Kronos Rising_Kraken vol.1

by Max Hawthorne

  The Vermitus’s foul hiss was cut off, along with its head. Its toothy maw dropped to the gurney with a loud splat, before oozing off its edge and splashing into the pool. Spewing foul ichor, the decapitated tapeworm’s body began to coil, undulating in S-shaped patterns as it flailed this way and that, railing against its unexpected demise.

  With his father’s weighty sword still gripped in gloved hands, Garm approached the nearest section of coils and went on the offensive. Swinging the big claymore with uncanny accuracy, he hacked at it, chopping the worm’s spike-bristling body into ten-foot sections that writhed and spasmed and spouted greenish gore. The guards joined him in his assault, their 10-gauge shotguns unleashing a lethal fusillade, and Dirk could hear the sound of their gunfire. It was faint at first, but grew steadily louder as he began to regain the ability to move.

  He sucked in a huge breath as if he’d been trapped underwater and staggered a step forward, taking care not to trip over a seven-foot hunk of Vermitus whose cilia-like tendrils continued to twitch. Around him, his brother and the security team worked to make sure the sixty-foot worm’s remaining segments didn’t cause any mischief. Aided by Stacy wielding Colossus’s enormous arms, they started collecting its assorted pieces and tossing them into a huge pile, shooting or slicing any that continued to move, while one of the techs called into a radio for a flatbed.

  Sweating profusely, Dirk moved past an array of scattered surgical gear to a bench the giant parasite hadn’t upended and collapsed down onto it. He pulled his goggles up over his head and slid his surgical mask down, all the while focusing on getting his runaway heart rate under control. He saw Callahan and his aide heading in his direction and cursed under his breath.

  “Never a dull moment in Tartarus, eh, sport?” the admiral said, grimacing as he dropped down next to him. His aide, Sergeant Gibbons, hovered a few yards away, his hand on the butt of his Glock as he nervously surveyed the scene.

  Dirk cleared his surprisingly dry throat. “Yeah . . . you can say that again.”

  “Glad you made it,” Callahan said, clapping him on the shoulder. “When that thing started making googley eyes at you, I thought your goose was cooked.”

  “Not on my watch,” Garm remarked as he walking over. He had his gore-caked claymore shouldered and his hazmat headgear tucked under one arm, looking for all intents and purposes like some demon-slaying knight, fresh from the battlefield.

  Which, technically, was kind of an apropos description, Dirk mused, rubbing his aching temples with his fingertips.

  Callahan placed his thick hands on his thighs and pushed hard to get himself upright. “Boy, you saved his ass for sure, Gate! If you--”

  “Yours too, as I recall,” Garm said coolly. He sat his sword and helmet down on a nearby table and sat beside Dirk. “You okay, little brother?”

  “Thanks to you,” Dirk replied. He smiled ruefully. “You’ll always be there when I need you, won’t you?”

  “Probably not,” Garm admitted, his pale blue eyes perusing the filth-coated debris scattered around the anesthetized pliosaur. “But for as long as I have left, you know you can count on me.”

  Dirk frowned at the fatalistic tone his twin was exhibiting and stood up, refusing the proffered hand. He looked around and made a face. The unconscious Gen-1, the floating gurney, healing pool, and the concrete deck for twenty yards in every direction, looked and smelled like a sewer. Fecal matter, combined with the dead nematode’s mucus and bodily fluids, covered just about everything. In addition, one of their light towers was down, and the damage to their gear was substantial.

  A heavy sigh escaped Dirk’s lips. Grayson was going to flip. He dismissed his concerns and straightened up as he spotted Stacy running toward him. She had a look of dread in those amber eyes of hers, one he’d never seen before.

  “Hey, are you o-woof!” Dirk’s words were cut off as the athletic scientist knocked the air from his lungs and his yelp of surprise died in this throat as she threw her arms around him. He glanced uncomfortably around, realizing they were adrift in a sea of stares. There was no help for it, and with discretion out the window, he hugged her back, grunting as she squeezed him tight.

  “Omigod, I thought you were going to die,” Stacy spouted. As she eased up on the bear hug he realized she’d been crying. “It all happened so fast and it was so close, I didn’t know what to do!”

