Garm smiled and clapped a big hand on his shoulder. “No worries, little brother. I always will be.”
As the captains split up and started toward their respective vessels, Stacy moved next to Dirk. “Now, tell me honestly; do you wish you were going, too?”
Dirk forced his eyes away from Dragunova’s considerable rump and gave Stacy a look.
“With Garm?”
“No, with her.”
His mouth opened and closed. He’d nearly forgotten he’d kept her in the dark about Gryphon’s true destination. “Uh . . . hunting Typhon? Are you nuts? Do you know how dangerous it’s going to be?”
“Yeah, but just think. The two of you, going down on a submarine, on a harrowing sea voyage . . .”
“Going down? Tell me something, Stace. Do you sit around all day, dreaming up these jealous fantasies of yours?”
“Pretty much.”
Dirk grinned and shook his head, his eyes flitting back to Gryphon as his brother yanked the armored sail door shut behind him with a tremendous thud. Dragunova was almost to her boat when a deep rumble shimmied through the reinforced concrete under their feet. In the distance, the Vault’s giant doors began to grind apart.
“So, you really don’t wish you were going?” Stacy pressed.
Dirk watched Dragunova scale Antrodemus’s gangplank with pantherish strides. He contained his sigh. As unbelievably drawn as he was to the red sub’s striking commander, the notion of setting foot on Diablo Caldera and partaking of its prehistoric wonders was equally enticing. Maybe more so.
“Not at all,” he lied.
“I’m surprised, with all the trouble you two could get into.”
He chuckled. “I get plenty of action and adventure right here in Tartarus, thank you very much. Danger too, come to think of it.”
“Oh, you think you’ve experienced danger?” Stacy threw him a coquettish look. “You haven’t seen my new garter belt yet.”
As a foghorn-like claxon split the air, Dirk mulled things over. His thoughts were punctuated by an earth-shuddering THUMP as the Vault’s doors locked open. “Is that an invitation?” he asked.
“Duh! Do I have to sit on your face to get through to you?”
“Uh, well, that would work.”
“I bet,” Stacy said, smirking. She looked around then lowered her voice. “So, my place? In an hour?”
Dirk saw the nearby canal waters churn as Gryphon’s maneuvering thrusters kicked in. A moment later, the big pliosaur killer began to creep forward. “There’s no place I’d rather be.”
He watched Dragunova close Antrodemus’s sail door and heard the crimson sub’s powerful propulsors roar to life.
Well, maybe one . . .
* * *
For the first time in his century-long lifespan, the male Octopus giganteus was experiencing creeping terror.
She was extricating herself from their nearby midden, her craggy skin snapping off the remaining reddish-brown rusticles ringing the gash in the sunken submarine’s hull like pieces of eggshell. As she forced herself free, a cloud of particles the color of dried blood plumed around her. She waited for the water to clear, then lowered her colossal bulk onto the exposed sand and stayed there.
Other than the rhythmic pumping of her gills, the female was motionless. Her eyes were open but she seemed almost catatonic. Then, without warning, she sprang to life. Her skin had a strange, sparkly look to it and, as she violently shook herself, she sent the coating of glittering black specks that clung to her fluttering away like an obsidian rain shower. Her gleaming yellow orbs widened and she emitted a gurgling grumble as she looked around the surrounding seabed. She took in the barren coral reefs, the dropoff, and finally, her very nervous mate.
As the female’s gaze fell upon him, the male shrank down, his body changing color and texture in an attempt to blend into the bottom. For some time now he had kept his distance, and wisely so. She had been increasingly belligerent of late, and there was more to it than just hunger. Her appetite was certainly there; what meager findings he brought back were devoured with a rapaciousness that defied description. But there was anger about her. A rage that came and went that was unlike anything he had experienced in their many years together.
As the female rose up, extending her 100-foot tentacles, the male felt a sudden quake of fear. His body tensed and he sucked a room-sized quantity of water into his mantle, preparing to jet away at the first sign of aggression.
