Kronos Rising_Kraken vol.1

by Max Hawthorne

  Judging by the anticipatory look on Admiral Callahan’s face, Dirk would’ve bet everything he owned they’d not only be getting a slew of new orders from the Navy, but requests for upgrades on all their existing in-service models as well. GDT’s stock prices were going to rocket through the roof, and Eric Grayson would soon be one of the richest men in the world.

  “As you can see,” Dirk resumed. “Tiamat has zeroed Dr. Daniels with her active sonar. She can see her human target clearly and can differentiate her against any and all background matter, even under zero light conditions.” He increased his focus, willing the queen to zoom in on Stacy. As she did, the sonar clicks the pliosaur emitted increased in intensity, becoming an almost painful barrage. Stacy’s body enlarged on the screen, the intense stream of echolocation cutting through her like an MRI. Every one of her organs – most notably her frantically beating heart – was visible as she fought the pool’s circulating current.

  “It’s interesting to note,” Dirk said. “That when using her broadband clicks to target a kill, Tiamat’s mid-range sonar emissions are higher than normal. In fact, right now she’s cycling at a frequency of around 3,000 hertz.” He pointed at the monitor. “This just so happens to be the same frequency whalers discovered many years ago – the one that panicked cetaceans into coming to the surface and made them easier to kill.” He turned to his audience. “Whether this is an indication that whales have had encounters with macropliosaurs before and their reaction to this frequency is some sort of innate fear response, remains to be seen.”

  “Regardless, pliosaurs’ advanced sonar capabilities are what enable them to hunt in the darkness of the abyss,” Dirk said. “These same abilities will now allow shipboard controllers to pick out and detect isolated targets, both above and below the surface, with unparalleled accuracy. You want to scour a shipwreck? No problem. Search for survivors of a sunken vessel? Piece of cake. There are no limits. You’ll know exactly what you’re facing, long before you send one of these things in, and you’ll be able to exert precise control over each host, in real time, and under real-world combat conditions.” Dirk folded his lean arms across his chest. “The world’s deadliest and most versatile bio-weapon just became a thousand times more so, with the added bonus of reducing the chances of losing expensive units due to errors in judgment or reliance on misinformation to near zero.”

  He pointed back at the overhead screens. On it, Tiamat continued to target Stacy. The athletic scientist was hovering at the forty-foot mark, her arms and legs working. “Now, in the unlikely event anyone still has any reservations, I’m going to have the queen perform a closer inspection of Doctor Daniels. This will allow us to showcase just how effective a pliosaur’s assorted tracking and targeting capabilities are.”

  Everyone in the stands sat quietly as Dirk ordered the captive Kronosaurus up from the depths and had her close on Stacy. Like Death’s menacing shadow, she emerged muzzle-first from the darkness. She was two hundred feet down, her gleaming orange eyes visible through the tank’s murk as she executed a slow circle directly beneath her quarry.

  Suddenly, something went wrong. Dirk touched a hand to his helmet, an alarmed expression on his face. Far below, Tiamat was on the move. Circling away and then turning back, she began to curve gracefully upward, her angled flippers causing her monstrous body to climb higher in the water column.

  On the monitors, the giant predator’s view of Stacy changed as it shifted position. Tiamat’s monstrous head swiveled in her direction. In seconds, the beast was on the same level she was – and on an intercept course.

  With the crowd’s cries of alarm ringing in his ears, Dirk rushed to the podium keyboard and began typing frantically. He didn’t have the spectators’ view through the tank’s walls, but he didn’t need it. One poorly angled glance up confirmed their combined fears.

  Tiamat was going after Stacy. And he couldn’t seem to stop her.

  Ignoring the audience’s screams of panic, Dirk continued typing like a maniac. Sweat ran down his face as he pressed one hand to the side of his helmet and grimaced. On the screen, the queen was moving in for the kill.

  Having realized the seriousness of her situation, Stacy made for the surface. Her arms and legs pumped frantically in an effort to outdistance her monstrous pursuer, but it was useless. Like a mako shark going after a crippled herring, Tiamat closed with but a flick of her fins. Her attack was presented in full color, on two screens, and from three different vantage points, for four hundred pairs of eyes to see.