  “Hey . . .” Dirk cupped her chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilted her head up so he could see her eyes. “I’m fine. Garm was there.” He gave her a meaningful look to remind her where they were.

  Stacy’s eyes widened and she sucked in a quick breath before pulling herself away. She made a show of straightening her oil-spattered lab coat, then turned to Garm. “Thank God you were,” she said, faking a chuckle. “I would have been forced to finish the procedure without him, and you know how Grayson feels about overtime . . .”

  “Absolutely,” Garm said, winking at her. “Maintaining your schedule was foremost on my mind, doc.”

  Callahan sawed a finger back and forth, scratching at his mustache, and snorted irritably. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is all very touching, but what happens now?” He gestured at the mess.

  Dirk eyebrows drooped. He glanced at Stacy, who was still staring like she was ready to have his children. “What do you think? Is it safe to keep her under?”

  Her lips scrunched to one side. “We’ll need to lower her back in the pool to keep her from being asphyxiated by her own weight, but as long as we keep her dosage constant and feed her, I don’t see why not.”

  “Okay, let’s get her rinsed off first and insert a food tube while the pool’s filtration does its thing,” Dirk said. “We’ll lower the gurney and keep her at neutral buoyancy while the cleanup is done and then reconvene in an hour.”

  Stacy looked down and gagged as she realized she was standing on a yard-long strip of worm guts. “We’re going to need the entire center sterilized, the equipment included.”

  Dirk nodded his affirmation and turned to a nearby tech. “You heard the doctor. Get a steam crew down here to assist. I want a complete inventory of all gear, a list of anything that’s suffered even cosmetic damage, and replacement components on site within thirty minutes.”

  “Yes, Doctor Braddock.”

  As the man spun off and started chattering into his radio, Dirk turned back to Stacy. “Dr. Grayson is going to need a report.” He looked down at his badly-stained surgical garb. “I’ll zap up to my quarters and get cleaned up and shoot it to him. Meet you here in forty-five?”

  “Sounds good,” Stacy said. “I’ll keep an eye on the patient.”

  “Thanks.”

  Dirk spotted his fallen tablet from among the debris. He bent down to retrieve it and wiped at the gunk on its screen. Amazingly, the thing still worked. As he weaved his way around a nearby security guard, his brother fell in beside him.

  “Come on,” Garm said. “I’m playing chauffeur already. I’ll give you a lift.”

  “Sounds good,” Dirk said, realizing his feet felt like they were embedded in buckets of cement. It was amazing how coming so close to dying sucked the life out of you. He felt like crawling into bed and sleeping for a week.

  They had barely taken a step when Stacy called out. “Hey, Captain Braddock.”

  Garm shot her a quizzical look.

  “Take care of our boy, okay?” Stacy said.

  Garm grinned as he gave his twin a friendly nudge. “Always.”

  They wandered off, the sounds of men and machines struggling to remove quarter-ton hunks of maneating worm fading behind them.

  * * *

  Garm leaned back in his MarshCat, one muscular forearm draped across the six-wheeled vehicle’s steering wheel and watching as Dirk entered Tartarus’s nearest elevator. He waited until the doors closed before he exhaled with a hiss, trying to dispel some of the stress he had locked inside.

  He cursed through clenched teeth, furious at himself for what happened with t
he monstrous tapeworm. Getting knocked off his feet like that was amateurish. If he’d been a split-second slower in regaining his footing, Dirk would be dead.

  He put the ATV in gear and started forward, weaving around the occasional technician or janitor as he moved past the line of pliosaur tanks. It was late, and the dimly lit submarine slips and vast expanse of concrete docks were pretty much deserted. He scoped out Gryphon, sitting in her berth and ringed by a half-dozen security personnel. The sleek warship was illuminated by overhead spotlights, her iron-gray sail jutting up from her armored hull like a monstrous Orca’s fin, supplementing her already formidable appearance.