To his relief, she moved quietly away from him, her monstrous body flowing up the nearby continental shelf. Her eight arms were a bristling mass of suckers, cascading over one another like a lethal waterfall as they carried her effortlessly forward. Without a backwards glance, she headed toward a nearby submarine rise, crested it, and vanished.
The male remained still, his black pupils the only part of his body not able to merge with the concealing substrate. It was unlike his mate to leave the nest for a prolonged period of time and he waited patiently for her return. After the better part of an hour, however, he decided she had left to hunt on her own and started to move.
Extracting himself from the bottom, his huge body shed copious volumes of sand as he headed toward the adjacent wreck. It was a moonless night, but the pitch blackness surrounding him mattered not; his eyes were fully adapted to the lightless depths. Peeking inside the entrance of their lair, he studied the thick strings of eggs that hung down from the century-old sub’s interior like milky grapes on gelatinous vines.
And a lethal harvest they would be.
High above the mysterious black granules that peppered the midden floor, he could see his offspring squirming within their melon-sized wombs. Their blackish eyes peered hungrily about. There were tens of thousands of them and they were growing fast. By the time they hatched, each would be the size of an adult common octopus and fully capable of surviving on its own.
Temporarily pushing his mate’s disappearance from his deliberations, the male pondered a nearby reef. His keen eyes swept its length, pinpointing scores of potential hiding places for his soon-to-be progeny. It was good. Far from the squid-infested hollows, where most octopus eggs were devoured before they could hatch, his brood’s chances of survival were vastly improved. Whereas, in the deep, only one or two might survive to adulthood, here, in the shallows, scores of them would.
They would grow quickly, as cephalopods were wont to do, reaching breeding size in but a year. Then those scores would become hundreds, and those hundreds, legions. Before his time was done, he would see his species do more than simply bounce back from the brink of extinction. He would see them proliferate.
Their spread would go unchecked, and if the great whales they relied on could no longer sustain them they would find new sources of flesh to feast upon. Whether it was the giant marine reptiles they were encountering or the tiny bipeds he and his mate now recognized as a readily available food source. To the great mollusks, it mattered not.
In the end, all were meat . . .
The Adventure Continues In
KRONOS RISING: KRAKEN (Volume 2)
Coming Soon!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Known as “The Prince of Paleo-fiction,” Max Hawthorne grew up in Philadelphia, where he graduated with a BA from Central High School and a BFA from the University of the Arts. He is the author of MEMOIRS OF A GYM RAT, an outrageous exposé of the health club industry, as well as the award-winning KRONOS RISING novel series. In addition to being a full-time writer, he is a voting member of the Author's Guild, an IGFA world record-holding angler, and an avid sportsman and conservationist. His hobbies include fishing, boating, and the collection of fossils and antiquities. He lives with his family and an impossibly large rabbit in the Greater Northeast.
GLOSSARY OF SCIENTIFIC/NAUTICAL/MARINE TERMS
Abyssal Plains: The vast underwater plains at the bottom of the ocean, with water depths averaging between 10,000-20,000 feet. Largely unexplored, they represent more than 50% of the Earth’s surface
.
Acoustics: The science and study of mechanical waves in liquids, solids, and gases. This includes vibrations, as well as sound, ultrasound, and infrasound waves.
ADCAP: Military Acronym for Advanced Capability.
Aft: Naval terminology indicating the stern or rear of a ship. “Aft section” indicates the rear portion of a ship.
Amidships: The center/middle portion of a vessel.
ANCILE: Advanced Obstacle Avoidance sonar system with acoustic intercept. ANCILE’s active sonar pings target incoming signals and can be fed directly into a vessel’s fire control (weapons) systems.
Anti-Biologic: Designed to kill biologics, i.e. living organisms.
Archelon: The largest known sea turtle. Archelon went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous.