  She was barely one hundred feet away when her giant jaws began to yawn.

  Then sixty . . . Then twenty . . .

  With a powerful surge, Tiamat rushed forward, enveloping Stacy in one gigantic bite. Dirk’s blood turned to ice as he witnessed the attack through the queen’s eyes; it was as if he was doing it. He saw Stacy turn toward her attacker, her hands outstretched in a desperate but futile attempt to fend off her approaching doom, then the look of absolute terror on her face as she was swallowed. Then she was gone and the heartless beast continued relentlessly forward, its jaws methodically closing as it gulped down its tiny meal.

  Dirk staggered back like a drunkard. The realization that one of the world’s most brilliant minds could just vanish like that, could be sucked down like an hors d’oeuvres, and that to her killer, her beauty, her education, her accomplishments, her entire life was of no consequence whatsoever . . .

  In the tiered stands, the amphitheater’s viewers were in a panic. Everyone was on their feet, pointing, screaming and yelling, with most of them pushing and shoving their way toward the exits. The seated security guards sprang to life, desperately trying to quell the stampede and restore calm. Dirk caught a glimpse of Dr. Grayson through the crowd. Even he looked shocked.

  Abandoning the keyboard, Dirk rushed to the edge of the podium platform, his eyes gazing forlornly into the foreboding depths where a woman – technically his woman – had just been devoured. A moment later, the waters all around him began to violently churn. Dirk stepped hurriedly back. He of all people knew what a displacement boil that size meant.

  With an explosive burst that sent five-foot waves up and over the edge of the platform, inundating Dirk to mid thigh, Tiamat erupted up out of the water. Her cottage-sized head reared forty feet in the air, blotting out the chamber’s artificial sunlight. She glared menacingly down at him, her streaming maw a terrifying mass of shiny black scales, bristling with rows of fangs the size of a Roman gladius.

  Dirk staggered back, his eyes as big as saucers as she loomed over him. Her gleaming orange orbs burrowed into his, riveting him with her rage, freezing him into immobility. Soaked from the waist down by the wall of water that slammed into him, he stood his ground, shivering. His heart was beating so hard he was certain he’d suffer a heart attack, but there was no point in running. Even if he could will his legs into motion, there was nowhere to go.

  A deep rumble emanated from Tiamat’s mighty chest as she lowered her monstrous head. Her scaly muzzle moved downward with deceptive slothfulness, her scarred snout heading straight for Dirk. He could smell her rancid breath washing over him, a nauseating cocktail of blood and rotting flesh, and he started to gag. Her slavering jaws were only ten feet away and closing.

  Then, to the amazement of the frenzied crowd, Tiamat did not attack. Instead, she rested her chin on the edge of the podium platform. The reinforced concrete groaned under the fifty+ tons pressing down on it, but the structure held. Although she didn’t strike, the Kronosaurus queen’s baleful eyes continued to bore into Dirk’s and he felt cold sweat streaming down his neck and back.

  Tiamat began to growl, a throaty rumble that shook the ground like a city subway train running underneath your feet. Waves of primal fear shimmied through Dirk and it was all he could do to keep from soiling himself.

  He’d never been so scared in his life. He swallowed hard, trying to maintain his composure. Then, for some inane reason, he found himself focusing on the fact he’d
never been so close to the captive colossus. Looking closely, he could see a network of gray, fibrous scars decorating the beast’s rostrum. Some were circular, some irregular, evidence of past battles with assorted meals and, perhaps, a few rivals. He could see the layers of rock-hard callosities that coated the terminus of her battering-ram lower jaw, the crocodile-like sensory pits that dotted her thick-scaled lips, and even the rippling muscles that held her yard-long blowholes open. As they expanded, water vapor wafted from her gaping nostrils like steam from a dragon’s maw.

  This creature . . . this thing, was to Dirk Braddock, death incarnate. She’d ruined his life. He should’ve been filled with horror and revulsion, and he was. But the scientist in him was fascinated.