  Across the way, he clocked Antrodemus, similarly attended, but with the addition of a team of welders and engineers working to repair her fractured outer hull. He could see the bright sparks from their acetylene torches, streaming like gold-colored sparklers as they worked through the night. Even with rotating shifts, it would be days before the crimson-hued sub was seaworthy, let alone battle-ready.

  Garm glanced wearily toward the far-off surgical area, obscured by towering columns and a series of fences. His lips compressed in as he considered skipping the implant procedure and hitting the gym or, better yet, the rack, but he dismissed the notion. After what just happened, he wasn’t letting his little brother out of his sight.

  Garm slowed his ATV to a crawl and chuckled. Dirk really hated the “little brother” routine, but after nearly three decades, it was a damn hard habit to break. Besides, as he’d pointed out innumerable times while they were growing up, he was technically older. And he was certainly the larger of the two.

  Suddenly, Stacy popped into Garm’s head and he pursed his lips. That was a touchy situation. He was one of the few people who knew Dirk and she had been an item – at least, before that display of obviousness – and also that they ended things. It was a shame; Stacy was a great girl: smart, sexy and athletic, and their families had a long history. If her father, Willie, hadn’t taken a bullet for their mother onboard the doomed Harbinger, all those years ago, he and Garm would never have existed.

  Of course, obligation wasn’t a reason to stay with someone, but the family dynamic had a definite poetic ring to it, almost as if karma decreed they end up together. He shrugged. Maybe they’d work it out. Stacy was certainly willing. She was obviously still in love with Dirk.

  Garm grinned at the irony. His brother had gone through some amazing women over the years: doctors, physicists, even an astronaut. Every one was good-looking, intelligent and dedicated, yet for some reason he was never satisfied. Why, Garm had no idea. He’d have given his left testicle to latch onto one of Dirk’s exes. Instead, he ended up with the same type of woman he always did – an aggressive Amazon who had just one thing on her mind: raw, animal sex, and plenty of it.

  Oh well, I suppose there are worse things.

  As he passed Proteus’s enclosure, Garm slammed on the brakes. Something was wrong. His wolf’s eyes swept the two-hundred foot aquarium, trying to pinpoint the mutant pliosaur. He couldn’t see her. Of course, with her adaptive camouflage and the low-lighting conditions that maintained Tartarus’s inmates’ internal clocks, the adolescent cow should be difficult to spot. Difficult, but not impossible . . .

  Peering intently through the thick Celazole, Garm threw the ATV in park and got out. His heavy boots ground loose concrete dust as he moved closer, one hand shielding his eyes against the reflection of the overheads on the dense polycarbonate.

  As he reached the enclosure wall and wiped at the condensation, he frowned. It was impossible, but except for mounds of sand and a school of small fish, the tank was empty. Disbelief got pushed aside as reality shouldered its way in.

  Proteus was gone.

  Garm’s mind raced, wondering if Grayson decided to sell one of his prize specimens or moved her to a different paddock. It didn’t make sense. They couldn’t have moved her. All the enclosures were occupied. He reached for the compact radio on his belt and--

  “Holy shit!”

  The radio clattered from Garm’s astonished fingers as he staggered back. Like a demon materializing from a wisp of smoke, the monstrous predator appeared before his eyes and slammed into the eight-foot thermoplastic barrier. There was a thunderous THUMP and the walls of her enclosure vibrated from the impact.

  “You evil fucking bitch!” Garm snarled, his hand closing on the butt of the Smith & Wesson .50 caliber pistol hanging from his belt. Cursing under his breath, he released his grip on the weapon and stepped forward, his eyes opaline slits of fury as he glared at the seventy-ton marine reptile.

  Proteus remained where she was, her rippling, fourteen-foot flippers grazing the bottom of her enclosure, her toothy muzzle pressed against the PBI wall. Her crimson eyes seemed to dance as they bored into Garm’s and, from the set of her jaw, he could swear the damn thing was laughing at him.

  As their stare-down continued, Garm had a flashback of their first encounter. It had ended much like this: the wily marine reptile, already half-paralyzed from shocks received from a trio of LOKI AUVs, slamming into Gryphon’s clear prow in a final show of defiance before succumbing to the combined voltage. Her teeth were bared and her gleaming red eyes locked on Garm’s through the transparent titanium barrier, holding his gaze even as she was bound and packaged for transport. She was beaten, but defiant to the end.