Argentinosaurus: An enormous titanosaur sauropod dinosaur, and possibly the largest living land animal of all time. Argentinosaurus is estimated at around 100 feet in length with a weight in excess of 90 tons.
ATV: All Terrain Vehicles.
Autonomous: Independent and self-governing, i.e. freethinking surveillance drones.
Autotomic Response: Self amputation, a defensive response in certain animals wherein a portion of the body (tail, tentacle) is shed to distract a predator. The shed portion continues to writhe on its own in order to keep the attacker interested while the host animal escapes.
Autotomous: Separate parts of an organism that are free thinking and independent of the originating organism’s control or influence, i.e. the tentacles of an octopus performing complex tasks while the host animal’s attention is focused elsewhere.
AWES Suits: Acronym for Armored Weaponized Exoskeleton System. Manufactured by GDT through its subsidiary, JAW Robotics, the AWES Talos Mark VII and VIII are heavily armored, nuclear-powered combat chassis.’ Both suits are designed to be worn by quadruple amputees. The six-ton Mark VII is designed for undersea exploration/combat, whereas the larger, more heavily armed Mark VIII is a land-based anti-material/anti-personnel weapons platform.
Ballast: In submarine terms, a compartment (ballast tank) that holds water of varied quantities to balance the vessel underway and help control its depth. Pumping water out of the ballast tank (“blow ballast”) increases a submarine’s buoyancy and can be used for an emergency rise.
Barotrauma: Physical trauma to body tissues due to a sudden and dramatic change in ambient pressure, AKA “The Bends.”
Barrett XM500: A .50 caliber sniper rifle, circa 2006, developed by the Barrett Firearms Company. The XM500 fires the powerful .50 caliber BMG round and is equipped with a detachable 10-round magazine.
Bathymetric Gigantism: A tendency for certain deep-dwelling marine animals, particularly invertebrates, to grow to colossal size in a dark, cold, high-pressure environment. Comparable to Abyssal gigantism.
Beam: A ship’s width at its widest point.
Bearcat: Also known as the GDT (Grayson Defense Technologies) Bearcat: an ultra-quiet, heavily armed and armored anti-material helicopter, known for its stealthy approach.
Bearing: Navigation term as relates to course changes.
Berth: A designated location where a boat or ship is moored (attached), usually for purposes of loading and unloading passengers or cargo.
Beta-Endorphin: A neuropeptide found in the neurons of the central nervous system that functions as a natural analgesic. Endorphins dull or numb the pain from trauma-based injuries.
Bioluminescence: The manufacturing and emission of light by an organism.
Blake Plateau: A submarine plateau off the southeastern coast of the United States. The plateau borders North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and stretches between the Continental Shelf and the Deep Ocean basin. It measures approximately 90 by 106 miles and ranges in depth from approximately 500 to 1,000 yards.
BMG 50: The powerful .50 caliber Browning machine gun round.
Bow: The foremost point of the hull of a boat or ship.
Bozhe Moy: Russian for “Oh my God.”
Bridge: The room or point on a boat or ship from which it is commanded.
Broadband Clicks: High frequency sonar clicks used in echolocation.
Brumation: The reptilian equivalent of hibernation. During the winter, brumating marine reptiles sleep on the seabed for extended period of time, breathing entirely through their skins and waking only to drink water.
Bulkhead: A wall within the hull of a boat or ship.
Cachalot: Archaic term for the Sperm whale, from the French word cachalot, meaning “tooth.”
Caldera: A bowl-like geological formation, usually formed by the partial collapse of a volcano, following an eruption.
Carcharodon megalodon: Binomial nomenclature for a species of giant shark that lived during the Cenozoic Era and fed on sea turtles and marine mammals, including cetaceans. Megalodon had teeth over seven inches in slant height and exceeded 50 feet in length.
Caudal Fin: The tail fin of a fish.