  Shrugging off such distractions, Dirk focused a quick command through his synaptic skullcap. To his amazement, Tiamat resisted. He blinked in disbelief, then gritted his teeth and brought the full power of his intellect to bear. He could feel the pliosaur’s cool reptilian brain raging against the unwanted intrusion, railing against being bullied into submitting to the tiny creature before her.

  The struggle was intense but brief. Within moments, Dirk battered through her clumsy defenses and forced her into submission.

  A second later, and with the terminal ten feet of her mandibles still pressing down upon the podium platform, Tiamat’s jaws split apart, her maxilla raising up like a basking crocodile’s as she opened wide. Then, amidst a collective gasp of disbelief from the crowd, Dirk walked brazenly up to the fang-encrusted cave that gaped wide before him and placed one foot inside, resting it on the end of the behemoth’s couch-sized tongue.

  “You okay?” he asked, leaning down and extending a hand.

  The feed to the amphitheater’s paired overhead monitors switched to that from a pair of ceiling cameras. They zoomed in tightly. There, laying facedown atop the drool-soaked mound of whitish flesh was Stacy Daniels.

  “Yeah . . .” she said weakly. “So, I’ve got a pretty face, huh?”

  “I figured you’d like that,” Dirk chuckled.

  Releasing her death grip on the Kronosaurus’s slippery mouthparts, Stacy accepted his hand and tried to regain her feet. “Get me out of here, Dirk. It stinks like death. If I don’t get out now--”

  “I got you,” Dirk affirmed. Stepping completely into the colossal mouth, he bent at the waist, then gripped her under the shoulders and pulled. The saliva helped as he slid her carefully forward and struggled to hoist her up.

  Stacy looked up at the darkened cave roof suspended above them, huge teeth draping down from its edges like razor-edged stalactites. Suddenly, the pliosaur’s jawbones shifted from side to side, causing them to stumble and nearly lose their footing.

  “Are you sure you’ve got her?” Stacy asked worriedly.

  “Yes.” Dirk cocked an eyebrow as he glanced thoughtfully up at Tiamat’s streaming palate. The idea that he was actually standing inside the maw of his nemesis was so surreal; his mind couldn’t begin to accept it. He shuddered. “It was a little strange, just now. When I ordered her to open she actually put up a struggle. I think she’s trying to resist the program, I . . . oof!”

  Dirk grimaced as Stacy slipped and he barely caught her. He tried straightening his legs to gain leverage, but then grunted as she extended a hand up over his shoulder, pressing firmly against the moist tissue directly above them.

  “Careful. You need to watch her pterygoid teeth . . .” she warned.

  Dirk glanced up, his eyes widening as he saw one of Tiamat’s twelve-inch pharyngeal fangs hanging down, right above his head. She had two rows of them in the roof of her mouth, designed to keep prey moving down her gullet. They were lethal hooks, ready to rip into her prey. Or his scalp.

  “Thanks, that would’ve sucked,” he acknowledged. Stooping now, he half-carried, half-dragged Stacy out of the pliosaur’s dripping jaws and onto the safety of the platform. Outside, the crowd was already on its feet, cheering like fans whose team just pulled off a Walk-off Win in Game 7 of the World Series.

  Dirk helped Stacy a few steps until she felt she could walk, then, at her insistence, he let go. With Tiamat still mentally restrained and lying there, her jaws spread wide enough to admit a good-sized elephant, he bent down and picked up his discarded microphone. Despite having been inundated, the waterproof device still functioned.

  He indicated Stacy as he spoke into the mike. “How about that, folks? Let’s have a round of applause for our very own Jonah – or make that Joan – of Tartarus . . . Dr. Stacy Daniels!”

  Dirk was impressed that four hundred people could applaud so loudly and clapped his own hands enthusiastically as Stacy wrestled off her rebreather. She dropped it and exhaled hard before waving feebly to the audience. He studied her. Her hair was matted down, her face pale, and she was drenched with sweat, but considering she’d just survived the most horrifying death imaginable, she looked damn good.

  He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “So much for claustrophobia. Do you want to say anything?”

  “Hell, no,” she said through a forced smile. “Just get me the fuck out of here, Dirk. Please. As fast as possible. I’m barely hanging on.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I need to puke, okay? And then I need a big-ass bottle of aspirin, a long, hot shower, and a couple of really stiff drinks.”