  “Yeah, I remember . . .” Garm muttered. He placed his right hand against the cool polycarbonate barrier, feeling its moisture on his palm. To his astonishment, the huge reptile lowered her crocodile-like head and pressed the tip of her scarred snout against the opposing spot where his hand was. She stayed there, hovering above him like a passenger jet with fangs, eyeing him with what bordered on possessiveness.

  “You two should get a room.”

  Proteus’s head arched back and she uttered a throaty rumble of annoyance. Garm wheeled around, his own irritated expression mirroring the pliosaur’s.

  It was Oleg Smirnov and Kevin Griffith, two of Grayson’s “jack-booted thugs,” as Dirk called them. Garm stared disapprovingly as they approached. The CEO had scores of the former inmates skulking around Tartarus. They came and went, with few lasting more than a few months, and he doubted any of them would fulfill their contract.

  “I theenk she likes you,” Smirnov said with a smirk. He hesitated, watching nervously as the pliosaur cow spread her jaws in a threat display and then backed away. Her colors shifted, and in seconds she vanished back into the murkiness of her cage.

  “Seriously, you guys need a room,” Griffith reiterated.

  “Are you two lost and looking for the ladies room?” Garm asked, grinning humorlessly. “Or, in your case, Griffith, the cattle pens? It is Friday night.”

  Smirnov cleared his throat in an effort to cover up his partner’s grumbled response and held out a slip of paper. “Actually, vee have a message for you.”

  Garm accepted it with a nod. Oleg Smirnov, he didn’t have a problem with. Besides the fact he was a convicted murderer, that is. He knew the man from his boxing days, back when the big Ukrainian had been one of his sparring partners. At six-two and two-thirty, Smirnov was strong, fast, and could take one hell of a punch. Of course, any chances he had of making it as a prizefighter ended when he caught his wife in bed with another woman and beat them both to death.

  “Grayson said to hand this to you, personally,” Griffith stated, his bloodshot eyes discretely sizing up the big submariner.

  Kevin Griffith, on the other hand, Garm actively disliked. Dirk had shown him the files on some of their CEO’s “Last-Chancers” and it was like a tour of an insane asylum. Murderers, rapists and drug czars: there wasn’t one of them worthy of redemption, including the freckle-faced farm boy standing before him.

  “The schooner Rorqual called in an SOS a few hours ago,” Garm said, reading the printout. “According to Captain Krieger, they were being attacked by creatures called ‘Krake.’ Before more info could be gathered, the radio went dead.” He con
tinued reading. “Coast Guard arrived on the scene and found nothing except debris and a few life preservers. There were no survivors.”

  Garm put the paper in his pocket. “What the hell is a Krake?”

  “It’s an old Norwegian word. It means a malformed animal.”

  An unfamiliar voice emanating from the dimness of a nearby corridor startled the three men, causing them to spin around as one. “In modern German, Krake is the plural for ‘octopus.’ In its singular form it can also refer to something far larger, i.e. the mythical sea monster known as the Kraken.”

  Garm’s stunned expression morphed into a huge smile. Ten feet away and belted into one of those high-tech, fully-automated, robotic wheelchairs, was a lean-faced, light haired man in his early thirties. He was tanned and unshaven, and sporting a wry smile. With his angular features and green eyes, most women would have considered him eminently desirable.

  That is, if he had arms and legs.

  “Sam Mot, you crazy son of a bitch!” Garm spouted. “What the hell are you doing here?” With the two black-clad security guards in tow, he walked up to the quadruple amputee, his right hand extended before him.

  “Garm ‘The Gate’ Braddock,” Sam replied, his gel-cushioned seat elevating on its pneumatics as one of his chair’s robotic arms came to life and shook Garm’s hand. “You haven’t changed a bit; you’re the same big, ugly bastard you were the last time I laid eyes on you. Still driving the ladies wild?”

  Garm grinned, taking his hand back as the bionic fingers released their grip and the limb whirred back into a reposed position. “One does what one can,” he said, winking.