Celazole: (see polybenzimidazole/PBI)
Cenomanian-Turonian Extinction Event: An extinction event during the early Cretaceous Period (approx 91.5mya) that resulted in the extinction of the pliosaurs and ichthyosaurs.
Center Console: A single-decked, open hull boat with all the controls (console) located in the center of the vessel.
Cephalopod: Marine animals such as the octopus, squid, and cuttlefish, wherein limbs or tentacles extend from a prominent head. Cephalopods are also mollusks.
Cetacean: Marine mammals, including whales, dolphins and porpoises.
Cetaceanist: A marine biologist who specializes in cetaceans – whales, dolphins, and porpoises.
Charybdis: A mythological sea monster from Greek mythology. Charybdis lived under a rock in a narrow strait and, when ships approached, would suck in huge quantities of water, creating a giant whirlpool that dragged hapless sailors to their deaths.
Chelonian: Turtles and tortoises.
Chemoreceptors: A sensory receptor that detects chemical stimuli in an environment, i.e. taste.
Chromatophores: Cells or groups of cells containing various types of pigmentation or with light reflective qualities. Typically found in animals.
Chronospecies: A species that evolves in sequences over time from an extinct ancestral form.
Circle Hook: A fishing hook with a point that curves sharply inward. Circle hooks are designed to catch a fish in the corner of the jaw and are rarely swallowed.
Claxon: A low-frequency horn used by ships to signal one another.
Cleat: A nautical term for a narrow, anvil-shaped device used to secure a rope or line. Cleats are often used to tie boats to docks.
Clew: On a sailboat, the lower aft corner of a sail.
Cloaca: A posterior orifice found in reptiles, birds, amphibians and a few mammals that serves as a combined opening for both the reproductive, digestive, and urinary tracts.
Coastal Defense Force (CDF): A sub-branch of the military (formally part of the US Coast Guard, now overseen by GDT). The CDF has bases off the coast of Maine, Florida, Washington, and Hawaii, and utilizes Anti-Biologic submarines, such as the ORION Class, to seek out and destroy rogue pliosaurs that threaten America’s waterways.
Conning Tower: An elevated platform on a ship or submarine, from which an officer can command (“con”) the vessel.
Continental Shelf: The extended (and submerged border) of any given continent and its associated coastal plain.
Counter-shading: Evolution-induced color patterns in marine organisms designed to make the organism difficult to spot by bother predator and prey. Typical counter-shading patterns are dark above and light below.
Convergent Evolution: The evolution of analogous structures with similar design in different species, i.e. the body design share by both dolphins and ichthyosaurs.
Cretaceous: A period of geologic time from 145 to 65 million years ago. The end of the Cretaceous Period was marked by the sudden extinction of all non-avian dinosaurs.
Crevalle J
ack: A species of large saltwater fish, common throughout the Atlantic Ocean.
Cronavrol: A powerful and fast-acting sedative designed to be used against pliosaurs. When injected directly into the spine, Cronavrol instantly forces the recipient into deep brumation.
Crustacean: Crustaceans are members of a large group of arthropods and include such creatures as lobsters, crabs, and shrimp.
Cryogenics: The study of freezing materials at extremely low temperatures (-238 F or lower)
Cybernetics: Using advanced technology to control a given system.
Dakuwaqa: A shark god from Fijian mythology.
Deinosuchus: An extinct, Cretaceous Era crocodile that once hunted dinosaurs. Deinosuchus reached 40 feet in length and weighed 10 tons.
Detritus: Referred to as marine snow, detritus is non-living particles of organic material suspended in water.
Diablo Caldera: A dormant volcano whose upper portion was blown off during a violent eruption during the early Cretaceous Period. When the KT asteroid struck, Diablo was flooded by tsunami and became an eight-mile-wide saltwater lake that imprisoned an assortment of prehistoric marine life. Diablo has a network of superheated lava tubes running underneath it, some of which connect its lake to the sea. In recent years, a portion of the caldera collapsed, allowing some of its inhabitants to escape.
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