Sonar, rig for silent running, passive only.”
Amid a chorus of “aye, ayes,” Ramirez cleared his throat. “Deactivate ANCILE, captain?”
ANCILE was their newly-installed obstacle avoidance system. It was equipped with both intruder alert and acoustic intercept, and would not only blanket an incoming threat with active sonar pings, it could lock Gryphon’s advanced weapons systems onto incoming targets as well. The only downside was, when the system went active, the pinging gave away their position.
“ANCILE on standby, POSEIDON fathometer only. Activate SVALINN. If she scans us I want her emissions suppressed with out-of-phase pulses. No bounce-back. I don’t want this bitch knowing we’re here until we’re right on top of her,” Garm replied.
Now we’ll see once and for all if those fancy new sonar arrays can cancel incoming pings as well as they claim . . .
“Aye, sir,” Ramirez replied. He turned back to his board, his hands a blur. From the set of his jaw, Garm could tell his sonar tech disapproved. It was a tradeoff. The POSEIDON M45 Passive Fathometer Sonar System didn’t function as a traditional sonar projector; it absorbed ambient sounds generated by wave noise striking the seafloor and used the resultant echoes to create a detailed 3D map of their surroundings. It was 100% undetectable, but it was not without weaknesses. High sediment concentrations reduced its effectiveness and excessive noise generated by biologics like whales or dolphins could confuse the system. Worst of all, powerful active sonar emissions could scramble it altogether.
On the other hand, if it was an adult pliosaur they were approaching, having ANCILE locking sonar pings on every boat or big game fish that passed within range was sure to alert their quarry.
“Fire Control, what’s our status?” Garm asked.
Cunningham swiveled in his direction. “REAPER is on standby. We’re down to 1,107 rounds of 30 mm and have four fish left.” He paused, checking his screen. “Per SOP, tubes one and four are loaded and primed. We are wet and hard and ready to pump. Unless, of course, you want to upgrade to the M66’s . . . sir.” He winked.
Garm grinned. In addition to her usual complement of NAEGLING M9 ADCAP torpedoes, all ORION class subs were armed with a pair of HARPE M66 UPURS for emergency use – meaning as anti-carrier weapons in the event war broke out. The twelve-foot M66’s were capped with nuclear warheads – pure fission implosion devices that packed a two kiloton wallop – a ridiculous overkill, even for the biggest pliosaur in history. Not to mention, completely illegal without authorization. Garm’s CSO loved joking about “accidentally slipping one in there.”
“The usual stuff will be fine, LC,” Garm drawled. “Set torpedoes to acoustic tracking with safeties off at one hundred yards; we’ll use target’s own sonar emissions to zero her if we miss and she makes a run for it.”
“Aye, sir.”
Garm glanced approvingly around the bridge. With her refitting complete and his best people on point, the oldest of the ORION-Class AB-Submarines was performing with lethal efficiency. Or, as Cunningham would say, she was one “badass bitch.”
At 132 feet in length and a submerged displacement of 435 tons, the Gryphon was tiny for a combat sub – at least according to the Navy. Despite that, she was the most highly-decorated ship in the history of the Coastal Defense Force. Initially intended to be a branch of the Coast Guard, the CDF was now under private contract with Grayson Defense Technologies, the company that sponsored her refitting. Grayson was aligned with the military and had emerged as the country’s primary undersea defense against the ongoing pliosaur threat. With no bureaucracy to slow things down, getting the ten-year-old sub’s overhaul approval had been as simple as the stroke of a pen.
Among the long list of items included in Gryphon’s recent modifications was the installation of an AMS-424 high-yield nuclear reactor, powering eight Mako M69 pump jet MHD Propulsors, each generating 1,500 hp. As a result, she was now not only quiet, she could do over 41 knots submerged and possessed an agility beyond compare. Her hull-based maneuvering thrusters were tied directly to the engines, allowing the sleek hunter-killer to hover in place, move sideways, or even make zero radius turns – all while implementing firing solutions.
Gryphon’s hull had also been revamped. In addition to applying state-of-the art acoustic cladding, her basic hull design had been upgraded as well. Foregoing the teardrop shape traditional subs used in an attempt to mimic whales, the ORION class utilized a Mako shark body design to reduce hydrodynamic drag. Compared to the Navy’s traditional, tube-shaped military subs that looked like lumbering cigars in the water, the ORIONs were more like Corvettes.
Along with its aggressive stance, Gryphon’s new hull was incredibly durable. It had a super-slick outer casing made up of shock-absorbing ceramic, married to a pressure hull of reinforced titanium steel. In addition to their innate high tensile strength, her inner and outer hulls were also widely spaced, giving her very high reserve buoyancy. Finally, her main pressure hull had eight separate watertight compartments.
In submarine terms, she was nearly indestructible. She needed to be. She hunted sea monsters for a living.
“Captain, I’ve got satellite overview coming online,” Rush announced.
“Show me what we’ve got.”
Rush tapped her screen. Gryphon’s transparent bow turned opaque and then shimmered. A moment later, it became a twenty-foot wide monitor. The ocean view was that of a
satellite, albeit from 30,000 feet or better.
“Zooming in,” Rush said.
A second later, they were through the clouds and had a birds-eye view of the seas directly below. White seagulls and dark-colored cormorants swarmed the area, with scores swooping down to scoop up pale scraps of flesh, while others sat on the surface. The image was so clear you could almost smell the salt air and hear the birds’ raucous cries.
“I don’t see much of a slick,” Garm said. “Increase magnification.”
The satellite zoomed in until it seemed as if they would plunge into the shimmering water. There was a telltale disturbance – a hint of something big and shadowy moving far below – but nothing definitive.
“Okay, lose it,” Garm ordered. “Where are we with that visual?”
“Distance to target 1,500 yards,” Ho announced.
“Acknowledged,” Rush said. She tapped a few keys. “Based on water clarity, we should be able to get a clearer image right about . . . now.”
“Holy shit!” Cunningham spouted.
“Wow, that is a big boy,” Ensign Ho muttered. The corners of her mouth turned up. “Hey, Ramirez. You think nailing this sucker will let you catch up with the ex?”
“Hey, Ho, why don’t you catch up with my nuts?” the sonar tech shot back.
“Big girl,” Garm corrected. “And can the banter.”
“Sorry, sir. Do you think it’s the same one that sank the trawler?” Ho asked.
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