  “You got it,” Dirk replied with a grin. He placed one arm around her waist as they posed for the crowd. After a few rounds of photos had been taken, he brought the microphone back to his lips. “Thank you very much for attending our little demonstration and please keep in mind, any pictures or videos taken today are for your respective, interdepartmental usage only. Remember your NDAs; I don’t want to see anything on Facebook or YouTube. Lastly, for those who are attending the post-demo meet, Dr. Grayson and I will see you this afternoon. For everyone else, please follow our security officers to your appropriate destination. And thank you again for coming.”

  As the applause gradually diminished and the audience started to break up, Dirk turned to Stacy. “You ready to go?”

  She scoffed. “Now there’s the mother of all rhetorical questions.” She shifted her weight, then glanced nervously back over her shoulder. “Uh . . . aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Dirk turned around to find Tiamat less than twenty feet away. The giant pliosaur was still locked in place. Her mouth remained open, her lower jaw resting on the concrete platform. She was like some Draconian statue. Only her eyes moved and they stayed locked on Dirk like luminescent rifle scopes.

  He let go of Stacy and moved a few feet to the right until he met Tiamat’s gaze fully. He looked into her narrowed, red-tinged eyes. There was a lot of hatred there.

  Suddenly, Dirk’s hand went to his forehead; he could feel a headache coming on. Was it his or hers? It was hard to tell. Through his helmet, he could sense her pent-up frustration at being forced into immobility. She was like a lion, trapped in a cage so small it can barely move and desperate to break free.

  Dirk gave a perfunctory wave, ordering her back into the water. She blinked, uttered a thunderous snort, then raised her monstrous head and sank beneath the surface so smoothly she barely left a ripple. As she powered toward the bottom, he sent a follow-up message. She was allowed to remain in the amphitheater pool for the moment, but was ordered to avoid the podium and its connecting dock, as well as its curved Celazole walls.

  Given the scope of the new implant’s behavioral inhibitors, that last order was unnecessary. But with recent developments, Dirk wasn’t taking any chances. The last thing he needed was Grayson’s prize specimen figuring out some loophole in her restrictive parameters and snatching up some hapless technician for a late night snack.

  Lord knew she’d killed enough people already.

  * * *

  The Ancient was frustrated. The calories he’d consumed, following his slaughter of the bull sperm whale, were nearly depleted and the ravening hunger brought on by his high-speed met
abolism was already plaguing him. His stomach burned and writhed like a thing alive and his temper grew fouler by the minute.

  He’d been on the hunt for the last six hours, scenting his way along the lightless mid-layer of the Cayman Trench. Except for ascending once an hour or so to spout and replenish his air supply, he’d remained at the 12,000 foot mark the entire time. Below his pale, armored belly, the yawning transform fault zone also known as the Bartlett Deep continued down to over twice that depth, its frigid bleakness cloaked in forever night.

  For most creatures the Midnight Zone was a hostile, alien environment, its innate deadliness eclipsed only by that of the airless void of space. But to the Ancient it was home. Insulated by a foot-thick layer of blubber and warmed by the heat of his exertions, neither the coldness of the abyss nor its crushing embrace posed a threat to him.

  With deceptive ease, the bull Kronosaurus imperator continued soundlessly along, his boat-sized flippers using alternating, rhythmic strokes to propel him, conserving the bulk of his energy for the kill. His paddle-like flippers were the ultimate in marine locomotion, an ultra-efficient means of propulsion his ancestors perfected over 200 million years ago. Unlike modern-day pinnipeds, that pushed themselves through the water with only one pair of flippers, he utilized two sets, pectoral and pelvic. His fins operated through myriad planes of motion and controlled pitch and yaw, as well as velocity. Changing direction or speed was as simple as alternating the amount of or angle of thrust.

  Under normal conditions, such as patrolling or migrating, the front and rear flippers took turns, with the front pair pushing against the water parallel to the creature and below, and the rear reaching slightly upward and encompassing water either parallel or above. This enabled the flippers to move independently of one another, while simultaneously moving the maximum amount of seawater with the minimum amount of effort.